Work Text:
Stiles was on his way home from his evening with Derek in his old railway station haunt, hiding away from the world, when he got Danny’s text, telling him to come straight to the school ASAP. He sent a quick text back, telling him he’d be five minutes or so and sent another off to Derek, telling him he was making a detour to the school, that something was going on and he’d be fine. He was glad he’d finished and sent it before he pulled into the parking lot because the sight of Danny stood by a motorbike, Ethan stood close to him, arms around him, talking gently into his ear as Stiles approached would’ve made Stiles antsy enough to inform his alpha of the twin’s presence. As things stood, Danny being there and so close with Ethan forced Stiles to re-evaluate his next actions. From the look on the other alpha’s face, he could tell Ethan was worried about it too.
“Stiles,” Danny breathed, relieved when Stiles got out of the car. He stepped out of Ethan’s hold and stepped up to Stiles, allowing the human to pull him close, run a hand through his hair and grasp the back of his neck tightly in a brief, but meaningful hug, before letting him step back to Ethan. The alpha inclined his head respectfully at the implied gesture but still, when Danny stepped into his arms, he obliged. “Deputy Graham is inside,” Danny spoke up, either not noticing or ignoring the tense air between the two alphas. They’d decided not to tell him of Ethan’s direct involvement with Boyd’s death - that would be Ethan’s job, and the alpha knew it. “She looked terrified, told us all to leave quickly and quietly. She had a hand on her gun while we were still there,” he looked more troubled by this than anything else and if Stiles were honest, he was troubled by it too. “I think something happened,” he went on. “I saw her twenty minutes ago... she hasn’t come out yet. I didn’t know what to do so I texted you both.”
Stiles stiffened but forced himself to calm down and look at the pair of them rather than just at Danny. “Thank you,” he said. “You did good, alright? You did the right thing. I want you to stay with Ethan until you’re home, then text me to let me know you’re safe - don’t roll your eyes at me Danny, there’s a thing out there, that isn’t him,” he pointed at Ethan. “That’s killing anyone and everyone it can and if you’re next there won’t be much I can do about it, so please, humour your alpha, and do as you’re told?” Danny rolled his eyes again but nodded, smiling at stiles patiently. Stiles nodded and focussed on Ethan.
“Do yourself a favour, don’t fuck this up like you do everything else you touch,” Ethan went rigid but he nodded, unwilling to push his luck. “Danny,” the other teen was frowning at him now but he didn’t have it in him to care, “Stop pouting, and be careful.” When they left together, Stiles giving Ethan one last glaring pointed look, he made his ways inside the school.
Almost twenty minutes later, he felt hands gripping his upper arms from behind, trying to move him away, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from her. She was just sat there staring at the ceiling, the shower on, water crashing over her.
Allison and Lydia were in front of him, talking to him, blocking his view of Tara and he stumbled, strong arms catching him from behind. A look back told him Scott was there. “We called your Dad,” Scott said. “Allison called me, Lydia had one of her feelings again.” He looked over the girls’ heads and gasped, his grip tightening on Stiles. “Is that-”
“Tara,” he breathed, closing his eyes tightly.
“I’m sorry, Stiles,” he murmured into the hair just above Stiles’ ear and Stiles felt the girls close ranks, wrapping their arms around him, slowly maneuvering him backwards until they were out in the corridor, away from the crime scene. They eventually found themselves on the floor, huddled together and stayed there until running footsteps roused them from their haze.
Stiles looked up and saw his dad staring down at him, gun out, raised to the roof in preparation. His face fell when he saw the dead look in his son’s eyes but he gestured his deputies onwards anyway, emerging minutes later with glassy eyes, a pissed off expression and questions on the tip of his tongue. Instead of interrogating them though, he just sent them home, telling Scott to drive the jeep. instead of Stiles. His friend readily agreed and for his part, Stiles just didn’t have the energy to argue.
“After my mom died,” he spoke up just as they reached the driveway of Stiles’ house. “Tara used to talk to me, when I had to wait at the station for my dad, she’d help me with homework, she’d talk me through different problems I might be having, she was just there... she never tried to be a mom, just a friend... she was... she was family.” He didn’t argue when Scott came inside with him, upstairs with him, got undressed and borrowed his sweats before getting into bed with him and just holding him until they were both asleep.
