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“Son, we’ve talked about this.”
Stiles twists around from his table, overflowing with rolls of parchment covered in scribbles, notes and random ink splatters, broken quills, books and cookie crumbs. Wiping the back of his hand over his mouth and swallowing the last of his snack, Stiles attempts to look innocent; he’s seventeen years old, and yet, he still feels a little guilty when his father catches him sneaking a cookie before dinner.
Which is always a grand, annoyingly drawn-out affair full of ass-kissing and forced smiling when you’re the crown prince of the kingdom. Sometimes, Stiles would love to be a commoner – except that half of them can’t read and none of them have the access to the royal library so that’s a no, in the end.
“Yeah?” he says, as innocently as he possibly can, because he’s not sure what his father’s talking about. It could be the snacks, it could be sneaking books out of the library, it could be reading said books with sticky hands.
“Yes,” King John sighs and looks around for a place to sit. Stiles scrambles out of his chair because in case this talk isn’t about him hoarding books in his room, he doesn’t want to point it out with the fact that in the space of seven hundred square feet, his royal father doesn’t have anywhere to sit. Five books and two scrolls are swept off the armchair, and while the King makes a face when they end up on the ground, he doesn’t say anything, which means that this isn’t about the books.
King John pulls a scroll out of his robe’s pocket, and Stiles cringes. “Your teacher came to me about this.”
“Well, I, personally, thought it was very well-researched and concisely worded?” Stiles tries, but his father’s grimace tells him he’s not getting away with it this time.
“It was supposed to be an essay on diplomatic relations with mountain tribes, son.”
“Well, technically I wasn’t wrong, because dragon sightings have predominantly happened near mountain ranges?”
The heavy sigh really says it all.
“Stiles. For the last time, dragons are not real.”
“Ha, that’s where you’re wrong!” Stiles brightens and stalks to his table. “I’ve got a book right here, of course it’s all veiled hints, but once you notice the pattern it’s easy to spot that these occurrences all have something in com-“
“Stiles.”
“No, seriously, Dad, just gimme a second here, you’ll see-“
“Stiles.”
He rummages through the notes on his table frantically until the heavy hand of his father grips his shoulder and freezes him in place. Stiles turns around, and the disappointed look in his father’s eyes twists his stomach into tight, unhappy knots.
“Dad,” he starts, voice a little choked under the weight of the King’s gaze. Stiles has never been frightened of his father, because the man has never been anything but gentle and kind with his child, with anyone, really, except the criminals who have hurt the King’s people – but there’s still fear gnawing at Stiles’ insides, the fear of being a disappointment, of not being the son his father wants to have. The son his father, his kind, wise father, deserves.
“You need to let this go, Stiles,” the King shakes his head – in the next moment, he slumps a little and pulls his child into a tight embrace. “I know how you get when you put your mind to a task, and I’ve always admired your determination, but some battles you can’t win, son. Especially when your battle is fixating on a creature that doesn’t exist.”
The tension keeping Stiles taut like a bowstring slowly seeps out of his muscles, leaving him boneless and heavy in his father’s arms. He buries his face in his father’s heavy robe, curls his fingers in the velvet and sighs.
“It could help us,” he mutters – he’s had this argument with his father before, about how strong the dragons were supposed to be, how they would help against all these threats looming above their heads from the neighboring kingdoms at war with each other. Stiles’ father has managed to maintain neutrality so far, but that solution has always been short-term at best, the outcome of the whole mess uncertain, and Stiles dreads being the one to plunge the kingdom into a conflict once it’s his turn to take the throne. He hopes that won’t happen, for years and years to come, but eventually, it will be his responsibility to lead the country.
And it would be so much easier with a few dragons at his disposal.
His father’s words ruffle Stiles’ hair before the King kisses his son’s temple.
“What will really help us the most is you applying your incredible mind to things that matter. Learn about the world that’s right here, Stiles… not about the one you can only dream up.”
…
Stiles intends to keep his promise to his father, even though it technically wasn’t a promise per se. He does want to make his dad proud, and he does want to protect the kingdom by becoming just as wise…
…but the thing is, Stiles’ good intentions usually fly out of the window whenever he comes across the tiniest hint reinforcing one of his obsessions. The hint that brings dragons back to the forefront of his mind comes in the form of a hushed whisper he only half-catches in the street when he sneaks out on a market day; he’s pretty sure his dad knows he’s doing it, but he never said anything and Stiles always found the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy of his impromptu trips agreeable enough. He wears Scott’s clothes, anyway, and it’s not like Stiles is particularly recognizable without velvet and gold and the backdrop of a royal palace to highlight his identity. So he sneaks through the city, chats with the sellers at the market and with people at the inn, plays dice and cards with soldiers and generally has fun, on most days like this.
Until, of course, he hears ‘dragon’ while he’s picking out the best apple for a snack. His head snaps towards the source of the sound so fast he nearly gets whiplash; he tosses the old woman a coin that could probably buy fifty apples instead of one and takes off after the men in long dark cloaks.
Stiles, if he says so himself, is pretty good at blending in and following people – a skill honed through the years mostly by sneaking after his father and trying to figure out what the King was currently dealing with. With the aid of the busy street, it’s no hardship to weave through the crowd, keeping his distance from the cloaked men. He doesn’t really hear what they’re discussing, or if they’re talking at all – but they seem like trouble and Stiles’ gut tells him that even if they have nothing to do with dragons, they sure have their hands full with something interesting.
Probably dangerous. But interesting.
He has to fall back when the men take a turn towards the poorer parts of the city – not enough people there to hide behind, and Stiles’ clothes may be plain, but not so ragged they would fit in here, so he’s left sticking to corners and alleyways, crouching behind barrels and trying not to draw too much attention.
It’s a tough task, and Stiles’ heartbeat hammers in his throat when the cloaks reach the city gates. Technically, Stiles isn’t supposed to leave the city limits, especially not in times like these when neighboring kingdoms’ assassins could be lurking nearby. However, he can’t let these weird men out of his sight; before he can think twice about it, he’s ducking out of the gates, past the sleepy soldiers guarding the entrance, and into the woods.
Following the men becomes even harder when there are no buildings to hide behind. Stiles has to pay close attention to his every step, lest he betray his presence with a twig snapping under his foot. He doesn’t particularly love the idea of being stabbed out here, so he keeps as safe as he possibly can, but the hours it takes for the men to stop walking itch under Stiles’ skin, impatience and anxiety and excitement.
A simple log hut with wooden shingles and one tiny window becomes visible through the thick undergrowth, trees leaning close to it as if they want to protect the tiny building from unwanted attention. Stiles crouches and waits when the men go inside, waiting for something, anything that would call for some action. He doesn’t know how much he could do out here, alone, unarmed, and he has no idea what exactly it is he’s even waiting for, but he waits anyway, until his legs start cramping. He hisses a bit when he puts his hand through some nettle and ends up scratching furiously for a good long while, then sits under the tree and stares at the cabin… but after a while, the light of the day starts dying out, always so fast under a thick canopy of trees, and excitement becomes boredom.
There’s no use following the men if he doesn’t know what it is they’re planning – if they even are planning anything. Stiles looks around as the shadows blur together; the tiny window blinks with candlelight. The men won’t see him unless they walk out, and he should have enough time in that case to duck back into the bushes, so Stiles sneaks closer to the cabin and peeks through the window.
The men are arguing, that much is clear. Stiles can’t hear what the argument is about, but they’re gesturing wildly at each other, especially the old guy with silvery hair and a really nasty grimace, like he wants to kill everyone around him. Stiles shivers a bit and tries to stare at their lips to at least guess what it is they’re talking about (and whether it has anything to do with dragons) when he hears a rustle and a creak from around the building, and then an odd, quiet stillness.
The hair on the back of Stiles’ neck rises, goosebumps rippling over his skin. It sounds like something large is trying to be very, very still – Stiles doesn’t even know how he understands that, but there’s something big on the other side of that hut, and he needs to know.
He ducks and sneaks around the hut, praying to whatever gods might exist that the men won’t choose that moment to reach an agreement and walk out into the open; there’s a small clearing behind the hut, and if they so much as take one look in that direction, Stiles won’t be able to hide in time. But before he can reconsider if it’s smart to put himself in danger like that, something shifts in the shadows on the other side of the meadow, near the tree line, and it’s big and quiet and Stiles is mesmerized.
He keeps to the edges of the clearing to give himself at least some cover, but the closer he gets, the more he notices the stillness in the air, the lack of crickets and night birds where there should be a cacophony of sounds. His heart picks up the pace again, slamming against his ribs as Stiles presses forward; the night falls quickly in the forest and he doesn’t have much to go on except the heaviness in the atmosphere, the general sense of something huge in front of him.
