Archive of Our Own

Alpha

denoting the dominant animal or human in a particular group

the first (typically the brightest star) in a constellation

*

It begins at night, in the dark, like most things do.

It starts with a focus Stiles can’t ever find except in shadows, a stillness that he can’t achieve when he’s seen. The pressure of daylight fills his lungs with tar, sometimes, stitches him together with helium. At night, though, he feels like he’s made of something strong, and forever, like the forces of gravity and life keeps him together by sheer will. It’s refreshing, to say the least, and definitely comes in handy in times like these. When the stars are high and bright, Stiles feels like he can see into something that exists on an entirely different plane. His ability isn’t like Lydia’s, he doesn’t predict the plug being pulled. (When it starts, they have no choice but to finish)

*

The sun is setting, wind blowing gently through open windows, music low, and ease sitting happily in Stiles’s bones. The days have been easy, as of late. He’s been sleeping regularly, eating properly, doing summer course work, just generally living, finally. He hasn’t been afraid of the future, in a while, there haven’t been any immediate threats to his health, other than the state of his car, and no one’s been sacrificed to a magical demon tree in the forest recently. He’s content, and it feels good to him, looks good on Derek. The bass of the song thuds softly, jarring the mirrors. He’s a little drowsy, due to the mugginess of the day, but he feels a sort of thrumming rising beneath his skin, like there’s something to look forward to, aside from Derek’s griping about having to drive all over town for two separate dinners.

“We wouldn’t have to do this if you would just stop picking fucking Taco Bell, man,” he laughs, adjusting his sunglasses on his nose. He’ll probably have a mark of sunburn there, from the summer months spent at the lake behind the house, trying (and failing) to get a tan.

“What even do you have against Taco Bell? There’s nothing wrong with them,” Derek snipes right back at him easily. There’s a quirk to his lips, like he’s fighting a grin, and Stiles laughs again to himself. These moments stick to his lips, like dry lips to a straw, tasting of sugar and sweat. (These moments rest between his ribs)

“Have you ever met someone who’s like “man I would kill for some Mexican” and then proceeds to drive himself to goddamn Taco Bell? They’re like, fake Mexican. They’re like white people’s interpretation of Mexican. Which means awful,” Stiles explains emphatically, like they don’t have this argument every time Derek tries to pick where they get dinner. It’s comfortable; a script Stiles can relax in, for once. It’s good. He doesn’t have to try and play diplomat, like he does for the pack, he doesn’t have to play the smartass, like he does for teachers; he doesn’t have to play anything but himself. It’s like swallowing a Saturday night, even though it’s 8 p.m. on a Thursday.

“I don’t mind white people’s interpretation of Mexican food,” Derek shrugs.

“Spoken like a true suburban white guy,” they both laugh at that. The together of it makes Stiles’s fingers tingle as he grabs the door of the Camaro. Derek always insists they go into the store to buy food, because it’s awkward when orders get screwed up and they have to park to go inside. At this point, Stiles has decided that questioning it is useless, even though they’ve never gotten Derek’s ridiculously large order wrong once. The guy has lived in Beacon Hills his entire life, it’s not like everyone doesn’t know him.

Because it’s 8 p.m. on a Thursday night, there’s about no one in the building, just two girls about Stiles’s age lurking by the counter. They don’t work there, obviously, and out of habit, Stiles stares them down until he can get a good idea of what they’re there for. Their eyes and mouths are shaped the same, plus the matching hair colors, so he figures they’re related, and their body language is tense and impatient. They don’t have wallets or purses, the only thing in their pockets seem to be phones, so he assumes they’re waiting for someone to get off work. When a guy with their hair color and tan skin comes from around back, Stiles nods lowly to himself, because he was right. The girls whine loudly at him about taking so long, and he rolls his eyes good naturedly. They walk out of the door, don’t catch him staring, and still giggling with each other. (Stiles always wonders what Derek’s family was like)

Lexi, the girl taking Derek’s order, smiles when she sees them.

“It’s a slow night, sorry for taking so long,” she apologizes, and only makes eye contact with Derek. Most of the staff in every place in Beacon Hills knows Derek, they all smile when they see him, pay attention to his words, cater to every one of his whims. It’s weird to watch sometimes, how people just naturally bend over backwards to appease Derek when all he’s ever done is work to make the guy squirm. Lexi doesn’t say anything to Stiles, but smiles before walking towards the back to get Derek’s order made.

Before he knew about the werewolf stuff, he’d known that Derek’s family was old money, the practical founders of the little town. He knew that everyone respected them, just because of the old ways, but Stiles hadn’t ever really paid attention to that. His parents hadn’t cared, and when he and Scott were nobody, he’d never even spoken to a Hale before. Laura, Cora, Derek, and Peter were the only ones who’d survived the fire, and while he’d seen them around town, he never spoke.

“Sometimes you get this little crinkle between your eyebrows, and your neck goes red,” Derek says, turning slightly in Stiles’s direction. His habit of thinking himself into a stupor isn’t something that just magically disappeared with his sudden growth into a respectable part of Derek’s pack, and the Adderall, for all its good, doesn’t really stop him from driving himself (and probably Derek) a little insane. Stiles already knows what Derek’s going to say.

“When I think too much? Yeah, I know,” he mutters, shaking his head, as if clearing thoughts physically. Derek’s eyes don’t fully meet his, though they could, even through the dark sunglasses, but he doesn’t need to see his face to know what it looks like.

“So what’s up?” there’s a pause, a lull, and Stiles just listens to fryers going in the back and bags crinkling. This always takes longer than it should because Derek can eat so much, he literally puts linebackers on all carb diets to shame.

“Nothing, just, thinking, you know?” he says finally, shaking his head one more time, draining his long run on sentences out through his ears. Derek probably raises an eyebrow.

By the time the food is done they’re back to normal, Stiles is done ranting internally to himself. He falls back into step with Derek, their shoes echoing slightly in the nearing nighttime. They don’t even have to speak, but Derek knows to pull away quickly, because Stiles likes to drive fast, and he starts in the direction of any restaurant other than McDonald’s or Taco Bell.

Settling back down into his seat, Stiles pulls his sunglasses up onto his forehead. He hates being the douchebag to leave sunglasses on inside, but really; he can’t ever help it when he’s around Derek. The alpha makes him feel unnaturally confident, something he doesn’t even want to start thinking about, but in the same way Derek wears his leather jacket, even in the summer, Stiles finds himself wearing sunglasses more often than not, even inside. He takes his cell phone out of its place in the cup holder, to make room for Derek’s giant Sprite, and scrolls through his notifications.

If the werewolf thing had been good for Scott’s popularity, it had been great for Stiles’s social life. He stopped playing lacrosse after half the team got the bite, seeing that he’d never play at that rate, and instead tried running track. It was weird, doing something without Scott around, but since his friend had finally found himself an identity, Stiles figured it would suck to no longer be “Scott and Stiles” and instead become “Scott McCall and his friend”. He was surprisingly good at long distance running, probably from his unintentional conditioning in the form of running for his life, and suddenly became the star of the track team. He finally had friends that weren’t just Scott’s friend, had people to sit with at lunch when Scott went to make out in closets with Allison, and granted, as the years went on, he stopped caring about that kind of thing, but it was still a nice comfort to have. At this point, people actually texted him on a semi- regular schedule, including Lydia Martin (whose pants he stopped trying to get into). Aside from running, he suddenly had a pack too, which meant there was a permanent someone to Be There.

There’s a text from Danny, some reference to a TV show Stiles doesn’t watch, a few from his friends from track, one from Erica about chemistry homework. He answers all of them diligently, even though he knows he’ll never reform his reputation as a Terrible Text Buddy, and waits for replies as they pull up to In-N-Out.

“Dude, will you buy me a shake? Those things are like, the tears of Jesus,” Stiles asks excitedly, already pulling off his seat belt. Because of his training for track, even though it’s not even until later in the school year, Stiles doesn’t allow himself to eat out very often, plus it sets a bad example for his dad. He hasn’t had In-N-Out in months and his mouth is watering just smelling the fat and grease.

“Whoa, down boy. I don’t know whether I’m more upset you’ve got a bigger boner for milkshakes than you’ve ever had for me, or that you missed a great opportunity for a come joke,” Derek grins, sort of. His smiles like this are always a little crooked, hanging off to the left like Derek’s afraid to let a smile take up his entire face. Stiles rolls his eyes, and hops out the car.

“I didn’t want to go there, if I’m being completely honest,” he scoffs before lowering his sunglasses. The sun is almost completely gone by now, it’s the end of August, and fall is definitely fast approaching

Stiles is thinking about going back to the loft, where it stinks of metal and cement due to renovations, and enjoying his almost last supper before senior year, when the emergency phone rings.

A few months ago, after Stiles was mostly done recovering from his nogistune possession, he had a panic attack. It was one of the few fall-over-slip-on-vomit-can’t-see-through-the-tears attacks he’s had since the death of his mother. He’d been in his bedroom, with the doors and windows locked, a ward around the perimeter of the house (because of his newfound paranoia), shaking in his skin, bones cold, and mind whirring. He could barely grip his phone in his hands, couldn’t even get his shirt over his head, and reading the screen was nearly impossible. Not being able to see the words had made it worse, because of the days he spent not being able to read, and his breathing was so uncontrollable that he was seeing red and black spots dancing in front of his eyes. He couldn’t even think himself out of this one, couldn’t pinpoint what had set him off, couldn’t even convince himself that he wasn’t in danger, he wasn’t going to be hurt, and he wouldn’t hurt anyone else. He couldn’t understand his own thoughts, was slightly horrified that they wouldn’t be his again. (He felt like his eyes were going to rattle themselves into puddles of barely contained revulsion) Somehow, he managed to dial Scott’s phone number and crawl into the tub, where he laid, covered in his own throw up and crying, until the pack arrived at his house. Lydia had been worried, Isaac had been on the verge of his own panic attack, Scott was in some kind of shock, but Derek, had been in an absolute rage, it seemed. Everything had been blurry and barely there, but the next day he had a new stereo next to his bed and pieces of the old one in the vacuum cleaner. They’d all decided that day to have an emergency phone, one that everyone would remember the number to, could recite backwards and in their sleep if they had to, to prevent any of them from ever going through something like that again. It had taken too long for Scott to even get that he was supposed to come to Stiles’s house, let alone get the others so that they could comfort him. With the emergency phone, Derek would know to immediately call the others and start tracing scents.

It has never, not even once, been called.

“It’s Derek,” he snaps into the phone, while Stiles reels in his instant panic. He doesn’t allow himself to start thinking about what could possibly be wrong. He doesn’t allow himself to think about who is on the other line, just orders his food and tips the girl behind the counter extra to hurry the hell up while Derek speaks in low, rough tones to whoever is talking.

His hands shake almost imperceptibly as he accepts his bag of food. The smell of meat and grease is no longer so appealing, but he forces a tight smile anyway and starts towards the door. Derek can probably sense his panic, though he doesn’t really acknowledge Stiles, just presses a finger into the flesh of his wrist as he takes the shake from Stiles’s hand. He always spreads a concoction of oils on his pulse points so that werewolves can’t sense his emotions because of his heart rate or smell, but Derek doesn’t need that to know that Stiles is already imagining the worst case scenarios.

