Archive of Our Own ^beta

NOW

Stiles barely looked up when Peter slammed Derek's apartment door closed and leaned against it. Whatever he wanted could wait until they finished planning what to do about the witch living down in the warehouse district. It was a plan that involved no killing, at the insistence of Scott and himself, and Derek was so far grudgingly going along with it.

After a moment of everyone ignoring him, Peter stepped away from the door and said, "I have news, and it's not good."

"When is your news ever good," Stiles muttered, eyes still focused on the map of the warehouse district. They needed to find a way to get through the witch's wards without getting killed, and Deaton had promised the answer was in the map.

Peter didn't seem to care that not even Derek had acknowledged that he was in the room, because he kept right on talking. "I went out to the woods behind the old house today to scare off the teenagers that have been lighting fires in the preserve-"

"You killed them?" Stiles yelped, because he was pretty sure "scare off" was just a nice euphemism for killing. They just got rid of the alpha pack, and then there was the witch business, and it would be just like Peter to go around murdering teenagers and then expect them to help him instead of putting him down.

Derek growled beside him, although whether it was at Stiles or at Peter, he wasn't sure. It was enough to shut him up, though.

"I said I have bad news, not that I killed some teenagers," Peter said, rolling his eyes. "They're completely different things."

"What's the bad news then?" Scott piped up from the other side of the table. Stiles looked around the room, but nobody seemed to care that Peter just suggested killing teenagers was par for the course for him.

"It's not teenagers setting the woods on fire," Peter said. "It's a dragon."

"It is not a dragon," Stiles said at the same time Derek said, "There haven't been dragons around here in decades."

"Wait." Stiles rounded on him. "You never told us dragons were real."

"I didn't think you'd have to worry about it."

It was a solid excuse, except for how Derek had used it before and been wrong every time. "Every time!" Stiles said. "Every time you think that, you're wrong. Stop thinking it, okay, I don't want to find out that dullahan are real because one of them comes to take my dad away or something, because you didn't think we needed to worry about dullahan."

Derek looked distinctly uncomfortable at that, but Stiles was magnanimous enough to let it go.

"How come no one's seen a dragon then?" Scott asked, staring at Peter with doubt in his eyes.

"How come no one has seen a werewolf?" Peter shot back.

"But it's a dragon," Scott said, sounding plaintive. "They're too big to hide. Unless they can turn invisible. Can they turn invisible?" he asked, eyes wide.

Peter sighed and covered his face with a hand. "I can feel my IQ dropping every minute I'm in the same room as him."

"You're the one who turned him," Derek muttered.

"Hey, it's a reasonable question," Stiles said, patting Scott on the shoulder. "Until five minutes ago we didn't know dragons existed, so who knows what they can do. Leave Scott alone."

Peter looked like he was about to say something, and Stiles was ready to yell at him some more, but instead he closed his mouth. After an awkward moment of staring, he said, "Well now you know, so you can deal with it. Call me when you're done so I know it's safe to come h- back."

"Ha ha, very funny." Stiles went to the chair where his backpack was sitting and pulled out his laptop. He turned it on and brought the bestiary up. "How do we get rid of a dragon?"

Peter, his hand on the door handle, said, "That's what your bestiary's for." He was out the door before anyone could say anything else.

"You better be back here tomorrow morning for some dragon hunting," Stiles yelled anyway, then turned to Derek and Scott. "The nerve. I mean he comes in here and tells us he found a dragon -- and oh, hey, dragons exist, by the way -- and then tries to get out of fighting it?"

"Peter's never been much for fighting," Derek said. He came around the table to lean over Stiles' shoulder and look through the bestiary with him.

"Well he still better be here," Stiles huffed. "And someone needs to call the puppies."

"What are we going to do about the witch?" Scott asked before Derek could grouse about Stiles making dog jokes again, his phone already out.

"The witch can wait," Derek decided for them.

Stiles almost started to argue, but the fire department has been called out to the preserve behind what used to be the Hale house four times in the past two weeks. When they'd thought it was just delinquent teenagers starting the fires, that had been one thing. But he didn't want firemen getting hurt, and the witch wasn't really doing anything all that suspicious. They just wanted to talk to her, for crying out loud.

"The witch can wait," he agreed, earning a glare from Derek. What, he still had a say in the matter. Three of them in the room meant three votes, and Derek knew that.

"Okay," Scott said, sounding kind of relieved. After the fiasco of the last witch that came through Beacon Hills, Scott wasn't too fond of dealing with them. Stiles couldn't blame him. Being turned into a frog for a week probably hadn't been any more fun than having to explain to Mrs. McCall what had happened to her son had been.

THEN

When Stiles came back from the final showdown with the Alpha pack he had three perfect scratches down his back that needed forty stitches, a broken left arm, a concussion the size of Canada, and a gnawing worry in the pit of his stomach.

"Am I going to turn?" he asked Deaton after the hospital, after he had convinced his dad that it was a car accident and sacrificed his jeep to the cause. Scott had needed to give him a ride over on the back of his dirtbike, and it turned out that clinging to Scott's back with one arm and stitches pulling at his back was harder than he had expected. He was already wondering if he could call his dad to come pick him up or if he would want to know why Scott had taken him to work of all places and-

"Most likely not," Deaton said, patting his shoulder soothingly. "I doubt, in the heat of battle, there was enough intent to turn you."

"Oh." Stiles breathed out shakily. "Good."

A dark shape peeled itself out of the corner and Stiles let out a -- manly! -- squeak before he realized it was just Derek. He glared at Scott for not mentioning that Derek was lurking in the room, but Scott just mouthed back a "sorry" and shrugged. Useless! What was the point of being friends with a werewolf if they didn't warn you that Scowly McGrouchypants was hiding in the room?

"He didn't turn you," Derek said, his voice low. There were livid red scratches on his face and he had a black eye. Stiles knew that there were more bruises and torn flesh beneath his clothing that would take time to heal because they were made by Alphas. It couldn't be comfortable, standing in the cold vet's office when Stiles was pretty sure he had heard Derek's knee crunch at some point during the last fight, and he did not want to think about what standing on that must have felt like.

Derek was staring at Stiles' neck, where the very tip of the longest scratch could just be seen peeking out from under his shirt. "I'd be able to smell it."

"Oh, good," Stiles said. "I said that already, but it is. Good. I'm glad. I'm never getting in the way of an Alpha fight again, cross my heart. When you tell me to stay home I'll stay home, safe in bed, where no one wants to claw me open or turn me into a werewolf."

Derek growled, looking more murderous than usual.

"And I'm going to shut up now, I think," Stiles finished quickly and clamped his mouth shut.

"About getting in the way of Alpha fights," Deaton said, crossing to the other side of the examining table they were all standing around. "If you're going to continue to be involved with werewolves, Stiles, you're going to need to learn how to take care of yourself."

"I can take care of myself just fine!" Stiles said. Scott and Derek were both looking at him like they didn't believe him, but that was their problem, not his. "I got out of that mess with barely a scratch on me! Compared to everyone else."

"Yeah, because we protected you," Scott the traitor said. "I really think you should listen to Deaton."

And that wasn't fair. Stiles didn't ask to be the weak link in his friendships, when it came to the actual fighting part of living in a town that seemed to attract magical creatures like New York apartments attracted cockroaches.

"Are you trying to blame me for-" he started, gesturing to Scott's arm and torso, and meaning the careful way he was carrying himself so he didn't reopen the wounds that were just beginning to close.

"No!" Scott said, looking taken aback. "That's not what I meant at all!" He turned his hurt puppy eyes on Stiles, the ones that he had never been able to resist that had gotten him into more trouble than he could count. "How could you even think that?"

"The point," Deaton broke in before either of them could get wound up more, "is that Stiles needs to learn how to fight. If you were part of an established pack, you would be in training with the other wolves."

Ouch. Harsh. Stiles watched Derek flinch at the dig and felt a twinge of sympathy for him.

"I didn't think-" Derek muttered.

"I know what you didn't think," Deaton broke in. "But clearly you were incorrect and now Stiles needs to learn to fight. There's an ill wind blowing. Beacon Hills isn't going to stay the idyllic California town it has been in the past."

Stiles snorted, but his boundless curiosity -- it was his best quality -- had him asking, "How do you know the wind is ill? What does it feel like? Can I learn to sense this ill wind thing?"

Deaton laughed and said, "In time."

"Shouldn't you be teaching Stiles?" Scott asked, and thank God for Scott, because Stiles was carefully not thinking about having to learn to fight from Derek. "I mean, shouldn't he be learning magic? You said he had a spark, right?"

"Magic," and Deaton paused there to let the word sink in, "is not always as helpful as it seems. Stiles will need to know how to fight with both tooth and claw."

Stiles raised his hand, grimacing at the pull across his back. "Stiles is right here, you know. What if I don't want to have to register my hands as lethal weapons?"

It turned out what he wanted didn't matter.

NOW

"Where did you think you would go?" Derek asked when Peter slunk back into the apartment later that evening, after everyone had left.

"No need to be cruel, dear nephew," Peter said, smirking as he sat down on the stairs leading to his room. "Unless you're still in a stone-throwing mood? I do have other places I could be that are less... crowded."

Derek grimaced at the truth of it. When he rented the apartment, he had been planning on it being a place for him and Isaac to sleep. He hadn't expected Peter to move himself in, hadn't expected Cora to be alive, and even with Isaac living with Scott now, it was a two bedroom apartment housing three people plus the rest of the pack a lot of the time.

It didn't help that Cora... Cora was a teenager. Cora should have been in school a year ahead of Isaac. She should have graduated and been off at her freshman year of college, partying and doing things he never wanted to think of his baby sister doing.

Instead, she was, well. Stiles once accused him of never progressing beyond his teenage years emotionally, and maybe he was right, because he didn't think that he was able to deal with Cora being a rebellious teenager. Especially not when she liked Peter better than him, was more willing to listen to Peter than him, looked up to him as something other than a complete disappointment.

Something twisted uncomfortably in his stomach.

"About that," he finally said after long minutes of Peter staring at him coolly. "I know that Cora likes you better," he ground out. "I know it goes against your new nature, but try not to be a bad influence."

Peter put a hand to his chest with an exaggerated "Me?" expression on his face. It made Derek slightly sick, because he wasn't quite sure if Peter was putting it on or really didn't consider himself a horrible influence. Sometimes, sometimes he really missed his old Uncle Peter.

"I think you have the two of us confused." Peter smiled pleasantly at him. "After all, I'm not the one who would be teaching her to solve all her problems with murder."

He controlled his flinch, although just barely. "Only because there's no one left for you to murder."

"Now that's where you're incorrect." Peter smiled at him, his sharp teeth glinting in the light. "There's always the little annoying one attached to Scott. Besides, if I got started again i don't know where I'd stop."

Derek was across the room in a flash, claws digging into Peter's neck as he pinned him against the stairs. Blood trickled down the side of his neck to drip softly onto the stair. He snarled in Peter's face, but Peter didn't even look mildly concerned.

"Ohhhhh," Peter said, drawing out the syllable. "I see."

"What?" Derek spat. "You see what?"

"Nothing," Peter said, his voice wheezy and strangled from Derek tightening his fist around his neck. "Nothing at all."

"If you touch any of my pack," Derek said, tightening his grip until Peter made an involuntary thick noise in the back of his throat, "you will wish I was kind enough to burn you alive."

Peter let out a choked laugh and forced out, "Spending time with teenagers has made you think you're more frightening than you truly are. I remember you in diapers."

Derek growled and threw Peter down the stairs. He crashed into an end table, sending the table flying backward and the pamphlets on it fluttering across the floor. "I'm not that person anymore."

"One would hope not," Peter said, looking up at him from where he had sprawled on the floor and making no move to protect himself. "At that age you piddled on the floor like an unhousebroken pup and tried to hide it from Talia."

He had to remind himself not to show weakness in front of Peter, not to stalk out or throttle Peter or do any of the dozens of things he would have done a year ago had someone dared to bring up his mother like that. He had learned restraint, and the sooner Peter realized he could no longer goad him into reacting the sooner he would stop reopening the yawning chasm in Derek's heart with well-placed barbs.

"If you're done demonstrating what a cool and collected person you've become in my absence," Peter said as he pushed himself to his feet, "I'd like to go upstairs now."

Derek graciously moved away from the stairs and motioned for Peter to go. After he was safely out of sight in the bedroom he'd chosen as his the week after Derek rented the apartment, Derek righted the end table and sighed at the way it wobbled on its feet now. Just one week. He'd like to go just one week without someone breaking something in the apartment.

He sighed again and started collecting to the GED pamphlets he'd gotten for Cora to put them back.

THEN

"I don't get why I can't just use a gun. I already know how to use a gun. I'm even a pretty good shot and I bet Chris could get me something really cool."

Derek did not sigh at Stiles' obsessive complaining, although it wasa a near thing. He was considering going to Chris to get Stiles a gun just to shut him up, even though he was sure it would end in disaster and the Sheriff arresting him yet again. This time, he would make it stick, Derek was sure of it. Three strikes and you're out.

"No guns," he grunted. "Still don't want you accidentally shooting one of us."

"Come on!" Stiles said. "I would never do that, I told you. My dad's the sheriff, in case you forgot. I've been getting lectures on gun safety since I could walk."

"How are you going to explain carrying around a loaded weapon to your dad?"

"How am I going to explain carrying around a giant mountain ash pole?" Stiles asked, shaking the quarterstaff they were trying out today.

"Tell him it's your new lacrosse stick," Derek said, not smirking at the way Stiles gaped at him like he couldn't possibly be that dumb.

"First of all," Stiles said, "it's called a crosse. Second... you know what? I can't. I can't even with you right now." He spread his legs shoulder width to get a more stable footing -- at least he had finally learned that -- and only almost dropped the stick when he twirled it in the air. "Come at me, bro."

"I'm not your bro." They were standing in the clearing in front of the bulldozed remnants of the Hale house. Derek was almost able to buy it back from the county, they just needed to finish clearing the land first. It was still the perfect place to train the betas, and now the humans.

Stiles was terrible at fighting, to no one's surprise. It didn't help that half of the time, learning to fight with anything involved both of them watching YouTube videos and then trying to mimic them, with Derek critiquing his form and Stiles getting more and more frustrated until he quit in a huff.

It turned out he was terrible at the quarterstaff, in truly alarming ways. Derek had never seen someone trip themself with the stick, and he used to have a cousin who had all the grace of an elephant and was determined to be Little John when she grew up.

It almost didn't hurt to think about her anymore.

"That's it," Stiles said, flopping on the ground. "No more giant sticks."

Derek put his claws away and sat down next to him. He gingerly patted Stiles on a sweaty shoulder before snatching his hand back when Stiles turned to look at him. He shouldn't have done that. "Maybe we should just settle for you not getting in the way."

"No way man!" Stiles glared at him. "There's got to be something out there that I can use since no one will let me near a gun -- which I'm not giving up about, by the way, I'm just lulling you into a false sense of security here."

"No guns," Derek said wearily.

"Of course, of course, no guns, no flamethrowers, no swords, no fun." Stiles wiped a hand across his face and sat up to chug out of the water bottle he had next to him. "Okay, how about we try the flail next? We're running out of ridiculous medieval weapons, so something better stick."

An hour later, and Derek was sporting some pretty good bruises that would take a while to heal. "How are you not hitting yourself with that thing?" he asked while Stiles whirled the spikey ball in a circle.

"Beginner's luck?" Stiles asked, grinning at him.

The flail stuck.

NOW

Cora was doing a final rep of left-armed pushups when Peter walked in the door. Derek was out scavenging the forest with all his little minions, looking for the dragon nest. His voice in the back of her head told her to be wary of Peter, to not let her guard down around him.

She didn't trust Peter, no. But then, she didn't really trust Derek, either. Neither of them were the people she remembered growing up with. She wasn't sure if she liked the new versions of either.

She rolled over and sat up, grimacing at the burn in her muscles. She caught the water bottle Peter lobbed at her in one hand and took a long swig of it before capping it and setting it aside.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I can't just want to enjoy the company of my only niece?" Peter looked sincere, but...

"No," she said.

"Ah, well, I'll leave it to you to figure out then. Think of it as a mental exercise."

He moved to the kitchen, pulling out the beginnings of something for lunch. She stood up and moved to hover by him, watching him put together a pastrami sandwich.

"Are you making one of those for me, too?" she asked.

"If you want," he said, getting out more sandwich meat and bread.

She sat at the table and traced a gouge in it with her finger. She remembered making it, early last year, flipping the table over and throwing it at Derek in a fit of anger after he tried yet again to replace her dad.

"Derek thinks I should get my GED," she said to the table.

"Derek thinks a lot of things," Peter replied, sliding a sandwich in front of her. After a moment he added, "I'm surprised the Sacramento pack didn't make you finish high school."

