Hello,
So, yeah, I hang out entirely too much on kink memes, and then all my free time vanishes. Fair warning...this is not a happy story. This is not even a hopeful story. This is going to be Derek doing bad-dirty-wrong things and taking bad-dirty-wrong advantage of a terrible situation. Though, to his credit, he's going to feel badly about it. He's just not gonna stop. Please enjoy :)
He wishes he could say that if he'd known what would happen, how it all would go down-that he would have sent the boy packing when Stiles first approached him.
He wishes he could say that…but he knows it's a lie.
Stiles comes to the remains of his house a few weeks after the mess with Gerard Argent, that death trap he calls a jeep rattling up the drive and announcing his presence minutes before he's even visible. Derek is fully prepared to throw the boy off his land bodily, if need be. He doesn't have time to deal with Stiles, or whatever drama Scott has gotten himself into. Scott has made his choice, and Derek will not, cannot let himself be vulnerable like that again. Things are still too fragile. The Alpha pack hasn't made their presence known, not since their message scrawled on his door…but he knows it's only a matter of time.
Stiles' face is grim and pinched, though, in the way that Derek has (reluctantly) come to recognize means serious business. He's also (though he'd never admit it, even under torture) come to recognize that when Stiles is wearing this particular expression, it pays to at least hear him out. Stiles has brought a small folder with him, filled with newspaper clippings and police reports (that Derek is absolutely sure Stiles obtained through completely illegal means) about a string of grisly murders that span across the country. The youngest victim is six, and Derek's jaw clenches at some of the pictures.
The murders are ritualistic in nature, each of them cross-referenced with printouts of web pages and forums that Derek recognizes as the heavily coded exchanges of Hunters and communities of people in the know, so to speak, and his jaw clenches further at the analysis of what kind of rituals the victims died for. It's seriously dark magic, the kind that shouldn't exist outside of fairy tales, and the final page of Stiles' file is a general missive from a Hunter group—disguised as a post for some raiding party on an online gaming community—that the magic-user responsible is heading straight towards them.
"I know…I know we're not really, God, I don't even know what's going on with you and Scott, okay?" Stiles says nervously, shoulders twitching. "But we need to work together on this. All hands on deck, all right? Hey, we're even totally on board with killing this bitch! You like murder and mayhem, right?"
And they can't afford another distraction—not with the Alpha pack sniffing around, not with the ties of his own pack stretched so thin and tenuous that the slightest stress could snap them. They can't afford to let a magic-user who dealt in human sacrifices get a toehold into Beacon Hills.
They work together.
Him and Scott snarling and snapping at each other, while Isaac watches uneasily, clearly torn between his loyalty to his Alpha and his growing friendship with Scott. Erica and Boyd watching with silent, wary eyes, only there because Derek is ultimately the devil they know, and whatever had happened to them in Argent's basement and after left them scared enough that he was their best option. Peter lurking in the background, a telling, teasing smirk on his lips even as he played the 'loyal Beta' schtick to the hilt.
And Stiles flings himself into the middle of the tension simmering between all of them with neither care nor regard. He watches them with quick, calculating eyes, quicksilver mind catching every piece of this fucked up puzzle and putting them together into pictures that Derek doesn't want him—doesn't want anyone—to see, to understand. Within a couple of days, he gets the feeling that Stiles has grasped every nuance of the situation in the pack, understands it in ways that Isaac and Erica and Boyd just don't, and then worst of all…worst of all….
He starts to help.
Derek almost doesn't notice it, hasn't ever dreamed that Stiles Stilinski, of all people, could be so deft in his handling of so many people (so many wolves). Then again, Stiles is usually about as subtle as a brick being thrown through a window, so Derek supposes he can be forgiven for not immediately seeing what the boy was doing.
It starts out slowly, with just Isaac. Slow, and subtle, and no one even notices how Stiles plays on the connection that Isaac and Scott share, encouraging it, helping it grow and flourish like a gardener tending to a prized flower. Isaac stops looking so conflicted, stops slinking around the room whenever Derek and Scott are in the same space together. As his friendship with Scott grows more solid, he stops worrying that showing his loyalty to Derek is going to cost him that friendship…and the easy way he proves time and time again that he is still ultimately on Derek's side calms Derek's worry that he might lose his most loyal Beta to team McCall/Stilinski.
Not that he worries or anything.
Then, Stiles starts working on Erica. Drawing her into the little circle he'd created with Scott and Isaac, offering her brilliant smiles and unreserved friendship; and Derek watches something settle in the girl, something that has been jagged and on edge since she and Boyd came creeping back into the remains of his family home, beaten and bloodied and refusing to speak about the wounds that had been so obviously caused by Alpha claws and teeth. And where Erica went, Boyd followed.
