Archive of Our Own ^beta

Stiles feels as though he's just been hit in the face, again, stunned and – actually, gobsmacked is probably the word. His mouth drops open and he stares at Scott, gaping, but nothing is coming out for once. “What?”

“Yeah.” Scott scratches at the back of his neck. “A whole pack of alphas, that's what Isaac said. Already here.”

“A pack of alphas already here. Here in Beacon Hills? How does that...” Stiles shakes his head, trying to shuffle his thoughts into some kind of order. His brain continues to buzz. “How does that even work? A pack of alphas? Isn't the whole point of a pack like, hierarchy? Seems to me that's just asking for arguments.” He shakes his head again. Losing hold of the point, Stiles. “And Derek just decided not to tell you?”

Scott shrugs. “He's not my alpha,” he says, but he looks uncertain, the words an obvious echo of what they both know Derek would come out with, a sentiment they don't buy. “But... I mean, he didn't tell Isaac either. Peter told Isaac. Isaac told me.”

“But Derek knew.”

“Yeah. He knew.”

“What is he even – fuck!” Stiles says. Scott blinks at him, but Stiles just runs a hand through his short-cropped hair, exhaling a burst of frustrated air. “No, seriously, Scott, he can't just keep doing this, I don't care if he's the alpha, we're all just gonna keep risking our lives while he doesn't tell us the whole story?”

Scott looks uncomfortable. “Maybe he was distracted. The kanima, dude, it was kind of on the top of everyone's mind.”

“And that was meant to be it, right?” Stiles flops back onto his bed, narrowing his eyes up at his ceiling. It hurts after a few seconds. Who knows how Derek manages that intense glare all the time without giving himself tension headaches. “Jackson's furry instead of scaly, Allison's psycho grandfather is gone, I kinda thought...” He trails off. What he thought was stupid, obviously, because how can any of them have a normal life after everything they've been through? Stiles would settle for non-life threatening though. Just a few weeks of not witnessing someone die-but-not-really-die, even. “Man, it would've been pretty nice the have a break from the crazy, huh?”

“Yeah.” Scott laughs, shaking his head. “Tell me about it, dude.”

“A pack of alphas,” Stiles repeats. “A pack of alphas. Great. And there I was worried that life without a vengeful paralysing lizard running around would end up getting dull.”

Stiles is pretty sure he's pushing his luck right now, being out here. It's not as though a trip to the Hale house has ever had a particularly successful outcome.

But he is pissed.

“A pack of alphas,” he huffs to himself, and hammers on the front door. He avoids the sketchy looking graffiti. He doesn't even want to contemplate that one – more bad news, probably. A sign of the coming apocalypse or something. He raises his voice. “Derek!” Then he glances around, eyes raking over the trees, half-convinced his shouting is going to attract this alpha pack and that after everything, it's going to be his mouth that leads him to his death after all.

Stiles is tired of worrying about what's going to lead to his death before he even reaches his seventeenth birthday.

He raps his knuckles on the door one more time, shuffling on the spot. Now he's thinking about it, he's managing to convince himself that every single everyday woodland noise is a sign of his imminent ambush, and when the door finally creeks open he has to draw himself up to his full height to get a harness on why he's here.

Except it's Peter who answers the door, not Derek. Stiles still can't get his head around that, that the burned up psychopath whose throat Derek ripped out is walking around now, looking like a regular guy. Not even a regular guy – the kind of guy who knows how to charm, who makes Stiles feel uncomfortable not just because of the whole supernatural former-murderer who tried to turn Stiles into a werewolf thing, but because he can smile and make snide comments that make Stiles kind of want to like him.

Stiles' life is fucking weird enough already; he's not okay with taking it to that next level.

“Is Derek there?” Stiles asks. He has a flashback to being six and knocking at the McCall house for Scott, and he wishes it was Mrs McCall he was facing here too. He grins, forced, probably unconvincing. He's faced worse than Peter Hale. “Can he come out to play?”

Peter smiles, a bright flash of teeth. “Why don't you come in?”

The sight of Peter's teeth triggers a distinct sense of foreboding, but Stiles steps inside anyway – let's face it, the whole Hale house is pretty foreboding. Peter shuts the door behind him, and between the house's natural atmospheric gloom and Derek's natural creepiness, Stiles doesn't spot Derek until he's just inches away and already looming.

“Okay, that's not a werewolf thing,” Stiles says in lieu of a greeting, “because Scott couldn't sneak up on me if he tried, how do you do that?”

“Oh, that's all Derek,” Peter says. “It's all part of his natural charm.” Derek turns his unimpressed expression in Peter's direction, and Peter's grin gets wider. “I'll leave you kids to it, shall I? I think Mr. Stilinksi here wants a word without me or Isaac eavesdropping.”

“Isaac?” Stiles asks, startled. There's a sound from the second floor, and then Isaac appears at the top of the stairs.

“Stiles.” He nods, smiles. Stiles still isn't used to seeing anything but angst on Isaac's face; his happiness is kind of blinding. “You look better.”

“Thanks, Isaac.” Stiles throws a pointed glance at Derek. “It's nice thatsomeone noticed I no longer look like a punching bag.”

Isaac says, “Well... see you around, man,” like they've just bumped into each other in the locker rooms before they go off to different classes, and Derek ignores everything as Peter motions to Isaac and they go off to do god knows what.

Despite their track record, Stiles is a lot more certain that Derek won't actually snap and attack him than he is about Peter. Being left alone with Derek is still intimidating, because Derek is an intimidating guy, but Stiles figures they've saved each other's lives enough times that Derek killing him now would be a waste. So he watches the door swing shut, whirls back around to Derek, and says, “So were you just hoping we wouldn't notice a huge pack of alphas roaming around or something?”

Derek stares at him.

Stiles waves his hands for emphasis. “A pack of alphas! Because I'm telling you, seriously, alphas? Not subtle. We'd have noticed.”

Derek continues to stare through the dull light.

“We all nearly died like, a thousand times when it was just Peter running around and out of control.” Stiles meets Derek's stare, determined not to break. He's Stiles; he jokes, but he's as serious as he's ever been with this. The long breath he lets out is a little shaky, but he focuses his energy on not blinking too often. “How much worse is it gonna get, Derek?”

A muscle in Derek's tightly-clenched jaw twitches. “You didn't need to know.”

“Yeah, well, you know, I disagree,” Stiles says. He forces himself to speak slowly, enunciate, pack all the meaning possible in with his words. “In fact, given that every time there's some new supernatural development someone ends up trying to kill me, or trying to kill my friends, or trying to kill my dad, yeah, that was a fun one, I'd say it's kinda pertinent information.”

“We had bigger things to worry about with the kanima.”

“Do you think – what did you think, that my tiny human brain can't cope with more than one problem at a time? In case you hadn't noticed, wolf boy--” Stiles really needs to get some better insults, ones that accurately communicate how angry he's feeling, because he is “--I'm kind of the brains of this operation.”

