→ there's just a few things I think that you should know

[studmuffin]

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[lupusalpha]

[Derek follows, because damn it, it's cold out and Stiles is only wearing a hoodie, and Derek knows humans feel cold more sharply]

Hey.

[studmuffin]

Don't talk to me. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to know. [ Stomp stomp stomp. ]

This isn't fair and I know everyone finds it freaking hilarious but I don't and I hate it. [ More stomping. ]

[lupusalpha]

What are you talking ab-

[Derek clamps down on that part]

Hey, I'm sorry.

[studmuffin]

I hate this place.

[ Stopping to stare at Derek. ] And you think I get you and I don't, you think I'm going to understand what any of this means because you do. But newsflash, I'm not one of your puppies, I don't have this innate six sense of what exactly you're driving at all the time. It doesn't matter that I'm trying because every time something comes along and nudges you out of your comfort zone we're back at square one.

Try being me, the comfort zone is a whole other freaking universe.

[lupusalpha]

[His breath curls away from his body as steam, and he holds still for a long time. Like if he's still enough, Stiles can't see him, except that he's obvious, he's there. There is no disappearing, now.]

What don't you get?

[Being Derek Hale is no walk in the park.]

[studmuffin]

Why you seem to think I'm your responsibility for one. [ Shifting slightly, twisting his weight because he can't keep still. ] I'm just the friend of somebody your uncle bit, I'm not yours to keep under your furry command. I already disappoint enough people, you know you really don't have to add to it.

[ Because Derek keeps pulling back to this pack business and Stiles feels outside of it. It's hard being the only permanently breakable thing in a group of two wolves who hate his guts. ]

[lupusalpha]

Because-

[Derek looks unhappy, for a moment]

Because we're on the same side, Stiles. Because I'm alpha and my job is to protect the people who...

Who I think are valuable.

[He feels flat-footed, unsure.]

Because you didn't let me drown.

[studmuffin]

Do you seriously still think I keep you around because I need you to keep my ass unkicked? Because that ship is pretty much sailing, dude.

[ He feels stupid, vulnerable, too young for this kind of conversation and too strung up with something he doesn't know how to explain. ] You could fob me off to any of the nice people here. You don't owe me.

[lupusalpha]

Maybe it's not about what you need.

[Selfish, selfish, thoughts of Kate wound up and twisted when he wants something for himself. He thought she was - it doesn't matter. She killed his family. She did it because she thought it would be funny or -

Or, he doesn't know why.]

I don't trust anyone here.

[studmuffin]

I'm not going to be the life jacket of anyone who won't trust me. [ Which is a hideous lie. He tries to save everyone.

... No matter how often he says he doesn't want to, how much he pretends to hate, when it comes to it Stiles is usually scrambling to try and keep everyone alive. ]

[lupusalpha]

It's not that easy!

[studmuffin]

You think you're the only one on the goddamn planet with issues, Derek?

[ Fingers curling into fists. ] You think it's okay to keep them buried down and all you have to do is growl at us and we'll fall in line. No. Because I'm not going to do that. You want loyalty? You have to give something back.

[lupusalpha]

What do you want, Stiles?

[He's ready to tear his hair out, he can feel his own claws digging into his skin]

I tried to talk to Scott about the Alpha, about being a wolf, and you got me arrested. I saved you from Isaac and the Kanima, which, okay, you know what, I get, both of those things were my responsibility, but I didn't let them hurt you as much as I could.

Do you want me to tell you that once upon a time I let Kate Argent fuck me and she killed my whole family for the privilege?

[He's definitely growling now, his eyes blazing red, but he's hammering down on that, pulling down on his anchor, remembering humanity. It's so much easier to deal with pain when he hides behind the wolf, the wolf only understands survival.]

[studmuffin]

[ For a moment it's like the world has gone quiet, Derek's voice ringing in his ears and the slide of ice cold pain sitting deep in his stomach. It's not for him this time, it's empathetic. Stiles knows the math, knows the details, knows how young Derek was when his family all died, knows how old Kate must've been too, and something twists.

Derek had been as young (and probably as dumb) as Stiles is now, and he'd fallen (?) for someone who tore out everything. He can't imagine.

He doesn't want to imagine. ] Derek.

