Chapter Text
For a human, Stiles has never been as scared of the unknown as he should be. Always running towards danger, interested in things most people would tend to avoid. His curiosity and thirst for knowledge have often landed him in perilous situations. It’s no wonder he ended up to his ears deep into the supernatural business.
And that’s fine. You have to have at least a few screws loose to survive the madness that are the creatures that go bump in the night. But even for a boy running with wolves, Stiles is strange.
Derek doesn’t know exactly when it happens that he starts paying attention, what exactly tips him off that Stiles is… odd. He’d known from the start, of course, that Stiles is seriously desensitized to things he probably shouldn’t, that his world view is not one of a regular teenager. The sarcasm, the dark humor, the overwhelming intellect and general nosiness. It all makes him stand out against his peers.
But at some point, Derek begins to see behind the clumsy-not-so-clumsy and the jokes with bad timing; begins to see glimpses of an entirely different animal, and Derek can’t help but want to unravel it.
If he has to pick a single moment, that second that made him go ‘oh, this doesn’t add up’, he thinks he’d pick the time he found out about Stiles’ fear of spiders, oddly enough. Perhaps because of how normal a fear it is, or maybe because of how overwhelming it turned out to be.
Derek had known, in an abstract sort of way, that Stiles is afraid of spiders. It’s the sort of knowledge that comes up in conversation at some point, and boy, does Stiles like to talk. After living in his room for a week, Derek has learned more about the hyperactive boy than he thought he’d ever learn in a lifetime. Derek had filed the information somewhere in his brain, half thinking of using it as payback for all the shit Stiles has gotten him into, and promptly left it alone.
The first time Derek realizes just how scared, how terrified Stiles is of spiders, they’re at the police station. They’re both paralyzed from the neck down, laying on the floor. Stiles is on top of him, not by any of their choices, and they’re pretty much stuck like that while the kanima and psycho Matt roam around the station. All things considered, it’s a very shitty situation, but Stiles has handled it with a surprising amount of grace, considering his dad and best friend are being threatened somewhere in the station.
And then Stiles sees the spider.
At first, when he screams, Derek thinks the kanima has come back to kill them. He stretches his neck to look the way Stiles is looking, expecting to see the overgrown lizard getting ready to pounce, but gets nothing. Stiles clearly sees something though, because he lets out a high pitch whine that could only be described as terrorized, wide eyes fixated on a spot on the floor. His scent is tinged with the distinct feel of dread and terror in a way Derek hadn’t smelled on him before, not even when faced with a plethora of supernatural dangers.
It takes Derek a moment to see the spider. The thing can’t be bigger than a fourth of an inch wide, moving minutely towards what could be their location, but could just as well be anywhere else in the room. Even with his enhanced senses, Derek wouldn’t have noticed it if it hadn’t been brought to his attention.
Stiles, on the other hand, is acting as though the spider is the size of his head and aiming to eat him. He can’t seem to look away from it, and his breathing picks up until he’s practically hyperventilating on top of him.
“Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods,” he’s stuttering in a breathy, panicky voice. The spider moves another inch in their direction. Stiles lets out a small sob.
Distantly, Derek pats his past self on the back for never acting out on the idea of pranking the boy like he’d considered. No amount of annoyance is equivalent to the absolute panic Stiles is feeling right now. The metallic taste of his fear is pungent in Derek’s mouth.
“Hey,” he says. Stiles doesn’t seem to even register Derek’s presence anymore. “Hey, Stiles. Stiles, look at me,” after some more insistence, Stiles drags his eyes from the tiny spider to look at Derek. His pupils are blown wide with fear, and he can barely see a thin ring of rich whiskey around them. “It’s okay, don’t look at it, look at me. Look at me, Stiles.”
It works for about ten seconds before Stiles looks back to the spider, seemingly unable to keep his eyes off it. Once more, Derek bemoans the loss of his motor skills. At least he’d be able to physically make Stiles look at him that way. Or better yet, kill the spider and be done with it.
He’d also be able to go help with the kanima and psycho Matt, but at this point Derek will count it as a win if he can get Stiles to make it out of this without passing out on top of him from hyperventilating.
“Stiles,” he tries again, even as he unsuccessfully wills his limbs to move, dammit. “Stiles, come on, look at me. I won’t let it hurt you, but you have to stop looking at it.”
