Chapter Text
Stiles woke up the next day feeling lighter, stronger, despite the fact that he had spent half the night talking strategy with Derek. It was like all this time there had been a weight crushing him down and suddenly someone had come and taken some of the burden off of him.
The phone buzz with a text from Scott. Hey, want to hang out at my house and Mario Kart? I feel like we haven’t done that in a while.
Stiles squinted down at the text. It was true; they hadn’t played video games or watched a movie or done anything they used to do since Stiles turned that fateful Friday night. The invitation was really convenient too, considering that Stiles was about to invite Scott over for some Saturday morning brunch and to give him the rundown.
He texted back. Sure, be over in a bit.
When Stiles got to the McCall house, Scott greeted him with a hug and a plate of tamales. “Dude, how’re you feeling? Were you sick with some superbug?”
“Better,” Stiles said. He settled down in front of the TV as Scott set up the game. “Just needed a day off to recover from all the training sessions.”
Scott nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I mean I’ve learned a lot, but they’re a little nuts. Peter seems to really have it out for you too.”
“Yup,” Stiles said, trying to find a good way to transition into the whole ‘let’s topple Peter’ thing. Scott was clearly distracted too. He ended up choosing Luigi as a character even though he’s chosen Yoshi every time they’ve played. For a while, the only sounds in the room were the game music and the character sound effects.
“Derek and I are trying to get rid of Peter--” “Allison says hunters are going to attack on the full moon--”
Stiles and Scott turned to each other. Both of their characters fell off the Rainbow Road. “What?” they said in unison.
“You first,” Scott said, pausing the game. Stiles gave him a quick summary of the conversation he had with Peter, and then the meeting with Derek in his room, and finally the phone call.
“We’ve mostly been tossing around ideas,” Stiles admits. “We don’t really have a concrete plan yet.”
“Dude, this is awesome! Allison can totally help you with this.”
“Allison? Like hunter-in-training Allison. Family out to kill us all Allison?” Stiles said, raising an eyebrow.
Scott’s face went red. “Uh, we’ve kept in contact. She can’t talk to me at school because her grandpa is always watching her, but we text and skype sometimes. Gerard is nuts. He’s been making Allison go through really intense training, and he’s sort of taken over her home. Even her parents want him gone. But he’s not going anywhere until Peter is dead. Gerard’s planning a big attack on the den on the night of the full moon. Allison’s been hoping that will be the end of everything, but if you guys team up and take Peter out before then, then everything will be solved.”
Stiles highly doubted that Gerard would be satisfied with just killing Peter, but the idea of working with Allison was an interesting one. Derek wasn’t going to like this though. “Can you talk to Allison about this and see what she thinks?”
As it turned out Allison was all for the idea. “I have to convince my dad though,” she said. “He’s the one driving me everywhere now. I can’t sneak behind his behind his back anymore.”
Stiles pursed his lips. Allison was bad enough, but now Chris. Derek was not going to like this.
“What the fuck Stiles.” And indeed he did not. “When we talked about finding allies, this is not what I meant.”
“We need them though,” Stiles protested, tucking the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he washed vegetables in the sink. He would have liked to have this conversation in person, but the Sheriff had insisted on having a family dinner tonight, just the two of them. Stiles suspected that his dad felt guilty for being away on so many night shifts, even though it saved Stiles the trouble of having to lie about why he was always going out at night. “You said so yourself. It’s going to be hard to fight Peter because he can just use his alpha powers to get you to submit.”
“But they’re Argents,” Derek protested. “They literally train to kill us.”
“If you don’t want them involved in taking down Peter? Fine. Then think of this meeting as a set-up for the future in which you become alpha. It’s not like the Argents are just going to leave once this is over. You need to come up with a treaty or something or else we’re back to constantly looking over our shoulders.”
“I’ll think about it,” Derek finally grumbled.
The front door opened. “I gotta go, text you later.” Stiles ended the call and turned to greet his dad.
...
In the end, the meeting ended up taking place Monday afternoon at an IHop thirty minutes away. Stiles drove Scott and Derek in his jeep. By the time they arrived, Allison and her father were already sitting at the booth.
“What can I get for you today?” the waitress said cheerily.
