Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Stiles’ fingers are tapping so wildly on his steering wheel that even he’s getting annoyed by it, but he just can’t seem to stop. After nearly three hours of driving, he’s almost at his destination and his nerves are leaping about in his stomach. He’s already passed through the town of Beacon Hills, situated over a hundred miles north of where he himself grew up, and now he’s trundling along a weaving forest road searching for an opening to the driveway of the Hale family property.

He knows he’s in the right place. The house doesn’t show up on GPS so he’d had to make do with inputting the main road out of town and hope he’d find his way when he got here, but there’s a beacon of magical energy reaching him through the trees and it has to be his destination. It’s barely getting any closer as the road skirts the forest, and the thunder of his fingers against the steering wheel has become the soundtrack of the last mile as he scours the side of the road for any sort of entrance, trying not to chew too hard on his bottom lip.

A part of him hopes he’ll miss the turning completely so he can just keep driving for another three hours until he ends up back at home, but then he manages to laugh at himself. He has no reason to be this nervous. This is a good thing. Exciting. He might be about to meet a group of people who he’ll come to care for like family.

It’s still hard to believe that after all his years of Emissary training, the studying and exams and preparatory placements, here he is, searching for the werewolf pack he might bond with.

An opening finally appears between the trees at the edge of the road ahead and Stiles discovers the entrance to the Hale property would have been hard to miss. He wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it ends up being both more and less showy than he’d been picturing. Thick wooden posts stand either side of a dirt track leading into the trees, each carved on the front with a design like a family crest featuring a triskelion in the centre. He can sense that they’re imbued with old magic that keeps the reliefs from wear, the age of them telling him they were potentially carved by ancestors who could have been original settlers to the area. Hammered into the ground to the left is a shorter wooden signpost reading PRIVATE, the only indication that the path doesn’t lead to a walking trail.

This is it, he thinks to himself, glancing in his rear-view mirror at his dad driving the car following close behind. With a steadying breath, he gives the steering wheel a squeeze and makes the turn onto the dirt track.

Since finding out he was a candidate for this position, he’s read the Hale file provided to him by the Emissary Board cover to cover so many times that he’s lost count.

The new Alpha, Derek Hale, son of the previous Alpha and Emissary pair; two sisters, an uncle, two cousins; two married into the family. But it’s all just facts and figures, no faces to go with all the names. That’s about to change.

It’s intriguing that Derek’s parents were Alpha and Emissary of the pack. It’s a rare occurrence for them to have had such an intense bond that it led to marriage, though it’s not something that’s frowned upon. He wants to get a feel for how that dynamic worked, though it does add a burden to his shoulders knowing it’s a standard he’ll never live up to.

The Hales will have received a file on him in return featuring his educational history – both of typical school and his Emissary training – along with a cover letter and some information on his dad. It’s common for druids to come with families, but usually a partner and children, particularly if they’ve decided to take the Emissary route later in life. At twenty-five, Stiles is younger than most, deciding to pursue his Emissary training in place of a college education. With his dad being all the family he has and recently retired, it’s only natural that he should follow wherever he gets sent. He could never leave his dad behind to live on his own.

His nerves start to fade into the background the further he follows the path, his hands loosening from their white-knuckle grip on the wheel. His heart should be thundering, his breath should be coming shorter and shorter, but it feels more like a weight is lifting, determination starting to ease the tension in his shoulders. Whatever this feeling is, he’s not going to question it.

He follows the track for a good quarter mile, the tunnel of the tree canopy blocking out most of the sunlight and making the day feel much later than it really is. A goldfinch flits across the path ahead, just before the trees open up and he gets his first look at the house where they’re going to be staying for at least the next few days.

The house is at the centre of the clearing, just two storeys despite the strength of the magical energy that had made it feel so much bigger from the road. The wraparound porch is complete with a swing beside the front door, bordered by flower beds bursting with colour, and curtains in an open upper floor window fluttering in the breeze. There’s a vegetable patch on one side of the house, the leafy greenery of rows of potatoes soaking up the sun alongside carrots and something with leaves as big as his head. It looks more like a vacation home than a place they could call home permanently. 

He ducks down slightly to get a view of the whole house out of the windshield, eyebrows raised as he breathes out a whistle. The energy emanating from the house is intimidating this close up, but its presence isn’t oppressive or threatening. It feels like a haven instead, a protector of every person who lives there.

There are four other cars parked in the driveway, and in the absence of marked bays, he pulls in next to the closest one, a sleek black Camaro. It makes his battered Jeep look a sorry state but he’d choose his baby any day of the week, even if it is held together by prayers and magic. Mostly magic.

“Okay,” he murmurs to himself once the Jeep is parked and there’s really no turning back. “Time to do this.” He opens the door to climb out.

In the time he took his eyes off the house to park, the front door has opened and a man is slowly descending the porch steps, more people coming out of the house behind. Dark hair against tan skin and thick, angry-looking eyebrows are Stiles’ first impression, but as he gets closer, he’s struck by just how unfairly handsome he is.

Being the first to approach, he must be the new Alpha, the middle child and only son, Derek Hale.

Stiles glances at his dad who’s just climbed out of his car parked beside his, who throws him a quick smile in reassurance before they make the approach together.

Derek comes to a halt by the car parked nearest to the house, waiting for Stiles and his dad to get closer.

“Hi, I’m Stiles. Stilinski,” Stiles says, holding out a hand when they reach him. 

The Alpha takes a deep breath before accepting the handshake. It’s not a scenting reflex he’s ever seen a werewolf do before. It’s almost resigned, like the first half of a sigh, and Stiles has no idea what to make of it. There’s the twitch of returning nerves in his stomach.

“Derek Hale.”

Derek’s hand is warm and sturdy, and though they’re of a height, Stiles still feels dwarfed by his broad shoulders. Werewolves are generally known to be well-muscled, but it’s not always so overt. He knows from their file that they own a gym in town; Derek must be one of the pack members who works there.

“And this is my dad, John.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” his dad says, stepping forward to shake Derek’s hand as soon as Stiles lets go.

The rest of the pack have come up behind Derek, and it’s scary how obvious it is that they share genes, the two among their number who have married into the family easy to single out. The woman who has stepped up to Derek’s side is a lot older, but she has the same dark hair and tan skin, her brown eyes radiating warmth. Stiles knows immediately who she must be. Who she used to be.

“I’m Talia, Derek’s mom,” she says, her voice as warm as her eyes. “And this is my husband, Joseph.”

The man who steps forward is even taller than Derek and just as musclebound, perhaps even more so, made all the more remarkable considering he’s human. As Stiles shakes his hand, he’s acutely aware that, after Derek, Joseph’s favour – and blessing – as the previous Emissary is the most valuable, the most coveted. Stiles wonders how strange this must be for him, welcoming druid after druid knowing the role of protector will never again fall on his shoulders. To have the recipient be his son, the experience must be bittersweet.

After Joseph comes Derek’s older sister, Laura and her husband, Jordan, then his other sister, Cora.  Derek’s uncle, Peter, is married to Elaine, the only other human aside from Joseph, and they have two young children: Caleb, a boy of about five who’s trying to hide behind his parents’ legs – definitely a mini Peter – and a girl of maybe eight who’s standing unusually close to Stiles with her head craned back to stare up at him with big brown eyes.

“And this is Malia, our oldest,” says Elaine.

“Hi there,” Stiles says in greeting, trying not to laugh at her intensity.

“You don’t smell bad.”

At that, the laugh bursts out of him, and he’s not the only one. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Elaine hooks an arm around her chest to gentle her back. “Give him some space,” she scolds with a smile.

It’s a moment of much-needed laughter that helps to alleviate some of the awkwardness extended like a chasm between them.

Derek has faded to the back of the group since the handshake, but Stiles’ eyes find him anyway, still wanting to take in the Alpha he might bond with. Derek’s gaze is intense, giving an edge to his otherwise blank expression that Stiles still isn’t sure how to read. He reminds himself that this situation is awkward for all of them, even more so for Derek who must be facing so much pressure in finding the right druid, not to mention suddenly thrust into needing to accept two strangers into his territory, his home.

With Derek shrinking into the background, it seems Talia has slipped back into her old role as Alpha to take charge, and Derek seems content to let her. It’s not unusual so close to their transition that they’re still in an adjustment period, particularly for Derek when the previous Alpha is also his mom. Stiles can understand it. For him, it’s Joseph he’ll need to find a balance with, and he just hopes the two of them don’t end up butting heads.

“Let’s get your bags, then you can come on in to see the place,” Talia says, and they all follow Stiles and his dad to their cars to help with their suitcases.

They only have one each; it’s hard to pack when they don’t know if they’ll be here a day, a week, or permanently. This is only his second trial with a pack as a potential Emissary, and it could be many more until he finds where he’s meant to be. They’ll keep their house back home until that time comes, and Stiles tries not to think about how that could be for a very long while yet. They’ve only just arrived; it’s too early to speculate which way this will go.

He retrieves his backpack from the passenger seat as Derek hesitates before being the one to take his luggage, and he thinks he might even see Talia nodding her head at her son in encouragement.

“Your rooms appeared this morning so we knew you’d be here today before the Board called ahead,” Laura says, lifting his dad’s suitcase in front of her with one arm as they head towards the house.

“Appeared?”

“The house grows as the pack grows,” Joseph explains as they reach the front door, the kids running in first ahead of them.

Stiles pauses at the threshold, placing a hand on the doorframe before he dares step inside so he can take in the energy of the house and let it feel him out in return to decide if it wants to welcome him. He’s struck immediately by the age of the place, his stomach swooping like he’s stepped into a vast cavern, dwarfed by the depth of the energy reverberating all around. The magic imbuing this place is like the roots of an ancient oak anchoring it deep into the earth, evidence that it’s existed here in some form for generations, shifting and growing as needed.

Its energy seems to expand, brushing back against his like the trail of fingertips, stretching beneath his feet to act as support. He’s taken aback by its open-armed acceptance.

Joseph’s eyes widen as he shares a look with Talia. The last druid they trialled can’t have received such an overwhelming welcome; it’s difficult not to feel a little smug. 

With the house’s apparent blessing, Stiles steps inside with his dad following after, looking around and up at the ceiling like he might be able to see some physical representation of the house’s energy despite not having a supernatural bone in his body to sense it. They've always known every ounce of Stiles’ magic comes from his mom's side of the family. Though his dad can’t see it, has no idea it’s happening, the house extends the very same acceptance to him as well, that aura of protection Stiles had sensed when laying eyes on the place surrounding them in gentle comfort.

With Stiles’ introduction to the house over, they’re shown around the ground floor to the lounge and a connecting den which doubles as the room dedicated to pack business. Caleb takes to shyly hiding behind one of the couches as they look around, ignoring all attempts by Peter to coax him out.

In the kitchen, they’re each offered a glass of water which they gratefully accept and though his dad takes a few measured sips, Stiles guzzles the whole thing down. It’s from a mix of the heat outside, dehydration and nerves, needing something to do with his hands and his mouth, and left with turning the glass round and round in his hands when it’s empty.

The kitchen is light and airy with the backdoor open, and Stiles’ eye is drawn to a small vase of pink and purple flowers brightening the windowsill behind the sink that look like they were cut from the garden. There’s a long table to the right of the main kitchen space, and he can so easily picture the lively pack dinners that must take place there every day.

“One room has appeared on the second floor and the other on the third,” Talia begins to explain when their drinks are finished and they backtrack to the stairs across from the front door.

“Third floor?” his dad asks. The house doesn’t have three storeys on the outside, but that must be part of its extension magic.

“It would be difficult to explain changes to the house’s facade to visitors if it was ever-changing without applications for extensions, so it’s easier if the house holds its original look,” Joseph explains.

“Dibs on the biggest!” Stiles calls up after them and his dad grumbles.

“We actually think yours must be the one next to Derek’s,” Jordan says from behind him. “The house decided to… well. You’ll see.”

“You can’t just leave it at that,” Stiles says over his shoulder, but it’s met only with laughter.

Left with that to spark his curiosity, they reach the landing of the hall on the second floor, Stiles taking in the handsome wood panelling lining the hallway with picture frames filled with landscape art or photos of the family. They’re taken to a room at the end of the hall to the left, the new addition for his dad.

It’s just as spacious as his room back home, the wallpaper subtly mottled with shades of green that blends with the shaft of sunlight streaming in through the open window to give the room the peaceful aura of being in a forest. The furniture is a bit of a mismatch, the bed frame whitewashed wood, wardrobe made of oak or something similar, and then a chair next to a small dark wood desk with a black metal frame.

“Sorry about the mix of furniture,” Elaine says, sheepishly.

“The house stores stuff… somewhere— ” Laura wiggles her fingers in a way that denotes magic. “—and makes it appear when it feels like it. You can replace it with your own things if—well.”

If you stay, Stiles fills in.

“It’s just right,” his dad assures them. “Thank you,” he says, placing his hand on the desk and looking up to the ceiling as he speaks to the house.

Pipes clang from somewhere down in the basement in acknowledgement.

Stiles follows him over to the window as his dad’s bag gets set at the foot of the bed, taking in the view of the lawn stretching out towards the trees at the back of the house. His dad has a serene sort of smile on his face as he looks out, and Stiles can tell that he’s pleased by what he’s been given here, perhaps already imagining a future.

They head up to the third floor next, Derek who had been hanging back while they looked at his dad’s room now forced to lead the way as they go in the other direction. They climb the next flight of stairs and follow the hallway almost to the opposite end, having the bathrooms pointed out along the way. Derek opens the door of what must be Stiles’ room and steps aside, eyes averted as Stiles files past.

The first thing he sees when he steps inside is a window already open, letting in a pleasant breeze. The second thing is a door in the right-hand wall.

Laura clears her throat, scratching at her nose. “That leads to Derek’s room.”

Stiles’ eyebrows shoot up and a laugh bursts out before he can stop it. Now he understands how the pack knew this room probably wouldn’t belong to his dad (which, gross).

He looks over his shoulder at Derek who’s glaring pointedly at everything except for Stiles with pink-tipped ears.

“Presumptuous. I like it,” he says to the house, patting one of the walls and throwing a wink at Derek hovering in the doorway.

Derek’s eyes widen but then he furrows his brow like he’s trying to be stern, clenching his jaw as he glares off into the corner of the room. Laura and Cora share looks of delight.

“I’ll get a lock for it tomorrow if it will make you more comfortable,” Derek mutters.

The house groans in obvious response and Stiles’ lips quiver with another laugh.

“Shut up,” Derek growls, eyes raised to the ceiling.

“You don’t need to worry about a lock. I trust that you won’t come in unless I want you to.” Stiles immediately hears how that sounded but the implication is hardly a lie. By all the awkward shifting and the way Cora muffles a bark of laughter into Laura’s shoulder, he knows everyone else heard it too.

“On that note,” Talia says, throwing Cora a warning glance, “we’ll let the two of you get settled while we make a start on dinner. We’ve planned for a barbecue out on the lawn.”

“That sounds great,” Stiles says, and the Hales start to file from the room, Elaine shutting the door behind them to leave him and his dad to themselves.

Stiles is about to soundproof the room, but the house does it for him. He knows the Hales won’t consider it rude; it’s normal practice when among werewolves.

“All good so far?” his dad asks, voice hushed where he has no idea the room has been soundproofed, and Stiles smiles.

“Yeah. I think the house is happy we’re here. I just hope it’s not being too optimistic.”

“I’m sure Derek’s just nervous,” his dad says, cutting straight to the root of Stiles’ apprehension. He’s just glad he’s not the only one who noticed.

The Alpha from the first pack they’d stayed with had been immediately approachable, keen to make a good impression, to make him feel welcome. Perhaps Derek is just still trying to find out how he fits in his new role after so many years of his mom being the one to welcome guests. Perhaps he’s just not a people person in general and thinks he makes bad first impressions so has decided it’s best to leave it to his mom. Or maybe it’s that Talia hasn’t quite been able to let go just yet and Derek just isn’t ready to assert himself. Their dynamic is something Stiles is definitely going to be keeping an eye on.

He gives his dad a weak smile, accepting a clap to the shoulder before his dad heads back to his own room to unpack a little before dinner.

He takes a moment to look around at where he’ll be staying, at the queen size bed with a metal frame and coffee tinted bedsheets, an antique writing desk covered in drawers in one corner. He has a view out the window on the side of the house with the vegetable patch.

He was well aware of the Hale name even before receiving this assignment. With the news spreading that they’d transitioned to a new Alpha and so would be in need of a new Emissary, he’d been a little disappointed that he was already in the middle of trying out with a different pack. He’d thought that the first druid they trialled would have snapped up the role on the spot, and was amazed when he received his next placement to find he was being sent here.

Nerves start to creep at how easily he can imagine this as a permanent arrangement. Though some optimism can’t hurt, attachment is something he has to avoid at all costs.

Spurring himself into action, he uses the time to dig out his clothes and hang them up in the provided wardrobe, hoping to save them from as many extra wrinkles as he can, and then he backtracks along the hall to the nearest bathroom to freshen up. Sweeping cool water over his face helps to bring some clarity and wash off the hours he’d spent in his Jeep on the journey here.

He puts on some sunscreen in preparation for sitting outside at dinner, and when he’s back in his room, he can hear the voices of the kids drifting in through the open window, along with chatter from the adults and the chink of plates being gathered outside. He’ll check on his dad in a couple of minutes and then they can head outside together.

He gets dressed in the meantime, changing out of his plaid-with-t-shirt combo for another shirt, this one in pale marl blue, short-sleeved and buttoned to the neck. He pauses looking in the mirrored door of his wardrobe, wondering if he looks too formal for what should be a friendly barbecue but decides it can’t hurt to look a little smart. Anyway, it feels like it fits the sunny, late afternoon outside, on the cusp of summer.

He pauses before he leaves the room to place a hand on the door frame, connecting with the house as he had when he’d first stepped inside.

Thanks for everything you’ve given my dad.

There’s a pulse in the energy emanating all around, a throb. Acknowledgment.

Giving the door frame one last pat, he shuts the door behind him and heads down the hall.

Chapter Text

His dad is just stashing his gun safe out of reach at the back of the shelf in his wardrobe when Stiles checks in on him, and Stiles fights a smile. That Stiles comes with his dad and his dad comes with a gun had been listed in their file, and the Hales had shown only understanding knowing they’d be housing a former Sheriff. His dad may be retired, but it will always be in his blood, particularly when he’s only human and living in the world of the supernatural.

Knowing what Stiles knows now about the house, he isn’t surprised the Hales had been so accepting. This house isn’t going to let anyone but his dad open those wardrobe doors. He wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already sucked it into that other dimension while it’s not in use, like Laura told them about earlier.

“What?” his dad asks at the look on his face and Stiles shakes his head, still smiling.

“Nothing. You ready to go down?”

“I think so.” He pauses with the wardrobe door shut, hands on hips over the fresh t-shirt he’s put on, looking around at the room he’s been given.

Stiles smiles at the satisfaction on his face. “Come on, let’s go.”

As they head down the stairs, they can hear activity in the kitchen, and they find Talia supervising Caleb sliding chunks of vegetables and meat onto skewers while Peter and Elaine retrieve packages of meat from the fridge. Caleb dithers where he’s standing on a chair and presses back against Talia like he wants to escape to hide but she’s standing behind with her arms either side as she helps, caging him in, and he has no choice but to stay in full view over the counter. Stiles pokes his tongue out at him and he squirms away to hide his face in Talia’s shoulder, but he’s trying not to grin and Stiles takes it as a victory.

“Everything okay so far?” Peter asks from behind the building stack of meat Elaine is heaping into his arms.

“Everything’s great. It’s so nice and peaceful out here,” his dad says, that same satisfied smile on his face that he’d worn in his room. It’s an infectious smile, one that warms Stiles’ chest to see.

“Come out and enjoy it. You can probably do with some fresh air after spending the day cooped up in your cars.”

They follow Peter and Elaine out onto the back porch and Stiles feels the energy of the house recede behind him. He can still feel it watching though, standing guard.

There’s not a cloud in the sky, and when he’d checked the forecast, it had said they’re in for some beautiful late May weather over the coming days. Though he doesn’t think even torrential rain could put a damper on how beautiful he finds the place.

He can see from here that the flowerbeds he’d seen at the front hug the porch around the whole house. There’s even some wolfsbane close to flowering in a pot mostly hidden by some shrubbery, spelled by Joseph to block the scent and keep the kids from getting to it. It’s handy for all werewolves to have in case of any emergencies.

Three picnic tables are pushed together to accommodate them all on the lawn with the grill set up beside the porch. It’s a gargantuan stainless-steel beast that says the Hales are serious about their barbecues.

Derek has paused mid-swig of his drink to stare at Stiles who’s stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. Stiles tugs self-consciously on the bottom of his shirt and Derek snaps his eyes away to watch Peter set down the packages on a table next to the grill like he’s never been more interested in anything in his life. 

Jordan heads inside to fetch them some beers and comes back with a cooler, setting it by one of the picnic benches. Stiles cracks one open and lets a gulp of the ice-cold beverage swell over his tongue and down his throat, closing his eyes against the heat of the sun and wondering if there’s a better feeling than this. His satisfied sigh says as much and Laura laughs from her seat on a deckchair next to her sister.

He smiles at her. “I needed that.”

“Sounds like. How long was your trip?”

“Nearly three hours, so not actually too bad. It was more than twice that to the last pack we trialled with.” He glances up at the view of the house behind him. “The house is incredible.”

“It’s nerfed right now,” Cora tells him, pushing her sunglasses up her nose where she's looking up at him. “Usually its power spans all the way to the borders of the property, but when there’s no Emissary bonded it’s confined to just the house.”

“That is a lot of power to be contained in such a small space.” It makes sense that it would normally expand its protections to the rest of their land. It would be incredible to see what it’s like when at full power. He wonders if he’ll be lucky enough to be here to see it.

He takes another sip of his beer and turns to set it down on the table, just in time to spot Derek giving him a slow once over, whipping back to where Joseph is lighting the grill when he realises he’s been caught. Stiles keeps his eyes on him, wondering if he imagined it, but Derek is so resolute in his not-looking that it can’t have been a misread.

He takes the chance to give Derek a once over of his own. In the time from seeing him on the house tour to seeing him outside, he’d forgotten just how good-looking he is. Or maybe he’d convinced himself he must have been mistaken, magnifying it. But he hadn’t been imagining it at all. It’s probably a monumentally bad idea to let his mind go there, but he allows himself at least a moment to appreciate the play of muscles in his arms that he didn’t get a chance to properly take in during the introductions earlier.

Talia emerges from the house not long later with the skewers piled up on a tray, Caleb tearing down the steps in front of her carrying packets of hot dog and burger buns. It reminds Stiles that there’s no sign of Malia and he assumes she must be sequestered in the house somewhere. That apparently isn’t the case.

“I caught dinner!” comes a voice, and Stiles looks over to see her emerging from the treeline holding up a dead rabbit.

