Chapter Text
Derek will never know why it happened that day. Probably Stiles will never be able to explain it either.
It’s all good, it’s fine. The pack are roughhousing on the lawn outside the house while inside, Derek keeps going with the repairs. They help, occasionally, but some parts of the house are just – they’re his to deal with, and some part of him can’t let the others touch his little sister’s room, the wreck of his mother’s piano.
He has to be the one to take it apart. But the rebuilding - yeah. That’ll be for the pack. He’s getting images in his mind already, his old habit of absently sketching while he eats is coming back.
So he’s glancing over, listening with one ear as Isaac and Scott and Jackson and Stiles play some kind of lacrosse-wrestling hybrid they’ve invented, and even that is enough for him to observe their different, clashing reasons for being here.
Derek has spent a lot of years avoiding getting to know people in general. It was a fight he and Laura never settled, despite the connections she made, the unwilling flow-on effect that dragged Derek into her circle of friends. He has to practise every chance he gets, now. He’s learning pack dynamics all over again, learning this pack, and trying to control the wayward thoughts that always lead back to his family and rub the jagged edges of his heart together.
At least Peter isn’t here right now, silently observing and deploying the Ironic Eyebrow of Doom. He’s still searching for traces of Erica and Boyd, and Derek is happy to have his uncle at a distance, for now. The sense of threat from the older man is gone, but. It’ll be a long time before the pack relaxes around Peter.
Derek watches Jackson, still recovering from the bite, learning control. Not terribly well, as he sends Scott slamming into the treeline and Stiles rolls his eyes and fires a ball at the back of Jackson’s head along with some snark.
Isaac, still not quite believing he won’t come to harm here, or anywhere, really. He tackles Stiles with care and they go rolling across the grass, grunting and laughing in equal measure.
Scott, here to make sure Stiles is safe while glaring at Derek in his spare time. He races toward the stick he dropped, tangling Jackson’s legs as he passes and the blonde roars his annoyance, eyes flashing.
And Stiles. Well. That one’s a little harder to figure out. Human. Hasn’t asked for the bite, hasn’t even hinted. The kid rolls to his feet and jogs toward Scott, brushing grass out of his hair.
Stiles wants Scott to be safe, that’s clear. Has a serious hunger to learn more about wolves and creatures, about hunters, and especially about the Argents. And right now, Derek is the best source of information. But Stiles came without Scott, too, at the start. Stiles is curious, insatiably so, but not... it’s not some watching-a-car-crash ugliness. No, the kid has too much heart for that.
Derek glances over at Stiles again, something that’s become ingrained habit, to his dismay. So he sees it all happen.
Jackson, firing a ball at Stiles’ face, way too fast. Scott, pouring on the speed to intercept, wolfing out because his control is for shit, as always. And for one moment the friends are frozen in Derek’s vision.
Stiles, arm outstretched in a futile attempt to fend off the ball. Scott, one hand gripping the ball, the other clutching Stiles’ wrist, holding it right beside Scott’s face. It should have been nothing.
But Stiles whines, a high sharp sound of sudden terror and every one of them flinches. Scott, typically, makes it worse, hand tightening, fangs lengthening as he looks at his friend in confusion. His mouth is hovering over Stiles’ pulse point.
“No,” Derek shouts, and leaps from the first storey window to the ground. “Scott, let go.” The smell of Stiles’ panic is rank, his heartbeat a sudden roar in Derek’s ears. “Let go now,” he says, using the alpha voice when the idiot just freezes despite his best friend’s sudden cry of fear.
Scott’s clawed hand opens, releases Stiles, who staggers back, still whimpering, and falls to the ground. He starts to scrabble back, using hands and feet to get him away away away from whatever it is he’s seeing.
Derek’s vision is red with rage that anything could hurt this kid, this open-hearted kid with the endless stream of babble. Stiles is white-faced, breath hitching in short pants that are doing nothing at all for his heart rate. Derek turns his head to look at Scott, at a pale-faced Jackson and Isaac, frozen in sympathy.
“Go,” he says, making it a command. “An audience isn’t going to help him.”
“It’s a panic attack,” Scott says, still wolfed out, body going on alert against a threat that he can’t fight with tooth and claw.
“I know what it is,” Derek snarls, pacing toward Stiles, “now get out. I’ll take care of this and get him home.”
Scott’s eyes flick to his, automatically ready to argue and Derek stops, turns his head and drops his voice low. When he speaks, he’s growling hard enough to hurt his throat, “You’re not helping, Scott.”
