#in also laying on the floor thinking about how argent and step can/was taught to be what people require of them

[sidesteppostinghours]

should i be asleep right now???? probably. but i cant do that right now because im busy crying about the parallels between step and argent.

[tw-anchor]

32. The Tragedy of Derek and Paige

Anchor

Stiles Stilinski x Original Character

Episode: 3x08; Visionary

Word Count: 3,809

Warning(s): Mature language, sad stories, grief

Author’s Note: I will never stop saying that Derek deserved better. I hope you enjoy the chapter. Make sure to reblog, like, and tell me what you think!

Masterlist in Pinned Post!

Olivia hadn't been home in two days. Fortunately, Natalie didn't ask any questions about her sudden desire to sleep over at Derek's house, and Lydia also covered for her when she did start to get suspicious. She was glad that she could stay with Cora, Isaac, and even Peter while mourning Boyd. She and Cora supported each other through their loss of a packmate and friend, while Peter, surprisingly, took care of them.

Honestly, Olivia wasn't doing so great in the aftermath of Boyd's death. With Erica's death, it didn't affect her as much—she had a suspicion is was because Erica and Boyd had left Derek's pack at that point, and after Erica died, Boyd joined the pack again which led to a better connection. But's Boyd's death really hurt. Losing a pack member really did feel like losing a part of yourself, and the added guilt about helping with the plan that eventually was a part of Boyd's death didn't add any relief.

After all that Boyd had gone through, he deserved way better than what he got.

But grief wasn't the only thing going on in her mind. Olivia was the anchor of the pack and that meant that she had to live up to the name. Her mind was constantly distracted, bouncing back in forth from Isaac's mind, to Cora, and then all the way to Derek, who was grieving by himself in the distillery just outside of town. They weren't in danger of turning because of their sadness but she was able to help anyway, sending out calming vibes through the tethers that connected them to her.

Currently, Isaac was the hardest to calm down. Due to his upbringing, he was more emotional than Derek or Cora were and he had been friends with Boyd since elementary school. She kept close to him, wanting to help him however she could, and after a night full of restlessness, he was finally napping on the couch, his feet laid in her lap.

"...Peter brought Derek to a cellar in the woods," Cora was finishing up the story of when Peter and Derek had to hide from the Argent hunters years ago. "They were there for two days, waiting, hiding. That's what we're taught to do when the hunters find us—hide and heal."

"Okay, so is two days standard then, or are we thinking Derek's on, like, some extended getaway?" Stiles asked Cora from his seat next to Olivia on the couch.

Despite his impatience about Derek and his leave of absence, having Stiles at the loft helped Olivia more than he could know. It was like he was her anchor. He gave her strength to stay strong for the pack.

Cora turned away from the rain-splattered window and narrowed her eyes at him. "Why do you care?"

"Why do I care?" Stiles repeated sarcastically. "Let's see...because over the last few weeks, my best friend tried to kill himself, my girlfriend has been going crazy trying to keep all the werewolves calm, Scott's boss nearly got ritually sacrificed, Boyd was killed by the alphas...I—do you want me to keep going?" he raised an eyebrow at her. "'Cause I can, all right? For, like, an hour—"

"All right, Stiles," Olivia murmured, resting her head on his shoulder.

"You think Derek can do anything about that?" Cora asked grumpily.

"Well, since he's the one everyone seems to be after, it's more like he should do something about it, yeah."

Olivia wished Stiles would give Derek some slack. Yeah, Derek needed to step up and help out, but he was also going through something horrible. He had just lost two betas, one which he killed with his own claws—which wasn't his fault, but Derek wouldn't see it that way—and the alpha pack was also trying to kill him. That was more than the average person could take. Maybe Stiles wasn't very sympathetic because he couldn't feel what Derek was going through, but Olivia could. And if she was going through what Derek was at the moment, she wouldn't be able to get out of bed each day.

"I don't know," Cora mused, walking over to the table full of books. "There's something different about him now. He wasn't like this when I knew him."

That's because you skipped out and made everyone think you were dead, Olivia remarked mentally. And Derek shouldered the guilt of the Hale House fire—even though Kate Argent raped and manipulated him into giving out the house's whereabouts and members of the pack—taking care of himself, visiting Olivia every few weeks with Laura, taking care of Peter's medical care, Laura's death, and Peter's time as a crazy alpha—not to mention everything that went on before the fire, including what happened with Paige.

"What was he like?" Stiles asked.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs caught their attention. Peter slowly descended from the second floor and answered, "A lot like Scott, actually," he walked over to stand by Cora as he elaborated. "A lot like most teenagers—unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic, tolerable really onto to other teenagers."

"So what happened?" Stiles looked at Peter expectantly. "What changed him?"

"Well, the same thing that changes a lot of young men," Peter answered. "A girl."

