It comes as something of a surprise to Derek, as most things involving Stiles generally do, that Stiles has just as much need for an anchor as any of the rest of them. It doesn’t surprise him, however, that his anchor turns out to be Scott.

The problem is that Stiles is not a werewolf, and so no one actually realizes that he even needs an anchor until Scott is out of the picture and it’s too late.

Scott chooses to side with Allison and the hunters, who claim they can offer him a cure. Stiles, not being an idiot, chooses to freak the hell out about it and the rift is created.

Stiles falls in with Derek and his pack purely by default. And Derek really only agrees to it because Deaton tells him it’s the smart play. Since Derek’s made a few too many less-than-smart plays recently, he’s going to choose to believe the man on this one.

No one understands the full repercussions of a Stiles without a Scott to be his moral compass until the night that Derek whips back around after knocking out the last hunter who’d been attacking them, only to find Stiles standing over the bodies of the two already captured and restrained hunters, both of them now with their throats slit.

Stiles holds a knife casually at his side. Both of his hands are covered in blood that isn’t his.

Derek gapes for a split second before he’s able to school his features just in time for Stiles to meet his gaze.

“I tried to give them an out,” Stiles shrugs. “They didn’t take it.”

Derek starts to keep a closer eye on Stiles after that. Starts to wonder if the kid has maybe got his own version of a wolf inside him that might need to be shackled down occasionally.

He decides this theory is correct when he bursts into the Hale house one night, fully expecting to be met with an ambush but going in anyway. Erica’s being held hostage inside and he needs to get her out, trap or not. But instead of hunters, what he finds are bodies.

No. Pieces of bodies.

Erica is unconscious in the corner, looking severely worse for wear, but still alive. Stiles is hunched over body parts on the floor, gathering them up into a black garbage bag. He lifts his head at Derek’s entrance, then lowers it back down to focus on the task. “Oh hey, you came. Sorry to ruin your whole heroic rescue bit, but I happened to be in the neighborhood, so...”

“What--” Derek swallows heavily and goes to a great deal of effort to look and sound as coolly collected as Stiles seems to be right now. Which is obviously a complete role reversal and the fact makes him all the more worried. “What happened?”

“Well, in a plot twist that surprises absolutely no one, apparently evil henchmen are extremely easy to get to turn on each other. The moment I gave a couple of them an excuse to start shooting, all hell broke loose. It was pretty epic.”

“Okay,” Derek says carefully. “And why are they in pieces?”

“Right. That.” Stiles shrugs one shoulder. “Gotta dispose of them somehow. You ever watch Breaking Bad? No? Dollhouse? Dexter? Come on, man, there are literally a plethora of body-disposal ideas just waiting for you on primetime. And no, burying them is not an option. Not when my DNA is all over everything. If you idiot werewolves wanna go around leaving crime scenes that practically solve themselves, you can go right ahead. Personally, I would like to spend my life outside of a prison cell.”

Derek just stares for a long moment, watching Stiles calmly pick up body parts that it is becoming increasingly obvious he was the one to chop up.

At last, Derek clears his throat and goes for casual, unassuming, though he can feel the weight of the words in his gut. “Pretty impressive for a guy who practically burst into tears at the prospect of having to cut off my arm.”

Stiles snorts in amusement and admires the bloody limb currently in his hands, then throws it carelessly into the garbage bag. “It’s amazing what a couple months of running with wolves can do for a guy’s gag reflex. I think I developed an immunity to all the gore right around the time I had to set a man on fire. Well, a werewolf on fire. But he looked human enough when he was lying there all extra crispy.”

Derek doesn’t say anything else after that. Just silently helps Stiles dispose of the bodies and then gets Erica home safe, the whole time contemplating this new and unexpected challenge. Apparently Stiles has got just as much beast inside of him as any of the betas and every night for him is a potential full moon.

Not that Derek doesn’t have his own immunity to all the violence and gore that began crowding into his life after the fire. But there’s a line between necessity and whatever the hell this is, and it’s a line he’s always towed with great care. The line between his humanity and his wolf.

Stiles is on the other side of that line now, and he doesn’t seem to even know that there was a line to begin with. He needs an anchor and doesn’t even know it.

And Derek doesn’t know how to give him one. Stiles isn’t actually a werewolf, so Derek doubts “anger” would do anything other than make his newfound homicidal tendencies worse. The memory of his dead mother, the thought of the father who currently can barely look at him... Derek suspects these things would just drive Stiles even further into this tailspin. Stiles needs a reason to calm down, not a reason to seek out further bloodshed.

Derek worries over it in the back of his mind for several days only to keep coming up empty.

