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Finding a herd of cattle shouldn't be particularly hard, considering. It's not as if they're small animals. Then again, Stiles thinks sourly, if you consider the sheer size of the California prairie, maybe his week-long excursion shouldn’t have been a surprise. At least it’s almost finished. The winding path of beaten down turf he’s found indicates a herd passing this way, recently from what he can judge. Success at last. He isn’t wearing this badge for nothing, after all.
Stiles clicks his tongue at his horse, and follows the trail along the rolling hills and ravines until finally he crests a ridge and spots the missing cattle ahead of him. Stiles nudges Roscoe into a trot, and comes up beside the dark-haired man driving the animals along. With the black horse, black hat and dark jeans, the man certainly looks the part of a cattle thief. Stiles squints at him through the dust over the backs of the animals. His sharp-featured face is rendered sharper by his dark stubble. His bright hazel eyes are rimmed with lashes that would make the cows jealous.
“Afternoon, Sheriff,” the man says, with a polite tip of his hat. Casual as you please, despite the damning circumstances. His face and voice are perfectly familiar to Stiles, as they would be to any small town sheriff in this part of California: the Outlaw Derek Hale. Stiles should have known. Well, practically did know, he corrects himself. He guessed it would be Derek the second that spoiled child Jackson Whittemore tromped into his office and screamed that somebody’d rustled half his herd. It’s why he’d chosen to come alone.
“Can I ask what you’re doing out here with all these fine animals?” Stiles asks, flicking the brim of his hat up and leaning over his saddle.
“Just moving my herd along to some better grazing land.”
“That so? Funny how your herd’s got the Whittemore brand on ‘em.” Stiles points to illustrate.
Hale frowns. “Well, now. Do they?”
“Yeah, they do. ‘Cause they ain't yours.”
Hale gives him a rakish, dangerous smile. “Looks like they’re mine now, I’d say. Anyways, that kid’s got enough cattle he won't miss a few.”
“Be that as it may, the law’s the law,” Stiles says. “I'm charged with taking this property back to its rightful owner.”
“And what if I don’t let you?”
Stiles scowls. “If you put up a fight, I'm within my rights as sheriff to shoot you.”
Hale eyes him, an inscrutable smile quirking one side of his mouth. “You're not gonna shoot me.”
“Sure,” Stiles agrees amiably. “‘Cause you're not gonna fight. You’re gonna leave this herd right here and you ride away, all agreeable-like.”
They sit on their respective horses and stare each other down for a moment that stretches out like taffy. The cattle sway along between them, snuffling and clopping on their way. Stiles has enough time to give some serious thought to what he would do if Hale, for once, didn't take his offer of a peaceful resolution.
But Derek does at last, raising both hands in wry surrender. “Alright, alright. They’re yours to take.” He gives the cattle one last regretful look, then urges his horse towards the open plains, away from Stiles. Once he’s clear of the herd, though, he turns back. “Guess I'll see you around, huh?”
Stiles scoffs. “Guess so, if you keep rustling cattle. One of these days you’re gonna end up behind bars, you know.” Or hanging from a sturdy branch, he thinks.
“Maybe I will, at that,” Hale says evenly. “Until next time, Sheriff.” He turns his horse away, and it's like he's got reins around Stiles breath, too, twisting it to a halt when he goes.
“Sheriff is what they call my pops,” Stiles blurts out. “You know that. Nobody in Beacon Hills calls me Sheriff.”
Derek looks back over his shoulder. “What, you’d like Lawman better?” Stiles makes a face and he laughs. “Boss Stilinski? No? Well, you let me know and I'll call you whatever you want.”
“Just Stiles,” Stiles says softly, after he’s sure Derek’s too far away to hear.
They've only ever kissed once, if you can even call it that, and it was before everything, anyways. Back before Derek became an outlaw, before the fire, even. Before their paths diverged. Stiles had been fifteen and Derek had been, what, seventeen? It was summer and they were as good friends as they'd ever been: old enough that the two years between them didn't seem so insurmountable, young enough that Stiles could still mistake his feelings for friendship.
