Chapter Text
• 22nd December •
At first, when he catches Stiles’ scent, Derek is sure he’s hallucinating again.
It wouldn't be the first time he has hallucinated Stiles' scent (or Stiles himself), after all.
It has happened often enough that Derek has learnt to not react to the scent when he comes across it, especially if Isaac and Cora are around.
The very first time it had happened... it hadn't gone well.
Derek had been so sure it was Stiles, so convinced the human had been there, he had nearly wolfed out in the middle of a Trader Joe's when Keith and Cora had tried to pull him out of the store.
To this day, he insists he hadn't gone crazy. It had taken, however, the entire pack sitting him down and scenting him for him to come back from his half feral state and his conviction that Stiles had been there (and was, possibly, still there).
It had taken him him several more similar accidents to learn to keep his reactions and convictions to himself. Stiles was never there, after all, and Cora and Isaac in particular got very pitying looks on their faces whenever Derek even hinted at the possibility of Stiles (not even the possibility of him having been there, no; just the entire concept of Stiles Stilinski, coming out of Derek's mouth, was enough for them to give each other 'he's gone off the deep end again' looks).
... Honestly, they should be glad that Derek likes them, because they are not very good betas.
Point is, catching Stiles’ scent in a busy airport as he prepares for what promised to be a very annoying plane ride? Not suspicious enough to be worth investigating.
Hearing what sounds like Stiles’ voice saying, “You found it. Good job! High fives!”?
That is new.
Derek’s olfactory hallucination had never crossed the line into auditory ones.
His hand goes to his phone as his heart rate starts speeding up, his feet taking him towards the source of the voice.
“For grandpa,” he hears, as he steps into the duty free shop, and then he glances towards the cashier.
He’s standing with his back to Derek, so the only thing Derek can see is his back and his hair.
And sure, his hair is longer, and a little more styled, and he’s standing without slouching as he used to do in High School, and his scent is just a little different from what Derek remembers it (it’s the scent, though, the one Derek kept catching), and his heartbeat is a little different than what Derek remembers, but it’s him.
There’s no way it isn’t, no way Derek wouldn’t recognise him.
“The luckiest,” he hears him say, and he takes another step towards him, ignoring the suspicious look another lady is giving him. “Could I have three bags?”
“Of course,” the cashier responds, starting to scan the items. “Do you need–”
“Stiles?” He asks – no, he calls, he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t need to ask, he knows it’s Stiles – his Stiles.
Stiles stills.
Derek can’t see his face yet, but he can imagine the millions of emotions that might be going through his face. Stiles has always been a very emotive guy, and his face had always told Derek more than his mouth ever did.
Stiles knows it’s him. He heard his name, and recognised the voice immediately, just as Derek had recognised his voice out of the thousands others causing noise pollution in the airport.
And then he turns around.
It’s like Derek’s been sucker punched, because it is him.
It's Stiles.
Stiles looks as beautiful – if not more – than the last time he has seen him.
His eyes are wide – that warm and trusting brown colour that Derek had been obsessed with for a long time – and his lips are parted – pink, so stupidly pink, always with something between them, words, food, suspiciously phallic shaped objects – with shock and surprise.
His moles, that Derek had spent nights painting in his head, stretched slightly over his slightly older face. He looks like he has gained some weight, which made his cheeks rounder and made him look all around softer and less... pointy, as he himself had described it.
He looks stunning. He would have looked stunning had he looked the exact same as he had in High School, or had he gotten plumpier or skinnier, mind you: there is no way Stiles can look not stunning.
But he looks particularly stunning right now (Derek might be biased).
He’s beautiful.
And then.
And then his eyes crinkle, and his lips lift, and he smiles, and Derek loses his breath right there and then, in the middle of a duty-free shop at JFK Airport.
+++
There are two children with Stiles.
Derek doesn’t know how he managed to somehow miss them.
They are not easily missable.
Two twin toddler girls, probably somewhere between 1 and 2, with short light brown hair (lighter than Stiles’), styled in similar pigtails, and brown eyes, both of them wearing the same pair of overalls, and both of them with a very Stiles smatter of moles on their noses.
They are clearly his daughters, and Derek’s heart lurches inside of him.
He can’t be expected to think ‘Stiles’ and ‘babies’ in the same sentence and remain in control of his mental faculties.
