Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1622264.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Derek_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski
  Character:
      Derek_Hale, Scott_McCall, Stiles_Stilinski, Allison_Argent, Chris_Argent,
      Isaac_Lahey, Alan_Deaton, Lydia_Martin, Original_Female_Character(s)
  Additional Tags:
      Canon-Typical_Violence, Alternate_Universe_-_Canon_Divergence, Post-
      Season_3A
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-05-16 Updated: 2014-07-13 Chapters: 5/? Words: 11478
****** A Soul's Song ******
by jcherneson
Summary
     In which the Nemeton has lured something old to Beacon Hill, leaving
     its guardians in disarray. But Stiles is the one who can best defend
     against it, and Derek returns from South America to make sure he's
     got the chance to do just that. But at what price victory?
Notes
     My first fanfic, but not my first writing. Hope to give back a little
     bit of the enjoyment I've gotten reading here.
     Please don't hesitate to let me know if I've mislabeled anything.
     Sterek is, as they say, endgame.
***** On the Run *****
Stiles wrenched the wheel on his Jeep sharply to the left. With the swerve-and-
lurch his baby gave on the wet midnight streets, he gritted his teeth, eyes
wide, sure that he’d just managed to tip it over. But the Jeep gripped the
slick asphalt, and skidded into the rough gravel parking lot at the edge of
Beacon Hills. He got as near as he could to the big, industrial concrete
building that lay on the other end of the parking lot and stamped on the
brakes. He was opening the door before she’d finished skidding to a halt. He
yanked the keys out of the ignition, and fumbled with his seatbelt for a moment
as the lights of the car following him turned into the parking lot, close
behind.

Crap. He’d hoped he’d had a little better of a head start. Well, he’d have to
make every bit count, he thought, as he stumble-ran away all flailing limbs and
gawky frame from his Jeep into the large steel doors of the sewage treatment
facility. Thankfully, the doors were open, and he didn’t trip on the wet, tiny
gravel that made up the approach to the entrance (though just barely). As he
slammed the doors behind him, Stiles caught a glimpse of his father’s patrol
car slamming to a stop, spraying gravel over his Jeep. The doors all popped
open, and figures came pouring out of the vehicle in hot pursuit.

“Stiles! Son!” his father shouted, standing half out of the still-running car.
“Don’t do this! We’re just worried for you, damn it! Stiles!”

“We’ve got this,” Scott growled, his voice full of irritation at the necessity
of all of this mess. He glanced at the Sheriff. “You stay here and make sure he
doesn’t sneak back out to his Jeep while we’re in there.” The older man sighed,
and nodded. Scott turned to the other two figures who’d clambered out of the
back seat of the cruiser.

“Isaac. Allison. Let’s go.” Scott’s eyes gleamed the color of blood, and his
features shifted, and Isaac answered his transformation with his own golden-
eyed one. Allison’s eyes played over the building’s exterior, studying it,
examining it as she strung her bow. The trio stalked to the building’s entrance
and slipped inside, using the very same door Stiles had just slammed behind
them.

Inside, the two wolves nearly gagged, and Isaac faltered, crouching defensively
with his hands over his ears. The facility was largely automated, allowing its
mechanisms to run day and night, filtering the disgusting contents of sewage
from the water that carried it before sending it all on to whatever the next
stage in that process was. The machinery was loud, so loud that both Scott and
Isaac were forced to concentrate to shut it out, and the noxious fumes of the
plant’s processing nearly overwhelmed them.

“Smart,” Allison said with a nod, looking around her. She looked aggravated,
but also a little impressed. Scott shot her a glance and she gestured around
them. “He’s brought us to one of the few places where your heightened senses
are not only negated, but turned against you. There’s no way you’ll be able to
track him by scent in this place, or hear his movements at all. I almost wish
I’d thought of it.”

Scott scowled at her. “Can we be impressed with his werewolf hunting tactics
later, and just find him?” She shrugged, and smiled.

“He could be anywhere in here,” Isaac said, looking around warily. “If we can’t
track him by sound or smell, it’s going to be really hard to find him.”

“We should call for backup,” Allison said, stringing an arrow and resting its
feathered end lightly in her right hand. “My dad is waiting by the phone for
our call.”

“No, we can do this. I don’t want to fail our Lady, Allison. Let’s see if we
can fix this ourselves, without involving anyone else. We’re going to have to
spread out. Any one of us is still a match for him by ourselves. Just don’t
hurt him unless it’s really, really necessary. Got it?” Isaac and Allison
glanced at one another, and nodded to Scott. With that, the three each chose a
separate direction to go in. Scott took the left, and Isaac took the right,
each of them slipping into the shadows and padding on stealthy tread. For
herself, Allison looked up at the industrial catwalks above their heads, and
found the nearest ladder up to them. At the base of the ladder, she reached
into her bag, donned a pair of night vision goggles, and began her climb.

The catwalk was an old metal construction, and the heels of her boots clanged
against it as she reached her perch. From her vantage, she scanned the interior
of the cavernous facility. Normally, she’d just talk to the werewolves she was
hunting with, knowing that their hearing would let them hear her, but again the
noise of the facility prevented them from using those enhanced senses. She had
to grudgingly admit Stiles’ cleverness in running here. But really, to what
purpose? What was he going to…

There he was. Just ahead of Isaac, but it looked like the curly-headed werewolf
was going to miss him. Allison notched an arrow, pulled and released, sending
the shaft winging across the dark space of the plant. It landed three paces
ahead of Isaac’s path and he stutter-stepped away from it in alarm. He swung
his gaze upward, seeking the threat, eyes all gold with the threat of violence.
He spotted her and looked confused for a moment, allowing her to point out the
direction Stiles was waiting. He grinned a lupine grin, all fang, and corrected
his path.

Looking around, Allison found Scott. Neither of them were particularly
stealthy, but Scott was making a better attempt than Lahey had. With another
arrow, she grabbed his attention, and pointed him in the right direction. He
flashed her a thumbs up, snatched up the arrow (good, she thought - she’d have
to make sure to recover the one she sent in Isaac’s direction) and moved on
quick tread towards the other side of the plant.

“I’m very sorry, my dear.” Allison whirled and found the calm visage of Deaton,
mere feet away from her. Before she could respond with anything but a gasp, he
raised an open palm and puffed his breath at her, sending a small cloud of some
sort of powder at her. She coughed once, and her nerveless hands dropped her
weapon. She coughed a second time, and her legs gave out from under her. She
toppled over, slamming her shoulder and upper arm into the railing of the
catwalk, and then slid bonelessly to the grated surface of the catwalk, rapidly
unconscious.

Deaton looked down at the floor below them, and turned back towards the stairs,
praying that Stiles remembered his part in all of this.

Down below, Isaac rounded a corner. Despite the horrible stench of the effluvia
in the tanks and channels around them, he caught a fleeting hint of Stiles’
scent. He had to be near…and so he was. He stood at a dead end, trapped with
the wall of the plant to his back, and tall tanks up on metal frames to either
side. When he saw Isaac, he raised his hands, and Isaac’s wolf practically
slavered at the slight tremble in his hands.