It was the summer Scott had started acting all respectable, as if the Argents would accept a sharecropper courting their daughter so long as he wasn't getting into petty trouble. No amount of pleading or whining could change his purpose. That left Derek to be Stiles’ accomplice in troublemaking, and the older boy had taken to it like a duck to water.
Stiles forgets exactly what they'd done that day, except that it had been hilarious and slightly illegal. They'd had to hide around the corner of the saloon to keep away from Stiles’ father, who was still the sheriff in those days.
He remembers laughing so hard it ached, remembers their bodies pressed tight in the too-small hiding spot, remembers the itch of sweat and dust under his shirt. Derek was smiling like a goddamn sunbeam and Stiles was breathless with it, with their audacity and invulnerable youth. When Derek looked left, Stiles had, too, trying to catch the same view. Instead, Derek turned quickly back and their mouths scraped against each other. It was unintentional, of course, and over before it started - though not as quickly as if either of them had jerked away from the contact.
He’s recreated the moment so many times since then. Exactly what had the stubble on Derek’s chin felt like against Stiles’ skin? Had his lips been soft? What did his mouth taste of? Had he really hesitated there, the way Stiles remembers it, his hitching breath mingling with Stiles’ as they kissed? If you could call it that.
The moment hadn't come to anything, obviously. Not even a joke. They’d heard the Sheriff, and Derek had run first, tugging Stiles by the hand down the alley. They never spoke of it at all. What would there have been to say?
Besides, Katherine Argent had moved in with her brother the month before. Derek had been star struck, like all the boys his age had been. She was fresh from the East Coast, blonde and corseted and gorgeous. And a woman, of course. How could a gawky chatterbox of a boy ever compete? If there was a wicked glint in Kate's blue eyes, nobody saw it. Every bachelor had tried to court her, but she’d only smiled like a cat in cream when she looked back at Derek. There would be wedding bells, everyone said so.
And then the fire, suspicions stopping just short of proof.
And then Derek, a hollow-eyed stranger, the last survivor of his name besides a cripple of an uncle.
And then Kate’s murder.
It had all been over, after that. Derek had run from a trial that admittedly looked to be a death sentence and became the Outlaw Derek Hale. Stiles had stayed in Beacon Hills and replaced his father as Sheriff when the elder Stilinski was elected mayor. Whatever might have been, this is what is: two enemies caught in a dance of rivalry where Derek never quite gets away with it, and Stiles never quite catches up with him.
They’ve only ever kissed once, if you can even call it that, and as many times as Stiles drags up the sun-drenched memory, that once is the only time they ever will.
“I got this, Parrish, head on out,” Stiles murmurs. It's been weeks since the cattle chase, and they're back on their usual shifts.
Parrish blinks hard, rubs his fingers over his eyes and squints against the jail’s new electric lights, over-bright in contrast to the night outside. “You sure? I don’t mind taking the rest of the watch.”
“You’re dead on your feet, deputy,” Stiles says with a snort. “It’s my shift, I can handle it.”
Parrish glances to the cell, and then at Stiles again, who does his best to look blandly competent. “Well, alright,” Parrish says finally. He takes his hat from a peg on the wall and slumps out towards home and hopefully a bed.
Stiles sits at the small card table and glares at the prisoner. Even though he isn’t pacing, Derek looks like a wild animal penned up in the tiny cell, out of place and over-large. He meets Stiles’ gaze from where he's leaning against the back wall, his eyes catching glints of light amid the shadows. Certain people are just meant to live under the open sky.
God fucking damn it, Stiles wants to scream. How could you let this happen, you goddamn idiot? But he bites his tongue, because the blame is his, too. He’d actually enjoyed inevitable clashes that neither of them would let end in anything but a draw, complacently imagined their game of cat and mouse would be forever. He hadn’t anticipated Agent McCall’s return, the Argents’ money demanding blood. He had been stupid.
