"So you're telling me that unless he sticks around to play happy housewife to your psycho brother, he'll actually be physically ill?" Stiles' father demanded.

Grimacing, Stiles hunched in on himself, hugged his middle tight as tight as he could without splitting the seams on his borrowed shirt. He could understand and appreciate his father's anger but he needed to reel it in - the bite in his tone had put the ruby flare back into Talia Hale's eyes and Stiles was already starting to get the hint that that was not a good thing.

Not to mention, um, hi, he was still in the room?

"In part, Sheriff," Talia admitted stiffly, with a great deal of care as though she were clinging to a very fine thread of patience. "Because of his natural instincts Peter is likely to suffer the greater discomfort, but yes, the larger the distance between my brother and your son, the more uncomfortable he is likely to be as well. That being said, I'm not suggesting that your son play happy housewife, as you so quaintly put it. A soul bond does not automatically entail a marriage, or even a sexual relationship. Some bond mates only share a deep and intimate connection of friendship, though I will admit that that arrangement is far more rare than customary partnerships."

Sighing, she sat back and crossed her arms over her chest once more, for just a moment looking off into space like she could make herself be somewhere else, and that was probably the only thing that kept his dad from going off about age differences and the definition of statutory rape.

"Peter is not… traditional," she said finally, flicking a glance Stiles' way when he choked on a snort. "From the way he reacted I believe it's fair to assume that he is likely to be uncomfortable with any type of relationship with your son, for more than one reason - ones I won't share with you now. I would be speculating, and it would not be my place."

Stiles didn't think he cared. This wasn't his fault - the jerk wasn't going to be blaming it on him! And anyway. It wasn't like he'd wanted this either. He hadn't picked Talia Hale's blood-covered psycho enforcer of a little brother for his soul mate. And Christ, what did it say about his soul that Peter was his perfect match?

The thought made him sick to his stomach, and his only consolation was knowing that the werewolf would apparently be getting the shorter end of the stick than he was when it came to the withdrawals.

"This is ridiculous," his father said shortly. "I'm not leaving my son here, under any circumstances. You and I can work out the details of your recompense for the border crossing at a later date, Alpha Hale."

"I assure you, Sheriff, the one has nothing to do with the other!" Talia snapped.

"What if it did?"

Stiles immediately regretted he words, shrank beneath the weight of all the eyes that turned on him, but his mind was already off and whirring, the question out before he'd even fully formed the thought, before he could stop it.

Oh god, what was he doing?

"Stiles," his father said slowly, his voice low with a clear warning.

"Dad, it's not like they planned this either," he said distractedly, a place holder more than anything. He just needed a minute - pieces were coming together and he…

But it was true too.

The wolves hadn't planned on this.

Peter certainly hadn't.

And yeah, that cut a little, because again, what did it say about Stiles that his soul mate hated him, so much that he threw him against a wall before Stiles had even opened his mouth? Usually it took a few minutes, a bad pun or two before people wrote him off so strongly. And this was his bonded, his supposed other half…

And the guy hated him.

So yeah, things had kind of gone to hell in a handbasket, but if he could salvage something out of the mess…

"I'm not moving in," he said firmly, facing Talia Hale straight on, and from the corner of his eye he saw his father rock back on his heels with relief. "But we were discussing options, yeah?"

Talia looked him shrewdly up and down before she answered, tight and controlled.

"We were."

"Reintegrating the pack with the town, taking down the border laws."

"And you wanted help for your friend."

"I did," he nodded.

Isaac.

If he was going to be stuck making visits out here just to keep himself healthy, maybe he could at least get something good out of it.

"Would you take him in?" he asked, a small, small part of him enjoying the flash of surprise that crossed the Alpha's face.

"What relevance does that have on the current situation, Mr. Stilinski?"

Taking it as a good sign that she sounded just a little more curious than that unimpressed, Stiles squared his shoulders and tried to organize his thoughts.

"If you take him in," he began, "It's a gesture of good faith. You're doing something good by saving a kid that needs help. At the same time, it's a kid that will be living with you, learning about you, learning about the pack, and that's a citizen of Beacon Hills who's on your side, who can come into town and say, yeah, they're just like everybody else."

"And why would your friend agree to this?" Talia asked, which, ok, point.

"Because it gets him out of a horrible, abusive situation," Stiles replied flatly. "But I get what you mean - I figure he'll probably be pretty freaked and resistant to it at first, but I'm thinking…"

Frowning, he gave his dad an apologetic look before turning back to the werewolf.

