Archive of Our Own

Derek wakes distantly, mind foggy, his thoughts sticking together so bad he can't pick them apart to tell why he's awake. 

Then the smell starts to tickle at his nose, Derek feels the heat in the room. It's smoke, it's fire. 

Panic seizes him for just the briefest moment, it's just a blip and then Derek sinks into the mattress.. 

He knows that it's Kate. She's followed him since he was sixteen. No matter where Laura and he had run Kate found them. She set fires to smoke them out, taunting them, flushing them out and taking shots at them. 

Sometimes Derek thought she let them get away on purpose so that she could keep this game of chase going. 

When she cornered them in New York, pinned Laura down, she hadn't tried to stop him from running as Laura screamed at him to just go. 

You let her die just like the rest of them, Derek . He could practically hear Kate's voice like a sultry whisper in his ear as he ran and didn't stop. 

She found him again, ready to start her game, but what's the point of playing? Who does he have left to protect? 

If he just doesn't leave his apartment the fire will take him the way it should have all those years ago. If he breathes in deep and slow no matter how much it chokes him even his werewolf lungs will be overcome by smoke and he'll slip away just like that. 

No more cat and mouse. Everything would be over. 

The smoke does burn. It burns so bad, and his body goes rigid. Even if he's given up, instinct is hard to fight. The animal fight or flight. 

There's still Peter, the traitorous part of him whispers.

When Laura had died and Derek had nothing left he had come back to Beacon Hills. They had left back then because Peter was declining, and hunters were on their heels. Laura made them go. She had more fight in her, more will to survive them and out run her. She said Peter wasn't going to make it and even if he did, no Argent was gonna walk into a hospital and kill him. 

Without her Derek had come home, to see Peter, to wait. When he dies they'll bury him with his family. 

He's tired. Derek doesn't know if it's the smoke or if it's letting go of everything that makes him weary down to his bones. It makes it easier to lay there, for the wolf under his skin to settle down and give in. 

The smoke is thick now, and his bedroom door is ringed with the light of the fire. Derek closes his eyes and waits. Part of him wants to fight the smoke so he'll feel the flames. It's what he deserves. It's what he's always deserved. 

There's a splintering crash outside his door. Derek thinks maybe the building is giving in. It's a shitty old apartment complex that barely cost him a dime to rent. It doesn’t surprise him. 

"Hello? Beacon Hills Fire Department! Is anyone here!?" A voice shouts over the flames and Derek thinks, no. He wills them to go away, to just leave him. Kate set fire to an entire building filled with humans just to get him. Would she take her shot at him even with firefighters around? 

No. Probably not. She'd wait for him to get out, chase him again. Keep the game alive as long as she could. 

He closes his eyes and drags another screaming lung full of smoke in. If he says nothing they'll go away. There's no reason to think he's home. 

The door to his bedroom shatters away from the frame as soon as he thinks that. 

A man he can't see barrels in, and shouts something over his shoulder into the hall. 

Derek grips the bed with no real strength after all the smoke he's inhaled. He wants to scream at them to go away, to get out and leave him. 

They rip him out of the bed and over their shoulder instead. Derek thinks he might growl but it's drowned in the roar of the fire. He's taken out of his apartment and down the stairs into the parking lot where he's laid on the grass.

People are shouting orders. Men man a hose trying to extinguish the blaze. The firefighter that pulled him out rips the mask from his own face to give it to Derek when his calls for a paramedic go unanswered. The oxygen is fresh, and works ugly miracles in clearing his lungs as well as his head. 

"It's okay, deep breaths," the man says. His eyes… they're whiskey brown but look beta gold with the reflection of the fire on them. 

"That's it. The paramedics will be back soon," the man assures him. It must be hard, clearing out a full building of people to treat for smoke inhalation and even burns in a town like Beacon Hills. There's one hospital and not that many ambulances to go around. 

"It's going to be alright," the guy keeps talking with this smile on his face like he really believes it. Derek wants to tell him that it won't be alright at all. 

"How-" Derek tries to ask, how many people did Kate kill just to get to him, but he starts hacking and retching. His lungs are trying to clear themselves of all the smoke he willingly sucked down. 

"Some little old lady drying her socks on the radiator," the guy huffs a laugh, answering like Derek asked how the fire started. 

It's not the answer to his question. It shocks him really, forcing him to hack and spit all over the grass besides him. 

Kate had never pinned her fires on anyone else. Not since the first one. After that she did what she wanted, causing chaos as she pleased. 

The revelation hits Derek oddly. It wasn't Kate at all. It was just a fire. An accident. He knows exactly who the little old lady is. Her daughter would tell her all the time to stop drying her clothes on the radiator. Derek would hear it while he came in and out of the complex all the time. 

"Everyone is out now, and we're putting out the fire. Everything will be fine," the guy assures, pressing the mask back to Derek's face. He's too tired to argue. 

Derek wakes in a hospital room, in a bed with an I.V, and cannula. He barely remembered closing his eyes. 

He can't stand the antiseptic smell, and his skin crawls at the idea of having been changed in his sleep. He can see his clothes where they sit on a chair besides the bed. Derek doesn't need to think twice about it before he's up, pulling off the cannula and the I.V. he turns the monitor off too when the beeping puts him on edge. 

Part of him wants to just leave but another part tells him that Peter is here. There's one hospital in all of Beacon Hills, and Peter will be in the long term care ward. 

He can find his way there easily now, after four weeks of visiting. Derek's careful to avoid anyone seeing him, ducking past when they turn so no one will stop him. 

Peter's sitting up in bed. When Derek had first seen him like that the first day the guilt had been replaced with a surge of hope. 

The last time he had seen Peter he had been more burns than flesh, reeking of pain and cooked meat. Sometimes a barbecue will still make him retch. His heart had been so fast and thready, sometimes it seemed like it would stop beating before kicking itself into a rapid pace again. 

Peter’s heart is calm now, sluggish even, his eyes are open, heavy lidded and unfocused. His body moves but his mind isn't there. The guilt hits Derek and stays there. 

Carefully he closes the door behind him, pulling the curtain so that no one would see him if they’re passing by. 

His chair is still there beside the bed. Derek was very familiar with it. He came almost every day during visiting hours. He'd been there earlier that day, before the fire. 

"You should be sleeping," Derek whispers into the room to no one in particular. Slowly, so slow like he’s afraid to hurt Peter's scars, Derek urges him down into the bed. Peter goes with no resistance. The doctors had said he was very easy to position, and they would stand him from the bed and place him into a wheelchair. They even fed him by hand instead of with a tube. 

Derek lingered on Peter's hand before bringing it to his face. He hadn't done this before. In truth he really was afraid to touch Peter, to touch his scars, to feel the shell of his Uncle. 

Today he needs it more than he thought and he's selfish enough to run the inside of Peter's wrist against his cheek. 

Even like this, Peter is still pack and his beta now. And just today, Derek needs to scent mark him. 

The sob that chokes him startles him. It sprang up so suddenly, but Derek can't stop it now. He can't bottle it back up. He thought the thought he hadn't and now the guilt crushes him as hard as it did when the first fire happened. 

Peter is like this because of him, but he's still here, breathing, waiting, needing, and Derek had laid down in that fire ready to leave him without even their bond- weak and thread thin as it is. 

Peter was a lot of things, and had made a lot of mistakes but so had Derek. Peter deserved more than him, and he deserved more than Derek giving up like that. 

"I'm sorry," Derek breathes, Peter's wrist pressed against his face, clutching his hand tightly. He'd do better, at least for Peter who only had Derek.

As always, Peter doesn't say a thing, and he doesn't move but Derek thinks that might be better. The Peter that Derek knew wouldn't have something kind to say. 

The apartment is ruined when Derek swings by. He sort of expected it. It's not falling down yet, but the fire had burned through the place quickly. There's still cars around, and it's taped off. He's pretty sure no one is going to get cleared for reentry. Everything is a loss. 

At least the important things are still in Laura's Camaro. 

"I live here," Derek says when he's stopped trying to get in the lot for his car. The cop clearly doesn't believe him, even as Derek says he just wants his car and no, he doesn't have any identification it all just burned up. 

"Problem, Deputy?" Someone calls and when Derek turns it's him. He's not in the full kit now, and he's clearly had a shower but it's him. Derek knows those eyes before he recognizes anything else. 

The guy clearly recognizes him too from the puzzled look on his face. Most people brought in for that much smoke inhalation aren't just walking around a few hours later. 

"Hey, he lives here I pulled him out myself last night," he says and the Deputy steps back immediately letting Derek lift the tape. 

Derek nods, keeping his eyes down as he tries to bee line to his car but the guy doesn't leave it at that, no he falls into step with Derek. 

"Your feet must be killing you, did you walk all the way from the hospital?" He asks and Derek grunts. He's barefoot, but it doesn't hurt and he's certainly not tired from the walk. 

"Listen, there's a temporary shelter until you can make arrangements. The church is offering up their rec center. There's gonna be food, and people have been bringing donations. Clothes and stuff." Derek realizes his keys are upstairs so he ducks down to fish around for the spare he keeps for emergencies. 

"Do you have a place to go?" He keeps talking, not really taking the hint that Derek doesn't have much to say. 

"Yeah," Derek lies straight through his teeth. There's a motel by the highway but it's probably filling up fast, not that Derek particularly wants to go. Motel smells are about as overwhelming as hospitals. Too many people's scents lingering on the mattresses. 

"If you don't want to go to the church, I can help you find a place to stay," he says and Derek rounds on him finally. In his experience this much interest in him always went south one way or another. 

"I said I have somewhere to go!" Derek snaps. To his credit the guy doesn’t so much as flinch. Derek knows what he looks like, especially when he's pissed, but the guy doesn't budge. He doesn't even smell particularly afraid. 

His scent is whiskey warm, and earthy spice just like his eyes. It's rich, musky, with a bit of soap. 

Derek envies him that. A shower sounds amazing.

"Come on man, I know you don't-" 

"I don't see how that's your business," Derek growls out. People weren't generous with him for no reason. Laura, yeah. She was pretty, smart, and kind. She could make people laugh and charm them in seconds. People loved doing things for her just to see her smile. 

The guy smiles at him, a soft thing that Derek wants to trust but that only makes him double down. His instinct to like people always, always went wrong. 

"At least a shower, and I can even run out and get you some clothes so you can get to this place you got lined up actually dressed." Derek glances down at himself, at his tank and thin shorts, and the fact he isn't wearing shoes. He's covered in the smell of smoke and ash. It's going to be annoying to walk in somewhere like this for clothes and well, Derek can smell himself and he'd rather not. 

His jaw works in irritation. The offer is tempting, and more immediate than anything Derek has. 

He gives a jerky nod. The guy lights up like Derek's given him something. He doesn't get it at all. 

"I'm Stiles, uh… see that Jeep over there? That's mine. How about you follow me?" Stiles says clearly trying to figure out the best way to go about it seeing as Derek's phone is also upstairs with everything else so he can't just hand over his address. 

"Derek," he replies before unlocking his car and getting in. He's tempted as he waits for Stiles to get in his jeep to take off. He's tempted each stop light to just go straight or turn the other way instead of following. But he does follow. 