“Malia!” Elaine gasps, throwing Stiles and his dad a horrified look as Malia skips over. “Our guests will think you were raised in those woods!”

Stiles presses his lips hard together to hold in a laugh and a glance at his dad shows him in the same state.

“It’s tradition when you welcome guests,” Malia says as Joseph takes it from her, frowning up at her mom.

“You didn’t hunt a rabbit for the last druid,” Cora points out, and Malia’s shoulders hunch, looking suddenly like she might cry.

“Exactly. And he didn’t stay because we did it wrong!” And with that she turns on her heel and runs away, straight back into the trees.

The air has turned cold. Everyone is left shifting awkwardly in her wake and it’s sobering after Stiles’ stifled laughter of only moments before. He’s learnt over the years how unsettling it can be for werewolves during the Alpha transition phase when they’re unbonded, but the last pack he trialled with did such a good job of hiding it. It must be uncomfortable for Malia to feel this at such a young age, feeling suddenly distant from everyone, or even unsafe. Maybe she’s too young to even really understand what it is she’s feeling.

It’s normal to trial multiple druids until they find the right fit for them, but she probably views it as a failure, becoming fear and panic as their time stretches on without an Emissary. The Hales wouldn’t have done anything wrong when it came to the last druid, especially her.

“I’ll talk to her,” Peter says, putting down his beer to follow her across the lawn into the trees.

Caleb is hovering next to one of the picnic benches, but he’s already been so meek, Stiles can’t tell yet if it’s affecting him in the same way.

“I am sorry,” Elaine says to the two of them, but Stiles waves away her apology.

“Don’t worry about it. She must have good instincts to have caught it.”

“She really has a talent for it,” she says, brightening.

“The meat’s good,” Laura assures them with a sniff. “She’s a good little hunter.”

“I’ll go prepare it for the grill,” Joseph says, turning to head for the house.

The grill is up to temperature by the time he returns, and Caleb is immediately by his side wanting to help with the cooking, though he has to be warned more than once to be mindful of burns. It’s normal for werewolves his age to rely on their werewolf healing as an excuse for not taking better care.

As Joseph adds the rabbit to the grill and the air is filled with the sound of hissing meat, Stiles takes a moment to step back and study everyone around him. After the scene with Malia, something’s changed about the atmosphere. Or maybe it was there all along and he just didn’t see it until now.

It takes him a while to decide that things feel strained. Urgent. There's an imbalance, a sort of hush they're trying to hide behind smiles that stretch just a little bit too wide. Their eyes dart too often over to Derek sitting alone at one of the benches, addressing him too often by name like they’re trying to encourage his input despite his one-word answers. Elaine’s pride earlier at their acceptance of Malia’s hunting talents now reads more like relief that her act of waving around a dead animal hadn’t been poorly received.

The two kids aren’t the only ones who can’t have experienced an unbonded pack. It must be a new experience for Cora and Laura too, as well as Derek. He knows from their file they’ve had a strange time of things recently, experiencing a sudden Alpha transition that’s unusual for this day and age.

The news of it had spread amongst the supernatural community like it had been a newspaper headline: HALE KILLS FERAL ALPHA. The Hunter Society’s report on the incident had been in the Hales’ file, giving Stiles more insight into what had happened. A feral Alpha had left a trail of bodies through a string of cities, tracked by hunters until they finally caught up with him here. With Derek the one forced to land the killing blow, the Hales had had a choice to make, and had gone with Derek as their new Alpha. And that’s how Stiles is here today.

He’s not surprised the attack is having a lingering effect. With no Emissary bonding them and two strangers in their territory, it makes sense that the pack feels unbalanced. With any luck, Stiles is just the druid they’re looking for. That Derek is looking for.

Peter emerges from the trees hand in hand with Malia in time for food, and when the rabbit is finally cooked, she marches over to Joseph at the grill, her face determined. He slices up the rabbit splayed on the grill to place it on her plate and she holds it aloft as she heads straight for Stiles. She holds it out to him, her little face expectant with a tiny frown. He uses his fork to lift a cut onto his own plate, the glaze of barbecue sauce making his mouth water. He's never eaten rabbit before, but it seems to be cooked to perfection as he slices through it with a knife to pop a piece into his mouth. 

The meat is delicious, slightly sweet and with the tang of barbecue sauce, and only when he’s chewed and swallowed does Malia nod in approval before making a beeline for his dad. His dad eats the rabbit with gusto, telling Malia he’s never had a chance to eat meat so fresh before and it’s only at that that she starts to crack a smile.

Derek is next. She holds out the plate to him, waiting stubbornly through a pause as he stares down at it. He offers her a smile that feels somehow tired and spears a cut on his fork. He doesn't look up from his plate as he eats.

Malia makes the rounds after that, making sure that every pack member gets at least a bite, holding a morsel out to Caleb who leans up to pluck it from between her fingers with his teeth. The pieces get smaller and smaller as the meat from the single rabbit dwindles amongst so many of them.

“You next, Malia,” Cora prompts when there’s only a small bit left and she’s yet to eat.

Malia’s eyes widen with sudden fear and she snatches up the last of it to gobble down, and Stiles tries to hide a smile behind the hotdog he’s made. It’s like she's brewed up a potion and needs to make sure they all drink it so the magic works, like forgetting to eat some herself would break the spell.

She climbs back into her seat next to her mom, a satisfied smile on her face.

Stiles is sitting at one end of the line of picnic tables with Derek’s sisters and Jordan, listening as they explain how half the family works at the gym they own in town and the other half are forest rangers, the perfect job when it’s already their backyard.

“We’ve got the best search and rescue record in the state,” Peter tells them proudly, leaning forward to talk to them down the table.

Stiles laughs. “I don’t doubt it.” No rangers at any other forest or park stand a chance at besting that record when this one employs werewolves with super senses.

He lets his eyes drift over to Derek further down the table, a tingle in his energy making him sure he’s just missed catching Derek staring. He’s sat at the opposite end with Talia, studiously sliding meat and vegetables off one of his skewers, piece by piece. Stiles keeps looking in the hopes that he might look up for Stiles to at least offer him a smile, but he ends up giving one to Talia instead when she spots him facing their way.

His dad seems to be getting along swimmingly with Joseph and Peter, raucous laughter going up between the three of them down the table more than once. The food is delicious, and Stiles makes a show of eating a couple of the skewers Caleb worked so hard on to make him feel just as included as his sister.

They put some fruit on the grill for dessert – pineapple, strawberries and bananas – delicious hot, sticky goodness, and then they move away from the picnic benches to the set up deck chairs gathered round.

Caleb has warmed up to having them there by the time they’ve finished eating, going so far as to transform into a wolf pup and drape himself happily across Stiles’ dad’s lap like he’s his new favourite person. Stiles supposes he must feel a little like he’s gotten a new grandpa – though his dad would maybe grumble at the age that title implies, he thinks to himself, fondly. He’s not going to be able to escape it forever, especially now that his hair is threaded with grey.

He’s starting to look the picture of retirement sitting there doting on a ‘grandchild’, reclined on a deckchair with a new beer Jordan handed him without him needing to get up. He somehow looks more at ease than he had with the last pack, even though he’d assured Stiles more than once that he could have been happy there. Here, it’s like his dad can feel a difference this time like Stiles can just by instinct.

Stiles catches him more than once running absent fingers down Caleb’s back as he gazes out at the trees or up at the emerging stars, looking absolutely at peace. This is what Stiles wants for him. After dedicating so much of his life to other people and losing his wife so early and putting up with Stiles for all these years, it’s what he deserves. Stiles is suddenly struck by a fierce burning in his chest at the desire to give him this and make it permanent. 

They switch the outdoor lighting on as it gets darker, and the time eventually comes for Caleb and Malia to be put to bed, having already stayed up past their bedtime. His dad carries Caleb up the stairs when he refuses to part from his comfy lap cushion, Peter accompanying them and telling Malia to go and wash up. Stiles thanks her for the rabbit before she heads in and her solemn, “You’re welcome,” brings a smile to everyone’s faces as she goes.

“When did you want to take care of the binding spell?” Stiles asks, and Joseph looks relieved that he was the one to bring it up.

The spell ensures a druid can’t divulge any pack secrets they might learn if their trial ends with them deciding to move on. Binding spells are the usual practice during a druid’s trial period, but they unavoidably carry implications of distrust despite everyone understanding the necessity.

“We can do it now if you’re ready?” Joseph asks and Stiles agrees.

They all end up heading inside to the den, taking seats at the table or standing around the edge. Derek takes up position in a corner leaning back against a wooden cabinet with some pearl inlay on the doors and Stiles remains standing too, ready for Joseph to carry out the spell.

When his dad and Peter return from putting the kids to bed, Peter slides the doors shut, activating a soundproof barrier over the room, one that allows them to hear out from but not be listened in on.

The binding spell is one Stiles could take care of himself, but he knows it will make everyone else more comfortable if Joseph is the one in charge. It’s a simple process, requiring first Stiles then his dad to clasp a hand with one of Derek’s as Joseph lays a hand on each of their elbows, that loop of his magic forging a tie. Joseph will seal that loop when – if – they move on, ending its effect but ensuring they still won’t be able to reveal anything learnt in secret.

Derek keeps his eyes fixed on their hands as Joseph binds them instead of looking at Stiles, but all Stiles can see is how green his eyes are. A tingle runs through his arm, the hairs prickling at the rush of magic, and then it’s done.

His dad goes after, and Stiles catches him clenching and unclenching his fist once it’s over to get rid of the residual tingle. It fascinates him how his dad can’t feel the magic itself but it still leaves a physical sensation for him.

“Now we can tell you all about our evil plans for world domination,” Cora says from her seat at the table, stoking a wave of laughter that’s welcome after the suddenly awkward ceremony of the spell.

Derek moves to stand back against the cabinet again, no crack of a smile. Is he always this serious?

There’s a pregnant pause when the laughter fades as Talia looks to Derek, but when there’s nothing forthcoming, she takes charge. “I suppose we should discuss when you want to get started with the compatibility tests. We could leave it a day or two if you wanted to get more of a feel for the place, or…?”

“No, tomorrow’s great. I’d love to get started straight away,” Stiles says and everyone – aside from Derek, who remains stony-faced as ever – looks as pleased to hear that as he thought they might. It could be a few more druids yet until they find the one for them so they’re going to want to make the process as quick as it can be. For himself, he at least wants to get the first test out of the way just to confirm if his gut feeling that he’s found somewhere he could make a life actually holds any weight. Until then, he doesn’t want to take a day or any extra time getting to know the people and the place if it’s just going to end in disappointment if they discover he’s not actually compatible with them at all.

The first test that he and Derek will undertake is a simple one, just measuring their energies against each other on a spiritual level to see how they fit. It’s the least intensive of the three tests, more of a taster to see if there’s any reason to pursue a bond. With the Board’s methods for matching Emissaries to packs, it’s rare nowadays for anyone to fail it.

“Do you have any questions for us?” Joseph asks, and his dad gets there before Stiles has a chance.

“We heard you had some trouble with another Alpha a few weeks ago?”

Stiles closes his eyes for a second, on the verge of a wince; trust his dad, the ex-Sheriff, to cut straight to it.

Talia handles the explanation. “Yes. He left a trail from just outside Sacramento all the way here. The Hunters tracked him and we worked together to bring him down. There was one casualty, but we were lucky compared to others.” Her account sounds almost robotic. Stiles wonders how many times they’ve had to go over it for the Hunter Society and then the last druid that was here.

“We saw the report,” his dad says, slipping into his Sheriff-giving-condolences voice.

Derek is staring unseeing at the carpet and Stiles swallows hard. Up until this point, the ordeal had been barely more than words on a page, something that had happened to someone else far away. But Derek had to kill someone. For him, it’s something he has to live with every day.

As for the casualty, she’d been savaged by the Alpha and her injuries were so severe, one of the hunters on scene decided to end it for her quickly with a bullet. It’s chilling to imagine a life so suddenly and horrifically cut short.

The hunters would have used their network of connections to have it covered up, injuries from some sort of fake accident on the death certificate. Sometimes, a victim might get listed as a missing person, but that wasn’t really an option here. He’s glad that the Hales don’t need to see Missing posters every day, knowing full well what happened to her.

He looks at Derek standing with his arms crossed, gaze fixed on the carpet. “Did you know her?”

Derek’s eyes flick up to his when he realises Stiles is talking to him, and he straightens a little, averting his gaze back to his feet. “Not really. She was a customer at the gym from time to time.”

“She took my yoga class,” Cora says.

“I never met her,” comes Laura’s small voice, Jordan’s hand clasped with hers on the tabletop.

A moment of silence meets those words, all of them hearing how final they are.

“And there’s no reason to suspect there might be retaliation? No members of the Alpha’s pack left who might seek revenge?” his dad asks.

“No. From what we’ve heard from other packs, the Alpha stole the power from another not long before. He’d gone without an Emissary and his only option was to make a pack by force, but he’d been unsuccessful.”

It’s impossible to imagine something so ugly disturbing this peace he’s seen so far. He knows from their file that it’s the only trouble they’ve faced during Talia’s time as Alpha, the only brush with hunters of any consequence that the Hales have ever had. He can’t fathom how much of a shock it must have been for them, for Derek with the choice he’d suddenly been forced to make.

Joseph tries to liven up the sudden shift in mood by clapping his hands once together. “Well, we’ll start the process with the first test tomorrow, but for now, you must be tired.”

“We’ll help you tidy up first—” his dad tries to offer but the Hales won’t hear of it.

Understanding that they’d probably take more offence if Stiles or his dad pushed the matter, the two of them relent and start to say their goodnights.

“Don’t hesitate to wake us if you need anything,” Talia tells them as they start to file out of the den.

“Thanks. And thank you for dinner, it was really great.”

“I don’t think I’ll need to eat another thing while I’m here,” his dad says, patting his full stomach and it’s met with much laughter and agreement as they part ways.

There’s a moment’s pause as he and Derek reach the door at the same time, proper eye contact which might be the first time since the moment they arrived. Derek is first to look away, throat bobbing with a visible swallow, but he waits for Stiles to leave first.

“Good night,” comes a voice when Stiles reaches the foot of the stairs, and he’s almost floored to realise it came from Derek.

“Good night,” he says in return, and then it’s only he and his dad left in the hallway.

He stops off in his dad’s room before heading to his own, putting up a soundproof barrier.

“How are you liking it so far?” he asks. He’s eager – and hesitant – to know. There’s something more natural about his dad’s impressions in the absence of any supernatural abilities. Uninfluenced.

“Still trying to wrap my head around that this isn’t just a vacation.” He gives Stiles a sidelong look. “If all goes well. Though it seems things are a bit different this time.”

“They do feel different.”

When he’d trialled with the Osbourne pack near the coast, he’d been gripped with doubt as soon as he arrived. At the time, he’d just attributed it to the idea of the pressure of making the right choice that his entire future hinged on, the fear of making a mistake and all the turmoil that would come with having to sever a bond with a pack if it didn’t work out. He doesn’t feel that at all this time, not since the moment his Jeep entered the long driveway up to the house, and it had evaporated completely when he’d laid eyes on Derek standing in front of the porch steps. But that in itself is another reason to be wary. He can’t base his decision on how attractive he finds an Alpha. He won’t know until the compatibility tests if what he felt was real or just a result of desire at seeing a pretty face. Though it’s not like Derek is all the Hale pack has going for it. 

The rest of his family have made them feel like old friends that they’re excited to welcome into their lives permanently, and that’s not to mention this beautiful house full of character in such a picturesque location. Ultimately, he’s most worried that it’s the Hales who will turn him down in spite of Stiles wanting to stay.

He and his dad share a hug and say their goodnights, a lead weight plunging into his stomach at the idea of his dad getting his heart set on staying here and it being Stiles who will let them down by not being enough. He braves a smile when he pulls back, and ascends to the third floor alone.

The window in his room is still open, filling the space with cool night air now that the sun has set. He takes a moment to let it sweep over his skin before fetching his toothbrush and heading to the bathroom. When he’s finished his nightly routine, he returns to his room and crosses to the window to ease it shut, but the murmur of voices from the porch below catches his ear and he pauses with a hand on the edge of the glass. Even with held breath he can’t make out the words, and he doesn’t hesitate to drop his hand to the sill to strengthen the breeze coming through and draw the voices in with it.

“At least he’s better looking than the last one,” comes Laura’s voice, teasing, but it’s brittle, like she’s desperate for whoever she’s talking to to crack a smile.

There’s no answer, but Stiles can already make out the shape of the person moulding the silence despite it only being a few hours since he first pulled to a stop in front of the house. Stiles is struck by just how much he wants to hear some agreement with Laura’s words. He can picture exactly what Derek’s expression must be though, already well-acquainted with his brooding brow. He’s almost surprised he can’t see Derek’s glare pointing out to the trees like two beams of burning torchlight, wilting the grass in its path. There’s just the faint glow from the lounge window pooling onto the lawn, turning to blackness long before reaching the treeline.

She sighs at Derek’s continued silence. “You have to make an effort this time, Der. We need this.”

Derek’s voice is still absent, but there’s the whisper of clothes coming off, followed by the pad of paws. Grass rustles as a black blur streaks through the spill of light from the lounge window, disappearing into the darkness.

Silence follows from Laura in his wake and Stiles lets the breeze fade, dropping his hand from the sill.

He’s dazed, lost in thought, as the window slides soundlessly shut on its own. He presses a hand to the frame, letting his energy seep into the wood to get a feel of the house, wondering if the suffocating melancholy he feels is a product of the house or if it’s a reflection of each of its pack members bleeding over. 

Has Derek already made his decision?

The house doesn’t offer any answers.

Chapter Text

You have to make an effort this time.

That one line keeps him up well into the night.

No matter which way he turns it, he can’t deny the fact that things don’t look promising. He may have clicked with the rest of the family, but ultimately it’s Derek who will decide, and his senses must be telling him that Stiles isn’t the one. He doesn’t need to make an effort if he’s already decided. Stiles tries to tell himself that it doesn’t mean this is over, but it’s hard to think it with any sort of optimism.

He ends up playing an ambience from his phone to help him sleep, his go to mix of underwater sounds that he keeps in a soundproof bubble around his head so as not to disturb any of the wolves with their advanced hearing. He drifts off eventually, but it’s not the easy sort of rest he’d been hoping for in preparation for the first test.

The morning dawns just as sunny as the day before. He can’t sense Derek in the room next door when he wakes, so either he’s already up or he never came back last night. Stiles gets the feeling it’s probably the latter. He’s not sure what to do about it, or if there’s anything he can do. He can only hope that wherever Derek went, it was enough to open his mind a little to the possibility of Stiles being a good fit.

Remembering the first test cuts through his lingering sleep muddle and urges him out of bed in a fit of restlessness. He pulls on his sleep shorts and a t-shirt and uses the bathroom to distract himself from it, but it does nothing to push out of his mind that, for all he knows, he’ll be packing up his things before the day is through.

He has to take a deep, fortifying breath to steel himself to face whoever’s already up downstairs, hoping his complexion isn’t as ashen as it feels.

His dad is already in the kitchen when he gets there, sitting with a bowl of oatmeal and a coffee beside Joseph and Peter at the kitchen table. He fits the scene like he’s always been there, leaning towards Peter and frowning down at the newspaper the other man is reading, in the middle of discussing one of the articles. It turns out everyone is already here apart from Cora – and Derek – though the back door is open like they’re waiting for him, as well as welcoming in the nice weather.

With morning greetings made, Stiles opts for toast and is shown a selection of preserves already on the table from the town’s farmer’s market, beaded with condensation from being out of the fridge. There’s even one Caleb made with some help at the end of last summer from a leftover batch of strawberries they grew in the garden. Stiles makes sure to give that one a try. His dad has already swirled some into his oatmeal, singing its praises.

When Stiles’ toast is ready with a glass of juice on the side and Cora has appeared to pour herself some coffee, all but one of them are present around the long kitchen table. None of the Hales mention Derek’s absence, and Stiles gets the feeling they’re hoping no one else does either.

It isn’t until they’ve all nearly finished that he finally makes an appearance.

Stiles has just gotten up to fetch more juice when Derek comes through the back door wearing only a pair of jeans. It must be the same pair as the night before, left out on the porch when he fled into the trees as a wolf. They’re low on his hips, a clear absence of underwear, with the rest of his clothes slung over one arm.

Stiles is glad he wasn’t mid-swig of his juice. He doesn’t bother trying to hide his interest though. He’s learned to accept that when he’s chosen a life with werewolves, there’s really nothing he can do about it, and when Derek is the one he’s faced with, he’s not sure he really cares. He’s not going to tiptoe around his attraction to him, not when this could be a whole life of living in such close quarters. They need to be upfront about what may or may not be on the table, and set up clear boundaries in case of any misunderstandings.

Derek stands frozen. He can’t take his eyes off Stiles in return, his stomach expanding as he breathes. As he scents the air.

Stiles takes an unused glass from a cupboard beside his head and fills it to the top, sliding it over the counter towards him.

Derek pauses before accepting it, lifting the glass to his lips. His eyes flicker back to Stiles before they close and he tilts his head back to gulp half of it down, showing off his throat. Stiles wonders if having spent all night as a wolf means the animal is closer to the surface, more instinct and less conscience. He likes the sound of that.

Derek meets his eyes again when he’s done, but his gaze quickly averts back to his glass, suddenly stoic. “Thanks,” he murmurs, then takes the glass with him from the room. Stiles turns his head to watch him go.

He looks back at the rest of the family once Derek’s out of sight, at Laura and Cora with their hands over their mouths and eyes closed as they lean into each other in a silent fit of giggles, and his dad with a hand over his eyes massaging his temples. He gets a look at Malia’s wrinkled nose before she escapes outside.

“Jesus Christ,” mutters Peter, shaking his head as he turns a page of his newspaper. “If this is going to be my life from now on, I think I’ll ask our cousins in Virginia if their pack has room.”

“We expect you out on the lawn in fifteen minutes!” Talia calls from her seat at the table, and Stiles’ human ears barely make out a muffled grunt of acknowledgement from the stairs.

It snaps him out of his daze like a spray of water to the face. The test. He’d forgotten all about it in the face of Derek’s dramatic, Mark Darcy-esque entrance.

He excuses himself to get dressed into his clothes for the day to make himself a little more presentable. He’s hoping it will help to get him in the right headspace, but it doesn’t really do a lot to help, not when he gets to his room and knows now that Derek is on the other side of the wall, that closed door linking their rooms seeming as flimsy as tissue paper.

His head is spinning. After spending the night worried about how cold Derek’s been since he arrived, that sudden surge of heat in the kitchen just now is something Stiles doesn’t know what to do with. Maybe something has changed after Derek’s night in the preserve? But Derek had already started to chill again before he’d even left the room, like the moment had been a mistake.

