"So my mom said we could skip today if you want. Said your dad would sign a pass for you being sick." He nudged Stiles as they sat eating cereal, and Stiles grinned.
"Yeah, I just have to almost die to get a way out of school." He crunched on his cereal, chewing as he waved his spoon at Scott. "I'll take you up on that. I plan to saying fuck all to today and just putting my feet up. We have cable, we have internet. What more do we need?"
"Hell yeah! Let's do it. Oh, man, let's order pizza. Like right now." Scott got out his phone, opening the app for pizza ordering. Stiles slammed his palms on the table.
"Large stuffed crust sauce pepperoni and sausage extra cheese feta mushrooms olives and banana peppers," He breathed, and Scott laughed.
"Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, and check. No banana peppers man, I just, I'm not feeling them right now." He put his phone on the table so they could see the delivery process and where their order was at. Stiles danced a little in his seat as he pushed his chair out, walking to the sink.
"You know I think the last time I tried getting a day off I actually had strep and he wouldn't let me stay home," Stiles shook his head as he washed his dish and put it in the dish rack. "My dad's never this lenient. I mean, yeah, I almost died, but he must really be worried about me if he told me to skip school. Hey, is my jeep okay?"
"Yeah, I think your dad drove it home yesterday from the high school." Scott said as he walked over to the sink and threw his dish in. Stiles' mouth fell agape as he motioned to the dirty dish.
"Dude."
"Dude, what? It's in the sink!" Scott pointed at the dish. "I put it where it should be!"
"You didn't even rinse it out? Dude. Your mother. Your poor mother." Scott nudged Stiles out of the way, grinning as he ran water over it and put it in the dish rack. He raised his eyebrows as he motioned at its new location.
"Is it good enough now?"
Stiles grinned, then said, "I made you clean." Scott shoved him playfully, then looked over at his phone. "Steve put our pizza in the oven five minutes ago."
"Way to go Steve! Hey, let's go pick out some shows. Maybe they have some sort of marathon on that we can watch a whole day of Archer or something." Stiles walked into the living room, flopping on the couch and grabbing the remote to turn on the television. After surfing a bit, he heard a knock on the door. "Scott, pizza. Oooooooo, I remember this show. Billy and Mandy. Cartoon day, Scott. But I'm seriously thinking about going back to SciFi, they had Stargate Atlantis on."
"My vote for cartoons. One sec." Scott got off the arm of the chair, walking over to the front door. He opened it, and said "Hello," but that was it. Stiles kept surfing for a moment, then stopped.
"Did they forget a topping?" Stiles said loudly, forgetting all about their problems in the gleeful moment of day off and pizza. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously as he got up and looked down the hallway. Before he could get a good view of the door, Peter Hale was in his face.
"Okay, I'm not going to kill you but I am so close." Peter said with venom in his voice, grabbing Stiles' by his shirt and throwing him up against the wall, pinning him. He looked frantic at the other, trying to pry his monster grip off his shirt. "Where is my car?"
"Peter," A woman's voice called from down the hallway, and Peter put up his other hand, looking calmly at Stiles.
"Talia, let him speak. This is important."
Stiles looked confused but he blurted out, "Impounded. Police...sorry?" Peter let go, letting Stiles fall on the floor on his ass.
"Really. This guy. Are you sure we can't get rid of him? I'm pretty sure that would solve this whole thing," Peter walked around the corner and Stiles leaned to the side, spotting Scott sitting on the floor with duct tape over his mouth, Derek tying his hands behind his back with a zip tie.
"Scott- hey!" Stiles insisted, and looked up at a tall woman with dark hair. She looked a lot like Derek, only...a bit ethereal. The woman leaned down and offered Stiles her hand. He took it, but didn't expect her to help him up and then grab his wrist with a tight grip. "Wait, come on. Can we talk here about this? I get this underlying feeling you're going to take me somewhere again. It's only me and Scott here, I swear. There'll be pizza."
Derek looked up at Stiles and then said, "No, we have to go back to the Hale house." The woman pulled Stiles towards the door, and pushed him out of the doorway and down the steps. The others followed him down the steps. Stiles watched the pizza guy pull up, and Peter walked around the car to greet the man, handing him a twenty and taking the pizza.
"Dude," Stiles said as the car drove away, and Peter opened the pizza and took out a slice as he walked towards the car. "You just stole our pizza."
"I paid for it. It's my pizza. You have a real issue with ownership, don't you? Car thief." Peter said as Talia put Stiles in the back seat of the red car. Peter got in on the other back seat, Derek in the passenger and Talia driving. Stiles tried the door handle, but it had child lock.
"Did that last time, too," Derek said to Talia as if it were casual conversation. Stiles put his hand over his mouth, rolling his eyes as he sunk in the seat. The pizza smelled so good, but Peter was glaring at him and kept it on his lap, eating it in front of him.
