Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After the Alpha pack is gone for good, after the Darach is taken care of, after Boyd and Erica are dead and after Isaac runs after Scott;

After Derek loses everything he holds dear once again, and again and again and again;

After Scott becomes the rightful Alpha, the Alpha Derek will never be;

After he’s been beaten and used and almost killed more than once, after his house is burned once again, after the already battered structure finally collapses and the only thing left is just a pile of garbage;

After all that, Derek runs away.

It took him long enough.

“¡Estoy en Skype!” Cora shouts to someone his screen won’t show, “¡Baja un cambio!”

“I could call later,” he says, feeling weirdly out of place in his own loft. Even though he and Cora decided that Skype would be the best way to keep in touch, it was still oddly weird talking to his sister about mundane things – especially since barely a month before she was almost dead in that same room.

“No, it’s fine,” she replies, slightly annoyed. “It’s just the guys on my dorm are literally trying to raise the fucking dead- Mira, puto, ¡calate o voy a hacerte!”

He has half a mind to tell her to watch her language, but ultimately decides it’s not worth it. He misses her too much to waste their little time together with hypocritical attempts at parenting – mostly because he was never even a presence in her life to have any sort of authority as an older brother.

“Yeah, sorry bro,” she says, background finally quiet. “The dorm gets insane when it’s game day. What were we talking about?”

“Your friend was graduating with honors,” he says, absently. 

“What? Ah, yeah! So yesterday he calls and tells me that he’s going to be abanderado, that’s kinda like suma cum laude, you know? And I’m very happy for him, I really am, but he literally spent the last year away from Cordoba, I think he was in Brazil or Uruguay or something, so there’s this asshole in my dorm- You’re not paying attention,” she states, and it’s not a question. He sighs, rubbing his face on his hands.

“Sorry, Cora,” he mumbles from behind his hands. “Trouble sleeping.”

“That’s not it and you know it,” she says, scowling. Behind the crease of her eyebrows, eerily similar to his mother’s own, he can see the concern and feels simultaneously thankful and ashamed with her worrying. 

He sighs. He took Cora to Argentina right after the Alpha pack left, where she would be away from that hellhole of a city and able to carry on the life she’d built after the fire, and returned two weeks later. Those were two weeks where he was all alone in the loft, listening only to the water running inside the walls and the ecstatic noise of electric current. He felt deafened by the sounds of his empty apartment.

“I just-“ He breathes in deeply, once, twice. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Call the cops, things are gonna get real ugly,” she says, smirking.

“Shut up,” he runs his hands through his hair, looks at the bare loft walls. “I just- I don’t think I fit here anymore.”

She is silent for a moment, looking intently at his face through the screen.

“You could come here,” she says, softly. “We’d have to make arrangements, but-”

“No, Cora, we’ve talked about this-“

“Derek.”

“You found your home,” he says, painfully. “You’ve lived there forever, you have a life. It’s not that I don’t want to be with you, because I do,” he adds, hurriedly, “But I feel like I need to find a place to call home. This isn’t home,” he says, finally. “Laura is dead, you’re gone, Peter is as good as gone. The house is condemned. I’ve been thinking- I think I need to leave.”

“Find a place to call yours,” she asks.

“Yeah,” he croaks. He’d been dreading her reaction ever since he first started thinking about leaving the Hale territory behind, but she was calm, albeit with sadness in her eyes. “It was just a thought,” he adds.

“It was a good thought,” she says. “I think you need to go.”

“Really?” He asks, surprised. “But what about the territory?”

“I haven’t really thought about Beacon Hills as my territory for some good ten years, Derek,” she shrugs. “Besides, if letting this go is going to make you happier, then by all means. I care more about you than I care for a piece of dirt.”

“Our piece of dirt,” he twists his nose, indignantly.

“Don’t care,” she waves a hand. “Maybe it was for a good purpose, all of this shit. Scott’s the Alpha, you’re not, he has a pack, you don’t. What is trapping you there?”

He reasons for a moment, overlooking her bluntness and looking at the cold, hard facts. She’s right – he has no duty over the people left in Beacon Hills. It’s done.

“Nothing,” he answers. She smiles, toothy and wide, and winks at him.

“So, dear big brother,” she asks, “what are you waiting for to get the fuck away from Beacon Hills?”

He thinks about saying goodbye. Thinks about explaining why he’s going away to someone, says the mental list of reasonable reasons why he’s leaving while packing, preparing a speech no one cares enough to hear. He thinks about going to Scott and telling him to be careful, he thinks about going to Isaac and saying he’s sorry, and he thinks about going to Stiles and- He doesn’t know.

It’s Stiles that stops him, that wave of feelings that he doesn’t want to touch stirring inside of him. Stiles, who smells so much of peace and home and two weeks ago was so close to dying because Derek’s is a fucking disaster as everything. What does Derek has to say to him? I’m sorry I got you and your best friend caught on this mess? Sorry I wasn’t faster, cleverer, more responsible? There’s nothing left for him to say -  not for Stiles, nor for anyone.

He drives past Scott’s house on his way out and in an impulsive thought, drops the Camaro keys on the mail box. He doesn’t know why – something inside him says it’s because he remembers how free he felt when Laura first gave him the car, how light he felt. Maybe Scott can feel the same, and it’s not like Derek’s using it anyways. He also leaves his phone and loft keys.

He hopes the message is clear enough.

The sky is orange and pink when he finally leaves the city and his mouth tastes like bitter regret and unsaid things, but he doesn’t look back.

Back then, when he and Laura lived in Brooklyn, she had a map on her bedroom wall – there were pins marking cities and a path highlighted with black marker. “We’ll start up by visiting the Guillory Coven up in Massachusetts, because Aunt Nancy is always asking us for a visit,” She had said, when she first showed him the map, and placed a bright pink pin somewhere near Boston, “then downwards and towards west. When we go back to California, baby bro, we’re doing it in great style.”

Needless to say, their return to California was tragic and everything but stylish, but he could still remember the map on the wall, one Laura’s attempts to make him happier with small things. In Laura’s honor, he drives through the path she had set up in the reverse direction; upwards and towards East. For weeks, he drives, alone in his thoughts, stopping in small and big cities, taking a look at life and landscape, sending Cora random pictures of weird monuments in the small country cities of America.

He passes through Nevada, Utah and Colorado, takes a sharp turn towards New Mexico and Texas; in Louisiana he turns up again, drives through Mississippi, Tennessee and Indiana until he reaches Illinois and spends two weeks in Chicago. After, he makes an almost straight line through Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania until he’s in New York, parked in front of his Brooklyn apartment.

He opens the door and the smell of Laura is so strong he has to step back and breathe in the sour air of New York streets before coming in again.

