The air is charged. He can feel it under his skin, electric bolts running through him again and again. The weight of a thousand bricks on his chest, the twitching of his fingers now and then.
It's the feeling of proximity to fae magic.
The day he starts sensing it (can't smell them, can't see them unless they decide they want to be seen) he tells the pack to stay the next few nights inside their houses. Doesn't tell them why, doesn't find it important to. Responds to the natural pull of his position that says they will listen to him because they have to.
He's wrong. And lately, when it comes to his Alpha duties, when isn't he?
He withholds information, and he is wrong to do so. He always is when he takes that route (he's taken it often enough to know).
Especially when it regards Stiles, who doesn't have the organic predisposition to submit inside him, who doesn't take anyone's shit, and won't taken an order unless he's told why he should in excruciating detail, unless Derek is forthcoming with what he knows.
He's wrong, and as a result to his basic mistake, Stiles chooses to disobey.
And gets taken by the Queen of All.
He should've seen that one coming.
The Queen illuminates up the forest. Literally. Her footsteps leave a delicate trail of light behind her, airy white in the dark of the night, startlingly vivid against the wet short grass..
Her eyes are a liquid pale gray, in the shade of moonlight (reflecting a moon that is not present above them, in a blatant display of power). She would be a beautiful creature to behold if her long, thin arm wasn't brushing constantly against Stiles', whose eyes look distant and remain locked to her lithe form.
Derek can't help the deep menacing growl from escaping him upon setting eyes on the shell that the Queen's made out of one of his. Can't fight the wave of hatred that washed over him, and after that the surge of protectiveness that overcomes him, that makes him almost shift, even while surrounded by hordes of faeries with death in their eyes and hands (quite literally, too. Darkness pooling in their palms, little abysses waiting to swallow him whole the moment he steps out of line).
The Queen only bestows him a cold smile of pointy teeth, hand reaching out to Stiles' face, to trace nimble fingers against his cheekbones, coloring him up with them, illuminating him.
"You've got a feisty one, son of Arianrhod."
Her voice hurts his ears, too shrill and too deep and too loud and quiet all at once and as if she were speaking from every single treetop, but he endures it without flinching, without showing any outward sign of discomfort. He knows better than to show weakness in front of fair folk, it only ever ends in the satisfaction of their twisted humor sense. Generally at the expense of whoever stumbles upon them.
"Queen." He manages, hands clenched in fists (hiding claws that bury in his own skin, making him bleed), bones and teeth aching, with the need to flex and change and elongate. "I think you've unknowingly encroached on my territory and crossed path with one under my care."
"Oh, is that so, shifter?"
Her hand stops making colors swirl on Stiles' skin, only to drop at her side and reach towards one of his, to intertwine his long fingers with hers, lift them both to her lips and place a seemingly gentle kiss to the back of Stiles', bathing his hand in a silver glow that crawls all over his wrist and then disappears under his red hoodie, making him gasp, eyes at half mast, never leaving her face.
"This one called us, see? I heard him. He was talking, wanting to know about what was making the forest so alive, wondering about our magic.
"And I thought: he is such a fair one, such a just one. You can tell by simply looking at him, he exudes good intentions. We can show ourselves to him." She stops, hums a little, making Stiles gasp again. "I was never in a quest to anger you, lycan."
Derek doesn't growl again, doesn't move, doesn't even groan, exercising more patience and self control than he ever even knew he possessed.
These things could only ever happen to Stiles, only Stiles would succeed in heedlessly attracting the attention of the most inimical of supernatural beings by walking around the forest and running his mouth to himself.
"I'm sorry for any disturbance he may have caused to you and your people, Queen. If you give him back, I'll make sure to better educate him." He says, voice barely above a grunt, too hoarse, hoping that she's growing tired or bored enough of this to go chase somebody else. Because he's at his limit, brimming with anger and revulsion.
"Oh, don't worry. He's been most delightful company. A little to rebellious and intense for someone my age. But now that I've tamed him, he's simply charming."
That revolts him even more. She's taken everything from Stiles. Everything but the reactions of his teenage body. Like this he isn't charming, he isn't himself, he isn't even human, he isn't his own. He is an empty vessel.
