Not Robin All the Time: Love Be Afraid (Season One)

by AkinaSky

Canon retold from Stiles and Derek POV, this is an eventual Sterek with a slow build friendship and confused people with weird emotions. All the great moments and some new ones. What happens when Stiles just needs something to think about other than the anniversary he just made it through again, and he asks his best friend to come into the forest to find a dead body.

11. A Real Anchor

Chapter Eleven: A Real Anchor

Trigger Warning: During this chapter, there is torture: both physical and of a sexual nature. Please take care of yourself and I wish there was an easy place to tell you its happening but it should be near the end and honestly Kate telegraphs her disgusting behavior pretty well in the scene.

AGAIN: TAKE CARE OF YOU!

Derek snapped upright, hitting Scott in the face with his head and they both wince and hiss out in pain, each grabbing at the aching spot even as the hurt echoed quietly into the back of his mind. It healed quicker than he could track, as well as whatever injury that had laid him out in the first place. Then he immediately looked around the hospital room and wondered why he'd been out in the first place. What was going on?

Then he noticed what was missing, the worried voice and the relentless chatter that he really shouldn't be so comforted by, "What happened? Where's Stiles?"

Scott looked around growling low in his throat, he was learning how to listen to his wolf Derek thought but right now wasn't the time to be showing anyone. Derek looked around again, noticing that Mrs. McCall was sitting outside the room with her head in hand and the Sheriff was just standing in the hall looking at the floor bereft. Derek clambered to his feet, away from Scott who was still grumbling but it was fading into something more like a whine. Derek stopped long enough to press a comforting hand into Scott's shoulder before he stumbled out of the room. He rushed over to the Sheriff and gripped his shoulder. The older man turned and swung at Derek immediately, the werewolf easily could have dodged or stopped the fist from making contact but he didn't, he took the hit and allowed the resonance of aching pain shift from his face and down into his neck but he didn't let the man go. He shook off the hit and spoke, "I am not going to let you keep punching me but I deserved that after not being ready. I wasn't expecting someone to come after us her and I didn't think they would touch him now what happened to Stiles?"

"We were distracted, Jackson started bleeding from the nose and it was black. Melissa was trying to stay with him, Lydia and Allison as well which caused another problem when the Argents came in and decided that their daughter couldn't keep sticking around here with her friends. She threw a pretty epic tantrum and in the distraction, someone, several of them actually, walked into Stiles's room. They hit you with something that put you on the ground fast and hard if the witnesses are to be believed then a couple of people dragged an unconscious Stiles out of here and no one stopped them!"

Derek did a quick scan of his body but whatever injury he incurred, undoubtedly a shock stick, healed upon him waking. There wouldn't be anything to prove he'd been hit to begin with. If it was Peter then his nurse had been here but this had hunters written all over it, especially if Kate had gotten in touch with some of her favored lackeys. From what Derek had seen so far with Chris Argent, he 'followed' the Code a little more fervently than his sister did and there was more evidence over the past couple of months that Stiles was spending time with Derek, much more time than Scott ever had and the hunters knew that there was a second beta. She could have taken Stiles; Peter could have taken him too and he wouldn't really know which had him until he started looking.

"I am going to find him sir," Derek vowed to the man who took a deep breath and walked away from the werewolf without another word. Derek didn't take it personally, how could he? Derek had promised the man he would make sure that Stiles was safe and he'd done a shitty job of it so far. The least he could do was get the teenager back safe to his father's arms. Derek got it better than most, the Sheriff could not lose his son. And Derek wasn't going to let that happen.

He wasn't going to lose anyone else, not if he still had the chance to get him back. They were all going to have to band together, the full moon was coming. They were racing against time with two new wolves, one that they needed to protect from her own family. Derek didn't know what to do, how to be an alpha but he figured it was time to get some advice from someone at least who knew a couple more alphas than he did, maybe he would also know where Derek could start looking for Stiles.

He walked back to the room where Scott was sitting on the floor, rocking a little with his hands pressed into his skull with his hair standing up in funny directions. Derek leaned down and pressed a hand to Scott's shoulder but he just shook Derek off.

"Scott we need to figure out our next move, I need your help to find him okay?"

The teenager nodded and struggled to his feet, all unsure gawky teen-style and Derek wondered where all his werewolf grace had gone to but he didn't need to ask. Derek had been born a werewolf and he'd had a gawky stupid stage too and emotionally turbulent events could cause even the most graceful wolf stumble. He shook it off, helped Scott despite the teenager's total lack of desire to be helped and they headed out together. Scott spoke to his mother for a moment and she hugged him hard and he heard her whisper, "Find him Scott! Don't let him be hurt anymore by this okay?"

Derek watched as Melissa kissed her son on the forehead before she looked over at Derek. "Will you keep an eye on Jackson and Lydia?" he asked her gently, hating the idea of asking for more but they needed him to ask.

She nodded, "Their parents are here and they want to take the kids home, I don't know how long I can keep them but I will try and make sure their safe."

Derek gave a single tilt of his chin in acknowledgement because that was all she could do then walked out of the hospital and grabbed his phone with Scott walking behind him. Derek dialed the emergency number and waited for Deaton to answer. It took a couple of rings then the veterinarian did answer and Derek started simply with, "I need your help please?"

"Derek, what is it?" Deaton asked and Scott gasped from just behind him.

He demanded, "Is that Deaton?"

Derek nodded but focused on the only man who might be able to help them at least get started, "Stiles was taken, it could have been the hunters or the alpha. I need to be able to find him but I also have new wolves and a full moon baring down on us."

"Derek I don't know where to find him, he's your pack-mate and I know you can find him if you let go. That's going to be up to you but there might be something I could do to keep the moon from affecting the others for a little while or maybe at least give you another option but I am going to need some time to put it into place. We'll figure this out Derek."

