Chapter Text
Derek slows his rental car to the speed limit and releases a long, exasperated sigh as he passes the Welcome to Beacon Hills sign. The sheriff might let him off with a warning if he catches Derek speeding but he might also take the opportunity to teach Derek a lesson since he clearly hadn’t learned it back in high school. He’d gotten so many speeding tickets during his junior and senior years that his mom had made him do community service. Derek had single-handedly washed every cop car at least twice and planted so many flowers downtown that the local Home Depot had run out.
Werewolves drive fast anyway, but after all that shit with Kate . . . Well, he just couldn’t get anywhere fast enough.
Fuck, he doesn’t want to think about that. This is why he hates coming back to Beacon Hills. It’s nothing but bad memories.
He heads straight for the Pack House in the Preserve. It’s not home anymore. Not for him at least. And actually not for his parents anymore either. As he passes it, his eyes flick over to the new dowager house they’ve built for themselves to live in now that his mom has stepped down as Alpha. He’d designed it, of course, but this is the first time he’s actually seeing it. It’s quaint, much smaller than the pack house - a retirement home really. It’s probably the first time his parents have ever lived alone and they didn’t put in guest rooms for a reason.
There’s the expected cluster of sports cars and a truck he knows is Jordan’s when he pulls his rented Camaro into the driveway. The odd car out is an old Jeep painted a garish baby blue. Derek can’t stop staring at it as he pops his trunk and pulls out his suitcase and the garment bag with his suit. The jeep seems familiar for some reason. Maybe it’s Cora’s fiancé’s? He’s seen pics of the guy though and he wears a lot of scarves. He seems more like a four-door sedan type of guy.
“Uncle Derek!” a voice screeches and then a half-shifted six-year-old crashes into Derek’s thigh, barely avoiding head-butting him in the nuts.
“Hey Sammy! You got your wolf strength yet?” Derek asks, pushing the suitcase closer to the kid like he wants to have him carry it. He’s not really used to dealing with kids but it feels like something Peter would have done to him when he was six - except Peter would have walked away and left Derek with a suitcase heavier than he was.
Sammy manages to lift the suitcase but his elbows have to bend up past his ears just to get it off the ground. “My arms aren’t long enough!” He dissolves into giggles, claws and fangs pulling back in with the laughter.
Derek gives an overexaggerated sigh and hefts the suitcase like it weighs a ton. When Sammy goes running for the door, Derek follows at a much more leisurely pace. No need to hurry to the gallows. Laura is probably waiting right there, ready to nag him into submission.
The old-fashioned wooden screen door that looks like an antique but is really the probably twentieth or so version of the original swings open violently, smacking out against the house with a loud thwack! Another half-shifted six-year-old yells, “Hi, Uncle Derek!”
Being slammed open by three generations of half-shifted werechildren is probably why it’s been replaced so many times.
“Hi Sarah, thank you for getting the door,” Derek tells her as he steps across the threshold of his childhood home and into what will probably be the longest week of his fucking life.
”Mom told me to.” She shrugs, clearly not as impressed with Derek’s arrival as her twin brother is. Not that Derek can blame her. He only ever sees them over Zoom calls and the one time a year that the family comes to visit him in New York.
Leave it to his baby sister Cora, though, to insist on getting married right here at the house instead of eloping in secret in Hawaii like Laura and Jordan had so Derek is forced to come home for the first time since he left for college a decade ago.
He’s sure they’ve got some sort of ulterior motive. Cora said it had to be here and it had to be on the full moon and Derek had to be there. That she wanted her family to be her wedding party. Didn’t she have any girlfriends for this?
Eyeing the staircase and the hallway that leads into the kitchen, Derek knows he should go into the kitchen and kiss his sister on her cheek but he just needs a minute to prepare himself so he trudges up the stairs to his bedroom instead.
Only…
“Where is my stuff?” he demands, standing in the doorway of his old bedroom where it’s clear that this bedroom no longer belongs to him. It’s painted a deep crimson instead of dark blue, most of the walls are covered in bookcases filled with a jumble of oddities - ancient-looking books, superhero action figures, worn paperbacks and things like crystals, bundles of dried flowers, and little wooden boxes. The bed is a messy pile of blankets and pillows. It’s a four-poster so even his actual bed frame is gone. The walls are covered in photographs, aged sepia-toned maps with curled-up corners, notes with messy handwriting or doodles, here and there are bits of yarn trailing from push pin to push pin.
And the smell–
Honey.
Molasses cookies.
Lightning.
And like the jeep, it’s oddly familiar but Derek can’t place it, like it’s just out of reach. But he wants to reach it. The smell is . . . intoxicating, almost to the point of being overwhelming. He steps back and pulls the door shut to cut himself off from it.
From behind him, Laura says, “Derek, you haven’t been in this house in ten years. You don’t have a room here anymore.” She smells . . . not sad really, more resigned. He thinks it’s reluctant acceptance. That moving him out of his room didn’t make her realize he didn’t live here anymore but this - him seeing that he’s been replaced by a stranger - has.
“It’s fine,” he grunts. And it is. Well– it’s not. But it has to be. He’s the one who left. He knows that. “It should have occurred to me that you would need the space.” He shakes his head as he picks up the suitcase he’d dropped to open the door. “So, then, where am I sleeping?”
She leads him to the guest room on the third floor. It still smells a little like their grandma - rosemary and apricots - even though she’s been dead for almost as long as Derek’s been gone. She liked the sunlight and this room gets the most morning sun. Fine by him, he’s still on East Coast time. The room itself is relatively bare - a queen-sized bed between the windows, a couple of nightstands, a dresser, and not much else. There’s no bathroom attached like there is in his old room but that’s fine, there’s one down the hall.
Laura pulls open the closet to reveal a stack of tote bins. “These are filled with what you left in your room. Clothes, books, the posters off the walls. If you could find some time to go through them and decide what to keep, what to toss, and what to donate, that would be great.”
He nods as she takes the garment bag from him and hangs it in the closet. Then she puts her arms around him and pulls him in for a fierce hug. Her pregnant belly doesn’t make the hug as awkward as he would have thought and after about twenty seconds, he realizes he can hear the extra heartbeat from inside her.
The wonder must show on his face because Laura grins, “Go ahead.”
