Heeeeey, guys, I know I'm a filthy liar, but I fell into another new special interest and am gonna stupidly be starting a new fanfic series at some point soon (because as we all know I don't make good life choices, I'll tell you guys about that when I get it on Ao3), but chapter 55 is here finally! Settle in because it's 3688 words.
Editing notes for anyone who cares! I also made some changes to a few chapters; two were just fixing inaccuracies about when the Hale fire happened and Derek's canon age (22) in chapters 26 and 49, and editing a part in 49 that obviously I wrote before headcanoning Allison as trans for this AU, where Cas doesn't know if Allison is a girl because he doesn't really get gender specific names well, and with the change it just didn't read the same way and I didn't want it to come off as transphobic, because lord knows Cas would NEVER be like that.
Replies!

WillDawg: It is indeed not a shifter and is in fact the sheriff's ghost, which gets cleared up pretty well in this chapter! Sheriff is being a spooper!

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It was just becoming night as Sam's car pulled back up to the house. Stiles and Derek were still standing out there, Derek with his arm around Stiles, rubbing his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. They watched as Sam and Scott got out. Sam raised his eyebrows in what seemed to be concern.

"Something happen?" He asked, trying not to push too hard. Stiles felt bad for giving Sam such shit all the time. Yeah the guy could be a tad nosey, but it was obviously because he cared, and at least he was considerate. Still he shook his head, when Derek looked to him, seeing if he wanted him to answer instead.

"It-It's , it's a lot, but we'll tell you guys inside…" Sam nodded, unconvincingly.

"Okay. Well, good news at least. Scott probably- might have not attacked the guy from last night."

"How do you know?" Derek asked, perking up immediately.

"We'll tell inside." Sam replied. Derek relaxed and gave a nod.

"Right." He looked to Stiles. "Are you ready to go back inside, or-?" Stiles nodded insistently.

"Yeah, totally. Let's get to it." He said, when the truth was no, he wasn't at all ready, but they really needed to go get into this. Scott nudged him worriedly as they walked back to the house, and he tried to give a reassuring smile. What they were greeted with wasn't at all comforting: Luce and Dean in an apparent yelling match. Stiles situated himself between and behind Derek and Scott as much as he could. He considered it wasn't really fair to Scott, as he had his own hang ups about yelling and fighting, but figured since this was basically about him, it justified a pass.

"How about you stop blowing the fuck up over every little thing!? I didn't even accuse you this time, you ass, I just said I would've preferred you'd stayed to keep an eye on things! Maybe if you freaking had, this wouldn't've happened, or at least we'd know what the hell was going on!" Dean shouted.

"Oh my fucking hell, and you CAN'T SEE how that could be construed as BLAMING, you absolute-!" Sam, thankfully, stepped in though not seeming to enjoy having to at all.

"GUYS, guys, hey! Can everybody just calm down a second?! What the hell's going on?" Luce didn't seem to let up much this time, just turning to Sam now, voice a tad louder, but now more pleading than maliceful.

"I'll calm down once HE stops acting like everything that goes wrong around here is MY FAULT." Sam nodded, placatingly.

"I understand, Luce, but yelling at each other isn't going to fix anything, okay? We'll talk about it later, and sort it out civilly." Lucifer didn't seem to calm down much, but he at least disengaged from the argument. He gave a pensive angry look as if about to storm off, but instead spoke.

"I need some alone time, I'll be back once I calm down…" He said, still sounding angry but trying to be calm and peaceful with his words. Then he disappeared with a woosh. Jesus, that was definitely the last thing he needed. He felt crazy enough right now.

"Dean, Why?" Sam sighed.

"He's an ass, that's why."

"You're the only one I see being an ass, Dean. You know he's been in a bad mood, and you know he hates it when you do that."

"I didn't say anything that wasn't well deserved!"

"If your best explanation is 'he's an ass', I disagree. Whatever happened, you could have worded that better. You remind him of Michael, Dean, so it's a hell of a lot more upsetting when you're blaming him more than he thinks is fair."

"Bullshi-"

"I know you think he hates you and would never ever give a shit what you think, but whether you want to believe it or not, it hurts his feelings. He honestly respects you more than Mike and he expects a hell of a lot better from you than that. So can you please just try to be respectful when I'm not here to babysit you both?" Sam said in a tone that made clear he was done talking about it. "Now, what happened?" Dean glanced over to Stiles and he stepped forward, Scott and Derek doing the same, but going their own ways, Derek staying near, and Scott plopping on the couch.

