Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When their son is born, the doctor looks down at him and freezes, even as his baby’s cries pierce the hospital room.

“What?” John snaps, “What’s wrong?”

His son is alive, he’s crying, but - he knows that look. That’s not a good look.

“Oh - oh, nothing, sorry,” the doctor says, eyebrows dipped together. “I just - for a moment - I could have sworn your son’s eyes were red.” He laughs, placing the newborn on Claudia’s chest, just for a couple moments, and then Melissa will take him away and clean him up. “Maybe this should be my last delivery tonight. I’m starting to see things!”

“Ha,” John says shortly, not able to muster up anything more believable.

He leans down to kiss Claudia, to look at the pink, squirming infant, and he sees the fear clawing at his throat reflected in her eyes.

~

“It shouldn’t be possible,” Claudia says as soon as they’re alone, “I’m human. I’m the last of us - I was supposed to be the last of us.”

Mieczyslaw - even the doctors are already calling him Stiles - shifts in his sleep, turning into the warmth of his mother’s chest. “You are. If there were anyone else - well, if there were any other wolves left, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Her face crumples as she gives up on denial. “We have to keep this a secret. It’s one thing that he’s a werewolf. My whole family was wolves, it’s fine, it’s not what I expected, but it’s fine. But he’s an alpha too. If anyone finds out that a baby, that our tiny, defenseless son, is an alpha-”

“They’ll kill him,” John finishes, because he knows how werewolves work, about where their power comes from. He met Claudia in college, after her pack had been destroyed by hunters, after she was left the last one standing. But she told him everything. “Some beta looking for power will kill him.”

“We’ll protect him,” Claudia swears. She softens, looking down at their son. “I was ready to move on. To live like a normal human. I thought my pack was destroyed. But Mieczyslaw’s power is from my blood, my pack. His powers is the same as my grandmother’s. The hunters didn’t succeed.” She meets his gaze, as fierce as he’s ever seen her. “My pack lives.”

John doesn’t know what being pack means, although it seems like he’s going to find out, but he’s pretty sure it’s just another name for family. Maybe with more teeth and claws. “Yeah,” he says, and kisses her, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

~

Claudia has money. She has so much money, because she was the last one left standing when her pack died, when her grandmother died, so all the land and property and investments that had been used to run a whole pack got passed down to her. She sells the land and houses, because a human can’t hold pack land, and she knows that. She barely touches the rest of it, uses it to pay for school but not for her wedding. John knows about the money, of course he does, he knows everything, but he never presses her to use it.

She uses it to buy their house. He doesn’t ask, says they chose a house that he could pay off on his salary, and it’s fine if they do that, but she refuses. Her pack is dead, and they’re not coming back. Making her husband work overtime so they can afford to live is foolish. So she buys the house. They don’t have a mortgage, she just pays for the whole thing.

After Mieczyslaw, the money doesn’t seem like a curse, like a burden, like something dark and awful and looming. It seems like hope. It’s pack money, and so Mieczyslaw can have it, when he’s older it will become his money, and he can use it to build his pack. He can buy land and homes and whatever else he needs to do to make their pack bigger, to make it stronger.

The wealth was too much for one person, for one family, and it had felt like it was suffocating her. But now she can breathe again.

~

“Claudia,” Talia says, staring at the woman standing on her porch, no idea why she’s here. “How are you?”

They know each other, vaguely. She’s the wife of one of the deputies, and Talia sees her around town. But she has no idea what could have brought the woman to her house not even a week after giving birth.

She swallows, jutting her chin up like a challenge. Or baring her throat in sign of trust. Humans are so confusing. “I’m the granddaughter of Alpha Katarzyna Kowalczyk.”

Talia’s eyes flash red before she can stop them. Claudia doesn’t flinch. “I think you should come inside,” she says.

Claudia doesn’t fidget as she sits across from her, doesn’t look away or seem uncomfortable at all. They’re in her study, where the rest of the family knows not to disturb her. “I’m sorry about what happened to your pack.”

She shrugs, like it doesn’t matter, and Talia’s internally curls her lip. “That’s not why I’m here. It’s in the past. Or it was.”

“Are hunters coming?” she asks, wondering if Claudia is trying to warn her. Wondering if anyone warned the Kowalczyk pack.

She shakes her head. “No. I - my son,” she stops, biting her bottom lip.

“Is he sick?” Talia tries. Does Claudia want her to bite her son?

“No. He’s not.” She makes sure she’s looking Talia straight on. “He was born a werewolf.”

That really wasn’t what she was expecting. “You’re human,” she says, and it’s not a question. She’d be able to smell it if she wasn’t.

“As is his father. It comes from me. John doesn’t have wolves in his family,” she says.

“That’s rare.” Wolves aren’t normally borne of humans, even humans who were borne of wolves. But it’s not unheard of. “You want to join my pack.”

Claudia surprises her again and shakes her head. “No. That’s why I’m here. We want to stay in Beacon Hills. John has a job here, we bought a house, we have a life here. But we don’t want to be part of your pack. If my son chooses that later, when he’s older, then I won’t stop him. But that’s not a choice I’m willing to make for him.”

“He’ll be weak as an omega,” Talia says, frowning. “He needs a pack.”

“He’ll have one, one day,” she answers. “But I want it to be one he chooses. He wasn’t born into your pack, and I won’t decide for him. Do we have to move? Will you make things difficult for us?”

“No,” she says, even though maybe she should. Letting an omega stay on her land grates at her, but he’s just a baby, and, realistically, he’ll end up in her pack one day anyway, when he’s old enough to ask for it. “No, you can stay. Your husband knows about all this?”

Claudia’s face doesn’t change, but Talia can tell she’s irritated. “Of course. I don’t keep things from my husband.”

She doesn’t address that, instead saying, “There are times when it would be useful to have law enforcement look the other way.”

Claudia nods, like this is what she was expecting. “Let me know. John will do what he can.” She doesn’t hesitate, and her heartbeat is steady. She must have talked with her husband before coming here, must have already been prepared to bargain away some of the deputy’s power to help her son. Talia can’t help but be a little impressed.

“Your family is welcome to stay in Beacon Hills. But you’re not pack, and you’re not under my protection. I won’t risk my life or the lives of my pack for you,” she warns. If something supernatural causes trouble, she’ll take care of it, but the Stilinskis won’t get any special treatment from her just because one of them is a wolf.

Claudia’s mouth twists, an almost smile, and for some reason Talia almost feels uncomfortable under the other woman’s gaze. “Yes. I know.”

~

It’s a good thing Claudia was already planning to be a stay at home mom, because now they don’t really have any other choice. She grew up with wolves. She knows what to expect.

Wolves are born mostly human, except for the eyes. But by the time Mieczyslaw is two, he’s already transforming, already has unnatural strength for his age and size. He’s stronger than she remembers her nieces being, but that makes sense. They were betas. He’s an alpha.

John worries, because they get a lot of bruises, ones Mieczyslaw never means to give them, but Claudia doesn’t. Her husband didn’t grow up with wolves, so he has no reason to know this, but their son has fantastic control. His claws come out, but he never scratches them, there’s been some close calls with the furniture, and a lot of shredded blankets, but he’s never drawn blood, which is more than can be said about many human children.

They are very, very careful about biting.

“Never,” she tells him, four years old and getting ready to go on a playdate with Melissa’s kid. She’s been telling him this since before he could walk, since before he could talk. “You must never, under any circumstances, bite someone. Understand? Your bite is powerful. You shouldn’t use your claws either, but you must never use your teeth.” It doesn’t count if he bites anyone when he isn’t shifted, of course, but she doesn’t want to make the distinction. All it takes is one second of lost control, and then they’ll have a new werewolf on their hands. Then everyone will know what Mieczyslaw is, know that he’s an alpha, and they’re going to have to run. His true status has to remain a secret until he’s strong enough to protect himself.

One day, when he’s ready to start building his own pack, they’ll have to move. They’ll have to go somewhere that isn’t claimed or controlled by another pack and start fresh. Or maybe he’ll want to join another pack instead, but if so, she doubts it will be the Hale pack. She doubts that Talia will tolerate another alpha. But that’s years in the future, and as long as Mieczyslaw can keep his teeth and red eyes to himself, there’s no reason to rush.

“Okay,” Mieczyslaw says, big brown eyes wide. “I’ll be good. I won’t hurt Scott.”

“I know you won’t,” she says, and kisses her son’s forehead. He will likely break something or convince Scott to do something he shouldn’t, like climb the tree in Melissa’s backyard, but that’s fine. The type of trouble Mieczyslaw seems to get into is human trouble, kid trouble, so she tries not to scold him too much for it. He follows the important rules, the ones about teeth and claws and red eyes, so she’s predisposed to let the other ones slide. That might be a problem, in the future, but for now she doesn’t want to press her luck.

He’s a sweet kid, and he’s good at controlling the wolf, even on the full moon, when he can’t help but shift and huddle into her side. He doesn’t go out on those nights because he can’t stop his eyes from bleeding red when the moon is full and high, and there are too many Hales that might come across him.

As long as he’s tucked against her side, he’s fine.