“I would've told you.”

“What, like, eventually? Okay, sure,” Stiles scoffs, and immediately shuts down the part of his brain pointing out that they sound like a married couple reciting lines from a well-played out argument. The whole thing is too messed up. “How long are you gonna keep holding stuff back from us?”

Derek lets out a frustrated sigh at that, exasperated, hard done by, enough to put Stiles' teeth on edge. “It's not deliberate. It's... difficult. You have no idea, Stiles. I have a responsibility. I'm the alpha. Even for Scott, I have to--”

Stiles laughs at that. It comes wrenching out of him, an ugly sound that bubbles up from the hollow pit of his insides, and with it come words he's been trying to keep locked down. It's like that moment with Lydia, back in his bedroom with threats on all sides – they've touched on something vulnerable, and he's in the moment now, can't make himself stop and hold back. “I have no idea? No idea about responsibility? I - do you even know why we were out that night, Derek? Did Scott ever even bother to tell you? Mention whose bright idea it was to drag him out of his nice, safe house, stop him getting a good night's sleep for lacrosse and go out into the goddamn wolf-infested woods and search out a body instead?”

Derek flinches. And okay – it must be hard for Derek, too, hearing about this, how it was the discovery of his sister's dead body that started this whole thing off. But Stiles is tired. He's on a roll.

“I know a little bit about responsibility, okay? This whole--” He has to pause, swallow, blink a couple of times. The dust in this place is reaching irresponsible levels. Hazardous to his health. His eyes sting. “Everything happened because--”

“Stiles,” Derek says. It's not the way he usually says Stiles' name, sharp enough to cut through Stiles' babbling or angry or even, sometimes, scared. It's soft. There's something almost like a thread of emotion in there, if Stiles really strains to hear it, but Stiles can't stop.

“Scott,” he lists, “Jackson, Lydia – and Erica and Boyd and Isaac, I guess, your whole freaky, furry little pack – none of them would be involved in any of this if we hadn't gone out that night. And things – things would be okay with my dad, my biggest issue in life would just be Scott being grossly loved up with Allison, or all I'd worry about would be how to stop landing in detention all the time and, like, whether I ever had even a regular loser dude chance with Lydia, or whether wanting to be attractive to gay guys made me gay or – or --” Stiles is running out of a breath a little, steam petering out for once. He laughs, almost. “I cannot believe my life is so fucked up these days I'm nostalgic about pining and wishing I'd had time for a full blown sexuality crisis.”

Derek seems to need a moment or two to take it all in. There's an odd look on his face, the close to pained expression Stiles has noticed he wears when he's struggling to express something other than anger or bemusement. His mouth contorts. His eyebrow twitches. “Stiles. It isn't your fault.”

“Yeah, I only started the whole chain of events...”

“Stiles!” Derek steps closer to him. However foolishly, Stiles doesn't take a step back, and so Derek is close enough to rest both hands on Stiles' shoulders, fingers curling into his shirt. “Stop. Listen to me.”

Stiles is so startled by the gentle force in Derek's hands that he actually does. Derek doesn't touch him like this.

“Go home,” Derek says. His eyes are intense, but there's no threat in the edge of his gaze. Stiles' tirade of words dries up. “Talk with your dad. Hang out with Scott. Do... whatever it is you do.”

Stiles raises his eyebrows. “You mean like, narrowly escape the jaws of a supernatural death?”

Derek doesn't smile, but Stiles could swear there's a hint of it, a crease at the corner of his eyes. “Before that.”

That Derek can even comprehend of a life existing outside of his werewolf world comes as kind of a surprise to Stiles. He never seemed to understand how it worked when he was stalking their lacrosse practices and cornering them all in the locker rooms – Stiles is still amazed that no one ever called the cops on him. Amazed and relieved, because explaining to his dad why a definitely above school leaving age suspected fugitive kept hanging around him at school would have been a tricky one.

Derek lets go of him and steps back to a safe distance. “Go home, Stiles.”

Stiles goes home.

The bruising has more or less faded from his cheek, a hint of tenderness the only real leftover reminder of his run in with the psycho grandfather. His dad's eyes still linger on his cheekbone where the worst of it had been, though. A pained and guilty look still flickers over his face for a second every time he looks at Stiles, and that makes Stiles feel worse than any of his injuries had managed to, because Stiles is the guilty one with all the secrets here. His dad is just his dad, the sheriff, the one trying to keep this crazy town safe.

Stiles is pretty sure that when Derek told him to talk to his dad, he meant it in a generic way. It probably hadn't been permission to tell him about everything going on lately. For a moment Stiles is tempted anyway – he doesn't need Derek's permission for one thing, and he misses that feeling he had as a kid, where running to his dad meant everything would be okay.

Stiles has known for a long time that even his dad can't fix everything, but he still helps every time, even when it's the two of them hurting. Stiles thinks about it over dinner, unusually quiet. He pushes his food around his plate and imagines how he'd begin. Hey, Dad, so you know girls get their time of the month? Well so does Scott... It doesn't compute.

It's his dad who breaks the silence. “Everything okay, son?” He doesn't sound like he necessarily expects an answer, but he wants one, Stiles knows that much.

“Yeah,” Stiles tells his plate. He looks up. His dad is looking at him with a downward crook to the corners of his mouth, his eyes the shade of concerned that makes Stiles' stomach turn. Stiles quickly shovels another forkful of his food into his mouth. He's a Stilinski – eating will settle all the feelings fighting for space in his gut. “Yeah,” he repeats, not turning away from his dad this time. “I mean, you know. Things are – well, things are weird? No one's really settled after the whole thinking Jackson was dead then seeing him turn up at school on Monday fiasco? And people keep congratulating me for bringing my A game to lacrosse, which is awesome, but that's also out of the ordinary. Or just belated, if you ask me.”

That makes his dad smile, even if it doesn't shift all the worry lines from his face. Stiles returns to his dinner with more gusto.

Even this far in, Stiles takes himself by surprise sometimes with how far his ability to compartmentalize can stretch. While he's talking about school, the loudest part of his brain focuses on that, not on all the near death experiences. He can never shake them – they lurk beneath his eyelids every time he drops off to sleep, creeping in closer to him through all the quiet moments – but talking about school feels good. It feels normal.

It's refreshing.

And it sucks that that's how it is right now, that school is a nice change of pace, but it reassures him and his dad when they can talk and still find positive topics of conversation. That's enough for Stiles.

At school, the hallways buzz with the unsettled air of change. It unnerves Stiles, because this is how his life has felt for him for far too long now. He walks into school and wonders for a moment if the student body has finally caught on, but it never takes much to get school kids to switch allegiance. They may not know about werewolf packs or the kanima or what really happened to their old principal, but it's a survival skill in high school to recognise the winds of social change.