Except, he is forced to witness it as one of the girls shoots Derek a suspicious look while the other is jumping on the spot, one hand holding Stiles’. Stiles’ attention is momentarily fixed on them as they get out of the shop, and watching the way Stiles’ scent gentles as he corrals them makes Derek’s mouth water.
Mine, he can’t help but think. My mate, my pups. Mine!
“Wow,” Stiles says, once they are outside, and for a second Derek is worried he might have spoken out loud or Stiles might have gained mind reading powers in the past couple of years. That would make things incredibly awkward really fast.
But Stiles clearly has no idea of what Derek is thinking. “It’s been...” He starts, and pauses as he tries to count the years.
Derek has no such need.
“Eight years,” he tells him, hoping he’s not staring at Stiles and his girls like a creep. He can’t help it, though. His wolf is literally vibrating inside of him at the sight of his mate for the first time in years, and he’s holding bag the urge to show his teeth and potentially bite (in a non turning way) Stiles right here and then.
It might cause them problems with TSA, he reasons with himself.
His wolf does not think much of TSA.
“More or less,” Stiles says, shaking his head. “I can’t believe... What are you doing here?”
“I was–”
“Tata,” one of the twins interrupts, pulling at Stiles’ trousers with an impatient expression on her face. “Tata, To’one?”
Stiles’ scent doesn’t change, but it gets sweeter and more honey as he focuses on the younger girl, a serious expression on his face.
“Not now. It’s a present for grandpa, remember?” Then, when the girl pouts, he continues with, “We can have some snazzy snackies, instead, for before the flight.”
Derek has no idea what that is, but it shifts the girls' attention as their eyes light up.
“‘Nazzy ‘nacky?”
“Yum yum!” adds the second twin, clapping her hands excitedly.
“Yum yum,” Stiles agrees, quickly surveying their surroundings. He quickly finds what he’s looking for – a seat, it turns out – and points it out for the girls. “Oh, there. Go, go, go!”
Derek could watch him forever. The gentle tone of voice he uses with the girls without letting them push him around, the smile on his face as he watches the two girls go where they had been directed, his content scent, and the lingering affection that is embedded in every one of the girls’ actions and words.
They love him, and he loves them even more, and seeing the happiness, the affection, the love on Stiles’ face... Derek could stand there and watch it forever.
However, he is inside an airport, and that is usually disapproved of.
And Stiles has always had something to say about Derek and his ‘staring’ habits – it wasn’t staring. He was observing. Stiles was always moving and saying a thousand things with his face and body language alone, and Derek has always wanted to know what the boy was thinking and doing.
“Want to–”
“Yeah,” Derek says. He has no idea of what Stiles was going to say, but there is nothing Stiles can offer that Derek wouldn’t accept. Which brings him to, “You’re going back to Beacon Hills.”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, directing him towards the twins now fighting for the chairs. “You as well?”
“Peter says he needs me to come down,” he says. Then, when Stiles frowns, he quickly adds, “Nothing supernatural.”
“Jordan would have said something,” Stiles says, which has Derek quickly forcing his expression to become even.
But who is Jordan? What is his relationship with Stiles? Was this a person in Beacon Hills Stiles was going to see? He had assumed Stiles was going to see his father, but-
“Jordan Parrish,” the man clarifies, because apparently eight years is not long enough for Stiles to forget how to read him. His mate is so talented. “You know – the deputy who is also a Hellhound and survives being burned alive? He’s the Sheriff, now. Dad’s stepped down.”
That does not make things any clearer – Derek hadn’t spent much time paying attention to deputies, back then – but then one of the twins speaks up again.
“Daddy?”
“Oh– no, sorry, baby,” Stiles says, cringing slightly. Derek frowns. “I was just telling Derek about my dad – grandpa. Oh.” He glances between Derek and the twins. “Derek, these are my daughters: Eleanora and Teodora. Ellie, Teo, this is tata’s friend – Derek.”
“In to'ies?” Ellie asks, while her sister studies Derek with a curious expression on her face.
“Just like in the stories,” Stiles says, pulling off his backpack. Derek’s eyebrow raises at the ‘stories’, which has Stiles rolling his eyes. “What? I don’t know that many wolf friendly fairy tales, and Evil Andrea doesn’t like to share.”
Another new name that Derek doesn’t recognise, but that’s not what surprises him the most.