One day, her son will need a different anchor. But not for a long, long time. She’s not going anywhere.

~

Stiles is seven when things begin to change.

“Put on your coat,” Claudia says, for the dozenth time. John sits and drinks his coffee, mouth turned down at the corners. He wants to help, wants to get involved, but Claudia says it’s important that they don’t look weak in front of him, which means that he won’t undermine her by getting involved without her asking him to. He doesn’t understand, but he suspects this is one of those things that’s more about being a wolf than being human.

“I’m not cold,” Stiles says, and he’s not yelling, but he’s definitely whining. He’s gearing up for a proper tantrum, and while John doesn’t want to deal with that, it’s at least more straightforward than this strange almost argument he’s having with his mother.

“That’s because you’re not outside yet,” she says. “You’re going to miss the bus if you don’t hurry, and then Scott will be sad that you weren’t there to sit with him.”

He scowls. “I’m not going to be cold when I go outside either! I’m a werewolf! The cold doesn’t bother me.”

That’s not exactly true. The cold can’t hurt him. John knows that he still gets cold. He should put on the coat, for his personal comfort as well as appearances. If he doesn’t wear a coat, they’re going to get a call from the school, and it’s going to be really awkward if people start accusing them of child neglect.

“Mieczyslaw,” Claudia says, “put on your coat.”

She reaches for him, like she’s going to force it on him, or at least force it into his arms, since neither of them are strong enough to manhandle Stiles when he doesn’t want it. His eyes flash red and he growls, “No!”

Claudia freezes, then slowly bares her throat. John feels - scolded, for some reason, like he’s a kid in trouble. He pushes the feeling away, because they knew this was coming, his wife warned him this would happen, they just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.

Stiles is an alpha, and they’re his parents. That means they’re his pack, that he’s their alpha. It doesn’t matter that he’s a literal child, that he’s their son, it just doesn’t matter. He’s their alpha. But Claudia didn’t think this, this - shift, this change, would happen until Stiles was older, a teenager, maybe.

This is going to be a problem, he can tell. Because he doesn’t want to make Stiles wear his coat anymore, because he said no. He said no, and it feels like that should be the end of the conversation, even though he knows it isn’t. He’s not a wolf, wasn’t born into a family of werewolves, but Stiles is his son, so he’s nothing if not his son’s pack. It’s affecting him too. Claudia said it would, but he hadn’t really believed her, thought something so instinctual and solid couldn’t just settle into his psyche without permission, but he was wrong.

Things are going to get very difficult, and very out of control if they can’t even discipline their own child. It was bad enough when they were contemplating a teenager who wouldn’t have any reason to listen to them, but this - it’s too much, too soon.

But Stiles’s eyes fade back to brown. He looks in between them, eyebrows pushed together, like he felt the change as much as they did. Claudia is still standing there, not moving with her throat bared, and John wants to do something, but he doesn’t know what. There’s no guidebook for this, even amongst wolves.

Stiles steps forward, takes his coat from his mother’s hands, and puts it on. “Sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Claudia says, finally easing back into a more natural position.

“Sorry,” he repeats, and hugs her before darting out of the front door. John leans back to look out the window, and Stiles makes it to the end of the driveway just in time for the bus to pull up.

John turns to his wife. She breathes out slowly. “Did you feel that?”

“Yeah,” he says.

Her face breaks into a grin, and he’s startled at the intensity of it. “We’re a pack, John.”

“Yeah,” he says again, because he doesn’t know what else to say, how else to react. It’s too early. It wasn’t supposed to be this early. This will cause problems.

It does. But not as many as he feared.

Stiles gets into trouble in school, he drags Scott along with him, he still argues and has the occasional meltdown. But he’s such a good kid.

Other parents don’t understand, and he can’t explain it to them. From the outside, Stiles seems like a tough kid, always causing trouble, too loud and never paying attention. The force loves him, he’s still sweet when he’s not driving them all crazy, but they look at him and see a kid who doesn’t listen. Which, well, they’re not wrong. But they only see the half of it.

Stiles goes through so much effort to never pull rank on them.

He holds his temper, when he gets upset he doesn’t flash his eyes and speak in that tone of voice that seems too old for him and makes John want to obey him instead of the other way around. The few times he has done that, he’s instantly contrite. In Stiles’s mind, if he has to growl and flash his eyes to get his way, he loses. That’s the end of the argument, and he does exactly what his parents were asking of him, because he’s lost.

They get to actually be parents to their kid, without having to step softly or move around him. Because he argues and whines and causes trouble - but all human things, in all human ways.

They have a really good kid, and someday John thinks he’s going to make a really good alpha.

~

Talia’s on the front porch with Peter when Stiles walks up to them, clothes dirty and torn, and drops two dead kelpies in front of her. “These were in your lake,” he says, and he doesn’t bare his throat, doesn’t make any sort of submissive gesture at all, even though he’s an omega on her land, even though he’s a nine year old wolf without a pack. “I killed them. Thought you might want them.”

Talia doesn’t know what to make of Stiles.

She’s seen him around town, even smelled him on the preserve. Cora’s in his class. She says that if she couldn’t smell the wolf on him, she’d never know. He’s gangly instead of graceful, and he’s all laughter and too loud talking. He doesn’t seem like a wolf. He doesn’t seem like a predator.

She always assumed he was weak. Of course he’s weak, he’s a lone wolf raised by humans, he’s lucky he’s even alive. A sad excuse for a wolf.

But now she’s got two dead kelpie at her feet, and a wolf who doesn’t submit to her. She thought Stiles would be over here begging to be in her pack as soon as he could talk, would feel the emptiness and loneliness of being an omega like a knife in the ribs. But apparently not. He’s not weak either, not like he should be as a child omega. She wouldn’t send Laura to kill two kelpies alone, they’re vicious and slippery, never mind Cora. And Cora is stronger than Stiles. Should be stronger than him, since she’s part of a large pack and he’s all alone.

“Bye,” he says, when she only continues to stare at him, turning his back to her. She hears the crunch of bones as he shifts, but doesn’t see his face as he runs back into the woods, towards his own home.

Peter pushes the kelpie corpses with the toe of his boot and mutters, “Interesting.”

“The kelpies or the kid?” she asks, looking at her little brother.

“Both,” he says bluntly. “But the kelpies are the more pressing of the two. What the hell were they doing in the lake?”

“Thanks for volunteering to find out,” she says. He glares, but before he can argue she flashes her eyes at him. He grumbles, but goes into the direction of the lake. He flips her off as he does it but, well, he’s Peter.

She looks in the direction of where Stiles left until her husband calls her inside. Something doesn’t make sense about that kid.

~

When Claudia gets her diagnosis, her first concern is Mieczyslaw.

“He needs a new anchor,” she tells John as soon as they’re back in the car. “My mind will go before my body, so we don’t have any time to waste. He uses you to anchor himself too, so the transition shouldn’t be so bad. He’s going to have a hard time controlling himself when I die. If he’s struggling, make up some excuse about why he can’t attend my funeral. We don’t need anyone finding out he’s an alpha now. He’s not a baby anymore, but he’s still not strong enough. You’ll have to let him see my body though, even though the doctors probably won’t like it. It’s important. If he doesn’t get the chance to smell I’m dead, he’s going to have a hard time processing everything. A harder time. It has be before I’m embalmed, because I’ll smell wrong then, that’ll just be worse. We’ll have to go the bank too and add you to the pack accounts, so that you can access that money if you or Mieczyslaw need it. I was thinking he’d get the money at twenty one, but he has such a good head on his shoulders, I think eighteen is fine, he doesn’t have to do anything with it, of course, but it’ll be there, if he needs it.”

She’s so focused on planning, on how to make this easier for her son, that she doesn’t realize John is crying until she looks over. She holds out her hand, and he grabs it tight enough to hurt, but she doesn’t complain. “I don’t want to lose you,” he says, “I don’t want Stiles to lose you.”

Hugging him is easy, kissing him even easier.

She doesn’t want to die. She wants to see her son grow up, wants to see her husband go grey, wants to see the type of pack Mieczyslaw will build.

But she won’t get to see any of that. She’s going to die. She’ll probably die soon.

She doesn’t have time for grief, especially grief that serves no purpose.

~

The second time Stiles comes to her is only a few months after the first time. “Would the bite cure my mom?” he asks as soon as she’s opened the door.

Talia raises an eyebrow. “Are you asking me to bite her?”

“I’m asking you if turning into a werewolf would save her,” he says, and he’s nearly glaring at her. An omega, being disrespectful to her on her own land, but one who isn’t looking to start a fight. He’s talking to her as if they’re equals. It’s baffling.

But he’s a child, and his mother is dying. Asserting her dominance over him now would be a pointless thing for her to do, no matter how much her wolf is itching for her to do just that. “No. She’s too old for the bite to take well, even if she’s from a werewolf family. Plus, her body is weak. It would probably kill her.”

“So she’s going to die, and there’s nothing anyone can do,” he says. He’s speaking in a flat monotone, and Talia aches, suddenly, in a way she hasn’t before. The thought of her dying and leaving her children to mourn her - if she were to die, and leave Cora crying over her grave - she doesn’t envy Claudia this, the knowledge she’s going to hurt her son without any way to prevent it.