At first, he’s not sure what she means, but then she tugs her shirt up to puddle on top of her protruding belly, exposing the stretched skin and he catches the scent of “mother/baby/pack” all twisted up with the scent of “Laura/Alpha” and he drops to his knees, pressing his forehead against her tummy. He’s never been near a pregnant pack member as an adult. Aunt Maggie, Peter’s wife, had been pregnant when he was a teenager but it was during the Kate year so he doesn’t remember it much. Just that they’d been careful with her. He definitely doesn’t remember her scent or the heartbeat. This - this is just as overwhelming as the scent in his old bedroom had been.
It’s family and home and protect. Somehow, he instinctively knows that any danger that comes his sister’s way would be righteously defended against by the entire pack. That none of them would allow her to come to harm while she carries this new defenseless pack member inside her. He’s staggered by the sudden and enormous need to keep her safe.
For a moment he feels that mind-numbing fear he’d felt when he was sixteen and learned that Kate had surrounded their house with mountain ash and planned to torch it with everyone inside. The urge to keep Laura safe, keep the baby safe, keep them all safe all but drowns him. It’s been twelve years since he’s felt anything like this.
He’d forgotten what being part of pack in more than just a name had felt like.
Rubbing his forehead back and forth just above her oddly flat belly button, hands cupping the rounded sides of her tummy, Derek struggles to regain control of his wolf. The calming beat of the two hearts inside his Alpha helps calm his own heart, though. Eventually, his ragged breaths even out as Laura runs her fingers through his hair and down the back of his neck, scenting him, forgiving him, understanding him.
“It’s good to have you home, little brother,” she says softly. “We’ve missed you so much.” The air smells like salt so he knows she’s tearing up, but he doesn’t lift his head, just nods against the warmth of her skin, listening to the quick heartbeat inside, listening to the baby as it sleeps, unaware of how much it’s loved already.
Squeezing his neck one last time, she helps him up, pushing her shirt back down over her belly and pulling him wordlessly out of the room behind her.
“Maybe I wanted to unpack and freshen up,” he protests weakly, but follows her down the two flights of stairs and into the kitchen.
“You can do that later, we’re helping Cora and Isaac with the favors for the wedding.”
Derek tries to make a U-turn but she shakes her head, laughing, and drags him into the dining room.
He’s barely through the door when Cora throws herself into his arms. “Derek, I’m getting married!” S\she all but shouts it in his face.
He tries to scowl, but she’s too happy so he just rolls his eyes instead. “So I’ve heard.” He is in the wedding so of course he’s heard.
She slaps his shoulder, running her hand up his neck briefly, scenting him in a different place than Laura had. He knows he doesn’t smell like pack - hasn’t for a long time. He can feel the ache of it more here than he ever could in New York. The loneliness was easy to ignore when he was alone.
“Derek - this is Isaac, my mate.” She preens and then makes a girlish squee he didn’t even know she was capable of making and adds, “And soon-to-be husband!”
Thankfully Laura is still there and her snort is loud enough to cover the sound of Derek’s.
A guy about Cora’s age, grinning and blushing at her, stands up from the table and comes around to shake Derek’s hand. He’s lanky, several inches taller than Derek. Pretty, like Cora always liked them. He ducks his head after they shake hands, like he’s shy or unsure. Cora likes that, too. Derek can smell how content she is.
“Nice to finally meet you,” Derek says politely. He turns to Cora again. “So. . . I guess I’ve been roped into helping with whatever this,” he waves to the disaster piles of candy and ribbons on the table, “is.”
Cora stinks of pride suddenly. “It’s Isaac’s candy. He has a shop in town. He makes the most amazing chocolates and hard candies and little sweet treats.” She sighs like she’s completely lovesick and it smells like she is.
Wrinkling his nose at the cloying stench of young love, Derek turns to Laura, looking for a lifeline. “Where’s Jordan? Isn’t that his truck in the driveway?”
“He’s out for a run,” Laura hums around the piece of candy she’s just stolen off the table and shoved into her mouth. “He’ll be back soon. Mom and Dad are coming over for dinner, but the rest of the pack that doesn’t live here is waiting until tomorrow afternoon’s barbeque before coming over.”
Before Derek can ask who else lives here and how big the pack has gotten, Sammy and Sarah come running in, screeching and pulling hair as they wrestle around the floor. Cora and Isaac each grab a twin and tickle them until they scream uncle, uncle! Then they send the kids out with Laura because they can’t ‘lose any more candy to hungry wolves - especially not ones eating for two.’
The three of them spend the next half hour filling little monogrammed bags with chocolates. Cora does most of the talking thankfully, but Derek can tell that Isaac is good for her. They’re good for each other. He tries not to feel jealous at their ease with each other.
After Kate had manipulated him into a relationship he wasn’t old enough to consent to, then almost killed his family, Derek hadn’t let anyone closer than was required for them to get each other off. He hadn’t slept with anyone during the rest of high school because he was trying to convince his parents that the therapy was working. But in college, he’d figured out he was bisexual and had slept with everything with legs and a nice scent. He’s not ashamed of it but it was a lot of people. Probably far more than was healthy. Probably he should have taken the therapy seriously.
Then he’d met Jennifer Blake at the first architecture firm that had hired him after college. She’d turned out to be a lying conniving witch - the actual literal kind of witch - whose werewolf girlfriend had left her when she’d found her mate and Jennifer had decided to take it out on the next werewolf who crossed her path. Derek had crossed her path. After she’d tried to kill him, Laura had sent him a charm and instructions to rid himself of her. He’d gotten a new job and a new apartment and hasn’t seen her since. He should really thank Deaton for whatever was in that charm because it worked like a, well . . . like a charm.
“Earth to Derek!” Cora is saying, waving her hand in his face.
“Yeah?” He almost growls, she growls back though and he huffs at her, reminded that she’s not a ten-year-old anymore.
“I can hear Jordan coming back from his run if you want to escape the favor making brigade.”
He groans thankfully, tying off the monogrammed bag he’s working on, and dropping it in the ‘finished’ box. “You’re my favorite sister, you know that right?”
“Duh,” Cora says, tossing him one of the chocolates with caramel inside and waving him away.
Derek pops the chocolate into his mouth on his way to the front door. How are these so good? And can Isaac ship them across the country?
When Derek gets to the entryway, the twins are hiding there, clearly trying to ambush their unsuspecting dad who doesn’t have their enhanced hearing. Derek tucks himself further back into the hallway so as not to spoil it.