“We’ll be there. We’re- yes Stiles- driving right now,” Derek mutters, shoulders set in a rigid line. Stiles is compulsively eating his fries by the time they pull out of the parking lot, but he doesn’t ask questions, just vibrates with nerves.

“No one’s hurt. It’s just- Isaac found something and he freaked, but none of them are hurt. I’m not even going to call the rest of them, except Lydia. We’ll go, we’ll check it out, we’ll get back in the car and eat. Do you understand?” Derek’s tone is low and docile, but steely. It’s what Stiles refers to as his Alpha Voice; he always uses his words like a comfort, like he’s reassuring you, but they sound like a threat. Stiles nods, sips his shake.

“He’s in the preserve?” he asks, insides shaking apart with questions he wants to ask anyway.

“Near the lake.”

They don’t say anything else, and Stiles is so nervous that he doesn’t even savor the food, just forces himself to eat it like everything is okay. If Isaac found something to make him call the emergency phone near the lake, that means he found something that shook him enough to call the emergency phone near the newly restored Hale house. It means that even the water hadn’t been enough to mask the scent of the pack’s den, of sorts, and that they’re in danger. It means that things are going to get bad, before the school year even starts, to give them something to look forward to other than Prom and graduation.

Derek hates driving the Camaro off road, but he forces it through the trees with the ease of someone with superhuman reflexes. His jaw clenches repeatedly, and it would be sexy, except Derek’s not angry, he’s scared, and that alone is enough to scare Stiles.

When they find Isaac, his eyes are wide, his lips bitten raw. Lydia is standing next to him, looking glamorous even in cut off shorts and a flannel that Stiles assumes is Jackson’s. Her makeup is still perfect, she still seems confident, but she’s breathing through her mouth, chapping her lips, which means she’s just as nervous as he is. He nods at her, but doesn’t really make eye contact, and though she can’t see his eyes through the shades, he’s sure she still knows. He shudders with the breeze.

“Look,” Isaac says, pointing. They’re gathered around a huge tree. It’s thin in diameter, but reaches incredible heights, its almost bare branches reaching above most of the others. Its bark is too dark, and too thick, gnarled and deathly looking, but at the same time, obviously stronger than most. It thrums with a certain hunger, a certain energy, that makes Stiles suspect it’s growing itself to death.

What Isaac is really pointing at, though, is a little more disturbing.

It’s a crude alchemical symbol, one of the more obvious ones, for death, that sits above the letter S. It’s not like it couldn’t just be some dumb kid who carved a skull into a tree, but the fact that they picked this tree, the one tree with some obvious powers to anyone who knew what to look for, it what makes it sinister. At least that’s what Stiles thinks.

“Salvatici,” Derek growls, bites the words out like a curse. His eyes flash, muscles in his back shift sporadically. Isaac steps back, reflexively, Lydia freezes. Derek rarely lets himself lose it, even for a second.

“Savage,” Lydia whispers, eyes shining.

/

Nothing happens.

Everything stills. Isaac tells Scott, who calls a meeting, which Stiles organizes. They meet in the Hale house, where the rest of Derek’s family lives. It’s large and imposing, with a brick façade now, instead of the wooden one from Derek’s childhood. The inside is more modern now, decorated by Laura who hadn’t been a fan of their mom’s Victorian-esque decorating. Stiles thinks it’s really comfortable and homey, like the house a lawyer let his housewife decorate, and he likes coming over, but prefers to stay the night at the loft. Laura’s at the house though, and the entire pack has their own respective rooms there too. (There’s also Peter, but whatever, you can’t win them all)

“The Salvaticis are a coven of vampires, as unfortunately cliché as that is. They’re a family, they aren’t “vegetarians” and they will kill you,” Peter states bluntly. Derek sits at the head of the huge dining room table, looking somewhat constipated, but mostly angry. Laura is to his right, because Derek trusts her the most, but Stiles is to his left. There’s an incredibly somber tone in the room, like the color has been washed out with all of the seriousness in the room. Peter is all the way at the other end of the table, and Stiles eyes him warily from behind his sunglasses.

Everyone is present for this, Boyd, Erica, Cora, Isaac, Lydia, Allison, and Scott all having seated themselves to listen to Peter’s speech. He tells them about the Salvaticis history, how they’ve walked the earth since the 13^th century, he tells them about their raids, the nights when the moon hangs low in the sky. Stiles feels a chill as he listens, imagines the blood, smells the carnage. As much as he hates Peter, he can’t help but feel as though he’s telling the truth, nods this to Derek who just grimaces, like he assumed as much. If anyone would know about the most horrific family to ever live, it would be the one man who belonged with them.

After that meeting, everyone is a little more careful, a little quieter, and a little closer. They all watch each other, sit a little stiffer. They wait, like usual. They have to wait for things to come to them, because they’re not stupid enough to go looking for anything themselves.

/

Stiles is grateful for the darkness that comes with winter. He doesn’t like the cold, it makes him feel as though he’s lost too much blood, but the dark does wonders for his eyes. Since the whole Salvatici problem has arisen, everyone has been wired. The pack is at attention, nearly 24/7, they run border patrol too often and in the months since school has started, Stiles has seen less and less of them at school, but too much of them at the Hale house.

“It’s nighttime,” Lydia snarks at him. Her car is immaculately clean, as usual, but there is a dream catcher that hangs on her rearview mirror. The air conditioning keeps it spinning slowly, and Stiles watches it for a moment before answering.

“On a Tuesday night,” he nods, smirking. He can practically hear her rolling her eyes.

“And we’re going to pick up the twelve metric tons of pizza we ordered, yes. What’s with the glasses?”

Before Stiles answers, he thinks. It’s something that has helped him get in better control of himself, something he learned to do when he was tired of getting repeatedly pistol whipped by whatever asshole of the month they were dealing with. He considers his words, figures out how long this discussion will last. He and Lydia, being the only non hunter humans of the pack, have been sticking together. With the growing paranoia in the group, not only are they expected to know the answer to every question thrown at them, they’re also supposed to be looking out for one another, or whatever, though Stiles thinks the rest of the pack just wants to know where their humans are at all times. They’re obviously friends, so it’s not like Stiles minds spending time with Lydia, or anything like that, it’s just that he’s not used to people asking him questions he can’t answer, and no one does that better than her.

“I don’t know. I’m sensitive to light, I guess. I get really bad headaches during the day if I don’t wear them,” he shrugs, tries to play it cool. Lydia rolls her eyes again, before rolling through a stop sign. He doesn’t comment on her driving, just looks out the window and notes there was a deputy sitting in a trap there; he probably knows Lydia’s license plate or something.

“Sensitive to what light? It’s dark out.”

“I just meant in general, Lydia,” he sighs.

“Is that why you’ve been popping enough pain killers to sedate a horse? Because I honestly was thinking we’d have to stage an intervention at some point,” she jokes, poking him in the thigh. He likes it when she touches him, but now because her hands are softer than the wolves, and not as warm, but warmer than his own.

“It’s just Tylenol,” Stiles objects.

“And ibuprofen, and Excedrin, on top of Adderall, that you seem to have an upped dosage of. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but everyone’s worried about you.”

They leave it at that, because as much as Lydia and Stiles can joke around, they know how to be serious with each other too, even outside of life threatening, high stress situations. Stiles doesn’t fiddle with the radio, just traces the seam of his jeans, and listens to the clink of Lydia’s bracelets.

They pick up their pizza, having to make two trips between the both of them. They’re meeting at the Hale house again, not to do anything serious, but to just not be on edge for a night. Stiles knows how stressed out Derek has been because of the Salvaticis, Stiles has heard the old stories Talia used to tell her kids from him, and he’d be worried too if he were shouldering all of that responsibility himself. He tries to say that maybe they were just passing through, and wanted to make sure that Derek knew they’d been around, but he feels like he’s lying, even to himself. Selfishly enough though, Stiles is glad for the new focus Derek has found, instead of watching him laze around his loft eating Taco Bell all the time. He likes the stolen moments of comfort he gets with Derek; they’re more meaningful now.

(Lydia makes him remove his glasses as soon as they get in the house, Isaac tells him he smells weird, and he takes 3 Excedrin in the first 20 minutes of their Big Night In)

\

The lighting in the loft is hazy, a pale sun sitting behind thick clouds in a gray sky making everything seem bathed in fog. Stiles likes it. There was rain the day before, cold and slimy, and Stiles had stayed at the loft the night before, so the Saturday morning was filled with scent of eggs and bagels. It’s midday now, sun high in the sky, dark sheets tangled in Stiles’s legs and warmed against his thigh. Derek is always like a furnace, body sometimes too warm, but right now it feels good, his hot skin against Stiles’s back.

“Love it when you stay,” Derek mumbles in his ear, voice rough with disuse. On days like this they don’t speak much; the wolves believe in touch more than anything.

“Love staying,” Stiles whispers, clenching Derek’s hand where it’s draped over his hips. His eyes are closed but he feels completely awake, completely aware of everything. Derek’s nails are blunt against his skin, his breath wet against the skin of his neck and he shudders with his inhale.

Derek nips at his pulse point, wet open mouthed kissed pressed into his skin that make Stiles squeeze his eyes closed and sigh contentedly. Derek continues his ministrations, digging his teeth in gently, as he kisses towards Stiles’s naked shoulder, mapping out his moles and scars with his tongue. Stiles arches into it, eyes still closed, but mouth wide open. Derek’s hand moves lower, sliding the sheets down lower, exposing his thighs, making the younger boy shiver. A hand slips under him to wrap around his chest, pinch a nipple, and grip his throat lightly, he groans.

“You’re so good, Stiles. So perfect,” Derek growls into his ear, chest rumbling. Stiles reaches up and squeezes Derek’s wrist, presses his hand into him harder, moans with the action.

He rides Derek’s thigh like the teenager he is, comes when Derek’s fingertips threaten to leave bruises on the thin skin of his hips and throat. Derek flips his pliant body over and rubs him off in the curve of Stiles’s pelvis, watches the younger gather his come on his fingers and lick them clean like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted, kisses him and can taste their morning in his mouth. They lie there and stare into each others’ eyes, and Stiles’s head throbs vaguely but he ignores it because Derek’s fingers and drumming on the small of his back. (His skin prickles hotly at this, eyes close, breathing evens and everything is slow one more time)

/

They don’t make themselves known until winter break starts.

Advanced Physics isn’t something Stiles sees as a valuable class, but he sits and takes notes diligently anyway. While he hasn’t worried about anything as superficial as high school popularity since he was 16 (which isn’t that long ago, but feels like lifetimes), he does know that it’s kind of his thing to be the resident smartest slacker around. He likes to play his part accordingly, so he doesn’t have to worry about stupid teenage problems when there’s a whole coven of literal bloodthirsty monsters lurking around his hometown. He’s sitting at his desk typing away furiously; he’s been out of school for a day and he’s already done with his AP English and Honors History work, but this Physics is actually kicking his ass when his phone rings.

“Can’t come over until I’m done, Derek,” he says, not even bothering with a greeting, but turning the page in his notebook aggressively. There’s a crackle on the other end.

