Chapter 03: Being a slow healer is annoying

Derek II

When Derek opens his eyes again, the pain is gone. The world clears around him as his eyes adjust to the light. Stiles is sitting a meter away from him with a black eye, blood clumsily wiped from his face, and a piece of beaten and bloody metal in his hands. Stiles' whole body is shivering as his heart pounds against his ribcage. "Oh, thank God, you healed," he says and, unnecessarily, helps Derek up in a sitting position. Stiles takes in his confused stare and shows him the bloody piece of metal. "This was uh- stuck in you. I had to pull it out before you could heal. Then it healed over and small pieces began crawling out like parasitic metal lumps." He looks sick, pale and a bit green as he looks away from the blood around him.

"Thank you," Derek says after a while and Stiles wipes away blood flowing down his forehead. Derek frowns. "Why aren't you healing?"

"That's complicated. Now come on, we need to go before that guy comes back with all his buddies to murders us," Stiles' voice is light but his heart is beating like a drum and his right arm, the one with the bite, is twitching. Stiles climbs to his feet using a dumpster but almost instantly falls. Derek catches him and Stiles grins. "Carry me, my saviour," He says and Derek stares. "I'm kidding, we had this play a year ago and I remember Kaitlyn sayin- doesn't matter. Just help me. Once we're far enough from The Cerise the Notice Me Not will fade. So, look normal- well as normal as those serial killer eyebrows are."

Derek lets the comment go through one ear and out the other and moves Stiles into a hold that hopefully makes him look like a drunk who's just puked in an alley. Stiles rambles on as they walk into the street and over to his car parked a few meters away.

People give them a helpful wide berth and luckily only one person seems to notice the blood on their clothes. Once he's maneuvered Stiles into the passenger seat of his car, while the kitsune rambles on about ruined seats that Derek wholeheartedly agrees with, he takes a minute or two to find the bandages he knows Laura always had in her car. He's never put bandages on someone before so the result is clumsy and maybe a bit too tight.

"I'll Google the names," Stiles tells him and holds out his hand. Derek reluctantly hands over his list of names and scans it once before bursting into laughter. "I knew that guy was fucking shady! OH, Scott's going to love this! I can't wait to see Harris' face! Finally, after all these years I've got blackmail!"

"What?"

Stiles blinks. "He's an asshole," he says like that's a lot of explanation. "Do you have a pen?"

"Glove department." Stiles thanks him and begins writing by Adrian Harris's name.

A few minutes later Stiles is looking up the other names and writing down whatever information he's deemed important. "Do we need to know that Miller is part of a cult?" He asks as Derek stops his car in the Stilinski driveway, Sheriff Stilinski isn't home.

"Depends." Derek tells him with a roll of his eyes and snatches up Stiles backpack from the back seat. It's heavier than he anticipated and almost drops it right. He feels it over discreetly, it's several thick books, old and magical if the smells are anything to go by. Magic has a distinctive smell, Derek can't say it's a nice one.

"On what?" Stiles says obnoxiously, "How much orgy they do? Because the website is very informative, do you want the schedule?"

"On its relevance!" Derek snarls and Stiles just laugh when a woman walking with her child looks up at them with hate when her kid asks what an orgy is.

First thing Stiles does when they're in is to kidnap a juice bottle from the fridge, flop down on his couch and snuggle with the plastic bottle. Derek heads for the bathroom when he's sure Stiles is safely on the couch, and he takes a quick shower to get the blood off. He takes a towel pours water over it, squeezing it until it's not soaked but still wet, and heads for the living room. Stiles thanks him and sets the juice to the side and begins cleaning off the blood on his face and arm. The bite on his arm is raw like it's infected and they both stare at it for longer than what is probably necessary.

"You're not coming with me again." Derek says, he needs to say it.

Stiles sputters and spits juice out over the coffee table. "What!? why!?" He quickly puts down the bottle and it sways before falling over, rolling towards Stiles who grabs it before it can hit the floor. "You can't just decide that for someone! Don't you want my help?!"