“I— I can’t, I can’t, what if it comes closer and I don’t see it, I have to see it so it doesn’t hide, I can’t,” Stiles shakes his head. His voice shakes so badly Derek thinks he may actually be crying, even though tears don’t fall from his eyes. He can’t seem to tear his eyes off the tiny spider.
“I’ll look at it for you. I won’t let it get out of my sight, I promise. But you have to look away, okay? Stiles, look away,” Derek lets a bit of his Alpha bleed into his voice, trying to command this boy that is-but-isn’t-his-but-is. He’s not sure if it works, or if Stiles just trusts him that much, but after a moment he looks away again, burying his head on Derek’s chest instead.
Derek’s first instinct is to bring a hand up to card through Stiles’ head, and he actually growls in displeasure when he can’t do it. Instead, he tries to calm the boy down with words uttered in a low, soothing tone. All the while, he dutifully keeps an eye on the spider, who, while moving towards their general direction, doesn’t seem all that keen on getting too close anytime soon. Either way, Derek promised Stiles he would watch the damn thing, so he doesn’t let it out of his sight, using his other senses to try and catch something of what’s going on outside the room.
After it’s all said and done, and Matt is dead and the kanima has found a new master, they don’t talk about it, per se. But Stiles looks at him differently, embarrassed and grateful and maybe a little shy. Soon, things get so out of control that a talk about fears becomes the last of their problems, but if he had to pick the moment when he started falling for Stiles, Derek thinks he may pick that one, too.
It’s not the last time Stiles freaks out about a spider. Over time, Derek gets to witness many other unfortunate times where Stiles becomes near unresponsive at the sight of one, no matter how big or small. Some other times, his betas call him to tell him they’ve got Stiles freaked out somewhere in town. The most memorable one would probably be when Jackson called him in the middle of the night, frantic because Stiles had passed out from a panic attack when he saw a moderately big spider while they were patrolling the preserve. Jackson doesn’t usually let people see him care about anyone, especially Stiles, so maybe that’s why it sticks out to Derek specifically.
But the moment that’s really etched in his memory, the one that makes him think that maybe there’s more to it than a simple phobia, is something else entirely.
Because the thing is, Stiles doesn’t freak out about spiders until he has one in his line of sight. He’s an expert in ignoring his problems until they go away, and so likes to pretend spiders don’t exist if there isn’t one staring him in the face.
Which makes the night terrors even more concerning.
Derek isn’t even in the room with him the first time he sees it, merely passing by the Stilinski residence during his patrol at night before going to the loft and getting a few hours of sleep, knowing the Sheriff is on the night shift right now, and that Stiles is home alone. It’s only the fact that he’s so attuned to Stiles’ heartbeat that he notices there’s something wrong, and knowing Stiles keeps his window open in case he drops by late enough not to use the front door, Derek decides to take a look.
“Stiles?” he asks in a low voice as he steps through the window, feet silently stepping on the welcome mat Stiles had jokingly put under his window after the seventh time Derek had shown up there instead of using the door like ‘literally everyone else in the fucking planet except Edward Cullen. Do you know what that means, Derek?’. The smell of distress hits his nostrils immediately, and it doesn’t take him more than a second to see where it’s coming from.
Stiles is huddled in a corner of his room, frantically rubbing at his arms and torso, kicking wildly as if trying to shake something off. He’s sobbing, face wet with tears and scrunched with distinct panic.
He crosses the room in three long strides, kneeling besides the boy, who hasn’t even noticed his presence. That, also, is very unlike Stiles, who has grown very attuned to Derek over the years, especially since they got over themselves and became mates officially.
“Stiles,” he says once more, this time louder. His mate finally focuses his eyes on him, drawing a big, broken breath. He still rubs at himself.
“Derek, they’re, they’re everywhere, I can feel them, I can— they’re everywhere,” he stutters out, looking around with wild eyes for something that Derek can’t see.
“What are you talking about? Who’s everywhere?” Stiles just shakes his head, shutting his eyes closed hard as if to try to block everything. He still smells terrified.
“They’re here, they’re after me, they’re after me, they’re after me,” Stiles whispers in between broken sobs, pressing his body against the corner of his room as much as he can, trying to make himself smaller.
Derek frowns. In a Hellmouth like Beacon Hills, this could mean literally anything, but it’s been quiet since they chased off that wendigo a few weeks ago. Then again, there’s really only one thing that gets Stiles this unsettled.
(Well, besides maybe the Nogitsune. But that is another story entirely, one that still keeps Derek awake at night from time to time.)
