They Just Are
Summary: The slow, inevitable evolution of the pack and of Stiles and Derek. Bamf!Pack. Spark!Stiles.
Picks up after Season 3 finale.
It starts slow.
They weren't looking for it. Six months and Derek's back after learning how to control his full wolf shift. Six months and the pack has become the McCall pack. Six months and they've gone through a feral omega, a far less organized group of hunters, and a freakin' chupacabra. Six months and they weren't looking for it, but it starts.
Saving each other becomes anticipating danger before it's life and death. Becomes running to each other first when the pack is down before moving on to the others. Even that becomes looking for each other, finding them still standing, and racing to help the rest of the pack because they trust the other can handle themselves.
Ten months and a fight gone bad and Stiles starts fires because he wills it to save them.
Eleven months and Scott and Derek are the ones to convince Stiles it's him; it's always been him. He's not the nogistune. This is just his. Scott coaxes him into eating again with the sheer amount of fear in his eyes when he looks at Stiles and sees bones. Derek leads him out of the house with a hand around his wrist. Stiles clutches Derek's hand by the time they get him to Deaton's.
A year and Stiles doesn't start fires because he doesn't like them. But he moves the earth and sky just fine. They all fall asleep at Derek's fairly often after taxing days of the supernatural. Stiles is over the most.
Fourteen months and broken skirmishes have turned to war. To blood and badness and more death than they think they can stand, but guiltily think, 'at least it wasn't one of ours'. Scott becomes a leader because he was always going to be, Derek his second. Stiles becomes their protector because he always was. And at the end of the war, in the ashes, it's Stiles next to Scott, eyes flashing, power crackling when the dust settles and their pack is still whole. When Scott embraces Kira and the pack picks themselves up, it's Derek's hand at Stiles' back when he sways and Stiles' arm around Derek's neck when the wolf clutches at him.
A year and a half and they all decide to attend the same college close to home. No one is shocked when Derek goes with them. Or when he dutifully helps them study. Or when Stiles leans back into him while they're all together. They're even less shocked when, even with continuing supernatural troubles and school, the Hale and the Red look more relaxed, more alive, than they have in years.