Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This has got to be one of the worst weeks of Derek’s life. The worst is probably still the whole ‘whole family burning to death’ thing, but Stiles can’t help but think that his sister being murdered and then being accused of killing her has got to be up there. Stiles felt bad, how could he not. Standing there at the edge of the woods outside the Hale house Stiles had watched his dad shove Derek into the backseat of his cruiser. Scott was smug about the whole thing, smiling to himself as if he had just saved the day, but there’s a weird tugging in his chest that just doesn’t feel right even as Scott jovially pats him on the shoulder before leaving. Stiles wasn’t quite sure how much time had passed, but it had been long enough for Scott’s bike to fade from earshot and all the police to be scattered around the house instead of watching the car, so Stiles makes an impulse decision. As always.

“Derek!”

Stiles’ entrance into the cop car was not the most graceful, it involved a lot of flailing and bumping as he tried to sit and spin around to face the back all at once, but he managed. If it had been Scott in the back he probably would have gotten a chuckle for his struggles, but Derek barely even blinked. Instead the man stared blankly through the metal bars, a faint glare on his face.

“Okay, don’t talk to me then. That’s fine, we may have jumped the gun a little bit calling the cops but come on dude, there was a body buried in your backyard” Stiles felt himself growing more and more flustered as his eyes tried to avoid Derek’s intense, unwavering eye contact. 

“If you guys had listened to me from the start we could have avoided all this,” Derek growled, voice deep in a way that was inhuman. 

It sent a bit of a tingle up Stiles’ spine, but he totally could not focus on that right now, “We?! Who’s we? I wanted to listen to you from the start but Scott wasn’t into it. Thought your whole ‘standing in the woods staring at teenagers thing from a distance’ thing was creepy or whatever. So really this is your fault for being so weird and antisocial.”

“I am not antisocial”

“I may not be a werewolf but even I can tell that’s a lie. Come on Derek.”

Stiles’ words seemed to stop Derek in his tracks, “How do you know werewolves can hear when you’re lying?” His glare shifted into something suspicious.

“I read!” Stiles exclaimed with an exasperated sigh, “Who do you think figured out that Scott was a werewolf in the first place? You didn’t actually think he figured it out on his own did you?”

Derek huffed, crossing his arms and looking away. Clearly he did. But at least his suspicious look had relaxed back into his regular glare. 

Derek’s refusal to engage paired with Stiles’ awkward sense of guilt left the car quiet for a moment, the energy shifting in an almost dramatic way. 

“You didn’t kill her, did you?” Stiles knew that was the wrong thing to ask as soon as it came out of his mouth, but by that point it was too late. The words were out there already and despite how much he might desperately want to grab the words out of the air and shove them back into his mouth, Derek’s head slowly turning towards him, eyes wide, show that the words have already met their target. As much as he knew it was a shitty thing to ask, he also kind of just needed the verbal confirmation of something he was pretty sure he already knew the answer to in order to soothe his nerves that haven’t seen a day of peace… probably ever but especially since this whole werewolf thing appeared. 

Derek didn’t look mad. Stiles was mentally preparing himself for Derek to growl, snarl, yell, all of the regular ‘Angry Derek’ things, but he didn’t seem to be mad. His eyes were wide but his brows weren’t furrowed like usual. He looked… soft, vulnerable even. At that moment in the car Derek looked his age for the first time since Stiles had met him, he looked every bit the scared 19 year old that he was and not like the confident 25 year old he tried to be. “Do you think I killed her?”

Sitting there in that car, staring into Derek’s eyes while being face to face with probably the most emotion Derek had openly showed to another living person since coming back to Beacon Hills, Stiles realized that he hated that look. He hated the way it looked like Derek was waiting for him to say yes, hated how broken he looked. He would have done anything to make it go away, but he figured the truth was probably the best in this case, “I know you didn’t. I shouldn’t have asked that”

Stiles’ heart stumbles over itself at the shocked look Derek gives him, he’s sure Derek heard it too by the way his eyes dart down to Stiles’ chest before jumping back to his face. Stiles needed to get out of that car, but he couldn’t just leave Derek here… 

“Hold on, let me handle this.”

His words seemed to snap Derek out of whatever stupor he had been in, face reverting back to the bitchy expression he had been wearing all week, “You handling it is what got me in her- Stiles! Come back. Sti-”

The car door slamming sent Derek’s words fading into the background, Stiles’ human ears still picking up Derek’s muffled words but he chose to ignore it. 

“Dad, Dad!” Stiles scrambled towards the steps of the house where the Sheriff was exiting towards the car, “Dad! You have to let Derek go.”