"Pamela didn't make me do much of anything," she said, and it was true. After escaping the burning house and running far, far away, just like Peter had told her when he pried the basement window open just enough for skinny eleven year old to squirm her way out, she made her way to the city and took the first bus to her cousins in Sacramento. Where her mom had always told her to go if anything happened.

She ate silently until half of the sandwich was gone, then muttered, "I don't think I can be the person he wants me to be."

Peter hmphed. "Derek wants us both to be the same person we were before the fire. Neither of us can ever be who he wants. We should both stop trying and be our own person."

"Do you want to be?" she asked, the words burning in her throat. "The same person, I mean. Do you want to be the person he wishes you still were?"

"The sooner Derek realizes he can't get back what was lost, the sooner we will all be happier people," Peter answered. He pushed his half-empty plate away. "Fire is the only thing that can permanently mark a werewolf. He should have learned that he'll never get his baby sister back unscarred, and be happy with the lovely young woman you grew up to be."

She hid her smile behind her sandwich.

THEN

The first thing Stiles did was buy a safe. Derek had said no guns, but what he probably meant was "I don't know how to use guns so you can't either because I'll be too jealous." He couldn't buy his own guns though, and his dad would definitely notice if something went missing from the safe downstairs, so that option was out. He only knew one person that might consider giving a teenager a gun.

He went to see Chris Argent.

"I'm out of that business. Again," Chris said once Stiles explained why he was standing on the Argent doorstep.

Stiles rubbed his hands on his pants, feeling nervous sweat gathering on the back of his neck to drip down his shirt collar. He knew that Chris wasn't his father, knew that his Code expressly forbid killing harmless humans, but he also knew that Chris would kill all of his friends if he got half a chance.

"You're still in the arms business, though, right?" Stiles asked. "And you know why I want a gun, that I'm not just some kid fucking around."

"You don't know what you're getting into." Chris sounded tired, the shadows under his eyes lending credence to the exhaustion in his voice.

"I do." He did, too. He knew exactly what he was getting into, and that was why he wanted a gun. He was human, he was breakable. The flails he'd had made custom -- that Derek had paid for, and Stiles still couldn't get over that because they were expensive, and why was Derek buying things for him, Derek didn't even like him, really -- were good for emergencies, but he wanted to stay as far away from the fight as possible. He didn't want more scars to go along with the pink, freshly-healed skin on his back.

"You don't. You're a kid, Stiles." The "just" was unspoken, but there, and it made the hair on the back of Stiles' neck bristle.

"I do. I know I don't want to be getting in the middle of fights where I can get hurt, and I know I'll never be as good as Allison with a bow. A gun is the next best option, and my dad's been taking me to the range since I was seven." He paused to take a breath, and then continued. "I can either get a gun from you, a person I know is basically trustworthy, or I can head down to Skinner Street and see what I can get there."

"Jesus," Chris swore. It didn't take much arguing after that to convince him to at least let Stiles demonstrate his skill, and it didn't take much more arguing after that to get his very own .22 caliber semiautomatic, a box of wolfsbane bullets, and a box of iron bullets.

"Just in case you run into fairies," Chris had said.

Fairies. That was all he needed. Motherfucking fairies.

He put everything in the safe, including both flails. They were good workmanship, he thought. Mountain ash handles, an iron chain and ball on one (he had been joking at the time when he'd told Derek it was in case they ran into fairies; he hadn't known it was a real possibility, thanks Chris), a silver chain and ball on the other.

When Derek asked why he needed two, he'd said, "All the better to maim you with my dear," and winked.

Derek had turned away, but wasn't fast enough to hide his smile.

NOW

The dragon was nothing like Stiles was expecting. He had expected a beast the size of a house, with scales the size of dinner plates and the toughness of iron. He had expected a fierce and fiery monster out of legend, with teeth as long as his forearm and claws sharp enough to cut through steel.

What they found at the mouth of a cave -- a cave! He was definitely exploring that once the dragon was dead because there might be treasure -- was an animal the size of a horse. It had four legs with sharp claws, sure, but they didn't look like they could rend metal.

Fierce and fiery was right, though, which the werewolves found out as soon as they charged in to take it on. Stiles stayed back, watching as the small clearing in front of the cave was soon a roiling mess of fur and claws and flame. Peter hung back too, standing still at the edge of the clearing. Stiles kept half an eye on him, just in case, but he didn't seem to be doing anything. Just staying there and watching, probably waiting for an easy opening to run in and seize all the glory.

Stiles snorted with disgust at the thought and turned back to the fight in progress.

Someone, Isaac it sounded like, yelped and bounded away from the fight, arms folded around his stomach like he was holding in his internal organs. Stiles really, really hoped that he wasn't.

###

The fight wasn't going well. Derek heard Isaac stumble away with a yelp as the dragon kicked him in the stomach with its claws fully extended. Boyd was in his place in a flash, slashing a line down the dragon's flank before he had to dodge a spray of fire. The dragon snaked its neck out and grabbed him by the arm, shaking him like a dog with a chew toy and tossed him into the trees.

Derek could feel his heart pounding, not just from the exertion. This was the closest he'd come to any fire since the night his family burned. The sweat dripping down the back of his neck was cold, and he could feel his hands start to tremble. He didn't have time for that.

He forced the feelings down where they couldn't hurt him. Cora dashed in, swift on her feet like always, and slid under the dragon to slash at its soft belly. Before it could get her she was out the other side and running. It followed her movements, chest puffing out as it prepared to release another burst of flame.

"Cora, down," Derek yelled through a mouthful of fangs. She dropped and rolled to the side as a jet of flame burned through the air where she had been.

He and Scott both flew at the dragon at the same time. Scott landed on its back and ripped into the flesh back there. Derek dug into its neck, slashing at its throat and feeling the pliant flesh peeling away beneath his fingers. The dragon let out a cawing scream and twisted around, unsure of which of them to deal with first.

It rolled, crushing Scott beneath it. Derek dug into its neck, trying to drag it off of Scott while Cora leapt on its thrashing tail and tried to help. Her grip wasn't strong enough, and she went headfirst into a tree, landing in a crumpled heap near Boyd.

Derek could hear Stiles rushing down the embankment, the chains on his flails rattling. Scott was groaning underneath the dragon, Peter was god knew where probably laughing while he watched them slowly die, and the dragon itself was screeching like a demon. The sound went straight through Derek's skull.

It was distracting enough that he almost didn't notice it when the dragon's front claws caught on his shirt. It pulled him in as he howled and tore at its arms, trying to get free before it could get its hind legs under him and start tearing away.

He could feel its chest expanding beneath him, the heat within it burning against his back. He doubled his struggles, trying to tear himself away. He didn't want to die like that. He didn't want to burn alive like his family. He had to get away, had to-

He almost didn't register the first crunch of one of Stiles' flails crunching into the dragon's skull. The sudden lack of screeching was what brought Derek out of his panic. The second crunch was loud in the sudden silence and the dragon went limp, letting Derek tumble off of its body.

Stiles was panting, the front of his body spattered with bright red blood. He stood there, a flail hanging limply from each hand, looking like an avenging god.

Derek turned his thoughts away from that. He dragged himself upright and tried to roll the dragon off of Scott. It was heavier than it looked, more mass than it should have had.

"Peter," he yelled to the only werewolf who wasn't hurt. "Come help me."

But when he looked up, Peter was gone.

THEN

When all was said and done, when the Alpha pack had breathed its last breath, when Deucalion had monologued his last evil monologue, Derek sought out Isaac after school let out. He picked him up in the Camaro and just drove aimlessly for a while.

The silence stretched out between them before Derek finally said, "You understand why I had to... do what I did."

The steering wheel creaked under his fingers as he talked, his fists clenching automatically. Maybe he should have waited to have this talk; maybe he should have done it after things had a chance to settle down, or maybe even never. He could have left Isaac to his new fairytale life and just... left him alone. It would probably have been safer for him, at the very least.

"You mean why you threw me out knowing I had no place to go, threw a bottle at my head like my dad used to do? That?" Isaac's voice wasn't cold, but Derek flinched like he'd been burned anyway.

"Yes." He cleared his throat. It felt like a lump of food was stuck there and wouldn't go down. "That."

Isaac was quiet when he said, "You're sure it wasn't that you suddenly had real family again?"

"You're- You were pack, Isaac." He hated how his voice broke on the "were." "Pack is family. Family is pack. There's no..." He took a deep breath, stopping himself. "No, no matter what I said at the time, it wasn't because Cora is still alive."

Isaac nodded, hopefully accepting that. "You could have just told me, you know. Said, 'Isaac, the Alpha pack is trying to get me to murder my pack, and I'm scared I'm going to do it' or something. You didn't have to make it seem like it was my fault." His voice was tiny at the end, a scared little boy voice that made Derek want to claw open everyone who ever hurt him, starting with himself.

"I know," he said. "I shouldn't have... Look, I wanted to tell you that, now that the Alpha pack is dealt with if, if you wanted to..."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Derek wanted to take them back. He wanted to never have asked, never have opened himself up for the feeling of stupidity and rejection that he was sure was coming with every passing second that Isaac was silent.

"Look, Derek," he started, and Derek knew what was coming, could feel the bile rising in the back of his throat. "It's just, Mo- Mrs. McCall has been great to me, and said that I can stay as long as I want, and..."

"No, it's okay," Derek forced out before he could go on. "I understand."

He did; that was the worst part. If he were Isaac, he doubted that he would even be speaking to him, never mind trying to let him down easy. He knew that it was too much to expect to be forgiven, to-

"It's not because I'm still mad," Isaac said, twisting his hands together. "I get it, I really do. I don't agree with how you handled it but I get why you thought you had to send me away."

Derek nodded numbly, turning down a side street so he could turn around and head back to drop Isaac off at the McCalls'.

"But I can- Can I still be- I mean, I know I'm part of Scott's pack, now, but-"

"Yeah," Derek said, swallowing. His throat was too dry. "I mean, it's never been done before, but if there can be a pack of alphas, why not a wolf in two packs?"

"Yeah," Isaac said, his smile blindingly bright. "Yeah, let's make it work."

NOW

Stiles waited until he was sure that everyone was okay, then muttered, "I'm going to check out the cave," and slipped away.

That counted as telling them where he was going, right? They were werewolves, they had super hearing. They could have heard him, he didn't know!

The little flashlight on his keychain didn't do much to alleviate the gloom inside the cave. It was dark, and kind of musty, and he was pretty sure that he was walking on bat shit. It was kind of gross. But there might be treasure, and that made up for it, kind of.

There was a cheeping sound from further back in the cave. Was that what bats sounded like? He really hoped they weren't going to drop some guano on his head. That would be gross. There were plenty of werewolves outside to come to his rescue if he got in trouble, so he followed the cheeping sound deeper into the cave.

The beam from his flashlight glanced off something white as he was sweeping it across the floor. When he focused the light on the white thing again, he realized it looked an awful lot like a piece of an eggshell. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he followed the little trail of eggshell with his flashlight, stopping when he came to what looked like a nest.

In the nest, was a baby dragon, wet like it had just broken out of its egg. It saw him and let out a high pitched cheeping noise, the noise he had been following. This was oh so much worse than treasure.

"Hey little guy," he said, kneeling beside the nest. "Or girl, I don't really know how to tell dragons apart."

He reached out slowly to pet it, and it bumped its wet head against his hand and made a mrrrr sound. He was so totally, and completely fucked.

"I guess that was your mom we killed out there," he said, a twinge of guilt filling him. "Sorry about that. But you didn't really know her, did you? You look like you just hatched."

It mrrred again and yawned, its mouth empty of teeth. Babies didn't have teeth when they were just born, right? It wasn't like he had a deformed dragon there, did he?

The baby dragon -- dragonlet? Dragonling? Something weird like how baby swans were cygnets? -- tried to take a step forward, and it squawked and tumbled out of the nest.

"Whoa there, little buddy," Stiles said. He scooped it up off the floor without thinking about how maybe he should not be picking up something that could breathe fire on him. It was surprisingly heavy, and warm. He could feel its heart beating rapidly where he was supporting its chest. Its mottled brown skin was soft against his hands, and it snuggled against him.

He was so fucked.

###

Scott couldn't believe this. He couldn't believe this! They had just fought and killed a dragon, and now Stiles, who was supposed to be the smart one out of the two of them, wanted to just take one home with him? Not cool!

"This isn't How to Train Your Dragon, Stiles," he said. He could be the voice of reason if he had to be.

"I know that!" Stiles said, cradling the baby dragon close to his chest. "But it's just a baby you guys, it hasn't done anything to deserve being murdered."

"It wouldn't be murder," Derek grumbled. "It's an animal, Stiles."

"Yeah, fine, whatever. Point is, finders keepers so I get to decide what happens to him and I decide no one gets to kill him." Stiles took a step back, bumping into Erica who had circled behind him.

"It is pretty cute," Erica said, reaching around Stiles to run a finger over its head. It pushed up into her touch, which Scott had to admit was kind of adorable.

But it was a dragon! And it was going to grow up and probably try to eat Stiles or something, like pet alligators did. That was why you had to flush them down the toilet when they got too big.

"You can't keep it," he tried. "Tell him, Derek."

But Derek, the traitor, was looking at Stiles with something close to fondness in his eyes, gross. He was going to cave, Scott new it. He was going to cave and then Stiles was going to get eaten or his house would burn down or-

"What if he burns down your house?" he asked, and went for the low blow. "What if your dad's inside?"

"First of all, Scott McCall," Stiles said, his eyes flashing with anger. The baby dragon made a distressed noise as he advanced on Scott with a pointing finger stabbing at him, "I wouldn't keep him at my house. How would I hide it when it grew up? Huh?"

"Then where would you keep it?" Scott asked. The only place with enough space to hide a dragon the size of a horse was at the old Hale place, and there was no way Derek would go for that. He would shoot Stiles down and then probably have to be the one to kill the baby dragon because Scott was pretty sure that none of the betas would be able to do it, the way they were looking at it. He wasn't sure if he could do it either, and Derek was the grownup.

"Well, I was thinking..." Stiles started, looking over to Derek.

"No," Derek immediately said, vindicating Scott. "Not the apartment."

Oh.

"No, not the apartment," Stiles scoffed. "They're almost done rebuilding your old house, though. I thought maybe when you guys moved in..."

Derek paused for such a long moment that Scott was certain he was about to shoot it down too. Then he would be the bad guy, instead of Scott, and that would be great! For Scott, that was. Not for Derek. He kind of spent a lot of time being the bad guy, and it was maybe not fair for him, if Scott really thought about it. Which he did not, because again, adult!

Then Derek said, "Fine. It's on your head if it burns the place down again, though."

Scott looked to Cora for help, Cora could be sensible sometimes, but she just shrugged at him.

"You're the best Derek, I mean it," Stiles said. "The absolute and utter best. If you ever need anything just ask and I'll be your man. I mean, within reason, because I'm the Sheriff's son so I can't-"

"Shut up, Stiles," Derek said. Scott bristled at that. Derek hadn't earned the right to be able to tell Stiles to shut up yet. He probably never would, so he could just knock it off.

"This is a bad idea," Scott said, just so that no one could say it was his fault if things went bad.

"Shut up McCall," Erica said.

It seemed like that was that. The pack had a new pet and there was nothing Scott could do about it.

###

Peter was at the apartment when they all got back. He was taking a casserole out of the oven, like he made them dinner all the time after they got back from fighting supernatural creatures.

Stiles had the baby dragon zipped up in his coat, sleeping, a warm weight against his chest.

"Where were you," Derek growled at Peter.

"You looked like you had everything in hand," he said, putting the casserole dish on top of the stove and taking off the oven mitts. "I thought I would be of more use back here."

"Sure you did," Derek said. "What are you up to, Peter?"

"Absolutely nothing, this time," Peter said. As soon as he stepped away from the little kitchen area, the other five werewolves descended on the casserole like they hadn't eaten for days. They didn't leave any for Derek or Stiles.

"And what do we have here?" Peter asked, coming to stand in front of Stiles.

Stiles unzipped the jacket just enough to show the baby dragon's -- and he really needed to come up with a name for it -- head. Peter took a hurried step back, bumping into Derek and then swiftly stepping around him.

"What," he said delicately, "is that?"

"A dragon," Stiles told him gleefully. He knew that keeping the baby was a great idea. Anything that made all the color drain from Peter's face was a great idea. "Do you want to see?"

He unzipped his jacket the rest of the way and pulled the baby out, advancing on Peter with it. He felt a strange thrill of power when Peter's jaw began to twitch.

"I don't need to see it," Peter said.

"I really think you should," Stiles said. "After all, it needs to get to know everyone in the pack."

"Then there's no reason-" Peter's hands shot out instinctively to grab the baby dragon when Stiles thrust it at him. He held it at arm's length as it woke up and squirmed in his grip. "It doesn't like me very much."

"It has good taste," Derek said from where he stood by Stiles.

Stiles could feel the warmth of him down his side. It was a little disconcerting, distracting, to have Derek so close, but not all together unwelcome. The baby started squawking, so he stepped forward to take it back from Peter, who thrust it into his arms and backed away.

