
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/508648.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Derek_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski
  Character:
      Scott_McCall, Sheriff_Stilinski, Isaac_Lahey, Peter_Hale, Erica_Reyes,
      Jackson_Whittemore, Stiles_Stilinski, Derek_Hale, Boyd, Chris_Argent,
      Allison_Argent, Alpha_Pack_-_Character
  Additional Tags:
      graphic_depiction_of_a_panic_attack, mildly_graphic_depictions_of_wounds,
      bottom!Derek, Top!Stiles
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-09-10 Words: 43947
****** You Saw Me Standing Alone ******
by orphan_account
Summary
     A pack of alpha werewolves is burning a war path through Beacon
     Hills; Stiles shouldn’t have the luxury of trying to get laid. 
Notes
     i've been talking on tumblr about getting this story posted for-
     literally-ever. so, yeah. here it is!
     this story is supposed to slide in between s2 and s3. it opens mid-
     summer after the s2 finale, and it ends days before the new school
     year starts. it totally aligns itself with canon-- including the
     search for the cure miniseries. that being said, this story sets up
     the season three plot a bit. clearly, i'm not writing season three
     (yet-- that's what the rest of the series will be), so don't be upset
     about the loose ends that this story leaves.
     i have a really long list of wonderful, amazing people to thank-- but
     i'll stick that at the end. thank you for reading!
See the end of the work for more notes
“Care to explain where you’ve been all night, Son?” 
Distantly, Stiles is aware that he can’t literally jump out of his skin. But
that’s essentially the response he has—well, that and some flailing. 
Stiles steels himself and thinks, yeah, there’s a way out of this; there’s
definitely probably a way out of this.
“Heyyy, Dad,” he starts, ready to make this up as he goes along. “I was, you
know, just out with—”
“Scott?”
Stiles knows that tone. That’s the tone that comes right before his dad catches
him in a lie. Stiles doesn’t like that tone one bit. It throws him off his
game, and he's left reeling for a good, plausible excuse.
“Well, um, no? Not Scott?” 
“Not Scott meaning—?” 
“… Not… Scott?”
His dad just sighs. After a moment, his face softens, and a new expression
emerges: hurt. Stiles has the decency to feel guilty, so he knows he’s
not totally the worst son ever— but only barely. His dad’s shoulders slump, and
he opens his mouth to say something. Evidently speechless, he shuts it a moment
later.
“Just get your ass in bed, Stiles,” is what the sheriff finally says-- not
unkindly.
“Yessir!” Stiles agrees quickly, and he takes the stairs two at a time to
escape the awkward atmosphere.
He’s only sixteen; he can’t be expected to properly handle a sad-eyed father at
three in the morning. That’s just not fair.
Besides, he really can't risk letting his dad see his arm. 
When he gets to his room, Stiles all but rips his overshirt in two to get it
off his back. There’s a lot of flailing-- because that's Stiles's life in a
word, right there-- and a lot of swearing. Eventually, he manages to get it off
in a wet slap, and he scrunches his nose at the metallic scent of the blood.
His blood, he thinks-- which totally does not make him woozy.
“Damn,” he groans, revolted.
It's then that he remembers Scott, which makes him turn about the room in a
spastic semi-circle, his eyes going to the window over his desk.
Still shut. 
Stiles purses his lips into a deep frown and does his best not to think of
how spectacularly shitty it is that Scott has left him to bleed to death all
over his room, but it’s a losing battle. Scott sucks.
“Freaking terrific, Scott,” Stiles grinds out.
He presses his discarded overshirt to his wound (“Oh, God, ew— this can’t be
sterile.”) and deposits himself ungainly in his computer chair. The pain can
only be described as horrendous. It’s unignorable, too, now that he’s not in
panic mode. He tries, mostly in vain, to distract himself. He thinks of Lydia
applying lipgloss and of how Jackson looked in the third grade when he was the
first person to flunk out of the spelling bee and of the day he got the jeep
and about — and about—
And about the searing pain in his left arm which he is going to
freaking gnaw off if Scott doesn’t show up really ehfing soon.
The window slides open, and Stiles is so relieved he doesn’t have the mind to
be angry. 
“Scott, you can’t just tell me Hey, don’t touch it, I’ll meet you at your
place, if you’re not going to meet me at my place,” he bites out.
Okay-- maybe he’s a little angry. In his defense, Stiles is beside himself in
pain and his best friend has a tendency to underestimate the urgency of
bloodloss now that he’s got a Furry Little Problem.
But it’s not Scott that pulls through the window— it’s Derek.
Stiles allows himself a sold second of unabashedly gaping before he says, “Wha—
why you?” 
Derek ignores him in favor of looking at Stiles’s arm. He’s quiet for a long
minute before he asks in a dangerously soft voice:
“Stiles, why is your arm still covered in dirt?”
“Uh,” Stiles responds smartly, his mouth open as he tries to process the
question. “Well, funny story. My best friend is a werewolf and sometimes he and
his werewolf buddies like to drag my ass out into the forest in the middle of
the night, and long story short we were—”
Derek looks so irritated that Stiles forgets he’s in agonizing pain mid-rant
and preens a bit, delighting in every minute of Derek’s fierce scowl. 
“Why haven’t you cleaned it yet?” Derek snaps. 
“Because you guys told me not to touch it!” Stiles hisses and Derek lets out an
incredlous noise. “And it hurts like a bitch, so, you know. Heal me up and be
on your way already.”
“Stiles, that’s not what we meant when we said don’t touch it. Clean that thing
up— now.”
“You’re kidding,” Stiles deadpans. “You have to be kidding me. You can’t just—
you can’t just say don’t touch it if you mean touch it. In what world does that
make sense or—”
“Go!“ 
“Going, God!” Stiles snaps, throwing down his soaked shirt and stomping his way
to the door. “And, just so you know? You suck so much for this. All of you. I’m
never letting you guys drag my ass out for this crap again.” 
Derek doesn’t say anything, but his glower speaks for itself, and Stiles is out
of the room and in the bathroom down the hall before he can hear whatever
insult or threat Derek can growl out. Stupid werewolves. All of them.
This just in: Werewolves, Stupidest Supernatural Creature of All Time. Ever.
He’s tempted to run the bath faucet— there’s enough blood to justify it, he
thinks— but it’s almost four in the morning and his dad probably wouldn’t
appreciate the noise, so Stiles pulls off his undershirt and hunches over the
sink, instead. The water he turns on is too hot, but he doesn’t waste time
messing with the knobs. It’s a painful process— mostly him splashing water on
his wound, hissing and swearing, and trying to usher the runny blood off his
arm. Fresh blood keeps coming, though, quicker than he can get rid of it. 
Ten minutes in, he gives up with an angry sigh and runs the bath faucet, grits
his teeth, and plunges his wound under the running water in full. The groan
that leaves him is really more of a cry, and Derek’s in the bathroom before
Stiles can pass out in a blur of holyfuckingshitgodthathurts. He essentially
manhandles Stiles away from the bath, and Stiles thinks he can hear him saying
disparaging things under his breath as he does so, but he lets it pass for now.
The pain in his arm is blinding.
“Pretty sure I’m dying, dude,” he jokes weakly.
He imagines Derek is glaring— because that’s kind of what the guy does best—
when Stiles sees him grab a towel off of a drying rack. Derek pulls Stiles into
a standing position, but Stiles is too disoriented to stand on his own, leaning
into Derek’s solid weight without really meaning to. Derek wraps one arm under
Stiles’s and guides him back to the bedroom, tense and alert and no doubt
listening for Stiles’s dad. 
“My dad—” Stiles groans, though he’s largely incapable of thinking about
anything other than how bad his arm hurts.
“Asleep,” Derek assures him.
Well, okay then. That makes the whole dying-in-his-bedroom thing a bit less
awkward for Stiles. He doesn’t have the mind to make that joke as Derek
deposits him on his bed, looms over him, and just stares for a long time.
Stiles bites back a pained whimper and starts to tip backwards, wanting nothing
more than to sleep this pain away, but Derek catches him with a hand on his
shoulder and crouches in front of Stiles.
Stiles can’t read the expression on Derek’s face, which is irritating. 
He blames his inability to do so on the wound in his arm.
Which he blames on Derek.
So it’s really Derek’s fault that everything sucks. Which, well, Stiles has
kind of figured that for a while. Derek takes Stiles’s arm roughly in hand,
scrutinizing it with a stoic expression.
“Ow,” Stiles moans. “Still hurts like a bitch.”
Derek huffs, but releases Stiles’s arm nonetheless and buries a hand in one of
his jacket’s pockets. He comes up with a small vial of something and looks
hesitant.
“Is that what’s gonna make this better?” Stiles asks, looking at the vial like
it’s some sort of Holy Grail.
Which makes him think of Monty Python, which makes him grin goofily despite the
pain. British humor, man. Derek stays tense, not catching on to Stiles’s good
humor (as usual). Which— rude. It’s not like he’s bleeding out
on his comforter. Whatever.
“Where is Scott? This was supposed to be his job," Stiles says, and Derek
snorts.
“He sped,” he says like that’s an actual answer.
“And?”
Derek’s eyebrows rise and he meets Stiles’s eyes in a look that might best be
described as absolutely, infuriatingly condescending. “And he was pulled over.”
Oh. Well then. Stiles stays quiet and Derek sighs, his eyes going back to the
vial in his hands. It looks tiny, there, and Stiles licks at his dry lips
anxiously.
“You didn’t tell me if that’s gonna make this better,” he says plainly.
“I didn’t,” Derek agrees. Which, well, that’s infuriating, too. Stiles levels a
glare on him.
“Wanna tell me what that’s for, then?”
“Not particularly.”
“Oh my god. Could you be a bigger asshole? Like, is it actually, physically
possible?”
Derek gives him a look that says You know it is and Stiles has a halfhearted
desire to punch him for it. He settles for a frustrated groan, throwing himself
backwards on his mattress because— yeah, he can't handle this right now. Derek
sighs before pulling Stiles back up, and Stiles moans in protest, a slur
of nononos on his lips. 
“Stiles, this will heal you,” Derek says carefully.
Just like that, he has all of Stiles’s attention. 
“Yeah? Then let’s do this!” Stiles says, and Derek shakes his head.
“But it’s going to… have some side effects.”
Stiles is pretty sure he’s seen this in a porn once.
“So,” he starts slowly, his eyes searching Derek’s face for some sort of
affirmation, “I’m going to be, like, forced to hump the first person I lay eyes
on once you give that to me?”
Derek looks absolutely horrified. Which is new.
“What—- no. Are you— No. Stop using the internet so much. You’re just going to
start hallucinating.”
“Hallucinating.”
Better than trying to give a werewolf a blowjob, so okay. Yeah-- Stiles can
take hallucinating.
“Hallucinating,” Derek confirms. 
Stiles sighs, rubbing a rough hand against his face. “Anything
particularlyspecial about these hallucinations or—”
“I don’t know.” 
Derek sounds less than thrilled to admit that, and suddenly Stiles gets why he
was so hesitant before. He and Derek aren’t excatly in the middle of an epic
bromance, but Stiles gets it. He’d probably be a little bit sad to watch the
big guy have a mental breakdown over a bunch of shit that wasn’t even
real, too. Or maybe Stiles is just projecting. That’s possible. Probable,
even. 
“Well,” he finally says with a quiet sigh, “drug me up. Let’s do this.”
“Stiles—” 
“Remember that time you asked me to cut off your arm?” Stiles asks, cutting
Derek off immediately. The pain in his arm is suddenly there again— impossible
to ignore. “That was so much worse than this, and I still resent you for
subjecting me to those mental images, by the way. So, let’s just do this and
get it over with, okay?”
Derek nods once— a wolf of few words. Stiles holds his breath and waits.
He isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but he kind of loses his mind when Derek
pours the entire vial out on Stiles's tender, weeping flesh.
“NO!” he pretty much shrieks.
In his defense, it’s a reflex. A reflex to mind-numbing, soul-searing pain. 
Which he isn’t feeling even a little bit. Huh. Weird. In an awesome way, yeah,
but still—weird. Derek looks mildly amused, and Stiles can’t decide if he’d
rather punch him for being a grade-A asshole or kiss him for doing something
right this once. Punching would probably result in a lot less pain, though.
He’d probably go with the punching. Probably.
Derek drops himself in the computer chair, his face expressionless save for his
trademark Alpha Scowl. Stiles feels like he’s on a cloud, because life without
excruciating pain is awesome. Anyone who doesn’t appreciate life without pain
is a peasant as far as Stiles is concerned. Pain-free is the way to be. He
buries his face in his pillow before it really registers that Derek isn’t
leaving.
“You planning on leaving anytime soon or—” he starts, only to be cut off by a
pretty intense bitchface. Of course, when has that ever stopped him? “Because
you never know, these hallucinations could be pornographic. You never know. It
could be really disturbing for you. It would ruin our budding relationship.
You’d never get over it, ever.”
Derek, of course, has a thousand lifetimes’ worth of experiences he’ll never
get over ever, so the threat falls on deaf ears. 
“Well, can I at least interest you in my dictionary again so you’re not just
brooding like an asshole?”
Derek sneers, but then he turns his back to Stiles and shifts his attention to
the laptop. Seeing Derek at a computer is so unnatural it’s disconcerting, and
Stiles lets a wounded noise escape him at the sight of it.
“Can’t you let me sleep in peace?” he practically begs.
“You’re not going to sleep.”
“The hell I’m not,” Stiles says stubbornly. Derek ignores him, and Stiles can
see him pulling up the browser like he actually knows how to use a computer—
again, disconcerting.  ”Stop that.”
“Stop what?” Derek asks absently, and Stiles hates that he feels a flicker of
fondness for Derek and his latent smartass genes. 
“This is so bizarre,” Stiles mutters, burying his face in another pillow until
Derek snatches it away, suddenly beside the bed and frowning. “What? I’m
allowed to bitch and moan all I want— I could have died tonight. Bitching and
moaning priviledges? I’ve got ‘em, so back off!” 
“Are you hallucinating yet?” is all Derek says in response. Stiles groans,
irritated, and he snatches his pillow back to cover his face again. 
“No, so maybe your little magic juice decided that, hey, I’m a nice enough guy,
and I don’t deserve hallucinations on top of the gaping hole in my arm that I
only got because of you, so it’s cutting me a break.”
“Not likely.”
“You sure? Because that was pretty much the theory I was running with.”
Derek doesn’t make any noise, but Stiles assumes after a little while that
Derek isn’t hovering anymore. He releases a breath he hadn’t known himself to
be holding and tries to ignore the way his face starts to feel kind of prickly,
the pillow irritating it. Eventually the irritation becomes straight up pain,
and he flings his pillow to the side, opening his eyes to issue it a Firm
Stilinski Glare (tm). 
And to see that the thing is literally sprouting feathers.
“Holy shit,” he whimpers, kicking the pillow off the bed. It lets out a shriek,
and Stiles thinks frantically of his father— asleep in the downstairs bedroom,
surely pulled out of sleep by that awful sound. Derek is on him instantly, his
hands insistant on Stiles’s shoulders.  
“My pillow is sprouting feathers, dude! Feathers!” Stiles chokes out,
scrambling up his bed away from the side of the floor the pillow had gone to.
“Holy shit that— that was not what I was expecting when you said
hallucinations.”
“Right. Lots of ways to interpret hallucinations,” Derek counters drily.
“Shut up, my pillow is becoming a— a chicken or something right in front of my
eyes. You don’t get to be an asshole right now.”
The upward twitch of Derek’s lips is definitely a hallucination. Stiles wonders
if he could get away with kicking him off the bed, too. Derek does look a
little torn, which Stiles doesn’t want to think about. He doesn’t have time to
decode Derek Hale’s sixty different eyebrow furrows when pillows are sprouting
wings. Somehow that just isn’t a priority. 
“Maybe if I just— close my eyes?” Stiles asks.
Derek nods stiffly— which is bascially the Alpha way of saying fuck if I know.
Which does Stiles no good whatsoever. Terrific. This is almost terrifying
enough to make Stiles want the searing pain back— almost. Stiles closes his
eyes and, again, thinks about Lydia and her sassy hair flip and Jackson’s
furious face when he found out he was co-captain of the lacrosse team and about
the way his mother always smelled like cinnamon. 
Time stretches on, and closing his eyes turns out to be a good plan. Stiles
regulates his breath and pushes down that horrible, always-present feeling of
panic. He doesn't think a lot of his mother, because that makes his chest
tight, but eventually he just starts talking.
“Hey, Derek,” he asks in a calm voice, his eyes still closed. He gets silence
in response but decides to roll with it. “What— what does my house smell like?
You know. Using your crazy Werewolf Juju or whatever.” 
The room is silent for a beat, and Stiles starts to think Derek has abandoned
him. But there’s a shift to the side of the bed— Stiles thinks he feels it in
the air more than he hears it, but maybe that’s the drugs talking— and then
Derek replies. “Like wood? Mostly. It’s— it’s a lot to take in at once.”
Well, that’s decidedly not romantic. Stiles isn’t sure what he was looking for,
but he wishes the answer had been a lot cooler than “mostly wood”. Maybe he’d
wanted Derek to sniff out some secret— some weird jumble of smells that would
somehow sum up who Stiles is or who he is going to be once all of this is over
and he doesn’t have a gaping hole in his arm.
“Some things smell like cinnamon, though.”
That’s it. Stiles lets out a humorless laugh, throws his arm over his already-
closed eyes, and feels the weight of his recent life decisions hit him like a
ton of bricks. A ton of bricks that change into bloodthirsty wolves once a
month.
But not Derek. Derek never changes. Stiles can count on one hand the number of
times he’s seen Derek wolf out— and never once was it an accident. 
He doesn’t think about it a lot, but sometimes he admires that. Scott can’t
control it— not totally— and Scott is, like, the fastest learning werewolf of
all time (which only seems fair considering he’s never been the fastest
learning anything anywhere else, Stiles thinks). It has to take a crazy amount
of control for Derek to not wolf out— and Stiles wonders if it’s harder as
Alpha. Is he angrier? More blood thirsty? Did Peter give him a Crash Course in
Alphadom after he was dragged back from the dead?
Oh, right. There was a battle that hadn’t been fought yet.
“I still don’t forgive you,” Stiles says to a silent room. “For working with
Peter.” 
More silence and then:
“We have to. He knows—”
“Yeah, I get it. He knows a whole lot of stuff we don’t. But you didn’t see—
Derek, he almost killed her. And when he didn’t succeed in killing her, he
fucked with her head. That’s— you can’t just forgive that.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Nice deflecting, there. Really, good job.”
The room falls quiet for a long time, after that. They’ve been doing this a lot
recently, and Stiles isn’t sure what to make of it. There hasn’t been physical
violence between them for a while, but where that aspect of their relationship
has dwindled away, he and Derek have started having these quiet moments. It has
started becoming a Thing— capital T. This is probably the fourth one of these
that they’ve had this week alone. 
He moans and opens his eyes, like he's forgotten why they were closed in the
first place, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. His breath hitches, and he takes
in the thousands of spiders above him with a terrified gurgle. Derek shifts
again beside the bed, but this time he lifts himself up and deposits himself on
Stiles’s lower legs.
“Ow! Jesus! What are you doing?” Stiles demands, trying to pull his legs out
from under Derek’s weight.
“Just focus on the pressure,” Derek tells him, looking him in the eye. 
Stiles is reminded of Derek at the Rail Depot, breaking Erica's arm to trigger
the healing process and stop her seizure. Stiles had held her until her body
stopped spasming, until her curls were wet against his cheek-- with his sweat
or hers he'd never been able to decide. She had looked at Derek like a savior,
and it was the first time Stiles had really seen the responsibilities of an
Alpha as a father figure. It had been-- educational. But, here, in his room, it
seems so useless. Stiles doesn't have a healing process that can be triggered
with inconsequential injuries, after all. He's tender flesh and fragile bone
and, somehow, he doesn't believe that Derek sitting on his legs is going to
make this any better.
“Easy for you to say ‘cause you can’t see the, like, billions of spiders on my
ceiling— oh Holy God, I wish I hadn’t let you do this to me.” 
And then they are falling on him. Two, three, four at a time, the spiders land
on him. He goes to bat them away from his t-shirt, only to see that ants are
coming up from the now-festering flesh of his arm wound. He opens his mouth to
scream, but Derek has him pinned down in a heartbeat.
“Shh!” he hisses, one of his hands— hot and big— swallowing Stiles’s cry.
Stiles stares up at him, tries not to feel terrified “I have to do this, or
you’ll wake your dad up.”
Stiles is vibrating with fear, doing his damndest to act like this isn’t
freaking him the hell out— and failing miserably. He claws at Derek’s hand on
his mouth and at his forearm arm and kicks violently against the weight above
him. Derek is unmovable— solid. 
“I’ll do this all night if I have to,” Derek threatens, and Stiles can’t stop
the shiver that runs through his body at the promise. Pretty sure he’s
heard that one in a porn before, too.
He seriously doubts Derek could pin him to a bed for hours without ceasing.
But, well, he ends up being pretty damn wrong about that.
Derek goes back and forward between holding him down and sitting on his shins
for the entirety of the night. The hallucinations vary in severity— coming and
going like the ebb and flow of the tide or the cycles of the moon. His hands
burn against Stile’s mouth when he needs to keep Stiles quiet, and when he
presses Stiles into the bed, one of his knees insinuates itself between
Stiles’s easily. Stiles wonders, in vague and uncertain terms, about what his
life has become if he feels comfort at being pinned down by an Brooding Alpha
Werewolf.
Sometimes, Derek’s hands are even gentle. Like when Stiles’s hallucinations
warp Derek’s face and Stiles is reduced to— totally manly— tears as Derek holds
him down, one hand over Stiles’s mouth and the other occasionally touching
Stiles’s wrist gently or, just once, brushing against the top of his head. It’s
almost nurturing, and it might be upsetting if it weren’t such a comfort.
It’s about an hour after the last hallucination— and a few hours past sunrise—
when Stiles hears his dad leave for work through the front door. Derek is weary
and tense, perched beside Stiles’s legs now that it seems the drug’s averse
affects are wearing off, but Derek’s legs are still thrown over Stiles’s— his
boots elevated off the edge of the bed. Derek looks aged, so Stiles can only
imagine what fresh hell he looks like in turn. He’s been through various stages
of crying, kicking, shouting, and clawing for hours.
But the wound on his arm is closed and he hasn’t had a hallucination for an
hour, so that’s something.
Derek stands to go, but Stiles catches him. He’s tired. He just wants to sleep.
He doesn’t want Derek to leave because, if he leaves, Stiles is going to be
left alone to his thoughts, and he’s going to have to think about the past six
hours. He’d been kidding earlier, but one of his final hallucinationshad taken
advantage of the way Derek’s weight above him was making him feel, and it was
just—- it was a mess he didn’t want to handle right now. So, yeah. Avoid the
problem until it goes away and all.
“C’mon, man,” he says in a wrecked, tired voice. “You earned yourself a night
in a bed instead of on the floor of a train car that’s gonna give you tetanus.
Stay.” 
He expects Derek to hesitate, but he just grunts and kicks off his shoes before
lying down beside Stiles, his weight on the mattress a foreign feeling to
Stiles who has always slept alone. Stiles rolls onto his stomach— as he always
does to sleep— and lets out a soft bark of laughter when he sees that Derek’s
already out cold.
It’s weird, but only because it’s not really that weird.
Stranger things have happened this night alone, not to mention in the past year
or so that Stiles has known Derek. 
So he doesn’t think about it and lets himself fall asleep.
 
                             - - - - - - - - - - 
July rolls in sweet and sticky as sin, and Stiles wants to spend every minute
of the blistering heat holed up in his room, jacked up on sugar and caffeine
and pulling all nighters for the sake of guild raids. His life is uneventful
enough that he manages to get some decent leveling up accomplished before the
full moon, which is impressive. Summer break is a wonderful, wonderful thing.
He almost forgets that his best friend is a werewolf and his life is dictated
by the stages of the moon. It helps that Scott has decided to spend most of his
summer building his relationships with his mom and Isaac.
Stiles tries not to be envious that Scott can be completely honest
with his parent.
He wakes up after noon on the day of the full moon to the sound of an incoming
video chat. He drags himself up out of bed to accept the call, and Scott greets
him the way only a best bro could:
“Whoa, no offense, dude, but you look like shit.”
“This is why I keep you around, Scott. You do great things for my self esteem.”
“Whatever. You ready for tonight?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be to have to lock you up so you don’t try and rip me limb
from limb, buddy!”
Scott grimaces. “Not funny, Stiles.”
“Come on— it’s a little bit funny.”
Scott’s lips kind of twitch, which means it’s definitely funny. Of course it
is. Stiles is a funny guy— Funniest guy he knows, for sure. He shoves aside the
sound of Derek’s dry tone— the one he only uses when he’s exasperated but also
in a good enough humor for sass. Ever since their little Slumber Party of
Horror, Stiles has been fighting tooth and nail to not think about Derek
freaking Hale, and the fact that Stiles can’t make himself not think about it
is—- new. Not a bad new, Stiles doesn’t think. But he’s not
really comfortable with it, either. 
“Well, Isaac wants me to go to Derek’s place tonight,” Scott says, pulling
Stiles from his dangerous train of thought.
“Yeah, you guys have been doing a lot of that together,” Stiles says— not
bitterly in the least. At all.
“I know, man, sorry. He’s just— he’s confused about all of this, you know. With
Peter and Derek. He kind of needs me.”
“So why doesn’t he just join your pack instead?”
Scott is quiet for a minute, like the idea is strange and new to him. Stiles’s
eyebrows shoot up. Surely this thought has crossed Scott’s mind. He and Isaac
have been largely inseparable all freaking summer, after all.
“Dude! This should not be a revolutionary idea here. Isaac likes you, you like
Isaac— and you’re a hell of a lot better at the whole Alpha thing than Derek—
so why not bring him into your pack?”
“Isaac likes Derek,” Scott says quickly, and Stiles deflates immediately. “He
talks about him a lot. Says he took Erica and Boyd back without any sort of
punishment after they took off. He says things have gotten a lot better with
the pack.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Well that’s fun. Let’s just act like that’s not going
to be a huge problem we have to fix in a few months.” Scott’s gives him a
Disapproving Look, and Stiles puts his hands up defensively. “History repeats,
dude! Isaac might like Derek, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to wreak
havoc together, okay?”
“Isaac wouldn’t—”
“I get it Scott. Just— nevermind.” 
Scott is quiet again. “Is this about Peter?” he asks finally.
Stiles lets out a broken, furious noise, and looks down at his keyboard.
“It’s about all of it, man. I don’t like it. I don’t trust it.”
“Look, what Peter did to Lydia isn't okay, but we need him right now, Stiles.”
“Dude,” Stiles tries— wanting to get out of this conversation as quickly as
possible. “Just— whatever. I can be there at seven.”
For not being in the same pack, Scott sure does spend a lot of time with Derek,
Stiles thinks (not for the first time).  But Scott grins at him through the
screen— his whole face freaking lights up because he’s pretty much more puppy
than teenage boy— and Stiles can’t bring himself to stay mad at him. He offers
a lopsided grin in return. 
“Thanks, man!” Scott says. “We’ll figure out this Peter stuff. I promise.”
Stiles raises his eyebrows, disbelieving. “Whatever, dumbass. Just let me know
if I’m picking you up or not.”
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
The night is a disaster, but that’s to be expected.
It starts when Stiles pulls up to the shell of the Hale house; the first person
he sees is Peter. Stiles is about two seconds away from doing something stupid
when Derek puts himself between Peter and the Jeep. Peter doesn’t look away
from Stiles until Derek tell him to go inside— and even then he drags his gaze
away slowly, a twisted smirk pulling at his lips. It makes Stiles want to hit
him. Instead, he stomps into the house. Erica looks up at him from her perch at
the bottom of the staircase, her nails in front of her like she’d been
inspecting them.
Erica and Boyd haven’t been the same since the Argents got them. Stiles doesn’t
know the details, but he thinks he gets it: being tied up and tortured with
electricity for hours probably changes a person. Erica’s hair is curled
perfectly, her lips a dark shade of red that’s twisted into a contemplative
frown. She’s tense, uncomfortable, and Stiles gets that, too. He’d be tense all
the time if he had to live with a guy who had been dead for several weeks.
“Erica,” he greets with a nod. She grins. “Enjoying your summer break?”
