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Title: Dad Wolf – Stiles Summer Stories 2026

TW Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Jeff Davis and MTV. This fanfiction on the other hand is entirely mine. No money is made with this, though reviews are more than welcomed.

Tags: m/m, Pack Alpha Noah, Spark Stiles, adoption, Pack Feels, hurt/comfort, fluff, m/f

Main Pairing: Noah/Peter

Side Pairings: Derek/Allison, Jackson/Lydia, Chris/Stiles

Teen Wolf Characters: Noah Stilinski, Mieczysław 'Stiles' Stilinski, Peter Hale, Derek Hale, Chris Argent, Allison Argent, Malia Tate, Lydia Martin, Jackson Whittemore, Kate Argent, Gerard Argent

Writer’s Month 2026 Prompts: thunder + home

Summary: When the sheriff finds Scott in the woods, he makes sure a deputy brings the boy home, while Noah himself ventures deeper into the woods, searching for Stiles. He finds an Alpha instead and gets bitten. Now he has to navigate being a werewolf, with his very enthusiastic son at his side.

Dad Wolf

Stiles Summer Stories 2026

Noah heaved a very deep sigh as he shoved Scott at one of his deputies. “Make sure this one makes it home. I’m going to look for the other delinquent.”

Scott wasn’t the kind of kid to go out into the woods on his own at night. The fact that the sheriff’s department was currently looking for a dead body made Noah think that he knew exactly who to blame. And he was not going to leave his son out in the woods alone. Not with a murderer on the loose, who might come back for the body. Because that body had been cleanly cut in half by a blade and animals usually couldn’t wield swords, which meant a human was involved.

“Stiles,” Noah called out as he walked further and further into the woods. “Stiles!”

There was rustling behind him but when he whirled around to reprimand his son, he came face to face with… something. Something very not human. It was large, towering above him, covered in fur. The first thought that came to his mind was the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. Stiles and Claudia were so obsessed with that movie when Stiles was a kid. The Beast’s eyes glowed red as it snarled and lunged at Noah. Even tough Noah reached for his gun and shot at the Beast, its fangs still managed to sink into his side, tearing into him. He screamed and shot again and the Beast fled.

/break\

His Beta had shot at him. Betas were supposed to submit to their Alpha. And Peter had made him a gift! An invaluable gift. Yet he got shot for it. Snarling, Peter dragged himself away, out of the woods. He needed a place to heal. There was no burning sensation of wolfsbane, which was good. His Beta wasn’t a hunter, then. But being shot at was still not exactly pleasant.

He made it to a house in the more upper class district of town and was about to curl together in the backyard when the door opened and a teen boy stepped out. The boy stared at him wide-eyed, his hair pointing up in a strange way that the kids seemed to like these days, sharp cheekbones and bright eyes. He reminded Peter of himself. A pretty boy, carrying himself with the arrogance of youth. Peter needed more Betas. Before the boy could scream did Peter attack.

/break\

Stiles sat curled together on the couch, staring at the door and holding his breath. He knew his dad knew he had been out in the woods. This was so going to get him grounded. So he waited, bracing himself for the inevitable fight between him and his dad. When the door opened, all that fled from his mind. His eyes widened and his heart stopped beating as he laid eyes on his dad. His uniform was torn and soaked in blood, he was holding his side, leaning against the door-frame.

“D… Dad?” Stiles’ voice sounded so small and afraid, even to his own ears.

“I’m okay, kiddo,” Noah forced out, offering his son a smile.

“You’re bleeding all over mom’s carpet!” Stiles yelled.

And with that, he surged forward, ducking under his dad’s arm and helping him toward the bathroom. He was careful as he peeled the torn uniform off his dad. His hands were shaking as he filled a bowl with hot water and got a towel to clean out the injury. He should call an ambulance, right? No. Ambulances cost so much money. He’d clean the wound, bandage it and then drive his dad to the ER himself. Yes. His dad was lucid and responsive. It’d be fine.

“What… What happened, dad?” Stiles asked while he cleaned the injury.

“I don’t know,” Noah sighed and tilted his head. “Something attacked me. Some kind of… animal. But it was… wrong. I don’t know, Stiles.”

The blood came off and Stiles paused, confused. He cleaned the towel out and rubbed the spot again. Skin. Unblemished skin. All the blood was off now and there was no injury.

“Dad,” Stiles muttered softly. “I think something’s wrong.”

Noah adjusted to check himself and was left as stunned as his son. “I… I know it attacked me. It bit me. All the blood… I mean, I did shoot it, maybe it was the Beast’s blood?”

“Your uniform is torn,” Stiles pointed out, holding up the tattered shirt for emphasis.

“Right,” Noah nodded and rubbed a hand along his side. “Right.”

/break\

“This isn’t a good idea, kiddo,” Noah heaved a sigh.

Stiles, with piles of paper under his arms, refused to budge. “It’s a werewolf. I’m telling you, you were bitten by a werewolf. You healed! You described it as bipedal.”

“I did not,” Noah frowned at his son.

“You said it looked like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. Which was a huge, hairy, humanoid, bipedal creature,” Stiles pointed out. “So, unless we were transported into a sleepy village in France and you’re about to become a cursed prince’s servant, I’m guessing werewolf.”

“Neither of these make sense, Stiles,” Noah muttered irritated.

He’d had a bad night. What few hours of sleep he’d gotten had been plagued by nightmares. But he had still gotten more sleep than his son, apparently, because Stiles had spent the whole night researching what might have attacked Noah. He had landed on ‘werewolf’. Which was ridiculous, but Noah had to admit that he didn’t exactly have a better idea either. It had been upright when it had attacked him and it hadn’t looked like any predator native to the preserve.

“Maybe it was a tiger,” Noah muttered. “The big head and large fangs.”

“A tiger?” Stiles paused to look at him incredulously. “In California.”

“Rich people keep all kinds of illegal pets,” Noah reminded him. “Maybe it escaped. Maybe it wasn’t upright and that’s just how I remember it. You know eye-witnesses are notoriously unreliable because human memory is unreliable.”

Stiles rolled his eyes at him and continued on. “We are returning to the scene of the crime to look for clues, dad. Like large werewolf foot prints.”

Noah heaved a sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Though returning to the spot wasn’t a bad idea and maybe they would find clues there. Not clues about werewolves though.

“What are you doing here. This is private property.”

Both of them looked up at the voice. There was a kid standing there in a leather jacket and with a glower on his face. A couple years older than Stiles, maybe. Angry looking boy though.

“That’s Derek Hale,” Stiles whispered surprised. “I thought the Hales left after the fire.”

Noah furrowed his brows and stepped closer to the boy. “Sorry, kid. I was out here last night, looking for… something. I figured I’d try again by daylight. I’m Sheriff Stilinski.”

He held his hand out with a friendly smile. Derek took it but when they stood close enough, Derek’s eyes widened in surprise, his nostrils flaring. Noah frowned again and sniffed too. He had showered last night, after everything. Wait. There was a weird scent. A lot of weird scents, actually. But one stood out. He couldn’t place it, exactly, but his instincts told him kin. He shook his head.

“I didn’t know you were back in town,” Noah said instead, slipping into sheriff mode.

“Just… checking on a few things,” Derek looked troubled and like he was lying.

Mh. Rich kid who owned a tiger? He did know the Hales were filthy rich, but this kid did not strike him as owning a tiger. Still, something about Derek was definitely suspicious. He’d look into what the Hales had been up to since leaving Beacon Hills.

“Come on, Stiles. Let’s get back home,” Noah decided after a long moment.

Before his son could argue did he grab him by the back of his shirt like scruffing a pup.

/break\

Derek knew something was going on. He’d come back to Beacon Hills when Laura hadn’t returned to New York. He knew she was dead. He’d felt the pack-bond break. He found half of her body and buried her behind the house. Now he was all alone. And he had no idea what to do with himself. Avenge Laura? Find out who had killed her and why. Maybe he could do that.

It quickly became apparent that there was an Alpha in town. If they had killed Laura in a territory dispute, or if they had been a Beta who killed Laura for the Alpha spark, Derek didn’t know. He wasn’t good at these things. Figuring stuff out. Uncle Peter used to be good at it, lawyer and all. But uncle Peter was still catatonic, staring ahead unblinking. It was terrifying, to see his once so proud uncle reduced to this. And Laura was dead. Everybody was dead.

But there were new wolves in Beacon Hills. The Alpha, whoever they were. The sheriff. Maybe the sheriff was the Alpha. Probably. It made sense, he was a leader and protector of the town. Perhaps he had killed Laura for invading his territory. After all, he’d been out in the woods looking for Laura’s body, and had later returned with his pup.

There were Argents in town too, though. And it had him tense and confused. He tried to keep track of them. Kate’s brother. His wife and daughter. His daughter was dangerous. She had the same sweet smiles that Kate used to offer to Derek. Deceptive sweetness. So he trailed her, watched her go to a party, which was when he was left stunned again.

“Hello,” Derek smiled charmingly as he stepped up to Allison.

“Hi?” Allison blinked doe-eyed at him.

“I’m Lydia’s cousin Miguel. I wanted to make sure you got home safely.”

Lydia was the hostess of the party. She seemed to be one of the popular kids. Allison relaxed a little at his words and smiled gratefully. She started talking, about how she didn’t know anyone in town yet, only Lydia. How she didn’t know her way around yet. It was so easy to listen to her, to smile when she laughed. That was dangerous. She was dangerous.

/break\

Stiles was absolutely certain that his dad was a werewolf. He was also absolutely certain that Derek Hale was a werewolf. Considering the suspicious coincident of Derek returning to Beacon Hills after all these years, just as an Alpha werewolf – which were the only kind of werewolves who could turn someone else – bit his dad? Big, fat chance. Derek was the Alpha, for sure.

So when Stiles spotted Derek at Lydia’s party, he scrambled. He’d gone, not because he was invited, but because he was nursing a huge crush on Lydia Martin, and Scott was kind of developing a crush on the new girl, Allison Argent. Allison did not give Scott the time of day, since she was constantly surrounded by Lydia, Jackson, Danny and the other cool kids. So Scott called it a night early. Stiles stubbornly stayed in the hopes of talking to Lydia.

Seeing Derek did kick him into gear though. He ran to the Jeep and drove after them. If Derek was the Alpha, he might be luring Allison away alone to turn her. He rushed to the house and rang the doorbell over and over and over again until… oh. The most handsome man he had ever seen opened the door, a scowl on his face and his ice-blue eyes boring into Stiles’ very soul.

“Yes?” Mister Argent asked impatiently. “Can I do something for you?”

“Uh. I’m a friend of Allison’s,” Stiles lied. “Is she home?”

The man cocked an eyebrow and huh. Stiles wasn’t necessarily new to his attraction to older men – he’d watched Charmed as a kid and put a poster of Cole Turner over his bed and he had had a crush on Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer too – but somehow, the men he found attractive were usually actors, playing hot fictional characters. He’d never felt that way toward a real person. He’d honestly thought Lydia was it for him, he’d never really felt drawn to anyone else. He felt very, very drawn in that moment, staring at the man’s broad chest and the slight dusting of stubble.

“Allison,” Mister Argent called out, turning his head. “Your friend his here.”

Moments later and Allison came skipping down the steps, not looking changed at all and not being in mortal danger. She did, however, look incredibly confused. Right. They hadn’t actually interacted yet at all, on account of Allison being adopted into the cool kids clique and Stiles not being that.

“Uhm, you… You left your jacket, at the party,” Stiles offered.

He’d grabbed it at Lydia’s when he saw it. Mister Argent furrowed his brows as he looked at the leather jacket and then over at his daughter, watching her take it.

“You were wearing a leather jacket when you got home,” Mister Argent pointed out.

“Oh. That was Miguel’s,” Allison smiled at him. “Lydia’s cousin, he brought me home. And when I was cold, he gave me his jacket.”

Lydia Martin did not have any cousins, much less a cousin named Miguel. Stiles frowned as deeply as Mister Argent at that. Derek Hale had given Allison his jacket, after bringing her home. Why…?

/break\

Noah had no idea what was going on, exactly. He feared that his son might be right, because when Noah got agitated, his eyes flashed golden and he grew fangs and claws. Stiles was trying to teach him how to control that, but with only marginal success. Perhaps because Noah was in denial. He still didn’t believe in werewolves. He needed proof. Not just his son’s research. He needed real, actual answers. And judging by everything Stiles had gathered on his investigation board – which, no Noah did not feel warm and fuzzy about the way Stiles was gathering clues and investigating this like a real crime – it seemed that answers may lay either with the Hales or the Argents.

Both families had left town after the Hale Fire. And both had now returned, just as Noah got bitten by something. Stiles’ theory was that either Derek, or Mister Argent, were the Alpha. Since the Argents were a three person household and Christopher Argent was an arms dealer, Noah figured he’d try the kid who seemed to be alone first. He might get more out of Derek, or at least have an easier time getting answers. If the kid had any answers.

“This is still private property,” Derek pointed out when Noah found him.

“Yeah. I have some questions for you, kid.”

Derek narrowed his eyes at him. Noah stood his ground, knowing the uniform and sheriff star did their part too. In the end, the kid hunched over some and nodded. And… lead the way to the old Hale House. They’d never even torn down the ruins. But then who would have. Peter Hale was in a coma, Laura and Derek had left for New York, everyone else was dead.

“You… live here,” Noah whispered in horrified realization.

He could smell it. The whole house was stale with the scent of ash, but Derek’s scent was fresh and all over. He’d been here a lot. The ground was disturbed in places, foot paths that had walked these ways repeatedly. He looked at Derek and saw more than just a suspect. He saw a broken, traumatized kid, whose entire family was gone.

“I got nowhere else to be,” Derek admitted in a soft voice.

Noah heaved a sigh and sank down onto the stairs. “Tell me everything. And I do mean everything.”

