a dying breed that still believes

Long story short: I started this early in the Teen Wolf life cycle, then it was abandoned, then I finished it in the current time; however, this is all early Teen Wolf before the angst and details set in. Be warned: Stiles lives in italics.
Please do not repost anywhere else without my express authorization, this includes PDFs and downloadable files.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

(When his mother was sick, he kept finding feathers everywhere. And that’s how he knew she was dying.)

It’s all on his mother’s side. Her wings were beautiful, shades of brown and gray, spotted in places like an owl. ‘We come from a long line of hawks,’ she said, ‘but occasionally, there’s a cuckoo in the family tree.’

‘Ha, tree, pun,’ he said and she laughed.

His wings appeared when he was two. There’s a picture of him standing on the porch, bare-ass naked, pointing at the horizon, and wings as big as his shoulder blades perch on his back.

‘So tiny,’ she said, ‘I loved to ruffle them in my fingers. You were so chubby and the wings were so tiny, my baby bird. You jumped off the couch once, but they couldn’t hold your weight yet. Your dad couldn’t stop laughing. He was such a bastard,’ she said, laughing too.

‘Did I cry?’ Stiles doesn’t remember this.

‘Yes. I came home to find him holding you. His laughter made you stop crying.’

He remembers her teaching him how to hide the wings away.

‘Not everyone has wings, baby bird. You’re different and people are afraid of what’s different,’ she said, gathering her hair in a twist in one hand. She speared through the bun with a feather, like a talisman, and it stayed, like magic.

Stiles would practice in front of the mirror, four years old, grinning like a loon, thinking to himself, Hide hide hide hide. The wings (bigger now, he could almost curve them around like a shirt) would stretch wide, then vanish, poof, the way his dad made a quarter disappear in-between his knuckles. He could feel them slip into his back, tickling, and he’d giggle.

His mom tested him; she’d serve him pancakes and say, ‘Wings,’ and he’d think, Fly, and they would appear with a snap, tearing through his shirt.

‘Oh, baby,’ she would sigh, ‘remember your shirts.’

‘Okay, Mama.’

A little old lady sees him when he’s nine. He’s on the roof, wings out big and wide because they get tired hiding away sometimes. It’s just after moonrise, a full moon, and he hears a wolf howl somewhere, then a voice is saying, “Hail Mary, Mother of God.”

A little old lady with her purse on the sidewalk where she dropped it; she crosses herself when he looks down.

He says, “Hi,” and she screams, faints, as his dad comes running out of the house.

Stiles hides, wings folding in, he watches from the eaves as the ambulance appears. The lady keeps crossing herself when the medics put her on the gurney, “I saw an angel, I swear to you, I swear on the soul of my son, an angel.” She has a heart attack before they can get her in the ambulance.

He watches her lipstick roll off the sidewalk into the gutter. He doesn’t feel like an angel.

Scott is nice. Scott likes peanut butter and jelly, and watermelon bubblegum, but not all at the same time. Scott is normal. Scott can’t figure out how the baseball, Frisbee, and lacrosse ball all come back after they’ve been thrown on the roof.

His dad’s gone and his mom doesn’t like climbing the ladder to fetch anything he and Stiles have lost on the top of the house.

A pirate flag. Nerf darts. The green plastic water gun Scott threw and Stiles tried to shoot out of the air.

“The wind,” Stiles says, “blew ‘em down.” Scott nods. He doesn’t understand.

Stiles doesn’t mind.

He takes to perching on houses. It’s fun. He still can’t fly.

“Baby, be patient. It takes a while,” his mom says, petting his hair. He balances a feather on his nose and she laughs. “You’ll fly soon enough. It’s all about hope and belief. And practice.”

“Boring.”

She laughs again and balances a feather on her finger.

As his body grows, so do his wings. They’re a dark brown and his mom hmmms, “Not hawk,” she says, “not owl.” She’s not sure.

He has a growth spurt when he’s fourteen, when his mom first goes into the hospital, and late one night, he opens his wings to their fullest for her, brushing the walls; he knocks over a fake painting of a rustic farm scene, then the lamp, and the Kleenex box, and shoves a chair against the door while his mom is laughing in her bed.

Then she’s crying and he doesn’t know what to do.

Later, he decides to tell Scott. They go out in the woods, like they have the last few years, lighting small fires and burning marshmallows. Stiles spreads his wings and Scott stares at him in something like horrified awe, taking a deep drag off his inhaler.

“What are you,” Scott asks.

Stiles almost cries right there. “I’m human.”

Scott says, “Okay. Can you fly?”

At his mother’s funeral, he wears a suit that’s too big and keeps his wings out but folded under the jacket. He cries and tells his mom he’s human. He misses her so much he doesn’t try flying anymore. He cuts his hair short, he’s almost shorn.

He has Scott take a picture of his wings, almost a reproduction of the photo of when he was two, shirtless in jeans, back to the camera, arms outstretched and wings wide.

He puts the two photos and a handful of his mom’s feathers in a box.

High school passes.

Two months go by before Stiles let his wings out again. And when he does, they’re dull and listless, feathers falling dead to the carpet. He comes down with a fever, vomiting over and over, he hasn’t been in this sick in years.

His dad sheriffs (it’s a verb in their household) from home as much as he can. Picking up a pinfeather, his dad says, “They don’t look like your mother’s.”

“Cuckoo in the family tree, Dad,” Stiles coughs.

“But the rest of you looks like her.” His dad looks so confused, so sad, Stiles vomits again, then passes out.

He leaves his wings out for three days, Scott walking around them when he brings Stiles his piles of homework. The night before he has to go back to school, he goes to the roof, careful to stay away from view of the street, and sits. The wind feels good in his feathers. A wolf howls somewhere in the dark.

Stiles flaps his wings in response, building up a tiny windstorm.

The howl stops, then picks up again, twisting in the storm Stiles has created.

He can always feel his wings. They flutter inside him when he's restless, more when the Adderall wears off.

So Stiles talks faster and faster to cover up the feeling.

He covers his wings with layers of clothes, keeping them half-visible, ghost feathers wrapped around him under t-shirts, button-downs, hoodies, and jackets.

"Why do you wear so many layers," Scott says, biting a fry in half.

"I like being cozy. It's all about comfort. S'what separates us from the animals. That and thumbs."

“Thumbs?”

“One word, Scott: buttons.”

“Two words, Stiles: video games.”

The night of the fire at the Hale house, the Sheriff raced out of the driveway as if Stiles is on fire (which he has been before: it was a tortilla, then the potholder caught fire, then Stiles, and it was all for science).

Stiles ran after him in the dark, yanking his shirt over his head, wings snapping open so fast he almost fell. He tried to fly and he crashed every time, gravel rubbed into his forearms, lips bleeding, knees scraped.

The wings caught on dead branches, Stiles crashing through the woods like a dangerous animal.

Then there was the soaring heat and light of the fire, the Hale house burning, its skeleton alive in the smoke.

He wanted to see it, to feel the updrafts.

He singed his wingtips instead. His room smelled like burnt feathers for a week.

(It's only later he realizes. He saw Derek after the fire, noticed his shadow was different, the lines of his body and the movement of his eyes were unusual. Over the years, Stiles thought it was grief; he knows how grief changes you down to your very cells.

Now as he looks at Scott, in the werewolf aftermath, he sees it. He recognizes the wolf in the skin.)

Scott wails, "I'm not even human anymore! I'm a fucking freak! I have - what the shit, I have claws! IS THAT - IS THAT FUR?! Look at me! FREAK!"

Stiles bites his tongue, doesn't say, You don't have a fifty-foot wingspan and don't molt every month or so, you lucky sonuvabitch.

Instead he says, "Hey, you can see in the dark, right? ‘Cause nighttime is the right time, am I right or what. And what about that healing thingamabob? You never have to fear another paper cut. Ever. But don’t try to cut off a limb. That’d be bad. Scott, Scott, that’d be bad."

"Stiles, your feathers are a different color."

"What, no, you're colorblind."

"Seriously, look."

They're a deep blue-gray on the outside with black tips, as if he'd permanently singed them the night of the fire. Scott turns over a loose feather. Brown with light bars of gray.

Scott snickers. "Dude. Puberty."

"How fucking embarrassing. I find this metaphor to be too fucking literal. I want a refund."

Derek finds one of Stiles's feathers outside of his house.

"Falcon," he says. Stiles gapes while Scott does an awkward shrug jig.

"That so?" Stiles says oh so smoothly, he can nonchalant with the best of them.

"Yeah, my mom knew birds."

"So did Stiles's," Scott blurts and Stiles loves him but will murder him in a heartbeat.

Derek's watching him, those light eyes; Stiles doesn't look away, he's watching the wolf held in the cage of Derek's chest.

"Falcon, Stiles," Scott says, still talking, why is he still talking, "now you know."

"Yeah, now I know. Been curious. Kept finding those feathers outside the house. Was hoping for hummingbirds. Maybe Big Bird." He rocks on his heels, hands in his pockets, it’s just another day in the supernatural woods, look over there, a leaf.

"They're yours, why are they outside?” Scott tilts his head, like a damn puppy, Stiles can’t kick a puppy, “have you flown yet?"

Never mind, wow, he’s going to kill Scott in terrible and terribly ingenious ways, werewolf and all, but Derek's stepping in the way.

"This is yours?" He spins the feather in his fingertips, then he mumbles under his breath, "No wonder you smell different."

Stiles sputters. "Excuse me? I smell wonderful, I smell divine, I smell like hopes and dreams, California dreaming on a winter's day."

"Show me." Derek has turned up the intensity while Stiles is making his own intense faces at Scott.

"I'd rather not. It's something I save for private shindigs, bar mitzvahs, bachelorette parties, that sort of thing."

Derek growls. Stiles huffs.

"No one get too excited, I have to join your kinky half-naked club, so everyone just look away before you're blinded by my pale skin. Possible sunburn from the brightness, really, you shoulda worn sunblock today."