He nodded even though he knew that Deaton couldn't see him, this was a man that his mother trusted so he would trust him too even though trust was a limited commodity in this world especially to someone who had lost everyone because he trusted the wrong person. "You know I am putting not just my life in your hands but also the lives of my pack? I didn't ask for it, I didn't want it but now I have it and I can't lose them again."

"I understand Derek and it's not something I have ever taken lightly, not with your mother and the Hales and definitely not now," Deaton responded and then hung up. Derek stared at the phone and rolled his eyes, he still didn't have a place to start with Stiles but if there was something Deaton could do for Jackson and Allison then that was something. Scott would probably need something too since his anchor was Allison, reminding Derek of all the times that his mother had cautioned him and his siblings that they shouldn't use romantic anchors because when those memories get soured by breaking up, it can make the anchor unusable and now all the work that Stiles and Derek did for Scott's control might have been for nothing since Allison wouldn't even be in the same room as Scott since the attack at the school. He would need something else, Derek would need something else because the problem with building a new pack even if he hadn't really meant to start he was losing some of his anger, that crucial feeling he'd been using for years now. He needed that anger to stay in control and he was starting to lose the hold he had on it before, despite what was happening with Peter, everything just felt raw and broken and the anger wasn't as easily obtainable anymore.

"Deaton is supernatural?" Scott demanded after a second of silence.

Derek shrugged, "I don't know actually, he just knows a lot about the supernatural. He knew my mother; I didn't know it was your Deaton until I called him about something recently." Derek did not share that Stiles knew and that the teenager had threatened to tell but hadn't yet. It was just going to be another lie between friends and Scott didn't need that now when they were all stressed out and he still wasn't the greatest at control.

"Okay so what do we do?" Scott asked as he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, visual cues of someone trying to maintain calm in an awful situation. Derek thought about it then took a deep breath through his nose and tried desperately to find Stiles's scent, as a born werewolf he knew scent better than Scott who hadn't had enough time to associate everything he knew about Stiles's scent but he was the teenager's best friend and he could do it.

"Do you know his scent?" Derek whispered and Scott frowned at him.

Derek took in another deep breath and sought out the scents of Stiles, Derek didn't know how many words he'd considered and started thinking of as scents when it came to the teenager, there was the sharp scent of anxiety, the moldy scent of old grief then there was the sweet scent of intelligence and cleverness, things that shouldn't have a scent to them but every werewolf knew that they were a part of each person if a pack-mate was willing to learn it. The fear Stiles had felt in this room was strong but what was even stronger was the tenacity in the teenager that meant he was always going to keep moving forward, he was always going to fight for his father and his family. Derek took in the scents of the hospital and searched for the scent of pack, wondering if they had enough of a pack bond for him to feel it but Stiles was human and if it was there, it was intangible and therefore unhelpful.

Then he caught the edge of something, the scent of his friend and watched as Scott caught it too, "There's something. The smell of the hospital is almost too much to detect his scent but it's there. I don't know if that means anything but maybe we can follow it."

Derek nodded and they walked out, Derek wanted to press a hand to the Sheriff's shoulder again in comfort but he didn't deserve to. He needed to find Stiles and get him back to his father before he could even think that the man had any reason to trust him. Instead he shared a quick look with the man and nodded, trying to show Stilinski the resolve he had. No one was going to take another family member from the Sheriff and another pack-mate from Derek, not if he had any power to do something about it.

Scott and Derek made it outside the hospital and the born wolf looked around, pulling in deep breaths and finding the scent he was looking for. There were drugs and pain in the air, it was making it difficult to scent Stiles but Derek figured that the teenager must have been dragged out of here because there was enough of a scent to get across the parking lot only to disappear.

"Are you serious!" Scott shouted, proving that he was learning enough to know they had hit the end without Derek saying anything. He looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to them before shifting into his beta form and took in the extra intense scents of the world, sometimes that transition was still a bit much and Scott was gasping in horror when he saw Derek's shifted face. "What the hell do you think you're doing Hale!?"

"I can smell things better in this form," Derek said with a little bit of a lisp.

"You're in the fucking hospital parking lot where the daughter of werewolf hunters is still being cared for. The Argents are here and if they see me with you like this I am definitely out of the bag!"

Derek grabbed at the front of Scott's shirt and growled in his face, "This is your best friend Scott! We're all in danger, every single one of us and now because of you and Peter and me, Stiles is gone!"

Scott pushed him off, his eyes flashing gold. "You are the reason he's in this mess right now! You just couldn't stay away from him! You clearly don't care about him the way he does you and yet here you are making things confusing for him! They know about you Derek, not me and you were hanging around with him in the hospital. You came to him specifically and stayed with him. Allison was at the hospital and her aunt was obviously there, Peter knows that you came here for him. You broadcast to everyone who ever wanted to hurt you, destroy you, that Stiles was the weakness that they could exploit. I didn't do that! It's on you!"

Derek shifted back under the righteous anger of Scott McCall and Stiles was right, he was annoying when he was like this and it was even more annoying that he was right. He could hear Kate's voice in his head, 'Anything you've ever loved, you don't deserve it. You're a monster and you're going to get them all killed.'

But it didn't stop there, he heard Peter's words from the school: 'Remember the last time you cared for someone like that, it didn't turn out well for either one of you.'.

He thought about the un-kept promises he made to the Sheriff, he thought of all the times when Laura and he stepped away from friendships because they were just going to get people killed. He got his family killed, he wasn't there for Laura when she needed him. He wasn't here even for Peter; he'd chosen to run rather than be faced with the truth of his uncle every single day.

