Archive of Our Own ^beta

After everything Scott and the others had done, after everything he’d endured, he didn’t know why he was here. What he should have done was put gas in the Camaro and gotten the hell out of Beacon Hills. Instead, he’s standing on the sidewalk in front of the Stilinski’s house trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with him.

Stiles had to have known. He had to have helped the ungrateful little teen wolf in his plan because Scott couldn’t find his own ass with a map and they all knew how damn smart Stiles was. How loyal. So, why the hell was he standing outside the Sherriff’s house in the dark?

He blamed Peter.

‘You didn’t get those from crashing the jeep,’ the older ‘were had remarked, shoving Stiles behind him and away from Jackson.

Stiles grunted in pain, bit his lip, and stared the wolf down until Peter shrugged and turned back to the fight.

‘And why do you smell like the betas?’

Stiles didn’t have the time to answer, as they’d all dove for cover from Jackson starting to evolve, and Derek hadn’t thought on the strange conversation again, not until hours later after the paralysis had worn off and everyone had cleared out. Erica and Boyd hadn’t made it back, and the flimsy feeling of Pack he’d just started to feel in his chest had faded.

All but one.

Stiles.

Why the hell would he have any connection to a kid who’d betrayed him? He snarled to his wolf. His wolf had rolled his eyes at the question. Derek had the distinct impression that the spirit knew more than the human body and that it thought he was an idiot.

Which is why he was standing in the shadow of the pine tree outside the Stilinski’s house listening to the Sheriff yell at Stiles.

“Enough with the lying! Ever since school started you’ve done nothing but lie to me and I’m over it. Do you hear me, Stiles?!”

“I’m not lying,” the teen’s voice was oddly subdued, cold in a way that made Derek shiver.

“Bullshit,” Stilinski said harshly. “The other team beat you up? Why, because you made the winning shot, that’s a bullshit excuse.”

Derek could almost picture the defiance on Stiles’ face. “The other team did beat me up.”

Derek frowned at the emphasis on the phrasing. His heart didn’t blip, but he wasn’t being strictly truthful either, and when exactly was Stiles injured? For all he’d known, he’d collected Lydia at the game and come to their rescue but…that had been hours after the game had ended. He’d assumed he’d been with his dad or Scott, but if he hadn’t, then where…

A sharp gasp of pain had him moving towards the front door.

“You’re telling me a bunch of lacrosse jerks whipped your back? Really, that’s what you’re going with?!”

Derek was across the lawn, his hand on the doorknob when the Sheriff spoke again.

“Does this have anything to do with those kids? Whittemore, Lahey, Reyes, and what’s the quiet one’s name? Boyd? And Derek Hale, don’t think I haven’t heard about the two of you being seen together. He was a murder suspect, Stiles!”

“Stop,” Stiles grit out.

“Not until you tell me…”

“I said stop!” Stiles cried out. Against the wall a glass shattered, the scent of whiskey soaking into the carpet as windows throughout the house spiderwebbed and cracked. Derek ripped the door from its hinges as he threw himself into the living room.

Stiles was kneeling before his father, his eyes so dark they appeared black, a line of blood dribbling from a thin cut on his cheek, his shirt off, blood-soaked bandages wrapping his too thin torso, bruises blooming around his wrists and throat.

Derek saw red.

“What the fuck?!” Noah Stilinski shouted, drawing his gun at the thing crouched protectively in front of his son.

“Alpha,” Stiles whispered brokenly. He’d felt Derek drawing close, felt the tightness in his chest loosen slowly as the wolf got nearer the house, and knew what it meant because he wasn’t an idiot, regardless of what everyone said.

He knew what a Pack bond was and why it was there. He’d thrown his lot in with the Hales the minute Derek had stepped between him and a homicidal Peter Hale in the hospital, and even if he disagreed with the older man, he knew he was safe with him. Well, as safe as being human running with wolves could be.

And fuck Scott for helping Gerard use Derek like that. Rape him like that, if he was being honest. The bite was sacrosanct to Derek, as, if not more, important than his physical body. Of all the things he could have done, making him give that old bastard the bite…fuck Scott.

“Stiles…come here, son,” Noah said slowly, trying to get his son away from the creature.

Instead, the teen pressed closer; one hand fisting the black leather jacket, the other wrapped around his broken ribs. Something inside of him burned at the contact.

“Derek,” Stiles whispered, pressing along the man’s back as best he could. “It’s okay, man.”

Derek snarled at the Sheriff, one non-clawed hand pressing tight against Stiles’ chest, black veins soaking up the sharpest of the pain. He snarled again when the boy drooped against him.

“I’m okay.”

“Lie,” Derek bit out. “Who.”

Stiles’ lips twitched. “Punctuation, Derek, it’s a thing.”

Blood-red eyes flicked over the teen from Derek’s shoulder, hard and unflinching. “Who.”

Stiles swallowed hard, Derek’s eyes reminded him of fire and blood and vengeance. “Gerard.”

Derek’s roar of anger was only compounded by one of pain as the bullet hit him in the shoulder. He’d moved fast, covering Stiles as the gun fired, knowing it would hurt, but not kill him, and that he’d startled the Sheriff, but really, what was he supposed to have done knowing that everything he’d thought was wrong? That everything he’d tried to prevent had happened?

“Jesus, dad, what the fuck?!” Stiles yelled; hands pressed hard against the bleeding wound.

“Stiles, get away from him,” Noah said clearly, chambering another round.

“No! Jesus, I can’t, you stupid Sourwolf, why would you do that? God you’re heavy. Come on, I can’t get the med kit if you’re laying on me.”

“Stiles…”

Noah flinched at the hard look his son gave him. “No. Derek would never hurt me; you got this completely wrong. Now go get the med kit from my closet and hurry, he can’t heal over the bullet or it’ll be worse.”

“Heal over? Closet? Now, Stiles…”

“Now,” Stiles snarled, eyes darkening dangerously. His hands burned against Derek’s flesh.

Noah left after a startled jerk, leaving the teen to get the wolf up onto the couch.

“Why?” Derek asked, grunting in pain.

“Why what?”

“Why would Gerard…me,” he breathed out, aghast. “He took you to get to me.”

“Took Erica and Boyd too,” Stiles murmured, using his discarded t-shirt to wipe away the worst of the blood while keeping his fingers in the wound to stop it from healing over. He fought back his gag reflex at the wet slip slide of torn flesh rubbing against his fingers.

“Then he left them hanging there while he threw me out of the car in front of my house. I went back after the fight but they weren’t there. I found foot prints,” he shuddered, “claw prints too. But they disappeared at the road. I was hoping that meant they’d gotten free, but now I’m not sure.”

“We’ll look,” Derek said, hearing the Sheriff on the steps. He grabbed Stiles’ wrist gently, draining more of the boy’s considerable pain and staring into eyes that flickered between honey brown and inky black. The lamp by the couch fizzled and snapped, plunging their corner into darkness. “Hey, I promise, we’ll find them.”

Stiles swallowed thickly, moving away as he heard his father.

“Get me the forceps and the small blue vial,” he directed, using his chin to point.

“Son…”

“Not now!” Stiles snapped annoyed. Why could no one just do as he told them? “Just get the lid off and give me the forceps.”

Stiles used a bloody hand to hold the wound open and fish out the bullet, grimacing at the mushroomed head. “Thank god it wasn’t a frangible,” he muttered as he poured in the powdered comfrey. It would speed up Derek’s natural healing if the book he’d ‘borrowed’ from Deaton was true.

When he was done, and the area wiped with an antiseptic wipe, he cupped Derek’s chin with his bloody hand and stared the wolf in the eyes. “You good?”

Derek nodded minutely. “We need Melissa to look at you.”

Stiles grimaced; his eyes shuttering as he pulled away, only to be stopped by Derek’s hand curled around the back of his neck. “I’m fine.”

