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Chapter Text

Stiles stared in shock at Lydia as she walked past him. Normally, this would not cause him to feel so out of his depth because Lydia Martin rarely acknowledged his existence as she went about her day.

However, Stiles could have sworn he'd seen her face change. One moment, she had been walking passed him while she talked on the phone and looking her generally beautiful self and the next she had changed into a corpse-like creature with decaying flesh.

"Hey, man, why do you look so scared?" Scott asked, peering at Stiles with concerned brown eyes.

That snapped Stiles out of his confused thoughts. He turned to his best friend with his usual grin and replied, "I was just scared by how much more beautiful Lydia is since I last saw her. Man, one of these days she's going to be so beautiful I won't even be able to look at her!"

Laughing, Scott shook his head. "Why wouldn't you be able to look at her if she was beautiful? That makes no sense," Scott said, shoving Stiles with his shoulder.

"Well, obviously mortals can't look upon the gods," Stiles answered which made Scott laugh again.

He looked where Lydia had been, smile dropping as he frowned, before he shook his head and followed Scott to their next class.

**

Later, as he ate dinner with his dad, Stiles' mind went to the incident from earlier in the day. He'd never had anything like that happen before. He wondered if he should mention it to someone but decided it was pointless considering it had only happened once.

"I've gotta head back to the station, sorry son," his dad told him with an apologetic smile.

"No worries, dad, it's cool," Stiles instantly assured, waving his dad goodbye.

With nothing else to do, he moved up to his room but paused on the landing when he noticed the hatch to the loft was open. "That's odd," he murmured. He thought about closing it and moving on but thought better of it and decided to go up there.

It smelled musty and he wrinkled his nose. "Ugh, everything smells old," he whined. He covered his nose with his sleeve as he looked around.

Almost as though drawn there, his eyes landed on an odd-looking wooden box labelled 'Claudia's Storybooks'. At the thought of his mum, he winced slightly, the old wound still sore, but then felt curious. He moved over to the box and, with a large amount of effort, managed to carry it down into his room.

The lock already had the key in so he opened it quickly. He pushed the lid open and looked in to find really old books. The majority of them looked worn in their leather bindings. He worried that if he touched them they would just break.

"I don't remember these," he mused, running a finger over one of the covers gently. Carefully, he lifted it and opened it to find, "German? And is this Spanish? What are these books?"

Inside, everything was hand done. There were some beautifully done illustrationed pieces that he found himself tracing with a finger. It appeared most of the writing was foreign but he could see some English.

And then he came across it... the two page spread about a Hexenbiest. The drawing was of what he'd thought he'd seen as Lydia.

Chapter Text

"This is crazy!"

Stiles stared at the image that looked almost exactly like what he'd thought he'd seen. His eyes flew to the information and noticed an English translation next to the German.

'Witch-like creature that somewhat resembles a demon or goblin. They work at the behest of royalty and are identifiable by a dark birthmark under their tongues.
Appears to be eyeless when transformed but has no visual impairment.
Extraordinary beauty in human form.
Highly intelligent and cunning.'

"Why would this be in one of my mother's books?" Stiles muttered, closing it and putting it back into the box with the others.

Grabbing his phone, he called Scott. His best friend picked up quickly which he was thankful for. "Dude, I'm so weirded out right now," he said, staring at the box.

"Why? Do you need me to come over?"

Stiles smiled at how concerned and sincere his friend sounded. "Nah, man, it's fine. I just found some old books that belonged to my mum and they're really weird."

Scott was quiet for a while, digesting this new information and debating the best way to reply. In the end he asked, "are you sure you don't want me to come over?"

"I'm sure," Stiles replied. "I just didn't know she had these and I don't know... I just wanted to talk to you, I guess."

And so they talked. It made Stiles feel much better to talk to his best friend but every time he saw the box he felt a chill go up his spine. Once he finished talking to Scott he stared at the box before just shoving it under his bed to deal with another time.

**

The next morning when Stiles went to school, he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. There were no strange face morphs. There was absolutely nothing unusual for a high school so Stiles decided that the books and the Lydia moment was just a really strange, really mind boggling coincidence.

He pushed the incident from his mind. He's unsure if he'll look through the books before he returns them because they belonged to his mother and sharing something with her, although saddening, is nice.

