FIC: Intangible 2/? l PG-13 l Stiles Stilinski and Derek Hale l Teen Wolf
Title: Learning curve
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Characters: Stiles, Derek and Papa Stilinski in this chapter
Warnings: nothing thus far. Not even language.
Summary: Derek cocked an eyebrow at him. “Is that really the game you want to play? Is that really how you want me to answer your questions?”
Disclaimer: Yep. Still not getting paid for this.
Dinner, as it turned out, had actually been prepared by Stiles, and his father had pulled it from the oven and set the table. He had to actually search for a third chair, because it had just been the two of them for so long, it hadn’t seemed necessary. It was lasagna, with breadsticks instead of garlic toast. Derek stood awkwardly at the edge of the kitchen, right in the doorway as Stiles tossed a salad that nobody really intended to eat.
“Don’t stand there like a freaking voyeur, okay?” Stiles muttered once his father had disappeared from the room to grab the milk and a few glasses. “Take a seat, freak.” He set the salad in the middle of the table beside the lasagna. Three of them at the table was going to be a fit. They barely had room for all the food. So Derek took a seat, but he didn’t look any less awkward about it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat down to a dinner.
Stiles took the beer from his dad’s hand as the man returned and put it back in the fridge. “You know how many calories are in beer?” He sighed as he grabbed his father a glass for the milk. “Alcohol isn’t just bad for the liver, it’s bad for pretty much everything else too, dad,” he added, but it was a worn out lecture that his father didn’t bother to refute anymore.
Derek didn’t like it here. Even sitting at their table felt like he was on the other side of the window, looking in. The Sheriff reached slightly to clasp Stiles’s shoulder so briefly, Derek almost missed it and then they cut into the lasagna. There was melancholy hanging around them. A sadness reflected in both of them, so loud and so violent, Dere couldn’t understand how he’d never noticed it before. An open wound behind the sheriff’s eyes when he looked at Stiles. It made the man’s next words easier to swallow.
“I have a gun.”
Stiles choked on his mouthful of lasagna and coughed, shattering what silence had briefly fallen. He swallowed hard and Derek set down his fork. “I don’t,” he said.
“That’s comforting,” Stiles said. “Right?” He elbowed his father. “No firearm accidents with this man, nu huh.”
His father didn’t look comforted. He set his fork down too, and leveled Derek with a weighted gaze. “And if you injure Stiles in anyway - physically, psychologically or emotionally - I am going to take that gun, and shoot you with it.”
The dinner ground to a surprisingly abrupt halt. Stiles gawked at his father - were they really having this talk? Now? The threatening his… jesus christ. His father hadn’t even given him the sex talk yet. There hadn’t even been any talk about Stiles perhaps being gay - which he wasn’t, he was fairly positive, but sexuality was fluid. He was just positive he’d never seen a dick he wanted to suck. It didn’t mean there wasn’t a dick out there he wanted to suck - it just meant he’d never found one yet. And his father was taking this amazingly well. Stiles glanced at Derek, and Derek was looking at his father in a way he’d never looked at Stiles. There wasn’t a frown, or that hateful glint in his eyes. Derek didn’t even look amused - playful, almost - like he did sometimes. It was entirely unreadable.
“I understand,” Derek said. He didn’t try to set the man straight, he just answered him a firm, but almost…jesus - almost respectable tone.
His father nodded his head with finality and picked up his fork again and proceeded to eat. The discuss was evidently closed. They dissolved into other topics. The sheriff prodded Stiles about lacrosse practice - the practices he’d been having every other day with Scott since the championship game. More or less. He’d been blowing Scott off a lot lately, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been improving. A lot of it was just confidence anyway.
He’d spent the first two years of high school with the constant reminder that he sucked. But last year? During that championship game? He definitely hadn’t sucked. And it helped. It gave him confidence, something to focus on.
They shifted toward Stiles’s grades - Straight As - and his upcoming finals, and how Stiles needed to buckle down because he didn’t do too well with test taking and these finals were important. It wasn’t a bad concern actually - Stiles’s ADHD made it difficult to sit still and focus that long in such a still and silent environment. Stiles glanced toward Derek at this new topic. It wasn’t really his father’s fault. He didn’t know that Stiles and Derek weren’t exactly on talking terms. That Derek didn’t know anything about him. That his father was revealing all this new information to him.
But this might be the only dinner they share this week, and it was already the beginning of May. Finals were fast approaching. “Stiles.” Stiles jerked his gaze back to his father, and abruptly realized that his thoughts had wandered. And he hadn’t even realized it. “You forget your meds this morning? You seem distracted.”
Stiles could feel Derek’s gaze boring into him. He didn’t like it. This feeling. Almost helpless, even. “Yeah,” he said, but it was a struggle forcing that word out. And his father must have read it in his face because he immediately backed off.
They strayed from the topic of his meds and grades and everything else after that. Stiles tried to broach the subject of his father’s new case, but the man quickly shut him down. Stiles expected it, at least. He’d have to wait until Derek left and try again. His father turned his gaze on Derek and started asking Derek questions. About his life, his job (what job?), how things had been lately. But there was a certain kind of quiet respect. He didn’t tread too closely to the topic of family. He didn’t bring up the arrest or the accused murder. There was a lightness to it, not a prying one. And evidently - Derek knew how to talk too. He also didn’t bring up the fact that Stiles and Derek might be dating. And Stiles knew why. In his father’s mind - that issue was settled. Until he walked in on Stiles and Derek fucking - which would definitely never happen, on account of them not going out and all.
