Chapter Text
Fuck California.
This is the thought that enters Judy Stilinski’s mind as they cross the Beacon County border. She’s coming from the airport in San Francisco, and she has nothing with her. Okay, that’s not completely true. She has a suitcase and a duffel bag. They’re both pink with white polka dots and she hates the design. She’d purchased the luggage six years ago when she moved to Ohio, and she has no idea why 18-year-old her picked this design. Her luggage sits in the backseat, and she can see them if she looks out of the corner of her eye. Through the cage material separating the back seat and front seat.
Some trashy pop station is playing on the radio. It’s some Brittany Spears song. She raises an eyebrow when she realized this and turns to the driver of the car.
“Brittany Spears? You listen to this stuff?” she asks, the corner of her mouth threatening to turn into a smirk.
He looks a little embarrassed and changes the station. “I usually listen to country. I just thought you might not want to listen to that.”
She frowns. That’s. . . nice of him. She doesn’t know why she’s expecting otherwise. She feels like she’s in trouble. Guilt and shame settle into her belly and it makes her nauseous, as much as she wants to brush it off and think about how she’s probably car sick. Maybe it would be better if Noah was angry with her. She feels like he should be.
He changes the subject. “We turned the old guest room into your room. It’s not much, but it’s clean and it’ll give you some privacy."
She doesn’t know what to say to him. Again, she wishes he was angry with her. “Thank you. I appreciate you letting me come and stay.”
He nods. “Of course. You’re always welcome anytime.”
It’s the middle of winter, but it feels like Fall outside. The high today is the low fifties. She doesn’t like winter, but wishes it was colder outside because she feels hot and stuffy in the car. She wants to roll down the window, or ask him if she can roll down a window, but she stays quiet. Eventually, he brings up Stiles and talks about what he has been up to lately. As they pull onto East Second Street, the house comes into view and her breath stops. Memories flood her mind immediately.
In the earliest one she can remember, she’s sitting on the pavement of the porch between her mother’s legs as her mother chats with Claudia, the two sharing a cigarette. When she breathes in, she can still smell the stench of the burning nicotine and other chemicals. It smells like home to her. In another, she’s eight or nine years old, pushing an infant Stiles around in a stroller and pretending he’s actually her baby, because that was a thing when she was younger. Not so much these days.
In the last memory she has, she’s saying goodbye to Stiles. He’s only ten, but he‘s nearly as tall as her at 5’4.
Do you really have to go?
Yes, but only for a little while , she’d answered. I’ll come back and see you soon .
She didn’t know it at the time, but she lied. She wouldn’t come back for months. In fact, she would only come back twice in six years. Once for her mother’s funeral, and once for his mother’s funeral. They wrote letters back and forth a lot for a while but that eventually tapered off and stopped last year. She left it be because she could sense he had gone from missing her and wanting to talk to her to being angry she wouldn’t come back.
She feels dread as they exit the car. She carries the duffel bag in hand and Noah has her suitcase. There’s a blue jeep parked in the driveway as well. The blue jeep. She remembers when Stiles wrote her, excited he passed the permit test and excited he would get to drive his mother’s car. She tries to imagine Stiles all grown up, sitting in the driver’s seat. She can’t, and this makes her even sadder than she has been. It also fills her with regret and the feeling she’s about to walk into something she has no idea how to fix.
Noah opens the screen door. “It should be unlocked.”
Hands trembling, she twists the knob to the wooden door and applies enough force to open it. She feels like she might be walking back into hell.
She steps into the house anyway.
-
Chris Argent stares at the textbook in front of him. His daughter impatiently taps her pen against the table, watching him. There’s a diagram of the human kidneys on the page and arrows and paragraphs detailing how glomerular filtration works. A part of him is just glad she hasn’t gotten her phone out to mess with it while she waits for him to help her understand her assignment for school.
“You’re glaring at it,” says Allison, raising an eyebrow.
“I am not,” he rebuts, meeting her gaze.
“Dad, if you don’t understand it either, I’m going to have to get a tutor.”
“You don’t need a tutor. Look, it can’t be that complicated,” he says, picking up the textbook. He starts to read one of the paragraphs outloud.
“A GFR below 60 mL for three or more months is a sign of chronic kidney disease,” he says. “There. Write that down.”
Her dark eyes glance at the paper and then back at her father. “Okay, but what the hell is a GFR?”
He pauses and looks back at the page on the textbook, scanning the paragraphs. None of them explain what a ‘GFR’ is. He’s stumped.
“Is it on a different page?” he starts to flip through the chapter in the textbook, but he only sees even more complicated diagrams.
“I don’t even know,” she says, sounding exasperated.
“What grade did you get on that test?” he asks.
“A C-,” she pouts. He sighs. He knows how badly she wants into UCLA’s pre-med program, and also knows that a C in the class won’t help her get there. He knows he has to admit he can’t help her, but he’s tired of feeling useless like he has felt lately. After a few more seconds, he gives in.
“Alright,” he says. “We’ll get you a tutor.”
She breathes a sigh of relief and stands up so she can hug him. The hug lingers, and he thinks maybe they both needed it as the tension in the room dissipates. When he finally lets go of her, she closes the textbook.
“Can Stiles come over?” she asks.
“Is Stiles taking the class?” he asks, confused.
She laughs. “No. He already knows enough about anatomy. Didn’t I tell you about the time he wrote a paper about circumcision and handed it in for an Econ assignment?”
