Big thanks to Sasha, my first ever beta! XD

~.x.~

"It's a test," one of the alphas says as her claws shred the flesh of his chest. Her face is grim, but the other one laughs.

"An easy test—it only takes one point to pass." This one cocks his head as his laughter bounces off Derek's growls. "Makes it just that much more pathetic that you're failing." As the first alpha's claws find Derek once more, this one fakes a wince. "Hurts, doesn't it? To be so utterly unwanted that not a single member of your so-called pack has bothered to show." His grin burns deeper than the claws.

Derek snarls because he can't fight back, then howls because it's the only other thing he can do. He remembers once when Scott found him by his howls, but he remembers more clearly the words, "not my alpha," passing from Scott's lips. No one will answer, he knows, but still he howls as he has for hours now.

Blood stains his clothes—the tattered remains of a shirt and jeans. It spills over the alpha's fingers and claws to strike the ground too close to where Derek buried his sister. Laura was supposed to be the alpha, he thinks before he can stop himself. Derek should have been a beta; he was better as a beta, but he isn't about to let anyone like Peter or even like Scott be alpha, not over him. Derek growls as his body strains to knit itself together.

He feels more than hears it—a soft howl. An answer. Finally. He feels the whole pack like a hand brushing his fingertips, but the howl feels like one of them finally taking his hand. The touch is tentative and young like his pack. Derek recognizes the halting trust in it and the sense that he could abuse that trust without losing it. Isaac. Derek tries not to think too hard on why Isaac never learned to abandon anyone, but right now, part of him is thankful for it. Then again, Derek's lessons in trust were twisted through the charred remains of betrayal too.

He doesn't think the alphas noticed Isaac's call—probably because they aren't pack. They continue as before: the male mocking and the female attacking. The blows sting less without the crater of abandonment in his chest. Maybe Isaac is all Derek has anymore, but even Isaac alone is a lot. Even Isaac alone is pack—is family.

The alpha stops, claws raised. "I heard that," she says with a smirk as her arm drops to tap his chest above his heart. "Which one is it you think will come for you?"

With a scowl, the other alpha steps forward. "They won't make it, you know. It's one thing to care at all, another thing entirely to care enough to make it past the others."

Derek stops himself from flinching at the thought of Isaac trying to fight through a pack of alphas to reach him. When the scowling alpha's twisted grin returns, Derek knows they heard and smelled the reaction he hid from their eyes.

"Don't worry, sweetie," the woman says, taking hold of his arm. "They won't kill him until after you fail." A snap of her wrist breaks the bone of Derek's arm. He's almost grateful as he feels the healing accelerate to deal with an injury more severe than a few little cuts. "Who knows," she adds, "Maybe he'll even make it."

The man laughs, and his eyes flash red. "No one in this pack is strong enough for that."

Derek growls. The power inside him churns so fiercely that he knows his own eyes have answered the alpha's red glow. Beyond the sound of his own throat, Derek hears something new—not Isaac's howl, but the tone of trust and help is there all the same. It's a purr and a grind, and behind it lies beating hearts and the gasping breaths of someone so terrified they may never breathe properly again. The Jeep. Isaac. Stiles.

It roars into view past the tree line, charging straight for the alpha hurting Derek. She leaps out of the way with something like a laugh as the Jeep screeches to a stop directly in front of Derek. Stiles stumbles out of the driver's door as Isaac leaps from the other, assuming a defensive crouch.

"Stiles?" Derek knows it's incredulity coloring his voice. He tastes it on his tongue and feels it blocking out what should have been an escape plan.

Stiles' hands find the chains holding Derek back. He tugs at them even though Derek would have broken out long ago if that were enough.

"Stiles." This time Derek makes his voice firm. It catches his would-be savior's attention, and Derek nods his head at the woman. "She has the key."

"Why does some scary monster or werewolf or senior citizen always have the really important thing we need?" He groans and turns to find Isaac facing down the alphas. For a moment, no one else moves.

"Are you sure you want to fight us?" The man asks, scorn evident in his voice. "For him?"

Isaac chances a look at Derek, and the trust between them pulses and flows. Derek knows before Isaac nods his head and shifts to his beta form that Isaac will fight for him. The pack bond is strong, and Derek hasn't felt anything like it since he lost Laura.

"I'd personally rather... observe," Stiles adds. "I'm a lover, not a fighter." The cheesy grin he tries on falls flat, and Derek snorts with what he refuses to admit is anything but annoyance. When Stiles digs a paperclip from his pocket and reaches again for Derek's shackles, the alphas seem to understand. Stiles is staying too, no matter how much danger that puts him in. There were humans in Derek's old family too, and he remembers the feeling of pack from them too. Even though Stiles is Scott's friend, pack is what Derek hears in his heartbeat and smells in the tang of his sweat. He remembers all the times Stiles has saved him before and wonders if he really has a right to be surprised anymore.

The man grins. "You say that now..." He raises a hand, claws extending from the tips of his fingers as his eyes flash. He rushes forward and slams Isaac against the Jeep. Isaac gasps as the alpha's claws break through the skin of his throat, and blood leaks down to stain the collar of his shirt. Isaac struggles against the alpha's grip, but it's as futile as Derek's struggle against whatever magic enhances the chains holding him.

