Chapter Text
Hospital chairs were a horrible place to fall asleep. Hardness of plastic, creaking, crumpled space. Inability to fully extend your spine. Lights above - always on, with this almost inaudible hum that rang in Stiles’ ears even when Melissa exiled her from the Memorial.
Ghosts.
Not real ones - Stiles was worried, legitimately, considering what even is their lives? So she pounced on Derek to try and get him to burn his uncle’s body. Just in case he comes back.
“I think it’s a bit insensitive,” Scott whispered to her. “Since, you know.”
They were standing in a half-circle there, she and Scott. Allison, blinking away tears. Allison’s dad, who was trying to glare at Scott, Derek, and Derek’s dead uncle, who they all gathered to kill today. Jackson was somewhere on the perimeter. Maybe in the Porsche. Kate Argent, not an iota less dead than Peter Hale, was lying outside of their line of sight, too.
“And Kate,” Stiles said to Chris. “We should burn her, too. I assume you don’t want her to come back either, because we’re not the ones who shot her in the back. Metaphorically. ‘Cause you shot her in the face. Well, not the face…”
“Stiles, is it?” Chris pronounced her nickname like a he’s remembering it for future reference. “We do not burn werewolves to make sure they don’t come back ‘as ghosts’.”
He did the finger-quotes. Still clutching his handgun. Which he used to kill his own sister. After Peter slashed her throat. A bit too much, in Stiles’ opinion; Kate was probably the favorite child. Now Chris was never going to let go of this gun, Stiles supposed.
All things considered, Chris was still handling the murder-of-your-maybe-not-so-dear-relative better than Derek. Because Derek? Was clutching his uncle’s body and howling.
And that had been going on a while: a pause, and then Stiles thought they could finally move to a part where they hide the bodies or doctor a crime scene, Derek would start again. No wonder Jackson went to wait in the car - probably turned on the radio, too. With the headphones on.
Which is why Stiles made that suggestion about burning the bodies. But no, everyone was a critic.
“It’s not an easy task to burn a body so completely, there are no bones left,” Chris lectured. “You need at least 1,400 F and several hours. And unless you would like to cut Hale into parts, transport the parts to your friend’s place of work, and burn it in the animal-grade furnace…”
“Wow, you put a lot of thought into it,” Stiles said. “Experience? Or just planning and preparedness?”
At that point Scott took several steps away from her, projecting with his whole body ‘I don’t know her’. It was a familiar sight, since Allison came into picture.
More unexpected was when Scott put his hand on Derek's shoulder. Like, c'mon! That was a man who robbed Stiles' best friend's only chance for maybe becoming a mere mortal again. To un-Sheakspeare his and Allison's epic doomed romance of the century! And here he was, offering condolences.
“I'm sorry,” Scott said. “For Stiles. She didn't mean anything by it.”
Derek growled at him, then fluidly changing his target, at Chris, who took the safety off again.
“No, Miss Stilinski, we do not burn werewolves to prevent them coming back to life, we cut them in half.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, though. I will go with a mix of both, because you obviously know the size of the Dr. Deatons furnace, and I doubt he gave you a tour of the facilities. Also, is it a real concern? Resurrection? Because I was talking about ghosts, right. Horrible in their own right, but…”
Allison tried to put her hand over Stiles’ mouth. Probably she thought shaking her hand was inefficient.
“Stiles,” Derek finally stopped growling and turned that ultra-red glare at her. “I will not let you do anything to the body.”
“You’re not going to just - leave him here? Both of them. What if…”
“Ghosts don’t exist,” Derek said, finally standing up from his knees.
“See, I thought the same about you guys.” She didn’t press the issue, seeing that she finally helped Derek to overcome his grief and guilt - by making him really irritated. “Anyway - what I was trying to say, what if you hide the body, someone finds it, and then the police finds your DNA on it? Will they be able to detect it’s not human DNA?”
“No.”
“Will they be able to match it to yours, though - you’re already in the system.”
“And we’re sorry for that,” Scott said. “We just thought - you were behaving suspiciously, and we didn’t know your uncle was…”
“Somebody needs to take the fall,” Chris said.
He lowered his gun sometime after Derek became verbal again. Also less likely to meet anyone’s eye.
“Peter Hale killed all those people, someone needs to be assigned responsibility for that. If you do not want this town to attract even more attention.” He continued. “But leading an investigation to him would raise questions. How can a catatonic man - a man with severe burn scars - suddenly improve so much, without anyone noticing. And Kate…”
He trailed off, but Derek nodded. Although he didn’t look happy about it. Or calm. Or anything but as though Argent suggested him to take the blame. His fists were squeezed white, and he dragged the air in just a tad noisier than usual.
“I will cooperate,” Chris said. “Say I killed her after she killed your uncle and tried to kill you. But… After this, the truce is off. If I find out you killed anyone else - any other human - even if you think they deserve it…”
His finger was touching the safety again. Stiles leaned over Allison and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, that’s what law enforcement is for. And - right back atcha. Sans the human part.”
