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Stiles had watched many movies in his admittedly not long enough life. He knew all the cliches about life flashing in front of your eyes when you thought you were going to die.
Well, Stiles wasn't overly optimistic about his chances, but he wasn't going through all his most embarrassing childhood memories yet and a visage of his dead mother didn't show up to chastise him.
His death row reel ended up a spotlight of best moments from the last couple years - every argument he had with his dad about moving into Peter Hale's spare bedroom, the resigned sighs of acceptance that this was both the most financially reasonable and likely safest option, all the ways he and Peter clashed at the beginning and the comfortable routine they found by now.
As Stiles realized he was going to die, he thought about the way his dad and Peter might have never seen eye to eye… but they were going to, now, because they'd join forces just to resurrect him and kill him again.
The whole becoming roommates with Peter thing was actually really working out great and surprisingly, Stiles' demise was not going to come at werewolf claws.
No, it was much more embarrassing than that.
But let's rewind.
When it came to college, Stiles never had huge ambitions. He knew he was smart, and he knew he could probably get into Harvard, or any Ivy League, or something prestigious and closer, or at least in the state, but he never particularly felt the need to. Even with a full ride scholarship, moving away was expensive enough even without moving to a big city, and the issue was that Stiles was just not into any of the practical degrees.
Oh no. Stiles was yearning to study something useless and interesting that likely would get him a job back at college teaching the next generation of little Stileses.
And that was okay. His father, despite having no college education himself and their precarious financial situation, always supported Stiles' dream of studying linguistics and mythology in Silver Lake.
Silver Lake was nice. It was bigger than Beacon Hills but not too big, the college was good but not crazy expensive, it was close enough for Stiles to come back home for the weekends, and it had a lake. Stiles liked the lake.
The issue was that Silver Lake was far enough to still require accomodations there, Stiles lived too close to the city to be able to get the sparse student accomodations (nevermind that close still wasn't close enough for a commune - there had to be some cut off, and Stiles understood it even if he ended up suffering from it) and the apartments for rent were…
Well.
Silver Lake wasn't that big but getting an apartment was expensive enough anyway. Anything cheaper was rat infested, anything nicer was going to be a struggle to afford, and getting a roommate? Living with a stranger sounded like hell. Stiles already dreaded that if he had to live in dorms, but that would be bearable. He's just get handed someone and have to accept it but they'd be students at the same school as he and just. It'd be different. But trying to move in with someone random in a rented place? Facing the reality you shared the cost and potentially had to shoulder the responsibility for a stranger's mistakes? He was honestly constantly at the edge of an anxiety attack at the thought but still went to a couple interviews from roommate flat listings.
And they were all frankly freaks.
And not in a good way.
And then Peter Hale showed up, like a devil on a white horse, newly (officially) awakened from the coma and restoring his legal practice. Peter got his license back, but Beacon Hills wasn't exactly a big city, and people only needed lawyers every so often. In the years that passed, whatever niche Peter fought out for himself on the market had long since been taken over.
With the Whittmores practice having grown and taken over a chunk, trying to face them especially and reestablish himself would be hard even if Peter wanted to bother with it - and while he was always up for a good fight and cutthroat rivalry, he had no illusions that it would be an easy win and felt strangely unmotivated to try.
No.
Especially not when there was little left of his connection to the land, at least temporarily, as the dust was still setting over the embers of their family situation, there was a much better temptation on the horizon.
Peter, along with his license, managed to renew some contacts, and while he was figuring out where to go from there, an almost too good to be true opportunity arose on the horizon. An old, distant but dear friend of Peter, much older than him, had hit the age of retirement, and was putting his office up for sale. With their personal acquaintance and the sob story of Peter's past that everyone knew regardless of whether Peter wanted them to, the man offered Peter first grabs, at a solid price and with an apartment in the city being part of the deal too.
