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It’s only been a handful of days, but to Stiles, it’s felt so much longer. To Derek, too, Stiles thinks, if the wolf’s even more severe resting bitch face is anything to go by. And the way Scott keeps sending Allison mournful glances, one would think it’s been a handful of months. Stiles can’t bring himself to care about that, though, not after all that has happened.He wouldn’t have thought it before that night in the preserve, but it’s actually possible to miss someone you had a mostly antagonistic relationship with. Someone, to be honest, who’s scared you shitless on multiple occasions and made your life so much more dangerous in a very short amount of time.But the thing is, having had a hand in someone’s death can lead to bouts of guilt. Which then leads to… kind of… glorifying past events. Even the bad ones.So, the thing is, Stiles finds himself actually mourning Peter’s death. It’s been giving him emotional whiplash, like you wouldn’t believe.With Peter—and Kate—newly dead, and the slightly saner Argent in town looking into who’s been loyal to Kate—in order to deal with them, he’d said, whatever that means—, things have quieted down considerably. Stiles doesn’t expect the peace to last long, but it still gives him time to realize that he misses Peter in a wholly unexpected way. Maybe it’s the fact that the alpha had not just been a mindless monster to Stiles. He’d had the chance to see the man behind the wolf. The side of him that was still capable of rational thought and acts of kindness despite his loss-of-pack-induced madness. Otherwise, he wouldn’t just have accepted Stiles’ refusal to take the Bite. So he misses Peter, and he mourns the wasted potential and who knows how much knowledge that had died with him. He also blames his first “sighting” of the man—mere hours after his death—on that loss. Because what other reason should there be for him to “see” him lurking in the corner of his room? Peter is dead, after all. Wishful thinking is the most outlandish explanation he wants to come up with for the glimpse he got out of the corner of his eye.Well, there are crazier explanations, like zombies, ghosts, and bleed-throughs from parallel universes. But his life has been crazy enough, as of late, and he thinks he should be allowed to have a mundane explanation for a phenomenon, just this once.~Turns out, though, that it’s a recurring phenomenon. There have been more sightings in the days following the first one. Always in the shadows, though, so Stiles isn’t convinced yet that he’s not just making everything up. With the sudden drop of adrenaline in his life and with everyone who’d been involved trying their damnedest to act like nothing had happened at all, he’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop. There’s a sense of rising urgency in him that’s getting harder and harder to ignore.Hence, the flashes of Peter that always vanish when Stiles tries to focus on them. He clings to this explanation, and he’s not ashamed of it.Besides, other things have started vying for his attention, like Jackson prowling the preserve around the ruin of the Hale house or Derek prowling Beacon Hills like a man on a mission.How does Stiles know all of this?Well, Derek is easy enough to explain. Stiles has been running into him in some strange places over the last couple of days. The grocery store might not even have pinged on Stiles’ radar because werewolves need to eat, too, right? But what kind of business does Derek have at the cemetery? His family isn’t buried there, after all. There’s no memorial there, either. Something about last wishes and filed wills, if Stiles remembers correctly. And the hospital? Now that his uncle isn’t a patient there anymore, anyone not in the know would probably wonder what he’s doing there. Stiles knows, but he wonders what Derek loitering there for no apparent reason must look like to the staff. Do they even notice him if Derek doesn’t need to be in Lydia’s room to check up on her? The school grounds are a little less strange than the hospital, considering both Scott and Allison’s attendance. But those two are not who Derek has been watching…Jackson, though. Jackson becoming a subject of Stiles’ interest is Stiles’ dratted curiosity coming out to play again. Because the last time he’d given in to the impulse of satisfying it, it hadn’t had any life-changing consequences at all, right?Man, directing his sarcasm at himself for once doesn’t feel so nice!It doesn’t keep him from following Jackson around, though. Mostly with his eyes, during school hours, and mostly because Jackson isn’t hounding Scott the same way he’d done before the night in the woods. He still looks like he wants to know everyone’s secrets, and he appears to get more frustrated the longer he doesn’t get the answers he wants, but Scott seems to have fallen out of favor as a viable source. Instead, Stiles has caught Jackson watching Derek whenever the new alpha hovers at the edges of the lacrosse field or near the tables in the schoolyard. They might even be watching each other. And that has made Stiles worry enough that following his classmate into the preserve after school every other day feels like a good idea to him. So Stiles has not only found out that Jackson has been at the Hale house but also that Derek has valiantly avoided contact so far.Today that might change, however, given how determined Jackson looks as he approaches the house while Stiles knows that Derek is inside. During his last few attempts, Jackson wasn’t shy about entering the ruins uninvited. He likely won’t be shy now, either.“Ohhh, that’s going to go well,” a frighteningly familiar voice suddenly says far too close to Stiles’ ear, making him jump so hard he almost brains himself on the tree he’s hiding behind. Luckily, his forehead only makes brief, scraping contact with the rough bark. He also manages to suppress the high-pitched scream that wants to escape him, and he’s so, so grateful for that. He’s fairly sure that Derek knows he’s there, but that doesn’t mean he wants Jackson to know as well, after all.He whispers a heartfelt “What the fuck?” anyway.Peter Hale—standing right next to Stiles and watching Jackson shoulder his way into the house with more force than necessary—freezes.He looks a lot better than the last time Stiles saw him. There’s a distinct lack of burn marks, and his throat also looks like it’s never been slashed. But apart from that, the fact that he’s standing there at all shocks Stiles the most.Judging by Peter’s reaction, Stiles’ presence is a shock, too. Why his nosiness should come as a surprise to anyone is a mystery to him, though. There’s been precedence, not that long ago. Precedence that Peter witnessed, half out of his mind or not…“You’re not Lydia!” Peter says, comically wide-eyed.No shit, Sherlock!Even if Lydia hadn’t “released” herself from the hospital only yesterday, she wouldn’t have supported whatever hare-brained plan Jackson was following right now. She wouldn’t be watching her on-and-off boyfriend bite off more than he could possibly chew from afar like this without trying to interfere.“Why would you expect to see Lydia here?”Stiles’ muttered question seems to startle Peter. Well, more than he’s already been startled. Maybe that’s why Stiles gets what feels like a completely honest and unfiltered answer.“Here? I didn’t expect to see anyone here. I expected to see Lydia someplace else, though.”“You did, huh? One would think that dying would keep people from expecting anything at all.”“If one thinks of death as an end to one’s existence, maybe.”“But you don’t.”“Does it look to you like dying was the end for me?”“Depends on if you’re a figment of my imagination, doesn’t it?”“I’m not.”“Exactly what I’d assume a figment of my imagination would say,” Stiles counters, a little louder than he intended, pauses, and continues more quietly: “So that’s not gonna convince me. If you’re really here, you’ll have to prove it. And for good measure: Tell me how you’re here when I watched you die almost a week ago.”“I remember you doing a bit more than just watching.”Stiles winces, which Peter raises an eyebrow at.“It was necessary.” Stiles winces again at how callous that sounds and hastily adds: “But I do regret the method we used. It occurred to me a little too late that fire would be a special kind of hell for someone who’d barely survived getting burned before.”There is a lengthy pause before Peter answers, so Stiles prepares for condemnation. “I’ll allow it,” he says eventually and shrugs when Stiles gapes at him. “But I reserve the right to get some revenge on you if I feel you still deserve it once I’m back among the living.”Once he’s what now? But Stiles doesn’t get a chance to ask because, just at that moment, there’s a mighty crash somewhere inside the house, followed by Derek’s roar. Peter rolls his eyes.“That was stupid. I could have told him that wasn’t going to work.”“What?”It’s not one of Stiles’ most intelligent responses, but he feels like he should be excused, given how lost he feels at this sudden turn of events. “Derek has never been authoritative before the fire. But due to that fire and the fact that he’s an alpha now, he won’t let himself be pushed around without retaliation any longer. And this spoiled brat just tried to order him to give him the Bite. That’s a surefire way of getting refused.”“Huh… But doesn’t Derek need betas? I thought that was a requirement or something.”“Doesn’t mean he has to accept just anyone. Building a pack loses all meaning if the betas aren’t a good fit for the alpha. Or have you already forgotten how little having two unwilling betas helped me?”“I kind of assumed your issues lay elsewhere. Uhhh… no offense.”Another crash tugs Stiles’ attention away from their discussion. He’s getting a bit worried for Jackson’s safety now, so he asks: “Should we… maybe… interfere?”“Would you want to get in between them?” is Peter’s vaguely provocative response.“Not really, no. But maybe your appearance would give them pause.”“Hah!” Peter laughs. It’s not a nice sound. “They won’t see me. And neither will they hear me.”“But you’re perfectly visible and audible to me. What makes them different?”“Wrong question. The right question is: What makes you different from everyone else?”Stiles doesn’t like the direction in which their conversation is going. Peter makes it sound like he’s special somehow, and not necessarily in a good way.“So you’re saying nobody should be able to tell you’re around?”“Nobody, apart from Lydia.”“You’re awfully fixated on her. I can’t say that I like it.”“Well—”Whatever answer Peter would have given gets cut off by Derek dragging Jackson out of the house by his collar. Stiles ducks and hopes that both of them are so focused on their quarrel that they don’t notice they still have an audience.“Don’t ask again,” Derek growls and pushes Jackson down the stairs. “My answer won’t change unless your attitude changes.”Pot, meet kettle, Stiles thinks with half a smirk and watches as Derek disappears between the trees. Judging by Jackson’s defiant expression, the last word in that matter hasn’t been spoken yet. It’s going to be interesting to see who proves to be the most stubborn.When he turns to share that thought with Peter, the guy is gone.~That night, Stiles is a couple of hours into researching ghosts when Peter reappears. He’s gotten used to seeing him from the corner of his eye, so he doesn’t jump. But this time, when he focuses on him, he stays around.“You know, it’s rather creepy that a grown man… a grown ghost… lurks in the shadows of a teenager’s room. Aren’t you tired of it yet?”“I’ve never lurked in any teen’s room. At least not since I was four and convinced that Talia had a secret boyfriend.”So many things to unpack in this sentence, and Stiles doesn’t know what to focus on first. On the one hand, he totally wants to learn more about pack life in general and the Hale pack in particular. But on the other hand…“Are you really trying to pretend you haven’t been staring at me from that corner for almost as long as you’ve been dead?”“Nothing to pretend there. Between dying and waking up right where I’d died, just minutes before Jackson entered the scene with you almost directly on his heels, I wasn’t anywhere at all.”“I saw you, though,” Stiles insists, a bit petulantly, maybe. It’s not very mature of him, but he won’t let Peter make him doubt his own sanity.Peter’s answering tone is rather dismissive. “Here?”“Yeah. Only brief sightings, for the most part. But it was definitely you.”It’s hard for Stiles not to make a comment on confused puppies when Peter tilts his head at that. But the urge dies the moment Peter’s eyes narrow.“You’re not an ordinary human yourself, are you?”“And what else would I be?”