"Scared of an itty bitty baby dragon?" he asked, grinning. Peter was the closest thing to a monster under the bed that they all had as grownups. Unless monsters under the bed were real, and that was a terrifying thought. Given their track record with monsters, it just might be.

"Of course not," Peter said, looking away like there was something interesting off to Stiles' side, and that was interesting in and of itself.

"Are you sure?" Stiles asked, ignoring the look that Derek was giving him. The betas and Scott were sitting around the table by the kitchen, all staring at them. That was okay, because he was going to need lots of witnesses if he was going to be poking the monster like that.

"I would think that I would know," Peter said, but didn't continue after that.

Stiles zipped the baby dragon back up in his jacket and nodded, saying, "Well you better get used to it because it's staying at the house as soon as it's finished."

Derek sighed and covered his face with his hands while Peter glared. "We'll see about that."

Stiles wasn't worried though. He was pretty sure he came above Peter in the pack hierarchy, even if Peter was kind of creepy and generally scary. Derek would totally side with him, right?

###

They may have underestimate the number of dragons hanging out in the preserve behind the Hale property.

In fact, they definitely underestimated the number of dragons in Beacon Hills.

They were better prepared this time, now that they knew how dragons fought. They had a plan and everything. That didn't stop Peter from freezing at the first sign of the new, bigger dragon.

He stayed stone still long enough for Derek to have to trudge back to him and say, "Are you in a coma again, or are you just trying to get out of fighting?"

After a moment, Peter snorted and shook his head. "We don't have time for you to be snide if we're going to deal with this little problem before lunch."

Derek could hear Peter's heartbeat rachet up at the first gout of flame, though. This dragon was bigger than the last one had been, and angrier.

"Oh fuck," Peter muttered. "Fuck fuck fuck."

He kept swearing under his breath, making Derek want to tell him to get a hold of himself. Tell him it was just a dragon, that he'd know they could be killed (easily compared to other things they'd come up against) if only he'd stuck around before.

He wanted to asked Peter what the hell was wrong with him, but he had a sick suspicion that he knew. He could see it in Stiles' eyes, too, the same suspicion as he watched Peter muttering under his breath to himself.

"What are you up to, Peter?" Stiles yelled across the rocky expanse between them. Distance always seemed to give him courage, seemed to make it so he forgot that he needed a filter on his mouth. "Is this some sort of distraction? Are you on the dragon's side, here? Because we can deal with you after, no problem."

"I'd like to see you try, little boy." Peter stopped swearing long enough to flash his fangs at Stiles. He looked away when Derek growled at him, smirking a little.

Even though they were prepared, even though they had the knowledge from the previous fight and had sat through an hour of Stiles forcing them to discuss strategy, this dragon wasn't any easier to kill than the last one.

The worst part was the middle, when the dragon aimed a gout of fire directly at Stiles, when he was too close to drop or roll out of the way.

"Stiles!" Derek yelled, leaping over the dragon like he could get there in time, like he wasn't about to see one of his nightmares come to life.

But the fire was spattering against an invisible shield inches from Stiles' outstretched arm, and Derek could see him muttering to himself as he held the spell in front of him.

The relief made him feel faint, and distracted him just long enough for the dragon to get its teeth into his leg and shake.

When the fight was over, Boyd's arm was hanging at the wrong angle and Derek's leg had a shard of bone sticking out of it, his femur snapped and jutting from a ragged wound. Scott knew how to reset dislocated shoulders and set about forcing Boyd's shoulder back into the socket. He was good at it,

"Oh this is so, so gross," Stiles said, dragging Derek's attention away from his pack and to his broken leg.

He could feel the bones trying to heal, but unable to until they were set back in alignment. It was an itchy, crawling sensation, that made gooseflesh rise over his body. He hadn't felt pain like that since he was seven and had fallen out of a tree, snapping his collarbone and breaking his arm. He could feel tears pricking at his eyes and turned his head away.

"You need to get the bone back in," he growled, his voice choked with pain. "It can't heal like this."

"Jesus Derek," Stiles said. "This is awful, this is like a hundred times worse than the time we had to dissect a fetal pig in bio."

"Shut the fuck up and do it," he said. "Straighten out my leg and push the bone in."

He couldn't stop himself from screaming, drowning out Stiles' words when he pulled the leg straight. The "oh god, I'm touching your bone, I'm touching your bone this is so not cool you are going to owe me so much for doing this, oh god" wasn't helping either.

Derek didn't pass out, but it was a near thing. He'd never live it down if he did. The itch of healing bone crawled its way up and down his leg, and he pulled himself to a standing position before it was fully done healing, using the pain to ground himself.

"Everyone back to the house," he ground out, looking around for Peter and not finding him anywhere.

THEN

Stiles was frustrated.

No, that wasn't it. Stiles had passed frustrated a long time ago and headed fully into being driven slowly insane.

Being the spark was one thing when all he had to do was believe. This, this was different. This was believing and memorizing and carrying around magic shit with him at all times just in case he needed it. This was having to painstakingly go through one of Deaton's books in the back of the vet clinic and memorize each and every spell in there.

You never knew what would turn out to be useful.

Now he was standing in front of Deaton, struggling to believe that the tennis balls he was gently tossing at him weren't going to hit.

"Don't forget the words," Deaton chided gently. "They give the belief a focus, like a magnifying glass."

Stiles grimaced and began muttering the words of the spell in some ancient Germanic language, sounding like he was coughing up a hairball or something. For his troubles, all he got was a tennis ball bouncing off his chest.

"I can't do this," he said, hating how it made him feel like he was letting the pack down each time a stupid dog toy bounced off his body. Deaton had told him he couldn't learn offensive spells until he had a few solid defensive spells down, and this was the first one.

"You have to believe, Stiles," Deaton said with infinite patience. "Be the spark."

"It's kind of hard to believe that just believing in something will make it come true," he said.

"It's not just your belief that makes this work. Centuries of magic users have poured their belief into this spell. You need to tap into that, and to do that, you need to believe yourself."

"Fine," Stiles muttered, scuffing his foot against the floor and straightening his back. He could do this. He would believe so hard that the stupid spell wouldn't know what hit it. He needed to know how to do this so he could protect his friends, so he could be useful in the pack. So he could shield-

Instead of hitting him, the tennis ball bounced off a shimmering shape in front of him and back into Deaton's hands. Almost as soon as Stiles noticed it, the shimmer popped with a soft noise.

"There, see?" Deaton said, smiling knowingly. "All you needed was something to believe in."

NOW

They all hobbled back to the house, torn up but healing, except for Stiles, who was unmarked. Physically, he reminded himself. Unmarked physically, because there was no way he wasn't going to scar mentally from having to force Derek's leg bone back into his leg.

"Hey there little guy," he said, running up to the playpen they were keeping the baby dragon in when no one was around to watch it. There were little scorch marks all over the pen from where it was practicing breathing flame. They were tiny, cute little spurts of flame, too weak to hurt anything yet, but Stiles would have to work on teaching it not to breathe flame in the house.

"You need a name, buddy," he said, lifting it -- him? Her? He wasn't sure but it felt wrong calling it an it so much -- out of the playpen and cuddling it in the crook of his arm. It chirped and blew out a happy little spurt of flame.

"Hey guys," he yelled into the house, "what should we name the dragon?"

"Pain in the ass," Derek yelled back. "Are you coming in for food or not?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming." Stiles tucked the baby dragon under his arm -- maybe he'd name it something awesome like Firedeath McWolfKiller -- and headed into the house.

Peter was inside the house, setting out the last of a massive spread of food, enough to feed six werewolves fresh from fighting and healing, and a human who hadn't had anything to do but watch that time.

"Here, hold this," Stiles said, thrusting the dragon into Peter's unwilling hands. It may have still been tiny, but its claws were sharp and it could take care of itself if Peter tried anything. Besides, he needed to test out this new hypothesis of his that Peter was working some kind of angle, with this pretend fear of dragons.

He watched, though, while Peter held it out at arm's length, muttering, "Nice dragon, good dragon, just keep your mouth closed dragon" to it.

"Are you trying to put a spell on my dragon?" he demanded. "Stop muttering."

Peter looked at him with disgust in his eyes, but he was so used to getting that look from him that he ignored it entirely in favor of heaping more pasta onto his plate.

That was when the dragon decided to let out a tiny, baby-sized stream of fire. Peter immediately dropped it, making a sound suspiciously close to a choked off scream.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Stiles snapped, dropping his plate and rushing around the table to scoop up the dragon, even though it seemed completely fine. Trust Peter to do the one thing Stiles hadn't even considered, because who would willingly drop a baby? "It's just a baby, asshole."

"That's pretty low, Peter," Scott called over, "dropping a baby animal like that just to further your scheming."

"What are you talking about?" Peter asked, not turning away from where Stiles was checking the dragon over for broken bones and bruising.

"You know," Scott said, waving his fork around while Isaac and Erica nodded. "Whatever you're plotting that pretending to be afraid of dragons is part of. We're not falling for it."

"I'm not afraid of dragons, you little shit." Peter said. Stiles could see his hands shaking a little. It was a nice touch! "It's not an act; I was burned alive. What the fuck is wrong with you people?"

He was so indignant, that it had to be an act. It had to be. Derek seemed to be staying out of the whole thing, but that was okay, because Stiles had his back. "How dare you use Derek's tragedy to back up your flimsy story."

"Harsh, man," Scott muttered from behind them.

Peter gaped at him briefly, his eyes flashing blue with rage. "Derek's tragedy? Derek's tragedy? Derek wasn't even in the house. My entire family died too, you know, but excuse me, it's Derek's tragedy, so I shouldn't even be talking about it."

"Yeah, well, you murdered-"

"Enough!" Cora shouted, getting up and thrusting herself between the two of them, her eyes flashing and teeth bared. "Nobody gets to own tragedy. Nobody gets to use our family's tragedy in a fight just to win points with the boyfriend, or whatever sick game you're playing, Stiles."

"Boyfriend?" he squawked. "What boyfriend?"

"And you," she turned on Peter and ignoring Stiles. "Man the fuck up and stop hanging around like a creeper whenever Stiles has his dragon out of that stupid playpen."

Instead of responding, Peter turned on his heel and walked out.

###

Peter knew he came back wrong. He knew it every time he said something and Derek looked at him like he was mourning someone long dead. He knew it every time Cora looked away when he did something the old Peter, the normal Peter, never would have done. He knew it every time he caught himself humming

But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner,
The cat came back, he just wouldn't stay away.

like some demented Stephen King character.

He tried not to look at the parallels between his situation and Pet Sematary, because if he started he would lose his already tenuous grip on sanity.

Sometimes he woke up and told himself that that day was going to be the day. He was going to be the uncle Derek and Cora remembered, be normal again. And sometimes he wanted to grab Derek's shoulders and just shake him and yell "Don't you see how hard I'm trying for you? You're all I have left."

Except of course Derek didn't see that, because his darling nephew was too caught up in his own angst and self loathing to pay attention to anything other people did for him. He had thought Cora would be a do-over, a chance to get everything right after screwing up everything with Derek so thoroughly.

He had thought that Cora would be more willing to be on his side. After all, maybe she would feel some anger toward Derek and Laura for leaving her to the Sacramento pack, for not coming to find her. But of course, she had grown up more sensible than that, and Derek... Derek had been Derek. It was only recently that Cora had stopped seeing him as the bad guy in their story. He hadn't even done anything to her, and Derek had taken away his chance at having something normal anyway.

His hands were still shaking, fine tremors running through them. Sometimes, his body's frailty, its unwillingness to obey, embarrassed him. He clenched his hands into fists, forcing them to still.

He didn't fully trust the pack, didn't trust them not to put him back in the ground as soon as he outlived his usefulness. He was doing well so far, finding ways to be useful, but it couldn't last. And he especially didn't trust Stiles, didn't trust him not to be the one to pull the metaphorical trigger. He was harder than Derek, the foolish child, gave him credit for, and he was the sheriff's son; he'd know how to make it look accidental.

He saw his own death watching him from the eyes of Stiles' dragon.

He knew he had to do something about it, had to ingratiate himself somehow. Stiles hated him with a burning passion, and that dragon loved Stiles. It followed him around the apartment whenever he brought it over and climbed up into his lap whenever he sat down. The only thing that matched the amount of love that the dragon had for Stiles was how Stiles doted on the dragon. So if he could just make himself useful to Stiles somehow, maybe this didn't have to end in flames yet again.

"What's this?" Stiles asked when Peter came back in and handed him a styrofoam cup of hot chocolate. "Is this poisoned? Did you do something to it?"

"It's just hot chocolate, Stiles," Peter said, a sinking feeling in his gut. "If you don't want it I'm sure someone else will be happy to drink it."

"What did you do to it? Did you put kanima venom in there?"

Peter looked around the room, hoping that someone -- Boyd, maybe, Boyd always seemed to be fairly indifferent to him -- would see how crazy Stiles was being and step in. But they were all looking at him with slight distrust too, and Derek had the audacity to raise an eyebrow at him.

"That's not how kanima venom works," he finally said. "Ingesting it wouldn't do anything."

"Oh ho!" Stiles said, pointing at him. "So you admit you thought about putting kanima venom in here."

Peter just stood there for a long, silent moment with the hot cup burning his hands. "I didn't- That's not- How did you get that out of what I said? Why does anybody keep you around?"

"Because I'm smart and I can tell what a dastardly plan is when I see it." Stiles looked smug as he gently stroked the baby dragon in his lap. Peter couldn't stop himself from watching his hand move back and forth, dread growing in his stomach.

"Why does my plan have to be a dastardly one?" he asked.

"When isn't it?" Stiles shot back.

"What are you planning, Peter?" Derek asked, coming forward to stand next to Stiles.

Derek always thought he was planning and scheming and coming up with was to ruin his life. It was flattering, it really was, but clearly Derek didn't realize just how much energy it took to scheme.

"I'm not planning anything, I just thought Stiles might enjoy a little pick-me-up." It was true. He had thought it would be an easy way to get into Stiles' good graces, showering him with small gifts. But he hadn't taken into consideration the level of distrust he had managed to earn in such a short time period.

A plan was starting to form, though. A stealthy plan. A cunning plan.

###

"Didn't we have a discussion about not knock- Whoa!" Stiles flailed his way off the bed, putting it between himself and the window. Where Peter was coming through. Peter Hale. Was coming through his window. And all of his weapons were in the safe under his bed where he couldn't get to them.

"I hope you know Derek will be very upset if you kill me. Very, very upset," he croaked out.

"Oh, I know," Peter said, smiling pleasantly at him. "You could say that's why I'm here."

Stiles did not whimper, because he was an almost grown man and men did not whimper. He maybe made a sound that was close to a whimper, but it was definitely not actually a whimper. If Peter was here to kill him to get Derek all riled up, there wasn't much he could do about it.

"Relax, Stiles," Peter said, not coming further into the room. "I'm not here to kill you. I'm not even here to hurt you. I'm here to make a deal."

That was not as reassuring as Peter clearly thought it was. "What kind of deal?"

"I will get you what you want if you keep it away from me," Peter said.

"What?" Stiles asked. "What? That doesn't even. What?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

And that was just unfair, because he definitely didn't. Unless... "I already told you I don't want to be a werewolf."

"Deliver me from teenagers," Peter muttered, rubbing his hands together. "I'm not offering you the Bite again. Just keep up your end of the bargain and I'll keep up mine."

Then he was out the window again before Stiles could ask any more questions or tell him that he didn't make deals with the devil or any of that.

Like with every conversation with Peter, Stiles turned over what he said in his mind, checking it from every angle for hidden traps. There were a lot of them in such a vague statement. He didn't know what Peter thought he wanted, but it couldn't be anything good. So he had to figure out what Peter didn't want him to do, to make sure he could do it so he didn't get any surprises from Peter.

There was a very small list of things that Stiles had that he could keep away from Peter. There was only one thing of Stiles' that Peter had ever shown any discomfort at being around, and that was his dragon. What, was he offended by dragons or something? Was he missing something? Was there some big dragon-werewolf feud that he didn't know about?

He resolved to talk to Derek in the morning.

THEN

"Didn't we have this discussion? About knocking?" Stiles asked from the chair at his desk, picking up the can of pens he'd knocked over flailing in surprise when Derek climbed through his open window.

"It was open," Derek said. Which, ha! That did not give him an excuse to just roll in like he owned the place.

"That's no excuse, what if I'd been busy?" Stiles asked, pretending that it was possible for him to be too busy doing something to have time for Derek and his ridiculous werewolf problems. It might have even been true. Maybe he had lots of homework, or something. Derek didn't know.

"You're never busy," Derek said, looking constipated. It was a look he often had when dealing with Stiles, and it made Stiles want to ask him if he was getting enough fiber or not. Could werewolves even get constipated? He filed that question away under Things To Ask Deaton because he was pretty sure Derek wouldn't actually know.

