Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Almost before the bullet punches through the double-plated glass living room window, shattering it spectacularly, Derek has Stiles under him on the floor, shouting, “Everyone get down!”

Face-planted on the waxed wood paneling, Derek’s arm tensed against his chest, Stiles says, “That was fucking loud.” He peers up at the two hundred pounds of muscle and hypothetical two pounds of fat holding him down and tries not to panic. “That wasn’t a prop gun, was it. Oh my god, someone’s trying to kill me again.”

Derek goes, if possible, even tenser around him. “It was one bullet,” he tries.

Derek is terrible at reassurances.

“Jessica never tried to kill you,” Lydia corrects from her crouch behind Stiles’ white leather couch. “She wanted you to be her boyfriend.”

Lydia is also terrible at reassurances.

“With a gun,” Stiles reminds her. “She wanted me to be her boyfriend with a gun. And a distinct lack of consent on my part.”

If Derek were any tenser, he’d be a steel pillar. Which Stiles isn’t entirely sure he isn’t already. A huge, warm steel pillar. With really amazing arms. And a really amazing chest. And amazing hair. And an amazing, amazing smile. And laugh. And—

“Dude, I think I’m developing a new kink. A you-tackling-me kink. I’m pretty sure my dick thinks this is Round 3.”

“Dude,” Scott groans, peeking out from behind the giant, incredibly expensive, and hideous sculpture Patrick Adley gifted Stiles for his twenty-sixth birthday. “The sharing. Don’t.”

“You don’t wanna hear the newest development in the long and complicated story that is my journey to sexual self-discovery? I’m pained, man. Pained.”

“Fine. Have I told you about that time Allison and me tried—“

“Uncle!” Stiles shouts immediately. “Truce! She’s like a sister to me, man, you know that.”

“Is no one going to address,” Allison speaks at last, “the bullet that shattered Stiles’ window less than two minutes ago?”

Derek rises from Stiles, fingers still tight around his gray henley, and looks around warily. Stiles untangles from him and stands to survey the damage.

The window is shattered to shit. Glass shards pepper the floor below. Some have actually embedded in the wall. Not to mention—

“Holy god,” Stiles mutters. The giant, hideous sculpture has always been giant and hideous, but it’s never had a bullet embedded in it before. (Stiles assumes. Although, who knows? Maybe the whole thing is the result of a shootout at a junkyard.) “Ohhhkay. Okayyy. This is a very real bullet. That is a very real bullet, people.”

He knows props. Blanks. He has police procedure down, thanks to six years of playing a troubled but gifted cop with a past. Hardison Dixon takes no shit, except for his name, which has inspired a wide variety of opportunities for media, fans, and critics to make the same four “Hard Dick” jokes until even they were tired of them.

Of course, Stiles’ bisexuality—and current male/male relationship—has done nothing to help matters.

Derek’s reaction has always been priceless. He knows how to play bodyguard, but boyfriend—or at least, boyfriend of “teen heartthrob” (gag) Stiles Stilinski—is a whole different bowl of minestrone. Nothing could have prepared him for the intense focus of Stiles' more... enthusiastic fans, not to mention the paparazzi. As a bodyguard, he'd been pretty much invisible to them, a buffer ruining their candids and rushing Stiles along before autographs and hugs could devolve into shameless groping and innuendo. As one-half of Hollywood's most popular pop culture couple, he was a rising star. Even his deer-in-headlights reaction to the lights and buzz and catcalls was more than the internet could handle, judging by the gifs and flailing hashtags. 

After the Fanfiction Incident, Stiles put a block on Derek's computer in the name of sanity and told him the internet could be a dark, dark place—cave darkness dark, black hole dark—and really, aren't we better off staying in the light spots, the box of kittens playing ukuleles spots, and not finding out what fans think our sex life looks like? 

(Apparently, Derek growls a lot and slams Stiles against walls and—and you know what, reading that isn't really hugely beneficial for Stiles' psyche either.) 

Derek is still kind of freaked out about it. 

On the bright side, Stiles still gets a kick out of seeing his and Derek’s candids in magazines. He collects clippings—or rather, has his assistant, Erica, collect clippings—in case he ever decides to recreate The Notebook, or propose, or something. After thirteen years of the guy’s company and nearly seven years of dating, maybe it is time to settle down. In fact, he's actually started to plan possibilities, just keeping his options open, which quickly led to him realizing two things:

1. It is impossible to keep secrets from Derek Hale.

Derek hates surprises, and he’s Stiles’ bodyguard, and they live together, so he’s always everywhere. They’re practically married as it is.

2. Stiles knows nothing about Derek’s family.

Forget getting the in-laws’ approval. He doesn’t know anything about them. Derek doesn’t talk about them, and he dodges questions, and Stiles kind of assumes they're shitty about his gayness and cut him off, because really, who but a totally nonsensical bigot would choose to cut Derek out of their life?

But Stiles wants to know. How bad can it be?

Okay. Okay.

Sometimes, Derek has nightmares.

Stiles generally sleeps like a log, if logs sleep incredibly deeply, because sleep is a luxury in this business, not a right. He's pretty much perfected the art of falling asleep in any position, and once he's down, he's dead to the world. But he has one hair-trigger, one stupid tremor left over from the Jessica shit.

Derek can tangle around and over and under Stiles in bed (and often does), and Stiles will sleep right through it; anyone short of Erica or Lydia could shout at him and get no response; but cold pressure to his back gets him up like a shot, panicked and unable to go back to sleep.

It was an empty beer bottle this one night. He’d been meaning to throw it in the recycling, but then he got stuck in a Wikipedia black hole and forgot all about it, until he sleep-flailed into it. He was up and on guard, twisting around to face the intruder, and haha it was just a beer bottle and the panic attack his lungs were amping up for was narrowly averted.

The next few hours, he wrapped himself in a big knit blanket and sat in his huge, squashy armchair and watched DVDs of Doctor Who and drank hot cocoa, because there are certain coping methods you never grow out of.

Billie Piper’s mother was forcing tea on Tennant’s Doctor when Stiles heard a strangled, “No!” from the bedroom. Derek, he thought, and then he didn’t; he ducked into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and a spray bottle of tile cleaner, and slunk off toward the sound.

But, alas, Stiles failed to stab or blind Derek’s attacker, because there was none, except maybe in his mind. Stiles was halfway through a double-check when Derek shouted again. “Please—don’t,” he rambled, breathless. “Please!”

Stiles has been in some pretty terrifying situations in his life. He’s been kidnapped at gunpoint by a crazy stalker who hurt Lydia. He’s been in a four-car pileup avoiding paparazzi trying to run him off the road. (He still sends flowers to the one innocent single mom just trying to pick her kid up from daycare; Derek still bristles when he spots a media car on the road). He’s been in a relationship with Lydia Martin. He’s flown a helicopter. He's lived through the slow and strangling death of his mom, and the shockingly quick and crushing death of his dad. He's kissed Derek without knowing how he felt. (Shocked, and then slightly suspicious, and then a flash of something Stiles didn't understand, and then a slow-spreading smile the size of Texas). He's tried Scott’s cooking (not bad, actually, but definitely requiring a leap of faith). He's come out to his dad. He's come out in general. (On a scale of Lindsay Lohan to Neil Patrick Harris, the reaction has been pretty much a Zachary Quinto: most unsurprised, most supportive, a couple of people a little too excited, insisting he's secretly in love with his Hard Truths costar, Vernon Boyd. And while Boyd likes to keep his options open, Stiles and he have never been more than friends. He’s a good friend; he listens, and he never tries to prove anything to anybody, except at work. He’s chill, he’ll keep a secret. He won't bury a body with you, but he’ll testify for you in court. Hypothetically. Scott is a bury-a-body buddy to Stiles; it’s what puts him a rung or five ahead of anyone else on Stiles’ friendship ladder.

Derek, Stiles figures, would send Stiles home to find an alibi, then kill whoever, then bury him alone. Probably write the dead guy a eulogy, probably come home hours later and take a shower and never mention it again.

Lydia would stand over Stiles as he digs and criticize his technique.)

Stiles has been through some scary shit, is the point. But Derek is his rock. When Stiles is scattered and panicking because he's sure he accidentally pissed off the casting director for that project he's been going after forever, Derek is level-headed and reasonable and knows just how to calm him down. When the paparazzi swarm all over him and he can't breathe, Derek is at his side, rushing him through the crowd like a pro. When Stiles' dad died, Derek was just there, and that was all Stiles needed (besides his dad. He held the phone, and Derek held him, and he thought, I really wish Dad was here right now. Which was a non-starter, obviously, but since when does wanting have anything to do with logic?). Derek doesn't get scared, is the point. At least, not the Derek Stiles knows.

Seeing Derek scared? It's like seeing his dad cry. It's not supposed to happen. It goes against the whole concept of them.

But that night starts Stiles wondering if he really knows Derek at all.

And that thought is fucking terrifying.

The thing about fame is, it's incredibly isolating. Yeah, there's about a million people hounding Stiles for an autograph or a picture or a hug every time he steps outside, and a million more offering him clothes and electronics and drugs and booze, not to mention the groupies shoving their tits or six-pack in his face like it isn't fact one on his IMDB page that he and Derek are  pretty much already married in all the ways that matter. But real connections are hard to come by in this industry, and near-impossible to keep. Sure, everyone's family on set, (or that's what you say on the commentary tracks, anyway) but then you wrap and never see those people again unless you make an effort to work them into your schedule. Maybe you'll get thrown together again for press, maybe you'll meet at a party, but it's easy to get wrapped up with work, to be so fucking exhausted that you chose Redbull and two hours of sleep over catching up with someone the tabloids swear is saying shit about you. Stiles has clung hard to Scott, his best friend since they costarred as Tom Hanks and Vince Vaughn's kids in Keeping It Straight when they were ten, and Scott's the one who strong-armed Derek to go where he was actually needed and keep Stiles safe after that crazy Jessica escapade. The two of them are the most important people in his life, now, and the thought of losing one of them is enough to send Stiles into a panicked tailspin.

Things are good for the two of them. Things are good, and fun, and easy. Derek is the reason Stiles doesn't work himself into the ground, and Stiles is the reason (according to Scott, who's known him the longest) Derek has mellowed out and actually become a guy people want to hang around when they don't need protection. Stiles bristled, defensive for Derek's sake, but it was oddly flattering that he took Derek from Silent But Deadly Secret Service Agent to Derek, master sarcaster of back-and-forth banter. “Stiles is Derek's pot,” Lydia said once, in a strangely generous mood, explaining that Stiles made everything funny and a little bit confusing and completely, outrageously profound, and that Derek was so in love with him, it was a little sickening. The thing is (although Stiles went pink and tried to wave it off) the way Derek looks at him sometimes—it's almost overwhelming. And Stiles isn't taking Derek for granted anytime soon either. God, it's been seven years, and they're still blushing honeymooners. The thought of that being wrong, of losing that, is fucking terrifying.

Just about as terrifying as the bullet still embedded in that hideous artsy statue.

“Okay,” Stiles says again, because that is standard protocol when he is thisclose to freaking out. “Just one bullet, right?” He inspects the thing half-buried in the sculpture, and then he sprints around it to hug Scott so fiercely he almost knocks him to the ground. “Oh my god,” he says, horrified, “you could have been hit. Oh my god, this thing saved your life. I'm never going to call it hideous again.”

Scott isn't as shaken as his best friend, so he tries to calm him down, saying, “Guess you owe Patrick Adley an apology.”

It doesn't work.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, somewhat hysterically. “Oh my god.” But he releases Scott, at least, and manages something like a graceful stagger back to his boyfriend’s side. “What do we do now?” he asks, because—this is why Stiles got a bodyguard in the first place, before the bodyguard was Derek and Derek was the love of his twenty-si—no, twenty-seven year-old life. Holy shit, he's twenty-seven today. He forgot for a second there. As might be expected when your best friend nearly gets shot in your living room.

“Some party, huh?” he jokes, and tries not to have a nervous breakdown when Derek, ignoring his comment, quietly says, “I don't know.”

Chapter Text

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Lydia snaps in her best judgmental voice. “We call the police, obviously. I mean, no offense, but you’re just a bodyguard.”

Stiles’ first instinct is to come to Derek’s defense—he’s the reason Stiles is still sane, or at least, still fooling the general public into believing he’s sane, and Stiles’d be lost without him—but in this particular situation, he kind of sees her point.

“Right,” Derek says, like it hadn’t even occurred to him. Stiles looks at him worriedly.

“Derek?” His throat constricts in that strangling Dad is crying/Derek is scared/the world is ending twist as he goes from a loud, exaggerated humor freakout to a silent, completely internal Blue Screen of Death. Sure, Derek’s job gives him plenty of downtime and not many actually dangerous situations to handle, but he knows how to handle those situations. Stiles inhales through his nose. “Derek, hey, look at me,” he says, because the man’s face has gone frighteningly vacant. “What’s going on?”

“I’m fine,” Derek says, snapping back to himself, grabbing his phone from his pocket and dialing. “Stay away from the windows. Nobody step on the glass. Actually, everyone should head to a room with no windows—”

“The rec room,” Stiles suggests.

“Everyone should head to the rec room,” Derek agrees, “and stay there until—” he cuts off as someone answers his call. “Go!” he urges, and they troop off obediently, Allison still slightly stunned, Lydia looking suspiciously at Derek, and Scott grabbing Stiles’ arm to drag him along when he doesn’t join them on his own.

“I’m staying with Derek,” Stiles insists. “Last time I checked, he’s not wearing a bulletproof vest either.”

“You’re impossible,” Scott groans, and lets Allison pull him down the hall. “If you die, I get your Camaro!”

“If I die you get me haunting your ass until vengeance has been done!” Stiles calls back at him. “And Derek gets the Camaro, you get his Jeep!”

“Shut up,” Derek hisses, covering the phone with his hand and glaring. “Nobody is touching my Jeep.”

“I swear you love that thing more than me,” Stiles says, because if he sees Derek cry then the world will definitely end, so he needs to steer this conversation away from his hypothetical death, now.

“Shut up,” Derek says again, and Stiles says, attempting a smirk, “Dude. I know you love me more. Obviously. I’m just that awesome.” He bounces his eyebrows, wiggles his hips goofily. Thanks to his hours at the gym and Bobby's vicious workouts, the movements don't set off any kind of minor natural disaster. 

Derek smirks fondly, tells the phone, “I’ll be right with you,” and puts it down to pull Stiles close. They don't separate until Derek, ever the professional, remembers the phone on the table, picks up, and says, “You still with me?” 

He has to call back.

Paparazzi show up before the police do; the place explodes with the fireworks of flashbulbs, with reporters yelling, Stiles! What happened? Stiles! Will this affect the next season of Hard Truths? Stiles! Do the police have any leads? Stiles! How are you feeling? Stiles! Is Jessica Evans a suspect? Stiles! Over here! Stiles! How is Derek handling all of this? Stiles! Is it true that you and Derek have been considering adoption? Stiles! Stiles! Stiles! Stiles! Stiles!

Stiles is really starting to hate the sound of his own name.

They’re fucking inescapable; even actual news reporters are camped out in droves outside his shattered window. He’s no longer a puff piece; now he’s true crime. Assuming he doesn’t die, Victoria, his terrifying but skilled publicist, is gonna love this. Hard Truths is trending on Twitter, along with his name and #WeSupportStilesAndDerek, which apparently started as one teen's reaction to a homophobic idiot who apparently thinks God goes around shooting through gay people’s windows, and escalated as his fans got wind of the conflict and spread the tag like wildfire.