When the door opens though, he’s hit with not just Jordan’s coal-burning fire scent but also the same one from Derek’s old room - honey, molasses cookies, and lightning. There’s also clean sweat and sunshine. The combination makes Derek have to take a calming breath to keep his fangs from descending without his permission. His skin tingles like the lightning is rolling across the surface of it and his mouth waters for the rich, spicy sweetness of a cookie.
Both twins leap from their hiding places with loud growls, fur sprouting on their jawlines, and tiny fangs dropping over their lips. Neither Jordan nor the other man is startled and both twins whine to a chorus of “no fair!” and “you cheated!” Derek is standing still in the hallway, heart beating a little too hard as he takes in every detail about the other man.
He and Jordan are about the same height, same as Derek. Neither man is wearing a shirt and while Jordan has beefed up over the years in the arms and chest - though not as much as Derek himself - the other man is lithe with broad shoulders and a well-defined upper body without being bulky. There’s a massive tattoo, a riot of green vines and dark flowers crawling up his ribcage to wrap around his shoulder. The artistry is so good that it looks like it’s actually growing down his arm and reaching out along his forearm for his hand. When he turns, Derek can see that all the vines seem to erupt from four silvery white scars below his ribcage - it looks like a mountain lion attacked him.
Or a werewolf.
His chest has a smattering of hair and there’s a dark trail leading into his shorts. Derek wants to pin his hips to the wall and lick his way down that trail of hair. Raking his eyes over the man, Derek notices a second scar just above the claw marks. It’s round like a bullet wound and is clearly visible in the center of a swirl of flowers. It’s also the spidery white of old scars even though the guy can’t be much older than Cora. Derek is pretty sure he’s human, too, but it’s all mixed in with the scent of the werewolf cubs and their hellhound father.
When he looks up, the man is staring straight at him with whiskey-colored eyes and a small smile, quirked up on one side.
“Hey, Derek,” the man says softly and Derek feels it like a caress. Feels the pull of his voice as much as he did the sight of his body or even the scent of him - intoxicating, all of it.
Derek wants . And more than just to roll around, get each other off, and walk away. For maybe the first time since he was sixteen, he wants so much more. Because this isn’t just some human, this isn’t just an attractive guy, this is his mate. He can smell it clear as day. Mate.
He does what he always does. Derek runs.
By the time he’s flinging the back door open, he’s already out of most of his clothes. He leaps off the porch on four legs and just runs. At first, he’s running away. But then he realizes how long it’s been since he’s done this and he runs to feel the ground beneath his paws, the sun warming his fur, the wind rushing past his face. Eventually, the truth of what he was running from catches up and Derek throws himself down, exhausted and confused.
Is this real? His first day back in Beacon Hills, the one place in the world he doesn’t want to be, and he finds his mate. How?
When his mother finds him, she’s on two legs and she’s carrying the clothes he’d shed on his way out the door. She doesn’t say anything as she approaches, just drops down next to Derek, runs her hand down his back, and leans her weight into him. They sit there for a few minutes before Derek shifts his weight, indicating that he’s ready to talk. She stands, walking a few feet away and keeping her back to him so he can shift back to human and get dressed.
After a few minutes of walking in silence, Derek asks, “Who is he?”
She sighs and, with a soft smile, her scent goes both content and sad, “He’s Stiles.”
Derek waits. She’s always been dramatic. Alphas always are.
“Stiles is Laura’s Emissary,” she says eventually and Derek touches the charm around his neck briefly. She nods. “Yes, he protected you. Only he could have.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you think we’d all wear protection charms if they were that easy to make?” She scoffs but threads their fingers together. “Protection charms like that are incredibly rare. That charm could have only been made by a powerful emissary and only for his mate. Werewolves are one of the few supernaturals that we know of who have soulmates in that way so that charm is probably one of a kind.”
Oh.
Derek rests his palm over the charm where it rests under his shirt, like he does when he’s thinking. Then, “Wait. You knew that he was my mate? How . . . ?” He hasn’t been here in a decade. Not since he was eighteen and hightailed it out of here for college, swearing never to come back.
“You’ve already met.” She takes a long breath, exhaling as she tilts her head to consider him, “That night.” She doesn’t say what night but she doesn’t have to. Derek - all of the Hales really - will forever think of the night that Kate Argent almost burned his family alive as ‘ that night .’
“. . . I don’t remember him.”
Her heart skips a beat and Derek knows instantly what she’s done. Even though it’s never done. It’s so wrong. Alphas never do it without permission so he must have agreed but it feels like such a violation. “You took it?” he whispers, horrified, pulling away from her until his back is against a tree and he sinks down to the cool dirt in the tree’s shade.
“I took it.” She nods and stinks of regret. “You asked me to but…I’ll never be sure if it was the right decision - for either of us.”
“Why?” Derek’s heart aches in his chest. Why? Why would she take the memory of his mate away from him? What else did she take?
Why would he ask?
He’s so focused on the pain of his own heart beating brokenly in his chest that he hasn’t noticed another heartbeat approaching them.
“Talia?” The stranger - Stiles - stops a few feet away from them.
“You want to tell it, Stiles?” she asks, voice trembling slightly. And that shakes Derek to his core. His mother never cries, never shows weakness. She was an alpha for thirty years. If she’d shown weakness, she couldn’t have protected her pack.
Stiles nods. He’s showered and changed out of his running shorts into soft-looking black joggers and a red henley. Even through his horror, Derek is aware of how it pulls on his shoulders, hugging his frame. He sits cross-legged, a few feet away, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
“When I was ten years old – actually, let me backtrack, when I was nine years old, my mom died. We knew she was a Spark and that I might be one, too. It usually shows up with puberty, sometime between thirteen and fifteen. Or, as we learned later, with the onslaught of great trauma.” He pauses, taking a few deep breaths before continuing, “See, my mom died, and then my dad– well, he didn’t know what to do with his spastic kid with ADHD and insatiable curiosity. He . . . didn’t deal with it well and I was left on my own a lot. Then my soulmate - something I didn’t even know existed - was in mortal danger.” Stiles runs a hand through his fluffy hair, making it stick up all over the place.
