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Derek watches over them all, after.
No one wonders why, not after they all helped build the pyre that burnt what remained of Peter deep in the woods. A favor owed, a favor repayed, and Stiles feels safe for the first time since he faced down his best friend's new teeth. There are signs of Derek everywhere; his car playing sentinel during lacrosse practice, an eternal smudge of forest dirt and soot on all their window ledges, even that primal roll in his friends walks now hold a different implication than it had.
Stiles still thinks they owe Derek just a little for his guard, especially after December rolls around and a band of something takes up residence in the old apartments that make up the "bad" part of town. His father investigates a single missing person's case that month, and Stiles bites down viciously on his tongue when the case runs cold but he knows exactly where Mr. Caines disappeared to. And while he understands closure is important, Stiles mostly hopes the rest of the Caines never find out; knowing it was cannibalism, somehow, feels worse than not knowing anything at all.
He's waiting unhappily in the car when the pack slips into the shady building and rips through the ghouls like rage become flesh. Stiles trembles and prays through the whole agonizing wait, an ineloquent please be okay please be okay please please until they reappear, patiently hauling bodies twisted by some sort of curse toward their collective trunks.
It didn't take long for Stiles to realize grave digging was never going to be an acquired taste of his when they retreat with their haul to the woods again.
"Jesus, Stiles, you call that a grave?" Jackson looks amused, gore and dirt streaked across clothing that probably cost more than half Stiles' whole wardrobe. Stiles breathes out through his nose, trying to catch his breath long enough to reminisce about Lydia brutally slamming Jackson into the ground over and over during the last full moon, but Derek appears at the edge of Stiles' admittedly slow going hole.
"Go help Scott," he snaps out, impatient but dark-eyed. It's not much of a threat, considering, but Jackson retreats, figurative tail between his legs. Stiles sort of wishes he would come back just so he has a reason to drag out his break.
Derek drops in before Stiles can so much as blink. He picks the shovel from between Stiles' aching fingers and digs it into the dirt.
"That was mine," Stiles snaps, forced back to the edge of his knee-deep hole to avoid the rapid swipe of the shovel.
Derek doesn't even make an expression or pause in his work. "You look tired," he says, mild. "Go take a break."
"I can help." He feels defensive, standing there flexing his hands uselessly and trying to gauge just how bad the blisters are going to be.
"You already have."
Stiles shakes his head, laughing. "I like, sat in the car and played cheerleader, okay? This at least I can do."
That does get a reaction. Derek pauses mid-dig. "It was more than that. We needed your strength."
It's such a bizarre thing to hear, and Stiles doesn't know how to react. They stand there for a long second, and then Derek goes back to digging, oblivious to (or ignoring) the way Stiles' eyes catch on the shift of his shoulders and hips. It feels a bit like a dismissal, but there's something warming in his chest that chases away the ache in his overworked muscles.
Stiles scrambles over the edge of the hole and goes to help Lydia push dirt over one of the zombie-things, very carefully not-smiling.
It's not an obsession. It is, at the very worst, a childish crush and completely understandable attraction. Derek is scary, hot, and sometimes scary-hot, and Stiles is going through a phase that is completely normal for teenage boys. If you ignore the werewolf bits, that is; Stiles tries to.
His moments of fixation become a reward: if he does well on his chemistry exam he can spend an hour digging through the old high school yearbooks in the library for pictures of Derek. If he impresses coach he can sleep with gray, bloodstained mess of a shirt Derek never bothered to pick up. If his dad doesn't ask "what's wrong?" for three days straight he can drop by the Hale house and say hello with a bag of greasy takeout.
It's maybe a little pathetic, but doesn't otherwise interrupt Stiles' life, and that's a victory. He controls the secret carefully, nobody suspects a thing, and Stiles can keep feeding that warmth in his bones.