“Uh, Isaac. C’mon, man. You’ve got to snap out of it. I know you guys don’t
want to do this. She’s messing with your heads, and…”

“Hold still, Stiles,” Isaac said, watching the thin teen carefully. He was
tricky, and Isaac approached him slowly and warily, refusing to take his eyes
off him. “Just come back with us. Don’t fight. Your dad’s waiting outside, and
Scott misses you.” He took another step forward.

His wolf responded to Stiles’ sudden action with a slight lurch, more surprise
than fear, but that was all it took. He’d been so focused on the gangly youth’s
hands, raised up near his face, that he’d neglected to pay any attention to his
feet.

With a grunt, Stiles stomped down on the thin glass bottle at his feet, and
touched that spark that Deaton taught him how to find. The powdered mountain
ash in it slipped with a small hissing sound towards the rest of the mountain
ash that lay in a semi-circle on the floor around Isaac. Like metal filings
drawn toward one another, the mountain ash slammed into a perfect circle around
the boy. He realized too late what was happening and leapt, only to slam into
the spiritual presence of the ward he was now trapped in.

Isaac’s eyes glowed like molten gold and how roar-howled his fury, slamming
fists into the barrier over and again.

Stiles grinned, flashed the werewolf a quick wave, and then ducked under one of
the tank-bases to his right, scrambling through the interlocking supports
carefully. He emerged on the other side, in a somewhat more open area, and
glanced around cautiously. No sign of Allison or Scott, but no sign of Deaton,
either.

He’d been lucky. When that creature came to the town, Deaton had sensed it.
She’d gone after him first, of course - Deaton worked the old magics, the kind
of magics that were part and parcel of the world she came from, and so he was
the largest threat. The druid was subtle, though, and knew how to read the
kinds of omens that warned him of her impending hunt, and he’d vanished without
a trace.

After that, she hunted down the three guardians of the Nemeton, those three who
had a soul-deep connection to it. Allison she’d taken first, and Isaac and Mr.
Argent with her. Scott was next, that night he and Stile had been searching for
clues to Deaton’s disappearance at the vet clinic. Allison, Isaac and Mr.
Argent had showed up suddenly and violently, although the hunters were using
tranq rounds. Scott pushed Stiles towards the back room, trying to get him some
breathing space to get the hell out of there. He’d been working at wedging one
of the windows open when she’d just appeared from out of nowhere. She was
breath-stoppingly beautiful, in her mantle of raven’s feathers, with her long
black dreadlocks and deep black eyes. She’d whispered to Stiles in a wordless
sussurus that he felt more than heard, touching him just under his collarbone
with one long taloned finger, and when he stopped stock still in terror, she
simply smiled and walked away.

From her expression, he was pretty sure she’d thought something had happened.
That she’d done something to him, but he didn’t feel any different. Cautiously,
fearfully, he’d followed her, to find Scott being held down, kneeling in the
center of the clinic waiting room. Stiles noted that she breezed past the
mountain ash wards, and stepped up to Scott, reaching down to touch him as she
had him.

Stiles knew Scott. He knew him well, and he’d known him for a long time. So
when Scott’s expression turned from one of pain and anger to that of a
simpering, adoring puppy, he knew something was going on. None of them paid
much attention to him, though, as he got closer to the front door, until Mr.
Argent called his name.

“Stiles,” he said, while the strange woman whispered to Scott. “Go and pull the
van around to the front door. There’s some things our Lady wants to take from
here.” He threw Stiles a keychain, which Stiles nearly dropped. Looking up, he
was afraid his clumsiness might give something away - might reveal him for not
quite as controlled as they seemed to think he was. But no, Argent had already
turned back to listen to this woman, joining Scott, Allison and Isaac in gazing
at her adoringly.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” he said, heading for the front door. Everything in his
instincts told him to flee as fast as he could, but they all seemed to think he
was on their side, so he made sure to do nothing to dispel that. Just outside
the door, he’d carefully climbed into his Jeep, put it in neutral, silently
pushed it out of the parking lot into the abandoned street and then hopped in,
starting it and driving as quickly as he could away from them. For good
measure, he tossed the keys to their transportation up under his seat, which
was as good as bucking it into the ocean, as far as he was concerned.

A growl from above snapped him out of it, but too late. With a fearful glance
upward, Stiles toppled over as the red-eyed predator that was his best friend
in the world leapt down on top of him, bearing him to the ground. Stiles
shrieked as Scott squatted on top of him, snatching up the lapels of the
flannel shirt he wore and slammed him once, then again, into the cement floor.

Scott glanced up just as a bottle of mountain ash came sailing at the out of
the darkness, and shattered near his head. Both of them flinched, and that was
enough time for the powder to snap into the shape of a circle around them.
Scott leapt off of Stiles, slamming into the barrier, howling his fury at the
figure of Deaton, who stepped out of the shadows. Freed to move again, Stiles
leapt for the opposite edge of the circle, stumbling to his feet and tumbling
over the line, praying that he didn’t do anything to smudge that line. He
rolled once and then came up on one knee in time to see Scott slam into the
edge of the mountain ash circle closest to him, too late to keep his prey from
escaping.

“Jesus! Cutting it a little close, weren’t you?”

“We don’t have much time, Stiles. I think that…” the older man began, and then
Stiles watched in horror as the shadows unfolded behind him in a burst of black
feathers, and suddenly she was there.

“No, druid,” she said, in her heavy lilting accent. Deaton whirled, raising his
hand, a word on his lips, but she was faster, and she drove one of those raven-
talons past his guard to touch his chest. “You are out of time.”

Deaton fell to his knees, a gasping sob escaping his lips, and Stiles ran. He
ran for all he was worth. He careened through the plant, rebounding off of
machinery here and there, ducking (sometimes not in time) to avoid hitting his
head on the seemingly endless obstacles at head-height, until he found the
door.

He burst through it, surprising his dad.

“Stiles!” The Sheriff straightened from where he was leaning against the hood
of his car, but Stiles was already running for his Jeep. The older man slipped
a little in the wet gravel, and that was all the time Stiles needed. His Jeep
roared to life (thank you, he nearly sobbed), and he tore out of the parking
lot in a spray of rain-slick pebbles.

“Fuck!” He slammed the pad of his open palm into the steering wheel, and tried
to blink back tears. Now what?

***** The Last Place They’d Look *****
Chapter Summary
     In which Stiles seeks a hiding place from which to regroup and figure
     out his next move.
Chapter Notes
     Thanks for the kudos. Unbeta'd.
It was less than an hour before dawn by the time Stiles pushed open the door to
Deaton’s vet clinic. He wedged one foot inside to hold the door open and then
carefully pulled the bicycle into the lobby without turning on the lights
inside. Hurredly, he leans Scott’s bike against the wall there, glancing out
the windows of the door to see if he was followed. He’s pretty sure he wasn’t.

His first stop had been Scott’s house, to nab the bike he hadn’t used since
getting his motorcycle. Throwing it in the back of his Jeep, he quickly drove
to the school parking lot and left his Jeep there - it was too hard to hide
effectively, and was the most useful way of tracking him, especially if his Dad
was helping to hunt for him. He’d have the resources of the Sheriff’s
Department, and if he had that, then it meant that she had it as well.