Derek sidles up as close as his prison allows, stopping mere feet from Stiles. He puts his hands through the gaps, rests his wrists on the crossbar. “Can I get a smoke?”
Stiles feels his jaw clench. The quintessential last request. All the same, he gets up and wordlessly offers a cigarette for Derek to take between his lips, then holds out a lit match so he can bring his face close and dangle the tip into the flame. Stiles drops the match and grinds it under his boot. Derek takes a long drag of smoke into his lungs and blows it out, squinting through the haze at Stiles.
“They’re going to hang me unless you get me out of here,” he says, matter of fact.
Stiles hisses, turning his face aside at the blunt statement. How humiliating, that Derek doesn’t even feel the need to beg for a reprieve. He just assumes, correctly, that Stiles is already planning to betray the town he swore to protect, betray his own ideals, risk his career and his freedom on Derek’s account because a world without him is unthinkable. So Derek knows how Stiles feels, maybe has always known. He could have at least pretended there was a question, though. He could have pleaded for his freedom, given Stiles the chance to act as if it was a last-minute concession of mercy for an old friend.
“You need to promise me something,” Stiles says, low. “If I’m going to let you go free, you need to swear you’ll do this one thing for me.”
Derek raises his eyebrows as if to say, alright, name your price, then.
“Do you promise?” Stiles insists.
“You know I do,” Derek agrees. “Anything.”
Stiles shoves the key into the lock with a jangle and opens the door. Derek steps out, and they haven’t stood face to face like this since the fire, probably. They’re of a height, now. Maybe Derek has an inch or so on Stiles, but that could be the boots. Stiles swallows.
“So, what did I just promise?” Derek asks with a flirtatious lilt, drunk on the danger that permeates the moment. He's still standing so near that Stiles can smell him, the hint of dust and sweat and horse. Then again, Stiles isn’t exactly giving him the space to step away. “Well?” Derek prompts, a little softer.
Stiles grabs the front of his shirt without looking him in the eye and drags him over to the back door. “You snatched my gun when I let you have a cigarette. You threatened to kill me if I shouted, and made me unlock the cell door. Here, take the gun. It would look better if you hit me-”
“I’m not going to hit you.”
“-but you don’t need to. I’ll raise the alarm after you have a head start, maybe fifteen minutes, and then it’ll be another ten or so before the search party assembles. And there will be a search party. I can’t stop that.”
“I have a place I can go, somewhere safe.”
“Good,” Stiles says. He still isn’t looking directly at Derek. He still hasn’t let go of his shirt, either, though now he has him backed up against the door he’s about to flee through. God knows what’ll happen if there’s anyone on the street, if Parrish forgot something and is heading back to the jail as they speak.
“C’mon now, Sheriff, wh-” Derek starts to ask, and Stiles kisses him, hard. He pushes himself up against Derek’s warm chest, tilting his head and opening his mouth into the kiss the way he’s imagined, hands clutching at Derek’s shirt collar. Every kiss he’s imagined for them bleeds into the reality of the kiss now - the slickness, the tongues, teeth and spit of it. He tries to catalogue it better this time: this is what Derek’s stubble feels like against his skin, this is what Derek tastes like, this is the noise Derek makes as he grabs Stiles low by the hips and jerks his own forward in an aborted little thrust like he can’t help any of it. This is what it feels like to have your lungs burn for air when you can’t stop to breathe because then it will be over.
Only then it is over, much too soon, leaving both of them panting for breath and still embracing. Stiles pulls away. This is dangerous, he can’t forget that. There’s no time.