“Someone with the power to interfere with my plans. It’s probably your fault that they failed.”Yeah, nope! Stiles won’t stand for this blatant defamation.“You can’t blame me! I don’t even know what your plans were.”“To resurrect myself with Lydia’s help. Obviously. But I ended up at your side instead of hers.”“You still can’t blame me. I didn’t do anything. Also, since you didn’t answer earlier: Why are you so fixated on her? Why do you think she could help you? Or that she would?”“I bit her. That’s all it should have taken.”“But she didn’t turn. What’s up with that anyway?”“Biting an already supernatural being won’t turn them. There’s a chance that they’ll die if they’re incompatible with wolves. But if their powers have been dormant, it can jumpstart them.”“So Lydia isn’t an ordinary human either? And you knew? How did you know?”“I guessed, based on her family history. My family had dealings with hers in the past. So I knew there was a good chance she’d be what I needed her to be for my plan to work.”“And what does it mean that it didn’t? Is she not what you expected her to be?”“Is she dead?”“What? No! What gave you that idea?”“Nothing. I’m trying to make a point here: If she’s not dead and she didn’t turn, she’s not human. Ergo, she’s following her grandmother’s footsteps. Ergo, if you hadn’t interfered somehow, my plan would have worked.”“I repeat: I didn’t do anything! Has it occurred to you that even if she’s something, she might not be the supernatural being you expected her to be?”“Highly unlikely! Supernatural breeds don’t usually mix. There are exceptions to that rule, but none in recorded history that involve her kind.”“Which is?”Peter stubbornly doesn’t answer that question, making Stiles roll his eyes at him.“Why are you deciding to be difficult now, after you’ve already shared so much information? The only thing you’re achieving with that is me going on yet another research spree. And there’s a higher-than-zero chance of me finding out anyway.”“I still don’t know why I ended up with you and if that means I’ll be stuck as a ghost. The best-case scenario is that you’re the better option for my resurrection. But excuse me for not being that optimistic right now. I’m more used to the worst-case scenarios happening.”“Does that mean you’re giving up? Somehow, that seems a bit defeatist, after everything.”“Far be it from me to simply capitulate, but there’s not much I can do in this state, is there? I can’t reach the one person who could definitely have helped. I’ve tried.”“Have you thought about using an intermediary?”“You mean you?”“Wow, that’s harsh. Why not me?”“You forget I’m a werewolf with heightened senses. I’ve had the dubious pleasure of observing the two of you interacting… before. I’m not convinced you’d be any help with getting Lydia on board.”“I think you’re being overly dismissive. But let’s pretend she really isn’t an option any longer. Is there any other way of achieving your goal?”“I’m not sure. The method I chose was something I’d come across on pure chance while going through our library a couple of years before the fire. But I never researched in more depth because back then, I didn’t see the need.”“Is there a chance there is more information about resurrection floating around somewhere?”“The library is still mostly intact because it’s never been on our property in the preserve. Not that it would do me any good now. I can go there, but I won’t be able to touch any of the books.”“How about a deal, then? I’ll help you access the books, and you answer my questions.”“Why does that feel like I’d be opening Pandora’s box?”“No idea,” Stiles says, smiling innocently. “But if I had to guess, I’d say you’re too paranoid.”“Insults are not how you make deals, you know?”“Being polite hasn’t gotten me any farther, either. And it’s not like you really can refuse, can you? Not if you don’t want to keep going on like this indefinitely.”“I don’t know. Haunting you could prove to be fun. If all else failed, I wouldn’t be opposed to annoying the hell out of you for the rest of your life.”Stiles narrows his eyes as Peter smirks and watches with quiet satisfaction as the ghost’s expression turns wary. “Since you think I’m at least supernatural-adjacent, what are the chances I’d find a way to exorcize you? Also higher than zero, I’d wager. Are you willing to risk it?”Peter doesn’t look like he appreciates the conclusion he comes to, and his acquiescence is more than a little reluctant. Stiles thinks it’ll do Peter good to have someone around to help him stay humble. And it helps Stiles’ battered self-esteem a lot to finally have the upper hand again. ~Peter has ended up agreeing to Stiles’ deal, and he’s guided him to a vault under the school of all places. Stiles thinks he’s allowed to judge, no matter what Peter says. Because it’s all well and good that the vault was there first. But why let the school be built above it? Or, if the location of the school was non-negotiable, why not relocate the vault?Peter hems and haws over the questions until he has to admit that he doesn’t know. It seems to irk the man, which greatly improves Stiles’ mood. He’s positively giddy with it after he’s watched Peter’s expression sour further the bigger Stiles’ grin got.In the end, they call a truce—mostly because Stiles’ attention is quite firmly grabbed by all the books, which placates Peter. Turns out they have that insatiable need to find and hoard knowledge in common. That realization feels like a bonding moment to both of them.It takes Peter’s gentle prodding to keep Stiles from getting sidetracked from their mission to find everything there is to find about resurrection methods. They do locate the script which holds the one that Peter had wanted.And now he knows why Peter didn’t want to give him the details when he first asked.The part that Stiles takes exception to isn’t that Lydia has to be a banshee—a harbinger of death, if he remembers correctly—for the plan to work. She’s scarier to Stiles now, sure, but he’ll get used to it. He got used to werewolves, too, after all. It’s also not the part about it taking weeks to prepare. No, it’s the fact that— “She doesn’t know, does she? If she did, she would have reacted differently to everything that’s happened before you bit her.”Peter looks kind of mulish when he says: “She didn’t need to know for it to work. I knew I was running on borrowed time, so tell me: When would I have explained what she is and what I’d want her to do in case I died? And do you really think she’d have agreed?”“So the alternative is, what? Talking to her from beyond the grave and making her do it without her knowing what exactly she’s doing?”“Better than me staying dead for good.”Stiles hates that he can see Peter’s point. But still…“We’re going to find another way! Besides, it says here you’ll need an alpha’s blood, too. And I can’t see Derek agreeing to help either. Not with all the history between you.”“What do you know about our history?”“Not much, I admit. But considering how both Laura and you died, he has reason enough to refuse, don’t you think?”Peter goes silent at that and fades from Stiles’ view. It doesn’t make Stiles feel better, though. Now he’s alone in the vault, with all the books, and has nobody to discuss his findings with. And nobody who’ll scout ahead when he’ll eventually want to leave. If getting left behind is the price for winning a verbal spar, then it’s not worth it. Even though—this time, at least—his point was valid.~Peter “returned” rather speedily during that research session when Stiles wandered further into the vault in search of a book that was referenced in the one he’d been reading and ended up spilling a jar of fine powder that made him sneeze.Stiles stood there, all frozen and panicked that he’d never get access again thanks to this offense. And then he watched the powder start to move. Not much—Stiles would have missed it, had he not been absolutely still, for once—but from one moment to the next, Peter materialized almost directly in front of him, with a very intense expression on his face.And now, their research goal is different. Peter hasn’t given up on finding a way to come back to life, but he seems to believe teaching Stiles how to do magic is more important, for the time being.Magic!That’s mind-boggling.Apparently, the powder he spilled is mountain ash. He thinks he might have heard—or read—the word before, but he’s sure he hasn’t known it could be a barrier against a lot of things that go bump in the night. You don’t even need to have magic yourself for it to work because of its inherent traits. But Peter took notice because it’s not possible for a mundane person to make the stuff move on its own. You can throw it, pour it, sprinkle it… whatever. It’ll work. And then there’s Stiles, who made it start to return to the jar without touching it in his panic.Peter is excited now.It’s… Stiles doesn’t have eloquent enough words to describe it properly. The translucent form of the dead wolf suddenly looks alive somehow. Not that he is. He’s still all immaterial and kind of cold when Stiles gets too close to him—typical of any ghost, as far as all the texts on the topic insist. And yet, it’s getting easier to forget the man is dead.Oblivious to Stiles’ train of thought, Peter eagerly points out a list of new books to read to figure out just what kind of magic Stiles has. Looks like there’ll be more sleepless nights ahead of him. He can’t be mad about it, though, because if he’s perfectly honest with himself, he’s excited, too.~The next few days pass in a kind of haze. At school, Scott sometimes sends him worried glances. And Stiles gets it. Truly, he does. Due to all his research, he hasn’t made much of an effort to hang out with his best friend for… a while. Whoops?And it’s not just Scott who has noticed, either. Jackson has made snide remarks in passing that would have hurt his self-esteem as little as two weeks ago, before he became so immersed in ghosts and magic that his hyperfocus took away his capacity to care.Should he be worried about that?Eh… For now, there are more important things to worry about. Like making sure he masters whatever exercises Peter has him do in order to achieve the man’s goals without having to involve Lydia.Stiles has kept an eye on her, at least, if only from afar. In his opinion, she’s recovering well enough. There are no signs that she is haunted, so Stiles is reasonably sure that Peter has been telling him the truth. Lydia is out of his reach. Good! It means more work for him, but if Lydia can be kept out of this for a while longer, he’s all for it.According to Peter, she’ll grow into her powers sooner rather than later, now that she’d gotten the Bite. But for the time being, she doesn’t seem to be affected, apart from a few sycophants who try to follow her around as some kind of guard. As if they’d ever be able to protect her from werewolves.Speaking of which… Are there new wolves in school?Peter refuses to follow him to his classes, citing an intolerance for high concentrations of moronic teenagers, so Stiles can’t ask him to make sure right away. But there are a couple of candidates. People who suddenly ping on his radar when they haven’t before.Is Derek recruiting? And if he is, why teenagers? Hasn’t Scott been a prime example of teens not being a good choice?At least Jackson isn’t among the candidates. But not for lack of trying. It’s like a thundercloud is permanently attached to him now, and Stiles wonders how long it’ll take until the co-captain finally explodes. He hopes Derek is prepared to deal with the fallout if—when—that happens.~The thing about Derek refusing to turn Jackson keeps niggling at Stiles, so he caves and asks Peter about it.“I’ve crossed paths with him a few times,” the ghost ponders, and Stiles knows about all of those incidents: the video store, the school, the lacrosse field—all the times he met Lydia, too. “And each time, I’ve been driven by the instinct to expand my pack. It’s why I bit Scott and Lydia, and it’s why I offered the Bite to you. But him? I just never had the urge. I can’t explain it well, but it’s almost like he was invisible to my more animalistic side. Maybe Derek feels the same.”“Any idea why that may be?”“No. If I’d stayed alive and had kept being exposed to him, maybe I’d have figured it out over time. But now? Your best bet would be to ask Derek.”Yeah… nope! As interesting as the anomaly that Jackson represents is, neither does Stiles want to approach Derek while he is recruiting, nor does he want to be distracted from his current project.Well, projects. Plural. He really doesn’t have time for a third line of research. Because, unlike a certain dead wolf he could mention, Stiles needs to sleep at some point.So he puts it out of his mind for the time being and hopes it won’t come back to haunt him later.
