Things We Never Saw Coming

The Monster in the Man

Saturday, 3am

Stiles felt smothered by the weight of Derek’s arm across his chest. Matt’s words had been bothering him for hours. Derek could be aggressive at times, it was true—the fight that had broken out in the club a few hours ago had proved that to Stiles. But Stiles wasn’t sure… he looked over at Derek and saw nothing violent or angry at all. Derek wasn’t like that; he was kind and sweet and really awkward and Stiles loved it.

         Stiles slid from beneath Derek’s arm and slinked out of the bedroom to the kitchen. He put the coffeepot on and sat down on the couch. Maybe if he just thought about it for a little bit… But no, Derek wasn’t what Matt had said. Matt was lying, definitely. He was jealous, that’s all. Yeah…

         “Derek, wake up.” Stiles didn’t even remember getting off the couch and returning to the bedroom. The next thing he knew, he was shaking Derek awake in a neurotic frenzy.

         Derek grunted and opened one pale blue eye. “Stiles…” he mumbled, “What time is it?”

         “A little after three,” Stiles said guiltily. He hadn’t even thought to check the time. Oops. “Look, I need to ask you something… bad. Please just don’t take it the wrong way.”

         Derek sat up, frowning at Stiles with his still bleary eyes. “Okay,” he said slowly. “What is it?”

         Stiles sighed. “What… what happened to the girl you thought was the arsonist?” he asked. “M- someone at the bar told me that you tried to kill her, that she’d been your girlfriend before the fire.”

         Derek sighed, looking down at his hands. “Kate was… intoxicating,” he finally said, and his voice was slow and halting as he spoke. “I was a kid, really, and she knew just how to play me. We started dating, and I invited her to stay over at the house one night. My family was out- it was a tradition of ours to go out on the full moon for a hunt of sorts, but I pretended I was sick so I could stay home. A few days later, Kate set the house on fire.

         “I was angry. She vanished after the fire for a little while, but it didn’t take her long to slink back into town. I was older by then, but it didn’t change the fact that I wanted revenge. I cornered her one night and demanded to know why she did it. She told me that she was a hunter—I’d been warned about her kind, but it never occurred to me that she was one of them.”

         Derek gritted his teeth and sighed, glancing up at Stiles’ pale, stunned face. He continued, “I’m not proud of what I did. I wanted her to die for what she’d done, Stiles. I gave her the bite.”

         “I don’t understand,” Stiles said quietly, sounding like a child in his own ears. “Why…?”

         “The hunters follow a code,” Derek explained, his voice tight like each word caused him physical pain. “Wolves have to be killed. To be bitten as a hunter is a death sentence—they have to die if they’re bitten.” Derek sighed and looked away. “But something happened to her… she went nuts, Stiles. Completely berserk. So her family put her away in the hospital where no one could find her.”

         “So she’s insane because of you?” Stiles asked hesitantly. He felt very small beside Derek all of a sudden, like a child standing beside a soldier returning from war.

         Derek looked at him, and his eyes burned with a desperate annoyance. “She murdered my entire family,” he snapped. “My mother, my father, my brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles… everyone. And not all of them were wolves, either. She left me no choice.”

         “But why like that?” Stiles demanded. “Why bite her and make her into a wolf? There are other ways to get revenge, Derek.”

         Derek looked away and growled in frustration. “I came home from school and the burned corpses of my entire family laid out in the front yard. There were police and firemen and I was scared and guilty because I knew that it was my fault that they were all lined up there, and my sister kept hugging me and saying ‘Who would do something like this?’ and I knew it had been Kate and I knew I’d been an idiot to trust her, but I’d let her control me because it was nice to just be wanted for a change.” His breath hitched in his throat, and he turned his back to Stiles completely, cupping his head in his hands and pulling at his hair. “I didn’t understand what justice meant. I jut knew that she had to pay for what happened. I didn’t know what else to do, Stiles. I couldn’t let her get away with it.”

         Stiles was surprised by his own empathy towards Derek. Here he was, an admitted would-be murderer, sitting in front of him confessing all his sins, and Stiles felt nothing but pity for him. He put out a hand and touched Derek’s shoulder. It was shaking. “Did you tell anyone about this?” he asked quietly. “Your sister, the pack…?”

         Derek shook his head. “No one. It’s not something I’m proud of.” He turned slowly to look at Stiles, his large blue eyes glowing slightly in the darkness. He frowned. “I don’t trust people outside my pack because of what happened with Kate,” he said, as if explaining something to a child. “And even the pack… I can’t take back what I did, Stiles, no matter how much I want to. I’m not asking you to accept what I’ve just told you or alter what you believe: I’ll leave if you want and I won’t bother you again.”

         Stiles felt like he should ask Derek to leave, but he didn’t want to. Derek had messed up and let his anger control him. Stiles knew how emotions could eat at people, and how stupid mistakes could haunt a person. He couldn’t hold Derek accountable for what he’d done- not completely. Kate had decimated Derek’s family, and Derek had retaliated without thinking of the consequences of his actions. Could he really be judged by someone just as flawed as he was?

         Stiles leaned forward and pressed his lips to the corner of Derek’s jaw. “I want you to stay.”

         Derek stared at him for a long moment before slowly nodding his head. “Okay,” he whispered, his voice a mixture of incredulity and relief. “I’ll stay.”

~~~

**Hey, guys! We've reached kind of an important landmark in the story, which is where we get into the darker side of Derek and his past (because apparently, no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to write a happy story. Oops.) I am, however, going to be focusing much less on getting Stiles and Derek together and more on their relationship as a couple (because the fics with the 20k word buildup to the characters getting together are a dime a dozen, and I never talk about the relationship post-emotional confession of all secrets.) So you'll be seeing a TON of interactions of Stiles and Derek in the future, as well as the introduction of the serial killer and Kate Argent in the next couple of chapters.**