It’s too much, he thinks, looking around the place. Before he went back to Beacon Hills he cleaned it thoroughly, because God forbid Laura came back to a messy home. The cleaning now, a year and half later, is pretty much wasted – there’s dust everywhere and he won’t even look at the fridge in fear of what might be living inside of it. But Laura’s clothes are still in her closet, her makeup still in the bathroom, her books still on her shelves. Derek gasps and chokes on his own breath, and he knows, he just knows – if he was looking for home, this isn’t it.

He calls Cora.

“You can call, now?” She says when she picks up, “Two months and no phone calls, I thought you decided to communicate with pictures of giant corn statues and beauty shots of southern Ronald McDonalds.”

“Cora-“ he mumbles, sitting on the front steps of his apartment. There are two taxi drivers arguing loudly in Hindi right in front of him, and he’s been away from New York for too long to still be able to ignore it.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” she asks, “Derek? Can you breathe?”

“No,” he chokes, trying to inhale and feeling the air heavy like lead. The smell of Laura was impregnated on his skin, his clothes, overwhelming and gut-wrenching, the city is too loud and he lowers his head between his knees when the first wave of nausea hits.

“Derek? Are you feeling sick?”

He moans in a half agreement, dry swallows and tries to take in air.

“There are so many pins,” he wheezes. “She put so many pins on the map, and she didn’t go to a single fucking place-“

“What?” Cora asks, sounding a bit bewildered. “Where are  you?”

“She wanted to go to Florida too,” he says, mumbling, “Disney, Laura really wanted to go to Disney World but there never was time, she wanted to go to Las Vegas but she could never- I could never- I don’t know what to do-“

“DEREK!” Cora shouts on the speakers, the sound a stab in his brain. “Where the fuck are you?!”

“Brooklyn-“

“Why the hell are you in Brooklyn? Weren’t you in Pennsylvania?”

“I drove,” he states, simply. “I- We lived. Here. Befo- After.”

“We as in you and Laura?” He nods, fully aware she cannot see him. His silence seems enough of an answer. “You and Laura lived in Brooklyn after the fire?”

“Yeah,” he croaks.

“And you went back.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” she says, sounding a bit calmer. “Okay. You’re not dying, then.”

“I don’t know,” he says, fully aware of how awfully dramatic he sounds.

“Stop that,” she says, and pauses. Derek can hear her breathing heavily through the phone. Inhale- pause. Exhale. It takes him a while to understand she’s biting back tears.

“Cora-“

“You just need to leave, Derek,” she says, tearfully. “Come here, please. I don’t want you all alone-“

“I told you already-“

“At least find someone you can stay with,” she pleads. “Please, Derek. You’ve been alone for so long, and I just want you to be okay.”

He pauses at that. Lowers his head, rubs his eyes.

“Laura had a map,” he croaks, “On her bedroom. She said that if we ever went back to Beacon Hills we’d do it after a road trip. I thought I was following what she wanted but- there were just so many places she just couldn’t go. It’s-“

“Unfair,” Cora says. “Yeah.”

They are in silence for a long time, listening to each other’s breathing and the deafening sound of Laura’s absence.

“I think you should do it,” Cora breaks it eventually. “What she wanted. Start at the beginning then make your way back to Beacon Hills.”

“But I don’t want to go back.”

“Then we think about something,” Cora says. “I don’t know, Derek. What do you wanna do?”

Derek goes back into the apartment and stares at the map for a long while, trying to answer Cora’s question. He sees it, then - the beginning of their road trip marked with a bright pink pin, the visit to the Guillory Coven they’ve never made.

And damn it, it’s not like he has something better to do.

“I’m going to visit a Coven,” he says, absently.

He’s in Massachusetts by the afternoon.

The Guillory Coven is headed by Nancy Guillory, a seventy-odds woman who was friends with his grandmother. Her eldest daughter went to college with Derek’s mother and they would always visit, their friendship strengthening an unlikely bond. Wolves and witches aren’t very friendly towards each other, but that’s just the Guillories - friends with the Hales since the 50’s.

There are weirder people around, he guesses.

The last time Derek saw Nancy was two or three years ago, he’s not sure. After the fire, she would always show up randomly, bringing food or gifs, making sure they were alright. The visits were cut short when her granddaughter died. Laura was the one who drove to Massachusetts for the funeral. It was too soon, Derek just couldn’t bring himself to handle it.

Life’s twisted sense of irony never fails to amuse him.

So here he is now, exhausted from driving all the way from California, confused, angry and so tired, standing in front of a huge house hidden by trees, not sure if he should or not knock. He doesn’t need to, eventually - Nancy herself opens the door, in all of her 5’3’’ tall glory and long gray hair braided out of her face. Her eyes light up like a Christmas tree when she sees him.

“Derek, my boy,” She says, and gives him a hug so tight that reminds him of Talia and fuck it. Fuck it, he thinks, choking on the smell of sandalwood coming from her hair, the smell of freshly ground coffee coming from the kitchen. Suddenly he was sixteen again and the stench of fire and smoke was glued to his nose, lungs filled with grief so heavy he felt like drowning on his own heart.  

Nancy says nothing, just brings him inside the house, tightens her hug, sits him on the couch and gives him tea.

Derek was planning on carrying on with the road trip once more.

Nancy, however, being the force of nature she is, doesn’t let him go. She looks at him square in the eyes, her own blue ones sparkling violet when she says You’re staying. She’s not his Alpha, but he obeys anyways.

He calls Cora.

“I might stay here in Massachusetts for a while,” he says, hoping that the unsaid hidden behind his words can tell her enough.

“Good,” she says. She’s tired. He’s tired. It’s been a rough couple of years, now. “Try to carve yourself a home and maybe just. Stay safe.”

He’s staying.

Chapter Text

When Stiles comes back from the hospital, he’s all about business, man. The alpha pack and the Darach are gone but you know, Beacon Hills is Beacon Hills, and shit will always go down even though everything they want is finish high school in peace. He’s not technically allowed to be active yet – he fell while trying to save his dad from the Nemeton and ignored the pain on his leg until the Sheriff all but shrieked and pointed out how purple it looked – but there are no medical rules against surfing the internet looking for magical Celtic protection runes, or other magic-based methods of keeping himself alive till graduation, at least.

So that’s where and how Scott finds him, on that nice November-near-December afternoon: sitting, half slumping on his bed, computer on his lap and printer going wild with the things he’s finding.

“Hey man,” Stiles says, without tearing his eyes away from the computer screen. “Sorry for the mess. I was going to get up and pick the papers but you know, ouchies on my everything, so no. You’ve gotta see what I’ve found, dude, apparently this runes can serve as protection if done by the right person. Do you think you can get Deaton to do them for us? Derek might use a few, people are always breaking into the loft.”

“Stiles, how much Adderall have you taken?” Scott asks, sitting by his bed.

“The usual,” Stiles shrugs. “I just can’t walk around and blow some steam with this fucking thing on,” And he points at his leg, where the white cast is already totally covered in writings. Lydia had even drawn a smile face next to her message and Stiles felt very touched by it. It’s good being friends with Lydia.