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Before Stiles knows it, Peter’s two-week “anniversary” dawns, and with it, Kate’s funeral. As nice as it would have been to witness her getting buried, Stiles opted out of attending. Again: His research is more important!But Peter disappeared from the vault about an hour ago, and Stiles can guess where he went. There’s both satisfaction and closure to gain from watching your mortal enemy’s burial. So he understands how important that must be for Peter. There’s nothing more final than—Wait! Being put six feet deep into the ground is final for the mundane. People who have no ties to the supernatural world—neither by being part of it themselves nor by hovering at its edges. But he has proof now that dying doesn’t need to be the end. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be working on reviving Peter.Why is he working on reviving Peter anyway? Shouldn’t that have been the farthest thing from his mind? Why is it only now, nine days after Peter started to haunt him, that he wonders if succeeding in this plan would just make more mayhem descend upon Beacon Hills?It takes him a couple of minutes to get his suddenly galloping heart under control again. But once he’s not fighting off black spots in his line of sight from forgetting to breathe anymore, he realizes why he must have subconsciously gone along with all of this without questioning it: One, he had mourned the loss of knowledge that had been gone with Peter—and look what he’s gained since then! Two, Peter as a ghost is much more rational—dare he say even sane?—than he was before he died. Stiles is reasonably sure that sanity would follow him back into the land of the living. And three: If Stiles is the one to resurrect Peter, he’ll have a certain amount of control over the situation. He’d rather be there to oversee the process, if you will, than risk that Peter still manages on his own somehow. Because then Stiles might get blindsided by the possible consequences. And no, thank you! He doesn’t need that kind of stress on top of all the other excitement that has invaded his life since he became aware of the supernatural.So he gets back to reading up on magic and how he might be able to make Peter’s wish come true with the least amount of trauma and sacrifice possible.He forgets the time over it and only realizes Peter’s back because a cloud of rage is suddenly hovering in the vault. Stiles can’t explain how he senses that rage and how he knows it’s Peter’s, but when he turns around, Peter is there. He’s a lot more transparent than he was before he left, but he’s visibly shaking, and his eyes are glowing an unexpectedly bright blue.“What’s wrong?” slips out of Stiles’ mouth before he can ask himself if talking to such an agitated ghost might be a huge mistake.Luckily for him, however, it only brings Peter out of whatever thought spiral he’d been caught in. He all but seems to deflate as he floats closer, absentmindedly scanning the open books on the table with eyes that thankfully don’t glow anymore. And just when Stiles thinks he won’t get an answer to his question, Peter sighs.“Gerard is here.”“Gerard?”“Argent. It’s not… I shouldn’t be surprised. Kate was his favorite spawn. But from what I observed, he’s planning on staying.”“So, he’s as crazy as Kate was? Since she was his favorite, I mean.”“Not quite as crazy, but a lot more calculating. That’s arguably worse. Because it means he considers the consequences before he acts.”“What are we going to do about it?”“We?”“Of course, we. Or have you forgotten that, of the two of us, I’m the one who’s solid? If something needs to be done physically, it’s not you who’ll be able to do it.”“We’ll see about that,” Peter growls, and Stiles gets the impression that it isn’t because he’s opposed to the idea of needing help. No, it seems like he simply has such a strong desire to do unspeakably violent things to an Argent that Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if the man actually manifested the ability to do so. Because if ghosts have turned out to be real, why not poltergeists as well? Hmmm, another thing to research: Ways for a ghost to influence the living. It’ll likely be beneficial knowledge for Stiles, depending on how long Peter will be stuck as a ghost. It wouldn’t do to find out that possession is possible, for example, by ending up being possessed himself, right? There’s a thought, though… He writes a reminder onto a sticky note and pins it to the cover of his research folder, overlapping two of the dozen or so other notes that are already there, so he won’t forget to look that up later.~The next day, Stiles is almost vibrating out of his skin when he comes home. The moment he all but throws his backpack into a corner and starts pacing, Peter appears—through the wall—as if he’s already been in the house and wandering around while waiting for Stiles to return. He decides not to ask. There’s a bigger problem to worry about, after all. Which Peter seems to pick up on right away, suddenly hovering uncomfortably close in front of Stiles.“What happened?” the ghost asks, staring at him so intently that he has to turn away and pace some more.“Where do I even start? It feels like every day, there’s a new issue that demands my attention, and I don’t know what to deal with first anymore. To think I’d assumed that things would be less hectic after Kate and—” Stiles stops himself just in time before he says something callous again. Not that it changes the impact, judging by Peter’s carefully blank expression. “Sorry… I keep being insensitive. Is being stressed a valid excuse?”“Depends,” Peter shrugs. “What are you stressed about?”“The Argents. Imagine my surprise when I ran into Gerard at school today. Apparently, our previous principal needed a speedy replacement. Or something. I don’t like it.”“He must be utterly convinced that he won’t face any opposition. It worked for his spawn years ago, so it’ll work for him now, or some such drivel.”“Only that Kate was a substitute teacher, and Gerard has the nerve to come in as the principal. What are the chances that his paperwork would hold up under scrutiny?”“Considering how long they’ve been applying these kinds of methods, I have a feeling he’s sure there won’t be any scrutiny. And he might even be right. Look at how many people had been working to ensure the fire wasn’t classified as arson. And the authorities either didn’t notice or were actively helping.”“Right. He’s gone too far now, though. There are new wolves at school, and you can’t tell me they’re prepared for whatever Gerard has planned. He needs to be gone. ASAP.”“Plural?”“What?”“You said wolves, not wolf. Scott’s not that new anymore. And as far as I know, the only other candidate is Jackson if he finally managed to wear Derek down.”“See? And that’s why your refusal to come to school with me was a bad idea. I think there are at least two baby wolves. I’m even somewhat sure I have identified one of them. It’s not Jackson, by the way. Jackson’s started to spiral into hating everyone because he’s not allowed to play with the cool kids… if you excuse the analogy. In any case, none of the baby wolves have seen their first full moon yet. And if Derek keeps recruiting, there’s no way that Gerard will stay ignorant of the growing pack. It’ll be easy for him to take them out, one way or another.”Peter nods, a deep frown on his face. But that’s all Stiles gets in reply, so he continues: “Now tell me what you’d do if you weren’t currently indisposed.”“I’d kill him.”“... Wait. That’s it? Just plain murder? I hate to tell you this, but the only thing that would achieve would be more hunters descending upon Beacon Hills. And then what? You’d kill them, too?”If looks were able to kill, Stiles would surely have joined Peter just now. But seriously, the man needs to learn some subtlety. Or maybe relearn it. Stiles theorizes that Peter used to be a master schemer in the past. There’s something about the way his eyes narrow in thought every once in a while that speaks of previously ingrained habits. So, this suggestion? Likely still the product of the immense hate the loss of his family must have sparked.“Come on,” Stiles cajoles when Peter continues to glare at him. “I have a feeling you can come up with something sneakier than this. For the record, I’m not against him dying. The world would be a better place without him around to keep spreading his hunter ‘philosophy’. And I’m sure it’d be very satisfying for you to rip him apart. But still… There has to be a way to guarantee that nobody can blame it on the supernatural community.”“It’s a moot point anyway, isn’t it? It’s not like I can kill him, no matter how much I’d want to. And I see neither Derek nor Scott going for it either, for various reasons. Also, if you’re right about the cubs, they might want to eliminate a threat to their existence, but as new as they are, they’d never be able to take him on and win.”“I might be able to do someth—”“No!”“I’d like to see you stop me! As you said, neither you nor the pack can do anything about Gerard. Which leaves me.”“You’re not going to risk your life like that. Not until we’ve solved our initial problem.”“Awww, there you go, making me think you care about me, only to brutally crush my ego half a breath later.”For some reason, though, Peter’s careless dismissal of Stiles’ future safety doesn’t cut as deeply as Stiles would have expected. Maybe it’s about the tone or the expression not really matching the callousness of the words.“You still won’t do anything to Gerard.”“Not that I particularly want to go after him myself, but how exactly would you keep me from doing it if I decided there’s no other way?”Peter’s flashing eyes are the only warning Stiles gets before the ghost is right in front of him, and cold is spreading through his body. Instinct is telling him to take several steps back, but he’s frozen—hah!—in place. All he can do is blink mutely at Peter, whose enraged expression is rapidly morphing into open shock.Moments later, the wolf is at the other end of the room, and warmth is rushing back into Stiles, making him gasp and massage his chest.“What was that?” he whispers, his thoughts already racing down several paths at once.“I might have almost possessed you,” Peter answers just as quietly, sounding decidedly spooked. It had likely not been his intention then. But—“This might actually solve our Gerard problem.”Peter stares at him as if he’s thinking Stiles has lost his mind. And, on any other day, Stiles would likely have agreed with him. Instead, he points at his collection of sticky notes.“Something you said yesterday made me write a reminder to myself to see if ghosts possessing living people was a thing. Mostly so I could prevent it from happening to me,” Peter actually flinches at that—interesting, “but now I’m thinking, what if we could use it as a weapon?”“Making Gerard commit suicide probably won’t be any more subtle than him getting violently killed, don’t you think? If there’s one thing I would never see him doing, it’s him taking himself out voluntarily. Because any day he’s not alive is a day he can’t kill werewolves. And his minions know that and would suspect foul play.”“I wasn’t actually thinking about suicide… Do you think it’d be hard to control his bodily functions? I mean, I’m guessing it’ll be harder than making his arms or legs work. But what are the chances you could make his heart just stop working, or his lungs stop breathing.”“Sweetheart!” Peter purrs, looking downright delighted. “I didn’t know you had such a diabolic streak!”Stiles doesn’t know how to feel about the term of endearment—at least in this particular context. He suddenly feels like he’s on very thin ice. And should the ice break, he’d end up falling deep. Because there’s no metaphorical water underneath it to drown him only a handful of feet below the surface.Ugh… His imagery really needs some work here, doesn’t it?And yet, he can’t help but poke the bear. Wolf. Whatever.“Did you already forget my role in your own demise?”To Stiles’ surprise, Peter’s delight doesn’t dim any at that reminder.“That was a slightly different matter. The danger to you and your friends was a lot more immediate than it is now. Because while your plan has merit, and I’m certainly all for it, it will take a while to prepare. We’d want to be sure our first attempt is already a success, after all.”“What kind of preparation are we looking at here?”“Well… since I hadn’t meant to take you over the way I did just now, I’d have to practice doing it on purpose. Not to mention that I have no idea yet if it’s at all possible to influence someone’s organs the way you suggested.”Peter sounds less perturbed about that than Stiles would have thought. Instead, he looks positively scheming, which necessitates an emphatic objection before Peter gets any funny ideas.“You’re not going to practice on me!”Peter scoffs. “Of course not. I’m not going to risk your life. It’d be a bit hypocritical of me after I told you off for volunteering yourself to go and kill a guy, wouldn’t it?”“Good!” Stiles breathes out in relief. But… “Who would be a suitable candidate, then? Gerard is out, for obvious reasons. As are all of the other Argents and Argent-adjacents. And I’m not sure I’d like it if you chose random people.”“Hmmm, those are all valid points,” Peter hums, only to start smirking a second later. “Tell me, Stiles. Which person wouldn’t you mind to see suffer? Who do you think would deserve some rough treatment, should I happen to need more practice to perfect my technique?”Stiles’ breath catches in his chest. Because while he’d like to say he doesn’t know anybody who deserves it, one name immediately pops up in his mind.The glint in Peter’s eyes shows that he’s noticed. Of course he has.“Oh, you’ve thought of someone! Excellent. Tell me!”“I shouldn’t.”It’s wrong, isn’t it? Stiles knows he is more morally flexible than what society deems appropriate, although he likes to call it being practical. And while, in the grand scheme of things, it is practical for Peter to be able to train and ensure the success of their… uh… mission, he feels like his reasons for having that particular candidate in mind are maybe a bit too selfish. Vindictive. Something like that. It feels like one tiny step too far. That man hasn’t killed anyone, after all. Not directly. And Stiles is aware that if he gives Peter the name, the wolf would have no inclination to be careful. Which is the whole point of the exercise, isn’t it? To be as careful as possible so that nobody can accuse anyone of foul play.“I’m waiting,” Peter says, seeming to be very sure he’d get his way.No grown man should be able to look this eager and smug at the same time. And it absolutely shouldn’t be working in his favor.But in the end, Stiles caves despite his best intentions.“Adrian Harris,” he mumbles.Peter hears him anyway, and his answering grin has supervillain quality.~As eager as they are to get started on project “hunter extermination”, they decide that trying to experiment on Harris—and yep, it is as shady as it sounds, although not so much in a mad scientist kind of way—in the middle of the week might not be such a good idea. If something went wrong, someone with such a public job would be missed too soon that way.So, Friday evening it is, which gives them some time to look up more information on possession, what kind of skills ghosts have, and where those two areas might overlap. The more they know before the test run, the smoother that one should go. Right?Right!But starting yet another line of inquiry is slow-going. Almost three hours into their research session on Wednesday evening, Stiles is ready to hurl the book he’s been reading against the wall to get some satisfaction from the thud, at least. He only refrains because he isn’t keen on angering Peter. So he sighs and keeps reading, hoping against hope something worthwhile will come along soon.“Seriously, Stiles?”Peter’s sardonic question pulls him out of the stupor he’s fallen into another hour or so later. He blinks owlishly at the ghost, willing him to elaborate.“You’ve been humming the Jeopardy theme for nearly twenty minutes now. Don’t you think it’s about time that you stopped?”Stiles wants to protest, but people have accused him of similar things before, so who knows? Peter might not just be messing with him. “Eh,” he says with a shrug. “I can try, but I can’t promise anything. You can’t hold me accountable for what my brain does when it’s forced to idle.”