He can barely breathe when he sees the shift again – and this time, it’s more than a feeling, it’s an actual motion, hard to detect in the darkness but there, yes, that’s…
Stiles stops in his tracks and blinks, trying to make his eyes work in the nonexistent light of the early night, but the contours he makes out aren’t enough. He takes a step closer, then another and another, and suddenly he’s standing less than ten feet from something huge. It’s hard to describe – maybe because it doesn’t fit the paintings and engravings of dragons Stiles has seen in his books. For one, this thing is a lot more canine than reptile, that much is clear from the shape of its head, the position of its legs, even the quiet little puffs it makes as it breathes. Its skin doesn’t look like fur, though – dull-colored scales, in some shade of grey or black, most likely, and Stiles swallows the urge to step closer and touch. Suddenly the thing sniffs the air, and Stiles realizes the wind has shifted – so far it worked in his favor without him even noticing, but now, he’s standing downwind and the creature’s head, easily as big as Stiles’ whole torso, lifts off the ground and tilts, like the creature’s thinking.
More shifting in the shadows and Stiles can suddenly see edges of wings, sharp and leathery, folded against the creature’s sides. The huge head turns a little and its eyes are on Stiles, freezing him in place: but it’s a peculiar feeling, not quite fear and not just curiosity. All the books said that dragons were ruthless and almost cruel, but this one… well, the thing’s glare is pretty fierce, and yet Stiles could swear there’s intelligence in the reflective orbs.
“Hey,” he whispers, and inches closer – a creak across the clearing makes him twist around. The door on the hut opens and one of the men stalks out, still yelling about something; Stiles’ heart stops in his chest, but then the man twists around and walks back in, pointing at someone and yelling some more. Stiles swallows and turns to the creature – that’s when he notices the chain around its neck, and the wound slicing through one front leg.
No. There’s no way he’s letting those men, whoever they are, capture a dragon and then… what. Kill it? Sell it? Parade it around like a curiosity? A part of Stiles’ brain whispers that at least, people would finally believe him that dragons are real, but he chases that thought away, cruel and unwanted. His heart is racing at the inescapable proof of his theories, but he recognizes the need for action at this moment: any second, the men can walk out of the cabin and then, Stiles won’t have enough time to do anything.
“Hey, buddy,” he tries again, raising his hands slowly and showing off his lack of weaponry. “I wanna help you out of here, okay? But you have to let me know you understand that I want to help. Do you understand?”
The shiny eyes glint at him and Stiles would swear that the gaze comes with the dragon equivalent of a raised eyebrow. Stiles sighs.
“Yeah, okay, I didn’t really expect you to talk. I mean, it would’ve been cool if you could, but your throat probably doesn’t work the same way human throats do and so you can’t-“
The creature lets out a loud, irritated puff of air, and teeth make an appearance. They’re impressive teeth, sharp and long and plentiful. Stiles yelps and takes a step back; the creature’s eyes narrow and it shifts its head towards Stiles, as far as it can go with the chain around its neck looping around several trees nearby. It’s not far, a few inches at best, but Stiles appreciates the effort.
“Alrighty, no talking,” Stiles nods, looking at the creature again. “How about you… swish your tail if you understand?”
For a second, he doesn’t even breathe, watching the long tail half-hidden in the grass; but then, it twitches, and Stiles nearly whoops victoriously out loud. Which would be a bad idea considering he’s trying to steal a dragon from… some guys. Poachers, or whoever they might be. They’re definitely not knights, that much is certain – no knight would ever leave a creature like this, chained up so it can’t move more than a few inches, and very obviously hurt.
“Lift your tail again if you promise you won’t hurt me while I try to save you,” Stiles recites, as clearly as he can, and yes, there it is, a definite flick of the tail against the long blades of grass. Stiles grins.
“Tail again if you’re a real dragon?”
This time, the swish is accompanied with another show of teeth and Stiles decides to leave the questioning for a later date. Hopefully. He’ll probably never see the dragon again after today, and it breaks his heart a little, but saving a life is more important, and at least, now Stiles will know he’s been right all along.
He steps close enough to get his hands on the chains, and he’s surprised at the sudden wave of warmth that washes over him, radiating from the creature. He didn’t expect the dragon to be so warm – he knows all the tales of fire-breathing, sure, but he didn’t think it would translate into body heat.
“You’re like a furnace,” he chuckles, and the dragon grunts – Stiles decides to take his fun where he can and allow himself the humanoid interpretations of the dragon sounds. “Easy there. If you huff at me and accidentally fry me with your dragon breath, I won’t be able to help you.”
Another huff, and the creature tilts its head. Stiles frowns at the chains – the metal’s as thick as his fingers and he definitely won’t be able to break it, and there’s no lock in sight that he could pick. It’s merely chains, intertwined and looped around the dragon’s neck, twisting around the thick trees nearby in long strands. Even if Stiles could figure out how to untangle that web, he doesn’t have the time – the loud voices of the arguing men carry towards them in the eerie silence of the night, and Stiles squeezes his eyes shut.
“I’m going to try something here, so don’t freak out, but I don’t have any other way of setting you free, and I don’t even know why I’m telling you because I have no idea if dragons are prejudiced against witches, and technically I’m not a witch, I just, I have something that might help you out of here-“
He’s interrupted by loud, frustrated swishing of a tail that’s at least as long as Stiles himself. He takes a deep breath and rests his hands on the chain, a few inches off the dragon’s throat just in case: it’s not like Stiles has had great practice in this particular skillset, but he knows enough to at least give it a try when all else fails, as it has just now. He closes his eyes and searches for that shiny, sparkly feeling inside his stomach – he always envisions it that way, at least, something bright and powerful, like a ball of light. He finds it swirling inside, just out of reach, and it takes a few long inhales and exhales for him to get the swirls to move, unfurl and spread out until the sparkling travels through his body and finds release through his palms, his fingertips, energy brought to the surface crackling along the metal of the chains. It’s a struggle not to let himself be distracted by the yanking on the chains – the dragon must be recoiling from the magic, and Stiles hasn’t found anything in his books on how creatures react to spells because while dragons are a myth to most people, witchcraft has always been a taboo, not to be spoken or written about. His mother used to say as much to Stiles, back when she was still alive, when she was teaching him to find that ball of light inside of him and use it. She didn’t get very far before she got too sick for their little secret lessons, but Stiles remembers her every word now and pushes more of the swirly sparkles down his hands. For a moment, he fears it won’t be enough – it’s almost as if he’s burning himself out, using all his energy to do this, and he doesn’t know how much will be necessary before the chains give way. There’s a loud creak in the distance and then shouting, growing louder, and Stiles struggles to maintain his concentration. He feels faint and weak, but finally, finally the chain crumbles like dust under his touch and Stiles lets out a shaky breath; just as he opens his eyes, his vision blurry and unsteady, he sees the men in the cloaks running through the clearing with loud, angry yells.
He sways on his feet and looks at the dragon – it’s watching the men too, the enormous head shaking and suddenly the big body stretches and rises from the ground. It’s tall, Stiles barely reaches up to its shoulders, and when the wings unfold, Stiles lets out an exhausted chuckle.
“You’re free,” he whispers, no strength for anything louder left in his body. He thinks the men will catch him now – kill him, maybe, or use him for ransom, who knows. But he can’t find it in himself to care. The dragon will escape, and Stiles knows he did a good thing. The thought of his father flashes before his eyes and Stiles winces a little: he doesn’t want his dad to be hurt by Stiles’ death, but it’s too late for that now.
“Go,” he swats at the creature’s… elbow? Knee? His reward is an angry look of bright eyes.
The men are drawing close, just a moment and they’ll reach Stiles.
“Go!” he tries to shout, hoarse and painful, but the creature glares at its captors – and then there are giant teeth in Stiles’ arm and he’s being dragged away from the trees. It hurts, but Stiles can’t find it in himself to struggle; he stumbles in the direction the dragon is pulling him, hissing in pain. They’re clear of the trees in the next moment, and the men are close – Stiles can see they all have swords, gleaming in some sort of a bluish hue. He wants to ask what it is: he’s never seen weapons like that, but nobody will answer him, and then the dragon releases him and the teeth catch around the back of Stiles’ shirt and he feels his feet pull away from the ground.
One of the men swipes his sword towards them – it rips the sole of Stiles’ boot open, but they’re soaring, he sees the tops of the trees and then there’s only sky and the angry shouts of the men underneath.
