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Stiles convinces Derek to sneak out that night and spend the remaining time they have before the tournament together. Derek manages it by telling his mom that he wants time to gather his thoughts. Alone. She had merely given a small smile and a “Just like your father,” before telling him to pack provisions, sleep well, and show up on time on the morning. He promises that he will.
It’s late when he arrives at Stiles’s camp, and he’s surprised to see Stiles sitting cross-legged on a bed of lilies, illuminated by a fire crackling beside him. The flowers’ pollen is disturbed when the dragon startles, opening his eyes and looking up at Derek. “Sorry, I always get a little immersed in my prayer.” His cheeks are red in the firelight, and he looks back down at his flower cushion. “I never mean for them to grow, but they always do.”
“What were you praying about?” Derek asks, joining Stiles on the ground.
“I was praying for your safety. For my safety. For the safety of everyone I love. Tomorrow…tomorrow could go so badly, and I just want to make sure that everyone makes it out okay.”
Derek looks down at his lap. “I’ve been making offerings to the gods lately,” he admits. “I don’t do it often.”
“You guys have multiple gods?” Stiles asks, intrigued.
“Well yeah.”
“Tell me about them,” Stiles says, pulling his knees to his chest and rubbing his nose.
Derek pauses, wondering how to start. Eventually he takes a breath. “Lupa is the great werewolf mother. She gave birth to the first of our kind, and we are all descendants of her. Or at least all of my pack is. Lupa bore her children from herself and the moon, and named them Remus and Romulus. This is why all werewolves are fully in touch and in synch with the moon and her cycles. Lupa had a brother though, Fenrir, and he viciously raped a human woman. She was forced to bear his children, and thus his line of wicked and warped werewolves were born.” Derek pauses, in thought. “I imagine this is the line in which your Leaders come from.”
“That’s so interesting,” Stiles muses. His eyes have a faraway glaze to them. “Many gods.” He thinks some more, and Derek lets him. Finally, he’s ready to talk again. “Our religion is only one God. Capital g. He—or She—looks over all of the dragon race. We only exist to serve Him, and do good to our people. My race strongly believes that life is not a battle, but a dance.”
Stiles pauses, and his eyes don’t leave the fire. “The teachings of our God are about love and compassion, rebirth and new life. Yet we’re being forced to inflict pain and torture, death and destruction. Our fire brings no life, it brings a permanent sleep!” He swallows, eyes fluttering shut as he composes himself. “I often find myself wondering what God thinks of us now. As He watches His dragon-children, His creations, murder other living beings. It doesn’t matter that they do not follow or worship Him as we do. Life is life, no matter the religion. We pray a lot. Together, separate, devoted. We love worship sessions, but they consist of a lot of dancing and a lot of flowers and acts of love.” He looks more than melancholy. “We don’t have many celebrations anymore. Dad said that they used to have a lot back before the Leaders took over.”
Derek leans over and gathers Stiles into his arms, and the dragon boy complies. “We’ll bring back the days of celebration and worship and love, I promise.”
“I know,” Stiles says simply, pulling back a little to look Derek in the eye. “I trust you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Derek wakes up with Stiles wrapped entirely around his body, rising and falling as he breathes. The two have seemed to connect during the night, arms grasping and legs twining, and Derek stares at Stiles’s gaped mouth for a little while before slowly beginning the untangling process.
Stiles wakes up in the middle of it, smiling sleepily at Derek. “Morning.”
Derek wonders if he would get this warm feeling in his stomach every morning if he woke up next to Stiles. He guesses yes. “Morning,” he chokes back, voice gruffer than usual.
Stiles yawns and stretches while Derek grabs them bread from the basket. He splits it and hands half to Stiles. “So today is the day,” Stiles says quietly, biting into the crust. Derek nods, silent in his musings. “Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“I have an idea,” he says, “but werewolves are stubborn. Who knows if they’ll want to listen or believe me.” He sighs. “I’m really glad we have Scott on our side.”