He notices, then. He notices what Stiles is doing, and he might have worried then, worried that Scott and Stiles were just going to steal his pack away in one fell swoop, leave him alone again—always, always alone-with only his uncle (who he couldn't quite bring himself to drive away, but didn't trust any farther than a fish could spit). He almost begins to brace himself for another fight, almost starts preparing himself to fight tooth and claw for the only thing in his godforsaken life that means anything to him…when he notices something else.
Stiles isn't leading the others towards Scott. He's leading Scott towards Derek. Subtly. So, so subtly, and so, so deftly, plucking all the right strings, and letting all the right words fall from his lips. Just one or two instants where Stiles looks to Derek before he looked to Scott when they share information. One or two moments where he agrees with something Derek says—his mouth puckering briefly, as though he's sucked on a lemon—and Scott just nods his acquiescence.
The night Scott finally defers to one of Derek's plans without even a token argument, without any prompting from Stiles, Derek actually freezes in shock for a bare instant. It's just a schedule of watch rotations on the section of woods where they think the witch might be setting up for whatever ritual they were planning on performing, but Scott defers to him.
A scant two days after that, Stiles and Scott show up in Stiles' jeep…and Jackson and Lydia pile out after them. They all stand around awkwardly staring at each other for a few moments, before Stiles claps his hands with false brightness, a determined expression twisting his mouth.
"Okay, guys, I know what you're thinking…well, actually no I don't, but I can guess. And regardless, what you should be thinking is, hey, last time we left people out of the loop at least two thirds of us almost died—multiple times, I might add—and we ended up with rampaging werelizards, pissed off Hunters, and Zombie-Peter. Peter, no offense…well, no, that's a lie, I totally hope you're offended by that."
Stiles' grin doesn't falter for even an instant, but there is a hard edge to it as his eyes find Peter. Derek tenses a bit, still unsure of his uncle, still not willing to trust him, however much he needs him. Peter though, Peter just smiles back—an expression on his face that Derek remembers from his childhood. A fond, proud sort of amusement, as though he was watching a particularly precocious student master a lesson.
And that is that.
Jackson and Lydia slot in…not seamlessly, but far more easily than Derek would have thought possible. They are both wary of Peter, but Jackson is clearly confident in his ability to protect both himself and his girlfriend. As it turns out, he's not wrong. Jackson proves powerful, almost as strong a wolf as Scott, and his control—while not perfect—is better than Isaac, Boyd, and Erica.
Derek silently wonders how much Lydia has to do with that, and how much is due to Scott and Stiles.
Mostly Stiles.
It takes them two weeks to track the witch, and in those two weeks, Derek comes to two conclusions.
One: this alliance needs to be permanent. He can feel the pack strengthening with each day, can feel those tattered, frayed threads binding him to his three Betas (four, if he counts Jackson) reweaving themselves, making themselves stronger. The giant knot that had sat in his chest from, if he was perfectly honest, the moment he had overheard Scott talking to Gerard Argent at the police station, starts slowly loosening, and for the first time in months, he feels like he actually might be able to breathe again.
Two: if this alliance was ever going to be permanent, if they were ever going to be a true pack—the kind of pack he'd grown up with, the kind he missed so intensely it was like broken glass grinding in his veins—he needs to get Stiles on his side. He isn't stupid, and he isn't unobservant. Everything, everything good that is happening in their pack right now comes down to Stiles. Comes down to his ability to get Scott to look past his own stupid pride and shortsighted thinking, to get Isaac to finally relax his guard enough to form real connections with people, to get Erica to smile again, to get Boyd to actually talk.
Derek has stood in the sad, burnt out remains of his home and listened to Stiles nimbly steer conversations onto topics that let Jackson realize how much he has in common with the rest of them, listened to him ask Lydia question after question that let her natural intelligence shine—let her prove herself smarter than all of them and take back some of the confidence that Peter had stolen from her.
He listens to Stiles hum the fucking theme song to The Walking Dead under his breath every time Peter walks into the room, and then silently dare his uncle to do something about it. And each time Peter only laughs softly and shakes his head, the others relax a little more.
Derek watches Stiles smooth the rough edges of their pack down into a cohesive, functioning unit, rallied around Derek's leadership like they should have been from the very start and he wants. He wants so intensely it aches, wants so intensely he's forced to clench his fists hard enough to draw little half-circles of blood in his palms. He wants this always…this closeness, this feeling of power and connection and strength.
He wants to see what this pack can become with his strength and Stiles' cunning guiding it. He wants Stiles to stand beside him the way he stands beside Scott, so solid and brave and stupidly, stupidly loyal. He wants that bright spirit and quicksilver mind as his own, all his own. He wants…he wants…
It hits him with the force of a freight train, what he wants, and he's honestly not sure whether to be horrified or burst out laughing. He's fairly certain that if there is a God, he's just fallen over in hysterics.
Whatever his reaction, though, it doesn't matter. He's not stupid. He's not unobservant.
And he can't have what he wants.
