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One of the first things people learn in St. Ailbe's is that you don't mess with Stilinski.
Everyone enrolling in the academy already knows that the Hales are dangerous, that the wolf pack will not hesitate to rip your throat out with their teeth if you step too close, if you look at them wrong, if you touch what's theirs, but being aware of Stilinski is something you learn.
At first he doesn't seem like much, just 147 pounds of pale skin and fragile bones, an hyperactive kid with gangly limbs that is unable to speak without some form of sarcasm, his first impression is harmless enough.
But that impression never lasts long.
•
"Magic signatures are something that varies from one kind of magic user to another, even from individual to individual of the same magical variety. A magic signature is, like its name implies, unique." Professor Alan Deaton explained for the third time to the room of teenagers sitting in front of him.
Some of them were still ignoring him, too busy in their own conversations, but at that point he simply didn't care. Teaching the fundamentals of magic to a bunch of spoiled supernatural kids certainly hadn't been one of his life goals, but when Talia Hale offered him a job in the academy, he could do nothing but accept. One did not reject a good natured offer from The Hale Alpha.
It was easier the further into the school year they were, but these kids had been in the academy for less than a week, they had no interest in the theory behind magic, so he thought he'd give them something interesting and shiny to catch their attention.
"Given the nature of the academy I'd assume everyone here is able to get a feeling of their own magic, so what I want to teach you is how to perceive other individuals' magic signatures."
When that yielded no response, Deaton added. "A magic signature is able to tell us a lot about the person it belongs to, from their intentions to their abilities, and more easily identifiable, their raw power and how it compares to others."
A couple of heads perked up, and Deaton smiled to himself, knowing what was going through their minds.
He'd been doing this for years now, and he could tell when a troublemaker saw an opportunity to look for an easy target, someone they perceived as weaker. He'd been there and seen that, so he decided to pay them no mind and continue his explanation.
"I want you to close your eyes, keep them that way until I tell you to open them, and reach within yourselves." Deaton said, pleased in the fact that the students didn't seem to protest much. "Now feel your magic and imagine it as a flame in a dark room. As it slowly illuminates your surroundings, you should be able to feel the heat and the light of other flames around you. Those are the people around you."
Deaton burned a couple of herbs he'd prepared beforehand and willed the ashes to float to each desk in the classroom. That would help them visualize better and would dissuade them from wanting to open their eyes if they got bored.
He sat in his desk while smiling at the momentaneous peace he'd created in the room. Deaton could hear the rare expression of awe or the more common scorn here and there, but the kids seemed more interested in experimenting with the trick he'd just taught them than in saying anything sustancial.
At least, they did that until one of them let out a whimper and asked "what's that?"
"What's what, Mr. Hopkins?"
"It's… cold." the kid answered, eyes still closed.
Deaton's eyebrow raised while he waited for a more concise explanation.
"Yeah!" another student added. "but I can't see a flame." he sounded confused.
"It's... sucking in the light?" the first kid said, more of a question than anything.
"A void." someone whispered, and just like that, Deaton's peace was over.
The students kept talking over each other, Deaton took a deep breath and focused on what was going on outside of his classroom. It didn't take long for him to figure out the cause of the commotion.
So it was just him, Deatons thought.
"It's moving!" a girl in one of the front desks exclaimed, standing up suddenly.
Deaton opened his mouth ready to give an explanation, but was interrupted by the sound of a kid falling out of his chair.
"It's getting closer!" he said in a shaky voice, while Deatons resigned himself to let it all play out.
The occasional comment and whisper kept coming. Deaton could feel the curiosity and fear in equal measure coming out of his students, so he simply said "You can open your eyes." with the right amount of power behind the words, when he knew that he was about to come in.
The door opened up suddenly and Stiles Stilinski entered the classroom with a brown paper bag in hand and a wicked smile, he was paying no mind to the now dead quiet students behind him.
"Mr. Stilinski, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Deaton asked, voice full of annoyance.
"Awwww Alan, you know you can call me Stiles." he answered.
"Mr. Stilinski-"
"I brought you the stuff you asked for." Stiles interrupted. Deaton was about to ask him to leave when he shook the bag and added in a sing songy voice. "freshly made."