They end up at a house that's maintained mostly, but had probably seen better days. It's clean though, and cared for in a nice neighborhood. There's a cop car out front that makes Derek nervous as he parks. Stiles just gets out and waves him up the driveway still all smiles. 

There's someone else in the house, Derek can hear their heartbeat but it's slow and even with sleep so he cautiously makes his way up the porch. Probably not an ambush. 

"So what sizes?" Stiles asks as he's leading him not to a bathroom but to the kitchen, pulling open the fridge. Derek pauses, not sure what he's being asked. 

"Clothes? Shoes?" Stiles clarifies, digging eggs and things out. 

Derek rattles them off, but his eyes are caught by a gun belt hanging up, gun missing. A gun he can't see is almost worse than a gun he can. 

"That's my dad's, he's probably upstairs sleeping. Night shift last night, he's the Sheriff." Stiles speaks easily, just talks, like he doesn't mind telling a stranger anything and everything. 

It clicks with Derek though where he is, just from that. It clicks that Stiles probably knows exactly who he is if his dad's the Sheriff. Derek had been recognized more than once just going around town. He could hear the whispers. Stiles had probably recognized him when he pulled him out of the fire. 

"You like mushroom?" Stiles is asking as he chops things up and sticks them in a bowl with eggs he's been cracking. Omelets. Derek's stomach rumbles at the thought. 

"Yeah," he says, finally sitting down at the table. He's here for pity. He knows that now. To Stiles this is Derek's second fire, as far as he knows, in the same town. Derek isn't above taking advantage of a little pity right now, knowing there's no malicious intentions behind the 'generosity'. 

He'll eat, get cleaned up, and dressed. Then he'll leave. 

The omelets are delicious. They’re the best thing he's eaten in months and Derek eats the two put in front of him like he's trying to breathe them in. 

He hasn't really cooked in a long time, and mostly eats because he has to. 

Stiles put the food down, told him where the bathroom is, and disappeared upstairs before leaving. Derek heard the short exchange Stiles had with his dad letting him know they had a guest. 

Then he left. Just left Derek there in his house where Derek could have done anything.

Not that he does. Derek rinses his plate and goes upstairs to shower. Stiles left a new towel for him on the sink, next to an opened pack of toothbrushes like they bought multipacks and didn't mind giving him one. 

By the time he's showered Stiles isn't back, so he sits on the toilet and waits. He doesn't want to stick those clothes back on. In fact he wants to bury them so far in the trash that he can't smell them anymore. He doesn't want to walk around in a towel either, already feeling awkward enough in a stranger's house. 

"Hey Derek, I'm gonna leave them outside the door okay?" Stiles says about 15 minutes later. 

"Do you maybe wanna wash them first? I probably have something you could wear in the meantime?" Stiles asks and Derek wants even less to be wearing Stiles' clothes than he wants to wear clothes that someone might have tried on briefly. Somehow it seemed like it would be infinitely worse to be covered in Stiles scent and he can't say for sure why. 

"I'll just wear them," the smell would rub off and be replaced with his soon enough. It's just a mild annoyance right now. 

"Okay sure thing, I'll leave them here." Stiles says. Derek waits till he hears his footsteps retreat downstairs before opening the doors and dragging in the bags. 

Derek really hates to admit it but Stiles had gotten him some nice things and more than just a change of clothes. There's no way that Stiles could know his preferences but there's not a thing Derek could find questionable. 

There's four shirts that are cotton and soft in earthy colors with no embellishments. There's even a nice red sweater and two pairs of jeans that are a relaxed fit. Stiles had even bought him boots. As if he was picking everything for Derek and not what he might want to see Derek in. It was an important distinction to Derek. 

He knows what he looks like and people's first reaction to him. He also knows that some people might have dressed him in a way that was arousing, tight fitting jeans and shirts to show off the muscles even his poor eating habits hadn't ruined. Stiles chose comfort. 

"Hey man, looks good, everything fit?" Stiles asks when Derek appears downstairs. 

"Yeah, thanks. What do I owe you?" He's carrying the bags stills, with the clothes he wasn't wearing and his old ones are tied up in one. 

"Nothing," Stiles promises with a grin like he really doesn't mind it. Even though he had to have spent over a hundred dollars just to clothe a stranger. 

"I can pay you," Derek insists. Despite where he's been living he truly can afford it. Stiles waves him off, stretching out on the sofa with a groan. Derek can smell how exhausted he is. 

"I should go," Derek says. 

"We have a spare room, you know. You could stay for a few days while you sort out someplace to go." 

Derek is tempted, but he makes it a general rule not to take the things he wants. 

"No. I have some things to do, and I have a place," Derek lies but he will. He's got plans to stop at the realtors, find some place. Realtors first, then Peter, then get a phone because that will still be open after visiting hours. Maybe he won't have a place just now, but a few nights in his car isn't gonna kill him. 

"Well… you know where we are. Drop by if you change your mind. Even come by the station if you don't see the Jeep." Stiles offers, standing to walk him out. 

"Thanks," Derek says as he steps outside and down the steps. He doesn't say "I will", because he isn't coming back. Even if he's in his car for weeks he's not coming back. He'd liked it here, despite the awkwardness it was clean and warm. It was a home, and it had been a long time since Derek had been in one of those. 

All the more reason to stay away. As much as Derek wants more, wants better, wants to be better for Peter he knows that sooner or later Kate always comes and the less people he drags in the better.

Stiles doesn't say anything but he stays there leaned up in the doorway just watching until Derek has driven down the street. 

One thing about Realtors is they're gonna upsale, they're gonna show him everything they got trying to get that commission. Especially when he says he doesn't have a real budget in mind. Because he doesn't, he just wants a place to stay but he does specify that he wants to rent. 

He ends up starting paperwork to close on a house instead. 

It's not very expensive, clearly a bit of a fixer upper, but he takes one look at the wheelchair ramp outside and he gets this idea. A very stupid idea but he's stuck on it. 

Peter's in bed or in a chair most of the day, but he eats himself, and isn't on any kind of medication, I.V's or machines… 

When he mentions it to the doctor she seems all too enthusiastic to get Peter the hell out of her ward. 

His next three weeks consist of living out of his car, showering in Peter's en suite and learning how to change catheters and diapers. 

By the time the house is closed on, Derek's got some basics of furniture either in the house or on the way, he's got a hospice nurse lined up and Peter's discharge papers waiting to be signed. 

It feels like the stupidest idea still, putting them in the same house, targets in the same place but his wolf has been greedy for pack, and Peter needs him. He needs better than that hospital full of unfamiliar people, crowding into his den, and the harsh antiseptic. 

He's panicking as he waits for the hospital transport to bring Peter. The nurse will come later, a few hours most days, just to give Derek some relief but still. He's about to be responsible for Peter completely. Responsible for every meal, bathing, changing, and physical therapy so that he wouldn't develop bedsores or experience too much muscle atrophy. 

It's a lot. 

The ambulance pulls up, because it's not like the hospital really has a medical transport team and Derek catches his scent before he sees him. 

Stiles steps out with the biggest grin on his face, waving at Derek as he circles to the back. 

"Hey Derek!" Stiles calls as he opens the door. Derek is stunned for a minute but as they start getting Peter out, Derek hurries to wheel the chair down. 

A man he hadn't seen before steps down after Stiles who guides the gurney out. He has a mass of curly hair and he smiles shyly but kind. 

Two happy friendly people have their full attention on him and it makes Derek's skin crawl. 

"Let us help you get him in the chair," the new guy says but Derek is already scooping Peter from the bed, as careful as if he was picking up a sleeping child, and as if Peter is just as light. 

"Woah," he hears Stiles breathe. Derek just ignores it as he gets Peter in the chair, gets the belt buckled and his feet in place. 

"I thought you were a firefighter," Derek says without meaning to. 

"Firefighter/Paramedic, most of us are." Stiles beams as if he's happy with Derek's interest as if this was a getting to know you thing and not Derek wondering why he couldn't seem to escape this guy. 

"He seems a bit feverish today, why don't we come in, make sure you have everything settled and give him a look over," Stiles offers. Stiles always seemed to be offering Derek something. 

"Okay," Derek agrees, not for him but for Peter. Derek had noticed that Peter's temperature seemed low for a wolf but he was weakened, it seemed normal. He shouldn't be able to catch a cold or anything but, Derek wanted to be safe. What if the move was upsetting Peter more than it was helping?

Isaac, as he's introduced, stays with Peter, checking his vitals. Stiles follows him around chattering as they make sure Derek has everything ready. New cath bags at hand, diapers and wipes, Stiles even talks him through changing sheets if he needs to and Peter isn't awake enough to get out of the bed while he does it. 

"So… you got a nurse lined up? I know hospice care can be a little pricey but there's some programs if you want."

"I can take care of us. I have a nurse who comes at noon." Derek tries not to snap. He's never had someone besides his mother fuss after him so much and Derek barely knows what to do with the attention. 

"Okay well, even still. You got a phone? Stuff like this can get pretty overwhelming so how about I give you a number and if you've got any questions or anything and can't get ahold of the nurse you can give me a call," Stiles takes his own phone out, waiting expectantly. Derek hesitates but takes out his own phone to read off his new number. A moment later he gets a text that says, the call is coming from inside the house . Derek tries very hard not to sigh as he saves the number. 

"So I guess you have everything," Stiles says finally when Derek doesn't respond and leads him back to where Isaac is finishing up with Peter. 

"Just a little warm. Try taking his temperature, and keep an eye on the cath. If he seems off, just make a doctor's appointment." Derek nodded, coming around behind Peter settling his hand on his shoulder, close to his throat. There wasn't any real pain to take, and he didn't particularly smell sick. He smelled too much like a hospital though and Derek was gonna change that first. 

"Okay well if you don't have any questions, we'll leave you to it," Isaac excuses them. Derek's sure they have to get back to the station. 

"Call!" Stiles says which gets a hissed exclamation from Isaac and a yank on his arm. Out of context it certainly does seem like Stiles is trying to hit on someone on their call. Derek could almost laugh as they left. 

Life with Peter is exhausting. It's not even because he is particularly demanding. Derek lives in a constant state of anxiety lately. He worries if Peter gets a little warm, if he sleeps a little longer than usual, if he twitches suddenly Derek spends the next hour wondering if something is wrong. 

Peter himself eats when offered food, drinks every time Derek puts the straw to his lips which feels endlessly. Derek worries that he's not hydrating his Uncle enough or if it's too much. He doesn't seem to enjoy when Derek has to spread his legs to change him, but Derek shares the sentiment. 

But Derek can't sleep longer than four hours without waking up in a panic to check on Peter and walk the perimeter of the house scenting the air. 

Sometimes Derek wants to send him back. 

Sometimes though he thinks Peter's eyes flick to him, and sometimes when Peter moves, rare as it is, his hand finds Derek wherever he can reach him and Derek can't.

The Camaro has been parked in the garage for a long time and Derek has a new car. It's an SUV, some soccer mom thing that's easier to get Peter in and his chair in the back. 

Peter is a wolf and even if Derek is sure it's not gonna heal him he knows that nature is gonna be good for him regardless. 

It's too hard to get the chair around in the preserve so Derek goes to the park. There's paved trails through it that he slowly pushes Peter down. 