“The spiders?” he tries as gently as he can, but Stiles still whimpers at the mere mention, curling more into himself, shying away from creatures only he can see.
With a sigh, Derek lets himself relax from the tense position he’d been at. Carefully, he gathers Stiles into his arms, picking him up from the floor and taking him back to bed. Stiles’ hands shake as they grab a hold of Derek’s shirt.
“She sent them, she sent them after me, they’re— they’re everywhere, they always find me, she sent them,” Stiles keeps crying, even after he stops trying to shake inexistent spiders. Derek tries to reassure him as best he can, carding his fingers through sweat-damp hair as he tells him there aren’t any spiders in the room, that he’s safe. Stiles just shakes his head and burrows deeper into the embrace. This close, Derek can clearly see the streak of gray hair growing from the top of Stiles’ head.
It feels like hours before Stiles falls asleep from sheer exhaustion. Derek can see the beginnings of sunrise from outside the window, and sighs for what feels like the hundredth time that night as he tightens his hold on his mate. He hears the distinct sound of the cruiser rolling into the driveway some time later, a jiggling of keys and the front door opening as the Sheriff makes his way inside the house. He comes to check up on Stiles, barely reacting when he sees Derek propped against the head of the bed, holding his son.
“Nightmare?” he asks, keeping his voice down. Derek chances a look at Stiles’ face, still pallid.
“Spiders,” he says, and John’s face does something Derek doesn’t recognize before sighing. He smells strangely like defeat. “He fell asleep a little while ago.”
John nods. “Let him sleep,” he says, giving his son one last glance before leaving, closing the door behind them with a soft click. Derek turns back to his mate, and rests his chin against Stiles’ shoulder once more.
Derek doesn’t plan on bringing it up. He knows Stiles likes to process his nightmares by himself first, only going to Derek if he’s in the mood to share. His dreams are where he’s most vulnerable, where all his fears and insecurities get thrown in his face, so Derek understands why he doesn’t like others to see it.
They’re in the kitchen eating a late breakfast. Stiles looks leagues better than he did last night, but the bags under his puffy eyes betray the hours of fitful dreams. He’s picking at his bacon half heartedly, taking small sips of his coffee. All Derek wants to do is wrap him in blankets and hide him from the world, at least for a little while.
Stiles doesn’t like it when Derek gets overbearing though, dislikes feeling weak, and so he tempers the urge and eats his own breakfast instead. He’s not expecting Stiles to speak much the next few hours, knowing he’s usually quiet after a nightmare, so he’s surprised when Stiles does start talking.
“Spiders… have always been able to find me,” Stiles doesn’t look at him, eyes glued to the dinner table. “When I was little, back when my Matka was still alive, I’d be alone in my room at night, and it’d be like they materialized out of shadows, crawling all over me with all their— their legs,” he shudders, clearly remembering something deeply unpleasant. “And I’m talking about dozens of spiders, Derek, it was like a horror movie. But when I screamed and my parents came to check on me, they’d scurry away where no one would find them,” when he finally looks up to meet Derek’s eyes, he looks haunted. “I know I sound fucking crazy but I swear they were real. I swear, Derek, they’d try to crawl inside my mouth, and pick at my eyes, it was… awful,” his voice breaks, and something inside Derek breaks with it. Stiles’ heartbeat doesn’t waver, and he thinks maybe that’s worse than if it had. “When the Nogitsune possessed me, he used those memories to try and weaken my mind. Now I can’t stop dreaming about it,” Stiles’ lips quirk into a bitter smile. “Even now that he’s gone, he still finds a way to fuck me over.”
And Derek doesn’t know what to say, because what Stiles is saying is crazy. He’s talking about a horde of spiders terrorizing him at night when he was a kid. That just… doesn’t happen.
But Derek does believe him. No matter how unfathomable it truly is, Derek believes every word he’s saying. He says as much.
“I believe you,” Stiles looks at him like he didn’t hear him right, mouth open and eyes shining with something that might have been tears. “If you tell me it was real, then I believe you.”
And that’s that. Stiles doesn’t really sleep all that much unless Derek is with him, afraid of the spiders coming back, so Derek takes to climbing into his bed more often than not. Other times, they go to the loft. Derek doesn’t mention the spiders again, and Stiles doesn’t bring it up, even when he wakes up screaming and trying to shake off things that aren’t there from his skin.