It’s good being friends with everyone, actually. It’s very good to know that his pack has his back, and he has been especially touchy-feely with everyone who came to visit, aka everyone but Derek, because Derek is probably brooding and blaming himself for all that mess. He even gave Isaac a hug, man, and Isaac won’t stop hugging him anymore. This should annoy the shit out of him, but it doesn’t.

“But hey, how are you doing? What about those newfound Alpha powers?” He shuts down the computer, puts it on his nightstand, and propels himself on his elbows to sit straight and look at Scott, wincing because fuck, it hurts. He ought to have learned to be more careful with himself when he’s running with wolves by now.

But well. At least he’s alive.

Focus, Stiles, back to Scott. This whole Alpha pack ordeal took its toll on his friend, and Damn if Stiles doesn’t want the innocent, carefree Scott back. He knows that tiredness in Scott’s face won’t disappear overnight, but it doesn’t stop him from trying to cheer him up, though. “Are you taking Alpha 101 classes with Derek? ‘Cause if you are, man, I’ve told you I can be your Yoda. Derek is as lost as you in this whole thing.”

“I think Derek is gone, Stiles,” Scott says, “I found the Camaro keys, his cell phone and the loft keys on my mailbox.”

Wait, what?

“Gone as in packed up and left?” Stiles asks, heart stuttering in his chest. “Or gone as in taken against his will?”

“I think he left out of free will,” Scott answers, “There’s nothing but furniture in the loft. No clothes, nothing”. He rises from the bed, running his hands through his hair. “Do you think this is about Peter?”

Peter, the batshit crazy asshole who got Derek to give up his Alpha powers as a part of one of his skewed, dark, brooding plans? Stiles really hopes not, because if Derek abandoned them because  they confronted Peter and the little shit disappeared in thin air, there’s no amount of nothing that will stop him from throwing a huge bitchy fit. Really, Stiles is far too tired to deal with this shit. Besides, Derek has even killed Peter once. No biggie, right? Because for all he knows, the guy can be back within the month.

“I don’t think so,” Stiles shrugs, dismissing those thoughts. Derek wanted Peter far, far away from him too. “I think he’s just throwing a tantrum, right? Tantrum à la Hale, all that. He must be in Las Vegas drinking himself to an early grave. I don’t blame him. I’m feeling very willing to drink myself to a coma and forget those past weeks too.”

“We can’t get drunk,” Scott says, but he does seem a bit better and even gives Stiles a small smile. Good, good. Improvement. “He must be back soon, right?”

“Right,” Stiles says. “Now carry me downstairs so I can whip your werewolf ass at Halo 4”.

Stiles is often right about a lot of things, but he’s often wrong about things too. Balance. But the figures are more or less 80/20, where he’s right about stuff 80 percent of the time and wrong in the remaining twenty. 

Derek’s return fall into those twenty.  It has been three months already and no sign of him.

Stiles is going crazy.

Scott suggests calling, before they remember Derek left his phone behind. He never had a facebook and they never traded e-mails, if he even had one to begin with. So they focus on Cora, who doesn’t pick up the phone, doesn’t answer e-mails, unfriends them all on facebook, but still changes profile pictures regularly and seems quite active on twitter. He skims through miles worth of tweets looking for a sign, anything that could tell them why isn’t Derek talking to him.

He insists so much she answers one day – a short message on facebook. “Forget him. He’s not coming back”.

There’s little room for him to be upset by Cora’s subsequently block of all of the pack members. It’s a cold spring morning, but he feels colder than the weather outside, and the realization is hard on his shoulders.

Derek left them.

Saying it like this seems too crude, and it is. Derek left them knowing that a) It’s fucking Beacon Hills, who knows what can happen b) Peter can always come back from whatever hole he’s crawled into and raise the fucking dead for all he knows, c) Scott needs guidance because dude, Alpha werewolf powers galore on that poor kid and d)They are a group. They are a pack, and Derek is part of it too.

(Stiles is so not throwing in this list the easiness he felt near Derek during those last few weeks they spent close; how easy it was to talk to him, share his plans and weakness; how safer he felt when Derek was around and how much time he spent wondering what would be like kissing him. He doesn’t say that he’s almost sad with Derek gone, like a bruise that won’t heal and he doesn’t know why, damn it, because it’s not like he’s in love with the guy. And anyways, Derek didn’t leave Stiles, Derek left the group, the pack, home, so it’s not about them per se, but about the whole scenario. No specificities.)

But here they are, six months after they beat the Alpha Pack. Derek left because he wanted to. Because he didn’t feel obligation or responsibility even though they’ve been through so much together. Because, once again, Derek was selfish and stupid and had an ego of the size of Jupiter and didn’t think of anyone else before leaving.

Stiles is angry. And underneath that thick anger layer, he’s also sad.

Sophomore year is done. Summer of his senior year is done. His senior year is done, and after a non-eventful year and half – except for the grindylows (man), pixies (you know what, fuck pixies, really) and that Fae which tried to eat his dad and killed two cops – he has lots of acceptance letters in his hands, a proud dad, a valedictorian speech to make and a strong pack having his back.

They are all sticking in California – Except for Lydia, who’s going to Harvard because Lydia is the shit – and they are all content, they are all happy, they’ve made it, they’re graduating and they are legal and they are alive. But there’s still something nagging Stiles, something that makes his smile falter a bit during Graduation ceremony. Something is called Derek.

Derek, who has been missing for nearly two years and didn’t even bother to send a message to say “I’m alive”. Derek, the little piece of shit.

Fucking hell, Derek, Stiles thinks absently while throwing his graduation cap towards the sky.

College is fine. He definitely got into it expecting every day would be like a bad straight-to-dvd movie about college life, but there are lots of deadlines and not enough time to get as drunk as he’d wished he had. Barely any time to sleep, as it is. It’s not, he realizes, an amazing youth experience, where one went wild, drunk a lot and did stupid shit that could probably get them killed or worst, arrested. He’s only marginally frustrated by the realization - he does the drinking part alright, but he has been in too many near death experiences to willingly put himself into another one, and getting into a prestigious university like Berkeley on a full ride demands more effort than he’d ever put into anything in his life aside from not dying. Danny, added to the pack somewhere between the grindylows and a pixie infestation in his house, is of the same opinion. They often spend the parties at Berkeley just drinking and laughing at drunken people drunkenly doing stupid shit. 

He’s calmer, now. More centered, more focused, more serious. It’s good not to work on overdrive all the time, but sometimes it’s like he’s numb. He’s content, he’s happy, he’s safe, but-numb. Ish. He tries explaining it to his psychiatrist, they change his meds, it doesn’t go away. Tries new antidepressants, even goes off Adderall on his own for a while (conclusion: Do not attempt. Awful experience, never to be repeated), but the numbness doesn’t go away. He’s left with Klonopin for the nasty insomnia that has gotten close to him and a hearty note to go back to therapy, a wise piece of advice he never follows.

