Stiles Stilinski's Home for Supernatural Friends

The (More Than) Buddies System

It starts with a dead bird.

Specifically, a dead blackbird that Stiles finds outside his bedroom window.

He gets home late from his business writing class on Tuesday, trudging up the too many flights of stairs to the not-so-derelict loft apartment he rents from Peter.

Peter bought Derek's entire building three years ago in a sort of passive-aggressive attempt to force them to interact with one another without avunculicide in the mix.

Everybody had protested and grumbled, had flashed fangs and claws at Peter's blatant attempt to weasel his way into the group. Derek's scowl had reached new levels of eyebrow-intensity.

That all changed pretty quickly after most of the pack graduated high school.

After all, rent isn't cheap in California.

And, mass murderer he may be, but goddamn Peter Hale sure knows how to flip an abandoned building. Stiles is 96% sure that the man was an interior decorator in a past life. Either that or Genghis fucking Khan.

He's also a pretty decent landlord. And because Stiles started making some serious money as an online supernatural consultant and researcher (thank you Deaton—well, Deaton's contacts—for finally being useful for something), he was the first to take Peter up on his offer.

Everyone else caved soon after.

So now most of the pack that didn't move out of state for college lives on top of one another, with Derek, hilariously enough, squeezed in the middle. Derek had gotten kind of misty-eyed when Stiles first made his "always a middle child, eh?" observation.

But that was a year and a half ago. Stiles is now in his second year of college and he's trudging—still goddamn trudging—up to his top-floor apartment.

Stiles thinks Peter put him there on purpose. The elevator never seems to work.

He makes it to his floor, unlocking the door and tossing his keys onto the kitchen counter. Stiles shrugs off his backpack and walks over to the sink. Filling up his rickety old watering can, Stiles wanders around his apartment watering his various poisonous plants.

Wolfsbane, foxglove, belladonna, hemlock, jimsonweed, mistletoe—he's got it all, and lots of it. Hell, he's even got a few poinsettias just in case.

Just in case what?

Exactly.

He and the pack have run into too many Creatures Of The Night™ that require a little something extra to stay down, so Stiles took it upon himself—as he did with the books and the research and the fucking Sumerian language—to be prepared.

Stiles is about to step out onto his fire escape, trusty watering can in hand, when his phone vibrates. He climbs out onto the platform and starts spraying the mistletoe. Stiles unlocks his phone and the screen becomes a beacon in the night for literally every gnat in town.

It's from Chris.

Did you get home safe?

Stiles's heart starts beating faster and a dopey smile spreads across his face. He swipes over the contact and dials.

Chris picks up on the second ring.

"I'll take this as a yes, then, shall I?" Chris asks, deep voice smooth and amused. "Unless this is Stiles's kidnapper about to give me his ransom demands?"

Stiles huffs. "You really think I'd get kidnapped on the way home from school?"

There's a pause. "You say that like you haven't already been kidnapped three times."