Stiles had never really been the type to pray. His mom had gone to church all her life. It wasn't as often after he'd been born, but she would still volunteer for the different events put on by the local Catholic church. Stiles would run around with the other kids while his mom manned a table or booth. After her death, he'd shunned the whole idea completely, figuring any God that would take away his mother was not worth his time. But he still sent a thank you up to someone when that bullet didn't go into Allison. And when it did go into the hunter.

"Allison, are you okay?" Chris Argent asked as he strode into the room like a badass, securing the number one spot on Stiles' list of hot dad fantasies. There weren't really any other options, but that didn't matter. He was staying at the top. Chris had his sights locked on the man who was about to kill his daughter, who was currently writhing on the floor with a bullet wound in his shoulder. The adult could handle the rest of this, Stiles needed to help Derek.

He hadn't moved since they both went down, but Stiles could feel he was still breathing. Stiles moved to straddle Derek's waist, so he wasn't crushing him anymore. He was scared to move Isaac's sweater to the side to check the damage, but he had to do something.

"Derek, you gotta wake up, okay? You can't do this now, not when it's so close to being over," Stiles pleaded, tapping his cheek. He got no response. "Come on man, I didn't even get a chance to tell you how I feel. I know you don't feel the same way about me, but I don't care. You can't die without hearing me say I love you." Stiles folded himself over Derek's chest, burying his face in his neck. This was not how he planned to reveal his crush to Derek, but this might be his last chance. He'd wasted so much time.

"Stiles."

Stiles couldn't hear much over the sounds of his own weeping, but he could've sworn he heard the low rumble of Derek's voice saying his name under him. He shot back up, looking down into the beautiful green eyes of the man he'd fallen hard for.

"Derek. How-"

"I think your love saved me," Derek murmured, reaching a hand up to brush away the tears from Stiles' cheeks.

"Really?" Stiles breathed out, panting in relief and hope.

"No, dumbass, I only got grazed," Derek snorted, pushing at Stiles' shoulder. "Now get the hell off of me."

"That wasn't nice!" Scott grumbled from his spot across the room.

"What happened to my nose?" Isaac mumbled, pressing his fingers into his messy face.

"Who is that?" Chris asked, pointing his gun at the man who still hadn't spoken or moved during this whole ordeal. That snapped Stiles out of his rejection fog.

"Don't kill him!" Stiles shouted, scrambling back to his feet with his hand clasped around his injured arm. "We need him alive to undo the spell."

"What spell? What's going on?" Chris asked, moving his gun to aim at a less lethal part of the man's body.

"That's not important now. Wait, how did you even know to come?" Stiles questioned.

"Lydia called," Chris replied, passing a handful of zipties to Allison. She went around to the downed men, relieving them of their weapons and securing them tight.

"Lydia!" Stiles called out, looking to the top of the stairs. He'd forgotten about her in the chaos of everything, but of course she would come in clutch. That years long crush hadn't been for nothing.

"Can I finally come down now?" Lydia asked, peeking her head over the landing. "Listening to the sounds of fighting is very dull. I would've dated someone on the wrestling team if that kind of thing excited me."

"Will someone tell me what we need this man for, because I'd really like to take these hunters somewhere to let them know how I feel about them threatening my daughter," Chris growled, kicking at the only one of them who was conscious.

"He cast a spell to make the werewolves accident themselves to death and he is the only one who can undo it. And be careful where you point that thing. Unintentional discharge is very likely right now," Stiles warned.

"Accident themselves? They are going to defecate to death?" Chris exclaimed, completely bewildered.

"And you said my explanations were bad," Scott snorted, flexing his recently healed hand.

"It's a bad luck curse," Derek growled, slowly standing up. He let the sweater fall from his shoulders, taking great care to tie it around his wound. The brief look Stiles got of it showed that it really was a graze, just a very long one that spanned the length of his ribs.

"My sweater," Isaac moaned, pouting at the ruined article of clothing.

"Derek will get you a new one," Scott soothed, giving him a reassuring nod.

