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Derek takes it all back. This plan is stupid, he’s stupid, Stiles is stupid, and they’re all going to die.
He’s sweating profusely as he treks back through the forest, Stiles’s scent-masking spell still tingling across his skin. When he sees Scott and the others come into view, he takes a breath in. Then out. It’ll be okay. He approaches them, making sure he’s in their line of sight. “It’s going to be dark soon,” he says to them, not quite meeting anyone’s eye. “Please, come enjoy dinner with us and stay the night. We can regroup tomorrow. If you’d like, you can watch our last round of training tomorrow morning, and then Scott and I can take you back out here to search again.”
“But there’s not re—” the leader starts.
“Please.” Derek says. “The woods are very dangerous at night.” The group glares at him, but agrees. Scott begins to lead them away, Derek trailing behind.
The dark-haired girl finds her place next to him, keeping pace. “So did you really shoot the dragon?” She asks cordially, but Derek knows it’s a ruse. He wonders if this Allison is the badass best friend Stiles is always mentioning. He bets it is.
“I shot it down,” he says carefully, “with a net. But I didn’t kill it.”
“You don’t think you killed it,” she corrects pointedly, snapping a twig beneath her foot.
“I didn’t kill him.” Derek says firmly, because the idea of even hypothetically killing Stiles bothers and disturbs him deeply. She looks at him sideways, nods once, and looks straight ahead again, still right beside him.
“You said we could watch the training tomorrow?”
“Yes,” he grunts.
“Are you in it?”
“Yes.”
“And your friend?” She nods her head towards Scott and her dark curls bounce.
“No. It’s against his nature to do anything like that unless he’s defending the pack. He’ll probably be watching, though.”
“What training like?” She asks. Then tacks on quickly “We don’t do that sort of thing in our human village.”
Derek thinks about it in his head first, because if she actually is Stiles’s friend than she’s used to his stories and descriptions and words that paint an undeniably vivid picture in her mind. “Well we have this huge arena. It’s all wooden and stone, the walls too high for us to climb and chains linked across the top to keep dragons from flying away. During training, our trainer preps a dragon for us and then lets it loose. He only gives us a limited number of resources each time, and most of the time they’re totally unhelpful. The goal is to defeat the dragon. Make it use up all its shots or just weaken it enough to grab it and drag it back to its cage.”
“Its shots?” She asks.
“Yeah, the number of times a dragon can shoot their fire without having to recharge somehow. If a dragon uses up all of its shots, we consider it dead and put it back in its cage.”
“So you don’t actually kill any?” She looks startled.
Derek shakes his head. “The main goal is to teach our pups to defend themselves. We don’t want any more casualties than necessary.”
Allison looks flat-out guilty, and Derek thinks that she’s lucky he knows about her, otherwise she might be giving herself away.
They get into town, where everyone has gone back to their everyday jobs. Vendors are yelling at passerbys to buy their products, and said passerbys are glaring meaningfully in their direction. Scott leads them all to Derek’s house, which is where they would all be staying. Talia agrees to house them wholeheartedly, serving them dinner with gusto. Once they’re all sitting awkwardly at the table, she leans forward, looking excited at the prospect of them all staying for training tomorrow.
“Oh, you must all stay for a few days! The day after tomorrow is our Training Tournament, and this year it’s one you will not want to miss.”
“Oh?” The leader, who has identified himself as Chris, asks. His icy blue eyes look like they’re glowing.
“Yes, we’ve all been excited about the pup pool this year. We have very strong pups, my son included.” She looks up and smiles at him. “Derek is the best of all our trainees right now, according to both my brother Peter and one of our pack elders.”
Derek knows his ears are bright red, and he looks down at his plate of potatoes and beef. “That must be quite an accomplishment, Derek.” Chris says. “You must be very proud,” he directs at Talia.
She smiles widely. “I am. My son has always been different, but it is this special part of him that makes him so good at chaining dragons. One day, he shall be one of our greatest war generals.”
Derek feels his eyes flash with discomfort. “Mother,” he begins.
