Chapter Text
“Can you repeat that?”
“Come on, Austin. You and I both know you heard me the first time.” Gerard raises his eyebrows with a chuckle.
“Yeah I heard you,” he replies with his own laugh. “I’m just having a little trouble processing what you said.”
“Go process it in your room,” Gerard says as he waves towards the door. “And send Allison in if you see her. She’ll be your point of contact if you need one as usual. Think of this as a final test for the two of you before I really start handing over the reins.”
“When do I leave?”
“As soon as you’re packed. No later than tomorrow afternoon. The details, as usual, are up to you to play around with. Have some fun.”
“Sure thing, Papa G.”
He strolls out of the office with a grin, nodding to Chris when they pass each other on the stairs. He finds Allison sprawled on the couch in the basement, sweaty from her spar with her dad, and flops down on top of her legs.
“You’ve been summoned,” he tells her before she can threaten to choke him out with her ankles or something. “Final test.”
“Oh?”
“Yep. Not sure if we’ve been that good or that bad.”
She makes a questioning noise and holds out her hands for him to help her with her wraps. He waits until he’s nearly finished before he tells her the news, grabbing onto her wrists and planting his weight even more heavily onto her shins so she can’t get up.
She eyes him curiously. “What is it?”
“I’ve been tasked with infiltrating the Hales. Get close to them. See how rebuilt they really are. See how the pack is actually working. Try to take them down from the inside. Finish what Kate started. You’re my contact if I need one.”
Allison tries to buck his weight off and he laughs at her.
“Seriously, get off. I have to go check.”
“No. Because if we’ve been bad or suspicious that would definitely blow it for us. If we’ve been good then I’m down here telling you the good news about our big chance to show them what we can do and you storming off with that look on your face is not the action of someone who got good news, couz.”
She jerks her legs one more time and then lets her head fall against his shoulder with a sigh. He sits and lets her breathe and wrap her head around what they’ve just been tasked with.
“This is. A lot,” Allison whispers. “Like. A lot, a lot.”
They both sigh. “No kidding,” he says.
It’s not himself he’s worried about. He’ll take the den of wolves any day of the week, no problem. It’s the fact she’ll be stuck here in the nest of vipers. If anything goes wrong, if they don’t play this whole thing carefully, he has no way to help her.
“Okay.” She pulls away with a laugh, crisis already processed and sent to the correct corner of her mind to deal with later. “Okay. I got this, couz. It’s what we’ve been planning, what we’ve been training for. You go pretty yourself up to catch the eye of a Hale and I’ll keep Grandpa from breathing down our necks.”
This time when she jerks her legs he lets himself be knocked to the floor with a laugh. He bats at her ankles and rolls across the floor after her, laughing even harder when she has to do a fancy little quickstep across the basement to get away from him. She flips him off from the bottom of the stairs, which just makes him laugh even more, before turning and hurrying up them.
His laughter quiets to chuckles as he hears someone coming down the stairs. It dies off completely when Chris steps into the basement.
“No,” he groans when Chris rolls his shoulders and shakes out his hands, warming up to go another round. He had been hoping getting his assignment would get him out of training. Clearly not. “No. You can’t mess up my face, Uncle Chris. I have to go play nice with werewolves and get them to like me.”
“Then don’t let me hit your face,” Chris says. Like it’s that fucking simple. Chris is a menace and the only person who comes close to beating him in hand to hand is Allison. Just like Kate is the only one close to him at the range. The only thing he can best Chris in is witty one-liners and sarcastic quips. “Or do let me hit it. Maybe they’ll feel sorry for you. Swoop in and save you from the bad choices you’ve made in life to lead you down this road.”
“I hate you so much,” he grumbles. “So, so much.”
Chris smiles down at him. Which is the only warning he gets before Chris kicks out at him and he has to roll away to save his face.
He tosses his duffel bag into the back of the SUV with a wince at the ache in his shoulder. Most of his injuries from that last spar with Chris should be healed by the time he makes it to Beacon Hills, minor as they all are, but he’s pretty sure the cut on his cheek and the bruising on his shoulder will last him most of the week. Maybe he’ll get those sympathy points after all. He’s been told he has an excellent lost puppy look sometimes. Something about big brown Bambi eyes.
“Hey, Kid,” Chris calls out, jogging across the driveway. “Here. A good luck gift.”
The dagger Chris hands over is practical but still gorgeous. Smooth silver blade flashing golden in the early morning light as he looks it over.
“Thanks, Uncle Chris.” He leans in and gently tosses it on the passenger seat with his phone. “It’s great.”
Chris pulls him into a quick hug and pats his back a few times.
“Get home safe, okay?”
“Of course,” he laughs. “You know me.”
“Yeah,” Chris laughs too. “That’s why I said it. Go. Do what you need to do. Make sure to finish it. Don’t get my daughter into too much trouble.”
“I can speak for myself, thanks,” Allison says from behind Chris, startling them both. She laughs as her dad walks away muttering something about kids being the death of him.
“Watch your back,” he says when Chris shuts the front door behind him.
“It’s not mine I’m worried about.” Allison turns to him and pulls him into her own hug. “Stay safe,” she warns him.
“Stay sane,” he warns back, their old ritual settling him back down into his bones enough he can convince himself they’ll be okay. If nothing else they have each other.