Stiles scoffed. "You're telling me some girl broke his little heart?" he asked in disbelief. "That's why Derek is the way he is?"

"She wasn't just any girl," Olivia gently picked up Isaac's feet and got up, laying them back down on the couch. She wandered over to her father and cousin, Stiles following shortly after.

"Mm," Peter nodded in agreement before addressing her and Cora, "Do you remember Derek before he was an alpha and had blue eyes?" Olivia nodded; it had only been half a year since Derek became an alpha. Peter turned to Stiles now. "Do you know why some wolves have blue eyes?"

Stiles shrugged, shaking his head. "I just always thought it was, like, a genetic thing."

"If you want to know what changed Derek, you need to know what changed the color of his eyes," Peter declared. "You know the story, don't you, pumpkin?"

"Some of it," Olivia twisted her lips.

"I'll fill in in some places."

"Okay," Olivia inhaled deeply and started recalling everything that Derek had told her from that part of his life.

Derek was a sophomore when he met Paige Krasikeva. He was popular, one of the younger members of the varsity basketball team whilst being one of the stars. He was different back then. Derek had a charming personality and he used to be one to tell jokes and make friends with everyone.

One day, while Derek was missing around with his friends in the hallway with a basketball, they disturbed Paige's cello practice. According to Derek, Paige was sassy and quick-witted despite her shy nature and when she stormed over to confront them, Derek was immediately intrigued. He showed off with the basketball, doing some tricks he had picked up on the court, and when Paige was unimpressed, Derek gave her an offer: if she could get the basketball away from him, he'd bring the ball and his friends elsewhere.

Paige took the dare, but was unable to get the basketball away from her. He happened to show off even more in the process. His cockiness unimpressed Paige and she ended up walking away. Still intrigued by her, he followed her back to the music room and apologized. She brushed him off, but it didn't discourage him; he ended up asking her name. After a little tack, in which Derek had to play a triangle for whatever reason, Paige ended up sharing her name with Derek.

"Okay, so if Derek was a sophomore back then, how old was he?" Stiles asked when she came to a natural pause in the story. He pointed at Peter and added, "How old were you? How old are you now?"

"Not as young as we could have been, but not as old as you might think," Peter answered; Olivia's lips twitched as she rolled her eyes.

"Okay, that was frustratingly vague," Stiles sighed, exasperated, and turned to where Olivia and Cora were sitting. "I know Livvy's sixteen. How old are you?"

"I'm seventeen."

"See, that's an answer," Stiles pointed at Cora. "That's how we answer people."

Cora burst his bubble, hiding her smirk. "Well, seventeen in how you'd measure in years."

"Are you serious?!"

"They're messing with you," Olivia told him with an amused smile. "Peter's thirty-five, Cora's seventeen, and Derek's twenty-five. He was sixteen when he was a sophomore."

"Okay, I take back my previous statement," Stiles gave her a grateful look as he threw his arm over her shoulders. "That is how we answer someone."

"Says the king of sarcasm," she told him with a light laugh.

"Don't bring me into this," Stiles nudged her head with his own. "Okay, so, what happened to Derek and the cello girl?"

"Her name was Paige."

"Right," Stiles stated after Olivia corrected him. "What happened with Derek and Paige?"

"What do you think happened?" Peter raised his eyebrows at Stiles. "They were teenagers. One minute, it's 'I hate you, don't talk to me,' and then the next minute, it's frantic groping in any dark corner they could manage to find themselves alone for five minutes."

Olivia and Stiles glanced at one another; they knew what that was like.

Peter continued, narrowing his eyes at Stiles. He may not be overly protective of his daughter but he didn't want to know what she and her hormonal little boyfriend were getting up to in their private time. "Their favorite dark corner was an abandoned distillery outside of Beacon Hills."

Olivia turned away from Stiles to give her a father a questioning look. Why on earth would he know Derek and Paige's make-out spot?

"All right, hold up," Stiles interjected, thinking along the same lines as Olivia. "How do you know all this? You just said that they were alone."

Peter leaned forward at his seat next on the couch, bracing his elbows on his knees. "Back then, I wasn't just Derek's uncle. I was his best friend, his closest confidante. That's how I know."

Peter filled in some of the blanks where Olivia hadn't known the details. Mostly, she didn't know about these because Derek either forgot or he didn't know what was going on behind the scenes.

One day, while Derek and Paige were having alone time in the distillery—the same distillery where Derek was hiding now—they had to leave because Derek caught the scent of some unknown werewolves. Peter explained that it wasn't just any random werewolves, but they happened to be three different packs—Ennis' pack, Kali's pack, and Deucalion's pack—along with the adults in the Hale pack. They had gathered together to discuss one of the werewolves in Ennis' pack who was murdered by the Argents.