He cracks. What else is left to do? He shows the animal inside at the risk of getting devoured alive by their magic. He changes into his most feral form, into the full wolf and...
... Submits. Because he is Alpha, and Alphas are meant to take care of their pack, even when their pack is young and foolish, exasperating and prone to endanger themselves, to risking their necks because of their lack of survival instincts and their big mouths.
(Even when they won't accept their status within the pack, when they refuse to fit.)
He presses his belly to the ground, sticks his tail to the damp grass, exposes his neck and makes no sound, hopes that the Queen will see this as what it means.
She does.
"Oh," she coos, dropping Stiles' hand and crouching in front of him, sending tendrils of power to comb through his fur, too old and wise to get her own fingers that close to a werewolf. "This is the way things are, then.
"You could have told me, young one. I might want to keep the little prince as my own, but it is not in a fae's nature to get in the way of true love."
The wolf can't say no, can't say 'it's not that way, not what you are implying', it can't talk.
It also can't lie.
In a second they are all gone, taking with them the faint whispers of the trees, the songs in the air, the floating dancing lights. They take the forest's magic, and leave only him, a second away from whining or wagging his tail in relief, and Stiles, who's starting to break away from the trance he'd been immersed in. He's blinking his eyes manically, moving around like a rag doll, until he notices him.
He takes a step back, almost trips over a root.
"Derek?" He croaks out, over the jackrabbiting of his heart. He smells confused, freaked, a little scared. Looks that way, too, for a fleeting moment, before he schools his face back into something more neutral.
The stench of those emotions and the brief glimpse of them makes him come back to himself.
"Oh, thank God it's you, Derek, thank God." Starts Stiles, expression crumbling into a tired gratitude, gathering his limbs to move towards him. "There were... Honestly, I don't know what the hell they were, but they had pointy teeth and they bad touched me a lot and at some point I was convinced they were going to eat me.
"Believe me when I tell you I've never been more happy to see you in my entire life."
He's babbling and getting closer and closer, like he might be thinking about hugging him in his enthusiasm and that's-
"Don't even think about moving any more, Stiles, or I swear I'll-"
He doesn't even get to make the threat, since Stiles -who'd been taking a giant step when he started talking- loses his balance and falls face first to the floor.
"Fuck." Stiles says from where he's lying, face covered in mud. "We might have a problem."
They do.
"What you are trying to tell me," Scott starts, slow. "Is that faeries have cast a spell on Stiles to make him obey any direct orders?"
"Yes." He answers, closing his eyes briefly to avoid looking at the teenager's dumbstruck expression.
"Faeries."
"Yes."
"Really?"
"No, Scott. I'm making this up just for the hell of it." He barks.
"Okay, okay." He puts his hands up, placating. He waits a few seconds. "And where is he?"
He thinks 'you should be able to scent him', but doesn't say it. "In my car," he answers, instead. "I told him to stay there."
Scott furrows his brow.
"What?" He raises his voice. "Why would you do that? Derek, what the fuck." Scott shoves him aside to get to his window, where Derek knows he can get a view of the camaro and Stiles sitting inside; he gets a little closer himself and sees him too, repeatedly licking his lips, softly rapping knuckles against the window, jiggling his leg. He looks restless, jittery, anxious. "Really, Derek, what the fuck."
"I had to talk to you," he says, the words coming like lead, resounding a little stupid to his own ears in the face of Scott's aggravation. "Had to talk about what to do with the sheriff until we find a way to break the spell, without him freaking out. Couldn't have him sneaking off like this."
Scott turns away from the window to look at him, irate.
"I don't care, Derek. You can't just," he struggles with his words for a few rapid beats, "you can't just take his control over himself away like this. You can't just take away his decisions because they inconvenience you."
The second he's done talking, he's grabbing a hold of the windowsill and leaping; he's landing and sprinting towards the camaro, where he pulls open the passenger door and says, "Come out if you want to. You can do whatever you want."
Stiles looks at Scott and relaxes. Just goes limp against his seat, mutters, "Thanks dude, you're awesome." in a little thread of voice.
He doesn't even come out, stays there, floppy, eyes closed.
Scott turns to him, pinning him with his intense gaze of faintly amber eyes.
