Stiles stood in the living room between the Alpha and the Beta, never more confused and alarmed than he was in that moment.

They were standing inches apart, staring at each other. Hard. And breathing pretty heavily too. None of which made any fucking sense. And it had been like that since Stiles had walked his happy little human butt inside, prepared to explain what he'd uncovered regarding the entity that shared the halls of their high school and occasionally enjoyed murdering teachers as a hobby. Things he had assumed both Derek and Peter would find very interesting indeed.

But he was so goddamn wrong.

Stiles, 0. The Universe, 1,202,142.

They were fighting. That was pretty goddamn obvious. For starters, they were both sharing that slightly constipated look that all the Hales wore when they were pissed the fuck off. And it usually told everyone in a five mile radius to stay out of their way, but Stiles wasn't very smart. And he was right in the middle of the world's grumpiest werewolves, for some unknown reason, as they looked like they were about to rip each other's faces off.

And Kate was no help. She was just standing on the other side of them, looking terrified.

"Seriously?" Stiles started. "No one's going to tell me what's going on? I could hear you screaming outside." He put his hands on his hips in exasperation. "I mean, I couldn't hear what you were screaming exactly, but still," he mumbled.

"Go ahead, Alpha," Derek replied menacingly.

Peter scoffed. "You're really not gonna let this go, are you? You're being ridiculous, Derek."

Stiles threw his hands up. "What exactly is the problem?" He turned to Derek. "You don't like Peter being Alpha all the sudden? Is that it? You wanna be Alpha?"

"No, I just don't think it's fair that we can't find our Alpha when we need him," he contradicted, inching closer to Peter. "Like, oh, I don't know... when your teacher was murdered." With each word, Derek raised his voice. And with each octave he reached, Peter stood steadfast, not even flinching. "Or how about when Jackson was sniffing around way too close for comfort? And then you all landed in a detention which nearly got you killed." Another step, another inch. "Who fixed that, huh? Oh, right. That was me."

Stiles forgot just how tall Derek really was until he was like this, towering over everybody else. And that shit was unnerving as hell. Like he never quite stood up to his full height unless he was trying to be intimidating.

Mission fucking accomplished.

"And anytime I ask him where he's been or who he's been with, he has no answer," Derek continued.

"Not fucking true," Peter contended. "You just don't like my answer. Not the same thing, Derek."

Peter's eyes flashed red for a millisecond and Derek put his hand across Stiles' chest, pushing him back a little. But all Stiles could find himself doing was rolling his eyes because angry or not, Peter was always in control. He wasn't going to hurt anybody. Peter was right. Derek was being ridiculous.

"You're acting like a goddamn child right now," Peter accused. "Might this have something to do with a certain someone reappearing in our lives?"

Peter didn't look at Kate when he said it, but that comment wasn't even thinly veiled. He was talking about her. And for the first time since she'd waltzed back into Beacon Hills, Stiles felt vindicated in his strange and seemingly unjustified hatred toward her. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who got a bad taste in their mouth around her.

"She always did have a habit of bringing out the worst in you," Peter contended.

"Whoa, dude. What the..." Stiles ping-ponged back to Peter. "Did you just growl?" Peter shrugged his shoulders as an answer. "I thought we liked Kate."

Lies. But Stiles had been playing the part well enough, he thought, to get away with saying it. And he sorta wanted proof that someone else wasn't stupidly happy she wasn't six feet under after all.

"That was before she came back from the goddamn dead and started filling my nephew's head with all kinds of bullshit," Peter insisted.

"I'm not filling his head with anything," Kate asserted. "This is just a case of wrong place, wrong time. I swear."

She sniffled and folded her arms tightly across her chest, completing the faux damsel in distress look perfectly. And it took everything Stiles had in him not to fucking laugh in her face. She looked goddamn pathetic. He had no idea how Derek fell for this shit.

"Besides, he's always here too," she said, motioning toward Stiles. "It's not just me. Why is it automatically my fault?"

"Stiles is part of the pack," Peter said matter-of-factly.

"He's human, Peter," she retorted with a smirk. "He's not a real pack member."

Fucking. Bitch.

But Stiles didn't have time to defend himself before Derek was turning to her, his eyes blazing that gorgeous and unnatural shade of blue. He was clearly about to lay into her, which gave Stiles the warm fuzzies, but now was not the time. Sure, it was nice to know that both Peter and Derek saw him as a full-fledged member of their ragtag group of misfits, but there were more pressing matters.