People stare until Derek glares. They look away and whisper to each other and Derek hates them for it. Peter isn't a freakshow to gawk at. He's a man who has been hurt, who survived. The least they could do is mind their own business and let Derek take his Uncle through the park where he can see the trees even if a lot of them are bare with winter, and hear the birds, without making it some sort of spectacle.

When Derek stops to help Peter sip from the orange juice Derek had squeezed his freaking self to cut back on added sugars, someone comes jogging up. 

Derek knows exactly who it is, even before the breeze shifts and carries the scent to him. There's only one person that would come up like that. 

"Stiles," Derek says without turning around. 

"Hey man how'd you know?" Stiles laughs and Derek finally turns around. 

"Who else is going to walk up to us like that?" 

"Fair," Stiles laughs louder. "Hey, Peter it's me, Stiles again. The chauffeur extraordinaire," Stiles says, right to Peter, looking right in his face like Peter can see and hear him. 

"So how's it been going? You haven't called," Stiles asks. He fiddles with the blanket on Peter's lap that has started to slip again. Something twists in Derek's chest. 

"I didn't have any questions," lie. He's had a million and one. Also a thousand worries. Only half of them involve Peter. 

"You can call even if you don't," Stiles looks over his shoulder with a smile that twists further into Derek's chest. That smile is flirtatious, caring, and soft. There's lust there, but infinitely more and Derek balks. 

"It's almost time for lunch," Derek hurries behind the chair to steer them away. He's only half lying. The fact that he brought something in the bag on the back of Peter's chair so they could have lunch in the park is going to his grave. 

"Oh! I know a really great place, why don't we go? You know maybe you'll have some questions for me after all."

"I can't, his diet-"

"They've got a really, really nice pumpkin soup." Stiles says, straight to Peter again. 

"We can't," Derek rejects the offer, pulling Peter back and steering him around Stiles. 

They both startle when Peter's hand darts out and grabs Stiles' wrist. 

"Pumpkin soup sounds that good huh?" Stiles bounces back first. 

Derek leans down, closer and breathes. Most of the time he doesn't get much from Peter's scent. He's not conscious, not really, there's not much emotion to parse out how Peter feels about something. 

All Derek gets is base, just Peter but maybe just maybe there's contentment. 

"Okay." Derek finally agrees. It's a frivolous movement, like the dozens of other times that Peter had suddenly moved, but Derek couldn't see what it hurt to take Peter for lunch. 

Stiles looks like Derek's given him the world and Derek thinks what's one afternoon pretending to be normal with a guy that's into him? 

Their lunch is the straw that breaks the dam. Stiles texts him all the time even when Derek barely responds. Most of the time they're not messages that even really require a response. Stiles sends him pictures of his breakfast, jokes he thinks of, good night wishes. There's some questions that Stiles asks like if they should have lunch again. Derek says no. 

It had been a really nice lunch, the food had been actually really good and Peter had seemed happy for the pumpkin soup. Well he ate more of it in one sitting than he usually did. Peter was easy to feed but after a little while he just wouldn't open his mouth anymore. 

He'd eaten all of the soup that Stiles carefully fed him so that Derek could have a chance to enjoy his meal without having to hurry or letting it go cold. 

Still. 

Derek doesn't want to make a habit of it. He wants to keep his head down, look after Peter, figure out some sort of contingency plan for when Kate finally shows. 

Derek wakes, feeling weighed down and fuzzy. He'd been having a dream that he can't exactly remember but he knows Stiles was there, and from the ache between his legs he can guess. 

For a moment he just breathes and lingers there in his half awake state. Then the awareness starts to settle around him. 

Derek jack knifes out of bed, tearing across the hall. He can't hear Peter. He can't hear him at all. 

"Peter!" Derek roars, terrified that his uncle's heart has stopped in the night and he'd been too full of thoughts about a young man he had no business dreaming about to notice. 

The reality is possibly worse than that.

Peter's bed is empty.

The front door is wide open. 

Derek can hardly breathe. 

Peter has never gotten up and walked anywhere before but there's no other scent in his house but his and Peter's. 

Derek tears out of the house, barefoot and only in a thin pair of sleep pants trying to follow the scent. Peter had to have left just after Derek had fallen asleep almost three hours ago. 

It's barely eleven o'clock at night but Derek had been exhausted, and he just wanted to turn in early. Peter hadn't seemed particularly tired. He'd even seemed a bit restless today but Derek thought it might be because of the full moon. 

God. What if Peter's wolf had taken over? He had always been too weak to shift for other full moons, all these years in the hospital there had never been an incident but now? Now that he was with a pack, an Alpha and in a place his instincts might consider his own den? What if Derek had only strengthened the wolf and not the man?

"Peter!" Derek screamed as he tears down the road. There's no real trace of him that Derek can see, and his trail is three hours gone. 

As he turns down another residential street, red and blue lights flash behind him. Derek is ready to ignore them and keep running until the car goes past him and turns, cutting him off. 

"Son! Where are you going like that at this time of night?!" Someone says as they get out of the driver's side to look over the roof at Derek who is wild eyed and manic. He has to find Peter before something happens to him or his wolf happens to someone else. 

The scent of him is familiar and Derek barely has to glance at his name tag to know that it's yet another Stilinski inordinately concerned with him. 

"I have to go, I have to find my uncle he left the house-" Derek cut off when he caught the scent in the air again. Close. Coming closer. Derek dives over the hood trying to get to the Sheriff and shove him in the car but Peter has been closer than Derek had realized and he reaches the man first.

"No!" Derek roars as their bodies collide. Derek doesn’t know who he's shouting at anymore. Peter or the Sheriff who had started reaching for his gun as soon as Derek had started moving. 

"Peter, please, Peter, don't hurt him!" Derek frantically tries to pry his Uncle off, who turns blue wolf eyes on him. They're so open, trusting, more alert than Derek has ever seen them all these weeks. 

"That's Stiles' dad, don't you remember? Stiles? Pumpkin soup?" Derek's too nervous to just grab Peter and pull him off. He's not fully shifted but Derek sees the claws. 

The Sheriff sees them too. 

"Please don't shoot him. He's not himself." Derek begs, hands hovering unsure of what to do. 

"Son, I'm not shooting anyone." The Sheriff says but his heart's going too fast for Derek to be able to catch a lie. 

Peter whines, sniffing the air. When his eyes find the Sheriff, Derek's belly drops. 

"He's Stiles' dad, Peter, just let him go. Derek shifts his eyes, trying to bleed authority into his words. They're family first and foremost, and Peter had never submitted to him, but Derek has spent all this time taking care of him, scenting him. He felt the beta bond in his chest even if it was shallow. 

Peter whines high and long like he's wounded. 

The Sheriff is touching Peter before Derek can even try and stop him. He's got his hand right on Peter's face and Derek thinks Peter's going to take his fingers off . 

Peter nuzzles into the touch.

"You're hurting me," Sheriff Stilinski says calmly and firmly. The words seem to shock Peter physically. He drags himself up and off him so fast that he stumbles into the car hard. 

"Hey now, easy," Sheriff Stilinski urges, struggling to get himself up off the ground. The collision with Peter and the ground looks like it did something to his shoulder.

"Peter… we have to go home now," Derek urges, hands reaching for his Uncle. They both can scent the pain in their air. The distress is a bitter tang. 

"Hold on a minute," The Sheriff protests and Derek stills. 

He's going to get arrested. Peter is going to get arrested, or killed. Derek steps between them hurriedly, dragging his Uncle behind his back who presses up close, ducking his forehead down between Derek's shoulder blades. 

"He didn't mean to hurt you. I'm so sorry. I just want to take him home. Please just let me take him home. He won't hurt anyone," Derek pleads. Begs. Regular bullets wouldn't normally kill him but in the right place, they absolutely would. With a full clip, heart and brain? It would be more damage than even his body can fix. 

"Son, calm down and just breathe. I don't want to call out on the radio for an ambulance, alright? So I need you to call my son, do you understand? That's all. Call my son, my shoulder is dislocated."

Peter whines so pitifully. Derek has never heard his Uncle make a sound like that in his entire life. So utterly devastated, crushed to his soul. Derek knows he didn't mean to hurt the Sheriff. He knows it, and he knows that Peter knows it. He's aware. Closer to consciousness than he's ever been. 

"I'll… I'll go right home and I'll call him," Derek promises, backing away, nudging Peter as he goes so he can get him away. As soon as they're around the back of the car Derek grabs Peter by the hand and he runs. They don't stop till they're back in the house. 

Derek can't bring himself to hear Stiles panic so he just texts. 

Cypress and Honeysuckle, your dad's shoulder is dislocated. I'm so sorry.  

He turns off his phone too afraid to see what Stiles will say. Derek knows he's a coward. He has always been a coward. 

Peter seems to slip back inside himself, but not all the way. He wants to sleep, but he won't let Derek put him in his own bed and so they end up in Derek's. Peter clings, but he doesn't speak, he doesn't even make a sound. It's better than him getting up and wandering. 

Derek spends the rest of the night just watching him as he sits at the headboard. All this time he's let every little move bring him hope. Every twitch every time Peter grabbed something. Derek hadn't ever stopped to realize how terrifying reality could be.

If he wasn't sleeping before, how was he ever going to sleep now if Peter was going to leave the house? 

The routine that Derek had built up since bringing Peter home has been thoroughly disrupted. 

In the morning shower, Peter claws the catheter, and mangles the hell out of Derek's arm when he tries to put in a new one. 

He gets a repeat with the diaper. 

It's pandemonium. 

Even his damn breakfast gets stolen. 

Admittedly Derek should have seen it coming. Peter's meals have been baby food basically. Nothing he could choke on, so really nothing good. Nothing a wolf was really gonna be interested in. 

He pushes the oatmeal to the floor in a shatter like a pissy cat, and when Derek looks up from picking up the bigger shards, Peter's eating his sausages and eggs in handfuls. 

"Peter." Derek sighs, exhausted, overwhelmed. Peter doesn't even meet his eyes, just tears another chunk out of the sausage. 

He worries that he's gonna be cleaning up accidents and getting clawed up for it, but Peter tugs on him insistently when he needs to go. 

Walking seems to be hit or miss. He tires easily, so Derek takes him without complaint, helps him sit down, helps him wipe. It's better than changing him at least even if Peter growls about it the entire time. 

Derek still tries to take it as a good sign. A sign that Peter is waking up and getting better, that Derek for once in his life has made the right choice, the best choice. That he's made a decision as an Alpha that was good. 

Hiding from the world works for exactly three days. It's both more than Derek expected and less time than he wanted. 

Peter is going wild as soon as the scents hit them. Which is exactly after a car's already parked outside and the occupants step out. 

"Peter, Peter shush, it's okay. You're okay," Derek tries to settle him but Peter has already ripped himself from the chair, diving towards the kitchen as if he could hide.

Shame radiates off of him. 

"You're okay," Derek repeats as the doorbell rings. He's not convincing because even he doesn't feel okay. 

Stiles and his father are at their door. The Sheriff knows that they're not human. If he looked around a little, said the right thing to the wrong people, hunters would know. Kate would know. She'd be at his door even sooner and Derek still has no plan for Peter. 

"I'm going to get the door, Peter. I'm going to let them in, and I'll talk to them." If anything, maybe he can convince them not to tell anyone. 

"Do you want me to take you to my room first?" Derek asks. He doesn't want to leave Peter here on the floor, cowering against the cabinets. The only response he gets is a hand raised from the ball that Peter has made of himself. 