He was better off going as soon as he found Stiles, they wouldn't ever be better off with him here. "I'll help you find him then go. I'll leave town and hopeful take most of the problems with me," he whispered.

Scott deflated, "What?" he squeaked.

"You're right, I should have never allowed him to be close to me. I know better than anyone that all I can ever do is bring more misery to myself and others. I'll help you find him then go."

Derek turned and started walking, dejected and hurt and betrayed by his own heart. He should have never let Stiles under his skin and into his soul. It wasn't because of Stiles; it was because of Derek and the destruction that he brought so easily to everyone so easily.

"Wait!" Scott said, sounding exactly like the kicked puppy voice he uses so much and Derek ignored him. "You didn't say you didn't care about him."

"Why would I?" Derek said as he continued walking because he didn't know what to do or where to go he just had to get away from here. "I do care about him and I have no idea what it means, I can't see him continue to get hurt because I care. He's worth so much more than that."

Scott stopped behind Derek, coming to a shuffling stop, "Derek. I was stupid, I didn't mean it. He would hate me if I didn't say this but he wouldn't want you to go. He was desperate to find a way that you could stay. I'm just scared of losing my best friend. I'm scared that my selfishness is the reason we're really here, I just spewed all that on you."

Derek shrugged and continued walking so Scott rushed to catch up, "It doesn't change what I have to do. I won't be the reason another pack dies."

"What?" Scott shrieked and Derek really wished he could have described it some other way but the kid sounded like a woman for a second there and it made him wince but he didn't stop. He was heading to the Stilinski house since he had no idea where else he might start. It would help if he knew what bad guy had Stiles but the only way to do that was to be caught or make contact with one of them, hoping not to show his hands which there is no way he wouldn't show every card in his hand. Peter already knew what Stiles meant to Derek, or at least had an inkling, sensed the pack bond. If Derek going to Stiles in the hospital brought Kate Argent down on Stiles's head, then that was on him.

Even now he tried to think back to what brought him to the hospital in the first place, he'd gotten a message from Stiles and he'd felt the desperate need to get there and be with him. He hadn't been able to curb the instinct that Stiles needed him so he went. He couldn't describe the feeling inside of him when he heard Stiles sobbing, the need to wrap the teenager up in his arms until he could breathe again was a necessity not a choice for Derek. He couldn't help feeling a moment of déjà vu to the times when he'd woken up in the middle of the night screaming and crying for his mother, for someone from the pack that wasn't around anymore and his sister wrapping herself around his shaking body until he could sleep again sometimes days later. He'd almost felt Stiles's fear and desperate need to not be alone.

Now he was alone again and it needed to stop!

Scott was silent as they got closer to Stiles's house and Derek didn't talk though he knew the teen was fuming, he smelled the concern and anger and it was trying to choke Derek. He kept moving, it was all he could do.

"We need to find out who has him," Derek muttered.

"Peter or the Argents, right?" Scott asked, like there were other bad guys in town.

Derek nodded, "Specifically this has to be Kate, not the Argents, there isn't any proof that Stiles is a werewolf so Allison's dad wouldn't dare touch him especially since he's the Sheriff's kid. This is Kate, she is erratic enough to do it. Or it could be Peter, he wants to turn Stiles. I felt that in Peter at the school more so than even his desire to control you and Jackson. There's something about Stiles that is desirable to him but I would have felt him in the hospital, he's family and pack no matter how removed he is from me now that I'm aware of his identity."

"Okay, so where would she take him?" Scott asked, slapping his hands together, ready to get to the bottom of this.

"We need to check the Hale house, the warehouse, the Argent's house and maybe check and see if they have any other holdings in town, maybe the Sheriff can help with that though I imagine he needs a warrant for that."

"Undoubtedly but then we haven't been playing by the rules for a while now, let's call in some help," Scott said, looking around like the help was going to crawl out of the woods. Derek continued to the front door and waited as Scott stepped forward and clicked the door open with a key. It doesn't surprised Derek that Scott had keys to the Stilinski residence, it would have been more surprising if he didn't have it.

"Help from where?" Derek asked as they walked inside the house. Scott walked away, upstairs and into Stiles's bedroom if he remembered correctly. When he came back down he had a shirt and a sweater. Derek recognized the red hoodie that Stiles liked to wear most of the time and took it from Scott and breathed in the fresh concentrated scent of Stiles. He held the sweater in his hands and looked over as Scott sniffed at his friend's shirt, looking a little weirded out about it. Derek smirked at the look, watching as Scott tapped out something on his phone then shoved it back in his pocket.

"Jackson's friend Danny, he knows a lot about computers, he might be able to help with some of the Argent stuff. Where else should we start? Should we split up or stay together?"

Derek thought about where they could start, if Kate suspected Stiles as the second beta than it was possible that maybe Scott could go to the Argent house as the spurned boyfriend and beg for an audience, sniff around to see if Stiles was there, Derek could go to the warehouse and the Hale house, maybe he could contact Peter and see what the alpha knew, he would try not to show their hand but Stiles was more important. Peter might turn him which would be bad, especially because Stiles didn't want to be a werewolf but Kate would kill him for sure.

"Do you think you can go see Allison and play the besotted sad boyfriend, see if Stiles is there? Sniff around?"

"I don't have to play at it," Scott mumbled and Derek snorted.

"Okay, well I have your cell number, keep in contact and meet back here when you are done. Stay away from Peter, if you see Kate and think you can follow her without being seen, then do it but don't get caught yourself."

Scott gave a snappy salute and headed out. Derek took the sweater with him on the way out, locking the doors and taking another deep breath of Stiles's scent just to help steady himself, to give him something to focus on. Unless he surfaced again he didn't think it would matter, Stiles's scent would have been long gone. He didn't want to put the sweater down though, it made him feel closer to the owner and like he could do something.