---
“We need to talk to Ethan,” Scott said in class and Stiles rolled his eyes, having had enough of tweedle dim and dumber to last a lifetime, but Scott was insistent. “He knows something. We need to talk to him.”
“Why, Scott, in all avenues of sane and sanity having theories, would we need to talk to that murdering scumbag?” Scott flushed but remained determined. Stiles gave him props.
“The druids are emissaries, right? What if the Darach was the emissary to the alphas?”
“That...” Stiles frowned. “Made sense. Things are getting screwed up when the Darach being the emissary to the alphas actually makes sense.” Scott’s lips twitched but he nodded his head, agreeing. “Your plan to talk to Ethan has a flaw in it though.”
“What’s that?”
“Aiden.” They sat in silence for a long, long moment before behind Stiles, Lydia cleared her throat, gaining their attention.
“I can talk to Aiden...” she offered. “I can distract him, I mean.” Stiles turned, frowning.
“No.” No question, no comment, no explanation, just a blanket no. No way in hell.
“Stiles-”
“I said no,” he said firmly.
“Listen to me!” she hissed. “I can get him away from Ethan for you, I can give you the opening you need, okay?”
“She might be right,” Scott said and Stiles glared at him, forcing him to avert his eyes.
“You are not putting yourself anywhere alone with that alpha after what he did last week! No way!” he hissed, forcing an apologetic smile in Miss Blake’s direction when she gave him a pointed look.
“Stiles! Listen to reason, dammit!” she snapped, leaning over her work and getting right into Stiles’ face. He so wished she’d react to him like the wolves did, they just listen to him, Lydia argues. A lot. “I’m the only person who can get him away from Aiden and you know it. It’s a good plan, just let me help you! I need-” she stopped and took a breath, making his frown deepen and put all his attention on her. “I need to do something,” she sighed. “After Boyd... with Aiden and I... I can’t sit back, okay? I need to help. I need to make up for what I didn’t do before.” And there it was. They’d never talked things through because Stiles had been busy dealing with Hale’s, stores, wayward mates and reaffirming his position with the aforementioned clan of crazy.
“Lydia,” he sighed, eyes closing regretfully. She huffed but didn’t comment on how much she didn’t want his pity, sympathy, regret, or anything. She just waited. “It’s not your fault, nothing is your fault. They were sent to do recon on you and Danny.”
“I know that,” she snapped. “But I can’t help the way I feel can I? Just... let me help you, please?”
Scott, wisely, had kept his mouth shut up until that point but when Stiles looked at him for something (he’d be stupid if he thought he might find sympathy or support of any kind), he found his friend agreeing with Lydia. On this suicide mission. He was going to kill his pack, slowly, painfully, because they deserved it for putting him through shit like this. Derek would be first. Because stupid alphas are really fucking stupid.
“Fine,” he sighed, ignoring their not-so-subtle highfive in the middle of class.
An hour later, Lydia safely (or not, depending on who you ask) tucked away in one of the locker storage rooms with Aiden, Stiles manhandled Ethan into a disused stairwell with Scott, demanding a nice, friendly chat.
“I don’t know why you want to talk to me, I helped kill your friend,” Ethan said and Stiles stiffened, Scott’s hand on his arm the only thing keeping him grounded. he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to keep calm, maintain his cool, to not blow up and antagonise the alpha that could snap him in two if given the opportunity. “And by the time this is all over, I’ll probably be forced to kill more.” At that, Stiles heard Scott groan and his eyes snapped open, narrowing instantly on the suddenly wary alpha.
“Do you think this is a game?” he asked quietly. “These are human beings you’re messing with. You think you can just waltz into my home and start fucking with the lives of my pack, my friends and get away with it by sending me a text in the middle of the night saying ‘I’m sorry’? Life doesn’t work that way Ethan! You need to grow the fuck up and smell the fucking roses!” It was a testament to how pissed Stiles was the amount of swear words he was using. “You claim to care about Danny and yet, you continue to antagonise his pack, kill his friends, threaten his alpha... I can see - and I’m human - how much you do actually care about him, hell, you might even think you love him, but all you’re doing is digging yourself deeper and deeper into his heart so when you eventually leave or we eventually kill you,” Ethan’s eyes flashed red but Stiles wasn’t impressed. “You’re going to destroy him and you just. Don’t. Get it!”