The old power couple has dissolved, worth less together now than they were even broken up a few months ago – they call Lydia mad and outright avoid Jackson. Stiles feels a little let down by the lack of Jackson Whittemore: king of the zombies jokes going around, but creativity has never been the strong suit of most sixteen year olds, and Stiles just isn't exactly in a position to crack wise like that himself. Stiles would feel bad for the two of them in their fall from grace, but – well.

It's not like he's ever thought Jackson deserved his popularity, and the Lydia he sees deep in conversation with Jackson at lunch barely seems to be registering the rest of the cafeteria anyway. Stiles guesses maybe her priorities have shifted, or she's taken the too high up above the rest of you to care act to another level. Both, possibly. Stiles doesn't feel sorry for them, and he can't quite manage happy, but at least most of the jealousy is gone. That's something. That's emotional progress, he's pretty sure.

Either that or there's just no room left in him for resentment, what with all the worry and the fear and the desperation to cling to anything normal remaining in his life.

Stiles prefers his personal diagnosis of emotional progress.

“I think I'm making emotional progress,” he announces to Scott, the two of them back to sitting alone at lunch.

“Huh?” Scott doesn't even pretend to be paying attention to Stiles. He's staring across the room at Allison, chin propped on his hand, a dazed look on his face. He's actually slack-jawed. He looks like a cartoon. “What?” Scott is not making emotional progress.

“On the Lydia front,” Stiles clarifies. “The resentment is totally mild now. I can look at them without physical, there goes the love of my life pain.” If anything, he reflects, chewing aggressively on a mouthful of curly fries, all his resentment is currently being redirected toward Derek Hale, keeper of secrets, sole witness to the closet Stiles has come to losing his shit about all of this.

“Huh.” Scott fails to even spare Stiles a momentary glance. Stiles can't even tell if Scott's pretending to agree with him or pretending to require elaboration. He hasn't even managed tone.

“In fact,” Stiles continues, putting Scott's lack of attention to a real test, “I think I'm probably just in love with you now, dude.”

Scott says, “Okay.”

Stiles needs a new best friend.

Stiles also needs more friends who don't have superhuman hearing, because a few seconds later Erica drops down into the seat opposite him, her red lips curved up into a smile. Stiles likes seeing this version of her back, dressed to the nines and intimidatingly hot – it's a lot better than the Erica he saw pale and contorted with pain in the Argents' basement. “Aw, well that is sweet. Always thought you two would make a cute couple.”

Stiles takes back his desire for someone to pay attention to him, but he gives Erica a nod of acknowledgement anyway. “But he neglects me,” he says. “He takes me for granted. It's becoming a tragedy. Like, maybe I should get a boob job to get some more attention from my man?”

Erica gives Stiles' chest a good look, as though she's really picturing it. Then, out of nowhere, she says, “Isaac said you went to see Derek the other day.”

Stiles nods. “Yeah.”

Scott finally tears himself away from mooning in Allison's direction. “What? How come?”

Stiles isn't sure why this is suddenly a big deal. Derek comes to see him all the time. At least Stiles has the decency to use the front door and is yet to threaten anybody. He shrugs. “I just wanted to ask him about the whole alpha pack thing. Am I the only one who thinks it's a big deal?”

“It is a big deal,” Erica agrees, but she's picking at her nails as she speaks, and Stiles thinks she looks more bored by the whole thing than anything else. “Derek's calling a pack meeting about it tonight. Which means you're invited, Scott.”

Scott frowns.

“And you,” she adds, raising her perfectly-shaped eyebrows in Stiles' direction.

“What?” Stiles asks. “I'm the wrong freaking species for that kinda meeting, Erica.”

Erica shrugs in a way that reminds Stiles eerily of Lydia. He suspects that may just be a hot girl thing, the ability to not have to worry too much about consequences. The ability to shrug things off at all. “Whatever. Just be there, the both of you, okay? Later.”

Stiles and Scott both watch her stalk off toward the door of the cafeteria and then disappear off somewhere with Boyd. Stiles glares back down at the table. Seriously – he is tired.

“Dude,” Scott says, looking mildly alarmed. “Please don't get a boob job.”

The thing is, Derek told him to go home. Derek didn't want to worry him, or at least, Derek didn't think Stiles was worth worrying by bringing him into the loop. Derek told him to hang out with his dad and Scott and not die.

So Stiles – for now, while there's no immediate threat to him or the people he loves, Stiles is taking a break from this shit. Stiles is going to stay at home and not throw himself into the path of a whole pack of alphas. Stiles is going to finally start catching up on the piles of homework that have been growing around him while he's been significantly distracted elsewhere. He's going to get ahead for once. He's going to rock it, academically.

Stiles taps away distractedly at his Literature essay for the grand and impressive total of fifteen minutes before he ends up turning on private browsing, taking advantage of his own privacy, and settling in to watch some porn while he has the house to himself. He's not even in the mood, but at this point he feels like he owes it to himself. Quiet moments are a serious rarity around here.

Stiles nearly breaks his keyboard in his rush to minimise all the windows on his screen at the sharp rap of knuckles on his bedroom window. He spins around in his computer chair, wild and uncoordinated, and it's Derek's looming presence out there, of course – who else just shows up and thinks this an acceptable way to announce their presence? - and Stiles hasn't even got to the good bit yet. He hadn't even been thinking about taking it over to the bed yet, but apparently now he doesn't even have the time to jerk it in privacy, and if he eventually dies of blue balls, Stiles seriously hopes this supernatural business spreads out farther than werewolves and weird scaly murderous creatures, because Stiles is going to haunt the shit out of Derek in revenge.

Except Stiles doesn't want to think about ghosts, actually, because he's come way too close way too many times lately to finding out on a firsthand basis whether or not they exist.

“What,” he says flatly as he opens his window.

Derek climbs in through the window with the ease of someone who is definitely too practised at this and frowns. “You weren't at the meeting.”

“Your observational skills are second to none, Derek.”

“You were supposed to be there.” Derek is frowning, as though it's inconceivable to him how Stiles hasn't come to this conclusion himself, and Stiles sighs.

“I don't know if you remember this, Derek, but we managed an actual agreement the other day, about how I got to go home? Well.” He gestures around him. “Home.”

“But.” Derek's frown deepens. “No.”

“What?”

Derek's more frown than actual face now. He looks kind of constipated. Stiles is very tempted to tell him this, but Derek seems to be struggling more than usual for words as it is right now. “I wanted you to not go around putting yourself in danger out of some misplaced sense of blame, Stiles. Not... At meetings like that, we. We need you.”

Stiles' eyebrows go up. “Can you say that again? Wait, can I record it? Can I put it on the internet?”

“Stiles,” Derek says, “shut up and take the compliment.”