But Derek can’t afford to come up empty, and the fact hits him full in the face at the end of a particularly nasty run-in with a couple more of the never ending supply of renegade hunters that can’t seem to quit passing through town once word got out that Derek Hale had set up shop here.

Even as heavily armed as the two humans are, it shouldn’t have been difficult. But Stiles shows up in the middle of it all, despite being expressly told to stay away, and ends up with the muzzle of a gun pressed into his temple and his arm twisted painfully behind his back as the remaining hunter breathlessly tries to bargain his way out of this mess.

Stiles seems equally terrified as he is pissed off at the situation. The moment Derek gives him an opening by forcing the man to turn the gun on him instead, Stiles ducks down out of the man’s grip, grabs the nearest weapon--the long, wooden handle of a broken shovel--and spins around with it, using the momentum of the turn to beam the guy in the head hard enough that the hunter immediately goes down, lights out, skull cracked.

But Stiles doesn’t stop.

He hits the guy again. And again. Until the man’s head is a caved in mess of blood and brain matter and Stiles just stands over him, shovel handle swinging low at his side, blood splattered across his T-shirt and face, eyes glazed and unseeing.

And Derek decides that that’s it. That is fucking it. The final straw.

On pure instinct he charges forward, takes Stiles’ face in both hands, and before the kid has a chance to question or protest, he kisses him, hard.

Stiles is too stunned to kiss back, but that doesn’t matter. Because when Derek pulls away he sees that it’s worked. Whatever calm had settled over Stiles before has turned into something more like shock.

Stiles blinks his eyes at Derek, mouth agape. “Did you just...” He trails off and brings a hand up to his face, as if about to touch his lips and confirm that the kiss was real.

But instead of going to his mouth, his fingers find a smear of blood on his cheek and dig in like that was their intention all along. They pull away a few inches and Stiles breaks eye contact with Derek in order to stare at the literal blood on his hands in a daze. Then he looks past his hand to the dead man’s bashed-in skull and says, dully, “I did that.”

“Yes. You did.”

Stiles looks back up at Derek, the shock still evident in his features. “Why did you kiss me?”

“So that you wouldn’t do it again.”

Stiles nods, but it’s hard to say how aware he is of any of this. “Okay.”

The kiss doesn’t get talked about, or even alluded to, for the next week. Not until it’s forced to be, mid-battle. Someone gets a good shot at Isaac, who goes down for the count, and Stiles gets that over-protective glint in his eyes that means that someone is about to pay.

He heads over to the offending party, drawing out a knife behind his back, while his features and his body language all effortlessly shift to make him look just as harmless and incapable as everyone always assumes that he is, so that he can get close enough.

Derek pounces on him before he can reach his target.

Boyd tackles the hunter instead, while Derek pins Stiles to the hardwood floor and kisses him like the world’s about to end.

This time, Stiles kisses back.

They lick and bite and shove into each other’s mouths for several minutes until thoroughly breathless and Derek pulls back just enough to press their foreheads together.

“So this is gonna be a thing, huh?” Stiles pants, breath hot against Derek’s face, lips swollen and wet.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“If your definition of ‘worked’ is ‘distracting me from taking out the enemy,’ then yes.” His words are bitter, but his tone isn’t. His tone is raw with lust and trembling with the uncertainty of first times.

“What would you rather be doing, Stiles? Slitting a man’s throat, or...” Derek rolls his hips to press against where Stiles is half hard beneath him. “Or this?”

Stiles groans, eyelids fluttering. “This. Definitely this.”

“Uh, a little help, guys?” Boyd huffs from where he’s now lifting up the unconscious bodies of two hunters like they’re the dishes he doesn’t want to have to wash tonight.

Derek rolls his eyes, just for show, then rises to help clean up the mess of the fight.

But he keeps his gaze on Stiles throughout. The boy is still lying on the floor where he left him and he’s still got the knife in his hand. After a moment of staring up at the ceiling, Stiles lifts the knife up to stare at it instead, but like it’s a foreign object. Like he doesn’t recognize it at all.

Stiles catches Derek’s eyes a couple minutes later. He purses his lips, nods once, and tosses the knife aside.

It’s a declaration more than a submission. He isn’t giving up any ground, he’s just making a choice.

And he’s choosing Derek.

The realization of this feels like burning in Derek’s throat. It feels like the kind of significance that generally comes with a bloody end. Ironic, since it’s the bloody ends that Stiles is sacrificing here.

Later, when the pack has all broken off to go to their respective beds and get some much needed sleep, Stiles stays behind and eyes Derek appraisingly for a long moment. “You know, you could’ve just told me we were implementing a new ‘no killing’ policy.”

“Would you have listened?”

