Chapter 1: I'm More of a 'Laddie' Than A 'Lady' Anyways
Chapter Text
Although Stiles hardly knew much about what was beyond the gates of his beloved yard, he would easily and adamantly say that he was happy. So happy, in fact, that it often made him rather, well, spastic. Not that he wasn’t spastic to begin with, of course, but hey! Beggars can’t be choosers, right? Even if he wasn’t a beggar. After all, he had his permit finally, all of his shots, and a shiny new collar complete with tags to prove it. Courtesy of his beloved Alpha Scott.
He’d been living with Scott ever since he could remember, practically forever by his recollection, but really he was only about a year old. Stiles wasn’t really sure where he’d been before Scott had found him and brought him home, he’d only been a puppy then, but he was sure it wasn’t anywhere good or as nice as Scott’s house. Scott’s house, and his yard, and his bed -which he wasn’t supposed to sleep in but did anyways- and his couch. (Sometimes Scott would even let him in the car for rides, and by now Stiles thought of the Jeep as his more than it was Scott’s.) Stiles didn’t want to go back there, so no matter now obnoxious or spastic or wild he acted, he always made sure to follow orders as well as he could. Even if he couldn’t understand Alpha Scott all of the time. He always followed instructions.
Stiles is a Jack Russell Terrier, after all, and his breed are well known for their boisterous personalities, need for near constant stimulation and exercise, and their intelligence. Stiles prides himself on his brains and mental prowess, particularly because it makes up for how small he really is. Terriers aren’t overly large when compared to other dogs, and the neighbor dogs are near-constant reminders of just how small he tends to be. Because Jackson, the snooty dog that he is, is a German bread Pointer, and he towers over Stiles. Literally towers, and often glares down his nose at Stiles when he is being particularly frisky. Luckily, he also towers over Lydia, who is one of the most beautiful dogs Stiles has ever seen, and is a lovely long-haired, red Dachshund. She’s only a bit smaller than Stiles, but her personality and presence more than makes up for her lack of height. Lydia frequently bowls Stiles over with her personality, but more often than not Jackson does it for her as he attempts to follower her around as closely as he possibly can. Sometimes, Stiles envies Jackson.
But he was a happy dog, all the way through and through. He knew it in his bones that he and Alpha Scott would be together forever and nothing would ever come between them! Except something did. And that something’s name was Allison.
Now don’t get him wrong, Stiles actually likes Allison. He likes her a lot. She’s pretty and funny and smart and all the things mates are supposed to be, plus she gives excellent scratches behind his ears. Allison works out and makes sure that Scott eats right, that he does his homework before he rushes between classes and work at the Vet’s office. And Allison has slowly been taking up more and more time that once was Scott and Stiles’. Scott’s missing more and more trips to the park now, more and more walks around the block, more lazy, quiet nights on the couch. He’s gone more, and when he comes back he’s either with Allison or covered in Unfamiliar Scent that makes Stiles’ fur stand on end. Even if he is alone, then he’s usually tired or busy with homework, and their shared time, Stiles’ entire life, is slowly slipping away.
He’s sad, and Scott hasn’t seemed to notice. No one has, really, not even Lydia and Jackson, and Stiles has known them as long as he’d lived on this block, in this neighborhood. Stiles is sad and tired and wants things to go back to normal.
But the months go by and they don’t.
Soon, Allison moves in and never leaves. One day Stiles gets up and Allison is already there with a bunch of boxes that contain the Unfamiliar Scent and a variety of things he’s not familiar with. She puts them with Alpha Scott’s things and they never leave, and neither does Allison. Soon... well, soon it is just another part of Stiles’ life, one that he’s learning to take in stride, adjusting to the fewer walks, the fewer trips to the park or around the block.
He’s irritable often now, and sad, and confused, and when Allison’s sires show up one night for dinner, smelling of Unfamiliar Scent and something else that hurts Stiles’ nose, he sort of loses it. He forgets the Rules, and in doing so, he breaks one on accident. To be fair, he’d tried to run away from Papa Argent, but the man had been persistent and had followed him, cornered him, in the entry hall against the door. Stiles didn’t like him, didn’t like how he smelled, and so when that huge hand had reached out and above his head, he’d panicked. The growling, snarling snap that he’d let loose rang through the house along side Papa Argent’s startled cry and the pounding of feet that came running up to them. He was so scared that he’d tried to hide even further under the bench by the door, between the shoes and the lonely scarf dropped back there, until Alpha Scott’s face came into view. His tail had only wagged twice before Scott had scruffed him and hauled him out, causing Stiles to yelp as he was unceremoniously tossed out the door, followed by a furious Scott, Allison, and Papa Argent.
Stiles knows that the Argents wanted him to go away. That they didn’t want him around Allison anymore. He knew by their tone and their angry looks and how they shouted with Scott, that Stiles was a Bad Dog and that they wanted him to go away. Probably forever. And Stiles was scared, he was scared that Scott might do it. That he’d trade up Stiles for Allison and her weird-smelling kin.
When they finally ended up leaving, Scott didn’t let him back in the house. Scott never left him outside overnight, he knew that Stiles didn’t like the dark, that he always slept at Scott’s feet on his side of the bed. And Scott didn’t let him back inside. Stiles isn’t too proud to admit that he’d cried for a bit beneath the bushes closest to the house for a good majority of his time outside.
That’s where Lydia and Jackson found him the next morning, still curled tightly beneath the bushes. And even as Jackson opened up the conversation with some snippy remark about Stiles’ lesser breed and care, Lydia was quiet. When Stiles didn’t retort back with something equally witty or even start poking back at Jackson’s equally questionable beginnings, even Jackson gave pause. When Lydia asked what happened, Stiles couldn’t bear to tell her how he’d been a Bad Dog. Bad Dogs deserved what he’d been punished with, probably worse, and Lydia and Jackson wouldn’t talk to him after they found out how bad he’d been. He’d snapped at -bitten- Papa Argent! Oh no, no, no, Alpha Scott was going to get rid of him...
Lydia had comforted him as best as she could while he’d laid there and sobbed, and even Jackson stood over them both soberly and quiet while Stiles explained what had happened, what he’d done. Neither of them had said anything as he’d haltingly explained what transpired, and even when he was finished, they didn’t say a word. Didn’t judge him. They just offered their quiet and solemn support while he poured his fears and concerns out to them. In that moment, Stiles had never been more happy to know Jackson and Lydia and call them friends.
After that, Stiles made sure to be on his very best behavior. Made sure to follow all the Rules. He came when he was called, no matter what he was doing, he waited patiently and quietly for Scott when he wanted him, he started sleeping on the floor next to the bed like Allison demanded Scott make him do, and he started being out of the house more often than not, with or without Alpha Scott. He was doing everything he could to make his Alphas as happy with them as he could and then some, but every day the fights between Scott and Allison over him increased. Despite not knowing all the words, Stiles knew that Allison didn’t like him anymore, and so he stayed away from her as much as he could while sharing a home with her. But nothing gets better, and soon Stiles was going with Alpha Scott to work at the Vet’s Office more and more, and Scott often leaves him overnight with Dr. Deaton when he can. Stiles sees less and less of Alpha Scott and Allison, less and less of Jackson and Lydia, and more and more of Dr. Deaton, his clinic, his helpers, and the other residence at the clinic.
In particular, a huge, massive, hulking black beast of a dog that Stiles isn’t really sure is actually a dog, and his somewhat ragtag pack that seems to follow him wherever he goes. Dr. Deaton calls the big black wolf-dog-thing Derek, even though Derek doesn’t answer to his given name, Stiles must admit that Derek is really impressive. And by impressive, he means terrifying and absolutely stunning. Derek has to be part wolf, part something absolutely wild and untamable, Stiles can tell, but he has the darkest black fur that Stiles has ever seen on any animal ever, with a few grey spots at his heels and ear tips. He’s also got gleaming red eyes, Stiles is sure, but he can’t be completely sure, completely positive, because he’s never been up close to Derek, has never actually talked to him, and the sun might have been to blame for the gleaming bit from where he’d been hiding at the time. Deaton laughs at him when he tries to spy on Derek from behind the outside pens and buildings, because Deaton isn’t afraid of Derek apparently, but that doesn’t stop Derek from being huge and towering over Stiles in a way that not even Jackson can. Despite the fact that he’s not standing anywhere near the fence or Stiles at all.
Derek, who Stiles is sure knows he’s there watching him, never says a word. Never does anything but blink at him from behind the fence before walking off to wherever it is he goes when he’s not eating out of Deaton’s offered bowls of food. Derek’s pack, however, always heckles Stiles from the fence line before and after they scarf down the food out there. Often throwing insults at him and calling him names he’s never heard before loping off after their own Alpha. Now, Stiles sees them every other few days, because now Alpha Scott hasn’t come back to take him home in over a week, and watching for Derek and his pack helps him pass the time. Thinking about what creative names Erica and Isaac would call him helped him to forget that Scott probably wouldn’t be coming back for him again, and avoiding eye contact with Boyd turned into an agility game they both seemed to participate in. But the ultimate game, the best one, was waiting for Derek and trying to sneak around and stalk him without him noticing. Derek always seems to catch him. After a while, Stiles doesn’t mind.
