I'm enjoying writing from Stiles' perspective. I think it adds depth
Question of the Chapter: Which Teen Wolf adult would you want as your parent?
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As they began Derek's discharge papers, the three of us waited at the front desk. I was rather surprised that Scott had managed to convince Derek to come with us.
"I shouldn't have done that. I lied my ass off," Scott said quietly.
Stiles turned to him, leaning against the desk. "Hey, your ass is fine. You saved him a ton of unnecessary pain."
"And even though I don't think lying was the best route here, he trusts you now. That's what matters," I tried to reassure him.
Stiles nodded, taking my hand in his own and giving it a gentle squeeze. "Exactly. We can lie to protect people. We'll figure this out in a day or two, he goes back to being old Derek, everyone's happy. Except for Derek, who's never happy."
"It's just another person that we're lying to," Scott reminded us, as if we didn't already know. "I always feel like it's been better when we tell the truth. With Lydia, my mum, your dad, Charlotte."
"But see, none of those people have claws and fangs that they could use to rip our throats out, Scottie," I pointed out.
"He may be a kid right now, but he's still Derek Hale," Stiles told our friend.
The Alpha took a moment, before standing up straighter. "All right. Take him to my house and don't let him out of your sight."
"And where are you going?"
"I'm going to go talk to the guy we should have gone to before."
It didn't take a genius to know that he was talking about Peter.
"Do you want some back up? I mean, I know you're an Alpha and all, but this is Peter we're talking about."
"No," Scott said quickly. "I mean, I can handle Peter. Stiles will probably need help with Derek."
Stiles let go of me to throw his hands up as if offended, "Dude. First of all, I think I can handle little Derek, but I would like Riley to come with me. Secondly, this is a bad idea and I hate that guy."
Scott left without another word, not waiting to arguing Stiles' point. He was acting so jumpy lately and it was throwing me off. Usually I knew everything about Stiles and Scott, and lately, they both seemed rather closed off.
♧♤♢♡
We did as told and went to the McCall household with Derek, who was very unsure about going anywhere without Scott. But, he didn't really have many options.
"We're going to wait here for Scott. We're going to sit quietly. We're not going to call or talk to anyone," Stiles instructed the boy as we walked inside.
"Can I talk to her?" Derek asked, pointing at me.
I shrugged, "Sure, I don't see why-"
"No," Stiles cut off. "You can't talk to her."
"Do I talk to you?" the young wolf asked my boyfriend.
"No."
"Good."
"Fine."
"Who's going to talk to him?"
Stiles and I both turned to see someone standing in the kitchen, which lead to Stiles shouting in shock. Before us, holding a bag of take-out, was Agent McCall.
I had to physically repress an eye-roll at the sight of the man. He reminded me of my own father, the way he had left Scott the way he did.
"Are you getting taller?" Stiles said rhetorically after he caught his breath.
Mr McCall was pretty calm, not confused by three teenagers showing up in his son's house; none of them being his son. Which really wasn't a strange occurrence in this house.
"What are you guys doing here?"
"We're waiting for Scott," Derek answered. Apparently the younger version of him didn't know when not to talk, either.
"Yeah, so am I. We're supposed to have dinner. I brought extra. You guys hungry?"
"Yeah."
"No," Stiles answered instantly. "We're not hungry."
"No, I'm starving."
"None of us are hungry. Thanks, though."
"Okay," Agent McCall said slowly. "Well if you're not hungry, Stiles, your friend can still eat with us. Riley, what about you?"
Derek was going to be eating and the food was there. Plus, I hadn't eaten all day.
"I could eat," I shrugged.
Stiles narrowed his eyes at me as if what I had said was some massive betrayal. "Sorry."
He just turned away from me with an exasperated sigh.
Mr McCall nodded, before looking over to Derek. "What's your name?"
Just as Derek went to say his name, Stiles decided to answer for him. "Miguel. My cousin Miguel. From Mexico. So. . ."
Agent McCall said something to Derek in Spanish and I felt my stomach drop. We were screwed now.
To everyone in the room's surprise, Derek responded in fluent Spanish. My eyes widened in shock as I glanced at Stiles. The fact that Derek could speak Spanish was news to him, also.
Look at Derek, so full of surprises. How come he didn't pull out this little party trick when Stiles first introduced him as Miguel in front of Danny?
"Fantastic," Scott's father grinned. "Egg roll?"
"Hell, yeah."
Stiles watched in annoyance as Derek walked over to the table. As I began to walk, he scoffed.
"He's not going to go up to Scott's room, so why can't we eat? I'm hungry," I groaned.
He pursed his lips as I grabbed his hand and practically dragged him over to the table. We all took a seat and began to serve ourselves some plates of Chinese food.
"Miguel, what did you say your last name was again?" Agent McCall said, trying to start conversation in what had grown into a rather awkward silence.