“You know what a compliment is!” Stiles gives Derek two slow claps, aware that he's almost definitely pushing his luck right now. “I am impressed.” Derek continues to look distinctly unimpressed, and so Stiles quickly spins around on his computer chair, facing his monitor again. “So what, you missed my brain?”

Derek lets out a heavy breath through his nose, a shade away from a snort. “Something like that.”

“Right.” Stiles fires up a whole new window rather than risking bringing up his porn in front of Derek. The air between them is tense enough, and one time Scott walked in on Stiles watching porn and got awkward. “So what d'you need to know, Mr Wolf?”

Stiles might start turning on private browsing for his next werewolf research lesson rather than porn sessions. The searches are a lot weirder.

He's not finding a whole lot, either. He knows which weird and wacky corners of the internet it's wisest to straight out avoid, but in his quest for alpha pack knowledge not much else comes up. “Dude,” he says after a while, leaning back in his chair with his arms stretched over his head, balance precarious, “I'm the first one to admit he's kinda unhinged, but you werewolves need to take a leaf out of Peter's book and start uploading more stuff to the web. Get with the times, man, and all this would be so much easier...”

He trails off as he spins in a lazy half-circle to find Derek asleep on his bed.

He's not in the bed, because he's on top of the covers; his head is only half on the pillows and his legs are hanging over the side. It looks an uncomfortable position, but Derek is relaxed.

It's a novel sight.

Stiles pauses just to stare for a few seconds. Derek's mouth is slightly open, a small flash of white, human teeth between his parted lips, and his fingers are curled into Stiles' bed covers. He's breathing slow, heavy and steady. His leg kicks out in his sleep, and for a moment Stiles is reminded irresistibly of a puppy twitching through restless dreams, though he'd never say that to Derek's face.

Well, he would, but Derek would probably just get grumpy and growly and – seriously, like a puppy, Stiles is not buying his big bad wolf act.

Derek only stays sleeping for a couple more minutes, stirring as though he can sense Stiles' stare. Knowing Derek, he probably can, even in the midst of dreaming. He makes a rough, sleepy sound and rubs his cheek against Stiles' pillow, and Stiles should look away, avoid stumbling into creepy watching someone else sleep territory, but for some reason he can't tear his gaze away, even as Derek blinks his eyes open and looks at Stiles, looks around. For a moment, Stiles feels like his lungs are getting cramp or something. It hurts to breathe, the surprising intimacy of Derek in his bed and at ease enough around Stiles for this crushing in around him.

Stiles can almost see it, the moment Derek remembers that he's Derek Hale the Alpha and always needs to have his guard up. Watching his face shift from relaxed and rumpled, messy hair and pillow creases down his cheek to tense and firm and alert again, makes something uncomfortable twist in Stiles' stomach. It doesn't make any sense to Stiles. They're in his bedroom; the biggest threat possible to them here is Stiles' dad catching Derek hanging out here, and even then, Stiles is the one who would get into trouble. Even then he'd probably just get grounded for a while for hanging out inappropriately with former-fugitives.

“Huh,” Derek grunts. It's appears to be his version of good morning.

Stiles finds himself frowning as Derek pushes himself back up into a sitting position, and he shakes his head. It's not Stiles' problem that Derek is paranoid about everything and everywhere. In fact, it seems like a legitimate reaction to the steady approach of a threatening alpha pack. It's a lot, he knows, really, that Derek can even relax enough to doze off around him, even though upon a closer look there are dark shadows under Derek's eyes and he looks exhausted enough to drop off anywhere. Maybe he doesn't sleep right back at the Hale house. Stiles isn't sure he'd be able to kick back and unwind either, if he were living with Peter Hale, the smooth-talking, reanimated dead psychopath – and it hits him that he might be the first person to see Derek let go even this much in a long time.

You can stay sleeping here if you want, Stiles wants to say, but instead what comes out is, “Welcome back to the world of the waking, sleeping beauty.”

Derek's mouth twitches. “Didn't mean to fall asleep.”

Stiles shrugs. “No worries, man,” he says. “Scott does it all the time.” It's not the same when Scott does it, for some reason, but he doesn't add that. “So like, not a big shock here, but it turns out there's not a whole lot of info out there about alpha packs. Which, really – I am not surprised, because seriously, it makes no sense, a whole pack of alphas?”

Derek nods. He doesn't look surprised by the lack of information either. Stiles wonders if that's Derek's natural poker face, or if he'd suspected the internet would be lacking for once all along and had just wanted Stiles to confirm it. Stiles is going to go with the former. His research means something.

“I mean, let's face it, you guys barely hold it together with just one alpha. Can you imagine what it would be like if, like, Erica or Jackson held the same sort of power? Can you imagine the bitch fights?”

Jackson, Stiles is pretty sure, would be the best at a bitch fight.

“They work,” Derek tells him shortly. “It's... different. To how you might think. You wouldn't understand.”

And just like that, the odd feeling that had settled over him at the sight of Derek vulnerable and asleep vanishes, replaced once more by the residual irritation that's been hanging around in the Derek-shaped corner of Stiles' mind ever since Stiles confronted him, even since Derek took it upon himself to decide who gets to know what.

Ever since he's known Derek Hale, when it comes down to it.

“If you're so sure I don't understand any of this, Dererk, why are you even here?” Stiles runs a hand through the short bristles of his hair, spins back to face his computer screen. With the angle of the screen and the position of his bedroom light, he can half see Derek's reflection in it. He deepens his scowl. “You tell me I won't get anything, then you freak out because I don't show up to one meeting, I don't even – are you serious?”

Derek sighs, and Stiles is about to flip, tell him to stop being so goddamn hard done by all the time because he's not the only one having a tough time of things around here, but then Derek says, “That's not. That's not what I meant, Stiles,” and Stiles realises that the frustration there is directed toward Derek himself, for once, not Stiles.

“Then what--”

“I need you,” Derek says bluntly, and Stiles freezes, tensed all over, bolt upright and uncomfortable in his computer chair. That isn't – is this really Derek? He stares at his screen. He lets his eyes blur, unfocus, but he can still just about make out the uncomfortable look on Derek's face, so he figures that probably it is him.

“What?” Stiles says, and Derek's next wordless noise is more of a growl than a sigh. Stiles forces himself to turn slowly back around and face his bed. Face Derek.

“We need you.”

“I'm not the only kid who can do a google search around here, you know.”

“You, Stiles.” Derek's eyes flash, not red, but just as intense. “The whole – everything with Jackson taught us as much.” Derek pulls a face as though what he says next causes him physical pain. “Peter had a point. Humans are powerful, and you.”

“I?” Stiles manages to prompt. He can't breathe. There's seriously something wrong with his lungs, for real this time; he feels startled and a little strangled, and it's lasting more than just a second. He can hear his heartbeat loud in his own ears. Maybe that's how Derek hears things all the time. He must be deafened right now by the rapid thud of Stiles' wild heart.