Satisfied with his search, he pulled down the shade over the door, flipping the
sign to CLOSED and making sure it was locked. He crept carefully to the back of
the clinic, using his phone to illuminate his way. He checked all the rooms,
his heart pounding in his chest, to make sure that he was alone. Since all of
this began, Deaton had sent all the animals in his clinic home, or to other
clinics, for which Stiles was grateful. The thought of Deaton being taken and
no one being left to take care of those animals? Not cool.

Gingerly, he found his way into Deaton’s office. Thankfully, it was unlocked.
He knew that the lady with the raven feathers kept her newest toys close to her
for the first twenty-four hours. Deaton had said it was part of the
“imprinting” she used to compel people to obey her. With any luck, she wouldn’t
think to send anyone around to his clinic until then, and by then, Stiles would
be out. It was a risk, but he needed a place to hang out during the day, to
keep out of sight.

Plus, he intended to ransack Deaton’s office library and stores here, and see
what kinds of things he had tucked away that might be of use. He was pretty
sure that he could probably manage the research necessary to figure out how to
use some of it, but honestly? He was just scared.

Stiles slid down the wall behind Deaton’s desk, shutting off his phone’s light.
The knot he’d been doing his best to ignore churned up out of his belly and
into his throat, and he allowed himself a strangled sob.

But just one, damn it. Exhaling loudly, he wiped the back of his hand across
his eyes, clearing the tears from his face before looking around. The truth
was, he was terrified, and he had no idea what to do next. He kind of needed to
feel like he was accomplishing something, though - it was pretty clear that if
he just sat around, he was going to be a fear- and grief-induced wreck, and he
couldn’t risk that kind of thing.

People he loved were counting on him to keep his shit together. He stood
quickly, and looked around the room. In the span of about twenty minutes, he’d
gathered a bunch of books and likely-looking jars (some marked with symbols of
various kinds). He crossed into the back office, and found the refrigerator.
Fortunately, Deaton tended to half live out of his office, so there were some
leftovers to be found there that weren’t too terribly old, and Stiles grabbed
those, along with a bottle of water from one of the cabinets. Finally, he found
a closet where towels, blankets and the like were stored, and grabbed and
armful of them, sufficient to make himself a nest back behind the desk in
Deaton’s office.

By this time, the light outside was sufficient to allow him to see without the
use of his phone. He sat down, picked up a book, staring at it for what had to
be less than a minute before resolutely closing it again. He just couldn’t. He
opened the container of what looked like it used to be arroz con pollo (or
maybe enchiladas? Something red…) and nibbled at it a bit. By habit, he clicked
open his phone and checked his messages before thumbing it off and dropping it
next to him in irritation. Who the hell was going to message him?

The ringing of the phone snapped him awake again. He wasn’t sure when he’d
dropped off, but the light was much stronger in here now. He glanced hurriedly
at his own phone, but no - that wasn’t his phone ringing. It was Deaton’s
office phone, the old one that actually still rang. The answering machine next
to it (Jesus, Deaton - an answering machine?) clicked over, and Deaton’s voice
tinnily apologized for not being there, asking the caller to leave a message.

“Deaton,” the gruff voice said over a bad connection. “It’s Derek.”

Stiles scrambled suddenly, bursting into action. Leftovers flew in a nasty red
arc, spattering his blanket nest, as Stiles practically threw himself at the
phone. He picked up the receiver, and mashed buttons on the answering machine
to make it give him control again.

“Derek? Derek!”

There was a pause in which Stiles was terrified that he’d managed to hangup on
the line.

“Stiles?” Derek asked incredulously.

“Oh, thank God!” Stiles slid into Deaton’s seat, shoving it away from the desk.
“I…I didn’t know who to contact, Derek. I didn’t have anyone to…”

“Stiles, what’s going on?” The werewolf’s gravely voice punched in over his
panic. The one thing about Derek’s anger - it always sounded like such a
controlled anger. Like, he was a life-long werewolf, and even when he was super
pissed, it always kinda sounded like it was a harnessed rage, and Stiles let
himself drink in some of that self-control. He took a deep breath.

“Deaton’s gone, Derek. And so is everyone else. She took them and
like…brainwashed them, Derek.”

“Stiles, tell me what’s going on from the beginning.” Stiles broke a little,
then. He was so relieved to have someone he could tell these problems to,
someone he could depend on to come and help fix everything. He hadn’t meant to
sob into the phone like that.

“It’s going to be alright, Stiles, okay? You hear me? Just tell me what’s
happened.”

“Deaton says that she was lured here by the power of the Nemeton, like he
warned us things would be. She’s…I’m not sure. He didn’t have a name for it. Or
actually, he kinda had too many names. He said they were where the medieval
world got its stories of the succubus from, and that in Ireland they were
called something like leenawn-shee.”

“Leanansidhe?”

“That’s it, yeah! He says that they feed off of…well, sex, right? But that they
also do this thing where they can control people.”

“What kind of control?”

“Deaton says that it’s about love. Or lust. Whatever. She reaches into them,
and takes the feelings the person felt associated with the lovemaking of their
past, and sorta…transferred it to her? So like, Scott is mooning over her the
way he used to with Allison, and my dad is…” He couldn’t finish that thought.

“She’s got your dad?” Stiles could only make an affirmative-sounding squeak in
the phone.

“Yeah. She couldn’t control me, though. Turns out, for once, me being a virgin
actually works in my favor. She can only grab the emotions that come from
having had sex and use those, and I…just don’t have any of those.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re safe, Stiles. If you aren’t someone she can dominate,
she’ll feed on you. You have to get out of there. Like, leave town entirely.”

“I can’t leave everyone here for her to…to use, Derek! Scott, my dad, Allison,
Lydia - none of them would give up on me, if things were reversed. I can’t
just…abandon them. What do I do?” Stiles finally asked, and waited.

For too long.

“Derek?” he asked again, tentatively. “Are you…Derek?”

Fuck. The line was dead. And that’s when he heard the distinctive thud-click of
the front door being closed and locked again. In no time, Scott’s silhouette
blackened the doorway to Deaton’s office. He leaned against the doorway,
smiling that puppy dog Scott-smile, made sinister in the half-light. Stiles
stood, casting about for something that he could use as a weapon. Anything,
damn it.

“Stiles, don’t. Just stop, man. Who were you talking to on the phone?” Scott’s
voice was light. Friendly, with a little of his old banter, the kind that was
just between the two of them.

Just hearing it made Stiles want to cry. “I’m not going with you.”

Scott just smiled. “Dude…you’re not not going with me. Please, Stiles. You’re
my best friend. Don’t make me hurt you, okay? Your dad is waiting outside, and
he wants to make sure you’re okay. We all do.”

Stiles just sagged against the desk. He was so tired.

“You know what she’s going to do to me, right, Scott? She’ll feed on me, man.
She can’t control me the way she does you.”

Stiles couldn’t tell if the look of sadness and concern that came over Scott’s
face was genuine. It looked genuine, damn it. “Dude,” he said, a voice full of
concern. “She just wants us to love her, Stiles. That’s all. Come and meet her
- really meet her. She’s easy to love.”

“You can’t get in here,” Stiles said finally. “I know that if you could, you’d
have already been in here.”

Scott sighed, the sound of someone at wit’s end with someone they care about.
He glanced sideways, at the thin line of mountain ash worked into the center of
the door frame, and shook his head. He spun on his heel, stepping out of the
doorway, and for just a moment, Stiles allowed himself to feel a moment of
hope.