“I’m emergency phoning you,” Derek grunts, hangs up, and Stiles nearly spills coffee all over his Mac in his haste to hop up. He pulls a shirt over his head, flails around to find shoes and his glasses, and sprints down the stairs and out of the house. He calls his dad in the car.

“Hey dad,” he greets, trying to sound like he’s grinning even though his stomach is splattered all over his pedals at this point.

“What is it Stiles?” the sheriff sighs, completely done already.

“Oh you know, just calling to check up on my favorite police officer. Wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’ll eat a salad with dinner tonight, I promise. Use protection, please,” his dad mutters and hangs up. Stiles laughs to himself, before laying his lead foot down on the gas pedal, pushing the Jeep as hard as she can go. He doesn’t know what could be wrong, doesn’t want to imagine it, just speeds towards the loft, because he knows that if he were to go to the Hale house the rest of the pack would’ve converged on his house to make sure he got through the woods safely. Stiles grits his teeth the entire 10 minute drive, and when he pulls into Derek’s building’s parking lot, his jaw aches and his fingers are tight from their white knuckling of his steering wheel.

\

Derek keeps the loft dark because he has night vision, but even darker lately because Stiles’s eyes hurt every time he opens a door into a room with too much light. Hell, driving there had been a pain with all of the lights dancing in front of his vision. Right now though, every light in the loft is on; the one hanging high in the living room, the kitchen, the one at the top of the stairs. They’re all on, dimmer knobs turned on high. The rest of the pack is around, Lydia perched on the arm of Derek’s sofa, Allison next to her, finger poised on the trigger of her crossbow like she’s waiting to shoot something. Boyd sits at Erica’s feet where she is in the loveseat, while Scott paces and Isaac hovers nervously. Cora is standing next to Derek, behind his huge cluttered desk, with her hand on his shoulder, eyebrows crooked in worry, but jaw clenched in determination. Something absolutely reeks.

“What?” Stiles demands as he takes in the scene. The only person who doesn’t look worried is Lydia, which is nothing new, and it’s making Stiles’s skin crawl. No one answers him, for a moment.

“The savages paid Derek a visit,” Lydia says, looking over to him, head tilted in sarcastic wonder. Stiles’s hands begin to shake.

The few times anyone but the pack paid Derek any visits have never ended well. The night Kali decided to stick a pole through his stomach, Stiles had cried, screamed, hid himself upstairs in a closet and bitten down on a shirt to avoid being heard. When they threw that black light party, and his life started to crumble, Stiles had figured out he was a sort of serial killer, and when the nogistune had complete control of him, he’d been standing in the middle of a gunfight with Mr. Argent, his dad, and Allison. He remembers everything, every step an intruder has ever taken in this loft, and his stomach turns sickly at the thought that once, he was an intruder too.

“What did they do? What did they say?” Stiles gasps, suddenly filled with fear and anger, a combination deadly to even the scariest of monsters. He steps towards Derek, whose face is turned towards the ground, but inclined towards Cora’s warmth. He doesn’t interfere with them, lets them have their moment, but he does look to Derek for answers. There’s blood on the sleeves of his shirt, on the hem of his pants, under his fingernails.

“They left quite the gift, I’ll say that,” Erica scoffs, eyes steely.

“They brought me your French teacher; they kept her heart for themselves though,” Derek grinds out, breathing heavily and eyes flashing.

/

Laura makes Derek stay at the house because the Salvaticis know better than to show up there. While Derek is the alpha, she’s still his older sister, and he’s definitely scared of her. In any other circumstance it would be funny, except they might die (what’s new?) and Laura is actually terrified.

“I can take care of myself, Laura,” Derek whines as she shoves him on the couch, armed with a remote and a beer. He can’t even get drunk.

“No one is questioning you masculinity Derek, jeez, maybe I just wanted to see my baby brother,” she sighs.

“You saw him yesterday.”

“You’re honestly my least favorite brother, wow.”

“That’s inconvenient, considering you only have the one,” Derek rolls his eyes and sips the beer before turning to ESPN. Stiles is watching with stilted horror; jaw dropped in awe as he watches Derek actually cheer at the Broncos.

It’s been four days since Morrell died, having been left alone after the disbanding of the Alpha pack. Stiles is sure the Salvaticis know that she isn’t their emissary, she never held the magic of being bonded even when the Alphas were around, and she definitely never really meant much to them, not even as a teacher. He can’t even understand what message they were trying to convey; that they could kill? The entire world knows that. They’d kill innocents? So would Peter. Stiles couldn’t wrap his mind around what they wanted, or why they didn’t kill someone they cared about, like Deaton, or why they were even bothering them.

Laura wrinkles her nose at him from where she’s sitting on the big sofa, laptop sitting dangerously on her knees. She’s 26, but she acts 17, and she’s honestly the most refreshing of all the Hales.

“I can smell your weird teenage boy angst. It’s disgusting, please stop,” she sneers. Stiles laughs, or at least tries to.

“Stop what? Teenaging?”

“If that’s possible.”

They all laugh, even Cora from upstairs, and for a moment, the tension bleeds from everyone’s shoulders.

\

If there was ever a way to distract a pack of teenage werewolves from looming, untimely death, it was Christmas. Stiles lives for the decorations, loves all of the nice coffee recipes people come up with, actually moans when he drinks Laura’s famous hot chocolate. Scott is always restless around the holidays, even when his dad doesn’t come in, but that’s just Scott being worried about being a nice person. Lydia flounces around with too much money, waving credit cards in the faces of the rest of the pack, and the only person to rival her obnoxiousness is Laura. They duke it out on a regular basis in the days leading up to Christmas.

The morning of is dedicated to family time, for once. Everyone goes back home to their respective houses and make sure their parents and siblings know that they aren’t a part of a cult, just a merry band of friends who hang around a certain almost criminal 20-something and his sisters. It’s good. The sheriff actually grins at Stiles’s gift, a brand new holster and gun cleaning set, courtesy of the Argents, and greasy food coupons. Stiles gets money for a tune up for the Jeep, a coffee maker, and a thumb ring that’s too small for his thumb that belonged to his mother’s father. He wears it on is middle finger instead, smiles every time he sees the damn coffee maker, and makes sure to take care of his baby Bluebell.

At night though, is when things get exciting. The pack gathers at the Hale house, all warm bones and peppermint coffee, and they sit in a circle in the living room while Cora gripes about how stupid this is. Even Stiles the human can feel how happy she is though, how much it pleases her to be amongst loud, rowdy people, and spilled food. Everyone is happy to be a part of something, they’re all happy to belong.

There’s an assortment of gifts to be handed out, considering there are ten people to give and receive, and Stiles can’t even keep track of everything. He’s pressed into the v of Derek’s stretched legs, huge warm arms encircling him and keeping him grounded. The guy has a grip like stone, but Stiles likes it, he doesn’t want to be able to move, just wants to feel Derek’s strong heartbeat in his own ribcage for a few hours, wants to enjoy listening to his breathy laughs and relish the stubble burn he’s getting on the back of his neck.

“I feel like we’re just their babies, to be honest,” Isaac shrugs, looking around at everyone. Stiles’s eyes widen, almost comically so, and Derek’s arms tighten even further.

“Oh my god,” Stiles groans.

“They’re like our wolfy parents,” Erica agrees, nodding.

“I’m older than the both of them,” Laura points out.

“You’re our crazy aunt, then. Cora’s our mean, hater cousin who hates.”

“Oh my god,” Stiles says again.

“You know what, Stiles is kind of the worried mother.”

“What am I, then? Your dismissive father?” Derek asks, unhelpfully. Stiles’s cheeks are absolutely burning, and he knows the wolves can probably smell the discomfort rolling off of him in waves.

“Nah, you’re like the dad that thinks he makes the rules, but we all know just listens to mom,” Isaac says decisively.

“What in burning hell has my life become?” Stiles sighs quietly, leaning back into Derek.

(Derek’s lips are soft and pliant on the neck that he bares to him)

That night, Stiles loads up his Jeep with his gifts. He’s got expensive tragic plaid shirts from Lydia, complete with some fancy French jacket, decorative knives from Allison,  a Sims expansion pack from Scott, a book on the history of languages from Boyd and Erica, cologne from Cora, and a corkboard for college (and something he can’t open until he’s home) from Laura. He didn’t give Derek his gift, and Derek hasn’t given him his. They decided to do that when no one is looking.

“So, what’d you get me?” Derek asks, appearing from the shadows outside of the Hale house. Stiles jumps about two feet into the air, squawking indignantly.  Derek laughs lightly, but smiles prettier than he ever does around the rest of the pack.

“Holy god, bro, warn a guy, would you? I almost had a conniption,” he sighs, fighting off a grin.

They’ve got one of those understated, kind of missing relationships. They don’t need to be around each other at all times, don’t need to profess their love all the time, because they both know that this isn’t some kind of convenience dating, this isn’t a fling. They don’t really kiss in front of the others, but they don’t handle their relationship with kid gloves either. They know that they’re in love, know that they always will be. They don’t go on dates, they never have, but Stiles feels like being nervous in the car with Derek counts as a date anyway. They know each other, even if they don’t necessarily know everything about each other, and that’s all they need.

“Sorry bro, I thought you’d be used to it by now.”

“By “it” do you mean your supreme creepiness? Because I don’t even think Laura’s used to that yet, and she’s known you since you were an embryo.”

“What. Did. You. Get. Me.”

“Oh my god, the full stops? Are you trying to Alpha me around? You knows it’s not gonna work, I’m the mom,” Stiles grins, slow and wide. Derek’s lips quirk.

“I got you a thing, but I have to teach you how to use it,” Derek prompts, looking to him expectantly. Stiles slams his door shut, hopes to God that those decorative knives won’t puncture anything, and reaches into his back pocket.

“You got me a thing? I’ve always wanted one, I can’t wait to open it.”

Before Derek can say anything, Stiles sway forward and kisses him, quick and sweet, like chocolates and first dates. He grips the parcel in his hand tightly, looking at Derek under his eyelashes. He’s not wearing his sunglasses for once, and he’s glad he can see Derek in the muted darkness clearly. He hands him the little package. It’s terribly wrapped, but the alpha doesn’t mind, just smiles to himself and goes about tearing the paper off. His eyes widen when he sees what’s inside.

“Oh,” he whispers, like the word is punched out of him. Stiles is grateful that the pack has gone home, because he wouldn’t be able to face the embarrassment after this.

“If- if you don’t like it I can- you don’t have to wear it, Derek. I just. I was just going through my stuff and I was like, wow- I just thought that maybe it would be really nice if I could give you something that meant a lot to me, for once because- like you’re a werewolf and I’ve learned a lot about you guys and you give me your space, and your food, and- well I just-,” Stiles starts, rambling and tripping over his words with wild hands and blushing to the tips of his ears, before Derek is kissing him, hungry and slowly all at once. Rough hands on the back of his neck, but lips careful, yet insistent. He curls his fingers into the fabric of Derek’s leather jacket desperately, something warm pooling in his stomach.