He strips, only getting stuck in one shirt.

Then he's standing half-naked in the woods with a guy who looks like a shady character in a bad movie and Scott who looks like he's switched to daydreaming about Allison. When, where, and why has his life gone so wrong? He tries to be a good person.

Sighing, he opens his wings, letting them unwrap from around his sides and appear; he knows they come in like smoke when they've been only half-visible; he likes the dramatics.

Derek is staring, eyes following every movement as Stiles shrugs uncomfortably, the wings slow-fluttering.

"You're a predator, Stiles." Derek sounds awed, but he doesn't move to touch them and Stiles kind of wishes he would, predator to predator.

"Peregrine. Falcon, bird of prey. Falco peregrinus. Fastest member of the animal kingdom. Dives on its prey, reaching 200 mph. Mates for life. They're about the size of a crow. Now put that thing back where you found it, Scott, somewhere away from here." Lydia carefully leans away from the feather Scott’s shoved in her face. She touches her lips, then holds out two tubes of lipstick. "Now, Allison, which color: Bordeaux Burgundy or Red Hot Nightlife? No, wait, I should mix them, yes.” She’s wearing the new color of lipstick when Stiles shows her where the feather came from, Allison holding her hand, but she doesn’t scream, just says, “What else is new.”

Stiles takes to hovering in the woods, training the same way Scott does with Derek, or rather the way Scott’s supposed to be training. He waits until they’ve gone werewolf-crazy, then he slips away further into the trees.

He climbs rocks and lets his wings out (it always feels like joy). Then he watches as his sneakers leave the ground.

His shoulders ache afterwards. “Scott, buddy, pal, dude, put me out of my misery.”

“Can’t. I’m meeting Allison.”

“Oh my God, never mind.”

Sometimes he pretends he’s Yoda, floating with his knees drawn up, like an awesome kickass Jedi master should; he does until he opens his eyes to see Derek watching him. He doesn’t crash, per se, it’s more like a pathetic drift to the ground, listing sideways.

Derek doesn’t say a word.

It’s crossed his mind. Stiles has tried to cut his wings off twice. Once, when he was eleven, he was bullied, a kid shoving him into the dirt, ‘eat dirt, freak,’ and he panicked: if he was a freak now without his wings, what the hell would he be if anyone else knew about his wings? He’d be eating dirt and worse. He cried himself to sleep, licking at his split lip, before he could think to find a knife.

The second time was after his mom died. He’d started having regular panic attacks, talking his way through them, hiding them deep inside, fingernails curled into his palms, trying not to pass out in the bathroom. He lost weight from all the vomiting. Then he woke one morning and couldn’t get his wings to go away.

He had the knife and he knelt on the cold tiles, pressing his forehead down on the bathtub, so fucking glad his dad was engrossed in some robbery case. His wings stretched high overhead, as if trying to escape or pulling him away. He pricked his finger first to test the blade and the blood was so red, just an awful red, and his wings folded in against his body as if afraid.

He hasn’t tried again.

Sometimes he’s feels a gaze on him when he’s in the woods during Werewolf Puppy Play Hour, he feels it light as the shirt Allison gave him with the holes cut out over his shoulder blades.

He doesn’t have super-senses, which rather sucks, but he can still feel it, that gaze, and after awhile it’s recognizable. He’s seen it before: Derek assessing him as if he’s predator or prey, if he’s useful or worthless, if maybe he’ll ever shut up sometime soon before the sun burns out.

He wants to say, Dude, you know you’re a little too intense when I can feel your eyeballs from here.

Instead, he curves forward, feeling his muscles stretch and his wings arch, and he thinks, Mom, we can do this, we’ll fly.

If he occasionally calls her Mommy, it’s no one’s business. (It’s all about hope and belief.)

And after a while, he starts holding Derek’s gaze, not looking away, he’s not (completely) afraid (anymore) and he’s not a fucking werewolf, he doesn’t have to do that submissive play (unless he wants to which is a whole other can of trouble he’s not opening).

He watches too. He’s just a whole lot subtler.

The first time he completely flies is out of panic and it’s Allison’s fault. He fully blames her. Even makes her a medal out of foil and cardboard and stickers.

Lost in the dark of the woods, she runs out of arrows and there’s a horrible growling that isn’t from Derek or Scott. He hovers to help her find her way, like a strange party balloon, then he can’t see through or above the trees anymore and something slams in between his shoulder blades, right between his wings.

She screams and lets go of his shoe, but he’s blind, he can’t see her; he can hear her cursing, but Derek and Scott are nowhere to be found, it’s the just Stiles and Allison against stupid fucking shadow monsters of the Beacon Hills Shadow Monster Society or whatever, so he kicks up hard from the ground, shooting for the sky as if he’s drowning and it’s the only light he can find.

It works, he goes up like a firecracker and everything is clear, though he feels something sticky running down his back, doesn’t matter, he can see the battle, so he dives.

And drops at an uncontrollable speed full into a werewolf-fight-monster-truck-rally, yelling, “OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” the whole way down.

They win.

“YOU CANNOT BEAT THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKERS.”

Ha, he’s a wizard.

Derek says, “What are you.”

“A wizard. Or human, either/or, can’t you smell me,” Stiles says, fanning a hand under his armpit, “or should I start doubting the voracity of your claims.”

A roll of the eyes. “Do not get yourself killed.”

“Yes, that’s an excellent plan, Patton, I shall try to do that. Y’know, ‘cause it means I’d be alive.”

Stiles glares at him and Derek glares back.

That’s the way of things.

(It’s all about hope. Just hope. Stupidly enough.)

One night, they’re walking back from a party, headed to his Jeep because Stiles can totally drive, he’s sober, but he doesn’t really want Scott and Allison cooties in his Jeep, they’re becoming so handsy Stiles has taken to staying a few steps ahead of them. He really doesn’t want to know what that smacking sound is.

Anyway, they’re walking and something shoots out of the woods. Another werebeast of some sort, the hills are just lousy with them.

Stiles busts out his wings, ripping his shirt, and the thing slashes at his face. Blood drips into his eyes, but he still creates a mighty barrier, “I’m fucking parting the Red Sea over here,” so Allison can run and Scott can trip after her or whatever. Shifting is a bad idea, “Scott, shifting is a bad idea, just make sure Allison’s safe.”

“She is, she has knives,” comes a voice, Derek stalking in, then he’s gone wolf, all black fur in the dark, and Stiles squints through blood, “She had knives at the party, what’m I saying, of course she had knives, and dude, don’t use your Angry Eyes on me, alright alright, let’s go, let’s try to stay alive, go team!”

He has a new trick, he really wants to try it, so he moves before Derek can run. Stiles takes a deep breath and his wings snap hard together in front of him. A sound like a thunderclap, hard and heavy, a wave of sound and wind, and the werebeast is knocked backwards, then Derek pounces.

From Stiles’s right, another beastie appears, knocks him to his knees, teeth around his neck, and then cold like steel traces around where his wings enter his body, edging against his shoulders.

“Yes, good,” a voice says, “perfect, hold him down, hold him,” then he’s being cut into, screaming into the asphalt, grit in his mouth and blood on his tongue.

The pressure releases fast with what sounds like Isaac’s bark and he comes to on his knees, pushing himself up, watching Derek rip apart a beast. Then Derek is sprinting to him, wolf then human, hands on his face.

“Stiles, look at me, shit, your eyes, you’re – you’re bleeding—“

“Don’t get mushy on me.”

Another pair of hands on his back where the pain lives and Derek snarls viciously, dragging Stiles against his body (which really fucking hurts), squeezing in time with his thick growls until Scott says, “It’s just me, it’s just me.”

Then Stiles hears a ghostly Erica he can’t see, “They tried to take his wing,” and he passes out as Boyd moves to pick him up.

When he wakes, he’s on his stomach, his back feels so heavy. He sees his wings draped over him, limp and exhausted, feathers trailing on the floor.

“Well, shit.”

Fast movement at the edge of his vision, predator fast, and he’s too tired for this shit but he’ll fight if he has to, he will fucking fight to the death, “Stiles, stop,” it’s Derek with Scowl of Doom firmly fixed in place. His Jacket of Gloom is nowhere to be found and these are the things Stiles registers in a haze of dampened pain and drugs.

His eyes feel sticky when he blinks. “What’s wrong with my eyes.”

Derek holds up a washrag. “Blood. You want me to—“

“Here,” Stiles slides a hand out, “I’ll do it.” His coordination is all fucked up with the drugs and heaviness and his hands don’t do as they're told. Derek’s fingers close on his, guiding.

The rag is dark red after they’re done, his forehead tight and stretched wrong where the cut is, he puts tentative fingertips to it.

“Don’t reopen it,” Derek says, crouched down to Stiles’s eyeline.

“Yes, Nurse – oh my God, you aren’t gonna give me spongebaths, are you?” Somewhere inside him, his belly flutters, like when his wings are hiding, and he wonders what that means. Because Derek is staring at him with blood on his face, “is that my blood,” Stiles asks.

“Some of it.”

His blood swiped across Derek’s skin and Stiles is mesmerized. He quietly blames the painkillers.

“They tried to cut out your wing,” Derek says, wrists balanced on his knees where he’s hunkered down. “I don’t know what – they acted like they knew you had them. Who else have you told.” He sounds accusing and Stiles feels defensive, sneering a little.

“My dad. Scott. You. Allison. The puppies. That’s it.” He thinks of the little old lady. An angel. “Uh, I don’t need to be more of a freak than I already am, thank you so fucking much.”

“You aren’t a freak, Stiles.”

Derek leans in, hand patting somewhere on Stiles’s back, the scratch and pull of tape and bandages, and Stiles can’t help breathing in his scent, very man-in-the-woods, sweat and fight.

“I bet you say that to all the bizarre creatures,” Stiles says, then Derek’s grasping his chin, hard, catching his gaze.

“You aren’t a freak. With or without the wings. Now don’t move, you’re resting here. Scott’s claimed you’re at his house for the night. Sleep.”