“I can feel the pain, Stiles. Smell the blood. You’re not fine and I can’t heal you which means Melissa or Deaton, your choice.”

 “Not Deaton,” the boy spat.

It took a minute for Derek to filter thought the intense burst of betrayalhatedisgust that hit him from the teen. “He helped Scott, didn’t he?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t come up with that fucking rapey idea!” Stiles ground out.

Derek felt the last bit of hurt drain from him at the boy’s outburst. Sighing softly, and ignoring the Sheriff’s stiff posture and twitching fingers, he pulled the boy in against his chest, pressing calm through the Pack bond and running a soothing hand up and down his spine.

“I know you wouldn’t,” he murmured, squashing down the sort-of-lie. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but he couldn’t think of anyone else as ruthless, except Peter of course, but even he had been disgusted at Scott’s actions.

He should have thought of the Druid.

“Gerard wanted you,” Stiles murmured, head tucked up under Derek’s chin. “I didn’t say anything. The pups couldn’t, but I…Gerard’s a psychopath, he would have killed you if I’d said anything.”

Derek made a wounded noise in the back of his throat. Gerard might have spared the boy if he’d talked, but considering what he did do, he might not have; the Hunter’s Code be damned. All Derek knew for certain was that his betas had been taken and injured, maybe dead, and that this stupid, loyal, beautiful boy had been hurt beyond compare for defending someone he had no reason to defend, or even like very much, but he had.

It explained why there was a Pack bond between them and why he had Derek’s loyalty, no matter what.

The Sheriff cleared his throat pointedly, making Stiles go stiff in Derek’s arms. The wolf sighed as he lifted the boy’s chin with his fingers. They’d have time to talk later, right now, he had an injured beta to deal with. “Melissa then,” he said as gently as he could. “I won’t have any of my betas hurt because of me, especially not my ma-Second.”

Stiles eyes went wide and Derek prayed he didn’t catch the almost slip. Too soon, too damn soon for that train of thought. “You mean that?”

“Be a shitty Alpha if I didn’t make sure you’d live,” he deadpanned, earning an indignant squawk and slap to his chest, but the boy smelled happy, content, which meant the world to Derek.

“Not what I meant, asshole,” Stiles smiled, eyes bright and happy.

Derek smirked, even as his pushed the boy off his lap. He stood languidly, stretching to make sure everything was healed before pointing at the stairs. “Go get dressed, Melissa should still be at the hospital.”

Stiles eyed his dad and Alpha. “Don’t kill each other,” he said stiffly. “I mean it, dad, do not shoot Derek again, you don’t have a clue about what’s going on.”

“And whose fault is that?” Noah grumbled. “If you were dating someone, you just needed to tell me, son.”

Stiles’ scent went white hot with mortification and arousal as he flailed, his heartbeat pounding so fast Derek actually feared tachycardia. He rubbed a hand over his face, shaking his head as he gently shoved the boy towards the stairs. “Go, I’ll deal with it.”

Stiles sputtered something unintelligible as he left, leaving the two men to stare at each other awkwardly.

Derek hated talking. Hated explaining himself even more, but with the Sheriff staring him down, he didn’t have much of a choice.

“We’re not dating,” he said, then winced because it sounded much too fond to be very defensive.

“Right.”

“We’re…I’m a werewolf. Stiles is Pack and tonight something really bad happened, so I came to make sure he was alright. I didn’t know about…” he swallowed back a growl, eyes flashing. “I’d have killed Gerard for touching him, if I’d known.”

“Gerard Argent. The principal at the high school. Isn’t Scott dating his granddaughter?”

Derek snarled at the boy’s name, making the Sheriff narrow his eyes.

“Okay,” Noah said slowly. “I think I need to hear this from the top, but tell me this, is my boy safe with you, Hale?”

Derek’s eyes flashed for an entirely different reason this time as he stared the man down, his voice more gravel over ground than words. “Always.”

Noah nodded once, sharply. “Then that’s all that matters.”

“You don’t want to know more?” Derek asked confused.

“Oh no, I do, and I will, but when my kid is getting checked out at the hospital so he can’t distract either of us.”

“I do not ‘distract’,” Stiles huffed indignantly as he tripped down the stairs two at a time. Derek rolled his eyes, snagged the back of his shirt (a dark grey henley Derek had left one night after a fight) and pulled him close. His wolf rumbled at their scents combining. He caught Stiles’ eye, a small smile telling him the brat knew exactly what he was doing.

That’s how he wanted to play things then, is it?

Derek shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over the boy’s shoulders, making his eyes go huge in his pale, bruised face.

“Der?” his voice quivered as the wolf blew out a breath, giving in to the inevitable.

“Hospital, first, then we can talk,” he allowed.

Stiles pulled the jacket closer, nails denting the soft leather. “Promise?”

The broken sound made Derek’s wolf whine. He pulled the boy close, urging him to wear the jacket properly and rubbed a hand over his shorn hair and down his neck. “Stiles, you don’t know…”

“I know everything,” the boy rushed out, scent dark with anger and hatred. “I know what they did and you are nothing like that bitch!”

Derek went cold at his words. He shouldn’t know. No one should.

Stiles cupped his face, tugging until their foreheads were resting together. “I know,” he whispered tenderly. “And none of it was your fault.”

“It...”

“None of it,” Stiles growled threateningly, that same shadow of other quivering in his voice and darkening his eyes. Derek really needed to look into that. “Peter’s, your mom’s, and definitely that bitch and her family, but not yours, Der.”

“I can’t,” Derek whispered. “You’re sixteen and I can’t…”

“Who told you he was sixteen?” Noah cut in, a frown marring his face and eyes shrewd as he pieced together some of the wolf’s background.

Derek blinked, “I…Scott’s sixteen. His inhaler said…”

“Stiles was held back a year when his mom…and today is his birthday. It’s why I took time off to go see the game, as of 10:42pm he’s eighteen.”

“Eight…” Derek whipped back around to stare at the young man. “I thought…”

Stiles gave a small shrug. “I missed half a year of school when mom got sick. It dropped me down a grade when I finally went back and I’ve been taking twice as many classes as the others by testing out of the courses I missed. If I keep it up and take summer school, I’ll be a senior next year and able to graduate early.”

“Do the others know?”

“Lydia does. We’re in all the same AP classes together; sophomores don’t get into those classes without a parent’s approval. Well, all except for English.”

“That’s not because you can’t pass it, son,” Noah said as he waved them out the door.

When Derek gave him a confused look, the older man said, “His mom and I spoke Polish at home until she got sick. He has a hard time writing in English because of it.”

“Mówię trochę po polsku. Nie jest to najlepszy poziom, ale...” [I speak a little Polish. It's not the best but...]

The two Stilinski’s stared at him before Noah guffawed loudly. “Well, hell son, how’d you manage that?”

Derek shrugged; his ears pinking. “Dated a girl once who spoke it. Thought I could impress her dad. Didn’t work out the way I hoped.”

Stiles curled his fingers around Derek’s. “I’m sure Paige appreciated it, Der,” he whispered, leaning against the wolf.

Derek swallowed hard. He really knew everything, didn’t he?

“How’d you find out?”

“Broke into Dad’s laptop a few months ago.”

“Hey!” Noah snapped, glaring at his unrepentant child.

“All for the greater good daddio,” Stiles smiled brightly at his father in the rearview mirror, even going so far as to give him finger guns.

“You’re an idiot,” Derek said fondly, curling his arm around the teen’s shoulder and pulling him close. He slipped his hand under the edge of the boy’s stolen shirt and drained more of his pain.

“What is that?” Noah asked as they drove. “You did that before too.”

“Wolves can, we can sort of drain physical pain from others. Stiles’ is in a lot of it, so this takes the edge off.”

“Can you heal him like you did yourself?”