"Well I am now," he said, lying through his teeth. "So let's make this snappy. What deathly situation are you in that you need my help getting out of?"

"I don't- I'm not-" Derek's mouth snapped shut and he breathed hard through his nose. Score one for Stiles. "Hypothetically-"

"Whoa, whoa," Stiles said. "I'm gonna stop you right there. Is this hypothetically as in actually hypothetical, or is this hypothetically like that time I totaled my dad's car?"

"It's hypothetical," Derek said. "Purely hypothetical. If there were a bunch of fairies-"

"Oh my god," Stiles said, his mind already racing ahead to Derek's inevitable conclusion. "You want my help for real, don't you?" He almost couldn't contain his excitement.

"No," Derek immediately snapped, his eyebrows coming together in a glare. "That's- Well-"

"Do continue, then," he said magnanimously, making a sweeping gesture with his arm. Derek looked like he was thinking about tearing it off, so he quickly brought it back close to his body. There would be no arm tearing tonight, no sir.

"If there were a bunch of fairies that we needed to get rid of would you be interested in going with us," Derek muttered, still glaring at him.

"Wait, I'm confused." Stiles pushed away from the desk and leaned forward, elbows on his knees and chin resting in his palms. He was never going to let Derek live this down, ever. "Hypothetically, you want my help, but you don't want my help?"

Derek scrubbed his hands over his face and let out a sound that might have been a groan from behind them. When he dropped his hands, he looked Stiles in the eye for the first time since he entered the room. "Can't you just-"

"Make this easy for you?" Stiles interrupted gleefully, grinning toothily at Derek. "No. No I can not. I'm afraid I'm not sure I understood what you were asking. You'll have to repeat it, maybe a little louder."

Derek sighed, and looked at the window. In case he was eyeing it as an escape route, Stiles got up and went to casually stand in front of it. There, now he'd have to go through him to get out, and while he had no doubt that Derek would actually go through him to get out of the room if he wanted to, it would slow him down for a few precious seconds of extra teasing.

"So, what was that?" Stiles asked again.

"Would you like to come fairy hunting with me," Derek said stiffly, his back ramrod straight, not looking at Stiles, who was about to say of course because Derek looked really uncomfortable, but then he continued, grinding out, "Your skill with a flail and with magic is at the point where you might be useful."

If it were anyone else, anyone else at all, Stiles would think he was being asked out on a date. But this was Derek, and Derek was so far out of his league it was embarrassing to even be considering the thought.

"I'd be delighted to," he said, pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind. "Let me just get my things.

NOW

Derek woke up to someone banging on his apartment door. After a bleary moment of half-consciousness, he identified it as Stiles and groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes. It was too early in the morning to deal with Stiles and everything he entailed.

"Go away," he shouted.

"Don't make me use the spare key," Stiles shouted back through the door. "I know where you hide it."

"I regret every decision you ever made that brought us to this point," Cora yelled from her room. "Let him in so I can go back to sleep."

Derek dragged himself out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans. Stiles could deal with him being half dressed if he wanted to wake him up at such an ungodly hour.

He hauled open the door and stood in the middle of the open doorway so Stiles couldn't come in. "What do you want?"

"Uh." Stiles swallowed hard, his adams apple bobbing enticingly. "I wanted to come and apologize and tell you that I'll find somewhere else to keep my dragon. And also you should have said something, instead of just suffering in silence like the asshole you are."

"You're the asshole," he said automatically while he tried to parse what Stiles was saying. "And I don't mind the dragon."

Sometimes the smell of smoke coming from the little dragon turned his stomach, yes. But that didn't mean that he wanted it gone. It was a good way to make sure that Stiles came around on a regular basis.

He didn't want his thoughts going there.

Luckily, Stiles immediately short circuited all of his thinking by licking his lips and saying, "But Peter said..."

Of course it was Peter. Peter who hadn't come home the night before. Peter who was probably out there enacting some nefarious scheme of some sort.

"Do we have to have another conversation about not listening to anything Peter says?" Derek asked. "Has he been messing with you again?"

"No! I mean, yeah. I mean, maybe? I don't know. He was weird. He broke into my bedroom-"

"He was in your bedroom?" Derek growled, grabbing Stiles' shirt and pulling him close to see if he could smell Peter on him.

"Whoa, hey there!" Stiles shoved at him, and Derek forced his fingers to let go. Stiles just smelled like laundry detergent and sleep, anyway. "Easy on the sniffing, big guy. I didn't come down here to be molested."

"Of course not," Derek said, stepping back.

Stiles didn't take the movement as an implicit invitation in, like he usually would have. He shifted back and forth in the doorway before asking, "So, it's okay if I leave the dragon at the house?"

"Yeah, of course," Derek said. He waited for Stiles to say something, and when he didn't, added, "I'll talk to Peter, tell him to stay away from you."

"Thanks," Stiles said, a lightning quick smile passing over his face. "There's only one scary werewolf I let crawl through my window at night."

Derek tried to ignore the slow feeling of warmth growing in his gut.

"I'm just. Gonna go now," Stiles said after the silence had gone on for a whole five seconds. "Thanks."

"You said that already," Derek said. He felt a small, private smile crossing his face as Stiles turned away and walked down the stairs.

Instead of going back to bed like he really should, he climbed the stairs and banged on Peter's bedroom door. Peter had always been a heavy sleeper and not a morning person, and the person who came back from the dead was no different. He gave Peter three knocks to get up, then opened the door and went into the room.

"Wake up," he ordered, standing over the bed.

"Go away," Peter said without opening his eyes. "I won't be responsible for my actions if you don't."

"Wake. Up."

Peter blinked open his eyes and glared at Derek. Maybe it would have been effective at one point in time, but it wasn't anymore, not after all he had been through.

"It's early, Derek, and I need a lot more sleep than I used to, what with all the effort cleaning up your messes. What do you want?"

It was a low blow. Derek knew he had fucked up a lot, but it had been a while since he'd needed someone to come in and clean up his messes. He did just fine doing that on his own.

"You need to stay away from Stiles."

That got a reaction. Peter finally opened his eyes and sat up. "I didn't even do anything. Nothing happened."

"You were in his bedroom," Derek said flatly, his eyes hard.

"Oh, is that what this is about?" Peter asked, falling back against the pillows and pulling his blanket up higher. "You don't need to worry about that."

Except he did. He had to worry about everything where Peter was concerned. There was no day off from wondering if it was going to be the day that the man who used to be his favorite uncle snapped again.

"I don't believe you," he said, yanking the blanket down so Peter had to pay attention to him. "Leave Stiles alone."

"I'm just trying to help," Peter said, his voice petulant.

"I don't need your help," Derek said, hoping that would be the end of the matter. And then, because he would always wonder if he didn't know for sure, he asked, "We don't have a problem with dragons, do we?"

Peter looked at him sharply, then laughed. "Who told you that? Is Stiles messing with you again? Do I need to go talk to him?"

"No," Derek ground out and turned on his heel. He walked out of Peter's room and closed the door none too softly behind him. He didn't need Peter's mockery this early in the morning.

###

When Stiles came out of the house the next afternoon, the tires on his jeep were slashed. All four of them. With what looked like claw marks. He froze for a moment then dashed back inside the house. If this was a warning, he wasn't going to make it easy for whatever had done it to come pick him off.

The first thing he did inside was call Scott.

"You gotta get over here," he said. "Something slashed my tires."

"Who would want to slash your tires?" Scott asked, like Stiles would have the answer. Which he didn't, because no one he knew would want to slash his tires, not even Derek.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be calling you to come over here and help me figure it out with your wolfy superpowers."

"Okay, okay," Scott said. "I'll be there soon."

When Scott got there, he immediately made a face walking by the jeep and the first thing he said when he walked in was, "It smells like Peter."

"Why the hell is Peter slashing my tires?" Stiles asked. "What the fuck, now I have to buy new ones and I was saving that money for a new Playstation. Since someone broke mine."

Scott at least had the sense to look bashful. "I told you, it was an accident. I didn't know you could break a Playstation by throwing the controller at it."

"You knocked it off the TV stand!" Stiles flailed a little, because really, Scott should have known better than to throw anything at full strength in the house.

"I said I was sorry! And that I'd pitch in for a new one. What more do you want from me?" Scott turned on the puppy dog eyes, which was really unfair. No one could resist those, and he knew it.

They'd rehashed this argument multiple times since the fateful day that the Playstation died. "Nothing bro, you're right, I'm sorry. I'm just freaked out that Peter was here and I didn't know it. What if my dad caught him slashing the tires?"

"Yeah, you should probably talk to Derek about him," Scott said, frowning a little. "He should have more control over Peter."

"I don't think anyone has control over Peter, man," Stiles said. That was another thing that scared him, knowing that Peter was such a loose cannon.

He motioned Scott to the kitchen, to the fridge, knowing that he was probably hungry. Then he got out his phone and called Derek.

"What's wrong?" Derek asked instead of saying hello like a normal person.

"Why does something have to be wrong?" Stiles asked, a little bit miffed even though, well, really the only time he called Derek was when something was wrong. "Maybe I just wanted to hear the sound of your voice."

"What's. Wrong?" Derek asked again. Okay, he was not amused by Stiles, that was nothing new.

"Peter slashed my tires. I mean, I think Peter slashed my tires. My tires are slashed, by something with claws, and Scott says it smells like Peter." He forced himself to stop talking, putting a hand over his mouth to make sure no more talk of slashing or tires or Peter escaped.

Derek was silent for so long that Stiles almost asked if they got disconnected. Finally, he said, "Are you sure it was Peter and not just some delinquent with a knife?"

"Wow, bringing out the ten cent words, didn't know you knew what delinquent meant-" Derek growled, and Stiles was moving on totally of his own accord here, definitely not influenced by the rumble coming from the other end of the phone. "They're obvious claw marks. I think I know what the difference between claw marks and a knife is by now. Why is your uncle slashing my tires?"

He absently rubbed at his shoulder, where the scars from the final showdown with the alphas big bad started.

"I don't know." Derek sighed, sounding pained. "Did you piss him off recently?"

"No I- That's not- What are you even-" Stiles spluttered. He could not believe the audacity of Derek, trying to blame the victim of a cruel tire slashing. "You know I'm going to have to buy brand new tires now, that's going to take a huge chunk out of my-"

"I'll pay for it," Derek said. "And for the tow. Same garage?"

"Y- yeah," Stiles said, the offer making him offbalanced and unsure. Derek didn't really do nice things for people, so why was he offering to buy new tires for Stiles?

"Call the tow truck, I'll meet you there."

Part of him wanted to argue, say that he had things he needed to do and Derek was going to have to take him on his errands because it was basically his fault that Stiles didn't have a working car.

"Okay," he said instead, and, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Derek mumbled and hung up on him. Rude.

Stiles couldn't stop the small smile that crossed his face, though.

###

Derek hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment. He could hear Stiles in the back of his mind telling him that it was rude to just hang up on people like that. Could hear him telling him that he needed to have better manners if he wanted to be treated like a real person.

He shook his head to dislodge the thoughts and grabbed his jacket. The tow truck would take a while to get there, but he could pick up some food for both of them on the way.

He got to the mechanic's just as the tow truck was pulling in with the Jeep on its bed. Stiles hopped out of the truck's passenger side and immediately came over to him.

"For me?" he asked, grabbing the bag of takeout from Derek and rummaging through it. "Thanks dude, you really shouldn't've. I mean, you're already paying for the tires and all."

Derek could feel heat crawling up the back of his neck. "If you don't want it, I'll eat it," he said.

"No no no," Stiles said and clutched the bag to his chest. "Which of the drinks is mine? Gimme."

He made grabby hands, and Derek handed him a soda. "Go deal with your car."

Derek forced himself not to watch Stiles leaning over the counter to talk to the mechanic. He only took a glance or two at his ass, and definitely did not stare at it. Eighteen was a world away from twenty-five, and even if it wasn't, Stiles was going off to college in the fall. The majority of his pack would be moving in a few short months, to have lives outside of Beacon Hills. Lives that didn't include twenty-five-year-old recluses with dead families and burnt husks of uncles and little sisters that were-

"Whatcha thinking about?" Stiles asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Nothing," he growled, and trailed after Stiles, who went to the waiting area to sit down. Derek dropped into the seat next to him, and leaned against his shoulder a little, so he could talk quietly. "You need to stay away from Peter."

"Stay away from- Are you kidding me right now?" Stiles asked, his voice rising. At Derek's glare, he quieted down enough to hiss, "Are you seriously blaming the victim here? I'm not the one who invaded someone else's bedroom and made creepy promises, okay. That was all on him, and it was not cool. Believe me, I have no plans to start palling around with him, if that's what you're worried about."

"That's not- I didn't mean-" Derek stopped and huffed out a frustrated breath. "I just meant be careful. He could be..."

"Losing his mind again?" Stiles asked, his voice low and a little scared and sad. "Okay, okay, I'll stay away. Don't you have some alpha mojo you can use to get him to stay away from me? Or are your powers basically completely useless?"

Derek looked around quickly to make sure no one was near who could overhear them, and then said, "You've been watching too much TV."

"So they are completely useless then?" The grin Stiles aimed at him didn't quite take away the hurt the words caused, but it did something to lessen it so he could almost joke back.

"Not as useless as you," he said, wincing inside, knowing that Stiles could be sensitive about his place in the pack.

But Stiles just laughed and said, "Nice try," and changed the subject.

Later, back at the apartment, Derek sought out Peter in the area that could loosely be considered a living room.

"Stay away from Stiles," he growled, flashing his eyes red at Peter, who didn't even bother to look up from his book.

"Is that supposed to intimidate me?" he asked, still reading.

"Stay away from him," he repeated, not willing to rise to the bait.

"Did you have fun today?" Peter asked as he licked a finger and then turned the page.

He had; he almost always did when Stiles wasn't trying to impress someone and be as annoying as possible. He wasn't a bad kid to hang out with, and if it were another life, Derek thought that maybe they could have been friends.

He growled again, an almost subsonic sound, and walked away.

###

Scott was having a bad day. It was kind of unfair of him, because other people were having much worse days, judging by the number of phone calls that had come in from Deaton. But it was sad, and he didn't like being sad.

"Another one?" he asked, as Deaton made a sorrowful face at the phone and hung up.

"The McGready's champion poodle," Deaton said, nodding at him. "They'll be bringing her in soon."

"It seems like every animal around town that's pregnant is miscarrying," he said, twirling slowly in the office chair. It was lunchtime, and Stiles had brought him a peanut butter sandwich so he could talk to Deaton about his dragon. With all the phone calls, he hadn't gotten a chance to do that yet and was just leaning against the side of the front desk.

"It's an ill omen," Deaton said, nodding a little to himself.

"Really?" Stiles asked, pushing off the desk to stand up. "Things dying all over the place is an ill omen? Who would've thought of that!"

"Stiles," Scott hissed, flapping a hand at him. "Don't be rude."

"I'm not being rude," Stiles said, and then paused. "Okay, I am being a little rude. Sorry. But, I mean."

"It's all right, Stiles," Deaton said, coming out from behind the counter. "We're all a little upset today."

Scott nodded again, bringing the chair to a stop. It seemed as though everyone except for Deaton had woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. And they kept getting calls from people whose animals were miscarrying. At least no one had been calling with dead living animals, just unborn ones. But still! It was not a good day.

Deaton looked out the window and sighed a little. "There's a storm brewing."

Scott checked the window too, but the sky looked clear to him. Maybe Deaton knew more about the weather than he did, though. He wouldn't be surprised, because Deaton knew more about pretty much everything than he did.

"Is there a reason why we can never get a straight anything out of you?" Stiles asked. Scott could tell by the way he threw up his hands that he didn't actually expect an answer. The expression on his face was similar to the one he got when Derek has having a particularly uncommunicative day.

"Perhaps you are not asking the right questions," Deaton said.

Sometimes, Scott wondered if Deaton wasn't magically forced to keep from saying anything outright.

"So what causes animals to die?" Scott asked. It was a straightforward question, and he was sure that he wasn't going to get a straightforward answer.

"Many things," Deaton said, proving Scott right and making Stiles flail a little in distress. "I can tell you what it isn't easier than I could tell you what it is. It's the job of you and your alpha to discover what is doing this now."

The counter thunked as Stiles dropped his head against it hard. Scott could sympathise.

###

"Gross!" Stiles shouted after he spat a mouthful of milk back into the carton he had just taken a swig from. He could feel Derek glaring at him, but who cared? "I think I'm going to throw up."

Derek covered his nose, able to smell the soured milk from all the way across the room. He should have noticed it sooner, but he'd been distracted with moving everything to the new house. If some of the food had managed to go bad without him noticing, it was no big deal. Although how the milk lasted long enough to go bad in a house full of teenagers, he wasn't sure.