Derek hefts him with ease and puts him to bed before getting the door. 

Part of him hopes that they've left. He knows that they're still waiting on the other side though. 

"Sheriff," Derek says as he opens the door. He can't bring himself to look in Stiles' direction. The Sheriff's arm is in a sling and the guilt is like a black pit in Derek's belly. It has to hurt. Sometimes Derek marvels at humans and their ability to withstand pain when they're such slow healers. Not today. 

"Call me John, I'm not here officially." He says and Derek doesn't know how he shouldn't take that. For a moment they stand there awkwardly before Derek steps back and opens the door the rest of the way. 

"Come in." Whatever's going to happen, it's gonna happen either here or the first time Stiles catches him out in public. Derek would rather it be here. 

"The nurse here?" Stiles asks and Derek shakes his head. He had to fire her. Besides the fact that she'd find out immediately about Peter, Peter had snarled at the sound of her car coming up the driveway. He didn't like her. Derek didn't blame him. 

"So where's Peter then?" Stiles looks around, trying to catch some sight of Peter. He locks eyes on the tipped chair. 

"Sleeping," Derek lies, but it's easier. 

"Why don't we sit?" The Sheriff- John suggests, already taking up space on the loveseat. His scent spikes with pain when it jerks his shoulder but it levels out, back to a low base. There's a smell on him that Derek thinks must be pain meds. 

Stiles sits down right next to his father but he seems restless. He leans forward, elbows on his knees as his leg shakes. Derek doesn't sit. He stays behind the sofa, keeping it between him and them like it made any difference at all. 

"You don't have to be afraid," John says and Derek laughs bitterly. He has every reason to be afraid, and so does John. A barely in control wolf tackled him in the street and now his arm's in a sling. 

"I mean it, son. No one's calling anybody about this." John assures and Derek realizes all at once that they both know more than Derek realized. They might have even known what he was the minute he walked into town. Maybe they’d known about Peter the entire time, known about hunters. 

"They're coming anyway," Derek promises. It's not just fear, it's certainty. Sometimes it would be months, sometimes maybe even a year or two but in the end, Kate always caught up. Three months ago Kate had found them, and caught Laura. Maybe it would be a couple more months, maybe he'd even get a full two years but Kate's coming. 

"What?" Stiles asks, head snapping up. Derek keeps his eyes down, on the snag of the couch that Peter had put there. A claw caught in the weave. There were a lot of little tears in things lately. 

"Did Peter hurt someone else?" Stiles is on his feet now, but John grabs him by the hand. All it takes is a shake of his head and Stiles settles down. 

"Peter won't hurt anyone. He didn't mean to hurt you, he just… he doesn't know his own strength." Derek could have taken that hit. He wouldn't even have lost his footing. Peter was barely waking up, barely conscious of himself. He wasn't feral, or anything but fine control isn't something he'd relearned. 

"So why are the hunters coming here, did you… do something?" 

Yeah, Derek thinks. He'd done more than enough. But he knows what Stiles means. Stiles has heard the codes, the ones that are a little different for every group but always boils down to protecting human life from the monsters that have hurt them and would do it again. 

"I'm a wolf. That's reason enough for a lot of Hunters," Derek bites out. He doesn't want to talk about this. In fact if they already know everything and weren't calling hunters Derek doesn't know why they're in his house at all. 

Stiles makes a wounded noise, and Derek looks now. Stiles looks hurt for him. For him. Derek can't bear to look for too long.

"You thought the fire was hunters, at your apartment. That's why you didn't get out of bed. That's why you stayed there," Stiles gasps. 

Derek shrugs. 

Stiles can't possibly understand what it's like to be hunted for years. He can't know what it's like to see nearly all his family dead, and watch one more die as he runs. If he did he wouldn't look like that. He'd understand how Derek might just think it's easier to lay down and let the smoke take him, rather than get caught by Kate again. To be strung up on her wall for her to torture. He'd been there before, stuck in his shift but weak as she cut him, degraded him, taunted him with the memories of when she had got him to lay down for her belly up while her hunters burned his family alive. 

He startles when arms wrap around him and Peter's warm body blankets his back. Hiding himself, but trying to comfort his Alpha whose despair had to be shaking down the bond. 

If Peter were fully himself, Derek doesn't think Peter could stomach touching him. Not if he knew that all of this was Derek's fault. 

"Son, I don't generally like hunters. They've got a purpose. Law enforcement can't exactly prosecute and hold supernatural beings, but they're human and if they're committing acts of violence, well that's something that I can deal with." John has a tone and demeanor that reminds him of his mother. Kind, reliable, an authority. He was the kind of man people leaned on and trusted, who genuinely wanted to do right. 

Those kinds of people had been killed by Kate before if they got in her way. Derek didn't want to see the Sheriff among them. 

"Just leave us alone. Kate's going to come for me and she'll go through whoever she needs to. Even an officer." They're as good as strangers, it's too stupid to risk their lives for them. 

"So you want me to stand by while someone in my town is murdered?" John asks seriously, a raise of his brow that says you're joking, right?  

"What about Peter, Derek? Where's he supposed to go? What's he going to do without you?" It's the question that Derek struggles with the most. As much as they had their differences as much as Derek hated Peter before the fire, he's still his family. He still loves him. He's his beta.

When Derek dies, the Alpha spark will go to Peter and Derek hopes in some way that the extra power will make him stronger, heal him faster. Peter could very well wake up almost as good as before the fire. 

Or he could be overwhelmed and hurt people, kill people, go feral. He could very well be hunted next. 

Derek had thought, maybe if he has enough time with Peter he can bring him out, make him okay enough that the latter won't happen. 

He'd also thought maybe he could find another pack to take him in. Except Peter's more a liability than anything and most packs wouldn't take the risk of bringing hunters to their dens. 

"Kate set the fire, the house fire, and she's set a dozen more chasing me and- and my sister. She got Laura, and she's going to come for me too." The most likely ending of this, the one that makes Derek sick, that gives him nightmares, is that Kate will come, and she'll  kill both of them. That Derek will have brought Peter out of his shell just in time to be aware of his murder for the second time. 

Sometimes Derek's dreams are filled with fire. Fire that engulfs him, with Peter besides him, new burns blistering the old, as Peter screams accusingly at Derek. 

Peter whines, and Derek winces at the claws digging into his abdomen. Maybe Peter knows exactly what Derek is thinking. 

"Kate who," John prompts and Derek shakes his head. 

"You're just going to make trouble for yourself-" 

"Goddamn it, Derek, just tell my dad her name!" Stiles snaps. He's pale and shaking. He's gone from sick for Derek to downright pissed because Derek wasn't doing enough, wasn't reaching out for the lifeline they thought they were throwing. He's filled with rage that shakes him, and Derek knows just like his worry and his care that it's for him. 

"Stiles, outside," John orders. Stiles protests, flails his arms around in frustration but he marches out the door all the same with a slam. 

"My son likes you, he's always had a sense for people. He's a spark, did you know? He's also best friends with a Banshee. The fire at your house was what woke her up. Eleven years old, wailing in the night for eight people. She wanted to scream for you too, but she called Stiles. Told him where you were. They want to help you because you deserve it. You and Peter don't deserve to be living your lives always waiting for it to end. So tell me a name, and I can have every Deputy in my department on the lookout, and I can call every contact I have and we'll do something about this." 

John is confident and sure. There's not a single hitch in his heart's rhythm. Derek wants to trust him so bad. How much easier would it be to protect Peter if three more people are on his side? How much easier it will be to avoid Kate with a Banshee listening for him?

"Argent. Kate Argent," Derek says quickly before he can change his mind. Peter shakes against his back when Derek says the name aloud. Derek thinks he must be scared, until he scents the salt of tears in the air and feels them hot on his shirt. 

"Peter…" Derek murmurs, trying to twist around in Peter's hold to see him. 

"I'll give you a call, turn your phone back on," John stands. Peter's overwhelmed and John seems to know. 

"It's alright, Peter. I'm doing just fine, and I'll help you." John assures, speaking right at Peter but not getting too close.

Just like with his son, Peter reaches out to grab John's wrist. The good one. John sucks in a shaky breath as the black veins lift under Peter's skin. 

"Not too much," Derek says gently, wrapping his hand around Peter's hand. 

"Just a little, too much and you're going to knock him over. Slow, and when it eases, pull back and let go," Derek talks him through. He knows Peter just wants to apologize and take back some of the hurt he caused, so Derek doesn't stop him. They have to be careful about taking pain from humans. Too much too fast is almost like getting high and the Sheriff is already on pain meds. 

Miraculously Peter takes less and less and then lets go. John still seems a little unsteady on his feet but he smiles big and bright. Derek thinks he knows where Stiles gets it from. 

John has to take a couple breaths before he straightens up. His shoulders roll and he nods before heading to the door. 

Stiles opens it quickly, apparently having been waiting just outside of it. 

"Leave them," John warns when Stiles looks like he's going to say something. He sighs instead and gives Derek a little wave before the door closes. 

Peter's stronger on his feet every day but he's still not him. Derek wonders if he ever will resemble his old self or if he'll never go back. 

He clumsily grips his fork, growls and grumbles or whines instead of speaking.

He likes going outside and since he can walk on his own, Derek takes him to the preserve. 

The trees are tall, making a canopy that blocks the sun which Derek loves in summer but at the tail end of winter there's a chill that doesn't bother him but makes him fuss over Peter. 

"Keep it on," Derek says for the millionth time as he tugs the cap he'd stuck on Peter and over his ears back down. Peter's taken it off and dropped it

 with a growl but he doesn't mangle Derek for putting it back on. 

Peter runs off but he doesn't go far. That first night when he had left the house seems to be a good lesson because he stays in sight of Derek as they run together. 

It actually feels really good to run through the trees besides his pack. Something loosens in his chest, and Peter howls. It's the happiest Derek's seen him.

Derek howls back, feeling it bubble up and out of him ending in a laugh. He wants this to last forever. 

Of course thinking the thought is a jinx. He leaps over a log and before he can realize what's happening steel jaws clamp around his calf. Derek falls with a sickening snap and he knows his leg just broke. 

Kate had never set bear traps before but it's one of the many tricks in a hunters arsenal. Derek howls, thrashes, tries to pry the jaws open but they're locked tight and his fingers are slick with blood. 

Peter is shouting, incoherent frantic howls, pacing, eyes wild and electric blue as he tears at his hair. 

"Peter!" Derek gasps, trying to rip the jaws off without taking half his leg with it. 

"Peter, come here!" Derek shouts louder now, trying to break through Peter's own panic. 

Peter comes to his side, well colliding is more accurate. Derek cries out as Peter's foot hits the trap as Peter tries to cover Derek's entire body. As if he could shield him from hunters' bullets. 

"Shush," Derek soothes, dragging in deep ragged breaths of Peter's scent trying to ground himself in pack. 

"Peter, go, find Stiles. Go. You have to run," Derek grips him, makes him meet Derek's eyes. Peter shakes, eyes so wide and filled with tears. 

"Stiles, or John. You know their scents don't you? Run. Run!" Derek orders, eyes flashing red, the wolf slipping into his voice. Peter tears off like Derek's struck him and he prays he just prays that Peter actually goes to Stiles or John. 

