Habitat Corridors

by Guede

Summary:

Buying a car is harder than it looks, and that has nothing to do with Stiles’ past track record of vehicle destruction. Nothing.

Anyway, it's a team effort.

The first car they buy promptly gets junked because Derek ruptures the brake lines during the test drive.

“I didn’t even take it into that hard of a turn,” Derek grumbles. He’s on his phone waiting for customer service to take him off hold, because 1) werewolf intimidation doesn’t work on automated menus and 2) the pack card’s regular credit limit isn’t high enough to cover the car.

Derek’s paying because Peter had found a loophole in the Service’s anti-bribery policy for traditional communal property groups like packs. So Peter says they don’t have to stick to the paltry budget the Service is giving Stiles, and Derek says they should go to an actual dealership. Stiles just throws his hands up and says fine, because he has to pick his battles and arguing over test-driving expensive cars with his betas is sort of low-priority compared with getting Scott’s economics grade up or finishing up the year’s sampling work before the first frost comes. He knew that the car wasn’t going to work out, but he figured he could bring up his actual automobile needs after Derek had gotten the engine drooling out of the way.

In retrospect, maybe Stiles should have also insisted on driving. Since it’ll be his car, after all.

“You kind of did,” Scott says. He’s come along because they left straight from lacrosse practice and because Stiles needs somebody to second him on the car needs, since they’re all Service-related. “Look, they’re actually scraping the skid marks off, they’re that thick.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “My car could’ve—oh, yes, I’m…damn it. Damn—uh, raise credit limit. Fuck. Operator. Operator.”

“Just keep pressing zero and they’ll transfer you,” Stiles says. He checks his phone and his dad’s just texted him back to let it ride on Derek’s insurance. Which is totally what Stiles was planning to do (some fights are just plain stupid to fight, especially with Stiles’ rental history), but it’s unusually generous for his dad to immediately go along with it. He’s about to text his dad when a groaning, clattering racket echoes across the lot. Stiles looks up and then stares for a second. “You know, it’s probably a good thing we crashed it, actually. Look at that side-impact crumpling, that was never gonna work for me.”

Scott grimaces and nods. “Yeah, that never would’ve survived Tacoma.”

Derek takes the phone away from his ear. “Tacoma? What happened in Taco—yeah, finally. Listen, I need my card’s limit raised right now.”

“Anyway, it was a nice thought,” Stiles says. He puts his phone away and steps over to wrap around Derek’s back, just as his boyfriend’s starting to fang out. One quick nuzzle at Derek’s neck and Derek is just your average frustrated caller, trying to remember what his security password is. “But honestly, I don’t think a sports car is the way to go. I need more trunk space and you couldn’t fit a baby deer in that one. Well, maybe if you dismembered it, but you’d have to keep the hacksaw in the back seat.”

Derek stops bitching at his phone long enough to tilt his head against Stiles’. He looks disappointed, and not just about the sports car thing, but he cheers up when Stiles nuzzles him again. “Yeah, good point,” he says. “So you want an SUV? That’d fit a grown deer, though if it’s got a rack, you’d still have to cut off the head.”

“So…maybe we can have this talk somewhere else?” Scott says. He nods at the receptionist, who looks like she doesn’t want her chicken salad anymore. “Somewhere, um, deer-friendly?”

“Well, we’re kind of not, but I guess we’d better relocate anyway,” Stiles says. “Let’s swing by the office while we’re at it. I wanna check something with Dad.”

* * *

When they get to the office, Stiles’ dad is out in the preserve with a couple rangers. He’s supposed to be back in an hour, but Stiles can’t really pretend it’s an urgent question so he lets a junior ranger fob him off with a fresh copy of the Service requirements for vehicle purchases, like he doesn’t have that memorized down to the footnotes.

“Service employees need special permission to add anti-freezing runes outside of the following designated climate zones?” Lydia says, frowning. She’s joined them for Scott’s tutoring session, since she is tops in the class and now she’s on trial and Stiles would be a bad alpha if he didn’t use every pack member to the best of their abilities. And, well, Finstock is a tiny bit terrified of her and the plan is to have her walk Scott to the exam and comment loudly about their study group. “That sounds unnecessarily bureaucratic.”

“I thought those are standard,” Jackson adds. He’s joined them because Lydia insists, and so far Lydia’s been worth it. “What are you supposed to do, strip them out?”

Stiles rolls his eyes and keeps holding up flash cards for Scott. “Yeah, because if you’re going to do any customizing, you’d better strip out all of the prior runes, unless you want to wake up one day and find out you’ve opened a portal to the djinn heartland.”

“Wasn’t your fault, that ranger should’ve told you about his rims,” Scott says loyally. Then he screws up his face at the current card. “Um…it’s the cost of production for…for marginal businesses?”

“Uh, halfway there,” Stiles sighs. He flips the card around and hands it to Scott, then starts paging through their textbook. “I think you should reread this chapter.”

Scott groans and flops head-first into the book, his arms collapsed over his head, so he’s no longer blocking Stiles from seeing the way Lydia and Jackson are eyeing him. Stiles reaches over and pats his buddy on the shoulder and stares back. “What?”

Lydia holds up the employee manual. “Just out of curiosity, Stiles, how many of these footnotes are you responsible for?”

“I’m only sixth on the list of top offenders,” Stiles says. “And eighty-five percent of them were because for some reason, people think it’s a great idea to dumb things down and leave critical info out when talking to a kid, even though I am explaining what they are doing wrong.”

Scott raises his head long enough to dig out his phone. He scrolls through it and then holds it up for Lydia to see. “He used to look like this.”

“Are you wearing a flower costume?” Jackson snorts. And then promptly tucks his head down when Stiles tries out his Derek-growl impression on him.

“You have enormous eyes,” Lydia says. She blinks rapidly and leans forward, and the sound she makes veers dangerously near a coo. Then she gets hold of her ice queen persona and sits back. “Anyway. Back to the car. Why don’t you just make up a list of all the attributes you want and then we can cross-reference with the guidelines?”

“Well, I did, but nothing’s coming up in my price range.” Stiles boots up his laptop, opens the Excel pivot table and then turns the laptop around so she can see. “And it’s nice of Derek and Peter to offer to make up the difference, but they actually did just buy a car for me.”

“It doesn’t count if you can’t drive it off the lot,” Jackson says. He slouches in his chair, glances at Lydia, and then heaves a long, put-upon sigh. “All right, listen, I’ll hook you up with Torres. His parents just got him a Jag so he’s looking to get rid of his Lexus. It’s even a hybrid, so you can make your tree happy.”

Scott snorts at the textbook, which he is diligently paging through with that look on his face that means he’s long since switched over to mental images of Allison. “Surprised you were willing to be seen with him,” he mutters.

Jackson irritably clicks his claws against the table. “Sometimes we forgive people we care about, even though they’re not perfect, McCall. For example, some people might consider that pass you fucked up last week to be absolutely unforgiveable, but—”

“He scored off the rebound,” Stiles points out.

“But we lost three seconds!” Jackson snaps. “Which is exactly the amount of time we needed to score the winner at the end, only we didn’t have three seconds.”

“We also didn’t have a were-bear like the other team did,” Stiles says. Seriously, all the weighted ankle bands in the world cannot handicap for a living mountain like that. The guy had made Boyd look like an action figure. “Also, Jackson, you scratch my mom’s table and you aren’t going to be passing anything but blood.”

Jackson blinks, then hurriedly withdraws his claws. He hunches down in his chair, looking sulky and nervous in equal parts; he’s a tiny bit less of a privileged asshole when they’re in private, but he still just doesn’t seem to understand what the hell things like ‘pack,’ ‘pack hierarchy,’ and ‘blood-drinking tree that can eat the town’ mean.

“What kind of Lexus is it?” Lydia asks. She hates playing peacemaker and it shows in how rigid her smile is. “It’s still a sedan, right? I don’t know if an SUV’s chassis will work for the runework we want to try.”

“Of course it’s a sedan,” Jackson scoffs, like anything else would be worse than a tournament replay. He pulls out his phone. “So should I text him or not?”

“Well, what’s he asking for it?” Stiles says.

Jackson pauses, then looks over Lydia’s shoulder at the spreadsheet. A tiny flicker of dismay crosses his face before he manages to restore his usual douchebag expression. “For such a big deal, you’d think your agency would drop more change on you,” he says. “I guess I can try and talk him down, but you’re gonna owe me.”

“Then forget it,” Stiles says, rolling back over with the laptop. “Also, for your information, the tiny budget is because we don’t like to waste taxpayer dollars on bullshit like ostrich-leather seats. Not that you’d know, seeing as being a trust-fund baby means you’re effectively disconnected from the cold, hard reality of income tax brackets.”

“Hey,” Jackson starts.

“Also this is actually an advance on next year’s vehicle budget, because Stiles already blew through this year’s,” Scott adds. And then looks mulish when Stiles silently asks what happened to bros before dumbos. “Stiles. Come on. You know what happened the last time you got a Lexus.”

Stiles slaps his laptop closed and glares. “There were twenty seconds left on the timer! I panicked, okay, it’s a lot harder to defuse shit than it looks on TV!”

“I’m just saying, I don’t think you should get something you’re gonna feel bad about messing up,” Scott says. Then he looks over Stiles’ shoulder at something. “Oh, no, you’re too far back. It’s up in the front, footnote twenty-something.”

When Stiles turns around, Lydia hastily looks up from her page-shuffling. “Speaking of defusing,” she says brightly. “Did you ask your dad about when we can go to the bombing range?”

“You…didn’t actually blow up a car, did you?” Jackson says. He shifts uneasily around, tossing his phone from hand to hand. “I thought you guys protected trees.”

“Yeah, and sometimes that involves pyrotechnics,” Stiles says. “Don’t worry, if you’re that nervous about it, we can just leave you at home and you won’t hear about a thing.”

Jackson sneers and scrunches back in his seat at the same time. “Who said I was nervous? Maybe I just don’t like blowing up perfectly good cars.”

“Well, there’s plenty of other stuff to do besides that, it’s not a big deal,” Scott mutters, scribbling on one of the flashcards. He’s not actually being sarcastic, because they can all hear Jackson’s little stammer and Scott is instinctively nice against his best interests. “I don’t like being near explosions either. Screws up my hearing. I don’t think it’s true that we don’t get tinnitus, I think weres just recover a lot quicker.”

“That’s…great, McCall,” Jackson says lamely. He grimaces and then glowers defensively at Stiles. “Anyway, I’m just saying. If you want to try a decent car before you show up at the junkyard.”

“It doesn’t hurt to look. And I get what you’re saying about costs, but doesn’t camouflage count for anything?” Lydia adds. “It’s not exactly a town of DIYers, you know. I think the cheapest car in the high school parking lot’s still from this decade.”

“I think it’s a little late to pretend I’m a preppie,” Stiles says, but he can already feel the balance in the room shifting. He sighs and flops back beside Scott. “Okay, fine, we’ll go look at it. But don’t promise him we’re gonna buy it or anything.”

Jackson rolls his eyes. “Just as long as you promise Derek Hale’s not going to get behind the wheel. Torres is our best defender, we don’t need him smashed into a tree.”

“Fine, Derek’s not going to drive.” Then Stiles looks over at Scott. “Dude. Smith had four maxims of taxation, not five, and the fifth definitely isn’t ‘Allison.’”

Lydia watches Scott scramble around with the flashcards and an eraser, then rolls her eyes and pulls out a manila folder. “Look, let’s not waste any more time. I have a statistical breakdown of Finstock’s exam question answer probabilities, based on the type of question and the subject module. Memorize it and spare us all the pain. Jackson, see if you can get Torres to let us come over before the weekend.”

“Why?” Jackson says. “I mean, he’ll probably say yes, but what’s the rush?”

“New moon,” Lydia and Stiles say. Then Lydia smiles and leans over Jackson’s chair cleavage-first, and chucks him under the chin. “Enhanced effects on auditory runes,” she coos.

Jackson looks less than thrilled, even though his eyes can’t seem to crawl out of Lydia’s deep-cut cardigan. “Sure…right. So, Stiles, you two are doing all that testing at the preserve, right? I’ve got a—”

“You can’t come anyway, you don’t have the security clearance,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “Well, there’s your favor, now make good on your end.”

* * *

This Torres guy seems really nervous about showing off his car. It can’t be the Lexus, since it is really nice: only a year old, butt warmers in all the seats, and, most importantly for Stiles’ purposes, Torres hasn’t had any custom runework done so it’s all easily-removed factory-setting stuff. Granted, the thing is also a screaming cherry red target, but if Stiles speeds up that bombing range access for Lydia, she should be more than happy to talk Jackson into strong-arming his friend into asking for a price that leaves room for a repaint.

Anyway, from what Stiles sees at school, Torres is the usual generically boisterous jock you see in high schools everywhere, living only for the mock-punch that actually kind of is a punch, but he’s been keeping the car between him and them at all times.

“Because you keep smiling at him,” Jackson hisses at Derek, who just smiles at Jackson instead. Jackson backs up a step, then swears under his breath and looks at Stiles. “Can you please make him stop? What the hell did Torres ever do to you?”

“Nothing, I guess. It was that other buddy of yours who helped you slip me beef broth,” Stiles says.

Jackson winces. “I said I was sorry,” he mutters. He flicks a look at Stiles, then rubs the side of his head. “I am sorry, okay? I didn’t…think you were going to have to go home. I just thought you’d have an allergic reaction, like a rash.”

“We are totally signing you up for the advanced survivalist medical aid class,” Stiles says, moving around the back of the car. He asks Torres to pop the trunk, and when the guy does, sticks his head inside and pushes around his hands to get a good feel for the space. “You get to practice cutting a hole in someone’s throat if they go into anaphylaxis. Hey, this is nice and roomy.”

Derek ducks down next to Stiles. He takes a couple whiffs while Jackson is being grossed out behind them, then reaches in and picks out a long green feather, one iridescent scale, and a couple very, very tiny bones. “Smells like an owl threw up in here.”

“I’m a quarter quetzalcoatl,” Torres says. “I thought I cleaned it out—I can have them go over it with a vacuum again.”