The kids didn't dare speak yet, so Deaton made a gesture with his hand and brought the bag to his desk, where he checked the contents of it.
After making sure everything was in order, he reached into his pockets for one of his keys, the one to one of the restricted sections of the library. He didn't want to know what Stilinski did with all the keys he tended to ask for, and he wasn't about to inquire, so instead he just tossed it behind his back and wasn't surprised when he turned around and the only people in the room were his students.
He intended to just continue his lesson like nothing had happened, but was stopped by the one kid that fell out of his chair. He was still sitting on the floor when he asked "Who was that?"
"Stiles Stilinski." Deaton answered. "He's a senior, and also the brightest spark to ever walk the halls of this academy."
"What's a spark?" a girl on the front asked, and Deaton repressed a groan, accepting the fact that his first class of the year was about to turn into Sparks 101 for the third year in a row.
•
Lydia Martin recognized smart when she saw it.
She recognized it every morning when she saw herself in the mirror while doing her hair and makeup. She recognized it whenever Peter -Professor Hale, he would correct- managed to rope an unsuspecting student into one of his schemes, and every once in a while, she recognized it on one of her peers.
She made a habit of visiting the library whenever she had some free time. She was already smart, but just smart wouldn't do, she had aspirations in life, and she would do anything in her power to achieve them. It also gave her a chance to evaluate the new knowledge-hungry first years.
Two of them had caught her eye that morning. She was reading a book on the ethical implications of necromancy when a loud, blond guy, and a shorter, quieter, black haired girl settled down two tables away from her. They were discussing the conditions and circumstances necessary to perform a certain medium level spell Lydia could do with both hands tied behind her back, but one of the kids, the quiet one, was making an excellent point on whether or not the incantation was necessary.
The guy was convinced that the incantation was absolutely needed, and made it clear to everyone with a pair of working ears. Whenever the girl tried to explain her point, he would talk over her and repeat himself like she just didn't get it.
Lydia was getting annoyed with the jerk and was about to get up and snatch the girl away when someone beat her to the punch.
Stiles Stilinski liked to make an entrance, she was aware of that. Still, she thought it was a little bit tacky to appear in a cloud of smoke on top of their table, one feet planted firmly on the guy's notebook.
It made his point clear, though.
She remembered his first day in the academy. Lydia recognized smart when she saw it, and she definitely saw it in him.
They couldn't be more different back then. Lydia kept her cards close to her chest, hid her brains in order to keep intact an image she had created, while Stiles fought tooth and nail to prove himself worthy of the place he had been given in the school.
He had changed so much in a few years. Long gone were the days when he would buzz his hair every other week, opting lately to style it with a ridiculous amount of product. His personality had changed too. He went from wearing his uniform immaculately, afraid that stepping a single toe out of line would get him expelled, to completely ditching the white shirt for his signature red hoodie and wearing his boyfriend's blazer. Lydia had to admit it was a good look on him.
"Let's make a bet." Was what Stiles opened with.
The blond guy's jaw was currently on the floor, but he managed to close his mouth enough to think for a second, and said. "What kind of bet?"
"You two were discussing time acceleration in a limited space, right?" he asked, and when the girl nodded, he said "I bet you that I can do that spell without the incantation, in fact, I can do it without opening my mouth at all, what do you say?"
The guy looked taken aback for an instant, but wasn't backing down. He thought about it for a while, until he eventually said. "Deal." with a cocky smile.
Lydia couldn't be bothered to pretend to study at the moment, instead she stood and walked to their table, not willing to miss a second of the action.
"I'll officiate it." she said, sitting down next to them.
"Hey Lyds." Stiles said happily.
"Stiles." She simply answered, she thought of it and added. "What are you betting?"
Cocky blond took the opportunity and demanded. "If I win you'll have to streak across the main hall during lunch."
Stiles raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue. When it became clear that he wouldn't, he said "Is that it? I mean, sure, whatever. I've done worse for less."
Blondie looked conflicted, but before he could try to add more demands Stiles said his part. "If I win, you'll have to wear this for all your classes, for the rest of the school year."
At first Lydia didn't see anything wrong with the thing in Stiles' hands, it looked like a standard uniform blazer, but she was certain that couldn't be it. Then Stiles flipped it to show the back and she had to repress a chuckle at the text engraved on the back of the jacket.