The last thing Stiles sees before he passes out is the soft flickering of starlight everywhere around.
…
The wake-up is not nice. His whole body hurts, and it’s impossible to say whether that’s the result of using magic, being carried through air in the dragon’s jaws, or sleeping on hard ground. The sound of water dripping somewhere nearby makes Stiles’ head ache and his stomach heave, so he pushes up to a sitting position and groans, blinking his scratchy, dry eyes open to figure out where he is.
As expected by the sounds and smells, it’s a cave. Stiles hasn’t really been to many caves before, but really, they all look kind of the same to him so he couldn’t tell where he was even if his life depended on it.
Well. It kind of does. But he still can’t tell.
“Where am I?” he tries, and looks around some more. It’s not really dark; there are several holes in the ceiling that provide enough light for him to know a few things. One, he must’ve slept through the night, because daylight filters through those holes: it’s been, at the very least, eight to ten hours since he passed out on (above) that clearing. His dad must be going crazy by now, since Stiles failed to show up for dinner and breakfast. Maybe lunch. Dammit.
Second, thoughts of food make his stomach twist a little and churn in hunger at the same time. Great. He hasn’t planned on an impromptu dragon-rescue mission when he left the castle, so all he has on him is that one apple he bought off that sweet old lady in the market.
A quick pat-down tells him that he does not, in fact, have the apple anymore. Fantastic.
Three… the dragon is sleeping curled up just a few feet from Stiles, which explains why he’s not freezing. It’s not a particularly calming sight, especially when Stiles leans back on his arm and feels the scratches and tears in his skin, courtesy of dragon teeth.
Four: dragons are actually real. Very real. Extremely, grandly real.
“Holy shit,” he mumbles and rubs a hand down his face. He waits a moment for the nausea to pass, and then struggles to his feet; he still feels weak, and his throat is raw and dry, so he stumbles towards the small pool of what looks like fresh enough water, and kneels to get a drink. It tastes like heaven, cool and sweet in his parched mouth, and he gulps down as much as he dares in order not to upset his aggravated stomach further. Then, he undoes his vest, pulls his shirt off and cleans the bite marks as well as he can with nothing more than water. It stings, but it also soothes the burning and stinging, so he doesn’t complain much, aside from an occasional hiss when he stumbles upon a particularly deep scratch.
He checks his hips and waist, because he vaguely remembers being carried off by his belt – the back of his pants is ripped, and so is his shirt, but otherwise, Stiles is mostly intact.
He must be making enough noise during his self-inspection that the dragon rouses from sleep, because when Stiles gets up and turns away from the pool, a pair of shiny, dark eyes greets him from way too close; one startled yelp later, he’s sitting sprawled in the shallow, icy water, shivering and groaning.
“Man, now I’m all wet. And cold. I know it’s probably no big deal for dragons, what with your heat and all, but humans get cold pretty easily, did you know that? So I just want you to remember I saved your life, and if I die of hypothermia, you should at least feel sorry about that, yeah? Can you do that for me?” he babbles as his teeth start chattering.
The dragon tail swishes up and down, tiny dust motes swirling in the air from the motion.
Stiles stares.
The dragon, motionless as it is, looks… amused.
Stiles swallows.
“Alright,” he says slowly. “So… you’ll be sorry if I die, huh? I guess… that’s good.”
He takes the dragon in again – the shadows of that forest and all the chains really didn’t do the creature much justice. It’s dark grey, almost black along the spine, but the scales look dull and… sick, though Stiles couldn’t say how he knows. The creature really looks more like a wolf than a giant lizard, apart from the wings, and maybe the tail; it doesn’t have paws, but the heavy clawed feet are wider, thicker than Stiles would expect in a dragon.
In a drawing of a dragon, at least; he reminds himself that this is the real thing, and casts one more thorough look at the creature. That’s when he notices the wound on its front leg – it looks worse than it did last night, a mixture of black and red and mangled flesh where only a long cut used to be. Stiles frowns and looks up, into the dragon’s eyes: it seems as if it tried to bite its own leg off.
Or bite something out of the wound.
“Hey,” he speaks, in a voice as soothing as he can manage, and takes a step closer, hands outstretched in a placating gesture. “That must hurt, huh?”
The tail swishes almost angrily, violently, and the spikes lining the side of the dragon’s head pull back, flattening against the wide skull.
“I’m not going to hurt you – well, okay, I’m not saying it won’t hurt, I just want to see if I can do something, alright? If you haven’t noticed, us humans have these nifty little things called hands, which are probably a lot more useful in treating wounds than teeth. Or claws.”
His babbling gets him another tail flick, but the dragon doesn’t move when Stiles comes closer and crouches to look at the wound up close.
It’s about a foot long, so deep that Stiles would swear he sees flashes of bone. The muscle and tendons are badly mangled, ripped by the teeth no doubt, and some sort of black goo is oozing out of the wound, slicking the scaly skin down to the long claws. Stiles shudders at the sight, and the dragon huffs, twisting its head towards Stiles and pressing its dry snout to Stiles’ side. He’s still not wearing a shirt, so the touch tickles as well as startles, and Stiles yelps, but the dragon pressed forward again, nosing at Stiles’ hip.
“Hey, buddy,” he chuckles, fear giving way to a strange sort of fondness. This is a creature Stiles has been obsessed with since he was nine years old; and now, he has the privilege of actually seeing one in real life. They’re huge, and certainly dangerous… but Stiles doesn’t feel particularly threatened, even though his arm still kind of hurts from being dragged through the clearing. But the creature only wanted to protect him, right? It didn’t hurt him out of malice: it could’ve clearly snapped Stiles in two or bitten his arm off if it tried.
“I like you too,” he offers as he stands up, so that the dragon’s nudges won’t topple him over. He puts one hand over the dragon’s long snout, much as he would to pet a horse.
The dragon recoils and gives him an almost offended look. Stiles laughs, but raises his hands in an apology.
“I’m sorry, I won’t do that again, alright?”
A huff, and the dragon is poking its snout against Stiles’ hip again, nudging insistently until Stiles blinks and reaches into the pouch still dangling from his belt.
“Is there something in here you want?” he asks, keeping his movements slow and calm. There’s really not that much – for a moment, Stiles thinks it’s the several coins he still has left, that maybe, the legends of dragons hoarding treasure are true, despite the fact that he can’t see any heaps of gold lying around. Maybe this is just the dragon’s front hall and it keeps the riches in the bedroom; maybe, this dragon is just particularly bad at collecting treasure.
The theory dies a swift death when the dragon rumbles unhappily and nudges Stiles’ coin-filled hand with its nose until the coins spill across the floor, forgotten.
“What is it, then?” Stiles sighs and reaches into his pouch again. There’s no food; he checks if the dragon’s interested in the folded blank parchment Stiles carries with him out of habit, but that’s not it. Finally, he reaches for the small knife, barely the length of Stiles’ hand, and the dragon lets out a whine-growl and swishes its tail furiously. A few tiny rocks let loose from the nearby wall.
“Heey, hey, calm down, if you bring the whole place down on our heads, I won’t be able to do anything, okay? Another thing humans are kind of fragile against is rockslide.”
The swishing becomes twitching, and the dragon nudges Stiles’ hand with the knife. Then, it turns its head towards the wound, staring at Stiles like it’s willing him to understand. Stiles swallows, the wheels in his mind turning faster than he’s prepared to deal with, on an empty stomach, shivering and still a bit tired.
“Do you… want me to help you with that?” he asks slowly, and an urgent flick of the tail tells him he’s got it right. He stares at the knife in his hand and feels blood drain out of his face at the implications. His stomach turns again, and Stiles looks up into the massive dragon face, shaking his head a little.
“No. That’s… buddy, I’m sure you’ll heal fine, you’re a dragon, I-“
A swish and a growl, and Stiles is ready to wet his pants (metaphorically speaking, because he’s still dripping cold water all over the ground at the moment so there’s not much on him to get any wetter).
“You can’t be serious,” he sighs, but his fingers curl tight around the handle of the knife as he holds it up for the dragon to see. “Look at this. I cut apples with this, that’s about it, your claw is bigger than this knife! What the hell am I supposed to do, just hack at your leg with this… toothpick?!”
The dragon stares. Obviously, it doesn’t see a problem with that.
Stiles is ready for another long explanation of all the reasons why this is a bad idea – but the dragon whines then, a low, pained sound that reverberates through Stiles on a deep, oddly intimate level. The creature twists its head away and squeezes its eyes shut, and more black goo oozes from the wound.