When Derek looked up, his eyes were glowing blue. Not yellow, like Noah’s. Noah tilted his head and listened attentively as Derek started to talk. About Kate Argent, the fire, the family he lost, the pack he lost, that Laura had become Alpha after their mother had died, that she’d moved them to New York, about Laura getting a call and coming back here but never returning.

“The body,” Noah whispered. “It’s your sister, isn’t it?”

Derek averted his eyes away from Noah and got up, leading Noah out back and showing him the grave. Showing him the half of a dead wolf that he had buried. Okay. Werewolves were real.

“You’re coming home with me, kid,” Noah sighed.

“What?” Derek frowned at him confused.

“You said you don’t know who the Alpha is. Said you don’t know who killed your sister. I believe you. You can’t live in these ruins. It’s also not save. If that Alpha killed your sister and bit me, they might be after you too,” Noah argued. “You said pack’s family, right? You help me, I help you. We help each other from now on. Come on, grab your things.”

/break\

“I’m glad you believe me about the werewolf things now, but did you have to adopt one?”

Stiles pursed his lips and glared at Derek Hale, sitting on their couch. Derek glared right back, looking awkward and out of place. Noah gave a soft growl that had Stiles jump slightly.

“The kid’s got nobody. And I didn’t adopt him. He’s twenty-one,” Noah pointed out. “I’m just letting him stay in the guest room, until we have all of this sorted out. Safety in numbers. I would prefer if you weren’t alone while I’m at work either, Stiles.”

Stiles glowered and crossed his arms. Werewolves were real. He had been right about that.

“So, if Derek is not the Alpha, then is Mister Argent the Alpha?” Stiles asked.

“Why would you think that?” Derek asked confused.

“Because the Argents and you came back to town the same time, just as this Alpha attack happened,” Stiles argued. “And you have been sniffing around them too, I saw you with Allison, after Lydia’s party, ‘Miguel Martin’. Besides, if anyone – anyone – has Alpha male energy, it is Mister Argent, have you seen the man?”

“Stiles,” Noah cut him off with an embarrassed sigh. “The Argents are involved, but… not like that. Derek says they’re werewolf hunters. And that Chris Argent’s sister… she laid the fire.”

Stiles’ eyes widened horrified at that. Oh. He looked at Derek, at the hunched over, sad young man. Man, that guy had trauma upon trauma, huh. Stiles rubbed his face with a frown. This was not helpful on the ‘Who’s the Alpha?’ front, at all.

/break\

Derek sat frozen at the kitchen table as a coyote walked through the dog door. The coyote also froze as she looked at Derek. Both just kind of sat there and stared at each other, not moving.

“He—ey, girl! You haven’t been by in a while.”

Derek watched, absolutely mortified, how Stiles walked over to the coyote and hugged her, ruffling her fur. She gave a soft growl and bumped against his hand like she was some kind of pet dog.

“T… That… That’s a coyote, Stiles,” Derek pointed out.

“Yeah, I told him that years ago,” Noah sighed as he joined them in the kitchen. “Morning.”

“That’s a coyote,” Derek said again, with more emphasis.

Stiles went to the fridge to get out sliced meat and started feeding it to the coyote. The coyote sitting in the middle of the kitchen. He’d known the Stilinskis were strange, but this was more than he had anticipated. The sheriff went to make a coffee and turned to watch Stiles.

“Stiles dragged her home when she was a pup, a couple years ago. He mistook her for an actual dog and asked if we could keep ‘the puppy’ he found,” Noah snorted. “I said no. Of course I said no. I looked at him the same you’re doing right now. Absolutely mortified. I carefully got rid of the wild animal in our kitchen by pushing her out with a broom. But she’s been coming back ever since.”

“That’s a coyote,” Derek said once more, because he honestly didn’t know what else to say.

“That she is,” Stiles ruffled her face’s fur. “And such a good girl too. Don’t be jealous just because I have pack too. You two aren’t the only ones who get to do that.”

Derek just stared at the boy, while Noah sighed. “Kiddo. If I’m a werewolf, you’re my pack.”

“Well, then she’s your pack too,” Stiles pointed out. “She’s been part of this family longer than Derek has, so clearly she gets to be pack too.”

Derek froze when the coyote looked at him with far too intelligent eyes. What had he gotten himself involved in here? He’d only agreed to the offer to stay at the Stilinskis’, because he had nowhere else to go and the sheriff was right, there was safety in numbers. By now, Derek knew the Alpha that had bitten Noah hadn’t just killed Laura, it had stolen the Alpha spark. He could feel it, the bonds. Weak and twisted as they were, the Alpha was calling to him and there was a bond to Noah.

“Okay, kiddo. Time to get ready for school,” Noah urged his son.

The coyote made a soft noise and just… left the kitchen again. Stiles huffed as he got up.

“I should stay home and help you guys investigate. Find out what the Argents are up to, and who the Alpha is. We have a lot of mysteries to solve that are way more important than chemistry.”

“You’re going to school,” Noah said with a flash of his eyes.

Stiles grumbled but grabbed his lunch before leaving. Derek heaved a sigh and leaned back in his seat. Once Stiles was safely out of the house did Noah get up and motion for Derek.

“We’re paying your uncle a visit,” Noah said.

“Why. He hasn’t been responsive in six years,” Derek argued.

“Maybe the Argents are back for him,” Noah pointed out. “Tying up loose ends. Laura, you, Peter. We should make sure he’s safe, comatose or not. And maybe we’ll find a clue too.”

Derek heaved a sigh but followed his pack-mate. It had been too long since he’d had one. Him and Laura had been a pack of two for so long and as the Beta, Derek had to do what his Alpha said. Granted, he kind of felt like he had to do what the sheriff said, too…

/break\

If Stiles’ dad thought he could keep Stiles out of the investigations, well, he was sorely mistaken. There were other things he could investigate, without them. Like the Argents. He smiled brightly as he sat down next to Allison Argent in class. She looked a little startled. But it was one of the classes they had without Scott or Lydia. Which meant no distractions.

“Hey,” Stiles said in a friendly voice. “So, how have you been settling in?”

“I… good, I think?” Allison offered tentatively. “Thanks, for the other day. My jacket.”

“No problem. I saw you leave without it and figured I’d bring it to your place.”

“But…” Allison bit her lip. “Have you seen Miguel?”

“Huh?” Stiles blinked confused at that, tensing a little.

The Argent was asking about Derek. Was she in the know? Did she want to kill Derek?

“I just,” Allison blushed. “I asked Lydia about him, but she said she doesn’t have a cousin Miguel. And I… He was hot, I mean, seriously hot. And sweet. He brought me home and we talked the whole way. I thought… I wanted to talk to him again.”

Okay, either she was really, really good and trying to get the information to find and kill Derek, or she had no clue what was going on and had a crush on Derek Hale. Considering that, if she had wanted to kill Derek, she could have done so after the party, while she was alone with him… Stiles was tempted to say that she might be genuinely horny for Derek. Which, fair, he was good looking. It was his grumpy personality and growling that ruined it.

“Oh, that’s not… He’s not Lydia’s cousin. He’s mine. Which is why I brought you the jacket. I saw you leave with him, and, well,” Stiles motioned awkwardly. “His name’s Derek. Derek Hale.”

He watched her for any reaction. If she knew he was Derek, she’d already known anyway and he wasn’t giving her any new information there. The confusion on her face seemed genuine.

“Why would he lie about that?” Allison asked. “His name, and being Lydia’s cousin.”

“The Hales, they’re kind of…” Stiles motioned vaguely. “There was a big tragedy six years ago. It’s still the talk of the town. Guess he didn’t want you to just see Derek Hale, sole survivor of his family. Doesn’t make a good impression on a girl you like, you know?”

I am so sorry, Derek, but you are getting used to hell and back on this one, Stiles thought to himself. Allison flushed brightly at that. This was going to get so awkward on the long run, but for now, Stiles needed Allison for information. Or to see if she even had information.

“Oh,” Allison bit her lip and then got a piece of paper to scribble a number on. “Can you… give your cousin my number maybe, then?”

“Sure,” Stiles smiled and accepted the paper, thinking the number might come in handy.

/break\

Kate Argent was in town and she had shot Derek. Stiles was staring absolutely mortified at the bleeding werewolf in his living room. His dad was tying off Derek’s arm with a belt, trying to stop the poison from spreading. Because werewolf hunters had poisonous bullets.

“W… What…” Stiles tried to breathe but it wasn’t working.

“Stiles! Kiddo! Snap out of it!” Noah growled. “I need you to focus for me, come on.”

He rested Stiles’ hand against his chest so Stiles could feel his father’s heart-beat. Let it slow down his own. Stiles tried to mirror his father’s breathing. When he’d realized werewolves were real, he’d thought this could be exciting. An adventure. This was a horror movie.

“What do we do, Derek?” Noah asked, looking at the younger wolf.

“We need to,” Derek groaned and tilted his head back. “We need to burn the wolfsbane out. But for that we need the exact strand she used. We need one of her bullets.”

“Cool, cool, cool. So, how do we get that,” Stiles asked wide-eyed.

Noah’s face twisted into something were displeased. “Stiles… you need to get it.”

“What. Me? To the Argents? Where the crazy lady lives that just shot Derek?”

“Exactly,” Noah looked up at him and flashed his eyes golden. “The sheriff showing up there is going to raise suspicions, it may make her more careful. I can’t go myself. And Derek… clearly can’t. You… I would never want to put you in danger, son. But you’re friends with the Argent girl, aren’t you? You could get in, get the bullet, and get out. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t to save Derek’s life, kiddo, you know that.”

Stiles groaned. He knew Derek was going to cause nothing but problems. Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm down. Okay. He could totally do that, right. He could walk into the hunters’ home and just steal one of their bullets and walk out again unharmed. He could totally do that.

“Okay,” Stiles said in a small voice. “Derek. I need something from you to make this believable. Because Allison and I are totally not ‘coming over casually’ friends. We barely know each other from class and talked like trice. But she does have a huge crush on you. So if I play middle man who drops a present from you off, she’ll let me in.”

Derek stared at him like he’d lost his mind. The sheriff heaved a sigh and went to one of the cupboards. He got a brand new pack of chocolates out. Stiles narrowed his eyes at him.

“I technically do not need to hide sweets from you anymore, I have a werewolf’s metabolism now,” Noah argued. “Stop forbidding me food. But take these.”

Stiles took the chocolates and left the house. This was absolutely ridiculous. He reached the Argent house in record time and had Allison open the door for him.

“Stiles,” Allison looked surprised at that. “Hi. What… are you doing here?”

Stiles grinned awkwardly and lifted the box of chocolates up. “These are from my cousin. He is… super sorry that he hasn’t texted you yet, but he’s honestly kind of intimidated by your very strong-looking father who owns a whole arsenal of weapons.”

Allison blinked repeatedly, then flushed and let him in. Stiles couldn’t believe that he was about to have a ‘gossip about boys’ evening with Allison Argent, just so he could steal a bullet from her aunt. The two checked in at the kitchen, where Mister Argent stood at the hearth.

“Hey, dad. Stiles is over, he wanted to… help me with math homework.”

Chris frowned at that, looking suspicious. “You kids leave the door open.”

Both of them blushed at the man’s assumption that Stiles was here to hook up with Allison. But they obeyed. They went upstairs to her room and talked in very soft voices about Derek’s big crush on Allison. Which, Stiles didn’t even really think that was a lie. Derek got that particular constipated look whenever the topic shifted to Allison. At one point, Stiles managed to sneak out, under the lie that he had to use the bathroom, and quickly found the guest room. He had to rummage through Kate’s stuff, but found the wooden box filled with bullets. Knowing that taking one would be suspicious, he cracked a shell-case open and put the content into the empty Adderall bottle he’d brought along for this occasion. Okay. Okay, he’d done it.

“Are you staying for dinner, Stiles?” Chris asked when they met in the hallway.

Stiles stood like a rabbit caught by the hunter. Mh, he wouldn’t mind being hunted for sports by that man. Nope. Bad thought. Especially about the actual literal hunter. The one currently trying to kill his pack. He forced a smile and shook his head.

“Sorry, sir, but I gotta get home and get dinner ready for my dad,” Stiles said. “You know he’s the sheriff, he’s always working shifts. Deserves a hot meal when he gets home.”

Chris’ face softened at that and it kind of made something in Stiles melt into goo. “You’re a good son, Stiles. Be safe on your way home, okay?”

Stiles nodded sharply, really hoping that Chris had no idea what his sister had done because it would suck severely if Chris was involved in all of this. He quickly bid his goodbye to Allison and then made his way back home as fast as he could.

/break\

Derek and Stiles had a plan. Half a plan, anyway. Noah would disapprove, which was why the two were at the school alone. To lure the Alpha here and trap it. After all, it was looking for its Betas. The plan was derailed when Allison, Jackson and Lydia showed up though.

“What are you doing here?” Stiles asked mortified.

“Derek texted me!” Allison exclaimed. “He said to come here urgently!”

“I’m just her ride,” Jackson looked annoyed.

He was rubbing his neck, like it was irritating him. Lydia looked between everyone with wide-eyes. There had been a time where Stiles would have gotten butterflies about being in school at night with Lydia Martin. But this whole werewolf thing had really taken over Stiles’ life. He hadn’t had much time for anything else, much less his crush on Lydia. He barely had time for Scott. The two boys were gradually drifting apart, partially by choice because this werewolf stuff kept getting more and more dangerous and he did not want Scott in this kind of danger.

When Kate had shot Derek, that had been probably the most terrifying thing to happen since Stiles’ mom died, only that this was a whole different monster. He could not drag Scott into this, so he kept is best friend at arm’s length. It helped that Stiles was constantly distracted by the research into werewolves, Argents and the Hale Fire, by trying to find the Alpha and helping his dad and Derek.

