Chapter Text
Stiles walked into Derek’s loft for the pack meeting, and froze when he noticed Erica methodically ripping apart the couch with a wolfy snarl. He would’ve thought Derek would be opposed to this behavior, but judging by how he was calmly leaning against the wall and reading a book, not batting an eye, he was apparently a-okay with Erica using his couch as a clawing post.
“Uh,” was the most intelligent response he could make. He ransacked his brain for something else to say, but kind of came up short. Fortunately, his mouth was happy to pick up the slack. It liked showing initiative that way. “I’d ask you if it was that time of month, but I’m not sure I’d know which one I was referring to.”
Dammit, when was his mouth going to learn not to bait angry werewolves?! Erica paused in her clawing, and fixed him with bright yellow eyes, and he thought that if he survived this, that maybe this would be the lesson that stuck. He swallowed, even though his mouth had suddenly turned dry as sand.
“If you ever make a period joke again, I’ll give you an immediate vasectomy. With my claws.”
“Right,” he squeaked. Even without a wolfy lie detector, he was pretty damn sure she was serious. “No jokes about the monthly cycle, gotcha.”
Erica studied him carefully, as if she was trying to determine if he’d been sufficiently intimidated, or if she needed to go for a more hands on tactic. Stiles could feel cold sweat on the back of his neck, and shot Derek a pleading look for help. Derek’s eyebrows replied ‘you were stupid enough to get yourself into this situation, so good luck. I’m not touching this.’ Derek’s eyebrows were very expressive that way. Which was good, since the stupid wolf never used his damn words. The eyebrow thing was the only way he ever got anything across.
But after a nerve-wracking eternity, Erica nodded to herself and turned her attention back on the couch. Stiles heaved a sigh of relief at this stay of his execution. He cautiously moved closer, because he had yet to meet a tense situation he didn’t want to poke with a stick.
“So... would it be okay to ask why we’re dissecting the couch, or is that another taboo question? I mean, maybe there’s something I could do to help?” he suggested, all the while creeping closer to the couch in a ‘don’t startle the wild beast’ shuffle.
Erica gave him a dismissive look and scoffed. She made a pleased little noise in the back of her throat as one of the couch pillows ripped with a magnificent fabric death rattle.
“Or I could just listen,” he added hurriedly, settling on the floor just out of reach. Not that she couldn’t get to him and rip his throat out faster than he could blink, but still. It was a sort of... illusion of safety.
Erica gave the couch a moment’s respite, and the loft went completely silent. Even Derek didn’t dare turn a page in his book to interrupt - and Stile knew he was done with his page, he’d been absently timing the sound since he first entered the loft - despite the fact that he was supposed to be a big, bad alpha werewolf, and Erica was his beta.
“I dyed my hair,” Erica mumbled, picking at one of the smaller tears on the couch.
Stiles blinked in surprise and studied her hair. People always joked that guys didn’t notice when girls changed stuff with their appearance, but Stiles liked to think he was more perceptive than that. But he really couldn’t see any difference.
“It, uh, looks nice?” he hazarded, fidgeting nervously with the sleeve of his hoodie. He fervently hoped this conversation wouldn’t end with claws to his balls, especially since Derek was still lurking in the corner, looking entirely disinclined to butt in if any maiming were to happen.. “I mean, I’ll be honest enough, I can’t really tell what you changed, and trust me, I feel like a dick for saying that, but yeah, you look beautiful. As always.”
Erica shot him a look that was halfway grateful and halfway frustrated. “No, I dyed my hair, and then I wolfed out, and it turned back. I didn’t think I signed up for zero body modification when I accepted the bite.” She curled up slightly, and buried her claws deep in a so far unscathed patch of couch. It was pretty much a critical hit.
“Ohh, you used normal dye,” Stiles exclaimed in relief and understanding. Apparently he wasn’t That Asshole who couldn’t tell a drastic change in hairstyle after all. “Well, of course it turned back, then. Why would you use normal dye?”
Derek straightened and put down his book to fix Stiles with a surprised and intrigued expression. Erica simply stared at him in confusion. “What?”
“Normal dye doesn’t work on werewolves, there’s a wolfsbane for that,” Stiles explained, suddenly every bit as confused as Erica, because why wouldn’t she know that. “Didn’t Derek tell you?”
Erica’s head snapped around to glare menacingly at Derek, whose eyes widened in what most people would peg for surprise, but Stiles secretly thought was fear. “No, he didn’t,” Erica said in a deceptively sweet tone that didn’t sound very sweet at all, due to the hint of growl in it.