“I’m sorry,” she says. He nods, once, then leaves.

~

Stiles doesn’t want to be strong, but he has to be, because this is destroying his father and he doesn’t know what to do. He’s the alpha, he should be able to fix this, it’s his job to fix this. But his pack is falling apart around him, and he doesn’t know what to do. His dad is drinking more and working more. He still comes whenever Stiles calls for him. His dad may be good at faking his smiles, but no matter what his face looks like, Stiles can smell the sour scent of grief clinging to him, and it hurts him that his dad is hurting and he can’t do anything about it, that his pack is hurting and he can’t do anything about it.

He’s at Scott’s because his mom is in the hospital and his dad is working late, and he stares up at the ceiling. He’s in Scott’s bed, his best friend’s face pressed into his shoulder and drooling on him. Scott smells like him. Cora has noticed it, looks at them strangely, looks at him with pity, because she probably thinks his scent on Scott is a sad attempt at a pack. It’s not. He’s an alpha, and it doesn’t matter that there are no other wolves in his pack, it’s still his. Scott is pack, it’s what he became at some point when they were younger, and Stiles still hasn’t really figured out how to tell him that.

Maybe he doesn’t have to. Scott knows he’s important, that he’s Stiles’s best friend. Maybe that’s enough.

But he wants to tell Scott the truth. He hates lying to him. He shouldn’t lie to his pack.

~

When John gets to the hospital, Stiles is sitting with his knees pressed to his forehead, and Scott is beside him, wide eyed and holding onto his arm, gripping the sleeve of his friend’s sweatshirt like he’s afraid something terrible will happen if he lets go.

He knows the moment he sees his son that Claudia is gone.

“John,” Melissa says, materializing at his elbow, her face creased in sympathy, her eyes dark in grief. She looks like she’s been crying.

“How long ago?” he asks. It sounds like his voice is far away.

“A few hours. We tried to call you, but - well. She wasn’t alone. Stiles was with her when she passed.” He flinches, and she grips his arm. “I had the sitter bring Scott so he was waiting for him out here. As soon as he left Claudia, he was with Scott. He wasn’t alone.” She pauses, and says quietly, “I tried to be there with him, when she died, but he yelled at me to get out. I listened to him - why did I listen to him? I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Oh. Melissa is pack. It makes sense. Scott is Stiles’s best friend, he’s pack, so Melissa is too. “It’s okay,” he says, because of course she listened. When Stiles speaks in that particular tone of voice, John wants to listen too. But Stiles never makes him. Apparently this was more important than any of the arguments he’d gotten into with his father.

He thought he was ready. He knew it was coming. They had so much time to be ready for this, so much time spent watching her slowly slip away from them. But his chest feels too tight, and Melissa is guiding him over to a chair, trying to get him to sit down before he falls down.

It’s been a long time since he had a panic attack.

“Dad.” He looks up, and Stiles is standing there. Shit. He - Stiles can probably smell it on him, can smell the panic and anxiety clawing their way into him. Stiles steps closer, wrapping his arms around him, pulling him forward until John’s forehead is pressed against his sternum. “It’s okay. Calm down.”

This is pathetic, this is so pathetic, his son just lost his mother, he should be the one comforting Stiles, not the other way around. Alpha or not, he’s the adult here, and he needs to act like it. He holds his breath, forcing his shoulders to relax, forcing himself to focus. He can have a panic later. When Stiles can’t see him.

He sits up and grabs Stiles, hugging him properly, tucking his son’s head beneath his chin and rubbing a hand up and down his back. “I got you,” he promises, “and you’ve still got me.”

The first sob is a relief. Stiles breaking down and crying in his arms means he can breathe again. Stiles is still a kid. He’s John’s kid, and red eyes doesn’t change that.

They can do this. It’s going to be harder, to navigate all the werewolf stuff without Claudia, to function at all without his wife, but he has to do this, he can’t let this break him.

His son needs him.

~

Scott thought that Stiles was a vampire.

He’d noticed things, over the years. The odd flash of red eyes, fangs that are there in one moment and gone the next, the way his hands sometimes look like claws. It doesn’t make a lot a sense, because Stiles is warm, and he’s getting older, and Scott has felt the rapid pace of his pulse under his hand before. But it’s the only thing that he can think of that can explain the rest of it.

Stiles tells him he’s a werewolf when he’s ten, just a few short weeks after his mother’s funeral. His eyes are glowing red when he says, “I’ll tell your mom too, but - later. Dad’s worried that she’ll just think this is a reaction to the grief, and that she’s grieving too, so proving it to her might just make her think she’s gone crazy. So we’ll tell her. But in a few months. Or maybe a year.”

“Why are you telling me now?” he asks. It’s easy to accept this as the truth. It makes sense, and it doesn’t change anything, not for him. Stiles is his best friend. His only friend, really.

He looks hesitant for the first time, but licks his lips and says. “It’s - I. My mom was my anchor, before. But she’s not anymore. Obviously.”

“But you need your anchor to control your shift!” he says, because he’s been paying attention.

Stiles almost grins. “Yeah. I know. But that’s why I’m telling you. It’s you, Scott. You’re my anchor now.”

Scott pauses, something warm unfurling in his chest. Stiles loves him, he always knew that, and he loves Stiles. That’s not even in question, he’s pretty sure that’s what Stiles meant when he called them pack. But that he’s important enough that Stiles uses him to control himself, to stay human even when he’s angry or sad or afraid -

“You’re my best friend,” Scott says, even though he has to know.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, fond, and eyes still with that warm red glow.

~

It’s only a few months after his mom dying that he gets pulled out of class, and Stiles feels his heart hammering in his chest, and has to bite down on the urge to shift. Deputy Harrison - George, as he’s always told Stiles to call him - is there to pick him up. “Where’s my dad?” he asks as soon as he sees him.

His fear must be obvious, because George lays a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Hey. Calm down, it’s okay. Your dad’s fine. I’m not sure what’s going on, but your dad asked me to come get you. I don’t know why, but he’s okay, I promise.”

Stiles spends hours in his dad’s office, waiting and waiting and waiting. He’s asleep in his chair when the door opens, and he barely has the time to blink awake before his dad is hauling him into his arms. Stiles hugs him back, and his nose is filled with the scent of smoke. Under that is blood, and the uncomfortable smell of burned flesh. Then, just faint enough that it’s almost unnoticeable, is the acrid scent of mountain ash. “Dad?”

“You need to go,” he says, pulling back. There’s ash on his hands and smeared across his uniform, and his eyes are so wide as to look crazed. “I’m sending you to your great aunt’s in Arizona. For a week. Maybe more, but at least a week.”

What? “Dad, what are you talking about? What’s wrong?” he demands. He hates acting like an alpha with his dad, it feels wrong, but he kind of smells like he’s starting to work himself into a panic attack, and Stiles knows if he pitches his voice just right and tells him to calm down, he will.

“The Hale house caught on fire, it’s basically gone,” he says, and Stiles stares.

That’s awful, of course, but it doesn’t explain his dad’s reaction. “That sucks. Are they going to tear it down and start from scratch?”

“Stiles. They died. The Hales are dead, all except Derek and Laura, and Peter – we don’t know about Peter. He’s alive. For now.” His dad holds his hands, and if he were human he think it would hurt. “Hunters came for the Hales. There are hunters in Beacon Hills, and you can’t be here, understand? If they find out what you are–”

“I can’t leave!” Stiles says, knowing his eyes are glowing red but unable to make them stop. “If – if they’re really all gone, they’ll need help, I can’t just leave them, I’m a werewolf too and they’ve just lost their pack, I can’t just run away–”

“You may be an alpha but you’re still a child,” he says. “What can you do for them? What you can you really do for them? I’ll keep an eye on them, I swear, they know that I know about them, I’ll get the real story out of them. But I can’t do my job if I’m worried about you, understand? I can’t go out there and try to make this better if I’m worried about a hunter shooting you in the head with a wolfsbane bullet.”

It’s wrong, it feels wrong to leave now, to run, but his dad is upset, he’s so worried, and Stiles has to take care of him. The best way he can take care of his dad is by listening to him. “Okay. Okay, I’ll go, I won’t fight you on it.”

His dad’s relief helps distract Stiles from the unpleasant churning sensation in his stomach. He feels like he’s making a mistake.

~

John means to help. Claudia had spoken about how devastating losing her pack was as a human, for werewolves it has to be even worse.

They’re in his office, the door closed and the blinds drawn. Derek has sunken in on himself, shoulders slumped and face pale, huddled into the corner of the couch as if trying to make himself as small as possible. John’s impressed he hasn’t transformed from the grief.

Laura is sitting in the center of the couch and she isn’t holding her wolf back, but it’s clear that she isn’t trying to. Her eyes are glowing red and her lips are pulled back in a snarl, like she thinks that will work on him, but it won’t. He’s used to red eyes, she isn’t his alpha, and he’s not even just some human she can an intimidate. He’s part of a pack. “You seem to be managing your mother’s power well,” he says softly, and it’s not quite a reprimand. “I’m on your side. I want to help.”