**

It happens again the night he drags Scott to find a dead body.

It's when he stepped right into one of his dad's search dogs and was caught by his dad while Scott remained hidden that he saw one of his dad's coworkers change. They looked stressed and he watched in horror as their face morphed to something resembling a pig. He stared for a moment. It didn't seem as though they had even realised he was staring at them, too busy glancing around into the dark forest surrounding them.

Then his dad's voice, sounding incredibly tired, snapped him from his thoughts and he looked at his dad. He pulled the most innocent expression he could muster, trying to desperately forget about the strange face morph.

When he returned home that night, idly wondering if Scott made it home okay, he stared under his bed where he knew the box was. He pulled it out and began flicking through the first book. When it didn't present him what he thought it might he felt himself relaxing. That was until he opened the second book and came across something that looked almost exactly like what he'd seen.

"What are these books?" He murmured, staring at the drawing of a pig-like man.

**

The next day at school, Scott showed him a nasty bite on his side. He also told him that he'd managed to find the body after they'd split up, in the process losing his inhaler, before he was attacked by some kind of monster.

They agreed that after school they had to go back.

**

"I'm serious, man, it was some sort of monster!" Scott told him, throwing his arms up. His eyes were constantly roving the forest to make sure he knew where they were. "It's super weird. It almost looked... human."

Stiles froze mid laugh before recovering. "You're exaggerating," he replied, rolling his eyes as his friend shoved him. "Maybe we should head back before a werewolf bites us," he joked but his heart's wasn't it, not after the weird things he'd seen lately.

Suddenly, Scott stopped, gesturing to a patch of leaf littered ground. "This is it," he said, "this is where I found the body."

They both looked around but there was obviously no body in sight. "Maybe the killer hid the body?" Stiles suggested, looking down at where Scott had crouched to look for his inhaler.

"Yeah, well, if he did I hope he left my inhaler. Those things cost like eighty bucks!"

Stiles chuckled. He looked up and jumped when he saw another person stood there watching them. He mindlessly swatted at Scott who noticed the stranger and stood up beside him.

"What're you doing here?" When neither of them managed to answer, he moved forward, his face pulled into an irritated frown. "This is private property."

And then Stiles watched as his face morphed into something ironically wolf-like. He took a subtle step closer to Scott, feeling unsure with the way the other's red eyes narrowed at him.

"You're a Grimm."

Scott turned to Stiles, confusion plastered on his face, and said, "dude, what the hell is he talking about?"

"I don't... I don't know," Stiles replied, staring into those red eyes. "Uh, look man, we didn't know this was private property, we were just looking for his inhaler."

Then the face was back to normal, previously red eyes green once more, and Stiles felt himself breathing a sigh of relief. Scott's inhaler flew through the air and he fumbled to catch it before he put it into his pocket.

Before he turned to leave, green eyes caught Stiles' and he said, "watch yourself out there Grimm."

Chapter Text

Back home, once again staring at the wooden box containing his mother's books, Stiles felt seriously confused. He pondered on what Derek (he knew it was Derek Hale and he knew the guy's family had been killed in a fire years ago) had meant when he'd said he was a Grimm.

He'd tried looking it up but he came across nothing but tales by the brothers Grimm and he highly doubted that was what Derek had been talking about. With an angry huff, he shoved the books back under his bed and decided to forget about it for now.

**

He walked back to where Derek had found Scott and him, intending to get some answers. The air was chilled and he had to pull his jacket tighter around himself for warmth. He felt like he'd been walking for ages when a hand suddenly gripped his arm.

He yelped, spinning quickly and lashing out blindly only for his free hand to get caught in an iron grip. "What are you doing here? I thought I told you this was private property," the angry voice of Derek snapped.

"I'm sorry, I know, but I just really needed to speak to you. It's about what you said earlier. I don't really understand what you meant," Stiles began to babble, barely daring to look up into Derek's eyes.

"Shut up," Derek growled. He released Stiles who rubbed at his wrist. "I think you should leave."

"But I need to understand something!" Stiles protested. "What the hell did you mean when you said I was a Grimm?!"

At that, Derek looked surprised. "You don't... know?" He asked cautiously, eyebrows furrowing.