“Me too,” Stiles laughs. It’s hollow. “Not that I don’t trust that you can get the job done, but I’m insanely afraid that the werewolves would kill you without at least one alpha on your side.”
“Oh believe me, insane ranting or not my mom would kill anyone who tried to threaten me.”
“That’s comforting,” Stiles says, but his voice is unusually high-pitched. He avoids Derek’s eyes as he sits down to strap on his foot. His fingers are shaky and they fail to buckle it.
Derek turns to him, completely serious, and stands there until the dragon finally looks at him. His eyes are locked entirely on Stiles’s. “I promise you that all of this will work out.”
“I want it to work out Derek, I really do, but now there’s more at stake. There’s not just hope. Now there’s my family’s freedom. There’s my father’s remaining time. There’s my friends’ futures.” He steps closer. “And for risk of sounding incredibly stupid and mushy and annoying…there’s you.” Blood draws from his lip as he chews, Derek can smell it from the foot away that he is. “I really, really can’t lose you now Derek.”
Derek shakes his head. “I understand what we might be losing, but the gains are too great. These are risks we have to take. You think I’m happy about this? For risk of sounding like a total girl, I’m terrified of losing you.” He reaches a hand up and brushes Stiles’s cheek. “We’re in this together, and we’ll finish off all of those Leader bastards.” He kneels down next to Stiles and rebuckles the prosthetic, then gives the dragon boy a reassuring smile. “I promise.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Getting through town is a lot easier than Derek thought. He makes Stiles wear his clothes from the previous night so his smell is masked by both his own spell and Derek’s scent, and Derek keeps both of their heads low as he navigates through the endless sea of merchants. Stiles is muttering different incantations under his breath to keep the masking spell fresh and somehow manages to bump into almost every person they pass. Luckily most people are in such a hurry to get to the sparring arena that they don’t even spare the two teens another glance.
When they arrive at the side gate where Derek and the rest of the teenagers are supposed to enter through to wait for their turn to fight, the boys see that Peter’s standing in front of it, making sure nobody without clearance tries to get in. He’s greeting each pup with an eye roll and a fond pat on the back, which makes Derek smile a little. He always knew his uncle was a softie.
“We can’t go that way,” Derek says. “Come on, you can wait in the dragon wing instead of the training one.”
“Fitting,” Stiles snorts, and lets the werewolf lead him to a different side door. They have someone vaguely watching it, just standing a few yards beside it and monitoring crowd regulation, and the werewolf guard just gives Derek a nod and lets him wander inside. It’s dark and insanely humid, with walls made of stone slabs surrounding them in an endless grey. It feels like all the moisture has been taken out of the air. It takes most of Derek’s self control not to gasp desperately for air.
“I’ve only been in here a few times, and each time it gets even worse.” Derek whispers, though there’s no need to. No one can hear them but the dragons. “I wish we could let them out now.”
Stiles places a hand on Derek’s. “It would jeopardize everything. We can worry about them later, when we can actually help.”
“I know,” Derek nods in understanding. “I can wish, though.”
“We won’t be wishing for much longer,” Stiles says, smiling wryly. Derek nods. Right. They’re actually doing something. Derek leads Stiles to the end of the tunnel, where the cave suddenly opens up and long iron bars cover an opening to the outside. The dragon doors. Derek stands in front of them with Stiles, shuffling them into the shadows. He faces the dragon boy, holding his hands tightly in his own and never letting his eyes wander from the boy’s face.
“Uh, Derek? They’re going to be wondering where you are.”
“I know,” he murmurs, and pulls Stiles against him. He hooks his chin onto his back and rubs his face into Stiles’s neck.
“Derek…” Stiles warns, and the werewolf presses a soft kiss into his neck before pulling away.
“I’ll be back soon. Wait for my signal, I’ll make it pretty obvious.”
Stiles nods. “Okay. Please be safe.”
“You too.”
They give each other a chaste look and then Derek’s gone.
