Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The curse hits Stiles hard and fast. He staggers back a few steps, winded by the force of the attack, hand at the center of his chest where it struck him. The pack cries out for him past the wall of mountain ash; Scott is making progress, his hands flat against the barrier, but it’s slow going and Stiles is going to be alone with the witch for a while longer. Exactly how many of his life choices led him to skipping around an abandoned warehouse at ten at night, playing witch bait? Whatever the answer, he regrets all of them.

“Do you hear?” the man spits. He’s very much not what anyone had expected a witch to look like: tall, middle-aged, with a standard dad haircut streaked with grey and a tweed jacket. He also looks like he’s ready to tear the world apart at the seams, and all that anger is directed solely at the human currently shaking off the paralytic effects of his magic. “That was my sister!” He looks half-mad, hands curled into human claws as he gestures wildly at Stiles. Stiles, who… has no idea what he’s talking about. He opens his mouth, closes it, and chooses instead to flounder in the opposite direction of where the next curse is directed to strike. It takes a second to get his pinwheeling under control when the magic blackens the cement a little too close to one foot for his liking.

“What the hell, dude?” Stiles yelps as he flails away from the next spell. Behind him, he hears a grunt of effort from Scott as the alpha shoves a little harder at the barrier. If he could just hurry it up a little, that'd be great. “I have no idea who your sister is!”

This only seems to enrage the witch further. “No,” he hisses, “you wouldn’t. Because you killed her.”

Stiles freezes mid-step, dread curling low in his gut. Suddenly he knows what this is about.

The next curse hits him head-on, straight through his hoodie to his heart. He chokes on the pain of it, dropping to his knees and clutching at the spot as he struggles for breath. The pack calls behind him, but for those few sharp seconds the world goes grey and everything is out of reach. Not that he’s a huge fan of the world when he comes back to it: he finds himself with his cheek pressed to the cold concrete, his name echoing painfully in his ears. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut as they were, wary of the lurid light the violently purple fire created by the witch casts.

The witch’s voice sounds right into his ear, harsh and cold. “She died,” he rasps, “in that hospital --”

“That wasn’t me,” Stiles manages, repeating the phrase that’s been beaten into him by everyone close to him. He swallows, tries again. The pack is silent behind him, or it’s just that the witch’s heavy breathing is all he can hear. He’s not sure which is worse. “It wasn’t me.”

Maybe his lack of belief shows. Maybe the witch knows exactly how little conviction he could work up to force those words out. Either way, he’s not too surprised when a hand grabs a fistful of his hair, lifts, and bashes his head into the ground.

“It was you,” the witch snarls over his groan of pain. “Your evil ways murdered my sister that night. Your cruel tricks ended in so many deaths, you rotten creature. And I want nothing more than to kill you for it.

“But,” the man’s tone changes, brightens a little, and he moves away. Stiles tries to take that moment to breathe and brace himself to move past the fierce ache in his chest, but he doesn’t get the chance. The witch’s boot connects with his ribcage and shoves, forcing him to roll onto his back. The breath he’d just taken huffs out of him and his eyes open, taking in the dark rafters and cruel firelight casting unnatural shadows on everything. The witch leans over him, smirk twisting his laugh lines into horrible slashes of darkness across his face. His foot plants itself directly onto the sore spot of his chest. “I’m not here to kill you.”

No, instead he’s here to kick Stiles around and monologue. It’s slightly worse than straight up killing him.

The witch leans in and speaks with a smile. “In exactly forty-eight hours, you will take the form of your true self. Your spirit, as it were.” He chortles. “I imagine it’ll be an awful sight. What with all that darkness inside of you.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Stiles protests, hopelessly. The witch’s words seep into his mind, tainting all the kind reassurances he’s accepted these last months. Poisoning them. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t have a choice --”

“But you did,” the witch cuts him off ruthlessly. “A nogitsune, was it? A rare beast of chaos and despair. But ultimately, it was only a vehicle. A way for the evil inside you to reach out and hurt everyone around you.”

“I --” Stiles tries, but doesn't quite know what to say. He’s right. The witch is right.

“All that knowledge,” the witch says loftily, “all those plans. They were never just invasive thoughts for you, were they? I could hurt that person. I know exactly how to break them. I could crush an entire city in a day, and I can gather the means to do it.

“Tell me, boy.” The light flickers as the fire grows larger. “Do you suppose a thousand year-old spirit knows how to locate and cut the power lines of a hospital? Would it know how to create a bomb out of household supplies, how to reach into the hearts of those closest to you and shake them to their cores? I don’t think so. That was all you.”

Somewhere far away, the pack is howling.

“Your darkness took the form of a fox demon for a short while,” says the witch. “I’ll concede that small fact. But your true spirit likely won’t take the same image.” He wiggles his foot, driving the shallow breath right out of Stiles’ lungs. “A nogitsune is only one sort of darkness, after all. Humans carry far more. And all of that evil twisted into one shape is never pretty.” He barks a laugh. “Perhaps it’ll be monstrous enough that the hunters won’t bother waiting to see what you do before putting you down like the rabid beast you are.”

His words buzz around in Stiles’ head, taking up all of his focus. They eat at him, devouring that small pocket of relief he’d tucked away for the dark nights when all he had was the bundle of memories the nogitsune left for him to savor. He imagines it as a physical pain, but that ends up hurting less than it really should.

The witch is right.

“Forty-eight hours,” the man repeats, forcing all his weight downwards one last time. Stiles’ ribs may be bruised. “To say your goodbyes, to choose who’s going to end your sad life. You won’t want to live,” he adds. “Not after what you’ll turn into.”

Then the weight is gone, and Stiles resigns himself to his fate. After all, it's nothing short of what he deserves.

**8**

He sits facing the wall of the loft, the brick one with the hole punched through it. It’s dusty and damaged, and Stiles feels he can relate on some level. The rest of the pack doesn’t seem to care much for his latest state of being.

Behind him, the pack has gathered in heated discussion. They’ve been batting around the same dozen or so ideas for the last several hours, as if any of their arguments will change the witch’s curse. Your true spirit. Christ.

Stiles cranes his neck a little to get a look at them without moving too much. He’s pretty sore after being shoved around, even if he doesn’t feel it much (he hasn’t felt any pain that can remotely compare to when he and it were wandering around in copies of the same body) -- the stiffness is still there, making it a little harder to move. They’re doing exactly what it sounds like they’re doing: sitting with their heads close together, arguing furiously. Malia is seated cross-legged next to Lydia, who’s perched on the loveseat with her ankles daintily crossed. Scott’s got a chair pulled up to her right, elbows on his knees and a frustrated bite to his voice. Kira’s to his right, curled up in her chair. Isaac has sprawled on the floor, all loose limbs and subtle tension. There’s an empty space in their circle for Derek, who has taken to leaning against the wall in that general area about ten feet away. He looks unhappy, a bitter twist to his mouth as he glances between the others and Stiles sitting by himself a distance away. He seems reluctant to suggest anything. Likely he knows as well as Stiles does that there’s nothing to be done. You can't undo a witch's curse.

It’s when the name Deaton leaves Scott’s mouth for the seventeenth time that Stiles decides he doesn’t need to stick around. “Welp,” he announces, heaving himself to his feet and dusting at his knees, “this was fun. Let me know when you come up with something that might actually work, kay?”

“Stiles?” Scott jumps to his feet and faces him, the pack slowly rising behind him -- flanking their alpha, like Stiles is a dangerous thing. “Where are you --”

“Away,” Stiles offers, shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “Literally anywhere that’s not here. Seriously, guys. Nothing you can come up with is going to change this. I’m,” he swallows, changes tacks, “there’s nothing you can do.”

“You don’t know that,” Lydia says, voice more gentle than he’s ever heard. Her hands twitch at her sides, like she doesn’t know whether to reach out or clutch at her own arms or maybe go for a weapon. Stiles knows she knows he caught the movement when she swallows and lifts her chin. “There are still possibilities we haven’t explored.”

“Lyds,” he sighs, aggravated, “you know there aren’t. You’re a genius, and the rest of you have a brain at least. But none of this involves me --”

“It has everything to do with you, Stiles --”

“But it doesn’t involve me,” he stresses. “I’ve accepted this. You haven’t. This whole colloquy,” he waves his arms to indicate the pack as a whole, “all this pointless argument and wasted words are for nothing. You can’t change what the witch did. You can’t change the fact that in less than two days, I’m going to turn into -- whatever. A thing. Some kind of monster, I guess.”

“You’re not a monster, Stiles,” Scott says sadly, staring mournfully with wide puppy eyes and slumped shoulders.

“Not yet.” He wonders who he’s trying to fool. Himself? The alpha in front of him? The rest of the pack? Surely not all of them are that blind. He shrugs the thought off and sighs. “Look, you guys can keep going, or don’t. I don’t care much, honestly. What’s going to happen is going to happen, and if I hear Deaton’s name out of Scott’s mouth one more time it might just happen sooner.”

This time, it’s Malia who speaks up, arms crossed with a dark eyed glower reserved just for him. “You’re being stupid,” she says plainly. “We’re trying to help, you know.”

“Don’t help,” he dismisses easily, finally managing to take that first step to the door. The momentum urges along another step, and another, until he’s moving smoothly towards the door. At first, nobody tries to stop him. Stiles begins to hope that they’ll all get out unscathed. But then Kira, sweet, kind Kira, grabs at his sleeve with a plea of, “Stiles.”

And just like that, he loses it.

“Get the fuck off me,” he snarls, wrenching his arm violently away from her fingers. She jerks her hand back, eyes huge. “You don’t understand how done I am. I actually cannot take a single second more of hearing all of you bitch endlessly at each other over something that can’t be helped -- and in case you haven’t figured it out, that something is me. I am sick and,” he heaves a breath in, then turns on them all with a savage expression. He's not sure if this is the impending transformation into something evil or just himself. “Sick and fucking tired of all of you and your bullshit. Your pathetic simpering, your stupid useless platitudes and reassurances and it’ll get better, Stiles, and we want you to be okay, Stiles, when I know it’s all meaningless and -- and I can’t, okay? I’m done. Knock it off already. You all should’ve given up on me a long damn time ago.”

Stiles bites his tongue, breathing heavily and glaring defiantly at the whole pack. They’ve been stunned silent, it looks like, and good fucking riddance. He scoffs, feeling like the worst person alive, and marches his way out the loft door, leaving it open because damned if he could hope to move it on his best day.

**8**

The rest of the day passes by. Stiles resolutely doesn’t pay attention, focused as he isn’t on making the best healthy feast he can cook up for his dad for when he gets back from work. He’ll know something is wrong immediately, but Stiles will be turning into as much a monster on the outside as he already is on the inside, and that’s basically a death sentence in Beacon Hills, so he figures he deserves a free pass.

The Sheriff stops in the doorway, takes in the multitude of dishes, and sweeps his son into the tightest hug he possibly can. Stiles clings back just as tightly and mashes his face into his dad’s shoulder. They don’t move for a long time.

**8**

Seventeen hours until the curse takes effect. Stiles spends most of that time staring up at the ceiling or curling up into the Sheriff’s side. He’d taken a day off. They still haven’t talked about it, and probably won’t. Stiles just isn’t that kind of person, and with the way he’s been clinging, the Sheriff doesn’t really need an explanation.

**8**

“I won’t hurt you,” Stiles says quietly, interrupting their silent vigil in front of the television. If someone asked, neither of them would be able to tell what they’re watching.