"It's not about whether he wanted to come out or not, Derek. Tough he probably wanted, since you planned to discuss what to do about his dad with me. It's about knowing that he couldn't, that he wasn't able to, that he didn't have that possibility because you'd taken it away from him."
The soft words sting, because in his own haste he's been thoughtless. He's taken what Stiles treasures the most away from him, in the patronizing delusion that he was just doing it to keep him safe and no. Scott is right.
It stings and it makes him wonder when Scott's become a better Alpha than him.
Scott gets back to his room, packs a bag and calls his mother.
"There are faeries involved in this."
"Yes, mom. I know it sounds mad. But I can't just leave Stiles alone." With Derek, he doesn't say, but Derek hears it anyway. It's unpleasant, knowing that he's screwed this up enough that Scott doesn't trust him to not harm Stiles, inadvertently or not.
"Okay, okay. You know what? I probably don't even want to know the whole story." Derek can hear the weariness, not directed at her son or at Stiles, but at the world that's turned out to be bigger and more dangerous than she can shield the boys from. It makes him long for his mother's voice, for her warmth and severity. "Will he be alright?"
"I hope so."
"Okay. Take care of him, sweetheart. He's loud and troublesome, but I like him well enough." He can hear the quiet truths the woman won't speak, even through the phone line he can tell how her heart beats faster at the thought of Stiles not being okay. She's a good woman.
"I'll always take care of you two, mom."
"What are we going to do about the sheriff?" He asks when the three of them are on the car and heading towards the rebuilt Hale house, coming back to what had brought him to Scott in the first place.
"Nothing short of talking to me will suffice if I'm not back tomorrow. I'm not sure we can feed him a load of crap, since he's really incredibly competent at what he does and even more at reading me. Especially when I am lying to him until I turn blue in the face, which he mostly ignores but I have a feeling he won't now. Because he can smell big things. And he will ask about those big things. And mostly I'd lie some more, but if he asks me to tell him the truth right now, I'll just be forced to spill, so..."
"Fuck." Scott whines, cutting Stiles' rambling, hitting his head once or twice against the back seat. "Fuck."
"About tonight," he asks, trying to bring the conversation back to somewhat fertile ground. "Where does he think you're staying tonight? And what were you even doing in the forest?"
Why weren't you in your house like I asked you to?
"My dad thinks I'm at Scott's, playing some Xbox. I guess he won't suspect anything if I spend the night out." He can see Stiles shrug from the corner of his eye. "And I was looking for some samples of plants that I'd been researching that are supposed to grown around here, to compare with monkshood. I figured I'd be back home soon enough. It didn't even cross my mind that I'd actually encounter faeries that would kidnap me and make me into a fucking slave. Mostly because nobody ever told me that fucking faeries were a real that existed. And took midnight strolls on our town's forest. Just saying'. My thoughts on this."
"Well, maybe if you'd just fucking done as told for once on your life and stayed inside tonight you wouldn't-"
"Derek, please, shut up. Not now, okay? I'm too exhausted to deal with you. Tomorrow. Tomorrow we can argue ourselves to death and give each other a dozen reasons why the other sucks. But right now I want life to leave me alone forever. And that includes you and your general you-ness."
Derek could keep going, he's not the one under the spell, he's not even that fond of Stiles right now, either, but he's heavy with guilt of having caused this, indirectly as it may have been; he can also hear how frayed the words are, how little emotion Stiles is actually putting into them. Those things (in addition to the other things he refuses to acknowledge) make it impossibly hard for him to keep berating him.
Stiles rests his head against the window, forehead creased and mouth in a thin line. Scott's eyes find his through the rear view mirror; he doesn't say a thing, limiting himself to holding his gaze for a second or two, but there's a tingling sensation on him that tells him that Scott knows, knows more than enough, more than Derek is willing to give right now.
More than he is capable of giving.
Isaac is waiting for them in the porch; well, waiting for him, since there's no actual way for him to have known Derek would come back with Scott and Stiles in tow when he'd left for Stiles' house, knowing that something was wrong. Hadn't even told the kid where he was going, what was happening.
"Hey." Isaac waves at them, shuffling his bare feet.