"I have a tiny dick and know jackshit about magic" it read in pink comic sans.
"So, we have a deal?" Stiles asked with an extended hand.
The other guy was red in the face, and Lydia was afraid he'd back down, but to her surprise, he took Stiles' hand.
Lydia celebrated internally as she proceeded to magically officiate the bet, that way neither of them could back down and would be compelled to complete their punishment if they lost.
When she finished the binding spell she walked around and took an apple from the librarian's desk, She set it in front of Stiles and Blondie, and waited for the older guy to work his magic.
Stiles put both his hands on the table and focused his attention on the apple, then he closed his eyes and seemed to be thinking for a while, no one was making a noise and nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be happening, Blondie puffed his chest and stood taller, sure he was about to win, but then it started.
Without moving an inch, Stiles opened his eyes, which were now glowing a strong purple, the air around him seemed to form a miniature hurricane and the apple, slowly but surely, began to age.
Lydia and the small crowd that had formed around the table couldn't take their eyes off of the apple, off of the spell Stiles seemed to have modified in the spot. When it was over, and the apple was nothing but a rotting mess, he clicked his tongue and raised his hands in victory.
"I win!" Stiles exclaimed as he threw some confetti he had stashed in his hoodie's pocket.
Lydia could hear the "ooooohs" coming from the crowd but she focused her attention on Blondie. His eyes were wide and his mouth opened and closed, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"You- You cheated!" He practically yelled at Stiles, who only rolled his eyes in response.
"He did not." Lydia told him. "If he had cheated while the effects of my binding spell were on, I would know it, unless you're saying I did the spell wrong, is that what you're implying?" She asked him coldly.
That only seemed to upset him more. With his face blushed a deep red, he stormed out of the library, unaware that he was now wearing Stiles' modified jacket.
Stiles didn't seem to care about that, seeing as he was now discussing the spell with the girl, whose confidence seemed to be growing by the second. He was answering her questions and listening to her comments about other various spells when Lydia turned on her heels and went back to her own table.
Lydia recognized smart when she saw it, but she also recognized a threat.
Stiles was a threat to her valedictorian spot, and she wasn't giving up that without putting one hell of a fight.
•
It's a known fact that magic doesn't come as easily to wolves as it does to humans. Sure, the existence of shifters depends mostly on magic, but it's one thing to be magic and a different one to use magic.
Vernon Boyd was well aware of this fact, was aware of it even before he decided to accept the bite, but he thought it was a fair trade off for the chance of joining a family. The chance of joining a pack.
Having to work extra hard to achieve his goals was nothing new for him, so what if he couldn't float in the air like Lydia, or shoot arrows with only his mind like Allison, he'd just have to play to his strengths then.
And being a werewolf came with a lot of those.
Ever since he had changed, he enjoyed using the academy's gym more than usual. The equipment made itself weigh the perfect amount to provide a good workout no matter who was using it, and he liked the burn on his muscles after every set.
Another thing Boyd liked about the gym was that it was the place where the magic duelling team gathered every other afternoon. He wasn't really a part of it, but he liked having them in the background and sometimes he even joined when he didn't feel like doing his full routine.
Duels were the perfect combination of physical violence and competitive spellcasting. The only rules were to fight until one participant was unable to continue or yielded, and to not use deadly force. Everything else was fair game. There were categories for armed combat -which could mean anything from staffs and batons to magic guns and swords- and unarmed combat. The latter was Boyd's favorite, for some reason claws and fangs weren't considered weapons, but it hardly made a difference when the physical aspect was only half of a duel.
He was watching a first year wolf getting his ass handed to him by a crazy looking witch on the ring. The wolf, who was using a sharp looking sword, swiped at the witch with it, only for the witch to float up and away in a broom, of all things. The witch laughed at the wolf, taunted him while shooting balls of light at him and then came back down only to repeat the whole process again. It wasn't a very interesting fight, but Boyd kept watching in the hopes the wolf would pull out some trick from his sleeve and win the fight.
He didn't.
The witch stayed on the ring while coach Finnstock signaled for another kid to enter. Disappointed, Boyd went to run for a while in one of the treadmills, it was nothing like running outside, feeling the wind on his face and being able to smell the trees and hear the noises of nature, but it would do for the time being.
