Chapter Text
“What did I do to deserve this?!” Peter asked the ceiling. The wolfsbane in his system made the whole cell spin a little.
“I could make you a list, but I'm guessing it'd be missing a few items,” The impertinent brat’s face blocked off his view of water-stained tiles. Stiles gave him a little finger wave, “So…What are you in for?”
“Just kill me now, sweet merciful Furies.” Peter muttered, automatically noting the additional changes to Stiles' appearance. Pointed ears, lingering baby-fat long gone to reveal even sharper cheekbones, formerly pale skin now a tempting alabaster—like moonlight. His vicious smile was full of delicately pointed teeth and his fingernails were black and longer than the orally fixated teenager had ever been able to keep them before, sharp where they curled around the bed frame.
Fey. What had been done to him?
And where was the fox?
“Yeah, I don’t think the Furies were particularly known for their mercy, dude, but whatever.” Stiles huffed, the cot squeaked, and his head disappeared from Peter’s view when he flopped back down, “Valack is really getting creative with the torture now. If I ask nicely, maybe they’ll take me back to the labs? They haven’t exsanguinated me in a while,” he sassed.
Peter shoved himself up on one arm and only wobbled a little, “…does that happen often?” he asked, brows drawing down over his nose.
Stiles waved one hand around in the air, the other tucked behind his head, “Less often than drowning. More often than electrocution,” he gave a little huff and muttered, seemingly to himself, “How did this situation get worse?”
“You’ve been here, right under our noses, the whole time?” Unable to stand his curiosity another minute, Peter poked him in his stupid, dimpled cheek, “What happened to your face?” Wait, that was phrased poorly. Stupid wolfsbane.
Stiles actually barked out a laugh, looking surprised at himself, but a slight grin lingered on his lips, “So much, dude. Wallace has a mean backhand, so you know—watch out for that or whatever.”
“I was referring to the,” He swirled a hand around his own face, nearly taking out his own eye in the process.
For the love of all things holy, how long did this wolfsbane take to clear the system?
Stiles just shrugged, “Your guess is probably better than mine, dude, what with your weirdly thorough knowledge of shit like kanima—kanimas—kanimai?--I’m glad that didn’t really come up before--and resurrection rituals and whatever. I haven’t even seen a mirror since I got here. We bathe in the sink, mostly.”
“I, I don’t even know what it looks like. Even if I did, my sources of knowledge were mostly like, reddit and WoW, with a couple of months’ access to a partially translated hunter bestiary. And at no point did I think to look for ‘weird things an evil scientist can make your face do’ the last time I had access to Google. I was a little busy, being possessed. By a demon.”
“And the fox now? Do we have a third roommate?”
“No. I got better.” Stiles snarked.
Peter nodded solemnly and levered himself up, then staggered over to the cot on the other side of the room, nearly tripping and putting his own eye out again when he stumbled.
“What the hell did they give you?”
“Yellow wolfsbane.” Peter groaned face down on the cot.
“Is that like…worse than the…purple? Blue? I don’t what color you’d call ‘normal’ wolfsbane, I’m gonna be honest.” Peter flipped him off without looking up.
“Ugh. Well, you stay on that side of the cell and I’ll stay on my side and we can just do our best not to kill each other. Deal?”
“It’s cute you think you can hurt me with those baby claws. They’re practically human.”
“I don’t know what kind of damage I can do, Peter, because I’ve been locked in Eichen for literal months, and only back in control of my own body 24/7 pretty recently, but I’d be happy to find out.”
Peter rolled his eyes, not that Stiles could see it, “Seriously, what happened to the fox, Stiles? Do I have anything to worry about trapped in here with you?”
“Yeah, but not from him.”
Ha, right. Fey took hundreds of years to mature enough to amass any power, especially on this side of the Veil where the magic was too thin to sustain them, and Stiles’ physical prowess before he’d been starved and tortured for an extended amount of time wasn’t exactly legendary. Peter rolled over on his side and propped his head up on one hand, “Forgive me if I’m not shaking in my non-slip slipper socks. Did Valack find a way to kill it?”
Stiles touched his bare neck where a ring of skin was slightly red and peeling, like a healing sunburn, “Kindda? But now I can do this,” and then he swiped his fingers into the meager shadows under the bed and drew it across his chest. Almost faster than Peter’s eyes could follow, he flung his hand back out again and 4 long streaks of pure darkness splashed into Peter’s chest with all the force of a water pistol.
He wiped a little frantically at his shirt, but there was nothing there, and Stiles’ snickering was becoming irritating, so he stopped, still slightly freaked out. “Well, that’s new.”