The girls are covered in Stiles’ scent, and so he hadn’t considered whether or not they were human. He had assumed–
“I didn’t realise...” He glances over at the twins, whose attention has now been diverted to Stiles and the contents of his bag. His flashes his eyes at them and his nostrils flare, and it’s unmistakable. The scent of a wolf pup. “Their mother is a wolf?”
Another wolf. Stiles had been with another wolf, a wolf other than him.
It was upsetting to think that Stiles had been with anyone at all. It wasn’t right, and Derek had no right to feel any way about it, he was aware.
But he was not human, he was a wolf, and everything that was ‘reasonable’ regarding himself and Stiles had died in that pool in the boy’s sophomore year.
The idea that Stiles had been with anyone was awful, but Stiles experimenting and being with humans? It was a low level annoyance.
Knowing that Stiles had been with a wolf, that another werewolf, one that wasn’t Derek, had been with him, that he had had his hands on his Stiles–
“Not mother,” Stiles says, not looking up as he takes out a tupperware from his bag. “Their father.”
What?
Derek blinks any hint of red out of his eyes as he tries to make sense of what Stiles is saying.
Humans don’t make werewolf children. There needed to be at least one werewolf in order to have a werewolf child.
Their mother was not a wolf, but their father was.
But they had called Stiles ‘tata’. He had assumed that was a word for dad, but—
No, it still did not make sense.
They smelled like Stiles. They looked like Stiles. Stiles was clearly their parent, but there was no mother? How would that–
Unless.
Unless.
Derek swallows, studying Stiles for a second or two before he can actually speak again.
“They look like you.”
He can’t hide the implication from his voice, the question that is not really a question but a request for a confirmation that he probably should not receive right now.
“I would sure hope so after all the trouble I went through to bring them into the world,” Stiles scoffs, and Derek’s brain immediately switches off.
Because Stiles can’t be implying–
Surely he isn’t saying–
Derek’s eyes fix on Stiles’ stomach. Sure, he has gained some weight and muscle since High School, but Derek had assumed that was just aging.
Not–
God, just when Derek had thought his mate couldn’t be any more perfect.
Of course, between his magic and everything else Stiles was also able to bring life.
And someone – another wolf - someone who was not Derek, had taken advantage of it.
Derek’s fangs threaten to pop off at that realisation, so he forcefully distracts himself by focusing on what Stiles is doing.
Most importantly, focusing on the various fruit in the tupperware.
The animal shaped fruits in the tupperware.
He still misses his family, of course. But nowadays, the ache doesn’t burn as much, and the sight of apples cut to look like bunnies has his lips twitching with nostalgia.
“You made that?” He asks, pointing at the bunnies specifically. “Mom always used to make the apples into swans.”
“Wait, really?” Stiles asks, shifting his body in Derek’s direction immediately. His eyes light up with that mischievous light Derek has missed so much, and his nose and his lips get closer when he smiles, and Derek wants to bite his nose. How can he be so adorable? So beautiful?
“I saw those on Pinterest, but it didn’t make any sense to me,” Stiles continues, unaware of how such a little move has somewhat made him 100% more desirable in Derek’s eyes. “Can you make those?”
Right. Not the time. Fruits, and babies around.
“Cora might know,” he says, thinking back to his sister’s weird talent with crafts. “Or maybe Peter.”
Stiles’ eyebrows raise in clear disbelief.
“... Peter.”
“You’d be surprised,” Derek says, chuckling slightly. “He has a varied and confusing skillset.”
He almost tells Stiles about Peter’s very secret past as a juggler in a circus, and then decides he will keep his uncle’s secret for now (read: he would tell Stiles in front of the man to make him regret his last birthday ‘gift’ to Derek).
Stiles keeps looking at him with an odd expression on his face that Derek can’t really read. His scent has shifted slightly – in a way most would probably not even notice, but Derek, of course, notices everything about Stiles – but not in a bad way.
He seems... happy. But there’s a tinge of something else, something older that tickles his nose ever so slightly.
It–
“Apple?” One of the twins – Ellie, Derek thinks — asks, offering him a half chewed piece of fruit.
It’s dripping in saliva.
But Derek is a grown alpha werewolf, and a little bit of drool from Stiles’ daughter does not scare him, so he reaches for it with a smile for the girl.
“Thank you, Ellie.”