And Stiles remembers he’s tired. “What a great idea.” It takes aching coordination, but Derek gets a pillow shoved under his head. Stiles sighs into it.

He closes his eyes, listens to Derek move around. He doesn’t anything when he feels light fingers touch his feathers, only at the tips of his wings, the farthest away Derek can be.

“Maybe we should be in a zoo,” Stiles mumbles into the pillow.

Isaac agrees with an eyebrow lift and a nod. Scott tilts his head as if he’s picturing it, Stiles will never get over that expression, eyes going up like he’s picturing it really hard –

“You’re pack. The pack protects its own.”

“Why, Derek, however did you learn to be so very reassuring, what with the encouraging tone and voluminous amount of words—“

“Shut up, Stiles. I meant it. I mean it,” Derek says, steps close and he can’t menace Stiles like this while Stiles is lying on his stomach, it’s an impossible menacing angle and Stiles feels like he’s won something, yay.

Allison kneels next to him, her hair brushing over his neck. “I’ll be the zookeeper,” she says, small smile and red-brown nail polish. She smells good too as she changes Stiles’s bandages. “It’ll be fun.”

“You just wanna throw food at us, I know, I have those daydreams too, just pelting Scott with fruit or something. Hey, do you have a slingshot, I’ve always wanted to tried shooting grapes at—“

She gives a twist of her hand, a piece of tape ripping off fast, and shitfire, that hurts, “hey, that hurt!”

“Oops. Sorry.” Allison smirks, all candy-delicious evil, flicking the used tape at Stiles’s nose and Stiles says, “Scott, ol’ buddy ol’ pal, I hate to break it to you, but Allison’s too good for you, waaaaaaay outta your league.”

Allison laughs as Scott shrugs, I already knew that, and Isaac drops by with a glass of water. Stiles watches Derek’s boots shift, as if he’s leaning against the wall, somewhat casually, maybe. The boots don’t leave for a long time.

Erica flips her hair and says, “Bird boy, yeah, you.”

“Are you perchance speaking to me,” Stiles replies, hand on his chest in mock surprise. His wings go up and out as if trying to hide, though they do it with sarcasm because they’re part of Stiles and Stiles is made of sarcasm. “I am Stiles the Bird Man. Also known as Falcor the Only-Slightly-Intimidating. Or, my lesser lesser well-known name: Caw-Caw the Sound of Danger.”

Boyd snorts. Isaac smirks, mouths caw-caw¬.

“Yeah, whatever. You’re pack. Your wings are our wings,” Erica continues, her finger swirling swirling swirling until she jabs him in the chest. “Got it?”

“I’m not an airline. No one else gets to fly the friendly skies—“

“Or join the mile high club,” Scott pipes up.

Stiles acknowledges this with a magnanimous sweeping gesture that dislodges Erica. “Or that with me as their flying device. They’ll have to buy a ticket for that. For a plane. An actual plane. Because I am not one. A plane.”

“The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain,” Isaac says, almost to himself and Lydia says, “That movie, I swear, if I ever got to meet Henry Higgins, whom, I might add, is a fictional character, but still, if I ever met him, I’d tie him up with that phonograph right next to his ear and make him swallow those marbles until his stomach ruptured and his digestive system shut down, causing the rest of his internal organs to—“ and Allison sighs, “I love that movie.”

Allison and Lydia eye each other for a moment, then decide with an intricate hair flip that they need a movie marathon.

Stiles is sitting up today and he stares at them from his perch on the oh-so comfortable table he’d been sleeping on (he only has three cricks in his neck and six pulled back muscles or something, and there for a while he thought they’d have to amputate his arm because it was floppy-dead asleep and then it was full of red-hot needles, anyway, the point is it was not comfortable).

“Wow, I feel so loved,” he says.

Erica chips at the polish on her nails. “Don’t be silly.”

Scott tries to get a piggyback ride maybe, Stiles isn't sure especially when he loses his balance and they crash to the ground.

"You have officially tackled me. Hooray."

"Can I fly with you?"

"Scott. Dude. Bro. You cannot just hop on my back and be all ‘FLY, SHADOWFAX, FLY LIKE THE WIND’.”

Scott's face collapses in majestic fashion.

"I don't know if I can carry you. I barely learned to fly myself and they're my wings."

"Did you ever fly with your mom?"

“Scott!” Derek’s standing at the edge of the clearing, one hand waving impatiently as if he’s been waving impatiently for a while now. “Training!”

“Oh, goody, time for the puppies to chase their tails!” Stiles claps his hands rapidly. “It’s so adorable, can I come watch.”

Somehow, Scott and Derek coordinate eye-rolling. It’s quite impressive, really. “Is that a werewolf thing?”

They wander off into the trees, Scott glancing over his shoulder once with a shrug, c’mon, dude.

“Stiles,” Derek calls, “the puppies can’t always chase their tails.”

“I am not bait!”

“Yes, you are!”

He grumbles, kicks at leaves. “I’m not bait. I don’t even taste good.”

A snicker off in the trees and an unseen Scott says, “Pervert.”

“No werewolf perverts allowed!” Stiles yells to the area in general. He takes his time, the puppies can chase their tails until he gets there, tire themselves out before he arrives on the scene.

Now that Scott mentioned it, flying with his mom, it’s stuck in his head like a spike, he thinks about it, his mom with her wings outspread, not often, though he realizes now she must’ve gone about with them out when he was asleep or at school or something. He pictures her like an angel of nature, she looked like that, wings out on Sundays, beautiful white-brown-gray.

He has a vague memory of clutching at her jacket, her tugging his sneakers on, tying them for him, saying, Okay, baby bird, I’m gonna need you to hold on real tight. I’ve got a treat for you.

She carried him like she always did, on her hip, close to her heart, he could rest his cheek there and hear it, he would thump her with his fist, thump thump thump, Mama, thump thump, and this time, her wings beat in time with her heart. They lifted off the roof, a cold winter’s night, the moon almost full, and the wolves howling—

“Wolves,” he says. He stops in a crunch of leaves as he realizes: he’s been hearing the Hales for years. Beacon Hills had the Hales and the Argents, wolves and hunters, and then Stiles and his mother, they’ve all been living there for so long, hiding, maybe someone slipped up or discovered something.

And now shady motherfuckers are after Stiles’s wings. His body goes cold, the wound suddenly hot on his back, hands shaking, and his breathing – he can’t catch air, no oxygen no air no—

He looks at the sky, a golden halo around the tips of the trees, the sunset shooting out like sparks and he thinks of his mother flying him up into that fire, sweet and happy, because freedom is in the sky. He barely hears the ripping noise, then he’s surrounded by his feathers, wrapping around him as he kneels on the ground.

Breathe, baby bird, breathe. A lope-pounding of footsteps and Isaac and Derek appear on the ridge, wolfed out, and their eyes are wild, so Stiles clenches his fists, tries to relax.

“Yeah, Scott, my mom carried me. We flew over a farm this one time...”

He knows Scott can hear him. A howl floats on the wind. Stiles kind of collapses back to sit cross-legged, his wings sweeping in a wide arc. He will be a zeppelin, just floating out of their reach. Testing, he carefully stretches as if he’s lying on his side on an invisible couch. Then he crashes in a short flight of glory, only to shoot up to the treeline as Isaac sprints forward.

Derek watches him drift in the air, following the beat of his wings.

Stiles thinks, No one takes my wings. Isaac steps close, shifting to human, and Stiles smiles down at him.

“You found me.”

“You didn’t go anywhere, Stiles,” Derek points out irritably, human again.

“I went vertically. You didn’t say horizontally.” And now he’s having visions of being horizontal with Derek and— “Semantics are important.”

Shifting, Derek disappears into the forest and Isaac crosses his arms, considering, then puts a hand up. “Drag me. It’ll help your strength.”

Isaac weighs a ton. “What the hell, dude.” In response, he shifts and looks at Stiles expectantly and Stiles gives a big push to get himself out of harm’s way, “I am not picking wolf-you up, what is this, everyone thinks I’m just gonna ferry them everywhere.”

There’s a yelp and an arrow strikes a tree below him. Erica races past, Scott on her tail, and Allison strides out, arrow notched, already taking aim, yelling, “They’re just practice arrows, they won’t hurt!” Boyd stalks a few feet behind her to avoid being a target.

And this is Stiles’s life.

“Okay, I’m done. Who wants ice cream.”

He's been warned before not to run. To break gaze is to surrender. To bare his throat or leave his belly open is to show himself vulnerable. (He’s a skinny kid with sarcasm and wings, he’s not normal, so this advice is nothing new.)

No sudden movements. (Which is bullshit, he’ll move, he’ll shoot straight into the sky, he even imagines it, like a bullet from a gun, Lydia said the fastest in the animal kingdom, so he’ll show them, he can do it.)

He’s been warned before. Right now, he doesn’t give a shit.

Scott and Isaac disappear between the trees, darkness swallowing them whole and Stiles clicks off his flashlight.

A test, another test, more training for the puppies on how to be a controlled predators.

And for Stiles to stand around in the woods after nightfall like a deer. Or a pigeon. Yeah, a pigeon.

He holds his breath like Derek ordered and goes as still as he can. His mind switches tracks so fast, he thinks he's swaying in place.

He stares at the sky, where the full moon will be in four nights. He forgets: his eyes are up, his throat long, head tilted back, his arms open at his sides. His scent is heavy because he forgets and he stands windward.

Stiles holds his breath and his wings around his body under the careless sky and thinks about the mechanics of his freedom.

He flies. He goes out into the woods without anyone, his wings and his (stupidity) courage (insanity), and he teaches himself. It’s all about hope and belief, his mom says in his head.

He feels someone watching him and he mutters, “Derek, go away,” but when he looks down, there’s only a dog, a big hunting dog sitting by a log. It scratches at its ear, then trots away.

