FIC: All But The Brightest Stars (Stiles/Derek) - Chapter 1
Title: All But The Brightest Stars
Author: useyrwordsderek
Rating: Explicit for later chapters
Genre and/or Pairing: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinksi
Spoilers: Through Season 2
Warnings: underage for later chapters, canon compliant character death, angst, WIP, canon compliant violence/gore, slight AU
Word Count: 5100 for this chapter
Notes: I messed with the canon timeline and character ages a little bit for this. Stiles is six and Derek sixteen when the fire happens, and Season 1 of the canon show would start 10 years later. So Stiles is sixteen and Derek 26 when they meet back up. NOTE: although this has the underage tag and is rated explicit for later chapters, I want it to be clear from the beginning that absolutely nothing of a sexual nature happens in the first chapter of this story, when Stiles is a small child. The underage tag and rating are for when they meet back up, when Stiles is sixteen.
The title is from a quote by JRR Tolkein: “Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.”
The story is plotted in its entirety and I expect to update it very regularly.
Summary: Derek Hale met Stiles Stilinski when Stiles was six years old and Derek was sixteen, when Derek’s mother babysat Stiles after Stiles’ mom died. They didn't see each other again until Scott McCall was turned, ten years later.
In which Derek and Stiles both have to become a little less broken before they can help each other and themselves.
***
Yellow light poured through the big bay window of the living room of the Hale house as Derek crunched along the gravel drive. He sighed, bracing himself, then mounted the steps to the porch and opened the door.
“I’m not sure I can even express how good your excuse had better be for this,” his mother said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It’s not that late,” Derek protested, immediately defensive. He tried to remember when everything his mom said had started to irritate him and make him feel guilty at the same time.
“It is two a.m., Derek. And you are sixteen years old. Where the hell have you been?”
He recognized that tone, knew her eyes would be glowing red if he looked up at her, so he kept his eyes plastered to the floor, turning his head slightly to bare his neck. “Just...out.” He studied the worn wool rug, how the fringe at the edge splayed across the wide oak boards of the floor. The fireplace crackling in the corner cast a warm golden glow onto the old planks, worn smooth by many generations of Hale feet.
“Really? That’s what I get? That’s all you’ve got?” Her normally gentle voice was overlayed with a growling sub-bass echo.
“Yes, Mom! That’s all I’ve got!” Derek was pissed off then and raised his voice, though he still didn’t raise his eyes.
“Keep your voice down, the children are all sleeping,” his mother snapped.
There were generally a lot of children in the house. In addition to the pack kids, his mother ran a babysitting service out of the house. In fact, there was a little one sleeping on the couch right then, curled into an impossibly tiny ball under a crocheted blanket, and a baby sleeping in a crib on the other side of the room.
The anger suddenly dropped from his mother’s voice. “Derek, you know you can talk to me, right? I’m not just your mom, I’m your Alpha. I’ll listen, whatever it is.”
The shame washed over him then, the shame he always felt when he stumbled out of the back of her...Kate’s... car afterwards, her mocking laughter following him into the night air...finding a stream to clean himself in before he made his way home, washing her scent off his hands and chest and genitals...lying in bed watching the darkness until dawn came, remembering the feel of her hands on his throat, the way she teased him while he was inside her: Think you can keep from coming in 30 seconds this time, little man?
He shuddered inwardly, almost cringing from the shame. “It’s nothing, Mom. Just...running. In the woods. Blowing off steam.” He breathed deeply, willing his heart rate to remain steady.
She sighed. She wasn’t fooled, and he knew it. “I’m going to tell your father about this,” she said. He risked a look up at her, because that was a peace offering. If there was any hard-core discipline coming, it was coming from her, not his dad. Her eyes were blue again, and she twisted her mouth at him in a wry approximation of a smile. She’d been young when she’d had him and Laura, and she was still very beautiful. Laura looked so much like her they were often mistaken for sisters.
He looked away, feeling totally unworthy of her forgiveness, and his gaze fell on the kid sleeping on the couch. “Who’s that one? He’s new.” Derek drifted across the room and looked at the boy. He was a wisp of a kid, skinny and pale. Moles dotted lightly across his face and down his throat.
“That’s Sheriff Stilinski’s little boy, he calls himself Stiles.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “His mom died, last month. The Sheriff had to go back on night shifts this week, so he needed a place for Stiles to stay while he’s at work.”
“That sucks,” Derek breathed. “How did she...?”
“Cancer,” his mom said. “It was a bad way to die.”
Derek reached down and folded a corner of the blanket under the kid’s chin, making sure he was well tucked in. “How old is he?”
“He’s six. It will be good for Tom to have him around. And I hope it will be good for Stiles to be around other kids.” Derek nodded. Tom was four, his cousin Ben’s youngest, a born werewolf, and he’d be starting school the following year. He needed to get acclimatized to being around human kids who didn’t know the family secret, and it was a good idea to start them early. It was the whole reason his mom had started the babysitting business in the first place, so they could eventually send the pack kids off to school, safe and prepared to hide what they needed to hide.
Of course, it turned out that there weren’t enough children in Beacon Hills, possibly the world, to satisfy his mom’s gigantic maternal instinct. Sometimes, female Alphas were much like males: hunting, fighting, protecting their pack, and leaving the more domestic issues to their betas. And Derek’s mom was more than capable of that when the need came. But sometimes, the burden of being responsible for a whole pack’s needs translated for a female into an unquenchable desire to raise the pack’s young in perfect, pure safety. Those kinds of female Alphas channeled all of their strength and fierce protectiveness into love for their kids. And Derek’s mom extended that love to all the children in her care.
Derek had been raised bathed in that love, luxuriating in the knowledge that nothing bad could ever happen to him. It was only lately, since he met her, that the grip of that total devotion had started to chafe, to feel suffocating. But in that moment, looking down at the kid, Stiles, who’d just lost his mom and must feel like his whole world had been sucked into a vortex of pain and fear and loneliness, Derek felt himself fill to bursting with the desire to tell his mom everything. To lay his head in her lap like he used to when he was small, open his mouth, and let it all come out of him, all the nastiness, shame, and guilt, like a swollen boil being lanced. To let her stroke his hair and growl under her breath like she did when anyone hurt her kids, to let her tell him everything was going to be all right. His hands clenched into fists, and the words were right behind his closed mouth.
But he kept silent.