“On our side,” she snarks, lip curling like it’s a joke. “Is that why your son is gone? You sent him packing as soon as you’d heard what happened to us.”

Is there something she’s not saying? Something he should know but doesn’t? He doesn’t understand her anger. “Of course I did. He’s eleven years old, and there are hunters in town.”

Derek flinches. “How do you know it was hunters?” Laura growls at him, and he lowers his head. John doesn’t like that.

“Do you know of someone else who could lay a mountain ash circle around your home?” he asks. Now they’re both staring at him. “Was it your emissary? Because those are the only two people I can think of who use mountain ash.”

“You know we have an emissary? And about the mountain ash?” Laura demands.

He rubs his hand over his face. They exhaust him. “My wife was part of a large pack, you know, and my son is a werewolf. No pack that expects to be taken seriously would be without an emissary, and I saw the mountain ash. How else would fire kill a houseful of werewolves? Even one that was so obviously magically enhanced.” Her eyes narrow, and before she can ask, he says, “House fires don’t run hot enough to do what happened to your family. Especially not so localized. At that heat - your house should have been nothing but ash. The forest surrounding it should have caught fire. It didn’t. If you have an explanation that isn’t magic, then please, I’m all ears. Tell me what happened. Tell me who did this so I can bring them to justice.”

She’s still staring at him, so clearly suspicious of him, and he doesn’t know why. “Your son is an omega. You’re not part of our pack. I’m not telling you anything.”

“I’m the sheriff,” he snaps. “This isn’t just a werewolf problem. Setting a house on fire and murdering everyone inside is a crime, and they should be brought to justice.” Derek hunches in even further, attempting to make himself impossibly smaller, and John feels a flash of guilt. He takes a deep breath, forcing himself to be calm. “What are you going to do? Rip their throats out?”

“And what if I do?” she challenges. “They murdered my pack.”

“All on your own?” he asks. “You’ve just became an alpha. You have Derek and Peter to take care of. Are you going to go off on your own, against an enemy that’s clearly more powerful than you are? That’s foolish.” He can’t take issue with the concept of murder, of a werewolf’s justice. He and his wife had a lot of conversations about it.

There are times when the human and supernatural lines blur, and that world has its own justice, its own laws. He can’t tell a new alpha she doesn’t have the right to avenge her pack, even if it makes his skin itch.

“You’re not pack,” she repeats. “We’re not telling you anything. Write up whatever cause or explanation in the report you like. We don’t care.” She leaves and Derek follows, not even bothering to look at him.

He resists the urge to throw something. They’ve just lost everything, they’re traumatized, they need time to relax, to regain their equilibrium. He almost wishes Stiles was here, wishes he didn’t have to be a secret. An alpha’s power is a heavy thing. Laura could use some help, and John only knows one alpha.

Laura and Derek are gone the next day, having given their statements and left with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. John wasn’t even there to stop them, didn’t think he had to stop them. It takes a lot of talking to convince his deputies that their behavior isn’t suspicious, that Laura is just acting out of grief and panic and not guilt.

“They left?” Stiles asks, horrified, his voice kind of crackly from the other end of the phone. John had driven him home to get changed, and then driven him to the airport. He didn’t like Stiles flying alone, but he didn’t have much choice, and it’s not like he had to worry about Stiles getting kidnapped or hurt by humans. Just hunters. “That doesn’t – it’s their territory. They wouldn’t leave.”

“They left,” he confirms, ignoring the rest of it, because he doesn’t know what to say. Peter Hale is still unconscious. He might be unconscious forever, because if his werewolf healing hasn’t fixed him already, maybe it never will. They hadn’t stuck around for a funeral because there hadn’t been anything to bury, the fire burning so much hotter than the arson expert can explain. They’d barely found bone fragments for the rest of the family, and no way to tell who they belonged to. It’s a miracle Peter survived at all. Stiles makes a wounded noise on the other side, but doesn’t say anything more.

He finds out when Derek Hale’s school records get pulled two weeks later. Wherever they are, whatever they’re doing, at least Laura is planning to keep Derek in school. The kid’s only fifteen, and she’s only nineteen, barely more than a kid herself.

He wishes they’d stayed. They’re not his pack, but they’re still wolves, still kids, and he would have helped, if they’d let him.

~

It ends up being not one week, but three.

His Great Aunt Sue is his grandfather’s sister, and Stiles has only met her a couple of times. She seems nice, and his dad doesn’t hate her, but they’re not close. She may be family, but she’s not pack.

Stiles thinks she’s a good person, would have to be to just let her nephew’s kid stay with her for nearly a month with no notice. She likes to garden, and to go hiking and rock climbing. She lives alone, had never remarried after her wife died, and never had any kids, so she’s clearly at a loss with what to do with Stiles.

During those three weeks, he gets really good at rock climbing, and she teaches him to cook. He burns his hands about a dozen times, but they always heal before she notices.

He talks to his dad every day, and Scott twice a day, before school and after, because being without his anchor for three weeks is terrible. “Does your mom think this is weird?”

“I think she thinks it’s weird that she doesn’t think it’s weird,” Scott says. “She asks about you whenever we finish talking.”

Stiles feels warm at that, that Melissa cares. That’s what makes her pack, although they still haven’t gotten around to telling her about werewolves. Being Scott’s mom isn’t enough, because his dad isn’t pack, in fact Stiles wouldn’t mind sharpening his claws on Scott’s dad, so it’s not that. It’s just Melissa, being there all the time, stern and kind and warm and trying so hard. That’s what makes her pack. He knows his dad doesn’t get it, not really, and he has a lot of words inside of him, but not for this. He will, one day, he thinks.

~

When he lands, Scott and his dad are waiting for him at the airport. He panics, because he doesn’t know who to go to first. Because his dad is his dad, but Scott is Scott, so he just freezes, not wanting to choose.

He doesn’t have to.

Scott goes running for him and knocks him to the ground, and it’s comforting that Scott’s missed him just as much as he’s missed Scott, that he’s not just his weird, needy werewolf best friend.

They eat dinner with Melissa, and it feels good, feels right. He has his pack again.

~

John doesn’t think this is a good idea, but Stiles is being stubborn about this, and this is a werewolf thing, or maybe just an alpha thing, but whatever it is, it’s important. Stiles asks Scott to come with them, which comforts John a little, because at least Stiles knows this is a bad idea.

He drives them up to what’s left of Hale house. It’s rained twice since the fire, and another wall has collapsed. The rain should have been cleansing, should have washed away the scent of fire and smoke and burning human flesh. Instead it’s just made everything more of a mess.

Stiles’s nose wrinkles before they even get there. “Mountain ash is still here.”

“I broke the circle when I found it,” John protests. “The rain should have washed it away.”

Stiles shrugs, doesn’t say anything as they walk even closer to the charred and broken remains of what the Hale pack used to be. He holds Scott’s hand and doesn’t say anything at all. John’s bones are starting to feel the cold by the time Stiles says, “Okay. We can go.”

That night Stiles crawls into his bed. This isn’t entirely a wolf thing, it’s a kid thing too, so he lets Stiles sleep on his mother’s side of the bed even though he’s far too old for it, and pretends not to notice him staring at him before he falls asleep, or the way Stiles looks exhausted the next morning, like he didn’t get any sleep at all.

If keeping watch for a night from monsters that aren’t after them makes Stiles feel better, he won’t begrudge him.

~

Stiles lets it lie, for a couple weeks, certain that they’re coming back.

But spring melts into summer, and still no one returns.

The hospital staff know him as well as they know Scott, and it’s not weird for Stiles to be here on his own, not really. Everyone jokes about how Melissa has two sons, about how Stiles is constantly underfoot, and it’s depressingly easy to cash in on that as he walks through the halls. He smiles and waves like he would if he was here doing anything else, and no one spares him a second glance.

It doesn’t take him long to find where he’s going, and he lowers himself into the chair next to Peter Hale’s bed. He still looks awful, skin burned and peeling, pink and leaking and all the worse for it. His chest rises and falls in staggered, sluggish breathes. More than any of that, it’s the needle in his arm which Stiles can’t stop looking at. Needles pierce their skin, no problem, but they heal so fast that their body just pushes it back out if it takes more than a minute or so. IVs are not meant for werewolves, it just doesn’t work, and seeing one in Peter’s hand is making him feel kind of nauseous.  

“So,” he says, clearing his throat before trying and failing to get in a more comfortable position in this horrible hospital chair. Luckily, he has tons of experience sitting in these things from when he would come to visit his mom. “So, I know this is really weird, but, um, they say you should talk to coma patients, and I’m really good at talking, so I thought that I could help, maybe. So there’s that, but I also feel really awful for you, because  - well, I’m sure you’ve noticed. You’re all alone. And that’s really messed up on like, a human level, but on wolf one it’s - yeah, I mean, you know. Worse. And I’m sure they had their reason for leaving, and, um, leaving you behind,” why didn’t they take him, why didn’t they demand a transfer to a hospital where they’re staying, Stiles doesn’t understand anything, “but you’re still alone. Which is bad. So I figured I’d, you know, hang out or whatever, until they come back for you,” they have to come back for him, “and if Laura gets mad about it, we can, I don’t know, have a fight in the parking lot about it.”

