Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

About a week or two into the summer holidays, children start going missing. For a small town like Beacon Hills, this is an understandably huge problem. After the third child goes missing the police are quick to set out a curfew for all minors (Much to Stiles’ chagrin because, let’s face it, that’s most of the fun shit about summer down the drain right there).

It's horrible but one wouldn’t think it supernatural, right?

Then a body shows up.

The body of a woman whose child, coincidentally enough, went missing soon after. Autopsy report saying the person had been eaten alive, riddled with tiny stab wounds. 

That’s when Stiles knows something is up.

When Stiles closes the door of his room behind him he is greeted by four very leathery werewolves lounging around casually. This is becoming commonplace, what is he doing with his life?

“Great!” he deadpans simply, propping his lacrosse stick against the wall and tossing his sports bag in the far corner.

Isaac looks up from one of Stiles’ comics that he was leafing through and smirks. It quickly disappears when Stiles yanks it out of his hand and tosses it on the desk.

“If you’re here to get me to convince Scott to play nice with you Derek, leave. I’ve tried, he’s stubborn as a rock,” Stiles states irritably, all he wants to do is have a shower and crash into bed and sleep the rest of the weekend away. Lacrosse practice with Scott one-on-one is brutal and Stiles has a new respect for people who Scott tackles because he certainly knocks the wind out of Stiles when he does it.

Jackson is giving Stiles his ‘bitch-please’ face and Peter is staring at the posters on his wall, silent and bemused. Derek looks about as uncomfortable as Derek can get, which, by anyone else’s standards isn’t actually that uncomfortable and more scowl-ie but Stiles is slowly learning the ‘language of the brows’.

There are a few beats of uncomfortable silence before Derek finally bites the bullet “We need your help.”

Jackson is leaning annoyingly close to him, looking over his shoulder to read the page open on the computer screen and breathing Dorito-breath on Stiles.

Again Stiles finds himself pondering what he’s doing with his life as he opens yet another link on faieries (unfortunately not the peppy ones that have magic dust that enables you to fly or swap your teeth for currency, more like the ones that steal children and eat all who get in their way) when he should be out socializing or enjoying his summer or practicing lacrosse with Scott.

He spends the whole night awake and buzzed off red bull in the casa de werewolf (or the were-house, as Stiles likes to call it in his own imagination) as he scrounges up what little information he can get on creepy, evil faeries, which is mostly spent sifting through pages and pages of useless Ferngully pictures and the overpowering urge to throw his laptop at the deserted subway car.

He reads what he finds, commits it to memory, copy and pastes it onto a word document for later just in case he needs to double-check and crashes right there on the musty, threadbare loveseat, laptop by his feet.

He wakes a considerable time later to Peter gently shaking him awake and the sound of someone sparring with Derek.

“I’m surprised you slept through them, they’re quite loud,” Peter offers, amused. All Peter gets is a scratchy grunt as a reply but he doesn’t seem fazed. He holds out a Styrofoam cup of coffee for Stiles and that seems enough incentive for action.

Stiles scrubs at his chin where he can feel drying drool. His eyes are itchy and aching and his brain is muddled and all Stiles wants so do is curl up and go back to sleep but he sits up all the same, taking the cup and holding it like a priceless artefact.

He blinks blearily and stifles a yawn as Peter sits down on a cheap looking kitchen chair a few feet from him, stirring his own coffee thoughtfully with a long coffee shop stick. They watch calmly as Jackson goes flying across the room- followed by a roar and Stiles realizes that both Isaac and Jackson are up against Derek and they’re still getting their asses handed to them.

Stiles isn’t going to sugar-coat it, they suck. All a mess of badly timed moves, scrambling at each other to get at Derek like it’s every man for himself. If they don’t hurt each other they all but get steam-rolled by Derek. All it does is get everyone involved frustrated.

“This needs to stop…” Stiles finds himself saying after a gulp of scolding coffee and all Peter does is nod solemnly.

Chapter Text

Stiles tries to have as much of a social life as he possible can outside of doing pack Leather-n-broody’s dirty work. He is a teenager and it is the summer, all this hot, glorious weather and there was no way he was going to waste it. If Scott wants to spend it moping and love sick, that’s his business but Stiles certainly doesn’t need to do the same thing.

Which must mean someone up there hates him because just as he’s about to go out and gallivant with other sixteen year olds and have a fun summer, Derek and Peter appear in his room, all leathery (In both their cases) and broody (in Derek’s case) and acting like they own the place.

“Go away,” he just says, stuffing his phone into his back pocket and heading for the door

Derek scowls, but what’s new? “You have to-“

“Nope!” Stiles prompts cheerfully over his shoulder “I don’t have to do anything for you,” maybe Derek goes to say something but Stiles slams his door shut behind him and all but waltzes out of his house.

He hangs out with a bunch of people from his year in school; they talk, mess around, migrate from location to location and generally make a lot of noise.

Today someone brings a soccer ball and the twelve of them set to work, sorting themselves into two teams and marking out goal posts with sweaters, phones and shoes too uncomfortable to manoeuvre on grass in.

It’s good-hearted fun. Most of the girls stop trying to impress the boys and join in and everyone seems to be having a ball. It takes Stiles a while to realize that Derek had followed him here, standing off near the trees, away from the screaming group of teenagers in the middle of the pitch. Peter isn’t with him and Stiles assumes he draws the creeper line at coming into his room.

Derek doesn’t seem to be aware of such a line.

Well screw him. Stiles flashes him a taunting grin before going back to his game.

Half an hour later when the game concludes -because five of the twelve people have to be somewhere else- Stiles cringes when he realizes Derek is still there, in all his creeper glory.

“Do you know that guy?”  A boyish, dark haired girl named Monica asks Stiles, gesturing vaguely in Derek's direction.

“That’s his cousin, Miguel,” Danny pipes up as he walks by them, he gives Derek a friendly wave. Derek just glowers. Stiles has to fight the urge to smack himself in the face because of course Danny would remember him dangling Derek in front of him like a piece of meat to a starving dog.

“He doesn’t seem very happy you’re hanging out with us, are you needed at home or something?” She asks and Stiles just barks out a laugh.

“No,” Stiles smirks dryly, a sneer pulling his mouth because he knows Derek can hear them “He’s just always that creepy,”

He feels Derek's glare on him when he turns around and heads back to the group but when he looks back over his shoulder at the trees, he’s gone.

He is in his room when Stiles gets home though. Stiles doesn’t know why he even tries fighting Derek but he thinks he’s made his point because the twins (Derek's eyebrows) are slightly creased in the ‘I am a kicked puppy’ sort of way.

“Next time, text me beforehand.” He says sternly before opening the word document on faeries he’s compiled. Derek grunts but says nothing and Stiles knows he’s committed that to mind.

Compromise is glorious.

Scott starts getting upset when Stiles starts to get really caught up in the faerie business. Now Allison and he are tip-toeing around each other he needs Stiles to lament at and give sad faces and as much as Stiles loves Scott, the faeries need to be dealt with as quickly as possible and Stiles seems to be the only one willing to help.

Stiles is really unimpressed when he catches Scott slide his window open. He has one leg in and manages to looks sheepish yet serious at the exact same time (how?) and Stiles just asks “are werewolves just incapable of using doors or something?” Scott ducks his head and Stiles tisk’s, closing his laptop with a slam “Dude, I have a phone, you can text me.”

Scott steps into the room, sliding the window closed after him “It smells like Derek in here,” is all he says and looks conflicted, like he wants nothing more than to jump back out the window and is barely holding himself back.

Stiles sighs “yeah, he was here, like, half an hour ago. He shows up every evening” And Scott’s face just darkens and he doesn’t look like his Scott and Stiles doesn’t know why but the first thing that jumps into his head is alpha and woah!-

-he just thought of his dopey best friend as an alpha and-

It seemed incredibly believable.

Stiles stands up “Don’t look like that, it’s not like he lives here or something,”

Scott still doesn’t look impressed by this. “Look, Stiles, I’m just worried,” Stiles just frowns “What, you think I can’t take care of myself?” he snaps and Scott is taken aback “Wha- I, No! Of course not! But you’re only human, Stiles-”  

Stiles doesn’t want to hear any more “Out!” he snaps, pointing to the window. He almost regrets it when he gets hit full force by the dejected puppy face.

Almost.

Only not really because he’s tired and pissed and doesn’t want to feel any worse than he already does.

He sighs, anger turning to exasperation “Look, Scott, I’m sorry, but you can’t give me the ‘you’re only human’ talk when you, the actual werewolf here, won’t help out.” He folds his arms crossly and Scott has a very un-fetching frown on his face.

“I don’t trust Derek..”

“Yeah? Well I do.” The truth of that only hit him full force after he’s said it.

There is a pregnant silence between them before Scott moves once more, opening his window and slipping out. He pauses when he has one leg out, looks back over at Stiles and says “I’ll think about it,”

It strikes Stiles one afternoon -as he and Peter shoot sassy remarks back and forth and Isaac laughs and Derek looks grumpy and Scott is nowhere to be seen while Jackson sits calmly across from Peter, texting Danny- that he seems to have accidentally become an impromptu, sort of, completely human, member of Pack ‘leather-n-broody’

The revelation leaves him grinning stupidly and Isaac asks if he’s feeling alright.