Chris rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I remember that.”
“He’s just going through a rough time right now,” Allison says.
“What kind of a rough time?” he asks cautiously.
“Nothing like what happened last year,” she says quickly. “It’s just. . . he and Scott still aren’t getting along, and now he’s mad because his cousin is moving from Ohio to live with them. She’s supposed to come today and he just doesn’t want to be there right now.”
The last thing Chris expected to come out of last year’s events was the friendship that developed between Allison and Stiles. As a rule, he didn’t trust teenage boys in general but he did trust his daughter to make the right decisions. She’d proved she was more than capable.
“Okay,” he says. “But it is a school night and you know the rules.”
On school nights, Allison is not allowed to have anyone over past 10 p.m. At times, he makes exceptions for Lydia, but there’s no exception to be made for a teenage boy, even if he is half-certain Stiles is as straight as a circle. This is so Allison can go to bed at a reasonable time. Rest is important , he often tells her. In response, she complains back at him. I’m a senior now, dad , she says. He doesn’t care if she’s a senior now. When he looks at her, he still sees the toddler that pronounced ‘three’ as ‘free’ and ‘girl’ as ‘grill’ before going into speech therapy.
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, dad. I know the rules. What are your plans for later?”
“Just a meeting with the county treasurer to go over the contract between the company and the Sheriff’s department,” he says.
She gives him a look. “What?”
“You never go out or do anything fun,” she says with a frown.
He sighs. “Sure I do.”
“Dad,” she says, tone quieter. “I just want you to be happy.”
His heart swells. “Honey, I am happy.”
The look she gives him clearly says she doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t push it.
As she takes her things and goes upstairs, he can’t help but feel his heart sink into his stomach as he considers the fact that he’s keeping something from her.
We don’t have to lie to each other anymore or hide anything , he’d told her when they made the decision to stay in Beacon Hills.
And oh, was he hiding something.
-
Fuck shag carpet.
Dying really does give you a new appreciation for finer things in life, Peter Hale thinks to himself next. He swirls the wine in his glass, glancing at the man across from him. The wine must have been at least a couple thousand dollars. The flavor is graceful, and Peter knows the wine must be older than he is. If it were just the wine and the soft thread of the couch clouding his senses, he thinks he would enjoy waiting in this room. But it’s not.
Downstairs, loud music echoes along with voices and cheerful yelling. Whoever is on stage must have finally taken their top off, because the yelling and cheering gets exponentially louder for a moment and he cringes internally. The Jungle was the last place he really wants to be, but he’ll put the cheering and stripper music aside and be patient because he does need to have a word with the owner.
The man in front of him– some kind of lackey– pulls his cell phone out of his pocket after a loud ding sounds. He quickly texts a reply and nods at Peter, standing up.
“She’ll see you now,” he says.
Peter fakes a polite smile and follows the man through a series of hallways. When they reach her office, the man knocks twice on the door before opening it. The room, like the rest of the upstairs, has brick walls. A mahogany desk faces the door, and the owner sits behind the desk, looking at the door expectantly.
“Leave us,” she says, a thick accent coming through.
Wilhelmina’s eyes seem to stare into Peter’s soul as he takes a seat in front of the desk. He appears relaxed to anyone on the outside, but it’s a cover. Peter’s aware of her reputation and knows she is very much capable of being a real threat. He listens to her heartbeat, smells the expensive perfume she wears, and notes she is much older than he expected her to be. He doesn’t let that lull him into a false sense of security, knowing age is simply a number for supernaturals like he and him.
“Peter Hale,” she drawls. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Wilhelmina Kuznetsov,” he drawls back. “It is quite a pleasure.”
Her dark eyes stare into his, and he deflects the urge to shift uncomfortably under her piercing gaze. He wonders if she can somehow see into people’s souls. He doesn’t doubt it’s possible, knowing what he’s seen and dealt with in the past.
“Get to the point,” she says.
Straight and direct. He likes her already.
“I need information,” he begins.
“We all need information, don’t we?” she asks with a short laugh. It doesn’t sound fake. She genuinely finds his statement funny.
He smirks. “I suppose so, although the particular information I need can only be ascertained through certain. . . channels , I should say.”
She leans forward slightly. She’s listening.
“What do you know about the Alpha pack?” he asks.
She tsks tsks . “Now Peter,” she says. “Information that can only be ascertained through the channels I use requires serious payment.”
He nods. Of course it does. Nothing in this world comes without some sort of payment. Everything is a transaction these days.
“And what have you brought me for payment?” she asks.
He reaches into the pocket of his suit and feels the small plastic baggy he stored in there. He takes it out and unfolds it so she can see the contents. Her eyes widen slightly, and then go back to the bored expression she carries on her face.
“Well,” she says. “I suppose we can arrange something.”
Later, after thinking and plotting using the information he gains from her, he turns his mind off for a while. Sometimes thinking can be exhausting. His favorite outlet? Getting fucked into oblivion.
His partner of choice these days wasn’t ideal. It was more like hate sex than anything. Rough, calloused hands grip his hips, keeping him in place, and a sound escapes his throat as the thrusts become harder and faster. He doesn’t think about Wilhelmina or the Alpha pack or his shattered relationship with Derek, not so long as Chris Argent is inside him.
All he feels is pleasure. All he hears is the sound of skin hitting skin.
It’s freeing, in a way.