“Teo,” Stiles and Teo say at the same time, him amused, and her immediately pouting. “I Teo. Her Ellie. Her.”
She looks so much like Stiles, it tugs at everything inside of him to hold her, hug her, scent her, mark her as pack.
But he can’t.
Because she already has a mark on her, another alpha’s scent, and neither Derek nor his wolf have any claim on her.
Even though she is Stiles', and should be his, should-
“Oh, sorry,” he says, refusing to entertain those thoughts. “You’re Teo. And who’s Ellie?”
“Ellie,” her sister says, smiling and offering him a grape. “Worm?”
“Grape,” Stiles corrects, as Derek accepts that too, plopping it in his mouth after wiping the worst of the drool from it.
Which, of course, means that Derek is now expected to share the ‘snazzy snacks’ with both girls.
It’s not so bad, once they decide they don’t have to keep giving him the half chewed pieces. As Derek has suspected upon realising they are Stiles’ daughters, they are perfect. They have a lot to say, which they struggle with, between their small vocabulary and the fact that they are trying to eat and speak at the same time, and it reminds Derek of all those times Stiles had sat in front of him, mouth full of curly fries as he tried to explain another theory to Derek.
He immediately stops thinking about Stiles' mouth stuffed with things.
“I’m glad you got out,” Stiles says, after a while of Derek potentially looking at the girls with more affection than he knew he possessed in his chest.
Mine. My pups. My mate. MINE.
Derek forces his expression to not show any of the yearning he feels inside, and glances over at Stiles, a grape still in his hand.
Stiles does not make things easier by looking like the moon itself, but Derek manages to not let himself be blinded.
“I’m glad you got out too,” is what he says.
Being on the plane is torture.
Derek and Stiles were separated upon boarding, with him going towards the back and Derek being forced in first class, and it’s torture.
As a wolf, a plane is a nightmare in general. A compressed flying can in the sky, filled with people and food, when you had super hearing and a very strong sense of smell? Not a good mix.
First class ensured that, at least, other people were not too much in your space.
But Stiles and his girls are not in first class with him, and the only thing keeping him in seat is the fact that there are no other seats around and that he can keep an ear on Stiles’ heartbeat.
It’s fascinating how quickly this new rhythm, slightly different than it was back then, manages to relax him.
[hale pack NEIGHBOURS FACTION ONLY]
Derek: I found Stiles.
Isaac: ...
Cora: i told you we shouldnt have sent him alone.
Sabrina: ?
Sabrina: hold on, ‘found’?
Isaac: FOUND?
Isaac: are you SEEING him now, too?
Derek: He has two twin daughters called Ellie and Teo.
Derek: And it turns out he has been in New York this whole time.
Derek: I was NOT hallucinating him.
Keith: You sound like super sure
Cora: proof
Cora: before i have peter meet you at the airport with a straight jacket
Derek: Don’t call Peter, I’ll book a car.
Derek: [picture]
Isaac: wait
Isaac: wtf
Sabrina: so? is it him???
Cora: omg that IS STILINSKI
Isaac: WHAT THE HELLY???
Derek makes to answer – he’s planning on holding this over Cora and Isaac’s heads forever, they had seriously convinced him that every time he caught Stiles’ in New York it actually meant he was going insane – when Stiles’ heart rate suddenly speeds up slightly.
He sits up, head turning a little towards the door even as his phone continues to buzz in his hands, forcing himself to concentrate on Stiles and Stiles only (Derek is sure Cora would make fun of him forever, if she was here and realised how easy it was for Derek to focus on Stiles).
There is a voice very near him – a phone call? voice note? – speaking in an unfamiliar language he suspects is Polish. He has no idea what is being said, but it appears it’s the reason Stiles’ heartrate is spiking up.
It's spiking up in anger.
Oh. Whatever the person on the other side of the voice message – an older woman – is saying, is nothing Stiles is happy to hear.
He has no idea who she is, but Derek is already annoyed. Not even Sheriff Stilinski was, in his opinion, allowed to speak to Stiles in that tone, so who exactly did this woman think she was?
Before Derek had caught his scent, it had been Stiles alone dealing with two toddlers. Now, Derek is more than happy to see that there is no other wolf around his mate, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy someone left Stiles alone when he most needed it.
And now this woman was trying to further ruin his mood when he had just settled the twins?
Beacon Hills wasn’t too far, but any flight with toddler wolves was a too long flight.
