Okay, so. This is incredibly late (lol, oh god is it ever) and also unbeta-ed. I am so sorry.

Thank you, everyone who commented, bookmarked and kudoed. I can't apologize enough for how long I've taken.

*hides forever*

Stiles leaves Ms. Morrell's office, feeling like that one time where Erica clobbered him over the head with a piece of his car and he woke up feeling dizzy and disoriented. Minus the headache.

The session was stupid and less than productive. He couldn't really talk about what it is that's bothering him because even if he left out the werewolf part, mentioning that whole thing, the film, would … yeah. Not going there.

So, he talked about Matt, which is what he was actually there for. And he talked about the panic attacks that have made a return, and about his anxieties and about the feeling of drowning while all around you everyone is dry and happy and breathing.

Except for other people like him, like Derek, but he's currently not thinking about Derek and he's certainly not mentioning him to the school counsellor.

So, yeah. Not productive; and there's no silver lining. There's just not. He keeps going and going and going because that's what he does like a duracell bunny, because his dad needs him, because Scott – despite being an absolute ass sometimes – is so far in over his head and Stiles is at least partially to blame, because whose bright idea was the search for a dead body in the woods? Yeah, that's who.

Then there's Lydia. Then there's Jackson-the-fucking-kanima. There's just…everyone else, and Stiles knows that things wouldn't be easier for people if Stiles opened his mouth and let the water rush into his lungs, let it pull him under and down into the dark. It would be easier for him, though, and he's so fucking tired of it all.

"Stiles."

"If you want a blood bath, keep talking."

Scott snarls under his breath, jogging up to Stiles and reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder. Stiles jerks away before he can make contact.

"Don't."

Scott takes another step forward and Stiles back away, back hitting the lockers. "Stiles, you don't understand-"

Stiles holds up a hand and glares at Scott. Scott stops talking, closing his mouth with a snap. "Your eyes."

"Bloodbath, remember." Stiles shakes his head and closes his eyes, tries to control his breathing. They'll have to talk about this, he knows. At the very least, Stiles has to try and make Scott see that he's making the same mistake twice. "Tonight, after the game."

"Okay," Scott murmurs. "You good for now?"

"Yeah," Stiles says, focusing on his own, thankfully slower heartbeat. "Yeah, I'm good."

When the power goes out, Stiles isn't on the pitch. He's not even in the stands because Coach has been sending one person after another in to play - all of them except for Scott, even Greenberg and Coach hates Greenberg - and Stiles has promised. More importantly, he could feel the wolf stretching within his limbs, reacting to the excitement that simply comes from watching the game. So, Stiles is skulking in the nearby woods like a creeper when the light goes out and the screaming starts. He's on his feet almost instantly, prepared to run when he hears a soft thwop and feels a sudden sharp pain in his right shoulder.

He freezes, and there's a second thwop and another stab of pain and suddenly Stiles is crumbling to the ground because his legs stop working and Jesus, fuck. Not again.

Footsteps approach cautiously before someone kicks him in the side. The pain drives all air from his lungs, makes his eyes sting.

He doesn't bother trying to move, and doesn't fucking shout for help either even though - especially because - Scott's not far and while he hasn't seen Derek around, he might be, and there are only two men, but this might just be a fucking trap. Probably is a trap.

And then someone shoves something hard and round into his mouth and the decision is taken from him.

They're adding duct tape to it, too, and then a hood and this is just overkill. Stiles growls lowly in his throat and barely has time to notice the sound of something rushing through the air before he loses consciousness.

Stiles wakes before they get to the warehouse, wakes before the hood is removed, before the paralysis wears off, before he's strung up, his legs barely supporting his weight. He's trying though, trying to keep the weight off his arms because he's pretty sure he's read something about asphyxiation caused by being hung by the wrists, and he's fairly sure that, werewolf or not, he wouldn't survive that.

Derek did seem quite worried about drowning that one time.

"Stiles."