"That's what you get for drinking out of the carton," Derek said, coming over and pulling a second, unopened carton out of the back of the fridge and opening it. The smell had him reeling back and almost dropping the carton before he thought to hold his breath and dump it down the drain.

"Didn't you just buy that one?" Stiles asked over the glugging of the milk. He was eyeing the carton in his hand suspiciously, checking the date and sniffing at it again before making a face and holding it out at arm's length.

Derek plucked it from his hand, ignoring the warm brush of fingers against his. He didn't have time for that. "Maybe it was in the back of the car too long."

Stiles was silent for a moment as he tapped his fingers along the butcher block island in the center of the kitchen. "You know, sour milk is supposed to be a sign of witches," he finally said. "And there's that witch we were investigating before the dragons."

"I'm pretty sure that's just folklore," Derek said. It didn't make sense, witches souring milk.

"Maybe it only sours after they've been in the area for a certain period of time," Stiles said. "Like, maybe there's a grace period or something. Like with student loans."

"A grace period?" Derek asked, just to needle him, trying not to think about how the pack would be going off to college in the fall and leaving him behind. The grace period thing wasn't the most far-fetched idea he'd ever heard, although it still didn't sound all that likely.

The dragon chirped at their feet, rearing up to balance against Stiles' leg. Its tail whipped back and forth happily when Stiles bent down to skritch the top of its head.

Derek tried really hard not to think about those hands on him.

"Hey buddy," Stiles said, reaching down to scoop up the dragon. "Oof, you're getting heavy." The dragon chirped again and butted its head against the underside of Stiles' chin. It was almost sickeningly adorable.

Derek had to get out of there before he did something that everyone would regret. He chucked the two empty cartons into the recycling bin that Erica had insisted that they have and muttered something about taking the recycling out.

Stiles barely took the time to nod at him, busy talking to his dragon about what they were going to have for breakfast. Derek escaped out the kitchen door.

THEN

"Scott, hey Scott," Stiles whispered, stealthily reaching out and poking Scott with a pen. They were in history class, and Mr. Cayhill was droning on about the Salem witch trials. Who knew that you could make witch trials boring?

Although, Stiles wondered if hunters existed back then, and hunters were the ones who started the witch trials. Although, that assumed-

"Hey Scott, do you think witches exist?" he asked.

Scott, the newly good student, stopped scribbling in his notebook and turned in his seat to look at Stiles. Stiles grinned at him, raising his eyebrows and trying to make his face look as innocent as possible. He wasn't trying to distract his best friend from avoiding summer school again! He just... thought this was all incredibly boring as told by Mr. Cayhill, and that maybe Scott needed to be entertained a little too.

"Witches," he mouthed to Scott. "Witches."

Scott, frowning a little, shrugged, and whispered back, "You can do magic, can't you? Doesn't that make you a witch?"

And that... that was a good point. Was he going to be a target of the next witch trials, since history seemed to circle back around all the time? That would be the ultimate buzzkill. He was pretty sure burning at the stake would hurt a lot.

He shrugged at Scott, because he wasn't sure. Was he considered a witch? Was he just a guy who could do a little bit of magic? Was it even magic that he was doing? Deaton had said that he had a spark, but he hadn't defined what a spark really was in all of their training. Sure, he could create an impressive fireball if he concentrated hard enough, but was that magic or some kind of totally awesome science that he just didn't understand? After all, wasn't any sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic?

Oh god, he was giving himself a headache.

"You should ask Deaton," Stiles whispered back to Scott, who nodded at him and resolutely turned away to concentrate on the boring, boring, boring lecture.

He would ask Deaton, if Scott didn't.

NOW

Stiles was sitting on the couch in the living room of the new house, his dragon curled up between him and the couch arm, his laptop resting on his knees as he scrolled through the translated bestiary he and Lydia had been working on. They'd nearly got through it, just had a couple chapters left to go, and Stiles was hoping that what he was looking for was in either the chapters they had already done or one of the books sitting next to his feet on the coffee table.

"Stiles," Derek barked from the doorway. "Feet off the table. How many times do I have to-"

"You sound like my dad," Stiles said, scrolling down a little, and Derek broke off in the middle of what he was saying with a choked sound.

"I don't care who I sound like," he grumbled. "Get your feet off of there before you scuff the- oh god."

"See?" Stiles said, tipping his head back to look at him. Derek's stare almost made him shiver, it was so intent on him. "I bet you sound just like your-"

Derek's face closed off, just like that. Stupid. It was stupid bringing up his family, he knew that, why did he have to go and ruin everything when Derek had been in a good mood all morning?

"I didn't mean-" he started cautiously, but Derek waved a hand at him.

"It's okay," he said, coming over to sit down next to Stiles. The dragon made a questioning mrr sound, so Stiles pet its head until it went back to sleep. "What are you doing?"

"Going through the bestiary to see what they say about witches," he said. He could feel the heat of Derek soaking through his thin cotton shirt and warming his side. "It's not much so far, and I'm kind of worried that whatever we're looking for is in the chapters that Lydia hasn't translated yet but I figure if there's nothing in here there might be something in one of those books that Allison got from her dad, you know?"

He was running his mouth again, but he couldn't stop when Derek's thigh brushed his as he reached to the coffee table for one of the old books. There was a whole couch on his other side, why didn't he sit over there! Where Stiles wouldn't have to feel him and could pretend that this thing he had for Derek didn't exist?

"I'm not really finding much though," he said, grimacing. Derek started flipping through the book, even checking the back for an index like he knew what he was doing. "I don't think hunters really consider witches to be monsters, you know? I mean, I'm not really clear where, exactly, the line is for them where human switches to monster but-"

"Stiles," Derek said, jarring him with his shoulder. "Shut up."

Stiles swallowed, and then his mouth was opening again as he realized what he had been saying. "I mean, I don't think you guys are monsters! That's not what I meant, I meant that hunters-"

"Stiles," Derek said again, putting enough emphasis on the word that Stiles' mouth snapped shut. "I know, okay? I'm trying to read here."

"Okay," he said, because he just could not shut up. "I just wanted to make sure. Because I wouldn't want you to think that I mmf."

Derek's hand was over his mouth. Derek's hand was over his mouth. Derek's hand was- he was going to stop changing the emphasis on that sentence because Derek was saying something that he probably didn't want to miss considering Derek's surprisingly soft hand was covering his mouth.

"If you can't be quiet I'm going to kick you out, I swear," Derek was saying, and Stiles shook his head a little under his hand. He didn't want to be kicked out! He just wanted Derek to be less distracting, that was all. He swore that was all.

Derek's hand wasn't moving, so he did the only sensible thing a person can do when a perpetually grumpy alpha werewolf has shocked them into silence with a hand of their mouth. He licked it.

"Oh gross," Derek said, and immediately wiped his hand off on Stiles' shirt. "How old are you? Twelve?"

"Who even does that?" Stiles asked, nowhere near as worked up has his voice made him sound. His heart was thumping hard, but it was for a very different reason than the one that he hoped Derek was assuming.

"I do." Derek glowered at him. Like that was still effective, had ever been effective in the last six months. He wasn't scared of Derek anymore, no sir.

"Yeah, well," Stiles said, his mind drawing an unexpected blank. "Well that's what you get when you slap your dirty hand over someone's mouth. You get licked."

"I'll keep that in mind," Derek said, the corners of his mouth twitching like he was resisting the urge to smile. Stiles wouldn't be surprised if he actually was, since he seemed to think that having fun was like an affront to the memory of his family or something.

He settled back to his research, trying to ignore the itching knowledge that Derek was right there next to him, his elbow sometimes brushing Stiles' arm when he turned a page, their knees occasionally knocking together when one of them shifted a little on the couch.

It was nice, and warm on a chilly spring day, and Stiles soon found himself drifting off.

When he woke up, his neck was sore from the way it was bent so his head could rest against Derek's shoulder. Stiles, still half-asleep, flailed his way off the couch and it was only Derek's quick reflexes that saved his laptop from being toast.

"Did you know you talk in your sleep?" Derek asked mildly, setting the laptop on the coffee table and turning a page in the book he was still looking through.

Stiles could feel himself flushing and prayed that he hadn't said anything too embarrassing. "Whatever I said, you can't hold it against me, I was asleep and I don't control my mouth when I'm asleep, okay?"

"Some people might say you don't control it when you're awake, either," Derek said. He absently made room on his lap for the baby dragon to curl up, one hand resting on its back. Stiles couldn't help but stare at it.

"I have to go," he said, grabbing his laptop and stuffing it into his backpack. He needed to get out of there, and fast, before his brain made him say something that he really didn't want to say in front of Derek. He escaped out the front door and ran all the way to the jeep, his heart pounding.

###

"Hey, Lydia," Stiles hissed in study hall the next day. "Lydia. Hey. What are you doing?"

He stretched out as far as he could, trying to see over her shoulder, only to have her slam her hand down on the papers she was working on and then flip her notebook closed.

"What?" she hissed back at him. "I'm busy. What do you want?"

He hadn't thought this through, because he didn't actually want anything, other than to not be in study hall anymore, or maybe to have something interesting to do while he was in study hall, or something. Mostly he just wanted to bug Lydia until she paid attention to him, because old habits died hard or something.

He looked around to make sure no one was listening in on their conversation, then said, "You should come over some time and meet my dragon."

"Really, Stiles?" she said, her voice full of scorn. "I thought we were over this part of our relationship."

"What?" he squawked. "No! I mean. Literal dragon. It's a baby. I rescued it before the others could chop its little head off or something."

"Well I can't," she said, picking up her books. "I'm busy." Then she got up and moved to another desk on the other side of the room. Which was totally unfair because if she'd told him to leave her alone he would have! Probably!

That was weird, too. No one would ever accuse them of being friends, but usually Lydia didn't outright shun him anymore, not since he'd gotten over the epic crush he'd had on her. And it had truly been epic. Monstrous. The defining part of his life for, well, more than half of it. Which was kind of scary to think about.

He tried to see what she was back to working on over on the other side of the room, but it was too far away. All he could see were geometric symbol-type things, and those could be for any class. They could even be writing, for all he knew, since he couldn't quite see what she was-

He stretched too far out of his seat and fell over, his arms windmilling as he tried to regain his balance and failed utterly. He hit the ground with a jarring crash to the laughter of nearly everyone in the room.

"I'm good! I'm good!" He said, bouncing back to his feet. "Sorry, Mrs. Camden. Won't happen again."

He slid back into his chair. Maybe he would ask her after class, and see if they could finish working on the bestiary some time soon. It was so close to being completely translated, he could almost taste it. It tasted an awful lot like blood from where he bit his tongue when he fell.

###

If someone had told Allison three years ago that she was going to spend half her time hanging out with werewolves and the other half fighting with werewolves, she would have directed them to the counselor's office at school. If someone had told her that her dad was a werewolf hunter she would have laughed in their face because, for all that he was a gun dealer, he wouldn't even squash any spiders living in the house.

It turned out a lot of what she thought when she was fifteen was wrong. She definitely never pictured that she would be sitting high up in a tree, in the middle of the preserve, watching a pack of werewolves get mauled by a fairly large dragon.

She also never pictured dragons. That one had been a surprise when Scott called her to ask if she was busy. There was very little in the bestiary about dragons, other than that they were immune to fire.

Sometimes, she felt bad for the people who had to find these things out.

"Scott, duck," she yelled, readying her first arrow and letting it fly. It zipped over his head and bounced off the dragon's scales, like she had just chucked a rock at it.

The dragon took a swipe at Scott, catching his shirt and ripping it with a loud tear. Scott rolled back, his muscles gleaming in the afternoon sun. She wanted to lick the sweat rolling down his-

Focus. There was a dragon and they were getting their asses handed to them. Her regular arrows didn't work unless she was going to get a lucky shot in at a soft spot somewhere. She needed something with more oomph.

The dragon got its teeth in Derek -- there was a surprise -- and tossed him up in the air like a cat toying with a mouse. It was almost cute to watch, if he hadn't twisted in midair and come down claws first, shredding the dragon's face.

It let out an unearthly bellow that shook the trees and snapped wildly at anything that got too close. Good to know, its face was its weak spot.

She pulled an arrow with an exploding head out of the quiver on her back.

Scott dodged back in, fully wolfed out and snarling so loud she could hear him over the din of fighting. That was her Scott. He tore into the soft underbelly of the beast before getting thrown against a tree with an audible crack.

She let the arrow fly, aiming for the dragon's mouth. It hit the side of its face instead, taking out one of the eyes with a burning flash, almost getting Dereck in the blowback.

She let loose arrow after arrow as the fight raged, the dragon systematically taking down one werewolf after another. Scott got up to get back in the fight, but was quickly thrown through another tree. She could see why they needed her help.

She was down to her last arrow, another exploding one, and knew that she had to make it count. The dragon turned to her and roared. She drew back and released between the beats of her heart as the dragon roared again.

Who knew that dragon heads exploded like ripe watermelons?

THEN

Derek was lurking outside of the Argent house. He could see a curtain twitch every so often, probably Chris checking to see if he was still there. If Stiles were with him, he would be telling Derek to man up and go knock on the door already, that he could do this and it would be easy once he started moving.

What did Stiles know?

Nothing. You know nothing, Stiles Stilinksi, he thought with an almost hysterical mental giggle. It wasn't that he was afraid of the Argents, so much that he had a healthy level of respect for them and knew, he knew, that Chris was just waiting for one wrong move from anyone in the pack to take it down entirely.

It was why he kept such a close eye on Peter, why he insisted the betas train every week to protect themselves from everything. Peter was the one most likely to ruin this delicate truce they had with the Argents, and he wasn't going to leave his betas unable to defend themselves.

"Well?" A voice came from behind him, making him jump. He had been so focused on the Argent house that he hadn't heard Stiles get out of the car and come up behind him.

He whirled around and scowled at Stiles, who didn't seem to be scared by the death glare that Derek was shooting at him. Sometimes, Derek missed the days when Stiles was afraid of him. Or even the days when Stiles had a healthy respect for him.

Or even any respect at all.

"Are you going to go knock on the door?" Stiles asked, rocking forward on the balls of his feet. "Do you need me to do it? I can totally go knock on the door for you if you're too scared."

Derek growled at him, a disturbing lack of satisfaction coming from the way Stiles' heartbeat stuttered a little. "Go back to the car."

"No way man, if I do that, you're just going to stand out here all night. And then what will happen? Nothing good, that is what. Come on, I'll- erk!"

Derek grabbed the hood of his hoodie, dragging him backward as he tried to go for the front door. "No. Go back to the car."

"Let go!" Stiles slapped at him. It was embarrassing, to be honest, especially when he knew that Stiles knew how to fight better than that. "I already told you, I'm not going back to the car; it's like you don't listen to me at all."

"No kidding," Derek muttered, surprising a snort of laughter out of Stiles.

He was saved from having to man up and go ring the bell -- or have Stiles do it for him -- when Allison came out and headed across the street toward them. He straightened, his back stiff and hands clenching and unclenching. She didn't make him nervous.

"Nervous?" Stiles asked under his breath from behind him, like the asshole he was. Derek also missed back when he could just shove Stiles into a tree or something to express his displeasure.

His mother would be so ashamed.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind as Allison reached them.

"Hey Allison!" Stiles said from over Derek's shoulder. "What's shak-"

Derek casually slapped a hand over Stiles' face and pushed him backward, to much sputtering. Allison was smiling slightly, which he took to be a good sign.

"You're making Dad nervous," Allison said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"So he sent out you?" Derek asked, mirroring her stance. What kind of father sends out his only daughter against a monster?

"I volunteered," she said, "since I'm less likely to just shoot you."

Derek nodded, acknowledging that that was fair enough. He shifted his weight, left and right, looking anywhere but at Allison. Stiles poked him in the back with a sharp finger, urging him to say something.

"I wanted to say thank you for helping with the alphas," he mumbled, stringing the words together quickly, not as clear as he'd rehearsed in front of the mirror that morning, but better than nothing..

Allison blinked at him, a slow smile spreading across her face. "It was-"

"It was awful," Stiles said over her. "Don't let him get away with that, Allison. Make him say thank you again. But better."

Derek would turn to glare at him, except he didn't want to put that much of his attention away from Allison.

"Thank you," he said more clearly, forcing the words out no matter how humiliating it was. "Your help in defeating the alpha pack was appreciated."

Allison looked over his shoulder at Stiles.

"You need to grovel more," Stiles said, delight coloring his voice.

"No," Derek growled. Allison's smile was growing wider. He didn't like it. This was a stupid idea; he never should have let Stiles talk him into it. Allison didn't need to know that she was appreciated, if it felt as awful as this did.

"C'mon, man," Stiles said, his hand soft on Derek's shoulder. "It's easy. You just gotta sound like you mean it. You do mean it, don't you?"

"Yes," he grumbled, making Allison laugh a little. She was still smiling at him. It made him uncomfortable.

The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could go home and forget that he ever tried to talk to anyone. He cleared his throat and said clearly, "Thank you for helping us defeat the alpha pack. We couldn't have done it without you."