(To this day, Derek still doesn’t know who ‘she’ is, or why she’d send spiders to terrorize someone like Stiles.)
And while that is what truly tips Derek of Stiles’ not-normal behavior, it’s not the only thing. Throughout the years of knowing him, there are many opportunities where Derek gets to see a hidden side to their resident human, both big and small. They’re… little quirks, so to speak. On their own, they aren’t very noteworthy, and Derek probably wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for his, admittedly, high awareness of Stiles as an individual in particular. He doesn’t think the rest of the pack ever notices there’s something… not wrong, but different, about Stiles. Something other.
Like the altar he has in his house, for example. Despite appearances, the Stilinskis are men of religion, and they keep their faith to the pagan gods dutifully. A shrine rests on the mantelpiece on top of the fireplace, always clean and full of offerings. Derek himself has never been made to offer anything, but he’s seen Stiles done so before. He always offers up part of his meals before eating, burning it on the fire that always seems to be burning no matter the hour or the time of the year, yet never feels too stifling, or terrifying like other fires have felt after his family died, and prays in silence to whichever gods he’s chosen to worship that day. They vary depending on the day, though they are all part of the Greek pantheon. Sometimes, when he’s struggling to find an answer to something, or when the Sheriff is having difficulties with a case, they’ll pray, asking for guidance. Derek isn’t sure if it truly works, but never comments on it. They leave him alone with his own customs. Who’s he to question their beliefs after all?
“My mom’s side of the family is like, super religious,” Stiles had explained one day, back when they were becoming friends, still. Derek had found himself at the house enough times to witness the quasi-ritual at many occasions, and after a while Stiles had noticed his questioning glance. “We do a lot of stuff to honor the gods when I go over during the summer, too. They like the smell of the food, so dad and I burn some for them when we’re eating at home.”
At the time, Derek had thought him crazy, but wasn’t about to get in the way between a man and his religion of choice. He supposes Greek gods are as good a belief as any, even if they’ve fallen out of importance in favor of other religions like Christianity in the States. Now, it’s another part of Derek’s routine. He still doesn’t do any offerings himself— wouldn’t even know where to start, but by now it’s not unusual to see Stiles praying, or offering up some of his food to the flames.
Still, it’s kind of unusual, especially since they live in such a small town. The only other people Derek has met who believe in pagan gods lived in New York, but then again, a lot of weird things happen in New York, so he’s not surprised.
Something else that Derek has noticed is Stiles’ unique attachment to the preserve. For someone human like he is, it’s truly mystifying why he likes it there so much, especially knowing all the kinds of creatures that could be lurking around at any given time. Derek would have thought Stiles would run the other direction, but then again, Stiles has never had the best self preservation instincts, so maybe he shouldn’t have.
Either way, Stiles has his visits to the preserve down to a science. He goes there at least once a week, alone— and really, what’s up with that? It’s not like they’ve never gone to the preserve as a pack before, and Stiles has never complained. Yet those visits are for him only, and he’ll stay in the woods for hours, doing God knows what, before coming back out. Sometimes he’s happy, and sometimes he’s concerned, or angry, or sad. Sometimes Derek has found him crying.
Stiles never tells him what goes on in the woods while he’s alone in there.
At first, Derek thinks maybe it’s the Nemeton calling to him, drawing on its connection to Stiles’ spark. But Stiles doesn’t trust the Nemeton, avoids it as much as he can, so Derek doesn’t suppose he’d go see it so regularly out of his own volition. He gives up trying to figure it out after the first year, deciding that knowing is not worth the headache. If Stiles wants to keep secrets, that’s fine by Derek, as long as they don’t endanger anyone. This particular secret hasn’t, so far, and so he leaves it alone.
(Sometimes though… when he’s alone in the preserve, surrounded by trees, sometimes he feels like he’s being watched. Measured. Assessed. And when the wind picks up, he could swear he hears giggles half hidden by the rustle of the leaves. At times like these he wonders, just what does Stiles get up to in the woods.)
And there is, of course, the whole Nogitsune incident. That in and of itself had been absolutely horrible for everyone involved, and Derek is sure it still features in all of their nightmares - Stiles’ more than anyone’s - but what makes Derek think back isn’t the possession itself, but what happened after.
He’s alone with Stiles at the loft, cleaning up all the destruction the Nogistsune left behind. Stiles had offered to help, no doubt feeling guilty, but got very tired very quickly, so Derek had forced him to rest and now sits on the only couch Derek owns while watching him haul around pieces of debris.
