Chapter One - A Boy and His Father
"Not making a wish, Stiles?"
"Dad, you still believe in that kind of stuff? Wishing on fireworks, really? That's for little kids."
"Who are you calling kid?"
"You. What did you wish for?"
"That next year-your step-mother can come with us."
"Why? It's better like this. We don't need her."
Stiles is riding a train, his hands cuffed together in front of him. He's wearing a heavy white cloak, the hood pulled over his face.
He's just another body on the train: They all look the same-cuffed hands and white cloaks. They're being exiled, Stiles knows, though he doesn't know how.
Or why.
He ignores the static voice echoing through the speakers. He's afraid.
"Everything's going to be okay, Stiles," his father softly whispers from his spot next to him. Stiles manages a weak smile, even knowing that his father cannot see it.
He is fourteen years old and he is terrified of what's to come.
His father is an important man back home, newly appointed as a high ranking officer of the Palumpolum Guardian Corps and Stiles wishes that it would mean they could go home instead.
A man had offered his father a return home, told him he was exempt. But his father had refused.
Because of him. Because Stiles was not exempt from their exile.
And his father would never leave him behind.
-x-
December opens quietly. There are no supernatural creatures to battle, no hunters to run from. Isaac and Chris Argent have yet to return to Beacon Hills, though Scott reports that they're still alive (and still together) in France.
The first few weeks are blissfully quiet. Stiles stays awake long past midnight, though he manages to make it to school with enough energy to actually participate most days. There are reports around the city that Stiles was involved in some unnamed gang activity, speculation of twins separated at birth, and mental breakdowns, but ultimately the mystery of what had occurred when Stiles was possessed by the Nogitsune falls to the wayside to most of Beacon Hills.
Safer, mundane things start taking up the bulk of conversation. There are no mysterious deaths, no missing people, no sudden bouts of thwarted attacks.
Beacon Hills seems to sit at a standstill.
It's easy then, in the quiet aftermath of everything that happened, for them to forget that all the locale under the sheriff's protection is more than just the city of Beacon Hills. Beacon County isn't much else, but there are a few more towns within the limits.
It's those that are affected first.
A young woman from Beacon Valley commits suicide on a Sunday. On Monday, a Beacon Heights city council member is involved in a fatal car accident. It continues like that, seemingly unconnected events of random death.
Until three weeks into December. Stiles wakes up that morning feeling entirely exhausted despite having slept even more than his usual. The sky is overcast, keeping what little snowfall they've had in late fall and into early winter solid on the ground. It's a bitterly cold Thursday morning two days into winter break and he has no reason to wake up.
His dad's phone is blaring the Cops theme song, the police station calling him despite the fact that he hasn't been home for more than a couple hours.
"Sheriff Stilinski," Stiles hears his dad's sleep gruff voice say.
And then his tone totally changes.
"When was he found?"
Stiles is up and out of his room in seconds. He shares a look with his dad and heads downstairs, starts up a pot of coffee for his dad and waits.
"What happened?" Stiles asks as soon as his dad walks into the kitchen, wearing his slightly rumpled uniform.
"Mayor Mahealani was found hanging from the old clock tower in the center of town this morning."
And Stiles just knows that this isn't going to be the end of it.
The waiting period is over.
-x-
The sheriff isn't surprised when Stiles shows up at the barricades of the crime scene. He thinks he should probably send Parrish or Haigh to tell him to go home, but he can't help but feel that Stiles might need to see it.
Not the body, but the crime scene.
It's irrational to assume that his son can glean anything more from the crime scene than he can. Stiles is only seventeen and hardly has the training of an investigator. But yet, he knows that Stiles needs to see this. That there is something more to this than a simple murder.
He glances back at his son a few too many times, and Parrish follows his gaze.
"You want me to send him home, Sheriff?"
"Not unless he tries to get any closer," he tells him.
