#tagging it just in case cuz this fic is not gonna be him friendly

[ghostieblr]

<- Part 2 | Untitled

When he decides enough is enough, he also realizes he has no clue how to fix this. Research has always been Stiles' forte, and Derek is, admittedly, not the best with the internet.

But he does have a penchant for reading.

Determined, he makes his way towards the vault below the high school, with a quick detour to Wendy's to get something to eat. There, he goes through the drive-through, and valiantly ignores the fact that Stiles' blue jeep is sitting in the parking lot, and that he can hear him flirting with the waitress. Instead, he quickly vanishes under the cover of the night, and finds himself near the high school in minutes.

Demons aren't common. They don't appear out of nowhere, they're summoned — in this case by a bunch of kids, supposedly — that much he knows. But the summoning ritual itself, what it is and how it's done, and why, is a mystery to him. Someone in this town has been dabbling in things they shouldn't have, and now he — Stiles — is paying the price.

The books in the vault are old and dusty, as well as disorganized. It takes him a while to pick up three books on demons, and he decides he'll start with these and come back tomorrow for more.

Once back at the loft, he tries his best to not look anywhere that would remind him of Stiles as he eats in record seconds and starts on his research. Except, there's Stiles' red hoodie on the back of one of the dining chairs; his copy of Percy Jackson on Derek's bedside table; his favorite flavor of chips on top of the kitchen counters.

He reads. He reads and reads, and barely anything talks about the aftereffects of a deal with a demon. All three books warn of the consequences, but don't elaborate. It's half information to him, but it's still half more than he had before reading them, so he sighs and lays his head against the couch, trying to think what he should do next.

What Will Stiles Do Next?

The morning has dawned, sunlight splashing across his face as he sits sprawled on his couch, and he is no closer to a solution than he was last night. Perhaps he could start with investigating the summoners — He did get the scent of the kids there in that clearing, but finding them with just that isn't going to be easy. But it's a start, and hell if he isn't going to do everything in his power to fix Stiles.

Except does Stiles actually need fixing? Sure, he's turned vicious towards Derek, but he sounded like himself when Derek heard him flirting with that waitress. Carefree and genuine, with his dorky jokes and cascading laughter.

He'll investigate for the sake of his own heart, but if it turns out this is better for Stiles', then he'll leave it be. Rest this case. He's used to the cruelty of the universe, so what's one more time? What's another loved one lost to the hands of fate?

Sighing, he makes his way towards his bed — where Stiles was only hours ago — and manages to fall asleep after some of turning and tossing.

It's only been a meager few hours when there's a loud pounding against the door, and he slips out of bed, in his sleeped-in henley and jeans, to a harried looking Lydia Martin.

She smells of panic, and she looks so too, but in a sort of way that's still impeccable. If a stranger looked at her, they'd think she's alright; it's because he knows her that he knows that something is wrong.

"What's wrong?" He asks her as she brisks past into his home, and she doesn't move to say anything until her purse has been put on the coffee table. Except, her eyes catch on the books he'd brought from the vault, and her mouth snaps shut in shock for a moment.

"You read those?" She asks instead of answering him.

"Yes."

"They're in Archaic Latin," she says, like she didn't think he'll ever have a cause to know them. The surprise of it tilts into anger as she continues, "You know what's wrong! How long have you known? What did Stiles do this time, Derek?"

He feels his insides go cold. "This is about Stiles."

"Yes! And you know what's going on with him. We need to fix it."

She says it matter-of-fact. Of course Derek would help when it comes to Stiles, wouldn't he?

"Why didn't you go to Scott?" He can smell multiple people on her, like she'd been out in a mall or something, and yet the most prominent smell remains. Of course it's Stiles' scent; Now that he's woken up enough for his senses to work properly, he can conclude that she met him recently. It's what, around twelve at the moment? He glances at the clock to confirm — it's been three hours since he went to sleep. "He'll be better equipped to handle this."

Lydia's eye twitches at the statement, like it's fucking stupid. "You have to be kidding me right now," she hisses. "Scott might be an Alpha, but he is no way Stiles'. Never has been. He has no clue how to take care of his pack, and definitely none about solving problems like the one we currently have, without Stiles whispering solutions in his ear. Which would be difficult at the moment, considering Stiles is the problem we currently have."

"If he can't help, why do you think I can?" He can't help anyone.

Lydia takes a few menacing steps forward, her heels clicking like bullets. She's tiny, but her presence is huge, and it takes him a conscious effort to not move backwards. "You," her voice is crisp, clear, crystal fucking steel, "are the only one who can."

He looks at her, the determination and the concern. She's Stiles' friend, and she has a right to protect him. It takes him by surprise that she's come to him to protect Stiles, because who is he but the reason of Stiles' ruin? But she's also smart, and he'll follow her; the two of them have a common cause, after all, even if his stems from feelings he can't quite shake, and hers has grown from a mutual foundation of respect and genius that remains unmatched to anything Derek has ever seen before.

He asks, "What's the plan?" And, "What happened?"

Lydia's laugh is without any humor. "He was flirting," she says it with bewilderment, like it is unfathomable. "He was flirting with the cashier, the guy at the gas station, the damn librarian! And me."

The outburst breaks him as much as it perplexes him. "Lydia, he's a healthy 21 year old man."

Lydia doesn't seem to appreciate his honesty, and this time when she marches forward, he does take a step back. "Boys!" Her snarl is almost like a wolf's, a sound of frustration coming deep from her bones. "You are all so — Derek Hale, something is very, very wrong," she stops for a breath, and here, he intervenes.