“I know, son,” the Sheriff replies, just as quietly. He wraps an arm around Stiles’ shoulders. “I know.”

**8**

The pack has been trying to call every hour since he left. There’s less than twelve hours left before Stiles needs to be put down, which makes over a dozen calls that he’s tired of ignoring. At around twenty hours he’d started spitting insults and misplaced accusations at his window, where he knows the wolves have been taking shifts, and into his phone.

At ten hours, he drowns his phone in the toilet. He won’t be needing it, anyways.

At six hours, he lays a line of mountain ash around his house, praying for a few hours of silence.

At two hours, he slips into his hoodie and climbs into bed with his dad.

**8**

Zero hour. Stiles crawls out from under the Sheriff’s arm, heavy with sleep, and kisses him on the cheek. He stuffs his feet into his rattiest sneakers and makes his way out of the house for the last time, closing the door as quietly as he possibly can. He’s got twenty minutes to get to the old Argent house, where he knows Chris has been staying. Too many memories, Stiles guesses, of a girl whose death he’s responsible for to stay in the apartment. If he evades the werewolf he’s got trailing after him, he’ll make it to the house right as he changes. Hopefully the noise will draw out Chris, who won’t hesitate to shoot the beast on his doorstep.

Or maybe, he thinks, for a brief, horrible moment, there won’t be any change at all.

In that case, he’ll ask for the bullet.

**8**

He figures he’s about halfway there, deep in the forest, when he feels the change begin. What he’d brushed off as a stress headache a good forty minutes ago turns into a blinding migraine in an instant, the pain echoing throughout his body in various unpleasant ways. His steady gait stutters and he throws out his arms in an effort to balance himself, maybe with a convenient tree trunk. He finds no such thing and stumbles to a halt, one hand moving to his eyes and the other still groping for something to stabilize himself.

Something solid meets his palm and he leans into it, expecting rough bark but instead getting a rock to the temple. It’s the ground, he thinks fuzzily, which means he’s fallen over. Onto the ground.

He’s too late, Siles realizes. He was too slow.

He can feel the change in his bones. It’s a burning, bubbling sensation, like the marrow is boiling and oozing through splintering bone. He feels every pore on his body like a thousand needles. The cracking of his joints is painful to his ears: it’s almost as though actually hearing it makes the pain more real.

He convulses once, twice. The forest spins, adding nausea to the disorientation as his vision shifts, changes -- color bleeds from the world and Stiles wonders briefly if this is what ‘greying out’ is. The pain has faded at this point, the only remnants being the shattering and reformation of his bones beneath thin skin. He’s only half aware of it, mind abuzz with confusion and no small amount of fear.

Will he ever get to know what sort of beast he’s turning into?

Probably not, he decides. He’s kind of okay with that, actually. No one actually wants to know what they really are inside, do they? Just look at what Jackson used to be. Hey, maybe he’ll be a murderous lizard too. At least that way the pack will know how to deal with him.

Maybe a little surprisingly, that half-baked thought gives him more relief than the plan of going up to Chris Argent and asking to be shot. He closes his eyes, allowing the change to wash over him in waves of prickling discomfort and full-body spasms. It’s still not as bad as when the nogitsune coughed him up. He privately thinks nothing ever will be, and takes that as a twisted sort of comfort.

He knows it’s almost over when his thoughts fragment, fade into instinctual simplicity, and he can feel the small bones in his skull shift and fuse together piece by piece. It’s alright, he guesses, right up until something in the back of his head splinters. The pain is so sharp and sudden that he forgets to breathe and loses track of the world, tumbling headfirst into darkness. 

Chapter Text

Scott’s pack gathers outside the Stilinski household. Derek goes as well, because even though he was never officially invited into the pack he got the text. He figures Scott probably doesn’t know anything about expanding his pack or maintaining the bond between its members. To be fair, neither did Derek when he had his go at playing alpha, so being included in the mass text will have to do.

Isaac is the one who called it in -- a small fact which brings Derek a moment of pride, echoes of his time as the alpha back when the beta was his, not Scott’s. That’s my beta, he can’t help but think. He did good.

Then again, that’s not his place anymore, and he’s come to accept that. It was too much responsibility for him, anyways, not that he’d ever admit it out loud. Certainly not to someone like Scott, who really hasn’t earned much of his respect just yet. Especially with the way he’s heading this pack at the moment, talking about containment and trapping the thing his best friend probably turned into.

Speaking of Stiles, Derek somehow has doubts that the teen is going to turn into much of anything dark and evil. Maybe a sad little rabbit, with a broken leg and big round eyes or something equally pitiful and in need of protection. He just doesn’t have it in him to be a monster.

Probably.

The pack has gathered into its customary circle, with Derek a short distance away as usual, listening to their haplessly cyclical conversation. It kind of hurts to hear, and he’d make a snide comment if he hadn’t been just as bad.

“We need to go after him,” Isaac is saying, mouth twisted in worry or anxiety, or both. Derek had never gotten as close to him as he’d wanted. “He was still human when he left the house, but he was moving fast.”

“Headed where?” Lydia asks sharply. “To the city?”

Isaac shakes his head. “The forest,” he replies. “He looked like he knew where he was going."

“He’s probably made it to the tree line by now,” Kira says, biting her lip. Scott nods, accepting this statement of the obvious.

“Isaac, Malia, go follow him,” he orders. “Keep us updated as you go. Do whatever you have to to keep him in one place when you find him, okay?”

Isaac and Malia nod silently, visibly unhappy, and do as instructed. Derek silently watches them go, resolutely not saying a word. Like maybe, Malia can’t track scents for shit yet or I could find Stiles in half the time. Because Scott didn’t ask that of him. He never does.

Derek did this to himself, really.

Scott doesn’t bother to watch his pack members go; instead, he turns to the Stilinski’s front door and has a fist raised to knock.

“Scott,” Lydia says disapprovingly, arms crossed, “it’s ten at night. The Sheriff might be sleeping.”

“Oh, he is,” Scott says dismissively, “but he might know something about what Stiles plans to do. It’s important that we find out what he was going to do as soon as possible.”

Okay, this, Derek can’t resist. “Before what?” he pipes up, tilting his head in mock curiosity. “Before your best friend turns into a murderous beast bent on killing everyone?”

Scott rounds on him immediately. “You don’t know that,” he hisses, fists clenched and eyes flashing. A very large part of Derek wants to cower, give in to the alpha before he really gets into it, but the rest of him is fairly unimpressed. He raises an eyebrow instead.

“That’s how you’re treating this whole thing,” he points out. “You’re acting like Stiles is going to be some sort of threat.”

Lydia shifts to his right -- so she agrees, then. It’s not like her to hold her tongue, but then she’s nothing if not pragmatic. She wouldn’t let herself get her hopes up without weighing the chances first.

Scott just makes a rude noise. “That’s how you see it,” he argues. “Stiles is my friend. I just want to help him.”

“By talking about tracking him down and keeping him in one place until you can try to reason with him?” Stiles is hardly going to cave just because Scott asks him to. Derek’s only ever seen that particular brand of stubbornness in Laura, and there’s no reasoning with it. Not really.

“It’s not what you think,” Scott protests, before biting his tongue and turning away. His bad mood is visible in the tense line of his shoulders as he raises his fist again, this time knocking loudly on the door. Derek resigns himself to a horrible experience with Stiles’ father. Who thought it was a good idea to make an idiot seventeen year-old a true alpha, again?

There’s a good minute of silence for the humans -- not so for Scott and himself, the only ones left with supernatural senses, who can hear Sheriff Stilinski stumble his way down the stairs, half-awake at best. Kira fidgets quietly beside them.

The door opens to a view of the Sheriff yawning behind one fist, dressed in a police academy tee and too-long plaid sleep pants. He looks like shit, Derek thinks to himself, all sleep-rumpled and unhappy. He clearly knows what this is about, but isn’t going to be the one to bring it up first.

“Scott?” he queries, blinking at the group on his doorstep. “What are you doing here?”

McCall doesn’t even bother with pleasantries. “Stiles is gone and we need to know where he went,” Scott says, clipped and to the point in true out-of-character alpha fashion. It doesn’t look all that great on him yet. “Can we come in?”

“Of course,” the Sheriff answers promptly, shaking off any sleep-comfort in favor of professionalism. After all, this is a business meeting. An interrogation, Derek thinks with a sigh as the Sheriff takes a step backwards to allow the pack into his home. If anyone were really going to listen to his opinion, this is where he’d speak up and tell them what a shitty idea this whole thing is. 

Scott, Kira, and Lydia all take the offered couch with some hesitation, Scott in the middle and the two girls on either side. It’s standard I-am-the-alpha posturing, and Derek is almost relieved that he at least knows that much. Except not really, because it’s blatant and kind of silly. Besides, if Scott had more sense, he’d allow one of the girls to head this future disaster they’re all calling a decent conversation. The alpha just doesn’t have the tact for this job. Still, Derek feels obligated to show his support for the kid, so he stands off to the side of the couch. The Sheriff stands in front of the couch, obliquely facing Derek -- the only other legal adult in the room, he realizes. It must be subconscious, because McCall is clearly the authority figure here.

McCall, who starts this whole shit show off with, “Did Stiles tell you anything at all?”

Derek has to suppress a wince at that. Oh, yeah. Tactless.  

“Whoa, Scott,” the Sheriff says with a half-smile, half-grimace, waving a hand out of habit. “What are you talking about?”

Lydia nudges Scott subtly in the ribs with her elbow, and he frowns a little in response

“Mr Stilinski,” she says, shooting Scott a look, “Stiles ran away maybe an hour ago. We have two members of the pack -- Malia and Isaac -- going after him to try to convince him to come back, but…” She purses her lips, changes tacks. “It could be bad if they can’t.”

Stilinski’s lips press into a thin line. The kind gleam in his eye dims when everyone’s expressions turn shifty and uncomfortable. “And why is that?”

“He didn’t tell you anything?” Scott repeats desperately, looking as though he wants to be anywhere but here, in this very moment.

“He didn’t have to,” the Sheriff says severely. Derek sees the moment when he regrets his tone. It must be hard for him, he thinks, watching closely as he deflates. “What with the way he was clinging, I figured it would all be pretty final. Not death final, though?” he checks suddenly, anxiously. His thoughts clearly have taken a dark turn; Derek himself has run through them before. Did I misjudge? Should I have pushed? Have I lost my last family member forever? Was I not enough? Why?

No one seems to know quite what to say to this. There’s a long moment of silence before Scott comes to the correct conclusion and responds correctly. “No! God no,” he says quickly, looking appropriately horrified. “He’s not going to die. He’s just going to… change, a little.”

“Change a little,” the Sheriff repeats ominously. Scott winces.

“Uh,” he starts, swallows, “he was cursed by a witch?”

“Cursed?”

The reluctance returns and the alpha fidgets in his seat. Kira leans into his side. He seems to draw courage from the action and tries again. “Apparently… when the nogitsune thing happened, a few months ago?” He peers up at Stilinski, who’s got his arms crossed and a frankly thunderous expression darkening his fatherly features. “Right. Um. Stiles ended up accidentally killing this witch’s sister at the hospital, and so now that witch has it out for him. A serious vendetta, and all that.”

Scott’s word choice hasn’t done him any favors with the Sheriff. It was probably the Stiles killed a person or twenty, remember? aspect.

“What did they do to my son.”

“He cursed Stiles to turn into the form of his true spirit,” Lydia cuts in on Scott’s nervous hemming and hawing. She looks slightly flustered, but keeps a firm expression, even when Stiles’ father turns his attention to her.