“Hoping it gets a lot more eventful soon,” she replies, and Stiles disagrees
with that very, very much.
He’s enjoyed every second of his low-key, pants-optional summer; Slumber Party
of Horror not withstanding. That’s a night he’d be okay forgetting.
“Erica,” Derek says, appearing from a hallway behind the stairs. “Where are the
others?”
“Boyd and Isaac?” she asks, and Derek gives her a look that Stiles interprets
as Who the hell else would I be talking about? Erica stands with a huff and
heads up the stairs in a blur of bouncing blonde curls. It’s the first sassy
thing she’s done since Stiles came in, which helps him wind down a bit. 
He’s left alone with Derek, and it makes his skin itch. They haven’t been alone
together in half a month— and Stiles isn’t sure where they stand. Somehow Did
you like spending the night with me? doesn’t seem like an appropriate way to
start a conversation, and neither does Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the
night and feel your hand pressed against my mouth and your knee between my
legs. Not that that’s, like, a Thing. It’s only happened a few times. And it
hasn’t happened in nearly a week. Nothing worth bringing up. 
He doesn’t have to think about it, though, because Derek disappears behind the
stairs again-- like the most polite host in the entire world-- leaving Stiles
alone in the foyer of the ruined home. Stiles has half a mind to follow him and
bitch him out about it, so that’s what he does. He follows with unsure footing;
his balance is a theoretical thing on solid floorboards, after all. 
“What a warm welcome— thanks so much,” Stiles bites out, turning the corner and
stopping at what’s in front of him.
Or, really, what isn’t in front of him. Because the house as he knows it has
stopped. The hallway ends abruptly, and there’s this gruesome courtyard of
sorts that takes up the entire back half of the house. There’s no roof, and the
carpet is green and alive and sprouting. He steps out tentatively and finds
Derek glowering around the corner. 
“This is—”
“It was his parents’ room,” Peter’s voice lilts into the conversation, and
Stiles’s spins about spastically, searching for the source.
He finds Peter on the second floor, standing in a doorway that opens straight
into the Courtyard of Death. Jesus— this place is even more terrifying here
than it is out front. The worst part of it is that it’s actually really, really
pretty when you let yourself forget that eight people burned to death probably
right where you’re standing. Unfortunately, Stiles can’t really make himself
forget. He saw the reports. They’d triggered his first panic attack in months. 
They’d made him think of Derek a little differently, too. Which— hello sudden
realization, how nice of you to make his stomach drop.
“Peter,” Derek warns, and Peter scoffs. 
“Like he wasn’t going to ask you in ten seconds, anyway. Think about who this
is.”
“This,” Stiles cuts in snappily, “is standing right here, you know.”
“You don’t say,” Peter echos in a sing-song tone, but he turns and is gone a
moment later.
Stiles hates him like he hates nothing else in the entire world. He turns a
mean glare on Derek, like blaming Derek for Peter’s very existance is
productive in any way. 
“Why are you here?” Derek asks him directly. Which— okay, rude. 
“I was just going to ask why you didn’t call the morning after,” Stiles throws
back.
He says it because it’s the first thing that comes to mind (the thing that’s
kind of always on his mind for some stupid reason), but he regrets it
immediately. Derek stiffens and looks away, like he can’t believe that Stiles
actually brought it up like that. It’s okay because Stiles kind of sort of
doesn’t believe it either. He backtracks to try and allieviate the awkward
silence that settles.
“Scott wants me here. Believe it or not, he seems to have some reason to not
want to be here alone.”
“Isaac wouldn’t let anyone do anything to Scott,” Derek argues.
“Well, that’s hugely comforting— that Isaac won’t let you do anything to Scott.
No ‘I don’t want to do anything to Scott’? Can’t even lie to me about that?”
Derek just clenches his fists at his side, and Stiles takes that as a go-ahead
for all things bitchy.
“Why are you evenout here?” he demands, gesturing to the courtyard.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Derek says matter-of-factly with
bright and unreadable eyes.
Even that frustrates Stiles. He’s not used to being this frustrated— ever—
which only makes him more frustrated, which makes him frustrated about being
frustrated— he’s pretty much just a frustrated mess when Scott steps into the
courtyard.
“There you are, man,” Scott says warmly, coming to Stiles’s side immediately.
He must sense the tense atmosphere, because he turns his body into Stiles’s and
looks accusingly at Derek. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, Stiles was just going back inside,” Derek answers for him.
Stiles would argue, but getting the hell out of there sounds like a dream come
true, so he leads the way back inside. Scott follows on his heels. 
“Anyone but Derek around here?” Scott asks, and Stiles pauses and looks at him.
“Can’t you like.. sniff it out?”
Scott shakes his head. “It’s hard to separate smells if I don’t have a
particular smell I’m trying to find. I know yours really well, so you were
easy. I’m kind of learning Isaac’s, but I definitely don’t know Peter’s yet.”
“Well, he’s here,” Stiles says, his mood sour. 
Scott pauses before saying, “Yeah, I kind of figured he might be.”
“He doesn’t stay for full moon nights,” Isaac interrupts, coming down the
stairs.
He’s only got eyes for Scott. Stiles doesn’t stop himself from rolling
essentially his entire face when he sees the dopey grin that comes to Scott’s
face for Isaac. Werewolf Boyfriends— that’s what he’s been calling them in the
back of his head for months. They might not be romantically involved in any way
(jury's still out on that one), but the weird Werewolf Juju they share is
intimate enough that the nickname works, so Stiles is sticking to it.
“Stiles,” Isaac greets stiffly.
Stiles jerks his head like a stiff nod in reply. He still hasn’t totally
forgiven Isaac for the time he tried to kill Lydia, so things are a little
awkward. That goes for all the betas, actually.
Why is he here again?
“Peter doesn’t stay for the full moon?” Scott asks, suspicious.
“No,” Isaac says with a shake of his head. “He makes himself pretty scarce
around sun down.”
“Good thing, too,” Boyd interjects as he hops over the railing from the top
floor. “If I had to be around his smug ass for a full moon night, he’d be the
first thing I’d want to kill.”
Stiles barks with laughter. Anyone that ever wants to kill Peter Hale is a
friend of Stiles’s-- and that whole Lydia thing? Well, Boyd hadn’t been in the
classroom, and he hadn’t broken into the McCall house that night. Boyd could be
forgiven. 
“So, what’s the routine for you guys?” Stiles asks, rubbing his palms together.
“Handcuffs? Chains?” 
Boyd shakes his head.
“Chains and handcuffs didn’t go over great for us the first time around. We go
to the cells.”
“What?” Scott says, shocked, but his eyes are on Isaac. “You never said—”
“It’s not bad,” Isaac interrupts. “I swear.”
Scott looks disbelieving when he says, “I’m not going to let Derek lock me up
like that.”
“That’s why I’m here!” Stiles interjects gleefully, and Scott does his best to
glare at him in a threatening way. Since Scott is, again, more puppy than
teenage boy, the expression is practically adorable— and definitely not fear-
inducing. “I got you, buddy. It’s gonna be a blast.”
Scott looks like he’s never heard more dangrerous words in his life.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Peter disappears, and it should make Stiles feel better, but it only puts him
more on edge. He finds himself twitching, incapable of keeping his fingers
still for a second, when he closes Scott’s cell, sliding the huge lock across
the heavy metal of the door. It seems a little inhumane, but four walls and a
door of compete metal could only be a step up from being chained in an ice box
or handcuffed to a heater. Pretty much as five-star as a werewolf could hope
for.
Derek is beside him, then, looking into the small glass window to see Scott,
who is allowed to wander about the cell freely for the duration of the night.
“Inspecting my handiwork?” Stiles asks him, not rudely. There’s not really
bitterness in his tone so much as resignation. “I’ve been doing this for a
while now, you know.”
Derek just gives him a Look before saying, “Yeah. Let’s go.”
“Go—-?”
“Upstairs,” Derek says like it’s the simplest answer in the whole damn world.
Stiles huffs and rolls his eyes but starts to follow, anyway. He can't stop
himself from looking over his shoulder like Peter’s just going to appear out of
nowhere and try to bite his wrist again. He hasn’t told anyone about Peter
offering him the bite; he’s not totally sure why. It’s probably because his
nearest and dearests can use their Werewolf Juju to sniff out his lies, and
that’s just not a path he wants to travel yet.
But he can’t help but wonder if it means something that Peter offered him the
bite.
Would Derek offer him the bite?
“Would you give me the bite?” he asks, thinking the question harmless. 
Derek’s reaction is immediate. He freezes mid-step and becomes tense from head
to toe. When he turns, it’s slowly— over-dramatic as usual, Stiles thinks in a
begrudgingly amused sort of way— and looks at Stiles like he’s just been hit
with a bat. His mouth is a little slack, his head titled slightly, and he’s got
this wrinkle in his brow that Stiles wants to press his fingers to and decode
and understand just for once.
“What?” Stiles asks, feeling uncomfortable.
He twitches, the weight of Derek’s gaze unnerving him.
“Do you want the bite?” Derek asks slowly, sounding like he’s walking on
eggshells.
Well, hell, looks like he’s going to have this conversation whether he’s ready
to have it with a Walking, Talking Lie Detector or not. Stiles shoves his hands
in his jacket’s pockets and walks past Derek, leading the way up to the house.
Derek makes a choked, frustrated little noise behind him and catches up
immediately, stepping in front of Stiles to stop him.
“Stiles,” he says sternly, taking Stiles’s forearm in hand with a tight grip.
“It’s not about whether or not I want it,” Stiles insists, which is actually
not a lie. He was asking out of mild curiosity— not because he actually wanted
Derek to turn around and bite him right then and there. “I was only asking
because Peter offered it to me, and I didn’t know if you’d do the same. Let
go.” He shakes Derek’s hand off of him, and Derek recoils easily, and— bless
his stupid ashen heart— he looks like a horrified, confused puppy.
“Peter offered you the bite,” Derek says flatly.
“Yeah, after I tracked you down for his psycho ass. Spoiler alert: I didn’t
take it.”
Derek says nothing else and turns to lead Stiles up to the house. Something
twitches under Stiles’s skin and makes him itch, and all of the sudden the
subject he wanted so badly to drop is all he can think about. He reaches out
and grabs Derek, turning him around. 
“What, does that mean something?” he demands.
“Drop it, Stiles,” is all Derek says in response, jerking himself away from
Stiles’s grip. 
“The hell I will!” Stiles cries.
“Stiles, let. It. Go.”
“You— you suck. You’re on my shit list from now until the end of time, man.”
“I’ll be sure to cry about it when I’m alone at night,” Derek replies dryly and
Stiles outright gapes.
“No,” he insists bitterly. “You can’t be funny. I’m pissed at you. Hear
me? Pissed.” 
Derek just raises his eyebrows and they continue on up to the the rest of the
Hale house ruins in a weird silence that’s not comfortable— but it’s not tense
either. Stiles hesitates, because he’s not sure what to do now. Usually he has
to babysit Scott. But does he have to tonight? Derek seems willing to take the
reins on this one, and Stiles is kind of dying to bury his face in his pillow
and forget every awful detail of this night.
“Go home, Stiles,” Derek tells him, sounding weary. Stiles doesn’t question it.
He nods and parts for the jeep.
The last thing he sees before he pulls away is Derek stepping off of the porch
and into the splintered moonlight pouring in through the trees. He looks
lethal, and when his eyes catch Stiles’s headlights and do that crazy
reflecting thing they do, Stiles’s breath catches in his chest; he reverses,
turns, and drives away before he can think about it. 
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
His dad looks up at him from the kitchen table when Stiles stumbles down the
stairs, sometime around ten, to get something to eat. He’s looking over some
paperwork and Stiles might have interrupted him mid-sigh. There’s no reason to
say anything to one another, so Stiles doesn’t start conversation. He goes
straight for the cabinet with the cereal boxes. 
“I was going to make dinner,” his dad starts, and Stiles shakes his head.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m not even that hungry.”
His dad looks like he doesn’t believe him, which makes sense because his dad is
already a Walking, Talking Lie Detector— he doesn’t need super hearing for it,
either. But he doesn’t say anything and looks back at the papers at hand. 
“So,” Stiles begins awkwardly, moving over to the table with a box of cereal in
his hands, “whatcha lookin’ at?”
His dad glances up at him from over his reading glasses and smartly replies,
“I’m lookin’ at work stuff.”
Which is code for no, Stiles, you don’t get to see this. Unfortunately,
it’s also code for all sorts of interesting stuff that probably has to do with
the supernatural world you’ve been sucked into, Stiles. And Stiles can’t
just ignore that. He considers taking out the whiskey again, but he has such a
gutteral, guilty reaction to the thought that he pushes it aside.
“Ooo-kay,” Stiles sighs, going to find a bowl. His dad is silent for a long
time, and when Stiles looks up, a bowl in hand, he meets his dad’s suspicious
stare. “What?”
“That’s it?” his dad asks. “No smartass remarks? No ‘offering to help’? No
resistance whatsoever? Just ‘okay’?”
“… Okay… Sir?” Stiles tries, confused. “What’s up, Dad?”
His dad opens his mouth and closes it and just stares at him bewildered for a
long time. After a while, he closes his mouth, frowns in a good-humored way,
and shakes his head.
“No, it’s nothing. I’m just not buying this—” he gestures at Stiles vaguely,
“—That’s all.”
Stiles snorts and rolls his eyes. “This is the New Stiles, Dad. Gone are the
days of interefering with crime scenes and snooping through your official
business. I’m maturer now. Reborn, in a way. I like to think of myself as a
phoenix—-“
“Okay, okay, I get it,” his dad cuts him off with a dry tone. “Well, how does
theNew Stiles feel about pizza tonight?”
Stiles puts on a show of contemplating that for all of two seconds. “New Stiles
thinks pizza sounds great.”
His dad chuckles and reaches in his pocket for his phone, and Stiles feels a
little guilty now that New Stiles is actually just code for Smarter, Sneakier,
Better-at-Lying Stiles. Oh well. 
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Stiles is all rage when he pulls up to the Hale house at two in the morning,
clenching his phone with a white-knuckled grip. Derek meets him on the porch,
his brow furrowed, and, no, Stiles does not have time to think about decoding
that expression before he practically snarls at him.
“Wanna tell me what the hell this is?” he demands, thrusting his phone out at
Derek.
Derek looks at it, then back at Stiles, then at the phone again.
“A cell phone?” he asks, clearly not liking whatever’s going on in Stiles’s
head. 
Stiles sneers at him and turns the screen of his cell phone to Derek, revealing
the pictures he captured. His dad had fallen asleep on the couch, the pizza and
old basketball games putting him out pretty early. Stiles had then spent the
better part of three hours pouring over the pages on the kitchen table,
horrified by what he saw.
The picture he shows Derek now is dark, but there's clearly a red-eyed shape
standing outside of a burning car. When Derek sees it, he clenches his jaw and
snatches the phone from Stiles’s hand.
“What is this?” he demands after several long moments, his eyes meeting
Stiles’s fiercely.
“It— It’s my dad’s,” Stiles answers lamely, cowed a bit by the intensity of
Derek’s stare. “Three of the counties bordering Beacon are sending him warnings
about these arson cases, so imagine my surprise when I saw those pretty Alpha
Eyes staring back at me here. Wanna explain what the hell you’re doing lighting
cars on fire in the neighboring counties, Derek?”
“That’s not me,” Derek says fiercely, and Stiles’s look is incredulous.
“What— what do you mean that’s not you? You’re the Alpha!” Derek looks like
he’s about to say something, but Stiles steamrolls right through whatever lie
he’s about to throw his way, “Besides, look what else I saw,” he starts, taking
back his phone and swiping his thumb a few times to come to a new picture. He
holds it out.
“Funny how it just happens to match that pretty door decoration you’ve got
going on here, isn’t it.” He gestures wildly to the triskele on the Hale house
door over Derek’s shoulder, and Derek flinches.
“That’s. Not. Me,” he repeats gruffly, his eyebrows raised and his jaw clenched
like he’s going to will the belief into Stiles’s head.  ”And I didn’t put that
on the door, either.”
Stiles makes a disbelieving face and, in a tone that he reserves for when Scott
is being a serious dumbass, asks, “If it’s not you, then who the hell is this,
and what’s with the big red eyes?”
Derek hesitates and draws a deep breath. His eyes linger on Stiles’s face for a
while, like he’s trying to figure out what Stiles’s angle is. His gaze drops to
the phone in Stiles’s hands. He’s quiet until Stiles makes a furious noise. 
“There’s others,” Derek says finally, like that’s any help at all.
“Other—?” Stiles leads, still pissed and definitely wary but also kind of
intrigued.
“Alphas. A pack of them.”
Stiles balks, because that doesn’t make sense. He tells Derek as much:
“That doesn’t make sense— there’s always— there’s alwaysan Alpha. Like, one.
Solo. That’s how packs work, I know, I’ve done the research—”
“Yeah, well, believe it or not there are some things you can’t learn from the
internet, Stiles,” Derek snaps.
“Hey!” Stiles cries, offended. “I’ve read books!”
Derek snorts, and Stiles’s lips twitch in a pleased sort of way. Which is
ridiculous. He shouldn’t be proud of tapping into Derek’s seriously repressed
sense of humor. That should be the last thing on his mind right now when,
apparently, there’s a pack of Alphas planning to burn the world down around
them. Silence falls over them, and it takes longer than he’d like to admit for
Stiles to stop looking at Derek. He’s not sure why, but he thinks about the
picture he saw of Derek’s mother— that time he and Scott broke into Doctor
Fenris’s house— and he wishes he had stolen it. He thinks, without meaning to,
that Derek might have appreciated a picture of his mom.
All the ones he had before are probably ash. 
“Hey,” he says after a long while, because they may never have another peaceful
moment like this again, and he’s been wondering about something. “The night you
gave me that drug, did I ask you anything about— about my house?”
Derek is quiet long enough that Stiles thinks, maybe, he didn’t hear him. Of
course he did, though. He’s a werewolf. So, eventually, Derek says, “—No.”
Stiles’s heart twists in his chest. “Nothing about like… smells?”
Derek shakes his head, looking suspicious. Stiles feels like he’s going to
vomit.
His room probably doesn’t smell like cinnamon at all. 
Stupid hallucinations. 
Almost as stupid as werewolves. Almost as stupid as a pack of alpha werewolves.
Almost as stupid as Derek freaking Hale, who gives up trying to understand
Stiles’s weird line of questioning before turning to head into the house.
“Come on,” he tells Stiles. “I’ll show you what we know.”
Stiles follows, a bitter taste in his mouth and a bigger, almost more upsetting
question creeping into the back of his mind:
How much of their Slumber Party of Horror, as Stiles remembers it, was real? 
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Derek pulls out a laptop, which kind of explains why he looked so comfortable
in front of Stiles’s computer weeks ago. Stiles doesn’t say anything about it
because he’s already brought up that bizarre night once, and technically he's
still trying to forget about it. But Derek catches Stiles’s look, and he
doesn’t let it pass unaddressed.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Stiles says quickly. “Are you going to show me this or—?” 
Derek hesitates, but he eventually logs into the laptop and goes straight for a
file on the desktop marked ‘Alpha Pack.’ Inside of the file, there’s various
saved links to the web browser and a startling number of text documents, and a
few videos. 
“Here,” Derek grunts, passing the laptop to Stiles. “It’s all there.”
He gestures to a charred chair, and Stiles takes the hint and sits. He wants to
go straight for the videos, but the files are sorted in a particular way, so
Stiles decides to go through from start to finish. The world around him is
forgotten the minute he gets a computer under his fingers, so he doesn’t notice
when Derek disappears.
He does notice, however, when Derek comes back. Stiles is halfway through a
video explaining werewolf pack dynamics— all addressed in theoretical terms, of
course— that is helping him make sense of the idea of a pack made up entirely
of Alphas. Derek stands beside him and leans over the table, his large palms
splayed out on the wood and his eyes on the laptop screen.
Stiles licks his lips, averts his gaze away from Derek’s fingers, and says,
“So, there’s a Big Guy— like a Main Alpha. And the other alphas are— they’re
like his Betas? But they’re… Alphas.”
“Yeah.” 
Stiles groans. “That— that doesn’t make sense. They can’t just have Alpha
powers if they’re Betas. It doesn’t— it shouldn’t work like that. My mind is
literally going to explode at how stupidly unfair that is.”
Derek snorts beside him and stands a little straighter, removing his hands from
the table.
“They’re after me,” he says after a few seconds of silence.
Stiles turns his head up to Derek’s, searching for some sort of tell in Derek’s
brow or something. There’s nothing there, and Derek meets Stiles’s eyes without
hesitation. That seems like an honest enough gesture.
“You? Why you?” Stiles asks, not meanly. 
Derek gives him a one-shouldered shrug— a non-answer. Stiles scoffs and turns
back to the computer. 
“I’m a new Alpha,” Derek says eventually, which kind of makes sense.
“So,” Stiles says, not taking his eyes off of the computer, “they want you to
be like their… Alpha Omega?”
Omega alpha? What’s the grammatical rule for this shit?
“That’s our best guess so far, yeah. They didn’t exactly tell Erica or Boyd
anything helpful.” 
“Erica and Boyd have met these whackjobs?” Stiles asks, baffled.
“The night Jackson changed,” Derek says, and Stiles is confused for a very,
very long minute.
“— The same night they were locked up and being electrocuted by the Argents?”
“Yeah.”
“God.” 
That had been a super stressful night for everyone, but now Stiles feels like
Erica and Boyd had gotten the short end of the stick there. Not only had they
been captured by hunters, but they'd also wound up in the hands of the Alpha
Pack hours later? Some god of misfortune was calling the shots in Beacon Hills,
and Stiles couldnt help but feel like his team was being treated unfairly. 
“So, what’s the plan?” Stiles asks, already exhausted by all of this new
information.
“We’re working on that,” Derek says stiffly. Stiles rolls his eyes.
“In other words: there is no plan?” Stiles takes Derek’s silence as complete
confirmation. “Well, where’s Jackson?”
Derek stares at Stiles, long and hard before saying. “He’s with Lydia.”
Stiles jaw drops, and he can’t tell if he’s more horrified or livid for a long
while. “On the full moon? Holy motherfreaking Christ, Derek! Why— what—”
Derek cuts him off to say, “She… she’s like Argent’s daughter for Scott. He
still changes, but it’s not uncontrollable.”
Stiles runs a hand over his face, groaning. “Great. That’s just— that’s
just great. He could kill her, you realize?”
“He won’t. Just like Scott could never hurt Allison.” 
Probably the last thing Stiles wants to hear is that Lydia is to
Jackson as Allison is to Scott, because that pretty much ruins his fifteen-year
plan. Scott and Allison have been broken up for two months, and Scott still
looks at his cell phone balefully, like he can will her to call him using only
the saddest expression he has in his arsenal. It’d be cute if it didn’t make
Stiles’s chest hurt. 
“Great,” he repeats bitterly, and Derek lets out a long breath beside him— not
quite a sigh, but kind of irritated. “So, it’s just you, Erica, Isaac, Boyd,
and Peter against these guys?”
“And you and Scott,” Derek adds.
Stiles has been afraid of that. He could argue that he and Scott aren’t,
technically, a part of Derek’s pack, but everything he’s read in the past hour
tells him that the only thing worse than belonging to a pack targeted by an
Alpha Pack is not belonging to any pack at all. Which, of course, Scott will be
thrilled to hear tomorrow.
Stiles lets himself appreciate for a minute how spectacularly his life sucks. 
“Well, this is cool. I'm looking forward to having to fight for my life while
prepping for the SATs,” he mutters, and Derek stiffens beside him, though he
stays quiet. “I need to go. My dad is already going to be pissed at me for
coming in this late again.” 
“Just go through your window; he’ll never know,” Derek deadpans, and Stiles
actually laughs at that.
“Right. I’ll let you know how that goes.”  
                              - - - - - - - - - -
It’s a week later that Stiles is standing in front of his house, trying to
process why his neighbor’s car is on fire at eight o’clock at night. He’s
distracted when he calls 911, watching the woman next door shriek and throw a
bucket of water onto the car like that’s going to do anything. 
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Yeah, uh. My neighbor’s car is on fire?”
“What’s the address, Sir?”
Stiles gives the address before disconnecting the call and putting his phone
back in his pocket. His eyes stay on the fire. He’s got a few bags of groceries
looped up his arms, and the milk is kind of getting heavy, but he can’t bring
himself to look away. It’s not every day that you see a car on fire, after all.
It’s then that he remembers the last time he saw a car on fire, and he panics.
He claws into his pockets looking for his phone again. In a mess of fingers he
has a number dialed and is rapidly deteriorating into a ball of nerves and
little else.
“What is it?” is how Derek greets him.
“Derek you need to get your werewolf ass over here right now or tell me what to
do because my neighbor’s car is on fire.”
“Your neighbor’s car is—” he stops when he understands what Stiles is saying.
“No, I can’t go over there.”
“Fine,” Stiles snaps. “I’m coming over there, then.”
“No! Stiles, they’ll follow you. Just— just be normal. Stay where you are.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that, Derek? In case you haven’t heard,
there’s a pack of—”
“Stiles, just stay calm. If they knew you were connected to me, it’d
be your jeep on fire, not your neighbor’s.”
“Yeah, except I went to the store, so maybe they just settled for making a
statement close by? Where they knew I’d see it?”
Derek’s silent for a long, long, really fucking long time before he utters a
faint, “Damn it.”
“Yeah, pickin up what I’m puttin down, Big Guy?”
“Shut up, Stiles.”
“Not that you care, but I have milk to get refrigerated, so if you could just
tell me what to do already, that’d be awesome.”
“Scott. Go to Scott.”
Stiles makes a frustrated noise. “You want me to lead them to my best friend?”
“Fine, Stiles!” Derek snaps. “I’m coming over. Try not to get yourself killed
before I get there.” 
“You are the actual worst,” Stiles sneers into the phone before he gets
disconnected.
Stupid, stupid werewolves. He hates them all. Well, not Scott. He likes Scott.
And Boyd’s kind of funny. But that’s it. The rest of them suck, and he has
absolutely no forgiveness or sympathy for them. Not even when Erica’s laughing
or when Isaac looks at Scott like he’s the Actual Best Thing Ever.
Okay, so Stiles kind of has a soft spot for all of the wolves.
Not Jackson, though.
And not Derek. Derek sucks.
And Peter. Screw him, too. Peter can go back to Hell ten times over.
He opens the Jeep’s passenger door and puts the groceries back in. When he
closes the door, he leans against it and looks up at his house. All of the
lights are off just like he left them when he went to get groceries. Is it
wrong to be grateful that it’s his neighbor’s car burning and not his Jeep? Is
that bad to think? Whatever, he’s thinking it anyway. He pats his Jeep’s door
fondly and decidedly does not picture her going up in flames. Just the thought
makes him want to cry. He loves his Jeep. His Jeep is a part of him-- like an
arm or a leg or his brain or his dick or something. 
He considers his house again, and a chilling thought occurs to him: the pack
wouldn’t be… waiting for him to get home, right? Because his dad is due back in
a few hours and— yeah, no, Stiles isn’t even going to follow that train of
thought.
He pushes off the door and goes behind the Jeep to open the trunk, where he
grabs his tire iron. He makes his way up to the front door, which is locked. A
good sign, Stiles thinks. He scrambles for his key and gets the door open,
brandishing the tire iron as menacingly as he knows how— years of recreational
baseball coming back to him all at once— and he pushes forward into the living
room.
“Heyyy, Wolfies,” he calls out to the dark. “You here? Lurking in the shadows,
waiting to pounce? Any of this sounding vaguely familiar?” 
No response, though he wasn’t exactly expecting one. He doesn’t close the front
door because he needs an escape plan if this goes as bad as he’s kind of
expecting it to. 
But nothing happens. 
Not even when he goes to the kitchen— or when he looks in his dad’s bedroom— or
when he takes the stairs three at a time to check out the upstairs. Nothing.
The house is empty. There’s no one here but Stiles, and he called Derek for
abso-fucking-lutely no reason, and now he feels like an asshole. He’s lowering
the tire iron and rifling in his pocket when he hears something downstairs and
his entire body stiffens.
He steels himself against the wall by the staircase, wanting to press himself
inside of the house itself to hide. The bottom stair creaks, and a familiar
voice calls out to him.
“Stiles.”