“Stiles!” Scott put a hand on his chest and gently pushed him back against the wall, where Stiles glared, but stayed, stuffing his hands in his pocket and fingering the wolfsbane rope he had to wrap around his hands for effective fisticuffs - Derek had laughed at him gently for making it, telling him it would be just as dangerous to him as it was to werewolves in the long run but Stiles wasn’t planning on having it for very long, just long enough to survive. “Look,” Scott went on, turning back to Ethan. “I know you didn’t want to kill Boyd. And I think that if something like that happened now, you wouldn’t do it again.”
“You don’t know what we owe them... especially Deucalion,” Ethan looked a little lost as he thought about his words. “We weren’t like Ennis and Kali when we met him. We weren’t alphas.”
“What were you?” Stiles asked before Scott could and Ethan frowned.
“Omegas,” he sounded like he was scared of his memories and it made Stiles frown, partly in sympathy and curiosity, partly in annoyance that he was feeling sympathetic towards the that killed his Beta. “In actual wolf packs,” he went on. “Omegas are the scapegoats. The last to eat, the ones who have to take the abuse from the rest of the pack.”
“So you and your brother were like the bitches of the pack?” Stiles, in his ever vindictive and sarcastic tone said and Ethan had the gall to give him a wounded look.
“Something like that,” the alpha said eventually.
“So what happened?” Scott prompted and Ethan took another breath.
“They were killers,” he sighed. “I mean, people talk about us like we’re monsters, well they’re the ones who gave us the reputation.” He looked at Stiles. “You make pack life look like sunshine and roses, but packs out there, in the real world, not in some backwater suburb of San Francisco, isolated by miles and miles of woodland, where the legendary name of the Hale pack protects you from almost any and every other pack in the country... out there is where it’s hard. Here... you guys have it easy.”
“Let’s see,” Stiles said. “Derek lost his family in a fire set by hunters, lost his sister to his uncle, who he then killed, who then came back to life, we dealt with a Kanima, we have a druid nutcase running around town killing people and then there’s you. Who decided that, because we’re a relatively new pack, despite the Hale’s history, we’re vulnerable enough to warrant attack after attack when we did nothing to you. In fact, as we hear it, Talia Hale helped your precious alpha brethren, despite everything, even though things didn’t work out, she helped them. And this is how they repay her legacy...” Stiles was breathing hard, his heart pounding, but he glared holes through Ethan’s head and the alpha actually flinched, trying to hold his ground.
“I don’t know about Talia Hale, or the history my pack has with the Hales, all I know is what I’m told. We do what we’re told. We’re not in a position to do anything else!” Ethan protested.
“Go on,” Scott said. “Your former pack...”
“Our alpha... our pack was bad, but our alpha was the worst of them.”
“Why didn’t you fight back?” Stiles asked, ever curious despite his anger. “Form that huge behemoth you two turn into when you shift...”
“We couldn’t control it back then like we can now,” Ethan explained, getting riled up. “We didn’t know how.”
“Deucalion taught you,” Scott said quietly after a moment of insight.
“And then we took down the whole pack,” Ethan seethed. “One by one! And by the time we got to our alpha, he was begging for his life!” he paused, breathing heavily, trying to reign in his temper. Stiles saw his lips trembling, his hands shaking but his eyes were steady and firm as he spoke his next words with something close to reverence. “And we tore him apart, literally.”
“What about your Emissary?” Scott asked, not willing to give anyone time to think on Ethan’s statement. Ethan shook his head though. “Wait, they’re all dead? Ennis and Kali’s too?”
“All of them except for Deucalion’s...”
“Wait, you mean Morrell?” Stiles asked but before Ethan could answer, the alpha flinched, gasped and his hand flew to his chest, clutching it in pain.
“What? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Scott asked quickly.
“Not me,” Ethan shook his head. “My brother.”
It took less than a minute to get to the locker rooms but when they arrived, they heard Lydia shouting for Aiden to stop. Stiles dropped down beside Cora, who was out on the floor, Lydia beside her while Ethan and Scott disarmed Aiden.
“Hey!” Ethan snapped. “You can’t do this!”
“She came at ME!” Aiden snarled through elongated teeth, his eyes flashing red.
