Title: A Slow Unraveling
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Stiles/Derek
Prompt: Trope Bingo! Friends to Enemies
Warnings: Canon Typical Bullshit
Word Count: 5070
A/N: The relationship between Stiles and Derek doesn’t start until after Stiles is eighteen.

 

 

Age Six

 

“I’ll always be your best friend,” Stiles promised.

“And I’ll be yours,” Scott confirmed. “Best friends forever.”

Stiles held out his hand, pinky finger extended for Scott to shake. He smiled when the other boy shook his hand that way. “I’m glad you’re my friend.”

“And I’m glad you’re mine,” Scott said with a smile.

 

Age Nine

 

“Why won’t you come over?” Scott asked for the tenth time that day.

“Because my dad wants me home after school, Scotty,” Stiles muttered as he stuffed his books into his backpack. “Mom’s sick and in the hospital. I need to get home so he can take me to see her.”

“But you promised to spend time with me this week!” Scott whined.

Stiles glanced at his best friend and shook his head. “I’ll spend time with you later, Scott. I need to spend time with my mom.”

“But I’m your best friend. You’re supposed to spend time with me!” Scott said, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Dude, it’s my mom,” Stiles said slowly. He didn’t know how to deal with the incipient tantrum Scott was building up to. “She’s sick. You can play video games with your dad.”

“Right. Sure, I can,” Scott snapped before he walked off.

Stiles stared at his friend and then shook his head. Scott would get over his snit. He needed to see his mom.

 

Age Sixteen

 

Stiles spent several seconds typing out a message to Scott and hit send. He stared at his phone for a moment before he copied the message over to Derek. It took far too much willpower for him to hit ‘send’ on that text and he frowned. He trusted Derek and he had no idea why the thought of reaching out to him was giving him fits.

“What’s going on Batman?” Erica asked as she leaned over his shoulder.

The flash of pain her action brought raced through him and Stiles hissed as he tried to keep from cursing. “I’m trying to get in touch with Scott and Derek.”

“We left Derek,” Boyd murmured. He looked perturbed at something and Stiles suppressed the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. It fucking hurt. “Might not be a good idea.”

“Are you leaving him and the pack because you’re afraid of him? Or is it the Hunters and the chance of death that you’re running away from?” Stiles asked as he stared at his phone. The message icon for Scott showed that he’d read his text, but there was no reply. He quickly tapped out another message, again requesting help.

Derek’s name lit up with an incoming text and Stiles opened it quickly. The alpha was asking for their location and promised to come pick them up. He glanced up at the other two werewolves and raised an eyebrow. “Well? What is it?”

Erica and Boyd exchanged glances before shrugging. “The second. Hunters and death weren’t what we signed up for,” Erica admitted.

“But he did tell you about them, right?” Stiles asked. He was reasonably certain that Derek would give them the full explanation and not let them into the whole supernatural world blind. His phone vibrated again and he saw Derek was requesting an answer.

“He did,” Erica confirmed.

“Okay, I’m going to tell him where we are so he can come get us, and then we’re going to my house,” Stiles decided. He clenched his teeth against the pain he was feeling. He moved his thumbs quickly, giving Derek the directions to find them. “And then I need to tell my dad what in the hell is going on.”

“Argent isn’t going to be happy,” Boyd said.

“I don’t actually give a fuck,” Stiles bit out. He pulled in a slow breath. “All of the Argents crossed a line with me today.”

“What line?” Erica asked. She looked confused at Stiles’ attitude.

Stiles smiled back at her with no humor. “Other than taking me and beating the snot out of me? They threatened me, my dad, and my pack. I’m done playing by the rules.”

Neither were responded to that and Stiles concentrated on his breathing. He needed to slow it down so he put less pressure on his ribs. The bruising he could feel developing under his clothes he couldn’t help, but he would be checking that out when they got him home. He also needed to confirm if one of his ribs was bruised or broken. Either way, it hurt like a motherfucker.

“Derek’s almost here,” Boyd announced several minutes later. He had his head tilted as he listened to something out of range of Stiles’ hearing.

It took more than a minute for Stiles to hear the Charger and he breathed a sigh of relief. Getting down into the low-slung car would be okay and he was sure he would have some help to get out of it. He checked his phone to see if Scott had written him back. Nothing.