Stiles rolled his eyes. "If I did do you think I'd be walking around in the freaking woods trying to find out?" He grumbled. He ran a hand over his face, sighing loudly, before shoving his hands in his pockets. "Look, I've been seeing some real weird shit lately and thought I was going crazy until I found some old books belonging to my mum. I would really like to know I'm not actually crazy."

"Why don't you ask your mum about the books?" Derek questioned, raising a brow at him.

Wincing, Stiles replied, "she died when I was a kid."

"And you're expecting me to explain it all to you?" Derek asked.

Stiles shrugged. "It's not like I have anywhere else to go," he said, "I'm either crazy or you know something I don't about what's happening."

After an incredibly long, incredibly heavy silence, Derek finally muttered, "fine."

Chapter Text

"Wait, really?" Stiles asked, eyes widening in his surprise. He looked at Derek who looked slightly pained as he nodded. "So, you know what's happening to me?"

"Yes, I do. We should probably talk somewhere else and not in the middle of the forest," Derek answered.

"We can head back to my house," Stiles offered. He was thinking that he could perhaps show Derek the books he'd found and see what he thought of them. He still wasn't entirely sure what was going on and felt a little wary around Derek but he really wanted to understand what was going on.

**

"Can we start with what the hell a Grimm is?" Stiles asked, sitting down onto the edge of his bed. He gestured for Derek to take his desk chair and the man did so after an obvious internal debate.

"A Grimm is a Wesen's worst-" Derek began only to be interrupted by Stiles shout of, "and what the hell is a Wesen?" When Derek raised a judging eyebrow, Stiles gave a sheepish smile and nodded for him to continue. "Anyways, a Grimm is a Wesen's worst nightmare. They're a bloodline of hunters with certain powers, including the ability to see Wesen even when they don't wish to be seen." Derek paused, looking as though he was thinking how to word what he was about to say. "The strange things you've been seeing? Those are Wesen."

"So, are you Wesen?" Stiles interrupted again to ask, squinting his eyes at Derek.

"You've already seen my woge," Derek replied.

"Woh-gah?"

"Yeah, that's close," Derek replied with a shrug. "Basically, Wesen are supernatural creatures, some with powers and others without, that cannot be seen unless they want to be."

"But I could see it," Stiles retorted.

"That's because you're a Grimm and can see the change whether we want you to or not. That's what makes you so dangerous for us," Derek explained patiently.

Stiles laughed. "Me? Dangerous? I'm 107 pounds of pale skin and fragile bone," Stiles said.

"Believe me, you could be very dangerous to us," Derek said, his eyes glowing a faint red before returning to frosty green. "The Grimms have hunted Wesen for centuries."

Stiles threw himself backwards so he was laying down on his bed and stared up at his ceiling. He thought about what Derek had told him. On the one hand, it felt like it was all some crazy made up story but... something about it all just made sense to him.

Suddenly, a thought struck him and he leaned up on his elbows to look at Derek again. "But if what you just said is all true then why are you helping me?" He questioned. At the confused look Derek gave him he hastened to add,"it's not that I'm ungrateful because, believe me, knowing I'm not going crazy is something I really needed to hear. I'm just wondering why you're helping a Grimm if we're so bad."

"Ah, that," Derek hummed. He leaned back in the chair as he took a moment to think over his answer. After a while, he sighed. "My family used to live here peacefully. We had been living in peace and coexisting with normal society for years so we tried to forge an alliance with a group of Grimms. It was going well... then one of them started a fire and my family burned to death."

"I know about that. The only survivors were you, your sister Laura and your uncle Peter but he went to Eichen house because of the trauma."

"Yeah," Derek replied quietly. "I'm helping you because before that Grimm did what they did I think the relationship was going well and my mother always told me that so long as you're peaceful Grimms won't have a reason to harm you."

They lapsed into silence then. Stiles was still digesting everything Derek had said while Derek was trying to move past the old wound that has just been brought up.

Wanting to lighten the mood a little from the heavy silence, Stiles peered at Derek and asked, "what kind of wesen are you then?"

"I'm a Blutbad," Derek answered easily.