His mom sighed again. “Go to bed, Derek. We’ll talk in the morning.”
***
The next morning was bright and hot. Derek stretched in his bed, listening to the sounds of the household awakening. There was Laura, singing off-key in the shower while she got ready for her summer job lifeguarding at the community center pool. He heard Peter down the hall, talking to Ben’s wife Anna about rebuilding the old shed at the back of the property. He could smell bacon and coffee from the kitchen, and hear children already outdoors, shrieking and laughing.
“Derek!” his mom yelled up the stairs. “Get your butt down here!”
Derek sighed. It was the summer before his junior year in high school, and because he didn’t have a job, his mom expected him to help out with the kids and around the house. He swung his legs out of bed and grabbed the pair of jeans hanging over the back of his desk chair. Pulling them on, he found a t-shirt crumpled on the floor and donned that too, then loped down the stairs, barefoot.
“Hey, Mom,” he said, entering the kitchen and snagging a piece of bacon from a plate full of it.
“Don’t ‘hey mom’ me,” she warned, smacking the back of his hand with a spatula, a baby snuggled against her other arm. She looked exhausted. There were pancakes turning golden around the edges in a pan and orange juice in a jug. “It’s nine in the morning. If you’re going to keep me up that damned late worrying about you, you’d better have your butt down here at the crack of freaking dawn to help me out. And your father wants to talk to you. He’ll be back this afternoon. In the meantime, I need you to take the human kids somewhere. Tom is not cooperating this morning.” She jiggled the baby in her arms and cast a dark look out to the back yard.
Derek glanced out the open door as the child in question ran by. He saw a hint of tiny fang. He laughed. “Shifting in front of the non-pack kids?”
“Not yet, but he totally would if I gave him the chance. Luckily, I’ve managed to keep them corralled in the playroom, but it’s too nice outside to keep them indoors. Rose is with them now.” Rose was his uncle Peter’s girlfriend. “Eat your breakfast and then take them to the stream or something.”
There was a shallow stream that ran through the preserve and cut right across the Hale’s property. It was safe for the younger kids to paddle in, and the day was hot enough already that he wouldn’t have to worry about them getting hypothermia no matter how long they were at it.
Derek grabbed a plate from the cupboard and piled pancakes and bacon onto it. He doused the whole thing in syrup, poured a big glass of orange juice, and sat down to demolish it all.
“Chew, Derek. Nobody’s going to take it away from you,” Laura teased as she strolled into the kitchen, hair wet and dressed in sweatpants over her one-piece bathing suit.
“Shut up,” he grunted, curling an arm protectively around his plate. Laura was a known bacon-stealer.
“Language,” his mother admonished, but there was no heat behind it. Derek looked at her, at the dark circles under her eyes and the way her long dark hair had been scraped messily back into a ponytail, and felt the guilt wash over him again.
Laura crossed to her mom and took the baby from her. “Good morning, handsome little man! Are you being a good boy?” She raised the baby up toward the ceiling and the baby cackled down at her, kicking its chubby feet in glee.
“His mom will be here at 10:00 to pick him up. When are you leaving?” Derek’s mom asked Laura.
“Now, sorry mom. I’ll be late if I don’t go.”
“At least take some breakfast with you.” Derek’s mom pulled open a drawer to find a plastic container. She piled pancakes and bacon into it and handed it to Laura, reclaiming the baby. “Here. Eat it in the car.”
“Thanks Mom.” Laura kissed her mother’s cheek. “Later, Der-bear. Have fun chasing kiddies all day!”
Derek grunted a goodbye at her as she left, then rose and took his plate to the sink. His mother grabbed his arm as he turned to go. “Derek.”
He raised his eyes unwillingly to meet hers.
“I’m still mad. But I love you. Talk to your dad this afternoon, if you won’t talk to me. I just don’t want you to feel alone.”
His stomach twisted. “I’ll take the kids to the stream now. See you later.”
He walked to the doorway. Then, without turning around to face his mom, he muttered, “Love you too”, and left.
***
The kids splashed and screamed in the stream while Derek kept a watchful eye on them. He’d never admit it to his mom or anyone, but he actually mostly enjoyed babysitting: letting kids clamber all over him, hoisting them into the air and swinging them around, listening to their nonsensical conversations and helping them untidily print their names across the top of drawings of butterflies and square houses with triangle roofs and stick men (the front of the enormous Hale refrigerator was so full of drawings, it was impossible to open it without knocking something off). It was fun. He was tremendously popular with the kids too, his ever-expanding physique strong enough to wrestle and play and toss them around while keeping them perfectly safe.
He noticed one kid hanging back, unwilling to join the others in the stream that sparkled in the dappled sunlight. Instead, he sat on the bank and watched them play, hugging his knees to his chest. It was the skinny one from the night before, Stiles.
“Hey, kiddo. Don’t you want to go swimming?” Derek asked, sitting down next to him, but keeping his eyes trained on the stream.
The kid remained silent. He turned big brown eyes up to Derek, who glanced down at him. He was dressed for swimming in a pair of swim shorts with turtles on them and no shirt. His scapular bones were as delicate as bird’s wings. Derek felt a rush of protectiveness. “You okay?”
Stiles didn’t answer. Instead, he lowered his eyes and pressed himself against Derek’s side, curling into himself with his legs drawn up under him and his arms crossed tightly across his narrow chest. Derek put an arm around him.
“You cold?”
Stiles shook his head.
“Hungry?”
Stiles shook his head again. He didn’t look up at Derek.
“Just want to sit here? That’s cool, little dude. We’ll sit here together, all right? And then maybe you’ll want to swim later.” He hugged the child to his side, rubbing a hand briskly up and down his back. Derek was tactile, like all his family. Werewolf packs were big on soothing touch. He didn’t have a lot of words to offer the kid, but he could hug him a lot and maybe that would help.
Some time passed. The kids in the stream were pretty well-behaved and Derek only had to intervene once or twice, over toy disputes or too much aggressive splashing. Stiles remained silent. Then, after about half an hour:
“My mom died.” His voice was very small and clear.
Derek shut his eyes and hugged the kid tighter to his side. “I know." He swallowed hard. "I’m really sorry.”
“I miss her.”
“I bet you do. I know she misses you, too.” Derek’s words were awkward, inadequate. He wished, fiercely, that his mom were there. She always had the right words.
“My dad says she’s not coming back.”
