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Derek doesn’t know what to think about Stiles.
It’s been like that since the beginning.
One day she’s mourning the loss of her sister, and the next she’s saddled with these two teenagers who she can’t believe have even made it alive this far, with the way that she is always having to save them from some sort of trouble.
Stiles especially.
It’s like the girl gets off on adrenaline rushes and near death experiences.
Since they’ve met she’s had to save her on fourteen separate occasions and they haven’t even known each other two full months yet. And okay, there are three (maybe four) occasions where Stiles has saved her, or something like it, and Stiles always seems to know what Derek is talking about without her having to explain. She researches in the library, and makes Derek tell her everything that she can bear to tell her about what she knows about werewolves.
Laura had kept up her studies even after the fire. She’d drag Derek out to the library and sit her down and show her the books that were true, and told her about the rituals, and explained the pack dynamics, and the myths about mates.
They did this mostly to remember who they were, because for a couple of months after the fire, Derek had felt like if she’d lost her identity, like if she was worthless, because it was her fault, no matter how many times Laura used to tell her that it wasn’t. It was still her fault. So she fucked away her feelings, and didn’t look at Laura in the eyes for a long time.
If it was anyone else other than Stiles asking the questions, Derek was pretty sure that she’d have snapped a long time ago. But there was something about Stiles that made her want to tell the girl everything. So she answered her questions, and when she felt like they were getting too close, she’d snap at Stiles and push her into walls and hurt her because she wants her to run away and never come back.
But Stiles doesn’t.
She gives Derek these eyes that are more understanding than she’d like them to be, and she leaves telling Derek that she’ll return tomorrow.
And she does come back the next day usually carrying a million books and talking a billion miles per hour, and Derek can see the dark circles under her eyes, and the way her mouth is red from the many times that night she’s bitten her lips while reading. And Derek forces her into the couch the only place to sleep in the burnt down house she refused to vacate or fix, and Stiles complains about it but usually falls asleep pretty quickly.
And then Derek goes through all of the books she’s brought with her and discards the ones that aren’t helpful and marks up the ones that are with highlighters and writes along the margins, and then she leaves and goes running, or goes to a bar and fucks some stranger to get rid of the feelings clawing out of her throat.
Feelings for Stiles that have no place being there.
It all changes the night that they kill Peter.
She needs comfort. Needs someone to need her and to hold her because she’s falling apart. She killed her last remaining relative, and didn’t even shed a tear.
And Scott was pack, but he would’ve taken her need to wrap her arms around him and sniff along his neck in the wrong way, because he’d seen her at the bars, and he could smell all of the guys that have fucked her, and she remembers how his nostrils flared, and how he swayed closer to her before he’d imprinted himself on Allison.
And that was good. Derek encouraged that, because she didn’t need a wolf hounding at her heels, and triggering her heat. It should’ve mattered more that she was an Argent, but Derek rationalized that if history was going to repeat itself, it would happen to her.
She just didn’t expect history to repeat itself the way it was doing now.
Because that night when she first wrapped her arms around Stiles and buried her face in her stomach and fell asleep on top of this girl who’d saved her life tonight, and who was probably freaking out about it, she thought about making Stiles hers.
She dreamt about sex, and claiming Stiles, and she wanted to lift up her dress and bite down into her side before fucking her with her tongue, and she wanted to turn her and claim her and mate her until Stiles couldn’t move, until the only word she knew was Derek’s name, her real name, until she came over and over in her mouth , on her tongue, on her fingers, and she wanted to mark her and leave bruises and hickies scattered all over her throat and at the back of her neck and on her wrists and on her hips and on her breasts, nips and fingershaped bruises.
And Scott would smell Derek on her for weeks and would know that all of that, all of the guys, everything was a lie.
But she slid out of the bed watching Stiles cautiously and hearing Kate’s words in her head, You were so sweet and innocent, all wide eyes and pretty mouth, and I just couldn’t help myself. Had to pluck that cherry before anyone else could get a chance to touch it. Burning your house down, was just an added benefit.
That was the moment that Derek began to feel like Kate.
So she fled, and she hid in her house, and when Jackson came by reeking of arousal and desperation, she lets him fuck her before biting him and throwing him out of her house.