**

After some careful deliberation, Stiles finally moved to pull the box from out beneath his bed. He could see Derek observing him from his peripheral vision as he pushed the heavy lid open. Lifting out one of the books, he hesitantly offered it to Derek.

"I found these in the attic a few days ago. They belonged to my mother, I think she's where I get the whole Grimm thing from," Stiles explained. He watched as Derek opened the book carefully and flicked through a few of the pages. "I've not really read any of them properly and some of them aren't even in English."

"Some of these must be centuries old," Derek murmured, fingering the edge of a page.

"I thought they were old but, really, centuries?"

Nodding, Derek closed the book and handed it back. "I helped you with figuring out what's happening to you so maybe you can help me."

"Okay...?" Stiles said uncertainly.

"The body your friend found? It was my sister Laura's. A Grimm killed her and I need to know who did it because Laura had done nothing wrong for them to kill her." Derek's eyes had begun to glow a fierce red in his anger, his hands clenching into tight fists. "I want you to help me."

"Okay."

Derek's whole body relaxed, his eyes returning to normal. "Okay?"

"Yeah, man, okay." Stiles nodded, his brown eyes turning serious. "Let's find the bastards that did this."

Chapter Text

"Again!" Derek shouted, watching as Stiles' body went rolling across the dirty, leaf-littered ground. The teen groaned but Derek just rolled his eyes, still tensed and ready for more fighting.

Stiles managed to pull himself to his feet again. "That's like the billionth time you've done that," he whined.

"This isn't a game, Stiles," Derek told him, eyes still blazing that deep red, "this is serious!"

"I know that!" Stiles yelled, glaring at the other. He eventually stopped glaring and just sighed heavily. "I get that it's serious but I'm new to this so I'm not going to magically be an amazing fighter," he muttered with a shrug that turned into a wince when it pulled at a bruise.

Slowly, Derek began to unwind from his tensed position and moved over to the young Grimm. "I'm sorry if I'm pushing you too hard," he apologised softly.

"It's fine, you're trying your best," Stiles replied, managing to stop himself from shrugging again.

Derek shook his head. "I assumed that you'd just have great instincts because you're a Grimm." He looked thoughtful and then said, "it could be that you're instincts are yet to come in because of how soon it still is." His contemplative look turned into a frown as he debated if it was too early to be training Stiles as hard as he was.

"Hey, it's no big deal," Stiles assured him, managing to smile. "We'll keep trying and eventually I'll be able to counter that move."

After a moment, Derek nodded slowly. "Okay, good."

"Again?" Stiles wondered.

"Again," Derek affirmed.

Stiles tried to hide his wince; he was unsuccessful.

**

"Fuck yeah!" Stiles threw a fist into the air, grinning with pride, because he had finally managed to counter Derek. However, the moment of joy was quickly lost as Derek responded by sweeping the teen's legs out from under him. He toppled onto the ground. "Oh, come on," he whined.

Derek grinned down at him. "You have to be prepared for anything," he reminded the teenager.

Derek held a hand out for him which Stiles took and he hauled Stiles back to his feet. They stared at one another for a moment before awkwardly looking away.

"Right," Stiles coughed, "I'll get better at that."

**

Scott stared at his best friend with narrowed eyes.

"You're being weird, man," he said seriously.

With a shrug, Stiles replied, "I'm always a little weird though, right?"

"No, I mean weirder than normal," Scott said. He stared at Stiles a little longer, silently willing his friend to spill whatever secrets he had suddenly accumulated, before he seemed to give up. He trusted Stiles to tell him if he needed help with something.

Stiles was grateful when Scott decided to drop it.

He definitely had no idea how to go about explaining things to him yet. He would but just not yet, not when he was still so unsure of things himself.

Chapter Text

Derek looked thoughtful.

That wasn't anything unusual. The guy was usually deep in thought with his eyebrows angrily furrowed and a frown on his face. It was a little unusual that he had decided the best place to think was Stiles' floor, staring directly at the crates containing his mother's books.

Stiles opened his mouth to ask what the hell he was thinking when Derek beat him to it. "I think you should move them," Derek said.

"Move them?" Stiles asked. "Why?"

