Chapter Text
“Wait, you want to make more rings!?” Scott screeched. Clearly this was going to go about as well as Derek had expected.
“Ten,” Stiles said in a no-nonsense voice.
“Ten!? Look at what happened when you made just one!” Scott whirled on Derek. “Come on. Tell him he’s being insane.” The teen’s eyes glowed red as Alpha power seeped into his voice, making it shake with command. Sadly for Scott, the three of them were all equal in rank, the spark of power flowing between them freely. They couldn’t assert dominance over each other
Still, the new Alpha needed to get control of that before they returned to Beacon Hills and met up with the rest of the pack. Figuring out how to manage the position of Alpha as a triumvirate would be complicated in any situation, but currently Alphas actually outnumbered Betas in their pack. If Scott, and for that matter Stiles, started laying out commands left, right, and center it could place a potentially damaging amount of strain on Isaac and Peter.
“Sorry oh most True Alpha,” he said, “but I’m with Stiles on this one.” Derek was still reeling over Scott’s ascension to Alpha status. It was supposed to be a legend. The influx power that he’d felt when he and Scott accepted each other as pack was not normal either. He was beginning to suspect that blending the power of a born wolf, a True Alpha, and a major league enchanter may have been a much bigger deal than he’d thought at the time.
Derek wondered if he should go see Dresden and ask for a brain.
“It’s okay Scott,” Stiles said squeezing his friend’s arm. The red faded from Scott’s eyes as he regained control with alarming speed. Even more disconcertingly Derek felt his own nerves settling. Apparently Scott wasn’t the only one bringing something abnormal into their new pack. Derek had never felt so absolutely in control. It was like he and Scott no longer had anchors so much as they were anchored. To Stiles. “I had help from the experts. This was checked and double checked. It’ll work.”
Derek flopped down on the empty bed and put his hands behind his head while Scott slumped into the desk chair. “You’re my brother, Stiles, now more than ever. I just keep forgetting that you’re just as supernatural as we are. Huh. I guess you were actually supernatural before me.”
Derek couldn’t resist. “Stiles has always been special.” He smirked at Scott’s gagging face.
“Ugh, I can handle you two being together, but not the fluffy cuteness.”
He could almost hear Stiles vibrating with repressed Allison-related retorts. Derek was going to have to find a discreet way to let Stiles know how much he appreciated not pulling on that particular thread.
“Yeah, we need to save it up for my dad. Hopefully he’ll be less likely to shoot Derek while choking on the saccharine sweetness of our puppy love.”
“I’m not sure puppy is the way to go, considering. Probably best to avoid all things canine for now,” Derek quipped.
“I don’t know man. You just made a joke. A dog joke. He’s totally got you collared.”
He mock snarled at Scott and threw a pillow at his head. Stiles laughed while the two of them batted it back and forth until Scott accidentally ripped it in half with a puff of synthetic fluff.
“Why ten rings?” Derek asked when Stiles had started breathing again. “The Mandarin was a bad guy you know.”
Stiles jaw dropped open with an audible clicking sound at his Marvel usage.
“You mean like the orange?” Scott asked confused. Derek winced knowing what was coming next.
“Are you kidding me Scott? We saw Iron Man 3 together, even if it totally bastardized the character.”
“The psycho Guy Pierce played? Why do want to be a villain?” He looked almost comically distressed.
Stiles rolled his eyes. “I don’t, Scott. The Mandarin in the comics wears ten rings that give him his powers. This will be sort of similar but less evil-techno-doom. Plus, shiny.”
Derek rolled over and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was time to face the music. “I have to get going.”
Scott sniggered. “Oh yeah, meeting the Sheriff for “lunch”. With the detective lady. At police headquarters.”
“Don’t worry,” Stiles put in, “I’m sure Uncle Tommy didn’t give him any of those wolfsbane bullets.” He turned to his friend. “Don’t forget, Scott, it’s your fault we got caught so everything Derek gets, you get twice.”
“Sorry, Bro, but I just don’t think about you that way,” he said demurely.
“Har. Har dee har.”
“Did you know, Scott,” Derek asked as he stood, “That “mandarin” means teacher?”
“Do tell.” He replied with a mischievous smile, smelling a set up. “And what do you think Stiles is supposed to teach us?”
He waited a beat. “Patience.”
“What have I done,” Stiles moaned, “I’ve created a two headed Alpha Snark Monster! That’s it. You two are going in the Bestiary.” He snatched the remaining pillows off the other bed and threw one at each of them before giving Derek a superior look. “While I research how to defeat this new threat, you go face off with the dreaded Darth Pater.”
“That’s Sheriff Darth Pater, Stiles.” He said loftily.
“Go on Derek. If he tries to launch another insane rescue mission I’ll sit on him until you get back.”
“Ha! I knew you wanted to get up on all of this!” Stiles waved an arm down at his body, still half buried in notes and enchantment schematics.
His fellow Alphas kept trading jabs as Derek left the hotel room. If he was honest the idea of meeting the Sheriff for their inevitable “lunch” about his relationship with Stiles was slightly more terrifying than facing the Alpha Pack single handed. He guessed Stiles would just have to teach him courage as well as patience. But then, that was a huge part of what being an Alpha was: teaching his pack. He didn’t believe Scott was the only one destined for this role.
The sign of the Hale pack had been a Triskelion for uncounted centuries. He now wondered if some distant ancestor had been a seer of some kind. The three of them together were something unprecedented, but too synergistic to be mere happenstance. Friend, lover, brother. Past, present, future. Control, passion, purpose. Memory, will, and magic.
If they wanted to survive what was coming they would have to teach each other. Stiles was helping him break down the walls he’d built after Kate, to open himself up to something new. Scott showed him what it meant to be a role model, to be a friend and mentor. Derek struggled to impart wisdom earned in the most brutal way to two teenagers who were only now waking up to the deathly dangerous world that had always existed around them.
They had a lot to learn, but they also had each other. Even though Derek was on his way to be threatened with death by his new boyfriend’s father, he smiled.