Derek sounds agitated, but Stiles relaxes and turns the corner to see him
halfway up the stairs. There’s an unspeakable amount of fury in his face, and
Stiles drops the tire iron, surprised. 
“I told you not to get yourself killed,” he says slowly, advancing on Stiles,
who doesn’t even think of backing away. He’s stuck in place, watching Derek get
closer slow, slow, slowly. 
“And here I am,” he says, swallowing dryly. “All in one piece.”
“You’re an idiot,” Derek hisses, and Stiles sees the way Derek’s fingers
twitch. 
“Planning on hitting me?” Stiles chokes out. “Just avoid the face— that’s the
money maker.”
Derek pauses, and some of that rage slips off of his face to make room for the
confusion that sets in. He opens his mouth and is quiet for a moment, his brow
twitching before he says, “No, I’m not going to hit you. Have I ever hit you?” 
“You smashed my face against a steering wheel, once.”
Derek’s lips twitch, and Stiles relaxes a little bit. “You deserved it.” 
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Hey, Danny totally got that text traced for us, didn’t
he?” At that, Derek simply turns around on the staircase and heads down, and
Stiles hurries after him. “Hey, you can’t just turn away when you’re losing—
that’s not how this—-“
“You have groceries in the Jeep,” is all Derek says, and Stiles pauses.
That’s right. Groceries. He’d forgotten. He pushes past Derek and heads back to
the car. Derek’s in the kitchen when he gets back. Stiles raises his eyebrows,
and he opens and closes his mouth a few times to say something, but nothing
comes to mind.
Derek seems to catch on well enough, and he looks over at Stiles from his spot
near the sink and says, “They could come back. It's possible your neighbor was
just a random coincidence, but you’re going to have to be watched until we know
you’re not a target.”
Stiles groans and deposits the groceries on the table, not bothering to start
putting them away.
“Well, that’s just great,” he grumbles, turning back to Derek. “As if my life
weren’t strange e-freaking-nough as is, I get to have werewolf slumber parties
regularly. Awesome.” 
Derek says nothing, which Stiles is starting to realize almost counts as a
response from him. Doesn’t make it less annoying, but—
He busies himself putting the groceries away: the milk in the fridge, the bread
in the bread box, the whole wheat spaghetti noodles in the cabinet. Derek
continues to lean against the counter, watching Stiles without saying anything.
The most unnerving thing about it is how not unnerving it is. Stiles twitches
under Derek’s gaze, ready to flinch away from him if he moves. He hasn’t
forgotten that furious look that Derek sported on the staircase; he’s just
choosing to not bring it up. Ever. That’s a conversation starter he’s seriously
willing to take with him to the grave. Of course, that’s what he had resolved
to do with the whole Peter-offered-me-the-bite business, and that plan had
lasted a grand total of, like, six months. So.
One minute he’s moving stuff around in the fridge to make room for some of the
fruits and vegetables he got at the store, and the next minute he’s sitting in
a puddle of lemonade, his mom’s glass pitcher shattered on the ground at his
feet. He sucks in a breath and takes in the shards on the ground, feeling like
the biggest, most worthless person in the entire world. His fingers twitch and
reach out to pick up the shards— like he can gather all the little pieces of
his mother and put them back together.
Does he want to cry? He can’t tell. But he definitely wants to throw up.
Funny how he could force so much meaning on a stupid glass pitcher.
Not really, actually. It’s not funny at all.
He cuts himself on the glass, which is inevitable, and he hisses and sucks on
his sliced thumb instantly, recoiling from the remnants of the pitcher. He
barely registers Derek’s annoyed huff behind him before he’s being hoisted to
his feet, Derek’s hand wrapped around the meat of his upper arm. 
“Hey!” Stiles all but yelps. “Hands off!”
Derek lets go, but he has a warm, wet cloth that he shoves in Stiles’s wounded
hands before he crouches down and starts picking the glass up out of the
lemonade. Stiles watches him, a little mesmerized at Derek doing something so…
normal. Like he’s dropped glasses in kitchens before and has had to pick them
up. 
Maybe he dropped glasses a lot as a kid.
Thinking of Derek being clumsy at any time in his life is enough to make Stiles
snort, amused. It hurts his heart to look at the pitcher, so he doesn’t, and
occupies himself with stopping the bleeding from the cut on his right thumb.
It’s a bitch of a wound— the sort that stings like nothing else and takes
forever to clot. He doesn’t have the patience for it, but he does his best and
wraps one of his palms around his thumb to apply pressure over the cloth. Derek
finishes with the glass— picking up several shards that Stiles couldn’t see
himself— and looks to Stiles expectantly.
“Under the sink,” Stiles tells him, and Derek moves to throw the pieces away.
“Let me see it,” he says a minute later, and Stiles looks up into Derek’s eyes
and freezes.
He doesn’t let go of his hand, and he certainly doesn’t extend it to Derek, who
gets irritated after waiting for like ten seconds. Derek snatches Stiles’s
hand, and Stiles doesn’t fight it, but he hisses and swears because, hey, it’s
easier to bitch and moan about his stupid cut than it is to cry over the
pitcher he ruined. His mother’s pitcher. God dammit.
“There’s still a shard here,” Derek sighs, plucking the tiny piece of glass out
of Stiles’s wound. The relief is immediate, but it bleeds more. Stiles
grimaces. “Go clean it.”
“Last time you told me to clean a wound I almost passed out, so excuse me if I
say—”
“Stiles,” Derek warns.
“No,” Stiles snaps. “You can’t just boss me around and expect me to do
everything you say. I’m not sixteen and scared of you anymore— yeah, that’s
right. Not. Scared. If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it like
forever ago, so screw you and your threats. And stop looking at me like that!”
Derek’s brow is wrinkled with something Stiles can’t name, and he really,
really doesn’t have the energy to depuzzle it. Derek sighs, and the expression
softens, but he looks just as broody as ever.
“It’s going to get infected,” he says weakly, and Stiles’s jaw drops.
“What are you, my dad?”
Derek looks near furious, so Stiles doesn’t press it. But he doesn’t clean his
hand either, so ha. Derek can suck on that lost battle for a little while.
Stiles deposits himself ungainly onto one of the chairs around the kitchen
table and looks wearily at the mess of papers stretched out in front of him. 
A silence settles over them and lingers for a very
very
very 
very long time.
Stiles waits it out as best he can. He’s good at filling silences— actually,
he’s awesome at filling silences. He could fill a million silences from now
until forever if he wanted, but he’s grieving a little for the lost pitcher.
Derek is staring across the room at the refrigerator like he’s willing it to
burst into flames at any minute, which is— yeah, weird. It takes Stiles all of
two mintues to realize that he’s not just glaring. He’s reading.
Stiles considers the refrigerator, then. There’s scattered pieces of his life
there: a picture of him from third grade wearing a baseball uniform and posing
with a bat, his dentist’s business card, a wedding invitation for a man who
works at the station, a list of important phone numbers that hasn’t been
updated since Scott lived with his dad (and people still had land lines), and a
picture of the whole family— him, his dad, and his mom— that they posed for on
the big wooden swing on the back porch when Stiles was about nine. Everything’s
held in place by a colorful assortment of magnets that are of various ages and
shapes and sizes, and a few of them were made by Stiles in middle school art
and science classes, which is kind of embarrassing even though he knows Derek
has no clue who made them. 
The picture of his mom on the refrigerator is the only one his dad keeps.
Stiles has a few in his room, tucked away near books and baseball “You Tried”
trophies, but his dad destroyed most of his own a month or so after she died.
Stiles once thought of getting rid of his pictures, too, but the thought of
pushing the last pieces of her out of his life sent him into panic attack after
panic attack until, eventually, he just resigned himself to being haunted by
the ghost of his mother’s smile. It was kind of fitting, since her smell and
laugh haunted him, too, and would have even if he’d gotten rid of the pictures.
Keeping those pictures would probably do his heart more harm than good in the
long run; jury’s still out on that. Stiles struggles with letting things go. 
He looks at his hand and feels the bitter taste in his mouth return. His
mother’s pitcher is gone now. Another thing he won’t be able to remember her
by. He’ll have the cut on his thumb for a while, sure, but eventually that will
heal. He might not be a werewolf, but the cut isn’t deep enough to scar. All
it’s good for is hurting like a bitch and oozing fresh, bright blood that dries
sticky on his skin— a dark rust color that Stiles is more familiar with than
he’d like to be.
His favorite shirt has a rust-colored stain on the left arm. It’s been there
for about five weeks now.
“You guys,” he says, and, dammit, he’s the one breaking the silence again.
Whatever. “I think you guys sometimes forget that— I’m just normal.”
It’s out before he can stop it, before he thinks he needs to stop it. But Derek
is looking at the evidence now: the evidence of a fragile, human life. There it
is, all laid out on Stiles’s refrigerator.  Derek turns his strangely-colored
eyes to Stiles. They have a staring contest for a while before Derek’s
expression becomes questioning. Stiles opens his mouth a little wider (since
it’s pretty much always a little bit open), but, no. He’s not ready.
He exhales and decides to change the subject instead.
“How did you know it was me upstairs?” he asks. Derek’s brow furrows, and
Stiles thinks that look might be confusion, so he goes with it. “Like, how did
you know I wasn’t, like, a crazy alpha ready to pounce?”
Derek replies slowly, like he thinks he’s walking into a trap, “— I’m a
werewolf.” 
“Yeah, I get that,” Stiles says, a sliver of exapseration cutting into his
tone. “Scott’s just told me that learning scents is hard, and he still doesn’t
have Isaac’s scent down and they’ve been inseparable all summer so—”
“I’m not exactly new to this,” Derek cuts in dryly, and Stiles sighs.
“Yeah, I guess you’re not.”
“And it’s not just your scent,” Derek continues. “You breathe through your
mouth, so you sound different than most other people.”
“So, I smell bad and breathe the wrong way— great,” Stiles jokes, but something
about it isn’t funny, not even to Derek. His lips don’t twitch, so Stiles
thinks that means he’s not amused. Not to be confused with Not Amused, which is
always a bad Derek mood to happen upon.
When exactly did he become some sort of translator for all moods Derek? Because
that should stop, like, reallyreallyreally soon. Yesterday, in fact. Yesterday
would be best.
“It’s more than that,” Derek goes on. “You feel a certain way.”
“Whoa ho ho, werewolfsaywhat?” That’s definitely new. Feeling people? “I was
like a good five feet and a wall away from you. Pretty sure you weren’t feeling
anything, dude.”
“Not like that,” Derek drawls, rolling his eyes.
Damn him and the rare moments he humors Stiles. They do weird things to
Stiles’s nerves.
“You’re a beacon of wired energy; you feel like static electricity. If I’m
looking for you, it’s easier to rely on that feeling than it is my sight or
smell. It’s a sense that’s completely Wolf, so it’s the most accurate.”
“It’s also the sense that Scott seems to have No. Clue. About,” Stiles adds,
and Derek snorts.
“That’s why he needs me,” he stresses, giving Stiles a pointed look. Stiles, in
turn, puts up his hands defensively.
“Don’t look at me, man. Scott’s a free person. He does what he wants.”
“You can’t think that Scott’s really going to be okay doing this solo when
there’s a pack of alphas waiting to strike,” Derek insists, and, yeah, Stiles
has to give him that one. Not that he would admit it aloud, but Derek has a
point. Scott could even be perceived as a threat to the alpha pack; he doesn’t
have the natural subservience of the typical omega, which could land him in
some serious shit in the very immediate future.
“We’ll figure it out,” Stiles says confidently despite himself. “We always do.”
Derek looks irritated, but he takes the seat next to Stiles at the kitchen
table without ceremony. Stiles looks at him and thinks he looks older— more
tired— than he’s ever seen him— including their Slumber Party of Horror.
Normally, he’d ask about it. But now he doesn’t, and he can’t say why. He
fidgets in his own seat— because that’s what Stileses do best, after all— and
tilts his head all the way back in an axious, bored gesture.
“Stiles,” Derek says— and Stiles looks at him immediately because hell
yes Derek is finally the one starting conversation and that feels gooder than
good. “We don’t forget.”
He looks physically pained, then, like he can’t make himself keep speaking.
Stiles makes an embarrassed noise, and he wants to throw himself back onto the
broken pitcher for even bringing this up in the first place. After a few beats,
he clicks his tongue and nods once, a sharp, stiff nod that’s mostly him
tipping his clenched jaw in acknowledgement of what Derek’s started to say.
Derek doesn’t say anything else— apparently having hit his speech limit for the
day— so Stiles takes over.
“Really? Because I’m pretty sure you do,” is what he says. It’s harsher than he
really wanted it to be, but it feels nice to let out a little pent up
frustration. “I break, okay?” He waves his hand at that, like it’s all the
proof he’d ever need to justify the statement. “Me human, you guys ALL
werewolves. I think it’s— easy to forget that when you guys take bullets like
they’re gnats or mild skin irritants. But I don’t heal quickly or overpower
people easily. Pretty much all I’ve got going for me is a crazy awesome ability
to harness the untold power of Google. That’s it. Put me in a dangerous
situation and odds are I’ll die—”
“Then don’t put yourself in a dangerous situation,” Derek snaps. “It’s not like
you don’t know you could die. You could stay home.”
Stiles laughs humorlessly. “Oh, can I? Stay at home knowing that my best friend
is likely getting his ass beat by some supernatural force bigger and stronger
and smarter than him? Yeah, okay.”
“If you’re really worried about getting hurt—”
“I’m not actually worried about getting hurt, okay?” Stiles snaps, a moment of
self discovery approaching rapidly. “Not really, anyway. I don’t care if I get
hurt— but I care about Scott and I care about my dad and for some stupid
reasonthat I don’t even understand, I care about your stupid little pack, and I
don’t want to see you all get dead.” He pauses, considers what he says, and
adds on, “Not Peter, though. He can die.” 
Derek’s look is absolutely unreadable, but his brow furrows and he leans away
from Stiles. Distrust, bafflement, contempt. Stiles thinks he’s reading that
right, but who knows? 
“And, sometimes? Sometimes, I just want to bitch about how unfair this stuff
is, and you’re just going to have to wait it out and do your best not to Hulk
Smash me when I do,” Stiles finishes, exhaling and looking at Derek like he
wants to will something into his head— something Stiles might not even be aware
of.
Derek’s never been breakable, Stiles knows. He was born a werewolf, and he’s
never known what it’s like to have a headache or get strep throat or wear
braces or be the last guy picked for dodgeball teams or have a small cut that
lasts more than a minute. He’s this solid thing, immovable. Stiles wonders if
there’s latent potential within Derek to be more wolf than man— after all,
that’s how Peter was as alpha. Stiles is reminded of the pitcher, gone forever—
unreparable and in shards in his garbage can.
“You—” Stiles says in a weary tone, “—don’t get it. You’ll never get it. It’s
like finding out you’re made of glass. Like things can break me. You included,
by the way.”
Derek just watches him, clenches his jaw, and finally looks away. That balance
of his eyes shifts a bit when it catches the light more, the green overwhelming
the other colors there. Stiles holds his breath until he realizes that he’s
holding his breath, and he looks down at his hands to escape whatever that
foreign feeling is.
These are words Stiles hasn’t even said to Scott, and here he is pushing them
onto Derek freaking Hale like he’s going to be any help. Stiles remembers
Derek’s hot palm against his mouth, remembers the way Derek’s thumb brushed
soothingly against his wrist; Stiles thinks yes, yes— Derek Hale could
definitely break him, has had the opportunity to, time and time again, has
chosen not to, for whatever reason.
“Your dad will be home soon,” Derek says a while later, not looking at Stiles.
Stiles nods once. 
“Yeah, I know.”
“How do you want—?”
Stiles shrugs. “Just hang out in my room. My dad never really goes in there. Be
quiet.”
Derek gives him a look that Stiles interprets as do you realize who you’re
talking to, and he leaves.
Stiles’s dad isn’t due home for another two hours, but Stiles doesn’t want to
be around Derek right now. Space is a good thing. Space is going to take that
weird feeling in his gut away— hopefully.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Stiles opens the door to his room a little past midnight and slips inside,
finding Derek immediately. He’s a great shadow hunched over Stiles’s laptop,
silhouetted by the bright screen. He’s mindlessly scrolling through a Wikipedia
page. Stiles bites back a nagging curiosity about it as he crosses the room to
his dresser. He toes off his shoes, opens his top drawer, and fishes out a pair
of sweat pants and a worn out black t-shirt. Derek’s attention stays on the
computer screen, Stiles notes with mixed feelings before padding back down the
hall to change.
He returns to find Derek looking at him, the browser closed, and Stiles hovers
just inside of the door, which he closes louder than he intends to. He
maintains Derek’s gaze as best he can without actually being able to see
Derek’s eyes.
“What?” he demands after a while, his jaw clenching and his fingers twitching.
“Nothing,” Derek says with a shake of his head. He stands with a roll of his
shoulders and neck, and Stiles pulls his eyes away in favor of flopping face
down on the bed, exhausted. He thinks of his mother’s pitcher for the first
time in an hour and his heart kind of hurts.
“Move over,” Derek tells him and Stiles does so without verbal complaint, but
he does issue Derek a Firm Stilinski Glare (tm) from over his pillow. Derek has
kicked off his shoes, and he lays himself down on Stiles’s bed and props his
shoulders up on Stiles’s headboard. Which has to be uncomfortable, considering
Stiles’s headboard doubles as a shelfing unit.
“So,” Stiles starts, moving an arm underneath his pillow and tilting his head
up to meet Derek’s gaze. The computer screen dims, saving energy now that it
hasn’t been touched in a while. “What were you scouring Wikipedia for?”
“I wouldn’t call it scouring,” Derek replies after a beat, his lips pulled into
something like a smirk. Like he’s comfortable— but still an asshole. It’s an
expression that suits him, Stiles thinks.
“Then what would you call it, Captain Cryptic?”
“Browsing.”
“You? Yeah, right,” Stiles laughs at the idea of Derek freaking Hale casually
browing Wikipedia like he’s got all the time and knowledge of the internet in
the world.
Derek just looks at him with raised eyebrows, which Stiles has come to
understand as his I’m not lying, dumbass face. Which— rude. Stiles isn’t a
dumbass. He actually kind of has the opposite problem. Smart assery is less a
choice and more a way of life, and Stiles could write a self-help guide to
Smart Assing Your Way Through Life by this point.
Derek knocks the back of his head against the headboard shelves deliberately,
his lips pursed and his fingers knotted together over his abdomen. Stiles takes
in his profile as subtly as he knows how, a familiar sense of inferiority
creeping into the back of his mind. It’s really no wonder, at the end of the
day, that he’s still a virgin. With guys like Derek— and Jackson, he
begrudgingly admits— walking around, it’s a wonder any average person gets any.
Derek’s nose is a hard, straight line; his cheekbones are high and sharp, and
you could probably slice a cake with his jawline.
Stiles isn’t envious, per say, but he is a little bitter that guys who look
like Derek Hale live in the same universe as guys who look like Stiles. Just
doesn’t seem fair.
Of course, Derek and Jackson also have the Worst Attitudes of all Time Ever, so
maybe that balances things out. What Stiles lacks in overt masculinity he makes
up for with a Winning Personality (tm). Not that high school girls have ever
seemed to care. Or boys, for that matter. Stiles buries his face in his pillow
and tries not to think about boys who may or may not find him attractive
because Derek freaking Hale is lying next to him in bed. Stiles knows enough
about his brain-to-mouth filter to know that following that thought train will
take him places he really shouldn't want to go.
“You know— I thought I’d maybe find something interesting in your internet
history or bookmarks—” Derek begins, and Stiles flinches, his stomach dropping.
He pushes himself up slowly, gaping at Derek, horrified.
All he can think is holyshitDerekHalefoundtheporn and he wants to pass out or
run himself through or something— anything— to take away the pit in his gut. He
hasn’t exactly come out and told people he’s bisexual, but one look at his porn
history would basically be a flashing neon sign reading: HI, I LIKE PENISES.
But Derek gives him a sidelong glance, which he eventually turns into to look
Stiles straight on, serious.
And then his face melts into this huge, awful, shit-eating grin and Stiles
wants to knife him for being such a Grade-A Asshole.
“Yeah, it’s official,” he grinds out. “You’re the biggest douchebag to have
ever douched, and I hate you. You’re never winning me over now, because I’m
always going to remember the time you joked about breaking into my porn
collection.”
Derek’s grin only gets a little wider. “Pretty defensive about that porn
collection, aren’t you, Stiles?”
Stiles makes a furious, embarrassed, awful noise. He wants to bury his face in
his pillow and never come out of its feathery goodness (the turning-into-a-
chicken incident was an awkward tension between him and his pillow for a while,
but they worked through it).
“I hate you,” he hisses. “So. Damn. Much.”
Derek huffs out a laugh and slouches down onto the bed. Stiles thinks about it
for all of a second before he smacks Derek in the face with his pillow. Derek’s
smirk is gone instantly, and the glare he turns on Stiles once Stiles gets the
pillow back underneath himself is delightful.
Stiles cackles.
“Maybe I should carry a pillow into battle with me,” he mocks. “Apparently
they’re the secret to getting past your Werewolf Juju.”
Derek shoves him off the bed, and Stiles hits the ground laughing.
“This is strange,” Stiles says as he hoists himself back onto the bed. Derek
doesn’t say anything, but Stiles thinks he can interpret Derek’s expression as
questioning. “You should stop having a sense of humor. That’d be awesome.”
“I don’t have a sense of humor,” Derek deadpans, and Stiles snorts.
“Right, okay,” he says with a shake of his head and an eyeroll. “It makes it
significantly harder to hate you, you know.”
“Even though I lied about breaking into your porn collection?” Derek asks.
“Even though you lied about breaking into my—” Stiles starts to confirm, but
then he cuts himself off with a scowl. “No. I can and will and do hate you for
that. You suck.”
“Whenever you want to go to sleep—” Derek starts, his lips doing that twitching
thing. Stiles considers that as he nuzzles his pillow, already fighting a
losing battle against the Sweet Zs it’s promising.
“I’m going to sleep now, but because I want to. Not because you’re alpha-ing me
or anything, got it?” Stiles says firmly. “And I’m going to dream of you
getting, like, bitchslapped, and it’s going to be great.”
The laptop goes completely black, and the last thing Stiles hears before he’s
out cold is something that might have been a choked off laugh. Maybe.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Derek moves in the next day. 
Stiles calls Scott to let him know what’s going on and to bitch a little about
how unfortunate his life can be. Scott disapproves immediately.
“If someone’s supposed to protect you by crashing at your place, I can do
that,” Scott insists. “My mom would understand, you know.”
“Yeah, but, dude, think about this,” Stiles says with a sigh. “These guys might
not even know that you’re involved. You’re an Omega, not Derek’s pack. And, if
they’re after me, it’s because they associate me with Derek in some way, since
that’s who they want. I’m not letting them find out about you, okay? I won’t
risk it.” 
He’s already had this argument with Derek— right when they woke up, which had
been kind of awkward. At some point during the night, Stiles had come to press
his face against Derek’s shoulder, and the movement that had ultimately woken
Stiles up was Derek shifting his arm in his sleep, which pushed Stiles against
Derek’s chest. Stiles had jerked awake, panting heavily. In turn, his anxiety—
tension— whatever had woken Derek up, because Derek’s subconscious read all of
those things to mean Imminent Alpha Pack Attack.
Nope, just morning wood. 
In Stiles’s defense: he’s a sixteen year old boy, and Derek looks like a
freaking GQ model. If you ignore the fangs-and-fur bits. Which Stiles’s now-
reoccuring dreams typically do. Typically. 
On the phone, Scott’s indignant. “I don’t care, Stiles—”
“Yeah, well, I do,” Stiles says with finality. “I’ll be damned if I’m the
reason you get hurt, Scott. Just— Derek’s fine. He’s not even being a huge
asshole about it. He’s been cool.”
Scott snorts. “Whatever, man. Just… If you need anything—”
“I’ll let you be my Knight in Furry Armor, I swear,” Stiles finishes for him.
Scott laughs and then turns the conversation around by talking about Allison’s
dimples. Stiles actually doesn’t mind it as much as he expected he would. He
realizes, belatedly, that he’s missed Scott’s presence in his life. Even this.
Derek comes through the window, then, and Stiles looks at him with raised
eyebrows. He pulls his head away from the phone.
“I have a door,” he says.
“Congratulations,” Derek throws back, dropping himself in front of Stiles’s
computer. 
Stiles rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to Scott, his lips twisted
into something like a smile. “Derek’s here,” he says.
“Tell him I don’t like this,” Scott instructs, and Stiles groans.
“Dude, I’m not telling him that. Stop being a jealous girlfriend about this.”
“Stiles, just tell him!” Scott barks
“Fine!” Stiles snaps, and he looks at Derek again. “My boo says you can’t eat
me alive or he’ll be mad.”
On the phone, Scott sputters and shouts. Stiles hangs up on him with a grin.
Derek rolls his eyes. “High schoolers.” 
Stiles isn’t sure how to respond to that because, uh, yeah. They are high
schoolers. 
“I’m not gonna be the guy who says you turned four high schoolers into your own
mini werewolf brigade, but I’m totally gonna be the guy who says you turned
four high schoolers into your own mini werewolf brigade, dude,” Stiles teases,
and Derek gives him a Look.
“Shut up,” is what he finally says. 
Stiles grins and counts that as a victory.
He watches Derek dick around on the laptop for a little bit until Derek turns
an eye to him and says, “What?”
Stiles shakes his head and flops himself down fully on the mattress. “It’s like
watching an Animal Planet special.Watch as the mighty werewolf masters the
internet. It’s rivetting.”
Derek glares at him. “Stop.”
“Or what?” Stiles taunts. They hold each other’s eyes for a while. Stiles
breaks first, because there’s something hanging over him that’s unbearable.
“Gonna rip my throat out with your teeth?” he provides. 
“I might hit you with a pillow,” Derek threatens, and Stiles is so caught off
guard that he laughs. Derek’s lips curve upward, and Stiles feels more at ease.
It’s almost like friendship, if you ignore the whole boner-popping aspect on
Stiles’s end of things.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
The last day of July burns. Records are broken across the board, and the news
anchors on TV sweat through their makeup and their expensive clothes. Their
smiles are tenser, their laughs more obviously forced than ever. The heat
crawls under their skins and makes it awkward to watch as they try not to snap
at each other irritably.
Stiles envies them. He wishes he had the energy for irritation, but all he can
do is lie on his back and groan as he watches the news report on his phone.
He's sprawled out on his bed, holding the phone over his face with one sweaty
hand. He’s shirtless, having given up on any appearance of a normal day
sometime around ten in the morning when the heat really started to climb.
The weather man says the heat index is 115 degrees Farenheit, and Stiles moans
pitifully. 
“This is hell,” he complains. His thumb twitches, and he loses his sweaty hold
on his phone, which smacks him in the face. He swears loudly, and Derek snorts
beside him.
“Smooth,” he says, picking up Stiles’s phone and looking at it.
Derek’s shoulders are against the headboard shelves, and he, unlike Stiles, is
fully dressed, only his feet bare.
“Dude, how are you not dying?” Stiles asks, and Derek shrugs. “I’d be dying.
You sure you’re not dying?”
“Pretty sure,” Derek deadpans, looking up from Stiles’s phone. “Any fires other
than the one your dad’s investigating?”
Stiles shakes his head. “No, but I’d be too miserable to talk about them even
if they where. God, what is with this heat? It’s like living in Satan’s
buttcrack.”
Derek makes a choked noise, and Stiles grins up at him.
“You totally wanted to laugh at that. I am the most hilarious person ever,
aren’t I?”
“You’re deranged,” Derek tells him blankly. “Possibly psychotic.”
“I haven’t killed anybody yet, so one for me.”
Derek has no reply for that, but he gives Stiles back his phone. Stiles takes
it and shelves it over his head, careful not to drop it on his face again. He
pushes himself up and decidedly ignores the way his bare elbow brushes against
Derek’s. 
Living with Derek for the past week has been so easy, it’s caught Stiles off
guard. They’ve bickered and picked at each other like it’s their purposes on
earth, and it’s almost upsetting how much Stiles has enjoyed himself. Derek
fits into this weird place in Stiles’s life that no one has really filled
before: a place with witty banter and comebacks and tensions that, if Stiles
didn’t know Derek better, could be called flirting.
Stiles doesn’t think about it, because thinking about it is confusing and
irritating, but it’s been fun. 
