Chapter Text
Stiles could admit that he had become more dependent on others to make decisions after the Nogitsune. It was much easier to follow than to question whenever his choices where truly his or the leftover whispers of the fox. He still heard it sometimes. An echo in the back of his mind, taunting him, laughing at him. It made him wonder if being freed was just another one of its games. That he'd wake up any moment just to find himself right back in its grasp.
So yes. He'd grown rather dependent on others.
But even so he wasn't dependent on Scott enough to let him go through with the thought he had been playing with. A small slip was all that was needed for Stiles to catch on. Maybe he wouldn't have if it hadn't been about Eichen House. After everything that happened there to him, both while under the Nogitsune and while searching for the truth about Lydia's grandmother, even the slightest mention of that place had him on high alert.
That was all it had been. Just a throwaway comment from Scott about looking up the requirements of having someone admitted there. It wouldn't have been out of place to look it up back when Stiles was admitted. Not when they were looking into Meredith. But now? Now when they just barely made it out alive of the whole deadpool fiasco?
The look on his face wasn't much better. It reminded Stiles of back in the beginning of this mess. When he was still himself and Scott wanted to do anything possible to get Derek locked up and out of his way. Obviously, Derek no longer was the recipient of that gaze so who was? Stiles mind went into overdrive as it rattled through possibilities when it hit him. Peter. Scott wanted to lock away Peter. In Eichen House of all places.
Stiles shuddered. He didn't want to think about what they would do to Peter. They managed to drive people mad, to drive them towards suicide if they didn't just outright kill them themselves through their little experiments. And Peter... Peter wasn't a shining example of mental health even now when he wasn't on a revenge spree. Though working with Kate until he found the perfect moment to hand her over to Argent wasn't the best way to go about things, but he was getting better. Progress and all that.
Really, for all that he went through in the last decade alone he was holding it together pretty well. Eichen House would shatter it all. It would put that madness right back to being front and center of his every move. Would reopen all those wounds that were just beginning to heal. Would take from him the freedom that he barely regained after he paid for it with his life.
And Stiles couldn't sit back and watch as they condemned Peter when Stiles did something far worse. At least Peter never killed any innocents. Not from his point of view at least. Stiles on the other hand had bathed in the blood of innocents. Hell, he could feel them beneath his skin in his every waking moment. Their pain and the chaos of lives ended far before their due date - the two main ingredients the Nogitsune used while creating his new body when it forcefully spat him out.
If someone was the monster that should be locked away, it was him. But this wasn't about who deserved to be locked away for actual crimes. This was about grudges. Scott had been pretty good keeping those for as long as Stiles knew him. He knew that Scott hated Peter for turning him. The whispers in his mind made him wonder if that meant he resented Stiles for that night as well.
He shook them off. He didn't have time to get lost in such thoughts. He didn't know how much time he had before Scott would turn in Peter. Swallowing down the bile that threatened to rise, he opened Eichen House's website. So unassuming considering the horrors within it. Horrors they had barely scratched the surface of.
Stiles took a deep breath and started to count his fingers.
One.
Two.
Three.
He might not have his own body anymore.
Four.
Five.
Six.
He might not have a sound mind anymore.
Seven.
Eight.
But he still had a conscience.
Nine.
Ten.
And his mind cleared. Honed in on his goal in a way it hadn't since the sacrifices. It pulled apart at the legal talk, searching out any weaknesses he could use. He printed out state laws and some legal cases as references, covering his room in a few layers of paper. He sank further and further into his research spree. Subconsciously pulled at the threads of chaos around him and wound them tighter around himself.
He would see Peter free. No matter what he'd have to do.