He hmmms, still looking skeptical, but Derek can sense that he’s feeling more amenable to the idea. Stiles probably spent years gushing about how smart she is, after all. “And what does that mean for Stiles?”

Scott looks immeasurably grateful for her concise explanation, and picks it back up when she raises an eyebrow. “The witch spent a lot of time talking about darkness and evil, and how it’s going to be awful…” He clears his throat. “The witch definitely wanted to make Stiles turn into something terrible. We’re worried he might hurt someone.”

“Something terrible? What, like some kind of monster?” the Sheriff demands, appalled. Then he latches onto the other important part. As it turns out, blotchy flushing is genetic in the Stilinski family. “My son wouldn’t hurt anyone, Scott.”

“Sheriff,” Kira says gently, sadly, “Stiles might not be himself when he does it.”

Stilinski pales horribly. His hand reaches behind him for the arm of the chair as a guide for when he sinks back to sit heavily there. His breath gusts out in a pained sigh, and Derek finds it suddenly hard to breathe past the sadness thick in the air. “Hasn’t he had enough of this?” he asks the floor. “Doesn’t my son deserve a goddamn break?”

Scott looks like he just watched someone die in front of him.

“Sir,” Kira continues softly, “we don’t want him to do anything he’ll blame himself wrongly for.” The again remains unspoken. “We came here to ask if you have any where he might go to hide, or to -- to keep himself away from us. Just in case.”

“Of course he would,” Stilinski mumbles crossly. A hand rubs down his face. “Fine. And what are you going to do when you find him? If Isaac and Malia can’t reason with him.”

“Catch him,” Scott says succinctly. “If we have to, we’ll find a way to contain him until we can break the curse.”

“Contain him how, exactly?"

“Um,” Scott tries, “we'll use chains? And stuff? Just the standard restraints and chains we already had, and whatever else we may need.”

“Let me get this straight.” Stiles’ father leans forward in his chair and glowers at them. “You want me to tell you where my son might have hidden himself away -- so he doesn’t hurt anyone -- so that you can chain him up like some sort of animal?”

“It’s for his own good --” And oh, that was the wrong answer, even if chains are standard fare for werewolves.

“Someone shut him up,” Derek snaps at the girls. Kira’s hand slaps over Scott’s mouth and Lydia slaps him upside the head, earning an outraged expression over Kira’s hand. Derek faces the reasonably incensed Sheriff and tries to do damage control -- something he’s never had to try before, and faced with the task of calming an angry father, something that seems impossible.

“Sheriff,” he said, raising a hand in the universal sign saying I mean no harm. “We’re going to get through to him. If Isaac and Malia can’t convince him, Scott will. If not Scott, then Lydia. We’ll find a way to help him with as little violence as possible,” he says slowly, surely. He gives the man a significant look, one the man returns after a moment of deep thought.

“Well, at least one of you knows what to say,” he says gruffly, relaxing in increments. Another sigh gusts out of him. “Fine. If none of you can make Stiles listen, I’ll give it a go. Not a word,” he adds fiercely when Scott opens his mouth wide enough to encompass Kira’s hand. “If my son’s humanity is at stake again, you can be damned sure I’ll be there.”

“Stiles wouldn’t want to hurt you,” Scott finally gets out, straining to pull Kira’s fingers away from his mouth. It looks like a difficult task.

“He won’t,” Derek interrupts firmly. “We’re not going to let him get that far.”

The Sheriff looks immeasurably grateful. Derek immediately feels like the worst person in the world.

Scott is glowering at him. “You can’t make that promise,” he says lowly. Derek just shrugs, because yes, he can. This whole pack flies by the seat of its pants on a regular basis and still comes out more or less in one piece. One little promise to keep a pack member from losing his shit completely should be easy.

“He would do it for any of you,” Stilinski says darkly. Scott’s mouth snaps shut. Thank god.

“Thank you for your time,” Kira says hastily, getting to her feet and swiping at her skirt. She touches Scott’s shoulder. “It’s very late, and we need to figure out how we’re going to divide our time between -- um --”

“Between making sure Stiles is okay and finding out how to break the curse,” Lydia finishes smoothly. She, too, rises to her feet, tugging Scott up by the arm. She smiles professionally. “Have a good night, sir.”

The Sheriff nods cautiously at her. She correctly takes that as her cue to pull the alpha bodily from the room. Kira smiles awkwardly, seemingly at a loss for what to do, and waves before following. Derek is a little slower in following, but the silence goes on long enough that he, too, decides to make a break for it. He’s in the hallway when Stilinski calls after him.

“Hale,” he states. Derek pauses. He can feel the eyes on the back of his head. “You keep in touch, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Derek says eventually, and, with nothing else forthcoming, makes his way out the door.

**8** 

Isaac and Malia meet them all in the loft, laden with ripped clothing and mournful expressions. The shredded cloth reeks of sweat and pain. Derek frowns at them hard while Isaac explains that they somehow lost Stiles’ scent at the mound of clothes, not far into the forest. Then Malia makes a comment about how they should have kept looking anyways, and Scott has to put a stop to the ensuing argument. Lydia brings them all back on track by listing off their three goals for the next few days: find Stiles, track down the witch, and come up with a way to break the curse before something happens. Everyone shares a conflicted look.

“I’ll go,” Derek says, and when they all turn to stare at him, elaborates. “I’ll look for Stiles. In the forest. I’m more familiar with it than any of you.”

Scott looks horribly grateful. Maybe Derek should volunteer his help more -- the alpha may not know that he has the right to ask. He looks a little more confident already, and has no trouble dividing the rest of the pack based on their skills into the other two tasks. He waves Derek off immediately, requesting a text every few hours to know what he’ll be doing.

The first thing Derek does when he makes it out of the pack’s earshot is message the Sheriff. He details the pack’s plan and his own place in it, which at the moment Stilinski considers the most important. He promises to keep the department away from the woods until Derek gives the all-clear in exchange for an honest vow to not hurt Stiles. Derek has no problems agreeing.

He starts at the Stilinski household, following the sad-sick scent Stiles has left behind down the street. It leads him directly across a block and a half to the treeline. He’d never realized how dangerously close Stiles always was to all the bad things that happened in these woods. Derek finds an oak drenched in the teen’s scent and resolves to lead anything that could hurt someone much deeper into the forest, far enough that most creatures wouldn’t bother with the distance to the neighborhood.

As it turns out, his beta and the werecoyote muddled the scent trail so thoroughly it becomes easier to follow theirs than it is to eke out the hint of Stiles beneath it all.

It's frustrating to not be able to track the scent. It winds between the trees, shifting between pain and fear and something oddly like satisfaction, of the grim sort. There's one particular clump of underbrush and close-together trees that smells the way the clothes Isaac collected had, and Derek knows the trail ended here for the young weres. It should be child's play to pick it up himself and keep going, which is why he's so irritated right now. There's not a hint of Stiles anywhere past the scattered red fibers, minuscule remnants of the shirt he'd been wearing. A short distance past that he finds torn up shoes -- they look like they've been shredded by claws or talons. It's disconcerting, because there's nothing other than human here when it's visually obvious no human could have done such a thing.

Maybe he grew wings and took off into the sky.

Scott doesn't like the tentative conclusion he's reached, Derek observes as he taps out a quick response to the SHIT NO WTF STILES W WINGS??? he got in return for the opinion he shared.

\\ Maybe he just turned into a bird.

SM// GROAN. IF HES A MONSTER PIGEON IS2G

Okay, then.

**8**

IL// a little bird told me you lost the scent too. not so smug now are we der?

\\ Shut up Isaac.

IL//  >:)

**8**

LM// Really, Derek? You've got Scott convinced Stiles has turned into an oversized pigeon because you won't admit you couldn't keep a sweaty teenager's scent? Fix this.

\\ It's plausible.

LM// If Stiles were to turn into any bird, it would be a canary, not a pigeon.

\\ So tell him that.

LM// Is your manly pride worth that much?

**8**

\\ Scott get Lydia off my back.

SM// no dude im busy she says stiles is a canary from hell

\\ She's lying Scott get her to leave me alone.

SM// find the canary from hell then well talk

\\ Scott.

SM// she says it might be on fire

**8**

LM// Look out for fiery canaries, Derek.

\\ I hate you.

**8**

By the time the sun peeks above the trees, Derek has found no sign of small flaming birds (or large ones) in the woods. In fact, there seems to be nothing out of the ordinary at all. The birds twittering in the early morning are both aggravating and completely normal. The predators are all the same: foxes, owls, dogs and the occasional person weaving around the usual routes. The herbivores are the same.

The idea had come to him that maybe Stiles had, in fact, turned into a fox, resembling the roots of the nogitsune, but he'd shaken the thought away with extreme prejudice. That isn't fair, he'd told himself firmly. Not that the witch's logic was at all fair when he cursed Stiles to begin with. All the same, he walked the paths the foxes followed and found nothing. He neglected to share this suggestion with the pack, and they clearly have nothing important to tell him, so he's been out of contact for a few hours now.

Which is why he's alone when he gets himself cornered by the wolf.

It’s a long-limbed, gangly beast, all spindly legs and bared teeth. Its eyes glow a violent ice blue. It’s got Derek backed into a tree outside the old Hale house, hackles raised yet curiously not growling, and it smells like pack.

“Who are you?” he asks the wolf, confused. It smells a little like everyone, no scent strong enough to truly discern its identity. He didn’t even know one of the pack could fully shift into a wolf. "Is this because I haven't texted any of you? You can blame Scott for that. He told me to share only important information -- are you Scott?" But it can't be Scott. It can't be any of the pack, because none of the wolves have blue eyes except for him... unless it's Isaac. Isaac's eyes are naturally blue, aren't they?

The wolf grumbles at him and leans forward, shoving its face into his knee. He freezes, startled, as it takes a deep breath.  That's definitely not Isaac behavior, Derek thinks wildly, confused and a little worried.  He watches as its furry head pushes a little closer, ears twitching, and breathes in a few more times before inching back and staring up at him.

The wolf's eyes are a deep, soulful brown now. It's almost coyote-like in build, with its wide paws, narrow muzzle, and large ears. Its fur is shorter, too, and several colors: greyish brown over its head and back with a healthy touch of ginger, dark brown at the tail, and creamy white from its jaw to its belly.

The thing is, even though it smells like pack, it can't possibly be. Peter was a grey wolf, back when he could fully shift -- that monstrosity he turned into when he stole the Alpha power from Laura was the twisted result of six years of insanity. He'll never fully shift again, but since he bit Scott, the new alpha will also be a grey wolf should he manage it. Derek himself takes after his mother in many ways; if he ever pulls it off, he'll be a black wolf. With this in mind, so will Isaac. Malia is a true coyote, and her shift doesn't look like this. Kira's a kitsune, and Lydia's not a were anything, so it can't possibly be her. That rules out everyone in the pack, he knows, except --

His true spirit.

The wolf looks up at him expectantly with a familiar tilt to its head.

"Stiles?" he breathes. Its ears perk up and it -- he, Stiles -- gives one short, sharp yip. The wolf headbutts his knee and he slides to the ground, staring in shock. "Oh my god. Stiles."

He reaches out with one hand, not really sure what to expect. But Stiles comes right up to him, dropping his furry weight onto Derek's thighs and nudging his nose into his outstretched hand until he gets the hint. Derek dutifully strokes the wolf between the ears, stunned and feeling the first stirrings of panic.

How the hell is he supposed to tell the pack?