“My magic manifested quickly and hard and painfully. A lot was happening and in classic Stiles’ fashion, I thought I could handle it all without bothering anyone.” His smile is wry and Derek finds himself wanting to smile back. He doesn’t. “I had nightmares that I was pretty sure were visions but I didn’t know how to help or who to go to for help. So, I pulled out one of my mom’s spell books and I performed my first spell. A locator spell. But I didn’t know what I was doing. So it didn’t take me to you.” Stiles pauses, picks at his shoelace while taking a few steadying breaths.
Derek’s heartbeat ratchets up again like his mate is still in the danger he’s describing - even though he’s clearly safe and sound. His mom sinks down next to him, squeezing his neck to calm him.
Stiles nods, “Yeah, it took me to Kate Argent. When I warned her that something bad was going to happen . . . fire and screaming . . .” Stiles’ amber eyes go unfocused, remembering, “she grinned. I don’t know why she didn’t just kill me. Or leave me tied up in the basement. Instead, she bumped her plan up to be that night. And she took me with her. Stuffed me in the trunk of her car . . . I . . .” Stiles looks up and makes eye contact with Derek and Derek remembers where he’d been the night she’d started the fire. “I was there, bound and gagged so I couldn’t scream and she told me that she’d kill you if I made any noise.”
He brings one of his knees up to his chest, hugging it with strong arms that Derek tries not to stare at. “My dad’s a cop, though. He taught me how to escape zip ties and how to pop the safety latch in the trunk of a car. Took me a bit but I finally got free and when I heard her follow you, I followed her. I didn’t know what mountain ash was or even that it was mountain ash but since she was laying it in a circle, I assumed it was bad so I kicked a bunch of it away and . . . Talia? You want to…?” He mimes a claw digging into his own neck.
Derek looks at his mom and nods. “Give it back, please.” Even though he’s terrified thinking about how much worse that night can possibly get.
“I can’t. I’m not an Alpha anymore,” she says apologetically.
Oh, right.
Stiles digs into his pocket, pulling out a cell phone and tapping on it. He waits until it lights up with a response and then stuffs it back in his pocket. “Laura is on her way.”
“It’s not safe,” Derek says, already on edge because they’re talking about the worst night of his life and he can’t handle the idea of Laura walking out here alone.
“The entire Preserve is warded,” Stiles tells him. “No one crosses the border without me knowing their intentions.”
Derek doesn’t ask how. That feels like a question for later. He doesn’t think Deaton was ever able to ward anything besides the house. How powerful is Stiles?
After only a few minutes, Laura and Cora come walking into the clearing where Derek had stopped. He gets up and moves to sit in front of a large rock so Laura doesn’t have to lower herself all the way to the ground to reach his neck.
“I’ve never done this before,” she warns him, looking at their mother for instructions.
“Memories are like a river that constantly flows so wherever you enter, you’ll need to think about the stream passing you by and when you come to that night, you’ll feel an empty spot where that memory is blocked off. Concentrate on coaxing it to be part of the river again and you’ll know when it does. Then you just pull back out,” Talia instructs, moving to sit at Derek’s left side as she does.
Cora moves to the other side so Derek’s bracketed on three sides by the strongest women he knows. It makes him feel protected.
Stiles scoots over and sits in front of Derek, both of their legs are criss-crossed, far enough away that Derek doesn’t feel boxed in but close enough to touch if Derek really wants to.
“Okay, Der, deep breath,” Laura warns, and as soon as he takes it in, she slides her claws in.
It’s excruciating and he wants to scream, but he clenches his teeth and keeps it in. He can see the memories as she’s seeing them, they’re flipping past like one of those old film strips from home movies in the sixties. He sees classrooms and full moon runs, ice cream on hot days, board games, cuddling with his sisters, visiting the library with the nice lady who smells like lightning. He gets a flash of skipping through the parking lot outside the library and sees the blue jeep. Stiles’ mom. Lightning must be what their magic smells like. Basketball games, homework, arguing with Laura, reading in his room, drawing at a drafting table, then suddenly there’s Kate teaching his English class, touching his hand when she talks to him, leaning closer than a teacher should.
Derek is pretty sure he whimpers and his mom and Cora each take one of his hands, squeezing them. It’s grounding. Solid. He’s safe. He doesn’t have to be afraid of what Kate will do because it’s already been done. Thumbs brush over his knuckles, soothing.
Then it’s that last night, Laura skips quickly past them having sex in the car thankfully. He sees himself running to the house and sneaking into the laundry room then . . . it’s nothing . . . the memory isn’t there and he never noticed. Never thought about how they’d stopped Kate. Why hadn’t the house caught fire, why weren’t they all dead?
He feels Laura trying to coax it open like a flower but it’s like it’s been petrified with its petals clamped tightly shut. From where Stiles sits in front of him, he feels heat flowing up over his knees and up his torso, like warm honey, like liquid light, and then there’s sunshine breaking through the river of memories and the flower is unfurling, opening gently for him to remember.
Someone yells from outside and Derek freezes. He’d gone in through the back door because he had to wash the smell of Kate off his clothes before anyone noticed. So he’d done what he normally did after their meetings, he’d gone in through the laundry room and stripped, stuffing his clothes directly into the washing machine. It wasn’t uncommon for them to do that since he and his sisters so often came home covered in dirt or mud or worse. But at the shout, Derek yanks his jeans back on; running outside bare-chested and barefoot.
As he rounds the house, he sees a boy around Cora’s age. Maybe ten or eleven. Kate is there, too. She has a gun aimed at the kid. The air smells like smoke. Did this kid start a fire?
“Kate?” Derek can hear the uncertainty in his own voice.
“Derek! I came to warn you!” Her eyes are wide and she’s blinking rapidly like she’s scared. “He’s a witch, Derek. He wants to kill your family! He set fire to the house!”
Derek growls, turning to the boy but hesitating because he doesn’t actually look dangerous. He just looks like a scared kid with a bad buzzcut and eyes too big for his face. Derek’s growl dies in his throat. He can’t - what is that smell? There’s something under the stench of fear rolling off the boy and the smell of mountain ash tickling his nose.
Something isn’t right here. For some reason, Derek doesn’t think this kid would ever hurt him. But Kate said—
The air reeks of fire and smoke now; he can hear his parents and Peter out front trying to put it out before it spreads. Derek can hear Maggie in the house getting his sisters and grandma, he hears her yell his name because they can’t find him. He knows everything must be happening quickly but it’s like time has slowed down.