“No, not unless I gave him the bite and I can’t…it’s not guaranteed. It doesn’t always work,” he explained tightly, remembering a different body in his arms, just as small and pale, but with different eyes. Green instead of honey gold.

He startled when Stiles rubbed his nose against his jaw. “Not your fault,” the teen reminded him.

Derek blew out a breath, not willing to agree, but not willing to start an argument either. “Alpha Werewolves can create new wolves through the bite. But it needs a strong body, one that wants it just as much. There’s a connection formed, a Pack bond. It helps tie the new wolves to the Alpha and creates a stronger Pack.”

“Derek’s family was his Pack, before the fire. When he became Alpha, he turned Erica, Isaac, Boyd, and Jackson, which I’m still not happy about,” Stiles grumbled the last part sulkily, making Derek roll his eyes.

“Yeah, not my best decision,” he admitted.

“Whittemore? Wait, was that why you stole the police transport?”

“Okay, so, cliff notes’ version. Sometimes the bite goes wrong and you get this lizard monster called a kanima. That’s what happened to Jackson, and because he didn’t know what was going on, we couldn’t just take him out. But then that psycho-stalker Matt got a hold of him and started killing people and then Gerard got him and tried to kill all of us and we were trying to stop him without the whole killing him thing and yeah, I stole the transport, which didn’t hold him as well as we’d hoped.”

“That’s the cliff notes’ version?” his father asked incredulously as they parked at the hospital.

“Actually, sir, it really is,” Derek sighed out.

“Okay, well, let’s deal with this first, then we’ll come back to all that,” he said bemusedly, waving at Derek’s, well everything.

Stiles snickered at the look of consternation on the wolf’s face before he heard his name shouted across the hospital floor and saw Melissa stalking towards him.

Derek chuckled as the boy hid behind him, trying to use him as a human shield against the nurse. Gently gripping his forearms, he pulled the boy back around and held him tightly, the teen’s back to Derek’s front.

“Hey Mel…”

“Don’t you ‘Hey, Mel’ me, mister! I swear what am I going to do with you?”

“Maybe not yell at the guy with broken ribs and a shredded back?” Stiles said, the joke falling flat as he felt the breath punched out of Derek and the string of Polish curses from his father.

Melissa rocked back on her feet, her mouth dropping open in shock before she straightened her spine and waved them back. “A private room,” she said, ushering them into one at the end of the hall. “Now what exactly happened?”

Derek tugged at the sleeve of his jacket. “Show her,” he commanded, flashing his eyes when the teen tried to draw away. “Show. Her.”

Stiles stuck his tongue out, but did as he was told, though he needed Derek’s help when his ribs shifted painfully.

“Oh God, Mischief,” Melissa whispered, aghast. Her fingers were cool and soft as she slid the bandages off. She turned tear filled eyes to Derek. “Tell me they’re dead,” she demanded.

“Not yet, but soon, I promise, Melissa,” the wolf responded tightly. He’d smelt the blood, felt the pain, but it was even worse up close.

“Who?”

“Gerard Argent.”

“Scott was working with him, Mel,” Stiles said through a hiss as she prodded a spectacularly brutal slice. “Not sure why yet, but he was.”

“He…” Melissa bit off her instant dismissal of the idea, her eyes going wide. “Oh God, me. He did it because of me.”

The three men turned to her confused. “Why?”

“He, he grabbed me and Scott outside the hospital one night. Stabbed Scott while his men held me. Told us he’d go after me if he tried to ‘stop the inevitable’. I thought he was talking about Allison! Oh my God, we did this. I did this to you!”

Stiles pulled her into a crushing embrace, Derek and Noah’s hands on her shoulders. “This is not you fault, Melissa!” the teen said with feeling. “Nothing about this is your fault. God, all of this is so messed up, but it’s not. It’s the Argents for being the supernatural equivalent of Nazis. It’s Peter’s for biting Scott, and Scott’s for not freaking talking to us when it happened. It’s Deaton’s for not telling the local Alpha instead of siding with an idiot who’s been a wolf for all of five minutes and thinks he knows everything.”

Stiles took a ragged breath. “It’s mine for not fighting harder to make sure we were all on the same side, or telling Dad about what was happening.”

“This isn’t your fault either, idiot,” Derek said softly, his fingers curling around Stiles’ neck and brushing down the side of his jaw. “I started this with Paige and then Kate…none of this is anyone’s fault but mine and the Argents.”

Stiles passed Melissa to his dad before confronting the Alpha. He wanted to be kind. To be subtle and conscientious of the trauma Derek had suffered, what came out of his mouth was anything but.

“Kate was a murdering pedophile that raped you and burned your family to death on her psychotic father’s orders. That is not your fault. Neither was Paige’s death. Peter got Ennis to bite her. He went behind his Alpha’s back to attack an innocent girl and she rejected the bite. You gave her mercy, Derek, nothing more. Don’t you growl at me, you asshole, you know I’m right. And you are not responsible for Peter losing his mind and killing Laura. You are not responsible for Laura leaving Peter and running. You are not responsible for Scott’s inability to not think with his dick.”

“You are responsible for biting Erica, Boyd, Isaac, and Jackson, and that means you need to Alpha the fuck up and work to make them a functioning Pack, and we will deal with Erica and Boyd’s disappearance. We, as in you and me, as in this Pack. They wanted to come back. They were scared and they ran, because they’re teenagers and stupid. Jackson is an asshole, but he can be convinced if we try, and Isaac just wants everyone to stop fighting. His dad messed him up bad and that’s also not your fault and Jackson took care of that anyways. What we do now is what matters, not what happened before, so get the fuck over yourself and fix this shit, Alpha.”

The room was silent after Stiles’ outburst and while a few hours ago Derek probably would have resorted to violence or avoidance afterwards, now he just nodded, because he could feel Stiles’ conviction across the bond, and his scent…God, but his scent was strong. Anger, frustration, sadness, and a fierce defensiveness blistered his nose with the edge of sulfur and smoke. Stiles was pissed, not at Derek, but at the entire supernatural shitshow that their lives had turned into.

Derek understood that at least.

“How?”

Stiles blinked, rocking back on his heels at the simple question.

“How?”

Derek nodded.

“Um, first, we have to find Erica and Boyd. Make sure Isaac and Jackson are safe. Maybe lock Peter in a box and drop him in the ocean for a decade or two, then get rid of Gerard and Kate.”

“Actually, the first thing is x-rays,” Melissa chimed in, shaking herself free from the weirdness of watching Stiles boss around an Alpha Werewolf. Noah and Derek nodded as Melissa slapped on nitrile gloves.

Stiles thought life was entirely unfair as he was pressed into a wheelchair and hauled out of the room for x-rays and stitches. He hollered back that his dad was not allowed to shoot Derek, no matter what he told him.

It probably only reinforced peoples’ opinion that they were dating. Whatever, better than the truth.

“How much of what Stiles said was true?” Noah asked when they were alone.

Derek deflated, sliding down against the wall to sit tailor fashion on the floor. “All of it.”

Noah rubbed his hands over his face, his heart breaking for the young man before him. “Jesus, no wonder he adopted you all.”

Derek gave a weak smile. “The betas called him mom once. I thought his head might explode.”

Noah chuckled wetly. “Yeah, sounds about right. Look son, whatever’s happened, however it happened, I know from experience that guilt doesn’t make sense or go away because we tell it to.”

He took a ragged breath, leaning against the bed frame. “Stiles’ mom tried to kill him when he was eleven. It was right before the fire and I was exhausted, because Claudia was getting really sick and Stiles’ ADHD was off the charts. I came home and found him unconscious and blue with blood on his mouth and throat. She’d strangled him. He was dead. For those few moments before I could restart his heart, she’d managed to kill our boy.”

Derek stared at the man horrified, his voice faint. “She killed him?”

Noah glared at the floor, nostrils flaring and the stench of bitterness and fear swamping Derek.