He managed to keep a good pace for a while. If he closed his eyes he could pretend he was actually moving, but a shriek of pain made him stop and lose his focus.
He turned around to the source of the noise. One kid was on the floor grabbing one of his legs, that was bent at an awkward angle, while the witch from before fought to contain his laughter. Coach seemed to pay him no mind, and instead elected to carry the injured kid and take him out of the gym, probably to the infirmary.
The witch waited until the door closed behind coach to direct himself at the crowd
"Who's next?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
At first no one stepped forward, and Boyd was almost tempted to offer himself, but he didn't have to, because Stiles was already entering the ring, dragging his bat and wearing a ridiculous "Team Sourwolf" tee and a pair of shorts that showed his pasty white, mole covered legs. Boyd would have said something about it if he wasn't too busy getting a good seat for the show.
"Aren't you a senior?" The witch asked him after taking in the sight of Stilinski.
"Yeah." Stiles answered. "Why? You're scared?" He added, wiggling his eyebrows.
The witch laughed at that. "Nah, man, but isn't a bit unfair? I mean, I'm sure you've had a lot more experience duelling than me, am I wrong?"
"Nope." Stiles said, making sure to pop the 'p' "But how about this, I usually don't go unarmed, but what if I leave my bat behind and you get to keep your little broom with you. That sounds fair enough for you?" Stiles asked, already tossing the bat out of the ring.
"Bring it on then." The witch said.
It wasn't a fair fight. Anyone with a pair of working eyes could've seen that. One of them had a ridiculous advantage, and the other one had a broom.
At first, the difference wasn't much, Stiles shot lightning bolts out of his fingertips and the witch used his broom to try and deflect them. It partially worked, but Boyd could see the way he flinched whenever a lightning hit his weapon. Stiles' magic never seemed to care which elements were electricity conductors and which ones weren't.
The next thing the witch did was hop into his broom and fly out of Stiles' reach. Stiles didn't seem to mind that, he just whispered something under his breath and jumped until he was right in front of the witch.
He didn't come down.
The witch seemed more shocked than anything, seeing his opponent standing on air and whatnot, and Stiles took the moment to blow on his face until he magically froze the witch's bangs. That seemed to piss him off, and he tightened his grip on his broom before flying away. He tried to shoot some balls of light at Stiles as he left, but none of them connected. Stiles just avoided the attacks while pretending to dance ballet. The witch was getting more pissed by the second and took both hands off the handle of his ride while he prepared what Boyd assumed was some kind of final attack.
To be fair, the snake made of fire he seemed to have created would've been impressive if Stiles hadn't taken his distraction as an opportunity to jump at him and kick him straight in the chest, making him fall down.
"Boyd! Catch!" Stiles yelled from the air, even though Boyd was already moving supernaturally fast to do exactly so.
Boyd made it to the ring in time for the witch to land safely on his arms, except the witch didn't seem to have realized that, and kept screaming in place.
Eventually, Boyd cleared his throat and the witch seemed to realize the situation he was in.
"Get off of me!" He yelled.
Boyd didn't think twice about it before doing exactly that and letting him drop to the floor.
Stiles laughed as he slowly floated down, sitting on the abandoned broom.
He hadn't even fully made it to the ground when he cleared his throat and asked in an obvious impression of the witch lying on the floor.
"Who's next?"
No one answered.
"Boyd?" He tried.
"Not after last time, Stilinski." Boyd answered, and went back to his treadmill. Maybe someone else would take his offer, but Boyd would be long gone by then.
He liked his limbs right where they were, thank you very much.
•
Erica Reyes prided herself in knowing most everything that went down in the academy. In pack meetings she called it recon, Isaac claimed it was just gossip. So she loved gossiping then, fucking sue her if you're mad about it.
She had always loved the thrill of adventure, not that her condition allowed her to go on many of those. But still, she loved hearing and sharing the stories of other people's shenanigans whenever she had the chance. Being a werewolf, getting enhanced senses and strength, and even better, allowing her to create chaos on her own never did anything to diminish her love of stories. If anything it only made her love them more, because now she had her own stories to share. She also liked to make shit up sometimes, just to keep her listeners on their toes.