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They kick off the tournament with Boyd. There’s a lot of extremely loud expletives and cheers getting battered around the arena, which can easily be pinpointed back to Boyd’s uncountable brothers and sisters. He raises a single hand to them all, and each one explodes even more. His weapon of choice is a battle club, and Derek knows that he’s chosen well. Boyd, though big, brute, and strong, isn’t really much for killing nor unnecessary violence, and Derek knows that the large werewolf is not looking forward to this tournament.
Peter unleashes the first dragon to reveal a gronkle, which Derek finds extremely unfair. All the pups know how to defeat it and everything, and Boyd easily overpowers the dragon by making loud noises with his club and running circles around the slow dragon, making it extremely confused before tricking it into using all its shots. As Derek watches them chain the dragon back up, he wonders what Stiles is thinking about all of this. Derek inadvertently finds his eyes wandering into the crowd and stopping at the dragon clan, still disguised as humans. He wonders what they think of it all, but their faces are carefully guarded, every single one sitting with a blank expression on their face. They clap when necessary, but Derek knows this kills them to watch.
He hopes Stiles is doing okay by himself.
Cora’s up next, and he can’t help the pride he feels when she picks a sturdy sword and a practical shield before facing the cage. Their uncle unlatches it and reveals a Monstrous Nightmare. Cora fights it valiantly, able to dodge its fire and jump away when it bursts into flames, and eventually makes it use up all its shots. Derek and his mother and sister easily cheer the loudest. Cora finds his eyes and smiles as she walks back to the rest of the pups, and Derek hugs her. “You did amazing,” he says, inhaling her smoky scent. It faintly reminds him of Stiles.
“You’re up after Erica,” she says, gesturing towards where Erica is swinging her axe at a Thornridge. Derek smiles a little at the blonde’s enthusiasm and gives a minuscule shrug.
“So?”
“Aren’t you nervous?” Cora is instinctively holding her entire body against his, providing him comfort through contact.
“Not really. I trust that everything will be alright.” Derek puts his arm around her shoulders and turns them so they’re both watching Erica. They look as she clips the beast’s wings and causes it to cry out, falling to the ground. Erica quickly chains it back to its cage and then lifts her arms in violent victory. She’s viciously proud of herself, and she should be.
Derek turns Cora so she’s facing him and he pulls her in close, inhaling her scent. She smells like home beneath the ashes and fire, like childhood and memories—good and bad. “I love you, Cora,” he says, and then lets her go, glancing once more at her features before striding out into the bright sunlight of the arena. His mind dances with the look on Cora’s face, as if she somehow knows—how could she know she can’t it’s impossible—what is going to happen, and is positive that Derek will be killed because of it.
Derek inhales deeply, oxygen flooding his lungs as it never has before. The crowd bursts into loud peals of applause and hooting, excited for the most promising candidate to show off his skills. Derek feels sick. He wants to throw up and then curl up in his bed and never leave the comfort of his blankets. He wants to back out, but know that he can’t.
He resists the strong urge to look back at where Stiles is undoubtfully standing, watching him. He wonders if the dragon’s heart is beating as fast as his own is.
Peter unlatches the cage and the Hideous Zippleback comes gangling out, its two necks flailing in a way that reminds Derek of Stiles’s arms. The two heads of the dragon both rear in unison at the sight of Derek. So they do remember him. This is the dragon Derek showed his respect to all those weeks ago, and the heads seem about as reluctant to attack him as he is to them.
Derek stands in front of it, father’s pocketknife tight in his sweaty, white-knuckled grip. “Not the weapon I would have picked,” he hears his mother say. Derek tries to block out the crowd.
In front of everyone, he holds his knife high in the air and closes the blade, slowly, to make sure everyone is watching. Then he places the knife in his pocket and sets his shoulders so he’s squared to the Hideous Zippleback. He bends one leg behind him and lets his body bow low to the dragon. He stays down for a small while, and he can hear the intensely sharp breaths coming from the dragons in the stand. He thinks he can hear Sheriff chuckling.