Stiles jerks, almost losing his balance, as Gerard Argent speaks up from behind. He hadn't noticed the man up until now, hasn't even been sure if he was there.

"Gerard," Stiles replies. He tries to infuse some condescension and mockery into his voice. He thinks he succeeds, is sure of it when Argent steps around him and punches him in the stomach.

"Right," he wheezes when he can breathe again. "Hit people who can't defend themselves. Real brave."

"But you're not entirely defenseless now, are you?" Argent asks before nodding at someone else behind Stiles. "And we really can't have you making a mess on the floor."

Movement to Stiles's right and then a thump as something heavy gets set down. The wolf inside him doesn't want to take its eyes off of Argent; Stiles just plainly doesn't want to look because he's seen enough action movies where the good guy is captured. Also, he's already lived through this plot once. He knows that the heavy thump is ominous, and bad. So, so bad.

He feels someone's hands settle on his wrists, wrapping - wires, fuck, wires - around them.

"You're going to regret this." He tries for a steady tone of voice, but it comes out terrified, and Stiles wonders where the fuck all his anger at this man went.

Gerard ignores him and instead addresses the person behind Stiles. "Lowest setting. Let's start slow."

For a moment, before - before - the electricity starts running through his limbs, Stiles considers asking to be let go, swearing not to attack, not to tell, but he knows it would be futile, and so he doesn't beg.

At first.

At one point, with his head exploding, his blood on fire, and the memory of a pain-free existence fading underneath the constant state of agony, Gerard pauses to make a phone call, but Stiles is in no shape to shout a warning, can barely even understand what is happening.

Thus it comes as a surprise to him when Derek bursts in, freezes as he takes in Stiles, and lets out an ungodly howl.

There's fighting. Stiles can tell that much even as he struggles against the pounding in his head and the threatening darkness. He thinks he sees Isaac, is sure of Scott being there, but the Lydia and Danny are driving his jeep through the warehouse and Stiles blinks, uncomprehending. When Peter fucking Hale steps towards him and begins to free him, he decides he's cracked.

"I'm hallucinating," Stiles mumbles around a tongue swollen from that time he ended up biting himself, teeth clicking together as another high dose of voltage went through him.

"No, I'm quite real," Peter breathes in his ear as he lowers Stiles to the ground.

"Then I'm dead," Stiles decides.

"Don't be dramatic." And that's Derek's voice, then Derek's face as he shoulders Peter aside. Derek's nostrils' flare and his eyebrows - already on the 'I'm going to kill something, with my teeth' setting - lower even more. Before Stiles can process quite what is happening, Derek's hand settles on his forehead, and the pounding and burning begins to fade, just a little.

"Handy," Stiles mumbles.

"Don't get used to it," Derek replies, but he doesn't take his hand away. Which is really nice of him, considering that Derek's been avoiding Stiles for the last few days. "Why?" Stiles mumbles.

Derek frowns at him. "Why what?"

"You've been avoiding me."

"No," Derek says shortly. For a moment, it looks like that's all he's going to say, but then he continues. "I had things to do." He flicks his eyes to the right, and Stiles follows his gaze towards where Peter Hale is standing around, smirking at everyone.

"Ah," Stiles says, and something loosens inside him. The wolf is happy because it hasn't been abandoned.

Stiles remains lying on the floor for a few minutes, just breathing and trying to get his bearings. To his right, Lydia is hugging Jackson, who's wearing no clothes at all, not that either seems to mind. A small clump settles in Stiles's stomach as he watches them. Neither spares him a glance, which Stiles had expected from Jackson - and had expected from Lydia, too, if he was honest with himself. Unattainable was Lydia's middle name, at least as far as Stiles was concerned. He grasps around for something to distract himself, sees Danny, but Danny's presence isn't really quite as mysterious as that of another person.

"So, Peter."

Derek grunts helpfully.

"Seems to be pretty lively for a dead guy. What with the walking around and the talking." And the lowering Stiles to the ground and the breathing at him like a creeper.

"He resurrected himself."

Stiles pauses, incredulously. "Oh, okay then."