Chapter Text

Of course Stiles finds himself worrying about Erica and Boyd, they have both been missing for nearly a month. With a pack of Alphas hanging around like a very unwanted group of hooligans in front of an old-folks home, everyone has come to the same conclusion. Nevertheless, when the others aren’t around Stiles brings them up to Derek.

What, to a normal person, says ‘mild constipation’ is, from Stiles’ guess, ‘guilt’ in eye-brow speak a la Derek Hale. His mouth tugs down into a very sour, yet completely charming, scowl.

“They’re not my problem anymore,” Derek gruffs and Stiles doesn’t need fancy werewolf powers to tell he’s lying.

“Well, they were your beta’s, you turned them, they’re your responsibility so ergo, your problem” Stiles says and, good heavens, Derek’s brows lower even further.

“You don’t understand, Stiles,” he snaps, glaring off into the distance and absolutely refusing to look Stiles in the eye.

“Then explain it to me,” Stiles dares, crossing his arms indignantly.

“I really do want to help them, really, but they left, Stiles. Pack doesn’t just leave unless they mean not to come back and they made up their minds, it’s out of my hands.”

Stiles isn’t won over by the excuse but then Derek gets this conflicted look on his face and Stiles finds himself believeing him because while Derek’s alpha skills could certainly use some tweaking, he was not a bad guy.

And then the “It kills me not knowing if they’re safe.” Is like a knife in his gut. Stiles almost pats him on the shoulder, hand hovers over a leather sleeve before he decides better of it.

“Oh, they’ll be okay Derek, I mean, they can take care of themselves if you were their alpha,” Stiles grins, answered with a delicately raised eyebrow that screams are-you-seriously-stroking-my-ego.

“What?” Stiles teases “You’re only a crappy alpha seventy percept of the time.”

The first eyebrow is joined by its twin as they trek up Derek's forehead, Stiles should name them; Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum seem like fantastic ideas. Stiles’ his face must look completely ridiculous, because Derek lets out a snort and looks away.

He bumps shoulders with Stiles and the smile on his face is small, but it’s totally there. It makes Stiles smile right back, big and shit-eating

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,”

Lydia is at the were-house one of the afternoons when Stiles gets there. They haven’t really talked at all since the Kanima incident and Stiles sort of prefers the separation to the empty chasm he feels in his chest every time Lydia is around.

She is with Jackson and they’re talking to Derek quietly and Stiles very nearly turns right around and flees but their eyes meet and he’s rooted to the spot.

She pats Jackson on the shoulder and excuses herself. Derek and Jackson watch her make her way over to Stiles for a few seconds before being pulled back into their own conversation.

They share a painfully awkward silence.

“How are you, Stiles?” she asks softly. Softly! Lydia Martin never did anything softly, not before Jackson.

The envy eats at him.

“Peachy, never better!” he says and from the look Lydia gives he figures she knows he’s just about as far from peachy as one could get.

Mercifully, though, she doesn’t push it. Stiles isn’t ready for that just yet

Lydia starts showing up at the were-house more and more after that and at first Stiles is antsy about seeing her and Jackson together so often but he is quick to discover their relationship has changed.

Like, completely.

In school, when they were going out, they had that ‘look-at-us-we’re-totally-official’ vibe about them and felt the need to make out at any given opportunity and were glued to each other’s sides. That had been excruciating in itself.

But it’s different now they actually have feelings for one another.

They hardly touch; in fact, they hardly even look at each other. But they aren’t distant; it’s more like they don’t feel the need to be constantly touching.

And when their eyes do meet, they soften, relaxing-

 –Intimate-

When they do touch it is light, uncertain, like they think they’ll hurt each other if they push too hard and they don’t want that, yet lingers in a way that speaks volumes.

Stiles notices there is a rapid spike in Jackson’s concentration when Lydia is around, his moves faster, blows more precise, so much so that he caught Derek off guard the first time Lydia stayed for sparring.

And the smile on her face as she watches… the pride in her eyes regardless of the fact Jackson gets beaten to the ground every time.  

She is happy, so happy she doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself.

And the way Jackson glances over at her when arguing with Scott or Derek and has a complete one-eighty showed how much she affects him, anchors him.

Makes him just as happy as she is.

And Stiles isn’t sure yet if that is better or worse than before.

Chapter Text

Stiles makes as much time for his dad as possible. Partially because he might get suspicious and do something dramatic like read his texts or go through his internet history (a disaster in the making, over-interest in faeries notwithstanding) but mostly because he genuinely wanted to spend time with his dad.

Stiles chalks his clinginess up to only actually having one parent.

They eat pizza silently at the kitchen table after having watched a movie together when his father finally speaks up “alright, no son of mine is that quiet when something isn’t on his mind,” Stiles cringes “What’s eating ya’?”

Stiles momentarily contemplates telling him everything. The thought has a very short life-span. There is no way he’s getting his dad involved in this mess. So, he just shrugs lamely, pulls the Lydia’s-dick-boyfriend-really-grinds-my-gears story.

It’s only half a lie, right?

It seems to suffice with his dad, because all he does is give awkward advice and go back to eating, daily parenting quota full.

It is inevitable that when one is chasing down faeries that you will come across at least one of the little bastards. Stiles had never given it that much thought; too busy being the only one with a brain (the irony in this isn’t entirely lost on him either).

He gets a text off Derek (imagine that!) late one Wednesday night asking if he could come with them to take a look at the place where the last child-napping had occurred.

Which is why Stiles finds himself sneaking out for probably the umpteenth time to go snoop around in the dark, in the forest, way after curfew… the things he does for the pact (that thought still makes him smile like an idiot)

 He doesn’t even notice when he wonders off from Scott and Peter, all he was doing was checking out the area where the last little girl had been taken when suddenly Bam! He basically walks straight into a faerie.

That’s a hell of a lot of teeth!

It’s small and green and feral and holy shit, there goes his childhood, because it’s hissing at him and the hairs on the back of his neck fucking stand on end. His torch falls to the ground with a soft ‘thunk’ and Stiles’ fight or flight senses must have kicked in because he’s running in the total opposite direction.

The only reason he knows it’s still after him is the hissing noise it makes and fuck, fuck, fuck! He is way too young to die!!

He’s snapped out of whatever mental musing he’s doing because he’s suddenly jerked right off the ground and the front of his shirt flies up, tight like a noose over his windpipe and burning. He lets out an incredibly manly squeak as the tiny, dastardly little faerie lifts him right into the sky.

Come on, he’s skinny but this is ridiculous!!

His arms flail and he kicks his legs out and the faerie just hisses at him and eaugh, that noise will always give him goose bumps!

He hears a shrieking whistle before the faerie lets out this bloodcurdling scream and the next thing Stiles knows he’s falling, dropping like a stone. The water he impacts with slams into him like a school bus and wow, worst belly flop ever! He’s going to feel that for days.

He flails sluggishly, not knowing which way is up or down or why he's even in water in the first place. Fortunately though, there seems to be an encore for his life because someone is pulling him up by the hood of his jacket and- holy moly! He was not expecting his rescuer to be Allison!

He grabs hold of her arm because the stream he’s in is quite deep and the current is worryingly strong.

“Ah- Allison?!” he splutters and she smiles a sad little smile at him “Hey, Stiles,” he only realizes now that she’s dressed entirely in black and is holding a crossbow in her other hand.

Whatever question he’s about to ask is interrupted with a distinctively loud faerie shriek.

Or twenty.

They both jerk their heads up and Stiles curses quietly because there were at least two dozen angry faeries heading towards them.

Allison seems to square her shoulders and the next thing Stiles knows, he’s being dragged upstream. She’s just about to lift him out when suddenly Allison lets out a cry because there are faeries all around her like a swarm of angry hornets and instinctively let’s go of Stiles to shield her face. He goes plummeting back into the water, lungs tight and seizing from the cold. His hands scatter franticly under the water for something to grapple onto.  He snags a tree root that juts out of the river bank and clings onto it.

He looks up as he hears a cry of pain and the whistle of Allison’s crossbow bolt missing its target. She is staggering back upstream and at this stage trying to beat angry faeries away with her crossbow. Shallow cuts cover her arms and face.

Stiles’ gut drops when she lets out a gasp of surprise, catching her heel against a tree root. She goes sprawling into the river and, shit, she has nothing to grab onto. She sucks in a breath before the current pulls her under completely.

The good thing is that the faeries don’t seem to like water, because they scatter, hissing and shrieking, flying over them, waiting for them to get out.

After a few tense moments, Allison's shiny dark head breaks the surface of the water, gasping for air and desperately trying to fight the current. Angry red welts cover her face and blood must be getting into her eyes because she has them squeezed shut.

Stiles chews on his lip, he won’t be able to reach her from here when she passes him and what she really needed right now was something to cling onto. He spots a dead log that seems cemented into the bank on the opposite side of the river. It stretches out further into the river and Stiles is sure that if he were there, he could catch Allison as she passed.