He takes a deep breath, imagining the sound of the ambience he’d used to help him sleep. However he’s feeling, however Derek’s feeling, the test won’t lie. It will measure their very essences against each other and tell them without any frills or dithering if they’re a good enough fit. It’s the only judgement that matters.

Back downstairs, the rest of the family and his dad are out on the grass and Stiles joins them, closing his eyes against the bright morning sunlight, and then keeping them closed to enjoy the blush of warmth against his skin. It does better to calm his nerves than anything else so far. The sky is as blue as it was yesterday except for a few faint wisps of candy floss clouds that hopefully won’t come to anything.

The kids don’t seem to have much interest in what’s about to happen. Caleb is running around, playing at long jump barefoot from the top of the picnic benches, Peter and Elaine constantly beckoning Malia back out of the trees. Stiles knows he’d been as bored by this sort of thing as they are when he was their age, forced to watch a boring adult ceremony.

He shares a smile with his dad who’s noticed his jittery fingers. The reassurance only lasts until Derek emerges from the house a minute later, dragging his heels right until his allotted time from Talia is up. He’s at least wearing a shirt this time, a polo embroidered on the left breast with HALE Fitness, but Stiles doesn’t think even seeing his abs again would be enough to distract him from what’s about to happen.

Derek looks like he’s being led to the gallows which doesn’t really inspire confidence. He comes to stand in front of Stiles roughly two feet apart, ready to begin without any further delay like he’s resolved to get this over with as quickly as possible now that he’s outside.

The pack forms around them in a half circle, waiting. Stiles holds up his hands first, palms facing Derek who stares down at them with a hesitance that Stiles would call reluctant. It’s like he already knows what the outcome is going to be, thinks this is a waste of time. He has the strange feeling that Derek is going to refuse, but the moment passes and Derek’s hands lift to mirror his.

“You ready?” Stiles asks, voice coming out sharper than he’d meant it.

Derek heaves a sigh through his nose before closing his eyes in acknowledgement.

Stiles studies his face for a moment, nerves oozing into his stomach to sit like an oil slick. He doesn’t know how to read this situation, doesn’t understand it. His only conclusion no matter which way he tries to get the pieces to fit is that Derek doesn’t want him, which completely goes against the readings he’s gotten from the rest of his family and the house, contradicts what happened in the kitchen earlier. If Derek has already made up his mind, is there any point to going ahead with this?

With a deep inhale through his nose, Stiles follows suit and closes his own eyes, letting his breathing mellow into an almost meditative state before he lets the energy inside him flow outwards. It brushes up against Derek’s immediately, bursting bold and bright before him. There’s resistance, a struggle, then something shatters like a dam breaking and they flood together. It’s a swirl of chaos, like he’s unspooling with no way to stop it, losing grip on the very shape of himself, but there’s something serene about it too, like he could fall headfirst into it and never stop, never be scared, despite feeling like he’s being pulled into the surface of the sun.

Their hands meet in the middle, the touch of their fingertips an electric brush of skin, the solid collision of their palms making them gasp. Stiles’ eyes spring open and he jolts away to find Derek staring at him, aghast.

He’s never felt that before. Whenever he’s practised linking in all of his training, the brush of energies has always been like two solid objects fitting or moulding together. Not once has he ever felt his energy try to merge.

Stiles can’t close his gaping mouth as the full force of what this reaction means slams into him: they’re not just compatible as Alpha and Emissary, but as life partners, just as Derek’s parents must have been before him. It shows on Talia’s face where she stands with wide, tear-filled eyes and a hand over her chest, shows in the arm Joseph has lifted to curl around her waist and pull her close.

“Wow,” Laura whispers, and her awe is mirrored on everyone’s faces, even his dad’s when he has no supernatural ability of his own to feel what exactly just happened. The kids are looking back and forth between everyone in confusion, Caleb tugging on the hem of Elaine’s shorts for an answer.

Derek is staring back at him in what could be wonder or horror, like he’s been torn right open in front of them and left to spill his guts out onto the lawn.

“Well,” Joseph begins, the most composed of all of them as he breaks the extended stunned silence. “I suppose we should prepare for stage two.”

“I’m going to work,” Derek announces, and with that, he turns on his heel and disappears into the house.

The silence left in his wake pulses in Stiles’ ears, and his feet start to follow after him without the conscious thought to do so, something new and urgent inside him tugging him forward. He remembers it from the last time he did this: a temporary connection that opens up between an Alpha and a druid during the duration of the tests that will either fade or strengthen depending on how far they decide to pursue it. It makes Derek’s retreat so soon feel wrong, his feet almost stumbling as he climbs the steps of the porch and heads inside after him.

He’s in time to see Derek grab a duffel bag from the kitchen counter and head through the house for the front door, not stopping once to look at Stiles behind. Stiles trails to a halt in the front doorway, watching Derek reach the bottom of the porch steps and head over to the Camaro parked alongside Stiles’ Jeep, because of course . He wants to say something, but what is there to say after what they’ve just discovered? Laura’s wow keeps replaying in his head, a constant loop of amazement.

“Have a good day at work!” is what ends up coming out. It sounds like all it’s missing is an endearment from the end, and Derek must hear that absence because he pauses long enough with the driver’s door open to give him a deer-in-headlights look, then climbs in without a second glance. Stiles lifts a hand to wave him off anyway, only letting his hand fall once Derek has reversed from his space and his car has been swallowed by the shade of the trees covering the drive.

He lingers in the doorway, deflating like the buoyancy of the overwhelming result has burst in his face. He can’t blame Derek for wanting a bit of distance after what they’ve just discovered, he just would have liked to have seen a bit of excitement, or even some happiness. Not… fear.

He puts his hand on the doorframe, already turning to the house for strength after less than a day of living in it. There’s a quiver in its energy, like a tearful congratulations.

You knew, didn’t you? He doesn’t get a definitive answer, but the quivering continues. The emotion feeds into him, just like that support the house put under him when he first arrived, like it’s sending him reassurance. If he has the house’s blessing, surely that must count for something?

He pats the wood before pushing off, taking a moment to compose himself. He’s careful not to heave the sigh trapped in his lungs so the wolves outside don’t hear his dejection and plasters on an easy-going smile instead as he makes his way back through the house.

Their welcome yesterday had been excited if nervous, but now it’s genuine delight as he descends the porch steps and finds himself hooked into a rib-crushing hug from Laura.

“I knew there was something special about you,” she says into his ear, and then he’s being passed around everyone for hugs and handshakes. By the time Joseph has shaken his hand and then opted to give him a hug as well, Stiles is smiling for real, all of his misgivings melting away under all this infectious joy.

Eventually, the Hales have to start to get ready to head off to work, clapping him on the back as they go. Cora, Jordan and Elaine are heading to the gym, Laura and Peter to the ranger station. The kids are home-schooled and will be until they’re old enough to keep their werewolf urges controlled, and it’s Joseph’s day to stay with them, something Stiles learns they all take in turns. Talia has taken the day off to be with Stiles and his dad. He gets the feeling they’d asked it of Derek – it would normally be his place as Alpha, after all – but he can picture the stony-faced displeasure that suggestion would have received. Or maybe a repeat of that deer-in-headlights look from just now.

His dad joins him out on the porch once the kitchen is cleared, standing with Stiles at the railing where he’d been staring out at the trees.

“Looks like we’re here to stay,” his dad says after waving to his ear in a gesture that’s long been the sign for soundproof privacy.

His dad might not have any magical ability of his own, but he had witnessed Stiles do the test once before, and that time it had taken a lot longer and Stiles’ palms had been more than a centimetre apart from the other Alpha’s when it was done. That’s still considered an overwhelming pass, but it’s nothing compared to what happened with him and Derek today. That was an outcome he thought he could only ever dream of experiencing.

Stiles glances over to see suggestive eyebrows raised and a teasing smile playing about his dad’s mouth. It’s the same smile his dad would give him when Stiles was nine and smitten with his first crush.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he complains, hunching over to rest his elbows on the railing. “None of this means anything if Derek carries on the way he is.” He finally lets free the sigh he’s been holding. “Something just feels wrong.”

“We are two strangers who have turned up in his territory, on his property, messing up the usual balance and scent and smells and what have you. Maybe he’s just adjusting. He is still an Alpha without an Emissary after all.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, grudgingly. It’s a small comfort that his dad has come to the same conclusions he did. Without an Emissary to link Derek to his pack like he should be, like he’s known his entire life, it’s not a surprise that he’s unsettled. It’s not unusual. It’s just, after meeting such a well-adjusted Alpha on his very first trial, he’d been expecting to find Derek just the same. “I guess no one else seems too concerned.”

“It’s still early days yet.”

He’s right. It’s not even been twenty-four hours since they arrived. Maybe it would have been better to leave the tests for a couple of days like Talia offered so Derek could have some time to warm up to them. No going back now though.

He drops the soundproof bubble and straightens from his slump, mentally giving his cheeks a slap to snap himself out of this. He just needs to give him a bit more time.

Chapter Text

It’s easy to let his doubts fade as the day goes on and they spend some long, peaceful hours with Talia, Joseph and the kids. He must have just misread the way Derek had chosen to deal with his shock as rejection, when really he’d just been shy to have all that laid bare in front of an audience. All that matters is that they passed, and now this new link between them will gradually start to tighten over the next two days until it tells them that it’s time for the second test. That’s plenty of time for things to change. Derek is going to come around.

He and his dad are eager to get more of a feel for the place now things look so promising. They sit in the kitchen to assist with a bit of the home-schooling, Caleb showing off the dinosaur stationery set he got for his birthday and a set of novelty erasers shaped like fast food that are still in pristine condition. Malia has a set shaped like cacti in little plant pots, all heavily smeared with graphite with smiley faces either drawn on or stabbed into them with a sharp pencil.

Their notebooks are in similar condition, and it’s so interesting to watch them, Caleb painstakingly shaping each shaky letter while Malia’s writing starts to trail down the page when her hand goes limp as she gets distracted by staring out the window with her mouth open.

They take a midmorning walk through the woods, Joseph allowing a break for the kids to accompany them when Malia doesn’t stop begging to join them. Though going by Joseph’s grin, his initial refusal had just been a ploy to tease her.

She’s in her element in the trees, wandering off on her own for minutes at a time and reappearing from unexpected directions with new twigs in her hair. Caleb is just as excited at being in the outdoors, if not so adventurous, pointing out animal droppings to Stiles’ dad and dragging him into the trees to show him where he often finds edible mushrooms growing.

Joseph takes the time while they’re occupied to tell Stiles more about other packs they’re allied with who he’ll come to know during his work as Emissary if he stays with them, including some extended family a few towns over and some in Virginia who Peter mentioned earlier. They end up on the subject of the house and Stiles can’t resist asking about its origins.

“The first Hale Emissary on this land tied her magic to the house upon her death a few centuries ago, supposedly when a rival pack wanted the land and she was slain in the attack,” Joseph explains. “That raw energy protected the pack and made it so that no other werewolves could claim the land for themselves. Since then, every druid who stayed once their role as Emissary was over has relinquished their power upon death to the house to strengthen it over generations. Just like I will when my time comes.”

It’s humbling to know where all of that enduring power came from, and he struggles to comprehend how much wisdom it must hold. Knowing the source of the energy makes it all the more extraordinary that the house welcomed him so openly.

His dad runs across the path ahead chased by a giggling Caleb who’s carrying a slug he’s picked up on a stick, his dad pretending to be terrified.

They smile as they watch them go and Stiles lowers his voice. “Thanks for being so welcoming to my dad.”

“We understand the importance of family. And I won’t lie, the fact that he’s a former Sheriff was actually appealing. We trust him to protect us just as much as you if it ever came to it, and he’ll probably be a huge help if we ever need to communicate with any hunters.”

“I’m sure he’d love that,” Stiles says with a barely-contained snort. “Retirement has been a bit of a change of pace for him.”

“I think the kids will be plenty to keep him occupied,” says Joseph with a laugh. 

Stiles wonders how long it might be until Caleb is calling him Grandpa John. Uncle, he can already hear his dad correcting him, that title implying a lesser age and easier to stomach.

After their walk, Stiles takes the opportunity to head up to his room to submit his first report to the Emissary Board now that he’s had a bit of time to order his thoughts. He informs them of the outcome of the first test and that he’ll be staying on to see the process through, checking the box for Overwhelmingly Positive after a beat of hesitation in light of Derek’s reaction. 

Now he’s alone again, that worry comes creeping back and he leans back in his desk chair, allowing a moment to feel sorry for himself. He’s been reassuring himself that Derek had just been in shock, but a small voice at the back of his head is already telling him he’s in denial. They may have overwhelmingly passed, but it doesn’t change that initial resistance he’d felt, like Derek was trying to fight him. Derek hadn’t wanted this.

He blows out a breath.

Through the open window he can hear Caleb helping Joseph to water the vegetable patch below, and his moment of despair becomes a moment of peace as he empties his mind to listen to them, smiling at their chatter.

“You missed one!” Caleb is saying.

“No, I didn’t,” comes Joseph’s reply, but Stiles can hear his grin.

“Yes, you did, silly!”

“What about this one… over here!” Joseph shouts and Caleb shrieks.

Stiles leaps up to poke his head out the window to see Caleb drenched from head to toe, trying to wrestle the hose out of Joseph’s hands to get him back, the two of them creased with laughter. Caleb’s werewolf strength is nearly winning the tug of war without Joseph needing to go easy on him.

It’s not long until Joseph spots Stiles spectating. “Looks like we missed another one!” he says to Caleb, then flicks the hose up towards the window.

Stiles squawks and throws up his hand out of reflex, a blast of energy becoming a shield that deflects all of the water back down below. Caleb cackles in delight as Joseph gets the full brunt of the shower.

“What’s going on out here?” Talia asks, rounding the side of the house.

“Talia, save yourself!” Stiles calls when he spots the glint in Joseph’s eye, and she yelps, darting back the way she’d come followed by Joseph sprinting with the hose.

“I really should know better by now,” comes her voice from the front of the house, sounding bedraggled and full of regret, and Stiles stomach aches with his laughter. He doesn’t venture downstairs until he’s sure Joseph has reeled the hose away.

He next sees Derek at dinner, all of them sat around a vat of Bolognese sauce made by Talia. A bit of cloud had come over late in the afternoon, turning into a fine drizzle that doesn’t look like it’s going to come to much, but it’s forced them all to eat inside, sitting around the table in the kitchen like they had at breakfast. The back door is still open, letting in a pleasantly chill breeze with the rain cutting through the heat of the day.

It feels easy. There’s not a moment of silence with so many of them and it just makes Stiles think of all the dinners he ate alone while growing up with his dad spending so much time at the station. Even if his dad was there, there would still be moments of silence filled with the sound of chewing and cutlery. It had never felt awkward or empty when they were together, but it feels lonely now to look back on, to discover what he’s been missing. Cora and Jordan talk Stiles through some of the classes they teach at the gym, and then Peter, Laura and Talia regale them with tales from the ranger’s station, Malia hanging on their every word. It seems their job is exactly what she wants to do when she grows up. If it can hold her attention like this where nothing else does, he thinks she’ll be a perfect fit.

Towards the end of the meal, Laura lets them know she’s having the day off tomorrow to be with them, Elaine also having the day to look after the kids. Laura announces they can meet Derek for lunch, and though the flash of a glare from Derek says he wasn’t consulted on the matter, he at least grunts an agreement.

It’s seeing Laura handle him that way that makes Stiles realise that perhaps that’s how Derek needs to be treated. Perhaps if Derek is going to keep himself at arm’s length, Stiles is going to have to take it to him, insinuate himself in everything he does.

The perfect opportunity ends up presenting itself the very next morning when Derek enters the kitchen in a tank and running shorts.

“You’re at the gym all day and you’re still going for a run?” Stiles asks, trying not to openly eye him up and down.

“I’ve got a lot of energy to burn. Even more now I’m Alpha,” Derek mutters, and Stiles has to bite his lip and squint as he holds back a half dozen innuendos at that comment.

He watches as Derek grabs a water bottle from one of the lower cupboards and fills it at the tap without looking up, speeding through the motions like he’s trying to get out as quickly as possible. Not if Stiles gets a say.

“Mind if I come with you? Talia and Joseph showed us some of the trails yesterday.” Perhaps meeting him on familiar ground in the preserve will make things easier for them to bond, to get to know each other a little better.

“That’s a great idea,” Talia says from her seat at the table. “You can show him the Overlook. We didn’t head out that way yesterday.”

Derek acts like he didn’t hear her. “You won’t be able to keep up,” he says to Stiles, but that does nothing to deter him.

“Try me.” He puts down the box of corn flakes he was about to pour into a bowl and grabs the banana he’d been planning to slice on top instead. “I’ll go change.”

When he gets back downstairs in his running clothes, banana eaten, he’s expecting Derek to have already left without him, but there he waits by the back door. His arms are crossed in what Stiles would call protest, but he takes the fact that Derek is still there as a win. He grins at him but Derek just thrusts a bottle of water in his direction, then is out the door. Stiles puts it in a holster at his hip and follows, waving to the table.

They take some time to stretch before they get going and they only make it to the trail before Derek kicks up his pace five notches. Derek is right that it’s one Stiles won’t be able to keep up with, but all it takes is a bit of magic and he’s breezing along with wind beneath his feet, almost like it’s the earth moving under him instead.

Derek glances over his shoulder, no doubt expecting to have left Stiles in his dust, but starts to find Stiles right behind him.

“That’s cheating.”

“I didn’t realise this was a race,” Stiles says, boosting himself forward so he’s running at Derek’s side. “You just said I had to keep up.”

He thinks Derek scoffs at that but he does a good job at hiding amongst his breathing, and they continue on their way. The sun above the canopy keeps going in and out of clouds, casting golden pools of light when it’s blazing and turning moody when it hides, dimming the entire landscape. The air is still cool so early in the day, though he can feel the sun already gaining strength.

At a fork in the path where they’d turned left yesterday, Derek leads them right instead for another ten or so minutes, the only sound their rhythmic breathing and crunch of their footfalls. The track slopes steadily upwards and around, trees arching over the path until they emerge into the open, cresting a hill that looks out onto the town below. The edge of the cliff is roped off to keep people back, though there are a couple of benches facing outwards for people to sit and enjoy the view along with some sort of wildlife plaque that Stiles can’t read the details of at this distance.

It’s here that they pause for a breather, and Stiles is keen to coax some conversation out of Derek while he has the chance.

“It’s incredible out here. No wonder you come out so often.”

Derek just gives a grunt of acknowledgement.

They gaze out at Beacon Hills spread out below them. It looks like a miniature village from their vantage, like they could step out amongst the buildings like giants.

“I guess it makes it look like a huge responsibility, seeing your territory laid out like this.” He throws Derek a glance, wondering how far Derek might let him push what he’s angling for. “That whole incident with the Alpha must have been tough.”

“These people are under our protection, even if they don’t know it. It never should have happened.” The sudden flood of words is a surprise. To have this be the thing that Derek shows so much feeling over is kind of endearing.

“No one blames you for it. All of you stopped him from making any more victims.”

“One is too many.” Derek keeps his eyes fixed on the town below, but from his side view, Stiles can still make out a glimmer of red building in the glass of his iris.

It warms him to see it, manifesting as a smile despite the heavy subject, and Derek must sense his change in mood because he whips his head round to level an unappreciative glare his way.

Stiles ducks his head. “Sorry. It’s just, this town is lucky to have you.”

His words shock the simmer of red from Derek’s eyes, but they soon darken as he turns his scowl out at the view. Stiles can’t help studying him, worried. It’s unusual for a born werewolf to have the wolf so close to the surface.

He doesn’t want to let this moment pass. “I guess the transition to Alpha can’t have been easy in the face of all that. The death, an investigation by the hunters.”

A shrug is all he gets.

He doesn’t look away from him despite Derek insisting on not looking at him in return. He’s trying so hard to make sense of this reticence that none of his family shares, but decides biting his tongue hasn’t gotten him anywhere so far.

“Are we going to talk about this?” he asks.

Derek’s whole frame goes taut, eyes darting towards him and away. “About what?”

“About the fact that, despite us passing the first test with flying colours, you don’t want me here.”

All Stiles gets is a flash of widened eyes before Derek’s mask slams back down.

“I felt how you tried to resist during the first test. I can’t bond with you until you’re open with me.”

“You’re not going to bond with me.”

Stiles’ mouth had been open ready to remind him about the binding spell, but Derek may as well have slapped him across the face.

The guilt clear in Derek’s averted eyes says he hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but the grim set of his jaw says he stands by it. “I’m not going to bond with anyone.”

“But—Derek—Your family—” Stiles doesn’t know how he’s managing to talk with his jaw so slack. “You saw what happened to that Alpha—You can’t just—”

Derek stays silent, staring off into the distance.

Stiles needs to take a breath. His mind is so scrambled he can’t get any words out, doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say as he tries and fails to make sense of this. Derek can’t really mean it. This must just be a ploy to get rid of him because he wants to bond with someone else, surely? “Whatever you’re feeling is just being made worse by the fact that you don’t have an Emissary. I know you felt what I did during the test, the way we supported each other. That’s how it’s supposed to feel—”

But Derek is shaking his head, turning away, back towards the trees. “I’ve made my decision.”

Stiles can’t accept that. If he wasn't so thrown by this whole conversation, he might manage his next words with a bit more tact. “Is this to do with you having to kill that Alpha?”

As the word kill passes Stiles’ lips, Derek gives an almost full-body flinch and he knows he’s hit the nail on the head. Derek stands frozen, his fists clenched at his sides.

He considers Derek’s reaction, following his thought to its conclusion. “You didn’t want to be Alpha, did you? But tradition dictates you won it from him so—”

“I didn’t— win anything.”

Derek is a quivering ball of tension, like he’s teetering on the edge of his shift. Stiles can’t see his eyes from here, but he can imagine they’ve gone straight past the glimmer of red from a few moments ago to full-on blazing.

“I’m here to help you,” Stiles tries, gently. “You can talk to me.”

Derek doesn’t move, and for a foolish moment, Stiles thinks it might be working.

“You know you can’t go on like this. You have the pack to think about now.” That was a misstep. He can see the moment Derek closes off entirely when his back straightens, shoulders squared.

“I'm not going to bond with you,” he says again, and Stiles knows it’s final. “You need to stop getting close to my family. It will make it easier for everyone when you leave.”

And with that, he takes off at a run, disappearing into the trees which immediately swallow the sound of his retreat. His escape.

Stiles stands frozen, staring at the spot where Derek entered the trees. He feels like the cliff edge has shifted fifty feet closer, crumbling away under his heels. For the past two days he’s been telling himself Derek is just awkward around strangers, or just awkward in general, but to have what he’d thought were irrational doubts be confirmed so harshly has left him winded.

He keeps seeing all of his dad’s smiles since they got here, the satisfaction that hasn't left his face. A lump is growing in his throat. He has no idea why this has pierced him so deeply, but he feels bereft. All he can think about now is how he’s going to have to tell his dad, imagining the look of disappointment and surprise and resignation that will cross his face as he realises they’re going back to their cold, empty house.