“We’ve both got our work cut out for us,” Allison mutters. She steps back with a sad laugh and watches him climb into the SUV. He doesn’t look back but he’s sure she stands at the edge of the driveway and watches until he’s out of sight.
He spends most of the three day drive to Beacon Hills trying to figure out his angle. Does he play runaway Argent looking for a safe place to hide from his crazy family? Does he try for sympathy points with some amnesia spiel? Maybe he’s just some guy who has had a shitty week and got the shit kicked out of him and is licking his wounds in some random town he decided to stop in.
He rubs at his shoulder as he stares up at the Welcome to Beacon Hills sign. That’s probably the best bet, actually. Closest to the truth. Simple. Easy to make up finer details on the fly.
Because, let’s face it. He is kind of having a shitty week and Chris did not have to be so rough with him. Chris is kinda mean like that sometimes. One of the reasons he usually lets Allison break the bad news of one of their bouts of shenanigans to Chris. She can usually calm him down with the dimples and smile and batting of the eyes at her dad. Him? Not so much.
He doesn’t even want to think about how much smiling and eye batting this particular scheme of theirs is going to wind up needing by the time they’re done. He’s not dumb enough to think that Chris has no idea what he and Allison are up to. He just doesn’t know how much Chris knows or suspects. Honestly he has no idea what, exactly, they’re even going to do once he gets in with the Hales. Which he will. Because there’s nothing he can’t accomplish if he really sets his mind to it.
It would help if he and Allison actually had a concrete end goal in mind. They have a vague, fuzzy one right now. Something to shoot towards without having very many specifics. It’s been safer that way. Easier to adjust as needed over the last few years. Easier to deny if things went wrong.
He really wasn’t expecting to be shooed off to Beacon Hills out of nowhere like this.
He had let himself worry for about an hour on the drive here that they had been caught and this was Gerard’s way of separating them. Divide and conquer and all that. Wipe the board clean all at once. Then he talked himself out of that train of thought. They’ve been too careful to be caught. Over the years he’s come to learn that for all that Gerard likes to pretend he's some Machiavellian mastermind, he's about as intelligent as a bag of wet hair. It’s much more likely that the Hales are moving or growing in a way that Gerard is not super happy with and he wants to put an end to things once and for all.
Or maybe the Hales have finally amassed enough information to make a calculated move against the Argents. Were they so inclined. Which isn’t impossible but is unlikely since the Hales are, by all appearances, a peaceful pack these days.
Or maybe Gerard and Kate are just tired of how quiet things have been lately and want to shake things up a little.
No point in getting caught up in what-ifs and maybes. He can deal with whatever happens when it happens. He’s always been quick at thinking on his feet.
He shakes himself out of his stupor and pulls back onto the road. He’s not dumb enough to try driving out to the Preserve. Not yet. Instead he drives aimlessly for a little bit before he turns downtown to look for someplace to grab a bite to eat. Maybe pick a motel along the way. He’s not actually all that hungry but he hadn’t had the stomach for breakfast this morning, too wound up and nervous, and if he puts off eating too much longer he’ll get one hell of a headache that he can’t really afford to get right now.
The speed that he demolishes his burger would be embarrassing if there was anyone in the diner other than the staff to judge him and they don’t seem to be paying him much attention. Thankfully no one shows up until he’s halfway through his fries, dipping them into his vanilla shake while he stares out the diner window and tries to come up with some kind of starting point. He doesn’t need a whole plan but a place to start would be nice.
Does he try to make contact right away? Should he hole up at the motel a few blocks away for a day or two? He’s glad he’s got Allison back at the house holding down the fort and watching his back with the family but he kind of wishes she was here with him right now. Because he has no one to bounce ideas off of or steal fries from or talk to about the guy walking in wearing a leather jacket because Hello there.
“I’ve got ninety-nine problems,” he mutters as he drags a fry through his shake and watches the man at the counter. “And those shoulders in that jacket are seventy-three of them right now. That ass in those jeans are another twenty,” he adds when the man shifts his weight and props his hip on the counter as he waits for whatever he ordered. He should probably be concerned that he’s so enthralled by some stranger’s back and shoulders.
He’s not. But he probably should be.
It’s a coping mechanism. He gets distracted by pretty things sometimes when he’s stressed and the man at the counter has the prettiest shoulder to hip ratio he’s seen in a while and a neck that he can’t even process his attraction to at the moment because what?
He finishes his shake and leaves enough on the table to cover his meal with a nice tip — because you should always be nice to the people who serve you food — before he heads out to his SUV. He’s leaning against the driver’s door texting Allison and rambling about how shitty the last couple hours of his drive were and how unfairly hot some people manage to look while wearing leather jackets when he always looks like a kid playing dress up in them when he hears the diner door open. He glances up and feels his heart skip a beat when he meets the cool blue eyes of Peter Hale. He hadn’t planned on running into his target by accident an hour after he made it into town but here they are.
Shit.
Peter’s gaze skitters over him, barely even registering his presence, and then snaps back to him as Peter freezes on the sidewalk like he’s just seen a ghost.
“Stiles?” Peter breathes out.
It’s his turn to stare like he’s seeing a ghost. Because fuck his life he did not expect Peter to be here, to see him, let alone fucking recognize him.
He’s in the SUV and down the street before Peter even moves. He taps his phone a couple times and listens as it rings through his speakers.
