When Stiles got comfortable with everyone, he started talking. He talked about everything, it was the first time there had ever been kids his own age around him and they were fascinating. They put up with his questions for weeks before they started giving him a hard time about it, but Stiles liked being given a hard time because that meant they accepted him.

Not only that, but Stiles's dad seemed to really like that an Alpha was taking responsibility for his son's free time. He encouraged the relationship between Stiles and Derek, even going so far as to invite Derek over to their house for regular meals. Stiles's dad and Derek would relax in the living room after a meal while Stiles cleaned up, and he complained that he felt like the housewife. Derek told him to shut up and get him another beer, and Stiles's dad thought it was a great joke. Stiles didn't mind too much because it gave him an excuse to tackle Derek and wrestle him to the floor, and he was starting to like the feel of Derek overpowering him, but he wouldn't ever admit that to anyone.

Soon, there were no manners between any of them at all. Scott was always walking into his house, Lydia and Allison felt no qualms about asking him to fix their jewelry, Jackson was given to wrestle him to the floor any time he talked too much, and Danny kept trying to fix the way that Stiles dressed. Derek watched them all through this with an amused smirk on his face, and Stiles always ended the nights that they spent together curled up somewhere close to him.

Not on him, and not touching him, but near him. Stiles liked the way that he felt around the Alpha, but touching him led to some strange thoughts that Stiles just did not want to have when he was only sixteen years old. After all, his parents didn't meet each other until they were around five hundred years old. Derek was a werewolf, and the oldest werewolf Stiles had ever met was two hundred, although he had read about older ones he had never actually met them. The thought of only getting two hundred years with his mate was horrifying, so Stiles never entertained the notion that Derek might be it.

It wasn't all that was on their minds, though. Stiles's dad still kicked him out of the house for hours at a time because of the investigation, and Stiles had an open invitation from Derek to stay at his place once he found out that Stiles slept in his Jeep sometimes. Derek also had WiFi, and Stiles loved being able to carry his computer around the house to look things up. He was still reading Wikipedia like there was no tomorrow, and most of his new pack said that the rate he retained information was ridiculous.

Whatever was really going on with the political situation at Beacon Hills Reservation didn't seem to matter to Derek or his pack, and Stiles's dad kept him out of it the best he could. There was a problem though, because on the third full moon after Stiles had moved to Beacon Hills, when Stiles was supposed to be locked up in his house, Derek called him.

"They're attacking us!" Derek exclaimed. "Can you get your dad out here? I keep calling dispatch, and they keep putting me on hold before I can say anything. He needs to see this!"

"Derek, my dad is on call tonight…"

"Fine, I'll handle it…" Derek said, but Stiles could hear the sound of wolves singing, surrounding Derek's house through the phone.

"I'll be there, don't leave the house," Stiles told him.

Stiles grabbed a few things out of his closet before he ran down to his Jeep, and he drove up the hills to Derek's house within minutes. His Jeep was possibly going a tiny bit over the speed limit, and possibly a little too fast for a standardized Jeep, but Stiles didn't think that it was reason for Derek to look shocked when he showed up at his door.

"What's going on?" Stiles asked, trying not to stare at Derek's partially transformed face.

"They keep circling my house, sniffing around," Derek sounded agitated, his voice rough enough to vibrate against Stiles's bones again in that way that made him think thoughts that he didn't want to entertain.

Stiles heard the rest of the pack moving restlessly around the house. Jackson had come downstairs, almost in full werewolf form, and he was sniffing in Stiles's direction.

There was almost an invisible signal outside, and all got quiet. Derek and Stiles looked at each other for a long time, and then Stiles took a deep breath and turned his back on Derek.

Stiles stepped out onto the porch, his hands clutching around the objects he had pulled from his closet. They had been a gift from Rupert, and they were very old. "You are trespassing. You will get no other warning from me if you do not leave these premises immediately."

A lone howl answered his announcement, and Derek's ears twitched, and his voice came very close from Stiles's left hand side. "That's not from my dad's pack," he told Stiles.

Another werewolf appeared in front of them. Stiles didn't know this one, and he didn't know its scent. The werewolf crouched to the ground, staring at Stiles, trying to smell what he was. Stiles could see the moment it decided that it simply did not care, and it attacked.

Stiles could feel the control of his glamour that he used to make him appear human slipping as he pulled out the dragon forged sword in one hand and the silver dagger in the other. The dark blue metal of the sword was so dark it almost looked black, and the eyes of the werewolves surrounding him grew as they tried to figure out what Stiles's sword was made of. The werewolf attacking Stiles had thrown himself at him, and he was moving too quickly to avoid the quick thrusts of metal into its body, and it died almost instantly as Stiles pulled both the sword and the dagger out of him.

