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“We brought him here because you said you wanted us to wait ‘til you got here to do anything, and, well…” Scott trails off as Stiles pulls up to the vet clinic.
“And we were going to be at the loft all day and didn’t want to think about his body being the next room over,” Stiles finishes, turning off the jeep. Cora nods as they all pile out.
“I get it,” she says as they approach the back door, Scott getting his key out, “I mostly just wanted to make sure his death wasn’t announced and then find out that Orion might be able to bring him back, and…”
“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, knows and understands what she’s trying to say and what she can’t say. Knows that she’s thinking about the possibility that Orion can’t do anything, that Derek is actually dead, that they all have this hope for absolutely no reason. Knows she’s thinking about it because he’s thinking about it, too, can feel the fear and hesitancy throughout the pack.
“He’s in the side room.” Scott leads them through the examination room and to a door to the right, which led to the office-like area. Derek is lying on a stainless-steel table to the right, covered to his neck with a blanket. Stiles stops once he’s in the room, feeling his heart clench up in pain. Except now there’s hope there, too. He’s nonetheless grateful when Cora comes up behind him and puts her hand in his, giving it a quick squeeze before they all walk to surround Derek.
The thing that freaks Stiles out the most is how pale he is, how visibly cold he is, the fact that the gashes from the omega are still there. The ones on his neck are just visible above the blanket over him, the deep purple-black blood scabbed over. They had never healed, hadn’t even begun to.
Orion is looking at Derek curiously, and just as Stiles notices this Scott seems to as well. He asks before Stiles can.
“What is it?” He sounds cautious, worried, and Stiles feels a bit better in knowing he’s not the only one feeling that exact way. Unsure. Hopeful, but so unsure.
“I am now more certain than I was before that this is the same type of spell used on my own pack,” Orion answers, cocking his head to the side as he pulls the blanket back to study the gashes through Derek’s chest, “I think this will work very well.”
“What do we need to do, then?” Stiles inquires as Orion shifts his focus from Derek to Stiles.
“Cora, Scott, keep your ears open in the case of an interruption. I cannot guarantee that I will be able to finish this spell if we are interrupted, and stopping in the midst of the spell may be detrimental for Stiles as well as Derek.”
Scott’s worry transfers instantly toward Stiles, his eyes flicking to him as they widen. Stiles looks back, gives him a small and what he hopes is reassuring smile. He may have been a little wary of this plan at first, may still not be quite sure he can trust Orion, but seeing Derek there – knowing he could be alive again – cemented this plan for Stiles. He would, he thinks now as he looks down at Derek’s face, so scarily motionless, do anything to see Derek alive again. Even if it meant risking his own life.
“Sitles, if you could lie down as well,” Orion says next, gesturing to the empty desk on the other side of the table Derek was laid upon. Stiles nods and does as he asks, the desk just long enough that his feet barely hang off. He looks to where Cora and Scott and Orion are standing just as Orion speaks again.
“This would work the best if we could acquire some apple wood and perhaps ashes of a yew – ”
“Deaton might have some,” Scott interrupts, and continues as Orion’s questioning expression, “The vet whose clinic this is. He’s a druid, was the emissary for the Hale pack before – ” He cuts himself off, glancing at Cora and clearing his throat, “I’m sure he has some of both, I can go look?”
Orion nods, moving toward the metal table and desk as Scott rushes from the room.
“This may be a small bit painful,” Orion tells Stiles, “It should not cause any physical harm so long as I can complete the spell, but you will probably experience some discomfort, especially because I will be drawing from your magic as well as your alpha. It may turn into some pain, I cannot be sure until it occurs.”
Stiles nods as Scott comes back in with a short, thick stick and a jar of ash.
“Apple wood and ashes of a yew.”
Orion takes the items from Scott, setting the stick by Derek’s head with a whisper of “Apple, to promote healing,” and opening the jar, pouring some of the ashes into his palm before handing the jar to Stiles.
“Yew is known to promote and enhance magical ability. Take some and rub it into your hands, it will help pull the magic from both you and I.”
Stiles raises his eyebrows but does as instructed before he lays back down. A moment later, Orion nods once more before speaking under his breath, words that Stiles can’t quite make out but feels a sudden pulling in his body as Orion continues. It yanks at him, his mind and his chest and his stomach, tugging in every direction, uncomfortable but not painful. It slowly gets worse as the volume of Orion’s voice goes up, and Stiles thinks it’s Latin but his vision is going blurry and then he’s seeing red and he has a feeling that were he a ‘wolf, he’d be wolfing out right then.