“Kali gave Derek until the next full moon, you can’t touch any of them,” Ethan retorted, gesturing to the other group. Aiden stared at them all, breathing heavily and he caught Lydia’s eyes. She was looking at him, fear in her expression and he shifted back, eyes dimming and teeth returning to normal but neither him nor Ethan said another word as they left the pack alone.
“I think she’s pretty hurt,” Lydia whispered, looking down at Cora, who was groaning as she tried to fight her way back into consciousness.
It took her a few minutes but she was eventually lucid enough to stand and try clean herself up in the mirror.
“Are you okay?” Scott asked.
“She doesn’t look okay,” Lydia continued and Cora rolled her eyes.
“I’ll heal,” she sighed. She stepped back and Stiles only just reached her before she righted herself again, pushing him away. “I said, I’m fine.”
“Do you realise how suicidally crazy that was?” he asked her because despite everything, despite all his suspicions about her, despite it all, she was Derek’s sister and she was a member of his pack. “What were you thinking going after him alone?”
“I did it for Boyd!” she snapped, glaring at Stiles hard and Stiles frowned. “None of you were doing anything,” she accused.
“We’re trying,” Scott said.
“And you’re failing,” she gave them a look that screamed ‘you’re insignificant to me’ and Stiles felt his eye twitch. “You’re just a bunch of stupid teenagers, running around thinking you can stop this but you can’t. You don’t have the first clue. You think you can stop people from getting killed... but all you do is find the bodies.”
“Don’t forget who you’re talking to here, pup,” Stiles said slowly, eyes narrowing and she spun around to glare at him.
“You’re the worst of them all!” she snarled, her eyes flashing gold. “You think you can be happy with someone like my brother? He’s too damaged to love anyone! You both are!” Stiles flinched, his hands clenching into fists. “You don’t belong in this pack, none of you doo. This should be me, him, Peter... my mom, my sister, my brother... our family-”
“Who are dead,” Stiles said brutally, not reaching when she flinched this time. “They’re all dead, because of one hunting family. Your mom, your dad, your brother, aunts, uncles, cousins... all dead. And the only reason Derek and Laura survived is because they were at school, but you weren’t,” he folded his arms over his chest. “No one knows what happened to you, they thought you were dead with everyone else... you don’t even remember apparently.”
“Stiles,” Scott laid a hand on his shoulder but he shrugged it off.
“The only reason I haven’t called you out like this in front of Derek is because Derek and I are it... this is all we’ll have, each other, this pack. This is us for the rest of our lives because we are mated. We might be damaged, we might have gone through a ton of shit in our lives, we might have lost everything we love, but we’re here, and we’re together, and just because you don’t like me doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere and it certainly doesn’t mean Derek will choose you over me. You’re a werewolf, you know what a mated pair means,” his eyes were hard. “The only reason you aren’t under a full pack investigation is because I don’t want to put Derek through anymore heartache. He doesn’t deserve that. But if I find out you have anything to do with this alpha pack - even the tiniest inkling,” he stepped right up to her, forcing her to look at him. “You’ll wish you’d have died with your family in that fire. At least that way you could have maintained some of your family honour.”
Silence reigned over the locker room and though every single word of what Stiles said was true, he felt like the biggest dick on the planet for saying it - not for saying it, but for saying it in front of pack.
“Can I go?” She gritted out and he nodded once.
“Go wait by my jeep, I’m driving you home.” He waited until Scott indicated she was out of earshot and sighed. “You shouldn’t have heard that,” he said.
“It had to be said,” Lydia said quietly. “We all have questions about her... you’re the only one with the power to ask them.” Scott didn’t look happy but he didn’t disagree and Stiles reached out, pressing his hand to the back of his friend’s neck.
“Sorry buddy,” he sighed, almost content as Scott leaned into him, nuzzling his neck and snuffling. “I’m gonna go take her home.”
He left the pair of them alone and made his way out of the school, his eyes catching his English teacher rushing outside. He followed her movements, raising an eyebrow when he saw her approaching a silhouetted figure that looked suspiciously like his mate. He walked slowly towards them, out in the open and in plain sight, but his teacher didn’t even look back to see if anyone saw her. He wasn’t sure what was happening, or what she wanted to happen, but he saw Derek jerk back when she reached up to touch his face with her hands. She ducked her head down , murmured something that made him smile a little stiffly but nod. His hands settled on her upper arms, keeping her at a short distance as Stiles approached.