“You know, if you’re so hellbent on staying here, you should decorate,” he says, looking around even though he’s been here countless times before, and has seen the place just as bare. “This is just depressing.”
“Well, if half the supernatural community didn’t decide to come to Beacon Hills, maybe I’d have time to go to IKEA and pick something,” he says, maybe more rudely than he’d intended, but in his defense, he’s already had to deal with this same comments from literally everyone else in the pack. He gets it, okay? His place looks barely livable, he doesn’t need the reminder.
Stiles looks down to his lap, scent betraying how hurt he is by his comment. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and Derek feels like the biggest piece of shit in the world.
“Shit, no, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for, and definitely not meant for you,” when Stiles doesn’t look up, Derek abandons the piece of fallen concrete he’d been hauling and goes to sit with him. “The Nogitsune wasn’t your fault. He took control of your body and used your face, but he wasn’t you.”
“If I had been stronger… I’m supposed to be stronger,” he sounds angry, not at anything, but at himself. Which is just ridiculous because how was he supposed to compete against the Nogitsune? He’s just human.
“Stiles, you’re human, and Void was a spirit a thousand years old. The fact that you lasted as long as you did against him is amazing,” Derek cannot even begin to imagine how it feels to have someone else digging inside his head, pulling and tearing pieces of himself to the point where he doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not.
His lip wobbles. “But I— I feel so dirty, like, like— I feel so used,” Stiles looks at him, finally, and Derek sees a pair of amber eyes brimming with unshed tears. He looks… well, he looks awful. Haunted. “I was there, and I could see and hear everything, but he took over my body, and, and he made it do what he wanted. Even now that he’s gone it’s like he’s still inside my head.”
“Stiles…”
“Sometimes I don’t even know what’s real and what’s not anymore,” he whispers and he sounds broken, oh so broken. It’s all Derek can do to carefully wrap his arms around Stiles in a hug, silently offering comfort where words won’t be enough.
Stiles’ body is tense, hypervigilant even now that the threat is gone. His face is carefully blank, eyes rimmed red. He looks disheveled even after three days of rest and a thorough shower. Derek understands that look all too well: it’s what he’s seen when he looks in the mirror ever since the fire.
Later, long after the sun has set and Stiles has told his father he’s spending the night at Derek’s, the boy looks at him. The bags under his eyes are deep; he still looks unsettled. “Hey, Derek, can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” and Derek means anything. Whatever Stiles wants, Derek will give it to him, if it will make him feel better, if it will make him smile like he used to.
“When I was possessed by the Nogitsune… were my eyes ever gold?” and that’s such a weird thing to ask, but right now Stiles could ask Derek how to find Atlantis and Derek would still try his best to find an answer.
“No,” he says, and watches as every ounce of tension abandons Stiles’ body.
“Okay,” he says, seemingly to himself. “Okay.”
And that’s that.
(It’s not that. But they can at least pretend.)
(The nightmares never go away, and it’s not unusual to see Stiles counting his fingers. Random pieces of information become present in his mind at any given time, spells and rituals and historical events long forgotten. Japanese now comes easy to him, even if he’s never tried to learn it before, and Derek sometimes sees Stiles catch himself speaking in riddles. He’s ridiculously good at Go, now.)
(The Nogitsune will haunt him forever, and maybe that’s what’s worse about the whole thing.)
There’s the other, more innocuous little details, too. Like Stiles’ penchant for writing only in a Greek so Ancient Derek doesn’t think even Lydia has found texts to learn from. From his class notes to his annotations on various supernatural creatures and murder mysteries, Stiles only writes in Greek. If it weren’t for his school assignments, Derek doesn’t think Stiles would write in English at all. In fact, he seems to despise the English language, despite his thorough understanding and creative use of it.
“I can’t read English,” he’d say when asked, annoyed at the mere mention of it. “The words float around and the letters get all jumbled up,” which had sounded like a pretty standar case of dyslexia at the time, only Stiles has no trouble reading Ancient Greek and Archaic Latin, of all things. And really, what is Derek supposed to make out from that?
Well, at least it means the information they need doesn’t get lost in translation to modern languages, since Stiles reads from first source material.
Oh, and Stiles’ bat, how could Derek forget.