His leg is going cold and numb and that's not good. Derek tries to force the jaws open. He gets the teeth out fractionally, but his fingers slip causing it to snap closed again. Derek bites his tongue to stop the scream that causes.

There's got to be instructions on it somewhere but Derek can't see them from where he's pinned. 

He's starting to feel woozy but it's nothing to do with wolfsbane which thankfully hadn't been coating the teeth. He's losing a lot of blood, his bone is snapped, shattered, the flesh mangled. His body is going into shock. 

Hunters aren't who come for him. It's Stiles scent that wakes him, or maybe the slap across his face. Derek isn't sure which. 

It also could be Peter who has blanketed him once again and is constantly growling at the bear trap. 

"Hey big guy, don't worry. We're gonna get you out of here," Stiles assures him, leaning over the trap, examining it carefully. 

"Okay, okay this is gonna hurt a lot. I'm going to open it, and I need you to take your leg out quickly," Stiles is quick and brutal with it, pressing down on the springs to get them to unlatch.

With a roar, and bracing his leg with his hands Derek yanks it up and away just as Stiles lets go and the trap snaps shut again. 

"Okay, good. Great. Hold still." Stiles says, before ripping open his bag that he had apparently brought along. Derek hadn't even noticed it until Stiles pulled all sorts of things out of it. 

Peter is a whining whimpering mess as he clings. He had sent Peter to Stiles because he thought Stiles would keep Peter safe until Derek could get out. He feels a little guilty that if he didn't and Peter getting the spark went poorly Stiles would have been directly in the path of carnage. 

"How?" Derek asks, wincing as Stiles flushes the wound with something absolutely foul and starts to bandage it and field splitting. 

"Peter dragged me here, and I saw the blood so I figured you were hurt," Stiles answers quietly, eyes intently on his work. Derek's going to heal, but it's going to be excruciating as he does. Derek doesn't even think it will be quick with how damaged the trap left him. 

"You shouldn't have come. The hunters-" Stiles cuts him off with a hand on his upper thigh. 

"Derek. You've been really unlucky lately but not every bad thing that happens to you is hunters. At least not hunters . We had some mountain lion issues a few months back, and Fish and Wildlife has been picking these out of the woods ever since. That's all, okay? There's no wolfsbane right?" Stiles rubs his thigh, trying to reassure him, calm him. 

Derek belly swoops despite the pain so it's probably the distraction that Stiles wanted if nothing else. Derek nods. Stiles is right. 

There really isn't even the slightest bit of wolfsbane, and even though he'd been waiting for a while, no one had come for him. Usually hunters had some way to watch their traps so if something did get caught, it wouldn't have time to work out an escape. The poison was an extra measure to give them time to collect their prey. 

"I know it hurts, but we should get you back where it's warm, and Peter doesn't look like he's doing well," Stiles says, hand sliding from Derek's thigh to rest on Peter's back. 

"Can you help me carry him back to the car? He can't walk like this, Peter. Come on, he's safe now, he's free, you helped do that so you gotta help me again." Stiles coaxes gently, and Peter responds to the reassurance, and praise. It takes both of them to get Derek up on his feet. Peter supports most of his weight on his right where his leg is practically useless, and Stiles under his left keeping him steady.

"Did you drive?" 

"No, Peter practically threw me over his shoulder and ran here, but you drove right?" Stiles asks hopefully looking up at Derek. He hates to have to tell him that Derek and Peter had walked out here. It wasn't so far for wolves to run but well, no one seems particularly eager to make the trip back while dragging Derek along. 

"Right, just… give me a second." Stiles sighs, twisting as best he can to dig out his phone without letting go of Derek. 

"Lyds, hey, I need you to pick me up, but stop by mine for the Jeep. Yeah, keys by the door. No. Just, you're not gonna want to ruin your seats. Okay, yeah I'll drop a pin of our location once we get out of the woods. See you soon," Stiles hangs up, awkwardly shimmying his phone back into his pocket. 

The Jeep pulls up just as Derek is slipping under again. For a moment he growls, arm tightening around Peter who has fallen asleep with him. He recognizes the Jeep quickly, and knows that it has to be their ride. 

"Peter," Derek whispers, tapping his Uncle gently to wake him. It takes a minute to get him around but he doesn't have to ask for much before Peter is helping him to stand. He pretty much drags him up and into the back seat of the Jeep before closing his eyes again.  Peter is completely unconcerned with the stranger that waits for them.

Derek ignores her too, closing his eyes. He's so tired. He's tired of everything. He's lived so long hunted that Derek doesn't think he's ever going to know what it's like to be safe. Every accident feels like Kate breathing down his neck. Her hands around his throat. It's exactly how she wanted it to be. She'd wanted to ingrain herself on him, carve a wound so deep he'd never get her out. 

Derek thinks she's winning. She's winning her game and he can't stop it. 

"Shh," Peter mumbles against his shoulder where he's resting. Not a word, but a sound. A human sound that squeezes in his chest. Derek shuts his eyes tight as they burn. It's the first really human vocalization that Peter has made.

Lydia doesn't stay, she doesn't even ask to come in but Stiles does. He takes Derek under the arm again even though his leg is mostly fine to walk on and Derek lets him. 

Lydia just takes the car back to Stiles' even though Stiles tries to argue. She gives a firm good night and takes off leaving Stiles a little tongue tied. 

Derek's glad for it though. He doesn't particularly want a stranger's scent in his house right now. Maybe he'll lend the SUV to Stiles and pick it up from his house later once he's healed. 

"Shower?" Stiles asks and Derek nods. He wants to get the ruined, bloodstained clothes off and out of his house. The fabric retains the reek of his fear-sweat and pain. There isn't any saving them anyways. 

Peter is already stripping at the door, leaving everything in a pile before trudging down the hall straight for his own bed. Usually Peter sleeps there but when they have bad days like today he crawls into Derek's to whine half the night. 

Derek thought he'd go to Derek's and he tries not to worry what that means. The more human Peter got, the more aware and present the more Derek dreads. 

One day Peter will put together the pieces of what Derek did. 

"This one?" Stiles asks, stopping at the door to Derek's bedroom that has the en suite. 

"Yeah." Derek says, taking his arm off Stiles and bracing on the door frame. 

"Leave your clothes outside the door, I'll come get them." Stiles tells him before stepping back where he won't see Derek change even though he got a good eyeful of everything Peter has to show. 

Derek strips as quickly as possible, tossing them onto the floor outside the door. He closes it behind him before hobbling to the shower. 

He kind of wishes he made Stiles take him to the hall bathroom. It’s bigger, and Peter's shower chair is there. Derek wouldn't mind sitting down. 

His leg still aches, and shakes as he tries to put weight on it. Now that the clothes and brace are off, he can see the still open wounds. They've closed some but he's lost a lot of blood, and the damage has been a lot.

When he's finally out, boxers on, there's a knock on the door. 

"Come in," Derek calls softly. He already sat on the bench at the foot of the bed. He's not about to hobble back to the door. 

Stiles lets himself in holding up the bag. 

"I just want to bandage you up." 

Derek is still bleeding, even though it's much slower. He was going to tape a towel around his leg so that he was less likely to ruin his mattress but this is better. 

Derek just nods and lets Stiles cross the room further into his space. The most private part of his den. 

If it wasn't Stiles Derek wouldn't have let someone else here. 

But it is Stiles. Stiles who doesn't linger his eyes anywhere, as he kneels in front of Derek and cleans up his leg, packing with gauze and bandaging him. He meets Derek's eyes with a melancholic look that Derek is sure he shares under his bone deep exhaustion. 

"Is this okay?" Stiles asks, voice a little husky when he talks this low. Derek knows he means the bandage. 

"I'll be healed by morning," Derek says. He's had worse, unfortunately. He knows that by morning it will be like it never happened. 

"Can I do anything else?" Stiles offers, still kneeling right there at Derek's feet, looking up at him in a way that exposes his throat. Derek sighs heavily. 

"I just want to sleep." Stiles smiles and stands, holding out his hand to help Derek around to his side of the bed. 

Derek lets him, again. He shouldn't. Derek knows he should keep their distance. 

He's touch hungry, lonely, he's so much and Stiles is always there holding out his hand. 

"I put everything in a bag, I'll take it with me, put it in the trash at home." Derek is grateful as he slips under the covers. He doesn't want to smell it anymore. 

As soon as Derek is in bed under the covers, Stiles backs away towards the door. Derek wants to reach for him, snatch him back. 

He doesn't. He won't. He just can't. 

"I'm gonna go okay, but please call me in the morning." Stiles asks, eyes pleading. Derek doesn't answer. He's not sure if he'll call or not. He doesn't want to make promises that he won't keep. 

"Goodnight, Derek." Stiles practically whispers at the door before he turns off the light and leaves Derek there in the dark. 

Peter finds his way into Derek's bed after all, blessedly clothed, but plastered like a furnace against Derek's back. 

He's sweaty and irritable, but healed nonetheless as he wakes. When he peels the bandages off the gauze is disgusting but his skin is knit back together. There isn't even a scar. 

Fire shouldn't have scarred a wolf either. Scars like Peter's only happened because of how badly he had burned, how weak it had made him, and how slowly he had healed. 

Sometimes Derek thinks the scars wouldn't be so bad if he had had a pack to help him. Wolves were always stronger with pack. 

Sometimes Derek wishes they had never left him, but back then Laura was the Alpha. She knew they couldn't stay and Peter couldn't be moved. 

Back then part of him had been viciously glad they had left because he couldn't stomach looking at his Uncle and knowing that all of that was his fault. All the charred black skin, burns that went straight down through muscle and fat… all of that was his fault and Derek couldn't stomach it. 

He's quiet that morning, sullen, angry, and still so, so tired. 

Derek forces himself into the kitchen, to make Peter's breakfast because he has to. Peter has to eat, and he can't do it himself. He won't even go near the stove and that twists in Derek's gut. 

Peter had never really been afraid of anything. He got scared maybe, sometimes, but he was never truly afraid. He had a brilliant blinding personality. The fire burned that way with everything else. 

"Derek." The name from Peter's lips makes him jump. Derek whips around so fast to see his Uncle standing there that he knocks the carton of eggs from the counter. 

Derek wants to cry from the joy of it. Every bit of Peter's progress was a miracle, and another nail in his coffin. 

"Derek." Peter says again, with a look on his face like it's hard to make his tongue wrap around the word. 

"I'm almost done." Derek turns around, squeezing his eyes tight before dumping the food from the pan onto a plate. Fried eggs, and bacon. The toast was about to pop and Derek would cut the fruit the way Peter liked it. 

He hadn't thought to make himself a serving. 

"Derek," Peter says more insistently. 

Derek turns around just in time to have an arm full of Peter. He buries his face in Derek's neck, and holds him so tight Derek thinks his chest might burst. 

"Shhh," Peter mumbles against him and Derek can't help breaking apart in Peter's hold. 

"I'm so sorry, I'm sorry," Derek cries, face pressed hard into Peter's shoulder. He's sorry for so much he doesn't know what he's apologizing for, or if he's apologizing for breaking when he's the one who's supposed to hold this little pack together. 

Peter only shushes him again, one hand coming to the back of his neck like he was a pup having a bad day. 

