Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He whimpered, shook against the restraints as another current of electricity wracked through him before the whip struck, he felt his skin split open under it even as his muscles tensed. He tried, turning his head into his arm and biting down through a scream, tears prickling his eyes, he tried to get his body to relax. It would be easier if he relaxed, but he couldn't, he couldn't. The jolts, lightning bottled up in every muscle, shredding him. He gasped, his jaw unlocking, blood bubbling up from the mark of his own teeth on his skin.

He could hear Erica and Boyd, thrashing and howling against duct-tape. But he's glad, so viscerally, explosively glad that the hunters are focused on him right now.

Gerard turns the electro-shock device off, a small relief that matters none when two seconds later three of his goons are untying Stiles' wrists- which had been keeping him hanging precariously above the ground- in order to wrap barbed wire around his neck, stringing him up. Metal digs into his throat, cutting off all air supply to lungs which already ache; he's all broken ribs and boot-shaped bruises, his mouth tastes rich with syrupy iron-tang, and he's drowning more than anything, warm-wet coating his slowly closing throat. Black spots encroach, spiders crawling under his eyelids and tangling with his sight, fracturing everything. His mind goes fuzzy, thoughts stutter-stop where they once whizzed and fluttered, all fleeting-frenetic, but now it's just slower, slower, deeper, down, down, down.

The pressure, needle-tingle, releases, and his breath comes back with a blood-soaked, choking gasp, his breath returning to him as quickly as it can, despite the pain. He feels dizzy, floaty, lost.

"Not much of a talker, now, are you?" Gerard scoffs, shaking his head like it's a disappointment before nodding to one of the men looming behind him, the whip coming down again. Stiles yelps with the shock of the sting, his heartbeat nearly drowning out everything else, turning into a white-noise drum-beat in his ears until nothing else makes sense anymore. He tries to say something, but it comes out a pathetic, slurring rasp, and the hunters laugh at him for his effort. He feels his cheeks flush with shame, the skin of his palms scraping against the small pieces of rough gravel on the concrete floor.

He can't talk, but actions speak louder than words, and maybe he has a death wish, because he and the Betas aren't even close, he and Derek aren't, but he doesn't care, because all he can think when Gerard turns back to Erica and Boyd with a manic gleam in his bright eyes is: 'Protect them'.

So he drags as much of the loose gravel into his raw hands as possible, and throws it into the eyes of one of the hunters before scrambling to punch the guy in the groin, sweep kicking the other one's legs out from under them and punching and kicking and biting and screaming when the third one pins him down with a disgruntled grunt. The other two are down, one holding his crotch with his eyes scrunched, and the other having landed on his ass, face contorted in fury.

Gerard just laughs.

"Perhaps I was wrong," the old man says, "looks like you still have some fight left after all. I wonder, Stiles, how many hangings do you think you can take before you break? Would your best friend and your Alpha take me more seriously if I returned you to them mad?" his voice is bordering dangerously close to some sort of sadistic glee at the prospect. But he isn't paying attention to Boyd and Erica anymore, and Stiles, at this point, doesn't really have any delusions about getting out of this alive—or whole, for that matter.

So he swallows convulsively around agony, saw-shred raw, blood, bile, spit, and the hollow of terror in his stomach to say, even though his voice sounds wrapping-paper crackly, as rusted as the blood painting his skin, "Fuck you."

Then he throws him a grin full of every last drop of bravado he's got, chin tipped up in defiance, eyes sparkling with rebellious-flame. He is the epitome of a challenge.

And Gerard takes him up on it happily.

They let him go, eventually, apparently having other business, and Stiles isn't important enough to keep, as broken, human, used as he already is.

Stiles doesn't understand how it's so easy for people to underestimate him, but he's grateful for it. Because, yes, it's a struggle to crawl from the other end of the school parking-lot to his jeep, but he manages, and, yes, breathing is painful, a rasping wheeze through his mostly closed throat, his lungs expanding against bruised and cracked ribs, every muscle twitching and trembling with after-shocks that won't leave him, but he knows his friends are still in that fucking basement, and he knows that Gerard and his goons were just dropping him off on their way to... wherever.

Which means: those Betas aren't being guarded. And, while creeping into the Argents' garage is going to suck in his current condition, he's got a small window of opportunity to save them, and he isn't about to fucking waste it.

It's a stealth mission, and they manage to stay quiet for him, Erica's hand wrapped around his wrist, Boyd's clamped on his shoulder, black veins crawling up their arms as they all sneak out to the relative safety of his jeep. As soon as they're a mile out, though, they both start talking, begging, but he shakes them off.

"I'm okay guys. I don't need a hospital, I don't—I'm fine! Would you listen to me?!" That finally shuts them up, and his swallow is overly-loud in the sudden, pervasive silence. "This, us, hurting—that's a message to, to Scott, to Derek, whatever, I don't care, I'm not giving that geriatric psychopath the satisfaction, okay? I've got an extensive first-aid kit, and if it gets too bad I'll go to Deaton, but for now—for now, there's a Kanima on the loose, and our friends, our Pack, they need our help."

His hands tighten on the steering wheel, white-knuckling, and he feels the burn of tears in his eyes, his voice little more than a whispering rasp and it hurts to push it past his raw throat. But he continues, "I don't want them to know. I don't want anyone to know and feel guilty or any other stupid shit, please. Respect that."

It's begrudging, still wide-eyed, shaken, a little scared, but they both agree, and not five minutes later Stiles is picking up Lydia- because Peter is somehow alive and texting and he has no idea what's going on there, but he figures, if there's a hope in hell- and a minute and a half after that (he's breaking all the speeding laws, he doesn't give two shits) Roscoe's running over one lizard-i-fied Jackson and they're all rushing headlong into the fray.

No one notices, or if they do, Erica and Boyd cover for him.

It doesn't matter.

It's over now, he goes home.

Where, of course, he's met by an upset, slightly drunk father. He spends more time than he should, bleeding out and a mass of hurt, trying to get the man calm and placated with enough lies to leave him alone, but he manages.

He's just thinking about what to do with the mess that is his back- because he doesn't contort that way, he's dizzy, he's exhausted, and he needs fucking stitches- when his window, startlingly, slides open. His reaction time is incredibly off, and covering up isn't actually necessary since the two entering already know.

"What're you doing here, guys?" He asks, slurs, really.

Erica and Boyd trade a pained glance, before they come over, sitting at either side of him on the bed, Boyd taking the needle and Erica taking the antiseptic.

"Let us help," she says softly, and maybe he'd protest, but he's just. So. Done.

"Okay," he manages to sigh, listing to the side until he's leaning on her, head falling to her shoulder with this odd sensation, like a pitfall, like missing a step or the rug being swept out from under you, it's sickening, and blinding, and his head just swoops like that, his whole sense of gravity cannibalizing himself, and he whimpers with it as the sensation pulls him completely under.

And, like that, he blacks out.

One thing most people don't know, and for good reason, is that his dad isn't his bio-dad. His mom had been married to someone, someone else, when she'd ended up in a relationship with him. With his pregnancy came a sloppy divorce and paternity tests and a custody battle and, long story short, by the time he was two he'd been adopted by one very happy, newly married, John Stilinski, who hadn't cared that, by blood, he belonged to Claudia's ex-husband, Malcolm Merlyn.

Despite his biological father's status, this hadn't really affected his life much, beyond the two times that Malcolm had shown up while his mom was in the worst throes of her illness, the first time bellowing about who Stiles really belonged to, and the second time promising vengeance, since, in his mad mind, Claudia's illness had somehow stemmed from a car crash she'd experienced in the Glades while going to visit Stiles' elder brother, Tommy.

Tommy and Stiles were, defying all expectations, incredibly close, although fiercely private about their relationship, the only people in Tommy's life who knew about Stiles were Oliver, Laurel, and Thea; the only people in Stiles' life who knew about Tommy were Scott, Melissa, and his dad.

Stiles, overprotective and biased, had very strong opinions about Tommy's father, Tommy, much the same, had struggled with Stiles' dad—it was the only point, their exception to their paternal parents' treatment over each other, that they ever fought over.

Which is what made it easy, after a week had passed- his dad still stone-walling him, upset about all of his lying, and while he was equally upset and guilty about said lying, he was just as upset about how much his dad had been drinking lately- to bitch about his life to his older brother.

Tommy didn't know anything about the supernatural, so there were some things he needed to keep vague, but he was able to get more- more of how he felt, how much this was killing him- off of his chest; true, nowadays, he had Boyd and Erica, but, honestly? Sometimes it was just nice to vent to someone who was somewhat of an outsider, who you knew and trusted with all of your being, and who would love you unconditionally no matter what kind of fuck up you were.

The phone call was cathartic, it made him feel better, and he got updates, too, on Oliver coming back from the dead which... funny, that seems to be going around lately (read: Peter Hale); on Tommy's feelings for and about Laurel ("I swear, you're as bad as Scott sometimes." "I am not." "You so are, Tommy. Don't even play."), Stiles' dwindling crush on Lydia, how he sometimes feels abandoned, alone, even in a group of people, how much he hates being weak. They commiserate, and when Stiles hangs up, it's with a smile.

He's still fucked up, but he's dealing, and at least he has a semblance of a plan, now.

An hour later, he texts Derek—if the man is going to be their Alpha, if he's going to be training Scott and all the other Betas, he's damn well going to train Stiles, too.

He doesn't find out until the whole Pack meets at the Hale house and he sees the undeniable tension between Scott and everyone else- his best friend looking down, a little ashamed, but with his chin jutted out, mulish and just as defiant- what Scott did to betray the Pack.

He hadn't known, at all. He'd thought there was a truce, he'd thought they were joining Derek's Pack, and, yeah, he gets that Derek's not the best Alpha, but he wasn't even made for this, he could learn! And, and even knowing about the double-cross——knowing that he'd ever worked with that man, knowing that he'd forced Derek to...

He punches Scott in the face and doesn't talk to him for a month straight.

When his best friend finally faces up to how fucked up what he did was, Stiles takes his cue from Derek, the whole Pack seeming to be surprised by this act from him—all, except, possibly, Erica and Boyd, who've learned, after what the three of them have been through, exactly what Pack means to Stiles.

"I defer to you Alpha," he'd said, honest, earnest, looking into watercolor eyes, unwavering. Derek's face had softened with surprise, and it took him a moment to return to his usual blankness.

The forgiveness the Pack offered Scott, collectively, had been tentative, but there nonetheless.

They were a united front against the Alphas, with the exception of absolutely no one listening to Stiles about the human sacrifices until it was too late.

They succeeded in eviscerating Deucalion, Ennis, and Kali—though the twins managed to get away, and who knows where they are now? They'd lost their Alpha-spark and they weren't in Hale-territory, so it was no longer their problem. Unfortunately, while this was going on, the Darach had abducted their parents, and Deaton had come up with a horrible idea that only just might work, but it had been their only chance, so they'd taken it.

"A darkness will live inside you," he'd said.

He'd never once said anything about a demon, but c'est la vie.

And after—after the agony and the nightmares and thinking he might die, after being posessed, after causing death and destruction and losing Allison in all that madness, he finds himself lost, in desperate need of a break, unable to sleep or eat or fucking think, and, yeah, maybe the Nogitsune woke up whatever latent Spark he had, made him magic, but it also made him broken, and fuck if this isn't one of the hardest, most terrifying, horrifying things he's ever gone through.

In the aftermath, Derek goes back on his road trip with Cora, Chris spirits Isaac away to France, Peter, Boyd, and Erica stay, but they'll never see Scott as their Alpha, and Stiles suspects it's more out of stubborn tenacity than anything else. Lydia manages a scholarship for an esteemed college in London, graduates early, and fucks off to go be with Jackson. Malia- who'd kissed him and who he'd kissed back in Eichen, before realizing neither of them were in a place to really consent, and turning sexy times into only mildly sexy cuddling- goes back and forth from human to coyote, seems to be werehuman instead of the other way around, and only barely Pack, and, even then, her loyalty seems, somehow, to remain solely with Stiles, occasionally being spared for Peter.

His father dives deeper into the bottle.

Scott stops looking him in the eye.

Most nights Boyd and Erica drag him from school to the loft, force him to eat and sleep and take care of himself with concern and affection a deep-seated thing in their eyes, twin whines in the back of their throats. Peter, even, despite everything, seems worried for him, joins their puppy-piles sometimes, cooks the best dishes he knows and tells Stiles he'll be insulted if the boy doesn't at least partake in a bite.

It's endearing and domestic, but it's not enough.

In the end, after a very long weekend spent fighting ogres, with no help from the supposed True Alpha (Boyd and Erica are curled around Malia- still in coyote form- in the bed, the large one that was once Derek's, placed in the spacious alcove next to the living room with perfect sight of all the windows and doors), Peter plops next to him on the couch and says, "You need to get out of here."

Stiles blinks blearily, scratches at the dried blood on his arm and smacks his lips before narrowing his eyes—not even suspiciously; Peter has, for all of his sass, practically moved right up there with Erica Boyd on the list of people he would totally die for. "What're you talkin' about, Zombiewolf?"

"This place," Peter tells him, and his voice is uncharacteristically soft, his eyes rivers, pulling him into their earnest tide, "it's home to some of us in a way that makes us incapable of ever leaving—but it's killing you, Stiles, being here. I know you, I know you'll come back to us eventually, but you need to go, heal, rest, lick your wounds somewhere you won't be swallowed whole."

"You want me to go soulsearching? Like Derek?"

Peter snorts, before turning contemplative for a moment, easing his hand into Stiles', lacing their fingers together. "You're Pack, sweetheart. I want you to survive."

Stiles' breath hitches, and then Peter looks at him, something unfathomable, piercing, vast, in his gaze that Stiles can't fully understand.

The next day he packs his bags for Starling, and after some heartfelt goodbyes and promises to text and skype and return eventually, he leaves Beacon Hills behind, if only for a little while.

Chapter Text

Stiles doesn't call ahead, because he wants it to be a surprise, and because Peter handed over a credit card without question that, honestly, with the amount of cash he's been managing to save up on his own lately, he probably won't need, but nevertheless—if he'd come to impose he'd have called.