Stiles lets out a slow breath.

Gathering what courage (or stupidity, depending on how one looks at it) he has and throwing caution to the wind he plants his feet onto the bank and kicks off with all the energy he can muster.

He barely makes it, snagging a wayward piece and quickly reeling himself in before it breaks from his weight.

“Allison!” he calls, holding a hand out for her while keeping a tight grip on the log with the other. She blinks her eyes open and squints and at the very last second grabs his hand with both of hers. They jolt forcefully and he grips her hand hard. He very nearly lets go of the log and all they hear is a sickening pop and-

ohmygod ow, ow, Ow!!-

Stiles shrieks -in a completely manly way- because he might have just dislocated his fucking shoulder.

No biggie.

Allison cringes for him while trying to pull herself closer to the log. The current, unfortunately, is a lot stronger then she is and all she’s doing is whittling down her energy.

It’s now the faeries decide to come back with a fucking vengeance, they shouldn’t have. Allison lets one of her hands release Stiles’ wrist in favour of bringing it up to shield her face. Stiles, however, doesn’t have such luxuries as a spare arm so he just ducks his head and hopes he doesn’t get maimed.

Luckily for him (and most unfortunate for Allison) they only seem intent on hurting the one that killed their ally because they mostly swarmed around Allison again. Stiles does get a taste of those claws and fangs too though and Christ do they hurt.

Allison is desperate to get them away from her face, trying again to bat them away with her hand. The swinging jostles them and Stiles’ heart plummets as he feels her hand begin to slip.

They both let out a squeak of surprise and Allison’s hand flies down to latch onto Stiles’ wrist, torn between having her face ripped to ribbons and accidentally letting go, being taken hostage by the current. She ducks her head under the water a few times so the faeries can’t reach her. It only lasts for so long, though, because she needs to come back up for air and they’re back on her in a split second.

What little energy Stiles has is draining fast and he lets out a cry of frustration as the hand wrapped around the log begins to slip.

He doesn’t want to die! His dad would be all alone, Scott would be devastated. He has more than enough of a reason to live and most of all he does not want to die a virgin.

He doesn’t want to die. He’s not going to die.

 “Derek!!!!”

And there is a roar, loud and close and so not human. Stiles feels it rattle deep in his chest and the faeries stop, then bolt in different directions. His arm slips again, and again, and-

He’s being hefted out of the water, Allison in toe. They fall with a ‘thud’ on the grassy bank. Stiles, face down in the earth, feels like he’s burning and weighs ten tons. His teeth begin to chatter. He’s vaguely aware of the fact Allison’s still holding his hand in a terrified vice, or is he still holding her hand? He’s not quite sure. He hears her quiet, painful sobs. She must be in a lot of pain.

Their hands are pried apart and he vaguely hears someone shout Allison's name. He is flipped over and Derek’s face swims into his vision.

What a pretty sight…

-wait...

“Stiles! Stiles! Are you alright?!”

He can’t answer; he just gasps sharp, painful breaths as his teeth chatter violently. He’s fucking burning all over and all he wants to do is curl up in a ball and sleep.

“I think he’s going into shock!” a muddled voice that might possibly be Isaac points out and he feels a pair of large hands on his face.

“Breathe, listen to me. Breathe, Stiles.”

He tries, but they come out gasping hiccups. His chest hurts and he’s still burning and he lets out a helpless sob.

“Derek, if we don’t move him now he’s going to catch his death!” a sharp, sarcastic voice that is probably Peter snaps. It gets a very inhuman growl from maybe Derek..?

“Derek, we don’t have time for this! If he dies of pneumonia, it’ll be because you were panicking too much!” this seems to get a rise out of Derek because he lets go of his face. He hears the sound of rustling fabric and his torso is suddenly being covered in this amazing warmth that smells of safety and calm.

He feels himself being lifted against something hard and warm and fantastic. “Stay with me, Stiles,” he hears probably-Derek grunt but he can already feel himself falling asleep.

Stiles vaguely remember the white-hot, agonizing pain when his shoulder is popped back into place and hears someone gently shushing him when he yells.

He isn’t awake for terribly long though, as soon as he stops yelling he succumbs back to sleep. 

Chapter Text

Stiles’ head feels like it had been done in with a tire iron when he eventually wakes.

He’s in his room and it must be the next day because the sun is peaking slices of warm yellow light through the gap in the closed curtains.

For all intended purposes, Stiles feels completely dead, like he didn’t survive the river and the kamikaze faeries and is actually just a zombie. He’s just being dramatic though, because all he has is a nasty head-cold, a fever and a few tiny cuts.

He lets out a pathetic groan because, honestly, he feels pretty pathetic.

“Oh, good, you’re up!” a cheery voice calls and Scott appears in his peripheral. Confusingly, Stiles wants him to both stay and go away at the same time.

He perches himself alongside Stiles on the bed, smile lazy as he pats the bed covers over his hip “How ya’ feeling buddy?” he asks.

“Like the four horsemen of the apocalypse are having a race inside my head,” He croaks and the miserable expression lifts slightly when Scott props him up and holds out a glass of water for him to take.

Scott smirks “Well at least your sense of humour is still healthy, Derek will be thrilled,” he muses and Stiles scoffs into his water (his nose is blocked so it comes out very Elmer fud-ish and completely ridiculous)  

Stiles hands Scott the glass and watches him put it down on the bedside table. “Is Allison okay?” he asks quietly and Scott twitches very visibly. “I think so,” he mutters head tilted down ward, Stiles can see the slant of his eyelashes behind a mop of wavy hair but that’s it. “She was a lot worse for wear then you were but Deaton said she wouldn’t have scars and she told me not to check up on her before she just went home,”

Stiles’ heart goes out to Scott, in fact, to both of them. The separation was obviously hard on them, they couldn’t lie and say they didn’t feel anything (especially Scott, crappy liar he is)

Stiles wakes slowly not realizing he’d actually fallen asleep and there is a wet cloth on his forehead. It must be evening time, judging by the sun-set coming through his curtains and his dad quietly pokes his head in the door.

“Hey, dad,” Stiles rasps and he slips in, closing the door behind him. “Hey Stiles. How you feeling, kiddo?”  He flips the face-cloth over onto the cool side and Stiles sighs because damn, that feels good.

“Never better,” Stiles bites “Is Scott still here?” he hazards feebly and his father shakes his head “You fell asleep and I told him to go home, didn’t want him catching whatever you have.” Stiles snorts because it’s not like his father would know that he can’t get sick, yet it still amuses his overheated brain.

“You gave me a scare this morning when I came up and you were shivering like crazy, what were you up to yesterday?”

Stiles pinches the bed-sheets and looks innocently up at his father “Dunno’, I was fine when I went to bed,” he lies, he’s good a lying, certainly had plenty of time to practice in the past few months.

His father sighs “well I’ll let you sleep, Kiddo. Do you need anything before I go?” Stiles shakes his head and reluctantly the sheriff stands up and leaves.

The next day he’s still feeling shitty and his fever spikes and drops at random intervals. He searches for his phone only to remember it was in his pocket when he was dropped into the river.

There’s another one of Stiles’ phones that lost its life to a body of water. He wonders if his dad would fall for the ‘It fell in the toilet’ excuse again…

Maybe twice was pushing it.

His dad takes the day off work -much to Stiles’ annoyance- so he can make sure Stiles doesn’t die or something. His dad was always far more dramatic then he was.

He dozes on and off for the day simply because he’s so bored and has nothing better to do with his time. He’s itching to check up on Derek's pack, see how they’re doing; he knows how stupid that idea is but there’s a nervous itch that sits under his skin thinking about it

A small, dainty -definitely not his dads- hand pressing against his forehead wakes him and he smiles because his mother is sitting over him, blonde waves falling around her as her sweet smell surrounds him.

She smiles with that dreamy smile that Stiles loves so much. “Mom…” he mutters quietly and the smile on his mothers’ face falters. The hand stays on his forehead though. “No Stiles,” a voice that he’s very sure isn’t his mothers’ comes from her open mouth and suddenly her hair darkens to a shiny golden-red and eyes that were warm and brown are now calm and green and Lydia swims into view.

“Lydia..?” he croaks, a little louder due to the fact he’s awake and completely dumbstruck. She smiles once more, replacing her hand with the face cloth on his forehead. “Yeah, how you feeling?” she asks and Stiles doesn’t answer because Lydia Martin is sitting here with him on his bed in his room while he’s all sick and gross.

“Have you talked to Jackson, how’s the pack?” he finds himself blurting out instead and they both seem taken aback.

“A bit, uh, wobbly right now…” She starts slowly, giving him a perplexed look “Allison’s dad freaked out, understandably; you’ve seen the damage those faeries did to her face…” she chews her lip hesitantly before adding “He’s blaming Derek because he’s angry and needs someone to blame and Derek is a pretty easy target for that and things are… tense, in the den” she looks back at Stiles “They’re very worried about you, especially Scott,”

Stiles laughs, shaking his head “He always worries about me, Lydia, it’s in Scott’s nature”

She shakes her head and sighs, like she’s trying to tell Stiles something and he’s too stupid to understand. “Look, I don’t really understand the whole ‘pack dynamics’ thing but the fact of the matter is they have all been moping around and bickering like children since Derek and Scott dropped you home.”