“What’s up?” Allison asks, voice filling the SUV and he can almost pretend she’s right in the passenger seat and he isn’t half a breath away from panicking in a way he hasn’t experienced since he was seventeen. “Couz? What’s going on? Breathe. Talk to me.”
“Peter recognized me.” She sucks in a breath and he hears a door shut on her end.
“What do you mean? It’s just me,” she adds when he hesitates. “Dad and Grandpa are in the office and Mom and Kate are out shopping. So what do you mean he recognized you?”
“I mean Peter fucking Hale walked out of the diner, looked at me leaning against the car texting you, met my eyes, and fucking called me Stiles.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it. I panicked, hopped in the car, took off, and now I’m driving around town wondering if the car behind me is him or not. What do I do? What do we do? We didn’t plan for this. Me being recognized was not in our plans. We don’t even have a contingency plan for this because it is not possible, Allison!”
It’s not possible. Not at all.
It’s been almost twelve years since the fire, since the night the Argents took him and took him in. He was a scrawny little ten-year-old back then. One who spent more time running with Cora in the woods like a feral raccoon than anything else. He’s seen pictures from back then. First birthdays and holidays after that night and all that. Allison looks like ten-year-old Allison grown up. Him? He barely recognizes himself. Nothing but scrawny flailing limbs, big brown eyes, and clothes that don’t fit right.
There is no way in hell that Peter just recognized him. With one single look. After twelve years.
Except Peter did.
He is so fucked.
—
Peter’s first thought is that he has to tell everyone in the pack what he just, who he just saw.
His next thought is that he can’t tell anyone. Not yet. He can’t get their hopes up like that. Even if he knows what he just saw. He knows. He knows it’s not just some figment of his imagination. Just like he knows that the absolute fear and panic he saw in Stiles’ eyes wasn’t his imagination either.
Which is why, despite his instincts screaming at him to chase after Stiles, he lets him go.
He takes the food from the diner and drops it off at Jackson’s apartment, like he had originally planned. He texts Derek that he’s on his way out of town finally, just like originally planned. He drives his car out of Beacon Hills and doesn’t look back, just like originally planned.
Everything goes exactly as planned. He gets to Santa Barbara late that night, just like he was supposed to.
He spends most of his drive and half the night while he should be sleeping thinking about Stiles. About where he could have been all these years. About why he was back in Beacon Hills. About why he looked so absolutely terrified at being recognized. About how Peter even managed to recognize him in the first place.
That thought makes him laugh a little as he stares up at the ceiling of his hotel room. For a brief moment he had sworn it was Noah standing there outside the diner. Stiles might have been out of Peter’s sight for over a decade but nothing short of extensive plastic surgery would have kept him from mistaking Stiles for his father at first glance. Stiles leaning against that SUV, dark shaggy hair curling around his ears and a few day’s worth of stubble covering his cheeks, was the spitting image of the first time Peter had met Noah all those years ago. There is no doubt in his mind that the person he saw outside the diner earlier today was Stiles Stilinski.
Now he just has to decide what to do about it. What to do about the fear and panic in the boy’s eyes when he heard his name. What to do about the way he had jumped into the SUV and took off before Peter could even kick his brain into gear.
Twelve years without a single trace of Stiles and he’s back. Just like that.
The days following the fire had been all kinds of hectic and several layers of hell and a giant clusterfuck in general. They were dealing with the fire and the deaths of so much of their family, their pack. Cora and Stiles were missing and while Cora had been found in the Preserve a few days later, Stiles had vanished without a trace. Almost like the boy had never existed.
They never believed that he was dead. They always believed he was out there, somewhere. But somewhere along the line looking for him got placed on the back burner of their lives. He became a fuzzy reminder in the back of their minds. A piece that wasn’t really missing, just misplaced. Peter had felt, even back then, that the only reason they couldn’t find Stiles wasn’t because the boy was truly gone but because someone or something hadn’t wanted him to be found. That wherever he was and whatever was happening was a choice he had leaned into.
Seeing Stiles leaning against the SUV seemingly unharmed, in good health, and fairly relaxed until Peter called his name only cemented Peter’s beliefs from back then.
The alarm on his phone blaring inches from his ear startles him enough that his snarl has a little more teeth than necessary. He sends the group chat a message thanking whichever of them changed his alarm sound and promising to return the favor in some way — three of them immediately respond which narrows his list of suspects down quite a bit because only one of those three is a morning person in the first place — and rolls out of bed. He’s only supposed to be here for a day, two at most, and he needs to get this sorted out before he heads home to take care of whatever shit is about to unfold there.
Peter gets ready for the day, stuffs his things in his car, and heads down to the station after checking out of the hotel.
Detective Lassiter is always a delight to meet with. He’s been on the peripherals of Peter’s life since they were kids and the Lassiter family has always been a staunch ally of the Hale Pack. In fact, the Lassiters had suggested coming to the coast and taking refuge here after the fire and Peter had almost agreed, almost told Laura to go for it.
Almost. In the end the pull of Beacon Hills was too strong to just leave behind. No matter how wounded they all were.
Peter meets Carlton a few blocks from the station, settling onto the park bench next to him with a friendly smile, and listens when his friend immediately launches into a frustrated rant about his most recent cases and his partner and their consultant.
“I mean really. Come on. A psychic? I’m supposed to believe that crap?” Carlton rolls his eyes and slumps back against the bench, rant apparently over now. Peter snickers and Carlton glares at him. “What?”