Chapter Text

It takes several minutes of mindlessly stroking Stiles’ fur and staring off into the distance before Derek works up the energy to do anything else. The logical decision, of course, is to tell the pack immediately.

Instead, he calls the Sheriff.

“My son is a what?”

“A wolf,” Derek repeats dutifully. Stiles has one ear angled towards the phone but remains otherwise unconcerned, eyes slitted as he quietly enjoys the fingers playing with his fur. He’s been nothing short of calm and silent since he laid down, and while it’s normal for a regular wolf, knowing it’s Stiles makes it disconcerting.

“Right.” The Sheriff sighs, audibly pained. “Exactly how much of a wolf is he?”

“Until I caught his scent, I thought he was just a wolf,” Derek admits, moving to pet at the soft fur of his ears. One flicks under the attention but he stays put. “Aside from that, I think he recognized his name, and he definitely realized who I am, but otherwise I can’t really tell.”

“Right.” A pause. “Do you think it’s safe if I come up there and see him?”

“Of course,” Derek replies immediately. “So far he’s been totally harmless. If he’s not threatened by me, he won’t have any problems with his father.”

“I sure hope not,” Stilinski huffs, “or he’s grounded once he’s bipedal again.” Another deep breath. “By the Hale house, you said?”

“That’s correct,” Derek confirms. “Are you on your way?”

“Already in the car. See you in twenty. And Derek?” Derek makes an inquiring noise; Stiles has his head lifted and nose pressed into the hand holding the phone, nudging relentlessly. It’s kind of adorable. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” he says automatically. The call ends.

He and the wolf sit in silence then, waiting for the Sheriff to arrive. It’s peaceful. The birds are waking up, the forest awakening as the sun rises. Derek fidgets a little, legs starting to go numb as the sky brightens, but Stiles doesn’t do anything but huff out a sigh and drop his head to his paws. He supposes he can deal with it for a bit longer.

By the time Stilinski gets there, Derek has fallen into a doze and Stiles’ coat blazes red, the sunlight lighting up the orange woven into the grey on his face and back. The wolf’s head is back up, ears angled towards the squad car rolling to a stop a good fifty feet away.

The man looks as though he has aged five years overnight. His face falls even further when he approaches and gets a good look at the wolf draped over Derek's lap.

"Is it really him?" the Sheriff asks, and Derek's hand stills on Stiles' head. He nods. "Right," he gets in response. The wolf grumbles and opens his eyes, turning his head towards the Sheriff. Derek's hand slides down his scruff to his shoulders, but he's gone still and doesn't seem to have noticed.

Father and son watch each other in silence for several long minutes. The morning light catches Stiles' eyes; they glow a deep amber-gold, the only feature that truly links the wolf to the human. If the eyes were any other color, he would resemble every other wolf of his kind. Unremarkable. Normal. Undistinguishable in a pack.

How much of Stiles is really in there?

Apparently enough for the Sheriff. He heaves a sigh and nods once, and Stiles seems to accept the movement for what it is. The Sheriff takes Stiles' non-reaction as acceptance as well and inches forward, one careful step at a time. Stiles' head drops back down onto Derek's thigh and waits until he's sidled up next to Derek, at which point he huffs and nudges at Stilinski's leg. The Sheriff gives Derek a look, and Derek shrugs -- what is he supposed to say?

So the man does what they figure is the sensible thing: he sticks his hand out, waits for Stiles' cursory sniff, and then lowers that hand to the side of his furry face. The wolf just continues to stare at him. His fingers curl and he runs them through fur once, twice; Stiles whuffs and pushes into it.

It's all very stilted and awkward: Stiles draped over Derek's lap, Derek's hands uselessly tangled in the grass or Stiles' furry shoulder, and the Sheriff patting cautiously at his son-turned-wolf. Stiles himself seems to take offense at all this and rolls suddenly with no regard for the human or were on either side, ending up with his spine pressing into Derek's knees and white belly facing the sky as he scrabbles idly at the buttons on Stilinski's shirt with one paw. It's both submission and expectation, and there's really only one thing to do about it.

"Can he turn back into a human?" his father asks, both hands rubbing at Stiles' white coat. Derek, one hand at the wolf's side and the other buried in the fur of his cheek, hums.

"Earlier his eyes flashed like a beta's," he volunteers, "but that's all the indication I've seen of any werewolf-like qualities."

Stilinski levels an unimpressed look in his direction. "You're telling me this witch cursed my son into being a werewolf?"

Derek shrugs. "It's possible. Not many weres can achieve a full shift, though, and those who do can have problems turning back."

"Hm." The Sheriff purses his lips. Stiles wiggles his paws in the air.

"The witch didn't curse Stiles to turn into a werewolf," Derek feels compelled to point out. It's an interesting fact he doesn't quite know what to do with just yet. "He was cursed to turn into whatever represents his true spirit, and his true spirit is apparently a wolf."

"A werewolf."

"We don't know for sure," he says. "Not yet."

There’s a moment of silence.

“So his eyes changed color,” the Sheriff says, and Derek curses the turn of conversation. “Are you sure? They look a little golden right now.”

“They do,” Derek agrees with a certain degree of stiffness. “But they aren’t as bright as they would be.”

“And there’s no chance you mistook what color they were?” he presses. Derek knows he’s just trying to gather all the facts, but it’s hard.

“No.”

“They weren’t gold were they?”

“No.”

Stilinski’s mouth twists, and he scrubs a little harder at Stiles’ fur. Someone must have told him, then.

“The rest of the pack,” he says in a strange voice, “do any of them have eyes like his?”

“No.” Stilinski tenses at that, in the sort of way that tells a person they want to react but won’t. Derek tries again. “I do.”

The moment he speaks he regrets it, wincing as those two words hit the air. But the Sheriff doesn’t react badly; rather, he seems to take it how Derek had meant it. “You’re not including yourself in their pack?”

“Do I have a right to?” Derek asks. The Sheriff shrugs.

“Probably more than you think,” he answers, and really. There must be something special about the way a Stilinski thinks. Stiles had always given him this look that asked what he was doing so far away from the pack, and he’d never figured out why. “Are they on their way yet?”

“The pack?”

“You’ve told them, haven’t you?” He looks startled, hands pausing. Stiles grumbles a complaint but doesn’t move, so Derek scritches a little harder behind his ears.

“I thought you should know first,” he tries, but of course the other man sees right through him.

“Call them,” Stilinski orders. “We can work out what to do when they get here.”

**8**

Derek hadn’t really been expecting anything when the pack arrived. Maybe another raised head, another grumble. Excited recognition, perhaps. From what Derek understands, Stiles and Scott have been friends since the dawn of time and that’s not likely to change.

So he’s not ready for it when Stiles rolls to his feet and bares his teeth at the car pulling up next to the Sheriff’s squad car. He takes a threatening step forward, head lowered and starting up a steady growl. Stilinski takes Derek’s cue and scrambles to his feet, the two backing away a short distance but staying within reach in case something happens.

The pack comes out of the car one by one: Isaac, then Lydia, then Malia out of the backseat while Scott gets out of the driver’s seat and Kira from the passenger’s side. The growling spikes when Scott gets out. Alarmed, Derek calls for them all to stop.

The pack freezes where they stand, picking up on the tension.

“What’s going on?” Scott barks, brow furrowed. Stiles is staring directly at him, hackles raised. “I thought you said you found Stiles.”

“I did,” Derek says grimly. “Say hi.”

“Are you kidding me?” Isaac says, incredulous. “Stiles is a wolf?”

“That actually makes sense,” Kira puts in thoughtfully, still as she is with her eyes on Stiles. She’s right, Derek thinks, but Scott doesn’t seem to agree.

“What the hell is going on, Derek?” he demands to know, choosing to ignore Stiles in favor of Derek. His eyes flicker red, but at the moment it’s not nearly as threatening as it’s probably supposed to be.

“There’s not much to tell,” Derek says, gesturing with one hand to where Stiles is crouching. It’s obvious he considers the pack a threat, and is working towards keeping Scott in particular away from himself, Derek and his father. “Stiles is a wolf. He found me in the forest this morning. He wants to tear your throat out.”

“Derek!” Lydia snaps, face white. “Now is not the time. Why does he want to attack us?”

“Looks like he doesn’t like us,” Isaac points out. Malia doesn’t say a word, sharp eyes trained on the bristling wolf.

Derek shrugs. “He recognizes the Sheriff?” There really isn’t much else to say.

Scott’s attention veers. “Are you alright?” he asks the Sheriff, who looks nothing short of confused. Stiles snaps at the air, jaws clicking loudly.

“I’m just fine, Scott,” he reassures the alpha. “But I don’t think you’re going to be if Stiles doesn’t calm down.”

Scott scowls. “Yeah, speaking of.” He goes to take a decisive step forward, possibly to get a better look at the spitting wolf fifteen feet away when Stiles barks suddenly and crouches lower, muscles bunching, tense and ready to spring. The loud noise startles everyone into motion; Scott jumps backward, shocked at the change, while the rest of the pack converge to face the angry wolf as a united front or -- or something, and this is clearly not the best decision but Derek doesn’t have time to tell them to back down.

Stiles gives a short, angry cry and leaps, eyes on McCall. The pack moves to defend him but Derek gets there first, digging his fingers into Stiles’ scruff and dragging him to the ground. Stiles howls furiously and scrabbles at the ground with his claws.

“Stiles!” Derek snaps, tightening his grip to the limits of human strength. Stiles’ ears perk up just a little, enough to know he has the wolf’s attention. “Knock it off. That’s Scott, your friend. You remember him?”

Stiles grunts in his arms, still struggling though only half-heartedly at this point. He keeps his teeth pointedly bared, glowering at Scott like he’s prey on the other side of a fence he can’t scale. Scott lifts his chin and glares right back, miffed.

“What’s wrong with him?” he says accusingly, as though Derek has something to do with the way Stiles is acting.

“He doesn’t like you,” Derek points out. “I don’t know why.”

Stiles makes a particularly violent sound. Scott’s eyes flash.

“Something’s wrong with him.” Lydia speaks up, lips pursed. “Has he been like this the whole time?”

This time the Sheriff answers. He’s keeping a careful distance, which is smart: Stiles may be his son, but he’s also a spitting wolf and nobody with sense and human-slow healing should come anywhere near him. “He was perfectly content this whole time,” he promises. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“Scott’s gotten into him.” Derek feels the need to point out the obvious, because everyone’s contending for king or queen of Denial. “You should back up a few steps.”

Scott growls. “I don’t think I should.”

“I do,” Isaac puts in mildly. Scott twists his head to turn his glare on the beta.

“Isaac,” he says, betrayed. Malia sighs.

"He's not going to stop unless you do something about his attitude," she states. "Look at him. He's furious."

Scott makes a small noise. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying put him in his place." She moves up to the alpha's side, a bold move even if as a werecoyote she doesn't quite grasp what it means to a wolf. "He's running on instinct right now, and his instincts are telling him that you're a threat."

"Malia's right," Kira says unhappily. Scott gives her the wide puppy eyes that make everyone like him. "No, really, Scott. He's afraid of you."

"But why?"

"You look angry," Isaac offers. Derek realizes this must be an uncomfortable topic for him -- after all, he’d know all about running on fear and instinct. "You sound angry. Violent. You approached Derek and the Sheriff giving off all these alpha vibes and that -- that's a big deal, Scott. Coming up to a guy with intent..." He breaks off and looks away with a one-shouldered shrug.