Jesus. What could he say to that? “I’m so sorry, Stiles.” He rubbed his hand in soothing spirals on the kid’s back. “Want a hug?” He looked down at him.
Stiles didn’t answer and wouldn’t meet his eyes, just climbed into Derek’s lap and wrapped his arms tightly around Derek’s neck and his legs around Derek’s waist. Derek held him firmly, inhaling the scent of misery that came off him in waves. He breathed onto the kid’s neck, scent-marking him, knowing Stiles wouldn’t feel better from it but not knowing how else to express his urge to protect him and make him less unhappy.
“Come on.” He rose, Stiles still clinging to his front like a spider monkey, and waded into the stream. “Let’s swim.”
***
After that, Stiles was around the Hale house a lot, and Derek was his new favorite person. Stiles hardly talked at all, preferring to cling to Derek’s side and read books or draw, rather than dive into the general chaos of the other kids’ playing. Derek didn’t really mind; the kid was quiet and Derek just got on with things, changing diapers or lifting weights in the basement or mopping floors or reading in the hammock in the backyard, Stiles lying on the grass on a blanket below him with his own book.
Derek had a lot more free time these days, because he’d stopped seeing her. He wished it was because of the quiet, heart-to-heart talk he’d had with his dad where nothing was really said but everything understood, or the ever-present crushing guilt he felt around his mom, but actually it was because she’d just stopped calling him, stopped showing up, stopped offering herself. At first he’d been hurt, burning with teenaged arousal and melodramatic pain, but then he’d started feeling a lot more like himself again. He stopped moping around so much, cleaned his room more regularly, and even occasionally butted his head into his mom’s or Laura’s shoulder, so that they huffed and pulled him into a hug.
It had been two weeks since that last time with her, the time she’d seemed so interested in his family and kept asking questions about them, so that he’d stupidly gotten his hopes up and asked her if she’d come over to meet them sometime, maybe for a barbeque or something? And she’d laughed in his face. During the sex afterwards, she’d made fun of the fact that he was uncut, not for the first time, talking about his “freakish dick”. She’d still let him put it inside her though, and he’d still come hard and fast, though he’d felt like he might throw up even while it was happening. The episode still made him curl into himself in shame, but it was getting better. He was getting better. He was getting to the point that he hoped she wouldn’t call again. It was so much easier to be around his family, his pack, now he didn’t have to lie all the time about where he’d been and what he’d been doing. It was easier to remember who he was, who he’d always been, before the poison of her inexplicable attention on him had changed everything.
“Der?” he heard his mom call. He swung himself out of the hammock, bare feet hitting the grass on either side of Stiles’s small body, who looked up at Derek and rose to his own feet. The sun was low in the sky; evening was coming on.
“Yeah?” He padded into the kitchen, Stiles close behind. His mom was holding his five-year-old cousin Emily, who was crying uncontrollably. She hid her face in Derek’s mom’s shoulder, which was a good thing because she was fully shifted and Stiles was in the room. Derek stepped smoothly in front of Stiles and held the kid behind him, against his leg.
“Her brother broke her wrist by accident while they were playing,” his mom whispered in a voice too low for human ears. “It’s healing, but she can’t control the shift while she’s in pain. Can you take Stiles out of the house?”
He didn’t even answer her, just turned and swung Stiles up into his arms. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go for a walk in the woods.” He kept the kid’s face turned away from his mom and Emily as they walked through the kitchen and toward the front door.
“Half an hour should do it,” his mom called after them. “Be safe.”
“I will.” He turned back and flashed a smile at her, and she smiled wryly back at him. “Thanks for this, Der. I’ll owe you one.”
He snorted and carried Stiles outside.
***
The evening descended while Derek walked with Stiles through the preserve. With another kid, Derek would have been holding his hand by now, but Stiles would never leave Derek’s side to wander off into the woods. He followed beside Derek like an imprinted duckling. They walked in companionable silence, Stiles bending down to pick up sticks and rocks, examining them and discarding them in turns.
Suddenly, Stiles stopped walking and tugged on the hem of Derek’s t-shirt.
“What’s up, little man?” Derek asked, crouching down next to him.
“Mrs Ellis said my mom was in heaven.” Mrs Ellis was one of the other kids’ moms. Derek felt a twinge of anger at her for talking to Stiles about it at all.
“What do you think?” Derek asked, instead of confirming or denying.
“My dad just says she’s gone. He never said heaven. Where is heaven?”
Derek pointed at the sky. “Some people think it’s up there.”
“What do you think?”
Derek sighed and looked down at the ground. “I don’t know, buddy.”
“What about stars?”
He looked at Stiles. “What about them?”
“Well...” the kid didn’t seem to know how to express what he was trying to say. “My mom was pretty. Stars are pretty, they’re...bright, like she was. Maybe she’s in the stars? Maybe that’s what heaven is?” The last bit came out all in a rush and sounded like pleading.
Derek very carefully wrapped his arms around Stiles, held him close. “I hope so, Stiles.”
Stiles sniffled slightly, but no tears came. He never cried; he was one of the most stoic little kids Derek had ever met. “I wish I could see her.”
“I do too. I really do.”
“Can we see the stars?” Stiles looked up, craning his neck to try and make them out through the dense cover of the woods.
Derek picked Stiles up again. “Not here, but I can take you somewhere we can see them really well, if you want.” Stiles nodded, wiping his nose on his arm. “I’m going to have to carry you, though. It’s a little bit far.” Stiles nodded again, and Derek held him close and loped easily in the direction of the northern edge of the Hale territory.
Derek jogged at a pace that felt slow to him but wouldn’t scare Stiles by being preternatural. They were still covering ground quickly (and going uphill), and of course Derek’s superior eyesight meant he didn’t have to worry about being tripped up by tree roots or fallen branches, but Stiles didn’t know that. They’d already been out longer than he told his mom he’d be, but it didn’t take too long for them to emerge at the flat rock.
Derek set Stiles down and watched as the boy looked straight up at the sky and turned in a full circle. The forest let out here in a wide clearing at the top of a hill, with a big flat rock in the center and a nice view of Beacon Hills to one side. They were at the very edge of the Hale territory. There was no light pollution out here, and the sky was stuffed full of stars; the moon was a thin crescent that didn’t interfere with the stars’ brightness.
“Wow,” Stiles breathed.