By now, Dr. Deaton has given Stiles his own run closest to the building doors, complete with the bed and the few toys that Alpha Scott had left with him, and a few blankets that Deaton had given to him to sleep with at night. Stiles sort of understands without really understanding that he’s going to be staying here for a while, and tries to make the best of it. Alpha Scott hadn’t said anything, but Dr. Deaton called it boarding, which doesn’t sound nearly as scary as what he was thinking of as his abandonment. So he continues to play his games and keep himself occupied watching Derek and his pack until Scott decides to come back.
When he does come back to get Stiles, Stiles feels like he doesn’t really know where that old Alpha Scott went to, the one after Allison moved in. He certainly doesn’t know Mate Allison any better, who used to glower at Stiles but doesn’t say anything when Scott brings him back inside the house, smiling and laughing and running after him as the two of them chase him around happily. It’s like Stiles never left and Allison never came, except she did. Like nothing bad ever happened to his family, and Alpha Scott makes apology after apology as he tries to make up for that three week period where Stiles had been exiled from the house. They go for extra walks, play multiple games of fetch, and he gets to sleep in the bed again. Scott explains he’d just been having a rough patch with school and work and Allison; that her family had been pressing for something called euthanization, but that he could never do that to him, his best pal. And Stiles is happy again.
Stiles is so happy again its like nothing ever happened to begin with.
Except it did. And despite Alpha Scott’s best efforts, Papa Argent doesn’t stay away, and Allison tries to act as a medium, but it doesn’t really work. So Stiles cowers and hides when he comes with Allison’s Mother, lets Scott lock him away in the bedroom when they come to visit. Anything to protect what he just got back. Anything so that he doesn’t have to go back to living Away again. Stiles thinks that the Argent sires are cat people and shudders. Lost causes for sure.
And the weird thing is, Stiles is almost certain that he’s seen Derek down the street from his house waiting by the light post. Not once or twice, because he could blame that on the one big dog a few blocks over that sometimes walks this way, but almost every other day. And close enough that Stiles can tell that it is Derek. Close enough that he can see the red flickering in the dog’s massive eyes. But just like before, Derek never comes too close, never says anything to Stiles, and Stiles pretends that their games just continued despite a change in venue. It gives Stiles something to think about anyways, whenever he sees him outside during his walks or yard time.
But about two months go by before something big happens again, leaving Stiles’ head spinning and Alpha Scott gone with Allison. Something about needing a break, a vacation, and how they’d totally leave him with Dr. Deaton except they couldn’t afford it after the last time. How Allison’s sires had agreed to let him stay in their yard as long as Scott provided the dog house, his food, and enough supplies to get him through their trip duration. The Argents want nothing to do with him. So he’s left outside with them, his lead staked securely into the ground by the big trees he’s totally unfamiliar with, in an unfamiliar yard and neighborhood, while Alpha Scott and Allison finish arranging things with Papa Argent. When he finally sees the last of the Jeep at the end of the block disappear, Stiles gets the most intense stab of fear deep within his chest, like he’ll never see them again. But he refuses to let himself think like that, and as long as he’s outside and not inside with them, he’ll be fine. Or so he thinks.
A few days go by without incident, he’s well fed and watered, and despite being outside, he’s comfortable. It’s summer now, so the weather is pleasant, and he’s got a dog house Scott had built for him just for this occasion which was filled to the brim with blankets and shirts that smell like Alpha Scott and his new mate. He’s not exactly happy with the situation, but he’s comfortable, and his family won’t be gone too long.
Turns out, the Argents are indeed Cat People.
They have one sleek feline, a light brown in color with dark, dark stripes up and down her back, that wanders around the grounds whenever she feels like. Her name is Kate, and she scares the ever loving shit out of Stiles. Cats aren’t to be trusted, every dog knows that deep down in their very bones, and this one is a shining example of just how far felines are from canines. She taunts Stiles just on the far side of his lead, not that he’d chase her or run after her or anything, and she steels his food when he’s not looking. She also says the most horrible things about how Alpha Scott and Mistress Allison are never coming back for him, that they’ll leave him just like they did a while ago. Stiles doesn’t know how she knows that, but she does, and he tries not to let it get to him. Chasing Kate would break one of his Alpha’s rules, and he won’t ever do that again if he can help it. She can say whatever she wants.
He does growl at her though, whenever he can, and a few times he barks at her until she gives up and leaves. It isn’t for very long, and it isn’t very loud, but it seems to be effective. So when Stiles is at the end of his rope one day, he gives her the warning growls that he’s been giving her every day for nearly a week, before he lunges at her and barks.
But instead of laughing and scampering off or yowling back at him, this time she screeches and cries out, falling over backwards in a pile of flailing limbs, and starts crying. She holds one of her front paws up and cradles it against her side and Stiles is completely dumbfounded. So he just stands there, starring down at her, until Papa Argent comes running out of the house, shouting at him to get away from her, to leave her alone. Stiles just looks up at him dumbfounded, because he didn’t do anything to her, she’s faking it, and he can’t understand why she was doing what she was doing. Didn’t she see that she was upsetting her Alpha?
He was yelling at Stiles now, screaming and waving around a news paper, threatening him as he stooped down to check on Kate. His face was beet red and he was fuming, and even Stiles knew when to retreat, the paper sailing over his head as he went. He didn’t get too far when his lead was yanked back forcefully, one massive hand grabbing the fur at his neck and tugging hard. He yelped as he was drug towards an angry Argent, whose hand swatted him over and over. Hit him! Actually hit him! And it wasn’t a little swat either, it was a full on smack, and it hurt. It hurt so badly and all he wanted to do was get away, get so far away from everyone here that it the need was nearly overwhelming. So he did what he’d said he’d never do again, he struck out and bit Papa Argent hard on the flailing hand.
The man shouted and recoiled, pulling his hand away rapidly, dropping Stiles so suddenly that he rolled and landed hard on his back, dazed for only a moment before he shot out and away from him. He ran until his lead snapped him back, jerking his whole body with the force of how hard he was running, and when he couldn’t go any further, he started biting and gnawing on the leash and his collar, ducking his head to try to get it off from around his neck. He had to get out, he had to get away before Argent got up and came back!
Finally, the collar slipped free and pulled off, leaving him free to run. And run he did, as fast as he could, away from the Argent’s home, away from Papa Argent, and away from their slick cat Kate. He had to get away, he just had too.
Stiles wasn’t sure how long or far he’d run before he finally ran out of steam and slowed down, stopping to pant in a dingy alleyway filled with garbage and broken crates. He was completely lost, he realized, and nothing around him looked even remotely familiar. Beacon Hills was a larger town-grown-city, and even though he’d paid attention while Scott had driven him to the Argent’s home, he still hadn’t a clue where that house was from his own. Add in the fact that he’d run farther into the city in his panic, and there he was. Lost and alone in a city he hadn’t the first clue about, collarless, desperate, and frightened. And despite Stiles’ extensive intellect, he hadn’t the first clue about how to go from here or what he should do in order to get back to Alpha Scott’s.
In short, Stiles was boned.
Well, at least things couldn’t get any worse, could they?
And that’s when the deep growling started.
Chapter 2: I'm Not Made Of Gingerbread
Notes:
Sorry guys, I lied. Instead of two chapters, this has turned into three. My bad, but I just couldn't fit everything I wanted into just two chapters. So enjoy!
Chapter Text
“Ah, look what we have here. A little House Dog!” Called a voice that Stiles didn’t recognize, one that sent shivers running up and down his spine. “What are you doing out here, little House Dog?”
There are dogs there, big ones, suddenly looming over him from all directions, trapping him back against the chain link fence he’d wound up crouched by while running. There hadn’t been dogs there moments before, when Stiles had run into the alley, but they could have easily followed him in his moments of panic. There are five in total that he can see, each one staggered with the others, effectively forming a barrier to keep him in the back of the alleyway and up against the bins he’d taken shelter with. Each one of them is different, but Stiles isn’t sure what they are or where they’d come from. Just that they’re big, all of them mangy looking and thin, patches of fur gone and scar marks dotting their coats. One of them is even missing his left ear, hacked clean to his skull and missing. These aren’t nice dogs, these aren’t dogs with homes, not like him. No, these are strays, and worse than that, they’re mean looking and smell of blood. It makes Stiles crouch lower, want to show his belly, want to turn tail and run. But he can’t move, not without them moving with him, and icy fingers spear his belly with a crippling sort of fear.
He can’t get his mouth to work, to try to talk his way out of this situation like he’s done with so many others, and he doubts that’d have any effect on them anyways. Their sort aren’t the type to sit around and chat or be distracted like he knows other dogs get when he winds them up enough. Stiles doesn’t know if he can get out of this one on his own.
