.

Six – Like a House on Fire

.

On the night when Peter comes into his room to wake him, Stiles feels like he's suddenly been dragged into daylight from somewhere deep in the earth.

Stiles sleeps more deeply at the Hale house than he has in ages at his own empty home. Sleep probably comes more easily when you're loaded, he thinks, or when your friends are: the Hales' guest beds are soft as fucking clouds, and the soundproofing insulation in all the bedrooms (not that he needs it with his dumb human ears) is better than his best noise-cancelling headphones.

Of course, Stiles will also admit, if only to himself, that he feels better with the others nearby, the Hales and the betas. All of whom are staying over almost every night now. He feels better knowing they're just nearby, settling in for the night. Knowing he's not alone.

"Stiles. Stiles!" The werewolf is not gentle; he nearly tears off Stiles's arm. "Get up."

"Wh—? Peter? What is it?" Stiles replies in alarm, grogginess gone as he rubs at his throbbing shoulder. He can't make out Peter's face in the dark.

"It's Kate," the man growls flatly. "She's here."

"What, here?" Stiles slides from bed. He's whispering, though he's not sure why. "Where—?"

"Outside. She hasn't made a move yet. There are four of them. And they've put down a mountain ash circle. I think we're going to need you to break it."

Isaac and Jackson are murmuring farther down the hallway. They look up when Peter and Stiles stumble out of the room.

"Peter," Isaac begins quickly, "there's something outside, but it sounds—"

"There are several someones, and they almost certainly have some sort of spell to muffle their footsteps and heartbeats," Peter hisses, not pausing as he sweeps silently toward the front door. "Wake the others and bring them to the den."

Laura and Derek are waiting for them there, along the back wall. Maybe it's the darkness that makes their faces look ashen.

"What's the plan?" Derek asks quietly. His eyes move sharply from Peter to Stiles, and then to the windows. The world outside is mostly dark, but a sliver of moon casts a grey sheen on the woods and field. Stiles can't make out any movement, just the dance of foliage in the night breeze.

"We can't get past the mountain ash," Laura replies. Her betas slowly spill out of the hall, groggy and uncertain. They follow their alpha's lead by staying away from the windows, near the heart of the house. Stiles watches Laura turn into Alpha Hale, drawing herself up, with her hands on her hips in a projection of strength. "But if she's trapped us in here, we need to get out, before she does whatever she's planning."

"Stiles is the only one of us with a chance of making it past that barrier," Peter murmurs slowly, but his head turns to Stiles as he says it. His expression is unreadable still in the low light, but Stiles knows what he's asking: Can you do this? Are you human enough?

"I don't know," Stiles replies honestly. He's never had the chance to find out.

"We're not risking someone on I don't know," Derek retorts firmly.

"We're not risking anyone at all," Laura hisses. "If they have guns, they'll have wolfsbane bullets…"

"Where are they now?" Erica asks. Like all of them, she keeps her voice low as she peers through the window.

"Not out in this direction, they're…" Laura pauses. "They were at an angle near the driveway, but they're moving forward now. Toward the front door."

"All of them?" Stiles asks. "Maybe I can try the mountain ash at the back—"

"We have no idea if there are more in the woods, Stiles—"

"What the fuck else are we going to do?"

A moment later, there's pounding at the door. Laura and Peter exchange a look of pure disbelief. "Is this bitch...?" Laura whispers, unable to finish her thought.

"What, no hospitality?" A voice calls from somewhere in the darkness outside. The sound is slightly muffled by the door, at least for Stiles, but the others all freeze and stare toward the entryway as one. "I know you can hear me, you werewolves with your superhuman senses and all." And then: "What?" She snickers. "You'd almost think you didn't want me here."

"There are more of them," Laura hisses, cocking her head. "At the back of the house—Derek?"

Derek grabs Isaac, and the two of them slink away toward the sound.

"I wasn't sure I'd ever have the chance to do this again," the voice admits from outside. "Not a second time. But I managed to scrounge up some old friends who were as eager as I was." Her amusement is audible. "You know this is how I did it, right? The first time. There was a mountain ash ring around your family while their house burned around them. It's pretty fitting that you and your new pack die the same way as your old one."