When Derek pulled up in front of them, Stiles tucked the phone away. He would deal with Scott and his bullshit later. First, he needed to get Derek onboard with the reveal and then bare his soul to his dad and somewhere in there, deal with his bruises. Wasn’t that going to be fun?

 

Age Seventeen

 

“You want me to do what?” Stiles asked flatly. He stared at Scott before transferring his gaze over to Alison.

He could feel his irritation building under his skin and clamped down on his Spark to keep from frying both of them. Unlike his best friend, he wasn’t smitten with the Argent princess and anything that had her involved in it made him twitch. Add in Deaton and Stiles wanted to light the whole place on fire and see if adding salt would take care of the stupid.

“Deaton thinks this is the best way to find our parents,” Scott insisted.

Speak of the devil and all that rot, Stiles thought sourly. “Really? Deaton thinks that this is the best way for us to get past whatever the darach has up to keep us from finding our parents? Drowning us and then, hopefully, reviving us? And while we’re dead, we’re supposed to look for our parents on some alternate plane of existence?”

“We’d be protected,” Allison reminded him. “Deaton personally warded the tubs and the areas around them.”

“Uh-huh,” Stiles eyed the tubs of ice water with a jaundiced eye. He glanced up at Isaac, Erica, and Boyd before raising an eyebrow at them. “And have you three heard this plan?”

“We did,” Erica confirmed.

“And?” Stiles insisted.

“It’s a plan,” Isaac offered. “Derek’s not responding to our text messages.”

“Have you tried howling?” Stiles asked. He stared at Boyd and suppressed a growl when the quiet beta nodded. “And?”

“Nothing,” Boyd said.

“Fuck,” Stiles bitched softly. He rubbed his hands over his face and tried to calm his heart rate down.

“Come on, Stiles. You know this is the only way,” Scott cut in. “Deaton knows what he’s doing.”

“No, Scotty, I don’t know that this is the only way,” Stiles snapped. A stray thought crossed his mind and he walked over to stand in front of the tub Scott had indicated he would be using. He inspected the runes inscribed around the ground and smiled, slow and meanly. “Oh, Scotty? Did Deaton tell you that by doing this you will be risking your status as an Alpha?”

Scott turned to look at him and then over at Deaton. “What? What does he mean?”

“Nothing,” Deaton said. His voice was even, but Stiles could see Erica from the corner of his eye and she was backing away from the druid, one inch at a time. She was also drawing Isaac and Boyd back with her. “Mr. Stilinski is mistaken. You won’t lose your Alpha abilities.”

“Wanna bet on that, Scotty? Do you not remember what happens when an Alpha dies?” Stiles asked. He turned to look at the runes laid out for him and frowned. If the sequence around Scott’s was to keep his Alpha spark in the young werewolf, his were to corral and control his spark. He wasn’t even going to bother to see what Deaton had planned for the Argent princess. “I’m not playing this game. Isaac, Erica, and Boyd? Head for Roscoe. We’re doing this my way.”

“Stiles! Deaton knows what’s best for this,” Scott protested. “This’ll work!”

Stiles turned around and blinked at how Scott had shifted to his beta form to loom over him. “I call bullshit. I’m not climbing in there, Scott. And the ritual doesn’t work if the person being killed isn’t willing. I’m not, for the record.”

“Why do you have to question everything?” Scott bitched as Stiles pushed him out of the way and headed for his jeep. “Why can’t you do what I want you to do?”

“Just gotta be me. Contrary by nature,” Stiles muttered as he climbed into the driver’s seat. He reached into his shirt and pulled two necklaces over his head. “Erica, pull the map of the county out. We’re leaving here and heading for the Preserve.”

“Gotcha, Batman. What are we doing?” Erica confirmed as she started digging through the glovebox for the map.

“A bit of scrying,” Stiles muttered as he closed his fist around the charms on the end of the chains. A sheriff’s star and a triskelion bit into his hand and he ignored the way he could feel his skin split. The blood could only help in this case.

“Deaton mentioned that he didn’t find anything when he tried,” Isaac offered from the back seat.