Then Allison Argent stepped into the doorway, and that hope curdled in his
belly, replaced with nausea.
***** In the Dark *****
Chapter Summary
     In which Stiles is a prisoner without light and without hope.
His eyelids fluttered open, and he’d have groaned if his mouth weren’t so dry.
Dimly, Stiles was aware that he ought to be doing…something. But it was so hard
to remember. So hard to think at all, and it just seemed kinder to himself to
let his eyelids flutter closed again, and to try and recapture the
unconsciousness.

But it refused to come.

It felt like there was a tangled knot in his chest, and it made it hard to
breathe. It was terribly familiar, but he didn’t have a name for it, and it
tightened in his breast, strangling him, until he shot bolt upright in bed,
gasping for breath. Then, when it felt like it might kill him, crushing his
innards like some great fist, it released like the thrumming of a bowstring.

The tears came then, and he wished he could be dead.

He didn’t know how long he rested like that. He didn’t remember leaning to the
side, pressing his face (it felt so bruised) up against the cold cinder block
wall next to the cot he lay on. He wept, his eyes closed tightly as though he
could make it all real just by not seeing any of it. He cried until his throat
was raw, and his eyes swollen and gritty. He ran a hand through his hair, which
was matted and greasy from too long without a shower.

Sniffling, he took a deep, shuddering breath, and then another, rubbing his
eyes with the heels of his hands, pressing inward on his sore sockets as much
as he was wiping away the tears. For a few moments, he gave himself the luxury
of that despair, the kind of hopelessness that allowed even someone like Stiles
to just do nothing.

Then, he took a third deep breath, held it for a moment, and opened his eyes.

It was hard to remember how many times he’d done this. A watery grey twilight
spilled into the room from high up on the wall. He knew he was in a basement of
some kind (damn it, why was it always freaking basements and cellars these
days?). Thought it was largely empty, the room had clearly once held boxes or
furniture or something, judging from the marks on the floor. The place was
dirty, with the accumulated grime of a subterranean room that people preferred
to just put things in and forget. A rickety-looking staircase climbed one wall
to a door on the landing above it.

The only thing in the room was the cot he was curled up on, half-swaddled in
old, rough packing blankets like the kind moving or storage companies sold to
wrap furniture in: harsh, and coarse. Suddenly their texture was too much to
bear, and he pushed them off of him, kicking half-frantically to get free,
despite his nakedness underneath. The cold, still air made him feel like he
could breathe again.

A click at the top of the stairs snapped his attention upward, and then harsh
electrical light flooded the room. Frantic, he snatched up the covers and
hauled them back over him while he scrambled to put his back in the wall
corner. He tried not to cower, to be brave, but the knot in his chest was back,
as sudden as a trap springing closed, and it was everything he could do not to
cry out. Instead, he drew his knees up beneath his chin, and hid his face in
the blankets that pooled there.

Shoed feet descended the wooden steps, stopping at the bottom of the staircase.

“Hey, buddy.” Scott’s voice was quiet, the voice he used to talk to fearful
wounded animals at the vet. Stiles looked up shakily, his eyes hooded in fear.
Scott smiled at him disarmingly, those dimples flashing. Stiles knew it was
supposed to be a comforting gesture, drawing on their friendship. But seeing
that smile, with him here in these circumstances? Stiles lowered his head to
the blankets again and sobbed.

“Hey, hey.” Scott tried to console him. Stiles was dimly aware of him crossing
the cold basement floor, and setting something in his hands down on the ground
next to the cot. The cot squeaked in protest as Scott sat on the edge and
reached out to touch Stiles’ shoulder. “It’s okay, buddy. I’m here. It’s all
okay.”

“Get away from me!” With a snarl, Stiles shoved, and Scott went sprawling
backwards off the cot.

Scott’s head hit the cement floor with an ugly, meaty sound. Stiles’ sudden
lurch forward also managed to stumble himself half-off the cot, his hands
knocking aside the paper-wrapped sandwich and bottle of water on the ground
next to them. Clumsy and ungainly as always, but he recovered quickly, and was
on his feet almost immediately. He skipped around a groaning Scott, careful to
remain out of arms’ reach, and then raced for the stairs.

Unfortunately, Scott was still a freaking werewolf, and recovered quickly.
While Stiles pounded up the rough, splintery stairs, Scott rose and leapt up
the side of the staircase itself. His leap didn’t carry him high enough to
actually get onto the stairs themselves and block Stiles’ flight, but it was
enough to allow him to reach through the railing and swipe at Stiles’ legs. The
boy’s unshod foot scraped against the steps as Scott tripped him, and he
tumbled backward with a gasping wail, all flailing limbs.

He had no time to recover before a red-eyed Scott snatched him up from the base
of the staircase and manhandled him back to the cot, slamming him into it with
such force that the cheap aluminum struts buckled beneath him, breaking part of
it.

“Stay down!” he roared as only an Alpha werewolf could. It did something to the
lizard-brain, that roar, and Stiles was pretty sure that if his body was
working normally, he’d have pissed himself. As it was, he curled in on himself,
biting his lip bloody in terror, trying to make himself as small and obedient
as possible.

“That is enough,” her voice said suddenly in their midst, and Stiles’ stomach
bottomed out. Scott’s roar created in him a terrible animal terror. Her simple
whisper created in him a fear that was much, much worse, the kind of cold
creeping-across-the-spine terror that he didn’t have a name for. The Alpha-
voice filled him with an animal fear; her voice filled him with primordial
terror.

“Go back upstairs,” she said, and Scott gulped and whined low, like a scolded
puppy. Stiles raised his head then, and watched as Scott slowly backed away.
Not in fear - God, that might have made him feel somewhat better, in some way.
No, Scott had forgotten that Stiles existed at all, and couldn’t take his eyes
off of her as he backed away, anxious to show her how obedient he was, and
begging for some simple acknowledgement.

Taking a breath, he let his gaze slide across to her, fighting the impulse that
sparked in his brain to avoid looking, to turn away, to never meet the eyes of
death because that’s how it noticed you back. She paid no heed to Scott
whatsoever, and instead regarded Stiles with a bemused expression, like she
found him unfathomable and eternally interesting.

She turned away from him just long enough to look up the staircase, where Scott
had stalled in his flight, looking like he was torn between leaving and rushing
back down to her side. She arched an eyebrow, and that was all it took. He
bowed his head like a scolded child, and fled the basement.

“You…you sure got him on…on a leash,” Stiles quipped, spitting a bit of blood
on the floor, refusing to look away from her fey gaze. She smiled charmingly.

“You are such a refreshing creature. Moments ago you were in the grip of
despair so black and consuming I could feel it from the topmost floor of this
house. You’ve just been brutalized by your closest friend - not the first time,
as I’m sure you can dimly recall - and yet seeing his obedience to me only
fills you with anger.”

“More like contempt,” Stiles spat, and pulled the blankets back over himself
with just a hint of self-consciousness. He fidgeted with them, arranging and
re-arranging them, tucking here and shifting them there before he looked up at
her with the sharpest gaze he could muster. “We’ve faced a crazed burn-victim
werewolf, a whole freaking pack of evil-ass Alphas, a murder-lizard and a
Freddy-Kruger-faced druid bitch from Hell, and they were all stone-cold
killers. You? You’re basically just a super-MILF. Not impressed. You don't even
rate.”