"Intent to what? I wouldn't hurt him!" Scott protests, paling horribly. "He's my brother.”

“Not right now,” Malia says shortly, ruthlessly. “He’s chosen his side and you’re not on it yet.”

“But he’s a wolf!” Scott barks. He’s starting to exude anger and frustration, and it’s upsetting Stiles. Said wolf goes right back to growling, fur bristling in an effort to make himself larger. Derek can’t grip him any tighter without hurting him. He casts a desperate look to Stilinski, who looks just as conflicted. “How am I supposed to get through to him?”

“Use your alpha powers,” Isaac suggests. Scott turns to Lydia for help, but she just tosses her hair over her shoulder and crosses her arms expectantly. Malia raises her eyebrows. Kira shrugs and offers a half-hearted smile.

Stiles continues to struggle.

Malia tries again. “Scott, Stiles is not your friend right now. He’s a wolf, and wolves cede to the higher authority before they worry about family members. Be his alpha first, and then worry about getting back on his good side.”

Scott looks like he’s going to be sick. “I can’t,” he manages, taking a step back. “I didn’t want -- I’m his friend, not his alpha. I never wanted to be. Even when,” he swallows, eyes wide, “even in the hospital, when we thought… I always thought that if he ever turned, nothing would really change. I don’t want this.”

Derek feels a horrible sort of sympathy for Scott. This would be hard for anyone, and he gets the feeling Stiles has always been safe. Some part of Scott’s life that, even though they’re both involved in the supernatural world, has always had and maintained a certain vital degree of separation. He could always take a break and go to Stiles’ house, where they would presumably crash with too much food and play video games until late the next day, and not a word about werewolves or witches or Argents ever had to be said.

That safety is gone now.

“Scott.” Now the Sheriff speaks up, expression grim. He’s still a good distance away from the pack, Derek, and Stiles. The wolf stills at the sound of his voice. “There’s a possibility that Stiles is… is one of you. A werewolf. Derek says his eyes flashed like a beta’s.”

“He could just be a regular wolf,” Derek warns, taking advantage of Stiles’ distraction by pulling the wolf closer to him. Stiles settles between his legs, tense but no longer violent. “His eyes flashing could just be a sign of the curse taking effect.”

“Or,” the Sheriff overrides him, determinedly hopeful, “my son is really in there, and he doesn’t have a hold on himself in his new form yet. As the alpha here, you’re the only one who can help him out of that.”

“Stiles is a werewolf?” Scott gapes, surprised into focusing again.

“Maybe,” Derek insists.

“If he is, then he’s stuck like this.” Stilinski indicated Stiles.

“It would be like with Malia,” Lydia pipes up, interested. “If he can shift back, he will.”

Malia makes a face. “That didn’t feel so great.”

“But you’re human again,” Lydia says with a touch of impatience, “and that’s the point we’re trying to make.”

“So all you want me to do,” Scott says with a hint of nerves, “is roar at him?”

“That’s all we want you to do,” Stilinski says calmly. The others nod. Stiles watches the whole procession with veiled suspicion, ears pulled pack and eyes narrowed. He’s got a particular eye on Scott, as though he knows the alpha’s next words decide his future.

Scott sucks in a breath, says, “okay,” on a sigh. Keeping eye contact with Stiles, he moves slowly and purposefully until he’s standing directly before Derek and the wolf. He silently checks with Derek, who nods to show it’s okay. Stiles twitches, uneasy, and he runs a soothing hand down his side while Scott shifts. The whole forest seems to be holding its breath, the birds silent, the pack barely breathing. Deep in his throat, Stiles whines.

Then Scott roars.

Chapter Text

The pack tried their hardest after Allison’s death. Scott and Isaac barely managed to keep it together long enough to realize that they had others to lean on. Lydia had taken to the idea of moving on with less than her usual grace, but then that was to be expected: being surrounded by death never gets easier.

Kira is a kind soul. For obvious reasons, she never got to know Allison. Not really. She privately considered herself to be the Other Girl for a short while, and if pressed will admit that sometimes she still does. Scott gets this look in his eyes sometimes, she’s told Malia before. When Kira says something a certain way or if they pass Beacon Hills’ only bowling alley, he gets all quiet and faraway and she’s left to sit there next to him, aching for him but clueless as to what to do. Malia, who doesn’t recall ever actually seeing Allison’s face, just shrugs and mutters something about pack bonds, maybe. It’s awkward for her.

Personally, Derek doesn’t feel that he has the right to mourn Allison like the others. partially because of the history between his family and hers, the two of them were never friends. He never connected with her like the rest of the pack did, and so he sat at the back during the funeral. It’s unreasonable to feel guilt over this, so he tries not to think about it too hard.

Stiles… Stiles hasn’t spoken a word about it since it happened.

It’s not that what happened drove a wedge between Scott and Stiles, but it did cause damage. At first it wasn’t a real concern, but as time has passed and battles have been fought -- bitter comments, long silences, bad days that result in hurt feelings -- that damage has finally started to make its presence known.

**8**

Scott’s roar seems to shake the very air around them; leaves fall, the cars’ windows vibrate, and all the werewolves except himself are forced into shifting. Lydia wears a scowl on her face as she clamps her palms over her ears. Malia bares her teeth, eyes glowing, but doesn’t shift fully when faced by the alpha’s power. Kira looks alarmed as everyone turns around her. Stiles hunkers down under Derek’s hands and shudders, while the Sheriff seems torn between looking around wildly and watching his son shiver as though there’s a cold wind blowing through the forest instead of an alpha’s roar.

The sound tapers off after a full thirty seconds, leaving Scott red-eyed and breathless. The hush seems unnatural and for a moment nobody moves, eyes fixed on the shaking wolf. Stiles makes a small-bitten off sound deep in his throat before twitching and planting his paws, raising his head to meet Scott’s gaze squarely. He steps forward once, twice, and snarls furiously.

Derek pales and swears under his breath as his clawed hand snaps out to dig into the wolf’s scruff. Stiles spits with rage, lunging forward with enough force to drag Derek through the dirt a few inches. He fights for control of the shift through the alpha’s lasting influence, willing his claws away so they don’t dig into Stiles’ skin even as he tries to keep a firm grip. Stiles continues to fight him furiously, thrashing and refusing to be pinned a second time.

Scott goes a sickly shade of grey and stumbles back several steps, knocking into a shocked Isaac. The red glow sputters out of his eyes, leaving him wide-eyed and horrified and looking impossibly young for all his responsibility. The rest of his pack follows his lead, backing away as one. No one seems to know what to do.

“He rejected me,” Scott says finally, and there’s something horribly hollow in his voice and expression. “Stiles -- he isn’t pack.”

“That’s impossible,” Malia says tartly, but there’s a tightness around her eyes that wasn’t there before. “I thought you said that you and Stiles were brothers.”

Scott weathers this unintentional blow with clenched fists and a barely perceptible flinch. Derek feels terrible for him. “It doesn’t always,” he begins, but he doesn’t seem to know where to go from there. “It’s different, sometimes,” he tries again, and glances at Derek for confirmation. He nods so the alpha can continue. “There’s a spot open for him here, but he’s the one who -- decided. I won’t force him into it,” he adds with heat, and thankfully no one seems to have considered it, going by their alarmed looks. “He’ll come if he’s ready. When.”

“What do we do?” Kira asks. She has one hand near her mouth and the other hovering at her belt as though she needs the sense of security.

“We just need him to trust us,” says Lydia, as though this is the obvious answer. Derek, who’s still wrestling with Stiles, would love to hear her suggest how they go about doing that. “We’ve already got Derek and Sheriff Stilinski on our side and his. We can start small.”

“He always liked you,” Isaac points out. He’s clearly the most disconcerted by Stiles’ behaviour aside from his alpha; Stiles and Scott’s friendship is legendary that way. “You can start hanging around Derek and hope neither he nor Stiles actually bites your hand off.”

Lydia narrows her eyes. “Why not you, since you used to be Derek’s beta?”

“I’m uncomfortable with the direction this conversation is taking,” Derek feels the need to announce. He wraps an arm around Stiles’ throat and buries his fingers into the thick fur there. Stiles’ grumble stutters to a halt, one last strangled angry noise leaving his throat before he subsides.

“Malia is the least familiar with him,” Lydia suggests. “Maybe a near stranger is better than… bad blood.”

Malia snorts. “I’m hardly the least familiar,” she says. Everyone turns questioning looks on her and she shrugs. “We almost mated in the basement of Eichen House, but he was tired, so.”

“Mated?” Isaac repeats incredulously.

Malia gestures at Stiles. “He’s a wolf. The word applies.”

“Jesus,” the Sheriff mutters.

Scott tries to take over the situation, looking vaguely sick at the new knowledge of what had happened those short months ago. “So not Malia,” he says decisively. “Isaac has a good point: I think Lydia’s a good start.”

“But not today,” Lydia objects, visibly alarmed. “He doesn’t look ready for that.”

“School starts in a week!” Kira groans. “We don’t really have time to not try.”

“If you try to get close to him now, you will lose a couple fingers,” Malia warns helpfully. The banshee pales.

“Tomorrow, then,” suggests Isaac. The pack descends into deep discussion.

Stiles has calmed down in his arms. Stilinski takes the opportunity to come closer again, and when the wolf’s ears only twitch in his direction, he leans forward and strokes his side. Stiles lets out a shuddering sigh and relaxes, prompting Derek to relax his hold.

“Does this mean he’s not a werewolf?” the Sheriff asks in an undertone. He’s frowning deeply, and seems to have aged further in just these few minutes.

“If he were just a wolf,” Derek replies quietly, “he would have turned tail and run instead of challenging an alpha’s roar.”

Stilinski sighs, aggrieved. “You’ll understand why that doesn’t necessarily make me feel better.”

Derek can only nod.

“We can’t just leave Stiles in the woods,” the Sheriff continues. “We need to keep an eye on him. But wolves aren’t exactly socially acceptable as pets, and I doubt I can toilet train him, human inside or no.” As if to agree, Stiles gives a little snarl. Derek gently pinches one furry ear in retaliation.

“What are you suggesting?” he asks, wary.

“You’re a werewolf with a single story home on the edge of the preserve,” Stilinski says, and leaves it at that.

Derek sighs. “Fine.”

Scott chooses this moment to sidle up to them, stopping a full thirty feet away when Stiles’ head snaps up to glare at him. The Sheriff continues to run his fingers over the golden brown fur on one shoulder, unconcerned.

“Stiles will stay with Derek,” he says implacably, “until such a time as we don’t have to keep constant watch in fear of one of you sneaking up on him and losing a hand at the wrist.”

“It would heal,” Scott protests, indignant. Derek snorts loudly. "But that's not why I came over. We agreed that Isaac should be the one to reach out to Stiles first."

"Why?" Stilinski inquires with a slight frown. Scott hesitates.

"Because Isaac isn't easily breakable," Derek puts in dryly. Scott kind of tilts his head in reluctant agreement. Behind him, Isaac makes a face but says nothing.

"I don't know," the Sheriff says with an uncertain frown.

"Isaac works at the vet with me," Scott responds immediately. "He's great with the animals, especially the dogs. Honest, they love him. And even if Stiles really is a person inside, he's a dog -- wolf! -- outside, and he's kind of been acting like it, so Isaac would be perfect. It's even better because Derek actually likes Isaac --"

"Scott." Stilinski rubs a hand down his face. "Stop."

Scott's mouth snaps shut. He tries offering a sheepish smile instead of speaking again.