“I’ll have the full stack Buttermilk Pancakes,” Stiles said, looking through the menu. Both Chris and Derek stopped glaring at each other to glare at him. “Hey, no one is going to believe we actually went to IHop to have pancakes unless we come back smelling of maple syrup and too many calories. I’m doing us all a favor.”
“I’d like a banana nutella crepe,” Allison said shyly. In the end, Stiles got his pancakes, Allison got her crepe, Scott ordered chicken and waffles, Chris had a pot of coffee, and Derek stuck with water.
“Okay let’s started,” Stiles said once the waitress left their table, reaching for his backpack.
“What’s your angle? What are you getting out of this?” the werewolf cut in, growing at Chris and Allison. Stiles facefalmed.
“You mean other than getting a monster that’s killed five people and bitten six in the past three months?”
“Yes.”
Chris sat in stony silence. “The hunters have basically set up camp in our house,” Allison said after swallowing a forkful of crepe. Alarm flashed across Chris’s face as Allison blithely gave away that tactically important tidbit. “I’m tired of feeling like I’m at war all the time. I miss having friends over and going to friends’ houses. I want some of my old life back.”
“Most of the hunters will leave once Peter is dead and I’ve demonstrated that I have control over the area again,” Chris said reluctantly.
“Most?” Stiles said. “What about Old Man Argent? Doesn’t seem like the type to just pack up and go when the job is mostly done.
“My father will probably stay,” Chris admitted. “I will grant that my father is a little extreme in his views--”
“He’s insane,” Allison said bluntly. “He’s been torturing and dismembering any lone wolf he comes across. He said the only reason why he hasn’t really gone after anyone in Peter’s pack is because he couldn’t afford the attention it would cause if a whole bunch of kids died or disappeared. He’s planning on wiping out the entire pack on the full moon and disappearing.”
“We want Gerard out of our lives. And at this point the only way to do that is to jail him.”
Or kill him , Stiles added to himself. That was a backup plan that no one had to know about. “And you want our help with that.”
Chris nodded. “A lot of the proof we already have is either circumstantial, inadmissable, or incriminates my family along with him. We need help getting hard evidence.” The hunter looked at Derek. “Do we have a deal?”
Derek grimaced, clearly not liking this. Finally, he nodded. “Cool,” Stiles said, pulling out his notebook and pen before anyone could say another word. “Now onto let’s figure out how we’re going to take down Peter.”
...
Derek combed through the training room, replacing shredded gym mats with new ones, trying unsuccessfully to clamp down on his nervousness. Tonight was the full moon, the hunter attack, and his attempt to overthrow Peter. Derek still wasn’t sure how he got talked into this plan.
“That’s...not a terrible idea,” Chris said when Scott proposed it. “It’s risky. But Gerard won’t be bringing in many hunters since most of them have been called away to deal with another pack up north.”
“No, too many of the betas are too uncontrollable during the full moon. That includes you, Scott,” Derek said. “I can’t try to control betas, fend off hunters, and try to beat Peter all at the same time. We need to think of something else.”
But thirty minutes of brainstorming later, it was clear that this was the only plan wherein they had all the information and stood a chance in hell of succeeding. Derek despaired.
“We’re really spending the full moon in this place?” Jackson asked as the rest of the teenagers entered.
“Yup,” Derek said, lugging over two coolers filled with sandwiches and waters and, at the very bottom, smog masks. He started handing out the food. “Eat up.”
Once everyone had gotten what they wanted and had settled down to eat, Derek went over sit down next to Stiles. “Scott and I got Isaac to agree to help us,” Stiles said, rubbing the torn fabric wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet. It smelled strongly of the Sheriff. Since Stiles had difficulty focusing on his anchor, they figured having a constant reminder might work better. Today would be the big test.
Derek leaned into Stiles, trying to appear casual in case anyone was watching. “If anything goes wrong, I want you to back off and run away,” he whispered. “Don’t try to take it all on yourself.”
Stiles turned his head and his lips quirked up. Suddenly Derek was aware of how close their faces were. Stiles slowly lifted his hand and set it loosely on top of Derek’s. “I feel like I should be the one telling you not to play the hero.”
Hesitantly, Derek turned his hand palm-upward. Their fingers laced together.
...
Chris stared as Victoria pulled on a bullet-proof vest. “You’re going?”