“If that’s what you wanted,” Derek says, letting himself fall back against the door with a thump, “you didn’t need to save my life to get it.” He grins at Stiles like a sunbeam, lips slick and flush. “Shoulda asked me ages ago, Stiles, and…”
“I never want to see your face around here again, Hale,” Stiles interrupts. “Understand? You leave Beacon Hills, you leave this whole goddamn prairie, and you never come back. Don’t let me catch you hanging around, not ever.”
He’s looking steadily at Derek while he says it, so he can see the outlaw’s breath catch, his startled blink. He opens his mouth, no doubt to argue or protest.
“You promised,” Stiles reminds him. “You’re a criminal, but you’ve never been a liar. I saved your life, and this is what I’m asking in return. Walk on out that door, and keep going.”
“Stiles…”
“I've bent the law for you so many times, Derek.” Stiles wipes a hand down his face, suddenly weary. “Tonight I’m breaking it. But this has to stop somewhere, doesn’t it? We can’t just keep dancing back and forth forever. I want to be a good person, and I don't know how when you're here. So please, do what you promised and leave me be.”
Derek swallows, chastened. “I didn't kill her,” he says in a low rush.
“I know,” Stiles says. “It doesn't matter.”
Derek looks down at the floor as he nods his acceptance. It’s too late to go back and undo the circumstances that have led them to this point, they both know that. Without another word, Derek turns and edges sideways through the half-open door, quick as a shadow. With a tiny click of the latch, he’s gone. Gone for good this time, finally. Stiles’ mouth twists, and he bites the inside of his cheek, looking up at the ceiling and blinking fast.
So there it is, he was wrong. They had another kiss after all, and this time it was one nobody could argue was anything but a goddamn hell of a kiss.
Policing the town is duller, afterwards. Suspicion are raised about the way Hale had escaped, which keeps things interesting for a week or two, but Stiles’ father is the mayor now and he won’t hear of any punishment for his son. The Outlaw Derek Hale had enough tricks up his sleeves that it wasn’t unimaginable for it to have happened like Stiles had said. Scott believes his word, and Allison at least pretends to. Most of the town goes along with it, despite some grumbling rumors. Parrish quits in protest, though. And then things get bad.
“Can’t hide from us forever, can you?” Deucalion’s faux-cultured accent rings through the empty streets.
“Bet your ass I can,” Stiles mutters to himself. He knows that’s not exactly true, but it makes him feel better. He recounts his four bullets again, as if that might increase their number - which doesn’t make him feel better at all.
Deucalion’s gang has been shaking down nearby prairie towns all summer, and over the last month or so the talk on everyone’s lips has been what Beacon Hills should do when the time came – pay dearly for “protection,” or accept vengefully broken windows and arson until the gang got bored and moved on? Stiles and his father had decided on option C, “run the criminals out of town.” John Stilinski had gone for back-up from San Francisco, an old friend of his who he said would come and lend them a hand against Deucalion’s crew.
Unfortunately, he’d left on that week-long round trip about three days ago, and the gang had made it to Beacon Hills yesterday. There had been Ennis, the twins Stiles can never quite distinguish between, Kali, and then the man himself. All and all, it’s a little much for one lone sheriff to be expected to handle.
“If you don’t want to play, we can always start looking for civilians, and shoot them instead,” Kali offers in a sticky-sweet sing-song. “Is that what you want, Sheriff?”
“Nobody here calls me that,” he grouses, trying not to think of the only person who did. He’s got four bullets left and four criminals outside. All he has to do is kill all four remaining outlaws without missing a shot, and fast enough that none of them can take aim at him. Easy.
He loads the bullets back into his six-shooter, click-click-click-click, and flicks the chamber home with the first bullet lined up to fire. Without his foolhardy insistence on standing up to wrongdoing, the townspeople would have paid the stupid fee and the gang would have left by now. He stands up and straightens his shoulders. With Ennis’ blood on Stiles’ hands, there’s nothing to do but finish what he started. Otherwise, Deucalion will make an example out of the whole town, burn it to the ground. Beacon Hills’ citizens have relied on him to keep the peace, and that’s what he intends to do.