Scott himself was distracted too though, still trying to get Allison’s attention and even trying to do good at lacrosse. They’d never done good at lacrosse. Stiles had kind of dropped the team, with everything else going on right now, he really did not need to waste his time on training for a team where he was just the bench warmer anyway. There were more important things than school sport.

“Are you for real?” Stiles hissed at Derek. “You don’t text her for weeks and then text her now?”

“Are you stupid?” Derek growled back. “I didn’t text her!”

Derek scrambled for his phone, but he couldn’t find it. Okay. Had the… Had the Alpha somehow gotten a hold of Derek’s phone? Was this… a trap? Not a trap set by Derek and Stiles, but a trap set by the Alpha for them? And for Allison? Oh, this wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. The Alpha roared and Derek instinctively wrapped an arm around Allison’s waist, puling her along. Jackson and Lydia followed them too as the group tried to seek shelter from the Alpha.

/break\

“Jackson has been behaving like an absolute jackass,” Lydia wrinkled her nose in irritation.

He’d broken up with her, again. He regularly did that, until realizing that he could never do better than her. She was used to this, really. It was like he needed that, for his validation or ego or whatever teenage boys struggled with. He just needed time to cool off.

“You know,” Allison turned toward her with a teasing smirk. “I know how you could make him see reason sooner. You could try and make him jealous.”

Lydia cocked one eyebrow, intrigued by the idea. If Jackson realized that really, she could have anyone she wanted, if she wanted anyone but him, then maybe he would get his act together. And really, since the night in the school, it had been particularly bad. He seemed obsessed with whatever had attacked them. Lydia didn’t know what it was either, but she was mainly just glad it was over.

“I’m listening,” Lydia prompted, while looking at dressed for the winter formal.

“Stiles,” Allison suggested. “He totally has a crush on you. And you saw how he punched Jackson the other night, right? Jackson would totally hate that.”

“You are weirdly friendly with Stiles,” Lydia pointed out with a frown. “How did that happen? And is it in any way related to his hot, older cousin?”

Allison flushed and that was all the answer Lydia needed. The weird cousin who had pretended to be Lydia’s cousin at first. Part of Lydia was screaming stranger danger, but if Allison wanted to have a crush on a hot, older guy, who was Lydia to tell her no.

“Oh, this one would go so much better with your complexion.”

Lydia looked up when a very handsome man offered her an absolutely gorgeous dress. She smiled pleased and accepted it because yes, that would look stunning on her.

“Maybe you’re right,” Lydia declared after a moment. “Maybe Stiles is the right move.”

/break\

Allison stared completely horrified at Derek. Derek, strung up on the wall, without his shirt. She’d known something strange was going on in this town, knew that something strange was going on with her family, but why would her aunt do this…?

“They’re monsters, Ally,” Kate said and turned a dial. “Brainless, wild animals.”

Derek snarled in pain and when his mouth opened, it was full of fangs. His eyes were glowing blue. Unnatural, actually glowing. She gasped and took a startled step back. Kate smiled sharply.

“Werewolves are real,” Kate offered. “And we hunt them. To protect humans.”

Allison’s eyebrows furrowed as she looked at Derek. Helpless, strung up, electricity running through his body at the whims of Kate. He didn’t look like a dangerous monster. He looked like a victim. She was the one who looked like a monster. But Allison didn’t know what to do. She was all alone, Kate had the power, Derek was clearly in pain. There was no way she could get him out on her own, could help him. And Kate was still talking, about werewolves.

/break\

When Lydia had asked Stiles out to the winter formal, he had thought he’d won the lottery. It was the perfect distraction from all the horrors happening in his life right now. Just one evening of being normal. He was bummed out that he couldn’t hang out with Scott even on his one normal evening, but Scott’s grades were so bad, he had been banned from the winter formal.

The evening wasn’t normal.

It was the worst horror yet.

Stiles sat in the grass at the lacrosse field, holding Lydia’s unconscious, bleeding body. Peter Hale stood before him, smiling, Lydia’s blood still running down his chin. They’d figured out that Peter was the Alpha recently, because his dad kept having dreams about the fire and Peter was the only other Hale aside from Derek, so the conclusion wasn’t all that hard. Someone could fake a coma. And when the three had gone to the long-term care facility, Peter had been gone.

“W… What do you want?” Stiles asked warily.

“Your help,” Peter smiled sharply. “You’re the clever one. And you have been spending an awful lot of time with my nephew, I’m sure you know exactly how to find him.”

“Wait! Please!” Stiles yelped when Peter reached for him. “Let me get help for Lydia!”

Peter furrowed his brows like he had to seriously consider that. “Very well.”

Stiles’ hands were shaking as he dialed Jackson’s number. He may hate the guy, but he knew that even with the breakup, Jackson loved Lydia. He would help her. Stiles was shaking badly as Peter’s claw curled beneath his chin and guided him up. He got dragged to his own Jeep to drive to a parking garage, where Peter showed him the dead body of his nurse when he got a phone out of his car. Her car, technically. That he had stolen when killing her.

“That’s… That’s Derek’s phone,” Stiles whispered.

“Yes,” Peter smiled. “My dear nephew didn’t even notice that I took it, when he and my Beta came to visit me at the hospital. I didn’t expect it to come in that handy though.”

“W… What do you want from me?” Stiles asked, voice shaky.

“You got my nephew a new phone, didn’t you? Your father is taking such good care of him,” Peter sneered a little. “I love that my Betas are bonding so well. Track his phone. I need to know where Derek is. I know you’re clever enough to do this.”

He handed Stiles Derek’s old phone. Okay. Sure. Stiles knew how to track phones, he always kept tabs on his dad. He could track Derek down too. But his eyes kept wandering to Peter.

“He’s… at the old house,” Stiles frowned confused. “Why would he be there.”

He had been living with the Stilinskis ever since his dad had realized Derek lived there. Peter’s eyes narrowed and he straightened. There was a resolve in the man that reminded Stiles of his dad, in a startling way. A man with a mission. Not much of the monster left that had chased them through the school not that long ago. It was like he was becoming… more man, less beast.

“Not in the house,” Peter pointed out. “Underneath it. Thank you, Stiles. You have been most valuable. And since you were so helpful, I’d like to offer you something. Do you want the bite?”

“What?” Stiles stared at the Alpha in confusion.

Peter reached for Stiles’ wrist and lifted it up. “Do. You. Want. The Bite? Be as strong and powerful as your father and Derek. Be a part of the pack. Imagine all you could do. Surely little Miss Martin would give you the time of day then.”

Stiles glared and twisted his wrist out of Peter’s hold. “No. I don’t want to be like you.”

Peter smiled and tilted his head at him, like he could see right through Stiles. Yes, Stiles wanted all of that. Didn’t want to be left behind anymore. But he didn’t want it from Peter. The man who’d killed his own niece and had turned Stiles’ dad and had just attacked Lydia. No.

Peter’s smile got sharper, like he could tell Stiles was lying. And then he bent the keys to the Jeep and threw them at Stiles. Stiles noted the way Peter hadn’t hurt him. Clever wolf, knew that he’d never have his Beta’s cooperation if he hurt the man’s son.

/break\

Jackson’s life was getting off the rails and he didn’t know what to do anymore. He’d broken up with Lydia, because something weird was happening. The monster at the school, it had attacked Jackson weeks prior, in his backyard. Jackson had thought he’d imagined it, a bad dream. But the monster at the school that night? That had been real. Lydia, Allison, Stiles and Derek had seen it too.

He broke up with Lydia, pushed her away, avoided Danny, got lost in the strange nightmares that tormented him. And then Stiles called him, told him to come to the lacrosse field, just to find Lydia, mangled and bleeding badly. He called an ambulance and drove with it to the hospital.

The sheriff stalked up to him, zeroing in on him. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Jackson barked back at the man. “Ask your son, he was her date, he called me.”

The sheriff reared back with wide eyes and practically fled the hospital. Jackson returned his attention to Lydia, watching her through the hospital room’s window. Would she be hurt if he had gone to the formal with her? If he hadn’t dumped her? He could have protected her. He should have protected her. He loved her, he couldn’t lose her. Not her.

“Is she… Is she going to be alright?”

Jackson turned toward Stiles with a glare. He had no idea how much time had passed since the sheriff had left, he just knew that Lydia needed him. He glared at Stiles and backed him against the wall, but Stiles met him with as heated a glare.

“This is your fault,” Jackson spat. “You were there with her, how did you let that happen?”

“Let that happen? You’re the one who broke up with her! What do you care what happens to her?”

“Boys,” a voice cut in. “I think we need to have some words.”

Chris Argent grabbed both Stiles and Jackson by the collars of their shirts and dragged them into some room. Two other men were following them, blocking the entrance and holding Jackson back while all of Argent’s attention was on Stiles. He pinned the boy against the wall, keeping at least one hand on him at all times, being all up in Stiles’ face. This was weird. Really weird.

“You’re smart, Stiles, you should know that you’re on the wrong side here.”

“Really?” Stiles snarled at the man. “The right side is the one setting an innocent family on fire?”

Argent took a step back, looking tense and like he was holding himself back. “We had nothing to do with that fire. Whatever they’re telling you to manipulate you-”

“Your sister laid the fire,” Stiles spat, interrupting him. “She seduced Derek when he was younger than your daughter is now, and she used him. She killed them.”

Jackson watched the two of them disturbed. Chris Argent was an intimidating man, yet Stiles didn’t back down, held his own, challenged the man. There was a weird tension about them and something told Jackson that the sheriff would have a few choice words about this, not just because of the threats being spoken. This was strange and Jackson wanted no part in it.

/break\

Peter didn’t know what to think about the fact that the Argent child was helping him free Derek. But his nephew was injured and Kate Argent was right there. A smile spread over Peter’s lips as he could practically taste his revenge. He chased her upstairs, out of the basement where his family had died, where he had burned and suffered surrounded by their screams. By the time he had her, had his claws wrapped around her throat, they were no longer alone.

Allison had helped Derek upstairs, was supporting him as he leaned heavily against her. Peter looked at her, a smile on his lips as he watched the young Argent, even as the sheriff came to join him. Good. He had his whole pack and the audience with him. He tore out Kate’s throat, feeling her warm blood run over his fingers. Allison screamed and turned to bury her face in Derek’s chest.

“Peter,” Noah said, slow and careful. “It’s over. You got what you wanted.”

But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. His family was still dead. He was alone. Had been abandoned by Laura and Derek. Now, he had three unwilling Betas who fought him every step of the way. He was alone and he had nothing left. He snarled as he let his Alpha shift take over. The sheriff reached for his gun. Peter sneered, that wouldn’t do him much good.

Peter’s eyes were on Allison. The way she was clinging onto Derek, just like Kate had been all over him, had manipulated him, had gotten him to betray their family. She needed to die, before she could hurt what little family he had left, before this new pack, broken and defective as it was, would be taken from him too by the Argents. He lunged at her and the sheriff shot.

Peter had half a second to blink in surprise at Noah as he felt the wolfsbane spread through him.

/break\

Noah sat quietly at his dining table. Stiles wasn’t home. He hadn’t really left the hospital since Lydia had been brought in. Feeling guilty, because she’d only been there because of him. He’d let her close, even though he had tried to keep Scott away to keep him safe. If he hadn’t agreed to the date, she might not be in the hospital. Noah didn’t agree with that train of thought, but he also understood why his son wouldn’t believe anything else right now.

Guilt was a damn powerful tool and people tended to wield it against themselves.

“How are you holding up, Alpha?” Derek murmured softly as he sat down opposite Noah.

Noah scoffed at that, flexing his hand. Everything had been overwhelming when he became a werewolf and he thought that was the peak of it. But putting a bullet in Peter Hale’s head, inheriting the Alpha spark from the man, it… It was nearly too much. Everything was so sharp. And the pack bonds were the messiest thing about it. He had felt the pull toward Peter, lesser so toward Derek. Now? The pull to Derek, to his Beta, was strong. So was his pull to Stiles, clearly his wolf had accepted Stiles as a part of their pack. Good wolf.

“I’m sorry, kid,” Noah looked up at him with tired eyes. “Wish there would have been another way, to… to maybe save your uncle. And I’m sure a tired, old man isn’t what you imagined for an Alpha either, mh. Grand Hale dynasty, and all you have left is me.”

“You’re a good wolf,” Derek argued with a shake of his head. “You’ve been accepting your wolf more. Leaning more into instincts. I think you have a natural talent for pack too, because… You are already a leader, of your own pack, in a way. With the station. You protect them, lead them.”

Noah hummed and tilted his head. He turned to look out of the window. Alpha werewolf. What a mess he had inherited from Peter there. Why couldn’t the man just let go. Kate would have been enough. Noah would have been willing to let him have her. What she’d done to them had been horrific. But Noah had seen it in Peter’s eyes. The blank horror and despair at realizing that killing Kate hadn’t fixed anything. He’d grown so desperate, he would have gone after Allison, maybe even Derek because he had let Kate in. This would have never ended.

“What do we do now, Derek?” Noah asked in a soft, tired noise.

“I don’t know,” Derek admitted uncomfortably. “I never… thought that far ahead. I just wanted to find my sister’s killer. I… have nothing left to get back to, in New York. Not really. I could… I mean, if… if you wanted me in your pack, I could stay…”

The kid looked at him with so much genuine heartbreak. He really had nothing left now, had he. Noah reached out and clasped a hand over Derek’s shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” Noah smiled. “We’re pack now, kid. We’ve been in this together from the start. Help me… make something of this. Honor your family’s legacy.”

Derek’s breath hitched but he nodded. It was a terrifying amount of responsibility, but Derek knew as well as Noah that they were the ones to carry it now. For better or worse.

/break\

“So… Werewolves,” Stiles drawled awkwardly.