“Of course,” Victoria said, strapping a handgun holster to her thigh. “Someone has to watch your back.” She moved in fiddle with the buckle on his own vest. “Besides, you’re going to need backup,” she whispered.
“What are you talking about?” Chris hissed back.
Victoria took a step back and took out his phone. She typed something into the passcode screen before tossing it to Chris. He caught it and looked down. She’d opened his phone to the message thread between him and Stiles discussing the fine details of the plan. “Maybe change your passcode to something other Allison’s birthday,” Victoria said, raising one eyebrow.
Chris opened his mouth to say something...and realized he couldn’t think of anything to say. At that moment Gerard called everyone to start packing into the car. Allison came up to them, equipped with her bow and a quiver full of wolfsbane tipped arrows. Her dark curly hair was up in a high ponytail, and she looked determined. Chris’s heart clenched with pride and sadness. He’d never wanted her to live in this world, but at least she seemed ready to take it by storm.
The ride to the werewolf apartment building was a rowdy one. In addition to the Argents, there were four other hunters who’d decided to come with. Most of the hunters who had initially answered Gerard’s call to arms had left to respond to a more urgent incident concerning the Alpha pack and a entire town of innocent civilians. The ones left were two brothers, both so green that Chris would bet his house that they’d never seen a werewolf in person, a (not very competent) mercenary, and a werewolf-hating fanatic. They spent most of the ride boasting about their unproven skill or describing in grisly detail the ways they were going to kill a bunch of teenagers. It was times in which Chris started to question his life choices.
They parked the cars about a block away from the building itself and quietly started to unload. One hunter carried a heavy duty vaporizer along with a large bag of wolfsbane and disappeared around the corner of the building. “Allison,” Gerard said, pointing to the building across the street. The back door is unlocked. I want you to climb to the room and snipe any wolf that tries to escape through the windows.” Allison nodded and walked off.
A couple minutes later the hunter returned, panting that he had done as Gerard instructed and placed the vaporizer in the air vent. “Good. Everyone put on your mask.”
Chris strapped his air filter mask to his face. The seven of them lined up outside the front door, looking to Gerard for the signal. There was a couple minutes of silence as they waited for the gas to disperse throughout the building. Finally Gerard waved his hand and one of the larger hunters swung a large axe at the heavy wooden door, pounding away at it until the door swung wide open. The hunters rushed in.
...
The night was proving to be to be exceptionally unexceptional. Just as he’d expected, Erica, Boyd and Jackson all failed to find anchors and were out of their mind with moon madness. Derek had returned to his submissive, obedient self, working with Isaac to manage the violent betas. Even Stiles wasn’t as rebellious as he had been last time. Peter felt a twinge of disappointment at that. He had been looking forward to forcefully putting Stiles in his place. Well, he could still do so...
All of a sudden, Peter caught the acrid whiff of wolfsbane. Coughing slightly, Peter followed the smell to the vents, where the air seeping in made his skin tingle unpleasantly. Thankfully the floor was large, so it would take a while for the gas to really become an issue.
Peter went to open the window overlooking the top of the neighboring building. Worst comes to worst they could jump onto that room and then escape from there. But as soon as he poked his head outside, there was a whizz and an arrow embedded itself in the wood window frame, missing his head by mere inches. Peter jerked his head back safely inside.
“Hunters,” Peter snarled. He turned, catching a glimpse of Kenneth racing towards the stairs and then disappearing. Coward . “Derek, follow Plan--” His command died in his throat as he saw Scott scooping masks out of the red cooler and handing them to Isaac and Derek. Peter saw red. Claws shot from his fingernails and his canines lengthened into fangs. But before he could teach his betas a lesson, he heard a low growl.
Standing in front of him, shifted poised to attack, was Stiles. Peter smiled, displaying all his teeth. “I’m going to have fun hurting you,” he said, and lunged forward.
...
Things were eerily quiet. They did a cursory check of every floor, even though all their surveillance showed that the werewolves mostly stayed to the top two floors. Chris was just wondering how he was going to incapacitate the other hunters and his father without placing suspicion upon himself when suddenly a large figure hurtled down the stairs straight into the hunting party.
