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stereksecretsanta · 4 years

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Merry Christmas, @PrincessaBitchessa!

Hello hello! I got a bunch of the things you asked for and, like my previous two works, this is completely stupid fluffy goodness and I hope it'll put a smile on your face! Merry Christmas!

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*****

Infamnia

The money lasted longer than he thought it would, but not long enough to get out of the dog house of all the debt from medical bills and the mortgage. Stiles didn’t know what to do, how to find himself out of the zeroes and commas and the red ink on the envelopes, until he remembered the letter inside the safe his father set aside before he was killed. He pulled it out from where he’d locked t away, wanting nothing to remind him of what took the better part of two years to even partially come to terms with.

The blue-lined paper still had the frayed edges from where it was torn from a notebook, and the penmanship was as dicey as his father’s ever was.

Stiles I’m so sorry you have to read this letter. But since you are, let me say that whatever happened to me was not your fault. It wasn’t, Stiles, and if you’re blaming yourself I’m going to haunt your scrawny little ass. Don’t. There’s more that I want to say than I can ever put into paper, but this is held securely in the safe specifically because this information is extremely confidential.

If you’re ever in trouble, if you need money, protection, a job, anything, you give the following number a call, and ask for whatever Hale is in charge. You tell them you’re John and Claudia Stilinski’s son. They’ll take care of you. Whatever you find out about me, about what I did and what I accepted, know that it was to protect the town. From what it didn’t want to know about. They owe me a debt, one that I saved for you.

Love you, kid

Dad

Stiles’ bony fingers trembled slightly as he held the paper, mulling over the words as if this was the first time he’d read them. In truth, it was the first time he ever was really taking in the meaning. While he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what exactly whatever you find out about me, about what I did meant, he would maybe check this out before selling foot pics.

Phone in hand, he tapped a pen on his knee, waiting for someone to pick up. Pick up pick up pick up pick u- THANK YOU.

“You’ve reached Beacon Hills Wildlife Preserve Management, how may I help you?” Secretaries all had this extremely creepy customer service voice that was robotic. Every one of them had the same voice.

What in the flying technicolor fuck was the Beacon Hills Wildlife Preserve number doing in this bizarrely ominous letter? This couldn’t be real. “Uh, could I talk to whoever’s in charge?” He sounded so lame. He could hear himself sounding so incredibly lame.

“May I ask for the purpose of your call so I can route you to the correct person?” The woman’s voice indicated that she could hear his lameness.

“Uh, I got bills I need to pay and I need help, I was told to call the number.”

“I’m sorry, we have no open positions at this ti-“

“Wait, wait wait, can I speak to the, uh, Hale in charge?” He remembered there was a name in the letter, maybe the name would help.

“Transferring your call now.” The voice cut directly to a hold tone. Well, that got him instant results.

The pen tapping his knee increased in speed as he waiting for someone to pick up the phone.

----

“This is completely insane.” Talia Hale rubbed her temples, a headache coming on. The fae wanted to move their court to the Preserve, even though that would not only effectively shut down anyone else trying to use the land. Some true galaxy-brain level genius released no less than five wolpertingers into the forest and now every one of her soldiers was out hunting goddamn flying jackalopes. And now, this.

“We have to do something, though.” Laura stood in the middle of the room, arms folded. “They won’t just stop here. Jerry’s bloodthirsty, and he wants a werewolf with an apple in his mouth on his Christmas dinner table.”

“Not it.” Peter said, because it was the most inappropriate thing that he could possibly say. He felt the eyes of the ladies staring at him, and decided not to acknowledge it. “Would you prefer nose game?”

“Thank you for your contribution.” Unhelpful ass. Talia stood, looking at the map of the preserve on the center table in the room. The lines marked out territories, the fenced off areas for endangered species, paranormally important spots, the Nemeton of course, everything of relevance. And right on their eastern border was a brand new Argent Armory establishment. How they got clearance for that when California had some very impressive gun laws was beyond her. The local lines had been redrawn and somehow those French-blooded fucks had gotten the ordinances to allow a firing range. Which would allow them to have a massive store house of guns and ammunition right there, so they could plan to clean house.

“Can we claim it’ll disturb the birds?” Laura offered. “It must, right?”

“Maybe. But you know the people love their guns. And don’t care about birds.” The phone started ringing across the room. “I’m more worried one of em will gun down a wolpertinger and then I’ll have way too many questions to answer.” The door opened brusquely and a young man strode in, looking cross as ever, throwing the body of a rabbit-quail-deer looking thing on Talia’s desk. “Number three.” He was slightly out of breath, looking at the body like it had personally called him a bitch. “And maybe they won’t shoot wolpertingers, but someone definitely did fucking shoot me.” He yanked off his coat and, yep, that was a bullet wound on his shoulder.