He flies and lets himself feel each flap of his wings. At home, he jury-rigs a shower brush with a rag and some rubber bands to apply Icy Hot to his sore muscles.

He makes meatloaf and sets the table and waits for his dad to come home.

Night after the full moon, and Derek appears on Stiles's windowsill, boot by boot, jeans, shirt, jacket, eyes like mirrors.

“Stiles.”

“Mmmrph.”

Stiles lies on his stomach, like safety, though it's just comfortable and, as Derek said once, oddly human.

A cold hand on the back of his neck and Stiles flails, digging fingernails into the wrist grabbing him before Derek says low, “It's me, idiot.”

“Who you callin' idiot, jackass?”

Derek growls deep in his chest, Stiles can feel it where Derek's yanked him up and back against his body, awkwardly sitting up.

“What what what. I was sleeping—“

“No, you weren't.”

“I was close to sleeping. Comfy cozy. Blankets, see the blankets? On my bed. Face in my pillow—“

“Close to suffocating,” Derek says, pulling his hand away by cuffing Stiles over the head.

“And you'd cry at the fucking funeral,” Stiles huffs. He tugs his shirt out of its sideways twist in Derek's hold. Derek stares at him, lack of boundaries per usual, Stiles reminds him daily, hourly that humans have personal space unlike wolves, and Derek said, No, you don't.

As if he meant only Stiles out of the entire human race.

“C'mon, there’s a strange scent in the woods. Scott’s already there.” Warm, so very warm, Derek plucks at Stiles to follow, one leg already swung out the window.

And Stiles follows. He's never sure why he goes with that voice, the eyes like mirrors. He’s annoyed beyond belief for a variety of reasons he doesn’t want to think about. “Great, a strange scent. Awesome. Should we stop and get some potpourri on the way? Make the place more homey?”

Derek gets lost in shadow as he steps out onto the roof.

“I would,” he says as Stiles catches his jeans on a crooked nail.

“You'd what.”

The werewolf looks vicious, half to transformed under the soon-waning moon.

“I’d go to your funeral,” Derek says.

“You’re so morbid.”

“Might even shed a tear.”

“Of joy.”

Stiles can only see his teeth when Derek replies, “Maybe.”

Don't run. Unless you have no choice. Stiles thinks, Vertical.

“You smell good, pretty boy,” says the stranger. He circles Stiles, fingers in stubby claws. And that voice sounds so familiar—

Stiles doesn't look away, head tilted down to cover his neck, arms in front of him; he's not afraid, he's actually supremely fucking pissed off.

“I smell like a nice slab from the butcher shop? Candy. Popcorn. Spaghetti. No, enchiladas, cheese ones with—“

The stranger snarls, jaw elongating to bare his teeth, tongue lolling to lick his chops.
“Nah, maybe nachos or or or chili cheese fries, a hot dog with mustard, relish, chili, side of onion rings, milkshake for dessert—damn I've made myself hungry, but sorry, you were saying?”

Scott is out in the trees, prowling, or so Stiles fucking prays because backup is always good, backup helps, a werewolf SWAT team would be kinda nice.

“You smell...alone.”

“By Calvin Klein?”

“Unclaimed.” The ragged man smiles, all sharp teeth and dangerous intent, his face showing how much he wants to sink claws deep into Stiles and tear. “So alone. You're not pack. They've left you, human.”

The man tips his head, eyes flashing night vision-bright. “But you smell so different and I think I know why. All those feathers. Are you an angel?”

I swear on the soul of my son, an angel.

No, Stiles thinks, I’m a predator. He’s not going to play this game, he keeps his wings in, says, “An angel, why not, next thing we know there’ll be aliens landing around here, the whole neighborhood’s just going to hell.” He shifts his weight and the man puts up a hand, “now, hold it right there, just hold it, wait—“

Hold him down, hold him.

The voice is absolutely fucking familiar and two things happen: Stiles bares his teeth and Scott appears at his side, wolfed out and furious, growling, the sound traveling through the air like electricity. He circles to Stiles’s flank and Stiles makes a motion, just be cool.

The man grins even bigger somehow and says, “Nice meetin’ you.” Then he runs and Scott twitches to follow, but he stays, gives a howl. In the dark, there’s an answer and Stiles is shaking, his hands in fists, he thinks he tastes blood somewhere, his shoulders and wrists itching with the need to fight.

Derek jumps into the clearing, not shifted, his boots hitting the ground hard. “What happened.” His eyes flare as he takes a breath. “What’s that scent. That’s the one from the other day. In our territory.”

“That’s the shithead who tried to take my wing,” Stiles says, pacing, as Scott growls, guttural, then shifts, crouched to touch a heel print. He and Derek sniff the air, catching the scent, and Stiles says between gritted teeth, “He’s not a werewolf. He’s something else. Were-something. He looked wrong. Ragged.”

He hunches over to catch his breath, feeling like he’s breathing fire, and there’s a hand on his back, palm aligned with his spine, Derek pressing underneath the healing wound.

“Did he attack you or—“

“No, no, just wanted to chat and be creepy.”

Digging through the backpack Stiles brought, Scott slips into a clean shirt, says, “Any ideas how to track him,” and shrugs as if he’s answered his own question.

Stiles knows. Predator to predator, because he refuses to be prey. He glances over at Derek, predator to predator.

Bait.

Isaac, Boyd, and Erica bound in from somewhere, that weird wolf telepathy running through them, so Scott gives them the lowdown. Derek walks in a tight arc, close to Stiles, and the movement is making him antsy as his brain fires in short bursts.

He watches the knotted little circle of the pack, Scott texting Allison, Isaac and Boyd scout the broken branches and light tread of shoes, Erica tilts her head back, eyes closed, scenting in the cool air.

The ragged man already thinks he doesn’t belong to the wolves. Stiles’ll need to be alone, not pack, human. He’ll need to be separated from the rest until the time is right. He’ll just have to be himself. The freak who’s not fully human and not a were of any kind. Stiles grins, feeling a little cracked.

Bracing over him, Derek nudges at Stiles’s neck, pushing his head back, fingers digging into his wrists where he holds him down, rough in the sheets. They arch together, open-mouthed, and Stiles is dizzy, lost. You are alone, Derek says, voice deep with transformation, his teeth stretching long against Stiles’s skin. You’re alone and you’ll bleed alone. His tongue slicks over Stiles and Stiles is holding his breath, staring at the sky outside his window, but the moon is new and gone and Derek is a blotting shadow, Stiles can’t focus, he can’t focus with the large wolf body pressing him down deep, his thoughts splinter and splinter again and splinter again, smaller and smaller, over and over, the shards stick in his skull, and he pushes until they roll, he’s on top, staring down, so much power, blood and bone and muscle underneath him. Derek’s eyes are mirrors as he says, You’ll bleed alone. He kisses Stiles, says into his mouth, You’re such beautiful prey.

Then the knifepoints of his teeth slide into Stiles, a heavy hand scratches claws over his stomach, and Derek rips his wings out before taking his throat in a crunch of cartilage.

And Stiles wakes on a scream, sweaty and hot, his hands on face.

Five days after the full moon, and Stiles has made himself alone. His bedroom window is closed and locked. He talks to Scott when Scott isn’t busy with Allison, but only at school or at practice. Boyd and Erica wave at him, Isaac throws tiny paper balls at his hood in class, Lydia talks to Allison like usual. They’re all keeping their distance. Derek is incommunicado. It’s possible that’s because he told them only half the plan, the packless-human-bait part, but not the rest, mainly because he hasn’t come up with the rest, and Derek was a tad bit not happy with the idea. He’s not sure why, Derek doesn’t have to stand around in some dark area and wait for the creepy guys who are were-ragged-somethings to attack him and try to cut his wings out of his body. Derek’s not the one they’re after with knives. So he can kiss Stiles’s ass. Or something. Maybe not that. The angry sentiment remains.

(Derek said, ‘Are you out of your mind?’

And Stiles said, ‘Yeah, usually, this isn’t anything different, what’s your point.’

‘You are not bait.’

‘Uh, yeah, I am. This time.’

‘You can’t just walk away and – and sit around like some pigeon waiting for them to—‘

‘Pigeon? Caw-Caw the Sound of Danger knows how to fly and wields a mean baseball bat, and you guys will be in the trees or something ready to jump out, I don’t know, it’s a fight, you can’t plan a fight—‘

Dragging a palm down his face, Derek grunted which Stiles took to be supreme frustration before saying, ‘I don’t know how to get you—‘

‘What. To what.’ They walked in broken loops, avoiding each other and circling back.

‘This whole thing is stupid,’ Derek declared with irritated finality and Stiles rolled his eyes.

‘Well, so’s your face.’ Which is not what Stiles had wanted to say, but he said it and he crossed his arms to make it stick.

Then Derek glared at him, eyes flat and angry, and Stiles remembered, you’ll bleed alone, he remembered Derek’s hand heavy on his back, palm on his spine; he held his breath and Derek left without another word.)

He goes home and stays home. He takes too much Adderall and sleeps with his computer in his bed; staring at the internet helps him pass out. He watches TV with his dad, brings him a shot of whiskey and a bowl of ice cream, “one healthy scoop, that’s all you get,” and his dad says, “You’re killin’ me here, kid.”

After six YouTube videos, Stiles learns how to fold a paper crane. It takes another two hours, more Adderall, a side trip to the store to get more paper, then a side trip to pick up comics, then vegetables for soup, then holy hell there’s a lot of ladles but he needs a new potato peeler, and laundry detergent, and who knew flashlights were so fascinating, and he’d bravely had to shoo a random hound dog away from his car, “don’t you pee on my tires,” but he eventually creates five wobbly cranes, balanced gingerly on his keyboard.

He releases his wings and lets them trail along the floor as he pinches the wings of a crane into shape. He blows a soft stream of air at it, letting the paper flutter.

“Just tell me what’s going on.” The sheriff puts his elbows on the table, pushes his plate aside.