When the woman advances, Derek pulls his attention away from Isaac. At least Isaac can heal; Stiles is defenseless. "Stiles," he warns, "You need to leave."

"Dude, I can't just..." His eyes widen as his pulse quickens. "She's right behind me isn't she?"

"You could say that," the alpha whispers into his ear, and a shiver runs down the length of Stiles body.

When he turns around, slowly, slowly, Stiles looks ready to leap out of his skin. "Can't we talk about this?" He asks, mouth stretched into a nervous grin as he meet's the woman's eyes. "No?" He asks, and she shakes her head. "Not even a little?" She shakes her head again and raises a hand toward him, slowly enough that it's obvious she's playing with him. Stiles raises a clenched fist, and for a second Derek is terrified he's actually going to try to brawl with an alpha. Then his fingers spread as he blows gently on the purple dust in his palm. Derek recognizes the wolfs bane powder from when Lydia used it against him. The alpha stumbles back, stunned, but not knocked out as Derek had been.

"Tell me you're not serious," the male alpha groans, pulling away from Isaac.

"I guess this means you pass," the woman says. Derek jerks his attention back to her because he didn't expect her to sound so pleased.

The other alpha shrugs. "The next test will be harder. Better study up." He sounds more excited about the idea of Derek failing later than his passing now.

The female alpha tosses a key to Stiles. "See you later then," she calls, turning with her companion to lope past the tree line and into the woods.

"What just happened?" Isaac asks as he shuffles over to Derek and Stiles, patting tenderly at the wounds on his neck.

"And how long do we have before the later when we see them again?" Stiles' eyes dart between Derek and the forest like he expects it to be only moments.

Derek sighs as Isaac frees him and rubs at his sore but healing wrists. He has to trust someone eventually, and these two lost teenagers are all he has. "It's how they weed out weak alphas. They run them through tests and kill anyone who fails, along with their pack." He ignores Stiles' question because he doesn't know the answer.

"What was the point of this test exactly?" Stiles gestures widely at Derek's wounds and restraints, then to himself and Isaac.

"To prove someone thought of me as pack." Derek scowls. He knew from the start that putting a wolf's instincts into someone couldn't make them less human, less inclined to look out for their own interests, and he knew biting someone wasn't enough to make them family. But he had tried so hard. For a while, so short a while, Derek had even thought he'd done it—built himself a new pack. Then everything crumbled around him just the way it always did. He looks over from Stiles to Isaac and back, thinking that not everything had crumbled. He'd only needed one to pass. Two had come for him though. Two had fought for him. And assuming he hadn't hallucinated that last part, Stiles had even driven one of the alphas back once he decided to fight.

"Dude, you're alpha. Don't they not have a pack at all without you?"Stiles turns the key to Derek's restraints and pulls him toward the Jeep when they're off.

Derek pulls back. "They're gone; we don't have to leave." He sighs. "And being stuck with me isn't the same as wanting me around."

"I don't feel stuck with you," Isaac says as he takes hold of Derek's wrist. "And you should let Deaton look you over just in case."

"They hurt you and somehow made it so only someone who actually cares could show up to help you?" Stiles twists his face up like he's smelled rotting garbage. "Jerks."
Derek considers not asking his next question. He knows it'd be easier to leave it be. Still he opens his mouth to say, "I had hoped Isaac would come, even if I couldn't expect it. But Stiles... how did you end up here?"

"Yeah, I guess I'm not exactly pack." He cocks his head and scratches at the back of his neck, smelling exactly like pack despite his words. "Everyone was weird. Like... twitchy, I guess. All they'd say was it was something about you jerking at an alpha bond or whatever. Everyone else just seemed annoyed, but Isaac was worried too, so I suggested we drive out to see what was up."

"I didn't want to come alone." Isaac chuckles at the thought. "The Jeep did come in handy though. They were set up to keep us away on foot."

Derek gapes at Stiles. "You mean you're the reason Isaac came too?"

"I'd have come anyway," Isaac says as he shoves Derek into the Jeep. "But it helped to have him there." He pauses, staring at Stiles. "Would you have come anyway? You seemed... worried even before you spoke to me."

Stiles shrugs and rubs at his nose. "I worry. About people. It's what I do."

"You worry about me?" Derek hears the incredulity creep back into his voice. He's never done anything to earn Stiles feeling more for him than disdain.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" He buckles his seatbelt like it's no big deal as Derek realizes he was wrong. It isn't bad luck pushing them together.

"I think you are," he says, leaning forward more than he should with his injuries. "You said you're not, but you can be." When Stiles opens his mouth, Derek knows he doesn't understand yet. "Pack."

"Even though I'm human?" He doesn't say anything about Scott or about not wanting to be.

"There were humans in my first family too."

Stiles grins, and Isaac reaches out to take the wheel as his eyes leave the road to find Derek. "Then maybe try threatening my life a little less often, okay?"

"Shut up and drive," Derek says, leaning back into his seat. Maybe it's not everyone; it's not Scott, Erica, Boyd, and Jackson. It's not even Peter. But it's Isaac, and it's Stiles. Derek only needed one to be pack, but he has two.