He does want Stiles' help, he's a lone omega going against an Alpha. "Look at yourself!" Derek growls, and can't Stiles see that he'll get himself killed. Derek can't be responsible for more death. "You're still hurt! It's been an hour, and you're not healed, I don't know how you're even awake right now."

"I can stay awake because you're here! Your misery feeds my power to stay awake!" Stiles grins and Derek wants to punch him before his face shifts to serious. "I'm not giving up, I'll continue even if it's alone. I can't let my dad die and that's how it is, accept my help or be the Alpha fodder like you're trying to be. I can do it alone, but you'll just get your little omega butt kicked and poked with mistletoe!"

"I don't need someone who'll fall over if a fly landed on them!" Derek growls and he knows his eyes are blue as he continues, but he doesn't care. Stiles is weak, kitsune are supposed to be slightly weaker or stronger than werewolves, but Stiles' strength is like a humans. Pathetic. "You could do nothing, It was like watching a human," Derek spits the word out. "trying to fight! I can't trust you to have my back in a fight. You're useless!"

"Hey! I saved you, thank you very much. You think that vampire would just let us go when we were the only witnesses to his crimes? He was going to kill us because he knew that dad will kill him! So, I made him leave," Stiles fishes in his hoodie's pocket and pulls out his keys, the car key in the middle glows as he twirls the Keychain around his finger. "I got a hit in with my tail and he fled."

"Your tail is a key? Why would you do that?" That is most definitely not a weapon like most kitsune prefer. A car key is harmless.

Not to mention useless.

"I poked him in the eye and he left after that." Stiles says, not answering Derek's question.

Derek growls and leans into Stiles' face, bearing his teeth at the teen. Stiles shut his eyes instinctively and pulls away. "You are not coming with."

"I'm not afraid of you!" Stiles says defiantly and Derek glares because he clearly is. "... Okay, maybe I am. Nothing wrong with a healthy amount of respect and fear."

Derek glares.

"So, you're just going to give me the silent treatment?" Stiles asks. "You do realise I remember the names too, so not saying anything won't stop me."

Derek groans and lets his face fall into his hands.

HxH

Sheriff Stilinski comes home in the late evening after work, and opens the door. Immediately asking; "What happened?" the question is almost a shout as he heads straight for the living room without even taking his shoes off. He's not rushing but there is an urgency to his steps as he looks down at Stiles and carefully tilts his son's head to the side so he can see the slowly fading black eye and the bite mark on his twitching right arm, distinctively shaped like vampire teeth.

"A vampire bit him outside the Cerise." Derek says and watches as Stilinski silently lift Stiles' arm which is still twitching. Stilinski ignores him and runs a thumb over the bite mark and presses lightly. Black blood runs out the puncture wound and Stiles jerks awake. He flings his arms around and hits his dad on the nose before and freezing at Stilinski's soft grunt of pain.

"Hey, dad." Stiles says uneasily, his voice wavers nervously as he leans down into the couch. Pressing his back down and himself further from Stilinski like an animal that's submitting. Noah rolls his eyes and snorts.

"You've got vampire venom in your arm." he says tiredly. Seemingly not noticing the amount of trust it takes to show one's belly, especially with Derek right there.

"Different cultures." a voice that sounds distinctly like uncle Peter says in his head with that condescending tone he always seemed to get when Derek didn't understand human customs.

"Now we both have venomous bites, it can be a family thing." Stiles says.

Noah rubs the tired from his eyes with his good hand. "You just don't want to go to Dr. Deaton."

Stiles expression switches to horror as Stilinski mentions the man. "Please let me not go?" Stiles pleads and judging by the way Stiles is reacting the man might not be someone Derek wants to meet. There are few things that make kitsune scared, their own kind and things that are more twisted than them.