Stiles needed to be relaxed and calm. Derek considers, once more, paying someone in first class to switch with Stiles, but he has never trusted mobile banking apps and he doesn’t have his checkbook with him.
“Excuse me?” He calls, signalling the air hostess walking past him. “Could you do me a favour?”
“Of course,” the woman says, scent sweetening in something flirtatious and annoying.
Derek smiles back, not breathing it in.
“Could you give the man in 32B a can of Dr Pepper on me? And any choice in snacks?”
“Oh,” she says, appearing a little surprised. “32B in economy?”
“Yes,” Derek says. “You have red vines too, right? He likes those.”
Her confusion turns into amusement, and she nods as she leans back from him. “Of course, Mr Hale. I will let Mr–”
“Stiles,” Derek says. “Stiles Stilinski.”
Again, one of those amused looks. “I will let Mr Stilinski know,” she says.
A couple of the passengers in first class are looking at him in confusion, but Derek hardly cares about what he’s coming across as.
Instead, he focuses on the hostess as she walks down the aisle, and on Stiles himself.
He smiles to himself when the man’s heart rate changes once more, turning back to the slow and more comfortable speed of before.
Stiles takes the red vines.
Derek’s wolf shifts in satisfaction at the proof that, after all these years, he can still provide for his mate.
Then, he returns to his message thread.
The fact that Stiles immediately agrees to share a car with Derek for the drive to Beacon Hills does not surprise him.
The ease with which Stiles allows Derek to interact and even hold his daughter, however, is.
He knows that Stiles is technically human. But the man had ran with wolves long enough that it had changed some of his actions and habits, to the point that sometimes he acted more wolfish than human – and this had been back during their time in Beacon Hills.
Werewolves are protective of their cubs. Scent matters, and most wolves would think twice before allowing another wolf – another alpha – to touch their child.
It means a lot to let this happen.
Either Stiles’ new pack did not care about things like these – something Derek struggles to believe – and never explained it to him, or Stiles is perfectly aware of what his actions mean and he does not care.
Either way, by the time the twins are buckled in, Derek is barely holding himself in check.
Stiles seems perfectly content, if a little tired, from the way his scent fills the car, and it reminds Derek of all the times the two of them had found themselves in the Jeep during Sophomore and Junior year, running from some monster or the other or trying to save one of the betas from themselves.
Usually, though, Stiles was the one driving.
“What happened to the Jeep?”
“Died,” Stiles says, with a long sigh. “She made it to the last day of term, and then refused to start ever again. She’s still in the garage at home – its final resting space.”
Considering the inside of that thing, Derek can’t help but snort. “That thing was held together by duct tape and prayers.”
“That is no way to speak to your lord and saviour,” Stiles says, shooting him a glare. “I am 100% sure she still has your blood in her seats – which is, by the way, no way to treat a lady.”
Derek glances over at him, amused. “A lady?”
“Roscoe is of noble birth,” he insists. “I have drawn up a family tree and everything.”
It’s such a Stiles thing to do that Derek can only shake his head in resignation. “Why am I not surprised?”
The human winks at him. “Because you know me too well.”
Derek suppresses the satisfied growl in his chest because the twins are half napping in the back and only because of that.
Of course he knows Stiles. He will always know Stiles, no matter how long they are apart, and no matter how much time passes.
My mate. Our mate.
“Is this your first time back in Beacon Hills?” he then asks. “Since you left?”
“Not really,” Stiles says, shooting a quick look to the back. “Teo, hands to yourself, let your sister sleep.” Derek hadn’t even noticed her, but of course his mate was as talented at rearing cubs as he was at everything else.
Perfect mate, smart mate. Best mate.
“I have come back a couple of times,” Stiles continues, turning back to Derek, “For the holidays and whatnot – never stayed long, though. I brought Alek to meet dad once, and the girls down twice before, though usually dad will come up to New Rochelle to see us.” He shrugs. “Never wanted to risk getting sucked into it again, you know.”
Alek, Derek repeats in his head.
He does not like that name, nor the way Stiles said it.
“Yeah. I came back the next summer, and then the next year, when Scott called to say he needed some help.”
“We must have just missed each other,” Stiles says, a small frown on his face. He sounds... disappointed. Derek tries not to read too much in it, and immediately fails. “Lydia and I decided to stop the ‘who’s going to be Valedictorian’ discourse by deciding to both graduate early. I think Danny ended up as Valedictorian, in the end.”
