Pairing: Sterek (pre-slash), Scott/Allison

Rating: PG-13 for, well…allusions to gory ghosts and stuff. Also, note psychotic werewolves.

Notes: Fusion/crossover with the Ghost Whisperer. An AU where Stiles doesn't drag Scott out that night and so he doesn't get bitten that time. Instead, Stiles is busy dealing with his ghost problem. Um. This is sort of maybe a first chapter? Probably won't be more than three? Two? Something. Also, I'm a first timer. English isn't my first language, sorry about that.

I also might have some regrets about being sucked into this fandom. Beyond Stiles I really don't like anyone. No character bashing though. So. Um. I also accidentally angsted. A tiny bit. There are Stiles feels to be had.

Enjoy?

.

He Doesn't Whisper (He Talks)

.

"I see dead people!"

On second thought, that might not have been the best way to answer the question. Not that Stiles usually had time to calculate the best things to say before he actually said them, because overall everything he said was the best. But sometimes, he could admit that taking into account the rest of the world's twisted perspective of the world, it might be worth taking other's obliviousness into consideration.

The scary man in leather blinked back at him, and Stiles really sort of regretted coming here. A throat was cleared, a brow raised pointedly.

"Okay, okay!," he whined, fidgeting. Dead people were so rude, honestly.

"Is your friend crazy?" the seriously hot but seriously freaky man grunted, ignoring him. Scott shifted by his side while an impatient sigh sounded on Stiles' other side. He wasn't crazy, he was just surrounded by it. He might've said that out loud.

"Stiles, I don't think this is a good idea…" Scott says, tugging at his sleeve. Stiles shrugs him off, scoffing. "I do not want to be here, Scott. But I need you here to lessen the chances of getting killed, maimed or otherwise assaulted for my good, if unwilling, intentions."

Scott stares. "It's literally life or death," Stiles reminds him, but gets the same confused, disbelieving expression he'd gotten the first time he'd explained this on their way over to the Shrieking Shack of Shady Shit. So, perhaps Scott knew about the dead people. Stiles might have been pretty good at avoiding this shit ever since his mom died and the panic attacks distracted him enough to suppress the hell out of whatever this was, but sometimes it came back to bite him. Seeing a woman crawling along his bedroom floor missing the lower half of her body had not been a good way to start this week however, he'd forgone looking up what had turned out to be the real thing that night and tried to ignore the way she had been attempting to attach herself to his leg and have him drag her along with him wherever he went until he'd give in to her demands.

Laura Hale was one persistent dead, half of a woman.

"Just remember to not freak out, okay? Because shit is gonna get weird pretty quick, weirder than the usual weird of dead people. And bossy women," Stiles continues, patting Scott's shoulder before turning back to the man who was looking more murderous by the second. He paused and turned to look at Laura where she was chilling by his feet.

"Are you sure it wasn't this guy? I mean…"

Laura rolls onto her back and glares. "His name's Derek and he's my brother, you know this. Peter killed me. Now get on with it!"

Stiles shudders, because seriously? He might've grown up with this shit but it did not make it less freaky. Also, he was still having some problems with the other half of this situation (bad choice of words, Stiles). But, what the hell. He sees dead people, what are some werewolves on top of that?

"So, Derek," Stiles begins, looking back up, meeting a confused, suspicious glare. "I'm just gonna get this over with, like a band aid, just rip it off and save us all some trouble. Then I might possibly run in the other direction—" Laura clings to his legs, locking them together in a literal death grip. Ouch, that must be werewolf strength, because ouch. "—or not. So you're a werewolf and your sister was murdered by your uncle who wanted to be Alpha and she says hi by the way, please don't kill meeEEEAAAAAHHHH!"

Derek's got him tackled and pinned to the ground with a wild snarl, eye flashing, and Stiles is sort of terrified and Scott's screaming isn't helping anybody. Nor is hitting the murderous werewolf with a stick, it's really not helping.

"Tell him he's got a triskelion tattoo on his back, same as mine on my hip! Tell him to use his senses! He'll know you're not lying!"