He was sprawled out on the uncomfortable chair in front of Lydia’s hospital room. Allison sat next to him, staring blankly ahead at Lydia. If Stiles had to guess, she was only here because she couldn’t be at home right now, so she went to seek out her best friend instead. Otherwise, she would probably be home and mourning with her family. If she hadn’t seen her aunt torture Derek, right before Peter killed her. Allison blinked and nodded.

“Werewolves,” Allison repeated. “Is Lydia going to turn into a werewolf?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Stiles admitted with a sigh. “I just… I just know that…”

“Yeah,” Allison nodded. “Me too.”

Stiles also nodded and the two remained quiet for a while as they just sat there. Lydia’s parents came and went. Nurses came and went. But Stiles stayed. Would stay until his father would force him to go home. But he banked on Noah currently being far too busy with… well, everything.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles whispered after hours. “For… For using you. You didn’t deserve that. But your aunt… and I needed… and you were a good way in. But you didn’t deserve that.”

“She hurt Derek, just for being… what he is,” Allison frowned. “But he has been nothing but kind to me. He helped me. Protected me. He isn’t a monster. Right?”

She looked at Stiles and Stiles had to swallow hard at the despair in her eyes. “Right. Look. My… My dad, he’s a werewolf too now and… It didn’t change who he was. It changed him, yes. He is faster and stronger and has some nifty abilities, but he is still my dad. I don’t think that being a werewolf makes anyone a monster. I think that monsters are… forged.”

“Like Peter,” Allison whispered, her hands shaking a little.

“I… don’t know,” Stiles admitted, his eyebrows drawn deep. “What happened to him was horrific. I can’t imagine what that… would do to me. I doubt he would have anticipated what it did to him. I think… we’ll never know, not really. But the way Derek spoke about his uncle, Peter used to be different, before… before the fire.”

Allison hummed softly and blinked a couple times. “We should be there for Lydia, if she…”

“Yeah,” Stiles nodded quickly. “We will be.”

“Good,” Allison also nodded. “Good.”

/break\

Noah stared stunned at the coyote in front of him. That was Stiles’ pet coyote. Derek had said something was off about her but he hadn’t been able to tell. Maybe because he was a Beta. But now, in the woods – looking for Lydia Martin, who had disappeared from the hospital – Noah saw something different about the coyote. They were staring directly at each other.

“You… You aren’t a coyote at all, are you?” Noah asked slowly.

Laura had been a wolf. Laura’s body, when Derek had shown him, it had been fully shifted into a proper wolf. The coyote felt like kin. The way Derek had felt like kin. She wasn’t an animal.

“Can you… turn back?” Noah asked gently, carefully approaching the coyote.

The coyote growled lowly and did something she had never done before. Her eyes flashed blue, the same blue as Derek’s. Probably because she could sense that he wasn’t human anymore and, beyond that, that he was an Alpha now. Apex predators, Derek had called them. Noah flashed his eyes at her and she kept her gaze on him. Alphas could command Betas, couldn’t they? Could he make her turn back? If she had been living out here in the woods, that was dangerous.

“Turn back,” Noah ordered, his eyes a brilliant red.

He growled at her and then gave an impressive Alpha roar. Derek had told him that was how Alphas communicated with pack. Was she pack? Stiles had called her his pack. That would make her Noah’s pack too, then. And if she was a shifter living in Beacon Hills, she would be. It was his territory now, after all. He was the Alpha of Beacon Hills.

The coyote’s eyes flashed again and before him, she changed her shape. A naked and terrified teenage girl sat before him. He quickly shed his jacket to put it around her.

“It’s okay,” Noah murmured softly. “It’s going to be okay.”

/break\

So Lydia might be a werewolf. Or something else. She had definitely healed too fast to be human, that was for sure. And disappearing into the woods wasn’t exactly a good sign either. Stiles and Allison had scrambled to find her, had met up with Derek. Things between Derek and Allison were awkward and weird and Stiles hated being in the middle of all of that. But they found her.

Much more confusingly, Lydia was not the only naked teen girl found in the woods that day.

Turned out that Stiles’ pet coyote was neither a pet nor a real coyote. Or, well, at least not the animal-type of coyote. His dad had managed to turn her into a human again, because she was a shifter. Somehow. Her name was Malia Tate and she was mad at being turned back human.

“You know he didn’t do it to spite you, right?” Stiles asked softly.

She was curled up on his bed, wearing his clothes. She hadn’t left his side yet, since turning back. His dad was at the station, trying to sort things out. Figure out what had happened to her, and where her family was. Or rather, if she still had family. She had been checked out at the hospital and was then released in the sheriff’s care, where Derek and Stiles were now trying to coax more out of her. Derek… not so successfully. But then the guy wasn’t exactly known for his sensibilities.

Stiles had sent him off to instead keep an eye on Lydia, just to be sure. Malia growled softly and snuggled up to him. She’d always been cuddly, ever since Stiles had found her in the woods years ago. It was why he had dragged her home, mistaking her for a dog.

“Humans feel so much,” Malia complained in frustration. “Coyotes don’t. We just survive. There is a clear path of what we do. This… all of these… emotions. I don’t want them.”

Stiles nodded slowly. His dad had told him, before leaving, that he remembered the name. Malia Tate. The Tates had been in a horrible car accident. All dead, but the body of one daughter – Malia – hadn’t been found. So Stiles had a pretty good guess what feelings she didn’t want right now. Grief was a horrible monster and Stiles had to admit, if he could have just run away from it after his mom had died, he would have done it in a heartbeat too.

“You’re not alone,” Stiles offered instead, his voice soft. “We’re pack, right?”

She gave a soft whine and burrowed into him further. Man, this just didn’t get any easier.

/break\

“Werewolves,” Lydia repeated very slowly, staring at her best friend like she lost her mind.

“Derek?” Allison turned to Derek, with the big, hopeful eyes.

Lydia refrained from snorting, for one because it didn’t become her, but also because… werewolves. But the way Derek sat there, completely helpless in the face of her puppy-dog eyes was both impressive on Allison’s part and pathetic on Derek’s. And then Derek turned back to her, eyes glowing blue and fangs in his mouth and she just screamed. So loud that the werewolf in front of her actually whimpered and flinched away.

“What the absolute hell,” Lydia screeched.

“Werewolves,” Allison repeated with more emphasis. “And the one that attacked you, he was an Alpha at the time, which means he can turn people into werewolves with his bite.”

Lydia’s eyebrows met her hairline. “You think I am a werewolf? I am not a werewolf!”

“But you might be something,” Derek muttered.

“Oh, that’s so reassuring, thank you,” Lydia shot him a glare. “This is too much.”

This was definitely too much. Her biggest problem should be figuring out how to make Jackson grovel and make it up to her that he dumped her. Not… werewolves. She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. Whatever this was, she would master it.

/break\

“You should give me the bite.”

Noah growled and flashed his eyes red at his son. “I am not biting you, Stiles.”

“Why not?” Stiles threw his hands up in the air. “You have Derek and Malia, that’s two Betas. Derek says you need three for a stable pack. I could be your Beta.”

“You’re my son,” Noah argued. “I’m not turning you into a werewolf, Stiles.”

“Why. Not?” Stiles asked, slower this time, like Noah might not have comprehended the question.

Noah gave another growl at that. “Don’t you think this is hard enough already with how things are? Do you think I want to have to worry about your control on the full moon? We had to lock me away in a prison transport van to make sure I don’t hurt anyone on my first full moon! And you’re a teenager, do you really think this will be easy for you?”

“Derek did it,” Stiles motioned helpfully at Derek.

Derek raised his shoulders. “Don’t get me involved in this. And I was a born wolf, not a turned one. And I still struggled with control. I once nearly lost it during a basketball game, if not for… for uncle Peter coming in and helping me…”

Noah heaved a sigh at the thick scent of grief Derek emitted at that. The topic of Peter was a complicated one. While the kid clearly blamed Peter for Laura, he also grieved the uncle he once was. Noah found himself relating to that, remembering Claudia’s death. The woman she had become because of her sickness, when she tried to… to drown Stiles, called him a demon. That was the woman who had died and a horrible, awful part of Noah’s had been glad. Glad Stiles would be safe from that person. But the woman Noah had loved had also died.

“Stiles…” Noah heaved a sigh. “Derek said that Gerard Argent is in town. He’s the head of the family. Do you really think that the presence of multiple new hunters is a great time to turn anyone, much less my underage son?”

“Yeah,” Stiles replied, much to Noah’s bafflement. “There are dangerous hunters in our town and you are weak, because you don’t have a stable pack. And I am weak, because I’m human. I would rather not die, actually, and I think that my chances of not dying increase with things like super strength and super healing, dad. Don’t you?”

That had Noah grinding his teeth together. “I think your chances of not dying increase by not painting a target on your back. You’re human. The hunters aren’t going to go after you.”

“Oh yeah, forgot how much being human kept Lydia safe from this mess,” Stiles muttered.

“I think Stiles has a point,” Lydia spoke up.

“This is not an open debate,” Noah growled. “Why are you even here.”

“Because it should be an open debate,” Stiles argued. “With the whole pack.”

Malia looked disinterested where she sat between Derek and Lydia. She was slowly coming around on Noah. She’d trusted him for years, after all. She was still mad, but he had applied for emergency fostering so he could keep an eye on her and he had reopened her family’s case. Maybe what had caused the accident had been a shifter. There had been coyote claw-marks on the car. They’d always assumed a coyote had dragged Malia’s body from the wreckage and eaten her. But perhaps the coyote had attacked them and turned Malia and she had run to hide.

“Stiles is right,” Malia said in the end. “He would be stronger. Safer.”

She met Noah’s eyes with a hard gaze. Noah heaved a sigh and rubbed his face. He turned to look at Derek pleadingly. Surely Derek would see reason while the teenagers rebelled.

“Stiles has a point, this isn’t a stable pack. Stiles is human and Lydia is… something, perhaps,” Derek admitted softly. “Not a wolf though. A werewolf pack needs weres.”

Noah frowned displeased at that. So his whole pack had turned on him in his own home.

“This isn’t a democracy,” Noah growled, his eyes flashing red. “I’m the Alpha. And I am not turning a teenager, especially not my own son.”

With that, he turned around and stormed out of the house, closing the door loudly. Stiles didn’t understand. This wasn’t a blessing. It may not be a curse either, but it was a struggle. Every minute, he had to struggle with his control. Had to measure how much force things needed, had to regulate his hearing and sense of smell. Had to be careful not to show the wolf. His son, with the ADHD that made focusing hard enough as was? He’d be struggling even more with these things. And right now, with Gerard Argent in town and having brought even more hunters for Kate’s funeral? It was the worst possible time for any newly turned wolf.

/break\

There were murders happening in Beacon Hills. Again. Sightings of a big lizard creature sent Stiles, Lydia and Allison into research mode. Well, Allison didn’t have the same affinity for it as Lydia and Stiles, but she had the access to her family’s bestiaries, which were the best sources they could hope for. Thankfully, Lydia spoke archaic latin as well as medieval French, because of course she did.

“A kanima,” Noah heaved a deep sigh. “Right. And we think…”

“We have been watching Lydia like a hawk,” Stiles said immediately. “It can’t be her. Like, we have been watching her every night. Which sounds… kinda creepy.”

“But it’s true,” Malia shrugged. “We’ve been taking shifts. She was definitely at home when Stiles got knocked out by the lizard at the mechanic’s.”

“Thank god,” Lydia muttered relieved. “I’m not sure I could handle that. It has a tail.”

She shuddered a little and rubbed her arms. So she wasn’t the kanima, which was probably good, even if it still left them with two problems – not knowing what exactly Lydia was, as well as figuring out who the kanima was. Noah rubbed his face. This whole werewolf stuff had aged him at least a decade in the past months.

“Derek?” Noah asked hopefully. “Any ideas? I wasn’t… as in tune with my wolf, while Peter was still Alpha. I could feel you, somewhat, but that was also because you were there, in my den, we were bonding and growing closer. Forming a pack-bond. But… was there anyone else?”

“I don’t know,” Derek admitted with a sigh. “I… Losing a pack-mate is like… cutting off a limb. Losing Laura, it… it messed me up. Things are… mangled, inside. I’m not… good.”

“You’re very good,” Allison argued immediately and reached for his hand to squeeze.

He flushed and offered her the smallest smile. Noah heaved another sigh. He was also too old for that. All this teenage drama and all these hormones. He was somewhat glad that Stiles seemed to have gotten over Lydia, because he didn’t know what he’d do if he had to smell his son’s arousal. He might just throw himself off a cliff, especially with how much time their pack spent together. But ever since the attack from Peter, Stiles had been in protective friend mode with Lydia.

“Okay,” Noah looked around the pack. “We have to figure out who the kanima is. And why they’re committing these crimes. Lydia, you said the kanima seeks a master? Which means that the crimes and the kanima aren’t related, primarily.”

“The one who wants the murders committed is someone else,” Stiles hummed. “Okay. So we have to find both, the kanima and the master.”

“And we have to be careful about grandpa,” Allison warned. “He’s… suspicious about these murders too. And he’s going to kill whoever the kanima is, probably.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” Noah reached out to squeeze her arm. “But thank you, for helping.”

“Of course,” Allison frowned at him. “Aunt Kate was wrong. And so is grandpa. He… He’s more dangerous than Kate was, I think.”

“How?” Noah asked carefully, tilting his head.

“She was… When she had Derek down in that basement, she was… unhinged. She did things impulsively. Grandpa is… contained. He plans,” Allison answered after a moment. “He’s like if Stiles was evil and had decades of knowledge.”

“Rude,” Stiles huffed. “But I would make a great super villain.”

“All the more reason not to give you super powers,” Noah pointed out with an unimpressed glare.

Stiles crossed his arms over his chest and turned away from Noah with a glare. He was still mad that Noah refused to give him the bite. Right now, Noah had to admit he was reconsidering. This lizard thing had gone after his son. Finding Stiles paralyzed on the floor had been terrifying. Maybe he really would be safer if he got some werewolf abilities.

