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Two – Under the Summer Sun

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Stiles hates approximately two-thirds of the Hale pack. Well, hates is a strong word. Maybe resents is closer to the truth.

As he and Scott pull up to the Hale house a few days later, he can already feel the headache creeping right up between his eyes. Derek's back is to them, shoulders rigid and arms folded in front as he watches the new(er) betas, Erica and Boyd and Jackson, in their sparring match.

"Don't be like that," Scott gripes, unfastening his seat belt. He keeps his voice low, though there's almost no chance anyone's actually paying attention to them. "Your face is already doing the thing."

"What thing?" Stiles says, smoothing away his scowl. His voice is just as quiet. "There's no thing."

"Okay, Stiles. Just...look, I know the Hales aren't really your favorite. You really don't have to…"

"I know. I want to be here," Stiles retorts quickly, before Scott can start feeling guilty about something that is 100% the fault of Stiles and his stupid inability to let shit go. "This is the pack, you're in the pack, I'm with you. I'm always with you. It's simple math."

This is the abbreviated version of an argument they've had several times in the past, so they both know how it ends. But it's worth it just to see Scott's puppy dog eyes. "Yeah, okay," his friend says, slipping out of the car. "Thanks, man."

Source of resentment numero uno turns to face them as they cross the open lawn. "You're late," Laura says. Her long hair is pulled off of her shoulders and into a ponytail, and she's standing in the shade of an oak, shoulders against the trunk.

"Wasn't aware there was a set schedule for suffering," Stiles mutters under his breath. He can feel the summer sun, high overhead, thrumming in his veins. It makes him bold, restless.

Laura's mouth quirks in haughty amusement. "Wasn't talking to you anyway," she says. It's clear to Stiles what she really means, because Stiles is only pack by association, pack because of Scott.

And that's the biggest part of the resentment. Not the second-class citizen thing—he couldn't care less about being part of their super-secret werewolf club—but that he'd had to campaign for so long just to get Scott accepted at all. Back when Scott had first been bitten, a little over a year after the Hale fire and a few months after Stiles's mom died, things had been really rough. He and Scott had had to figure out a lot of shit on their own, with Stiles pulling himself out of his own grief to research the hell out of lycanthropy.

It had only been by chance that they'd found out the Hales were werewolves. Scott, new to his powers, had almost wolfed out at a lacrosse match, and Derek had approached to gruffly threaten him about it right after (what were you thinking, people might find out about us, hunters might come, blah blah blah). Of course, Derek probably hadn't known at the time that to Scott and Stiles, he'd basically come out of nowhere like a freaking savior: Scott was struggling with his powers so much that he and Stiles had both practically begged the Hales to train him.

But grief had made shut-ins of the Hale family. Fuck off, Laura had told them on more than one occasion. Figure it out for yourselves.

If the situation wasn't so dire, with Scott struggling to manage daily activities like PE and surviving Jackson Whittemore, they might have given up in the face of the Hales' apathy. It was something Stiles hated them for, because he'd had to watch Scott die a little inside every day the stress weighed him down. Only when the Argents came to town did Laura finally take Scott into the pack's protection for training, proving that even she had enough humanity left not to leave a new omega 'wolf to the hunters. Plus, building up the pack suddenly seemed like a smart idea with their new, armed neighbors.

These days, things are pretty good between all of them. Or at least everyone's pretending it's all sunshine and rainbows, anyway. Scott's grown on the pack members—this is Scott, after all. And Scott pretty much forgave them for everything the second they let him in, so that us-against-the-world thing he and Stiles once had going on is now pretty much restricted to only Stiles. Nowadays, the only reason Scott really butts heads with the pack is over Allison and whether or not Scott should be dating her, but Stiles counts the lack of recent bloodshed as a small win.

Scott ambles toward the sparring session with just a brief nod at Derek. It both warms Stiles' heart and irritates the hell out of him to see the other betas part a little, making room for Scott almost instinctively, a drop of water returning to the sea.