“Thank you. Thank you so much, baby, it’s perfect,” Derek says, words quiet, but heavy with their implications. Stiles can’t even be bothered, right now, to bully Derek about calling him baby, just watches him slip the ring onto his middle finger.

(His heart thrums with the pulsing of Derek’s blood)

“It’s magic, so yeah. That’s why it fits. I had Deaton do some fun stuff to it, but it belonged to my grandfather.”

“You have one too,” he notes, pulling Stiles’s hand away from his jacket, and examining his ring.

“Yeah, mine is has the Celtic symbol of strength, my dad said. Yours is weakness- not that you’re weak! But it’s like- it symbolizes humanity, vulnerability. It means that you could die an honorable death and be like, fine with dying. I thought it suited you very well,” Stiles smirks. Derek kisses him again.

Derek’s gift is almost terrifying. It’s an antique watch, seemingly very expensive and equally fragile. He says it’s a family heirloom, and Stiles believes it, because the Hales go so far back in time, as gorgeous, wealthy people, that they probably had something to with the founding of the United States.

“It was fashioned for one of the pack’s humans, in the old times. It’s for protection,” Derek mumbles into the junction of Stiles’s shoulder as he fastens the watch.

“It’s magic?”

“Tap the face,” he instructs. Stiles flinches as he does so, afraid that, with his luck, the thing will crack and Derek will just sigh and go back inside. That doesn’t happen.

Instead, thin, but sturdy, webs of metal expand from the little tick marks on the face. The glass shielding the numbers practically melts into the wrist part of the watch, providing a layer of something substantially stronger than glass around it. The webs crawl up the pale skin of Stiles’s wrist and arm, fitting itself onto his fingers and gripping him tightly, but not uncomfortably. As he extends his fingers, the metal molds to him, flexing itself into claws at the tips of his fingers, topped off with stripes of silver and what looks like bone. Stiles shudders.

“Holy fucking shit,” he murmurs, examining his hand. He taps his wrist, where the face of the watch should have been, shoulders shaking and heart pounding, as the claws retract on themselves. It’s 10:54 p.m.

 /

When winter break is over, Stiles is a little grateful. He’d been doing nothing but hovering over Derek, trying to protect him from something he guesses, and trying to properly write personal essays for the colleges he’d picked out. He didn’t want to go too far from home, but he wasn’t going to go to the city college. His applications to UC Berkley, Stanford, and Pomona had already cost too much money, but he couldn’t help himself in trying ones in other states too, like Georgetown, Northwestern and NYU. His father thought it was ridiculous to be sending in applications to those schools so late, but Stiles couldn’t help but feel compelled to want to get away from Beacon Hills and all of its trouble. He doesn’t mention that to Derek, or any of the pack for that matter, except Lydia, who’s going to be attending either MIT or Columbia.

Other than the increased feelings of apprehension towards college, and general dislike for high school, the headaches have gotten worse. Stiles complained so much about his head hurting over break that whenever Derek so much as touched his wrist, in that comforting way he always does, he ended up taking some of Stiles’s pain. He didn’t like it much, the pain drain thing left him feeling dizzy and unaware, but he does admit that being able to think for an hour was actually heaven. Laura had even felt so bad at some point that she sprung on some $300 sunglasses for his Christmas present (that he opened when he got home and damn near cried tears of joy).

“Maybe you should go see a doctor, Stiles. It’s been months,” Derek says gently. His room in the Hale house is immaculate, with light grey walls and either white satin sheets or white cotton sheets with a heavenly thread count. He likes the bed here, but it doesn’t smell like them, which is sometimes confusing in the morning. There’s a desk, with a Mac from this year and all of Derek’s fun little knick knacks on top of it, including the college diploma that Derek received after finishing his bachelor’s degree in art history from Santa Clara.

“I have been to the doctor. There’s nothing they could do but prescribe some shit for my nasal passages,” he argues. He knows that the hospital would be the next step, but he hates the hospital, and he doesn’t want to go. He isn’t looking to go for an MRI or see a neurologist, but Derek is right. The sunglasses in math are getting a little ridiculous.

“Have you asked Deaton about it?”

And, while Stiles has considered asking Deaton about this ongoing problem, he can’t bring himself to do so. His sister has just been murdered, it’s possible that he’ll be next, and it already sucks that they have to bring every single one of their problems to him anyway. He doesn’t want to ask Deaton, for fear that he’ll tell him something he doesn’t want to hear, or that they’ll find out something about Stiles that they don’t want to know.

“No. It’s a headache, not a wolfsbane bullet wound,” Stiles snorts derisively, laying back on the bed. He stares at the ceiling and violently ignores Derek’s scrunched up eyebrows. He knows exactly what they mean.

“My mom had this friend, who worked with ink incantations and had to wear gloves all the time because everything burned her hands.”

“Okay?”

“I’m saying that some types of magic can drain the body of its basic functions, because it takes so much energy to contain them, let alone use them.”

\

Stiles doesn’t mind learning. School is full of interesting things for him to get to know, his extracurricular activities, which include being the editor-n-chief of the school newspaper, being an athletic god, and living the life of a teenage badass, leave nothing but room for new discoveries. He trains a lot; trains his mind, and his body, and being a part of a wolf pack means he could probably fight every guy on the wrestling team and walk away largely unscathed. One thing he is not prepared to train though, is his soul.

According to Deaton, after one fateful visit that included the vet saying he doesn’t blame them for Morrell dying, and that he quite likes helping them, it was concluded that Stiles has a Spark. It’s something he’s read about in lore books, has researched extensively, and finds that he somewhat understands what that means but. He knows that he couldn’t have one. There is no magic in his blood, nowhere for even a thread of dissolving powers to stem from. Deaton is completely wrong, though everyone in the pack knows he isn’t, and insists on training Stiles to one day be a forceful “light enchanter”. Derek, Laura, and Peter are the only ones aside from the vet who have even the slightest clue what that means.

“Honestly, it explains the light sensitivity. Light enchanters are very rare, and the few that were ever really documented mentioned excruciating headaches where their powers were exerted beyond their capacity,” Laura notes. He’s lying on the couch in the Hales’ living room, with his $300 Ray Bands on and generally feeling like life has been taking the longest dump ever on him.

“What powers has he even been using, though? He didn’t even know about them until this morning,” Peter asks. He always sounds suspicious, like he’s plotting something, and right now, Stiles has no doubt in his mind that Peter is trying to find a way to manipulate this into his favor.

“It’s the strain from containing them, I think. Most enchanters start coming into their gifts when they hit puberty. He’s about to turn 18,” Derek interjects, rubbing a soothing hand over Stiles’s forehead. He’s sweating, and on the verge of tears because the pounding in his head is starting to feel like someone’s taken a jackhammer to the little coils of him behind his eyeballs. It’s exhausting.

He wakes up still on the couch, with his sunglasses still on, and his head in Derek’s lap. He’s watching baseball, which is weird, and drinking another beer, which is also strange. He looks so peaceful, so at ease, without the stress of protecting thousands of people a present thought in his mind. If they were a normal couple, it could be like this all the time, he could count the laugh lines that curve around Derek’s smirk every day. He could memorize Derek’s laugh, chant his name like a prayer every night. It’s sad too, seeing Derek like this, because Stiles knows that it won’t last. Moments like these have to be stolen from their life, have to exist for two totally different people; not the talkative ADHD high schooler and the stoic werewolf who lurks in the dark.

“Do you even like sports?” Stiles blurts, because of course that’s what he wanted to say.

“I played basketball all four years of high school and I played Little League for 9 years before that.”

“Do you really want the Michael J. Fox joke, or…?” Stiles breathes, a laugh in his throat that makes his vision blur.

“Do you want to go home?” Derek asks, instead of snarking back at him. Stiles closes his eyes.

“Laura doesn’t want us in the l-,” Stiles begins, before he even realizes what he’s saying.

/

Sunday mornings are Stiles’s favorite mornings. His father goes down to the station early, so he can get off in the afternoon and they can watch the Walking Dead together at night, but always leaves the coffee hot and muffins on the counter. It’s a great system. He watches Family Guy in his sweatpants on the couch, ignores his phone, for the most part, and sometimes catches up on any homework he didn’t do. This routine often includes Derek, but he likes it by himself too.

This Sunday morning, isn’t so easy.

He wakes up at 8 a.m., because it’s a habit at this point, and showers before he marches downstairs grumpily, glaring at all the windows in the house as he closes their blinds. He has on his own cheap sunglasses, even though he just woke up. Deaton says that he probably should come back to his office in order to learn how to control his Spark, at least a little, in order to not have to pop 5 painkillers as soon as he wakes up, but Stiles doesn’t really plan on doing it today. His skin is still gross and oily in some places from his after shower habits of scent masking that stem from years of being ambushed by maniacs.

The kitchen still smells good when he gets in there, the coffee pot still warm, and while Stiles is a little groggy and stumbling through the kitchen, he can hear fabric rustling against his couch. He doesn’t panic, he’s been practicing keeping his heart rate steady, but his hand tightens on the mug of his cup. He’s not even wearing a shirt. It’s Sunday morning, and honestly if it’s anyone but Derek or Scott, or maybe Lydia, sitting on his couch he’s going to be beyond pissed off.

“We know you heard us,” a woman’s voice calls. Stiles cringes, but tries to straighten his spine; he has to seem confident in the face of supernatural tyrants. He squares his shoulders, tries to set his jaw and slow his heart rate before stepping into the living room.

“Why are you here?” he asks immediately. The woman sitting in front of him is beautiful (dangerous), in a cold, terrifying way. Her lips are painted red, her skin is pale, framed by long tresses of dark, wavy hair. She smiles with fake politeness, and he knows because her eyes are hungry. Behind her, a boy that is seemingly his age is walking around the room curiously, he has the same wide, almond eyes as she does and pretty lips. They’re both wearing red garnet pendants with the letter s carved delicately into them; hers around her neck, and his in a huge ring on his left thumb.

“Now now, no need for hostility,” she murmurs soothingly, words laden with an accent he can’t make out, and makes herself comfortable on the leather couch. He hopes it chafes her exposed skin.

“We’re just here to talk,” the boy says. His voice rumbles smoothly, like one would imagine a lover’s in a post coital daze.

“Then please, talk,” Stiles replies, raising his eyebrow. He knows he can’t be too intimidating in his ratty sweatpants and sunglasses, but he at least tries to pretend that he’s confident.

The woman stands, flips her hair off of her shoulder and gathers it at the base of her neck, like she’s hot. The boy stands behind her, a comforting hand on her shoulder, because, as Stiles assumes, arriving in the house of teenage boys to threaten them must be very taxing work. He refrains from rolling his eyes, because he knows they would be able to see.

“Your blood smells delightful to these empty veins, Efnissien,” she purrs. Stiles’s shoulders go rigid, his skin suddenly breaking out into gooseflesh. There is no way this woman should know his real name. (His mother always said that names had power and so long as his did he’d never be at peace)

“What do you want?” he asks, instead of asking why she knows who he is. He doesn’t want to know why she knows the inner curls of his being, why she seems so familiar with the way the syllables of him roll off the tongue. She smirks at him, probably sensing his discomfort.