“Aw, you’re going to make him wet himself if you keep that up!” One of the others says, its massive head butting the other one in the shoulder, and Stiles realizes that they’re almost identical except for the different scarring patterns around their eyes. “And that’s no fun. He’s a little house pet, we should all get to play with him first.”
Stiles wants to stutter something out, wants to deny that he’s a house pet any longer, because he’d slipped his collar and lead in order to get away from the Argents. He’d willingly left behind Alpha Scott and Home when he’d done so. He wasn’t a house dog anymore. But maybe they didn’t know that? It wasn’t like house pets and recently-strayed pets smelled all that different, and he was well taken care of and groomed, if he did say so himself. Maybe they just misunderstood what it was he’d become? That was it! Stiles could fix that!
“But I’m not a House Dog.” He says shakily, head and ears still low and unobtrusive. Trying to be as small as he could be. “Not anymore.”
“Not a pet anymore, he says? Well isn’t that just too sweet?” Dog One says, a sneer in his voice as his lips pull back into a snarl, his teeth showing when he talks. “Come here then, let me be the first to introduce you to the streets.”
Stiles gets a feeling that if he goes over to this dog, he’ll be going towards pain and hurt and Bad Things. He doesn’t want to go, so he whimpers, pleading to be left alone.
“I said, come here!” The dog repeats again, this time emphasizing the command with a snarling half bark, his rage leaking through as he lunges a bit. “Now!”
Stiles cries and lowers himself fully to the ground, backs up until he hits the garbage on the ground around him. The crinkling of the bags he’s up against is loud in his ears as the dogs step forward as one, each one now crouching as if ready to spring, teeth bared and eyes blazing. They’re going to rip him to pieces, Stiles realizes, and he’s going to die. He’ll never get back to Alpha Scott now, never get a chance to explain why he’d run, what Papa Argent had done to him! No one would know where he was or even who he was, no one would know he was Scott’s once-Good Dog. He’d be dead and alone and lost. Stiles started crying earnestly now, afraid and knowingly unable to defend himself properly. This was it... This was the End.
Two of the dogs lunged, dark shadows eclipsing the ground around him, as well as his body. The hot air around them all stirred with the chaos their large bodies were creating as they went for Stiles’ throat, and in the last moment Stiles clenched his eyes shut as tightly as he could, trying to burry himself in the trash as much as he could.
But the dogs never landed on him, and the sounds of ripping flesh and howling cries of pain were not his own, they weren’t even that near to him, he realized. Belatedly, he risked cracking open one eye, only to see a massive dark figure blotting out the sun above and in front of him, ripping into the mangy mutts that’d threatened him only moments before. Teeth and gums and claws flashed, dirt kicked up in the wake of large paws that were as large as Stiles’ whole head, each one tipped with long, dark claws. Stiles, belly in the dirt and much of the alleyway floor, realized something very important in those few moments. He recognized his defender. Not only recognized him, but knew him! Stiles knew this other dog!
Derek -black, huge, monstrous wolf-dog-thing Derek- was crouching low over him, the wisps of his belly fur swinging above Stiles’ head, his powerful jaws open wide as he snapped and snarled at the other dogs. Any of them that dared to get within his range, anywhere near close to them, felt their sting. The noises they were all making were absolutely horrible, he realized, but the sight of them fighting one another was even worse. And despite Derek’s prowess, size, and clear advantage when it came to fighting abilities, not even he was completely safe from the multiple dogs attacking him at once. Dog after dog, lunge after bite, was quickly wearing him down, Stiles could plainly see it. And if he could see it, so could the other dogs.
His defender-slash-protector was going to get hurt because of Stiles’ own incompetence and lack of awareness and attention to his surroundings. Derek was going to get torn up for a very stupid, very bad dog he didn’t even know, and it was going to be all Stiles’ fault. But Stiles wasn’t going to let that happen, couldn’t let that happen, not if he could help it.
So when the opening to the other Alpha’s back legs present itself, Stiles took it.
SNAP!
His teeth closed over the exposed tendons and flesh covering the bones in the other dog’s leg, locking down with his jaw, tearing at it as he shook his head as viciously as he could. Stiles was hoping to cause enough pain to distract the Alpha away from Derek, but instead he watched as bloomed bloomed from the wound, spurting into his mouth and around his muzzle, its coppery tang striking the air. It startled him, he wasn’t too proud to admit, so much so that he was easily kicked off and throw away by the Alpha he’d bitten, away from broth him and Derek’s looming form. He rolled a bit when he landed back in the dirt, skidding to a stop at the foot of the dumpster. And when he lifted his head up to see what was going on, Stiles realized something else very, very important. The other dogs weren’t focused solely on Derek anymore, oh no, they were almost completely starring Stiles down, some in shock and others in absolute fury.
“I’m going to kill you, you little runt!” The threat was definitely heated, but the Alpha he’d bitten couldn’t put his back leg down fully. Couldn’t compensate for the sudden and drastic shift in weight distribution and the pain in his leg enough to actually lunge at Stiles himself. “I’m going to rip you to shreds and feed them to your humans!”
Derek saw it, saw the weakness in the other Alpha now, and even as Stiles was wedging himself beneath the dumpster as best as he could, he leapt at his chance. Using his entire weight and upper body strength, Derek rammed the wounded Alpha from behind, using the leverage to slam him into the ground hard. He toppled over like a sack of stones, yelping and howling as he went while the other dogs could only watch on in startled terror. The dogs still focused on Stiles suddenly froze and turned to see their leader down on his back, Derek’s mouth open and teeth bared only a few inches from his displayed throat. One massive paw was forcing the Alpha down, despite his struggle and shifting body mass, the other foot planted firmly in the dirt at the dog’s side in order to steady himself. Stiles had never seen anything so viciously, hurtfully beautiful in his entire life.
“You will leave. Get out of my territory. Run and never come back here.” The voice was so deep it took Stiles almost a full minute to realize that it was Derek speaking down at the Alpha, jaws snapping to punctuate his point. “Or I’ll rip out your throats. This isn’t your territory, it’s mine, and you’re not welcome here.”
The pinned Alpha nodded quickly, head tilted up and to the side in a clear sign of submission and acceptance to Derek’s terms. He gave a sharp bark to relay the orders before the others reluctantly back off and turned tail to run, disappearing around the alleyway corner as fast as they’d managed to appear in the first place. The Alpha himself wasn’t far behind them once Derek had backed off and released the pressure he’d been keeping on the other’s chest, snapping and growling at the Alpha’s retreating form as he limped off behind the others.
All that was left then was Stiles and Derek, and Stiles was still cowering underneath the dumpster watching Derek where he stood. His dark fur was matted and tacky with blood, saliva, garbage, and dirt, and his muzzle looked raw from where he’d been using it on the others and to defend Stiles’ much smaller body. So intent, was he, on studying Derek, that Stiles didn’t even notice when Derek’s own attention turned his glare down at Stiles and his hiding spot. Stiles flinched at the stare and slowly wriggled back even further, hopefully well out of Derek’s massive reach. He had no intention of finding out what it was like to be at the receiving end of those rather wicked looking claws.
“Are you coming out from under there, or am I going to have to drag you out?” Derek’s voice sounds as deep as a diesel truck does when they roar through Stiles’ neighborhood in the summer, and it reverberates in his skull like firecrackers. Stiles isn’t sure if the ground is actually shaking when Derek speaks or not.
“I’m perfectly okay up under here, actually. Cozy almost, definitely safe, and that lovely, dingy aroma of rotting garbage just makes this place a-okay in my book. You know, nice, almost approaching homey or something.” Stiles rattled it off, mouth running away with him like it always does, faster than he can control. “I think I can totally work with this. The decor needs some work, but the overall Feng Shui isn’t half bad.”
The silence in that awkward moment of conversational pause was almost as deafening as when Derek had been barking and growling at the other Alpha during their fight. And Stiles hated, absolutely hated, conversational silence.
“What’s Fung Schway?” Derek finally asked after that rather long pause, brows drawing down together. Stiles could only bury his head further into his front paws. “Is that another word for garbage?”
Stiles shrugged.
“I think it has to do with what a den looks like on the inside as opposed to how it looks on the outside, but I’m not really sure. Alpha Scott said it a few times when he was trying to impress his mate Allison. I didn’t really understand it, and I got the feeling he didn’t really get it either.”
Derek just stared down at him, brows knitted together in an angry-looking sort of confusion. It made Stiles nearly fidget with the need to move, to talk, to explain away his confusion so it stopped upsetting Derek. But he didn’t want to stay here either, and he really didn’t know Derek all that well to begin with. Was talking with him really such a good idea? Was going with him any better?
“Stiles, I’m going to leave now, with or without you. Are you coming out or not?”