Derek felt a rush of affection for the kid; this was one of his favorite places in the world. “Lots of stars, huh?”
“Yeah,” Stiles said, drifting closer and slipping his small hand into Derek’s own. “I’ve never seen so many.”
“Come here,” Derek said, tugging gently on Stiles’ hand. He led him over to the flat rock and laid down on it, gesturing for the boy to join him. They lay there, heads close together, and looked up at the stars. Neither said anything. Derek felt a huge, blank peace fill his mind and body. The moon didn’t tug against his control; it would be weeks before he really felt its pull again. Everything was right with the world.
Minutes passed.
And then, suddenly, everything was very, very wrong.
Derek bolted to his feet when he heard his mother’s howl. Stiles startled badly, not having heard it, and looked up at Derek with huge, scared eyes. Derek stood stock still, waiting, his whole body pulsing with the need to know, to be sure everything was all right.
And then it came again, and it was filled with rage and terror and pain. Derek didn’t hesitate; he scooped Stiles into his arms and flung himself into the forest.
“Derek?” Stiles gasped out, jolting against Derek’s chest as Derek ran flat-out in the direction of the house. “Is it...what’s wrong? Is it okay? We’re going so fast...” he trailed off and just clung to Derek’s neck. Derek didn’t answer, just threw his body as fast as it would go back home, home home.
Derek knew about the hunters, of course, had been warned and trained and lectured about them since he was old enough to understand the words. But no one had ever moved against the Hale pack; they kept themselves to themselves, his mother was a strong Alpha, they’d never harmed a human, they’d lived in Beacon Hills for generations, there was no reason...
There is no reason, Derek repeated to himself over and over and over again during that never-ending sprint through the dark forest. It’s not what you think, it’s nothing, Mom is going to laugh at you when you come bursting through the door, whatever it is will already be over and you’ll be pissed you missed all the excitement, it’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing
And Derek knew it wasn’t nothing, as he pushed his body to its extreme limits until the trees flew past them in a blur. His mother would never howl like that if it was nothing. It was something, it was something horrible, something huge, something...
And then the smell hit him and he reeled back. He was still half a mile from the house, but the whole forest reeked of it. Smoke. Gunpowder. Strangers. The smoke, oh god, the smoke was choking. He couldn’t help it. He roared in terror.
Stiles cowered against his chest, his whole body shaking. Derek held him fiercely tight, probably hurting him a little, while his mind raced. His body had already started moving again, sneakers pounding against the soft earth, while he tried to process all that his senses were telling him. The closer they got, the more the smoke choked him, and he struggled to get air into his lungs, tears streaking heedless down his face as he finally burst from the treeline into the clearing at the front of the house.
The house. The house, his house, his family’s house, was engulfed in flames.
And he could hear screaming.
He looked frantically around and saw police cars and a firetruck just pulling up the drive. He sprinted to them just as the Sheriff flung himself out of one of the cars and ran toward Derek.
“Do you have my...oh thank god, Stiles!” The Sheriff shouted as Derek neared him. Derek shoved Stiles into his arms, turned and sprinted toward the house. The front door had flames roaring out of it, so did the living room window. He could see movement inside, and he didn’t know if it was the fire or...or...Oh, god, please. Please please please please please
He reached the porch, but had to reel back as the heat him like a solid wall of pain. He ran around the perimeter of the house, leapt the fence to the backyard, looking for an opening, anything, any way to get inside, and then he saw a dark shape fly out of an upstairs window, broken glass shattering, and land with a sickening thump in the grass right in front of him. He ran to it and turned the body over.
“Peter!” he shouted. His uncle was unmoving, his eyes closed, half of his face burned horribly away. “Peter!” He shook him frantically, but there was no response. He dragged Peter away from the house to a safe distance.
“Derek!” he heard a shriek and turned to see Laura hurtling towards him. She flung himself at him, holding the sides of his face and screaming at him. “Where’s Mom? Dad? Where are the kids? Where is everyone? What happened? Derek, what the fuck happened?” She shook him hard, her claws digging into his arms.
“I don’t - I don’t know!” he shouted back at her, clinging to her waist and coughing from the smoke streaming from the house. “I just got here! I was in the woods - what - how can we - we have to get inside Laura, I think there are still...I heard screaming, Laura! What do we do? What do we do?”
“I came from that way” she pointed to the other side of the house “there’s no way in. The fire is everywhere. What about that side?” she pointed, hand shaking as tears flowed down her cheeks.
Derek shook his head, and they stared at each other for an instant, hopeless, frantic, and terrified. Then they gripped each other’s hands and flew back around to the other side of the house, where the firemen were unloading equipment. “I smell gunpowder,” Laura yelled. “What is - where-” Derek gripped her hand tighter and shook his head at her. He pulled her along and they stumbled over to the Sheriff, who was holding Stiles in his arms and looking up at the house with fear written all over his face.
“Did you find them? Did my family get out?” Derek shouted at him as they approached. The Sheriff turned swiftly and deposited his son into the back of the patrol car, then shut the door and turned back to them.
“No. No one came out.” His voice was hoarse from the smoke and the tears in his eyes.
“But,” Derek was incredulous, frenzied. “That’s impossible. My whole family was home, except me and my sister! They were all there! They must have left as soon as the fire started. Where are they?”
“Derek-” the Sheriff began, laying a hand on Derek’s arm.
“No!” Derek shouted, shoving his hand away. “No! They’re okay! They must be here, they’re here somewhere, they got out, they all got out, there were kids in that house, Sheriff, my mom would never-” Laura stood beside him, nodding frantically, clinging to his hand. “My mom...” Derek choked on smoke and his own tears. “She would never let anything happen to those kids.”
“Derek, I am so sorry. But my men have searched, are still searching the woods. And we haven’t found anyone. I’m so sorry, son.”
And then, with a terrible cracking and breaking sound of timber, the roof caved in. The house collapsed in on itself, sparks rising for what looked like miles into the night sky.
Laura turned away with a choking sound of horror, wrapped her arms around Derek’s waist and buried her head in his chest, sobbing. Derek just stared up at the house, incomprehension making his mind numb. He rubbed Laura’s back, rumbling low in his chest to comfort her. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real.
“This isn’t real.”
He felt a weight against his leg and looked down to see Stiles leaning against him and looking up, his small arms wrapping around Derek’s leg while tears ran down his face. They locked eyes, and Derek knew. He knew it was real.