“We’ve come to warn you, little fire starter, and know your place. Do not speak to me with such tones of insolence, as I am doing you a great kindness. Giovanni will not rest until he has the blood of strength, and you know exactly of whose I am speaking. He will say to me “Juliette-Eve,” in a terrible imitation of my mother, “I am disappointed in you,” and I will take his words with grain of salt, yes? To do a kindness for the power of something I’ve not encountered in centuries.”

Her words sit in the palm of his hands, make his head throb with uncertainty. He finally understands where her accent is from; she’s Parisian. She’s probably the living romance of French tragedy, was probably the inspiration for a dozen Italian geniuses’ works. She stands in front of him, hair still knotted in her hands as she looks towards her expensive suede shoes. Stiles has a million thoughts, a million words he can’t understand enough himself to say to her. Whispers of a language he does not understand slither in his consciousness, making the room suddenly brighter, his hands suddenly heavier.

“Fire starter?” is what he blurts, instead of letting his tongue curl around a language she wouldn’t understand.

“That is what we called you in our day,” the boy says. Stiles nods.

“Will he kill me?” Stiles blinks at his own bluntness, and when his eyes are open again, the air is cooler against his skin, and Juliette-Eve is in front of him. Her eyes burn with the intensity of a blood red sun, like the carnage ripped from the lungs of a killed beast. Her fangs are extended, and the boy stands behind her, arms folded as if he has commanded her to do as much.

“No. We’ve heard stories, similar to the old ones, about your pack. No, Efnissien, he will send the real savages for your heads, and he will wear your fingernails as a necklace against his throat. But he won’t kill you, and for that, you should be grateful,” she whispers harshly to him. Stiles blinks again, heart racing and head spinning, and when he opens his eyes again, she and the boy are gone.

He stands still for four minutes straight, doesn’t move an inch, before the panic sets in. His bones feel too light, and he knows he’s breathing in too much air, but he can’t stop himself. They’re coming for him; no, they’re coming for his pack, the people he’s dedicated months to protecting. His lungs ache hotly, his vision blurs into nothing, and his stomach literally lurches all at the same time.

\

Stiles shakes into consciousness. (Eyes delicate and words dripping)

At first, he sees nothing. There is too much light, too much everything, and he can’t focus on a fixed point. There seems to be nothing for him to actually focus on.

“Fucking ow,” he spits. He hears a chuckle from somewhere to the right of him, and it takes the edge off the stinging in his eyes.

“Eloquently put, as usual,” Scott laughs. Stiles closes his eyes, blinks hard, once, twice, and opens them again, and gets a blurry image of his friend’s face. He’s lying in his own bed, the covers still rumpled and messy, with a cup of coffee sitting on his bedside table. His pill bottles are all over the place too.

“I see a college education in your future, bro,” Stiles groans at trying to laugh himself, before rolling onto his stomach, “What even happened?” Scott sucks in a steadying breath.

“You wouldn’t stop screaming,” he admits, like the words hurt.

/

His hands look like they’ve been dipped in freaking bacon grease. He has to go to school the next day, has to hide his bubbling, peeling flesh from his dad after a visit to Deaton’s, and he has to listen to his teachers drone on and on about things less important than his own body magic-ing itself to death.

Deaton had told him that after the shock that came with his surprise visit his body started reacting in its natural way: panic. This was just a panic attack of Biblical proportions; it seems to Stiles, because as of right now, he can’t even pick up a pencil without wincing.

“God, you smell like angst and tanning salons,” Scott groans when they sit down together at lunch. The lunch room is always loud, so that’s not what has Stiles’s head throbbing (though it really isn’t helping), but he suspects it has something to do with the fluorescent lights that are exceptionally brighter in this particular area.

“Thanks, Scotty, for that important news flash. Now we’ll turn it over to Lydia for the weather,” Stiles grumbles, poking at his mound of mashed potatoes in irritation. The skin around his index fingernail is almost blue.

“You look like dried shit,” Lydia sneers at him, dropping a Prada lunch bag in front of her before sitting down. She looks perfect, as usual, and Stiles rolls his eyes at her choice of words.

“Honestly, I can’t remember why my self-esteem has ever been anything but sky high.”

“Me either. If you would just talk less, sleep more, and buy a shirt that doesn’t have a superhero on it, or include desperate plaid, you’d be an absolute catch,” Lydia smiles at him, white teeth perfect and words sharp. He knows exactly why he’s been in love with her since 3^rd grade.

“It’s not like I’m hurting for relationship advice,” he shrugs. She scowls at him, but there’s no heat behind it. Scott laughs as Allison, Isaac, and Erica sit down, all at the same time, clattering trays and smiles on their faces.

“What’s terrible is that he’s actually completely right,” Isaac grimaces. Erica laughs at him, rolls her eyes, and lifts an arm up just in time for Boyd to sit and slide right into her side.

“Jealous much?” the blonde girl smirks, holding Boyd tighter. Isaac rolls his eyes and mutters a “no” but Stiles doesn’t have to be a werewolf to know he’s lying. Stiles doesn’t doubt that it gets annoying to be one of the only singles in a group of friends, hell Stiles himself was, considering he thought his current boyfriend hated him for the first 6 months of them knowing each other. He slaps a hand down on Isaac’s shoulder.

“Steady relationships are boring anyway, bro,” Stiles reassures him. The other boy just rolls his eyes.

“Yeah right, sex whenever, car rides, Taco Bell, and someone who’ll make out with you even when you’ve been running around the forest for 3 hours probably sucks completely,” he says sarcastically. He’s side-eyeing Stiles too, but he chooses to ignore it because, yeah Isaac’s right, relationships are awesome.

“Taco Bell is shit,” Lydia tries. She’s single too, but obviously by choice. Her first serious boyfriend was a homicidal lizard and her other special someone happened to not only be homicidal, but borderline sociopathic, and also dead. So.

The rest of the lunch period is filled with the wolves arguing about what toxic, decaying things Stiles smells like, Lydia complaining about Isaac having touched her bag with fry grease on his fingers, and all of them nearly crying in laughter when Erica starts pointing out all of the girls at school who have hit on her and verbalizes her inner monologue when it happened. It’s good. It’s light and happy, and Stiles forgets about his hands and the Salviticis. He remembers loud pack dinners and the days while he was recovering from the nogistune thing that were filled with loud lunch discussions and cuddles at night. He remembers why he fights for all of these people, not just Scott (and by extension Allison), or even just Lydia, but all of them.

\

“I’m going to kill them,” Derek growls, voice low and menacing. Stiles’s hands are shaking, not in fear or nerves, but in anticipation. Whenever Derek flies into these blind rages he always stomps around the loft, eyes burning bright blue, and muttering in startlingly detailed descriptions about the ways he’s going to kill their enemies. It’s sort of hot, Stiles will admit, but definitely dangerous. He’s standing next to the desk, watching Derek stalk an invisible prey. He knows that soon enough he’ll have to intervene, he’ll have to calm Derek down, but not this second. He lets him start shaking in rage before he peels himself off of the wall and walks over to the alpha. Long arms wrap around his broad shoulders, and Stiles feels Derek’s thick ropes of muscles uncoil beneath his skin.

“What problem would that solve?” Stiles whispers into his ear. He feels in control of the situation, knows Derek wouldn’t purposely hurt him even if his ears are extending into pointed attention.

“They wouldn’t be able to hurt you- or the pack. No one would be hurt,” he grinds out, teeth aching to lengthen. Stiles shakes his head, brushes his cheek on Derek’s neck.

“We wouldn’t let you do anything that crazy alone; we’d all get hurt.”

“But you would be safe.”

The thing is, though, Stiles is never safe. He runs with wolves; literally. 96% of all of his friends are supernatural beings, and at night, most of them get a little furry and run through the preserve like lunatics. Stiles isn’t safe because he smells like a pack, and there’s a small fire burning beneath his skin and when he concentrates enough he can make the lights in his house flicker. Stiles isn’t safe, even though Derek likes to pretend he can keep him so; just like Stiles likes to pretend he can keep Derek from being a martyr.

/

Lydia needs a ride to school on the second Monday back from winter break. She says her mother took her car to get an oil change and the mechanic decided she needed an everything change, so while that’s happening, Stiles is her personal chauffer. It reminds him of their life before shit really hit the fan, and he gladly wakes up thirty minutes earlier than usual to make it in time to drive over to the Martins’ and pick her up.

“Good morning Stiles,” she chirps whole heartedly as she uses his hand to boost herself into the car. Stiles rolls his eyes before jogging around the Jeep and climbing in. His car already smells of her expensive perfume, and while 10^th grade him would have been falling all over himself for an opportunity like this, senior Stiles finds that he’s suddenly calmer than he has been in a while.

“Your hair looks nice,” he mumbles, pulling down her long driveway. She smiles over at him in surprise.

“You think so?” she asks.

“Yeah, of course,” he scoffs. She rolls her eyes and lets down the visor so that she can swipe mascara onto her eyelashes. They don’t talk until they’re halfway to the school, but a lot of tension has bled out of his shoulders already. Stiles hadn’t realized how much he missed spending time around Lydia until right then, he didn’t realize that after months investigating himself, their English teacher, and harpies, he missed the way she taps her fingernails against any surface she can find and the way she looks when she knows she’s got you beat.

He hangs around her all week. A) he knows there’s some scary shit lurking about (he thought he saw flashes of red stones and almond eyes in Walgreens) and B) he needs someone who can’t smell how ridiculously terrible he feels. Derek keeps commenting on it, keeps telling him to sleep more, forces him to eat fruit and Scott just keeps giving him the worried best friend look, while Lydia just rolls her eyes at him and cleans his $300 sunglasses on a handkerchief from her purse. She’s awesome.

By Friday night, she’s sitting in his house, on the couch, eating the veggie pizza they just ordered and laughing prettily at Clueless. They’re having a cult classic movie night, without the rest of their supernatural horde, and it’s nice. She’s wearing running shorts and a giant Stanford sweatshirt, and Stiles has never seen her look more put together. She’s smiling and make up free; not worrying about her GPA, not worrying about popularity, or stupid junior cheerleaders who think they’re going to take her place or something equally ridiculous. She’s happy with her feet in his lap and eyes on the TV.

“Who the hell has satin shoes?” Stiles mutters disbelievingly. Lydia looks over at him in confusion, eyebrows scrunched together

“I do?” he bursts out laughing at her, and she cracks an easy smile too, relaxing further into the couch.

(Darkness latched to his bones bleeds out)

After the nogistune, Lydia and Stiles spent a lot of time together. She’d lost Aiden, nearly lost her best friend, and Stiles had spent time in a mental institution and been possessed by a magical demon fox which resulted in him vomiting himself up and crying a lot. The months afterwards were trying and tiring, but the humans had to stick together. While Allison was in the hospital recovering from her giant stab wound, Stiles and Lydia would curl up together all the time, in her basement, in his living room, in the backseat of his car. They would go anywhere they could to escape into something normal for once, and Stiles can’t help but feel comfortable, for a while.

\

He should have known better.