He’d managed to take cover in the old saloon at the end of the main drag when the gang returned. Everyone assumed they’d take more time to lick their wounds, after the shootout the previous night, but instead they’d come seeking vengeance not twenty hours later. When they were first spotted, Stiles had been seeing to Scott, who’d been wounded in the firefight. Allison ran in to tell them about the riders coming, and Stiles had chosen to go around with her and Lydia warning everyone to get inside and hide themselves. He hadn't thought about ammo. Then, when Deucalion had actually ridden up onto the main street, Stiles had fired off two foolish, wild shots.
Now here he is, pinned down in an empty old building without any way to reload. Idiot. He’s not used to working alone, or facing off against a criminal who actually means him harm.
Stiles slides along the wall to the front door of the saloon and shouts out, “Any chance you’ll fight me like a man, one to one? Say, ten paces from go and fastest draw wins?”
“Why of course, Sheriff. Come out on the street and we’ll write up some rules.”
Stiles laughs, letting his head fall back against the wooden boards. “Now, why don’t I believe you?”
Deucalion’s voice comes from closer in this time. “Because you’re smarter than you look, I suppose. You realize that we’re very different beasts than your pet outlaw Hale.”
That snaps Stiles to attention. It’s a trap, he knows, bait thrown to get his heart pumping and his head spinning. Unfortunately, it’s working. “What do you know about that?” he snaps.
“Word travels,” comes the amused answer. There’s a creak of weight on wood as somebody steps onto the saloon porch, and Stiles trains his gun on the door. He crouches so his body mass isn’t where a shooter would expect, licks the sweat off his upper lip.
A hand pokes in first, and blindly fires two shots straight ahead. The rest of Aiden comes into view a second later. Stiles shoots, and the man stumbles with a yell as the bullet grazes his arm. He turns, gun still in hand, and Stiles fires again into his chest before he can take aim.
Stiles doesn’t wait to see his opponent fall, just runs back behind the bar to the side door leading to the alley. If he can get out fast enough and make his way down the road to the jail, he can…he can maybe...
He can nothing. Ethan might be chasing him through the alley now, might be slow enough for Stiles to outrun - but Deucalion and Kali will be waiting on the main drag between him and the ammo. There’s no way he gets out of this alive. The most he can expect is to bring Deucalion down with him, and hope that Kali and Ethan will take Aiden’s body and go without any more bloodshed.
Well, fine, he thinks as he rounds the corner to make a mad last stand. He’s done his best to protect this town, despite the lapses with Derek. He sent the love of his life away to be a better sheriff. If he has to die today, it will at least be honorably.
He bursts onto the main street with his gun up, skids to a halt for aim and fires off a quick shot the second he thinks he has a bead on the figures standing in front of the saloon, relying on the element of surprise. Kali is the one who falls dead, her legs crumpling out from under her. Stiles fires again, but Deucalion is a moving target now and the bullet goes wide, buries itself uselessly in one of the saloon’s posts.
Stiles starts to run towards the jail again, but scrambles to a halt when a bullet hits the earth at his feet. He looks back to see Deucalion with his gun trained on Stiles’ heart, looking purely delighted.
Ethan comes back out the front of the saloon, blood on his hands. “Kill him!” he snarls. “Aiden’s dead, kill the motherfucker already!”
“No need to rush anything. Sheriff’s out of bullets,” he says. “Oh, yes, Mr. Stilinski. I counted.”
Stiles tries to calculate his chances of survival if he runs again, and decides they’re not good enough to risk. “You got me,” he admits with his hands up. “Blood for blood, I understand how it goes. But nobody else in this town has done anything to your gang. If you’re the gentleman you claim, this ends with me. Shoot me if you have to, then take your money and go. No more violence.”
“I seem to remember more than one person shooting at me last night,” Deucalion says, icy. “I’m inclined to find out who.”