He started off in the direction of the warehouse district, he didn't know what he would find there but he had to check. Kate might guess that Derek wouldn't return because she'd found him there but he needed to know if she was there or not. He took a deep breath and moved into a jog, as he got farther away from the center of town and into the district where he'd been staying for the last couple of weeks and then really put on the werewolf speed since there was no one to see him. He needed to start knocking places off the list though he knew there were plenty of places on the outskirts of town where someone could disappear with a person for a couple of days and that was the worst of this. He couldn't believe that Kate had made it out of there with Stiles and no one stopped her.

Unless it was Peter.

Derek growled and kept running, he didn't know how much time passed but soon he was running closer to his warehouse, he could see the darkness inside but that was nothing. He walked over to the only door and tugged it open a little bit but there was nothing from what he could hear. The run didn't even leave Derek tired or out of breath, he was used to running. What he wasn't used to doing was standing and fighting for what he wanted and if Stiles wasn't here then he would just continue onto the next location. He took another deep breath but only smelled the stale smells of himself and Stiles, even Kate which made him sneer at the scent.

With a sigh Derek turned around and took a deep breath, freezing in his position as he took in the scent of someone, it was family or pack. There was that sense of familiarity and he knew it was Peter, lurking about. There was no one else after all.

"Uncle Peter?" he called.

The man walked out from the shadows, wearing a neat button up shirt and a leather duster over black jeans and shit kicker boots. He noticed the glint of steel on the toe, more as a fashion statement than anything at this point. He wasn't going to be using his feet and human form to fight people.

"My dear nephew," Peter said with a toothy grin, "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be watching your little human?"

Derek growled, low in his throat and looked around, seeing if there was a good way to run that would get him back to town the fastest, he didn't have time for his uncle and he also didn't have time to run him down since Peter was clearly standing in the path the beta would need to take.

"Unless…" Peter started and took a step closer. Derek didn't flinch back a half step, it was a close thing though more of a stumbling sway. His uncle was grinning, his teeth lengthening and Derek's heartbeat picked up at the sight. Peter was too clever by half, they weren't going to get out of this unless they had someone equally clever, which meant Stiles.

Derek knew it was ridiculous to trust in a seventeen-year-old spastic idiot but he'd been around the teenager long enough to realize that he'd been raised in a house where being clever was the only way to be. And just because it was ridiculous didn't make it any less true.

"Did you lose him too?" Peter asked and Derek really did flinch backwards like he'd been struck. His back pressed suddenly against the wall of the building and he looked around. He tried to think about what his options were. He wasn't clever, Derek was a straightforward thinker, Scott was a straightforward thinker. Allison, Lydia and Jackson were too new to this world not to mention he knew nothing about them besides that Jackson is a smarmy douche (Stiles's words), Lydia is a cold Ice Queen who would rather act stupid then be herself and Allison was an Argent. He was alone.

He was alone because of Peter, Derek thought with a grumbling growl in his throat. He looked over at his uncle, his heartbeat settling in realization of the rage at losing not one but three more pack-mates. The last time had been the fire, Derek had been too young to fight back but not anymore. He didn't know much about fighting, wasn't strong enough without the others but neither was Peter.

"You killed Laura," Derek growled, his teeth lengthening and his face shifting into his beta form.

He had to survive, he had to change otherwise he wasn't going to ever be able to protect this nascent pack. Peter didn't want any of them but Derek did, in some tiny hidden hopeful place, he'd wanted this.

Derek wasn't going to stop fighting for it. He thought about the rage within but there was something else that was bright there at the core of him. He reached for it, there was nothing there about the anger and devastation of his losses again. At the core, he felt the laughter and the strong taste of sarcasm all bottled up in his new pack-mate, the one who let him believe for even a second that he, Derek Hale deserved a friend. He stared at Peter, watching the look of astonishment on his face even as Derek felt the shift happening.

He wanted to scream, to howl and tell the world that he'd found it.

Derek Hale found something stronger than rage. Even if it was intimate and vulnerable, it was strong!

And he was free once more, there was still pain and memories but they were far away at the moment. Right now, he only felt the desire to protect his pack and his territory and the growl he let loose said those things more clearly than any words would have done. Even as he settled on four legs, he was still extremely tall, coming up to Peter's waist, looking down he saw paws instead of hands with claws. He could see his own snout, and he had the black pelt of his mother. Derek flashed his eyes and tilted his head back and howled for his pack, whoever was listening would hear the jubilation and the power in this form.

"Well this is a surprise, how did you come by that form? I have not seen it since long before the fire," Peter baited him even as Derek shook out of his clothes, stepping out of his shoes and the leather jacket that thankfully didn't rip in the transition. His teeth grasped at the t-shirt and pulled it off, ripping it down the side in his rush to face down his uncle. The wolf wouldn't let him turn his back on the alpha, it was too dangerous.

Derek snapped his jaws together and took a menacing step closer to his uncle, he could feel the slobber turning into foam around the edges of his snout as he growled and snapped at the alpha. There was nothing in Derek that wanted this creature as his alpha. He was going to protect his pack with or without the power, no matter what.

"Did you do that because of this little pack I am making dear nephew, they will never belong to you, and I will find Stiles and I am going to take him for myself as you do not have the guts to do it for yourself."

Derek launched forward at the threat before he had time to rationally think about what it meant to attack an alpha, even one without a pack. Peter howled and Derek snapped his teeth as he launched up and into Peter's chest, latching teeth to a rapidly growing neck and shoulders. His clothes ripped under the onslaught from Derek's teeth and Peter's shift.

"This is madness nephew!" Peter shouted even as Derek clamped his teeth harder into Peter's neck and the man stopped shifting. Derek quickly used his strength to drop the man to the ground and he shifted his teeth a little farther over his throat and started to squeeze, feeling the give of flesh.