Stiles fights to contain a smile “Good to know,” he muses, because it is good to know, it is great to know, it gives him the warm fuzzies knowing he’s part of a group, a needed part of a group, even if completely accidental.

Lydia lets out a very unladylike snort “For you, maybe, but have you ever had to deal with a mopey Jackson?” she’s scowling but there a fond look in her eye.

Stiles laughs “Well you seem well capable of handling Jackson” Lydia looks at him and suddenly the mask of calm is slid back onto her face.   

She looks away “Well, I don’t know about that…” she mutters, eyes downcast. Stiles is frowning “of course you are,” he takes her hand and she looks back up at him, if he was anyone else he would have said she looks calm as ever but he knows her, self-conscious worry is bleeding through the cracks in her façade.

What they put each other through still haunts her.

“Lydia, the only reason he’s still alive is because you stood before him, you changed him.” She stares at him, brow creasing lightly “You’re the only person to make him snap out of being the Kanima, don’t forget that.” He pauses and, swallowing his self-pity he adds “He loves you,”

He doesn’t know how he ends up with Lydia lying down beside him, curled against him, he doesn’t remember when she starts or stops crying but apparently it happens. Stiles has no idea what’s wrong with him, why he’s not freaking out.

The idea of having her this close, even when sick, should freak him out, so why is he so calm? He hasn’t noticed up until now how much their relationship has changed. He isn’t sure if it’s better or worse, if he wants to welcome it or not, he’s been enamoured with her for so long it’s almost terrifying to think of not feeling that way anymore.

“I need you to promise me something, Stiles,” he hears Lydia mutter against his chest and he lets out a questioning ‘hmm’ she sits up, makeup a mess but looking so Zen, like all she needs is a quick cry and she’s back to normal.

“I need you to promise me you will get over me,” Stiles freezes up entirely, not able to look her in the eye. She is the one who grips his hand this time and he looks at her. “For your sake, you need to Stiles,”

He’s not sure why this news isn’t a complete blow to the chest. Sure, he is upset, but there’s no empty hole in his stomach, he can’t feel his heart tearing down the middle. What had changed? Why had it changed?

Chapter Text

Stiles doesn’t get visits from the pack during the day, or at night, or ever as he’s confined to his bed. It sucks because as weird as it is, he misses them. He does wake up one afternoon, though, to find a shiny, brand new phone sitting on his bed side table and he’s both completely freaked out and flattered at the exact same time.

He scrolls through the contacts and grins.

Isaac is sitting at his desk chair when Stiles comes in from having the first shower since he became bedridden almost a week and a half ago (Completely gross, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at the time) He smiles charmingly at him.

“Derek wants to know if you’re well enough to come back to the den.” Isaac says casually.

“Derek has a phone and can text me,” Stiles retorts, looking very much like a cat that’s had its fur rubbed the wrong way.

Isaac grins “yeah, but Derek likes a more traditional approach,” Stiles scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Besides,” Isaac adds, bored, examining his cuticles like they’re the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen, “I thought your phone was toast after the attack,”

Stiles frowns “So it wasn’t you who gave me the phone?” he asks, picking it up from the nightstand and brandishing it in front of him.

Isaac laughs, it’s not unfriendly but it is incredulous “Why would I buy you a swank new phone, Stiles?” and Stiles’ arms drop to his sides because he’s right, why would he?

Which raises a new question.

Who the hell did?

Isaac suddenly looks like he should be in a hurry “Whatever, are you going to show up or what?” he prods, standing up and brushing invisible lint off his trousers. Stiles shrugs “Dunno, maybe, we’ll see,” Isaac stays there for a second before nodding curtly “Good enough for me,” he says and before Stiles can do anything he’s gone; window open as a breeze flutters his curtains.

It’s soupy hot outside the day after Isaacs’s impromptu breaking and entering when Stiles decides to head over to the were-house (God it’s great to call it that, hearing it being called ‘The Den’ was just weird) he still has a cough and the sniffles but other than that he’s ship shape.

Stiles isn’t surprised when he hears a roar coming from inside as he parks his jeep.

He is surprised, however, when he comes in on what looks like a very, very messy argument. In the corner of the room Peter is singlehandedly holding back Isaac, who is snarling and snapping and fully wolfed out, the crappy furniture that’s usually sitting in the centre of the room is scattered all over the place and the threadbare love seat has huge gashes running along the back.

Lydia and Jackson are gripping onto each other, watching tensely as Derek and Scott snarl at each other, crouching and ready to pounce. Their clothes are ripped and blood from already-healed wounds stains their shirts and trousers.

No one seems to notice Stiles standing right there.

-He drops his keys in surprise-

- And suddenly everyone notices him at the exact same time, all of them whipping their heads to him in comical tandem. Stiles almost want’s to laugh.

“What the hell did I miss while I was gone?” Stiles asks and Derek gets up from his crouch, acting as if he hadn’t been in a decidedly dangerous tussle with a stubborn teenage werewolf. Isaac immediately calms too and Peter releases his grip on him. Derek turns to leave.

Scott is scowling but is significantly calmer “This isn’t over, Derek,” he doesn’t turn around or acknowledge Scott in any way, only pauses at the stairs before disappearing up into his loft. Scott lets out a little frustrated noise before he turns and storms out of the were-house, bypassing Stiles completely “Well hello to you too, buddy.” he mutters to himself as the door is slammed shut so hard the bolts rattle and Stiles feels the vibrations under his feet.

Everyone is awkwardly silent.

For once it’s Stiles who is slipping through windows. Scott is downstairs and probably already knows he’s here but he’s still quiet for Melissa’s sake.

He sits on his bed and waits for Scott to show up. It doesn’t take too long. “You going to tell me what the argument you and Derek were having was about or do I have to guess?” Stiles jabs as Scott closes the door behind him. “Because you know I have a wild imagination, and I will just let that baby run free.”

Scott sighs, joining Stiles on the bed, sitting down with enough force to make Stiles bounce with the mattress. There is silence and Stiles thinks he’s not going to talk at all but Scott finally speaks “Derek wants to stop looking into the faerie business,”

Stiles feels like he’s been slapped “What?”

Scott looks disgruntled and confused at the same time (confruntled..? Ooh, Stiles likes that one.)“Yeah, he said we should drop it entirely, just,” He gestures wildly “Forget the fact they’re killing people and stealing kids.”

Stiles gapes because, if Derek is anything, he is an emotionally constipated douche but this is a whole different level of douchie-ness. Stiles wouldn’t have believed it if it wasn’t for the fact it was Scott telling him. “Did he, like, say why?” 

Scott glances over at him “He won’t tell me,” he bites and Stiles sighs “well if I’m entirely honest, it’s not like we’ve really gotten anywhere, all we have are the deaths, the missing kids and a tiny bit of folklore anyway” Stiles says, not entirely sure why he’s trying to justify Derek and his actions. “You can’t be sure what’s on the internet is actually legitimate,”

Scott looks appalled “Doesn’t mean we should stop trying!” he says exasperatedly and Stiles holds up a hand of peace “I know, I know, Derek's being a jerk but what we need right now is more information and…” He trails off and suddenly- BAM, Idea! If there was a light bulb over his it would have lit right up and Stiles is quickly excusing himself.

Scott is rightfully lost, for once “Wait, Stiles, Dude, what are you thinking?” Stiles pulls open the window “Look, give me a rain check -a day or two- and I’ll get back to you on that one, I swear.”  He doesn’t wait for Scott to answer because he hops out the window and jogs over to his jeep.

Stiles will admit his plan isn’t exactly fool-proof but it’s better than no plan at all, which was what Pack Leather-n-Broody (he has started calling it Loody for short because he’s cool that way) has right now because Derek is burying his head in the sand and waiting until this all blows over.

Which is why Stiles is standing in front of The Argent family’s door with nothing but the clothes he’s wearing as armour.

Chris opens the door and Stiles has a mild, three second panic attack because the man is scary as fuck but he quickly organizes himself, Taking those extra few Adderall really paid off, even if he would be too energetic to sleep tonight.

“Hello, Mr Argent, is Allison there?” He asks cheerfully. Chris just stares “What are you doing here, Stiles? What does Derek want?”

Stiles blows a raspberry, looking as innocent as the sun rise “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I just want to visit a friend,” Chris doesn’t look convinced, like at all, like on a convinced scale of one to ten, he looks about a -0.999.

Stiles doesn’t get to see if one can murder someone with the power of their eyes, however, because Allison walks by and sees him standing at the door.

Stiles waves franticly at her because good Christ, he’s ready to melt into a puddle and disappear if Chris doesn’t stop glaring at him soon.

“Stiles?” she asks, walking over. Chris lets out a noise of protest when she shoos him but leaves with a pointed glare at Stiles. She leans casually against the door frame, smiling lightly.