The fact that she was the greatest gossiper to ever walk the halls of St. Ailbe's (or at least, that's what she liked to think) was not a secret, so it wasn't a weird occurrence when someone approached her to ask for information on another student. What was weird was the person currently asking for said information.
She was getting a file with the requested information out of her locker when her "client" arrived.
"You couldn't have waited until the pack meeting to ask me for this?" Erica said to Stiles, who was wearing his hoodie over his head and had a pair of dark glasses, in an attempt of being discreet.
"It's important. Derek can't know." Was what he said in response.
"What did you do this time?"
"It's not what I did." He said slowly, reaching for the file. "Is what I'm going to do once you tell me everything you have on this prick."
"Ohhhhh." She stopped his hand from taking the information and whispered "Justice served, Stilinski style? I'm in, tell me everything."
"No, no, no. I don't want you getting in trouble."
"Hello, have we met each other? Trouble is my middle name, batman."
"Ugh, okay, but promise not to tell Derek."
"I promise." she lied. "So what did this guy do to you, anyway?"
"He tried to steal a kiss from me and when that didn't work out he tried to steal mom's grimoire." Stiles said nonchalantly.
"He what!? When was this?" She frantically asked.
"Which part?"
"Both!? What have you been doing, we haven't even finished the first month of classes!" She punched him on the shoulder. "Derek's gonna kill him"
"Ow! It wasn't my fault, I even told him I had a boyfriend!"
"What happened?"
"There was a party in the guys dorms, some juniors I don't know invited me and I said yes, because hey, free booze. Anyway, Derek wasn't there, I was drunk and went to the bathroom and started chatting with the guy and suddenly he was trying to kiss me. I punched him in the nose and went back to my room. End of story."
Erica looked at him like he was crazy. She knew there were more details to the story but she'd get those out of him later. That wasn't her main concern. She knew damn well that Stiles wouldn't betray Derek.
"And what about…"
Claudia Stilinski's grimoire was Stiles' most prized possession. Erica knew firsthand how many security spells and wards Stiles casted on the thing. Only a handful of people could even touch it without getting their hands burnt, let alone read from it. If someone had really tried to steal it, they were fucked.
"That was yesterday, during lunch. I left my bag in Peter's classroom and the same guy tried to take it before I came back. Peter stopped him and the kid said he was just bringing it to me as a favor."
"And Peter believed him!?"
"Of course not." Stiles practically spit. "But he played along and the two of them brought me my bag in the middle of lunch. At least Derek was busy talking to Isaac God knows where. The kid wouldn't have made it alive out of the cafeteria."
"Are you telling me you don't want to hurt him? because I just did my nails but I'm down to kick ass." Erica told him, completely serious.
"Nah, he wanted to play sneaky, I'm just gonna return the favor." He answered with a mischievous smile.
Erica growled softly but passed him the guy's file. A brunette freshman from some long line of druids. She didn't have much info on him, but then again it was only his first month in the academy, probably his last too.
Stiles eyed it quickly and with intent, scanning every single detail he could until he zeroed on one part.
"So I'm not the first person he has tried to steal from." He said like a fact, instead of a question.
"Nope, and he's a bragger about it too. It's kind of annoying, according to my source."
"How do you think miss Blake would react if she found out someone stole her personal correspondence with her alpha?" Stiles asked her, and Erica could see the shine in his eyes telling her he had a plan.
"I guess we'll find out soon, won't we?" She smiled, mouth full of sharp teeth.
Erica loved gossiping, that was a known fact. She enjoyed hearing and retelling stories, adding her own personal spin to them. She especially enjoyed telling the story of how professor Jennifer Blake lost it on one freshman who thought he could steal from her. The poor guy didn't even last a month in the academy.
At least that would teach him to never try and take what wasn't his.
•
Sometimes Scott regretted not joining Derek's pack when he had the opportunity.
He was in a classroom on the second floor, and he was supposed to be tutoring some sophomores, teaching them how to make some advanced potions when he heard something weird coming from the outside.
In other circumstances he would have ignored it, would've focused on his class and pretended nothing was going on. People fighting on school grounds was hardly out of the ordinary, anyways. Except the sound of a voice caught his attention, but not any voice, it was Stiles.
