Chapter Text
Peter’s the only Hale haunting the Hale’s old home. His entire family had died in the fire, and yet he was the only one that came back as a ghost. He’d waited for the rest of them, for his sisters and nieces and nephews, but no one ever came back. Peter doesn’t know why he hadn’t moved on when they had, but in the fifteen years since the fire, he’s been stuck here. He woke up again, invisible to the family that now lived in the home. He hadn’t been sure how much time had passed, but the burned parts of the house had been rebuilt and there was a new family living in it. And Peter hated them.
It took a few years before Peter got a grasp of being a ghost. Manipulating the environment around him came easiest, making the house freezing despite the fire roaring in the fireplace and the furnace in working order. Moving objects was harder, and at first he could only do small things like pens and spare change left on the counter, but eventually it became easier. Once he figured out how to speak, albeit with only a few words or a scream, he’d harassed the terrified couple until they’d moved out.
He can’t do all these at once. It takes a lot of energy and it takes him a lot of time to recharge after manipulating his environment. He doesn’t sleep now that he’s dead, but he goes into a kind of trance where he’s unaware of almost everything around him until he has enough energy to function. So he needs to choose his moves carefully. He runs three more families out of the house in five years, and since then it’s rented out by the owners, all the tenants not staying long at all. Peter’s very proud of that.
The Hale house has been empty for about a year at this point. Peter finds himself...drifting a bit, with nothing to focus on. He doesn’t have the tenants’ TV to watch or newspapers and magazines to look through. He doesn’t have anyone to mess with. He has no…enrichment. He’s like a bored, nearly comatose animal that has nothing to keep him awake or sane.
Then a new family comes, a husband and wife. Adrian Harris and his wife Amanda are appalling. Peter can’t wait to get them out of his house. As much as being here alone can be intolerable, they Harrises are way worse than being listless and catatonic here. Adrian is cruel, often bragging about the terrible way he treats others at work, at how he made multiple children cry at school. Amanda is the same, going off on racist and homophobic tirades about a coworker, which Adrian joins in happily. Peter wants them out of the house where his sister and her wife died.
There’s something else that comes with the Harrises that Peter definitely doesn’t enjoy, though it doesn’t show up for about a week. Another ghost of a young man. Peter doesn’t know if the journey that exhausted him and that’s why he only appears a week in, but Peter doesn’t especially care. This is a one-ghost household and he wants the intruder gone.
Peter’s in his old bedroom, which Adrian has appallingly turned into a heinous office, when the other ghost drifts in through the door. Peter freezes, and so does the other ghost, staring at him with his jaw dropped.
“You can see me?” he asks, sounding excited. Well, Peter needs to shut that down quickly.
“Get out,” Peter says.
The intruder’s excitement fades, his expression turning irritated. “You think I’d choose to be here? Here? Tied to Adrian fucking Harris and his fucking wife?” he says.
“I don’t care, figure it out,” Peter says, well aware that he sounds ridiculous. He can’t leave here, what makes him think the intruder can? But he doesn’t care. He gets to be selfish, this is the home he was burned alive in. That doesn’t seem to matter to the intruder. He barely glances at Peter’s burn scars.
“Fuck you, dude,” he says, making Peter’s eye twitch. “You keep your nose in your own afterlife and I’ll stick to mine.” With that, he goes back out the door. Peter doesn’t bother with doors anymore, not when he can walk through walls. He wonders if the intruder is newly dead and hasn’t gotten into the habit yet. Then he shakes himself because he refuses to care about anything related to the intruder.
That’s a hard promise to keep though, because now that he’s here, Peter runs into him everywhere. Sometimes the intruder drifts by him, not acknowledging him at all except to flip him off over his shoulder as he goes. Sometimes he’s floating in the corner while the Harrises watch TV, and Peter refuses to leave because he wants to actually watch the news and see what’s going on in the world while he’s stuck here. It’s like the living room is a temporary truce area, because neither of them want to miss what’s on. Peter assumes the intruder gets just as bored as he does.