He hated how her delighted laughter did something to him to him, sparking a
weird longing in him to just…do it again. To make her laugh again, to make her
notice him and take delight in it. Reaching under the covers, he shoved a thumb
into one of his brand-new injuries from his tumble with Scott, and let the pain
that blossomed in his ribs distract him from that urge.

Pain, and anger. It’s all he had right now.

“I have seen men like you before,” she whispered, closing the gap between them.
Her long dreadlocks swayed behind her as she moved, and her hands smoothed down
the dark black garment she wore. On any living, mortal woman it might have been
an unconscious fidget, Stiles thought. But not on her. Every motion was
deliberate, he knew, ever intended to influence those who watched her.

“Your power doesn’t work on me,” he said finally, and raised his gaze to where
she stood over his bed, a vision in midnight colors. For all his bravado,
though, he couldn’t bear to look into her eyes, because something in his breast
quailed at what he knew he’d find there. She sat suddenly, gracefully perching
on the edge of the cot, and Stiles couldn’t help it - he pushed himself further
into the corner with a whimper.

“Not that one, perhaps, dear boy. Sweet little innocent, such a morsel you
make.” She reached out and ran a single taloned finger across his jaw line.
“There is power in your purity, you know. Sweet, sweet power.”

“Purity?” Stiles snorted, a reaction they both knew was sheerest bravado. “You
clearly don’t know me so well.”

“I would like to, though,” she whispered with a low, smoky voice, and Stiles
couldn’t help it. “I know you do not remember, but we have done this already,
you and I. In the span of the several nights you’ve been here, sweet child.”

Stiles swallowed. There it was. It was the center of the Gordian knot in his
breast, the source of the panic and fear and sheerest horror that coiled inside
him, tearing at him every moment he was conscious. He knew what she said was
true; they’d done this before, and he screamed at the memory as she lunged at
him all pale flesh and black talons, and drank deeply of his life’s essence.

She fed, and continued to feed even after he stopped screaming, and slipped
into blissful, kind unconsciousness once again.
***** A Heart of Shattered Glass *****
Chapter Summary
     The Chanteuse's plans come to fruition...
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The landscape of the Beacon Hills Preserve was dark, with no moon in the sky to
illume it. The moon was new, and its absence cast a sinister pall over the
already-grim woodland preserve. And in that darkness, wicked things were afoot.

As the small group walked through the woods, a wordless song surrounded them.
It was how they knew that their Lady was with them, though they could not see
her in her mantle of ravens’ feathers. Scott and the Sheriff walked at the
center of the group, each with a hand on one of Stiles’ arms, his hands cuffed
in front of him. The young man was pale and wan, and barely managed to keep his
feet under him, stumbling constantly in the dark. Scott kept having to snatch
him up by his arm to keep him from tripping over rocks, gnarled roots and rough
patches of ground.

Idly, Stiles wondered how it was that he was all but blind and stumbling
around, but his dad seemed to be able to pick his way through the dark woods
just fine, as did Allison, her dad and Lydia. This was the first time in…well,
he didn’t really know how many days. It was the first time since he’d been
taken that he’d seen anyone other than Scott, his dad or the Lady.

No, the Chanteuse, he dimly remembered her calling herself, that one time. The
first time she’d…fed from him, he hadn’t totally lost consciousness. He lay
almost paralyzed afterwards, and she’d laid beside him, covering both of them
in her mantle of feathers and soft black doeskin, and she’d sung to him. It was
the same kind of song that was around them as they walked, but it’d felt like
she was singing just for him. It brought up every song that had ever been
important to him: the birthdays as a kid where Scott did his best to sing
“Happy Birthday” to him louder than anyone else. His mom’s favorite song, which
she always put on the car stereo when he went shopping with her on Sunday
mornings, before they stopped to get “secret ice cream” as a reward for them
having braved the shopping. That one kinda whiny song he’d listened to on
repeat when he realized that not only was he in love with Lydia, but she didn’t
know - didn’t want to know, really - that he existed. The music he’d put on his
headphones while he lay in bed in the weeks after his mom died, trying to drown
out the insanity of the world outside of his room, and the terrible turmoil
roiling inside him at the thought of never being hugged or kissed by the one
person he could always count on to understand him and find his weirdness to be
not just endurable, but a reason to love him.

She’d sung a song that was all those songs, and those emotions all bubbled to
the surface, churning in his mind until he thought he’d go crazy not just from
their intensity but from the impossibility of having to experience them all at
once. He’d lapsed into merciful unconsciousness before she finished the song,
and he suspected it was in fear of repeating that experience that he’d passed
out whenever she fed from him still, inhaling when he’d exhaled, her firm body
shivering in ecstasy up against him as he got colder and colder.

“Please,” he finally said, stumbling for what seemed like the hundredth time.
“I…I need to stop for a minute. I’m so…just, tired.”

His dad just looked at him, nodding, but it was Scott who spoke up. “Sorry,
bud. We need to keep going. We’re almost there, man.” His words were kindly -
the warmth that he associated with Scott - but the hand on his harm was hard
like iron and propelled him implacably forward.

He had to admit that part of his reason for constantly stumbling were the tears
that blurred his vision.

Finally, they arrived. Stiles didn’t need to look up to see where they’d come -
he’d known. He knew deep down in his bones, he’d felt it like the thrum of
electricity in a power cable. He could always feel it, in the back of his mind,
ever since they’d taken the ice bath in Deaton’s clinic as a last ditch effort
to stop the Darach. He, Scott and Allison had been symbolic sacrifices, then,
and immersed themselves in the Telluric current without any clear idea of what
they might do to themselves by doing so.

The Nemeton.

The sacred site, a wellspring of power for those who knew how to tap into it.
The old earthen wisdoms knew how to do so, and the Chanteuse didn’t simply
possess those wisdoms - she was part of them. A creature of powers long
forgotten by most, she breathed in the Telluric currents as others breathed
air. They sustained her, empowered her, fed her.

“For a very long time I have sought a Nemeton of this power,” she whispered,
congealing out of the shadows. Though she didn’t speak to any of those gathered
here, all save Stiles held their breaths, leaning into hang on her every word.
“Most of the old holy sites in the world are gone. Dead, as this one was. Rare
are those who know how to re-awaken them.”

She strode forward, her motion languid and she stepped up to the edges of the
great severed trunk.

“But one such came here, did she not? Reawakened it, seeking to harness its
power to protect herself against those who betrayed her? She was willing to
turn to the darkest of magics - to blood sacrifice - to quicken the life in the
roots of this ancient tree once more. Did you know the word ‘sacrifice’ means
‘to make sacred’? That’s what she was doing, you know - making this holy place
sacred and powerful once more.” She glanced sideways at Deaton. “Oh, but
another one of the oak-wise stole her hard work. To himself perform the final
three sacrifices meant stealing away that power, but not for himself. No, since
the sacrifices were not complete, did not end in the deaths of the sacrifices,
he handed that power to the sacrifices themselves.”

Finally, she gestured to Scott, who quickly hauled Stiles up onto the table-
like surface of the stump. The thinner boy whimpered, and tried to struggle,
but his strength had long fled him.