Stiles and Scott usually show up in the evenings, and Stiles always retreats to the porch, pulling out his notes and muttering under his breath. Today, though, Stiles is disappointed to find that Peter's nowhere to be seen. He'd been weirdly nervous about coming, and anxious to hear more about whatever Peter wants him to look into. And it's just before noon, the sun high overhead, and a surge of energy and anticipation is flooding through him, as though he's been unexpectedly asked to fill in at a lacrosse game (as if).

Derek raises an eyebrow at him. "What, you joining today, professor?" Stiles has a habit of sticking his nose into a book or his notes every time he's here, and of asking a billion questions, so the nickname fits him. Derek's gaze sweeps up and down Stiles just once, a you-were-still-pretty-fragile-last-I-heard kind of look, but Stiles doesn't take it personally. He resents Derek slightly less than Laura, anyway. Mostly because it isn't like Derek's calling the shots, though he did keep his mouth resolutely shut the whole time Stiles and Scott were out here begging.

"No," Stiles replies slowly, squinting up at the cloudless sky. "I'm thinking of going for a run. Just through the preserve or something."

Erica whoops, golden hair whipping as she rolls her shoulders. She makes up one part of the new beta fivesome that Stiles resents less than Derek, mostly because they're new and just happen to be learning stupidity from the Hales, not having been born into it. The others being staunch and quiet Vernon Boyd, asshole Jackson Whittemore, timid Isaac Lahey, and perfect Lydia Martin, who had turned out to be a banshee, was immediately accepted into the pack when she followed Jackson to join them, never shows up for training, and only just started giving Stiles the time of day.

Stiles realizes after a beat that Erica's enthusiasm is directed at him. "That's what I'm talking 'bout," she pants. "I'm tired of cracking skulls. Let's do something else."

"It's five million degrees," Jackson protests, grunting as he tries to pull out of Boyd's headlock. "You gotta be shitting me."

Boyd shrugs, ever easygoing, and lets Jackson loose. Like the rest of them, his shirt is dark with sweat. "If we're out here anyway, might as well. It's good endurance training."

Stiles hadn't meant he wanted company, but it looks like this is unfortunately happening. "Don't go far," Laura calls, heading back to the house—and at least that's one small blessing, that Laura's not joining.

"C'mon," Erica says, tossing a grin over her shoulder. "Can't let Stiles outrun us."

It's obviously meant as a joke, and not even a mean one. Because that's the thing: Stiles holds them all at arm's length, but with the exception of Laura, the pack is about as amiable toward Stiles as their respective personalities allow.

But joking or not, Stiles isn't going to let it slide so easily. "Oh, it's on," he retorts, and Erica barks out a laugh. As she takes off into the woods, Stiles keeps hot on her heels, feet pounding the dry earth.

The others, half of whom have wolfed out, howl through the green forest. It's kind of a rush, in a way, crashing through the foliage in the balmy air, charged with the sunlight from above. Stiles loses himself in it for a while, breaths coming quickly and worries burning away. He isn't exactly an athlete, but in the summers, he wants to be. He could be. Something about the light of the sun or the height of his powers makes him feel whole again. Closer to his mom, even. Or just closer to she was, and whatever he's supposed to be.

The trail is unmarked but well-trodden, meandering through trees and meadows toward a small pond to the east. He's not sure how long it takes him to stop to catch his breath, only that he can hear the others a little ways behind. At last, they burst through the trees, Erica and Scott laughing and Boyd smiling indulgently. Even Jackson looks less like he just sucked a lemon.

"What the hell, man?" Scott says, a wide grin on his face as they catch up to Stiles. "You seriously took off."

Stiles shrugs, but he can't help but return the smile. "Needed to blow off some steam."

"Good to know you can run like hell if you ever need," Erica comments.

"You've seen him with a baseball bat, too" Scott shrugs. "He's a psycho."

Stiles decides to take this as a compliment.

They walk in the direction of the pond, dry grass crunching underfoot. Of all people, it's Isaac who pushes Erica into the water; she comes up sputtering and laughing, and then it's basically second grade P.E. Jackson, initially too prissy to get wet, is pulled in by Scott, and it's a mark of how far in their friendship the two of them have come that Jackson only curses him out for half a minute or so before retaliating.