Stiles’ fans are very intense and a little bit terrifying, but he’s gotta admit, it’s flattering. Except the “fans” who hate Derek. They can fuck right off. If Stiles could actually be honest on his twitter (he got it to stay in touch with his fans, pimp his work, and follow costars and comedians, but Victoria watches it like a hawk for possible awkward miscommunications), he’d tell them direct to their @handles: You’re not a fan, and you can fuck off and go die in a fire. Derek’s got a twitter too—part of his job is online monitoring of Stiles’ fans, making sure there aren’t more Jessicas waiting to attack—and that means he sees all the crap the “haters” write about him. The thought of Derek reading through their vitriol makes Stiles see red. Derek won’t mention it, but Stiles knows it stings—like a million disapproving in-laws, only crazier, and more creative with Photoshop. Some fans, though, have actually created supportive sites dedicated to Derek: some revolving around his and Stiles’ relationship, others around his body, which Stiles understands completely. If he didn’t live with the man, he’d probably be one of them. (He still is, in many ways. [Cue cheesy 80’s guitar track, cut to sex montage]) Derek is less understanding about the sites; they freak him out in a way not many things do, which makes Stiles reflexively judgmental about them. He’d say that fans are better than haters, no matter how crazy, but: Jessica. Fuckin' Jessica, man.

Stiles has, however, gotten Danny to set up a bunch of sockpuppet spam accounts that send any twitter user who @tweets Derek hate (yeah, that’s right, people actually tag him in their obvious pleas for attention, and why is Stiles even surprised, seriously) pictures of puppies, videos of Rick Astley’s less famous hits, a very annoying but ultimately harmless computer virus, and a screen saver that reads, I’m A Very Sad Individual. Please Give Me A Hug.

Also, Stiles may have an anonymous account from which he writes angry but witty defenses of his man, like he’s a random fan. (Dude, get a life, said one asshole in response to his essay on why Derek was not “turning Stiles into a pussy.” Stiles groaned at the screen and muttered, This is my life, you giant bag of dicks, but he obviously couldn’t write that, so.)

He may be a little bit obsessed.

After consulting with the LAPD, Victoria, Lydia, Erica, and the head of press at Universal, Stiles and Derek pack some suitcases and take a flight to Stiles’ dad’s house. Beacon Hills is a cozy little gated community where all the picket fences are white and there’s always a pie cooling on a windowsill and nothing terrible ever happens, like Dad having a heart attack and dying alone while Stiles was busy telling Jay Leno how great it was working with the absolutely hilarious Jackson Whittemore, who definitely hadn’t fed Us Weekly “shocking claims” that Stiles’ nervous tics were symptoms of his speed addiction. Like Dad’s body lying on the kitchen floor for god knows how long because no one was fucking there to check on him.

(Stiles and Derek flew in for the funeral. They didn’t touch the house. Stiles couldn’t.)

He puts up an almighty protest, what the eager paps would call a diva meltdown, a temper tantrum, a nervous fit, before going quiet and blinking his eyes clear and saying, “Fine.”

Of course Derek chooses that moment to clock out again, so the two of them are twin statues, drawn and pale and inspiring concern all around. And these five don’t do concerned. It interferes with their brand of crisp, confident, and unshakable. Stiles has heard Lydia’s lecture on how quickly women get labeled “emotional” enough times to repeat it back to her (He’s done that, actually, with a number of funny inflections, trying to cheer her through the off/on/off Lydia/Jackson clusterfuck. It was a riveting performance. A dazzling one-man show. No roses thrown at the stage, but it got her smiling, which was the point, so. Five stars. Two thumbs up. Buy your tickets now, etc, etc.), so seeing her go from I See All I Know All Don’t Even Think About It, to Lydia, who wants to talk softly about thoughts and feelings, is a little jarring. But the real shocker is Victoria, she of iron spine and fire and ice and a glare that will absolutely knock you on your ass, looking closely at the two of them and saying, “Have you boys been sleeping?” sounding eerily like Stiles’ mother. Which—there are literally no two people more different than Victoria and Stiles’ mom. Case in point? Victoria, alive and breathing. Stiles’ mom, long dead. (You’d think it stops hurting, more than ten years later. You’d be wrong.) And maybe Stiles’ll start sleeping when people stop trying to kill him, or when Derek actually lets him in, because he’s too quiet, and he’s too tired, and Stiles feels like he’s losing him, and he doesn’t know what to do. He’s running out of tactics, and if Lydia was commentating on the state of his relationship now, it would probably be something along the lines of, “This is just depressing. He’s obviously going to leave you, possibly right now. You really screwed this one up. Say your goodbyes and call it a day, honey, because that’s a wrap on Stiles and Derek.”

On top of all that, Stiles is going to be spending the foreseeable future in the house where his dad died alone, hopefully not dying himself, hopefully getting this giant lump of terrible over with before Thursday, when he’s been booked by Jimmy Kimmel to do a ten-minute interview and show a clip from his new comedy movie, My Girl Stacy. He actually likes how this movie turned out, and he actually likes Jimmy Kimmel, and he actually likes his costars (Isaac Lahey as Jared, his character’s best friend, and Allison Argent as Stacy, the girl that Ben and Jared realize is dating both of them). Promoting this movie should be easy. Maybe fun, even. Assuming he isn’t dodging a storm of bullets, or doing the taping without Derek. Assuming he isn’t dead, and Derek isn’t dead, and someone else Stiles cares about isn’t dead.

Scott’s got two weeks of location shoots in Venice for his new romantic dramedy, or he’d be on the flight too, and Stiles would have something to do besides try to get Derek to open up and, failing that, get spectacularly wasted on tiny bottles of $500 whiskey. Derek, of course, always the professional, turns it down, which means Stiles is a sad drunk in front of a sober person and no one else, which makes it about five billion times more pathetic. Miraculously, Stiles manages to keep from slurring, “When’re you gonna leave me?” and gripping at Derek’s shirt with his fists, but he does come cringefully close to crying about his dad, his mom, Scott’s near-death experience, and how all people have, like, expiration dates, y'know, isn’t that fuckin’ horrible? ‘S like, things are going good, so, so god or fate or who or, or whatever, they, they see Earth as like this snow globe, right, and it'sss too quiet, right? Boring. So they, they shake the snow globe till there’s snow over everythin'. And it’s not even real snow, Derek, it’s glitter, okay, and glitter is not gay because! Because... because glitter is shit. Gets stuck everywhere, and, and... And why don’t I know anything about your family, huh? Do you even have a family, are you even a real person, am I even a real person? Oh my god I’m having a, what's the thing, a, an existential cri... sisis? Crisis, crisis. Got through existential fine, got tripped up on crisis. Stupid. I'm so... Oh my god. An', and you're sober and I'm an idiot. You're never an idiot.

...Derek.

I...

...I love you so much...

Luckily, he doesn’t remember most of that meltdown when he wakes up squashed against Derek in his childhood bedroom, head pounding with the kind of brain-blasting hangover only $500 whiskey can provide, pressing his face against Derek’s chest because he can still do that for now, and because the guy obviously carried Stiles into bed from the tarmac without waking him, and that is both impressive and sexy as fuck. Also possibly humiliating if the paps pair it with the break-up story, but Stiles makes a mental note to have Erica scour the internet for pictures, just in case Stiles ever gets to put his proposal scrapbook to good use after all.

Right, okay: vomiting. “If I could just vomit I’d feel so much better,” said Natasha Leggero's character on a random episode of 'Til Death, and truer words have never been spoken. Stiles climbs over the protective cave Derek has formed around Stiles with his body—and screw him for making Stiles love him so much when he’s going to leave him, the absolute bastard—and staggers off to the bathroom to puke his guts out.

Everything was so good at once. And now everything is so awful all at once.

Everything evens out in the end, he thinks, leaning against the toilet, eyes streaming. Dynamic equilibrium.

He wipes his mouth and gags into the abyss some more. When it’s clear this headache isn’t going anywhere, vomit or no vomit, he gets up, cleans up his face, gargles Listerine, spits, and curls back in place with Derek again, arm over his eyes.

He wakes up to the smell of smoke and thinks, Dad, breakfast is burning.

Then he says, “Dad—” and that’s all it takes for him to remember, and the weight of it thuds quietly in his chest, and his headache is back. He groans lightly and nudges Derek.

“Dude, did you make me breakfast? Cuz I'm gonna have to put an asterisk on the record of those boyfriend points if you burn down the house.”

But Derek’s barely been sleeping for days, and he's still out like a guy with three strikes, so Stiles musses his dark, damp bed-headed hair, kisses his sweaty forehead, and climbs over him again, careful not to wake him up.

The smell has gone from a thin bitter edge on the air to something sharp enough to make Stiles’ eyes water, but he pushes onwards till he meets a wall of heat so thick he's physically forced back.

The kitchen is on fire. The kitchen stinks of gasoline and smoke and burning plastic, and it is on fire. The house is on fire. Stiles’ dad’s house is on fire.

Derek.

Like a racehorse at the starting pistol, Stiles runs, barely breathing, to find Derek where he left him, still so soft and relaxed in sleep Stiles almost feels guilty shaking him awake and dragging him out through the sweltering house. He barely pauses on the ashy patch of grass to catch his breath before guiding a slightly more conscious and less pliable Derek across the street and hugging him close as he dials Beacon Hills’ fire department with unsteady fingers. He’s in his boxers, he realizes eventually, with everything he can handle handled and nothing left to do but take it all in, and Derek’s in briefs and a t-shirt Stiles bought him. Again, Stiles feels a warm rush of affection towards Derek, and hates him for being everything Stiles could ever want and leaving him, and holds him closer anyway. Derek is stiff in his arms, face blank and glassy-eyed, eyebrows drawn together. He’s unresponsive, empty worse than ever.

Stiles could cry.

He very nearly does, but he’s holding them up right now, and he needs to just keep doing that. Keep breathing, keep holding Derek up. So he breathes, and he doesn’t think about Dad’s house barbecuing across the street, every last trace of him blackened and burned and gone. He doesn’t think about how Derek is going to leave him. He doesn’t think about someone trying to kill him, to ruin every good part of his life. He doesn’t think.

He holds Derek, and he breathes, and he breathes, and he breathes.

When the firefighters take axes to his childhood home, he just presses a kiss into Derek’s stubbly neck, and doesn’t look, doesn’t look, doesn't.

After they put the thing out, when the house is black-eyed and broken and unrecognizable, a firewoman tells Stiles how it started.

Arson.

Fucking arson.

Someone tried to burn Dad’s house down while they slept.

Stiles could have died. Derek could have—

Don’t think, don’t think, but he’s running out of denial. He thanks the firefighters and thinks, Action. Breathe, just breathe and do something.

“Waffles,” he says, though he’s never been less hungry.

(Breakfast is comfort food. Breakfast is “Your mother’s going in for some tests.” It’s “Dad, I think—Hypothetically, from a PR standpoint, right, say there was this teen actor, and he realized, uh, that maybe—” “Neil Patrick Harris. He lived proud but private, and when he knew he had a good thing going, a staying kind of thing, his publicist made a few calls and he went on Ellen. From a hypothetical professional standpoint, of course. And, from a personal standpoint, I love you and I’ll love anyone you love. Except Heather. Your cat and I have a very tumultuous relationship. Love doesn’t enter into it.”)

“I feel like waffles," Stiles lies. "And bacon. Lots of bacon.” He feels like vomiting, and crying, and curling up into a ball and giving up, maybe all at once. “You wanna drive?”

Derek makes a noncommittal sound and doesn’t move, so Stiles scrapes his palm down his back and says, “We’re fine. We’ll be fine. We’re gonna eat breakfast, and we’re gonna figure out what the fuck is going on, and we are gonna be fine.”

In the car, Derek is dull-eyed and so unresponsive Stiles half-reroutes the GPS to the nearest hospital before Derek takes his hand by the wrist, puts it back on the wheel.

"I'm fine," he says.

"Yeah, that's convincing." Stiles shakes his head. "This isn't the fire. This isn't even the past few days. What aren't you telling me?"

"You should eat," Derek says. "And drink something warm, with milk in it. For the shock."

"Sure," Stiles says agreeably. "And pretend you're fine and we're fine for the foreseeable future and never address our issues or, I don't know, actually trust each other? Sounds great. Can I get that in writing?"

"Quiet," Derek says. He immediately looks half-apologetic, tacking on a hurried, "Please."

"Yeah, cuz that's bound to work," Stiles says, but he shakes his head, huffs, and limits himself to pressing his palm to Derek's shoulder and saying, "You know I have your back, right? You know that."

"I know," Derek says.

The silence is worse after that.

Under any other circumstance, the little family B&B Stiles rents out for breakfast would be cozy and welcoming. Instead, it feels like a two-man funeral for a relative nobody liked much. Over omelets, bacon, and huge stacks of chocolate-chip pancakes (that Stiles knows will mean a hell of a workout with Bobby, but fuck it, someone is trying to murder him, his dad is dead and his house is half-barbecued, Stiles can eat a big breakfast for once), Stiles tries every trick he knows to get Derek to laugh, or smile, or, god, just talk to him. Something.

Derek barely touches his food, and when Stiles runs out of ideas and sinks his head into his hands, Derek says, “I. I can’t do this.”

Stiles’ head snaps up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Derek glares at his pancakes. “I thought. But. And now, you. I can’t—"

This should have been indecipherable, but Stiles has been on edge, waiting for this moment for days. That doesn’t make it any easier to take.

“You’re trying to tell me,” Stiles clarifies, “that this isn’t working out. We’re not—” He closes his eyes, lets out a long shaky breath. “Derek. Someone set my dad’s house on fire today, you can’t—” and this is it, this is the moment they’ve all been waiting for. The last time Stiles couldn't breathe, the phone had slipped from his hands and his dad was dead and Derek was there in an instant, helping him remember how, and then he was sobbing into Derek’s collar while his arms braced around him and held strong. And now Derek is just—

And he can’t breathe again, and it is so goddamn stupid that this still happens to him. But someone is trying to kill him, and Derek is leaving. And his bodyguard is Derek, is supposed to be Derek, and Derek's always made him feel safe, after Jessica, after everything, and Scott could've been hit, and Dad—

"Stiles." Derek sighs, taking both Stiles' hands and pressing them to his chest.

He actually looks surprised—hurt, even—when Stiles yanks them back.

Stupid Derek, don't you know you can't soothe a guy while breaking up with him?

“Someone’s trying to kill me,” Stiles says shakily when he catches his breath. At least Derek isn’t enough of an asshole to leave while Stiles is still gasping for air. His hands are awkward on the table, still reaching for Stiles, half-curled around nothing like they haven't caught up with the rest of him yet. “Someone shot at me and tried to burn me alive in the house where my dad died alone and you are my boyfriend and you are my bodyguard and you are leaving.”

“No one is trying to kill you,” Derek says.

Stiles chokes out a harsh laugh.

“I’ve got a bullet and a broken window and a scorched house that say otherwise, dude.”

Derek glares at his pancakes. “No one is trying to kill you—"

“Funny way of showing it—"

“They’re,” Derek says, and Stiles is furious and betrayed and brokenhearted and losing his freaking mind, and he can’t take Derek’s locked fingers in his hands, so he takes his own. “They’re trying to kill me.”

Stiles blinks at him.

“What,” Stiles says.

For once, he’s speechless.

“Fire,” Derek says bitterly. “My family,” he elaborates. “They. Nine people. Only my uncle got out. He, he was unconscious for a week, and then, and then—” He grits his teeth; a muscle jumps in his jaw. “I was sixteen.”

