Chapter Text
"You don't even know half of what it takes to be an Alpha!"
Stiles snaps her jaws at Scott, keeping him in place and directly behind her. She knows without glancing back that his eyes are flaring in a molten gold, the only thing showing how angry he is. She's all kinds of proud that he's learnt control so easily under her guidance.
"You're not the only born werewolf here, Hale." Stiles says, eyebrow raised. "But unlike yourself, I was groomed to become an Alpha whereas you were always going to be a Beta."
She knows she hits a nerve when Derek snarls at her, body swooping down into a defensive crouch. Scott does too at her back, his growls echoing lowly in his chest.
"And as the residing Alpha of Beacon Hills, it's my duty and right to protect this town. Your uncle not only killed people, he bit Scott unlawfully and without his consent, he also put a big, red target on our backs." Stiles continues calmly, folding her arms across her chest. She can't help but glare. "An action that I'm now going to reap the repercussions for."
"He wasn't yours to kill!" Derek rumbles, icy blue flashing in his eyes. "He murdered Laura!"
"And I'm sorry for that." Stiles says sincerely, features going soft. "But I did what I had to do, to protect this town and the people in it."
She sees the decision in Derek's eyes before it even turns in his mind that he should attack. As she watches Derek's muscles twitch and tense, she lets out a sharp bark, one that tells Scott to stay out of it, before she meets Derek head on, eyes burning crimson.
~
Derek lets out a hiss of pain, torso twisting away from Deaton's gentle hands. The vet smiles patiently down at him, smile stretching when he glowers up in return.
"She's not as weak as I thought." He mutters reluctantly, wincing when the healing skin of his ribcage pulls.
Stiles had dug the claws of her right hand into his side, curling her fingers around his last rib and tugging hard enough to subdue him. It was a precise action, one that tells Derek he should never underestimate her again unless he wanted to see said rib on the outside.
"Miss Stilinski was trained by her mother. A person I hold in high regard like yours." Deaton explains, stepping away and pulling off his gloves. "She's more than capable of protecting herself and this territory. Has been since your sister and yourself left."
"Why didn't my mother tell us about another Alpha being here in Beacon Hills?"
"It wasn't your business to know." Deaton answers simply. "Until Laura took her place as Alpha, it wouldn't have been. It's uncommon and a little unorthodox for my liking, but two Alphas residing in one place isn't necessarily a bad thing."
Derek grunts, heart clenching painfully at the mention of his sister. Her scent was fading quickly from his person, from their things he'd brought with him in the Camaro. It widens the crack in his soul where the rest of his family would have been placed.
"How is it someone so young has kept a territory as big as this one, protected?" Derek asks, rubbing a palm over his throat.
He can still feel the phantom touch of Stiles' jaws wrapped around his jugular, is a little surprised and a whole lot pissed that he submitted so easily. He blames it on the will to live, though what for, he isn't so sure. It beats the other option of accepting he'd just had his ass handed to him by a teenager. Said teenager that after he had submitted, picked him up like he had weighed nothing, placed him gently into her Jeep and drove him to Deaton’s, to be patched up.
He’s somewhat thankful. An attack from an Alpha healed a hell of a lot slower than any other wound from a Beta or Omega, and he didn’t feel like having his insides on the outside for hours until he healed.
"It hasn't been easy. Claudia never bit anyone before she died, didn't want to, I believe. There was only her husband and Stiles in her Pack which is why your family and hers coexisted peacefully. She groomed Stiles to take her place as Alpha before she died." The vet tells him, frowning. He leans against the shelf and crosses his arms and ankles. "When word got around that what was left of the Hales, had left town and a thirteen year old girl was the residing Alpha, Hunters and other werewolves thought Beacon Hills was ripe for the picking."
"How'd she fight them off?" Derek says, feeling his stomach roll. Sure he didn't like Stiles, but having people out for your blood wasn't something he'd want anyone to go through, werewolf or not. Especially that young.
At this, Deaton smiles. "Through a lot of wit and loopholes, I'd imagine. She's smart. Made more alliances than shed blood, but that's not to say she didn't."
"Rogue Hunters and werewolves." He surmises, sitting up and pulling his shirt on, now that the skin near his right hip has closed. It still hurts to move freely and will for a few more hours, but at least he isn't bleeding anymore. "What happened?"
"You'll have to ask her." Deaton says, giving him an enigmatic smile.
~
"Scott, seriously." Stiles sighs. "The point of this exercise is to get you used to using your other senses. You've walked into three trees and stumbled over a rock and log. You can do better than that!"
"That's because I can't see!" Scott growls, frustrated. He's standing mulishly a few feet away from her, blindfolded by one of her tea towels, and looks like he's seven seconds away from pouting.