“Stiles,” The Sheriff sighed, every time he said Stiles’ name that day he sounded a little more tired, “We can’t just let Derek go, he’s a suspect.” 

“Well he totally shouldn’t be,” Stiles blindly walked backwards towards the car, hoping his presence will slow down his dad a bit, “because he didn’t kill her. This is so not his faul- oof”

The sheriff let out a dry chuckle as Stiles’ back collided with the driver side door of the cruiser, Derek Hale’s frown from the back seat just adding to the environment, “Stiles, you and Scott are the ones that called us and told us to come here. We found a body buried here and we know this is where he’s been staying.”

“I know, I know! But we were wrong and it’s not his fault!”

“Don’t listen to him Sheriff, just take me in.” Derek’s voice was still muffled through the door, but clear enough to be heard and understood, even with Stiles still speaking. 

The Sheriff raised his eyebrows as Stiles spun around to begin arguing with Derek through the glass window. There was a headache slowly brewing as he listened to them bicker. 

“What the hell dude, I told you to let me handle this!”

“And I told you to leave it alone.”

“You so didn’t!”

“This is my fault, just let them take me Stiles.”

“BRO that is SO NOT HELPING THE SITUATION”

“The situation YOU GOT ME INTO”

“ I got YOU into??? I got y-”

“Boys!” Finally the bickering got to be too much for the Sheriff, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. At his exclamation both Stiles and Derek’s mouths shut and eyes darted over to him, “Stiles, whether or not you were wrong we have still already arrested Derek, I can’t just let him go now.”

Stiles’ shoulders slumped at his dad’s words, head dropping in defeat.

“That being said, I know he didn’t kill Laura.”

Both boys' attention snapped back to the Sheriff, eyes wide in shock. 

The Sheriff sighed, realizing how long the rest of the day was about to be, “Get in the car Stiles, I’ll bring you back for the jeep later. Let’s all go down to the station and I’ll explain.”

Chapter Text

When Derek had been arrested he had expected an interrogation, probably some verbal abuse before being thrown in a cell to rot for the rest of his life. He had not been expecting gangly Stiles to fumble his way into the cop car, tell him he believes that Derek didn’t kill Laura, then try to convince his dad to just… let Derek free. He hadn’t been expecting the flutter of his heart when Stiles’ wide brown eyes met his own, nor the surge of emotion that had filled him when Stiles asked if he killed Laura. For a brief moment there, sitting in the back of that cop car staring through the bars at Stiles as he told Derek he believed him, Derek felt the warmest he had felt in years. 

He certainly had not been expecting the Sheriff to take him and Stiles back to the station and explain to them that he already knew about the Hales. Or for him to send Stiles and Derek back to the Hale house to get Derek’s things because “that place is a health hazard, we have a guest bedroom you can stay in.”

It was a very nice guest bedroom, for the record. It smelled empty, like no one had been inside it for a very long time, but the scents of Stiles and the Sheriff drifted in from the open doorway. He could hear Stiles in his room typing at his computer, only the thin wall separating the two. The idea sent a tingle through Derek’s senses, his wolf bouncing happily in the back of his mind. Despite his wolf’s contentment, Derek couldn’t help but feel uneasy about the whole situation. He had been stewing in his discomfort since the station, but now with the Sheriff still at work he had a chance to learn the truth. 

The walk from his room to Stiles was short, especially as Derek walked in long strides. Stiles, of course, nearly jumped out of his desk chair with a yelp. 

“Dude, don’t you knock! What if I had been watching porn or something?!”

Derek put on his best bitchy face, lightly glaring at Stiles, “If you were watching porn I would have been able to hear it from the other room”

“Oh,” Stiles’ face flushed as his eyes darted away from Derek’s face, “I forgot about your werewolf super hearing… I’ll have to keep that in mind…”

As much as the masturbation habits of Stiles brought back that warm tingly feeling from earlier, Derek rolled his eyes with a sigh. He had bigger concerns at the moment. “Why did you try to help me?”

“Uh, duh dude. Because you were innocent. I told you that already” Stiles had turned back to his computer, his keyboard filling the room with soft clicks.

“Why”

“Was that a question or a statement, Derek? You know, you really have to get better at intonation.”

“ Why ” Derek’s voice stayed just as flat as ever, though this time he spoke in a deep growl.

Stiles sighed, once again turning away from his computer so he could face Derek, “Okay fine, Derek. I don’t know. Happy now?” Stiles ran his hand over his buzz cut, the texture soothing his fingertips, “I just saw you sitting in the car and something in the back of my mind told me it was wrong.”

As Stiles continued speaking, his eyes shifted off with a far away look, as if he were transported back into that moment. His words, however, had left Derek rooted to the floor.

“What?” His voice was small, Derek hadn’t intended it to be that small, that vulnerable. 

