Chapter Text
Stiles froze in the door to Derek's loft. The whole place was dark and the moonlight that shone through the huge window highlighted the painted triskele and the ripples of water. He stepped hesitantly forward and froze again when he noticed Boyd's body was completely still. Cora ran around him, pushing him aside in her hurry, and that was what got his feet moving again.
Cora immediately ran to Boyd, and Stiles wondered for a moment if their time in the bank vault had made them more than just friends. He slowly approached Derek, who was soaked through with the water that flooded the loft, looking over his shoulder to where Cora was crying over Boyd's still form. Stiles reached out and grasped Derek's shoulder, and then gripped it tighter when he felt the Alpha relax into his touch.
The next thing Stiles saw was Derek's blood covered hands, and the way his hands were shaking. It took the teenager a second to realize the blood on his hands was Boyd's. By that time, Derek's whole body was shaking, whether because of the cold seeping into his skin from the water or because he had lost another of his betas.
Stiles quickly looked up to the door and saw Lydia hovering just outside. "Lydia," he called, aware that he needed to keep aloof to get everyone else through the night. He could break down later. "Lydia, call Scott, and find out if he saved Deaton. Then tell him to get over here ASAP... and to bring my dad."
"Are- Are you sure, Stiles? How are we going to-"
"Just do it, Lydia!" Lydia backed away, nodding. She pulled out her phone and dialed just before she went out of sight. Stiles then turned Isaac, who was still sitting with Ms. Blake in the doorway. "Isaac. Go get Derek some dry clothes. Socks, underwear, jeans, and a shirt." Isaac got up right away, sloshing his way through the water. "And get some towels while you're at it. No way are any of you guys getting water in my Jeep."
Stiles walked around Derek, kneeling in front of him and blocking his view of Boyd. "Derek," he said softly. "Derek, look at me." The Alpha's gaze slowly shifted to the teenagers face. "Tell me what happened."
Derek's eyes fell back down to his shaking hands, the streaks of red slowly drying brown. "I killed him. I killed Boyd."
Stiles could sense Derek was about to have a panic attack. "No. No, Derek, it wasn't your fault. Look at me." Stiles put his hands on Derek's cheeks to tilt his face up and look into his eyes. "This wasn't your fault, Derek. This was that bitch, Kali. Okay, Derek? Don't you dare blame yourself for this. Not when Isaac and Cora still need you. Not when I still need you."
That confession seemed to get through the shock clouding the Alpha's mind, and Stiles just watched as his eyes cleared. Lydia was back from her call, and there was a pile of clothes and towels on the landing outside the door. Isaac was with Cora, mourning Boyd, and Stiles was a bit ashamed that he hadn't heard any of them moving around after he had focused on Derek.
"Stiles," he rasped, drawing the teenager's attention back to him. "I'm sorry. I just seem to hurt everyone around me."
"Shh." Stiles pulled Derek to him, wrapping him in his arms. "Don't talk."
That, of course, was how Scott and the Sheriff found them when they arrived, which was punctuated with Scott exclaiming, "Oh, my God" and Sheriff Stilinski demanding, "Somebody tell me what in the Hell is going on!"
***
They all met at Stiles' house, mainly because he thought familiar territory would help his dad accept what they were going to tell him more easily, but also because they all needed someplace to crash to deal with the events of the night. Lydia, Isaac and Scott rode in the Jeep with Stiles and Derek, and the Sheriff drove in his cruiser; Ms. Blake had disappeared at some point, but she wasn't really at the top of anyone's priorities. Cora stayed behind saying she would call Peter so they could take care of Boyd.
Stiles continued ordering people around when they arrived. Scott was put in charge of ordering pizza - though he doubted anyone was hungry, Lydia and Isaac were put in charge of finding everyone drinks, and the Sheriff was told very specifically to 'get the whiskey, have a seat, and be patient'. Stiles himself, took Derek to the upstairs bathroom to dry off, change, and wash the blood off his hands. The Alpha was practically catatonic by the time they went back downstairs, staring at everything around him blankly as Stiles led him with their fingers entwined. Their footfalls were soft as they walked across the carpet to the couch since both Stiles' converse and Derek's boots were drying in the bathroom.