His body moved without thinking, and suddenly his head and half his torso were out of the window taking in the situation.
He could see the way Stiles was surrounded by at least five other students Scott didn't recognize. He assumed they were new. Stiles seemed to be inside a magic circle, unable to use his own magic or exit it, and Scott wished he could help out a little bit.
He wanted to jump down and kick those guys' asses, but he knew he had no right to do so, there was a reason he couldn't join Derek's pack anymore even if he wanted, and his ex best friend was that reason.
No, that wasn't correct. Scott himself was the reason. They had been inseparable at first, but started drifting apart as time went by. Scott liked to think that it had been a slow process, that that was the reason he didn't realize it was happening, but he knew that wasn't entirely it. By the time the whole Donovan incident happened the bridge had been long burned, and there was not much he could do to fix it.
"Holy shit, they caught him?" One of his kids, a pale girl with an accent he couldn't place, asked.
Scott didn't say anything. He hadn't even noticed her joining him in the window. He wanted to correct her, wanted to tell her You don't catch Stiles, Stiles catches you, but what did he know about him?
He saw who he thought was the leader of the group talking to Stiles and tried to focus his hearing on what he was saying, only to come up with silence.
"Soundproof wards…" He whispered.
They probably wanted to avoid having him scream for help, like that would make any difference with Stiles' multiple pack bonds. If he really needed help he could just tug on them and half a dozen of the most powerful students in St. Ailbe's (and maybe, if it was bad enough, one or two professors) would run to his rescue.
Those guys hadn't done their homework.
Stiles knew that, if the way he rolled his eyes at what Scott assumed was the gang's villainous speech was anything to go by.
"Is that a knife?" The girl next to him asked way too loud and the next thing Scott knew was that he was almost pushed out of the window by overly curious students.
"There's another window over there! Stop pushing! Jesus..."
Scott winced when the leader pulled out a small dagger out of his uniform's jacket. That in itself wouldn't have been worthy of a reaction, but the hunters symbol engraved in it definitely was.
Scott almost felt bad for them. That was a stupid ass move on their part. His eyes were focused on Stiles, on the way his expression seemed to turn into something dark. He wasn't looking at the hunter wannabes in front of him, he was looking down.
"Shouldn't we do something?" Someone asked, and Scott didn't think twice about silencing them.
"Shhh." He said. Derek would probably bite his head off if he tried to interfere. Stiles could take care of himself, he made that clear, and even if he didn't, Scott started counting up mentally.
One.
Two.
Three. The hunter was talking again. He took a step towards Stiles, who didn't react in the slightest.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven. Stiles suddenly looked up. The hunter seemed to flinch.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten. That was when Scott heard him. That was a new record, as far as he knew.
The hunters hadn't realized what was happening yet, but just fifteen seconds after Scott started counting, Derek Hale showed up in front of them.
Scott could barely keep up with his heightened senses. To the hunters it must have seemed like just a blur as he took a single swing at each one of them, knocking them to the ground.
Derek then stopped. He just stood there as the hunters watched him with mouths agape. Next thing he did was use one foot to disrupt the circle Stiles stood in.
That's when the light show began.
Stiles' eyes were glowing. The purple color they emitted seemed to cover all their surroundings. Scott still couldn't hear a word being said, but he didn't need to.
The gist of it was "You messed with the wrong guy."
Scott sighed as he left the window. He started gathering his things and tried to leave before one of the girls he was supposed to be tutoring asked, still from the window.
"Where are you going?"
"Getting Deaton, he doesn't ask as many questions as the school's nurse."
"I don't think he's going to need a nurse." She said, glancing down at the scene.
"Don't worry, it's not for him."
And then he left.
•
Derek Hale was one of the most feared people currently studying in St. Ailbe's Academy for Supernatural Youth. He had a big reputation even before he entered the academy, it was rumoured that his teachers had nightmares every night for a month after he enrolled. He belonged to one of the most powerful and old families of werewolves in the continent, and he was currently lying upside down on his bed playing the same level of candy crush for the sixth time.
"Fuck…" he exclaimed as the game over screen flashed over again.
He threw his phone on the mattress and looked at the ceiling, having nothing better to do.