Derek’s question seemed to bring Stiles back to the present, causing the teenager to jump to his feet when he saw the look on Derek’s face. 

“What? Derek? Stop looking like that, your whole kicked puppy thing you have going on right now is seriously making me nervous dude,” Stiles approached Derek, where he still stood frozen in the middle of the room, raising his hand to snap in front of Derek’s face hoping to bring him out of his stupor. Instead all he got was a glare and Derek’s hand gripping his arm. His warm… very large hand. 

Stiles felt light headed as he stared into Derek’s eyes, his touch seemingly burning his wrist. Oh Stiles was a terrible person, this was such a bad situation to get turned on in. But he just couldn’t help it, Derek’s eyes were so intense and his hands were so big and he was just an objectively handsome man. Of course Stiles had looked , who would blame him. Derek was like 6 feet of pure muscle wrapped up in his leather jacket and now he was holding Stiles’ arm.

Derek, meanwhile, had snapped out of his surprise and was now attempting to ignore the smell of arousal now coming off of Stiles. He was not doing a very good job of it, but he also had no room to talk on the matter. He was sure that if Stiles had the nose of a werewolf he would be able to smell the faint traces of Derek’s own arousal. No one could blame him, between Stiles’ big doe eyes and the striking way his moles contrasted against his creamy skin. Anyone would look , but Derek forced himself to pull himself together, there were bigger priorities. “Stiles, you do a lot of werewolf research?”

“Wow, would you look at that, intonation. Maybe someone actually listens to me after all.”

“Stiles” Derek growled, his hand never leaving Stiles’ arm though it was no longer in the air.

“Okay okay, yes. Yes, I do a lot of werewolf research. Someone had to figure out how to be a werewolf for Scott.”

“Did you come across anything about mates?”

Stiles didn’t answer, instead he just stared at Derek in surprise, mouth dropped open. 

“Well if you figure it out, come talk to me.” Derek took a step back, hand dropping from Stiles’ wrist. He was gone almost as quickly as he had arrived, quickly retreating to his new bedroom. 

Part of Stiles wanted to go chasing after Derek and demand answers, but he knew he would never get them if he just asked. A small voice in the back of his mind shouted about rouge killer werewolves terrorizing the town, but Stiles chose to ignore that voice and instead threw himself into his desk chair so hard it nearly toppled over. He had a lot of googling to do.

Chapter Text

“Stiles, have you slept at all?”

Once again Stiles was practically tumbling out of his chair in surprise, this time at his father’s hand grasping his shoulder seemingly out of the blue. 

“Jesus! Don't do that, are you trying to give me a heart attack? Not cool!” Stiles took some harsh breaths in an attempt to slow down his heart rate, head dramatically thrown back with his hands clutching his chest. 

The sheriff just watched him blankly, thought there was a hint of amusement in his eyes, “Stiles, it’s 7am and no offense kid, but you look terrible. Don’t you have school today?”

Stiles glanced at his computer’s clock as he attempted to smooth down his wrinkled clothing, he had been in quite the google rabbit hole, “I don’t need to leave for another hour, it’s fine”

“Stiles, why are you googling mating rituals?” The Sheriff had moved to look over Stiles’ shoulder, now looking at his kid with a judgmental eyebrow raise.

“Shhhhasahagp-” Stiles quickly shushed his dad, quickly devolving into general sputtering as he glanced at the wall he and Derek now share, a blush heating up his cheeks at the thought of Derek overhearing this conversation.

This action, however, did not seem to make the judgement leave his father’s face, “If this is about Derek, he left 20 minutes ago. Is this about Derek?”

“Oh my god, Dad! Maybe I’m just curious, did you ever consider that? I should have a full, well rounded education when it comes to everything werewolves, you know… for Scott?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Telling?”

“Stiles….”

The Sheriff’s stern, still so judgmental tone, had Stiles groaning as he scrubbed his hands over his eyes. Like the talk, this was one conversation he never wanted to have with his father, it felt far too awkward. At least his dad’s sex ed talk was far shorter than Melissas, that had been a particularly grueling afternoon for both him and Scott… and probably Melissa too. “Okay, okay, FINE! Twist my arm why don’t you,” Stiles sighed, spinning his chair towards his desk rather than continue making eye contact with his father, “This may have something to do with Derek.”

“I thought you were in love with the Martin girl. 10 step plan or 10 year plan, you had some kind of plan?”

“Yes, yes. My 10 year plan to get Lydia to fall in love with me. I haven’t given that up, it’s just… paused. I’m figuring some stuff out.”

The Sheriff sunk down onto Stiles' bed, rubbing his hands over his eyes, “So you’re not in love with Lydia anymore?”