Peter doesn’t say anything, of course, because he’s in a coma, and nearly burned to death. It’s been over a month, and he’s barely healed. Granted, any human would be dead, but it doesn’t look good. He doesn’t look good.

Stiles shoots a look at the door, because he’s definitely not supposed to be in here, and then slides his hand under Peter’s arm, where it’s not super obvious to anyone standing on the other side. His skin is tender where it isn’t rough, and it makes his stomach lurch. But someone has to do this, and if it’s not going to be the Hales, then it will have to be him. The veins in his arms bulge and blacken as he leeches pain out of Peter, going slow so he can manage the pain that’s flowing into him, so that it has enough time to fade before he takes in more.

He keeps talking, first about all the recipes that Sue had taught him, then about how much of a pain it was to try and catch up after three weeks out of school, because the school year is just about over, and there’s no way he’s doing summer school. He keeps taking on Peter’s pain the entire time, and, maybe it’s his imagination, but he thinks Peter might be breathing easier when he leaves two hours later.

~

Melissa had thought she would need to do a lot of arguing and cajoling and possibly some outright begging to get the hospital staff to allow Stiles unrestricted access to Peter’s rooms, because after nearly a month of him showing up a few times a week, it’s clear that this isn’t something he’s letting go, and Melissa doesn’t really want to make him.

She’d talked about it with John, worried that this was a trauma thing, or something she should be worried about, and not just Stiles’s latest project. But John had gotten quiet, and said, “If you can do anything to help, we’d really appreciate it.”

It had actually been pathetically easy to get Stiles and John listed as family. “Someone should claim him,” his doctor had grumbled when setting it up, and then she’d looked a little guilty. “I do feel bad for those kids, of course.”

“Of course,” Melissa had echoed. Everyone felt bad for them. It still didn’t make leaving a comatose uncle behind any easier to understand. She’d known Peter, in a distant sort of way, the only way anyone ever seemed to know the Hales. Handsome and polite enough, always with a grin like he was in on some joke that no one else was.

It hurt to see him like this, unmoving, scarred, barely clinging on to life.

So the hospital staff had put Stiles on a list, because they knew Stiles from Claudia and from her, and they knew the sheriff, and no one wanted to get in the way of a good kid doing a good thing.

It’s not until a few months later that she finds out there’s more to the story, and when she does, it’s Rafe’s fault.

It’s a Saturday, and Stiles and Scott are in her son’s bedroom, theoretically asleep but she knows better, knows that they’re watching something or playing something, doing something that isn’t sleeping, but she doesn’t see any reason to stop them. It’s not a school night, after all.

She’s in the kitchen, getting some cleaning done now while she has the chance. She has work early tomorrow morning, and so does John, so the kids are on their own until a little before dinnertime. She knows exactly how that’s going to end. They’ll spend the day playing video games, and then Stiles will make lunch. She’s happy to leave them money for pizza, but ever since those three weeks that he spent in Arizona, Stiles really enjoys cooking, and he’s good at it. He’s not good at not making a huge mess, and he always cleans up after, but Melissa ends up doing it again anyway. He leaves it clean, but not clean enough, or possibly she’s just a neat freak and needs to learn to relax.

Either way, it’s easier for everyone if she does the dishes in the sink and scrubs the counters tonight.

She doesn’t hear the door open and close, but she does hear footsteps. One of the kids trying to sneak down for a midnight snack, she assumes, and she’s smiling as she looks over her shoulder, “Aren’t you supposed to be asl-”

It’s not the kids.

A large man covers her mouth before she can scream and presses her up against the counter while someone else grabs her wrists and pins them behind her back, handcuffs sliding into place and pinching against her skin. She tries to struggle, to kick or fight, but he’s strong and large and easily moves out of the way as she lashes out. A gag replaces his hand, and he says, “Just shut up and do what you’re told and you won’t get hurt. I’d hate to give you back to Rafael in pieces.” She’s angrier than she is scared, but then something cold and metal and cylindrical is shoved against her back, and she freezes. He’s holding a gun.

What the hell does her ex-husband have to do with this? Who are these men? Oh, god, what if they’re here for Scott too -

“Get your hands off of her.”

They turn, and Stiles is standing there in his pajama bottoms and a too big t-shirt, looking even younger than his age, and he’s shaking. She screams, eyes wide, trying to tell him to leave, to run. He’s going to get himself killed or taken, he should have ran!

“I already called my dad,” he says conversationally, like he’s not afraid. He’s not, she realizes, after another moment of looking at him. He’s not shaking with fear. He’s furious. “Whether or not you’re alive when he gets here depends on what you do next.”

The one holding her snorts. “You’ve got balls, Scott.” They think Stiles is her son. “But Rafael is too far away to do you any good. Don’t worry, you’ll be seeing him real soon.” He jerks his head towards the other man, who lunges for him. Melissa yells for him to run, even though it’s muffled by the gag, and fights back even with a gun pressed to her stomach, because Stiles is insane and idiotic and he’s going to get himself killed, and she can’t let that happen.

The man grabs Stiles, and then there’s a scream. But it’s not her, and it’s not Stiles. The man staggers back, and his arm is bleeding. It’s bleeding a lot, with five deep, jagged cuts curling down across his bicep.

“That was a warning. Let her go.” Stiles’s voice sounds different, and he looks different, eyes glowing red, his teeth sharp and protruding from his mouth, and his fingers are longer, no, wait, those are claws. One of them is bloody.

He looks like a demon.

“What the hell,” the man holding her breathes, and now the gun is pointed at Stiles. The bleeding man charges him again, but Stiles turns and punches him the gut. It doesn’t just send him stumbling back, it sends him flying, until he hits her wall with a sickening crunch and then slides unconscious to the floor.

Stiles turns those red eyes in her direction, and Melissa should be afraid, she understands that this is a terrifying sight. But she’s not. Why isn’t she scared? “Everything is going to be okay,” he tells her, voice coming out different with all the extra teeth.

She nods, because he still hasn’t looked away, he’s waiting for something, for her to do something or react or anything.

He relaxes a little at that, and his expression is still mild when he looks at the man holding her, the man who has a gun pointed at him. “Let her go.”

He doesn’t let her go. Instead he pulls the trigger – once, twice, and then a third time. She can feel the way he braces his body against the kickback, and if Stiles hadn’t already called his dad, surely someone else will, now that they’ve heard a gun go off in her home.

She barely has the time to think it, to think anything at all, before Stiles is on top of them. He’s all snarling teeth when he breaks the man’s wrist and the gun goes clattering to the ground, the sound of metal hitting linoleum unbearably loud. He tries to punch Stiles, but before he can Stiles yanks him down until he’s on his knees, then presses his hand against the man’s throat, pinning him against the counter, not quite strangling him but definitely putting too pressure on his windpipe for him to breathe properly. It’s so much, but it happens in seconds. “Scott, you can come out now.”

Melissa can’t focus on that. She’s just noticed the blood. There’s so much blood. She tries to call his name, but it comes out unintelligible thanks to the gag. He may be – whatever the hell he is, but he’s still Scott’s best friend, still John’s son, and he’s bleeding too much.

He’s been shot.

“Mom!” 

Scott comes running out from behind the stairwell, and he doesn’t even glance at Stiles. Whatever’s going on, he’s apparently known all about it. He reaches up to pull her gag out of her mouth, and she says, “Stiles! You’re bleeding, you have to lie down, let me – get me out of these handcuffs and let me help you!”

“I’m fine,” he says, not looking away from the man he’s effortlessly pinning in place. His mouth open and closes silently, face turning a concerning shade of red. Maybe Stiles should ease up on the pressure.

“You got shot,” she snaps, “You’re not fine!”

“You got shot?” Scott asks, momentarily distracted from messing with her handcuffs.

“I’m okay,” he says, and then there’s a small ping as something hits her floor, and then two more. She watches in disbelief as three bloody bullets roll across the linoleum. “See, they’ve already worked their way out.”

“Didn’t that hurt?” He apparently gives up on the handcuffs. “Stiles, can you get these off?”

He doesn’t look away from the man he’s slowly strangling. “How many hours have you spent in the station with me, and you don’t even know how to pick a pair of handcuffs?”

“Shut up,” Scott says, just as a blue and red lights filter into their window. “Your dad’s here. You can let him go now.”

Stiles doesn’t move.

Scott looks concerned for the first time. “Stiles. Let him go. You’re going to kill him.”

He doesn’t look at all upset about that.

Her front door opens, and John runs in gun first. He gives her a one over then reholsters it. He doesn’t blink at Stiles’s appearance, at the blood all over her kitchen, at the unconscious man slumped on her floor. “Son.”

Stiles doesn’t answer.

“Stop it,” he says, but he doesn’t sound nearly firm enough for Melissa’s taste, isn’t going over there and prying Stiles’s hand off the man’s throat like she thinks he should. She wonders if he’s afraid of Stiles. He doesn’t look afraid. Scott takes a few steps closer to Stiles, but John shakes his head, and he stills. “They’re humans. That means they get a human punishment. Not a werewolf one.”