“So as much as I would like to continue to sup on your life’s spark, dear boy,
you must serve another purpose. You are my key to this Nemeton’s power. I have
consumed much of who and what you are, and once you are dead, your spirit bound
forevermore to the Nemeton, I shall become that key myself.”

Finally, she looked down at him, and smiled. He glared up at her in hatred, his
cinnamon eyes fever-glazed.

“In return, I shall care well for your friends and loved ones. They shall be —“
In an instant, she disappeared, her form exploding outward into a murder of
raucous, angrily-cawing crows as a figure leapt out of the darkness right
through the space where she’d been standing just a moment before, claws first.
He landed in a roll atop the Nemeton tree and came up, planting his foot in
Scott’s chest and heaving outward, sending the surprised McCall boy sailing off
the surface. He stopped, snarled at those around him, his eyes gleaming red,
and then looked down at Stiles.

Derek.

Suddenly, it was all violence. Even as he watched, Stiles knew what the outcome
of this would be. Against one or two of her servants gathered here, Derek might
have stood a chance. But against all of them? Rather than watch the inevitable
happen, Stiles willed heat - anger - into his cold, unfeeling limbs, and he
moved. He shimmied sideways, scooting towards the far end of the Nemeton’s
stump. Reaching the edge, he slung his legs downward and was about to slump off
of it when the stick jammed him back on its surface.

Lydia bit one side of her coral-colored lips, a slightly apologetic wince on
her pretty face. “I’m sorry,” she said, and goddamn it, it sounded like she
meant it, even though she didn’t let up on the pressure from the old oak branch
she held in her hand, forcing him against the wood of the stump.

“You wouldn’t get far enough fast enough, Stiles,” she said, with a shrug of
one shoulder. “You’d only hurt yourself trying to get away, and besides…it’s
almost over anyway.” She pointed with the stick, and Stiles craned his head
around.

Crimson eyes blazing with fury, Scott had both of his claws dug into Derek’s
shoulders, forcing him to his knees. Derek’s shirt was a mass of raggedy,
bloody tatters, his body beneath red-black in the moonless night. He was
breathing with difficulty, and both of the Argent stood nearby, weapons at the
ready. From the looks of them, Derek had been pulling his punches, not wanting
to injure them. Unfortunately, they had no such reservations.

If he’d had the strength, Stiles would have sobbed. His last hope, literally.
Come to nothing.

The darkness moved, and the Lady stepped out of it. She walked a half-circle
around him, appraising him with a capricious, delighted look on her face.

“Well…” she mused, almost playfully. She reached over with one night-black
talon and lay it aside his jaw, scraping along it as she walked. “Aren’t you a
toy? A scion of the ancient Hale clan, unless I miss my guess. You and yours
were the guardians of this Nemeton once. I hope you know its history. I’d like
to know who is responsible for its desecration, so they can be repaid in kind.
That will be the first of many things you tell me in the coming nights, I
think. But first…”

Stiles had seen it before. It looked like a kiss. Passionate, intense and
burning. The kind of kiss that haunted your dreams, but Stiles knew better. He
knew what it meant. Deaton had told him what it was.

The kiss of these creatures - theleanansidhe, succubi, whatever you wish to
call them - is invasive. Possessive. It is the means by which they reach deep
down into someone’s soul and find the emotions that person has attached to
their most memorable love-making, and twists it. She writes her name on
something that isn’t hers, if you will, lays claim to it. Her victim begins to
feel those emotions, directed toward her. Passionate memories of wild sex
become the leashes she places on men and women alike; tender memories of deep
lovemaking become the shackles she binds them in. It is insidious and can only
end in the death of the creature.

With that memory, something sparked in Stiles. He stood, his hands up in
surrender. He couldn’t help but feel something an awful lot like hope rekindle
in him, but he had to watch. He had to make sure.

Lydia let him rise, and arched a brow as she watched him closely. In a panic,
he tried to squelch what he was feeling, to tamp it down beneath the pain and
the coldness, but Stiles wore his heart on his sleeve. She looked back at the
group assembled on the other side, where Derek, still kneeling, hung half-limp
in the Lady’s arms, wholly overcome by her kiss. Stiles watched as Lydia got
that look - the one she got when her wheels were turning, and that damned
brilliant mind of hers was working through a puzzle or problem.

Crap. She was going to figure it out.

“Sorry about this,” he whispered to her and pushed off the Nemeton, barreling
into her like she was an opponent on the lacrosse field. It was more shove than
impact, but she shrieked - a surprised, yelping sound - and went down hard.
Stiles stumbled, caught himself and stood again. He snatched up the stick
Lydia’d been threatening him with and leapt atop the Nemeton stump.

“C’mon, you bastards!” he yelled at the top of his voice. It cracked as he did
so, and part of him hated the looks his friends gave him. Resignation.
Contempt. Allison even seemed to find it funny.

“Stiles, get down from there,” his father said. He even said it in Dad Voice,
and it was everything Stiles could do not to hang his head and do as he was
told. “There’s no point to all of this.”

“Your friend is one of mine now, little mortal,” the Lady said, petting Derek
on the head as he rose to meekly stand beside her.

“I know you gave him the kiss, you bitch,” Stiles couldn’t help snarling. He
threw down the stick in frustration. “That thing that makes people love you the
way they love the people they’ve been with. But here’s the thing - Derek? Derek
has the worst luck when it comes to women. Both of the ones in recent memory
were murderous bitches…and I’m pretty sure Derek’s got some pretty strong
feelings about them.”

The last Hale son roared, his eyes a steely blue as he plunged his hand through
the Lady’s back, his claws emerging from her front. There was no way to mistake
the Chanteuse as mortal, not like this. She shrieked in agony, but there was no
blood.

“Iron…cold…iron…” she gasped, as though trying to breathe around the muscled
arm that now skewered her.

“Iron filings. Under the fingernails,” Derek said, and ripped his claws out of
her with a meaty tearing sound. Her shriek did not stop, but instead rose,
higher and higher, as no mortal lungs could ever manage. She fell then, and so
did everyone else under her spell. She writhed on the ground, trying to claw
her away to an escape.

Derek stomped on her back, pinning her in place, as he fished a small bag out
of his coat pocket. Tearing it open with his claws, he scattered the steel-grey
dust all over her, and her howling pitched upwards in agony. She began to
smoke, flesh blackening until it was the color of the iron filings, and then
the whole of her form collapsed like a statue of ash that finally gave way.

Stiles fell to his knees atop the Nemeton, sobbing in relief. Around the glade,
the people he loved struggled to their feet, looking around with haunted,
confused looks.

It was over.
Chapter End Notes
     Don't worry. The threat of the Chanteuse is over, but her effects on
     everyone are not yet. There's more to the story. :)
***** A Safe Place *****
Chapter Summary
     The aftermath of the Chanteuse, and sometimes love isn't enough.
Chapter Notes
     Deepest apologies for how long this has taken me to get back to. I'm
     already halfway through the next chapter though, so hopefully it
     won't take nearly as long.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Melissa rushed downstairs as the doorbell rang. She crossed to the front door,
and opened it. Derek stood there, a carefully neutral expression on his face.
He cleared his throat.

“Uh, Deaton said I should come over?”

Melissa nodded. “Thank God, yeah. Come in, please. I appreciate you coming
over.” She opened the door for him, and stepped aside, shutting it behind him.
He stepped into the entry, and looked around.