Someone howls from behind Stiles—Peter, he thinks, but maybe Derek too. And something is howling in Stiles, a fire raging wildly in his chest, embers in one moment and chaos the next. He can't believe this woman is finally here, right in front of him, separated only by the barrier of a wooden door. For so long, he's been tracking the events of the past, piecing together a trail gone cold, wondering what happened so long ago. He wants to know everything. He has to know.

The other betas are slinking around the house, doing recon under Laura's hissed orders, trying to figure out how many are outside. Stiles takes advantage of the distraction to step slowly toward the front door.

"The only thing that sucks is that I won't get to see your faces as you go," the woman is saying blithely. Stiles has tunnel vision. He presses a hand against the door, feeling the wood under his fingers. He's almost surprised that it doesn't blacken and burn.

"Do you know anything about the murder of Claudia Stilinski?" His own quiet voice sounds strange, as if it doesn't belong to him anymore. He's never felt this way; there's a roaring in his ears and a surge of heat unlike anything he's ever known. But he somehow feels the question catch on the woman outside, just beyond the door, though he isn't even holding her gaze.

"Stiles!" Laura hisses from behind him. "What the fuck..." Someone grabs his shoulder and then immediately jolts away, letting out a sound of surprise.

There's a pause. If Kate didn't have some way of blocking her footsteps, Stiles suspects he'd hear her shuffling around to face the door.

"Ah," the woman says at last. "You must be the Stilinski boy, then. Pity Vargas didn't finish you off like she was supposed to." Stiles waits, staring at the door like he might be able to see her face through it. The question still hangs over her, and he can feel her answer coming. "Your mother was an...unfortunate piece of collateral damage. She put things together too quickly, and asked too many smart questions. Like mother, like son," the voice purrs. "You've turned out to be a very smart boy."

Stiles can accept the answer, but it doesn't tell him what he needs to know. "Did you murder her?"

"I didn't," Kate says cheerfully. "I don't usually get my hands dirty with that sort of thing. The man the police caught, Tyler Mendez? It really was him. He was just...paid to do it. Unfortunately for him, he got caught."

Stiles didn't know how he'd feel when he learned what really happened, whether his theory would turn out to be right, but he didn't expect to feel nothing. Empty. There's only the fire. And it's still burning.

"And then you faked his suicide," he murmurs slowly, "so he wouldn't talk to the police?"

"What did I say?" Kate chuckles. "Smart boy."

Stiles pauses. "Who killed Deputy Vargas?"

"Ah, that was me," Kate replies. "It was before I'd called up a few friends. And, well...needs must. She was useful while she lasted."

She's giving him a lot to work with, much more than he's asking. Stiles wonders if she feels like this is just her moment to shine, the grand reveal she's been waiting for as the evil movie villain. Wonders if she can feel the heat yet, or if she notices the compulsion.

He turns from the door to find Laura and the others staring at him, spellbound—their faces are a mixture of wonder and fear. Oh, he realizes, thoughts moving as if in slow motion. An image of his blinding white Thor shirt and glowing skin from the other day surfaces to mind. Wonder what I look like now. "What else do you want to know?" he asks them quietly.

For a second, no one says anything at all. Stiles wonders if they're broken. And then Peter speaks up. "Who else was involved in the fire?"

It's Stiles who has to ask the question, though. He knows, somehow, that whatever magic he possesses has spread, cloaking Kate in full and extending to the other hunters as well. He feels the same burning restlessness he always does, the same white-hot glow, but it's magnified a thousand times over.

He opens the door.

"Stiles—!" someone calls, but he doesn't listen. In spills the cool evening breeze, but he suffuses it with his own fire, boiling the space all around. The air is already choked with eddies of dust.

Kate stares at him for a long moment, the smirk fading from her lips. Objectively, he decides that she's beautiful in a classic sort of way, with lightly curled blonde hair and dark eyes that dart over Stiles's face. "What's happening?" she asks, suddenly uncertain.

Stiles looks down at the barrier of mountain ash, and then he steps over it, feeling it crackle and burn away underfoot. "Who else was involved in the Hale fire?" he retorts instead.

