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“Alright, Sabrina-wolf. Sit the fuck down right now and tell me exactly what the fuck has been going on for the last two years, you enormous asshole.”
“Okay. I was actually about to text you to see if you wanted to come over so we could have this talk. Seriously though, you’re going to want to sit down, this is going to take a while because it’s so goddamn complicated. But you need to understand because this affects you as well. It also explains what Peter’s game has been all along. By the way,” He tacked on at the end. “I preferred Sourwolf.”
“Where do you want to start?” Stiles asked, because even though he hadn’t seen Derek in a couple years didn’t mean that he didn’t remember how cagey Derek could get.
“We need to go back to before the fire. What do you know about genetic lycanthropy?” Derek asked him.
“Honestly, not much really. I didn’t want to go poking around into your family shit without permission.” Stiles told him, looking at the ground.
“I appreciate it, but I don’t mind talking about my family. You guys are all just so scared to ask me. I don’t want to forget them. They deserve to be remembered.” Derek mused, lightly.
“Okay, so. When a werewolf gets pregnant, either with a human or another werewolf, there is a fifty-percent chance that the baby will be a werewolf. Sometimes the gene activates and sometimes it doesn’t and we have no idea why. Anyway, even if you don’t end up with a dominant wolf gene, the potential is always there. Someone with a werewolf parent would always survive the bite, for example, because it’s not changing anything in you, it’s simply waking it up. Do you follow?”
Stiles nodded. He was pretty sure this was the most he’d ever heard Derek talk. Like, put together.
Derek nodded. “My Dad was human, but his mother had been a witch. Magic can also be passed down genetically. I know you know about that. And my father, while not magic himself, had passed that down to my brother Jonathan. When Jonathan was 15 he started showing signs of being able to use magic, and quickly became very good at it. He was the oldest.”
“If he was in the house, why didn’t-“ Stiles started. Derek shook his head sadly, and nodded. “Because she shot him in the head. She rang the doorbell, he answered and she shot him in the head.”
Stiles choked on air. He hated her. He hated that bitch so fucking much he just wants to gut her. Repeatedly. Possibly while electrocuting her.
“Magic users start to come into their gifts between the ages of 15 and 17. It’s really rare that a shifter be able to use magic in addition to already being a shifter, so we didn’t think anything of it when Laura didn’t show any signs of magical by her 17th birthday and by the I became that age, I was so messed up from the fire, I didn’t even remember that I was supposed to be looking for something, because all I could think about was the fire. How old did you think I was when I met Kate?” Derek asked, and didn’t even skip over her name.
“I dunno, like 16?” Stiles offered.
Derek shook his head again. “I met and became involved with Kate when I was 14 years old.” He shuddered.
At that, Stiles did gasp. And honestly, he kind of wanted to gag, or vomit, or scream. Because Oh God.
“I know.” Derek assured him. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? I was just a kid.” He mused. Stiles thought he looked not quite at peace, but not like it was eating him alive either, so he took that as a win, looks like Derek had finally gained much needed perspective.
“So wait-“ Stiles started.
“21.” Derek answered because he was a fucking mind reader. “You were going to ask how old I am now. I’m 21. And no, I’m not a mind read-seriously-no can do,” he tapped at his temple, “I just know how to read you.”
Stiles took in a shocked breath. He’d had Derek arrested for murder before he’d even been old enough to drink. Fuck. He’d barely even been old enough to buy cigarettes. Not for the first time, Stiles felt like a little shit.
“Anyway, because of the fire and the fact that I had basically shut down until I was 19, made it so we never really knew whether or not I’d have magic. I’d thought it would’ve shown itself when I became the worst Alpha in history, but I guess I still had more things I had to work through, including but not limited to everything Kate and fire related.”
Stiles sat there completely focused on Derek’s story, so much so that he forgot to speak, which never ever happened to Stiles ever.
“Not to mention the fact that I thought I’d never be able to get the full shift, because I had blue eyes and was a Beta and not an Alpha, but when the work I’d been putting into stuff started to pay out like that, I didn’t exactly grow into it, but when I shifted for the first time, you know, all the way? It was like all this magic was just waiting for me? I’m not sure if that makes sense. It was just there, ready for me to grab onto, mine, and Jonathan’s too.”
“I was doing okay with it; you know? I was trying so hard all the time to balance my wolf and the magic I didn’t want anyone to know I had-” Derek started.
“Why didn’t you want us to know you had magic? Don’t you trust us?” Stiles asked sharply.
“Of course I do!” Derek hissed, the closest to angry Stiles had seen him since he got back but it wasn’t even close to minor annoyance level and Stiles was dying to bait Derek into a fight, had been for days, but Derek wasn’t having it and this wasn’t the time. “I didn’t care if you guys knew. I didn’t want anyone else to know!” He hissed at Stiles, “a pack of teenagers, with a true alpha for a leader and a blue eyed-full shifting second who can wield magic. With everything that was already going on with that fucking tree do you really think we needed more attention right at the time?”
“I’ve been back approximately 5 minutes and something has already followed me here. I need to get a goddamn handle on this Nemeton shit and I need to do it fast.” Derek said, more to himself than Stiles.
“Anyway, I had to leave, and you don’t get to be mad about that, Stiles. Actually, you don’t get to have an opinion at all, because in this case, it actually was better for the pack. I got away for a while, I was checking in with Scott and if anything really bad had happened I would have been right back here and you know it. It ended up being even more necessary though because while I thought I had everything under control, one night I had a brutal nightmare and woke up because I’d set the goddamn curtains on fire in my sleep. I knew I needed to figure out how to control it before I could be anything more than a liability. Scott’s an incredible Alpha, Stiles, what he did for me, letting his second go off on his own for two years- it’s almost unheard of.
“Why’d you come back?” Stiles asked, before realizing how that sounded. He cleared his throat. “I mean, why did you decide to come back right now?” He amended.
“Because I finally figured it out.” Derek said pulling his hair back into a knot, pointing at his tattoos. “I can protect you guys now.”
“So, what happens now?” Stiles asked.
“Now, we go see Peter, and I explain the rest. I just really want to see his face when he finds out.” Derek answered.
“That’s like a thing with you Hales, isn’t it? Just like rub everything in each other’s faces?”
Derek shrugged casually. “Family.”