Peter’s still full of sullen animosity, avoiding the intruder, even scaring him if he manages to catch him off guard and throw a pen through him. The other ghost seems plenty happy to avoid him as much as possible, trying to stay away from not just Peter but the Harrises it seems. The only time he’s in the same room as them is when they’re watching TV and he’s watching. It’s about a month of antagonism that Peter finds out why.
The Harries are chatting with the news on, and abruptly stop when a report about a murder comes up. Amanda turns up the volume as the newscaster speaks, and Peter realizes the other ghost went very, very still in his corner.
“Still no news in the murder of Mieczyslaw Stilinski,” the newscaster says. “Stilinski’s head was found in an empty lot in Portland two months ago. His father, Sheriff Stilinski, says they’re not giving up and have enlisted the help of the FBI, but as of now, there is no new evidence in the case. If you have any information, please contact the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department or the FBI at the numbers below.” A picture of the alive Mieczyslaw Stilinski is shown. The intruder ghost.
“Good,” Amanda says, a smug grin on her face. “They’ll never find his body. They’d have to cut open a dozen pigs two months ago to have a chance.”
Adrian laughs. “You made a good call on that,” Adrian says. “Still, it’s for the best we moved. Just in case.”
“The sheriff will never find anything,” Amanda says dismissively. “He’ll be mourning his useless dead son until he drinks himself into an early grave.”
The lightbulb in the lamp closest to Mieczyslaw explodes, shattered glass falling all over the rug. Amanda jumps, Adrian shrieks, and Peter...well, he’s seen irritation on the other ghost’s face, but never the rage that’s there now. He’s never shown any ability to move anything, not like Peter can, but bursts of strong emotions...yeah, that could make it happen. Peter hasn’t felt anything like sympathy for someone in years, probably before he died, but there’s a slight ache where his heart used to be.
“Must be a power surge?” Adrian says. “Maybe whoever rebuilt this place used shitty wiring.”
Amanda hums and gets the broom. Peter’s been focusing on Adrian, wondering if he only does things to him he might think he’s going crazy. But after hearing them, he’s thinking it may be time to start torturing Amanda, too. He looks back to the corner where the intruder was to see it empty. Peter decides not to look for him until tomorrow. He probably needs some time to himself.
But he can’t find the other ghost the next day. He’s not in the kitchen, living room, dining room, any of the bedrooms, or even the attic. Peter sighs, a habit he hasn’t been able to break even though he has no need for breath anymore. The only other place he could be is the basement. So Peter grits his teeth and goes down to the basement for the first time since he “woke up” down there as a ghost.
Sure enough, the other ghost is down here, sort of floating in a corner, his eyes dull like he’s in one of the restful trances Peter finds himself in sometimes.
“Please come upstairs,” Peter says. The other ghost doesn’t jolt like he does whenever Peter throws something at him, his eyes instead slowly sliding to Peter.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because I was burned to death down here and would rather be upstairs,” Peter says through gritted teeth.
“Then go upstairs,” the other ghost says, like it’s obvious.
“I will drag your ass with me,” Peter says.
The ghost looks surprised at that. “Why?” he asks again.
“Come the fuck upstairs because I have a proposition,” Peter says.
The other ghost stares at him, suspicion written all over his face, before finally shrugging and following Peter up the stairs. Peter takes him up to the attic, because he knows Adrian and Amanda don’t bother going up there and he has a feeling the other ghost really doesn’t want to see them right now.
“I’m not interested in your pity,” he says once they’re upstairs.
“Good, because you’re not getting it,” Peter says. The other ghost doesn’t look shocked at that, just glares. “But I can help you get revenge, Mieczyslaw.”
The ghost makes a face at that. “Call me Stiles, for the love of god,” he says. “And what do you mean?”
“Have you ever been able to influence the environment around you before you shattered the lightbulb?” Peter asks.
“No,” Stiles says, looking frustrated.
“I can teach you,” Peter says. “And then we can kill them.” Stiles stares at him. Peter’s grin turns vicious. “I would have done anything to kill the woman that burned my family alive.”
Stiles is silent for a moment, the look on his face calculating, and Peter finds himself happy about that. Stiles may have been uninvited, but he’s smart, and Peter can work with smart.