"You." Stiles pointed directly at Derek. "Go over there. And you." He turned to Peter, pointing toward the opposite corner of the living room. "Over there. Now."

Surprisingly—or maybe not surprisingly at all given the context the last two minutes had provided—they both did as they were told without further comment. And Stiles sat there in the middle once more completely dumbfounded as to how he should proceed. He had no basis for how to moderate a fight between an Alpha and his Beta. He understood werewolf hierarchy and lore at, like, a rudimentary level, but this felt bigger than his current knowledge base. And his fingers itched with the need to google something.

"Now, someone start at the beginning," Stiles demanded, his hands returning to his hips. "I feel like I'm not getting the whole story here. And it seems like you, mister," he said, turning toward Peter again, "aren't saying what you really want to say, so maybe just spit it the fuck out, huh?"

"You're right, Stiles. I'm not," Peter conceded. "Because I'm scared."

"Scared?"

"I'm scared my nephew is going to say something he can't take back," he elaborated.

Ah. Okay. They were getting closer.

"Like what?"

Peter took his eyes off Stiles, clearly determined to go straight to the source and stop using him as a conversational security blanket to divert any direct attacks and risk feelings getting hurt. And the man looked scared, as advertised. Which bugged the shit out of Stiles. He'd never seen Peter scared before and he didn't like the way his skin crawled as a result. Like his body knew something terrible was headed their way with his confession in a way his brain couldn't fully process yet.

"Do you truly believe I set that fire, Derek?" he asked, his voice soft and slightly timid. "Do you think that I am capable, even in a moment of weakness, even for a single second, of killing our pack?" He gulped a lungful of air, stuttering with it a bit as he let it out. "Of killing my sister?"

Derek stared straight back at him and Stiles swallowed hard. He had heard his dad mumbling a couple of times recently about the Hale Fire, but he had ignored it. He'd assumed it didn't concern him anymore. That he had more information than his dad. That his dad was just a lowly human without all the nuances of the conversation who couldn't possibly add to it in any meaningful way. And Stiles had thought he had other things to worry about. Potentially life-ending things. He had figured his energy was better focused elsewhere.

Clearly, he was wrong.

"I don't know what to believe anymore," Derek issued finally.

Stiles' mouth fell open at his admission as Peter scoffed loudly and took off out the back door, not bothering with a backward glance in either of their directions.

"Peter! Come back, man!" Stiles called after him.

But he didn't slow down. He just sprinted across the backyard as soon as his feet cleared the porch and disappeared into the treeline.

"What the actual fuck is wrong with you?" Stiles implored, rounding on Derek. "Do you really think that shit? Like he said, that was his fucking sister. And he raised you. He didn't have to do that."

Stiles waited for a response, but when none came, he barrelled on. "Why in the hell would he kill his whole goddamn family, except you for some weird reason, and then raise you on his own when he was only in his early twenties?"

It was mostly a rhetorical question, but if Derek had chosen to interrupt, Stiles would have let him. Instead, he just stood there, staring back at him, his face slowly falling as the truth washed over him. "What would even be the point, Derek? You're cool and all, but not kill everybody I know cool, okay?"

Stiles began to pace. Something he did when he was really fucking agitated. And this certainly qualified. "And I don't know if you've noticed, but being Alpha sucks donkey balls. No one wants that job, Derek, if that's what you're thinking. From what I can tell, it's kinda forced on you. And for Peter, in the worst way. No one's going to take that on if they've grown up in that world. They're either going to be doing some stupid power grab or be completely ignorant to the implications and consequences. And Peter Hale is not stupid, Derek."

Stiles turned to Kate, hoping she would back him up. But she was silent. The only other person who was around at the time of that fire, who might be capable of providing some much needed perspective, was fucking silent.

To his benefit, when Stiles returned his attention to Derek, he looked upset. As if the new clarity Stiles' rant had provided was sinking in. But Stiles was over it. In a big way. Peter was right. Derek Hale was being really fucking childish lately. And he had definitely done the one thing his uncle had been worried about. He'd said some dumb shit that he might not be able to take back.

For all their sakes, though, he hoped Peter could find it in himself to forgive Derek one day.

"Call me when you pull your head outta your ass, Sourwolf."