Laura poked it, just to hear him yell at her. Cain instinct.

“Stop it.” Talia gently smacked Laura’s hand. “You see who did it?”

“Y’even need to ask?” He snapped. He watched Gerard Argent smile and wave just a little from his property line, walking back as calm as he pleased at the edge of the woods. The bullet wasn’t wolfsbane, but in a way that was even worse. A wolfsbane bullet would at least do something. It would kill him, yeah, but it was a purpose that had a ‘reasonable’ point. The point of this mundane bullet was just to piss him off. And it was working.

“Will someone answer that phone?” Talia asked, fussing over her wounded boy.

---

Stiles sat in the office of the BHWPM headquarters, with a cup of coffee in his hands. The woman in front of him had introduced herself as Talia Hale, and given that two of the children in the room had the same severe cheekbones, dark hair, and piercing stare like they could see right into his bone marrow, he was fairly certain they were her children. They were attractive in the exact way that terrified him, which was probably not a good thing, because that was definitely his type. “Your father has done a great deal for us over the years, we are happy to help you now in payment for the help he gave you. Is it money you need?” Talia asked, looking over the young man. While not unkempt, there was something in the rakish hair and the unpressed shirt that said he might not be doing so well.

“A job would probably be better, I’ve been trying to get further in the FBI, but-“ He shrugged, not keen to detail his psychiatric history to people he didn’t know. “That’d be more of a help than a one-time get-outta-debt free card.”

“The FBI?” Talia asked, looking at him with new eyes. “Do you know what your father did with us, exactly?”

Stiles was entirely clueless. “I’m....guessing he helped clear drunk hooligans outta the preserve?” Stiles was definitely not the drunk hooligans ever, shut up. “Nah, I’m guessing he helped you hide bodies, smuggle people, and/or doctored police records for Scary One and Scary Two over there, and instead of taking bribes he took it on future favors.” The vibe in this room was way too Corleone for it to not be some undercover operation.

While the woman’s expression didn’t shift even at the comment to her own children, something in her eyes imperceptibly altered. Something a bit like amusement, or interest. “Would you want a job with someone who would do those kinds of things?”

“If my dad thought it was a good thing to do, it must have been for damn good reasons. I’m willing to find out.

“Derek, why don’t you take Stiles to get a proper suit. If he’s running with us, we need him looking the part.” Talia said with a smile. “And get him a proper gun.”

Scary Two: Tall Dark And Terrifying stepped forward and walked Stiles out the door without a word. He could work with that, and hey, any excuse to ogle the boss’ kid, right?

-----------

And Stiles thought those little fuckin wolpertingers were bad.

This was, in fact, infinitely worse.

He sat next to Derek in their little foxhole, only yards away from the Argent stronghold. Apparently Cora, the last piece of the Hale puzzle, and the so-described baby of the family, was inside. Who the fuck steals a baby, Stiles thought. And every one of them was ready to go utterly feral to get it.

Feral being both the operative word and unsettlingly accurate, as it turns out, with his boss lady on all fours and snarling at the people lobbing smoke grenades at them. Derek had his fangs out and everything, but luckily said nothing about how clearly Stiles wanted to climb him like a slightly more angular pine.

Because werewolves. Of course werewolves. Why wouldn’t there be werewolves.

Stiles popped out of the foxhole and nailed one of the Argent soldiers directly in his face, giving a startle to the others behind the line and giving an opportunity.

Stiles didn’t run out first, everyone else could go first and get shot at, he didn’t really want to catch any of them. Instead, he snuck out and around the melee, getting his gangly ass right into their stronghold as Talia was probably ripping someone’s throat out. Ew.

Inside was warm, and a little off-beat. “Hey, Cora?! Where you at!” He hissed, gun drawn in case someone stayed behind. He snuck around, looking for where the baby would be. Make a sound kiddo, come on, something, Uncle Stiles didn’t have a super-sniffer equipped.

After poking around what felt like a century, he finally heard the whine of an itty bitty kid, and lo there the child was, adorable as a button. “Aw, heya kiddo, c’mere.” He picked up the child, humming a little to try and keep them calm as he now had the great joy of having to get out of there. With the kid. He walked the whole back-asswards way around to stay far enough away from gunshots and yelling, because if that baby started crying, both of their asses would be dead! And the werewolves could smell his and Cora’s cocktail of gross or whatever, they could track him down anyway and it would be fine! Cora was fine, he was fine, everything was Gucci.