"Stiles has been through a lot today," Stilinski decides. "Derek's going to take him to get some supplies and then go home. You should organize a time to meet at his place tomorrow."

"But --" Scott protests, quieting at the man's quelling look.

"Stiles needs food, and rest, and a chance to figure out what's going on. We need to keep him in one place long enough to decide what to do."

Scott nods. "We'll call you later," he tells Derek. "Let's go," he calls. The pack piles back into the car without another word. Derek, Stiles, and his father watch quietly as Scott hops into the driver's seat and drives them all away.

**8**

"Take him to Deaton tomorrow," Stilinski orders, heaving a black garbage bag over his shoulder and onto the floor of Derek's living room. It opens up to reveal a pile of blankets and pillows from Stiles' bed. Derek appreciates this -- it tells him that the other man has been paying attention to werewolf traits and habits. "I'll meet you there if I can."

"I'll call you before I leave," Derek feels the need to offer.
"I appreciate that," the Sheriff says gruffly. He crouches down to rub a hand over Stiles' head one last time. "You be good," he says to the wolf, and Derek takes this as his cue to do other things. Seeing as the trip to the pet store was a bust -- Stiles had violently refused a kennel and turned up his nose at dog food -- he finds himself cubing steak into a plastic bowl for him to eat. He'll set it close to the kitchen door, on the easy-to-clean laminate with the bowl of water.

The sheriff is still talking, so he slaps together and devours two sandwiches after cleaning up the kitchen. Then he sets up the bathroom and bedroom for two, because in rejecting Scott, he allied himself with Derek as pack. He doesn't think the wolf will accept a closed door separating them.

When he comes back, Stilinski has gotten to his feet and walked to the door. "I want to thank you for doing this," he says.

"Anyone would," Derek dismisses.

"No, I don't think they would," he answers, opening the door. "Keep in touch." Derek watches him go in silence.

It's peaceful in the house, with just himself and the wolf. They bathe together, Derek kneeling with Stiles in front of him, scrubbing his fur and washing the dirt from his paws. He sneezes repeatedly when Derek pulls out the hair dryer, and eats while Derek cleans the water off every surface of the bathroom.

He was right earlier; when he finally crawls into bed, one of Stiles' blankets draped over the comforter, he feels a dip in the bed and a cold nose pushing at his face. Stiles presses his warm fur along one side of his body and sighs noisily. It's stupidly comforting.

When he wakes up the next morning, Stiles is gone.

Chapter Text

It's a great idea.

He wakes up curled into Beta's side, the one that smells of pine and comfort and worry, with the green eyes and the strong arms and the soothing voice. He wakes up surrounded by this Beta and thinks, provide. Prove yourself. Contribute.

Hunt.

Though he doesn't really want to leave, it's fairly easy to wake himself up and slip out of the house. The bed sheets are the hard part, tripping him up and tangling around his legs so that he falls out of the sleep-nest in an ungainly pile. He's desperately glad that Beta doesn't wake.

Once outside, he breathes in the morning air and the forest and knows that prey is plentiful this morning. It's really beautiful out here, he decides, and then promptly wonders why exactly he should give a fuck about the sunrise.

He’s... not that good at hunting. But he's determined to bring at least one piece of meat back to the den for Beta, so that they can eat together. Beta's scent doesn't really match his shape, so the Wolf isn't really sure what he eats. But Beta had meat stored in his den, so he must eat it sometimes. Besides, all strong wolves need meat, and Beta is clearly a strong wolf. One of the strongest, probably.

He's got the muscles to prove it, something within him says. He shakes the strange thought off like water on his pelt.

Hunting! Right. He spends a good period of time stalking a deer, staying low to the ground and well upwind, but loses it when a colorful insect passes. He seems to be too large to efficiently hunt small rodents, and bugs taste disgusting.

He gives a sharp bark of frustration and scares off a flock of birds. Goddammit. This isn't working.

The sun is rising higher in the sky. The plan of having food for Beta by the time he wakes up is looking less likely by the second. Time for the really desperate measures, Wolf thinks grimly.

He catches his first rabbit by leaping wildly into the air and flexing his claws as he falls at random. Its neck snaps under his weight and for a moment he can't believe it. He stares down at the speckled brown fur at his paws and nudges it with his nose. Still uncertain, he takes one delicate ear between his teeth and nicks it; it tastes dead already, if obviously fresh, so he must've done it right. Shock slowly melts into pride. He actually did it. Beta was going to love it.

Pleased with his catch, he decides to leave it to just the one rabbit today. At the very least it will feed Beta, which was his goal coming out here. He can attempt this... unique style of hunting again at the next sunrise. It's too late now, he reasons, because clearly later morning means a higher possibility of beings that are Aware catching him in the act. He can be happy with this for now. Carefully scooping up the prey with his mouth, he turns and trots off into the underbrush, ready to follow his own scent back to Beta.

Beta, whose scent is a little closer than he'd realized. Beta, who doesn’t need to know how he caught this rabbit. Beta, who's standing right in front of him, barefoot with his arms crossed, a look of thunder daring him to move another inch.

**8**

Understandably, Derek panics.

"Stiles?" he calls, sitting up in bed. He can't hear another heartbeat in the house. He takes a deep breath, sifting through the small details to figure out what happened. The sheets smell like himself and that wolfish pack-scent that means Stiles, but while his own is present, Stiles' is at least two hours old. He scrambles out of bed, taking in the wolf-sized lump of sheets at the foot of the bed, and books it out of the room.

The scent trail pauses at the bowl of water, which bears more proof of Stiles' visit in the way of drying puddles of water all over the floor around the bowl. Derek resigns himself to cleaning it up later.

He follows the path to the kitchen door, which he finds swung open to let in the fresh air and probably an army of bugs. The wood around the handle is a little scraped up, and the handle itself is a little sticky-damp with drool. He makes a face while wondering exactly how Stiles got the round door knob to twist enough to open.

The trail leads unerringly into the forest, cutting a bold path through the morning dew that Derek finds himself actually able to see: a path of natural green surrounded by a sea of silver. It makes Stiles a little easier to track for a few minutes, buried as the scent is beneath the smells of every other living thing in the forest and a morning jogger. By the time he's deep enough into the preserve that the trees prevent dew on the forest floor, he's caught up enough that it's much stronger and so is easier to follow.

He catches sight of some strange things as he treks (barefoot, and therefore muddy, because mornings in Beacon Hills are always a little wet): tossed up leaves, a swirly line in the dirt, a smattering of fallen feathers. Not for the first time he wonders exactly what the hell the wolf thought he was doing out here so damn early in the morning.

He’s starting to calm down, soothed by the preserve and beginning to really enjoy the walk. But then he catches a fresh scent, of surprise and and a hint of blood, and starts to worry all over again. He doesn't dare to call out for Stiles, well aware that in Beacon Hills werewolves are never the biggest predator in the woods anymore. His pace picks up.

There's a flash of red-gold-brown at the corner of his vision and he spins around to start in that direction. He doesn't need to go far, though: Stiles comes bounding through the underbrush and almost runs into Derek's legs. The wolf freezes and stares up at him with wide amber eyes, the perfect picture of a wolf caught red-handed. Derek crosses his arms and glowers at him, overwhelmingly relieved but still a little annoyed that the wolf snuck out to -- hunt?

Couldn’t he leave a note or something? he thinks to himself, irritated, and then reconsiders that thought. The scent trail was enough for any self-respecting wolf, but he still worried. Stiles didn’t use to be a wolf. He reminds himself of this regularly, despite knowing that the wolf now shares similar instincts with Derek himself.

Stiles chooses this moment to lean forward and deposit a dead rabbit, neatly and freshly killed, at Derek's feet. He nudges it with his nose, offering it, and then sits back on his haunches and blinks innocent eyes up at him.

The little shit knows exactly what he's doing.

Derek deflates, unable to stay angry enough to even reprimand him for sneaking off. "Is this for me?" he asks, reaching out and rubbing Stiles' ears. The wolf preens. "Good boy," Derek adds with a smirk, and Stiles’ good mood vanishes. He scowls and jerks back, nipping viciously at Derek's fingers. Derek tugs his hand away with a snort of laughter. Now that he knows what Stiles was doing out here, he can only smile to himself and try to corral the wolf back to his house. The thanks will be in the eating.

"Don't be a baby," he says. "Pick up my lunch and follow me back to the house. We've got a busy day ahead of us."

Stiles does as instructed, still sulking a little, but perfectly content to follow Derek wherever the man wants to go. Now that he's not freaking out, Derek decidedly doesn't like the feeling of mud and leaves squishing between his toes. A quick glance at Stiles' furry body tells him he was frolicking in the dirt for hours.

"I just washed you," he complains, earning a huff. "You made my tub filthy last time. Maybe I should use the hose today."

Stiles' head snaps up and he stares in offended shock. Derek snorts a laugh and breaks into a run, smiling when he hears the wolf pick up the pace to give chase. They sprint up to the house and run into each other in the doorway. The rabbit goes skidding across the kitchen floor and Derek barely has the mind to slam the door behind him before catching Stiles mid-bound around the middle so he doesn't spread the dirt any worse.

This time they shower in the master bathroom, the one with no tub and a drain in the middle of the floor. Derek throws suds and Stiles prances around in circles, shaking the soap and water off periodically. He'd splurged on this bathroom, so the shower space takes up half the bathroom and the shower head is designed to make the water fall like rain. It's stupidly messy and more childlike fun than he thinks a grown man should be having in a shower.

Stiles is extra fluffy after this session with the hair dryer, resembling a stuffed toy more than an actual wolf. He's still kind of bitter about it even when Derek feeds him, swallowing raw steak in chunks and grumbling. Derek laughs heartily at his expense as he stores the rabbit for cleaning and eating later today.
lol
He has to bodily carry the wolf into the car for the trip to Deaton's. It seems that, while he’s having a hard time connecting Alpha with his best friend, Stiles very much remembers Deaton and his practice. He calls the Sheriff on the way as promised, and the two of them laugh when he details Stiles' epic sulk in the back seat. Stilinski can’t make it to the vet clinic today, but Derek promises to keep him updated and they hang up on better terms than when he’d called.

Some secretary lets Derek and Stiles in before the clinic opens upon Deaton’s request. Derek’s still got his arms around the scowling wolf, so she holds the door open for them. She makes sure to keep a few steps back once she gets a look at Stiles’ teeth. The wolf’s ears are angled sharply and he’s keeping his teeth bared just a little, in more of a scowl than a snarl. His tail keeps thwacking Derek in the side aggressively, and his Angry Wolf Glare is on full power. Derek thinks the whole thing is hilarious because he’s carrying Stiles like a baby and his black paws wiggle around in the air every time Derek takes a step.

He’s still cradling his packmate when Deaton comes out from the back to let them through the mountain ash barrier. The vet smiles mildly at them as they pass.

“If you could put the wolf here,” he says, indicating the chrome table in the center of the back room. Derek silently obeys, depositing the wolf there but staying close, still untrusting of Deaton, even after all this time.

Stiles dials his glower a few degrees higher as the chill from the metal seeps into his fur. His claws click on the table in his effort to right himself; the maneuver ends with him sitting upright, head held high and dignity mostly intact. Sort of. He side-eyes Derek, who can’t help but smirk at the wolf’s antics.

“So, a wolf,” Deaton observes, closing the door and turning to face them. “Is this a pack member who managed the full shift? Or did you find an actual wolf and bring him in?”

“This is Stiles,” Derek says plainly. Deaton actually looks surprised.