“Is that what’s with the grinning? He smells like delicious bird meat?” Stiles says, looking at Derek. “What have I said about threatening to eat people?”

“That it gives them the wrong impression because they think I don’t like them.” Derek shrugs. “But I usually don’t.”

Stiles pulls up the bottom of the trunk to check whether there’s still a spare tire. There isn’t, but there’s an air pump and also a lot of extra space he wasn’t expecting. “Anyone ever tell you you’re kind of antisocial?”

“So’s Peter,” Derek says.

“Peter isn’t antisocial, he’s just deeply invested in being superior. You can’t be superior if there’s nobody around to make comparisons with,” Stiles says. He puts the trunk bottom back down, then grunts as Derek pushes on his head. Which does save him from hitting the top of the trunk, but way to warn him. “Did this thing come with a jack?”

Torres and Jackson have long since edged off and appear to be discussing Finstock’s latest play, with Jackson vehemently arguing that it leaves a giant hole on the left side. That’s exactly what Stiles was telling Scott just two hours ago (while Scott has the sharpest reflexes in the county, his strategic thinking barely extends to remembering backpasses exist), so Stiles is startled for the second it takes Torres to look up, frown, and shake his head. “Nope, why?”

“Well, then, how did you get the spare on?” Stiles says.

“…I called a guy?” Torres says, giving Jackson a sidelong look. “Because I have AAA?”

Stiles sighs. “Has it ever occurred to you that groups like AAA promise you a response within a reasonable time frame, say, an hour, and that a whole lot of nasty things can eat you in that hour?”

“We live off the interstate,” Jackson says. “Besides, it doesn’t have four-wheel drive. Why would you be taking it out to that kind of place anyway?”

“Wait, what?” Stiles says. “It doesn’t have four-wheel drive? Are you kidding me?”

* * *

“To be fair, the car Derek broke didn’t have four-wheel drive either,” Scott says. “Actually, most sedans don’t.”

Jackson, who is completely not appreciating Scott’s attempt to cover his co-captain’s ass, hogs all the fries while his girlfriend madly calculates on a graphing calculator on one hand, and sketches on an iPad with the other. “You’d think with the number of cars you’ve apparently wrecked, you’d know that.”

“Well, excuse me for normally driving rentals dug out of the Stone Age or experimental prototypes,” Stiles snaps. “Why didn’t you think of it? What the hell do you think I do, anyway? Some kind of country club greenhouse? I have a Nemeton in the middle of a federal preserve, you think I’m not going to off-road once in a while?”

“Hey, fuck you, I just tried to give you a hand,” Jackson snaps back, getting up. He shoves the fries over so they come within an inch of spilling over Lydia’s iPad; she yanks it back, ready to tear him a new one, and then something about the way his back looks storming off makes her turn around and shoot a dirty look at Stiles.

“You know, he’s trying,” she says. “You could give him some credit. He wasn’t even going to talk to David after that play the dumbass botched last game, but he called him up so you could check out the Lexus.”

Stiles thinks he’s been giving Lydia more credit than he should, if she can’t remember how many fucks he gives about Jackson’s lacrosse captain mind games. “What I know is, I could be standing on his throat right now just for the crap he was yelling at me yesterday. You have no idea how bad Derek wants to maul him after every practice.”

Lydia raises her brow. “You rewrote Finstock’s playbook so Jackson and Scott had to take on the entire opposing team by themselves.”

“I know, it sucked, and it’s never going to happen in an actual game,” Scott complains.

Stiles glances over at Scott. “You’re supposed to subtract before you divide by the denominator,” he says. “Also, it totally did happen, or did you forget about Taos?”

Scott blinks. He looks at his econ problem set, then at Stiles. Then he puts his elbow up on the counter and buries his face in his fist. “Taos was a bunch of bewitched soccer players,” he moans. “And we had semiautomatics. And you lost three cars.”

“I’m…going to forgo asking about that one right now, but only because I have a dance committee meeting tonight, and if we’re going to get a prototype assembled in time, I’ve got to get the circuit boards ordered before my meeting,” Lydia says. She spins around the iPad so Stiles can check out her latest idea for weaponizing a vehicle’s stereo system.

It’s pretty cool, even if it looks like it’s going to suck power like a gremlin. Stiles starts doodling around and Lydia screeches and grabs for the stylus, and it’s a couple minutes before they get settled down enough to have a serious discussion about it. And then, like the jerk he is, Jackson interrupts.

Well, actually, he skitters back into the booth and knocks into Lydia while staring over his shoulder, but since Lydia currently is holding the iPad, it effectively stops the conversation. Jackson turns around, wide-eyed, and then hurriedly rakes his hand through his hair. “What?” he snaps.

“Hey,” Derek says, strolling into the restaurant. He grins at Jackson, who cringes, and then stares till Scott rolls his eyes and gets out of the booth so Derek can get in next to Stiles, who is a bad person for immediately looping his arm over Derek’s neck, but he’s been bumped plenty for Allison. “Sorry I’m late. Cora had some thing she had to go to and needed a ride.”

“Speaking of, I think we can eliminate sedan models,” Stiles says. He lifts his chin so Derek can do his scenting thing and pulls over his laptop so he can open up the spreadsheet. “We can rejigger the runes, and I just don’t think they’re going to hold enough gas to power everything we want. I’m not sacrificing trunk space for an extra tank.”

Derek stops scenting and pulls back to eye Stiles. “What are you doing that needs that much gas?”

“This,” Lydia says, holding up the iPad. “It’s a—”

“Why does it only go high-frequency?” Derek says. He’s blinking and furrowing his brow like he doesn’t understand, but the words coming out of his mouth are obviously clicking with Lydia. “If it’s a were, Peter or I will deal with it. Subsonics would cover more non-weres, and then you wouldn’t need ear protection.”

Lydia stares at him. He’s looking at the iPad so he doesn’t notice, but Jackson does and Jackson coughs pointedly into his soda. Derek looks up, eyes narrowing, and then freezes as he sees Lydia’s predatory smile.

“That is a very good point, Derek,” Lydia says. “I didn’t think about that, probably because I’ve only got test subjects who are susceptible to high frequencies.”

Jackson lets out a low whine, and then curls up around his soda, like that’s going to protect him from anything. He looks so pathetic Stiles has a moment of weakness just looking at him.

“I don’t think we should test this on pack members,” Stiles sighs. And then looks heavenward when Scott abruptly coughs into his binder. “You know, since we can get actual labs now and maybe, if I can get a goddamn car so I’m not spending half my time trying to get rides from place to place, I can work on a funding request. Double-blind trials, Lydia!”

“We could be working up a grant proposal for this and you didn’t tell me?” Lydia says.

“You needed a ride and you didn’t tell me?” Derek says.

“Hey,” Scott says, over both of them. “Hey. So…one, I’m done with my problem set, if anyone still wants to check it.” He looks a little chagrined when Lydia whips away his binder. “Two, Danny was saying that his sister is looking to sell her car. I think it’s one of those mini SUV crossover things, but anyway, I know it’s got four-wheel drive because his sister drives it out into the desert.”

“She’s in one of those earth mother groups,” Jackson says, wrinkling his nose. “Every time she’s over at his house, the place reeks of sandalwood. The one time I was in her car, I almost passed out.”

Derek grimaces. “That stuff is impossible to air out.”

Then he and Jackson look mutually disgusted to have found something in common. Like the unsung hero he is, Scott comes through with a dejected sigh that distracts them before they pick up on the blatant hypocrisy right there. “Well, I was just thinking we could check it out,” he says. “I think it’s a Honda. Sometimes those can actually be repaired instead of junked.”

“I do have a good record with Hondas,” Stiles says. When Scott looks at him, he sighs. “Okay, in comparison, and anyway, believe me, there is no scent that I haven’t managed to get rid of, one way or the other. I bet we can even make it a project for the junior rangers. Dad’s been complaining that he doesn’t have enough entry-level shit for them.”

* * *

When Stiles raises the subject, his dad tells him it’s a great idea and then wanders away, talking on his phone to Melissa about some PTA thing he doesn’t want to do but that Melissa wants him to do.

“That sounds like a decent reason to me,” Derek says as they pull up to Danny’s house. “Mom hates that stuff, mostly because they’re always trying to make her bake for their fundraisers.”

“But she likes baking,” Stiles says. It’s her stress-reducing method, she once said, which made a lot of sense after Stiles walked in on her juicing lemons by poking a hole in one end with her claw, then flattening the fruit like a dough ball between her palms.

“Yeah, but they want her to do every single one, which is kind of exploitative. She even tried sending Peter, but he bailed when they volunteered him to teach the preschool were/non-were safety lessons.” Derek catches Stiles’ disbelieving look and snorts. “You’d think, but some kid got gum in his hair.”

Which makes total sense, though as they get out of the car, Stiles can’t help playing the skeptic. “You guys never did that to him?”

“Nobody messes with the hair in my family,” Derek says. He shuts the door, rolls his shoulders to reset his leather jacket to maximum coolness, and then looks at Stiles across the top of the car. “What?”

“Sometimes you are all just unreal,” Stiles mutters. He looks up at the house just as Danny steps out of the front door. Danny yells at them to hang on, his sister’s coming down to meet them, so Stiles stays put and starts looking for the car. The driveway is empty, but it curves around the house so who knows what’s in the backyard. “Anyway, it’s great that my dad’s into it, but you need to understand that even with the things he wants to do, he vets the shit out of them. That’s why he’s senior agent. So if he’s not asking me for a full presentation with supporting references, something’s wrong.”

Derek comes around the front of the car, his head tilted slightly up because he’s trying to scent without resorting to obvious sniffing. His nostrils flare anyway, and then he ducks his head to scrub at his nose with his coat sleeve. “You think something’s up and he’s not telling you?”

“Well…actually, no. I talked to the tree, checked all my sources at the office, and also bribed Melissa with your mom’s boozy apple tart, and nothing’s come up.” Stiles feels his phone buzz and gets it out, then looks down the street. He waves as Scott comes pedaling frantically around the corner.

“Maybe it’s not work?” Derek says.

Stiles shakes his head. “It’s not like I’ve done anything to get him mad at me lately, and we’re not arguing over anything right now. We’re usually arguing over work anyway.”

“What about Melissa or Chris Argent?” Derek asks.

“I—did not even think about them.” Stiles blinks. “Damn. Wow, you’re right. Scott, hey, is my dad fighting with your mom?”

Scott skids to a stop and has to hop off his bike and hoist it off the ground to save the Mahaelani mailbox. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about that, and no, I don’t think so? I’m pretty sure she said something about bringing him our leftover pork chops this morning. Why are you asking?”

“Because Dad’s being all weird and relaxed,” Stiles says.

Scott flushes and looks like he wants to drop straight through the ground. “Can we please not talk about this? I’m trying, okay, it’s just I’m still getting over walking in on them making out.”

Stiles opens his mouth, then closes it. “Dude, that’s not even what I—”

Danny’s sister finally makes it out, and she’s not halfway down the front path when Stiles understands what Jackson meant. And why Jackson flat-out refused to come over, even though Danny’s his best friend and Lydia really kind of needs to check out all the cars with Stiles; Lydia could’ve come on her own, but if it’s not one-on-one with Stiles, she doesn’t want to come because she thinks it sends the message that they’re only taking Jackson because of her. Even though that is exactly what they’re doing.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Scott mutters. He acts like he’s going to cough and quickly whips his shirt over his nose and mouth, breathes deep, and then pulls his head up and holds out his hand to shake with Danny’s sister. He speed-talks a greeting and then backs the hell up.

Derek is made of more stoic stuff, but even he’s having a hard time keeping the nose twitching to a minimum. Danny seems to get it, and when his sister starts to lead them around the driveway curve, he hangs back to toss them a couple of those Christmas tree air fresheners. “Sorry,” he mutters. “If it helps, my parents have been trying to get her to shower for over a week, but she just keeps talking about artificial modern constructs of hygiene and having respect for the environment.”

“Well, speaking as somebody who is literally part of the local ecosystem, I can say that tea tree oil alone is not cutting it. In fact, I’d say it’s an integral part of the problem,” Stiles mutters back. He does his best to just breathe through his mouth, but he’s really wishing they were closer to the preserve. At least then he could get the trees to wave up a breeze.

They round the corner and the car looks…okay. It’s shiny and the outside appears to be intact. And they don’t really find out more than that, because when Danny’s sister opens the car door, Scott faints dead away.

* * *

“Anyway, he’s fine. Pride’s a little dinged since he woke up when he was still over Derek’s shoulder, but we figured we should get him away from the fumes,” Stiles says to Allison.

It’s dinner night with the Argents, their second since his dad started the whole rotation dinner thing. They’d used to do that with the McCalls, so that part’s nothing new, but Stiles doesn’t hang out with Allison when Scott isn’t around, and even if he’s okay with Chris (and Derek and Peter are neutral to tolerant), he still feels weird trying to talk to the guy about things not related to the Service or hunting. So it’s actually nice to have a premade topic of conversation for waiting with Allison for their dads to serve dinner, even if it’s…well, Scott.

“Well, I’m glad. He texted that he was fine, but he always says that. He said that when I shot him in the leg,” Allison says, looking over her shoulder. “Do you think we should drop something on the floor or something? Remind them we’re here?”

Stiles is still kind of stuck on—“You did what?”

Allison winces, then turns around. “It was my birthday and I was practicing with my bow in the backyard, and he…kind of sneaked up behind me and tried to put a necklace around my neck.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, I can see how that would not go well,” Stiles says after a moment. He loves Scott, but there are moments when he thinks thank God the Service has other, less sneaky things for Scott to do. “If it makes you feel better, I accidentally shot him once too.”

Allison looks mad at him for a second, which actually earns her points in his book, and then relaxes and gives him a small smile. “Don’t tell me he was giving you jewelry.”

“Ah, no, we were…temporarily exceeding our security clearance, for good and ultimately vindicated reasons, mind you, and there was a locked door and I was trying to shoot out the hinges and one of the bullets ricocheted funny,” Stiles says. He shrugs. “This was before I got the hang of unlocking runes.”

“Thank God, because there was no way you were going on a covert mission otherwise,” his dad says, coming into the room. “You used to leave a trail like a tornado. Dinner’s up, did you wash your hands?”