After dinner, Stiles cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. He wrapped up the leftover lasagna and stuck it in the fridge. “You’ve got forty-five minutes,” the sheriff said, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. “Then your friend has to leave.” Derek hadn’t left his seat at the table. “And if I walk in on you in a compromising position again, Stiles…” Stiles stilled, his back still turned toward his father, hands curled on the edge of the sink. His back was tight with tension.
“Well, I don’t know what I’d do,” he admitted, slightly sheepish, because parents were supposed to be better at this. They were supposed to know what to do in this kind of situation. “But you got a vivid imagination. I’ll let you come up with something and pretend I did later.” Then the sheriff retreated from the room, and Derek listened to his footsteps slowly fade, surprised the man was actually giving them privacy.
“So that was unbelievably awkward,” Stiles said, drawing Derek’s attention back to him. The boy still hadn’t turned around yet. “You can just forget everything he just said about - everything. None of it’s relevant anyway so -”
“What do you take medication for?” Derek inquired, almost innocently.
Stiles turned around now, leveling Derek with a calculative gaze. “Why?” He asked, deflecting.
“You always smell like medicine,” Derek admitted. “Why?”
Stiles scoffed, leaning back against the sink and folding his own arms across his chest. In that moment - oddly - he resembled his father. Even when the difference in fashion were taken into account. The sheriff was in uniform. Stiles wore a thick unzipped hoody, and worn jeans. The sheriff looked professional and Stiles looked the complete opposite of that. “What makes you think I have to tell you anything?”
Derek managed to sigh and roll his eyes at the same time. “After your whole rant about trust - really?” Stiles was unmoved. “Alright. You answer my questions, and I’ll answer yours. What I know, at least. Deal?”
That seemed to dislodge something in Stiles, and the boy loosened up a bit. “ADHD. My question is -”
“ADHD?” Derek pressed, clearly wanting Stiles to elaborate. Oh, and wasn’t Derek just the epitome of patience and curiosity?
Stiles scowled at him. “It’s my turn,” he said stubbornly.
Derek cocked an eyebrow at him. “Is that really the game you want to play? Is that really how you want me to answer your questions?”
Stiles sighed. “I have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder,” he said. “More on the inattentive and hyperactive side, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed. I take Adderall for it. What it really means is that my mind kinda wanders sometimes. I can’t focus very good. I can’t sit still for very long and Mr. Harris knows that but he keeps sticking me in these two hour detentions and making me just sit there. And stare at the clock.” Stiles let out a frustrated breath. “You know he’s threatening to flunk me? Straight As and just because sometimes I get a little off topic - and creative - during boring and predictable essay questions doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention. I mean it’s chemistry right? Why the hell are there even essay questions to begin with?”
Derek was patient as Stiles ranted. It felt like a long time coming. “So I take Adderall,” he concluded. “Sometimes I forget to, and I can’t focus. And sometimes I take too much and…” He trailed off, realizing he’d said way more than the question necessary called for. Damnit.
“And…?” Derek prompted and Stiles’s gaze hardened slightly. Why was Derek being so patient? Why did he even care?
“And I end up not sleeping for three days,” he concluded. Or eating, really. Overdosing on Adderall was not fun. He found that out the hard way. “Can’t get my brain to shut up. Which is useful sometimes. During midterms. With all this werewolf bullshit. So much to read and not enough time.”
“How much have you been sleeping lately, Stiles?” Derek asked. And Stiles was still staring at him like he’d never seen the other boy before. Because who freaking asked questions like that?
“Uh uh,” Stiles tutted. “That’s a whole nother question. My turn.” He paused, waiting for Derek to argue, and when he didn’t, Stiles continued. “How did Peter resurrect himself?”
“A ritual,” Derek answered, the words coming out forced, like he’d rather just swallow them. Stiles could imagine why. Werewolves were probably supposed to keep these secrets from humans. “Every full moon is important. We have - I mean those born into it, real packs -” Stiles frowned, because it implied Derek thought his own pack wasn’t a real pack, “- they have rituals in celebration and honor of these moons. As you would worship a deity. The wolf moon is a day of feast. It’s a rite of passage - a coming of age. But the last full moon of March is the Moon of Worms.”
“Because that’s when the worms start showing in the ground?” Stiles prompted. Slowly, he moved away from the sink and took a seat at the table, across from Derek. Stiles immediately slouched in his chair, arm sprawled out on the table in front of him.
Derek looked impressed. “You’re right,” he agreed. “It’s a day of rebirth. So we feast. We bestow names on those born during the summer or the winter -”
“What if you’re born right after the moon of worms?” Stiles interjected.
Initially, Derek looked irritated, but it became suddenly obvious that Stiles was just curious. He wasn’t trying to be a smartass. “A baby can wait a year to be named. It won’t die,” he said tersely. “Can I finish?”
Stiles gave Derek the ‘by all means, continue’ gesture with his hand.
“Anyway. We welcome them officially into the pack during this feast. And that’s all we’re supposed to be doing. Giving thanks. Passing on traditions. But I’m sure as you know - there are people out there who use black magic. Who try to control the negative energies in the universe, and turn everything sour to suit their own selfish needs. We aren’t supposed to be selfish, Stiles. You live in a pack and you’re supposed to take every single member’s needs and wants into account. You’re supposed to be a unit, cohesive. Peter isn’t.”
“Alright,” Stiles said. “So Peter used negative energies - or whatever - how’d he do it?”
“I don’t know,” Derek admitted. “There are legends. About resurrection but I didn’t know all the pieces until then. He used Lydia to help him. I don’t know how.”