Stiles winces, even as his stomach keeps rolling violently as he remembers the blue, glowing blades of the men. What if that’s the reason the dragon is sick? Stiles doesn’t know how normal, clean dragon wounds are supposed to look, but he’s pretty sure black goo can’t be good in any living creature’s flesh.
“Is it because of their swords?” he asks with a frown, and the tail swishes in affirmative.
Stiles isn’t sure how poking at the wound with his tiny knife will help, but if there’s a part of a blade broken and stuck in that wound, or if cutting away the rotting flesh can help, then he can at least try. He hasn’t found a real, living dragon just to let it die a slow, painful death while Stiles sits by and does nothing.
“If you bite me… actually I won’t be able to do anything to retaliate because I’ll be dead, but I guess that’s the threat there, if you bite me I’ll be dead and I won’t be able to do anything, including helping you, are we clear?” he points the knife at the dragon in a warning, and the tail obediently twitches. Stiles really shouldn’t find the movements of something this big reassuring.
“Alright, then,” he sighs and kneels down next to the injured leg, taking a deep breath. The wound kind of smells, from up close, and Stiles gags, but steels himself and plunges the knife into the mess of torn muscle and blackened blood.
The roar that reverberates through the cave leaves Stiles’ ears ringing, but at least, he doesn’t really hear the next one.
…
Stiles throws up twice before he’s done – the smell of rotting flesh does nothing to settle his stomach and the pained howls he more feels than hears by that point aren’t so great either, but when red blood overpowers the black goo and the wound looks aggravated and very much open but clean, he slumps back with a feeling of a job well done. He’s dug out two shards of blue-glowing metal that look like bits of a broken blade, and he’s pretty confident that there aren’t any left.
He cleans off the worst of the blood from his arms in the pool and sleeps after that, exhausted and sick to his very core; he wakes up to darkness and to warmth surrounding him. The dragon is slumped right next to him, curled a little and its tail thrown over Stiles’ legs, right where his pants are still stained in black and brownish red. He pushes it off, his knees a little numb from the weight, and struggles to his feet. His stomach is churning loudly now, in the way Stiles deciphers as hunger, so he gets some water from the pool again and sighs at the exhausted strain in his whole body.
The dragon stirs behind his back and Stiles turns to him, a small, hopeful smile on his face.
“How’re you feeling?” he asks, which is maybe stupid, but a weak flick of the tail and a quiet rumble tell him enough to feel content.
“That’s good,” he nods and gets back to the dragon, sitting on the ground and leaning against the creature’s warm side. He falls asleep before he can ask any more.
The next time Stiles opens his eyes, the cave is bathed in the sunlight from the ceiling holes again, and it makes him realize it’s been two nights now that he hasn’t come home. His dad must be going crazy… Stiles sighs and struggles to his feet.
“I gotta go,” he says quietly when one dark eye cracks open, peeking at him and following his movements. He risks a pat to the dragon’s side, and checks the wound; it’s by no means healed, but it’s on the way, flesh knitting together much faster than it would on a human. “You’ll be fine now. Just don’t get caught again, yeah? It was great meeting you. I always believed you existed, you know, so… I’m glad I was right. Dad will freak out when I tell him-”
The growl startles him a little and he blinks, licking his dry lips and biting the lower one for a moment.
“Um. I won’t tell anyone?” he tries – but when he takes a step towards where he believes the entrance must be, based on the occasional draft blowing through the cave, the dragon gets to its feet and steps in Stiles’ path, making him scowl.
“Look, buddy, I really have to go. My dad will be really worried if I don’t show up – he’s probably worried already, it’s been two days, and he doesn’t have anyone but me, so I have to go, okay?”
Another growl, and Stiles crosses his arms over his chest.
“What do you want me to do?” he snaps, frustrated. “Stay here with you forever? Why would you even need a human? I never believed the tales about dragons feeding on virgins so don’t go proving me wrong, alright? Not that I’m a virgin, in case you really eat those-“
The creature snorts and gives Stiles the same head-tilt people normally give him when he says something ridiculous. Stiles sighs.
“Alright, maybe I am, but that doesn’t give you the right to make me your lunch, or a very bony, unpleasant snack, do you hear me?” he points at the dragon’s snout with a huff. “And I need to eat, by the way! I can practically feel my body digesting itself, it sucks as a feeling and I would very much like for it to be over. So if you don’t mind-“
He manages about ten feet this time before there’s a scaly mountain of ‘unhappy’ in his way again. Stiles groans.
“What do you want from me?!”
The dragon regards him for a moment and then narrows its eyes. It shifts towards the back of the cave, then snaps its head back to glare at Stiles for a moment, then takes another step, glares again, until Stiles throws his arms up in the air and groans:
“Alright, you want me to wait? I’ll wait. But this better be good, scale-pants.”
The dragon looks at him like it’s considering whether leaving Stiles alive outweighs the benefits of eating him right here, right now, but after a moment, it stomps off, huffing and puffing like Stiles managed to offend it to its very bones.
Stiles finds the concept amusing enough that giggling about it keeps him occupied for the several minutes it takes the overgrown lizard-wolf to get back.
The dragon carries something between its teeth, that much is obvious, and Stiles tries not to yelp when it’s dropped at his feet. He glances at the thing in mild disgust because dragon drool: it looks like a carcass at first glance, but closer inspection reveals that it is, in fact…
“A book?”
What the hell does a dragon do with a book? Stiles picks it up after the sound of insistent huffing tells him that it’s expected, and turns it over. The leather cover is mostly ripped and a little (a lot) moldy, so Stiles has to suppress the urge to drop it and go wash his hands. The binding creaks painfully when he opens the tome, but the pages are beyond repair: the book must be pretty old, or the damp atmosphere of the cave is extremely damaging, because the writing is smudged across most pages.
The dragon huffs again, and Stiles looks up from the destroyed book with a raised eyebrow.
“How do you expect me to read this. You should’ve kept it somewhere dry if you wanted to get any use of this, dude. Wait. Are you even a dude?”
He leans to the side a bit and his eyes slide over the dragon’s ribs, down to- yeah. The creature plops down on its ass and gives him what can only be a disapproving scowl. Stiles shrugs:
“Yeah, sorry, no peeking. So, are you a guy dragon?”
Swish. Stiles nods.
“Alright, then. I’m Stiles. I know,” he adds quickly, when the dragon tilts its head like it – he? - doesn’t quite believe that, “it sounds weird, but trust me, my real name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so just call me Stiles. I mean. In your head, or whatever.”
The dragon inclines his head as if he’s nodding, so Stiles gives him a smile.
“What do I call you?” he asks, and the dragon huffs and shifts, and Stiles winces. “Sorry. You can’t talk, huh, even if you can understand- wait. If you can understand me, maybe you can still tell me things. I’ll just… do you know the alphabet?”
The dragon makes an irritated sound and Stiles chuckles.
“Yeah, alright, I guess that was a stupid question, since you understand me. And you have a book. Even though you can’t read it – that’s why you wanted my help, huh? Anyway? I’ll start with the alphabet and you do your tail thing when the letter’s right, yeah? Okay. A, B, C…”
Five swishes and a couple of minutes later, Stiles is blinking at the dragon in mild confusion.
“Derek? Your name’s Derek?”
Swish and a grumble.
“That’s a weirdly human name, for a dragon.”
Swish, swish.
“Really? So it’s human. Did you have a human friend before who named you?”
The dragon shifts a little on his feet and growls, then paces restlessly here and there. Stiles shrugs – alright, not a friend, then… but how did he get the name ‘Derek’? Stiles’ eyes catch on the devastated book and he picks it up again, flicking through the pages. Something just bugs him about it enough that he keeps looking, until he finds a half-ruined illustration that makes his eyes widen.
“This… Derek, I know this book,” he mumbles. The dragon’s at his side in a flash, and Stiles looks up into the huge, dark eyes with wonder. “My mom used to have a book like this. I think it’s still in her private library, somewhere… I don’t really remember much about it, but if you want me to read it for you, I could get it and come-“
There’s a loud noise from somewhere behind Stiles, where he thought the entrance would be. Both of them turn to the source and Stiles tenses as he recognizes footfall and the quiet clinking of metal against metal. He steps back, and Derek steps forward, a low growl vibrating through the air. Stiles doesn’t think as he settles his hand on the side of Derek’s injured leg – he doesn’t know if the dragon feels his touch, but he doesn’t want to see people torn apart.
He doesn’t want to see Derek torn apart, either, and if those men from the hut found their way here, then both of them are in danger; maybe if Stiles comes forward with who he is, they won’t want to hurt him.