"They need to be somewhere safe. Those books are ancient, Stiles, and they really need to be protected," Derek explained. He looked over at the teen. "They belonged to your ancestors and shoul be respected by being kept somewhere safe to protect them."

Stiles thought it over for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, okay, that makes sense. We should move them somewhere," he agreed easily.

Derek nodded. "I think I have the place."

**

"Is this where you live?" Stiles asked when he stepped into the loft behind Derek. He looked around himself, doing a little circle to take everything in, then looked back to Derek. The wesen nodded. "You sure they'll be safe here?" Stiles asked, wanting to be sure.

Derek nodded again. "I promise that they will be safe here. I will protect them too," Derek assured him.

"Thank you," Stiles said sincerely.

The teen looked around some more. The loft was rather sparse in furnishings from what he could see. With a sudden idea, Stiles turned to face Derek, manic grin on his face, and said, "this is so going to be our main base."

Derek scrunched his face in confusion. "Excuse me?"

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Dude, we need a main base of operations and this, right here, is perfect." He glanced around again and nodded firmly. "We can move the crates here. You're going to help me poke around the loft to see if there are any other boxes we can bring here." He sighed. "And, I suppose, we can also do more training here."

Derek suddenly seemed a lot more on board.

"We're going to turn my place into some sort of headquarters?" He questioned.

Stiles grinned. "Isn't that cool?" He asked excitedly. His smile dropped for a moment so he could say, "you can train and teach me while we also learn who hurt Laura."

Derek's eyes flashed red. "Okay, let's start setting this place up."

Chapter Text

Instantly, Stiles and Derek got to work figuring out how best to turn the place into a main base of operations. Of course, Stiles had some crazy visions that Derek was quick to put a stop to. Despite this, they mostly agreed on how best to utilise the space.

The upstairs was going to remain solely Derek's space. That had been established rather quicky because he still needed somewhere to actually live that wasn't completely filled with training and theories.

However, the downstairs was free game.

Stiles grinned. "This is going to be so cool," he said excitedly.

Derek rolled his eyes but Stiles saw the amusement in them.

**

Back at Stiles', the young Grimm opened the loft hatch. He looked back to Derek, hesitating, before he entered the attic with the wesen in tow. He knew what they had to do but he also knew it might get hard.

After all, there were a lot of things the Stilinski family had shoved away to the dark recesses of the attic.

Derek seemed to sense the area was important because he remained quiet and careful. He simply waited for Stiles' commands on how to operate. Stiles appreciated that a lot.

"You can start over there," Stiles said, pointing at a stack of dust covered boxes near the back. "I think I'll start here," he said as he looked at the equally dusty boxes in front of him. "This way we can work towards the middle."

"That sounds like a smart plan," Derek agreed, moving towards the boxes he was assigned. He paused and looked back at Stiles. He opened his mouth as though he was going to say something but seemed to think better of it and turned to the boxes.

Stiles opened the first box and was greeted by photo albums. He quickly sifted through them, ignoring the pangs in his chest at certain pictures, and pushed the box aside when it revealed nothing unusual or 'grimm-y'. "This is going to be a long day," he sighed.

Derek grunted in agreement.

The next few boxes were just as unsuccessful and Stiles started to get frustrated neither of them were finding anything. Then Derek said, "this looks promising."

Stiles wandered over, curious, and frowned at the small crate containing glass bottles and jars. He squinted at the labels in confusion. "Siegbaste gift?" He murmured.

"Gift means poison," Derek supplied helpfully.

"Oh. Well, that's certainly ironic," Stiles snorted.

"This is some crazy stuff," Derek told him, inspecting the bottles and jars carefully. "This is all quite rare and all really useful."

"So, that's a keeper," Stiles said. Derek nodded and handed the crate over.

**

They didn't turn anything else up until nearly two hours later. By then, Stiles was bored and frustrated, and Derek was not much better.

"I could really use a break now," Stiles muttered, rolling his shoulders to try and remove the ache from them. He then opened the next box in front of him. "Hey, this looks like another chest," he said. He reached into the box to try and pull the chest out but it was far too heavy. "Fuck, dude, that shit is like a tonne of bricks," Stiles whined.

Derek appeared beside him and easily hauled the chest out. "This does look like the other ones with the books in," he agreed.