See, the thing is that Stiles has two bats. One is made of metal, heavily infused with wolfsbane and mountain ash and many other herbs used to repel and hurt the supernatural. That’s the bat Stiles uses the most, the one that now always has flakes of dry blood and that Stiles carries around in hand when they go hunting the creatures lurking in the night, the one that’s earned him fear and respect in the supernatural community, the one that always smells of bleach from where Stiles still tries to get the blood off. The second bat is completely normal in comparison, made of wood and barely used. Stiles carries it strapped to his back, like an extra weight he often forgets about. Yet it’s always there, either propped against the wall in his bedroom, or beneath the seat of the Jeep for easy access, or resting on the table. Stiles never goes anywhere without it.
Sometimes, Derek swears the thing sparkles as if it were made of bronze. But when he goes to looks at it properly, it’s normal again.
Derek has only seen Stiles use that bat once. It hadn’t even been against a supernatural creature. He’d been waiting for him at the school parking lot after lacrosse practice, and he’d seen Stiles from afar with another kid Derek didn’t recognize.
The kid was obviously antagonizing Stiles, getting inside his personal space and sporting a shit eating grin while Stiles tried to ignore him, until he apparently had too much and promptly bashed the bat to the kid’s midsection hard enough to knock him on his ass. After that, Derek had willfully looked away, focusing his hearing on other things in case he had to claim plausible deniability, and waited until Stiles got to the car.
Morally reprehensible? Maybe, but then again, Derek has never been averse to using a bit of violence to solve his problems from time to time. He’s not going to judge Stiles for doing the same. Derek guesses the kid had just gotten a bit too aggressive for Stiles’ hypervigilance and paranoia to handle.
No one ever mentions the kid to him, so Derek figures he took the hint and left Stiles well alone, good riddance.
There’s a few more things, like the huge owl tattoo that takes up the entirety of his back, which to this day he refuses to explain— and Derek thinks it deserves an explanation, what with Stiles’ fear of needles, and the amount of symbolic representation in the tattoo. There’s also that huge scar, a clear slash from his left shoulder to his right hip, that looked years old the first time Derek saw it, back when Stiles was still in junior year in high school. It’s always stuck out to him because it doesn’t look like it was made by a supernatural creature. If Derek had to guess, he’d even dare say it was made by a blade, actually, even if the thought is ridiculous. No one in Beacon Hills handled swords before Kira and Noshiko came to town.
Still, these are all little quirks, little oddities. They’re a part of what makes Stiles… well, Stiles, and Derek loves them all. He loves Stiles after he’s had a nightmare, when he walks around the preserve talking to no one, when he swears using words so ancient they sound powerful enough to command armies, and when he prays to gods no one has believed in since at least the last millenia.
Over the years, Derek has accepted all this. He has come to terms with the fact that beneath the shield he’s made for himself, the one that takes the form of a clumsy human running with wolves, Stiles is… more.
And he doesn’t ask questions, knows instinctively that Stiles won’t answer them, and that, just like with his nightmares, it will bring no good for Derek to pry before Stiles is ready to share.
(After all, Stiles has always smelled like power.)
So Derek lets things rest. He doesn’t ask where Stiles goes to spend the summer with his mother’s family. He doesn’t ask about the random three-day trips he sometimes makes in the middle of the school year, or why he seldom uses technology when out of town, resorting only to emails sent specifically from his laptop and the occasional text when he’s in a hurry. He doesn’t ask about the stash of real gold coins he has stuffed in the bottom of his backpack, or the ziploc bag with candies that Stiles has strictly forbidden him to touch.
It works for them.
Now, they’re patrolling out in the preserve. Stiles is on winter break from his first year of college, and he’s been back to Beacon Hills for a week now. Not that he hasn’t come back before to help deal with the never ending stream of supernatural wackos that make a stop through town, but it’s never been for longer than a couple of days at most, all spent planning and running and killing and burying.
It’s good to have him back for more than that.
Derek doesn’t expect anything to come from this patrol. They got rid of that small witch coven that was causing trouble a few weeks ago, so they ought to have a little rest before their Hellmouth town attracts something else. But it’s good to maintain a habit, and he likes to make sure his territory is secure. Stiles’ company is certainly a bonus.
He’s currently telling Derek about his roommate; Stiles is pretty sure the guy is a werewolf - it’s like you cursed me, Derek. Ever since I met you, werewolves find me everywhere, I swear! - but still hasn’t found a way to prove it without scaring him shitless.