“Werewolves are a real thing but you don’t believe in psychics?”
Carlton laughs humorlessly. “Oh no. I believe in them. I just don’t believe he’s one.”
“Wow,” a voice a few steps behind their bench says. “Rude.”
“Spencer,” Carlton grits out.
“Lassie.”
“I thought I told you to stay home today. Or stay far away from me, at the very least.”
“Gus was hankering for some street tacos and I wanted some delightfully smooth yogurt.” Peter glances over his shoulder and sees the man behind him shaking a small cup from the little yogurt vendor across the street in their direction. There’s a stand he passed on the way here that Peter assumes is the taco stand in question. “And you know I can’t deny my bestie anything. He gets pouty when he doesn’t get his tacos,” he adds, looking at Peter. “It becomes a whole thing. Inconsolable for days, that one.” He pops a spoonful of yogurt into his mouth and Peter only has a second to realize how strange it seems that he’s using an actual silver spoon and not just a cheap disposable one when Carlton lets out a soft sound of annoyance.
“Is that my silverware?” The man hums questioningly, spooning another bite of yogurt into his mouth. “Spencer. Is that my silverware? From my home?”
Carlton growls in a way that is far more wolf than human and Peter grins at the familiar sound. He hasn’t heard it as much in the last few years but when they were younger there were times where Carlton sounded almost more wolf-like than Peter did. It always amused him that a boy as wild as the one he grew up knowing turned into such a sharp, controlled man.
“What are you really asking me, Detective Lassiter?” He asks around another bite of yogurt. Much more and that little bowl will be empty.
“Shawn Spencer, did you break into my house? Again?”
Peter watches the two staring each other down and even if he wasn’t a werewolf he wouldn’t for a second think they’re anything but fond of each other. Since he is one he can sense the contentedness and joy radiating off of Shawn and the undercurrent of amusement in Carlton even as his stare starts to shift into an unimpressed glare.
“Oh would you look at that,” Shawn says, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. “Gus is calling for me. I gotta go. Nice to see you, Lassie. Nice to meet you, Lassie’s friend.”
They watch Shawn jog down the block and Peter could listen to him greet his friend, Gus presumably, but he’s much more entertained by watching the way Carlton tries to settle back into himself, ever the professional adult these days. Peter hasn’t seen anyone rile the other man up like this in years. Not since they were teens, really. He almost hopes that he can meet Shawn again.
“Lassie, is it?”
“Shut up,” Carlton hisses. “Just. Shut up.”
“I am disappointed that I never managed to think of that one myself. Lassie.” He chuckles. “It’s cute.”
“It’s a pain in the ass. Just like him. Now. What did you need from me? I know that this isn’t just a social visit or you would have stopped by my place.”
Down to business it is. Peter lays out the details for Carlton, explains the plans that he and Derek have agreed on, and asks Carlton for any support, backup, or information he might be able to provide for their latest attempt at setting up some treaties with the locals. It’s nothing that couldn’t have been done over the phone but Peter had been itching for a drive anyway and Derek understands the importance of it all. Of seeing allies face to face. Of meeting them in person. Of being able to shake hands and look them in the eyes.
Not that he has anything against the allies they’ve collected these last years. Not at all. The allies that their little bloodhound has managed to sniff out are nothing to stick their noses up at. Jay has always had excellent instincts and some of the information they’ve gotten over the years from Kit and Ken and the others has saved their lives.
He just rests easier knowing his allies. Knowing what they look like, smell like. Being able to pick their laughter out in a crowd, knowing their voice almost before their words register. Call him old school but Peter likes the connection.
"Are you staying the night? Did you want to grab some food or do you have to get back?”
Peter smiles at Carlton. “I should be getting back. I’ll let you head home and see what else might have been burgled from your house. Lassie,” he adds with a wink that has Carlton letting out that familiar growl from childhood. If he wasn’t wearing his suit and they weren’t in such a public place Peter is sure that Carlton would be tackling him to the ground right about now.
“I hate you so much,” Carlton grumbles. “How do I always manage to surround myself with such dicks?”
“You have a wonderfully magnetic personality, my friend.”
—
If this whole thing hadn’t been so important, if this wasn’t Gerard sending him after the fucking Hales of all things, he would have bailed the moment Peter looked at him with fucking recognition in his eyes. It’s been a solid forty-eight hours since his moment of absolute shit-fuck-fear coursing through his veins like the worst hit of drugs he’s ever experienced in his life and he’s still not sure what he’s still doing here in Beacon Hills. The smart thing to do would have been to get in the SUV and disappear off the face of the earth for good. To hit one of his caches, grab a new identity and clear out his cash, and run. To hide from the Argents and the Hales and anyone who might even think they know who he is and who he’s been.
But he’s never really ever been praised for making the smart decisions. On the fly decisions where he just jumps in and hopes for the best? Yeah. Smart ones with actual plans and shit? That’s usually Allison’s shtick.
Which is why he’s still here. In Beacon Hills. Because he’s jumped into this fucking river and he might as well see if he can make it through the water. Just because Peter remembers who he used to be doesn’t have to change the outcome of his and Allison’s plan. He just has to adjust, to think on the fly. He’s good at those things. Or he would be if he wasn’t stuck on the fact that Peter took one goddamn look at him and immediately recognized him. Who the fuck is able to do that to a guy he hasn’t seen in over a decade? One who was barely a kid the last time they saw each other. Hell, he didn’t even recognize Peter at first and he’s been looking at photos of his ‘target’ for years now.