"We were hanging out up in my room when the power went off. We were waiting on Dean and Cas to hook up the generator and…" Derek came a bit closer to take Stiles' hand, rubbing it with his thumb. Stiles' took a breath before continuing. "A chair pulled out from the table on it's own, slid over and bumped my arm…. An-And then the lights in the dining room all broke. And I just had a little panic attack, nothing big. But Derek and I were talking and we've noticed a few things like that happen recently, and smaller stuff too…"

"Wait, what?" Sam of course was completely taken by surprise. Dean was just shocked it was more than just the single incident.

"Shit like this has been happening? Why didn't you tell us?"

"I don't know dude," Stiles shrugged nervously. "We didn't notice them all when they first happened. Just like one thing, and we figured that sounded, crazy… We only just thought of the other stuff and realized it was weird." Cas sighed.

"It's alright. Dean is just worried. What exactly has happened?" He said, coming from the far side of Dean to lean against the couch. Stiles fidgeted a bit, trying to gather all the thoughts. Derek looked to him again, and he nodded. He didn't mind Derek taking the wheel here, not at all.

"Well the main thing was yesterday, when we were driving home." He started. "I was driving, Stiles and I were talking and laughing. Out of nowhere the steering wheel jerked left so hard I couldn't stop it. We went flying into the other lane-"

"Fucking damn it…" Dean interrupted.

"Wait though." Derek said in return. "We were barely our of our lane when a car barreled around the corner just ahead of us in our lane going the wrong direction, 70-80 miles an hour. Thing took the right taillight off and just kept going like it was nothing. I had to brake before we went face first into the trees, but still, if we hadn't turned when we did, I think we'd be in pieces right now…" Stiles nodded, finally finding his words.

"And when Derek stayed over, the light turned off in the middle of the night. We didn't do it, and I asked all of you guys, and no one knew anything about it. And then there was when we were in the basement, and the keyless lock locked on the other side, and you thought it was Luc. And me and Derek have both felt eyes on us, and Scott keeps getting cold… And…" His voice caught in his lungs. He didn't want to bring it up. He didn't want to admit it.

"What is it, Stiles?" Dean and Sam both asked, a beat off sync, and Dean sounding more nervous than Sam. He sighed.

"During my game, before I got hurt- Cas knows- I… I stopped because a voice told me to. I brushed it off at the time and figured it was just self preservation, and my head playing tricks on me… but it didn't sound... Like that…" Sam nodded seeming to catch on.

"What did it sound like?"

"It…. It sounded like my dad." Stiles said in a resigned, matter of fact mutter, swallowing the lump in his throat.

"Shit…" Dean sighed immediately. Stiles couldn't have felt more like a burden than at this moment, he didn't think… This was all his fault. "Well, if it's focusing around You-"

"It's not." Scott cut in. "I saw him earlier while I was at work. Tara said people'd been seeing him at the station too."

"Stiles. Wasn't your father was cremated?" Sam furrowed his brow.

"He was. And they burned his badge with him too, out of respect."

"Do you have anything that was specifically his? Anything at all?" Cas asked.

"Nah, he wasn't attached to much. All I had that was his was a partial bottle of JD. And that's long gone. We had it the night Scott got bit." Derek perked up a bit as he chimed in.

"No, it isn't. I still have it, it's at my place."

"Oh, yeah." Stiles said, trying to let it cheer him up. "I forgot about you stealing that again…"

"I… wouldn't have if I had known. Sorry..." Derek said in a tone that, for him, was bashful. Stiles squeezed his hand, giving a smile.

"Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. Besides, couldn't really be mad at my knight in shining… eyes?".

"Gross. Bring the bottle over tomorrow night, alright? We'll take care of it." Dean said before Derek got a chance to respond, shaking his head in dismissal. Stiles bit his lip.

"And that'll make my dad pass on?" Dean gave a look indicating it was more complicated than that, but nodded.

"If it's what's keeping him here, yeah, that basically it." Stiles mulled that over a moment before nodding.

"Good..." It was definitely time for a topic change. "Uh- Sam, you said… something about good news?" Sam nodded, taking the hint.

"Uh, yeah. It seems like there's a good possibility Scott might not've mauled the busdriver." Derek gave them both a confused look.

"How good?"

"Only slightly less convincing than the chances you didn't." Sam said with a shrug. "We stopped at the hospital on the way back. Scott snuck into visit the guy."

"He woke up and started shaking after a minute like he recognized me, then he grabbed me and pulled me towards him and started screaming…" Scott sulked, still seeming guilty.

"And… that means you didn't turn and try to kill him?" Derek still seemed unconvinced. Scott shrugged.

"Sam's words, not mine." Dean sighed.

"How about you tell us about your dreams and we'll go from there?" He said. Derek seemed to tense up at that, and Stiles squeezed his hand in both comfort, and second hand embarrassment.