The three packs argued with each other, mostly on Kali's side—which didn't surprise Olivia—until Laura spoke up about working together. Deucalion sided with the Hale pack—apparently he was a sort of peace keeper back in the day—especially when Talia Hale, the Hale pack's alpha and Derek's mother, stepped in. The four alphas discussed what they were going to do about the Argents, and Ennis insisted on war. He declared it with a swirl—the mark for vengeance.

"Our mark for vendetta," Peter, who had walked over to the steamed-over window, drew the swirl, much like he had down when he was an alpha.

"Man, you guys really take that revenge thing to, like, a whole new level, don't you?" Stiles commented, folding his fingers together while he watched Peter skeptically.

"It's not just revenge," Cora told him firmly. "Losing a member of your pack isn't like losing family. It's like you lose a limb."

Stiles looked over at Olivia for confirmation and visibly softened when she nodded in agreement with Cora. He unfolded his hands and took one of hers, squeezing it tightly. It was a silent apology, one that Olivia instantly forgive. How was he to know what it was like? He wasn't a werewolf or, in her case, an anchor.

"They wouldn't even let Ennis see the body," Peter informed them. "Some deputy had to escort him out of the hospital."

"I don't get it," Cora shook her head. "What does this have to do with Derek?"

"Everything," Peter turned away from the window and walked back over to them. "It's never just a single moment. It's a confluence of events. Personally, I looked at Ennis' circumstances and I saw a profound loss. Derek saw something different. He saw opportunity."

Olivia bit the inside of her cheek. Peter wasn't just telling Derek's story now, he was elaborating. A lot. Derek had told her himself that it was Peter who gave him the idea to have Paige take the bite, not him. Peter was lying, manipulating himself into someone better than he was.

"Opportunity?" Stiles wondered. "To do what?"

"To always be with her," Peter told him. "The thing was, he had this constant fear. He was obsessing over it. Thinking about it all night, all day, always on his mind."

Although Peter gave Stiles and Cora his version of the story, Olivia knew better. Derek had told her how Peter had shown up to his school and spoke to him about Paige. Peter told him that Paige would run away from him if she found out lycanthropy and manipulated him into turning her so they could be together forever.

"I kept telling him not to do it," Peter said passionately; Olivia looked over at Stiles and Cora, hoping that they weren't falling for his shit. Luckily for her, she had a smart—and hot—boyfriend, who glanced at her and rolled his eyes, mocking Peter behind his back. "Every day the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became."

Having dramatically turned away from them, Peter faced them again. "You know teenagers," he acted like he was sad. "I bet he even blames me. He's probably convinced himself the whole thing was my idea."

Again, Peter gave his side of the story. He left out the fact that he had gone to Derek's basketball practice and told him about the werewolf who died in Ennis' pack. He spoke about the opportunity Derek had, where Ennis could turn Paige and she be in his pack.

After that, Peter moved on. He shared the story of how he, Laura, and Talia went to the animal clinic to meet up with Dr. Deaton, Deucalion, and his second-in-command. They spoke about Ennis and his frowned-upon decision to wage war against the Argent hunters. Deucalion wanted to extend a treaty of peace, but Talia and Dr. Deaton warned against it, citing that the Argents had a matriarchal chain in command and that Gerard Argent was a psychopath. Deucalion didn't listen to them, and instead set up a meeting between his pack and the Argents.

"Hold on," Stiles interrupted. "What's an emissary?"

"They go back to when werewolves just started shifting," Olivia explained. "It was thought that druids knew how to shapeshift and could help the werewolves turn back to their human form. They give the alpha advice, knowledge, and keep packs connected to their humanity."

"They're a secret in the pack, though," Cora added. "Sometimes only the alpha knows who the emissary is. We had no idea about Deaton."

"Or his sister, Morrell," Peter tacked on.

"She's an emissary, too?" Stiles raised his voice, totally shocked about Morrell. Olivia, herself, was shocked; she knew about Morrell being Deaton's sister, but she hadn't know that she was an emissary.

Peter nodded. "For the alpha pack."

Olivia's eyes widened in surprise while Stiles' voice became even louder. "Our guidance counselor?" he burst out; Olivia rubbed his back to bring him some comfort; the poor guy had spent an hour a week with Ms. Morrell since he started high school and he was bound to be betrayed. "Why the hell don't you people tell me any of this stuff, huh? I shared some really intimate details with her."

"And did she give you good advice?" Cora prompted, looking unimpressed with his outburst.

Stiles paused. "Actually, yeah."

"That's what they do," Peter reminded him. "That's what Deaton used to do for Talia."

Stiles sighed in frustration, just wanting to get the rest of the story over with. It wasn't that he was bored, he didn't want to admit it, but the story was actually interesting when Peter wasn't putting on a show that all of them could see through. "Okay, so what happened with Paige?"

"I went to Ennis on Derek's behalf and told him about a girl interested in the bite," Peter stated.