“It's not because you were there when Scott got bitten,” Derek says. “It's not because you have to make up for anything, you're just – you.”

Stiles is honestly a little surprised his outburst has stayed with Derek so deeply for so long. It's not helping with the situation in his chest. “Me?” Come on, Stilinski, he tells himself. More than pronouns.

“I have to go,” Derek says, standing abruptly. He's almost out of the window in a matter of seconds, just his arm and head leaning inside Stiles' room when he pauses. “Thank you, Stiles.”

Stiles gapes. Maybe he's the one who fell asleep, finally giving in to the tiredness dogging him day in and day out. Maybe he's dreaming.

Except he still feels like he can't breathe, and when he pinches the skin of his arm, it stings like hell.

It feels like something he should gloat about, like he should go into school the next day and say to Scott, Yeah, Derek wants you in his pack, but he needs me, beat that one buddy.

He doesn't. He goes to school and fidgets his way through the day, paying even less attention than normal. It's not the usual type of distraction – it's not just his brain, jumping around and refusing to stay on topic. Stiles finds himself staring at the front of class and seeing Derek's sleeping face filtered over the blackboard, the sweep of his eyelashes and the sharp lines of his cheekbones instead of equations and formulae. Stiles rubs his fingers absently over the surface of his desk, rough grain and graffiti marks under his palm, and thinks, for one absurd moment, of Derek's rough looking stubble.

Stiles gave up being surprised by the weird connections and paths his brain likes to take of its own accord a long time ago, but he's a little thrown by that one.

“Huh? What now?” he says, snapping out of it when Mr. Harris says his name, and great. Now Derek is landing him in detention and everything. After all, it's not Stiles' fault that Derek is finally starting to learn how communicate using his words and turning Stiles' expectations on their head. It's not Stiles' fault he's dwelling.

Scott shoots him a sympathetic wince across the room, which earns him a few good friends points back from his ignoring Stiles to pine after Allison phases. No one else does, even though by Derek's questionable werewolf logic Stiles is pretty sure that they're all basically pack members together now. If anything, Jackson looks amused. Once a kanima, now a werewolf; always an asshole.

The rest of the day actually goes by fast, though detention, as ever – Stiles definitely has too much experience here – drags on. He watches the second hand on the clock tick by just to be sure time hasn't stopped altogether. In class, Stiles finds it easy to let his mind wander, but for some reason he gets stuck in detention and it becomes impossible to even slip off into daydreams.

He's restless and buzzing by the time he finally gets to set foot outside of school again, what feels like a physical itch beneath his skin.

Honestly, Stiles just assumes it's some hardcore form of boredom, but given that a few seconds later he gets slammed against the side of his Jeep, it's maybe something of an inkling.

The guy is tall and well-built, wearing a leather jacket and glowering at Stiles, bushy sideburns and dark hair with streaks of grey through it. He looks kind of like a cross between Derek and Hugh Jackman, and Stiles has never seen anyone who is so obviously werewolf-looking without even having to flash the fangs.

He looks like he could kill Stiles with just a flick of a finger. Stiles swallows down his Wolverine quip and does his level best to keep himself quiet. He is learning in these situations. Slowly.

It's probably a good thing he's been backed up against the Jeep; his knees aren't feeling quite up to scratch. He gulps and has to crane his neck to look up into the dude's eyes, and there – a definite flash of red. Excellent. Stiles does not need this.

“So you're the human.” The guy's growl puts Derek's to shame.

“I am,” Stiles agrees. “So, so human! Innocently human! Nothing to do with whatever you're – well, whatever!” He'd put his hands up to fully convey this innocence, but the guy's standing so close Stiles would pretty much have to caress his chest to do it, so he keeps them down by his sides. He curls his hands into fists. He won't stand a chance if that's what it comes down to, but it feels just the tiniest bit better.

“I'd like you to deliver a message.”

Stiles thinks back to Gerard Argent and feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. “I'm not, uh, not so good with messages?”

“We know you're in contact with Derek Hale.”

“And who is we?” Stiles asks. It's a legitimate question. It has a kind of obvious answer, but Stiles gets the feeling the more clueless he acts the less implicated he'll be in... well. Anything.

The guy grins, except it's not a grin. It's so many teeth Stiles is reminded of Jaws. They're not wolf teeth, but they seem sharper than human ones should be. “He'll know.”

It's a werewolf thing in general then, Stiles concludes, the annoying crypticness.

“Just tell him it's his move.”

“His move?” Stiles repeats. He nods. “His move. We, who he knows, says it's his move.”

“That's right. Now. How to make sure you pass the message on?”

“I'm reliable!” Stiles assures him quickly. “You can be sure. I am so reliable, I'm like, Mr. Reliable. I'm like the missing Mr. Men book.” The guy is looking at him now like he thinks Stiles might be crazy, and that expression should be familiar, Stiles gets it sent his way so often, but the teeth are still bared and even the familiar is intimidating here. “I will go straight to him,” Stiles promises. “I will – well, I won't speed, my dad is the sheriff and nothing would be worth that, but I'll be as fast as I legally can.”

Dropping in the my dad is the sheriff line doesn't have the effect here it does when Stiles mentions it to high school kids who feel like beating him up might be a good extra curricular activity. There's not even a flicker of uncertainty. Not even a sign of acknowledgement. If this is the way most alphas are, Derek is comparatively friendly and responsive.

“So... I should go?” Stiles tries. He attempts a reassuring, you can count on me kind of smile, but his mouth just sort of twitches at the corner and his top lip catches on his own teeth.“Go deliver your message? Right?”

The eyes flash red again. “That's right. Off you run, little human.”

Stiles doesn't run, but that's really only because he has his Jeep and driving will get him to Derek's in even less time.

“Derek!” Stiles yells. There's no need to yell, everyone who is likely to be at the Hale house right now has superhuman hearing, but Stiles yells anyway. Sometimes the situation calls for it. He'd slam the front door behind him, but he's worried it would splinter right off its hinges if he did. “Derek!”

Derek appears at the top of the stairs. He looks faintly startled to see Stiles there, in that his facial expression actually shifts the smallest amount. “Stiles?”

“No,” Stiles says, with what can only be described as a hysterical sort of sarcasm. Now he's slowed down, now his body is catching up with his brain, he's struggling to breathe a little bit again but in an entirely different, much more panicky sort of way. Derek's shoved him against flat surfaces and threatened and growled at him enough times that it's almost routine now – there's no threat to it, nothing like there was in the red eyes and bulk and brawn of the alpha who cornered him today. “No, it's the freaking Easter Bunny, what do you think?”

Derek seems to make it down the stairs in all of about two steps. Stiles looks around, but today it doesn't seem like Peter and Isaac are lurking around in the woodwork. “Why are you here?”

Stiles breathes in deep and breathes out slow, the way countless counsellors told him to all those years ago. “I was coming out of detention,” he begins.