***
Derek didn’t see Stiles again for ten years.
Next chapter
Author: useyrwordsderek
Rating: Explicit for later chapters
Genre and/or Pairing: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinksi
Spoilers: Through Season 2
Warnings: underage for later chapters, canon compliant character death, angst, WIP, canon compliant violence/gore, slight AU
Word Count: 5100 for this chapter
Notes: I messed with the canon timeline and character ages a little bit for this. Stiles is six and Derek sixteen when the fire happens, and Season 1 of the canon show would start 10 years later. So Stiles is sixteen and Derek 26 when they meet back up. NOTE: although this has the underage tag and is rated explicit for later chapters, I want it to be clear from the beginning that absolutely nothing of a sexual nature happens in the first chapter of this story, when Stiles is a small child. The underage tag and rating are for when they meet back up, when Stiles is sixteen.
The title is from a quote by JRR Tolkein: “Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.”
The story is plotted in its entirety and I expect to update it very regularly.
Summary: Derek Hale met Stiles Stilinski when Stiles was six years old and Derek was sixteen, when Derek’s mother babysat Stiles after Stiles’ mom died. They didn't see each other again until Scott McCall was turned, ten years later.
In which Derek and Stiles both have to become a little less broken before they can help each other and themselves.
***
Yellow light poured through the big bay window of the living room of the Hale house as Derek crunched along the gravel drive. He sighed, bracing himself, then mounted the steps to the porch and opened the door.
“I’m not sure I can even express how good your excuse had better be for this,” his mother said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It’s not that late,” Derek protested, immediately defensive. He tried to remember when everything his mom said had started to irritate him and make him feel guilty at the same time.
“It is two a.m., Derek. And you are sixteen years old. Where the hell have you been?”
He recognized that tone, knew her eyes would be glowing red if he looked up at her, so he kept his eyes plastered to the floor, turning his head slightly to bare his neck. “Just...out.” He studied the worn wool rug, how the fringe at the edge splayed across the wide oak boards of the floor. The fireplace crackling in the corner cast a warm golden glow onto the old planks, worn smooth by many generations of Hale feet.
“Really? That’s what I get? That’s all you’ve got?” Her normally gentle voice was overlayed with a growling sub-bass echo.
“Yes, Mom! That’s all I’ve got!” Derek was pissed off then and raised his voice, though he still didn’t raise his eyes.
“Keep your voice down, the children are all sleeping,” his mother snapped.
There were generally a lot of children in the house. In addition to the pack kids, his mother ran a babysitting service out of the house. In fact, there was a little one sleeping on the couch right then, curled into an impossibly tiny ball under a crocheted blanket, and a baby sleeping in a crib on the other side of the room.
The anger suddenly dropped from his mother’s voice. “Derek, you know you can talk to me, right? I’m not just your mom, I’m your Alpha. I’ll listen, whatever it is.”
The shame washed over him then, the shame he always felt when he stumbled out of the back of her...Kate’s... car afterwards, her mocking laughter following him into the night air...finding a stream to clean himself in before he made his way home, washing her scent off his hands and chest and genitals...lying in bed watching the darkness until dawn came, remembering the feel of her hands on his throat, the way she teased him while he was inside her: Think you can keep from coming in 30 seconds this time, little man?
He shuddered inwardly, almost cringing from the shame. “It’s nothing, Mom. Just...running. In the woods. Blowing off steam.” He breathed deeply, willing his heart rate to remain steady.
She sighed. She wasn’t fooled, and he knew it. “I’m going to tell your father about this,” she said. He risked a look up at her, because that was a peace offering. If there was any hard-core discipline coming, it was coming from her, not his dad. Her eyes were blue again, and she twisted her mouth at him in a wry approximation of a smile. She’d been young when she’d had him and Laura, and she was still very beautiful. Laura looked so much like her they were often mistaken for sisters.
He looked away, feeling totally unworthy of her forgiveness, and his gaze fell on the kid sleeping on the couch. “Who’s that one? He’s new.” Derek drifted across the room and looked at the boy. He was a wisp of a kid, skinny and pale. Moles dotted lightly across his face and down his throat.
“That’s Sheriff Stilinski’s little boy, he calls himself Stiles.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “His mom died, last month. The Sheriff had to go back on night shifts this week, so he needed a place for Stiles to stay while he’s at work.”
“That sucks,” Derek breathed. “How did she...?”
“Cancer,” his mom said. “It was a bad way to die.”
Derek reached down and folded a corner of the blanket under the kid’s chin, making sure he was well tucked in. “How old is he?”
“He’s six. It will be good for Tom to have him around. And I hope it will be good for Stiles to be around other kids.” Derek nodded. Tom was four, his cousin Ben’s youngest, a born werewolf, and he’d be starting school the following year. He needed to get acclimatized to being around human kids who didn’t know the family secret, and it was a good idea to start them early. It was the whole reason his mom had started the babysitting business in the first place, so they could eventually send the pack kids off to school, safe and prepared to hide what they needed to hide.
Of course, it turned out that there weren’t enough children in Beacon Hills, possibly the world, to satisfy his mom’s gigantic maternal instinct. Sometimes, female Alphas were much like males: hunting, fighting, protecting their pack, and leaving the more domestic issues to their betas. And Derek’s mom was more than capable of that when the need came. But sometimes, the burden of being responsible for a whole pack’s needs translated for a female into an unquenchable desire to raise the pack’s young in perfect, pure safety. Those kinds of female Alphas channeled all of their strength and fierce protectiveness into love for their kids. And Derek’s mom extended that love to all the children in her care.
Derek had been raised bathed in that love, luxuriating in the knowledge that nothing bad could ever happen to him. It was only lately, since he met her, that the grip of that total devotion had started to chafe, to feel suffocating. But in that moment, looking down at the kid, Stiles, who’d just lost his mom and must feel like his whole world had been sucked into a vortex of pain and fear and loneliness, Derek felt himself fill to bursting with the desire to tell his mom everything. To lay his head in her lap like he used to when he was small, open his mouth, and let it all come out of him, all the nastiness, shame, and guilt, like a swollen boil being lanced. To let her stroke his hair and growl under her breath like she did when anyone hurt her kids, to let her tell him everything was going to be all right. His hands clenched into fists, and the words were right behind his closed mouth.
But he kept silent.
His mom sighed again. “Go to bed, Derek. We’ll talk in the morning.”