/break\

Stiles had bonded with Derek when he kept the guy afloat in the pool for three hours. Before that, there was a tense kind of… truce, between them. They’d been thrown together by circumstances and now this stranger was living in Stiles’ home. But now there was a sense of trust between them.

Finding out that Jackson was the kanima though was a bit of an unsettling realization. For lack of a better idea, they kidnapped Jackson and locked him in a prisoner transport van. It had worked for his dad’s full moon, after all! But it may not have been the best idea, because it ended with Jackson getting a restraining order against Stiles and Malia, which was just rude.

“You try and save a guy’s life and he thanks you like that,” Stiles muttered.

“We did kidnap him,” Malia offered helpfully.

The two of them collapsed on the couch together. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, until she was nuzzling into him. It had been frighteningly easy to accept her as a sister. Even if just foster, for now. But Stiles knew she was here to stay. She had nobody else, and they were her pack now. Stiles turned toward his dad, watching him pace.

“What do we do, dad?” Stiles asked softly.

“We know he’s the kanima, we know that all the victims were on the swim team, with the first victim having been the swim coach,” Noah pointed out. “We track down the other members of the swim team, watch them, wait for the kanima to try and strike again and then capture it. Not Jackson, but the kanima. They’re two different beings, aren’t they?”

“In a sense, yes,” Lydia drawled. “I… tried talking to Jackson about it, but he… He has no idea. And I think he’s afraid too, because he’s losing control.”

Stiles wrapped his other arm around her to pull her close and comfort her. Once upon a time, that would have made his heart race, but somehow, this whole mess had made him see her beyond the version of her that he had built up in his head. He saw her, as the friend she was. And he saw how much she loved Jackson. And how much all of this was hurting her.

“Okay, so we split up, then? To track him down?” Stiles asked. “Let me guess, the poor, defenseless humans pair up with the weres for this, dad?”

Noah shot him a glare. It was still a sore topic between them. Would be, until he relented. Stiles could be a stubborn bastard, Noah should know that at this point.

/break\

The plan was simple. Deceptively so. The kids were supposed to go inside, attend the rave. They knew the kanima would come. They got a drug that would paralyze him, thanks to Lydia. They weren’t supposed to split up though. Malia was supposed to stay with Lydia, Derek was supposed to stay with Allison. Stiles was tasked with the mountain ash. All the deep-dive research that Stiles had done into this supernatural stuff was really paying off. It wasn’t hard to make – literally just ash made out of the mountain ash tree. It ought to contain any supernatural creature, but a human had to lay it. Noah had tasked his son with that to keep him out of danger. Was it unfair to the rest of his pack? Absolutely. Would it help Noah concentrate on the fight ahead? Yes.

“Sheriff,” Chris Argent stared at him in surprise. “I didn’t expect that.”

Noah snarled and unsheathed his claws, his eyes blazing red. “Neither did I when it happened, yet here we are. I don’t like you hunting in my territory.”

“We’re trying to contain a threat,” Chris argued, readying himself for a fight.

“Coward,” Noah snarled at the man. “What your sister did to Derek’s family? You think your father is any different? You think this is the right path for your daughter?”

“Don’t talk about Allison,” Chris growled back.

And then they were fighting. But Noah had the combat training of not just a sheriff but a soldier, and the powers of an Alpha werewolf. Chris and his hunters retreated, in the end. Noah glared daggers at the man. For Allison’s sake, he hoped the man would be different than his sister. A desperate howl from inside drew Noah’s attention and he ran up to his son.

“Dad, holy shit, you’re not gonna believe this, I ran out of the mountain ash and I figured, I mean, the stuff I read, it was talking about it needing a Spark to ignite the magic and I figured, I would try, like, just believe really hard and it worked? It just… there was more mountain ash. More than we made. I think I did magic, dad. I think I’m magic.”

Noah stared at his son bewildered. Okay. This might as well happen right now. He took a deep breath, trying to push this down for later, just as Derek whined again.

“That’s great, son. I need you break the line. I need to go inside. Derek is in danger.”

Stiles pouted for a split second, before Noah said that last sentence. He was quick to break the line, allowing the sheriff to rush in. Stiles followed behind, but at a slower pace than the Alpha. When Noah found Derek, the Beta was on the floor, struggling to breathe, with Victoria Argent looming over him, a vicious smile on her lips. Noah saw red, quite literally, and attacked her. Bit her, fought her until she was unconscious, until he could get his Beta out to safety.

/break\

This was not how Lydia’s seventeenth birthday was supposed to go. She’d always had grand plans. It was supposed to be the event of the year, the whole school ought to be tripping over themselves to attend her birthday. Jackson was supposed to fawn over her, adore her, the way he always did. But he was completely beside himself these days. Whatever was happening with him, it wasn’t good and she couldn’t help him and she hated it, because it made her feel helpless.

“Thank you, Stiles,” Lydia whispered as she sat down next to him.

“Mh? What do you mean? I didn’t do anything,” Stiles blinked at her innocently.

“You brought Malia and somehow even convinced Derek to come,” Lydia smiled thinly. “And you invited the Drag Queens you befriended at the Jungle.”

Stiles shrugged, a small smile on his lips. “Lydia Martin’s birthday party needs to be unforgettable.”

Her smile turned more genuine as she leaned in to kiss his cheek. “You’re a good friend, Stiles.”

She took his hand and gave it a little squeeze that he returned. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Derek and Allison talk by the punch. They stood close, very close. Maybe those two would finally figure things out for themselves? Wouldn’t that be a birthday present?

“So you have magic,” Lydia said after a few minutes. “How’s that feel?”

“Like I might be less useless?” Stiles shrugged, earning a stern glare from her. “What? It’s true. You’re a genius, you’re making concoctions for us, translating things. Allison has the in for the supernatural stuff from her family. Derek, dad and Malia are weres. I’m just… me.”

“You’re the one figuring things out,” Lydia pointed out. “You’re the one who helped your dad learn about this stuff when you both had no clue. You’re the one who found out that all the victims were part of the swim team. You’re smart, your research has saved us more than once.”

“Yeah,” Stiles shrugged, but the smile on his lips didn’t meet his eyes. “It doesn’t feel like enough. Derek nearly died at that rave. And Jackson escaped. And we are no closer to finding the master. And Chris Argent now knows my dad is the Alpha.”

“The Argents haven’t broken down your door yet,” Lydia pointed out. “Maybe Chris isn’t like his father and sister. Maybe… he knows your dad doesn’t deserve to die.”

Stiles heaved a sigh and tilted his head back. “Maybe. Hopefully.”

“Go have some punch, Stiles,” Lydia nudged him softly. “Have some fun, for a change.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Stiles grinned and saluted her before heading to the punch.

Lydia tilted her head when Derek made eye-contact with her. He seemed somewhat out of it as he walked up to her. There was this cold sensation that she kept having, whenever she had strange wolfsbane visions. She hadn’t told the pack about that yet. They all had enough on their plates, after all. But that sensation overcame her again when Derek stood before her.

“Good,” the familiar voice of that boy who kept showing up in her visions whispered. “Now come to me. Come to me and bring me back.”

/break\

Chris had no idea how his life had turned out this way. When he had moved to Beacon Hills on his father’s orders, he had… He had no idea what he had expected, he was a good son who did what he was told. That had been beaten into him a long time ago. But then Kate had come back and Allison’s friend Stiles had thrown her crimes in his face and Chris – Chris hadn’t wanted to believe him. Because it couldn’t be true. But afterward, after that angry boy had stormed out of the hospital, after Kate was dead, Chris sat down and he read up on it and… and it was true. It was undeniably true. Kate had done that, set a house on fire with a whole family – humans, children, she didn’t care.

They were only supposed to go after threats. Sitting at home at the breakfast table, the Hale family hadn’t been a threat. The children, the elderly grandmother, they hadn’t been threats. Chris had met Doctor Hale before, the human brother of the Hale siblings had been a surgeon. He’d fixed Chris up before when he had broken an arm during a hunt. These hadn’t been bad people. Threats.

Now Kate was dead and Gerard was back in town and Chris felt like that little boy again. The little boy afraid of the punishment for disobeying his father. So he obeyed. Followed orders, like a good son, like a good soldier. But he was growing doubtful. The wolves had helped, so far. Against the feral Alpha, they hadn’t been working with Peter, they’d been working against him too. The new Alpha – the sheriff of Beacon Hills – hadn’t done anything bad yet. Hadn’t turned a single person since he became Alpha, either. Seemed as set on finding the kanima as the hunters were.

Victoria tried to kill Derek Hale. For… Chris wasn’t even entirely sure if there was something going on between the wolf and Allison. But Allison had been spending a lot of time with the pack. And Victoria took that as the wolf seducing Allison and she took that as reason to try and kill him. Chris hadn’t known that was what she was planning, he’d been preoccupied fighting the Alpha. But when she came home, she told him, told him that the Alpha bit her.

Victoria was dead, now. By choice, not by rejection. Chris stood heavily before the Martin house, the laughter and music coming from it was jarring with his current mood. He had to tell Allison. He went onto the property to find her, but saw her friend Stiles first, at the pool.

“Stiles?” Chris frowned when he saw the boy, terrified and with tears running down his cheeks.

He grabbed Stiles’ arm, pulling him close. Stiles jerked out of whatever haze he had been in. He stared up at Chris with those wide doe-eyes of his and quickly rubbed at his cheeks, like he was trying to erase the evidence of whatever had just happened to him.

“You okay?” Chris asked in a softer voice, real concern bleeding in.

That was the Alpha’s son. He was part of the pack. Maybe the kid even was a wolf himself. But Chris couldn’t help it. Over the months, he had grown fond of the boy, had been grateful that Allison had found friends here. And this boy, he was real sweet. In a dangerous way. Not classically sweet, he was a right little bastard, but he cared about Allison, was kind in his own way, and Chris saw that. He also saw the ruthless snark and the endless bravery though. All that was a bad combination, at least for Chris. He found himself weak for that, always had.

“Have you seen Allison?” Chris asked, when he realized Stiles wouldn’t answer.

“She’s… She’s inside,” Stiles answered after a long moment.

Chris nodded, but he kept his arm on Stiles to guide him over somewhere where he could sit down. He may not know what had happened, or what Stiles had seen, but it had rattled the boy. Which showed in the way he let himself be guided and even sat down when Chris pulled him there.

“Sit,” Chris ordered. “Calm down, take a moment, okay?”

Stiles nodded absentmindedly and Chris let go to find Allison. He needed to tell his daughter that her mother was dead. He shouldn’t be looking at that boy in such a way. Even if his marriage with Victoria had never been real, had been an arrangement made by Gerard to fix his son. Just because Victoria was dead now – and not even cold – didn’t mean Chris could have these kind of thoughts, these kind of desires. Gerard would never allow his son to be gay, Chris knew that.

“Allison?” Chris asked concerned when he found his daughter in a similar state of distress as Stiles. “What’s going on? Are you alright?”

“I’m not… I don’t know, dad,” Allison admitted, blinked confused. “I was seeing something… bad. Wait. Why are you at Lydia’s birthday party?”

Chris schooled his features. “It’s your mother, Allison. Come with me.”

/break\

Peter smiled pleased as he wiggled his fingers. How nice to have physical form again. Haunting Lydia Martin had been fun in some ways, particularly because it allowed him a window into reality, to see what this sorry excuse for a pack was doing, but it was so much better to get information the old-fashioned way. First of all, he went to get cleaned up and changed, of course. Then, he knew he needed to have a word with… his Alpha.

“One good reason why I shouldn’t put a wolfsbane bullet in you again right now?”

Peter laughed delighted at the greeting. He was sitting casually at the dining room table of the Stilinski house, his head popped up on his arm, his legs crossed. Waiting. The sheriff looked quite annoyed as he walked into his own home.

“I thought we should talk, dear sheriff,” Peter suggested.

“One good reason,” Noah repeated, his hand on his gun.

“I doubt you have that thing loaded with wolfsbane bullets,” Peter pointed out.

“Oh, enough regular bullets ought to do some harm too,” Noah countered unimpressed.

Peter huffed amused and lifted his hands up in surrender. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”

“You have been haunting Lydia for weeks and used her and Derek to resurrect you.”

“Ah,” Peter winced a little. “So they already had a chance to speak to you.”

“They did,” Noah crossed his arms annoyed, which was an improvement – hands off the gun. “What do you want? Here, in my house. You should have run, right away.”

“Where to?” Peter asked, the fake, playful smile gone as he regarded the sheriff. “This is Hale land. This is my home. This is all I have ever known. Where would I go? What would I do?”

“Not terrorize this town? Not traumatize your nephew any further?”

Peter huffed and averted his eyes at that. “You think he hasn’t traumatized me either?”

“What Kate did to him wasn’t his fault,” Noah growled, an Alpha’s warning.

“But what he did afterward was!” Peter looked up, meeting Noah’s eyes with a blazing blue of his own. “He abandoned me! Laura and Derek left me alone to rot here. You’re a wolf now, you know what pack-bonds feel like. You can’t imagine what if feels like when they break. You can’t imagine what it feels like when you have none at all because what little of your pack survived chose to abandon you to a fate worse than death.”

“He was fifteen,” Noah said, but it sounded as weak as the argument was.

“And then he was sixteen and then seventeen and then eighteen and then nineteen and then twenty and now he is twenty-one and every year, again and again, he made the choice not to come back,” Peter snarled. “He was fifteen when he left but he’s a grown man now. He is responsible for his own choices. He chose to abandon me all on his own. They could have taken me with them! He could have advocated for me. The Hales have enough money, they could have flown me to New York, had me in a facility close by, visited me, taken care of me. They left me behind with all the ash and bad memories. I was abandoned. I’m a wolf and I was abandoned by my pack.”

Peter’s chest was heaving and he could feel the burn in his eyes. Noah’s gaze softened.