And that was all the decision making he needed, because Stiles popped out from under the dumpster so fast it was like he’d been shot out from under there, like there was a fire and his stumpy little tail had been caught up in it on accident.
“Wait! Wait for me!” He hollered, feet scrabbling for purchase on the broken concrete and debris around him, trying to regain the distance that Derek’s longer legs had put between them. “Derek, don’t leave me! Wait for me!”
Derek hardly paused, only long enough for Stiles to somewhat catch up, before he continued walking. Stiles only barely heard the huffed out breath that might have been laughter, but might not have, as he tried to keep up with the long strides. He was almost having to run in order to keep up with Derek and his freakishly long legs, not to mention his pace, but he was going to try like Hell to keep up. And it was while he was trying to focus on keeping up, trying to keep pace, that a sudden epiphany struck him rather hard.
“Hey, you know my name!” He said in a rush, head looking up at Derek, face surprised. “How do you know my name? We’ve never actually met before, never mind introduced ourselves.”
“You know my name, don’t you?” It wasn’t really a question, but Derek’s reply was firm and completely unhelpful. His eyes never left the road before him.
“Well, yeah, of course I know your name. I know, but seriously though, how’d you know my name? Like I said, we’ve never even talked before, and I’m betting you didn’t stalk me like I watched you at the vets. Because Dr. Deaton is super nice and all, but--” Stiles stopped walking, mouth snapping shut at the realization that he’d all but admitted he’d been watching Derek the entire time he’d been at Dr. Deaton’s place. “Wait, no, that totally came out wrong! I didn’t stalk you, nope, not at all. Not me! No sir, I don’t know you at all. Who are you again?”
Derek’s reply was just a knowing smirk aimed down at him, the very tips of eye teeth showing beneath his lips. If Stiles were capable of blushing like humans were, he had no doubt in his mind that he’d be doing it now, and furiously at that. He hadn’t meant for it to come out like that, but really, it wasn’t like Derek was stupid or something. He’d had to have noticed Stiles watching him every time he and his crazy-ass pack came around the clinic. And if Stiles could figure out Derek’s name without having to ask, then it was more than likely one of his puppies had mentioned it while talking about all the ways to tease and harass Stiles on a daily basis. That wasn’t totally implausible, and mix in the fact that Stiles is pretty sure Derek had been around his neighborhood, and the proof just kept getting harder and harder to miss.
“Okay, so I maybe I know who you are because I saw you at Deaton’s. Big deal, right? I’m sure Erica or Isaac or maybe even Boyd told you all about their favorite plush abuse toy, Stiles.” Stiles rolled his eyes and continued on, nails clicking on the stone beneath his feet as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He pretended like it wasn’t the hugest diversionary tactic known to man’s best friends. “So what’s the plan, big guy? Do I get to meet the Mrs. Derek Wolf Dog now?”
“I’m taking you home.” Is Derek’s only reply. “And I don’t have a mate.”
“I see you didn’t deny the wolf dog bit though.” Stiles observations were obvious, true, but easy to pick at, and with nothing left for him to ramble about, he felt good that there was at least some opening in the conversation for him to pursue. “So come on, tell me, what are you anyways. Because if you aren’t part wolf, then I’m a pair of cat’s pajamas.”
“You’re a pair of cat’s pajamas.”
“Be that as it may, I’m still not going back.” Stiles snorted. “There’s nothing for me back there anymore.”
“I’m still taking you back.”
“What, did you not hear what I just said? I just got away from there and there’s no way in Hell that I’m going back.” Stiles stopped mid-step to glare up at Derek before tilting his head to the side slightly, showing his collar-free neck. “See? No longer a House Dog. I’m all free now, and I’m not going back. Not there. I’ll just be an Outside Dog now.”
“Why not? Why won’t you go back?” Derek’s voice sounds different now than it did before, almost soft and wispy, lacking the fierce tenor he’d had before. “Why would you leave your home and Alpha to be without a home, without a pack?”
“Because... who wants a Bad Dog? Not Alpha Scott, that’s for sure.” Stiles almost snarls out, eyes blurry as he backs up, nails scraping. “Why do you think I was at the clinic for song long? I bite, so Alpha Scott is replacing me. He has been for a long time, I was just too dumb to notice. He doesn’t want me anymore, so by running away, I’m saving him the trouble. Just because he doesn't love me anymore, doesn't mean I don't love him.”
Derek just stood there in front of him, eyes unreadable, face closed off. The familiar blank look just makes Stiles want to lash out at him, to bite him, just like he’d bitten Papa Argent, like he’d snapped at those other dogs. Just like he’d wanted to bite Alpha Scott.
“He gave me to the Argent sires, about a week ago. Alpha Scott said he was coming back this time, that they wouldn’t be long, that nothing bad was going to happen.” Stiles could feel the panic rising up in his chest with every word he spoke, a tightening in his ribs starting. “But it did, and he didn’t come back for me, not even when Argent’s cat started harassing me, not even when Papa Argent hit me. So I bit him in order to escape and then I ran. I ran and I’m never going back there, because I hate them. I hate Alpha Scott for leaving me there with someone who wants me to go away forever. He wants me to be something called Put Down.”
He was shaking now, and he realized belatedly that all he wanted to do was go, run and hide, even from Derek. Stiles didn’t want to leave the alleyway and the garbage anymore, because despite the desire to be a Good Dog, he knew deep down that he wasn’t. He didn’t want to go back with Derek either, but not only because Derek was going to take him back. No, he didn’t want to go with Derek because Derek was a Good Dog, and Good Dogs didn’t want Bad Dogs in their pack either.
“What makes you think you were a Bad Dog, Stiles? I mean, before you bit Argent. Because you said before that, that you knew he was going to get rid of you. Like the biting wasn’t the only reason.” Derek asked calmly, taking a seat on the pavement next to Stiles. He sat close, his body heat radiating out. “What else was there?”
“I’d have to be a Bad Dog in order to make him get rid of me, right? He always says that I was his, that we were best buds, his best friend. So I had to have done something first, before the biting. Maybe I didn’t follow some of the Rules right? I can’t always understand Alpha Scott or the humans when they speak to me, their language is so hard for me to get sometimes. What if I missed a new set of Rules?” There’s that panic again, worse this time, stabbing and twisting and painful deep in his chest. And it hurt. “I am a Bad Dog. Bad Dogs don’t get to stay with their Alphas.”
Stiles couldn’t stay upright anymore, and it himself collapse to the ground beneath his paws, all his panic washing over him as he laid his head on his legs. All his fears and concerns were blanketing him tightly, holding him down, choking him. He barely felt Derek lay down with him, his massive body pressed against his own, his dark fur hiding him from the world around him. Alpha Scott would want a loyal dog like Derek, another Alpha he could relate too, a Good Dog. Why would Scott want a Bad Dog like him when there were plenty of Good Dogs who followed the Rules and didn’t bite out there? Dogs like Derek?
“I’m a Bad Dog, Stiles. You’re not, you’re a Good Dog. You’re a good companion.” Derek said like he could read Stiles’ frantic mind and he wanted to help put his fear to rest. “I had a pack, and a human Alpha before all this and my life on the streets. I had a home and a collar and humans who loved me, took care of me, fed me and let me sleep at the foot of their beds. I was happy.”
“What happened?” Stiles whispered, tucking his face into Derek’s side tightly, the dark fur blotting out the light around them, hiding Stiles from the world. “What went wrong?”
“They died.” Derek sounded so absolutely broken that it made Stiles clench his jaw tightly, his light whisper cutting deeper than that hoe had in the yard last year when Stiles hadn’t been watching where he was running. “In a great fire, while I was out one night and not at my home. I left to chase a scent that shouldn’t have been on my pack’s property, one I didn’t recognize, and by the time I caught scent of the smoke, it was too late. The fire had taken them and my house and was so hot I couldn’t go anywhere near it, despite how hard I tried.”
Stiles really was choking now, trying to hold back the sobs that were threatening to over take him at the raw pain he heard in Derek’s voice. The pain he felt for the older dog and his great losses. Because no dog should ever have to outlive their pack like that, not when they’re taken so prematurely.
“I was a Bad Dog then, Stiles, and I’m a Bad Dog now. And that’s why no one wants me anymore. That’s why no one will take me in and give me a new home.” Derek’s snout rested briefly on the top of Stiles’ skull before lifting off again. “But there will be a pack out there who will want you, even if it’s not Scott. Someone will want you Stiles, because you’re a Good Dog.”
Stiles didn’t know what to say to that.
“What were their names? Your humans?” Stiles asked instead, even though he didn’t know if Derek could hear him with his face buried so far in the other dog’s fur. His voice was muffled, but that helped to cover the hitching his breath kept doing. “What were they called? Where did you live?”
“I lived with the Hale pack, Alpha Peter and his niece Laura. They were blood kin, but through one of Peter’s liter mates. Laura came to the house a year after Peter took me in as a pup, after her sires died.” Derek smiled fondly, his voice almost sounded happy, longing, and when Stiles looked up, he could see the love all over his face. “We lived out of town, on the edge of the preserve, in a house back in the woods. It was quiet out there, safe, peaceful. No intruders came, and rarely did anyone else. Life was good.”