***
The next morning was bright and hot. Derek stretched in his bed, listening to the sounds of the household awakening. There was Laura, singing off-key in the shower while she got ready for her summer job lifeguarding at the community center pool. He heard Peter down the hall, talking to Ben’s wife Anna about rebuilding the old shed at the back of the property. He could smell bacon and coffee from the kitchen, and hear children already outdoors, shrieking and laughing.
“Derek!” his mom yelled up the stairs. “Get your butt down here!”
Derek sighed. It was the summer before his junior year in high school, and because he didn’t have a job, his mom expected him to help out with the kids and around the house. He swung his legs out of bed and grabbed the pair of jeans hanging over the back of his desk chair. Pulling them on, he found a t-shirt crumpled on the floor and donned that too, then loped down the stairs, barefoot.
“Hey, Mom,” he said, entering the kitchen and snagging a piece of bacon from a plate full of it.
“Don’t ‘hey mom’ me,” she warned, smacking the back of his hand with a spatula, a baby snuggled against her other arm. She looked exhausted. There were pancakes turning golden around the edges in a pan and orange juice in a jug. “It’s nine in the morning. If you’re going to keep me up that damned late worrying about you, you’d better have your butt down here at the crack of freaking dawn to help me out. And your father wants to talk to you. He’ll be back this afternoon. In the meantime, I need you to take the human kids somewhere. Tom is not cooperating this morning.” She jiggled the baby in her arms and cast a dark look out to the back yard.
Derek glanced out the open door as the child in question ran by. He saw a hint of tiny fang. He laughed. “Shifting in front of the non-pack kids?”
“Not yet, but he totally would if I gave him the chance. Luckily, I’ve managed to keep them corralled in the playroom, but it’s too nice outside to keep them indoors. Rose is with them now.” Rose was his uncle Peter’s girlfriend. “Eat your breakfast and then take them to the stream or something.”
There was a shallow stream that ran through the preserve and cut right across the Hale’s property. It was safe for the younger kids to paddle in, and the day was hot enough already that he wouldn’t have to worry about them getting hypothermia no matter how long they were at it.
Derek grabbed a plate from the cupboard and piled pancakes and bacon onto it. He doused the whole thing in syrup, poured a big glass of orange juice, and sat down to demolish it all.
“Chew, Derek. Nobody’s going to take it away from you,” Laura teased as she strolled into the kitchen, hair wet and dressed in sweatpants over her one-piece bathing suit.
“Shut up,” he grunted, curling an arm protectively around his plate. Laura was a known bacon-stealer.
“Language,” his mother admonished, but there was no heat behind it. Derek looked at her, at the dark circles under her eyes and the way her long dark hair had been scraped messily back into a ponytail, and felt the guilt wash over him again.
Laura crossed to her mom and took the baby from her. “Good morning, handsome little man! Are you being a good boy?” She raised the baby up toward the ceiling and the baby cackled down at her, kicking its chubby feet in glee.
“His mom will be here at 10:00 to pick him up. When are you leaving?” Derek’s mom asked Laura.
“Now, sorry mom. I’ll be late if I don’t go.”
“At least take some breakfast with you.” Derek’s mom pulled open a drawer to find a plastic container. She piled pancakes and bacon into it and handed it to Laura, reclaiming the baby. “Here. Eat it in the car.”
“Thanks Mom.” Laura kissed her mother’s cheek. “Later, Der-bear. Have fun chasing kiddies all day!”
Derek grunted a goodbye at her as she left, then rose and took his plate to the sink. His mother grabbed his arm as he turned to go. “Derek.”
He raised his eyes unwillingly to meet hers.
“I’m still mad. But I love you. Talk to your dad this afternoon, if you won’t talk to me. I just don’t want you to feel alone.”
His stomach twisted. “I’ll take the kids to the stream now. See you later.”
He walked to the doorway. Then, without turning around to face his mom, he muttered, “Love you too”, and left.
***
The kids splashed and screamed in the stream while Derek kept a watchful eye on them. He’d never admit it to his mom or anyone, but he actually mostly enjoyed babysitting: letting kids clamber all over him, hoisting them into the air and swinging them around, listening to their nonsensical conversations and helping them untidily print their names across the top of drawings of butterflies and square houses with triangle roofs and stick men (the front of the enormous Hale refrigerator was so full of drawings, it was impossible to open it without knocking something off). It was fun. He was tremendously popular with the kids too, his ever-expanding physique strong enough to wrestle and play and toss them around while keeping them perfectly safe.
He noticed one kid hanging back, unwilling to join the others in the stream that sparkled in the dappled sunlight. Instead, he sat on the bank and watched them play, hugging his knees to his chest. It was the skinny one from the night before, Stiles.
“Hey, kiddo. Don’t you want to go swimming?” Derek asked, sitting down next to him, but keeping his eyes trained on the stream.
The kid remained silent. He turned big brown eyes up to Derek, who glanced down at him. He was dressed for swimming in a pair of swim shorts with turtles on them and no shirt. His scapular bones were as delicate as bird’s wings. Derek felt a rush of protectiveness. “You okay?”
Stiles didn’t answer. Instead, he lowered his eyes and pressed himself against Derek’s side, curling into himself with his legs drawn up under him and his arms crossed tightly across his narrow chest. Derek put an arm around him.
“You cold?”
Stiles shook his head.
“Hungry?”
Stiles shook his head again. He didn’t look up at Derek.
“Just want to sit here? That’s cool, little dude. We’ll sit here together, all right? And then maybe you’ll want to swim later.” He hugged the child to his side, rubbing a hand briskly up and down his back. Derek was tactile, like all his family. Werewolf packs were big on soothing touch. He didn’t have a lot of words to offer the kid, but he could hug him a lot and maybe that would help.
Some time passed. The kids in the stream were pretty well-behaved and Derek only had to intervene once or twice, over toy disputes or too much aggressive splashing. Stiles remained silent. Then, after about half an hour:
“My mom died.” His voice was very small and clear.
Derek shut his eyes and hugged the kid tighter to his side. “I know." He swallowed hard. "I’m really sorry.”
“I miss her.”
“I bet you do. I know she misses you, too.” Derek’s words were awkward, inadequate. He wished, fiercely, that his mom were there. She always had the right words.
“My dad says she’s not coming back.”