Now, Stiles reaches over the edge of the bed, suddenly struck with a brilliant,
wonderful, hilarious idea that he should have had three hours ago. He finds
what he’s looking for, and, when he shakes it, Derek catches on. He grabs
Stiles by the shoulder and near-growls.
“Stiles, don’t you dare,” he says. But it’s too late, because Stiles rounds on
him with the water gun and spritzes Derek in the face. 
Derek looks so angry, so taken aback, and so bewildered all at once that Stiles
falls off the bed laughing, limbs going everywhere. 
“Pillows and water guns, hell yeah,” Stiles cackles. “Weapons of Mass
Destruction, going to take all of your furry asses out in this war.” 
“Why do you even have that under your bed?” Derek grits out, wiping his face
off on his shoulder.
“Hello, teenager here,” Stiles says with a shrug, getting to his feet.
He pumps the water gun once, twice, three times, a threatening look in his
eye.Derek just raises his eyebrows, clenches his jaw, and lifts his chin.
“Stiles— don’t,” he warns.
Stiles sprays him, and, God, it’s rewarding to watch Derek get riled up. Stiles
cackles, but it doesn’t occur to him until it’s too late that he’s just sprayed
an alpha werewolf in the face. 
Derek’s on him in seconds, face dripping with warm water. Stiles turns away
from him, curling his body around the water gun like it’s a precious item,
something he refuses to lose.
“No!” he shouts, laughing as Derek reaches around his arms in vain, grabbing
for the gun. Finally, Derek wraps an ankle around Stiles’s and knocks Stiles
off his feet, and it sends the both of them falling over each other-- Derek wet
and growling, Stiles all limbs and laughter.
Stiles hits the floor on his stomach, the gun underneath him. It’s
uncomfortable, but it feels like victory. Derek weighs approximately one
million pounds, and Stiles’s laughter is smothered by the combination of Derek
and the floor. Derek’s breath is warm against the tender skin of Stiles’s
already-hot neck.
“You suck,” Stiles grunts out. “Fun sucker.”
“Stiles, give me the gun,” Derek demands in Stiles’s ear. 
“Or what?” Stiles demands, “What’s the big bad wolf going to do, huh?”
He can practically hear Derek’s eyeroll when Derek pushes off of Stiles.
Suddenly, Stiles is horribly, terribly aware of how hard he is, pressed against
the floor. He squeaks slightly, and lies there for a while. He doesn’t notice
when Derek leaves the room. All he cares about is talking himself down from
this boner.
He’s one awful mental image of Finstock in a tutu away from de-bonerfication
when the water, ice cold and terrible, splashes down his back. He swears,
crying out loudly. Derek’s grinning like an asshole, a glass in hand, when
Stiles finally looks up at him. Stiles jumps to his feet— boner successfully
gone and forgotten— leaving the gun on the ground carelessly.
Derek steps on it, puts all his weight down, and Stiles’s heart breaks a little
in his chest when he hears it crack.
“Fun sucker,” he accuses again, and Derek’s lips twitch.
“You’ll survive,” he tells Stiles, and Stiles can’t stop the grin that takes
over his face.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Stiles has only been to the Argent’s house once, and it was so awkward and
strange an experience that he’s never wanted to repeat it since. Nevertheless,
he pulls into the semi-circle driveway and parks himself as far to the left
side of it as he can without getting on the grass, and he turns to Scott. “You
sure about this, man?” he asks, looking for something in Scott’s expression.
Scott’s nervous— that much Stiles knows. He’s digging his fingers into the
handle of the jeep’s door, and Stiles would call him on it, but Scott’s got his
claws in check sooo. There’s some sort of resolve in Scott’s eyes, too, so
Stiles knows he’s sure— but he’s not sure how things are going to go once they
get inside. Scott meets Stiles’s eyes and nods once, his jaw set. Good enough.
Stiles takes the key from the ignition, and they hop out to face the house.
Chris Argent answers the door, wary. He considers them both, and his eyes go to
the Jeep over their shoulders— looking to see if it’s just Scott and Stiles,
probably. After a minute he greets them.
“Boys.”
“Mr. Argent,” Scott says, bobbing his head a bit.
“Come in,” Argent says, stepping out of the way to let them inside. Stiles
holds his breath as he walks past him— not sure of what to expect. He’s
surprised when they’re lead into the kitchen, where Argent props himself up on
a stool in front of what looks to be his breakfast. Stiles was kind of
expecting they’d go into some sort of battle chamber, with guns on the walls
and a map of Beacon Hills on the table and maybe a werewolf bust mounted over
the fireplace or something. The kitchen is full of light— and probably more
expensive than Stiles’s entire house.
Lots of income to be had as a hunter, then.
“What can I do for you boys?” Argent asks, spearing some eggs on his fork.
“We need your help,” Scott says immediately, and Stiles gapes at his best
friend. Not a single subtle bone in his body, Scott McCall. Stiles isn’t
exactly an expert on all things Werewolf Hunter, but he has a vague idea that
showing your entire hand to one isn’t a good idea. Argent looks up at Scott as
he takes a bite, a contemplative expression on his face.
“With what, Scott?” he asks, and Stiles is totally okay with letting everyone
in the room ignore him— just this once.
“What do you know about Alpha Packs?” Scott asks, and his jaw is still set in
that stubborn, strong way. Stiles pushes away the urge to clap his best friend
on the back and say Attaboy, Scotty! He’ll do it later.
Chris Argent has put his fork down and is rubbing his mouth with a napkin when
Allison barges into the kitchen, obviously straight out of bed. Her hair’s
flatter than usual, and kind of knotted together in places. She’s wearing a
shirt that Stiles is almost positive belonged to Scott at some point and a pair
of pajama shorts. She freezes as soon as she sees them, and her eyes go to her
father’s, questioning.
“Morning, Sunshine,” Stiles greets. Allison’s eyes flash towards him for a
minute, and she tilts her head in a bit of a greeting, her eyebrows raised.
“Morning—?” she replies, turning her gaze to Scott at the end of the word.
There’s a question there, and Scott smiles at her a little hesitantly.
“We’re just picking your dad’s brain a bit; we’ll be out of here soon. Sorry if
we woke you up.”
Allison shakes her head and apparently decides to go about her usual morning
routine. She rummages in the refrigerator for a bit, and Stiles recognizes the
eavesdropping method immediately. He’s been known to go on half-hour journeys
for a half gallon of milk if his dad is having an Official Police Business
phone call at the kitchen table. He grins a little wickedly to himself, feeling
a sense of comradery with Allison.
“Why do you want to know about an Alpha Pack?” Allison’s dad asks eventually,
and Stiles turns his attention back to him.
“They’re in town, and they’re setting cars on fire,” Scott says— and when you
put it like that, it just sounds ridiculous. “And they’re here for Derek.”
“For Derek,” Allison’s dad repeats, and Scott and Stiles nod. He sighs a bit
and puts his napkin down. “Has anyone been hurt yet?”
“Well, not here,” Stiles says, finally contributing to the conversation. “Not
yet, anyway. They hit the counties outside of Beacon before they got here, and
there were some injuries there.”
“And deaths? Any of those?” Argent asks, his eyes hard and on Stiles’s and
very, very intimidating. Stiles nods once, suddenly unsure of how to form
words. Chris Argent exhales and clenches his jaw, looking very distant all of
the sudden. Allison pulls out of the fridge, conspicuously empty-handed. She
smiles a shaky little smile at Stiles, who returns it with a lot more
confidence. That seems to assure her.
She looks at Scott, and Scott looks at her. They both start to grin a little
like idiots after a few seconds of this, and Stiles rolls his eyes. Scott and
Allison are always the same, even broken up. Stiles suspects that Puppy Love,
much like cigarette smoking, might have disastrous secondhand health effects.
If so, Stiles’s time is nigh.
“Well, let’s start with what you know already,” Chris says after a while, and
then he looks at Allison. “You might as well stay for this, Kiddo. You’re a
part of it.”
Allison nods slowly, and she comes to lean against the counter opposite of her
father and next to Scott. Subtle, Stiles thinks, a little smirk playing at his
lips.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Later that day, Stiles and Derek get to the fourth floor of the parking garage,
where Derek parked his camaro almost an hour ago. Stiles is too glad to fill
Derek in on the finer details of Chris Argent's Alpha Pack knowledge while
Derek listens in comfortable silence.
“Apparently, the fire thing isn’t new. They’ve done it before— these Alpha
Packs. They do it because—” he cuts himself off, looking questionably at Derek.
Derek stays silent, but Stiles knows that Derek knows how to finish that
sentence. It’s the same reason that hunters use arrows: werewolves can’t start
to heal until they stop getting hurt. The way an arrow prevents tissue and
muscle from mending together, fire never stops coming until they’re
overwhelmed. They walk together quietly, finding the Camaro almost immediately.
It’s then that Scott gets out of his car and sees them.
“Stiles?” he asks, and Stiles stops. Derek keeps moving, the Camaro in sight.
Scott knows about Derek’s babysitting gig with Stiles, and, while it irritated
him at first, he’s come to understand it. There’s a grin on his face when
Stiles steps over and they have a bro-clap moment.
“Sup, dude?” Stiles asks in a good humor. “Long time no see.”
Scott laughs, and Stiles kind of looks over his shoulder to check on Derek.
One second, Derek’s sliding into the driver’s seat of the Camaro.
The next second, Scott’s head is jerking wildly, and he pulls Stiles back just
in time—-
For him to watch Derek’s car fucking explode.
It’s not supposed to be like the movies, Stiles thinks distantly. It’s
not supposedto engulf the entire car all at once in some sort of monstrous
fireball— it’s not normal. This. Fire. Is. Not. Normal. Stiles thinks about it,
but he doesn’t reallythink about it when he’s ripping himself out of Scott’s
grip and sprinting across the asphault. “Derek!” he shouts, crazed. “Derek!”
There’s smoke first, and it burns his eyes, makes him tear. The initial
explosion subsides into idle flames, eating at the Camaro. Stiles makes it to
the driver’s side before the heat becomes a problem.
Not that he can notice, because Derek’s charred upper body is falling out of
the slack car door, like he used the split second of Werewolf Juju warning to
try and escape his deathtrap of a car. The air here reeks of rotting flesh, and
Stiles raises his hand and coughs to get the taste out of his mouth. Sweat
falls into his eyes, the fire licking its way out of the busted car windows and
singing the top of Stile’s right ear. He’s crying— from the smoke and the burn
and the everything, God, the everything. He reaches for Derek and pulls at him,
saying Derek’s name over and over and over and over again, his throat filling
with smoke, starting to hurt like hell. He can’t get Derek to budge, and a
quick look reveals that Derek sliced through the chest strap of his seatbelt,
but he’s still strapped in by the waist.
Scott’s beside him, then, trying to pull Stiles away. Stiles shakes him off,
swearing. Scott doesn’t understand— can’t see or know what Stiles sees and
knows—
Stiles is thinking about Derek’s palm pressed to his mouth, rough and
swallowing Stiles’s cries all the way through Hallucination Hell; Stiles is
thinking about Derek’s lips and the way they twitch when he’s amused, how it
can barely be called a smile, but it actually kind of is; Stiles is thinking
about that stupid, awful shit-eating grin that Derek gives when he’s being a
particularly obnoxious asshole; Stiles is thinking about Derek’s hand on his
chest, pushing him away from the kanima by the school pool; Stiles is thinking
about how seamlessly Derek has filled the holes in his life, rounded out the
edges, made life fun and new and magical for the first time since Stiles’s mom
died.
— Stiles doesn’t have time to explain any of that to Scott. All he can do is he
peel off his outer shirt and open Derek’s car door and lean over the weeping
flesh of Derek’s grilled right side to get to the seatbelt clasp.
He doesn’t think about how hot the metal will be when he goes to unclip the
belt. He doesn’t feel any pain in the moment, but his hand swells red and ugly
a few minutes later, when he’s dragging Derek across the parking lot, his hands
hooked under Derek’s arms. Scott helps, but Stiles won’t let go enough for
Scott to take over.  There’s sirens and people watching, and, distantly, Stiles
knows they have to get out of there immediately before he has to explain to his
dad why Derek Hale’s been car bombed, but he can’t really focus on that right
now.
Derek isn’t breathing when Scott takes over and hoists Derek up like a— like
a bride or something. Stiles is wild-eyed, his face red and dirty and drenched
with sweat and tears. He can’t speak; his throat is dry and it hurts like
amotherfuck. He also can’t pull his eyes from Derek, who is so prone in Scott’s
arms that Stiles is absolutely certain he’s dead.
“Oh my God,” he rasps, “oh my God, oh my God. Derek, man. Derek.”
Scott shakes his head. “The animal hospital— come on.” Stiles is unresponsive
for a long while, and Scott snaps. “Dude, the cops are going to be here any
minute! Come on!”
Stiles nods and they get into Scott’s car. Scott doesn’t say anything when
Stiles slides into the back seat, but he puts Derek back there with him. The
car smells like grilled meat, and Stiles wants to throw up. He doesn’t, but he
really wants to. Scott peels out of the garage loudly, and the burned rubber
from the tires mixes with everything else. Stiles cradles Derek’s head in his
lap and stares blankly down at him.
He’s breathing, but just barely. It’s a wet sort of breathing, sloppy and
uneven and gurgling. If Stiles were a werewolf, he’d smell the blood— so, so
much blood that’s starting to flow freely now. He doesn’t think about it.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Hours and hours later, Scott lays Derek out in Stiles’s bed, and Stiles rations
his breaths carefully, straddling the line between anxiety and a full-blown
panic attack. Scott looks to Stiles, clearly concerned. Stiles doesn’t say
anything, he just nods once— strong. Deaton, who always seems to be in the
right place at the right time, has done his best to help Derek heal.
Stiles originally insisted on the stuff Deaton had given Derek a month and a
half ago for Stiles’s arm. Deaton, with a headshake and a small smile, had
explained that that was a wolfsbane mixture— combined with all sorts of
Werewolf Fuids (tm) to spark the healing process in humans. 
Which kind of explained a lot. Wolfsbane: Officially the Most Versatile and
Terrifying Plant Ever.
Still, Deaton had pulled out all the stops and ashes and oils to get Derek to
the state he’s in now: mostly healed, probably on the brink of shock, and
unconscious. Sleep, Deaton had told them, was necessary. Stiles had told them
he’d be damned if Derek would sleep anywhere but in a bed, so he put his foot
down when Scott tried to argue with him. And now Derek is sprawled out on his
bed, his lips parted and taking in shaky, shallow breaths, his chest uncovered
save for the massive cotton pad taped down over the left side of his chest and
shoulder, where the last unhealed chunk of his skin is hidden.
Stiles threw up twice at the vet’s office, and he feels ready to go for another
round.
The smell of burning flesh is still lingering in his nose, and he can’t forget
the way Derek had looked in Scott’s arms— crumpled, ruined, human.
Scott claps Stiles on the shoulder and meets his eyes, looking for something
that would clue him into Stiles’s mind. Stiles forces a tight, tiny smile.
“At least it wasn’t my Jeep,” he jokes weakly, but it’s enough, and Scott
smiles and snorts through his nose. He makes Stiles promise to call if he needs
anything— anything at all— and then he’s gone through the window a few minutes
later.
And that’s when Stiles starts to panic.
It’s too much— too much— too damn much. He can’t be in the room with Derek,
watching him struggle to breathe and heal, cell by cell, in Stiles’s bed.
Stiles steps outside of the room, closing the door behind him and pressing his
back to it. He slides down the door, his gaze distant, shivering from head to
toe. His skin is ashen underneath the burns he’s sustained, and that’s how his
dad finds him ten minutes later— taking huge breaths that do nothing but make
him dizzy.
The color drains out of the sheriff’s face, and he pulls his son into the
bathroom gently, letting him lean against the tub while he gets out a paper bag
from under the sink and also wets a rag. He’s gentle, but his hands shake, too,
and Stiles wishes he could stop— wishes he could regain control of his body for
his dad’s sake. His dad swears under his breath, overwhelmed by the sight of
Stiles in this condition, as he always is. It was like this the first time,
too, though they hadn’t had the bags on hand, then.
Stiles breathes into the paper bag for a long time before his breath steadies,
and his dad says gentle, encouraging things in his ear. The rag is cool and
stark and real, and Stiles focuses on that with his eyes closed. The sloppy but
gentle sweeps across the back of his neck, his forehead, and his cheeks do more
good than the bag itself, but it’s a routine. It’s all a comfort. When he
thinks he’s okay, he reaches out and wraps his fingers around his dad’s wrist.
“Dad—” he says in a wrecked voice. “Dad, I’m okay. It’s alright”
His dad’s eyes are wet and bright and so, so scared above him, and he releases
a shaky breath before saying. “Thank God. Stiles, I —”
“I know, Dad. I know.”
They’re quiet for a long time after that, Stiles breathing against the tub and
his dad leaning back on his heels and watching his son, as if the longer he
sees Stiles alive, the more he’ll believe it. “I was going to tell you,” his
dad says in a soft voice, “that we found Derek Hale’s car on fire in the
parking garage on Market.”
Stiles turns his dark gaze up to his dad and says nothing.
“But it looks like you already know that.”
Stiles nods tightly then, his teeth worrying the inside of his cheeks ever so
slightly. His dad sighs and leans back against the wall, his legs stretching
out in front of him. Stiles bends his knees closer to his chest to make room
for him. They go back to silence, and Stiles’s mind wanders to Derek— stretched
out on his bed not thirty feet away from the bathroom. He wants to touch him,
see the rise and fall of his chest, quiet the voices in his head saying that
he’s dead and gone, broken and crumpled as he was when Scott held him hours
ago.
“If you see Derek,” his dad begins, but he shakes his head. “Nevermind. We’ll
talk about it tomorrow. You wanna stay here for a while or—?”
Stiles shakes his head. “No, I think I’m going to bed.”
His dad stares at him for a beat, then nods. He’s frowning a bit— being a
Concerned Father and all— and Stiles offers him a shaky, hopefully reassuring
smile in return, which his dad eventually returns. “Goodnight, Son,” he tells
him, pushing up off the floor. Stiles follows him, and is pulled into a strong
embrace.
“Night, Dad,” he mumbles over his dad’s shoulder. They linger for a while,
Stiles indulging his dad. He knows how hard the panic attacks are on the
sheriff, and he feels a rush of guilt about it when he feels his dad start to
pull away. “I’ll let you know— if I need anything, I mean.”
“You do that,” his dad replies with a tight smile. Then he leaves the bathroom,
and Stiles heads back to his room.
His hand hovers over the doorknob; he closes his eyes, inhales deeply, and
pushes in.
Derek is still on the bed, exactly where Scott left him. Stiles edges up to the
side of the mattress, staring down at Derek with a blank expression on his
face. He doesn’t know what to feel. Fear? Relief? Anger? Worry? Sadness? It’s
all mixed together in his gut and tying him in knots. He thinks of what Deaton
had said: Just in time. Stiles got him out Just In Time.
It’s hard not to think about all of the things that could have gone wrong, all
of the ways Stiles could have messed up along the way, if he’d not been
operating purely on autopilot— propelled by fear and fear alone. Pure,
unadulterated fear. He knows he shouldn’t think about it, but, again, he
can’t not think about it. Like he did in the vet’s office, he starts to obsess
over every second, remember every contorted line of Derek’s body— half in and
half out of the car— and the blackened, bloodied skin of Derek’s hand against
the near-black floor of the parking garage, the dark pool of blood forming
beneath him sure to stain the spot forever.
He can’t close his eyes without seeing Derek as he was in the back seat of the
McCall’s car, his face dark red and blistering, pushing his eyes closed and
starting to shine sickly. His brow hadn’t even been furrowed; everything had
been slack in his expression, like he didn’t have the energy to fight off
death. His breaths had rattled in his chest, and Stiles hadn’t touched him— not
once. Derek’s head stayed in his lap, his neck turning when Scott jerked the
car this way or that, and Stiles had looked down at him in horror, the street
lights falling in waves on them, always more terrifying than the darkness which
hid most of the damage. In the dark, Stiles could pretend like Derek was just
asleep with a cold or something. In the light, all of the ugly reappeared time
and time again.
By his bedside, now, Stiles touches Derek without thinking. It’s a gentle touch
to Derek’s bandage, which is starting to sport pale brown stains in splotches
where the burns are open and oozing. Deaton said that would happen, and he’d
said to leave the bandage on until the splotches start to touch and darken to a
redder color.
Stiles toes off his shoes but doesn’t bother getting into pajamas. He’s not
going to sleep, anyway. If he has it his way, he’ll never sleep again. He
settles into the bed on his stomach and presses his face against the pillow—
another comfort— and watches Derek with one eye, noting the shaking rise and
fall of his chest and how the wet noise rattling in his throat is almost gone.
Derek’s head is turned towards him, and he breathes through his slack mouth.
Stiles turns into it a bit, feeling the warm breaths on his apple of his cheek
briefly before pulling away.
There’s an aching sadness lingering in his chest, and watching Derek relieves
some of it and makes it so much worse all at once.
Stiles watches him until morning, and then he watches him some more.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
He does sleep, eventually, but it’s short and restless and he wakes up feeling
more tired and anxious than he was when he went to sleep. Derek is still beside
him, his head turned the other way now. Stiles pushes himself up and looks at
Derek’s bandage. It’s more brown than white, but the blotches aren’t really
touching, and it’s not a red color yet. He exhales, slowly, and steels himself
to focus on the rest of Derek’s chest— specifically the steady rise and fall of
it. There’s no more gurgling, which is great, and he seems to be resting easy.
Stiles rolls out of bed and stretches, his jeans stiff and his shirt sticking
to him. He glances at Derek over his shoulder and considers getting changed in
the room with him. Ultimately, he decides that’d be a little too weird. After a
few minutes of stiffly searching for a pair of track pants and an oversized t-
shirt to change into, he pads off to the bathroom to start his day. The clock
on the wall in the hall says it’s nine in the morning, and he can smell coffee
and eggs cooking downstairs.
He finds his dad reading a newspaper at the table. The sheriff looks up at him
from over his reading glasses, and they have an awkward moment of silence
before his dad says, “Morning. Sleep well?”
Stiles shrugs and walks over to the stove where the scrambled eggs are finished
and helps himself.
His dad is quiet, but he folds the newspaper and sets it down, waiting for
Stiles to take his place at the table. Stiles already figured out his story a
few hours ago, so he’s ready when his dad says: “So, want to tell me what
happened last night?”
Stiles exhales, preparing himself to lie to his dad. It’s never fun, but he has
to be careful. “Scott and I were going to the store to pick up some milk for
him and his mom, and we were in the parking lot when Derek got in his car.”
His dad is quiet for a minute, then says, “You’re gonna have to give a
statement about that, Son.”
“Yeah,” Stiles sighs. “I know.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Huh?”
“Why did you leave the scene of the crime?”
“I dunno, Dad. I didn’t even think about it, really. I was really freaked out.”
He feels guilty for playing that card— he really, really does— but it’s kind of
the only way out of this. It works, too. His dad’s face softens, the Inquisitor
Stilinski look falling into a concerned— though irritated— look. He sighs,
reaches for his paper, and says, “I guess I can understand that. You and I both
know you know better, though.”
Stiles nods. “And Scott—?” he asks.
“Scott needs to give a statement, too. You can both come by the station later
today. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t,” Stiles promises.
His dad takes a long gulp from his coffee, puts on his reading glasses, and
peers at him over them. “I know you’re not—- I know that it can be
overwhelming. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Stiles swallows and nods, a good humored smile crossing his face that he almost
doesn’t have to force. “Me? Definitely. Just a little spooked, I guess.”
And that’s all they say about that for a while. Stiles eats his eggs and
demolishes a quarter gallon of milk, and his dad makes cracks at him every once
in a while from over the newspaper. It’s almost comfortable. The day is hot
already, and the summer sun is bright enough to fill the entire downstairs of
their home with warm, natural light. It’s the perfect image of home if you
ignore the empty chair to Stiles's right.
Stiles is never sure how to start conversations with his dad, but something
about the past twenty-four hours empowers him to take that first step. He
finishes off his third cup of milk and says in a voice that’s more confident
than he feels: “Late summer reminds me of Mom.”
His dad’s hand slips on his cup of coffee— his second that morning— and he
swears. Stiles helps him mop it up, feeling more than a little guilty, and when
they’re done, his dad takes a long breath and looks at Stiles almost
suspiciously, like he’s trying to uncode what Stiles just told him. Stiles
looks at him, not sure what to expect and twitching under his dad’s gaze.
His dad’s expression melts into something so sad, so empty, that Stiles
suddenly regrets saying anything at all.
“Everything reminds me of her,” is what his dad finally says, like it’s some
sort of Truth of the world. The sky is blue, baby animals are cuter than their
grown counterparts, and everything reminds Sheriff Stilinski of his dead wife.
Stiles is prepared to leave it at that— to apologize and run away and hide in
his bedroom for the rest of eternity— but his dad pushes on.
“Remember the story of how we met?”
Stiles laughs, dry and weak. “Yeah. She was your nurse when you got shot that
one time or something.”
His dad nods, a sad smile playing on his lips.
“Yeah, or something.”
Stiles fidgets in his seat, looking away from his dad, who is looking wistfully
out the back window.
“It happened about this time of year. I opened my eyes that day and there was
sun all around her head. Told her to kill me or kiss me, and whichever one she
chose she needed to hurry up.”
Stiles freezes. He’s never heard this part of the story. It’s a little piece of
his mother that his dad has kept to himself for years now— a secret. Stiles has
his own secrets about his mom. He’s tucked them away for safekeeping, and he
never talks about them because they are His and His Alone. His favorite things.
Like how she would scratch his back in lazy circles with her nails and whisper
things like ‘You’re a special boy, Stiles. You’re going to make someone happier
than you’ll ever know, someday.’
“She just laughed and told me to take her out to dinner sometime and she’d make
up her mind.”
“Let me guess— she killed you?” Stiles asks wryly, a grin tugging at his lips.
His dad smiles back, less sadness in the lines of his face.
“She slayed me, alright,” he agrees. “Ruined me for anyone else.”
Stiles just nods. He and Scott used to joke about setting their parents up, but
Stiles always knew there was a difference between his dad and Melissa McCall.
Ms. McCall didn’t wear her wedding ring years and years after leaving her
husband, for one. Stiles’s mom took a piece of his dad when she died, and the
hole in his chest was one the sheriff wasn’t looking to fill anytime soon— or
ever.
“God, I miss her,” his dad admits, hanging his head a bit and letting out a
little, humorless laugh. That breaks Stiles’s heart worse than the sadness.
There’s a trace of humor in his dad’s face— a ghost of it, really— that’s been
gone since his mom died, and seeing it upsets Stiles to the core. He gets ready
to leave the conversation, but before he can, his dad says something that stops
him:
“I don’t think I really knew how much I loved her until I knew I was going to
lose her.”
Stiles stops mid-shift and stares at his dad. His eyes are starting to burn a
bit with the promise of tears, and he knows he’s not really ready for this
conversation. It’s too much— they’ve never talked about her for this long
before, and it’s upsetting him even more than he thought it would. But he’s
opened some door in his dad’s tired heart, and he can’t bring himself to close
it just yet.
“What do you mean?” is what he asks on an inhaled breath, not sure what to
expect.
“I dunno,” his dad admits. “I don’t. Nothing ever put it in perspective for me
like seeing her on that hospital bed and realizing every little thing I’d miss
about her.”
Stiles can’t take it, after that. He swallows hard and stands up, and his dad
gets it, too. They pushed a little too far for both of them. Across the table,
the sheriff pulls himself to his feet and straightens his jacket. The air is
awkward, tense.
He coughs and says, “Don’t forget about that statement.”
“I won’t,” Stiles says again, not meeting his dad’s eyes.
His dad pushes past him, pauses, and rests a hand on Stiles’s shoulder in a
warm, comforting gesture. Stiles takes it, but is glad when it’s gone.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Derek’s chest rises and falls evenly, and he stays asleep even when Stiles
pulls up Skype and sends a call to Scott.
“Hey, man,” he says when Scott’s face appears on the screen. There’s noise in
the background on Scott’s end, and after a few minutes, Stiles sees Isaac.
“Hey, dude,” Scott replies kindly, but he’s got a look on his face that says
he’s got a lot of questions he wants to ask. “How’s Derek?”
Stiles doesn’t know exactly how to answer that, so he goes with the only
adjective he knows is safe, “Alive.”