“You look great,” he opens with and it’s true, considering the last time he saw her she looked like she’d gotten into a fight with a cheese grater. Allison lets out a good-natured laugh “The joys of make-up,” she muses and Stiles nods as if he understands, even though he doesn’t really.

Stiles shifts from foot to foot “Say, um, do you want to go for a walk? I have something I sorta need to talk to you about and,” he glances around “I’m quite sure your Dad will listen in on us here…”

She smiles a dazzling little smile and Stiles understands why Scott is still so enamoured with her, she’s sweet and smart but she’s also gorgeous. Not that he would ever go for her, because as far as Stiles was concerned, she was Scott’s girl.

“Sounds fun, I’ll just go get my shoes,” She says, dashing inside.

The next day at the were-house, Stiles is there all of five seconds before Derek is all up in his grill.

“Personal space, Derek,” he states, positively smarmy “Ever heard of it?”

“Why were you with Allison Argent yesterday instead of here?” Derek pries, as if it isn’t probably the creepiest  things he’s ever asked him.

Stiles gapes because seriously, what the Jesus H Christ?! “Please tell me you weren’t like, following me or something because dude, you have a problem-”

“Answer the question, Stiles,” Derek interrupts, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum lower to the point that Stiles thinks it must hurt.

Stiles isn’t having any of Derek’s werewolf sized temper tantrum, so he gets all up in his face “I was just hanging out with a friend who, by the way, saved my hide from being kidnapped by some crazy-ass faerie while you all sat around looking lost and picking your noses.”

He pushes against Derek's chest for added effect but it just makes him look stupidly weak because Derek doesn’t even budge, let alone stumble. “I wasn’t called so I just figured you didn't need me. If you wanted me here you could have sent someone for me or, gee, I dunno, actually picked up your fucking phone and texted me, like a normal human being, but I suppose that’s pretty impossible seeing as you neither human nor normal!” 

Derek flinches but Stiles ploughs on “And I don’t even see why I should keep coming back, you don’t need me here now that you decided that you’d just twiddle your thumbs and watch while people die or go missing just because you pissed off big ol’ daddy Argent,”

“That’s not why I stopped, Stiles,” Derek retorts.

“Then why?” Stiles bites back.

Derek's jaw is so tense Stiles reckons he could crack walnuts with it right now. It wouldn’t surprise him if he actually could. Instead of answering him, Derek says “You can’t just trust me on this can you?”

Stiles laughs, actually laughs, very loudly and right in Derek's face. “Oh my freaking god, Derek, you’re seriously pulling the trust card on me now?” he throws his hands up “I do trust you, or at least I did. I trusted you to guide Scott, I trusted you to get down to the bottom of this, but I was obviously mistaken. And it’s you that doesn’t trust me! What, do you think I went and spilled all of your packs little secrets to Allison or something? Give me some freaking credit!”

Derek's eyes widen, then narrow and –ow!- why the hell does it feel like someone punched him in the gut?!

Stiles realizes he’s upset, really  freaking upset and he’s not sure why, Derek never got under his skin like this before.

He’s had enough “Screw this, I’m leaving!” and he turns to do just that.

Until Derek reaches out and traps Stiles’ bicep in a vice-

“Don’t !” is all he says.

Stiles snaps his head back around “Don’t what, Derek!? If you don’t trust me then I shouldn’t be here.” He’s so angry and hurt and he tries to yank his arm back so he can go home and punch some pillows but Derek isn’t letting him go, his face unreadable.

“Let. Me. Go.” Stiles is all but snarling now and Derek blinks, as if coming out of a daze, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum shoot up and he lets go, backing away. Stiles snatches his arm back, swinging the strap of his backpack back up his arm with a brutal amount of force. “Don’t bother calling,” he snaps and misses the broken little whine when he storms off.

Chapter Text

Stiles is out again with Allison the next day and when Allison turns and shuffles away to give out to her father over the phone for being way too over protective, his phone vibrates in his pocket. His heart stupidly soars, than plummets when he sees the text is from Pedowolf (What he saved Peter’s name as on his phone).

Not like he’s expecting a text from anyone in particular.

No really, he totally isn’t.

The text reads; ‘you hurt his little werewolf feelings.’

Stiles regards the text dryly before writing, ‘The whole one he owns? I’m flattered. ’

He gets a text back about two seconds later ‘Stiles, he is sorry, he’s just bad with his words,’ Stiles sighs. He doesn’t really want to deal with this right now; he has to focus on what he and Allison are planning. Derek and his one manly feeling, that Stiles apparently hurt, can wait.

Which is why the text Peter gets back only says ‘I know.’ Before he turns his phone off and slips it back into his pocket.

Allison says she’s sorry her dad took so long to persuade when she walks back over, Stiles shrugs, saying it’s cool, and they continue their way to Stiles’ house.

Gerard Argent’s bestiary is a huge help to them, and is also saved on Allison’s laptop.

They compile anything that looks important; strengths, weaknesses, traditions and history. Stuff from the Hale family bestiary (which is smaller partially because the Hale family never went looking for trouble but mostly because most of it was destroyed in the fire and Peter and Derek could only remember so much of it) was taken, with sort-of permission off Peter’s laptop when Stiles was at the were-house alone one time and added to Stiles’ online snooping.

Together, they try to get in the head of these faeries.

It takes a week for Scott to figure out what Stiles and Allison are trying to do and is completely on board with it. When they get together with new Intel Scott usually shows up.

It makes things super awkward.

And unfortunately, if Scott figures out what Stiles and Allison are doing, then of course Peter does too.

And Isaac, and Jackson… and Lydia.

Everyone except for Derek ends up crammed into Stiles’ room because Scott doesn’t know how to keep a secret.

“So, you’re saying these faeries are… rabid?” Lydia asks, always sharp as a knife. She’s reading over the chart of past possible faerie attacks in the Beacon Hills area for the past fifty years, then over the charts for the same things in surrounding states. Jackson and Isaac look over her shoulder, looking lost.

“Yes, and no,” Allison speaks up, the sheer amount of werewolves -including the undead one that tore her aunts throat out in front of her- seems to not bother her in the least.

Except for Scott, who sits there with the ‘poor me’ eyes and completely derails her when their eyes connect, so she avoids looking at him entirely.

“Faeries usually live in these huge communities in the trees, but groups sometimes splinter off if they want to move or don’t like their leader.” Stiles provides, Allison nods in agreement.

“Communities are hugely territorial, so if a splinter were wondering around on community turf they would either be told to leave or join the community. Splinters never stay in the same spot for more than a week and usually travel from city to city, state to state, outside of old territories so as not to raise any unwanted attention.” Allison adds and Peter hums thoughtfully, tracing his fingers over the map Stiles has tacked to his wall. On it has stickers where the murders and kidnappings had taken place.

With a bit of snooping through his dads files and the glorious internet, Stiles has managed to find other murders that ended the exact same way spanning upwards, he marked those on the map too. Known faerie territories are marked out on the map and the stickers lead a thick trailing pattern through at least five different cities and towns before getting to Beacon Hills.

“So this splinter turned rabid somewhere here,” Peter states, tapping the top of the map where the trail begins, he slides his fingers down the path of blue stickers to Beacon Hills, where the trail ends. It’s also where the red stickers –child kidnappings- appear “And completely halts here, where they start taking children too…” he raises a brow at Stiles and Allison and they both nod.

“Following their past movements, they should have moved from here weeks ago,” Isaac states.

Jackson looks up from the book on faerie lore Lydia handed to him just minutes ago “So why are they still here? I mean, wouldn’t their instincts be telling them to leave when there’s a community so close by?”

“That’s sorta the thing, we don’t actually know.” Allison frowns “There must be something that’s setting them off, keeping them here and making them take children.” She says and everyone is silent.

“We’re going to need to tell Derek, he needs to see this.” Peter says, standing up, he looks troubled but Stiles isn’t sure if that’s because of the faeries or because he’s going to have to force Derek to take his head out of his rear end.

“So do the hunters,” Stiles says and suddenly, everyone –Allison included- turns to look at him.

Stiles just shrugs “Look this is too much for one small werewolf pack and a pair of humans to deal with, the splinter that attacked Allison and I was nearly two dozen strong, who knows how many there were that weren’t there and what if there’s something more powerful controlling them or something. We need the Argents and their hunters because they actually know what they’re doing,” everyone quietly digests this and Peter sighs.

“Perhaps then we should wait to tell Derek,” he muses and Stiles really can’t agree more.

Getting Chris Argent on board was actually easy as pie. Stiles wasn’t sure if he would be keen to work with wolves and he was sure after the whole ‘Gerard-turning-grieving-Allison-into-Kate-Mark-two’ that Chris’ trust in Allison had been knocked down a couple of pegs but if Allison was good at anything, it was twisting someone’s arm. Seriously, it was almost terrifying how quickly she shot down Chris’ decidedly flimsy arguments with cool logic.

In that moment she most resembled her mother.

If Stiles notices that, then most certainly so does Chris, because he gives in.

It’s quite safe to say, Derek flips his shit when Stiles brings Chris, Allison and the rest of the pack to him and fess right up.