She screams Saturday morning, throwing herself out of sleep and to her feet. She says she dreamt of a metronome, a woman blinking to the same rhythm of the machine, and fangs sinking into a triskele tattoo. The woman’s eyes had been red, but not like an alpha’s. They didn’t glow, they were just a dull, bloody red that ate up her pupils and the whites of her eyes, and they were terrifying. She says something Stiles had been dreading hearing.

“Derek,” she whispers.

Stiles should have known better.

/

Derek isn’t dead the next time sees him and when Stiles notices he breathes a sigh of relief before sprinting up the front steps of the Hale house. Lydia is still in the passenger seat when he jerks the door open, panic making him breathe harder and his fingers shake. Laura is sitting on the couch, and she looks up at him confusedly.

“She screamed,” he grinds out, eyes wide. He probably looks crazy, with sweat beading on his forehead, but he doesn’t care, just skitters towards the stares.

Derek is waiting at the foot of them for Stiles, arms crossed over his chest and alpha look on his face. Stiles knows that Cora can probably hear them, but he ignores that thought and runs right up to Derek, stops in front of him.

“I’m staying here tonight and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Stiles says sharply, looking Derek square in the eye.

“Can I ask why you’re so insistent about this?” Derek asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Lydia said your name, right after she screamed.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah oh.”

\

Stiles wakes up to 4 missed calls from his father, 3 from Scott, and ever the odd one from Melissa. He has 5 voicemails in total, but he puts them off in favor of cuddling up to Derek who is still very much alive. He does text Lydia though, who’s sleeping in her room in the Hale house and tells her that he’d love her forever if she’d just call his house and tell the Sheriff that she left something over there last night and that she and Stiles would be over in two hours to pick it up. He doesn’t know if she does it but the sheriff doesn’t call him again so he takes that as a plus. And, Lydia really did leave her makeup kit in his upstairs bathroom and she’ll be griping about it as soon as she becomes coherent enough to complain.

After another good hour of sleep and studying Derek’s sleep face (that’s surprisingly childlike and unsurprisingly adorable), Stiles makes his way downstairs. It’s nearing 10 a.m., which means Laura and Cora will be coming home from a run and Derek will be waking up soon. He scrambles around, making coffee and putting Pop Tarts in the toaster, while waiting for the rest of the house to wake up. He texts Scott, tells him to get to the house and make sure he brings everyone else.

“That’s a real hearty breakfast there,” Peter scoffs. No one uses the second set of stairs, that lead straight into the kitchen, other than Peter, and he only uses them when he’s trying to be sly. Which is always.

“Not in the mood, man,” Stiles grumbles, nursing his cup of coffee defensively. Peter rolls his eyes.

“When are you guys going to start trusting me?” the older man groans, gripping the counter. He starts pulling out eggs and other various ingredients, probably to make something ridiculous like a frittata, while Stiles tries to ignore him. Brown Sugar Pop Tarts give him life and he’d be damned if he let Peter Hale, of all people, ruin them.

Derek stumbles down the stairs next, rubbing his eyes blearily and walking on his tiptoes to fight the cold of the floor. Stiles just keeps munching on his snack food. There’s a weirdly domestic feel to the moment, they don’t have to speak but Derek does brush up against him as he slides towards the refrigerator and squeeze his hip while pouring his coffee. Peter rolls his eyes again before he slips away, but no one really cares. The sun is warm on the skin of Stiles’s back and sleepy Derek is quickly becoming Stiles’s favorite Derek.

“Morning,” Derek greets gruffly. Stiles nods and smiles around his mouthful of breakfast junk. They don’t talk for a few moments.

“So you’re still alive,” Stiles states. Derek looks over at him and raises an eyebrow in amusement.

“Yes I am.”

“That’s good,” Stiles nods and swallows harshly. Before he can say anything though, Scott bursts into the house with Isaac, Erica and Boyd close behind him.

“Isabella and Veronica Elementi aren’t alive right now,” he huffs desperately.

Stiles looks at Derek, who pauses with his spoonful of Fruity Pebbles raised towards his mouth, and he feels his skin grow colder as everyone stares at the two of them. Derek closes his eyes, sighs, and drops his spoon back into its bowl before looking at Stiles.

“Give us 10 minutes,” he grunts, before he marches up the stairs.

/

When the whole pack converges around the dining room table, Stiles makes his way into the kitchen to bring out the pounds of food he knows they’re going to eat. He makes a bunch of sandwiches and pours soda for everyone before also putting a frozen pizza in the oven and setting the timer. Everyone looks to him gratefully (even Peter), when he comes back into the dining room with snacks, and no one bats an eye when he goes to sit to the left of Derek.

“It was them, the coven,” Scott says instantly, as soon as everyone settles.

“I smelled the blood,” Erica starts, “I was walking my dog and literally all I could smell was dying skin, blood, and fear. I forgot to pick up her poop. My neighbors are gonna complain,” she bemoans this to everyone for a moment, how if her neighbors continue to complain about anything Erica does her parents are going to be up her ass for days and she really doesn’t want to deal with it. She probably wants to deal with that problem as much as Stiles wants to deal with the two dead twins on their hands.

“You’re gonna get grounded again,” Isaac sighs, rolls his eyes. Derek growls low in his throat, eyes flashing momentarily. Usually Stiles would try to calm him down, but in the moment can’t find himself thinking it’s necessary. Two girls are dead and Erica and Isaac are worried about her being grounded, right yeah, that’s exactly why they called this meeting.

“Guys,” he admonishes quietly. He shakes his head as indiscreetly as possible, but he knows that Derek sees.

“They’re dead, you two. Two kids are fucking dead and you’re worried about getting your goddamn keys revoked for a day? Are you joking, or are you just that fucking stupid?” Derek barks at them. With each word he gets louder and louder until Stiles’s vision quakes and he’s left with a slight throb in his left ear drum. He knows Derek’s ‘Alpha-ing’ them, even though he hates doing it, and he knows this is serious. He hasn’t alpha voiced anyone since the nogistune thing. Stiles doesn’t intervene though, it’s Laura who clears her throat, almost so quietly that Stiles doesn’t hear it. There’s a somber air in the room, everyone either completely focused on Derek or strangely interested in the table in front of them. Stiles is looking towards Derek. The room is still, everyone holding their breath, for a whole 3 minutes as Derek glares at the entire pack.

“Okay, Derek. Okay,” she mutters, getting a nod from Cora. He looks at them both, eyes narrowed, and shoulders set tensely. His eyes are glowing, claws extended slightly into his clenched fists, and Stiles can tell her’s fighting against the fangs that strain against his gums. He raises his sunglasses from his face, a now permanent fixture, and blinks up at the alpha. He doesn’t look down at him, still sitting down, albeit a little less calm than he was a few minutes ago, but Stiles knows that Derek can understand the message he’s trying to send. Derek takes a seat again and rests his hand on Stiles’s thigh under the table. (He bares his neck in reflex)

“We’re not fighting them,” is all Derek says. He looks into the eyes of all of his betas, dares them to challenge, and none of them do.

“Good, because, I, for one, am quite fond of my blood,” Cora snorts. Stiles doesn’t need the wolves’ sense of smell to know that she’s nervously trying to lighten the mood, and he immediately feels grateful for her, even if she regularly threatens to glare him to death over breakfast.

“If we’re not fighting, then what are we doing? They’ve killed on our territory,” Scott demands, though quietly. This isn’t like their regular pack meetings, Stiles thinks it’s because they understand the severity of their world, finally. After losing friends, losing relationships, watching people die, they’ve finally realized what they’re in for. Stiles doesn’t know whether or not he’s happy that his friends are taking this so seriously. On one hand, good, they’ll be careful, but on another, this means that there’s no going back. They’ll forever be jaded war veterans. Even Scott can’t avoid this certain mortality.

“It’s what I’m going to do,” Derek says lowly. Laura rolls her eyes

“We are predators, but we are not killers. We don’t have to be, at least. Remember that if they attack again, okay? Derek’s going to talk to them, Cora and I will go for back up, and either we’ll cohabitate or they’ll go,” she shrugs, like it’s really that easy. Stiles puts his glasses back down abruptly, his head throbbing with a vengeance.

“No,” he grinds out. The pain loosens its grip on his skull.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” Erica says sharply. He turns to her, instinctively, and raises his lip in a silent warning. She stares back at him in shock, and he blinks to himself because what the hell.

“Lydia said your name, Derek. You literally cannot with this martyr shit.”

“I’m the alpha. This isn’t some martyr shit, Stiles. This is me protecting my pack,” Derek argues, turning fully in his seat to look at him, and never leaving its place on Stiles’s thigh.

“Then you have to take me,” Stiles shoots back, refusing to just take this. He knows he’s sending a really shitty pack dynamic message or whatever, but he’s never played the role of the “Alpha’s Chosen” very well, and doesn’t see a reason to stop being himself. These people threatened his pack too, and he’ll be damned if he just sits back and lets his boyfriend, his sisters and their pack get murdered because of some bull crap old timey traditions.

“I don’t have to do a damn thing!”

“Um, you have to be a-fucking-live to be the freaking alpha, Derek. Are you gonna continue your tyrannical rage from the grave, because that’s what the future holds if you think you’re walking in there like some kind of diplomat!” he rants. They keep eye contact, neither of them backing down. They stay seated, and they aren’t even really yelling at this point, but if this doesn’t get nipped in the butt soon it’ll escalate into a real fight, complete with hurtful jibes and scathing words. Stiles hates when it gets out of hand like that but Lydia said his name. The only name she said was Derek’s which means he’ll be the one to go, he’ll be the one they’re left without and Stiles will be the one to blame. Because he just let their alpha waltz on into the crossfire.

“They came to your house though,” Scott interjects, unhelpfully. Allison gasps, and that’s the only noise in the room. If Stiles’s heart hadn’t already been racing like a hummingbird’s, it sure is now, because Derek just stops. He stops breathing, doesn’t blink, goes completely still. He looks like a marble king, sitting in front of Stiles, radiating barely contained rage and danger and the kind of darkness you lock in your closet at night. Stiles’s fingers start to burn.

“I’m going to kill them,” Derek growls, unfocused and audible italics in full force. His eyes gleam blood red in the light, and Stiles’s fingers are still burning, but he knows what’s up. It’s the panic, bubbling in his chest, tightening his throat. He knows it’s a panic attack and this time, instead of burning his own skin off, the lights in the house start to flicker.

“I don’t want any of you in the preserve. No exceptions. Yeah, it’s our territory, but they obviously don’t give a shit if they’ve made a mistake that huge,” Laura states coolly. Meeting adjourned.

\

“Why the fuck didn’t you think to tell me that they were in you goddamn house?” Derek rages, as soon as everyone is settled in their guest rooms. Stiles knows they can hear, and for once is a little mad at himself for not picking his own room, opting instead to share Derek’s bedroom. The fangs are poking madly through his gums, he looks crazy, his eyes are flickering as badly as the lights throughout the house.

“Because Lydia didn’t say my name!”

“Stiles, if that’s honestly your fucking argument you better pray to God a chandelier falls on my head before I get my hands around your throat.”

“Okay, first off, chill the fuck out Mr. Dahmer,” Stiles snorts, even if nervously. Derek rolls his eyes and throws his hands up in exasperation.