"You kill me and you're all alone," Peter whispered, his voice gurgling under the pressure of a wolf's much stronger jaw. He wasn't fighting and it broke through the red haze that had crept over Derek in that moment. He released Peter's throat and the man stayed down, his clothes in tatters on his body, blood flowing from the wounds caused by Derek's teeth and claws though they were quickly healing. Derek stumbled backwards onto his haunches and heaved a sigh. He couldn't kill him even though he desperately wanted to and should.

He couldn't be the only Hale, not him. He was the reason his uncle was like this to begin with. Derek couldn't stand the idea of being alive when they were all dead. Not after what he'd done. Peter chuckled though it was still more of a gurgle, "I am going to get my revenge Derek and you are going to help me, no matter how it happens. I will make sure of it."

Derek didn't look at his uncle, heard him leave the area but he couldn't move, he was a wolf and he suddenly he was just as trapped in this form as he had once been in his human skin, the shame bearing down on him with incredible pressure. Stuck. Trapped much like he'd been as a human for months after the fire, he couldn't even achieve a beta shift let alone become the wolf. He stuck his nose in the area and took a deep breath as he stood up and wandered back to his pile of clothes and started sniffing around. Even now he could smell Stiles on the ground, the jeep and everything about him was all over this place.

His ear twitched as someone ran up, Derek turned and crouched, ready to pounce when he saw Scott standing there shifted into his beta form and staring in shock at the wolf in front of him. "Derek?" he lisped.

The sound of his name, added to the confusion on that face was enough to bring Derek back in a lurch. Just as swiftly as he'd become the wolf, he was human and naked sitting on the ground feeling the cold as it seeped into his skin. He shook his head as Scott ran up to him exclaiming as he turned back too. "I heard your howl and I knew it was different but I couldn't tell why. Now I know. Can we all do that? How did you even do that?" Scott asked the last excitedly as he grabbed Derek's clothes and started shoving them at the older man.

Derek panted from the exertion it took to shift so quickly back and forth, "Maybe you should concern yourself with controlling your beta form before you try going all the way," he grumbled haughtily. A smoke screen meant to protect Derek from Scott knowing what had just happened, he would of course smell Peter and the blood but he didn't need to know that Derek could have saved them all a lot of heart ache if he'd just can kill the alpha.

Scott snorted, "Cover your junk man. I don't want to see that! Stiles wasn't at the Argent house though neither was Kate. Allison still won't talk to me," The last statement was so pathetic sounding that Derek figured he should just give the kid a break. It had only been a day since his girlfriend had found out about him, been bitten and now she's dealing with all this other family shit on top of it. Derek didn't know what that was like since he'd been alone for so long but he could at least be a little nicer, this was Stiles's best friend. He shimmied quickly into his underwear and jeans, adjusting as he put his wrecked shirt and jacket back on.

"We need to keep moving, Peter knows that we don't know where Stiles is, I think he does anyway. I don't know what he's going to do but I think he's going after him too. We need to get a hold of Deaton as see what he came up with for the others then keep searching."

Scott frowned, "You think Peter's going to try to get to him sooner?"

"Yes," Derek snarled, angry just thinking about it, "Stiles is the key to the key players right now, made more obvious by the fact that Kate took him. I care about him a lot, you are his best friend. Even the others listen to him. If Peter gets him, he has the Sheriff in his pocket as well. If he turns him then who's to say we all won't just crumble. Stiles doesn't want to be a werewolf but can you imagine him as one. He's freakishly like Peter used to be."

Scott shrugged, looking sullen about who knew what and Derek didn't have time to find out right now. "You should really change into something that hasn't been ripped apart before we hit civilization," the teenager finally said.

Derek shrugged, he didn't have clothes to grab. He didn't have much of anything and most of it was back at the warehouse. He wasn't walking back that way, he would not walk into the warehouse until her stench had dissipated a little more, otherwise anything he had in his stomach was going to be all over the ground. He had money, there was an outlet mall nearby, he could go and pick up some boring black t-shirts as soon as they had a plan. He wasn't concerned about his wardrobe, even less concerned with what other people might think.

"How'd you do it?" Scott whispered after another couple of minutes of silence.

"Shift into my wolf form?" Derek asked because he didn't know what to say yet.

"Yeah dummy, that!" Scott said, rolling his eyes hard enough his head did it too.

"I once told you that anger was my anchor," Derek started and Scott nodded, saying nothing. "Well it hadn't always been my anchor, pack and family had always kept me relatively in control, at peace with my wolf. About a year before the fire something happened and I lost that peace, it was suddenly about controlling the wolf because I couldn't trust that instinct of mine anymore. I lost the full shift and then after the fire, I couldn't shift at all. Laura had to work with me every day, getting back the ability to shift to my beta form but from that point on rage and anger were the only anchors I'd been able to use."

"But it's not now?" Scott asked.

Derek shook his head but didn't say anything for a few minutes. The teenager just kept walking and waited. He'd never noticed before but Scott had the patience that Stiles never had, the teen wolf would make an excellent werewolf with training and guidance. Scott had said it before, if they were going to trust each other a little bit then they were both going to have to give. "Yours is love, right? For Allison?"

Scott shrugged but he smiled, "Yeah."

"How are you feeling now? We are getting closer to the full moon and you don't have her anymore."

"Maybe it won't be a problem," Scott mumbled, "She didn't really break up with me. She's just figuring this thing out with being a werewolf and her family and everything. Never officially broke up with me."

"Okay, so you're good?" Derek asked to clarify, just because she never said the words didn't mean that it wasn't going to cause problems.