So Peter Hale packed up and moved himself and his legal practice to Silver Lake, where he lived in a beautiful penthouse apartment that was way too big for one man - let alone a werewolf who craved community even if he learned to hang on by bare scraps.
So Peter, in need of a substitute for pack more than money, offered Stiles, in need of a good financial offer and a known evil more than a sane roommate, his spare bedroom.
And while Noah Stilinski almost popped a vein about it, in the end there wasn't simply a better option than that.
And Peter was better than he used to be, and he was a known factor who also liked Stiles and was likely going to be happy to protect him.
Stiles knew his father actually considered that. Stiles vaguely thought about it himself, while selling his dad said the argument to convince him to go for this arrangement.
He didn't exactly expect it to ever become important.
And look. Stiles was a cop's kid. He was an immigrant kid. He was a single parent working late shifts household kid. He knew stranger danger. He was usually responsible.
He was sometimes responsible.
Okay, so sometimes he went out at night to see a dead body for fun and got involved with a local werewolf pack and moved in with a former lunatic murderer lawyer but like.
He didn't open doors to strangers without looking through the peephole and shit. So when his father and Peter both told him not to go to a shady place on his own, he knew damn well they were right, and he was going to listen, of course.
Of course.
It was just…
You see, when Stiles moved out of Beacon Hills, and as it turned out, also out of the center of the constant drama, he found himself living a nice, peaceful life, studying on Peter's ridiculously comfortable couch and reconsidering his past, foolish teenage life choices (that he now, as a mature no longer teen in his admittedly very early twenties could do). He was a couple of semesters into his degree, although not yet in a hurry to figure out what to do next, and he found himself with a bunch of spare time on his hands, the classes not being all that much of a challenge.
So he did what every reasonable boy who run with the wolves would do.
He started learning magic.
There was always that spark of interest there, ever since Deaton called him a spark and he managed to pull mountain ash out of thin air, but in Beacon Hills, there wasn't exactly that much time to study between all the trauma he was gathering like pokemon and the resources he needed weren't exactly easily available.
And it wasn't like there was anyone he could ask, because he didn't fucking trust Deaton.
Silver Lake had more strange supernatural libraries and Peter was happy to point him in all the right, shady but relatively safe to navigate corners.
So look.
Stiles was a responsible young mage. He had already been in enough strange corners of Silver Lake to know better what dangers lurked around them. So when his father and Peter both told him not to go to a shady place on his own, he knew damn well they were right, and he was going to listen, of course.
Except not going alone meant going with Peter.
And Peter had court all day.
And Stiles just found a book on craigslist that was everything he was looking for and the pick up point wasn't even ten minutes away and he'd back before Peter even noticed, okay? What they didn't know can't hurt them!
Well.
"And that's how I got in this situation!"
So. Stiles wasn't dead.
Admittedly, being kidnapped wasn't looking all that much better. At least if he was dead he wouldn't have to deal with this.
Stiles wasn't sure what went wrong between him going to get his book, actually paying the goddamn money for said book, and waking up tied up in a dirty dark basement. Well, the last time he was already awake, and he wasn't tied up, and the place wasn't super dark but still. Getting kidnapped and put into a basement twice may be not many nickels, but too many nickels.
Now, he had no solid proof that the sellers were actually involved, on account on the massive headache he was sporting, but the lack of recollection of anything past the pick up point was certainly suspicious.
He tried to wiggle a bit in his bonds, not even necessarily hoping to escape, although he'd have you know he had been a great Houdini ever since his seventh birthday, but because he was bloody uncomfortable.
Have you ever needed to scratch your nose but couldn't reach it because of the thingy at the hairdresser? The, you know. Stiles was clearly hit over the head at some point, he should be excused. Anyway, he was feeling that, but times The Whole Body. Unfortunately, there didn't appear to be wiggle room.
When he paid more attention, he realized he was actually laid down at an angle on some weird wooden contraption, with four other people in a circle around him, almost like a…
He looked on the ground and groans.