“Oh Derek, you know you will. You’ve been able to chain every dragon your uncle throws at you. There is no doubt in my mind that you will be the one to win the tournament.” Her eyes are alight when she turns towards their company. “Just wait and see tomorrow. You’ll be able to watch all the pups in action. They are all very impressive, but you will see why I boast of my son more than he would wish.” She lets out another smirk.
The guests all nod, pretending to be interested in the alpha, but Derek can feel each of their gazes lingering on him even though he refuses to look up. He focuses on the sound of his silverware clacking against his porcelain plate. He spares a glance up to see Stiles’s father looking right at him, like he can see through his physical body and into his soul. The man doesn’t look angry or spiteful, though. Instead, he looks wrecked; ruined and sad at the thought of his son being dead. It’s worse than the latter, and Derek has trouble swallowing around the lump in his throat for the rest of the meal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s weird, but Stiles’s dad—the man they call “Sheriff”—seeks him out after dinner. He finds the werewolf sitting just outside, perched on top of an old wooden picnic table in front of a large fire. Sheriff takes a seat next to him, laying his hands across his lap.
“It’s what we call a fire of life.” Derek says, eyes never leaving the flames. “We keep them going all night to protect the people inside our houses. Every single residence has one, no matter how big or small.” He pauses. “It proves how strong we are together when all of our fires are burning together, all at once.”
“That a nice thought,” Sheriff says softly.
They sit in silence, and Derek can feel his palms sweating. He wonders what it would be like if werewolves and dragons got along, or if Stiles and his family and friends were werewolves as well. Would Derek have had to of met Sheriff before being able to take Stiles out dancing? Would he be friends with Allison and the ever-brilliant Lydia? Would he hate “Jackson the Douche?” Would he and Stiles even look twice at each other?
Derek steals a glance at Sheriff and he can just imagine the man cleaning his weapon right in front of Derek, smiling threateningly. He can see the guy planting a wolfsbane garden to scare him, hiding mountain ash around Stiles’s room (or at least bed arrangements).
Derek secretly wonders what it would be like to ask the Sheriff for Stiles’s hand in mating. He wonders if Stiles and him would have a “wedding.” He thinks of the look on Stiles’s face as they swing in circles at their mating ceremony. He wonders what being life mated to Stiles Stilinski would be like, and for a moment he lets himself go, lets himself fantasize.
Sheriff clears his throat and Derek jolts, forgetting that the man was even there. “I have a son,” he says, hands clasped. “And you remind me of him because of how much you aren’t like him.” He chuckles. “My son is loud, and impulsive, and he’s the most gangly thing you’ve ever met. He lacks all kind of poise and has manners, but usually forgets to use them.” He stops, and turns from the fire to Derek. “He’s been missing for a while, and I miss him. But you remind me of him by being almost everything he’s not. And in some odd, twisted way, I want to thank you for that.”
Derek looks over, surprised. But he quickly schools his expression and feigns ignorance. “You talk about him like he’s already gone.”
Sheriff shakes his head. “Like I said, he’s been gone a long time. I’m not sure if he’s ever coming back. Even if he was alive, I wouldn’t blame him for staying away.”
Derek swallows. They’re getting into territory that he’s not comfortable and definitely not experienced with. He’s got to play it right. “I think any son would be happy to have a father like you and friends like the ones inside,” he starts, “and would do whatever he thinks is right for them.”
The old man smiles a little. “That’s Stiles.”
“Stiles?”
“My son,” he backtracks, eyes glazing over as he looks into the fire. “My wife was killed when he was about ten, and I’ve always wondered if I’m enough for him.” Sheriff looks at Derek seriously. “If he had the chance to leave, I’d want him to take it.”
Derek refuses to look at him again. “No disrespect sir, but why are you telling me all this?”
Sheriff eyes Derek, a smirk playing silently at his mouth. “I believe you’ve met my son.”
Derek, so startled at the nonchalance in the man’s voice that he chokes on air for a second, immediately goes on the defensive. “Why would you think that?”
He smiles. “You may be a good liar, but I’ve trained all my life to pick lies from truths. You’ve been hiding the fact that you’ve met my son.” Derek sits quietly, staring at the fire. He neither confirms nor denies it. “It’s okay,” Sheriff says. “I’m actually grateful that you’ve kept quiet. Chris can be a bit…impulsive. But please, tell me he’s alright.”
