Metamorphosis
By Cortexikid
Chapter 1: Solace
A/N: So, complete honesty, I have absolutely no business starting a post 3B Sterek fic right now. I'm in my last semester of college, writing a thesis, dozens of papers, and preparing for finals, but dammit I'm feeling a little sad about my ship and want to write my own Sterek-infused version for the start of season 4. I will update as often as I can. Title from Franz Kafka's The Transformation AKA Metamorphosis. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Teen Wolf isn't mine. If it was, let's just say a lot of the decisions would be a hell of a lot different then they currently are.
"Your middle name is Marcus?"
Stiles Stilinski tilted his head at Derek Hale, lips in a fine line as he stood in the doorway of his loft.
"You find out my real first name and it's the middle one you have an issue with? That is a first…" Stiles huffed, walking further in and focusing on the injured older-man in front of him.
Derek shrugged, wincing just slightly as he dabbed the blood from his abdomen, scowling at the large tear in his T-shirt where the bullet ripped through him.
"Not an issue, it's just…Marcus," the werewolf stressed, eyebrows risen, as if that was a legitimate argument.
"I can't believe I actually missed you," Stiles scoffed with a wave of his arms, looking more like himself than he had since…before.
Defying the impossible, Derek's eyebrows rose even higher.
"You know what I mean; this," Stiles waved a hand between them, "feels like it's been forever since I got one-on-one time with Old Man Jenkins."
Derek's brow furrowed in confusion, the comparison lost on him and really, he should teach a communication class with just facial expressions.
"Yeah well, I didn't really call you for a social visit," he grumbled, throwing down the rag he was using to mop up the blood and shaking his head.
"Colour me surprised," Stiles muttered, taking another step further, folding his arms.
It was here that Derek really took a good look at him. It had been two months since everything and the 18-year-old really didn't look as recovered as he probably hoped. Sure, gone was the sickly, ghost-like skin stretched across fragile bone, but in its place, a coarse, stone-like texture lay. It was as if Stiles was trying extra-hard to appear recovered, but the cracks shone through in every miniscule movement of his long limbs, every twitch of his lips, every blink of his eye. His eyes. They were the biggest giveaway. The once glinting honey flecks were duller now than they had ever been, only a marginal improvement on the stilted flash of unhinged evil the nogitsune forced through. He looked…tired.
Maybe he still was.
"Take a picture…" Stiles shuffled under Derek's gaze, eyes darting to the floor as he left the sentence unfinished.
Derek shook himself, clearing his throat and forcing himself to look away. He hadn't intended to get caught up but—
"So, where were you? I mean, I thought you would have at least hung around long enough for…" the younger man swallowed, interrupting the beta's train of thought, his heart-beat speeding up considerably.
Derek filled in the blanks.
"I paid my respects to Argent before I left," he murmured, crossing the room, suddenly looking everywhere but his guest.
Stiles nodded, seemingly mulling over his words, his face expressionless.
That was also a first.
With all the humans that Derek had known, he had never met anyone as expressive as (Not Even Gonna Try And Pronounce First Name) 'Stiles' Marcus Stilinski.
Guess it was just another thing the demon stole.
"Love what you've done with the place," Stiles gestured around the still practically-empty loft with a clearly forced sense of nonchalance, as he drudged up his dependable ol' sarcasm.
Derek wasn't buying it.
"You want something to drink?" he asked, mainly just for something to do, as he tried to ignore the fact that he was stalling, trying to postpone this moment for as long as possible.
It was better, so much better, than the alternative.
"Sure," the familiar voice replied behind him, before the sound of shuffling reached his ears.
Out of the corner of his eye, Derek saw the Stiles-shaped blur sit down on his beaten-up couch, taking off his backpack, and waiting, far too still than he was used to.
The changes in him were subtle but profound. A pang clanged in Derek's chest. He tried not to think too much about what that meant.
"Water okay?" he called over his shoulder, still not prepared to face him fully.
"You're a coward."
He stopped dead in his tracks.
"What?" he asked, clenching his jaw as the words washed over him.
"You heard me. Look at me, Derek," Stiles' voice continued, but it sounded…different. Sharper.
"No."
The word left his mouth without his permission.
He felt the atmosphere shift, morphing into something heavier, something he wanted to avoid.
Footsteps now drew closer to him, breath bouncing off the back of his neck.
"Turn around and look at me," the voice, so like Stiles' and yet so unlike him, an amalgamation of the fumbling, hyper-active teenager and the man he became under weight of everything that he had endured the last few months, forever changing the tenor.
Resigning himself to the inevitable, Derek's shoulders sunk as he slowly turned on the spot, lifting his eyes.
"You knew this couldn't last," Stiles tilted his head, pity tinting his gaze.
Silence engulfed the room as the beta struggled to find something, anything to say.
"I have to wonder though," the boy continued unfazed by his lack of response, "why me? Why not Scott? Or Cora? Hell, even Peter?"
Derek sighed, not knowing the answer.
Or at least, not willing to even ask himself that question for fear of what he might find.
"Second time in a few minutes. Who knew you were so…sentimental," the word almost sounded dirty on Stiles' lips as they twisted into a smirk.
A laugh suddenly echoed around them, reverberating off the walls.
He knew that laugh.
It wouldn't be long now…
"Time's up, Derek," Stiles sighed, reaching forward and clasping his wrist tightly, too tightly, as if he processed a supernatural strength once again.
"Count," he ordered, with an almost encouraging nod, eyes that seen too much for any lifetime boring into his own.
Glancing down, Derek looked at the hand wrapped around his wrist, slowly counting the fingers as another laugh echoed around the room, closer this time, with the ghost of a breath in his ear.
"One, two…"
The colour started to bleed from the room, dripping like thick dollops of paint onto a canvas, falling into an abyss of nothingness.
"Three, four…"
Everything shone white, bright, too bright. Derek winced at the pain in his head, the throbbing ache in his temples as his vision blurred. Blinking rapidly, he fought to fix his gaze on Stiles' hand, gasping as what he saw registered in his brain, despite he having known on some level, all along.
"Five…six."
His solace shattered.
A gasp turned into a strangled yell as his eyes flew open, his heart hammering in his chest as a familiar figure, one he had hoped never to see again, stood in front of him, hands on her hips, her skin tinged sapphire, her eyes a deep emerald, and her fangs as sharp as daggers.
"Oh honey, I lost ya again there for a second," her faux-saccharine tone made his blood turn cold.
Stepping forward, she leaned down and pressed a palm just above his bullet wound, the strength in her motion astounding him.
This was real.
This was actually happening.
She was back.
And no amount of dream-talking-with-Stiles could make him forget.
She smirked the smirk that twisted his stomach into knots, her claws dragging down his chest and leaving a fresh trail of crimson in their wake.
"So, Derek, now that nap-time's over," she grinned her toothy grin, all fangs and false-warmth, as he gasped in laboured breaths, "tell me…what do you think of my new make-over?"
A/N: So yeah, that's that. Just a little continuation on the last scene of Divine Move. More to come where I hope to develop my own plotline to season 4 with Sterek goodness. ~Ck x
And Derek's view on the name Marcus doesn't reflect my own (it was just a silly reference to my other Teen Wolf fic "Stiles By Any Other Name") so hope I didn't offend any Marcus out there lol – I think it's a lovely name! :D