The way Peter had done for him when he was just a little kid with a night terror and his mom was away doing Alpha business. Peter had basically been a kid himself, but he had been there. Quiet, strong, and when Derek had calmed down he'd snark something that Derek would swipe at him for. 

There isn't a snide comment or any snark at all now. There’s just Peter holding him and letting him cry till a bit of that tension releases in his chest. 

"You need to eat," Derek says eventually once he's got a hold on himself. The food definitely has gone cold. Peter huffs, but pulls back to tap on the fridge. Right over the bakery advertisement that came in the mail a couple days ago that Peter had just stuck on the fridge like a reminder. 

"Okay, yeah. Anything," Derek promises. 

The bakery has good coffee that Derek gets as strong as they'll make it. He stands with Peter for a minute at the displays while Peter picks out what he wants. 

Peter picks out enough for two and Derek finds out why when his Uncle pushes half of it in front of him when they sit down with a firm "Derek".

He isn't hungry, even still, the crying had eased some of his bad mood but Derek couldn't say he had an appetite. 

Derek isn't about to get snapped at by Peter in a bakery though so he picks up a bagel and takes his time smearing on some cream cheese before he takes a bite. 

"Fruit," Derek insists after watching Peter eat his second Eclair (of which Derek pointedly noticed none of the three had been given to him). 

Peter rolls his eyes but takes the fruit cup to eat next. Usually he makes Peter eat pretty well, as well as Derek can cook, but Peter has always had a sweet tooth. Derek kind of likes seeing it. 

They're mostly done eating, enjoying a quiet breakfast in a nice little bakery that smells comforting from the ovens in the back, always going with a batch of something or other, when the door opens. 

It takes a second for the scent to reach him surrounded with all the bakery scents. Peter's practically tail tucking tells him exactly who it is though.

"Morning, Peter, Derek," John greets them, stepping up to the table with Stiles right on his heels. 

“Great minds think alike,” Stiles smiles brightly, spying their sparse leftovers. 

John lays a hand on Peter's shoulder, who is a little hunched over and trying his hardest not to see the sling. Peter wilts. Derek starts to open his mouth asking him not to touch Peter who’s so damn guilty it looks like it physically hurts him, but Peter opens his mouth first and apparently has one more word he’s added to his repertoire. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles. John smiles at him as big as Stiles. 

“I’ll be alright, it barely hurts anymore,” John assures him with a squeeze to his shoulder. Then Peter does something that Derek hadn’t expected. He pushes his third eclair, the one he was saving for when they leave right at John. Derek actually had gotten growled at when he’d asked for it, not exactly hungry but willing to eat something chocolate. 

“Do you want us to join you?” John asks, and Peter nods before Derek can say that they should get going. They’d been here an hour already, but John is already sliding into the booth next to Peter and Stiles is going off to get their order. 

“Why don’t you eat this for me? Stiles is going to flip if that’s what I have for breakfast,” John kindly slides the eclair back. Peter looks disappointed, but perks up as he picks it up to eat. Derek watches the whole thing quietly. Peter doesn’t like a lot of people lately. Derek can’t blame him when everyone stares and whispers at his scars, but he seems inordinately pleased to have John sitting so close to him in the same booth. 

It does mean that when Stiles comes back with a tray that Derek has to scoot over to let him in next to him. 

From the smug look on Peter’s face, Derek could almost think he’s done it on purpose. 

“I’m glad your leg is better,” Stiles says as he starts setting out some egg sandwich on an English muffin for his dad that looks like it's got spinach on it and maybe some sort of low fat cheese. It certainly gets a frown from Peter and John both. Definitely not more appealing than an eclair. 

“All healed,” Derek says as he picks out the last of his own fruit cup that Peter had made him eat. Stiles smiles at him like he’s pleased. 

“You know you should come join us for Sunday dinners,” John says suddenly and when Stiles and Derek look away from each other John is licking something from his lips that looks suspiciously like chocolate and there’s Peter holding the eclair oddly.

Derek says nothing but Stiles narrows his eyes. John looks at Derek as if to say ‘distract’, and oddly Derek does. 

“Okay,” he answers, not really thinking about it. It does exactly as intended however because Stiles turns back to him with a brilliant smile.
“Awesome, man! I’m making some kind of chicken, haven’t really decided the details yet,” Stiles looks so damn excited maybe it wasn’t a mistake to agree.

“Peter won’t eat peas,” Derek says, eyeing his uncle. Peter had hated peas before the fire, but now if Derek served them even if at first he ate them now that Peter was awake it involved pushing the plate to the ground if Derek even thought to sneak them in like the shepherds pie incident. Derek doesn’t think that Peter will do something like that at the Sheriff’s house, but Derek doesn’t want to chance it.

“No problem at all,” Stiles promises. John claps Peter on the shoulder as if he's done something good. 

Stiles chatters about everything as he eats his food, and even Peter laughs about something he says, a sound that feels as if it breathes air into Derek at the same time it cuts him down. 

He doesn't know if there will ever be a day where he doesn't feel this guilt.

By the time all the food is gone and Peter is leaning heavily against John's side the man sighs. 

"We should get going, you've got a shift at noon " John says to Stiles. Stiles sighs too and sets the napkin he'd been twisting up as he joked and talked on one of the trays. 

"We'll get this, you just get Peter home he looks tired," Stiles offers about the trash and Derek nods. He's sure Peter's exhausted. He'd had a good morning, but he's not used to socializing like this, and even still he usually takes a nap just after lunch. 

"Sunday, six o'clock," John reminds him as he leads Peter out. 

"Six," Derek agrees. 

Even if Derek had considered "forgetting" about Sunday dinner, Peter doesn't let him. 

The rest of the week adds a dozen more words to Peter's vocabulary. “No” being the third after Derek and sorry. (Which if he thought Peter vocalizing no would mean less things being flung to the floor, Derek was fucking wrong.)

Come Friday groceries, Peter's saying "John, John, Dinner, John dinner ," insistently and yanking Derek down the baking aisle as if either of them knows a goddamned thing about baking. Derek tries his hardest to tell him they can just go to the bakery Sunday and pick up something to bring but Peter stubbornly says no. Derek isn't about to have a fight about this in the middle of the grocery store when Peter still resorts to growling and clawing to win. 

It's gonna be a disaster, Derek says. You can't bake, Derek says. The bakery has good cakes, Derek says. 

Peter skips right past the boxed mixes ignoring him, and starts putting shit in the cart that probably vaguely makes a cake. 

Derek huffs but gives in. 

He's absolutely right though. Come Sunday, Peter's up even before Derek, banging around in the kitchen with Derek's phone blaring a YouTube video Derek had saved for him on how to bake a cake. 

The kitchen is a nightmare. 

Dear God, it's a nightmare. There's eggs shattered all over the counter where Peter must have tried a half dozen times to get the strength right to crack one into a bowl without obliterating it. 

Flour coats nearly everything originating from the massacred bag that clearly was torn open with claws. 

Derek is speechless as he takes it all in. 

Peter somehow might be even more a mess than the kitchen. 

Derek suddenly wonders why he even got out of bed. He wonders if he can sneak back up before Peter notices him. 

He can't. 

"In, go in… oven." Peter turns on him, holding the bunt cake pan at him. Well, thrusting it at him, hard enough to tip some out all over the floor. Which was probably just as well considering. Derek doesn't think they're supposed to get full to the brim before going in the oven. 

Ovens a new word though so Derek takes the thing and shoves it in the oven that Peter was comfortable enough to preheat but not comfortable enough to open. 

"Shower. Now," Derek orders, nudging Peter around the splattered batter all over the floor. Peter doesn't even argue. He doesn't even look guilty about the mess either. Derek for a brief moment thinks asshole. The same way he must have done a million times before the fire, and then he grins. 

He's not even that mad even as he has to clean up a truly atrocious mess. Apparently Peter had tried to make his own frosting and most of it ended up outside the bowl. 

They show up on time with a cake that at least smells like cake even though it's missing a chunk that hadn't quite made it out of the pan. 

Peter is inordinately proud. He's down right preening as he prances up the steps with his cake on a cutting board because they hadn't bought a cake box at all. Derek covered it in cellophane and Peter held it delicately the entire ride over. 

"Just in time, dinner just came out," John greets them at the door, eyeing the cake like gold. Derek swears Peter puffs his chest out a little. 

"Peter made dessert," Derek says calmly but it's a warning. He hadn't seen the making of the batter but he had seen the destruction of the kitchen. He's not sure there isn't a bit of eggshell in there. 

"John," Peter beams, holding the cake a little higher and yeah. Derek's a little worried about all this. It's become increasingly clear that Peter is enamored with the man. Derek isn't exactly sure in what way, but the wolf lives just under Peter's skin now. These instincts to feed and care and provide… well. Derek knows what that means. 

Peter is thirty eight. But it's been ten years since the fire. John is somewhere in his late forties with a twenty something son. 

Derek worries that Peter's infatuation is going to go poorly. Derek isn't prepared for what the fall out might look like. 

"Looks good, and Stiles will have to let me have a slice since you went through all the trouble," John laughs, putting his hand on Peter's shoulder and steering him in the door. Derek closes it behind them. 

Stiles is in the dining room hastily setting the table that last time Derek was here, was half covered in paperwork in a way that seemed permanent. 

They cleared up for them. Derek feels a little touched by that thought even if he would have been happy to sit at the worn table in their kitchen like he did the first time.

"Oh. Wow, remind me to talk to you about my dad's diet." Stiles says to Peter before waving him off towards the kitchen with John to put the cake down. 

"Hi," Derek says, feeling a little awkward left in the dining room with Stiles. 

"Hey," Stiles greets back, setting the last plate down. There's creased placemats set out that had clearly been dug out last minute from where they were folded away in a closet somewhere. The bounty paper towels put next to each plate make his lips twitch upwards. 

"I hope you like asparagus," Stiles says, heading into the kitchen and Derek follows. Their kitchen doesn't look like a werewolf tornado had been through it. Surprisingly everything's put in serving plates and all the cookware is drying on a rack. Derek had seen Stiles cook once and it hadn't been that orderly, but it's clear that Stiles is making this Sunday dinner special. 

"Can you take this to the table?" Stiles asks, holding out pot holders and pointing at the dish full of lemon chicken. To Peter he gives a dish full of asparagus. John takes out the bread while Stiles brings out a thing of some sort of dish that Derek thinks might be a couscous of some kind, and a pitcher of iced tea. 

It's a meal made with a lot of care, and Stiles had to have been in the kitchen for hours. It didn't seem their usual but Stiles had gone out of his way to do more for both of them and Derek struggles to quiet that part of himself that craves this tender care. 

"It looks good," he says softly. They set everything down in the center of the table, sitting down to start serving themselves. 

He doesn't get the chance to pick a chair away from Stiles because Peter is already darting into the one right next to John. 

So, Derek sits next to Stiles and tries not to knock elbows with him as they pass things around and serve things onto their plates. 

Peter has more manners than Derek's been graced with, serving John to help with his arm, and listening as John tells him to put more on his own plate. 

"Here," Stiles says as he pushes the largest of the chicken breasts onto Derek's plate. Derek's heart skips a beat. 

He feels as stupidly infatuated as Peter's acting. Peter who is mangling John's chicken with a knife for him (thank God it isn't his claws). 