“I don’t trust Deaton,” Stiles admitted. “And honestly? If I find an area where I can’t scry, that tells me that something important is there. My house, the train depot, and Derek’s loft are warded so I know they’re clear.”

“Yeah, getting past your wards isn’t going to happen anytime soon,” Boyd said with a wince.

Stiles glanced up at the big beta with a smile of apology. “Sorry?”

“Eh, you asked me to test them,” Boyd shrugged off the apology.

“Any idea why Scott was so insistent on me getting in that bathtub?” Stiles asked as he maneuvered the jeep onto a trail Derek had shown him earlier in the week. The track would let out into a meadow and he could use that as a place to start the search. The preserve liked him and often assisted in his use of his spark.

“No,” Erica shook her head as she stacked the contents of his glovebox back in. “But he, Deaton and Allison all had their heads together right before you got there. And there was some spell or something keeping us from hearing them.”

“Well that’s not good,” Stiles muttered as he hit the brakes and turned Roscoe off. “Let’s get started finding the parents. Once we have them back, we can deal with the darach and then the Alpha pack.”

“One step at a time?” Boyd asked.

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. He touched on the pack bond he had with the Alpha werewolf and winced. It had never felt juicy before. “And Derek. Because it’s not like him not to respond. How does he feel by your bonds?”

“Fuzzy,” Isaac reported. “If a pack bond could feel drunk, I would say he was.”

“Yeah, that’s bullshit. I’ll be dealing with him as soon as we get the parentals,” Stiles muttered as he opened up the map on the hood of the jeep. “Hold this down,” he instructed as he let the chains he was holding dangle over the map. Pushing his spark into the two symbols he watched where they stopped. Both charms pointed at the same place. Deeper in the woods. “Fuck me running. This is going to suck.”

Erica stared at the location the charms had settled on and tilted her head. “Where are we?”

Stiles touched a spot on the map just to the side of the charms. “Here.”

“Fantastic,” she hissed as she shifted into her beta form. “Let’s go fuck up someone’s night.”

As the other two boys murmured their agreement, Stiles chuckled darkly. He reached into the cargo portion of Roscoe and pulled out his bat and a belt that looked like it would be at home on a Wookie. Each of the pouches had a little something that he could use with his spark and he was well trained with all of them. “Let’s.”

 

 

Age Eighteen

 

Stiles curled up tighter against Derek and let his brain drift. Finals were over, school was out and he didn’t have to think about anything right then. Also, Derek was warm, comfortable, and smelled nice.

When Derek started chuckling, Stiles scowled. “Did I say that out loud?”

“Yes,” Erica called from the kitchen. She walked in and dropped beer in front of Derek and a Dr. Pepper for Stiles before curling up with her boyfriend. “You did.”

“Fuck it,” Stiles sighed before he twitched his fingers and floated the soda over to him. He was comfortable and he didn’t want to move. “When is Uncle Creeper going to be back in town?”

“Next week,” Derek said. “He’s been talking to the packs in the towns where you guys are planning on going to college. So far everything’s been good.”

“Well, he is your Left Hand,” Stiles muttered before he took a sip of his drink.

“And you’re my emissary and Boyd’s my Second,” Derek agreed. He took a deep drink of his beer before sighing. “Most of you are going to college out here in California, so the packs know I’ll be visiting often.”

“But Jackson, Lydia, and I want to go East and that’s going to be harder,” Stiles said with a sigh. “Will Cora be coming with us?”

“Yeah,” Derek confirmed. “She’s gotten accepted at Harvard. Which freaked her out, but is helpful. You needed another wolf.”

“We’ll be back every chance we get,” Stiles promised.

Derek pressed a kiss to the top of Stiles’ head and hummed. “Scott’s on his way up.”

“Fuck,” Stiles muttered before he took another pull of his soda.

“How did your dad not wash your mouth out with Ivory soap when you were a kid?” Erica asked as she curled up in the loveseat across from them.

“Mom tried once,” Stiles admitted. “And then I stopped doing it where they could hear. I’m not a total idiot.”

“Stiles!” Scott called as he slammed the front door open.

“It’s a damn good thing you own this building,” Stiles observed as he watched the door bounce off the wall. If it hadn’t been reinforced and warded, Scott’s actions would have shattered it. “You’d never get your deposit back otherwise.”