There was a pentagram.
This couldn't be real.
Besides the very bad horror movie flooring, there was an assortment of herbs and trinkets that looked more legit based on Stiles study of magic insofar and there was an uncomfortable pull of energy through the room that Stiles could sense. He was strapped around his chest and knees and there was a rope around his neck that prevented him from lifting his head too high without strangling himself.
And he was pretty sure there was something drawn on his face. It felt kind of crusty and pulled uncomfortably at his skin.
He tried to test the bonds, physically and with what little magic he had, but both proved futile. However, trying to poke his magic at them felt… strange, which required further investigation. It was less like he was meeting a barrier and more like his attempts were working but nothing was happening. Like the energy was flowing out of him but dissipating…
Or…
…or going somewhere.
Paying closer attention to the room, Stiles noticed the way the candles seemed to flare when he struggled and that there were other people around, with runes painted on their foreheads like he assumed there were on his, all of them unconscious. He tried to use his magic for a simple spell and the candles flared up again. There was a strange light in the back of the room too, that Stiles couldn't turn enough to see, that acted the same way.
It was a battery.
He was, they were, fueling a battery. The magic was being drained out of them and any attempt at fighting it just sped up the process.
Well, that was impractical.
Never one to let sleeping dogs lie, Stiles poked and prodded a bit more at his magic, trying to pull it into himself instead or block the outstream, but nothing worked. He stopped eventually, figuring out it was better not to worsen his own condition.
Strangely, though, he didn't feel bad.
Well, he felt itchy and annoyed and he was not looking forward to Peter busting him out of there or his father's disappointed stare.
But magically, he was not tired or drained. He felt almost… energized. Not that it was any good, but he supposed it was better to count your blessings.
For the lack of any other option, he decided to observe and try to come up with a plan more passively. Taking stock of the other people in the room he noticed one empty spot, undoubtely the reason there was no one around performing any dark rituals yet, and then in the remaing spots there was a kid, maybe a teen, who looked unconscious but not too bad, a woman who appeared frail and weak even slumped in unconsciousness and…
Oh fuck.
What the fuck kinda monster kidnapped and drained a fucking baby?
The baby wasn't tied up the same way as they were, thankfully, but it appeared pretty securely locked in some sort of harness and it had runes drawn over their forehead too. They were asleep, but unlike the other two who clearly lost consciousness, sleep was all it appeared to be. The little hands still clenched and unclenched in tiny fists and there was some quiet fussing.
The room was big, although not enough so to not feel almost cramped with the entire crazy contraption set up in the middle, and the walls around seemed altogether unremarkable. It's lacked personality aside from goth villain lair vibes. Altogether unhelpful.
Once again, Stiles thought about the fact that it was probably going to be Peter to rescue him, and that Peter would probably lock him in a tower like a princess to keep him from going out on his own ever again, and that unfortunately, waiting for a rescue was all he could appear to do.
Stiles sighed and slumped down in his bonds.
He hated being a damsell in distress.
He didn't even have anyone awake to ramble at!
Stiles got someone to ramble at when a couple hours later the bad guys, in cloaks and hoods (because this was clearly some low budget movie) showed up and tied up another woman, older and looking beat up, on the last slab. The fact they had a full set now made Stiles uncomfortable, and an uncomfortable Stiles was a chatty Stiles, but all that got him was a gag strapped over his face.
He continued grumbling behind the gag anyway, even as the wannabe sorcerers left, just to release his own irritation, but eventually resigned himself to silence. The newfound arrival was just as unconscious as the others, so there was not much else to do.
He wondered, briefly, why he wasn't unconscious. They all were, and the young boy next to him appeared to whimper in pain in his state from time to time. It was almost like the magic drain was physically affecting them. He supposed they have been here longer than him, and considering he didn't know how long he was out himself, he couldn't judge the one woman who only just joined them.