"Ennis?" Cora asked with pursed lips, disappointed with Peter's choice of alpha. "Why would you choose him?"

"Why not?" Peter countered. "Ennis needed a new member for his pack. Paige was young and strong. Doing a favor for Derek meant that Ennis would be in good with Talia. Back then, everybody wanted to be in good with her.

"He doesn't remember it was Ennis, does he?" Stiles spoke up.

"I don't know," Olivia said with a small shrug of her shoulder. "I didn't even know until Peter told us that he was the alpha to bite Paige. If he does remember, he kept it to himself."

"So, then what happened?" Stiles looked between Peter and Olivia for an answer. "Did he turn her?"

"Almost," Peter was the one to speak; all Olivia knew was that Paige didn't take to the bite—much like Jackson didn't before he turned into the kanima—and that she was in so much pain at the end that Derek had to kill her to make it stop. "They were at the school at night and Ennis came for her. Derek heard her struggling and came at Ennis. A fifteen-year-old boy against a giant. There was no reason for him to fight. She'd already been bitten."

"So, did she turn?"

"She should have," Peter told Cora. "Most of the time, the bite takes. Most of the time."

Stiles perked up, remembering what Peter had told him right after he bit Olivia and before he offered to bite him. "When you offered it to me, you said, 'If it doesn't kill you.'"

"If," Peter nodded in confirmation. "Derek took her to the Nemeton, the cellar where Derek and I hid from the hunters when Ennis' beta was killed. I went to them and he asked me what was happening to her. He knew the answer, though. It didn't matter that she was young and strong. Some people just aren't made for this."

"She fought, though," Olivia said sadly, thinking about the utter sadness on Derek's face when he recalled the last moments he had with Paige. "In the end, though, she was in too much pain. She begged Derek to help her."

"You mean...?"

Olivia nodded at Stiles, making him press his lips together in empathy.

"I remember taking her body from his arms, into the woods, and to a place where I knew that it would be found..." Peter did seem genuinely sad about how Paige's life ended. "another in a long line of Beacon Hills animal attacks."

Olivia blinked back tears as Cora asked, "And what about Derek?"

"Taking an innocent life...it takes some from you as well. A bit of your soul, darkening it, dimming the once brilliant, golden yellow to a cold, steel blue," Peter explained. He flashed his werewolf eyes as an example. "Like mine."

-

Olivia played with the fingers on Stiles' free hand, rubbing her fingertips over his nails, down the knuckles, and to the freckled back of them. She kissed his palm every so often, her mind swirling around in a dark place.

She thought about Derek and Paige's story and how she would act if she and Stiles were in their place. If she was in the exact same situation as Derek was in—the Hale pack was still alive, her mother was alive, the war against the Argents, and if she had been an actual werewolf and not an anchoram—maybe she would have done the same thing. The thing was, Derek didn't mean any harm to Paige. He loved her so, so much.

Her heart hurt for her cousin. He had to mercy kill the love of his life and honestly, she didn't think she would survive if she had to do the same thing with Stiles. Derek was one of the strongest people she had ever and will ever know. He was basically one of the people she admired the most because of his strength.

"What are you thinking so hard about?" Stiles asked her as he stopped at a red light.

"Derek and Paige," Olivia murmured, looking over at him and just...she was so lucky that she loved someone like Stiles. He was so funny and sweet and handsome and smart—he was everything she would ever want.

"I was thinking about them, too," he admitted. As the light went green and he pressed on the gas to move forward, he added, "I don't believe Peter. I mean, you know how we're reading Heart of Darkness in Ms. Blake's class?"

Olivia nodded and hummed.

"It's in first person, it's Marlow's perspective," he expanded, though he knew she already knew what he was talking about. "The thing is that he's an unreliable narrator. You know the details of it have changed, you know, just because of his perspective."

"I know what you mean, and you're right," Olivia informed him. "All that stuff about how Derek was adamant about turning Paige? It wasn't true."

Stiles raised his eyebrows at her, glancing at her quickly. "Derek told you?"

"Yeah, I was eleven or twelve and I asked him why his eyes were blue," she shared. "He told me about Paige and how she died. Peter was the one to orchestrate the whole thing, he manipulated Derek. He and Derek were hardly close."

"Your dad's a dick," Stiles scowled. "I mean, I'm not Derek's greatest fan, but Peter takes the whole fucking cake."

Olivia laughed lightly. "Yeah, I know," she hesitated and continued, "I know Derek's not helping out as much as he should, but he's going through a hard time. He lost Erica and Boyd, and everything that happened reminded him of all the pain he went through with Paige."

"All right, I'll cut him some slack," Stiles gave in, only for her. "but only because if we were in that situation, I'd be devastated."

"Me too," Olivia pressed her lips to his palm once again. "I love you, Stiles."

"I love you, too."