Jesus. What could he say to that? “I’m so sorry, Stiles.” He rubbed his hand in soothing spirals on the kid’s back. “Want a hug?” He looked down at him.
Stiles didn’t answer and wouldn’t meet his eyes, just climbed into Derek’s lap and wrapped his arms tightly around Derek’s neck and his legs around Derek’s waist. Derek held him firmly, inhaling the scent of misery that came off him in waves. He breathed onto the kid’s neck, scent-marking him, knowing Stiles wouldn’t feel better from it but not knowing how else to express his urge to protect him and make him less unhappy.
“Come on.” He rose, Stiles still clinging to his front like a spider monkey, and waded into the stream. “Let’s swim.”
***
After that, Stiles was around the Hale house a lot, and Derek was his new favorite person. Stiles hardly talked at all, preferring to cling to Derek’s side and read books or draw, rather than dive into the general chaos of the other kids’ playing. Derek didn’t really mind; the kid was quiet and Derek just got on with things, changing diapers or lifting weights in the basement or mopping floors or reading in the hammock in the backyard, Stiles lying on the grass on a blanket below him with his own book.
Derek had a lot more free time these days, because he’d stopped seeing her. He wished it was because of the quiet, heart-to-heart talk he’d had with his dad where nothing was really said but everything understood, or the ever-present crushing guilt he felt around his mom, but actually it was because she’d just stopped calling him, stopped showing up, stopped offering herself. At first he’d been hurt, burning with teenaged arousal and melodramatic pain, but then he’d started feeling a lot more like himself again. He stopped moping around so much, cleaned his room more regularly, and even occasionally butted his head into his mom’s or Laura’s shoulder, so that they huffed and pulled him into a hug.
It had been two weeks since that last time with her, the time she’d seemed so interested in his family and kept asking questions about them, so that he’d stupidly gotten his hopes up and asked her if she’d come over to meet them sometime, maybe for a barbeque or something? And she’d laughed in his face. During the sex afterwards, she’d made fun of the fact that he was uncut, not for the first time, talking about his “freakish dick”. She’d still let him put it inside her though, and he’d still come hard and fast, though he’d felt like he might throw up even while it was happening. The episode still made him curl into himself in shame, but it was getting better. He was getting better. He was getting to the point that he hoped she wouldn’t call again. It was so much easier to be around his family, his pack, now he didn’t have to lie all the time about where he’d been and what he’d been doing. It was easier to remember who he was, who he’d always been, before the poison of her inexplicable attention on him had changed everything.
“Der?” he heard his mom call. He swung himself out of the hammock, bare feet hitting the grass on either side of Stiles’s small body, who looked up at Derek and rose to his own feet. The sun was low in the sky; evening was coming on.
“Yeah?” He padded into the kitchen, Stiles close behind. His mom was holding his five-year-old cousin Emily, who was crying uncontrollably. She hid her face in Derek’s mom’s shoulder, which was a good thing because she was fully shifted and Stiles was in the room. Derek stepped smoothly in front of Stiles and held the kid behind him, against his leg.
“Her brother broke her wrist by accident while they were playing,” his mom whispered in a voice too low for human ears. “It’s healing, but she can’t control the shift while she’s in pain. Can you take Stiles out of the house?”
He didn’t even answer her, just turned and swung Stiles up into his arms. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go for a walk in the woods.” He kept the kid’s face turned away from his mom and Emily as they walked through the kitchen and toward the front door.
“Half an hour should do it,” his mom called after them. “Be safe.”
“I will.” He turned back and flashed a smile at her, and she smiled wryly back at him. “Thanks for this, Der. I’ll owe you one.”
He snorted and carried Stiles outside.
***
The evening descended while Derek walked with Stiles through the preserve. With another kid, Derek would have been holding his hand by now, but Stiles would never leave Derek’s side to wander off into the woods. He followed beside Derek like an imprinted duckling. They walked in companionable silence, Stiles bending down to pick up sticks and rocks, examining them and discarding them in turns.
Suddenly, Stiles stopped walking and tugged on the hem of Derek’s t-shirt.
“What’s up, little man?” Derek asked, crouching down next to him.
“Mrs Ellis said my mom was in heaven.” Mrs Ellis was one of the other kids’ moms. Derek felt a twinge of anger at her for talking to Stiles about it at all.
“What do you think?” Derek asked, instead of confirming or denying.
“My dad just says she’s gone. He never said heaven. Where is heaven?”
Derek pointed at the sky. “Some people think it’s up there.”
“What do you think?”
Derek sighed and looked down at the ground. “I don’t know, buddy.”
“What about stars?”
He looked at Stiles. “What about them?”
“Well...” the kid didn’t seem to know how to express what he was trying to say. “My mom was pretty. Stars are pretty, they’re...bright, like she was. Maybe she’s in the stars? Maybe that’s what heaven is?” The last bit came out all in a rush and sounded like pleading.
Derek very carefully wrapped his arms around Stiles, held him close. “I hope so, Stiles.”
Stiles sniffled slightly, but no tears came. He never cried; he was one of the most stoic little kids Derek had ever met. “I wish I could see her.”
“I do too. I really do.”
“Can we see the stars?” Stiles looked up, craning his neck to try and make them out through the dense cover of the woods.
Derek picked Stiles up again. “Not here, but I can take you somewhere we can see them really well, if you want.” Stiles nodded, wiping his nose on his arm. “I’m going to have to carry you, though. It’s a little bit far.” Stiles nodded again, and Derek held him close and loped easily in the direction of the northern edge of the Hale territory.
Derek jogged at a pace that felt slow to him but wouldn’t scare Stiles by being preternatural. They were still covering ground quickly (and going uphill), and of course Derek’s superior eyesight meant he didn’t have to worry about being tripped up by tree roots or fallen branches, but Stiles didn’t know that. They’d already been out longer than he told his mom he’d be, but it didn’t take too long for them to emerge at the flat rock.
Derek set Stiles down and watched as the boy looked straight up at the sky and turned in a full circle. The forest let out here in a wide clearing at the top of a hill, with a big flat rock in the center and a nice view of Beacon Hills to one side. They were at the very edge of the Hale territory. There was no light pollution out here, and the sky was stuffed full of stars; the moon was a thin crescent that didn’t interfere with the stars’ brightness.
“Wow,” Stiles breathed.
Derek felt a rush of affection for the kid; this was one of his favorite places in the world. “Lots of stars, huh?”