The thrum of anxiety starts to build in his chest and he slams his eyes shut, taking a deep breath of the fresh air on this hilltop as he imagines all the times he’d submerge himself in the lake back home during summer. The pressure of water from all sides always felt like it was holding him together, safe in the knowledge that he could come up for air at any time. The phantom sound of that ambience of the water swells all around him, punctuated by the thud of his own heartbeat. It’s always been a scene of comfort for him to retreat to in times of stress.

Why does he have his heart set so much on this? Derek’s attitude even before this point should be a major deterrent, alarm bells, but here he is even in the face of point-blank refusal wishing to bond with him.

It’s hardly a mystery. The result of that first test hadn’t lied, nor the welcome by the house, nor the way he and his dad fit in with the pack already. But what if it’s blinding him to the reality that maybe a match on paper doesn’t make a match in real life, that maybe he and Derek will just be miserable, and by extension make everyone else miserable too?

He can’t believe that. Not with what he’s just learnt. Derek is like this because he’s going through something. Some things. His rejection is coming from trauma and sudden change and being left to flounder in his new role without an Emissary to tether him.

He wipes a hand over his eyes. He’s not been here long enough for this to be something to cry about.

He’s not been here long enough to give up on this yet, either. He knows that Derek’s family don’t feel the same way he does, so why is there such a disconnect? Do they have any idea of Derek’s intentions?

He opens his eyes and takes another deep breath like he’s broken through the surface of the water, his lungs expanding with the cool, fresh air. After a few sips from his water bottle, he turns back the way they’d come, going at his own pace without the lift of magic this time to aid him. He focuses on the sound of his breathing loud in his ears the whole way back to the house and feels much better by the time he cuts away from the path and the house begins to emerge through the trees, less like he’s giving up.

He pauses out on the porch to mop at his sweat with his wristband, wanting to make himself a bit more presentable even if all the wolves will be able to smell the scent of his exertion no matter what he does. The breakfast table is full now except for their two empty seats, though it looks like everyone has finished eating.

“Did he leave you in his dust?” Cora asks from where she’s leaning her chair back on two legs and clutching a fresh mug of coffee.

Stiles forces a chuckle. “Not quite.” He turns his sights to Talia and Joseph still at the table. “Can I talk to the two of you in the den?” He tries to keep a positive lilt to his voice, like he’s gently curious, but the front two legs of Cora’s chair land with a thud, coffee sloshing, and Laura sits bolt upright. Peter’s gaze is sharp above his newspaper.

“Of course.” Talia remains composed as she stands from the table, but it doesn’t hide the way her and Joseph’s eyes dart towards each other.

“You too,” he says to his dad with a hand to his shoulder, before following as Talia leads the way.

“Is everything okay?” she asks him as soon as the doors are shut, the soundproof barrier in place. He stands in the same place he’d stood the last time he was in here, and his dad and Joseph remain standing too, all of them tense.

He feels like a snitch now he’s here, like a kid gone to tell on Derek to his parents, but there’s no other way around this. “Derek just told me he isn’t going to bond with me.”

Talia and Joseph share a look, a bolt of fear passing between them, and Stiles knows they really had no idea. But how could they not have noticed?

He doesn’t yet see any of the disappointment on his dad’s face that he’d pictured, but there’s definite apprehension.

Talia lowers herself slowly onto a chair, wetting her lips. “What did he say exactly?”

“He didn’t say why, just that he’s made his decision. He said he isn’t going to bond with anyone.”

A stunned silence blankets the room. Talia and Joseph share another look, but this time they don’t look away. Stiles wonders what conversation they might have had if he and his dad weren’t here.

“Why would he say that?” he asks when nothing is forthcoming from either of them.

“I’ll—We’ll speak to him. We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Talia says, but it’s not the straightforward answer Stiles wants.

His dad shifts where he stands leaning back against the sideboard with his arms crossed, in a way that’s always meant he’s steeling himself to say something uncomfortable. “We can tell that he hasn’t gotten accustomed to the idea of being Alpha yet.”

A tight smile crosses Talia’s face and she bows her head in acknowledgement, or perhaps agreement. “It’s been a strange transition,” she admits.

“It’s been a learning curve for all of us,” Joseph says, settling a hand on her shoulder. How helpless he must feel removed from his role as Emissary, unable to help his son the best way he knows how. It makes Stiles appreciate all the more how approachable he’s been, making this new development a harsh blow knowing someone like Joseph with his warmth and expertise to lean on would have been the dream if his stay could become permanent.

He wants to ask why they allowed Derek to become Alpha in the first place when his reluctance for the position has been so obvious, but even in his head it sounds accusing, especially when he only just got here and has no understanding of the pack’s inner workings leading up to this point.

“We’ll speak to him,” Talia says again, and it has the same element of finality as Derek had had out on the Overlook earlier.

She stands to leave the room and Stiles tells her he and his dad will stay a while to talk.

“Of course,” she says, but her smile doesn’t warm her eyes in the same way it has so far in their stay.

Stiles can’t blame them for being worried. It’s clear at this point that the last druid was met with the same reception from Derek, and it now makes perfect sense to him why the druid didn’t stay. Talia and Joseph must be expecting the same result here, that happiness they’d clung onto since the first test yesterday slipping through their fingers. He wants to reassure them that he has no intention of going anywhere. Not yet. But he has to speak to his dad first. If this situation is causing him any misgivings with his instincts, Stiles knows it would be wise to listen.

Talia and Joseph close the door behind them and the soundproof magic reseals the room.

“Well isn’t this a pickle?” his dad says, and Stiles can’t help himself. He starts to laugh, bursting out of him and building, sounding half-crazed. He rubs at his face as it starts to subside, ending in a sigh that has his shoulders sagging as he lowers himself into the nearest chair.

“I barely know what I’m even doing here. Do we stay? Is this even our fight?”

“Nothing’s telling me to leave just yet,” his dad says, and Stiles is so relieved he feels the same way, to know he’s not been blinded by what his energy has been telling him since he arrived.

“He doesn’t want to be Alpha. Surely they can see that?”

“He’s probably hoping if he digs his heels in, Talia or someone else will step up to agree to accept the power back from him. Someone will have to if he doesn’t bond with a druid soon. They look like they’re hanging on by a thread. If they weren’t all family, I wonder if they’d even still be a pack.”

The fact that even his dad is able to sense that starts a flutter of nerves in his belly. He doesn’t want this for them. He wishes Derek would just get over himself and get on with it. But as soon as he thinks it, he knows that isn’t fair. The Alpha that went on a rampage may have been a danger that needed eliminating, but Derek still took a life. He can’t be blamed for trying to cope – or not cope – in any way he sees fit. There’s just so much more at stake here. His healing from his ordeal is going to be a long process, but this situation they’re in now is so much more immediate, and instantly fixable.

“I just never would have thought they’d be so devoted to tradition,” his dad says.

“Neither would I.” And yet the evidence is right here in front of them. Stiles rubs a hand over his face again.

“Hey, there’s no rush with this,” his dad reminds him. “We wait and see how this plays out, and if there’s nothing here for us then we go on to the next one. I know you want to find somewhere for me to enjoy my retirement, but I want to find somewhere I know you’ll be happy for the long years to come.” The When I’m not here anymore goes unsaid, but they’ve talked about this often enough. His dad knows all about his desire for a big family and his fear of being all alone in the world. “Okay?” his dad asks, waiting for his agreement.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, and he rises to his feet to accept a hug.

“It’s a good job I haven’t fully unpacked yet,” his dad says by his ear, the smile in his voice showing the joke.

Stiles gives him a squeeze. “This isn’t over yet.”

Chapter Text

They leave the den to find Derek has already been and gone. With such a speedy re-exit, he’s probably planning to shower at the gym.

Everyone else is off getting ready, and the house feels cold in their absence. It’s sobering how the golden sheen of life in the house so far has so quickly turned to brass. He’s starting to wonder if he really does belong here.

A cool shower to wash off after his run once a bathroom is free makes him feel a bit better, eager to slip into clean clothes and head back outside to stand in the sun.

Laura finds him out there, his dad inside with Elaine who’s with the kids for the day, sitting them at the kitchen table for some schoolwork. She raps her knuckles on the porch railing saying, “Hey.”

Stiles almost responds in turn before he realises she’s talking to the house. It throws up a soundproof barrier on the inside walls behind them to stop anyone inside listening out. It’s the best the house can do with its power contained to the walls.

“We’re still on for lunch, right?” she asks, and Stiles hesitates in light of what’s happened, but there’s a glint of determination in her eye.

“They told you all already,” he realises.

“As soon as they left the den. We don’t keep secrets.”

“I wasn’t really sure how to handle it,” he says, feeling chastened despite knowing it wasn’t an accusation.

“You did the right thing,” she tells him, waving away his guilt. “I am sorry about what he said to you.”

“It’s no one’s fault.”

“But still. It must have been a shock, especially after how well things went yesterday.”

“To not bond with anyone… I would ask if he even understands what that means, but I know he’s seen it first-hand. I really thought…” He shrugs, defeated. “Now I’m making myself get used to the idea that we might end up leaving.”

“None of us want that,” Laura says immediately. “Not even Derek, no matter what he might say. It felt right to have you here as soon as you stepped into the house, you and your dad. Doing that first test just felt like a formality when we all already knew the answer. Not that the two of you would be that compatible—” she adds, throwing him a look, a small smile, “—but we knew. We don’t want you to go.”

“We don’t want to go either,” Stiles admits quietly. “My dad doesn’t have a supernatural bone in his body, and even he could tell we’d found something special.”

“I just worry about the kids. It’s easier to shield Caleb. We tell him he has nothing to worry about and he doesn’t question it. But Malia’s a bit older. You saw how she reacted at the barbecue. And I know it just hurts Derek to see it, but the fix is being handed right to him.”

“Why…?” He hesitates, but where he’d held his tongue with Talia and Joseph earlier, he feels freer to ask it of Laura. “Why did you all decide to go ahead with him as Alpha?”

“We didn’t have another option.” She gives herself a shake, straightening as she elaborates. “He hasn’t really come to terms yet with what he had to do. We were all in agreement at the time – my mom couldn’t be Alpha forever after all, so this had to happen at some point – but I guess it’s a bit different once you’re in it. Now the dust has settled a bit, he’s not handling it as well as we thought. There’s just no going back now.”

Talia can’t take the power back and re-bond with Joseph. It doesn’t work that way. If she did agree to become Alpha again, she’d have to find a new Emissary and this whole process would start over, but Stiles can’t imagine she’d be able to bond with someone who’s not her husband. Not after the strength of the bond they had. She’d never find that again with anyone else, and nor would she want to.

“Can’t anyone else accept it from him?” he tries, gently. “Peter? Or maybe you?”

She shakes her head in swift denial. “We—We know Derek would be good at this if he’d just let himself. He has what it takes.”

Stiles nods, shelving any doubts he might have. The pack knows better than him what’s right for them. “The fact that he’s unbonded can’t be making this any easier.”

“My mom’s tried to tell him that, but he believes that it’s a problem with him, like he’s not supposed to be Alpha. He thinks the way he came into the power makes him unworthy.”

“It’s how it used to be done. Fights to the death.”

“Yeah,” Laura murmurs.

Stiles wonders how much of it she saw but doesn’t want to ask.

Without an Emissary bond, Derek’s link to the rest of the pack is more tenuous, more the idea that they accept him as their Alpha rather than it being on the spiritual level that actually ties them. 

It supposedly comes from the creation of werewolves thousands of years ago, when druid clans empowered humans without magic so they could become protectors. As magical beings, they need that link with a druid, an Emissary, to manage that flow of their energy.

In Derek’s case, it means all that extra power that suddenly fills him has nowhere else to go when it should be feeding into the pack in a cycle that strengthens them all, and it’s not unusual for it to manifest as anxieties or paranoia. Just look at the Alpha that made his way here. It’s no surprise that that sudden rush of extra power has made Derek’s trauma worse. There’s just no way around it if an Alpha is going to find an Emissary.

He remembers what Derek said earlier about having a lot of energy now he’s Alpha, and feels sickened by his initial suggestive thoughts.

Stiles can’t be the only one Derek has tried to push away. “He sabotaged the tests with the other druid.” He doesn’t need to make it a question. He’d felt the resistance himself during the first test, though it had been futile under their overwhelming compatibility.

“Yeah. They got through the first test just fine – though it wasn’t as much of a rousing success as yours – but then the second was a total washout. They woke from it without succeeding and the druid said it wasn’t going to work out and that was that. He was gone by the end of the day.” Her shoulders hunch where she leans on the railing. “There was nothing wrong with him. He was nice, fit in just fine. Derek just completely shut it down. Though maybe he wasn’t right for us if he gave up so easily. After him, I don’t think Derek was expecting to have to deal with someone with a bit more tenacity,” she says, smile back on her face as she looks his way.

“I’m going to do everything I can to make him see sense.” Speaking with Laura has strengthened his resolve. “The only way Derek is going to get me to leave is to contact the Board and have them drag me away.”

“And if they tried, we’d be grabbing on to your ankles.”

Stiles appreciates the sentiment.

“So, lunch?” she asks.

“Sure, if you think it’s a good idea.”

“It’s a great idea,” she says firmly, and Stiles doesn’t argue.

They take Stiles’ car when it comes to it. He doesn’t want his baby to feel neglected, and he’d like to get to know the roads in town. Laura becomes a guide calling out points of interest as they drive, like the high school that the whole family graduated from and even pointing out the Sheriff’s station to his dad who eyes the building with interest. She directs them on a more roundabout route so they can pass the town square and see the wolf pack monument at its centre dedicated to a town legend. Beacon Hills is apparently well-known for decades for being the home to a mysteriously — and impossibly — elusive pack of wolves that can be heard howling in the preserve once a month on full moons, Laura explains with much amusement. She points out a family-favourite bakery just a stone’s throw away, and then it’s just half a minute’s drive until they end up at the gym.

The same logo from Derek's polo shirt is printed on a sign above the door of the modern-looking building, automatic doors sliding open at their approach.

They spy Derek through the glass wall behind reception as soon as they step inside, attending to a couple of customers in what looks like finishing up an induction. It’s the most animated Stiles has seen him, though it slips momentarily when he catches sight of Laura waving exaggeratedly at him through the glass with a huge grin on her face. His eyes lock with Stiles’ for an excruciating moment, hitting him with flashbacks of just a few hours ago out on the Overlook. Derek must know that he told on him.

When Derek eventually emerges into the reception to meet them, reluctance oozes like a trail behind him from every weighted step.

“I’ll be ready in a second,” he says without eye contact, and disappears through a Staff Only door. Laura follows, and Stiles and his dad are left with the receptionist who obviously isn’t in the know about anything.

“I hear you’re staying with the Hales,” she says, brightly.

“Yeah, we’re thinking of moving. Just seeing how it goes,” Stiles tells her. Being family friends is the easiest cover in situations like this.

Thankfully, Cora chooses that moment to emerge into reception to save them from any more questions, hair pulled back into a ponytail and wearing a cropped sports tank. Stiles and his dad step aside to join her, putting some distance between themselves and the receptionist as a customer enters by the sliding doors.

“She’s chewing him out for being such an ass,” she explains, head cocked as she listens in on Laura’s no doubt one-sided conversation with Derek.

“You heard all about it then,” he says with a grimace.

“I know he’s going through some things, but this isn’t the time to be stubborn. That whole test mumbo jumbo is supposed to show an Alpha who they can safely bond with without needing to waste time getting to know someone first. He’s been handed you on a platter. He needs to get on with it.”

It echoes his thoughts from earlier, and he appreciates her bluntness even if it does sound callous. She might sound flippant, but her eyes are fixed on the door Derek and Laura disappeared through, her forehead creased with worry.

Derek and Laura emerge not long later with Jordan following behind, though Laura’s pursed lips and the daggers she’s glaring into the back of Derek’s head say she probably wasn’t finished with him. Derek is still as emotive as stone but at least looks resigned to joining them for lunch.

“Let’s go,” he says when he reaches them, like he’s thinking the quicker they leave, the quicker they can get this over with.

Laura pauses to give Jordan a quick kiss goodbye and then they’re left to catch up in Derek’s wake as he heads out the main entrance, Cora muttering Good luck. Stiles flashes a grimacing smile in her direction as he follows. It fades quickly as he takes in the sight of Derek’s retreating back; it’s a view he’d rather forget.

Derek stops on the top step. Stiles trails to a halt just behind him with a quizzical look at the back of Derek’s head, though his confusion doesn’t last.

“Would you look at that? Alpha Hale,” comes a voice from the bottom of the steps, teasing lilt doing nothing to mask a sinister bite.

Stiles tilts his head to look around Derek in amazement, in disbelief, taking in the booted feet, hands on hips, and dirty blonde hair of Kate Argent grinning up at Derek like a shark. She’s not alone, flanked by two hunter-druids looking just as mean. One he recognises instantly as Jennifer, a druid he encountered briefly during his training who spoke to his class about the possibility of becoming hunters. The other has a name that escapes him in his bafflement. Mike? Matt?

Derek stays frozen. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard all about that nasty business with that Alpha. Thought I’d come see for myself.”

“You’ve seen me. Now you can be on your way.”

“Why don’t you show me those red eyes, and then maybe I’ll think about it?”

“You shouldn’t be here. There’s no reason for you to be here,” says Laura from Derek’s side, a hand clutching at his arm.

“We were just passing through, sweetheart,” Kate says in a sickly-sweet tone to chill the blood. She’s showing no concern at being on lower ground.

Derek takes half a step forward like he’s ready to barrel towards her for daring to speak to his sister in such a way. His expression isn’t angry though. Instead, he’s gone loose and confident, an uncharacteristic smirk lifting one side of his mouth. “Well, if you’re looking for a good time while you’re here, you know where to find me.”

Kate’s eyes almost bulge out of her head, her lips going thin and bloodless where they’re pressed so tightly together. Jennifer and maybe-Matt have gone taut next to her, the atmosphere taking a turn so severe that Stiles is dying to know what it is that he’s missed. He didn’t think it was possible for anyone to put Kate Argent into such a state. Her hand has disappeared inside her jacket and Stiles has no doubt that she’s cradling a gun.

Despite Laura’s death grip on his wrist, Derek doesn’t look alarmed. His smirk has just grown wider, now lifting both cheeks as he relishes her reaction to his bringing up whatever history it is they seem to share.

Stiles decides the tension has gone on long enough and sidesteps around Derek to the fore, the hunters finally noticing his presence.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says. He has some choice things he could say, but he knows it’s not his place to rile them, not when it’s clear there are others they'd like to take their tempers out on.

Kate’s hand drops – empty – from the inside of her jacket. She looks up at Stiles, her narrowed eyes considering.

Jennifer takes half a step forward. “We heard he was in the process of choosing an Emissary, but we didn’t know you were in the running,” she sneers. The word ‘Emissary’ drips from her lips like she considers it an offensive slur, like she can’t fathom why a druid would ever stoop so low as to live in harmony with werewolves. It’s discomfiting to think that, just a few years ago, this was so close to being Stiles on a different path.

“I just got here.”

His dad steps up beside him and Kate’s expression turns mocking.

“Oh, and you brought your dad!” she says, voice high in pitch like she’s talking to a five-year-old.

Stiles can tell by the thumb his dad has hooked in his belt that he’s wishing that his gun wasn’t back at the house.

“How’s Gerard, by the way?” his dad asks. “Stiles and I heard about his accident. Nasty business.”

And there’s another chink in her armour. Stiles lives for when his dad gets petty.

Kate’s smile looks like it’s encased in porcelain on the verge of shattering. There’s a crackle of energy from Matt, a warning, but it’s batted aside lightning-fast. Stiles glances over his shoulder to where Joseph, Jordan and Cora have taken up position behind them, Joseph’s energy out and ready. His eyes have gone wide with white-hot anger. That a druid would dare threaten to wield their energy against someone unsuspecting – against his dad – is disgusting form. Stiles is touched that Joseph would be so fierce in his protection.

Cora’s hands on her hips say she’s getting ready to roundhouse kick Kate halfway across town. Stiles would pay money to see it. Unfortunately, this situation needs defusing.

“We’re actually on our way out so you’ll have to excuse us,” he says. “I doubt we’ll see you again if you’re just passing through, so have a nice trip.”

Kate has shaken off the outrage, her smile back to the same sharklike one she’d had at the beginning of the encounter. “Oh, I’m sure our paths will cross again,” she tells him, but he’s relieved that they start to retreat.

They all stand and watch them go, climbing back into their car in the lot and reversing out of their space. Kate wiggles her fingers in a wave out the passenger window as they drive by.

Derek doesn’t move even when the car is out of sight, like he’s just listening, a wall. The cocky smirk is nowhere in sight. “I need to get back to the house.”

“I’ll come with you,” Laura says immediately, her hand still on his arm. She looks to Stiles and his dad, apologetic. “Looks like that lunch is going to have to wait.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Stiles tells her. This is so much more important.

The remaining Hales all share a look and Jordan waves them on. “You go. I’ll take care of things here and join you as soon as I can.”

Laura leans in to give him a hard, urgent kiss before she’s hurrying after Derek. Joseph leaves his car for Jordan to get home later, he and Cora riding with Stiles and his dad. As they pull out of the lot after Derek’s car, Stiles can see Laura’s head turned in the passenger seat, mouth moving. A few seconds later, she’s lifting her phone to her ear.

“You have history?” Stiles asks. There was nothing about Kate Argent in their file.

“Not for nearly ten years. I never thought we’d see her again,” Joseph says from the back seat.

“I had a feeling after seeing Chris last month. Knew she wouldn't be able to resist,” says Cora from beside him, leant forward to talk between the headrests.

“I didn’t think she’d ever want to lay eyes on him again.”

“Romantic history?” his dad asks, making the swift deduction.

“Just a one night stand,” Joseph explains. “He didn’t know she was a hunter, and she didn’t know he was a werewolf. It didn’t go over well when she found out after the fact.”

“I think she actually puked,” Cora pipes up.

“Hunters got involved but—”

“She tried to cry rape but had already bragged to some people about the hot guy she banged so she had no leg to stand on,” says Cora, cutting over him, her usual brash self. Joseph’s wince says that’s not the way he was going to word it.

Stiles’ hands are tight on the wheel as he drives, trying to stay focused and not just stare open-mouthed at the two of them in the rear-view mirror.

“She shot him with wolfsbane against protocol,” Joseph continues. “So it was agreed it would all be dropped if both sides would just forget about it, and the Argents left town.”

“Until today?”

“Until today,” Joseph confirms.

Stiles feels sick. How lucky they are Kate had bragged. Werewolves might get a trial in a Hunter’s court – the only option when it can’t be done through the normal justice system – but discrimination still rules. Who knows what might have happened to Derek otherwise. It makes sense why there was no mention of her in the Hales’ file. The hunters wouldn’t want record of that anywhere. Now he understands why Derek took so much pleasure in making her squirm.