“I’ve never been out of town before.” Stiles said, pulling his head out of Derek’s flank and resting it against his shoulder instead, eyes locking with Derek’s own. “What’s it like out there? The closest to woods I have ever been is the few trees out in our yard. But there’s only a few, and I hardly think that counts as a forest.”
Derek laughed, a deep gravely sound that made Derek’s entire body shake slightly, Stiles’ head bouncing only slightly. It made him want to rub his face against Derek’s fur, to comfort him like Derek was comforting him. A feeling as strange to Stiles as it was probably to Derek, two loving dogs thrown into a loveless environment, looking for someone to cling too. Suddenly, Stiles didn’t want to leave Derek anymore. Suddenly, Stiles wanted nothing more than to follow this dog, this Alpha, to the very ends of the earth, wherever they may be.
“Alright Derek.” Stiles says finally, after exceedingly long moments filled with comfortable silence. “Let’s go home.”
Derek’s responding smile was as bright as the sun.
Chapter 3: We All Need A Happily Ever After
Notes:
Thanks for sticking with me guys! I've enjoyed the ride, and I hope you have too!
Chapter Text
‘Home’ is now an abandoned train depot somewhere on the edges of Derek’s vast territory, bordering one edge of Beacon Hills where once it might have been a booming travel hub. Now it lingers in rust outside of the main part of the town where most of the humans are, and Stiles sort of likes that it has an almost removed sense to it while the smell of people still lingers in the air. It permeates the metal that helps support most of collapsed sections in the sunken building, and it stains the dirt that shows where the floor went unfinished or has buckled up over the years. Stiles gets the sense that this building has been standing much longer than any of them have been alive, and that it will continue to do so long after Derek and the rest of them are gone. It’s a melancholy thought for sure, but not completely unhappy, and it helps to settle something deep within Stiles that he hadn’t know was loose. It helps him settle back into a sense of place and new pack, a feeling that he’s never experienced truly before Alpha Scott.
No, no longer Alpha Scott. Just Scott now, because Derek was Stiles’ Alpha now. Derek’s pack was his. Derek’s home was his. A warm thought where Stiles felt like he was drifting in a sea of sadness. Derek had rescued him in more ways than one, and Stiles had no idea how he would ever repay him. But he would try.
They’ve only just walked in to the open center of the sunken lobby -or what Stiles thinks was once the lobby- when the rest of the pack start filtering out from the shadows around them. The stocky figure of Erica shimmies out from behind a tight looking space that she most definitely shouldn’t fit in, a smirk plastering her face, ears up and confident in a way Stiles envies every time he sees it. Isaac comes next, the brown of his curls casting an almost fluffy shadow on the ground before he appears, only a few feet away from Erica’s niche. His eyes are bright and his tongue lolls out of the corner of his mouth, a laugh on his breath as he calls out to Derek in greeting. The massive length of Boyd’s legs Stiles could see when they walked in, his body resting partially on a mass of cloth and soft looking parts, but his head perked up in a sharp manner that betrayed the calm exterior he exuded. He was on watch, his sharp eyes lingering on Stiles before he nods at Derek in greeting, before they swiveled back to watch the other two pack members.
“Well, well. Look who found his way out of the vet’s office!” Erica’s sneer is as audible as her laughter is, her bulky bottle moving with far more grace than Stiles thought possible. “Finally! We’ve been waiting around for you to catch up for what seems like forever.You’re not as clever as I thought you were.”
Stiles bristled, his hackles raising as quickly as his anger, but hi response was cut off by Derek’s low growl, his body block his Betas from Stiles’ view and vice versa. Apparently they all had enough sense about them to bend to his clear command, each one bending their heads ever gently to the side in surrender. It didn’t cull Stiles desire to nip at Erica.
“Stiles, you know my Betas. They will help show you the ropes when I’m not here. They’ll also be showing you around the den.” Derek’s eyes narrow at them, a silent order made to be followed. “If you need help with anything, they will assist you, or I will. But don’t hesitate to ask.”
All the Betas nodded tightly at Derek’s declaration, their motions tight and controlled. And with them came the start of Stiles’ new life, one complete with his new found place in Derek’s pack.
It wasn’t an easy life, by any means. Not like Stiles was used to or expecting. But really, Stiles wasn’t sure what he was expecting. They had to hunt, fight, forage, and scrounge for food and water where they could, beg for it when they couldn’t. Stiles had to quickly learn where their territory boundaries were and just where their safe zones could be found. He had to discern which humans would be kind to him and his new pack mates, and which ones would be dangerous. But despite all the hardships and difficulties he was running into, Stiles was finding this new life was a good existence. He was no longer just an Outside Dog, but a Stray, and when he adapted fully to the pack life, he found he didn’t mind so much. Not when it came to his new family, anyways. Because he loved them and they were as much his as he was there. It made learning his life, and his pack mate’s lives, that much more important to him.
For instance, no one had to tell him that Erica was sensitive and very, very defensive about her sickness. She suffered from seizures, usually severe ones, and they were unpredictable sometimes. Stiles would quickly learn to look for the symptoms and the warning signs of an oncoming attack, as well as triggers that would aggravate her condition. Boyd and Isaac would tell him quickly one afternoon while she was resting, that her human pack from before had thrown her out in Derek’s territory when they first learned she was sick. Stiles didn’t need to be told that the humans had planned on her dying out on her own without treatment, and that they’d rather she had just disappeared and die than pay for her medical care or upkeep. He also didn’t need to be told that she almost constantly feared being abandoned once more. From that moment on, Stiles vowed to himself to show her as much security and affection as he possibly could.
Likewise, Stiles noticed that Isaac would flinch, jump, or startle whenever someone touched him. Especially when the touch was unexpected or unsolicited. That he was nervous and fearful around everyone, even the pack, despite how long or how well he knew them. Within the first week at the den, Stiles had seen the scars and marks that littered Isaac’s fine skin beneath the curly fur while he bathed, and again when he got wet during the rain storm that happened a few days later. He had a near constant need to be clean and dry, never wet or cold, and when all the pieces clicked together for Stiles, he felt complete ill. No one needed to tell him that humans had beat him, that they’d hurt him to the point of nervous desperation, so much so that he was still affected even now. And no one had to tell him that Isaac would never really get any better, despite how much work Stiles would put into trying to help him.
And Boyd... Well, Stiles didn’t really know much about Boyd other than he was loyally devoted to the pack and Derek. But above all, Boyd was devoted to Erica in a way that Stiles had seen with Scott and Allison. Stiles thinks that Erica is Boyd’s mate, even if she doesn’t realize it yet, because it is clear that Boyd does. And his gentle care and actions towards her demonstrate that clearly. Above that, he’s more of a silent type, rather than a talkative one like Stiles. So when he does talk, it is often a very calm, cool, and collected experience, with organized thoughts and logical suggestions. It is such a stark contrast from Stiles own mental processes and facilities that it sometimes surprises him, but in a good way. And his voice is only slightly accented with something that Stiles can’t quite place, can’t quite recognize. But when he finally gets up the courage to ask Derek, his only answer is a brief shrug and a clipped response of ‘I don’t know’ which hardly helps. It doesn’t stop Stiles from wanting to connect with Boyd though.
And despite all their flaws and cracks, Stiles grows to love them all as much as he’d ever loved his Alpha Scott. At first that realization had startled and nearly overwhelmed him, the terror at that though enough to stop him dead in his tracks, but after Derek and the pack’s silent reassurance that he belonged, Stiles finally accepts it. Now he curls up closer with each of the pack members in their piles late at night, feeling less nervous about his place in them now, and even less self-conscious about how he sleeps. The others include him in their games more and more as time passes too, which makes him start to feel included in a way he hadn’t before. And at least one of them always stays back with him when Derek orders him to stay. Stiles almost never argues with Derek, despite his initial reactions too. Because in the end, Derek knows the streets and his territory better than Stiles does, and Stiles trusts Derek implicitly.
Derek rarely allows him come along on trips to and from Deaton’s place, though, worried that the wet will recognize Stiles and attempt to take him away from his new pack. He never actually says that to anyone, especially not Stiles, but they all just sort of know that that’s the reasoning behind his decision. And Stiles doesn’t want to leave, so he doesn’t question the action. But after a few weeks with the pack, Derek relents, and as long as he’s careful and stays close to them, Stiles can go out with them close to the clinic.
Stiles always stays practically glued to Derek’s side or shadow anyways.