“If I’d been a few minutes later we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. I blamed myself for not realizing just how much danger I was putting him in, I didn’t realize he blamed himself for her death.”

“I got them both to the hospital, had her committed and everything. The doctors had her secured to the bed, asked me to step outside to discuss next steps. It was five minutes, maybe less, but it was long enough for her to convince him to let her loose. Long enough for her to get to the roof and while he watched, she called him a monster, then she threw herself over the edge. The hospital was on lockdown when we found the room empty, but it was too late. By the time we found them, Stiles was practically catatonic and Claudia was dead.”

Noah swallowed convulsively for several minutes, trying to push the images out of his mind. The bright splatter of red on the grey pavement, the dark bruises on his son’s pale skin. The single question he asked before he passed out- ‘Am I really a monster, daddy?’

He took a shaky breath before continuing.

“I always thought some men were born of fire and bone. That others, that they managed to find peace in their lives. My son? He built a throne. He didn’t run from the hell of his mother’s sickness; he nestled down deep and made the darkness home. And it was hell. The worst case of dementia the doctors had ever seen. What’s worse, it’s hereditary; one of the few that attacks teens. When this all started, the lying and the sneaking out, I actually hoped it was just drugs. Then I found the blood stains. Saw the bruises. It wasn’t the same, but the fear was there. Did he have what his mom did? Was I going to lose him too?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Not sure wolves and hunters are any better, to be honest, but at least this way the bad guys can be caught. These criminals can be put away for going after my very human son. You might not scar, might not even die easily, but Stiles can.”

Derek sat up, “What are you suggesting, Sheriff?”

“I’m suggesting we hit them where it hurts. To the rest of the world, Gerard Argent is just the principal of the high school. They don’t know about the supernatural. So, we don’t tell them. The principal tortured a student as punishment for his friend dating his granddaughter, and for dating the man his daughter molested when he was underage. It’s a pattern of abuse we can use in a very human way.”

“I don’t…there’s no proof,” Derek finally got out, he was cold and clammy, his heartrate spiking at the idea of bringing this all out in the open. He felt a sharp tug in his chest, pressing a hand against it when it happened again. When he closed his eyes, he could have sworn he saw Stiles’ face and felt his fingers along his jaw. Derek opened his eyes in awe, how had the teen managed to master the Pack bond so quickly?

“Son?” Noah asked hesitantly.

“I…okay.”

“Okay?”

Derek looked up at the Sheriff with grim determination burning in his eyes and the phantom feel of Stiles’ fingers on his jaw to ground him. “Okay, let’s take them down.”

---

Chris re-read the search warrant for the third time with a mixture of pride and fear. Pride in Stiles for standing up for himself and fear that the cops might be able to find something. Not that he begrudged the boy for going to his father. He’d seen the edges of bandages when he’d been escorted to the police station. It was obscene what his father had done to a human boy, and then came the accusation about Kate and he couldn’t help but throw-up because that, that was so much worse and yet he could absolutely believe it.

He watched as Derek Hale leaned against Stiles heavily, watched as the pair clung to each other in a desperate sort of co-dependent bonding he’d only ever seen in the strongest of Packs.

Pack.

That’s what they were to each other. That and something more. Something neither seemed to have acknowledge yet, but if he was right, then Gerard was screwed, because an Alpha would never forgive or forget the torture of its mate. With trembling fingers, he smoothed the warrant out on the steel table between the deputy and himself.

He glanced up at the deputy taking his statement with a grim sort of determination. He wouldn’t ask for mercy, or forgiveness, but he swore Gerard wasn’t going to destroy Allison like he had Kate and he wasn’t going to give the last of his soul to destroy the Hale Pack like his sister had.

“There are tunnels,” he told the young man that smelled of smoke and death even to his human nose. “Tunnels that run under the Hale house. If I were you, deputy,” he said while staring at the two-way mirror he knew the Sheriff was behind. “I’d make sure to pack the strongest bullets you could and a lot of them.”

---

Peter watched from the tree line with eyes like funeral fire as the last of the Hale House burned to the ground. There was a sick sort of satisfaction watching a blue-skinned Gerard get riddled with wolfsbane bullets by the Beacon County Sheriff’s Department. More when Kate shot back and joined her father’s corpse being zipped up tight in black mylar coroner’s bags. He’d followed the white van back to the morgue of course, and made sure that both hunters were permanently dispatched.

He took a shuddering breath as he stood in the sterile room; lit the match with trembling grace, and watched it flicker on Gerad's hollowed out face before he burned them in eerie silence.

He wouldn’t ask for forgiveness for his part in his families’ demise, or repent for his multitude of sins. He’d died once already, stolen his life back by becoming a ghost within the banshee’s wail. It was a devil’s dream, his dead man’s plan, that shouldn’t have worked, but he was tenacious and now he had what he wanted- the Argent’s dead. It helped, more than he could articulate really, as he burned the pair in the incinerator. The fog of chaos he’d been residing in faded and left him more in control of his emotions.

Enough to track down his wayward nephew at the Stilinski’s house and to scare the ever-loving crap out of Stiles, which made him smile until he felt Derek’s claws at his jugular and a knife coated in wolfsbane at his crotch.

He glanced down into hard whiskey eyes without moving a muscle.

“I’m not sure if I should be proud or not,” he said with a bit of confusion.

“Why?” the boy asked on a whine, like Peter was the slow kid and he was the exhausted babysitter. “Why would you come here knowing how we feel about you?”

“I saw what your father did and wanted to thank you.”

Stiles blew out a breath, sheathing the knife as he stumbled back to his bed. It was only then that Peter realized the boy wasn’t wearing a shirt or pants, just a chest full of bandages and his boxers. Derek was in a similar state of disrobement, but the room didn’t smell like anything but muted pain.

Now, Peter could say something that would get his throat ripped out, but he was, surprisingly, more concerned with Stiles’ injuries. “What happened to you?”

“Gerard, what else?” the boy snorted as he fixated on Derek. “Enough, Sourwolf, the creeper isn’t here for us.”

Derek grumbled as his claws dropped. “Don’t even think of hurting him,” he hissed the warning as he shouldered past Peter to join the boy on the bed. He wedged himself between the wall and Stiles, wrapping the boy up and draining more of his pain until Stiles slumped in his arms.

“When?” Peter demanded, eyes narrowing as he answered his own question. “The night of the game, before you hit Jackson with the jeep. I knew I smelt blood!”

“Yeah, he’d grabbed Erica and Boyd, but when they couldn’t talk, he went after me. Grabbed me right off the damn pitch and beat the ever-loving fuck out of me.”

“And when did this happen?” he asked smirking as he waved at the pair.

“About the time dad shot him and Melissa told us Argent threatened her and Scott.”

Peter choked on a laugh. “Noah shot you?!”

“Don’t make me shoot you too, Peter, I’m not happy about how you came back to us either, you know.” Noah snarked from the doorway, making both wolves jump. Surprisingly, they hadn’t even heard the man.

Peter had the grace to blush under Noah’s steel grey stare. “I wasn’t exactly sane, Noah.”

“Which is why my boy and Derek took you out; now, what happened with Ms. Martin?”

Peter bit back the quick retort on his lips, he was in the minority here, and with Noah in the know, things could get exceptionally dicey for the newly resurrected. “She’s a banshee.”

Stiles rolled his eyes so hard it must have hurt. “Of course she is,” he grumbled. “So, you what, hitched a ride with her back to the land of the living? Is that why she thought she was going crazy?”

Peter winced, chagrined at his actions. “Not my finest hour, I will admit. I honestly didn’t think it would hurt her that way.”

Stiles’ sigh was long and loud. “And now that Gerard and Kate are dead, what are you going to do?”

Peter cocked his head at the pair. Derek was still tense with Peter in the room, but his scent was steady, his fingers and body gentle as he held the boy protectively.

