The Bravest of the Pack (Sterek)

Part ten

"You know, I never thought something like this would happen" Stiles said to Derek as he kicked a stone on the ground.

"What do you mean 'this'?" Derek asked, watching as Stiles walked in front.

"You asking me to hang out. It's like we're completely different people than who we use to be" Derek knew what he meant. He felt the same himself, things were much different, but much better. His face had started to go a bit pink, this whole situation kind of sounded like a date. Maybe it was, he had no idea.

"What the..." Stiles trailed off, he was looking down at something on the ground.

"What's up?" Derek asked, jogging over to see what Stiles was looking at. Once he reached him, he looked down as well. On the floor, deeply imprinted into the mud, was a large paw print. It was covered with a few sticks and leaves in a messy attempt to conceal it.

"Oh no" Derek whispered, turning to Stiles with a defeated look on his face. There was no protecting or hiding the truth from him now, Derek had to tell Stiles what happened the night before.

~~~~~

"How could you keep this from me? I thought we were a pack!" Stiles yelled as he crashed through the front door of Derek's house.

"In all fairness Scott did try to call you. Why didn't you answer?"

"I guess my phone was on silent. That's not a good enough excuse, Derek. You had plenty of opportunities to tell me today. Like, oh I don't know, the minute you saw me this morning?!"

"I know! I know, I should have" Derek said after closing the door and sitting on his sofa "I just couldn't do it. There was a chance it was nothing to worry about, I mean, it did let me and Scott go. Twice, actually"

"You know what, let's get Scott over here! Yeah, that's a great idea, this was his fault too" Stiles said as he grabbed his phone out of his pocket and searched for Scott's number.

~~~~~

After Scott arrived and the shouting had stopped Stiles sighed. He hated fighting with anyone in the pack, especially Scott. They were best friends for crying out loud.

Stiles looked across the painfully silent room and made eye contact with him. He swore for a split second red alpha eyes flashed at him, he took that as a sign to leave.

"Stiles come on, wait" Derek called to him as he stormed out of the room. He didn't truly know why he called after him, it wasn't like they would have made up on the spot because of it. He turned to Scott and sighed, he could feel himself getting a headache.

"How can you even stand to be around him?" Scott asked suddenly, staring at Derek with a disgusted look on his face.

"What are you talking about?"

"His scent. I feel irritated just being near him, don't you smell it?" Derek shook his head, how could Scott say that about Stiles? And what did he mean by his 'scent'? He smelt perfectly fine to Derek. Yes, he admitted Stiles did start to smell better in the past few weeks. Much better than he use to, but maybe that was because Derek was so use to being around him now.

"Whatever, I was meant to be in work at 1 and I'm already late. See you later" Scott said, walking out of the house and slamming the door behind him.

After sitting in stunned silence for a few moments, Derek sent Stiles a text asking him if he was okay. When he realised he wasn't going to get a response he decided to head back out into the woods. Something felt weird about that paw print.