He just hopes that Rafael McCall doesn't show up while Stiles is still in viewing distance of the barricades.
That's the last thing he needs. Another reason for the agent to watch his son.
-x-
Stiles is aware of the eyes on him. Haigh seems to be particularly invested in what Stiles does, and if he's honest it makes his skin crawl.
He hasn't spent much time around the newer deputies, and the only one he's truly seen in his father's company for more than a few passing moments as of late is Parrish. Even now, he sees Parrish standing beside his father like some sort of guardian spirit and interested student, carefully taking in the scene before them.
Stiles can't help but flinch as the bright light of a camera flash erupts somewhere behind him, probably the local paper taking some good shots of the scene before they finally get the mayor cut down all the way. The crime scene unit is taking pictures much closer.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you-" a woman's voice says, her breath warm against the cup of his ear. He flinches again at the unexpected contact and pulls himself backward once he's calmed.
The girl beside him is a pretty brunette and she's familiar. It takes a moment for him to place her, the lack of black light makeup and pink wig throwing him off.
She's wearing sensible clothing, all the club wear stripped away from her like an old skin. She's dressed the part of a young professional, and the expensive camera around her neck seems to accentuate that.
"Sorry, Caitlin," he finally manages to say in reply, looking away from her.
"You know my name?" She asks with honest surprise in her voice. She's blinking at him when he finally looks at her again.
"Black light party?" he offers, not wanting to bring up the other incident in which he recognizes her. It's hard enough for him to deal with what memory he has of the night of the party, he can't imagine what she might think if he brought up the night her girlfriend died.
"Oh. I'm sorry, I don't remember much from that night," she admits, a faint blush across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.
"We didn't spend a lot of time talking, and I kind of abandoned you with a bottle of water," he replies, giving her an out.
She takes it with a smile, "Well, thank you for the water then. So... What's your interest in this morning's crime scene? Teenage desire to see a dead body?"
"Followed my dad out here actually. He's the sheriff," Stiles tells her, looking towards his father. He catalogues the scene again as he scans it, hoping he doesn't miss anything. If this isn't a normal crime-which, Stiles understands his luck doesn't go far enough for this to be anything as simple as that-then he needs to remember as much as he can. His father can only get him so much information with Scott's dad still playing at overseer.
"Oh? You're Stiles then, right?" she asks, angling her camera to snap another old school photo of the scene.
"I didn't realize you'd know my name," he admitted, looking back at her. She grins.
"Only that the sheriff's son calls himself Stiles, to be honest. Oooh, they're cutting the body down now," she points out, pointing a blue painted nail towards the clock tower. The bucket of the fire truck is angled perfectly for the two people inside to catch the body,
Stiles is too far away to see what they're cutting the rope with, but he thinks Caitlin might be able to see it when her pictures come out. He thinks about asking to see them when she's done, but he doesn't.
Instead, he slinks away quietly, trying to commit the scene to memory.
-x-
It's nearly ten by the time Stiles manages to finally eat breakfast. His father let him know he wouldn't be home any time soon-something that he'd expected anyway-and Stiles had taken the few empty morning hours starting a new board. He abandoned the yarn, too many twisted memories echoing in his head. He had thought, briefly, of using his computer, but he thinks about an expansive screen of all that remained of a once beautiful world and knows he can't do that either.
He feels uneasy with things as he sets up his board, what scant details he recalls pinned with mismatched pins. The sense of wrongness he's felt since his dad's phone woke him hadn't lessened at all with time.
There's a knock on the door as he's finishing his meal, and he answers it with half a slice of toast in his mouth.
Caitlin is standing on the other side, holding a file folder in her arms and looking decidedly off.
"I'm sorry to bother you. I thought about going to the police station, but... You... You were there the night my girlfriend died, weren't you?"
Stiles doesn't understand it, of course. She hadn't recognized him a few hours earlier, so why had she come to him now?
