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Derek always thought his mate was going to be a werewolf. He's surprised to find out that the incredibly delicious smell of baking bread and cinnamon sugar led to a human boy, because that's exactly what he was, a boy.
At least that's what comes up about him anyways from Uncle Peter's questionably sourced research. Genim "Stiles" Stilinski is the son of the sheriff, 18, and a senior in highschool, a school year away from graduating and going to some high level college if his grades were any indication of his aptitude. A year away from a lifetime of potential, of choices and meandering roads.
And Derek is a car crash blocking those roads.
He can't do that to his mate. To bring them down to where he is. He barely let's Laura comfort him. He can't do that to someone that doesn't even know about all the horror that haunts him from being himself. He couldn't be in the way of Stiles. And he couldn't protect him.
"He stays out of it. All of this." Laura opens her mouth to object. Derek cuts her off for the first time in years. "Laura, please." He says it like a desperate prayer. And that makes her back off. Peter exchanges a glace with her that Derek doesn't see as he looks pointedly at his own shoes, head lowered in submission to his Alpha.
"Alright." And she sounds strained to say it.
And then the Nemeton had called out to him and Derek found his mate with his eyes locked on the eeriely black stump.
"What are you doing here? You're trespassing on private property." The boy whirls around and nearly loses his footing entirely before something flies out of his hands, he blinks twice before responding.
"Sorry dude, my bro lost his inhaler last night and I was just looking for it." His eyes dart back towards the Nemeton.
Derek takes a deep breath and gets a head rush of baking bread and cinnamon sugar. Its accompanied by two scents that he didn't think he'd smell together, arousal and confusion. Derek scowled. "Then find it from wherever you flang it and leave."
"Flung." Is the boy's response, then he squints back Nemeton over his shoulder as if it contributed a snippet of dialogue in their conversation. "Huh, what a strange noise? Is there a channel somewhere in that burnt up stump? It sounds like a flute."
Derek stiffens and then schools his face. "Grab what you came for and leave. Now." He did his best to sound like Laura when she commands submission, she hardly ever needed to with Derek but Peter was a polar opposite in that way.
"Yeah, right. Private property. I'll go now."
Stiles left without picking up his friend's inhaler.
Derek finds the address marked on it and leaves it in their mailbox.
Derek needs to see him again.
Stiles, the next day, is at house of the person the inhaler belongs to. He's there when he overhears Stiles talk to Scott about their encounter.
"-telling me to leave his property and I turn around to the most attractive man in the world. Seriously dude, I'm talking cut from marble perfection. Why am I only now finding guys hot? Is it this particular guy? Or latent sexual awakening? Stop laughing. I'm serious Scotty." Derek leaves before he can entertain the thought of giving in, to just being with his mate. Laura hovers close when he gets home. When he acknowledges her, she rest her hand on the back of his neck.
He finds Stiles staring at the Nemeton again after a week.
"Haven't I already told you that this is private property?" Stile is less surprised to to see him this time but is equally as uncoordinated as last time.
"Yeah about that, this stump is hella weird and I need to answer some of my own questions about this thing. I hope you don't mind if I just take few minutes to inspect it before I gotta go, do yah?" Derek wants to say no, to put his foot down, that Stiles has to leave. For his own safety. But there's something in those big brown eyes he can't say no to. He vaguely wonders if could ever say no, to be able to deny his mate anything.
"Fine whatever. You have five minutes." Derek gingerly rests on a fallen log relatively near the human that turns his back to him, greedily inhaling as much as he can as covertly as he can. Fresh bread and cinnamon sugar wrapped in a low thrumming arousal. Derek restrains the whine he wants to let out.
"Great!" Stiles merrily wanders close to the stump and the instant he places a hand on the Nemeton there's a bright green flare and Stiles falls back, braining himself on a rock as the Nemeton stands tall, new and regrown.
Derek pays that no mind, he scoops up Stiles and takes him to a hospital. There's a curly dark haired woman that quickly assess Stiles and in the moment she turns her gaze away from him, Derek leaves.
Laura says that Derek has to bring Stiles to her the next time he sees him. Peter gives him a look like he's expecting Derek to say no, but that doesn't happen. Derek lets out a long sigh.
"I understand."
It doesn't surprise him to see Stiles a third time in the same space. Staring up at the newly grown Nemeton. Stiles turns around before Derek says anything.
"Hey there. I just wanted to say thanks, for taking me to the hospital, sorry for the bother. I wanted to repay you for your kindness and offer to buy you dinner or something but I'm kind of distracted by the fact that there's definitely a new tree here when there used to be a burnt up stump that made flute noises, I mean granted it still makes those flute sounds but I know for sure I don't have any kinda green thumb." Stiles is in rumpled clothing, with the look of someone who hasn't slept in a few days. His base smell is the same but now there's the scent coffee and anxiousness and fear.
Derek frowns. "Come with me and everything will be explained." Derek doesn't give him time to respond before he starts to slowly stalk back towards the newly rebuilt house, smaller then its predecessor but built to be expanded upon. Laura's optimism, in a way.
"Cool cool cool, I'm Stiles by the way."
"Derek." It's all he can dare reply with.
"So are you like taking me to your leader or whatever?" Stiles says this nonchalantly, though his heart rate spikes higher when Derek simply nods without turning back to look at him. It's an uncomfortable silence that clouds them back to the house.
"So kid, ever watch the show Supernatural?" Derek blanches from behind Stiles. Because really Laura? That's what your going to open with? Granted it was probably the right move after introductions were interrupted when Stiles informed them he already knew all their names because of the fire from 7 years ago. Laura's levity made the air in the room breathable again.
Laura's bubbly smile from her initial question fades, "because the supernatural is real." She punctuates her sentence with a flash of her red eyes.
"I see." Stiles' tone is flat, calm. His scent is acrid with fear and his heart rate skipped a beat and spiked when he saw the flash.
"Your connection with the Nemeton is now pulling you into the Supernatural world, I suggest that you accept that because rejecting the Nemeton will not only revert it but also damage the land on which it lays; population, Beacon Hills."
Stiles no longers smells of fear and his heartbeat evens out. "Ok so how do I accept it?"
"That we will discuss with Deaton tomorrow morning."
Stiles blanches. "The vet? He's in on the supernatural things that go bump in the night? Which leads me to another question, what are you guys in all this?"
Laura shifts momentarily, over as soon as it began. The brevity of the demonstration does nothing to stop the wave of anxiety the hits their noses. "We're werewolves. I'm the Alpha," she flashes her eyes once more on the word for emphasis, "Peter and Derek are my betas."
After a pause, Stiles gapes. Then shuts his mouth, and opens it again only to shut it before seemingly giving thought to his next words.
"I have a lot of questions."
He did.