“Stiles this is serious! Do you really not get it? People are dead; people are gonna be dead if I don’t do something about it,” he sighs. Derek is standing on one side of the room, having just exited the bathroom, and Stiles standing on the other side of the bed, as if he purposely put a barrier in between them. He sucks in a breath.

“Of course I get it! This is my pack too, oh my God, Derek. I care about them too, and I care about the kids that are going to end up dead if we don’t do something but-,” Stiles says, voice steadily rising and face flushed. It’s going to get out of control. He wasn’t angry 5 seconds ago, but he’s angry now, and there’s no way for him to not be.

“But what? What else is there to say?” he demands. Stiles’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head as he looks at Derek incredulously.

“What else is there to say? How about “I don’t want you to die”? or maybe, if that doesn’t work- because it won’t- “I don’t want to die”? Because Derek, I don’t want to die. I want everything to be normal, like we had for the summer. I want shit to not suck, for like, 15 seconds, okay? I want to graduate high school!” he’s yelling now, and Derek flinches back, like Stiles is the dangerous one. His fingers burn as he presses on. “And right now, you’re acting like your angry that I didn’t tell you I was in danger, but you aren’t listening to me when I say that Lydia has predicted you goddamn death, Derek, what the fuck? That’s what the fuck else I had to say, okay? I do not want to lose you, or anyone else in the pack, if I can help it.”

Derek blinks at him, his eyes flitting down to where Stiles’s hands are balled up into fists and he’s shaking a little, but Derek just blinks at him, the light from the bathroom hitting him perfectly. In all his shirtless glory though, he looks frightened, almost, a little haunted, and very confused.

“Your eyes are glowing,” he says, “your eyes are glowing and I can see the light you’re sucking up even with my human eyes. Your hair is smoking. You’re just as dangerous and powerful as we are, Stiles, and if anyone knows that we’ll all walk away from this, it’s you,” Derek states, with a grave finality.

Stiles is still buzzing with anxiety, -though trying to calm himself down enough so that the palms of his hands will stop bubbling,- when all of the lights in the house go out. He hears the collective groans of everyone in the house, but chooses to ignore them.

“Just make him sleep on the couch, Mom!” Erica yells down the hall.

“And switch the damn lights back on, I’ve got AP Collegiate Physics homework to finish!” Lydia adds. Stiles curses and tries to focus, tries to feel the light or whatever, channel his energy or some shit, but nothing happens. He closes his eyes and concentrates, and he makes his hands stop burning themselves, but he doesn’t turn on any lights, which is disappointing. Lydia is still complaining when he feels two huge hands on his hips, raising his thin t-shirt up some.

“I’m going to be okay,” Derek smiles simply, pecks his lips, “we’re all going to be fine.”

The lights surge back on (heart beats one time), and Stiles releases a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding.  

/

This Monday still means carting Lydia around, but this time they’re a little less dead.

“And then she had the audacity to actually suggest a larger size! That bitch, right?” Lydia crows, throwing her head back wildly and rolling her eyes. She looks like she’s having a seizure, and Stiles laughs. The whites of her eyes are incredibly visible when she widens them at him expectantly.

“What a moron,” he scoffs, sneering over at her in agreement.

“I know, so, of course, I told her direct superior, who happened to know my mother. Lisa was like, “oh my goodness, I can’t believe she would do such a thing, I knew she was incompetent, blah, blah, freaking blah” and I knew she wasn’t actually going to do anything about it, so I used my mother’s e-mail to send her a message telling Lisa how she saw Miranda, the rude shrew, writing down her credit card information down, and she had to cancel her card for two weeks in order to be completely sure her identity wasn’t being stolen,” she rants, taking not one breath in between.

“So that’s why they’re on the channel 7 news?”

“No. That’s why Miranda Mara doesn’t have a job,” Lydia finishes primly. Stiles lets out a bark of laughter and they crack up until they pull into the school parking lot.

Monday is okay.

\

Shit hits the fan on Tuesday.

Stiles wakes up, scrambles in and out of the shower, texts his father, who already left for work, and yanks on whatever clothes he can find. He’s running late, his second alarm did the literal equivalent of zero work this morning, and all this movement makes his head scream. His sunglasses fall behind his nightstand and he has to wriggle all over the floor to find them before he dashes down the stairs, a dangerous 2 at a time, to the merry beat of his various painkillers, and Adderall, shaking in their canisters. He’s in the kitchen, aggressively pouring orange juice, when he hears a breathless giggle from his living room. (Something in his chest locks, veins freeze)

As calmly as one can with quivering, burning hands, Stiles takes his cocktail of 3 Excedrin, two Advil and his Adderall with his juice. He pretends he isn’t freaking out, pretends he doesn’t notice that the time on the microwave is flashing the painfully incorrect time of 00:00, as if it’s just been plugged in.

“You’ve not greeted your guest, little fire starter,” Juliette-Eve calls politely. Stiles shudders bodily before squaring his shoulders and adjusting his glasses. His breathing is thin, but he remembers what Derek taught him about controlling the rise and fall of his shoulders; feels the safety in the weight of his watch. He rounds the corner with minimal stumbling.

“Greetings,” he deadpans at her, quirking an eyebrow in a silent question. He doesn’t know how to play this diplomatic game, which is why he’s never really a part of Derek’s alpha responsibilities, but he doesn’t know how to fake some confidence.

“You’re always an absolute pleasure, Efnissien,” she grins (wolfishly).

“Don’t call me that,” he snaps at her, getting a chuckle in return. She rises from her spot on his couch, sitting there like she belonged or something, and makes to walk towards her. A spike of fear rises in his throat, and he clenches his fist, holds on to the fire in his hands as she walks around his home, admires his family photographs. She doesn’t even look in his direction when she says-

“Your Derek is no fun to torture,” she states, French accent lilting in the most teasing fashion. It takes Stiles’s nerves a moment to burst into flames.

“Excuse you?” is all he says (croaks) though. He tries to demand, to make her understand the severity of the situation, to let her know how badly she’s just messed up, but he can’t. His eyes are seeing double.

“Derek? Your lover? Your alpha? He is no fun to torture. He does not scream, he does not beg. He just- accepts,” she shrugs. Stiles’s vision goes blindingly red for a moment, a light so incredibly bright that the hair on his arm starts to singe, his skin practically vibrates with the energy he’s just forced out of himself. He hears her gasps, her choked off pleas, and when he opens his eyes, when he finally breathes again, she is on the ground, her true face exposed. Her pale skin is pulled grotesquely over decaying muscles, and dripping black blood. She smells suspiciously of a meat locker and Stiles looks her right in the eyes, irises drowning in malice and shrouded with rage. He looks her in the eyes, breathes in the scent of her thousands of deaths, and feels his pupils grow, revels in the power of feeling a certain quenching in his gut, and raises his glasses to his forehead.

“You will tell me where he is, and you will tell me right now, if you don’t want me to start a little fire all over your body,” he threatens lowly, voice saccharine and swelling with his promises of a million different pains.

“I’d rather die than-,” she starts, spitting her words in a sporadic manor, like she isn’t sure where her next breath is going to come from.

“I can make that happen,” Stiles growls, and lifts his lips in the most animalistic, hungry grin that’s ever passed over his face.

He straightens from where he’s kneeled over her quivering form, looks around vaguely for the boy, who definitely isn’t around if he was before, and blinks hard. There is no false confidence in him, in these moments. He starts to sort of feel bad for threatening to kill the woman, but then the knife of rage in his skull twists and he realizes that she has Derek, and if she has Derek then she has Laura and Cora and she won’t stop until her happy little family of bloodsucking monsters has his entire pack, like yeah that’s going to happen. He takes his phone out and dials Scott’s number, because he knows that the emergency phone is always with Derek.

“There’s a vampire on my living room floor, quick I might murder her before you get her,” he mutters darkly, hoping that she hears. He hopes he doesn’t snap (his seams don’t unfold) under the weight of her life and his anger.

Scott arrives in 6 minutes even though it should have taken at least 15. He has Isaac and Allison with him, because apparently they all ride together now, and they look at the disgusting, shaking mess on his living room floor before Allison claps her hands twice.

“Okay boys, first we need to move her,” she commands, looking at each of them separately. Her eyes don’t linger on Stiles for long. Isaac and Scott look at each other dubiously, and Stiles feels not only his ADHD rattling his brain but the now deathly need to find Derek.

“We will, Stiles. Don’t worry, we’ll bring him back,” Scott says reassuringly. Stiles hadn’t realized he’d been speaking out loud, but then again, he suspects that his eyes must still look otherworldly and frightening because Allison still won’t make eye contact, and he didn’t even realize that his shoes were melting until Isaac yelped and dashed away from his flames.

“Damn right we will,” he agrees vehemently, voice sounding like he’s been gargling gravel. He should probably be tired from supernaturally sucker punching the life out of that cemetery crawling bitch, but instead he just feels completely wired. The rest of his little group doesn’t talk to him as he sits in a chair and rests. He’s trying to concentrate. He doesn’t want his friends to be afraid of him, and he doesn’t want to start a house fire, but he doesn’t want to let go of this anger. He tries to imagine bottling it up and keeping it in his pocket in case he ever needs a drink of it, and while the ridiculous idea calms him down a little bit, he still ends up steaming and hyperventilating by the time Julliete-Eve is secured in the back of his Jeep.

“We’re going to find him.”

/

Chris Argent agrees with strange ease to harboring a slowly liquefying vampire in his dungeon of terror, and usually Stiles would have a quip about the sadistic streak a mile wide that runs in that family, but this time he just nods curtly at Mr. Argent and follows his friends down to the basement. He makes Allison, who is just standing and directing the boys, text the rest of the pack telling them to get their asses over to the Argents. Stiles makes sure to tell her to add that fact that the Hales have been taking and he doesn’t give a shit if they fail the next semester because of this absence. They arrive pretty quickly.

“Why are you wearing sunglasses indoors?” Chris asks bluntly. Stiles is sitting on his couch, sipping some tea that Lydia made as soon as she saw him, and waiting for Allison to find the proper chains needed to hold down a vampire. Stiles’s focus on not burning down the house is momentarily wavered when the lights flicker, but the strange twinge in the hollow of his neck tells him that he can get this back in line. He looks over at Chris and raises an eyebrow. The man arches his right back, so Stiles lifts his sunglasses off of his face, blinks and makes the back of his neck burn before opening them again. Argent gasps and takes a step back, which pleases Stiles endlessly.

“You’re a fire starter,” the older man whispers. Stiles just nods and lowers his glasses. He figures that if he can get to Deaton’s in the next 48 hours he can get the man to teach him how to control the fire that sits in his lungs. Any time after that and he’ll probably be dead, burnt up from the inside out or dinner for the Salvaticis. He thinks that it would be pretty badass to do the cool magical eye thing (that he has yet to see for himself) every time he took of his glasses. He also thinks it would be pretty cool to not have it on his file that he needs to be able to wear sunglasses in school or he’ll projectile vomit for three hours after he gets home.

“I am a fire starter, apparently.”

They don’t really speak, but the next time Stiles’s mouth moves, Lydia and Allison are coming from her bedroom, hair pulled back and matching gloves on their hands. Stiles doesn’t ask, just rises from the couch and follows them downstairs to meet the rest of the wolves. Argent tags along closely, careful not to kill Stiles with his giant Taser.