Instead, he rents a room, soundproofs it with abandon (his nightmares aren't of the quiet variety) in both the mundane and supernatural ways, and wonders just how long he'll be staying here—if it'll be long enough that he'll have to transfer schools. He moves in, gets to know his roommate, and then, with a decidedly fake smile- for all that he loves his brother, the past few years have been absolute shit- heads over to Laurel and Tommy's.

Tommy's been dealing, trying to, with his friend's... vigilanteism, keeping that a secret from Laurel, holding on by the skin of his teeth in the face of every new danger this life presents, what being Oliver's friend truly means.

He hates the lying, the eggshells, the fear—he hates all of it, and the resentment bubbling in his gut is threatening to boil over any second, truly, it is.

Which is why, thinking it must be Oliver- because who else would it be?- he opens the door with a barely concealed snarl, that quickly and abruptly morphs into pleasant surprise, because:

"Baby bro! What are you doing here?"

Stiles graces him with a brilliant smile, but he feels worry clench at his heart when none of that expression reaches honey-soaked penny eyes, which just look tired, bone-weary in a way that, frighteningly, reminds him of Ollie, after the island. And the hug, the hug makes his frown deepen, his gut twist, because surely Stiles wasn't this skinny before? this small?

"Is that Stiles?" Laurel chimes behind him, grinning and shouldering past him to get her own hug, cooing at the boy.

"Yeah, yeah, it's me. You miss me?" Stiles huffs, and his voice is dipped in ancient, copperine eyes full of wisdom and maturity that Tommy thinks he might've fought tooth and nail for.

"'Course we missed you, little brother," he soothes, voice gone soft and fond. No one understands him better than Stiles, and he's pretty sure the reverse is true. The boy's insecurities are a deep-rooted, heartbreaking thing, but he gets it. He has many of those same insecurities himself.

"Come in, come in," Laurel coaxes, breezy and delighted to play host to Tommy's family—more family than his own father has been these past few months, for all that Stiles is always so far away. "So, what does bring you down to Starling?" She asks after she's sat him down and served him what's left of dinner, assured that he's comfortable enough before retaking her own place. Stiles grimaces a little, though he hides the expression quickly, shrugs, picks at the food.

"Well, it's more than to just surprise you. Though surprising you is my favorite pastime," Tommy snorts at that, and feels relieved to see a little light return to his brother's shadowed eyes. "I needed to be out of Beacon Hills for awhile," Stiles, answers, gets an all too familiar far-away look in his eyes and shrugs again, "get my head on straight."

"How long are you staying?" He asks, and ignores the signs, the things that he can already see are so bluntly similar, with the desperate fervor of an older sibling who just wants his kid brother to be alright.

"The summer, at least; maybe longer."

Laurel, who is fairly similar to Stiles in some ways, both of them ferocious, stubborn, intelligent, and with the burden of alcoholic fathers in law-enforcement, asks, sympathetic smile in full force, "Does Johnny know you're here?"

Stiles scoffs a laugh, and it's a bitter thing, before his eyes get hard, "He was drunk when I told him, so who knows?"

"Oh, honey," she sighs, and pulls him into a hug that he absolutely melts into, despite the awkward angle and the table likely digging into both of their stomachs. Tommy can't handle it, he rounds the table to join in, squishing his cheek up against his brother's temple and squeezing them both tight.

"I'm glad you're here, man," he says, quietly planning to ask Felicity if she'd be willing to wreak some havoc on a certain sheriff's electronics, "it's been awhile."

"Yeah," Stiles agrees as the three draw away from each other, smiling, and Tommy feels the air of family so strongly in that moment that it nearly takes his breath away.

"Do you have somewhere to stay?" He asks, and Stiles starts nodding furiously before regaling them both with how crazy he's already sure his roommate Donnie is, a conversation that quickly derails into Laurel's work at CNRI, which Stiles is apparently exceptionally interested in, even moreso when Thea's probation gets brought up, and Stiles begins to cackle about blackmail opportunities, making Laurel promise to help him—Tommy smiles more throughout the night than he has in a long time.

It isn't until Stiles leaves, hugging them both goodbye, that he notices the boy had hardly touched his food, and had steered entirely clear of any conversation regarding Oliver or the Hood after bringing them up only once or twice.

Oliver... doesn't get snuck up on.

Or, at least, he never lets his guard down, so sneaking up on him is an extremely arduous and complicated task—besides, doing it could get you killed. Considering this, he's understandably startled by Stiles, of all people, somehow managing enough stealth to get the jump on him. He almost throws a dagger at the kid, though he manages to cover it well enough.

"Stiles! You—"

"Shut up, Ollie," Stiles scowls, eyes bright, determined, assessing. Oliver hasn't seen Stiles but a handful of times since he got back from the island, and the contrast is stark. Not just because the boy seems to be upset with him- which isn't a thing that often happens, they were close when he was young, or, as close as you can be with your best friend's long-distance brother- but because of the haunt in his eyes, the way he holds himself, like a warrior, the way he makes sure the exits are easily gotten to, within sight, the calm mask of someone who has been hunted, is being hunted, has seen death, but can manage brave despite it.

Those eyes have glimpses of shatter and fight in them, beneath all their honey-melt—like his eyes, like Helena's. For a long, distressed, pained moment, Oliver feels his heart breaking wondering how it got there.

"Why the hell are you and Tommy on the outs?" The boy asks, arms crossed over his chest. The expanse of his room, all mahogany and warm, earth colors, lit up only by the barest hints of starlight falling through the balcony window, accentuates Stiles, with his moon-silk skin, cinnamon moles, dark chocolate hair, and salt-crusted penny eyes, it fits him. He looks like he belongs here in a way Oliver never has, although his muscles betray how tense he is, being confined within any sort of space. Oliver understands that all too well.

"It's complicated, Mischief."

"No. It isn't. I can already tell it has something to do with you being the Hood—and don't. Don't you dare even think about lying to me, I'm not so naive as to be fooled by your masks, Ollie. I know you have a knife up your sleeve, and I know I nearly got impaled with it when I startled you, and I don't care. You keep this town safe, you keep my brother safe, you deal with your trauma the only way you know how, I get it, I do, and I have no qualms with it—but it's obvious Tommy does, and it's obvious, you, you—" Stiles makes an impotently frustrated noise, gesturing aggressively.

"Stiles," Oliver breathes, swallows. He really, really, honestly wasn't expecting this. To be outed, forgiven, understood so easily, and Stiles must see something of that in his eyes because he softens, pads over and rests a palm over Oliver's heart, like he's grounding him, them both, assuring them that this is real with the contact.

"Please talk to him," Stiles rasps, voice rough with emotion, teased a little desperate around the edges. "Our lives are dangerous enough, if we can't trust each other we're all screwed... If you died tomorrow, or he did, and this—whatever, was still between you? neither of you would ever forgive yourselves." His splayed out palm curls into a fist, and he knocks his knuckles on Oliver's shoulder twice as he walks past him.

"Fix it, you big oaf."

"Okay," Felicity says, still completely and utterly unable to get the hacker out of her systems—it's like they've embedded themselves into every crevice. Granted, their Code is beautiful, like, legitimately glorious, and pretty, a work of art, she's not even kidding, she'd drool over it if it weren't so worrying. "Do you know someone who's more brilliant than me with computers? Who knows your secret and would still have the audacity to threaten to beat you up with a rolled up newspaper? Because this is something I feel I should've been informed of!"

Oliver eases away from sparring with Diggle with all the grace of an overly muscled adonis-shaped slinky, tripping the other man up as he makes his way over to her with a smug, mildly irritating in its' arrogance, laugh. He slides up right behind her, all sweat and steel and heat, and she tenses, bites her tongue, suppressing a shiver and all the words that would very much like to tumble out of her mouth in one fell swoop.

As soon as his eyes light on the conversation between her and their hacker on-screen, he huffs out a slightly amused, slightly self-deprecating, resigned sort of breath, but his eyes go unmistakeably soft in a way she's only ever seen them do for Tommy and Thea, familial affection blooming, however mingled it may be with mild frustration—this is someone Oliver loves, and those people, she knows, are few and far between.

"Mischief," he murmurs, then amends, after a moment, "Stiles."

"Who?" Diggle asks, panting, recovering from their match, and walking over with the slightest hint of a limp.

"Tommy's little brother."

"Tommy has a brother?" She is not ashamed to admit it comes out at a high enough pitch to be considered a squeak.

"Who lives with his step-father in Beacon Hills, yeah. I didn't know he was good with computers, though," Oliver purses his lips and his brows furrow, worry invading every line of his expression, deep-seated, and she lets herself appreciate, for a moment, the fact that he trusts them enough not to hide it.

"How'd he figure out about you?" Diggle asks, ever the suspicious one, "Did you tell him?"

"No. And he didn't say, just pointed out that it was easy for him to tell what the point of contention between me and Tommy was, even though he'd only been here all of five minutes. He's a smart kid, probably one of the smartest people I know..."

"I'm sensing a 'but' in there, somewhere," Diggle says pointedly, single eyebrow raised.

"But, I think something's happened to him."

"What do you mean?" Felicity presses, she can see the concern for this boy rolling off of Oliver in waves, and it's getting to her. The man just shakes his head with a sigh, pacing over to one of the steel tables, picking up a towel to sop up some of the sweat his play-fight had earned him.

"I don't know. There was just something in his eyes when he came to see me, too much like what I see in the mirror."

That sentence hangs heavy in the air, and Diggle shifts uncomfortably as she swivels her chair back to her computer screens, neither of them knowing what to say to lighten it.

"So, are you going to?" She eventually asks, to break the weighted silence, if nothing else.

"'Going to' what?"

"Talk to Tommy."

Oliver spares her an indiscernible look, his lips twitching up a little on one side, a slanted smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "One year I upset Tommy on his birthday by spilling some of my mom's wine on his suit—or something like that. Stiles chased me almost two miles with a rolled up newspaper, screaming at the top of his lungs." He shakes his head with a huff, but he sounds so utterly fond.

"In other words, yes," Diggle assumes, smirking, and Oliver shrugs.

"The kid doesn't make idle threats, and he's a force to be reckoned with."

And then their archer is leaving, and if she had to hazard a guess, she'd say he was off in the direction of his best friend's house.

"Someone who Oliver thinks is 'a force to be reckoned with'?" Diggle intones, eyes narrowing, "We gotta meet this guy."

Felicity hums in agreement, less suspicious and wary, more in love with the amazing that is Stiles' programming and coding work. She's suitably sure that they'll become hacker-bros, and, besides, Stiles sounds... like family. Not in the way Moira, or even Thea, are, and not in the way, really, Tommy is. It's hard to explain, but she can already tell, Oliver trusts this person with his relationships, with his secrets, with Felicity and Diggle—the way he'd laid it all bare so easily, like he hadn't even been planning on keeping it a secret, from them or Stiles. He listens to him, and that's so rare it borders on extraordinary.

Whoever this kid is, despite him trespassing on her territory a little, she already feels like she can, maybe, intuitively, trust them.

Donahue, Stiles decides, is a fairly good roomie. He's boisterous and booming, a neat-freak who works as a cook in some obscure Diner, humble, and is all too happy to swap trade secrets, share the most hilarious and amazing and embellished-to-the-extreme work stories as he cooks them breakfast or dinner, doesn't seem to mind at all Stiles' odd hours, penchant for locking himself away, inability, sometimes, to actually partake in the food given.

He's got a Cajun accent and a penchant for calling everyone brother, sister, or stranger in an all too friendly manner that sometimes borders on grating, but he's nice, he doesn't think Stiles is a bother, and they shift into an easy cohabitating-camaraderie within about two weeks. Neither of them ask each other any personal questions, dig too deep, or push too hard.

But, one day, Donnie does get a little frustrated with him. Whistles loud and high and bracing when Stiles tries to excuse himself from the table early.

"You ain't eaten nothin' but coffee for about four days, 's'far as I can tell, an' you look like hell on legs, brother. Eat your damn breakfast, please."

"Donnie," Stiles sighs, aggrieved. He'd really thought he'd hit the jackpot with this one, there were boundaries.

"Stiles," Donnie returns, eyebrows raised, chin out, all strength and challenge. The guy's meaty, taller than Derek and Oliver, handsome in the scruffy teddy-bear built-like-a-mountain sort of way, tan and harry—and muscular enough that, if he tried, Stiles is sure he could hold him and down and force-feed him without even breaking a sweat.

"Fucking hell," Stiles bites out, before managing to shovel a forkful into his mouth.

"There ya' are," the man chirps, voice a study in approval. Stiles narrows his eyes at him, incredibly unhappy with this turn of events. "Thank you."

And he sounds so damn proud of Stiles for even consuming that slightest little bit, his warm eyes crinkled around the edges, pleased, that Stiles can't bear to disappoint him. He manages to clear off a third of the plate before it's too much and he has to stop. Donnie lets him up, then, but not before dragging him into a hug that feels so fucking paternal he almost cries and spills all of his fears and woes just to be held and told, for a moment, that it's alright. To be unburdened, taken care of.

But he swallows it down like so much glass, pats Donnie on the back in a silent thank you, before retreating to his room to hide and miss his father and wonder when the last time the sheriff hugged him was.

Oh. Right. It was after he got tortured, and it was tinged with vengeful fury and whiskey breath.

So.

That night he dreams of fire, a fire that isn't even his to be haunted by, the game of go, and ancient cities destroyed to the tune of a fox's laugh. He wakes up screaming, and screaming, and by the time he's fully aware his throat is so raw he has no idea if he'll ever be able to push words out of it again.

He'd only slept for thirty minutes. New record.

Stiles comes to him at Verdant, after the confrontation he'd ended up having with Oliver, looking haggard and far too old for his young years. He sighs almost explosively when he sees the stormy look on his face.

"Did Ollie talk to you?"

Tommy's eyebrows raise, "What, no hug for your big brother?"

"You look like you just got hit with the emotional equivalent of a bullet-train, so I'm guessing Ollie talked to you, and," he draws the word out, coming to lean against the bar by his side, watching the DJ set up, bumping their shoulders together, "I'm guessing it did not go well."

"Did you put him up to it?"

"Yes and no," Stiles sighs, rubbing his forehead, and he looks exhausted. Like he's been holding onto a moss-slippery rock as the tides drag him, knock him around, and laugh with their rushing waves, goading him to let go and just drown. "He needed an excuse to try and patch things up with you- which he already wanted to do, anyway- I just gave him one."

