Archive of Our Own ^beta

Freakin’ werewolves, man.

One thing the whole fiasco had definitely proven was that the world, or fate or whatever, had an ironic streak a mile wide, because when all was said and done and the dust finally settled, it was Stiles – the weak, clumsy, no-hunting-or-crazy-chemistry-skills human of the bunch – who was the only one to come through the whole Alpha pack debacle virtually unscathed. Even Derek had needed a day or so to fully heal from his epic showdown with Deucalion and Kali, and the betas were much worse off. Meanwhile Allison’s arm had been broken in two places, and Lydia had had to sit out the endgame entirely, owing to the massive concussion she was still recovering from. But Stiles had somehow managed to come away with nothing more than an aching tailbone, a twisted ankle and a bunch of bruises and scrapes.

Okay, so he hadn’t come out unscathed, but considering that Scott had been basically disemboweled, Isaac nearly decapitated and Boyd set on fire, Stiles figured he had done pretty outstandingly, in a relative sense.

“Yeah, well, they say God protects fools, drunks, and little children,” Derek sniped.

“Shut up,” Stiles told him, cheerfully, pushing Derek back down where he was trying to sit up from his bed, in the upper part of the partially demolished mess of a space he called his loft, where they had moved it after the flooding debacle. Although, compared to the burnt-out shell of his childhood home, Derek’s loft was practically the Ritz, so maybe Stiles shouldn’t judge.

Derek, surprisingly, let Stiles push him down. Even more surprisingly, he let Stiles change the bandages on the gaping wounds on Derek’s side, that were finally beginning to heal, without more than a token growl or two, which Stiles blithely ignored. It was amazing how easy that had suddenly become, like the whole Alpha Pack showdown had been some kind of tipping point where Stiles was just done with being scared of Derek, because Derek was obviously never actually going to hurt Stiles, and they both knew it.

“I’m awesome and you know it,” Stiles announced, carefully taping down the gauze over Derek’s (spectacular) abs. “If I hadn’t been there with my cool-ass mountain ash mojo, not to mention that disorientation spell thingy, because how cool was that, that it actually worked, you guys would have been screwed. I am the bomb.” He snorted. “And you wanted me to stay behind. You are so lucky I don’t take orders from you, Mr. Alpha Man.”

He fully expected Derek to scoff at this, like he always did, or maybe snarl and threaten him, which was the other thing he always did. But Derek was silent, and Stiles looked up from his work to see Derek gazing at him with a look Stiles couldn’t interpret at all, except that it (shockingly) didn’t look either angry or annoyed with him, which was practically unprecedented in the long and illustrious history of Derek Looking At Stiles. Stiles didn’t know what this look was, exactly, but it made something prickly run under his skin that wasn’t fear and maybe was something else he wasn’t thinking about and Stiles should probably go now.

“Right!” Stiles said loudly, lurching to his feet. “Gots to go check on the rest of the kids. You rest, lunch is coming real soon now.”

Derek still said nothing, still looking at Stiles with that strange evaluating stare, and Stiles almost forgot to avoid putting weight on his twisted ankle in his effort to walk off nonchalantly.

Freakin’ Derek, man.

He hopped briskly down the spiral staircase on his good foot, and over to where Deaton was just straightening from the pad on the floor where Boyd lay miserably, oozing blisters and burns covering almost half his body. Isaac lay asleep next to him, curled up on his side, with the deep claw gashes under his jaw thickly packed with gauze, and beyond him Scott lay on his back on the couch, watching with a kind of pained, sick fascination as his skin grew centimeter by centimeter to cover his exposed entrails. It was both the coolest and the most horrifying thing Stiles had ever seen.

Stiles paused to bend down and swipe a quick, comforting hand over Scott’s hair; Scott looked up at him with a grateful, half-disbelieving smile that said Crazy shit, huh? and pushed his head a little into the touch. Stiles grinned back and patted him again before straightening.

“How’s he look, Doc?” Stiles asked, nodding at Boyd. Boyd was definitely the worst off of all of them. Scott’s wound looked horrendous, but it was undeniably healing, as were Isaac’s, while Boyd’s burns didn’t seem to be doing the same.

Deaton pursed his lips. “Burns are harder to heal, for wolves,” he said. “Boyd will recover eventually, but it will take a while. At least a couple of weeks, maybe longer.”

Stiles remembered Peter Hale, and barely restrained a shudder. Even if nothing else good came out of this mess, it would still be worth it to know that Peter was finally, irrevocably, and really most sincerely dead.

“It’ll heal, though, right?” Stiles said, a little anxiously.

Deaton nodded. “Yes. It’ll just take time. Meanwhile he’ll need someone to take care of him. He should move as little as possible to keep from disturbing the new skin when it starts to grow, and the wounds will have to be debrided several more times to get rid of the dead tissue.”

Stiles winced. “Ouch.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Boyd complained, weakly.

“Hush, you,” Stiles told him. Boyd glared as best he could, but his eyes were sliding shut from exhaustion, so Stiles didn’t pay it much attention. He chewed his lip, gazing at Boyd’s burns. “I got the TLC part down, doc, but I’m pretty sure debriding things is above my paygrade.”

“I’ll be back to do that,” Deaton assured him. “Even though technically it’s above my paygrade, too, you know.”

Stiles snorted. Deaton’s insistence that he was just a vet was getting less and less believable by the moment, considering where Stiles had gotten that disorientation spell from, but Stiles wasn’t going to call him on it. Not yet, anyway.

“Whatever you say, man,” he said, and hunkered down to check the cool, wet cloth over Boyd’s forehead, one of the few places he wasn’t burned. Stiles didn’t know if it was actually doing any good, but Boyd seemed to like it, so Stiles had been rewetting it for him every twenty minutes or so.

Next to him, Isaac twitched and whimpered a little in his sleep, and Stiles reached back to put a hand on his shoulder. The wolves liked to be touched, he’d noticed – at least when they forgot to act like semi-psychotic dickwads – and he’d discovered more or less by accident that the contact was usually enough to dispel the nightmares Isaac had been plagued with since last night, when they’d all hobbled or stumbled (or, in Boyd’s case, been gingerly carried) back to the loft after the fight. Isaac was hardly his favorite person, and vice versa, but you don’t just ignore a guy who’d fought on your side, however reluctantly. Stiles figured it was the least he could do.

Sure enough, after a moment Isaac relaxed again, and Stiles straightened, grabbing the cloth off Boyd’s head, which needed refreshing. He winced as his bad ankle twinged warningly.

“Huh,” Deaton said, and Stiles turned to see him looking at Stiles with an expression that was unnervingly similar to the one Derek had been giving him upstairs. What was with people giving Stiles weird looks today?

“What?” he asked, possibly a little petulantly.

“Nothing,” Deaton said, but the look on his face didn’t change. Stiles glanced at Boyd, but the beta had his eyes firmly shut. He rolled his eyes and decided to ignore it. Freakin’ Deaton and his enigmatic thing.

He limped toward the little kitchenette taking up one corner of the huge lower room of the loft. “I’m making lunch, you want some?”

“Thank you,” Deaton answered, “but I should get going. I’ll be back tomorrow to check on your pack.”

“Sure thing, dude,” Stiles told him, already absorbed in cataloguing the contents of the fridge. He was going to have to make a grocery run soon for sure. “Thanks.”

It wasn’t until after Deaton had left and Stiles was patiently spooning warm soup into a grumpy Boyd’s mouth that he really registered what Deaton had said.

Your pack?