Werewolves? Well, it’s better than demons, at least.

Stiles growls but smashes the man’s head against the counter so his eyes roll back in his head. Melissa is the only one close enough to see, but Stiles has three clear bullet holes in his shirt, is dripping with his own blood. “Fine.”

He turns around and John’s face drains of color. “They shot you?” he demands, and his hand goes to his gun, probably unconsciously.

“If I’m not allowed to kill them, you aren’t either,” Stiles says wryly, face melting back into the one Melissa recognizes. He lifts his shirt and swipes a hand across his stomach to clean off the blood. His skin is whole and undamaged, like nothing ever happened. “See, good as new.”

John doesn’t look like he agrees. Stiles turns to her, stepping closer carefully, watching her face. She struggles not to flinch, not to do anything that he’ll perceive as rejection. She doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but she knows Stiles saved her, knows whatever’s going on isn’t news to Scott or to John, so that means Stiles is still the same boy she knows. Mostly.

She’s being calm about this. Why is she being calm about this?

“You’re pack,” Stiles answers, and it’s only then she realizes she was speaking out loud. “There’s a part of you that accepted this a long time ago.”

“Can you uncuff my mom now, please?” Scott asks impatiently.

John reaches for his key, but Stiles steps closer and grabs a bobby pin out of her hair, and he has the cuffs open before John even gets the key in his hands. “I think,” he says, “that there’s some things we have to tell you.”

She laughs, rubbing at her wrists, and it’s only got a little bit of hysteria in it.

~

John takes care of the two men, and she doesn’t know how he explains their injuries, but she doesn’t care. Rafael calls, tries to talk to her, but instead John stays on the line with him, reassures him that she and Scott are okay, and works with him to ship the two criminals who had been trying to use her to get to him back to Washington D.C. and far away from her.

She doesn’t have to talk her ex-husband, and when everything’s sorted, they go to the Stilinski home and they tell her everything.

Melissa never thought she’d be a part of a werewolf pack, because she didn’t know they existed. But she can’t say she minds it so far.

~

It’s a year to the day from the Hale fire when everything starts to spin out of control.

Alan has been doing his best, has been trying to hold the land, to speak to the surrounding wolf packs to keep them away, to take care of all the supernatural crap that seems so attracted to Beacon Hills, but he’s not a werewolf, he’s an emissary without a pack, and it could only last for so long.

This is prime pack land, and with the only one Hale left in Beacon Hills a beta, and a comatose one at that, it’s no wonder that other wolves are starting to get curious.

“This land isn’t open for claiming,” Alan tells the three betas prowling around in the woods. He’s got a fistful of mountain ash, but they’re young and strong, and he’s not sure he’s either of those things anymore. It’s not just wolves who draw strength from their pack. It’s emissaries too.

“Our alpha sent us here to scout,” says the one in the middle, “The Hales were good people. But they’re gone now, and it’s foolish to leave the land unclaimed. Unprotected.”

She’s not wrong, but Alan doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want some wolves he doesn’t even know moving in to Beacon Hills. He can’t even ask any of the local packs for help, because they won’t help him, they won’t stick their neck out to defend an emissary’s claim to pack land. Pack land belongs to a pack, and he doesn’t have one. Not anymore.

“What are you doing here?”

Alan turns, and he knows Stiles, knows he’s the Sheriff’s son. Why is he here? Doesn’t he know that it’s dangerous to be out in the woods alone? He’s surprised the Sheriff lets Stiles have this much freedom. “Stiles, it isn’t safe, you need to leave.”

He doesn’t answer, instead staring at the three wolves. They look entirely human, so Alan doesn’t know what could possibly be holding his attention. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“You’re not a Hale,” she says after taking in a deep breath. “Sorry kid, but if you’re going to try and claim this land, you’re going to need an alpha to do it.”

The pieces slot into place. “You’re the omega?” Talia had mentioned letting a child omega stay in Beacon Hills without joining her pack, but he hadn’t though much of it after that. Omegas didn’t last long on their own. When she didn’t mention it again, he forgot about it, maybe assumed the kid’s family had moved on and joined a different pack. Not this. Not that he was still here, not that he was the Sheriff’s son, not that he was Stiles.

“You’re their emissary,” Stiles returns, then his eyes glow red and Alan forgets to breathe. “And I’ve never been an omega.” The three betas recoil as if they’ve been struck. They shift to their werewolf forms, but Stiles doesn’t, bouncing back on the balls of his feet. “I’m an alpha, and I was born in Beacon Hills. I’ve lived here my whole life. If anyone is going to take over this land, it’s going to be me.”

The female beta turns accusatory golden eyes onto Alan. “You never said Beacon Hills had another alpha!”

He didn’t know. How could he have not known? How could Talia not have known? “This is Hale land.”

“The Hales are gone,” she says bluntly. “If you want to stop another pack from moving in, you and your young alpha have a lot of work to do. I’ll report back that this land has a claim from an alpha who’s lived here for ten years. Consider it a gift to the new regime. Well, if you two can pull it off, that is.”

“I’ve been in Beacon Hills twelve years,” Stiles corrects, irritated.

“Twelve,” she agrees, mouth twitching. Then they’re gone, fading back into the trees, and Alan can’t see or hear them anymore, but judging by the way Stiles is glaring into the forest, he can.

Alan clears his throat. “So. You’re an alpha.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” he says, answering the question Alan had felt to awkward to ask outright. “I was born an alpha. My mom was part of a pack that was destroyed by hunters, so when she had me,” he shrugs. “Well, you can see.”

“Are you interested in running the Beacon Hills pack?” he asks, trying not to reveal how desperate he is. He wouldn’t be asking if he wasn’t desperate.

Stiles makes a face, which isn’t promising. “I’m in middle school. I don’t think I’m qualified. Plus, my pack is just three humans.”

“Three humans and one emissary,” he says quietly, thinking of Talia, of all of them. But his old pack is gone. If he wants to protect the land they loved so much, he needs a new alpha. “If – if you want.”

Stiles stares at him for a long moment, eyes wide, then says, “Let’s go talk to my dad. I don’t think I can agree to participate in a territory war and become an officially recognized pack without parental permission.”

Alan’s lip twitches up at the corners. He likes Stiles’s attitude, if nothing else. “Okay. Let’s talk to your father.’

~

John is going to strangle Deaton with his bare hands. “He’s far too young to lead his own pack, to lead a pack that’s more than just a few of us. Are you insane?”

“I’m not saying he should just go out and start biting people,” Deaton says, frustrated, “but if Stiles doesn’t claim this land and make a show of being a proper alpha, then someone else will. Why not here? He’s an alpha, he’ll need his own territory someday anyway. So have it here. Start your pack here. The preserve is perfect.”

“The preserve is owned by Peter Hale,” he points out.

Deaton waves a hand like that doesn’t matter. “Owning a piece of paper and actually claiming the land are two different things. Even if Peter woke up tomorrow, he’s not an alpha. The Hale Alpha is gone. Laura is gone and I don’t know where she is or how to contact her. We need someone new. Better Stiles than some whole new pack none of us even know.”

John’s eyes narrow, but before he can say anything, Stiles finally speaks up. “He’s right. Alan is right.”

“Stiles,” he starts, frustrated.

His son shakes his head. “I don’t want to move. Do you? You have a job here, we have a life here, and so do Melissa and Scott.” Because Stiles would want them to move with them, and the insane thing is he knows Melissa would do it. “If it’s not me, it will be another alpha, and we’ll have to leave. I don’t want to leave. So it has to be me.”

John wants to say no, but can’t, because this is a werewolf problem, and he vowed not to challenge Stiles about werewolf matters, not to make it harder for him to the balance the two sides of his life. But he’s too young. This is all too soon.

They were supposed to have more time. Why is it that they can never have more time?

He turns and leaves, walking out his own back door so he can stand in the backyard and breathe, so he can stop himself from saying something that he might regret. He hears someone walk up behind him, and he takes two more deep breaths before saying, “Okay.”

“It’s not your choice, or mine,” Deaton says softly, “it’s his.”

That makes John’s shoulders relax, just a little. “Yeah.”

~

It’s slow.

First, it’s Alan coming over for dinners, it’s him giving a copy of his keys to his home and office to Stiles. Stiles holds the keys for a long moment, then sighs, and reaches up and grips Alan’s wrist and Alan relaxes.

“It’s a scent thing,” he explains to his dad later, “I’ll start touching his neck soon, his wrists, pulse points, thinks like that. Alan doesn’t smell like pack yet. But he will.”

Scott loves the veterinarian’s office, and Alan opens its doors to Scott, lets him pet the animals and stay even as he works. “He’s pack now,” he tells Stiles, before admitting, “Actually, it makes a nice change. None of the Hales were ever really interested in my day job.”

Stiles can still smell the grief and guilt that swallows Alan whenever he talks about the Hales, but he doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t know what to say.