"I mean, it sounds like I'm gonna have to at least visit right? If I come with Isaac, it'll chill him out, I won't be puking up my guts staying away from your psycho brother, and then that's two people you've got on your side helping to smooth a transition into town. Although…" Swallowing hard, Stiles' hand rubbed at the base of his throat. "After what just happened, I gotta tell you, I'm not so sure it's such a good idea anymore."

For a moment Talia's face softened and the frown she gave him was a little more apologetic than he'd expected her to be capable of.

"I can assure you Stiles that my brother's actions are the exception, not the rule," Talia said quietly. "I require strict and consistent demonstration of self-control from my pack members. And I would apologize to you again. What Peter did was inexcusable, and I can promise you now, it will not happen again."

Given what she'd said earlier about not having domain over a bonding, Stiles wasn't exactly reassured.

"Anyway," he said, forcing himself to drop his hand into his lap even if he couldn't stop himself from clenching it into a fist. "Like I said, I'm pretty well known in Beacon Hills - if I'm spearheading this thing, people are gonna be less panicky about it. There's lots of people who already think that we need to step into the 21st century and stop segregating you guys - I don't think it would be that big a stretch if we wanted to try."

"All that being said..."

Stiles jolted when he felt a hand clamp down hard on his shoulder, tight enough that he could feel the tension running through his father's body, the hard lines of stress on his face that said he was putting everything he had into holding back.

"My son is not committing to anything right now."

To Stiles' surprise Talia Hale nodded in agreement, and he felt a tremendous amount of strain go out of his shoulders that he hadn't even realized he'd been carrying. He could talk all the talk - it wasn't uncommon for his mouth to run off without his permission - but he didn't actually want to walk the walk. Any of the walk. At all.

"Of course, Sheriff," the Alpha said politely, rising to her feet and crossing over to shake his father's hand. Stiles was proud when his dad returned the gesture firmly and unflinchingly, looked the werewolf directly in the eye. "I'm certain there are legal and political sanctions you need to consider, as well as more… personal affairs. The type of reconciliation your son has proposed is something that I need to discuss with my pack as well."

Oh. Right. That was probably going to be a Discussion when they got home.

All of a sudden Stiles wasn't so sure that he didn't want to stay with the werewolves.

Heck, with the way his father was looking at him, visits out here might be the only place he'd ever get to go again, what with being grounded into oblivion and all.

A shiver rolled down his spine as his gaze flicked around the room, watched Laura who was watching him with dark, quiet eyes, David, who had rolled his sleeve back down over his forearm and the first words his wife had ever said to him. Calvin had slipped out of the room some time before - the only werewolf that he - oddly enough - felt comfortable taking minor cues from. Without him, with his father and Parrish standing too far away to reach out a grounding hand, Stiles felt unmoored, dissociated.

What was he doing here, trying to do?

His… company wasn't exactly a great bargaining chip, even if it did keep Talia's brother and left hand from getting sick, even if it made the pack more… approachable to everyone in town.

"…be happy to escort you back to your vehicles myself," Talia said, and Stiles jumped, startled by the fact that all of a sudden people were standing up and moving and they were actually going home. "I would also like to extend an invitation for you and your son to return on Saturday for further discussion. Will that be enough time for you Sheriff?"

"It should," his father said gruffly. "Something like this, it's going to take precedent, but I can't promise anything. There are going to be people who are upset if this goes through…"

"The hunters," Talia nodded.

"Yeah, and some of the citizens too. Primarily on principle, because we didn't put this up on the ballot and let them vote…"

"Something to consider, as we move forward then. But to be discussed on Saturday."

"Saturday."

With a nod, Stiles' father stepped forward and shook Talia Hale's hand, turned and grabbed him by the arm and dragged him up out of his chair that he'd apparently become frozen in. The Alpha werewolf looked him over briefly, as if considering whether or not she should offer him her hand as well but in the end apparently thought the better of it. Which was fine with Stiles - he didn't want to try and figure out a way to decline that wasn't a complete slap in the face. He was just… tired, and he felt empty like he'd been hollowed out. He wanted to go home and sleep, and maybe wake up tomorrow morning slowly enough that he could forget, five, even ten minutes of thinking it was all just a bad dream…

As his father followed Talia Hale out of the library, Stiles moved to follow but stumbled to a stop when Laura made a tentative move towards him, a hand reaching out. He didn't flinch away from it but he did freeze up pretty hard - sue him if he was a little bit gun shy right now. Laura offered him a sympathetic sort of half smile, full of far more understanding than he was comfortable with.