Well, it made sense, Stiles reasoned later. Deaton hadn’t been privy to Scott’s whole you’re not my alpha declaration to Derek, after all, and the fact that Scott was here recovering, rather than elsewhere, certainly made it logical for an outsider to assume Scott was part of Derek’s pack. And if Deaton assumed Scott was Derek’s pack, by extension Stiles supposed it was logical to assume Stiles was too. Though Stiles was still a little unclear on whether humans could really be part of packs. Scott had insisted they could be, but Scott knew even less about how werewolves worked than Stiles did, so that wasn’t worth much. And Derek, of course, had never said a word on the subject. Or on many other subjects, for that matter.

Still… there had been something about the way Deaton had said your pack that made Stiles… uneasy. Like he had meant something more than just the obvious surface interpretation.

Whatever. He was just imagining things.

Derek was up and about, fully healed, by the next day, and to Stiles’s total lack of shock went straight back into lurky creeperwolf mode, ghosting silently and with maximum broodiness around the periphery of the loft while Scott and his two remaining betas groaned and complained and healed ridiculously slowly for supernatural creatures of the night, in Stiles’s opinion. Stiles would have thought he’d be more into caring for his betas, or at least offering them some comfort or something, but Derek stayed away, silently watching Stiles tend to them, with that weird look on his face again.

Stiles put up with this for most of a day before he turned to Derek and snapped, “Look, if you’re not going to actually help me play nurse to your wolves, the least you could do is go get us some food and stuff.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth he cringed, anticipating Derek’s explosion in answer. He knew Derek wouldn’t hurt him hurt him, but there was nothing saying Derek wouldn’t slam him into a wall or two for mouthing off. One of these days he really was going to get a handle on that whole brain-to-mouth filter thing.

But when no immediate wall-slamming retaliation occurred, Stiles looked back up, just in time to see Derek shrugging on his leather jacket as he headed out the door. The door clicked shut, and Stiles stared at it for a moment with his mouth open. Then he looked down to see Isaac and Boyd both looking at him.

“He’ll be back,” Stiles told them, as heartily as he could manage, even though a small part of him wondered if it was true. He didn’t get Derek. Isaac and Boyd were his pack; why wasn’t he treating them as such?

Isaac and Boyd looked at each other, but Stiles couldn’t figure out what their expressions meant, if they meant anything. Scott, meanwhile, frowned unhappily at the door for a good ten minutes after Derek had left, and Stiles had no idea what that was about either. Maybe he was worried Derek would buy the wrong kind of chips.

An hour later, Derek walked back through the door positively loaded down with grocery bags, more than any normal human could probably have carried. Stiles gaped a moment, then limped over to help, but Derek glared at him when he reached for the bags, and Stiles backed off with his hands in the air.

“Sourwolf wants no help, I got it,” he murmured, and instead followed Derek to the kitchen curiously. It turned out that Derek had essentially purchased an entire store’s worth of stuff to bring home, and Stiles felt a strange sort of glee to see that he had bought first aid, toiletry and cleaning supplies as well as every food staple imaginable.

“Omigosh, Derek, you’re turning into a real boy!” he gushed as obnoxiously as possible, and dug into the bags with enthusiasm. He took great satisfaction in ignoring Derek’s patented death glare in favor of choosing where all the things go, and magnanimously explaining his reasoning as he did so. “You see, dear Alpha, ketchup never goes in the fridge,” he lectured. “Because people who put cold ketchup on things are sad, wrong people. But contrariwise,” he said, pulling a bright yellow container out of a bag, “mustard does go in the fridge. I… I don’t know why that is, really,” he said, pausing and examining the mustard with a frown. That was kind of weird, actually, now that he thought about it. Perhaps he needed to reexamine his condiment philosophy.

“I may need to reexamine my condiment philosophy,” he confided to Derek.

“You may need to reexamine your commitment to being an idiot,” Derek informed him, and Stiles cracked up. “Ooh, burn,” he snickered, and went to put the mustard in the fridge. He wasn’t sure why it tickled him so much now whenever Derek deployed his snarky side, but it totally did.

He waited for Derek to push him out of the way or something and take over putting things away himself. But Derek, oddly, made no move to interfere with Stiles’s grocery distribution decisions. Instead he just leaned against the counter, stupid bulgy arms crossed, and watched Stiles putter and chatter around the kitchen with a furrowed brow, like Stiles was a bizarre late-night TV program he couldn’t quite believe he was still watching.

Two days later the shit hit the fan. Because obviously going any longer than that without some kind of life-or-death crisis was just crazy talk. Welcome to Beacon frickin’ Hills.

It had started off unassumingly enough; Stiles had driven over to the loft after spending some quality time hanging out with his father in a way that totally projected No, I am absolutely not spending all my time nursing wayward convalescent werewolves back to health, why do you ask, and was checking up on said convalescent werewolves, who appeared to be finally making some actual progress on the healing front. About damn time, in Stiles’s opinion.

Stiles had already checked Boyd and Scott, and was now delicately poking at the dressing on Isaac’s throat, while Isaac watched him with a strangely wide-eyed expression that made him look even more cherubic than usual, which was saying something. Stiles didn’t know what the look meant, but since it didn’t seem to imply that Isaac was going to do any kind of immediate violence to him, he ignored it.

After a few moments of Stiles’s gauze pokage (and wow, that sounded dirty), Isaac ducked his head and said softly, “I think the bandages can come off now.”

Stiles blinked, because that was the first time he could remember since Isaac had been turned that he hadn’t had that better-and-also-more-homicidal-than-thou tone in his voice when talking to Stiles. In fact, he’d sounded almost… tentative.

“Okay, let’s take a look,” Stiles said, trying to sound cheerful. It was a bit of an effort, since the last time they’d tried taking off the bandages Isaac had started spraying arterial blood everywhere, and Stiles could really go his whole life without seeing shit like that again, thanks.

But he was in luck, because this time when he sat down next to Isaac’s head and urged him upright so that he could cautiously peel the gauze away from the deep parallel gashes in Isaac’s neck, the wounds merely oozed sluggishly instead of spurting wildly, and Stiles breathed a sigh of relief. Yay, werewolf healing.

“Yay, werewolf healing,” he muttered aloud, and caught Scott’s smirk from the couch. Yeah, yeah. “I think we should leave the bandages off, now,” he said thoughtfully to Isaac, gently prodding around the edges of the deep, nasty cuts. “Might heal faster if it’s not all clogged up.”

Stiles was pulling this out of his ass, really, because what the hell did he know about supernatural healing factors, but Isaac just nodded, eyes still wide. “If you – if you think so,” he said, and damn if he didn’t sound almost shy.

Stiles paused, a little taken aback, and saw out of the corner of his eye that Scott was positively glaring at Isaac for no reason Stiles could identify, but it would have taken a harder heart than Stiles’s to resist the puppy-dog look Isaac was giving him. “We’ll play it by ear,” he said reassuringly, and on impulse reached out and tousled Isaac’s ridiculous curls.

And then froze in shock when Isaac went utterly boneless at the touch, and flopped over with a happy little whine so that his head landed squarely in Stiles’s lap. Whoa, what the –

And then a glowy-eyed Scott was sitting up and full-on snarling at Isaac even though he had a goddamn hole in his stomach, what the fuck, and Isaac and Boyd both were growling back, fangs lengthening and hair growing, and Boyd was trying to get up with third degree burns all over his body and what in the actual fuck was happening right now?