On one of the trips though, about two weeks after their start, Stiles sees a vaguely familiar face sitting behind the chain fence of the runs closest to the offered food dishes outside the enclosure. Danny -who is a friend of Jackson’s that Stiles had met when Danny stayed with the Whittemore pack at their den for a week- is sitting there and starring at Stiles with an almost shocked expression on his very, very expressive face. He can’t help it, Stiles knows, because all Corgis are emotional and highly expressive and rarely attempt to hide it, but the shock still makes Stiles decide that it’s okay to briefly leave Derek’s side to go and talk to him. After all, Derek’s only five or so feet away from him, and that’s hardly a long distance for someone who’s as adept at running as Stiles is.
“Danny, right?” Stiles opens with, wary and concerned that maybe he’s got the wrong name, even though he knows he doesn’t. “You’re friends with Jackson. I remember you.”
“Don’t play that crap with me, Stiles.” Danny practically barks his name out, his voice pitching so high that it makes Stiles flinch back. He takes a step back towards Derek and the rest of the pack. “Where in the Petsmart have you been? Jackson’s been crazy since you left! Lydia too! They said Alpha Scott came back without you!”
Stiles blinked at Danny. Sure, he’d known sort of abstractly that when he ran he’d be leaving them behind, but he hadn’t thought they’d be that worried about him. Lydia and Jackson had seemed more interested in one another than him anyways, up until he’d been left outside over-night. That had been one of the only times Stiles had even seen either of them that quite. And just like now, it unnerved him.
“I’ve been around. With Derek’s pack.” Stiles looks pointedly to where Derek is standing behind him. Derek looks like he’s completely focused on the food bowl he was eating from, but Stiles knows he’s listening to their entire conversation. “I got a new Alpha, Danny. I had to. Scott left me, he left me with the Argents.”
Danny’s rant cut off mid-way.
“What? Why would he do something like that?” He asked carefully, big eyes blinking before he switched gears completely. “That’s the man who wanted you Put Down, isn’t it? The Bad Man.”
“Yes.” Stiles says simply. “And Scott left me with him and never came back. Scott and Allison went together and left me with Allison’s sire. He hit me, he left me outside, no one played with me, I couldn’t take it and so I ran away. No one would help me, so I helped myself.”
Danny’s face scrunched up in an almost comical rendition of concern and horror, and if the subject matter wasn’t so heavy, Stiles might have laughed. As it was, Stiles couldn’t find it in himself to do much more than fight the desire to lay down and never get back up. He was happy now, happy with Derek and the pack, but a part of him deep down still ached with the pain from leaving Scott. What if Scott had looked for him and he was just too far away for him to find? What if he’d given up looking for him because of it?
“Stiles, you have to go back. You have to go home.” Danny says quietly, so quietly that Stiles is afraid that he’s hearing things now, that he’s making up reasons and excuses. “Everyone misses you.”
“No! No one misses me! Someone would have found me by now if they did! They would have looked!” Stiles is shouting louder and louder, his eyes frantic, ears back, eyes wide, searching for a way out. This wasn’t true. It just wasn’t true. “But no one ever came looking for me! No one ever came!”
“Stiles! Stiles stop!”
But Stiles can’t stop himself now. He’s screeching, his voice high, as shrill as any bird’s, and he can’t stop himself from howling out his pain in long draws of breath. From taking it out on himself in every way that he was capable of. Stiles bites at his paws, at his forelegs, scratches himself behind his ears with his front paws as viciously as he can in hopes that he would tear away the pain he felt. Anything, anything to draw blood, to get all this black tar out of him, to bleed it out. To make the agony within him stop. He’s still howling, but it sounds far off now, distant in his own ears, just like shouts from his pack members to try to get him to stop. Their snarls and deep voices calling out to him.
And another voice, one coming from out of the clinic.
Stiles isn’t really too sure what happened after that, because the world suddenly narrowed down to a slight pin-prick of pain in his scruff where someone had grabbed him tight, followed by a large shadow that most certainly wasn’t Derek. Or maybe it was the shadow first, then the hand and the pain in his neck. Stiles didn’t really know, but he could still hear Derek somewhere far off, shouting, barking like mad, trying to tell him something that he just couldn’t understand. It sounded like the humans did sometimes, distorted and foreign, even though Stiles tried his very best to understand. But he was warm now, the pain was fading, and so was everything around him. He felt relaxed in a way he hadn’t felt in ages. He felt safe. And Stiles was so very, very tired.
He slept.
Coming back to the land of the living was like being hit in the head with the glass screen door that Scott has on the front of his house. Like the time he’d got his head stuck between the fence posts and the small hole he’d dug under one of them that one time. Like running into the kitchen table at full tilt. Like a thousand other painful things at once, wrapped all up in stuffy cotton, muting the world around him and muffling up the inside of his head. Every noise sounds like it is coming from far off through one of those plastic tubes that Stiles has seen on new home sites, distorted by the ridges in the shell. It makes things incredibly hard to understand, even when he can focus on things for more than a few seconds at a time.
“...outside here, with one of the strays. Derek must have...” A recognizable voice, but for the life of him Stiles can’t think of who the voice belongs to. “Bad shape, I... might not be able to remember you. Should give... euthanization not an option.”
“But I don’t understand... how did those scratches... Is he going to be okay? Are you...” A new voice, a secondary voice, as familiar as it was confusing. Stiles knows this voice as well, but he can’t place it. “Tell me Doc, is he going to be...”
“I had to separate him from... Derek didn’t like me trying to...”
Deaton, one of the voices -the first, Stiles thinks- is Dr. Deaton. Okay, so he was still at the clinic then. Fuzzy as his vision and head were, at least he knew abstractly where he was. But who was the other voice? It was right there on the tip of Stiles’ tongue. Right where he can’t reach it, like biscuits on the counter top. Visible but untouchable.
“Scott, calm down. You’ll only stress Stiles out more once he comes too.” Now that sentence came through clear as day, Stiles thinks, and it startles him how much he must have missed. How Scott had some how found him while he was sleeping. “I’m not sure what’s wrong, but panicking won’t help him any. After that panic attack he doesn’t need anymore undue stress.”
Not like Alpha Scott wants to help him anyways, Stiles thinks nastily. Anger is welling up in him more than it ever has before, and so much faster too, pouring into his legs and down to his paws, filling him up. What gave him the right to suddenly come back around? Like he cared or something? Derek was the only one who seemed to care if he’d made it through, if he was happy, whole, undamaged. And that’s why Derek was his Alpha now and not Scott.
“Just give him some space, Scott. Looks like he’s coming around.” Deaton moves something up around Stiles’ head, and it makes him flinch back and try to clear his vision some. “He’s going to be disoriented, maybe even really confused, and that’s going to make him anxious. Just give the sedative some time to wear off and he’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, but when can I take him home? I’ve been worried sick!” Scott doesn’t sound too worried though, not like he did that one time Mate Allison’s sires were coming over, or when he broke that pen all over the carpet on accident. “I want to take him home where he belongs. I’ve been looking for him for so long. I’d thought the worst.”
“Scott, he’s been missing for a month or two, presumably living on the streets with Derek and his little gang. There’s not telling what’s happened to him, and I’d like to give him a full check-up before I let you go.” The Vet’s voice is calm and even still, despite Scott’s adamant demands to remove him. “Plus, he could probably use some time to get back on his feet and to normal. So calm down, pull up a chair, and let me have a look.”
Scott must have agreed in a nod because Stiles never hears a response, never gets more warning that the brief pause before Deaton puts something flat and cold against his ribs and beneath his front left leg. It makes him shy away from whatever it is, though he finds himself too tired to move too far, and anxious for whatever is coming next. But the doctor has never hurt him before, given him shots yes, and put him into that long sleep once where he woke up sore between his hind legs, but he’s never hurt him. So Stiles trusts Deaton as much as he can for as long as he can, fighting off the internal panic building as he breathes in the fear-filled air of the kennels and runs, the worry and waiting stench that has seeped into every pore of this building. He starts to see what all the fuss is about when the dogs come and go through the clinic, something he’s never really noticed before, and as time passes, Stiles feels himself tensing up, his heart now pounding in his chest.
He can’t see the frown working its way across Dr. Deaton’s face. He can’t see the matching look of shock and worry forming on Scott’s, or how his eyes crinkle downwards as he reigns in his self-control. And Stiles can’t see the bandages worming their way up one of Deaton’s arms or the fact that he’s stripped out of his lab coat because the one sleeve is ravaged and blood-spotted in places. Worst of all, Stiles can’t see outside the room he wakes up in, and by extension, he can’t see Derek.
Derek! Derek! Derek!
The name is racing through his head as he suddenly as his blood is racing through his veins, heart thumping harder and harder. Deaton pulls his metal disk necklace back from Stiles’ ribs and gently strokes down his flank before he maneuvers him onto his back, his legs drawn up to his chest and belly, head lolling to the side. Normally, Stiles doesn’t like to be put into this position. It’s vulnerable, shows his belly, and goes against everything Dogs are born knowing about pack hierarchy, but most of all, it shows these weaknesses to his former human and the doctor. It makes him uneasy and nervous. It makes him skittish.