He wasn't really sure what he had done to harbor the bad boy reputation, but he suspected it had something to do with Laura, the way she had been expelled and reinstated in the academy six times before she graduated, or even Peter, who to this day held the record for most detentions (and also for most skipped detentions) given in a year. He didn't do much of anything, if he was being honest. He only talked with his pack, and he tried to not fight -well, to not fight too much- but somehow his bad boy status never seemed to dissipate.
He wasn't really complaining, people being scared of him meant that they wouldn't feel the need to try and be his friend, or hell forbid, try and flirt with him. It had its weird moments, though. Sometimes people would give him their lunches for no reason, he had no idea what that was about.
He was distracted out of his thoughts by the sound of a heartbeat he knew better than his own. The sound was faint, but he perked up anyway. Stiles had been spending most afternoons out and busy, so Derek had a lot of free time in his hands. He liked spending time with Isaac, and Boyd, and Erica, hell, sometimes even Jackson, but he missed his boyfriend, even if he would never admit to that. They saw each other every day, shared multiple classes and they slept together, but Derek never got enough of him.
He tried to calm himself down before he arrived, bathing himself in the familiar rhythm of his boyfriend's heartbeat, until he figured he was close enough.
He stood by the door and when the sound of footsteps stopped, he opened it quickly, coming face to face with a smiling Stiles.
There used to be a time where Stiles would startle when Derek did that, but lately it was something he looked forward to, the way his boyfriend would try to freak him out a little bit before even seeing his face.
"Honey I'm home!" Stiles sang, entering their shared dorm room and dropping face first into the bed.
Their bed. At some point they had two separate beds in the room, but after they started dating Derek pushed them together, and not long after that, Stiles magically turned them into a bigger, singular bed.
"Don't call me that." Derek answered, pretending to be annoyed, but it wasn't very convincing when he sat down next to Stiles and started running his hands through the human's hair.
"Don't be such a sourwolf."
"Don't call me that, either." He pulled at his hair with no real force.
Stiles rolled over and dragged himself until his head was on Derek's lap. He said "You're really limiting my options, dude. What should I call you then?"
"My name?"
"Hmmm, no can do, big guy."
Derek rolled his eyes but could do nothing to stop the smile on his face. He leaned down to press a single kiss on his boyfriend's lips. That turned into two kisses, and two turned into three, and before he realized it, they were both breathless and flushed, Derek on top of Stiles, keeping himself up with his forearms.
"Do you have any freshmen left to terrorize, or can I keep you today?" He asked Stiles, pressing a hand under his hoodie.
"I- I have no idea what you're talking about." Stiles gasped.
"Really? That's what you're going for?" He asked, biting softly below Stiles' jaw. "They talk about you, you know… It drives me crazy, they talk about you outsmarting a prick or you kicking a douchebag's ass and all I wanna do is growl at them to keep your name out of their mouths."
"Yeah?"
"You should smell them, they reek of want, I almost knocked the teeth out of Theo's mouth when he kept staring at your legs at the gym."
"It's not like I do it on purpo-" Stiles whimpered when he felt Derek's tongue on his neck.
"Keep talking." He commanded.
It took Stiles a couple seconds, but he did.
"It just happens sometimes. Like, I was in the library and this guy was being obnoxiously loud, crying and moaning about how this basic transformation spell was impossible and I had to prove him wrong."
"By turning him into a frog?" Derek asked, one hand making its way to Stiles' chest.
"You have to admit that was funny" He said back, pushing his fingers into Derek's hair.
"Maybe a little." He admitted.
"I'm hilarious."
"You're something, alright."
Later that night, with a sleeping Stiles crawled across his chest, Derek went back to staring at the ceiling.
People had known about him even before he entered the academy, but Stiles had made a name for himself. They knew Derek because of who he was, but they knew Stiles because of the things he did.
Sometimes he wanted to tell Stiles that he fit in, that he didn't need to keep carving a name for himself, but like he said earlier, it wasn't like he tried, that was just the kind of person that Stiles was. Someone people might not notice at first, but once they did notice him, it was all they could ever look at.
Derek never wanted to look away. He closed his eyes and went to sleep with the boy with the sharp tongue, the boy with the wicked smile, the boy with a spark. The boy only Derek could have like this, snoring and softly drooling on his chest.
And maybe that was enough for him.