Taking a proactive role in controlling whatever supernatural threats pop up is what his dad is most concerned about, but Stiles doesn’t worry. He’s been killing weird crap that shouldn’t be there since before his mother died, and he’s not exactly easy to kill. Plus, with Alan’s knowledge and magic, he’s not fighting blind like he has for so much of his life.

A snarling creature that has too many teeth swipes for Alan, and Stiles doesn’t even have to think before pushing him aside to take the blow onto himself, gritting his teeth against the pain as his torso is torn open and his skin falls around him like ribbons. He’s getting used to pain, and it sucks, because his wounds hurt the same as a human’s, but he can’t react to it, has to learn to push through it and keep fighting. When he was shot, he barely even noticed, he was so full of adrenaline that he didn’t start to feel the pain until he was already mostly healed. He ends up tearing the things throat out with his claws, and doubles over panting, waiting for his body to heal itself.

“Stiles!” Alan hunches down to next to him, carefully placing a hand in the center of his back. “What were you thinking?”

“You’re pack,” he says without thinking, the words coming out muffled thanks to his teeth. “Protecting you is my job. Besides, I heal a lot faster than you, just give me a couple more minutes.”

“Oh,” Alan says, and then doesn’t say anything else, but he smells – content, for the first time since Stiles has known him.

It’s true. He is pack now, he’s Stiles’s emissary, and if any wolves stumble across him they’ll be able to smell it on him. He has an alpha’s claim on him, and it’s some protection at least. No one wants to hurt a pack’s humans. It usually ends up in one seriously pissed off alpha.

The thing that he’s most nervous about it what’s coming. There’s only a couple weeks left of summer, which seems like a scam to Stiles, since he’s spent most of his summer running around and taking care of supernatural problems.

Once a year, the California alphas meet up, talk to each other, make sure they’re all on the same page. There was no alpha for the Beacon Hills area last year, but that had been acceptable, just a couple short months from the disastrous fire. But if someone doesn’t show up this year, that’s as good as calling it abandoned, and curious alphas looking to make a move are going to start showing up.

He has to go. If he wants to claim Beacon Hills as his own, he has to go, and there’s nothing to do about it.

~

Alan puts off making the call for as long as he possibly can, but if he doesn’t hurry up about it, he’s going to look rude, and that’s not how he wants to start off presenting them. The phone rings for an agonizing thirty seconds before a cool voice says in his ear, “We were wondering if you would call.”

“I always call.”

“You even called last year,” Diane agrees, “when none of us expected you too. You told us that your alpha couldn’t come because she was grieving. What have you called to say this year?”

Diane is the most powerful alpha for the next thousand miles. She runs a pack of over three hundred wolves, and she’s always the head of these meetings. Talia hadn’t liked her, had regarded her blatant disregard for the traditional pack structure with contempt, and Alan suspects the contempt was mutual, even though he never saw any evidence to back up his suspicions. Diane had always been nothing but courteous, had always taken his calls even though she could have had one of her emissaries do it, or one of the two alphas who swore loyalty to her.

“I don’t know where Alpha Laura Hale is,” he admits. “I don’t know what she’s doing or who she’s with. But I’m not calling for the Hales. I have a new alpha.”

“I heard,” she murmurs, “news travels fast.”

He closes his eyes and swallows. “He’s young, but he’s taking this seriously, and he’s – he’s a born alpha, he doesn’t have any problems with adjusting or control.”

“Alan,” she cuts him off, “you and your young alpha are of course not only welcome but expected.”

“He’s twelve,” he tells her, because if she hasn’t heard he doesn’t want it to be a surprise when they show up. Surprised werewolves never end well for anyone.

She makes a dismissive sound in the back of her throat. “It doesn’t matter. A child king is still a king.”

Diane hangs up on him and he sighs into the dial tone. “A child king is still a child,” he says to no one.

It doesn’t matter. Stiles is his alpha, and he’s their best shot on not losing this town to a foreign pack.

He’s their only shot, actually.

~

“Are you sure it’s okay that it’s just the two of you?” his dad asks for the thousandth time.

“It’s fine,” Alan says, “It’s usually just alphas and seconds, if the pack can spare them. Plenty of alphas show up on their own or only with one other person.” Alan’s not his second, he’s his emissary, but he doesn’t have a second right now, and Alan’s the one who knows all these people anyway, so he has to be there.

Stiles cuts his dad off before they can have this argument. Again. “You can’t be my second because you’re my dad and that’s weird, and Melissa doesn’t know enough about werewolves yet, and Scott has asthma.”

“I wouldn’t if you would just bite me,” he grumbles.

“Sixteen!” Melissa and his dad yell at the same time, and he and Scott share an eyeroll.

“No biting until you’re sixteen,” his dad says. Then he seems to remember he’s not supposed to give him orders about werewolf things, and tacks on, “Please.”

Scott is his best friend, and he wants to be a wolf, and Stiles is confident that it wouldn’t kill him. Obviously he’s going to bite him. It’s not a matter of if, but when. Their parents had decided sixteen, based on nothing, but Stiles is ten months older than Scott, so he’ll be fifteen when he becomes a werewolf. As a sixteenth birthday present to himself, Stiles is giving himself a beta.

Kids who just want a new car clearly aren’t thinking big enough.

Alan sighs. “As Stiles said, none of you are really suitable to take the place as a second. Currently,” he amends, because Alan isn’t stupid, and he knows that Scott’s going to take that place. One day. Maybe. Stiles hopes so, but sometimes Scott is kind of dumb. “We’ll be fine.”

It’s a good thing that he’s the only wolf, because he’s the only one that can tell that Alan is lying.

He waves at them out the window until they’re just a speck in the distance, then asks, “So what’s really going to happen?”

“It should be fine,” he amends, and he’s not lying this time. “But you’re young, and our pack is small. You have a legitimate claim to the territory, but if someone decides they want to fight you for it,” he swallows, then shrugs.

“Is it to the death?” he asks.

Alan nearly hits the car in front of them. “What? No! Of course not!”

“That’s fine, then,” he leans back, satisfied.

Alan mutters under his breath, like Stiles can’t hear him perfectly well, and he snickers, leaning against the door to watch the passing scenery.

It’s a six hour drive, and he ends up falling asleep for the second half of it. Alan shakes him awake, and his eyes flash red as he takes in a deep breath. He freezes, but Stiles forces himself to shift back to normal and grumbles, “I’ve never smelled so many different wolves all in one place.”

“There’s a reason this always happens during the new moon in the summer. There’s no need to give a bunch of werewolves even more of reason to be on edge,” Alan says, reaching for their bags. Stiles goes to grab his own, but Alan shakes his head, and he rolls his eyes. He’s an alpha, he’s not supposed to carry his own bags, or whatever. That’s stupid. If anything, he should be the one carrying both of them, he’s a lot stronger than Alan, but fine.

They check in, and it’s a secluded campground in the middle of nowhere, so a great place to get murdered. Or to have secret werewolf gatherings. They’re not pitching tents or anything, apparently having rented out every cabin in the place for this. It’s possible they’ve rented out the whole campground to ensure privacy, Alan hadn’t been very clear.

They toss their stuff on their beds, and then it’s time to present themselves to coolest werewolf ever, apparently.

Stiles can feel everyone’s eyes on them as they walk across to the edge of the lake. Alan had made this whole thing sound very stiff and serious, but everyone seems relaxed, and actually half of them are wearing bathing suits. He gets the sneaking suspicions that this is less about super serious secret alpha business, and more about getting together to relax for a weekend away from their packs with some important things thrown in as needed.

There’s a woman in her seventies lying on a beach chair. Her hair’s gone white and most of her is wrinkled with sun spots, but she doesn’t look a bit out of place in her black bikini and ridiculously large sunglasses. She pushes them up her nose, and she’s got eyes so blue that for a moment he thinks she’s a beta. Then her eyes flash red, and he does it back, grinning. He likes her. She smiles back. “Stiles, it’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Diane,” he greets, and Alan steps on his foot. “Uh, Alpha Diane Hernandez.”

She snorts. “Diane is fine. Most of us are alphas, there’s no need to start throwing titles around. Alan tells me you’re a born alpha? That’s rare.”

There’s no judgment or disbelief in her voice, just curiosity. Stiles doesn’t doubt for a second that every wolf here is listening to this conversation, but they’re doing a decent job of not being obvious about eaves dropping. “Yeah. My mom was human, and the last left of her pack. My great grandmother was Katarzyna Kowalczyk.”

Conversation around them dips for a moment, everyone absorbing that information before remembering that they’re not supposed to be listening. Stiles doesn’t roll his eyes, but only barely.

Diane has softened, although Stiles couldn’t say for sure what about her has changed. “I knew Katarzyna. What happened to her pack was awful. I – your mother was Claudia?”

“Yeah,” he says, surprised, “You knew her?”

She shakes her head. “Only of her. I heard – well, I’m glad you were born a wolf. I would have been sad to see that line die out. But you’re shouldering a lot. The Kowalczyk Pack was hunted to near extinction, and most of the Hales were burned alive in their own home. If you take on the Hale land, then you’re going to have to face a lot of tragedy. A lot of pain, and a lot of ghosts are going to be chasing you.”