Derek was shocked, but not for long as they went back to back, the rest of the intruding pack attacked all at once.

Stiles could see Jackson fighting, and he could hear Derek behind him ripping his claws through werewolf hide. Stiles took almost three wolves out before one of them shot at him with a gun. Stupid werewolf, Stiles was a metalzauber. He smacked the bullet with his sword, and sent it back to the werewolf. He also danced in front of Derek for a moment to deflect the bullet that another werewolf had shot at him, and this time it was more difficult to control because the bullet didn't have a metal center; it was filled with liquid wolfsbane. He couldn't control where it went when he deflected it, and it fell in the dirt at their feet.

It was too much to assume that Stiles would walk away from this unscathed. One of the werewolves had to know what he was, because before he realized it one of them had taken a stick and jammed it into his thigh muscle. Stiles fell, and Derek let out a howl that was eardrum shattering. The remaining wolves scampered off into the night from where they came, and Derek was kneeling at Stiles's side.

"Are you going to die, is this how you can die?" Derek asked, anxious and scared.

"Rupert," Stiles whimpered, "I need Rupert!"

"Get his dad," Derek commanded Jackson, who was still were'd out even though Stiles could tell that he was trying to change back into a human. "Get the Sheriff!"

"Rupert," Stiles whispered again, and Derek's face twisted into pain to hear Stiles calling the name of a man he didn't know and couldn't get a hold of.

Derek picked Stiles up and carried him into his house, tracking dark red fairy blood all over his carpet. Stiles wanted to laugh, because it would bless the house, but his leg hurt so badly that all he could do was whimper.

"I got him," Jackson growled. "I got the Sheriff," and he handed the phone back over to Derek before he fell back into his wereshape. Scott and Lydia were already in the room, whining over Stiles's shivering body.

"We were attacked," Derek said, "Stiles came and tried to defend us, but they stabbed him through the leg with a branch…"

"Shit," the Sheriff said. "Is he conscious?"

"He is, he's calling for Rupert…"

"Don't let him call Rupert here!" the Sheriff yelled. "The last thing that we need is Rupert on this reservation."

"Is Rupert his boyfriend?" Derek couldn't control the growl that came out of his mouth at that point.

"God I hope not," the Sheriff said, which didn't seem to help Derek's control at all. "Knock him out, if you can. We cannot afford to have Rupert on this rez with everything else…"

"Don't touch my boy!" a young child's voice said from the doorway between Derek's living room and his entry way.

"Shit," the sheriff cussed again. "Don't piss him off, I'll be right there." Then the sheriff hung up on Derek.

Derek turned to see a boy, only nine or ten years old, with a shock of red hair and tilted green eyes. His ears were pointed, and he had freckles splattered across his nose, standing out against his fair skin in a failed attempt to hide how beautiful the boy actually was.

"Rupert," Stiles said, with a smile on his face that did not piss Derek off, at all.

"Boy, what happened?" Rupert stared at the branch still sticking out of Stiles's thigh.

Stiles smiled a little longer, and then he passed out.

Rupert turned and glared at Derek. "His father said you were looking out for him," he chastised the taller man before walking over to Stiles. Derek stared in horror as the tiny child pulled the branch out of Stiles's leg, not even noticing when blood splattered all over his face.

Derek growled, running over to Stiles's side to put pressure on the wound, he knew that there was an important artery that had to have been severed down there. "You're going to make him bleed out… he needs a hospital…"

The boy batted Derek's hands away from Stiles's leg with impatience. "Where a doctor will be unable to cut him because he's a metalzauber and doctors only use metal knives? Good plan, werewolf, what's your backup?" Rupert glared at Derek, and then he spit into the palm of his tiny, pale hand. Only his spit seemed to be made up of fire, and he pressed the fire into Stiles's leg.

Stiles woke up momentarily, just long enough to scream, before he passed back out. Rupert laughed at his reaction, and then spit into his palm again.

"What are you?" Derek asked him.

"Like your little werewolf senses can't tell you that," Rupert scoffed at him. "You just don't want to believe them."

Derek looked behind him to see the rest of his pack huddled in a corner, their eyes wide and staring at the boy sitting next to Stiles with something akin to terror.

"Rupert?" Stiles was awake, but barely.

"Shh… hush now, child," Rupert said, running his hand down Stiles's face.

"What are you doing here?" Stiles asked.

"I told you I would always come when you called," the little boy said, smiling down at Stiles, stroking his face until he fell asleep.

Derek actually had no idea what this child was, but if he had come all the way from Arkansas after Stiles had only whimpered his name, he was a little scared at what kind of power was in the body of this being. He was spitting fire, too, and that was never a good sign when it came to being able to fight something. The child was also looking at Stiles with an expression he had never seen a kid wearing before, and it didn't take Derek long to decide whatever the fuck this being was, he didn't like him. He took the sheriff's advice to not piss the little runt off, and he kept silent.

