the_deep_magic | FIC: Teen Wolf -- Said the Joker to the Thief (Reply)

Title: Said the Joker to the Thief
Author: the_deep_magic
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles (pre-slash)
Rating: PG-13 for swearing
Word Count: 2,222
Disclaimer: not mine
Summary: Post-ep for 2x12 “Master Plan” So let us not talk falsely now / The hour is getting late
A/N: This takes place the same night all the shit goes down in the warehouse. Forgive me if my canon is a little fuzzy – I only rewatched the very end of S2 and the way they left Stiles breaks my heart. This is my lame attempt at making it a little better. Also, apologies to Bob Dylan.

Derek had gone out looking for Erica and Boyd. If that just happened to get him the hell away from Peter – who claimed to be tracking whatever was left of Gerard – and the multiple, theatrical confessions of teenage love and Chris fucking Argent, all the better.

He just got sidetracked for a moment. Boyd and Erica would find their way back to him, or they wouldn’t. Contrary to what they’d think, Derek did actually care – he just wondered if they really would be better off without such a spectacularly shitty alpha. So when he caught another familiar scent in the woods, he didn’t think; he just followed it.

Sitting in a clearing, sprawled back across a rock with a whiskey bottle in one hand, was Stiles. And Derek really must have had a masochistic streak, because he started to walk towards him. Derek at least gave Stiles the courtesy of stepping on some twigs on the way over, giving him some warning.

Stiles glanced over and his eyes narrowed. “Oh, perfect. No, really, just cosmically… superlative. The very last person on earth I want to see shows up. No, sorry, second to last. Forgot about Jackson there for a moment. A really good moment. And wait, Peter’s back from the fucking dead, so third. Congratulations, Derek, according to the Stilinksi Asshole Index, you are the third most awful person I know. Cheers.”

His speech was surprisingly crisp for a guy clutching a bottle of hard liquor; that’s when Derek noticed that the bottle was uncapped, but still full. Derek sat down, leaned back against the rock and stretched out perpendicular to Stiles.

Who continued his monologue. “No, really, have a seat. This is great. We can have a heart-to-heart. I’ve been meaning to do that with you, really I have, but I just haven’t had the opportunity, what with the werelizards and the homicidal geezers and the unprovoked beatings, so let’s do it now.”

Derek just stared at the whiskey. “You gonna drink that?”

“Maybe,” Stiles said in a tone that was clearly a no. And when Derek reached for the bottle, Stiles didn’t resist. “Thought werewolves couldn’t get drunk.”

“We can’t,” Derek said, taking a long pull from the bottle. It wouldn’t get him drunk, but it would still burn like fire on the way down.

“Excellent. So you just enjoy that, then. I’ll have all the fun lying to my dad about where his best whiskey disappeared to without the hassle of getting satisfyingly plastered.”

“You weren’t drinking it.”

“Astute observation, Sherlock. Got any more?”

It sounded more tired than angry, and Derek could sympathize. He kept asking himself when this whole thing spun so far out of his control, and he kept coming back to the answer of when you bit Jackson. All of it was his fault. No biting Jackson, no kanima. No kanima, no reason for Gerard and his minions to stick around. Well, Peter might still have tried to pull his resurrection trick, but if Derek hadn’t been so distracted by the kanima and the hunters, he might have been able to stop it.

He took another swig. At least his throat wouldn’t numb to it.

Something was off, and it took Derek another few seconds to figure out what it was: Stiles wasn’t talking. So the kid had finally learned to shut his mouth.

But the longer it went on, the more disconcerting it was. Deeply disconcerting. Derek could hear the thunder of Stiles’ heart, which was nearly always obscured by his voice, and it just seemed to get louder and louder until Derek found himself digging claws into the soft earth beneath him. “If this is about the Martin girl—” he started.