Stiles’s fork scrapes, tines streaking through spaghetti sauce. “I will, Dad, I will. I promise.”

“You’re not sleeping,” his dad says, as if he’s a bad parent, it’s his fault, his responsibility and he’s failing, and Stiles’s chest hurts from it, “you look like hell, kid.”

“It’s okay, really.” The sheriff shakes his head, so Stiles reassures him, “Really. It’s not drugs—“

“I know that—“

“It’s not a girl—“

“What about a boy?”

Stiles huffs a laugh because he’s avoiding people on purpose, but Derek’s not even acknowledging his existence to other people and he’s not pining, he’s not losing sleep over it, it’s not a thing, but. “Well, Dad, you could be a detective, detecting stuff all the time, maybe the local P.D. has an opening, might give you something to do.”

His dad smiles, half his mouth, wry.

“But no, not a boy either. Not bullies, not grades, though that Government exam might just be the cause of my loss of sanity, I mean, politics, c’mon, what.” He gives a fake cough and the sheriff leans back in his chair, light hitting his badge. “Gimme a week.”

It won’t take a week, Stiles knows that. He’s going to finish what they started.

They sit in silence for a beat, then his dad sighs, all his breath out in one push. “Okay. One week from today. Then we have a heart-to-heart.”

“With milkshakes.”

“And fries.”

“No fries. Deal’s off.” Stiles smirks, keeps his voice light, it’s a moment they’re having and he loves his dad with all his heart, up to the tips of his wings.

The sheriff groans, tries to stare Stiles into submission, but he is his father’s son and stubborn and that ain’t going to work nohow, so with a roll of his eyes, his dad says, “Fine, no fries.”

Triumphant, Stiles fishes around in the pasta bowl for an extra meatball, an extra smear of sauce. His dad tears a piece of garlic bread in half. They eat in the quiet for a bit, the kitchen clock ticking.

It’s nice, the first meal they’ve had together in a few days, though the sheriff has to head back into work. It’s nice and comfortable and warm, Stiles made the spaghetti and salad while his dad made the garlic bread by heating the oven, putting it on a cookie sheet, and setting the timer, that takes skill.

“Your mom flew with me,” the sheriff says, fingers shiny with butter. Stiles finishes cutting the meatball in half. “Well, she tried. She used to fly with you all the time when you were little and more—“

“Adorable—“

“Mobile.” They raise eyebrows at each other. “But she tried with me. More like hovering while I dangled.”

Stiles attempts to picture this, the young couple from the high school photo he found, both of them skinny and angular like him, with big smiles on their faces; his dad hanging from his mom’s hand, just hang on and stop squirming, I said stop squirming you asshole.

“Yeah, she didn’t get very high and we didn’t go very far before she dropped me. Almost on a hornet nest.” His dad’s smile is bright and lit like it hasn’t been in a few years. “Damn near died from laughing.”

“Did she try again?”

“Just once more. I really wanted to be up there with her, see how it felt, but. Anyway, the second time, we had a better setup, braces for our arms, and she still had to swing me. We went along like a parade balloon. Got up high enough I could set foot in a tree. Of course, after that excursion, her back hurt pretty badly and I had to play nurse for three days. She was so beautiful and those wings, mmmm—“

Stiles holds up his hands, “Okay, stop, I don’t need to know—“

“She flew while she was pregnant too. I used to sit and watch her. I thought she couldn’t fly like that, a little unbalanced with the baby bump, but she flew almost up to the moment she went into labor. One day, she came back to me, perched right on my lap and said, It’s a boy, I know it.”

Then the sheriff goes quiet, his eyes seeing something else, and Stiles ends up cleaning away dinner in silence, hugging his dad as he takes his plate.

One morning he wakes to a palm print on the glass of his window, a ghost smear caught in the sunrise. A note stuck under it says This is a stupid idea. Ready when you are in Derek’s slanted print. Stiles thinks it looks like Derek wrote it with a claw and it makes him smile.

He texts Derek, Stop with the stalking, I know you miss me, you don’t have to turn to felony to show it.

He gets back Your face is a felony. A crime against humanity.

He laughs so hard, all weird relief and bizarre giddiness because he hasn’t been left alone, that when Scott calls two seconds later, Scott thinks he’s having a fit, “Derek’s talking about crimes against humanity, it’s freaking me out, what is going on over there, Stiles, are you okay?”

It’s all about hope and belief and werewolf buddies and the best bat Stiles could afford. He stashes it in his backpack, mostly hidden except for the handle, pulls his hoodie on, laces up his sneakers, and heads out.

It’s dusk and the streetlights have just come on as he walks to his Jeep, jangling the keys in his pocket. He slips keys between his fingers, the self-defense Wolverine move, and he says, “Snikt snikt,” under his breath, pictures Derek saying, What a dork. He knows for a fact Derek reads comics along with his prodigious devouring of honest-to-God books; Isaac and Scott almost died when they found him reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Which, oh my God, the pack is made up of immature dorkwads and hormonal asshats, why is Stiles counting on them for backup.

There’s a scrawny mutt of a dog trotting down at the end of the block, sniffing at the trash cans and Stiles thinks he should mention it to his dad, animal control needs to get on the ball, then he throws the Jeep into reverse and points it towards the woods.

Behind the Hale property, relatively close to a turnoff from the road, there’s a decent clearing of trees, not too open not too enclosed, it’s where Stiles has been practicing, his little airport, the Death Or At Least Slight Injury From Above Flying Squad where he is the captain and sole member. He should have a bomber jacket with appropriate insignia. A falcon screeching fire and lightning arrows in its talons and its wings are black-gray with oncoming death or at least slight injury. Yes, and a motto in Latin, something something wings of danger.

He sent out a mass text with a date, a time, and a decent description of the area, ‘y’know, that place with the big rocks that look like a cave and the three fallen trees where Scott thinks the treasure is buried.’

He’s not sure how else to be bait, he’s betting on these weird creepers to be watching him and that gives him chills all along his skin, but they tried to take his wing and no one fucking does that.

He finds the mile marker and the faint dirt track, turns onto it and switches off his lights. Night’s coming on fast.

All semblances of the outside world disappear between the trees, darkness swallowing them whole as Stiles clicks off his flashlight.

This isn’t a test, he shakes out his shoulders, the wings moving inside because he understands he’s a controlled predator, he knows it, knew it from the first time a kid tried to punch Scott in the belly and Stiles threw dirt in the little punk’s face. Knew it from when his mother would teach him how his wings felt by using them to lighten his step to sneak up on his father. When Derek said, You’re a predator, Stiles. How the pack comes to him for help and advice and strategy, how would a predator think.

And he realizes. Dogs.

He pulls out his phone, pretends to check for bars, and texts Scott and Derek a single word, four letters, it’s all they need to know. Then the phone goes back in his pocket, the backpack by a rock, and he shrugs out of his hoodie.

A new thing he’s been trying, releasing one wing at a time, and it’s quite dramatic, even with the fact he has wings, how they curl out of him like thick incense before materializing, he lifts one shoulder and waits for the wing to appear. It unfurls slow and lazy and he feels eyes on him now. He lifts the other shoulder, the other wing, and sighs.

He holds his breath and goes as still as he can, just for a second. He sways in place, letting his wings stretch out and up.

He stares at the moonrise. He remembers: his eyes are up, his throat long, head tilted back, his arms open at his sides. His scent is heavy on purpose and he turns to the wind, lets it go through his feathers.

Stiles holds his breath and flicks his wings under the clear sky and thinks about the little old lady staring at him, hand over her mouth. Hail Mary. It’s all about hope and belief and she stared at Stiles as if he wasn’t human, her belief come manifest on earth, the boy with the wings in the night.

He wishes he could’ve talked to her, she believed so hard her heart was startled as he watched her lipstick roll away. He found it a few days later and twisted the tube, it was the color of pink roses, the top flattened and printed by her lips.

Lights in the dark, pairs of them, eyes, and Stiles ignores them, hovering a foot off the ground.

The ragged man says, “No attack dog today?” Stepping from the trees, he keeps his gaze on Stiles’s wings. His teeth and jaw are halfway shifted, his smile all snarl and bone. There’s a silver knife in his hand, curved. He points at Stiles with the blade. “Better not be, we don’t want any trouble.”

“See, that’s the problem. I like my wings, I’m attached to them, pun fully intended, and you can’t have them,” Stiles says, landing back on solid earth. And he’s never had to say that before, they’re his wings, they’re a part of him, he’s never said it even to himself when he had the knife pressed against his skin to prepare for the pain in the bathroom at home.

The man growls, saliva slides out of the corner of his mouth. “We need them! You don’t understand, we can’t be fixed without them!”

“Fixed?” Keep ‘em talking, that’s the rule in a hostage situation, though this isn’t a fucking hostage situation, Stiles decides that right fucking now.

“We can’t keep living like this!” the man screams at him, fingers growing into claws, “we’re unnatural! Abominations! We are barred from the kingdom, don’t you understand?!”

The dogs come out of the dark, the hunting dog Stiles saw in the woods, the hound sniffing the grill of his Jeep, the scrawny mutt on his street, and two others. They look malnournished and mean and he takes a step back, reaching for the handle of the bat.

They stare at him, lamplight eyes, and one shows its teeth, snapping at him.

“My wings can’t fix your problem,” he tries to sound reasonable and honestly, he figured out the dogs but the wings, no, he’s at sea about that, “besides, I’ve been told it’s not a curse, it’s a gift.” He hopes Derek is here to lend aid in battle and he hopes Derek isn’t here to hear him repeat that trite platitude. Scott might punch him for it anyway and Stiles will deserve it.

The man is pacing, the dogs forming a semi-circle to face off against Stiles and he finds himself moving too, a moving target’s harder to hit, except their muzzles follow him wherever he goes. “I don’t get it, you should know, ye should know and understand, you’ve been sent to help us find the path home. You’ve been sent to lead us to righteousness in death.” He taps the knife against his chest. “We called to you from our heart of hearts and you appeared, years ago, not yet ready, but now, now is the time of understanding, now is the time of our harvest, we have sown and we shall reap.”