“That’s not how it works,” Chris said hotly.
Stiles grinned.
“It is now. You people obviously can’t be trusted to judge who does or does not deserve to die. I would suggest you leave Beacon Hills entirely, but I’m not a Sheriff here. My dad is. And I would never do that to Allison, of course,” she added.
“Speaking aloud threats you cannot enforce,” Chris moved Allison away from Stiles.
“I can,” Derek was standing right in front of Stiles now. “I will.”
“Uh,” Scott said, catching Allison’s eye and signaling her something with loverbirds telepathy or something, Stiles herself completely clueless what he was gesturing about. “Maybe we can cooperate?”
“Yes!” Allison said. “If something like this happens again, and the person responsible is human, we will pass the information to authorities. And if it’s supernatural, then we can… work… together?”
“Yes, great idea!” Scott exclaimed. “This way we all know that the others aren't just - going on a rampage.”
“It's a moot point anyway,” Stiles shrugged. “What are the chances that this town sees another series of bloody inexplicable murders?”
Derek stopped glowering at Argent and looked at Stiles over his shoulder instead. Very judgementaly. Like she just cursed them or something.
“Come on!” She said, “Let's focus on the present. We still need to get our stories straight, and I need to get back because for all my dad knows, I was kidnapped from the dance right after Lydia was attacked. Which I was.”
That got her more than just a cursory glance, Derek even half-turned.
“Peter, looking for you,” she made an exaggerated half-shrug and waved. “It’s fine. He was a gentleman. Let me go, obviously, so I had a chance to mix up some Molotov cocktails - and by the way, did you know that Molotov cocktails are Finnish, actually? The name is a sick burn from the times when russians were committing war crimes - ”
Allison coughed.
“Yes, right, when do they not, but those ones were against Finns, and…”
“I think we can work out the finer details of agreement later,” Chris Argent said suddenly.
Derek nodded, and they started discussing who will lie about what so the story holds as much truth to it as possible. Scott and Allison went to call Jackson. Although they took a pit stop, judging by how much time it was taking. Stiles got bored, and walked off - to where Peter was lying.
His eyes were still open. Stiles crouched to close them, because yeah, Derek was completely unconvincing with his “Ghost aren’t real” speech. She tried to be careful of the blood, and didn’t even realise she touched it until she stood up and saw a wet patch on her shirt. Damn, she should have worn a dress. A sleeveless dress.
At least, even if evidence of a crime got on a dress? She would not be sorry to bleach it. Stiles didn’t wear dresses all that much, and maybe that was the problem. Maybe if she wore a pretty dress and did more make up, and if her hair was longer, maybe Lydia wouldn’t have left her at a dance to look for Jackson. And Peter wouldn’t have attacked her to get at Stiles.
She rubbed the sleeve between her fingers. They were red now, too. Fitting, Lydia’s blood on her hands. But it wasn’t Lydia’s, it was… Peter’s?..
Stiles
Stiles
“Stiles!” Someone was shaking her. “What are you doing here? It's three in the morning? Visitor hours were over long ago!”
And it all came back to her, even before she opened her eyes to see Melissa, Scott's mom, and puke-beige walls of the hall outside of Lydia's hospital room. The chairs, man. Worst place to fall asleep in. Because once they caught you sleeping there? They don't let you stay.
“I'm going, I'm going,” Stiles said, raising her hands - one of them caught in the congratulatory balloon bundle she brought for Lydia. Your ‘’Get well soon!’ and ‘’It’s a boy!’ - Stiles had choice words about the gift's shop discriminatory practices, aren't girls something to celebrate?
“I'll leave them here,’’ she said to Melissa. “Make sure she gets them if she wakes up when I'm gone?”
“Stiles,” Melissa put her hands on her waist. “Your father must be worried sick.”
“It's okay, I sneaked out,” Stiles rubbed her left hand, just above her wrist.
“Are you okay to drive?” Melissa asked.
Stiles nodded - she was, but tell it to her father. Somehow he thought that taking her car away would lower the chances of her getting kidnapped again. She didn't know how she was going to get back - probably the same way she arrived. Walking? She nodded again.
“Okay, text me when you get back home,” Melissa patted her head and then was off to another night shift emergency.
And Stiles walked to the exit, past the room where Lydia was lying comatose for two weeks now; past the stairs to the floor where her mom spent her last ones. Speaking of metaphorical ghosts that surprisingly didn't haunt her tonight..
It's just as well there were no real ones.
Her cell pinged.
'I need your help.' was the text message. Unsaved number, previous text history deleted. Stiles knew who it was, though. Nobody her age used period at the end of the sentence, and no other grown up texted her in the middle of the night.
'hiding body?' she shot back, walking through the parking lot.
The animation indicating that Derek was typing paused, then started again, then paused.
Oh no. She did curse them.