“Oh my god,” Stiles says, because, whoa, that explains so much. Why Derek never talks about his family. Why Derek barely talks, period. The paranoia. The nightmares.

Well, no, it doesn’t really, because Derek gave Stiles fragments, alphabet soup, and it’s a long way from the actual story. But it’s more than he’s ever given Stiles before, so Stiles isn’t scoffing.

Mainly, Stiles feels sucker-punched with the weirdest relief. This whole thing, this whole distance between them, all this terrifying silence, it was bullshit. Just Derek's self-sacrificing martyr bullshit. They're fine, they're gonna be fine.

And if Derek knows who it is...

“Who was it?” Stiles demands, taking Derek’s hands in his own, running his fingers over the jutting bone of Derek’s wrist, the fierce jumping pulse.“I mean, why would anyone—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Derek says. "I'm not gonna let her make you collateral damage. I'll take care of it."

Stiles scoffs. “If you think I’m just gonna let you run away to get murdered without me, you’re delusional.”

“You want to get murdered,” Derek says flatly.

“I don’t want you to die alone!” Stiles shouts, realizes he’s shouting, and tries again. “I don’t want you to die at all,” he says, quieter, but with no less emphasis. “I love you, man. I’ve been in love with you for seven years, and I've cared about you for years before that. And dude, I don’t know if you realize this, but I don’t have that many sticking people in my life. I’ve got Scott and you keeping me sane, and if I lose you I won’t get over it. I’ll crash and burn, okay, I’ll have a tabloid meltdown without the comeback. If you get hurt because of me, man, if you get hurt at all—”

“I’m your bodyguard,” Derek says weakly, looking somewhat bewildered. “It's my job to keep you safe.”

Stiles glares at him, brushes his eye furiously with his wrist. “Fine,” he says.

“Fine,” Derek repeats, glaring at his bacon, and Stiles doesn’t miss the way his shoulders slump slightly before stiffening again, the way his eyes go empty.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, stabbing his knife violently into a long-cold pancake. “You’re fired.”

“I’ll just—What?”

“You’re fired,” Stiles repeats, nudging a wiggly patch of egg yolk with his fork to unearth the mushroom below. “I’ll get someone else to take a bullet for me. Someone I don’t care about.”

“Stiles—”

“You think I’d let Scott take a bullet for me? You think I’d’ve let my dad take a bullet for me?”

“It’s my job,” Derek says stubbornly.

“Not anymore,” Stiles says, and stands to join Derek on his side of the table. “I love you, man,” he says, and he takes Derek by the neck and kisses him, pulls away, says, “Don't scare me like that again.”

“I just—It was your dad's house. That's too close. I couldn't—”

"It's just an empty house," Stiles lies. Derek looks dubious. "Fine, it's not, but that doesn't mean—Oh my god, just come here."

It’s long past breakfast when Stiles loops his arm around Derek’s back, pulls him close against his chest, and says, lips warm at his ear, “Okay. Okay.”

Derek half-turns to curl against him, and Stiles blinks furiously and tries to curb the small crooked grin growing on his lips. Everything is still a huge mess, and they're probably not safe, and the house—but in this moment, he can't make himself care.

He feels Derek, his Derek, relaxing under his hands, and the whole world starting to right itself along with him.

Chapter Text

“I—I,” Derek says. He won’t look at Stiles directly. “I never thanked you,” he tells the air around Stiles’ shoulder. “For pulling me out of the fire. I, I’m—” he says, blinking hard, “I’m supposed to be the one protecting you. Or I was, before. And you should've been out of there at the first sign of smoke. And I should've been the one carrying you out. But that's not what happened. So. Thank you.” He’s too quiet, those last two words. He lets out a careful breath. “You’re always,” he says, when he’s regained some control of himself, “You’ve always been... more. Than I could ever—” He stops again, shakes his head. “I didn’t... Before I met you. Actually, really met you. I thought... You’re just some kid. Some lucky kid who everyone loses their minds over just because you know how to lie well. That’s what I thought of all of this. It’s just people getting paid to lie to everyone, you know? And look good. I just thought... That’s what I needed, then. I thought... I can look good, I can lie, that’s all I can do.” He exhales shakily, an almost-laugh, trying to laugh, failing. “So I. I tried to get representation. Go to open calls. It’s a lot harder than it looks.”

He tries for a smile again, can’t quite manage it.

“This job always made a lot more sense to me. Protecting people. Maybe ‘cause I couldn’t—” He shakes his head. “So when Scott fired me, I—That made sense to me. ‘Cause I knew you. Not like I know you now, but... I knew you. You were like Scott. And a little bit like—And seeing you,” Derek's voice goes rough, angry, “like that, seeing you hurt like that—” His hands form fists at his sides; he has to work to stay somewhat calm. “I wanted you safe.”

He looks at Stiles, at his unwavering stare. “I wanted you to have someone who would take a bullet for you. And I wanted—I wanted it to be me, because I didn't trust anyone else to be careful enough with you.”

That almost-laugh forces itself out again, the irony hitting him too hard.

Stiles just stares.

There's nothing funny about it.

Derek looks away again.

“You didn’t have to pull me out of that fire,” he says, forcing his voice casual. “It was your dad’s house. You were sick. That was my job. I should’ve pulled you out. If you fired me for that—” This time he manages a tiny upwards facial tic. “I wouldn’t question it. But you said it was because—You said you,” he stops, takes a deep breath, forces out: “love me.” It’s awkward on his tongue. “And you don’t want me getting hurt.”

He glares at the air around Stiles' shoulder like it has personally offended him. “Well why do you think I—I wouldn’t just walk into a bullet, Stiles, if there was a safer option I’d take it. I know you know that. I’m not suicidal. I just—You turned around and went deeper into a burning house for me. You risked your life for me. So why don't you get that I’d risk my life for you? That just standing on the sidelines, watching some smug asshole do my job, hoping he doesn’t make some stupid mistake that gets you—” He ducks his head, glares at his interlocked fists. When he looks up again, his eyes are glittering.

“I know I’ve never said—” He swallows hard. “Those three words. I’ve never actually said—You know I mean it. You know I do. You know I have. I can’t even remember not being—” He tries; the words stick to the roof of his mouth, the back of his throat. “Like that. Not feeling... like that. It’s stupid that I don’t just say it. But I haven’t said those—I haven’t said that since I was fifteen, and it wasn’t—I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know this, or you.”

He dares a glance at Stiles, again, still unresponsive, unseeing.

“But now I do. I’ve known for years. I’ve known you for years. And you—you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You know that. You have to know that. I need you to know that.” His voice dips low. “And I need you to know that I would do anything to protect you. I would do anything. And I’d be grateful to be able to do anything. If I did it to protect you.” His tone is urgent, painfully honest. “Because—” He takes a deep breath and looks right into the camera’s flashing eye. “Because I love you, Stiles. And I have your back. You know that.”

“And cut!” Daehler says, pausing the tape. He grins at Derek. “That’s a wrap.”

Derek nods, once, twice. Looks at the cardboard cut-out of Stiles again, the glinting metal of the gun in Daehler’s hand. Doesn’t even try the posturing of a glare.

He buries his face in his hands.

Thinks of Stiles’ arms tight around him. His lips warm against his neck, his ear. His long fingers wrapping his, tracing his wrist, his pulse.

Don’t try to find me, he begs Stiles—the real, warm, living, breathing Stiles—in his head. Stay safe.

Blood leaks steadily from the wound in his side. Clear shot, through and through. It won’t be what kills him.

He knows all the begging in the world won’t stop Stiles from running to his side, from turning LA over, combing through until he’s found. He knows if Stiles finds him, this can only end two ways: Daehler dead, or all of them dead.

Because if Daehler kills Stiles, if Daehler ever, ever tries—

Then Derek’s got nothing left to lose.

24 HOURS EARLIER

“Wolfsbane,” Derek says, confusing the hell out of Stiles, “is not actually poisonous to werewolves.”

Ooookay, Stiles thinks, this is about Derek's intense hatred for teen paranormal romances. Derek won't even hate-watch Twilight with Stiles to snark at the screen, like they do with sarcastic excellence with nearly everything they see together. (They are the Kings of Sarcasm. It's a fact. Scott and Allison can suck it if they need subtitles to hear the dialogue over Stiles and Derek's commentary. Sincere lovers of Jersey Shore have no place in the Stilinski-Hale home.) He won't watch anything with werewolves, actually, which—dude. Teen Wolf was a classic. But for all his avoidance of the stuff, he's incredibly intense about fact-checking Stiles on the subject now.

“Okay,” Stiles says, accepting this. It's been a weird morning.

“Because werewolves don't exist,” Derek continues emphatically. He's gone rigid in Stiles' arms.

“With you 100 percent, dude,” Stiles says, trying to soothe him. Tense Derek leads to tense Stiles. Tense Stiles leads to tenser Derek. It's a vicious cycle of protective tension. He wants to curb it before it gets out of hand.

“Wolfsbane isn't poisonous to werewolves,” Derek repeats. “It's just plain poisonous. To everyone.”

Stiles isn't even sure Derek can hear him anymore. Anyway, it seems like this random trivia train is going somewhere. He shuts up, listens.

“When I was fourteen,” Derek says, “my uncle Peter got aconite poisoning. He'd been camping out in the mountains somewhere, I don't even know. He got treated in time, it was fine, it didn't reach his heart or anything. But people started saying—you know how it is,” he breaks off.

Stiles does not. Stiles does not know how it is. Stiles doesn't even know what it is that he's expected to know the how of. 

He has a feeling that last sentence won't make much sense outside his head.

Besides, Derek doesn't seem to want or need an answer; he asked, he paused, he's off again.

“People started saying,” Derek says carefully, “that Peter was a werewolf.”

Oh.

Stiles would never have guessed that punchline in a million years.

“Oh,” he says faintly, which seems to be enough.

“Yeah,” Derek says. “It was bullshit, of course it was bullshit, but it picked up speed. Kids at school started making a list. Of proofs.”

“Lycanthropy bingo,” Stiles says, kinda-sorta following and nearly pumping a celebratory fist when Derek says, “Yeah.”

He restrains himself, though, because the last thing he wants to do is scare Derek out of his sharing mood. “So what happens when you call Bingo?” he asks instead.

“My house burns down.”

Wait, what.

“Wait, what?” 

“People decided we were werewolves. My whole family. Because—because we were tactile, that's a wolf thing or something—”

“Tactile,” Stiles repeats. “Like hugs?” Stiles fucking loves hugs. He’s hugging Derek right now. The Stilinskis hugged all the time. His mom was one of the best huggers in the world, and his dad—

Not now, he can’t think about that now. This is about Derek.

“Yeah. Just general... closeness. Nothing weird, or anything. We didn't hate each other, okay, that doesn't mean—”

“No, I know,” Stiles says. He does. Growing up, he was one of the few kids he knew who actually got along with his parents. People tried to make something of it, called him “mama's boy” or “daddy's little girl” like he had to hate them, or nobody would hang out with him.

He got ditched a lot.

Whatever. It was like a million years ago.

Besides, if he'd been popular, he'd probably have become, like, a banker or something. And he never would've met Derek. Or Scott.

Shit, that was a close call.

“And,” Derek says, avoiding Stiles' eyes, ears going pink, “hairiness. Was a thing on the list.”

(Okay, Stiles can maybe understand that. Derek isn’t wolfed-out Michael J Fox hairy, but he’s got no need for Hair For Men, either. Even if he did, for reasons Stiles thinks he might finally understand, wax his chest for the first two years of his and Stiles’ relationship, and god knows how long before that. He only stopped because Stiles told him he preferred the natural look over TV twink, actually. He might even… pet him, sometimes. Derek doesn’t seem to mind. No one’s treating anyone else like an animal. There is no plastic bowl labeled “DEREK” in horror-movie lettering. Come to think of it, this might also explain Derek’s extreme aversion to the whole people-as-pets kink, a concept introduced to the two of them by the oddly intense but ultimately harmless Patrick Adley at the Golden Globes after-afterparty last year. Derek has always been pretty conservative in his reactions, leading to People magazine making a collage and accompanying online slideshow entitled Best Bitchfaces: Bodyguard Edition, The Daily Mail mentioning him as “The Academy Award-winning actor's brooding bodyguard beau” on coverage of the London stop of the Hard Truths season four press tour, and AfterElton.com to team up with AfterEllen.com to create BitchFace Off, with Derek and Kristen Stewart taking the top two spots, and Derek ultimately winning the title, because aging Twihards are no match for Stiles' fans, who seem to vote whenever his or Derek's name is mentioned, regardless of whether or not the title is actually something Derek will actually allow anyone to call him without reminding them why he won. But a tipsy Patrick Adley lamenting how choke collars were becoming mainstream fashion accessories while human pets remained firmly in the closet, so to speak, got something close to an actual growl from him.

“You know, a lot of people thought I was gay back when I was just doing YouTube videos,” the multi-platinum popstar-turned actor explained, “So I know your struggle, you know?” He took another sip of his enormous fruity cocktail and went on. “But things have gotten so much better for gay people since then. Hell, we have a lesbian president. Thirteen year old me would be hiding in my Jesus cellar, you know? But pet play is still considered 'alternative' and 'weird'—”

At this point Derek's once-comfortable arm around Stiles's shoulders became a vise grip, and Patrick noticed. “See, it's not that crazy. You have elements of it without even thinking about it. Like you—” He pointed to Derek, who went still and strangely expressionless. “You're a guard dog. Like one of those that bark at vacuum cleaners.”  

So it made total sense that Derek took the arm that wasn't clamped around Stiles' shoulders, pulled it back, and punched Patrick Adley in the face.

But this, knowing this, makes Patrick's stupid comments about a million times worse. This confession is really clearing up a lot of why Derek Dereks.)

“And some people said my sister—” He intercepts himself, glares at his clenching and unclenching fists. “People said a lot of bullshit,” he says, and then, quickly, “Laura was normal. So what if she liked to party? So she liked guys. Big fucking deal. So she got drunk once and people wouldn’t shut up about it like no one's ever skinny-dipped before. It didn’t make her—” Derek spits— “a weregirl in heat.” He snorts. “Stupid fucking idiots.”

Stiles is not even touching that.

“And,” Derek says, finally meeting Stiles' eyes, “our backyard kind of cut into a forest.” It was awesome, Derek explains. The Hale kids would hang out there all the time. Laura was Derek’s favorite, but Uncle Peter knew the place like the back of his hand, and he told the best stories. Derek’s eyes go wide and wistful, remembering. His face and all the past tenses are making the situation clearer and clearer to Stiles; dread builds in his chest, and he stiffens, and Derek stops.

“It was a long time ago,” he says. “We don’t have to—“

“Derek,” Stiles says, careful. He made it this far, he doesn't want to ruin whatever this is, this new trust where Derek actually talks about his family. Even if it's terrible, it's still Derek. It's where he came from, it's who he is. Derek's known Stiles since Stiles was fourteen. Stiles wants to know Derek at fourteen. He wants baby pictures and fond anecdotes and he wants awkward introductions to the family. Even if, the way this story is going, he's probably shit out of luck on that last count. “I wanna hear. If you wanna tell me.”

“Fine,” Derek says, sounding almost grouchy, but Stiles can pretty much taste his relief. Derek leans back into Stiles’ touch; Stiles twitches just so, settles in to a comfortably squashed pose underneath him.