“No luck with that book then?”“The title was severely misleading. Pre-industrial writing is the worst. These people were no scholars and lacked organizational skills on top of that. At this point, I’m starting to suspect you’ll end up having to wing it.”It’s not a comforting thought. Because while he may dislike Harris with a passion, he doesn’t want to be responsible for his death, however indirectly it may be.Peter surprises him by pointing out that they still have tomorrow evening to dig up more information, even going so far as to promise to keep browsing the shelves for more potential reading material while Stiles is at school. And… it soothes the deep-seated worry in Stiles that Peter’s ruthless streak might be too hard to suppress.Although, he is aware that he’s working on limited data about the man. He doesn’t actually know what kind of person he was before the fire. But he can admit to himself that he fervently hopes he was the kind who’d do anything for the people who are important to him. Which Stiles is, right now. Maybe only as long as it takes them to drag Peter back into the land of the living, but until then… Until then, if his hopes prove to be true, he’d be able to count on Peter’s consideration.So, unless things end up going completely sideways over the weekend, Stiles assumes that Harris will live. The more savage side in him that’s been rearing its head more and more often since the day Scott got turned also hopes that Harris will suffer a bit, though. The asshole deserves it for the way he makes not just Stiles’ school life barely tolerable. There’s no love lost between him and Jackson, but Stiles has seen the way Harris has been all over the guy recently, and… Stiles would take the bullying over whatever that is any day. Ergo, let the man live and be miserable. Maybe Peter can make Harris do something that will get him fired. Wouldn’t that be nice? Getting rid of two hazards to the student body with this little project of theirs?The thought gives Stiles new motivation. It might be past midnight now, but another hour—give or take a few minutes—wouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice on his part.Sure, he ends up regretting that when his alarm jolts him out of a deep sleep phase in the morning, but the anticipation remains and helps him through the day and their final research session. Which goes much better than the day before because Peter kept his word and managed to point him towards a couple of handwritten scrolls—scrolls! How extra can you be, right?—that finally give them the information they seek.It’s not perfect. There are too many caveats for Stiles’ liking, for one. But it’s still a lot better than going in blind. At least they know now that Peter will have to be careful not to get too immersed for risk of creating a lingering bond. Which… Stiles shudders to think what that could potentially mean.~On Friday morning, Stiles is nervous. He can only hope he’ll be able to hide it from anyone who might report it to Gerard, but Peter can see through his facade. That much is clear from the looks he keeps shooting him.Oh well, can’t be helped, can it? At least he won’t have to face Harris until after lunch. Which means there’s still a chance he’ll have calmed down by the time it will matter the most. And Peter disappears the moment Stiles enters the school building. If Stiles pretends hard enough, today could shape up feeling like a typical Friday.His hopes get dashed after the first period when Peter suddenly hisses in his ear.“Three!”Stiles nearly drops the book he was about to put into his locker, takes a few fortifying breaths, and asks, carefully turned so nobody can see him ostensibly talking to himself: “Three what?”“There are three newly turned wolves on school grounds right now.”“Huh… I thought Erica, maybe Isaac. Who else?”Stiles sees Peter frown from the corner of his eyes.“I’m guessing the brash blonde is Erica, then. Then there’s the cub that seems to be glued to Scott—”“Isaac, yeah. He’s gotta be the jumpiest wolf I’ve ever seen, in that case.”“You’ve seen less than ten of them so far.”“So? Still the jumpiest of them all. Okay, who’s the third one then?”“Tall, dark, very quiet. Arguably the one who can hide his new status best.”“Oh, you mean Boyd? I wouldn’t have guessed.”“It makes him marginally safer from being hunted down, but the others are far too obvious. It’d be easy for Gerard to identify them. Even if he doesn’t meet them in person, he only needs to listen to the gossip.”Stiles groans quietly.“Awesome… So we better get our project done sooner rather than later.”Peter takes that as his cue to locate Harris, at last, citing the need to get a feel of the man in his natural habitat. Apparently, having had him on his radar during his revenge spree somehow skewed his impression of him. And, well, Stiles can’t really argue with that, can he? A Harris who thinks he’s the top dog in a room is bound to behave differently than a Harris who’s scared out of his mind.That’s the last time Stiles sees Peter that day—which is curious, seeing how he’d expected Peter to be in the room during Stiles’ class. Because what need would a ghost have to stay out of sight if nobody but his co-conspirator can see him? In the end, though, he puts Peter out of his mind, in favor of not giving Harris any more ammunition against him. It’s only partially successful because the man just has this way of triggering Stiles’ sarcasm. But all in all, it could have been worse.~Stiles can’t sleep later that night. He has no idea how long Peter will be gone. They agreed on the deadline—ha, ha!—either being success or the end of the weekend. Whatever would come first. Common sense says he shouldn’t expect Peter back only half a day after they parted ways. If possession by ghost were an easy feat, it’d be widespread knowledge in the supernatural community—meaning, they wouldn’t have had to spend days researching the topic because the info wouldn’t have been hidden in highly obscure documents. Ergo, it’s far more likely he won’t see Peter again until the very early hours of Monday. Common sense can’t prevent Stiles from fretting, though. There are simply too many things that can go wrong, and his brain is happy to list any and all it can come up with.Thankfully, Dad won’t be around on Saturday morning, so there won’t be any comments about a healthy sleep schedule. But damn, he has a feeling the weekend will be long. He’ll have to exhaust himself by continuing his research tomorrow. Maybe that way, he’ll get at least a few hours of sleep over the whole weekend.Maybe he’ll even do some extra chores around the house, should he get really desperate.He sighs and resigns himself to waiting.~When Peter hasn’t shown himself by the time school starts on Monday morning, Stiles is going out of his mind with worry. He spends his first two classes in a daze, taking notes on autopilot and hoping said notes will make sense later. Because he’s not retaining anything the teachers are saying.As he walks down the halls to get to his third class, he hears Harris’ name whispered by someone who walks behind him. Immediately, he’s alert again, straining to hear what’s being gossiped about.“And you believed him? Him?” “Why not?”“It’s Greenberg. He isn’t what I’d call a credible source.”“But Jared is his friend. He heard it right from the source, this time.”“Still sounds fake. Harris may be an asshole, but he knows how to cover his tracks. That’s why he’s still allowed to teach.”“Not for much longer, I guess. You can distrust Greenberg’s words all you like, but there is a cop car parked outside.”“Not that unusual these days. Could mean literally anything.”The pair of gossipers veer off to a classroom then, leaving Stiles no wiser than before he started listening in.It turns out not to matter a moment later. A sudden commotion at the end of the hall makes everyone stop and watch in morbid fascination as two deputies escort a spitting-mad Harris toward the exit. Whatever the man is hissing at them doesn’t seem to faze the deputies at all, though. They just keep going, one of them dragging and the other one pushing him along.As they pass Stiles, Harris zeroes in on him, his face still distorted by rage. And yet… That was a wink, right? He didn’t imagine that, did he???But they’re swallowed by the crowd a second later, and Stiles wonders if he’s going crazy.~As the day goes by, more and more rumors start to circulate. The one that gets repeated most often, and therefore seems to be the most reliable one, is about Jared having been his usual clumsy self. Apparently, he bumped into Harris, making him drop his phone. And when Jared tried to do the polite thing and hand the phone back with an apology, the man went ballistic on him. At this point in the story, what happened next varies wildly, depending on who is telling it. Sometimes Harris got verbally abusive, sometimes he physically crowded Jared into a corner, and sometimes it took another teacher or two to prevent an actual brawl… Stiles isn’t sure which version to believe. But everyone agrees that Harris blew the whole situation way out of proportion just because he didn’t want anybody near his phone. Which begs the question: What kinds of things could a teacher have stored in there that going apeshit is better than someone getting even the hint of a glimpse of it? That, everyone he asks replies, is anybody’s guess. ~When Peter appears in Stiles’ room in the afternoon, he looks exhausted. Considering that he’s a ghost, that’s a highly concerning development. So Stiles does what he tends to do best: He asks questions.Peter’s reaction is evasive and frustrating. But Stiles finds out more than Peter probably wanted him to know anyway.The good news first: Peter is positive their little “stunt” will be a success. The things he had Harris do over the weekend apparently gave him confidence that he’d be able to perform the comparatively quick and easy task of ridding the world of Gerard quietly and flawlessly.The bad news: Peter refuses to say what he learned about Harris that made him deviate from the plan and go above and beyond what they’d agreed on. Whatever it was, it has taken a bigger toll on the ghost than Stiles would have thought possible. And he worries that Peter might have lied when he assured him it’d be easy to recover. Because right now, he looks like he could keel over and die any moment—who knows what that would mean for someone who’s already dead?So he frets and fidgets until Peter gets irritable and disappears again. At which point he frets some more, and not even trying to figure out what his notes from earlier today were supposed to say can keep Stiles distracted for long.His relief over his dad’s return for dinner is short-lived, though. Dad looks grim, and the world-weary sigh he heaves in answer to Stiles’ tentative question about “that incident at school this morning” forbids any further probing.By now, his imagination is running wild, and he thinks that sleep won’t be restful tonight. He’s not looking forward to going to bed with so many questions battling for attention in his head.~School is weird on Tuesday and Wednesday. The rumors are still flowing freely, and Jared can be seen darting down hallways with his head down—sometimes with Greenberg at his side glaring at anyone bold enough to even consider asking them questions—and Argent senior stalking the halls as if he’s trying to find someone to make his prey. At least that’s what it looks like to Stiles, especially when the old man’s thinly veiled stares stray towards Lydia, Scott, and Scott’s new shadow a little too often for Stiles’ liking. The silver lining, as Stiles tries to convince himself, is that Erica and Boyd still seem to fly under the hunter’s radar. Erica’s far from being subtle, but it’s not enough to outshine Lydia. Yet. The whole situation has Stiles’ stomach in knots anyway. He’s itching to give her a quiet word of warning but doesn’t dare to make that contact.Now he regrets his single-minded focus that made him pull away from Scott—and Derek—ever since Peter has started to haunt him. Sure, he’s somehow managed to get overlooked by the wider Argent clan that way, but damn it, it’s also put him into a position in which speaking up could create more problems than it’d solve.And he hasn’t seen Peter since Monday afternoon.The knot of worry in his stomach has started to actively hurt, so he decides to stop feeling helpless by going back to doing research. It’ll be more challenging to sneak in and out of the vault without Peter there to tell him when he won’t have an audience, but it’s certainly not impossible. He’ll just have to be very careful.~Stiles loses track of time that night. Peter’s absence means there’s nobody there to steer his focus. He meant to look up the possible magical backlash for a ghost who might have exhausted the energy keeping them anchored to the land of the living. But that quickly spiraled through several topics until he is halfway through the second journal that describes a phenomenon called wish magic that makes a thought want to form in the back of his mind. Something about the text resonates with Stiles, but try as he might, he can’t put his finger on what that is.When the words begin to dance in front of his eyes, he’s idly thinking about packing up and going home. But before he can make his tired body move, it suddenly feels like something is pulling at a sensitive spot behind his sternum. It makes him gasp and blink away black spots from the edges of his vision. He’s so focused on trying to figure out what is wrong that he almost misses the drop of temperature in the room.And then Peter appears.Well… kind of.He’s so transparent that he’s nearly invisible, and he looks like he’s aged a decade or two. But… How? He’s a ghost. Dead people can’t age, can they?The pull from behind Stiles’ sternum intensifies. This time, it actually hurts. He presses one hand against his chest, and barely manages to steady himself with the other hand pressing down on the tabletop. Both are cold as ice now.Strangely enough, Peter’s form becomes a smidgen more opaque. Stiles feels like that should concern him, but his head is foggy now. The next time he manages to focus on him, Peter is grasping his own chest—right where Stiles can feel that infernal pull that’s threatening to bring him to his knees. The ghost looks to be in agony.Same, buddy, Stiles thinks vaguely and struggles to breathe.But all of a sudden, the sensation stops and leaves him lightheaded and faint. It takes him a second to realize he’s alone again.And… He gives up.He knows that something monumental has just happened—knows that he should probably go home where he could be found if something turns out to be seriously wrong with him. But he just… can’t.There’s a sense of vertigo for one heart-stopping moment, and then everything goes dark.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The first thing Stiles feels is a hand on his shoulder that’s shaking him quite a bit harder than he thinks necessary. The next thing is the hard surface he’s lying on.He’s not in his bed, then. That’s unfortunate because he may be young, but that doesn’t mean his body won’t punish him for this offense. School is going to be hard today.“Stiles! Can you hear me?”Ouch! Someone has turned his volume up. What the hell?Also, that’s not a voice he’d expect to hear upon waking up, especially not with this kind of urgency.He slowly blinks his eyes open to check if what he sees will match what he heard.Yep. Damn!That’s Derek. And… beyond him is the Hale vault.Double damn!Stiles suddenly remembers last night. At least, he hopes that it really was only last night that he collapsed. Because if it’s been longer, he might be in deep trouble now.He has a lot of questions, but the most important one for now is: “What are you doing here?”Derek’s face is a study of confusion. “What am I… What are you doing here? How do you even know of this place, much less how to get in?”Hmmm, how to answer that without making Derek think he’s being lied to—even though that’s totally what Stiles would be doing? Maybe he should actually tell the truth but omit, like, ninety-five percent of the information?“Research,” he settles on. That’s the truth. He’s proud of himself.“And?”“And what?”