“Why were you in detention?”

“What?” Stiles actually squints at Derek in confusion. “The stuff you care about is really, really weird, you know that? It doesn't matter, the point is, I was coming out of detention and I had a delightful visit from one of your alpha bros, is the point!”

It's visible, the way Derek's body tenses all over and his whole alpha and protector thing starts to kick in at an even higher level than normal. “What.”

“I was minding my own business.” For once, this is true – Stiles wasn't even looking for trouble today. “And then out of nowhere, freaking Wolverine comes looming over me. Calling me human, like that's such a terrible thing, telling me I have to pass a message onto you.”

Derek's eyes scan Stiles' face sharply, rake over the rest of his body.

“Thankfully not the Argent kinda message,” Stiles adds. “Just words this time, but since when am I everyone's go to message guy? Anyway. Here it is: make your move.”

“What,” Derek says again.

“Make,” Stiles repeats, deliberately slow, “your move. So like, what, are you playing some sort of game? Are you flirting? What move are you supposed to be making? We don't even know that much about them, why are you move making?”

Derek sighs heavily. Again, it's odd for it to not be aimed directly at Stiles. “I'm not. I wasn't.” He runs a hand through his hair, which Stiles notices somehow remains looking artfully tussled rather than a straight out mess. Stiles blinks. Derek sighs again. “We don't know about them, you're right.”

“I am right--”

“So I was planning on lying low.”

“Lying low,” Stiles says. “So... you're really bad at that, huh?” Derek nods, and Stiles would smile, but he still can't really manage that yet. His chest feels less constricted though. That's good. “But why'd they come to me?”

“They've clearly got a close eye on things.” Derek shrugs. He looks uncertain himself. Or uncomfortable. Or maybe just constipated. It's hard to tell. “You're...”

“An easy target?” Stiles guesses.

Derek frowns. “No. You're not, you're--”

Behind Stiles, the door front door bangs open once more. Stiles would deny it, but he jumps about a mile in the air in shock, and he does it in front of a bunch of werewolves whose eyes are basically trained to pick up movement. “Jeez!”

Peter is standing in the doorway, Isaac just behind him, Erica and Boyd bringing up the rear. Jackson is trailing behind them and looking up at the house with an expression of distinct disgust, as though he's just seeing it for the first time. It morphs into faint amusement as his eyes land on Stiles.

“Ah.” Peter smiles at Derek over the top of Stiles' head. Stiles isn't even that short. He has no idea how Peter is managing it. “I assume you've already heard the alphas want to come out and play, then.”

“Go home, Stiles,” Derek says, for the millionth time since they've known each other, but he says it in that soft, in Stiles' bedroom voice, and so Stiles is more relieved than insulted that he isn't required to stick around for this pack meeting at all.

From that night onwards, Stiles braces himself for an influx of new threats, checking and rechecking all the locks in his house and texting Scott to tell him for the love of everything, will he please keep his phone switched on for once. His dad gives him a few odd looks, but Stiles just spreads his hands out in front of him, what, and tells his dad it would be embarrassing for them all if the sheriff himself slipped up on his home security.

“You're a good son,” his dad says, and even if he still looks a little suspicious, it makes Stiles feel a lot better for a while, a surge of something close to pride. He still wishes, part of him he does his best to keep buried, that he could tell his dad everything, but at the same time there's something to knowing he's helping keep his dad out of danger for once rather than the other way around.

At least, he is unless the alphas track him to his house and decide he didn't deliver their message on time or to their standards or something. Stiles isn't thinking about that.

He braces himself, but nothing happens. He goes to school. He hangs out with Scott. He continues – if he may say so himself – to rock it at lacrosse. He has a whole bunch of conversations with Lydia where he doesn't stammer or stumble over his words once, and finds he's not as elated about it as he might have been a couple of weeks ago.

He only spends about half of his classes distracted because Derek is on his mind. Well, half of every class, kind of generously rounding the total down. He wonders what Derek is doing, how Derek is dealing, if Derek is safe; he wonders if Derek has even managed any sleep since Stiles showed up yelling and the pressure and danger switched it up from intense to insane. Stiles maybe almost regrets the yelling, having witnessed how exhausted Derek seems to be these days. He feels bad about it, and it takes him by surprise – he's still not over Derek being so infuriating – but he'd been so freaked out his options were shout at Derek or scream out into the woods. Contrary to appearances, Stiles is certain now that Derek is the less dangerous option.

It begins to feel anti-climatic. That's where Stiles is these days. No death threats: anti-climatic. He tries to relax into the relative tranquility of the Stilinski household, where his biggest worry is his dad's diet and blood pressure, but it's as though his body has forgotten how. It's not until he crawls into bed each night that he even realises how tense his spine is through each day, notices the physical ache running across his shoulders.

Perhaps he should take up yoga.

He still struggles to sleep. Maybe that explains his sudden empathy with Derek, why thoughts of Derek keep invading the aimless wanders of his mind – it's pure recognition, an awareness of how much it sucks. Stiles has always been used to it, but he misses it being a case of simple activity in his brain, that old inability to ever switch off. These days, night after night, Stiles closes his eyes and sees entwined licks of fire and blood. More often than not he finds himself trapped and paralysed in his sleep; he wakes up with his sheets soaked through with sweat and tangled around his legs almost every single night and finds himself staring at the strips of moonlight that filter in through his window, blank and unseeing, until his heart slows back down and his eyelids grow heavy again.

It makes him feel like a zombie, although really, even his perceptions there are changing. After all, since his return from the dead Jackson has had a whole lot of energy, back to being better than Scott at lacrosse again now that they're competing on an even werewolf ground. Stiles is going to have to completely recalibrate his and Scott's zombie apocalypse survival plans.

Stiles is idly contemplating this, eyes closing for longer and longer each time he blinks, taking comfort in the fact that it's one of the few scenarios that currently still seems unlikely to occur. The soft whisper of his window opening takes a moment to register. By the time Stiles flails his way out of the prison of blankets and sits, bolt upright and wide awake again, Derek is halfway inside his room, and maybe it's his own blood pressure Stiles should be worrying about because – shit, what happened to knocking?

“Shit!” he says. His voice shakes for just a moment, the rush of adrenaline too much for his sleepy body to handle. “What happened to knocking? If you're gonna keep creeping in through my window like this the knocking cannot stop, okay?”

Derek climbs the rest of the way into his room, slams the window shut behind him, and pins Stiles with a an even more intense version of his usual glare. “Stiles.”

“Yes,” Stiles says. “What? Why are you--”

Derek strides across the room to stand over Stiles in bed. He rakes his eyes over Stiles, and Stiles can see a hint of red. He glances down. Claws are out. “You're okay.”