“Yeah,” he admitted in the end, turning away. “They did that.”

“I can’t do that again,” Peter’s voice had a pleading edge that he hated. “I can’t be abandoned again. I can’t be alone again. I need pack.”

“You used two of my pack-mates to bring you back,” Noah pointed out. “You traumatized Lydia – and Lydia hasn’t done anything to you at all. When you bit her, hospitalized her, haunted her.”

“She was a means to an end,” Peter shrugged, earning a red-eyed glare and growl from the Alpha. “I can’t apologize for that, you know I can’t, it would be disingenuous. If I hadn’t done that, I would still be in the hole in the ground that you put me into.”

“Yeah. Get to the point where you give me a good reason not to put you there again,” Noah said with a hard edge. “You killed Kate in front of Allison and you were ready to go after her too. An innocent girl who hasn’t done anything, who didn’t even know werewolves were real until that day. Just because you wanted to wipe out all Argents in your revenge.”

Peter heaved a tired sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“Tell me,” Noah ordered, still standing tall and imposing in front of Peter.

“I was feral. Because I had no pack. I was… out of my mind. Having been abandoned by my pack, being stuck in my body with just my thoughts. I wasn’t… myself,” Peter replied carefully. “When Laura returned, all I sensed was an Alpha on my territory – because I was the last wolf left in Beacon Hills. An intruder. A danger. I was healed enough to walk, to do some basic things, but my mind was far gone. I was acting on instinct. I killed what I perceived as a threat to my territory.”

He looked at Noah, watched the way the man was listening for his heartbeat. “Everything after?”

“Well, again, out of my mind,” Peter pointed out. “I was overwhelmed by the rush of power of being the Alpha. I’m sure you now know what that feels like. I had the power and the physical capacity to finally get my revenge. So I went to work. I bit you and the boy because I needed pack, I needed stability. After I bit you, I could feel my mind slowly tethering itself again. I was… regaining more and more of my mental bearings the longer I was Alpha, the longer there were other wolves around me, unwilling as you were. But it wasn’t enough.”

Sighing, Peter looked down at his hands. “I thought if I killed Kate, something would… change. I thought there would be a feeling of… justice. Vindication. Righting a wrong. But I just felt empty. There was that horrible hole in my chest still, where my pack-bonds were supposed to be. My mother, my brother, my sister, my niblings. My family was still gone and I was… I was still alone. And my nephew, the abandoner, the last family I had left, stood there, in an Argent’s arms. When him in an Argent’s arms was how all of this had started. It… set me off, I suppose.”

“You suppose,” Noah snorted. “And, what? That’s enough? I’m supposed to accept you in my pack because you have no place else to go? Because you think your trauma justifies traumatizing others? Because you think you have a right to these lands just because you were born here?”

“Yes,” Peter snarled before taking a deep breath. “It’s all I have, Noah. Did I have a right to inflict the pain I did? No. But I was lashing out, not by choice but because I was in pain. You should know what that’s like. Hurting someone else because of your own trauma that you can’t cope with.”

Was it a dirty tactic to use the man’s alcoholism and child neglect against him? Yes. Was it working? Hopefully. Noah winced and turned away from him. Peter had been Stiles’ state-assigned lawyer back then, after the kid had set the kitchen on fire making dinner on yet another night all alone. They needed to determine whether Stiles was safe in the house, with his father. His father, who had started drinking and started working later and later to avoid coming home to the house where all the memories lived. Only that his son also lived there.

“I love Derek,” Peter admitted softly. “I hate him, I hate him more than anyone else in the world, for abandoning me, for not talking to me, if he had told me about the grown woman coming onto him, I could have intervened, I could have saved our family, if he had stayed, if he had fought for me, I wouldn’t have gone feral, I might have healed faster too. I hate him. But I also still love him. He’s my nephew, he’s that same boy who used to follow me around, he’s my only family.”

Noah remained quiet and Peter looked up at him with as much honesty as he could. “Nothing about this is easy, Noah. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m not apologizing either. But I am asking for a second chance. I’m better now. I… I pulled myself back from death and it helped, it’s like the shattered pieces in my mind have slotted back into place. Give me a chance, that’s all I’m asking. I can be useful to this pack. I have knowledge that Derek doesn’t have. I can help.”

Noah pressed his lips together tightly and regarded him for a long moment in which Peter couldn’t help but hold his breath. And then the Alpha nodded and Peter breathed again, in relief. Okay.

“If you do anything to hurt a member of this pack again, I’m killing you again,” Noah warned, his eyes dark-red. “Do you hear me? And Allison is part of this pack too.”

“Understood, Alpha,” Peter nodded, pleased.

/break\

Allison stood before Derek with tear-wet eyes. “My mom is dead.”

Derek froze, unsure what to do with that. Was she here because she blamed him? Was angry with him? Did she want… revenge for it? Derek knew what it felt like to lose one’s mother. He braced himself for, he didn’t even know what. But then she surged forward and wrapped her arms around him, breaking down in a sob and burying her face in his chest. Oh.

“...Allison?” Derek asked softly, carefully wrapping his arms around her.

“I’m sorry,” Allison sobbed out. “I know I shouldn’t bother you with that. She tried to kill you. You’re the last person who would feel bad about it. But… but…”

Derek’s arms tightened around her, more certain now. “It’s okay. I got you.”

“She didn’t have to die,” Allison continued, crying harder. “I know she didn’t. You and Noah said that… that he bit her. She could have chosen to become a werewolf. She could have chosen to live. But instead, she chose to leave me. Why would she… Why does she hate werewolves more than she loves me? I really thought… I…”

Oh. Derek buried his face in her hair as he pulled her as close as possible, holding her safe and warm while she cried and talked and sobbed and clung onto him like he was her sole lifeline. She had chosen him. Of all the people who cared for her, she had chosen to come to him.

“It’s going to get better,” Derek promised softly. “You’re not alone. I got you. The pack got you. You’re not alone, Allison. I’m sorry she left you, but there are others, who haven’t, who won’t turn their backs on you. We got you, okay? We got you.”

She clung near painfully tight onto him, but he let her, because she needed that right now. She needed to feel like she wasn’t left behind. And Derek vowed to himself he never would.

/break\

Matt Daehler was the master of the kanima. He had, apparently, been drowned at a party, and the coach had kept it a secret. So now the boy thought to kill every member of the swim team and the coach. And then some more, because he took the sheriff station hostage. People died. Noah’s people died. What good was being an Alpha werewolf if he couldn’t even protect his deputies?

The most troublesome part was when Matt turned up drowned in the river. Someone had killed him, most likely to take control of the kanima. And that someone, much to Noah’s and everyone else’s horror, was Gerard Argent. The kanima was still on the loose – worse yet, it was evolving.

When Jackson had gone to play in the upcoming lacrosse game like nothing had happened, the pack went to the game. To observe. To step in, in case something may happen. Something did happen. Jackson died, in front of an audience. Lydia screamed, ear-piercing and supernatural, and then she collapsed into Allison’s arms and cried. They took the body to the hospital, but…

“Okay, I want half the pack following the body, the other half will come with me to keep an eye on Gerard,” Noah ordered. “Malia, Stiles and Lydia go to the hospital. Derek and Allison, with me.”

He frowned deeply as he looked around his pack. Where was his son? Where was Stiles?

“Where’s my son?” Noah asked, his voice barely contained panic. “Where is Stiles?”

“He was sitting with me earlier,” Malia frowned. “But then we got separated when we went on the field, I… I don’t know where he went.”

Stiles was reckless, but when surrounded by the pack, he wouldn’t just wander off without telling anyone or taking someone with him. Noah’s breathing picked up with panic. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t lose Stiles. Not Stiles. He couldn’t-

“Noah,” Derek’s voice cut in and his first Beta pushed his way in front of him. “Deep breaths. We’re going to find Stiles, okay? Send Peter. He’s at the house, he can take something with Stiles’ scent, find his trail and find him.”

“I’m not trusting Peter with my son,” Noah growled, rearing back.

“You made him part of this pack,” there was a hard edge to Derek’s voice, like judgment. “You can’t have it both ways. Either he is pack, or not. He was my mother’s Left Hand. Finding traces and following them to track down threats was his specialty. If anyone can find Stiles, it’s him.”

Noah ground his teeth together but he nodded reluctantly. The kanima’s threat was too present. Ever since Peter had found out that the kanima could evolve – and damn the man for proving actually useful – they were all afraid of what Jackson could become.

“Fine,” Noah growled out. “I’m calling Peter.”

/break\

Peter was well-aware that Noah wouldn’t have tasked him with this if he had any other choice. But Gerard Argent and the kanima were too big a threat for him to divide his attention. So while Noah and the pack was trying to find Argent and the kanima, Peter was trying to find the wayward pup.

“Oh dear,” Peter murmured displeased when he sneaked into the Argent basement.

“Why are you here, Zombiewolf?” Stiles grumbled annoyed.

But Peter’s focus was on the Argent holding Stiles. Peter’s claws unsheathed to eliminate the threat to his Alpha’s pup. Chris Argent was cradling a heavily injured Stiles.

“Let go of the boy,” Peter warned, his eyes flashing blue.

“Put those away, Peter!” Stiles yelled in frustration. “Chris is helping me.”

“Is he now?” Peter cocked one disbelieving eyebrow as he regarded Chris.

Chris averted his gaze, radiating guilt. “I didn’t know… I’m trying to help him.”

Stiles was openly leaning into the man, didn’t seem afraid. Which might be more dangerous. But for now, Peter accepted that no harm was being inflicted on Stiles. He went to crouch down next to Stiles so he could siphon the boy’s pain. Stiles gave a soft whimper and curled even more into Chris. Mh. Highly suspicious. Peter made a note to keep an eye on Chris Argent.

“What happened?” Peter asked, making his voice softer.

“Gerard’s men took me, after the game,” Stiles sighed and motioned at his bloodied face. “A message, to the Alpha. How do I hide this from dad so he doesn’t feel guilty?”

“Afraid that’s going to be… quite impossible,” Peter muttered while getting his phone out. “Take him upstairs, so his wounds can actually be cleaned. Cuddling him doesn’t fix anything.”

He added a sneer for good measure, relishing in the flinch from the Argent. Chris obeyed.

“Peter?” Noah sounded anxious when the call connected. “What is it?”

“I found him. He’s safe,” Peter promised. “You can focus on your task now, Alpha.”

“Is he alright? What happened?” Noah asked.

“He will be,” Peter said truthfully. “But don’t think about that now. Do you need me to come?”

“You need to keep Stiles safe,” Noah argued.

“You do know that boy is as stubborn as can be, he will most likely want to be wherever you are,” Peter pointed out. “Give me a location and we’ll come. I could duct-tape him to the car.”

Despite the situation, he got a snort from the Alpha. “...Fine. I’m sending you the location of a warehouse. But make sure that Stiles stays out of danger.”

Noah wasn’t stupid. Gerard had too many hunters on his side, the pack was outnumbered and if the kanima did evolve, they would be royally screwed. He needed all the manpower he could get. Peter pocketed his phone again and walked upstairs to the bathroom. He quietly paused in the doorway, watching the way Chris was gently cleaning out and bandaging Stiles’ wounds, shushing him whenever Stiles would wince in pain. Oh, Noah was not going to like this. Delightful.

“When you’re done here, your father needs us elsewhere,” Peter offered.

“I’m fine,” Stiles struggled to get up, pressing a hand to his ribs.

“You are not fine,” Chris admonished with a glare.

“Stop fussing,” Stiles glared at the man, then glared at Peter. “Let’s go.”

“Oh, you can come too, Christopher,” Peter suggested generously. “This is your father’s mess, after all. And you can keep my Alpha’s pup out of harm’s way. ...Good luck with that.”

/break\

Jackson was clinging desperately to his house-key. Lydia had her arms around him, clinging onto him just as desperately. He’d died. He guessed he’d died. The others said so. He had no memories of it. Everything from the past couple months was so… hazy. He remembered being terrified though. For himself. About himself. Pushing everyone away. He turned to look at Lydia, holding on tight. Regardless of how hard he pushed. He ducked his head to kiss her softly.

“I love you,” Jackson whispered, his voice hoarse.

Everything ached. The sheriff and… Peter Hale… had rammed their claws into him. Had turned him, from whatever he was into a real werewolf. Or at least he thought so. Everything was fuzzy.

“Come on, son,” the sheriff approached him and laid a jacket around him. “Let’s get you back to the hospital to get checked out. Your parents are worried about you.”

Jackson nodded numbly, his eyes landing on the dead body. Their principal laid in a puddle of blood. Torn apart by werewolves. Derek and Peter Hale stood, together with Allison, Stiles, Malia and Allison’s father. What in the world had he missed here.

“I’ll take care of cleanup, Alpha,” Peter offered with a sharp smile.

“Derek, can you take the kids home?” Noah requested. “Stiles…”

“Not going to the hospital,” Stiles shook his head firmly. “I’m fine, dad. Take care of Jackson.”

He turned away from his father to follow Derek. Jackson watched them leave. Watched Chris Argent stay behind with Peter, by the body of his now dead father. Jackson had no idea what was going to happen from hereon out, but it felt like today had fundamentally shifted everything.

/break\

Noah growled and flashed his eyes red when a hand snatched the glass from him. His angry glare landed on a very unimpressed Peter. The other wolf just smiled and emptied the glass.

“Oh, that’s not even laced with wolfsbane,” Peter huffed disappointed. “You couldn’t get drunk from this if you tried. Which you shouldn’t. You know that would break dear Stiles’ heart.”

The growl turned into a snarl, showing off his fangs to the Beta. “My son got tortured because of me. Because Gerard was trying to hurt me. Because I let Stiles out of my sight.”

“Stiles is seventeen, he doesn’t need you to watch his every step,” Peter sighed. “And if not Stiles, Gerard would have snatched someone else from your pack. Would you have been happier if he had tortured Malia? Or Derek, mh?”