Derek swallows, wondering if this is somehow a trap, but realizes that the man hasn’t lied to him once since he’s been here. “He’s fine.” Derek says, and the Sheriff almost cries out in relief. “He lost his foot and shin, but we made him another one and he’s been learning how to use it. He…he misses you all, but he can’t come home to you yet.”
Sheriff shakes his head. “I don’t want him to. I want him to fake his death, make sure he’s completely removed from our lives. But before he leaves for good, you have to tell him that he has to take Lydia with him. We’ll arrange a time and place, but she needs to leave. If the Leaders think him dead, then he’ll be able to get in and out with her with no problems.”
Derek shakes his head. “It won’t be necessary, sir. We have a plan.”
Sheriff immediately pales. “No no no. Stiles’s plans are always a little…defective, to put it nicely. It’s not his fault.”
Derek merely lets a little grin show on his face. “It’s okay. Our plan will work. Hopefully.” He leans in closer. “We have the right people on our side, and I can promise you that Stiles and I will do everything we can to help your people be free from the Leaders’ reign.”
Sheriff shakes his head. “It’s not safe. They have power over us that we cannot break or deny. We have to do their bidding.”
Derek’s eyes flash in the dark. “That’s why you’ll have us on your side. I promise that we won’t give up.” Derek pauses. “What kind of dragon are they anyway, to be this strong and have so much willpower?”
“They aren’t dragons.” Sheriff says. “They’re werewolves.”
“Werewolves? My mother is the only alpha within this piece of land, not counting Scott. She knows every wolf because this entire island is our jurisdiction.”
“They’re wolves. Three, and all alphas.”
“Oh my god.” Derek rubs his face. “This complicates things, but it also means that we think like they do. It might make taking them down easier.” He shakes his head. “Don’t worry, Sheriff, we’ll make sure that we’re prepared. We’ll free you all.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“My dad knows!?” Stiles exclaims, throwing his hands into the air with gusto. “You told him!?”
Derek rolls his eyes, overexposed and already used to Stiles’s ability to make everything over-the-top. “He figured it out, Stiles. Your dad isn’t stupid.”
“Well of course he’s not stupid. He’s my dad!” Stiles looks at the sky, then sighs into the palm of his hand. “How the hell is this going to work? I have no clue what I’m doing, you have no clue what you’re doing, and we’re all going to die.”
“No no no no no no no. You can’t start doing this now, because otherwise I’m going to get too nervous.” Derek stares right into Stiles’s eyes. “I’m already nervous to talk in front of my entire pack. I can’t not have you on my side for this.”
Stiles’s smile is almost watery and he rubs the back of his head with the flat of his palm. “Dude, we’ve been together on this from day one. I’m not gonna cop out on you now.”
“I’ve told you to stop calling me dude,” the wolf says fondly.
“Never stopped me before,” the dragon responds.
“Can I do something?” Derek asks, looking anywhere but Stiles. “Can I do something that I’ve never actually had the courage to do?”
He can hear Stiles stepping closer, but still refuses to look towards the boy. “What do you want to do?” His voice is considerably lower, lost its playful tone.
“Kiss you,” he admits, face burning. Derek can’t stop looking at a rock right beside Stiles’s left foot because it grounds him, keeps him from throwing up everything he’s eaten in the last day.
“Do it.” The dragon says, and when Derek looks up he sees Stiles right in front of him, lips parted and eyes fluttering closed. His eyelashes are long and cast a flickering shadow across his cheekbones. Derek doesn’t want to keep the kid waiting, the damn thing’s been waiting for everything in his life long enough, and he closes the gap, eyes squinted shut the second he feels his lips on Stiles’s. It’s awkward because immediately Stiles begins doing things with his mouth like he’s experienced, and Derek has no clue in hell what he’s supposed to be doing. He experiments, moving his lips a little too much, but mostly allows Stiles to lead. It’s like their dance, he realizes. A leader and a follower. He lets Stiles take his lips in his own, and Derek probes an opening with his tongue. In all his seventeen years of life he hasn’t felt something so good, and it fills him with a warmth he’s only truly recognized a few times. Happiness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Derek reluctantly leaves Stiles not long after, his swollen lips still buzzing with the taste and feel of the dragon boy. The last thing he wants to do is walk away from their moment, their time at last, but this is the most important training session he’ll attend in his entire life. He can’t afford to be late and missing it isn’t even an option.