“His heart’s pounding and I don’t know why.” Deaton says shortly as he checks Stiles belly for something or other, two fingers straying every so often back up to where the metal disk had rested, holding them there while he counted under his breath before moving on again. “He shouldn’t be afraid, not like this, not enough to make him this excitable. And the sedatives have never bothered him before. Something else is wrong.”
“Damn right something’s wrong!” Stiles snarls out, even though he knows Scott can’t understand him. Most humans can’t understand Dogs, or any of the other animals they inhabit the world with. Stiles always thought they just couldn’t learn, but he’s starting to think they just don’t want to make the effort. “I want you to stop touching me! I want to find Derek! Get your hands off me!”
His last demand comes out on a growl, which has the intended effect of making Deaton roll him back on his side, facing towards Scott this time instead of away from him. Stiles doesn’t hesitate to show his teeth, gums pulling back to reveal every snarling point he had in his snout. Scott blinked before pulling all his hands away from the examination table, eyes round, surprised even. Stiles takes his chance and puts his feet shakily back underneath of himself, wobbly as he tries to stand on his own.
“Stiles, it’s okay buddy, we’re both right here. You’re fine, you’re gonna be just fine.” Scott tried to placate him, hands raised, hesitant steps forward as he came back towards the table. “Shhhh, calm down, it’s me. You know me.”
Stiles kept on growling, hackles up.
“Scott, step back, give him some room.” Deaton’s voice was still as even as ever, but there was an edge in his gaze, eyes locked on Stiles. Stiles didn’t care.
“But he’s upset! What’s going on? He acts like he doesn’t know me anymore.” Scott’s all but wailing and the loud noise hurts Stiles’ ears, so he ducks his ears down against the table. “What’s wrong with Stiles?”
“Nothing! I’m fine! I just want to know where Derek is!” Stiles growls again, lower this time, and then lets loose a single sharp bark. “Where’s Derek?”
Stiles’ questioning bark is answered by a deep reverberating snarl, far off, almost muffled through the door, caught up in human made metals. But Stiles can almost hear it clearly, just as clearly as he can hear the massive shifting of something large just outside the screen door separating this room from the runs on the other side.
He doesn’t hesitate to fling himself off the examination table and towards the door separating him from Derek, crouched low as he rolls against the concrete floor. It makes his shoulders ache with a deep seated pain, but he ignores it. Ignores pretty much every twinge or ache as he hobbles over to the metal door to lean against it, wedges his nose tightly in the space between the end of the door and the beginning of the floor, and takes a deep breath. The scent of panic and fear and Derek washes over him and something that’d been wound tightly within him uncoils and relaxes marginally when Derek’s own nose presses against his. Warm, damp air rushes across his muzzle before it pulls back, a deep whine tapers into a demanding snarl, one that Stiles agrees with whole heartedly. Because Derek is demanding to know just what the Hell is going on, just like Stiles had, but seems to be making more progress with his demands.
Stiles goes to answer his questions with Scott’s name when he’s drug away from the doorway by two large hands, Scott’s hands, tight around his middle just behind his front legs. He doesn’t even stop to think before he lashes out, teeth sinking into Scott’s fingers and the meat of his hand where he’s easily reachably. Scott shouts loudly and drops Stiles nearly on his head, but he recovers and rolls with it, backing himself into the corner nearest the door once the world has stopped turning so much. On the other side, he can hear Derek raging and making demands for his immediate release, paws beating at the flimsy metal door, weight bearing against it as hard as he probably could throw himself at it. Stiles just wants to be on the other side of door so much he can almost taste it in between the slight metallic taste and his own saliva.
Deaton just watches the whole quietly before he walks to the shuddering door and opens it, barely blinking when Derek shoves through the entryway as quickly as he can, his massive body scraping and shoving at the metal where he has to squeeze through. Black hair and a litany of growls follow him in a flurry of movement, his nails scraping on the concrete as he scrabbles to get over to where Stiles is still crouched in the corner with his tail between his legs as far as it will go. And it is the most beautiful thing Stiles has ever seen, Derek in all his wolf-dog glory, growling and snarling and generally being a menace as he plants himself fully over Stiles’ much smaller body. His own massive one shakes and shudders with each deep breath he takes in order to make a constant warning snarl, brushing his fur against Stiles’ own before it retreats and starts all over again. Stiles just continues to crouch beneath him willingly, shivering and shaking, the tension radiating out of him like the growls out of Derek’s muzzle.
Derek is there now. Derek will protect him.
Dr. Deaton never seems overly concerned when Stiles turned and bit Scott though, despite the fact that Scott had been his previous Alpha. Even though it was wrong, wrong, wrong. He never even seemed phased when Stiles lost his mind and with Derek guarding Stiles like he was something special, something worth being protected. He did, however, seemed mildly annoyed when Scott began to yell, a tirade quickly building up as he tried and failed to regain his mental footing.
“What in the Hell!” Scott is practically shouting where he’s sitting on the floor. Stiles didn’t notice him falling, but he must have after he’d been bitten, after Stiles tried to maul his hand. “Whose dog is that! And why did you let him in here, Dr. Deaton? He’s going to hurt Stiles! He’s massive!”
Derek growled even lower at the mention of Stiles’ name, Scott’s eyes locking with his at the noise, a frown creasing his face. Stiles thought Derek was going to move, to step towards Scott and towards danger, and he swears that’s what makes the low keening whine break out of his throat. The noise made Derek freeze up momentarily before he lowered his head and body, pressing his chest against Stiles’ back.
“Derek, just calm down.” Deaton said suddenly, breaking the tense silence that’d settled unevenly in the room. He hadn’t moved more than to just cross his arms, one eyebrow raised in the wolf-dog’s direction. “He wasn’t hurting Stiles. You’re little friend there is probably experiencing some side effects from the sedative I gave him early, he had a panic attack earlier. He’s going to be fine. Stiles is just scared.”
And it was like magic, Stiles could feel Derek relax, the deep growling cutting off as he straightened up, ears raising up off his skull where they’d been plastered for the past few minutes. He blinked large eyes up at Deaton, a glare if the vet had ever seen one, before he stepped backwards from where Stiles had pressed himself belly first into the ground. Deaton looked down at the little terrier, eyes sad, as he patted his leg gently with an open hand, trying to call the skittish dog over.
“Come on, Stiles, let’s have a look at you.” He said calmly, watching as Stiles wearily pulled himself back up, head shifting from Derek to Deaton to Scott, who was still flabbergasted on the ground not too far away. “You’re going to feel off, that’s the sedative. I just want to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself with that table stunt you pulled. You could have really done some damage.”
Derek snorted, but used his muzzle to shove Stiles forwards towards the vet, causing Stiles to stumble. Stiles turned and nipped at Derek’s nose, but Derek just huffed and continued to shove Stiles where he wanted him to go.
“Holy shit... That dog can understand you.” Scott said, pointing a slightly-shaking finger at Derek, where he was standing protectively at Stiles’ back. “That dog can totally understand every word you just said.”
“Of course he can. Derek’s very smart like that.” Deaton said matter-of-factly, an eyebrow raised down at where Scott was still sprawled. “Stiles can too, for the most part. I still think some of the words confuse him, but otherwise he can understand you too. Most dogs can. How else would they get around their daily lives?”
Scott sputtered a bit, gesturing wildly at Stiles and Derek before he flailed a bit. Derek huffed again above Stiles’ head, but it sounded more like a mocking laugh then anything else. It made stiles grin, tail wagging slightly as he got up the courage to trot over to Deaton and Scott, sitting pretty at their feet. Deaton just smiled down at Stiles, which made Stiles cock his head to the side, ears perked in question, and the vet just shrugged.
“I think you broke him.” Stiles barked, knowing Deaton couldn’t understand him word-for-word, but the vet would get the gist. He always did. After all, he was one of the few humans who could really understand animal language. “His face is as pale as I’ve ever seen it. It’s sort of hilarious.”
That did get a laugh out of both Derek and Deaton, which only made Scott flail harder.
“He’s laughing at you, Scott, and I can’t say as I blame him.” Deaton said happily, scooping Stiles up as he made his way back to the raised metal table, Derek making his way over behind them. “Your face is particularly... pinched. Stiles accused me of breaking you.”
“You really can understand them.” Scott said finally as he hoisted himself back up off the floor finally, eyes wide but curious. Stiles knew that spark anywhere. “I thought you were just making it up all those times you told me Stiles was sad, that he was worried I was going to leave him. That he didn’t like the Argents. I didn’t believe you.”
“And look what happened.” Deaton said, precisely, starring Scott down. “He ran away. And if Derek here hadn’t found him, I don’t think Stiles would have lasted all that long on the streets. He’s not an Outside Dog. So you can thank Derek there for his help, and then you can apologize to Stiles and tell him everything you told me earlier. Then you can take him home.”