[lupusalpha]

[Derek looks sick to his stomach for a second, he can't believe he let that slip out of his mouth. His control is fraying, he can feel it.

It's cold out and Derek almost never feels cold, but there's a chill going up his arms that has nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the fact that he just talked about his secrets, his failures, how he is the reason - it's him, no one else has responsibility for this, he's the reason his family is dead.]

Just.

[Derek can't ask him to stay. He can't ask him for anything. He can't say anything because the words are stuck behind a blockage in his throat.

He's doing the best he can and it's not good enough.

He wishes Laura were here.]

[studmuffin]

[ He feels helpless for a second. Sure, monsters he can hit until someone saves him, but this -? It makes a horrifying sense - the way that Derek is, like the people he keeps around him could twist the knife in at any moment and Stiles doesn't know how to make him see.

Kate was a psychopath. Peter's insane. That doesn't mean everyone else is, that doesn't mean Stiles wants to hurt him, or that Isaac does, or that the rest of the pack do. They're dumb, lost kids and they don't know what they're doing, but it's never malicious.

Shoulders sagging. What else can he do? ] Let's go home.

[lupusalpha]

[Derek hates the way that this happened, he didn't want Stiles to come back out of pity, but he can't - he won't fight this, he just nods and slips his jacket off. He still has his sweater on, and his body temperature still ratchets higher than Stiles' ever will.

He just gruffly passes it over]

Here, wear it.

[studmuffin]

[ He blinks slightly but takes it, hands trembling as he shrugs it on. But it's warm and he feels so cold inside he might as well do what he can for the outside of him. ]

I don't hate you. [ Not looking at him. ] I try really, really hard to sometimes but you're always there when we need you. I guess it just got easy to blame you for it because you were always there when we needed you.

[ It wasn't Derek who turned Scott in the first place. And if Stiles hadn't wanted to go out into the woods maybe they would have never run into Peter - maybe they'd be the same dumb teenagers crushing on women they could never, ever get. He doesn't know. ]

[lupusalpha]

That's what pack is.

[He's so mad at Scott; so mad that it burns sometimes, because he kept saying he was pack, and then he wasn't - why couldn't he just tell Derek the truth? - but he was never that mad at Stiles.

Stiles was always more collateral damage, and Derek hates that.]

[studmuffin]

Yeah, but I didn't get that, okay? [ Huffing, starting to walk the way back to the woods. ]

I don't have the same wolfy feelings you do, you need to explain that crap to me in ways I can understand. [ Pack means family -- you get so pissed you want to scream bloody murder, but you attempt bloody murder if anything threatens it. He would have understood if he could have seen passed the haze of distrust and otherness. He's human, he already feels two steps behind. ]

[lupusalpha]

[They're at the border, now, and Derek stops.]

Do you want the bite, Stiles?

[studmuffin]

[ He stumbles for a second, vision not as epic in the dark and it had come out of nowhere. ]

Peter asked me. Before. He told me it could have easily been me that night. [ Not looking at Derek. ] He said I was lying when I said no and maybe I didn't even know it myself. But it kind of looks like as much as the cool stuff is awesome, being a werewolf, it drives you crazy. I don't think I need anymore craziness in my life.

[lupusalpha]

[He catches Stiles, first. It's reaction, instinct. He takes a moment, nods, and is about to keep going when the tree above them grows mistletoe, and he pulls Stiles up to kiss him again, his hands going to the teenager's hips to pull him up and closer, his mouth almost bruising]

[studmuffin]

[ Derek kisses like a desperate man and Stiles can't help himself with the first twist of magic, he presses up, kisses back. But he's -- guilty's not the right word, it's something else, a sudden and feirce need to protect. He pulls away, steps out of Derek's reach. ]

I'm not ... [ Kate. He refuses to let the City do this, not right now. He wants Derek, has spent days trying to dissect it but he can't. Derek doesn't want him the same way. That doesn't mean he can walk away. ] Mistletoe sucks, huh? [ A weak laugh. ] Isn't it poisonous?

[lupusalpha]

[Derek looks up and glares at it, the twisting parasite]

And a parasite.

[He just shakes his head. He knows how much Stiles wants him. He can smell it, feel it taste it.

But it's not that easy for him. Stiles isn't Kate but Derek doesn't - he can't be that selfish. Not again.]