"How did you even know we were fighting?" Tommy asks, turning a little to face him, running his fingers through his little brother's hair, feeling kind of concerned with how easily Stiles leans into the touch, like he's starved for it, eyes fluttering shut, already heavy-lidded with sleepy.

"Same way I know what the fight is about," Stiles hums, and Tommy freezes, because no, that's impossible. "Stop freaking out, Tommy, he didn't tell me, I guessed. I'm good at researching and patterns, and, objectively, it was a pretty easy guess. Queen Consolidated did a lot of shady shit, and the Hood, at first, was only going after those people and companies QC was involved with, in the harmful, not-so-legal sense. Then there was the way he fought, not like a hunter, really, despite the arrows, more like a... Just. After certain experiences and certain google-fu rabbit-holes, I figured it. Then I show up and any mention of your best friend or the vigilante has you twitchy, which just cemented it. I followed up on my theories with a late-night visit to Oliver and," he clicks his tongue, "turns out I got it in one."

Very, very faintly, Tommy breathes, "You are way too smart for your own good."

Stiles' eyes are a little dark, chased, when he says, "I'm the clever one."

It doesn't sound like he's complimenting himself, it's far too bitter and resigned for that, his voice is a dull edge of a blunt object, flatter than paper and just as thin.

A breath, and he shakes himself out of it, "You need to get over it."

"What?" Tommy grits, defensive.

"He's a soldier, Tommy. He was at war- whatever happened on that island- he was at war for six years, and it fucked him up. Then he comes home, and there's a war here, too, even though it's in a different setting—and it's far more dangerous, in a way, because it's home. But he's dealing with it how he learned to deal with it, this is his way- as crazy and hard to understand as it may be- of dealing with his trauma, of putting the things he learned in hell to practical use somewhere where it can maybe protect people. He's stopped just killing, he's started looking beyond the confines of the shady ass-hats connected to his family's company. That's improvement, this is him healing.

"And if you want him to change in any way beyond that, you gotta compromise. He's as much your brother as I am. Don't let what happened to him on that island take him away from you."

"He lied to me."

Stiles looks at him, dead-on, "I lie to you."

And Tommy just stops for a moment, the anger drains out of him as fast as it came, everything his little brother said really sinking in, the way his little brother has been acting...

"You a vigilante, too?" He finds himself asking, and it's for levity as much as it is a serious, terrifying question that makes his palms sweat and his heart ache.

"No," Stiles answers easily. "But I've been through a few things."

"Like what, Stiles?"

"... Life is a fleeting thing, big brother," he says, words heavy with experience. "Don't waste time being angry at someone for being who they are. You can be angry he hid it, and you can change him, if you want to, but if you resent him for himself, then your relationship with him is as good as done, and you need to communicate that to him so he can figure out how to live without you."

The boy leans into his side for a moment, turns to kiss him on the cheek, and then leaves him to his work, his thoughts, his worry.

Chapter Text

Stiles isn't anything like what Felicity expected him to be. He's a teenager, for one, which she knew, but it's an entirely different thing to witness, because beyond his incredible capacity for wisdom and how blindingly bright he is, he acts like it—flailing limbs, comic book references, junk food, and the same capacity to ramble on that she does.

At one point he asks, "Do you have ADHD?"

Diggle, beside her, seems to actually consider it, and she looks between the both of them, lost, for a moment, "Uhhhh, no?"

"Okay," he grins, and that seems to be the end of it.

He sits on one of the steel tables with the least amount of pointy things, alternates between talking about the most random, interesting things, and using his phone to continue setting up programs and writing new code for her system. It's crazy. He's crazy.

Diggle, fortunately, seems to have traded in his wary for quickly-found fond exasperation teased protective at the edges. She's beginning to feel Stiles has that effect on people.

They're both highly amused when, as soon as Oliver comes down, he's being hit upside the head, very literally, with a rolled up newspaper. And for all of his agility, reflexes, training, Oliver can't seem to manage stopping, dodging, or out-maneuvering Stiles.

It's the funniest thing she's ever seen.

When the boy is done, though, he sobers, and all of the humor seems sucked out of the room by his steely gaze. His voice is the hardest, most determined thing she's ever heard when he says: "Tommy needs you, too. Stop being an idiot. Stop letting him be an idiot. I know what losing your best friend feels like, it fucking sucks." He pauses, then, drops the newspaper and drags a knuckle under the archer's stubbled chin, tilting his face up. He searches the man's eyes for one long, breathless moment, sighs.

"You two'll be alright," he murmurs suddenly, and smiles something that cuts deep and powerful, wrenches at you in an impossible sort of way, hits you in the depths of your soul. "Don't even know why I'm worrying." Then he brushes a kiss against Oliver's cheek and stalks off.

"Is he always like that?" Diggle asks, seeming a little bowled over in the aftermath of it all.

Oliver sighs, but the corners of his lips twitch up, and his azure eyes are impossibly soft, "Pretty much."

"You think he's right?"

"If he thinks me and Tommy will be alright," the other man says with absolute conviction, no hint of doubt coloring his words, "we will be."

Four days later, Tommy is inviting Oliver over to dinner and Stiles is handing twenty dollars to Diggle, who is altogether too smug.

Unbeknownst to Stiles, however, is the fact that, now that his older brother and his pseudo older brother are back on good terms, the two of them can commiserate and evaluate and strategize a way to find out Stiles' secrets, and figure out how to help the boy who's seemed so troubled since the very moment he arrived.

"Something's wrong with him," Tommy manages, frowning, anxious, and Oliver nods in agreement. "What do we do?"

"We figure out the problem," Oliver tells him plainly, "and then we help."

"No killing."

Oliver smiles slightly, nods again, curt, "No killing."

It's easy to find clues, just, none of them really make much sense.

Beacon Hills, a small town with too many unsolved murders and missing persons' reports and really, really random mountain lion attacks; Stiles, witness to several of these things, friend recently murdered in a mugging, a known associate of the Hales—who aren't criminals, but are sketchy enough for it to be noteworthy. There's a pattern here, they just don't have all the pieces of the puzzle.

"Do you think he's on drugs?" Felicity eventually asks, this side of exasperated.

Tommy snorts, "No. I actually tried to get him to try marijuana once- he lectured me for an hour, said he was proud that I wasn't taking anything harmful, but that it would do——something? To my brain, because it was underdeveloped and I shouldn't do any recreational drugs until I was twenty-five."

"He was actually more pissed than I was about Thea's drug problem," Oliver tells them, rubbing a palm over his face. "I just don't get this."

"Neither do I," Tommy sighs, rolls his shoulders like he's working out a kink. "He's still not eating, I'm pretty sure he's not sleeping either."

"Do we know why he's not sleeping?" Diggle asks, "Because the easiest way to figure that out would be to get him to sleep over at one of your places."

Tommy shares a look with Oliver, then presses his lips into a firm line. "You have more experience with insomnia and nightmares," he says, and the archer nods tightly.

"Well," Felicity chimes airily, clapping her hands together, "now that that's sorted—the Arrow has a skeevy millionaire to deal with."

"Which is my cue to leave," Tommy stands, clapping Oliver on the shoulder before heading back up to the club, and Felicity finds herself smiling.

"I'm really glad you two made up," she beams, and Oliver spares her a smile that's half relief and half gratitude and she thinks he's glad, too.

"So," Stiles huffs, having resigned himself to a night of movies, popcorn, and pizza with Ollie, because the man is unreasonably stubborn and wants to spend time with him. "Did you know the media reworked your name and stuff?"

Oliver hums inquiringly around a bite of pizza. Stiles thinks the way he eats could rival a Pack of wolves any day, and refuses to find it as endearing as it undeniably is.

"From Hood to Arrow, from villain to hero—you're really rising up in the ranks, there, big guy."

The man snorts, but doesn't really respond. Stiles wonders what it is about guilt-ridden heroes that makes them more stoic-blank rage-balls of manpain and martyrdom than anything else. He guesses that having to be a hero in any capacity, which means fighting and being burdened with the responsibilities of lives if you fail, just doesn't allow for the greatest mental-health. It's a harrowing, thankless job.

Even Scott, in his own way, is succumbing to it, all that being Alpha entails. If Oliver were a wolf, Stiles wonders, would his eyes be blue or red?

He sets the thought aside as they move to the sitting room that's, honestly, far bigger than it has any right to be, saturated in golds and whites like it's flaunting its' own propriety. They play chess, because Oliver is far from the person he used to be, and sitting around eating junk food and playing call of duty with him seems kind of ludicrous. Stiles talks to him about how his and Scott's relationship has changed since Allison died- though he keeps everything supernatural as vague as possible- and Oliver commiserates via his own relationship with Tommy, thanking him for pushing them so hard to make up, though he admits they still have a lot to work through, and they'll never be friends the way they were, before. Stiles gets into it a bit, about his father's drinking, how frustrating, depressing it is, and goes on a pretty delightful tangent about Danny, who he's gotten closer to since the other boy volunteered to scrub his records regarding Eichen and seal his hospital jacket at, like, CIA level, before offering to teach him how to do stuff like that himself.

"Wait, you only just this year learned how to do hacking and programming?" Oliver asks incredulously, knocking Stiles' rook off the board with his queen.

Stiles shrugs, "It kept my focus," he tells him, "and Danny said that I was a natural."

Oliver wins the round, Stiles calls best two out of three—he thinks he's learning Ollie's strategy, the man won't win again.

Oliver talks about his father, The List, though he keeps what happened on the island and his own worries close to the vest. Stiles gets it, he doesn't push too hard, beyond prying a few of the fears that are tirelessly weighing on his shoulders, and some of his guilt, out of his tight hold, pulling the mental fisted-fingers open to reveal, soothe, forgive, without any pity or expectation, because he understands well the perils of not being at fault for something, and blaming yourself, relentlessly, ruthlessly, anyway. The Nogitsune made sure of that, if nothing else. Oliver confesses, a bit, about his mother, the suspicion, but he puts up his walls after that, the subject being too hard for him.

They move onto Thea, her drug problems, his big brother problems, self-doubt and regret coloring a lot of that topic, along with far too much righteousness and aggression, which Stiles calls him out on.

"She's still a kid, but she feels like that's a weakness, because it was, for her, when you died. Her childhood was a weakness in the face of that loss, so she tried to divorce herself from it, and she didn't let herself grieve properly—that incapacity to grieve was even more exasperated by you not actually being dead, though everyone else was. How she was acting was self-destructive, true, but she was backed into that corner by the death and neglect that surrounded her—because it sounds to me like Moira was far too occupied with her depression to really take care of Thea at that time, which is perfectly understandable, but still not quite so healthy."

"Stiles," Oliver sighs, in a way he takes to mean, get to the point, kid, and the sentiment is so familiar he almost rolls his eyes.

"You have to respect that she's old enough to make her own choices and mistakes, and you can't stop those mistakes or protect her from them with negative reinforcement or blunt smash-the-enemies-faces-in tactics. She's your little sister, not a problem that needs to be solved, and, she is, also, her own very complicated person. When you talk to her- and you do need to do that, a lot more often, communication is important- you need to do it from a very different viewpoint than you have been. Take what she's thinking more into account, her personhood more into account, and dip into some of the patience you have as the Arrow.

"I get that you want to keep the two personas separate, but they're both you—your skills and experiences are all a part of you, who and what you are: a good man, with good intentions, good friends, a dangerous job, and a lot of pointy objects."

Oliver snorts at that, as Stiles absently poises to corner his king, "Most would argue murderer, you know."

"You're not a murderer, Ollie. You're a victim of absolutely horrific circumstance, and a survivor who, like I said, came out on the other side with the best intentions. What you're doing is admirable, and it's yours, because it's you," he heaves a deep sigh as Oliver completely side-steps his plans and he has to sit back and re-evaluate, because at this rate he's gonna lose his queen within three moves, and he really doesn't want to sacrifice her. "You can keep your secrets and still be yourself—not being yourself will hurt your relationship with her as much as anything else, and besides, one day, she will find out," he makes a face, "the truth is funny like that, it never stays hidden for long. Anyway, it'd feel like less of a lie, less of the betrayal it was with Tommy, if she already knows who you really are—and an archer is more capable of patience than a playboy, a big brother is more understanding and more capable of a healthy amount of protectiveness than a dark, broody hero, and a former user should be more capable of getting, at least logically, if not emotionally, what it's like to be in that place.

"My point is, you're not yourself with her, and she's intuitive enough to feel that, and feel hurt by it; it's part of the reason she gets so defensive with you. I mean, obviously, there's more to it than that, but that's part of it."

He decides to sacrifice his queen, but it doesn't matter because it pays off with a checkmate in the next five moves.

Oliver is quiet for the first half of their third game before he finally just says, "When the hell did you get so grown up?"

Which makes Stiles laugh so hard he nearly cries with it.

They don't finish the third game, going from that deep dialogue to contemplative silence to more lighthearted banter, deciding on a movie and pizza before they both turn in for the night. Stiles barely thinks on it, too sleep-deprived and giddy with companionship and familiarity, when Oliver invites him to sleep over, and agrees easily, giggling about the Queens' guest bedrooms, and how obscene they are compared to normal people's.

Oliver doesn't wake up screaming so much, anymore—he'd made it habit to be silent through the nightmares, he couldn't call attention to himself, after all, not on the island, not here.

But, for a moment, he still thinks it's his own scream when he gets startled to awakedness by the sound, and there's a fraction of a second filled with delirious confusion mingled with heart-stopping terror before he realizes it's not him, it's Stiles.

Thea's at Roy's, Moira's at the company- dived headlong into work after the depression she fell into when Walter left- and Oliver's thankful there isn't much of anyone around to see when he grabs a throwing knife from under his bed and rushes to the guest room fully prepared to gut whoever's fucking with his best friend's little brother. Only, there isn't anyone, just Stiles, tangled up in his sheets, screaming at the top of his lungs on a bed that's floating four feet in the goddamn air. The things within the room that are metal are fucking melting, and there are tiny, visible streaks of lightning skating up the boy's skin.

He's met Constantine, he knows magic when he sees it, but he still has no goddamned clue what the fuck is going on here.

"Stiles!" He calls out to him, not daring to enter the room further when the floorboards begin to rattle and quake as if they're ten clicks away from gaining sentience just to run. "Stiles! Wake up!"