“Did you wash yours?” Stiles says brightly.

His dad looks unimpressed, although there’s kind of a clatter and a short burst of cursing from behind him. “Weren’t you checking out another car? Motor oil isn’t healthy, kid.”

“Oh, yeah, I was just telling Allison that didn’t work out. We actually couldn’t even get close enough to get inside.” Stiles and Allison get off the couch, with Stiles letting her go first in case somebody needs to point out things like crooked buttons to her dad.

Not that Stiles actually thinks their parents would contaminate their food—Chris at least seems to have a very strong dislike for public indecency charges—but Scott isn’t the only one who’s walked in on make-outs. Stiles is seriously thinking incorporating an early-warning system into the runes at his house, since he can’t always have a werewolf nose with him.

Stiles’ dad frowns. “Why not?”

“Well, Danny’s sister has…how do I put this politely…the smell of her car is easily a Level Three bioweapon,” Stiles says, walking into the dining room. “Scott passed out, and Derek spent an hour with his face in my shirt.”

Dinner is salmon with a little pot of what looks like a cream-based sauce on the side, a roasted veggie mix, and wild rice. Stiles sits down and reaches for the sauce pot, only to have Allison grab it first. “I love this one,” she gushes, beaming at her dad. “I used to just want to have the sauce and not eat the fish.”

“If you pull out your phone and start trying to calculate the fat content, you’re not getting dessert,” Stiles’ dad hisses. He pulls out his chair and passes over his plate so Chris can start cutting up the salmon.

“Who says you’re getting dessert? Diabetes doubles the risk of cardiovascular disease, you know,” Stiles hisses back. Then they both smile at Chris, who looks dubious but politely asks if Stiles wants any rice.

The food is pretty good. It’s not jawdroppingly awesome like what comes out of the Hale kitchen, but if Stiles didn’t have regular meals from there, he’d probably be a zillion times more in favor of Chris just for the guy’s cooking. He and his dad can both make decent stopgap stuff like sandwiches, mac ‘n cheese, and pasta with jarred sauce, but when they’re tired, they both tend to just grab whatever will fit in the microwave.

“So Dad, Stiles still hasn’t found a car,” Allison says. She passes Stiles’ dad the sauce pot over Stiles’ death glare and then returns to cheerfully slicing up a carrot. “What about that guy who sold us mine? I thought that that was a pretty good deal.”

“He isn’t really in the used-car business, Allison,” Chris says. He at least looks wary about Stiles’ dad saucing up, glancing between the pot and Stiles’ face. When Stiles’ dad dribbles a single skinny line over his salmon and Stiles restrains himself, Chris visibly relaxes. “He’s another arms supplier, but he’s a little unconventional. Sells to a lot of rookie hunters. He’ll take your car as collateral, and whenever his backyard gets too full, he sells those off.”

Stiles’ dad mutters something about the food being great, and Chris looks pleased before they both duck behind their water glasses. Then Stiles’ dad reaches out, almost grabs the sauce pot, and at the last moment, takes some more veggies instead, with a long-suffering look that Stiles is ignoring because Stiles is trying to be well-mannered here.

“That might work better than a newish car,” Stiles’ dad says. “Cheaper to replace, anyway.”

“I’m not that bad,” Stiles says. His dad looks at him and he sighs and shoves the stupid sauce pot at him. Sometimes his dad gets so pissy about being denied his artery-clogging crap, it’s better to just let him eat it and then slip the word to the junior rangers that they really, really should get his dad to demonstrate his endurance skills. “Okay, well, I am, but all those weren’t actually my cars! They were rentals! Or, um, commandeered!”

“You know, I’m only supporting you finally getting your own because I’m getting tired of dealing with all those compensation claims,” his dad says. After tripling the amount of sauce on his plate. Sometimes his father is just kind of an asshole.

“I can get you Brad’s contact info if you want,” Chris says cautiously. “But keep in mind these are from other hunters.”

Not anything Stiles hasn’t boosted before, and certainly a hell of a lot easier to handle than whatever the hell Danny’s sister is using for her eco-friendly no-soap washing regimen. He shrugs and his dad is opening his mouth to thank Chris when Allison speaks up.

“What does that mean?” she says, frowning at her father. “My car and your car are pretty normal. Well, okay, we have a lot of anti-stain warding on them, but I didn’t think we had anything else that’s really different.”

For a second Chris looks like he’s just stepped into his own bear trap. He goes totally still and kind of pale, and Stiles’ dad swears under his breath before starting to get up.

“Oh,” Allison says, in a resigned, very bitter tone. “This one of those things?”

“We…don’t actively hunt,” Chris says very slowly. He doesn’t quite glance at the rest of the table, then sighs and puts his knife and fork down. “So I had to strip down the other runes when I turned in my license. They’re not legal otherwise, Allison.”

“Not that that stops a lot of hunters, and most of them don’t even know what they’re doing,” Stiles mutters. He can see his father tensing in the corner of his eye, so he kicks his dad before his dad can kick him. Yeah, he sees the tension here. A dead guy probably could resurrect on all the feelings swirling around. But for God’s sake, if the Argents aren’t going to take it out of the room, Stiles isn’t going to let it spoil his dinner. “Though that’s half the fun stripping down one of their cars. You get to realize all the dumb ways somebody can almost kill themselves.”

Allison throws him an irritated glance, as if she really wants to be sitting there stewing at her dad. Then she takes a deep breath. She slouches back and starts playing with her hair. “So I guess I should’ve taken advanced runes instead of first-aid healing as my magic elective?”

“I guess that depends on who you’re driving with,” Stiles’ dad says dryly. “I have to say, I’m glad Scott’s picked up so many nursing tips over the years.”

“I am a great driver. All of the bad things that happen to cars I’m in happen when we’re parked or in neutral,” Stiles protests. “Okay. Well, most of them. The majority of them.”

“Portland,” Stiles’ dad says. He raises his hand and starts ticking off his fingers. “Arlington. Omaha. Fredericksburg.”

“I think I feel better about Scott driving you,” Chris says. He’s still tense, and just tenses even more when Stiles and his dad look at him. And then he actually starts when Allison laughs. His eyes snap to her and then he slowly smiles. “No offense, Stiles.”

Stiles grunts as his dad kicks him in the ankle, totally unnecessarily. “None taken. Scott is proudly defensive behind the wheel, which is why he’s been driving the same car for almost three years.”

“That’s a good thing,” Stiles’ dad says. “Anyway, yeah, Chris, seems like we might as well check out what this guy’s got. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Chris says. He looks over the table, then turns towards the kitchen. “So I wasn’t planning on dessert—”

“Oh, come on, we gotta have dessert,” Allison says. She smiles at Stiles and she is completely trying to play him. “I made chocolate chip walnut cookies. They’re vegetarian-friendly, my mom’s recipe. You gotta try them and tell me what you think. Scott loves them, he’s going to be so mad he missed out on this batch.”

And she is playing to win, damn it, because there are at least three keywords to Stiles’ emotional firewalls in that. Stiles sighs and just forks more vegetables over to his dad’s plate. “Yeah, sure. Cookies.”

“Great,” his dad says, looking smug. “So let me know if the car works out. I’ve got conference calls with Arlington the whole rest of the week, but Derek can drive you over, right?”

* * *

“I’m telling you, something’s up,” Stiles says. “Dad didn’t want to check out this guy. Dad’s letting me check out this guy. Dad’s letting me check out this guy with you.”

Peter looks up from his case files. “Stiles, are you trying to imply something?”

“Jackson doesn’t have clearance,” Scott says loudly. Because it’s not like four of them are werewolves and they aren’t all crammed together into Derek’s car, which is sexy and black and fast but which is a little short on roominess.

“Well, there’s nothing secretive about it,” Peter says, back to shuffling his files. He has some docket management meeting at the courthouse later, but he’s missed looking at all the other cars so he doesn’t feel like he’s being a good beta or something if he skips this one. Also, the guy is a hunter, and Peter prefers to be there in person if he’s got to make up a cover story. “I do have a flair for persuading hunters to reconsider their profession.”

Jackson is coming because Lydia can’t make it, something about her dance committee minions being incapable of booking a DJ, so she’s making him take measurements for her. And when Stiles offered to just do it, he refused, even though he’s currently about two seconds from curling up in fetal position around his phone, manly rep be damned. “If this is about why the preserve has an insanely high number of hunting accidents, I really don’t want to know,” he mutters. “I don’t even hunt.”

Peter and Derek both turn around and stare at Jackson. Thankfully, Derek’s already pulled over, or else Jackson wouldn’t be the only one grabbing white-knuckled onto the door.

“What the hell do you do on full moon?” Derek says.

“I go out!” Jackson says. “But what does that have to do with hunting? You get covered in dirt and crap anyway, and it’s not like we need to hunt when there are professional butchers around.”

“He means at the country club his family goes to,” Scott helpfully adds. Because Scott is a very nice guy like that, and even nice guys sometimes get tired of Jackson spending all the post-match team dinners rehashing the plays they fucked up.

“Country club,” Peter says slowly. He opens his mouth, then seems to change his mind and just exhales. He shakes his head and then gets out of the car.

Derek does the same, muttering under his breath about sheltered babies. Jackson winces and looks genuinely hurt that they’re insulting something he has loudly and repeatedly said he doesn’t give a shit about, and then pulls up his phone to cover up how he’s shying away from them.

“Well, fuck you all, not all of us were born into survivalist families,” Jackson says to his phone.

“They’re not survivalist, it’s just what we do,” Scott says. He seems as thrown by Jackson’s attitude as Stiles is. “Seriously, you never get the urge to kill something? I’m not really a big game meat guy either, but I still can’t help chomping a rabbit once in a while.”

“…sounds great, no wonder you’re in some crazy homicidal secret branch of the Forest Service,” Jackson says. He snaps shut his phone and opens the door on his side. “Normal people get freaked out by stuff like finding their kids killing the Easter Bunny in their kitchen, McCall.”

Scott blinks. “It wasn’t in the kitchen, it was the garage,” he says. “And who told you?”

“Just let it go, Scott,” Stiles sighs, pulling his buddy out. He doesn’t miss Jackson’s deer-in-headlights look, or the tiny moment of relief that follows, but for some reason he’s feeling generous today. Probably because Peter stuffed him with Talia’s tamales before they left. “Some people you can’t reason with.”

This Brad Truman guy lives kind of out there, at the end of a dirt road and all, but otherwise his place looks pretty normal. He’s got a blah ranch house with a couple of dogs lazing on the front porch, which whimper and skitter through a pet door once they lock eyes with Derek. There’s a garden gnome sitting under the mailbox. Sure, the barn out back has an awful lot of cars in it, but it seems like a logical place to put them.

“Are we buying a tractor?” Jackson wonders. “I don’t think those come with four-wheel drive.”

“How about you shut up and…oh, there’s Argent,” Derek says. He stares at the car coming down the road, then turns away and frowns at some dirt scuffed onto his front bumper. Even leans down and scrubs at it with his palm.

Chris pulls up next to them, and about two seconds go by before Allison and Scott are cuddling like they didn’t just see each other a couple hours ago in school. After that whole awkward dinner moment, Allison apparently decided that she and her dad were going to use runes as their new bonding activity, and had asked if she could come too. Stiles had checked with Derek and Peter and had gotten a grunt and a ‘suppose that would discourage gunplay,’ respectively, so he’d okayed it. Truman’s got a clean record, but the were community isn’t that big on him being so willing to equip rookies and Stiles figures it can’t hurt to show up with another hunter.

“Chris,” Peter says blandly.

“Peter,” Chris says, just as monotone. He looks at the house. “He’s supposed to be home. Nobody’s come out yet?”

Derek straightens up from the car. “He’s in the barn.”

He says that in an oddly stiff way, and he and Peter make no move to…move anywhere. Chris looks back and forth between them and Peter finally throws him some kind of hint with a raised brow, because suddenly Chris is cursing and yanking out his phone. “That stupid son of a bitch,” Chris says. “Hang on.”

“What?” Jackson says. He’s loud and annoying enough for it to penetrate the Scott-and-Allison bubble, and they look over at him. “Why are we just standing around? We can hear him, so why don’t we—”

Peter puts his hand out so his palm hits the center of Jackson’s chest just as Jackson’s trying to go past him. “I think you should listen a little more closely,” Peter says.

Jackson jerks back like Peter slapped him. He humps up his shoulders and Peter doesn’t even bother to flash fang, just twitches his upper lip, and Jackson slumps back. He still looks pissed off. “To what? He’s watching TV and—and—”

“He’s watching porn,” Derek says, sighing, while Jackson’s eyes widen. “In Spanish?”

“Yep,” Scott says, digging around in his pockets. He turns up his field earplugs just in time to catch Allison’s horrified expression.

“Oh, my God, Dad,” Allison says. “Oh, my God. My car.”

“I went over it myself after we bought it, it’s fine, it’s clean,” Chris mutters. He pulls his phone down and even Stiles can hear the voicemail message. Chris stares murderously at his phone, then looks up at the barn like he’s working out the quickest way to dismantle it, preferably with this jackass still inside. “Damn it. Stiles, I’m sorry. I—am going to have words with that—anyway, I’m sorry, I never would’ve recommended him if I’d known.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Is he jerking off in the cars? Can anybody tell? You know what, never mind, I can check that myself.”

Chris and Peter are staring at him. “Are we still looking at them?” Peter finally says.

“Well, it took a whole hour to get out here, I want to at least see what he’s got,” Stiles says. “Obviously, if he’s screwing all over the things, I don’t want one, but if he’s just in their general proximity, well, we’ll just put on cootie-repelling runes or something. God, if I nixed things based on what happened near them, we’d have to throw out all of our furniture.”

Peter doesn’t look too thrilled, but in the end he just sighs and makes a deferring gesture with his hand; Derek looks even less thrilled, but he doesn’t say anything either. Chris gives them a couple seconds to get through all those dubious looks, and then he lifts his phone and tries calling Truman again.