However, they will probably still hurt Derek, and then claim that they saved the prince from a dragon, which is the exact opposite of what Stiles wants to do.
The first man falls into the cave through the narrow opening in the wall with a rallying scream. Derek crouches and everything about him screams ‘attack‘-
Stiles leaps forward between the dragon and the knight.
“Stop!” he yells, as loud as he can, and the dragon, for some reason, keeps still. Tense, but still – it’s better than nothing, and Stiles turns to the knights spilling into the cave. Because they are knights, not the men from the forest, but actual knights of his father, good men who only want to protect, at least in most cases.
The voice of their prince is enough to give them pause – until one of them calls out “The Prince is hurt!” and they all charge forward again.
“Don’t hurt him!” Stiles screams and runs towards them, arms outstretched madly and wishing they could go wider. “He’s not dangerous, he didn’t hurt me, he saved me, alright?”
The men, six of them now, falter in their charge, and look to their leader. The man pulls his helmet off and frowns at Stiles in confusion – but it’s good, Stiles knows this one, and he slumps a little, waving with a small smile:
“Hi, Jordan. Long time no see?”
“Where have you been?!” Knight Parrish scowls, then remembers himself and straightens his back. “Your Royal Highness.”
Stiles chuckles and turns to the dragon, because he can practically feel the tension seeping out of Derek (and everybody can hear the low growl still escaping the dragon’s throat).
“Relax, buddy, they’re not bad men. They’re my father’s knights, okay? They won’t hurt you. Right?” he throws a warning glance at the knights, who look more confused than violent now, and probably relieved that they have found him alive. His dad’s not one of those nobles who would execute his troops if something happened to Stiles before they found him, but nobody wants to bring their King bad news.
Knight Parrish looks at the dragon with a grimace one would expect to see on someone facing a death sentence.
“What in the name of Lord is that?” he sighs, and Stiles grumbles.
“I told you. A dragon. In fact, let me say right here that I told you so, numerous times, in several places, on many, many occasions, that dragons were real, and nobody believed me, so, here, I called it.”
Stiles can’t help if his tone is more smug than respectful, but hey, the knights must be used to that, having dealt with him before. They all look vaguely uncomfortable, armor rattling as they shuffle from foot to foot and keep giving each other weirded-out glances, but they’re not attacking, so Stiles beams and steps back to the dragon, patting his side.
“And this is Derek, by the way. Say hi to the knights, Derek?”
The knights stare. The dragon lets out a low, warning growl. Stiles snorts.
“That’s no way to say hello. Bad dog. Dragon. Bad dragon.”
Derek, for a change, growls at Stiles, who laughs. He doesn’t know how he’s so sure that the dragon won’t attack him, but hey, Derek had his chances and he blew them on bringing Stiles moldy books and making Stiles cut up his leg. The knights tense at the sound as one, and Stiles rolls his eyes:
“Don’t panic, he’s totally not a bad guy. He was hurt by some men in the woods – do you know anything about them? There was a hut, maybe two hours’ walk from the east gate… they had Derek chained up.”
The knights don’t look particularly comfortable discussing animal abuse in relation to a dragon, but they still frown in thought and murmur for a while, until Parrish shrugs:
“Never heard of them. We’ll have to check the place out. Now, shall we, Your Highness?”
Derek lets out a loud, warning growl again and steps forward, nudging Stiles in the hip. Only when Parrish unfastens his cloak and holds it towards his Prince does Stiles realize he still hasn’t put on his torn shirt… and that his ass is still half hanging out of his ripped pants. So, yeah. Cloak would be good.
He swings the rough fabric over his shoulders and ignores Derek’s unhappy murmur. But when he tries to take a step forward, the cloak catches on something and stops him in his tracks.
Turns out that ‘something’ is Derek’s teeth, and the knights have their swords out in a second. Stiles sighs.
“Derek, I have to go. I told you about dad, didn’t I?” he says quietly as he turns back to the dragon, ignoring the dragon pout as he pats Derek’s nose. “I have to go. I really do. But I’ll come back with the book, okay? I’ll read it for you. Thank you for saving me, and I promise, I’ll come back.”
He stands there for a long moment, running his hand over the tiny scales covering Derek’s face. They’re a bit more shiny than they were when Stiles first saw Derek, so maybe when he heals, he’ll be one gleaming ball of dark silver. Stiles likes the thought… what he likes a lot less is the thought of leaving Derek behind. What if he gets captured again? He’s been hurt before, and he’s still not properly healed… the mental image of Derek chained and suffering tears a hole in Stiles’ chest and he sighs, lowering his head a bit to press his face into the dragon’s nose.
“Knight Parrish,” he calls out once he straightens his back again. He hears the tell-tale clatter of a knight standing to attention – no matter what Jordan might think of Stiles’ life choices, he’s a good knight, loyal and brave, and he will obey his prince’s command. “Tell my father I will be back tonight. And I want the south courtyard cleared – no one enters without my express permission, am I clear?”
“But, Your Highness-“
“It’s an order, Knight. Deliver my message to your King.”
He makes his voice deliberately hard, and Parrish doesn’t protest anymore. The knights shuffle out, and Stiles sighs, tugging the cloak closer to his body; he hasn’t realized he’s been a little bit cold until the cloak was over his shoulders. And maybe he wasn’t, not with Derek almost always close by.
“Guess you’ll have to fly with me one more time,” he tells Derek with a smile – the dragon doesn’t seem upset by the idea, and he settles down on the ground, tail curled as if to keep Stiles in the semi-circle of Derek’s body. Stiles leans into the warmth and nods. “Alright, then. We’ll fly when it gets dark enough, so that nobody sees you. I want to show you off, but I think we need to get people used to the idea of you first, okay?”
Before they leave, Derek paces and huffs until Stiles picks up the moldy book and carefully folds it into the edge of Parrish’s cloak.
…
“Stiles!”
His dad’s voice pushes tears into Stiles’ eyes and he slides off Derek’s back, running to his father as fast as he can. He collapses into his father’s embrace with a laugh turned sob, and they hold each other for a good long while before they’re ready to let go.
“Dad. I’m fine, I promise. Derek took care of me. Well. Aside from food, I could really do with a steak right now, or even cheese, or anything.”
“Dear lord…”
His father’s words make Stiles glance up again, and he follows his dad’s line of sight over his shoulder, to the dragon currently taking up a noticeable portion of the small southern courtyard. It’s the one closest to Stiles’ own room, that was why he told Parrish to have it ready, so that Derek could stay somewhere safe – but his father doesn’t seem to be ready for the idea of dragons, even though Stiles is sure Parrish would’ve warned him.
“Is that…”
“Yeah, Dad – that’s Derek. He’s a dragon. Isn’t he awesome?” Stiles grins, and his father shoots him an incredulous look.
“A dragon.”
“Yeah! I told you there were dragons.”
“And you brought him here.”
“Uh… yeah?”
“Couldn’t you think of any reason, any at all, that would make you believe that wasn’t such a great idea?”
“…no?”
In all honesty it never occurred to Stiles to think twice about it – he wanted to go home, and Derek didn’t want to be left alone, apparently, plus there were the men from the forest and Stiles just… didn’t think.
His father sighs, and Stiles feels vaguely guilty, so he lets his mouth run to get him out of the awkwardness.
“But Dad. He’s awesome. And he saved my life. They were going to torture him, or sell him or kill him, or all of that, and I couldn’t let that happen. He’s been good to me – and he’s smart, too! He’s the one who told me his name. Well. We worked it out. And he has a book he wants me to read to him – Mom used to have the same book, I think.”
The mention of his mother makes his dad’s eyes go all soft and wistful for a moment, as always, and Stiles almost feels bad about that. But his father is looking at Derek again, and it’s more speculative than worried this time, so Stiles guesses he’s done something right.
“I really want him to stay, Dad,” he presses on. “He needs to heal – they cut up his leg pretty badly, and don’t you always say that it’s our duty to protect everyone who lives in our lands, no matter what?”
His dad’s skeptical look makes it clear that King John never meant dragons when he taught that particular lesson about being a good leader, but Stiles doesn’t let that bother him. After a long, drawn-out silence, the King sighs and shakes his head.
“Fine. Just until he heals. And you,” he turns to the dragon, and the fierce glare he gives the huge creature is the exact look that makes him a great King: fearless and determined to protect his people. “If you hurt my son, I don’t care how big you are. I will have you diced, do you understand?”
Derek, dutifully, swishes his tail, and Stiles laughs.