"He is free from his shackles," he tells her. He's been thinking, in the little time he's been awake, and since he'd put the books down and not quite managed to sleep yet, that what had been missing in his interaction with Stiles since the deal was warmth. Affection.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, doesn't it? With the heat there, he'd always disregarded it as part of his illusions; demoted the looks of longing and care towards a box labeled "unworthy" in his brain. And now that warmth has been sucked out with the teeth of a literal demon, and all he's felt since then has been the cold reality. That perhaps Stiles had felt the same for him as he does for Stiles, but it's all gone now, taken.

He misses Stiles from before, but had he really deserved the devotion? Of having been worthy to be included in the most precious things that the demon took from Stiles?

Lydia's voice snaps him out of his thoughts. "Derek, what happened?" When he doesn't answer, head down, she repeats forcefully, "What the hell happened on that perimeter run?"

He looks up, and all he sees is a concerned friend. Perhaps the demon took more than just the warmth for Derek — maybe it burned away the roots of care itself.

"I'll tell you, after you tell me what happened exactly."

Lydia swears, says, "Talking with you is like going in fucking circles," and then, "He's vicious."

"I'm not for everybody," it's his turn to chuckle without humor, and then his to be startled into silence when he gets the reply:

"No, but you are for Stiles." She takes a moment to read his expression, hardly hidden behind a mask at the moment. "Christ, men are dumb. Derek Hale, Stiles has been in love with you for ages, and whatever happened to him yesterday has taken away a primal part of him. Whatever happened, it has changed him, to the point that the person who wouldn't even look towards another person, no matter how much his type, or how hot, has started to flirt with everything that moves and keeps commenting that he'll sleep with me even if it's stupid. That he's so over this town and its hold on him. And that there's nothing tying him to this town, nothing."

"He has his dad here."

"And he has us, his pack. You know, he told me last week he's planning on joining the BHPD while he earns another Bachelor's online after his current one?"

Derek's lips part in surprise. "He's planning to stay. Or he was."

"Exactly my point. So, how many times more do I have to ask —"

"He made a deal with a demon."

Lydia's breaths come out sharper at his admission. She moves back, gives them both space. Paces the floor of his loft, click-click-click.

He gives in, admits further, "During the perimeter run, we came across an abandoned clearing. From the smell of it some high school kids had been staying there, but something had happened there. There were all these things for a ritual, and when Stiles tried to investigate, a demon appeared. We tried asking it where are the kids, but it won't give a clear cut answer to us, and then it asked Stiles to give his most precious thing to him as a trade. I tried to protect him but I never do anything right, do I?"

"This is not the time for your self-loathing, schedule that later."

Always so cynically to-the-point. Derek scoffs, continues, "He did it, he agreed, and then came here. He couldn't stay upright and fell face-first on my bed, didn't wake up for a couple of hours, and when he did he was... vicious. Cruel. Cold."

Lydia picks up the book on the top, the last one he was reading. She motions for him to continue, and he takes a deep breath.

She's already told him Stiles loves him. Maybe that is true in the ways he wants it to be, or it isn't, but in Lydia's mind his delusions are true. And anyways, what is vulnerability in the name of saving Stiles?

"At first I figured it was just me. That whatever he had sacrificed only skewed his feelings for me, but now... I don't think so."

"So what are you thinking now?" She points to the book, now open to the middle, her face somewhere between plain and panicked. Closer to the Lydia he's used to. "This says the demons are like the Fae, they twist their words to benefit themselves. According to me, the most precious thing he has in this world are his feelings for you."

Derek makes a noise of disagreement. "Not me. His dad is the most — " Lydia looks at him sharply.

"Not the time for you to hate yourself," she repeats, "You are. Another possibility could be his affection."

He gets it. He's been thinking this, rather than her ludicrous idea of — of. "The demon took away his unending care for the people in his life."

Her eyes flick between the pages open in front of her and him. "Or both." She says at length. "We need to find those meddlesome kids."

"You sound like every villain in Scooby Doo," he says, and it strikes him as odd, that in the middle of all this, he's not thinking why did I say it? Instead he's stuck on Stiles would appreciate the joke.

"And you fucking wonder why you would be the person he cares for most," Lydia mutters under her breath, piling up all three books in her hand. "Come on, we need to get to work. I want to finish this today. What did the demon tell you?"

She's by the door before he takes a step towards the direction of it.

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Didn't it make a fucking deal with Stiles?"

"It also promised none other of his kind would come to our town," he says, and smiles sardonically as they both descend the stairs. "Which means that thing is still here and will probably only tell things to Stiles."

"He's the one it made a deal with," she agrees, and pulls out her keys from her purse. Derek takes a seat on the passenger seat without any protests, but he dreads what Lydia says next. "So we need him."

He'd deduced that much.

"He's under its influence," she says, but it sounds more like a reminder than a statement. As if she's trying to reassure the both of them.

"Where would he be now?" Normally, Derek would be aware of it, because Stiles texts him these things. It's a question he hasn't had to ask in a long time in regards to Stiles.

"Hopefully, still at the mall where I left him without a ride." He gives her a look as she turns on the engine and pulls out of the parking lot of his building. "What? I couldn't stand him."

"And you both had some shopping plans."

"It was not a fun experience," she states. "Not how it usually is."

"Alright." He takes a pause, and decides if he really wants to say what he's going to next or not. He goes along with it, because really, what's the harm? And at least he'll get to tell it to Stiles later — hopefully. So he says, "Let's solve this mystery," and imagines Stiles' raucous laughter instead of Lydia's side-glare at it.