“Hey. Hey! HEY!” Stiles shouted, because yelling at three pissed-off werewolves within four feet of him was just one of his many stellar life choices in the past year. “Settle down, what the hell!”

They ignored him, of course, and the growls deepened in volume, and Scott was drawing himself up into a defensive crouch on the sofa even though that was making his fucking small intestine poke out of him, Jesus Christ, and Stiles was suddenly just so, so done, and so in the loudest voice he could muster, he bellowed, “I SAID CUT THAT SHIT OUT NOW!”

And then he grabbed Isaac by his hair and wrenched his head back.

If he’d been thinking clearly Stiles would never in a million years have done such a thing, considering Isaac’s wounds, not to mention the very large possibility of Isaac tearing his hand – or his head – off for it. But in that moment, for some reason, it had seemed like the only logical thing to do.

Isaac’s growl cut off with a shocked yelp of pain, and without thinking Stiles followed up on his advantage, and leaned down to hiss directly in his face, “I am fucking done with all of your shit, now knock it off!”

Isaac blinked up at him in utter astonishment. Stiles looked from him to Boyd, ignoring the inner voice which pointed out that taking his attention off the werewolf in his lap he had just been screaming at might be a spectacularly bad idea, and pointed at the other beta imperiously.

“You,” he snapped. “Lay the fuck back down before you undo all my and the doc’s hard work, you moron. And you!” he went on, swiveling his point to aim at Scott without missing a beat. “I don’t have the first clue of what the fuck crawled up your ass and died, but whatever it is can goddamn well wait until your internal organs are no longer visible to the naked eye, Jesus. You lay the fuck down too.”

Scott and Boyd (and Isaac) just stared at him silently for a moment, and Stiles resolutely ignored the voice in his head which was now wondering if he was going to be torn apart three ways at once, in favor of raising his eyebrows and snapping, “Well?”

And then Boyd snorted and rolled his eyes, lowering himself back down on his mat gingerly, and Scott full-on pouted and did the same.

Stiles blinked.

“Um, Stiles?” Isaac said. “Can I – ”

Stiles looked down and realized that he still had Isaac’s hair in a death grip, and gave a start, letting go. “Dude, my bad, sorry!”

Then he saw that the wounds on Isaac’s neck had reopened enough for the blood to be welling up rather than just oozing, and felt a wave of panic, overlaid with guilt. “Shit,” he said, and grabbed for the gauze, pushing Isaac’s head back down onto his lap and to the side so he could reapply the bandage. Isaac allowed it with no resistance whatsoever, going boneless again.

“Shit, Isaac, I’m sorry, look, don’t start gushing on me again, okay? Blood stays inside, am I right?” Stiles babbled, applying gentle pressure to the wounds.

“S’fine,” Isaac murmured, sounding sleepy, and moved his head so that his cheek rubbed just a little against the leg of Stiles’s jeans.

Stiles stared, because had Isaac just nuzzled him? He glanced over at Scott, but Scott was gazing beyond Stiles and Isaac both, his face hovering somewhere between pain and hope, and Stiles knew without looking that Allison was standing there.

He looked anyway, and was startled to see that Lydia was there too, standing next to Allison. Allison’s arm was in a sling, to support the cast that went from her hand all the way up to her shoulder, and the bruises on the side of Lydia’s face had progressed to a rather spectacular shade of purplish-greenish-blue, but that hadn’t stopped Lydia from dressing to the nines, and styling her hair as gorgeously as always, and Stiles suspected that she’d had a hand in how well put-together Allison looked, too. Because Lydia was just awesome that way. No stupid head wound would ever stand in the way of Lydia Martin’s fabulousness, thank you.

Both girls were staring at him, even Allison. Not at Scott, but at Stiles. Lydia’s expression was sharp and thoughtful, but Allison’s eyes were wide and shocked in her face, like she had seen something completely unexpected.

“Uh,” Stiles said, wondering wildly how long they had been standing there, “Hey, girls. Good to see you up and…” he waved his free hand, “walking wounded?” He winced. Stiles Stilinski, master wordsmith.

The girls’ expressions both instantly changed to exasperation, which oddly made Stiles feel much better. He knew where he stood with people who were annoyed with him. But then Allison’s gaze shifted upward, and she visibly tensed. Stiles felt his stomach clench with dread even as he turned to follow her gaze.

Sure enough, Derek was at the top of the stairs, staring down motionless at all of them. No, not at all of them: at Stiles. His face was partially in shadow, so his only visible feature were his eyes, glowing faintly red.

Oh, shit.

Stiles didn’t look at the others, unable to take his eyes off Derek, but he sensed that everyone else was looking the same way, except Isaac, who appeared to have drifted off again. There was a very loud silence, as Derek continued to not move, and continued to stare, and continued to have very red eyes, and Stiles tried to figure out what the consequences might be for manhandling an Alpha’s betas without permission, and how much medical attention he might need afterward. Maybe Lydia and Allison would give him a ride to the hospital?

He felt like he should say something ridiculous and tension-shattering, as was his wont when tension-filled moments occurred, but for once in his life he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. So he swallowed, once, and waited to see what would happen.

But what actually happened was, surprisingly, nothing. Derek stared for a few moments longer, and then abruptly turned and vanished back into his bedroom. Stiles heard the door click shut softly, and let out a breath he hadn’t even been aware he’d been holding. He heard his exhale echoed, faintly, by at least a few other people in the room, but he didn’t look to see who.

“Stiles,” Allison said, “can I talk to you for a second?”

He looked at her, and she was giving him one of those “it’s really important that we talk right now” looks that have become all too depressingly familiar over the past few months. Stiles looked back down at where he was still holding the gauze to Isaac’s neck, and Lydia snorted and marched over to him, kneeling down with her usual abrupt grace.

“I’ve got this,” she told him, and smacked his hand away from the bandages peremptorily. Stiles didn’t really have many other options than to lift up his hands placatingly, move Isaac’s head carefully back to his mat, and lever himself up out of the way; he knew when he was outmatched.

“Allison?” Scott said, softly.

Allison finally looked at Scott then, and her face twisted in pain for a moment before she shook it off. “I’ll be back,” she promised, in a tone which said she didn’t particularly want to come back and have The Scene they all knew had to happen between her and Scott, but she was going to suck it up and do it anyway.

After a moment, Scott nodded, and Allison took Stiles’s arm with her good hand and led him firmly out of the loft. She didn’t stop when they stepped out of the building, either, but started towing him down the block. Stiles stopped and pulled his arm out of her grasp. She looked back at him in surprise.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

She got that exasperated look again. “Just come on, Stiles,” she said, reaching for his arm again, but he twisted out of her reach.

“I’m sure you’ll understand,” he said, flatly, “why I’m a little wary of letting you take me somewhere I don’t know, alone. That didn’t work out so well for Erica and Boyd, last time.” Which wasn’t precisely how that whole thing had happened, of course, but it got the point across.

Allison’s eyes widened and she dropped her hand, looking stricken. Stiles refused to let it make him feel bad; why should he? It was only the truth. Allison had been invaluable in the fight against the Alphas – in fact they would almost certainly not have won if she hadn’t shown up at the eleventh hour – but that didn’t mean Stiles was ready to completely trust her again. Or forgive her for what she’d done.

Allison took a shaky breath, and nodded her understanding. “I was – I just wanted to go where we won’t be overheard,” she said. “There’s a coffee shop two blocks down on the corner.” She swallowed. “In public. Lots of people around.”