And just like that the bed falls to its' frame with a bounce and a thud, and everything else, melting, shaking, rattling, stills. Oliver takes a cautious step forward, listening to the whimpering pants of Stiles' labored breathing. "Stiles?"

"Yeah," the boy croaks, easing himself up. His eyes are red-rimmed and unfocused, his whole body is shaking like a leaf, all paper-thin terror. And then he looks down at his hands, the wrong side of intense, rocking back and forth, counting.

"Stiles," he breathes, finally at the end of his bed, "what just happened?"

The boy sucks in a deep, shuddering breath, "I can't—I—. You don't have ten fingers in dreams, I have to—. One, two, three..."

Oliver swallows, rounds the bed and sits beside him, waits for the manic, obsessive counting to be done. Whatever they'd thought was going on with Stiles, it's so much fucking worse. It takes him a little over thirty minutes, to settle, to be sure that he's not dreaming anymore, that he's awake and this is real, and there's something about that so heartbreaking that Oliver nearly cries with the force of it, with the weight of watching him go over each finger, again, and again, never quite on solid ground.

When he's done counting he just goes limp, leaning into Oliver's side, head resting on his shoulder.

"Nightmare?"

"Mhmm. Sorry, you shouldn't have had to see that."

"Don't be, it's nothing new to me."

"No, it isn't, is it?"

"... When I was on the island, I met someone—Constantine. He knew... magic? Things like that." Stiles goes completely tense and still next to him. "Stiles," he sighs, "you melted the clock, you made the bed levitate."

"Oh... D'you know about werewolves?"

Oliver raises an eyebrow, admits, "No. But I met a demon, once, I think."

"I got possessed by one-" Oliver sucks in a sharp breath, pulls the kid in close, protective- "A Nogitsune. It—that's why—with the, the counting." Stiles swallows, thick, and something heavy settles in Oliver's chest. "That's what killed Allison," he confesses, watery wobble in his voice, "not any stupid mugger. Fuck. It was me, Ollie. It was me." He hitches a full-bodied sob at that, and Oliver can't take it. He pulls the boy into his lap, flush against his chest, arms wrapped around him vice-tight.

"No. I don't know exactly what happened, but I know you, Mischief. You've never hurt a goddamned soul. Whatever happened, it wasn't your fault."

"A-and," Stiles tries to speak through tears and snot and shivering whimpers, his words pressed into the side of Oliver's neck, muffled and water-logged, "d'you ever believe me when I tell you it wasn't yours?"

"... No. But I believed you when you told me you forgave me, for what I'd done."

"Don't forgive me for this, it isn't your place—you can't, no one can."

Oliver quiets at that, holds him and lets him cry it out. He doesn't know what to do with this, doesn't even know the situation to its entirety, just knows it's killing him to see Stiles like this.

Stiles shakes, fists trembling hands in his shirt, and sobs until there aren't any tears left to cry, until it's just emotion moving his body, until even that dies down and he goes still, breathing, soft, pliant, asleep again. Oliver lays him back down, gets a couple washcloths and one of the small clay bowls for perfumes and soaps, fills it with cool water, returns to the boy, washing his face clean with one cloth before covering his eyes with the other and just sitting there next to him, hip to shoulder, back leaning against the headboard, fingers running through his hair.

In the morning, they'll need to talk, but Stiles obviously hasn't been sleeping well, and Oliver would be loathe to take any rest from him when he needs it so dearly.

Something somewhere deep inside of him cracks a little, the abject horror of thinking that, maybe, Stiles went through his own hell, his own purgatory, just like Oliver had. He'd never wish that on anyone, but, god, why did it have to be Stiles?

Their little, clever, wonderful Mischief; why did it have to be him?

In the morning, Oliver is there, worry like raindrop-ripples in the oceans of his eyes.

He doesn't ask questions, yet, lets Stiles shower and brush his teeth and change while he gets breakfast ready, a frighteningly quiet and domestic thing in the shitstorms that are their lives, but as soon as he sits down for the meal, he begins the interrogation, though it's a gentle one, a kindness that makes him smile.

He should've warded his room last night, shouldn't have let the nightmare, terror, tired, allow him to be so vulnerable, so honest, but it's happened now, and. Well, it won't be too great of a culture-shock for Oliver, he guesses, if the man learned about the supernatural on the island, but that doesn't make it any easier to lay his shit bare. And, besides, some of these secrets he holds vigil over behind the sanctuary of his teeth, in the houses of his heart, they aren't just his.

So he tells what he can, what he feels comfortable with—or, most comfortable with. None of this stuff is easy to talk about.

Scott, getting bitten by a rogue Alpha (he doesn't say Peter, doesn't talk about him like that, because he was insane and he was cruel and Stiles knows, behind the egoism and snark, that man feels guilt for all the things he's done), the hunters, the kanima, Gerard- and it is surprising, that Ollie is the first person beyond Erica and Boyd whom he tells he got tortured, and yet not surprising at all, since it's something they actually have in common- the Alpha Pack, Darach, sacrifices, darkness, nightmares wrapped in nightmares wrapped in riddles wrapped in more fucking nightmares.

When is a door not a door?

He tells him about the Oni, about 'Self'—shows him the tattoo he'd gotten over the mark, to make it permanent, real, forever, like a seal, a prayer.

He tells him about what happened to Allison.

Whatever fragile Pack they'd had after Alphahood went to Scott seemed to have shattered like so much glass, after that. His dad started drinking more, harder, and Stiles tried, but Peter had been right: staying in Beacon Hills any longer would have killed him.

So he left, he went to hide with his big brother, and he's officially transferring to Starling City High for at least a year, if not the last two years, of high school.

The Pack, his Pack- Peter, Erica, Boyd; Derek, Malia, and Cora, even- keep in touch, calls and texts and skype, and if they ever need him he'll drop everything to help them out in a heartbeat, but for now he needs here, he needs his big brothers, he needs a fucking break.

When they get to the magic, he kind of blanks.

"Not because I don't want to tell you, Ollie, I just genuinely don't know. Deaton, he called me a Spark after I manipulated mountain ash with belief, but he said it was latent. The Nogitsune shook it a little more loose, I guess, but I've honestly no idea what it is or what I can do with it or how dangerous it might be. I mean, once, I electrocuted a school of cannibal mermaids, but that was completely on accident."

Oliver raises an eyebrow at this, "Cannibalistic mermaids?"

Stiles shrugs, "Beats Pixies. Although, really, almost everything beats having to deal with Pixies. Pixies are just... god awful. Like, nothing kills them, they're small, fast, poisonous, flying assholes, I shit you not."

Oliver snorts, and they leave the conversation at that for now, though Stiles knows Oliver may have a few qualms with Stiles running around with wolves, might even have a few qualms with him ever going back to Beacon Hills, but he lets it rest in the small amount of levity they've managed.

Stiles leaves without ever really touching his breakfast.

Chapter Text

Stiles thinks it's funny that the moment he decides for sure that he's going to stay in Starling for much longer than initially planned, something crops up in Beacon Hills.

Around thirty texts from Erica, one text from Boyd, five from Peter, and even a handful from Scott and his dad—it doesn't matter what it is, they need him. He does good, even under pressure that would normally crush him, when he's needed.

As soon as he gets in, he's headed for the Preserve, he can already feel it humming under his bones, his magic reacting to whatever is going on. Turns out, it's an infestation of some kind of stringy monster—and by stringy he means, their bodies are made up of long strands of something or other, like warped, sentient piano-wire, all tangled up to make a body, and if you gut the strings they just separate, making two smaller bodies made up of, fuck, whatever. There's a huge mass of the creepy motherfuckers, congealing in the woods, more harassing people in town, they kill by winding their sharp-strand cords around a person and squeezing until they're just bits and shredded pieces. It's horrifying.

Mountain ash doesn't work against them, and Stiles can't control his magic enough to work out how to fight them with that, and claws and teeth just cut them up, making for smaller, faster, more numerous enemies.

It takes three very fraught days in the loft researching non-stop with Peter and having Lydia almost constantly on video-call with them while the rest of the wolves and the sheriff try to at least keep as many people safe as possible, before they figure out what'll work. Liquid nitrogen followed quickly by a soak in spiced pickled-ginger juice, and the long, never-ending strands of their bodies disintegrate. Rounding them up is an arduous task, and Stiles almost gets vice-gripped into oblivion twice, but they manage it.

At the end of it all he sprawls out on the couch, breathless and only a little injured, Boyd and Erica curling around him, Peter going off to the kitchen to make them food with a snort at all their dead-tired and exhilarated relief.

Kira and Scott have gone to their respective homes, Malia's in the Preserve somewhere, probably running or in some makeshift den, and all's- for the most part- right in Beacon Hills, again.

"You know," he finds himself murmuring as he absently strokes soft blonde curls, "now that you're not feral, insane, or otherwise plotting all things murderous and malicious, I think I wouldn't mind you being my Alpha."

He hears something clatter and crash in the kitchen and barely suppresses a smile.

"Yeah," Erica agrees around a yawn, "I was never around for the whole," she lifts her hand to make a lazy all-encompassing motion with her wrist before letting it fall back to Stiles' chest, "you being batshit thing, though I've heard enough about it—but Batman's right. You've been good for us, and this town. I mean, if we'd've listened to Scotty-boy insteada you 'n Stiles today, we all woulda been dead."

Boyd, pressed warmly into his side, just grunts in agreement.

Peter, setting plates of pasta down on the table, says in a rough voice that belies his mild tone, "Well, I suppose, if I were an Alpha, I couldn't do much worse than you three degenerates."

"Oh, don't even," Stiles laughs, disentangling himself from the Betas and ignoring their whines of protest, to pad over to the older 'were and smack a kiss to his cheek. "You love us."

Peter hums quietly, but the corners of his lips twitch up as he sits, Stiles taking a seat next to him, Erica and Boyd grumblingly getting up off the couch to partake in the, frankly, awesome meal Peter made for all of them.

Stiles only really manages three bites on his own before he begins rambling and pushing it all around on his plate, his stomach all of a sudden pulling itself into tight knots, but he doesn't get away with it- Peter keeps reaching over, squeezing the back of his neck and ordering him to take just one more bite. By the end of it he's cleared his plate, and Peter's leaning over to brush a chaste kiss against his temple as he collects the dishes, saying, tender-sweet and proud and a little gravelly, "Good boy."

Later that night, the four of them cuddled up in a puppy-pile on Derek's old bed, he tells Peter, "Thank you. For getting me to eat, I know I needed that—I don't know why it just gets... hard sometimes. And, thank you, for, you know, telling me to take a break from Beacon Hills. It's... it's helping."

"You're going back to Starling again, tomorrow, aren't you?" Peter asks, reaching over Erica- who's curled up in between them, turned into Stiles with her back snug against Peter's chest; Boyd's taken his position at all of their feet, arms tangled with legs, his own feet pressed under Stiles' calves- to run his fingers through Stiles' hair, nails scratching gently at his scalp, making Stiles kind of want to melt, become putty, purr a little.

"Mmhmm."

Peter snorts at his reaction, massages into his hair with his fingertips, nearly making Stiles moan, "I'm glad it's helped, pup, though I think I would've been much happier if you'd found a place to go that had a lower crime rate than Beacon Hills, and less vigilanteism, for that matter."

"M' brother's in Starling," Stiles all but slurs.

"I know," Peter agrees, soft, "but I worry about you."

Stiles smiles at that, "You really would make a good Alpha, Zombiewolf."

"Sleep, pup," Peter tells him, something like authority mingled with affection teasing at the edges of his tone, making Stiles' mind feel fuzzy-slow.

Surprisingly, for the first night in months, he does sleep, and he doesn't dream at all.

Oliver and Tommy are, unsurprisingly, furious that he didn't tell them directly he was leaving, or why, and that he only really called and texted a few times in the week he was gone. But the anger quickly turns into concern at the sight of him, bruised and covered in cuts, a few of which needed some stitches. He sighs and rolls his eyes at them.

"I did tell you," he reminds with a sigh, "that if my Pack ever needed me I'd go back to help them."

"What on earth did they need your help with, that you ended up looking like that?" Tommy demands. He, unlike Oliver, had not been indoctrinated into the supernatural by the hellish purgatory that was five years on a deserted island, but, nevertheless, after he'd had that talk with Oliver, he'd had to have a talk with Tommy, too. Luckily for him, Tommy didn't even really need proof, as soon as Stiles had explained everything his big brother had just put his head in his hands and bemoaned the universe for the shittiest possible luck, because, after all, how fucked up is it to have the Arrow for a best friend and a Spark who runs with wolves for a little brother?

"We actually don't know, but they were, essentially, sentient spiderwebs that got off on squeazing things to death. I got off easy, trust me."

Tommy makes a very strangled noise, "That doesn't make me feel better!"

"I wasn't expecting it to, big brother. Look, Ollie gets it because the life he leads is just as dangerous, if not moreso, but I'm going to get a little beaten up every once in awhile, it's just part of the life."

"It doesn't have to be! Both of you, it's a choice to do the things that you do, and neither of you have to do it like this, in a way that puts you, all of us in danger."

"Tommy," Stiles says sharply, stepping closer, his voice gone colder until it's almost uncomfortable, until he's quite sure the mask he's wearing now is one he learned from an ancient fox, "I love my Pack and I love my town, I will protect them to my very last breath and I will not allow anything or anyone to get in the way of that. I would've stayed and let that forsaken place kill me had my Alpha not encouraged a mental health break, and even then—if you push this, I'll disobey him and go back anyway. But the thing I need you to understand is, it's not just because law enforcement probably couldn't handle supernatural monstrosities, and it's not just because of my loyalty, it's because this is who I am, this is a part of me.

"No matter where I am or who I'm with, now, I will always feel the need to research and explore and fight, I will always do infinitely better within a Pack dynamic, I will always be more capable and comfortable when I am needed and accepted for who I am. Even if I never went back to Beacon Hills again, I'd end up fighting the same war, only I'd be devastated because I'd be fighting it alone. So, the only question now, big brother, is: will you accept that? Me? What I've become?"

Stiles is close, now, searching Tommy's face, and he's struck by how fierce he feels about all of this, by the apprehension churning in his gut, the need to be accepted, to be loved despite and for this, and when his brother falters, he almost feels his heart break, but then Tommy seems to steel himself, and a glint of something profound enters his eyes as he rushes forward to capture Stiles in his arms.