“So…what’s going on?”

“It’s Stiles,” Melissa said, glancing up the flight of stairs in front of them,
lowering her voice. “He’s in pain, I think. I called Deaton about it, and he
says that it’s something to do with that…that woman that hypnotized them or
whatever. I’ve got Stiles and his dad here, where I can keep an eye on them
along with Scott. It seems like Scott and the Sheriff are recovering pretty
well - they’re just really tired and a little groggy. But Stiles is…”

‘’’In pain, yeah,” Derek nodded. As soon as he’d entered the McCall home, he
could hear the heartbeats in the house. Two of them at rest, but the other with
a frantic timbre to it, the desperate beat of a heart in a body that is not
only in pain, but has been for a while. The exhaustion from being so was
apparent. Derek looked at Melissa, who was watching him listen curiously.
“Werewolves can draw off pain by touch. Why don’t you show me where he’s at,
and I’ll see if I can help?”

He was in Scott’s room, sleeping fitfully. Derek could smell the scent of panic
and pain in his sweat, and the bedclothes were drenched with it. Derek crossed
to his bedside and sat on the floor next to the bed, cross-legged. He leaned
forward, resting his elbows on the mattress, his hands clasped loosely in front
of him, and closed his eyes. He listened for a moment, and inhaled deeply. Pain
and panic, in equal measure, their stenches acrid to his lupine senses. It was
fresh, but beneath that was also a layer of more of the same, much older. He’d
had to be in a terrible mental state to leave something like that around him.

“Can…can you do something for him?” Melissa whispered next to him, clearly
loathe to interrupt, but also worried for her son’s best friend. Derek opened
his eyes, and nodded to her. Turning back to regard Stiles’ restlessly sleeping
form, Derek reached out with his left arm, laying the hand gently over the
boy’s temple and top of head. He closed his eyes and pulled.

Melissa’s eyes grew wide as she watched the strange black spiderwebbed veins
literally crawled up Derek’s hand and arm, as he pulled pain away from the
young man. Stiles whimpered, and Melissa reached out to take his hand. The
crawl of black pain slowed up Derek’s arm, and then stopped altogether, and the
boy simply sighed, the sound that someone who’s been in a great deal of pain
makes when it finally stops.

“Handy trick,” Melissa smiled at Derek. “Would be useful in my line of work.”

“Uh, hey…” Stiles rasped as his eyelids fluttered open. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry to wake you,” Derek said, leaning back away from the bedside, but not
moving to stand. “Deaton called me and said you were having a rough time of it.
Thought I’d stop by and see if I could help.”

“Aww, Sourwolf,” Stiles grinned dopily, his eyes half-lidded with exhaustion.
“You do care.”

“Look, this nice lady here is cool enough to take care of the three of you.
Least I could do to make sure you’re as little of a pain in the ass to her as
possible,” Derek huffed, and winked at Melissa, who chuckled. Stiles reached
out and shoved feebly at Derek, who didn’t move an inch.

“You hungry, kiddo? Can I get you something to eat. It’s been a while since
you’ve had anything.” Melissa rose quickly, and Stiles nodded, thanking her.
“I’ll be right back, then.”

As soon as she was gone, Stiles exhaled and winced. Pain spiked in his scent,
and Derek took hold of his hand, clutching it in both of his, and drew away the
pain again. He closed his eyes, wincing, as he did so, inhaling and exhaling in
careful rhythm. When there was nothing left for him to take, he opened his eyes
again, only to find Stiles staring at him expressionlessly, those caramel-
colored, long-lashed eyes simply regarding him without comment.

“Thanks,” he finally said, and there was so much under that single word. So
much exhaustion, so much stress, so much grief.

“You guys alright in here?”

The Sheriff spoke from the doorway. He was wearing a pair of sweatpants and a
plain white t-shirt, his hair sleep-mussed. He had dark circles under his eyes,
but he was looking better. He was also smiling to see Stiles looking peaceful,
the smile of a parent who has seen their kid in too much pain recently.

Derek looked up at the Sheriff and nodded, but his attention was immediately
drawn back to Stiles. The young man sat in up in bed, cheerfully greeting his
dad, and even making a joke about nicknaming Derek “Morphine” or something
similar. His demeanor was casual, his words joking, his movements animated and
pleasant.

But Derek scowled as he heard differently. Stiles’ pulse spiked the moment he
heard his father’s voice in the doorway, and the sour smell of both fear and
anxiety blossomed in the room like mold up a wet wall. The boy’s heartbeat was
racing, and Derek could see the micro-stresses in his body posture, the signs
of someone on the verge of panic who is doing everything in his ability to
fight down the terror.

“Get out,” Derek said, rising. The patter between father and son came to an
abrupt stop, and the Sheriff just gawped at the werewolf.

“What?” he barked, indignant. Derek noticed Stiles wince at the sharp question,
and pull away, putting his back up against the wall. He groped for the covers
and hauled them up himself, looking for all the world like he was about to
simply hide beneath them. His heartbeat told a similar story.

“I need you to please leave the room, Sheriff Stilinski,” Derek said, jaw
clenched. The scent of near-panic and pain from Stiles was driving his wolf
near to howling, and it was everything he could do to keep from just barking an
order for the older man to leave. “Stiles is in a lot of pain, and he’s on the
verge of a panic attack. Please. Just go.”

The Sheriff glanced down at his son, looking for verification. He clearly
intended to get his son’s feedback on all of this nonsense, but then stopped.
Stiles wasn’t even in any condition to interact at all, his eyes tightly
scrunched shut, his legs drawn up so that he could practically hide behind
them. The boy’s hands were trembling, and - as Derek said - he looked like he
was barely holding it together.

“He’s right, Mr. Stilinski,” Scott said from the hallway behind him. “Let’s
leave them.” With a grip that was kind but allowed for no objection, Scott
steered the Sheriff out of the room and into the hall with him, and shut the
door to his room, leaving Derek and Stiles alone in the room. Derek quickly sat
on the edge of the bed, and reached out to clasp one of Stiles’ hands.

The boy hesitated for a moment, unsure, and then rapidly clasped the hand with
both of his. The dam broke, and Stiles began to cry, ugly, body-shaking sobs
that looked painful with his effort to keep them quiet. Derek simply let him
cling to his hand, drawing away the pain that even now was blossoming in
Stiles’ body once again. He could hear Melissa join Scott and the Sheriff in
the hallway outside.

“What’s going on?” she asked, baffled to find both her son and the Sheriff
standing in the hall, looking sadly at the door.

“Derek just…he said that Stiles was in pain again, and about to have a…I don’t
really know,” the older man stammered, looking from Melissa to the door to
Scott and back again.

“He was right,” Scott said in a low tone. “It’s what woke me. Stiles’ heartbeat
spiked with a lot of fear when you entered the room. It did it again when he
realized I was there.”

Melissa and the Sheriff both turned to regard Scott soberly, and Scott looked
from one to the other sadly, tears in his deep brown eyes.

“I think we scare him,” he said finally. “I think that…I think that he’s still
freaked out from when we were…in her control. What we did…I mean, what she made
us do. To him.”

Melissa’s brows rushed together in a worried scowl, and then she looked at the
door. A grief-filled realization slowly dawned on her face.