Back at the headquarters, he started looking around for anything that would help the child, blankets or diapers or at least something. But there wasn’t even a car-seat or anything. Where were they keeping the kid if the whole family was there the whole damn time? Stiles sat in one of the office chairs, baby sleeping soundly on his chest, as he waited for the family to get back.

There was no calm awakening for either, as a foot blasted through the door of the wildlife preserve office, splintering it instead of opening it. The sound of the voice cursing was definitely Derek, and he busted it down properly, a slight girl’s arm over his shoulder and a quart or so of blood apiece on everyone.

“Stiles, where the fuck did you go, we-“ Derek halted his scolding when he looked at him.

“Shhhhh, you’ll wake Cora up!” Stiles hissed.

Derek blinked those stupid pretty eyes as he looked truly lost for words. “Stiles.”

“Yeah?”

“Where did you get a baby?”

“Whaddaya mean? In the stronghold, where you all said-“

“This is Cora.” He said, pointing to the unconscious woman he dragged in.

Oh. Baby of the family meant. Youngest sibling not. Actual infant. Huh.

Huh.

So then who exactly was he holding???

“Who the fuck steals a baby?” Peter asked, pointing at the kidnapper.

Stiles looked at the child like it had turned into a 30 megaton nuke.

Talia sighed. “Stiles.”

“Yes’m.”

“....Laura, go get some formula and diapers. I’ll....ask around about the baby.”

----

Stiles didn’t get into the family business to actually start a family. This was not his intention in the slightest. But here he was, singing a very off-key Jurassic Park theme song he composed himself to a tiny baby girl he decided to call Izzy, after his suggestions of Katie, Smelborp, Stormageddon, Cirilla, and Dreamsmasher were all shot down.

Derek walked in, and stood next to Stiles, hands out, offering to take the kiddo. Derek shouldn’t be allowed to dress down ever in Stiles’ presence, because the thin tee and the sweatpants were doing far too many good things for him. Too much was on display.

“No. Mine. Go kidnap your own.”

Derek exhaled, which was as close as Stiles ever got to a laugh from him. “C’mon, you’re dead on your feet, you adrenaline crashed hours ago, and the kid’s not falling asleep anytime soon. Give her over, alright?”

“Mine.”

“I get it, I get it, you like the kid. But what happens when you get attached and we have to hand the kid back over?” Derek folded his arms, and it....hhough he shouldn’t be allowed to fold his arms either, what were those arms even??? It wasn’t fair. Stupid werewolf whatever magic bullshit.

“Give her back?” Stiles asked, offended by the suggestion. No, they were not giving Isabel back, no no no, not happening.

“Yes, give her back. Do you think you can just keep her here forever? The Argents might burn the whole preserve down if this is one of their daughters. You don’t have a birth certificate for her, even.”

“Shhhhhh stop saying sense words.”

Derek slipped his arms in and yoinked the baby before Stiles could react, but as soon as the baby was nestled against him, Stiles didn’t have the heart. Derek looked hot as hell all the time, but that, with the light from the lamp bouncing off of his face, and even a smile? He was beautiful. “There, was that so hard?”

“Yes. Give her back.” But Stiles wasn’t trying to take her back, he knew in a battle of strength he wasn’t going to win that. Unless it was strength of will, that he could go toe-to-toe with any of them. Stiles sat in one of the chairs, ready for a long night ahead of him, watching Derek pace softly in socked feet around the room.

With Izzy settled in a makeshift crib, Derek sat in another chair, rubbing his eyes that were still dusted with gunpowder and smoke from the fight. Cora was up and running again, talking things over with Talia and Laura, his job was to watch the baby. And Stiles, though they came as a joint package.

Stiles fiddled with a fraying end of the chair. Ever since he joined the family months ago, he didn’t ask any of the specifics of what his father did, but he was curious. “You know what my dad did, exactly, to get this kind of treatment for me?”

Derek looked up. “You sure you want to know?”

“Yes.” Stiles had stolen a baby he wasn’t exactly king of the moral high ground that day.

Derek sighed, thin mouth pressed so tight it was almost one dimensional. But something in his mind must have won out, that Stiles deserved to know, so he told. About how he was fifteen, with a girlfriend, and given some frankly terrible advice from Peter, that ended up getting her in a bad way, and Derek had to snap her neck. It was a mercy kill, but that was a dead girl’s body, and any whiff of that reaching the public would ruin Derek’s life forever.