The following thirty seconds were complete chaos. One of the newbie brothers tried shooting at the werewolf, except he missed and shot his brother in the shoulder instead. The fanatic charged ahead, waving a machete knife and laughing maniacally, only to get a set of claws in his chest for his efforts. Chris took advantage of the chaos to knock out the mercenary with a solid hit to the back of the head.
The werewolf threw the fanatic to the floor and whirled on Chris. Chris barely had time to reach for his handgun when a shot rang out and the wolf fell to the floor.
“Get your brother to the hospital,” Victoria said the newbie hovering over his injured brother as she put her gun back in her holster. Together the two of them hobbled slowly down the stairs. Victoria turned to Chris. “Where’s Gerard?”
“I think he went ahead,” Chris said, already hurrying forward.
“Wait.” There was a wheeze from the floor. The fanatic was trying, and failing to push himself up. His scratches bled profusely with every movement he made. “Take me with you.”
Looking distinctly unimpressed, Victoria walked over, picked up the machete knife, and stabbed it into his chest. The fanatic gurgled blood and fell back. “He wouldn’t leave Ally alone,” she said in response to Chris confused gaze.
“Ah.”
Together, they charged up the stairs.
...
Frustratingly, Peter could not just swipe Stiles to the side and move on to the larger issues. The little bastard was fast, dancing just out of reach of Peter’s blows and waiting for the opportune time to strike. The animalistic fury and determination had been replaced with patient calculation. The difference in control was stark.
But not perfect, Peter thought with a smirk as Stiles was a second too late and ended up sprawled on the floor. Peter was about to pounce and finish this troublesome fight once and for all when the door to the stairs slammed open. Peter turned to see Gerard Argent throw something at him. It landed between him and Stiles. Suddenly a blinding light filled the room.
Peter screamed, hands covering his eyes futilely. He could hear footsteps coming near him. The acrid scent of Gerard Argent filled his nose. Peter swiped blindly, hitting nothing but air. There was a prick of pain in his neck as what could only be a needle punctured the skin. Then everything faded away.
...
Usually sight wasn’t of much consequence to wolves. It sucked, of course, but their sense of smell and hearing tended to make up for it. Unfortunately, the smog mask impeded most of his scenting abilities, and flash bolts had the nasty tendency to severely disorient. So while Derek could hear Gerard’s footsteps and could hear the old man dragging a heavy object, his mind was too busy trying to restore his vision to really focus on stopping Gerard.
The door to the back stairs slammed shut. Derek lurched towards it and ended up smacking his head on a hall. “Fuck,” he muttered, trying to blink away the spots in his vision. He could sense Stiles, Scott, and Isaac also attempting to shake off the effects of the flash bolt. Crap, Stiles still didn’t have a mask on. Just then the main staircase door swung open. Derek squinted to see Chris and his wife enter.
“What’s going on? Where’s Peter? Where’s Gerard?” Chris demanded.
Derek pointed at the far door. “He left through the back exit,” he said. There was a popping sound. Derek stumbled towards the window. Chris and his wife joined in time to see a dark car screech down the street.
“He’s gone,” Chris’s wife said.
“And he took Peter with him,” Stiles said grimly, before devolving into a coughing fit.
Derek grabbed the idiot and dragged him over to the cooler. He shoved a yellow wolfsbane flower petal in Stiles’s face. “Eat this,” he ordered. It wouldn’t cure the poisoning, but it would stabilize Stiles until they could get Deaton to take a look at him. Once the petal was in Stiles’s mouth, Derek forced the smog mask onto his face. “You dumbass. You attacking Peter wasn’t part of the plan. And without a smog mask? What were you thinking!”
“I was thinking that you needed more time to get the betas out of there.” Stiles’s amber eyes were bright and defiant.
Chris cut in before Derek could open his mouth. “Stop arguing. We need to focus on finding Gerard.” He looked at Derek. “Can you track him?”
“Not in a car no.”
“Does the car have like a GPS or something that we can track it with?” Scott asked.
“Or a phone,” Stiles added. “I found Derek by tracking Scott’s phone.”
“I left my phone in the car,” Chris remembered. “I didn’t want to drop it or damage it.”
“Um...I’m guessing you don’t have your laptop on you?” Stiles said. “So we can track your phone.”
“No need,” Mrs. Argent said, taking her own phone out of her pocket and unlocking it. She tapped something on screen, and then showed Chris the result.