Stiles let the silence stretch for a moment more, because sometimes he was a dick, and then nodded back, gesturing her to lead the way.

At the shop, Allison went and bought them two coffees while Stiles found a table in the back. They sat and sipped for a few minutes in a very awkward silence that, for once, Stiles had no interest in breaking first.

Finally, though, Allison sighed and put her coffee cup down. “I need to know,” she began, “if you understand what just happened back there.”

Oh, that. “Um,” Stiles said, stalling, “which part? The part with Derek, or – ”

“All of it,” Allison replied.

“Look, I know yelling at supernatural fangy people was probably not one of my smarter moves,” Stiles deflected, “but you saw, it was okay. Nobody killed me even a little bit.” He grinned. “Maybe this means Isaac and Boyd are finally starting to fall for the Stilinski charm.”

Allison stared at him for a moment, and then actually facepalmed. “Oh for – ” she started, then sighed heavily, lifting her head again. “Stiles, I know damn good and well that there’s no way you haven’t researched the hell out of everything to do with werewolves. And wolves. You are not this stupid, I know you aren’t. You know what that was.”

Great, so much for Stiles’s cunning plan of not thinking about things. “I didn’t mean to do it, I swear!” he burst out. “I was just – ”

“ – acting on instinct,” Allison finished for him, and Stiles’s mouth dropped open. He stared at her, and she stared back, daring him to disagree.

Which he did, of course, because that was ridiculous. “Allison, no,” he floundered. “Instinct – what – you’re – that’s – ”

She just raised an eloquent eyebrow.

“I am not a wolf!” he pointed out frantically, waving his hands at himself in the universal gesture for Hello, not a werewolf.

“No,” she agreed, “you’re not. But you run with wolves, Stiles. Did you really think that would have no effect on you?”

Stiles stared at her some more, flabbergasted.

“You can’t actually be suggesting – ”

“But I am, Stiles,” Allison said, gently. “It’s in hunter lore, how humans can be part of werewolf packs – and how it changes them.”

“Oh, well, if hunters say it’s so – ” Stiles began with dripping sarcasm, and she held up a placating hand.

“I know, hunters are not the most objective of sources,” she said.  “But they do know a lot about werewolves, Stiles. I’ve been doing a lot of reading this past summer, and this is something that’s been agreed on as true for hundreds of years. Werewolf packs are like wolf packs in a lot of ways, but one way in which they are very different is that werewolf packs are not just dictated by natural laws.”

“Meaning?” Stiles asked, though he was pretty sure he didn’t want to hear the answer.

“Meaning, werewolves are magic, Stiles. Everything about them breaks the laws of nature as the ordinary world understands them. Why would you think their pack structure would be an exception?” She leaned forward. “And why would you think that being human exempts you from that magic? Especially you, Stiles, who has already done magic of his own?”

Stiles swallowed. “That was just… Deaton. Parlor tricks. I borrowed – ”

“No,” she disagreed. “That was you. And that disorientation spell was no parlor trick, either. And you know it.”

Stiles looked away from her penetrating gaze, dragging an unsteady hand across his mouth. He felt the fluttering edges of an impending panic attack, and squashed it ruthlessly. He was not going to freak out, he was not.

“Whether you meant to or not, Stiles,” Allison continued relentlessly, “you have just established your rank in Derek Hale’s pack, and it’s not as a beta.”

Stiles really, really wished he could pretend he didn’t understand what she meant by that, but that time was long past. Still, that didn’t mean he had to buy it, because: “Derek is the Alpha,” he said.

Allison tilted her head. “Yes, he is,” she said. “And now, so are you.”

Jesus. Stiles closed his eyes for a moment. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Sure it does. You protected them, you provided for them, you care for them. And when it came down to brass tacks,” she said, “you commanded them. And they obeyed.”

“Fucking hell,” Stiles said, and pushed his coffee out of the way so he could bang his head on the table for a moment. He looked up to see Allison giving him a sympathetic look, and went back to banging his head until Allison stuck her hand between his forehead and the table, stopping the movement.

“Stiles,” she said, reprovingly, and Stiles raised his head again and went back to sucking on his coffee as resentfully as he could manage, chewing over the situation in his mind. Allison let him alone to think, for which he was grateful.

“So that’s why Scott freaked out,” he said at length, not quite making it a question, but Allison nodded.

“You’ve put him in a dilemma,” she agreed. “Whether he consciously realizes it or not. You were his pack, a sort-of beta to his sort-of Alpha, but now you’ve taken a level in badass – ”

Stiles’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh my God, you’ve read TV Tropes, I love you,” he interjected, and Allison rolled her eyes and plowed on.

“ – and you’ve claimed Alpha status in the pack he specifically rejected.”

Stiles winces. Ouch. “I really didn’t mean to.”

“That’s really not relevant,” Allison replied.

“So, what, then? Scott either has to challenge me for Alpha status in our own pack – which he won’t do – or join Derek’s pack? As a lower rank than his puny human friend? Yeah, I can see how this would be thrilling on all levels for him.”

Allison shook her head. “Don’t make the mistake of assuming ‘strength’ only refers to muscle power, Stiles.” Her mouth twisted. “I think I’ve proven quite well how much of a threat a ‘puny human’ can be if she wants.”

Stiles had to concede that point, but: “Yeah, but there’s no way I am as badass as you.”

Stiles was genuinely trying to make a point rather than offer a compliment, but, well. Allison stared at him in surprise for a moment before actually ducking her head and blushing, cheeks dimpling in pleased embarrassment at his remark. It was possibly the most ridiculously adorable thing Stiles had ever seen, and he wasn’t even into her. Jeez, no wonder Scott’s brain turned into mulch where Allison was concerned.

“Well,” she said, her cheeks still red, “that’s very nice of you to say, but there’s all kinds of badass, Stiles. I can shoot a bow, but I can’t cast a spell to save my life.”

He raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

She raised an eyebrow back. “Because I’ve tried.” Off his surprised look, she added, “I kind of had a lot of free time this summer, remember?” When no one was talking to me, she meant. Which Stiles still wasn’t going to feel bad about, but he did feel admiration for her that she had apparently spent that time doing things that were actually constructive rather than just moping around. He tried not to be distracted by the idea that Allison was now, like, a significant source of supernatural lore. Later.

“I can cast a circle of mountain ash,” she said, “but that’s about the extent of it. Anything more powerful than that – like, say, disorientation spells,” giving him a meaningful look, “ – just fizzled for me.”

Now it was Stiles’s turn for his cheeks to heat, but Allison wasn’t done. “My point is that in some ways you have the potential to be more powerful than any of us – including Derek. Your spell incapacitated four Alphas, Stiles. Do you really think that’s just nothing?”

Stiles opened his mouth, then shut it, thrown. Allison nodded.

“No, it’s not nothing. And on some level,” she said, “the wolves have acknowledged that. And on some level,” she added, intently, “so have you. Otherwise you would never have done what you just did.”

“I need more coffee,” he decided, and lurched to his feet. Allison let him go, wisely.

Acquiring two fresh cups took almost ten minutes, since the lunch rush was by now in full swing, but Stiles barely noticed the delay, mind spinning with all the ramifications of Allison’s information. His conclusions were… disturbing.

He’d known there’d been some wonky pack instinct thing going on with what had happened in Derek’s loft, but he’d never considered the possibility that those pack instincts might also be affecting him. But it made a kind of bizarre sense, in retrospect: why else would he have thrown himself into the middle of that in the first place?