“Why did you and Laura leave me here?” he asked Derek instead, staring his nephew down. It was the one thing that really messed with his head. The thing he just couldn’t let go of.

Derek’s heart stuttered in his chest. He closed his eyes, dropping his nose against Stiles’ neck and breathing deeply when the boy tilted his head to give him better access. Peter’s heart clenched at the sight. He knew what that type of display meant, even if the humans didn’t. A quick glance at Stiles shocked him even more, because the look the boy leveled at him said he at least did know, and threatened bodily injury if Peter tried to use it against either of them.

“I didn’t know you’d survived,” Derek whispered faintly. “If Laura hadn’t been with me, I would have thought everyone was dead, I couldn’t feel the Pack bonds, not even when I came back. I only found out when Laura left. She said she needed to check on you, that something had happened here but she wouldn’t tell me what. I was furious. We had a fight, right before she left about it. I wanted to get you out, bring you back to New York with us, but she said no. Said she had someone watching you here. That you needed to be close to the Nemeton or you wouldn’t get better.”

He glanced up at Peter with shockingly wet eyes. “I didn’t know.”

Derek and Stiles watched Noah lead a shell-shocked Peter Hale back downstairs. Derek whispering how Noah’d broken out the good whiskey. At that point Stiles told him to stop listening in, that his dad would handle it from there and if things went really bad, he still had wolfsbane bullets in his gun.

Derek had given a little broken laugh and buried himself under Stiles, dragging the teen across him bodily until his face was pressed tight against the pale column of Stiles’ neck and the teen’s fingers were dragging through his hair methodically.

“You going to be okay with him?” Stiles asked gently, his voice a mere thread of sound.

“He killed her,” he whispered back. “I was broken when I found out. Didn’t understand how she could have left him here, but then he kills her and I just…I just want my family back. I want my big sister and my uncle and my mom and dad and Cora and…”

Stiles shushed him gently, leaning down to pepper small kisses against his temple and brow. “I know,” he crooned. “God, I know. I wish everyday I could bring her back, but I can’t and that guts me, but you have the chance with Peter. He died, Der. We killed him for what he did to her, and I know you want her back, but you did get him back. He felt…better? Saner? Less ‘one flew over the coocoos nest’ at least. We could try, if you want. Try and see if he’s capable of being the man you knew.”

“’We’?”

Stiles snorted against Derek’s hair. “It’s cute you think I’d let you anywhere near him without me,” he laughed.

“I’m serious, Derek. I know you’re afraid. Hell, I’m still sort of terrified to be alone with him, but think about it this way, when Lydia finds out he’s alive, she’s going to absolutely destroy him. She’s mean, Der, really, really mean, and he’s going to have a fuck-ton of groveling to do to keep her from killing him again.”

Derek huffed a little watery laugh. “Yeah,” he finally said, closing his eyes to go back to the sleep they’d been rudely awaken from, and held the boy tighter. “Yeah, she will.”

---

“Are they mates?” Peter asked Noah after he’d explained what had happened.

Noah scratched at the back of his head, glancing at the ceiling before back to the wolf. He’d known both Peter and Chris in high school, though he hadn’t been friends with either, so it was a bit surreal to realize how twisted up the three of their families had become.

“They haven’t used that term, but I’m pretty sure they’re dating, or will be, once Stiles is healed. Is it what I think it is?”

Peter stared into the glass of whiskey, turning the glass back and forth as he re-examined every interaction, every scent and sound of the past half hour.

“I’d be surprised if they weren’t,” he finally answered himself. “Mates aren’t exactly magical. It’s a connection. A deep, soul-binding connection. Humans call them soulmates, but to a ‘were its even more. For wolves, these connections can occur between members of the Pack, what we call Pack bonds. They’re strongest between an Alpha and their Betas, but between individual wolves, the strongest bond is to one’s mate.”

“I…I had a mate. Her name was Samantha and she was pregnant when the fire happened. We’d just found out. It was why everyone was at the house. We called a Pack meeting, told them there was news, we never got the chance to tell them we were expecting a little girl.” He shook his head to clear away the memories.

“It’s the worst type of pain,” he said slowly, fingers turning white on the glass. “Feeling your mate’s pain. Feeling their death. I don’t remember anything after Sam died. I know I managed to get out of the house somewhat, but couldn’t tell you how. The next thing I know I’m in the Preserve and there’s the smell of fire and ash and betrayal in my nose. I saw red eyes and attacked. It didn’t feel like Laura. Like Alpha or like Pack. It felt like a stranger and I was cornered. Hurt. I only realized who it was afterwards.” He gave a bitter bark of laughter.

“No cross for the wicked,” he muttered. “Only the sin. I’ll carry her death for the rest of my life, one way or another.”

Noah looked uncomfortable as he shifted in his chair. “Did you know who started the fire?”

“I figured out it was the Argents. Your boy is incredibly smart, but not very quiet. He mumbles when he’s researching. I put the pieces together.”

Noah gave him a hard stare as the silence stretched dangerously between the men. “Are we going to have a problem, Peter, or are you going to be a real member of this Pack?”

Peter gave the Sheriff a surprised look. “Do you consider yourself Pack?”

“Considering my kid is upstairs being cuddled to death by his Alpha werewolf boyfriend, yes, I consider myself a part of this mess.”

Peter’s smile was slow in coming, but genuine. “I was furious at Derek, I won’t lie, but considering he didn’t know, that he couldn’t feel any of us, I can’t in good consciences hold it against him. If he can forgive me for Laura, I can forgive him for his bad taste in women.”

“Afterall,” he smirked, “his taste in men seems to be much better.”

---

It takes almost two weeks before Stiles’ injuries are healed enough for him to return to school. Two weeks where the only contact outside his dad, Peter, Melissa and Derek is a pissed off banshee and her half-kanima werewolf boyfriend.

“Why does he still have a tail?” is the first thing out of her mouth when Stiles opens the door three-days after the battle.

He’s wearing one of Derek’s henleys. It’s loose enough on his frame that the bruises and bandages are visible. Lydia pokes him hard in a sickly green bruise on his clavicle as she pushes past him into the house, her shrewd eyes taking in Derek lounging on the sofa, Peter in the recliner, and Noah holding out a bottle of beer to the elder wolf.

“Why are you so broken and why is that man still alive?!” She hisses out around bared straight white teeth. Peter would think it was a cute display if her eyes hadn’t flashed silver and the temperature hadn’t dropped ten degrees.

Derek goes to say something, anything, because they can all see the tiny red-head gearing up for a massive fight, but it’s Peter who stands with his hands out stretched and bares his neck to her. It’s startling enough that some of her ire drops off. Stiles translated the Latin with her help after all, he isn’t surprised she understands what it means.

“Lydia,” Peter says without a hint of falsehood. “I wanted to apologize for what I did to you. I never meant to hurt you, and especially not in that way. If I could take it back, I would.”

Lydia is frozen for all of five seconds before her eyes flash and her voice takes on an eerie warbling cadence. It feels like the shadows sway around her; demons twisting the chain of self-recrimination around his heart. Her voice is a funeral song that makes Stiles want to cry when she tells the wolf, “You raped my mind. Took that last thing that was truly mine away from me. Why?”

Peter grimaces, his scent turning bitter burnt with shame as he closes his eyes at the condemnation he sees in her silver orbs. “At the time, I just wanted revenge. If Derek managed to kill me, I needed a way back and you were it. I never stopped to think what it would do to you. Or what the spell would do to our minds.”

“And now?” she demands, not willing to forgive, but listening to his words. She’ll think about it later when she was calmer and alone and then she’ll decide if she sends him straight back to hell or not.

“Now my mind is my own. We’ve taken our revenge. Killed those who killed us. The only thing I want any more is the Pack I lost.”