This training will be attended by all of the “human” group, a few elders, Scott, and his mother. The pack elders and alphas are required by tradition to attend and watch, silently sizing each pup up for tomorrow’s tournament.
Derek and the rest of the pups stand in a circle, receiving a pep talk from Peter. “Now, I haven’t been doing this for a long time, but I know dragons. These dragons are feisty, they’re mean, and they’re fighting for their lives. Now more than ever. If you think you can feel the excitement in the air, just imagine what it’s like for creatures that are attuned to magic? They’re practically buzzing with the atmosphere. They know something’s up, and the brilliant self-centered little bastards think that we’re slaughtering them all tonight, as if they’re important enough to have a huge get-together for.”
Peter surveys them all. “I want each and every one of you to knock these dragons off of their high metaphorical horses. They think they’re the dominant species and that they can beat you, but I promise that you all are smarter and stronger than these assholes. Show ’em what you got.” He claps Derek on the shoulder and shoots encouraging glances at all the rest of the pups as they break the circle.
They each gear up as fast as possible, helping each other with armor and choosing their weapons. Derek still takes nothing but his father’s dagger, the one he almost ended Stiles’s life with all those weeks ago. Has it only been weeks? Or months? It feels like years since the night Derek shot the Night Fury from the sky and befriended it, grew to love it. He doesn’t regret it.
He sizes himself up in a huge breath, watching the twins as they punch each others’ armor, testing the tightness. Every pup here is willing to kill a dragon to continue the fight their parents before them started, and every single one will not hesitate in doing so. It makes Derek question his own character. Is he a failure as a member of the pack because of his reluctancy—his inability—to kill what’s supposed to be the werewolves’ sworn enemy? Derek himself doesn’t believe it makes him a monster…it makes him human.
Derek follows Cora into the arena, squinting at the sudden burst of sunlight but then letting his eyes adjust almost immediately. Every pup is standing in wait, shifting around on their toes and very aware of the curious eyes trained on their every move. Derek looks over at the “human” group. They’re all sitting erect in their seats, looking like birds trapped in a cage. Chris is already analyzing the arena, as if to weigh all his options and find plenty of ways to escape. His eyes flicker over every crevice of the place, and they narrow slightly when he finds what he must deem as a suitable getaway.
Allison seems to be studying every pup in the arena, and he can just imagine her thought process. He wonders if she’d like Erica, if she’d find Boyd’s stoic silence charming or unsettling, if the twins would endear or annoy her. He wonders if she’d take Isaac under her wing as he had, all those years ago, and seen the sweet wolf behind the silent asshole. He muses that she’d be fast friends with Cora and while they’d spar like sisters, they’d share battle tactics and talk fashion.
Sheriff is the most comfortable of them all, eyes gazing around the arena lazily. He even smiles a bit at Derek, but then quickly moves his eyes towards other people, other things. Derek very briefly meets Allison’s gaze and she gives him a little wave. He smiles back, then turns towards the cage where the dragon is going to emerge. They wait as Peter goes over to one side of the opening and lifts the latch, revealing a dragon.
“Who can tell me what kind of dragon this is?” He yells at the pups over a strange wind that starts to blow immediately after he unhooks the latch.
“But we can’t see it!” Ethan yells back.
“Exactly,” Derek grunts, already running out of the way. Cora, always one to trust her brother’s instincts, follows him blindly. It turns out to be a good idea, because there’s…something attacking the twins.
It looks like a small cloud of mist, but Derek can pick out some claws and small flashes of something shiny once in a while. The twins have long since wolfed out, and are battering at the thing with extended claws and fangs. One of them lets out a sharp yelp, and the other follows with a frustrated bark, but the misty cloud continues to fight them, flitting up and up.
“What is it, Derek?” Cora yells, and over her head Derek can see Erica asking Boyd the same question. Derek knows that Boyd knows the answer, because he distinctly remembers the time after lessons when Boyd had approached him, excited at the newest dragon find.