"You're welcome," Allison said. She came close and he did not lean away from her. She stretched up on tiptoe to peck him on the cheek, whispering into his ear, "I did it for Scott, not you," before turning around and going back into the house.

"See?" Stiles said. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Just for old time's sake, he pushed Stiles gently into the nearest tree.

NOW

Scott knew this would happen! If anyone had just listened to him back when they were first bringing a dragon into the house, he would have said, "Dragons breathe fire and this house is made of wood and is full of flammable things and flammable people." If someone had just done that, the couch would not be on fire now!

Well, it wouldn't be on fire because of the dragon, at least. He couldn't really make any promises about shenanigans he and Stiles may or may not have gotten up to in the past at his house.

"Oh geez," Stiles said, staring at the small but happily burning fire for a moment, the culprit cuddled up in his arms. "That's Derek's favorite couch."

"I think it's Derek's only couch," Scott said. "And it came from a curb, remember? I don't think he's going to miss it."

That was when Peter came thundering down the stairs from his bedroom where he had been napping, Scott was pretty sure. His heartbeat sounded like the rabbit's he had chased the last full moon, thumping so fast he almost couldn't hear the individual thumps. It was weird, because the fire was contained to the couch, at the moment, and Isaac was digging the room's fire extinguisher out of the pile of blankets heaped over it.

It was a good thing that Derek had insisted on getting an extinguisher for every room when Stiles first brought the dragon to the house, although maybe they shouldn't have put it in the corner where they tossed blankets that needed to be washed.

If someone had asked him, he would have told them that. But nobody listened to him.

Peter stumbled down the last few steps, catching himself on the railing in a very un-Peter-like way. "What-" he said, his voice hoarse with sleep and cracking around the word.

"Just a minor fire!" Stiles yelped, taking a step backward, toward the couch. "No big deal, we definitely don't have to tell Derek about this."

They wouldn't have to, either, because Derek would be able to smell it as soon as he came in. That was something Scott didn't really want to think about, Derek coming home from the store, smelling burning coming from the house. Maybe they should all be waiting outside for him so that he knew it was no big deal.

The tiny fire was getting bigger and looking like it was about to spread to the table next to the couch while Isaac made a horrified face and said, "Guys, the fire extinguisher isn't here."

"What do you mean the fire extinguisher isn't there?" Stiles yelped. "Derek made us put one in every room, how can it just disappear? Did he move it?"

"Why would he move it without telling us?" Scott asked.

"Yeah," Isaac said. "He would probably make us memorize its new spot the way he did every single other one."

The table next to the couch was definitely a loss now, as was the lamp on it. Derek was probably going to murder them, and Peter was just standing stock still by the stairs, not being helpful.

"Oh god," Stiles moaned. "Derek is going to kill us. Isaac go find one in another room, hurry up."

The baby dragon blew another gout of fire at the couch, and Stiles rapped it sharply on the nose. "No! Bad dragon!" It mewled up at him, and started to chew gently on his fingers, like a teething puppy. The whole thing was pretty grossly cute.

Scott went to the corner and grabbed one of the blankets, to try to beat part of the fire out with it. He'd seen it work on TV! Except apparently TV was lying to him because all he did was manage to set the blanket on fire and move some of the fire from one side of the couch to the other. Derek really was going to kill them all.

A high-pitched whining noise was coming from over by where Peter was standing, but he didn't have time to figure out what that was.

"Um, maybe someone ought to call the fire department?" he said as Isaac came back with a fire extinguisher, finally.

The baby dragon took a deep breath, but before it could set something else on fire, Stiles rapped it on the nose again, making it sneeze in surprise. "No! I think we can all agree that you should be named Firedeath McWolfkiller now."

"Not the time, Stiles!" Scott said. Isaac pulled the tab on the fire extinguisher and began spraying it over the flames. The dragon sneezed again, and Scott couldn't really blame him. The smell was awful.

Peter's heart was still rabbit fast, and when Scott looked over at him, he was breathing hard and his eyes were wide and almost scared-looking. As Isaac got the last of the flames, white puffy stuff covering everything, Peter sank down on the top step and put his head between his knees. Scott could hear him taking in great, sobbing gasps of air under the sound of Stiles yelling at his dragon again and Isaac moaning about Derek's reaction to all of it.

"Are you okay?" Scott asked, stepping closer to the stairs.

"What do you think?" Peter snarled at him, his eyes flashing blue and his voice thick. "What part of burned alive isn't clear to you little shits? Do you think this is funny?"

Before Scott could respond that no, he did not think it was funny, Peter was up and gone out of the house.

###

Derek started being able to smell smoke halfway down the road to the house. His heart leapt in his throat, but he told himself he was overreacting. Someone probably just decided to start up the grill or something. It was nothing to be worried about, the smell of burnt plastic that came with it was probably from Stiles doing something stupid.

Cora shot him a look from the passenger side seat of the camaro, sniffing the air.

"It's probably nothing," Derek said, his voice rough.

"Do you really want to rely on that?" Cora asked, her voice shaking. It was enough to make him stamp down on the gas pedal, the car jumping forward and speeding down the road. They were pulling up to the house within minutes.

Everyone -- except for Peter -- who he had left at the house to take Cora grocery shopping was standing by the driveway, and he could smell the fear reeking off of them. Peter's abscence was conspicuous, and he couldn't help but think, What has he done now?

The scent of smoke and burnt fabric and plastic intensified when he opened the door and all but tumbled out of the car in his rush to get out. Stiles came running up to him, the little dragon bounding behind him.

"Derek! The house is okay!" he yelled, putting the wrong thing first in his reassurances. "We're okay! There was maybe a minor mishap with the living room couch and it wasn't Firedeath's fault, I swear, I just haven't been training him not to do his fire thing in the house so really it's my fault and you should blame me, but don't blame me too much because no one could have seen this coming!"

"What," he said, going over to put a hand each on the back of Isaac and Scott's necks, making sure they were okay himself, while Stiles trailed after him, still talking.

"I swear, it was an accident. And I'm going to teach him not to breathe fire in the house, okay? It won't happen again, cross my heart hope to die. Except not actually hope to die because that would be awful. You're not mad, are you? Are you? Derek. Derek."

"What happened?" Cora asked, while Derek took a faltering step toward the house. His heart was still in his throat, images of this new family of his burnt up in smoke suddenly filling his head. It was a delayed reaction to the smell, he knew, but he couldn't stop the way his heart was pounding and he couldn't quite get enough air.

He could hear Scott explaining something about the couch and the end tables, and the stupid, stupid dragon. Stiles was, miraculously, silent. But Derek could still feel him at his back, hovering.

"Hey, are you okay?" Stiles asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. Derek knew that he should be snapping at him, but he couldn't breathe. His heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest, and distantly he could feel his fingertips growing into claws.

"Whoa," Stiles said, his hand sliding down Derek's shoulder to grab his hand, his other hand pushing gently on Derek's back. "Sit down, put your head between your knees. You're having a panic attack."

He wanted to snarl, "I know," at Stiles, wanted to make everyone leave so he could have his panic attack in peace. Instead, he sunk to the ground and put his head between his knees, while Stiles kept a firm grip on his hand. It was embarrassingly grounding.

He counted the heartbeats in the driveway, taking the time to identify everyone's while he tried to get his breath back and Stiles rambled on in his ear. He could feel Cora coming closer but staying a respectful distance away. He could sense Scott and Isaac hovering back by the car, unsure what to do. Peter was... Peter was gone, he wasn't sure where Peter was and suddenly he had to know.

"Peter?" he gasped out, hoping he wouldn't have to say anything more.

"He took off," Stiles said. "I think he was a little freaked out, but that's okay, it's just Peter, right? I think he didn't want to be around when you got home in case you went on a rage bender or something. You're not going to go on a rage bender, right?"

That sounded right, sounded like Peter. He would be off running through the preserve, hunting like he used to when they were younger and he thought there was going to be trouble.

After what seemed like an endless amount of time, but was probably only a few minutes at most, he began to be able to catch his breath, and raised his head from between his knees. Stiles let go of his hand and, like everyone else, was studiously looking elsewhere.

Derek stood up shakily and brushed off the dirt on his jeans. "Let's go see the damage," he said, his voice sounding much steadier than he felt.

"You sure?" Cora said. "We could just make them get rid of everything."

"You can stay out here," he said, his voice sounding better with every word. "I need to-" and he waved vaguely at the house.

Inside, the smell of smoke was stronger, and he had to pause for a minute in the entryway. "Go open more windows," he told Isaac, who ran off to do as ordered.

The couch, what looked like a blanket, and one of the end tables were a complete loss. The other end table just needed to be cleaned off and refinished. It wasn't as bad as he had been expecting, although the whole house stank of fear.

He turned to Stiles and said, calmer than he felt, "Get that motherfucking dragon out of my motherfucking house." He glared around the room when everyone looked at each other in surprise and burst into laughter. "I'm serious."

Stiles gaped at him. "Don't you think you're overreacting just a tad? He's just a baby! He didn't know what he was doing!"

"You heard me," Derek said, and grimaced. "You can build a dog run and a dog house outside for him."

"That's-" Scott elbowed Stiles in the side. "-perfectly fair given the circumstances."

"And you're cleaning up this mess." The room was covered in white foam from the fire extinguisher. He would have to go out and buy a new one as soon as possible, but he couldn't leave the house just yet. Not knowing he would come back to smell the same acrid smoke down the road.

"Not fair," Stiles groaned. "That's going to take forever."

"You deserve it," Derek muttered, and went up the stairs to get away from their eyes on him. He shut the door to his bedroom behind him and opened all the windows. The smell of smoke was burned into his nostrils, though, and wouldn't be leaving any time soon.

###

When Peter came back the next day, he came with news. Stiles was lucky enough to be hanging around still cleaning the living room, so he could eavesdrop on what he and Derek were saying in the other room.

"You must come see this," he said, leaning over the map of Beacon hills that was permanently spread over the dining room table. "It's in this warehouse right here. Bring Stiles."

Stiles silently cheered. He was going to get a break from cleaning!

"Why can't you just tell me what you found?" Derek asked, sounding exasperated.

"Because that wouldn't be sufficiently mysterious and douchey," Stiles muttered to himself.

He gulped and started cleaning harder when Peter called, "I can hear you, you know, Stiles."

"Nevertheless, the boy has a point. Where is the fun in me just telling you what I've found, when you could discover it for yourself?" He sounded absolutely delighted at the prospect, like it was all one great big treasure hunt. Stiles could hear the grin in his voice.

"Let's go," Derek said as he and Peter headed past, snagging Stiles by the back of the shirt. So not cool! He was not down with being handled like a piece of meat, and he was about to voice his concerns when Derek abruptly let go. "And I thought I told you to keep that dragon out of the house."

"Firedeath doesn't like being outside alone," he said. It was true. He sat at the door and cried until Stiles let him in. It had been heartbreaking, and also adorable.

But that didn't mean he wasn't going to kick him out of the house now so that he could go on an adventure, especially if it meant he got to watch Peter skirt a wide path around him.

"You're not fooling anybody, Peter," Stiles muttered, earning a glare that didn't scare him half as much as it should given Peter was a literal homicidal maniac.

They took the Camaro down to the warehouse district. Peter directed Derek to park in front of one in particular, and instructed them to follow him. They went up three flights of stairs, and Stiles really hoped that they wouldn't have to go up another one. He was only human, which all the werewolves around him seemed to forget. All the time. It was somewhat gratifying, but mostly just annoying.

On the third floor, Peter led them down a hall, promising, "We're almost there." He opened a door and told Derek, "It's there, in the corner."

Derek stepped into the tiny closet, at which point Peter turned to Stiles and said, "I told you I'd get you what you want, it just takes a little time," and shoved him into the closet after Derek and closed the metal door.

Even Stiles could hear the lock snap into place.

"So," Derek said right into his ear. "What's this about Peter getting you what you want?"

"I don't know!" Stiles squeaked. "He said the same thing when he was in my room. I thought he was threatening me or something. Oh god what if he locked us in an enclosed space because he thought you would kill me?" It was pretty telling that that was the first place his mind went. Oh yeah, straight to murder. Likely murder, if the way he could feel Derek growling against his back was anything to go by. The closet was very small.

"Relax," Derek said, twisting enough to push at the door. It made his body drag distractingly against Stiles' ass. "I'm probably not going to kill you."

"Oh goo- wait, probably?" His voice was embarrassingly high-pitched. "What do you mean probably? You should definitely not kill me. I can be useful!"

He could feel Derek shaking behind him, and it took him a moment to realize that he was laughing.

"You huge jerk," he said, jerking his elbow back and accomplishing nothing but knocking his funny bone against Derek's rock-hard chest. "Come on, punch through the door so we can get out of here."

"I can't," Derek said. "It's metal, and I don't think I can get enough leverage to break the lock."

"What do you mean werewolves can't just punch through anything?" Stiles asked, teasing him. "I"m disappointed in you."

Derek was silent and still for a moment, before saying, "I can try."

"That's more like it," Stiles said, trying not to feel it as Derek squirmed around some more to get a better angle on the door. "Especially since the other option is being trapped in here until Peter decides to let us out."

"We wouldn't want that," Derek murmured.

Stiles could feel him pulling his hand back as far as his arm would go in the tight space, and then shooting it forward into the door by the handle. It hit with a sickening wet, meaty sound and the crunch of bones breaking. The door didn't budge.

"You should-" Stiles swallowed. The sound of breaking bones was so much more awful that close to the bones that were breaking. It had almost been directly in his ear. "You should probably not do that again."

"Why not?" Derek said from between his teeth. Stiles could almost feel him flexing his fingers in the tiny movements of his arm.

"Because I don't want to have to hear you breaking your fingers over and over again when it's probably not going to get us out of here."

Derek was silent for a long moment, before asking, his voice quiet with something Stiles couldn't quite identify, "Why not?"

"Seriously?" Stiles turned around, jostling against Derek, forcing him to press his back against the sharp edges of whatever else was in the corner of the closet with them. "You seriously need a reason for me not to like hearing your bones snapping in my ear?"

"They heal," Derek said like that was any sort of excuse. It was, quite possibly, the saddest thing that Stiles had ever heard, and that included that horrible Sarah McLachlan commercial.

"Well not all of us like people getting hurt," Stiles said. The small space was starting to get to him; his throat felt thick.

"You think I like people getting hurt because of me," Derek said stiffly.

"Wow, that's not what I said at all." Stiles smirked, even though Derek probably couldn't see it in the dark. "Got a guilty conscience there, big guy?"

"No," Derek said, and it was far too quick to be the truth. Stiles could poke at it, prod at the wound that was undoubtedly close to the surface. They were at the point where Derek probably wouldn't kill him for doing it, either, so it would be safe. Ish.

But.

But they were at the point where Derek probably wouldn't kill him for doing it. Stiles didn't want to endanger that because he was feeling nervous and wanted someone to take it out on.

Derek squirmed around again, until he could get his shoulder against the door. "Maybe I can-" he said, and rammed his shoulder against the metal. And did it again. And again. The door dented but didn't open. Derek, being the most stubborn person Stiles had ever met, probably would have kept doing it if Stiles hadn't put a hand on his shoulder.

He stilled underneath the touch, and Stiles might have left the hand there for a bit longer than was strictly necessary, the warmth of Derek's body seeping through the thin shirt he was wearing to warm Stiles' fingers.

"I'm not trying to be a debbie downer here," he started and ignored Derek's very rude snort of disbelief. He wasn't, okay, he was just stating facts, and that was different, "but denting the door isn't necessarily going to make it easier to open."

"I just need to-" Derek started, but Stiles was having none of it.

"No. There is no just need to. There is only one human who really does not want to be stuck in here forever, and one werewolf who is intent on breaking the door in a way that might get us stuck in here forever. Capisce?" He ran a hand through his hair, hoping he didn't almost knock Derek in the face with his elbow like it felt like he did.

"Okay," Derek said. "We can wait for Peter to come back and let us out. I'm sure it won't take that long."

"Was that sarcasm?" Stiles asked. "Did you just attempt sarcasm? Because let me tell you, it needs work." His laugh was a little more high-pitched than normal, because what if Peter actually left them in there forever? He wasn't meant to die this young, and especially not by starving to death in a closet in an abandoned warehouse.

Derek was silent. Stiles could feel him breathing, feel the short puffs of air against his neck, they were so close. It was a really, really tiny closet. Tiny like the closet his mom used to keep towels and sheets in, except there were no shelves in this closet. Just enough room for two people to stand, smooshed together, breathing each other's air, and oh god no.

His dick, the traitor, was definitely interested in how close Derek was standing, and the way Stiles could almost feel his abs pressing against his side, and the shivery feeling of his breath ghosting across his neck. This was neither the time nor the place for an awkward boner, a message which his dick apparently did not receive.