“How?” Stiles finally asks.
“They could take an unfortunate tumble down the stairs with a knife waiting at the bottom,” Peter says. “A plugged in hair dryer could fall into Amanda’s bath. The gas stove could be left on while they sleep and a match is lit. Though I’m not a fan of the last one, in all honesty. My house has had enough fire in it.”
Stiles nods. “That’s fair,” he says. He bites his lip, debating, before saying, “They killed me with a knife. So I’m partial to that option.”
Peter grins. Maybe he was a bit hasty. He and Stiles may get along well after all.
Peter doesn’t know why he’s tied to the place where he was killed while Stiles is tied to the people that killed him. He doesn’t exactly know the rules behind being a ghost, but he does know he begins to enjoy haunting with Stiles. They flicker the lights on the Harrises, hiss in harsh voices, rattle the bedframe. They have the Harries on edge, stressed and sleep deprived and scared.
It takes time. It had been years before Peter had been able to consistently manipulate that environment around him. He doesn’t expect it to take that long, since he had been figuring it out on his own, and Stiles has Peter to teach him. He catches on to changing the temperature easily, enjoying following the Harrises around and keeping the air cold, no matter how many blankets they use. Moving physical objects takes a bit more time. For a while he plateaus on being able to only move something small like a penny, but once he manages to dig into that well of rage inside him, it becomes much easier.
“I think you’re ready,” Peter says, watching as Stiles is able to pick up the chef’s knife, toss it from hand to hand, before putting it back in the knife block. “I think doing it separately is best. Kill one while the other is gone, so when they come home and discover it, we can get them while they’re still in shock.”
“I agree,” Stiles says. “Is it...is it possible to leave a message for my dad? Like, are we able to write? So he knows they’re the ones who killed me?”
Peter grins, sharp and feral. “We can do something about that.”
Later that night, Adrian has a late night at work so Amanda is home alone. Stiles wants to be the one to kill Adrian, the one who tortured him the most, so Peter will be the one to kill Amanda. She’s not much of a cook, and tonight is no exception, choosing a microwaveable meal while she sits at the breakfast bar, scrolling on her phone. It’s easy for Peter to grab the knife and shove it through her throat. Her eyes go wide in shock, disgusting, gurgling noises bubbling out of her. Peter and Stiles watch impassively as she falls to the ground, clutching at her ruined throat. She dies quicker than Peter had expected, but he and Stiles are satisfied.
Adrian is back hours later, shouting about his day to Amanda from the foyer, complaining about a child at school who dared contradict him. He makes his way into the kitchen, screaming when he sees his wife dead on the floor in a pool of her own blood. He runs over to her, falling to his knees, and that’s when Stiles slits his throat, a feral light in his eyes as he watches Adrian fall onto his stomach next to his wife, blood flowing from his throat as the life leaves his body.
Peter takes the knife, his stamina a bit stronger than Stiles’, and bends over Adrian’s back. When his body is found by the police, they’ll find him with ‘Stiles says hello’ carved into his back. He takes Stiles’ hand when he’s finished, looking down at their handiwork. He doesn’t know why everything is intangible but he can still touch Stiles. Stiles thinks maybe since they’re on the same altered plane of existence they can interact with each other. Peter thinks that’s probably right, but he’s just happy to be able to touch someone after all this time.
“You did it,” Peter says, squeezing his hand. “You got your revenge. You’re probably not tied to them now that they’re dead. You can go anywhere.”
Stiles squeezes his hand back. “Maybe. We’ll see how fast we can get your connection to the house broken,” he says. Peter looks over at him quickly. “What, you think I’d leave you here?”
A slow grin spreads over Peter’s face. As much as he’s possessive of the Hale house, he can’t deny that being tied here is cumbersome. He doesn’t have much time to dwell on that though, because there’s a strange change in pressure, a wave of cold filling the room, then with a swirl of mist, the ghosts of Adrian and Amanda Harris appear before them, disoriented and confused.
Peter and Stiles stare at them, mouths open.
“God damn it.”