“You will reap the fucking whirlwind pretty much literally if you take one more step towards me,” Stiles says, yanking the bat out of his bag and his wings go wide, casting a huge shadow over them all; the dogs whimper a little, but the ragged man hisses between his teeth, “No. My mama prayed every day, prayed for her family, and lit candles, gave her hard-earned money to that priest. And one night, she was rewarded. She saw you when you were just a cherub, she said, He’s just this tiny itty thing with the biggest eyes. She told me in that hospital room that your wings were the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.”

“No, no no no, oh my God, no,” and Stiles is about to be sick, the little old lady in the back of the ambulance, I swear on the soul of my son, “no no no, please no.” He breaks all at once, a crack clean through him. “I just wanted to see—“

“And right when she told me that, I knew, because my mama was a believer, her faith could move mountains, it stopped my daddy from drinking, it kept us all fed and safe, so I knew you would help us, so we can stop being these monsters who roam to devour the weak.” The blade sweeps between them and the ragged man smiles again. “You will heal us. Your wings truly are the most beautiful thing in all creation.”

He lunges and Stiles swings the bat, catching him on the arm, the man screaming before shifting into a huge-chested Rottweiler, then Stiles is staring at a pack of dogs almost gone feral, he can’t see the humans at all. They back him towards the rocks, stacked to make a slight overhang and he can’t fight in that space, he won’t be able to fly, they’ll drag him down, so he waits, he has to wait, he thinks of his dad teaching him how to hit a home run, you have to wait for the ball to come to you, just keep your eye on it and then swing all the way through.

Swing all the way through.

The mutt pounces, teeth almost in his ribs, and he swings, there’s a dull ring as the bat hits bone, the dog’s head whipped to the side and Stiles takes the opening, runs without looking back. He still doesn’t have great clearance, so he swings again to ward them off and hover-climbs the rocks. They can still reach him, the hunting dog grabs the leg of his jeans, pulling and he’s sliding, his wings flapping to counterbalance, he needs to drag Isaac around more often, he’s not equipped for this shit and the clearing is suddenly flooded with light.

The Jeep’s headlights, and Stiles is so fucking grateful he gave Scott a spare key; there’s a pause, he breathes in and out, watches dirt drift in the beams of light, then a howl sounds out in the trees.

“That’s the fucking cavalry,” he says. The Rottweiler ragged man snaps at him and he grins back. “I’m not as alone as you thought.”

An arrow sinks itself into a dog’s flank, a woman shrieks into existence around it, then the wolves step from the dark. Derek and Scott brush under his wings and stand next to him, pressed against his legs. He gives a flicker warning, then kicks up into the air above them all, the wolves and the dogs bristling and growling with Allison perched on a nearby rock, another arrow notched. He points the bat, like he’s Babe fucking Ruth showing where the home run’s going to be, he thinks he should say something kickass, I am the Vengeance or something, but then a dog barks, harsh and bloodthirsty, so he dive-bombs down as all hell breaks loose.

Stiles has some blood on his bat and some blood on his wings and he’s alive. Scott puts a hand on his shoulder, all good-ol’-boy, and says in a fluttery voice, “It’s a gift.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Not me.” Scott makes a yuck face and Stiles makes a yuck face back, then Scott jerks a thumb at Derek. “Him.”

“You cannot be serious.” Stiles is horrified and he loves Scott so much he might drown him for the good of all mankind. “You’re gonna get me eviscerated, almost again I might add, for saying shit like that.”

“Dude, he was all G.I. Joe about this, ‘we have to get there, this is a really stupid, really shitty plan but it’s what we’ve got, Stiles is gonna be alone with those assholes, stop crying, Scott, I’m not going to wreck the car,’ seriously, Stiles, he drives like the laws of physics don’t work, I don’t wanna die before I have to battle for my bro’s life—“

“Aww,” Stiles says, hand on heart.

“And Erica told him to chill out, you’d be fine—“

“I believe I told him to chill the fuck out and that your cute ass would be fine,” Erica says, rubbing at a stain on her shirt and Boyd says, “Am I the only one who thinks we should get pancakes out of this, as a reward for good teamwork or something?”

Isaac scuffs at a deep set of claw marks in the dirt. “Pancakes and waffles and bacon and hash browns—“

“Wait, I have a cute ass?” Stiles has to interrupt because no one tells him these things normally. “Bless you, Erica.” She blows him a kiss, but Scott’s still telling his story, waving a hand, “And then he got that stony look, y’know, ‘I’m Derek Hale And I Have No Feelings’.”

“The ol’ patented ‘I Am A Cyborg Werewolf Sent From The Future To Glare At You’.”

“Has anyone seen my last arrow?” Allison calls, “remember, it’s got a tranquilizer tip, so don’t touch it.”

Simultaneously, everything goes sideways: Derek grinds out, “I can hear you all,” and there’s a warning wherp of a cop car with the complimentary single flash of the blues-and-reds, and Isaac startles, then wolfs out, Erica laughing so hard she’s doubled over.

“Stiles, what’re you doing out here—“ The sheriff stops talking as he takes in the scene, a motley group of teenagers, a wolf with a deer-in-the-headlight expression, a pile of knocked-out dogs and humans, blood and dirt scattered around, Allison with her bow and arrows looking like a ferocious Disney princess, Scott waving with a big grin like the dork he is, “hi, Sheriff Stilinski,” and Derek Hale, possible fugitive and criminal male model. Stiles makes a general motion, be cool. Erica keeps laughing under her breath.

“Slowly step away from the wild animal,” is what his dad says and it’s such a dad thing to say and also kind of hilarious, Stiles laughs, then immediately shuts up.

“It’s just Isaac,” Scott says simply and yes, someday, Stiles is going to murder him because he is the bestest friend ever.

His dad is squinting at him, with an eyebrow raised and crossed arms, that expression he gets for every one of Stiles’s stories: honest, Dad, there was an army of ants; we thought Scott’s hair would turn blue; it’s all in the name of science and huh, there’s salsa on the ceiling, how’d that get there. That expression still makes Stiles a little nervous (even though he’s telling the truth, usually, c’mon, there might be some embroidery and embellishment, but the truth is there, c’mon) and in defense, his wings flutter high and nervous, he tries making the same motion be cool, but they aren’t listening to him, traitors.

Then Isaac gives a short yip and shifts, coughs, “Hi, Sheriff.” Boyd waves too as if this is just a good ol’ fashioned ice cream social and Stiles is surrounded by the people he chose to hang out with, these people of all the people, why.

After so many years on the job and all the things he’s seen, Sheriff Stilinski looks pretty unimpressed. His eyes are on his son’s wings and the now-human teenager standing there look sheepish (ha, sheepish).

“Werewolves, Dad.”

“It’s a new thing,” Scott says in his best explanation voice that never works. “Kinda.”

The crossed arms go to the hands-on-hips stance, pushing the sheriff’s jacket back to show his badge and his weapon.

“Yeah, there’s a few things going on,” Stiles says.

“I’ll say.”

“But werewolves.”

The sheriff nods. “Okay.” Everyone kind of shuffles around for a second, then he repeats it, “Okay. But. Why are there dogs and are those people – that’s blood, just what in the hell happened here. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, we’re fine, that pile of people are fine, they’re weredogs, actually, who knew, right?, and it’s just a little blood, no one’s seriously injured or dead, no corpses, just tranquilizer arrows.” Allison waves as well using her bow, oh my God, and his dad is looking thunderous, so Stiles slows down. “Uh, you remember that thing, the thing we were going to discuss, have a nice little chat about over milkshakes and fries—“

“Oh, there’s fries now—“

“Well, this is it. Werewolves, and weredogs, and my wings. It’s a long story.”

Pointing at the unconscious pile, the sheriff says, “And what about them, I don’t know what happened here, I can’t arrest them—“

“My dad is on his way,” Allison says, “he’ll take care of it. Hello, Sheriff. Allison Argent.”

“Scott’s Allison,” Sheriff Stilinski confirms, then grabs Stiles by the shoulder, “Okay, now I really need to know what’s going on, but there’s another patrol car coming behind me, someone reported an abandoned car off the side of the road, and I saw your lights, so.”

And Stiles is thinking fast, this was not something he prepared for, “So, alright, Allison and her dad are going to clean this all up, Allison, I will bake you a monster cake for this, I swear, monster as in gigantic not a were-cake or something, and Dad, you and I will go have our chat, then tomorrow, we’ll explain everything else that’s happened. Trust me, you’re Commissioner Gordon in this, we’re just cleaning up the streets.”

“Tomorrow, 6 p.m., I’ll be at your house to explain, if that works for you,” Derek says and he holds out his hand. “Sorry to meet you under these circumstances again, Sheriff Stilinski.”

“It always seems to be under these kind of circumstances,” the sheriff says, but he shakes Derek’s hand. “Stiles, you get in your Jeep and you head out first, I’m following you home, then we’re going to the drive-through. Any of you kids need a ride home.”

“We came with Derek,” Boyd says and Stiles gapes, “How?” and Erica scowls, “It was very, very crowded.”

With a meow and a cat claw wave, Stiles grabs his backpack as his dad says, “We’re leaving. Now.” They walk to the cars, his dad muttering under his breath, “just what I need, a heart attack out the in the woods, of course werewolves of all things.” A tap on Stiles’s back and Derek’s there, saying, “Wings,” Stiles completely forgot, he folds them away as Derek echoes again, “6 p.m. I’ll bring burgers, if that’s okay. It might be a long explanation. Unless you prefer pizza.”

The sheriff stops at the Jeep, hand on the hood. “Burgers are fine. Extra onions on mine and—“

“Extra mayo, extra cheese, extra lettuce, I know, his burgers are disgusting,” Derek says casually and the sheriff chuckles, Stiles is in a nightmare, what is going on here, then his dad harrumphs, serious and dad-like, “I’ll see you at six.”