There was no way to measure time for him with only weak breaths of his co-captives and hum of the strange lights, but he guessed at least a couple of hours have passed based on the way his whole body went numb by the time the strange figures returned.
But this time, they had no one with them, and they had more candles.
Stiles decided it was time to struggle despite knowing it was actually counterproductive. And yet, a strange murmur begun between the figures, not like a chant, and more like nervous whispers. The candles flared to life, the light behind him growing bright enough to illuminate the whole room properly.
The magic flowed out of him, almost like a river, and he started pouring, allowing himself to follow the analogy of water, focusing on pouring fast enough to overflower the basin before the drain managed to empty it. It felt almost like he could feel the restraints breaking point, the room getting brighter and brighter, like outside on a sunny day, the cloaks of the dark figures faded and cottony and not as intimidating when easily visible.
Some of the figures fled the room.
The teenage boy next to Stiles woke up and started yelling something encouraging, but Stiles felt like he could barely hear him. The last thing he saw was one of the remaining hooded figures coming at him full speed before he felt like the magic he was pouring out covered him top to bottom and he let himself drown.
Stiles remembered drowning.
He remembered being eight years old and his mother screaming at him and the feeling of panic and the feeling of fear. He remembered the way it resurfaced night after night, even years later, and the discomfort that taking a bath still gave him.
He remembered holding Derek up in the water for hours and the conscious dissociation, pure adrenaline keeping him from thinking and a fuzzy recollection of the events after.
He remembered the feeling of never wanting to be underwater again, and then willingly allowing himself to drown again anyway, because it was the only way to save his dad.
And although it was the first step to the worst nightmare of his life, he remembered that feeling of acceptance and peace when he went under.
But this... this was like none of that. The magic was like water and he was under but it was overwhelming in a way water wasn't. Underwater one could still see the world above, through the ripples, distorted and distant, but there. This felt like the world outside wasn't there, just Stiles floating in the energy of everything around him, and it didn't just feel good. It felt like where he should have been all along.
And when he finally resurfaced, the bonds around him broken, the hooded figure wasn't on him, hadn't attacked, wasn't even near him.
But coming back up was just like coming out of the water. That crash against cold air, gasping for breath and for awareness, trying to orient himself.
He was down on the ground, sitting against the boards he used to be tied to, and there was no one around him. The woman brought in last was gone, and the boy was hovering in the corner looking like a mix between intrigued excitement and scared restraint. The other woman was still bound and unconscious. She was like a body, still and unmoving and pale, and Stiles tried not to focus on her and the way she felt almost cold.
And the baby.
The baby was in the hands of that last cloaked figure, standing in the middle of the room, holding the poor thing upside down high above the floor, at an impasse against one Peter Hale, covered in blood, in a gray pinstripe suit with tie loose and buttons torn open, and looking ready to murder (again).
“I'll drop it.”
Peter was a sight to behold. His eyes were glowing blue, furious but restrained, clearly unsure if he would manage to catch the infant before something tragic occurred. Peter, wonderful Peter who was going to kill him for going off on his own had clearly ripped apart the people who took him anyway, had not hesitated, but has clearly seen that Stiles was fine now and as much as pretended not to... Peter cared.
Peter had lost niblings younger than that baby in the fire.
And then Peter smiled.
Small, sure, and calculated.
The bullet tore through the skull and the cloak, and Peter was right there, ready to catch the little guy as he fell.
Stiles pulled the gag he still had on down to take a deep breath, and as he took in who was behind Peter, the reality of his situation really sunk in. Because the person who took the shot was none other than sheriff Noah Stilinski.
“Oh fuck.”
***
Stiles was right. His stupidity was the last straw that led to his father and Peter finally joining forces, and it was against him. They didn't kill him, but sitting down at their kitchen table to hear out his dad's stranger danger lecture, he almost wished they would.
Even the cute kid in Peter's arms didn't really lessen the look of disappointment.