“We met her once a few years ago when Stiles was deciding on a career. Knew she was bad news the moment I laid eyes on her,” his dad says. Stiles can remember well how outspoken his dad had been about his disapproval at pursuing the Hunter career route after encountering her, but it was unnecessary. Stiles had already discarded the possibility.

“Everyone knows she’s dangerous,” says Stiles. Her reputation precedes her wherever she goes.

“We can take her,” Cora says, and Stiles thinks she might be seconds away from cracking her knuckles.

“It’s her and two druids, remember. And that’s if she hasn’t brought anyone else who’s staying out of sight,” Joseph is quick to remind her. “It’s not a fight that we want.”

Even if the Hales were to win, it wouldn’t end well for them, not when the Hunter Society would be lying in wait. All of this because Kate is holding a grudge? As if Derek’s Emissary situation wasn’t already enough for them to deal with.

Chapter Text

He pulls into the Hale driveway just after Derek and Laura, and they’re already in the house by the time he parks. Laura is filling Elaine in as they get inside, and Cora joins her, Derek standing staring out the lounge window with his arms crossed over his chest and trembling with tension.

“Mom and Peter are on their way,” Laura tells them.

Derek starts shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have goaded her.”

“She was already here for something whether you goaded her or not,” Stiles points out, and Derek’s head turns to him in surprise, like he’d forgotten he was here. Stiles isn’t sure how welcome his presence is because Derek snaps his head away and turns on his heel, heading for the back door.

“I need to check the perimeter. I can’t stay here,” he says, already starting to lift the hem of his polo in preparation to shift.

“I’m coming with you,” says Cora, stepping after him.

Derek gives her a sharp look like he’s going to protest, but it melts away as quickly as it came and he nods. He’s not meant to tackle all of this alone.

Laura bites at her lip, looking between Derek and her dad, torn.

“Go on,” Joseph tells her. “We can keep an eye on things here.”

“I’m coming too,” Malia says. She’s standing on the sofa like it will make her taller, one of the adults.

“No,” comes three voices at once – Derek, Laura and Elaine.

“But I want to help,” she protests, jumping down like she’s going to come anyway.

“We’re going to need some help here,” Stiles’ dad points out. “You and your brother will be the only werewolves looking after the house while they’re gone.”

“He’s right. We need you to listen out for when daddy gets here. Okay?” says Elaine.

Malia’s eyes narrow like she's seeing straight through their reasoning but she doesn’t argue. “Okay.”

Derek turns to continue on to the kitchen but he grinds to a halt as they all take in the sight of Caleb standing in the doorway. His T-Rex-topped pencil and dinosaur covered ruler are clutched in his hands, eyes shining with tears and chin starting to wobble. Elaine is quick to scoop him up into her arms, assuring him immediately in comforting murmurs that there’s nothing to worry about.

It must be so hard dealing with the kids when they can hear everything that’s going on and can sense the adults’ worry in twenty different ways. Stiles wonders how they dealt with it when that Alpha came to town, when Derek’s presence in the pack winked out and he came home with his new red eyes. How much do the kids even know about what happened?

Derek puts a hand to the back of Caleb’s head to hold him in place as he leans in to swipe his cheek gently back and forth against his. Caleb’s arms wrap around his neck, squeezing them together as close as he can get, squishing his cheek up and rubbing it furiously against Derek’s.

There’s a wet patch on Derek’s cheek from Caleb’s tears when he straightens, but he doesn’t bother to wipe it away. “We’ll be back,” he tells them, then he’s out the door, Laura and Cora hot on his tail.

Things turn restless in their absence with nothing to do but wait: for Derek and the others to return, for Talia and Peter to arrive, for something that might never come.

His dad takes Caleb and Malia outside to listen out for Talia and Peter, and Elaine heads after them. Stiles spies her through the lounge window, standing on the porch to fold the discarded clothes of the three wolves who have headed into the preserve. She’s laying them in piles over the porch railing, staring out at the trees, at where his dad is with Caleb and Malia.

There has to be something he can do to alleviate all this stress.

He puts his hand on the lounge door frame and tries to strengthen the house, but he’s buffeted back.

“It’s no use. I can’t do it either,” Joseph says. “It’s designed to block everyone out. If you were Emissary, you’d have no trouble, and I’d be able to help if you gave me that permission. Until then, we can only rely on the house’s power as it stands right now.”

“It makes sense,” Stiles says, thinking of all the ways it could be abused. “I just wish there was something I could do.”

“With any luck, in a few more days, you will. When everyone’s back and we’ve talked all this over, we can head out to ward the perimeter if you want.”

“Yeah, let’s do it.” He’s eager to do anything he can.

It’s not even ten minutes before the kids start running to the front of the house, their voices audible through the open back door.

“They’re here!”

Derek, Laura and Cora’s return precedes a car speeding up the driveway driven by Talia, Peter stepping out of the passenger seat before it’s fully stopped. They round the porch pulling on clothes, chests heaving with exertion, as Caleb runs over to launch himself into Peter’s arms and be set on his hip.

“They’ve not approached the house,” Derek tells them through his heavy breathing.

“Why is she here? Why now?” Peter asks.

“Maybe they just wanted to scare us,” suggests Laura, timidly.

Derek is scowling, furious. “He told her. You know he must have told her. How else would she know?”

“I thought this was over,” Elaine whispers.

“It is over,” Stiles assures them. “She has no reason to be here.”

“We need to talk in the den,” Derek says like Stiles hadn’t even spoken.

Stiles goes to follow as they start to head inside, but Joseph puts a hand on his shoulder. “I think Derek means just for… pack. Family.” He grimaces at his word choice, apologetic, but there’s no way around it.

“I understand. Go.”

“We’ll keep an eye on things out here,” John tells them, a hand on a shoulder each of Malia and Caleb. Malia side eyes him, lip curling, but she stays quiet.

They stand there on the front lawn, watching the family file into the house. Their movements turn to silence to their human ears long before they must close the den doors.

Stiles does understand, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to argue. He wants to be involved, to do whatever he can. They’re under the binding spell. But even then it doesn’t mean Stiles has any right to be involved in this. At the end of the day, they’re not pack, or family. If Derek has his way, that’s how it will stay.

His dad elects to keep the kids occupied, but Stiles can’t focus. He can’t stop staring helplessly at the house, feeling abandoned at being literally stuck on the outside looking in. His gaze snags on that pot of wolfsbane they keep by one of the flowerbeds, making even more sense now he knows their history with Kate.

Maybe he can use his own history to make a difference here.

Conscious of Caleb and Malia nearby, he whips up a soundproof shield and pulls his phone from his pocket, scrolling through the contacts until he finds his mark.

The phone rings three times – one longer than he’d expected, but perhaps it allowed for a beat of surprise at seeing his name on the caller ID.

“Stiles. Didn’t think I’d ever be hearing from you again.”

“I just wanted to know if you’ve seen your sister lately.”

Chris Argent has never been one for pleasantries and Stiles sees no reason to start now. A pregnant pause on the other end tells him he’s onto something.

“Where are you right now?”

“Beacon Hills.”

Another pregnant pause. “That case was closed.”

“I know. I read your report. But she’s obviously not satisfied.”

“She isn’t there on official business.”

“Then why did she confront Derek and his family on the doorstep of their place of work?” It seems Chris doesn’t have an answer for that. “I heard a brief rundown of their history.” Stiles can guess that the whole story is a whole lot more colourful than the bullet points he got.

“She wouldn’t be that stupid.”

“Are you sure?” Stiles doesn’t give him a chance to answer. “Look, she’s your sister, I get it. But if she threatens this family, I won’t hesitate to come down on her like a baseball bat. I’m going to be their Emissary.” He can hear his hostility bleeding through, but he can’t stop himself. He’d gotten terrible vibes earlier and the house feels on edge, like it’s readying itself to become a fortress. It’s affecting him as much as if he were already bonded to the pack. “This was just a courtesy call.” And with that he hangs up.

He blinks and the darkness that had encroached on his vision during the call snaps away, reminding him where he is right now, of the daylight and blue sky and swaying trees. He takes a slow inhale as he looks at the view around him, at the two visible storeys of the house and the sight of his dad with Malia and Caleb weaving in and out of the treeline in some sort of game that he can’t work out.

It’s all so at odds with what his alerted senses are telling him. He’d thought he’d found the start of something good when he arrived, but first Derek rejects him outright, and now Kate turns up with God knows what intentions, and he doesn’t know what’s going to happen on either front. That sensation of support the house had put under his feet when he got here already feels like its crumbling. At least his call with Chris has given him an excuse to head inside.

He pauses at the doors to the den, straining his ears for any sound from within despite knowing it’s futile. He knocks, wondering too late if his presence will be viewed as an irritating disturbance.

He spots Derek standing in the corner as soon as Talia slides open the door, the same spot he’d stood in the night they arrived, once again with his arms crossed. Gone is the bravado from earlier, the smirk replaced by a thin, grim line.

“I’ve spoken to Chris, Kate’s brother.” He’s ready to remind them he’s the one who dealt with their case originally but it seems they’ve not forgotten.

“What did he have to say?” asks Joseph.

“Whatever’s going on, he’s adamant that your case is closed.” As soon as he says it, he realises that isn’t the comfort he’d first considered it.

“So whatever she’s up to, she isn’t following the code so we have no idea what she might do. Perfect,” Peter snarls. His words hang in the air, gathering weight over their heads.

“We need an Emissary,” Laura says in a small voice.

Derek squeezes his biceps where he has his arms crossed, his nails starting to darken like he’s holding back claws.

“It will be time for the second test tomorrow. If you’re still interested in staying,” Joseph says to Stiles, and it’s sad that it almost comes out like a question, like they’re expecting him to cut his losses and run. The air is stifling under the collectively bated breath of everyone in the room, even the room itself.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Stiles says, making sure to lock eyes with Derek as he says it.

“Good, because Laura’s right,” Peter says. “We can’t waste time with this anymore. We shouldn't have let him have a say in choosing who we selected in the first place.”

“Peter —” Talia starts but Peter doesn't back down.

“Am I wrong?”

Silence reigns in the wake of his question and Stiles’ adrenaline is pumping at this sudden confrontation, making his hands shake. Derek has his gaze fixed on the floor, not rising to even defend himself. Stiles hates that the situation has come to this, that they’re talking about Derek like he isn’t even here.

“Can Derek and I have the room?” he asks. He'd intended to request it anyway, but he's hoping it might work to defuse the situation too.

“Of course,” Talia says immediately, and there's gratitude in her glance. “Come on,” she says to Peter, a hand going to the back of his neck to as good as haul him from the room. Everyone else files out after them, leaving Stiles and Derek alone. 

Derek still has his gaze fixed on the floor, his favourite tactic in conversations he really wants to avoid.

“Peter was right about not being able to waste any time,” Stiles says, trying to be gentle. “With the house like this, it’s not able to give your family its full protection. Your dad can’t strengthen it either. I can’t.” He takes a breath, already expecting refusal. “I need you to tell me what’s holding you back from this.”

Derek neatly sidesteps. “You’re putting yourself in danger by staying here. You and your dad.”

He won’t let him use his dad to scare him. His dad can make his own decision and he knows he’d choose to stay. “I told you. We’re not going anywhere. And with the way things are right now, you shouldn’t want us to.”

“You can’t fix this.”

“I can help scare her off, make use of my hunter contacts.”

“Why do you even have his phone number? Why do you have hunter contacts?” Derek asks, his gaze laser-focused on Stiles for the first time.

And yet another chasm opens up between them. He opts for honesty in the hope he can expect some in return.

“I nearly became a hunter once.”

Derek goes still, perhaps not even breathing.

Stiles lets that reveal hang in the air before continuing. “When I was a teenager, an Alpha went on a rampage much like here. Killed someone in my year at school. I thought maybe becoming a hunter would make me part of a worthwhile cause, and I was put in touch with Chris as a potential mentor. That’s where I met Kate. I knew straight away what sort of person she was, what sort of hunter. She’s the type who wants people to die at the hands of werewolves just so she has an excuse to kill.” The hunter code would be a hell of a lot more indiscriminate if she had her way. There probably wouldn’t be any werewolves left. “Maybe it would have been more noble to want to make things better from the inside, but I know I would have been miserable. My mom was never an Emissary, but she never became a hunter either. I knew that had to count for something. She never would have wanted me to go down that route.”

Derek is scowling at the carpet by Stiles’ feet by the time he’s finished, jaw clenched like he’s mad he doesn’t have anything substantial to be mad about.

“Now that Chris knows she’s here, he can get to the bottom of this and hopefully head her off before she can even think of escalating anything.”

“She won’t leave so easily. And if we have to wait for Chris to come get her, it will already be too late.”

“It’s not going to be too late. What does she think she’s going to do? The Alpha was at fault, the case is closed—”

“Not if she can prove any wrongdoing.”

Stiles falls silent, staring. His heart starts to pound. “Can she?”

“No,” Derek answers, but Stiles didn’t miss his beat of hesitation, or the way his eyes glazed momentarily like he’d been drawn into memory.

“Derek—”

“You’re not pack.” The words are almost spat out, scathing. It’s the first sign of a mean streak Derek has ever shown, but it feels forced. A new tactic to drive Stiles away. Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if he sensed his reaction to Joseph using the same sentiment earlier, taking it now to twist it like a knife.

Stiles doesn’t falter. “Two more tests and maybe I will be.”

“If we pass,” Derek mutters, pushing off the cabinet he’s been leaning against and marching from the room before Stiles can muster a response.

If.  

Stiles already knows Derek is going to do everything in his power to make sure that doesn’t happen. He’s got another thing coming if he thinks Stiles is going to let him.

Chapter Text

Stiles and Joseph spend most of the afternoon putting up wards around the edge of the property that will tell them if anyone unwelcome crosses them, the two of them not having enough power without the house’s help to keep people out entirely. They also inform the Board of unexpected hunter activity, each getting in touch with their own supervisors. Having a record of their concerns outside of a personal phone call with Chris will go a long way as evidence if any of this escalates. He’s hoping it will act as a deterrent in the first place, that word of an investigation from both the Emissary Board and the Society will reach Kate’s ears and scare her off. Until the next time, a little voice at the back of his mind tells him.

Malia is kept in for the rest of the day, much to her displeasure. Caleb doesn’t seem to mind at all, and even the rest of the family seem hesitant to step outside. After living their whole lives with the house’s protection beyond the walls, they must feel so exposed now there’s a threat in town and the house isn’t at full power.

It’s eating at Derek too, this new, tangible instability. He might not think he’s worthy of being Alpha, but all Stiles can picture is that moment with Caleb, the softness Derek showed when he comforted his tears as an Alpha does, how accepting Caleb was of it, instinctually understanding what Derek is to him. Just that small gesture of rubbing his cheek against Caleb’s when he’d needed it shows he has everything it takes. The problem is getting him to believe it.

The link between him and Derek builds through the night like an elastic band being pulled taut, tension mounting. He can feel the distance between them more acutely, though he can’t pinpoint exactly where Derek is. He just knows he isn’t in the house, having headed into the preserve in his wolf form with Talia to keep watch. Stiles knows it’s because he’s on edge having the hunters in town, but he still can’t help feeling it’s because Derek wants distance from him. It feels the same as the first night, the dark shape of Derek’s wolf form darting across the lawn into the trees. With all this extra pressure coming from all sides, he’s worried Derek will try to avoid turning up in the morning at all. If they don’t commence the test during this window, they’ll have to start the whole process over – or abandon it entirely, as is probably Derek’s wish.

Not if she can prove any wrongdoing.

He spends all night wondering what the hell that means. He knows he’s in the dark about something and is reaching the end of his tether. He’s going to use his chance during the solitude of the second test to do whatever he can to pry it out of him.

Breakfast is tense. Talia has already returned but there’s no sign of Derek, and Joseph eventually goes out to the porch to call for him, insisting that he needs food. When Joseph comes back inside – alone – he starts brewing the tea that Stiles and Derek will need to drink for the test. It will send them into a shared dream where they’ll need to find each other, their distance from each other – and if they even manage to find each other at all – meant to show whether their values for the pack and life are aligned. It will show an Alpha if the druid they’re considering is one they can trust. One touch and they’ll wake, successful.

When Stiles experienced the test during his first trial with a pack, it took longer than expected for them to succeed, the two of them discovering that they were both starting to hesitate. It was the best outcome as it meant Stiles didn’t need to let anyone down gently with the druid equivalent of It’s not you, it’s me.

He has no idea how this one with Derek is going to turn out apart from Stiles’ adamance that he’s going to sink his teeth in and refuse to let go. Not until Derek accepts him as his Emissary, or at least finally tells him what it is that’s holding him back from this. He needs to understand.

He feels it when Derek enters the house, but he’s upstairs, like he just scaled the outside and somehow climbed in through his invisible bedroom window. When he comes downstairs and enters the kitchen, he’s still barefoot but in jeans and a Henley, snatching up a cinnamon and raisin bagel that he tears into dry.

They return to the lawn when Derek is ready, but this time he and Stiles sit on the grass side by side. There’s a hush over their audience, though the birds in the surrounding forest don’t seem to pick up on their little bubble of trepidation.

Joseph has brought the tea, crouching down to hand over the half-full mugs, steam curling up like an early morning mist. It’s a taste that Stiles remembers: an unexpected, not-very-pleasant sweetness that clings to the back of his tongue. Luckily it’s not as hot as the steam had led him to believe, quick to gulp it down to get it over with. Derek follows suit, then the two of them hand the mugs back to Joseph and lay back on the lawn.

Stiles knows what he needs to do. That first test didn’t lie, and didn’t fail even though Derek tried to fight it. He believes in his gut that this one will be no different. He’ll prove to Derek that he’s worthy of being a protector of his family. He and Derek both.

It’s with that final thought that his mind starts to drift, sinking into the swirling blackness of the dream state.

The transition is as smooth as a blink. When he opens his eyes, he’s no longer lying down but standing in the preserve. It’s night, tree trunks forming out of shadows shifting like smoke, fragile like they might crumble to ash with a single touch. The scene grows stronger, the circle of light he’s standing in expanding a few more metres out. There’s no possible source for it except for himself, the light emanating outwards from where he stands. There’s no sky above that he can make out, either because the moon and stars are obscured by clouds or the canopy is too thick, or maybe because it doesn’t exist at all.

Perhaps if he were in the waking world, he might find his surroundings eerie, but he isn’t afraid here. He knows there are no dangers in this place, that it’s just inhabited by the two of them. It’s submerged in the same sort of hush as the water that he likes to envelop himself in whenever he starts to feel anxious. Cool and calm. It’s so fitting that he’d find it here.

There’s a flicker of energy nearby, like it’s flitting just at the corner of his vision, shifting away each time he turns to try and catch it. Derek’s avoidance tactics have begun.

Stiles steps forward, more of the preserve materialising in that same smoky sort of shadow. A glance over his shoulder shows the landscape behind disappearing as he gets further away. After only a few steps there’s a tug, like an invisible rope is tied around his middle trying to jerk him back, out, awake. He can tell what it is despite never having felt it before.

“I’m not going to agree to wake us up, Derek.”

That’s the only way to do it without passing by managing to touch: for them both to consent, or for Joseph to do it from the outside if the time starts to run too long.

He turns his head quick enough to catch the glimpse of a tail disappearing behind a tree, and realising their proximity hits him just like that moment in the first test when their palms had touched. They’re already so close to each other. If Derek weren’t so adamant to avoid him, Stiles wouldn’t have to do any searching at all. This test would have been over in seconds.

“I know you can feel how strong this bond already is. Just come out and talk to me.” He spins in a slow circle as he talks, directing his voice all around. “I’m bound to secrecy. No one else can hear us here.”

It’s true. It’s literally impossible for anyone else to infiltrate this place.

He waits, listening. He thinks he can just make out the quiet rustle of something creeping, and he turns his head to watch a black wolf slowly picking his way through the trees, weaving closer, hesitant. When Derek passes behind the nearest tree and steps back out, he’s human, clothed exactly as he is in the waking world.

He stays hanging back, eyeing Stiles like he’s still on the edge of fleeing.

Stiles holds out his hand despite knowing it won’t be this easy. “We can pass this right now.”

Derek doesn’t move.

Stiles lowers his hand.

“Why do you want this so badly?” Derek’s voice is almost dwarfed by the cavernous space surrounding them.

“You can’t tell me you don’t feel the potential here. I’ve touched energies with so many people over the years during my training and I’ve never felt this before. I’ve felt my energy brush up against someone else’s, but I’ve never had it try to merge. Not until you. I know your parents experienced the same thing, but you don’t seem to realise how rare that is.”

“It doesn’t mean anything. Not with how I’ve been pushing you away.”

“Because I don’t understand why you have been.” He doesn’t give Derek a chance to answer. “Look, if I’m the problem and it’s that you don’t want me specifically as your Emissary then I’ll agree to wake us up right now. But I don’t believe for a second that this is a ‘me’ problem.”

“It’s a ‘me’ problem as you already well know,” Derek snaps, glaring like he’s furious Stiles has made him admit it, humiliated by all the conversations he knows Stiles has been having with his family behind his back.

His irritation flares, finally snapping in the face of Derek’s persistent stubbornness. “Then maybe you should tell me about it and stop being such a dick!”

Derek glowers at him and Stiles wrestles with his anger, forcing himself to take a breath as he scrubs a hand over his face; he knows using his temper is never going to be the way to get Derek to open up.

He sighs the air back out. “There’s so much more at stake here now,” he starts, falling back into a more measured tone. “With Kate in town, you need to bond with a druid and get this sorted.”

“That’s not the only way.”

“What?” A chill tingles down Stiles’ spine at the confidence in Derek’s voice. “What do you mean?”

Derek doesn’t answer, just looks off into the trees with his face averted, but that silence speaks volumes.

“You’re not thinking of handing yourself over.”

“It’s the only way to make sure my family will be safe. I’m the one who got involved with her. It’s me Kate wants.”

“But—But why? The case is closed. She’s not doing any of this by the book. You think you’ll turn yourself in and they’ll haul you off to await some sort of trial? For nothing?” Derek’s expression doesn’t change and Stiles fists clench. “You think she’ll stop there? I won’t let you. Your family won’t let you.”

“Are you going to use your magic to stop me?” Derek asks, his tone saying he doesn’t believe Stiles would dare.

Stiles squares his shoulders, ready to rise to the challenge. “If I have to. But it wouldn’t matter because the house would never let you go if you tried.”

Derek’s face goes vacant at that, like the house is something he’d never considered. It’s a look of defeat, but not one Stiles can feel a victory in. He looks empty, and so, so tired.

“You don’t have to deal with this alone,” Stiles says, almost begging at this point.

He’s ready to despair as Derek starts shaking his head.