“Let’s go.” Chris turned and hurried down the stairs, Mrs. Argent close behind.
“Isaac, Scott, one of you stay and look after everyone else,” Derek ordered before following. They came out of the ruined front door to find two hunters lying dead on the ground with bullet holes in their chest. Derek and Scott discretely dragged them inside the building so they wouldn’t alarm the neighbors and alert the authorities.
Allison came jogging up. “What’s going on?” she asked. “I just saw Grandpa Gerard drive off with Peter.”
“That’s all we know too,” Stiles said as they all piled into the SUV, somehow managing to squeeze in despite the fact that they had one too many people. Chris drove just fast enough not to be pulled over while his wife--Victoria, Derek discovered--directed him to the Warehouse district. They parked right next to the black car that Gerard had commandeered and got out as quietly as possible. Scott and Allison went in through the back. Derek and Stiles agreed to go in from the side. Victoria and Chris would enter through the front.
It was clear that Gerard decision to kidnap Peter had not been spur of the moment. Peter was tied to a metal chair with what looked to be wolfsbane rope. Electrical wires were wrapped around his chest and neck. They glowed white and blue, causing Peter to writhe and scream in pain.
“Pathetic,” Gerard gloated, turning the power off and stepping towards Peter. “A great alpha. More like a great mutt.” Like an idiot, the old man slowly reached his hand out to touch Peter and of course Peter bit him and wouldn’t let go. Gerard had to hit Peter over the side of the head multiple times before he could get the alpha’s jaws to loosen enough. By then Gerard’s hand was bleeding profusely.
“Who’s the mutt now,” Peter sneered, lips painted red with blood.
To everyone’s shock, Gerard started laughing. “To think it would be so easy,” he cried, shaking his head. He dug around into his pocket and pulled out a pill bottle which he immediately tossed in the trash. “I suppose I must thank you,” Gerard mused as he went over to his bag and retrieved his broadsword. “You’ve really given me everything i wanted on a a silver platter. Now all I have to do is kill you and your betas, and I will have unimaginable power.” He lifted the sword above his head.
“No,” Derek shouted surging forward. Gerard looked up at the sound. An arrow shot out from the darkness behind him and hit his wrist, causing him to drop the sword. Derek tackled Gerard. The two of them landed a couple of feet away with Derek pinning the old man to the ground by the throat.
“Wait,” Chris hurried up to them. “Let-Let him up. Please.” The hunter looked lost, like his entire world had upended itself.
Reluctantly, Derek let go of Gerard and the old man sat up, coughing. “Dad, why...”
“He’s sick.” Scott said, coming out of the shadows with Allison. “He smells like the sick animals at the clinic.”
“He has cancer.” Stiles held up the pill bottle that Gerard had thrown away as confirmation. “He probably figured that getting the bite would cure it. And since he was going to be a werewolf anyway, why not an alpha?”
Chris turned to his father. “Is this true?”
“Chris, are you really going to believe a bunch of animals--”
“Actually don’t answer that.” Chris pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked exhausted.
“What are you going to do?” Derek asked, crossing his arms.
“I can put him in a facility somewhere. Make sure he never gets out...” Chris’s voice faded away at Derek’s murderous glare. “Fuck.”
Gerard chose that moment to try and make a break for the exit. He managed to run all of two yards before Victoria shot him in the leg. She looked at her husband. “You know what you have to do.”
“Yeah.” Chris walked forward, taking out his gun. Derek turned and walked towards Peter. There was a bang, and then something heavy crumpled to the floor. It was his turn to play executioner.
Peter looked up at Derek, unimpressed as always. “What are you playing at Derek. You don’t even want to be alpha.”
Derek gazed at Peter’s face. It was so familiar, yet so foreign. “Maybe not,” he admitted. He let his claws extend. “But I’ll still be a better alpha than you.” With that, Derek tore out Peter’s throat. Peter coughed once, choked on his own blood, and then his head rolled back lifelessly.
Power rushed through Derek like electricity, making the hairs on his arm stand on end. All the pains of the evening were washed away by pure exhilaration. Derek stumbled back and turned to flash his eyes at his audience. All the wolves averted their eyes and bared their neck, except Stiles who stared in fascination.
