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Growing up, Derek never thought of himself as anything special. Laura mastered her shift faster than he did, Cora was better academically, and Peter was much more popular than him. He was simply Derek, middle child that didn’t really have anything that made him stand out, or set him apart from the others.
There are days when he wonders if that was what drew Kate to him, if his upset at not having anything to give to his family was what first set her sights on him...
Then, when he was older, Derek was finally seen as something special, but it was never as something good; Scott saw him as a monster, Jennifer saw him as a means to an end - protection or a power source, he isn’t sure and doesn’t really want to know - and Braeden simply saw him as a job, no matter how that might have changed as time went on.
Stiles never saw him as something special, or at least, not in that way.
The way that Stiles saw him made him feel proud of his muscles and strength, instead of uncomfortable about them. He wasn’t ashamed of his claws and fangs, of the pull the moon had over him or the more wild thoughts that flowed through his mind.
Stiles runs with him, howls with him, and meets his wildness with his own feral protectiveness when it comes to those he cares about. He meets Derek’s strength with the intuition of how to use it, his own magic making it all the more powerful.
The Spark always claims that he is nothing, that his strength comes from sarcasm and the inability to stop talking, but to Derek...
Derek sees him as the most mystical of them all.