Scott nods and Isaac pulls a chair up to join him in the camera. Stiles offers
him a tight-lipped smile and a nod that’s really just an upward jerk of his
chin. He doesn’t resent the time that Isaac and Scott have been spending
together, per say, because Stiles and Scott go way back. But Stiles isn’t in a
socializing sort of mood, and the only person he wants to be around when he’s
stressed or worn is Scott. Even though he never really talks to Scott about the
kind of stuff that gets him down, Scott’s basically his brother, and it’s
natural to want to be near him when shit gets rough. 
So, yeah. 
“What up, Isaac?” Stiles greets, because he knows Scott will appreciate the
effort.
“Not much,” Isaac says with a crooked shrug. Kid’s got posture issues, for
sure. “Has he woken up yet?”
“Nah, sleeping like a baby over here. And, yes, it’s as unnerving as you’re
imagining.”
Scott chuckles, and Isaac’s mouth falls into an easy laugh as well. Stiles
doesn’t want to, but he feels himself warming to Isaac, who is so unassuming
and so obviously in awe of Scott’s everything that Stiles wonders if friendship
and admiration are all Isaac feels.
Wouldn’t that be something?
“Scott, we’ve gotta go down to the station today. Give our statements.”
Scott groans. “Damn it. I was really hoping we could get out of that.”
“Sorry, buddy. I couldn’t really explain how I was at the parking garage
without a car unless I said I was with you. Somehow I don’t think my dad would
appreciate me riding around town with Derek Hale: Person of Interest.”
“Imagine what he’d do if he knew Derek had been staying over there,” Scott
says, and Stiles groans at the thought.
“Let’s not go there, alright?”
Scott nods, but there’s something hesitant there that Stiles doesn’t
understand. He’s quick enough to catch it, but, Jesus, he’s not a mind reader.
Isaac claps him on the shoulder, and Scott gives him a smile, and Stiles rolls
his eyes. Werewolf Boyfriends, indeed, whether Scott knows it or not. 
“Did your dad ask you anything about Derek?” Isaac asks.
“No, why would he?”
“They don’t think it’s weird that he got car bombed, but his body’s nowhere to
be found?”
Shit. Stiles hadn’t even thought of that. He wishes he could say that his dad
hasn't thought of that, either, but his dad is a damn good cop, and important
things like a missing car bomb victim don’t go unnoticed by Sheriff Stilinski.
So why hadn’t he asked anything about it at breakfast? Shit, shit, shit.
“Stiles?” Scott asks.
“Yeah! Sorry,” Stiles says with a jolt, shaking his head to clear it a bit. “I
know it’s weird, but he didn’t say anything about Derek.” Actually, his dad
hasn’t asked questions about Derek since the night Lydia got bit by Peter Hale;
it’s because he thinks Stiles will lie, anyway, Stiles guesses. Which, yeah,
makes him feel like a sack of shit son. But Derek— 
He turns a bit in his chair, seeking out the steady rise and fall of Derek’s
chest.
— Derek’s secrets aren’t Stiles’s to tell. Lying to his dad sucks, yeah. But
it’s a necessary evil, of sorts. Every lie he tells has a reason, a purpose.
And most of them are to protect or keep hidden the supernatural world that
Derek pulled Scott and, by proxy, Stiles into. And Stiles?
If he could do it all over, down to every last choice and every lie he told and
every hurt look that crossed his dad’s face, he’d lie about all of it again.
And again. And again. 
Because these are his people, he thinks, looking back at Scott and Isaac who
are picking at each other and laughing, Stiles forgotten, on their end of the
chat. These people are his, and they belong to him, and their secret is his to
keep. He’s seen things and been places with these guys that have terrified him,
but he can’t imagine high school without this. 
He can’t imagine a future without this. 
There is no world for him now, he knows. There is no world without this secret,
no world in which he can forget the moon in the sky or the Wolf in Scott’s
bones. Even if there were, he’s not sure he’d want to be a part of it. He wants
to run after wolves in the forests and chauffeur their furry asses across town
for crime fighting purposes and he wants to feel relied on and needed and
trusted and included every day for the rest of his life.
The realization slams into him and he jerks, his vision focusing again on Scott
and Isaac, who look like they’ve just asked him a question.
“Listen, dude, I gotta go. I’ll call you about the station—” Stiles starts,
then stops. He issues a Very Firm Look at Scott through the computer, who kind
of recoils.
“What is it man?” he asks.
“Just keep your phone on, dumbass. If I get redirected to voicemail, I swear to
God I’m going to kick your teeth in.” 
Scott laughs, shakes his head, and disconnects. Isaac gets in a little wave
goodbye before the camera cuts out, and Stiles is left alone with Derek again.
He stands and brushes himself off, feeling the effects of skipping a full
night’s rest. Derek makes a noise from the bed, and Stiles goes to hover over
him. The bandage on Derek’s shoulder is definitely a darker brown— pushing red—
and the splotches are touching, which means it needs to be cleaned and changed.
Stiles heads toward the bathroom to soap up a washcloth.
When he gets back to his room, he scoops an ordinary first aid box off the top
of his desk— on loan from Deaton’s office— and goes to Derek’s side again. He
considers the wound for a while, not sure where to begin, but he decides to
start peeling the medical tape off from the bottom, where it’s just over
Derek’s heart. His fingers work quickly but are kind of a jumbled mess because
he’s Stiles and he couldn’t imagine a minute of his life being well-
coordinated. 
Stiles makes quick work of the tape, and lifts the cotton off carefully. Deaton
warned him that the blistered flesh might adhere to the cotton, and the last
thing Stiles wants to do is reopen Derek’s wounds. Counterproductivity kind of
isn’t his MO here.
Fortunately, there’s no flesh-ripping to be had, and Stiles leans back to
inspect Derek’s wound in full. It’s ugly as sin: blistered flesh making a
clawmark pattern, tearing its way across Derek’s chest and over his shoulder.
In some places the flesh is tender, shiny, and pink; in others, it’s a dark,
dirty red scab that’s rough to the touch and flaking; the worst are the
terrible red, open wounds that are oozing clear and brown liquids, smelling of
rot.
Stiles perches himself on the edge of the bed, pulling Derek’s arm across his
lap and insinuating himself against the dip in Derek’s waist.
Inside the box are cotton balls, more medical tape, and another huge square of
cotton. Deaton had shown Stiles exactly how to do this the night before, and
Stiles, as usual, was a quick study. He’s quiet as he runs the wet washcloth
over Derek’s skin gently, just enough pressure to catch the oozing stuff and
wipe away any remaining filth. They peroxided the wounds the night before, and
doing so again would only kill the good bacteria working to heal Derek’s
wounds, so the warm, wet washcloth is all the cleaning Derek gets. Today.
Stiles can feel the steady thumping of Derek’s heart under his fingers and
through the washcloth, and his breath catches, his fingers twitch.
When he looks up, Derek’s eyes are open— leveled on him and wary. His pupils
are tiny— his eyes swallowed almost entirely by the strange, gray-blue color on
the outside of his irises, the brown ring around his pupil practically
swallowed. Stiles takes his hand off Derek, but he doesn’t move from under
Derek’s arm or away from the bed. Instead, he starts to fold up the cotton pad
the way he was shown. They’re quiet while he does that, and when he chances a
look at Derek again, his eyes are closed.
“I need water,” is what Derek eventually says, his voice rasping and wrecked.
“Yeah, in a minute,” Stiles tells him. “Gotta get you patched up first, Big
Guy.”
Derek huffs a laugh, and his eyes open again, though they don’t seek out
Stiles. He stares across the room, and Stiles is tempted to follow his gaze,
but he really does have to get this pad in place first. So, he sets about doing
that. Derek’s heart is a steady thump thump thump under his fingers as he peels
off strips of tape and straps the gauze down. It’s a little sloppier than
Deaton had it, but it does the trick. Stiles lifts Derek’s arm carefully— Derek
grunts beside him— and slides off the bed. 
He leaves the room only for a minute and comes back with a glass of water.
“Can you sit up?” he asks Derek, who glares at him as if to say of course I can
sit up, don’t patronize me. Seriously, Stiles could probably place gold in the
Olympics of reading Derek Hale’s expressions. He’s not sure how he feels about
it. 
Derek doesn’t say anything, but he does push himself up the headboard shelves
into something resembling a sitting position.  It’s good enough to keep the
water from falling all over the bed, so Stiles passes him the glass (“Sip it—
don’t gulp like an asshole or you’ll regret it.”) and pretends like he doesn’t
notice the way Derek’s fingers are twitching when he accepts it. Stiles sits on
the other side of the bed this time, his shoulders even with Derek’s. Derek is
so intimdating that Stiles sometimes forgets they’re the same height, but there
it is: their shoulders and feet aligned neatly. Like a matching set.
“So, just so we’re clear, you’re never allowed to do that again.”
Derek’s quiet for a bit, taking small drags from the glass like he was told,
but eventually throws back in a wry tone, “Yeah, I’ll try not to get blown up
in the future.”
“That’s all I ask,” Stiles says with a very sage sort of nod. Derek huffs a
laugh beside him and sets the glass of water on the shelf behind him. Stiles’s
fingers shake by his sides.
“It’s never taken me this much to heal,” Derek confesses after a minute, and a
surprised look from Stiles reveals that Derek’s looking down at his shoulder
with a twisted, contemplative frown.
“Guess you’re a little more glass than I thought,” Stiles says before he can
catch himself, the words a whisper on his tongue, and Derek looks at him.
And, God, that look. There’s not a word— or thirty— or a thousand— that could
ever hope to summarize the complexity of the look Derek gives him at that. The
lines in his face are slack, his brow unfurrowed, but his eyes are scrunched
just enough that Stiles knows the gears in Derek’s head are turning— trying to
understand what Stiles just said. This look physically winds Stiles and puts
him on edge, has him falling ever so slightly into Derek’s gravity, wanting to
touch his face like touching it will give him all the answers. There’s no
muscle working in Derek’s jaw, and there’s no twist to his slack mouth or
anything. It’s all his eyes— his searching, moving eyes that are taking in
Stiles’s face in quick, jerking shifts. Derek’s eyes are so many colors all at
once, and not one can Stiles name. 
Words are a defense for Stiles, and in this moment he is completely vulnerable.
Derek is less like shattered glass, Stiles thinks, and more like pulvarized
dust— like ash from a fire that burned too hot, too fast, and destroyed
everything it touched. 
“You’d be surprised,” is what Derek chokes out, and Stiles’s head tilts in a
silent question.
“Try me,” he says, bold. 
“You don’t want me to.”
“Yeah, because you’re some sort of expert on what Stiles does and and doesn’t
want.”
Derek looks away from him, then, and there’s that muscle in his jaw— the one
that ticks when he’s stressed or annoyed or trying to figure out what he’s
doing. Stiles— who just so happens to be an expert on what Stiles does and
doesn’t want, by the way— can think of a few things he wants to do just then,
and he’s starting to wonder if Derek would be receptive to any of them.
“You say that now,” Derek bites out. “You say it now, and then you’ll regret it
later.”
“Fine. You wanna be an asshole? Be an asshole— see if I care.”
“You shouldn’t care.”
“I just said I don’t, didn’t I?”
“And you were lying.”
Stiles jerks away from Derek, turning himself to glare at him in full. “No. You
can’t pull that Werewolf Juju crap. That’s bullshit.”
Derek glares at him and straightens against the headboard, his jaw set. Stiles
makes a furious noise, but can’t keep his distance becase there’s a corner of
Derek’s bandage that’s sticking up— the tape not quite sticking— and he has to
reach out and push it down, stretching his body over Derek’s to do so.
Derek stiffens beneath him and inhales sharply. Stiles notices, and tries to
meet Derek’s eyes. Derek’s closed them, but his nostrils are flared slightly,
and Stiles leans back on his heels and waits for Derek to relax before he says
anything.
“Do I smell or something?”
“You always smell,” Derek snaps, his eyes opening slowly.
“Awesome,” Stiles drawls, rolling his eyes. “I’m flattered, really. Sorry to
disturb you with the way I smell— only I’m not really sorry at all, so yeah.”
“— It’s not a bad smell.”
“Right, explains why you looked like you wanted to knife yourself when I got
too close.”
“Stiles.”
Stiles sighs, his shoulders going slack.  ”Just forget it, okay?” He wants to
take a nap because he’s got all day to round Scott up and go to the station—
it’s not even close to noon yet. But he also wants to get away from Derek,
because Stiles has put up with too much bullshit the past twenty-four hours,
and whatever this— Thing— between him and Derek is? Yeah, Stiles doesn’t have
the energy for it. He doesn’t have the energy for anything. Maybe if he tries
to sleep his body will stop that, too, because he doesn’t even have the energy
to sleep.
Derek is looking at him like he wants to say something, and his lips part a
little bit like they might. But Stiles can’t even begin to fathom whatever
thatsomething is— and he doesn’t want to try. He just wants to sleep. He’s
slouching, sitting on his legs a bit, and facing Derek like a challenge, his
chin strong even when the rest of him isn’t. 
Derek looks away first. Stiles takes that as a win and proceeds to flop himself
back down on the mattress. Derek’s still leaning against the headboard shelves.
The look on his face is unfamiliar, even to Stiles’s new-found Derek Decoding
powers. There’s tension in his brow and lips, but it’s not mean and it’s not
defensive. It’s something else entirely. Whatever. Let it be whatever it is,
Stiles is tired. He wants to sleep.
And he almost gets to, too, until Derek slides himself down on the bed and
turns onto his side to face Stiles. The expression there now is one Stiles
knows well: determination. He’s seen Derek’s resolve settle and harden into
this look so. Damn. Many. Times by now that it’s like a Pavlovian response to
get irritated as hell at it— because when Derek gets determined,
shit always hits the fan. Stiles keeps an eye cracked open, looking back at
Derek warily. He’s face down, as usual, bundled under his comforer and nuzzling
his pillow with his cheek.
“What?” he tries to snap, but there’s almost no heat behind his voice.
“You’re exhausting,” Derek tells him, and Stiles rolls his eyes and huffs.
“Great. Bully me after I save your ass. At least you’re consistent.”
Derek frowns, but he doesn’t get angry. He draws a breath and Stiles buries his
face completely in his pillow, not up for whatever it is Derek’s about to say. 
He’s unprepared when Derek grabs his arm just below the elbow. He yelps a bit,
and tries to yank himself away, but Derek holds fast and brings Stiles’s wrist
to his nose, inhaling deeply. Something electric runs through Stiles, and he
tries to catch Derek’s eyes, but his eyes stay closed even when he starts to
speak.
“Kate,” Derek says eventually, and Stiles is hard-pressed for a long minute to
figure out who he’s talking about, “wanted a list. She thought she was made up
of a bunch of individual smells, like grass and vanilla. But she wasn’t. She
just smelled— heavy. I don’t have another word for it. There isn’t another word
for it. She walked into the classroom when I was fifteen and—” He swallows,
choking himself off.
Stiles is horrified. These are pieces of a puzzle that’s been left untouched in
the back of his mind for months, and Derek is putting them all in place. He
hasn’t let go of Stiles’s arm, so Stiles turns into him to relieve the pressure
in his shoulder, his chest now resting only a few inches from Derek’s.
“She smelled heavy and the back seat of her car smelled heavy and her bed and
clothes and skin smelled heavy and the kiss she left on the door frame after
she burned my family alive smelled heavy, too.”
Stiles’s throat is so dry that swallowing actually hurts, but he has no other
response. There are no words, no clever jokes, no defenses yet again. What does
someone do in these situations? What’s normal or what’s abnormal? Anything— any
sign or hint is all Stiles wants. Derek opens his eyes, but won’t meet Stiles’s
gaze, which is alright because Stiles already feels too exposed like this, with
his wrist brushing against the stubble of Derek’s face and his heart hammering
in his chest.
“Everyone has one,” Derek tells him. “One thing that marks them. Kate was
heavy, but sometimes people smell like something. Scott smells fresh— like pine
needles, sometimes.” 
His hand moves, tracing the curve of Stiles’s forearm and then up the side of
his palm, Derek’s thumb a steady pressure the whole way down. Stiles moves into
the touch, pulled in by Derek but going willingly anyway, like he would have
moved that way without Derek’s help. 
He swallows, dry, and an involuntary shudder runs through him. “So,” he says
soft, soft, softly. “How ‘bout me? What’s eau de Stiles?” He can’t hear himself
speaking over the rush of blood to his head, and his eyes won’t leave Derek’s
face. Derek’s mouth is open slightly, wet and red and distracting, so when
Derek turns those fascinating eyes of his— the color of which Stiles will
never, ever be able to name— upward to meet Stiles’s heated stare, Stiles more
or less  falls into him, swallowing the word “cinnamon” off of Derek’s lips.
This was always there: this possibility. It was a question forever unaddressed,
forever unanswered, between them. Maybe that’s why Stiles isn’t surprised to be
wrapped up in Derek, absorbed in a kiss that is equal parts hot and wet and
slow, slow, slow. 
There’s no resistance from Derek, even when Stiles thinks there might be— even
when he pushes closer, reangles his neck, and pulls off for a second to catch
his breath. Derek is on him again and again and again, and Stiles opens himself
to him, welcomes the feel of Derek’s lips on his. In between kisses they
breathe, hot and dry, and their hands start to take on minds of their own.
Derek releases Stiles’s fingers and moves both of his hands to cup Stiles’s
jaw, tasting him deeper at this angle and softer and sweeter at that one,
alternating pressures and seeking and testing as he pleases. Stiles lets him,
encourages him with gasps and groans.
Stiles, for his part, can’t stop his fingers from carding through Derek’s hair.
He hums against Derek’s lips, and Derek nips at his in turn, gentle and
affectionate and all of the things that Stiles kind of knew Derek had the
capacity to be, but never got to see outright.
Derek presses into him, and Stiles pushes back. Derek gives first—
surprisingly— and shifts onto his back to let Stiles roll over him, held up by
his hands fisted in the bedding under Derek’s head. Another new angle, and
Stiles likes this best: Derek’s hands still holding his jaw, his fingers rough
and warm against the tender flesh behind Stiles’s ears, and Derek leans up into
him, seeking out Stiles’s lips, wanting them.
Stiles parts his lips for Derek’s tongue and becomes the boy from yesterday—
inhaling smoke and tasting it in every corner of his mouth until the taste is
seared there. He takes everything Derek gives him and pulls it inside, holding
it until his lungs burn and his chest hurts and he has to open his mouth, has
to breathe. He goes back, again and again, and Derek has him again and again—
staying slow, taking their time, no need to rush.
Stiles’s weight shifts to his left side, his moving his right hand
absentmindedly, tracing Derek’s jaw and the tendon in his neck and the dip in
his collar bone. He’s  drawn to the steady drumming of Derek’s heart, and seeks
it out before Stiles has the mind to stop himself. He brushes against Derek’s
wound, and Derek flinches away from the touch, gasping. Stiles can’t apologize
fast enough.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry, man,” he’s blurting out, pulling off of Derek entirely,
hovering over the wound for a bit to see if he’s done any obvious, immediate
damage. “I swear I didn’t mean to, I just—”
“Stiles,” Derek bites out, but Stiles can’t bring himself to meet Derek’s eyes.
Derek huffs, irritated, and sits up . He doesn’t rest against the headboard,
but he sort of folds into himself when he draws one of his knees up and leans
into Stiles’s personal space. Stiles twitches when Derek’s hand wraps around
the back of his neck, and he can’t help but drag his eyes up to find Derek’s
after a few beats of silence.
Derek’s lips twitch, and his thumb rubs at Stiles’s hairline in a soothing
little gesture. Stiles falls into him again, because it’s easy and it’s what he
wants, and Derek takes him apart and puts him back together again until he’s
something a lot sturdier than glass. But it’s short and sweet this time, ending
when Derek pulls away. 
“You’re sweating,” Stiles says, confused at first. Why would Derek be— Oh.
“Dude, lay back down. Now.”
“Stiles, I’m fine—”
“No, you’re definitely not fine. I’d say something about how hot I am, but I’m
actually being really serious right now, man.” And it’s true. There’s sweat
beading on Derek’s brow and above his lips and down his neck, and Stiles is
pretty confident that means he’s running a fever. Stiles starts to push Derek
down into the mattress, and Derek’s fingers catch his forearms. They shake and
shiver, so Stiles knows it’s a fever. “C’mon, man. Just— stay put, okay? I’ll
go get some medicine or something.”
Derek doesn’t seem thrilled at the idea of medicine, but he goes down anyway,
and Stiles takes a moment just to consider him in full. He pulls his eyes away
as soon as he is physically able, and he leaves the room without saying a word.
He’s actually okay with this, he thinks as he takes the stairs two at a time.
Okay, he thinks. He’s okay.
But there’s a little grin tugging at his lips that’s saying a whole lot more.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
No, they don’t talk about it. It’s not really a conscious thought— on Stiles’s
end, anyway— to not talk about the kissing thing. It just doesn’t come up. 
Derek falls asleep once he’s medicated, and a few days pass with him in a fever
daze, usually unconscious and certainly not lucid when he’s awake. Stiles
occupies himself with the summer reading he’s been putting off. There’s only
two weeks left until school starts up, after all. He’s starting to get antsy
for it, the way he always does when he’s been away from forced social
interactions for too long. A part of him craves high school, craves the
occupation. 
It’s normal to want to see Lydia— Stiles always wants to see Lydia— but in a
strange turn of events, Stiles is kind of itching to see Jackson, too.
After rising from the dead to assume his Final Form or whatever, there has been
absolute radio silence from Jackson. Lydia refuses to be around Peter—
understandably since it turns out the asshole fucked with her head for months—
and Jackson refuses to speak to any of them, as well. So, yeah. Radio silence.
No one can really say what's been going on in Jackson and Lydia Land. As far as
Stiles knows, no one in Derek’s pack knows anything about how Jackson has taken
to being a werewolf. 
Stiles kind of figures anything is a step up from being a murdering lizard
forced to do the bidding of crazy people, but whatever.
A few days after Scott and Stiles give their statements at the police station,
Stiles comes home to find Jackson leaning against the bannister of his front
porch, clearly unhappy to be there. It occurs to Stiles that he was an easy
target for Jackson before the transformation, and he suddenly dreads what the
Now-with-Fur!Jackson might think he can get away with.
“Oh, look, a stray,” Stiles greets, and, okay, it’s not his best joke. But it
seems to piss Jackson off pretty well, so it’s a job well done.
Jackson tilts his head, narrows his glare, and says, “Funny, Dipshit. Where’s
Derek?”
“Nope, same old Jackson,” Stiles mutters more to himself than anyone, and
Jackson raises his eyebrows expectantly. Stiles deflects, knowing that Derek is
vulnerable while he’s healing, and Jackson’s intentions are so far up in the
air right now they could be called Curiosity. “How’s the new Wolfman thing
treating you? Try to kill Lydia yet?”
Jackson snaps at that—which, yeah, Stiles definitely should have seen coming—
and shoves Stiles face-forward against the door roughly. Maybe Stiles should be
cowering or apologizing, but he’s winded and pinned, so all he can manage is a
violent swear. Jackson’s nails are claws on the back of his neck, a terrible
promise in the pressure he applies there. 
“One more time,” Jackson growls, “Where. Is. Derek.”
“Fuck. You. Fido,” Stiles grits out as best he can from against the door.
Jackson roars a little bit, but releases Stiles nonetheless and procedes to
seethe from a few feet away. Stiles breathes heavily, shaking himself off and
straightening up as tall as he can. He’s got an inch or so on Jackson height-
wise, and he delights in every fraction of it. Of course, what Jackson lacks in
height he makes up for with Unrivaled Douchebagdom and, now, a shiny set of
fangs, so there is that. 
“I know he’s here,” Jackson snaps. “Let me see him.”
“You just can’t take no for an answer, can you?” Stiles throws back— again with
the deflecting. To his credit, he doesn’t flinch when Jackson starts advancing
on him again (slowly, this time, one foot in front of the other), but he does
take a very, very small step back. His mind is a mess of escape plans and
strategies— most of which pretty much involve annoying Jackson into retreat—
when the front door opens behind him. 
He spins around to look at Derek, eyes wide. Derek hasn’t come downstairs for
almost three days— he’s barely been well and stable enough to make it to the
bathroom on his own feet. But there he is, chin high and proud, standing in the
doorway like it is No Big Deal when, in fact, it is a Very Big Deal. Stiles
allows himself a second to gape before turning to look at Jackson.
Jackson gives Derek a once over, grunts, glares darkly at Stiles and— leaves?
And fucking leaves.
He just turned around
and leaves.
Like a douche. 
“Yeah, nice seeing you, too,” Stiles grumbles, watching Jackson climb into his
stupid porsche.
Stiles looks back at Derek, who is clad in an unassuming pair of Stiles’s sweat
pants and a comically large blue t-shirt that usually lives in the back of
Stiles’s closet. For a second, there’s a question on Stiles’s lips, but he
can’t find the words to make it happen, so instead he pushes past Derek and
into the living room.
“What the hell was that about?” he finally asks when Derek turns to him,
closing the door.
“It’s a pack thing,” Derek says slowly, and Stiles kind of wants to grill him
on that, but he can see the sweat forming on Derek’s brow from where he stands.
“Come on, man, you need to sit down,” Stiles says on a sigh. He puts his palm
to Derek’s back and pushes him a little bit in the direction of the couch. “Me
casa es tu casa and all. Which— hey— it kind of is these days, so yeah.”
Derek grunts a little, an affirmative sort of noise, before doing what he’s
told and dropping himself on the couch. It’s such a casual thing— like he sits
on couches as often as he lurks in dark corners and creeps into high schooler
boys’ windows— that it distracts Stiles.
Derek looks at him sharply, and Stiles hauls ass so Derek can’t call him out on
staring. Because while he’s not intentionally avoiding theSo, we made out that
one time, remember? conversation, that doesn’t mean he wants to have that
conversation, either. And eye contact with Derek is pretty much a surefire way
to get from Point A to Point Can We Do That Again Sometime faster than Stiles
cares to admit.
A pack of alpha werewolves is burning a war path through Beacon Hills; Stiles
shouldn’t have the luxury of trying to get laid. He gets that, he does,
but damn itif the possibility isn’t distracting. 
He gets Derek a glass of water from the kitchen and brings it out with some
medicine to lower Derek’s fever. He offers both to Derek, who takes the glass
of water but won’t acknowledge the medicine. Stiles glowers at him, huffs a
bit, and sets the pills on the coffee table. He drops down against the other
arm of the couch and stares blankly out the window on the opposite wall for a
while.
Derek finishes the glass of water in record time and puts it down on the coffee
table. If he thinks Stiles doesn’t notice when Derek swipes up the pills and
pops them in his mouth, then Derek doesn’t give Stiles enough credit. At all.
Stiles bites at the insides of his cheeks to keep himself from saying anything
too Asshole-y, but it’s tempting as hell. Instead he says, “So— it’s a pack
thing.”
Derek is quiet, but eventually says. “Yeah.”
“What’s that mean?”
Derek lets out a breath of air— something like a sigh— before telling Stiles,
“Jackson hasn’t denounced me as his alpha. I’m the one who bit him, so he is my
beta. He hasn’t consciously made the decision to be an omega, so he’s still
part of my pack.”
“Why hasn’t he pulled the trigger there?”
Derek shrugs. “He probably doesn’t know he can.”
“Yeah, with the whole speaketh not to wolves who run with Peter Hale thing
going on there, I can see how he’d miss out on some vital information.” 
Derek snorts, and Stiles grins a little— proud of himself. He likes having all
the time in the world to draw out that dry-ass sense of humor of Derek’s, just
sitting on the couch and soaking in the sunlight coming through the windows
and— existing. Derek relaxes into the couch a bit, his shoulders drooping and
his head lolling backwards slightly. He looks up at the ceiling, and it’s a
long time before Stiles realizes that— again— he’s staring.
Whoops.
“Wait, so I get that Jackson’s your beta or whatever—” Stiles says as soon as
he realizes he has more questions, “— but what's with that housecall?”
Derek rolls his neck, popping it in a few places (which kind of makes Stiles
cringe, because that sound simply isn’t pleasant, alright), then turns, weary-
eyed, to look at Stiles. He says, “He knew I was injured.”
“More Werewolf Juju crap?” Stiles huffs.
Derek’s lips quirk a bit. “Yeah. Stop calling it that.”