Stiles dutifully repeats this information, mentally drawing up the tattoo and wondering if those hurt and how it looks like on this sort of ridiculously ripped werewolf, and if the lower half of Laura will ever reconnect with the upper part, and if her tattoo was ripped apart too. His mind is sort of a mess when it's being overwhelmed by its own awesome. People say it's ADHD, Stiles says he's just charming that way. Mom had agreed.

Derek blinks at him, expression unreadable, but he's sniffing him and letting up on his grip. Stiles chances a look at Scott, who's still clutching the stick and looking about as terrified as Stiles feels. Taking a shaky breath, he tried to ignore Laura as she's crawling up to join their sinister puppy pile (there's bowels and stuff trailing after her and it's sort of extremely freaky).

"Okay Scott, remember what I said? Don't freak out, weird shit is gonna happen? This is the weird shit," he says, voice shaky but that was not a squeak. Derek's snarling, looking like he can't decide if he should just end this right here or hear him out. Stiles makes his mind up for him and babbles. "Okay do your senses thing, Laura says you've got your own lie detector going so…go ahead and detect my non-lies, because they're so totally not lies. I see dead people, Scott and my dad can attest to it, and it's freaky and I don't know why, but I was born with it, my mom had it too. Sometimes they come to me and I try to help, and apparently Laura here really needs some help, or well, you need some. Because your uncle is a murderous psycho and tearing people in half is so not cool, especially not when they're gonna be crawling all over my bedroom floor and attach themselves to my leg. Stop poking me Laura I'm busy trying to talk myself out of this and I've done what you asked! Told him all about it, there; done, finito, adios!"

Scott makes a strangled noise as Laura tugs at his ear. "Stiles, slow down, Derek doesn't speak your language. And I still need to talk to him."

"Fine," Stiles mutters, which seems to snap Derek out of his dazed state of shock. Grabbing Stiles by his hoodie (it had to be the red one, didn't it?), he hauled him up and got close and personal with his face. Big teeth, sharp teeth. Wow. Cool eyes.

"What's she saying?!" he growls, sounding strangled. Stiles recognizes the desperation, has heard it in countless voices tumbling from countless people. He doesn't like any of this. It's a lie, he brings them closure and helps others cross over and it's rewarding, it's good to know he can do something. But this, this right here he hates. He feels their pain, their desperation, their helplessness and anger and pain. He's learned to control it, to some degree, but mom had always said he was especially sensitive. It sucked. But he understood, he understood so well. He remembers coming home to mom watching TV, remembers sitting down beside her and talk about his day. He remembers her snarky comments at the show they'd been watching, how he'd gleefully joined in. He remembers thinking she looked better than she had that morning, remembers feeling excited that she was out of bed.

He should've seen it coming, the way she'd asked him to shut the TV off for her. How she'd commented on old Mrs. Olsen next door who'd died a few days ago and who they'd helped together. Mom had asked him how he was doing, told him to remember this was a gift. Told him she was proud of him, told him he'd be fine.

She'd followed him upstairs, she'd said it was time for her to rest.

He really should have seen it coming.

He remember opening the bedroom door for her, and going inside. He'd looked over to the bed and frozen in place because she'd been there, pale and still but beautiful, always beautiful. He'd felt her hand on his shoulder, the first contact since he'd come home, and was cold. Cold like death, cold like her body in the bed. It was like someone had ripped his heart out, and he understood this desperation. Could see it in Derek now. But it was always different for others. Stiles would've given anything to not see his mother's ghost, to not watch her cross over because she'd only needed to tell him to keep going, that she was proud, that he'd be fine. But others, they always willed the ghost of their loved ones to appear before them. Always wanted to know why he could see, but not them. Why him, why not them, why. Like it's his fault.

Laura's whispering soft words of reassurances and love, she tells her story all over again and Stiles repeats it as best as he can, tries to ignore the pain stifling the air around them, ignores Scott completely. He tried not to cry, but it's a lost cause. She was murdered by her uncle, she was the last one Derek had left. He remembers the fire and Derek asks what Laura had asked.

Where were they? Where were the others? His answer is the same.

"I didn't see them," he says, voice raw by now. Derek tightens his grip of him, hasn't let him go. "I didn't go up here when it happened, and no one sought me out. They've probably passed on already."