He tries again. “Whatever this is, we can fix it.”

“No we can’t. They’re gone. I’m never getting them back.”

“Them?” Stiles perks up, latching onto this new piece of information like a lifeline.

There’s a jerk around his middle again, Derek lashing out like a last-ditch effort to get them out of here, but from the look on Derek’s face, it’s like it wasn’t even a conscious effort to do it. His eyes have gone sightless, staring brokenly between the trees ahead into the darkness that’s still pressing in. Perhaps getting darker still.

“What have you lost?” His heart hammers in Derek’s silence. “Derek, please— ”

“She was choking up black blood,” Derek whispers, still staring into the trees, his mind somewhere else, in memory.

Stiles has no idea who he’s talking about, what he’s seeing in his head, but the question to ask stays trapped on his tongue. He doesn’t want to interrupt whatever’s happening right now.

“The Alpha had bitten her on her neck. Clawed at her. She could barely breathe.”

Every muscle in Stiles’ body goes tight, realisation slamming into him so hard he needs to lock his knees to keep from staggering.

Black blood.

The Alpha attack.

There was no mention of that in the report, just that the victim’s injuries were too severe. There was no mention of a bite, or that her body was starting to reject it.

He’s been looking at this all wrong. As understanding floods through him, and as the words come out of his mouth, he can’t believe he’s been so stupid.

“It wasn’t the Alpha you killed.”

“She was dying.” The words come out in a flood, like he’s desperate for Stiles to understand. To know that he didn’t have a choice, that he’s not a murderer. “Her body was breaking down from the inside out as it rejected what he’d done to her. She asked me to end it. Begged.”

Stiles’ mind has already zipped ahead to the story’s only conclusion. “And your eyes went blue.” The result of taking an innocent life. The reason for all of this. Why Derek is Alpha in the first place, why Talia passed it on even though Derek doesn’t want it, why they can’t choose someone else to take over.

If the hunters found out… It would be a death sentence. It always is, no matter the circumstances. No leniency.

“I should have waited. I should have waited for my mom to get there, but I wasn’t thinking. She was dying and begging for it to be over and I didn’t think. I just wanted it to stop.” Derek’s voice has grown thinner, and Stiles closes his eyes as the tremors in it cut him right through. When Stiles looks at him again, Derek’s hands are shaking, clawed.

“Chris saw it happen. He agreed to lie in his report. Even put a bullet in her head to sell it. Her body had been mutilated enough already but he still—” Derek’s voice chokes off, hands clenching into fists. “I had her blood on my hands. I can still feel it. I haven’t been able to stop feeling it.” Blood wells between his fingers, spattering onto the leaves at their feet.

Stiles reaches for him, needing him to stop, but he stays his hand at the last moment. Any touch of skin will wake them. The sudden movement – or maybe even the pain – makes Derek unclench his fists, his claws receding. The blood vanishes as Stiles watches, Derek showing an impressive control over the dream state.

He blinks and his eyes clear like he’s emerged from the memories, like the pain has brought some clarity. He still doesn’t look at Stiles. Stiles wishes he could wrap his arms around him and never let go. He’d been so eager to touch when this had started, his ticket to succeeding the test, but now it’s a curse.

“You did what you had to,” Stiles tries to assure him, but Derek’s face twists with anguish, on the verge of shaking his head, like it’s a reflex at this point to deny it. “It was the right thing, Derek. The strength that must have taken you…” A swell of pride rises in his chest, of admiration. “You knew what it would cost you and you paid it anyway.”

Derek says nothing but all his unvoiced arguments turn to disgust on his face. Stiles doesn’t want to press it any further. Derek must have heard this speech a hundred times from the rest of his family and he hasn’t started to believe it yet. From Stiles it’s not going to make any difference.

He puts aside his encouragement, turning to practicalities instead. “So Kate knows.”

“Either Chris told her or she just worked it out on her own.”

Stiles thinks back on his call with Chris, but his adrenaline was pumping and he can barely remember the details. That case was closed is all he can remember hearing. That pause before he’d said it had spoken volumes. He knows exactly why she’s here.

“You still want to stay? I bet you’re thinking this changes things,” Derek says with the beginnings of a smug smile, and it’s the first time Stiles has wanted to punch him in the face.

“This changes nothing.” He’s not going to let Derek start down this new road of wilful self-sabotage. “Who did kill the Alpha?”

It wipes the smile from Derek’s face. He stares back into the trees, eyes glazing once again. “My mom. I wish it had been me. I wish our roles were swapped. Then I would have just released the power and we would all have gone on as normal.” His voice dies on the final word. He looks broken.

“Normal had to end at some point,” Stiles says, trying to be delicate, encouraging. “Passing the power on is the natural order of things—”

“But none of us were ready. She should have been Alpha for years yet. I can’t do this. Am I supposed to remain an Alpha until the day I die to hide this? I’m just a burden.”

“You aren’t a burden. It’s a sign of how much your family loves you. It’s a shield,” he realises. “Laura has already told me that they know you have what it takes. In my time here, I’ve never seen any of them doubt it.”

“Peter does,” Derek says immediately. “You saw what he was like yesterday. That doesn’t even begin to show you how he was when it happened. He was furious in a way I’ve never seen him.”

“I did see, but it just looked like worry to me,” Stiles tries, gently. The way Peter had gone about it might not have been right, but Stiles knows it didn’t come from a place of scepticism. “Worry for the pack, or that they might lose you to your stubbornness. That’s all I’ve ever seen.”

Derek starts rubbing a hand across his chest, like his lungs have gone tight. “I just don’t want to feel like this anymore. It feels like I'm damaged. I can feel something’s changed inside me, something I'll never get back and I can't—I can't move past it.” His breathing is coming more laboured, eyes starting to glow and ears starting to sharpen to points like he's losing control of his shift.

“Let me be your Emissary.”

Derek gasps like it's the last thing he'd expected Stiles to say. It shocks him from the edge of his wolf form, his eyes wide, human green staring at Stiles like he just offered up his life for his. “Still?” He sounds breathless.

“Yes.” He can’t fathom how Derek can’t see what he does. “What you did doesn’t make you a monster, Derek. If anything, it’s the opposite. I want to help you.”

Derek is still staring.

“It will never fix the way you feel entirely, but part of all this turmoil is because you’re unbonded. You need to be tethered by something to give the Alpha power somewhere to go. It needs its natural cycle. The way things are now, the flow is stunted.”

Derek’s expression has turned to doubt. “It feels wrong inside me, like it doesn’t want to be here. It’s trying to reject me, constantly.”

“The Alpha power can’t reject, it can only be wielded. You’re allowed to wield it.”

Derek’s shaking head tells him exactly who the one rejecting is in the equation, even if Derek isn’t aware of it himself. “I’m not meant to be Alpha.”

“That isn’t true. And you know how I know? The same way I know that I’m meant to be here?”

Derek stays silent, like he doesn’t want to hear it, wants to cling onto the belief that he’s right despite craving the validation otherwise.

“The house,” Stiles says, simply. “It accepted me before I even arrived. It accepted me specifically for you, to be yours. Your Emissary,” he’s quick to add when he hears how it had sounded. “I was meant to come here. I truly believe that.”

He puts his hand on Derek’s shoulder over his Henley, careful to avoid touching skin.

The scene around them has grown steadily lighter, like they’ve passed dawn and are reaching early morning, the mist slowly dissipating. With just the thin material of Derek’s shirt between them, their energies are singing, like the two prongs of a tuning fork vibrating in harmony. It’s like a flash of that moment during the first test when their hands had met, but this time it swells up inside him, outwards, filling the entire space. The tingle of goosebumps spreads up his arms, the back of his neck, even a tingle in the fine hairs on his cheeks. He knows Derek feels it too.

“Let me be your Emissary,” he says again, and Derek is staring back at him, unable to look away as their energies reach for each other. The moment stretches on, the ringing rising to a crescendo between them, and then—Derek nods.

Stiles goes loose with the relief that courses through him. It decimates his defences, his energy taking over his body in place of his brain to give in to that need to meld together, wanting nothing more than to bridge this distance between them. Derek moves to meet him halfway, gaze dropping to Stiles’ lips as Stiles’ fingers tighten, curling over Derek’s shoulder—

Stiles wakes with a gasp, jolting up like he’d been about to fall straight through the lawn. Voices erupt all around him, the words a jumble as he makes sense of his sudden surroundings.

“What happened?”

“Did it work?”

“What was going on in there?”

His hand is clasped in Derek’s, their fingers laced. He doesn’t want to let go, squeezes, can’t bear for Derek to shake himself free. That surge of their energy is still tingling between them, a lingering vibration in their hands.

Joseph is knelt in front of them, a worried crease between his eyebrows. “You went over time. I almost woke you.”

“We’re okay.” He takes a deep breath, stomach still weak from the feel of falling.

Derek is staring down at their hands clasped between them and Stiles is just waiting for him to let go, to snatch his hand back. He doesn’t.

“We’re still connected,” he tells their worried faces, then looks to Derek. “We were just coming to an agreement.”

Derek tilts his head to give him a bashful sideways glance before snapping his gaze away. The touch of their lips had woken them so immediately he hadn’t actually gotten to feel it but it’s like the ghost of it still lingers anyway. He wants to know what it would feel like for real. He wants to catch Derek’s eye, to show him somehow that what almost happened between them doesn’t need to stay tied up in that dreamscape, but Derek doesn’t look at him again, only giving Stiles the view of a blushing pink ear tip.

“What does that mean? Is it a yes?” asks Laura.

Stiles waits for Derek despite the answer burning on the tip of his tongue; he doesn’t quite believe that he won’t have changed his mind in the last ten seconds now that they’re out in the real light of day. 

Derek glances up at his family and then back into his lap, heaving a sigh. “It’s a yes.”

The cheers that erupt are like they’ve just seen someone say yes to a proposal. Joseph holds out a hand to help Stiles to his feet and hauls him in for a backslapping hug, and then he finds himself passed around the rest of the family. He ends up face to face with his dad whose delighted smile says he hadn’t expected anything less.

He turns to look at Derek now on his feet and surrounded by his family, swiping their cheeks against his where his head is bowed. They’ve all done so much to protect him. They’d never let him sacrifice himself. Stiles already knew they were good people, but now he knows what they’ve done to protect Derek, his fondness turns fierce.

He wants to tell them what Derek had been planning to do, to vent, but he won't do it. Not now. Not until they're so far removed from this that it's something they can laugh about. Something that Cora will punch him in the shoulder for and they can look back and say, Do you remember when you were such an ass that you almost…?

He lets go of his dad to move closer to Derek, stepping up to draw him into a tight hug when his family moves back, the hug he wasn't able to give him just now during the test. A deafening silence takes over the scene as the Hales must realise that Stiles knows the truth.

Derek's hands hang limply at his sides for a few long moments before they tentatively lift to rest on Stiles’ back.

“I think this calls for a celebration tonight,” says Talia once he and Derek have broken apart, and Caleb is immediately at her side to tug at her hand.

“McDonalds.”

“You always want McDonalds,” says Peter, pulling him back with an arm around his chest and tickling him under his chin.

Malia’s smile is one she’s trying to hide, like she can’t work out if it’s okay to really be happy yet, head going back and forth as she looks up and around at all the adults. Stiles knows exactly how she feels. He can’t believe Derek has finally given his consent.

The time soon comes when everyone needs to head off to work except for Cora, but Stiles wishes Derek could have been the one to stay. He understands why he doesn’t, why he might need some space after everything that occurred in the dreamscape. He does say goodbye when he heads to work though, which is a hell of a lot better than his reaction after the first test. At least it doesn’t feel like so much of an escape this time, despite there still being some distance there, having trouble meeting Stiles’ eyes. He must feel so exposed now his secret is out in the open, like Stiles now has the power to destroy him. It will be a little while yet until they can reach the easy kind of rapport Stiles has managed with the others, but at least now he can actually believe that they’ll get there.

He joins his dad on the porch while Cora is taking a shower, throwing up a soundproof ward, and he takes the opportunity to tell him everything he learned during the test, almost whispering despite the barrier. It feels so much more dangerous talking like this now he knows the real reason the hunters are in town.

His dad stays staring out at the trees as Stiles talks, saying nothing, but the shock and heartache are all over his face. When Stiles has finished, his dad concludes with the most pressing matter. “And Kate knows.”

“Somehow. Or maybe it’s just a lucky guess and she doesn’t care whether it’s true or not. She probably just wants to see him suffer and this is a perfect excuse in her eyes.”

“Her own brother covered it up. Does she not care that—? Don’t answer that. Of course she doesn’t,” his dad says, rubbing a hand over his face.

Stiles lets him mull it all over for a few long moments, but eventually the rest becomes too much for him to contain. “He was going to turn himself in.”

His dad whips his head round, mouth open and chest puffing up like he’s ready to protest.

“I talked him out of it,” Stiles hastens to add. “But he thought it might protect the rest of his family.”

“She’d never stop there.”

“I know. That’s what I told him.” He blows out a breath. “Don’t mention it to the others. I just needed to tell someone before I exploded.”

“The quicker the two of you can get bonded, the better.” His dad curls his hand over the porch railing, squeezing hard, and they stand in silence looking out at the trees. He eventually relaxes his hold, smoothing his hand over the wood. “I suppose I can let myself start thinking of this as home now.”

“It seems too good to be true.”

“I don’t think we could have found better people.”

Stiles smiles, warmth settling into his chest. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

Later that morning, he submits his second report to the Board detailing the positive result of the test and Derek’s acceptance of him as his new Emissary, provided they pass the third test, though Stiles doesn't have any doubts. Any reports he submits after this one will just be a formality at this point.

They end up making a massive order of Chinese food that evening for dinner which they eat out on the lawn, with a Happy Meal and extra nuggets for Caleb. He still manages to find room for a side of chow mein and some prawn crackers, ending up lying flat on his back on the grass with a hand on his stomach where his t-shirt is stretched over his bloated belly.

Stiles and Derek end up on the same picnic bench this time, but at a diagonal, like Derek hasn’t yet worked himself up to sitting side by side or opposite. He’s still quiet, but it’s different to how it had been. Before, he’d been icy, not wanting to get involved, but now it’s more like he’s feeling out where he can fit. The glances he throws Stiles are no longer closer to glares. He might still turn his head away when he gets caught, but there’s something shy about it now instead of displeased.

Stiles does his best to leave him to look as much as he wants, but he can’t help meeting his eyes every now and then, wanting to look his own fill in return. His attraction to Derek hasn’t gone anywhere, and he wants to make sure Derek knows it.

The whole evening is tinged by a giddy kind of feeling, a lightness that sparks lots of laughter. He hadn’t realised before how much everyone was walking on eggshells around Derek. They’re all so much more tactile now, even Malia hugging Derek round his middle where she hadn’t shown much care for physical support before.

Derek spends the evening with a small smile on his face that doesn’t fade, like he’s missed this. Needed it. It’s like it becomes some sort of feedback loop, the pack’s ease and happiness relaxing Derek whose contentment makes the pack even happier, and on and on. Now they just need the same thing to happen with his power.

“I should get a reward,” Malia announces at one point once they’ve all finished eating.

“And why is that, young lady?” Elaine asks, laughing.

“I’m the one who caught the rabbit,” she says, nose in the air.

“It was a delicious rabbit,” Stiles says and Malia beams at his agreement.

“And what do you want for a reward?”

Malia’s eyes light up and the Hales all laugh like they know exactly what that means.

“What?” Stiles asks. “What does she want?”

“A day at the ranger’s station,” Peter says, and Malia’s grin only gets wider, latching onto her mom’s arm.

“Pleeeease,” she begs.

“We’ll think about it,” Elaine tells her, but she’s smiling, and it must mean something good because Malia does a fist pump, hissing, “Yes!”

“I cooked it, what do I get?” asks Joseph.

“A pile of dishes in the sink,” Talia tells him, which starts a short-lived elbow fight that ends with Joseph grabbing Talia’s face for a kiss filled with muffled laughter.

Stiles and Derek lock eyes and look away.

He ends up in the first wave when some of them start to head up to bed, his dad leaving them on the second floor and Cora leaving them at the start of the third, Stiles and Derek heading to the other end of the hall alone.

They pause outside their rooms, Derek turning his head for their eyes to meet in a look that lingers, the air between them thick with something neither of them are ready to name or pursue.

Derek looks away first, down at his hand ready on the door handle. “Well. Goodnight.”

“Yeah, ‘night.”

They enter their own rooms simultaneously, Stiles leaning back against his door once it’s shut, and all he can do is stare at the adjoining one in the other wall, flooded with temptation. But as with everything else, Derek is the one who needs to make the first move. They’re not even bonded. They’ve got a whole future opening up in front of them. How bad of an idea would it be?

As he brushes his teeth and climbs into bed, he can’t stop thinking that it wouldn’t be a bad idea at all.

Chapter Text

When Stiles is pulling on his clothes the next morning, he’s interrupted by a surprise knock at his bedroom door.

It’s Derek.

Stiles’ eyebrows shoot up in surprise and Derek clears his throat, hand rubbing under his jaw.

“I’ve taken the day off today,” he mumbles, and Stiles can’t stop the grin that spreads across his face. He’d been so sure Derek would have changed his mind by this morning, would have gone back to his brooding self and withdrawn entirely. He’s so relieved that’s not the case. “I thought we could go for a morning walk. Maybe get that lunch we missed out on the other day.”

“Sounds good,” Stiles says, trying to calm his smile and failing.

“Okay. Well. I’ll see you down at breakfast.” 

“Let’s go together,” Stiles says, following him out into the hall.

Down in the kitchen it’s a familiar scene by this point, though this time Derek is actually present to eat with them. The only other difference is that, for the first time in Stiles’ stay, Malia is already dressed with her teeth and hair brushed for her day out with the rangers, bouncing on her toes next to the kitchen table where Laura is trying to tell her that it’s way too early to leave yet.

She’s wearing a t-shirt printed with the Beacon Hills Rangers logo with wording referencing some sort of kid’s camp she must have taken part in recently. It’s like she’s adopted it as a uniform, though it’s already well-worn and peeling in places. Stiles can tell it’s her pride and joy.

Breakfast just feels like an extension of the easy peace from the night before, so comforting now that Derek has agreed to accept him as his Emissary instead of the building ache of believing this could never be permanent. He takes a seat in the chair he’s used at the table since he arrived, finally able to let himself think of it as his.

Once the others have left for work, he and Derek head upstairs to get dressed and they meet out the back when they’re ready.

“Just heading out,” Derek calls through the open back door.

“Okay!” Caleb bellows back with more understated replies from his dad and Peter.

He’s nervous as they set out, getting caught up in the memories of what happened the last time they ventured into the trees together. Things are so different now. Derek has invited him out here of his own free will this time. He’s the one making the effort. That has to count for so much more than just that one bad memory. It’s time to start again.

Surrounded by the peaceful hush of singing birds and morning sunlight, it’s easy to focus on the present as they cut through the now-familiar patch of worn undergrowth until they reach the trail nearest the house.

“Malia really loves going to the ranger’s station, huh?”

Derek smiles softly down at his feet. “Yeah. Peter and Elaine have gotten her an official uniform made for her birthday in a few weeks. Embroidered and everything.”

Stiles’ eyes widen and a grin spreads across his face. “She’s going to explode.”

Derek actually laughs at that. “Yeah. Cora’s going to be ready with her camera to film it. She’ll probably never take it off.”

“Which branch do you think Caleb will go into? The gym or the rangers?”

“He’ll probably be the first to do neither. He likes to cook, so that’s what we’ve all been picturing for him, but that could easily change into something else as he gets older.”

“You don’t think Malia will change her mind?”

Derek shakes his head. “She’d live out here if she could, and I don’t mean in a house. When she’s older, I can see her doing it.”

Stiles can too. He can picture her lone wolfing it, showing up once a month to spend the full moon with her pack and then disappearing back into the forest. For some reason, it doesn’t feel lonely to think about.

They walk in silence for a short way and Derek ends up being the first to break it.

“Thanks for not telling my family what I was thinking of doing,” he murmurs.

Stiles guesses he must consider them to be far enough away from prying ears. “It would have just caused unnecessary strife,” he says with a shrug even though Derek isn’t looking at him. There’s been enough fear and uncertainty as it is.

They don’t take the path for the Overlook this time, through unspoken agreement, acting like the right-hand path that leads in its direction isn’t even there. Looking around at the trees passing on his side of the path, he can almost fool himself into thinking they’re back in the dreamscape, but all that thought does is remind him of their near kiss.

Derek doesn’t speak again until that diverging path is well behind them. “The way you fit in so easily here scares me,” he mumbles, and Stiles tries not to openly gape at his sudden honesty lest he make him shy away. His step falters but he pushes on to keep walking at Derek’s side.

“You even smell right, like you’ve come home.”

Home. It isn’t a word Stiles would have used to describe it when he first arrived, but hearing it from Derek’s mouth makes him realise that maybe that’s exactly what that feeling was. He’d just been too afraid to give it such a preposterous label.

“I felt it as soon as I turned into the driveway,” he admits, giving Derek a careful glance and looking away when their eyes meet. “I’d been getting so nervous the closer we got, but then I crossed the boundary and it disappeared. I remember how shocked your dad looked when the house accepted me.”

“He said it was exactly how the house reacted when he arrived years ago as a potential Emissary for my mom.” Derek quickly turns his head away as they both hear what that implies. “It’s a bit much to take in when you’ve had parents like mine your whole life, and suddenly you get someone dropped in your lap who’s—” He shrugs. “—supposed to be the same for you. Especially when I was determined to turn down anyone who arrived. To get rid of this power somehow.”

Stiles hasn’t forgotten how determined he was to fail that first test, how hard he pushed back against it. But there was no denying.

He reaches out, lets his fingertips brush the back of Derek’s hand where he’s walking next to him, his energy bleeding free a little. Derek’s energy reaches out to meet him, so immediate he’s not sure Derek even realises he’s doing it.

“I never understood how it could feel different with different people,” Derek murmurs, staring down at where their hands are touching. “But the way it feels with you… It’s nothing like with the first druid we trialled.”

“It’s not something you find every day.”

“I think the kids picked up on it right away. Caleb has never been so accepting of strangers. And Malia catching that rabbit like she knew she had to do everything she could to make you stay… Now I’ve stopped fighting it, I feel the same.”

Stiles steps in front to face him, bringing them to a halt. “Come on. Let’s do this again.” He holds his hands up, palms facing Derek. “Just us.”

Derek eyes Stiles’ raised palms.

“It’s not going to interfere with the tests,” Stiles assures him, and Derek slowly, hesitantly, lifts his hands to hold them hovered apart from his exactly how they’d stood when initiating the first test.

Stiles waits and only at a short nod from Derek does he close his eyes to let his energy bleed free to search for his. Their fingertips touch in seconds just like they had before, but this time they don’t break apart in shock at the contact. Instead, Stiles holds the energy, keeping still as Derek pushes forward the rest of the way so their palms rest together, leaning on each other, just as it should be.