"You're an idiot," Tommy says, "but I will always accept you, I will always love you, no matter what. That's part of the reason why it hurts me so much to see you banged up, but. But I'll do my best, okay? I love you, little brother, magic, werewolves, crazy and all."

Stiles brings his arms up and wraps them tightly around Tommy, breathing him in, sinking into the embrace, "Love you, too, asshole."

Tommy goes down to Oliver's hideout under the club using the access codes bestowed upon him by Felicity, though he has no delusions that she wouldn't have given them without Ollie's say so. He's happy, he is, that he's become more trusted, since they've patched things up, though he's still... But he thinks he's starting to see things differently, especially after that conversation he had with Stiles. He needs to be more open-minded about this, because even though it scares the ever-loving shit out of him, he thinks he's starting to get it.

The violence of the lives they've chosen, it's because of who they are, and, from a different perspective, those lives chose them because of their inherent spirit, and so did he. He loves Stiles, he loves Ollie, and, as much as he values his own safety, his loved ones' safety, this is their lives—it's no one's fault so much as it is some kind of destiny, and the very best thing they all can do is just live through it. Maybe he still doesn't understand completely, and maybe it still stings that they both lied to him, but they've given him the truth, now, they've shown him who they are, not just what they do, what they have to lose.

They've exposed themselves, their vulnerable, for all that it's battle-scarred and has armor and weapons and fight; now it's up to him what he does with it.

"Hey, Ollie," he greets as soon as he sees the man, working out like he's mad, not even breaking a fucking sweat, "you know, man, the shit you do to your body, it's just—" he shakes his head with a scoff as Oliver rises from his one-armed push-ups with the grace of a fucking cat, raises an eyebrow at him, and Tommy makes a face back.

"Whaddaya want, Tommy?"

"I wanted to tell you that I accept you for who you are," he replies seriously, and Oliver's whole body just fucking freezes. Tommy flashes back to Stiles' red-burnt cheeks, the hope and the shame, the terror that he'd disappoint or be rejected, and his heart clenches painfully. "Seriously, dude," he says, soft and earnest. "I mean, I'm still a little pissed you lied to me, but you're my brother as much as Mischief is, you're family, Oliver—and maybe I didn't get it until Stiles tore himself open just to shove it in my face but. This is a part of who you are, isn't it? The Arrow isn't some other person, dual personality—he's you and you're him and. I'm not saying I get it, completely, because I don't. But I love you, and I accept you, and all that other sappy stuff neither of us are really good at. I just—normally I'd expect you to just know that, but Stiles made it pretty clear that sometimes it needs to actually be said, to be heard. So. This is me, saying it. You hearing it?"

"Yes," Oliver croaks, his voice normally so smooth run ragged with too many emotions to parse, but his eyes, startlingly bright, are trained on Tommy with such intensity that it pierces him, pins him in place. Oliver clears his throat roughly, "Yeah, I heard you."

"Good," Tommy manages a smile, and if it's a little wobbly, well, it doesn't really fucking matter. "So, you have things to do and arrows to shoot, or do you think we could go out and get some lunch?"

"Lunch would be great," Oliver beams, eyes sparkling like they're lit up from the inside with something happy, and it's been so long since he's seen them like that, without chased shadows haunting sea-salt oceans, that it makes a lump form in his throat. "I'm starving."

The first time Stiles meets Thea's new beau- deciding to go after her to hang out with him since he's in the city, and they're friends, and bros before hos and all that- his jaw genuinely drops.

"Jackson?"

"Who?" The mirror image of Jackson retorts, cocky eyebrow and minor sneer firmly in place.

"Um, Stiles," Thea cuts in, all bemused smile confusion, "this is my boyfriend, Roy."

"Okay, just, hold on a second, because I think I may know your long lost twin brother."

"Are you fucking with me right now?" Roy asks, seeming to actually be a little upset, Thea's frustration and confusion growing behind him, though she runs a placating hand up his arm without saying a word as she waits for Stiles to slip his phone out of his pocket to find Jackson's instagram, which is relatively easy, since he follows Lydia on the site.

"Here, Jackson Whittemore, adopted by the Beacon Hills' Whittemores. He was in my lacrosse team before he moved to london, and he's dating the girl I had a crush on since the third grade."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah. Any chance your parents gave up your twin baby bro for adoption? Or that you're adopted and you two got separated by the system?"

Roy paces tremulously back until the back of his knees hit the edge of the couch and he stumbles into sitting, still gaping at the phone clenched in his white-knuckled grip. "I—I don't know?"

"Well, then," Stiles claps his hands together, determined, "let's figure it out. Although, I should get this out of the way first—Thea is one of my best friends, my dad's a sheriff, if you hurt her, I know every way to kill you and absolutely get away with it, so. Comprende amigo?"

Thea's half laughing, startled and pleased, behind her hand, while Roy is giving him a very strange, very faint sort of look.

"Yeah," he ends up saying, "yeah, I got you."

"Cool. I'm gonna need my phone back if you ever want me to help you understand this."

A handful of hours, two pots of coffee, and a hacking sesh with Felicity later, and they've got their answers: Jackson's biological parents kept Roy and gave him up for adoption. Considering they weren't the greatest people, it's hard to understand, Roy says he thinks he kind of gets it, but doesn't know why they kept him, because, to hear them tell it, he costed money, time, and patience they never had, they never wanted to waste on him. But, after they have decently solid evidence of it all- albeit illegally obtained- Stiles is skyping Lydia and introducing the- unbeknownst to them all until now- twins.

Absently, he wonders if Lydia has an unaccounted twin fetish she didn't know about.

Thea takes this all in responsible, mature, nurturing stride—it's odd to see her so maternal and protective of someone, though she's still her brazen spit-fire self.

"I think he's good for you," Stiles murmurs to her eventually, while they're both hanging out off to the side, watching the newly reunited brothers bond.

Thea snorts, "You're, like, the only one who thinks that."

"What do you mean?"

"Everyone else thinks that he's not good enough for me, once a criminal, always a criminal—and they don't think I'm mature or adult enough to make my own decisions, it's frustrating."

Stiles hums in the back of his throat, "Well, it may be the popular opinion, but it isn't mine. And, Thea, maybe the best thing you can do is, just," he shrugs, "show them a united front. You're in a relationship with Roy, right? A relationship you're both invested in—show them that, if nothing else, because as young as you are, this is your relationship to have, and if, in the end, it doesn't work out, at least you had the experience, at least you can say, honestly, that being in love with him made you a better person, in the long run."

"So, make it less about who he is, and more about who we are together? Who I could become... because of him?"

"Yep," he smiles at her mild confusion burgeoning into acceptance, "and maybe, even then, people won't support it, but, again, it's not their relationship. It's yours."

She huffs, but nods, leaning into his side a little, "Thanks for the advice, Mischief."

"Anytime, Speedy."

When Stiles and Oliver get back to base, a little bruised, a little bloody, Diggle and Felicity are waiting for them, all worry and agitation.

"Oh my god!" Felicity half shouts, shakily, "Are you guys okay?"

"I've had worse," Stiles admits, wincing with a sigh as Oliver immediately hauls him onto one of the steel tables, leveling him with a glare as he goes in search of his tremendous first aid kit, which, upon seeing, Stiles asks, "Can I have one of those? Considering my life, having a kit like that would be really useful."

"I'll make you one," Oliver grits out, attending to the rather deep bite in his calf that has Felicity pulling in a breath through her teeth and cringing sympathetically. "Christ, Stiles."

"Hey, don't give me that; I saved your ass back there."

Oliver sighs, "I know, and you're a good fighter, better than I expected..."

"But?" Stiles prompts, knowing there's more to it than that.

"But, if you're going to be out on the field like that- whether it's here or Beacon Hills- you need to be better. Even under the circumstances, there were a few injuries tonight that could've been avoided."

"You gonna train me up, batman?"

Oliver snorts and rolls his eyes, "Shut up, Stiles."

Peter calls while every muscle is sore and he's got a hole in his shoulder because being trained by Oliver Queen, apparently, means getting shot with arrows if you aren't paying enough attention. Too bad for him, though, because Stiles is pretty sure that Tommy is sitting him down and giving him a lecture with the assistance of Felicity right this very second. Donnie gave him a weird look when he came limping home like a tired, kicked puppy, but didn't say anything beyond that.

"Ughhhhhh," Stiles groans into the phone by way of answering. Peter huffs out a small laugh, though his voice is laced with concern when he asks:

"Are you alright, pup?"

"Mmhmm, just turns out that Starling can be almost as dangerous as Beacon Hills."

A long, weary sigh, "You know I sent you there to take a break."

"A mental-health break, not a physical break, and besides, it's working, kind of. I think, being away from dad, Scott, from the things I did, and being with family, it's helping, a little."

"You know," Peter says, and his voice is soft, tender, with the bite of gentling authority, "although I'm never one to shy away from amorality and killing things if it gets the job done—what happened to you, with the Nogitsune, none of that was your fault. And as much as I despise the Argents, even I know Allison was one of the good ones, which is why her death, protecting her friends, was so damaging to the Pack. I also know, even just based on my limited interactions with her, that she'd never want you punishing yourself for this, because she loved you, just as the rest of us do. I sincerely believe that she'd be devastated if she knew you were blaming yourself for something that was so completely out of your control."

Stiles has to take a minute, after that, to get his breathing and heartrate under control, counting his fingers as much as he is counting his breath. He wants it to be true, and the way Peter says it, like it's marbled foundation set with roots and built up in a way that makes them so stalwart as to be unbreakable, unshakable, impregnable—Stiles can almost believe it is. Almost.

"You still with me, sweetheart?" Peter asks, and a year ago Stiles wouldn't have believed the older man could ever talk to him with so much affection, direct such deep concern and unwavering attention on him.

"Yeah. It's just..."

"I know, pup, I know. But it needed to be said, it needs to be said—quite frankly, I think you need to hear it."

"Maybe," Stiles responds weakly, feeling something odd and dark in the pit of his stomach, sinking. "Hey, Peter, I think I'm gonna go; I'm feeling a little tired, it's been a long day."

"If I leave you alone like this, I have no doubt you'll just turn it all over in your head and overthink it until it breaks you again. So, how about, instead of hanging up, you put me on speaker. I'll sing to you."

"Sing to me?" Stiles asks, something like a smile trying to play at his lips, something like warmth trying to suffocate the dark-numbing sensation in the bottom of his belly.

"Yes, Stiles," Peter says, and Stiles can almost hear the exaggerated eye-roll through the phone. With a sigh he gets up from his desk chair and pads over to his bed, sliding under the covers gingerly and putting his phone on speaker before setting it beside his head on the pillow.

"Fine, but if you're out of tune I'm hanging up."

He isn't out of tune, though, he's fucking perfect. Rough waves chopping against mossy rocks and misty fog cooling the air, making everything gray and subdued, all interspersed with sub-vocal humming growls that make Stiles' brain buzz and go tingly, a sensation that overwhelms, swirls, oddly comforting down his spine, smooths through the plains of his aching muscles, loosens every ounce of tension until all he has to do in order to sleep is just give in.

He still dreams, not a nightmare, exactly, or, at least, not one given to him by the nogitsune. An old dream, combinations of his mother, in the throes of her illness, screaming that he was going to kill her, that she didn't know him, that she hated him, then his father, drinking, drinking, drinking, while Stiles kept trying to fill the spaces she left, turning him over one night as he began to puke so it wouldn't get caught in his throat, suffocate him, cleaning up the mess, thinking, maybe it was his fault. Maybe he killed her, too.

Stiles wakes up in a cold sweat, whimpering sobs caught in the back of his throat, and with a desperate need to count his trembling fingers.

"Hush, hush, sweetheart," he hears Peter's voice croon, a little sleep-rough, mumbled through the phone, and he's honestly surprised the 'were stayed on with him, "just a nightmare, pup, it wasn't real, you're okay."

"I'm sorry, I'm—I—" His words weave together with wet, hitched breaths until they're indistinguishable from each other, some incomprehensible tapestry of misery on his tongue.

"It's okay, little one, you've nothing to be sorry for, I'm right here," Peter continues to calm, a lot of soft, soothing words, very little content, but it doesn't matter, because it washes over him with light, cottony warmth, and he clutches the phone to his chest, just listening to the sounds of it, all gentle, babbling brook murmur. It's calming, grounding enough to help him claw his way back to reality, to waking sanity, though he's still sniffling and hiccuping a little.

"Thanks, Peter, I'm—I feel better now, mostly," he huffs a little self-deprecating laugh that sounds as flimsy as a soggy piece of paper even to his own ears.

"... Okay, I'm going to choose to believe that, for now. Otherwise, I'd probably be restless and incapacitated with worry for the rest of the day."

"Aww, you do love me."

"Yes," Peter replies, with absolutely no hesitation, and Stiles chokes on a hiccup, all misty-tremulous, sticking breath, his heart turning summersaults and his whole body suddenly thrumming with this low-level pleased feeling, "which is why I want so desperately for you to take care of yourself."

"I'm trying," he tells him, honest and just this side of shaky, "I'm really trying."

"And I'm proud of you for it, sweetheart," Peter's tone drops into something so low and approving and syrup-thick that it sends shivers up Stiles' spine, makes his body tingle.

"Thank you, Alpha."

There's a soft sound on the other line, contented and mildly considering, "I really need the eyes to go with that title, don't I? Erica and Boyd have been refusing to call me anything else, and even Malia's begun deferring to me over Scott."

"Oh, yeah? How's Scott taking that?"

"With all the maturity and grace of any impotent leader. Mind you, I find it as appalling as it is hilarious."

Stiles snorts, shaking his head, "Of course you do."

"You'll call me tonight, won't you, pup?"

"... Will you sing to me again?" He asks, feeling his face heat uncontrollably.

"Of course, sweetheart."

Chapter Text

It becomes a little routine between them, sometimes a phone call at the end of the day, just he and Peter, sometimes a skype call, Peter in the loft with Erica and Boyd, singing to them, too. Every once and awhile, Malia joins in on those calls.

It's strange, but in a good way. At night he is with his Alpha, his Pack- even long-distance- and during the day he is with his brothers, his family. He worries, a little, if the end of the summer will bring much change to that, but decides, mostly, to hope for the best.