"Yeah, I'm sorry about tha-"
"It doesn't matter, I just... You figured out what was going on, and no one believed you did they?"
"What are you...?"
"Harley said you were into all that occult stuff when I showed her my photos from this morning. Look, I just want to know if you recognize anything. I don't... I don't want this to be awkward, but I don't know where else to go."
And that cinches it. He's not a perfect person, he knows that. But someone came to him for help and he isn't about to turn her away.
"Come inside."
-x-
By lunch, the early morning dreariness has passed into outright storms. It's just above freezing, heavy raindrops falling from the sky like tiny frigid bombs.
Sheriff Stilinski is pouring over the tentative medical report from Mayor Mahealani's autopsy, wishing Beacon Hills were big enough to have a medical examiner's office like Boston or Chicago, while also being glad that it isn't.
Parrish pushes his way into his recently recovered office, his heavy wet snow boots sloshing on the rug.
"Sorry about the water, Sheriff. I brought you some lunch." Parrish holds up a slightly damp brown paper bag. He's not sure if it's wet from the rain or grease, but with the way his morning has gone he's hoping for grease.
"Thanks, kid," he manages to grunt out, wanting nothing more than to call it a day and go home to his bed.
"You're welcome, sir. Haigh took a call about an abandoned car out by the preserve as I was coming in." Parrish's lips quirk up in a sly smile when the sheriff pulls out a cheap plastic container of salad.
"My kid has corrupted you," the Sheriff tells him, but his own smile has made its way onto his face.
"There's a burger in there, too. I couldn't take all your dreams away," Parrish jokes as he heads back out.
The Sheriff wants to throw back a few more words, but his desk phone starts ringing.
Of course it does, with the way today has gone.
-x-
Caitlin's pictures are incredible. It's obvious she loves photography just from the sheer quality alone. She'd mentioned that whatever she couldn't sell to The Beacon Star were supposed to be for her portfolio, but she was hesitant to include them in anything as soon as they came out.
And Stiles can see why.
Caitlin wasn't really taking pictures of the body so much as the scene. He especially likes the picture of his father with an upraised arm, directing a couple of officers into the clock tower building.
What comes out in the photos that he hadn't seen in person is a shimmering pink symbol scrawled on the clock face above the Mayor's head. It's in the shape of an inverted pentagram, and in the center what looks like the letter V.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and calls his dad without even responding to Caitlin.
-x-
"You've had more murders in this town in the past year than the past twenty years, John," McCall continues, slapping the dark green file folder against his desk.
"I was aware of that, thanks."
"You can't tell me you're doing everything you can when you refuse to acknowledge that Stiles-"
"You will not bring my son into-"
"Your son brought himself into this! And just like other killers, he showed up to the scene of his crime to revisit it!"
Before he could yell his response, there was a loud knock on the office door and then it swung open.
"Sorry to interrupt, sir. You have a phone call on line one about the case," Parrish said, keeping his voice even.
"Thank you, Deputy Parrish. I will be taking-"
"I'm sorry, Agent McCall. I've been informed that you no longer have jurisdiction in Beacon County. Your section chief called a few minutes ago to let us know," Parrish said, stepping into the room and between McCall and the phone on the desk.
"This isn't the end of this conversation, John," McCall snarls, walking briskly out of the room.
Parrish waits a beat before closing the door.
"It's Stiles on the line. He said he tried calling your cell but I assume you had it on silent. One of his classmates approached him with some pictures of this morning's crime scene. I'm heading out to check on what he said, but I figured you'd want to talk about it with him anyway," Parrish said, letting a brief smile cross his lips.
"Did McCall's section chief really call?" The sheriff asked, relaxing into his chair.
"Yes. I made an inquiry to her last week once he finally cleared out. Seemed odd he'd be staying after that. She called to let me officially know he was being recalled back to San Diego, pending a transfer out of state. And for what it's worth, sir, I don't think your son did this."