She looked to Stiles, who was leaning against Derek on the couch, black veins arching up the wolf’s bulging biceps, and the Sheriff, who was watching everything with a small frown on his face, but seemingly understanding what was going on.

She turned back to Stiles. “You told him.”

Stiles shrugged, waving at the bandages. “Kinda hard to keep it a secret when you’re bleeding all over the floor and your Alpha shifts in front of him.”

Her smile is tiny and lightening quick. “You picked a side.”

Stiles shakes his head, his voice serious. “I picked a side a long time ago, Lyds. This time, it finally picked me back.”

She humphs at his assessment of the situation, then pulls Jackson forward. “Why does he still have a tail?”

Derek and Peter are trying not to snicker when they see it, though Stiles doesn’t seem to have the same reservation.

“A wolf-kanima hybrid,” Peter finally gets out. “Unusual, though maybe not as bad as you are thinking. Do you still have the claws and venom as well?”

Jackson’s face is red when he flicks out his other claws. “I can control them, but the tail…I can’t control it.”

“Of course not,” Stiles says between wheezing laughs. He waves away Derek’s concern when he pulls on his ribs wrong. “Its just like your claws and eyes or at lacrosse, you have to practice with it, or you’ll never get better.”

“What would you know about it, you’re just human?” Jackson sneered.

Stiles’ eyes went diamond hard as he stared the younger teen down. He could feel the tension in the Pack bonds, feel Derek’s agitation and dislike and Peter’s willingness to remove Jackson from the Pack forcibly if need be. It made his smile something horrible to witness.

He moved faster than even Peter could track. A blur of shadow and ash, the scent coating their noses. Derek had wondered about the little flares of magic he’d shown. Wondered if it was part of their being mates.

Peter called him an idiot.

‘He’s a spark, nephew. Deaton told us this, why do none of you ever listen?’

Stiles told him it was harder, since Gerard, to stay himself. That it felt like there was a darkness unwinding inside him.

‘Some days it feels like the world’s trying to eat me alive and I’m not sure if it’s worth the fight to survive.’

Derek had held him tight, pressed reassurances against the crown of his head and told him he had to. For his father, for Derek and their Pack. Maybe it was a low blow, praying on the boy’s loyalty like that, but seeing him now, watching him take his rightful place as the Alpha Mate of the Hale Pack, he couldn’t have been prouder.

Only Derek saw the small blade in his hand as Stiles moved. The one he’d coated in a combination of herbs and wolfsbane that he swore would work on even the strongest ‘were. The cut was paper thin and barely a centimeter long, but it dropped the hybrid to the floor in blinding agony. Stiles stared down at Jackson, his fingers tapping rhythmicly against his jeans.

“A human in the know will always be the bigger threat,” he snarled. “We have to be, because you do have claws and fangs and God knows what else, but that means we have to be meaner; sneakier, and a hell of a lot more ruthless. Everyone in this room is a survivor of something traumatic and horrible. Every one of us has lost someone or something we can’t get back. The difference is that we are working towards moving forward. Of being better than our trauma and not letting it define us.”

He held a hand out to the now shaking boy. “The question you should of asked, jackass, is if you’re going to stay a victim or if you’re going to become a survivor? Because this Pack only has room for survivors in it.”

Their Pack bonds aren’t as strong as Stiles, Noah, or Peter’s, but then again, no one’s is as strong as Stiles’; still, they’re there, snuggled up close in his chest, a reminder of what he almost lost and what he has to gain by being the best Alpha he can be.

Isaac took a bit longer. He’d been staying with the McCalls off and on, which meant he’d heard the full-on screaming match between Melissa, Scott, and Allison. He’d lasted three hours before crawling out the window and running off into the Preserve.

He found the burnt shell of the Hale House on the fifth day and came face to face with the Alpha Pack on the sixth. He couldn’t tell them what they wanted to know, and for some strange reason they don’t torture him like he thought they would have.

He’s placed in an old bank vault with Erica, Boyd, and a dirty Cora Hale. He’s sort of relieved and sort of terrified, because he can feel the moon working on all of them, can see it in the wildness of their eyes and hear it in their harsh panting breaths. There’s blood on Erica’s boots and around Isaac’s mouth before Kali makes her appearance.

He's surprised when they’re dosed with something that knocks them out during the worst of it. He figured they would want them feral and hard to control, but the man - Deucalion - sits in front of their cage on a dusty wooden chair and explains.

“We’re not here for you. Word’s gotten out about the Hales being back and about the Argents going rogue again. You have no idea, pups, the amount of damage and bloodshed those people can inflict on a territory. They don’t care if you’re human or ‘were or anything in between, they only want blood and death and fire.”

“So why come? Why get in the middle of it?” Erica had asked confused.

“Because each of us has suffered at their hands. Years ago, we came to Talia Hale and asked her to intervene on the smaller Pack’s behalf. But the Argents found out about the summit. They killed one of Ennis’ betas and Hale’s Left-Hand suggested a local would be a good replacement.”

He grimaced, eyes crinkling behind dark glasses. “That could have been handled better, but emotions were running high and the young girl died. Talia’s son and the rest of the Hales became a victim of the Argents just as we did.”

“That doesn’t explain why you snatched us,” Boyd said into the silence. “You could have dropped us off in front of Derek without an issue, instead, you locked us up.”

“Up until a week ago, we were planning on killing all of you.”

Issac trembled at the way Deucalion delivered the explanation - cold, calculated, without a hint of remorse.

“But something changed,” Boyd pressed.

“No. Not something. Someone. Now, what can you tell me about Stiles Stilinski?”

---

It’s two weeks from the fight and Stiles’ stiches are healed enough for him to manage going back to school. He meets the twins in first period. Lydia has one on the ground, her scream weirdly loud and silent at the same time. Stiles wonders if it’s only noticeable to the supernatural, or those in the know.

From the corner of his eye he sees the new English teacher, because of course there’s another teacher that’s gone rogue, cover her ears, her image flickering into something grotesque. He grabs the twin that had been chatting up Danny, twists his arm until the teen is looking at the teacher and lowly asks, “Is she with you?”

Ethan’s entire body seems to frown. Stiles snaps a picture and shoots it off to the Pack group chat for Peter and Derek to identify while he and Ethan drag a bleeding Aidan into an empty classroom; Lydia, Jackson, and Danny trailing behind them. He hadn’t wanted Danny involved, but doesn’t seem to have a choice, so he makes the executive decision to lay everything on the table and see what happens.

“So, you’re with the Alpha Pack,” he says clearly. He nods at Jackson, “Do they smell like Erica and the others?”

Jackson slashes Ethan when he tries to pull away, dropping him against his babbling brother on the floor and then takes a deep whiff.

“Yeah, and someone else, smells kinda like Peter and Derek, but not quite.”

A raised eyebrow is all it takes for Ethan to give in. He didn’t want to fight the Hale Pack to begin with, and Deucalion’s interest in the Stilinski kid makes him weary of pissing them off when the two of them are defenseless. Plus, Danny, who he thought was ridiculously cute and still wanted a shot with.

“We found your betas. Erica, Boyd, and Isaac. The one you don’t know is Cora Hale.”

Stiles sucks in a shocked breath. “Derek’s little sister. How?”

Ethan purses his lips. “In Columbia a few months ago. She was living under a different name, but Deuc said she smelled like a Hale.”

“And you just grabbed them for funsies?” Stiles demanded, texting Peter, Derek, and his dad as they spoke. When Ethan doesn’t answer, Lydia makes the obvious deduction.

“You were going to use them against us, or kill them, weren’t you?”

Ethan cringes under her withering gaze. “It wasn’t our call.”

“But your both Alphas,” Jackson says confused.

“Deucalion is our Alpha,” Aidan finally mumbles, shaking his head as his ears slowly heal. “We might have red eyes, but Deucalion is in charge.”

“And the creepy lady? Is she with you?” Stiles asks.