“Did the window display do something in particular to offend you? Or is ‘angry stare’ just your default face?”
He startles at the sudden voice next to him. He’s really gotta get his head back in the game if he missed the deputy standing a polite two steps to his left. He shakes himself fully out of his thoughts and gives the deputy a sheepish smile.
“Neither?” he asks with a laugh. “I was just really lost in my thoughts for a minute there.”
The deputy watches him for a moment before he grins and uncrosses his arms with a laugh.
“Jordan Parrish,” he says as he holds out his hand. “Nice to meet a new face in town.”
“Does every new visitor get a greeting from a deputy on their first full day in town?” He can’t help but ask as he shakes Jordan’s hand.
“Only the lucky ones.” Jordan drops his hand with a wink that doesn’t make him blush but definitely makes him roll his eyes. “And you are?”
That’s the million fucking dollar question of the week, isn’t it?
He wants to stick with what he’s known the last half of his life but he also knows that being an Argent in Beacon Hills isn’t exactly the safest option. But just blurting out that he’s Stiles Stilinski to a fucking deputy who might never have known his dad but probably at least knows of the deputy that lost his life in the Hale fire isn’t a smart choice either. Peter knows who he is and he’s pretty sure he’s not going to be able to brush off his reaction to his name as anything other than the fear and surprise that it was once Peter inevitably tracks him down. Moments like this make him wish Allison was here and not halfway across the country waiting for his phone call.
“Shit I’m late,” he blurts out. Jordan blinks in surprise. “I’m supposed to call my cousin.” He glances at his phone and groans. “Like three minutes ago. She’s probably about to suit up and send out a search party for me. She’s super protective of me and this is my first real, big solo trip this far away from home,” he rushes to explain. “If I don’t call her in a few more minutes she’ll probably have a plane ticket for the nearest airport booked and be halfway to the airport.”
He tosses out a quick ‘nice to meet you’ over his shoulder as he hurries down the sidewalk towards his SUV. He sends Allison a text letting her know that he’ll be a little late calling her that she immediately replies to with a middle finger emoji that has him laughing. Right up until he’s yanked into the alley he’s passing and pressed against the brick wall by a warm, unmistakably werewolf body. He has to fight every bit of training he’s had to not immediately incapacitate the werewolf pressing against him. He needs to be friendly for now. No one here even knows who or what he is yet.
Unless Peter told his alpha.
Fuck Peter Hale for potentially fucking this all up for him before he even got started.
He can feel the cool brick against his back through his thin shirt and hopes Chris never hears about how he was so easily caught off guard like this. Especially without any weapon on him but the dagger tucked into his boot. If he didn’t know any better he’d swear Gerard had something to do with his shit luck so far.
He knows better and he still entertains the idea for a second.
“Can I help you?” he manages to grit out. The weight against his chest isn’t enough to really hurt him or even make it hard to breathe. But being yanked into an alley and shoved into a wall and having to beat back your instincts takes a bit out of a guy. Especially since he’s already more than a little tired and high-strung after the last few days.
“You’ve been summoned,” a voice beside him says and he swears to everything holy that he is usually so much more observant than this but he definitely tenses because how the fuck did he not notice the girl standing next to him. Three times in less than twenty minutes has got to be a new record for him being startled.
“Jeez, Erica,” the werewolf pressing him to the wall says. “You don’t have to make it sound like we’re taking him to be used in a ritual or something.”
“Peter wants to talk to him,” Erica replies. The disdain coloring her tone matches the boredom oozing from her body language when he manages to turn his head enough to look at her properly. She’s gorgeous in the way that only werewolves seem to manage and her low cut top makes it hard for him to focus on her words. He really needs a new coping mechanism. “You know as well as I do, Isaac. That could mean anything from an invite to dinner to an unmarked grave in the woods.”
“Uncle Jay is home now though. So the unmarked grave is less likely.”
He wriggles a little, more to see how much leeway he has than any actual attempt to get away, and Isaac’s attention turns back to him.
“As wonderfully fascinating as this all is and as charming of hosts as Peter and Jay sound, I'm already late to call my cousin and she’s a bit overprotective of me so I really should be going.”
Erica snorts and spins on her heel towards the opposite end of the alley. Isaac shrugs, gives him a little smile that is all dimples and doesn’t fool him for a second, and pulls him down the alley to where a dusty white pickup truck is waiting. A few minutes later he’s sandwiched between the two werewolves and listening to them bicker about why Erica gets to drive even though it’s Isaac’s truck as they make their way out of town towards the Preserve. If he didn’t think they’d catch him in a heartbeat — if he even somehow managed to make it out of the truck — he’d strongly consider crawling over Isaac’s lap and launching himself out the window just to get away from the noise.
By the time Erica parks the truck he’s actually happy to see Peter sitting on the porch swing. He’ll take whatever hell or torture that Peter has in mind over another minute of listening to these two argue about inane topics. Normally he could get behind the arguing. He and Allison have had their fair share of it after all. But this week has been anything but normal and his patience is a little shorter than usual.
“I hope they weren’t too rough,” Peter says as they approach the porch.
“Only some light mental scarring. Don’t worry I’ll send you my therapist’s bill.”
