Derek's Loft | Evening

[robinonadderall]

Under normal circumstances Stiles would have allowed more time between Boyd's death and bothering Derek about anything, but the alpha pack situation was something that couldn't wait. The loft seemed like the natural place to find him but the only person he found there was Cora.

And an impressive clean up job considering it had been flooded less than forty-eight hours ago.



"Where's Derek at?" Stiles asked, stepping further into the loft. "Ms. Blake's?" See, he was okay with that. Totally okay. Stiles Stilinski was not irrationally jealous at all.

Cora rolled her eyes. "He killed a member of his pack, Stiles, he's not off on a booty call."

"So then where is he?" Stiles asked. "I really need to talk to him, it's not like I'm stopping in to talk about the weather."

"I don't know, and I won't be the one to find out," Cora said, crossing her arms over her chest. "The last time I remember something like this happening was when Derek was in high school. Hunters were after him and nearly killed him--if it hadn't been for Peter he definitely would have gotten an arrow to the face. The two of them found a hiding spot and stayed there for two days. Waiting. Hiding. That's what we're taught to do when the hunters find us. Hide. And heal."

That sounded completely ridiculous to Stiles. "Okay, so is two days standard then, or do we think Derek's on some extended getaway?"

Cora glared. "Why do you even care?"

"Why do I care?" That was a loaded question that Stiles wasn't ready to answer with complete truth. So instead he went with the more obvious answer and hoped Cora wouldn't hear a lie. "Let's see, over the last few weeks my best friend's tried to kill himself, his boss almost got ritually sacrificed, a girl that I have known since I was three was ritually sacrificed, Boyd was killed by alphas, I---you want me to keep going? 'Cause I can, alright? For like an hour."

"You think Derek can do anything about that?" Oh looked like someone had caught on to their brother's failwolf tendencies.

Stiles shrugged. "Well since he seems to be the one everybody's after it seems more like he should do something about it."

Cora shook her head. "I don't know. There's something different about him now. He wasn't like this when I knew him."

That made sense. Obviously Derek wasn't going to be the same person he had been since the fire. Stuff like that changed you. Hell, Stiles had firsthand experience of what Derek was like before then. Still, he could always stand to know more. "What was he like?"

A clanging noise had Stiles looking up towards the stairs, sighing when he realized they hadn't been alone here. Peter looked douchey, as per usual, and had obviously been listening everything he and Cora had been saying.

"Derek was actually a lot like Scott," Peter said, ignoring the fact that both Stiles and Cora clearly did not want his input here. "A lot like most teenagers. Unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic. Tolerable, really, only to other teenagers."

Already that sounded nothing like Derek. "What happened, what changed him?"

"Well the same thing that changes a lot of young men," Peter said. "A girl."

Something was telling Stiles that Peter was not referring to Kate. Which what? "You're telling me some girl broke his little heart and that's why Derek is the way he is?"

"Do you remember Derek, before he was an alpha, had blue eyes? Do you know why some wolves have blue eyes?" Peter asked.

Stiles shrugged a shoulder. "I always thought it was a genetic thing."

"If you want to know what changed Derek, you need to know what changed the color of his eyes," Peter said. "It happened during his sophomore year of high school."

Peter went on, and if Stiles had been more in tune to narrative he would have been able to see this was definitely a flashback episode. "Like I said, Derek was a lot like Scott. Played basketball instead of lacrosse, but their dispositions were similar. Also had the habit of falling in love easily. At least Derek had the sense to not fall for a hunter."

Stiles definitely kept his mouth shut then because, yeah, no, he was not sharing about Kate.

"This girl was a human named Paige. Played the cello," Peter said. "Couldn't stand Derek at first."

"Okay, so if Derek was a sophomore back then how old was he?" Stiles said, trying to nail down a timeline. "How old were you? ...how old are you now?"

Peter smirked. "Not as young as we could have been, but not as old as you think."

"Okay, that was frustratingly vague," Stiles said, turning towards Cora. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen," she replied.

"See, that's an answer," Stiles said condescendingly to Peter. "That's how we answer people."

And then Cora added, "Seventeen, if you measure in years."

Stiles hated all of you Hales, he really did. "Alright, I'm just gonna drop it. So what happened to Derek and the cello girl?"

"What do you think happened? They're teenagers; one minute it's 'I hate you, don't talk to me', the next it's frantic groping in any dark corner they can manage to find themselves alone in for more than five minutes." And you wondered why people thought you were creepy, Peter. "Their favorite corner was an abandoned distillery outside of Beacon Hills."