The collection starts harmlessly enough. It isn't even his fault, really, considering the actual beginning was Derek's shirt, which was practically a gift, but even the tiny things after are okay. No one is going to miss the scrap of paper Derek jots down his phone number on; Stiles even waits patiently for the others to type the information into their phones before he stuffs it greedily into a pocket. Then it's the mugshot, which is sort of guilt-inducing until Stiles makes copy and returns the new picture to his father's files. He keeps the original, of course.
They're all small things, unwanted or easily replaced. His desk drawer becomes a home for all the little items Derek once laid his attention on until Scott opens it one day to grab a pen and looks confused.
"It smells like Derek in here," he says, reaching in, and Stiles panics and slams the drawer on his fingers. "Fuck, Stiles!"
"Sorry, shit, sorry, hold on," Stiles says, not feeling sorry at all, and checks his best friends fingers for broken bones. They're fine, of course, and then they laugh it off, but that night Stiles digs out an old hat box that once belonged to his mother and transfers everything into it.
It looks better that way, and on impulse he digs out paint and a brush from the garage before coating the whole box in red. He likes that too, and barely manages to wait for the paint to dry before hiding it away again.
Stiles doesn't treat Derek any different.
His eyes maybe linger too long and he might hover, just a little, as everyone leaves, trying to soak up a little more time to tide himself off before the next pack meeting, but Stiles still snipes and rolls his eyes. He still annoys Derek and is annoyed, but as carefully as they rehearse the same song and dance, Stiles can't help but feel like there's something new under the surface.
Derek looks better than he had before. He's still pale and scowling, but there's less sharpness in his jaw and the desperation has mostly bled out.
It goes wrong one day after everyone has finished demolishing carton after carton of bad Chinese food from town. Stiles is eying Derek's chopsticks, jutting casually out of a mostly finished box of noodles, when Lydia appears smoothly from nowhere to drape herself over Stiles' left side. There's a smear of grease on her lower lip but she smells good, like girl soap and forest and fried rice, things Stiles has both always loved and learned to appreciate. He smiles, tentative, because Lydia usually ignores him or smiles blandly, and Stiles has gained wariness for new things.
He doesn't merit this much attention.
"You've been acting off," she says, picking a cube of chicken from Stiles' styrofoam plate and eating it with impressive delicateness. Her eyes flick to Derek, then back to Stiles, and a chill seeps down his spine. She's too calculated for that to be anything but a nudge. "Twitchier than usual. Is everything okay?"
Stiles has never been fooled by Lydia's sweetness. She's not a kind girl, which is fine, Stiles has never wanted to be treated with kid gloves or honeyed words, but he's also never been forced under her microscope, either. It feels dangerous, like a kid with a magnifying lens is setting ants on fire to see how fast they'll move, and Stiles has no misunderstanding if he's ever been more than an ant to Lydia Martin.
"I'm -- yeah. Fine." He wants very badly to sit on his hands, but settles for pressing them viciously into the meat of his thighs until the bones in his wrists ache. Lydia smiles and rubs a hand down his arm.
"Yes, I know that." She doesn't leer, and Stiles can hear a different sort of inflection in her tone than the one she uses to flirt with the others. "I mean --" she reaches across him, plucking Derek's chopsticks from their box, "everything else."
Stiles watches as she plays with the cheap wood, clicking them curiously with one hand even while her eyes never leave his face. He feels angry, though he shouldn't, they aren't his chopsticks to feel territorial over (yet). Stiles doesn't even know how to use chopsticks, had been impressed by the ease with which Derek had handled them.
He had stared too much, it seems.
"Like what?" Stiles asks, mouth thinning into a frown.
Lydia raises an eyebrow, and Stiles realizes just how badly he fucked up her little test when she snaps the chopsticks in half, then drops the splintered pieces onto his plate.
"You aren't as subtle as you'd like to be," she advises, then lifts off him to trail after Allison, and Stiles isn't even sure if she realizes how cruel her little act had been.
No one else appears to have noticed the conversation, but Stiles still feels his face burn.