"So, your father is Sheriff Stilinski, Stiles?" Talia asked from behind the wheel, looking at him in the rear-view mirror.
"Yeah." He said with a miserable tone, his forehead against the window. "I didn't report you guys. Can I go back now."
"Unfortunately, you can't," Talia said, but added quickly, "I think you're a lot safer here with us for the time being. Trust me. It'll make sense later."
"You're a Beacon Hills mafia who are also cannibals warring with other Beacon Hills gangs trying to be cannibals."
The other three in the car started laughing, and Peter almost choked on a piece of pizza.
"I haven't heard that one before," Talia commented, smiling. "We're not cannibals."
"...and the mafia part?" Stiles asked, narrowing his eyes.
"We're a-" Derek started, but Talia interrupted him.
"We'll leave it at mafia." She turned into the driveway of Hale house. Peter was still laughing as he took the box in one hand and got out of the car.
"Cannibal mafia," He muttered as he walked towards the house. "Priceless."
"Come inside," Talia looked at Stiles from outside the car. He wanted to take it as a request, but it sounded more like an order. He got out of the car, his feet cold on the ground. Derek stared at him from the other side of the car, and then turned to walk inside.
"I want to know why you can't just leave me alone," He said to Talia as he followed her, and she gave him a glance, one that he wasn't sure how to interpret. It was stern, but also threatening, like he shouldn't step on her hospitality that she offered while she kidnapped him. "Look, I get it, the Hales are some sort of rich connected all-ruling presence in Beacon Hills. I get it. I won't tell anyone. I didn't even tell my dad."
As they stepped inside, Derek looked at Stiles and then said, "You told your friend Scott."
"Wh-okay, that's just an invasion on my privacy. How did you know that? Are you wire tapping our phones?" He glared as they pointed him to the back room again, seating him on one of the couches. An old woman walked into the room with the baby and handed her to Derek, who smiled at her as Luna felt his chin. Stiles stared at the two before Talia spoke again, sitting in a chair nearby him.
"The important thing is keeping you safe. I understand your worry and your fear." She leaned forwards, putting a hand on Stiles' knee. "But look. We need to be forward with you without putting you in danger. All you must know is there's forces here in Beacon Hills, and you are part of them now. And since you're one of us, you have to...be one of us."
"One of you? I don't want to be one of you. I'm going to college in a few months. I'm leaving."
"You can leave then, but until then, we need to protect you. There's things happening here that are dangerous for...you. For all of us."
"Look, I'm happy with your offer. It's very kind to want to protect me. But it's also very infuriating to end up abducted in the middle of the day so that guy over there can eat my damn pizza. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of all of this. I hate to give you an ultimatum, but I'm going to tell my dad if you don't take me back to my friend's house right now."
The baby had gone quiet, staring at Stiles as his tone changed from passive to aggressive. In fact, all of the Hales were looking at him. Peter had walked back in from the other room, pizza box gone.
"You heard him, Talia. He wants to go back home. We should put him back there. See how he handles it when the next family tries to kill him in their basement." Peter smiled at Stiles, giving him a not-so-reassuring nod. "And when you find out what happens in this town, if it doesn't kill you, maybe you'll be back. Without an arm or some other appendage, but you'll be back."
"Don't scare him, Peter," Talia cautioned, but Stiles stared at the them, feeling cornered.
"How did you know what happened?" He questioned, and watched as Derek walked over to him and put the baby in his lap. His arms went out to support her, but he looked baffled at the sudden child in his lap. Derek motioned for everyone to follow him in the next room.
Stiles waited until they were gone before he looked at Luna, smiling softly. "Hey." She smiled back, patting his face. "Yeah. Your family is full of possible murderers, but you sure are cute." She didn't understand what he was saying, so her expression stayed pleasant as she reached forwards and played with the buttons on his flannel pajama top. He pet her head, then sighed. He could leave, but getting another one of their cars impounded, he'd probably end up here again.
Derek walked into the room again, and sat on the couch next to Stiles.
"Look, we're really trying to help. I can't tell you what's going on, you don't want to know, trust me. But I just need your permission to keep you safe. You'll leave Beacon Hills in a few months, everyone's happy and alive. You don't have to do anything but keep quiet about what goes on." Stiles stared at Luna, who was crawling to the side to get something off the couch.
"I don't have to do anything?" He asked, looking at Derek. "Abductions will stop?"
"Abductions stop. But you have to promise, no matter how strange the things are that are happening, you're not going to place the Hales at any crime scenes."
Stiles pursed his lips as he watched Luna pull a crafted wolf doll out of what seemed to be scrap material out of the couch, wiggling it up and down. Wait a minute. '
"That's my shirt," He said, looking at the doll. "That's my batman shirt. There's the stain I got on it washing it with bleach! It's been missing since that day in the locker room...what the..."