When he raises his head to see the dragon’s reaction, he can see that the heads are already dipping low—almost to the ground—and the dragon does not spew its foggy gas. Derek lifts himself up and the dragon does the same, and with some hesitation Derek takes a step towards the dragon. He doesn’t have to move any further before the dragon closes the distance, putting its sparking head right next to him. He reaches out a hand, and every single werewolf in the stadium growls as he begins to pet the dragon’s head.
“Friends. Family. Pack.” He says loudly, hand still on the dragon’s head. “We have been one unit for a long time.” He looks up at all of them, knowing they can hear every word with uncertain clarity. “But we have had an enemy this whole time: the dragons.” He turns back to the Hideous Zippleback and takes his time to gather his thoughts. “And why?” He yells to the crowd. “Why do we fight them?”
“Because they attack us!” He can hear Scott helpfully yelling from the crowd as he makes his way down to the fighting circle where Derek is.
“Exactly. We fight them because they attack us. But why do they attack us? Ever thought of that? Do you think they take our stuff because they want to? Because they just hate werewolves that much?”
“They’re stupid animals, they can’t want or hate anything, they just destroy.” Aiden says, not understanding how helpful he’s actually being.
Derek points to him, but looks at the masses. Scott is by his side now, and he feels a lot more confident. “That’s what we’ve been taught to think! That’s what we’ve thought our whole life.” He’s yelling now, “But we were wrong!” Some of the werewolves flinch. “Dragons are our brothers! Brother and sister shapeshifters just as much as the werecoyotes and the kitsunes are. To kill them is to kill pack. Here, watch as we prove it.”
He turns his eyes to the dragon cage, and Stiles comes walking out, looking more than a little awkward. “Stiles!” Allison screams from the crowd, and Derek turns to see Chris holding a sobbing Allison down, hand clamped over her mouth. The werewolves in the crowd are looking increasingly shifter, and Derek knows he’ll have tossed this up to keep them listening.
“This is Stiles. I shot him down in the last raid. He had lost his leg and I found him.” Derek looks at Stiles, who smiles at him to continue. “I’ll admit, when we met we hated each other. He didn’t trust me at all and I thought he was insanely rude.” Derek takes a breath an swallows hard. “But eventually we came to tolerate…even like each other.” He gets lost in Stiles’s whiskey eyes for a moment before he’s jolted back to reality. “Scott found out and promised to help us. We devised a plan, and we found that the dragons were not attacking us because they want to, but because they have to. They’re under the power of three controlling alphas, who use the dragon’s real names to control them. They have no choice!
“Stiles is my friend.” Derek says. “Over these few weeks I’ve come to love him, and the only way the dragons can be freed from this suppression is to go in and kill the alphas. They cannot fight it, but the alphas can’t control us, and the only way to stop our long feud is to help them.”
Stiles places a hand on Derek’s shoulder and steps into line with him. “My people have been controlled for too long. We are peaceful creatures, and we don’t want to attack you and your pack. The alphas that control us are ruthless, and want to rule this entire island. Please, on behalf of my people, help us.”
When Derek has the gall to look up, he sees that a few of the crowd is wolfed out and his mother has a look on her face that he’s never seen. It’s not rage, which is a good thing he supposes, but he wonders what she’s thinking. Laura however, looks horrified.
“Maybe they need proof.” Scott says. He looks at Stiles pointedly.
Stiles pauses for a moment. “Sure.”
When he shifts, all hell breaks loose.
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Derek sees everything as if it’s in a dream. First almost everyone in the crowd goes insane. Most shift and they immediately begin to crowd the fighting arena. Derek finds himself caught up in the energy of the pack and he shifts as well. Most of the pack members can do a full shift, which they only use during battle, and they use this now.
Luckily Stiles seems to understand the danger he’ll be in if he shifts back and he flaps his wings to stay out of the way of the angry wolves. The Hideous Zippleback does the same, seemingly communicating with Stiles through just eye movements.