"Hey!" Scott smiles at him, all puppy eyes and teeth, and it settles some of the worry gnawing at Isaac, he can feel it. Can practically see the tension dropping from his shoulders, as Isaac smiles back at them.
He wants to be content at the developing relationships, the webs of trust, between his betas. Wants to, but he too is worn out. He can only nod at Isaac when passing him, barely press the tips of his fingers to the boy's arm in a feeble attempt to abate any lingering apprehension.
"Dude, faeries, of all of the mythical creatures I'd envisioned as being real, faeries." He hears Stiles say, going inside. "And let me tell you: they are not all they are cracked up to be. Disney is a big fat liar."
He can hear the boy' chuckles as Stiles retells the story; a third of whatever he remembers, a third of what Derek's told him, and a third of things that are being clearly made up for entertainment's sake. He can hear how they all cover uneasiness with laughter, how the betas smell of desire to protect what they perceive as their kin.
He climbs the stairs, heading himself towards the master bedroom. Says, "show Stiles to one of the empty rooms." loud enough to be heard by Scott and Isaac.
He reaches his room, undresses, lies on his bed. Falls asleep surprisingly easy.
He dreams of a set of thin pink lips, parting to show pointy white teeth. Hears the voice of the Queen, saying the same thing over and over and over.
"It's not in a fae's nature to get in the way of true love."
It sounds oddly tender, if also a bit jocular.
It's frustrating. That's not at all surprising. His dreams often are.
He wakes up the next morning with the scent of Stiles wafting towards him, with the steady beating of his heart drowning any other sound, with the taste of his skin lingering in the air.
Fuck Scott and Isaac. And fuck him too for being an idiot.
He should've known they would push Stiles into the closest room to him. They aren't as original as they think they are.
He groans, trying to stifle his senses by burying his nose into the pillow (smelling only vaguely of soap and pack).
It doesn't help.
Fuck Stiles, too.
That morning the rest of the pack shows up to train. Stiles is up, sprawled next to Scott and Isaac in the living room's couch. Someone makes a jesting joke that contains an order in it and Stiles falls all over himself to comply.
And that is how the pack finds out and their training session gets suspended.
Erica is the only one who has fun with it, the first few hours. She has a good enough moral compass to not let the teasing escalate, is trusting enough to assume there's a solution, and generally treats it with the levity necessary to keep Stiles from freaking out.
"Say, Stiles," and there she'd drape herself over a chair, bat her eyelashes. Work her charm to the extreme. "I want you to jump."
"Seriously? Erica, are you serious" The kid glowers at her, sitting with his hands on his legs, pressing them down. "I get hit by a faeries' spell and you want me to jump."
She seems to put thought to that, then smirks.
"Yes, yes I do. Jump."
And Stiles does.
"Consider that payback for all the dog jokes, Bruce."
Not shockingly enough, considering what he's been through these last months, Jackson is the one who sticks to Stiles' side after the story's told, frowning at Erica's lighthearted approach, growling softly at her with his hackles raised when he thinks she's going too far. Snapping at her if she doesn't drop it.
It doesn't happen enough for anyone other than him to notice.
Until they start discussing what course of action to take about this. Then sits ramrod straight on the couch (shoulder touching with Stiles'), radiating a guarding aura so thick even Stiles picks up on it. He puts a hand on Jackson's arm. It makes Jackson's frown deepen, makes him contort his face into a façade of disgust that nobody buys anymore.
Then he cuts Derek in the middle of a practical class about fair folk to make fun of his hair products ("I'm sorry Jackson, man, but that's too much gel, even for a douche-do. Someome had to tell you and save you from you life choices. Hair choices. Hair-life choices.").
He wants to bark at Stiles to stop fucking goofing around, but he stops himself when Jackson actually smiles at that, seemingly less on edge than before.
He lets it slip.
When they are done brainstorming, they've reached the general consensus to call Dr. Deaton to try to find a way to... do something, find the faeries, or anything else strong enough to overpower their magic (it's not much and definitely not encouraging, but it's all they can do and doing nothing at all is not an option).
After that, they all sort of linger in the living room without much purpose, not wanting to leave (and in Scott's case, not even thinking of doing so). Stiles, meanwhile, plays dumb for their benefit. Amps his boisterous act to about a thousand percent, goes along with every single bad idea of a pun.