“I did not say that.”

“And you’re in love with Derek now?”

“I didn’t say that either. I’m figuring things out, I just said that.” Stiles spun back around, secretly praying to whoever is up there that Derek wouldn’t suddenly reappear in the middle of this conversation. When his dad remained silent, only looking at him expectantly, Stiles sighed and decided to give up some more insight, “Alright, since you insist you now are going to hear more than you probably wanted. I like women, Lydia specifically. I also… sometimes like guys. Guys like Derek. Or Derek specifically, I’m not too sure about other guys yet. Hence the whole figuring out stuff thing. And Derek told me to research mates so… here I am, researching werewolf mates. Oh, I guess it’s really not as complicated as I thought it was.”

“Do you want to talk about the liking guys thing now or once you finish figuring it out?” The Sheriff rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward, clearly invested in this conversation now.

“After. Definitely after.”

“Got it…” 

Stiles almost felt bad, his dad looked a bit overwhelmed with information. But really it was the man’s own fault for asking.

“Derek…” The Sheriff looked like he would rather be anywhere other than where he was, but managed to muscle through, “Derek mentioned mates to you. Why?”

The blush that suddenly appeared across Stiles’ face made his whole body heat up a bit in embarrassment. It was a very innocent conversation, it shouldn’t be something he was embarrassed about, but it felt… intimate. “Yesterday he- he asked me why I defended him-”

“After you got him in that situation?”

“Whoa, whose turn is it to talk right now? And that is so not the point! The point is that he asked why I defended him, why I thought he was innocent. I told him it was just kind of a gut feeling, like I just knew. Then he - very ominously, by the way - told me to research mates and left. That’s how we got here.”

The room fell silent as The Sheriff seemed to have some sort of revelation, though he didn’t share his discovery with Stiles. As the silence wore on, Stiles found a question that had been rolling around in his mind since yesterday once again coming to the surface.

“Dad? Can I ask you something?”

“Of course you can, son.”

Stiles wrung his hands, eyes fixed firmly at his hands rather than at his father - though he’s not sure what he’s afraid to see, “If you knew about werewolves and the Hales then why…”

“Why wasn’t there an investigation?” His father finishes his sentence, sounding just as worn out as Stiles was feeling, “I wasn’t sheriff at the time so I didn’t know everything. It wasn’t until I became the sheriff a few years later that I was filled in about the werewolves. I still tried to push for an investigation but was always shut down, first by the former sheriff and then by the mayor once I became sheriff. Your mother had just died and I couldn’t risk losing my job, we needed the money so I stopped pushing,” The Sheriff sounded more defeated than Stiles had ever heard before, “I wish I could have done more, I think about it all the time. I should have done more.”

Stiles wasn’t sure what to say to that, the room falling into a somber silence as the two felt the weight of The Sheriff’s confession. He thought back to the time around his mother’s death and the Hale fire, The Sheriff had been… stressed, to say the least. Stiles had vivid memories of his father returning home from work, defeated and on the verge of tears only to attempt to drown his own thoughts in copious amounts of whiskey. It had been a rough couple of years, but Stiles never considered how the Hale fire may have contributed. He didn’t blame his dad, but he shared the sentiment of wishing he had done more. What would their life look like now if The Sheriff kept pushing, would he even be sheriff? What about Derek’s life? Or Laura's? Stiles had to stop and forcefully drag himself out of all the best and worst case scenarios it was cooking up, instead focusing back on the present. 

Suddenly, an idea had him perking up, “Do you still have the files?”

His father eyed him warily, “Officially, no. They were lost by the police station a number of years ago.”

Stiles deflated, only for his father to continue speaking, “Unofficially though… there may have been a copy of the files made by the head deputy at the time and stored separately.”

“You have a secret copy of the files? No way, can I see them?” 

“Maybe someday, I’m not sure Derek would want to be around a reminder like that right now. Besides, you’re going to be late to school if you don’t get moving right now.” The Sheriff stood from the bed, lightly thumping Stiles on the top of his head as the teenager spun to look at his computer clock again. He moved to the door, pausing for a moment before turning to address his son, who was now frantically throwing things into his backpack, “Son? Good luck with your research and figuring stuff out, but remember you can talk to me about everything, okay?”

“Yeah dad, of course.”

“Good,” The Sheriff leave the room, only to poke his head back in a few seconds later, “And just know that if Derek ever hurts you no one’ll be able to find his body. Believe me, we will be talking more about this later.”

“Dad!” Stiles didn’t even have the time to unpack that sentence as he scrambled to throw on a clean shirt and get out the door, but later while sitting in homeroom Scott would have many questions about why he couldn’t stop blushing.