"Not unless you want to risk addiction. We're going, now," With that Stilinski pulls out his phone and calls Dr. Deaton. The conversation is short and Stilinski orders Stiles up so he can snap a few pictures of the various injuries he's collected. Derek's injuries have already healed so Stilinski doesn't bother and drags them both off to Dr. Deaton. "And you're coming too." he orders with a pointed finger, leaving no room for Derek to protest as the old kitsune drags them off.

On the way Stilinski interviews them about the attack, asking everything about how it happened, the vampire looked like, how the vampire acted, and more. "I'll be handing the case over to one of my deputies," he told them, "Expect a call or being requested at the station."

Dr. Deaton is a veterinarian, Derek discovers as he stares at the building in something akin to shock and amusement, he should have guessed that the one thing worse than an addiction to the vampire venom would be a vet. They're animals, it's only natural. He watches as Noah drags Stiles into the back room, all the while he's whining about cages and shots. "This is revenge for skipping school, isn't!?" he shouts.

There's a clean steel table in the middle of the room, the walls are stacked with different supplies and books on animal anatomy. The entire room is surrounded by mountain ash, the shivering feeling of trapped hits Derek the moment the counter door snaps back into place.

"Derek, can we talk?" Stilinski asks, leaving Stiles at the paws of a vet as he leads Derek into a corner where he can watch Stiles while talking to Derek. He sounds tired and the lines of black are peeking out from the bandage wrapped around his arm.

"Sure."

"Tell me what you honestly believe, do you believe you can keep Stiles out of this?"

"No," Derek tells him. "I can't, he has all the leads that I have. He won't stop." And even if Derek could make Stiles stop he's not sure he'd want to. If Derek had gotten any way to save his mother he would have taken it in a heartbeat, even if it killed him.

He feels like Stiles is the same in that regard.

Stilinski makes a long drawn out sound of misery as he knows he can't stop his son either. Behind him, Stiles is being poked by the vet who is drawing out the poison by pushing at Stiles skin while injecting a long thin tube into his arm.. The younger kitsune whines as he grips the edges of the counter he's sitting on, masking his suffering as black poison flows slowly out the tube.

"-Ure he survives?" Stilinski says with determination, like a cat deciding to fight a giant dog.

"What?" The question comes out of nowhere, surprising him as he was focused on Stiles.

"I asked if you'd make sure he doesn't die."

Derek stares, what do you answer when you can't actually say yes? "Sure." he says, somewhat slowly.

"This might be an odd request-" Stilinski says and falters but picks up. "Don't let Stiles sacrifice who he is for this."

What does that mean?

Noah I

"There's a party at Lydia's on Friday." Stiles tells him miserably as his shoulders drag.

"Hey, why are you so down? Aren't you going?" Noah asks. "You always go to Lydia's parties."

"That I'm invited to."

Noah blinks. "So, you're not invited?"

"Everyone is, Scott's even going with the new girl. But it's on the full moon," Stiles says and fiddles with a book on dog anatomy. Strange, but not enough to question it. "I was going to ask Derek if he wanted us to hang out with him."

"That's kind of you." Noah replies, surprised.

Stiles flushes and ducks his head with embarrassment. "I owe him," he pushes the book to the side and looks at him. "What do you say?"

"Sure Stiles, if he agrees. No forcing it on him though."

Stiles snorts, not all that convincingly.

Noah leaves shortly after as Stiles begin texting with Scott again. It makes Noah happy to know Scott's staying in contact, Noah never had much luck with human friends outside of work. The last one accused him of being a witch.

A relationship that ended with Noah on the pyre.

It was a different time.

Nowadays, because of the many supernatural shows and superhero movies that doesn't portray supernaturals as 'children of the Devil', people are more open to the idea of good monsters. But Noah had still encouraged Stiles to find supernatural friends, it was always difficult for Stiles to make friends, but after his mom died, no supernatural his age would be his friend.

So Noah stopped trying after Stiles was rejected within ten minutes of his fifth try. In Stiles' defence she was a unicorn.

Noah leaves the house quietly and slips away into the woods out back, his fur rippling over his skin as he leaps down on four paws. He keeps to the shadows and shows at the designated meeting place a few minutes later. It's a small clearing in the preserve, hidden away from the paths.