It works a little towards making the rest of the pack relax some, even though it's all obviously fake and forced. Scott looks less like someone has beaten him to a pulp; Boyd, who'd reacted with a subtle downturn of his lips, smiles in amusement at Stiles' typical social inadequacy; Jackson stops putting out the fierce scent of barely under the lid aversion.
When the ambiance darkens, it happens without a moment's notice. Stiles' tongue runs away from him like an athlete going for gold for too long and in a matter too inconsequential ("do you think faeries watch movies about faeries? Wait, do you think they watch movies at all? Do you think they know how to work electric appliances?"), it makes Jackson rolls his eyes, forgets, groans "Stiles, shut up."
And it happens. Stiles' lips cut a word in half, to come together abruptly, ceasing all sound. Stiles' eyes speak so loud, however, that they're practically filling the sudden silence on their own.
His eyes say, "oh God, my body is not my own anymore. I have no control over anything at all, anymore."
Jackson gets up from the couch and punches a wall in frustration, claws coming out, skin rippling over the shifts of muscle and bone that predict the change.
"Calm down," he growls at the teen. "We don't need anybody losing themselves in top of this."
"Fuck you, Hale, fuck you." Jackson snarls, even as his claws turn back into well cared for short nails.
Derek flashes red eyes at him, in a display of dominance.
He gets it, gets how this is worse for him, harder, how it brings back feelings of helplessness, pictures of all the atrocities he committed under someone else's command coming back to him. Gets how he can't just sit around on his ass as somebody else is stripped from their body's autarchy.
He gets it, but they can't cope with the pack's disobedience right now. Can't solve all of their issues at once. Can't take care of all their weaknesses right now.
Stiles, freed from his silence by Scott, with his inability to say no to even the most ridiculous directive is the most pressing of their concerns right now. He's at his most vulnerable, and they won't be able to protect him forever, and even if they could Stiles wouldn't want to.
Jackson bares his neck to him.
Derek hopes against hope that they can solve this quickly.
(He hopes against hope that he is taking the right decisions as Alpha.)
They call Deaton an hour after Boyd and Erica leave (Jackson doesn't make a move to, he says "I'm staying here tonight" and heads upstairs, towards the room he's claimed as his), perhaps, and get his promise to help them search for an answer to their predicament, to look over some books and talk to some people and then call them back, as fast as he can..
The sheriff calls Stiles at noon. At first he freezes, then he gets so nervous he drops the phone taking it out of his jeans' pocket. He hurries to pick it up, and touch the screen, rushes to say "hey, dad!" in the guiltiest voice Derek's ever heard.
"Hello, son." The sheriff sounds stern.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry."
He mouths 'calm down', looking him right in the eye.
It works like a charm.
Well, like a spell.
("I'm staying with Scott a few days, yeah. He's... He's still depressed about Allison, and well, you know, he's my best friend. I can't just leave him moping around."
"Okay, son." His voice conveys disbelief, and Derek can see how that shatters something small and frail inside Stiles. "Just... Try to come home soon, okay? I want to spend some time together, now that things have settled down."
"Yes, dad. I'll be home as soon as I get Scott back in shape. I promise." He sounds wrecked, choked and sad and it makes him irrationally angry at nothing.
"Take care, Stiles. I love you."
"I love you too, dad."
It sounds so desperate, it makes him want to tell Stiles to finally clue his father in. He rules himself in thinking that Stiles values his father's safety and wellbeing above everything else. How he will go through hell and refuse to give up, as long as his father is okay.)
The second day Peter comes by.
After the Alpha pack business, he's been keeping mostly to himself- not exactly an omega, answering Derek's call and stepping in when he's got vital information or some other interesting Intel; but not exactly one of his betas, either.
He takes in the arranging of the living room (Scott's bag and Stiles' hoodie alongside some of Isaac's clothes, and Jackson's car keys on the coffee table), lifts an eyebrow and smiles his most disturbingly charming smile.
"Are you having a slumber party? On my family home? And you haven't seen fit to invite me? How rude of you, Derek. I thought we were past this point of our relationship."