His discomfort ramps up then, the pain seeping in, vision red, and he can’t hear anything but the rush of blood through his ears and then there’s a loud groan, which he’s pretty sure is his own.
Stiles doesn’t know how long it actually goes on for, just that it feels like hours, tugging and pulling and aching and a sharp pain in his throat and then it just – stops. He can hear a gasp, then two, but his ears, his vision are still not fully functional, his body incredibly worn out, drooping against the desk and utterly exhausted. He hears a grunt, one that sounds exactly like Derek – Derek, yeah, but Stiles can’t do anything, his eyelids drooping as color slowly bleeds back into his eyes, breath evening itself out. Then there’s a “what the hell?” that’s definitely Derek, and Stiles flops his head to the side just as Derek looks down at him and their eyes meet.
Derek’s eyes flash blue as Stiles’ flash red in response, and then Stiles blacks out.
*
He wakes slowly, to murmuring voices and on something much softer than the desk. He blinks as he takes in his surroundings, familiar and Derek’s apartment and – Derek. Stiles sits up quickly, then quickly falls back down on the couch he’s on as blood rushes to his head, dizzying him. He hears someone say “Stiles?” and when he blinks up at the ceiling again, Scott’s head is above his, looking worriedly down at him.
“Derek?” he questions instead – or tries to, his throat scratchy and sore, and attempts to sit back up again, slower this time.
“Hey,” he hears from his left as he finally uprights himself, and there’s Derek sitting in an armchair, giving him a small smile. A rush of emotion flies through his body as he takes Derek in, color back in his cheeks and no visible wounds and looking relatively healthy, if a bit tired. The rest of the pack shifts in tandem, and Stiles blinks again as he takes them all in, staring at him nervously. Even within their anxiety, they all seem happier than they have in days, and Stiles feels better himself, more settled.
“You’re alive,” he says softly, and Derek huffs something of a laugh, looking down at his lap.
“Thanks for that, by the way,” he replies, clearing his throat and looking back up to meet Stiles’ eyes, “Orion tells me he wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”
Stiles looks over toward Orion, where he’s sitting in a chair opposite Derek, calm as ever as he watches their interaction. Stiles nods gratefully to the man, who nods back, mutual appreciation given. He still feels intensely worn out, his body sore, and he knows Orion probably took more out of him than he’d thought he’d have to, and oh – oh yeah, he took the alpha powers, that had to be physically exhausting. Except, he’s realizing now, he can still feel the rest of the pack, can feel the low level of apprehension buzzing through it and – his eyes flash again as he thinks about this, red, no no no –
“What the fuck!” he exclaims, reaching up to rub his eyes, no fucking way, no way did that just happen –
“Sorry, dude, Orion tried but couldn’t quite transfer the alpha back to Derek,” Scott speaks up, sounding apologetic, and Stiles’ heart drops. He looks over to Derek, who’s watching him with a grim expression.
“I’m so sorry,” Stiles tells him, and Derek reacts with pure surprise, shaking his head vigorously.
“It’s not your fault, Stiles, it’s okay.”
“I just,” Stiles stops as he feels pinpricks in his eyes, blinks because fuck him he’s not going to cry about this, it isn’t the end of the world even though it feels like it is.
“I’m sorry,” Erica decides to say then, and Stiles looks to find her with a guilty face on, “About earlier. I thought – I know you’ve never wanted to be a ‘wolf and never expected to be the alpha, I was just – ”
Stiles doesn’t answer, can’t answer, because he feels brittle, more than he ever has before. Even in the face of the fucking scariest creatures on the planet, ones who could shred him to bits with just their pinkies, even in the face of imminent death – this is the thing that makes Stiles feel so utterly weak.
He’s twenty years old, he doesn’t want this kind of responsibility, has never asked for it. But then – Derek was only twenty-one when he became the alpha, and Scott only seventeen. It’s not like Stiles can’t do this, he knows he can because he’s strong as hell and with the support of his pack it could be a piece of cake, but he never wanted this, never even wanted to be a ‘wolf. And suddenly, he knows exactly how Scott felt when he was first bit, and feels the slightest bit guilty for all the hell he’d pushed onto Scott for not getting what a cool thing it was because it wasn’t cool. Because Scott had never wanted to be a ‘wolf either, hadn’t asked for it like Erica and Boyd and Jackson and Isaac all had. He knows Lydia felt this way too, when she’d discovered her powers, but it was different for her; in her blood, something she accepted much easier because it was a pure and real part of her.