“Derek, don’t let him attack me!” Kate pleads, crocodile tears slipping down her cheeks. “He’ll kill me because we’re in love and he doesn’t want that.”
The boy turns to Derek, his big eyes are liquid fire and his body is starting to glow with an inner light, “I didn’t - I’m not -”
But the kid doesn’t get to plead his case or explain because right there and then, Kate cries out, “It’s another spell! Derek, if you love me, help me!”
And Derek does.
He drops fangs and claws and slashes out at the boy, catching him below his ribcage. He’s so small and the young flesh splits like butter under Derek’s claws. He hates it. Everything inside him revolts at the feeling of his claws shredding the boy’s skin like paper.
There’s shock on his delicate face and he lets out a pathetic little cry, looking down at the destroyed remains of his Batman T-shirt. Blood flows from the wound, running in rivulets in what feels like slow motion. The light inside him flickers but doesn’t go dark.
The air is suddenly ripe with the smell of fear and pain and blood. Under it all, though, is molasses cookies and . . . heartache. Derek’s own heart stutters in his chest and he has just a second to think, mate , before there’s a horrible exploding crack and the boy cries out, stumbling backward to land in the grass. The blood spreads so much faster than before. Now that there’s a bullet in him, too.
Kate grins and something cruel passes across her face as she turns and aims the gun at Derek. He knows then. That she’s tricked him. That she started the fire. She made him kill his mate and now she’s going to kill him. And he hopes she does. Hopes the boy will wait for them to go wherever they go after this life. That maybe they can go together.
Then Kate screeches as she’s grabbed from behind by Derek’s mom, the gun wrenched away from her. They’re fighting but Derek doesn’t care. Kate’s not going to get a chance to kill him and the boy’s light is fading. Nothing else matters. Derek drops to his knees and doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t do ANYTHING. Because he doesn’t know how. He’s not human. What is he supposed to do?
Hands take hold of him, yanking him to the side and suddenly his dad and Peter are there, doing something with their shirts to staunch the bleeding before Peter has the boy cradled in his arms and they’re racing for a car and speeding down the driveway. Leaving Derek with nothing but the scent of his mate’s blood and his own remorse.
“Derek?” His mom turns Derek around to look at her, “I need you to listen. I’m going to call the police and we’re going to tell them that a mountain lion attacked this woman and that boy. It’ll explain her death and his injuries . . . or death.” She inhales, he knows what - whom - she can smell on his skin, “Derek, what happened?”
Turning, he sees the pieces left of Kate. Two of them. And her throat is torn out. Kate’s dead.
Derek wishes it was him.
While they wait for the police to show up, Derek tells his mom everything.
When Laura retracts her claws, Derek jerks to his feet, runs to the edge of the clearing, and heaves up his airplane food from earlier. Was that just this morning? It feels like it’s been a lifetime. His head hurts and he’s exhausted but he still has questions.
Laura is there when he stands, she wraps her arms around him, holding him close again. “I didn’t know. How that was for you. What you felt–” She looks like she might be sick, too. “I understand now, why you asked Mom to take it.”
Maybe if he’d known his mate was going to live, he’d have– He can’t change it. This is what it is.
“How– how is that my only memory of him?” Because there had to be more. He’s Laura’s Emissary at, like, twenty-two years old. He had to have had training and he is clearly close with all of the Hales. That didn’t happen overnight. He lives in Derek’s old room!
“It’s difficult to remove all traces of a person from memory so if I was going to do it successfully, it had to be done right there and then.” His mom rubs her forehead like she’s still debating whether it was the right choice even a decade later. “If he died and the chance of that at the time was high, you would have had to live with killing your mate - who was a child. If he lived . . .” Talia looks up but not at Derek, she looks at Stiles and her scent is thick with regret, “I wasn’t just protecting you, Derek.”
She doesn’t say it but he knows. He was a danger to them. Derek brought a hunter into their midst. Almost killed the entire pack. According to his therapist, he’d been assaulted. Raped by manipulation. Now, he knew that was true, that he had been too young to make those choices. And she had only been with him to use him. Back then? He’d scoffed and blown off his therapist's analysis. He’d been bitter and ashamed. Having a ten-year-old mate would not have made it easier. No, she was right to keep Stiles a secret from him. Even though it hurts more than he can even understand right now.
“Stiles was in critical condition for a week,” she continues. “By the time he was officially out of the woods . . . it was clear that you were spiraling. I made the decision to not give you back your memory of him yet. I didn’t want you to sabotage your future with Stiles because you thought you didn’t deserve him. And you both deserved the chance to grow up a little more. Most wolves don’t recognize their soulmates until they’re older. I just . . . didn’t realize you’d never come back.”
There’s more, he can tell, but what she’s said already is enough for today. It’s not even dinner time yet and he feels wrung out, exhausted.
When they get back to the house, Derek excuses himself to take a shower. He’s wondering if he can just crawl into bed and ignore dinner with the pack when he gets back to his room in nothing but a towel to find Cora splayed out on his bed like she used to when he still lived here.
“Are you here to make sure I come back down for dinner?” he grouches, pulling out fresh boxers from his suitcase. He slips them on under his towel and then hangs the towel on the door to dry out.
She sits up, pulling her knees up to her chest as she goes, “Someone has to stop you from running away.”
“I’m not going to run away,” Derek hisses the lie through his teeth, tugging a pair of jeans on and snagging the first shirt he comes across to yank over his still-damp hair. It’s a black v-neck that he knows he looks good in. Not that he’s hoping Stiles will notice. He doesn’t even know what to do with that right now besides ignoring it.
Cora slides off of his bed, heading for the door. “You’ve been running away from Kate for twelve years.” She turns, hand on the doorknob, “but you’ve also been running away from Stiles.”
Derek straightens from where he’s putting clothes in the dresser. “I didn’t know about him!”
“Now you do,” she says. Her voice drops low enough that Derek knows no one downstairs will hear her. “Don’t make me regret throwing an entire wedding on the front lawn just to get you to stop running long enough to meet your mate finally.” Then she yanks open the door and flounces out.
After a few minutes of angry unpacking and unnecessary tidying up, Derek goes downstairs and into the kitchen where there are too many people for the table but it’s less formal so half of them are just standing around holding plates of pizza. He hovers in the entryway for a few moments, taking in the relaxed scene.