Unfortunately, a week before school starts up again, luck decides to show him, yet again, how out of her favor he must be.

The greatest power a human being could have, the ability to change their mind. Like Oliver, finally listening to Diggle beyond their small spat, and Moira, after being confronted, confessing.

So it was that they found out about The Undertaking, and needed, desperately, to stop it.

"No," Tommy says, sharp, "it's not my dad, it can't be."

"Tommy," Stiles sighs, before Oliver can further his ire, "do you know who you sound like right now? Me. Me every goddamned time you told me that one drink was going to lead to more, that even if he wasn't leaving me alone on purpose, he was still leaving me alone. I understand you want to believe in him, that you only just recently made up with him, but we have evidence, literal proof...

"Big brother, do you trust me?"

Tommy's eyes are wide and full of such pain, betrayal, as he whispers a rasped, "Yes."

"Then trust me, trust us, on this."

"Maybe," Tommy starts, clears his throat, blinks back the burn of tears. "Maybe I can stop him?"

"Maybe," Stiles agrees, "do what you can, stay out of the Glades."

"What about you two?"

Stiles swallows, he knows Tommy won't much like this part, but Oliver saves him from explaining by getting there first, shoulders squared, eyes the pale blue fire of warrior, "Stiles and Quentin and I are going to look for the bombs, try to disarm them, Diggle will be with us, trying to help evacuate, and Felicity will be helping from behind her screen. Hopefully, if you can't convince him-" Oliver softens then, because he doesn't believe Tommy'll be able to, quite frankly, neither does Stiles- "we'll be enough to stop it."

"Stiles shouldn't—"

"I have magic, Tommy, and, more than that," he sighs, deep and bone-weary, paces up to his brother and envelops the man in a hug, "I have to do this, I have to try." He pulls back, gives him a slight, faint smile, "And so do you."

"But—"

"No buts, I love you, we'll win this one; don't worry, alright?"

Tommy takes a deep breath before finally nodding.

"Get Laurel out."

"'Course, couldn't leave my future sister-in-law to the wolves, now, could I?"

Tommy, of course, hadn't counted for his father being mad—neither had Stiles, if he was being honest, though he could have guessed it. Talking him down from the Undertaking proved impossible, and the last nail in the coffin of their turbulent relationship.

Thea and Roy were already safe, well on their way to london to actually meet Roy's long-lost twin brother. Moira was hosting a press-conference, confessing to her crimes and begging everyone to get the hell out of dodge. Felicity was playing support, as always, with blueprints and scans of the Glades, and a hope and a prayer they may find the bombs in time. Diggle was helping the police with the evacuation—making doubly sure to get Laurel out of CNRI.

Stiles, Ollie, and Detective Lance were spread thin, looking for and disabling the bombs, but they managed, with a little bit of magic, and with the fact that they figured out, last minute, that there were three bombs instead of two.

Malcolm Merlyn fled the country, Moira Queen was arrested, and the Glades stood, though the whole of Starling was shaken to its' core by what might've happened, what almost did.

In the end, the vigilantes stepped out of their suits, and everyone met up at Laurel's place- though she was a bit bemused by the group of them, all looking dirty, a lot worse for wear, and exhausted- and had an 'I'm really glad we survived and I hope we never have to go through that again' ice-cream party. Because fuck it, they did good, they deserved some goddamned ice-cream.

Laurel wakes up to a knock at her door and sighs heavily. Last night had been tiring, devastating, and, in the end, mildly anti-climactic. The machines set up to level the Glades had been disabled by the Arrow, another in a red hoodie who apparently wielded lightning- according to the few who'd seen him- and her own father. Not to say it wasn't dangerous, just that the danger had passed easier than the fright itself.

She disentangles herself from Tommy, climbs out of bed, snorts at the sight of her livingroom- Stiles, Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle all snuggled up with each other under the blankets on the floor, her father sprawled out on the couch, fingers absently in Stiles' hair- and pads across wooden floorboards, barefoot, to look through the peep-hole at whoever's knocking.

He's unfamiliar, ice blue eyes, desert brown hair, handsome, but she has no idea who he is or why he's here. He knocks again, and she sighs, unlocking the door and opening it with the chain still on, glancing at him warily.

"Hello," he says, voice like velvet rubbed in just the right way, all alluring silk, "is there any chance I could see Stiles?"

Her brow furrows, how the hell does this guy know Stiles is here? "He's asleep."

The winter in his eyes seems to soften to rain, "I know, I just want to see him. What happened in the Glades has been all over the news. I was worried."

"You're a friend of his?"

A smile full of cunning and mischief curls at his lips, "Most days."

Before she can say anything to that, or about the fact that Stiles really shouldn't be friends with someone so much older, or about the fact that there's something inherently untrustworthy about the stranger, there's a strangled, whimpering sort of sound behind her. A trick of the light, maybe, because she's sure, for a second, that the stranger's eyes glow, vibrant and luminescent, before he's opening the door further to dart past her, the chain breaking with his brute strength.

Stiles trembles, face scrunched like he's in pain, curling in on himself making small, terrified, wounded sounds, and the man rushes to him, kneels down and takes him up in his arms, "Stiles, sweetheart, wake up. It's just a dream, hush, pup, I've got you."

The boy's eyes pop open and he screams, loud and filled with something, horrified, terrorized, agony, and such heartfelt hurt that Laurel's own heart seizes in her chest, and her eyes burn with the sheer force of it. The others stir, Oliver leaping awake in a crouched position as if prepared to fight, and the stranger, he just holds on, soothes, seeming dim and resigned, like this is something he's used to.

"Peter," Stiles chokes, scrambling to get his hands where he can see them, the stranger helping with ease, and then they're counting, each finger, one by one, until they get to ten.

"You're awake, just ten means you're awake," the stranger murmurs, chin hooked over Stiles' shoulder, legs bracketing his waist, chest flush with his back, hands wrapped loosely around his.

"I don't—I need—" Stiles hiccups around a shaky breath, tears spilling down his bright red cheeks, then, very small, and oh, so young, "Can we count them again?"

The stranger closes his eyes, swallows, leans his head back a little to press a kiss into Stiles' hair, and breathes, "As many times as you need."

While the others, exhausted from yesterday's events, manage to settle back into sleep, Oliver stands from his position, and the man holding Stiles shares an odd sort of look with him, before returning all his attention to the boy in his arms.

"Oliver," she hisses, concerned and a little terrified, "what the hell's going on?"

He rubs a hand over his face, "I don't know," he says, and she doesn't believe him in the slightest, "we can talk about it when Stiles is more... awake. Go be with Tommy, I've got this."

"We don't even know that guy, he broke the chain on my door!" She whispers furiously, and Oliver raises an eyebrow at her, before looking at her door, and eyeing four little indents she hadn't previously seen.

"Huh," he says, going to close it, "guess he did." He shakes his head, gestures at Stiles who's easing into the older man's arms and seems to be breathing again, "Mischief trusts him," he points out, "so, for right now, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt."

Laurel makes an aggrieved sound in the back of her throat, but relents, and goes back to Tommy who pulls her into his arms with a sleepy mutter the moment she returns to their bed. Silently, she worries about what kind of nightmare her boyfriend's little brother must've had, to wake wailing like that, worries about what it means that both Oliver and the stranger reacted to it with all the tempered patience of practiced normality, worries about who the hell that guy is.

And yet, with all that in her head, she still manages to let sleep reclaim her.

Stiles sniffs, wipes away tears with the sleeves of his shirt, only to smile gratefully when Oliver hands him a box of tissues.

"You know," Peter begins, wry, "I got you out of Beacon Hills to keep you safe."

Stiles sniffs again, and pokes him in the cheek, but doesn't dignify that with a response—it's becoming more of a running gag between them now, than anything, that he left Beacon Hills only to fall into a place with just as much danger and catastrophe.

"I came as soon as I heard," he says softly, tipping Stiles' chin up so he can look down into his eyes. "Are you alright?"

Stiles hums in the back of his throat, "All crazy-ass nightmares and fox-demon PTSD aside? Yeah. We did what we had to, nobody died, we're all okay."

Peter strokes his jaw with the length of his thumb for a moment, searching his face for a lie, before nodding once, and letting Stiles' chin back down, "Alright, pup."

"So," Oliver huffs, eyebrows raised near to his hairline, looking just this side of judgemental, "you want to introduce me to your friend, Stiles?"

"Oh! Uhh, Peter Hale, meet Oliver Queen, and, you know, vice versa."

The 'were slides out from behind him to sit by his side, extending a hand in greeting, one which Oliver takes, though he still seems overly suspicious. "Nice to meet you, I've heard... much."

Oliver frowns at that, and Peter's eyes gleam. Stiles smacks him on the arm, lightly, "Ignore him, he's an ass. And, also, my Alpha. Peter," he gives the man a scathing look, "Ollie's like a brother to me—play nice."

Peter's whole countenance softens, and he sighs as if put-upon, "I shall do my best, I suppose."

"White wolfsbane," Stiles warns, "in your tea."

Peter scowls, though his eyes are rivers of humor and affection, "You wouldn't dare. Tea is sacred."

Oliver snorts, shakes his head, "Oh, he would. He once laced all the coffee in my house with lemon extract."

"It was hilarious," Stiles agrees, and Peter rolls his eyes before returning to some semblance of somber.

"Thank you, Oliver, for taking care of him."

Ollie blinks, surprised- and, Stiles can tell, a little pleased- by the gratitude, before nodding slowly, accepting. It's still way too early for the others to wake up, so the three of them end up finishing off whatever ice-cream's left in the freezer and talking quietly about the supernatural, werewolf dynamics, and why Peter isn't particularly fond of arrows—you can only get shot so many times before you develop a bit of a phobia, after all.

It's nice, and while Stiles is glad he came, and happy that a member of his family is meeting a member of his Pack, he wonders, "What about Boyd and Erica?"

"And Malia," Peter tells him, the corners of his lips twitching up, "they were just as worried as I was, but their ability to track your scent wasn't honed enough, especially not in a big city such as this, so they stayed in your apartment while I went off to look for you."

"Wait, you mean you left all three of them with Donnie?"

Peter smirks, his eyes shine, "Yes."

"Oh, that poor, poor man."

As night turns to day, and everyone else begins to wake, Peter manages to win them all over easily, all enchanting charisma, though he does get strange looks for his closeness with Stiles, which both he and Stiles ignored. He even appeased Laurel, and promised to repay her for her broken chain.

It was nearly noon by the time they left, since Stiles had roped Peter into clean-up, Felicity, Diggle, and Oliver all heading their own way, while Quentin stayed with Laurel and Tommy awhile longer. It'd been a close call, he doesn't begrudge the man wanting to stay close to his daughter, though he might begrudge the Betas, a little, when, as soon as he opens his apartment's door, they all pounce on him, scenting him and man-handling him and practically crushing him to the floor with their bodies.

"Guys," he grunts, plaintively, "guys, I love you, too, but I kinda need to breathe. I can hear you laughing, Peter! You ass!"

Peter just laughs all the harder, though he does, mercifully, get all the wolves off of him, helping him up in the process. Donnie, watching the scene unfold, lukewarm eyes full of good humor, says, "You sure have some strange friends, there, brother."

"Yes," he agrees, breathless and incredibly fond, "I do."

The rest of the day is spent letting Erica, Malia, and Boyd all curl around him, making sure their packmate is alright, growling low at anyone who tries to get near that isn't Peter—which is basically just Donnie, who must've realized early on to take it all with a grain of salt, because he just rolls his eyes and backs off with a little smile, telling them how absolutely adorable they're all being.

Peter and his roommate, surprisingly, take to each other fairly quickly, both bonding over cuisine while the two whip up lunch for the four teens sprawled out on the couch. Stiles, thankfully, manages to get the wolves settled enough to play on the communal xbox in the living room. There aren't enough controllers for them all, so they take turns—Malia's take on Mario Cart endearing in its' violent hilarity, when it's her turn she laughs maniacally as she fucks with every other player and car on the track, though she never once gets anywhere close to winning, and when it's Erica's turn, she roots her on and begs after more ruthless tactics, which Erica indulges with sharp, tearing grins. Boyd is exceptional, and, despite his placid countenance, manages to get first place every time. Stiles always ends up working to get whoever he's playing with to first while he gets second, unable to deny his need to support every last one of them, even for fun.

Their lunch is orgasmic- pork in thick, rich, dark, tangy sauce, cheese, bell peppers, tomatoes, onion, spiced, all on toasted bread that's been brushed with honeyed-butter, the mountain of sandwiches golden, mouth-watering gorgeous, with zangy salads and fried rice as sides- enough that Stiles actually manages to eat most of it without even needing any sort of push, and, if the genuinely happy beaming grins Donnie's throwing at him are anything to go by, his appetite doesn't go unnoticed.

They stay for two days, the Betas eventually meeting Oliver and Tommy, before they all have to leave—school is starting soon, after all.

"When are you coming back?" Erica whines into his collar, giving him a bear hug that has him almost wheezing for breath. He chuckles softly and kisses her hair.

"Soon," he promises, "I just need a little more time. How's my dad doing?"

"Still drinking," Malia tells him bluntly as Erica pulls away so she can get her own hug in. "He doesn't deserve you. And he's kind of pitiful, he smells like rubbing alcohol and chemicals and vomit, it's gross."

"I—thank you, for that disturbing olfactory image Malia," he half laughs, though it does pain him to hear about his father like that, there really isn't anything he can do about it right now. When she leaves the embrace to be replaced by Boyd, the taller man murmurs:

"Take care of yourself," and, with that, most of his very complicated feelings toward his father die their little deaths.

"I'm trying," he promises, and Boyd nods, the warmth of him leaving, Peter moving to stand in front of him, the rivers in his eyes drowning Stiles in their tide, intense, focused, kind in that oddly, murderously determined way.

"Stiles."

He snorts and the older man actually cracks a smile, Stiles tries to ignore the way his body heats up at the sight, the way that aching warmth that fills up the gnawing fear in his heart grows, like flowers flexing their pretty against the sky, like the best of him, unfurling, actually confident that he won't be turned away.