“Come on, man,” Jackson says, and shoves Scott hard. “Move.” He hustles the other boys to the car and earns a nod of approval from Derek. This is what he’d sensed when he’d offered the bite, after Peter. That there could be more to the kid than ego and determination.
Jackson’s Porsche peals away in a hurry and Derek drops to his knees beside Stiles, careful to keep his wolf hidden, his face human, especially his eyes.
“Stiles,” he says, voice very calm. “Listen to me, listen to my voice.” God, he hasn’t thought about this in years, how lost you can be in your own mind.
For one horrifying moment it occurs to Derek that perhaps the flashback is of him, of Derek appearing out of nowhere in the woods, invading Stiles’s bedroom uninvited, or slamming his head into a steering wheel, but there’s no extra spike in the erratic heartbeat when he comes closer, and he breathes again.
“Listen,” he says again, and reaches out slowly, cups one hand around Stiles’s calf, the only place he can reach right now. “You’re safe, Stiles. You’re not alone. No-one’s going to hurt you.”
“Don’t want it, not you, no no no no no,” Stiles is muttering, choppy breaths in between and heart hammering and he’s going to pass out if he keeps going like this.
Derek tightens his hand enough to stop the boy’s backward motion, but nothing more. He keeps talking, low and soft and even, nudging forward in tiny fractions until he’s close enough to lift his other hand to Stiles’s neck, wrapping his palm around the nape, warm and solid.
“I’m here, Stiles, and I won’t let anything hurt you,” he says, surprised at how much he means it.
He leans in, risking getting closer, and moves his hand from Stiles’s leg to his arm. He grips the elbow, avoiding the wrist which is clearly a bad touch place for some reason, and places Stiles’ hand flat on Derek’s chest, over his heart. He knee-walks forward until he’s straddling the kid’s legs, wincing internally at the suggestiveness of the position, but there’s no bad reaction, and some of the tightness in his gut eases. Whatever Stiles is reliving, it’s not that, then.
Closer now, he leans his forehead in against Stiles’ and says, “Feel my heartbeat.” He slides his hand up the kid’s forearm and presses his palm over Stiles’ hand, guiding it onto his own chest. “Feel that? Nice and slow, nice and even. There’s no threat. No-one here but you and me. We’re just breathing, slow and easy. Can you breathe with me, Stiles?”
Stiles is still shaking, heart pounding but he’s stopped the low babble of words and Derek’s gonna assume that means he’s listening. They have to slow down Stiles’ breathing before he passes out, so he leans in, cheek to cheek, hoping a familiar scent will help, and says again, “Breathe with me. Breathe.”
They’re like that for a long time. Gradually Stiles is able to slow his breaths, heartbeat returning to something more normal, the sharp scent of fear fading into the background. Derek eases back a little, not sure how Stiles is going to react to being this close to a werewolf – specifically, Derek, but he keeps their hands pressed to his chest, not ready to give up the contact yet.
Finally, Stiles opens his eyes. He blinks a few times in confusion, eyes darting from Derek’s face to the Jeep, around the clearing, to the house and back to Derek again.
“What-”
He blinks some more and Derek watches that sharp brain come fully online.
“Oh God,” he says, and now Stiles smells of embarrassment. “Fuck. I just- did I just have a fucking panic attack in front of Jackson?”
Derek is surprised enough that his mouth twitches into a half-grin. In some small corner of his mind he tucks away the thought that Stiles didn’t immediately cringe about Derek in the same way.
“And you- you took care of- oh my God-” the smell of embarrassment flares again, matching the rising tide of red in Stiles’ cheeks as he looks away, bringing a hand up to cover his face. “Fuck my life,” he mumbles, and Derek takes pity on him, lets his hand drop and scoots back enough that he’s at least no longer in Stiles’ lap.
“It’s okay,” he says simply. The adrenaline and the constant stream of words he’s kept up for the last half-hour have worn him out. It’s not emotion that has his hands shaking, it’s physiology, he tells himself firmly.
“Really. Is it.” Stiles sighs without looking up. “Well. At least I wasn’t naked.” There’s a sharp spike of embarrassment/arousal in his scent that Derek ignores, like always. He remembers well enough what it’s like to be a teenage boy, to be a virgin. More than that, he learned a long time ago – at his mother’s knee – that just because you smell something doesn’t make it true or right, or any of your business. People have thoughts all the time, sudden reactions that die away. Doesn’t have to mean anything.
The silence lengthens and Derek keeps his eyes on the house, makes sure to move his head like he’s taking in the whole thing, give the kid no clue just how very much Derek is focused on him right now. He’s thinking back over what he saw, Scott’s fangs next to Stiles’ wrist, I don’t want it, the sharp smell of terror. Stiles is breathing deeply, still staring down at the grass when Derek says, “Peter.”