He tries dating Danny for a while. It’s nice. The sex is great. But they’ve both been through so much, and when Danny finally says “You know what, I think we’re better off as research pals and responsible humans in the pack,” Stiles couldn’t agree more. He still drags Danny to the Tattoo shop, for the various sessions of carving a tattoo large enough to cover his entire spine - He faints a lot and vomits on Danny’s shoes once because of the needle and the pain but dude, if they are back to being friends now, they are friends for everything.  Even for vomit. Even for fainting because of needles.

But by the end of it he has a line of runes running straight through the line of his spine, all for protection. It’s nice, all in P&B, and Danny says it looks hot, so it’s fine for him, and Deaton declares him ready to assume the place of Emissary to Scott’s pack, which is even better, so he decides it’s worth it. He’s just never having another tattoo in his life.

(The next ones are already planned, however, should he change his mind.)

He studies. He travels a bit through California with the pack. He has a few dates, girls and boys alike, but always finds himself looking for tanned skins, day old stubbles and hazel eyes, strong and sharp jaw lines and broad, muscled backs. He won’t find it, he knows, but when has impossibility stopped him from trying anything, really?

The years pass. Stiles thought it would be easier to forget Derek with time and it isn’t, to the surprise of absolutely no one. He can describe Derek’s face with a photographic precision if he wants to, can describe his voice and his smell, but somehow he is the only one in the pack who can do it. It’s something he learned how to live with, this burning ache inside his heart, always seeking something that will not come back despite his deepest wishes, but he refuses to give it his time of the day. He lets it go because they are fine, they are alive, he’s almost graduating from college and aside from the occasional pixie – no, really, fucking pixies, Stiles hates them so fucking much – things are alright.

 That’s when things start to go downhill.

It starts with a wave of killings.

Not just random killings. His dad calls him after the third body and says “God help me, kiddo, but I need your help with this. This is no human”. He calls the pack and sets a pack meeting during Easter, and asks his dad for more details.

The bodies were obliterated, like they were eaten by a savage beast. There aren’t, however, many savages beasts who could do that much damage to a human in Beacon Hills because most of them are, uh, sharks, and sharks were still an ocean thing by last time Stiles checked. They also found massive amounts of scorpion poison in their bloodstreams. The bodies had faces torn apart, wrecked internal organs, sometimes whole limbs missing, and if identifying the remains was a going to be a bitch, Stiles couldn’t even begin to fathom the hell it’d be trying to find what exactly did this.

The first thing he thinks, strangely enough, is that Derek is dead, and the death of the last remaining Hale is the beginning of the next zombie apocalypse for all he knows. He thought about it in the middle of a particularly bad night sleep-wise, and blames it on the Klonopin when he calls Deaton at 4am on a Thursday to tell him about his theory.

“Derek is not the last remaining Hale, Stiles” Deaton says, only slightly annoyed at Stiles for calling him at the crack of dawn. “And if Cora’s facebook is anything to go by, he’s not dead either. You would know – how long have you been hacking into my account to stalk Cora’s profile?”

“Sorry,” Stiles says, and thanks the doctor because he’s polite like that, not because making sure Derek wasn’t dead made things to his heart.

The pack meets over a very catholic Holy Friday lunch, courtesy of a not-that-catholic-but-still-adamant-about-religious-traditions Melissa, sitting in Scott’s living room and eating cod fish stew like there’s no tomorrow. Lydia is on Skype, watching them all with an expression that expresses both disdain and fondness. Stiles loves when they do their research. It just makes his life so much easier.

“So, the victims,” Isaac starts, “They were all wolves”.

There’s a collective gasp and Danny even chokes on a bell pepper slice.

“You’re serious?” Scott asks.

“Dead serious. I went to the morgue yesterday with Melissa and saw them, all three. They smelled of different woods and wolf, but had no smell of Alpha. So they are omegas and come from somewhere else but Beacon Hills.”

“Just our luck,” Stiles mutters. “So, first we need to know about who they are. Then we need to know what sort of thing could be summoned and do that stuff, and third, if there are omegas in the area, we need to take care of them.”

“Danny, you try to find about these people’s identity,” Scott says, full on Alpha mode, and Danny nods. “Lydia, you try to find something in the bestiary and Allison and Chris can guard the perimeter. Deal?”

“Yep,” they all say together.

“Good,” Scott replies. “Now I’m calling for a mandatory movie night, and I’m obviously the one who’s going to pick the movie.”

There’s a collective groan from everyone in the room when Scott plays Despicable Me once again, and from the kitchen, they can hear Melissa laughing softly.

“So, I have news,” Says the voice on the phone, “But you won’t like it.”

It’s too early in the morning for this, he thinks, trying to blink the sleep from his eyes, and hot damn it’s seven in the morning. It’s really too early for this. He looks at his phone screen and recognizes the word “Lydia” written in front of him. It just had to be.

“it’s the Lord’s day, I’m trying to sleep, and whatever it is can wait three or four more hours. Definitely more four. Maybe we can argue about more five?”

“Stiles!” She says, and okay, he’s sitting right now and ushering her to keep going. “It could be anything from a Ghoul to a Demon, but I’m inclined to believe it’s a Manticore. It completely obliterated his victims because it has three, Stiles, the thing has three rows of teeth and a scorpion tail and listen to this, it absorbs the face of the last person it ate. So it’s a thing walking around with a lion body, scorpion tail and human face. It can speak, Stiles. When it’s eating its victims, it sings.”

Stiles is awake in half a second.

“Shit.”

“And this is not even the worst. They are often summoned by witches, especially when they want to take over a territory. They use it to send a warning, letting their rivals know they’re there. Then, they attack with a strengthened Manticore, because it gets stronger with every killing it does”.

Stiles is up and pacing around the room within the minute, trying to make sense out of this information.

“So there’s a coven in Beacon Hills,” He says.

“I have very strong reasons to believe so.”

“Since there are no Hales, they considered the land abandoned and want to take it for them. But we are here, too, so they need to get rid of us to get the territory. They summon a Manticore, pick up random omegas from the general vicinity, kill them in Beacon Hills while strengthening their killing machine and plotting our demise. Is this their general plan?”

“Yes,” Lydia replies, and he can imagine that right now she’s biting her lower lip, twisting a strand of hair with her fingers, and tapping at her desk with manicured nails. “We don’t own the land, but we are a pack in the way. They’ll kill us and will kill Derek too,” She sighs. “What do we do now, Stiles?”

The answer is simple. The answer hurts. Dying will hurt more, seeing his friends die more so, so Stiles suck it up, clears his throat and stares at the window.

“We need to find Derek”.

Chapter Text

Nancy has a very big family.

A huge family, some might say. Her six children, her eldest daughter Elizabeth aside, had more children, and in the end Nancy has six children and eleven grandchildren, not counting Albert’s wife who is pregnant with her first baby.  