"Would it be all right if I…" she asked, gesturing for his hoodie, and he wasn't sure what she meant, why she wanted it. It was his favorite, one he'd had for a long time and that was perfectly worn in, but it was shredded from neck to shoulder and what was he going to do with it now? Shrugging, he handed it over with only a minor pang of regret, turned his back on her and followed Tara and Parrish out. He could hear his father and Talia exchanging phone numbers up ahead, but it didn't matter, he couldn't care.

Dusk had started to fall and as they all stepped out of the house onto the lawn he bit back a shiver, the air damp and cool on the back of his neck. He could feel eyes on him, saw Calvin and Nick from the corner of his eye standing off at the edge of the valley, more werewolves grouped around awkwardly here and there but he kept his own gaze fixed firmly on the ground, watched the heels of his dad's heavy work boots flash as they headed down a dirt worn path that functioned as a driveway. Halfway into the trees it forked off, the drive continuing on to the left and out of the Preserve and out of Beacon Hills, and on the right a smaller, more overgrown path that led out to the backroad along the side of town. It was almost completely overgrown at this point, disappearing underneath the bramble and overhanging limbs, but the rising moon and the last bit of daylight that lingered was enough that the humans could follow the Alpha who picked her way neatly along as though she took the path every day.

He would've thought that the further into the woods they got the more comfortable he would be, every step putting him one pace closer to the waiting cruisers and the safety of going home. It didn't seem fair that the opposite was true, that the weight of the trees overhead seemed to hang on his shoulders, heavier and heavier with every stride, closing in around him and crushing the air out of his lungs. It was eerily quiet even with the snap and crunch of twigs and leaves under foot, his father's heavy breathing, the tiny night sounds of birds and insects hidden in the dark. There was just a sort of hush to it, like the world had been blanketed, and he wondered if the others heard it to or if it was just his own senses being dulled by the adrenaline crash, the emotional exhaustion.

He almost jumped out of his skin when a howl split the silence.

He heard wolf howls before. A real wolf's, on TV and at a zoo once, and then the werewolves.' Some nights, especially full moons, the howls rose up out of the Preserve and the wind was just right to bring the music into town, and it would rise and swell for hours the way the ocean crashed against cliff rock. No one knew why they did it, but Stiles always suspected that it was a reminder. A reminder to themselves about who they were and to the town that they were still there. It was a beautiful sound, eerie, haunting, and this one was no different. It rent the air like a knife, cracked off the trees and echoed down deep in the valley back the way they'd come, and it was more angry and confused and forlorn than any that Stiles had ever heard.

XXX

Well, he had to hand it to the kid, he was practically a god damned strategical mastermind.

No wonder fate paired him up with Peter - if his little brother ever managed to get his head out of his ass and not be a completely terrible person, the two of them could probably do some real damage together.

But it was an intriguing idea, one that Calvin found he liked quite a bit. Even if Stiles resisted moving in all together, he would need to make regular visits and spend some significant time with Peter to keep the wolf from going feral. Talia had hedged that one carefully, downplaying the severity of what might happen if either Stiles or Peter refused to see each other completely. No need to scare the kid by telling him exactly what kind of depraved, raging beast his soul mate would become if they refused one another. Better for everyone then if the kid had another reason to do it, a better reason, to his mind at least, that helped someone besides the bond mate that had treated him so badly.

Beyond that, the young man's idea had merit. The pack had lost… a lot in the war. So many. His sister was facing pressure from other packs to throw off what was seen as the bonds of Beacon Hills, the shackles keeping them locked to the Preserve and to outdated ideas of what was right and wrong, who was right and wrong. A two-fold plan, one that would end that separation between the werewolves and the humans and one that could potentially end in new pack members, fresh blood that was young and strong and committed to Talia for one reason or another. A good plan, one that quite neatly addressed the pack's most pressing problems.

Having shared a look with his Alpha, one that spoke volumes, Calvin felt confident enough that she would hear the young man out and not make any rash decisions because of Peter's earlier display, but he was still nervous about Nicky, the look his nephew had thrown him before heading back outside. He'd been unable to rein in the need to check on him and so he'd slipped out of the library and then the main house all together, though he was almost certain he would miss Stiles' leaving. He would've liked to shake the boy's hand before he left but there were more important things to consider, and so he'd stepped out onto the back porch ready to face down a mob, only to be met with a quieting breath of empty evening air. Nick was sitting on the steps, no doubt waiting for him, but he stood as soon as Calvin closed the screen door behind him, jerking his chin in a follow me gesture and strolling off across the lawn with his hands in his pockets.