Chris and Victoria Argent are already there. They're armed to the teeth, knives and a few guns were hidden on their person, and one bow with a quiver is in Chris Argent's range as it lies on the hood of their SUV, Victoria has no visible weapons.

Victoria's eyes tighten as Noah sits down in front of them, becoming taller. "What do you need Guardian?"

"A young werewolf was found cut in half, I don't suppose you know nothing about it?" the words flow into their heads, letting them hear his words despite Noah being unable to speak. They both tense at the intrusion into their minds and slowly relax, Victoria is slower to calm like the other times they've spoken.

Chris scoffs as Victoria speaks. "We are aware of the finding of Laura Hales body. We weren't responsible for her death, and we did not cut her in half afterward as doing so without the approval of the sheriff's station or yourself would have been in violation of the treaty. We do plan on hunting this Alpha that has appeared in the wake of her death, it has already killed one of ours today. Something that could have been avoided if we had been warned of the danger." the strong trails of accusing thoughts skims the one-way connection he's made with their mind, letting him feel their anger.

Noah's third tail flickers angrily and his ears twitch, that makes it harder. "I wanted the hunters to take a back seat on this. One rule then, the Alpha is to be captured alive."

"What?" Victoria's voice is dangerous as she hisses out her words and Chris shifts ever so subtly towards his weapon. "It has killed one of our own, we have a right to vengeance."

"it killed someone before killing one of yours." Noah reminds her, the general population of hunter's disregard for werewolves' humanity always makes Noah feel uneasy. The treaty keeping them in check aside. They know Laura Hale has living relatives, but that's not important to them, the Alpha killed one of theirs, the animal's right to vengeance is unimportant. It's the same way for supernatural's, they resent hunters for decades of mass slaughter. They believe hunters are the monsters the supernaturals are accused of being. And Noah can't blame them.

Noah didn't resent hunters despite having been hunted many times. A family once hunted him for three generations until the treaty was established, forcing their hand. Hunters have their purpose, keeping the supernatural in check, just like they keep hunters in check. So he's allowed hunters to travel through his territory for years. His corroboration has kept the bigger and bloodier hunter families off his back so far.

Until the Argent's came.

A vein in Victoria's neck twitches as she stares at Noah calculatedly. "Derek Hale." she spits.

"Yes."

"Fine, we'll capture it then. Will you have the sheriff's station on the Alpha as well?"

"yes," Noah tells them. "I've talked to Sheriff Stilinski, he's been mobilising the officers for any sighting of the Alpha. He will not refuse to work together on this." it always feels odd to talk about himself like he's a different person.

Victoria nods shortly and makes a sign with her hand before retreating towards the SUV. Chris follows her, throwing a confused glance back at Noah, looking at the visible bite on his leg and then his face. If Noah didn't know Chris Argent's reputation he'd say the man was worried.

Stiles is upstairs when he comes home again and a roast is cooking in the oven, it smells slightly of garlic. Noah is going to be followed by the smell for days if he's not careful.

"Stiles!" He calls up the stairs and after a few seconds his son's head sticks out with a goofy grin. "Have you gone to the hospital lately?" last time was a few months ago if Noah's recollection is right.

The grin falls from Stiles' face and he shakes his head. "No, but I can go in a few days, the kids might miss The Amazing Magical Stiles."

"Maybe you should go tomorrow? I bet the kids would love it. And you're looking kind of haggard." Noah suggests, there are bangs under Stiles' eyes he doesn't like the look of, and his complexion is paler than normal. They will have to talk about taking care of himself again sometime.

"I- yeah. It might help. I'll go tomorrow, should I confuse their poor innocent minds with mind tricks? Maybe some games? Or should I bring my magic set?" Stiles asks and looks back into his room, his face flashes with something he sees a lot. Secrets.

Noah narrows his eyes, why would Stiles be feeling guilty for doing something with magic?

"Bring the set, they love it. Remember to show them some new tricks this time or they'll figure you out."