Kate's face is flushed. She takes an unsteady step back, but that's all the movement she can manage. Farther off, there are others in the field—Stiles can sense them, only because they, too, are under his spell now. Unmoving, paused in the darkness. Their heartbeats are sluggish in the drowning heat. "It was...me. Vargas. Unger. Reddick. Rowenta. Myers. That's all."

"Rowenta?" Peter asks. Stiles becomes aware of the man's presence at his back, of all of them pressing forward in the doorway.

"Who is Rowenta?" Stiles repeats.

"She's—here. Around the back of the house," Kate says slowly, her breathing more labored.

"Do the other Argents know what she did?" Scott asks quietly from behind him.

Dutifully, Stiles repeats the question.

"No," Kate says. "It's only me."

Finally, Laura presses forward. "Why?" she asks simply.

Stiles doesn't like the question—the answer won't be satisfying no matter what Kate says, and it's too subjective for his tastes, but he asks it anyway.

"You were...here," Kate manages, practically spitting. "Living, and breeding. With new betas every now and then. It was...you were...are...fucking abominations," she says helplessly.

For a moment, Stiles pauses, considering this. He feels agitated still, and suddenly ready to end this once and for all. "Who else knows you're here?" he asks finally.

Kate's face is suddenly filled with fear. She fights not to answer. "What—what are you doing? How are you doing this?"

Stiles smiles. "I ask the questions. You answer them. Who else knows you're here?"

"Rowenta's husband. A hunter named Aline Johnson—in Florida. That's all," she finishes in a whisper.

"Good," Stiles murmurs. He knows what has to happen next, what his magic is crying out for, but he can feel it happening only distantly, as if he's watching someone else from a long way off. "I need you to go back into the house," Stiles says quietly, turning back to Laura and the others. He can see the barest white glow reflected on their faces and clothes. It's coming from him, he realizes.

"Stiles…" Laura begins, but he doesn't let her finish.

"It's hard to explain right now," Stiles says, reaching out mentally to locate the other immobile hunters throughout the grounds, pinpricks of heat in the darkness like stars in space. "But this is what I am. And I need to do this."

Laura hesitates for only a second before she starts pulling the betas off the porch and into the entryway. Peter's the one who doesn't move. Stiles stares at him, then nods, and Peter is in full shift on top of Kate, teeth pulling strands of glistening red from her throat. There's no time for her to even see it coming; her eyes grow wide, fingers scrabbling on the wooden porch as she chokes on her own blood.

Peter watches her gagging, writhing in pain on the ground—he and Stiles both do. And then, wordlessly, the wolf sweeps back inside the house. The door swings shut behind him.

The snick of the latch may as well be a starting gun for Stiles: everything turns to fire as soon as he hears the sound. The world becomes daylight, and he's burning alive, along with everyone beyond the wooden house. Dust is in the air. Stiles breathes it all in but doesn't choke; it only spurs his flames. There's the smell of smoke, too, and he feels its grime caress his skin and slide away.

He's not sure how long it takes for him to burn out. But what feels like hours pass, and eventually it's done. Dust still batters the windows of the Hale house, and the heat of midday lingers in the air, but the light has gone—only the rind of moon illuminates the porch and field beyond.

The porch and house are untouched, pristine. But of the hunters, there's nothing to bury: it's hard to tell where the mountain ash ends and Kate's remains begin. Farther off, Stiles knows the other hunters are the same, piles of dust in the grass, tossed about by the night wind.

Everything comes back to him at once. He turns to the window, where he can just make out the lines of the others' faces in the darkness. Laura and Derek are the worst, though: there's something like raw fear in their faces, or maybe even revulsion. Stiles suddenly can't imagine what it must have been like for them, trapped inside the house where their family once burned to death.

"Sorry," he says weakly, swallowing hard. "I'm sorry."

He can't take their stares, and he's standing in something that's probably burnt Kate, and his heart is going too fast. He takes the steps off of the porch and walks off into the night, fleeing like a fucking coward.

.

Scott finds him not even five minutes later, because of course he does.

"Dude," he says, crouching beside Stiles, who is huddled against the trunk of a birch tree just off the trail. He hadn't gone far—couldn't go far. He's tired and shivering. "Dude," Scott says again, putting an arm across Stiles's shoulders. "What the hell man, now you're freezing," he mutters, though this seems to be mostly to himself.