Derek wonders about the way Stiles neatly sidestepped the mention of Scott, but he’s more focused on the name dropping of Lydia.
He had assumed Stiles had cut off all connections to Beacon Hills when he had left, but maybe he hadn’t.
“You and Lydia?”
He’s not threatened by Lydia, not anymore. By the time he had left, there had been nothing but friendship between the two humans, and he can’t imagine their relationship had changed since then.
Lydia had never seen Stiles, not the way Derek saw him, and by the end, they had both known too much about each other to ever really click romantically again.
“After Erica, and Boyd, and Allison...” Stiles doesn’t look at him, focuses on the road instead. “We just couldn’t do it anymore. We did not want to sit back and see which one of us was going to die or almost die next. Lydia said she didn’t want to have to scream out my or Scott’s name next. I... had my own issues. So we got out as soon as we could. She went to Princeton, and I went to Columbia, and did not go back unless we had to.”
Derek is still not necessarily concerned, but he’s still curious about their dynamic. “And you and Lydia...?”
“Oh, no way,” Stiles says, making a face at the mere thought. “I mean, we’re still friends, and we love each other, but no. I was not in love in her anymore – hadn’t been in love with her since the end of Sophomore year, really. At that point we were just... you know, pack. Jackson ended in New Jersey for university too, and Danny made it to MIT, so we just created our own ‘Beacon Hills survivors’ group.”
Stiles, Lydia, Jackson and Danny.
Definitely not the group Derek had ever imagined forming, but he can see what links them together.
“You guys were your own pack.”
Still, he can’t help but wonder, why the four of them and not Scott. He knows Stiles and Kira were not particularly close, and things with Malia... well, Derek prefers not to think about them.
Mason, Liam, Theo... he knows enough about the whole mess to know Stiles and them had never really bonded.
But Scott had been his closest friend. His best friend, and alpha. So why...?
As if hearing his thoughts, Stiles sighs, finger tapping the side of the car as he talks.
“I love Scott. I’ll always love Scott. But well... neither of us really got over the fact that I was possessed and Scott didn’t notice. For different reasons, but still. In the end, I came to peace with the fact that while we’re no longer best friends, we will always be brothers. I think – I hope – he has, too.” He shrugs. “The rest of the ‘pack’, well. I left, Scott stayed. I didn’t really give them much of a choice. We’re still friendly, and I’ll always care about them, but they’re not pack – not to me. You know?”
“I do,” Derek says. Of course he does.
And because he does, he also knows better than to prod at that particular wound.
Instead, he focuses on, “New Rochelle, uh?”
So close. This entire time Stiles had been so close, and Derek had caught his scent so many times just for Isaac and Cora to convince him that he was hallucinating and there was no scent to be caught at all.
He almost hates them.
“Alek’s family lives there,” Stiles explains. “So it made sense to move there after we graduated.”
Alek.
We.
Derek does not like that name, and he does not like the implications of that sentence, but he can’t help it.
He has to know.
“... Alek?” he asks, not quite looking at Stiles.
He can feel the man’s eyes on him, but he does not turn.
“Uh, yeah,” Stiles says. He sounds suddenly awkward. “Aleksander Wiotr, of the Wiotr pack. He’s the girls’ father. Other father. We dated, for a while, but then he met his mate.”
Derek does a great job at pretending he does not feel like he has been punched by Deucalion in the throat ten times in a row until he hears ‘met his mate’.
Then, he can’t help but turn his head slightly to ask, “What.”
Now it’s Stiles’ turn to not quite look at him.
“Yeah. We were both at Columbia together, and he immediately clocked me as being in the known. We were together for four years, and then he met Asia – another werewolf. They apparently knew they were each other’s mates at first sight, or something equally nauseatingly romantic.” He rolls his eyes. “The whole thing is actually less awkward than you’d imagine. Asia and I get along pretty well. The dearest not-teściowa - aka the witch he calls mommy - and I do not, however.”
“Oh,” Derek says.
He does not know exactly what to say.
Another wolf.
A wolf who had been with Stiles for four years, and who had given him his beautiful daughters.
A wolf who had touched Derek’s mate, who had been with his Stiles.
A wolf who was, thankfully, no longer with Stiles.
A wolf who had had the audacity to leave Stiles.