“That’s a yes,” he translates for his dad, grinning wide. “I taught him that. See? He’s smart.”
Derek huffs, as if it’s offensive that anyone could think him a dumb beast. Stiles can practically hear his dad rolling his eyes as he turns to go.
…
“Is this the one?” Stiles asks as he walks into the courtyard where Derek’s lounging in the sun, like a giant cat. He would probably chew Stiles’ leg off if he made that comparison out loud, so Stiles doesn’t risk it.
The dragon’s nose twitches as Stiles approaches, and he cracks one eye open – when he spots the book Stiles holds up for him to see, Derek practically snaps to attention, head held high and tail flicking up and down. Stiles chuckles and lowers himself into the slightly trampled grass (the courtyard really wasn’t made to withstand a dragon’s weight), leaning back into Derek’s side.
“Alright then. I’ll read it to you. It’s gonna be boring, though, I’m warning you – it’s just the history of these lands. You sure you still want me to read it? Wouldn’t you rather I picked something nice and fun, adventure stuff? I have loads of books on dragons, too, wouldn’t you like those better?”
Derek’s tail lifts and drops heavily on Stiles’ booted feet, getting his point across and effectively trapping Stiles in place. Stiles laughs and snuggles into Derek’s side, opening the book on the first page.
“Alright then, buddy, don’t say I didn’t warn you. So. Here we go. According to legend, after the mountains and rivers were created by the gods, the lands spanning the current Kingdom of Beacon Hills were given to the people of…”
…
From that point on, Stiles divides his days between his studies (just enough to keep his dad off his back about neglecting his education) and reading to Derek. It’s a slow process, a couple dozen pages at a time before Stiles dozes off – but Derek doesn’t seem to mind, and he keeps Stiles so warm that sometimes, Stiles just sleeps through the night out in the courtyard, snuggled into the dragon’s warm body. One morning, he even wakes up to the patter of rain above his head and finds Derek’s wing stretched over him to provide shelter; Stiles can barely keep the grin off his face for the rest of the day, even if Derek keeps thumping his tail insistently when Stiles jokes that Derek just did it to protect the book.
Stiles is not fooled – the fearsome beast is growing fond of him, and Stiles would be lying if he said he wasn’t dreading the day Derek would be declared fit to leave.
He notices that Derek’s wound has scabbed over on day six; on day nine, there’s barely a trace left. Stiles keeps on reading, stubborn and unwilling to point out that Derek can leave now: he has a feeling that Derek’s waiting for something, even though he doesn’t really know why.
The answer only comes after two full weeks of Derek’s visit to the royal palace. Stiles has been bringing chunks of meat for Derek to eat, a live rabbit the first time, and after Derek’s disgusted grimace (and no small amount of property damage as he chased the bunny through the courtyard), pork or venison in neat dragon-bite-sized portions. It has worked out for both of them, and Stiles has grown used to falling asleep next to Derek, with the book still open on his lap: that’s maybe why Stiles startles so badly when Derek starts swishing his tail madly, shuffling about and growling in the middle of Stiles’ sentence.
“What’s the matter with you?” he sighs and makes a motion to close the book – suddenly the dragon’s face is too close for comfort and Derek is nudging the book open with his nose, staring at Stiles like he wants to convey a message.
“Do you want me to continue?” Stiles blinks, and Derek huffs again: he hasn’t been this impatient for a while, and Stiles doesn’t like that he doesn’t understand. He’s grown attached to Derek over the past two weeks, and he feels like he can decipher Derek’s tiny expressions and loud sounds quite well, usually, so this reminder that he doesn’t know Derek so well throws Stiles off-balance.
“Alright,” he sighs, and opens the book again, finding the place where he’s stopped reading. He takes up the sentence again, frowning as he tries to find some special meaning in it. “After the battle, the victorious Hale clan took the leading position- what is it with you today?“ he snaps when Derek growls again and gets up so suddenly that Stiles’ back thumps against the ground, hard.
For the first time since he arrived in the tiny enclosed courtyard, Derek looks trapped; he paces up and down, tail flicking wildly and the spikes around his face turned down, flat against his head the way Stiles remembers from the night he rescued Derek from those men. He looks… scared, if a three-ton creature can achieve that look, and he huffs and grumbles under his breath, then snaps his attention back to Stiles.
Stiles holds up his hands, and Derek’s gaze trails to the book.
“Is it something about what I’ve read?” Stiles raises an eyebrow. Swish, and a growl: Derek’s spikes are lying completely flat, and so do his wings, making him appear smaller and… maybe not scared, after all, but… hurting?
“Do you want me to go on?” Stiles repeats gently – Derek looks distressed, and if he doesn’t want to continue, it would be understandable, if frustrating, because Stiles doesn’t know how to help. But Derek inclines his head in what looks like a bow, or a nod, and Stiles nods back. “Fine. But if you trample on me, I’m gonna be pissed-off, just so you know. Alright. Where did we… oh. -the victorious Hale clan took the leading position among the warring tribes. Four generations of the Hales ruled the land, however, not much is known about the Hale period, due to an unfortunate fire which wiped out the family records as well as all the heirs, c.a. 1140.”
Derek roars and the pain is evident in the primal sound; Stiles’ heart clenches and he tries to step closer, comfort Derek, but the dragon’s tail flails around wildly and Stiles barely jumps out of the way.
“Derek!” he yells, but it’s no use – Derek roars again, and the courtyard’s entrance flies open: knights spill into the open space, swords drawn and eyes fierce, and Stiles can’t believe this is happening again. He can’t let them hurt Derek, not when he’s already hurting, not ever, and he’s running towards the dragon before he can think twice.
“Derek!”
He’s got his arms around one of Derek’s legs because that’s all he can reach, the leg that he has cut up and cleaned not so long ago, and he feels the powerful muscle bunch under his grip – he’s going to be thrown aside, and then the knights will hurt Derek, and Stiles will rather die than let that happen.
“NO!”
He doesn’t hear anything for the rush of buzzing in his ears, and his vision is filled with light, even after he squeezes his eyes shut. He expects the knights’ screams, Derek’s roaring, but he doesn’t hear any of it, and it takes a while before Stiles realizes that dead silence has fallen over them, still and peaceful and completely out of place in this moment.
His heart hurts from how hard it’s beating against his ribs; he opens his eyes, terrified that he’ll see Derek dying right next to him, stabbed through by one of the knights. But all he sees is Derek staring at him from above, still breathing, still alive, and there’s a golden shimmer everywhere, reflecting in Derek’s wide eyes.
Stiles lets go of Derek’s front leg and steps back, turning towards the knights; they’re staring at him too, kept behind some sparkling, gold-tinted barrier hanging in the air, dividing them from Derek and Stiles. The knights are whispering among themselves, unnerved and cautious, Stiles can see that, but he can’t hear them, and he turns to Derek in his shock.
“Did you do this?” he whispers, and Derek inclines his head. Confusion, not agreement. Stiles frowns, looking down at his hands, and remembers the feeling of his magic, the way it always felt like light, like sparks. He doesn’t feel it now, not quite, and he doesn’t remember trying to cast a spell... but he must have, something in him must’ve wanted to protect Derek badly enough that it created a magical barrier on a scale Stiles hasn’t even dreamed of before. He releases a shaky sigh, and Derek’s nose is pressed into his spine when he stumbles backwards, suddenly scared.
He focuses, or tries to, but the sparkly wall barely dims, no matter how much he tries to will it away. The knights trail out of the courtyard, disappearing beyond the doorway, and Stiles is left alone with Derek and his shaking hands.
It takes a moment, but he ends up bending down and picking up the book. Derek looks at him like he’s expecting Stiles to explode any moment, and Stiles can’t take it, so he opens the book again and tries his best to focus on the task at hand. Reading, yeah, he can do that – he can read, and maybe stop freaking out over revealing to a half dozen men that he has the very ability which people whisper about in terrified, low voices when the nights are stormy and long.
“The recorded statements of contemporary subjects of the Hales,” he reads, and ignores the tremor in his voice – he’s going to panic, soon, but he tries to push away the tension as best he can. Focus on the words, don’t let anything else in, that’s his mantra as the letters seem to blur before his eyes. “claim that the clan leader at the time, Talia Hale, had three children: Laura, Derek, and Cora.”
Derek lets out a quiet whine, and Stiles’ eyes snap up to the dragon. He still feels the panic pressing down on his throat, but this is more important, it has to be, or the steady golden shimmer at the edges of his vision will drive him mad… as it has his mother.