The basement’s ceiling is low, and dark, and Juliette-Eve’s pale, dying skin stands out in a stark, fearful kind of way. Stiles is glad she’s still feeling the pain of her flesh peeling off of her stolen, living form. She deserves whatever Stiles is about to do to her. (He fumbles for control inside of flaming skin)

“This is not going to solve anything,” the vampire hisses at him. She’s bound only around her middle to a wall, sagging pitifully. Stiles nods.

“I agree. Those chains can’t make you speak. Having your eyes burnt from their sockets couldn’t make you talk.”

“Then why am I here?” she groans now. Stiles rolls his eyes but.

She asks a good question. He doesn’t really know why he decided that bringing her to a sex chamber would help, but they’re here now. He can’t really just be like “oops you know what, I wasn’t thinking straight,” because then he looks stupid. He doesn’t have a plan though, is the problem. He wants to talk some mad shit to her, wants to make her feel like crap for tearing apart a family, wants to see her skull sizzling beneath his fingers, but he figures that thoughts like that are what get you on America’s Most Wanted list. Stiles is just angry; he’s angry and he wants to vent and he wants to make her pay and, most importantly, he needs to find Derek.

“To listen to me talk,” he finally concludes. The wolves, Lydia, and Allison stare at him, don’t move and don’t make a sound. His skin crawls with distinct discomfort when he realizes they’re looking at him the same way they look at Derek. He’s their alpha, in this moment, and if the threat of part of his pack dying wasn’t enough to get him moving, this realization definitely is.

“You don’t have to talk right now, Juliette. Is that okay? Can I call you that?” he starts, already planning his villainous monologue while she nods in contempt, “good. You don’t have to speak now, I’m sure being deep fried takes a toll on the body, I’ll let you rest. You can just listen.”

He looks around the room at his pack, as if looking for their approval. What he wants them to approve of, he does not know, and he’s sure they don’t either, but they nod either way. He feels their trust rush through him, feels it settle like the power of the nematon, in the space he reserves for magical phenomena.

“We were gloved up in case we had to touch her?” Allison says, but phrases it like a question.

“You don’t need to be, actually. We won’t be moving her,” Stiles tells her, not looking away from Juliette. He knows she nods though, and she and Lydia remove their gloves as Argent passes him a pair.

“Your fingers are smoking,” the man states. Stiles shakes his head slightly, fingers turning around his wrist to tap twice on the face of his watch and turns back to his “guest”.

“You said you’ve heard stories about our pack, yes? So you’ve heard about the Alphas we tore apart, and you’ve heard about the Darach we killed? I’m sure if you’ve heard that then you’ve heard about the harpies, the hags, the witch, the ogre. I know you know something about the siren; they’re like extended family to your kind. If you’ve heard stories about us, then you’ve heard stories about me, and you know I’ll stop at nothing to protect what’s mine.”

His wolves growl in affirmation, and he watches with a jolt of satisfaction as the vampire shudders.

\

The Manzonis are a nice family. They run a local Italian restaurant, stereotypically enough, and they all talk with their hands. Danielle and Belle Manzoni are especially nice to be around, and Stiles knows because their older brother, Warren, always brings them to watch track practice when the middle school dismisses them.

They’re such a nice family, in fact, that they let their distant relatives from the old country come and shack up in their lake house

When the pack arrives at the lake house, Allison and Lydia armed to the teeth, Isaac, Scott, Erica, and Boyd wolfed out upon arrival, Stiles makes sure to knock before having Boyd kick the door in. He walks inside first, scoping out the place, making sure that the Salvaticis know that they’ve arrived. He invites the girls in next, and together they walk through the house. They make no move to immediately find the Hales, Scott says he can smell them and hear their heartbeats, and Stiles is in no rush to be ambushed by literal bloodthirsty freaks.

“Hello?” he calls, raising his glasses, as if in a courtesy. He gets no answer. Lydia grips her ring daggers so hard her knuckles whiten. She’s the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, in that second, teeth bared in a silent, challenging snarl. They creep through the house together, everyone watching each other’s steps and breathing each other’s air. It’s odd.

“I can smell her on you,” a man says, emerging from the shadows. He’s tall, taller than Boyd and Derek both, and just as wide. His smile is thick and self-satisfied, teeth unnaturally white for someone whose only sustenance is human blood, coupled with his slicked back hair, it wouldn’t be surprising if this guy was a bootlegger in the 20’s or a mob boss right now. Stiles raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’m sure you can smell me on those werewolves too then,” he tests. The man nods.

“Yes, very potent. One of them, the alpha, the one who does not scream, is absolutely drenched in your scent, Efnissien,” he smiles condescendingly. Stiles refuses to back down, and the confidence boost from Isaac’s offended growl forces him to straighten his back more, and pour the liquid fire into his eyes.

“Then you must know why we’re here? Because we don’t want to fight, Giovanni. I tried to tell Juliette that,” Stiles says regretfully. When she finally did succumb to her wounds, he felt bad for having slapped her only a half hour before. (Spine twitches in anticipation) Giovanni blinks, tilts his head.

“You did not kill her,” he concedes.

“No, I didn’t. I’m not like you. I don’t need to kill to prove a point; you’re scared enough already.”

Stiles is afraid. He’s acting like he’s not, and no one can smell that he is, but he feels the slight tremor to his voice, he’s standing on his own swaying legs. He feels like his arm is slowly being hacked off, but at least his head no longer hurts. He can feel how close he is to Derek, but he can also feel how close he is to someone who might kill him. Probably will kill him. Stiles’s fingers quake, and like a struck match, a fire blazes between them, the lights flicker on without him meaning to make them do so.

“You did not kill her, but that does not mean that I won’t kill you,” Giovanni barks, before lunging towards Stiles. He moves so fast that he barely has time to react, but Stiles does, shoving his blazing hands in front of his hastily. He grips onto the lapels of the man’s jacket, long hands finding three different spaces to fit themselves into in a matter of seconds. They make eye contact, and while Stiles can hear the arrival of other vampires, probably ready to take apart his family, the only thing he can concentrate on is his head thudding against the floor abruptly.

The pain doesn’t register to him, but the chandelier in the next room shivers as Giovanni moves with inhuman speed to pin Stiles down. He doesn’t fight it, his training has taught him that trying to match supernatural creatures move for move won’t work, but he predicts where the vampire’s hands are going, now that his knees have Stiles on the ground. Faster than he’s ever really moved before, Stiles taps the face of his watch twice before throwing his head into the vampire’s mouth. They meet with a gross, slick sound, and Stiles’s head is really about to start spinning now, but it gives his claws enough time to extend. He wheels back as much as he possibly can and lands a punch to Giovanni’s face, and the metal leaves four lines of burning flesh in its wake. The man roars, and tips backwards just enough for Stiles to find some leverage. (It’s almost too easy)

They leave the house buried in shook down chandeliers, exposed electrical wiring, bullet trodden flooring, and a few dying undead freaks cut with surgical precision. Plus an alpha, and two more of the toughest, most incredible women Stiles has ever, and will ever encounter. He’s never been prouder of the people around him. When he looks into their eyes, after lowering his sunglasses, he sees something reflected in them that he never expected. A certain kind of respect, and awe, but thankfully not fear. When he looks to his alpha, all he sees is love, and as cheesy as it is, he’s definitely never been more contented to be alive. (Even if he has an absolute skull crushing headache and a bruise the size of an apple on his back)

There’s a burning in his lungs, a burning house, and a burning need in his chest to literally jump Derek as soon as they’re alone and he’s never been so happy. It’s over, and the moon is hanging low, under his skin. The trees look like lethal fingers, stretching into the night and he pulls Derek closer to him because he’s stronger, more capable, in the night. He can carry the weight of the entire world in this nighttime, because he has all kinds of light inside of him anyway.

Epilogue:

“In-N-Out, babe?” Derek calls down the spiral stairs. Stiles is behind the desk staring down doubtfully at a map in front of him. He has no idea where this supposed camp ground is and he refuses to spend his last high school spring break in the middle of a fucking forest if he’s going to get murdered. He’d like to at least be able to research the history of the place before diving right in.

“Yeah, hon, gimmie a second,” he says teasingly in a normal tone because Derek can hear him. They’ve gotten sickeningly domestic, he realizes, and a slow grin spreads across his face.

“Don’t think I won’t leave your cute ass, sweetheart,” he sneers back, before running out of the loft. Stiles rolls his eyes, and takes his phone out to text Scott about leading his pale, skinny ass into the forest to finally get rid of him, even after all the times he’s saved Scott’s slightly furry skin.

/

“Shit, shit- oh my god Derek,” Stiles breathes out, chest heaving, and sweat cooling on his chest. He turns his head into the pillows, clenches his long fingers in the sheets desperately as he cants his hips into Derek’s touch.

“You don’t even know how good you look right now, Stiles. God you look like mine, covered in my teeth, and my bruises, spread out and asking for more,” Derek groans, burying his mouth in the soft junction of skin where Stiles’s thigh and pelvis meet. He whines high in his throat, pleading for just a little bit more, because he’s so damn close, his dick is fucking leaking and he just needs a little goddamn more, and everything at the same time. Derek’s fingers piston in and out of his ass lighting fast, making his toes curl, and forcing him to blink tears out of his eyes. He knows how he sounds- absolutely needy and wrecked, begging at the top of his lungs for Derek to just fuck him, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

“Please fuck me, baby,- god right there- just fuck me,” Stiles is babbling, talking in sentences that are barely English at this point, and he can hear the electrical wiring of the building creaking and shaking but he doesn’t care he just wants to get off.

“Gonna take care of you,- gonna fuck you so hard, you’ll feel me for fucking days,” he growls biting harshly at Stiles’s stomach before flipping him onto his stomach so he can suck dark marks into the pale unwind of Stiles’s spine and fuck the boy how he wants it.

(You called me baby, you did)

\

Derek’s car always vibrates when Stiles plays his favorite kind of music, but the only one who ever complains is Derek. Plus, they’re going to Taco Bell, again, so he’ll listen to whatever the hell he wants and Derek will enjoy not having to listen to him complain. Isaac texts him just as he meets his glare across the console and he’s smiling when he types out-

we’re good, save me some fucking Chinese bro

The wind is sticky, makes his skin feel like a bowl of oatmeal, but Stiles doesn’t mind because when he closes his eyes his skin is finally together and he knows that in a few seconds he’ll open his eyes again and his mind won’t split open with a headache. It feels like a thousand years ago, when he and Derek had a night just like this, but it tastes familiar to the tips of his fingers (flames licking up his spine).

“I’m not driving all the way across town for burgers, Stiles,” Derek states simply as soon as they pull into Taco Bell.

“Got Chinese waiting at home anyway, fucker,” he smirks, and they fall into step as they walk into the restaurant. Stiles catches a glimpse of his own shining, silvery looking eyes in the window as Derek shoves him playfully away.

It’s good, and it’s over, and while it all began in the dark, Stiles is glad he feels as though it has finally ended in some kind of all encompassing lightness.