“Yeah,” Stiles said, drifting closer and slipping his small hand into Derek’s own. “I’ve never seen so many.”
“Come here,” Derek said, tugging gently on Stiles’ hand. He led him over to the flat rock and laid down on it, gesturing for the boy to join him. They lay there, heads close together, and looked up at the stars. Neither said anything. Derek felt a huge, blank peace fill his mind and body. The moon didn’t tug against his control; it would be weeks before he really felt its pull again. Everything was right with the world.
Minutes passed.
And then, suddenly, everything was very, very wrong.
Derek bolted to his feet when he heard his mother’s howl. Stiles startled badly, not having heard it, and looked up at Derek with huge, scared eyes. Derek stood stock still, waiting, his whole body pulsing with the need to know, to be sure everything was all right.
And then it came again, and it was filled with rage and terror and pain. Derek didn’t hesitate; he scooped Stiles into his arms and flung himself into the forest.
“Derek?” Stiles gasped out, jolting against Derek’s chest as Derek ran flat-out in the direction of the house. “Is it...what’s wrong? Is it okay? We’re going so fast...” he trailed off and just clung to Derek’s neck. Derek didn’t answer, just threw his body as fast as it would go back home, home home.
Derek knew about the hunters, of course, had been warned and trained and lectured about them since he was old enough to understand the words. But no one had ever moved against the Hale pack; they kept themselves to themselves, his mother was a strong Alpha, they’d never harmed a human, they’d lived in Beacon Hills for generations, there was no reason...
There is no reason, Derek repeated to himself over and over and over again during that never-ending sprint through the dark forest. It’s not what you think, it’s nothing, Mom is going to laugh at you when you come bursting through the door, whatever it is will already be over and you’ll be pissed you missed all the excitement, it’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing
And Derek knew it wasn’t nothing, as he pushed his body to its extreme limits until the trees flew past them in a blur. His mother would never howl like that if it was nothing. It was something, it was something horrible, something huge, something...
And then the smell hit him and he reeled back. He was still half a mile from the house, but the whole forest reeked of it. Smoke. Gunpowder. Strangers. The smoke, oh god, the smoke was choking. He couldn’t help it. He roared in terror.
Stiles cowered against his chest, his whole body shaking. Derek held him fiercely tight, probably hurting him a little, while his mind raced. His body had already started moving again, sneakers pounding against the soft earth, while he tried to process all that his senses were telling him. The closer they got, the more the smoke choked him, and he struggled to get air into his lungs, tears streaking heedless down his face as he finally burst from the treeline into the clearing at the front of the house.
The house. The house, his house, his family’s house, was engulfed in flames.
And he could hear screaming.
He looked frantically around and saw police cars and a firetruck just pulling up the drive. He sprinted to them just as the Sheriff flung himself out of one of the cars and ran toward Derek.
“Do you have my...oh thank god, Stiles!” The Sheriff shouted as Derek neared him. Derek shoved Stiles into his arms, turned and sprinted toward the house. The front door had flames roaring out of it, so did the living room window. He could see movement inside, and he didn’t know if it was the fire or...or...Oh, god, please. Please please please please please
He reached the porch, but had to reel back as the heat him like a solid wall of pain. He ran around the perimeter of the house, leapt the fence to the backyard, looking for an opening, anything, any way to get inside, and then he saw a dark shape fly out of an upstairs window, broken glass shattering, and land with a sickening thump in the grass right in front of him. He ran to it and turned the body over.
“Peter!” he shouted. His uncle was unmoving, his eyes closed, half of his face burned horribly away. “Peter!” He shook him frantically, but there was no response. He dragged Peter away from the house to a safe distance.
“Derek!” he heard a shriek and turned to see Laura hurtling towards him. She flung himself at him, holding the sides of his face and screaming at him. “Where’s Mom? Dad? Where are the kids? Where is everyone? What happened? Derek, what the fuck happened?” She shook him hard, her claws digging into his arms.
“I don’t - I don’t know!” he shouted back at her, clinging to her waist and coughing from the smoke streaming from the house. “I just got here! I was in the woods - what - how can we - we have to get inside Laura, I think there are still...I heard screaming, Laura! What do we do? What do we do?”
“I came from that way” she pointed to the other side of the house “there’s no way in. The fire is everywhere. What about that side?” she pointed, hand shaking as tears flowed down her cheeks.
Derek shook his head, and they stared at each other for an instant, hopeless, frantic, and terrified. Then they gripped each other’s hands and flew back around to the other side of the house, where the firemen were unloading equipment. “I smell gunpowder,” Laura yelled. “What is - where-” Derek gripped her hand tighter and shook his head at her. He pulled her along and they stumbled over to the Sheriff, who was holding Stiles in his arms and looking up at the house with fear written all over his face.
“Did you find them? Did my family get out?” Derek shouted at him as they approached. The Sheriff turned swiftly and deposited his son into the back of the patrol car, then shut the door and turned back to them.
“No. No one came out.” His voice was hoarse from the smoke and the tears in his eyes.
“But,” Derek was incredulous, frenzied. “That’s impossible. My whole family was home, except me and my sister! They were all there! They must have left as soon as the fire started. Where are they?”
“Derek-” the Sheriff began, laying a hand on Derek’s arm.
“No!” Derek shouted, shoving his hand away. “No! They’re okay! They must be here, they’re here somewhere, they got out, they all got out, there were kids in that house, Sheriff, my mom would never-” Laura stood beside him, nodding frantically, clinging to his hand. “My mom...” Derek choked on smoke and his own tears. “She would never let anything happen to those kids.”
“Derek, I am so sorry. But my men have searched, are still searching the woods. And we haven’t found anyone. I’m so sorry, son.”
And then, with a terrible cracking and breaking sound of timber, the roof caved in. The house collapsed in on itself, sparks rising for what looked like miles into the night sky.
Laura turned away with a choking sound of horror, wrapped her arms around Derek’s waist and buried her head in his chest, sobbing. Derek just stared up at the house, incomprehension making his mind numb. He rubbed Laura’s back, rumbling low in his chest to comfort her. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real.
“This isn’t real.”
He felt a weight against his leg and looked down to see Stiles leaning against him and looking up, his small arms wrapping around Derek’s leg while tears ran down his face. They locked eyes, and Derek knew. He knew it was real.
***
Derek didn’t see Stiles again for ten years.
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