Peter waves the others towards the house and steps off the porch to lead him around the house down a small, well-worn path. If he remembers correctly there’s a small cabin tucked away down this path. But the last maps and plans he’d seen of this part of the Preserve were a couple years old and his memory gets a little hazy when he tries to think about his time here so who knows what’s down there now.
He knows a lot about the Hales. They’ve been his and Allison’s not-so-secret project this past year at Gerard’s urging. They’ve been part of his and Allison’s very secret project for a lot longer. He knows that after a lot of strife and drama Derek is now the pack’s alpha and Peter is the enforcer. Not quite the infamously titled Left Hand. The Hale pack, like a lot of modern packs, don’t have as rigid of a structure as they used to. Other than having someone with an alpha spark? A lot of packs don’t really have just one person per role. Many of the packmates are trusted to step into the various roles when needed or when one might be better suited for it.
He knows that most of the Hale pack have more than just passing knowledge about most creatures and beings that tend to be drawn to Beacon Hills. He knows that Peter is just as likely, and willing, to get his hands dirty for the pack as any other member he’s found information about. Which isn’t nearly as much as he’d like to have considering he’s been working on his own personal Hale bestiary of sorts for almost a decade now. It’s contained entirely in his and Allison’s minds because they may be reckless sometimes but they aren’t stupid. But it’s there. All that being said, he can find a lot of information about some of the pack and next to nothing about others. Which is entirely deliberate. And he can respect that.
It still drives him nuts.
Like this mysterious Uncle Jay that Isaac mentioned. There are a handful of ‘J’ names — Jasons and Johns and Jacks — that the Hales are associated with. A couple that are, by blood or marriage, actually Hales. Nothing that he can find narrows down just which one is the one that’s been here at the Preserve the last few years and yeah his memory may be fuzzy but he doesn’t remember a single ‘J’ name around while he was here.
“I have it on good authority that Jay is home so you won’t be able to leave me in an unmarked grave,” he says. A few steps later the little cabin comes into view and Peter pauses a moment, head tilted just enough that he knows Peter’s listening to something inside. “Just. You know. Throwing that out there.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Peter practically purrs as he takes the last few steps to the porch and leans against it. “An unmarked grave is the least of your worries right now. If I were you I’d be more concerned about explaining the last twelve years of your life. Starting with the night of the fire and ending with you coming back to Beacon Hills smelling of wolfsbane and gunpowder like a hunter.”
He stares at Peter for a moment, thoughts tumbling and rushing through his head in that same pure panic as the other morning outside the diner. Something about Peter’s tone sets off warning bells in his mind and he spits out the first thought his mind lands on.
“You don’t honestly think I had something to do with the fire?” He scoffs when Peter simply stares at him. “Come on. I was ten!”
“I don’t know. It would go a long way to explaining how a ten-year-old survived the fire, went missing, and was apparently conveniently adopted by the very same family that started said fire.” Peter crosses his arms and he refuses to let himself focus on the way Peter’s muscles strain against his ridiculously tight shirt. No matter how much his panicked brain wants to latch onto the readily available distraction. “Tell me, little one. Do you have a better explanation? Because I distinctly remember tucking you and Cora in that night and they found her hidden under the Nemeton with no recollection of how she got there three days later and you had been, seemingly, wiped out of existence.” Little one. Fuck he hasn’t heard that name in, well, twelve years. “No scent. No trail. Not even a scrap of your pajamas or a scuff of a footprint.”
Peter stares at him, arms crossed yet looking as relaxed as ever, as he waits for the words to start. Stiles wouldn’t have hesitated to start talking, to ramble until he either made you lose track of the original topic or you were so invested in what he was saying now that it didn’t matter what he was talking about. In another life Stiles would have made an excellent lawyer. In this life Austin has been trained into a ruthless killer and an unparalleled conman. Peter waits and he does his best to find a balance as he tells his tale.
It’s not a night he likes to think about and he still wakes up with nightmares from it every now and again. A night of smoke and flames and ash and the feeling of his heart being ripped out of his chest.
The night Stiles Stilinski died.
Peter had, in fact, put him and Cora to bed that night. He had been the one to catch them and scold them for trying to sneak upstairs from the basement where they were having their sleepover so they could watch the scary movie the adults were watching. Then Peter had tucked them into their sleeping bags, nuzzled their foreheads, and told them to sleep tight. He can’t remember what woke him up, even now. If it was a sound or smell or some baser instinct kicking in. He just remembers waking up and needing to get out of the basement, out of the house, and to take Cora with him.
So he did. She had barely even opened her eyes as he dragged her through one of the tunnels that lead out of the house. It was the one they had been told to not play in, the one that was more than half caved in that, even as scrawny ten-year-olds, they could barely squeeze through. But they had. Stiles had tripped at the very end. Tumbled into the dirt and sliced his knee open on some rocks. Deep enough to still have a scar a decade later. He managed to push himself to his feet and pull Cora out of the tunnel behind him.
He looked back towards the house and saw fire and smoke and an eerie sort of wrongness in the air that seemed to make Cora tired and dizzy in a way he’d never seen before. So he did what he had been taught. What his mom and dad had taught him to do if anything ever happened: help himself and those closest to him before going back. He pulled Cora into the woods, as deep as he dared, and hid her under the Nemeton. Down in the shelter where she’d have food and water and be safe until the others found her.