Stiles sat on one side of the couch and used the connection of their hands to pull the Alpha down next to him. Derek immediately laid down with his head in the teenager's lap and stretched out along the rest of the cushions. Stiles' hand found his head and gently combed his finger through the damp strands of dark hair. Everyone was watching the exchange with interest except Isaac, who was content to just curl up on the floor under his Alpha.
Since the pizza was already on the coffee table and everyone was settled in their respective seats, Stiles finally turned his attention to his father in the armchair across from him. Taking a deep breath, he said, "So, Dad... Scott and I are going to tell you some things, and you'll think we're crazy, so I need you to just hear us out before you freak out, okay?"
The Sheriff studied his son, wondering when he grew up from the kid taking care of his only remaining parent, to a young man taking care of his friends like they were an extended family. "Is this why you had me get the whiskey?"
"Yeah. You're probably gonna need it." And then Stiles told him everything. He started with the truth about the Hale fire seven years ago and how an older Kate Argent seduced a sixteen year old Derek to get close and kill the whole family. That of course led to him explaining that most of the Hales were werewolves and that the Argents were a family of werewolf hunters. He explained the Code, and how Kate refused to follow it, and both Scott and Isaac were gracious enough to briefly shift to prove what he was talking about.
He and Scott explained how Peter Hale killed his niece Laura to become an Alpha to get revenge on the people involved in the fire, and bit Scott to turn him the night they were out looking for the other half of Laura's body. And why all the killings could be explained away as 'animal attacks'. Then they told him about the final showdown on the Hale property, where Derek killed Peter and became an Alpha, and then bit Jackson, who was begging to be turned.
They explained that the bite went wrong somehow and Jackson turned into the kanima, with Matt as it's master, and how Jackson was killing everyone Matt told him to. And at the same time Derek turned Isaac, Erica, and Boyd to build his pack, Gerard Argent was declaring war on all werewolves because Kate was dead. Stiles told the Sheriff the truth about how all those officers really died that night at the police station, and how Gerard killed Matt to become the master of the kanima, and Peter somehow used Lydia to bring himself back to life. He also told him that the night of the championship game, it was the old man that took him and beat him up as a message to Scott.
Stiles explained that after they cured Jackson of being a homicidal lizard, his family decided to move to London, and the Argents took a vacation to France and decided to retire from hunting after Allison was brainwashed by her grandfather following her mother's death. And that brought them all back to a couple weeks ago, when people started dying again. So he explained the Alpha pack, and that there was some kind of dark druid going around making human sacrifices. He told him about the search for Boyd and Erica, and how they found them at the bank. How Erica was dead, and Boyd was kept with Cora in the vault and they were both moon-starved. How the first three sacrifices were virgins, the next three - including Harris - were soldiers, and the last three were healers - although Deaton had been saved. And they explained how it was they were able to find Deaton, and potentially future victims.
"What happened tonight?"
"Kali thought Derek killed Ennis, so she came to kill him. But Deaton said that it was Deucalion that killed him," Isaac said. "Boyd had the idea to flood the loft and run electrical current through it to kill Kali when she came, but they shut off the power. And at the end Derek was all wolfed out, and Kali just threw Boyd down on his claws."
"I killed him," the Alpha rasped, speaking for the first time in hours. "It's my fault."
Stiles quickly shushed him, his fingers brushing the fringe out of his face. "And what's happening with Boyd right now?" the Sheriff asked. Amazingly he was taking all of this very well, or as well as could be expected, and hadn't even touched the bottle of whiskey.
"Peter and Cora probably took his body out into the woods to make it look like an animal attack," Scott answered. "If not then they'll just bury him on the old Hale property with Erica."
"And what's going on with this?" the Sheriff asked, nodding at how Derek was literally curled into his son's side.