"Alright, hold on," Stiles said, putting up his hands. "How do you know all this? You just said they were alone."

None of this was making sense. Of course look who was doing the storytelling, of course it didn't make sense.

Peter frowned at Stiles, though he didn't look unsurprised that Stiles was poking holes in his story. "Back then I just wasn't Derek's uncle, I was his best friend. His closest confidante, that's how I know. "

That also seemed highly unlikely, but Stiles let Peter continue on with his story. He had to admit there probably was some truth in there, and he was dying to know more about Derek. It's not like Derek ever told him anything.

"During one of these romantic trysts, the distillery became a meeting place for a few packs. Derek sent Paige home, away from the danger, but he stayed behind. The three packs were visiting the Beacon Hills territory and their alphas were ones you'd recognize--Deucalion, Kali and Ennis," Peter said. "The Argents had killed one of Ennis' pack because one of his own had killed one of the hunters. Claimed it was an accident. Ennis wanted revenge."

Stiles sighed. This whole revenge thing with werewolves and hunters was getting old.

"Ennis and Kali wanted blood, but Deucalion disagreed. At this time he was much more peace-loving man," Peter said. "Deucalion called on Talia, Derek's mother, to give her say on the matter. She was very well respected among werewolves. Not only was she a good alpha, but she had a gift that is very rare among our kind--she could turn into an actual wolf."

Stiles lifted up his eyebrows. He knew Laura had the ability to do that, but he hadn't realized that it was a rare ability. He wondered if it was a Hale thing, or an ability that only women or alphas had.

"Talia agreed with Deucalion. Said it was a hunter's right to punish someone who killed one of their own, but Ennis wouldn't listen to reason. He carved a symbol right into the metal of the distillery walls," Peter said, tracing a spiral in the condensation on the window. "Our mark for a vendetta."

Yeah, he was real tired of the revenge thing. "Man you guys take that revenge thing to a whole new level, don't you?"

"It's not just revenge. Losing a member of your pack isn't like losing family," Cora said, which Stiles found a little insulting. "It's like you lose a limb."

"They wouldn't even let him see the body," Peter said. "It was a murder investigation and he wasn't technically family."

"I don't get it," Cora said. "What does this have to do with Derek?"

Peter shook his head. "Everything. It's never just a single moment, it's a confluence of events. Personally, I looked at Ennis' circumstances and I saw profound loss. Derek saw something different. He saw opportunity."

Neither of those things sounded like Derek or Peter to Stiles. "Opportunity? To do what?"

"To always be with her. The thing was he had this constant fear. This obsession with it, thinking of it all night, all day, always on his mind," Peter said. "What if she got hurt? What if she got sick? What if she found out what he was and never wanted anything to do with him again?"

Stiles chewed on his lower lip. That did seem to call back to how Scott felt about Allison before she found out that he was a werewolf. Still, something felt off here.

"I kept telling him not to do it. Every day the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became," Peter went on. "You know teenagers. I bet he even blames me. He's probably convinced himself the whole thing was my idea."

Okay, that was complete bullshit. He was a teenager for god's sake, and knew that logic was complete crap. The whole angelic thing didn't work for Peter at all. Stiles looked over at Cora to see if she was buying this, but she kept a carefully blank look on her face.

"Derek decided he had to convince one of the alphas to bite Paige before they left," Peter continued. "They wouldn't stay for long since Beacon Hills wasn't their territory. Deucalion met with Talia and Deaton in order to get their support for a meeting with the Argents. He wanted peace, he didn't want Ennis' anger to cause a war between wolves and hunters."

"Wait, why was Deaton there?" Stiles asked.

"He's an emissary," Peter answered.

That...wasn't helping. "A what?"

This time Cora answered. "They're Druids that keep us connected to humanity. But sometimes their identities are a secret, sometimes only the alpha knows who the emissary is. Derek and I had no idea about Deaton."

"Or his sister Morrell," Peter answered. "She's an emissary for the alpha pack."

"The guidance counselor is a werewolf emissary? I just thought her and Deaton read a lot!" Stiles said. "Why the hell don't you people tell me any of this stuff, huh? I shared some really intimate details with her."

"And did she give you good advice?" Cora asked.

Stiles thought about that for a moment. The Churchill quote she told him was just about the only thing keeping him going these days. "...actually, yeah."

"That's what they do," Peter said. "That's what Deaton used to do for Talia. Deucalion met up with the two of them with a vision of offering an olive branch to the Argents. Talia warned him about Gerard's nature, but Deucalion insisted. It ended as well as you would expect considering Gerard Argent. But with the other alphas occupied, Derek used the chance to convince Ennis to give Paige the bite."