“Yeah,” Stiles coughed. “I figured it out on accident yesterday when one of the orderlies dropped something in the hall. I almost shit myself, and it just sort of happened. This cell is a lot more interesting than the last one, what with the real bed and actual pillows and shit, but it’s still surprisingly boring in here between torture sessions.”
“So he’s not completely gone,” Peter narrowed his eyes.
“It’s really hard to explain.”
“We’ve got time.”
“We’ve got ‘fuck off, Peter’, I don’t want to talk about it!”
Peter stared at him until he looked away mumbling something that made absolutely no sense about true names and ‘permadeath’. Peter gave up. For now.
Humph, “I was going to send Scott and Lydia into your brain to drag him out.”
“I don’t know what to do with that information.”
“It was a good plan…Not as good at the berserker one, but still good.”
“…berserker what?”
Peter giggled giddily, high on his own brilliance, then remembered he hadn’t even managed to get Scott’s baby beta down to Mexico with them and deflated again.
Maybe it hadn’t been such a good plan.
“You are so stoned,” Stiles groaned, “Can I assume you’re responsible for whatever happened to Scott a few days ago?” he rubbed his sternum where most people imagined their pack bonds lived, “which means Scott probably put you here because he’s too soft a touch to kill you properly. Which means the calvary isn’t coming.” His voice cracked and he threw his arm back over his eyes.
Peter shrugged.
“You know I’ll get the story out of you when you’re sober.” They were silent for a moment except for the sounds of the other prisoners and Stiles’ endless fidgeting until he turned his head back to face Peter with huff, “You gonna tell me what happened to YOUR face?”
Peter blinked for a moment in confusion, then ran a hand over his features to see if he’d somehow slipped into beta shift.
“Oh for--The extra fangs and the RAWR!” Stiles pushed down on his own brow, then puffed his fingers around his cheeks, presumably to mimic extra fur.
He could see the shift even when Peter was human? “How curious.”
“Well?”
Peter smirked. “I got better,” he echoed Stiles’ earlier sentiment.
Stiles glared death at him. “I hate that the only person I’ve been able to talk in moths is YOU. I hate you. And you’re stoned. Which honestly probably improves your personality, but that’s not saying much,” He ranted, delicate black claws catching Peter’s eyes like gemstones when he flailed them around. “I’d almost rather go back to the torture.”
“I’ll reserve judgment until I sample the quality of torture.” Peter decided after a moment, “you could be worse. I’ve had some pretty good torturers. The Calaveras cut off my finger with a chainsaw once.”
“A chainsaw?! That’s a bit overkill.”
“…maybe it was a knife. Maybe it was a chain knife. A knife saw. All of those things were involved somehow.”
“Wow…you’re just spewing out all sorts of fucked up things right now, aren’t you?”
“Evidently,” Peter huffed. He was word vomiting. It was a good thing it was so hard for werewolves to get drunk, or he might have squandered his genius. “Yellow wolfsbane is a hell of a drug.”
Stiles barked out another rusty sounding laugh that he quickly smothered behind a hand, “Dude.”
Peter nodded solemnly.
“Yellow wolfsbane, huh?”
“Nasty stuff,” Peter huffed, “rare and expensive. And it works all….dumb.”
“…did Scott get it from Deaton?”
“No,” Peter blinked, “Argent got it from the Calaveras. Why?”
“…Deaton knows I’m here.”
Oh. OH. Peter whistled. “When we get out of here, I’ll help you tear him apart.” Peter offered because he was magnanimous like that.
“Right, well sorry,” Stiles cleared his throat, “I dunno how to feel about it. I was still the fox at the time. It’s a fucked-up situation, so I’m not ready to be murder-buddies with you just yet,” He glared at the ceiling, “we’ll have to see if we can share this cell for however long without killing each other first.”
Stiles pushed himself to his feet and shuffled over to the sink between their beds, filling a little paper cup, then carried it back over and dangled it over Peter’s head until he reached up to take it from him. “Hydrate dude. If this place has taught me anything about drugs, it’s that they linger when you’re dehydrated, and I have no idea what to do with this version of you.”
“All versions of me are spectacular,” Peter growled, but drank the stupid water. It was tepid, smelled terrible, and tasted vaguely metallic, but it did seem to help, so he held the cup back out for a refill.
“What do I look like your fucking butler?” Stiles frowned.
“I don’t have a butler. I have a maid.”
“Of course you do.”
Peter glared at him and successfully flashed his eyes.