“Derek?” he asks, and the dragon almost flinches back; Stiles looks to the book again, then back up, and something in his brain clicks with the startling clarity that only the ones truly on the verge of madness achieve – at least that’s what Stiles remembers, from another book, poetry, maybe, but it fits with painful precision. “Is that you? Derek Hale…?”
The dragon’s howl is quiet this time, mournful and pained, and Stiles wants to laugh, but he suddenly can’t breathe. Does magic take everything away from people, every time? Did it take Derek’s family from him – was someone like Stiles, like his mother, did the magic drive them mad and wipe out the whole family? Did his mother, or his sister, turn Derek into the creature he’s been for, gods, six centuries, is that right?
He wheezes and struggles to laugh it off, but the pressure in his chest is too great. He pushes his hand against his ribs, nonsensically, and it doesn’t help one bit; his eyes water and he goes down to his knees, the book falling out of his grip. His vision blurs, and he feels more than sees Derek’s front legs coming around him, Derek’s chest suddenly pressed against Stiles’ side while Derek’s head pushes him closer from the other side, enveloping Stiles in the warm strength of a dragon’s embrace. He leans into it, heart hurting and tears spilling down his cheeks, and the pressure in his chest builds and builds and Stiles knows this is the end, this is how he dies, this is how his magic spills all out at once and drives him mad until he doesn’t know his father, his friends, or even Derek.
He wants to say something, make it mean something, but all he has the strength for is pressing his face into Derek's chest and wishing that the dragon, the man trapped inside, will be safe for as long as possible.
And then, suddenly, it feels like someone has stuck a needle in Stiles’ stomach, a long, painful needle right in the center of where it hurts the worst, and the tension starts bleeding out, bit by agonizing bit. It drips out of him like poison, drawn out by some unknown force, and Stiles is dizzy and weak by the time it eases enough to let him take in a real breath again. He’s shaking and boneless but Derek’s right there, and finally, Stiles feels his body relax, leaving him trembling violently from the force his muscles have been exerting. He breathes out, and oh, what a sweet feeling it is, air rushing out and then back in. He opens his mouth to say he’s fine, but as his hearing comes back, there’s his father’s voice, screaming his name.
“Stiles! STILES! Oh dear lord, what have you done to him, you beast! Leave him! Leave, or I swear to my son’s name, I will kill you myself!”
Stiles wants to protest, but his mouth won’t obey his commands; he wants to tell his dad no, he wants to plead with Derek to stay, but he can’t find the strength. The golden glow’s gone, and he’s pulled from Derek’s chest: his father’s arms are around him, and in any other moment it would be comforting to have his dad with him, but Stiles’ heart hurts and his head is full of fuzz.
The last thing Stiles hears is the loud flapping of leathery wings in the air, and then everything is darkness.
…
He comes to with a wheeze and a startle, but he’s too weak to sit up for real, and he falls into the pillows almost as soon as his body tries to snap up.
“Derek,” he rasps, and a cup appears in his vision; he drinks, greedily, until he coughs against the feeling of cold water down his throat and he has to stop.
“Derek,” he repeats, and his father’s face comes into focus: the man looks tired, almost haggard, like he’s aged ten years in the span of- “How long…?”
“You need to rest, Stiles,” his dad says, and even his voice sounds sad, but Stiles can’t obey him, not now.
“Where’s Derek?”
“He’s gone. I couldn’t let him stay, not after what he’s done to you, son.”
Stiles’ throat is dry again, but he knows water won’t help this time.
“No,” he sighs, almost a sob but not quite, “you don’t get it, Dad, he… he saved me. I was… like mom, I lost control, and he…I don’t know how, but he-“
“He’s gone,” his father repeats, and his words are made of steel, cutting through the air and Stiles’ heart like knife through butter. “He’s not coming back, if he knows what’s good for him. You need to rest, so that you can get well soon. I won’t have this… creature near you again.”
“No, Dad, he saved me, he helped-“
“We will not discuss this again, Stiles. It never would’ve happened if I never let that thing stay, and I will not let you indulge in this foolishness and endanger yourself. Now rest.”
King John leaves in a swirl of robes and anger, and Stiles spends a long time watching the ceiling with stinging eyes and a sense of emptiness in his stomach.
…
All the books on dragons are gone.
That’s the first thing Stiles notices when he’s strong enough to get out of bed, three days later. The studies, the philosophical debates only using dragons as metaphors, the historical books hinting at the possibility of dragons, they’re gone, and not just from Stiles’ room: his desk has been cleared while he slept, all his notes, all his research taken away. No – they’re absent from the library, too, when Stiles finally manages to sneak inside, against the express wish of his father. Even the tiny book full of colorful pictures and fairy tales that his mother used to read to him as a little boy; there was a dragon on the cover, unrealistic and painted bright, startling blue. All of it, gone, hidden or possibly burned, and Stiles recoils at the thought of knowledge destroyed like that, simply because his father does not understand.
It’s a good thing he’s not looking for dragons anymore.
Several times, a knight appears to tell him to go back to his room, rest some more, stop flicking through pages and pages of dusty tomes. Every time, Stiles snaps at them, threatens them with magic if need be, and every time, they end up scurrying away, having achieved nothing. Stiles has never been cruel before, never pulled rank or exerted the power of his status without regard for others, but he’s on a mission now, and there’s no place left for compassion where only the urge to help Derek resides.
Finally, his father appears in the hidden doorway to his mother’s private library; it’s a tiny room filled with old tomes and dusty air, inaccessible to anyone else. The King leans against one bookshelf and watches Stiles, as if he thinks Stiles doesn’t know he’s there when his neck is prickling with his father’s pointed stare – but he ignores his dad, as long as he can, before the man finds it in him to speak.
“Stiles. You should go back to your room.”
He recognizes the order concealed in the deceptively soft tone, but he refuses to bow. He won’t obey – not today. He turns another page and his shoulders set into a stubborn line against his father’s sigh.
“Stiles, do you hear me? You have to go. I can’t let you stay here and- do this to yourself.”
“I’m not doing this ‘to myself’,” he says, in a monotone, and pretends he’s reading even though he can hardly focus with his father right there.
“Yes, you are. What do you think you’ll find here?”
Stiles twists around in his hard chair, and the expression on his face must be quite a difficult sight, because his father almost recoils from the very force of it.
“I have magic, Dad, and it will kill me, there’s no denying it,” he hisses. “I’m trying to find a way to keep myself alive a bit longer, so if you want me to sit around and just wait for madness, I won’t.”
He knows he’s being cruel, perhaps deliberately, but he refuses, refuses to bow down to fate, to what someone thinks will happen, should happen, to him or Derek or both. He won’t tell his father that Derek saved him, not again – he will find Derek, and help him, and then prove his words with facts. And even if Derek won’t be able to stop Stiles’ descent to madness: if saving a life is the last thing he does, then so be it.
His father winces at Stiles’ words, and Stiles can see that he’s thinking of his mother, who went mad when Stiles was ten and died when he was twelve, weak and ashen and still screaming hate and fear and helplessness. She was unrecognizable then, leaps and bounds from the kind-hearted woman who read stories for Stiles and taught him all about butterflies and honeybees and different kinds of rocks, and Stiles sees every painful second of those twenty-six months play out on his father’s face when Stiles snaps the same misdirected rage at him.
But he can’t stop, and he doesn’t know how much time he has left: his mother was strong, and kept the pain going for two years, but she couldn’t have done much in the end, and Stiles needs to do, while he still can.
His father leaves, a half-broken, pale man with nothing left to lose, and Stiles hurts a little as he watches him, but he doesn’t call out. Instead, he turns to his books and tunes out everything and everyone again.
…
There are guards at the gates, and Stiles would bet they have the orders not to let him leave.
Tough luck – Stiles has been an expert on sneaking out undetected since he was about thirteen, so it’s no hardship for him to duck his head, find the opportune moment and slip out of the castle, out of the city, without raising any alarms. He’s sure they will soon realize he’s gone, but he strives to be beyond their reach by then.
He strides down the forest path, eyes flickering left and right to figure out how he was led to the log hut that first time. His fingers tangle in the strap of his bag – provisions are more of a false hope than a necessity, but he doesn’t know for sure he’ll find Derek where he found him before. It’s the only clue he has, though, the hut and its inhabitants: and Stiles is determined to milk that opportunity for what it’s worth, find out where Derek might be hiding and go after him while he still can.
The hut seems deserted when Stiles finally finds it; there’s no light behind the one tiny window he sees as he approaches. But he hears a crackle of dry twigs from the back and the memories rush back to him with force that pushes him forward even faster.