“I haven’t felt safe,” he heard her say to Derek. “Partially because the evil twins are walking around school like nothing happened.” Stiles could feel her pain at that one, he supposed. That didn’t make him like her any more though.
“They’re not gonna hurt you,” Derek promised.
The bell rang and the pair of them looked up, smiling.
“Some days I just want to take a sledgehammer to that bell,” she groaned and he snorted. “Three more classes and a recital to finalise this evening though,” her smile was self-mocking and she laughed at all the work she had to do.
“Recital?” he prompted.
“I... organised it,” she said. “To honour all of the recent losses the school - or the whole town, has suffered. But now is just sounds really stupid, doesn’t it?” she asked but he smiled, shaking his head.
“No, it sounds ideal.” She smiled up at him and before he could stop her, she leaned up and pressed a kiss to the side of his mouth before stepping back, biting her lip and giving him a small smile. She continued to back away until she was forced to turn to see where she was going, and was suddenly brought up by Stiles, who was stood there, hands in his pocket, just waiting patiently for them to finish.
“Stiles,” she breathed, putting a hand to her heart as if he’d startled her, which he supposed he had.
“Miss Blake,” he nodded. “I suppose I’ll see you this evening?” he wasn’t really subtle as he raised an eyebrow and stepped aside, giving her room to walk away. She glanced at him, Derek and back again. She blushed before nodding formally and hurrying away.
“Is that jealousy I see?” Derek teased as he stepped up to his mate, wrapping his arms around Stiles and pulling him close, burying his face in Stiles’ neck.
“You have red lipstick on your face. If you get it on my neck, you’re on the sofa for a month,” Stiles drawled and Derek chuckled, breathing in Stiles’ scent.
“Why can I smell the twins on you? And Cora?”
“Incident in school,” Stiles was flippant, still pissed, but he sighed when he felt Derek’s lips press against his neck gently. “She forgets my position sometimes, and her own. She thinks we’re not doing enough to avenge Boyd.”
“There’s not a lot we can do right now,” Derek sighed.
“Your sister is still a pain in my ass,” he huffed and Derek chuckled.
“Welcome to the life of a sibling,” he teased before moving back so he could look at Stiles. “How is your investigation coming?” At Stiles’ raised eyebrow, Derek just snorted. “I’m the alpha, Stiles, just because we’re equal within the pack doesn’t mean my position has changed. I know my pack. And I know you.” He ran his fingers through Stiles’ hair. “I know you like to take care of the pack and answer any unanswered questions. There are huge ones hanging over Cora’s head and while I’m sure you think you’re protecting my delicate sensibilities, I think I’d like to know if my sister is working with my enemy. I might not want to believe it, but I know if anyone can find the truth, it’s you.”
Stiles stared at Derek, amazement in his eyes. “Have I told you recently how much I love you?” he asked and Derek chuckled, leaning forward to press their lips together.
“You have, but I enjoy hearing it from you...”
“Well then, I’ll have to say it more often, won’t I?” Stiles grinned and kissed his mate again before stepping back. “I’m about to drive Cora back to the loft. She got into it with Aiden and he hurt her...” Derek was frowning. “You’re welcome to join?” he held his hand out and after a moment’s thought, Derek took it.
“Derek!” Cora rushed over to him when she saw him walking towards the jeep, flying at him and wrapping her arms around his neck. Reflexively, he held onto her, pulling her close while Stiles watched, amused. “We didn’t know where you were,” she murmured into his neck, breathing in his scent.
“I did,” Stiles said. “And I told you all he was fine.”
“Not the same,” she muttered but not aggressively. Stiles would give her that though, it really wasn’t the same.
When they eventually made it into the car, Stiles received a call from Allison, telling him in no uncertain terms that he had to tell his dad, because his dad was in danger. His dad was in danger.
His dad.
“Stiles,” Derek was there, hand on his neck, whispering in his ear, telling him to calm down, his other hand steadying the wheel as Stiles’ vision whited out briefly.
“Derek?” Isaac’s voice came through the still open line and oddly enough, it calmed Stiles down.
“Isaac,” Derek sighed, relieved.