"One you'll end up buried in if this spell doesn't get reversed," Derek grumbled, stalking over toward the man in the corner.

"Maybe let the humans handle this?" Stiles suggested, wanting to keep as much distance between him and Derek. He didn't know what he was expecting from his declaration of love, but a brush off in front of everyone wasn't the best feeling.

"What's your name?" Chris asked, keeping himself between the man and the rest of them. It felt nice to be one of the ones protected now.

"You can call me Bob," the man replied, looking much more nervous than someone with the power to cause this much chaos should look.

"Okay, Bob, you mind telling me how you're going to fix whatever it is you did?" Chris demanded, glancing down at his feet. Stiles followed his gaze, noticing the circle of ash. No wonder he hadn't moved this whole time.

"This isn't what I thought it was going to be," Bob started, glaring over at the downed hunters. "I thought I was hunting werewolves."

"And that makes this okay? Torturing people like this?" Stiles spat. He was getting really sick of people indiscriminately killing others due to preconceived notions. So much for the hunters being the good guys.

"You haven't seen torture if you think this is it!" Bob hissed, clenching his fists at his side. This was the first sign of anger the man had shown since he got there and of course it was Stiles riling him up.

"So explain what this was then. I'm a hunter, so I know how some less conventional tactics are sometimes used. But to my knowledge, no one in this group has done anything to you to warrant such a specific attack. This feels a bit personal, in my professional opinion," Chris said, sounding so damn diplomatic. This was the leader they all needed from the beginning.

"My coven was slaughtered by werewolves, unprovoked. All I've been able to think about since then is revenge," Bob growled, staring at the ground. "I'd never had a problem with hunter's before, because my group always stayed away from the dark magic, so when Rick approached me, it didn't take much to convince me to help him."

"And what exactly did Rick say?" Chris asked, glaring down at his former associate.

"He told me this pack had killed their former leader and multiple people in town. He said they were dangerous and out of control and it was my duty to help him stop them before it was too late. I didn't ask questions."

"You didn't ask questions?" Stiles choked out, incredulously. "Someone approaches you and asks you to commit murder and you just go along with it? What the hell is the matter with you?"

"I didn't kill anyone! I cast a spell to destabilize a dangerous group of people."

"We're dangerous? Us?" Stiles laughed, whirling around to gesture to everyone in the room. "Look around and tell me where the violence was coming from. Everything we did was done defensively, to stay alive. We weren't bothering anyone, but you came into our home and attacked us. Tell me again who the monsters are."

"He never told me there were humans here. Or that you guys were kids," Bob sighed, running a hand down his face. "When I came in and saw you awake, when everyone should've been out, I knew I'd been lied to. And I wondered what else Rick fabricated."

"If you thought we were innocent, why didn't you do anything to stop what was happening?" Stiles snapped, not understanding how someone could stand by and watch a couple of kids fight against trained hunters. Sure, Allison was technically one of them, but Bob didn't know that at the time.

"What was I supposed to do? I'm not a fighter. If they'd killed me, it would be the same as killing your friends," Bob shot back, shaking his head.

"How noble of you. I'm sure you were thinking of us when you made that call," Stiles scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"I could've left. You never would've found me in time to save them," Bob sneered.

"Enough!" Chris shouted, looking back and forth between the warring men. "What's done is done and we can't change that, but we can fix this spell before anyone gets hurt further. What do you need to do to lift this curse?"

"It's actually pretty simple, but I don't have all the ingredients I need. I'm going to have to go back to where I'm staying to get my supplies," Bob sighed.

"You've got to be kidding me! You think we trust you to leave and come back, after everything that's gone down? And then trust you on top of that, that you're actually fixing what you did instead of doing something worse?" Stiles shouted, completely forgetting about his own pain. This man was not leaving his sight until every werewolf in the room could play hopscotch without breaking a bone.

"I don't think you really have a choice. I'm the only one who can do the spell and I'm the only one with the ingredients. And there is no way I'm telling you where I live."

"I may have a solution."