“I’m pretty sure dude thinks I’m a hunter,” he’s saying, grimacing at the mere thought of it, which, understandable. Derek would also be less than thrilled if someone confused him with one of those fuckers. “I think it was the wolfbane, he always looks so spooked when I open the window to water it. And my bat reeks of the stuff so— you know what? Thinking back it makes sense he thinks I’m a hunter. Gods, that’s awful, poor guy.”
“Maybe you could just tell him?” Derek suggests idly, holding a branch so it won’t hit Stiles as he walks by. Stiles gives him a bright smile in return, before promptly tripping over a raised root. Derek catches him by the arm almost instinctually, attuned to Stiles’ motions as he is, and quickly stabilizes him. He gets another smile for his troubles. “Tell him you’re part of a wolf pack, and that as the only human you’re the only one that can handle the wolfsbane.”
“I’m trying to make him warm up to me before I do that. Right now I think I could maybe get out three words before he either runs the fuck out of there and never comes back, or kills me out of fear and then runs either way. Dude’s pretty spooked,” Stiles shrugged as if to say ‘what can you do?’, but Derek doesn’t like the idea of him sharing a room with a werewolf that could potentially be dangerous. Not that Stiles can’t protect himself - he can be more vicious than anyone else in the pack, when fancy strikes him - but Derek will always worry for his mate. That is his nature.
“Maybe I’ll pay you a visit once you go back, then,” Stiles’ eyes light up at the suggestion, which of course means Derek will definitely make the trip to Berkeley now. Anything to make him happy.
“That’d be nice. I could give you a tour,” a hand sneaks its way into Derek’s own, entangling their fingers. Stiles smells like pure contentment. “Maybe see if you like it? We can still ask NYU for your transcripts, apply for a transfer. You could finish your degree.”
“Maybe,” he agrees, knowing Stiles won’t push the matter if he puts his foot down. It wouldn’t hurt to see his options either way, and he’s already completed half of the credits for his degree. He could be done in a year and a half if he does well enough. Still... “We’ll see.”
That’s enough for Stiles, who hums in satisfaction as they continue their walk.
They’re about to circle back to the edge of the preserve where Stiles parked the Jeep, when Derek hears the tell-tale sound of footsteps. They’re staggered, stumbling even, but when Derek scents the air, he only gets Stiles’ scent. He tries again, because his ears don’t deserve him, but once again comes up with the unmistakable mix of earth, leather, fresh clothes, citrus and that tinge of ozone that makes Derek’s tongue tingle.
Except. Stiles isn’t the only one that smells like ozone right now.
“Derek?” obviously sensing something’s wrong, Stiles squeezes his hand, eyes questioning.
“I heard something,” he points at the direction of the footsteps with his chin, feeling a rush of pride at the way his mate immediately turns to face it, posture ready to strike at any given moment. “Not sure who it is.”
“Or what,” Stiles says the words Derek doesn’t speak aloud, perceptive as he is.
Stiles doesn’t have his metal bat on him. He, too, had thought of this patrol as merely routine. He lets Derek take front as they silently make their way across the woods. The preserve feels unnervingly quiet all of a sudden, barely a rustle of leaves and a wisp of wind. Behind him, Stiles is tense, hand halfway across to the base of his other bat. Strange, since Stiles usually doesn’t use it even if he’s out of other weapons, relying on his wit to get him out of danger.
Finally, they find the presence behind the footsteps. Derek sees him first, being at the front and having keener senses.
The man before him is somewhere in his twenties, blonde of hair and with eyes so blue they could rival the clear sky. His skin is fair, if not tanned by the sun. A long scar runs along his face, from the bottom of his right eye to his chin, somewhat deforming an otherwise attractive face.
Despite looking haggard, Derek recognizes the body of a soldier. Even so, in his current state, the man would probably lose to a particularly spirited squirrel. He smells… human, though the assessment is hard. Death clings to him in a way different than Lydia’s, closer to how Peter had smelled like after his resurrection. Like Stiles, he smells slightly of ozone, which is a distinctive non-human quality.
(There is a reason why Derek has always thought Stiles is different.)
Behind him, Stiles makes out a choked sound. Startled, Derek turns around to look at him, but Stiles’ eyes are glued to the man in front of them. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.
“Stiles,” the man says, with a voice crackled from disuse. He sounds surprised. Stiles, in return, speaks with a certain coldness Derek hasn’t heard since Stiles was possessed by Void.
“You should be dead.”