They've got it bad for these Stilinski's and Derek sees it ending nowhere good. 

John looks at Peter with fondness, but Derek doesn't see or smell anything that would give Peter hope, and Stiles? Stiles looks at him with these almost giddy soft looks that Derek's actually there at his table and Derek wants to give in but, Kate. Kate's always out there, and she always takes what he loves. 

Laura had tried it once, one of the times they hadn't seen Kate or another hunter in months, almost a year. They had gotten comfortable, they'd gotten lax. Laura met a guy at work, and fell in love. 

By year two Laura wanted so badly to believe that Kate had gotten bored. She told him -Henry- what they were, and he'd been so freaked out at first but then he'd kissed her and asked her to move in. He even told her to bring Derek because he was hers right? Wolves needed to stay with pack?

Sometimes Derek thinks that Henry is why Laura hadn't tried so hard to get away from Kate that last time. 

Kate had found them long before they knew and she had watched them and waited. She waited till they were happy and then when they were out and Henry was alone she strung him up in the living room, cut him, branded him, shocked him with a car battery till his heart gave out and left him for them to find. For Laura to find.

Laura wasn't the same after. Any fight knocked right out of her. She only kept going because Derek needed her, and she stopped so that Derek could run. 

Sometimes Derek worries that Kate is doing that again. Waiting until Peter is better, waiting till Derek loves one more - two more people so she can rip another pack away from him. 

Sometimes he thinks she wants to hurt him so bad he comes crawling to her begging her to finish it. 

His mood goes sour. He can barely taste the food he's eating even though it smells so delicious. 

Stiles chatters like he doesn't notice. Derek's glad. 

But after dinner when John and Peter have snuck off with their cake, Derek catches Stiles by the wrist. 

"I need to talk to you," Derek says. Stiles nods and leads him out back. 

Derek steps off the back porch and keeps going. He goes to the very end of the yard, leans up against the weathered planks. 

It's not far enough for a determined werewolf but Derek hopes Peter is so distracted with John that he doesn't listen. 

"When the hunters come-" Derek starts but Stiles cuts him off with a frustrated sigh. Derek knows that Stiles thinks he's being paranoid. 

"Kate's going to come, Stiles. She's been hunting me since I was sixteen. She burned my family after fucking me so I would tell our secrets," Stiles looks pale, sick at the hissed confession and Derek thinks good . 

"She killed all of them, even the babies and I helped her, I gave her everything she wanted, and even that wasn't enough. You don't even know what she did to a human my sister loved. If you knew you wouldn't think I'm paranoid. Kate is coming so just listen to me okay?" Derek feels guilty for snapping at him, growling out the words but he's just as frustrated. 

"She's going to come and when she does she'll hurt anyone around me to hurt me. She'll do things to you so bad you'll beg to die just to stop it, and if you're unlucky she'll do it to your dad first and make you watch." Stiles hands close tight fists in Derek's shirt, one of the ones Stiles had given him. 

"Please," Stiles begs him to stop and Derek flinches. Stiles is shaking, scent turned with his distress. Derek had been cruel to say it but he needs Stiles to understand. 

"When she comes, I need you to take Peter. I need you to hide him. It's selfish, it's dangerous, I shouldn't ask but I need you to make sure she can't get to him again," and it's Derek's turn to beg. 

He'll die. He knows he will, the way Laura did. Derek has always known that sooner or later Kate was going to get him. He just wants it to mean something. If he can save Peter before he dies, that will be worth it. Once he's gone Derek thinks that Kate might leave Peter alone. If she can't get him first and make Derek see, why would she bother? Everything she ever did she did so it would hurt Derek but if he was dead would she care? 

It's just about the only thing he hopes for. He doesn't have the strength to hope for anything more. 

"Derek. I'm so sorry, I'm so so fucking sorry," Stiles cries. He's almost choking on it. Derek feels wretched. Stiles thought Derek lived in his fear too much, saw hunters in everything, and believed that he and his father could stop it. He was optimistic about this, or just stubborn but he had meant the best and Derek had tore into him for it, cracked him open, pushed in the vile things Kate put into Derek. 

Stiles pulls himself together shockingly fast, fists still clenched in Derek's front but he holds himself upright. He breathes deep and even till his heart calms some. Till the tears stop. 

"Okay. Okay we'll hide Peter, but you're not allowed to quit. If she somehow shows up here, you have to tell us. You have to," Stiles isn't begging. He's forceful about it, shaking Derek by the shirt like he can shake a will to live into him. 

"Maybe she doesn't play by any rules or laws, okay? Maybe I was being dumb, thinking just because I want to help you that I'll help you and it'll work out and everything will be okay , but… God Derek. You deserve so much better. Don't give up. Peter needs you, he does and I want- God I want you to be okay," Stiles breathes. 

Derek had thought that Stiles was just naive, that he couldn't imagine just how awful Kate could be, what she was willing to do. He had thought Stiles had never seen anything truly bad in his life, not bad enough to realize that Derek was right to be this afraid and this certain that something bad was still coming for him. 

He was wrong, small and mean to think it. Stiles knew, he did, Derek being paranoid wasn't it. Derek giving up was what frustrated Stiles. 

"I'll try," Derek says, trying to make it a promise. It's not like he truly wants to die. It's just that sometimes he doesn't see how it can end any other way. 

"Please, because we'll help. We can help. I know you don't believe it but we're resourceful, we Stilinski men. You were fighting alone before, secretly, but we can put a fucking target on her as big as she put on you," Stiles promises with a rage roiling under the surface that Derek thinks is as sharp as a wolf's. 

Stiles knows that what hunters do only gets done because they do it quietly, a war in the shadows, but Kate's fucked up enough that they can charge her with real crimes. Even if they don't there's a part of him, a very real terrifying part of him that has been ready to take one of the guns his father had spent long hours teaching him to use, and using it against Kate without mercy. He's been ready ever since he first heard Derek admit that she had set the fire that killed his family and had chased him so long that when his apartment went up in flames he had laid in his bed willing to let it take him. 

"I've been wanting to talk to you… have you sit with my dad. If you give him enough details… he thinks he can get in touch with the departments in the right areas. It might help. If she left evidence, and with your statements…" Stiles cautiously asks. The last thing he wants is to lay it all out. He knows that the first fire Kate had planned long enough that she could bribe and hide it. Everything after? It wasn't as careful. There very well could be evidence and Henry… there was no explaining that away as an accident. She hadn't even set a fire to burn anything away. 

Stiles was begging to try and Derek thinks he has to. Not just because Stiles is begging but because he wants it. He wants a life without Kate in it, shadowing over it. 

"Okay." Derek agrees quietly. 

They don't do it till a couple days later. Stiles stays with Peter because Derek can't do this in front of him. 

John calls him to the station. He wants to hear it first, and then they'll temper out the parts they can't put in a police report. 

It's hard, getting out all the details. 

He starts with Paige because that was how it really started isn't it? Peter had convinced him that the only way they could really be together was to turn her. 

Derek had been too much of a coward to ask her, or his mother. Peter had said his mother would never do it to a teenager, but they wouldn't be teenagers forever, and she would go to college and… Derek had been a dumb kid who was sure he had found the one so he had agreed but by the time he got his head out of his ass it was too late. He hadn't known the bite would reject. His mother had told him his whole life being a wolf was a gift, she didn't say that the bite could make someone so sick and hurt they'd ask to die. 

Kate had waltzed into town to find a teenager, isolated, lonely, hurting. She had turned on the charms, made him feel special, soothed the monster. Derek was hiding from his family in shame and everyone in school avoided him as the kid with the dead girlfriend who had died in an accident in the woods. 

An accident Derek had been there for. An accident that some had whispered wasn't an accident in those morbid teenage gossip craving rumors. What killed him the most was that they were right. Not exactly but Derek had killed her. With his cowardice, and with his own hands to end her pain. 

He told the Sheriff how Kate had come as a student teacher and how she would take him off campus on bad days. 

It wasn't romantic at first but when Kate had leaned into him and kissed him it took him out of it all for just enough that he had gone with it and ended telling her things he didn't realize were things he shouldn't. Things like when everyone was home, the tunnels, she'd never asked directly, she'd just led the conversation just enough that he'd said it himself. Complaining about barely getting a second's peace because someone was always home. 

There were some things harder to tell than others. 

She followed them from Beacon Hills, to Boston, Philly, Austin, Portland, to Cheyenne, big cities. They thought they could get lost in all the people and sometimes it worked. 

They'd tried a few smaller towns, and one time some farm house well outside Juneau in fucking Alaska thinking being out of the way and isolated would work. It had, for a long time. It worked for almost three years, but she came.

Their last try was New York, New York and that's where Laura had met Henry. It's where Derek had lost them both. 

He gives details about it all, about what Henry was like when they found him. All the things he could remember Kate saying in case it gave the Sheriff anything to work with. 

The Sheriff only interrupts to ask questions but he mostly lets Derek get through it all, with a grim determination. 

When Derek has said it all, he feels weak and shaken, and so tired. He's never laid it all out like that. Some of it, about Kate before the fire, he had never even told Laura, too afraid, too cowardly, thinking she would reject him. Leave him. 

He should have let her. She might have lived if she had left him for Kate to find alone. 

"You've been strong," John says, coming around the desk to lay his hand on Derek's shoulder. Derek feels anything but strong. 

"Leave this with me." John tells him with an authority that Derek wants to lean on. It's so certain, stalwart. John knows the law inside and out, and has plenty of connections, and now Derek's statement (in part). Derek wants to believe the same way he used to believe that his mom could fix anything because she had authority because she was the Alpha. 

"I need to get back to Peter," Derek clears his throat, pulling away. If he doesn't he feels like yet again he's going to break down. He managed the whole story holding himself together. He doesn't want to fall apart now. 

"Do you want me to keep it from Stiles?" John asks as Derek tries to slip out the door. Derek halts in his tracks. 

Cowardice makes Derek want to say yes. He's told Stiles enough, but not the things he was truly guilty of. Not the depth of it all. He thinks there's no way that Stiles could still look at him the same after knowing it all. 

It's nothing good that makes him say no though. The part of him that wants to punish himself, the part that says he doesn't deserve the way Stiles looks at him says, tell him. 

"You don't need to, he won't leave you alone until you tell him " Derek says with a shrug. He leaves the Sheriff there, already picking up the phone to make calls. He doesn't envy the man the task he's taken up. 

Kate's caused a lot of destruction and hurt coming after him. There's a lot for John to sort through. 

Peter is reading when Derek walks in and it's a startling fact. Peter had been a voracious reader before, so many obscure things in so many languages. Peter spoke more than Derek and Laura combined. He and Cora used to speak to each other in Russian because she was the only one that he could get to grasp it, and they used that fact for mischief. 

He hadn't once thought to bring Peter books but Stiles had. It's a classic, but paper black and beat up, likely the remnants of some assigned reading of Stiles’ from highschool. Still, Peter is content to sit in the Stilinski living room reading. 

"Hey man, everything go okay?" Stiles asks a bit hesitant as he comes down the stairs with a laundry basket. 

"Yeah," Derek says softly, not sure what other answer he can give. 

"Peter, it's time to go home." Derek calls. Peter doesn't even look up, just turns his page. Derek knows that Peter likes it here. He likes the lived in comfort, the feeling of family, and the heartbeats of more pack around him. Derek likes it for those reasons too, even if he would never admit it. 