He was on his way back towards the house, towards the smoke and fire, to try and find his parents or any of the other Hales when someone came out of the woods and grabbed him. Covered his mouth, carried him away, and threw him in the back of an SUV before he even realized what happened.
He got brought to Kate and once again he did what he was taught, what his parents taught him. He was bright enough to recognize hunters, to know the kinds of tactics they’d use against a kid. Especially a kid they didn’t think really knew anything about anything. He played dumb and scared while trying to act tough. Made up a story. Told them he had ran away from home a few weeks before. He had absent parents who, as far as he knew, didn’t even bother reporting him missing. He was hiding in the woods because he knew no one really went out there and when he saw the fire he was curious and wanted a closer look.
He still doesn’t know if Kate really bought the story but she bought enough of it to bring him to Gerard.
Gerard questioned him harder. Didn’t hesitate to push more. To treat him less like a kid and more like an enemy. He told Stiles that everyone in that house was dead. Burned to ashes. Then a bright gleam came into his eyes. Something that had Stiles swallowing down the tears that had been threatening to fall from the thought of his parents being dead. Because Stiles knew of the Argents already. Knew that if they wanted something dead there was very, very little chance of survival. Gerard told him that unless Stiles wanted to join the ranks of dead things that he would fall in line. Join the cause. Fight the good fight against the things that are really out there and that he was lucky to have been found by the Argents and not the monsters that were the Hales.
In fact, Gerard had said, Stiles was basically dead either way. The question was if he was going to stay dead or allow himself to be reborn into something new, something better.
“So,” he says with a shrug. “Stiles Stilinski died. Better to let the Stilinski name die in that fire than to let it be dragged through the mud by the likes of Gerard Argent right? I let them think that I was just some dumb kid. Wrong place, wrong time. I did what my parents taught me. I helped myself and those closest to me until I could go back for the others. I still have no clue what story he fed to Chris and Victoria for sure. I just know I was told I was Austin now and that I was going to live with my cousin and my uncle and aunt. When we turned thirteen they started seriously training Allison and I to be their kind of hunters and after one of our first times tied up in a basement and forced to find our own way out I broke down and told her who I was, where I came from, what I knew of that night.”
He shrugs again, gives Peter his best ‘what can you do about it’ look, and tucks his hands in his pants pocket.
“That is quite a story,” Peter eventually says.
“I would ask you what my heartbeat told you but I assume you don’t exactly trust that with hunters. Too easy to know how to cover up a lie or twist words around.”
“You assume correctly. But why not spin me some more words. Tell me why you’re here.”
He rubs his face with a tired sigh.
“That’s trickier. Because I’m not even entirely sure myself. I know Gerard sent me here as a final test for me and Allison. He told me that I was to get close to the Hales and help put an end to this feud between the Hales and Argents once and for all. Allison is my contact with the family if I need it.”
“How does that not explain things?” Peter growls and shifts his weight in irritation. Though he isn’t sure what, exactly, Peter’s irritated at right now. “Seems pretty clear to me.”
He huffs a laugh and rubs the back of his neck. This is the part he’s been trying to figure out since he got the assignment. He and Allison both.
“The thing is. Well, I told you that I told Allison, right? Like I told her everything I remembered. Told her who I was. Where I came from. Even then things just didn’t add up. Like there was no way a bunch of Argent hunters were in the Preserve that night by accident. No way that a normal fire took out so many werewolves. There were so many little things that were just off kilter enough if you knew what to look for. So Allison and I started looking closer and neither of us liked what we were seeing. What we saw Gerard and Kate doing. So we took matters into our own hands.”
He takes a deep breath and thinks about his next words carefully. This is his last card. It’s not really any kind of ace up his sleeve in terms of anything but it is one of his biggest secrets and he has a feeling it will either make or break whatever is happening right now.
Peter pushes away from the porch and takes the couple steps forward so they’re nearly nose to nose.
“Tell me,” Peter demands softly.
“Tell you what?”
“Whatever it is that has your heart tripping along like a rabbit on the run from the big bad wolf.”
This was ending one way or another. Gerard sending him here was proof of that. Either the Hales were about to be wiped out along with him and Allison for their treachery. Or it was finally time for his and Allison’s plans to fall into place.
“Allison and I have been working in secret against the Argents for the last few years. We’ve been in contact with different packs and covens. All sorts of families and creatures. Giving them enough information to stay safe. Feeding the Argent family enough information to stay off the radar ourselves. Dismantling it completely isn’t something we’ve been expecting but hopefully we can cause enough damage that recovery isn’t really an option. We’ve been working on breaking the Argent family from the inside and I have no idea if we’re still in the clear or this is Gerard’s way of taking us off the playing field.”
Peter scoffs. “Somehow your story about the night of the fire is more believable than that.”
—
Peter wants to believe the boy. He really does. The story is just unbelievable enough to be the truth. But there’s just enough of the Stiles he remembers left when he meets Peter’s eyes and crosses his arms, hands brushing Peter’s chest, that he hesitates to call the boy’s bluff. Stiles was always an excellent liar, even as a child.
He can’t just accept it. Not when the Argents are part of the picture. His family has suffered enough because of them.
“So tell me. Austin.” He can’t help the way his lip curls at the name. It’s instinct. He knows this is Stiles and everything in him hates calling him by any other name. Especially when the boy doesn’t even seem to like it much judging by the way he tenses at the name.
“Yes, Peter?”
“Why should I believe you? About any of it. But especially that last part.”