Ten living grandchildren, actually, because Miranda had died some four or five years before - her death is still a gaping wound to everyone in the family and something Derek can very much relate.  They don’t talk about it, he doesn’t press it.

Much like the Hales, they are also a matriarchy. When Nancy dies, her daughter Elizabeth will lead the coven, and when Elizabeth dies, her niece Melanie will take over. It’s not a matter of who is the daughter of whom as much as it is who is the oldest, and Melanie is constantly groomed to assume her rightful position as the Leader.

They are very powerful, yes. But before they are a coven, they are a big, happy family.

The thing about having a big family, Derek realizes, is that people are used to caring too many people at once. When he starts living with them, they instantly treat him like family – he has house chores just as everybody else, but he also has the right to demand a second slice of desert. They worry about him, want to know if he had dinner or if he slept well, and are very vocal about what they think he should do with his life. Nancy even hits him with a wooden spoon when he forgets to turn off the garden lights one day. Derek wonders if the teenagers in the family think the constantly attention and care is overwhelming, because that’s what he used to think, an eternity ago. He knows better, now. He’s thankful that he has something like home for him to stay.

The Guillory women, much like the Hales, are unstoppable when they are determined. Because of them, he finds himself finishing that last remaining year of grad school and applying for a teaching license.

Derek Hale as a teacher. He almost laughs at the idea, deeming it completely unrealistic and already searching for other things to do with an English diploma when they accept his application and the local high school hires him and well.

He supposes it’s worth the try.

The years pass.

He decides he’s calling the Pack in his first year away, but then decides against it. The same happens in the second, the third and the fourth year; when he realizes he’s been away for five years and it’s a bit too late to call now. So he carries on. He buys himself an apartment and leaves Nancy’s house (even though he, as the rest of the family, has to go there and have dinner every Friday, no excuses), changes cars again and even though it’s not his ideal job, he likes teaching too. Sometimes he can find a good student or two. He’s nice, his life is good and while he’s not happy, he’s content.

He’s not happy because of the undying feeling nagging at the corners of his mind that there’s something missing.

Not something as much of a someone, and he knows exactly who. Said who has pale skin and moles he knows, to this day, the exact position of, big liquid amber eyes, a permanent buzz of energy and a raw force of will, a strong will to survive, to stay alive by the end of the apocalypse. Said who is better off away from him, so Derek just shrugs and keeps going on. If Stiles absence was one constant ache within his chest, he can just suck it up and deal with it. “Il y a toujours quelque chose d’absent qui me tourmente”, he read somewhere once, there is always something missing that torments me.

Stiles memory is going to torment him eternally but hell, at least Stiles is alive. It’s the least he could ask for.

It’s Saturday and he’s at the restaurant owned by one of Nancy’s sons, James, like every single Saturday for the past five years, grading the last finals of his senior students. It’s a warm afternoon – summer already knocking on the door – and he’s by the window, a soft breeze caressing his face. It’s nice, even. He breathes in deep for a second, the scent of fresh grass and new leaves filling his lungs.

“Need more coffee, handsome?” A girl asks, sitting on the chair in front of him. “Found any pearls already?”

“This guy had the guts to say that Walden is a perfect representation of our mid-twentieth-century society. Walden was written in the nineteenth century, Melanie,” He sighs heavily and lets his head rest on the tabletop. “Where do they even copy this from? I don’t know why I keep trying.”

Melanie laughs, clear and high-pitched, small lips stretching to show a straight line of small white teeth. She has long dark hair, thick and straight, tied up in a ponytail; her honey irises are a nice match to full lashes and thick eyebrows. The soft downwards curve of her nose clashes with the rest of her features – it stands out on her face, a proud reminder of her Armenian heritage – but her olive skin finally lost that winter paleness and acquired some golden undertones. She looks happy, mostly because she’s finally done with college and is working part time as a waitress with her favorite uncle, and Derek feels happy that she’s happy.

“You’re lucky they respect you,” she says, “It helps that you look like you’re a part time serial killer.”

“So funny,” He groans and puts all the tests in a pile, stretching his arms after he’s done.

“Don’t think I don’t find you hot,” She presses on, smirking, “Because I’d totally think you’re hot. What’s hidden under your pants just doesn’t do it for me.”

Derek rolls his eyes, rolls the pile of tests and hits her on the arm. She doesn’t even mind, just laughs a bit more. It’s weird how comfortable they are with each other – Derek didn’t think he’d find someone to be comfortable around ever again – but they are. They found understanding in each other. When they first met, Melanie was the confused eighteen years-old who had lost her older sister and suddenly needed to come to terms with the fact that she would have to lead a coven, even though she wasn’t raised for it like Miranda was.

Derek could relate.

They didn’t talk much at first, just watched TV or did the dishes together, but silence was comfortable between them. Conversation came later. People used to say that their friendship was very unlikely and extremely odd, but they are friends and that’s enough. He hadn’t had a true one in a while, and Melanie is the best he could’ve asked.

“So, plans for summer?” She asks, crossing her arms over her chest and slumping down on her chair, legs crossed underneath the tabletop, and Derek shrugs.

“Not much. You?”

“Nah,” She answers. “Rachel is back to Minnesota for the summer, so I’m stuck here for the ride, no girlfriend. I do have some job interviews in Boston, though. Oh, hey, Aunt Teresa,” She sits up straighter when a tall woman clears her throat to the right, hands on her hips and curly dark hair in a ponytail. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m great,” Teresa says, hovering over them from the end of the table and giving Melanie a glare. “I’ve just noticed that there are other customers than Derek in the restaurant and, oddly enough, they are not being served. What do you think we should do about this issue?”

“Yep, that’s my cue,” Melanie says, “See ya later, Wolfy boy.”

Derek rolls his eyes; Teresa gives Melanie a light slap on her head, but smiles softly when the girl leaves and starts talking to a couple a few tables ahead.

“Need anything else, Derek?” She asks.

“No, I’m actually done here,” He says. “How much is it?”

“Oh, it’s on the house today,” She says, smile growing wider. “James and I are twenty years today, can you believe it? Anyways, Camilla asked if you want to stop by. Apparently they are having a movie night.”

“I might,” he stands, putting his wallet and cell phone on his pockets and picking up the test pile and his pens.

“Good,” Teresa picks up the plate and coke can, and her once soft smile turns into a full-blown smirk, and shit. “Would you mind driving the twins to target for me then, dear?”

Derek groans as a habit, but Teresa knows is so sure he doesn’t mind, she cackles all the way to the kitchen.

They are in the park, sitting on the grass in front of the baseball field while Lucas plays with his friends. Camilla has downed half of her sundae already, but Amanda is still chattering about the latest The Walking Dead episode. Derek just sits and enjoys his own sundae.

The thing about the Guillories is that they are travelers. Ever since Nancy married Charles, and even after Charles died, they travel all around to world, visiting different Covens and inhaling knowledge before deciding to settle down, when the time came. That’s why they are so diverse amongst themselves.