"Peter," he returns, and it sounds rougher than he'd meant, but Peter's smile loses all of its' sharp edges, becomes something sweet-melt, intimate. The 'were opens his arms to him, lets it be his choice, and he doesn't know why that feels so important, why it kind of makes him want to cry a little, but it does. He paces forward quickly, somehow breathless, and doesn't hug so much as lean into him, arms curled between their chests. Peter closes his arms around him, and it feels like a blanket of soft cotton, every solid point of contact tingles beneath his skin, his nerves burning bright with it. With a small sigh, Stiles sinks into him, melts, feels flower-petal fragile.

"If you ever need me, pup," Peter's voice comes, wades through the thick-ooze syrup that his mind is currently becoming, strikes as true as a pick-ax against solid stone, "you call."

"Yes, Alpha."

There's something very low, very fond, and so completely cherishing that it makes Stiles' breath hitch when Peter praises, almost purrs "Good boy."

Chapter Text

It's really a complete and total accident, honest.

Oliver, mildly frustrated at Thea's newfound confidence, along with her anger at their mother and unwillingness to come home from london, not to mention the complete bluntness of Lydia, mocking and ambitious and glorious, dragging at the heels of every conversation he'd tried to have with his little sister, sent Stiles on a patrol.

Oliver's patrols are like Coach Finstock's suicide runs, only worse, and Ollie isn't fooling anyone, Stiles knows how frustrated he is by this turn of events—but it wasn't his fault!

... Entirely.

Anyway, he's disabling one of Oliver's pesky surprise booby trap things that are supposed to train him to be more aware of his surroundings while he's basically doing really athletic, really stealthy parkour around the city, looking for trouble, when he spots—well, trouble. More than that, a flash of eyes glowing vermillion, like pools of bloody sunlight, awesome in their power, and glittering with rubies of madness.

The Alpha goes after a woman, who's whimpering and crying and screaming at the top of her lungs, and after all of the training Derek and Oliver have put him through, it's a really easy thing to slip a spider-tracker onto an arrow and aim it at the Alpha. This won't take him down, or incapacitate him, really, but it will scare him off, and if he just pulls the arrow out, like Stiles suspects he's going to, the tracker will already have attached itself to whatever's nearest, and the 'were will heal around the intrusion without being any the wiser. Then, it's just a matter of getting the girl as safe as possible before calling Peter with a:

"So, Alpha, how would you feel about having red eyes again?"

"... Delighted by the prospect. Why? Have you gotten yourself into trouble again, sweetheart?"

Stiles just grins at that, because when is he ever not in trouble?

It's two weeks after he's started school in Starling, on a weekend, when Peter comes, barely a day after he'd called.

Donnie welcomes him into their apartment with a faint smile that becomes much more genuine and a little relieved when he realizes it's just him alone, and there aren't three crazy, hyper, wild teenagers on his heels.

"Good t' see ya, brother," he grins, and that's all the pleasantry he really has time for before he's off to work, leaving Peter and Stiles on their lonesome.

"You know," Peter says, a little twinkle in his eye, "I've been wondering this since last time, but is he always like that?"

"Yep," Stiles grins, popping the p.

When he launches himself at the older man, too filled with excitement and frenetic energy, Peter doesn't even stumble, just accepts his weight against the hard line of his body and curls easily around him. Stiles takes a second to simply revel in this, the tingle-warmth fluttering feelings. He's not an idiot, he is beginning to understand what this means, that every time he's with Peter these feelings descend upon him. And part of the thing is, he doesn't have the slightest idea what to do with them.

With Lydia, it was different, she was an unattainable obsession that bordered more on infatuated fanboy and idealization than any actual, real love, and, in the end, his feelings for her were a great foundation for their friendship, but nothing more. With Peter it's intimate, close and dear, a heat that makes him sink, fall further and further chasing that intensity, wanting nothing more than to crawl deep inside and lose himself to it forever. It's yearning, daydreams of kissing and touching so fucking vivid they make him want to cry when he realizes they aren't real. Imagining being gray and old and wrinkled and still threatening to throttle the guy for being an asshole, even though he'd never go through with it, even though they're holding hands and watching raindrops glide down windowpanes. He wants to grow up, gain little jewels of wisdom and more of an aptitude for maturity, he wants to change, be more himself than what he is now and he wants Peter to be there in such a real and terrifying sense that it floors him.

Part of the thing is, guilt, and trust. He trusts Peter more than he ever used to, but after everything, can he trust him with his mind, his heart? And would he even be forgiven for this? After everything Stiles done, falling in love with a murderer, with the person who almost shattered Lydia's mind, tormented them all that first year, killed Derek's sister. And, yes, he understands Peter was insane, just like he understands that he himself was possessed, but saying 'it's not your fault' doesn't register for either of them, doesn't register to most of the people they love, either.

Could he trust anyone, really, to allow him loving Peter? Would the man even accept it?

Stiles is young, annoying, kind of an asshole—which is something they have in common.

And even if, somehow, it got that far——

"What's going on in that head of yours, pup?" Peter murmurs against the shell of his ear, still holding him so, so close, and Stiles shivers, swallows thickly, tries to ignore the desperate fluttering in his heart.

"Nothing much," he lies, he knows Peter hears it, he doesn't care. "Nevermind me," he pulls away from the embrace, looks into the rivers that are Peter's eyes and tries a smile, "let's get that damned rapist Alpha, shall we?"

Peter curls a hand around the nape of his neck, and gives him a look that Stiles knows very well means he will not be letting this go, before he just presses a dry, soft kiss to Stiles' cheek, his thumb stroking the base of Stiles' skull in a way that makes him want to go docile, become loose and pliant and noodley. "Let's."

Honestly, with the help of Felicity over comms and Oliver, just in case, providing back-up, their little mission ends up being successful and mostly without injury.

The Arrow Team wasn't very happy with the idea of killing the guy, Tommy especially, but Stiles had explained it as best he could, and said, in no uncertain terms, if it didn't get done now, it would get done later—if not by them, who would be merciful to an extent, and who would gain from it, then by hunters, who would cause a lot of collateral damage and, probably, come after Stiles the moment they realized the Arrow's temporary sidekick was a Mage. Besides, hunters be damned, it was the job of stable Packs to take care of rogue supernatural creatures, to keep the peace, to keep things hidden—and Starling didn't have much in the way of supernatural creatures or stable Packs or hunters, and while that was all well and good for now, lately, the supernatural population within Starling has increased.

"It would be good for you," Peter had told them, "to have a prominent Pack behind you and yours—and the Hale Pack is not only well known, but was once formidable, and I have no doubt we could become that again. If you sign a treaty with us, after, we will be at your disposal for every hunter and/or creature you come into contact with that you may not be able to handle on your own."

"It's a good deal," Stiles had continued, earnest, "and I get that you're turning a new leaf, now, Ollie, that killing people is something you're trying to avoid—but they aren't always people, and there isn't always a choice. Nothing is ever that black and white."

They'd negotiated a little more, hashed it out until the sun had nearly risen, and Stiles could only really admire how good at the politics of it all Peter was by the time they had a whole treaty out in front of them, signed and sealed.

"I was Talia's Left Hand, you'll remember," Peter had whispered to him, after, and Stiles had given him an appraising look before deciding the only response he had to that was to ruffle the man's hair, which got him a mock-glare and a brief, terribly hidden smile that made him feel all cotton-fuzzy delighted inside.

After all that talk, it barely takes thirty minutes to dispatch the half-feral Omegan Alpha, and the thing that Tommy ended up being least thrilled over was Stiles missing a day of school.

"I don't think Donnie's home," Stiles murmurs around a jaw-cracking yawn as he unlocks his apartment door for the two of them.

"No," Peter agrees, not having heard the roommate's heartbeat. He steadies Stiles when the boy sways a little with a hand to the small of his back, guiding. He's not nearly as exhausted by the events of the day, but he can feel sleepiness like hollow syrup pumping through his veins, which might be why- when they manage to get into the boy's room, and Stiles curls his fingers into the hem of his shirt, unwilling to let go even as he tumbles into the bed and begins to fall asleep- he just decides to stay.

His wolf is an abruptly loud, demandingly powerful thing within him, having become larger and hungrier for everything- Pack, violence, sex, food- now that it has regained an Alpha-spark, but the moment he lays beside Stiles and takes in the scent of libraries, old and dusty and filled to the brim with ancient, beloved knowledge, with just the hint of cinnamon, like someone coated mahogany floors with the spice, he feels his wolf curl up within him, purring contentedly underneath his skin.

Mate, it says, Anchor, ours, keep, protect, provide.

When Stiles wakes up, he's snuggled up against the 'were's chest, legs tangled with his, arms snug between them, the fingers of one of his hands curled into the V of Peter's collar. He blinks up, looking at Peter's face through his lashes, soft with sleep, and has to remind himself to breathe when he realizes that he probably had the best nights' sleep he's had in months, cradled in this man's arms.

Peter moans, a low, sleepy, aggrieved thing, "You're thinking too loudly, Stiles."

"Sorry," he whispers, allowing himself to burrow deeper into Peter's chest, nuzzle his throat a little- scent marking- "I just realized something."

"Hmm?"

"You're a good dreamcatcher."

There's a little bit of silence for a moment, before Peter pulls him in tight, making an odd little sub-vocal sound that isn't entirely human, isn't anything that Stiles has ever heard before, but it sends a rush of tingles down his spine and makes him feel suddenly and viscerally shielded, from everything, safe and cocooned. Gods, but he is gone for this man, isn't he?

"I resolve to be the best damn dreamcatcher the world has to offer," Peter promises, and his voice is so softly serious, so rough with emotion, that it makes Stiles' heart beat faster, his breath hitch, "if it means you having fewer nightmares, sweetheart."

"Sap," Stiles says, just as rough, and Peter huffs a laugh into his hair.

When they finally overcome the lethargy enough to crawl out of bed, Stiles deciding to take a shower even though they'd both had one at the Arrowcave last night, and Peter deciding to prepare breakfast for them, they find that Donnie is both home and silently bemused and slightly judgy about Peter having spent the night in Stiles' room. But he doesn't say anything, so they leave him to his assumptions, for now, whatever they may be.

After breakfast- dinner for Donnie, who heads to bed soon thereafter- Stiles starts scrambling to get ready for school, offering his goodbyes to Peter, who will probably be in Beacon Hills by the time he gets home.

"I can't wait until you tell the Betas, they'll probably be ecstatic to really, truly have an Alpha. And it'll be good for you, too, to have Pack, again—I mean, not that we weren't, it's just. Like this it feels so much more solid."

Peter smiles, and it is an incredibly fond thing. "Stiles," he murmurs, moving to wrap his hand around the nape of Stiles' neck, massaging his thumb into the base of Stiles' skull, and for a moment he can't think at all, every muscle loses its' ability to function, and he's pretty sure he's lost all capacity for any rational thought beyond 'damn, that feels good', and a surge of something else so fierce, in the very back of his brain, that is equal parts power, possessive, and sweetly submissive. It would be terrifying, he thinks, the reaction that one simple act from Peter causes him, if it weren't for the fact that, somehow, his trust for the man has become a free-falling, whole sort of thing. He trusts him to be his Alpha, sure, but he also trusts him to be Erica and Boyd's Alpha, and that, in ways he cannot fathom or explain, seems more important.

"Would you be my Emissary?"

Stiles manages to choke on nothing but air, so totally and completely shocked, eyes gone wide and mouth agape for a full three minutes before he begins rambling, high and breathy, "But I don't know anything about—Deaton never really trained me, and I still don't even really know what a Spark is! An Emissary is important—you shouldn't—I don't—"

"Do I strike you as a person who doesn't understand what I want, sweetheart?"

Stiles stutters to a stop, swallows when those eyes, like molten, crystalized magma, bore into him, burn. "N-no."

"So if I say I want you as my Emissary, when I say you are the only person who I'd have as such, who I'd trust with my Pack, to be in my Pack, to stand by my side, to help us interact with the land and the people and everything that comes with that, what do you think that means?"

"I—. I don't know."

Peter sighs and shakes him a little, then pulls him close, tucks Stiles' head under his chin, and says with an earnestness that is almost too sugar-sweet for Stiles to believe, "It means you're good enough, and I'm making this decision fully informed, and I want, despite whatever your insecurities and terrible self-confidence tell you, for you to say yes, or I would not have offered...

"If, however, you do say no, you are still my Beta, my packmate, nothing will change that."

Stiles takes a deep, shuddering breath, fists his hands in the back of Peter's shirt.

"Okay," he whispers, and his quiet voice sounds wrecked, even to his own ears, "I want—I want it, too. I'll be such a badass Emissary, Deaton won't even compare. Scott'll be so jealous."

Peter sounds a little indulgent, a little sympathetic, smiling, when he says, "I'm sure he will be."

Stiles arches his neck a little, an invitation, breathes through the flush of arousal he gets when Peter nuzzles there, noses under his ear. His fingers flex convulsively in Peter's shirt, and it really sinks in, how much trust Peter's giving him, and not lightly, how much authority and respect and—for a moment Stiles' heart soars with such giddiness that it leaves him breathless, and he makes a little noise with it that can't really be called anything other than a giggling squeal. He can feel Peter's lips spread into a smile against his pulse point as he wriggles a little with excitement. The older man laughs, pulling away, and the way he looks right now, eyes deep-wells of soft-cotton watercolor, crinkling around the edges, the crispness, hypervigilance of him gone. This is him vulnerable, and it's so goddamn sweet, like nectar sliding down his throat, refreshing, that Stiles is helpless to do anything but drink in the sight, greedy.

"Are you happy, sweetheart?" Peter asks, so fucking sincere, overwhelmingly considerate.

Stiles isn't even embarrassed that his voice is breathy, high, and cracking completely down the middle, "Yeah." He's happier than he's been since Allison.

"Good."

Chapter Text

It seems Laurel's a little bored without Thea around to bother her, since she's calling Stiles and inviting him out to lunch on a weekend. He really needs to skype Lydia about that, because- while he totally understands the newly discovered twins bonding, and Thea and Lydia somehow getting as close as fucking sisters within the span of a week- Thea having only heard of Moira's complacency in The Undertaking via the news and deciding, after, to hate her mother with a vengeance and that she's just going steer clear of it all isn't very healthy, in his opinion, and Lydia shouldn't be encouraging it—she knows better.

He meets Laurel at some burger place down the street from CNRI—not the burger place Diggle's brother's widow works at, which is unfortunate, because he and Ollie have been trying to play cupid.