Stiles pulls his covers up to his chin, suddenly very aware of the fact he's wearing boxers, nothing else – if these visits are becoming nocturnal, he's going to have to start wearing pyjamas to bed again. Being shirtless around Derek Hale is just asking for feelings of inadequacy. It's terminally unfair, Stiles thinks, that even with the fear and trepidation stemming from a half wolfed-out alpha appearing in his bedroom, Stiles still has space for inadequacy.

“What?” Stiles says again.

Derek chooses to ignore him this time, turning to sweep his glare around the room. He double-checks the lock on his window, despite having just proved locks are pretty pointless anyway, and then opens Stiles' closet and peers inside. When he makes his way over to Stiles' bedroom door and peers around the doorframe, Stiles struggles out of bed and the inadequacy slips away in the face overwhelming concern.

“What are you doing?” he hisses, padding across the carpet to stand behind Derek. He can't see a thing past him; Derek is all bulk. “Are you telling me you think there's like, a threat to my house? Because it's not just me in here, Derek, oh my God, I swear if anything--”

Derek sniffs, the kind of deep inhale Stiles associates with trying to clear a blocked up nose. There's a pause. “It's clear,” he announces, but this fails to do anything at all to reassure Stiles right now.

“Is there a chance of something happening to my dad?” he demands. He feels sick just shaping the words, the thick, distasteful feel of them rising up in his throat and out into the air. It's not an option. Simply not an option. Stiles and his dad – they're the only ones left, and Stiles straight up refuses to even contemplate any change there. Once upon a time, this meant that Stiles had nightmares of some evil, fairy tale type stepmother showing up and taking his dad away from him, trying to take a place that Stiles know will never, ever be refilled. Now it's a little different. Stiles never wants to come close like he did down at the station again.

Derek frowns, and Stiles has a brief urge to punch him in the face, because Derek is acting as though Stiles' worry is coming completely out of left field. “No.”

Stiles flings his arms out, gesturing around to his bedroom. “Then why are you here?”

“They told me they'd hurt you.”

“They – they as in the alpha pack? But if they--”

“You are okay,” Derek says, almost managing a question this time. The claws have finally retracted, although Stiles can just make out a brief tint of red to his eyes, like there's an invisible camera aimed in his direction and every now and then the flash goes off.

“I'm fine,” Stiles tells him, waving a dismissive hand, because that's not the point, “whatever, that doesn't even matter, Derek, if they were going to hurt me they'd come here, they could get to my dad.”

Derek stares at him. No matter how used to him Stiles thinks he's getting, the stare at this level and proximity is still unnerving, equal parts intimidation and arousal – and that, that part's new. “Don't,” Derek bites out. He looks as though he's wrestling his way through some internal struggle to get any words out, something that remains a foreign concept to Stiles. “Your dad's safe. They wouldn't touch him.”

With effort, Stiles grits his teeth and waits, his bare toes curling and uncurling into the carpet beneath his feet with all the focus it takes to keep still.

“They want to provoke me.” Derek isn't moving away as he speaks, still gazing at Stiles as though Stiles might have some hidden wound he's been lying about that Derek can pinpoint with the power of staring. Stiles is fine. For once, he's not even scratched up from nightly excursions to the woods. “The sheriff is nothing to me. You.”

The waiting is too much. Stiles sucks at it, always has. “Me?”

Derek rolls his shoulders in the least casual shrug Stiles has ever witnessed. “They went to you first. It's not surprising, to think they'd come back.”

“I know you're like, physically incapable of it,” Stiles says slowly, frowning, trying to figure out what it is he's missed somewhere along the way, “but you're going to have to make a real attempt at an actual explanation here, because I am just not getting all this.”

“They think,” Derek says, equally slow, “that through you they'll provoke me.”

“And they think that because...?”

“Because.” Derek looks just as flummoxed by what he's saying as Stiles feels, which is only vaguely gratifying. “Because... it works.”

Stiles opens his mouth. He closes it. He tries again. “Oh.”

“I don't know why,” Derek adds, sounding frustrated.

Stiles has a renewed wave of hey, you're almost naked right now as he takes in how Derek's not moved away since he checked Stiles really was okay, and Stiles hasn't stepped back either. It's weird. It's a weird situation, and Stiles' heart hasn't settled back down at all despite the lack of danger, and so Stiles does what he always does, falls back on his old friends sarcasm and self-deprecation. “Because I'm awesome, come on, it's not my fault all the psychopaths around here recognise that more easily than you do.”

“You're pack.” Derek is still frowning, but then he goes from surveying Stiles in a general way to looking directly into his eyes. Stiles' mouth goes dry. His tongue actually sticks to the roof of his mouth when he swallows. It's embarrassing; it's even more embarrassing than being called out in class in the middle of – God, in the middle of daydreams about Derek Hale, Derek who thinks he's pack even though Stiles is just a human, just a kid who has too much time on his hands and a good instinct for what to type into google.

“I'm just a human.”

“That's – important, I told you. You being human. It means I need you around.” Derek's hands are on Stiles' shoulders again, as careful as before. Stiles' insides jolt like Derek's just thrown him up against his bedroom wall. “I need you to be okay.”

“I'm okay.” Something feels off, Stiles reassuring Derek instead of the other way around – but then, Stiles thinks distantly, over the heavy sound of his heart in his ears, that's what happens when one of you keeps going around getting shot all the time. “I'm okay.” He can't even think. “Derek.”

“Stiles.”

He sounds like Derek, rough and grumpy, but his voice is missing that tone of wishing he were elsewhere that he tends to have when Stiles is talking to him with Scott there. Derek's whole focus is on him; entirely fixated on Stiles standing in front of him.

“If they hurt you,” Derek says, voice gruff, “they won't have to wait. I'll kill them all,” and Jesus, Stiles thinks, it's the most touching thing anyone who isn't related to him has ever said to him, the most romantic moment he's experienced in his admittedly low on opportunities life, and this – this is it. This is how it happens.

One thousand and one brushes with death and fights against supernatural creatures, and this is how Stiles is going to go, his heart pounding right out of his chest, his final breath stuttering and shaky in the slow heartbeat before their lips meet.

Stiles fists his hands in the lapels of Derek's leather jacket and holds on for dear life.

For all that Stiles imagined the rough scrape of Derek's stubble, he kisses Stiles carefully, gentle, and Stiles would be embarrassed about the noise he makes against Derek's mouth, but he's past feeling anything but flushed. The soft, wet noise as their lips part makes something twist down low in Stiles' stomach.

“Well,” Stiles says, “that, uh,” and stops as Derek leans close again, this time resting his forehead against Stiles'. Stiles goes cross-eyed for a moment, tracking him. He's still holding onto Derek's jacket. He wants to stay here forever, sharing their breaths until it's all carbon dioxide and they both pass out and Derek never notices that Stiles is half-hard in underwear that conceals nothing.

He wants to know why his brain can't shut up even now, in what is maybe the first peaceful moment they've ever settled into. Maybe this is the solution to Derek's idiocy and Stiles' own awkward, human panic.