Derek comes into contact with an angry adult wolf. Slash. Blood drips from a gash in his face. He knows what it means. Traitor. Another adult wolf nips at his calf and it goes deep enough to hit a tendon. Derek falls. Alarmed, Stiles swoops down to help and gets his wing clipped by a claw. Angrily, he roars, and gets a scratch to his underbelly for it.
Derek feels more claws touch his skin as he roars in anger at the wolves hurting Stiles. “Stop!” He yells, but he’s drowned out by the wolves each taking their turn disowning him. He slowly comes to the realization that he’s not healing, not connected to the pack, losing all feeling in his head and fingers and heart. He lets himself fall entirely to the ground, fingers numbly touching the first huge hash in his forehead. The ground is warm, incredibly warm, the first is getting caught in his hair, mixing with his soul, and he feels everything and nothing. His vision goes black.
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Stiles is pissed. He breathes light fire on the wolves surrounding Derek, desperately trying to get them away from him, but all it does is anger them more when their hairs light afire. One rears up high enough to slice his wing, and he transforms as he hits he ground.
“Stiles!” A clear scream rings up through the crowd, and suddenly he can see two more dragons: Allison and Chris. Stiles manages to crawl to Derek, who is out completely cold.
“Derek?” He asks. Derek’s wounds aren’t healing and he’s growing increasingly paler. “Derek!?” His voice is edging on hysteria, and he doesn’t even pay attention to the blood dripping down his own arm from his wing damage. “Why isn’t he healing?” He asks, but no one is even paying attention to them now that Allison and Chris are on the scene. Allison screeches at the wolves that get too close, and she looks so dangerous coiled as she is. “Changewing!” They scream, and Stiles guesses that that’s the name they call her type of dragon, like how they call him a Night Fury.
“Help!” Stiles screams, but his voice is hoarse with emotion. “Please!” In a panic, Stiles finds his hand wandering to Derek’s chest and begins to hyperventilate when he doesn’t feel a heartbeat. He slams his ear over Derek’s heart. No heartbeat. “Help!” He screams, and begins doing a procedure he’s seen his father do a few times in which you have to shove your hands repeatedly into the person’s chest to get their heart going again. CPR or PRC or something along those lines. He roughly shoves down on Derek’s chest. “Please please please,” he chants, and slowly the battle around him falls away. He can only focus on Derek, his pale skin his pale lips his dark hair the red gash. There’s nothing else.
“Stiles.” He hears a voice, and when he looks up he can see Alpha Talia through the snot and tears that blur his vision completely. “Stiles, my son will not recover. To be what he was”
He lets out a wail. “No!” He continues CPR on the unresponsive body, and doesn’t even notice that everyone is silent, that everyone is barely breathing. They watch the desperate dragon try to revive his lover, revive what they once had.
Talia places a hand on his shoulder and grips hard. “Stiles. It’s time to leave him.” She has a silent tear streak down her face, but doesn’t bother to wipe it away. “We must take him back to the house and then talk over battle plans.”
Stiles sniffs loudly, eyes not leaving Derek. “Battle plans?”
“You have proved your devotion to my son and your sincerity. We are obligated to help you.” She says solemnly.
Stiles is silent for a moment before shipping his head up angrily at her. “Proved my devotion!?!?” He screeches. “Your son is dead! I loved him! Your own pack killed him!” His voice is incredibly high, and it chokes up in between most of his words.
“Stiles.” Talia says, incredibly calm. “Derek is not dead.”
“Not dead?” Stiles stands and laughs cruelly. “His heart isn’t beating. His skin is pale and cold. Not dead my ass.” He hiccups a sob and claps his hand over his mouth to try and control it.
Talia looks out into the crowd and nods her head at someone. Laura and Cora comes oil forward, faces blank and eyes red with tears. The two girls each pick up one end of their brother and begin to carry him towards the house. “If you and your dragon friends could come with us, we really do need to discuss some things.”
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