Stiles closes his eyes and breathes in, breathes out. It was his mom who taught him that part—the calming breaths. Not for anything like this, just for normal school-induced panic, but still, it had been her.

"You're not all...white anymore," Scott observes.

"Dude, racist," Stiles croaks weakly.

Scott laughs. After a minute, he asks, "Do you want to talk?"

Stiles groans. "God, no."

"Okay." And that's the best fucking thing about Scott, that okay. Stiles can practically feel the questions buzzing around in Scott's head, but he doesn't ask any of them out loud. Instead, he just sits with Stiles, who leeches his friend's warmth and tries to stop freaking out.

"Are Laura and the others okay?" Stiles asks at last.

"Um, pretty much. I mean, uh, nobody's upset about...what you did," Scott says awkwardly. "Just confused. But we're all okay. I mean, me and the others pretty much have stopped freaking, and I get the sense that the Hales, when it comes to supernatural stuff...they've seen some shit. Even the house is okay, the whole front of it, like nothing even happened. So whatever you're worried about...I think it'll be fine."

The vote of confidence is enough for Stiles. "Okay," he mumbles, shakily standing. "Let's go back to the house. Because I only want to do this once."

.

"You. A witch?"

"Um. Basically a witch," Stiles confirms.

Everyone lets that part settle in. They're hungry for details, mostly because there's nothing to do about the ashes, which tomorrow will be swept up and spread far away, someplace where the hunters can no longer touch Hale land. And Stiles expects that Peter's already contacted someone to take care of that last hunter, or he wouldn't be sitting so calmly in his habitual place by the window. They're back in the den, the betas gathered around while Laura paces in agitation between the TV and coffee table.

For his part, Stiles was promptly welcomed back with way more fervor than expected, especially once the others had seen how badly he was shaking. Now, he sits in the armchair, a blanket draped across his shoulders; Boyd had even hastily made a mug of tea and pressed it into his hands. Their eyes boggle at him as he sips it, and it's all he can do not to be too unsettled by the attention.

"Jackson," Scott says after a moment of silence, glaring suspiciously at the smirking face of the boy in question, "I swear to God, if you say anything about only girls being witches—"

Jackson throws his hands up in the air. "So I wasn't the only person thinking it."

"He's not wrong," Stiles says, shrugging. "Witches are mostly girls."

"No, but..." Derek mutters, rubbing his chin as he stares at Stiles. "Witches are way more 'blood and summoning.' That wasn't like any witch I've ever heard of."

"I'm not that kind of witch," Stiles explains, frowning. "It's through my mom. She was from Poland. I'm called a poludnica."

Abruptly, Peter throws a book across the room. Stiles and the others stare. "I didn't think to look at creatures from Poland," he grouses, glaring as if this is Stiles's fault.

"Were you...looking up stuff? About me?"

"You weren't exactly forthcoming. And it seemed like a good thing for the pack to be aware of. Besides," he adds airily, "it was better than waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Wow, not creeped out at all," Stiles mutters under his breath. He covers a yawn.

"I'm sorry," Laura seethes abruptly, "but can we just get back to the main program where you explain what the hell just happened."

"Yeah, okay." Stiles shakes the exhaustion away, downs the last of the tea, and tries to gather his thoughts. "So. Poludnica are basically heat witches, and mostly but not totally human. I guess. Right? And our job used to be to protect the fields and crops, and especially the summer harvest...basically causing a sunstroke in anyone who was disturbing the fields or whatever. But we'd also...so, anyone we caught, we'd ask them questions, or well, it used to be riddles, to decide if they were worth letting go or not. We could kind of tell if we liked their answers, or if they were telling the truth or at least thought they were telling the truth, or the whole story, or that kind of thing.

"My mom once told me that nowadays no one's really out protecting fields anymore, but the powers never really went away. We're strongest in the summer and especially in the middle of the day, and sometimes you can still, like, feel the power running through you."

"That's why you were always going nuts at noon," Erica observes.

"Basically, yeah. It's never been so bad before this summer, though. Used to be that if I wanted, even in summer, I could forget I wasn't human. Ignore it, kind of. But I think I had so many questions since mom died that...my powers started acting up. Until I got answers, I was just on fire, like, all the time. But right now…" Stiles pauses, considering. "Now, they're quieter. Less intense."