“No,” Noah’s growl grew louder at the accusation.

“Then there’s nothing you could have done. You can’t watch half a dozen people at all times,” Peter cocked one eyebrow. “Your son got hurt. But he’s tough, he can take it. What he wouldn’t be able to take is if you started drinking again, especially not if you started because of him.”

Noah’s shoulders slumped, the fight leaving him. It had just all been too much. Seeing the injuries on Stiles, having him flinch away when touched because he was so tender, because the memory of pain was still too fresh on his mind to register that the touch wasn’t bad, it was horrible.

“What do I do, Peter?” Noah asked softly.

Peter cocked one curious eyebrow and walked around the kitchen table to sit down opposite him. “Get rid of that bottle before Stiles can find it, for one. And other than that… make your pack stronger. The majority of your pack are angsty teenagers. Angsty, traumatized teenagers. They need training, even the ones who aren’t wolves. You want to protect Stiles? Make sure Stiles can protect himself. Make sure the Betas in your pack can protect themselves and Stiles.”

“How?” Noah looked up at Peter. “I’ve been training with Derek and Malia, but…”

Peter snorted, earning a growl from Noah. “I’m sorry, but… No. You’re trying, that’s for sure. But what do you know about how a werewolf fights? What does Derek know about it? He was fifteen, a sheltered pup, when our family died. From what I gather, him and Laura were on their own in New York too, they didn’t rebuild a pack, so I doubt there was much training happening there. Let me teach you. I’m the Left Hand, I’ve been trained to be sly and quick and effective since I was young. I can teach you, Derek, Malia and Jackson how a werewolf is supposed to fight.”

“And Stiles,” Noah ground his teeth together.

Peter pursed his lips, the scheming practically oozing out of him. “Chris Argent got him out of that basement. The man seems to harbor a lot of guilt, about what his sister did, what his wife did, what his father did. I think it’s time we… utilize it, for our own gain.”

“I don’t like using people, I’m not like you, Peter,” Noah argued with a deep glare.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Alpha,” Peter chuckled bemused, making a dismissive gesture. “It’s not using if it’s mutually beneficial. Let him work off his guilt by training both Allison and Stiles. Teach them how to fight against hunters and how to fight like hunters, against supernatural threats. Give Stiles the tools to feel powerful himself, without giving him the bite that you are so afraid to give.”

Slowly, Noah rubbed his face. It wasn’t the worst idea. Stiles could learn from the source how to fight the biggest threat they had. Hunters. It’d ease Noah’s mind, if his son could defend himself. And Peter did have the most experience actively fighting as a werewolf. Derek’s solution to problems so far had been to run and hide, taught that lesson by his previous Alpha too. The kid wasn’t fit to train anyone, he needed the training himself.

“And Lydia? Is she joining Stiles and Allison in their training?” Noah asked.

“Mh,” Peter’s smile became dangerous again and Noah grew wary. “Not a bad idea. But I had something else in mind for her. The reason I needed her for my resurrection is because she’s a banshee. Her powers, if honed right, would be an invaluable asset to this pack.”

“Banshee,” Noah frowned deeply. “If you manipulate her in any way-”

“You’re putting a bullet in me again, yes, yes,” Peter made a dismissive motion. “These threats are getting quite tiresome, dear. But of course. I’m set to make this pack strong too, you know. It is my pack now too and I would like to survive. The key to survival for a wolf is a strong pack.”

Noah watched him, not entirely trusting the wolf’s words just yet. He had proven useful so far, more useful than Noah had anticipated if he was being honest, but he had also manipulated and used pretty much every member of this pack before, for his own gain, so Noah would be a fool to trust blindly. Peter was going to have to put a lot of work in to earn that trust.

/break\

Chris had no idea how he had ended up here. In his backyard, training Stiles, Allison and Lydia how to fight. He’d started Allison’s hunter training before, but things had changed now. Noah had confronted him and, in no uncertain terms, made clear that if Chris wished to remain in the man’s territory, they ought to work together. A treaty. With his daughter considering herself a part of that pack and with their entire family dead, Chris didn’t know what else to do either.

They had nowhere to go. Chris was the head of Argent Arms now. Kate, Victoria, Gerard, they were all gone. Chris and Allison were the last Argents left in the states. And Chris planned on doing something with it. He wasn’t wholly sure what just yet, but he wanted to change. So did his daughter. She defined hunters as protectors and Chris, he liked that.

“You need to coordinate your limbs better, Stiles,” Chris muttered, rubbing his chin.

“But he hit you,” Allison argued with a grin.

“I’m sorry about that,” Stiles looked at him troubled and a little sheepish, yet still inexplicably proud. “I mean, was kind of the goal, but uh, not like this?”

Chris huffed and regarded the boy fondly. These weekly training sessions weren’t good for Chris. Not at all. He was already much too drawn to Stiles. Regularly pinning the boy to the ground, or having him above Chris, panting and sweating, it wasn’t good.

“I’d like to train you kids not just in hand to hand combat but in weaponry too,” Chris said, slowly, regarding them. “Allison has an affinity for bows and arrows and I would like to find out what kind of weapons work best for you two, too.”

“Guns,” Stiles replied with a broad grin.

“I am not giving you a gun, Stiles,” Chris looked unimpressed.

“I know how to use a gun,” Stiles rolled his eyes annoyed. “Hello? Sheriff’s son. Dad used to take me hunting all the time before – well, before there were hunters hunting us.”

Chris tried not to think about what he felt imagining Stiles with a gun. This was a problem.

/break\

Pack was… good. It was a fight, Jackson felt like he needed to earn his place, even if his Alpha told him he didn’t have to, and he edged on with Malia a lot, but it still felt like belonging. Like family. Like he was claiming a new part of his identity, instead of having it slip away.

“You did good,” Lydia praised him with a smile and handed him a towel.

He wiped the sweat off and collapsed against the tree next to his girlfriend. They were taking a break. Noah and Peter were arguing about how hard Peter was taking them to task. Derek was taking a drink from the cooler they’d hauled into the preserve with them. Lydia was sitting in the shade of a tree, reading a book about banshees, while Allison did homework and Stiles did… something that looked weird. He was doing a lot of that lately. Magic.

“Malia still beat my ass,” Jackson pointed out annoyed.

“Because you’re weak,” Malia said with a smirk before sitting down between Allison and Stiles.

Both accommodated her, scooting out of the way some while she got comfortable. He envied that. Her time as a wild coyote had made her care less about human social norms. When she wanted to be close to someone, she just… was. She took her place, took what she wanted. He struggled with that.

“C’mere,” Lydia whispered softly, tugging on his hand.

He gratefully slipped down next to her and relaxed when she leaned into him, even though he was ‘gross and sweaty’. She used to never seek him out after lacrosse training, not without him showering first. But losing him, him actually dying, it had made her seek him out more too. He took a deep breath, inhaling her scent and losing some of his tension.

“Why aren’t you and Derek together?” Malia asked, all of a sudden, looking at Allison.

“W… What?” Allison sputtered and turned to look at Malia in surprise.

Jackson just cocked one eyebrow, a small smirk growing on his lips. Oh, he could smell them too. The way Allison smelled when she was looking over at shirtless, sweaty Derek was such a tell-tale. But unlike Malia, Jackson had the decency not to comment on that. It was her business. Also, he quite frankly didn’t care who the others slept with or didn’t sleep with, in that case.

“You’re clearly attracted to him,” Malia argued. “And he’s clearly attracted to you. Why aren’t you all over each other, the way Jackson and Lydia are?”

“Yes, Allison,” Lydia smiled sharply, her fingers running through Jackson’s hair. “Why aren’t you?”

Allison’s eyes were wide and her cheeks were red as she helplessly looked around for anyone to save her. Jackson had no intentions to do so. He liked her, but this was getting entertaining.

“Malia,” Noah called out, frowning at her. “That’s enough.”

“But why? They like each other. If you find a suitable mate, you should just… go for it,” Malia frowned, like she genuinely didn’t understand the issue.

“I… I’m going home,” Allison said abruptly and got up.

Noah walked over to them with a frown once Allison had rushed off. “Come walk with me, Malia.”

Malia was still frowning, but she got up to follow their Alpha. Lydia heaved a deep sigh and also got up, after pecking Jackson on the cheek. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be upset that his girlfriend was leaving. Because he was understanding this pack-thing more. Lydia was leaving to support one of their pack mates. Stiles heaved a sigh as he watched them go.

“This is getting messy,” Stiles pointed out.

It took Jackson a moment to realize that they were alone and that Stiles was talking to him. “Yeah. Kind of. Why aren’t those two just boning? Like, Malia has a point.”

“Because Derek is twenty-one and riddled with a lot of angst, much of it stemming from the twenty-one year old woman who seduced him when he was a minor,” Stiles pointed out.

Right. Jackson frowned and shot Derek a look, who was still pretending like he hadn’t heard every word spoken by them all. His uncle seemed to be having some mercy on Derek, engaging him in a conversation to help pretend. Mercy wasn’t a word Jackson would have associated with the man.

“But this is different though,” Jackson pointed out. “Unless Derek plans on using her to set her house on fire… I mean, the majority of her family is dead, at this point.”

“Sensitive,” Stiles drawled, shooting him a dry look. “Logic doesn’t work for trauma. I’m fairly sure Derek has convinced himself that he doesn’t deserve nice thing. Allison is nice.”

Couldn’t argue with that one. Jackson stared at the way Derek’s back tensed and the near amused look on Peter’s face. Yeah, Stiles had just read that poor man for filth.

/break\

Allison was embarrassed when Derek climbed into her room through the window. Embarrassed about a lot of things. The things Malia had said, but also the things Malia had smelled, because Derek could clearly smell them too. In her defense, why was he out there shirtless? How was she supposed to not have a reaction to that?

“I’m sorry,” Allison offered, unsure what else to say.

“...I’m here to apologize,” Derek argued confused.

“What?” Allison blinked. “Why?”

“Because Malia made you uncomfortable and caused you to run away. Because she can smell,” Derek actually flushed and turned away from her. “I shouldn’t feel that way about you.”

Right, because Malia had been able to smell them both being into each other. Allison bit her lip. She’d suspected that Derek liked her for a while now. He sometimes looked at her like she was the sun and the stars at the same time. But then he’d get distant again and it was just really hard to understand what was going on in him. She got up and walked up to him. He watched her warily, like a wild animal that didn’t trust yet. Smiling, she reached out for him.

“I like you, Derek,” Allison whispered gently. “I like you a lot.”

“You shouldn’t,” Derek turned to look away from her. “Everyone I care about ends up dead.”

“That’s… being human,” Allison pointed out. “We live and we die. Unless you unlock the secret to immortality, we are all going to die. It’s the way we choose to spend the time before that, that is what really matters, Derek. And the people you loved who died? They chose to love you. You chose to love them. I don’t think that caring about you is what kills them, caring about you made their lives a little richer before they ended.”

Derek’s breath hitched at that and he looked at her with such heartbroken eyes. She cupped his face gently and leaned in until only a breath was between their lips. And then she remained, exactly there. If he wanted her, he needed to do his part too. So she waited, patiently, until he leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. She smiled into the kiss, tightening her hold on him.

All they could do was make the best of the time they had and Allison had seen too much death in recent months to waste any of the time she had. Both her and Derek had lost enough already, didn’t they deserve to find each other? To be happy, as long as it lasted?

/break\

Humans were complicated and annoying. They felt so much that it was overwhelming, but even beyond that, they had to do elaborate song and dance routines around their feelings. Like the feelings themselves weren’t complicated enough as were, the social hoops one had to jump through to deal with them were even more exhausting.

Like Derek and Allison. So he was a few years older than her. What did that matter? The law. Their Alpha was the sheriff, so he cited the law. But what did it matter if they waited a couple months longer until Allison was eighteen? A few months changed nothing. Turning eighteen didn’t suddenly make her a much more responsible person than she was now. It was stupid and pretentious.

And other things just the same. Malia had to learn all these unnecessary, stupid things that she would probably never need in life. But as a minor, she needed a school education. Noah, Peter, Derek and Chris were working together to help her with that, but honestly, Stiles and Lydia were way more helpful than any of the adults. It still felt pointless to her. Some of the things seemed useful, but others? She would never look at that stuff again, it wasn’t useful for life.

“How’s homework going, kids?” Noah asked with a smile.

“Stupid,” Malia answered truthfully.

“Well,” Stiles answered with an amused chuckled.

“You think you can finish in your room, Stiles?”

Oh. Was Malia in trouble? She frowned up at her Alpha. She’d been living with the Stilinskis ever since she had been turned back to human by the Alpha. It was good. It wasn’t how home used to be, but it still was home, now. They weren’t the family she had grown up with, but they were family.

“I was thinking about… legally adopting you, Malia,” Noah spoke slowly as he sat down with her. “I want you to know that you’re a part of this family, even when you turn eighteen. A lot of foster kids end up on the streets when they’re eighteen. I never want that to happen to you. I want you to know you have a place with us, in this family, regardless of how old you are.”

“I…” Malia trailed off, a little lost.

It felt a bit like turning her back on her family. Her family who had died. She’d survived them all and it still haunted her and now she was supposed to just move on from them? Accept a new family? Sure, they felt like family, but making it legal… That felt different.

“It’s okay, kiddo,” Noah smiled and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You don’t have to decide now.”

Malia nodded, grateful for that. She was also acutely aware of the blue eyes watching them from the doorway. Peter Hale was somehow always everywhere. Stiles said that the man wielded knowledge like a weapon, so he was always gathering it. Malia wasn’t entirely sure if he was living at the Stilinski house too, if she was being honest. Derek was living in the guest room, Malia had moved into Stiles’ room, because she refused to be removed from him anyway and had been crawling into his bed all the time. They’d kind of given up and allowed her to stay there. Even though they assumed her and Stiles were doing more than just sleeping, at first.