This time, he gets through. Truman shows them into the barn, fully-dressed and with spotless hands and acting like they didn’t catch him doing a damn thing. His bluffing’s good enough that Stiles catches Peter giving the guy a thoughtful look, and his cars are…an interesting collection, to say the least. There’s an honest to God 1967 Chevrolet Impala, a 1958 Plymouth Fury, a Peterbilt truck that’s too rusty to date, and a 1970 Dodge Charger.

A quick test shows that all of them are clean of certain bodily fluids, though only the Peterbilt hasn’t been bled on. Stiles doesn’t know what the hell he’d do with a semi (if the mess is that big, they absolutely dump it on central command), so that leaves the cars. He doubts any of them have four-wheel drive, but Truman doesn’t know off the top of his head so they’ll have to check that. A more visible problem is that they’re all stick shifts.

“Maybe these are too old,” Scott says, reading his mind. “I don’t think stick shifts are a good idea.”

“You can drive stick,” Derek says, frowning at Stiles.

“Yeah, but I forget which gear I’m on when I’m freaking out,” Stiles says. Then he frowns, because Jackson is popping the hood of the Impala. “I didn’t say I wanted to see that one.”

“Well, then which one?” Jackson says. He’s produced a tape measure, a couple dowsing crystals and one of Lydia’s modified multimeters. “Lydia’s blowing up my phone for specs. I need to answer her before she starts calling, too.”

Before Stiles can answer, Derek walks over and shuts the hood. “Don’t bother with this or the Fury,” he says. “You can’t fix the harmonics. The Charger’s the only one that might work.”

Jackson works his mouth a few times, then mutters a ‘whatever’ and goes over to the Charger. “This some born were thing too?” he says, hefting up the trunk lid.

Derek looks oddly at him. “What?”

Truman, who’d been standing over in the corner talking prices with Peter and Chris (who, Stiles is delighted to overhear, is totally using Allison’s trauma as leverage), suddenly looks up. “Oh, hey, listen, you should know something about that one,” he says. “Guy who brought it in, he’s an international fugitive, but he said he’d be back for it. ‘course, title’s all clear and I can sell it clean to you, but he does run with some heavy-hitters. Couple fox demons, I hear.”

Chris looks at Truman like the only reason he’s not punching the guy in the face is because Allison is watching.

“Okay, then,” Stiles says. “Guess we wasted an hour’s drive.”

* * *

To top it off, on the way back to Beacon Hills, they get stuck for half an hour because the two-lane road has construction and is down to one lane for a five-mile stretch, and they’re doing that whole let one side go, then let the other side go.

About two minutes in, Peter strongly suggests that Derek just put the car into park and that they all get out and stretch their legs. Of course, the moment the back seat empties out, Peter is in it and is spreading his case files all around so nobody can get back in. Stiles could make him, but…yeah, Stiles doesn’t want to be squished in with Scott and Jackson for thirty minutes either.

At least there’s a nice grassy stretch right next to the road. A couple families with small kids are already letting them run around at the edge, and one girl is sprawled out on a towel and reading a book. Scott sees that, whips off his sweatshirt and offers it to Allison for a cushion, and those two are set. Chris makes a little bit of a face at them, which Stiles is amused to see is more of a ‘you are trying much too hard’ thing than a ‘furious protective dad’ thing, and then sits in his car with the driver’s side door open, doing something on his phone.

Jackson walks around the car and up the road a little, apparently under the impression that his mere annoyance might speed things up. It gets him out of their hair, so Stiles isn’t going to object.

“Too bad that didn’t work out,” Derek says, leaning against his car. He wraps an arm around Stiles’ shoulders, and that is as much about getting Stiles to lean on him instead of the Camaro, because even alphas don’t deter Derek from obsessing about its finish, as about cuddling. But he’s a great pillow, so Stiles goes with it. “It was a nice car.”

“Good harmonics?” Stiles says. “What was that about, anyway? You got a secret choirboy past or something?”

Derek shakes his head. “I have a degree in audio engineering. I thought you looked us up?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, I did know that.” Stiles lets Derek shift behind him, because it’s actually not that warm, whatever the girl on the towel thinks, and Derek is also a great body warmer. “Guess I forgot since I’ve never seen you use it.”

Derek presses his head down into the crook of Stiles’ neck for a second. He breathes in deeply, then raises his head. “Yeah, I guess you haven’t,” he says.

There’s something off about his tone, but just then Jackson comes jogging back down the road. “Those assholes say it’s another twenty minutes,” he tells them. “I hope you’re happy. I was supposed to hang out with Danny.”

“Hey, nobody made you come,” Stiles says. Then he grimaces, because yeah, that’s a little unfair. “Okay, fine, Lydia made you come, but I offered to do the measurements and you blew me off. I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but you’re probably the least-qualified person to do them anyway. I don’t know why you didn’t just take the out and save us all some time.”

Jackson stares at him like he’s an alien lifeform. Then he whirls around like he’s going to kick the car; Derek is out from behind Stiles and snarling before Jackson can even raise his foot. Jackson flinches but keeps glaring at Stiles.

“You’ re my goddamn alpha, that’s why I’m here,” he snaps.

“Again, take that one up with Lydia,” Stiles says. “Jesus, you know, you can date her without actually being pack. I don’t know why either of you are bothering to keep up the act when you clearly don’t want to be here.”

“Stiles,” Peter suddenly says, sticking his head out of the car. “I think—”

“What do you mean, I don’t want to be here? You’re the one who’s just taking me to make Lydia happy,” Jackson snarls. He backs off from the car, but not because he’s calming down any. On the contrary, his eyes are starting to glow and people from other cars are actually getting out to watch him windmill angrily. “What, did you think I didn’t know? I’m not an idiot, Stiles, I know it’s just a goddamn favor. I know there’s no way you’d want a were raised by people if you didn’t get Lydia in the bargain. Why don’t you stop faking, you hypocritical asshole?”

Peter gets out of the car and walks around it, all smooth deliberate movements, like he’s stalking down prey. He takes Derek by the elbow and drags him back, with what looks like a hard elbow to the ribs while he’s at it, and then strolls up to Jackson, who rears up, catches himself mid-snarl and cringes just as Peter abruptly pivots to—scoop his arm around Jackson’s shoulders. Peter walks Jackson back to the car, all friendly and nonchalant, as if Jackson’s feet aren’t leaving skid marks on the road.

Stiles is starting forward himself, because he doesn’t kill people without a good reason and being an asshole in public is not actually a good reason, but he stops when Peter looks at him. Peter might play at being the unruly beta but when it comes down to it, he respects alpha status—way more than Stiles is comfortable with, to be honest. He’s given Stiles that particular look twice so far and both times it was because Stiles had unknowingly jammed his foot into past Hale family tragedy.

“Jackson, this is a trial period,” Peter is saying, in a steady, even tone. He’s looking at Stiles. “It goes both ways. If you’re unhappy, it doesn’t make sense for you to join any more than it makes sense for Stiles to take you. Stiles told you that when you asked.”

“I…yeah, I did.” Technically. Actually Stiles had rattled off a list of stuff that Peter and Derek had given him. He had quizzed them enough so that he understood all of it, but like everything else about being an alpha, he’s still sort of feeling his way into it. “And why the hell would I care what your parents are? My dad’s normal and so’s Scott’s mom, and—I mean, seriously? I’m not a were.”

“Well, then what’s all this bullshit about hunting and harmonics?” Jackson mutters. He’s gone from bellowing to mumbling in zero point zero seconds, his shoulders hunched and his eyes glued at Stiles’ feet. “It’s not like anybody fucking told me I’m supposed to be good at that.”

Peter purses his lips and looks at Jackson. He’s pissed off—not at Jackson, at someone else, and it’s the kind of slow-burn pissed-off that means Stiles is either going to have to tie Peter down and worm his plans out of him, or be prepared for a ton of unlicensed kills. “That’s not your fault,” he finally says. “Although you’re a little old to keep allowing that to be true.”

Jackson snorts and jerks away, and then looks momentarily surprised that Peter actually lets him go. He looks back and forth, then glances over his shoulder, like he’d forgotten they were on a jammed road. He winces and drops back, edging around the car, and then starts scuffling his way onto the field with a rigid sneer on his face. “Whatever.”

“I’d just let him go. He needs to cool off,” Peter says, coming up to Stiles.

Derek looks at Peter. Then reaches over and feels Peter’s forehead.

“Don’t be cute, Derek,” Peter snorts. “That was highly disrespectful, but his lack of manners is actually not all his fault. I’ll remind him when he isn’t wallowing so much.”

“I have no idea what just happened,” Stiles says. “I honestly don’t. I’m pretty sure I’ve never—Scott! Have I ever said a thing about Jackson’s parents?”

Scott and Allison got up when the whole drama started. Allison’s over talking to her dad—Chris is way closer than Stiles was expecting, almost in flanking position on Stiles’ other side, if Chris was a werewolf—but Scott is dithering between joining Stiles and going after Jackson. He finally sighs and chooses Stiles. “No, but come on, he’s sensitive about them.”

“Because they’re not weres? Again, why would I care?” Stiles says.

“Well, he does,” Chris says. He pauses and visibly checks whether Derek or Peter is going to intervene. When they don’t, he settles back into a vaguely defensive position, though he’s talking like it’s just a regular conversation. “He was turned when he was what, early teens?”

He’s looking at Peter, who thinks it over. “Thirteen, I think? His parents kept it quiet, and, you know, Talia and I were back and forth.”

Because that’s about the time that they were gearing up to try Kate and Gerard for Richard Hale’s murder. Chris tightens his jaw but leaves it at that, while Peter keeps a blank expression on his face; Derek and Allison look like they’re willing the conversation to move on, pronto.

“His parents never did completely buy into it, did they?” Chris says, again to Peter. “Stupid.”

“Well, from what I understand, he was in the woods in the first place because he’d just learned he was adopted. I don’t know how they told him that, but it must have been extraordinarily insensitive if he didn’t notice a rabid alpha sneaking up on him,” Peter says. He grimaces and looks at Stiles. “We weren’t patrolling as much as we should have. There were some—clashes with omegas, and it was a bad year for rabies infections.”

“And Mom didn’t want a huge fight with his lawyer dad, since we were already in the middle of so much stuff,” Derek mutters. “And now he’s eighteen, he can do whatever he want, so he can’t really use that excuse anymore.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy to shake off five years of your parents hiding what you are,” Chris says.

Peter shakes his head. “Now, I think you’re exaggerating. They never pretended he wasn’t a werewolf. They just don’t seem to want to understand that that’s more complex than a change of appearance every month.”

“Oh. Oh, well, good to know,” Stiles says. “Always great to find out I’m being an insensitive asshole about somebody’s emotional trauma.”

“You’re not being an asshole, Stiles,” Chris, of all people, says. He looks up when Peter moves, then grins with just a little teeth. His shoulders are flattened back but he’s adjusting his head so they’re mostly eye-to-eye, and wow, Stiles somehow failed to miss how wolfish he can look. “Speaking as someone who doesn’t know the whole situation, so I may be missing something. But if both of you think Lydia is responsible for this, maybe you should talk to her. That doesn’t really sound right either.”

Then he half-turns. He goes back to his car without ever quite giving Peter and Derek his back, which Peter weirdly seems to appreciate. “I would love to know what pack ended up in his bloodline,” Peter murmurs. “It’s really a shame the rest of it seems to be made up of insanity and grandstanding.”

“I’m right here,” Allison says. She crosses her arms over her chest and glowers at Peter, which clearly carries more weight with him than Scott hastily posturing up. “Anyway, it was Chastel and Cortaud.”

“Both very respectable lines, even now,” Peter says, smiling at her.

“Okay, so should I just stop pretending I know anything at all?” Stiles says. “Because what the hell, Derek is a sound engineer and Jackson’s parents made him into a self-hating, incompetent werewolf and now you guys are part-were?”

Allison, because she is just as unreasonably nice as Scott, looks a little guilty. She even comes over and pats Stiles on the shoulder. “I don’t know about the rest, but us…I just found out a little while ago too. But yeah, humans born into packs used to get exiled, and they’d end up hunters, and I have a couple ancestors like that? I was mad at Dad for not telling me before, especially with what he said about Scott when we first started dating, but with what Gerard was like, it did make sense to not talk about it. Anyway, remind me, I’ll lend you what I have on it so far.”

“Sorry, I thought you knew about my degree,” Derek says, also looking guilty.

“And I don’t know why I thought you already knew about Jackson,” Peter says. He’s still looking at Chris, who’s back in his car, amusement fading to irritation. Then he runs his hand through his hair and looks at Stiles, and he’s all irritated now and it’s all at himself. “Chris Argent shouldn’t have to point that out. I’m sorry, that was—my fault, alpha.”

And now Stiles feels guilty. Actually, he was already feeling it over Jackson, but he could sort of wave that one away with Jackson being such a jackass, nobody could reasonably expect a sympathetic backstory. But now he just feels like…like he’s supposed to be the research guy but honestly, he kind of sucks at it.

“Well, not like I asked,” he mutters.

“Hey, it’s okay, I’ll go get Jackson,” Scott says, turning. Then he blinks.

“What are you doing?” Jackson calls at them. He’s waving his arm at the road, which right, when they’re all distracted, it decides to open up a three-car gap. “Get back in the car! They’re moving again!”

The interruption actually is not welcome, but the cars behind them are already starting to honk, so they don’t really have a choice. They pile back into the cars, though with Peter’s files all over the backseat, it’s a good minute before they actually get settled enough to drive off.

Most of that is Stiles’ fault, because when Peter dives for his files, Stiles gets in right behind and pushes him out the other door. Peter gracefully catches himself, pivots around, and then looks confused at the pile of files that Stiles shoves into his face. Then he gets it and gets back into shotgun.

Scott doesn’t get it at all, but he doesn’t need to in order to understand that Stiles wants him to grab Jackson for a sandwich. He trips Jackson head-first into the backseat, then bookends him as neatly as any pincer play on the lacrosse field.

“Now what the hell are you idiots doing?” Jackson says. He’s more resigned than angry, slouching in between Stiles and Scott so his designer threads, as he keeps reminding them, are going to need some major ironing later. “Hasn’t this trip been shitty enough?”