He shrugged again and Derek continued, "You need to have something else to anchor you. Mine was so easy because anger for me was my salvation, the thing that could keep me alive from here on out. Love for one person can be a difficult thing, its powerful but it can also be affected easily especially when its new."

"Are you going to get to the point any time soon? I asked you about your anchor!"

Derek took a deep breath and thought of that moment when he just let go and accepted the ripple of change to slide over him and wondered if he was about to get hit, "I had to let go of anger to turn, I found a new anchor, maybe even two more though I will have to put it into practice. It's the possibility of having a pack again, you and the others—that was in my heart and head, demanding that I just let go and accept what was right in front of me."

"But you're stalling, there's something in your scent and your heartbeat, there's something else. I don't know much about anything but I do know that."

"Who was the first person to demand that I stay and make something more of my existence? Who found a way for me to stay and who stood beside me when he shouldn't have, when it meant he would have to fight with his best friend? Who demanded that I take time and take care of myself and you, didn't matter what happened to him? You already know this Scott, I am just asking you to reign in the wolf, the feeling of jealousy or fear or whatever with me. I don't want you to get hurt."

Scott snorted at Derek's boast that he would only get hurt in a fight against the born werewolf but sobered immediately, "It's Stiles. Your anchor."

It wasn't a question but Derek swallowed the desperate wet thing in the back of his throat, maybe it was terror and a desperate kernel of hope and whispered, "Yes" as he kept walking.

Scott reached out and turned Derek around to face him, "What does this mean?" he demanded.

"It means that the thought of him, needing to protect him and care for him was enough to overpower the anger. It freed me enough to turn me into the wolf, which is the strongest form we have access to."

"Do you love him?" Scott screeched, making them both wince.

"That's a complicated question that I don't have an answer to, at least anything I understood. It's also an answer he deserves to hear before anyone else, including his best friend. I can only say that what I said earlier—Scott I can't make that promise and I'm sorry that I tried. You and the others need someone who knows about being a werewolf and I won't leave Beacon Hills unless he sends me away. I don't care what that means for me. That's what it means."

Scott scuffed the tip of his shoe across the ground angrily making a divot because he wasn't controlling his anger. Derek couldn't help the empathy flowing through him for the teenager, this was all still so new for Scott and now his best friend had been kidnapped and his girlfriend knew and his least favorite person would be a pack-mate.

Because they apparently lived in a dramatic television show, Derek thought with a roll of his eyes. If it wasn't for the fact that he'd lived in this world long enough to know sometimes certain people get the shit luck and he was one of them, he wouldn't even believe this was happening. But it was.

So he understood better than anyone that would have a difficult time with what happened here in Beacon Hills and Derek knew that all his feelings about these people and caring for them was running him through a grinder leaving him in pieces.

"You will never be my alpha!" the teenager finally growled out, his shift starting swiftly. "You can't turn Stiles against me!"

Derek took another deep breath through his nose, searching Scott's scent and finding a confusing mish-mash of feelings. The fear and anger were the most astringent, there was shame and resentment, both subtle chemosignals that Derek had learned only because of his personal trauma over the years. "I don't want to turn him against you, I just want to stay close and be helpful because he believed I could be."

"And do you believe you can do anything for him besides get him killed?" Scott snapped, his teeth clicking in anger, teeth elongating even as he visibly tried to control it.

"Do you?" Derek returned just as quickly and he wondered how he and Scott were ever going to get along without Stiles around. The simple answer might be that they wouldn't—get along without Stiles to help calm them. Scott had too much trouble with authority and Derek was just to fractured to deal with his animosity with anything other than anger and snapping teeth.

"No!" Scott's voice cracked at that, and Derek wished he felt that he could touch and comfort the teenager but he wasn't allowed. Scott continued to rant, "I hate this! Why did he have to drag me into the woods? Why did he have to go find that dead body? This is all his fault!"

Derek's eyes widened, he knew that Stiles carried some shame and guilt over that night because he rambled about everything under the sun when they were working on the warehouse but he hadn't realized that Scott actually blamed him. And neither did Scott, if his shocked face was anything to go by.

"Do you really believe that?" Derek asked, trying to contain the wolf that wanted to lash out against the anger in Scott, especially because that anger was overlaid with fear for Stiles. Derek rolled his shoulders, attempting to resettle himself. This was stupid and a waste of time but Derek felt like he couldn't walk away from Scott right now. He needed something, maybe it was something that Derek would never be able to give but he could try. They had to be able to work together, Peter was on the prowl and Stiles was still missing.

"Yes!"

"What about the other night? What about the times that you almost killed him and he refused to leave you? Even after his father got hurt, he was mad at you but he didn't abandon you."

"He abandoned me that night and I got bit because of it!" Scott snarled, "He should have been the one, he loves all this so freaking much and I hate it!"

Derek rolled his eyes, it amazed him that Scott really didn't know what this was doing to Stiles. Had the spastic teen really not told his best friend how he felt? Then again when in the past couple of months had this not been about the shit show that was Scott's life. Stiles was malleable, he was changeable depending on the circumstances and he didn't whatever was best for everyone, Scott had seemed to take a slightly more selfish route with the werewolf-hood which was inevitably why Stiles didn't want to be a werewolf: because he didn't recognize his best friend anymore.

Derek reached out and grabbed a handful of Scott's shirt and jerked him in close and despite the immediately fight back, Derek easily contained the teenager, "You are not a baby Scott! Take some responsibility for your life and your decisions. You saw a pretty girl and you used your wolf abilities to get a date, then you kept after her despite the fact that her father would love to kill you just for existing, the same hunter family that destroyed my family without compunction. Not to mention the lacrosse when you knew that it would cause problems, being popular was more important than protecting others from your irrational anger and the shift, I am not saying that Stiles doesn't have something to apologize for but you don't get to be blameless Scott. You want to be a grown up, making decisions that effects other people then grow up! Take responsibility and stop letting Stiles do it for you! You used the Bite for your own selfish means and that was on you!"