“But if he was dead, and she was unaware of what was happening most of the time - it means that he got into her head somehow, after his death,” Stiles supplied slowly, as the thought came together in his mind. Lydia had said it felt like a dream half of the time. But she had seemed clear in what she wanted to do too. “Could it be her immunity?”
“I’m almost entirely positive it is,” Derek agreed.
“So…” Stiles stabbed a finger at the table. “What you’re saying is that Peter didn’t intend to kill or turn her, he bit her because of her immunity - that he somehow knew all about without having met her before?”
Derek nodded. “Somehow,” he echoed.
“Maybe it has a smell?” Stiles asked.
“I would have smelt it.”
“No. Peter told me that deception has a smell too. And Scott deceived you and you didn’t smell it. Maybe it’s a smell you’ve never smelt before.” Stiles sounded sure of it.
Derek frowned. Stiles’s mind was working quickly. He was slotting together pieces it had taken Derek weeks to fit together. “When did you talk to Peter?”
Stiles clammed up immediately. “Uh…”
“No,” Derek said forcefully. “It’s my turn. When did you talk to Peter?”
Ah. Crap. “The night of the formal,” he answered begrudgingly. Derek realized it was embarrassingly easy to get answers out of Stiles when there was something he wanted on the table too. Intimidation didn’t work. But knowledge? Yeah. That worked just fine.
“And?” Derek pressed, clearly growing annoyed with Stiles’s reluctance.
“And I went looking for Lydia - because Jackson, the fucking dick, outted Scott to Allison’s dad. So I went looking for Lydia because she’d been looking for Jackson. And your uncle attacked her and when I got there - I mean I tried to tell her to run, I shouted it at her, as I ran across the field - but you know…what are you gonna do? That’s not exactly an everyday occurrence. Like anybody’s ever prepared for that. And he was knelt over her body - like - you know - a…”
“Animal,” Derek supplied when Stiles paused, searching for a word.
Stiles nodded quickly. “Right - he gave me a choice. Help him find you, or he was going to kill her. And when I told him I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, he told me that deception has a particular smell.”
“And what did you do?”Derek asked. This was like an actual conversation. This back and forth. And it was weird.
“I traced Scott’s phone that you took when he went to stop you from killing Jackson. That’s why you took it right?” Stiles asked, looking at Derek. It was obvious from his expression that he already knew the answer.
“Yeah.” That was why he’d taken it. A part of him had known that it would be Stiles to make that connection, and not Scott; it wasn’t just that though. He had trusted that Stiles and Scott were so close that Stiles would have all of the information too. But it had taken too long. It had been Scott who had found him. “Why did Scott find me and not Peter?” He pressed.
Stiles sighed. He debated whether or not this was a whole new question before continuing. “I don’t know. Peter broke my keys. I had to run the entire way to the hospital.” Derek cocked his head because he heard that. The increase of Stiles’s heartbeat. “And when I got there, Scott wasn’t -”
“Wait,” Derek interrupted. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“What?”
“Your heart - it’s faster. Fear. Shame. Disappointment.” With each new emotion ticked off, Stiles’s frown grew deeper. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Stiles shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it. He really didn’t. “If I tell you everything, how do I know you won’t take it back - your answers?”
“I won’t,” Derek said stiffly, even though he wanted to sound more reassuring. He wasn’t sure he remembered how to be. “I promise.”
Stiles studied him for a long minute, uncertain. God, his uncertainty was like a bleeding wound behind his eyes. But he gave in anyway in the end. “We were in a parking garage. Tracing Scott’s phone. And he broke my keys. Then he told me that since I helped him - after he gave this stupid speech about not being the bad guy; I’m sure the nurse he murdered would beg to differ - since I helped him, he would give me a reward. He offered me the bite.” Derek’s face darkened considerably. “As you can probably tell, I refused it. Obviously. Me not being a werewolf and everything. And seeing what happened to Jackson - how do I know that won’t happen to me too?”
Derek’s - face dark and drawn taut with anger - considered Stiles. “The Kanima is what happens when the outside of a person reflects the inside. Jackson was a snake, so he became a snake. And we cured him. You’re not a snake, Stiles. You just said that you ran straight into the face of death to save a girl who didn’t even know you existed last year. You’re not a snake.”
Stiles’s smile was reluctant and wry, like he thought Derek was lying, but he appreciated the lie. “I wanted to kill Jackson after the rave,” he said quietly. “I knew how to find you an entire day before Peter made me. Are you sure you really know me, Derek?”
Derek was quiet for a moment, the weight of what he’d just said settling heavy around his shoulders. “You’re not a snake,” he repeated, stubborn and sure of it. “Snakes don’t risk their own safety for the safety of others.”
Stiles shook his head. “So anyway. I had to run to the hospital. And my dad - he was freaking out - but he asked me where Scott was. Because Scott wasn’t there. I guess that’s when he went looking for you.”
“And you made the Molotov cocktails on your way to my house,” Derek supplied. Stiles wasn’t sure what expression was on his face. Approval, maybe. “Where’d you learn how to do that? Chemistry?”
Stiles shook his head. “No, remember when we got trapped in the school and Peter lured Allison there. Well, Lydia and Jackson were with her too. And when they all thought it was some crazed killer trapping us there - it was Lydia’s idea. She made them. It didn’t work. Because Jackson…” Stiles shook his head. “It had to have been Jackson, he was handing her all the ingredients. But I remembered what she’d said - what ingredients were in them.”
“Do you remember everything we say?” Derek asked and Stiles was already nodding before he realized it was another question - a different topic. “Photographic memory?”