Derek waits until Stiles is in the Jeep to say, “I’ll bring Scott, for moral support,” and it’s a joke, Stiles can tell, the little smirk on Derek’s face, really, what is going on, Stiles is dazed, so he just says, “Sounds like a plan.”

“Not a stupid one.”

“Yes, oh yes, it is.”

The cop lights flash and Derek steps away; in his rearview, he sees Derek speak to his dad before the comforting wash of the cruiser’s headlights take up the mirror.

They get milkshakes and fries and spread everything out on the dinner table, paper wrappers and ketchup packets and the plastic baggies for the spoons.

And Stiles lays it all out from his perspective, the story of being best friend and co-conspirator to Scott McCall, New Werewolf. He omits some things and tells about the obstacle course training in the woods, how Derek is trying to help the puppies not hurt themselves or anyone else.

He has to start at the beginning to get to the weredogs and there might not be much else to explain over burgers, but it’s his story, the human on the fringes of the pack, not as powerful or skilled, the one with the wings.

His dad listens, slurping down his shake and miraculously, neither of them get brainfreeze, though Stiles has to take the salt shaker away, “no more salt, stop that, stoppit, just use more ketchup.”

Like a good cop, his dad asks questions too, some Stiles would rather have Derek and Scott answer, so he defers, and for a moment, they get sidetracked by legalese and how much evidence is necessary at a crime scene to convict someone because it might be circumstantial.

“So. Werewolves.”

“Yeah. But I’m human.”

“So’s Allison.”

“Allison-Is-My-Name-And-Weapons-Are-My-Game badass hunter human. There is a distinction.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Stiles. Sounds like you held your own, though I don’t need details—“

“Authority figure. Badge. Gun. I know.”

Stiles’s milkshake is soupy now so he spoons it into his mouth, still good, still cold, and his dad runs his hands through his hair. “You tell me. From now on. You were hurt, Stiles, they tried to hurt you because of who you are.”

Sighing, Stiles shakes his head. “What I am, not who I am.”

“Stiles. You were stabbed and I didn’t know. And it could’ve been worse and I didn’t know because you didn’t tell me. Omission is still lying. That tears at me, you understand?”

He understands, he does, he grabs his dad’s sleeve and pulls him in for a hug, scrubbing his face on the fabric of the uniform. His dad smells of coffee and faint cigarettes, scents left over from the station, scents Stiles has grown up with, he breathes it in and feels safe.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t want this, any of this, to—to— I’ll tell you all about it, I’ll text you, promise. Hunting yetis, be back by supper.”

“Yetis, please, no.” The sheriff looks comically defeated. “I just learned about werewolves.”

“C’mon, Dad, yetis might be pretty cool.”

In response, his dad rests his head on his arms, a fry massacre scattered around him. Stiles tears open a packet, squirts a little mound of ketchup, carefully submerges a fry.

“Boy trouble, I was right,” the sheriff says, muffled from the sanctuary of his hiding spot.

Giving a dramatic gasp, Stiles deflects, “Uh, no, not completely. There were crazy weredogs and I really did have a Government exam, which I aced, thank you kindly, and all Scott still talks about is Allison, even when we’re playing Halo, all I want to do is shoot people and blow stuff up and he’s talking about the sunlight in her hair or some sh—“

“And Derek Hale, who knows how you like your burgers and didn’t ask for our address or a phone number. He called me ‘sir,’ whaddya think of that.”

“I don’t know anything about that, we’re not dating, we’re not even a thing, there is no thing, a perfect nothing, he’s Scott’s mentor guru person, I don’t know anything, I plead the 5th.” And there’s nothing left to do but drop his head on his arms, like father like son, because nothing has anything to do with Derek, it never has and it never will.

“Pleading the 5th makes you sound guilty,” his dad points out and Stiles retorts, “Thank you, Ace Attorney,” and his dad dismisses that with a thump on the table, “Well, if you say so. He watched you like a hawk.”

“He’s a werewolf, Dad. They’re creepy that way.”

“I can do math, Stiles.”

“So can I, don’t remind me.”

Now they’re talking to each other muffled through their arms and Stiles feels like he’s five again, playing hide-and-seek, counting down as his dad hides, trying to not knock over anything with his wings as he searches. He grins in the half-darkness at the tablecloth and across the way, his dad laughs.

The next day, at precisely 5:30 p.m., Derek appears on Stiles's windowsill, boot by boot, jeans, shirt, jacket, eyes like mercury.

“Stiles.”

“Is it that time, it’s not that time, you’re early.”

Stiles is huddled under a small tent of schoolwork; he started working on calculus functions and ended up with a textbook fort complete with a bedsheet ceiling and doors, notebooks opened to hold the pen-and-pencil crossbows he created. It’s not high enough to sit, so he’s stretched on his stomach and it’s not long enough to cover him, his legs stuck out behind him protected only by another bedsheet held together with heavy-duty document clips.

A hand reaches in to grab his wrist and he fires a bent paper clip from his right turret, “ow, what the hell,” target acquired and locked on, he loads another in the rubber band before Derek can smash it. “On my mark. Ready, aim, fire.”

“Ow, stop it, Stiles.” Derek’s scowly face appears in the flimsy doorway to his tent, then disappears and Stiles worries retribution is at hand, but he can’t move or turn over or – he starts to awkwardly scoot backwards, then a boot slowly traps his ankle and the other boot presses down on his ass, pushing his body into the carpet.

“You left your ass exposed. No rear guard.”

“Oh my God, military euphemisms and you’re standing on me, how’d I get so lucky.”

“Musta been all that snark.”

“You’re one to talk, Sassmaster Flash. Get offa me, you Neanderthal.”

The boots go away and Stiles successfully reverse-caterpillars his way from underneath his fort. His clothes are crooked, so he tugs them back in place, brushes a hand through his hair. “So. You’re early. Hooray? Although I don’t think my dad’ll appreciate it if you meet him by coming down the stairs from my bedroom, y’know, just a thought.”

“Maybe he should get used to it,” Derek says, retrieving a folded pop quiz with a big red A circled at the top with four little stars around it. “Calculus. I like the stars, do they not give gold star stickers anymore?”

“No, that’s in kindergarten, and.” Stiles rewinds the conversation, a spinning motion with his fingers. “Did you just use a bizarre and somewhat tacky pick-up line? On me? Out of thin air?” His expression is uncertainty and surprise, he knows because he’s making it, but it must be hugely exaggerated because Derek’s response is his annoyed huff, the one he uses when Stiles says something or does something or is in the general vicinity—

“It wasn’t a – look, it wasn’t a pick-up line, I don’t do that, it came out wrong,” Derek’s talking faster than Stiles thought possible, “never mind, I just wanted to see what all you told your dad so I could know what absolutely needs to be discussed.”

Stiles is stunned, that’s one word for it. “He doesn’t know your full tragic background, or anything with Peter, Jackson, Lydia—“

Derek huffs again, a hard expulsion of breath, “I’m pretty sure he knows how you feel about Lydia, that can be seen from space.”

“If you’d let me finish, he knows about Scott being turned, you helping out, the other puppies, a little about Allison and her dad, yada yada yada, there were weredogs and they were just crazy about me. He’s a detective, he’ll ask the questions, trust me.” Fidgeting, Stiles wonders what is exactly happening here, it’s all about hope and maybe some belief. “What did you mean.”

“We need to get our stories straight,” Derek says, absentmindedly dismantling one of the miniature crossbows, “but you’re going for the whole truth and that’s good, he should know. He’s your dad, it’s important he knows.” He takes the rubber band, stretches it over his hand, and stands there, snapping it into his palm, not looking at Stiles.

“He was on site for the fire,” Stiles says, “he’ll understand.” Derek flicks a glance at him and Stiles shrugs. “He will, he’s a good listener, it’s his job. I was there too, you probably didn’t see me, I’m not sure how, I wasn’t exactly stealthy—“

“You were there?”

“Yeah, we saw the fire from here and my dad got the call, so I chased him. I tried to fly, but that worked out real well, as you can imagine. Or not. Don’t. Anyway, I burned my feathers. I got too close.” His wings appear and he curves one around him, grabbing a wingtip. “They changed color around then too. See the tips, I thought I’d burned them forever.” This isn’t a confessional, what the hell, so he lets go, backs up to give Derek space from him and his wings, says, “Now you know.”

The snapping rubber band stops, so Stiles says again, “My dad’ll listen.”

Then Derek kisses him, hands cupping his face, and Stiles kisses back, leaning into it, finding Derek’s waist with his fingers.

“That was – what was that for.”

“Uh, sorry, like I said, you and Lydia, I just—“

“There is no Great Wall of Lydia. There used to be, but no.” They’re still so close, Stiles is talking into Derek’s hair and he squeezes Derek where he’s holding him because Derek tenses to pull away. “My dad could see it, Scott could too, and that’s saying something since he’s all Allison-O-Vision with a side order of Werewolfitis lately.”

“See what.”

“You and me,” Stiles says, feeling dumb and young, so he kisses Derek to either make things worse or stop all the awkward talking, and Derek kisses him for long moments while Stiles forgets how to breathe.

“Just so you know, your line didn’t work,” it’s important to inform Derek, he can’t let him think that worked out of everything else, and Derek nods, laughing, mouth open against his to say, “I believe you.”

“Wait, question.”

“You’re gonna interrogate me while we’re making out.”

“Exactly who do you think you’re kissing.”

“Point.” Derek sways to see Stiles better, running his hand through Stiles’s hair and Stiles melts a little.

“Uh, why me.”

And Derek looks prepared for that question, maybe he’s asked himself that over and over, and Stiles laughs nervously, but Derek simply says, “You’re you, just who you are.”

“Not what I am?”

“Human?” There’s an adorable confusion wrinkle on Derek’s forehead, so Stiles presses it with his thumb, then he leans in and seductively says, “An angel.”