"That's the whole point. Your eyes shouldn't be the only thing you rely on." She calmly says and the pout predictably appears. "Smell the trees, does the scent get stronger when you take a step forward or does it fade into something else? Hear the wind blow, does it break between the trees or does it rush towards you, in one wave? What about the ground beneath your feet? Does it dip low or does it rise? You need to know this in case one of your senses is taken."
"Did your mom teach you this?" Scott asks, head tilted to the side.
Stiles swallows the lump that forms in her throat, knows her best friend can hear how her heart thumps rapidly behind her rib cage. "Yes. We made a game of it when I was six. By the time I was ten I could run through these woods with all but one sense to my advantage."
Scott's uneven jaw works for a few seconds before he visibly shakes himself. He rightens the towel, tightens the other ends before nodding once. "Okay. Let's do this again."
She smiles when he begins to make his way through the trees, steps slow but gaining in confidence. She rumbles her approval.
Scott preens at the sound and then promptly walks into a tree.
~
"What can I do for you, son?"
Derek fidgets under Sheriff Stilinski's gaze. He has no idea why he's here or why Stiles let her father answer the door when she knows it's him. He hadn't been hiding the fact he was coming to her house, what with the specific rumble of his car and the fact she could hear his heartbeat.
She was just being an asshole. Derek isn't all that surprised.
"I'm here to announce myself to the Alpha of Beacon Hills." He says, squaring his shoulders.
“Alpha?” A confused look graces the Sheriff's face. "Like Alpha and Omega? Like wolves?"
Derek has a moment of pure panic shoot through him, his shoulders now hunched by his ears.
Did he not know what his daughter or wife is?
He stumbles over his words, tries to find a lie that would explain why he was at the Sheriff's doorstep talking about wolves, without sounding like he had completely lost his mind.
A grin begins to play on the older man's face, "Relax, son, I know all about werewolves. Kinda hard not to when you've lived with them for as long as I have."
Derek doesn't know if he should glare, laugh or cry.
He goes with glare.
All that earns him is a chuckle and a warm hand firmly tugging him further into the house. "Never gets old. You should see the looks on your faces when I do that."
He glares a little more, noting that being an asshole is in the Stilinski gene.
"Stiles, you've got a visitor." He says to the ceiling, voice even and not at all raised.
He really was telling the truth when he mentioned that he had been living with werewolves for a long time. Someone would have raised their voices to be heard, it would have been ingrained in them to do it, but the Sheriff hadn’t so much as changed the pitch of his tone.
There's a series of thumps upstairs before she's standing in the lounge room, wearing another plaid shirt and a pair of shorts that stop mid-thigh. Normally there would be a band tee underneath the open shirt, but today she's got it buttoned up to the wings of her collarbones, her throat bared for all to see.
Derek's uncomfortable at the display and he's not entirely sure why.
"I've got it from here, thanks Dad." She smiles, stepping in close to hug him, nose rubbing into the material of his uniform.
"Alright Kiddo," he returns her smile, pressing his face against his daughter's hair, scent marking her, before releasing her to walk out of the lounge room and then the front door. "No blood on the carpet."
"One time!" She calls after him, grin playing on her face.
It's silent when they both listen to the cruiser drive off, Stiles watching him stand there awkwardly through wide whiskey eyes.
"What's up?" She asks, minutes later, head tilted to the side.
Derek sighs. "I don't know what to do now that Peter's dead but -- but leaving doesn't feel like an option, not right now, anyway." He pauses, looking around the room before connecting their gazes together. "With your permission Alpha Stilinski, I'd like to stay here in Beacon Hills."
Stiles stares at him, face carefully blank for so long that he begins to fidget.
"Well?" He asks, trying not to snap.
"Where are you staying?" She asks, completely throwing him off. "Because I can't let you stay in the Hale house. It's not safe for Hunters and house collapsing reasons."
Hurt pulses through him at her words and Derek has to push down the urge to fight her declaration. He knows she's right, his home was now just a husk of wooden bones and faded memories. A good wind could knock it down around his ears or Hunters could easily find the house and do with it what they will, most likely with him still inside.
"I haven't found anything yet. I've been living in the car." He answers truthfully and not totally sure why.
His mother had the same infuriating habit of getting him to admit things with just an eyebrow twitch in his direction. This was different though, it wasn’t his mother. It’s a different Alpha and one he sort of finds infuriating.
"You're gonna have to stay here then." Stiles tells him, turning to walk out of the room.
Derek's mouth gapes for a few seconds before he darts after her, spluttering all the while. "You can't -- that's not -- what?"
"Don't worry," she flaps a hand at him as she stands at her front door and opens it for him. "It's equal parts to give you a safe place to sleep and for me to keep an eye on you. Everyone wins. Now go get your crap and be back by six. We have dinner at six thirty, you're not here, you miss out."