I stopped moving my fork, biting the inside of my cheek, "Uh, he didn't."
"Okay," the man said slowly. "Miguel, what is your surname?"
"Oh, it's Juarez," Stiles said, answering for him rather quickly. "Cinqua. . . Tiago."
"That's a mouthful."
"Yes, it is," I said, glaring pointedly at Stiles. "Maybe you should let Miguel speak for himself."
Stiles' jaw clenched, "He's shy."
Mr McCall tried to glaze over our strange interaction, which would have seemed pretty cryptic to him. "How do you spell that?"
'Miguel' turned to Stiles expectantly, giving him permission to answer for him this time. I almost laughed, but manged to hold it back.
"Phonetically," Stiles answered before putting food in his mouth so he didn't have to elaborate on his response.
"Mr. McCall, you're an FBI Agent?" Derek suddenly asked. Looking across the table, I noticed the man's badge sitting by his plate. Shit.
"He's low level. Very low level. He doesn't even have a voice."
"So, do you investigate murders?"
Agent McCall ignored Stiles and spoke directly to Derek. "Sometimes. When it's a Federal crime."
I'd be interested in hearing about it if I weren't so worried about where this conversation was headed.
"What about fires?" Derek pried. And there it was.
Stiles was quick to try and change the subject, asking if Agent McCall knew why his son was so late; suggesting that he call him.
Agent McCall, once more, completely ignored the boy. "What kind of fires are you talking about?"
"Just fires in general, I imagine," I answered, following Stiles' lead.
Derek drove on, trying to get to the answers he wanted all along. "Do you know anything about the Hale family?"
"The Hale family?" Agent McCall repeated, making sure he'd heard him correctly. "The one from a few years back? Such a tragedy; only a few survived."
"Okay," I said quickly, standing up. "We can talk more about this later, but right now, I need to check something and these guys need to come with me. Thanks for dinner, Mr McCall."
"Sure, Riley," The man said slowly, clearly very confused as he watched me grab Stiles and Derek and drag them both upstairs.
As soon as we were alone in Scott's room, Derek pushed Stiles against a wall roughly, pressing his head to the plaster. "You all lied to me."
"Okay, we didn't lie," Stiles mumbled against the wall. "We omitted certain truths. Vital truths now that I think about it."
"Can you let him go, please?" I asked quietly in case Mr McCall was listening.
"Why should I listen to you?" Derek almost growled.
I showed him my real eyes as I swirled the air around our feet, "Because, at the moment, I'm keeping things civil. What about you?"
His eyes widened a little, before he let go of Stiles and stepped away. I stopped my abilities and returned my eyes to their natural brown.
"I don't want to talk to you. Either of you," Derek said impatiently. "I want to talk to the Alpha. I'll talk to Scott."
"I understand that," I nodded. "Just give me a minute to call him, and we'll get him here, okay?"
Derek nodded, and I began to walk out the door. As I did, I heard Stiles telling Derek not to move, before he followed behind me. "I don't really want to be left alone in the same room as an angry Derek."
"I didn't want to lie to him in the first place," I reminded my boyfriend as I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
"I know, I know," he mumbled as he grabbed his phone out also. "But, Scott thought it was the right thing to do."
"It doesn't matter. Lies only lead to further mistrust."
Stiles ran his hand through his hair, seeming frustrated. We didn't continue the conversation as he called Scott directly, while I sent a text in case for some reason he wasn't able to answer.
Thankfully, he answered Stiles almost straight away. Listening in, I heard that Peter had theorised that the reason Kate de-aged Derek to that particular age, may be because at that age he still trusted the Huntress. Which meant bad things for us, because he was yet to realise that she was a conniving, manipulative bitch.
"He's in your bedroom, he'll be totally fine," Stiles reassured Scott over the phone. "To be honest, I'm starting to miss the old Derek."
As he spoke to him, I heard the echo of a noise coming from Scott's room. I swore beneath my breath as I ran to the room, just in time to see Kate climbing out the window. She stopped long enough to smirk at us, before dropping down.
"That goddamned bitch," I growled, heading downstairs to go after her.
Stiles told Scott what had happened, before hanging up and chasing after me. "Hey, hey, hey, wait, where do you think you're going?"
"After her, obviously."
"You'll never catch her on foot, Ri. Come on, I'll drive."
♧♤♢♡
By the time we got in contact with Scott about where Kate was actually going to be, it had been long enough that she was probably gone. But, we were at the high school anyway.
I swear, nothing good ever happened at this place.
Stiles grabbed his bat from the trunk of the jeep before we went and met with Lydia. Her eyes fell to his weapon of choice, looking unimpressed, "You seriously need to find something better than a baseball bat."
"He's made it this far with not much else," I shrugged.
Stiles' grip tightened on the bat, "Can we talk about this later? We need to find them."