That wasn’t it though, and Malia had explained it to Noah. That Stiles surely would be a good mate, but to her, he was kin. He had saved her during a cold winter when the hunt had been bad, had brought her into the house and fed her. She might have starved otherwise, she didn’t know. But she had been too new to being a coyote at the time and hunting hadn’t come easy to her. He had shown her kindness. He was kin, he was her first pack and that would never change. Noah accepted that.

“Just think about it, kiddo,” Noah asked with a smile. “No pressure, whatever you decide.”

/break\

Stiles grinned as he looked up into the night-sky. They had survived the school year together, which could be considered a miracle, after all a bunch of people had tried to kill them this school year. It was summer and so far, summer had been going great. Stiles, Allison and Lydia got trained by Chris every two days, the wolves trained with each other, Lydia and Stiles studied their supernatural abilities together, with the help of the books from both the Argent library and the Hale vault.

“Help gathering wood,” Noah ordered, lightly kicking Stiles’ side.

“Why?” Stiles asked, looking up at his dad. “So—o many strong weres, surely you guys can carry wood while the frail, weak humans bask in the night.”

“The frail, weak humans are gathering wood and preparing dinner while the weres are going hunting,” Chris informed him as he came to stand next to Noah. “C’mon, Stiles. You’re with me.”

Well, that was a motivator. Stiles quickly sat up. A little too quickly, considering the suspicious look his dad shot him. He grinned as he joined Chris and the two of them headed into the woods to gather firewood. His kind of crush on Chris had grown into fully being stupidly in love with the man. Training with him and feeling like Chris was protective of him was not helping.

“You’re not gonna shoot Derek when he and Allison figure their shit out, right?”

“...What brought that on?” Chris asked warily.

Well, at least Chris wasn’t trying to deny what Stiles was talking about. Though Stiles could hardly explain his train of thoughts there. Thinking about his own feelings for Chris had made him think about the ‘inappropriate age gap’ between Allison and Derek and all the angst those two were experiencing about their forbidden love. The last thing they needed was Chris shooting Derek.

“You’ve been getting along with our pack lately,” Stiles shrugged. “And you’re a smart man. Surely, you noticed that your daughter has heart-eyes about Derek.”

He bent down to pick up some branches. Chris heaved a deep sigh, like he agreed with that.

“I refuse to know any about that until she turns eighteen,” Chris offered after a moment. “I think we have both lost enough that I can’t let anything alienate me from my kid. Not even that.”

“Oh, come on,” Stiles shot him a small grin. “Derek’s not that bad.”

“No, he’s not,” Chris admitted, much to Stiles’ surprise. “He’s… a good kid. But he’s also deeply troubled. And I think my daughter is too young to deal with that.”

“Your daughter’s deeply troubled too,” Stiles pointed out. “Like, her mom committed suicide a couple months ago, and she still feels like her mom chose death over her. Your father and your sister tried to brainwash her into hating werewolves. She saw her friends tortured. She saw her classmates die. I’m just saying… Allison’s been through a lot too. And I think they… help each other.”

Chris was watching him with those very, very intense, blue eyes of his. Stiles’ pulse jumped at that. It always did. He loved and hated being the focus of Chris’ full attention like that. His tongue darted out and he wet his lips. His eyes widened when he noticed that Chris’ eyes were following the motion, and that his pupils were blown. What.

“So the age gap doesn’t bother you?” Stiles pushed, feeling a surge of boldness.

“I mean, it does,” Chris snorted. “But it’s not like I can do anything about that. Or that I have any room to judge them about it.”

“Why not?” Stiles asked with a frown.

Chris went very still at that and Stiles took a step forward. “Why not, Chris?”

“It’s none of your business, brat,” Chris turned away from him.

Stiles had always been reckless and impulsive. He surged forward to grab the man’s arm and twist him around, before pinning him to the ground, the way Chris had taught him. The hunter stared up at him in surprise, while Stiles straddled his waist to keep him pinned.

“Why not, Christopher?” Stiles repeated with more urgency. “Is it because you like someone who may not be off-age yet either?”

Chris’ glare hardened and he easily rolled them over, pinning Stiles beneath him. The adrenaline rush, the excitement from being so close to getting what he wanted, made Stiles’ control on his magic slip just a little. The night-sky above them clouded and thunder was rumbling in the distance.

“Don’t,” Chris warned him lowly.

“Why not?” Stiles asked frustrated. “I want you. I want you so much. Why can’t I have you?”

“You’re friends with my daughter. You’re seventeen. Your father is the sheriff. Your father is the Alpha. I’m your father’s age,” Chris glared at him. “Take your pick.”

“Doesn’t bother me, none of that bothers me,” Stiles reached up and cupped Chris’ face. “Please?”

He looked up at Chris with big, hopeful eyes and he could see the exact moment that Chris cracked. When the man leaned down and his lips met Stiles’, lightning crackled in the sky and rain started to pour down on them. Not that it bothered either of them, too lost in each other.

/break\

“I thought your son could control the weather,” Peter complained annoyed. “Could he perhaps make it so it doesn’t rain on the full moon night that we are on a pack run?”

Peter shot Noah a deeply upset glare. Noah just smirked at the man. Wet and miserable was a good look on Peter. Oh. That wasn’t a good train of thought to have. Yes, Peter had become an invaluable part of this pack over the months and… a friend too, perhaps. Ever since that night that Peter had taken the drink out of Noah’s hand, Noah found himself relying more on Peter. They talked, not just about training schedules or the variety of threats that came knocking on their door. They talked about themselves, their losses, the people they had become for it. Noah had gotten to know Peter Hale, the man, not the Beast that he had once been. And he… liked the man.

“What?” Peter frowned disturbed. “Why are you looking at me like that, Alpha?”

“Because you look ridiculous,” Malia provided shamelessly, wiping her own soaking-wet hair out of her face. “Like that v-neck isn’t stupid enough. It’s white and soaking wet. You look dumb.”

Peter glared viciously at the younger Beta and Noah… Noah found himself staring at the man’s chest. Malia wasn’t entirely wrong, Peter did look ridiculous, in his wet, white v-neck shirt that clung to his body like a second skin. A surprising hunger surged through Noah at that, fueled on by the full moon in the sky. Peter’s head snapped over to him in surprise, nostrils flaring.

“Urgh,” Jackson groaned. “I am not going to be a part of any of this. I’m heading back.”

“Yeah,” Derek muttered, just as thunder roared in the distance again.

“We’ll see you at home,” Malia agreed, shooting Noah and Peter a look.

The three Betas were gone from the clearing before Noah could complain. But at least they had taken the deer they’d already caught with them. Leaving Noah alone with Peter. With a smugly smirking Peter. Noah glared at the other wolf.

“Oh, come on,” Peter laughed softly. “I get to be a little smug for the way you smell. Six years in a coma and death once and I apparently still got it.”

“I can’t decide which version of you is the most infuriating. The lawyer who used to make my life unnecessarily hard, the feral Alpha who bit me, or this… snarky but helpful version I am stuck with right now,” Noah muttered frustrated.

“Oh, darling,” Peter smirked and leaned closer, resting a hand on Noah’s chest. “I am infuriating through and through and what you find the most infuriating is that you like it.”

God, Noah wished that wasn’t true. Had he really fallen for Peter Hale? Why? Well, no. Why was obvious. He’d always been weak to the strong-willed, snarky brunettes that were up to no good. Peter was a lot like Claudia, in all the respects that had first made him fall for Claudia. And he’d desperately tried not to see it. He had also desperately tried not to see Peter.

But the more time passed, the less he could push the man away. Peter had earned his place in this pack over and over again. He helped train the Betas, was willing to guide and mentor both Lydia and Stiles to teach them about their powers, even helped in Malia’s education and had helped Noah draft up the adoption papers for Malia. When Noah had a long day at work, he’d come home to the scent of garlic-tomato sauce and the bickering between Stiles, Peter, Malia and Derek. He came home to the sound of family, to the scent of pack, to the feeling of home.

And Peter Hale had become a part of that. Had become not just a part of his pack, but a part of his family and of his home. Noah glared at the other wolf as he reached out and grabbed a fistful of the stupid, too tight and too deeply cut shirt to pull Peter into a bruising kiss. The man looked surprised for a split second, before he smirked into the kiss and leaned in.

“Didn’t think you were ready for that yet, Alpha,” Peter whispered against his lips after. “Thought I’d have to seduce you a while longer before you would admit it.”

“...You wore this shirt on purpose,” Noah accused him.

“Yes. And I also did whatever caused Stiles to make it rain,” Peter deadpanned. “Well, I did wear the shirt on purpose because it looks good on me. I didn’t anticipate the rain.”

As if on cue did thunder roll over them again. Both wolves with their sensitive hearing startled at it and turned to look skyward. The full moon couldn’t be seen anywhere, even though they both knew it was still there, making their blood near boil. Noah sighed and wrapped an arm around Peter’s waist, earning a very pleased hum from the other wolf. Maybe he had been mourning his wife long enough. Maybe it was time he got something nice too. What had Stiles said about Derek not thinking he deserved nice things? Perhaps that was true for more members of their pack than just Derek. Noah tilted his head to kiss Peter again, softer this time.

“Okay,” Peter whispered, more unsure now.

Like he understood lust, but didn’t understand tenderness. Noah sighed and rested his forehead against the other’s shoulder. He had his work cut out for him with this one, didn’t he?

“Let’s get home to our pack. We’re already soaking wet enough,” Noah replied.

“Home,” Peter repeated near wondrously. “Yes. Let’s get home.”

Noah flashed his eyes red at the other, smirking as Peter understood the challenge. And then they were both running. Chasing. Noah was chasing the other wolf, until he caught him, just outside the house, pinning him to the wall and kissing him heatedly.

“Ew. Gross. You will be paying for my therapy,” Stiles complained.

They whirled apart and saw Stiles and Chris walk over to them. Noah’s eyes narrowed at the beard-burn on his son’s face and neck, and the way they both reeked of arousal. Peter chuckled delighted and slipped a hand into Noah’s, like he was trying to distract him. It wasn’t working.

“I feel like I am the one who will need therapy. And a good lawyer.”

He tilted his son’s head, very pointedly rubbing against the beard-burn. Stiles’ eyes widened and his cheeks flushed, while Chris looked mildly horrified when Noah glared at him.

“Darling, please,” Peter sighed. “You already have the best lawyer in the state.”

“Hey, so, if you wanna play Stepwolf, then be on my side!” Stiles yelped.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think that’s how it works, Stiles,” Peter cocked one eyebrow. “I will first and foremost be on my Alpha’s side. Especially if he becomes my lover.”

“Urgh, I’m going to throw up,” Stiles groaned and wrenched himself out of his dad’s grip. “You do not get to judge my age-inappropriate lover if you are picking him, of all people! Mu—ultiple murders, plus breaking supernatural law by resurrecting himself! Also, he is the one who bit you, which makes this like super toxic and unhealthy and-”

“Stop talking,” Noah sighed and rubbed his face. “Just stop talking, Stiles.”

“Only if you stop judging,” Stiles muttered warily, glaring at his father.

The Stilinskis glared at each other for long moments. Long moments in which the rain intensified, becoming near cutting with how cold and harsh it was, the sky kept lighting up with every lightning strike and the thunder was near deafening. It took Noah a moment to realize that this wasn’t just weather. This was his son. His son was doing this, with his magic. Because he was feeling cornered. Noah closed his eyes and heaved a very, very deep sigh, before shooting Chris a look.

“If anything ever happens to my kid while you’re nearby, whether you’re the one doing it or just the one who fails to protect him, I’ll tear your throat out and my lawyer here is going to make it look like self-defense,” Noah warned with a deep growl. “And if you ever touch him in a way he doesn’t want, I’ll tear you into such tiny pieces, nobody is ever going to find you.”

“You, uh, you wouldn’t do that to Allison, right?” Stiles asked unsure.

“I’d adopt her in a heartbeat,” Noah said without hesitation.

“Mh. Never seen adoption used as a threat before,” Peter chuckled. “Inspired, dear. Now, please, come inside. I am still wet and it’s getting uncomfortable.”

“Understood, sheriff,” Chris nodded seriously, even though his cheeks were red.

How was this his life? Noah grabbed Stiles by the shoulder and startled the boy by pulling him into a tight hug. Nothing was ever going to get between him and his son again, he had promised himself that. Granted, he hadn’t anticipated a middle-aged man, but… He had never anticipated becoming an Alpha werewolf either, so there was that.

“Finally,” Lydia groaned when the four of them entered the house. “I’m starving.”

Apparently, the others had gotten dinner started while Noah had gotten distracted chasing Peter through the woods. The venison had been cut and put in the oven, there were pots with vegetables boiling on the stove. The plan had been to have barbecue in the preserve, after a pack-run. They’d taken potatoes and vegetables for sides with them, the humans were supposed to prepare those while the weres hunted. But Noah supposed that eating at home was nice too.

“Stiles. Why is your neck all red?” Allison asked with narrowed eyes. “Is that…”

Her eyes widened mortified as her gaze wandered to her father. Stiles yelped loudly.

“Poison ivy. Yes. I fell. Uhm. Into it,” Stiles nodded seriously. “Horrible rash.”

“Why are you lying?” Malia asked confused.

“To save his dignity,” Jackson supplied dryly. “It isn’t working.”

Stiles started yelling at Jackson and the whole thing kind of escalated, so Noah decided to slip out and get to the bathroom to shower and change. He did notice the wolf sneaking after him.

“Are we?” Peter asked softly, sounding surprisingly unsure. “Lovers, I mean. Or was this just… the full moon? It’s okay if it was. I won’t bring it up agai-”

Noah cut him off by pulling him into a slow, deep kiss, until Peter relaxed in his arms. This was most likely a horrible idea, but Noah found himself not caring, only wanting.

~*~ The End ~*~