~
Derek has no idea how this happened. This being him sitting awkwardly at a table with Stiles, her father, Scott and his mother Melissa, a roast dinner sitting between them. Oh, he knows it's because Stiles told him about the dinner, it's the why he listened, that's got him so confused.
"Pass the peas, son." Sheriff Stilinski asks him, nudging him with an elbow.
He passes the bowl automatically and wonders briefly if he's gone insane when the older man thanks him.
"Are you -- are you okay with me staying here?" Derek questions, glancing at the older man, hands fiddling with his knife and fork.
He expects a frown or a glare, what he's not expecting is a comforting smile. "If Stiles wants you close, it's for good reason. It's probably to give you a chance to rest and definitely because she wants to make sure you don't get into trouble, but I trust Stiles' judgment."
Derek is slightly unnerved about how correct that assumption is.
“Besides, werewolf protocols override human ones, here. I’m not supporting her decision as a Sheriff or her father, I’m supporting her as her Beta and Packmate. ” The older man continues, with a shrug. He then looks thoughtful. “Sometimes I have to let her step in as an Alpha, my Alpha, and put the thought of her being my daughter in the back of my mind. It’s just the way these things are.”
"But aren't you worried that something might happen to you or to your daughter?" He asks, then frowns hard because it just sounded like he threatened the Sheriff of Beacon Hills and an Alpha's father.
He glances over at said Alpha and notes she's too busy engaging in tag teaming with Scott, against his mother into allowing them to do some stupid stunt. He can tell Melissa is only going along with it for entertainment's sake, a grin tugging at her lips.
Derek turns his attention back to Stiles' father and startles at the amused look playing on his face.
"Just because I'm an old human, don't think I'm not prepared in taking care of myself, son. Werewolves are easy to take down. Having wolfsbane bullets goes a long way too." He tells him, forking a piece of chicken and popping it into his mouth. It puts his bare right wrist into view, where five silvery white lines slice down his forearm and down to his elbow. Claw marks. Following Derek’s gaze, he smiles slightly. "You should have seen the other guy."
Derek, with wide eyes, has to admit to himself that the Stilinski duo are terrifying.
~
"There's spare blankets in that closet if you get cold, bathroom is down the hall and to the left." Stiles tells him, hours later, leaning against the door jamb to the room he's in. "You've got free reign here in the house, but my room and my father's are off limits unless we've said otherwise."
"Understood." Derek replies, nodding his head.
He takes in the spare room, the bed he's standing in front of is large, easily able to fit a couple on. There's a dresser to the right and bedside table near his left hip, a lit lamp sitting on it. It's basic, but it's homier than anything he's ever stayed in since the fire tore his life apart.
“I’m not worried about my Dad, you know.” She says after a beat of silence. “I mean, I am, he’s my father and human, of course I’m going to worry, but not for the reasons you were questioning him on, at the dinner table tonight.”
Derek flushes slightly, both at being called out by Stiles, and thinking she wasn’t aware of the conversation on the other end of the table. Scott, he might be able to pass it by, but it was stupid to think she was the same.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect,” he says, tries not to panic and snap, shoulders coming up to hug his ears.
“I know, I’m just letting you know that your worry is appreciated but not necessary.” Stiles states, waving his words away. She’s still sprawled on the door frame, looking relaxed and not at all offended, so he lowers his shoulders slightly. “He’s been in this lifestyle for twenty nine years, he’s been trained by my mother how to defend himself and myself how to fight. He’s taken down werewolves and Hunters without breaking a sweat. But, if he has to, he will defend me if you decide to take revenge for Peter’s death and it will be painful on your part.”
He snaps his head up from where he was gazing steadily at the corner of the room, to Stiles’ eyes. He shakes his head quickly. “No – that’s not why I said – that’s not it at all. I just meant that he seemed comfortable with a twenty two year old human staying in his house, with his seventeen year old daughter. No one else will understand or think that it’s because I’m a werewolf taking sanctuary in an Alpha’s home. They’ll question it.”
She squints slightly before nodding. “You let us worry about that if they do. They won’t, because of Dad’s position as Sheriff, and while I may have gotten some from my mother, but the ability to spin a conversation on its head? Totally a Stilinski trait. We’ll have people baking you pies and welcoming you back home, in no time.”
Derek seriously doubts that, what with him being accused of murdering Laura, but he appreciates her words anyway.
"Alright then." She says. She pushes herself away from the door jamb to her full height and turns to walk away. "I'll see you in the morning. Good night."
"Stiles?" He murmurs, sure she'll be able to hear him.
She turns and faces him with a questioning look.
“Thank you. Just –” He looks her directly in the eye and tells her sincerely, "Thank you."
She gives him a soft smile and nod before disappearing from sight.