She's sitting in a booth along the side wall, in the middle, with her back to two doors, something about that makes him really itchy, and when she sees him, he waves her to a booth in the corner that has every exit and possible strategic attack entry within view. She cocks her eyebrow and smiles bemusedly, but, thankfully, goes with it.

"So, still in Starling?"

"Yes? Why? You want me to go so soon? And here I thought we were friends."

She snorts and cuffs him just as a waitress comes up to take their order—Stiles' is easy, a double of curly fries, strawberry milkshake, bacon cheeseburger with extra onions and extra mustard, Laurel gets a small burger with a salad and a cup of coffee, which he tells her is lame, earning him another playful cuff.

"I just... I thought you were visiting for Tommy, just during the summer, but you're staying for school, too, and with—the nightmare you had, the other night, and with your friend-" "Ah." "-who you never explained, by the way. I'm beginning to think it's more than that." She pauses for a moment, and he can tell how delicate she's trying to be about this, which is something that's never come easy to her, especially with people she's close to. Words roll off her tongue blunt and crass and raw, blades prepared to be wielded. "How bad is it, really, with your dad?"

Stiles blinks, almost laughs—and not with any kind of humor, but he stifles the manic need down, looking away from her shrewdly calculating gaze. "It's... he started drinking again, not—. Just, too much alcohol, not enough sense, I guess. He knows I'm here, he hasn't asked me to come back home, and that's—that's pretty much it."

She worries at her bottom lip for a second, before asking, "Who was that guy? Peter? He seems..."

"Old?" Stiles snorts, shakes his head, "I get why you're worried about me being friends with him, but I'm friends with Ollie, too. It's just. Circumstance—circumstance brought us together, and shit happened, and he was kind of an insufferable ass at first and now he's just," Stiles shrugs, tries to suppress the fond, loving smile that wants to bloom across his face—he's pretty fucking sure he fails, "Peter."

"Uh huh," Laurel starts, just as their waitress gets to them with their food, setting it all down briskly with a small, professional smile before rushing off to other customers. "And what was the circumstance?"

"His niece died," Stiles explains, as honest as he is deadpan about it, "I desecrated her grave and then pointed the finger at his nephew, he woke up from a coma at around the same time and tried to eat all my friends on his quest for revenge—good times."

"I sincerely hope you're joking, because the last part doesn't even make sense, and if it did, it wouldn't endear me to your friend at all."

Stiles raises an eyebrow at her, refuses to provide further information by way of stuffing handfuls of curly fries ungracefully into his mouth. She sighs and hooks a dressing-soaked leaf onto her fork. They pass a minute or so in companionable silence, eating and letting other peoples' conversations wash over them.

"I think the curly fries in Beacon Hills are better," Stiles confesses sadly, looking at his food like he feels sorry for it, because though it tried its best, it just didn't make the cut, "but I might be a little biased."

"I'm not," she tells him, snatching a fry and slipping it into her mouth easily, laughing at him when he squawks at the theft. "No, you're right, Beacon's are better."

"Huh. When was the last time you were in Beacon Hills, anyway?"

"We went to visit a little after Oliver was declared dead, remember?"

"Barely."

"I don't blame you, there was a lot going on," she heaves a heavy sigh, twirling her fork between her fingers. "Stiles, what's happened to you? That. The nightmare you had? That was terrifying, and ever since I've just been thinking, and, you seem so tired lately, and this is the first decent meal I think I've seen you eat since you got here, and even then, I'm almost positive you're only going to eat half of it, if that."

Stiles winces, because she's right, and she catches the movement, takes it for the admission of guilt it was, and nods with her lips pressed in a grim-thinned line. He doesn't say anything for a long moment, and she presses him on with a murmured, urgent, concerned, "Stiles."

"A friend of mine died. And I was there." Understatement of the century, that, when he was the one who fucking killed her.

Laurel sucks a breath in through her teeth, eyes instantly melting into understanding, "Oh, honey."

He wonders if she'll realize how little of it that was, if she'll wonder what witnessing someone die has to do with questioning reality, with counting just to be sure you're awake, or if, with this much, she'll just let it go.

He needs her to let it go.

"I don't want to talk about it, okay? I'm fine, I'm—I'm at least getting better, so. Can we just. Not talk about it?"

"Of course," she agrees, easy, though her eyes, concerned and understanding, stay on him, heavy, throughout the rest of their meal. She urges him to eat more than he wants to, but not by much, and he goes back to his apartment feeling sick in more ways than one.

It turns out that, somehow- although, really, looking back on it, he doesn't even understand why he's so surprised- while Thea and Roy are still together, Jackson and Lydia are still together, Thea and Lydia are also, magically, together, and the boys' relationship has gone from long lost twins to complicated really fucking fast. With this revelation now out there, Lydia proceeds to tell him that she does actually agree, and she thinks it can't be healthy for Thea to be running away from it all, so they're going to take a quick vacation to America for her sake, but don't expect them to be staying because Lydia has college and Roy's gotten a job, Jackson has school, and Thea's actually looking into college or business ownership, and Lydia doesn't want any of their newfound ambitions, family, Pack, relationship, whatever to be put into jeopardy by anything.

Also, turns out, Thea's a hell of a lot more in the know, now, than she was then, she's even considering taking the Bite from Lydia and Jackson's Alpha.

"Ugh," Stiles groans, "why?"

"Because being in a relationship- any relationship- requires trust and communication," Lydia tells him, blunt, throwing her hair over her shoulder. "Besides, a few... things happened, that may have required her to be informed lest she die."

"Wow, really? Is nowhere safe?"

"I'm a Banshee, Stiles. It's not the place so much as the people."

"Well, that isn't comforting."

"No," she agrees, and her smile is all teeth.

"I'm going to have to be the one to explain all of this to her brother, you get that, right?"

Lydia just shrugs like it isn't her problem, and he groans again.

"She what?" Oliver all but snaps, and Stiles holds up his hands placatingly, shooting a glare at his big brother who's too busy looking all kinds of shocked to do anything to protect him.

"She doesn't know anything about you—" "But she knows about werewolves!?" "Shouldn't you be more worried about her coming home? About getting her to reconcile with Moira?"

"While I also try and talk her out of the Bite? Only, I can't, because she doesn't know I know about werewolves, so I guess that's up to you."

"Uhh, no."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean that I've always been on team Tell Thea, and I mean that I trust the London Alpha, and more than him, I trust Lydia, who, apparently, is beginning to fall in love with Thea, and who would probably face an army with little more than her lungs if it meant keeping her safe. Thea's old enough to make her own choices, and she's fully informed, with a Death Detector on her side. Do you even get why she might want this? She's tired of feeling powerless, not just in her humanity, but. Look, Oliver, use me as a scapegoat, tell her I let you in on The Big Secret, talk to her, don't push her toward your own opinion of what you think the outcome should be, just, for once in your fucking life, listen! God, you're such a control-freak."

"I am not—"

"Then stop acting like one! She's a whole person, you know, outside of sisterhood, and you have no claim on her. You could, maybe, be not just her brother, but her friend, if only you fucking tried."

"Stiles—"

"No, just. Fuck off for awhile, okay? Think on what I said, they'll be here in a week, and you've got a trial to prepare for, a business to run, me? I've got school, so. I'm gonna go. See you later, Tommy."

Tommy swallows, looks sad and a little proud, scruffs him on the top of his head and says, warm, "See ya, kid." Which, at least, makes him feel marginally better.

He's stuck on homework, looking at the pages until the words sway and dribble into layers of unrecognizable ink, feeling his heart beat faster with the fear of it, only to blink and have them come back into focus. He counts his fingers, anyway, just to be sure. Still, he's more than a little thankful to be interrupted by a phone call.

"Yello, the cleverest Stilinski at your service."

There's a snort on the end of the line before Peter's voice, low, familiar, and amused, greets, "Hello, Stiles."

"Hey!" He can't help the butterflies that start stirring just from the sound of his Alpha's voice, or the blush that decides to paint his cheeks, and he gets up to pace a little so that Peter won't hear the restless energy. "All's well and good on your side of the tracks?"

"Perfectly acceptable. Scott seems a little peeved that he's not the only one in town with red eyes, and that I've got three Betas and an Emissary where he's only got two and... Deaton."

"Wait, three? So, Malia's with us?"

"Malia's with you, sweetheart; I don't know what you did to earn her loyalty, but I'm quite thankful for it."

He knows, somewhere deep, that Peter means that in every way, including the way of a father, glad to be with his daughter, even if their relationship is unconventional, and it makes him smile slightly.

"And Scott has Kira and... that kid. What's his name?"

"Liam."

"... I don't like the idea of other Packs thinking we're a divided board. I know what we could do about it, but I." He stops, sighs, and Peter hums a little, questioning. "It's our territory," he murmurs, quiet, and the older 'were seems to get it, then.

"You think we should push him out?"

Stiles swallows thickly, because the idea makes him sick to his stomach, and says instead, soft, and because it's far truer than it has any right to be, and because it's been a kind of shitty week and he's feeling raw and split open and vulnerable, "I miss you."

"Do you need me there?" Peter asks immediately, concerned and fiercely determined and probably already halfway to his fucking car. Stiles huffs a laugh, and he should say no, really, he should, but he just wants.

"How fucking selfish would it be to say yes?"

"The Betas will be alright without me for a few days, and you are my top priority—besides, it would do you good to be selfish every once in a while."

"Top priority, huh?"

"Stiles."

"... Will you come?"

"Yes."

Stiles shivers a little at the adamancy, feels soft and warm and loved.

"Please," he whispers, and knows already that Peter will be in Starling in a matter of hours.

Peter waits for Stiles outside of one of Starling City's finest high schools, the rental car he's in isn't flashy, but it's sleek, stylish, and fast enough for a quick getaway, just in case. He knows from the boy's reaction to the camaro and Peter's own car that he has a bit of a fetish for leather seats and purring engines, for all that he loves his ragdoll of a jeep, and that goes well with Peter's own tastes, anyway, though he won't deny that he's trying, vaguely, to impress.

His wolf has eased exponentially since he obtained, for the second time, the Alpha-spark. There's something about having a Pack, really having one, that's... It feels so much like closure, to have the loyalty, respect, trust, and love of his Betas; it's cathartic, in a way, and peaceful, despite the wars waged against them. He even has his daughter, for all her feral, wild, animal, she is his, their packbond is strong, a little unkempt, but strong. Part of him still can't believe how easy they all accepted him as theirs, can't believe that, after all he's done, the insanity he'd wallowed in, crawled out of like he crawled out of his own grave, that they could so brazenly, and with smiles on their faces, call him Alpha. And be proud to, proud of him, of themselves, of their little, terrifying, unorthodox family.

Proud enough, even, to defend him and it against Scott, and there's irony in that, somewhere, he's pretty sure.

He's also pretty sure he couldn't have had any of this, without Stiles—that extraordinary boy, the one his heart actually warms for, the one his wolf howls for, the one who said he'd be a good Alpha and then found a way for him to have red eyes once more. So damaged, haunted, fragile, that his selfless bravery is somehow even more dauntingly profound, in the face of what he's been through, what he's going through. It hurts, somewhere very, very deep, and with something exceedingly sharp, to see Stiles in any sort of pain, to see Stiles needing him, and being so goddamn far away.

He knows why he pushed Stiles to leave Beacon Hills, and he still thinks, in the long run, that this will help heal some of the deeper cracks, but that doesn't stop his wolf from scratching at the back of his skull, whining for Mate, and protect, provide. He wonders, a little, at the fact that he'd fallen so deeply without even noticing, and to such an extent that his wolf recognizes Stiles as Mate. Normally, he plans for things like this, meticulous and thought out, but his own heart surprised him, Stiles surprised him.

Stiles is always surprising him.

Like now, for instance, when he walks out of the school amongst a gaggle of other students, sees Peter leaning against the hood of the rental, and promptly runs for him. The embrace, the force of it, steals his breath, and the unrepentantly pleased laugh that bubbles from Stiles' lips, pressed lightly against the side of his neck, makes his heart flutter. Flutter, like butterfly wings, all stained-glass, paper-thin, overwhelmingly beautiful, and he hates nothing so much as how his lips begin curling into a smile against his will.

(Who is he kidding, hate can't even touch what he's feeling right now.)

"It's nice to see you, too, sweetheart." This is true in more ways than one, in the way that Stiles is too skinny and too scared, too much agony coiling in the core of one person, and too goddamned far away most of the time, even when he's in Peter's arms; in the way that his voice shook with threads of tremulous vulnerability over the phone, in the way that, if Stiles didn't trust him so much, if Stiles weren't in such an atrocious place, he knows the boy would've held his tongue, bitten it ragged and bloody just to keep the words, the need, the want for help, inside, unheard, unsaid.

"Hi," Stiles murmurs, pulling away, hands absently fiddling with Peter's collar as he stares up at him with those wide, sun-soaked earthen eyes, his pink lips, petal-soft, like damp, crushed pastel, part on a breath, and Peter wants so ferociously to pull the boy back in and kiss him stupid that he very nearly does—the only thing that stops him is the sound of other teens, their parents, someone scraping chalk against a chalkboard. If he were ever going to kiss Stiles, here would be a horrible place to do it.

"Hello," he agrees, drags a hand through Stiles' hair before leaving the warmth of him completely to open the passenger door. "Get in, I'm hungry, and Donahue's place of employment isn't far."

"Already addicted to my roomie's cooking?" Stiles teases, sliding into his seat and surreptitiously buckling up as Peter closes the door behind him.

"Perhaps," he admits, lightly, before getting in himself, fervently appreciative of his decision about the car when Stiles makes an almost pornographic sound as it rumbles to life.

[AMNESTY]

I....... do not remember, at all, where I was going with this fic? I'm guessing I was going to do more with the Thea/Roy/Jax/Lydia foursome and somehow resolve the Queen family drama, somehow fix the Moira sitch, and then get Peter/Stiles to actually get together, and then the whole kicking Scott & co. outta BH (how? was I going to do that?), and all throughout get Laurel and Quinten to the point where they knew, were brought into the fold, and were down with it, and Stiles progressively healing, etc.

I have no idea if I was going to do with anything Sara Lance.

Anyyywwaaayyyyyyy. I love you all, *crawls into blanket-burrito and dies*.