They thought they had all this proof, he explains. It was this big joke. There were a billion stupid pranks, someone put a leash in Derek’s locker, then dog food, then—

Derek's girlfriend, Kate, stuck by him at first, but she actually started to believe it. Desperate, tired of all of this bullshit, Derek told her that yeah, Peter was a werewolf, but the rest of the pack—Derek grimaces—was human. Kate seemed to accept this; life went on. People were still assholes at school, but Kate was different. Kate didn’t laugh at the jokes, laugh as some jerk pinned Derek down and made him—She didn’t. She loved him, he thought, and he loved her, and if he had to make up some BS every so often about human packs or how dangerous Peter was or wasn’t—It didn’t matter. It was almost fun, when it wasn’t a way to bully him, when it was just interest and he had to work to make the story make sense.

Turns out, turns out, his lies were convincing enough to have her set his house on fire. His fucking house, with his family still inside it, Mom and Dad and Aaron and Peter and Laura—

But not him. She never hurt him. Because he’d said he was human, and she believed him. Believed all the bullshit he made up about werewolves, about his family.

“I’ve never lied to you,” Derek says. “About anything. I’ve never—That fire, that’s her fire, but it’s my fault. That’s always gonna be my fault.“

“Derek,” Stiles says, wrecked. This is worse, this is so much worse than he ever could’ve guessed. “Don’t—She was a psychopath. You couldn’t have possibly—You were just a kid!”

Derek glares at Stiles. His eyes are narrowed, brows drawn together, but there’s a tremble to his lip that has Stiles curling around him protectively.

“I should’ve known,” Derek says, after a while, hoarse.

“How could you have?” Stiles demands. “It wasn’t like she was wearing an ‘I’m a psychopathic werewolf hunter’ sign, was it?”

“No, but—“

“It wasn’t like you could just sniff it out, was it? It wasn’t like you could… I don't know, could tell she was lying by using your special werewolf senses to listen to her heartbeat, was it?”

“Stiles—” Derek says, impossibly still. “Don’t—“

“Sorry.” Stiles kisses an apology into Derek’s tensed shoulder. “I’m sorry. I just mean, you couldn’t’ve known. You couldn’t’ve stopped her, she would’ve done it anyway. She was a murderer and an arsonist and delusional and that’s not on you.”

“I lied,” Derek insists. “I got so sick of denying it and I just gave in and lied and she burned my fucking house down. She burned my family alive. And now—“

“And now nothing,” Stiles says, because he isn’t convinced their ninja assassin is Derek’s demonic ex. “She didn’t—she left you alone then, didn’t she? She didn’t try to kill you too, right?”

“So she changed her mind,” Derek says. “So she saw me all over the place, happy with somebody who isn’t her, and she changed her mind.”

“And the bullet?”

“Deer slug,” Derek says. “The bullet you found was a slug. She wants to make sure I know exactly what this is about.”

“Well, how’d she find us? I’m pretty sure less than two hundred people know that Beacon Hills exists, much less—“

“I don’t know,” Derek says. “Maybe paparazzi followed us. And—” He’s very, very nervous, suddenly, tentative when he says, “And I used to live here too. In the—“

“House on the hill,” Stiles finishes, eyes wide. “With the forest behind it. Holy shit, you’re Sourwolf.”

Derek jerks away so hard Stiles nearly falls from his seat. He stops himself, stands up, catches Derek by the arm as he makes to leave.

“I’m not,” Derek snarls. “Don’t ever call me that. I’m not that. I can’t—” He shakes his head, shutters his eyes. “Not from you.”

“Hey,” Stiles says, brushing his fingers down Derek’s cheekbone, bringing his hand down to palm the back of Derek’s neck. “I’m sorry,” Stiles says. “I didn’t mean that.” He feels gutted. Derek's shoulders are iron-tense under his hands, and he's looking at Stiles like Stiles just punched him in the stomach. “I wouldn’t,” Stiles says, because he wouldn’t. Not on purpose. He should’ve realized, but it just slipped out. He’d been a little kid back then; it was before he’d even done commercials. But everyone knew Sourwolf, knew the whole werewolf family that lived on the house on the hill. It was like Beacon Hills’ own ghost story. No one actually took it seriously, Stiles thought. 

(Sure, there were the stupid kids who dared each other to go up to the house, to touch the house, to ring the bell. Double dare ya, what, are you scared? Sure, people said stupid things. Stiles’d even thought it was kind of cool for a while. Werewolves. A whole werewolf family, are you kidding me? That’s awesome! But Stiles’ dad was quick to correct him.

“That’s a good family,” he said. “Those are good kids. They don’t deserve this.” Stiles and his mom stayed up past Stiles’ bedtime that night making “Sorry I thought you were a mythical creature of the night” chocolate chip cookies, the kind Stiles liked, with M&Ms in them. He’d gone by after school to deliver them, seen—

Oh god, Derek.

He hadn’t looked like Derek does now, made of muscle and only an inch shorter than Stiles at 6”1, but Stiles thinks maybe he can see a resemblance in the beaten-down look on Derek’s face, the thin wiry frame trembling underneath the bulk. He pulls Derek close, swears he wouldn’t have said that, swears he’ll never say that again, do you hear me? But he still gets flickers of a boy on the ground, picking up mud-streaked books and boot-printed papers, eyes casting over his shoulder every few seconds, darting around suspiciously. Derek still startled at Stiles—Genim, back then—’s approach, anyway, before saying, cool as he could manage, brushing mud off his knees, “Come to shove my face in the dirt some more?”

“No,” said Genim. “I made you cookies. Well, my mom made them, but I helped. The chocolate chips are M&Ms.” He held them out carefully; Mom had put the cookies on a nice platter that she was probably going to want back.

“Why?” Derek asked, wary. “It’s a joke, right? Some kind of stupid 'dogs can't eat chocolate'—“

“It’s just cookies,” Genim said. He brightened, grinning. “I can test one out, if you want,” he offered benevolently. “Make sure there’s no trick, ya know?”

Derek smirked. “Na, that’s okay,” he said, hitching his backpack high on his shoulder and accepting the platter. “Who’s your mom?”

“Mrs. Stilinski,” Genim said, collecting some papers Derek missed. “She’s a teacher at BHH.”

“I think I had her last year,” Derek said. “Biology?”

Genim nodded.

“She was good,” Derek said, taking the pile of papers from Genim. “I got an A.”

Genim ended up testing out a cookie anyway. Several, in fact. He declared them extremely safe for consumption, and also delicious. Derek concurred.

“Your mom make cookies for everyone in Beacon Hills?” he asked, searching the fridge. “We’re out of milk, but there’s a couple Yoo-Hoos, if you want.”

“Just sometimes,” Genim said as Derek returned, chocolate drinks in hand. “She likes doing random fun stuff, just because. ‘Cause she’s alive, y’know? And healthy.”

“Hey Sourwolf!” someone shouted outside. “Full moon tonight! Better get your freak family locked up where they can’t hurt anyone!”

The air exploded with laughter.

Derek stiffened, glaring, his hands balling into fists. “You should go.”

“Sourwooooooolf!” The call came again. “Come out come out wherever you are! Or we’ll huff, and we’ll puff—”

“And we’ll blow your house down!” came a cacophony of voices.

Derek looked around nervously.

“Who are they?” Genim asked.

“Just some kids from school being idiots, that’s all,” Derek said, shrugging. "Haven't you heard? We're werewolves. Isn't that hilarious? You should probably tell everyone you know. Wouldn't want you to be the only one not laughing."

"Why would I laugh at that? It's not funny."

"It will be when you see what happens to the kids who don't laugh," Derek said darkly. 

Genim’s eyes narrowed. 

“You should go,” Derek said again. “If you get seen with me—“

“How’re they gonna see me?” Genim asked. “I’m inside.”

“They’ve spied on me before, okay,” Derek said, in no mood to explain. “And my girlfriend’s coming over, anyway. So you can’t be here.”

“Fine,” said Genim. “Whatever. I have stuff to do, anyway.”

“Good,” Derek said.

Genim went out the back, trekked through the forest and back home. It wasn’t an actual dangerous forest. Pretty much just a big overgrown garden. No self-respecting werewolf would ever call that a forest, he thought, a bit bitterly. He really hated getting ditched.

Stiles' dad nearly died pulling Peter Hale out of that fire. They couldn’t save the house, or the others, but when the fire chief told him about how the youngest kid came home to the still-smoking ruin, Dad offered to take him in. He was stuck in the hospital, though—smoke inhalation—and by the time he got out, Derek was gone.

Stiles can’t help but think about that. He never would’ve made a connection, he thinks, and he holds Derek close and leads him back to the table. 

Derek hasn’t been Sourwolf in forever. He should never have been Sourwolf at all.

Stiles isn’t Genim, either. He’s come a long way since doing commercials to help pay for Mom's chemo. He's got a house. He's got an Oscar. He's got Derek.

If Stiles ever has kids, he’ll teach them not to be giant assholes. His parents managed to get the message across just fine.

And if anyone ever tries to start shit with his kids, he will fucking murder the little bastards.

Okay, okay. That’s a lot of protectiveness for non-existent hypothetical children. But Derek’s bullies are the reason his family is dead. Stiles isn’t exactly calm, cool, and collected about it. Thinking about Derek feeling miserable and guilty, thinking about how it felt to lose his parents even one at a time, especially his dad, because he wasn’t even sick...

Stiles imagines losing them both, at sixteen, and feeling like it’s his fault, and has to work to keep breathing.

Derek has calmed somewhat, but Stiles still feels like shit for calling him that. He kisses his throat, his jaw, curls his palm around the back of Derek's neck and lets Derek come to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says after, and Derek says, somewhat unconvincingly, “‘S fine.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Stiles says. “You said you’d never lie to me, remember? Look—” He can see the apology leaving Derek’s throat, and he doesn’t want it. “No, don’t,” he says. “You didn’t have to tell me any of that—” Derek opens his mouth again. “Wait. Let me finish, okay? You didn’t have to, but I’m glad you did. And I swear, it just slipped out. I know that’s not you. I won’t say it again. Are we good?”

“Fine,” Derek repeats. Stiles gives him a look. “I’m not lying. We’re fine. I just—No one’s called me that in a long time. And you—But it’s fine. You didn’t mean it. I know you didn’t. We’re good.”

“Good,” Stiles says, relieved, and changes tracks. “I’m still not sure she’s our ninja assassin, though. Your ex.”

“You know anyone else who wants me dead?” Derek challenges.

“Not you, dude. This one might be my thing.” At Derek’s raised eyebrow, he elaborates: “Jessica.”

“It’s been ten years,” Derek says, frowning skeptically. “Is she even still—“

“Not she, actually,” Stiles says. Derek’s bemused frown deepens. “Funny story…"

“She doesn’t exist, is the starting point, I guess,” Stiles says, low and casual. Hey Derek, have I ever told you about that thing I definitely didn’t tell you because I never told anyone?  “Not by that name, anyway. Well, there are probably plenty of real Jessica Evans...es? Whatever. The point is, he wasn’t one of them.”

Like Derek, Stiles isn’t a fan of face-to-face deep secret sharing. Like Derek, he looks at everything else instead: Derek’s hair through his fingers, his own long fingers, his blunt chewed fingernails (Victoria will not be happy about those), the whorls of his fingerprint. He knows he’s trying to distract himself, and it’s just barely working.

“He used his little sister as a decoy,” he continues after a while, “and she was such a bitch to Lydia, I didn’t even consider that she was lying about being my biggest fan. Fuck, maybe she wasn't, I don’t know.” Stiles takes his hand from Derek’s hair. Derek makes a vaguely displeased noise; he puts it back. “I’m not making any sense, am I?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says, completely, startlingly alert. “Keep going.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, trying to keep the shock from his voice. It’s not like he thought Derek would actively sleep through his super-emotional confession, it’s just… they’re very cuddly, right now. All curled against each other like lions in a pride. He wonders if there are gay lions. Ha, gay pride. Aaaand Derek isn’t going anywhere. He’s staying, and he’s not falling asleep, and he’s listening. Derek just spilled his freakin' childhood trauma to Stiles. He deserves something back. And Stiles wants to tell him. Well, no. Stiles wants to have told him. And wants him to have not freaked out. Okay.

Okay.

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Okay, wait, I’ll start again.”

And then, for the first time in his life, he tells someone about how Jessica doesn’t exist. About the guy pretending to be Jessica Evans. Stiles’ biggest fan.

About what he said when he grabbed Stiles’ wrist, how he kept twisting it till Stiles was screaming, then clamped a hand over his mouth.

About the way he looked at Stiles as he threw him into the trunk, the way Lydia’s eyes were closed and Stiles was sure, he was sure that—

The way Stiles lay curled on his side in the trunk of a strange speeding car, cradling his arm to his chest, terrified out of his mind, the way he could feel the guy watching him in the rear-view mirror.

But nothing happened.

Nothing happened.

A sprained wrist, some scary-looking bruising, but nothing—nothing like that, okay? What you’re thinking must’ve happened. He was almost expecting it, already tense and terrified and thinking If he puts anything in my mouth I’ll bite down so hard he—But he didn’t. He just pushed Stiles around, shoved him in the trunk, drove less than forty miles to some random indoor parking lot, and threw Stiles out on his ass. And that was it. That was really, really it.

But Stiles knew that if he admitted that Jessica was a big, creepy guy, then everyone would assume that he’d been—and then if he came out, when he came out, they'd all think it was because—

And that's all he'd be, y'know? The face of this trauma that wasn't even his. And no one would believe him, they'd beg him to talk about it, spread awareness, and his publicist would probably eat it up and write him a freakin' script, and just like that, he'd only get one role for the rest of his life, the tragic little victim roles written specifically with him in mind. He'd collect the guaranteed Oscar based on nothing but sympathy and his career would be over and nobody would care that nothing happened.

He got scared to death, that was all, really. Lydia got knocked out with a gun, got a concussion and fucking memory loss. Stiles really was fine.

So he called the guy Jessica, the name he’d gone by online, and everyone laughed it off. Girls, they’re so fanatical! The things kids do for love!

Nobody looked at Stiles like he was damaged.

Which he isn’t, he clarifies for the fifth time.

But he isn’t so sure their ninja assassin is Derek’s crazy ex, you know? Sure, a house burned, but Stiles was shot at first. And maybe it was a shotgun, but he’s not jumping to that conclusion.

“Jessica” had a gun. Nearly killed Lydia.

He tells Derek everything, and Derek doesn’t fall asleep. In fact, the exhaustion just about disappears from Derek’s eyes.

He’s wide awake, and fucking furious.

“It's okay,” Stiles soothes him. Tries to, anyway. “Derek? It's okay.”

“What did he look like?” Derek asks.

“Derek, I don't even remember. I never got a good look, really. I was kind of distracted by his gun. And Lydia getting knocked out.”

Well that doesn't calm Derek down at all.

“What was he wearing? What kind of car was it? Which parking lot? I'm going back there. Maybe they'll have surveillance of him coming or going.”

“Derek, come on. Nothing happened. I'm fine. Look at me. I'm fine.”

But there's no stopping Derek. “Did Lydia see him? I'm calling her right now. Give me your phone.”

“Derek!” Stiles bursts out. “I said it was okay!”

“So okay he's trying to kill you,” Derek says flatly. “Give me your phone, Stiles.”

“Can you just—” Stiles kisses him. It's long, soft, distracting kiss. “We've got the whole place to ourselves, there's a bed with our names on it and a 24 hour breakfast bar, come on—”

“Someone's trying to kill you,” Derek says.

“Or you, we haven't completely ruled that out,” Stiles reminds him.

“I'm not just gonna sit around and wait for the next bullet or fire or fucking abduction,” Derek says. “I'm your bodyguard—”

“No you're not,” Stiles reminds him. “I fired you, remember?”

“Yeah, well, I don't see anyone lining up to replace me.”