"It explains Vargas," Scott says quietly. "And the whole...literal fire thing."

Stiles cringes. "Yeah, that was...new. I didn't actually know I could do that."

"Your mom couldn't?" Erica asks, and Scott quickly adds. "Oh my god, your mom was a firefighter."

Stiles snorts. "Perfect job, right? But yeah, she could do it, the whole...making-fires-thing. But only after working with fires for years and years."

"It sounds almost like having a wolf," Isaac ventures. "Like how, once you figure out how to get what it needs, it settles down."

At this, Stiles quirks his head. "Huh. Yeah, I didn't think of that."

"You looked badass, dude," Scott grins suddenly. "I don't even know...it was weird."

"It was hard to make out your face even, like your eyes were glowing—"

"Did your teeth get sharp?"

"Your clothes were white, too."

Smiling hesitantly, Stiles shakes his head. But he realizes Laura and Peter are still watching him, considering. Stiles takes a breath. "So, um. It's not really okay, what I did...I knew it might happen, it's part of who I am, and I was getting answers. No matter what happened. Because my mom...knowing what really happened, that she was killed because she started connecting the dots, it doesn't change anything. I don't magically feel...over it. But I had to know, because what happened was a part of her. And I want to know all of her.

"But I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, and I'm sorry it went down like this," he adds quickly. "I didn't mean to basically burn outside of the house you rebuilt after a fire, which was probably really shitty. And I didn't mean to not tell the pack, but it's...they're my mom's powers. I didn't know how I felt about it, using them like that, and I still don't, and it just, like...happened that way." Before he can keep rambling, Stiles snaps his mouth shut.

Peter, as usual, is the one to break the silence. "I, for one, appreciate the irony of Kate Argent burning in a fire," he says mildly.

Laura's expression is marginally less frosty. "Okay," she says slowly. "Look, I'm not angry. But—"

"You look angry," Stiles observes.

"I always look angry. But I'm not, I'm just—"

"Disappointed?"

"Stiles," she says, scraping her hands through her hair. "I'm—annoyed, okay? I'm the alpha; I'm supposed to know what's going on so I can make decisions to protect the pack. Tonight, I had no fucking clue what was going on. I didn't know what you were doing, I was basically just hoping that you did. And that you weren't going to die on my watch. I don't like that feeling. I never want to feel like that again."

"Oh," Stiles says. He nods tiredly. "I get it."

"Kiss and make up," Jackson says lazily, and Stiles and Laura flick him off in unison. Stiles shivers.

"Are you cold?" Boyd asks. "Is that a thing?"

"Yeah." Stiles looks down at his hands. "Not usually this bad, though. But again, I've never, you know. And, uh, I'm guessing probably going to sleep for two full days or maybe more. I'm not exaggerating. Don't think I'm dead or something. If I wake up buried, I'll come back and haunt you all."

"Go to bed, Stiles," Laura says at last. "We'll talk in the morning. Whenever that is."

.

Actually, the fire changes very little.

It's almost like the world resolves itself into something simpler, like there are fewer complications to chase down and understand.

Things becomes normal: the pack is made of werewolves, and Lydia the banshee, and Stiles the poludnica. Stiles quickly learns that it's only weird if he makes it weird...so he stops making it weird. Or he tries anyway. It's the new and interesting thing among his pack for the first week or so, if only because nothing new has come along to try to kill them, and the betas have tons of questions: When school starts up, can Stiles use his magic to ask their teachers to give them the exam questions? Can he light a cigarette with his mind? Would Stiles die if he was stranded in the desert?

Stiles doesn't know all of those answers (not that he's planning to test them or anything). But what he does know is that he's not burning all the time anymore. Not like he was. He has what he needs, and so the hunger for answers doesn't drive him anymore.

"Boring," Peter says flatly when Stiles tries to explain this. "You're much more interesting if you're on a revenge kick."

"You're done with your revenge kick," Stiles retorts, fidgeting on the arm of the living room sofa. "Aren't you?"

"Hm. I'm boring too, now," Peter laments. He leans back in his chair by the window, and Stiles leaves him alone with the newspaper.