“No, we don’t know who she is,” Aidan tells them.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Stiles quips, flipping out his phone and speed dialing his dad. They have a system now, new supernatural weirdness, check with Noah for dead bodies, after that, go to Peter and Derek.

“It’s not even eight,” his father grumbles when he picks up. “Who died now?”

Stiles can’t help but smirk at his father’s exasperated tone. “Well, that’s kind of why I’m calling,” Stiles tells him. “I sent you an image of our new creeptastic English teacher. Just trying to establish if she’s already made a dent on the local wildlife population or any mundanes?”

Noah sighs loudly as he checks his email and yup, there it is. “Ah hell, looks like Parrish took a missing person’s statement from…”

“From?” Stiles prompts when his father goes silent.

“I need you to come home, now.”

Stiles goes cold at the tone. “Who? Dad, who was it?”

“It’s Heather, son. Her mom reported her missing this morning.”

Stiles dropped the phone. He could feel the panic licking up his spine as he tried to control his breathing. Distantly, he’s aware that Jackson is talking to his father, and Danny is helping get Ethan and Aidan up, but it’s Lydia who takes his face in her hands and after staring him in the eyes, pressed her lips to his, forcing him to breathe.

A month ago, he might have thought that meant he had a chance, but now, all he wants is Derek and the safety of their bed. The Hales had practically moved in with them, Peter in the spare across the hall, and Derek in with Stiles. There are monotone henleys mixed with superhero shirts and a variety of plaid flannels in his closet, a hastily emptied drawer for underwear and socks in his bureau, and a black leather jacket hung over a blood-red hoodie on the back of his door. It was almost too easy, integrating their lives together, a combination of Derek having practically nothing, and Stiles not caring enough about anything that got displaced.

When he’s breathing, Jackson presses the phone against his ear and removes his girlfriend from Stiles’ lips. He’s trying not to be jealous; it wasn’t anything like that, and it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that Derek and Stiles are now DerekandStiles; a single entity with two bodies and about as many brain cells some days.

The point is, he’s not jealous, but he also doesn’t want her kissing another guy. So, he presses Derek’s voice to the shell of Stiles ear and lets the mate bond do it’s thing. Peter had explained that for a wolf, outside of their Alpha, a mate was the only bond strong enough to push through any magic or panic. It’s how Lydia was able to call him back from being a kanima, and why Scott would always be an idiot when it came to Allison.

He's glad to see the older wolf was right, for once. Stiles is calming down, the twins are actually thinking about not fighting them, making comments that it would make sense to team up if there really is a threat. Aidan has a phone in his hand and Jackson figures it can’t hurt to have some extra manpower around should shit go sideways.

“Derek’s coming to pick us up,” Stiles says shakily. “Peter’s going to look into the new teacher and Dad’s heading to meet up with Parrish at the Custer’s place. I need to do something, but I…” he looks at his Pack, anguish in his eyes.

“Who’s Heather?” Ethan finally asks.

“A childhood friend,” Stiles says, blowing out a breath as he fights to keep his heartrate even. “Our moms were best friends.”

“I missed her birthday last month,” he says offhandedly. “If she’s dead…”

Danny, who’s been going with the flow and taking everything in, places a comforting hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “Missing doesn’t mean dead, right? We’d know if she was dead.”

Stiles glanced at Lydia, who shrugs. “So far, I’ve only screamed for people I know. Heather’s your friend, so I might not.”

“You’re the banshee, right?” Ethan asks, turning to slap his brother’s shoulder when she narrows her eyes at them and he flinches.

“Yes. Why?”

“Then it doesn’t matter if you knew her. If she’s inside your territory, you’d scream.”

Stiles swallowed convulsively. “Good, that’s, that’s good. Then we have time.” His phone rings, interrupting their conversation. A quick glance has him calming further. “Der’s outside. We should go.” He glances at the twins. “Look, I think it’s pretty obvious we’ve got bigger issues to deal with. We want our betas back and we’d rather not have to fight you for them.”

Ethan pulls Aidan up straight, his brother talking quietly on the phone to the other Alphas. He pulls the cell away just long enough to tell them, “Deucalion says we deal with the threat, then talk about the betas.”

Stiles eyes go hard. His hand snapps out before anyone can think to move, his fingers gripping Aidan's wrist and tugging the phone towards him. “Listen up, Deuc,” he snaps angrily. “Give me the pups back, now, or we’re going to have problems.”

Aidan raises a brow at the teen’s tone, then a second one when he hears Deucalion chuckle. “Very well, little Mate, you can collect them from the Beacon Hills First National Bank if you’re prepared to deal with us in person.” He hangs up before Stiles can growl his displeasure.

Jackson clears his throat awkwardly, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “Derek says to get out there.”

Stiles tosses a discarded pencil across the room in a small fit of controlled violence. He’d stamp his foot if he didn’t think it made him look like a petulant teenager, which he was, but whatever, he’s got betas to retrieve, a potential homicide to stop, and probably some calculus homework he’s forgetting.

Ah, Mondays.

---

The bank is a dump. The windows are shattered, door sort of wedged half open and half closed. Litter is piled up in the eaves and crevices. It’s the perfect villain’s lair.

“Total cliché, dude,” Stiles snarks, shaking his head when three Alphas step out onto the stoop. The oldest has to be Deucalion. Peter had told them he’d been blinded by Gerard, and why else would the dude wear sunglasses at eight am for?

Deucalion gives him a shark’s grin.

“Tell me, Mieczysław, are you typically so irreverent in the presence of your betters?”

“First off, it’s ‘Stiles’. The only one allowed to call me that is dead, respect that, asshole. Secondly, you’re not better than me or anyone else. You may be stronger than me, you may even be smarter, but I can guarantee I’m meaner, so give me my pups, now.”

There’s a reverberation in Stiles’ voice that wasn’t there before. Something the others had only felt peripherally. It’s similar to the power Derek had when he Alpha commanded them, but an Alpha command doesn’t work on another Alpha, so why is Deucalion flinching under his decree, and Ennis and Kali (the other two Alphas) taking wavering steps back?

“What are you?” Deucalion asks tensely.

“Pissed off,” Stiles snarls, his eyes flashing with a dark fire. Electricity arches as a street lamp shatters overhead, the smell of ozone and burning plastic fill the air. A single crow caws loudly as it settles above the swinging glass, staring down at them with black, unblinking eyes.

“I’m so over all this supernatural bullshit. First Peter goes bat-shit crazy, then there’s the clusterfuck that was the kanima, a stalker, a bomb-threat, the damn Argents, whatever the hell our new English teacher is, and now you people.” He snarls and in the flickering light, it almost looks like he has fangs.

“So yeah, pissed off is a good descriptor. Now you, I have no issue with, or her,” he says, pointing at Deucalion and Kali. “Other than messing up Derek’s door before it burnt down and taking our betas, as long as they’re safe, then we have no issues. And the wonder twins over here already learned their lesson, so I could care less what they do.”

“And Ennis?” Deucalion asks lightly, a hand out to stop the man from stepping forward. “I noticed you didn’t mention him.”

Stiles tosses a glance at Derek and Peter, then back to the large man. “Ennis is a matter for my Alpha and our Left-Hand. My issue is our pups.”

Deucalion hums thoughtfully. “And what do you propose, Alpha Hale?”

Derek hadn’t thought he’d ever see the man who bit Paige again. Honestly, he’d hoped he was dead. Typical that he isn’t. Luckily, he and Stiles had already discussed the possibility that something like this would happen. He wants the man’s blood, wants revenge for the death that threw his life into hell; he wants his Pack safe more.

“When this is done, you leave. I don’t want you in my territory.”

Ennis laughed out loud. A cocky, deep throated thing that told them all he wasn’t going to back down. Could Derek take him? Maybe. The thing about Pack though, was that one never fought alone, especially when one’s Mate showed latent magical talent and a darkness in his soul he wasn’t afraid to tap into.