Talia and Claudia had been friends for years, so when Talia asked for John to come to the preserve, no lights no sirens, for a favor, she made a leap of faith that John wouldn’t betray her family. But he didn’t. John fixed the autopsy results to show she was hit by a car, fixed everything up so she was mourned by her family in the normal way for a tragic death, and no one was the wiser that Derek had killed her.

Stiles was silent for a long time after that. Derek thought he’d fallen asleep, but finally Stiles spoke. “He did the right thing. He warned me, you know, that he did and accepted some things I might not like. But that’s....that’s not what happened.” They looked at each other for a moment, the quiet intimacy of secrets laid bare broken by the sound of a stirring baby.

“Aw c’mon Izzy, please just sleeeeep.....be a good lil Mafia princess for me, huh?” Stiles begged, getting up.

“We’re not the Mafia!” Derek objected.

“You wear suits, you talk about the family business, you run a front organization to alter cashflow, just cause you’re wolves doesn’t make you not-Mafia.”

----

“She’s a spark.” Talia announced to the collected family, Izzy playing with the square in Derek’s suit pocket.

“Shiiiiit, where’d they get one of those?” Peter asked, side-eyeing the little one. Someone snapped at him about his language choices, but it didn’t matter, as he would continue to do what he wanted. Stiles didn’t care for Peter too much in general, but after hearing what happened with Derek and Paige, he was not exactly feeling it.

“Explanation for the newbie?” Stiles asked with a raised hand.

“Spark, you know, magical talent. Some channel it into Druidism, some channel it in other magical schools of thought, that kind of thing. They become our emissaries, or...if the Argents raise one up from the ground, a devastating weapon.” Laura explained, looking at Isabel with a look more concerned and less suspicious.

“Oh, you mean like this?” Stiles snapped both sets of fingers, and a shot of electricity arced from one thumb to the other.

Every wolf in the room stared at him in utter silence for a solid ten seconds of uncomfortable quiet.

“Stiles.” Derek ventured the conversation.

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you could do that.”

“Didn’t ask.”

“Are you always this- never mind I know you are.” Derek shook his head.

Stiles grinned at being so well known, but the conversation was too serious for many jokes. “We’re not giving the her back to those unhinged fu- people, are we? She’s like me. Mine.”

“Well. That depends. If she was born to one of them, they are their child.” Talia wouldn’t like that if it were the case. “But, the fact that the police haven’t knocked on our door tells me that either they think we’ll kill the kid if they do, or they have no better right to her than anyone else. I think it’s the latter. However, they’ll bring their whole force against us to get her back. If we had John-”

Stiles froze at the mention of his father’s name, but said nothing more.

“If we had John, we would definitely be able to sort her paperwork out. But we don’t. We need to find a new contact in the police that can arrange us those papers. Until we get that, Derek and Stiles, I want you both to take her into the vault with everything you need to last a week with her. You’ll be safe there. Any questions?”

Stiles raised his hand again. “Is there wi-fi in the vault?”

---

There was no wi-fi in the vault.

There was also no cell service either, which meant no Netflix, which meant no video games, no Youtube, nothing to amuse him. And it was only two days in. He had nothing. Except for, of course, annoying Derek. At least Derek was very generous in this.

“Twenty questions.”

“No.”

“I’m thinking of....a noun.”

“No.”

By four days, Stiles had run out of annoyances and had drifted into just mindlessly babbling at Izzy, while Derek’s forehead wrinkles got worse and worse with every minute that his brain cells slipped away.

On the sixth day, Derek finally decided to play ball. Either Stiles had worn him down enough, or maybe the two bottles of whiskey were going to help him cope.

“Truth or dare?” Stiles offered, smile with as he took the offered booze.

“Only because I don’t have a deck of cards. As a warning, never play Laura in King’s Cup, she has never lost a game and given me alcohol poisoning three times.”

“How does the whiskey even work on you, Mr. Healsalot.”

“Is Healsalot the best you can do?”

“Shut up.”

“It’s actually a bit of halite. Disables werewolf abilities while in close proximity, if something happens I toss it away as quick as possible and I’m good in, I’d say a minute or so with this level of exposure. Cora had a couple day’s worth, which is why she was knocked out.”

“Gotcha.” At least it made as much sense as anything else these weirdo furries got up to. Once each had downed a respectable amount of alcohol, they could begin. “Alright, truth or dare, big guy.”

“Dare.”