Derek released the angry teen and started jogging towards town, they didn't have time for this and finding Stiles had to be more important than this worthless blame game/pissing contest. He could hear when Scott settled in to jog next to him though he said nothing else. He'd already spoken so much in the past month or so and he was tired of it. He didn't want to do anything besides make sure that Stiles was safe and deal with Peter. Or maybe let someone else deal with Peter, since he apparently couldn't do it.

He didn't think he could fight Kate either but this was about Stiles, if he could complete the shift to fight his uncle for his pack-mate then he could fight his way through the shit in his head to go up against her too. He hit the edge of town and shifted direction for the fastest route to the station and Stiles's father, he needed to update the Sheriff, let him know what they found and what their next step was.

"Are we going to the Sheriff?" Scott asked after several minutes of silence, just as they ran into the lot of the station and Derek ignored the rampant desire to roll his eyes right out of his head at the question. Instead he nodded and headed inside. The woman at the front desk looked him up and down, noticing his quickened breath and Scott following close behind.

"Can I help you?" she asked cautiously.

"Derek Hale and Scott McCall, may we speak to the Sheriff?"

She frowned and Scott popped up closer, shoving Derek to the side, "Its about his son!"

She nodded finally, comforted by Scott's innocent naiveté and his familiar face which wasn't attached to a murder investigation. Derek knew that it was ridiculous to be hurt by the collective opinion of these people but he did, this town was the only standing memory of his family anymore and they fact that what happened with Laura and by extension, Derek, might always tarnish the memory of the rest of his family. The deputy led them back to the Sheriff's office and announced them. Stilinski rose quickly from his desk but saw the lack of Stiles, his shoulders drooping as he rushed them inside and closed the door.

"No luck?" he asked but he already knew. This would have been Stiles's first stop, knowing that his father was worried.

"Not so far but we wanted to keep you informed," Derek said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, glad we thought to zip it up to cover the shredded shirt underneath.

"We were heading to the Hale house next then we don't know where to look," Scott said quickly.

"I might be able to use my other abilities to find him, we have heightened senses in our other form," Derek whispered, not realizing he was planning to talk until it was happening. The Sheriff already admitted to knowing about them though he still seemed reticent to depend on them for his son's rescue.

Scott snorted, "Then why couldn't you find him earlier!"

"When they got into the vehicle, it took away the trail. There was nothing to follow Scott."

Scott shrugged but he looked down, chagrined. Derek shook his head and looked at the Sheriff who was staring at them, reading the animosity pinging between them, "How can I trust you both to take care of my son when you are too busy trying to be the boss? Trying to be right?"

Fair point, Derek thought with a wince.

"Derek, give me your phone number so I can keep an eye on you from here. Are you going to keep it with you in case of anything?"

Derek nodded, thankful that it had been in his jacket pocket when he shifted, he wouldn't pull off another full shift any time soon, he didn't seem to have the shape down in any kind of useful way but the beta shift would be enough. He would have his phone and vocal chords to speak into it in case the Sheriff found anything, not to mention they needed to call Deaton about the others, full moon was coming whether they had time for it or not.

"Scott, you should call your mother and get an update on whoever is still at the hospital then call Deaton and see if he found anything."

Scott nodded though he was still sullen. He walked out of the office after another quick look between the Sheriff and Derek then he was gone. Derek turned back to the Sheriff, "You don't trust me?"

"Not with my son," the sheriff gritted out.

"Because of who I am or because of what I am?" Derek wondered even as he tapped his number and contact into the Sheriff's phone. He immediately called his own number and felt when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He handed back the phone after hanging up on himself as Stilinski answered, "I don't trust your family and what you are because your people have this tendency from what I experienced to think you are above the law and as someone who believed in justice and the law, I find that to be justified mistrust and dislike."

Derek's heart thudded in his chest uncomfortably, "I don't have anything to say to that, I don't know what you experienced with my mother or my family. I cannot deny a desperate desire to fight it but I am just going to have to show you that you can trust me."

"I would believe you more if you had just reported when you found your sister's body," Sheriff Stilinski snapped and Derek's eyes flared blue for a second but he'd looked down and away quickly enough.

"I don't have the time or the desire to explain my reasoning but I get it."

"Then get out of here and find my son, we'll see what happens after that."

Derek nodded, one single tilt of his head before he took off back the way they'd come, Scott stayed behind for a second and he was just reassuring the Sheriff that they were going to find Stiles. Scott and Stiles were like brothers, of course Scott would have a connection with the sheriff that Derek wouldn't have, maybe never would despite his desire to stick around and create something. He had no idea what the Sheriff had experienced, to make him believe that they felt they were above to law. He would have to think about it some other time that he wasn't trying to get the man's son back alive.

Scott rejoined him a minute later and asked, "Hale house?"

Derek nodded and they took off towards the Preserve, hoping to find something. Anything that would get Stiles away from Kate.

When his eyes drifted open Stiles was just an open sore, he tried to lift his head from his chest but it was to heavy. He didn't know where he was or who had him so he tried to stay quiet for as long as possible while he took stock of his body. His wrists were chained to the slatted bars behind his back, the links were digging into the delicate skin and bones of his wrists. There was also chains around his chest and his ankles. He feet were thankfully touching the floor otherwise he would have been suffocating as well as feeling the constant strum of pain. For the first time in his entire life, Stiles was annoyed that he knew that. He spent most of his free time, sleepless nights and weekends not spent with his dad or Scott looking up things, and now it was telling him all sorts of things he didn't want to know.