-x-
Stiles pulls into the parking lot near Derek's building with an exhausted groan, his brakes squealing unhappily. He needed new brake pads or something, not that he had any actual idea what that something was. Brake pads were a real thing, right?
He'd poured over a few websites on his laptop with Caitlin pressed up against him for a good two hours before his dad finally called back with news about the clock search. And it had been nice, he could admit, to have a pretty girl pressed up against him. But even if he wanted to date her-which he wouldn't necessarily be opposed to knowing what he knew about her-she was happily dating Harley. Which, Stiles was a little disappointed that Harley hadn't told him she was into girls too. It made sense that she hadn't-he couldn't even remember the last time he'd really spoken to her and she had once been his only other friend besides Scott. He wasn't sure if what had separated them so much had been the supernatural shitstorm or the usual high school one, and if he were honest, he wasn't sure it mattered. They'd ultimately both failed to keep up their friendship.
Caitlin had left with Stiles' cell phone number and a promise that he would answer any questions she asked. Maybe it wasn't right for him to promise that to her without talking to Scott or Derek (or even Lydia), but it felt the right thing to do and so little had lately.
His dad had let him know that the storm had washed the clock face fairly well, though Deputy Parrish had found some traces of something that they probably wouldn't be able to identify. There had been something there, something that was impossible to see with the naked eye. Something that had only shown up through 35mm film.
But it was something.
And now it was early evening and the rainstorm hadn't let up in the least bit. The sky was mostly dark with the setting sun and the temperature had dropped enough that the rain was freezing as it pounded against his windshield. It was terrible out.
Like his mood.
He'd fallen asleep on the couch and woken up from a dream (about Derek trussed up like a soldier in some science fiction movie, handing him a pocket knife) because of the door bell.
He's in some strange forest, somewhat resembling the forest from Pandora at night, everything cast in shades of blue light. It's not the same though, he and Derek are standing on a road that seems to be made of something far more scientifically advanced than he's ever seen in real life. There are thick glowing wires around branches of trees, and the air feels light and electric. Recycled, maybe.
But nothing feels like a dream. It feels like he's lived this. Like he knows it.
"Have you ever been here before? On duty, I mean."
"No, I haven't. This area's covered by the Woodlands Observation Battalion. You scared?" Derek asks.
Stiles huffs, "Not really. I'm ready to fight if I have to."
Derek doesn't say anything for a beat, his arm reaching back to something hooked on the back of his uniform.
A knife. It's a survival pocket knife, sharp on both sides-one side a smooth blade and the other serrated. It's folded up when Derek presents it, the blade securely within the handle.
"To keep you safe," Derek says, and holds it out with the bottom of the handle pointed at Stiles until he takes it.
"Uhh," Stiles mumbles as he wraps his hand around it.
"I'll want it back," Derek states. Then he turns around and continues to walk along the path. Stiles holds the knife in his hand, a finger slipping through the ring at the top. Derek's name is inscribed at the bottom.
"Derek!" Stiles says suddenly, rushing to catch up, "I'm glad I followed you. By myself, I would have had no chance."
"Time to move. Trust me to cover your tail, and stay focused on moving forward," Derek says. Stiles smiles a little, and follows.
He answers the door with it feeling heavy in his mind, probably pays too much for the pizza. It had shifted in the box and some of his cheese was stuck to the cardboard, but he eats it dutifully with his mind still thinking of the dream.
And he couldn't help but want to see Derek Hale now, which was stupid and inconvenient and his dad had asked him not to drive in this weather.
But he had anyway, because his chest was doing stupid flippy things and he couldn't take any more research into invisible pink glitter without wanting to throw things at fifteen year old girls obsessed with vampires.
And also, Derek was the one other person beside Scott and his dad that he felt safe with and Scott had his stupid dad over for some shitty attempt at bonding.
Supernatural invisible pentagrams and a very dead mayor? So not something that made Stiles feel safe. At all.