“Dare you toooooo.....fuck never mind there’s nothing fun to dare you with in here. These are all your family’s valuables and shit how am I supposed to dare you to dress up in Auntie Myrtle’s wedding dress and sing Poker Face on video for my own personal blackmail?”

“Truth, then.”

“You like guys?”

Derek stared at the directness of the question. “Subtle, aren’t we?”

“Literally never.”

“Okay. Sometimes.” Stiles didn’t look happy about the answer. “Why did you steal the baby?”

“I thought she was Cora!”

“You thought they wouldn’t have any sort of defenses around the hostage they’d taken from the werewolf family that they were fighting a turf war with?!”

“Shhhhhhh it’s fine it’s fine it all worked out right?”

“Did it? We’re hiding in a vault, that you have not stopped bitching about once since we came in here, and we might be giving her back, and even if we don’t, who’s going to take care of her?”

“Me.”

“You.”

“Moi. Yo. Io. You want it in any other language?”

“Polish?”

“Fuck you.”

“You wish.” Derek had something of a grin as he took another shot.

“Do you wish you could fuck me?” Stiles was getting bolder a couple shots in.

Derek took a moment to answer. “Sometimes.” Vague bastard.

“Oh? Like when?”

“Ah ah ah, my turn.” Derek took a swig, forgetting the dainty shot glass. “How many moles you got?”

“You wanna count em up?”

“Not an answer.”

“Over a hundred.”

Derek nodded, considering this thought as carefully as someone half-drunk really can. “Interesting.”

“Where do your eyebrows go when you shift?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to answer that question?”

“It’s your body, dude! How am I supposed to know how many moles I got when you don’t know where your friggin eyebrows go?!?!” Stiles’ limbs flailed as he gesticulated his exasperation.

“You’re gonna wake Izzy.” Derek warned. The baby was in another room of the vault so she could sleep while the adults could have their last-day-of-vaulting fun.

“Alright alr- wait, you called her Izzy.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yeeeeeeees, yes you did you called her Izzy instead of the baby. You like her.”

“Shhh.”

“New question: do you like Isabel Stilinski-Hale, the new baby of the family?”

Derek chuckled, man he really must be drunk. “We’re hyphenating?”

“I found her so I get first billing, but like y’all took me in so like, I guess you can join. Whatever.”

“Yes, I like the kid. She’s pretty good for a baby. Only projectile vomited on me twice. That’s not bad.”

“She’s the best kid.”

“Do you really think you’re in a good place to adopt her right now in your life?”

“Nooooo stop with the serious questions.” Stiles whined. “Serious ones aren’t fun let’s get back to the flirty ones those were fun.”

“It’s my question.” Derek shrugged.

“If I stole you as a kid I’d name you Moodkiller the Great.”

“Is ‘the Great’ my last name or is ‘the’ my middle name, like Kermit.”

“God you’re such a fucking nerd.”

“You know, no, I’m not in like the...perfect spot. But who IS when they get a kid? And I got the magic thing, and she does, so like....I dunno, she’s got no one else, probably, so.....wouldn’t you guys help me?” Stiles’ big dark eyes looked so beautiful in the scant light of the vault. Derek’s kryptonite.

“Of course we would, don’t be stupid.” Derek mumbled, looking away.

“.....Isabel Stilinski-Haaaale you’re gonna come home with uuuuuuus.” Stiles grinned, getting his own way.

“Whose turn is it?” Derek asked, not sure where the game had gone.

“Mmmmmine. I think. Maybe. Does it matter?”

“Guess not.”

Stiles paused for a second, looking at the distance between them on the floor, the thought process unfolding before Derek’s eyes as he saw Stiles decide exactly how to ambulate himself closer. With a thud, Stiles flopped on top of him and they fell flat on the floor.

“Ow.”

“Oh shut up that didn’t hurt, you big baby.” Stiles wasn’t going to let Derek get another word in, pressing his mouth against his, clumsy and off-center and everything bizarrely fitting together despite everything.

Derek only let Stiles win that for a half a second, before pinning Stiles down to the floor himself.

----

Stiles’ hangover next day was legendary. The wakeup screaming baby was violence to his ears and Derek was disgustingly FINE and Stiles hated him so much except for the fact that he still wanted to make out with his stupid face. Once he got up off the floor maybe. Everything hurt. Ow.

“C’mon, dumbass, Mom and Laura showed up outside, they said we got the kiddo and gotta go fill out the paperwork at the station. Gotta tell the world she’s your girl.”

“Yeah.” Stiles mumbled a little, looking up at Derek with the baby on his hip. “Mine.”

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