Annnd back to the part of the story Stiles was having a hard time believing. Yeah, Derek thought the bite was a gift, but he had offered Isaac, Erica and Boyd a choice before making them his betas. It made no sense to him.

"Derek asked Paige to meet him at the school, alone, at night," Peter said. "And there Ennis would be waiting to give her the bite."

Cora shook her head. "Why Ennis? Why would you choose him?"

"Why not? Ennis needed a new member for his pack, Paige was young and strong," Peter replied. "Doing a favor for Derek would put him in good favor with Talia. Back then everybody wanted to be in good with her."

"He doesn't remember it was Ennis, does he?" Stiles asked. He felt like Ennis would have died a lot faster if he did.

Peter shrugged a shoulder. "If he does he keeps it to himself."

"So what happened then?" Stiles asked. "Did he turn her?"

"Almost. Derek had a change of heart. He came at Ennis, a fifteen-year-old boy, against a giant." Peter said. "There was no reason for him to fight. She had already been bitten."

"So did she turn?" Cora asked.

Stiles already knew the answer there. If Derek had been in love with Paige as Peter made it seem, then they would probably still be together if she had turned. Sure, she could have turned and then dumped him, but Derek stories don't tend to end on that kind of a light note.

"She should have," Peter said, confirming what Stiles suspected. "Most of the time the bite takes. Most of the time."

Hey, wait a minute. "When you offered it to me you said if it doesn't kill you." Goddammit, Peter, he had almost said yes to that!

"If," Peter said. "Paige's body rejected the bite. You saw what that looks like with Gerard, Stiles. It's a slow, agonizing process, something nobody should have to endure. Derek took Paige out of the school, I found him later at the same spot we had hidden from the hunters. She didn't even realize I was there, she was in so much pain."

Sometimes Stiles hated his overactive imagination. He could almost picture it, a younger version of Derek holding that girl while she was slowly dying. The guilt he felt must have been suffocating. Stiles swiped at his eyes with his sleeve, hating that he was crying in front of these people.

"Derek asked me what was happening to her, but he knew the answer already," Peter continued. "Despite the fact that she was young and strong. Some people just aren't made for this. She fought, she struggled desperately, trying to survive."

Stiles swiped at his eyes again, really thinking this story couldn't get worse. He was, of course, wrong. This was Derek Hale's life they were talking about, of course it could get worse.

"Towards the end Paige could barely speak, but she did find the strength to tell Derek that she knew there was something different about him, and that she loved him despite that." Peter really was the worst storyteller ever. "Then she asked him to put her out of her misery, to end the pain."

Oh god this story got so much worse. Stiles couldn't even imagine having to go through that. If any of this was even remotely true then Derek deserved the biggest hug on earth. All of the hugs.

"I remember taking her body from his arms. To the woods, to a place that I knew it would be found," Peter said solemnly. "Another in a long line of Beacon Hills animal attacks."

"And what about Derek?" Cora asked.

"Taking an innocent life takes something from you as well. Bit of your soul is gone, darkening you, dimming a once brilliant golden yellow," Peter said, letting his eyes change color. "To a cold, steel blue. Like mine."

Peter left shortly after that high note, leaving Cora alone with Stiles in the loft. He didn't seem to notice she was staring at him, too lost in his own thoughts.

"What's that look on your face?" Cora asked.

Stiles jerked his head up to look at her. "What, what look?"

She rolled her eyes. "The kind of look that makes me want to punch you."

"My god, you are so Derek's sister," he said with a shake of his head.

Cora wasn't distracted by Stiles' attempt to change the subject. "What's with the look?"

"I just don't believe him," Stiles admitted. "Alright, in Ms. Blake's class we read Heart of Darkness, and it's in first person, right? Narrated by Marlowe. The thing is he's an unreliable narrator, you know the details of it have changed just because of his perspective.

"Then we heard the story from Peter's perspective," Cora said, understanding.

"Right, so we didn't get the whole story." There were too many holes, too much caring from Peter and a lot of it didn't sound like Derek at all. Stiles liked to think he had a decent handle on who Derek was, and he wasn't a guy who would just let an alpha bite his girlfriend without her consent.

"So, what, you're just gonna ask Derek about the girl he fell in love with and then killed?" Cora asked.

Stiles nodded. "If I have to, yeah."

He just had to find him first.



[Taken from Teen Wolf 3x08 "Visionary". NFI, NFB but OOC is fine. And now you get a long break from me bothering you with this crap]