You had Melanie, whose mother was Armenian, then you had Amanda, Isabella’s daughter, who lived in Japan for a solid decade because of her Japanese dad and still retains a bit of an accent while speaking, then the twins Camilla and Lucas, who looked so much like their Brazilian mother one might have thought they were photocopies. Most people would never think they are related, let alone so tight, but that they are. Amanda-and-the-twins are a group, a thing, and if you saw one of them the odds were you were definitely going to see the other two.

That’s why he’s sitting in a park, on Saturday evening, with two seventeen year old witches, eating a vanilla sundae and watching a seventeen-year-old warlock play baseball with his classmates, waiting for Melanie to get out from the restaurant so they can have a movie night.

Oh, how the turntables.

“By the way, Derek,” Amanda cuts her monologue about zombies to slurp on her milkshake, “Are you teaching AP English this year again?”

“I think so,” He answers, and nods at a group of overly-enthusiastic fifteen-year-olds who wave at him.

“I was thinking about taking it,” Camilla says quietly, “I mean, it won’t get me into NYU, but might help me get into a nice college.”

“Oh my God, Camilla!” Amanda rolls her eyes and lets herself fall to the grass, black straight hair spreading on the floor. Her Asian eyes were a bit swollen – She went to pick up her dad in New York before meeting them in the park and was dead tired, he could tell – and with her lids closed, you’d expect them to be as dark as Camilla’s or Lucas’, but her irises were naturally bright blue, like her mother’s. That alone could make the girl the school’s Queen Bee, for all Derek knew, but she kept it to herself. It was one of the things that make him like her.

There’s the small issue of her lack of any brain-to-mouth filter, but you can’t win every battle.

“You will totally get into NYU if you want to,” She continues, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, nails painted of sparkling blue glitter. “I will personally drag your ass there if that’s what it takes. Derek will help me if I need to. Right Derek?”

“Oh, stop it, Amanda,” Camilla says, rolling her eyes and eating another spoonful of sundae.

“She has a point, you know,” Derek says, “You are good enough for NYU.”

“I’m not good enough to cast a spell, Derek, what makes you think I can get into one of the best colleges around?” She mutters, eating a bit more of her ice cream. Camilla was a very nice girl, but not so cheerful, and for some unknown reason she couldn’t cast any spells for the life of her. Amanda was already initiated in the Coven, Lucas was almost there, but there was something no one could identify holding Camilla back. When Derek first met her, she was twelve and should be showing some control over her powers already, but didn’t.

Needless to say, it did wonders for her self-esteem.

 “You’re stupid,” Amanda says, sitting again to drink more of her milkshake. Camilla starts to pick the grass leaves from her hair.

“My point exactly,” She says, and Amanda turns around to slap her in the knee. “When is Mel coming, again?”

“Let me text her,” Derek says, tapping at his phone. “She shouldn’t be out already.”

The answer doesn’t take long – “I think you should come here, big trouble”, and Derek is on his feet within half a second. Old habits die hard, and his heart is bursting inside his chest.

“Call Lucas, Melanie is asking for help,” He says, looking on his pockets for the car keys until he hears Camilla clearing her throat in front of him, waving his keys and smirking at him when he snatches it from her hands.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” she says, and unties her hair from the bun they were tied up in, soft waves falling past her shoulders. “Mel probably ripped an ice pack again and needs your help to clean it.”

“I think she blew up the coffee machine again,” Lucas says from behind Camilla. He gives his sister a peck on the cheek and picks up his shirt from Amanda’s bag. “Terrible timing, man, we were winning!”

“You’ll have more than enough time to play later,” Derek says, “Come on.”

He puts his hand on the restaurant’s door, ready to open, when he freezes.

“What do your werewolf nose smells?” Amanda asks, “Is Mel doing meth?

“Oh my God,” Camilla laughs, “Melanie doing meth would be the most awkward thing ever. Can you imagine?”

“I try not to,” Lucas says, but he laughs too. “What’s wrong, Derek?”

Everything is wrong, he wants to say, because he smells pinewood and cinnamon and Beacon Hills’ woods, and there’s only one person in the world that has that smell. That person, however, cannot be there, in a small town in Massachusetts, because for all Derek knows Stiles must have been thinking he was dead, and it was for the best.

But the smell, the smell was unmistakable.

He was going crazy; it’s the only plausible explanation.

 He chooses to ignore it – as far as he can - and pushes the door open only to gasp, fingers clutching at the door handle, blood draining from his face, because sitting at one of the tables, twisting his hands nervously, is Stiles.

Derek swears his heart stops, but his world moves and shifts back to its right axis.

Chapter Text

-

"Lovers' language, give me an exact and poetic comparison to say what those eyes of Capitu were like. No image comes to mind that doesn't offend against the rules of good style, to say what they were and what they did to me. Undertow eyes? Why not? Undertow. That's the notion that the new expression put in my head. They held some kind of mysterious, active fluid, a force that dragged one in, like the undertow of a wave retreating from the shore on stormy days. So as not to be dragged in, I held onto anything around them, her ears, her arms, her hair spread about her shoulders; but as soon as I returned to the pupils of her eyes again, the wave emerging from them grew towards me, deep and dark, threatening to envelop me, draw me in and swallow me up."

- Machado de Assis, Dom Casmurro

-

Stiles is very proud to say his pack totally kills at research. They’ve got Stiles, Danny and Lydia in just one combo, what would you expect? They manage to track down and identify all relevant information about Derek within the month.

By the beginning of May, they already know where he is and where he lives exactly, thanks to Danny’s hacking skills. They also know about the Guillory family, about Derek’s teaching position (and really, Derek teaching? No fucking way), and hell, they even know the grades he’s been giving to his students – the guy is like a hot Mr. Harris teaching poetry, and Stiles is so not surprised. They basically find out about those entire five years Derek spent away from Beacon Hills.

Even though he’s quite satisfied they’ve found Derek and is now sure he’s alive and kicking, Stiles can’t stop that sour, bitter feeling inside his guts – a tiny little voice whispering in his ear that maybe if the pack had made a little extra effort, they would’ve been able to find Derek earlier; that maybe Stiles wouldn’t have had to spend countless nights staring at his ceiling wondering if Derek was okay, if he wasn’t suffering or being kidnapped or tortured; wishing there wasn’t the bitter taste of unsaid things on his tongue and the shiver of untouched skin beneath his fingertips. They just didn’t care, and though he hid it very well, he also felt a little betrayed.

He brings this to Danny one day, but the man just shrugs. “I thought he needed a time for himself. Like, the guy went through some heavy shit. Figured he’d come back after a while”, he says, and Stiles doesn’t understand why they don’t get it.

He swallows it down, though, because there are more pressing issues to be handled – like a fourth body appearing in the woods - a teenage boy’s body, damned be all the magic in the world. They don’t have much time left. So they put together a strategy and Stiles soaks up information like he’s SpongeBob fucking SquarePants.