“I’m the alpha now.”
...
The one thing the thrillers and the action movies never mentioned was the clean up, Stiles thought bitterly as he and Scott rolled one of the dead hunters into a body bag while Chris and Derek hauled the other dead body into the back of Chris’s car. Getting rid of evidence on half-asleep, adrenaline-drained bodies just wasn’t glamorous as near death escapades. Once both bodies were inside the car, Chris turned to Derek. “I’ll need to contact you to discuss treaties.”
Derek blinked at him, clearly not registering a word Chris said. “He needs your cell number,” Stiles nudged. “Actually I can just text it to you,” he told Chris.
Chris nodded. He and Victoria each climbed into the driver’s seat of one of their cars and drove away. Derek, Stiles, Scott wearily carried Peter’s corpse inside and stashed it in one of the first floor rooms. Stiles rested his against the elevator’s iron cage, almost falling when the elevator opened.
“What happened? Did you find Gerard?” Isaac asked them once they arrived at the top floor per Isaac’s text.
Derek flashed his eyes in confirmation. Isaac looked away and bared his throat.
While they were away, Isaac had gotten out as many fans as he could and placed one at every window. Any papers that were not weighted down immediately flew through the air like they were in a hurricane, but at least they didn’t have to wear masks indoors anymore. Jackson, Erica, and Boyd were laid out on the rug in front of the couch, all completely unconscious.
The three of them took much deserved showers. Stiles moaned in relief as all the dirt and grime and blood were washed away. Breathing his teeth after a long day of biting and snarling felt almost as good.
Stiles was on his way to the spare guest room, still toweling his hair, when he spotted Derek sitting on the couch staring blankly at the white wall. Oh boy , Stiles thought, going over and plopping himself down next to him. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“...Everything happened so fast.” Derek’s voice was flat and measured. “Three hours ago, Peter was the alpha. He was the one with all the plans. Now I have to bury him and tell the betas and negotiate a treaty with Chris and train everyone and--”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Stiles turned Derek’s shoulders so that the alpha was facing him instead of the wall. “It’s going to be okay. I’m sure Isaac will help you bury Peter, I doubt anyone will miss Peter, and I’ll help you with Chris and the treaty. My point is. You don’t have to face this alone. You have a pack.” Stiles took a breath and gave a small, hesitant smile. “And you have me.”
“You--want to be in this pack?”
Stiles made a ‘you are so dumb’ face. “Of course I do. You’re my alpha.” The words feel right, like the last puzzle piece sliding into place. Energy coursed through Stiles’s body, erasing all the aches and pains that Stiles leaving him feeling healthy and refreshed. He could feel Scott and Isaac sleeping in the guest room nearby. He could feel Jackson, Erica, and Boyd’s slow, steady heartbeats as surely as he felt his own heart beating in his chest. Most of all, he could feel Derek, feel his warmth and wonderment. Stiles grinned at his alpha delighted. “Damn if I’d known--”
Stiles’s words were cut off by lips pressing against his. He froze in surprise, before tentatively wrapping his arms around Derek and kissing back. The kiss was soft and sweet and god Stiles didn’t want it end. Eventually they broke apart. “I guess this means I’m part of the pack,” Stiles said with a smile.
Derek didn’t smile back. “I--I shouldn’t have done that.”
Stiles froze. “What do you mean?”
“We can’t be together.” Now Derek was staring at the couch upholstery.
“No.” Stiles’s face twisted in rage and defiance. “No we are not doing this song and dance.” He shook Derek’s shoulders until the alpha looked up at him. “Do you like me?”
“Stiles--”
“Because I like you. A lot.”
“Stiles you’re sixteen. I’m twenty-two.”
“Fuck you I’m seventeen. Eighteen in a year. We can wait. If you’re really that worried, then I can have my dad do the whole telling you to stay away from me while polishing his shotgun schtick.”
Derek blinked. “You want me to meet your dad?”
“That’s what you got out of that?” Stiles sighed. He took Derek’s hands in his. “I like being with you. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we’re doomed and three months later we’ll curse ourselves for being idiots. But I want to try.”
“I want to kiss you again.”
Stiles laughed, feeling so happy and fond . He leaned forward, wrapped his arms around Derek’s neck and pressed their lips together. Things were going to be alright.