Restraint. Peter still puts him on alert, he doesn't know if that will ever change. No matter how he seems to be different from the man who killed Laura (a man consumed by grief and flames, driven mad by loss), he won't ever be the endearing uncle Peter who had been everyone's favorite when growing up.
Restraint.
"You already know what's going on, Peter, so save it." He says it in as civil a voice as he can manage, being well past the point where he can put up with his uncle's playful banter. "Do you know how to put an end to the spell?"
"Well," he drawls, stretching the word ridiculously while he sits next to Scott's bag, draping himself in a regal way. "They have left. All of them. And they have taken even the last drop of their magic with them, for the obvious exception of Little Red," he nods at the red hoodie, "and his lack of free will. So looking for them is out of the table as it would prove to be a completely useless waste of effort and time, they could be literally anywhere. They are the best players of hide and seek in the entire world."
"And how is this useful information?"
"That's my nephew, cutting to the chase." His disturbing pleasant smile broadens. "Okay, here's the deal, Derek. They have left and taken any leftover magic of theirs, that means that what they've done to Stiles is quite deliberate. And regardless of what they might do when they're feeling wronged and vicious, once they voluntarily say they will leave and do no harm -and God knows that's the only way they'll leave unless there's bloodbath-, they don't.
"They are particularly uptight about keeping to their word. That, however, doesn't mean they are not meddling bastards when they stumble across a situation that attracts their attention."
Something that...?
He remembers the Queen's words about true love.
That makes no sense. It sounds vaguely like...
"This is their version of a gift. They have cast this spell on Stiles as a gift to you, so you'll be helped along with whatever might have called their attention in the first place. You probably just have to wait this out. Either they'll see some sort of resolution to their satisfaction or they'll get bored of you and any which way they will revert Stiles back to his belligerent self."
... like faeries who want to play wry matchmakers. That's what it sounds like.
"Stiles!" Peter raises his voice until he's almost shouting then, as Derek processes information, apparently already having done his good deed of the day or having fulfilled his quota of usefulness and turning back to being delicately irritating. "Could you bring some tea to an old man? Please!"
"Fuck you, Peter! Really, fuck you a lot. I was sleeping." Comes Stiles' voice from the room he's been occupying. Derek is ready to tell Peter off, but he notices how Stiles doesn't sound put off, panicked. He sounds mildly annoyed and faintly amused. "And that wasn't a direct command, so I'm going back to sleep. Fetch yourself your own damn tea."
That coaxes a smile out of him.
Peter looks at him with warm eyes and maybe the moment brings him the all encompassing feeling of pack, but he ignores it.
Deaton calls almost immediately after Peter leaves and tells him the same.
Wait.
There's nothing else to do. Nothing other than that.
Lydia comes by to check on Jackson that afternoon, when the pack gathers to train.
The spell doesn't work for her. It figures that she would be immune to this as well, really. They should get on that with Deaton, try to see what it is inside her that repels everything not human.
Stiles chooses to stick himself to her side the entire afternoon, and Derek can't blame him for that, can't blame him for holding on to the only shred of his life that feels like normalcy.
He can see in their interactions the way the tightness in Stiles' muscles lessens, how his limbs rest more naturally next to hers as if relaxing after being cramped for a long time. Hears in their exchanges how his snark isn't forced, how his wit is less rehearsed.
Derek understands it, understands that at the core -at least right now- it isn't Lydia what is bringing peace to Stiles. That his feelings towards her aren't what's drawing him to her right now.
He can still discern a low level discomfort eating at him for the whole of Lydia's stay; it frustrates him, makes him snap easier at dumb mistakes from his betas, be harder than strictly necessary on them, so he breaks the kids into two teams to fight against each other until they are exhausted to pick up on each other's mistakes and physical cues and learn from them and walks away, going into the woods.
There he turns into the wolf and runs, only coming back when he can hear Jackson's car leaving.
The third day, it all goes to shit. It always happens, sooner or later. Generally when they let themselves be lulled into a fake sense of security.
This time, it's a pair of mated omegas who come to town with the intention of killing Beacon Hills' Alpha and taking over their pack.
It doesn't work. They get one of them, and the Argents (Allison commanding the operation, cold and closed off and as far from Scott as Derek's ever witnessed) take the other one down.