But he ends up agreeing to it simply because he doesn’t want to look weak in front of Chris Argent or his daughter. Especially his daughter, actually, seeing as how he knows how hunter dynamics work.

And so they grudgingly shake hands and an awkward, delicate pact is formed.

Chapter Text

Stiles and pack Loody drive to the closest faerie community the next day, Allison tags along, armed to the teeth in case things go sour. For all they know what’s affecting the rabid splinter is affecting the community but they have to make sure.

They have to leave their modes of transport behind and walk on foot into the forest when the trees get too close together. This time, it’s mid-day, uncomfortably hot and Stiles wonders how Allison or Derek hasn’t passed out from all the black they’re wearing. He’s in shorts and a light t-shirt and feels the heat like being submerged in a bath filled with hot soup.

Peter and Derek are at the front of the expedition, with Stiles dropping pointers here and there because hey, he’s always been good at orienteering. Scott trails behind Stiles, like and overprotective puppy, Stiles is quite sure after the last faerie fiasco he’s not going to let Stiles out of his sight. Jackson and Isaac are behind them, eyes and ears pealed and Allison hangs back, looking sharp and ready for a fight. Her fingers keep brushing over the hunting knife at her hip.

Everyone is basically quiet. And then they reach the right spot, and everyone is very quiet. They are now faced with an entirely new predicament.

“How the heck are we supposed to get them to come down?” Jackson is the one to voice what all of them are thinking.  Stiles frowns, letting his eyes wonder over the area because something feels off and he’s not quite sure what.

“I think it’s better this way,” Derek says quietly, watching the tree tops for any stirring “If nothings attacking us then they aren’t rabid like the splinter, right?”

“There’s no faerie circle,” Stiles mutters to himself. The werewolves look at him questioningly because of course they heard him anyway.

“Faerie circle..?” Isaac parrots and Allison perks up, jogging over to Stiles “You’re right, I thought something was up.” Stiles nods and turns to see a group of blank faces staring at them “Oh, um, Faeries circles!” He prompts cheerfully “They’re a ring of mushrooms, from what I’ve read on faerie lore they sprout up in places where faeries come together.”

“So this is a community spot, but they’re… what? Not here?” Isaac asks and Allison shakes her head “They’re here alright,” she supplies quietly, looking up at the trees “I’m not sure if it was just me but as soon as I entered the community territory, the hair stood up on the back of my arms and it felt like I was encroaching on something I shouldn’t,” pulling up her sleeve she shows the others the goosebumps trailing up her arm.

Stiles nods “Me too,” he states. The werewolves look lost. At least Allison and Stiles did their homework.

“I’m quite sure that it’s their defence mechanism against unwanted humans staying too long in their territory,” Allison says “It would explain why none of you felt it.”

Derek folds his arms “So if there is a community alive here then why is there no faerie circle?” he asks gruffly, so as to not look as confused as he actually is.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Stiles asks and everyone turns to look at him “They must be in hiding.”

They end up going home faerie-less and confused. Allison is very obviously uncomfortable with the thought of leaving them when they think they’re in danger but there isn’t an awful lot that can be done if the community won’t play ball.

After having dinner, Stiles ends up sitting on his bed looking over some really old documents because he might have missed something and they don’t need that sort of slip up.

His phone rings, it’s Scott. “Ever helpful oracle of awesomeness, how can I help?” Stiles drawls, grinning lazily and just flopping back onto his bed. Documents can wait, chats with the best friend can’t.

“Hey Stiles, whatcha’ up to?” Stiles can hear Scott’s dopey grin through the phone and it makes him smirk.

“Oh, nothing much, just trying to figure something out for the faerie conundrum we find ourselves in…” Stiles sighs, scratching his head. His hair has grown out a bit, it’s getting long enough to grip. He doesn’t really want to cut it.

“And you?” he adds briefly, Scott chuckles “Well, nothing that’s as important as what you’re doing, I was playing sheep launcher but I got bored.”

“Good to see I’m still just a boredom buffer.” Stiles muses dryly. He sits up and pads over to his desk, sitting down and opening up his laptop.

“Well you always were that,” Scott teases “But we haven’t talked together in ages, I kinda miss you dude,” Stiles wrinkles his nose in mock disgust even though Scott is on the other line and can’t actually see him because feelings, ew.

“Are you hitting on me? You’re freaking me out, man.” Stiles states and Scott snorts right into the receiver “You’re a douche.” He laughs and Stiles smiles because laughing Scott is the best kind of Scott.

Closely followed by Scott who uses his brain.

So they stay on the phone for ages, just chatting, they bring up Allison, how her and Stiles worked a miracle getting Derek and Chris to work together. They vaguely brushed on the faerie situation but mostly they talk about what the hell they’re going to do if they get their summer back.

It feels shockingly teenager-ie. Something Stiles is sure Scott hasn’t felt in a long time.

Stiles wakes up to find a faerie sitting at the end of his bed.

He’s quite sure it’s not rabid; it doesn’t look like the ones that attacked Allison and him. In fact it looks regal, greenish in skin tone and androgynously beautiful. It regards him with amusement.

“Hello. It’s ‘Stiles’, right?” it asks, Stiles nods dumbly because what else can you do when a faerie is in your room and talking to you? “You seem uncomfortable,” it says, looking gleeful and Stiles squeals and scrambles up the bed because it goes from one foot high to at least six. Its skin pigment changes, looks more like peachy flesh then the stem of a flower.

It makes itself look human. Male, really gorgeous, high cheekbones and dimpled smiling cheeks, with tawny brown curls that bright green eyes peak out from under. He looks in his mid-twenties, slim and tall, like a twig and dressed smartly, white button down shirt, leather jacket and black slacks.

Stiles goes to dart out of bed, probably to arm himself with his lacrosse stick.

“Ah, ah, ah! Let’s not do this.” The faeries tisk’s, he grabs hold of Stiles’ ankle and, in a show of power he doesn’t look to have, pulls Stiles back down the bed. Stiles flashes back to how easily that rabid faerie had lifted him into the air.

The noise that slips past his lips is incredible manly.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” The faerie states but he has a wild gleam in his eyes and Stiles isn’t quite willing to believe him. The faeries thumb circles lightly over his ankle bone and the whole situation screams bad touch. His naked calf presses up against the butter-soft leather of the faries jacket, he tries to squirm away because he’s way too close to someone who could very obviously kill him with the flick of a wrist and the grip on his ankle tightens.

“I’m just here to talk,” the faerie says cheerfully. “My name is Falen. It’s good to meet you,” Stiles blinks dumbly “Um, hi; nice to meet you too, can you let me go now?”

Falen laughs “You’re like a frightened rabbit,” he coos teasingly and Stiles bristles “If I let you go will you bolt?” he asks lightly, and oh! The hand is traveling up his calf and this is all way too weird.

Stiles squirms under the faeries scrutiny “I’m not a freaking woodland creature, let me go!”

Falen hums quietly, hand stopping at Stiles’ knee and lifting off him entirely. He folds his hands neatly on his lap “I’m here on behalf of my community.” He says, watching as Stiles rearranges himself on the bed. Stiles sits cross legged, watching the faerie warily in return.

He’s just woken up; you can forgive him for not being chatty.

“The one in hiding?” Stiles asks.

Falen nods solemnly “Unfortunately, yes,” he sighs, Stiles chews on his lip “Is it because of the rabid splinter?” He asks quietly.

Falen looks momentarily impressed by Stiles’ knowledge of faerie culture but it doesn’t last “Yes, and no.” he says

“No?” Stiles echoes “Why no?”

“Because it’s not a rabid splinter we’re hiding from,” Falen states, looking uncomfortable “It’s a rabid community, at least two hundred strong.”

Silence sits uncomfortably between them. “Shit…” Stiles breaths, Falen nods “Yes, I’m sure you realize how prudent it is we stay off the grid,” he says.

Stiles frowns “why don’t you take this up with someone in charge, There is a werewolf pack you can go too, there’s also a hunter family, Why are you here of all places?”

Falen cocks his head, regarding Stiles lightly “Please, the alpha of that pack couldn’t find his tail with both hands, he’s a pup in the grand scheme of things and acts too rashly. Besides, you would be blind if you thought you weren’t an important part of that pack,” Stiles frowns, not liking how the faerie easily badmouths Derek, even if he is right.

Falen’s face darkens “We don’t trust the Argents and their hunters. They have hunted my kinsmen for leisure in the past,” Falen wrinkles his nose in disgust.

This is something worth bringing up with Chris the next time Stiles sees him. Stiles files this knowledge under ‘things to give out about’ in his mind.  

“You know the werewolf pack and the hunters have a pact. They’re not fighting with each other so we can focus on the attacks and what’s causing them. It’s temporary but it is peace.” Stiles says and Falen smirks, nodding knowingly “And who’s the one who set it so?”  He asks gently and Stiles feels his cheeks heat because no one’s ever recognized his work like that before.

He laughs “I wouldn’t have been able to coax Chris Argent into anything if it wasn’t for his daughter,” he points out because it’s true, Chris scares the shit out of him and as far as Chris is concerned, Stiles is playing for the wrong team.