His parents are sitting at the table with Laura and both kids. There’s another kid there now, too. A toddler with big brown curls and caramel skin. She’s in a high chair and the man next to her must be her dad with the way he’s picking the olives off his pizza and giving them to her. Isaac and Cora are sharing a chair and a plate - gross. Stiles is sitting on the counter next to a gorgeous blonde who’s laughing and leaning into him. Between his splayed legs, leaning back against him is another man, handsome with a crooked jaw and puppy dog eyes. Derek is suddenly achingly aware of how much he’s missed belonging to a pack.
When everyone stops and stares at him, Derek realizes it’s because he’s growling low in his throat and staring at where the two strangers are touching his mate. Derek is mortified for all of three seconds until Stiles bursts into laughter. It’s beautiful. He’s long and lean and his throat is bared as he throws back his head and laughs.
The blonde grins, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Oh Derek, it’s not me and Scotty you need to worry about.”
The man between Stiles’ thighs, who must be Scott, snorts into his glass, “Erica, jeez!” Then he looks at Derek. “Hey man, I’m Scott. Stiles is my brother in all but blood. Erica and I also have mates if it makes you feel better.”
Thankfully Jordan comes in from the basement pantry then, blissfully unaware of the tension, arms loaded with sodas. “Oh, hey Derek, you mind?” Derek shakes his head and starts plucking cans out of Jordan’s arms to put on the counter. “The two ginger ales are for our preggos, everyone else can fight for what they want.”
Laura is already looking at him expectantly and then Erica waggles her fingers, grinning like a maniac. “It’s not Stiles’.”
Stiles elbows her and she turns and snaps her teeth at him playfully. From the table comes a low grumble, “Emma, tell Mommy to be nice.”
The toddler attempts to blow a raspberry but just showers everyone nearby with spit. The twins both yell, “Yuck!” then the toddler giggles and throws an olive on the floor, mimicking the twins perfectly with a “Yuck!” of her own.
Everyone laughs, Scott and Jordan start handing out sodas, and Derek?
Derek wants to run. He doesn’t know these people. Not even his siblings, really. They all know about his past, they all know what he’s done, what he’s capable of. He hates it. Hates feeling like the worst of him is on display. Like that’s all they know about him.
But then Cora meets his eyes. She looks like she’s just waiting for him to disappoint her. The challenge is clear as day and his wolf squares up for the first time in a long time, wanting to face it head-on.
Derek stays.
He eats pizza, listens to the pack talk and laugh, tries not to stare at Stiles too often, but it’s hard. He’s got this cute upturned nose and a neck made to be nuzzled. A trail of moles dancing up it like it’s leading Derek to temptation.
Halfway through dinner for the adults, the kids are already done and Boyd - he’s Erica’s mate Derek has learned - takes all three of them upstairs for bathtime. Derek’s dad, Jason, goes with them. About half an hour later, while Derek is helping Isaac and Cora clean up dinner, he hears his dad setting up the TV in the den to play a movie for the kids. Boyd comes back down with a sleepy toddler resting on his shoulder.
“No sleep,” she whines but doesn’t pick her head up from her dad’s shoulder. Erica and Stiles are in the doorway to the den. Derek sees Erica reach for her but the girl shakes her head and reaches out for Stiles instead. He smiles, taking her weight easily, settling her against his chest.
There’s a tightness in Derek’s own chest that he doesn’t like. He finds himself gravitating closer. Boyd glances at him and then back at Stiles.
“She wants–” Boyd says, looking apologetic, rubbing his daughter’s back, “you know, the happy sad song .”
Derek is expecting a Disney song to match her Tangled pajamas but he’s not sure what the ‘happy sad song’ would be because he’s never heard it.
“Der’k’s Song, Unc’a Sty,” she mumbles into Stiles’ collar, her little arms tucked between them as she trusts him to hold her lax body up without her even bothering to hold on.
When Derek looks at Boyd, eyebrows arching toward his hairline, Boyd grimaces. So she definitely said ‘Derek’s Song.’ He hadn’t misheard that.
“It’s okay,” Stiles says, starting to sway where he’s standing, clearly used to holding small children, then his eyes drift shut and he sings softly. It's a bittersweet tune and the scent of sadness drifts around them like a mist.
“You could be happy and I won’t know.
But you weren’t happy the day I watched you go.
And all the things that I wished I had not said
Are played on loops ‘til it’s madness in my head.
Stiles runs the tip of his nose along the girl’s hairline, dropping a kiss on her forehead between lyrics. Scenting her like he’s a wolf.
Is it too late to remind you how we were?
But not our last days of silence, screaming, blur.
Most of what I remember makes me sure.
I should have stopped you from walking out the door.
Emma mumbles something sleepily that makes Stiles smile and then she rubs her face against his neck, scenting him back. Derek is transfixed, fully aware that he’s watching them unabashedly but not being able to stop himself.
You could be happy, I hope you are.
You made me happier than I’d been by far.
Somehow everything I own smells of you.
And for the tiniest moment, it’s not all true. . .”
The sound of his voice fades as Stiles walks upstairs with her, clearly heading toward her bedroom to put her down for the night. Derek watches him until he disappears down the second-story hallway, that tightness in his chest only getting worse.
“Don’t fuck this up, Hale,” Erica growls from beside him.
“Erica,” Laura warns, but not in her Alpha voice.
“Laura, he needs to know,” Erica replies, eyebrow arched in defiance. She stares Derek down again, “That fucking song . He heard it when we were like fourteen and he’s been singing it ever since. It’s his mantra or some shit. He’s convinced himself that letting you go was a way to prove his love. That as long as you were happy, he could–” Her cheeks are red and her eyes water, she sniffs, exhales, then growls, “Don’t hurt him - well, don’t hurt him any more than you already have–”
“Okay, leave him alone. He didn’t know,” Boyd cuts in, putting his arms around his mate and making soothing noises. “He didn’t know. Let’s give Derek a chance.”
Erica clenches her jaw but nods her concession. Derek would probably be pissed off because, yeah, he didn’t know, but he can smell how distraught she is. Probably worried that Derek is going to turn tail and run. His wolf whines a little at that because she’s not wrong.
He wants to, god, he wants to run and never come back.
