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Like Calls to Like
Derek smells something wild on the wind first. He can't place it but it reminds him of the woods around the old house, something that stirs and stretches and calls to him. Of course, the second thing he smells is blood. He waits for it and, yes, there it is. Stiles.
(Of course it's Stiles. Stiles is perpetually in trouble, or getting into trouble, or just getting out of trouble. He's a triskele of his own making. Derek doesn't mind as much as he should.)
He leans against the door of his old home and waits as Stiles shuffles up to him. "Talk," he orders. Not that he has to make it an order because Stiles is already talking.
"So, I love the zoo, okay?"
"Skip to the part that explains why you're bleeding and looking for me." Which was what he'd meant in the first place and really should have said to begin with.
Stiles scuffs his feet in the dirt and shies away from him. That's…strange. "See, that's part of it. The zoo. I went to the zoo and there was, okay, there's this new fox exhibit. With foxes. They're fluffy."
"Jesus Christ," Derek mutters, rubbing a hand over his face. "Stiles, are you telling me that you got bit by zoo animals?"
"Not zoo animals, foxes. A fox. Just one fox."
Derek glares at him.
Stiles has the good graces to drop it and keep explaining himself. "Anyhow, it was rolling around by the fence and barking like it wanted to be pet."
"Were you in a petting zoo?" Derek interrupts. Because the answer is probably no. "Because I bet you weren't."
"If you can pet it, you're in a petting zoo," Stiles protests vigorously. "And it wanted to be in a petting zoo. It was, I'm serious, a total slut for petting. As in so slutty for petting that you would not even have to buy this fox a drink. Have you ever wanted to pet a zoo animal before, Derek? And I could reach it." Stiles is still keeping a healthy distance from him and Stiles never keeps a healthy distance from anything that he should. "So…I did." A deep breath. "And it bit me."
"You're an idiot," Derek says and steps off the porch. "What—" he demands and then stops because Stiles is gone.
There is, however, a red fox crouched on the ground in front of him where Stiles was standing. It's sitting in the nest of Stiles' newly-empty clothes. Derek is uncomfortably sure that he knows where this is going to go. It does a lot to explain the smell.
"And that happens now!" Stiles is back, draped in his clothes but not wearing them. Yep. That explains the smell, all right. "That is a thing that happens now. To me. I change. Into a fox."
"That's ridiculous." There aren't were-foxes. "There aren't were-foxes."
Stiles glares. Only it's a lot closer to the ground and comes with a strange, gekkering sound. "So I'm imagining this? We both are?" Stiles demands, human again. He shifts into a fox and barks. He's back to being a boy. "And there's no beta form, no in-between." He flashes between forms again and again. It's making Derek feel dizzy trying to keep an eye on him. "This didn't come with super powers! It came with fur and a tail and being a fox. An actual fox. And you are fucking terrifying me so we have to fix this. We have to fix this right now."
Derek is a practical person. He focuses on the important parts. "Terrifying?" He reaches out and Stiles flinches away, skittering back a few steps as a fox. Derek reaches for him again and Stiles is gone. Really gone. He's a red blur of fur and fox racing away into the forest. Carrying Stiles' pants. Derek could probably catch him but he's so stunned that by the time he thinks to do so it's too late.
A few minutes later his phone rings. It's Stiles. "Do you know what the two main threats to the red fox are?" he asks conversationally.
"I have a feeling you're going to tell me," Derek says.
He also feels like he's not going to like it.
"Wolves, Derek. Wolves and man. You're a werewolf. You're a wolf and a man. Both sides of you are a fox's natural predators. I used to like you and now it is like you are the worst of both worlds."
"I am not," Derek tells him.
"Yes you are!" Stiles shoots back. "Now fix it!"
Derek doesn't know what he should do. This is why he has Stiles: to help him figure this stuff out. "It'll probably wear off," he tries.
Stiles hangs up on him.
Derek stares at his phone and then calls Deaton. "If Stiles got bit by a fox and started turning into a fox do you think that'd wear off on its own?" he asks.
"Were-foxes don't exist," Deaton says immediately.
"Right?" Derek says and hangs up.
It'll probably wear off.
Only it must not because Stiles keeps ducking away from him whenever he sees him and more than once Derek sees a bushy red tail streaking off in the opposite direction. Stiles does still call him, though, so that he can be kept in the loop of Pack Business.
(Stiles has always said it with obvious Capital Letters and Derek can't help but think of it that way in his own head now even though it's stupid. Stiles is a menace that way.)
"Sorry, look, I'm sorry about running off but you're scary. Okay? You wear a leather jacket and you scowl and that's scary no matter what I am when I'm looking at you. Congrats, Derek, you officially scare the bejesus out of me. Without even trying. I hope you're happy." Stiles hangs up on Derek before he can say that he's not exactly proud of this new achievement. It is right up there with making babies cry, actually.
Derek calls Stiles back. "This doesn't make me happy," he says when Stiles answers.
There is a whine on the other end. Stiles makes a pitched chittering noise for a little bit, whines again and then the phone call ends. Even as a fox Stiles is verbally abusing him and hanging up on him.
At least some things are still normal.
"Deaton can't fix it," Scott says, cornering him in the loft days later. Derek fights the urge to wolf-out and hit Scott. He hates being cornered.
"Fix what?" he asks instead. Derek will dickbag himself out of a corner instead of punching and clawing and biting.
(Stiles had thought it was an improvement, back when Stiles was still around to see this sort of thing and laugh at Derek to his face.)
"Stiles!" Scott says, like this is obvious.
In retrospect, it probably was.
"It's probably going to wear off," Derek says.
"It's been two weeks!" Scott snaps.