“Look, I really don’t care about your parents,” Stiles says. When Jackson opens his mouth, Stiles slaps his hand over it. “Bite me and you’ll be lucky if I end you before Peter gets into the backseat. Now, I don’t really care that you don’t check all the True Werewolf boxes either, because if I was going for that I wouldn’t be best friends with someone who apologizes when he beats up somebody.”

Scott winces. “He was old! He had a cane!”

“He was a six-hundred-year-old rogue vamp and that cane had a sword in it,” Stiles snaps. Then he looks back at Jackson, who seems shocked enough to be actually listening, at least from what Stiles can see around his hand. “I was putting up with you because of Lydia, but not because I get her gadgets. Because I like her, and want her in my pack, and she told me you wanted an alpha. Lydia’s smart as hell and she’s had pretty good judgment about everything else so far, so I figured I could at least try and see what she sees in you. But if you’re just doing this because you two just think all werewolves need an alpha, I don’t want to do this. Also, you should get off your ass and do some research on packs and packless wolves and God, Scott’s right here, has it even occurred to you to talk to him?”

He lets go of Jackson’s mouth. Jackson blinks a few times, then raises his hand and prods around his mouth. Stiles is expecting some kind of loser germs joke, but Jackson just takes his hand down and puts both hands between his knees, and stares at them.

They’re moving at a pretty decent clip now. The road is all torn up from the construction, and Derek is making little wounded hisses every time the car clunks, while Peter is studiously rustling paper. So it’s not exactly silent, but it’s still uncomfortable as hell.

“On the bright side, you won’t be driving stick,” Scott suddenly says. “I never, ever want to squash a chupacabra like that again.”

Stiles wants to hug the guy, but he doesn’t want to reach over Jackson so he just lovingly rolls his eyes. “You know that wasn’t actually the stick shift’s fault, right? That was because the brakes got stuck.”

“I am never letting you drive me anywhere,” Jackson mutters. He’s still staring at his hands. “I want an alpha. I—did some research, okay? And fine, I’ll talk to Scott if that’s what you want. But I already went packless for five years, so maybe I don’t know all the details of your secret werewolf club but I know what that’s like.”

“It’s really not that secret,” Peter says absently. “Werewolves aren’t vampires, it’s never been practical to obscure things with mysticism and lace ruffles when the full moon brings everyone out.”

“You don’t have to have me as an alpha,” Stiles says, ignoring him.

Jackson tilts his head back till it’s lying on the top of the seat, so he’s simultaneously baring his throat and staring like he wishes the car ceiling would give him some answers. “Well, I don’t want Alpha Hale or Laura.”

Derek growls and Jackson winces before Peter can reach over and hit Derek.

“Look, no offense, okay? But they scare me,” Jackson blurts out.

“Oh,” Derek says. “That’s okay, never mind.”

For a second Jackson looks at the back of Derek’s headrest like he can’t believe the world allows things like this to happen, and with a completely serious face, too, and Stiles feels semi-sympathetic. “You’re really fucked-up, Stiles, but at least I don’t feel like you’re going to bat me around like some giant psychotic cat with a mouse,” he says under his breath. He shifts nervously around, his eyes almost flicking over. “You just take people out.”

“Weirdly enough, that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me,” Stiles says.

Jackson pulls his head down and finally looks at Stiles, and he actually looks a little pleased. Which lasts all of a second. “Why you can’t do that in a match, I really don’t get,” he says. “It’s like you like being a bench jockey. Don’t you give a shit about winning?”

Stiles takes a deep breath, because one, they have a good twenty-five minutes more in the car, and two, he at least would like to keep it to one step forward, dumbass step sideways. “Look, how about you go finetune your werewolf instincts with Derek and Peter, and once you get that handled, we’ll talk about me and lacrosse and why I’m actually banned from playing it in Maryland.”

“Can I not be in the room for that story?” Scott says. “I still have scars.”

“Werewolves don’t scar,” Derek says.

Scott actually moves so he can make sure Derek sees his face in the rearview mirror. “Yeah,” he says pointedly.

“Oh, Stiles,” Peter says, turning around. He’s holding out his phone. “I know you were looking on your own, but I was talking with my colleague and he just happened to mention he’s got a pick-up truck for sale. It’s four-wheel drive, technical specs are in line with Lydia’s asks, at least on paper, and he’s already stripped out the runework. Do you want to see it?”

* * *

By ‘just happened to mention,’ what Peter really means is that he won some favor off the guy in one of those poker games Peter seems to have with every local politician or other figure of note, and is being magnanimous by offering to take it in physical objects instead of, say, favorable zoning rulings. Between Peter’s card-sharping and Talia’s cooking, they pretty much have the entire local government eating out of their hands.

Peter drives Stiles over, both because it’s his guy and because Derek actually had an appointment he can’t shift around for Stiles. Seeing as Derek really doesn’t seem to have anything to do but duck his sisters and stalk Stiles and maul people in the woods, Stiles finds that very interesting. “Is Derek getting a hobby?” he asks.

“He has hobbies.” Peter greets the guy, who is assistant something or the other for the waste management department, and they do business chat for a couple minutes before the guy shows them to the pick-up truck and then excuses himself to grab something from inside the house.

It doesn’t reek, and the runes have indeed been all stripped off. The truck bed has a cover that Stiles pops, and then he takes a seat on the bumper and studies Peter.

He could start taking readings, but Lydia’s just texted that she’ll be there in a few minutes and it’s actually kind of fun watching her. When she really gets into her work, she starts talking to herself and Stiles has learned a lot about what Lydia considers shoddy engineering that way. Also, it’s been a couple days since the whole talk with Jackson and while Jackson is a good ten percent less douche-y than before, and is actually scheduling hunting lessons with Peter, Lydia’s been drilling holes into the back of Stiles’ head with her eyes. They’re due for a talk but Stiles didn’t want to deal with it at school. And honestly, he still doesn’t really want to deal with it, but he’s going to, because damn it, if he’s going down as alpha, he’s going down in flames. So the least Peter can do is indulge him in a little Derek info.

“Is Derek getting a hobby that doesn’t involve looking cool, scaring people, or being annoyed by you?” Stiles clarifies.

Peter looks amused at the last part. “I’m not a hobby, Stiles, I’m a lifestyle,” he says. Steps up between Stiles’ dangling legs and then puts his hands down on either side of Stiles, his voice dropping into honey range. “Anyway, why the sudden interest in Derek’s extracurricular activities?”

“He’d have to still be in school for them to be extracurricular, and also, maybe I’m trying to be a better alpha and make sure he’s adequately stimulated,” Stiles says, and then hears himself. He winces and then grabs the back of Peter’s neck, just stopping Peter from dipping to…do something probably incredibly distracting to his throat. “I actually didn’t mean to sound like a come-on.”

“Oh, I’m sure, but I think Derek’s stimulation needs are satisfied,” Peter purrs. “Now, if you’d like to address my needs…”

Stiles pulls on Peter’s neck again, then thinks the better of it when the damn man arches into it. He shrugs and hauls Peter down for a deep, messy kiss, and lets his fingers slide up into Peter’s hair. When he’s got a good handful of curls, he twists Peter’s head to the side and puts his teeth against Peter’s throat. Doesn’t bite down, just holds them to the skin.

Peter goes tight and still, but as time drags on and he realizes Stiles isn’t actually going to sink it, he loosens up. But he can’t quite bring himself to just jam his throat into Stiles’ mouth—he’d get away with it if Stiles was more worked up, but near-daily sex with two really hot, really creative and flexible werewolves has done a lot for Stiles’ self-control—and eventually he sighs and pushes back into Stiles’ hand. Stiles lets up and Peter backs off enough to look Stiles in the eye.

“You really don’t have to worry,” Peter says. “It’s nothing nefarious, it’s just a business meeting. He just has a habit of not telling anyone, but if you ask him, he’s not going to hide it.”

Stiles blinks. “Derek has a job?”

“He has a college degree,” Peter says, semi-reproachfully. So Stiles tugs his hair again and Peter hisses, then twists to the side. When Stiles lets go of his hair, he finishes turning so he can sit on the truck bed next to Stiles. “He freelances for various producers. Gets decent royalties, actually.”

Stiles blinks again. “Derek has a job and it’s in the music industry?”

“We have good ears, I’m told,” Peter drawls. He grins off Stiles’ smack to his arm and then rocks back so he’s snugged up to Stiles’ side. Then he sobers, looking down the driveway. “He used to hole up in his room for hours and hours, after his father died. I don’t think he did much either, besides lie on the bed. It was a relief for Talia and me when Laura got him to at least go online while he was in there. He ran across remix software or something like that, and started doing it from his room, and then went to college to get a degree in it.”

“That’s really cool. How come he doesn’t mention it?” Stiles says. “Is his pseudonym really embarrassing or something? Because he’s got to be using one, and man, I’m gonna have to write central intel another complaint letter when we get back. They didn’t have that in his file.”

“I have no idea what name he works under. We don’t talk about it—he wouldn’t, in the beginning, and I suppose now we’re all used to just leaving him to it,” Peter says. He glances at Stiles, then grimaces. “My fault, I should have thought to tell you.”

“It’s not—” Stiles sighs and runs his hand over his face, then reaches out and cups it over the back of Peter’s neck. “Is this some alpha thing? I mean, am I actually supposed to know every single detail of your lives before I showed up? Because yeah, I feel kind of embarrassed for missing it, but I didn’t think packs were all Orwellian like that.”

Peter smiles, because he is a not-so-secret retro geek and loves classic literature hat-tips like that. Then he tilts his head and sobers. He considers the driveway for a few seconds. “You’re supposed to know what matters to us,” he says slowly. “But the pack isn’t supposed to hide that sort of thing from their alpha. If they are, then it’s a sign that they don’t trust the alpha’s leadership. And we do, you know. It’s just…we’re too used to relying on just each other, I think. We weren’t so insular before Richard died.”

“I don’t know, Cora’s got her schoolyard mafia and Laura seems to have every single male alpha in the region in her contacts list. And I think a butterfly could die anywhere in the county and you’d get three different people calling you asking whether you want a piece,” Stiles says. “Okay, Derek, he’s antisocial, but he had a whole two-line conversation with the barista the other day.”

“Thank you, Stiles, but that’s not really what I mean and you’re smart enough to know that,” Peter says. He leans far enough over to rest his head against Stiles’ for a second, then straightens up. “We’re trying. That’s all I can say, but we are.”

“Well, honestly, you haven’t known me for that long,” Stiles says. “I mean, really, you trust me already?”

“Yes, Stiles,” Peter says. He twists around so he can look Stiles in the eye, calm and dead certain. “We do.”

Then he straightens up, just as tires crunch over the curb and his friend comes back out, and Stiles is feeling like he’s just been very, very nicely punched in the gut.

“And there is our dear Miss Martin,” Peter says. “You’ll be all right while I talk something over with Joseph? If she clamps on, I’ll be right over.”

“What?” Stiles says. He turns and then, thank God for ADD sometimes, gets distracted by the car he sees.

It’s Allison’s car coming up the driveway. Lydia is sitting in shotgun, and while they’re not really…well, they’re sort of friendly, for Lydia’s brand of friendly, Stiles supposes. Allison gets kind of a pinched look on her face whenever Lydia is around, but if Scott isn’t available, Lydia is Allison’s go-to class project buddy, and Lydia only mocks Allison’s clothing choices to bring up Allison’s dire need for a shopping spree rather than encouraging her to report straight to the clearance bin.

What’s weird is that Jackson doesn’t get out of the car. Stiles didn’t have anything after school today, so Peter picked him up and then they went for a snack and then they messed around in Peter’s backseat, because Peter is not as anal-protective of his car as Derek (and understands what professional cleaning services are for), so he hasn’t checked in with Scott in a couple hours. “Don’t tell me those idiots got detention again,” he says as the girls come up.

Allison looks mildly confused. “Who?”

“Why would they be in detention?” Lydia says. She’s swinging a bigger, dumpier-looking bag than her regular whale-purses or school bag. “Did Scott fail another test?”

“We didn’t have any tests this week,” Allison says. “I thought he was doing okay. Wasn’t that weird little dance of Finstock’s because he actually got a B on that econ exam?”

“B plus.” Lydia flips her hair over her shoulder, sets the bag down, and then pulls out her laptop and one of those ultra-skinny folding tables. She snaps the table out in a few quick gestures, puts the laptop on it, and then starts pulling multimeters and cables from the bag. “A little under my average result, but considering the starting material, I suppose I should consider it a win.”

“Okay, never mind, I just…anyway, we haven’t taken it for a test-drive yet, but so far it looks good,” Stiles says. “And Peter says the guy’s only asking—”

Peter’s disappeared. Stiles hops off the truck and looks around, and spots Peter at the end of the driveway, looking at what appear to be architectural blueprints. Peter raises his head and gestures asking whether Stiles wants him back; Stiles contemplates what Peter could be doing with a waste management guy who owes him and blueprints, and then decides that he’s probably better off not knowing. Last time he asked that kind of question, he got dragged into some regional dispute over composting efforts among packs, because Talia is a part-time composting advocate and Peter likes to stir up any kind of shit.

“…well, that’s great to hear but I’m a little iffy on the truck bed cover,” Lydia says briskly. “It’s plastic. That’s going to melt.”

Allison looks a little nervous. “Just what are we planning to do again? I thought this was just sound waves.”

“It is, but here, hold this and this, good, now, runework usually doesn’t cause dramatic temperature changes but since we’re going to build in a heat sink…” Lydia rattles on about buffering for a couple minutes while dragging Allison around the truck.

Stiles isn’t sure how much Allison knows about runes, but he’s guessing that three-dimensional layering isn’t included, from how panicky she’s starting to look. “The cover’s removable,” he says as the girls come back towards him. “Don’t you think we should ignore the cosmetic stuff? We’re going to redo it from wheels-up anyway.”

“Oh, no, I agree that that’s the way to go, but I was under the impression that you didn’t want to invest that much effort in structural work,” Lydia says sweetly.

“From what? My detailed plans to add in more weapons storage space and better brakes and reinforced axles?” Stiles says. He’s starting to have a sinking feeling in his stomach. Maybe it’s how Lydia keeps jabbing the probes when she looks at him.