Not to mention, he suddenly thought, why he’d been throwing himself in the middle of all this werewolf bullshit from the very beginning. It had been because of Scott, of course, because they were not just bros but brothers, in all but blood. And what else does pack even really mean, when it came down to it?

Jesus, how long had this pack magic thing been going on, for him? How much of what he’d done in the past year was really him, and how much was how he’d been… altered?

Stiles suddenly had a much more visceral appreciation of how much transforming into a werewolf must have freaked Scott the fuck out. Learning there were strange and scary things out there in the world was one thing; learning that you were strange and scary yourself…

“How irrevocable is this?” he asked Allison without preamble when he plunked himself back down at their table. “I mean, have I just checked into Hotel California here?”

She frowned. “What?”

He flailed at her. “Oh my God, how can you not – the Eagles? ‘We are programmed to receive’?” She gave him an uncomprehending look, and Stiles sighed. “Never mind. What I mean is, is this pack thing like the mob? Like, once you’re in, you can never get out?”

She tilted her head. “Do you want to get out?”

“That is not the point!” he yelled, loud enough to attract the attention of nearby customers. He waved at them asininely until they turned away, then hissed at Allison, “Look, I’m not walking away from Scott ever, we are bros. But I did not sign up to be – ” he waved his arms around to indicate whatever this is that I am reluctant to actually put a term to but you know what I mean. “I just want to know, could I walk away? Or is it like – ” he made a noise that hopefully sounded like cage bars slamming closed, and clapped his hands together into a vise, squeezing them dramatically.

Allison looked deeply unimpressed, whether at Stiles’s words or his illustrative accompanying pantomine it was hard to say. “Of course you can walk away, Stiles. If, um.” She hesitated, then barreled on, “if Erica and Boyd could decide to leave than you certainly can.”

Wow, she actually went there, Stiles thought, but he had to admit it did make her point well. Because Boyd may have come back, but Erica had really left, for good, and Stiles highly doubted she was ever coming back. Not to mention, he thought, that Jackson had left too – even if leaving hadn’t actually been his idea.

So, okay. He was being overly paranoid. But that was far from his only concern.

“And what about Derek?” he asked, quietly. “What does this mean for – for him?” He didn’t quite dare to phrase it for us, even in his own head.

“I don’t know,” Allison admitted. “But you need to talk to him about it.” As soon as possible, she didn’t need to add.

Great.

Lydia was lounging on the ratty armchair in the main room of the loft when Stiles and Allison walked in, filing her nails and looking supremely bored. Isaac was asleep again, but both Boyd and Scott’s gazes snapped to Allison as soon as she appeared – though for very different reasons.

For her part, Allison looked at Lydia, and they shared some kind of girl telepathy staring contest before Lydia raised her eyebrows, bounced to her feet and marched for the kitchen. She ignored Stiles completely, which was like a breath of fresh normality. Allison then shifted her gaze to where Scott was half-propped up on the couch, like he wanted to go to her but was keeping himself from moving. Which was almost certainly the case.

Stiles looked away from the star-crossed pain on both their faces, and went to crouch by Isaac, on the pretense of checking his wounds again. Nevertheless he heard Allison cross to the couch.

Stiles noted that Boyd’s eyes followed her path. He was silent, but Stiles knew that Boyd still hadn’t either forgotten or forgiven what Allison had done to him and Erica. He was even less likely than Stiles to fully trust her again anytime soon, and Stiles could hardly blame him for it. Still, Stiles thought, it was clearly far, far better for them all when Allison was on their side, so Boyd was going to have to come to grips with that sooner or later.

At the couch, he heard Allison make a hissing noise, probably on seeing the still-gaping wound in Scott’s abdomen. Right, she wouldn’t have seen it earlier.

“Oh my God, Scott,” she said. “Is it – ”

“It’s fine,” Scott assured her. She made an outraged sound, and he amended, “It will be fine. Soon. I think.” Out of the corner of his eye, Stiles saw Scott make a hesitant move toward her casted arm. “Are you – is it – ”

“It hurts,” she admitted, “but the doctor says I’ll be fine. No permanent damage.”

Scott made a low whining sound in the back of his throat – probably at being reminded that unlike him, Allison could be permanently damaged. His hand jerked closer to her arm, then back.

“Can I – ” he swallowed. “I could help, with that, if you wanted.”

Scott deployed the full force of his puppy dog eyes on Allison, and Stiles smirked to himself as he saw her waver. Scott’s woebegone looks should be classified as deadly weapons, for real.

Then Allison sighed, conceding the battle, and sank down next to Scott on the couch, holding out her arm. Scott positively beamed in response as he settled his hand on her shoulder just above the cast, and Stiles wondered who they thought they were kidding with this “break”. He watched long enough to see Scott’s werewolf mojo kick in, because that will never stop being cool to see, before turning toward the spiral staircase with a sigh. Because Allison was right; he couldn’t put this off.

He didn’t glance down as he hopped up the staircase, but he felt the wolves’ eyes on him, even Scott. Especially Scott, really. He and Scott were going to need to have a talk, after… whatever was about to happen with Derek happened.

“Come in,” Derek’s voice said, at Stiles’s knock on his bedroom door. Stiles took a breath, steeling himself, and went in.

Derek was standing still in the exact center of the room, watching him. His posture wasn’t relaxed, exactly, but it wasn’t tense, either. It was more just… waiting. Stiles shut the door behind himself, even though that would hardly stop the wolves downstairs from hearing every word if they wanted to. He debated sitting, but that didn’t feel right, so he walked forward and stood as well, close enough to Derek to be within easy speaking distance but far enough that neither was encroaching on the other’s personal space.

He had no idea how to begin talking about this, so he didn’t bother with the ‘beginning’ part. “I didn’t intend for this to happen, you know,” he said instead.

Derek’s mouth twisted in something like a smile. “I know.”

Stiles waited for more, but Derek said nothing, with that expression of tired, grim acceptance he so often had, the one that said bad shit had happened to him so often that he couldn’t bother to be surprised or even particularly upset by it anymore. And wow, Stiles hadn’t expected him to be thrilled about this or anything, but he hadn’t thought that it would rank on a level equal with Derek’s family getting burned up or being gutted by his own psychotic uncle or…

But maybe it was that bad, for Derek, he thought with a kind of sick feeling. Derek had barely tolerated Stiles up to this point, and that only because he’d been trying to woo Scott into his pack, and Stiles and Scott were basically a package deal. And now suddenly Derek was supposed to accept the annoying weak human, that he hadn’t even wanted as a pack member in the first place, as an equal? As a… co-captain, or whatever? No wonder he looked like someone was shoving lemons down his throat.

Stiles was abruptly angry then, because it wasn’t like he had asked for this. “Yeah, well,” he snapped, “I’m sorry if that harshes your squee or whatever, but apparently it is what it is. The pack must be protected, and if that means I had to step up and do it – ”

And then he stopped, startled, because that wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew they were true. The pack did have to be protected, and maybe it was freaky werewolf magic or whatever working on him, but that didn’t change the fact that the pack’s wellbeing – no, his pack’s wellbeing – was the most important thing in Stiles’s life now, and he wouldn’t have changed that even if he knew how. They may not all be the closest of friends – hell, Stiles wasn’t even sure he liked Isaac and Boyd, or Derek for that matter – but that was irrelevant.

Pack was pack. Stiles was mildly astonished to realize that, in the end, it was as simple as that. Huh.

