Stiles found himself spending a lot of time with Derek.
He would say that he didn’t know what changed, except that he did.
It wasn’t surprising that he’d constantly seek out the one person able and willing to listen to him talk.
It also helped both of them get much better at signing.
There was a strange, unintended consequence: Derek was talking more.
Turns out that he found it easier to communicate if he didn’t have to speak out loud.
It made Stiles curious, but he didn’t want to poke at it.
Just grateful that he could talk to someone at all.
Stiles was still depressed.
As much as he wished that having someone to talk to could magically cure him, it really didn’t work that way.
It helped. But it didn’t ease the pain of knowing that no one else missed his voice.
His voice was an integral part of him.
Part of what made Stiles, Stiles.
He hated having to sit amongst his friends and be bursting with shit to say but not being able to.
Hated even more that his dad was eating whatever he felt like, now that Stiles couldn’t nag him about his diet.
So he was isolating himself.
Not a good thing when you’re depressed.
Stiles had stopped eating with his friends at lunch. Instead he was going to the library to do homework or research.
He was finding a lot more time for studying and it was improving his grades, so there’s one fringe benefit!
Only people happier than his friends and dad that he couldn’t talk?
His teachers and classmates.
The school hadn’t assigned an ASL interpreter, since he could hear. And could write if he needed to say something.
But the teachers were all happily ignoring him. The glee on Mr. Harris’ face when he realized Stiles was mute enraged him.
It was annoying but he supposed he could understand. His teachers had been saying he was disruptive since he started school.
He thought he made valuable contributions. Turns out, though, he was really that guy.
You know, that guy? The one in every class so in love with his own intelligence that he commented on everything and generally annoyed everyone. That was him.
He’d been aware, to some degree. But he hadn’t really known how annoying it was until he couldn’t be that guy and someone else took up the role.
So he understood. Didn’t stop him from being bitter and angry.
He was getting his homework done with great ease, though. Usually just did it in class, since his teachers didn’t care if he participated or paid attention anymore.
Quitting lacrosse came next. No, he didn’t need to speak out loud to play.
But he didn’t want to be around Scott.
The bench was also a lot less fun when he couldn’t cheer his team on. Finstock forgot he was even there half the time.
He stopped showing up and no one said a word.
Stiles wasn’t sure if anyone had noticed and he was afraid to ask.
It was at a pack meeting that Stiles learned he that two people besides Derek cared enough about him to listen.
To his ever lasting surprise, it was Boyd and Peter.
Well, okay, Peter was less surprising since he probably had some nefarious purpose.
He had called Stiles clever once and probably thought it was prudent to be able to understand one of the people he considered a threat.
Boyd, though?
He’d outright told Stiles they weren’t friends. Since then, Stiles hadn’t done much to try and build something with him.
It’d gone down something like this:
Scott was arguing with Derek about how to handle some problem. Being kind of ridiculous about it.
Stiles had signed to Derek, This is boring! Can we skip this and just go kill it already?
Peter had smirked, “I thought you’d never ask, sweetheart.”
Stiles had flailed because, what? How long had Peter been able to understand him?
What the fuck, Peter!? Why am I not surprised that you’re all for just killing the problem? Best argument I’ve seen that maybe we shouldn’t. Stiles signed.
“Ouch, you wound me, Stiles,” Peter pouted.
And here, Stiles almost missed it, but Boyd had a tiny smile. Like maybe he knew what he and Peter were talking about.
Stiles narrowed his eyes at Boyd, I saw that! You understand what I’m saying too! What the fuck? Has everyone been able to understand and didn’t tell me?
Boyd replied, I don’t know what you’re talking about. In ASL. The jerk.
Derek was laughing now, which meant everyone had stopped talking because while Stiles had seen it a lot more recently, he didn’t laugh much in front of the pack.
“What’s happening? Why is Derek laughing? Is the world ending?” Was Erica’s dramatic comment.
Now Boyd had a real smile and even Peter’s smile looked almost like a real one. He almost didn’t look like a super villain, for once.
You guys are the worst, Stiles signed and stuck out his tongue.
He went and hunted down Boyd as soon as he could to ask about why he’d learned ASL.
Turns out that Boyd’s reticence wasn’t some personality trait but something he’d learned because no one wanted to talk to the large, Black boy in a mostly white school.
Stiles suddenly remembered that Boyd had joined the pack because he was lonely. Stiles also wondered what it meant that Boyd still didn’t say much.
He didn’t ask. They weren’t that kind of friend. Yet.
Boyd might’ve once said that they weren’t friends. But if this wasn’t a grand gesture of friendship, Stiles didn’t know what was.
At least Stiles had someone to eat lunch with again.
Life went on.
Days became easier now that Stiles didn’t feel so alone and isolated.
Thing was, he’d never needed a lot of friends.
He’d wanted more but not needed more.
He knew that he was loud and talked too much.
People told him to shut up often enough that he couldn’t not know.
Stiles could’ve, if he’d really tried, contorted himself enough to make himself more likable.
He’d been happy with Scott and his dad.
He was getting back to happy with Derek and Boyd.
And sometimes Peter.
See… Stiles knew Derek was handsome. Almost too beautiful to be a real person.
He hadn’t been attracted, not exactly, but it’d also been easy to ignore.
He spent a lot of time talking with Derek now.
But using ASL meant that he spent a lot of time looking directly at Derek.
At his strong, capable hands. At his more expressive face (ASL required it). At his, frankly, ridiculous eyes.
The times in the past when he’d had Derek’s full attention hadn’t been good moments. They’d made his stomach squirm. Derek was so intense.
He was spending a lot of time with Derek.
It meant that he was spending a lot of time having Derek’s full attention. Having that intense focus directed at him in ever more frequently fun and playful contexts.