"Look, this is one of those things. Don't blow it out of proportion."
"You!" He said accusingly, moving the baby from his lap to Derek's, then got up and said, "Don't follow me. Don't follow me, don't come around me, don't go near my family or friends. I don't want to see any of you anywhere near me. You all are incredibly...creepy! Who the hell takes someones shirt and makes a doll for their kid out of it? What's wrong with you people?" He threw his hands in the air, and then turned on his heel and started out the door, barefoot and on the dirt path.
Derek eventually caught up with him, without the baby. "Look, it seems wrong, but trust me. It's nothing."
"Oh, yeah. You know what's nothing? When you accidentally drop a glass loading the dishwasher. That's nothing. When you hit a bug driving on the expressway. That's nothing. You know what's a creepy something? When you steal someone's worn undershirt to make a doll out of it for your baby." He kept walking, wincing when he hit a rock.
"Let me drive you back to your friend's house. It's stupid to walk barefoot out here."
"It may be stupid, but getting into a car with a psychopath probably is even stupider, so I'm going to take my chances with getting tetanus and various infections, thank you." He stumbled for a moment after hitting a particularly sharp rock, but kept walking. Derek kept walking next to him, putting his hands in his pockets. Neither said anything for awhile, even when Stiles limped from hitting sharp objects on the bottom of his foot. When he reached a fork in the road, and pavement, he paused, and then looked at Derek. Derek shrugged, giving him an oblivious look.
"I don't know. I'm just a psychopath."
"Come on," Stiles said, glaring. "I really hate you all. I have never hated anything more than you and your family. I was having a good senior year and this is probably the worst year of my life now." He started down the right side, and Derek followed silently. "If you're not going to help, go away. You're creepy."
"Says the guy who steals cars."
"I didn't steal the car. I got away from you psychopaths in the only option I had. And let me tell you, I would do it again if I had a chance."
Derek got out his phone, and then started tapping away on it. Stiles kept limping, then looked over at Derek, using his phone like he was at a Starbucks.
"So you're not going to let me call someone to pick me up, are you?"
"Nope." He said as he used his thumb to send a text, and then looked over at Stiles. "Why?"
Stiles stopped, staring at him. "Then why are you following me." Suddenly he thought, oh god - he's walking me away from the Hale house to kill me. Maybe it was a mistake to leave. His heart raced as he stepped back, and Derek frowned.
"I'm not going to kill you." He said, and then shoved his hands back in his pockets.
"...how did you know what I was thinking?" Stiles squinted his eyes suspiciously at Derek. "...are you psychic?"
"No." He said, then looked over his shoulder. "Peter's coming with the car." At that moment, the car emerged from the trees, then stopped inches from them. Peter got out and walked over to Stiles, and held the keys out to him.
"...what're you doing?" Stiles said, looking at the keys.
"Wow, he's actually thinking about taking the keys. I thought he just innately stole cars at first opportunity." Peter raised his eyebrows, wiggling the keys. "You're driving yourself. Because you have trust issues and we're babying you."
Stiles glared at Peter, then took the keys and walked around to the driver's side. He climbed in and started up the car, and Derek and Peter climbed in the back.
He drove a ways before Peter leaned over and said, "Turn on the radio."
Stiles looked down at the radio, then hit the on button. Nicki Minaj's Anaconda started playing. Derek groaned. "Am I going the right way?"
"Yeah, but you should really change the station. I feel my ears bleeding." Peter commented, smacking Stiles' shoulder. "Come on."
Stiles hit the button to go up a station, and Britney Spear's Work Bitch came on. He heard Derek groan again and mutter, "Turn it off."
"Hit it again."
"Look, I'm not surfing the radio while I'm driving. I'm already driving barefoot and I'm pretty sure I have glass on my right foot so get off my back," He said hotly, and Peter started poking him.
"Don't." Stiles warned, feeling the jab in his shoulder again. He started speeding, trying to lean forwards so Peter couldn't reach him. For awhile, he thought he had avoided his annoying passenger. Miley Cyrus We Can't Stop came on the radio. Stiles finally started passing houses, and he felt something grabbing his neck through the hole in the head rest. He jumped and slammed on the brake. "What the hell is wrong with you?" He turned and glared at Peter, who motioned to the radio.
"Just turn it off." He said, and Stiles pressed the button.
"You happy?"
"No," Peter said with a smile, and looked out the window. Stiles stomped on the gas, looking in the rear-view mirror at Derek, who was staring back at him seriously. He frowned and looked back at the road, driving in silence back to Scott's. He got out of the car and headed for the front door, not saying a word to his chaperons in the back of the car as he left. He heard the car speed off before he got the door open, and he stepped inside. Scott walked in from the kitchen and hugged him, looking at him and then his feet.
"You're bleeding! Dude, sit down, I'm going to call my mom!"