He doesn’t respond immediately, because he doesn’t want to look impulsive, because he wants her to take him seriously. “I’m an alpha. I have a pack. I don’t know anything different, because there was never a point when I wasn’t an alpha, when I didn’t have a pack, even if it was just my parents.” He meets her gaze, and doesn’t stop his eyes from shining red. “I have the power of my grandmother, and Beacon Hills is my home. I can’t reclaim my grandmother’s old pack land because another pack is there, and I can’t bring the Hales back. Laura is gone, and no one knows where she is. Beacon Hills is full of strange supernatural things, thanks to all the ley lines, and someone needs to take care of it.”

“Why should that someone be you?” she asks, again with nothing but curiosity in voice.

“Because it’s my home,” he repeats. “My dad is the sheriff, and I grew up running in those forests, grew up with these people. I know Beacon Hills, I know its land and people in a way that no one who’s just moving in will be able to. I was born there, it knows me too. I don’t just want the land for me, or for my pack. I want Beacon Hills in its entirety, because I love it, because I care about it. It’s not just land or an opportunity to me. It’s my home.”

He swallows, nervous, wonders if he said too much, if he sounded too much like a kid and not enough like an alpha. But Diane’s smile stretches into a grin. “Okay. Why don’t you go with some of the other alphas to collect firewood? You look like you could use the muscle.”

She reaches out and pinches the skin of his waist. He yelps and jumps away from her, glaring. She laughs, and he grumbles, but heads towards the woods, running when a couple people wave him over. They shift before bolting into the thick clump of trees, and he has a moment to be surprised before he’s shifting too, chasing after them. He catches up in no time, and they both laugh and nudge him when he pushes in between them.

It’s nice to be around other werewolves. Even when the Hales were around, Stiles had to avoid them, out of fear that he would slip up and they would realize he was an alpha.

Here, for the first time, he’s not hiding anything.

He likes it.

~

Alan waits until Stiles is hopefully far enough that he can’t hear them before asking, “Well?”

“He needs training,” Diane says. “He’s unpracticed, if strong, since he’s held his own for now, but that’s not enough. You need to help him grow stronger, give him some sort of fighting practice. He needs wolves in his pack too. That can wait until he’s older, but not for long.”

“His father doesn’t want him to bite anyone until he’s sixteen,” Alan says, something that might be a horrible mix of hope and relief rising in his chest.

She makes a face. “He’s going to need the help before then. His humans aren’t even witches, which means they can’t help him fight, not really. He can’t take care of all of Beacon Hills’s problems on his own, or even just with you. He needs a larger pack. I’d prefer if he at least had a couple wolves he’d bitten himself before bringing in strays, but I understand his father’s concern. We wouldn’t want Stiles biting someone who couldn’t handle the transformation. But he has you, and there are tests for that.”

“So you approve?” he asks. “You’ll support him?”

She’s silent for a long moment, then says, “I’m willing to let him try. If he can’t do it, another pack will have to move in, for everyone’s safety. But – he can try.”

Diane can probably smell his relief, but he doesn’t care. She’s not above the other alphas, not really, but she’s old and respected and her pack is huge. They won’t cross her without a good reason.

For now, Stiles is under her protection. She’ll vouch for him and chase off any packs looking to take their land.

They have a real chance of doing this.

~

Stiles was right.

This is basically just a vacation. Two alphas from the same pack, Rachel who’s actually in charge and Mark who pledged himself to her, wake him up earlier than everyone else and teach him how to fight with more than just instinct and strength.

Which he has, apparently. They’re all alphas so if they hurt each other they’ll heal slower than normal, so they’re trying not to do more than bruise, and the first time he manages to get close enough to punch Rachel in the jaw, she looks impressed. “You really only have four in your pack?”

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “I haven’t really started trying to build a pack yet. Who I have now is kind of just who was, y’know, around. My dad, my best friend, his mom, and Alan.” He wonders, too late, if he wasn’t supposed to say that, if it revealed just how vulnerable he was. But it’s not like he can get away with lying to them either.

“You’re strong for being so young and having a small pack,” Mark says. “Keep growing your pack and keep training, and you might actually be an alpha of note one day.”

Stiles growls, but it’s playful, and tackles Mark to the ground. He’s not expecting it, so they both fall over, and Rachel is laughing at them.

He meets everyone, and he does mean everyone. He doesn’t remember all of their names, but they’re all curious to meet a born alpha, especially since Diane has apparently given him her tentative approval. But it’s just fun, too. They train together, but it’s a joke, it’s just a bunch of werewolves playing tag. Alan spends all of it off to the side and watching over him, which Stiles finds a little annoying because, hello, he’s the alpha here, and Alan is the squishy human, but they’re supposed to present a united front or something, so he keeps his opinions to himself. But he makes a note to complain about it on the way back home.

Throughout the weekend, they’re all drinking something purple that smells like wolfsbane, and he finally caves and asks to try it. Xavier, the alpha who’s only a three hour drive from Beacon Hills, hands it over without question, and Stiles can’t help his pleased flush. No lecture or caveats, just a drink shoved into his hands. He takes a sip, makes a face, and hands it back. “That tastes like roadkill smells.”

“You develop a taste for it,” Xavier says, “more or less. Eventually. Actually, you learn to tolerate it when it’s the only drink that will do anything for you.”

“Couldn’t you just drink until the healing can’t keep up?” he asks.

Lisa, a bubbly girl with locs down to her hips, leans between them. “We could, but what’s the point? We can drink like, five bottles of absinth, which is disgusting, or a couple glasses of punch. We go for the punch.”

“You’ll appreciate it when you’re older,” Xavier promises, sipping from his drink and only grimacing for a moment, which is better than Stiles had managed.

At the end of the weekend, he doesn’t know if he feels anymore alpha-like, but he has a training regimen and he knows a bunch of new cool adults. About a dozen of them, those closest to Beacon Hills, press their contact information into his hands and say that packs, even the oldest and strongest, can use allies.

~

Stiles feels a little bad about not going to his pack first, but his dad and Melissa are at work, and he doesn’t want to have to describe the weekend in its entirety twice, so he asks Alan to drop him off at the hospital.

He bounds into Peter’s room, like he always does when he visits. “Did you miss me?” he asks cheerfully, throwing himself into the poorly constructed chair. “I know I usually come on Saturday morning, but I was at this cool werewolf gathering thing. You might have gone? Talia’s definitely been there, but I’m not sure what you’re place in the pack was, since I never really got to see it in action.” He fits his hand over Peter’s arm, leaching away his pain, also like he always does. “I’m going to have to start acting like a real alpha if I want anyone to take me seriously, which as far as I can tell means continue to do what I have been doing and not dying, so, you know, easy enough.”

He always pauses, just in case Peter has anything to say. He’s silent. One of the nurses had asked if he was trying to irritate him into waking up, which no, not really, but if it works he won’t complain.

“I’m lying, it’s not going to be easy at all,” he says, grimacing as he takes on more of Peter’s pain. He’s gotten really good at this in the past year, and he can do a lot more than he used to. “If you were awake you’d already know that, but you’re not, so I thought I should be clear.”

He keeps talking, describing the weekend and complaining about Alan, talking about the kids in his class who aren’t Scott, and therefore worth less of his attention, even Lydia. He talks until his voice goes hoarse, but then he just rests for a moment and waits for the strain to heal itself before continuing.

Melissa’s shift is about over, and he’s considering catching a ride with her back to her house. Then he can call his dad and tell him to meet them at the McCalls so he can tell them all about the this past weekend. “I have to go,” he tells Peter, “but I’ll be back on Tuesday, probably? My new werewolf workout routine starts tomorrow, but I already told Alan we’ll have to do it in the mornings instead a couple days a week so I can still come and see you. So don’t worry, you won’t have the chance to miss me.”

He’s just stood up when something changes. Peter’s heartbeat, steady for the past year, speeds up, and his breaths grow shorter. He’s worried something has gone wrong, and he’s about to go find a nurse when something else happens.

Peter opens his eyes.

For a moment they’re a normal dark blue. Stiles had forgotten what color his eyes are, and they’re rather pretty. But that only lasts a second, then he’s shifting to his beta form, claws and teeth coming out along with his shining eyes.

He hasn’t gotten more than a couple inches off the table when Stiles grabs biceps and slams him back down. Stiles is an alpha, and Peter’s been in a coma for over a year. It’s almost pathetically easy. “No,” he says firmly, shifting and growling at Peter. “No. Understand? We’re in a human hospital. You have to be human.”

Stiles can smell his fear and confusion, but the machines are beeping crazily all around them, and they only have so much time until a nurse or doctor comes rushing in. Peter finally focuses on him, and Stiles doesn’t flinch away from his panic, only tries to look calm, tries to project that calm onto Peter. He needs to settle down, otherwise they’re going to have a lot of awkward questions to answer.

Peter relaxes by degrees under his hands. By the time a nurse bursts through the door, he’s human again, and Stiles pulls his hands away before he can get yelled at for touching him.

The nurse starts yelling and more people pour inside, converging on Peter. Stiles slips out of the room, but doesn’t miss the way Peter stares at him until he’s out of sight.