There’s a hitch in Stiles’ breathing, and he swallows. Then says tiredly, “Yeah.”
“He... offered you the bite.” And doesn’t that get a reaction, right down in Derek’s gut, a slice of pure rage that Peter wanted to sink his teeth into what was rightfully-
No.
Stiles jaw clenched and he looked away. “He told me I wanted it.”
And now Derek’s heart is thundering. He draws in a deliberate breath, lets Stiles’ human scent filter through his senses so that he doesn’t do something completely stupid. Stiles wasn’t bitten, wasn’t forced like Scott-
“Did he give you a choice?”
“Yeah,” Stiles mumbles, and yanks some grass out of the ground. “But-”
Derek grinds his teeth for a moment, then makes sure his voice is even. “He’s a master manipulator, Stiles. Whatever he said to you, let it go.”
“Yeah. Except.” He shrugs, shakes his head in that loose way of his, and says, “I don’t know. He. Maybe wasn’t wrong. I mean, it’s a lot, y’know? Just knowing werewolves are real, that was like, boom, mind blown. And then to see Scott wolf out, to meet you, it’s like, all of a sudden my life is a damn movie, shirtless hotties and all-”
There’s another quick bloom of arousal in Stiles’ scent, to match the pink in his cheeks as he hurries on, “-and y’know, family feuds and kidnappings and life and death and of course, in this scenario, I’m the comic-relief-slash-damsel-in-distress, which is just like, my life, of course-”
“You’re not either of those things,” Derek says, though it’s hard to pick one thing to respond to out of the flood of words. He’s not about to admit how relieved he is to hear the return of the stream of consciousness.
Stiles stops. Glances sideways in Derek’s general direction. “Yeah?” He starts to relax, then straightens, because of course nothing is ever simple with Stiles. “No, wait. Am I the dead meat? Damn it, how did I never see this before? I only have one name, am I the generic goddam crew member without a last name who-”
“Stiles.” Derek doesn’t look at him. “Galaxy Quest is not a guide to life. You’re not the dead meat. You’re the brains.”
“You know Galaxy Quest?” Stiles is staring at him, open-mouthed.
Which is Derek’s cue to roll to his feet. “We got cable hooked up to our cave three years ago,” he deadpans. “Laura was addicted to Hoarders.” Then he blinks, freezing. He hasn’t mentioned his sister like that, casually, since he got to Beacon Hills.
Stiles rolls to his feet silently, for once. Head down, he brushes grass off his shorts. When he looks up, Derek’s gut clenches at the recognition, the sympathy there. They look at one another and then Stiles smiles faintly and says, “You know this means you can’t skip out of Trivial Pursuit anymore. No more pretending to be Amish-ly disconnected from pop culture. Pack games night is so happening.”
Derek stands, too, appreciating the attempt at re-establishing normalcy. He knows his part well enough, so he scowls. “Over my rotting corpse, it is.” A kid Stiles’ age won’t know that one-
“And now he quotes Warlock!” Stiles gapes. “Oh, it is so on.”
“Lets get you home,” he says, cursing himself and trying not to smile.
Stiles, typically, keeps talking at normal volume while Derek jogs over to close up the house. From the safety of the living room, Derek lets himself smile, shoulder slumping a little in relief at hearing the monologue. The drive back to Stiles place in the Jeep goes the same way – Derek silent, Stiles at full throttle. They both know he’s overcompensating, trying to leave the panic attack behind, but it’s harmless enough.
“So, that’s decided, then. This weekend, pack vs humans tournament.”
Derek frowns at that, and Stiles climbs out of the Jeep before he even opens his door. Before he can speak, though, Stiles leans back in, one hand on the roof, eyes fixed carefully on the gearstick.
“Uh. Thanks. For the-” he makes an indeterminate gesture with his free hand and Derek nods jerkily. Stiles straightens before he can speak, and for a moment Derek’s going to let it go. Then he closes his eyes and curses his own cowardice. He climbs out of the Jeep.
“Stiles,” he says, and waits until the kid has slammed his own door shut and they’re staring at each other over the roof. “My two little sisters were human, not wolf. My Dad, too.”
Brown eyes blink at him, uncomprehending, and he sighs. Words. Always he struggles with god-damn words.
“Pack is pack. You don’t have to be a wolf to belong.”
It’s worth the effort when he sees the tiny grin curve the corner of Stiles’ mouth. He backs toward the woods at the end of the street and says flatly, “But you do have to bring snacks.”
He’s running before the kid can reply.