Stiles shook his head slightly. “Nah, I dunno,” he said. “Photographic memory means you remember everything visually. Common misconception. This is more like Eidetic memory. I don’t just remember what I see - what I read aloud, in books - I don’t just remember that. I remember everything. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, I remember everything. And it fucks with my ADHD because with ADHD you’re more absent minded. So you forget where you put things. Which used to be a massive problem when I was a kid because I kept forgetting where I put my pills.” He shook his head at the memory. “But since I’m absent minded, and I have this outrageous memory - it gets kinda…” He shrugged slightly. “Unpredictable, I guess.”
“But you remember everything,” Derek echoed. “Like Peter hovering over Lydia’s body and how you felt when you thought she would die.” Stiles dipped his head slightly, in a barely there nod. “And the mechanic getting crushed to death.” Another jerky dip of his head. “You remember every minute of being in the pool for two hours?” A third dip. “You remember everything.”
“Sometimes,” Stiles allowed. “If I’ve been taking my meds. Sometimes…” He shrugged his shoulders, seemingly aborting that route of conversation. Sometimes he tried to stop his meds. Wean himself off of them. It was usually acts of anger more than anything. When he was younger, he used to get picked on alot for it. People used to call him a spaz or an airhead. They used to call him stupid and every other insulting name they could think of.
Stiles swallowed hard. “But back on topic - while I was at the hospital, my dad told me that the culprit of the fire was wearing a pendant. Like Allison’s. Why didn’t you tell anyone that Kate burned down your house?”
Derek shrugged, suddenly stiff and closed off again. “It’s a long story.” This was the problem between them. They were both so guarded; they didn’t want to give anything away. They didn’t want to admit any faults - they didn’t want to expose themselves to betrayal.
“Why didn’t you do anything about her?” He asked, quieter, softer this time, like he knew he was already on thin ice.
Derek shook his head. “Do you know what happens when you let vengeance control you?” He asked, surprisingly quiet. “Peter is what happens. When you’re so full of vengeance and anger that you stop living for anything else. Are you seriously asking me why I didn’t take the actions that my uncle took? I didn’t want to become that single action. Killing Kate; nothing else. I didn’t want that to be the only thing keeping me alive. So that when I finally did kill her, I wouldn’t know how to live afterwards. I wouldn’t want to live. I would feel like I finally fulfilled that one single thing I might be able to do right in my life.” He shook his head again. “I didn’t do anything. I lived. And I didn’t do that right, I know. But it’s important that I did it. It’s important that I learned how to move on. Maybe it’s even more important that Peter killed Kate. But it’s important, Stiles. That’s why I did nothing. Because by doing nothing, I was honoring my family.”
They were silent for a moment. Stiles, for the first time, didn’t know what to say. Derek, having filled his word quote for the year, didn’t feel the need to break the silence. Stiles swallowed audibly, rapping his fingers on the table. “You had control,” Stiles said. “And Allison…”
“Allison is a child,” Derek said, as if he knew what Stiles might say, and didn’t want to hear it. “Who lost two of her family members and didn’t know how to handle her grief. She reacted as any other person might. She reacted as Peter did. As you might if you lost your father. Allison is a human.”
Again, Stiles was silenced for the moment. He wasn’t prepared for this. For Derek to be calm, rational even while discussing his family’s gruesome murder. For Derek to be forgiving. He was taken aback. Unsettled.
“Stiles. Are you done gawking - I can be a human too. Do you have any more questions or…” It seemed abrupt for Derek to be suddenly that impatient.
Stiles shook his head quickly to clear it. “Oh right. Why were your eyes blue?” He asked, perching forward in interest.
Derek frowned, because it was abruptly off topic. But they did have a deal. “The universe balances itself.”
“Yeah, I know, you already told me that. What does it mean?” Stiles pressed impatiently.
“When you take a life,” Derek said slowly, “You’re cursed with wearing a pendant of that crime for the rest of your life. It’s meant to be a stain. All wolves are born or created with yellow eyes. Alphas have red eyes. But those who murder people - their eyes turn blue.”
“And Jackson killed people, so his eyes are blue,” Stiles said. “But you did too. Who?”
Derek went quiet, and Stiles didn’t expect an answer, but then Derek seemed to come to a discussion and spoke anyway. “It was an accident,” he said quietly. “My family had just died and when you’re a werewolf, Stiles, your emotions control everything. Just as if you’re a human - but amplified. All these heighten senses - they don’t come without a consequence. Everything is amplified, even your weaknesses. That’s why it was so important for Scott to stay away from Allison. Because he was too young to know how to control his emotions. Lust, Anger - it’s all the same thing. You see red no matter what you feel and when you see red - when you get into that mindset, you murder people. It doesn’t matter if you love them.”
There was a certain way that Derek said ‘love’ like it was a mythological attribute nobody in the real world actually possessed. “So… you had a lot of anger…” Stiles said, quietly. They were all so very quiet, speaking in the kitchen in hushed tones, caught up in their conversation.
“I didn’t have a lot of anger,” Derek said. “I became my anger. I let it control everything I did. And one night, someone - just some idiot kid - picked a fight that he thought he could win. And I couldn’t control the anger. I hated humans and a human had the nerve to attack me.”
“And you killed him.”
Derek nodded. That alone was the exact reason he used his anger to anchor him, so he never made that mistake again. So he never allowed another person to dictate the actions he took in life. “There are repercussions for those kinds of acts. Every single wolf you meet will know exactly what you’ve done. They will judge you on a very core level - they will judge what kind of person you are, and they will turn you away. Because if you can’t control your emotions, then you’re useless to them.”