“Ugh, fine! But only because I can’t deal with a drunk homicidal version of you in this small of a space right now.” Stiles stalked back to the sink and returned with a fresh cup before flopping back down on his own mattress again.
Sucker. Peter hid his grin.
“So this grand plan of yours…Is everyone alive?” Stiles asked, after a moment. He sounded scared of the answer, face turned to the wall like he didn’t want to see him reply.
Peter groaned. He did NOT want to talk about it.
“Peter?!”
“Go’way.”
Stiles stalked across the room and grabbed him by the cheap t-shirt to shake him, “Peter! My dad and the pack—are they all still alive? If you killed anyone I swear—“ the air stirred oddly. Stiles put his fingers to his lips like they tingled, startling him from finishing the thought.
“If I tell you they’re all alive, will you leave me alone?” Peter flailed at him. “What I did didn’t warrant this kind of treatment. I want a different cell.” He raised his voice, “Hey! I want a different cell.”
A cacophony of hoots and similar laughing demands floated down the hallway from the other cages. Rude.
Stiles huffed and flopped on the floor, resting his back against Peter’s cot. He smelled nearly sick with relief. “Whatever happened, this is all your fault so it’s ridiculous you’re so bitter about it. You shouldn’t have bitten Scott if you didn’t want your plots foiled by those meddling kids and their talking dog.”
“…is Scott or my nephew the dog in your little Scooby scenario?”
“It’s Isaac most of the time; depends on the day.”
Peter huffed and turned his head to stare at the back of Stiles’ head.
If he’d been in his right mind, he’d have bitten Stiles instead, despite his compulsion to throw inappropriate pop-culture references into every conversation. He really would make a magnificent wolf. Except he wouldn’t have. Because he was a fairy. Peter snickered.
“I’m not a fairy!” Stiles yelped, so he must have said that aloud. Oops. Stiles smacked his shoulder, bristling, “No little wings, no pixie dust. What the fuck!” he grumbled, “Jeeze.”
Peter huffed another laugh. “Well, you’re something from Faerie.”
“Whatever. You’re lucky you didn’t bite me, asshole. I would have taken that alpha spark from you so fast Cora’s head would have spun clear down in Argentina.
“Maybe, back then, before death brought me a little…clarity, but you wouldn’t fare nearly so well now. I’ve found ways to boost my power since I clawed my out of the grave.”
“I can see that,” Stiles reminded him, “but it didn’t do you much good, did it?” He gestured around. “But can I say, the fact that that sentence doesn’t seem weird at all to me is indicative of what my life has become?” He levered himself back to his feet and then flopped onto his own cot again.
“I almost had my alpha spark back…” Peter reached a hand over his head, fascinated by the way the overhead lights outlined the thinner web of skin between his fingers and made them glow alpha red. “I was so close. It really was a good plan, Stiles…Do you have any idea how complicated it is to steal a spark from a true alpha?”
“Honestly Peter, I’m too tired to care except that you failed and everyone’s still alive out there and mostly in one piece.”
“That’s it?” Peter was affronted, “You learn I tried to kill all your little friends again, and then you just…let it go? This place has changed more than your face. The old Stiles would have been plotting my very messy demise right now.”
“Oh, I still might be,” The new tiny fangs really gave that particular smirk a more shark-like quality. Peter sort of liked it. “But if you expected me to be surprised by your sudden but inevitable betrayal, sorry, I’m not. You’d have to be a special kind of stupid to trust you. You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are.”
“And yet, here we are,” Peter mused, “Willful ignorance. You’d be surprised how deluded people can be when they don’t want to deal with the truth. I’ve always been particularly skilled at taking advantage of that little human foible.”
“Beacon Hills will do that to a person. OR a werewolf.”
“I suppose there is that.”
Screaming started again down the hall, and they both winced.
“My old cell was pretty sound-proofed. You got me downgraded to a double with thin walls,” Stiles bitched. “Even if there are slightly fewer lights."
Peter took in the LED tiles dotting the floors and the ceiling covered in fluorescents. This was less lighting? The scream kicked up a notch, and Peter brought his hands up to protect his delicate hearing. His senses were all over the place like a new beta. How pathetic. Stiles just frowned up at nothing, seemingly, unaffected by another creatures’ agony. His True Mistake would have been climbing the walls to try and save whatever poor soul was suffering out there.
“What is this place?”
“Hell. This place is hell and you’re the newest resident. Hope you got your welcome packet at the door.”
Peter groaned and put his back to the room. “I want a new cell,” he told the wall.
Stiles snickered.