“Because I didn’t know!” Derek protested, and his eyebrows were asking Stiles why he would throw him under the bus like that. “How was I supposed to know that?! How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve been spending the last two weeks studying wolfsbane with Deaton,” Stiles said, and flailed at Derek’s eyebrows in an attempt to communicate that he hadn’t even considered Derek not knowing this stuff. “But seriously, why don’t you know, you grew up in a werewolf family! Did no-one ever dye their hair?”
Derek grit his teeth and looked away, clenching his fist so hard it looked painful. “My mom didn’t, and she wouldn’t let Laura or Cora do it either, said they were still too young for that kind of thing.”
The ‘and then they all died’ hung unspoken in the air, and Stiles felt like the biggest asshole ever. He hated seeing Derek like this; seemingly angry, but the anger looked like nothing more than a fragile mask to hide pain and fear and sorrow and, if Stiles wasn’t reading this wrong, crippling guilt.
Stiles knew a thing or two about survivor’s guilt, so he was pretty sure he was right. But he’d seen Derek’s mask of anger before, and it seemed thinner now, more cracked. He worried what would happen when it finally shattered.
Even Erica seemed mollified by this explanation. Well, more like awkwardly frozen in a weird emotional limbo, because she was still angry, but she didn’t have anything to be angry at that didn’t make her look like a total asshole. The expression on her face was kind of priceless. Because even if she could be somewhat... harsh, with the car parts and everything, Erica was too classy to kick Derek while he was down, to take his family dying before they could tell him stuff out on him.
“Anyway, you can’t just mix the wolfsbane with normal dye, the chemicals tend to act up, but let me know what colour you wanted, and I’ll see what I can do?” Stiles suggested, hoping to both cheer Erica up and steer Derek’s thoughts away from their doom and gloom fog. Or at least to a slightly lighter part of the doom and gloom fog. He was pretty sure Derek’s thoughts never left said fog completely.
Erica fixed him with a hopeful expression, a slight smile teasing at her lips. “Yeah?”
“Sure thing, Catwoman,” Stiles said and grinned. He thought he saw Derek’s shoulders slump a little in relief. “Not all pigments work all that great with wolfsbane, so you might not have as large a range of colour to work with as you would with store-bought dye, but I’m sure we can figure something out.”
Erica beamed at him, before leaping from the couch with superhuman speed and onto him to give him a crushing hug. Stiles froze, kind of painfully sprawled on the floor with Erica on top of him. Ow, his legs were not meant to bend that way. But really? They were hugging buddies now? Hesitantly, he settled his hands gently, barely touching on her back, and returned the hug. That’s what you did when people hugged you, right? Hugged them back?
“Thanks, Stiles,” Erica whispered in his ear.
“Any time,” he replied, and Erica let go of him, breaking the hug and crawling up off of him.“Wanna head to the store so you can point out the colour you wanted, so we can get this show on the road?”
Erica nodded and grabbed his hand, pulling him up to drag him out of there. As they walked past Derek, she paused, and stared guiltily at the floor. “I... sorry about the couch,” she mumbled, and glanced nervously up at Derek.
Derek’s lips twitched in what was almost a fond smile, and Stiles was torn between gaping in disbelief and wanting to coo. It probably made for a strange expression, ‘cause Derek gave him an odd look. “It’s alright, Erica. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a couch.”
Erica returned Derek’s almost-smile with a soft one of her own, which seemed equally out of character. Erica very rarely seemed soft. The entire thing felt like pack, and it filled Stiles with this awkward bundle of emotions he wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with, so he went with his usual tactic and ignored it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know why he was happy to see Erica and Derek like this, why he was happy they let him, why he wanted to have that kind of exchange with someone as well.
But he had this feeling that if he started analyzing those thoughts, he’d stumble upon... something in himself that he’d be better off not knowing about. So he locked them all away in a box in a back of his mind, hoping that if he ignored them for long enough, they’d go away entirely, or he’d find a piece of the puzzle that made those thoughts and feelings less intimidating.
“C’mon, Stiles,” Erica said with a wolfy grin and a tug on his hand. Stiles wasn’t sure he’d ever seen someone so happy and grateful about something he’d offered, about skills or knowledge he had. It was humbling and gratifying, and kind of made all the time and energy he’d ever put into research worth it.
He returned her grin, vowing to work even harder on researching all the things. “I’m right behind you. Let’s go find you some kick-ass dye.”
It turned out, keeping up with a skipping werewolf was hard, even if she was in heels. And they didn’t like being called on the skipping.
Erica rocked her new hair colour, though. To the surprise of absolutely no-one.