It feels like too much. He's not a part of this pack, not really. They clearly all have a long history together. If he does accept Stiles as his mate, how is he supposed to fit in here? And how can he ever live up to their expectations for Stiles? Sighing, Derek goes back to the kitchen to sweep up the olives from under the table.
Once the kitchen is clean and the kids are settled in, the adults all end up out on the porch with mugs of hot chocolate or coffee. The sky is clear and the moon is a few nights shy of full.
Stiles is one of the last ones out and he plants himself next to Derek on the small wicker couch, close enough that they could touch from shoulder to knee if one of them just moved an inch. Derek’s body practically sings with excitement but he doesn’t close the distance.
Clearing his throat, he asks, “So who else is coming tomorrow - this already seems like a big pack.” There’s almost a dozen people here already.
“There’s Uncle Peter and Aunt Maggie and their three kids, and Scott’s mate Kira who’s a kitsune - she’s more pack adjacent but only because kitsunes are not pack supernaturals,” Laura tells him, smoothing a hand over her belly as she lays back to give the baby room to stretch inside her. “Let’s see - Stiles’ dad and Scott’s mom who are married and honorary pack members. Lydia and Allison are pack adjacent, Jackson–”
She’s interrupted by several loud groans from Scott, Cora, and Isaac. Stiles tenses beside him.
“What’s the story with Jackson?” Derek asks.
Laura looks at Stiles who inclines his head in ascent. Then she looks at Scott and waves her hand, like, ‘go ahead.’
Scott blows out a breath and sits up straighter. “Almost all of us are the same age, me, Stiles, Cora, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, Allison and Lydia, Jackson - we all went to school together in the same grade. And, except for Stiles and Cora, we didn’t know about magic or werewolves. Until a rogue alpha came to town.” He shifts uncomfortably. “She went after kids.”
Derek gasps because he remembers, at the beginning of his second year in college, he remembers his mom saying they’d had a problem in town with a rogue alpha and had some new pack members because of it. “What were you guys - thirteen, then?”
Scott nods. “Yeah. Lydia was the first one bitten but she’s immune - that’s how we found out she’s a banshee. Well - we found out later but that’s when we knew she was different. But she couldn’t identify the person who or what had attacked her because she was in a coma while her body fought against the bite - not that anyone knew that's what was happening. A couple adults were killed and one of the kids died from the bite. Erica had a seizure - she was epileptic before the bite but she pulled through and the bite actually cured her, cured my asthma, too. Jackson got bitten but he didn’t turn into a wolf, he turned into something called a kanima. He’s kind of a hybrid now but back then - well, kanimas have to have a master . . . it’s a long story . . .” Scott looks at Stiles who’s been breathing very evenly even though his heart is erratic. They seem to communicate silently.
Clearing his throat, Scott nods and it seems like he skips over whatever he planned to say next. “Then the alpha came across me and Stiles in the park.” Derek’s claws dig into the wicker armrest. “It happened so fast. She bit me and then went after Stiles who did some kind of magic whammy” Stiles snorts at that. Scott flips him off, “and knocked her out. Then his dad and your mom showed up and handled it. But I thought I was dying, you know? My asthma was so bad and I was so scared. I couldn’t breathe. I just held onto Stiles, let him ground me and get me through it.”
“He’s your anchor,” Derek says, knowing it’s true already.
Scott nods and he and Stiles grin at each other.
“What about the other kid - the kanima?” Because there was a lot of pressure in the air when Scott had mentioned him. Derek knows there’s more to that story.
Talia answers this time, she’s leaning back against his dad’s shoulder but Derek can see the tense lines in her body, “A kanima happens when the person bitten is angry, when they’ve made themselves an island and therefore have nothing to reach out to for an anchor. Jackson needed an anchor to find his wolf. He found one.” Her eyes flick to Stiles.
Derek doesn’t have to ask. And he knows there’s more to the story, with the way that Stiles is pulled taut like a bow, but he knows he needs to wait for Stiles to trust him so he lets it go. Instead, he asks, “And how did Boyd and Isaac become wolves?”
Talia smiles at both men who smile warmly back. “Erica and Cora figured out around the time that they were sixteen and seventeen that Boyd and Isaac were their mates and I told them that when they turned eighteen, I’d give them the bite if they wanted. You can feel it when your pack is settled. When it’s time to pass the torch. Boyd and Isaac were the last pieces of the puzzle for me. Not long after that, I transferred the alpha powers over to Laura.”
“And I spent the next 48 hours in bed wearing Jordan out because alpha powers are no joke.” Laura grins, squeezing Jordan’s thigh and leering at him. He blushes and swoops in to kiss her cheek.
Stiles, who has finally relaxed, throws a small throw pillow at Laura. “Good thing the poor man is a hellhound. If he was human, he’d probably have died from exhaustion.” He turns to Derek with a rye grin. “All the wolves left the house claiming it smelled like sex and satisfaction too much to stick around. We actually built your parents' house that weekend. We turned it into a building party. Melissa and my dad kept the twins.”
“I did warn them,” Derek’s dad says. “Talia and I spent her first week as alpha in a cabin we rented. We did not get our deposit back.”
There’s a chorus of ‘gross Dad!’ from the Hale kids and snickering from everyone else. Talia slaps her husband on the chest but her smile is so smug that Stiles throws the other throw pillow at her.
Derek can’t sleep. It’s so quiet out here in the Preserve. There’s no white noise of the City That Never Sleeps outside his window. Plus his mate - his mate - is somewhere in the house below him, asleep. And he’s learned a lot tonight. The pack is bigger than it’s ever been and growing with each new baby. He barely knows anyone and they all already dislike him for not being here for Stiles.
He doesn’t necessarily feel unwelcome but it’s clear that most of Stiles’ friends are sure he’s going to disappoint them. Derek isn’t sure that they’re wrong.
The scent hits him first. Honey and molasses cookies with just a hint of lightning underneath. Next, he can hear Stiles’ very distinct heartbeat outside his door. Derek sits up on his elbows when light illuminates his room in a soft glow. Then Stiles is pushing his door open and slipping through. A small ball of light precedes him into the room.
“Did I wake you?” Stiles whispers, slipping around the bed to sit on top of the covers on the empty side. The light shrinks to the size of a marble and Stiles rolls it between his fingers like a magician with a quarter. Derek stares at it, fascinated.
“No, too quiet. Couldn’t sleep,” he finally admits, voice gruff from a combination of actually talking to people all day and from laying in bed for the last few hours.