Just then, Stiles' phone rings.

Victoria is livid. “Have you fired Derek yet? He's fired.”

“What?” Sometimes, Stiles seriously considers the possibility that his agent has planted a bug on him. Or is psychic. Something unnatural, definitely. Maybe she's controlling his actions through some kind of advanced extraterrestrial technology.

“You're on the front page of every newspaper I've seen today." She sounds almost proud. And the Academy Award goes to the actor with a target on his back, for the role of "Scared Shitless Man #2." "Don't worry, you looked strong, heroic. It really built up your brand. You're not a child anymore, and now the whole world believes it. Derek, on the other hand, looked weak and pathetic.”

“Hey!” That is not cool. Victoria knows Derek is a bad-ass bodyguard. Well, was, pre-firing. But still. "And why does Derek need branding?"

“He doesn't. You do. I've hired a new bodyguard. Duke Leon will be meeting you in fifteen minutes. He'll fly you back to my office in LA, where we will talk very candidly about why you pulled your bodyguard out of a burning building. Until then, stay inside, away from windows, and low to the ground. Are we clear?”

“Why I pulled my—Are you serious?” Stiles is more than a little annoyed—What is this, Bash Derek Day?—but she's already steamrolling over his sputtering.

“Do you have any idea how much I've had to beg and plead with the studio to delay shooting until this thing is resolved? Do you have any idea how much money rests on you surviving this?”

“Awwww. That's literally the sweetest thing I've ever heard,” Stiles says.

“There are over a dozen people representing half a dozen agencies who are all bleeding money right now because they won't settle for another actor. Because I won't let them settle. Two have taken out life insurance on you.”

“Holy—You're kidding me. Is that legal?”

“It's in your contract. There's big money depending on you, and the smaller studios can't afford to lose it.”

“It's called Key Person Insurance,” Derek says when Stiles hangs up and vents to him. To Stiles' quirked brow, he adds, “My father was an insurance agent.”

How has Derek managed to go thirteen years without even one casual mention of family like that? Stiles doesn't want to overreact in case Derek clams up again. 

“It's insane," he says instead. "Fuck, maybe they're trying to kill me! I'm probably worth more dead than I am alive.”

“Shut up,” Derek says. He's gone impossibly tense again. “That's not... Don't joke about that.”

“Sorry,” Stiles says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just want to be done with all of this and go back to staring down prop cadavers and saying stupid one-liners. I'm not cut out to play Hardison Dixon off camera, okay?”

“I think you're doing fine,” Derek says. "Better than fine."

"Supafine?" Stiles asks, smirking.

"Absolutely," Derek says. The corner of his mouth twitches, and Stiles leans in and kisses it. 

“Better now,” he says.

Duke Leon is tall and oily and smug and Derek hates him on sight. It doesn't help that he's all business but still manages to insult everything Derek's done up to this point. He's brought clothes from their home in LA, which feels like a huge invasion of privacy, but Stiles can't help but be grateful that he doesn't have to walk the streets of Beacon Hills in his boxers.

They fly back to LA; turns out Duke Leon is not only a bodyguard but the pilot of his very own private plane. It feels like he's showing off every time he opens his mouth, and Derek doesn't like his tone when he herds them into their seats. If their ninja assassin is following them anyway, they might as well be in their own house, Stiles figures, and Duke oozes charm as he makes a perfect landing hours later. Stiles doesn't seem to mind Duke at all. Derek thinks that might be the worst part.

The window pane is replaced when they get back; there are still gifts on the table, and flies on the chips and in the dips. Duke is quick to get two men working on installing the new security system while Stiles investigates the never-opened birthday cake in the fridge. Derek sings Stiles Happy Birthday, low and sweet with just a hint of humor, but cuts off abruptly and glowers when Duke just looks at him like he's the biggest idiot in the world. Even Stiles has to pick up on that. Maybe that's why he gives in so easy to Derek's insistence that none of the gifts be opened until Duke is gone. Or maybe it's because Stiles is getting tired quick of having a bossy stranger in the house. He's taking it better than Derek, but not by much.

Later, Erica shows up to hug them both, yell at them for making her find out through the papers like everyone else, and hand Stiles a stack of scripts.

“Oh my God, are you kidding me?” Stiles asks, looking at it. Jay’s been really excited about season six of Hard Truths, and Stiles was scheduled to meet him for dinner tomorrow night to talk about his character’s new direction, but that was before a bullet shattered Stiles’ window. “They do know someone’s trying to kill me, right? It was on the news.”

“Time is money, Hard Dick,” Erica says.

Long after fans, critics, and the haters have retired the nickname, Erica still uses it like a fond but severe Who do you think you are?  She’s not an ass about it, but she's definitely not afraid to call him on his shit, or tell him what Victoria won't. Stiles isn’t gonna forget the time Jackson Whittemore tried to convince her to help destroy his image anytime soon. Honestly, the only thing keeping Stiles from punching Jackson in the face is that Jackson would freakin’ love to play the victim and cast Stiles as the villain, and that it would mess with the image Victoria had created for her two most popular clients. So Jackson’s GQ interview included a forced smile and a casual mention of how he and Stiles were like family, like brothers, all the while slipping hints that Stiles was a drug addict, and explaining to Stiles at the Teen Choice Awards, shrugging, “I hate my brother.” That stumped Stiles, who hadn’t known he had one, so it took a couple of weeks for Stiles to get his own shot in to Vanity Fair, where he told Kali King how he and Jackson were like wolves in a pack, then made a very dated The Hangover reference, and then explaining that Jackson was a really sweet guy. Docile, you know? A born beta. That had Jackson snarling at him when they bumped into each other at the Oscars afterparty, but Stiles had Derek at his side, an Oscar in one hand, and a drink in the other, and even Jackson’s stupid face couldn’t spoil that.

“Yeah, I know,” Stiles says. “I guess I’ll just learn all my new lines while trying not to die, and also somehow have dinner with Jay and do Jimmy Kimmel and avoid paparazzi and help Derek deal with unemployment and how much he hates our new bodyguard and be freaking Batman while I’m at it.”

Erica shrugs. “I think you’d make a good Batman,” she says. “You've got four different offers to play a superhero just thanks to that picture of you pulling Derek from the fire.”

“Seriously?” Well, there's a silver lining. He'd wanted to do a good, gritty sci-fi piece for a while now, but former child actors, even ones with Oscars, are almost never at the top of the list for those beloved Justice League parts. “Did you bring what I asked for? Don’t make that face at me, I know it’s cheesy. Derek loves cheesy. He’ll never admit it out loud, but he does.”

“It’s not that cheesy,” Erica says. Stiles gives her a look. “Okay, yes, it is. But it’s kind of cute, in a sickening way.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going for,” Stiles deadpans. “So, did you?”

“Here,” she says. “I've even got pictures of Derek's fireman's carry from the tarmac.”

“Seriously? Who was even around to take that?”

“Paparazzi probably stalk you.” Erica shrugs. “You're hot stuff now that your life's in danger.”

“Please,” Stiles preens. “I was always hot stuff.”

They go to Katsuya for dinner, because Duke's constant presence is stifling both of them at this point, and Stiles really doesn't like the way he makes exactly the right comments to turn Derek to stone. He wants a bodyguard, not a heckler. Anyway, Derek's due for a confidence boost, so they ditch Duke and go get some belated birthday sushi. Derek is a pro with the paparazzi, as always; even the really aggressive guys fall back. Stiles knows that he's going to have to deal with the underlying issue of Derek feeling that unemployment = incompetency eventually, but he's stalling, because he really doesn't know the answer to that one.

The date is exactly what they both needed to feel human again, and by the time they leave, Stiles is tipsy, and the whole world is glowing slightly. The blinding flashbulbs are shooting stars and fireworks, pretty things to make wishes on, and Derek is so gorgeous in front of them, all lit up and smiling shyly, Stiles kisses him and doesn't care who's watching.

And then Stiles sees him.

He freezes up; Derek is immediately alert and on it, scanning the crowd for the person that pinged Stiles’ radar.

“Stiles!” “Jessica” yells. “How are you feeling after your near-death experience?”

“It’s him,” Stiles tells Derek’s neck and shoulder, burrowing into his t-shirt. “Jessica. Whatever his name is.” All at once, he's startlingly sober, and the flashbulbs are just flashbulbs, and a thousand people are shouting at him, trying to get a piece of him, a quote, a pose, and he's just done.

Derek studies the man’s face, locks it away in his memory, eyes blazing. He’d go after that fucker right now, but Stiles heads him off at the pass by saying, “Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know, man, it’s been a while. I’m just tired, okay? C’mon, let’s go home.”

He’s lying, Derek knows he’s lying. There’s a spooked look in his eyes that Derek can’t unsee. That makes Derek—very calmly and professionally, of course—want to rip that son of a bitch’s spine out. With his teeth.

But he can do that later. Right now, Stiles needs him as more than muscle, so he wraps his arms around Stiles and shields him from the blinding lights and crowd screaming his name.

They go home.

Neither of them can sleep with so much pent up anxious energy, and while Stiles tries his cocoa+blanket+Doctor Who routine, Derek paces, full of angry adrenaline and a need to do something.

He goes for a walk.

“I just need some air,” he says, when Stiles catches him by his arm halfway out the door. “I’ll be safe, don’t worry. The ex-bodyguard can still protect himself.”

Stiles sees the raw edge under the quip, and he doesn’t want to have this fight, not now. He lets Derek go, turns off the DVD player, and works on his proposal scrapbook. There’s a lot of stuff to go through. Thirteen years of candids, about six years of interviews, appearances where Derek was not just his bodyguard but his date. Fan stories; fans have the greatest stories. Of course, a good 40% are bullshit, but he can pick out the true ones, and so he sifts, grinning ridiculously, through fact and fiction, candid and manip. Here Derek's supposedly hooking up with Patrick Adley; there Derek punched him in the face for "making a pass at Stiles in front of him. He was leaning in close and being really aggressive about it," according to "a source close to the superstar couple." 

Time flies, and suddenly it's been three hours, and Derek isn't back yet. When Stiles follows up on a bad feeling, he finds that the gun is missing from Derek’s safe.

That's when the panic really sets in.

“Danny. Dan-O, my knight in shining knowledge of how to find people’s private personal information through wizardry and the interwebs," Stiles says in a rush as soon as he sees Danny Mahealani's face on his screen. "I need your help, man. I really, really—” Deep breaths, he needs to keep taking deep breaths. Derek is fine. Derek is probably just fine and not dead at all. Oh god.

Danny’s amused expression quickly turns concerned. “What’s going on?”

“Derek,” Stiles says, a little hysterically. “Derek is going on. Derek is going on a little visit to the guy who stuck a gun to the back of my neck and shoved me into his trunk. And his gun is missing from the safe.“

"Someone stuck a gun—?"

"My biggest fan," Stiles clarifies. "Like a million years ago? It doesn't matter, I need you to—"

“That was a guy?” Danny says. “Didn’t you say—“

“Yeah, like you haven’t given me like three talks about the fluidity of gender this month,” Stiles says. Danny looks skeptical. “Listen, Dan-the-man, I swear I will explain all just as soon as I know Derek isn’t dying or getting put away forever for murder. Okay? Please say yes before the paparazzi dude shoots Derek. Or Derek shoots the paparazzi guy. There’s a joke in there somewhere, with the two kinds of shootings. I would definitely have a witty one-liner if I wasn’t busy being freakin’ terrified. So. Please? Buddy? Pal? Former lover? Any of this pulling at your heartstrings?”

“I said I’m in, Stiles," Danny says, Xanax-level calm. He's always calm; that's one of the big reasons why it didn't work between them. His constant calm made Stiles feel positively insane. "Calm down. And stop bouncing your foot, you’re shaking the screen. Are you on something?”

“Only the natural high of piss-your-pants terror, my friend. Please tell me you have something.”

“Stiles,” Danny says patiently. “Breathe. You haven’t told me what I’m looking for yet.”

“Oh god,” Stiles says. “I’m wasting time, I’m—” He shoves Erica in front of the computer, backs away, hands in the air. “You tell him, I’m useless.”

“Hey, Danny,” Erica waves, flashing him a slow grin. Stiles rolls his eyes violently. “He’s gay. You’re in love with my coworker. Please get the fucking address before I spontaneously combust.”

“I know that,” Erica says defensively. “We’re friends. I was being friendly.”

“Erica.” Stiles sinks his hand into his hands. “You can be as friendly as you want when Derek’s life is not in danger. You can take him out for milkshakes, okay? You can buy as many milkshakes as you want. I will buy you a lifetime supply of milkshakes. Just find him. Please.”

He's thisclose to sinking to the floor and sobbing. Never mind that he is a twenty-seven year old man with a successful multi-million dollar career, a house, three cars, and an Oscar. He's ready to get picked up by his mom, now.

"Stiles," Erica says. "It'll be okay. Derek'll be okay."

"You don't know that," Stiles snaps. He lets out a long breath, slumps. "I'm sorry," he says. "I just... It's been a long few days."

"Aaand I've got it," Danny announces. Stiles was starting to think he might actually vibrate out of his skin. "Matt Daehler, amateur paparazzo. You sure this is your stalker? He's a guy. And kind of adorable."

He holds up a picture; Stiles has to repress a shiver.

"He is not adorable," Stiles growls. "Puppies are adorable. Baby seals are adorable. Derek's face when he smiles? Adorable. He's fucking insane," Stiles says, indicating the guy in Danny's photo. "And Derek's gone after him. Do you have an address or not?"

"As a lawyer I can't advise any course of action besides calling the police," Lydia says once she's filled in, "but as your friend, don't be stupid, the last thing you want is a bunch of LAPD getting this guy trigger happy. If he's as dangerous as you say he is—and we are talking about that day in great detail once this is all over, you lied to me for years, Stiles—Allison's father might hypothetically have some ammunition that his daughter might hypothetically misplace for a night. For self-defense only, obviously."

"Hypothetically," Stiles says.

"Go fuck him up," Lydia says. She clears her throat. "I never said that."

Allison offers one taser and a fuckload of hesitation. They could get super, super arrested, she warns. Their mug shots could be on the cover of People magazine by tomorrow morning.

Stiles really does not give a fuck. Jessica has Derek. Nothing else matters.

"I really don't give a fuck," he tells Allison candidly. It's honesty hour at the Stilinski-Hale house, and Stiles is the only one home. "If Derek isn't okay, if it's his name on the cover of People because I couldn't help him..."

"You really love him, don't you," Allison says. Stiles lets out an exasperated huff.

"Are you kidding me?" he says. "I'm fucking over the moon for him, how is this a question? Can you help me or not?"

"Of course," she says. He gets the taser and a handgun. "If you don't want someone dead, use the taser," she says. He also gets a hug. Her hair fans out across his shirt. Allison has amazing hair. It's totally okay for Stiles to notice that; she's like a sister to him, and he's like, hmm, maybe a... cousin? to her. There's no funny business, is the point. "Stiles?"

"Yeah?" he says, maybe leaning down to smell it slightly. Girl hair smells like fruit. Guy hair just smells like hair. Why is that? Stiles would totally sniff Derek's hair if it smelled like strawberries, that wouldn't be weird at all.

"Are you smelling my hair?" she says.

"Yes," says Stiles. "Yes I am."

"Just as long as you noticed, then," she says, unwrapping her arms from his ribcage. "Stay safe."

"No promises," says Stiles.

Derek wakes up with a killer headache and a gun pointed at his face.

“Oh fuck you.”

Not his finest comeback, but he's not exactly feeling his best. Also, probably more importantly, he's been shot.