Derek nods like that has settled matters and wasn't, you know, sarcasm. Stiles knows for a fact that Derek is aware of what sarcasm is.

Which means he just plain doesn't want to talk about it, so Stiles casts about for something else to say. Again.

Stiles opens his mouth to ask about Danny and Lydia and how they ended up here, and what has happened to Gerard (god, he hopes that fucker is dead) and why Jackson is naked (though, he thinks he knows), but what's actually coming out of his mouth is, "Are you okay?"

Because now that he thinks about it, he remembers that this was a trap and that Gerard was prepared for Derek and that he wanted Derek there. For something.

Derek throws him a dark look. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Oh, ouch. Stiles lets his eyes rove over Derek's body, but he can't see any wounds. There's something in Derek's voice, though. Something that hints at pain or hurt and a desire to return that hurt ten-fold.

His hands are still on Stiles, though; still taking away some of the pain, which is getting better anyway as his body heals. And Stiles doesn't want that to stop - ever.

"So, Danny?"

He's staring at Derek's face, but it's not his alpha's voice that answers. "Tracked your cellphone," Danny explains as he enters Stiles' field of vision. "Lydia more or less kidnapped me and...okay, that was a bad choice of words."

Stiles stifles a laugh and waves a hand.

"Well, I guess you know now, about...this."

"About living on a Hellmouth? Sure."

"It's not a Hellmouth," Derek grumbles, and Stiles stares at him.

"You watched Buffy? Wait, you watched Buffy?"

Derek doesn't deign to respond.

"Your dad's looking for you, by the way," Danny interrupts them. "And, well, if I can track the signal-" He doesn't finish the sentence, but Stiles swears loudly and finally pushes Derek's hands away. His dad doesn't know Stiles' password, and neither does Danny for that matter, but, well, it'sDanny. And Stiles' dad is the sheriff.

"I'll drive you," Danny says, and Stiles nods his thanks.

The drive home is not really quiet. Danny has questions, lots of them, and Stiles explains as well as he can. At one point, Danny interrupts himself, throwing a guilty glance Stiles' way because, Stiles guesses, he doesn't really look fine.

He is not fine.

He pretends to be, though, keeps pretending when he gets out of the car, too, when his dad confronts him and he explains about mouthing off at the other team (a blatant lie, again).

Stiles is an A+ pretender.

For about as long as it takes his dad to finally leave him alone in his room.

One good thing to come out of all of this, Stiles reflects as he drives home from Danny's house on Friday, is that he could rope Danny into helping him track down cryptozoologist11 and getting his hands on the movie. Danny had been working on the former for a few days already, so that when he texted Stiles to come over, Stiles had thought...well, Stiles had thought wrong. Danny had bought-slash-downloaded the movie for him - Stiles knew how to use a proxy and how to clear his browser history, but he didn't want there to be any chance that someone figured out he'd downloaded that.

He tells himself it's because he's the son of a police officer and it would reflect badly on his dad. Truthfully, he'd rather not think about what might be the real reason for this kind of caution.

The teaser trailer - posted late Sunday night - had pretty much confirmed what Stiles already knew. There was a shot of Scott crawling towards Derek and then a few seconds of the two of them going at each other, followed by a closing shot where Derek just looks at Stiles with that empty, animal gaze.

Objectively speaking, it's a good teaser trailer.

Subjectively speaking, it has Stiles squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his hands over his ears and just trying to breathe.

Consequently, Stiles knows that watching the movie is just a Bad Idea, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to once he's home.

He's twitchy during the drive home, heart thumping loudly in his throat, so that by the time he actually makes it to his room and boots up the computer, his hands are shaking so much he barely manages to insert the flashdrive into the little slot.

There are flashes in front of his eyes and he starts to wonder if he should take a leaf out of his dad's book and just have a drink before remembering the whole 'faster metabolism' thing. The whole bottle maybe? Would that help or make him lose his grip on the wolf even faster? Why doesn't Derek tell him this shit.