His only saving grace was that there was enough room that he was standing facing forward and Derek was standing sideways and there was no way that he could no that Stiles was having an awkward boner problem. Unless-

Derek took a deep breath of air, and Stiles could just imagine the epic scowl on his face as he said, his voice strangled, "Could you not?"

"What?" Stiles yelped. "I'm not doing anything! There is nothing doing here, not a thing, I don't know what you're talking about."

The dead silence said, "Seriously?" louder than Derek ever could have possibly.

"I'm still a teenager, okay," Stiles said, and Derek made a pained noise. "I don't control it, it just happens, you can not blame me for what my body decides to do."

Derek, who was never a fidgeter at the best of times, was stock still beside him. Probably breathing through his mouth. Hopefully breathing through his mouth. If Stiles had to come up with a more embarrassing situation, he would be hard-pressed.

Casting around desperately for anything to change the subject, Stiles was coming up blank. He started fidgeting, only to stop with a squeak when Derek growled at him like he hadn't for a while. He considered reiterating that it wasn't his fault that his body was an asshole, but figured that Derek probably wasn't in the mood to hear it.

Briefly, he felt something hard press against his thigh before Derek shifted away. Before his brain could catch up with his mouth, he was saying, "Hey, if you have a flashlight in your pocket that would be really helpful right now, considering we're in a dark closet with no way out, although I guess I could just use the flashlight app on my phone, hang on."

He accidentally knocked his elbow into Derek's stomach while he dug his phone out of his pocket. When he turned on the flashlight app, it lit them both in a wan light. Derek was glaring at him, which wasn't a surprise, but the slight flush to his cheeks was. It took an embarrassingly long amount of time for Stiles to get it.

"Oh," he breathed out. "So glad I'm not the only one participating in awkward boner o'clock."

While Derek was busy being embarrassed and trying to cover it by glaring at Stiles really hard -- and didn't he know that didn't work by now? -- Stiles was opening up Facebook to leave a quick note that they were trapped in a closet please come rescue them.

Derek chose the moment that he hit post to growl, "We never speak of this again."

"Dude, I just put it on Facebook," Stiles said, waving his phone at Derek a little, mostly managing to elbow Derek again. He really needed to get better control over where his elbows were when he was trapped in a closet pressed up against an angry werewolf.

Derek was dangerously silent.

"So Scott would know what closet to look for us in, I mean. Not- Not anything else."

"You could have just texted him," Derek ground out, and Stiles could feel him shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably.

"Isaac might be closer, I wanted to get it out to the widest pool of potential rescuers as fast as possible, okay." He just wanted to get out of there, maybe deal with the fact that Derek's breath was still ghosting over his neck and it was distracting.

The light from his cell glanced off of a bag hanging on a hook behind Derek's head. It looked vaguely familiar, and before he could think better of it, he was shuffling around to face Derek and reaching past him, pressing their fronts together.

"What-" Derek asked, his voice strangled. Stiles snagged the little bag off its hook and took as much of a step back as he could without tripping into a mess of brooms. He tried not to think about how he now knew for a fact which side Derek dressed to, or the way his dick had felt pressed against his leg, or the way Derek's hips had moved a little in a way that wasn't necessarily trying to jerk backwards.

"Isn't this Lydia's?" he asked, shining his cell into the bag. It was full of tiny vials of stuff that was probably explosive. "How did you not-"

The light from the hallway was sudden, and bright, and hurt his eyes.

"Sorry," Peter said, not looking sorry at all. "Did I accidentally lock you in there?"

Derek shoved past him and stalked away down the hall, not looking at either of them.

"I hate you," Stiles said.

"You're lucky you posted to Facebook," Peter said. "Or I might not have known to come back."

"I am not your facebook friend." It wasn't for lack of trying on Peter's part, that was for sure. "I keep turning down your friend requests."

"One day you'll slip and hit accept accidentally," Peter said, smiling. He stepped to the side and motioned Stiles out of the closet. "Better hurry. Derek's your ride, isn't he?"

"He's yours too," Stiles muttered, but he took off down the hall after Derek anyway. There was no way he was getting left behind with Peter.

###

"We can go," Stiles said from behind Derek, as Derek tried to push his way through the barrier going down the middle of Oak St. It wasn't mountain ash, but it was something similar, because the werewolves couldn't go through it but he and Allison could jump across the divider and taunt Derek and Scott from the other side all they liked.

"No," Derek and Scott said at the same time, both turning to glare at Stiles and Allison. It was kind of creepy, how in tune they were when it came to protecting the fragile humans who weren't actually that fragile and could totally go knock on a witch's door and ask if she was evil or not.

"Okay," he said, and stepped across the line, pulling Allison with him. "Or we can go!"

"Stiles, come on, stop it," Scott complained, reaching out to grab his hoodie only to be stopped by the invisible line. He looked adorably put out by that, and Stiles wanted to ruffle his hair.

"Don't worry," Allison said dryly. "I'll make sure he comes back in one piece."

"What about you?" Scott said mournfully.

"I can protect myself," Allison said. She motioned to the knives strapped to her legs, and the quiver of arrows on her back.

"Hey!" Stiles said. He could protect himself too, damn it. Hadn't that been what they had spent the past year doing? Teaching him to protect himself so he wasn't a liability? He was pretty sure he even remembered Derek saying that to his face at one point.

"Be careful," Derek grumbled, his sour face on. He looked like he was chewing on lemons.

"You're not going to let them just go!" Scott said, looking back and forth between them helplessly.

"You can waste your time trying to stop them," Derek said, turning his back on all three of them and starting to walk away. "I'm not going to."

Scott looked conflicted, but eventually said, "Be careful," and blew a kiss to Allison. She caught it and slipped it into her pocket and was, in general, disgustingly cute.

"Let's go," she said, heading for the sidewalk. Stiles was left with nothing to do but trail after her.

"So..." Stiles said when they were two blocks away and Allison hadn't said a word to him. "This is awkward."

She turned to look at him, but kept walking. "It wasn't until you pointed it out."

"I'm just saying," he said. "This is awkward. We're almost never alone together, have you ever noticed that? There's always Scott or Lydia or some supernatural menace keeping us company. So this is weird."

"And you're just making it weirder," she said with a little laugh. "Come on, the witch is in the next building."

"I am not making it weirder," he said, feeling the need to protest even though he probably was making it weirder. He had a knack for that.

He expected a lot of things to happen when they knocked on the door to the warehouse the witch had chosen as a home base. Chief among them was that the person who answered was going to be an old hag with a wart on her face and a hooked nose and maybe a tall pointy hat on.

Not Lydia.

###

"What do you mean the witch is helping you learn to be a better banshee?" Stiles demanded for the third time. It was all very tiring. Lydia should have known better than to let them in, but, well, she had been meaning to tell Allison about her new mentor for a while and this presented the perfect opportunity.

"I mean," she snapped, her patience wearing dangerously thin, "I have no clue what I'm doing and Ms. Blake left without telling me anything particularly useful. Marissa seems to know a lot about necromancing and offered to help me learn to use my talents."

"There are so many things wrong with that sentence," Stiles said, waving his hands around like a demented monkey, "but to start with, Marissa? The witch is named Marissa? Not something like, I don't know, Gladys?"

Lydia sighed. "Really, Stiles, is it that hard to believe? Your best friend is a werewolf named Scott and not, oh, I don't know, Harry."

"Really? Harry? You think that's a werewolfy name?" Stiles flailed around some more, and if he knocked anything off the shelves in this tiny room, he was going to be replacing it. Possibly with himself. "Lon Chaney Jr. would be ashamed. So would Remus Lupin, for that matter."

"Remus Lupin isn't real and Lon Chaney Jr. is dead," Allison helpfully pointed out. "I don't think either of them are going to be all that ashamed of Lydia."

"Thank you," Lydia said. Honestly, it was like Stiles didn't listen to the words that came out of his mouth half the time.

"Well hello my dears," came Marissa's voice from the doorway. Lydia hadn't even noticed her come in, and judging by the way both Allison and Stiles jumped and whirled to face her, neither had they.

"Relax," Lydia said. "Marissa, these are my friends, Allison and Stiles."

"How wonderful to meet you," Marissa said, smiling a smile that contained maybe a few too many teeth. Lydia could tell that she wasn't pleased at all. That was just too bad for her. They were already here and she could deal with it.

"It's a pleasure," Allison said, and Stiles waved like the uncultured heathen he was.

"And what brings a hunter and a... human to my doorstep?" The pause before she said human was barely noticeable, but Lydia still caught it and turned to look at Stiles, calculating. Marissa knew about them, of course, but if she had any inkling that Stiles was something more than human, that hadn't come from Lydia. She must have heard about the pack from someplace else, then, maybe before she arrived in Beacon Hills. Or she had been doing her research. It was something Lydia could approve of.

"We came to talk to you, actually," Stiles said.

"It's not often we get witches passing through Beacon Hills," Allison added. Clever, clever girl, with the passing through remark.

"Well then, would you like some tea?" Marissa offered, gesturing toward the hot plate in the corner. "I could boil some water and we could all sit down for a nice chat."

The smile was back. It was starting to make Lydia nervous. Marissa had never been anything but kind and helpful to her, but she had also never looked quite so much like a predator before.

She glared at Stiles until he turned down the offer, and Allison followed suit. Good boy. She wanted to get them out of there as quickly as possible. These lessons were a private thing, hers and hers alone. She didn't want the werewolf pack to ruin it the way they were so fond of.

"We want to know why you're here," Allison said, going straight for the point of their little visit.

"Well," Marissa said. "I heard tell someone needed my help." She smiled a gentle smile at Lydia, and Lydia smiled back. "Who am I to refuse the universe?"

Stiles and Allison looked at each other, then back to Marissa. It was Stiles who brought up the next question. "You don't happen to know anything about the sudden influx of fire-breathing reptiles, do you?"

"Oh, that," Marissa said, waving her hand in the air as if to shoo away the notion. "American dragons are attracted to some kinds of magic. It should settle down in a few weeks, once they're used to the smell of me here."

"I see," Stiles said. "And you didn't think to maybe warn the resident werewolf pack of this? We would have really appreciated knowing in advance that we were going to be fighting scaly monsters for weeks on end. You could call it a professional courtesy, maybe."

"I'm so sorry," Marissa said, her mouth turning down in an unhappy frown. "The thought didn't even cross my mind. If there's anything else you should know, in the future, I'll be sure to tell dear Lydia, and I'm sure she will happily relay it back to you."

"Of course," Lydia said, although "happily" was not the word she would choose. She wasn't there to play messenger, after all. She was there to learn how to appropriately use and control her powers, and that was about it.

Really, they were all going to be disappointed if they expected her to run messages back and forth. She was not anybody's go-between, and never would be.

"Well," Stiles said, moving toward the doorway that Marissa was still standing in. "As long as you're not here to cause mischeif and mayhem, I'm sure you know where to find us and we'll just be going now." He sounded nervous, more nervous than Lydia would expect given how polite Marissa had been.

"Ah, about that," Marissa said. "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Stiles."

Lydia hadn't known that it was too good to be true; she wasn't psychic. But she also wasn't all that surprised as the turn of events.

"What is this, 2001: A Space Odyssey?" Stiles asked, his voice going higher as Marissa advanced on him.

"I can't let you or your friend leave. Lydia needs practice, after all, and some motivation."

That was news to Lydia. She had all the motivation she needed, and the fact that Marissa felt she needed more stung a little. She didn't need motivation to learn to raise the dead, and she certainly didn't need dead that she was close to.

She was beginning to think that maybe this whole thing had been a bad idea, when Allison pulled out her knives and got between Stiles and Marissa. This was not going to turn into a blood bath on her watch, not if she could help it.

While Stiles tried -- ineffectively -- to talk his way out of trouble and Marissa started the chanting that would likely end in a binding spell of some sort, Lydia fished in her purse for one of the vials she always kept at the bottom since learning about werewolves.

"Run!" she shouted, and threw a vial at Marissa's feet. The explosive went off with a bang that did more to confuse her than to actually incapacitate her, which was unfortunate, because they could really use a head start when it came to running away.

"You can run but you can't hide," Marissa sing-songed after them. Lydia already wasn't sure what she'd seen in her, what with the sudden attempted murder, but that just clinched the deal.

They ran. Marissa laughed with delight but didn't follow.

###

When Peter called Stiles and told him to meet him at the diner at 6PM the next night, Stiles almost told him to go fuck himself. Good sense said that was the appropriate response to Peter asking anyone to be alone with him for any extended period of time, even if that was in a public and likely crowded place.

But Peter wasn't there. Had he forgotten? That was unlikely, given his constant scheming and plotting. Stiles didn't think it was actually possible for him to forget anything. Was this some sort of game he was playing? And if it was, was this a trap or was he trying to distract Stiles while he did God knew what?

Stiles stuck his head back into the diner and scanned the room for a third time. When his eyes glanced over a dark head of hair, he had to do a double take. Was that Derek? What the hell was Derek doing in the diner when he was supposed to be meeting Peter there? Unless Derek had told him to get Stiles to meet both of them there, so Derek could... could...

Stiles felt his blood run cold, and then hot. There was only one explanation he could think of that would require Derek and Peter and no one else. Was Derek kicking him out of the pack? What had he done? Had Derek thought to talk to Scott about this, because Stiles was pretty sure that Scott would never let Derek kick him out. He and Scott were bros. Scott would have his back, he just needed to call him and-

No. He could deal with this himself. He opened the door and stalked into the diner, heading straight for the table where Derek was sitting alone. He next to the booth and slapped his hands down on the table. Derek looked over at him, his brow furrowing.

"So, you're letting Peter do your dirty work now?" he said, taking some pride in his voice not cracking or wavering.

Derek glared at him, which was nothing new. Maybe if he had known that Derek's glares were serious he would have tried harder to be less annoying. Maybe. Probably not, but he could pretend.

"You think I would trust him with my-" and Derek had the audacity to use air quotes, Stiles was going to kill him "-'dirty work'?"

"What, you couldn't face me by myself?" His righteous fury didn't feel that good coursing through his veins the way comic books made it sound like it did. Mostly it left him feeling furious and kind of sick. The least Derek could have done was have this talk somewhere private and not in the middle of a fucking diner.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Derek asked, looking pissed, which wasn't too far from his default expression, so Stiles couldn't be sure if he was actually pissed or just having a bad face day.

"Peter. Told me to meet him here. So, what, you could kick me out of the pack?" he asked in a low, furious voice.

Derek blinked at him. "No, he told me to meet him- it's an ambush. Duck!"

Stiles dropped to the floor almost before Derek finished talking. It was second nature to him at that point, which said a lot of sad things about his life.

A pair of black high heels stopped in front of his face. "You all right, hon?" the waitress asked, bending down to check on him.

"Lost a contact!" Stiles said cheerfully, pushing himself up and sliding into the booth, across from Derek. "Don't worry, found it."

"Can I get you anything then?" she asked, taking out a pad and a pen.

Stiles looked across to Derek, who had the decency to look vaguely ashamed of his false alarm. It was somewhat gratifying that even Derek could make bad calls sometime.

Derek shrugged at his look, so Stiles turned back to the waitress and ordered a Coke and a burger. If he was here and it wasn't an obvious sort of trap, he should at least get some food out of it.

"Peter told you to meet him here," Derek said when the waitress walked away, his gaze boring holes into Stiles, like he thought just repeating what the other person had said counted as participating in a conversation. He needed to lighten up.

Of course, considering Stiles had immediately jumped to the worst conclusion when he saw Derek sitting there, maybe he was the one who needed to lighten up.

The anger wasn't that quick to fade, though. He snapped, "Yes, yes he did. Why are you here?"

Derek's brow furrowed until he looked like a particularly perplexed puppy. The longer Stiles spent with Derek, the less he could ever take him seriously when he was trying to be threatening. "He told me to meet him here too."

"Great," Stiles said. "So he wanted to talk to both of us, but didn't bother to show up? Why is this my life? What do you think he wanted?"

"How should I know?" Derek asked, glaring at him. It was a valid question! There was no need for any glaring.

"You're related to him," Stiles said. "That means you should have greater insight into why he does the things he does. Like why he keeps throwing us into ridiculous situations together."

Derek's face did something complicated that Stiles couldn't quite puzzle out. It wasn't an expression he'd ever seen before, and without yelling or growling or being thrown into a wall, Derek didn't give him many clues as to what it could mean.

"I think," he said slowly, "Peter just made a mistake. You know how busy he is."

"Sowing mayhem and mischief," Stiles said. "I know. God, what an asshole."

Derek nodded. "I should-" he started to say, then fell silent, staring at the table.

"You should what?" Stiles asked, accepting the Coke from the waitress as she made her way back to them. "Get rid of him somehow? I completely agree and would be more than willing to help you do it."

"No, nevermind," Derek said, looking hilariously constipated. He sipped the water the waitress had brought him and made a face. That was why Stiles never ordered a water.

"So!" Stiles said when the silence had drawn on and become plenty awkward. "Seen any good movies lately?"