Derek watched his face closely, and nodded, as if Stiles’s train of thought was clearly visible to him – which, to be honest, it probably was. Keeping his thoughts hidden wasn’t exactly one of Stiles’s strong points.

“You’re right,” Derek said. “Don’t worry, it won’t be a problem.”

Stiles blinked. “It won’t?”

Derek swallowed, and did that not-smile thing again. “No, it won’t.”

He went to the small rickety table next to his mattress and rummaged through the junk strewn on it, eventually pulling out a short stack of legal-size papers stapled together. He walked over to Stiles and held it out.

Stiles took it and looked at the cover page, which said “Quit Claim Deed” in bold letters at the top, and the address of the loft underneath. Stiles frowned.

“We can fill it out and get it notarized whenever you and Scott are ready,” Derek said. “You’ll have to have his mother co-sign as custodian until you or he turns eighteen, but it’ll be in your name.”

“Derek,” Stiles said slowly, “what are you talking about? What is this?”

“It’s a form for transferring property,” Derek said.

“I know what a Quit Claim is, Derek,” Stiles snapped. “I mean, what is this? Why are you giving the loft to me and Scott?”

Derek’s eyes narrowed, and Stiles saw him start to snap something back, but then to Stiles’s amazement, he visibly reined himself in, and instead said quietly, “You’ll need someplace for the pack to stay. To meet and – and be together.” A spasm of something like pain flashed across his face, but his voice stayed steady. “This building will have to do. I’d give you the Hale property, but that’s already been seized by the county. It’d be more trouble than it’s worth to try and get it back now.”

Stiles stared at him, and then back down at the papers. An awful suspicion was growing in his mind.

“Derek – ” Stiles began.

“I just need – ” Derek interrupted, and then abruptly halted. He cleared his throat, staring at a spot on the wall, and said formally, “I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a week or so to get my affairs in order, but I can be out sooner if you need me to.”

Stiles stood there with his mouth open in what was probably a very unattractive way, staring at Derek. He thought about demanding more explanation, but the truth was, he didn’t need any. He knew what this was.

“You’re leaving,” he said, flatly. It was like he needed to hear it said out loud to grasp it. “You’re leaving, right now.”

Stiles could hardly believe it. Derek didn’t want to deal with Stiles so badly that he would rather abandon the pack altogether? Stiles didn’t know which was worse; the hurt on his own behalf, or the fury on the pack’s. How could Derek do this?

Derek stiffened at his words, and Stiles waited to hear what lame justification he had for fucking abandoning them like this, but then all the fight seemed to bleed out of him, and he looked away.

“Okay,” he said. “If that’s what – ” he stopped, and took a breath. “Okay,” he repeated, as if to himself, and nodded. He looked around and grabbed a duffel bag off the floor, and began shoving clothes into it, apparently at random.

Stiles frowned. There was something – off about the way Derek had said that. He watched Derek, watched his stiff, jerky movements, watched the way his shoulders slumped. Thought about how Derek had looked away from Stiles just now, conceding. Derek never conceded anything.

“Wait,” Stiles said. “Stop.”

And Derek – stopped. He just halted what he was doing and stared at the floor, waiting, like he was just done and didn’t even care what happened any more. Stiles realized he could put a name to what he was seeing before him, and it was something he’d never seen on Derek before, despite the absolute avalanche of shitty things that had happened to him, non-stop, as long as Stiles had known him.

Defeat.

“Derek,” he said, “explain to me exactly what is happening right now. Put it in words, because – ”

Derek’s head jerked up, and he snarled, “What, this isn’t enough? You’re kicking me out without even a chance to pack, and that’s not humiliating enough for you? You need me to fucking narrate it for you too?”

Stiles’s jaw dropped. “Kicking you – ” he floundered, but Derek talked over him, like a dam had been broken and all the words were coming out at once.

“You could have left me at least a little dignity, but no, you need me to say it out loud. Fine: you were right. I failed. I failed so hard that you and Scott had to come in and save my own pack because I couldn’t do it. A human and a bitten beta – two fucking teenagers – are better Alphas than I’ll ever be. So you’re right: I need to leave, because everything I touch turns to shit.” His voice broke on the last word, and he turned his back on Stiles, like he couldn’t stand to look at him.

No, like he couldn’t stand to have Stiles looking at him. Stiles stood there, shocked. He knew he should say something, but he felt frozen in place.

Derek continued, but his voice was soft, now, like the anger was drained out of him and now he was just… drained. “I get it. I understand. I don’t deserve to have a pack at all, much less be the Alpha of one. I just wish you had – but it doesn’t matter.”

He turned back to face Stiles. His eyes were leaden, but he held his chin up high, and Stiles’s heart twisted at the sight. Derek held out his hand.

“It’s fine. Just give me the papers. I’ll sign them and then I’ll go. You won’t have to deal with me any longer, I promise.”

Stiles stood there and waited to see what this emotion was he felt boiling up from deep within, held himself still until it surged to the surface and yep, it was anger. No, it was fury.

“How dare you,” he hissed. “How fucking dare you treat a member of my pack this way.”

Derek blinked at him, confused, which only made Stiles angrier. He jabbed a finger in Derek’s direction.

“I mean you, you asshole,” he snapped. “That is our Derek Hale you’re shitting on, and I won’t have it.”

Derek’s jaw dropped, but Stiles wasn’t even close to done yet. “I am talking about Derek Hale, who put his life on the line to protect his pack over and over again, without hesitation. I am talking about the alpha who had the chance to gain unlimited power if he took the alpha pack’s offer and killed his pack, and didn’t even hesitate to tell Deucalion to go fuck himself.

“I am talking about Derek Hale, who has had enough bad shit piled on his head to overwhelm ten people, and yet never gives up. I am talking about Derek Hale, who fucks up and makes mistakes and leaps before he looks and needs about a metric fuckton of therapy, but in the end always, always tries to do the right thing. You are ours, buddy, and you’re not going anywhere.”

To punctuate his statement, Stiles flung the quit claim papers to the floor between them with contempt. Derek looked down at them, then back up at Stiles, and Stiles had never seen him look so flabbergasted. He opened his mouth, but Stiles beat him to speech again.

“And I can’t even fucking believe,” he said, more quietly, “that you think so little of me and Scott that you would believe that we would just kick you to the curb after everything we’ve been through. We’re pack, Derek. And so are you.”

Derek stared at Stiles like he’d never seen him before, but started shaking his head slowly. “Stiles,” he said, “I don’t deserve – ”

“BULLSHIT!” Stiles roared, and the pile of papers on the floor abruptly burst into flames with a fwoomph of suddenly heated air. Stiles almost jumped out of his skin in shock.

“Fuck!” he yelped, and whirled around, looking for water, but Derek was already stamping on the fire, putting it out. After, they both stared at the pile of ashes left behind, and Stiles knew his eyes were probably even wider than Derek’s.

“Um,” he said, finally. His voice was higher-pitched than usual. “Right. Okay. Anger management for Stiles, now a priority.”

“It comes with being Alpha,” Derek murmured absently, still looking at the ashes. “Your emotions, your power. Everything is… more. You get used to it.”

Stiles heard himself let out a distinctly shaky laugh. “Used to it. Sure.”

Derek looked at him. “You will, Stiles,” he said, earnestly. “You will be great at this. Scott too.”

“Yeah? Well, so will you,” Stiles shot back. “Because we will have your back, and you’ll have ours. Right?”

Derek flicked his gaze up to Stiles’s, as if startled, but then the look altered to something inward, considering. Derek stood there a moment, processing whatever thought he was having, and then nodded to himself, as if coming to a decision.