He spends his nights awake just searching for more information about the Guillories, and by the end of May he can say the name of all Nancy and Charles Guillory’s children by birth order (Elizabeth, Henry, Isabella, James, Alexandra, Eleanor and Albert) and their children’s children, also by order – Elizabeth didn’t have kids, Henry had Miranda (deceased), Melanie and Matthew, Isabella had Amanda, Brian and Claire, James had Camilla and Lucas, Alexandra had Corinne, Eleanor had Charles and Jodie, and Albert didn’t have kids either.

He knows the name and address of the restaurant James and his wife Ana Teresa have; he knows where does Isabella’s husband, Daisuke, works in New York City; he also knows where in Colorado Eleanor lives, what neighborhood in London Alexandra lives and last but not least, where in India Albert lives with his wife. He’s pretty sure that, by now, he’s borderline obsessed and can be pretty much considered a Stalker, capital letters and all, but he honestly never cared before and it’s not going to be now that he’s going to.

The only thing Stiles doesn’t understand is why Derek is staying with them. There’s a missing link, something that doesn’t fit, and Stiles researches their Facebook profiles to try and make sense out of it. He does find photos of Derek in seemingly normal situations – at Birthday parties, ar Melanie’s graduation ceremony, at a barbecue, watching basketball games with other teachers from the bench. Five years worth of photos, five years of Derek he missed.

He doesn’t know how to feel about this, but ends up feeling bad nonetheless.

So the plan is quite simple – he flies to Boston, finds Lydia, gets her car and drives to where Derek is, stopping first at James’ restaurant to ask for him. Clean and practical, courtesy of Allison Argent, strategist extraordinaire.

What actually happens, though, is that he and Lydia decide to share an ice-cream when they meet, talk for a few minutes, which then stretches itself to a lunch, and when Stiles looks at the time it’s evening already and he needs to go ASAP.

His hands sweat through the entire way and it’s hard to keep his grip on the steering wheel.

He finds the city without trouble and the restaurant isn’t much trouble either. They are almost closing when he comes in, and the girl cleaning the counter is raising her head saying “We’re closing” when she looks straight at him and damn, it’s only at that exact moment he realizes there’s a hole in the plan.

They’ve never assumed the Guillories could be a pack too.

Within a second she’s pressing him against the front door, eyes violet instead of dark brown, hands tight on his jacket’s lapel. “Emissary,” she snarls, “What do you want?” and hey, he’s very much confused because as far as he knows violet is not a wolf color and oh, right, she’s not a wolf, she’s a witch, and god fucking damn it Stiles can be five seconds away from his death right now-

“I-I need to talk to Derek,” He wheezes, and she quirks her head to the side like an angry animal and it’s getting a bit hard to breathe, breathe Stiles, he so can’t panic right now-

“What do you want with him?” She hisses, pressing him further into the door, and breathe, Stiles, breathe - He’s trying, he swears - He looks at her face, the curved-downwards nose and full eyelashes and Melanie, if he’s not mistaken, this is Melanie, the one girl who had the most pictures with Derek on her facebook, just his godforsaken fucking damned luck-

“There’s someone trying to take over his territory,” He gasps when she presses even further and oh my god, she’s breaking one of his ribs if keeps going- “Beacon Hills, lovely city, but a target to a Coven, we believe, and they summoned a Manticore to achieve their evil plans-”

She looks at him carefully, a sneer still placed on her face, but her eyes go back to being brown and she lets him go. “Sit,” she points at one of the chairs and he does, not deigning to look everywhere else but her face. “You do realize this is Guillory territory and your pack never sent us a message, right?”

Right, he thinks, because witches are all on bureaucracy and formalities, and they ought to have sent a message. Shit, guys, this was a huge hole that could possibly get him killed. He’s hitting everyone with a baseball bat as soon as he returns to Beacon Hills. If he returns to Beacon Hills.

“We didn’t know,” He says. “I’m very, very sorry. I wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t absolutely necessary. Four people have died already, and we didn’t know what else to do.”

“Hm,” she says, and crosses her arms across her chest. Her voice is cold and sharp as steel, and he can see in her eyes she doesn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. Said eyes keep pinning him to his place, and he suddenly feels very small, even though this girl is just a year or two older than he is. “You do well knowing I do not believe you.” It wasn’t a question.

“I’m sure you don’t,” he mumbles, then clears his throat. “Really, I’m very sorry. I didn’t know you were a Coven, and we are a tad bit desperate. This is the first killing spree we have in years.”

Her lips are pressed into a thin line and she’s still staring at him when her phone beeps – she taps against it for a moment before looking at him square in the face again.

“Derek knows you?”

“Yes,” Stiles answer, because the motherfucker does, and said motherfucker probably knows what it did to him when he set off to the sunset to never return; the asshole probably even laughed about it.

Ok, so Stiles is bitter about this whole ordeal and he doesn’t even know why exactly (because it’s not like he’s in love with the guy), because no one else in the pack feels the same way, but point is, he’s angry at Derek, okay? He spent a good year worrying about the dude’s well-being, and then poof, he’s gone. He has the right to be mad, and as soon as he sees him, he’s punching the man in the face, even if it costs him a few knuckles, because you just don’t do that to people, asshole.

“Well, he’s on his way,” Melanie says, crossing her arms and leaning back on her chair, “Then we’ll see if you’re really saying the truth.”

“I am-“

“I don’t remember asking your opinion,” she says, cooly, and Stiles swallows.

 Do you have to enjoy threatening maiming or murdering people in order to be friends with Derek? Stiles thinks, but he remains quiet anyways. He wonders how Derek is, now. If he still works out or let a tad bit of that healthy-frenzy go. If he’s actually eating properly. If he has a girlfriend anywhere around that city or if he still likes his coffee borderline boiling. Small things he missed from his life.

He doesn’t have to wonder for too long, though, because the door opens and there he is. Derek.

Stiles gasps like air has been sucked out of his lungs.

Stiles felt numb during his college years. He was content, nearly happy, but there was something missing, like there was this last piece of a puzzle he didn’t know where it was, and that made him sort of numb. Ish. Numbish. Sort of. It was a weird feeling, like something was always lacking, and sometimes he felt very lonely and very empty and make very stupid things to get rid of the feeling.

But standing in front of Derek (wait, when did he get up?) is not like something is missing – it’s like a whole limb is missing. It’s like Derek’s presence makes him more aware, and made that small, sentient ache inside his chest grown and grow and burn and consume him entirely like he’s wood thrown on a bonfire, something that he kept buried under layers and layers of repressed anger exploding and his heart- his heart is going to burst out from his chest because it hurts so much, he can feel it on his clammy hands and wobbling legs and what the hell is going on with him? Why can’t he breathe?

Why isn’t he breathing?