Derek raises one eyebrow. "And?" he leans forward, trying to make Scott back up.
"And Stiles won't get near me anymore!"
Derek is still in the corner but he's pretty sure he's making Scott move. "So?"
"So this is your fault!"
"How the hell is this my fault?" Derek asks, forgetting about asshole-ing his way free. "I didn't even bite you! Peter bit you!"
"Exactly!" Scott says triumphantly. He pokes Derek in the chest, getting right in his face, undoing any distance and un-cornering that Derek has managed. "Stiles won't get near me now and he's my best friend. I miss him and you're going to fix this so that I can get my bro back."
Derek stares at him. "Why don't you fix him?"
Scott backs up, backs off, walking backward out of the loft. "Because you're the alpha," he says bitterly before whirling around and pulling the door shut behind him with a bang.
"I am the alpha," Derek says petulantly.
Derek is the alpha and it is his duty to take care of his pack. It's his job to fix this.
Derek buys a trampoline.
Derek buys the biggest trampoline he can find.
Sheriff Stilinski answers Derek's polite knock on the Stilinski family front door. "Hale, why is my son currently a wild animal?" he asks. He also steps back to let Derek in, giving the door mat a pointed look.
Derek wipes his feet. "Because he decided that petting a zoo animal was a valid life choice," he tells him honestly.
(The Sheriff may not be a wolf but Derek's pretty sure that the man can hear a lie even before it's told. He doesn't want to get on that man's bad side; there are guns on the bad side.)
"Christ," the Sheriff says, putting a hand over his eyes. "Any clue why he's hiding under his bed and barking his fool head off?"
"That's because he's an idiot."
The Sheriff gives him a baleful stare.
"Sir," Derek adds belatedly.
The Sheriff keeps staring.
Derek squirms.
Then he breaks. "He's afraid of all the werewolves. Because he's a were-fox."
"That explains the lack of Scott," the Sheriff says musingly. "Are you going to fix this?" the other man asks after a protracted silence.
"It'll probably wear off," Derek says and hopes that it doesn't sound like a lie.
The Sheriff folds his arms and waits.
"Yes, I'm going to fix it." He looks at the stairs. "I need to take him somewhere."
"You know the way," the Sheriff says dismissively, turning away and going back to the baseball game on the television. "His curfew's midnight; have him home."
Stiles doesn't quit barking no matter how soothing Derek pitches his voice to be. It is a hoarse and sort of alarming sound. It's putting Derek on edge and it's wasting time. Derek only has until midnight.
"Come out of there," Derek commands, flashing red eyes at the hunched up fox under Stiles' bed.
(He's the alpha. Stiles is in his pack. Stiles will come out when he's told to, damn it.)
This backfires. Stiles crouches even lower and adds a shrill scream to his barks.
He also bites Derek when Derek gives up and shifts into his alpha form, a full wolf, and goes under the bed after him. Derek bats him with a paw, picks him up by the scruff of his neck. He ignores the pathetic, asthmatic sounding wheezes Stiles makes as he carries him down the stairs and out to the car. Thank god he left the windows open; he jumps through and tosses Stiles onto the passenger seat, pinning him with a mostly-human hand as he puts the windows back up.
Stiles howls.
Stiles howls the whole way to the loft.
He starts screaming in earnest when Derek wraps him up in his leather jacket and carries him inside. He also bites Derek some more.
"Oh my god, Stiles, " Derek snaps, nerves frayed. "I am not going to hurt you!"
(Derek isn't even tempted to smack him on the nose for the continued biting.)
To prove it, he dumps Stiles on the trampoline. Stiles bounces with the force of it and finally, finally shuts up. He stands up and totters a few tentative steps, staring at his feet.
Derek puts both hands on the trampoline and pushes it down, lightly. "See?" he offers as the trampoline undulates gently.
Stiles sniffs the surface, sniffs at Derek, and then makes a small leap. He pounces. He bounces and barks un-alarmingly. He rolls and chatters, he jumps and yips. He stands still for a second and watches Derek. So Derek shifts into alpha and jumps up on the trampoline as well. Stiles leaps away and then leaps back at him, pushing at him with his little black paws. He barks. Derek barks back and then barrels into him and the trampoline sends them up and up and up again.
In wolf form he's not so aware of the time so he's got no clue how long they spend play-fighting and jumping around on the trampoline together. He only knows that he's worn out by the time the fox bites him on the jaw and then turns back into the more familiar version of Stiles.
"Dude, hair," Stiles says, spitting out a mouthful of fur. He's grinning from ear to ear. "You bought a trampoline?"
Derek transforms and bites Stiles on the face. They're both naked and he really doesn't care. "I didn't have you for research," he says right against Stiles' mouth. "I watched a lot of Youtube. Did I fix this? Are you done being afraid of me?"
Stiles laughs and kisses him, looping his arms around his neck. "You bought me a trampoline; I may never fear anything ever again."
"Good," Derek says. He frowns down at Stiles, shifts a look to Stiles' naked leg thrown over his own equally naked hip.
Stiles is watching him with sly, coy eyes. "Want to bounce around some more? Make sure it's fixed?"
"Yes," Derek decides instantly. He doesn't want it to wear off. The fix, that is. The trampoline takes up most of the free space in the loft. It's really awkward. "I don't want to have to keep fixing you."
"I only have an hour before I have to be home," Stiles says. "We might want to plan on preventative measures." He braces against the trampoline and bounces very slightly but very meaningfully. "To make sure you don't have to fix me again."
This is why Derek has Stiles: to help him figure this stuff out. "It'll probably wear off," he agrees as he sets himself to making sure of things.
Eventually it does wear off.
The were-fox thing, that is. He was totally right about that.
Derek keeps the trampoline anyway.