“How did you get in?”
Look whose patience seems to be running out. Too bad he wouldn’t like the honest answer, so… evasion is in order.“A little birdie told me.”Stiles almost can’t suppress a grin as he imagines what Peter would have to say about that analogy.“Who?” Derek all but growls, but strangely enough, it doesn’t scare Stiles the way he thinks it should.Huh… There seems to be a disconnect between what he perceives and how it’s supposed to be processed. Why is that?“A friend.”A reluctant ally, maybe. But… “friend” doesn’t feel like a lie either. When has that happened?Although he thinks he might be mad at his ally slash friend at the moment. Something happened last night, and it feels like it could have been prevented. They had a plan, after all. But the longer Stiles thinks about it, the more he is convinced that Peter has done something reckless. More than once.Isn’t that usually Stiles’ thing?“None of your friends know of the vault,” Derek says, conviction coloring his tone.“One of them does. But don’t worry. This place isn’t compromised.”Derek’s expression begs to differ.“No, really. Nobody knows I’ve been here. Not even you knew, and you only found out because you knew how to enter.”“But the only people who knew besides me are dead.”Stiles is smart enough not to answer that. But since he doesn’t know if he has enough of a poker face to keep Derek from suspecting the truth, it’s time for a distraction.Since Derek’s hand is still on Stiles’ shoulder, it’s easy to grab his arm and pull himself up into a sitting position. Getting himself back on his feet is a harder endeavor, however, and he completes it with almost zero grace.He feels unsteady once he’s standing on his own. Weak, somehow. And while he thinks he knows what happened, he’d sincerely like to know why.Unfortunately, Peter is not around to be questioned.To distract himself now, he fishes his phone out of his pocket. A glance at it tells him two things: He’s almost out of battery, and his first class starts in less than twenty minutes.“Thanks, by the way,” he tells Derek because the guy has good timing, for once.“What for?”“Had you not woken me up, I’d have missed school. And the last thing I need is my dad getting a call about that.”“You want to go like this?”“Eh… It’s not the first time I’ve worn the same clothes two days in a row.”“That’s not what I meant. If you go looking like you’re about to keel over any moment, your father will likely get called anyway.”Stiles’ knees choose that moment to try and buckle again, but Derek manages to catch him and deposit him on a chair. Phew… Better.Derek might have a point.“Good timing anyway. Dad won’t be home until noon. I can still do damage control.” The battery is gracious enough to let him send a message to that effect, and then his phone gives a sad beep and goes dark. Damn!Looking up again, he finds Derek staring at the books and scrolls strewn all over the table.“Be that as it may,” he says loudly, making Derek’s gaze dart back to him. “How come you are here? Like, right now?”“Research,” Derek repeats Stiles’ own answer back at him.“On how to wrangle puppies?” he quips, and Derek flinches.Huh. His question was supposed to be a joke. Is it possible that he hit bullseye anyway?He wants to tease a little more, but then Derek freezes, his eyes on the table again.“Stiles, what the hell?”Uh oh…“What?” he asks as innocently as possible, but Derek doesn’t seem to be fooled.“Why are you looking up possession? And… Resurrection? Stiles! Please tell me this isn’t what it looks like!”“It isn’t what it looks like?”Yeah, nope. That came out as a question, and Derek takes it as the inadvertent confession that it is.
“Are you insane???”
There’s no good answer to that, at least not from Derek’s point of view. Stiles gets that. Really, he does. But since he isn’t as emotionally compromised as Derek, his pragmatism wins nonetheless.“To be fair, it’s the smaller of two evils,” he tries. “Because if I don’t do it, chances are it’ll happen anyway. Maybe not in the immediate future, but someday? Someday, it might. Would you bet your life on him staying dead forever?”Derek seems speechless for a moment. Then: “I’ll bring you home. And you’re going to tell me everything!”~He gets woken up by his dad in time for dinner. It’s decidedly disorienting. Stiles did tell Derek everything. And he thinks he might even have started to convince him that resurrecting Peter won’t result in a repeat of last month. The sourwolf was far from enthusiastic about the idea, but he promised not to work against him either.Baby steps. Right?After that, Stiles was so exhausted that he fell asleep before Dad came home after his shift. Now it’s already dark again, and Dad declares that he’s supposed to stay home tomorrow, too, should he still look “like that” in the morning.Ouch! That comment smarts a little. But looking in the mirror during his short detour to the bathroom makes him glad that’s the only comment he got. Because he doesn’t look healthy at all.There’s also no protest when Stiles excuses himself to his room again the moment dinner is over.For the next couple of hours, he lies on his bed and stares at his ceiling—too exhausted to move, but his thoughts too active to fall back asleep. It’s maddening! Especially since he still doesn’t know what happened to Peter. He goes over all their interactions since Monday morning—because that wink Harris gave him had to have been Peter’s doing—and still can’t figure out what went wrong, or when.The sound of an incoming text message jolts him out of the trance-like state he must have entered a while ago. He listlessly grabs his phone and—Suddenly, he finds himself sitting upright in bed, his heart hammering so hard that he feels it in his whole body.Because…
>>> Gerard is dead.
He rubs his eyes, but the message stays the same.
<<< When? How??? And how did you find out?
He impatiently waits for Derek to type his answer, watching the dots appear and disappear at random intervals for what feels like forever.
>>> Last night, apparently. They found him in his bed this morning. They’re suspicious and want it investigated. The new matriarch just tried to corner me in the parking lot of the grocery store. She seems convinced it’s somehow my fault.
Yeah, right… Stiles can’t help but roll his eyes. But if he’s right in his assumption that Victoria has taken over now, that suspicion regarding Derek is just unhinged enough to be on brand.
<<< And how does she think you did it? Magic fairy dust? Wishful thinking? Don’t hunters subscribe to the belief that wolves only use claws and teeth? So unless they found him swimming in his own blood, how can it be your fault, by their logic?
>>> I wasn’t suicidal enough to ask.