"Then let's see what's inside," Stiles said eagerly, moving forward to open it. He managed to pull open the lid because the lock seemed to have busted. "Woah," he breathed when he saw what was inside, "this is insane."

Within the chest there was all sorts of interesting, old style weapons.

"That's certainly something," Derek agreed.

**

The two has very little time to process the weapons because Derek had picked up the sound of a car in the drive. Then Stiles had forced the blutbad to stay put in the attic so he could intercept his dad.

"What are you doing home?" Stiles asked his dad.

The sheriff grinned. "Hello to you, too," he replied with a fond roll of his eyes. "There was some paperwork I forgot back here." He walked over to the dining room table where there was a folder. "I left it here so I would remember to take it but I still forgot," he chuckled.

Stiles smiled. "Okay, cool."

His dad reached the door before he paused and looked at Stiles. "What are you doing home?" He asked. "I thought you'd be off terrorising the town with Scott," he teased good naturedly.

Stiles snorted. "I had some school stuff to finish up," he said.

His father nodded. "I'm proud of you, son," he told him.

Stiles suddenly felt awkward. He knew it was necessary but lying to his father when he said things like that was hard. He managed a shaky smile and said, "thanks, dad."

**

The moment the sheriff had left Stiles had scrambled back up to the attic to find Derek frowning. "What?" He asked, worried.

"I think we should call it a day," he said. "We've found two chests and we're both frustrated enough as it is." He shrugged. "I think we can take these back to the loft and try again tomorow."

"Okay," Stiles agreed. Then he remembered something. "I've got school most of tomorrow though so I won't be able to help until after."

Derek frowned harder but nodded. "Yeah, I know."

**

Back at school, Stiles remained evasive of Scott's inquiries about his weekend. He felt increasingly bad about lying to his best friend - even  if it was a lie of omission. Yet, he knew he could not tell Scott about things at the moment.

"Man, tell me more about that new girl," Stiles prompted. He did genuinely want to hear about his best friend's obvious crush but it was also a convenient subject change.

"Oh, man, Allison," Scott said dreamily. His face was like a puppy when he talked about her, all giddy and pleased, which indicated to Stiles how badly his best friend had it for this Allison chick. "She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, man. She smiled at me and she had the sweetest dimples."

Stiles laughed. "You really have it bad."

Scott groaned loudly. "I know," he whined.

"Uh, hey," a sweet voice said from behind them.

Scott spun around so fast Stiles was surprised he didn't hurt himself. Stiles turned to look at the speaker and found a sweet, pretty girl stood there with a shy smile on her face.

"Hi, Allison," Scott chirped, face lighting up at the sight of her. He gazed at her adoringly and it was so painfully obvious, Stiles just hoped he had never looked like that around Lydia.

"I was just wondering if you would like to come with me to Lydia's party," she said. She turned her light brown eyes to Stiles and added, "hey, I'm Allison Argent."

"It's nice to meet you," Stiles replied with a friendly smile.

"Obviously, you could come to the party too," she told him.

Stiles felt himself genuinely liking this girl. It was hard not to with her soft smiles and gentle nature. She just seemed so nice. "Ah, thank you but I'm really busy at the moment," he declined politely, "but definitely take this loser with you." He hoiked a thumb in Scott's direction which made his friend groan and Allison giggle.

"I'll only steal him for the night," she said innocently, winking at Stiles.

Scott choked on air and she looked over at him in concern.

Oh, yes, Stiles definitely liked this girl. "You can steal him as much as you want," he assured her with a laugh. Then, throwing the two fingerguns, he said, "I've gotta run to chemistry now but I'll catch up with you two later."

As he left them behind, he knew he would be seeing that Argent girl a lot more and found himself incredibly happy that his best friend had found someone.

Chapter Text

"I feel so bad lying to everyone about this, man," Stiles confessed as he helped Derek move the crate. The blutbad had said he could do it alone but Stiles had insisted. "I mean, I get it. I know why we have to."

"But you don't like it," Derek guessed easily.

Stiles nodded. "It's really not something I like doing."

They placed the crate down in the corner of the room. As he looked around the room, Stiles' mind began imagining exactly how they were going to transform this loft into the most kickass base. He grinned,

"It's cool though," he said then. "It feels like something from a movie or some comic book."