Derek has had a long time to get used to the quiet, something he had always desperately craved growing up but doesn’t care for now. They used to live in each other's pocket, and even though special attention was paid to try and give a house full of werewolves privacy, it wasn't entirely sound proof. He would go to sleep at night hearing the soft beating of many hearts around him until they seemed to steady into one. 

Peter has had less time. He understands the craving and Peter's reluctance to leave. Especially considering that this is John's home. 

"Why don't you stay for dinner?" Stiles offers, sitting down next to Peter to fold his basket. Peter casually stretches out on the couch until his bare feet are tucked under Stiles thigh. The message is clear. Derek isn't winning without dragging Peter out by force. 

"Fine," Derek huffs, dropping down into the armchair. He'd much prefer being far away from here when John comes home and Stiles starts prodding for detail. Derek knows he wants them, but doesn't want to make Derek say it all again. 

They sit like that in quiet that Derek can't particularly call comfortable when he's this anxious. Stiles folds, Peter reads and Derek stares at the wall. 

Derek knows Stiles is barely containing himself because instead of the normal chatter he says absolutely nothing. 

"I… want," Peter breaks the silence but then he huffs, reorganizing his thoughts to make the sentence more human. "I'm thirsty," Peter settles on. 

"Yeah? Well there's water or orange juice," Stiles makes the short list. 

"You want- do you want a drink?" Peter cranes his neck to look at Derek. 

"Water," Derek answers. He doesn't know what he had expected but in a way that's so Peter he raises an eyebrow and nods to the kitchen as if to say “then go get it and be useful and bring me one too”. 

Just like he always did when Derek was young he got up and got himself a drink and Peter too. Peter's not as comfortable with his words yet, the wolf too dominate in his mind to make it smooth but his personality comes through more and more. It's good. Derek knows that but the anxiety sticks. 

He doesn't want to be alone. 

"None for me?" Stiles asks with a crooked grin and Derek mutters about him being a shit head but sits down all the same. Stiles is only teasing him anyways. 

It's late when the pounding comes on the door. Derek raises from the bed, shifted, ready. Peter meets him in the hall equally on alert but not panicked the way that he had been in the preserve. He's ready to fight. Ready to kill. He stays at Derek's back, in position as they creep down the hall.

Through the primal fight or flight Stiles scent finally filters through and Derek relaxes the shift but hurries to the door to rip it open. 

"What is it? What's wrong?" Derek asks, all but yanking Stiles through the door to slam it closed behind him. 

"I found her" Stiles rushes to speak, body vibrating with his urgency. 

"What?" Derek asks. His brain isn't following. 

"Kate," Stiles breathes. Derek freezes and seizes Stiles by the arms, turning this way and that, scenting him for blood and pain. 

"Derek! Derek, stop, she's dead!" Stiles struggles in Derek's grasp and he stills. 

"What?" He chokes out again. Part of him can't believe it. They tried fighting her, and Derek thought Laura had truly killed her once but then there she was again, like the killer in one of those 80's horror movies they used to watch. He just saw her not even a year ago, viciously laughing and calling after him as he ran away from her and Laura. 

"She's dead, I found an obituary, dad pulled records, it's really her. This is her right?" Stiles pulls a photo from his pocket. It's printed on printer paper, and clearly from a morgue. 

It's truly Kate. Her face is clawed up, ashen even in the printer picture, lips blue, hair a wreck… Derek can even see the top of the incision on her chest from an autopsy…

He's frozen stiff as he stares. It's surreal. Seeing Kate like this… she had become the boogeyman almost. Unkillable, unstoppable, his inevitable end. Yet she's here, in this picture dead and gone and never coming back for him.

"She's dead, Derek, found in some town in Oregon." Stiles continues, hand resting on Derek's shoulder causing him to flinch. 

"You're safe. She's never coming back, you're free ." He emphasizes, squeezing Derek, begging him to understand,  to feel it. 

It's like all the tension snaps in him at once, all his strings are cut and he drops like a marionette.

He's free. She's dead. She's gone. She'll never come back, Kate won't ever hurt Peter. A laugh bubbles up from his chest, he can't help it, he's laughing so hard he thinks he might puke. 

Just as suddenly the laugh hitches into a cry. 

"It's okay, you're okay, you're here. She's really gone," Stiles promises him, wrapping arms around him, and seconds later Peter's draped across his back. 

"Safe," Peter breathes. Derek doesn't know if Peter can quite believe it either. 

He's done more crying this month than Derek thinks he's ever done in his life and when it's over he feels empty, scooped clean, and all he wants to do is sleep. 

Peter and Stiles bundle him into bed and Peter bullies Stiles into joining when he crawls in after. 

Derek doesn't fight it. He craves the comforting weight, warmth and scent of pack blanketing him. 

Ten years. Ten years of his life he spent being hunted and now… Derek doesn't know about now. It feels almost like every possibility in the world is in front of him. 

So he chooses to sleep, lulled by Stiles and Peter's heart beats around him. 

The very first thing he does is call a construction crew. 

The house in the preserve had been his mother's pride, and she wouldn't want it to stay like that forever, rotten, burned, barren. Derek doesn't know if he'll rebuild just yet but he knows that the house can't stay that way, a ruined monument to their past. 

Well maybe that's not the very first. The first thing he does is tell Peter everything. All of it. Peter's become so much of his old self, with more control and he has people outside of Derek who will help him while he adjusts. He has a pack. Derek wakes up after learning that Kate is gone and he sees an entire life ahead of him, a new life, and for once he wants to be honest. 

"I knew," Peter says when Derek's done telling it. Peter had sat still and quiet the entire time, leaving Derek to struggle through it anxiously looking for any reaction. 

"You knew?" 

"When the fire started, all the doors and windows were lined with mountain ash, the tunnel too. She shot at Felicity," Peter tells him, and Derek swallows hard. Felicity was human. Derek had known that the house had been lined with mountain ash, but he hadn't known the humans of the pack had tried to break it. 

He hadn't known Kate had been there to shoot at them to keep them inside to burn alive. 

"I smelled her perfume. The same perfume you smelled like. I knew." 

Derek sits with that for a long time. He had seen Kate for months before the fire, and he had never told anyone. He had known that it wasn't right. He knew if anyone knew they would stop it because Kate was older. Kate herself said no one would understand but that they needed each other. She had made sure that he needed her, manipulating his guilt and hurt, twisting him up till he felt that she was the only one that could make him feel normal, wanted, and unlike the monster he felt he was. 

"I didn't know she was a hunter but I knew you smelled like someone else. I let you be, because I… I was ashamed. For Paige." Peter admits, and Derek well. He never thought that Peter was sorry at all for what they did. 

"The only humans I thought could love us were humans that came from packs, they knew from childhood about wolves. Humans outside the pack get nervous, get afraid. They tell, or they leave. It's a very different world." Peter looks distant as speaks, remembering something long past. 

"I just came home from law school, remember? I told someone, someone human, I wanted to marry them, and she told someone. The wrong someone. Hunters showed up at my apartment. They hurt me as a warning. They said I was in their town and I better behave. As if I haven't been living there for years at school already with no issue," Peter growls, the old hurts, the anger rising under his skin. 

"So I was home, licking my wounds, the betrayal, anger, all of it. I put it on you. I was certain, absolutely certain that Paige would do to you what she did to me, but you were set on her and I thought if she's already a werewolf? How could she tell her own secret?" Peter's jaw flexes, and Derek can smell the guilt, the self loathing. 

"I killed her. You gave her mercy but I did it to her. I hurt you so bad you couldn't look at me, you wouldn't talk to the pack. I made you an easy target and I burned for it."

Peter is fiercely certain of that. He doesn't blame Derek, Derek who was as good as a child. He didn't even know the Argents. He had been too young to be burdened with that side of pack business. He had been kept from so much so he could be a child.

Peter had been the one that should have kept an eye on him, on the town and all the Argents. But, he had been too ashamed to watch Derek. He gave him space, too much of it while everyone else walked on eggshells with him too. 

"I'm sorry," Peter apologizes and Derek swallows hard. 

"Kate was going to do it one way or another," Derek says. Kate believed they were abominations she was tasked with razing from the earth and if she took a perverse joy in doing it? All the better for her. Derek knows she would have done it with or without his help, he was just fun for her. 

Derek plans the demolition and filling in of the tunnels with Peter's blessing. They both want to be able to run their family's land without giving that place a wide berth. 

Peter makes leaps and bounds in recovering. It's as if Derek's constant anxiety and vigilance easing puts Peter's wolf at ease enough to retreat into the man. There's no threat coming for them, his Alpha is relaxing, so the beta can stand down too. 

They get jobs, they spend more and more time with the Stilinski's who are happy to have them. 

Peter gets online work to translate documents, as he's fluent in so many languages and he enjoys the challenge. 

Derek takes up work at the mechanics. It's one of the many jobs he's done before, and the one he likes best. His father had taught him everything he knew about cars and they used to spend long Saturday's working on his vintage Camaro. 

Stiles brings him a card one day for a therapist, and Derek wants to say that he doesn't need it, but he knows. He knows that Kate being dead hasn't magically fixed him. He knows sometimes his fuse is short, that ten years of vigilance still leaves him panicking when he catches a scent of perfume that's too close to that one that Kate favored for ten years. 

So he takes the card, and he makes the call, and starts video therapy because she's out of state. She’s the only therapist that Stiles and John's contacts know that knows about the supernatural though. 

Peter snarls at the idea of having his own sessions. 

It's good for Derek though. He's better, settling into himself and for the first time in a long time he thinks he might be truly happy. 

Stiles kisses him after Sunday dinner when they're alone in the backyard. They always come out together after that first time, and talk. 

When Stiles kisses him, Derek doesn't think that it will get Stiles killed. He doesn't think that he doesn't deserve this. It certainly doesn't feel deserved, but Derek can only think that he's lucky as he kisses back. 

"Go out with me?" Stiles asks when they break apart. He's grinning like mad, pressed up against Derek. There's not an inch of space between them against the back fence. Derek throws his head back and laughs. 

"Yeah," Derek answers, as if he would say anything else. 

"I mean it! Real dates, movies, dinners, everything!" 

"I'll give you everything," and Derek means it. Stiles pulled him from that fire when Derek had been ready to leave it all behind. Stiles has already given him everything, how could Derek give him anything less?

"Okay, then… meet Lydia. Really meet her this time. She's my best friend, a Banshee, she'd be good pack." Stiles is tentative as he asks. He knows that pack is a big deal, he knows that it's not just a club that you added members to because they liked the same things. (Or in this case were other than human). He also knows that Lydia would be good for the pack however, to grow. 

Derek hasn't thought about it, about having more than Stiles, John and Peter but the wolf under his skin rolls in anticipation of more. A stronger, more stable pack. He doesn't know if he'll ever bite someone but Lydia had asked no questions late at night, and came to pick them up. Derek also remembers that Lydia had been the one to tell Stiles that Derek would still be in the building so in a way she had given Derek this new life too. 

"Invite her for Sunday dinner," Derek offers. It earns him another kiss with a click of their teeth in Stiles excitement but Derek is happy. 

He's happy. He'll never get enough of that and Derek thinks it's okay to be greedy for it.