He knew Derek hadn't. He couldn't picture Derek voluntarily going anywhere where there were going to be a lot of people and loud noises, especially not somewhere that would be dark and a good place for an ambush, like a movie theater.

That thought was born out when Derek said, "I don't really... go to the movies."

"I know, buddy, I know," Stiles said at the pained expression on his face. "We should start having that movie night Isaac and Scott are always talking about, expose you to some pop culture."

If anything, Derek looked even more pained at that.

By the time the waitress brought food over, Stiles had cajoled Derek into a discussion on comic books and the merits of Marvel versus DC. Although, discussion was a broad term for it, because he was still doing most of the talking. Derek, for his part, kept looking at him, like he wanted to say something but wasn't quite sure how to put the words together. It was distinctly unnerving.

The conversation was... nice. They didn't talk about about Scott or the witch or anything supernatural. They just... ate lunch and argued and had a good time. And when the check came, Derek paid for both of them.

"To make up for Peter ditching you," Derek had mumbled when Stiles had raised an eyebrow at him.

"So," Stiles said, once they were both outside and Derek was lurking by the jeep. "This was fun. We should hang out more often. You're not as awful as you pretend to be."

"Thanks, I think," Derek said dryly. He shuffled his feet and looked at the ground, then back up at Stiles. "I'll see you around, then."

"Yeah, see you," Stiles said and swung himself into the jeep. If he hadn't known better, he'd almost have called this a date.

"Hey," he said, leaning out of the window. Derek stopped, his back going stiff, and turned around. His face was held blank, like he was expecting something terrible to come out of Stiles' mouth. Given his track record, it was probably a fair assumption.

"We should get dinner," Stiles said, winking salaciously at Derek with a huge grin in the most mocking manner possible.

Derek looked like he flushed a little, probably with anger, although Stiles couldn't tell at that distance. "Okay," he said, his voice rough. "When?"

"Tomorrow," Stiles said on a whim and added, "Take me somewhere that isn't a diner."

Derek nodded and finished walking away.

###

Firedeath McWolfKiller was growing so quickly that he was already starting to outgrow the dogloo that Stiles had bought for him, telling Derek that no one actually built doghouses anymore, that was what capitalism was for.

Derek had growled at him and told him that he wasn't going to help when the dragon melted plastic onto itself.

"Hey Stiles," Scott said, coming to join him where he was playing a game that could loosely be termed "fetch" with Firedeath, which mostly involved running around after it, trying to get the ball back unsinged.

"Hey man," Stiles said, flopping down onto the grass and laughing when Firedeath ran over to him and dropped a smoking tennis ball into his lap. He flung it as far as he could away from the house and into the woods.

"So," Scott said, "I've been meaning to talk to you about Firedeath and Peter."

"Oh man," Stiles said. "Did you finally figure out what he's trying to do by pretending to be so afraid of it? Because I gotta tell you, I've wracked my brains and come up with nothing."

"Sort of," Scott said. "You didn't see his face when the couch was on fire. I don't... I don't think that he's faking it, Stiles."

"Oh come on," Stiles said, watching Firedeath as it ran back into the clearing, flapping its wings in happy little bursts that didn't do much to get it off the ground. He wondered if it was ever going to be able to fly, or if that was just a myth, and they were vestigial wings. "Did he get to you, too?"

"Nobody got to me," Scott said, scowling at him. "I just... Look, I can prove it to you, okay? Let's go sneak up on him with Firedeath and you pay attention to his face."

"Okay, okay," Stiles said. He was always ready to go needle Peter. That would never stop being fun. "Except there's no way we'll be able to sneak up on him, that's a dumb plan. We can just go corner him in the house. Isn't he still watching TV?"

Scott cocked his head, looking far too much like a dog for his own good, and nodded. So Stiles whistled, and his dragon came running.

"Come on buddy," he said, picking him up because soon he wasn't going to be able to anymore. "Let's go see Uncle Peter."

Inside, Peter was already standing up and facing the door to the living room. "Derek told you to keep that-" he pointed a single claw at it "-outside."

"I know," Stiles said, a pleasant smile on his face. "But Derek's not here right now, is he?"

For every step he took, Peter took one step back, and he was able to slowly herd him into a corner of the room. The dragon trilled and cocked its head back and forth, making Peter jump. He was breathing fast, Stiles noted, but that it was easy enough to force yourself to hyperventilate; that didn't mean anything.

Peter's eyes never left the dragon as he ground out, "What do you want in exchange for never, ever coming near me with that thing again?"

Stiles was going to call his bluff. He was going to call his bluff so hard. "I want you to leave. Pack your things and get out of here."

"Stiles," Scott hissed from behind him. "What are you doing?"

He turned and gave Scott a "shut up I know what I'm doing just go along with it" look. Peter was fairly plastered against the wall, and turned his face away when Stiles took another step closer and put down the dragon, who immediately bounded up to Peter and reared up, putting its front feet on his knees. Peter made a sound suspiciously close to a squeak, if Stiles had to judge.

"I'll do it," he said quickly. "I'll go, just let me go upstairs and get a few things first."

Stiles hadn't really taken into consideration that Peter might call his bluff on calling his bluff, but he could roll with it.

"Firedeath, go outside with Scott," he said, ignoring Scott's hissed, "Stiles," and motioning Peter to the hallway. Peter went with nary a protest. Scott scooped up Firedeath with a last warning look at Stiles, like he really thought that Peter was going to go through with this. Whatever, Stiles didn't care. He trailed Peter up the stairs and watched as he pulled a suitcase out of his closet -- when had he gotten a suitcase -- and started opening drawers and piling clothes into it.

When he turned to face Stiles, a shirt shaking slightly in his hand, his eyes were wet and he was still breathing hard. It was a nice touch, Stiles thought, but crocodile tears weren't going to work on him.

"Are you just going to stand there and supervise until I'm gone?" Peter asked.

"You betcha," Stiles said, leaning against the side of the door. He wasn't going to give Peter the chance to weasel out of leaving with anything less than straight up admitting that he had tried to call Stiles' bluff and failed.

Peter turned away and laid the shirt into the suitcase. He moved around the room, picking up bits and pieces and putting them into side pockets, emptying drawers with swift efficiency.

Stiles heard footsteps on the stairs and hollered out the door, "Go away Scott, I got this covered."

"Got what covered?" Cora asked, coming to join him in the doorway. "What's going on? Where are you going?"

"I'm leaving," Peter said shortly. "I have had enough, and I am leaving."

Cora gaped at him, and turned to Stiles, her mouth still open. He didn't cringe away from her, but it was a near thing. She was kind of scary, no matter what she was doing.

"I can make him do whatever I want!" Stiles said, because his mouth never did know when to shut the fuck up. And maybe he was a little smug about this, maybe. "This is awesome."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Cora asked, and maybe it was the tone of voice, or maybe it was how he could see that Peter's hands were still shaking a little, but he started to feel distinctly not good. "Are you proud of yourself, Stiles?"

"Ye-es?" he said, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck because really, Peter was just faking, she didn't need to be so... such a Hale about it. "No? I don't know, he's faking anyway! Stop judging me!"

"Does he look like he's faking? Jesus fucking christ, Stiles," she said, crossing her arms and glaring at him, which was totally unfair because he hadn't done anything!

"...maybe?" he said, because, well, maybe.

"Oh for- You are seriously the biggest asshole I have ever met," she said. "He does not look like he's faking."

"Look, you don't know the things he-" Stiles tried to start, but Cora overrode him.

"Blah blah, I don't know who he is now, whatever. I know the difference between when someone's actually scared and when someone's faking. It reeks." She went over to Peter, who was ignoring them and still methodically packing, and grabbed his arm. "Stop," she ordered with a glare, then added more quietly, "You can't leave; I just got you back."

Peter stopped when she laid her hand on his arm, but looked at Stiles, not her. It made Stiles feel... small. Really small. Small like he'd been ignoring the way that Peter hyperventilated and shook and looked for the nearest exit whenever Firedeath was around, because the idea of Peter being afraid of anything was funny. It was ridiculous. He was still their boogeyman, even now that he was ostensibly on their side.

It wasn't- It was- It was different, okay. It was Peter. It was-

He threw his hands up in the air and shouted, "Fine! Fine, whatever, but word of this never gets to Derek. That is what I want."

Peter nodded slowly, one hand moving just as slowly to cover the hand Cora still had on his arm. She glared at Stiles, who just turned and stomped out.

Then he had to stomp back. "And I'm sorry," he spat viciously, through his teeth. Then he went outside to move his stupid fucking dragon's dogloo to the far side of the property, away from the house.

###

Stiles was hanging out at the house after dinner when Derek, Peter, and Cora both sat straight up and looked toward the door.

"What's going on?" he asked, not making a meerkat joke because he had learned restraint over the years.

"The witch," Derek said, growling under his breath like he thought he was scary. Okay, he was a little scary. Stiles could admit that, now that they were something like friends.

"What does she want?" he asked, getting up to try to peer out the window before Derek grabbed his shoulder and pushed him toward the back of the room.

"How should we know?" Cora asked, dropping the magazine she had been reading on one of the new end tables.

He shot off a quick text to the group, letting them know they had a witchy 911 on their hands. He was pretty sure three werewolves could take on a single witch, but he wasn't going to chance it. He cursed himself for not having his flails on hand at all times when there was some supernatural threat in the neighborhood. He knew better, and yet here he was, defenseless against the latest big bad.

He went and got a carving knife from the kitchen and started running through the spells he had memorized, mentally sorting them into useful and useless piles. Most of what he had was still in the defensive category, or the protective category. Useless when it came to fighting a witch.

They never knew what they needed until it was too late to do anything about it.

The doorbell rang, making him jump much to the disgust of Cora. Marissa called through it, "Little pigs, little pigs, let me in."

"Are you kidding me?" Peter asked, with an "is this really my life" look at the ceiling.

Derek got up and opened the front door. Before it was even wide enough to see who was behind it -- they all already knew anyway -- he crumpled to the floor while Marissa cackled -- fucking cackled like a witch out of a fairytale -- and pushed the door the rest of the way open.

"Derek!" Stiles and Cora yelled together, good sense keeping them from running to him, but only barely. Peter faded back, his teeth elongating and claws coming out in a way that Stiles was disturbed to find he found comforting.

"Little pigs, little pigs," Marissa said again from the doorway, like this was before hipsters got to irony and it was still cool.

"Your villain schtick needs work," Stiles told her, adrenaline coursing through him. The times when he regretted not taking the bite when Peter offered it had become few and far between as he grew into himself, but this was one of those times when he really, really wished he'd had the bad sense to say yes. If she could take down Derek like that, what chance did he have?

"What did you do to Derek?" Cora growled, her teeth sharp in the noonday light shining in through the windows.

"Oh, he's just sleeping," Marissa said. "He's not the one I'm here for."

Cora leapt for her, but was met by an outstretched hand a single sibilant word. She crumpled to the ground just like Derek.

They were still no good at fighting as a team, all these years later.

Stiles whispered to himself, sketching up a rough barrier between himself and Marissa, hoping it would hold against at least a few attacks while the rest of their motley crew got there. He really had to rethink the way he assessed threats, given that two thirds of his werewolf protectors were down for the count, and the only one left was Peter, who he was pretty sure he couldn't rely on to protect anything other than number one.

Of course, Peter loved to be surprising at the best of times. He was between Marissa and Stiles in a flash, before Stiles could tell him to stay behind him, roaring in Marissa's face.

"Oh how cute," she said, a ball of fire slowly growing in her hand, "the wolf twice burned, risen from the dead to try to make a life for himself. Why not make it three times, hmmm?"

Peter was staring at the ball of fire in her hand, shaking his head and backing away as she advanced on him. Oh fuck no, Stiles was not letting that happen. He dropped his useless shield and started pulling as much power out of the air as he could and muttering a spell under his breath that would hopefully throw a canon of air at her and not blow up in his face.

He knew he should have forced Deaton to give him more lessons in offense. You couldn't win a game with just defense, yet here he was, stuck doing almost just that. The offense was coming, he just needed to stall her long enough for them to get there.

She had Peter pinned against the wall, almost where Stiles had pinned him the other day with Firedeath. It was a shocking amount of irony for one person to digest.

As Stiles loosed the ball of air meant to knock Marissa off balance enough for him to do something else, anything else, a trilling sound came from the open door. He missed, but that was okay.

Because Marissa had made the fatal mistake of leaving the door open when there was a dragon in the area.

Firedeath barely stopped in the doorway once it realized what was going on. It rushed forward, wings outspread to make itself look bigger than it was, neck stretched out and mouth open. It was making a loud hissing noise.

"What-" Marissa started to say before it collided with her leg, teeth first. She shrieked and dropped the ball of fire on its head. Stiles almost laughed. It was a dragon, a ball of fire wasn't going to hurt it, even if it was magic witch fire.

Her leg was a mangled mess of charred flesh and torn muscle and white bone shining through before Stiles knew it. Marissa was still screaming, even as she toppled over and Firedeath went for her throat.

It was over in under a minute.

Peter slid down the wall, whispering, "Good dragon."

As Marissa fell silent, Cora and Derek both sprang to their feet, roaring and staring wildly around the room.

"You're a bit late guys," Stiles said, pointing at the body on the floor. "Firedeath took care of her. And I'm not cleaning any of that up."

Peter started to laugh.

###

Life settled down quickly after the witch was dead. Lydia promised to make sure her potential banshee ability tutors weren't insane in the future. Stiles finally seemed to stop baiting Peter and started keeping Firedeath -- Derek could not believe that he had actually named it that -- away from Peter.

And, the best part was, the thing he and Stiles had going kept going.

They were hanging out outside of the movie theater after seeing the newest Ant-Man movie. Stiles was going on about how they could have made a better movie if they'd maybe toned down on the jokes a little, which was saying a lot for him, but Derek wasn't really listening. Instead he was caught watching Stiles' mouth move.

He could do it. He could just lean forward and kiss him. It wouldn't be a big deal, Stiles was probably waiting for him to make the first move. He just had to actually do it. He was even pretty sure Stiles wasn't going to turn out to be evil or anything, although with his track record...

He didn't want to be thinking about that now.

"Are you even listening to me?" Stiles asked, hands on his hips, the scowl on his face not actually reaching his eyes.

"Not really," Derek said honestly. He leaned forward just a little and pressed his lips against Stiles' mouth. The second he did it, he knew that he had made a mistake, because Stiles went stiff in a bad way and then shoved him away.

"What?!" Stiles sputtered. "What? What was that?" He flailed around, still sputtering.

Derek should have known.

He should have known that Stiles wasn't waiting for him to make a move. How fucking stupid could he be? If Stiles had wanted to take their dating to the next level -- and how fucking stupid did that sound? -- he would have done something. Stiles wasn't the sort of person who didn't just go for things he wanted. Of course he didn't want Derek.

"No, no," Stiles said, stopping his flailing and getting up in Derek's space, grabbing the front of his jacket. "Don't make that face. I can't deal with that face, ever."

Derek tried to make his face stop doing whatever it was doing, tried to step away from Stiles and make the hole in his stomach close, but Stiles had a good grip on his jacket and wouldn't let him go. Derek didn't want to hurt him, even though it felt like he'd just been punched in the kidney. It wasn't Stiles' fault he had thought stupid things.

"That's not what I meant," Stiles was saying. "Stop it. I mean it is what I meant because I did not know we were dating holy shit you have to tell a guy that okay, for future reference, I mean not that you should have a future reference because I am totally cool with dating you right now and there should definitely be kissing, like, right now. As we speak. So that I will stop talking."

Stiles didn't wait for Derek to do something, which was good because he was still reeling from the emotional whiplash and the unfamiliar feeling of hope in his chest. Instead, he leaned forward and captured Derek's lips with his own in a gentle, sweet kiss. Derek couldn't help but to kiss him back, his hands coming up to clutch convulsively at Stiles' sides.

He was maybe smiling a little, into Stiles' mouth.

"Holy shit," Stiles said, breaking away a little but staying close enough that they were breathing the same air. "We could have been doing this all along why didn't you tell me that we were dating?"

"I thought you knew," he said, trying to pull back again because he did not want to talk about this, but Stiles still had a good grip on his jacket. "You said we should get dinner," he added grudgingly. "And winked."

"I was joking!" Stiles' eyes widened in horror when he said that even as Derek was jerking back like he'd been slapped. "No wait, that's not- Okay, can we start over? Like, from the beginning? Hey, you wanna go on a date sometime? Maybe for dinner? Like, right now, because I am hungry and that popcorn wasn't filling?"

Derek let Stiles reel him back in. He had to clear his throat before he could say, "Sure."

"Yes," Stiles hissed, finally letting go so that he could do an embarrassing little dance.

"Is it too late to change my mind?" Derek asked, his heart filling with some emotion he couldn't identify.

"Yes," Stiles said simply.

Somewhere, Peter was smiling and he didn't know why.

THE END