But the kid... the kid almost made Stiles unrepentant for going off on his own. Almost. The almost was mostly about his father being pissed enough to get in the car, drive all the way from Beacon Hills, happily endorse Peter's bloodshed and kill a man on his own in cold blood.
Oh yeah.
And stay the week.
He kicked Stiles out of his room too, so he slept on the couch now. It felt weirdly like being sexiled, and he tried not to get too deep into how this analogy placed him as kicked out of Peter's bed, and not his own.
So yeah. The kid was magic too, and the unconscious woman was its mother. Stiles still remembered the crestfallen expression when Peter sniffed out the relation and realised that the mother was dead, the way he cradled the sobbing infant closer and Stiles knew, immediately, he was never letting go.
He still looked into the baby's family, but it quickly became clear that the family appeared to actually be the evil cloaks, and Peter started working on mostly legally changing the baby's birth certificate to list him.
Apparently, his dad and Peter went on a whole damn quest to find him during the five days he was taken. And apparently, Stiles was more magical than Deaton wanted him to know, and the whole experience and the magic drain awakened his hidden potential and he actually overloaded their little ritual set up by giving too much magic out without even seriously depleting his resources.
It was kind of cool.
Not that he was going to say that out loud.
Peter named the kid John.
It was Noah's middle name. Stiles chose not to read too much into it. Noah chose to read that as confirmation of becoming little Johnny's granparent.
***
Peter was giggling. That was just not something Peter did, but he very clearly was trying to hide amused sounds and Stiles was tired of trying to pretend he didn't notice.
"What?"
The baby wailed.
Okay, maybe he snapped a bit more harshly and louder than the situation called for, but Peter giggled out loud as he got up to grab little Johnny so Stiles felt somewhat justified in his short temper.
"Now look what you've done, you woke up the baby. It's just… you're sparkling again, dear."
Stiles noticed the little bright sparks now, dancing between him and the kid once Peter took him in his arms and brought him closer to Stiles. Stiles sighed and reached out to take over the little tyke. The proximity helped settle both of their magic.
It was yet another reason why this arrangement made sense. They couldn't really give a magical baby up for adoption and the kid responded well to Stiles but Peter was just a more suited guardian, between his age, money and experience. Together, they made a pretty good team. As friends. Who co-parented together. That was all.
The sparkling was the reason Stiles was currently studying remotely, something the school allowed thanks to the traumatic experience and medical consequences of his kidnapping - magical details carefully excluded from the version for the authorities.
He was not stupid enough to try and ever say it in the presence of Peter or his father but he supposed at the end of the day he sort of got what he wanted, even if he took a very painful and roundabout way to it.
Sure, being kidnapped wasn't part of his intentions, but he got the damn book and it certainly kick-started his owners in a way just reading it probably wouldn't have.
Plus, bonus baby.
Buy one book, get the magic baby gratis. And he bought it, okay. Kidnapping aside, he was frankly more offended that they took the money before they snatched him and it wasn't exactly pennies so he was always going to cash in.
So now he had the book, the magic and the baby, so studying remotely came in real in a clutch when he started sparkling randomly or Johnny needed changing and Peter had a court date.
Life was, for the last couple of months as they settled into the two idiots and a baby routine, honestly pretty good. Stiles was frankly trying very hard not to overanalyse just how good it was, because it wasn't a permanent solution. He wasn't sure what the permanent solution was, what their future looked like, if they'd even feature prominently in each other's futures, but he disliked the idea that they wouldn't so he opted to simply not think about it.
Life was good right now, so right now was what Stiles would focus on.
That and trying to stop the sparkling. Peter was really bad at remembering the snacks Stiles would ask him to buy so being able to go outside and not cause mass panic was becoming a dire priority.
Stiles actually had a suspicion that Peter was doing it on purpose.
Wait.
Oh God.
Was this what his father's life was like?