“Not a chance. Is Jackson going to try and shank you or something— like some
instinct to overthrow the Alpha?”
Derek raises his eyebrows, and there’s nothing but condescention in the lines
of his face. “You know, there are differences between wolves and werewolves.”
“Thanks, I hadn’t figured that out yet,” Stiles throws back with narrowed eyes
and a bit of a head cock. “You know I only found out werewolves exist like a
year ago?”
“That’s a lot of time for Google.”
Stiles glares at him— this is a familiar line of taunting. “Ha, ha. Funniest
werewolf in town, right here. On my couch.” There’s a none-too-subtle threat
there, and Derek knows it. He sets his jaw in a challenging way and expectantly
stares Stiles down
and stares
and stares.
Stiles grins, pretty convinced he’s winning this battle, and leans into the arm
rest, proud as can be and a little tempted to stretch his legs out onto Derek’s
lap just because it’s his house and he can. But Derek wouldn’t humor him,
Stiles knows. Stiles would probably end up on the floor— crashing into the
coffee table on the way down— in a mess of layers and limbs and violent
swearing. 
So he just takes a minute to preen at a safe distance.
“That’s right,” Stiles says after a beat. “My house, my rules.”
It’s an echo of a ridiculous memory, and there — when Stiles least expects to
see it because, honestly, he’s being an asshole (and loving every second of it)
— is that familiar twitch of Derek’s lips. Stiles is beginning to identify it
as fondness, and it’s such a foreign, unusual thing to think that it catches
Stiles up for a minute. Makes him prouder and more vulnerable all at once.
Derek Hale, fond of Stiles Stilinski— who’d have guessed?
Of course, maybe it’s like Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe Derek’s realized that
there’s no escaping Stiles now— not after they’ve saved each others lives this
many times and exchanged witty banter and slept in the same bed for days and
days on end.
Not after any of that, and especially not after the Best Make Out Session of
all Time. No going back now. 
So, maybe they do have to talk about it. Maybe it’s something that has to be
addressed. Or maybe they don’t, and it doesn’t. Stiles is a flexible sort of
guy. He’s actually pretty much adaptable to a fault. Unfortunately, he’s also
sixteen years old and, while serious conversations about badass supernatural
shit are awesome, serious conversations about feelings and— uh— relationships
or whatever? Yeah, no. Not his forte. Not any sixteen year old’s forte,
probably, but least of all Stiles’s. 
He licks his lips and looks back at the window. 
He has reading to do, and this is starting to stress him out. Derek’s been
holed up in Stiles’s room for days, so the new space is probably healthy for
him. Stiles’s dad won’t be home for five or six more hours— it’s a long shift
sort of day, but at least he has the night off— so there’s no real harm in
leaving Derek on the couch. He stands up, brushing himself straight, and heads
for the staircase.
But he’s a social creature, and it’s awkward as hell to just walk out of the
room without saying something. So he says, “Just— uh— if you need anything—”
Derek cuts him off with a Very Stern Look and, “Yeah.”
Stiles nods, swallows, and heads up the stairs. 
The heavy weight of unfufilled expectation settles in the pit of his stomach,
makes him feel sick.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Two and a half hours later, Stiles is on his back, stretched across his bed.
One of his hands is holding a copy of The Sound and the Fury out to his side,
his thumb marking the page he’s on though he hasn’t looked at the book in half
an hour. His other hand is flat on his stomach, tracing patterns in the skin
there just beneath his rucked up T-Shirts. He’s staring at the ceiling,
literally a million questions running through his head. He’s kind of pleased
that only a thousand or so of them have to do with Derek.
The door opens softly, but it’s not like Stiles doesn’t know who it is. He
doesn’t look over or stop moving his hands or anything. He’s managed to get on
a train of thought about this whole they’re alphas but they’re actually
betas bullshit, and he’s not letting that one go until he’s got an answer,
dammit— it’s been torturing him for a month now with its bullshit logic and
halfass explanations. He almost sees the train home when his eyes fall, of
their own accord, to Derek, who has been standing just inside the door, still
and silent, for several minutes on end.
He looks like he’s very seriously considering something: his jaw’s locked, his
eyebrows are furrowed ever-so-slightly. In the oversized t-shirt and
sweatpants, Derek is surreally not-intimidating. There’s no Power of Leather
here— just the comfort of bare feet and soft, worn, too-big-for-you fabrics.
It’s endearing, and Stiles feels that weird warm thing creep into his heart.
He doesn’t say anything— lets Derek be contemplative for a while— and pulls his
book in front of his face, trying to get into the stream of consciousness
style. It makes it feel like his head is filled with too many voices all at
once. He’s glad when Derek comes over, his steps silent. Stiles shuffles over
on the bed. Into Derek’s side, he thinks surreally, because when did he start
thinking it as Derek’s bed? Derek fills the space that Stiles made for him, and
Stiles puts down his book on a shelf over his head (Page 122, he tells himself,
willing it to memory) and looks up at Derek. Stiles is still flat on his back,
but he doesn’t feel vulnerable.
He’s comfortable.
“What’s up?” he asks, searching Derek’s face for some sort of hint as to what
was going on in his head.
Derek turns his eyes on Stiles. The colors there are catching the fading
sunshine from Stiles’s open blinds, making Derek’s eyes look like a soft shade
of green. Stiles likes that best, he thinks for a minute, but he’s immediately
startled out of the thought by another thought: when did he start picking
favorite eye colors for Derek freaking Hale? Holy God, his life.
Derek considers Stiles for a moment, his jaw still tight, his eyes so bright.
It isn’t until Stiles props himself up on his elbows that Derek moves. He’s
quick— because, hey, werewolf and all— and Stiles can’t say or do or feel
anything before Derek’s lips are against his. The first time was slow and
sweet, and there’s some of that here, yeah, but it’s mostly insistent. 
Stiles likes insistent. Stiles thinks insistent can stick around for, like,
ever as far as he’s concerned.
A groan leaves him, then, and he falls back into the mattress when his arms
hook over Derek’s shoulders, pulling Derek with him. Stiles is open and
inviting to all things Derek Hale in that moment— namely lips and tongue and
teeth. One of his hands finds Derek’s face, his palm pressing to the apple of
Derek’s cheek and angling him just so. Stiles’s entire body arches off the bed,
the length of him pressed against Derek, whose mouth is hot on Stiles’s,
opening him up wide. 
Stiles is only too happy to give, give, give. “Jesus, God,” he breathes when
Derek pulls away.
Stiles lets his hand slide up from Derek’s face, eventually carding his fingers
through Derek’s hair when Derek presses his lips to the sensitive skin beneath
Stiles’s ear.
“Derek, actually,” Derek says, nipping at the hook of Stiles’s jaw, and Stiles
groans.
“No, don’t be funny, you asshole. Funny is so not okay right now,” he says, and
if parts of that come off as a bit of a whine? Well, so be it. Derek laughs
against Stiles’s neck, and Stiles tugs at his hair, pulling him back into a
kiss. Derek’s lips are upturned against Stiles’s— smug bastard— and Stiles is
tempted to kick that shit-eating expression off his face, but he’s too occupied
kissing it. 
He’s not exactly well-practiced in this (his only prior kissing experience
being Harley Harlowe at an eighth grade party when they’d gotten wrangled in a
game of Seven Minutes in Heaven), but it’s a pretty simple thing: lips on lips,
tongue against tongue. And Derek, for being such a rude guy, has a
very, very nice tongue. Derek licks his way into Stiles’s mouth, and Stiles
pretty much melts. The noise that leaves him is porn star levels of obscene,
and Derek insinuates himself fully between Stiles’s legs in response.
Derek goes to pull back, and Stiles follows him, pushing himself up on his
palms to keep his lips against Derek’s if only for a few more hot, quick
kisses. He’s successful, because Derek falls back into him a bit, only stopping
to say, “What would you like me to be, then?”
Stiles’s brain literally somersaults and he basically swallows his tongue. It
took literally— uh— eight words to shut down all function in him. Derek’s sense
of humor, apparently, wasn’t the only thing buried under the brooding, dark
exterior. Stiles’s knows what he wants, and for all that Derek’s question was
erotic as fuck, there’s a real question in his face: do you want this?
Hell to the yes.
Stiles’s hands seek out the hem of that comically oversized shirt, his fingers
clutching it. He says, “This is a shirt-optional party, invitation: you,” and
there’s a question he’s asking between the lines, too.
Derek rolls his eyes and says, “I thought we weren’t being funny.”  Which is as
good as a strip me, Stiles, as Stiles thinks he’s going to get, so he slides
his hands up the hot bare skin of Derek’s chest— feeling the muscles twitch and
flex under his fingers— and hooks his wrists under the shirt, moving it upwards
slowly. 
He says, “No, you’re not being funny. I can be as funny as I want.”
Derek makes a choked noise, "Your house, your rules?"
Apparently, his shirt-removing pace is too slow for Derek, who pulls the shirt
off over his head and loses it somewhere off the side of the bed— not that
Stiles notices or cares because hell yes he has a half naked Derek in between
his legs and life is good and sweet and right. 
Great though it is, it’s also a little much at first, so Stiles distracts
himself by pulling Derek into another kiss. It’s slower, sweeter, and Stiles
takes his time to taste Derek— who always smells a little bit like leather and
musk but thankfully tastes a thousand times better than that. They fall back
into the bed, Stiles’s legs bending on either side of Derek, whose skin is soft
and hot under Stiles’s hands. 
Kissing is great, kissing is good, Stiles really likes kissing (can’t really
emphasize that enough— seriously), but the need for skin-to-skin contact takes
precedence quickly, and he eventually pulls away to tug off his shirts. Derek
freezes, and he stares down at Stiles for a few long minutes, his eyes— green,
still, Stiles notes— fall down to Stiles’s chest. 
There’s a freckle in the dead-middle of Stiles’s chest, and Derek ducks his
head to press a hot, open-mouthed kiss to it. It sends a shock through Stiles’s
entire system. The gesture is intimate, and his heart seizes at it. Derek’s
mouth lingers until Stiles becomes uncomfortable with the sensation— it’s just
too much, he thinks. A little more honest than either of them are capable of
being.
Stiles tightens his knees at Derek’s hips and, summoning all of his strength
(which is mostly in his legs thanks to Finstock’s long-standing love affair
with suicides), tries to reverse his and Derek’s positions.
He’s forever going to tell everyone that he upseated Derek Hale, but he has a
feeling that Derek kind of wanted this— Stiles straddling Derek’s thighs
proudly with Derek pressed into the mattress below— because, if he hadn’t,
crazy-ass werewolf superpowers could have stopped Stiles at any second. But no,
here Derek is: under Stiles. 
“Nice,” Derek compliments him dryly, looking long-suffering. Stiles preens,
straightening a little bit for a moment.
“I’m gifted, what can I say.”
Derek huffs a laugh and leans forward, sitting up entirely, and wraps a hand
behind Stiles’s neck to pull him into a kiss. Stiles groans, and rolls his hips
down. A shudder runs through Derek— an honest to God shudder— and he nips at
Stiles’s lips. Apparently, Stiles just gave a green light of sorts, because
Derek rocks back against him, and Stiles is aware of Every. Hard. Inch. of
Derek freaking Hale.
“Holy God,” he practically sobs and wraps his arms around Derek’s shoulders and
presses his forehead to Derek’s, breathing heavily. They rock against each
other for a few long, hot minutes, Derek’s hands flat against Stiles’s back,
his hands big and wide and holding Stiles together even when he thinks he’s
going to shatter.
Derek’s lips find Stiles’s neck again, where he presses open-mouthed kisses
sporadically. Stiles is pretty much a mess of meaningless syllables, his mouth
open and his eyes closed. His jeans are too, too, too restrictive, he thinks,
but it’s a very distant thought that’s a lot less insistant than the heat
pooling in his belly and the hard length of his trapped cock. There’s a
familiar fuzzy feeling in the back of his head that tells Stiles one very clear
thing: orgasm is imminent. 
“I— shit,” he grumbles, trying to make himself slow down— make this last a
little longer, not be so much of a teenager. 
Derek grunts and surges upward, capturing Stiles’s lips in a kiss and, again,
reversing their positions. Stiles has never been more glad to not have to be in
a position of control. From beneath Derek, he can undo the clasp of his jeans,
wriggle slightly, and free his trapped cock. It’s a relief, and his moans are
caught by Derek’s mouth. Stiles kisses him back, hot from head to toe and
hungry in his very core for more, more, more.
Stiles barely has his boxers down before Derek rolls his hips again, catching
Stiles’s aching, now-bare dick in the motion. Stiles keens. 
“Mother of God!” 
Derek stiffens, and Stiles takes that as a bad thing. Confused, he pushes Derek
up a little bit, and is absolutely shocked when Derek’s eyes open— irises red
and powerful under heavy eyelids. And, oh, fuck, Stiles has never wanted to
come more in his whole damn life than he does right then. 
“I totally just made you wolf out a little bit, didn’t I?” he says, gloating
like an asshole and not giving a damn. “Because of sex. My sex. Me.”
“Shut up,” Derek growls, but Stiles can’t bring himself to care because he’s
got his fingers tucked in the hem of Derek’s sweatpants
(well, Stiles’s sweatpants, but still), and is searching Derek’s face for some
sign— Do Not Pass Go or something. Derek kisses him, though, so Stiles is
taking that as full speed ahead. He pushes the sweats down, and pulls away to
apprecaite Derek bared for him. 
Derek has a very, very nice — very hard— cock. It takes Stiles all of a second
to decide he’d like to be better acquainted with it. 
He’s clumsy at first, reaching without any sort of experience other than what
he’s done with himself, but getting Derek’s cock in hand sends shivers through
him— and Derek hisses above him. Stiles grins up at Derek.
“You okay, Big Guy?” Stiles asks, squeezing Derek ever so slightly at the
nickname.
He almost forgets about his own cock until Derek straight up fucks into
Stiles’s hand, and then there’s no way Stiles could forget how hard and ready
he is— ready for this, with Derek. He arches up, brushing his cock against
Derek’s, wrapping his fingers around both of them. 
Derek sucks in a breath above him, and Stiles nearly bites his tongue.
Literallynothing on God’s green earth could have prepared him for the blinding
sensation of his cock against Derek’s, both under Stiles’s long fingers. It’s
earth-shattering, stomach-dropping, mind-blowing— all of the good hyphenated
adjectives Stiles has ever known all at once.
It takes a few tries, but they find a rhythm of rocking against each other,
both of them fucking into Stiles’s hand. Derek braces himself low, on his
elbows and forearms, crowding Stiles into the bed. Occasionally they’ll press
kisses to each other’s necks or chests, but it’s an effort neither of them are
capable of sparing when all of their attention and energy is going into
grinding against each other, fucking off together in Stiles’s hands.
“Stiles—” Derek grinds out, in no time at all, really, and Stiles nods
emphatically.
“Uh huh,” he near-whines, his hips bucking off the bed, his hand tightening,
and Derek is gone— coming first in hot spurts, and triggering Stiles’s orgasm—
which rips through him, white hot and blinding and so, so, so damn good. 
Derek groans, spent, and is courteous to fall to Stiles’s side when he
collapses. Stiles is endlessly appreciative, but he says nothing. Instead he
just gasps for breath and tries to right himself— find a normal place to ground
himself and work back to something he knows, because he’s completely out of his
depth right now.
Did that count as sex?
Because Stiles is totally counting that as sex.
“Get a towel,” Derek says from beside him.
“No way,” Stiles huffs, but he’s too busy grinning like a tool (a sexually
active tool he corrects, giddy) to be annoyed. “Afterglow over here, dude.” 
Derek huffs and stretches out beside Stiles, a satisfied little smirk on his
lips and cum on his abs, and Stiles suddenly wants nothing more than to start
prep for Episode II: Return of the Frot. There’s a curiosity in the back of his
mind as he rolls onto his side, facing Derek— thinking.
“What?” Derek asks, irritated, after a long while.
Stiles shrugs as nonchalantly as he can manage before he leans forward and—
giving into temptation— licks at the cum on Derek’s stomach. Derek stills,
breath caught beneath him. Stiles grins up at him wickedly and pulls away. He
takes a minute to shimmy entirely out of his jeans and boxers— glad he didn’t
shoot his load in them, in retrospect— and rolls out of bed after he does so.
He stretches, feeling good about literally everything just then.
“You can just towel yourself down, if you want,” he tells Derek, “but I’m going
to shower.”
Derek’s eyes darken a bit, his jaw clenches, and Stiles leaves for the
bathroom.
He acts irritated for all of a —- okay, no, he doesn’t bother acting irritated
when Derek joins him in the shower not five minutes later.
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Turns out, sex is like natural Adderall for Stiles, who settles against his
headboard shelves and starts to read The Sound and the Fury again, wearing only
his boxers. His fingers are pruned— a constant reminder that he just had shower
sex. He, Stiles Stilinski, is a shower sex god, and he demands sacrifices be
made unto him. Food sacrifices, though; none of that murdering-innocent-virgins
crap. 
“Are you hungry? I’m hungry.” he says after about an hour of reading. Derek’s
further down the bed than Stiles is, stretched out and on his stomach. He’s got
an arm draped across Stiles’s hips, his fingers running absentmindedly against
Stiles’s side in a way that’s just shy of ticklish. Derek head is turned away
until Stiles huffs and shifts, setting his book down in his lap. When Derek
turns his eyes up to Stiles’s, they’re more blue than green.
“Then eat something?” he says— because he’s the most helpful werewolf in all of
Beacon Hills. Really, he is.
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Well, thank you for ruining that moment.”
“We weren’t having a moment,” Derek says, not unkindly—  his lips are curled
into something almost related to a smile.
“Yeah, right. Okay,” Stiles grunts, a laugh on his lips.
“No,” Derek says, pushing himself up the bed a bit, shifting his hand at
Stiles’s side so he can up to Stiles’s eye level, “we weren’t.”
Stiles grins and shoves Derek’s face away, a little grossed out by how giddy he
feels about Derek Hale essentially climbing up his body. Whatever, he can
gloat. Derek is GQ-standards model type, and Stiles has made him come three
times now in not as many hours. He gets to be proud as he wants, and no one can
tell him otherwise. Derek nips playfully at Stiles's palm, and Stiles sucks in
a breath, totally and completely okay with going for round four if that’s the
game here.
Turns out, sex marathons are even better than Shark Week. Who knew?
Probably everyone who’s ever participated in a sex marathon.
Which now includes Stiles.
Hell yeah.
But round four is put on indefinite hold when Stiles’s phone sounds from the
shelf behind him. He doesn’t answer it immediately, because he’s very tempted
to pull Derek into a kiss first. But Derek kind of slouches against Stiles,
taking away the opportunity. Stiles sighs, picks up his phone, and says:
“Sorry, Stiles isn’t in right now. You can leave your name and number if you
want, but I have a very full schedule, and basically no time to —” 
“Stiles,” Scott groans on the other end, and Stiles laughs.
“Yeah, buddy. That’s me. Speaking. Present. Etcetera. What’s up?”
Derek is doing a Very Distracting Thing by pressing his nose to Stiles’s neck,
his thumbs brushing against Stiles’s hip bones, and Stiles shifts to open his
legs for Derek to fully settle between them. He’s warm, and Stiles leans into
his touch.
“Isaac and I know where the Alpha Pack is,” Scott says, his tone urgent. Stiles
stiffens, and Derek’s thumbs stop moving. “And we’re going to see them now.”
“—- What? Hey!” Stiles cries out when Derek snatches the phone away from him.
Derek’s look is silencing, but Stiles still shoves him, irritated. 
Derek says, “Hold on, Scott,” before he switches on the speaker phone and looks
at Stiles with raised eyebrows as if to ask: better? And yes, it is better
because now Stiles isn’t being left out. Derek holds the phone in his hand
between his and Stiles’s chests, and they both look down at it.
“Where are they?” Derek says right as Stiles says, “What do you mean you’re
gong to see them now?” 
“Look, don’t worry about it. Just keep your phone on.”
“Scott, you can’t just—” Derek starts, but Scott cuts him off.
“No, Derek. You’re what they want. Stay with Stiles. We’ll call you if we need
anything. Just be ready.”
“Ready for what, exactly?” Stiles asks, but his eyes are on Derek’s. “— Scott?”
Scott’s quiet for a long, long time before saying, “Anything.”
The phone clicks off, and it’s kind of a melodramatic exit, but Stiles has to
give his boy props for excellent superhero speak. Or he would, anyway, if he
weren’t so annoyed at how suddenly Isaac— who has never seriously threatened
Stiles’s place in Scott’s life— has usurped the role as Scott’s partner in
crime.
Getting told stay at home and be useless by his best friend sucks. It
sucks real bad.
Stiles slouches against the headboard shelves and knocks his head back against
them. Derek replaces the phone on the shelf over Stiles’s shoulder and looks at
Stiles, his expression unreadable.
“Well,” Stiles tries at a joke, “this is awesome. You having fun? I’m having
fun. So. Much. Fun.”
“Sorry,” Derek says in a low voice, pursing his lips and tightening his jaw.
Stiles sighs and runs his fingers through Derek’s hair, because there’s comfort
in touching and being touched, and he doesn’t say anything for several long
minutes, until his indignance starts to burn too hot.
“This is so unfair!” he finally groans, about two steps away from a full-on
temper tantrum. “Scott needs me— do you know how many times I’ve saved his
stupid ass?”
Derek doesn’t say anything; he just lets Stiles rant.
“And I get that he and Isaac are these stupid Werewolf Boyfriends or whatever,
with their matching Werewolf Jujus—”
“Don’t call it that,” Derek interjects, and his lips twitch. Stiles rolls his
eyes good-naturedly and, yeah, he sort of feels better despite himself, but
he’s still pissed.
“It’s just not cool, man. I’m Scott’s right hand man. I’m not supposed to— to
be left at home, waiting for news. I should be out there throwing homemade
bombs right back at those dickheads or— or something.”
Derek snorts then backs away from Stiles. He sits back on his heels, his
sweatpants pulled low on his hips by the action. Stiles appreciates, off-
handedly, Derek’s physique, but it’s kind of a minor thing compared to the
crisis of Best Friendship at hand.
“Sorry,” Derek sighs, and there’s that word again.
“What— why?” 
Derek raises his eyebrows and looks purposefully down at his uncovered, scarred
left shoulder. They’ve been leaving it uncovered for three hour increments,
giving it time to air out. All of the holes are closed now, but the flesh is
still tender, and Derek’s energy is still being sucked into healing those
burns. Derek thinks it’s his fault, Stiles realizes. Thinks that Scott left
Stiles behind to babysit.
“God, Derek,” Stiles sighs, and he looks heavenward, hating himself only a lot.
“I’m sorry, dude— I don’t blame you. That’s not what I was trying to do.”
Derek doesn’t have to say I don’t believe you even a little bit even at all,
because it’s already in the look he gives Stiles.
“No, seriously. That’s— that’s so far the opposite of what I was bitching
about, you wouldn’t even believe.”
Derek scoffs, rolls his eyes, and moves to get off the bed. Stiles catches him
by the wrist, pulls Derek back into him. He knows Derek could resist— could
fight it— but he doesn’t, not even when Stiles kisses him. It’s a soft kiss, an
apology, and Stiles brushes his knuckles against the curve of Derek’s jaw,
trying to make some sort of comforting gesture. Derek pulls off the kiss and
nips at Stiles’s hand playfully. Stiles smiles, pleased with himself even if
he’s still pissed at Scott.
“I want to go outside,” Derek tells him, and Stiles nods. He gets off the bed,
too. Fresh air sounds like a good plan.
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
They end up at the Hale house because Derek mentions it off-handedly. Stiles
can’t bring himself to refuse Derek, who’s outside for the first time in days.
It’s a new moon night, a hole in the sky where the moon would be, and, in
Stiles’s jeep, Derek looks out the window and says nothing.
Stiles remembers when the Hale house burned down.
His dad had been a deputy at the time, and he had picked Stiles up from Scott’s
house that night with soot behind his ears. He'd hugged and kissed Stiles over
and over again, his cheeks wet and dirty. He hadn’t said anything then, but,
back then, Stiles already knew something was wrong. He'd spent the car ride
back home anxious, until he finally broke down and asked his dad.
His dad had said, “There was a fire. A lot of people got hurt.”
“Did anyone die, Dad?”
His dad just stayed quiet.
Stiles has never mentioned it, but the reason he knew who Derek was that day in
the woods— when Scott went looking for his inhaler— was because he’d seen Derek
Hale. Just once: in the hospital. Stiles was visiting his mom, a bundle of
flowers in his hand and his dad over his shoulder, and he’d passed Derek.
Stiles vaguely recognized him as a cool, older, high school boy— a baseball
player for BHHS. 
But a dark-haired woman had wrapped her arm around Derek’s shoulders, and Derek
just looked empty. Sixteen years old and empty, and Stiles, age eleven, could
identify it because sometimes he felt it, too. Sometimes, like when his dad had
told him his mom wasn’t going to get better. Stiles had felt hollow, then. It
wasn’t until later that he found out who they were: Derek and Laura Hale. Even
their names had sounded sad, back then.
Derek and Laura had left Beacon Hills, and in their wake the local kids had
built a mythology about the Hale house. They were insensitive— the way kids
tend to be— and they laughed at the thought of ghosts screaming in pain,
lurking in the corners and waiting to scare innocent children. 
The first time Stiles ever got into a fight at school was a month after his
mother died, when a piece of shit eighth grader started telling stories about
how the Hale Family probably deserved it; that they were creepy and abnormal
and weird, and Stiles had thought of that hollow-faced sixteen year old and
thought, No, you deserve it. And he’d punched the kid.
His dad and Scott never said a word about it. No one at school did. They were
all willing to overlook the actions of the kid with the dead mom, and Stiles
had been punished with one visit to the guidance counselor, who had tried to
maneuver Stiles into confessing something— anything— that would “heal” him,
make him feel better.
It’s been five years, and Stiles thinks he might be wounded for the rest of his
life, hollowed out and breakable and capable of beating the shit out of anyone
who tries to tell him anyone deserves loss like his. 
He and Derek step out of the jeep and into the warm August night and are quiet.
A breeze upsets the trees above; an owl sounds somewhere in the forest. Derek
leaves Stiles by the jeep, takes several steps towards the house and is on the
stairs before he turns back.
“Coming—?” he asks Stiles, who nods a little frantically.
“Absolutely,” he says, catching up to Derek. Somewhere in the still of the
night, Scott McCall is putting himself in mortal peril, and Stiles is trying to
wrap his head around trusting Isaac enough to save Scott— trusting the awe in
Isaac’s eyes and the gentleness in his smile every time he looks at Scott— but
it’s hard. Derek makes it better, but only just. Only makes it bearable,
doesn’t make it easy.
He follows Derek into the house. It smells of wet wood and stale sunshine— like
the day’s warmth hasn’t been totally sucked out of the house just yet. Stiles
has thought before, in passing, that the Hale house was probably beautiful at
one point: big and open and made just for family. Now it’s intimidating and
ugly, and Stiles’s skin crawls just being inside. He thinks of the ghosts his
peers claimed lived in these walls, and he knows it can’t be true. The place
isn’t fit for ghostly inhabitants, let alone living ones.
“How do you live here?” Stiles asks, and, yeah, it’s insensitive, but he has to
know.
“It’s home,” Derek says in a quiet voice, and Stiles follows him into that
eerie courtyard: the place that was once his parents’ bedroom, now reduced to
three walls, no roof, and grass carpet. The air here is fresher than inside,
sweeter and easier to breathe. He watches as Derek crouches, then spreads out
on his back in the grass. Stiles grins a little.
“You look like you’re ready to roll around on your back,” he teases, and Derek
glares at him.
“Those dog jokes need to stop,” he tells Stiles, who grins in a very like hell
they will sort of way. He sits down on the grass beside Derek, though he
doesn’t lay down at first. It takes some coaxing from Derek, who tugs at
Stiles’s elbow until Stiles loses balance and ends up sprawled out on the
ground, mildly irritated.
His irritation subsides when he gets a look at the ink black sky above him,
full of stars.
It’s breath-taking. There’s no tree branches above the Hale house, and they’re
far enough away from civilization that there’s no light pollution to obscure
the view. It’s the simplest, most awe-inspiring kind of beauty: the unknown.
Stiles’s jaw goes kind of slack.
He and Derek are quiet forever.