"Hey... " He whispered. "Don't worry. Having already heard about both, I can guarantee, Scott's is much more inappropriate and uncomfortable." Derek couldn't help but scoff.

"Thanks, but you're also terrible…" Stiles contained his smile instead giving a wink and a cheeky tongue click. Sam nodded at them.

"Derek, probably best if go over yours first, ya know?"

"Remember, tell us everything." Dean noted. "Something you think is no big deal a lot of the time ends up being super important."

"Right…" Derek nodded, swallowing the nervous lump accumulating in his throat. Stiles did his best to channel all the confidence he could to him. He could tell well enough Derek wasn't entirely comfortable in such… serious situations? "Well… The first thing I remember dreaming was… I was… with my sister, and we were in my old apartment in New York, but everything was different- it felt wrong. She asked about my classes, my thesis, and then graduation and I-I remembered I hadn't participated because th- she couldn't make it because she came back here, and I had been mad at her for it, and that was when I realized it was a dream. Nothing really changed, I just tried to ignore it, relax… But now that I knew, she asked about Stiles. Not by name, just like 'what's this guy you're dating like?' and we kept talking like normal, but then I blacked out. Somehow I knew what we'd been arguing about but at the same time I didn't. She was saying things that- they weren't entirely uncharacteristic of her, they just didn't sound right… And she brought something up that we never would've talked about, to the point she didn't even know much about it, something that happened when we were younger that… really messed me up… And the voice wasn't hers, and it- it just made my head start spinning and spiraling as we argued, almost to hysteria. And then it felt like I'd blacked out again and hours had passed, and I heard Stiles' voice telling me 'don't'. I looked and saw him standing in front of me. We were just in some dreamscape, no surroundings no noise. He said to 'come here', and I said it was a dream, that he wasn't real, and he said that was true, he was all in my head. I don't know why that made me trust him, but… it did, and so when he told me to come to him again, I listened. But then every step I took he was still out of reach. Still I kept going, and eventually I was able to reach out and grab his hand and hugged him, and I… felt weightless again. We held each other for a while and it just felt like the most blissful, peaceful sleep. But then I started to get restless. I felt the wolf pulling in my chest, like it was trying to turn, and all I could think to do to keep it in the moment was…" Derek stopped for a moment and sighed. He must've been embarrassed. Stiles' couldn't blame him. He squeezed his hand, hoping it might help. "Was to think… of any detail of him that my memory to conjure vividly enough to anchor me. His smell, his laugh, that flannel he's worn 4 times already… Anything. I just didn't want to wake up, I wanted to stay there with him in this dream. And-" He gave a much harsher sigh this time, but continued almost immediately. "And my brain went back to… when we'd said goodbye last night, and replayed… him saying 'I love you'. And the turning stopped. I relaxed, and managed to get back to the restful sleep…" Derek cleared his throat, glancing to Stiles now. Stiles tried his best to look nonchalant, he was sure though he probably still looked like a total sappy loser. "And then your uncle woke me up and I was on your roof and I kind of thought he was going to murder me for a good three seconds."

"Don't worry, Luc is fairly harmless." Sam said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

"Wait, Luc found you?" Stiles confusedly asked. "I thought Sam had. So that's why he threw a bitch fit when you got here?" Derek shrugged.

"Yeah, wouldn't be surprised, he didn't seem pleased with the whole situation." Scott scoffed a breath of laughter.

"I like Lucifer."

"Rest assured, he doesn't care." Crowley said, appearing by the couch, Juliet tugging at her short leash in their direction. Derek jumped a foot; as Scott just shrugged, apparently as used to it as Stiles was.

"That's fine. He's nice."

"The actual devil, Scott…" Dean reminded.

"I know. That doesn't change that he's been really cool."

"Lovely, I'm sure the two of you will get along great then. What are we all up to?" Crowley muttered, letting Juliet go. She ran over, stopping when she got to Stiles and Derek, snuffling them and jumping about. Derek petted her as he finally recovered from Crowley essentially sneaking up on them.

"Luc and Dean shockingly got in a fight, my dad is apparently haunting us, Derek's a huge sap, and we're about to hear about Scott's wet dream. Glad you could join us."

"Certainly sounds like my sort of party." Crowley went over to the door and pushed it closed tight, explaining how he'd gotten in. Stiles looked to Sam.

"Didn't you close that?" Sam furrowed his brows realizing the same.

"Looks like daddy's got some skills." Dean said, giving a casually impressed look. "Scott." Scott looked over to Dean. "You're up, kid." Scott just nodded.