‘It’s like I’m haunted by their ghosts,’ he’d told the boy late one night. ‘Like, I’ve been broken so many times, I’m not sure how to be whole again. Sometimes, I see her eyes. They were green, but in my nightmares, they look like Lydia’s- silver glass that bleeds as she smiles.’

Stiles had gone silent for a long time, his fingers smoothing along the nape of Derek’s neck.

‘When mom was at her worst, she called me a monster. A demon. We were never really religious, but there’s a chapel in the hospital I used to go to. I’d light a candle and ask for grace. For forgiveness, because I thought it was my fault, you know? It wasn’t until Gerard was slicing up my back that I realized I didn’t need grace. I needed the darkness. To become the monster she used to call me, because monsters were strong.”

‘Back in the beginning,  Scott accused me of trying to be a hero, but I never thought of myself that way. An antihero maybe, or a villain, but I’ll never be a hero, and do you know why? Because they made us monsters, Der. They lit a match and watched us burn. Smiled as it ate us alive. They call us monsters; I say it’s time we showed them what they made.’

'What do you think we should do?'

‘If they come for us, we put them down, hard. No more second chances no more kindness or mercy. This time, the dead stay dead.’

None of them are surprised when Ennis throws himself forward, a mountain of muscle and hate in his eyes. They move like it’s a ballet, Jackson whips his tail across the man’s ankles making him stumble as the paralytic takes effect. Peter goes high, slices across his eyes, blood blinding the brute while Derek aims for his chest, a tapestry of slashes that peel back muscle, the white of bone shining through.

Stiles wraps his arm around the wolf’s throat, twisting his head to the side as Lydia screams directly in his ear, Peter moving her out of the way as soon as she’s done. It’s fast. The whole thing takes less than three minutes. Stiles is honestly surprised the others aren’t attacking, but Deucalion has a thoughtful look on his face, and Kali’s wrist in his grip. She’s shaking with her desire for revenge, but Deucalion’s word is law.

“It’s done,” he says as Stiles’ deals the final blow. His knife shoved into his jugular, head pushed down, and blade torn across his neck like a twisted smile.

It’s smart, letting the human deliver the final blow. Ennis’ power is corrupt and too strong for Derek to manage on top of his own right now. Maybe in a few years, when their Pack is stable and the territory secure, but not now, not like this. So, Stiles’ is the one that spill’s Ennis’ life’s blood, and takes the death into his soul, the darkness just that bit blacker. He wonder’s, fleetingly, if this is how villains are made, and then dismisses the thought. If it protects the Pack, his family, then he’d happily give up his soul.

He looks up at Deucalion with shadowed eyes, blood coating his hands and dripping off the tip of his knife, his glare hard.

“Now give us our Betas,” he demands coldly. The 'or else' is heavily implied. 

Deucalion inclines his head, flicking his fingers towards the twins, who race to do what they’re told. Within minutes, the lost are found and Stiles stands watching over his mate reunited with the sister he thought lost, and the betas he thought had deserted him.

It’s bittersweet then, when Lydia doubles over, a scream tearing past her lips. Stiles can feel it in the way the air quivers. He’s lost a piece of his past. A friendship he really hadn’t valued as much as he maybe should have these past few years, ripped away from him before he could salvage it.

A hate burns through him; hot, vibrant in its intensity. He throws back his head and gives voice to his own cry. Anguish, frustration, despair all mingle together to create something so much worse, because whatever is lurking inside of him is set free. Black fire, grey ash, and a heat so intense it freezes even as it erupts from his slender body.

A vortex of black fire spews into the sky, twisting and turning until it slams back into the ground miles away. The explosion of light makes all of them turn away. They can feel it, deep inside what makes them wolves and connects them to the territory. Whatever Stiles released has connected with the Nemeton.

A scream echoes across the town. Something was hurt by the backlash of power. They don’t speak, but move as one unit. Five Alpha wolves, four betas, a hybrid wolf-kanima, a banshee, a human hacker, and the spark, which no one really understands.

The Nemeton is drawing them towards her. Stiles takes the lead almost without thought. There’s no way he’s faster than the wolves, but the thing inside him is drawing on the telluric currents, it’s like he’s running on an escalator where the others are on solid ground. Not too fast to leave them behind, but fast enough to be the first to break through the tree line and see the woman – creature- thing, burning atop the Nemeton’s stump.

Her image flickers, a dark grey smudge of mountain ash slithering around her in a pitiful form of protection. He hears Kali gasp, a name growled out that tells him there’s a very personal history there. And if he had a sense of kismet, maybe he would let the barefoot Alpha finish whatever he started, but a flick of his wrist and a glance to Derek has the wolf’s claws tearing out her throat and ending the death and destruction once and for all.

As Alpha and Mate of the territory, the pair place their hands atop the Nemeton. Black vines twist about their wrists, pushing its history, its pain, and ultimate wish into them, and through them, into their Pack. One by one, the others mirror their stances. Stiles gags, twisting to the side to dry heave up black sludge in, frankly, disturbing quantities. Around the circle, the others are doing the same, until they’re laying on the ground spent.

There’s a weird feeling of expectation when Stiles glances at Derek, a ‘what now?’ that he doesn’t understand and is a bit terrified to find out when the entire glade burns Beta Gold. None of them can look at the stump. Even Deucalion is shielding his eyes, a cry of shocked pain torn free as black blood flows from behind the dark glasses. Kali’s bent over, more black goo flowing out of her mouth in a gushing torrent. The twins are holding each other up, rocking back and forth as smaller amounts of twisted black and red ooze out of their noses and ears. When they open their eyes, they’re blue. Stiles thinks they feel lighter somehow, like however they became Alphas was wrong and this was the cost to make it right again.

Kali is crawling across the ground, slices appear on her skin, ragged scars that mirror the creatures. Her eyes are blue as well, a mark of abomination Stiles knows will never go away. He doubts she’d become an Alpha again, even if she killed one. He doesn’t know her story, only sees piecemeal a brunette getting sliced atop a Nemeton, thinks maybe the Alpha who did it was Kali herself, but his head feels like it’s a pin-ball machine gone haywire and none of the memories stay for longer than a heartbeat.

Deucalion’s glasses are gone. Lost in the dust and the dirt. His eyes are blue, even before they flash. He’s been healed and with it, a sense of grim understanding. He seems weighted down with guilt, with heartache and no matter what, Stiles doesn’t want to know what drags such a deep, soul crushing moan of pain from the man. The Nemeton has done what it felt was needed, and he’s more than happy to abide by its decision.

Glancing up into the full canopy of silvery leaves, he understands why the Druids and ‘weres thought it was magical. It’s huge, beautiful with a sort of gossamer fragility and yet strong as steel, its roots buried so deep into the Preserve, he knows there will always be a piece of it alive there.

There will be a piece in each of them as well.

Derek and Peter’s eyes flash gold before Derek’s bleeds red. He’s calm, both in heart and mind for the first time in six years. Peter’s standing straighter, awe and humility on his face. The betas all stand a bit more secure. A bit closer to each other with their wolves close to the surface. He can feel their connections along the Pack bonds, even his father, who isn’t with them.

He can’t feel Scott.

Never could and doesn’t really care either way. The Nemeton has made her choice. She’s given her blessings and her curses. The thing inside Stiles, that darkness he feared, it’s not gone, Stiles doesn’t actually think that’s possible, but it’s been made impotent. Trapped inside a box that only Stiles himself can open. He’s reminded of the story of Pandora, and smiles, because his Hope is standing in the glowing glade with the giant magic tree.

Derek’s arms wrap around him tight as he glances up at the wolf, their lips gliding against each other and the Pack bonds singing in their chests.

‘No, there’s no Hope left in that dark box’, he thinks smugly.

He has it here, safe in his arms, where it was supposed to be from the beginning.

-end-