Falen gives him a funny look “That may be but you have something no Argent or hunter, or even werewolf has.” He grins “A very vivid imagination.”

Stiles just stares “So that’s why you came to me instead of De- The alpha?” he corrects himself “Because I have a child-like imagination,”

Falen smirks, shaking his head “You’ll understand eventually but take it from me; you’re very much needed right now for this truce to stick.”

Stiles shrugs, the conversation is awkward, he never wanted to be glorified for what he does, he works better in the darkness, away from prying eyes.

The reason he’s so lethal is because no one would expect him. All he looks like is a weak human boy who hangs around with werewolves. No one knows how smart he is and that is his major advantage. Stiles prefers to keep it that way.

“Why did you come here,” He asks finally once his cheeks cool down “Do you know why the community stopped here, is there some reason behind it?” Falen sighs, turning to mirror Stiles, sitting cross legged in front of him. “We don’t truly know for sure, we sent out a scouting party when the other community didn’t leave and they came back in bits and pieces but I think that witches are involved.” Falen says.

“Witches?” Stiles asks because if a community of crazy faeries was bad, a group of crazy witches were worse.

Falen shrugs “When faeries turn rabid it’s as if theirprimal  instincts take over, it’s why they don’t stay in one place long enough to stir up trouble. It makes their minds very easy to take, a novice witch could turn a rabid faerie on its own family and they wouldn’t be able to fight it. It would also explain the kidnappings, they have a thing for virgin blood sacrifices,” it’s a blunt comment but it makes Stiles shudder because they’re children, who would do that to kids?

“That and it’s easier to turn children into their thralls then adults. A witch needs to have a good imagination to make their spells work,” Falen supplies and Stiles bites his lip. “Okay, so they might not have killed all the kids they’ve kidnapped, right?” he hedges.

Falen nods “It makes sense to try and make more witches before they get caught. They are almost unvanquishable in large numbers.” Stiles lets out a quiet breath of relief because if they find them they’ll be messed up, yeah, but at least they’ll still be alive.

“Okay,” Stiles blows out a steady breath “So if we find them we can, like, stop them or something, the rabid faerie community will move on and Beacon hills will be left alone.”

Falen looks grim “We’d have to get rid of the rabid faeries, they can’t keep killing.” He states flatly, face pinched up in discomfort, he doesn’t like the idea at all.

Stiles deflates with a loud sigh “Of course we have to..” he mutters because this is most certainly not going to be easy.

Falen raises and eyebrow “ready to give up?” he asks lightly.

Stiles sits up, squaring his shoulders “Hell no,” he snaps, it makes Falen grin.

“Marvellous,” he says cheerfully and morphs back to his normal size, just the length of Stiles’ forearm. Gossamer thin looking wings flit behind him and he hovers before Stiles.

“How about you introduce me to your pack now?”

Chapter Text

Stiles actually ends up introducing Falen to the Argents first, simply because he was picking Allison up before heading to the were-house.

To say it was tense would probably be the understatement of the year. You would need explosives to break the tension between the tiny green man that hovered beside Stiles, arms crossed defensively, and the patriarch of the Argent family.

At least Chris had the decency to look embarrassed and apologize for the actions of some of their hunters. It seemed enough to satisfy Falen for now.

Despite what Stiles would have thought, Allison and Falen actually get along swimmingly. After they pile into the batmobile (Stiles’ jeep, it was Allison’s idea but he coined it because, hello! What an awesome name! Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner?)  Allison had watched, awestruck, as Falen morphed into his human form and was basically asking him questions the entire ride over. He took them with good grace, smirking and teasing her curiosity.

Stiles parks in front of the were-house. “We’re here,” He states as he glances back at Falen in the back seat.

He looks hilariously disgusted.

“Charming,” he mutters, getting out of the jeep without actually looking away from the abandoned subway warehouse.

“It serves its purpose,” Stiles smirks.

Scott, Jackson and Isaac are lounging around and they look up when Stiles slides the door open.

“Honey I’m home!” He calls to Scott, who just laughs. The dopey smile on his face turns mute and shy when Allison walks in and the look on her face is pretty much the same.

It’s sad and painfully cute at the same time and Stiles has to resist the urge to vomit.

The three of them tense when Falen enters; staring up at the high ceiling, made of glass that has become so filthy that no light can get through, with the same hilariously disgusted look.

Derek is down the steps of the loft in a ridiculously short space of time. He looks angry first in Allison’s general direction (which she, of course, returns. She’s willing to put her personal vendetta aside for the good of everyone else even though she still blames him for her mother’s suicide) then at Falen, when his gaze goes from angry to this weird sort of confusion and distrust.  

His walnut-cracking jaw comes back with a vengeance.

“Derek Hale,” Falen calls smoothly and he steps forward, until Stiles can see him in his peripheral and he’s standing just a little too close to Stiles, as if he’s going to use him as a human meat-shield should Derek start feeling a bit homicidal.

Sharp greenie-grayish (seriously, what colour is that?) eyes flick to Stiles and he’s getting the brunt of the lowered brow of doom, with added scowl-ie face.

“Stiles,” Derek hisses, stalking forward and woah, it just got really tense in here and Stiles has to fight the urge to flee. Isaac, Scott and Jackson are all on their feet and Peter just seemed to materialize out of nowhere. “Who the hell is this?” Derek snarls as if Falen isn’t standing rightfreakingthere.

Stiles sucks in a breath, ready to sit back and watch as his mouth runs away from his brain but Falen pats a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, fingers gripping and curling and Stiles squirms because he’s still not all that hot on the idea of Falen touching him, like, at all.

“Now, now, don’t be getting angry at him,” Falen chides, Stiles stares dumbly up at him.

Derek looks less than impressed.

“This, um, this is Falen, he’s a representative for the community of faeries that sorta, y’know, went into hiding.” Stiles manages to say once he’s finally found his voice once more.

“He doesn’t look like a faerie…” Scott says and Stiles wonders if he even knows that he’s said that out loud.

Falen transforms then, going all small and green and hovering on them. “I find that others take me more seriously in my other form, I forget sometimes what a convincing human glamour I have,”

Derek doesn’t relax per say. The man is always tense, just in varying degrees depending on his moods but he becomes slightly less tense, going from ‘I want to maim something small and helpless’ to ‘I want to break your families fine china’

It’s a rapid improvement in Stiles’ personal opinion, seeing as the small, helpless thing would probably be himselfand his families fine china needs replacing anyway.

Derek folds his arms, nodding slowly and he jerks his head up, towards the loft before disappearing up into it.

Falen changes back, patting Stiles’ back and shooting him a wink before following Derek up the steps into the unknown.

Everyone stands around awkwardly as Falen disappears. It is interrupted, however, when Lydia slips in saying she has lots of pizza and no way of carrying it inside and Jackson and Scott are out the door and back in carrying pizza and everyone is momentarily distracted by food.

Falen leaves to return to his community, he says it’s in every ones best interest to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible so they can all go back to hating each other (Falen’s words, not Stiles’) so he says he’ll keep in contact with the pack and grudgingly and with a good deal of persuasion (pleading) from Stiles, the hunters.

Stiles drives him to the forest and he morphs back into his small, green form and with a quick thank you, he’s gone.

Stiles sits in his car for twenty minutes and just stares out into the darkening forest. It’s after curfew and Stiles sighs because his dad will give out to him for going around this late with all that’s happening.

He texts his dad saying he’s staying at Scott’s overnight so he doesn’t have to drive home after curfew. His dad just texts back saying to make sure to sleep and tells him he loves him and it makes Stiles feel really guilty for lying.

Stiles puffs out a breath of air and drives bitterly back to the were-house, he might as well stay there and do some snooping.

There’s no one there when he gets back and the dirty light bulb that hangs from the ceiling –that is the only light source- flickers dimly. The others must have gone home just before curfew and he wonders if he’s actually alone, if Derek or Peter is around.

He sits on the loveseat (Now with patches of ugly yellow fabric awkwardly stitched on where the gashes from Derek and Scott’s testosterone-induced tussle were) laptop perched on his lap. He opens up the file Gerard’s bestiary is saved under and, with Google Translate open on his phone, begins to very slowly translate what’s written there about Witches. Because hey, if Stiles stops planning ahead they’ll probably all be doomed.

Stiles is well aware of this now.

He lets out a startled (manly) yelp a few hours later when Derek calls “What the hell are you still doing here?” from the doorway. His arms are crossed and he’s got his best ‘I-don’t-take-no-crap’ face on.

Stiles realizes that this is the first time they’ve been alone together in a long time, since the last faerie incident, since the argument.

Oh god.

The argument.

Stiles snaps his jaw shut because he’s been gaping at Derek for the past few seconds, not saying anything. He feels ghost hurt squeeze his chest from the memory, it’s quickly replaced with a confusingly hot rage because he had hurt his feelings and still hadn’t apologized for being an over-assuming douche.

“My dad will skin me for getting home so late after curfew and so would Scott’s mom if I tried to crash at his,” he says, jaw tightening with a click.