Stiles is doing this because it's the best way to make sure no one is in more danger than can possibly be avoided. The boy has an instinctive grasp of pack dynamics—and dear God, he wonders sometimes what would have happened had it been Stiles and not Scott in the woods the night Laura had died—and a ruthless streak that no one else seems to see behind the wall of babble and clumsiness Stiles throws up. He's not doing this to soothe the hurts inside Derek, he's not doing this to help fill in the empty spaces all Derek's pack had still had, despite his (admittedly, amateurish) efforts. Those are side effects, and Derek welcomes them with a relief that, in the back of his mind, scares him a little. Stiles is not his second, is not offering himself, his loyalties to Derek. He's doing all the things he's doing in order to make things easier for everyone but Derek (and probably Peter…Stiles' attitude towards Peter is pure poison, and Derek can't say he blames Stiles), and however observant Stiles is, he can't possibly know the effect he's having on Derek.
Derek can't have what he wants. He should be used to that, by now.
As it turns out, they're right about the area of the woods the witch is planning on using for her blood ritual. Their stakeout rotation bears fruit, and they're able to catch her setting up for the spell before she goes after whatever victim she's chosen. As grisly and terrible as the previous murders had been, the actual confrontation is almost anticlimactic.
The witch, an unassuming-looking woman in her mid-forties with graying brown hair and flinty eyes, knows she's going down. Her circle is broken, candles and bowls of water, and smears of a strange-smelling ochre paste scattered on the ground around her. She knows she doesn't have enough magic left at her fingertips to defend herself from an entire pack of pissed off werewolves, and there's no way they're going to let her live. Not after what she's done, what she'd been planning to do.
She knows she's going to die, and he should have expected what happens next, should have been ready for it. He should have, but he thinks they have her soundly beaten. He circles in close to her, waving Boyd and Isaac back, claws extended. She's scrabbling backwards on the ground, eyes wild and clothes ripped and dirty. He stalks forward deliberately, and it isn't until her face twists into a smirk that is nonetheless bitter and resigned that he realizes she may have one final act of defiance up her sleeve.
He lunges as she raises one hand, words he doesn't understand spilling from her lips, and the air is suddenly charged, sparking with power. He lunges, but he's too far away to get to her before she finishes, too close to alter his course. Whatever it is, it's going to hit him full-on, and he braces himself…
But there is a flash of movement from the periphery of his vision, a solid body flings itself crosswise in front of him just as there is an almighty flash of light and heat. He twists on instinct, still barrels into whoever threw themselves in the path of whatever spell the witch has just hurled and they go down in a tangle of limbs. He hears Scott howl, enraged, and then the sounds of a scuffle. A high pitched shriek echoes in the woods, before it cuts off with a sickening gurgle, and he knows the threat is taken care of.
He wrenches himself to his hands and knees, hovering protectively over the body he'd crashed into, and Stiles just stares up at him, eyes so wide the whites are showing all around as he gasps and twitches underneath Derek, sweat standing out in thick beads on his forehead. For a brief instant, Derek thinks he sees a flare of sickly, green light in Stiles' eyes, but it fades almost before he registers it.
He snarls at the stupid, stupid boy beneath him, hands nonetheless running over Stiles' chest and arms as he searches for injuries. Scott crashes to his knees beside them, babbling apologies and questions and frantically calling Stiles' name, until Stiles starts weakly batting at Derek's hands, still gasping as though he's just run a marathon. The rest of the pack gathers in close, Erica and Lydia kneeling down on Stiles' other side while Isaac starts restlessly pacing behind Scott. Boyd and Jackson watch impassively, and Peter…Peter's eyes are alight with interest when Derek flicks his gaze up to his uncle.
"Off, off, get off me, I'm fine!" he grunts, trying to get his twitchy, jerking muscles to work enough to get himself into a sitting position. He's not fine, he's obviously not fine, still quivering as though he's just been shocked, and whatever it was the witch had tried to do, she'd thought it might be enough to kill (or at least wound) a werewolf. Lydia suddenly hisses impatiently.
"Stiles, just shut up and lie still so we can make sure you're not hurt!" she snaps, a strange mix of genuine irritation and genuine worry in her voice.
And because Derek is looking right at Stiles, he sees it. That flare of green light—poisonous green, venomous green—sparks through Stiles' whiskey-brown irises and Stiles abruptly goes completely limp underneath him. The boy's mouth snaps shut with an audible click, his voice cutting off in mid-protest. He's perfectly still beneath Derek, perfectly silent…but Derek hears the sudden spike of his heart rate, sees the surprise, and then the sheer, unadulterated panic that flashes over his face.
The others—apart from Lydia—sense it, too. There's confusion on their faces when he looks at them…none of them have made the connection, yet. Peter, though, Peter meets his eyes with an ironic, amused little quirk to his mouth.
"Well," he uncle says jovially, "this night just got a bit more interesting."