The entire pack is looking at him with concern, and he realizes it’s been at least a few minutes, that they’ve been talking and he hasn’t been answering, hasn’t even been paying attention. it feels exactly like he’s about to have a panic attack, and he tries to swallow it down.
“Stiles,” he finally hears over the thoughts rushing through his own mind, and he looks at Scott, at his fellow alpha, and something about that knowledge lets him calm, his heart slowing.
“I’m okay,” he tells the pack, because he doesn’t know how to express what he’s actually feeling. He doesn’t know that any of them would fully understand him, except maybe Scott and even then, not really. They’ve all by now, at twenty and twenty-one and twenty-six, they’ve all settled well into their roles, they all understand how to work together well and he used to, knew his part in the pack as the resident kind-of-human-with-magical-abilities, the one who could make connections and solve mysteries the way the others couldn’t quite, a good chunk of the brains of the entire operation. Now, though, he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do, the role he’s supposed to take, he’s a fucking alpha of a variety of mythical creatures but he’s only human. Deaton had explained to them, how incredibly rare it was for a human or even for a non-were to become an alpha, only one incident he could think of in the thousands of years of literature he’d read.
“I don’t think you are,” Derek says, eyes trained on where Stiles’ body is sitting on the couch – or, no, he realizes and he glances down as well, he’s not sitting on the couch; he’s fucking floating above it. Full on floating, no part of his body is touching the couch or the floor. He falls the couple of inches back onto the couch as he realizes what he’s doing.
“What. The hell.” He looks around at the rest of the pack, who’s nervous energy has transformed into something more surprised.
“As you know, I had to use some of your magic to help the spell along,” Orion speaks up, and everyone’s eyes snap over to him, “It may have brought out your power out more than expected, which your body may not be used to. You might do some small bits of magic, such as floating, until your body knows how to deal with such powers.”
Stiles snarls at him, on instinct, because what the fuck? Orion hadn’t said anything about the possibility of that, hadn’t said anything about the possibility of the alpha staying with Stiles, either. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go. Orion doesn’t so much as flinch, simply watching Stiles with the same damn emotionless expression that he’s had since showing up at the door. He does flinch, just in the slightest, when at least three ‘wolves follow suit and let out low growls immediately after.
“Stiles,” Scott says, keeping an eye on Erica and Isaac and Malia, who are partially wolfed-out, and Stiles switches from glaring at Orion to looking at his best friend, then following Scott’s gaze to the other three, realizing quickly that his aggression and anger are feeding into theirs.
Another goddamn part of being an alpha.
He takes a deep breath, trying to relax himself and even out his emotions, and slowly the others settle back into their selves. He fixes Orion with another scowl before glancing around at the pack, recognizing the heartbreak in each of their expressions. He knows it’s because they can all feel a part of what he’s feeling, knows that while he may not be able to explain his emotions out loud they can at least faintly understand.
His eyes lock with Derek, flashing red for a moment as Derek’s do blue in response. Stiles can sense the energies of the room, if he focuses, which was something Scott had been able to teach him in those hours spent waiting on Cora to show up. He’s able to sense Derek’s energy almost immediately, a presence stronger than anyone else’s, and Stiles takes a moment to wonder if it has something to do with the fact that the alpha inside of him used to be with Derek. That is maybe what comforts Stiles the most, in that moment; that while he has to get used to being a new and different member of the pack than he used to be, so does Derek. And it’s gotta be harder for him, too, to transfer from an alpha who has grown into such an incredible alpha over the past four and a half years, to being a beta again.
If there’s anyone who can truly settle Stiles into being an alpha, it’s Derek. He’s the only one who can fairly understand what Stiles is going through right now. He keeps his eyes locked on Derek’s until Derek breaks it, looking down at his lap again, and Stiles doesn’t know what to make of that, thinks it might be a sign of submission or something of the like. Nonetheless, the act has him closing his own eyes, feeling the true weight of the world on his shoulders.