He opens his eyes to look at him, to smile, but his heart skips in his chest at the sight of Derek’s still closed eyes, his delicate eyelids, the sober concentration on his face. His head is lowered slightly, like he’s focused in on every one of his senses to commit how this feels to memory, for the first time really letting himself feel how the two of them fit together.

There’s that vibration again, like struck tuning forks, and Stiles wonders if it registers differently to Derek because of his werewolf hearing, or if it’s not really a sound at all but a feeling echoing in their very bones.

Stiles holds the moment to let Derek feel this, ready to stretch it on until he’s taken his fill. 

When Derek’s eyes eventually flutter open, there’s a glimmer of red in their depths like this sharing of energy has suspended him in the perfect balance between man and wolf. Derek’s gaze drops to his lips and Stiles’ eyes follow suit. They’re standing so close now. All it would take is one little lean, for Derek to just tilt his head—

Derek blinks and his eyes widen, both his hands and energy withdrawing to leave Stiles cold and wanting.

“Sorry. It’s just—” He stares down at his hands, voice going quiet. “It feels clean.”

It makes Stiles draw in a sharp breath through his nose, seeing Derek’s reaction just now in a whole new light. “You are,” Stiles tells him with feeling, blinking a few times to get rid of the new wetness in his eyes.

Derek keeps his gaze directed down. “Maybe one day.”

He doesn’t sound confident, but Stiles takes the mention of a possibility for the small victory it is.

“I just wish we could have experienced that as we should have, if this was a normal transition. It should have been celebrated,” Derek tells him.

“We got to have that yesterday,” Stiles reminds him, and it’s enough to bring a smile to Derek’s face, a bashful one that has him lowering his head. “And maybe all of this has just tested us in a more meaningful way.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Stiles gives him a moment before asking, “Do you want to start heading back?”

“I think I’m going to stay out here a bit longer. I need…” He ends up shaking his head, his expression blank, at a loss for the words to describe what it is he’s feeling.

“Yeah,” Stiles says softly. He understands. “See you back at the house.”

Derek turns his head to look at him, his eyes gone round like he’s seeing him for the first time, realising that there’s going to be a future here. There’s not going to be a Goodbye, just always See you later, in a bit, tonight. Their lives are about to be fully entwined.

It’s the most carefree Stiles has felt since he got here as they part ways. Being able to meld their energies like that makes it feel like they've known each other a whole lot longer, giving him unfettered insight into who Derek is as a person. And he likes what he sees. He likes it a lot. And that’s even without everything he’s learned outside of that: his struggle with what he had to do that made him Alpha in the first place, even his short-lived decision to sacrifice himself to Kate, however misguided. He knows in his heart he’s found what he was meant for.

When Derek comes out of the woods in time for lunch, he looks lighter than Stiles has ever seen him, a small smile immediately lighting up his face when he spots Stiles sitting on one of the lawn chairs with his dad. It fades quickly, like he’s not used to it yet, like he hadn’t meant for his emotions to come out so strong.

“Oh, boy,” his dad mutters to himself, hoisting himself to his feet to head inside and leave them to it.

Stiles hopes the heat in his cheeks isn’t visible. “All good?” He asks Derek as he gets closer.

“Yeah. Just give me a minute and we can head into town if you want?”

“Sure. Ready when you are.”

Derek drives them in his ridiculous car when they’re ready and they end up at a family-run coffee shop within easy walking distance from the gym which Stiles guesses is where they were supposed to eat lunch two days ago.

It feels a little awkward as just the two of them to begin with, particularly when they get sat down inside and his brain keeps chanting the word date at him. It had felt easier in the preserve when it was just them, private, like an extension of the dream state. Now there’s a lot of looking around at the other customers as they wait for their food and drinks to arrive. It’s easier when they’ve got their food to let it fill any gaps while they talk, and their sandwiches are just crumbs on their plates when the conversation becomes a bit more serious.

“You mentioned your mom before,” Derek begins, clutching his mug of coffee in both hands. “What did she do if she wasn’t an Emissary or a hunter?”

“She used to own a magic shop. You know those ones that cater to the general public but then have the real stuff for the people who know what they’re looking for?”

“And you didn’t want to carry it on?”

“We had to close it when she got sick. I wasn’t old enough to manage it at the time. I did want to reopen it once, but as I got older, the dream just started to feel lonely. All I could picture was turning the Open sign round on the opening day and going behind the counter to sit there and wait for the first customer and it would hit me how empty it all was.”

“Because she wouldn’t be there.”

“Yeah.” It wouldn’t bring her back. “And I knew time would go on, and eventually my dad wouldn’t be here anymore either, and I decided I wanted something bigger.” He winces. “Sorry. That got dark.” He realises he’s mirroring Derek with his mug in two hands and quickly lets go. 

“No, it’s just—I feel like I understand you more. It makes sense why you were so sure about this. Why you wanted it so much.”

Stiles can’t believe they’re having a conversation. He can’t believe that Derek is showing curiosity instead of shutting it down. “I felt like I’d found something.”

“Yeah.” Derek looks down at the crumbs on his plate, jaw clenched with guilt.

Stiles wants to reach for his hand to reassure him, but it feels too intimate, so he gives him a gentle kick instead. “Hey, you don’t need to—”

Derek stiffens, head slowly turning towards the door that’s just opened, the ring of the bell hanging in the air.

Stiles’ eyes flick over in time to see a satisfied grin spreading over Kate Argent’s face as she spots them at their table. She steps up to the counter to place her order and then makes her way over, ignoring the aura of distaste her presence brings, or perhaps revelling in it.

“Bumping into each other again. This really is a small town.”

Stiles is glad there’s no sign of her hunter friends. That he can see, that is. It doesn’t mean they’re not lurking somewhere nearby in case of the need for backup. Or to spring a trap.

“You’re still here then,” he says. So much for just passing through.

“We thought we’d enjoy the sights for a little longer. Though I’m sure you’ll be moving on soon. I can’t imagine you staying in a backwater town like this.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I think I might be here to stay. The place has its charms. Though I have noticed a bit of a pest problem.”

She sneers an overtly fake laugh to show how deeply unamused she is by his wit.

“You haven’t hit me up yet for a good time,” Derek speaks up, lounging back in his chair with his coffee mug in hand, so laid back the chair may as well be on two legs.

“All I can remember is the good time we had with that shot of wolfsbane. I’m happy to oblige if you’re so eager for a repeat.”

“Are you sure you want to try now that I’m here this time?” Stiles asks.

Her name gets called from the counter and she starts to back away. “You know I’m not alone. You’d do well to remember that.” And then she’s snatching her drink up and heading for the door.

They both blow out breaths simultaneously once the door has swung shut on her, but it does nothing to cleanse the bad feeling she’s left in her wake. Stiles’ mind is already zipping through the encounter, spinning a little at how quickly it was over.

“I made a mistake,” he says, fidgeting with the handle of his mug. “I shouldn’t have told her I’m staying. She’ll know she’s only got a few days at most before the pack has an Emissary. If she’s here to take you in, she’ll want to do it before that happens.” He’d been too eager to deflect her taunts.

“It’s what she was fishing for. She would have worked it out anyway.”

“We should probably get back to the house,” Stiles says, knocking back the last of his coffee and getting ready to stand. “I never feel anything good after running into her.”

Derek’s grim smile says he approves of Stiles’ instincts.

They head back to the car and buckle in, Stiles scouring their surroundings as they go for any sign of her or her minions.

“I heard from Cora and your dad what happened when she was in town before,” he says when Derek is pulling away from the curb.

“I’ve always kicked myself for not knowing what she was. I’ve never been involved with anyone who doesn’t already know what I am since it happened. To her it was like—well, she may as well have slept with a dog.”

It makes Stiles’ stomach roil to think of again, especially now it’s full with his meal. He can’t imagine what it would feel like to know someone thinks about him in that way.

“She shot me up with wolfsbane and tried to make out I’d forced myself on her but—” Derek shrugs. “We both knew I hadn’t, and we both knew she enjoyed it. That’s what gets to her the most, I think.”

No wonder she was so enraged that Derek dared call that out, especially in front of his family and the two hunters.

It’s more than a chip on her shoulder. It looks like it’s been simmering all these years, something she’s never been able to forget. He wouldn’t be surprised if it’s guided her every action as a hunter, been the catalyst for her ruthless reputation. She’s probably pictured every werewolf kill as having Derek’s face. The thought raises the hairs on his arms.

“After hearing that, I definitely won’t let her have the satisfaction of seeing you turn yourself in to her.”

Derek grimaces. “That is the part I was least looking forward to.”

Stiles turns his head to look out the window, a beat of silence passing between them. “I don’t think it would have been good enough for her,” he murmurs.

“I think you’re right,” Derek agrees, quietly.

They stop at a red light and Stiles glances at Derek before back out the window. “Third test tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” For the first time, Derek doesn’t sound like he’s dreading it.

“It will be nice to do a test where I don’t have you fighting me on it,” he teases.

“Who says I won’t?” Derek says, teasing him right back. He gives Stiles a sideways glance and shrugs, fighting a grin at Stiles’ raised eyebrows. “If you want me, you’ll have to work for it.”

Time stills for a moment with their eyes locked before they both snap away. Derek shifts his hands on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly. Stiles stares out the window, wetting dry lips. This isn’t the time or place.

He knows Derek must be reading him like an open book. In any other situation it might be humiliating, but he knows he’s not alone in this. All that’s stopping them is the weight of the future knowing that Stiles’ presence in Derek’s life is permanent. Whether there could be anything more between them is a delicate situation.

They’re quiet for the rest of the ride back. There’s a sense of safety as soon as they take the road leading through the preserve, strengthening further still when they turn into the driveway. He wonders how it will feel when he and Derek have bonded and the house can extend its power to cover the territory.

The house is just as peaceful as when they left, a secret paradise squirrelled away in the woods. He can’t let anything happen to this.

Derek parks in his usual spot and Stiles pauses once he’s out of the car to pull out his phone; this is ugly business he shouldn’t deal with inside.

She’s still here, he sends to Chris.

Derek is waiting for him a few steps towards the house. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” He stops as his phone chimes, the response reading I’m on my way. He blows air out past his lips. “Chris says he’s coming. With any luck, he’ll come to drag her away, hopefully without getting you shot up with wolfsbane this time.”

“I’d take it. If that was the only repercussion and we could put this behind us, I’d take it gladly.”

“It’s not going to come to that.” She needs to stop terrorising Derek and his family. She can’t keep rearing her head whenever Derek ventures into town. This is feeling even more serious than he’d originally given it credit, especially now he knows what it is that has Kate sniffing around.

There’s laughter coming from the kitchen when they step inside, uncontrollable, the sort that has a grin spreading across his face without even knowing the reason for it. They make their way through the house to find his dad, Peter and Caleb covered in brown cake batter, Caleb in charge of the electric whisk.

“A lot of learning going on in here, I see,” Derek says, wryly.

“Just teaching him how to use up leftover ingredients,” Peter defends, sweeping a glob of batter from under his eye and attacking Caleb’s face with it to much shrieking.

“We have different definitions of using up leftovers,” Derek says, but he’s smiling as he avoids a splash of mixture decorating a cupboard handle as he fetches a glass for a drink. He steps back once he’s filled it at the tap, sharing a look with Stiles as the three of them carry on their baking and the laughter resumes. They’re in such a good mood and Caleb is so carefree right now. In a little while, when Caleb is distracted elsewhere, they’ll fill them in on what happened with Kate. There’s no need to ruin this moment.

Chapter Text

They bring everyone up to speed later that afternoon when they’re all home from work, but there’s a lot less agitation after this encounter with Kate now that Derek has accepted Stiles as his Emissary. They know they’re on the best possible path to put an end to this.

Stiles wrote to the Board after lunch and received a speedy response informing him they’re in contact with the hunters who have given them their full cooperation. It’s heartening to know this is being taken so seriously.

With he and Derek on course to bond, Chris on his way to get rid of Kate, and both the Hunter Society and Emissary Board working to get to the bottom of this, any agitation he’d felt from the Hales after that first encounter with Kate has faded almost entirely.

They each have a slice of Caleb’s chocolate cake after dinner which is delicious in spite of their kitchen mishaps. Back at home, a whole cake would last him and his dad at least a few days, but with so many of them here, it’s gone in one sitting.

“You’ll need to make two next time,” he tells Caleb after savouring his last forkful, and Caleb beams with pride, frosting stuck to his chin.

Derek disappears from the lounge later in the evening, heading into the kitchen but then not coming back. Stiles can sense him nearby, probably out on the porch, and after twenty minutes of no sign of him, Stiles goes in search.

He finds him sitting on the porch swing at the front of the house, one ankle resting on his knee, holding the swing steady. Stiles is slow to approach, only taking a seat when Derek gives him a quick smile.

“How are you doing?” Stiles asks him.

“I’m not changing my mind if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“I know.”

Now they’re alone, that same atmosphere from the car has returned in full force and Stiles hesitates for only a few seconds before reaching out, brushing his little finger against the side of Derek’s hand on the seat between them. Their energies try to meld immediately, Derek giving a quiet, slow inhale as he closes his eyes.

When he opens them after a few moments and turns to look at him, they’re simmering red just like in the preserve this morning, half-lidded, and Stiles’ stomach lurches. Something hooks into his chest and he follows it without a second thought, Derek surging forward to meet him halfway.

That same vibration from before becomes a ringing in his ears as their lips meet, in a frequency that must be enough to shatter glass, like it might explode the bulb of the porch light above their heads. But their energies aren’t the only vibration. There’s the rumble of a growl in Derek’s chest beneath his hands, and Stiles breaks the kiss with a gasp. It’s too much.

He’s in Derek’s lap. He has no memory of it happening, but he has a knee either side of his hips and Derek’s arms are locked around him, holding him secure, restrained. Stiles’ breathing is coming quick and fast, his hands on Derek’s solid chest rising and falling with his own heavy breaths. There’s no sign of second thoughts on Derek’s face and Stiles doesn’t want to lose this moment.

They lean in again, slower this time but no less sure, but break apart almost immediately at the sound of giggling and tiny feet pattering away. Stiles’ human ears are just enough to catch Caleb whisper-shout, “They’re kissing!” as he runs back inside.

He looks back to Derek, expecting the moment to be over, but Derek's eyes are still intense despite a flash of amusement around his mouth.

“Upstairs?” Derek asks, his voice dropped to a husky murmur that sends a shiver over Stiles’ skin. It’s a simple question that’s asking a whole lot more.

Stiles hesitates for only a moment before he leans in to kiss him again, but he pauses an inch away, one side of his mouth quirking up as he teases him. Derek darts forward to capture his lips again but Stiles retreats just out of reach. He backs off him to his feet, taking one of Derek’s hands in his and Derek catches his lead, following him smoothly up.

They head in the front door instead of the back to save themselves a bit of privacy, but they still have to climb the stairs in full view of the open lounge doorway. Stiles can’t bring himself to look, but there’s a tell-tale silence emanating from within, and he swats at Derek’s hands that have fallen to his hips where he’s crowding him up the stairs.

He only has a moment to wonder what Talia might have threatened Laura and Cora with to keep them quiet, but then he’s at the top of the flight and being spun round, Derek’s mouth sealing over his as they stumble along the hallway to the next set of stairs, trusting Derek to guide him. When they stumble and almost knock a picture frame right off the wall, Stiles finds himself hoisted into the air, Derek’s hands locking his thighs around his waist, and Stiles can’t be blamed for the moan that escapes his lips at how effortless it is.

He still clings on for dear life as Derek ascends the next flight, letting out a squawk of terror when it feels like they’re about to overbalance that has them both laughing into each other’s mouths. They reach the door to Derek’s room in one piece, but as he fumbles for the handle, Stiles slaps at his arm.

“Wait, wait,” he gasps, pushing at Derek’s chest until he puts him down.

Stiles opens the door to Derek’s room and forces him over the threshold, pulling the door shut on his bewildered face. He rushes into his own room and heads straight for the adjoining door, lifting his hand to rap against the wood.

Derek opens the door, rolling his eyes with fond exasperation, and Stiles falls on him with a grin.

“I’ve been thinking about doing that for days.”

Derek laughs against him, shaking with it. He kicks the door shut behind him and the house – thankfully – soundproofs the room for them.

“Wanted you to,” Derek murmurs, lifting his shirt over his head and crowding Stiles back towards the bed.

“Wanted you as soon as I saw you,” Stiles says as he falls back and Derek climbs on top of him, though he hardly thinks that’s news to him.

“Couldn’t believe what I was seeing when you climbed out of your Jeep,” Derek admits, and that’s definitely news to Stiles. “Wanted you. Wanted you to stay.” Derek falters as soon as realises what he’s said, shock crossing his face. He edges back a little, like he’s unsure.

“Hey,” Stiles coaxes, tilting his head to catch Derek’s eye. “I want to.” Want to stay, want to do this, want to be your Emissary.

Derek searches his eyes for a few long moments then nods, leaning in for a slow kiss that soon turns frantic again as Derek’s hands skim his torso to get his t-shirt up and off, and Stiles puts aside Derek’s confession to think about later.

It feels even better when they’re naked, like their energies can sense there’s even less barriers between them, and they’re content to just make out for a few long minutes, spread out on the mattress. Stiles ends up on top when Derek finally reaches for him and Stiles does the same, gasping in shock at the touch of Derek’s hand, fucking into the ring of his fingers. It’s like nothing he’s felt before. With the magnetism of their energies, it’s like Derek’s hand is vibrating, sending little shocks that zing through him along with the usual build of an orgasm and his hand around Derek’s cock falters.

He bites at his lip, a moan turning into a whine at the back of his throat at the sight of Derek looking up at him, eyes heavy-lidded as he works his hand, faster and faster, and Stiles comes, shooting his load all over Derek’s abs beneath him. He takes a second to catch his breath, shuddering at the slow drag of Derek prolonging the aftershocks, before he renews his grip on him to return the favour, watching Derek’s face until his hand starts to hit something at the base and he glances down and gasps.

“Fuck—Derek—”

He’s starting to knot.

Stiles lets go of his cock to take his knot in his hands, fascinated as it grows even bigger. He squeezes to give it some pressure as Derek takes over stripping his cock, their hands colliding on every downstroke. Stiles watches with his lips parted, becoming a gasp when Derek’s body finally locks and convulses, his fully swollen knot pulsing between Stiles’ hands as he starts to come.

Stiles takes in the sight with his mouth open, watching as come splashes over his abs in rhythmic pulses, head thrown back on his pillow. His hips are squirming in pleasure, hitching occasionally with little aborted thrusts that have Stiles biting at his lip in want.

His knot shrinks down a lot faster than it would normally knowing it isn’t tied to anyone, the stream of come dwindling until Derek’s eyes flutter open. They’re completely out of focus, dazed. Stiles gives his sensitive knot another squeeze and a moan chokes off in Derek’s throat, a final dribble of come spilling down the shaft of his cock. It turns into a gasp as he returns to himself, head whipping up to stare down at the mess he’s made.

“Fuck.” He looks up at Stiles, horrified. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s okay. It’s really okay,” Stiles assures him, fighting to lick his lips at the scene in front of him, of Derek’s abs striped and striped and striped with his orgasm, the way it’s trickling down his sides, collected in the hollow of his throat, his belly button. It’s a wonder he’s stringing words together at all after what he just witnessed. “Just seems a bit of a waste is all,” he teases, but his grin soon drops at the panic on Derek’s face. “Hey. You don’t need to be embarrassed.”

Derek nods but his eyes are downcast, his hands fisting in the sheets as a blush starts to rise out of his beard.

A damp towel appears on the bed next to them, courtesy of the house, and Stiles snickers as they set to work wiping Derek down.

“You’d better be incinerating this,” Derek says to the house.

At a clanging of pipes when the house zaps it away moments later along with the bedsheets under them, it sounds like it’s already put them in the washing machine.

Stiles laughs against Derek’s neck and Derek coaxes him down to lay with his head on his chest.

“That was… nice,” Stiles finishes as Derek interjects with, “Not normal.”

It stirs a bark of laughter out of Stiles and Derek is quick to clarify. “I just mean… You felt it too, right?”

“Yeah,” Stiles murmurs, thinking of the buzzing that came with having Derek’s hand on him, how he hadn't been able to last. “If it’s like that every time, I think I might be ruined.” He realises as soon as he says it that he’s assuming, maybe too much, but Derek’s arm tightens around him to stop him drawing away.

“Yeah,” he agrees, sweeping a thumb back and forth over Stiles’ shoulder blade and sending shivers over his skin.

They lie there in silence for a while, Stiles just listening to Derek’s heartbeat and steady breathing, content. It stirs him out of an almost doze when Derek speaks.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said about your mom’s store. About what you might do with your life here once you’re settled.”

It surprises him to hear that Derek has thought about that, about Stiles’ future.

“If you were interested, you still could. Open one here, I mean. Eventually. It would be different then. In a new place.” He shifts awkwardly under him. “We could help. I don’t know if your dad would be interested, but Elaine works the reception at the gym and she’d—well. If you wanted to. Maybe.”

Something gooey and warm cracks open in Stiles’ chest at Derek’s hesitation, a smile spreading across his face that he presses to Derek’s skin.

“Yeah,” he says, softly, and for the first time since his mom died, he thinks he actually could.

Chapter Text

They realise something’s wrong at exactly the same time.

Stiles jerks his head up to find Derek's eyes have glazed as he focuses on his hearing, and Stiles stares straight ahead with unseeing eyes, feeling outward instead, beyond the house, his stomach roiling at the sensation of something snapping. The wards. The house has thrown up its energy like iron walls, the soundproofing on Derek’s room falling away as it focuses all of its power on defence. 

Derek leaps up, snatching a pair of sweatpants from the back of a chair.

“Someone’s tripped the perimeter spells,” Stiles warns as he scrambles after him, hopping into his jeans. He follows Derek into the hall while yanking on his t-shirt, a clamour already reaching them from downstairs.

As they race through the house, Stiles can feel it beating against the walls that confine it as if it had fists, helpless to extend beyond them to tackle whatever threat they’re facing.

A wail goes up – Caleb – and Peter shouts, “We can’t get out!”

Derek descends the last flight of stairs in three bounds, joining everyone clustered around the open front door.

“What’s going on?”

Joseph is standing outside, as is his dad, but everyone else is trapped at the door like it’s shut and bolted. Stiles squeezes through the crowd to get to his dad, stepping over a line of mountain ash at the door. It glows in his mind’s eye, a red-hot line that’s hugging the walls of the property, a barrier to the wolves at every possible exit, actively held in place.

“We’ve got company,” Joseph warns.

Stiles can’t see anyone yet, but it’s not hard to guess who it must be. His heartbeat flutters in his chest, hands trembling, sweating.

The three hunters emerge from the trees beside the driveway with Kate at their helm, Jennifer with a raised hand holding the mountain ash in place.