Lydia smiles her creamiest smile. Looking at it is a little like those camera angles where you’re the tiny squeaking thing about to be eaten by the huge-ass reptile. “The fact that you keep rejecting candidates without thoroughly evaluating them?”

“I…going to go…um…check something in my car,” Allison says, bundling the equipment she’s got into Lydia’s hands.

Lydia doesn’t even look over. “You were a jerk to Jackson,” she says.

“Well, his baseline is jerk, whereas I try to keep it to responsive,” Stiles retorts. He gets off the truck bed and grabs the probe poking his stomach, and pushes it away. “And if you think about it, you’re the one who set us up for being jerkasses. You could’ve mentioned that Jackson wasn’t just trying to suck up to you.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of having him speak for himself?” Lydia says archly. But then she puts down the gear on the truck bed. She looks at it for a second, then turns back and she’s dropped the icy contempt and just looks exasperated. “He was supposed to. We talked about it, damn it.”

Stiles looks at her. “You really expected Jackson to talk about his soft underbelly to some kid he’s known for a couple months? He can barely tell Scott when he’s going to change up play and that has something he actually cares about riding on it.”

“Well, I thought he understood the purpose of an alpha.” Lydia examines her hands and nails, and then, when they end up clean, rakes the hair off her face. “All right, I probably should have had Danny corner him just to be sure. But I did get read receipts from all the attachments I emailed him, and he passed my pop quizzes. He’s not as dumb as he acts.”

“I didn’t really think he was dumb, just a dumbass,” Stiles says. He leans back against the truck. “Okay, whatever, I thought we worked things out, anyway. Unless he’s got short-term memory loss to go along with all his other charming little personality quirks.”

“His memory is fine,” Lydia says. She actually looks hesitant, and then she squares her shoulders and stabs her finger right in the center of Stiles’ chest. “Look, whatever front he has on, he really does want this. He wants an alpha who’s not going to make him feel like even more of a failure than he already does, just because the Whittemores were too grossed out by the facts of werewolf life to adapt like McCall’s mom did. All the other alphas in this region are at least five years older than him.”

“And I’m fine with that. I just want pack members who can check their privilege at the door, because, speaking as someone who the majority of the world still thinks is some weird cross between a bloodthirsty priest and a fluffy wood nymph, I get how much it sucks when people don’t know what to do with you,” Stiles says. He leans into her finger till she has to pull it back or get a jammed joint. “He can be a whiny little shit, okay, I’m pretty sure he’d die if we tried to ban that, but if he acts like he’s doing me a favor by showing up, I’m gonna call him on it. For that matter, I’m gonna call you on it. You need to stop shielding him if you’re ever gonna be more than just queen to the jock king.”

Lydia looks at him, then smiles. It’s still creamy and slightly terrifying, but it’s a lot more genuine than the other one. “Fair enough. By the way, I do appreciate you correcting him about why you’re willing to trial me. His parental issues are bad enough without dragging my work into it.”

“Yeah, well, the stuff you come up with is cool, but we’ve got entire research campuses devoted to that sort of thing, you know. I don’t need to say yes to you just for gadgets,” Stiles says, shrugging. Then he looks at her. “Just out of curiosity, why are you with him? And really, just curious. I can see the, you know, physical appeal, if you’re for the all-American golden boy type, but he doesn’t have a clue about science and he’s…you know…”

“An egotistical asshole who keeps forgetting he’s nowhere near the biggest badass in town?” Lydia supplies.

Stiles moves his hand back and forth. “I was gonna be tactful, but okay. Yeah.”

“Well, like you say, there are the physical pluses.” Lydia folds her arms over her chest and gives him a knowing look, then turns to nod at Peter. “Good sex can cover a multitude of sins, right?”

“I don’t know if you’re doing it right, if that’s what you think. I’m pretty sure that really great sex should be sinning just by itself,” Stiles says, and then grins when she rolls her eyes. “Anyway. Peter has character flaws. Not an entire character deficit.”

“Jackson’s not like that all the time,” Lydia says. She glowers at him when he snorts. “He’s not. You should meet David Whittemore sometime. It’d explain a—look, to be honest, I started dating Jackson for the trophy value. And the sex. He’s less vanilla than he looks.”

“He looks extremely vanilla to me,” Stiles says. “Like that one ice cream flavor, it’s three different regions of vanilla bean and they’re all—”

“I’m not going to argue positions with you,” Lydia says primly, tossing back her hair. “I’m sure I’ll hear about them all eventually, anyway. You know you have a fanclub, right? They meet up at Jungle the night after any time you and Peter go clubbing, and they’re absolutely dying for a three-way show. I think one of them said he’d give up sex and enter a monastery—”

“Oh, my God, you play dirty,” Stiles says. He glances over at Allison, but thankfully, she’s still at her car, even if she appears to be thinking over whether it’s safe to come back.

Not that Allison would be a problem; she doesn’t seem that adventurous but if her dad is really teaching her hunting now, every hunter learns a little bit about bondage just to have a ready excuse for why they keep so much rope around. But she’d tell Scott, and Scott would freak out because they totally have classmates who hit up Jungle, and Scott can have sex with Allison all over the preserve without a care, but (because people have been assholes to Melissa because she didn’t immediately marry into a pack) he gets super-defensive when people gossip about his loved ones’ sex lives. And if he gets any more detentions, he’ll be booked through winter break.

“Is there any other way to play?” Lydia says, brow raised. Absolutely knowing this is exactly why Stiles said yes to her. “Where was—right. I started dating Jackson because of that, but then—well, my parents got divorced.”

Her voice abruptly flattens. She stops and stares at the ground for a few seconds, her hands tucked up into her armpits like she’s holding herself together, and not just strategically shaping her bust.

“It wasn’t pretty. They started showing up to school to argue over who got to take me home,” she adds slowly. “It was just—you know, what I actually felt about their divorce aside, it was just humiliating. Everybody just stopped and stared and watched my parents lose it. And Jackson is an asshole, I grant you, but that comes in handy when everyone else is being one. He told off anyone who tried to mention it to me and started driving me to his house after school, and when my parents got mad about that, he got his dad to threaten them.”

“That’s nice of him, actually,” Stiles finally says.

“Yeah, it was,” Lydia says. She looks at the ground for another second, then rolls her shoulders back and smooths down her skirt, and checks a couple nails. Then she looks up and at the truck. “Well. Now that we’ve dealt with that, let’s see if this thing is worth my time.”

She pulls a crystal out of her pocket and holds it up to her mouth, and sort of hums over it. Stiles can’t actually hear any sounds coming out of her, but he feels this heavy kind of vibration all around them. It’s a little like sitting in the car in the car wash with those big rubbery strips thwak-thwaking away.

The truck’s muffler suddenly drops off, hitting the ground with a clatter. Peter’s friend stops whatever they’re doing with the blueprint and starts over, yelling at them about break it, bought it. Stiles ignores him and picks up the muffler, then pokes some clear dots along the top.

“Is this superglue?” he says.

“And I think I will take that extra inspector,” Peter says into the awkward silence that follows. He folds up the blueprint and sticks it under his arm. “It would be terrible if that work turned out to be as shoddy.”

“All right, then I think that’s a no,” Lydia says with mock brightness. She dusts her hands off, as if Stiles isn’t the one holding the greasy muffler, and then sashays back to Allison’s car. “Call me when you find one that’s not defective!”

* * *

“I am never getting my own car. Ever.” Stiles flops face-down into Scott’s couch. “It’s a curse, right? I pissed off somebody somewhere down the line, and will never own my very own self-propelled internal combustion engine.”

Scott pats his shoulder. “You’re going to get a car, Stiles. You just haven’t found the right one yet.”

“Dude, I don’t want to marry it, I just want something that will get me from point A to point B,” Stiles says into the cushions. Which smell a little weird. He snorts it out, then rolls over and hangs his head over the edge so he can feel at the runes on the underside. Melissa’s usually spotless at keeping that sort of stuff up, but she’s been doubling up since they got to town, between her regular job and the explosion of Service-related stuff. “And okay, that will support an experimental loudspeaker system for emitting a variety of physically crippling frequencies, but honestly, is that too much to ask?”

“Uh.” Scott hesitates, then slides down to sit on the floor. He wraps his arm over Stiles’ shoulders so Stiles won’t fall on his head. “So…how’s your dad?”

“Still looking into it.” Stiles pulls himself back up and looks at Scott. “Tell me you believe me, okay? Derek and Peter listen, but they just keep saying he smells relaxed to them and that’s the whole point. You know, when I told him about Peter teaching Jackson how to hunt, he was just like, that is very nice of Peter, you’ll remind them about getting Jackson a game permit too, right?”

“Jackson doesn’t have one?” Scott asks. “Wow, his parents really do suck. What’s he supposed to do if he slips and kills a duck out of season?”

Stiles puts his face back in the cushions. The runes seem fine, so maybe the McCalls just need to update. God knows the Hales are running out of stuff to change up at Stiles’ house. “Call his daddy and have him lawyer his way out of it?”

“Oh. True.” Scott absently hugs Stiles while taking out his phone. It’s the ringtone for his mom, which is legit, but then he starts checking his other texts and Stiles can see the moment when scrolling through old ones from Allison takes over Scott’s brain. The mush literally glazes his eyes. “Have you tried asking your dad about it?”

“What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Dad, you are being oddly chill and while that is making my life a lot easier, I am worried about you?’ Do you want him to go back to double-checking all of our exit strategies?” Stiles says.

“Well, if you don’t want him to be strict again, why are you worried?” Scott says.

Stiles reaches out and swipes Scott’s phone from him. He tosses it onto the coffee table, ignoring Scott’s cry of protest, and then rolls onto his back and hangs his legs off the end of the couch. “Because it’s abnormal, Scott.”

“Our whole lives are abnormal, Stiles,” Scott says, exasperated. He grabs at his phone and looks at it, then screws up his face and puts it away and glares down at Stiles. Because he might be a lovesick muppet but he is still the most ridiculously nice, thoughtful guy Stiles has ever dug up bodies with. “Look, I get it. I do. But we checked and he’s not possessed, and you say he’s not hiding anything at work, and maybe it’s just…normal stuff. Like getting to live here. I mean, Mom’s different since you guys moved in.”

“That’s because of the thing that we cannot talk about or you forget to breathe,” Stiles says.

Scott hits his arm, then slumps down to smush his face into the side of the couch cushion. “I don’t forget to breathe, I just…I don’t know why I can’t get over it, you know? I mean, I want her to be happy. And it’s not like she hasn’t dated before. And it’s your dad, you know, at least I already know the guy and know he’s all right.”

Stiles frowns. “Wait, he’s the one you have problems with? Not Chris?”

“Um, no, I have…” Scott exhales irritably and runs both hands through his hair “…no. No. I don’t have problems with either of them. Not really. So…my mom’s dating my girlfriend’s dad. Okay, well, you’re with both Derek and Peter, at the same time.”

“Well, they’re werewolves, and since nobody’s risking gene pool defects, it’s culturally not that big a deal,” Stiles says. “Also, I would have thought you’d have a bigger issue with the fact that he’s a hunter and has been historically kind of a jerk to you? Which, I know about his family history, but it’s still hypocritical if he’s got wolfy genes himself. Oh! Speaking of, how wolfy does Allison get? Is this why she’s always jumping out windows with you?”

Scott opens and closes his mouth a couple times. But, since he’s used to Stiles, he just takes a deep breath and then ticks off his fingers one by one. “That’s what I’m saying, I’m cool with you so it’d be stupid if I wasn’t cool with Mom. Uh, yeah, Mr. Argent was an asshole but it was just because he was worried about Allison, which I get, and it wasn’t the werewolf thing so much as her crazy aunt and granddad were targeting werewolves and anybody hanging around them. Also, honestly, I probably should not have helped her play hooky for a whole day that soon after her granddad tried to kidnap her. And Allison doesn’t get wolfy, so far as I can tell. What does that matter, anyway?”

“It doesn’t, it’s just interesting. There’s not a lot of stuff out there on F1 and F2 genetics for humans born into werewolf packs, though if they all end up hunters, I guess that makes sense. Probably another one of those, yeah, proud to show it, but the details are a trade secret,” Stiles says. Then he rolls his eyes at himself. “We’re getting off the subject here. Back to my dad.”

“You sure you don’t want to talk about genetics?” Scott says half-heartedly.

“Scott, my brother, I’m guessing your grade in that module would’ve been a lot higher if I’d thought to use the genetic probability of Allison inheriting Chris’ chompy smile to explain Punnett squares, but it still would’ve been C range,” Stiles says, just as the front door opens.

“Inheriting my what?” Chris says, walking in with a black duffel bag in either hand. Then he and Stiles stare at each other. He looks like he wants to know and also like he knows exactly what probability he’s got of finding out without risking horrible mental trauma.

Then Stiles’ dad walks in. “What?” he says. He’s got mud smeared all over his right side and he looks annoyed. Then he sees Stiles and Scott and he looks annoyed and furtive. “What are you two doing here? I thought you were checking out a truck with Peter.”

“What are you doing here? Mom texted that she was getting off early!” Scott yelps.

“Because I am, now move, these noodles are just getting soggier by the second,” Melissa says. She elbows between Chris and Stiles’ dad, glances pointedly at the muddy foot Stiles’ dad does not have on the welcome mat, and then heads into the kitchen with a double handful of bags from her and Scott’s favorite Chinese take-out joint. “Back with wipes in a sec, John.”

“Don’t freak out, I just slipped and slid down a muddy hillside,” Stiles’ dad says to Stiles. “Jogging loop three’s blocked off, we’re gonna have to get a backhoe to clear it.”

Stiles stops halfway to reaching out to the tree. “Oh, okay. Also, the truck didn’t work out, because the owner is an idiot who fixes stuff with superglue. Peter dropped me off with Scott because he’s busy getting revenge on the guy.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that,” Stiles’ dad says. He takes off his coat and then starts scratching at the half-dried mud on it. Then Chris coughs, looking at the brown flakes getting all over Melissa’s floor, and Stiles’ dad grimaces and turns around so he can hold his coat out the front door.