Stiles’ blood runs cold. Scott . If it comes to threats, he knows somebody in town will break. Maybe Jackson, scared for his own life. Maybe Scott himself, martyr that he is.
“Listen, if there was anyone else, they were only acting on what I said. It’s me you want.” “Oh, so it’s someone you care for,” Deucalion says. “Is it Hale? Did he run off to go find his little mutts to help, and leave you alone? I think, in the end, you’ll tell me where he’s gone. Or will you do it the easy way, give him up now and save yourself the pain?”
Stiles shakes his head. Whatever bad blood Deucalion has with Derek is coloring the man’s judgement. If he can find a way to use that paranoia, maybe he can save Scott.
“Start talking, Sheriff,” Deucalion snarls, advancing on Stiles with an awful smile on his face. “Or I start shooting, starting with your kneecaps.”
Stiles swallows dryly, his brain useless even as he wracks it for some lie about Derek, any lie. All he can think of is that kiss in the jail. His mind is stuck on the look Derek’s face had when he said, shoulda asked me ages ago, Stiles, and how much he wishes that he’d done just that, done anything but sent him away. He wishes he’d seen Derek just once more before all of this.
Deucalion takes aim. There’s the sharp crack of a gun going off, and Stiles’ eyes snap shut in an anticipatory wince. And then open, bugging with surprise that he’s whole and unharmed.
In front of him, Deucalion’s body lies with a pool of blood around his head. Ethan is standing, but looking over Stiles shoulder at something that clearly terrifies him.
“Drop the gun,” a familiar voice orders, and Ethan does. “Go on and get out of town, then. I’ve had enough of killing.”
Ethan takes a few stumbling steps back, then turns tail and runs. And, just like that, the threat is past. Beacon Hills - hell, the whole northern California prairie - is safe again.
Stiles whirls around to face the person who saved him, distantly aware that he’s gaping like a fish but confident there’s not much chance he’ll summon the presence of mind to stop. He was going to die in that shootout, he was sure of it. Yet here he is, living and breathing and looking down the street at Derek Hale. Derek Hale, who is sliding off his horse and walking towards him. And then he’s jogging and then finally running down the main street towards Stiles.
Three , Stiles has time to think in surprise when Derek takes his face in both hands and kisses him like their lives both depend on it. Apparently they get three kisses in this lifetime. He’s dimly aware of his hat slipping off his head as he tilts his head to get a better angle on Derek’s mouth.
“I’m sorry I broke my promise,” Derek says when they finally break apart. His voice is rough and thick with emotion, a little muffled because he’s speaking mostly into Stiles’ neck. “I know you don’t wanna see my face around here, but I thought you might make an exception if I was saving your life.”
“Seems fair,” Stiles agrees, helplessly charmed. “I actually think I might owe you a favor.”
Derek pulls back to search Stiles’ face for something, a sign that Stiles hopes he finds, whatever it might be. “Let me stay this time,” Derek finally asks. “Prison, hard labor, I don’t care. I’m ready to be on the right side of the law. I’m done running.”
“But what happened to Kate… that’s a hanging crime.”
“It was Peter,” Derek admits, eyes closed. “He wasn’t in his right mind after the fire and I couldn’t turn him in. But he’s gone now, it doesn’t hurt anything to say it. Peter killed her. I’ve stolen and I’ve cheated, but I’m not a murderer.
Stiles’ hand is tight on Derek’s arm, heart pounding with the possibilities. “You know,” he says slowly. “If we can prove your innocence there, I think we can find some good will for the savior of Beacon Hills for the rest of it. Deucalion was wanted in most of the territories, you know. I think putting him in the ground counts as a debt to society paid.”
Derek grins at him like a sunbeam. “You think?”
“I do,” Stiles agrees.
By kiss number five, he’s just about accepted that he’ll start forgetting the tally by the time they’re done.