The two boys answer in unheard unison: “A Smothering Smokebreath.”
Derek still remembers the light in usually dull Boyd’s eyes as he told Derek of the discovery.
“Everyone thought these dragons were myth! But Derek, they found one. They saw a whole pack! Look!” Young Boyd flips his personal Dragonpedia so Derek can see, and sure enough there’s a rough drawing of what the new dragon is rumored to look like.
“It’s called a Smothering Smokebreath, and no one’s been able to chain one in at least a hundred years! That’s why everyone though they were either extinct or a myth!” Boyd’s eyes are wide as he carefully closes the book and cradles it to his chest. “Just imagine all the dragons that are out there that we don’t even know about.” He gets a faraway look in his eyes. “There’s still so much to know.”
Derek shares an eye lock with Boyd—who nods at him once, solemnly—before watching him and Erica run to help the twins. Isaac’s already got himself in on the fight, and his gold eyes flash brilliantly as he yelps with angry thrashes of his claws. The Smothering Smokebreath is definitely kicking their butts, but the pups are nothing if not persistent.
Erica’s already abandoned the fight and is running towards the weapon wall, looking to find something suitable. Derek watches as she grabs a mace and lugs it back to the fight. “Oh no,” he murmurs, and turns to Cora. “Are we going to help?”
She smirks at him. “I’ve just been waiting for your command, Captain.” He rolls his eyes at her mocking words and jerks his head towards the fight, leading her into a losing battle. Derek fears that someone will kill the dragon, leaving everything he said to Allison a lie and making the dragon group watch one of their own die.
Also, Derek often wonders about the human inside the dragon. Is it one of Stiles’s friends? An old neighbor? Is it someone completely random but still not worth any less? Is it an old man whose years are almost behind him, or a young child who’s merely relying on pure instinct to help them live through this?
Erica begins to swing the mace in the air, which takes most of her strength and leaves her wobbly and inaccurate. The Smothering Smokebreath’s smoky veil dissipates slightly, and Derek looks directly into terrified yellow eyes. Then the dragon turns away and lashes out at Ethan with its spiky tail, sending him sprawling and bleeding. He stays on the ground, letting himself heal, which is probably in his best interest.
Erica—by some miracle—just barely nicks the dragon, but it falters in its menacing circles and becomes startled enough that it begins to breathe hot fire at them. “Damn it! It couldn’t just have smoke, could it!?” Erica screeches, running for a shield. The fire looks like Scott’s welding fire back at the shop, and Derek fleetingly wonders if it, too, can burn through metal.
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Boyd grunts, using his own shield with teeth-grinding effort. The heat blast is hot, and soon his shield is nothing in his hands. The dragon advances on Boyd, obviously readying another fire shot, when Derek takes the dragon’s startling focus by surprise and jumps on top of it, careful of the sharp tail. He can hear some people gasp, and Cora is definitely yelling at him, but he’s determined. He lets his hand probe quickly for the right spot, the spot right below the chin that makes dragons….
The Smothering Smokeback falls weak at the knees when Derek scratches the soft spot on his chin, and he uses this moment to yell back at the other pups. “Open the cage!”
Isaac and Cora sprint to the hatch and unlatch it. Derek continues to keep his fingers scratching over the spot, the dragon limp as he drags it to the cage. He finally releases his fingers from the spot and pushes the dragon the rest of the way into the cage. When Isaac and Cora have the cage securely latched, he breathes a sigh of relief and turns towards the pups. The dragon wasn’t hurt.
He can’t really say the same for his pack, but they’ll heal within the hour, so he’s not worried. When Derek finally musters up the courage to look up at the stands, he sees his mother and Scott beaming proudly, the elders nodding their heads contemplatively, and the other dragons…well. They’re all looking at Derek in a mixture of awe, horror, and interest. This alpha’s son turned out to be everything they were told and more, able to take down a dragon with seemingly no effort. And at once, Derek knows what they see him as.
A monster.
!!!!!
Hello! I’ve decided to start posting my AO3 stories on here, and finally finish this one up! All of the updates will be up within the hour as an apology!
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