“Have your back,” he repeated, and nodded again. “Yes.”

And with that, he turned and marched out the door, leaving Stiles to stare after him in confusion.

“Uh, Derek?” he said. “Derek?”

No answer. Stiles limped out of the room to see Derek swiftly descending the spiral stairs to the main room below, and hastened to follow. What the hell was he doing now?

Stiles reached the bottom of the staircase in time to see Derek stride right up to Scott’s couch, and stare down at Stiles’s best friend with a scarily determined look. Allison rose from her spot by Scott’s hip and backed off; she was a hunter, but she knew when to get out from between a confrontation between two wolves, it seemed. Isaac and Boyd didn’t move from their cots, but they were focused with utterly silent concentration on Scott and Derek. Lydia, standing in the kitchenette, watched as silently as the betas, that sharp, thoughtful expression on her face again.

Scott, for his part, propped himself up on his elbow, staring back up at Derek and obviously trying to decide if he needed to prepare for an attack from the other werewolf or… something else. He flicked a what the hell glance Stiles’s way, but Stiles could only give him a helpless shrug in answer.

“I lied to you,” Derek said to Scott, abruptly. “I told you that if you killed the Alpha that bit you, you might become human again, but that was a lie. It doesn’t work that way; it never has. The only thing that would have happened if you had killed Peter the first time is that you would have become an alpha yourself.”

Scott’s forehead creased in anger, but Stiles caught his eye and made a gesture for him to wait, because Derek wasn’t finished yet. Rather to Stiles’s surprise, Scott listened, and remained silent.

“I told you that because I thought it was the only way you would help me,” Derek said. “You were so angry, and everything I did seemed to make it worse…” He shook his head. “It never occurred to me that you would have helped me anyway, just because you’re… you.”

He made a helpless little gesture in Scott’s direction. Scott blinked at him, bewildered, but Stiles saw Allison quirk a little smile, and knew the same expression was on his own face. Because Scott was… Scott, and you had to love him for it.

“And then when we defeated Peter,” Derek went on, “I couldn’t let you kill him. Not just because what I’d said wasn’t true, but because there was no way, I thought, that I could allow a bitten teenager who didn’t even want to be a wolf to have that kind of power. Even if you’d have wanted it.”

Anger and mistrust warred with acknowledgment on Scott’s face, but in the end, honesty won out. “I didn’t want it,” Scott admitted, reluctantly. “I still don’t.”

Derek nodded tightly. “I know,” he said, and took a breath. “And maybe that’s why you should have had it in the first place.”

Scott’s eyebrows shot up, as did Allison’s and Stiles’s as well. Derek turned, then, to look directly at Isaac and Boyd.

“I’m sorry,” he said to them. “I was not a good alpha to you. I tried, but I did it all wrong. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Pack is supposed to be – ” Derek stopped a moment. “It’s supposed to be – protection. Safety. Support. I didn’t give you any of that.” He swallowed. “Stiles and Scott have. They have been to you what an alpha should be.”

Stiles saw Isaac and Boyd’s eyes flick to him, then Scott. Scott was wide-eyed and tense, still unsure where this sudden confession was leading, but Stiles was beginning to get an idea, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. Derek looked back at Scott again.

“Killing another alpha isn’t the only way to become one,” Derek said to him. “And dying isn’t the only way to stop being one. L-Laura inherited the power when our mother died, but if things had gone… differently, she – our mother – would have passed the mantle of alpha to Laura voluntarily, when she was ready. It’s a power that can be given as well as taken, if the one giving feels it is deserved, and if the one receiving accepts it freely.”

Stiles wondered if Scott realized that this was only the second time Derek had ever spoken to them of his family, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it, because he was too busy boggling at the sight of Derek dropping to his knees beside the couch, so that his and Scott’s heads were level.

“Derek,” Scott said, warily, “What are you – ”

“Scott McCall,” Derek said, and there was something more behind his voice, a growling undertone that Stiles suddenly knew meant that the wolf was speaking as well as the man. His eyes flared red, and he held out his right arm, palm open. “I offer you the power of alpha over this pack. Do you accept it?”

Scott stared at him, eyes wider than Stiles had ever seen them, and for a moment Stiles thought he was going to refuse. But then his gaze moved away from Derek, to look over at Boyd and Isaac. Boyd was expressionless, but every muscle in his body was taut as a wire. Isaac – well, Isaac looked so painfully hopeful that Stiles almost winced, glad that Derek wasn’t looking at the betas.

Scott looked at Allison, then. She still looked stunned, but gave Scott a small, encouraging smile; she would respect whatever decision he made. Finally, Scott looked at Stiles.

“You already are,” he said to Stiles. It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “But… I’m not a wolf, Scott. I don’t think I’m enough.” He didn’t just think that; he knew it, in some bone-deep way that he was beginning to recognize as pack magic, separate and yet linked to his own magic. He could be – was – alpha as a human, but the pack needed a wolf to lead them as well.

Scott nodded, perhaps sensing the same thing himself. He looked to Derek, who had remained patiently still this whole time, eyes still red, arm still outstretched, waiting for Scott’s decision.

“And this… this is what you want,” Scott said to Derek, almost puzzled, like he was having trouble believing that Derek would voluntarily give up his power to him. Which was understandable, considering all that had happened.

“This isn’t about what I want,” Derek answered. “This is about what’s right for the pack.”

Scott nodded again, slowly, deep in thought. Then he looked up, and firmed up his chin, and Stiles knew what the answer would be even before Scott opened his mouth.

“All right then,” Scott said, and his eyes flared gold for the last time. “I accept.”

He reached out and clasped Derek’s outstretched arm with his own, and a moment later both men stiffened, jerked in place, and black lines flowed down Derek’s arm, seeming to run from his skin over to Scott’s. It went on and on, for what felt like hours but was probably really only a couple of minutes, until Stiles saw… something pass between them, or maybe not so much saw as sensed, like an invisible ripple in the air, and Scott threw his head back and howled, and they all watched the gold in his eyes bleed into a rich, glowing crimson. The formerly slow-healing, gaping gash in his abdomen sealed up and disappeared in a blink, leaving perfect, unmarred skin in its wake.

Isaac and Boyd howled back, their eyes gold and fangs extended, and Stiles had to clamp down on an utterly unexpected impulse to do the same. Derek slumped, releasing Scott’s arm, and would have fallen over except that both Scott and Stiles jumped in to grab him and hold him up.

“We got you, man,” Scott said to him, and Derek looked up with eyes that glowed blue, and nodded.

“You’re the alpha now,” he murmured, and giggled, right before passing out cold.

Scott ended up carrying Derek back upstairs to his bedroom, a fact which Stiles made a gleeful mental note to tease Derek about, once he was sure teasing was okay again.

He wasn’t sure when that would be, yet. The power balance between them had shifted irrevocably now, and Stiles was determined not to take advantage of that. He was an asshole, yes, this was well-documented, but he wasn’t that kind of asshole. It was going to be a complicated thing, he could tell, figuring out how to tread this new power dynamic – for all the pack, not just him and Derek.

Stiles was so deep in thought on the subject, in fact, that he didn’t notice when Derek woke in time. He snatched away the hand he’d been stroking Derek’s hair with and jumped up from his perch on the edge of Derek’s mattress, face hot.