Feeling everyone's eyes on him made Stiles' fingers still in Derek's hair, and he sighed. "Derek and I are kind of... together," he said with a wince.
And unlike the outrage he expected from his dad, there was just a thoughtful look. Scott and Isaac looked confused, but Lydia just thought: Well, that explains a lot. "What exactly does 'kind of' mean?"
"We were... dating over the summer. And then with everything happening we weren't really seeing each other... And also because when we all thought he was dead, he went to Ms. Blake for help and ended up sleeping with her, and I found out, so... We're kind of together," he finished, shrugging.
"Wait. He slept with our English teacher?" Trust Scott to pick up on the important details.
"Yeah, okay, but here's the weird thing about it," Stiles began. "He was still healing. Like he still had open wounds and was bleeding everywhere and she practically threw herself at him. Derek said he remembers everything through a haze of pain, but she definitely made the first move and she was the one to tell him not to call us and tell us he was alive." Stiles was waving his unoccupied hand around at this point. "Given all of that and the fact that she had access to the students and teachers that were killed, and she would have been able to put the wolfsbane in Coach's whistle, and she was around when the birds attacked the school and when Boyd and Cora were moon-starved... I think she could be the darach."
Scott's eyes widened, and Lydia looked like she was thinking it over. "It would be a good cover. Who would believe that the sweet, innocent, shy English teacher could be a cold-blooded killer? The bird attack at the school, and the attack in the boiler room could just be a freak coincidence, but that doesn't explain why Derek went to her for help instead of Deaton of his uncle when he couldn't find one of us."
"What do you mean?" the Sheriff asked. "Why wouldn't he go to her for help?"
"Well, obviously, he has trust issues," Lydia explained. "We've all known him for months, but he doesn't trust us completely. Me because I brought Peter back to life, Allison because she's an Argent, Scott because he keeps going behind his back, Peter because he killed Laura, Cora because he thought she was dead, Deaton I assume because he's always keeping something from us, and he doesn't exactly have to explain himself to his betas. At this point I doubt he even trusts himself... So why would he trust someone he met for no more than twenty minutes with his life?"
"If that's true that she's the darach, then she could have been watching us all from the beginning. She probably knows exactly who we are," Scott pointed out. He let that sink in for a moment, then said hesitantly, "I have some news, since we're sharing... I'm becoming an Alpha."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Stiles asked.
"Deaton said that I was a True Alpha. He said it was really rare, so it only happened every hundred years, but it was when a beta rose to Alpha based solely on the strength of their character instead of kiling another Alpha to gain their power."
"I've heard of it," Derek said, trying to push himself up. Stiles kept a hand on him in case he fell over, then helped him scoot closer. "My mom always told us there are three ways to become an Alpha: killing an Alpha and gaining their power, being born an Alpha the way Laura was, or being a True Alpha because you have natural leadership skills. I suspected that's what you were, Scott, when you wouldn't join my pack. A normal beta would have just submitted instead risking becoming an omega." Derek took a shaking breath, then continued, "But that means Deucalion isn't here for me."
"He's here for me," Scott confirmed.
***
The Sheriff forced everyone to go home or stay and sleep after Scott's confession. Not only did he have a lot to think about, but the kids had just lost a friend. Scott and Isaac went back to Scott's house, and Lydia decided to stay because she didn't want to be alone.
Stiles gave him hardly any chance to protest before he dragged Derek up to his room, and they both went to sleep. That was something else the Sheriff had to think about. He wasn't really sure how he felt about his underage son being in a relationship with man - who was apparently a supernatural creature - that was six years older. Stiles had assured him, though, that they weren't technically breaking any laws because Derek refused until he was eighteen. It wasn't that hard to figure out that he didn't want to repeat his own history, which was confirmed when Derek mumbled that he wasn't Kate.
For now, everyone was safe - if only for a few hours - and in the morning the Sheriff would go talk to the vet and Melissa to try and get further caught up with what was going on in his town.