“Where have you been? Are you okay? You just left-”
“Isaac!” Derek said, placating, soothing, interrupting his beta. “Calm down. I’m fine, I’m sorry for leaving, I needed time, okay? Stiles was always here, I wouldn’t have left otherwise. I promise, okay? Just calm down... You and Allison continue your line of investigation for me, you’ve both done great so far. I’m really proud, okay?” He knew, they both knew, Stiles and Derek, that Isaac often needed the verbal pep talk to get him through things if physical encouragement was lacking and they both heard Isaac take a breath before agreeing, ensuring them that he and Allison would do their best. When the call ended, he told Stiles to pull over. “We need a plan for this,” he said and Stiles nodded.
“I don’t know what to say to him,” Stiles breathed.
“I’ll help, we both will,” Cora spoke up from the back and he looked at her, eyebrow raised in mild surprise. “Just because you don’t know me doesn’t mean you can’t trust me. I’m pack, okay?” at her prompt he nodded his head slowly, rolling his eyes at Derek’s stupidly happy expression.
“Cool it hot stuff,” he muttered, ignoring Cora’s feigned vomit session in the back seat. Derek just grinned.
Talking to his dad was surprisingly difficult. First, they didn’t know how to start, then, after they were getting somewhere, his dad was still reticent, his disbelief actually hurting Stiles in a way he didn’t know was possible, then, just as Derek and Cora were about to change for the proof, Cora collapsed.
While his dad ignored everything he said, while they got Cora checked in, while Derek sat at her bedside, holding her hand, while his dad asked Derek where she’d been these last six+ years, while Derek answered that he didn’t know, while his pack were working their fingers to the bone trying to solve this thing, while his entire world was collapsing around him, all Stiles could think of was how, when he was younger, and his dreams had been so overwhelming, so full of stuff, so incredibly complicated that his child mind had no hope of comprehending them, their meaning, their importance, and when they sent him into fits of panic where his chest tightened, he couldn’t breath, he couldn’t focus, he was effectively numb to almost everything the outside world threw at him, one voice managed to pierce through his haze and pull him from that oblivion he’d feared for so long. One voice in a thousand voices and a thousand more, could penetrate the white noise; one voice comforted him when his dreams had him - not screaming - but silent as the grave, because that’s what you have to look out for with someone like Stiles. Not the noise, but the absence of it... that one voice, his mom, would always bring him back. And now, she wasn’t there. She couldn’t help him, she couldn’t pierce through the haze, she couldn’t bring him back and all he had was a dad who didn’t believe where... Where his mom would have.
“Mom would’ve believed me,” he regretted saying it as soon as he had, but instead of dragging it out, he just turned and walked away, back to Cora’s room, back to Derek, because he couldn’t do anything else. He needed to find something else to help him now.
“Stiles,” Derek breathed, pulling him close. “I’m sorry.”
“I think this might actually break him,” Stiles said, almost voiceless, barely a whisper as he stared down at Cora. “He’s so convinced I can’t be right, that it’s all in my head, because it always has been. He’s never been able to deal with me, where mom could always talk me down he... leaves me to talk myself down, or Scott. My best friend can handle me better than my father,” he gave a strangled laugh. “It’s fucking tragic.”
“Hey,” Derek pressed their foreheads together, brushing his nose against Stiles. “Your dad will come around. We’ll show him, I swear we will. For now... Scott called. He needs you back at school.” He pressed his lips against Stiles and stared into his mates eyes. “I love you, okay? Nothing is going to change that. I’m going to help you with your dad, I promise.” Stiles screwed his eyes shut and bit his lip, trying not to cry as the tears leaked out the corner of his eyes but he nodded, forced himself to nod. He kissed Derek once more and backed away. He ran a finger through Cora’s hair before leaning down to press his lip gently to her forehead, releasing a breath as he felt a shiver run up his spine.
“Get better, okay?” he whispered and left without a backwards glance. As the door closed and he made his way down the corridor, he looked up in time to see his dad stood at one of the nurses stations with Melissa. Both of them looked up at him, surprised and confused at the state he must look to be in but he didn’t have time so he ignored them and anything they called out (he heard his name, but nothing else) and ran out of the hospital towards his jeep.
---
In Cora’s hospital room, Derek listened as Stiles’ heartbeat got fainter, but never truly left his hearing range - it never would. He’d always been tuned into that particular rhythm, not that he minded one iota. His heart cracked a little when he heard the strangled sob Stiles let out as the engine of the keep turned over, his hands tightening their grip on Cora’s when he could no longer hear anything other than Stiles’ heartbeat.