Chris watches that for a second, then turns around and looks towards the kitchen. Stiles is willing him on, but instead of helping Melissa with that, he looks back at Stiles. “Did you…have something you wanted to ask me?” he says.

Why can’t he suck up to Stiles’ dad the easy, obvious way, Stiles thinks. “Nope,” Stiles says.

“We were just talking about werewolf genetics,” Scott says helpfully. He jerks forward when Stiles elbows the back of his head, turns his head to do his wounded puppy-eyes over his shoulder, and gets caught in the sightline of Chris’ deeply suspicious look. “Um, for class! We’re doing, um, hybrid squares and were talking about werewolf inheritance and, um—”

“Oh, God, shut up,” Stiles mutters. He grabs Scott’s shoulder, then sighs and makes himself look at Chris. “If I say it’s got nothing to do with you, would you try to believe me?”

“I don’t think I’m that good at make-believe,” Chris says dryly. And then, just as Stiles thinks they might get out of it with a good one-liner, go team Argent, Chris sighs and steps into the room. “Is this about—”

Stiles’ dad comes into the room right behind Chris, shoeless and sockless and with the cuffs of his pants rolled up. He looks weirdly beach-bum like that and it throws Stiles into not immediately detouring the conversation. “That was in the briefing, Stiles.”

“Hey, I skimmed it but I’m still working on the deep dive. The footnotes alone were ten pages long, Dad, even I’m not that quick a reader,” Stiles says, exasperated. He throws up his hands and flops back onto the couch. “Anyway, whatever, liking weres and mixed everything families runs in our family, big deal. Though that explains a lot about the hickeys. I don’t remember you doing that before.”

Scott and Chris both look like they really, really wish they had taken those earlier outs, while Stiles’ dad winces and then shakes it off and rubs at the mud crusted on his hip. He glances at Chris, who is now hunching his shoulders so his coat-collar rides up over one such hickey. “So…I asked our researchers to put together what they had on hunter courtship,” he mutters. “And your family. I didn’t know what you were doing, and…”

“Oh. Right.” Chris raises his hand and rubs at the side of his face. He shifts vaguely in the direction of the kitchen, then shrugs and offers Stiles’ dad a wry smile. “Well, it’s not like I was being that helpful right then. But they actually have that kind of stuff? Can I see it? I didn’t know the Service had resources on that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s more of an interagency database and they don’t have a ton, and what they do have is all totally misclassified and it’s gonna be another couple weeks before I get it all straightened out with the librarians so you might want to wait,” Stiles says. Then he sighs as Chris and his dad look strangely at him. “Besides, we weren’t even really talking about that.”

His dad looks at the kitchen, then takes a deep, pained breath. “I’m going to regret this, but whatever it was, do I need to know?”

An elbow connects with Stiles’ shin. When Stiles looks down, Scott is scrambling to his feet, smiling like a maniac and nodding frantically at Stiles’ dad. “So, um, I’m gonna go…get some towels for you, Mr. Stilinski,” he says. “Uh, hey, Mr. Argent, you want to help me and Mom find those wipes?”

“Sure,” Chris says, after a glance at Stiles’ dad.

“Don’t look at me like that, it’s not bad,” Stiles says, while Chris and Scott exit. Chris is asking Scott whether they were talking about Allison, and Scott is saying Allison didn’t care about his werewolf side so he doesn’t care what’s in her make-up, and sadly, Stiles’ dad is standing in the doorway and ignoring all of that, in the stance that means he’s not leaving till he is fully convinced Stiles isn’t feeding him a story. “Okay, fine, look, it’s just you’re acting weird.”

Stiles’ father blinks. “I’m doing what?”

“You’re being all…okay with me,” Stiles says. “I mean, you’re letting me run missions on my own and not questioning my plans and everything. Not that I’m objecting! I’m not, it’s nice, it’s just…not you.”

“What mission? We don’t have any missions right now, what are you talking about?” Stiles’ dad says. Then he cocks his head. “Wait, is this…is this about the car?”

“You’re letting me go to hunter homes and check out Peter’s shady connections and stuff like that! And you’re not even asking me whether I know what I’m doing!” Stiles says. He’s maybe a little loud. He hears Melissa ask what’s going on and then Chris’ voice answers her, too soft to make out the words, and suddenly the kitchen door shuts. “It’s like you’re just handing me the budget and letting me do whatever I want with it!”

“That’s because I am handing you the budget and letting you figure out what to do with it,” Stiles’ dad says. He starts to come into the room, then grimaces and looks down at the mud dripping off his pants. The foyer’s floor is wood but the room is carpeted. “Jesus, son, if this is how you’re going to react every time I loosen the reins a little, I am seriously rethinking letting you go out of state for college.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, because they both know out of state for Stiles doesn’t really mean out of state. He doesn’t have to be at the tree every day, especially after the first year, but he’s eligible for special accommodations and remote learning options and he’s totally not wasting them. “Oh, my God, I’m not saying it’s not a good thing. It’s just—kind of sudden. You know, usually you still hold onto the handlebar for a little bit after the training wheels off. You don’t launch your kid like a catapult.”

“Am I that bad?” Stiles’ dad suddenly says, looking guilty. “Stiles, I know I’ve been a little bit—”

“Ugh, don’t make me repeat myself, it’s fine. I get it—I got mad sometimes, okay, but I always got it in the end.” Stiles starts to go on, but he runs out of things to say. He pauses awkwardly and then slumps back onto the couch. “I just…I don’t get it yet this time, Dad. That’s all.”

Stiles’ dad grimaces and almost steps onto the carpet. He catches himself, lets out a frustrated noise, and then grabs the edge of the doorway with one hand and runs his other hand back through his hair.

“You’re a senior, you’re halfway to college,” he says quietly. “You have your own tree and it’s doing great, and you’re an alpha with a growing pack. You’re growing up, Stiles, and I’m just trying to get out of the way. You want to make stupid decisions about your own car, you should get to. Well, so long as it doesn’t involve the hospital or the morgue.”

Oh. Well. Sometimes…sometimes Stiles is kind of stupid.

“I…” Stiles starts. He sits there and searches for something to say, and then gives up. Gets up and crosses the room and hugs his dad, mud and all.

His dad hugs him back for a second, hard and tight. Then he stands back and looks at Stiles. “Anyway, I ran background checks on everybody, and you always had Derek or Peter along,” his dad says. “And whatever you and Lydia are up to, you’re not driving the car till it passes whatever testing the DMV requires and all the Service testing.”

“That’s more like it,” Stiles says, grinning. He looks down at himself, wiping at some mud on his shoulder. There’s actually not that much on him, and it’s laundry night anyway. “Well, great, I was starting to think I was losing my touch. It’s been personal revelation ground zero around here lately.”

There’s a knocking sound, and then Melissa peeks out from around the kitchen door. She raises her brows and nods approvingly when she sees Stiles’ dad is still on the wood floor, then comes out with a container of wipes and a mop. Chris is behind her with the bucket.

“Stiles, are you staying for dinner?” Melissa says. She hands the wipes to Stiles’ dad, then blinks as Chris takes the mop from her and starts attacking the dribbles by the front door. “I wasn’t expecting you and Scott but we can stretch things out with more rice.”

“Um, no, Derek’s coming over as soon as he picks up Cora from her thing,” Stiles says. “Hey, why is Dad with you? He looks okay.”

“Chris was going to pick me up anyway, so I didn’t think it made sense for him to drop off your dad and then turn around and get me,” Melissa says. Then she hears Scott moaning in the kitchen and turns and misses the way Stiles’ dad stiffens.

Stiles crosses his arms and looks at his father. “Why is he picking you up if it’s just a washed-out trail?”

His dad looks so embarrassed Stiles can’t help a smirk. Which puts back his dad’s shoulders and narrows his eyes. “Because we were going to have dinner without the kids,” he says blandly.

Like Stiles is going to turn down that challenge. “Dinner?” Stiles says. “Listen, you want to piggyback on my alpha shtick, you’re my dad, but I draw the line at MSG-wallowing junk food. That stuff probably has more fat and salt than a preserved whale.”

“One time isn’t going to hurt him, Stiles,” Melissa says irritably, before either Chris (abandoned the mop, edging towards the kitchen) or Stiles’ dad (weirdly, twitching at Scott’s background yelp before Melissa’s even done) can cut in. “Besides, we’ll work it off.”

Stiles—has nothing to say to that.

“You hit low,” Stiles’ dad says to Melissa, grinning.

“I’m going to get some more wipes for my car seats. No, keep those, I saw another container,” Chris says, pushing Stiles’ dad’s hand away. He takes another step towards the kitchen, then glances back at Stiles’ dad. He still looks embarrassed as hell, but there’s a funny glint in his eye. “Alpha gets first bite and all.”

“I’m not an alpha,” John says, staring at Chris’ back. He looks disturbed and amused and put-upon, and also, his eyes are dipping down there.

“He’s coming along,” Melissa says, nodding appreciatively.

Stiles backs away from them. “Scott,” he calls. “Scott, dude, why shouldn’t we be here right now?”

“Uh, Jackson texted us a photo of a car he found? Says he thinks it might work?” Scott says, hurrying up to him.

Stiles hugs him. “Scott, you are my bestest,” he says. “Let’s get out of here, I’ll call Derek from the driveway. I think a speeding ticket’s worth it.”

“We’re two away from quota!” Stiles’ dad yells. “I’m not getting that one cleared!”

“I know!” Stiles yells back. Then he rolls his eyes and hustles Scott out the front door. “Still, totally worth it.”

* * *

Jackson sticks his hands in his pockets and crooks his elbow so Lydia can hang off to maximum advantage for the benefit of passing drivers, and smugly jerks his chin at it. “I told you, even from the road, it looked perfect. Danny and I were driving over to the mall and we saw it.”

‘It’ is a battered Jeep with only one door, a bashed rear bumper, and two flat tires, sitting in the side-yard of a pawnshop, which is part of a small strip mall on the (slightly, because Beacon Hills is a yuppie commuter ‘burb) seedier side of town. Lydia and Derek and Stiles have been all over it, and the remaining parts are all solid, have been expertly stripped of any previous magical work, and work perfectly with Lydia’s specs. It’s stick, but it has four-wheel drive and it’ll take parts for army models which means that Stiles can get those free to dirt-cheap from his dad’s old military buddies. The asking price is just a grand, anyway, which leaves plenty of budget for dressing it up.

“I actually agree with you,” Stiles says. He steps back and claps his hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “You done good, man.”

Jackson looks at Stiles’ hand. He opens his mouth, winces as Lydia curls her nails in, and then ducks his head while still looking at Stiles’ hand. “You’re wrinkling my shirt,” he mutters. “This is Tom Ford.”

“And there’s the asshole we were waiting for.” Stiles lifts his hand and smacks the back of Jackson’s head, then leaves Lydia to soothe him and goes back to the car. He stands by Derek, who’s still digging around under the hood. “Please tell me you don’t have a huffing addiction, Derek. That would be very sad, and also, I don’t think I could help myself from making three little pigs jokes.”

Derek turns his head sideways. “You say things and I don’t know if it’s English anymore,” he says. When Stiles hits him, he just takes it like the solid wall of wolf muscle he is. “I’m sniffing for leaks. There are a couple, we’ll probably have to get it towed over.”

“You want me to wait?” Scott asks, shifting from foot to foot like a toddler. “Allison and I—”

“Have a movie date, yeah, yeah, just go,” Stiles says. “Hey, maybe the wolf genes are more subtle than we’re thinking. Are sex drives inheritable?”

Scott will suffer a lot with, well, honestly, not a lot of dignity, but he does have his lines in the sand. He sighs and stares at Stiles and his eyes somehow become huge pools of suffering. “Stiles.”

“Ugh, okay, fine, I’ll stop.” Stiles drapes his arm over Derek’s back. “Till I get my computer.”

“What, so nothing’s going to happen?” Jackson asks. When Stiles and Scott look at him, he looks at them right back like they’re the dumbasses. “Come on, you two always have some bizarre story.”

“Nothing’s happened before when I’ve bought a car, because I’ve never bought a car before,” Stiles says. “Now, can you not jinx it?”

At that point, Lydia smartly excuses herself and Jackson. Allison pulls up while Derek is calling a towing service and gets Scott out of there, and then it’s just Stiles and Derek, sitting in the Jeep.

“It is a little small,” Derek says. He tries to stretch his legs, hits the back of the footwell, and pulls them back and stretches his arms over his head instead. Then he looks over his shoulder into the backseat. “Peter’s not going to like that. We’re going to have to get some padding in there.”

“You really think Peter’s going to let you have shotgun?” Stiles says.

Derek shrugs. “Well, all three of us can’t fit back there at the same time.”

Stiles snorts and slouches down in his seat. “I’m not buying this just so we can have sex in it,” he says. “Actually, it might be good if we had one sex-free zone. I gotta have somewhere I can’t be distracted.”

Derek doesn’t say anything. He just hooks his arms over the top of his seat and pulls against them, grunting and then exhaling slowly. His neck and back arch up against the seat and his shirt rides up till a sliver of belly shows, then drops as he relaxes.

“Hah,” Stiles says, prying his eyes away. He makes himself look forward. “Hey, so how was your record thing? Um, Peter mentioned it.”

“What?” Derek says. He takes his arms down, making an annoyed sound when a piece of the seat cover goes with it; they’re probably just going to have to reupholster the whole thing. “Oh. Oh, okay, I guess. They’re going to use my mix.”

“Cool.” Then Stiles looks over and Derek has his scowl on. “Not cool? Hey, if you don’t want me to talk about it, just say so.”

“What?” Derek says again. “What, no, I just…do you want to?”

Stiles is wondering how to explain basic conversation rules when Derek grimaces and rumples his hair. He pushes himself up in the seat and then slides as far as the gearshift will let him, so he can press their arms together.

“It’s not a big deal, I just…I guess that’s why I keep forgetting to tell you,” Derek says. He pauses, then smiles a little ruefully. “Sometimes I have a hard time believing I actually have a degree. It still feels like a hobby.”

“Well, that’s how jobs are supposed to feel like, right? I mean, the good ones?” Stiles says.

Derek makes a face. “I don’t think I’d call it a job. Your tree’s not a hobby, is it?”