"It's the age of the internet dad, they know everything I do an hour after I leave," Stiles smiles thinly. "That's why I sometimes do real magic, it's funnier, John's face always goes a strange shade of purple when he tries to figure out my tricks. Of course, Julia knows what's happening so she's never impressed, I have to use my winning personality on her."

"She's a very tough customer, always unimpressed. How can a kid be that unimpressed, it's like she eats sour cream chips every day? Wait maybe she does! Isn't salt bad for fairies?" Stiles adds, gesturing wildly.

"It's iron and has it ever occurred to you that she might not like you because she's a fairy?"

"What?" Stiles exclaims fakely and laughs at himself. "But she definitely likes me! She's just very unimpressed all the time!"

Stiles II

His hands shake as he carefully opens the lid of the moving box. It's old and has seen wear, but on the outside, it still says clear as day, 'Claudia, Spell books.' Stiles hasn't looked at this box for years, he hasn't even developed his magic for years, only doing party tricks to impress the kids at the hospital. But now he's dusting off the old books he's never read, they were too advanced for his proficiency back then, and they're still too advanced.

The books inside are in varying states of decay, some are in Polish and he knows that the one showing its spine to the right labelled 'cookie recipes,' is one of the coded ones. Stiles looks though the titles of them all, finding more coded grimoires than not. He finds one non-coded grimoire on sacrificial magic but that's it besides the books on element manipulation, transformations of creatures, creature studies, potions, a personal journal, and one book with very detailed studies into kitsune.

There are two more boxes but none of them has any of the books he's looking for.

Stiles drags the boxes upstairs- with a lot of difficulties, they're really fucking heavy,- passing his dad who luckily doesn't notice him the first two times, too engraved in the lists of names Derek got from The Cerise. In his left hand he's holding his phone up to his ear as he murmurs small yes's and questions into his phone, while in his right he's writing down information. From what Stiles can decipher he's putting out a search for the pendant Vlad had drawn for Derek.

"What's that?" Stilinski asks as he spots him sneaking by.

Stiles sways a bit on his feet from the weight, "Mom's old books, thought I'd find some new tricks to show the kids."

"Will you be okay?" Dad asks, always worrying for Stiles, even when he's got a ticking clock on his arm.

"It's been seven years dad," Stiles says breathily, lying through his teeth but keeping it close enough to the truth that Stilinski won't hear the lies in his heart. "I think the time has come." He leaves.

Stiles reads the book on sacrificial magic first. It's exciting but disgusting. You can do almost anything with dark magic as it gives power, unlike anything nature can create. There's a small reference to werewolves in it. It had nothing to do with healing or even their ability to draw pain from other life forms. The section was about sacrificing werewolves on a full moon and how because they'd be more powerful and connected to their wolf, they'd give not only magical power but a brief connection to the moon.

The ritual didn't just require one to kill the werewolves (four at minimum) but to skin the Alpha of the pack alive while fully transformed, wear the skin like a new jacket and then use the Alpha's claws to drain the power from the betas. There was a few more steps and torture involved but Stiles already dislikes the book.

It sounds more like skinwalkers than a ritual.

Stiles flips the book closed and rubs his eyes, he's exhausted. 05:14 am, the clock by his bed tells him almost mockingly in the dim light. He should go sleep.

But there are the other books too.

It's 05:48 by the time he's done sorting the books, into language, coded and not-coded, the subject and the alphabet. The corner of his room is filled with grimoires standing on the floor with their spine upwards. He'll begin combing through the ones not in English first as that should be easiest, a simple Google translate will give him the info on what the spells inside are about.

Then he'll move to the coded ones.

There's over fifteen of them in English and realistically maybe one of them, if he's lucky, is about blood magic.

It couldn't hurt to read some of the light magic ones too.

Stiles looks at his work load and feels the exhaustion run through his bones with weight. Skipping school has never felt so exhausting before, and the last time Scott was panicking the whole day because he was scared Melissa would find out.