Derek is really starting to agree with Stiles’ decision to fire him as his bodyguard.

Shit, Stiles.

"You're awake," Daehler says. He wasn't hard to find. Actually, now that Derek thinks about it, it was suspiciously easy to track him down to this piece-of-shit motel room. Where Daehler was waiting for him with a gun and whatever he used to knock Derek out before he dragged him inside and tied him to a chair.

Damn it.

"Took you long enough," Daehler says, positively strutting. He's an accent, a scar, or a Siamese cat from being a Bond villain, but he's got the swagger down. "I thought you might bleed out in your sleep."

"Yeah, well, no such luck," Derek says, subtly testing the ropes. Fuck that hurts.

"Actually, I was looking forward to this part," Daehler says.

"Of course you were," Derek says. "I should have known. Then again it's been a while since I got monologued at by a psychopath."

"Of course. Your oh-so-tragic roots," Daehler drawls. "You poor little Sourwolf."

Derek barely bites down on the urge to snarl at him.

Daehler smirks.

"We'll reminisce later, Hale. But first... you're going to do something for me."

Derek levels him his best unimpressed bitchface.

"Ever see one of these before?" Daehler unfolds a tripod, mounts a video camera on top of it.

"Oh God no." Derek says flatly. "You're going to steal my soul." Fuck, these ropes hurt. And his bullet wound really fucking hurts.

Other than that, he can do this all day.

"Good," Daehler says, ignoring Derek's sarcasm. "Then this should be easy."

"Any day now," Derek says. 

"Here's how it's gonna work," Daehler says pleasantly. "I'll keep you up there for as long as it takes. You're gonna look into this camera, and you're gonna think about your sweet little boyfriend, and you're gonna tell the world what an impotent little cocksucker he really is."

"Actually," Derek says, smirking, "that's never been a problem for us."

"Funny," Daehler says, sounding bored. "Here's what happens next: At some point, your adoring boyfriend is going to realize that, oh no, you're not where he put you. And he's going to get worried, and go for the gun. But he's not going to find it, is he," Daehler says. "No, he isn't. Because I've got that gun right here." He waves it mockingly."And you know what he's going to do then? He's gonna come for you anyway. Just like he came back and pulled you out of his father's burning house. He's going to completely disregard the fact that I have two guns and he has none, and he's gonna prance right in without a plan, hoping he'll come up with something in time. You like those odds, Derek?"

Shit. Shit, fuck, and goddamnit.

Derek can definitely see Stiles doing all of that.

And getting shot in the head.

"What do you want," he bites out.

NOW

“It didn't have to be this way,” Daehler says, filling up the tub. “All I wanted was to give Stiles a little scare...”

All he'd wanted, Daehler explains, was to traumatize the teen actor and watch him self destruct just a little bit quicker than his peers. And Daehler, a struggling paparazzo who couldn't pay his bills, would be there the entire time, documenting all of it, and selling everything he had to the highest bidder.

But Stiles didn't talk about it. Didn't turn to drugs. Didn't go into a tailspin. He got an obnoxious fucking bodyguard who kept Daehler out of his face for too long. For ten years, Daehler's career stagnated. For ten years, Daehler waited for Derek Hale to go back to work for Scott McCall. He wasn't supposed to be Stiles' bodyguard. They definitely weren't supposed to start dating. But Daehler figured they'd break up soon enough. When they didn't, an exasperated Daehler tried to run Stiles off the road.

But the brat would not go down. Would not say “Fuck it” and become a raging alcoholic for Daehler's cameras. Even after his father was found dead, Stiles fucking Stilinski insisted on keeping it together. He and that fucking bodyguard thought they were such hot shit, taunting Daehler with enough disgusting displays to make any sensible person turn murderous.

When Daehler read the Sterek4EVA message boards one day, he found a thread started by someone claiming to be Stiles's assistant. Stiles is planning a Valentines day gift for Derek, and YOU can help! By sharing your favorite Sterek pictures, videos, articles, and stories. But Valentine's Day came and went. The assistant kept looking. Daehler figured marriage, thought about that son of a bitch Derek Hale decimating his potential career.

He was furious. His life was ruined, his career nonexistent, ten years wasted trying to get some fucking child to lose his mind. It was the stupidest thing Daehler had ever done, but he'd devoted too much time to stalking the little bitch to give up now.

So he decided to kill Stiles for ruining his life.

The shot was stupid, sure. Just a warning, really. Just a test of Derek's reflexes.

The fire, though... that was interesting. Because Stiles saved Derek.

Derek didn't save Stiles. The actor saved the bodyguard.

And Daehler suddenly had a new game plan.

Kill Derek. Sad, slow. Tape his last words to the actor. Then sell the tape to the highest bidder, and be there to report on Stiles' nervous breakdown. The punk punished, the son-of-a-bitch bodyguard dead, money in the bank, and a scoop?

It's brilliant.

“The funny part is,” Daehler says, “I only noticed your boyfriend because my little sister was his biggest fan. And she doesn't even like him anymore. Ironic, right?”

“You gonna kill me, or are you just going to talk me to death?” Derek challenges, but he's lightheaded, dizzy from the blood loss, and too quickly, Daehler shoves Derek’s head under the water. It's too cold; gasping is a reflex, and Derek is shivering almost immediately. He fights the instinct, fights to get Daehler off him, but he's lost too much blood to think straight, much less fight. His body goes numb, and he stops struggling.

That’s when Stiles and Boyd kick down Daehler's door.

“Derek? Derek!”

Stiles pretty much gives up the element of surprise from minute one. He's got a horrible feeling he doesn't have a lot of time. “Derek!”

Daehler is out in seconds. Boyd hisses, “I've got this. Find him,” and grabs Daehler's wrist as Stiles runs past him, through the door Daehler just came from. By the grunts, thumps, and crashes behind him, Stiles guesses that Boyd is at least making Bobby proud. And Stiles is ready to join him just as soon as he knows Derek's all right. Six years of teamwork, coordination, fight training, and synchronized door slamming are definitely coming in handy tonight.

Plus, Stiles has a taser.

He finds Derek floating face-down in an overflowing bath. The water is tinted a bloody pink, and Derek isn't moving.

A sudden, terrifying crack rings out behind Stiles, and his heart stops.

“Boyd!”

“I'm fine!” Boyd calls back, a little winded but not completely out of breath. “Can't say the same for Daehler. Did you find him?”

Derek isn’t moving. Okay, okay. Stiles pulls Derek carefully from the water and puts him in what he hopes desperately he's remembering correctly as the rescue position. It's been a while since he took first aid, and he wasn't freaking out then. Right, right, check for a pulse.

Stiles's thumbs brush Derek's wrists and throat. There should be something there, a pulse, a sign of life.

There's nothing. 

“He's not breathing!” Stiles shouts. But by the sounds behind him, he guesses Daehler's fighting back again.

What next? Open the airway. Okay, Stiles can do that. He tips Derek's head back carefully, makes sure his tongue isn't in the way.

“I don’t care if this breaks your ribs,” Stiles lies when he starts compressions. The truth is it'll freak him the fuck out, of course, but you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. If Stiles can get Derek breathing again without breaking any part of him, that would be wonderful, but he's not gonna let his queasiness be the reason Derek dies. “C'mon, man. Wake up. Come on, Derek, god. Wake up! Breathe, damn it!” Stiles keeps going, keeps urging Derek to snap out of it, still doing breathing, compressions, breathing, compressions. He runs over his proposal speech in his head. It keeps him alert, keeps him focused, keeps him going. He checks Derek’s airway again. Nothing, nothing. It's been too long. He’s out of breath himself. He rocks back on his heels, takes long drags of air, and covers his eyes.

He gives himself ten seconds. Then he swipes at his eyes, catches his breath in his hands, and forces himself to breathe long and even. He leans over Derek again, starts again. “If you die I’ll kill you,” he swears. “If you die, I will fucking murder you, you asshole.” He stops talking, then, breathes two breaths into Derek's lungs, does compressions, checks again, watches Derek for any sign of independent movement.

Nothing.

And then Derek lets out a gasp, chokes, and spits a mouthful of bloody water all over Stiles' shoes.

Stiles lets out a long held breath, rocks back again, and nearly passes out. “Holy god, I've never been so terrified in my whole life.” He runs his hands over Derek’s chest, monitors its shallow rise and fall. “Oh my god, don't ever scare me like that again.”

His hands come back slick with watery blood.

“He shot you.” Stiles' horror quickly builds into panic. He pulls off his shirt to apply pressure to Derek’s wound. Now that Derek’s heart is pumping properly, the wound is starting to bleed thickly, staining through Derek's shirt. Stiles puts the cleanest towel he can find over it, hoping his shirt keeps anything on the towel from infecting Derek’s wound. Wouldn’t that be peachy, Derek breathing again, just to bleed out or need to get an arm amputated or something.

The t-shirt is rust-red, but the towel is holding up. God, he thinks, Where is Boyd? Derek needs a hospital, not an actor with cursory first-aid training and a slightly obsessive devotion to him. Too late, Stiles realizes Boyd’s being too quiet. His heart sinks low. Crap, crap, crap.

“Stiles,” Derek tries. He's too pale, veins stark blue against his skin. He's too cold, still damp and shivering. Stiles pulls another towel from the rack and drapes it over him. There are deep sunken shadows under Derek's eyes, and his blood is all over Stiles' hands, and he won't calm down.

“Shhh, don't try to talk.” Stiles shushes him, pressing a kiss to his hair. “Just keep breathing. I've got you. I've got you, just stay with me, man. Please.”

But Derek won't rest, eyes blown wide and desperate. “Stiles—!” He points at something over Stiles' shoulder. Stiles whips his head around.

“There you are,” Daehler drawls, following Boyd in, gun aimed clear at his temple.

“Y’know,” Stiles says, half-standing to shield Derek's body with his own, “I really don’t think this is what they mean when they say ‘money shot’.”

No one is impressed.

“Nope,” Stiles says. “Still clunky. We’ll get back to it.”

He’s terrified out of his mind, half because every time he sees that smirking face, he’s seventeen and Lydia’s on the ground, unmoving, and he’s in the trunk, cradling his arm, trying not to cry or piss himself. Half because Derek almost died on him, and he’s still bleeding steadily from his fucking bullet wound, and Stiles can’t apply pressure if he’s dead. Half because one of his best friends has a not at all prop gun pointed to his head with a psycho on the end of it, and he's got tears budding in his eyes, and the last time Stiles saw him look this scared, they were doing a scene so intense it stuck with them all day, and this isn't a scene. And that's too many halves, but Stiles is more than a hundred percent terrified.

But Derek is breathing again, so he focuses on that.

Focuses on Derek’s breathing, matches the slow, even breaths with his own.

Doesn’t panic.

Much.

And then he catches Boyd’s eye again, and his fingers twitch.

Hard Truths may be a serious crime procedural, but people apparently get a kick out of the Doublemint Twins act. Slamming the doors of their squad car at the same time, craning their necks to look at something, pulling their weapons. All perfectly timed to mirror each other. Over six years, he and Boyd have developed signals, too small for the camera to catch. This one is: tackle scene. On three.

Stiles signals back.

They count down silently.

Three.

Two.

One.

As one, Boyd and Stiles rush Daehler and knock him to the tile. The gun spins from his hands. Boyd grabs him in a bear hug, heaves him up, and throws him down.

Daehler lands face-first in the water. His head smacks the porcelain, and the pink-hued water goes pinker.  

But he’s not giving up yet.

He reaches behind him for something, anything. His left hand finds a bottle of spray cleaner from beside the nearby cabinet, snatches it, and sprays for his life, catching Stiles right in the eyes. Stiles staggers sideways, not wanting to accidentally injure Derek or Boyd. Eyes on fire, he reaches for his taser. There's no way he can use it in the state he's in, so he holds it out, hopes desperately that he's aiming in the right direction.

In one smooth move, Boyd takes it from him and fires. Daehler gives a great, full-body shudder, and goes still under the water.

“Where's his gun?” Stiles asks, groping blindly. "Is he down? Where's his gun?"

“Stiles,” Derek manages between short, uneven gasps. Stiles reaches out, finds his hair, and drops to his side to apply pressure to his wound again. He's still blind, eyes stinging, tears streaming down his face, but Derek was shot and almost drowned, so he sucks it up. While Boyd goes to finds a phone and calls the police and EMS, Stiles clings to Derek and adds another layer.

"I'm here," he says thickly. "I've got you. I've got you. Just stay with me." 

Derek nods slowly, chokes down a shaky gasp, another. Keeping the pressure steady, Stiles closes his burning eyes and breathes against the soft rise and fall of Derek's chest. 

And breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

Chapter Text

Turns out surviving near-death three times and nearly putting down the bad guy makes you kind of a big deal, and if you were already kind of a big deal, the whole world wants to know every detail in slow motion, preferably in the form of a motion picture. Maybe that's why every hack with a camera and nothing better to do is directing their own unauthorized documentary, mostly by filming lots and lots of B-roll of LA and Beacon Hills, and grainy footage of just about everywhere Stiles, Derek, and everyone even slightly associated with them has ever set foot in. Erica's already managed to find the porn version, fittingly called Hard Dicks 9: The Cum Shot Heard 'Round the World. She's been getting a kick out of sending Stiles copies of every movie she can find that even vaguely references his life, claiming they're at least as accurate as the tabloid stories Stiles has her collecting. Stiles has to admit she's got a point. His Wikipedia page is a jumble of rapidly edited half-truths and conspiracy theories, and Victoria practically has to beat back reporters with a stick. Best of all, Stiles grouches to Lydia, paparazzi have camped out in the hospital parking lot, which none of the doctors are happy about. Stiles really isn't interested in throwing anyone a snappy quote or a quick photo. If he never sees another guy with a camera again, it'll still be too fucking soon.

This is maybe not wonderful, considering Hard Truths season 6 starts shooting in two weeks. Table read in eleven days. The small part of Stiles that isn't completely terrified every time he remembers this is just relieved that Boyd and Shantal (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the cast) will be there to help him reacclimate. Stiles isn't stretching the truth at all when he says the cast and crew are like family. Even Jay is like a snarky uncle when he's not being totally unreasonable.

So far, Stiles has managed to avoid the media by turning off his phone, not checking his email, and confining his movements to Derek's hospital room and the vending machine down the hall. Like every other half-baked celebrity trying for incognito, he's got a baggy hoodie, a Mets cap, and even a pair of those douchey sunglasses that cover half your face. Erica has been the best assistant ever, unless, of course, you ask Lydia, who thinks Erica is enabling him and allowing him to become a shut-in like poor Robert Pattinson, who, rumor has it, now lives in a bomb shelter with only a guitar and a lifetime supply of pot and PBR for company. 

"You're a not just an actor, Stiles," she says, eying at the chest of drawers beside Derek's bed like it wore last year's Jimmy Choos to this year's Oscars. "You're a brand. Eating stale Cheetos and watching Days of Our Lives reruns for two days while this story spins out of control is not your brand." 

"Well it should be." Stiles shrugs. "Makes more sense than me being some kind of hero." 

He knows he can't hide from his nightmares much longer; Derek's getting discharged soon, and in between huddling close to him here and huddling close to him at home, Stiles will have to face the sea of stalkers. What makes Daehler different from the rest, really? Stiles isn't sure anything does. You start treating people like animals in a zoo, soon enough you get the urge to poke them with a stick. Sure, Daehler was crazy, but who says any of the photographers camped outside are any more sane? There's no test, no vetting system, no anything. And Derek's not going to learn anything from this, he won't stop running in front of bullets if he thinks it'll help someone, he'll never stop sacrificing himself, the suicidal idiot—

"Breathe," Lydia says bossily when Stiles starts to hyperventilate. "You'll be fine. Based on the law of averages, it's statistically unlikely that something like this will happen to you again."