“God, Derek, I’m not Scott. It’s not always about Lydia,” Stiles said sharply. “Well, not entirely about Lydia. I mean, yes, there was a tiny glimmer of hope that got gloriously, nakedly bashed to pieces, bathed lovingly in the headlights of my Jeep, but that’s only part of it. Like, a quarter of it, at most.”

Derek gave it a second. “Well?”

“Oh Jesus, we’re actually doing this. Fucking fine. You want to know why I’m pissed? Because for a few hours of my life, I wasn’t invisible. I scored a few goals and people stopped looking through me for once. Lydia came into my room – she walked through my front door, up the stairs, and into my bedroom, Derek – because she wanted to see me. And she did. She saw me. Yes, okay, there was that whole bit in the middle where Gerard beat the shit out of me just to get to Scott – who didn’t even notice, story of my fucking life – but before that and after that, people were forced to actually acknowledge my existence for once. And then Jackson comes back and poof, invisible Stiles. It’s like a magic trick. I should put a show together, take that shit on the road.”

Derek knew Stiles didn’t expect him to respond to that, which was perfectly fine, because Derek had never felt that way in his life. In fact, he’d spent most of it wishing to be invisible. First when he was a kid, when his mom wouldn’t leave him alone about doing his homework or cleaning his room. Then… after, he wanted to just disappear entirely. And he tried, he and Laura. It almost worked, too. So maybe he hadn’t exactly kept a low profile when he’d come back to Beacon Hills, but he hadn’t had much of a choice. And then as alpha, he had responsibilities, even if he’d fucked them up so badly that he was now missing half his pack and back under the thumb of the man who had killed his sister.

Another gulp of whiskey, and he was really going to have to slow down if he wanted it to last. It was the weakest of punishments, but it was something.

“Peter told me he offered you the bite.” Derek was actually surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth. He hadn’t planned them, but he’d been thinking about his fractured pack and about Peter, and it had just slipped out.

Stiles laughed cynically. “Oh, you two chat about me a lot?”

“Actually, he said ‘that motormouth kid who tried to firebomb me,’ but I made some inferences. He wishes it had been you instead of Scott.”

More ugly laughter, a sour tinge of bitterness in the air. “I’m touched. Really, I am. Your psychotic uncle wants me for a minion. How about you? You want a piece of this?”

Derek shut his eyes. He’d thought about it. Thought about it a lot, actually. Stiles would make a perfect beta. He was smart and resourceful and defiant, but without the twisted ambition to challenge Derek’s status. He would keep Derek on his toes, push them all to work together, to work harder, to be better. But Derek hadn’t needed to ask to know that Stiles would turn him down. Sure, he might sometimes envy the strength or the agility or the healing, but somewhere deep down he knew he didn’t need it. Or wouldn’t, not after he crawled out of the social hell that was high school. Derek wasn’t sure he knew anyone else that self-aware, that mature.

Except Stiles took Derek’s silence exactly the wrong way. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“I did have my reasons. I chose Isaac because he understands fear,” Derek said, and wow, maybe the whiskey really was having some effect on him, or maybe Stiles’ lack of brain-to-mouth filter was contagious. “I chose Erica because she understands pain. I chose Boyd because he understands loneliness.”

A long pause. “And Jackson?”

“I bit Jackson because he’s a fucking douchebag who pissed me off one too many times.”

That got a real laugh out of Stiles. “So I guess I haven’t hit the ‘one too many’ limit yet. Let me know when I’m getting close, yeah? Because as much as I love pissing you off, I’m kind of attached to the whole ‘human’ thing.”

Derek set the bottle down and tipped his head back until he could see the moon. “I wouldn’t. You know that, right? Because you don’t want it.”

“No, yeah, I know. Plus, I probably wouldn’t even end up a werewolf. You told Scott an alpha bite can turn you into your true self? I’d turn into, like, a wereworm or something.”

“Doubt it. Wereworms are quiet. You’d turn into a banshee.”