So here he is, his coat damp from the twelve feet between his front door and the jeep, sitting in the parking lot and trying to work up the courage to go inside.
-x-
"Storm getting worse? The medical examiner called, left the message on your desk. Haigh took off for the night," Parrish tells him as soon as he gets back into the station. The office is empty other than him, the little radio on Parrish's desk playing the weather report.
"Roads are terrible. One of the Haruma boys crashed into a street light on Grant, but he's okay. Weren't you supposed to be off two hours ago?" The sheriff replies.
"Weren't you supposed to be off today entirely?" Parrish retorts with a cheeky grin. And point. He and Stiles had planned to watch movies in the afternoon, just spend the day together. And now he's stuck dealing with a murder and an understaffed office during a winter storm.
His phone chimes with and he wants to groan again at the sound. It's just a text, but it probably means that Stiles has snuck away despite his request to stay at home.
He's almost satisfied to see he's right. At least something about the day has gone as expected.
"You think I wouldn't catch all hell if I didn't investigate the mayor's murder and let you guys handle it? McCall is probably already halfway to getting assigned here again because of this. I wouldn't be surprised if they considered firing me again..."
-x-
Stiles is aware that it's fairly pathetic to still be sitting in his jeep after an hour. It's not that he is afraid of Derek, but he can't stop thinking about his dreams. He doesn't want to bring it up to Derek, to accidentally say something in reference to one of the incredibly odd dreams he's had since the ice bath. He's afraid of embarrassing himself in front of Derek, which is ridiculous because he's embarrassed himself in front of Derek plenty of times.
And maybe it's because his day really has been something kind of terrible that he feels like something more will go wrong if he tries to talk to him.
So he's been sitting in his jeep for an hour, staring up at the dimly lit expansive window of Derek's loft and trying to gather up the courage to actually get out of the increasingly colder outside.
There's a dusting of snow starting on top of the wet and icy cement when he finally clambers out, slowly building atop it. The temperature difference between his increasingly colder jeep and the outside doesn't feel like much until the wind blows, and then he's desperate to get into the building. It's enough that he runs a little too fast and nearly slips, his shoes not having enough traction. He catches himself at the last second, breathing heavily in obvious white puffs.
By the time he makes it inside, his ears are throbbing and his nose hurts. His fingers aren't doing much better under his fairly thin gloves, but he figures if nothing else Derek won't let him go back out in this.
He briefly thinks about pulling his hat off and stuffing it into his pocket, but then he decides it can wait until he's ensconced in Derek's hopefully warm apartment. He does tug off his gloves though, shoving them into the right side pocket of his coat before pulling out his phone.
No new messages are waiting, his dad's last text still open on the screen. He knows his dad isn't happy with his choice to leave the relative comfort of home, but he doesn't regret having done it. Not yet, at least. He hopes he won't, but his nervousness about the situation doesn't abate as he slips his phone back into the front pocket of his jeans and starts the elevator.
He knocks on the door when he reaches it, which is probably a surefire way to make Derek nervous. He doesn't think about that until he's already done it. His usual method of entry almost anywhere is to barge in, and Derek's has never been an exception before now.
It takes a minute, but when Derek answers the door, his face is sleep worn and his hair mussed. He's dressed in sweatpants and long sleeves, though his feet are bare on the concrete under them.
"Stiles?" He asks through a yawn, his face flushing a little.
"Sorry, wasn't expecting you to be asleep. It's only like eight thirty," Stiles replies, looking down at his feet.
Derek seems to pick up on something he hasn't said, immediately morphing into awake and aware battle ready Derek.
"What happened?"
"Someone killed the mayor this morning," he answers.
Derek takes a minute to respond and Stiles is certain it's because he's watching him. "You can stay here for the night if you need to. I need to go grocery shopping though, so don't expect me to feed you."
Stiles manages an edge of a smile as he looks up at Derek. Maybe he was nervous for nothing after all.