Good, he thinks, watching Derek's chest rise and fall as he drifts in a Percocet fog. Let Patrick Adley deal with the next creep. Stiles has had just about as much as he can take.

Stiles fires Duke A. Leon as quickly as Victoria rehires him, and it's a tug of war until Stiles swears that the next time he sees that asshole's face, he will stab it with the nearest blunt object, which will definitely contradict the "Mr. All American Hero, Defender of Truth, Justice, and the American Way" brand that's Victoria's worked so hard to fabricate. Stiles still blames Duke for getting Derek's hackles up, making him think he had something to prove, making him reckless. The new bodyguard, Alan Deaton, is a friend of Scott's and somehow manages to do his job without shoving how great he is at his job down everyone's throat. If Duke is so great, Stiles rants ad nauseum, where the hell was he when Derek went for a walk with the gun?

“He was your bodyguard.” Derek leans heavily against his pillow. He looks terrible, drawn and pale and worn out, but he's awake. He's talking. He's keeping the oxygen in the air. “He was glad to see me go.”

Stiles swears for a solid minute. “He was a giant douche canoe, is what he was. He just fucking took off in the middle of the worst of it. I almost didn't—I almost—Thank god for Boyd and Danny, that's all I'm saying. And Allison and Erica. And Lydia. Fucking lifesavers. Literally.”

“Everyone's saying you're a hero,” Derek says. Stiles snorts.

“Everyone's saying a lot of things. Jay emailed me an article from the Beacon Hills Beacon. Some hack named Greenberg thinks this was all a PR stunt for Hard Truths.”

“I mean,” Derek says, frustrated. “You are a hero.”

“I'm not a hero, Derek,” Stiles says. Every time he closes his eyes, every time he opens them, all he can see is Derek, shivering, barely gasping, his blood cooling on Stiles' hands... or worse, the horrible deafening silence of Derek not breathing, not moving, not anything.

“You were two nights ago,” Derek says, and Stiles thinks, You almost died two nights ago. You almost died, you almost....

“Dude, I knocked over a vending machine trying to shake a Reese's cup loose two nights ago,” Stiles says, forcing the nightmare away. “Good thing I'm famous, and I can charm them with a check and some autographs and this killer smile.” Stiles demonstrates. It doesn't reach his eyes. “Hah! I just said the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The most idiotic thing I've ever said, considering,” Stiles says. “'Good thing I'm famous.'”

“Dude!” Scott says when Stiles finally reaches him. Time zones and long days of shooting have had Scott incommunicado, and Stiles has been dying to talk to him.

Uh.

Bad choice of words.

“Is it over? Are you okay? I swear to god, I'd be on a plane back in a second if I could. Tell me everything. Allison said you went after the guy?”

“I'm okay, man, we're good.” Stiles repositions himself in his chair when his legs start to fall asleep. “He's in a crap cell somewhere and Victoria's lawyer is going to fucking end him. That's all I know. I'm not about to pay him a visit.”

“I saw the papers. You're on the front page of, like, everything.” Scott says. “In fucking Venice.”

“I know, it's insane,” Stiles agrees. “Throw one crazy pap in jail, five hundred replace him like that.” He snaps demonstratively. “I don't know, man. It's like everyone's calling me a hero, but I basically spent three days crying and not getting shot.”

“Dude, have you ever seen Supernatural? It's all crying and not getting shot. You totally qualify. And you pulled Derek out of a burning house. That's superhero shit, dude.”

“Yeah, I'm awesome,” Stiles jokes. The smile comes just a little bit easier this time. “I am so bad-ass, you have no idea.”

“I have some idea,” Scott says reasonably. “And Derek's okay?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says with some relief. “Yeah, he scared the shit out of me, but he'll be fine. The bullet was through-and-through, so—”

“Whoa, wait,” Scott says. “Derek got shot? What happened?”

“Jessica tried to kill me.” Stiles thinks back to what Derek told him, Daehler's convoluted motive, and corrects himself. “Actually, he tried to turn me into Justin Bieber, and then he tried to kill me, and then he tried to kill Derek because Derek wouldn't let him kill me or turn me into a teenage trainwreck.”

“She, you mean.”

Stiles sighs. “It's a  long story, dude, but basically, Jessica's actually an psychotic paparazzo named Matt Daehler.”

“What, like in drag?”

The mental picture is so bizarre, Stiles has to laugh. “There's no Jessica, dude. Jessica was a decoy for an asshole with a gun.”

“But Lydia—”

“Got knocked out and took my word for it,” Stiles says. “And I lied.”

Stiles can practically hear Scott's brows coming together. “You Manti Te'o'd me!”

“I Manti Te'o'd everyone.” Stiles stops. “Are we sure Manti Te'o Manti Te'o'd anyone? Wonder what he's doing these days, by the way.”

“See?" Scott says, like Stiles is making his point for him. "We have no idea. That stuff dies down, no matter how big it gets. This will too.”

“Guess I'll just wait ten years for people to forget about me and only use me as a dated, possibly completely inaccurate metaphor,” Stiles says, almost feeling human again.

See, this is why Scott is awesome. 

“So,” Stiles says. The past couple of times he played this over in his head, he started with “You're a suicidal idiot” and graduated to “I love you anyway.”

But he doesn't do that now. Instead, he says all the things he hopes Derek already knows. How Derek is smart, and funny, and sexy as hell, and how Stiles loves him, why Stiles loves him. Why Stiles will always love him. Why Stiles understands Derek’s need to protect him. How he doesn’t want a stranger being the one with him every day, keeping him safe. He wants someone he trusts. Someone he loves.

“So hey, if you still want the job...” he says.

Derek doesn’t even hesitate.

“Of course,” he says.

He’s pouring relief. He’s practically glowing.

“With certain conditions, of course,” Stiles clarifies. “You’re keeping Deaton as backup.” The man's not actually a bodyguard per say, but kind of a security adviser. Stiles is hoping Derek will see it as a team effort rather than a demotion, stop him feeling insecure and start him feeling safe. Derek doesn’t immediately love the idea, especially after Duke's brief but frustrating time as bodyguard and dictator, but Stiles is quick to point out the benefits. “You’d actually get to sleep without worrying about me dying horribly because you weren’t awake,” Stiles starts.

“Fine,” Derek says, convinced.

“Plus, you’d finally—Wait, what?”

“Fine,” Derek repeats. “Yes. Just don’t talk like that. About dying, like you’re talking about the weather. Or with Scott. About who gets your stuff. It’s not—That’s not funny to me.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, startled. “Sorry. I had this whole list of reasons prepared, I didn’t think that would be enough.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Derek says. “Of course the thought of you dying is enough. And you’re right. I screwed up so many times over the past week… I got distracted. You distract me. And when I thought the bullet was some kind of warning, I couldn’t even think of the next step. I was just sixteen all over again. When I think about how many close calls—I’m still gonna do everything I can to protect you—”

“And me you,” Stiles says, because not to brag, but he did bring Derek back from the brink of death, so. When he isn't trapped in a nightmare about it, it has to be said.

Derek nods, kisses him raw.

“There’s something else,” Stiles says, checking his jacket pocket and clearing his throat nervously. “Um. Okay. I was going to do this whole elaborate setup with a, with this huge scrapbook full of pictures and articles and stories about us, but then I realized- We don’t need other people to define us, you know? We don’t need their pictures and their stories. They don’t get a say in us, in what we are or what you mean to me. It’s just speculation, it’s just rumors and assumptions and like forty percent of it is straight-up bullshit. I’ve got what I know, what I’ve seen and how I’ve felt for the past seven years. I’ve got more than enough of my own proofs. I don’t need anyone else’s. What I’m saying is,” Stiles says, “I’ve been in love with you for seven years, Derek. And I really don’t think that’s ever going to change. And every time I look at you, or think of you, or talk to you, or touch you, I know it won’t. There’s no hope for a cure,” Stiles says. “And I don’t want one. I guess what I’m saying is…” He pauses, pulls a small black box from his pocket.

“Hey, Derek,” Stiles says, getting down on one knee, “What do you say we make this official?”

And Derek is—is strangely stuck. Stiles is pretty sure that's the same face he was making before Stiles started his speech.

“Uh, Derek,” he says nervously, “It’s okay, you don’t have to—We don’t have to get married, man. If that’s not something you want.”

Derek's face does a magnificent impression of Michelangelo's David.

“This doesn’t change anything between us,” Stiles says hurriedly. “I wasn’t just bluffing, when I said all that stuff about other people defining us. I mean it. It’s just a piece of paper. I don’t need it. I know how you feel, this isn’t a freaking soap opera, I don’t need any of that.”

He gets up off, brushes off his knee.

And Derek comes alive again. “What’re you—No, don’t get up.”

Stiles grins, a little stiffly, shoves the little box back in his pocket. He’s not lying—he really doesn’t need it—but the rejection stings a little anyway. He shrugs it off, smirks up at Derek.

“Almost-engaged blow job, huh? Yeah, let’s do that.”

Derek freezes again, but comes back to himself quickly this time.

“No, no,” he says, and Stiles really starts to worry. Derek’s never turned down a blow job before.

“Okay,” he says, confused and slightly hurt. “Derek, what’s wrong?”

Derek laughs.

Ouch.

Stiles really, really wasn’t expecting that. In all the possible ways Stiles imagined this going down, he never thought of Derek laughing at him.

“Derek,” he says desperately, “What’s going on?”

Derek stops laughing, looks suddenly horrified. “No, I wasn’t—I wasn’t laughing at you!” he says. “I was just—Remember how I told you not to open your birthday gifts in front of Duke?”

Stiles lets out an agreeable noise, still not getting it, still vaguely heartbroken.

Still on one knee.

Derek walks over to the pile of gifts now.

Picks up a smallish box, neatly wrapped. Stiles had assumed it was cuff-links or something.

Except Derek half-kneels in front of Stiles, careful of his dressing, and says, “Open it.”

It’s a small black box.

“So I hear you've been having kind of a crazy week,” Jimmy Kimmel says as the deafening cheers finally die down and Stiles takes his seat. “In case you were living under a rock this past week,” Kimmel explains to the cameras, “what happened was a paparazzi, a member of the paparazzi—Which one is it? I'm still not sure. Well either way, this guy, Matt Daehler,” he says, holding up a mugshot, “actually shot into through Stiles' window.” The audience Awwws in unison, mixed with a couple of boos for Daehler.

“Exactly, boooo,” Stiles agrees, looking away from Daehler's ugly mug and shaking off the chill that still comes every time Stiles thinks about him, thinks about how Derek almost—No, no no no, not here. Not now. He forces himself to focus on the fans in the audience, ignore the sudden pounding of blood in his ears. “Thank you guys. I love you guys.” The room erupts into cheers again. It takes a while for the shrieking to die down.

“You know what I think happened?” Kimmel asks. “I think he must have misunderstood his job. That's the wrong kind of shooting. Easy mistake to make, I know, but... Right? That's my theory.” Ripples of halfhearted laughter spill through the audience.

“I've been working on that setup since I found out who he was,” Stiles admits. “You got it, though. It's been exhausted now.”

“Well, I try,” Kimmel says humbly. “You actually went to Daehler's apartment to confront him, is that right?”

“Well he shot at me, burned down my father's house, and abducted my boyfriend,” Stiles reminds him. “I kind of figured I'd come to him for once. And I couldn't have done it without Boyd backing me up. He's great. He's one of my best friends. I love him.”

The cheers for that are ridiculous, but Stiles walked right into that one. He can see the Stixon fanfic writing itself. Probably Bilinski RPS, too, which Stiles is kind of simultaneously horrified and fascinated by. His fans can be really, really imaginative. And kinky. And detailed. Skip the bromance and go straight to romance, because apparently saying nice things about your friends is actually secret code for how much you want to fuck them bareback.

It's funny though. It's fun.

(Derek might not think so just yet, which is why Stiles isn't showing him the wealth of Sterek fic he's found anytime soon. It doesn't come close to the real thing, anyway.)

“So it was like a real-life episode of Hard Truths for a second there.”

“A little bit, yeah.”

“I've got a picture here, what I think is a pretty famous picture by now.” Jimmy holds it up. “Can you see that? It's a picture of you actually pulling Derek, pulling your bodyguard-turned-boyfriend, from a burning building. Smoke everywhere, fire spreading, you're half naked—” Whistles sound from the audience; Stiles facepalms, hard. “I think what we all wanna know is, what was going through your head at that moment?”

“Honestly, it was more panic than anything else. Just trying not to pee my pants, basically.”

“Maybe you could've used that to put out the fire.”

“You think? Maybe. I should have thought of that.”

“You'd be all anyone ever talked about. 'Oh, Jackson Whittemore won an Emmy? Stiles Stilinski put out a fire with his super-pee.'”

“Missed opportunity,” Stiles jokes. “Next time.”

“But in all seriousness, that's pretty impressive.” The cheers start up again. Stiles' ears are ringing at this point. “Would you do that for just anyone, do you think, or does he—Is that a ring I see?”

Stiles grins, finds Derek in the audience. “It is, yeah.” The fans are absolutely deafening, and Derek's ears go as pink as they'll ever be, but he's smiling like an idiot, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

“And is this from Derek, or did somebody else rush in and sweep you off your feet?”

“Someone else, totally.” Stiles laughs. “Actually, it was a fan outside. No, no, it's from Derek.”

“I think he’s here in the audience tonight, isn’t he?” Kimmel says.

“Of course,” Stiles says, and then, because being a famous, twenty-seven year old, Oscar-award winning actor doesn’t mean he isn’t still a hyper, childish kid at heart, he looks Derek right in the eyes, says, “Hi, honey,” and blows him a kiss. The fans lose their freakin' minds. Derek ducks his head, embarrassed, but his grin is still wide enough to park a limousine in.

“Well congratulations,” Kimmel says when the audience finally settles down. “Now, I hear you have a clip for us from your new movie, My Girl Stacy. What are we about to see?”

“Okay, yeah,” Stiles says, sobering slightly. “I play Ben, who finds out his girlfriend, played by my crazy-talented friend Allison Argent—“

“That's the same Allison who helped you find Derek,” Jimmy clarifies.

“Yeah,” Stiles confirms. “She’s awesome, I owe her big time. So in this scene I find my girlfriend Stacy on a date with my best friend Jared, played by the hilarious Isaac Lahey.”

“Sounds interesting. Let’s take a look,” says Jimmy, and the clip rolls.

The Kimmel clip gets over a million hits on YouTube by the next morning, and Stiles’ name trends on twitter, along with Derek’s, and a number of congratulatory hashtags. Scanning through the well-wishes and Stixon/Bilinski fans hyperventilating about the “mixed messages,” Stiles spots some really horrible things being said about Derek. Luckily, Derek doesn’t handle social media anymore. Danny is officially his internet security man, so Derek never has to see that shit again.

Stiles still fires off some angry anonymous responses, though. No one gets to talk about his husband-to-be like that.

Even when Deaton's not all silent and bodyguardly, he's actually helpful. He's the one who suggests therapy, in a calm, totally non-judgmental tone Duke could never have pulled off. Maya Morell has a Ph.D and the same even, reasonable logic as Deaton, and she gets Stiles and Derek to spill their guts in truly uncharacteristic displays. Maybe a little bit too much, but like any good love story, it all works out in the end.

The tape sits in evidence for a few weeks before Stiles gets to watch it. He doesn’t know what he’s looking at, at first, and then he can’t stop replaying it.