"Fucking shit," he mumbles before letting out a startled shout and jumping up from his chair when the window slides open.

"You're in deep shit, yes," Derek growls, clambering in. He's in jeans and leather jacket; no shirt. No socks either, though he is wearing shoes. Hair wet and - Stiles squints at him. Yeah, there's shampoo in his hair.

"Is your shower broken? Wait, do you even have a shower?" Weeks spent at the railway station and Stiles has no clue about the state of the plumbing. Derek ignores him completely. He reaches past Stiles and plucks the flashdrive out of the PC.

"Hey!" He grabs Derek's hand, but Derek twists his arm and gives Stiles a push with his other hand before taking a step back. He points at the chair. "Sit."

Stiles glowers at him. "Like hell. What are you doing here?"

Faster than Stiles's senses can register Derek's hand is around his throat, pushing him backwards and down. That's not particularly hard anyway because the steady growl trailing from Derek's lips has Stiles's knees buckling underneath him.

"Idiot," Derek snarls, eyes glowing red. "Are you actively trying to fuck yourself up? Or do you feel like going on a rampage and bringing the Argents down on us?"

But Stiles can't answer, tongue frozen behind his teeth as the weight of Derek's emotions settles over him. Unbridled fury, determination.

Worry.

Protectiveness.

And something undefinable, but warm and good.

Overwhelmed, his brain shuts down and his instincts take over. He tilts his head as much as he can with Derek's grip on him and lowers his gaze. The wolf in him is happy at this show of submissiveness. The human side is happy in an entirely different way.

Derek hisses and releases him. He turns to leave, but Stiles finally finds his voice again. "Wait," he rasps. "Derek, wait." He stumbles up from the chair, one hand outstretched. Derek turns and catches it before it can settle on his shoulder, and suddenly they are holding hands and it's probably this that loosens Stiles tongue to the point where his brain-mouth filter short circuits entirely and he blurts, "You're not like her and I'm not you." Some tiny alarm in his head goes off, flashing red and telling him 'abort, abort while Derek is still confused and you can salvage this somehow', but yeah, short circuited. "It's not like you're going to use me like Kate used you."

Derek flinches violently, tearing his hand away from Stiles's. "You - how?"

"I had a dream," Stiles explains because he's jumped into the deep end and now all he can do is swim for his life.

"Look, that's not important. What's important is that she was a raging psychopath, and you're not. You're actually worried about me and stuff." He changes track because this is getting a bit too mushy for him, so it must be unbearable for the Manliest Werewolf in Town. Stiles takes a deep breath. "Okay, it's like this. You're attracted to me. And I'm attracted to you. And I know you think I'm too young, and maybe I am, but I'm not going to be 17 forever." Or 16 for that matter, but his birthday isn't that far away.

"Stiles," Derek groans.

"No, don't say it." Stiles interrupts him. "I've been thinking about this. I've been thinking about this all week. No, actually, longer than that. It's okay. you don't have to say anything; hell, we don't have to do anything. I just want you to consider this:

You're my anchor. And I like you. And, let me repeat, I'm getting older every second we're speaking."

Derek turns startled eyes on him. "I'm what?"

And oh. Right. Derek hadn't actually known that until now. "You're my anchor," Stiles repeats, and then - because he might as well go all out and because Derek can be so goddamn dense about other people - Stiles goes on, "I feel safe around. Like nothing can happen and it makes me feel calm.

"And I know you think it's counter-intuitive," he hurries on as Derek, looking chagrined and guilty, opens his mouth, "but it's really not. You're - you're pack, and safe." And this seems to have been the right thing to say because Derek stills, takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

Nods once.

"You're not watching this," he says, raising the hand still holding the flashdrive. "Not here; not alone." He frowns. "We'll watch it together, later. There's something we'll have to take care of first."

Stiles isn't quite sure whether he should be grateful to Danny or not. On the one hand, Danny calling Derek feels a bit like he's being a snitch - like calling your friend's parents when you think they're doing something they shouldn't be doing. On the other hand, he knows that Danny was probably worried and that Derek sort of had a point.