"Mine started as me and Allison were coming out of the school, laughing. I led her to on of the buses in the parking lot. She asked where we were going and I said somewhere we could be alone, and she said 'We are alone' and I said 'somewhere we can be more alone', and we went and sat in the back. We started making out, and I started to turn, so I stopped and got up. I told her to get away and she asked what was wrong, and then I lost it… I wasn't seeing things through my eyes anymore, everything was in third perspective. Allison backed away and then turned to run, and I saw my hand grab her ankle and trip her. I pulled her back through the bus, back to the back. When I stopped she turned over and kicked me and I went flying into the back wall. She ran to the front and tried to force open the door, but it wouldn't. From the front of the bus I saw me tear one of the seats in the back off it's legs and whip it up the bus. She tried harder to get the door open and almost got it, but then my hand came over her mouth and pulled her back. Then I woke up this morning, back in bed, sweating and nearly hyperventilating. That's it."

"Those-" Sam sighed. "Are a lot less similar than I thought they'd be." Cas shook his head.

"Doesn't preclude them from being related though. They could have some meaning."

"Yeah, but what?" Scott asked, obviously perturbed and as impatient as always.

"Well, that's easy." A voice said from the dining room, making them all either jump or whip around to look, or both. A average sized blonde girl stood in the doorway. She bore a strong resemblance to Cas but reminded Stiles more of Dean in the way she dressed and carried herself. "It was your mind creating a representation of how you were feeling in the real world in your dreams. Probably either out of stress or to determine what you should do." Scott became sullen, as if this chick had any authority to go on, other than deductive reasoning.

"So, I did attack the guy…" She shrugged.

"Well, not necessarily. Personally it sounds like it wasn't an actual recreation of what was happening, but more what you were experiencing in your head. If you were sleepwalking you probably wouldn't have been seeing enough to what was happening whether you did it or not. Think about it, 'Allison' was being lead and didn't know where you were going, 'she' didn't get scared until you were sure 'you' lost control, 'she' wanted to run away but you kept pulling her back into the situation. Only when 'she' fought back to get away did 'you' not only get violent but 'you' got angry, as if 'you' were offended."

"You' had an alpha do that?" Derek asked her, probingly, but not trying to push at all. She nodded.

"I've seen it happen to a lot of newbies. Vamps too. It's an easy way for alphas to assert control over their turns. Make them hunt when they don't know how to control or stop themselves."

"So I didn't attack the bus driver?" Scott asked, confused, but didn't interrupt. She just shrugged again.

"Fuck if I know. You pulling girlie back at the end could've been you giving into the call. Or the you in the dream could've also maybe represented your fight or flight, and might've been you forcing yourself to go back and try to save the guy. Or this could all be total bullshit. Hell if I know, I'm not your therapist." She answered, throwing a dirty duffle bag on the floor.

"So there's just no way to know?!"

"Scott, calm down." Derek sighed, shaking his head. "We'll go to the school and try to jog our memories. If we were there, it shouldn't be that hard." Sam nodded as Dean walked over to give the girl a side hug.

"Sounds like a solid plan. Anyone against having dinner first?"

"Um, yes please? I'm fucking starving..." The girl said, reciprocating Dean's hug.

"Pizza's on the way." Dean informed the room. "Good to see ya, kid." He said, switching to muttering under his breath lovingly.

"It is. You should've called, I would've come to pick you up." Cas added, smile on his face.

"My phone died on my last job. Figured it was a good excuse to stop in while I was around, camp out on my favorite losers' couch."

"Bullshit, we've got a spare room upstairs. Yours as long as you want it." Dean offered. Stiles had wondered about the furnished fourth bedroom across from him. He wondered if it was specifically intended for this girl like Sam's was planned with him in mind or if it was indeed a guest room. Then he worried whether or not he'd be a bother residing across the hall. It made his anxiety nausea-inducing but he at least managed to keep his heart from kicking up and alerting two thirds of the room to it.

"Cooli. So which one's the twerp, huh?" She switched the subject cool and casual, looking between both he and Scott, and even giving a seconds glance at Derek before probably concluding he was well above adoptable age. Stiles waved in fond greeting but Cas was already stepping over between them.

"This is the bo- young man- we adopted, Stiles. This is his friend Scott, and his romantic interest Derek. Stiles, Scott, Derek- This is… Claire. She w-.. is... my vessel's daughter. I would like to think we're rather close though." Claire shrugged.

"Closer to Dean really." She said. Damn. Cas' small bewildered frown nearly broke his heart. She gestured to Dean who seemed just as bewildered and back to herself, quirking a bit of a smirk. "I mean, at least right now." Cas sighed and rolled his eyes as Claire giggled in turn. Stiles at least smiled, glad Cas' heart hadn't been viciously broken.