“Stiles,” he repeats. The wolf turns to look him square in the eyes. The vet’s eyebrows shoot up. “I see. And how did this happen?”

Now it’s Derek’s turn to be surprised. “Scott never called you?”

“He did not,” Deaton replies, taking a few cautious steps closer under Stiles’ watchful eye. “I take it he should have.”

“He said he was going to,” Derek admits, crossing his arms. “Several times. Three days ago, Stiles was cursed by a witch. Told him he’d take his ‘true form’ when the curse took effect.”

“And now you have a wolf.”

“Now I have a wolf,” Derek agrees. Stiles sniffs and lies down, his head resting on his paws.

“And what does Scott make of this?” Deaton inquires, moving even closer to get a good look.

“Stiles doesn’t consider Scott pack,” says Derek, remembering the distraught look on the young Alpha’s face. “So he’s not a huge fan.”

“Scott’s not his alpha?” Deaton asks, alarmed. Stiles makes a scoffing noise and Derek shrugs.

“It was a pretty public rejection.” Which brings him to his first question. “He didn’t want to get anywhere close to any member of the pack.”

“Except yourself,” Deaton states. Stiles lets him lay a hand on his shoulder and stroke once, with only a little suspicious side-eyeing.

“And the Sheriff,” Derek offers. Deaton hums and leans in, obviously taking the opportunity to run through a quick checkup while Stiles feels like letting him.

“It’s strange,” he continues when the vet seems to have nothing to offer. “He smells like pack.”

“I should think so,” Deaton starts, but Derek cuts him off.

“No, he doesn’t have his own scent,” he insists. “His human scent is in there, sure, but he smells like pack. Nothing individual, or even easily definable as wolf. He smells like the pile of blankets on Scott’s floor after a full moon.”

Deaton takes this in with a faint frown. “So he rejected the pack,” he says slowly, “yet smells like he belongs?”

“Not like he belongs,” Derek snaps. “Like he is.”

“Interesting,” is all Deaton says in the face of Derek’s frustration. He gently wiggles a finger in and uses it to pry open Stiles’ mouth, safe from sharp teeth only because of the wolf’s general good mood. “Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned here,” he murmurs to himself, knowing well that Derek and possibly Stiles can hear and understand him perfectly well.

“What lesson?” Derek questions, expression ticking into a scowl when the vet acts like he hasn’t heard a thing. Stiles perks up at the aggression in his tone, and Deaton wisely moves from his examination of the wolf’s head. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s nothing I could’ve done to revert the witch’s curse,” he answers. “Generally, there’s nothing anyone but another witch could have done, and I don’t know any witches who’d be willing to help a werewolf pack for any reason.”

“Can you do something about it now?”

“Absolutely not,” Deaton claims. He holds up a hand when Derek opens his mouth to snarl something violent. “But! Witches rarely lay a curse such as this without a way to reverse it. It’s nearly impossible to do so without serious repercussions for them. Your witch may have made it sound permanent, but I very highly doubt they could have done so.”

“There’s a way to change him back?” Derek asks, the wind taken out of his sails.

“It’ll take time,” Deaton warns, “considering pack relations at the moment. But yes.

“Now,” he continues, raising his voice only slightly over Derek’s next words, “what you have here is a healthy, if slightly oversized, coywolf. Generally coywolves only get as large as fifty pounds, but Mr Stilinski here is nearly sixty. He’s a little taller, as well, though that’s likely because of his height as a human. It looks like he’s been eating well, so whatever you’ve been feeding him, keep it up. However, coywolves also --”

“I’m sorry,” Derek interrupted. “What did you call him?”

“A coywolf,” Deaton repeated dutifully. “Also known as the eastern coyote, or the bush wolf. Now, as I was saying, you’ve been feeding him correctly, but if you catch him eating berries don’t be too worried.”

“Stiles isn’t a regular wolf?” he asks, staring down at his packmate with raised eyebrows. Stiles stares back, head cocked as if to say, and what of it?

“Of course not,” Deaton replies, unruffled. “Mr Stilinski could never be a regular anything.”

Derek just nods, feeling lost now but agreeing all the same.

“You can take him home now,” the vet finishes. He smiles genially at the two wolves. “I’ll be preparing for my regular practice in a few minutes. I left the mountain ash gate open for you. Let him rest and adjust today, and you can come calling again tomorrow if you have more questions. Have a good day.”

Somehow that’s that, and Derek finds himself and Stiles bundled out the door and into the waiting room. He and the wolf stare, bewildered, as Deaton closes the gate with a click behind them. He offers one last smile and a parting, “Maybe skin that rabbit before you let him eat it.”

Feeling like they’ve just gained more questions instead of answers, Derek hauls the (coy?)wolf into his car and drives away. He’s more than halfway to his home when he realizes he never asked one of the most important questions.

But is Stiles a werewolf?

Chapter Text

Isaac clearly isn’t thrilled with the situation he’s been saddled with. Derek and Stiles listen quietly as Scott’s second paces on their front porch for several minutes before working up the nerve to knock on the door. It’s a quick, nervous double-tapping of knuckles on painted wood that would be barely audible to a normal human.

Beta and Wolf eye each other for a quick second, during which an entire conversation commences: a quick twitch of the eyebrows, a flick of the ears, and Derek sighs as Stiles drops his head to rest on his paws, effectively deciding for them both who will answer the door. He places a knife and the skinned rabbit on the cutting board that he leaves on the counter for this sort of purpose and rinses his hands before heading to the front to greet the anxious teenager.

Isaac’s got his hand poised to knock when Derek opens the door. He’s also got a scowl on his face and the smell of discomfort about him. His hand drops when his eyes meet Derek’s.

“Hi,” is all he offers, shoulders hunching a little. “Scott figured this would be a good time to stop by.”

The older wolf steps back to give room. “Come in,” he says, one hand on the door. Isaac hovers in the entryway for several seconds, indecisive, and then steps in. Derek closes the door behind him.

“Nice house,” he tries, taking in the neat, yet sparsely-decorated living area. He stills when his eyes land on the wolf curled up in the corner. Said wolf has yet to acknowledge his presence, barring the angle of his ears and the single, slow swish of his tail. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, and Isaac seems to understand that, going by the spike of nerves in his scent.

“Stiles,” he greets, tone indecipherable. The wolf’s ear flicks but he doesn’t raise his head, studiously ignoring Scott’s beta. Derek experiences a momentary flicker of indignation which he ruthlessly quashes, fiercely reminding himself that Isaac isn’t his anymore. At the moment, he’s on the outskirts of the teenaged pack, alongside the sheriff. The sheriff isn’t pack either, nor is Stiles, he tacks on hastily as the wolfish instincts inside him, the ones that desire to belong, immediately turn to latch on to memories of the Stilinski pack of two with warm, fuzzy, and relentless feelings. It doesn’t matter how Stiles is acting right now. He doesn’t know better. Once they figure out how to turn him human again, Stiles will be Scott’s again and everything will go back to normal. He resolutely tunes out the traitorous little wolf whine that sings of Stiles seeing sense and staying with Derek as pack, bringing the sheriff with him.

“He won’t bite,” he assures his former beta. “Not unless you piss him off or smell particularly like raw steak.” He gets a huff of agreement from the resting wolf and can’t help a small smirk of amusement when he catches the quick movement of Isaac surreptitiously sniffing his hands.

“I think my very existence pisses him off, actually,” Isaac says drily, stuffing his hands -- meat smell-free -- into the pockets of his jeans.

“I think you’re fine,” Derek dismisses. “He likes fattier meats.”

Isaac makes a face and follows him into the kitchen. “I wouldn’t know. It's pretty hard to smell how he’s feeling past the pack scent.” He glances into the living area. “He smells so much like everyone else that I can’t get a read on the Stiles scent underneath.”

“It’s mixed in, I think,” Derek suggests. Isaac hums in agreement. Derek takes the following moment of silence to wash his hands so he can handle the rabbit safely. Isaac has his eyes on the doorway, seemingly lost in thought. The smells rolling off of him are conflicted at best. “You get used to it,” Derek continues. “I started taking visual cues as soon as I realized scent wouldn’t work.”

Isaac’s nose wrinkles. “It’s a little like being human again.”

Derek hums, taking the beta’s words as they were meant instead of how they feel, and turns to the cutting board. “I think you’ll be alright.”

Isaac makes a dissenting noise, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. “Does he have the same senses as we do now?”

It’s a good question, Derek thinks as he picks up the knife and gets back to work. On one hand, they’re called werewolves for a reason. On the other, they’re also human. It’s a sort of trade-off, and he’s not confident that he can explain it well enough to be understood. “In some ways, yes, but at the same time no. Deaton could explain properly. Or Peter.”

Isaac turns to face him for the express purpose of making sure he can see his disgusted face. “I don’t like either of them,” he complains. “You know, with Deaton ritually sacrificing three -- some of us,” he clears his throat, and Derek doesn’t like the way his eyes darken, “and generally being unhelpful. And Peter, who’s equally unhelpful and also kind of a creep. No offense.”

“I have to be a little offended, since we’re related,” Derek says wryly, setting down the knife to use his hands. It’s at that point that Isaac looks down and sees what he’s doing. He jerks back a step and makes a weird, high-pitched noise.

“What is that?” he demands. “What are you doing?!”

“I’m butchering this rabbit,” Derek replies casually as he carefully works to remove the innards, separating the tastier bits. Isaac’s eyes bug out of his head and he goes three shades paler.

“Where did you get a -- nope, I can’t do this, I’ll be in the other room.” And he makes good on his word, backing out of the kitchen with haste.

“The couch is comfortable,” Derek says amicably, resuming his business without hesitation. “This rabbit was a gift from Stiles. He caught it this morning.”

The springs squeak faintly as Isaac seats himself carefully on the couch; judging from his heartbeat, he settled as far as he comfortably could from the napping wolf. “He gifted you a dead rabbit?” he inquires with something like doubt in his voice. “How come?”

“Because he’s a good houseguest?” Derek shakes his head, raising the knife again for the last few steps. “It was a surprise, but then he sees me as higher in the pack hierarchy, so I should’ve expected it.”

Isaac takes this as well as can be expected. “So he gave you food as a sign of, what, respect? That’s not very… I mean, it’s not that he has issues with authority, but.”

“Stiles isn’t human anymore,” Derek reminds him. Something strange settles in his gut as he says it. Stiles isn’t human anymore . “He feels pack bonds now in a way that he couldn’t before. It changes things.”

“I remember,” Isaac acknowledges quietly. The older beta packs up the meat to cook with later and starts to clean up. It doesn’t take long before his company returns, hovering in the doorway as he was a few minutes ago. “So why doesn’t he like Scott?”

“Stiles doesn’t feel those pack bonds,” Derek says simply, soaping up a sponge to clean up his mess.

“But he and Scott have been friends since -- always,” Isaac protests. “How can that change so quickly?”

“I don’t think it did,” Derek answers, and leaves it at that. “Are you staying for lunch?”

“Are you cooking Stiles’ present?”

“I don’t have to,” he says, mostly to get a reaction out of the younger wolf. Isaac visibly recoils from the idea, grimacing comically. “I was going to start in twenty minutes or so.”

“I’m not sure Stiles particularly wants me here,” Isaac waffles, uncertain. “And I’m not just saying that because I watched you butcher a cute fluffy animal.”

“No, I agree,” sighs Derek. “We’re lucky he hasn’t done anything about your presence yet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Isaac puffs up, indignant. Derek waves a soapy hand dismissively.