“You become a pariah,” Stiles murmured. “And Jackson - he never even had a chance.”
“He has a chance now.”
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Characters: Stiles, Derek and Papa Stilinski in this chapter
Warnings: nothing thus far. Not even language.
Summary: Derek cocked an eyebrow at him. “Is that really the game you want to play? Is that really how you want me to answer your questions?”
Disclaimer: Yep. Still not getting paid for this.
Dinner, as it turned out, had actually been prepared by Stiles, and his father had pulled it from the oven and set the table. He had to actually search for a third chair, because it had just been the two of them for so long, it hadn’t seemed necessary. It was lasagna, with breadsticks instead of garlic toast. Derek stood awkwardly at the edge of the kitchen, right in the doorway as Stiles tossed a salad that nobody really intended to eat.
“Don’t stand there like a freaking voyeur, okay?” Stiles muttered once his father had disappeared from the room to grab the milk and a few glasses. “Take a seat, freak.” He set the salad in the middle of the table beside the lasagna. Three of them at the table was going to be a fit. They barely had room for all the food. So Derek took a seat, but he didn’t look any less awkward about it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat down to a dinner.
Stiles took the beer from his dad’s hand as the man returned and put it back in the fridge. “You know how many calories are in beer?” He sighed as he grabbed his father a glass for the milk. “Alcohol isn’t just bad for the liver, it’s bad for pretty much everything else too, dad,” he added, but it was a worn out lecture that his father didn’t bother to refute anymore.
Derek didn’t like it here. Even sitting at their table felt like he was on the other side of the window, looking in. The Sheriff reached slightly to clasp Stiles’s shoulder so briefly, Derek almost missed it and then they cut into the lasagna. There was melancholy hanging around them. A sadness reflected in both of them, so loud and so violent, Dere couldn’t understand how he’d never noticed it before. An open wound behind the sheriff’s eyes when he looked at Stiles. It made the man’s next words easier to swallow.
“I have a gun.”
Stiles choked on his mouthful of lasagna and coughed, shattering what silence had briefly fallen. He swallowed hard and Derek set down his fork. “I don’t,” he said.
“That’s comforting,” Stiles said. “Right?” He elbowed his father. “No firearm accidents with this man, nu huh.”
His father didn’t look comforted. He set his fork down too, and leveled Derek with a weighted gaze. “And if you injure Stiles in anyway - physically, psychologically or emotionally - I am going to take that gun, and shoot you with it.”
The dinner ground to a surprisingly abrupt halt. Stiles gawked at his father - were they really having this talk? Now? The threatening his… jesus christ. His father hadn’t even given him the sex talk yet. There hadn’t even been any talk about Stiles perhaps being gay - which he wasn’t, he was fairly positive, but sexuality was fluid. He was just positive he’d never seen a dick he wanted to suck. It didn’t mean there wasn’t a dick out there he wanted to suck - it just meant he’d never found one yet. And his father was taking this amazingly well. Stiles glanced at Derek, and Derek was looking at his father in a way he’d never looked at Stiles. There wasn’t a frown, or that hateful glint in his eyes. Derek didn’t even look amused - playful, almost - like he did sometimes. It was entirely unreadable.
“I understand,” Derek said. He didn’t try to set the man straight, he just answered him a firm, but almost…jesus - almost respectable tone.
His father nodded his head with finality and picked up his fork again and proceeded to eat. The discuss was evidently closed. They dissolved into other topics. The sheriff prodded Stiles about lacrosse practice - the practices he’d been having every other day with Scott since the championship game. More or less. He’d been blowing Scott off a lot lately, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been improving. A lot of it was just confidence anyway.
He’d spent the first two years of high school with the constant reminder that he sucked. But last year? During that championship game? He definitely hadn’t sucked. And it helped. It gave him confidence, something to focus on.
They shifted toward Stiles’s grades - Straight As - and his upcoming finals, and how Stiles needed to buckle down because he didn’t do too well with test taking and these finals were important. It wasn’t a bad concern actually - Stiles’s ADHD made it difficult to sit still and focus that long in such a still and silent environment. Stiles glanced toward Derek at this new topic. It wasn’t really his father’s fault. He didn’t know that Stiles and Derek weren’t exactly on talking terms. That Derek didn’t know anything about him. That his father was revealing all this new information to him.
But this might be the only dinner they share this week, and it was already the beginning of May. Finals were fast approaching. “Stiles.” Stiles jerked his gaze back to his father, and abruptly realized that his thoughts had wandered. And he hadn’t even realized it. “You forget your meds this morning? You seem distracted.”
Stiles could feel Derek’s gaze boring into him. He didn’t like it. This feeling. Almost helpless, even. “Yeah,” he said, but it was a struggle forcing that word out. And his father must have read it in his face because he immediately backed off.
They strayed from the topic of his meds and grades and everything else after that. Stiles tried to broach the subject of his father’s new case, but the man quickly shut him down. Stiles expected it, at least. He’d have to wait until Derek left and try again. His father turned his gaze on Derek and started asking Derek questions. About his life, his job (what job?), how things had been lately. But there was a certain kind of quiet respect. He didn’t tread too closely to the topic of family. He didn’t bring up the arrest or the accused murder. There was a lightness to it, not a prying one. And evidently - Derek knew how to talk too. He also didn’t bring up the fact that Stiles and Derek might be dating. And Stiles knew why. In his father’s mind - that issue was settled. Until he walked in on Stiles and Derek fucking - which would definitely never happen, on account of them not going out and all.