Derek laughs, hands clasped between them as if he’s caught the best joke ever. It makes Stiles feel aroused and grumpy and what is happening to him, he’s going to die of grumpy arousal. “And just so you know, I’m all about the wolf, that’s all, I’m in it for the fun bestiality—“

They kiss, Stiles letting Derek back him against the desk, his wings wide smashing into furniture and Derek trips over the textbook fort, teeth mashed into Stiles’s lip, a sting he tastes, “wait, hold up, we are not this clumsy, are we, we’re gonna die trying to have sex,” and Derek smiles so slow Stiles goes a little weak-kneed, hovering until he’s looking down at Derek.

“Guess we’ll have to use protection,” and Stiles is laughing as he drags Derek closer, “No, that’s awful, that’s so bad it’s a sin, stop with the horribleness, no talking,” and there’s only one way to shut each other up.

It’s a bit upside-down and his shoulders start to hurt though he doesn’t know why until he realizes he’s still flying while kissing, and Derek pulls him down to earth, a tongue on his throat and a warm hand on his belly.

They could be here for eons until the sun burns out, kissing and kissing, then it breaks, “oh my God, what time is it,” they’re both scrambling, fixing clothes and Derek’s mouth is red, Stiles wants to see if that color has a flavor, so he does, except no, it’s 5:50 and Derek’s saying, “Meeting with your dad, remember,” and Stiles replies, “Yeah, the horrible prom date investigation, I remember,” but there’s kissing, he’s waited for the kissing, that noise Derek makes when Stiles licks his jaw and how Derek stops breathing for a second when Stiles slips a hand under his shirt, 5:52, “meeting with your dad, the sheriff,” and Stiles shakes out of it, “Gun, badge, authority, go go go,” then Derek slips out the window and at 5:54, the police cruiser pulls into the drive.

Stiles is calmly sitting on his bed with his calculus book open (he figured out that function, really, kissing is brain food or something, he needs to keep that for future reference), a pencil in his hand, and what he hopes is an innocent look on his face when his dad enters as if expecting Stiles to have company, oh, imagine that. He gives a cursory look around and says, “I’d prefer for you to be in on this conversation, it’s not corroboration of alibis, just maybe you can fill in some details.”

“Yes, sir, wouldn’t miss it, sir.” He gives a little salute and his dad smirks.

“Great, I think—“ The doorbell rings, his dad disappearing into the hallway, and Stiles dumps his books to follow after him. The sheriff is waiting, says, “You do the honors,” and Stiles opens the door to Scott saying, “Yeah, when I got here, were you climbing out of—“ and Derek kicks his ankle.

“Hello, Sheriff, Stiles. Burgers, like I promised.”

“Come on in.”

They troop into the house, Stiles and Scott making faces at each other, be cool, I am cool what’s your problem, we’ll discuss it later, Derek and the sheriff talking baseball scores.

It’s a long night and Mrs. McCall stops by too, her expression one she wears around Sheriff Stilinski, their shared exasperation and affection for their children, close as brothers. She says, “I gave him a week before I told you myself,” and the sheriff nods sagely, “I got that same deadline,” and they commiserate over their reckless (“adventurous,” Stiles claims) children while Scott and Stiles sit there, flabbergasted, “we did not do that, we’re sitting right here, hello.”

It’s a long night and the sheriff asks questions and Derek answers them, tells things Stiles didn’t know either, about his family and the Argents and a little history of Beacon Hills.

“Are yetis real,” is Stiles’s important contribution and everyone at the table gives him a flat stare. “What, it’s a valid question, one mankind has been seeking the answer to for centuries. Stop looking at me like that, in unison.”

It’s not all good, there’s a lot that comes to light, but it’s out there, it’s been said and heard and understood, somewhat. They talk so long they get hungry again, but Stiles is short on snacks, “I know, I have to go to the grocery store, I know, I was a tad bit busy,” so he cooks the rest of the box of garlic bread.

They talk and Derek hooks a boot around his leg under the table and Scott gives them another perspective, the newborn werewolf, the one who ties everything together, the humans, the wolves, the connection for everyone at the table.

At some point, Stiles pulls his hoodie off and lets his wings go and he feels a tickle down low on a wing; it’s draped along the back of Derek’s chair and his hand fiddles with the feathers there as the sheriff says, “I worry about Stiles.”

“So do we all,” Derek says, wry, and Scott laughs, “One time, we were walking home and he fell into a mud puddle,” and Stiles retorts, “I didn’t fall, I was pushed, you pushed me, you were all, ‘Look, a mud puddle!’ and then you pushed me!”

“See, I worry about Stiles,” the sheriff continues, “I worry about you all, it’s dangerous now, I know, but—“

Scott is still laughing, says, “He doesn’t need protection,” and Stiles chokes on the empty glass he picked up hoping for water, Derek’s boot kicking his leg out from under him, those mirror eyes lit with amusement, “Excuse me?”

The sheriff coughs, smirk behind his hand, “Just look out for each other, okay.”

“We’re pack,” Scott says, insistent. “That’s how it works.”

Scott and Mrs. McCall leave a while later; Stiles hugs her because she’s his second mom, she understands, has ever since Scott brought Stiles home the first day and said, ‘We want ice cream.’

But Derek lingers, he and the sheriff talking sports and politics and Stiles isn’t sure if it’s an actual comradeship or if they’re dancing around territory, namely him. He leaves them to it, wanders off to the TV, finds Nosferatu running on PBS with the mood music filling in all the silence.

Then he hears his dad say, “Sundays are usually good. Stiles makes a mean meatloaf,” and he’s sits up to watch them shake hands, his dad giving Derek a manly pat on the shoulder.

“I’m headed to bed and Derek’s headed home,” Sheriff Stilinski pronounces. “Go out on the porch so I can flash the porchlight at you after ten minutes, but for the love of pete, don’t scare the neighbors. I can do math, remember.”

He shoos them out the door, as if it’s a date, Stiles is mildly embarrassed, enough to find the ground to be the best thing he’s seen all day, until Derek nudges at his neck with his nose, tilting him so they can kiss.

“He said he has a badge, a gun, a little background in forensics, and it’ll be legal,” Derek says against Stiles’s temple, “might even be justifiable homicide.”

Stiles grips his jacket. “You’re justifiable homicide.”

Derek laughs in the dark and Stiles has to kiss him and then the porchlight starts flicking on off on off on off.

It’s not all easy. There’s beasties that pass through and there’s slow weeks of nothing new in the woods and there’s the full moon nights of Stiles babysitting, circling in the air as the wolves chase each other with incredible speed.

There’s nights his dad has to work late or days he’s so tired he doesn’t want to eat and Stiles gets to say, “You eat that chicken and broccoli, or you’re grounded, mister,” but it’s not always funny.

Texts with there’s a warehouse full of magical drugs, Dad, coordinates here. Or there’s a new scent, might be yetis, reheat the lasagna, it’s in the fridge for you. Or just a be careful, Stiles and a reply I’ve got Allison Queen of the Hunt with me. Nights of extra patrol cars on the road and something dark slinking in the shadows, it’s a mountain lion, no, it’s something far, far worse.

It’s not all easy, but Derek is there to rub Icy Hot on Stiles’s shoulders and Scott is there to mix up nitrogen and oxygen on that chem paper and the pack is there to have movie nights, “no pineapple this time, what is wrong with you, all of you,” Boyd complains and Erica says, “If it fits on a pizza, it goes on a pizza,” and Isaac makes a face, “Can we start the movie now, please.” Lydia and Allison piled together on end of the couch and they wave Erica over to join them, discussing the gender politics of Legally Blonde while Stiles listens and throws popcorn at them.

And Derek is there to sneak into Stiles’s window, though he comes by on Sundays to be an honorary Stilinski and he’s there sometimes after school and out in the woods and it’s not all hardcore sex, sometimes it is, but mostly it’s hanging out and talking in bed about whatever, stupid shit sometimes, comic book characters and the latest Michael Connolly and how much CGI is detrimental to a movie’s health.

He’s brings up flying with Derek and Derek narrows his eyes at Stiles. “I’m a wolf. We’re land animals. For a reason.”

“Are you afraid of heights?” Stiles questions, the thought never occurred to him, and Derek looks uncomfortable and annoyed, “oh my God, you are!” He gives in to glee, claps his hands, then sidles up close, arms going around Derek, “I’ll take care of you, baby.”

“Get offa me, you’ll drop me, you dropped Scott the other day.”

“That’s because he tackles me and then expects me to just fly away, like I’m some sort of hover taxi.”

“Whatever, no. There’s a reason wolves don’t have wings.”

“You’d look ridiculously awesome?”

Sometimes Derek sleeps in his wolf form and late one afternoon, he’s sleeping in the last ray of sunlight, his profile shadowed on the wall. Stiles lies down next to him, dwarfed by his wolf size, and lifts a wing, poses it, watches the shadow puppet until it’s in place. He has to contort to take the picture, but he gets it: a wolf silhouette with a wing.

“See, ridiculously awesome.”

He takes Derek flying exactly once and it’s like his dad described: he’s attempting to gain altitude with Derek clutching his arms, dangling above the ground and he’s laughing way too much to be any good at this.

They make it to the roof of the house and perch there, it’s impressive all in all. When the sheriff comes home, he waves up at them, then stares at his shoes for a long moment, hand pressed to his forehead, before going inside. Stiles knows, he holds Derek’s hand, and he knows, so when they go inside for supper, he gets out an album of pictures of his mom when she was young, finds the picture of his parents, high school sweethearts, Derek nodding as Stiles talks and points.

There’s a picture at the very back, his mother, laughing, her mouth open to say something; she has her wings spread wide and she’s shaking her finger at the person behind the camera, you’re in trouble now. Her hair and hawk wings catch the edges of sunlight, her eyes big and happy with her hand protective on the swell of her belly.

Notes:

Title from "Things That Scare Me" by Neko Case. This is for thingswhatareawesome who is incredibly patient with me.
I'm on tumblr at psychofink.

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