“Probably not. Still. I didn’t realize you’d gone all Good Samaritan on me. What happened to the guy who was gonna waste Lydia without a second’s hesitation over the whole Kanima fiasco?”

“I didn’t want to kill her, Stiles.”

“So, what? It’s the wanting to kill that makes it bad? Just because you didn’t want to do it, you’re off the hook? Because the road to hell, buddy. I hear it’s paved with a lot of those good intentions you seem to think you have.”

“Stiles,” Derek says evenly, and settles a look on the kid that makes him start to squirm. “Are you saying you do want to kill these people? Are you saying you’re okay with it?”

“No, that’s not what I...” Stiles purses his lips and huffs a disgruntled sigh. “It’s just that sometimes it seems like a necessary evil. And I may not be okay with the ‘evil’ part, but I am okay with the ‘necessary’ side. If it’s gotta be done, it’s gotta be done.”

“Well it doesn’t. Not anymore.”

“Why? Because you’d rather have ill-timed makeout sessions?” Stiles asks, voice dripping with sarcasm. Despite the fact that less than an hour ago they did indeed do just that, it’s clear he doesn’t actually believe that Derek would want it again. Or that he even wanted it the first time.

To be absolutely honest, Derek isn’t sure what he wants anymore. This began as a necessity, a tool, just a different kind of shackle to keep one of his pack members under control. But the moment Stiles tossed aside that knife tonight, it was as though Derek’s view of the world shifted. As if being accepted as someone else’s potential anchor gave him a new anchor option of his own.

“I could be convinced to engage in some less ill-timed ones as well, if it’ll help,” Derek says with a smirk to hide his uncertainty.

Stiles does a mini double-take at that, and then proceeds to openly gape at Derek. “Whoa whoa whoa. Back the hell up there, Fido. What? Are you telling me that wasn’t just... a ploy or whatever? Do you actually like me?” He puts a hand to the side of his head. “I think I just sprained something.”

Derek doesn’t answer his question, because once again Derek has no freaking idea what the answer is, and openly admitting to his own cluelessness has never been in his repertoire.

So, instead, he closes the distance between them and places his hand over the hand Stiles still has at the side of his head, so that both palms cradle Stiles’ temple and their fingers haphazardly intertwine through Stiles’ short hair. Derek leans in close and sighs softly. “Promise me you’ll quit with this ‘necessary evil’ bullshit. I need to hear the words.”

Stiles licks his lips, staring at Derek’s mouth with blown pupils. “Why? You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t actually trust anyone, including me. So why would you trust whatever promise I make?”

Derek sighs again and closes his eyes, leaning forward that much further so that his nose lightly brushes at the faint blush on Stiles’ cheek. “You’re right. I don’t trust anyone. But I’ll make you a deal. You promise me this, and I’ll promise to always be there to make sure you can keep that promise.”

Stiles’ breath hitches at the implication of what Derek “being there” might mean. “So it’s just... a business transaction. A contract.”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t know, dude. Sounds suspiciously like the first step on the long, hard road to trusting someone.”

Derek shrugs. “Maybe it is. I’m okay with that.” It’s quite the admission from him, but he doesn’t actually realize it until the words are out of his mouth. And then suddenly Stiles is grinning at him like the kid’s just won the supernatural lottery.

“Alright then. I promise,” Stiles whispers.

Derek doesn’t bother saying the words back. Knows kissing him will get the point across better than his words ever could. The words were for Stiles’ benefit. Words are important to Stiles, he needs them in order to make things real. But action is important to Derek, action is how he communicates. And so he uses his actions to make his own promise.

Derek lowers both hands down to Stiles’ hips and hooks his thumbs into the waist of Stiles’ jeans, using the leverage to pull Stiles closer. Stiles groans into Derek’s mouth and rocks against him, already getting hard just from these handful of seconds.

It would be so recklessly easy to make the boy come in his pants right here and now. To just palm that growing hardness through his jeans and rub roughly a half a dozen times while sucking on his tongue.

But Derek toes the line here as well, and has enough experience with recklessness in this regard to last him a lifetime. Several lifetimes, in fact. All of them now buried in a shallow grave of ash and bitterness.

He hangs on for a couple more minutes, lightly brushing fingertips against the narrow stretch of skin between T-shirt and jeans while they lazily explore the other’s mouths. He lets Stiles fist a hand in his shirt and card the other one through Derek’s hair. He lets Stiles figure out what he’s doing for a moment, and then helps him get the rest of the way out of the realm of “first times” with a gentle roll of his hips at just the right angle.

Stiles gasps, having to pull out of the kiss involuntarily to do so.

Derek smirks against his mouth.

Stiles scowls back at him, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “If you went into this expecting any sort of proficiency on my end, you have been sadly misinformed.”