There was a knock at the door. Lydia changed back long enough to go answer it, and Sheriff Stilinski walked in after her, barely glancing at the werewolves in the corner. "Goddamnit, Rupert," he said as soon as he saw the child leaning over his son. "How am I supposed to explain not only your disappearance from Toad Suck, but your magical appearance here? How are we supposed to let the humans think they are safe when you pull shit like this?"

"You said he would be under protection," Rupert hissed at the sheriff. "This is your protection? Better I change reservations…"

"It was a pack conflict," the sheriff said, "I left him with an Alpha…"

"This boy?" Rupert gestured at Derek. "This is a boy! He might have some power, but he is a boy! How he made Alpha when he's…" Rupert sniffed at him, "only twenty-four years old, it is beyond me. Are the werewolves so weak now that they appoint children as Alphas?"

The irony that this creature barely topped four feet was not lost on Derek, but he was too scared to laugh.

"Everyone is a child compared to you, Rupert," Stilinski said. "He's an adult by human terms."

The child looked like he was going to spit. "I'm taking him back with me," he turned his attention back to Stiles, rubbing his injured thigh like a parent… or a lover. There were obviously no physical rules when it came to personal space between Stiles and this child.

Derek couldn't control himself anymore, he growled at the child when he threatened to take Stiles away from him.

Rupert studied Derek, and then his pale face got paler. "No, oh no," he said, standing in front of Stiles. "You can't… Not my baby…"

"He isn't your baby, Rupert," the sheriff said, as if they had this argument a million times before. "Stiles is almost full grown… whereas you are still a child compared to your kind."

"I will grow up, if that is what it takes," the little boy said. "I will grow up, and I will take this Alpha's place at Stiles side, to keep him from this. Werewolves can only live five hundred years, would you condemn your child to live longer than his mate?"

Stilinski looked shocked, but he wasn't the only one. All of the werewolves looked shocked, not the least Derek. "How…"

"I can smell it," the boy said, but Rupert was growing before their eyes, his body lengthening, his shoulders filling out, the bones of this face becoming more defined. "I won't allow for it…"

"You promised my wife that you would look out for Stiles," the sheriff said softly, but everyone could hear the panic in his voice. "I hated you for killing her, but I would rather have the three hundred years with her than never have had her at all. You can't take that away from Stiles, too."

Rupert froze, staring down at the floor. "Fine," he said in a new voice that was deeper, richer, and he looked up, but not too far because he was almost in an adult's body. "Let's let Stiles choose, then. I'll stay here, and he can choose between his best friend and this dying thing who thinks he's Stiles's mate," Rupert glared at Derek.

Stilinski nodded, "Fine. But you keep your human form, and you don't use your power while you're on this reservation."

Rupert sniffed a little, tugging at the tip of one of his pointed ears. "As long as Stiles isn't dying," he agreed.

"Dying in the sense that everything dies around you, or dying as in immediately?" the sheriff asked.

"You've spent way too much time making deals with fairies," Rupert gave the sheriff a look.

"That's not a promise," the sheriff said.

"I promise not to use my powers unless Stiles is within hours of his death," Rupert said.

The sheriff looked at Derek and his pack. "When making deals with fairies, make sure you are specific and to the point. Don't try to make it fancy. Also, don't ever thank a fairy, that's an acknowledgement you're in their debt. You didn't need those rules for Stiles because he wouldn't take advantage of you, but Rupert… he's old."

"I'm not old," Rupert protested.

"When you can't remember what year you were born in because they didn't have a modern calendar then you're old, Rupert," the sheriff said.

"I'm not even two thousand years old, Stiles," Rupert said, stroking Stiles's cheek as he slept, "and your father is calling me old."

"Why is he so loyal to Stiles?" Derek asked.

"Rupert killed my wife," the sheriff said, without emotion. Fairies were weird like that. "He swore to protect my son."

"I thought that most things couldn't kill your kind?" Derek asked.

"Most things. There are things that can, and that branch wasn't one of them. Stiles would have healed from that eventually. Rupert named you Stiles's mate, so it won't hurt to tell you. That sword he carries, that's a dragon forged weapon. That can kill both Stiles and me. The other thing that can kill Stiles is right there, stroking his face. He's the one that forged Stiles's sword," the sheriff gave a significant look at Derek.

Derek looked back at Rupert, tall and gangly now just like Stiles. "I thought they were all dead," he whispered in shock.

"Rupert is the last of his kind," Stilinski said. "He's half mad with it, just so you know."

"Great," Derek said. "I'm going to be fighting over my mate with a crazy dragon. This should end well."