“It means that you’re not familiar, or pack, and he hasn’t taken a chunk out of you because I welcomed you in.”

Isaac deflates with a huff of air and negative emotion. “It’s that bad?” he asks, and it hurts Derek a little to have to acknowledge that dread. He jerks his head instead of replying properly, debating what to say next to make it sound less awful than it is. “How much of Stiles is really in there?”

Always with the big questions. He can’t answer.

“Maybe you can get him to accept us?” Isaac tries. “Will he listen to you? Since you’re higher up than him in -- in your pack.”

“I’m not his alpha,” Derek rejects him immediately. He faces the younger wolf head-on to get the point across. “And I don’t treat him like he’s less than me. We’re equals. I’d go out and kill a rabbit for him if he wouldn’t tear it apart on my hardwood floors the second he got his teeth in it.”

“Who’s the alpha, then? The sheriff? Will he --?”

“Pack bonds are built on trust, Isaac,” Derek interrupts, heavily. “They can’t be forced and if you push them they won’t be real. You need to build that trust. It’s going to take time and patience.”

“We don’t have either of those things,” Isaac jokes half-heartedly. The light-hearted words don’t manage to hide the despair in his voice. “What can we do?”

Derek shrugs, at a loss for what else to say. “The first step would be acceptance. He’s got to be okay with your presence before you can try anything else.”

In the other room, Stiles snuffles in his sleep. Isaac sighs.

“Well, if he’s gonna act like an animal,” he says, “then I’m going to treat him like one.”

“I don’t think --”

“At work, Deaton had families adding pets to their homes bring clothes and stuff with their other pet’s scents on it for the new animal. He'd have them hold or pet the new animals and take a blanket that smelled like the new pet back for the others. It’d help them get used to each other before they met, to reduce the amount of fights that happened when the family brings the new pet home,” Isaac steamrolls, catching on to the idea as he goes. “We can do that with Stiles. Maybe you can drop by Scott’s every day or so, bring some pack scent back with you?”

Derek is definitely offended on Stiles’ behalf at this point, but at the same time it makes sense. “Stiles is not a housecat to be adopted,” he points out. “He’s smarter than that. But it might work, given time. And food. He likes to eat.”

“We can do that,” Isaac replies, newly determined. “We’ll bring things every day. Today, even.”

“You did that already,” says Derek, indicating his presence in the house with a small smile. It makes him feel a little better to know that the pack really is willing to go lengths to get their packmate back, no matter the potential consequences. Isaac nods to concede the point.

“I probably sat on his favourite cushion or something,” he says ruefully.

Derek smirks. “Or hugged his favourite person,” he suggests, and it takes Isaac approximately four brow-furrowed seconds to get it.

“Wait,” he starts, but it’s too late: Derek reaches out and snags him into a thorough hug. Once he gets a second or two of flailing out of his system, it’s nice. Comforting. The blond beta relaxes into the embrace with a quiet sigh, resting his head on Derek’s shoulder.

“The pack’s falling apart,” he whispers. “Scott’s all torn up about Stiles rejecting him. Lydia’s never hit the books so hard. Even Malia cares, and she hasn’t really connected with anyone yet. It feels weird without him. Kira’s trying to get her mom to help, but Mrs. Yukimura doesn’t really want anything to do with Stiles, so she’s getting worked up and trying to talk to Scott, who doesn’t really want to talk to anybody.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Derek promises. Isaac makes a small noise of agreement. “You’re going to be fine.”

Chapter Text

Isaac doesn’t stay for the meal. Stiles, who had woken shortly after Derek had released the younger werewolf, had demanded attention by shouldering around Isaac’s legs to get between the betas. Isaac seemed disheartened by the coywolf’s actions.

“There’s not a lot of Stiles in him, is there?” he’d said quietly. Derek had only shrugged, as always unable to offer a real answer.

“It comes and goes,” the beta had replied, reaching down to rub his pack member between the ears. Stiles whuffed, pleased.

“He wasn’t himself before it happened, either,” Isaac noted. “Sort of -- aggressive. He didn’t look like he wanted our help.”

Derek had noticed.

“He yelled at Scott,” the blond continued, “over the phone. Then he stopped taking our calls entirely. We think he turned his phone off and left it somewhere.” He took a step back, giving himself an extra few inches of space between himself and the two packmates. “Stiles always leaves his phone on, in case something happens.”

“I spoke to Deaton,” Derek volunteered. He still didn’t really know how to feel about the visit, and so didn’t know exactly how much to share with the pack just yet. “He said that there was never a way to break the curse, per se. To reverse it, maybe, but not to undo it entirely. We’d need another witch for that.”

Isaac had pursed his lips, unhappy with this revelation. “And we’re not exactly friendly with any witches.”

“Hardly.”

“I’m going to tell Scott about this,” he said decisively. “He deserves to know. Maybe he’ll stop beating himself up about this whole thing when he hears.”

Derek frowned. “He shouldn’t be.”

Isaac grimaced. “You know Scott.” He glanced down at Stiles, then at the door. “I should go. Scott needs an update, and you need to cook your… carcass.”

“It’s just a rabbit.”

“Uh huh.”

With Isaac gone Stiles has since relaxed, seated at Derek’s side as he serves himself a portion of the rabbit stew he made. It’s early evening; the sun is low in the sky, grazing the treetops and turning them gold. The air is cool and still. It’s the perfect weather to sit outside and enjoy nature in peace, so Derek and wolf do just that.

They leave the back door open. Derek drags a folding chair out with them with one arm, the other balancing his bowl and spoon as well as Stiles’ plate of rabbit entrails. The coywolf has shaken off his earlier mood entirely and has taken to harassing the werewolf as he tries to wrangle everything outside at once: ducking under the folded chair, nudging his denim-clad knee, rearing up on his hind legs to sniff at the plated food. Derek curses to himself and struggles to keep it all steady, but he’s not upset. This is the most life he’s seen out of Stiles since this morning, and he’s happy to see it. Even if it means dropping the chair in favor of catching the tipping plate. Stiles snaps his waiting jaw shut, disappointed, even as he startles at the bang of the chair hitting the door frame. It leaves a chip in the wood behind.

After they’re settled -- Derek seated on the porch with Stiles on the stairs -- they eat and watch the sun set in companionable silence.

The sun has just disappeared behind the trees when Stiles rises. Derek, who had just been contemplating cleaning up and going inside, sets his bowl down on the porch next to his chair. “Ready to head in?”

The coywolf eyes him for a few seconds, prompting a raised eyebrow, before turning and trotting down the stairs. As soon as his paws hit the grass he leaps forward and rolls onto the ground. Derek watches, vaguely confused, as Stiles dyes his fur green and flings clods of earth into the air with his paws, showering himself with dirt. Then he hops up, sprints to another part of the yard, and does it again.

“You’re getting dirty again,” the werewolf complains, totally confused. Stiles freezes in place. His tail thumps to the ground and he turns his head, just enough to make eye contact with Derek. His tongue lolls. He looks like he’s having the time of his life.

“What are you doing?” Derek asks. He can imagine the mud trail already.

Stiles just wriggles in place, still staring him down. Suddenly he gets it.

“No,” he says slowly, a warning. Stiles continues to watch him expectantly. “No no. I’m going inside and cleaning up.”

Another slow tail thump. Derek has a horrible feeling he knows what’s going to happen next. “Do not,” he says firmly, but he’s already crumbling. He doesn’t move even when Stiles rolls to his feet and trots up to his chair. “Stiles,” he tries as the wolf leans forward, teeth bared, and delicately closes his jaws around the hem of his shirt. “If you rip this shirt --”

Stiles pulls.

The shirt, somewhat miraculously, doesn’t tear. Instead, Derek lurches forward and out of his seat awkwardly, yanked away from the dishes and down the porch steps with a few healthy tugs. Stiles only releases him when he’s properly got his feet under him, and by then he’s already in the grass with one over-eager wolf. He huffs, half for show, and looks the wolf dead in the eye.

“Stiles,” he growls. His eyes flash. Stiles whines, and his eyes flash electric blue in return. Derek startles, surprised both by the coywolf’s reaction and his own sudden urge to play.

Stiles senses the change right away. His ears perk and he takes the opportunity to move, turning his forward leap into a tackle that gets the werewolf in the middle. Derek grunts, winded, and they fall to the ground in a heap. Derek rolls, taking the wolf with him. Stiles flicks Derek in the face with his tail as he tumbles backward with a snort. It only encourages the man to lunge forward with his own tackle, prompting a quick skitter to the side as the wolf struggles to get his feet under him. The movement kicks grass into Derek’s face and he laughs, even while trying to wipe it away with one hand.

The pair carry on for a while. The moon is rising in the deep blue sky when Stiles finally calls it quits. He flops full-body onto Derek’s legs with a heavy sigh. Derek, too, rests one hand on Stiles’ back and uses the other to support his body weight in a vaguely upright position. He needs a moment to catch his breath after being repeatedly trampled by a sixty-pound wolf. The coywolf’s fur is disheveled and even dirtier than before, and Derek’s shirt and pants are decorated with muddy pawprint smears.

“We’re filthy,” he says finally. “I thought we just went over this.”

Stiles snorts, then starts licking the pant leg his paws are resting on. The saliva quickly soaks into the fabric, clinging to his skin.

“Gross,” Derek comments. He wiggles his leg to shake the wolf off. Stiles grumbles about it, but moves anyways, granting the werewolf the opportunity to get to his feet and shake off the grass and leafy bits stuck to his skin and clothes. Stiles shakes his fur off as well as he totters off to the porch stairs. Derek might’ve sat on a paw at some point.

“Straight to the shower,” the man says sternly. “If I see so much as a hair on the couch I’m shaving you bald and leaving you out here.”

Stiles throws him a dirty look before neatly wiping his paws on the doormat. Asshole, his face says, as he trots into the dark house. He has a very expressive face for a wolf. Derek is very sure that he’s going to find grass-stained fur on the couch in the morning.

Grumpy as he may outwardly seem, Derek takes the dishes into the kitchen feeling content. The game they’d played in the yard had loosened something in his chest he hadn’t known was so painfully tight until he felt the relief. He contemplates this feeling as he cleans up and locks the house down for the night, specifically the bolt above the doorknob that Stiles won’t be able to reach come morning. He doesn’t need another scare like he had in the morning, when he woke to an empty house. Although, the rabbit was delicious.

Upstairs, something clatters. Derek knows that Stiles is destroying the bathroom, but can’t work up any anger or frustration about it. Instead, he shakes his head with exasperation and a small measure of fondness for his wolf companion. As Isaac had pointed out earlier in the afternoon, Stiles isn’t the same as he once was. But there’s enough of him in there that gives Derek hope that they pack will be able to bring him back. That Derek himself will. Stiles has given so much to them all these last few years. He deserves nothing less than everything Derek can do for him. And if that means putting up with early mornings in the forest and romps in the backyard -- both moments that bring Derek a little closer to something he’d not known he was missing -- then he’ll do all he can to make these things happen.

Another crashing sound brings him out of his reverie. “Stiles!” he hollers, turning away from the mostly cleaned up remnants of their day. He plans to get them both clean and talk to Deaton again in the morning. Scott will want to talk about what Isaac’s told him. The Sheriff deserves an update. But Derek doesn’t find himself worrying about any of that. Mostly, he’s starting to get a little worked up about the sounds of his hair products crashing to the tiled floor of his bathroom. “If I see one broken bottle on the floor…”

A guilty sounding whine is the only answer he gets.