“We should talk - without the peanut gallery.” Stiles smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. His scent flags and the ball of light dims for a moment.
Derek sits up fully, putting his back against the headboard as he nods in agreement. “I feel like I should apologize.”
Stiles puts a hand up in protest. “No, Derek. You were a kid. A traumatized kid who thought you’d just killed a child and led a monster to your family’s door - you have nothing to apologize for.”
“I tore you open with my claws,” he exclaims, feeling sick to his stomach.
Stiles shakes his head, but his left hand wraps around his middle to splay his fingers over where the scars must be under his shirt. “It wasn’t with malice, she tricked you.”
Sure but - “I stayed away–”
“Not from me. You didn’t know about me. You were staying away from the people you thought you’d hurt. You were trying to keep them safe, in your own way,” Stiles insists, the ball rolling over and under his fingers, dancing light across them. “Your way is stupid, clearly. But it was with good intentions.”
Derek huffs out a small laugh, shaking his head, both at Stiles’ audacity and his naivete about who Derek actually is. “I was being a coward,” he growls softly. “I didn’t want them to look at me with pity. I didn’t want them to talk to me about how it wasn’t my fault. I can’t stand that.”
“Then I was a coward, too, I guess.” Stiles shrugs one shoulder, looking up from his magical light source. “I knew where you were. Talia and Laura invited me along when they went to visit you these last few years.”
“Oh,” Derek hadn’t thought of that. That Stiles could have found him anytime he wanted. But - “You were a child up until recently.”
“I haven’t been a child in a very long time. I couldn’t afford to be.” He doesn't sound bitter about it, just resigned. The light dances across his knuckles, shifting to a cool blue glow. “I’m a Spark. Do you know what type of magic user that is?”
Derek hasn’t done anything with the supernatural except be a werewolf and honestly, that’s almost in name only because he couldn’t shift in the city. And he wouldn’t stop punishing himself long enough to go outside the city. He only knows what witches and druids are by association.
He shakes his head.
“My power comes from belief - as soon as I understand the mechanics of how to do something, the only limit is how much I believe I can accomplish.” The light pulses, “Warding was one of the first things I learned to do with my magic, but I was only eleven, and eleven isn’t a good age to believe in yourself. But after that alpha attacked my friends, I wanted to keep my pack safe. So I believed I could ward the whole preserve…and I did. I was thirteen.” The light changes to a lively green and leaps across to his other hand as Stiles leans his weight on one elbow, reclining in the bed next to Derek.
“I think if I’d wanted you here badly enough, I could have magic’d you here,” Stiles admits.
“Why didn’t you?” Derek wonders, even though he’s glad he’s come of his own free will.
“Lots of reasons.” The ball of light shrinks to the size of a blueberry. “I was a kid. And afraid. And traumatized. A beautiful older boy who I’d felt an instant connection with, who had made my magic practically implode in an effort to save him, had nearly killed me. And then his girlfriend, who’d kidnapped me, shot me. Nothing that Talia or Deaton or my dad could tell me would convince me that you didn’t hate me. That feeling never really went away. How could I believe you here when I didn’t believe you wanted to be?”
Derek’s heart trips over itself in his chest. It aches. His hands yearn to reach out and touch Stiles but he just can’t make his limbs move. His voice is rough and shattered when he insists, “I didn’t hate you…I didn’t even know you existed.”
Stiles scoffs, flopping his weight on his back so he can bounce the light in an arc from hand to hand, “Surprisingly, not helpful since I’ve spent twelve years stressing over it.” He tosses the light up into the air and it hovers above them, casting shadows all around. Turning his head toward Derek with a wry grin, he says, “I was a gangly kid. All arms and legs, you know? Too skinny, big eyes, button nose.” The ball of light dims, sinking low for a second before it playfully floats up higher. In a subdued voice, Stile admits, “I knew how you looked, I saw pictures of you all the time. For a long time, I was glad you couldn’t see how I didn’t measure up.”
Derek scoots down in the bed, rolling on his side to look at how beautiful Stiles is with his long eyelashes and his pouty lips. His only memory of a younger Stiles is that of a ten-year-old and he just looked like a kid. Kids are kids. But now, looking at his profile, Derek can imagine there were a few teenage years when Stiles didn’t realize that these features would make him attractive when he grew into them.
“Everyone has a few rough years,” he tells Stiles honestly, conscious of his own front teeth and ears that he had to grow into and spent a long time trying to hide. “And we all think we don’t measure up sometimes.”
Biting his lip for a few seconds, Stiles confides, “Laura’s never been good at keeping secrets from me. Even before I became her Emissary for real, we knew I would be, so we were close, you know?” Stiles reaches up to spin the ball of light on the tip of one of his fingers. Like the tiniest basketball ever. “And she would get edgy, guilty, after talking to you on the phone. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I knew it’s because you were sleeping with everything that moved. It was rough on my self-esteem.”
There’s a new ache in Derek’s chest that he’s pretty sure isn’t his. Like somehow he can feel how much Stiles has been hurt by all of Derek’s terrible decisions. Looking at Stiles in the faint light from the little ball, Derek tries to see more than the strong confidence Stiles’ has exuded so far. He smells like hurt - old hurts and fresh ones. He smells like stress and exhaustion, molasses cookies and mate . He smells like Derek’s but Derek doesn’t know if he can come back here to this place, to these people, to this life, and be what Stiles needs. And he doesn’t want Stiles’ to have false hope.
He also wants Stiles to know that Derek doesn’t deserve to be absolved of guilt for not knowing. Because he spiraled for a long time. And he’s not sure if knowing about Stiles would have stopped it or made it worse.
“I wish I could say that I wouldn’t have made the same choices if I’d known about you . . . But I can’t.” It’s true but the way Stiles smells like regret makes him want to take it back. He makes it worse instead, whispering harshly, “Maybe you shouldn’t have waited.”
Stiles bites down on his bottom lip, stifling whatever emotion, swallowing whatever words are trying to leak out. The light dims until it’s nothing but a firefly. Reaching up, Stiles cups his hand around it, dragging it toward his chest and pressing his cupped hand flat on his sternum. His eyes flash gold for the briefest of moments and then the room goes dark.
He feels like the worst person in the world but Derek doesn’t try to stop him when Stiles gets up silently and leaves.