“What…what did you do? I mean, what did she make you do?” The Sheriff paled
visibly, and leaned against the bathroom door on the opposite side of the hall,
and looked away. He looked sick, deep lines of painful self-loathing cut into
his face, making him seem much older than he was. Melissa looked to Scott, who
held her gaze, and then looked away.

“I…it was bad, Mom. I don’t really want to go into it right now, please. But it
was awful.”

Melissa looked away, then, and let herself shed her own tears. That fucking
monster, she snarled inwardly. What kind of damage had she done - not just to
Stiles, but to all of them?

All three of them turned as the door to Scott’s room opened quietly, and Derek
slipped out.

“Overheard your conversation,” he said, less apologizing and more simply
informing. “Though Stiles is pretty much asleep again. Is there any place he
can go where…uh…”

“There’s no one who abused him for her?” Scott finished bitterly. The Sheriff
made a small strangling sound, and Melissa hugged Scott.

“You can’t think that way,” she said, to both of them. “You’ll go crazy. You
weren’t in control of your actions.”

“She’s right,” Derek agreed, and laid a hand on the Sheriff’s shoulder. The
older man looked, and they made eye contact. “Let him come over to my place.”

The Sheriff looked like he was about to object, but Derek raised a hand to
forestall him. “Look, he’ll be safe at my place. Melissa can stop by to check
on him occasionally, and I’ll get Deaton to do that, too. I’m also the only one
of us who can deal with his pain that wasn’t taken by that bitch,” he snarled.

“Shouldn’t…shouldn’t he be in a familiar environment?” Scott whispered. His mom
hugged him tight again, looked at Derek and then nodded.

“Actually, I think Derek has the right idea,” she said, looking from Scott to
the Sheriff, and back again. “It seems like he could use a little distance from
what he knows best right now, as painful as that is to think about.”

“I’ll take care of him,” Derek said in a low voice, glancing at the Sheriff in
particular.

“Why? You hardly know each other,” the older man asked, running his hands
through his hair. Derek wondered if Stiles know that he got that particular
gesture of frustration from his dad.

“It’s true. But that didn’t stop him from saving my life. I was paralyzed, and
he kept me from drowning for two hours. And this was at a time when our
relationship was…rocky, to say the least. So, if it makes you feel better, I
owe him. I owe him for a lot of things.”

The Sheriff looked to Scott and then Melissa. Scott couldn’t meet his gaze,
blinking rapidly trying to avoid crying, his lower lip trembling with the
effort. Melissa hugged her son tight to her, and looked to the Sheriff.

“This is hard to even think about - especially after what you’ve just been
through - but I think this is probably best.”

“Alright,” the Sheriff finally said, after mulling it over like doing so caused
him pain. “Alright - I just want what’s best for him. Just…make sure you take
his pillow.” With that, he shuffled off back to the guest room, closing the
door behind him. Scott walked to the door and laid his hand over it sadly. He
turned to Derek.

“I know,” Derek whispered. He could hear the older man breaking down weeping,
too.

“Let’s do this,” Melissa said. “The sooner we get him set up someplace he can
rest, the faster he can recover and put this all behind him, right?”

Derek nodded. “Why don’t you help me move him to my loft, Melissa, and you can
make sure he’s settled in.”

“Will you be alright, kiddo?” Melissa asked Scott, who nodded, and hugged her
again. When he pulled back from the embrace, he ran his forearm across his
eyes.

“Yeah, go. Just take care of him. And Derek?”

“I’ll take good care of him, Scott. I know what he means.” With that, he and
Melissa returned to Scott’s room, and Scott lingered for a moment, before
returning to his mom’s room to try and get some more rest of his own.

*   *   *

Stiles slept most of the ride over to the industrial part of town where Derek’s
loft stood. He groggily let them lead him into the building, and only started
to actually waken to his surroundings as the elevator stopped.

“Wha…where the hell?” he murmured as Melissa steered him in the front door of
the loft. She smiled and sat him down on the sofa while Derek climbed the
spiral staircase to his living space above.

“Hey, Derek has volunteered to look after you. You’re at his place. You going
to be alright?”

“I…but wait, what about my dad? And Scott?”

“Listen, I’ll take good care of them. The thing is…” Melissa hesitated. How did
she bring up the fact that they knew that he was terrified of both Scott and
his father? And probably of everyone else that monster had corrupted as well?

Derek interrupted her, coming back down the staircase. “The thing is that none
of the wolves who can draw away your pain is well enough to do it. So I’m stuck
with you for a while, spaz.”

Stiles chuckled, and Melissa was flooded with gratitude for the save.

“Oh, man, Sourwolf. You’re going to regret that so bad. I totally snore, and I
leave wet towels everywhere.”

“Well, your feet stink, too, but I’ve known that since I first met you.”

“Ugh. You suck, they do not,” he scoffed, and looked around. Derek’s loft was a
little…barren, really. “So, am I on this sofa?”

“No, you can have my bed. It’s upstairs if you feel well enough to make the
climb.”

Stiles all but leapt up, even if doing so nearly knocked him over, all flailing
limbs. Melissa caught him with a grunt, and a suggestion that he be careful.

“Are you kidding? I’ve always wanted to see your little wolfy den up there.”

Derek huffed. “You can’t stay there if you’re going to call it a ‘wolfy den’.”
He crossed to Stiles, and looped one of the younger man’s arms around his
shoulder, and wrapped his own around his back, supporting him. “I’m serious.
I’ll throw you down these stairs.”

Stiles chuckled, and Melissa grudgingly stepped back, letting Derek handle it.
She followed close behind as they cautiously climbed the spiral staircase. The
space upstairs was about half the size of the main loft, but Derek had used it
wisely. It had a counter and small kitchen space on one side, and up on a
polished wooden platform stood a large king-sized bed, with a dark blue
comforter and a jumble of pillows with mismatched pillowcases. Between the
kitchen space and the bedroom stood an open square-topped doorway that led into
a tile-floored room with a variety of frosted glass walls - a bathroom, of some
kind, no doubt.

Stiles paused at the top of the stairs, and whistled, taking it in. “Dude!
Wolfy den is best den!” Derek snarled, and rolled his eyes, and Stiles winked
at Melissa, who followed them shaking her head.

Once Stiles was tucked in, with his favorite pillow under his head, Derek sat
next to him and pulled away more of his pain. The younger man sighed as the
pain left him, and he slipped into sleep once again.

Derek followed Melissa down to the front door.

“Thanks for doing this,” she said again, hesitating at the front door, clearly
not wanting to leave him.

Derek shrugged as he fished his keychain out of his pocket. With quick, strong
movements, he peeled a key off of it, and presented it to her.

“This is a key to the loft. Come by whenever. Announced or otherwise. I trust
you with it, and I want you to not worry about him.”

She scoffed. “I’m a mom. That’s in the job description - especially with that
one, who may as well be my second kid.” She took the key and looked into
Derek’s eyes. “Just…take good care of him.”

“You have my word,” he said, and opened the door for her. “You can stay a
little longer if you like.”

“I should get back to the two at home. I’m going to make some dinner, but I’ll
bring some by for the two of you, too, alright? Probably around seven or so?”

“Thanks,” Derek said. “Look forward to it.”

Melissa nodded, then, biting her lower lip, and walked toward the elevator.
Chapter End Notes
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