Fair point, really. But damn, what a mess! How have things managed to go sideways so fast?Since Derek seems to have decided their conversation is over—which is also fair because he wouldn’t risk discussing The PlanTM via text—Stiles is left to stew over the ramifications on his lonesome.In light of this new development, Stiles thinks he knows what last night’s encounter with Peter was about: The ghost must have gone after Gerard before he’d recovered from his stunt with Harris. And it drained him so much that coming close to Stiles resulted in involuntarily tapping into Stiles’ reserves.He’s sure it was involuntary, despite what Derek might have to say if he knew of Stiles’ theory. The way Peter reacted and then disappeared on him again didn’t speak of someone who had planned to help himself to a convenient power source, after all.Now, if only Peter would reappear so he could demand answers from him…~Over the next few days, Stiles focuses on the magic exercises Peter had him do before they became so side-tracked. The day after learning of Gerard’s demise, he carefully sticks to theory only, but by the weekend, he has recovered enough to get back to the practical part. Anything to keep himself busy enough not to worry excessively over Peter’s continued absence.On Monday, though, Derek tells him that the medical examiner found traces of mountain ash in Gerard’s system. And now Stiles wonders if that could have had an effect on Peter. He’s not sure how, but then again, he’s by no means an expert on all things supernatural.Derek is no help either—too busy trying to get his puppies ready for their first full moon. So, all that’s left for Stiles is to wait and hope that Peter hasn’t faded for good. He’s fairly sure he’s alone with that sentiment, too, and he hates it.In any case, he finds himself home alone the night the full moon rises. He’d have liked to keep practicing in the vault, but he does have a spark of self-preservation. No offense to Derek, but the guy is clearly still out of his depths. Which means that Stiles isn’t about to risk a run-in with a rabid baby wolf. Both for his own and his dad’s sake.It doesn’t mean he can’t do a deep dive into his notes, though, which is why he’s completely blind and deaf to his surroundings as the moon prepares to set. Which is also why he gets the fright of his life when he looks up at some point and sees Peter lurking in the corner of his room.~Dawn had already spread across the eastern horizon by the time Stiles finished the tirade that had been building inside him for days and gave Peter a chance to explain himself.Stiles is a little less mad at Peter now, but he hasn’t fully forgiven him yet. With everything he’s learned in the last couple of hours, he gets why their plan got sped up. He just resents the fact that Peter neglected to inform him. As if they hadn’t plotted everything together. As if Stiles weren’t still the only one Peter could turn to for help with his end goal… He sighs and decides to put that particular thought into the farthest corner of his mind. Time to focus on the more important details.Peter admitted that his practice run with Harris had cost him more than anticipated, but he also said it would have been fine if he’d had enough time to recover. But then he’d learned the true reason why the old man had come to Beacon Hills and felt like, under those circumstances, he couldn’t wait any longer. And maybe even that stunt would have turned out okay—if only another player hadn’t already been interfering. Because those mountain ash traces Derek had told Stiles about? Someone who was preparing to get himself the Bite to cheat death would certainly not do anything that would set him up for Bite rejection. Meaning that someone else must have slipped it to him.Peter listed two possible candidates when he came to that part in his tale: One of Gerard’s own people, who might have learned of the man’s plan and hated the hypocrisy. Stiles isn’t sure if that option is plausible, though. If it was a family member, wouldn’t they have confronted him directly? And if it was one of the henchmen, would they have had access to the man’s food or—more likely—his medication? The other option would be someone outside the clan. Someone in the know who had access to mountain ash. Peter said that the Hales’ former emissary is still in town—and isn’t it a kicker that A: that emissary is Deaton of all people, and B: most pack members hadn’t even known their emissary’s identity?—and definitely still has all the necessary supplies. But how would he have learned of Gerard’s plan? And how would he manage to come close enough to the man to dose him? Without him getting suspicious on top of it?They’re missing too many puzzle pieces at this point to figure out if one of Peter’s guesses is correct or if it’s something else entirely. It frustrates Stiles to no end. Because whatever the correct answer is could potentially have an impact on their little resurrection project.The mountain ash wasn’t what almost did Peter in, though. Or rather, it wasn’t the only reason. While it weakened Gerard and should have made Peter’s task easier, it also started to affect Peter the moment he’d taken over the old man’s body. It only slowed him down a little, but it also made Gerard aware of being in danger. In the end, it took almost all of Peter’s remaining energy to keep the man from starting to struggle. And once the deed was done—beautifully so, even, because if not for the mountain ash traces, it would have looked like a perfectly natural death—he had almost no energy left to detach himself from the body. Which led to the accidental leeching and Peter fleeing to avoid irreparable damage. But without Stiles near, it took him longer to recover. It actually required the power of the full moon to get him back to a visible state for longer than a few minutes at a time. So here Stiles is now—alone in his room because Peter faded away again—and he wonders if that mystery person with the mountain ash has ruined their perfect scheme.~Over the next week, Peter regains enough energy that he’s almost back to his former ghostly self. There’s one little hiccup when he finds out that Derek knows about the resurrection plan now. Stiles solves that by playing mediator for an excruciating hour, during which he learns things about both Peter and Derek that explain a lot but that he’d also rather have stayed ignorant about. Because those two are a mess! Stiles would suggest therapy if he were braver than he is. But in the end, they reached a truce that could prove to be beneficial to everyone: Derek clearly needs help, Peter has knowledge to spare, and Stiles will not play their go-between like this again, thank you very much.So, the resurrection scheme is back on track.Derek doesn’t want to be involved in the preparations at all, and Stiles can’t blame him. He does have his hands full with the baby wolves, after all. And on top of that, he’s keeping an eye on Scott, too.Which reminds Stiles that he should really make an effort to reconnect with his best friend. There’s not much that Stiles can do to prepare for the resurrection apart from more research and practicing magic, and he needs a break from that from time to time anyway. So why not spend some time with Scott? He’s started to miss him over the last few weeks, but he only realizes how much now that half his most recent problems have been dealt with.~Meeting up with Scott again outside of school hours is a strange experience. Scott pointedly doesn’t speak of anything supernatural, and he’s also suspiciously quiet about Allison. Only during their third gaming session—each of them sitting in their own rooms—does he get Scott to talk a little. Maybe it’s the distance that does the trick since it gives him the option to log off if he wants to stop the conversation. Or maybe Stiles has managed to make him complacent… Whatever it is, Scott starts making comments in passing, from which Stiles concludes that Scott is still meeting Allison in secret. Ballsy, but less doomed to blow up in their faces now that Gerard is out of the picture. Small blessings, and all that.The thing with Allison has a theory forming in Stiles’ mind, though. Because from the sound of it, Scott had been at Allison’s more than once while Gerard was still alive. And Scott is working for Deaton. Could it be… Would Scott really go this far if his boss asked him to? If so, did he have a death wish? Or did he think himself to be invincible? Because damn, if it was Scott who all but poisoned Gerard, he wouldn’t have survived it if the old man had caught on. The thought makes Stiles despair, and he resolves to put it out of his mind. It’s over now, anyway. Scott’s fine, Gerard is dead, and Victoria hasn’t managed to pin the death on Derek despite her best efforts. That’s the other thing he discovers in one of his game sessions with Scott. Allison told him that her father got her mother to back down by having a plausible—if far-fetched, in Stiles’ opinion—explanation for how Gerard accidentally ingested the mountain ash all on his own. But far-fetched or not, as long as it works, Stiles won’t complain.~Despite Derek not wanting to involve himself in their research, it’s something he says in passing when they run into each other in the vault once again that finally leads to a breakthrough regarding Stiles’ magic.Stiles doesn’t hear the whole sentence that Derek grumbles to himself while he’s looking up better methods to teach bitten wolves control, but the “not like they only need to wish hard enough” part shakes a memory loose. A moment later, he’s rifling through the stack of journals he hadn’t touched since the night of Gerard’s death.His whisper-shouted “Ah-ha!” draws both Peter’s and Derek’s attention, and their eerily synchronous “What is it?” sends a chill down Stiles’ spine, but he rallies quickly because his excitement is stronger.“Wish magic!” he grins, waving one of the journals at them. “That’s what I was reading about the other night. I was too tired to connect the dots back then, but this might explain why my exercises were getting such mixed results. The ones I failed to complete were the ones I was sure I wouldn’t be able to do anyway. The ones that worked, on the other hand, I was hoping really hard to get right.”“You can do magic?” Derek asks, wide-eyed and comically worried. “Since when?”“A few weeks ago? Something like that.” Stiles turns to address Peter. “That would explain the moving mountain ash, wouldn’t it?”Derek winces and stares vaguely in Peter’s direction with a complicated expression on his face.“Oookay, I’m out. Text me when you leave!” Stiles can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for him to see and hear someone interact with thin air, especially since that thin air is supposed to be a family member he pretty much mercy-killed. Can’t blame the guy for his hasty retreat.Peter watches Derek go—his expression carefully blank—but eventually turns back to Stiles.“It’s a valid hypothesis. Let’s test it.”~It turns out that Stiles is right. It takes them several days to confirm it without a doubt, but Stiles’ progress since they began to test the theory speaks for itself. To say that he is excited is putting it very mildly. He deep-dives into the exercises, and it takes Peter’s frequent reminders that he has a life outside of this and people who might start to ask questions if he disappears for too long to make him go home and take breaks.Stiles knows that Peter is right, but the sense of urgency is back. Something about this whole situation makes him feel like they’re running out of time, and it worries him more than he wants to admit.So he practices as long as Peter allows it and tries to be social when he gets shooed out of the vault. And yet, something seems to be pulling him back to where all the information is stored.It’s Peter, though, who finally finds out why his plan for Lydia failed. Stiles has started to turn pages for the ghost while reading something else. To save time, as he argues out loud—but also to give Peter something to do and avoid him going stir-crazy, as he quietly thinks to himself. And that approach bears fruit on a Saturday afternoon.“Stiles,” Peter says, sounding oddly intent.“Yes?”“You said you saw me lurking near you days before I became aware, didn’t you?”“Uhhh, yeah? And I’m still one hundred percent sure that I didn’t imagine that.”“I believe you.”“Since when?”“Since now… Stiles, did you miss me?”What? Peter’s tone is strange. A mix of awed, mischievous, and very, very serious. Stiles can’t suppress the shiver that runs down his spine.“Why do you ask?” he hedges, unwilling to admit to anything as long as he doesn’t know what Peter wants to achieve with his question.“Strong emotions can make wish magic more potent. Even prone to acting without the caster’s conscious thought, sometimes. Like the mountain ash. You didn’t know you could do magic, and it worked anyway.”“And what does that have to do with me allegedly missing you?”“Are you deflecting, sweetheart?”Oh, no… the pet name again! Stiles always feels like he might be on the wrong path somewhere when Peter uses it. Like the wolf showing that he’s fond of him means he’s about to do something morally questionable. Again. And maybe that’s just paranoia speaking, but it’s a persistent feeling that he doesn’t care for one bit.“Are you? I notice you haven’t answered my question yet either. Spit it out!”Thankfully, Peter doesn’t draw out his game.“It says here that, under the right conditions, wish magic can even anchor a soul in the mortal world. Keep it from moving on, if you will.”“And you think that’s what I did?”“Well, I already had an anchor via Lydia. But you were also unaware of your talent, so there’s a chance you tapped into that and redirected the anchor to yourself.”It makes sense, scarily so. Stiles thinks back to the early days after Peter died and how he both felt guilty and mourned that death—that loss of knowledge… That must have been the catalyst, then, he realizes. He’d felt most strongly about the missed opportunity. And he had wished…He had wished, hadn’t he? Apparently fervently enough to interfere with a pack bond between a wolf and a banshee. The enormity of this feat takes his breath away for a moment.“And you hovering at the edges of my vision was what? The transition period?”“Possibly. But it’s curious that you only saw me in your room before I regained awareness. I do think that you are what’s currently anchoring me to this world. You see and hear me, I always know where you are, it was far too easy to tap into your life force, and while I can move freely within Beacon Hills, I still feel drawn to you. Therefore, it would stand to reason that my sightings shouldn’t have been restricted to a place.”Peter has a point there. But there might be an explanation for that.“Maybe you weren’t. Maybe I would have seen you if I had been paying attention while I wasn’t at home.” Since Peter stares at him quizzically for that admission, Stiles continues: “Look, that night in the preserve was just a bit traumatic for me. I was keeping my head down, trying to process what happened and sort through my conflicting feelings about your death. At least during the first couple of days or so. After that, I was so focused on keeping an eye on Jackson that I might not have noticed you even if you were there.”“You did jump rather spectacularly when I talked to you in the preserve,” Peter said, not bothering to hide his smirk.Stiles takes a fortifying breath and decides not to take the bait.“Be that as it may, I was the most relaxed at home, by myself, in my room. That’s where I could pretend things were still normal and not worry about what lie to tell Dad next. Wouldn’t surprise me if that relaxed state was what I needed to observe your manifestation.”Peter accepts the explanation even though it’s barely more than conjecture. But for lack of any enlightening information in the books, scrolls, and journals they had consulted so far, it would have to do.One problem sufficiently solved, then. On to the next!~They spend the next couple of weeks trying to find a resurrection method that will work well with Stiles’ kind of magic. But the closer they are to the next full moon, the antsier Peter gets. With every passing day, he’s more convinced that whatever method they’ll find, the full moon will play a crucial role. Stiles is inclined to agree since the moon had been vital to his recovery after Gerard’s demise.Stiles can absolutely understand that Peter is sick and tired of waiting—especially after he admits that the upcoming full moon would have been the one he’d have used in his original plan. But Stiles is also beginning to chafe under the extra pressure on top of his own sense of urgency. It makes him lie awake at night, and it’s only a matter of time until someone comments on the bags under his eyes.On the plus side, he’s managed to convince Peter to relocate their base of operations to his bedroom. The risk that Dad would see something he shouldn’t is higher that way, but since the days are getting longer now, and he can’t just venture to the vault hidden by the dark anymore, it’s a risk he’s willing to take. Some tattletale calling Dad about him “doing suspicious things” would arguably be worse, after all.The main point of contention: Peter was categorically against Stiles taking any scripts out of the vault. Fair point, but it had them at a stalemate until Stiles suggested making copies. Peter eventually agreed to that, and now he has hundreds of photos he can read at home.Today, research isn’t going well, though. The series of journals he’s trying to read are giving him one hell of a headache.“Quotidian!” he mutters angrily and wants to wring the writer’s neck. “Just say ‘ordinary’ like a normal person!”“It used to be rather common in academic circles,” Peter says, almost giving Stiles a heart attack.“Gah!” he all but shrieks. “Would it kill you to announce your presence in a less abrupt way? No, don’t answer that!”Peter has the nerve to outright laugh at him. Stiles is not amused.“Besides, this is a journal from—” he scrolls through the photos until he finds the cover. “The early seventies. Of the twentieth century. This guy’s just an asshole, I’m sure.”When Peter doesn’t keep their banter going, Stiles looks up and catches the ghost smiling. It looks fond and surprisingly wistful—and it’s gone the moment he notices Stiles watching him.It’s sad, in a way, since the return to a neutral expression looked practiced… automatic, even. It makes Stiles wonder what Peter’s life used to be like before the fire. But at the same time, he isn’t sure he really wants to know the answer.~When they finally find a ritual that Peter believes will work, the full moon is only two nights away. Stiles feels woefully unprepared. Then again, how would he practice resurrection anyway? It’s not like he has any other recently dead people at hand. Well, no… that’s not technically true. But A: most of those people Stiles prefers to stay dead, and B: he doesn’t have a connection to them the way he has to Peter. So even if A didn’t apply, the results would likely not be the same. Unfortunately, that means he’ll have to jump in at the deep end and hope to get it right at the first attempt. No pressure, right?To avoid having to think about what’s lying ahead of him, he busies himself with gathering supplies. That means more trips to the vault, which doesn’t help his nerves. But Peter is there with him the whole time, his running commentary soothing in a way Stiles would never have thought possible.And then—just like that—it’s two nights later. The moon is about to rise, and all that’s left for Stiles to do is grab the bag he’s packed and head to the ruins of the Hale house.Time to get this show on the road!