After dinner, Stiles cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. He wrapped up the leftover lasagna and stuck it in the fridge. “You’ve got forty-five minutes,” the sheriff said, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. “Then your friend has to leave.” Derek hadn’t left his seat at the table. “And if I walk in on you in a compromising position again, Stiles…” Stiles stilled, his back still turned toward his father, hands curled on the edge of the sink. His back was tight with tension.
“Well, I don’t know what I’d do,” he admitted, slightly sheepish, because parents were supposed to be better at this. They were supposed to know what to do in this kind of situation. “But you got a vivid imagination. I’ll let you come up with something and pretend I did later.” Then the sheriff retreated from the room, and Derek listened to his footsteps slowly fade, surprised the man was actually giving them privacy.
“So that was unbelievably awkward,” Stiles said, drawing Derek’s attention back to him. The boy still hadn’t turned around yet. “You can just forget everything he just said about - everything. None of it’s relevant anyway so -”
“What do you take medication for?” Derek inquired, almost innocently.
Stiles turned around now, leveling Derek with a calculative gaze. “Why?” He asked, deflecting.
“You always smell like medicine,” Derek admitted. “Why?”
Stiles scoffed, leaning back against the sink and folding his own arms across his chest. In that moment - oddly - he resembled his father. Even when the difference in fashion were taken into account. The sheriff was in uniform. Stiles wore a thick unzipped hoody, and worn jeans. The sheriff looked professional and Stiles looked the complete opposite of that. “What makes you think I have to tell you anything?”
Derek managed to sigh and roll his eyes at the same time. “After your whole rant about trust - really?” Stiles was unmoved. “Alright. You answer my questions, and I’ll answer yours. What I know, at least. Deal?”
That seemed to dislodge something in Stiles, and the boy loosened up a bit. “ADHD. My question is -”
“ADHD?” Derek pressed, clearly wanting Stiles to elaborate. Oh, and wasn’t Derek just the epitome of patience and curiosity?
Stiles scowled at him. “It’s my turn,” he said stubbornly.
Derek cocked an eyebrow at him. “Is that really the game you want to play? Is that really how you want me to answer your questions?”
Stiles sighed. “I have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder,” he said. “More on the inattentive and hyperactive side, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed. I take Adderall for it. What it really means is that my mind kinda wanders sometimes. I can’t focus very good. I can’t sit still for very long and Mr. Harris knows that but he keeps sticking me in these two hour detentions and making me just sit there. And stare at the clock.” Stiles let out a frustrated breath. “You know he’s threatening to flunk me? Straight As and just because sometimes I get a little off topic - and creative - during boring and predictable essay questions doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention. I mean it’s chemistry right? Why the hell are there even essay questions to begin with?”
Derek was patient as Stiles ranted. It felt like a long time coming. “So I take Adderall,” he concluded. “Sometimes I forget to, and I can’t focus. And sometimes I take too much and…” He trailed off, realizing he’d said way more than the question necessary called for. Damnit.
“And…?” Derek prompted and Stiles’s gaze hardened slightly. Why was Derek being so patient? Why did he even care?
“And I end up not sleeping for three days,” he concluded. Or eating, really. Overdosing on Adderall was not fun. He found that out the hard way. “Can’t get my brain to shut up. Which is useful sometimes. During midterms. With all this werewolf bullshit. So much to read and not enough time.”
“How much have you been sleeping lately, Stiles?” Derek asked. And Stiles was still staring at him like he’d never seen the other boy before. Because who freaking asked questions like that?
“Uh uh,” Stiles tutted. “That’s a whole nother question. My turn.” He paused, waiting for Derek to argue, and when he didn’t, Stiles continued. “How did Peter resurrect himself?”
“A ritual,” Derek answered, the words coming out forced, like he’d rather just swallow them. Stiles could imagine why. Werewolves were probably supposed to keep these secrets from humans. “Every full moon is important. We have - I mean those born into it, real packs -” Stiles frowned, because it implied Derek thought his own pack wasn’t a real pack, “- they have rituals in celebration and honor of these moons. As you would worship a deity. The wolf moon is a day of feast. It’s a rite of passage - a coming of age. But the last full moon of March is the Moon of Worms.”
“Because that’s when the worms start showing in the ground?” Stiles prompted. Slowly, he moved away from the sink and took a seat at the table, across from Derek. Stiles immediately slouched in his chair, arm sprawled out on the table in front of him.
Derek looked impressed. “You’re right,” he agreed. “It’s a day of rebirth. So we feast. We bestow names on those born during the summer or the winter -”
“What if you’re born right after the moon of worms?” Stiles interjected.
Initially, Derek looked irritated, but it became suddenly obvious that Stiles was just curious. He wasn’t trying to be a smartass. “A baby can wait a year to be named. It won’t die,” he said tersely. “Can I finish?”
Stiles gave Derek the ‘by all means, continue’ gesture with his hand.
“Anyway. We welcome them officially into the pack during this feast. And that’s all we’re supposed to be doing. Giving thanks. Passing on traditions. But I’m sure as you know - there are people out there who use black magic. Who try to control the negative energies in the universe, and turn everything sour to suit their own selfish needs. We aren’t supposed to be selfish, Stiles. You live in a pack and you’re supposed to take every single member’s needs and wants into account. You’re supposed to be a unit, cohesive. Peter isn’t.”
“Alright,” Stiles said. “So Peter used negative energies - or whatever - how’d he do it?”
“I don’t know,” Derek admitted. “There are legends. About resurrection but I didn’t know all the pieces until then. He used Lydia to help him. I don’t know how.”