Stiles goes home. The guest rooms are still available for him at the Hales' place; he knows this now without having to ask. But as much as he likes spending time there, a part of him misses his home and his bed and his dad.

Who is even there more often now, having quietly let the investigation into Vargas's death run cold. He's often actually present when Stiles starts picking up empty beer bottles, often enough to look chagrined, anyway. And to leave fewer bottles the next time. He's there often enough to give Stiles pointed glares whenever Stiles sneaks back into the house too late after pack meetings. Often enough for Stiles to cook him an actual dinner every couple days (and Stiles really has to up his recipe game—breakfast for dinner can only get you so far in life).

All of it feels like more than Stiles deserves.

.

"Should I feel worse about those hunters?" Stiles asks by way of opening the conversation one afternoon.

He's gotten into the habit of poking his head into Peter's study every day or so, partially because Peter is usually the only person not training when Stiles is at his most bored. And partially because, no matter that Peter has perfect hearing, the man can't always hide his surprise at the fact that Stiles stopped at his door. Stiles gets the sense that not many people stop by Peter's for a chat.

"You mean about what you did to them." Peter says slowly, and then he drawls, "Why are you asking me?" The question is serious enough that he turns to give Stiles his full attention. Now, two weeks after Kate, there are new files and photos spread across his desk and bulletin board. He's already nosing his way into whatever else the Argents were up to before Kate died. Stiles poked through the files, curious, when Peter wasn't looking (hey, turnabout is fair play, and he's pretty sure Peter can smell that he dug through his stuff).

"Who else am I going to ask?"

At this, Peter tilts his head and shrugs, like he gets Stiles's point. "Did you take pleasure in it?"

Stiles leans awkwardly against the bookshelf. "I mean, no. I didn't...I just felt like it had to be done. And I guess like I had to do it. I don't know if that was because of me or because of my powers."

"Then no," Peter says decisively. He turns back to his files, as though there's no need for further discussion. "They've already wasted enough of your life by hurting you, and by making you sweat to go after them."

"I guess that's one way of looking at it," Stiles says slowly.

"You don't feel bad about it," Peter observes.

"I don't, but...I feel bad that I don't feel bad about it. Like maybe there's something wrong with me. I thought I'd feel...I dunno. Either really great or really guilty, but it's just like...hollow. I mean, finally knowing, that's the thing I needed, but what I did to Kate and the others, it's like it just happened. It was something that had to happen. And now it's over."

"And now it's over," Peter echoes. "It's okay to keep moving after something like this. Maybe your feelings will change, and maybe they won't. But in the end, you're the one who decides that—what to do with what happened, or what it makes of you."

Stiles nods slowly, absorbing the advice. Peter ignores him, adjusting the papers on his desk in relative silence. Another thought occurs to Stiles as he watches. "Are you worried? About more hunters, I mean. Like, coming after the pack or something."

Peter turns back, and his smile is feral. "They might come," he admits. "But I'm not worried."

Stiles smiles back. Offhandedly, he wonders if a part of Peter actually enjoys this now, feeling more like he has a pack to protect—not the one he used to have, but a new one, and a real one. Stiles wonders if Peter likes the intricacies of it, of matching wits with hunters and foes.

But he decides not to ask. He hums in agreement, and then turns away to head back downstairs.

.

"The amount of money we spend on food around here is insane," Laura laments, peering over Boyd's shoulder as he scrawls a few addendums to the grocery list.

"It doesn't matter, does it? You're loaded," Lydia retorts flippantly.

"And coming from Lydia, that actually means something," Boyd adds, not looking up from his writing.

Training has just finished for the day, and the distant sunset is a glow of purple behind the trees. The betas are covered in a thin sheen of sweat and dirt, lethargic and endorphin-happy and occasionally slapping mosquitoes away from their legs. Erica and Isaac are still play-roughhousing on the grass, their laughs somewhere between human and wolfish as they make their way to the house, but the others are gathered around Boyd on the front porch, debating the growing list of food products.

Stiles ambles toward them slowly, his face catching in a wide yawn. Laura tears her attention away from the discussion to glance his way.

"How'd it go?"

Stiles shrugs sheepishly. "It wasn't really super easy to focus, honestly. Eventually, I accidentally ended up sleeping instead of meditating."