“You shouldn’t be here, Kate,” says Joseph, his voice booming across the front lawn, but the hunters don’t slow. They keep walking until they’re just a few metres from the bottom of the porch steps where they finally halt, fanned out.

Stiles reaches out with a tendril of magic, wanting to search for any weakness in Jennifer’s barrier spell to at least allow the Hales out of the house, but he’s forced back immediately by a burst of energy from Matt like a whipcrack. A flick from Joseph knocks Matt back in turn, before Jennifer joins the mental onslaught. The four of them are like coiled springs, their eyes darting back and forth like they’re ready for a quickdraw. Everyone else is oblivious to their battle of wills.

“I would say I’m sorry it had to come to this, but...” Kate begins, her glee uncontained.

“This isn’t the way to go about this,” Stiles tries. “If it’s Derek you want, you can take him and we’ll go somewhere else to talk.” There’s no chance in hell he’d ever let Derek actually go with her, but he needs to buy them some time, get them away from here. Caleb is still sobbing behind them. “There are children here.” 

“Werewolves,” Kate says, like it’s some kind of correction, an important distinction.

A hollow chill floods into his chest at what she’s implying, sinking into his stomach.

He didn’t foresee anything like this. He’d known she posed a danger, but he thought they were just here to intimidate, to unsettle. He had no idea her quest for revenge would go this far, that they’d really descend upon the house. This is a violation. An assault.

“You know what they did, why I can’t let them go. It’s unfortunate that you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it’s how it’s got to be.”

She’s talking crazy. He needs to get the Hales out of the house. The mountain ash spells nothing good, and he, his dad and Joseph are evenly matched against the three hunters without the wolves out here able to fight. The only way he’ll be able to break the barrier is with a whole lot of concentration, enough power to fend off two druids, and a whole lot of time. But time is something they don’t have.

And Stiles has just noticed the bottles the hunters are holding.

He doesn’t think. Panic takes over and he throws out a hand, exploding one of the unlit molotovs in Kate’s possession, but he doesn’t get a chance to go any further. The hunter-druids bombard him with their combined energy and it knocks him back a step, crashing into his dad who throws out a hand to steady him.

He looks back at Derek trapped at the forefront in the doorway, eyes blazing red and helpless to do anything. Before Stiles can even think of anything to say, the druids dial up their assault, becoming pressure from all sides trying to fit him into a tighter and tighter box. He throws up his energy to buffet them back, Joseph lending his aid, but it’s the opening they needed.

Kate has lit the rag tucked in the neck of her remaining bottle, taking her chance as Stiles and Joseph reel under the onslaught to launch it into the air. His dad jerks at the corner of his eye like he might catch it somehow, deflect it—but it’s futile. He’s too far away. The glass shatters against the side of the house, liquid fire spreading upwards.

It all hangs suspended for a moment, the sound dropping away from his ears as his vision darkens around the edges. He’s gone blank. Trapped. Seeing no way out. Someone’s screaming, a woman. The kids. The house.

The house.

It’s confined right now. But it doesn’t have to be.

Oxygen floods his lungs, tinged with building smoke, but it’s enough to snap him back into motion. He has no idea if this will work, has never heard of it before, but they’ve got nothing else. He’s the only one who can do this.

“Joseph, take them from me!” he shouts.

Joseph spares him one glance and the pressure dissipates, enough that Stiles can back up one step, then another. In contrast, Joseph buckles down to one knee under the exertion of throwing up a shield against the two druids, his teeth gritted and eyes squeezing shut in concentration. His dad rushes to Joseph’s side, a hand on his shoulder to lend him his strength. Elaine runs out of the house to join them and Joseph stabilises under their assistance, but there’s only so long they can hold it up. Stiles can’t waste this.

He scrambles the words coming out of his mouth to everyone else’s ears but Derek’s to buy them a few precious seconds before the hunters can realise what he’s about to do. He reaches through the open doorway to clasp Derek’s forearm.

“Bond with me.”

Derek’s widened eyes snap back to green in a moment of shock. “But the third test—”

“Do you trust me?”

Derek clasps his forearm in return, squeezing, the look of determination on his face answer enough.

“Follow my lead,” Stiles says, then his energy bleeds free, straight into Derek.

He has faith that this will work, that their bodies will withstand it. Their unusually high compatibility has to count for something. It’s that thought that he turns to now, lets it take over in seeking Derek out, but he falters under a sudden slam of energy as the hunters realise what he’s doing. It goes muffled, far away like a ringing in his ears, as Joseph works to shield him from the attack.

He renews his grip on Derek’s arm and opens himself up entirely, giving himself over to the flood. He’s never done this before, doesn’t know how it’s supposed to feel, if it’s supposed to be this scary. But he lets instinct guide him, lets his magic free to do whatever it deems natural, what it’s wanted to do ever since he got here. He doesn’t stop even when it feels like he’s unravelling at the seams, letting their energies weave them together, lets Derek take root inside him.

He digs into the tenuous connection that’s been open between them since they completed the first test, drawing it tight, igniting that urgency that had started to build leading up to the second test like it might kickstart the third and push straight through. He doesn’t know if it works, but something happens, going loose, uncontained.

Something smashes nearby – aimed at him? – and there’s heat near his face, searing, the glow of flames licking up the side of the house from another molotov. But he can’t stop.

Their jagged edges are slotting together, perfect counterparts, every strength and shortcoming going smooth with the other to create a whole. He can feel his dad, each member of Derek’s family – their pack – like the points of their own constellation, glowing brighter and brighter until the light is searing on the inside of his eyelids, a scream building in his chest—

And then it’s over. Done.

The sounds around them that had gone muted during the bonding come flooding back with full force: unintelligible shouting, smashing, screams.

A crack of thunder drowns it all out, echoing up from the house’s foundation, followed by a shockwave that launches outward. It blasts back the ring of mountain ash like the root of Jennifer’s spell holding it together was no stronger than feeble cobweb to be swept aside, every fire extinguished. The wave is so powerful, Stiles is expecting to get thrown off his feet, to see it level the surrounding trees. Instead, it’s only the hunters who end up flattened to the ground, silence reigning in the wake of the blast as the haze of mountain ash settles uselessly on the surrounding lawn.

Stiles’ legs give out, collapsing against Derek’s bare chest and starting to shiver uncontrollably as Derek lowers the two of them to their knees. He can just make out a blur leaping over them as he clutches at Derek’s warmth, and he tilts his head to look down the porch steps at where Peter has landed, tearing towards the hunters with his claws unsheathed.

“Stop,” Stiles tries to shout, but it comes out more breath than voice and there’s no way that Peter heard. He doesn’t believe for a second that Kate’s life counts as an innocent, but he’d rather not find out.

Derek understands Stiles’ urgency: if Peter’s eyes go blue, there will be no saving him. “Peter, stop!”

Peter skids to a halt just feet away, gnashing his fangs and pacing like a lion at the glass wall of an enclosure. He turns his head to look up at Derek, his eyes glowing gold in contrast to Derek’s blazing red. Behind him, Kate lifts her gun.

The shot rings out and Stiles tries to flatten himself by instinct, gasping, but the scream of pain that follows doesn’t belong to Peter. Stiles whips his head up, taking in the sight of Kate writhing on the floor clutching at her shoulder, of his dad descending the porch steps with his gun still raised and trained on Kate lying in the dirt. His gun safe is balanced on the porch railing.

Stiles sags in relief with an almost-sob, dropping his face to Derek’s neck, the world beyond his closed eyes spinning. He stays slumped there, realising his cheeks are wet but lacking the strength to do anything to wipe the tracks away.

There’s movement beside them, and Stiles manages to tilt his head enough and crack his eyes open to take in the sight of Joseph kneeling next to them.

“That was incredibly reckless,” he says.

“But it worked. Didn’t it?” Stiles doesn’t actually know what being bonded to a pack should feel like. Maybe the way he’s done it means their connection is weak, not good enough—

A smile is spreading across Joseph's face. He nods. “It did. Welcome to the family.” He pauses to squeeze Stiles’ shoulder and press a hard, proud kiss to Derek’s temple, then heads down the front steps towards Talia.

The two hunter-druids are lying motionless on the ground, but Stiles can tell it’s not from lack of trying. The house’s energy is heavy in the air like static, pinning them in place, and Stiles knows it would be doing the same for Kate if her injury wasn’t keeping her immobile. Blood is pulsing sluggishly from between her fingers, her grimace of gritted teeth a sight to behold.

His dad is standing nearby being drawn into an embrace by Peter. Peter is saying words that Stiles can’t hear, but he can make a guess going by the naked gratitude on his face. Caleb scampers down the porch steps followed by Malia against Elaine’s attempts to keep them in the house and away from the scene. They throw their arms around both Peter and his dad at once.

His dad makes eye contact with Stiles and he starts to smile; the two of them are connected now in a way they never have been before, this presence of each of them in the pack bond like being swathed in a fuzzy blanket.

Stiles tilts his head to look up at Derek who’s still cradling him. “Told you we were meant to be here.”

Derek puts a hand to the back of his head and leans down to kiss him.

Chapter Text

Derek ends up having to carry Stiles into the house to lay him on the sofa in the lounge, his legs too weak to stand on to help with the situation outside. Though there’s not a whole lot to be done. His dad manages to get in touch with Chris who it turns out is only an hour out from Beacon Hills, so all there is for them to do is wait for him to get there. If their fate had been left to him, he would have been too late.

It’s a chilling thought as he looks around at the pack members as they go in and out, the echo of that searing heat still warming the side of his face. Derek has assured him that while his cheek is a little red from his proximity, there’s no real burn.

Caleb is perched on Peter’s hip with a tearstained face, arms around his neck and still sniffling.

“It’s alright, all over now,” Peter is saying, repeating different variations as he rocks him from side to side, pressing a kiss to his temple.

They soon discover that Derek isn’t able to leave Stiles’ side. As soon as he retreats too far, Stiles starts to shiver uncontrollably, every inch of his skin turning sore and irritated with an invisible rash. It’s a side effect of the bonding, made a lot worse by having his energy put through something it wasn’t supposed to be. Only having Derek’s energy brushing against his is enough to alleviate it. He ends up sitting on the floor beside where Stiles is laying, clasping their hands together and rubbing the back of Stiles’ hand with his free one like the friction might help to warm him up.

His dad was looking at Kate’s wound when Stiles last saw him, and when he finally comes inside, he has blood on his hands which he heads straight to the bathroom to wash off before coming over to check on Stiles.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I went through one of those pasta makers. Twice.”

“I didn’t know it was even possible for a druid to do that.”

“Neither did I.”

His dad purses his lips at that reveal, but he doesn’t stay mad. After all, it had worked.

“I didn’t see you get your gun.”

“You can thank the house for that. Zapped it onto the porch railing right in front me.”

Stiles pats a hand against the sofa he’s laying on, scolding the house. “You could have restrained her from shooting Peter yourself.”

The house’s energy quivers like it’s smug, maybe even laughing.

“I’m glad it didn’t,” says Derek with satisfaction, and Stiles can’t help but agree.

At least with her injury inflicted by a gun, the Society will have no cause to investigate the Hales for violence. He’s so relieved he has a record of his phone call and text messages to Chris detailing his concerns, along with his and Joseph’s correspondence with the Board. He just hopes that all of that, added to Kate’s history with Derek, will tell them all they need to know.

“It’s an incredible thing, the house. It’s putting pressure on the wound for me,” his dad says, looking over his shoulder towards the door in the direction of Kate. “It didn’t feel right to ask anyone else.”

Stiles doesn’t think anyone else would have agreed, and he can’t blame them. “You make sure you put the pressure on good and hard,” he says to the house, patting the sofa once more.

A strangled yell from the lawn is like music to their ears. Stiles grins.

Derek’s expression remains sober, looking up at Stiles’ dad standing beside them. “Thank you,” he says, and his dad puts on his Sheriff-facing-the-public face, a reflex for him in situations like this.

“Just doing my—” But he cuts himself off, eyebrows drawing together in an almost-frown until his expression clears. He’s not a Sheriff; it’s not his job anymore. “It’s what pack does, right?”

Derek smiles. “Yeah.”

His dad holds out his hands, wiggling his fingers a little. “This is going to take a bit of getting used to,” he mutters to himself, shaking his head as he goes back outside.

“It’s back to how it should be,” Laura says, appearing over Derek’s shoulder and kneeling down to hug him from the side and kiss him on the cheek. “It’s weird that it’s you now and not mom though.”

It’s probably going to take all of them a while to get used to.

Laura heads after his dad and Stiles must doze off, because the next thing he knows, he’s got Derek leaning over him, nudging him awake.

“Chris is here.”

He tries to sit up but his arms have about as much support as noodles, and Derek ends up scooping him up to carry him outside, setting him on his feet at the bottom of the porch steps and draping one of Stiles’ arms around his neck to help hold up his weight.

Chris’ car is just rolling out of the trees when they get there and he doesn’t bother parking alongside the other cars. He leaves the driver’s side door open when he climbs out, racing round the car to his sister still prone on the ground.

“What happened?”

“I shot her,” his dad says without preamble from where he’s standing next to her. “She’ll be lucky if that arm has any mobility when it’s healed.”

Kate has some choice words for that.

“Play crazy games…” Stiles murmurs from his spot on the porch, and Derek pulls him closer with the arm around his waist, verging on a laugh.

“You can see the work of their molotovs,” his dad tells Chris, nodding towards the house.

“And here’s the mountain ash they sealed around the house to burn my family alive,” Joseph adds, producing a jar into which he must have syphoned all of the scattered ash at some point in the hour since the attack.

Chris silently eyes the jar and then the damage to the house, and Stiles thinks he can almost see the gears working, whirring, wishing this evidence he’s been presented with could be interpreted any other way. That his sister didn’t really just try to murder a family of twelve people. But there’s no other conclusion.

He turns back to his sister, pale from loss of blood, but showing no remorse if the fire in her eyes is anything to go by.

“I’ll let the council deal with you.”

“You know exactly what they did,” she seethes through gritted teeth.

“No. I don’t.”

“He murdered—”

“Mercy isn’t murder. You didn’t see—” He stops to shake his head; Kate will never hear it no matter what he says.

Any other words Kate might have are cut off despite her moving mouth, the house having a hand in finally gagging her.

Chris rises to his feet, a professional mask closing over his face. “If someone could help me get them into the car, I’ll take them off your hands.”

“I’ll do it,” Derek volunteers, and Cora is there to support Stiles in his absence.

He heads straight for Kate and slings her over his shoulder, the house keeping her motionless as she dangles like a rag doll. Stiles wonders how he can stand to touch her, but then he thinks about how Derek hadn’t been looking forward to turning himself in and he knows this is Derek’s last laugh. Toss her into the car like discarded trash, victorious, as she’s driven away to her punishment. Talia and Laura carry the other two, treated with as much care as Derek shows to Kate.

In Derek’s absence, Stiles’ shivering comes back in full force, his teeth starting to chatter no matter how hard he tries to clench his jaw.

“It will pass,” Joseph assures him, moving closer to rub a hand over his back to try and warm him up until Derek returns to his side to take him from Cora.

Stiles’ energy reaches out for him immediately, tangling around him like octopus tentacles, and Derek’s pleased smile is as warm as his energy feels brushing up against his.

“You’ll get my statement from the Board,” Stiles says to Chris as he’s heading back to his car.

Chris nods. He pauses with one foot inside, looking at Stiles and Derek curled together. “Congratulations on your bonding.”

“Thanks.”

With one last look, he climbs in the car, turns it around, and then they’re gone. If it weren’t for the lasting damage to the house, it would be like they never were.

“Yeah, the two of you really need to shower,” Cora announces out of the blue.

It takes Stiles a moment to understand what she’s talking about, thinking she means because of the smell of lingering smoke until he remembers everything that happened in Derek’s room a couple of hours ago. He grins into Derek’s chest, hiding his face.

“Come on,” Derek says into his ear as he pats him on the back, voice tinged with laughter. He scoops Stiles up to carry him into the house.

Elaine has taken up residence in the armchair in the lounge with Caleb snuggled under one arm and Malia the other, both asleep. She looks as fierce as a guard dog sitting there watching over them despite the distress and exhaustion weighing under her eyes. Her tightened arms say she won’t be willing to part from them for a good while yet.

Derek carries him up the stairs a good deal differently to how they’d made their ascent earlier, taking him to the bathroom on their floor. He helps Stiles in the shower to wash off the smoke and sweat and any evidence of their earlier activities, swathing him in a big fluffy towel once they’re done and using another to ruffle his hair. The house has materialised their underwear for them, and Derek carries him along the hall once they’re dressed. Derek skids to a halt in the middle of the hallway outside their rooms, and it takes Stiles a second to realise why.

There’s only one door.

Derek gives him a look and then throws it open, revealing his room has expanded a little in size to account for the addition of Stiles’ wardrobe and antique writing desk, his suitcase poking out from the foot of the bed.

“Hey,” Derek calls, thumping the door frame a couple of times with the side of his fist. “You can’t just do that without asking.”

The house creaks at him.

“It’ll do for now,” Stiles says, head lolling onto Derek’s shoulder as he finally reaches the end of his energy reserves.

Derek purses his lips up at the ceiling but doesn’t argue, carrying Stiles into the room to lay him on the bed. He spirals into unconsciousness as soon as his head hits the pillow, going under to the sensation of fingertips against his cheek.

Chapter Text

For the next few days, he and Derek are inseparable. He spends most of the first day in Derek’s bed – it’s still way too soon to think of it as ‘theirs’ no matter what the house might have to say about it – bundled up in the sheets together despite the summer weather. Derek even turns into a wolf a couple of times, making Stiles groan in delight as he burrows into his warmth.

He calls his supervisor at the Board, filling her in on the events of the day before which they've already heard about and to relay the news of his bonding. They’re all fascinated by the absence of the third test, so much so that Stiles knows it won’t be the last he hears of it, and she says to keep them updated with his symptoms in case of any adverse effects. Derek brings him his laptop after so he can submit an official report, bypassing the one he usually would have given after the third test.

He only heads downstairs when it’s time for dinner so he can spend some time with everyone, but ends up passed out before even the kids’ bedtimes.

The shivering and soreness last for a few more days, slowly subsiding, but he at least gains enough strength to go down and join the rest of the pack on his own. The aftereffects last longer than Joseph expected, but considering he forced the bonding through when it wasn’t yet time, they’re not too surprised or worried.

The news of what happened has spread amongst werewolf packs far and wide, and not only those the Hales are allied with. Even with packs they’ve never met, the Hales are well-respected, and the fact that something so sinister almost happened to them when they’ve had no serious brushes with hunters prior to this has sparked fear in all werewolf communities. If the Society doesn’t handle this the right way, who knows what sort of revolt they might have on their hands.

The truth of why Kate chose to target the Hales now is still unknown to everyone outside their small number, portrayed instead as Kate wanting revenge for a past altercation during this transition phase when Derek was at his most vulnerable. With the reputation that Kate’s set up for herself over the years, no one questions it.

He hears from his contacts at the Board that Kate and her accomplices are imprisoned awaiting a trial before the Council, and things aren’t looking good for them. He’s sure he’ll be called on in time as a witness and he won’t hesitate to give evidence.

While Stiles was laid up, Joseph and Jordan supplied the house with fresh timber which it zapped up to immediately restore its facade after the fire damage, combined with any other materials it was already storing. It looks as good as new, as Stiles discovers after going to inspect the damage one day after spending the afternoon on the lawn in the sun, leaning against a wolfy Derek.

He has a feeling that he’d be in much worse a state if it wasn’t for the house. The support it had extended beneath him when he first arrived now envelops him, like it’s feeding him its energy to keep him upright, keep the true exhaustion at bay. He doesn’t tell anyone else, but he’s starting to understand that what he’d done had been a hell of a lot more dangerous than he’d realised. Though he thinks the others might sense it on some level, and Joseph must have some idea. While he’s recovering, they refuse to even let him expend energy lifting a glass to his lips. It’s a wonder that Derek lets him go to the toilet by himself.

He’s only too happy to let Derek get his hands on him again though, particularly when they’re in the privacy of Derek’s room. There’s a bit of hesitation there still, like they’re still learning how familiar they can be and wondering if they’re going too far too fast, but it’s hard to refrain when he’s in a state where it’s only Derek’s touch that can alleviate his symptoms and makes him feel so good.

“How are you feeling?” Stiles asks him at one point during his recovery, the two of them lounging outside and enjoying some leftover pastries that Cora brought home after work yesterday. They’re from the bakery Laura had pointed out to Stiles and his dad when they went into town what feels like months ago. They’re just as good as promised.

“Like something was missing all this time and I didn’t realise it until now. My mom’s not the type of person to say I-told-you-so, but I guess this would be the moment.” He looks out at the sun-dappled lawn, shaking his head. “I had no idea it could feel like this. That this is what it was supposed to be.”

No longer does he drift into the background or stand with his back to a corner with nothing to say for himself. Instead, he’s in the thick of it, like being an Alpha is what he was always meant for, just like Laura said they always knew he could be. It might not have been the circumstances or timing that they’d all pictured, but Stiles believes this was always going to happen at some point.

“It doesn't mean I like the way everything has changed,” Derek says quietly, his eyes gone far away,  remembering a place he can never return to. He comes back to himself to look at Stiles, his expression lightening. “I like having you here though.”

Stiles wishes he could send Derek back, but they both know he could only have one thing or the other. If Talia were still Alpha, they’d have no need of Stiles as an Emissary. He just hopes, in time, that Derek will grow to cherish this new normal as much as he does the old.

They’re just starting to talk about arranging for Stiles and his dad to box up their things from back home and sort out selling the place so they can move in permanently. It’s going to be a process, but Stiles doesn’t feel any apprehension, and neither does his dad. They’ve found exactly where they’re supposed to be.

Derek is eager to come with them to see where Stiles grew up and he doesn’t seem to want to part from Stiles yet. They’ve taken to sleeping together in Derek’s bed like they’ve been doing it for months, and Stiles always wakes to find that, no matter how Derek has fallen asleep, he’ll always have one hand reaching for him, even after the effects of the forced bonding have faded entirely.

Derek does tell him he’ll insist the house gives Stiles a room back so he can have some privacy whenever he wants it.

“There’s no rush,” Stiles assures him, bouncing in the comfort of Derek’s bed. A second meaning in Derek’s words hits him and he freezes, his humour turning to panic. “Unless you want me out, then—”

Derek silences him with a kiss before he can try to get up. “I think I like you—” Kiss. “—right—” Kiss. “—here,” he murmurs and Stiles grins up at him.

He reaches up to cup his cheeks, marvelling at this soft little smile that had been hiding under such a stony exterior when he’d first got here, when Derek had been so eager to see him leave.

“Careful. You’ll never be able to get rid of me,” he says, and Derek fondly rolls his eyes.

“That’s the plan,” he whispers, and Stiles can’t believe how much things have changed.