“But if he was dead, and she was unaware of what was happening most of the time - it means that he got into her head somehow, after his death,” Stiles supplied slowly, as the thought came together in his mind. Lydia had said it felt like a dream half of the time. But she had seemed clear in what she wanted to do too. “Could it be her immunity?”
“I’m almost entirely positive it is,” Derek agreed.
“So…” Stiles stabbed a finger at the table. “What you’re saying is that Peter didn’t intend to kill or turn her, he bit her because of her immunity - that he somehow knew all about without having met her before?”
Derek nodded. “Somehow,” he echoed.
“Maybe it has a smell?” Stiles asked.
“I would have smelt it.”
“No. Peter told me that deception has a smell too. And Scott deceived you and you didn’t smell it. Maybe it’s a smell you’ve never smelt before.” Stiles sounded sure of it.
Derek frowned. Stiles’s mind was working quickly. He was slotting together pieces it had taken Derek weeks to fit together. “When did you talk to Peter?”
Stiles clammed up immediately. “Uh…”
“No,” Derek said forcefully. “It’s my turn. When did you talk to Peter?”
Ah. Crap. “The night of the formal,” he answered begrudgingly. Derek realized it was embarrassingly easy to get answers out of Stiles when there was something he wanted on the table too. Intimidation didn’t work. But knowledge? Yeah. That worked just fine.
“And?” Derek pressed, clearly growing annoyed with Stiles’s reluctance.
“And I went looking for Lydia - because Jackson, the fucking dick, outted Scott to Allison’s dad. So I went looking for Lydia because she’d been looking for Jackson. And your uncle attacked her and when I got there - I mean I tried to tell her to run, I shouted it at her, as I ran across the field - but you know…what are you gonna do? That’s not exactly an everyday occurrence. Like anybody’s ever prepared for that. And he was knelt over her body - like - you know - a…”
“Animal,” Derek supplied when Stiles paused, searching for a word.
Stiles nodded quickly. “Right - he gave me a choice. Help him find you, or he was going to kill her. And when I told him I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, he told me that deception has a particular smell.”
“And what did you do?”Derek asked. This was like an actual conversation. This back and forth. And it was weird.
“I traced Scott’s phone that you took when he went to stop you from killing Jackson. That’s why you took it right?” Stiles asked, looking at Derek. It was obvious from his expression that he already knew the answer.
“Yeah.” That was why he’d taken it. A part of him had known that it would be Stiles to make that connection, and not Scott; it wasn’t just that though. He had trusted that Stiles and Scott were so close that Stiles would have all of the information too. But it had taken too long. It had been Scott who had found him. “Why did Scott find me and not Peter?” He pressed.
Stiles sighed. He debated whether or not this was a whole new question before continuing. “I don’t know. Peter broke my keys. I had to run the entire way to the hospital.” Derek cocked his head because he heard that. The increase of Stiles’s heartbeat. “And when I got there, Scott wasn’t -”
“Wait,” Derek interrupted. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“What?”
“Your heart - it’s faster. Fear. Shame. Disappointment.” With each new emotion ticked off, Stiles’s frown grew deeper. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Stiles shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it. He really didn’t. “If I tell you everything, how do I know you won’t take it back - your answers?”
“I won’t,” Derek said stiffly, even though he wanted to sound more reassuring. He wasn’t sure he remembered how to be. “I promise.”
Stiles studied him for a long minute, uncertain. God, his uncertainty was like a bleeding wound behind his eyes. But he gave in anyway in the end. “We were in a parking garage. Tracing Scott’s phone. And he broke my keys. Then he told me that since I helped him - after he gave this stupid speech about not being the bad guy; I’m sure the nurse he murdered would beg to differ - since I helped him, he would give me a reward. He offered me the bite.” Derek’s face darkened considerably. “As you can probably tell, I refused it. Obviously. Me not being a werewolf and everything. And seeing what happened to Jackson - how do I know that won’t happen to me too?”
Derek’s - face dark and drawn taut with anger - considered Stiles. “The Kanima is what happens when the outside of a person reflects the inside. Jackson was a snake, so he became a snake. And we cured him. You’re not a snake, Stiles. You just said that you ran straight into the face of death to save a girl who didn’t even know you existed last year. You’re not a snake.”
Stiles’s smile was reluctant and wry, like he thought Derek was lying, but he appreciated the lie. “I wanted to kill Jackson after the rave,” he said quietly. “I knew how to find you an entire day before Peter made me. Are you sure you really know me, Derek?”
Derek was quiet for a moment, the weight of what he’d just said settling heavy around his shoulders. “You’re not a snake,” he repeated, stubborn and sure of it. “Snakes don’t risk their own safety for the safety of others.”
Stiles shook his head. “So anyway. I had to run to the hospital. And my dad - he was freaking out - but he asked me where Scott was. Because Scott wasn’t there. I guess that’s when he went looking for you.”
“And you made the Molotov cocktails on your way to my house,” Derek supplied. Stiles wasn’t sure what expression was on his face. Approval, maybe. “Where’d you learn how to do that? Chemistry?”
Stiles shook his head. “No, remember when we got trapped in the school and Peter lured Allison there. Well, Lydia and Jackson were with her too. And when they all thought it was some crazed killer trapping us there - it was Lydia’s idea. She made them. It didn’t work. Because Jackson…” Stiles shook his head. “It had to have been Jackson, he was handing her all the ingredients. But I remembered what she’d said - what ingredients were in them.”
“Do you remember everything we say?” Derek asked and Stiles was already nodding before he realized it was another question - a different topic. “Photographic memory?”
