SELECT chapter 5 ↵ FROM union all

Wednesday dawned bright and too early. Talia had requested him to bring Scott's school bag to the high school, so he'd had to get ready earlier than normal. They'd agreed on breakfast, but this father had already over slept if they'd even wanted to go. He'd heard the man get up and make it back to his bed at some point in the night.

So Stiles stood in front of his father's door, hand poised to knock, before he spun and left. The warm memories of Talia's pack were making it hard for him to want to put forth the effort for his own dad. And that made him feel guilty as shit.

He ground his teeth as he gathered his stuff and left the house. Tapping out a message on his phone.

Sleepy head, you didn't wake in time for breakfast, so I left for school early.

He grunted and shook one hand as he closed the front door. His arms felt jittery. Stiles caught himself as he climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep. He tucked his hands under his thighs and took a long deep breath, trying to settle into his skin somehow.

The drive to Scott's was blessedly short, and he let himself in, then back out silently. Melissa would arrive home at some point mid morning, so he wasn't too concerned. She preferred to work days in a row now that Scott was in high school and could mostly take care of himself.

The drive to the school was a bit longer, but just as simple. A drive he'd taken so often as to be mindless. Stiles blinked and was pulling into the school parking lot, still partially full from camper's cars being left there during the week.

Scott sat on one of the picnic tables outside when he pulled up. Giving his friend a loose wave when he was able to pull into a close spot to the school. Getting in early had it perks, it seemed.

"Hey yo Scotty-o." Stiles called, dropping his friend's backpack at his feet. "Did you stay up and paint each other's nails? Braid each other's hair?"

Scott snorted and shook his head. "No, Talia just took me through anchoring over and over again."

Stiles held his hand up, miming a microphone. "This just in, anchoring. Please expound, inquiring minds need to know."

Scott shoved Stiles' hand away.

"It's like centering or whatever, for meditation. Something I can focus on when the things I sense become overwhelming and trigger a shift." Scott explained, blushing and fidgeting. He reached up one hand and rubbed his fingers over Stiles' cheek. Instantly his shoulders relaxed.

Stiles' eyebrows shot up.

"Scotty, I didn't know you felt that way. Com'ere, gimme kiiiiiiiss?" Stiles leaned forward, lips pursed in an exaggerated pucker. Scott gagged and shoved his face away.

"She said that if I touch you then I won't be as mad when others are scenting you." Scott grumbled quietly, Stiles snorted and sat so their shoulders were touching.

"That's very kum-bai-ya." Stiles chuckled. Several more cars had driven into the lot as they spoke. Each as identifiable as their occupants. The school was beginning to wake up, and a bored looking teacher wandered out of the open double doors to keep an eye on the people coming in and the people being dropped off.

A by-product of his curious nature, Stiles had learned, was the awkward infatuations he had a tendency to develop. They never tended to last long, his mind skipping and skittering over the subject of his infatuation. Oftentimes only days or weeks after it had started.

Lydia Martin had been one such instance. It haunted him even now. She'd been his social awakening, and swift social death, all rolled into one strawberry blonde bombshell. Freshman year he'd pined so hard, he was surprised a forest hadn't sprouted. For about three weeks he'd been head over heels in lust and puppy love with her. Those three weeks had been awkward as hell, because he'd treated her like a Hale and learned everything about her. Dug into her life with the fine tooth comb he'd long since honed.

She'd noticed his annoying gaze at one point and then meticulously befriended him only to absolutely publicly demolish him. It was beautiful. He still remembered that day so very fondly. Because he'd lost interest only days prior and had been trying to figure out how to disengage from the situation.

Part of him suddenly wanted to see her. Just so she could ignore him. It was a weird feeling, wanting some semblance of normal.

That made Stiles want to laugh. Normal. He sighed, flexing his shoulders.

"Come on. We need to go haunt a class room." Stiles stood, nodding his head towards the school.

"God everything reeks." Scott gagged to one side. "I don't want to go in there."

"Yes, nothing quite like overly hormonal bags of flesh trying to disguise themselves with Axe and Bath and Body works." Stiles remarked wryly, looking at his friend. "Ya good?"

"I will be." Scott grumbled. He resolutely stood, squared his shoulders and followed Stiles into the belly of the very gross beast. So to speak.

The office handed them a short list of teachers they were to shuffle amongst each period. It seemed they were being passed off on their empty periods. A stack of hastily put together print-outs accompanied them. Stiles wanted to laugh when one of them was a literal coloring page of a campsite. If they couldn't experience it. At least they could color it.

The first teacher was Mr. Hitt, their AP History teacher. He waved them in and let them sit quietly in the back corner. It was deathly silent in the room and Stiles did his utmost to distract Scott, tossing rolled up pieces of paper at his friend every time he looked particularly bored and fangy.

The morning announcements came on and Scott winced.

It wasn't pleasant to human ears. So Stiles winced in solidarity, sorting through the pages of silly paper. Scott settled some as soon as they got to reading and glorified coloring, finally having something to focus on. Half way through the first period the classroom door opened. The guidance counselor poked her head in sheepishly.

"I'm sorry for interrupting." She demurred.