“Maybe I should’ve read the fine print before I signed, huh?” He mutters into Stiles’ parted lips, teasing.

“Asshole,” Stiles teases back.

Derek shrugs, amused. “Practice makes perfect.” And then he kisses him again, slower this time, giving Stiles time to catch up with each subtle movement, learn it and then mimic it.

Derek’s surprised at how aroused he suddenly also is. It’s only natural, considering their current activities, but something about his reactions to Stiles always surprise him. He tells himself he hates the kid, but then keeps saving his life. He swears up and down that he doesn’t care about him, but then goes to ridiculous lengths just to keep him from going down too dark a path. He’s convinced he can use Stiles’ lust to keep him grounded without being affected by it all, but then he goes and gets more affected than he’d ever thought possible.

Something in him wants this. Maybe all of him does. But he doesn’t know how or why or when it happened and it’s kind of terrifying, all this not knowing.

Derek moves one hand from where it’s gripping Stiles’ hip to lightly brush against Stiles’ stomach and tease over the button of his jeans, up the trail of hair to his navel and then back down it to dance over his strained fly.

Stiles moans a little in the back of his throat and pulls out of the kiss to ask, breathlessly, “Are you... I mean, your hand is... Are you...”

Derek rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to jerk you off in the middle of an abandoned warehouse if that’s what you mean.”

Stiles smirks back at him. “Aw, you do care.”

“Stiles, if you take away anything from this conversation it should probably be that yeah, I care.”

Stiles swallows heavily. “Oh. Well yeah. I, uh... I mean. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, too. Care. Why do you think I’ve stuck around for so long? It’s not like the werewolf business is exactly good for my health.”

A piece of Derek’s insides crumbles a little at that. Because Stiles is telling the truth. He cares. He’s cared the whole time. And maybe Derek cared the whole time as well, but he’s only just now realizing it.

They stare for a long moment, and then Stiles gives a short little breath of a laugh. “Okay, man. Are we past the poignant moment phase yet? I’d like to get back to the whole kissing thing. I thought that was going pretty well there.”

Derek smiles and kisses him once, quickly. “There’s a mattress in the back.”

“There’s a...” Stiles starts to repeat, confused, and then startles when he comprehends the words. “Oh. Right. Um, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not sure I...” He fidgets in Derek’s arms. “This is just moving really fast, you know?”

It’s strange, after seeing Stiles be so collected over bodies and blood, to have him become suddenly so young, a bundle of frayed nerves, in the face of sex.

Derek immediately begins to back off and step away, but Stiles grips him tighter. “Wait! I mean. Maybe we could do... other... stuff?”

Derek eyes him for a moment, assessing, trying to gauge where the line is and if they’re both on the same page about there needing to be one. At last, he asks, quietly, “When do you have to be home?”

“I think I can get away with a couple more hours. Dad doesn’t really... He doesn’t check up on me as much as he used to.”

Derek just nods, because there’s nothing he can say that will make that better. But he can at least keep him here awhile longer, safe and grounded. He can at least keep him from dwelling. Or raging. Or any of the other things Stiles has taken to doing ever since he lost the bit of light that once so easily led him through all of this fucking darkness.

Derek doesn’t have a new light to offer him. But he’s been down in that same darkness long enough that he knows how to navigate it without one.

He can’t give Stiles a compass to lead him out of this, but he can teach him to traverse the landscape while he’s here.

So Derek walks the both of them backwards, never letting his hands leave Stiles’ body, into the old train car he uses as a bedroom. He pulls Stiles down onto the mattress with him, arranging them into a loose tangle of limbs, and presses slow, deep kisses into his spit-slick and swollen lips.

He doesn’t dare do anything more than kiss him, but he does allow Stiles’ hands wander as they like, tracing over his jean-clad thighs, fumbling up his back beneath his shirt.

Stiles moves his mouth down to kiss the edge of Derek’s jaw, then the hollow of his throat, and then a piece of exposed collarbone. He stays there for a moment, nuzzled into the crook of Derek neck, breathing heavily.

“Thank you,” Stiles whispers into Derek’s skin like a secret. And it feels like another kind of promise. One that doesn’t require any sort of quid pro quo. It feels like a tether to this moment, to this bed, to every point of contact between them. Stiles’ beast tied to Derek’s humanity. Stiles’ humanity tied to Derek’s wolf. As if they can somehow keep each other in check better than they could ever keep themselves.

Derek thinks that might be true, given everything that’s happened. And so he kisses his own, wordless “thank you” into Stiles’ temple, and he moves his hands down the length of Stiles’ body until he finds a hold that feels more permanent than shackles or anchors.