Scott nodded so fast his hair fell into his face, making Stiles huff his own laugh out, before he trotted forwards to the edge of the table. Patient and waiting. Scott swallowed heavily before looking down at Stiles, eyes sad, apologetic. But Stiles wanted to hear it. He needed to hear it.
“Stiles, I’m sorry for leaving you at the Argents. I’m sorry for dumping you off on other people while I sorted my life out. You didn’t deserve it, didn’t do anything wrong, you really, really didn’t. It was all me. And Allison’s father’s fault.” He said in a rush, putting his head down. “And I’m so very, very sorry for it. When I came back and Mr. Argent said you’d mauled his cat and then escaped I was so mad at you, but then you didn’t come back, and no one had seen you, and I feared the worse. Then I saw his cat and she was fine. He lied to me.”
Stiles nodded once. “And?”
“I don’t know what happened while I was gone, or what made you run off, but I want you to know that I think you’re such a Good Dog. Stiles, you’re the Best Dog, my Best Friend, and I never want you to run away again.” Scott’s breath hitched slightly, breath hitching as he talked. “You can’t man, you’re going to have another little McCall to look after now. You’ve got a duty to the family, on top of being my best friend. You can’t just leave me like that. Not anymore.”
Stiles blinked, then blinked again, and then once more for good measure. A little McCall? Alpha Scott was going to have a pup? A little pup of his very own? Mate Allison was with pup! He whirled around, his excitement getting the best of him, a litany of happy barks and sounds coming out of him as he jumped up to lick at Scott’s face, dodging happy petting hands and listening to Scott and Deaton laugh. In those few amazing seconds, Stiles had already made up his mind to completely forgive Alpha Scott, and oh boy, he was going to be responsible!
But then he stopped, eyes seeking Derek’s own, his grin plastered all over his face as his tongue peaked out through his jowls. But Derek wasn’t happy, wasn’t jumping around in excitement like he was, wasn’t even wagging his tail. He was just watching the entire proceedings with a blank face, calm and quiet in his own space at Deaton’s back. And it hit Stiles that if he went back with Alpha Scott, went back with him to his home and his family, that he’d be leaving Derek behind. Derek and his wonderful pack, Stiles’ new family.
The thought made his ears and tail droop, a low whine straining the sudden silence. Derek just looked at him before nodding his head towards Scott, silent permission, but it wasn’t enough. Stiles wasn’t going to leave Derek. Wasn’t going to leave Isaac and Boyd and Erica all alone out there. Not like he’d been left.
Especially noot when he knew how to fix this.
“Derek, this may sound crazy, but hear me out.” Stiles smiled, his teeth all showing, his tail wagging slightly again. “I have a proposition for you and your pack. Now then...”
--
It took a few months. Of course it did, it seemed to always take months, it always took months. Months and months and months of nothing but waiting or working or both. Working at trusting Alpha Scott again, waiting for Scott and Allison to get used to their new routine. Working and waiting around the new pup.
A few months also meant that instead of looking like a normal-sized human, now Matron Allison was starting to really show, her pup hanging heavily in her belly whenever she moved around or did anything. Stiles would watch her with careful eyes wherever she went, worry creasing his forehead, impatience filling him with nervous energy that he had such a hard time controlling that it made him want to run around and climb all the walls and furniture. It made him want to howl at the moon and the sun and the fridge that hummed loudly in the kitchen, made him want to tug all the blankets off the bed and wrap her in them so she can’t get into anymore trouble. (Humans were always into trouble! Even more than him!) He wanted her to den, which was something she wasn’t doing on her own, even though it was far past time. And he wanted her to let him lay in her lap almost constantly, head on her belly, listening to the new addition to the McCall Pack. It had such a strong heart beat, even now.
“I can see you practically vibrating over there.” Derek said, tone even but filled with humor to Stiles’ trained ears. “Don’t worry so much, she’ll be fine. Humans are strange, but they can care well enough for their young when they want to.”
“How do you know? What if she gets hurt? They travel so fast in those cars, and she doesn’t even have a proper den!” Stiles pouts, resting his head against Derek’s front legs. They’d been laying together in front of the couch for a while now watching Matron Allison try to do something called knitting. It wasn’t going so well. “I don’t know how they can survive without planning our their den so far in advance! She should have started the moment she knew she was with pups.”
“And what do you know about den instincts, Stiles?” Derek is definitely laughing at him now, one eyebrow raised mockingly. Stiles wishes he could reach one of Derek’s ears so he could bite and tug on it in retaliation. “I think you’re more worried about it than Matron Allison is.”
“But not more than Alpha Scott.” Stiles scoffs. “And Matron Allison doesn’t worry about anything. That’s why she’s a perfect mate.”
And it was true.
Alpha Scott had been a nervous worrier from the very start, even before all this had gone down. When Deaton finally did release Stiles back into his care, he was cautious about reintroducing him home, and when Stiles insisted that Derek come with them, he was even more nervous. Stiles wasn’t leaving without Derek, and Scott had to understand that. But he worked through it, through his hesitations and problems, and with Matron Allison’s help and a few of their friends and close kin, Derek and his pack had settled into their lives with surprising ease.
Scott’s Matron and new Mate had taken in Erica and Boyd with little resistance, in the end. Boyd was calm and quiet, a steady presence with a foreboding air about him that he never executed. He normally intimidated prospective new packs, but in this case, he hardly made the Sheriff sweat. In fact, the elder police officer enjoyed the dog’s steady and calm personality, and had taken to letting Boyd ride with him wile on duty. Boyd had secretly fallen in love with Sheriff Stilinski, not that he’d ever said anything, but Stiles could totally tell. Likewise, Erica and Scott’s Matron Melissa had bonded rapidly, despite Erica’s illness and limitations. She was the perfect dog to stay at home and guard the homestead when both Melissa and Sheriff Stilinski were out at their jobs, and it allowed her and Boyd to remain together. Together, they could persuade potential intruders off without actually doing much, a bonus to their new and cushy lives.
Isaac had gone to live next door to Stiles, with the Whittemore Pack and Jackson, and was filling into his new life just as well as Boyd and Erica had. At first Stiles had thought that maybe he’d chosen wrong, that maybe Jackson wouldn’t want another dog in the house, but after a few days the older dog had taken to the young mutt with a surprising enthusiasm that left Stiles near breathless with joy. Now Isaac and Jackson were nearly inseparable, going everywhere together, and Jackson’s owners had enough love to go around. Despite their somewhat cold public faces, Stiles had it on good authority that they’d recognized Isaac’s caution for what it was almost immediately and had acted accordingly. Isaac had bloomed under their devotion and tender care, and was now just as happy as the rest of them, a new brother and pack mate to help him complete the Whittemore Pack puzzle.
And Derek... Well, Derek was happy where he finally ended up. Here, with Stiles, in Alpha Scott’s home, his new lazy life finally getting the better of him. Stiles would perpetually get after him for the weight he’d put on in the few months since settling here, his former pack all close so that he could check on him, but knowing that they were safe enough he didn’t have to worry. (He had, in the beginning, for days until Stiles had personally walked him around to show him just how happy they all were. How safe. Only then had Derek finally relaxed and started to settle down.) He’d filled out too, still muscular and fit, but with a shiny, healthy pelt filled with dark fur and less gray hairs around his muzzle. He’d also put on a few more inches, which Stiles still doesn’t understand, but that he doesn’t mind. He’s the perfect height for Stiles to use as a stepping stool that moves where he needs him to. It’s perfect. They’re perfect.
The new collar that shines around Derek’s neck is an added bonus though, Stiles thinks. Not only does it make him look ridiculously handsome and suave -a word Stiles had known and Derek had not- but it also seemed to give him a sense of purpose, of place, and it makes Stiles as prideful as he’s ever felt. The good sort, the kind that makes him warm inside. Derek knew that word when Stiles hadn’t. He didn’t seem to mind teaching it to Stiles, along with many others.
That and the collar makes for a convenient handle for Stiles to latch onto and drag Derek around with, since he can’t reach his scruff or ears, and he most certainly can’t pick Derek up. The twinkling of his new tags against the leather is a sound Stiles never wants to stop hearing. Not ever. And if he occasionally grabs the collar just to hear that sound, well only he’s the wiser. Derek never seems to mind.
“Do you think it will be a boy pup?” Stiles asks quietly, still laying partially on Derek at the foot of the couch. “It smells like a boy. A healthy one. He has a strong heartbeat. He’ll be healthy and beautiful.”
“I could think of nothing more fitting. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a girl.” Derek said, his voice far off but still mischievous. Like he knows something Stiles doesn’t. “They will be strong pups, regardless.”
Stiles can only nod while the sound of running feet come down the hallway, a frantic looking Scott dashing into the room to scoop up blankets and a small bag that had sat by the door for the last few weeks. His eyes are wide, his hair sticking up, and he’s smiling so hard that Stiles is worried he’ll crack his face.
“Come on boys, it’s Time! We’re going to have a baby!”
And all Stiles can think is that he’s Happy.
Beyond Happy.
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