"Don't worry, what can I do for you?" Mr. Hitt said, putting a finger in the book he'd been reading out of, closing it and giving her his full attention.

"A new student is here, she's missed the camping trip as well. So she'll be shadowing Mr. Stilinski and Mr. McCall." Ms. Summers said happily, opening the door fully to step in the room. Behind her followed a conventionally pretty brown haired girl who stepped into the room.

"Mr. Hitt, Stilinski, Scott, this is Allison Argent." Ms. Summers did a Vana White move, as if displaying the newcomer like an automobile on a game show.

Stiles' brain caught like a snagged thread on the very dangerous name. So he missed the next few minutes as he tried to go through the last few weeks of alerts. There hadn't been anything about the Argent's moving. At least, none of the active branches.

Stiles came to when he looked over and saw his very wolfy bestie staring lovingly at someone whose last name was literally silver for god's-sake. Those eyes weren't good. Those eyes were Bad. Scott only got that way over a few things, and a physical person hadn't been on the list until just now.

Stiles quietly pulled out his phone and opened the conversation with Talia. It was blank still. He had never told her he'd gotten home safely.

He glanced up at the teacher and then over to Allison.

S: What's dangerous, deadly, and rhymes with torment?

S: I'll give you three guesses.

S: First two don't count

S: It's Argent! Surprise! Guess who just walked into our lives?

Stiles bit at his lips as he waited for a response, only half his attention on the words that the teacher was saying.

T: What?

S: Allison Argent, don't know if they're related to the illustriously infamous Argent family of hunters. Or, I don't know, the name in the case file regarding your HOUSE FIRE. Just thought I'd inform the local TOP DOG of potential BAD ACTORS in her oh I don't know AREA OF INFLUENCE.

T: Consider me informed. Get back to school work.

Stiles sent a long list of emojis and emoticons. He couldn't do anything about it right now. He'd done his duty and informed Talia. Scott kept making moon eyes at the damn girl, and it was giving Stiles an ulcer. She sat at the front of the class room with her own tree's worth of papers. Mr. Hitt nodded and returned to his book quietly.

"Should I go ask her if she needs a pen?" Scott murmured quietly. Stiles closed his eyes.

"No Scott-diddly-umpkins." Stiles said, pained that he'd need to look into a fellow classmate before letting his best friend out to play. "Why don't you hold off on the heart eyes for a little bit until I can give you the green light, yea?"

"Why?" Scott turned, eyes and brow pulled into a confused glare.

"Do you remember your new furry habit?" Stiles hissed, low and grumpy. Scotty grumped back and they shoved on each other until Mr. Hitt cleared his throat very deliberately. Allison was looking at them, and Stiles watched as the sun rose in Scott's face.

Fucking hell. From class to class, Allison sat at the front and they sat at the back.

Class after class, Stiles had to practically leash Scott to keep him from panting over her.

Lunch was a fun game of 'see how much food we can con out of the lunch ladies without paying extra.' In the end Stiles still had to give over his portion to Scott. It was rather eye opening to see just how much food the teen could consume now.

Scott had work after school since he wasn't on the trip any longer, thank goodness. They'd lost sight of Allison as soon as the last bell rang. Not to mention Scott wasn't a super sniffer yet and couldn't be creepy and find her that way. So Stiles felt safe dropping him off at the vets, and Lacrosse didn't start until after winter holidays. So Stiles' afternoon was wide open after he said bye to Scott. He had nowhere to be. His father had texted him an apology, trying to wheedle pizza out of it.

Stiles sighed.

The day had been difficult.

But there was a bright side to having afternoons free. Peter-hunting-time down at the local Brew and You cafe. The price of his bitcoin had gone down recently, but it was still 10xs what it had been when he'd first been inspired to toss money into the escrow and tumbling services so long ago.

It meant that he could afford the fancy froofroo coffee, bought in cash.

It also meant that he could afford the repairs on his Jeep, carried out over the summer at a garage over state lines so his dad never found out. Regardless of the situation, money was always a touchy subject. He knew that his savings easily doubled his father's now.

Stiles ground his teeth and focused on his set up at the cafe. Against a wall on an overstuffed armchair, legs hung loosely over the armrests in his usual sprawl. It was simple enough to boot the live operating system and go about signing into his various accounts.

Stiles hummed as he did so, one leg swinging and dancing to the tuneless melody.

He felt excited and nervous, as he always did when he'd been away from his bots for a while. Stiles glanced at the opening door, several other high schoolers wandered in. He settled further into the chair, ducking his head so he could hide behind the laptop screen.

Over the next few hours he dug deeper into the minutia of Peter Hale. Meticulously cross referencing the source addresses that had been logged on the packages delivered through the UPS and USPS. It took Stiles only two checks to recognize addresses from popular tv-shows and comic books.

Peter, had a sense of humor. That was for damn sure. He only chose locations with real world cities, and the packages were always sent from those locations. Which meant that, if the packages accurately portrayed his path across the states, he'd been on the move.

Stiles didn't really care. But it was just so fascinating.

Peter's accounts had long since laid dormant, as had his progeny's.