“I should go,” Derek says, but Stiles knows exactly how Derek sounds when he says something he doesn't mean, and this is it.

“Oh my God,” Stiles blurts, “you've just made me like the biggest alpha bait ever.”

Derek laughs, quiet and low, and Stiles wants to catch the sound and make out with that, too. “You'll be fine.” He kisses Stiles again, too fast, so Stiles is left leaning forward into it with his eyes still shut even as Derek straightens up. When he opens his eyes, Derek is looking determined. Dangerous.

Hot.

“I have to go,” Derek says.

“Go make your move?” Stiles raises his eyebrows, gestures to the space between them. “Not that kinda move, I hope.”

Derek's mouth twitches, then straightens back out into resigned purpose. “Not a move. A stand.” Before Stiles can ask, he adds, “You're not coming with me.”

“Come back here after?” Stiles says. He hates himself for the hopefulness in the upward lilt of his voice, but there's not much he can do about that now.

Derek pauses. He looks faintly suspicious about Stiles' lack of argument, but then nods. Stiles knows that nod well. It's the deciding it's easier not to ask questions nod.

There's no way Stiles is going back to sleep now, no way. He stands by his window and waits until Derek disappears into the shadows and out of sight, then grabs his phone. With any luck, Scott actually listened to him this time and has left his one on.

Derek going to meet alphas, pick you up in 10

Scott doesn't have his phone on – of course, because Scott and Allison are off again and Scott doesn't think there's any other reason for communication – which means that when Stiles gets there and lets himself in he has to wait for Scott to stumble out of bed and get dressed.

“Aren't your wolfy sense supposed to tingle in these situations?” Stiles asks. “Come on, dude.”

Scott gives him a wounded look. “I thought you wanted to stay out of this anyway?”

“Yeah.” Stiles shrugs. “The alphas kinda dragged me into it though, with the threatening and all.” It seems to be explanation enough for Scott, who nods and turns his attention back to his socks. “I just wanna know what's happening.” He wants to see what Derek does. “Like, if we're not there, we're left in the dark, you know?”

Scott nods again. “Right.”

“Plus,” Stiles says, and gestures at himself, the human, at Scott, the least willing werewolf ever. “What's to say they're not gonna need our help? Come on!”

It turns out that Derek and his pack don't need their help. Stiles speeds all the way out to the woods, the universal setting for all werewolf showdowns, way too practised by this point in driving like he thinks he's in the middle of a bank job, but by the time they get there the whole thing seems to be over. Once upon a time, this would have been cause for annoyance, like way to miss out all over again, but ever since the night Stiles dragged Scott out in the middle of the night and they got caught up in the middle of some hardcore horror movie action, Stiles has become a lot more accepting of missing out.

Derek and his pack are standing in a clearing, Erica, Isaac, Boyd and Jackson surrounding Derek, and there's no other alpha in sight. Stiles barely gets his seatbelt off before he throws himself out of his Jeep and very nearly decapitates himself in the process. Erica whirls around and flashes her fangs at him, but at the hand Boyd rests on her arm, she stands just a little farther back. Isaac watches warily, looking less on edge when Scott gets out the passenger side. Jackson looks bored, but that's just his face; his eyes are wide, his jaw set, scared.

Derek is on the floor. The moonlight makes his blood look black.

“What the hell was your freaking plan?” Stiles yells, ignoring the menacing air of protection the betas have got going on and striding straight over. “What, was like, your move to like, bleed at them?”

Even sprawled out across the muddy ground and bleeding from multiple areas, Derek looks put upon at Stiles' general presence. It would be disheartening, given their last interaction, if Stiles didn't know from experience that that's mostly just Derek's default facial expression, the way he looks when it's sharpened by pain. “I told you to stay at home.”

“And I told you,” says a voice, and oh look, there's Peter Hale emerging from behind a tree, and Stiles doesn't have the energy to even be surprised by that, “that having everyone here for a united front would have made us stronger. Humans and all.”

“And being stronger is something you clearly needed,” Stiles says, dropping down into a crouch by Derek's side and peering at him. “Because you're gross, man, this is so gross, you're bleeding everywhere, you are a fucking idiot.”

Derek blinks up at him.

Stiles lets out a helpless laugh, just a little choked. “You think you can just – that – you think I wouldn't be freaking out if I was just waiting at home? You've met me, why is me showing up here surprising, why is someone like, actually caring surprising to you?” Logically, he knows that Derek will be fine. He's seen Derek in worse states than this, but there's just something about the sight of so much blood that kicks off Stiles' worry instincts regardless of what he knows about werewolf healing times.

“Issues,” Peter supplies helpfully.

Derek glares at Peter and grunts. Stiles ignores Peter. Stiles ignores everyone, even though he can feel every eye in the clearing boring into his back, because his outburst with Lydia had been bad enough. At least there hadn't been witnesses to that. He just – he can't. Not now, after everything that's just happened.

He's a teenager, and hormones and attraction and feelings are hard enough to deal with without throwing near-death experience after near-death experience into the mix.

Derek is propped up on his elbows now, clearly already healing. Stiles thinks Derek might have stopped bleeding even before he showed up, actually; the stains had just been alarming. Stiles reaches out, brushes his fingertips across Derek's bruising cheek, jerks his hand back to himself and then remembers that maybe, maybe, this is something he can do now. He tries again. Derek doesn't bite or growl, so Stiles will take that.

“It's fine,” Derek announces. His voice is loud enough that he could be addressing the whole pack, but his eyes are fixed on Stiles, bright and gleaming. “There are rules. Limits. They won't be breaking them anymore.”

“That's all this was?” Scott asks, and Stiles is grateful that Scott gets there first, because that means Peter's condescending, “No, we banished a whole pack of alphas as part of our gentle evening exercises, it's just that easy,” goes his way, not Stiles'. Erica laughs. Of course she does.

“They won't touch you again,” Derek tells Stiles.

“I'm so pissed at you,” Stiles says, and through everything, this is the first time he's ever said those words out loud to Derek, and as they get out into the open Stiles finds he doesn't even mean them, not like he did a few weeks ago when they were burning through him, fiery and inarticulate. He shakes his head, laughs again, overwhelmed. “Oh my God. So pissed. You're like, the worst werewolf ever, you're worse than Scott--”

“Hey!”

“Like what kind of alpha does this, Derek, seriously, like, I don't even.”

Stiles doesn't even know. He's approaching lost for words again, that rare and unusual state of too much for even him to sort through in his head.

Instead of speaking anymore, he kisses Derek, closing that space himself this time, a mirror of the two of them in his bedroom, a faint hint of copper on his tongue this time, because this isn't it, Stiles knows. He's still the brains of the whole operation, as evidenced by the way he's not ruining his trademark leather jacket by bleeding profusely all over it.

This isn't how they die, any of them. He can still push his luck.