It never satisfies them, but he can't do anything about that. He looks at Laura, tired. She looks sad, but much calmer than she'd been the past few days. "Tell him I'm sorry. Tell him not to wallow," she says. "Tell him…he needs to stop Peter before it's too late. I think that's what I need to move on, Stiles."

Stiles nods and looks back to Derek who's trying desperately to see some kind of sign of his sister where Stiles had been facing. He sees leaves, smells nothing and hears nothing no matter how hard he strains. Stiles sighs. "She wants you to know she's sorry, and that you better not wallow. You need to stop Peter before it's too late." He doesn't mention the last bit she told him.

Derek nods, blinking. His eyes are moist, whose wouldn't be, Stiles can hear Scott sniffling. "It's not your fault Laura, you couldn't have known. I'll stop him for you, I'll…I'll do it."

Laura smiles, turns to Stiles and tugs at his sleeve. Derek's eyes are wide as they see the movement of fabric, reaching out a hand. He feels nothing. "How does this work?" he snaps. "Can she touch you? You said she clings to your leg. Why can she touch you?"

"He's a bit of a handful," Laura says. "Especially without an Alpha, but you'll get used to it. You'll have to help him, he'll need it."

Stiles shakes his head, ignoring Derek. Probably not wise. "I went to him and told him what happened, I relayed your message; I'm done. Okay? Murderous, psychotic werewolves are really not my area!"

"I won't pass over until you do. I need you to communicate with him. He hardly knows anything about being Alpha, he'll never defeat Peter without me and when he defeats him, Derek will be the Alpha. I have to teach him as much as I can before it's time to go. You have to help!" she demands, getting increasingly angry and hysteric. The wind is cold and whips leaves around them and Stiles shivers with a grimace. He doesn't need a vengeful werewolf spirit on his hands, Laura had been remarkably well-behaved for a victim of brutal murder and he'd prefer it if she kept on being just that, because angry spirits were difficult without having that added edge of extra supernatural.

"Okay, okay, fine! I'll help your crazy sourwolf of a brother! Geez!" he snapped, leaning away from her because holy shit claws, what the hell?!

"What!" Derek snapped. "What is she saying? And don't ignore me, answer my questions!"

Stiles wonders if Scott will forgive him for being cast as the minor character in this horror b-movie, because he seriously thinks everyone but Stiles have forgotten about him. Including Scott himself. Or maybe he was just wishing he weren't here, trying to transport himself to his happy place (Allison, nowadays. He misses the Halo days).

"She's threatening me into helping you with this whole avenge thing, she's totally signing me up to the Avengers, she's like Nick Fury she's terrifying, dude. So I'm helping, yep, totally am. She says she's gotta be your Yoda, and I'm kind of your only option for communication which sucks, by the way, but I'm doing this. Apparently." He adds the last with a dejected moue. "And I don't know how any of this works. Seriously. Yes she can touch me, sometimes they can move objects and affect electronics and stuff."

He's not going to mention the extensive research he's done on this, and the many documents he's got saved in password protected folders hidden within folders on three different back-ups.

Derek's frowning, not looking happy about the reply he got, but Stiles doesn't think he ever looks happy about anything. Unless maiming a fluffy bunny or something. "Get up," Derek says, moving to stand and loom over him, which is totally unfair. He'd only been stuck on the ground because Derek had been pinning him to it, after all. Laura was looking smug and pleased. Stiles resisted flipping her the bird, because claws and teeth.

He does it anyway, because he's got no sense of self-preservation. Derek growls and kicks him, hard. Fucking ouch. Laura just grins and wraps herself around his leg again as he struggles to stand. "That is not helping!" he yelps, but she ignores him and pressed her cheek against his knee. Great, dead werewolf-woman is cuddling his leg. Awesome.

"Soooo," he drawls, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "What's the plan?"

Derek scowls and turns, stalking with purpose (a murderous purpose) towards the burnt out shell of a house beyond him. Stiles sort of drag-walks along in an awkward limp that's had people giving him weird looks all week. He snags Scott's sleeve on his way past, ignoring his spluttering. "Yes Scott, you're in this with me. Deal. I need a Robin to my Batman. I need someone to call my dad if I die. Now come on."