Stiles shook his head slightly. “Nah, I dunno,” he said. “Photographic memory means you remember everything visually. Common misconception. This is more like Eidetic memory. I don’t just remember what I see - what I read aloud, in books - I don’t just remember that. I remember everything. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, I remember everything. And it fucks with my ADHD because with ADHD you’re more absent minded. So you forget where you put things. Which used to be a massive problem when I was a kid because I kept forgetting where I put my pills.” He shook his head at the memory. “But since I’m absent minded, and I have this outrageous memory - it gets kinda…” He shrugged slightly. “Unpredictable, I guess.”
“But you remember everything,” Derek echoed. “Like Peter hovering over Lydia’s body and how you felt when you thought she would die.” Stiles dipped his head slightly, in a barely there nod. “And the mechanic getting crushed to death.” Another jerky dip of his head. “You remember every minute of being in the pool for two hours?” A third dip. “You remember everything.”
“Sometimes,” Stiles allowed. “If I’ve been taking my meds. Sometimes…” He shrugged his shoulders, seemingly aborting that route of conversation. Sometimes he tried to stop his meds. Wean himself off of them. It was usually acts of anger more than anything. When he was younger, he used to get picked on alot for it. People used to call him a spaz or an airhead. They used to call him stupid and every other insulting name they could think of.
Stiles swallowed hard. “But back on topic - while I was at the hospital, my dad told me that the culprit of the fire was wearing a pendant. Like Allison’s. Why didn’t you tell anyone that Kate burned down your house?”
Derek shrugged, suddenly stiff and closed off again. “It’s a long story.” This was the problem between them. They were both so guarded; they didn’t want to give anything away. They didn’t want to admit any faults - they didn’t want to expose themselves to betrayal.
“Why didn’t you do anything about her?” He asked, quieter, softer this time, like he knew he was already on thin ice.
Derek shook his head. “Do you know what happens when you let vengeance control you?” He asked, surprisingly quiet. “Peter is what happens. When you’re so full of vengeance and anger that you stop living for anything else. Are you seriously asking me why I didn’t take the actions that my uncle took? I didn’t want to become that single action. Killing Kate; nothing else. I didn’t want that to be the only thing keeping me alive. So that when I finally did kill her, I wouldn’t know how to live afterwards. I wouldn’t want to live. I would feel like I finally fulfilled that one single thing I might be able to do right in my life.” He shook his head again. “I didn’t do anything. I lived. And I didn’t do that right, I know. But it’s important that I did it. It’s important that I learned how to move on. Maybe it’s even more important that Peter killed Kate. But it’s important, Stiles. That’s why I did nothing. Because by doing nothing, I was honoring my family.”
They were silent for a moment. Stiles, for the first time, didn’t know what to say. Derek, having filled his word quote for the year, didn’t feel the need to break the silence. Stiles swallowed audibly, rapping his fingers on the table. “You had control,” Stiles said. “And Allison…”
“Allison is a child,” Derek said, as if he knew what Stiles might say, and didn’t want to hear it. “Who lost two of her family members and didn’t know how to handle her grief. She reacted as any other person might. She reacted as Peter did. As you might if you lost your father. Allison is a human.”
Again, Stiles was silenced for the moment. He wasn’t prepared for this. For Derek to be calm, rational even while discussing his family’s gruesome murder. For Derek to be forgiving. He was taken aback. Unsettled.
“Stiles. Are you done gawking - I can be a human too. Do you have any more questions or…” It seemed abrupt for Derek to be suddenly that impatient.
Stiles shook his head quickly to clear it. “Oh right. Why were your eyes blue?” He asked, perching forward in interest.
Derek frowned, because it was abruptly off topic. But they did have a deal. “The universe balances itself.”
“Yeah, I know, you already told me that. What does it mean?” Stiles pressed impatiently.
“When you take a life,” Derek said slowly, “You’re cursed with wearing a pendant of that crime for the rest of your life. It’s meant to be a stain. All wolves are born or created with yellow eyes. Alphas have red eyes. But those who murder people - their eyes turn blue.”
“And Jackson killed people, so his eyes are blue,” Stiles said. “But you did too. Who?”
Derek went quiet, and Stiles didn’t expect an answer, but then Derek seemed to come to a discussion and spoke anyway. “It was an accident,” he said quietly. “My family had just died and when you’re a werewolf, Stiles, your emotions control everything. Just as if you’re a human - but amplified. All these heighten senses - they don’t come without a consequence. Everything is amplified, even your weaknesses. That’s why it was so important for Scott to stay away from Allison. Because he was too young to know how to control his emotions. Lust, Anger - it’s all the same thing. You see red no matter what you feel and when you see red - when you get into that mindset, you murder people. It doesn’t matter if you love them.”
There was a certain way that Derek said ‘love’ like it was a mythological attribute nobody in the real world actually possessed. “So… you had a lot of anger…” Stiles said, quietly. They were all so very quiet, speaking in the kitchen in hushed tones, caught up in their conversation.
“I didn’t have a lot of anger,” Derek said. “I became my anger. I let it control everything I did. And one night, someone - just some idiot kid - picked a fight that he thought he could win. And I couldn’t control the anger. I hated humans and a human had the nerve to attack me.”
“And you killed him.”
Derek nodded. That alone was the exact reason he used his anger to anchor him, so he never made that mistake again. So he never allowed another person to dictate the actions he took in life. “There are repercussions for those kinds of acts. Every single wolf you meet will know exactly what you’ve done. They will judge you on a very core level - they will judge what kind of person you are, and they will turn you away. Because if you can’t control your emotions, then you’re useless to them.”
“You become a pariah,” Stiles murmured. “And Jackson - he never even had a chance.”
“He has a chance now.”