“No, but not everybody has to be life-bonded to their work,” Stiles says. He scrunches back his shoulder, then works his arm around so he can curl his hand around the side of Derek’s neck. “I do think it’s cool. People get to hear your stuff, you know. Most of what me and my dad do, nobody but us are ever going to know about it. Which is good, if they did they’d probably run around screaming about how close we all are to dying, but…I guess everybody wants some recognition once in a while.”

“I don’t know if I want it for my mixing,” Derek says after a moment. “It’s fun, but it…started out as this thing I did so nobody would bother me. Yeah, I like hearing my work on TV, stuff like that, but I don’t want it to turn into something people start following me around for. I make money off it, I can contribute to the pack, but I don’t have—leave to do it. And I feel like if I got more attention, I’d have to leave.”

He’s kind of tense under Stiles’ hand, and he’s too far for Stiles to try for a bite, at least without wrenching a knee, so Stiles just rubs his hand up and down Derek’s neck. Digs in with a nail when he thinks he feels Derek’s muscles starting to give. Derek inhales sharply, then hums and tilts his head towards Stiles.

“I can see that,” Stiles says. “Well, it’s your thing. However you want to handle it is fine with me.”

“I should’ve mentioned it.” Derek looks at him. “No, really. You should know that kind of thing about us, and you shouldn’t have to dig for it, either. We get that you’re new to this, you know. And we are older, we do know more, we should be better at making up for the difference.”

“Oh, for…” Stiles cuts himself off when he sees how seriously Derek is taking this. He honestly doesn’t feel offended at all, but it’s important to Derek and Peter and he’d be a shitty alpha if he just blew that off. It’s not just a stupid rule to them.

Derek raises his brows. “Why are you grinning?”

“Ah…well, honestly, I was just remembering something Chris said, about traditions having personal meaning. I really, really should have figured out he’s got werewolf genes quicker. I mean, I wrote an entire memo on hunter co-evolution. I spent a half-hour just trying to figure out how to properly footnote pie charts!” Stiles says, trying not to laugh at himself. And then he’s trying not to laugh at Derek’s expression. He’s also kind of a terrible alpha for constantly freaking out his betas, but he’s…not fixing that one. “But back on topic. Yeah, it’d be nice to know this stuff. So you guys try and remember to tell me, and I’ll try and remember to ask you stuff so you don’t actually have to read my mind to figure out what I want to know. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Derek says.

He slumps down, but it’s just so he can stick his knees against the dash and rest his head back against the seat. Stiles rubs his neck again and Derek makes a lazy, comfortable noise, pressing into Stiles’ hand. And then his knee slides across the dash and bangs into the door, and he sits up with a curse.

“Ow. Can we make it bigger?” Derek mutters, poking his knee.

“Uh, no. Trying to replicate a TARDIS in real life is a bad move,” Stiles says. “Though if anyone ever asks, the property damage was not my fault. That car had a low-riding gear I didn’t know about.”

Derek glances over, pauses, and then twists around so he can look squarely at Stiles. “Okay, all the destroyed cars you and Scott keep bringing up. Just how many are we talking about?”

“Well, look, that’s kind of complicated because assigning fault isn’t always just down to who’s in the driver’s seat, and for that matter, figuring out who is actually responsible for driving the car is…okay, okay. Well. It’s…just a little over a hundred.” Stiles sinks down in his seat. “Shut up, I—”

Have forgotten about holding onto Derek’s neck, so suddenly Derek is sprawling across the seats and half-onto Stiles. He grunts and twists off the gearshift and parking brake, humping his head up Stiles’ chest while he’s checking whether either of those impaled him, like they don’t all know werewolves have steel-reinforced abs. Not that Stiles actually minds watching Derek push up his shirt.

“Alpha, if you really, really need to drive my car, I…guess I’ll think about it, but I’d really like it if you didn’t,” Derek says. He prods at his flexing, taut, really quite lickable muscles some more, then lets his hand drop without totally pulling his shirt down and looks up at Stiles. “Please?”

“Ugh, you and Scott and puppy eyes,” Stiles says. He’s already got his hand in Derek’s hair, petting it soothingly. “That’s why we’re getting me a junk car, so I don’t feel bad about trashing it.”

Derek snorts. “Yeah, I don’t think I like that either. How many of those accidents ended up hurting you?”

“Well, obviously I didn’t lose any body parts or suffer lasting brain damage,” Stiles says. He pets Derek’s hair some more, both because it makes Derek make ridiculously adorable little whuffing noises and because he could use the distraction. Some of those incidents still aren’t really that funny, even in hindsight. “That’s why we’re getting me a car I can fully customize, instead of just a rental or a temporary Service car. So I can add in all the features I want, including the safety ones.”

“Huh,” Derek says. He looks better, but still not totally convinced. “How did you pass your driving test again?”

Stiles stops petting him. “Derek, not letting me drive is not an acceptable safety measure. For one thing, I’ve seen your insurance premiums.”

“I’m fine,” Derek says, looking wounded. He shifts his head a couple times, but when Stiles doesn’t go back to petting him, he levers himself up to glower at Stiles. “Those were all—”

So Stiles’ knees are crowding the wheel, too, but it’s worth it to slide down just at the right moment to catch Derek mid-bitching. Derek’s lips keep moving against his for one second, because Stiles can’t get his hand to the back of Derek’s neck right away—elbow sticks on the sticky crappy seat cover—and then they latch onto Stiles’ lower lip and suck it against Derek’s teeth. Stiles pulls Derek’s head down some more and Derek ends up kicking the door on his side, breaking the kiss when he growls. He chills out when Stiles nibbles the stubble on his jaw.

There’s a bang against the window. Peter smiles nicely at them till Derek stops flopping on the gearshift and trying to snarl Peter into going away, and irritably stretches over to crank down the window. Then he ducks his head in and looks around the inside.

“I don’t think we’re that flexible,” Peter says, studying the backseat.

“It’s not a sex car!” Stiles snaps. He squirms up from under Derek and shoves Peter’s head out the window, and then gets the door open and gets out.

So okay, he kind of forgot they’re facing a busy road, so there’s not just the tow truck guy but also a line of cars suddenly speeding up. Stiles glares at them, scrubbing at some spit Derek left on his mouth, and then shrugs and leans back against the car.

“Perves,” he snorts. He pats the Jeep’s side and nods for the tow truck guy to come over. “Whatever, baby. Let’s get you home and get you prettied up.”

* * *

“Need a break?” Stiles says.

Peter rocks on his knees and moans, not really hearing him. He’s head-down, a collar and cuffs set keeping his wrists pinned under his chin and his face nearly in the floor. His legs aren’t tied down but when he spreads his knees, his cock head grazes the floor, and that’s cold concrete and his cock is pretty sensitive from being squeezed into a cage for nearly an hour now, so his hips jerk straight back up. His head drops again and this time Derek snakes the photo album out from under it just before Peter smushes his sweaty forehead all over the pages.

Stiles laughs, then coughs, a little short of breath himself. He flops down on the mat that’s next to Peter, puts down the cane, and then holds his wrist up and crooks it around. It’s been a while since he’s used a rod and lacrosse clearly hasn’t kept up his muscle tone.

He’s wincing when he feels hands sliding up his legs. Derek slithers over the mat and up till he’s propped on Stiles’ thighs, nuzzling at the fly of Stiles’ jeans. He glances up at Stiles, then cranes his neck to lip at Stiles’ wrist, the sore one, when Stiles strokes his cheek. Then he turns back, strips down Stiles’ jeans and swallows Stiles’ cock in what looks like one seamless movement.

So nope, Stiles doesn’t exactly last. On the bright side, it only takes him a couple minutes to get his motor control back, which is good because he needs to check the voltage controls. He pushes Derek’s head off his belly and squirms up enough to reach; Peter moans again, more insistently, arching so the wires trailing between him and the controls go taut. Electrodes are taped across the small of his back and the tops of his thighs, curving under his buttocks, keeping the angry red lines from fading off his ass.

Stiles sighs and reaches over to thread one hand into Peter’s hair, tugging till Peter settles down. “So we’re through immediate family,” he says. “What’s next? Francis?”

“Doesn’t talk to his old pack,” Peter gasps. “Was an—Stiles, please—omega, technically, when he and Talia met.”

“Okay.” Stiles lets his hand slide down and Peter obligingly twists his head, laves eagerly at Stiles’ fingers. “But I actually think it’s Derek’s turn?”

Derek lifts his head, looking a little concerned. He’s not so much about the toys as Peter, but since he’s better about keeping his hands off his cock when Stiles tells him, it works out fine. Stiles moves his leg and pushes it up against Derek’s erection, then moves it back when Derek starts to rut against it. Derek jerks after it, but stops himself, trembling, when Stiles hisses at him.

“What,” he mutters. Then he jerks again, because they’re in the garage by Stiles’ half-assembled Jeep and somebody’s just walked into the laundry room on the other side of the door. His eyes go wide and also, completely scorching hot, because Derek’s not really an exhibitionist but he definitely has a thing about getting caught. “Shit.”

“Shut up, it’s locked, so long as you don’t scream or anything we’re fine,” Stiles says. “Dad?”

“Stiles?” his dad calls through the door. It sounds like he’s opening the washing machine or the dryer. “You know you forgot to turn this on, right?”

“Uh, no, oops! Sorry?” Stiles says. “Hey, you’re home early!”

There’s a muffled click and then the washing machine starts. “Just forgot some files, I’m heading back to the office now,” his dad says. He pauses. “So should I come back for dinner?”

Stiles freezes. Then looks down at Derek. “How many cousins do we have to go through?”

Derek is scraping up concrete shavings with his claws on either side of the mat. He stares glassy-eyed at the new box of engine parts Stiles is using as an excuse for locking them in. “Uh. Which side—”

Peter inhales like he’s going to answer for him, then lets out a frustrated hiss when Stiles squeezes his jaw. That still somehow communicates with Derek, who butts his head against Stiles’ thigh and lets out a shuddering breath.

“I guess five or six that come over for holidays,” Derek mutters. “Fuck, alpha, come on, I didn’t even bring those albums—”

“Because Chris texted, he’s having duck cacciatore, and Melissa says she bought a coconut cream pie,” his dad calls.

Stiles blinks hard. Then glares at the door. “You’re just mad I’m not letting you use the garage for a month! I know where Melissa gets those pies from, never mind about the massive saturated fat content, Dad, have you seen their health inspection rating—”

“Duck and pie it is,” his dad says. “See you in the morning, son. Don’t blow up the house.”

“That—is so—oh, my God.” Stiles flops over, just as the sound of his father’s footsteps fades away. He stares at the ceiling for a second, then pushes himself up on his arm. “Never mind being less of a control freak, he’s flat-out screwing with me now, isn’t it?”

Derek and Peter stare at him, panting, shaking, hair plastered across their foreheads and along the sides of their faces with sweat. Peter twitches his hips, calling Stiles’ attention over to his welted ass, and then Derek moans and buries his head in Stiles’ thigh.

“Fuck my cousins, alpha, please,” Derek says. “Can we please fuck?”

“You know, at this rate, I might finish the Jeep before we get through your family tree,” Stiles says, though he’s already switching off the electricity. He pulls Derek up for a messy kiss, which he means to be quick but can’t really break off once it’s started, so then he has to inchworm them over to Peter. “Gonna have to come up with another excuse.”

Peter bucks up as Derek’s hair brushes his ass, then groans when Derek switches from licking at the back of Stiles’ throat to licking his fading welts. He half-twists and rubs himself along Stiles’ side as Stiles scoots up next to him, reaching under his belly for the cock cage. “We’ll find something,” he says, nuzzling at Stiles’ mouth. “Anything you want to know, please.”

Stiles mishears because Jesus, he’s half-hard again, and Peter is making little throaty begging noises in between each word. “Everything?”

Peter doesn’t even pause. Just presses down against Stiles, slumping as his cock finally slides from the cage into Stiles’ fingers. “Yes, yes, please.”

“Oh, good, God,” Stiles says, and shoves away anything but the two men in front of him. That, at least, he doesn’t have to ask about.

Notes:

Handicapping in mixed (i.e. were/other supernatural creature and human) sports: I'm borrowing from horse-racing, where horses have to carry varying amounts of extra weight to create a "level" playing field.

Jackson being a trust-fund baby: I know the series says he gets an insurance payout at 18, which they all are. He got it, but in a momentary fit of common sense, got tax and investment advisors and promptly reinvested it in a tax-advantaged trust fund.

The cars in Truman’s barn are from: Supernatural, Stephen King’s Christine, the Bay Transformers movies, and the first Fast and Furious movie.

Rabies: As far as werewolf healing goes, the show is uneven on this so I'm just going with, it'll heal most human diseases but there are some exceptions, especially for diseases that also affect wolves. Mostly because it fits my plotting purposes. And provides a convenient excuse for why kanima didn't happen here (different alpha, Jackson got immediate medical aid because they had to quarantine him for rabies, weres being known means medicine has treatments to make sure turnings don't kill people and/or otherwise go wrong).

Werewolf genetics: my thoughts for this universe are that it's a multi-gene phenotype, and if you turn off different genes you get intermediate phenotypes from full werewolf to basically normal human. Also, you may have incomplete expression of a gene, so Chris might carry genes for, say, super-wolfy smiles (which is where this whole train of thought came from, because Tyler Hoechlin might have classic werewolf features but JR Bourne has the wolfiest, most feral smile of the whole cast, for my money), but while Allison inherits that gene, it doesn't express to the same degree so her smile is just wide and toothy in a friendly way.

Derek works as a mixing engineer, which is the person who takes the studio recordings and puts them together into an actual track.

In this 'verse, magic and technology exist side-by-side, and everyone can do a little bit of magic because lower orders are mostly the result of knowing what to do and to say when and how. Actual mages are the only ones who can do higher orders, but even people who aren't magically talented can do something like erase a rune, so it's still useful for that kind of thing to be circulating as common knowledge. I guess I'm analogizing it a little bit to being able to write computer code; I think everybody's capable of learning HTML, for example, but writing a decent encryption algorithm requires a good grasp of fairly advanced mathematics.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 4 of Sustainable Management