When he gets home a few hours later, Stiles digs his box out from the depths of his closet. The red paint is an accusation for once, and he feels shameful opening the lid. His collection has grown over the past months and it's obvious he's become less selective. There's a bit of glass Derek had crushed under his heel tucked away inside a scrap of old tee-shirt Derek had used to wash his car, which is buried under a scattering of printed text message conversations between Stiles and Derek.
He rubs a hand over his face, kneeling over the mess. It's not really defensible any longer because it's not just Stiles' little thing -- Lydia knows, which means he's been obvious.
Does Derek know?
It feels dangerous to have the box. He covers the evidence under the lid again, the pressure of his body down on it enough to warp the cardboard. He ought to throw it away, cut the habit off before anyone demands an explanation. He picks it up and takes the stairs two at a time.
The fireplace hasn't been used in years and Stiles is pretty sure it's more decorative than functional, so he veers toward the backyard and the metal firepit standing skeletal at the center of the brick patio.
He's left the box resting in the bottom of the blackened metal pit while he digs for lighter fluid when Derek grabs him by the shoulders and spins him away from the grill.
"Don't do that," Derek says, crowding him in against the wall.
Stiles' heart is in his throat and he goes rabbit still. "What the hell, Derek!" His eyes flick toward where the red hatbox sits and then back to Derek, wide and panicked.
"Don't burn it." Stiles isn't sure, but he thinks there's something off about Derek, his skin gone abnormally white and hot; Stiles can feel it soaking into the air between them. "It's fine." They both stand there, Derek gone half-feral and Stiles not sure what he's doing, terrified of anyone opening the box even though his secret is so obviously blown.
"I'm really sorry," Stiles says, closing his eyes so he doesn't have to see Derek or his stalker kit. "It's wasn't -- I didn't mean to."
Derek laughs, unhappy. "Yes you did."
"Okay, fine. I did. But I won't. Anymore, I mean. I'll stop." Stiles presses his hand into the center of Derek's chest, trying to push him back, get some air. His head feels light, like if Derek steps back maybe he'll actually float away and this hideous night will finally end.
His wrist gets grabbed in a grip tight enough to bruise. "No," Derek grits out, and digs flat human teeth into the tendon of Stiles' neck, violent and controlled.
Stiles goes hard, swearing and wrapping his free hand around the open flap of Derek's jacket as his whole world burns down to the pain in his neck and wrist. Warmth floods everything and he only starts breathing again when the teeth detach, slow.
"I want your belief," Derek says, only just louder than the little hitching breaths Stiles can't seem to control. His face feels wet and Derek swipes his tongue over Stiles' cheek, comforting and tasting. "I've fucking earned it, haven't I?"
Stiles nods, resting his weight against Derek.
"No, come on. Say it." Derek buries his face into Stiles neck and mouths at the rapidly blooming bruise; the sharp throb of pain that causes goes all the way down to his dick.
"You've e-earned it," Stiles tries, shivering.
"Earned what?"
"Me." It feels true, even if it also feels dangerous as hell.
The warmth in his bones grows and Stiles wonders if this is what it's like to be what the others are, if it feels like having a piece of Derek's power in them. This time Derek shivers.
"Take the box back upstairs," he says, commands.
"Come with." Stiles digs his fingers into the thick leather of Derek's coat again, tugging, needy.
Derek shakes his head and pulls back, but the warmth stays, rolling through everything with the pulse Stiles can feel beating in his bruise. "I'm not going to always give you what you want, Stiles," he says, thumbing Stiles' mouth.
It doesn't matter, not really. Stiles didn't expect to get anything he wanted, ever, so this is a blessing, possibly a miracle. "Okay," he agrees, easy but unhappy, and forces his hands to let go of Derek.
They move apart, and Derek picks the box up. Stiles wants to stop him, apologize again, but Derek cuts him off by pushing the box into his hands. It's heavier, Stiles thinks, and when he looks closer the cardboard now wood, thick and strong under flaking red paint.
When he looks back up to ask, Derek has melted back into the night.