Stiles flops on his bed and closes his eyes to sleep. He doesn't get far, his mind keeps edging away, flinging itself at something new to think about. Like his dad, who he couldn't prevent being bitten, who only have two or fewer months left.

He traces the puncture marks on his arm, there's no bandage as he doesn't need it anymore. He catches glimpses of it every now and then, and flinches every time. The thoughts of the vampire brings back how hopeless he'd been. He wasn't strong enough to get free, even though a normal kitsune with two tails like him would have been able to do it. Easily. His dad could have done it despite being weakened. Derek could have done it if he hadn't been impaled on the loose metal scattered in the alley.

Stiles-

Stiles can't.

He's got his bat, his keys and some magic that's basically just parlour tricks. Illusions are what he's got most practice with. After that, it's water and fire magic, then random little spells his mom had taught him before she died. Stiles hadn't learned any new magic since she died, and it's about time he started up again. His dad's life is on the line.

Stiles rips open a drawer of his night table and takes the candle shoved in the far end out. It's old, at least six years old, deformed, white, and broken on the middle, the only thing holding it together at this point is the candle wick. He stares at it doing his best to feel the magic and making it catch fire.

The flame appears easily enough.

Stiles blinks and the flame is snuffed out, with another blink it lights up again. That's good, it's a basic exercise, making a flame and killing it. Though Stiles is still embarrassed with how long it took him to learn.

He always wanted to be a fire kitsune like his dad. But fire never came easily to him, it was hard and he struggled for weeks until mom managed to get him to try some other types of magic. Turns out he was best at water magic. The magical opposite and equal of fire.

To say Stiles had been disappointed was an understatement.

"Let's try something harder." Stiles whispers and cups both his hands around the candle and heats it up in his palm it melts and the hot wax drips down the small opening in his hands as it melts a quicker than planned, overheating. The wax becomes too hot and it spills out over his bed when he quickly draws his hands back to shake the wax from them.

There's wax all over his bed.

Stiles groans and begins picking up the cooling pieces, dust and small grey and black hairs stick to them. Stiles whimpers in embarrassment when he sees the hairs and looks over his bed, noticing the hairs he hadn't before. He'll have to vacuum his bed or dad will notice he's been spending time in his bed as a fox.

After removing the hairs from the wax, -he didn't get them all they'll be trapped for life-, he cups them in his hands again and carefully heats them a little bit at the time until they're soft enough to be pushed together around the candle wick. It's more deformed than before, but with some heat in his fingers he can smooth the bumps down to form something somewhat symmetrical.

He holds it and wills it to float. Making objects float was something mom had been teaching him before she got dementia, he remembers how it's supposed to work, and that should be all he needs.

It stays unmoving in his hand, stubbornly refusing to float at least a hair's width.

"Float dammit."

It doesn't and Stiles throws it lightly into the air, hoping to at least be able to catch it mid-air.

It falls.

"Believe in yourself Stiles, or you'll never get the fire going."

"But mom I'm trying! It just won't do it! I'll never be like dad at this rate."

"There is no try."

"Do or do not. There is no try."

"Believe or believe not, there is no try. What am I, Stiles?"

"You're a spark mom."

"And that means my magic comes from my belief, little mischief, that means yours does so too. So what do we say?"

Stiles whispers, "Believe or believe not. There is no try." closing his eyes, and he believes, and imagines that the candle floats over his hands rotating ever so slowly. When he opens his eyes the candle floats just below where he imagined it. Stiles stares at it in disbelief, his mom's old saying had never worked for him as a child.

The candle drops and he curses.

Stiles is still weak but he'll get stronger. Strong enough to save his dad.

A/N: About chapter updates, they're not going to be consistent, I'm busy with school and have little time to write as drawing is my priority. The chapters you're getting are rewritten versions of the originals from months ago, parted up in two which means this chapter was originally part of chapter 2. Also, I've been rewriting a dialogue from chap 4 up to 3 times by now.

I'm using a lot of time on making this story the best I can.