“Oh, I know,” Derek agreed. “I still need to do a massive reno on the whole place when I get ready to move out.”

Scott looked back and forth between them before staring at Stiles. “Stiles!”

“Very good, Scotty. That’s my name,” Stiles sniped. “What can I do for you?”

“Why are you here?” Scott asked. He looked at the other members of the Hale pack with suspicion and edged around Erica to stand in front of Stiles. “And why are you leaning on Derek?”

“I’m here because I’m relaxing with my pack and Derek and I have been dating since I turned eighteen,” Stiles reminded him. He grimaced and then waved a hand. “I told you this months ago. But then, you also stopped listening to me about two years ago, so I’m pretty sure you weren’t paying attention.”

“You’re not part of the Hale Pack,” Scott protested. “You’re part of mine.”

“No, Scott, I’m not,” Stiles informed him gently. “I haven’t been since our sophomore year and Gerard beat the shit out of me as a message to you. You missed the message, by the way. My dad and Derek were there to help. They got me training, counseling, and looked out for me while I healed.”

“That’s old news. You’re my best friend. You’re in my pack,” Scott repeated. He reached for Stiles and tried to grab his arm. “Come on.”

Stiles let the shield he’d learned to manifest bloom into life around him and Derek. “You don’t get to come in here and demand things of me, Scott. We haven’t talked in months and now you’re trying to take me away from my pack? What the fuck?”

“I need you,” Scott admitted. “Deaton said that you’re the answer to the problem we’re having.”

Stiles pushed away from Derek and stood up. “You’re coming over here to demand that I go somewhere with you because Deaton told you to? Not because you want my company? Or missed me? What the fuck, Scotty?”

“Yes, I’m here because Deaton said to. You’re still my best friend. That hasn’t changed,” Scott reminded him. He seemed puzzled at Stiles’ attitude.

Stiles stared at the other man and then looked down at Derek before glancing at Erica and Boyd. “No Mr. McCall, I’m not your best friend. I can’t even say we’re acquaintances at this point. At best, we’re people who went to the same high school at one point. Please see yourself out.”

“You can’t be serious?” Scott asked as he stared at Stiles in confusion. “What are you pulling Stiles?”

“Leave, Mr. McCall,” Stiles requested. Something in him relaxed when he felt Derek’s body heat brush up against his back.

“You’re going to regret this, Stiles,” Scott growled. His eyes flashed red and his claws slid out of his fingers. “You need to come with me.”

Stiles shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

“You stay here, you’re no longer my friend. If you stay with Hale and his Pack, you’ll be my enemy,” Scott declared. There was a layer of growl under his words that spoke to the wolf he only reluctantly was.

“By that measure, I’ve been your enemy for years, Scott,” Stiles said, voice soft. “Go. You’re not going to get me near Deaton. I’m not part of your pack.”

“You did this,” Scott growled at Derek. He took a step towards Derek and huffed when the shield Stiles had raised kept him back. “You convinced him to betray me.”

“I think you did that all on your own, Scott. Now, Stiles has asked you to leave twice,” Derek nodded towards the door. “I’m only going to tell you once. Get going.”

Stiles watched as Scott turned on his heel and left. He waited until Erica threw the deadbolt on the door before he raised the war wards. “Any idea?”

“No,” Derek admitted. He glanced at Boyd. “I don’t know of anything going on in town that would require Stiles to be working with Deaton. Do you?”

“No,” Boyd said before he pulled his phone out. “But let’s check with everyone.”

“Right,” Stiles said before he chugged his soda and put the bottle on the table. “What a fucking mess.”

 

Age Twenty-two

 

“You shouldn’t have come back Stiles,” Scott called as he got out of the car.

“Last I knew, Mr. McCall, this was the home of my father and I live here,” Stiles snapped as he turned to face his former friend. Reaching deep within himself, he found the pack bond he had to Derek and gave it a firm yank. There was no way in hell he wanted to be alone with Scott if he could help it.

“You’ve been gone a while. Beacon Hills is now in the sole control of the McCall pack,” Scott informed him.

“As of when?” Stiles asked as he pulled his carryon out of the passenger seat of the car. He relaxed slightly as he had his toolkit in his hands. The whole thing was impregnated with mountain ash as a last layer of defense. If things went to shit with Scott, it was going to be his first line though.