Stiles jumps in of his own accord, knowing that he's probably running too hot and needs to cool down anyway. The water's a murky green, with reeds and cattails rimming one edge of the pond and a pebbled beach on the other. He mostly keeps away from the others, whose roughhousing is actually a little too rough for his fragile human bones, thanks, and lazily swims in the shallows instead.

Eventually, he grows bored enough to swim over to where Derek sits apart from the pack, stretched out on the wooden dock that juts into the middle of the pond.

"Dude. Your face looks like you're trying to set me on fire," Stiles says coolly. "Which is harder than it seems, trust me. What are you thinking about?"

Derek grunts. "The water near you looked weird for a second. Like bubbles from a fish or something."

Stiles looks down, checking to make sure the water isn't actually simmering. It's probably pretty close. He clears his throat and changes the subject. "Have you seen Peter around today?"

Derek grunts again, squinting in the sunlight. "No. But that doesn't mean much. He comes and goes. Why?" he adds curiously.

Floating on his back, Stiles casts about for a good answer and finds nothing. "No reason." Ironically, despite his ability to ask the hard-hitting questions and consider the truth of the answers...he's a pretty shit liar. He doesn't even have to look at Derek to read the skepticism rolling off of him. A half-truth is probably better than no truth, he decides. "Well, he's actually sort of helping me. With some research, I mean."

The werewolf says nothing. He watches the other betas try to dunk each others' heads into the water. When they're like this, playing around, it's almost easy to forget that they could probably rip a car in half if they needed to. Or bite through bone. Or jump out of a flaming building.

"Do you think about the fire?" Stiles blurts suddenly, and Derek turns back to face him. One thing Stiles hates about himself is the way he doesn't always have a second to filter out the questions before he asks them. "I mean, uh—"

"Not the way Peter does," Derek says at last. "Not to figure out what caused it."

There's a long pause. Stiles swims a little closer. "Then you know what he's doing?"

"He's not always as secret as he thinks. Laura and I both figured it out, but we decided not to say anything. It's just...for me, I can't even think about that as a possibility. It's too soon. Or else it's too personal. Wondering if there was more to it, or how they all died that way…" his voice grows quiet, as though he doesn't want to say that part aloud. "It just feels worse. Some days, I'm barely…" he pauses again. Shakes his head. "It just makes it worse," he says finally.

This is probably more than Stiles has ever heard Derek say all at once in the entire time he's known him. He frowns, transfixed, until he realizes he's falling into the poludnica state of mind, considering all the facets of Derek's answer, turning the words over in his head, and probably making the beta super uncomfortable.

"I get that," Stiles replies, before it can get any more awkward. "It's...my dad's the same way, I think. Or, I don't know, we've never really talked about it. He never talks about my mom at all, like ever. Well, we don't talk much these days anyway. He, um...we used to. To talk. Obviously, I mean, he's my dad. But after mom died, he sort of shut down hardcore. He works all the time, I think so he doesn't have to think about anything else. So yeah, we don't talk anymore, and I don't really have anyone to talk to about that stuff. Like, there's Scott and Melissa, obviously—Melissa, Scott's mom, you know—but it's not really the kind of thing you talk about with like...someone who actually has an okay life. So it would be better if I talked to my dad, since both of us are dealing with the same things, but I can't do that, so Peter's better than nothing. Or at least...yeah. Babbling. Sorry."

Derek shrugs. "No, that makes sense. Peter thinks the fire wasn't an accident. You think your mom's death wasn't random."

Stiles stares. "Yeah...but how did you…?"

"You talk to yourself a lot," Derek says, amused. "I guess you don't realize how much. But you go over those papers while you wait for Scott and basically whisper all of your thoughts to yourself."

"Oh my god," Stiles says, mortified. "It's a bad habit, okay? I didn't think anyone was paying attention. And—well, you aren't supposed to listen. Use your werewolf superpowers only for good, okay?"

"It's hard when you do it all the time—"

"Anyway—"

"Anyway. Is that why you hang out here so much?"

"I hang out here because Scott hangs out here, and where Scott goes, I go."

"You hate it here."

Well, if they're being honest. "I don't hate it, hate it. It's just...not my favorite place. And I think the feeling's mutual between me and Alpha Laura." Stiles says the last part airily, floating on his back a little to look up at the sky.