His mom and dad got him his telescope when he was nine. It’s outdated now, and
kind of exists to take up space, but he has memories from the times in between
his mom’s stays at the hospital: her arms around him and her laugh in his ears
when he told her to look, look, look at the moon and how big and awesome it is.
She had looked every time. Every. Damn. Time.
“Stars are pretty cool, too,” she’d told him, running her fingers through his
hair. He’d scowled, fixed his hair, and pouted. “You should look at those
sometime.”
“No way, the moon is awesome, Mom.”
And now he’s thinking, yeah, stars are pretty cool. Stars are cool and the moon
is cool and werewolves and kanimas and life in fucking general is really
freaking cool. 
He doesn’t think death can be cool; nothing that hurts so deep, like a cut on
the soul itself, could ever be “cool.” 
Derek reaches over and shoves him, and Stiles yelps a bit. “The hell, Man?”
“Stop thinking,” Derek tells him, and Stiles narrows his eyes.
“Well, since you asked so nicely,” he drawls. 
Derek snorts and is quiet again, and the moment stretches on, unbroken for a
long time. There’s noise in the forest around them, because that’s nature and
you can’t really escape that, but the night is still and warm and the stars are
perfect. If Stiles didn’t know any better, he’d say he was happy— he’d say they
were both happy. But he does know better, and his best friend is in danger and
the world is full of things that want to hurt them and there is always such a
vivid, unhappy potential for them to die at any moment.
Even this one.
So, Stiles takes the horse by the reins and asks the question he and Derek have
been skirting for so long:
“What are we doing, Man?”
“Stargazing,” Derek replies immediately, and Stiles groans.
“No, I mean—”
“I don’t know,” Derek tells him this time, and Stiles turns his head to see
Derek a little better. Derek’s eyes are on the sky above, his face mostly
hidden in the shadows of the night, and he looks very tired.
“Just winging it, then?” Stiles asks, because that’s kind of how he’s felt
about the whole thing. Derek gives a stiff nod, then turns his head to look at
Stiles. The eye contact is awkward but necessary— there’s a wealth of unspoken
things between them.
“Are you—” Derek starts.
“Yeah, I am,” Stiles answers. And it’s true. 
Because he is happy. The world is fucked to hell and they could probably all be
burned to the ground tomorrow. Scott could die or Derek could die or, hell,
even Stiles could die. His mom is already dead, Derek’s whole family is dead
(Stiles decidedly doesn’t think about the gruesome possibility that they might
have died right where he’s laying right now), and nothing is sacred or
protected or guaranteed. But, fuck all of it, he’s happy.
They don’t say anything else on the subject, because the night is warm and the
air is sweet and there’s a sky full of stars above them that they may never get
to see again.
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
It’s near midnight when Stiles texts his dad and says he’s staying at Scott’s
house for the night. It’s 12:15 when his dad replies with Don’t drive Melissa
too crazy, and Stiles doesn’t even feel guilty about the lie. It’s not a bad
lie, really. It’s a Regular Teenager Lie (so: one that doesn’t distort police
investigations). It’s the kind of lie that any sixteen year old kid would tell:
staying at a friends house when he’s really someplace else.
His dad never has to know that Stiles sends the text mid-blow job, his fingers
flying over the keys and hitting send mere seconds before he loses all ability
to focus on anything other than the heat of Derek’s mouth on him, wet and
perfect and exactly the sort of distraction Stiles has been grappling for since
Scott’s phone call hours ago. 
“Christ—” he keens, arching upward, his phone clattering to the floor, and he
fucks into Derek’s mouth once, twice, three times before Derek’s hands press
him down and he sucks Stiles’s cock down to the root. Stiles comes hard, his
orgasm pulled out of him powerfully. He goes slack against the rotting wood
floor of the Hale house and his breaths are heavy heaves brought up from the
very pit of his stomach. Derek pulls off with one last lick that makes Stiles
shudder, too sensitive, and he swats at Derek, who snaps his teeth at Stiles’s
hand.
It’s all playful, and Stiles enjoys every minute of it. 
“So, scale of one to ruined you for all others,” Stiles starts, looking over at
Derek, who’s fallen on the floor beside Stiles gracelessly. “How good am I at
blow jobs?”
Because, before Derek had pushed Stiles to the ground and yanked down his pants
in a very caveman-esque sort of way (read: hot, hot, hot), Stiles had been on
his knees, taking Derek as deep as he could and wanting to take even more.
Derek had sprouted claws when he came, so Stiles figured he’d done good. But
now he wants some real feedback; he has a sneaking suspicion that he might just
be a Blowjob Master. 
But Derek just rolls his eyes before draping an arm over his face lazily.
“No— wait— but really,” Stiles presses on, because irritating Derek is still
Stiles’s favorite passtime. “You gotta tell me, dude, or I’ll never get any
sleep, I’ll just toss and turn and wonder— forever. Actually forever.
Neverending—”
Derek snorts and shoves Stiles, and Stiles laughs and laughs.
Stiles rolls onto his stomach and props his chin on his arms, looking into what
might have once been the living room. He buries his face to sneeze loudly and
grumbles under his breath. He turns his face to look at Derek. Derek’s got an
arm thrown over his face; his t-shirt is rucked up, and his jeans, unbuttoned
and unzipped, are dangerously low on his hips. His chest rises and falls
steadily, and Stiles is glad to be able to watch him.
It’s been three hours since Scott’s phone call, and Stiles still feels anxious
and unhappy in doses, in between the other feelings and in the spaces of the
track in his head that keeps playing the sounds Derek made when Stiles bit at
his neck, dragged his teeth across Derek’s collar bone, and began nipping and
sucking a hot, wet trail down Derek’s stomach. 
“You’re very vocal during sex, you know,” Stiles muses aloud, and Derek exhales
through his nose in a way that’s, like, a distant cousin of scoffing. “No
complaints here, though. Not one.”
Derek moves his arm a fraction to stare at Stiles. In the shadows over his
face, Derek’s eyes are bright and red, and Stiles’s eyebrows shoot up with
surprise. Derek doesn’t seem out of control or on edge enough to want to wolf
out. Maybe, Stiles thinks, it’s something involuntary— like the light-
reflecting. Maybe in absolute darkness, that’s just what happens. 
“Whoa,” he breathes and leans into Derek a bit, whose face contorts in
confusion.
“What?” he asks with utmost suspicion, pulling his head away from Stiles’s
advance. The movement pulls Derek into some light, and the red glow
disappears. 
“No, wait— hold on,” Stiles insists, sitting up and taking Derek’s face in
hands. Derek is clearly displeased, but he humors Stiles when Stiles hovers
over him, casting more shadows there. And— yeah— Derek’s eyes go red again, and
Stiles’s breath catches. “— Nice.”
“What,” Derek’s patience comes to a close, and he pushes Stiles off of him,
looking very peturbed. 
“Sorry, it’s just— your eyes,” Stiles tells him, and Derek raises his brows.
“They’re just really cool.”
“Oh, the—” Derek can’t seem to find a way to finish his sentence, but he’s
caught on and he makes a vague little gesture to his eyes, and Stiles nods
once.
“Yeah, that,” he says, swallowing. He backs off Derek, then, to sit beside him
instead of hanging over him. Derek is quiet, and Stiles chews on the inside of
his cheeks, trying not to feel like what he just did was wrong. The air is
tense and awkward between them for a while, until Stiles feels Derek’s fingers
at the base of his spine, under his shirt, brushing against the skin there.
He exhales, and he almost says something the break the silence when Derek’s
phone does it for them.
The hand on Stiles’s back leaves, and Derek digs in his pocket for the phone.
Stiles is tense, his eyes sharp and bright on Derek’s hand when he flips the
phone open.
“Isaac,” Derek says, and his eyes find Stiles’s for a fraction of a second.
Stiles holds his breath. “Yeah. Okay. Scott—?” Derek’s eyes don’t meet his,
now. Stiles tries to catch his eyes— wills Derek to give some sort of a sign as
to what’s going on, whether Scott’s alright. “Alright. We’ll meet you there.”
He closes the phone with a snap and looks at Stiles. The way Derek clearly
wants to say something butisn’t gives away the bad news immediately, but Stiles
has to hear it— has to hear Derek say the words.
“What’s up? What happened—-?” 
The unspoken question is the only one Stiles really cares about: Is Scott okay?
Derek’s jaw tenses, and he stands and pulls Stiles to his feet. Good thing,
too, because Stiles is incapable of doing anything. He shoves his palms against
Derek’s chest, but Derek is immovable. He finally says:
“Scott’s going to be fine, but we have to get to the animal hospital— Now.”
Stiles nods, his heart hardening in his chest. No time to panic, he tells
himself. No matter how tempting it is.
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
The door’s already been unlocked by— Jackson?
Apparently so, because it’s Jackson who meets them in the lobby, and he’s got a
tick in his jaw. Stiles looks to Derek and mouths Pack things? Derek nods,
once. Erica comes from the back room, her lips red and twisted in a frown, her
hair flat. Something smells like smoke. Stiles doesn’t let her speak.
“Where’s Scott?” he demands, force behind his tone.
Erica’s eyes go from him to Derek, and it occurs to Stiles that she’s asking
permission. Stiles doesn't wait for it to be granted; he repeats himself.
“Damn it, Erica, tell me where the hell Scott is or I swear to God—”
“Come on,” Erica says, her voice softer than Stiles wants it to be.
If she fights him, if she sounds less sad, he’ll know there’s a chance that
Scott’s alright. This way is much harder.
“Don’t freak out," she tells him.
That’s a lost cause and Stiles knows it the minute he steps in the examination
room. On the table is Scott— who is lying on his stomach, his entire back ugly
and charred. Deaton looks up from over him, and his face is somber. Stiles’s
hands shake, and he looks at Isaac, who’s slumped in the back corner, standing,
and Stiles is on him angrily in minutes.
Isaac doesn’t fight him, doesn’t push back when Stiles shoves him into the
corner violently. Isaac keeps his eyes down, and his hands are shaking. Stiles
doesn’t care. Stiles hates— hates so much that it was Isaac who was
there. Stiles should have been there. If Stiles had been there, this never
would have happened— he had trusted Isaac.
“How the hell did you let this happen?” Stiles shouts, his voice loud and
shaking.
Isaac cringes, twitches, but doesn’t meet Stiles’s eyes.
“Look at me, goddammit— how did you let this happen?”
Isaac’s jaw ticks, and he looks away— looks to Erica. Stiles looks at her, too,
but his fingers stay bunched in Isaac’s shirt. If he loosens his grip, his
fingers will shake and he’ll be done for. He clings to Isaac and he clings to
the hate clawing up in his chest because that’s easier than the panic. He can’t
look at Erica for long, because Scott is there— in the middle of the room— and
Stiles can’t see him breathing.
Stiles makes himself let go of Isaac slowly, and he hopes the look he gives him
conveys everything he’s thinking: contempt, disgust, disappointment— all of it.
He takes a place next to the table, looking down at Scott with a choked, bitter
laugh. The burns are ugly, like Derek’s were a week ago, but worse. So much
worse. Scott moans, unconscious. It sounds like death.
“He made us stay behind,” Erica says in a weak voice.
Stiles doesn’t look at her, because he resents her, too. This is her fault,
just like it’s Isaac’s fault. And Scott’s fault. Stiles blames everyone so he
doesn’t have to blame himself, but it doesn’t work because he already blames
himself to most.
“He made us wait while he went in first. There was only one person inside and
she was— she’s a girl. Like, human. Not one of us.”
Stiles looks up.
“What,” he says, no question in his voice.
What the fuck sort of a game had they been playing, showing up at this Alpha
Pack hideout like they were ready? Stiles could have told them a million times
from start to finish, front and back, all of the ways that this had been an
awful idea, if Scott had just told him. But he hadn’t. He’d relied on Isaac and
Erica, and where had that gotten him? 
Grilled, that’s where.
Stiles makes a furious noise. He can’t watch Deaton— who is bent over Scott’s
back, pulling out splinters and rubbing a clear ointment over Scott’s
blistering skin— and he hates everyone else in the room too much to look at
them, either. He focuses on the wall and draws deep, shaking breaths into his
chest. It’s around that time that Boyd comes in the room, entering from a door
to a supply closet.
“She’s awake,” he says, and Stiles looks at him— what?
“Who’s awake?” he asks, and Boyd looks hesitant.
Maybe he caught the crazed look in Stiles’s eyes— the desperation and the fury
and the hate (so much hate) and doesn’t know how to handle it. It’s a long time
before he takes a breath and responds.
“The girl that was in the building when the bomb exploded. She’s here.”
“Alive?” Stiles asks, baffled.
“— Scott protected her,” Isaac finally says from the corner of the room. “He
pushed her down and got on top of her to block her from the explosion. They
were already outside when it happened.”
“Why the hell was she there in the first place?” Stiles demands, repeating
himself when no one gives him an answer. “What, was she selling them girl scout
cookies? Avon calling?” 
It’s ugly, that tone in his voice. It’s mean and cutting, and Stiles knows the
betas don’t deserve it. This is no one’s fault but his own, he thinks, and
that’s the ugliest thought of all. The one that will keep him up, thinking
about this for months and years on end. He’s furious and lit up when Jackson
and Derek step into the room, Derek lingering in the doorway, his eyes on
Stiles.
Stiles wants to tear into him, too, but he doesn’t have the focus for it. Maybe
if he could clear his head and think a little straighter, he could find real
ways to cut Derek, make him bleed. Maybe Stiles could be mean and make himself
feel better— distract himself by hurting someone else. He thinks he can do it;
he thinks he knows Derek well enough. But Derek just looks at him, and he’s
simply looking: nothing on his face. Not even a challenge. Somehow that makes
Stiles more furious than anything thus far, and he tears his fingers over his
scalp to relieve some of that pent-up contempt, if only a little of it.
“We need to figure that out,” Derek says finally, cutting the silence. “We need
to know what she was doing there.”
Deaton speaks up finally, pulling his gloves off in a practiced way to avoid
all of the blood. Stiles tries not to look at him while he does it; the blood
is red and awful and Scott’s. 
“You’re right about that, Derek,” Deaton says in his melodic, soothing
way. That tone wraps around Stiles like a blanket and infuses him with
confidence. It’s short-lived, but the relief from the stress and the anxiety,
if only for a minute, makes his heart hurt less. “And I think I might have
just the way we can find out.”
He turns his unnerving brown eyes of his on Stiles, something like a smile
ghosting its way onto his lips. “But it’s going to be up to you, Stiles.”
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
She’s pretty, Stiles thinks when he sees her for the first time. Her hair is
matted and gross, and her dark skin is wet with sweat, but she’s got a full
mouth and large eyes and when her eyelashes flutter open for the first time,
Stiles sees just how young she is. It’s almost enough to make him feel bad for
her. She’s tied to a folding chair: her hands behind her back and her legs
bound to the front chair legs. When she realizes she’s awake, she pulls at the
zipties and starts trying to yell through her gag. 
“Nice to meet you, too,” he tells her. She glares at him and struggles against
her bindings. “Yeah, good luck with that. You find a way to break a ziptie with
human strength, let me know. In the meantime—”
Stiles steps under the fluorescent light of the storage closet, dragging a
folding chair with him. It clatters and screams a little against the slick
floors, and Stiles catches the wince that crosses the girl’s face. Good. Let
her be intimidated. Stiles deposits himself ungainly upon the chair, and his
eyes are hard and dark when he looks at her. She’s bleeding right where Deaton
told him she’d be. It’s an ugly red patch on the right thigh of her khaki
shorts, and Stiles studies it for a few minutes, until she starts to struggle
again.
“Would you stop that? You’re not going anywhere,” he snaps. “Not yet,anyway.”
He leans back, catlike, and his eyebrows raise slightly as he takes her in - a
silent challenge in the lines of his face. He’s the powerful one here, and they
both know it. She doesn’t struggle, but she narrows her eyes all the more.
Whatever. Stiles has things to do.
“Now, there’s an easy way and a hard way to do this,” he tells her. “Neither
way is exactly pleasant, but the nightmares will be easier to handle of you do
things my way. Trust me.”
She stills. Stiles has just promised her that she’ll have nightmares, which
means she’ll be walking out of this alive. Stiles lets that sink in for a
minute before he shifts in his seat and carries on.
“My boy Scott saved your ass, because that’s just the way he is,” Stiles tells
her. “His hero complex is bigger than his brain, okay? He wouldn’t like this,
what I’m doing here. He’s the nice guy. Unfortunately for you,” Stiles stops
and leans in, his eyes never leaving hers as he does so, “I’m not so nice. And—
your buddies? Yeah, those fuckwits have nearly killed two people in my life.
Not one— two. Two people who are easily worth ten thousand of you— each. And,
one way or another, I’m going to stop your mutts from trying again. Know how
I’m gonna do that?”
She’s quiet and unmoving until she shakes her head slowly. Stiles nods and
reaches into his pocket, pulling a vial out. He holds it out for her to see,
held by his forefinger and thumb. She looks at it for a while before her eyes
find Stiles’s again, a question there.
“See this? It’s actually pretty cool. It’s a mix of werewolf blood, their
saliva, and a particularly potent breed of wolfsbane. Gonna go ahead and assume
you know all about wolfsbane by now, seeing as you were staying with a freaking
Alpha Pack and all, so no explanation necessary. This stuff is a perfect storm
of things that don’t belong together, and do you know what it does?”
She shakes her head again. 
“It heals us— humans. That’s the whole purpose. It actually forces our body to
heal itself: temporarily mixes our blood with theirs, while the wolfsbane keeps
us from… undesirably furry consequences. We only use one hundred percent fresh
Alpha fluids, after all. We care about quality. None of that beta bullshit,
here.” The grin on his lips is rueful, and he can see that he has her attention
fully now. 
“Unfortunately, there are some side effects to having such a neat trick up our
sleeves. You can thank the wolfsbane for that. And, seriously— trust me, these
side effects? They suck. Not weight gain or heart conditions— ha, you wish.
That’d be nice, compared to what this stuff does. This stuff? It crawls in your
head, fucks with you. Makes you see and hear and believe things that don’t
exist. I know all about it, because I was the test subject.”
At that, she looks horrified. Good. She should be.
“Sometimes I’m half-convinced that none of this is real. Like I’ve hallucinated
the two months, and any minute now I’m going to wake up sweating in my bed with
memories that never happened.” 
Which is true.
“Now, here’s how we’re gonna do this. You let me know everything I want to know
first, and then I give you this stuff and make the healing experience as
comfortable and easy as possible for you.” He watches her, lets her consider
what he’s saying. “Or you keep your mouth shut, in which case I’ll give you
this stuff right now and use your hallucinations against you to pull
every—damn—last—thing that I want to know out of your head. You might live to
die of old age, sure. You might have a family and a career and all of the good
things life could ever offer, too. But, so help me God, if you don’t do this
the easy way, I will make sure you wake up every night from now until your
dying day, screaming your way out of a nightmare.”
He lets the silence that follows his words stretch on for a long time, his eyes
hard on hers. She looks away first; he doesn’t stop staring. Seconds later,
when she looks back up, his eyes are still there. She retreats into herself
under his gaze, until, slowly, she nods.
“Easy way?” he asks, and she nods again. “Smart. I was hoping you’d say that.”
He leans forward far enough that he can reach out and pull the gag from her
mouth, and she gasps, sucking in air greedily. Stiles gives her a minute and
doesn’t speak until she meets his eyes. 
“What’s your name?”
“Abby Mangrum,” she tells him, her voice wrecked and awful. She sounds pained,
scared.
“Alright, Abby. Why don’t you tell me what you were doing hanging out with the
Alpha Pack?”
She tells her story as quickly as she can and in between whines and moans and,
once, to beg Stiles cut the zip ties. It all goes back to her little brother,
she tells him. He was bit three months ago, and they’ve been searching for a
cure, desperately, ever since. Abby did some research of old myths and then did
some digging into real life reports of werewolves. That had lead her to Dr.
Fenris’s lectures on the matter, so she had come out to Beacon Hills, solo,
looking for him. Instead, she’d found the Alpha Pack. Or, more accurately, the
Alpha Pack had found her.
“They— they kept me there, in that house, for ten weeks.” 
“Why?”
“I— I don’t know. They’re doing— something. They kept us all in a room on the
top floor.”
“They’ve been keeping humans?” Stiles asks, horrified. “Why?”
“I— I don’t know,” she chokes out, and Stiles believes her. “They only brought
me out few times, and only to clean and stuff. I don’t even know what their
faces look like, really. I just— I only saw one man, and he wasn’t even—” 
She needs time to collect her breath, and Stiles waits until he can wait no
longer. “He wasn’t even what, Abby?”
She looks at him, shakes her head, and draws a breath. “He wasn’t one of them.
He just wanted to be. He came in every full moon and told them things. I don’t
know what, but I could hear them laughing through the floors. They like him,
want him to be with them.”
Stiles tries to process this information and bites the inside of his cheek.
“What’s the hold up? Why don’t they just make him one of them?”
Abby shudders involuntarily, and Stiles’s eyes fall on the wound on her thigh.
Their interview is going to have to come to an end soon, or she’ll get
seriously sick. Stiles is patient in ways he’s never known himself to be,
sitting through the silence that stretches in front of him and Abby until she
decides to end it. Her eyes find his, and, a world of meaning in her stare. 
“He’s not an alpha. Not yet.”
Stiles jerks. Not yet has a world of implications that he refuses to think
about. He’s on his feet before he can stop himself, throwing the chair back. It
hits the floor noisily, and Abby jumps. Stiles tries to sort all of the new
information out as best he can, but he has to stop himself early on in favor of
kneeling in front of Abby.
“Last question, then we can get you healed,” he tells her, his voice soft—
softer than it’s been for hours now. “Why did they leave you behind? They took
the others, I guess, but not you. Why?”
Her expression crumbles, and she looks like she might cry. There’s a quiver in
her chin and she has to close her eyes for a few moments to breathe before she
answers.
“They said— they said he’d come inside if he heard a human heartbeat waiting
for him.” 
Stiles swallows, his throat dry and his heart in the pit of his stomach. It’s
official, he thinks bitterly. Scott was set up— someone had straight up played
his best friend. Only one question left: who? But Abby doesn’t know— she’d
already told Stiles as much several times over, and, God help him, he believed
her. He looks up at her now, his expression open and sad.
“Thanks,” he tells her. “I’m really sorry for what’s about to happen to you, by
the way. It’s not going to be easy.”
She nods. “But it won’t be bad, right? Not— not really bad. Because I helped,
it won’t be bad, right?”
Stiles draws a breath. He sort of mislead Abby on that one, and now he feels
guilty. Instead of answering her, Stiles pushes up the leg of her shorts. He
decidedly doesn’t think about how gross the wound is when he pours the thick
mixture from the vial onto it. A long time passes before he feels brave enough
to meet Abby’s gaze.
“It’s gonna be bad,” he tells her. “But we can make you comfortable-- make it
not so scary.”
She looks terrified and so, so young. Stiles wonders if he looks old to her,
aged by trials and tribulations no sixteen year old should have to endure.
Stiles leaves and comes back with a pair of scissors, and he cuts Abby’s
bindings.
“Come on,” he tells her. “You’re gonna wanna lay down for this.”
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Scott glares at Stiles when Stiles tries to spoonfeed him. 
Okay, so maybe the choo choo here comes the train thing might have been a bit
patronizing, but Stiles couldn’t resist. Scott shoves him, and the soup jostles
and nearly spills all over Stiles’s lap.
“Whoa, Man!” Stiles chokes out. “This stuff is hot, you know. You almost killed
my junk, there. Ruined by soup.”
Scott rolls his eyes and then says something that makes Stiles’s blood run
cold:
“Worried about what Derek would think?”
Stiles gapes at him, his jaw slack and his mind completely blank. He has no way
of dodging that, no way of defending himself. Scott does this, sometimes. He
plays dumb for a really, really long time— and then he turns around all wise
and knowing. It fucks with Stiles’s head every time. 
“— Dude, you okay?” Scott asks after a while, taking the soup from Stiles’s
shaking fingers. Stiles blinks, heavy, trying to reorient himself.
“I— I don’t—” Stiles tries, shaking his head like he can’t believe what’s
happening to him. Scott laughs.
“Man, I’m not stupid. Give me some credit.”
“It’s not that—” Stiles hurries to say. “I just— it hasn’t been, you know,
going on. For long.”
Scott raises his eyebrows and laughs, surprised. “What? Yes it has, Man.
Like— months.”
“A month and a half, tops,” Stiles argues. Scott gives him a Taking No Bullshit
sort of look, and Stiles buries his face in his hands, mortified.
“God, smite me where I stand,” he groans. “This is miserable. You suck.”
“I mean, I guess you finally know the answer.”
Stiles can’t parse that one out, not even when he looks at Scott for several
long minutes. Scott grins like an asshole, and Stiles doesn’t like where this
is going one bit.
“You are attractive to gay guys.”
“Oh my God, shut u—-” Stiles starts to beg before Scott’s words sink in. “Holy
God,” he says after a beat. “You’re right. And not just to any guy— to Derek
freaking Hale who’s, like, the freaking standard by which all others are
compared. Jesus.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Scott grumbles. “Congratulations. Now do me a favor and nevertell
me about your sex life.”
“That is so unfair and you know it,” Stiles bitches. “You used to tell me about
having sex with Allison in vivid detail. I couldn’t look her in the eye for,
like, three days after you got your first blow job. Three days, dude!”
A stupid grin takes over Scott’s face, and his eyes get kind of distant. Stiles
smacks Scott's leg-- hard.
“What!” Scott cries, indignant.
“You’re thinking about it right now, aren’t you!” Stiles snaps back.
Scott’s dopey grin speaks for itself, and Stiles rolls his eyes. 
“It’sdifferent, though,” Scott tells Stiles. “You and Derek, that’s like. You
know I don’t care if you’re gay, Man, but—”
“Equal opportunist, I think,” Stiles interjects. “But go on.”
“— I just. Derek, Man. Derek.”
Stiles grins, and Scott pulls a face. 
“Dude, no. Tell me you’re not thinking about sex with Derek while
you’re sitting on my bed.”
“You bet your ass I am. Stiles is finally experiencing all of the good that
life has to offer in all of the positions that life has to offer, and you’re
going to listen to me while I brag. Hell yes you are.”
Scott groans and sets the soup on his bedside table like he’s lost his
appetite. He looks at Stiles with some sort of hesistation and he says:
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not exactly— happy about it. What about Lydia? What
about the fifteen-year plan?”
Stiles sucks in a breath and studies the door, trying to figure out the best
way to say what he wants to say. He’s not exactly sure how much he wants to
tell Scott— how deep he wants this to go. He tries to think of something safe
and doesn’t make it sound like it’s too much, but if it’s too shallow-sounding,
Scott will get all over protective or whatever.
“I don’t know, dude,” Stiles sighs finally. “Lydia— Lydia’s my girl. I’ll
probably always love her. But Derek. It’s different with him.”
“Just because you’re actually getting some?” Scott says, and Stiles can see the
disapproval rising to his friend’s face.  He shakes his head.
“No,” he says slowly. “Well, maybe. That’s probably some of it. But it’s— you
know. More.”
It’s uncomfortable to say. Stiles is a sixteen year old boy, and words don’t
come easy to him. There’s a lot to be said about silent communication, he
thinks, and it’s an art that a lot of people in his life could take a few
lessons in. Not Derek, though. Derek’s possibly the only person on earth who
enjoys honest communication less than Stiles. 
“Well,” Scott says finally. “If you’re happy, I guess. It’s weird as balls.
But, if you’re happy, I’m happy. I guess.”
Stiles thinks of that night in Derek's courtyard: the stars in the sky, the
ground soft under his back, the realization that, yes, he was happy. Happier
than he’d been in a long, long time. Happy to have something that was his and
no one else’s. Happy to be a part of something so much bigger than him. 
“Yeah, thanks Man,” Stiles says, leaning over Scott to grab the soup off the
stand. “Now open wide, dumbass, you’re gonna need your energy before the next
full moon if you don’t want to rip all of those ugly ass scars open again when
you change.”
“God, shut up, Mom,” Scott groans and snatches the bowl back. 
Stiles laughs.
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
The last full moon of summer break is a blue moon. 
Stiles pulls up to the Hale house, his heart loud in his ears. He hasn’t seen
Derek since that night at the animal clinic. There’s been radio silence between
them while Stiles has tended to Scott, and Derek has been following up on all
of the information from Abby. Scott makes a noise by Stiles’s side. 