Derek and Laura didn't have large cash withdrawals that would coincide with Peter's movements. It was one of his oldest scripts that finally uncovered a silly few lines that corresponded to a transfer of funds from one account to another. Two separate wallets from years ago, probably before Peter really paid attention to his security. The wallets were dormant, but the concept bled through Stiles' mind.

Peter probably had separate e-cash wallets under various names that he could easily pull from. Logical now that he'd completely thought it out. Stiles had done the same thing a long time ago. If Peter had properly invested years ago, then the amount now, even with prices falling, would be enough to live off of comfortably.

Stiles grinned happy he had an explanation of where Peter could be hiding his funds.

The Argents, on the other hand.

Whew doggy. That family was a clusterfuck that needed court ordained therapy, stat.

Kate Argent, lovely spiritual successor to the grandpappy of pain, Gerard Argent, had been the brain behind the Hale House Fire. The case file had always been very… loose with it's interpretation of the incident. So all Stiles had at the beginning of his Hale Obsession had been the name and her involvement. It had been when he'd unearthed the messages between her and Derek Hale a few years later, that Stiles really felt pure rage for the first time.

She'd been sitting pretty in a maximum security prison since her conviction. Fully convicted of arson and murder and rotting the rest of her decaying life away behind bars. Stiles had her ingress date written down on his calendar. Every year he went out and celebrated it with a few cupcakes and a delivery of flowers to the graves of the lost Hales.

He wasn't idiotic enough to deliver them himself.

Gerard had been busy since his lovely daughter had gotten herself locked up. Stiles found the poorly secured image server the man kept, almost vomited when he found the images kept there. Fucking torture porn.

But hey. If he could point it out to the right people and set up the right dominos, bastard would fall face first into a pile of shit of his own making. Which. Really, that would be the sweetest victory.

Chris Argent, on the other hand, was a squeaky clean tax paying citizen. He hadn't pinged Stiles' radar because he wasn't on it. It seemed that he shared the name and, hopefully, nothing else. His wife had a weird obsession with knives. Which, Stiles dutifully made a note of. Her interactions with several close Hunter forums were concerning as well.

Stiles glanced outside, evening was coming on fast.

He sighed and began the process of saving, deleting, and locking everything back down. The live OS thankfully didn't interact with the Windows OS he kept on the laptop as back up. Instead booting and operating directly from the RAM. Which meant that for all intents and purposes, there was little to no trace of what he'd just done.

Stiles nodded to the barista, shoving a five dollar bill into the tip jar on his way out.

He sat in his Jeep for five minutes, debating driving to the Hale house. He hadn't found anything extremely time sensitive. Or really important at all to anyone other than him. So instead he fiddled with his phone and finally sent a vague message.

S: Seems the silver is out of commission. Hopefully. Mama's got a sharp habit tho.

He didn't get a response. He hadn't expected one. Instead he texted Scott, hoping to hop online and zone out for a few hours while blowing up various two legged things with virtual guns that went boom.

No response from Scott by the time he reached home. A home that was dark. Even though his father had today off, he'd spent it somewhere else. He couldn't stand an empty house either.

So Stiles walked through the dark rooms and hallways, made it to his room, and set about finishing up the idiotic busy work they'd been given at school. He had strict rules about his clearnet interactions. Always inline with a 'typical high-school boy' and never for any level of research that wasn't assigned by school.

Which meant Stiles was bored out of his skull by the time 10pm rolled around.

Never a healthy prospect for a Stiles. So he unearthed old notebooks filled to the brim with cramped handwriting, and tried to focus on re-reading through information he'd long since memorized. His hands flitted to and fro about his person as he sat idly staring at the space on his wall.

The addresses Peter had used were such a good diversion.

Elegant even.

A sudden jerk as his hands landed on a pen. Inspiration struck, burning hot and fire bright against his sternum. He didn't have Peter's home address. But he did have Laura's. With a fierce level of excitement, Stiles spun to face his computer. He didn't really want to return to the cafe at this time of night. And he wasn't going to be committing any felonies. Maybe.

With a toothy grin, Stiles set about one of his most elegant pranks he'd ever conceived.

The burning excitement and curiosity rode him, solidifying his thoughts and movements. The heat in his chest spread up into his cheeks and down to his fingers. He was completely focused on his tasks. Excitement he hadn't felt in a long time sparked through him eagerly. He was about to 'play' with a potentially dangerous being, what was more fun than that?

First, he confirmed that each address was real, then he set about registering them under each appropriate fictitious name, be it from a TV Show or Comic book. It required a lot of, uh, questionably legal practices in regards to the Federally protected USPS. But he'd come of age in the binary grey area, so such things weighed but nothing on his conscience. Then, with a vicious glee, he set the forwarding addresses to Laura's apartment, under provision of Peter Hale.

As a final stroke of utter brilliance he signed each name up for every newsletter, credit card proposal, and information selling site he could locate. Then he carefully, quietly, went into Laura's USPS account and turned off all incoming notifications for mail. A new service that had just been rolled out, it would dampen the pay off if they knew what was coming.

The results wouldn't be instant.

But it would be glorious