“Um,” he began, eloquently, wondering how to explain this, but then Derek smiled at him, and all Stiles’s words died a sudden death. Because he’d seen Derek smirk, and he’d seen him do his fake-seduction-smile, and he’d even seen him grin a shit-eating grin, but he’d never once seen Derek smile this smile, all soft and warm and… happy. Like he meant it.

Derek looked like a man who’d had a thousand-ton weight removed from his shoulders. The smile was serene. And it transformed his face from merely “smoking hot” to… Stiles swallowed.

To about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, he admitted to himself, and oh shit he was in so much trouble now. If he’d been worried about negotiating just the simple relationship of Alpha to his betas, what kind of complications was it going to introduce if he was in l- if he wanted to bone one of them? Can an Alpha even have a roman- sexual relationship with a beta without it being like workplace harassment or something?

“Stiles?” Derek said, smile fading into concern.

“We should have an HR department,” Stiles blurted, and then immediately wanted to slap himself. You’d think becoming an Alpha would help with Stiles’s terminal case of verbal diarrhea, but apparently you’d be wrong.

Derek blinked. “HR… what?”

Fuck, Stiles might as well go with it. “Human Resources. Though in this case it should really be Werewolf Resources. WR Department? Doesn’t have the same ring. Uh. But we should have one. Not for, like, hiring new werewolves or whatever, but for the thing. Thingy. Workplace policy! That’s it. Except for us it’d be, uh, packplace policy? I guess?”

Derek stared at him like he was insane, which was… perfectly reasonable, really. Stiles ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. Why could he never say things like a normal person?

“Stiles,” Derek said, slowly, “I don’t – ”

“It’s just, I don’t know the rules here, okay?” Stiles interrupted. “I mean, you’re all lying there with all your… youness, and sure, you’ve always been stupidly attractive but now you’re smiling at me, like really smiling, and that’s just not fair, because now I really want to kiss you, but maybe I can’t, because me Alpha, you beta – ” and now he was talking like Tarzan, what the hell, “ – and maybe that’s like the sleazy boss chasing the secretary around the desk right before Lily Tomlin puts rat poison in his coffee and oh my god why am I still talking?”

Derek was now giving him a sort of stunned deer-in-headlights look, which Stiles supposed was better than the sneer of contempt he had half-expected, but not by much. But seriously, why had he even decided to say any of this? It was clearly unwelcome, and probably even more inappropriate than he’d feared. He should have kept his mouth shut, but it was too late now, so the only thing for it was damage control.

“Right, wow, so that was… uncalled for, and. Uh. Clearly not cool. If you have to ask the question you already know the answer, right?” Stiles tried to summon a grin, but it was probably a poor attempt. And then he thought of something else, and hastily added, “But, just so you know, I’m never going to, to try to take advantage of – because that would be – so, I mean, you don’t have to worry about it, or anything. We’re all totally cool here.” And because he was a moron, Stiles felt the need to punctuate this statement with finger guns even as he winced at himself. Jesus.

During this disastrous speech, Derek’s face had gradually altered from bewilderment to… something else, and it didn’t look like anger or disgust, exactly, but it was definitely made of narrowed and evaluating eyes and dawning realizations and yeah, Stiles needed to not be here anymore.

“Right. So I’m gonna, um, go, and possibly punch myself in the face a few times, and we can pretend this never happened, and, yeah.”

He whirled around and limped toward the staircase, wishing he could run. He just needed to get somewhere else and let this feeling fade, this awful queasy twingy feeling that was equal parts humiliation and loss, which was stupid because he hadn’t even had anything to lose in the first place, God, he was such an idiot, and –

– and then Derek was suddenly there, in between him and the top of the staircase, and apparently being a beta now instead of an Alpha had had no impact whatsoever on his stealth abilities because Stiles hadn’t even seen him move, and he narrowly avoided an extremely undignified squeak as he jerked to a halt to avoid crashing into the wall of unfair muscle and stubble now in front of him. Freakin’ stupid ninja werewolf skills.

“Stiles,” Derek said, and Stiles couldn’t tell exactly what emotion his tone was laden with but it was a pretty fair bet that it wasn’t a happy one, and shit Stiles really needed to get out of here before he did something ridiculous, like cry.

“Seriously, Derek, it’s fine, I swear,” Stiles said, trying to edge around him and get to the staircase. “You don’t have to worry about a thing, there will be no workplace harassment happening here. Packplace harassment. Whatever. I’mma just – ”

“Stiles,” Derek said, and that was definitely annoyance, great.

Stiles sighed and stilled, resigning himself to the mortification of having to verbally hear how unwelcome his advances were. “Yes, Derek.”

Derek reached out and took hold of Stiles’s upper arms, turned him so that he had no choice but to look at Derek’s face.

Derek gave him a very serious look, and said, “Packplace policy clearly states that fraternization between the ranks is only forbidden when one party is taking advantage of their position to coerce the other party. And merely liking someone else, and saying so, is not coercion.”

Stiles gaped at him, whether at what he was saying or for the fact that Derek was actually playing along with his absurd metaphor he wasn’t sure. “Oh?” he managed.

“Yes,” Derek said. “The policy is very firm on that. It states that love, and like, and lust,” and the sudden gleam in his hazel eyes as they flicked briefly to Stiles’s lips made Stiles’s mouth go abruptly dry, “are not dictated by one’s position in the pack. And neither,” he went on, his voice dropping an octave, “is reciprocation of those feelings.”

Stiles tried to say something, but his brain was going off like a slot machine in Vegas, with bells and lights and sirens all screaming oh my God is he saying what I think he is saying oh my God, and coherent speech was just not on the table at the moment.

Derek smirked a little, as if he could tell Stiles’s brain was in full meltdown mode, but then he sobered, and released one arm so he could lay a hand on Stiles’s cheek instead. “It also clearly states,” he said, intently, “that anyone who thinks Stiles Stilinski would ever do anything to hurt a member of his pack is a giant moron.”

And. Well. That was true. And now Derek was smiling at him again, that warm, real, devastating smile, and Stiles thought he might burst at any moment with all the feelings he was suddenly having – or allowing himself to have, at last.

“Well,” Stiles finally managed to say, only a little hoarsely, “I have been recently advised to reexamine my commitment to being an idiot.”

“That’s good advice,” Derek said, and his smile broadened to a grin, and Stiles couldn’t help smiling – no, beaming back.

They stared at each other for a moment, and Stiles was suddenly flooded with a weird kind of shy indecision. Should he do something, or wait for Derek to do something, or…?

“Um, so,” Stiles said, and paused.

“Oh my GOD,” Scott’s voice suddenly echoed from the floor below, “just kiss already, Jesus!” This was followed by hooting and whoops from the betas, and giggles from Allison and Lydia, and wow the wolves had heard every word of this conversation, hadn’t they.

Stiles closed his eyes and tried to sink through the floor, but Derek laughed – laughed! – and grabbed his arms again, keeping him upright.

“Well, if my Alpha insists,” Derek murmured, eyes bright on Stiles’s face. “As long as my other Alpha has no objections?” he asked, and now he was being teasing, God, Stiles was not going to survive this.

“What, me, no, nope, no objections here – ” Stiles babbled, until he was cut off by the press of Derek’s lips against his, and it was warm and perfect and everything Stiles had wanted it to be. Stiles sighed into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Derek’s ridiculous shoulders, and felt his wolf smile against his lips before getting back to business.

Business, Stiles thought, and would have giggled if his mouth weren’t otherwise occupied. The future was going to be a lot of figuring out how this being the Alpha thing was going to go, but at this very moment, Stiles thought, just for right now, he had it all worked out.