Derek grimaces. He hesitates for a moment, like he's trying to choose his words carefully. "Look, the truth is, Laura's just...mad. Because you were totally right about Scott at a time when she had no idea what the hell she was doing. Don't ever tell her I said that."

"What do you mean?"

"Laura didn't think she was going to be the alpha for a long time. Maybe even decades, ideally. She's holding it together as much as she can, but she wasn't exactly ready to take on the job. Plus, her betas included...well, Peter, who's off the reservation half the time, and me. Making me the best and only second she really has. And I don't know what we're supposed to be doing either. Which doesn't matter because she's not listening to me anyway. So most days the two of us are biting each others' heads off half the time."

And if that isn't a revelation, Stiles doesn't know what is. He doesn't even know how to react to that, treading water quietly for a minute until he can pull some words together. "I never really thought about that," he admits. "I mean she always seemed like she was just being stubborn, but I guess the situation is kinda shit."

Derek doesn't immediately reply to this. He's watching the betas again. Stiles, now quite cooled down, has grown tired. He grabs hold of one edge of the dock and struggles out of the water, which is more of a feat now that he isn't running hot anymore.

"I never talk about this stuff," Derek says slowly. He doesn't sound accusing, more like he's just mildly amazed, but the words shoot through Stiles like an arrow to the gut. He needs to get a grip on his powers, stop with all the questions. It just doesn't help that he's naturally curious, always ready to ask, so any conversation has the potential to bring out his magic, to turn into an interrogation.

"Sorry," he says, and then realizes how stupid that sounds to someone who has no idea why he's apologizing. "For bringing it up, I mean," he amends.

Derek shrugs. "For what it's worth," he says, still not looking at Stiles as he pants breathlessly into the tepid air, "it's cool that you're looking into that stuff with Peter. I'm not...I couldn't do it," he says, a little self-deprecating. "I don't have the guts."

Stiles frowns. "Guts have nothing to do with it," he replies bitterly. And it's true: nothing in his search has anything to do with strength at all. Instead, it's something sour and sharp, a part of who he is, both the poludnica and part of Stiles himself. He pauses, then pulls himself to his feet.

They head back. For once, the air between Stiles and Derek isn't strained. They walk behind the tireless betas in a comfortable silence, Stiles's mind flitting from thought to thought. "What's a second?" he asks suddenly. "Does that make Peter a third?"

Derek, if he's startled by the question, doesn't show it. "No, there's just an alpha and his or her second. The advisor, or I guess second-in-command. Peter could be, if he tried. He'd probably be better at it, or at least know more about it than I do. But he's not here enough to rely on, so there's only me."

"Okay." Stiles chews on this for a while. They walk on in relative silence, Stiles half-listening to the betas' conversations. The further they go, the more distracted he gets. Random strings of thoughts and questions spill into his head. "Do you know what you're most likely to die of if you go to jail?" he asks Derek suddenly.

At this, the werewolf's brow furrows. "No…?"

"If you're in a local prison, it's suicide. In state prisons, it's usually cancer, but in the smaller ones like the one here it's like...one-third suicide deaths. Which is why there are so many prevention measures in place, 'cause you're like four times more likely to try for suicide in jail than you are if you're just, you know, in the general population." Stiles hums while Derek processes this, and then another thought occurs to him. "Between the hunters and werewolves in Beacon Hills, who do you think is best trained?"

Derek frowns, and he takes the question seriously, at least. "For now...probably the hunters. The pack is still new, but the way things used to be, we would have crushed them in a fight."

"If you're wondering how the questions are connected, don't," Scott says suddenly, turning around. Stiles hadn't realized that the rest of the pack had grown quiet. "He does this all the time."

"Shut up, Scott," Stiles grumbles, reddening a bit as the betas laugh. He realizes that it's the first time they've really talked, he and Derek, about anything besides training. And then, since he's already started: "If you killed someone and had to get away with it, how would you hide the bodies?"

This one's not really an actual question he needs an answer to; he mostly tossed it out for shock value. But after they get past the token claims of repulsion, the betas actually kind of jump onto it. It's enough to really get them going, Isaac deciding he'd find a way to get bits of them down the drain, Erica saying she'd bring them out to the really remote land of the preserve.