"You need it," Laura replies, looking at him critically. "Besides, it takes practice. It's not something you just instantly get good at."

"Yeah, definitely not me," Stiles responds, sinking onto the wooden porch at the foot of Scott's chair as the other betas continue bickering around him. "Meditating, what the hell. It's like I'm a whole nother person. Without anger issues."

Laura stifles a smile. "It'll take a while to learn. But if your thing is anything like what betas go through to control their powers better, it'll eventually help."

"I'm trusting you," Stiles says, shrugging. It's a little flippant, but it's not a lie. Not these days.

The other betas' squabbles draw his attention back:

"No, put down—hey, put down 100% beef franks, that's important—"

"Dude, Jackson, are you even a diva when it's just groceries?"

"You're laughing now, but you'll be thanking me later."

"Oh, yeah! Don't forget milk and cookies!"

This last is from Scott, and after a beat the exclamation draws surprised laughter from the others. "What the hell are you talking about?" Erica asks, leaning a shoulder on Derek. "I mean, I guess I'm not complaining, but…"

Scott shrugs, looking down at Stiles. "It's tradition." He obviously expects Stiles to back him up, but Stiles just stares back at him blankly. "You know...since we were kids. We leave it out for Captain America every year."

"Oh my god. It's the Fourth of July?" Stiles realizes suddenly. "When, today? Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, tomorrow. Man, are you okay?"

"Dude, I totally lost track of time." At his sympathetic glance, Stiles adds, "I had a concussion and then was in a three-day heat-induced coma, so no judgement."

"You guys are so weird," Erica says under her breath. "Are we getting fireworks, too?"

"Derek's already got some."

"Wait, so you guys are barbecuing?"

"We're all barbecuing," Laura replies. "Everyone's coming. You, too. I'm dragging Peter out of the office if I have to."

"Good luck with that," Stiles replies automatically.

"We're gonna lure him down here with Jackson's dumb hot dogs—"

"They're Nathan's, so they're gonna be good—"

"—watch the contest this year?"

"Dude, did you know we eat like 20 billion hot dogs a year?" Stiles wonders aloud. "It works out to like 70 per person, which is crazy."

Jackson groans at this, but the others perk up, sensing one of Stiles's Random Knowledge Adventures™ coming up. "Hit me with another tube steak fact," Erica says gleefully.

"Rude of you to assume I have another one. What's the most popular topping?"

"Ketchup!"

"Mustard. It's not even close, like seventy percent of people or something."

"Actual heathens!" Erica crows, delighted.

As they start debating toppings now (seriously, it doesn't take much), Stiles turns to Derek. "Is it weird if I bring my dad by for a while tomorrow?"

Derek shrugs. "Seems fine. He and Peter seem to be getting along, which is…"

"Super weird," Stiles finishes.

"I was going to say probably good for them, but I guess that, too," he replies, amused.

Stiles nods, leaning on the wooden railing. "Yeah." He watches the betas argue with way more energy than should be allowed for people who've been running around for like five hours straight. They gesture enthusiastically, like it's a life-and-death thing. Stiles finds himself smiling.

"What is it?" Derek asks, curious.

Stiles shakes his head. "Dunno. I'm just, like, out of questions to ask. I always have questions." His lips quirk into a small smile. "It's kinda nice."

Derek hums as they watch the argument unfold, Isaac threatening to literally strangle Jackson in his sleep.

From somewhere farther off, there's the smell of smoke—but it's the good kind. Not fire or gunpowder or cigarettes but the singular smell of fireworks, already bursting to life somewhere in anticipation of the Fourth. There's an almost palpable excitement choking the hot evening air: something coming. Something good.

.

.

.

A/N: Basically, this is how I envision the end:

laura: we have fucking anger issues man, we should learn to meditate or something

stiles: i do hot yoga sometimes

laura: yes pls

and that's the story of how Stiles and Laura become yoga buddies, and maybe the rest of the pack also.

Anyway, hey, if you're still here, thanks for sticking around. I really hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it! As of this moment, there are no immediate plans for a sequel, mostly because I have some other Teen Wolf fics in the works to publish soon. But I do have a few very definite ideas of where this one would go next, so...never say never and all that.

Please leave a review! Every one helps warm my cold, dead heart.

Till next time,

ket