"Dude!" Scott yelps, but he follows. This is why he's awesome. He always follows, in the end. "There're werewolves! That's a werewolf?!" he jabs a finger at Derek's retreating back. Very fine retreating back. Encased in jeans and leather. Yes Stiles had noticed. Hales were insanely attractive if you ignored how one was missing her lower half and the other was packing some serious issues of violence.

"Yep, and yep," Stiles says a bit too cheerfully, grunting a bit at the weight on his leg. He felt like Quasimodo, if Quasimodo had been haunted by Esmeralda's burnt corpse had that ever happened. Had it? He'd only ever seen the Disney version.

"Someone was murdered! Horribly!" Scott's flailing. "It's clinging to your leg, oh my god, it's haunting to your leg!"

"I'm not an it!" Laura snaps. Stiles rolls his eyes. "Yes, Scott, all good observations. And it's Laura, not it. I told you. And we're just gonna help her, by going after a crazy wolfman, that's all. Business as usual, eh, bud?" He slaps his back. "We've done this before! Um, sort of. Kind of? Yeah, really not, but the principle is the same, right?"

He's giving Scott a bright smile but his friend looks like he wants to murder him almost as much as he wants to run away screaming. Stiles' smile widens until Scott's too freaked out to glare at him anymore and Stiles struggles his way inside the Creepy Cottage of Carnage with Laura bumping along up the stairs. He winces at the sounds produced, muttering a "Sorry" at her sharp intakes of pained breaths.

"Will I always be like this?" she says, sounding tired and dejected as he brings them inside.

"Depends," he says. "Usually, after violent deaths, spirits appear as they, um, died. In extreme cases they're stuck in a loop, sort of reliving their dying moment like some kind of extremely sick and twisted youtube clip. Err, when helping them ground themselves, so to speak…making them aware what's happened, I guess? Then they usually become more human. Gradually. In appearances. So, well, maybe? Give it time?"

Derek and Scott are looking at him with various degrees of horror, flicking their eyes down to his leg momentarily. Stiles raises a brow. "What? Seriously? What did you guys think all this meant?" He gestures wildly at Laura, who's still using his leg like some sort of comfort blanket. They can't see her of course, but he takes a few steps forward to illustrate his dragging limp. "She's got no legs, guys. It's sort of extremely…um, no offence, Laura, but yeah…freaky?"

She rolls her eyes and bites his thigh, making him yelp and glare. "Hey! Watch where those teeth go!" he snaps, putting his hands protective over his junk. What? He takes precautions. He's got priorities.

"As if!" she snorts. It could happen! You never knew with scary, dead werewolf chicks clawing your leg, right? "Now, what's the plan?" Stiles shrugs, gesturing wide with his hands to show his utter and complete lack of secret masterplan for overthrowing evil werewolves. He belatedly remembers that for all intents and purposes, he's talking to air, and neither Scott nor Derek has any idea of what's going on. It's kind of hilarious, if it weren't for the intense staring Derek was doing. Scott was inspecting his fingernails, unconcerned, probably mentally counting to 100 in order to avoid losing his shit completely.

"We've got an advantage here; Peter has no idea about you, and so doesn't know that Derek knows about him and his plans to form a new pack. He hasn't bitten anyone yet but like I said, it's only a matter of time," Laura continues, looking up at Stiles intently. Stiles is sort of resigned face her, still maintaining that ignoring Derek is still not a wise course of action. At least he couldn't kill him now, he was still useful and would not be if dead. And he'd totally haunt Derek's ass (perhaps even literally, because it was a very fine one). "He's hiding out in the hospital, the nurse is helping him, and we can probably sneak in there and handle it. Derek's not technically strong enough to overthrow an Alpha, but Peter isn't healed yet, he doesn't have the added strength of pack. He's only got Derek and it's not enough. Also, I might be able to help. Make stuff explode, something. You and your friend will have to get a hold of some wolf's bane and weapons. Perhaps we should contact the hunters?"