He can’t breathe and he’s trying to suck in air and he can’t, he just can’t and why is he panicking? There was a witch with a figurative gun pointed to his head and he didn’t panic, why is he panicking for seeing Derek? His thoughts are scattering, his mind can’t focus, drowned on thoughts of he’s alive, he’s fine and why did he left us, why did he left me, and oh my god, he’s going to pass out, is going to be the most terrible stuff ever to be stuff, there are already points of white on his vision and-

And there are strong hands on his arms, someone sitting him on a chair, someone saying “Breathe, Stiles”, breathing in and out and in and out again and Stiles follows their lead, trying to breathe in and out and managing by the bits, slowly regaining the ability to put oxygen inside his lungs. His vision clears up and – shit, there’s Derek lowered in front of him, eyes filled with concern and looking like he had just been stabbed in the throat. He’s there. Stiles grips at his lapels hard, and it takes him a moment before he can actually say something.

“You left,” he wheezes, “Why did you leave?”

“I had to,” Derek says, voice low and almost sad, if Stiles was reading it correctly (he probably wasn’t).”I had no reason to stay.”

“You had no…” Stiles gasps at the absurdity of that sentence – how did he have no reason to stay? What about the pack? What about Stiles? What about the Hale territory and everything else he left behind? “What are you talking about?”

“Everybody died, Stiles, I…” He clears his throat, looks to the side. “My family died, my sister left, and you were alright without me, there was no point on staying-“

“We were alrigh… Are you eating shit?” Stiles hisses desperately, “We missed you, asshole, I missed you, and there wasn’t a day where I didn’t wonder if you were dead or if you were just a sadistic motherfucker, would have killed you to send a message? ‘Hey, it’s me, I’m too busy to take my head out of my ass and grow some balls to actually face how fucked up our lives are, but I’m alive and well’? It wouldn’t take you half a minute, Derek!”

“Stiles,” Derek growls, standing up and okay, Stiles pushed a few buttons to much, but Stiles is also far too gone to care, and he stands up too, never mind his wobbly legs are doing only so much at keeping him standing.

“Don’t you Stiles me,” Stiles pokes at Derek’s chest with his index fingers and Derek growls harder, but fuck it if Stiles care. “You were selfish and you were stupid- why couldn’t you have told anyone? You could have told me, because then I’d take this stupid head of yours out of your ass and even if I couldn’t make you stay I’d at least know where you were.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, try me.”

They stare at each other’s eyes without blinking and breaking eye contact for a solid, long moment before someone coughs to their left. They both look at the same time – It’s Melanie, who’s trying so hard not to laugh Sties has half a mind to worry she’s going to break in half. She raises her hands like she’s been caught for doing something wrong and potentially harmful.

“Oh, don’t mind us,” She says, and her grin getting wider, somehow spreading to the three teenagers standing behind her. It’s like her voice pulls Stiles from some trance, because he’s suddenly hyper aware that he’s in another coven territory and just- what the hell did he just do?

“This right here,” blue-eyed Asian girl says, “Is like a novella finale. Get me a good hair-pulling fight, a suicide and we’re done. It’s Maria la del Barrio all over again.”

“I don’t even want to know how you get your Mexican Soap Operas knowledge, really,” The boy says, while the other remaining girl stares at Derek and Stiles with understanding dawning on her face. She doesn’t even blink, wide brown eyes jumping from one to another, and Stiles suddenly acutely aware that a) he’s far too close to Derek because b) he’s still holding on to Derek and. He steps back, clearing his throat and straightening his clothes.

He doesn’t know what the hell that little episode was – it was like he didn’t have control over his own body, like there was something bigger than him drawing him to Derek, something that hurt and made him want to touch so badly. He can’t look the man in the eye anymore. He focuses instead on that little bleach splash on his Vans, wondering how did that splash ended up there. (Derek is still too close, he can feel his heat radiating and can still smell leather and aftershave and fuck, Stiles feels like he has swallowed a hundred round stones, but he’s not in love, he’s not in love).

“So, Stiles,” Melanie says, clasping her hands behind her back and all traces of hostility removed from her voice and wow, talk about a change. “You said you were having problems in your hometown?”

“Yes,” he wheezes, then clears his throat and makes a huge effort to look Derek in the face – not the eyes, he’ll get to that later when he’s less embarrassed about the whole possessive girlfriend stunt he pulled and what the hell was he thinking god fucking damn it – “There’s a...” A what was it again? “Coven, yes, coven, in Beacon Hills, and they are using some sort of supernatural drone that eats people by the halves to take over your land and will probably kill us and you too in order to get the territory, and to sum it up, we really need you there.”

“You could have called,” Derek says, still looking like there was someone kicking him to the balls. Heh, now that’s a mental image.

“Would you have picked up?” Stiles asks and the way Derek averts his eyes is a good enough answer. “Anyways, Lydia suspects is a Manticore, whatever hell that is.”

“For one thing, it’s very dangerous,” The boy says, copper skin shimmering with sweat. He runs his hands through his short hair and wipes the moisture on his sister – Camilla, if Stiles is not mistaken, and Lucas, her twin and holy shit, they are a perfect example of Rule 63 – she punches him on the arm, but he laughs it off. “I’m Lucas, by the way. Are you sure it’s a Manticore? Because it takes a very powerful witch to summon one.”

“What he means is that if you’re right, you’re in deep shit. Amanda, nice to meet you,” The Asian girl says, and flips her hair in a way that painfully reminds him of Lydia. “By the way, is your name really Stiles?”

“Amanda, you’re shutting up like right now, before you get too rude,” Lucas’ sister says. “I’m Camilla.”

I already know, he thinks, only a teensy tiny bit guilty that he knows virtually everything about them except the fact they are fucking magical. Honestly.

“And I’m Melanie,” Melanie says, grin still placed on her face and Stiles can only think that she’s up to no good. Something wicked this way comes, is that appropriated? He’s talking about a witch, in any cases, and he feels it’s important to find out if they feel offended by Harry Potter references, because the last thing Stiles wants is to piss off a witch. “Sorry for the rough start, but a witch can never be too careful. I see you have need of Derek,” and the teenagers behind her snicker and ugh, Stiles wants to be very, very far away from this place.

(Except he doesn’t, because some small, annoying part of his brain says he’ll basically die if he gets too far from Derek again.)

(Not in love.)

(Not in love.)

“But I don’t think he’ll be of much use about this, and neither will we,” She continues. “My grandmother, however, could give you a few answers if you care to stop by.”

Stiles has a strong inkling this is a trap – they will kill him and use his bone marrow as some weird soup’s main ingredient – but throughout the years, he has learned how to always pick the lesser of two evils. He’s probably getting killed if he goes. If he doesn’t, however, he’s sure that there’s going to be a real slaughter in Beacon Hills, to humans and werewolves alike. Yeah.

He has his answer.

“Sure,” he says, and Derek groans softly by his side. “Lead the way”.

If I die here please make Scott remember to delete my internet history, he prays to some unnamed superior entity.