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
They don’t have much time to set up since, on this day, sunset and moonrise coincide, and the moon will be at its fullest not even half an hour later. While Stiles finds that just a bit inconvenient, he’s also glad that they neither did this a month earlier, nor will they do it a month later.Earlier would have meant the moon being the fullest in the middle of the day. Later would have meant it being the fullest far closer to sunrise than midnight, and on a school night on top. No, thank you. This is totally fine. It’s not going to be fully dark when Stiles needs to perform the ritual, but while the instructions had said that full darkness produced the best results, this was still their best shot. After all, not many full moons per year checked all the boxes—being high in the sky when at its fullest, while the night was at its darkest, and therefore producing the brightest light. Stiles knows because he’d checked right after they decided on this ritual.Apparently, today’s twilight won’t matter much, though. At least according to Peter, who’d made him pack a fairly heavy jar mere minutes before their departure to the preserve. Whatever is in there will probably act as a boost, then. Stiles just hopes that it won’t complicate the ritual itself. His nerves are shot even without the unplanned changes.Standing in what used to be the living room of the burnt-out shell of the Hale house, he looks around for the best places to put everything he brought. But first… He suddenly just knows he’s not standing in the correct place yet. Something tells him he should move a few steps farther into the room. And… yep! There are the loose floorboards Peter was telling him about the other day. He won’t need to remove them just yet, but knowing what’s below them still makes his stomach swoop unpleasantly as his guilt rears its ugly head again.“You did what you had to do. I don’t hold it against you. So you shouldn’t either,” Peter says, so close to Stiles that—were he alive right now—he’d be breathing down his neck. The invasion of his personal bubble doesn’t bother him, for once. Ever since entering the house, he’s been acutely aware of the ghost’s presence, and it’s soothing rather than offputting. For just a moment he basks in the comfort of Peter’s absolution, but then he lets his determination take over.“As soon as I’ve brought this to a successful end,” he replies and reaches for his bag to start the final preparations.The mirrors come first. Three of them, all less than seven inches in diameter. He’ll need to set those up very carefully if he wants the moonlight to be directed exactly where it needs to go. At the moment, it’s only guesswork, but Peter instructs him, quietly confident that he knows where they have to be placed.Stiles remembers that mirrors would also have been part of the original ritual, even though that one didn’t rely on the fullest moon, which would have given him a larger margin of error. He decides to trust Peter anyway since the ghost wouldn’t tolerate failure.Next in line is a ceramic bowl that he fills with a mix of dried herbs and sets it down a few inches away from the loose boards. He puts a candle and a lighter next to the bowl, ready to use when the time has come.Then he takes out a piece of chalk and draws a wide circle around himself. The moment the circle closes, he feels the energy in the room shift, and his awareness of Peter splits in half. There’s still the presence of the ghost, right at the edge of the circle. But he also senses him from below now. It disorients him for the duration of several very labored breaths.It feels wrong to stay in the center of the circle, so Stiles moves backwards until his bag is within his reach again and pulls out the final item. It’s the last-minute jar that Peter insisted he take with him. He carefully pries the lid off and is greeted by… what? Pebbles?“Uhhh, Peter? What am I supposed to do with these?”“They’re amplifiers, so you’ll need to line the inside of the circle with them.”“To focus the energy inwards,” Stiles mutters to himself, remembering a line he read in one of the journals. “How many do I need?”“Any multiple of three. Take as many as you feel are necessary.”“Three for balance,” Stiles nods and begins to lay down the stones, hoping that Peter is right and he’ll know when there are enough of them. He lets instinct guide him—the motions oddly meditative—and when he’s finished, he looks at his work to see nine evenly spaced groups of three stones each, a hand’s width away from the chalk line. Interesting.“Three cubed,” he realizes with a laugh. “If that doesn’t drive the point home, I don’t know what will. Now what?”“Now you remove the boards and light the candle. Then you wait for the right moment.”“And when is that right moment?” “When the stones start to coruscate.”Stiles side-eyes Peter very hard for that answer, but the ghost just shrugs, completely unperturbed. “Shine. Sparkle. Glint… Take your pick. But none of those words will do the effect justice.”“And how would you know? The ritual hasn’t been performed in close to three centuries, as far as the text said. All the information we found is based on hearsay.”“It takes a special kind of magic user, and someone dead with a strong enough tether to the living world. Despite my existence probably making you think the opposite, ghosts with my level of awareness are rare. The ritual hasn’t been performed in so long because nobody has been able to.”“That doesn’t answer my question, though. How can you be sure about the stones, considering they aren’t technically part of this?”“They’re safe to add without negative consequences, as long as you listen to your intuition and don’t use them in a ‘more is better’ kind of way.”“Which I did. But how do you know?”“They can be used for more than one purpose. My mother’s emissary used them for a blessing of the land when I was a child. Their activation left an impression. Once you see it, you’ll agree.”Well, then, that explanation will have to do. Stiles suddenly feels a tug towards the center of the circle and knows he doesn’t have the time to ask any other questions. He needs to get started.Kneeling down, he pulls at the boards one at a time. They wrench free a lot easier than expected. As he shoves them aside—careful not to disturb the circle or the stones—he pointedly doesn’t look down into the hole. His memories of that night are still too close to the surface of his mind for his liking. He’d prefer to start this on a less traumatizing note.So he lights the candle, watching the flame flicker until it steadies. Pocketing the lighter afterwards is almost a subconscious action, driven—again—by intuition.He stops thinking altogether, his mind curiously calm for the first time in… how long has it been? He can’t remember. It’s not important anyway. The only thing that matters is the building energy. He lets himself be guided by it, trusting it not to steer him wrong.He breathes deeply, once, twice, then tips the candle over so that the wax can drip into the bowl of herbs. The flame follows eagerly, and the candle goes dark. And as he watches the wax and the herbs burn, he becomes aware of a faint glow at the edge of his vision that steadily grows brighter.Peter was right, Stiles realizes as the glow changes to a slow ripple of brightness reminiscent of sunny highlights on pond water. It’s mesmerizing and fills him with warmth and quiet wonder.He starts to chant—the words clear in his mind, as if he has performed this ritual thousands of times. It’s easy, joyful even. Then the moonlight hits the first mirror. The air fills with static, vibrates around him, makes him feel alive. He welcomes it wholeheartedly.Half in trance, he watches the light catch in the second mirror, then the third, then…The hole in the ground lights up, first brightly white, then a soft blue, fading down to yellow, and settling on a warm, protective red.Stiles hears a dual gasp, which is strange since the room isn’t big enough to produce an echo, but he ignores it in favor of witnessing Peter rise. A hand appears, sooty but unmarred by burns, and he reaches forward to take hold of it.Pulling Peter out of his former grave uses up his last energy reserves. He feels arms close around him, hears words whispered into his ear, and then everything fades to black.~He wakes up to his dad’s “sheriff voice”—serious, calm, and brimming with danger—and wonders what he did to land himself in trouble. But then Peter’s voice answers, and all of a sudden Stiles remembers the ritual… and that gasp with the impossible echo.
Shit!
He’s afraid he’s figured out what the “echo” was, which means that he is in trouble. Very deeply. Because if they really had an audience for the resurrection, there’s no way to explain away what Dad must have seen.His groan ends in a coughing fit, which effectively ends the interrogation and redirects both men’s attention to him. That’s… less than ideal. He doesn’t feel up to explaining the situation while his head feels like it wants to implode and his limbs seem to be made of lead.“Stiles,” Dad says, his voice a mix of worry, confusion and exasperation. But that’s as far as he gets while he searches for words, and Peter uses the pause to interrupt.“I know you have questions, sheriff. And you have a right to have them answered. But now is not the time. Let us relocate. Your son needs to recover, and it’d be best if he could do so at home.”“Why does it sound like you’re inviting yourself along?”“Because I can answer your questions, too. In fact, I’ll have more information than he has, generally speaking. And while we talk, Stiles can rest.”Stiles’ brain registers Peter’s little speech as “crisis averted for now” and interprets it as permission to check out again.~The alarm in the morning has no right to be so loud!And Stiles can’t even do anything about it because when he tries to move, nothing happens. Well… correction. Something does happen: His hand lifts off the bed half an inch and immediately flops down again, leaving him winded.
What the hell?