In the midst of it, Stiles is carelessly told "don't move!" and gets hurt by one of them.
"Ow, ow, ow, motherfucker." He curses under his breath, when Scott picks him up bridal style to carry him over to Deaton's. "Ow for my leg and ow for my manly pride. Of the which I now have none."
Deaton takes care of the injury, a long ugly gash from Stiles hipbone all the way down to his knee that he insists looks far worse than it is.
That's a huge relief, but the fact remains that Stiles doesn't heal, that he's human. That he hurts. Derek can see the pain on his white knuckles and brittle smile when Deaton gives him some painkillers.
He doesn't think at all when he lays his hand on top of Stiles' bandaged leg, he obeys his primal instincts. Throws all prudence through the proverbial window
When Stiles gasps at the same time his veins start going black and pain that's not his invades him, he locks eyes with him, tries to communicate to him with that look what he can't say aloud.
Stiles looks at him, eyes big, wet, telling him something that he can't (won't) comprehend. Something as big and terrifying as the things Derek can't say.
That night the pack stays with them, piled as close to Stiles as they can, reaching out with a hand or an ankle or an elbow, fitting themselves into Derek's bed because it's the biggest one.
He watches them sleep, watches Stiles. Asks himself not for the first time, why he stays with them, what makes this worthwhile enough to him to not want out, why he goes above and beyond the call of duty, why he is this stupid, this selfless, when he knows more than well enough that he isn't invincible.
Why.
The following morning he wakes up and thinks 'you could make him take the bite.'
It crosses his mind only once, fleetingly.
It's more than enough to make him avoid Stiles for a complete day, out of pure shame and self loathing, the face of Kate taunting him, making him feel dirty.
That night Stiles is still in his room, reading a comic book and acting like that's a normal occurrence for them, sprawled all over his sheets, blankets and pillows as if he belonged there (Derek will have to burn them, won't be able to use them after this without going insane).
Stiles notices him and smiles, dropping the comic to the side.
"Scott's mom's the best. She's been calling my dad to update him on how Scott and I are doing on our bro bonding time. And she also came here to check my leg, and gave me some awesome painkillers. I love her." He looks at him after that and adds, "don't worry, we only let her into the living room. She didn't enter your room."
It should have crossed his mind, Melissa McCall trespassing his territory, the fact that he hasn't even noticed her scent. Instead, all he can think of is Stiles, lying on his bed.
"What are you doing here, Stiles?"
"Your bed is awesome." He answers. "And I've been waiting for you because I think you are freaking out. And if you are freaking out because of that moment we had at Dr. Deaton's, then we should talk."
"I don't want to talk." He gets out, trying to appear less incompetent than he feels. "There's nothing to talk."
Stiles' eyes soften. He pats the bed next to him, and it should look ridiculous, a kid with a stretched t-shirt and shorts and leg that's all bandaged and a shorn head and a face so open.
"There is, man. There really is."
Instead it looks like everything Derek's been craving since the fire.
He goes, stiff, and sits next to the kid.
"I think we've both been hiding how we feel towards each other." starts Stiles, a little smile playing on his lips."Because we are stupid and fail at communicating."
He smiles, too.
That night he falls asleep next to Stiles.
He dreams of the Queen's pale lips again, smiling, parting wide to show off her teeth in a joyous laugh. She says, "I told you, shifter. It's not really in our nature to stand in the way of true love."
He wakes up to Stiles talking his ear off, excited in a way only puppies or kids under the age of eight ever truly achieve.
"Stiles, shut up." He doesn't think before he blurts it out. But after he does he goes rigid, tension all but breaking him in half.
It's a second later that he notices that Stiles is still talking, louder than before.
He's still talking when Derek drags him into a hard, bold kiss, only giving up when Derek's tongue invades his mouth mid-rambling.
When they part, Stiles smiles broad and quirky and him.
"That's the only way you'll ever shut me up now without asking nicely." He says, smirking.
He doesn't say 'I'm fucking glad' because he's still mostly broken and unable to translate feelings into words, but he lets his arms and hands and eyes do the talking.
Stiles' arms and hands and eyes say 'I understand', and 'hey, we'll get there.'