"Talk to me," he muttered under his breath, eyes scanning the length of the valley and narrowing in on his pack members, standing about here and there in groups of two or three, whispering behind their hands.

"When I came back up with the shirt they were all bunching up on the porch," Nick replied, stopping and crossing his arms over his chest. "Bucky had his damned ear to the door. I hauled him off, and then when I came back out I told them all to get lost. Probably thought it was an order from mom."

Sighing through his nose, Calvin reached out casually and clamped a hand around the back of Nicky's neck, squeezed until he felt the young man relax. As David and Talia's only human child, and now the oldest after their firstborn Seth had been killed, Nicky was sensitive about his place in the pack, his role. His word held almost as much power as Laura's did, but he was unsure of its weight, unsteady, and it often showed.

"That's fine," he said quietly, giving him a little shake before letting him go. "You did fine."

Even in the coming dark he could see his nephew flush at the praise before shaking off his mood, straightening his hunched shoulders.

"Anyway."

"Anyway. Any sign of Peter?"

"Yeah. Heard him raging around for a while, trashing stuff. He came stomping out, twenty minutes ago maybe."

"Alone?"

"Yeah. Hadn't showered, still covered in blood. Sweats and sneakers. He hit one of the running trails, I assumed he was going to shift. I've got Jake tailing him - told him to hang back, just take a stroll and keep an eye out, make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

"Good boy."

Nicky huffed, his breath puffing hot and white against the cooling air.

"Luca's gonna be pissed," he mumbled, and the sheer misery in his tone said everything that needed to be said about the other wolf.

"Luca's gonna be insufferable," Calvin corrected, his own voice hard and sharp with bite.

A moment of silence passed as both men shuddered, envisioning the temper tantrums to come from the child in a grown man's body, the visiting liaison from the Ohio pack who believed that sharing Peter's bed meant more than being a convenient piece of tail. Calvin had overheard him on the phone with someone from his pack, crowing about how he'd landed the Alpha's left hand, the legendary enforcer Peter Hale, and it had taken everything he had not laugh outright every time he saw the little runt for the following two weeks. It was a joke, and he was only saved the guilt of Luca's heartbreak by the fact that Peter made it abundantly clear he was only in it for the sex. When they weren't going at it he avoided Luca, or challenged him directly the way he had today, snapping and snarling and glaring at the other wolf with a sincere and honest dislike that anyone could recognize as honest.

Everyone apparently except Luca, who appeared insistent in his belief that his future in Beacon Hills was already determined, involving a life of privilege within the pack and a long and happy marriage to Peter Hale.

He was going to be a little shit about this whole thing, worse than Peter even.

Perhaps it was time to start making hints to Talia that his time here was up, make a final decision and ship him back to the Midwest where he couldn't bother anyone anymore.

But these musings were interrupted as suddenly every wolf in the yard snapped to attention, eyes on their Alpha who stepped regally out into the moonlight and led a tiny procession up the valley toward the drive, the little path that led out of the Preserve and away from Beacon Hills. She and the Sheriff were speaking intently but their voices were hushed, quiet enough to secure some small modicum of privacy outside of the library walls. Then came the two deputies, good people if their willingness to jump in against Peter in order to protect Stiles was any judge. And finally the boy himself, his head down and his shoulders high in Nicky's borrowed shirt, gaze locked on the ground in front of him.

He looked like a man marching to the firing squad - anxious, terrified, resigned.

The silence was heavy in the air as they disappeared into the trees, the pack slowly drifting away back to their own homes now that the excitement had abated for the night. He and Nicky waited, lingered, stiff and still in the growing coolness of evening, until Peter's pained, angry cry lashed up out of the Preserve and broke the quiet spell that held them.

"Head up to the house," Calvin said softly, dragging Nicky in by the neck and scenting him roughly, rubbing their cheeks together until the younger man squirmed against his hold. "Get some sleep. Your mother's going to want me."

His nephew nodded, his eyes suddenly much heavier than any twenty-seven year old's had a right to be.

"Night Uncle Vin," he sighed, turning away to head off to the small cabin the two of them had been sharing for years, ever since…

Well.

"Good night kid," he murmured, and then he was turning to, heading back up to the main house with a feeling like trepidation hanging heavily round his neck.