His door opens, and seconds later, the room is blessedly silent.“You’re missing school a little too often for my liking this month,” he hears Dad say, but there’s no reproach in his voice. In fact, the sigh that follows is decidedly resigned.“Not on purpose,” he manages to mumble.“So I gather. At least, you’re not doing the things you do in order to stay home. You’re just so reckless that it tends to be an increasingly common consequence.”“I’d prefer school to… this. Believe me.”Hell, even just these few words make him long for a whole week of uninterrupted sleep. Why is he so drained? Sure, he performed a major magical miracle—Yay! Alliteration!—last night, but hadn’t the herbs and the pretty glowing pebbles been there to give him a major boost? What good were they if they left him useless like this afterwards? “Can’t be helped,” Dad sighs again. “Sleep now. Once you feel better, we’ll need to talk.”“How am I supposed to sleep if I have to worry about that?”Joke’s on him, though. He falls asleep so fast that he can’t even appreciate dad’s hand in his hair. ~When he wakes up again, it’s already late afternoon. But he finally feels strong enough again to get up. It’s a daunting task, considering Dad’s last words to him this morning. Then again… The sooner he has that conversation, the sooner they can move on—hopefully in a positive way. Stiles can’t even begin to guess how Dad must have reacted to whatever Peter has to have told him in the last few hours. So he’s braced for the worst, while hoping for the best, as he all but stumbles down the stairs.He’s absolutely not prepared for hearing Derek’s voice, though. And it’s not something he’s saying that stops Stiles dead in his tracks on the very last step. No, it’s a growl—deep and guttural and uncertain.“Is that normal?” Dad’s voice asks cautiously. “I honestly don’t know. There’s been no precedence for this, at least not in our family. I’ve heard about other packs who do work in such a setup, but details are usually not discussed.”Stiles doesn’t like the possible implications of Peter’s answer. Has something gone wrong? Was everything they’ve done over the last couple of months about to fail? Only one way to find out, eh? He straightens his back, takes a fortifying breath, and steps into the living room. He’s greeted by Dad’s worried expression morphing to relief—likely at seeing him up and about again—and two pairs of glowing red eyes. Well, shit! That’s not at all what he expected to happen. And it begs the question…“How did this happen?”He’s aware he sounds breathless, and despite having felt rested just seconds ago, his knees suddenly threaten to buckle.“From what I understand, Peter can thank you for it,” Dad says.It doesn’t make sense to Stiles. “But… Derek has taken Peter’s Alpha spark. And I saw Peter’s eyes glow blue while we were doing research in the vault. This,” he waves his hand vaguely at the two wolves, “shouldn’t be possible from what I understood of the process.”“And yet, here we are,” Peter shrugs. Stiles suspects his flippant answer is nothing but a front, though. “Where’s your spark from, then?”“As your father said, it’s likely something you did.”“Me? But… I did everything the way I was supposed to. I made sure not to improvise anything because I was afraid it’d mean we’d fail. How can this be my fault?”“I wouldn’t use the word ‘fault’ here, Stiles. I suspect that it’s just another example of your magic reacting to your desires and trying to make sure they’re fulfilled.”“I didn’t wish for you to be an Alpha, though.”“You wouldn’t necessarily have had to. Your magic choosing an option that would most likely ensure that your desires are met could very well be enough.”“You’re talking about magic as if it’s sentient.”“Magic in general isn’t. Yours? I can’t tell yet. People with your talent are rare. We don’t have as much information about them as about, say, druids or witches.”“Great!” Stiles groans. “Just what I needed. Some entity trying to make all my wishes come true can’t lead to disaster at all. With my luck, it’ll start the apocalypse one day just so that all the people who get on my nerves are taken care of…”He winces before he even finishes speaking. Because what if talking about it is enough? What if his magic “decides” he had a brilliant idea and jumps at the chance to get a workout… or something?He doesn’t even realize he’s started to hyperventilate until Dad is right in front of him, talking him through the exercises to counteract a panic attack. Once he’s not on the verge of blacking out anymore, he sags forward and lets Dad hold him.“Who the hell thought it was a bright idea to give me that amount of power?”“And why now?” Dad asks the room at large.Good thing he doesn’t seem to expect an answer from Stiles, though, because he suddenly realizes that with all the questions he’s asked before, that one has never even occurred to him.Peter hums thoughtfully.“Has anyone in your or your wife’s family had magic?”“You may remember that I thought the supernatural was pure fiction until last night,” Dad snarks back. “If anyone on either side was more than ordinary, nobody thought it important enough to tell me, at least. Claudia never talked much about her family, so who knows what secrets they might have hidden. But your guess would be as good as mine.”“Speculation it is, then,” Peter says, and Stiles reluctantly removes himself from Dad’s embrace to give Peter his full attention. “Magical talent tends to find a way to express itself. People completely unaware of the supernatural community will often attribute whatever strangeness that expression brings to coincidences, luck—or lack thereof—or science they can’t explain. Unless there’s a lot of raw power involved, the incidents are usually small enough that their guesses will keep them satisfied, and they’ll continue their lives unaware. People who are active in the supernatural community will either be born with their magical talent or actively acquire it through other means. Those born with magic… It varies with them. Magic doesn’t usually manifest before a certain age. The youngest I’ve ever heard of was twelve. But it’s much more likely to happen at the tailend of puberty.”“Which would fit, in this case.”“Somewhat, yes. But me waking up from my coma may have been what actually got the ball rolling. The way Stiles’ magic works, he could have lived a normal life without ever realizing there’s something about him that sets him apart from the mundane. So far, strong belief or desires as well as high distress have been his triggers. In a life-or-death situation his magic may have woken up, too, but his chances of experiencing one of those situations would have been significantly lower.”“We’ll be having words about that, at some point, by the way,” Dad all but growls, and it makes Stiles feel inexplicably safe. “But even so,” Peter hastens to continue, “I do think the real catalyst was that he got introduced to the supernatural. Being exposed to the supposedly impossible would have removed a potential mental barrier. That’s where the belief ties in. And being exposed to supernatural beings with their own innate magic might have made his magic take notice, too, making it easier for him to access it.”“Oh my god!” Stiles whines. “Please don’t talk about it like it has a will of its own! How am I supposed to feel safe in my own skin like that?”“I’d suggest more training. The better you are at using your skill, the more control over it you will have. Chances are it will eventually stop trying to go the extra mile if you have learned how to visualize your wishes in just the right way. And magic that is regularly used won’t be so eager to manifest on its own either.”“I’d say it was used very thoroughly yesterday. There’s the extra mile, and then there’s consuming itself almost completely. That feels counterproductive to me.”Peter hums again and appears to weigh his words carefully before he answers.“You could think of yourself as a faucet of some kind. It was screwed shut very tightly until recently, so the water that is your magic was held back and had a chance to build up pressure. You forming a connection with me after I died was probably what let the first trickle through. All your training after that must have been the equivalent of you slowly opening it. The ritual could have been what finally wrenched it open completely, and once you had the jet truly going, it would have been hard to turn the tap off again until the pressure went down.”“Would have been nice if it had gone down a bit sooner,” Stiles mumbles at the same time that Dad says: “I hope for you that you had no idea this could happen.”His tone promises terrible things to happen to the newly alive wolf if he had known.“Rest assured that if I’d had the slightest inkling, I’d have thought of a backup plan or two. I never thought that Stiles’ desire to bring me back went past vague feelings of guilt, a certain amount of curiosity, and the hope to control the circumstances. Which does make me wonder what else motivated him.”“Safety,” Stiles whispers, and realizes in that moment just how true that is.He looks up to see three fairly interesting face journeys. There are incredulity, scepticism, wistfulness, longing, fondness, gratitude… and did he mention incredulity? That expression makes several appearances, so he’ll probably have to explain himself with more than only one word.“I didn’t feel like that at the beginning. I actually thought that the absence of both Kate and you would be all that’d be needed for stabilizing things. But the more time I spent with you, the more I became convinced that all your knowledge could be our key to survival.”“You had access to my knowledge even without bringing me back, though.”“But you still weren’t corporeal. Your knowledge doesn’t really equal actual manpower, does it? And as a ghost, you’d always need me around to pass on information. Doesn’t feel very practical to me.”“You didn’t think I’d be able to keep the territory safe?” Derek asks, sounding surprisingly hurt.“Sorry, dude. But you’re a new Alpha with new Betas, figuring stuff out as you go because you’ve never been prepared for any of this. I’m not saying you’re incapable. I’m saying you need all the help you can get until you finish growing into your role. Hell, I need all the help I can get, too, because we all know it’s wishful thinking that I’ll stay out of this, now that I’m in the know.”Dad’s pained grimace catches his attention then, so he points out the obvious: “What? You know me. When have I ever been able to stay away when there were things to figure out? None of this should come as a surprise to you.”“I’m not surprised, Stiles. I’d have been surprised had I learned about this and found out you’re not involved. But that doesn’t change the fact that I worry about you and would love nothing better than you having far more harmless interests.”“Okay, fair. But since I am involved, I hope you can agree that having Peter in our corner, alive and well, will be an advantage we can’t pass up.”“You just went and made the power balance wonky.”“Again, that was not my intention!” Stiles sighs and turns back to Derek and Peter. “Is this going to blow up in our faces?”Derek’s scowl is fierce for a moment, then he deflates. “I don’t like it, but you’re right. I do need help. I made a promise to my betas, and it feels like I might not be able to keep it if things continue the way they have. And Scott is still a wildcard, too.”Peter recoils at that, his face a display of abject horror. “You want me to wrangle teenagers?” Derek actually brightens at his uncle’s plight. “It would serve you right. Scott is your fault anyway. It also helps that you have experience.” “What experience?” “You seem to have done a decent job at wrangling Stiles, don’t you say? He’s a teenager, too.”“Hey! I don’t need wrangling!” Stiles protests, but gets “You do!” thrown back at him in triplicate. It should feel highly insulting to him, but that sense of safety prevails. Suddenly having three adults—well, maybe two and a half—looking out for him and the others is a marked improvement to the events of earlier this year. There’s a good chance that he’s going to be sidelined repeatedly from now on, at least until he has a better handle on his magic. He knows that will grate, but it beats getting into possibly fatal danger because he struck out on his own for lack of capable backup. All the rest? Stiles is confident they’ll figure it out together. ~Peter moves in with them—“Just until I’ve gotten my mysterious disappearance from the hospital cleared up and found my own place, I promise!”—and it’s by far not as weird as Stiles would have expected. Derek offered a place to stay, too, but Peter declined, not that he can be blamed.From what Stiles was able to gather, Derek has only now started to look into a proper place for himself. And if his Betas are to be believed, it’s only a small step up from where’d he’d holed up before. Peter, on the other hand, has Standards. Capital S, and all that. Not to mention that neither of them has brought up the huge elephant in the room yet—namely the way the Hale spark was transferred twice in rapid succession.Stiles can see how they’d benefit from the distance. It wouldn’t do to jeopardize their new-found peace over something completely avoidable, right?Summer break is almost upon them now, and it’s a bit scary how fast time has passed since the night of the resurrection. Another full moon has come and gone, and the baby wolves got through it with little trauma—or so everyone assured him the day after since Dad had made sure Stiles would stay at home. Scott seems to start coming around to the idea of being part of a pack, too. Granted, though, it might be on Melissa’s insistence—and boy had Scott been pissed when his mom was brought in on the secret—but if it means that he’ll stop trying to do his own thing and become a team player, Stiles doesn’t care just how he came to his senses.A dull thud, followed by a groan, makes Stiles grin to himself. It’s a sound he’s become used to since Peter moved in. Considering how much the wolf prides himself on his sophistication and poise, the amount of times he runs into walls because he became used to “the direct path” as a ghost is frankly hilarious. And while Stiles envies him for his fast healing that takes care of any bruises, he’s still happy he’s not the only one with a lack of spatial awareness in this household anymore.He’s just happy, period.He’s part of something larger now, appreciated for the very things that used to put others off before. Peter has become his sarcasm buddy, Derek relies on his research spirals, the baby wolves love watching him talk circles around their former bullies… Life is good!“Wipe that grin off your face!” Peter demands as he enters the living room, and joy bubbles up in Stiles’ chest.“Stop providing free entertainment, then!”He only gets a huff in response and Stiles’ grin morphs into a genuine smile when he looks up to see Peter making himself at home on the other end of the couch with some paperwork. The man looks comfortable here, settled in himself. Stiles is starting to hope that this—Peter in this house, in their lives—will be permanent, despite his assurances that he’ll be out of their hair before they know it.At this point, Peter is probably only still saying it out of habit. His actions are telling a different story. Case in point: The shirt he’s wearing is decidedly not his. Today it’s Dad’s and it looks far less out of place on him than when he finds his way into Stiles’ wardrobe. Considering Peter’s usual sense of fashion, Stiles had been quite confused the first time he saw the wolf in an outfit not his own, but Derek had admitted that sharing clothes was part of the pack instinct. Just another manifestation of the need to scent.Armed with that knowledge, Dad and Stiles have not only let Peter keep doing it, but have on occasion returned the gesture. His reaction when he notices is always worth it. Stiles has half a mind to suggest they just pool all their shirts together and choose from them at random—although he’d draw the line at wearing those Henleys with the ridiculously deep necklines Peter seems to favor for himself.Stiles becomes aware that he’s still smiling when his cheeks are starting to hurt. He can’t stop it, though, especially when Peter looks up, sees his expression, and rolls his eyes at him. He may act put-upon, but he’s not fooling Stiles for even a second. They’re truly coming together as a pack now, and Peter is positively reveling in it. It helps that having two alphas has come with little to no bloodshed despite the lingering trauma, and that Beacon Hills has gone back to being fairly boring.Stiles likes boring and will enjoy it while it lasts. Trouble will surely find them again at some point, but they’ve come so far since that fateful night in the preserve that he’s sure they’ll be able to face it and come out on top.They have people to rely on and to fight for. It will make all the difference, he’s sure.