The squirming in his stomach was becoming butterflies.
He didn’t know how to feel about it.
Life went on and, to no one’s surprise, things turned to shit.
The alpha pack came. So did a darach.
It was a giant clusterfuck. But Derek was handling it pretty well. Largely helped by the fact that he and Stiles discussed the various problems in private.
Derek might not have been the most strategic thinker, but Stiles was.
Peter was actually helping.
They hadn’t fully trusted him until he’d nearly died trying to save Cora from the alpha pack.
It was the most selfless and the most pre-fire Peter thing he’d done since waking from his coma.
It was complicated and messy. He’d still killed one niece, even if he’d saved another.
In any case, shit got super messy, super fast.
Eventually, the bad guys were defeated and they emerged victorious.
It was a shame that it split the pack.
Scott hadn’t ever joined Derek’s pack. He’d betrayed Derek and baldly stated that Derek wasn’t his alpha.
Turns out that he was destined to become a True Alpha.
So Beacon Hills had two alphas.
It might not have been a problem. If there could be an entire pack of alphas, why not one pack with two alphas and some betas?
But Scott still refused to be in a pack with Derek.
Despite everything, he’d expected Stiles to go with him.
The only alpha Stiles would have was the one who learned a whole language just so he could listen to Stiles.
Not the best friend who’d never bothered and hadn’t seemed to notice Stiles’ absence from his life.
Peter and Cora were obviously sticking with Derek. The Hale pack lived.
Boyd chose Derek, which surprised a lot of people… except for those in the Hale pack.
The second biggest surprise, though, was that Derek wouldn’t let anyone else stay in his pack.
So Scott ended up with Erica, Isaac, Jackson, Lydia, and Allison.
Erica and, especially, Isaac had been crushed. When they’d asked why, Derek told them that he only wanted people who truly understood what pack was.
They’d been confused until Lydia pointed out the obvious connection (beyond Hale family ties): the one beta Derek kept was the only one who’d learned ASL.
Pack supported pack.
Derek also made it clear to Scott that he and his pack were welcome to stay until they graduated but this was Hale territory and always would be. If Scott could figure out how to work with Derek, then they could stay.
But otherwise, there could only be one alpha. And it wouldn’t be Scott.
After the pack split, Derek formally asked Stiles to be his emissary.
Stiles was already acting as an advisor, might as well have it recognized.
Peter also told him that it was time to work on Stiles’ spark. Time for him to learn the rituals and duties of an emissary.
Stiles? Loved to be needed. Loved researching.
He jumped head first into becoming the most awesome emissary ever.
The fallout from the alpha pack announced to the supernatural world that Beacon Hills was once again Hale territory.
Old allies started to reach out and reconnect.
For a while Scott tried to fight Derek over the territory. His pack was bigger, after all.
But he was new to the supernatural world and only had Deaton to serve as emissary.
Even Deaton gave Scott clear, non-cryptic advice about it: he couldn’t win against the Hales and their allies. He should also stop before Derek drove him and his pack out of the territory before they graduated high school.
The territory also stabilized now that the Hales were back.
Their first order of business was getting the Argents out. Not difficult because they were already nomadic by nature (Allison had told Scott that she moved around a lot).
It was time for them to move on.
Stiles noted with some wry amusement how quickly Scott stopped fighting over the territory when he realized that he’d have to leave if he wanted to stay with Allison anyway.
Scott’s pack was less amused but also not Stiles’ problem so he didn’t care.
The worst thing about spending more time having actual conversations with Derek Hale wasn’t having to look at his face.
No.
It was learning that Derek was smart.
The way he looked. How he acted. None of it had pegged him as ‘intelligent’ in Stiles’ eyes.
And, okay, Derek wasn’t a strategic thinker.
But that didn’t make him stupid.
If Stiles had one major weakness, it was scary, smart, and beautiful people.
See Lydia Martin.
Unlike Lydia, though, he was getting to know Derek.
He didn’t even wonder if they were friends anymore.
He knew they were.
Stiles frequently told the butterflies in his stomach that being friends was awesome and they should calm the fuck down.
They never listened.
Stiles’ dad never did bother to learn ASL. He also still didn’t know about the supernatural.
Stiles also basically let that relationship go. So he didn’t think twice about moving into the rebuilt Hale house the minute he turned eighteen.
He already spent most of his time there.
His dad had, when he noticed, made an irate call to Stiles demanding to know where he was. And what he thought he was doing moving without telling him or his permission.
Stiles? Didn’t say anything because he couldn’t talk. A fact that his dad apparently had forgotten. When his dad wound down and demanded to know why Stiles wasn’t saying anything, he hung up.
He cried himself to sleep in Derek’s arms that night.
Gerard Argent had done his level best to make Stiles shut up, once and for all.
Had tortured his voice right out of him because Stiles wouldn’t stop talking.
Except if there was thing one thing Stiles never did and would never do: it was shut up.
Gerard was dead and Stiles still had his voice.
Maybe he couldn’t use his forever damaged vocal chords. Maybe he used his already expressive hands.
But he had a voice. And it was heard. Metaphorically speaking, at least.
One thing the silence had done for him, though, was show him who his real friends were.
Who his pack was.
It had taught him that regardless if his voice was sound waves or his hands, it meant nothing without people to listen.
It started with an alpha werewolf with no real reason to listen. One who’d told Stiles to shut up on so many different occasions.
It started with a good man willing to take an extra step, just so Stiles could be heard. So he could listen.
It started with the beautiful person sitting in front of him, avidly watching his hands wave about. Watching him with the intensity that had people crossing the street to avoid him.
But it was really starting now as Stiles signs, I love you.
The stunned, pleased look on Derek’s face. The blinding smile rarely seen.
A gentle hand on his neck. A soft kiss on his lips.