“Banshees are women, dumbass.”

“All of them?”

“Well, I haven’t taken a poll or looked under their skirts, but— Oh my god, there are banshees, aren’t there? They are actual things that exist.”

Derek almost cracked a smile at that, because the bitterness had left Stiles’ tone and the curiosity was back. “I haven’t gone through all of Peter’s files yet, but I’ll let you know.”

Stiles swung around to look at him and for the first time since Derek had sat down, their eyes met. And Stiles’ were wide with anticipation. “Peter has files?”

“A lot of them. Apparently, he was working on digitizing our library before… before the fire.”

“Oh my god, that slimy bastard is actually good for something. Derek, you have got to send me those files. Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the internet is full of lies. And some really creepy porn, and that’s by my standards, so, y’know… yikes.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Derek said, meaning it. Stiles would be able to sift through that information much faster than even he and Peter could together, and they’d all probably need it soon. But Derek would have to try to send it without Peter’s knowledge. Because Peter had talked about Stiles, talked about him quite a bit, in fact, in a way that unsettled Derek.

They fell back into silence again, but it wasn’t the strained, heavy silence from before. Derek could practically hear Stiles’ mind whirring, imagining what was in those files.

So at least Derek had managed to distract Stiles, even if it was only for a little while. None of them could afford to be distracted for very long. There was something coming. Derek didn’t know what yet, but he felt it. He looked at Stiles, saw the bruise darkening his cheek, wondered how many more were hiding beneath his clothes. Would they even have time to heal before the next one? Because there would be a next one. Maybe there always would, here.

“Am I still third on the Stilinski Asshole Index?” Derek asked after a few minutes.

“Huh? Oh, nah. I remembered I’m pissed off at Scott for not telling me about the plan, and also being the reason I’m bruised right down to my pancreas. And Allison for going all murder-y. Anyone with the last name Argent, really. And Lydia is… still Lydia. So, no. Congratulations, Derek, you might not even be in the top ten. Or bottom ten, whatever. Jesus, I have got to get some better friends.”

And Derek’s brain-to-mouth filter must have been back in place, because he didn’t say We need you, Stiles or You’re not invisible, Stiles, or anything else that would sound like bullshit, even if he meant it. Instead, he just said, “Go home to your dad, Stiles.”

Stiles reached for the liquor bottle, but Derek held it at arms’ length. “You gonna give me that back?” Stiles asked, getting to his feet.

“I’m confiscating it. You’re underage.”

“Fuck you,” Stiles said with a laugh.

Derek looked at the half-empty bottle and frowned. “Why weren’t you drinking it?”

Stiles stared very intently at the toes of his shoes as he scuffed one against the other. “I was planning to. But then I thought about every time my dad comes home from a rough day, and that’s the first thing he reaches for. And I have a feeling the rough days aren’t about to end any time soon, so…”

“Go home,” Derek said again, softly. “Get some sleep.”

“And you? What are you going to do?”

It was asked with genuine concern, and Derek was a little taken aback, because frankly, he didn’t think Stiles cared. “I’m going to find Boyd and Erica. I’m going to figure out what to do about Jackson. And I’m going to send you those files.”

In the moonlight, Derek could see Stiles holding back a weak smile. “Thanks. And if you need some suggestions on the Jackson thing, I could probably think of a few.”

He didn’t wait for Derek’s non-existent reply, just turned and left. Derek watched him go for as long as his vision would allow. He didn’t think Stiles had strayed too far from his precious Jeep, but all of Derek’s senses told him there was something out there in the woods, waiting to make its move.

Until then, all Derek could do was wait. Wait, and finish off the twice-stolen whiskey that wouldn’t even get him drunk. He slouched back against the rock to look up again at the moon, which was on the wane. It wouldn’t last, of course; soon enough he’d be dealing with another round of three – no, four now – barely-controllable betas on a full moon.

But not until after the moon had waned into full darkness.