Aleksander Wiotr.
Even his name sounded stupid.
But Stiles is clearly expecting more, even if he’s not looking at him, so Derek finds the first question he can ask that does not have the Sabrina in his head furiously shaking her head at him.
“Is he... their alpha, too?”
“No,” Stiles says. “His sister is the alpha of the pack, Anastazja - Anya. She’s nice enough, I guess. I don’t really spend much time with her.” He finally glances at Derek. “How about you?”
He doesn’t think Stiles is talking about the immediate relaxation he had felt at the realisation that he was a stronger wolf than Alek at the confirmation that the man’s not an alpha.
Weak wolf who had realised he was not worthy of Stiles, and had then found a different mate.
Derek both hates him and pities him.
“What about me?”
“The alpha spark,” Stiles says, which catches Derek by surprise. He smirks, because apparently you can outgrow everything but the smug little shit attitude you developed at seventeen. “Your eyes flashed red when you realised the girls are also werewolves.”
Derek snorts, the smile automatically forming on his lips. “Of course you noticed that immediately. For a while Cora and I remained in Medellín - that’s in Colombia. We moved back to New York a few years later, when I randomly got my alpha spark back. I still don’t know how or why. I was just folding clothes and Cora said my eyes flashed red.
“Isaac turned up a week later saying he felt ‘drawn’ back. We got a couple of other unaffiliated betas since, and are now a pack of six – seven, if we count Peter.”
Which he did, nowadays, but he’s not sure of Stiles’ current feelings towards his uncle.
“So are you like a true alpha, now?”
‘True alpha’. Derek forces his expression to remain neutral despite what he personally thinks about the concept of 'true alphas'.
It did not matter how many times Deaton and Scott explained the concept – it made no damn sense.
“I don’t think so,” is what he chooses to say, as diplomatically as possible. “Nothing we looked up made sense, nor did it fit what Deaton had said when it happened to Scott. And it wasn’t something I wanted to advertise in a city like New York, so my resources were very limited.”
“New York,” Stiles says, and he sounds as wistful as Derek had felt when he had realised how close they had been this entire time. “You were literally a few stops away from me. I can’t believe we managed to live in the same State for years and never ran into each other.”
Derek almost mentions all the times he had caught his scent and had been convinced by Isaac and Cora that he had been hallucinating, but he does not. He can just hear Sabrina yelling at him that ‘humans find this kind of thing creepy, Derek!’.
Even though Stiles is special, and does not see things the way a normal human would.
The thing is, Derek could have looked for him. Could have ignored Cora and Isaac and tracked the scent anyway, just to prove it to himself, just to make sure.
But he hadn’t.
He hadn’t, because Stiles had left Beacon Hills and all of its weirdness behind, and Derek had known that he was part of said weirdness.
He was part of what Stiles had tried to flee from by running to New York to begin with.
In fact, Derek had been the one to walk away from Stiles first.
And it had torn him apart on the inside, it had hurt every single step he had taken that took him away from his mate, but of course Stiles couldn’t have known that.
How could he? Derek had never told him.
He had never explained his feelings, never explained why he was doing what he was doing, never given him a chance to have his own say.
At the time it had made sense. At the time, Derek had been sure he was doing the right thing.
It had been the right thing to do.
And it had felt that way until he had returned to Beacon Hills and found that Stiles had long since left the place.
He had come back, the necklace he had bought him as soon as he had left Beacon Hills heavy in his pockets, just for Scott to tell him that Stiles (and Lydia) had left the pack and Beacon Hills, and that they were ‘done with this’.
It had almost broken him right there and there.
And the worst part? It was his fault. He knew it was his fault.
He had been the one to leave first, he had been the one who had refused to say anything, he had been the one who had not bothered explaining himself to Stiles first.
Did he really have the right to feel bad? To feel heartbroken?
It’s why Derek hadn’t tried to look for him. Why, even though he was convinced it was Stiles’ scent in New York, he had listened to Cora and Isaac and not tried that hard to track him down.
Stiles wanted nothing to do with Beacon Hills and, Derek had thought, nothing to do with the supernatural at large.
So, he had stayed away.
Just to find out that Stiles had never really stepped away from the supernatural, and was in fact living metro distance from him.
“Yeah,” he says, and he knows he sounds melancholic despite himself. “All along.”
They don’t speak much, after that.