“It’s gonna be alright, buddy,” Stiles tells Scott, who looks at him with
utmost disbelief. 
“Easy for you to say,” he says, not meanly. “You aren't forced to transform
into a bloodthirsty monster against your will.”
Stiles thinks of a joke he heard once and says, “You getting your period or
something?” Scott makes a face; Stiles laughs. “Come on, you’ve always got me,
remember? And I’m basically an expert at this by now. You’ll be fine.”
He says it, but he’s as anxious as Scott. Scott still doesn’t have his Wolfman
powers strapped down, and he’s not exactly healed. He’s tired and scarred, and
he doesn’t sit with his back against the seat in the jeep; he's leaning forward
instead. 
“Okay,” Scott says, resolve in his tone. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Aye aye, Cap’n,” Stiles agrees and hops out of the jeep.
It’s easier, this time around. Stiles doesn’t seek out Derek, but they do catch
the betas on their way down to the cells who ask Scott about how he’s doing.
All three of them avoid Stiles’s eyes. It makes Stiles feel a little guilty,
but he’s never been particularly close to any of them, anyway. Not like there
was much trust there to lose. They’re all tense, like they can feel something
coming— something that’s setting them on edge.
“I don’t like it,” Boyd says finally. “I feel like we’re being set up for
something. Something bigger and badder.”
Stiles can’t help but agree. “Like hell’s about to come down on us like the
angry fist of God.”
“Yeah.”
It’s something that’s been eating away at Stiles for a while now— this strange
peace time they’ve had. They’ve made it past the first few attacks by the alpha
pack— but what now? School starts in days, and Stiles feels like the end of
summer comes with the end of some great truce between them and the universe.
Like something awful is coming, and all they can do is wait for it to come
knocking, like sitting ducks. 
“Well, then,” Erica says, just as they’re stopping outside of the cells, each
of the betas going to their individual doors. “Let’s get ready for it.”
“Easier said than done,” Isaac scoffs, but there’s a smirk tugging at his face-
- a challenge, almost.
“If we can’t be ready,” she says in response, throwing a blonde curl over her
shoulder and looking at Boyd in a way that Stiles can’t read (he’s no Erica
Expert, after all). “Let’s enjoy ourselves while we still can.”
Scott looks like he’s bitten into something sour. Stiles sighs next to him.
It’s a romantic notion, really, but not one that keeps them all alive and well,
and Stiles wants alive and well. Stiles wants alive and well for a long, long
time. 
“Whatever this is,” Scott says in his Hero voice, “we’ll be ready. And we’ll
win.”
“How can you be so sure?” Isaac asks, and Stiles snorts.
Stiles knows what Scott’s going to say before Scott says it. Of course he does.
He’s Scott’s best friend, partner in crime, brother. He knows.
“Because we have to,” Scott says.
 
                              - - - - - - - - - -
Derek’s in the courtyard when Stiles comes up from locking the betas in. He’s
lying down again, his eyes open. In the light of the blue moon, he looks pale
and clean and perfect, and Stiles walks to him with a certainty that he’s
lacked for sixteen years of his life. He looks down at Derek, his hands buried
in the pockets of his red sweatshirt, and a smile plays with the corners of his
lips.
“Not gonna check my handiwork this time?” he asks, and Derek snorts.
“If they break out, it’s your problem.”
“Awesome, I’m looking forward to being brutally maimed.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
Stiles doesn’t say anything, but he does sit down in the grass beside Derek. He
turns his chin up and inspects the night sky with a discerning eye. A lot of
time passes, and the moon climbs high before they speak again.
“I think it’s Peter,” Stiles says. “She said he always came by on full moons,
and he’s always gone— boom, there’s your answer.”
“You say that because you hate Peter.”
“Uh, yeah? Everybody should hate Peter. Peter sucks.”
“She met him and liked him,” Derek says with a quirk of his lips. He finds
Stiles’s eyes and says, “He told her he liked her shirt.”
“That’s cheating, you can’t flirt with the witness,” Stiles pouts, and Derek
snorts. Stiles’s smile is a little more earnest, then, less hesitant. He looks
down at Derek and thinks about how strange it is that this is where they are—
still picking at each other, still capable of annoying the fuck out of each
other, and yet so much more.
“Well, what do we know?” Stiles asks.
Derek shrugs. “We know we’re all alive.”
“Awesome, that’s going to be so helpful going into this.”
“You asked,” Derek sighs, and he shifts his head so it’s pressed against
Stiles’s folded knee. Stiles takes the opportunity to card his fingers through
Derek’s hair.
“Good boy,” he teases, and Derek jerks his head away and glares up at Stiles
visciously.
“The dog jokes need to stop,” he says— an echo of the conversation they had
here a lifetime ago.
“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Stiles mocks. He scoots closer to Derek and
runs his fingers through his hair again, giving himself this moment of
intimacy— this gesture of affection. It’s an unspoken thing between them, and
that’s how Stiles likes it. The silence is a security, something that protects
them both. From what, Stiles doesn’t know, but it’s too soon. This thing
between him and Derek is too new and too fragile to talk about.
But he likes it, and he wants to keep it as his very own.
He shifts and spreads his legs, pulling Derek closer to him, into the vee of
his thighs. Derek goes easily, not resisting. He rests his head on Stiles’s
abdomen, and Stiles keeps his fingers running through Derek’s hair. Derek
closes his eyes, and they resume their comfortable silence. 
“So, uh,” Stiles shifts, remembering that he has something to tell Derek.
Something awkward. “Scott knows.”
Derek tilts his head back against Stiles’s stomach to look up at him. Stiles
holds his breath and waits, but Derek just says, “And?”
Stiles shrugs. “He’s cool.”
Derek nods once and relaxes against Stiles again. “And you?” Derek asks,
keeping his eyes away from Stiles’s. It looks like a natural thing, but Stiles
knows it’s deliberate, that Derek’s purposefully not meeting his gaze.
Stiles pauses, considers, then says, “I’m cool, too.”
“Alright, then,” Derek says stiffly.
Stiles is filled with that bizarre sense of affection-- that strange feeling
that tugs at his heart and makes him so happy he almost feels sad. He rests his
hands on the ground behind him and leans back, studies the way the light moves
over his sweatshirt with every shift. And then he laughs.
“What?” Derek asks, and Stiles leans forward, over Derek’s head, and pulls up
his hood.
“Look,” he says, and Derek does so. “I’m Red Riding Hood.”
Derek groans and shoves Stiles away so he can sit up. “That— you’re an idiot.”
“No, come on, we can totally work that into sex. It’ll be great,” Stiles says.
“Go with me on this— you’ll be the big, bad wolf and I’ll—” Derek triest to cut
him off with a kiss, but Stiles laughs against his lips.  
“Just shut up,” Derek mutters, looking distressed that his kiss didn’t do the
trick.
“Not on your life, Wolf Boy,” Stiles throws back, and Derek rolls his eyes.
“You wouldn’t want me any other way.”
“What makes you sure I want you this way?” Derek asks, raising his eyebrows. 
Stiles taps his temple. “I’m in your head, Big Guy. You’ll never get rid of me
now. You’re stuck with me.”
“I should have died in that car,” Derek huffs and throws himself back on the
ground, but he wraps a hand around Stiles’s wrist and pulls him down, too, and
Stiles meets Derek’s lips in a searing kiss.
He doesn’t laugh during this one.
It’s slow like the first kiss they shared. Like a natural progression,
something that makes sense. Derek’s lips are warm and wet under Stiles’s, and
when Derek licks his way into Stiles’s mouth, Stiles falls apart for him
easily. Stiles sucks on Derek’s tongue, and he grins when Derek groans deep and
low in his chest. 
One of Derek’s hands finds its way to the back of Stiles’s head, pulling Stiles
deeper, closer. Derek leans upwards, increasing the pressure of his lips, his
jaw moving as he nips and sucks at Stiles’s mouth. It’s good— so, so good— and
Stiles feels the sensation shoot to his toes, lighting every nerve between his
lips and feet on fire. It makes him dizzy, so he pulls back, forces his lips
away from Derek’s before he forgets his own damn name or something.
He runs his lips down Derek’s neck, and Derek throws his head back and hisses
at the sensation. 
Stiles likes that even more than Derek’s scowl, likes making Derek fall apart
like this the same way he always liked pissing Derek off before. Maybe that’s
related— maybe that’s the secret of the two of them. Maybe they’ve always been
able to do this, claw under each others’ skin and cut.
“Jesus,” Stiles moans into Derek’s neck, already desperate to feel Derek’s skin
against his own. He can’t usher Derek’s leather jacket off of him fast enough.
When Derek sits up to help shrug it off, he reclaims Stiles’s lips in a kiss
more desperate than any they’ve shared before. The noise Stiles makes is
definitely a whine— no way out of that.
Derek lays back down for him, and Stiles insinuates one of his knees between
Derek’s. He’s surprised at how complacent Derek is, how he lets Stiles take the
reins and go. Somewhere, in the back of Stiles’s mind, he always thought Derek
would want the control. Stiles doesn’t say anything about it, too happy to kiss
his way down to Derek’s stomach. Derek grunts when Stiles’s thumb brushes
against one of his nipples, and Stiles does it again. The grunt, this time,
sounds more like a groan. Stiles grins, licks into Derek’s belly button a
little bit, and Derek swats at him.
Stiles snaps his teeth playfully at Derek’s hand. He doesn’t say anything—
But this feels like trust. 
“Stiles,” Derek says, and Stiles pauses to look up at Derek, his mouth still
open, his eyes wide and pupils blown.
“Wha—?” he asks, and the word drags his bottom lip across Derek’s happy trail.
Derek’s eyes roll back a little, and he shakes his head.
“Nevermind— don’t stop.”
Stiles doesn’t need to be told twice, but the grin that splits his face makes
the next kiss he plants on Derek’s hot skin sloppy. He appreciates the way
Derek’s body twitches under him, comes to life. Stiles makes quick work of the
button and zipper of Derek’s jeans.
He likes the way Derek doesn’t wear underwear. Thinks it makes him a little bit
wild, like he’s ready at any minute to shift into the wolf that lives in his
bones and blood. Stiles sucks at the soft skin of Derek’s inner hip. Derek
arches into his mouth, and his fingers dig into the soft soil under them. He
makes a choked noise. Stiles pulls back, examines the bright, wet bruise he’s
made. He watches it fade away, from the outside in, and groans, turned on like
never before.
Because Stiles is sixteen, and Derek’s body is the coolest thing in the entire
world— Stiles’s very own Creature of the Night.  And Stiles gets to do this to
him: gets to suck bruises into Derek's skin and watch them fade away, gets to
appreciate every detail, every awesome gift of Derek’s, even the tiniest ones
like this— like being able to erase hickies. He doesn’t think of Kate, not
really, but if he did, he’d wonder if anyone has ever treated Derek like the
awesome myth he is. Maybe no one has. Maybe everyone’ s kicked him in the balls
and called him a freak and lit his house on fire as punishment for something
Derek never chose.
Stiles sucks those bruises into Derek’s skin and watches them be swallowed into
Derek’s body— sinking somewhere deep and out of sight and maybe more permanent
in the long run. It makes Stiles harder than he’s ever been in his life.  He
sits back and shrugs off the hoodie before crawling for real between Derek’s
legs. Derek looks up at him with those wild eyes of his, which are cool even
when they’re not all Alphaed out —
Not that Stiles would ever, ever, ever say that to Derek. But the moon is
bright and they’re alive, so he allows himself to think it now because it feels
significant-- feels like a first and last chance, and Stiles seizes it with
gusto and thinks, thinks, thinks yes, Derek’s eyes are cool just like the stars
and the moon and all of that romantic bullshit.
— and Stiles kisses him once, twice, three times. Derek opens his mouth, tries
to coerce Stiles into something deeper, but Stiles denies him each time. Derek
gives up with a frustrated noise, and Stiles laughs lightly, nosing his way
down Derek’s neck again. His hands brush over Derek’s chest, his blunt nails
scratching there, making lines like jets in the sky. They fade just the same,
and Stiles watches, leaned back and away, taking in the image of Derek.
His fingers catch on the loops of Derek’s jeans, and he looks up at Derek,
wondering if he’ll find any resistance there.
But Derek’s head is thrown back, every muscle in his body taut and shaking, and
he’s hard under Stiles’s hands. Stiles only hesitates a moment before he tugs
Derek’s jeans down. Derek’s cock is flushed and lies hard against Derek’s
stomach. Stiles sucks in a breath that catches in his chest and does funny
things to him. He leans back down over Derek and sucks at his Adam’s apple, and
a gutteral noise sounds in the back of Derek’s throat.
Stiles hums, approving, against Derek’s neck, and takes Derek’s cock in hand.
Derek swallows, and Stiles has to trace the hard vein in Derek’s neck with his
tongue or he’s going to die. So he does, and Derek finally releases the earth
beneath them in favor for touching Stiles. He tugs at Stiles’s shirt, and it’s
the first time that Stiles has noticed himself instead of Derek.
He sits back on his knees and tugs his shirts off over his head, but before he
can come back down, Derek’s mouth is against his neck, hot and wet and
insistant, and Stiles wraps his arms around Derek’s shoulders before he loses
his precarious balance. Derek is strong and solid, and Stiles seeks out his
mouth hungrily, desperate.
When they kiss, their teeth clash.
Derek pulls his mouth off of Stiles’s after a long while, and he starts to kiss
his way over Stiles’s face towards his neck, following some map that Stiles
doesn’t quite get. He feels out of his depth, suddenly, like this is too much,
too much, with his arms around Derek’s shoulders, clawing at the perfect,
smooth skin there, and his chest seizes at the sensation. It feels like panic. 
Stiles shoves that down, and he shoves Derek back down, too. Derek hits the
ground with a huff of air and looks up at Stiles hungrily. 
“Stiles,” he manages to choke out, and Stiles nods, understanding.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Stiles says, and he toes off his shoes, pulls off Derek’s
boots, and their jeans are off quicker than Stiles thought himself capable of
moving. “Jesus. You’re awesome.”
Because "awesome" is an easy word to say. "Awesome" is safe. 
Derek huffs a laugh and rolls his eyes, “Awesome. High schooler.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” Stiles snaps back. “Thou arst something of
awe?”
Derek laughs outright at that, and Stiles marvels in the sound, thrown by it.
He made that, he thinks. That sound was for him, for something he did. He’s not
sure what to do, so he kisses Derek quick and lasting, and then pushes himself
down, wants to taste Derek, wants to make Derek make more sounds Stiles has
never heard.
He runs his nose down the inside of Derek’s thighs, and he smells like sweat
and sex and Derek. Stiles doesn’t know whose groan he hears, his or Derek’s,
but it fills his ears and it sounds like his heartbeat. Stiles moves up and
takes the head of Derek’s cock in his mouth, imagines Derek throwing his head
back, sees Derek’s hands fist in the ground again, tearing at the earth.
Stiles sucks him deep, runs his tongue along the vein of Derek’s cock. He can
taste Derek’s precome, wants to taste so much more. He wraps a hand around the
base of Derek’s cock and begins to pump, slow and steadily, his fist and mouth
working Derek to a frenzy. Derek lets out an honest-to-god moan, and the way he
says Stiles’s name sounds fucking reverent. 
Stiles never wants to hear anyone else say his name again. Maybe he’ll tell
Derek his first name, maybe he’ll let Derek say that in a filthy, wrecked
voice. 
His other hand— the one not fisted around Derek’s cock— rubs gently at Derek’s
balls, encouraging. They’re soft and weighted in Stiles’s palms when he cups
them, and his fingers brush between Derek’s cheeks. Derek cries out, bucking
into Stiles’s mouth when Stiles presses the pads of one of his fingers against
Derek’s tight hole, and Derek comes and comes, hot and bitter down Stiles’s
throat.
Stiles pulls off quickly, his cheeks flushed and his lips swollen. He thumbs a
wayward bit of cum into his mouth, sucking it off his finger wetly. Derek
groans and claws at him, pulls him down and kisses him deep enough that he can
taste himself. Stiles practically purrs against him, loves the feel of their
sweat-slicked skin meeting. 
“I want—” Derek bites out, but can’t make himself say more. It’s a good thing
Stiles has been learning how to read Derek since day one, that he’s been
subconsciously training for this shit since he first saw Derek Hale in the
woods months ago.
Hell, maybe since he saw Derek in the hospital years ago and recognized that
hollow look in this eyes.
He nods and says, “Yeah, I know.”
He reaches over for his hoodie, and, unable to resist, he says, “Let’s see what
Red’s got in his basket, yeah?” Derek groans and shoves at him half-heartedly,
and Stiles snorts. “Vicious werewolf here, ladies and gentleman.”
“About to be if you don’t stop talking,” Derek threatens. Stiles laughs and
pulls the packet of lube out of his hoodie pocket. He looks down at Derek. He’s
not going to be that guy who’s all are you sure because that’s just ridiculous.
But he does raise his eyebrows at Derek, who swallows, his eyes going to the
lube that Stiles is holding.
Derek nods once, stiffly, and Stiles kisses him.
He tears the lube open with his teeth, and some spreads on his jaw. “Damn it,”
he curses, and Derek huffs a laugh and thumbs it away as best he can.
Stiles looks up, catches Derek’s eyes. It’s a tender gesture, Derek’s thumb
rubbing against Stiles’s jaw, and Stiles is wary of it at first, but he leans
into it. Derek pulls away. They say nothing. 
Before slicking his fingers, Stiles reaches— all awkward limbs— and gathers his
hoodie. He bundles it up and gesutres for Derek to shift his hips. Derek bends
his knees, plants his feet, and his hips rise erotically, his abs fluttering.
Stiles slides the hoodie under him, and Derek lowers himself back down on it,
leaving his legs bent. Stiles slicks his fingers and runs them down, traces
Derek’s balls, before finding Derek’s hole again.
He bites back a moan, and Derek’s eyes flash when Stiles presses into him. 
Stiles grins. “Damn right,” he gloats. “Feel free to wolf out as much as you’d
like. Well, not as much as you’d like. I don’t want to get torn to shreds
here.”
Derek looks like he’s going to bite through his own fucking jaw, he’s gritting
his teeth so hard, so how he manages to speak Stiles doesn’t know, but he does,
and he says, “Stiles, shut up and go.”
Stiles huffs indignantly and mutters, “Bossy bastard,” but he does. Carefully,
he works to stretch Derek, slipping knuckle-deep slowly but surely. Derek feels
perfect— hot and tight, squeezing Stiles hard. Stiles continues to stretch
Derek carefully, but he leans down to kiss the center of Derek’s chest.
“You alright, Man?” he asks, because being more gentle than that would be too
much, would give away too much of him.
But Derek releaxes, anyway, seems to hear the genuine concern in Stiles’s
voice, and it makes it easier for Stiles, makes it easier for them both. Derek
groans, and his body gives slowly. It’s a long time before he’s ready for a
second finger, and Stiles is generous with the lube this time. 
Derek’s breath catches in his chest, and Stiles licks at the sweat that builds
at the base of his throat. Stiles is hard— harder than he can ever remember
being— but he can’t think about it when Derek’s laid out in front of him,
twitching and flexing and falling apart. Derek, who Stiles thought was all
break and no bend, stretches for him, making a place for Stiles inside of him,
and Stiles can’t think, can barely function over the sound of his own heart in
his ears.
Derek is never silent by the time Stiles has three fingers in him, he says
Stiles’s name over and over and over like a prayer, like a swear. Stiles’s hand
shakes, and he tells himself to be slow, to be careful, to be considerate. He
tells himself that this is going to take time, more time, but he’s drunk off of
the smell and taste of Derek, can still feel the weight of Derek’s dick against
his tongue, and he’s worried he might come right then, with three fingers in
Derek’s ass, because Stiles’s life is just awkward and unfortunate enough for
it to happen.
Derek makes a noise and shoves himself down on Stiles’s fingers, and they both
swear at that.
“Stiles— now,” Derek tells him, and that’s all Stiles needs. He doesn’t have
the control to draw this out any longer, to deny them any further. He fumbles
for his jeans, pulls out his wallet, and takes out a condom. He opens it with
his mouth, too. 
He rolls the condom on, then reaches for some more lube. He’s generous with it
again, slicking himself up even though the condom's already lubricated. He
tries not to notice the way Derek’s eyes flash, the way he looks at Stiles like
he wants to devour him. Stiles lines himself up, and he and Derek share a long
look before he begins to press in, slowly.
He starts to swear and can’t stop himself, and Derek’s fingers go all the way
to his knuckles in the soft soil under them. His eyes are red— bright and
shocking— and Stiles mouths at Derek’s jaw absently, trying to think of
anything— baseball, his dad, Finstock, Harris, detentions, Gerard Argent,
Gerard Argent and Finstock in the locker rooms— to distract himself, to make
sure he doesn’t mess this up.
“Jesusfuckshit,” he groans when he bottoms out, and Derek is still, his knees
bent, his eyes squeezed closed. “Derek— you’re— God. Fuck.” 
Derek just nods emphatically.
They stay like that for a while so Derek can adjust to the feel of Stiles in
him, and Stiles is glad not to move. He holds himself up on his hands beside
Derek’s shoulders, and sweat runs down his back and beads on his forehead. He
rubs it against Derek’s shoulder, then licks it off. Derek groans.
“You good?” Stiles asks when Derek hooks a leg around one of his. 
Derek nods once. “Yeah.” 
Stiles kisses him quickly, and tries rolling his hips. They both groan.
“Oh, God, this is going to be over so fast,” Stiles complains. “I’m apologizing
now so you can’t get mad at me later.”
“Stiles,” Derek bites out, sounding wrecked, “I don’t care— just move.”
Stiles doesn’t say anything else, he just moves his hips, thrusting into Derek
shallowly, testing. Derek throws his head back again and his hands come up from
the dirt and wrap over Stiles’s shoulders, messy. There’s no claws there, not
yet, but Derek digs his blunt fingernails into Stiles’s shoulders. The sting is
perfect— gives Stiles something to focus on— and Stiles begins to thrust in
earnest.
His fucks into Derek methodically, trying to find a perfect angle, secrely
wanting to make Derek growl or cry or do something particularly outrageous.
Derek’s wanton, raises his hips to meet Stiles’s thrusts, claws at Stiles’s
back, hissing through gritted teeth when they get the rhythm right. But when
Stiles finds it— finds the angle that does it best— Derek’s jaw goes slack and
he sucks in a deep breath and fucking mewls.
And something inside of Stiles snaps.
His hips slam into Derek, who is hard again between them, leaking and ready,
and Stiles has to make Derek make that noise again or he’ll go fucking insane.
He claws at Derek’s thighs, hitches them up on his hips, and fucks into Derek
with all of the strength he can muster. Derek whines and cries and, fuck yes,
mewls like a fucking kitten. His hands on Stiles’s shoulders tense, and Stiles
can feel the claws when they press into his skin.
Stiles looks up, something dangerous in his eyes, and says, “Do it, fucking do
it.”
Derek hisses, and his claws dig into Stiles’s shoulders. Stiles cries out, the
pain searing and awful, but his hips slam into Derek’s, and he wraps a hand
around Derek’s cock, needing Derek to come, needing to come himself like he’s
never needed to come in his life.
Two, three, four pumps of Derek’s cock, and Derek is coming between them, wet
and hot and— yes, yes, yes.
“Stiles— yeah, God,” Derek chokes out, and then Stiles is coming hard, his
vision going white, his toes curling and everything in his body including his
heart and his breath stopping.
He falls against Derek because he can, and they breathe together, panting in
the warm night air, their sweat and Derek’s come drying between them. Stiles
doesn’t say anything, but this feels like something he’s not quite ready to
name yet. He pulls out of Derek, and they both make a noise at the loss. 
“Fuck,” Stiles says after almost twenty minutes of silence. 
Derek makes an affirmative noise in the back of his throat, and Stiles rubs his
nose against Derek’s neck, knocks his ankle against Derek’s. A matching set,
indeed. Derek brushes a hand over Stiles’s head. 
Stiles falls asleep for a little while— maybe half an hour? Possibly more,
probably less.
When he wakes up, he’s on his side, curled into Derek’s shoulder, Derek’s arm
under his head and wrapped around him. Derek’s awake, his thumb tracing the
deep cuts he made in Stiles’s shoulders.
“That was stupid,” he tells Stiles, and Stiles yawns.
“Whatever, I’ll do worse to you when you top,” he says sleepily. Derek snorts,
but he brushes his nose against Stiles’s forehead affectionately.
But, wait. He’s seen a lot of porn and— worse— he’s read a lot of biology
books, and there are some things he needs to get straightened before Derek
tops.
“Do you have a knot?” he asks, and Derek jerks back a little, looking down at
Stiles, confusion on his face.
“A— a what?” he asks, his brow furrowing in a way that Stiles is going to
assume is confusion.
“A knot,” Stiles says plainly, like it’s the most obvious thing. “Like, if you
stick it in me, is your dick going to swell like a dog’s to, like, breed me or
something? Because that might be a deal breaker here in our equal opportunity
relationship.”
“Oh my God,” Derek groans, and he covers his eyes with his other hand, the one
that’s not on Stiles’s back. “Someone needs to take the internet away from
you.”
“So, is that a no?” Stiles asks, needing confirmation on this. 
“No, you idiot. I don’t have a knot.”
“Hey, I’m just making sure. That shit could be dangerous, you know.”
“No, I don’t know, because I don’t have a knot.”
“So glad we’ve established this,” Stiles tells him. “I’m going to sleep a lot
easier at night.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a real gem over here.”
Derek snorts. Stiles tries not to focus on the fact that Derek didn’t even
flinch when Stiles called this a relationship, but he can’t not focus on it.
Because it means something, and for once Stiles doesn’t try and push the
meaning away. He and Derek are in a relationship. This, whatever it is, is
a relationship. And he’s in it. With Derek.
“Okay, one last thing,” Stiles says through a yawn, and Derek gives him a long-
suffering look but doesn’t say anything. Which is basically a green light. “Do
werewolves mate?”
“What,” Derek asks, though there’s not much question in his quiet voice.
“Like, does your wolf sniff out some person and hold them hostage and make them
stay with you for all time or some bullshit? Are you going to just, like, smell
someone some day and decide not to fuck me anymore?”
Derek’s still for a long time and says, “No, that’s not going to happen. We— I
mean, we call it mating, because we’re old fashioned, but—”
“But what?” Stiles asks, almost scared to hear the answer.
Derek makes a frustrated noise, like he doesn’t want to say what he’s about to
say— like it’s too many words or maybe that the words he’s going to say are too
significant, weigh too heavily in his chest. 
“Finding someone, wanting to be with them, asking them to want to be with you—
forever,” Derek starts, then chokes himself off, goes silent for a while. 
“Asking?” Stiles asks, and he feels Derek nod. So, apparently, consent is a
thing.
Derek says, finally, in a quiet voice, “Isn’t that exactly what humans do?”
Well, Stiles hadn’t thought of that, but now that he does, it’s kind of true.
The moon is bright and pale, and it casts shadows in the corners of the
courtyard around them. The earth under them is torn and wounded, and Derek’s
shoulder might be scarred forever. Stiles thinks of the last time he was in
this courtyard, remembers how he was so certain the world was falling apart
under his feet. He still feels that way. This doesn’t feel like a conclusion;
it feels like a prologue to something great and terrifying. There are things
waiting in the shadows, willing and able to rip them all apart, limb from limb.
But Stiles remembers what Erica said down by the cells, and he thinks she might
have had a point. Maybe all they can do is enjoy what time they have left,
before the moon goes down and the autumn sun comes up, monsters riding fast on
its tail. 
The moon is full and not even a little blue above them, despite its name.
Somewhere beneth him and Derek, a wolf howls out, and it sounds like a song.
Stiles falls asleep with his ear to Derek’s heart, and he is happy. 
End Notes
     in no particular order, i'd like to thank: tillie, mercy, andi,
     otter, professorbleeson, may, and reenelou. all of you helped so much
     with your wonderful feedback and just generally wonderful existences.
     the reason i'm confident enough in this story to post it in the first
     place is basically you guys, so thank you for that!
     to the readers who have made it this far: thank you as well. you guys
     are awesome. if you enjoyed reading this-- my first fanfiction-- you
     can find me at tumblr (breenwolf.tumblr.com) where i'm constantly
     posting my progress on several other teen wolf fanfics.
     thank you all so much-- again-- you all are darlings.
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