Stiles raises his eyebrows and sighs softly.
“About three and a half years ago you were supposed to meet up with the Rawlins family about an alliance. You got a tip from someone named Kit that it was a setup.” Peter’s stomach sinks and he swallows down the bile threatening to rise in his throat. “That they were trying to kidnap a couple of your younger betas. You went in prepared but still lost your alpha. You’ve been trading information with Kit since then and you’ve gotten six, maybe seven, tips from Kit about traps and possible hunters coming through town the last two years.”
They almost hadn’t gone in prepared. The tip had been so out of the blue. A text message on a phone that they barely even used at that point. Vague enough to sound mildly threatening with just enough information to seem legitimate. It had been Cora who said it wouldn’t hurt to listen to the tip. That she had a feeling this wasn’t a prank.
His little spitfire of a niece suggesting caution had been enough of a reason for them to take the message seriously. They had still lost Laura, who had thrown herself into danger to save Cora and Erica. But without that tip? There’s a chance none of them would have made it out.
“Am I to assume you’re implying that you are Kit?”
He shrugs. “Allison and I both are, actually. It’s a safeguard so if anything happened to either of us the other could still maintain the contacts and, if needed, use them to get the hell out.”
He can hear the truth of the words. Honestly he’s known the boy in front of him was Stiles since the moment their eyes met outside the diner. All of this? Has just been to see who he was now. To make sure there was enough of their Stiles left in this man raised by Argents to let him in on their own secrets. Him using what his parents taught him even if he thought they were both dead? Him finding an ally in the most unlikely place and then using his wits to slowly knock out the supports of the Argent family? Making the choice to dismantle and disintegrate the family from the inside simply because helping others is the right thing to do and to bring one of the Argents with him? That’s the Stiles he remembers alright.
Peter makes his decision. “Let him go, Derek,” he calls out.
There’s a blur of motion that has the man in front of him startling — but not reaching for the blade Peter knows is at his ankle or making any sort of move to defend himself — and then Peter is pressing a comforting hand against a familiar shoulder.
“Jay,” he warns gently.
“I know.”
He doesn’t step away. He can hear the rabbiting heartbeats in front of him. One as familiar as his own and one familiar like a dream, lost to memories that he’s never fully recovered. He doesn’t step away but he does shift to the side so that he can watch both of their faces with equal caution. Derek steps out onto the small porch and raises his eyebrows in question. Peter can only raise his in return. He doesn’t think there’s going to be any reason for him to intervene but he only really knows of one of these two people.
“Kiddo?” Jay breathes out. “Is it really you?”
“Dad?” Stiles reaches out slowly. “No they. They said. They said everyone was, all the humans were dead. Later they said the only survivors were a handful of Hale wolves.”
“Better to let the Stilinski name die in the fire than risk it being dragged through the mud by the likes of Gerard Argent,” Peter offers. “Right?”
“Jay. Noah James.” Stiles laughs. A touch hysterically but Peter understands. He’d be a little hysterical too if someone he had fully believed to be dead was standing in front of him. “It was right there the whole time. But you—”
“I’m part of the Hale pack. Claudia Stilinski died that night and, technically, so did her husband.”
Stiles lets out a sob and Jay yanks his son into a hug. Peter leaves them to it. Derek can watch over the reunion. Peter would rather not listen to Jay recap that night and the following months of hell the Hales went through. Peter and Laura especially. It’s bad enough that he still wakes up from foggy, ashen nightmares far too often. The last thing he needs is a gruesome retelling of what is arguably some of his least stable moments. Of how he was closer to death than most and clawed his way back out. How so much of his family didn’t manage to do the same. How he lost one best friend and was so, so close to losing his other.
How sometimes he and Jay look at each other and wonder why me, why us?
How never finding a trace of little Stiles still haunts him sometimes. How he still comforts Cora when she shuffles into his room and crawls into bed with him, missing a best friend that she can’t even remember anymore but one that left a hole in her that she doesn’t know how to fill.
No. He can’t let himself fall down that rabbit hole of despair. Not now. Not with whatever is surely right on the horizon.
So he wanders back to the main house, checks in on the others, and then makes his way to the garden. There’s really nothing that needs to be done right now but the act of wandering along the flowers and herbs growing and trailing his fingers along their leaves and petals settles him. Reminds him that they are okay. They’re at peace. They have the time and the space and the security to grow these non-essential things. He’s surer now than ever that it’s just the calm before the storm. Or, perhaps, they’ve just been living in the eye of the storm for so long they’ve ceased to notice the roiling, whipping winds just outside their view.
He never truly believed that Stiles was dead and gone. Because they never found a trace of him after that night. Nobody disappears that fully unless someone makes them disappear. They could just never figure out who, or what, helped make little Stiles disappear. He’s still not sure. Not after only a couple of days researching new theories and less than an hour in Stiles’ presence.
He’s suddenly so very, very tired. He hadn’t even realized, not fully, that no matter how peaceful things have been, no matter how many good days they’ve had, he’s always been on edge.
Whatever is out there waiting for him, for them? He’s ready to end it once and for all. No matter what it takes or how the pieces fall in the end. He would empty every Hale vault and hidden cache, hand over every last heirloom, bestiary, and precious gem he had access to, hand over himself if it truly came to that. So long as his family was safe. So long as the gods-forsaken Argents would leave them alone once and for all.