Neither of which is something he should be worrying about right now because they have bigger fish to fry. While Stiles had been driving home, a message seemed to have gone up on the board about a lucky catch and the shooting of another movie. Danny, who was a seriously badass hacker and also an A+ dissembler, had not only already hacked cryptozoologist11's account the day before, but also his email account and was working on trying to trace the GPS signal of the cell phone number that cryptozoologist11 had left with gmail.

And then he had called Derek, instead of Stiles - because Stiles would totally have gone after these lunatics by himself. Yeah, right.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, no.

No, maybe. Fuck, he doesn't know.

It's moot anyway because here Derek is, with Stiles, in a stolen car, letting the engine idle while Scott and Isaac and Peter Hale jog out of the woods to join them.

There's a brief hold-up while everyone but Isaac is insisting they get to ride shotgun. This is finally resolved because apparently no one trusts Peter to sit at their back, so he gets to sit in front. Derek bears it all with his usual grace and patience; that is, he's glaring daggers at everyone.

"So," Stiles says after ten - okay, five … two - minutes of uncomfortable and awkward silence, broken only by the purring of the engine and Peter's off-tune humming. "What's the game plan?"

He'd really like to know, too; being kept in the dark hadn't really worked out all that well in terms of his and Scott's friendship. Scott could simply have told him that he'd talked to Derek about selling him out again (or pretending to). That, plus the fact that Gerard Argent, Mr. DIE WEREWOLF SCUM, apparently wanted to fucking become a werewolf, had totally blown him away when he heard of it.

"Get in and kill everyone, according to my nephew."

"And save the people they've captured," Scott adds. He looks tense, but there's something hard and cold about him, and Stiles might have thought he'd protest killing the film crew, but … Scott had suffered, too.

"If they're still alive." Peter's tone is neutral, as if he doesn't care one way or another - which he probably didn't. Though Stiles is wondering why he's going along. Hell, Stiles is just plain wondering a, how Peter could resurrect himself, b, what he is planning and c, why Derek hasn't thrown him out yet. Or re-killed him or something. On the other hand, Peter is the only blood related family Derek has left and he's Derek - creepy, homicidal, utterly insane - uncle.

Derek ignores the by-play. "Peter, I want you and Stiles to go and release the omega and the human. Watch out for the wolfsbane. If the omega is lost to her instincts, just try to get the human away from her." Derek pauses. "The two of you should be able to handle her, but don't take risks."

"Of course," Peter murmurs. Stiles keeps quiet because he can't promise not to try everything if it means saving someone from being mauled. He's sure Derek is picking up on some of his thoughts because his mouth tightens and he glances at his uncle. Peter's lips twitch and he nods slightly.

"Scott and Isaac,you're with me. We don't know for certain, but we have to assume they have wolfsbane bullets. Take them out as quickly as you can. If that means they end up dead, that is an option I'll happily live with."

Something tickled at the back of Stiles's mind. "Um."

"Stiles," Derek sighed.

"No, that's not it," Stiles interrupts him because it isn't really, and Stiles blinks and stops because this is perfectly true. Not even a hint of doubt or hesitance remains, and he wonders when that happened because while he did want them dead, so fucking dead, he couldn't quite consider the idea without a hint of guilt.

Then again he hadn't let himself think about what would happen once they caught up to the film crew. Not since...since before Stiles had been abducted by Gerard Argent a second time.

Ah.

"What then?"

"Our fingerprints are going to be all over that crime scene."

Derek growls low in his throat; it's edged with frustration and something Stiles can't quite figure out.

"So, we set fire to-"

"A stone cell?" Stiles interrupts. "Yeah, I guess." He tries to keep the doubt out of voice. "There's just the little problem that fire doesn't really destroy all the evidence. That's a folk tale."

"How likely is it that the place is going to be found, anyway?" Isaac asks, which is a good point. The coordinates seem to lead them some place that is nowhere near civilisation. Stiles is surprised that there's a signal at all.