"It would be more accurate to say a fairy tale but sure," Derek said. He moved to stand beside the teenager and the two silently looked around, both envisioning what they were going to create here.

Stiles gently nudged Derek. "This is going to be cool, huh."

"It loses the effect when you say dorky stuff like that but yes," Derek teased, nudging the grimm back.

**

Stiles collapsed onto Derek's cheap, lumpy couch with a groan. He watched the wesen look for his phone so they could order take out since it was getting a little too late to cook. Stiles fidgeted on the uncomfortable couch until he just gave up the impossible task.

"This couch feels like it was made out of brick," Stiles whined.

Derek rolled his eyes. "It's not that bad," he disagreed. He finally found his phone and brought it back to the couch. He stared at Stiles, sprawled across the piece of furniture, before just lifting the teenager's legs to sit down and letting them fall into his lap. He looked over at Stiles. "So, what food do you want?" He asked.

"Okay, first of all, how do you look so comfortable on this thing?" Stiles asked, eyebrows raised in surprise. "I want to burn it."

Derek pinched his ankle that was resting on his legs gently. "We are not burning my couch so tell me what you want to eat," he said.

"We should get a new couch either way," Stiles muttered under his breath but yelped when Derek pinched him again slightly harder. "Okay, okay," he said, trying not to grin. "You really are a sourwolf."

"Stiles, seriously," Derek sighed, wanting to just order already. He was getting really hungry.

"Sorry, yeah," Stiles laughed. "I'd like to order pizza if that's fine with you."

"I'm okay with that." Derek nodded. "Pizza it is."

**

After the two had ordered and eaten the pizza, Stiles laid sprawled across the couch, his head in Derek's lap this time. He found it to be incredibly comfortable and Derek certainly didn't seem to mind because his fingers were running carefully through Stiles' hair. Stiles felt like he could probably lay there forever without moving, even with the lumpy couch jabbing him in the butt.

"This is nice," Stiles murmured, trying not to purr like some sort of cat with Derek's fingers combing through his hair.

Derek hummed in reply.

Stiles sighed. "I really could get used to this."

Derek chuckled. "This isn't going to be a regular thing."

"Aww, Scott gets a girl who he can call on for times such as these and I get a grumpy puppy who doesn't want to give me attention," Stiles whined. He cracked his eyes open, not even remembering he had closed them, to grin up at the other man.

"I cannot believe you just referred to me as a puppy," Derek grumbled.

"I should tell you about this Allison girl," Stiles said, ignoring the roll of Derek's eyes, "honestly, dude, she seems like the sweetest person ever and she's got her eyes on Scott. Kids like me and Scott, the losers, we never get liked back so this is monumental."

Derek's fingers slowed and his face took on a slightly sad look. "You're not a loser," he said.

Stiles laughed. "There 's no need to feel sorry for us. We've become used to it. It's sort of like our brand now," Stiles reassured but Derek continued looking concerned. "It's no big deal, Derek, seriously."

After a moment, Derek's frown lessened slightly and he continued to run his fingers through Stiles' hair soothingly. Stiles allowed his eyes to slip shut once again.

"Anyways, as I was saying, this Argent girl is really awesome," Stiles continued.

Instantly, Derek froze. His fingers tightened minutely in Stiles' hair, bordering on painful, before they stilled. Stiles hissed and opened his eyes to look up at Derek in confusion.

"What?" Stiles asked.

Derek blinked. Slowly, his hands began to relax and the rest of his body followed soon after. He went from bone stiff to shaking. This only heightened Stiles' concern for him.

"C'mon, buddy, tell me what's up," Stiles pleaded softly as he moved to sit up. He gently took Derek's trembling hand in his and placed it to his heart beat. "Derek, this is my heart beat. Can you feel it?" Stiles asked. Derek nodded. "That's good. Try to time your breaths with it. That's it, you're doing good."

After a couple of minutes, Derek seemed to calm down again.

"Okay, Derek, tell me what's wrong," Stiles said, running his hands soothingly over Derek's arms. He knew Derek looked more settled but he didn't want him to get worked up again.

"Argent."

"What?" Stiles frowned, confused.

"Stiles, it was the Argents."