“Derek?” Cora stirred and Derek gasped, standing up.
“Hey, I’m here...” he spoke softly.
“What’s happening to me?” she asked, confused, upset and hurting and it broke him inside even more that he couldn’t do anything about it.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly, unable to lie to his sister. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m not leaving again. Not again,” he insisted and kissed her forehead.
---
Stiles arrived at the auditorium and stepped up beside Scott, his eyes immediately scanning the room.
Danny: onstage - safe.
Scott: here - safe.
Isaac and Allison: here - together - safe.
Ethan and Aiden: here - out of trouble.
Lydia...
“Scott, where’s Lydia?” He was looking, searching, eyes wide. “Ethan! Aiden!” He hissed and both twins looked around at him. “Lydia?” he gestured around the room and obligingly, they looked - though he thought it was more instinct than anything else but they came up with nothing. “Ethan! Watch Danny! Isaac! Watch Allison!” he snapped quickly and quietly before he and Scott both took off, running out of the room and through the corridors, checking every room as they went.
“Lydia!” they shouted as they burst out of the school.
Then everything started happening very quickly.
Scott nearly collapsed, his hands pressed to his ears.
He set off running towards the other end of the school.
Derek texted him, asking what was happening and why could he hear someone screaming? And why did it sound like Lydia?
Lydia’s phone was going straight to voicemail.
He saw his dad’s cruiser in the parking lot and the bottom dropped out of his stomach as he yelled at Scott to run ahead as fast as he could.
He could hear the music from the auditorium getting louder and louder, reverberating throughout the entire school - and it wasn’t anything he’d heard them practising either. It was more chanting, ceremonial, more traditional. The Darach, he realised with a start as he turned the corner.
He heard Scott roaring and going in for an attack.
He reached the door of the classroom and saw Miss Blake.
He saw Lydia taped to a chair, a garrote around her neck, looking completely out of it.
Miss Blake saw him and she nudged her desk... and it slammed against the door, closing it; closing them inside and him outside.
He screamed as he pounded against it, catching sight of Scott on the floor, bleeding from his mouth and his dad-
“Oh God,” he breathed. “Dad!” he shouted, pushing against the door with everything he had. “SCOTT!” he shouted. “ISAAC! ETHAN! ANYONE!” Miss Blake, The Darach, smirked at him before turning her attention to his dad, who had a gun trained on her.
“There was a girl,” he heard. “Years ago. They found her in the woods... her face and body slashed a part. That was you...” Stiles could barely see straight as he pushed. He watched the Darach advance on his dad.
“Maybe I should’ve started with philosophers,” she drawled. “With knowledge and strategy.” She made a move and he shot her in the leg... but nothing happend.
“SCOTT!” Stiles tried again, desperate.
“Healers,” she went on as the wound healed, stepping right up to the Sheriff and pulling him up by the knife in his chest. The knife in his chest.
“DAD!” he choked, pushing, and shoving and trying...
The gun dropped. “Warriors,” she went on, ripping his shield from his chest. “Guardians...” she leaned closer and whispered something, Virgins, he figured. And kissed him.
He screamed something unintelligible and as he heard glass breaking, he felt the door give.
“STILES!” he heard Isaac and looked down the corridor to see him, Allison and Mr Argent running towards him. Stiles ignored them and continued to push into the room, coming to a stop when he reached the fallen gun.
“Dad?” he called out redundantly. He felt Scott finally get up and glanced back at him before turning to the broken window.
“Stiles?” he turned to see Lydia being helped up out of her seat by Allison and Isaac. Stiles stared at her, eyes wide. “Stiles?” she spoke again but it was as if he didn’t hear her. He looked at Isaac.
“Danny?”
“Here,” they all turned to the door and saw Danny stood with Ethan, no Aiden in sight.
“I couldn’t be here sooner without leaving him...” Ethan looked incredibly uncomfortable but Stiles nodded, not voicing his thanks but it was obvious and the other alpha bowed his head.
“I need...” Stiles trailed off, completely and utterly lost. He turned back to the broken window for a third time and just stared.
“Stiles?” Scott was beside him, not touching, just there.
“She took my dad,” he choked and felt his legs give out.
His pack caught him and held him but it was as if something had been ripped out of him. He couldn’t feel...
She took my dad.