“As of now. You and the rest of your mongrels need to leave,” Scott growled. He waved a hand like he was trying to encompass the whole of Beacon Hills. “Your father can stay until the next election, but then he needs to leave too.”

Stiles leaned against the door of his car and studied his former friend. Scott had filled out from the weedy teenager he had been. Broad-shouldered with a trim waist, he hadn’t grown any taller, just more muscles. He still hadn’t managed to outgrow the crooked jaw he had though. If nothing else, it was a distinctive look.

“And how do you think you’re going to kick us out of town, Mr. McCall?” Stiles asked. He suppressed a smirk at the small snarl Scott let out at his formality. “The Hale Pack founded this town and still owns about 60% of it. Wanna tell me how you’re going to enforce this decree of yours?”

“I’m curious too, Scott,” his dad commented from the front porch. Stiles raised an eyebrow at the shotgun he saw resting on the porch rails. “Nice of you to let me complete my time in office though.”

“The only Hale Pack member who has been in Beacon Hills in the last two years has been your father, Stiles,” Scott informed him. “And none of you have been running the ward lines or even maintaining them. My pack has and Deaton has taken over the wards.”

“Is that what he told you?” Stiles asked as he slung the carry strap for his bag over his head. Moving it around let him get into one of the outer pockets and he opened the packet of mountain ash he had stashed. Flexing his will, Stiles started spreading the ash in a ring around the house. Inside the ring, they would be able to see and hear everything. Outside of it? Well, the house now looked utterly normal and boring. College had been excellent for his control over his spark.

Scott looked offended. “Deaton has never lied to me. He’s got the control.”

“He’s in trouble up to his eyeballs with the Druidic Counsel and they’re currently meeting to see if they want to strip him of what magic he possesses,” Stiles snapped. “He’s been lying to you for years Scott, and you’ve been too blinded by your arrogance and unearned privilege to see it.”

“Lies!” Scott roared and his whole countenance shifted. He no longer looked human but had moved to the beta shift form. “He told me you would try to blame him.”

“Scott, you’re in public,” his dad called. He was leaning against the porch rail, his hands covering the shotgun. “You keep this shit up, you’re going to expose werewolves to the general population and that’s going to get a lot of people killed.”

“Stiles, Hale and his crappy pack need to leave,” Scott announced as he slowly shifted back to looking fully human. His eyes were still redder than they should have been though.

Stiles raised one eyebrow at the demand and looked over Scott’s head as Derek slid into the ring around his house. With Derek there, Stiles put his will behind keeping all the supernatural elements inside the circle, not just the visual. “Have you told Derek he needs to leave his hometown for a second time?”

“I’m the True Alpha! This is my territory!” Scott roared.

In the clinical part of himself that recorded all of his interactions with the supernatural, Stiles noticed that Scott’s teeth were getting sharper with each word spoken. And his nails were growing again. “Still don’t have good control over your wolf, eh Mr. McCall? I wonder why that is?”

“Because he’s always expected the world to hand him what he wanted on a silver platter and if he didn’t get it, he blamed everyone else,” Derek reminded him. When Scott whirled to growl at him, he held up a hand to silence him. “I heard the shit you were spewing earlier. There’s been a Hale here 24/7 since the fire. Beacon Hills has never been abandoned and you are not taking my land. I suggest you and that darach you call an envoy pack it up and leave. Because we sure as shit aren’t going to.”

“You don’t have control of the wards,” Scott snarled. “You’ve not been here. There’s been no Hales in town in the last two years. By the code, that means the place has been abandoned.”

“Well, the sheriff has been here and by your own admission, he’s Hale Pack, so that puts paid to that. Also, Peter’s been living in a loft in the downtown since right after everyone started college. I’m still in my loft and Cora keeps camping out in Peter’s guest room when she comes home,” Derek smiled, slow and mean. “As for the wards? Stiles?”

Stiles reached out to the Nemeton and laid his request at the tree’s proverbial feet. For one breathless moment, nothing happened and then Stiles could feel himself being slotted into place in the heart of the wards. The mental map of Beacon Hills was laid out in his mind’s eye and he could see every place Deaton had attempted to wrest control as dark splotches of rot. He had a lot of work to do, to repair the holes the darach had left.