"There's always a chance," Stiles replies.

"So bury them somewhere?" Scott suggests.

"Never a bad idea. Of course, we need shovels for that."

"In the trunk," Isaac tells him.

"Or instead of ripping out their guts, you could simply break their necks." Peter's tone is off-hand, amused.

On the other hand, claw marks mean the police might not suspect someone human. But then they couldn't bury the bodies because that would raise suspicion. Stiles lets out a sigh.

"If it's possible, we will, uncle," Derek replies drily.

And that's probably all they can do. Stiles knows that if the film crew is ever found, and if the police finds the movies, it's only a matter of time before suspicions fall on him, Derek, and Scott. His stomach twists, fear settling into his guts, and he tries to will it away.

It occurs to Stiles that in this he and Peter Hale (and everyone else in this car) are in agreement, and he wonders if this is the first stop to becomingPeter Hale. The thought doesn't sit well with him.

But it still doesn't change his mind.

The signal doesn't actually lead them to the filming location, but there are tracks and Peter and Derek are quite capable of following them.

They split up as agreed, ghosting through the corridors. There are hardly any security measures. At least the kind that are directed outward. They'd entered the small shack without being detected, found the trapdoor leading down unguarded as well, though it would have been hard to find if they'd been human and impossible to lift, as well. There's a mechanism on the underside of the door that does the heavy lifting. The film crew probably has a remote control to open it from the outside. Stiles can't imagine that one of them always stays down here to hit the button near the steps.

It's the only obstacle they run into until they hear voices from the closer of a set of two doors. They're both reinforced, but the one farther down the corridor lets out a whiff of wolfsbane, as well.

The next few minutes are kind of anticlimatic. If you can call five dead people anticlimatic. Peter and Stiles are too late to save the human. They aren't too late for the omega, but then Peter has the brilliant idea to let the crazed woman out of the cage while Stiles is fumbling to close the box. She rushes past him, snarling and literally frothing at the mouth. Stiles jumps up to run after her maybe, he doesn't know, but by the time he's on his feet there's a nearly inhuman scream from the other room and the sounds of flesh being rent. Stiles stumbles into the room to see Derek grappling with the omega.

There are four dead men in the room. They all look surprised.

- Epilogue -

"Love the new decor."

Derek ignores him as usual, and Stiles takes one last look at graffiti left by the alpha pack before entering the house. Isaac had told him about it. That is, Isaac had told Scott and Scott had told Stiles before Stiles could see it himself and wonder. He hadn't been there when the pack came across it.

"What do you want, Stiles?"

"And good day to you to, Grumpy Wolf." Derek directs a glare at him that has Stiles's inner wolf cowering and offering up his belly and Stiles's inner...Stiles sitting up and smirking. Derek must notice because his face morphs into a shit eating grin and he says, "You here for some training?"

Stiles wrinkles his nose. "That is just mean."

"Perks of the job. I get to be as mean as I want to."

"Yeah, about that. Well, no. Actually, not about that at all. About, about us. You and me."

"Stiles."

Stiles stops picking at a thread on his LaCrosse jersey and stares straight at Derek. "You never answered my question."

Derek lifts a hand and rubs at his temple. He looks tired and worn. This is probably not a good time, with the alpha pack coming and everything, but when is it ever a good time?

He finally lets out a low chuckle. It sounds resigned, but not entirely unhappy. "After you graduate, we can talk about it then."

This was not a no. Stiles blinks, momentarily stunned into silence, because this. Was. Not. A no.

Fuck, yeah.

"I never thought I'd see the day," Derek mumbles under his breath.

"Hey, if you miss my dulcet tones, I can-"

"Stiles, get out."

"But-"

"Go to your play date with Scott."

Stiles opens his mouth to protest that it's not a play date for god's sake, but Derek grabs the back of his shirt and shoves him towards the door and out.

"Love you too, Mr. Grumpy!" he shouts and hurries towards his jeep. Somewhere behind him Derek growls.