There’s a peculiar smell in the night air, wet and heavy, and Stiles only figures out what that is as he rounds the corner of the hut and walks onto the clearing.
Derek’s there, in all his glory, wings stretching towards the sky and teeth bared, but there are no chains in sight; the damp air tastes coppery on Stiles’ tongue all of a sudden and his boots squelch on the blood-soaked ground as he stops just a few feet away from Derek.
The bodies can hardly be called that – only the dark tangle of fabric hints that they are the same men that captured Derek before. Or they might not be: Stiles doesn’t know, and he hardly cares. He’s seen the cruel way they have treated Derek; for a second, Stiles thinks that if this is what one deserves for cruelty, then maybe Derek should tear into him next.
But Derek just watches him, blood-stained and still, and Stiles lets his fingers un-claw from his bag.
“I found a way,” he says, and he sees Derek swallow; his scales are glinting in the full moon’s light, and Stiles isn’t sure if it’s their natural state or if it’s the blood. “I can help you. Turn you human.”
The long tail flails among the broken blades of grass, and Derek tilts his head, like he’s poring over the idea. Stiles doesn’t wait for him to reach the conclusion: Derek, as beautiful as he seems, is the result of magic gone wrong, of pain and other people’s mistakes, and Stiles is going to make it right.
But when he approaches, Derek takes a step back. Stiles has to step over someone’s arm to get to him; he thinks that if there weren’t trees behind Derek preventing him from taking another step away from Stiles, the dragon would.
“I just want to help you,” he says, and Derek shakes his head, like a dog would to get rid of excess water. Stiles thinks a drop or two lands on his face, several more on his clothes, but he doesn’t care.
“Don’t you want to be you again?“ he asks. Even in the faint light, he can see Derek’s expression shift: he looks trapped again, like that day in the courtyard when Stiles read about his dead family. Stiles understands that, understands the wish to be someone, something else – but he also knows that deep down underneath that, there’s the desire to be just himself and alive and well.
Derek flaps his wings and his head tilts towards the sky – for a moment, Stiles thinks he’ll take off, spread his wings and get away from Stiles, never to be seen again. He holds his breath: he’s determined to help Derek, but he won’t trap him, never that. They watch the stars flicker, almost drowned out by the aggressive light of the moon, round and mockingly complete. It will fade, not tonight, but soon, the orb never fully itself for too long, and Stiles thinks there’s some odd, twisted symbolism in it that he’s too tired to fully grasp.
Derek looks back at him, and his wings fold along his sides. He looks resigned when he almost bows to Stiles, head going low, and Stiles lets out a slow exhale when he finally touches the scaly skin again.
“I missed you,” he mutters, because if he doesn’t say it now, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get the chance again. Tonight might end with him and Derek both walking away on human legs, two different paths that won’t ever meet; it might end with Derek running away when Stiles finally goes mad. At this point, all that’s left for Stiles is trying, and hoping that it will go as well as it possibly could.
The spell itself isn’t difficult: Stiles’ magic adjusts to the visualizations quickly and he lets it flow, even as he feels the sparkly golden light overtaking him again. Soon, there will be a day when he won’t manage to push it back, when it will drown out everything that has ever made him who he is, and there’s harmony in resigning himself to that thought, accepting what is inevitable even as he feels it washing over him.
He feels stupid and slow when his vision blurs again – he really has to stop making a habit out of fainting – but before he’s pulled under, he feels human hands on him, strong and yet gentle, and he has to smile, but maybe, he only does in his mind.
…
There’s a stranger at his bedside when Stiles wakes up, but he doesn’t have to ask when he focuses on the man’s eyes. They’re more golden now, like there’s light behind them that hasn’t been there before, and Stiles likes that a lot.
“Derek,” he breathes, and it’s the first time that Derek can actually smile at him. He does so like he doesn’t quite remember how, a little lopsided and weird, but it makes Stiles’ heart expand almost to the point of pain.
“I’m here,” Derek says; his voice sounds a little like his quiet, rumbling breaths used to, sometimes at night when Stiles rolled over against Derek’s side and snuggled into the smooth scales. Stiles decides he likes it: he likes Derek’s face, too, high cheekbones and a strong jaw, framed by a shadow of a beard against his cheeks and messy dark hair over his forehead. His ears are a little bit funny, and it makes him so human and beautiful that Stiles nearly chokes on his next breath. Derek seems to sense his inability to speak, because he reaches out and grasps Stiles’ hand in his own. “I’m here.”
Stiles squeezes back, and it takes a while before he can speak again. He spends that while watching Derek, learning the shapes of his face as he has once before.
“Are you…” Stiles tries, and Derek shakes his head – then nods, as if he’s not sure what exactly it is he’s answering.
“I’m fine. You took care of my curse… and I took care of yours.”
That gives Stiles pause: he raises an eyebrow and tries to sit up, but he’s still a bit too weak to manage, so he ends up squirming against the pillows until Derek leans over and helps. His hand is warm against Stiles’ back, and Stiles decides that he doesn’t mind being helpless all that much when Derek’s right here to provide support, just as he used to do before, with his giant dragon head.
Stiles liked it then, but he has to admit, despite his decade-long obsession with dragons, that Derek’s human hands are better.
“What do you mean?” he mumbles, and doesn’t protest when Derek holds up a cup of water to his lips.
“I mean the overflow. My clan…” Derek’s voice goes quiet, but he continues, and Stiles has seen the dragon’s pain before, so he knows what a struggle it is for the man, “we are naturally good at that. Leeching magic off those who have it. Your clan always struggled with this, having too much… we used to help each other, back then.”
Stiles doesn’t know what to address first: his eyes go wide over the rim of the cup and he nearly drowns in the water that goes down the wrong pipe. After a bit of embarrassing coughing, he finally decides:
“Wait, does that mean you have magic too? And what do you mean, my clan?”
Yeah, both at once, that’s good. Derek chuckles a little – Stiles thinks he could listen to that sound forever, but maybe he’s still a little delusional from the exhaustion. Or maybe it’s the magic, finally driving him mad.
“Magic wasn’t a problem, in my time,” Derek shakes his head. It makes his messy hair fall into his forehead, and all Stiles wants to do is reach up and push it back (and maybe feel it slip between his fingers). “All the major clans had their own. We had harmony, balance… your people had protection. Others were destruction, like the men who caught me. The same people who killed my family.”
Derek puts the empty cup back on the table, a motion so deliberately slow and controlled that Stiles’ heart aches for him again.
“I’m so sorry,” he mumbles, and Derek looks back at him with sorrow, but also with openness, honesty, and trust.
“Without you, I’d be dead, Stiles. You don’t need to say ‘sorry’.”
Stiles feels like it’s the beginning of an end, somehow, like Derek will say that all he wanted was to express his gratitude and that’s why he waited. That’s why… he must’ve gotten Stiles back to the palace, Stiles realizes, because he’s in his own bed, in his own room, and Derek’s right there.
His heart lurches, and he swallows as he thinks about what that means.
“My dad-“ he starts, but Derek interrupts him, shaking his head again.
“He did what he thought was right. He only wanted to protect you.”
“Don’t leave,” Stiles blurts out, afraid that Derek will follow that with ‘and he was right’. Because Stiles’ dad has been right about many things in life, but Stiles is not ready to accept that Derek’s place is anywhere but here.
Derek looks at him, for a moment, and Stiles’ heart stops: the corners of Derek’s eyes soften, in a way they couldn’t before, and a small, private smile graces his lips.
“I won’t. I’ll stay right here, and I’ll make sure what happened to your mother won’t happen to you.”
Stiles draws in a sharp breath – he never told Derek about that, and that means Dad must have: a show of trust and acceptance that leaves Stiles breathless, in the best possible way.
Derek shifts in his seat and leans forward, and his lips graze Stiles’ forehead, the faintest of touches. Stiles shivers and curls his fingers in Derek’s shirt, keeping him close, just for a moment longer. Derek’s still wearing the shirt Stiles brought for him in his bag, to that blood-soaked clearing – he smells human and warm and amazing, and Stiles breathes him in, eyes fluttering closed.
“That’s good,” he murmurs and tilts his head just so – he’s not sure if he bridges the distance or Derek does, but the next moment they’re kissing and it’s like nothing Stiles could’ve imagined, slow and delicate and warm, with so many promises passing between their lips without a single word. It leaves Stiles reeling, like he’s getting lost in his magic again, but now, Derek’s going to be there to pull him back and Stiles can get just a little lost in him, every once in a while.
Some fairy tales turn out to be real, after all.