Derek finds him panicking in front of the TV in the rec room and recognizes it immediately. “Stiles,” he says, rushing to stand close to his fiance, but letting Stiles be the one to pull him in, “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

"I'm not okay," Stiles says, swaying slightly against Derek's jacket. He can still make out the slight bulge of the bandage underneath. "I'm not. I'm not okay with how that night went down. I can blame Duke for winding you up, but you still got the gun and went looking for trouble. I can't pretend—"

“I thought I could take care of it." Derek explains. "And you wouldn’t have to know—"

“Take care of it?” Stiles repeats incredulously. “What, have you upgraded to hit-man now? ‘Oh, no biggie, just taking a nice peaceful walk with my gun! Hopefully I won’t die on this kamikaze mission, or get arrested for murder, wouldn’t that be awesome? Won’t that be a great thing for my boyfriend to wake up to? My twenty-year prison sentence, my body—'” Stiles breaks off, glaring, eyes bright.

Derek nods, swallows hard. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. I was just—What he did to you—“

“He didn’t do anything to me,” Stiles snaps. “I told you that like a million times. I’m fine.”

“That's not what I meant,” Derek says, frustrated. “You’ve been having nightmares for ten years about this creep. He scared you to death. He still made you feel powerless. When I think about him doing that to you—” Derek’s already intense stare turns almost feral. “I couldn’t just let him get away with that. I couldn’t just let him be another guy with a camera shouting at you in the street, trying to get a reaction. I thought I could handle it. I was wrong.”

Stiles sniffs. “Maybe I should be your bodyguard,” he jokes humorlessly. “If you ever try something this stupid again, Derek, I swear—You almost died.” 

"I won't," Derek swears. "I won't. I just... I wanted to do my job. I just wanted to be able to tell you it was over."

"So tell me," Stiles says. 

"I can't," Derek says. "I didn't stop him. I spent ten years imagining what I'd do, if I just found whoever did that to you. How I'd make them sorry. Keep you safe. And then I just made it worse." He scoffs a little bitterly. "Who would've guessed."

"No," Stiles says. He didn't mean it like that, he'd never. Never want Derek thinking he's a failure, just because of one mistake. "Derek, hey, that's not... You kept me safe for ten years. Kept me sane. You don't think that counts for anything?"

Stiles reaches out, brushes Derek's knuckles, circles his wrist and steps just a little bit closer.

"In case you haven't noticed,” he says quietly, “and maybe you haven't, I don't know, but you're my life vest. Not just close protection, but... All those guys, all those guys who shadowed me before you, I couldn't trust them. You know? Not really. I couldn't talk to them, or, or connect, they were just... authorized stalkers, basically. Hovery strangers, just... watching me all the time."

"They didn't," Derek asks, eyes already intense.

It's stupid, pushing back at that protectiveness. After everything that happened to them... To Derek, even. After Kate alone, his family, who wouldn't be?

"Not like... Not in any," Stiles tries. "You know, that's how it is, usually. Not a friend, not family, just... this guy. And it's his job to follow me, and keep away the creeps. Not... I don't know. Actually be there. When I'm feeling like I'm gonna crawl out of my skin, or like I'm permanently fucked. There's, you know, there's a difference. Being technically safe, and feeling it. And not feeling alone."

"Yeah," Derek says, soft. Looking at Stiles, like... Right back at you.

"You know," Stiles rushes on. "I was already on edge, without feeling shadowed all the time. If Scott didn't think to switch bodyguards, if you wouldn't've agreed, and been there for me... I was on the fast track to a breakdown, man, it would've happened. His whole plan, all of it, I would've spun out. You're the reason I didn't."

"That's not true," Derek says. "You're the one who got through it. Other people wouldn't've either way."

"Yeah, maybe," Stiles says, "but I counted on you. I knew you always had my back. Through everything."

Derek hums slightly, ears pinking, and tips close to press his forehead to Stiles', who lifts his chin and kisses him.

The room still goes airless when Derek pulls away from a kiss looking like this, like he's scared and relieved and desperate and amazed all at once, like he's a million questions and Stiles is the one perfect answer. 

Derek is turning Stiles into a total cheeseball, but it's Derek, so he can't force himself to mind.

“I meant it, you know,” Stiles says, breaking from Derek long enough to loop an arm around his shoulders and guide him out of the rec room and down the hall, “I mean it now. What I said in the car, after the fire.”

Just thinking about Derek closing up like that makes Stiles' chest hurt.

"You know that, right?" He leans against him just a little, takes Derek's weight as he sways closer. "You know I've got your back." 

"I know," Derek says.

Like he's learning.

The tape goes deep in a closet, buried under a mess of Erica's Hard Truths porn adaptations. Stiles can’t bring himself to throw it out.

It’s not all happy songs over rolling credits. There are nightmares, and misunderstandings, and issues with the new security system. Allison and Scott break up just before the wedding and insist on being seated at separate tables, even though that fucks with Stiles’ hugely elaborate seating plan. Daehler’s lawyer tries to paint Derek as a dangerous vigilante/home invader who Daehler had every right to shoot under California law. But they help each other through the aftershocks, and the misunderstandings always clear up eventually, and they work out the kinks to the bodyguard plan until Derek is comfortable with all of it and Stiles is almost certainly safe. Like the drama queens that they are, Allison and Scott get back together the day before the wedding, so the seating plan reverts back to Draft 36, where they sit together with tears in their eyes all the way through it. Boyd and Erica are soon Hollywood’s newest it couple, and Isaac and Scott get super-close super-fast after meeting at the bachelor party. Stiles' lawyers absolutely demolish Daehler’s case against Derek. The story burns fast and furious, and then Patrick Adley's driver accidentally hits and kills a paparazzo with his Bentley, and that's all anyone is talking about until Selena Gomez has a nip slip at the Grammys. And so things go back to normal, or B-list celebrity normal, anyway. 

Eventually, Stiles and Derek go back to Beacon Hills to sort through the remains of Stiles’ dad’s house. Stiles visits his parent’s graves, and Derek is similarly teary around nearly half-a-dozen Hale graves; he kneels by Laura Hale, Beloved Daughter, Sister, and Friend, and doesn’t speak for a very long while. Stiles just stays with him, stands by him, kisses him on his shoulder, up his neck, the corner of his jaw in the plane back, knitting his fingers through his husband’s, wedding bands clinking in union. They shake off the angst at home, where Derek and Stiles weigh prospective scripts by reading each other lines in hilarious voices, dissecting the fluff pieces as if they're Great American Novels, cracking each other up. They fuck in the shower, and Derek cooks dinner because he’s versatile, damn it. It’s good.

It’s very, very good.

My Girl Stacy tops at the box office, and the whole lot of them gather in the theater to watch it together. Lydia calls it cute, praises the acting, but says it contributes to a misogynistic society by villainizing Stacy for something a male character would be cheered for. Isaac agrees, actually, now that she’s pointed it out. He’s charming, honest, smart and just strange enough to have her look twice. It’s maybe, possibly, tentatively, the beginning of something. They're happy and Jackson isn't, so Stiles is thrilled.

Boyd has his own demons from that night; he goes still at prop-gunpoint, staring down the barrel like he doesn't dare blink. They break for lunch with Jay subtly sighing into his hands, Boyd and Stiles skipping Craft services and heading to Stiles' trailer to not talk, just—get out of their heads. They're two crime procedural actors scared of guns and cameras, and maybe it's the absurdity of that that gets them through it, or maybe it's the way Boyd gets it, bone deep, doesn't look at Stiles like he's crazy for the way his breath sticks in his throat the first twenty takes, the way he can't remember a single line even with someone feeding them to him. They don't talk, and then they talk about nothing, and then Boyd says, "How's Derek?" and Stiles says, "Good, he's—really good."

"Great," Boyd says, and Stiles says, "All those hero headlines, it's crap. You did all the heavy lifting. People should know that."

"No offense," Boyd says wryly, "but I think I'll stay out of the spotlight for a while, thanks."

"I get that," Stiles says. "I just mean—Thank you. It was so, so completely insane of me to pull you into my shit when it had literally nothing to do with you."

"Don't beat yourself up," Boyd says. "I could've said no."

"And I could've just called the police like a normal person," Stiles says. "Or never pointed Daehler out to Derek at all. I gave him exactly what he—" He shakes his head, rubs his eyes. "Anyway, thanks."

"Don't mention it," Boyd says. 

Back on set they start to get their rhythm back, and soon Stiles is firing off one liners like all he's ever been is a hardened, inappropriately witty cop, staring down at a gruesomely defaced body, waiting for just the right line to make his world-weary partner Stanley Luther sigh and wonder, once again, how the hell he got stuck with this pain in the ass.

The season six premiere of Hard Truths has the highest ratings yet, so maybe Greenberg was on to something.

Stiles waits for it, watches for it, but the shoe doesn’t drop, dynamic equilibrium doesn’t kick in, and then Deaton finds Kate. Turns out, if you can believe it, she had a crisis of conscience about ten years ago and turned herself in. She got life for arson and five counts of murder; Derek can visit her in jail, if he wants. He says he doesn’t, at first, but then he starts having nightmares, often, and when Stiles wakes to Derek wrapped all around him, shuddering so hard he shakes himself awake, he wraps them both in a blanket and gets the cocoa and the Doctor Who DVDs, and once Derek's breathing evenly and the the Ponds are off to have a million amazing adventures, (Stiles refuses to accept that season seven exists; he will sometimes admit to season six, but that's where he draws the line) he convinces Derek that he needs to see her, to know she's powerless now.

Derek changes his mind about fifteen times in the car ride over, but he steels himself as they walk through security. Deaton's behind them, calm as ever, and that helps, even if Derek won't admit it.

She’s not the girl he remembers; in the orange jumpsuit, hair tinged with gray, face thin and sallow, she looks starved and tired and pathetic. She doesn’t recognize him at first; Derek jogs her memory, and she half-smiles in approval, makes some kind of creepy comment about him “filling out in all the right places.” Stiles keeps Derek’s hand tight in his, gives a reassuring squeeze at this. “Don’t be so timid, Sourwolf,” she says, and Derek growls, “Shut up, you psychotic bitch. You killed my entire family. You think I give a shit what you think?”

“You’re here,” she says, smirking slightly. “You really came all this way to shove your new boyfriend in my face? What is this, the prom?”

“Husband, actually,” Stiles corrects, moving his fingers so the silver bands are cool promises against Derek’s sweaty palm. “And this isn’t about you at all, actually. This is about facts.

“You’re gonna die in here, Kate. Alone. That’s what you have to look forward to. But Derek? You tried to ruin his life, and you got pretty damn close. But he’s got family now, and friends, and it's just starting to get good. And you’ve got this. So I guess what I’m saying is, whose life did you destroy that night? ‘Cause if you ask me? I think it was yours.

“C’mon,” he tells Derek, squeezing his hand again. “Let’s go home.”

“Nice speech. Give the man an Oscar,” Kate laughs from behind the glass, but they’re already gone, leaving the phone still swinging from its metal cord.

Deaton just ahead, they swim through the blinding pops of flashbulbs, the deafening shouts of paparazzi angling for a quote, and find the Camaro. Scott’s up front, admiring the leather seats.

“You know, man, you could just buy one yourself,” Stiles tells him. “I’m sure it wouldn’t wipe you out.”

“Yeah, I know,” Scott says. “It’s just not practical. What with the baby and all.”

“Since when have you ever been prac—Wait, what?!” Stiles shouts. “You’re having a baby?”

“I’m having a baby!” Scott shouts back, stars in his eyes. “We’re having a baby! Allison and me!”

“Victoria’s gonna lose her mind,” Stiles says, just imagining it.

“Yeah, she is,” Scott says, grinning.

“Stop this car right now and give me a hug, dude,” Stiles commands. Scott laughs. “And if Derek and I are not godfathers, I will assume you are not Scott, but an alien hive mind.”

“Dude, of course you are. Both of you. I practically matched you up, you owe me. I’ll accept payments in babysitting and diaper changing—“

“And spoiling your kid rotten,” Stiles adds. “Whether you like it or not. Oh my god, how long have you known? Is Allison showing yet? Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl? Because the spoiling starts today, people. Oh my god, you’re gonna be a dad. Derek, Scott’s gonna be a dad.” The grin on Stiles’ face shrinks as he says, “Are you okay? You’ve been quiet this whole ride home.”

“I’m fine,” Derek says. “Really,” he adds, at Stiles’ skeptical look. “I was just thinking about what you said. To Kate, you know.”

“Should I have just shut up?” Stiles says worriedly. “Oh my god, I totally steamrolled your closure, didn’t I. God, I’m sorry—“

“No,” Derek says. “No, it was good. You were right.” He smiles, small but true. “I just—I never would’ve thought of it like that. I just kept seeing her stupid smirking face and hearing her laugh and—But you’re right. She’s got nothing. And I’ve got you. And I’m gonna be a godfather. And—” his eyes are bright, but they’re happy tears, for once. “It’s just—I never would’ve thought—Sixteen year old me never would’ve thought—” He breaks off, pulls Stiles in and kisses him, long and deep.

“You’re right, Scott,” Stiles agrees, later. “This car is definitely not practical. It’s got no backseat.”

Scott groans. “I feel like I’ve said this before,” he says, “but the sharing. Don’t. Unless, of course,” he adds, when Stiles opens his mouth to protest, “you want every beautiful detail of how my little girl was conceived.”

“God no,” Stiles says, scandalized. “Wait, did you say little girl? You’re having a little girl? This is fucking beautiful, man, I’m gonna start crying in a minute, I’m not even joking. Someone get me and my credit cards to a baby store. Does anyone even know any baby stores? Do you have a registry or something? This is the best day ever outside of my wedding, man, I swear. Do you…”

Stiles motors on, grinning like a crazy person, as Scott mouths to Derek, Is he on something?

“Just the natural high of genuine happiness, man,” Stiles says, because Stiles sees all. “Get used to it.” He turns back to Derek, kisses a line across his jaw. “You too,” he says. “Now more than ever.”

Derek looks at Stiles almost reverently. “‘M working on it,” he says, and hooks him in again. Scott rolls his eyes and drives, trying not to get scarred for life by catching the rear-view mirror.

“Mind speeding this ride up, driver?” Derek snarks, rubbing his sore back. “There’s something at home that really can’t wait.”

“M-hm,” Stiles agrees, massaging his elbow. “And I am buying a car with an actual backseat. Immediately.”

“Not immediately,” Derek says. Stiles smirks. “Okay, no. Not immediately. Maybe a couple hours after immediately. A nice hot shower sounds good, don’t you think, Derek?”

“You're evil.” Scott groans, shoving a CD in the player and turning up the volume.

Almost before the bullet punches through the double-plated glass living room window, shattering it spectacularly—

Stiles snaps awake, gasping, and opens his eyes. Derek's up like a shadow, laying a palm on Stiles' quick-shuddering chest, keeping the other wrapped around his back. "Jessica?”

Stiles groans and tugs the blanket back up around them both. “Fucking Jessica.”

“He got 25 years,” Derek says. He's getting better at reassurances. 

“Yeah, tell that to the unholy thing that runs my brain,” Stiles says, curling into Derek. “Maybe you'll get it to stop coming up with horror scenarios where you never start breathing again.”

“I'm breathing,” Derek says. He takes Stiles hand, guides it over his stubbly neck. “Thanks to you.”

Derek's pulse is warm under Stiles' fingers. Under Stiles' ear, Derek's heartbeat thumps, steady and clear.

They breathe, and breathe, and breathe.

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Okay.”

They go back to sleep.