“Why? You gonna kick me out?” he asks tightly and Derek give him this ‘you’re a moron, Stiles’ look.

“Stay,” Derek says, it sounds like a command and Stiles almost wants to go home just so he could disobey him.

Petulant, he is well aware. Derek always just makes him want to go against the grain. Their relationship is messed up like that.

Not that they have much of a relationship to begin with.

Just this werewolf-human liaison.

And that totally doesn’t upset Stiles to think about.

Stiles sits back down on the couch and he hears Derek putter around behind him. “When did you eat last?” Derek calls. Stiles frowns, it’s nearly half two in the morning, who asks stuff like that right now?

“Um… just the impromptu pizza party at lunch so, three-ish?” he doesn’t mention the fact he ate so much pizza he lay face down on the couch and moaned for an hour or two, because no one over-stuffs themself like Stiles over-stuffs himself. He had a food baby that put pregnant women to shame.

“Are you going to go to bed any time soon?” Derek asks, this time he sounds a lot closer. Stiles shakes his head, glancing down at his laptop, which is going to need to be plugged in to charge sometime soon. For some odd reason, the were-house is a complete and utter sty and yet still has working electricity (the thought still boggles Stiles’ mind)

“Probably not, no,” Stiles says and he gestures at his work.

 He startles when Derek just drops a plastic bag in front of Stiles on the makeshift coffee table (A long, flat board of wood propped up with cinder blocks) and plops himself heavily down onto the other end of the loveseat Stiles is on.

Derek rifles through the bag before shoving a baguette, filled with that could possibly be beef and lettuce and wrapped in cling-film, into Stiles’ chest with enough force to knock the wind out of him.

“Eat,” Derek grunts, like the attractive, pushy cave-man he is.

Stiles scowls because he really hates being bossed around and Derek either hasn’t copped that yet and is incredibly dense, or he’s doing it so he can purposefully set him off.

However, he doesn’t turn down the food because it looks positively yummy and Stiles is suddenly famished, so he puts the laptop in the space between them and attempts to find the edge of the cling-film because he has too much wounded pride to tear into it.

Derek sits back, holding what looks like a store-bought chicken and stuffing sandwich, making short work of the plastic that covers it and all but inhaling it.

Okay, Stiles knows he’s no better but seriously…

Ew…

They eat in a deafeningly awkward silence, it makes Stiles twitchy and nervous; Derek is on his third sandwich when Stiles pipes up “Are you able to eat like a normal person or is it like everything else you do?”

Derek freezes mid-chew, side-eyeing the shit out of him. Stiles stands his ground because he’s nothing, if not stubborn, munching innocently on his baguette.

Derek doesn’t take the bait, just turns back to his -now ham and cheese- sandwich.

He eats with a steely slowness, looking sort of put-out for some reason.

Stiles sighs. he’s sort of disappointed he doesn’t get a rise out of Derek. Defeated, he pulls his laptop back onto his lap, going back to work. He feels Derek’s eyes on him and does his best not to squirm.

It only lasts five minutes before Stiles finally snaps “What, Derek?”

Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum rise at Stiles’ tone.

“What are you doing?” he asks slowly, as if afraid of treading on a proverbial mine.

Good, he should be afraid.

“Well,” Stiles sighs, fishing through his bag for the charger because a notification just popped up saying his laptop is on its last legs. He stands up, putting the laptop and his baguette on the couch and searching for the plug-board. “If Falen is right in his assumptions which, hey, he more than likely is, then at least one of us has to research witches so no one gets killed for doing something retardedly stupid.” He states, shoving the plug in the socket and sitting back down.

He takes a vicious bite out of his baguette and goes back to his work

There’s delightful silence and Stiles uses it to zero his concentration in on his laptop and work his magic.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t last.

“That is quite smart…” Derek states quietly and Stiles lets out a snort of laughter despite himself because Derek is trying to start a conversation and he’s doing a pathetic job of it.

Stiles is waiting for the squealing pig to come flying through the were-house any second now.

Stiles decides he wants to be an asshole because if there’s something that’s his life dream, it’s making Derek squirm.

Why did that sound so awesomely dirty?

Aaaand now he’s imagining things he really shouldn’t.

Focus Stiles; torment Derek now, dirty thoughts later.

“It is,” he agrees curtly, eyes not leaving the laptop. He can see in his peripheral that Derek is fidgeting with what’s left of his poor ham and cheese sandwich and if that isn’t endearing Stiles isn’t sure what is. 

It almost makes him feel bad.

There are a few more minutes of silently-shifting-Derek and Stiles wonders if he’s just going to chicken out and flee up to his loft.

“You’re… angry,” Derek finally spits out, as if the words physical pain him to say, as if Stiles isn’t allowed to get angry at Derek’s shitty attitude.

Stiles rolls his eyes, scoffing loudly “yes, yes I am Derek, how observant of you. Nothing gets past you does it?” he sniffs, not looking up from his laptop.  He’s been in plenty of arguments with Scott to know how to cold-shoulder a man to destruction (Stiles is actually an evil mastermind incognito)

Stiles hears a sharp inhale of air next to him and he really has to fight down a sadistic smirk.

“Stiles…” Derek sighs as if he’s going to go on.

Stiles waits.

And waits.

Okay, maybe he doesn’t mean to go on at all because he just stares at him like a confused gorilla and hope Stiles will do all the talking.

He shuts his laptop loudly, puts it down on the coffee table and turns to glare at Derek. Damnit, he wants an apology and he’ll be damned if Derek thinks he’ll get away without one.

“Derek, you’re a big boy, you have a vocabulary built up from years in school,” Stiles starts grudgingly, because he doesn’t want to have to talk more then he should but Derek is apparently an idiot who needs to be spoon-fed to do anything right “now I know it’s been a while since you’ve been there but for Christ sake, use it.”

And the walnut-cracking jaw strikes back. Stiles has made him angry now, great, now they’re both angry.

“What Derek, you don’t think I’d be angry after how you acted like a jealous boyfriend and general douche when I was only trying to coax you back into doing the right thing instead of flipping a table at you!?” Stiles snaps. It’s about damn time he voiced his opinions.

“I have done absolutely nothing to warrant your mistrust, heck, I’ve saved your ass more times than I can count! And I can count pretty freaking high! So if you could take your-”

“I’m sorry.”

“-fucking head out of your own ass and leave your personal pity-party and- wait, what?”

Derek looks ill “You’re right, Stiles. I’m sorry.” He says it as if he’s telling Stiles he’s dying from some horrific, incurable werewolf disease.

Stiles gapes, he had expected at least another hour of yelling at Derek as if he were a sexy brick wall and he most certainly did not expect the apology he desired. 

It knocks the angry straight out of him, like a sucker-punch to his manly pride and Stiles deflates against the couch with a long-suffering sigh. He scrubs a hand through his hair, he just feels silly now for his outburst.

Derek shifts uncomfortably on the couch “Look, Stiles I-” Derek grits his teeth, breathes through his nose slowly and tries again “I.. I don’t trust people. At all.”

Oh god, Derek looks so uncertain, biting his lip (which isn’t something he’d ever thing Derek would do, like, ever)

He looks Stiles in the eye eventually, and continues “But, you’re right. I was out of line, I was- I need to try harder to, uh, to trust you, just-” Stiles isn’t sure if he’s just fallen asleep because this seems too good to be true.

“Are you pulling my leg, dude?” Stiles asks and Derek just gives him the ‘you’re a moron, Stiles’ look again. Derek glances away, looking annoyed, or possibly embarrassed, Stiles isn’t quite sure.

“I’ll try,” Derek says eventually, looking back at Stiles with this freaking intensity that makes him freeze up entirely and feel hot and cold all over. His breath even catches in his throat and what the heck is his body doing to him right now?

“Uh,” Stiles breaths intelligently, finally tearing his eyes away from Derek’s because if he stares any longer he will do something stupid, like reach out and touch him or something.

It’s not like Derek couldn’t hear his rabbit-foot beating heart or whatever weird, crazy-ass pheromones he’s producing (or something like that, shut up, he’s not a werewolf, he doesn’t know these things) but Stiles likes to think Derek’s being polite and just not mentioning it.

Stiles says nothing and he eats the last of his roll in silence.

He goes back to his work soon after that, doing his very best to not look at Derek at all, who’s chilling on his side of the couch, going through sandwich number four –which looks like a lovely teriyaki chicken with lettuce on white bread- looking gorgeous and manly and ugh-

Right, Stiles thinks to himself, decrypt now, have sexual-identity crisis later.

Stiles doesn’t remember falling asleep, not really, he works into the wee hours of the morning and fights for control over his body but after a while it just says ‘nope’ and gives in.

He remembers feeling his laptop being shut and slid off his lap, then someone muttering about how he’s still just a kid and he wants to tell this asshat where he can shove something hard and sandpaper-ie, but suddenly arms are wrapped around him, smelling like musk and blood and smoke and wonderful, for some strange, morbid reason Stiles’ sleep-deprived brain can’t come up with a tangible answer to,and he’s being lifted as if he weighs nothing.

Stiles doesn’t even bother denying how safe he feels.