***
Johnny was asleep, finally, and hopefully for good this time, so Stiles closed the door gently behind him, put the baby monitor on the counter, made himself a cup of tea and went in search of Peter.
The apartment had a strange aura about it ever since his graduation. It felt like an era came to an end but he wasn't sure where to go from here.
His father, bless his soul, always gentle and supportive when it came to the big things even when they fought about everything else, was uncharacteristically not pushing for him to get back to Beacon Hills or get a job, and just listened to Stiles and his vague plans and ideas.
This might have also been related to the fact they didn't have a big empty house now, and his dad and Chris shared a small apartment, and Stiles was happy to accept that relationship but didn't necessarily jump at the chance of living with them.
Also if Chris thought he'd ever call him stepdad, he was going to see who was the hunter and who was the hunted.
Stiles was sort of still working on accepting it.
He'd come around. Johnny deserved more grandparents, and it wasn't like there were any on Peter's side, sore topic and all.
Maybe that was part of the problem. Johnny was supposed to be just Peter's , but he called Noah grandpa already and Stiles was attached. The last couple of months have been exhausting but wonderful, and Stiles wasn't sure where to go from there if there was a risk it was in a direction away from the people he have come to see as family, even if they never made it official. Or even talked about it.
Stiles sighed happily as the tea warmed him up from the inside and found Peter in his office, looking at something on his computer.
The big desk computer that was for serious things that couldn't be done on the laptop on the couch, because Peter himself was a grandpa at heart, and he remained a couple of years behind with technology even after Stiles' active coaching of catching him up with what he missed during the coma.
Stiles' theory was that he didn't actually struggle, he was just a stubborn bastard.
He put the cup down on Peter's desk, smirking slightly when Peter's hand shot out last minute and slid a coaster under it, and looked over the man's shoulder.
The lack of protest and easy acceptance from Peter just made Stiles more assured that maybe even if they never acknowledged it, his feelings were correct. There was no invasion of privacy because to Peter and Stiles, there weren't many things left that they wouldn't trust each other with.
"House listings?" Stiles found himself actually surprised. Was he overstaying? Did Peter want to let him know he had an issue with them pointedly not talking about Stiles moving out? "Are you moving?"
"I've been thinking about it. An old kind of friend of mine, a lawyer who used to be close with my aunt back when she had her practice in Beacon Hills, is retiring and made me an offer to buy off his practice."
…how many not-friends but friends-good-enough-to-name-him-their-successor did Peter have?
"So you're not just thinking of moving, you're thinking of moving back to Beacon Hills."
"Just thinking but… I wanted to talk to you about it, because it's been a lot of thinking, I suppose. Enough that I have favourites picked."
Peter opened a different listings site in another tab and pulled up an offer for a spacious but not overly big house near the preserve. Stiles actually recognised the place - he always found it quite beautiful when he passed by it.
He ignored the way the price tag made his heart jump - it wasn't his money - it was Peter's, and he focused on checking the photos and details out to give his honest opinion.
"Nice area, big garden. It looks pretty freshly renovated."
"But not fully furnished, so it's got potential to customise to personal liking. I figured now that you've graduated, and I got the offer… Johnny would be closer to his grandfather too."
Stiles ignored the way his heart started beating harder and continued looking.
"Three bedrooms."
"Yes. I figured one would make a good nursery, and we could turn the third one into an office."
Three. Office, nursery… and only one remaining.
"We, you say."
He grinned at Peter like the cat that got the canary. Peter looked suspiciously blank-faced, a gentle but not too self-assured smile on his face as he nodded.
"I suppose we don't need a fourth bedroom. Most of the few people we care about are in Beacon Hills anyway. We can put any guests we have on the couch if necessary."
When he leaned in for a kiss, and their lips finally met, it was like a movie scene, and Stiles almost expected romantic music to start playing.
Almost.
Their son's wailing through the baby monitor was close enough.
"Your turn."