And then Stiles is on to the next question, and the next. The day is still hot, the sun gleaming overhead. By the time they get back to the Hale house, a small cloud of dust lingers on the horizon, and Stiles has to rein his powers back in again.

They tramp into the kitchen to fill up on water. Stiles catches himself laughing at something Erica says, and then he comes to the sudden realization that this afternoon has been almost nice. Which has never happened to him in the whole of his history out here in the preserve. It's enough to make him feel abruptly discomfited, so he's not totally unhappy to see Peter pass by the doorway, glancing at Stiles pointedly before he disappears.

Stiles slips after him. He follows Peter upstairs—Stiles, who has only been in the kitchen and living room before, takes a moment to note the paneled floors in the long hallway, the bare walls, the sparse furniture. And then he's stepping into an office, and the werewolf closes the door behind him.

"It's partially sound-proofed," Peter explains. "We've always had them done this way, for the sake of privacy."

"So what you're saying is that you could kill me and no one would hear."

Peter stares. "I wouldn't need a sound-proofed room to do that to you, Stiles."

"Fair enough," Stiles replies, trying not to look as unsettled as he feels. He looks around the room, at the layers of documents spread across the oak desk, crumpled pages on the floor, the bulletin board lined with photos, dates, newspaper clippings. "Oh my god. You're actually not fucking around, you have one of those serial killer bulletin boards. But without the red string connecting all the pictures."

"The thread's all in the mind," Peter replies vaguely. He pulls a piece of paper from the desk and holds it out to Stiles. "This is what I need from you."

Stiles takes the page, skimming the words. "Insurance?" he wonders aloud. "This...huh. His name sounds familiar."

"Garrison Myers. Former insurance agent. Currently one of several bus drivers for Beacon Hills High."

"Oh. Oh. Yeah, I think this is the guy who used to drive Scott's route before we started taking the Jeep to school."

"He investigated the house fire," Peter explains, lowering himself into the seat at the desk with forced nonchalance. "Eventually, it was ruled accidental."

Stiles looks up at him. "So you think…?"

"There are two possibilities: first, that someone made the arson look enough like an accident that an insurance agent wouldn't recognize the signs. Certainly possible, and insurance mistakes aren't uncommon. I've been digging into the possibility. But the second possibility…"

"...is that he recognized it as arson but ruled it as an accident anyway," Stiles finishes. He looks down at the paper in his hands. Myers is old-ish, hair a little grey. In the photo, he looks coolly at the camera, unsmiling. "What am I doing with this?"

"I want to know what the police know about him. His prior record, history, known associates, whatever they have. Because right now, that's the sum total I know about him, other than the fact that he eats too much fast food and he's scrambling to pay alimony."

"Great. Not asking how you know that." Stiles toys with the edges of the paper, curiosity already boiling inside of him. "I'll hang out around the station and see when I have the chance to check him out. But...you know the saying 'the wheels of justice turn slowly?' These are gonna be like, the slowest justice wheels you ever saw."

At this, Peter smirks. "Do you know the full saying? 'The wheels of justice turn slowly...but grind exceedingly fine.'"

Stiles' mouth quirks upward without his permission. "Okay, then. Provided we can prove anything."

Peter's smirk only sharpens at the edges, but then he grows solemn. "Proof means nothing to me," he tells Stiles seriously. "If this is a man who had anything to do with the fire that killed my family, I will crush him into dust, one way or another."

It's a warning, and Stiles understands it clearly: if this is too much for you, now's the time to back out. But Stiles, though he can't articulate it in words, completely agrees with this. He should be running scared, and if he were a normal kid, he probably would be. But Stiles feels the same about his mother, and about anyone who may have tried to hurt her. If no formal sentencing comes out of this, whether for lack of evidence or for fraud or corruption, he'll find a way to take things into his own hands if he has to.

So he nods. "One way or another," he agrees coolly.

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A/N: Btw, I meant to say this before…feel free to look up the poludnica myth, but this story will butcher it more than Disney's Hercules butchered every Greek myth ever, so take it with a grain of salt.