Stiles frowns. "That sounds like a good plan, so far. Scott's mum works at the hospital, we can sneak in during the graveyard shift. My dad might not miss his vintage gun much for one night, hopefully. Would it work if you soaked the bullets in wolf's bane? Or do you need special ones? I don't have special bullets, Laura, I'm not the NRA and hunters? Really? As in Van Hellsing hunters? As in Sam and Dean hunters? That does not sound like a good idea. Derek, wolf, remember?"

Laura growls in frustration, tugging at his pant leg with her claws. His jeans were going to rip at this point. Oh, shit, they already had. What the hell. "I don't know if soaking them would work. I'd like not to take any chances. And the local hunters are the Argents, we should at least try and find out if they go by the Code. If they do, then they might help Derek. Derek hasn't killed anyone, and he won't. Only the Alpha. But that's necessary."

Stiles wonders if it's something that comes with being dead, if it's just a Laura thing. Though he can agree that killing a killing machine before it kills some more might be very much necessary. He just didn't like to think about things like these. Alas, he doesn't have much choice. His brain jumps into its own choice of topics, with or without his consent.

Right now it's contemplating the moral aspects of murder versus some sort of preemptive self-defense. Fascinating, but not really helping. At all.

"So, we check out the Argents – and hey, that's Scott's lady's family, isn't it Scott? Awesome, we can totally do this through Allison. Minimize the contact of possible group of badass hunters who might or might shoot first and ask questions later. Guessing it's not usual for people to ask questions about the Code and werewolves unless you're another hunter or a werewolf. We're sort of neither kind of hanging out with the latter so…"

"Does this happen a lot?" Derek asks Scott, sounding sort of desperately at a loss. Scott looks away from the charred wall he'd been staring at to instead stare wide-eyed at Derek. Stiles snorted, but his brain was currently engaged in drawing up some sort of working plan here, thank you very much.

"Um, sometimes? Depends. On what you mean," Scott says. "The dead people thing is sort of…unpredictable unless we're at the hospital. Lots of them there, apparently. But Stiles seemingly taking to air? Yeah, that's, um, that's pretty much the norm. Dead people or not. He has these…two-sided conversations all the time where one half is missing," Stiles smirks at Laura who slaps his thigh, "and it's a bit confusing. You never really know when there's someone there contributing to the other half or if it's in his head."

Stiles thinks Scott is taking a page out of Stiles' and babbles for sanity. Derek looks just as lost as he did before and it's sort of hilarious. Laura's snorting and Stiles can't help but shrug helplessly at the looks he gets for the other guys when he covers a laugh with a cough. Badly.

"Okay that's enough," Laura says, poking Stiles through the holes she's made in his jeans. Awkward. "Explain what we've been talking about. I doubt it, but they might have something to contribute. They'll need to know anyway."

Stiles ran a hand down his face and sighed. "Okay, so, Laura and I have a sort of working plan. It's a WIP, but it's getting there." He ignores how Derek's eyes flash and continues to outline what he and Laura had brainstormed, Scott looking more and more pained by the second. Tough luck. By the time he was done, through many interruptions and inputs from both living and dead, they'd managed something that might work. Stiles wonders if he should let his dad in on this one but then considers trying to explain werewolves are real too, and imagines to following freak-out, because his dad does not like spirits hanging around with his son as it is. Mostly because Stiles sometimes ends up with bruises or threats of retraining orders, and trespassing, and other minor totally necessary offences. Adding murderous werewolves to that would probably give him a heart attack. So, no.

Stiles manages to escape the Hales' sad excuse of a house without Derek tying him to a chair or something to keep him around as a live telephone connection to his dead sister. Laura may have had to make some walls rattle, but in the end he and Scott got out of there without too much trouble. Stiles might be a bit bruised, and his jeans were still torn, but he counted himself lucky. They'd left Derek sulking, even though Stiles had convinced Laura to stay with him if only to make sure he didn't do anything stupid. Derek may or may not have seemed a bit thankful for this, and Laura had crawled over brush against her brother's legs instead. It'd made him shiver, and Stiles had promptly left for his jeep to escape further questions he had no real answers for.

Scott complained all the way home, and Stiles was beyond tired by the time he collapsed in his own bed.

He's pretty sure he fell asleep before his head hit the pillow.

.

End notes: I like Laura. I might write more Laura bothering Stiles. Because I can.