“What was that?” Scott asked. He sounded ever so slightly panicked to Stiles’ ear.

“That was me taking control of the wards surrounding Beacon County,” Stiles informed him. He desperately wanted to lean against his car again, but he didn’t want to convey any weakness around Scott. “Deaton never had control of them, he was just doing his best to destroy them,” he said. Stiles hooked a mental finger around one of the lines of magic and traced it back to Deaton. The old vet was in a bad way now that he was cut off from the ambient magic of the Nemeton. “Might want to get back to the old bastard. He’s having a bad day.”

“This isn’t over, Stiles!” Scott growled before he turned on his heel and started down the street to his car. Stiles flicked a finger as he reached the mountain ash line and let him through.

“What in the hell was that?” his dad asked.

“Hell, if I know,” Stiles answered. He ran his hands through his hair and used the gesture to adjust the circle of ash around the property. Only Hale Pack wolves and Hale Pack humans would be allowed in, anyone else would find the need to call. “He caught me just as I got home. Dad? Have you seen anything weird recently?”

“It’s been a quiet spring,” his dad reported. “Peter and Derek took care of something disgusting about two months ago, but that was the only thing either bothered to tell me about.”

When Stiles turned to look at Derek, the alpha had his hands out. “It was a wendigo, nothing too serious,” Derek soothed. “Peter and I got pretty nasty, but we found it and dealt with it before it had a chance to do anything. Minor scrapes and some ruined clothes.”

“Okay. Still. What in the hell was that?” Stiles asked.

“I think it was the last power play Deaton had. To see if he could get you and the rest of the Hale Pack out of here and give him full access to the Nemeton,” his dad offered. He picked up the shotgun and quickly unloaded it. “Also how did Scott not notice that I was there until I talked? It wasn’t like I was quiet when I walked out of the house.”

“Wards on the porch, Dad,” Stiles reminded him. “They don’t just protect against fire. They also muffle any sound coming out of the house and make sure that anyone looking into the house sees nothing amiss. If you aren’t keyed into the wards, the house is basically a black hole, sense wise. Scott hasn’t been part of my wards since I figured out how to cast them.”

“I am less and less impressed with Scott and his ability to make decisions with every year,” Derek muttered as he pulled Stiles into a hug. “You smell like an airplane.”

“Because I got off an airplane three hours ago, Sourwolf,” Stiles bitched back as he tucked his face into the crook of his boyfriends’ neck. “He’s been getting worse and worse as the years have gone by. It’s like something has been slowly unraveling our friendship for years.”

“I know,” Derek agreed. “We’ll handle it.”

Stiles snuggled in closer. “He’s no longer my friend, is he?”

“No son, he isn’t,” his dad confirmed before he ran a hand over his head. “He’s working himself up to be an enemy since around the time of the darach. And I can’t honestly see any way to stop it at this point.”

“Damn it,” Stiles breathed before he pulled in a deep breath. “We’ll figure out something.”

“We will,” Derek gave him a final squeeze before pressing a kiss against the side of his head. “Let’s go inside. I’m sure you want a shower.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. He pulled his keys out and popped the trunk. “I did bring gifts though.”

“Good call, son,” his dad said. He sounded relieved the subject had been changed. “Derek’s been keeping an eye on me.”

“Noah’s been good with his diet,” Derek confirmed. “And he’s not sneaking the breakroom donuts.”

“I never should have made sure you two got along,” Stiles sighed as he stepped away from Derek and pulled his suitcases out of the trunk. “Neither of you can lie for shit.”

“You wound me, son,” his dad called as he headed for the front door. “It’s like you don’t trust me or something.”

“I don’t. Not when it comes to bacon, donuts, and curly fries,” Stiles called. He ignored the laughter that got him, glad his dad was in a better mood. “Once more into the breach?”

Derek nodded before picking up both suitcases and walking towards the door. “Let’s get started then.”

“Show off,” Stiles muttered as he followed the love of his life into the house. When Derek started laughing too, Stiles smiled. They would deal with Scott, Deaton, and the rest of their bullshit later. He had a family reunion to deal with and then hot sex. McCall and crew were a later issue to deal with.