He was shirtless, Stiles noticed because the chains were dragging along his skin, creating an uncomfortable zing across his skin and that was the moment his head snapped up because he knew why he felt like he was about to shudder out of his skin.

"I'm not a werewolf," he shuddered out, barely more than a whisper. He blinked and tried to focus but the subtle electrical current that was skimming along his skin was enough to tire him completely.

She laughed, it was supposed to be seductive maybe but it just ended up sounding crazy.

"Kate Argent, it's nice to know you're done pretending to be sane. You kidnapped the sheriff's son, you think they aren't going to find you?"

The zing rose to painful for a second, causing Stiles's back to bow and a groaning scream attempted to find its way out of his mouth but it never made it past his throat, remaining a gurgling moan. The sound vibrated deep in his throat and chest even as his stitches stretched in the movement. Then it resettled to that uncomfortable and manageable level and he was left pressed against the bars and heaving as best he could with the chains gripping his upper chest.

"If you had been a werewolf," Kate purred as she came closer, reaching her hand out to him. Stiles bucked, trying to make it perfectly clear that he wasn't going to be okay with her grubby perverted hands on his body. Then, just as her hand pressed into his stomach the buzzing in his veins went away and he sighed in relief, groaning as she chuckled, "You would already be dead. I know you are human now, I had enough time with your body to realize that you weren't healing like a wolf. No, I have you for a whole other host of reasons."

"Let me guess," Stiles gritted out, trying to escape her touch even as it started to waver lower on his body. "They all lead back to Derek Hale!"

"And the alpha and any other supernatural creature I get to enjoy killing," Kate responded.

"You are more likely going to be put in jail for this! You're never going to touch the alpha or Derek!"

"I have noticed him closing in ranks around you," Kate whispered as she moved in close to his body and between the lack of electrical buzzing and her warmth, Stiles could feel a disgusting pleasure seeping into him. He shook his head, it flopped from side to side like he didn't have any motor control anymore.

"Stiles Stilinski, the boy who was finally found after the full moon mauled and half eaten. Can you imagine what will happen to your father? To the others who love you? Maybe even Derek?"

Stiles snorted, "Derek doesn't care about me. He's probably not even looking for me right now," It was a lie and Stiles sighed when her head ticked to the side that she felt it in his heartbeat. Of course, Kate Argent, crazy bitch werewolf hunter would at least know the human ways to see if someone was lying and her hand was pressed over his pulse point in his throat.

She leaned in, "I know they both want you for something, I want you too baby," she whispered and gripped the back of his neck and painfully arranging his face to look at her. Stiles worked up the spit in his mouth, wishing it didn't feel so much like a desert so he could spit in her face and at least distract her enough to get her hands off of him.

"What is it about you that has him hooked anyway? Skinny, spastic Stiles trying to be Batman when you'll never be strong enough to do anything besides cause more harm to him. He does seem to have a type, except me of course."

Stiles jerked against the chains, "Don't talk about him like you know him!" he snapped.

Kate chortled as she pulled away from him, the second her hands were no longer in contact with his skin, she turned the low buzz of electricity back on and Stiles groaned. "Oh baby, I do know him. I fucked him and I have every intention of doing so again, just this time not with my body first. I was sentimental when I left him alive, I won't do it again."

She left him there, probably to go back out and play the dutiful aunt to her new werewolf niece or hunter to her brother. Stiles left there, thinking about anything and everything but the pain zipping through his veins. He wondered how long it had been since he'd had Adderall, he wondered about Scott and Derek. Were they fighting? Were they helping his dad look? How was his dad handling all this? It was too close still to the anniversary, only about a month and a half ago and they had just started talking again, it wasn't fair that this was the result and all for the insanity of the Argent hunters.

His brain skipped from topic to topic, mentally writing and rewriting papers that he knew were coming due, he wrote a couple of chapters of a werewolf manual that he would undoubtedly write someday just for the sake of keeping all the information in the correct order. He thought about all he'd learned about Scott and Derek already and hoped he would survive this long enough to find out the rest, even if that took the rest of his life.

He stayed there for what felt like hours, Kate would come back and only touch him if the electricity was off while she told him what she was planning to do to the people he cared about. He wondered for a while if she was just worried about being shocked though why did she keep coming back? He didn't understand why she was touching him at all besides a bizarre need to just be a skeevy bitch until about the sixth or seventh time he heard her walking into the space where he was trapped and he whined in desire, a bid for a break from the current that she had been raising a little at a time until it was almost unbearable, he could see the red blistering marks around his chest and knew they were everywhere the chains were.

He thought during that last moment when she smiled at him, all teeth and fuck that was terrifying! He realized that's what she was doing, he would rather she be touching him even though he hated it then keep struggling through the subtle maintenance of the electrical current that was keeping him hot and jittery, red and in pain. He didn't want to think about what the electrical current might be doing to his heart or his organs.

"Yes," she whispered even as she slipped her hand down the front of his pants and squeezed his flaccid penis and thank god it didn't respond even though he knew he should pull away. He didn't even care anymore, as long as the current was off. Tears rolled down his face and he wondered if being a human was the reason he'd barely lasted a day before giving her exactly what she wanted. In the face of torture, he was weak willed enough to be okay with some sexual destruction of intimacy by this woman. A woman that he knew had done everything she could to destroy a young boy, someone that Stiles cared for. He was pathetic, she made him weak and now he didn't even care as long as she didn't turn that machine back on. She leaned forward and licked up the side of his neck and whispered in his ear, "And now the fun really begins, my sweet boy."

Stiles hoped that Derek and Scott were okay, that Allison and Jackson had a safe place but he also hoped they didn't find him like this, begging her to keep touching him just for a break in the pain.