We began to run around the school in search of Kate or Derek or anyone really. When we were about to run into the school itself, I got them both to stop, noticing something.
"Is it just me, or is the school sign not facing the way it's supposed to?"
I was right. The cement sign with the name of our school on it was on a rather strange angle, which was weird considering you don't see much movement from big cement blocks.
We ran over to it, to find that there was a staircase where it normally sat. I hesitated for a moment, before heading down the stairs.
It was a vault of some sort, the walls lined with shelves. And right in the centre, was Peter on his knees, mumbling something beneath his breath as smoke began to clear from the room. Taking a shallow breath, I coughed, realising it was wolfsbane.
He began to speak louder and we were finally able to make out what he was saying. "They took it, they took it while I was blinded."
Lydia held out an arm to get Stiles and I to stop walking towards him in case he lashed out.
"Took what?"
The former Alpha stood up, his voice a low growl. "Bonds. Bearer bonds and they took them all."
"Bearer bonds?" Stiles asked in confusion. "Hold on. Are you saying you got robbed?"
"This was a heist."
"Sounds more like karma to me," I scoffed.
Peter glared at me as he continued to speak. "Somebody planned this."
"What's the big deal? How much did they steal?"
"One-hundred and seventeen."
"Thousand?" Stiles attempted to clarify.
"Million."
I felt my mouth drop open at the word. Who knew Peter was so well off? Less than one per cent of that would fix all of mine and Charlotte's money problems.
But how did the person who stole the money know where to look?
"We're done here," Peter growled before walking out of the vault, anger coming off of him in waves.
Whoever stole that money was either stupid or suicidal. Either way, they'd better pray that Peter never found them.
♧♤♢♡
"Thanks for dropping me home," I said as Stiles pulled into my driveway.
"Yeah, of course." He put the car in park, biting his lip in thought. "Why do you think someone would steal that from Peter?"
"Because one-hundred and seventeen million dollars is a lot of money, Stiles. I'm sorry, can we talk about this tomorrow? I'm so tired."
"Yeah, sure, sorry. It has been a long day."
Smiling, I reached over the inner console and pressed a kiss to his lips. Before he got the chance to make it any more than that, I pulled back.
"I'll see you at school tomorrow. I love you."
"I love you, too."
I climbed out of the jeep and watched him drive away before walking over and entering my house. I could hear Charlotte talking, and then another voice responding.
This could have seemed normal, except we never had visitors. Heading into the living room, I couldn't believe my eyes.
"Did you miss me?" Isaac asked from his seat on the couch.
The boy stood up as I ran over to him, wrapping my arms around him and embracing him. I hadn't seen him since after Allison's funeral; I was so sure he wanted nothing to do with this town anymore.
"I'll take that as a yes," he chuckled.
"I'll leave you two to talk," my sister said as she left the room, watching Isaac carefully. We weren't even together anymore and she still wasn't his biggest fan.
"I'm so glad you finally got here, I don't know how much longer your sister was willing to entertain me."
I laughed as I unravelled myself from him, taking a step back. "The big, scary werewolf is afraid of my sister still?"
He shook his head with a dull laugh, sitting back down on the couch. I did the same, not sitting too close.
"I'm sorry about Allison," I ventured carefully, deciding to shoot the elephant in the room.
His laughter stifled and his gaze dropped to the floor. Isaac had truly liked her more than just a friend or a fling, and she was gone forever. It wasn't like after our break up where he thought he could still get me back; Allison was gone.
"She deserved better."
"I know," I replied softly. "I think about her every day. If we could have somehow stopped what happened to her."
"Stiles- the Nogitsune," he quickly corrected himself. "It wasn't going to stop. We knew that we might not have all made it out alive and that didn't change whether you were helping him or not. It was a demon who wanted nothing but destruction."
"I get that. I just wish that I'd been fighting for the right side when it happened."
"I regret not telling her how I felt about her. I'll always regret that."
I put an arm around him and gave him a small hug, "She knew."
He thanked me as we sat together quietly for a bit, before I decided to change the subject. "So, what are you doing back here? We all thought you were done with Beacon Hills."
He brought his attention back to me, "Being away, I realised that you guys, the Pack, are all the family I have. I've lost so much over the past few years; I don't want to lose anything else."
"So, where are you going to stay? No offence, but I don't think Charlotte will be rolling out the welcome mat for you. It took enough convincing to get her to let Stiles to stay over."
Isaac stiffened beside me, before clearing his throat.
"I called Scott when I was planning to come back, and he offered me their spare room."
I felt myself smile, thankful to whatever twist of fate resulted in Melissa McCall being in our lives. She had let me use that room when I needed it, and now she was letting Isaac. She was truly one of the kindest people I'd ever met.
"Well, I'm glad you're back in town. It would've been weird without you here."
A small smile reached Isaac's lips as he looked at me. He cleared his throat as he shifted on the couch, "So, what did I miss?"