1 Derek can honestly say that he’s the happiest he’s been since the fire. He has a draconic mate who thrives on making him happy and a pretty okay pack. There’s certainly more teasing than he thinks is strictly necessary but he bit a bunch teens who turned out to be unruly and sassy. So, basically, he turned a bunch of teens. He only has himself to blame. Being with Stiles has mellowed him out....

When Stiles is eight he learns that nothing will be the same. It isn’t because his mom dies. (Although it changes everything, it’s still mundane. A terrible and boring tragedy.) His dad comes home one day after work and sits Stiles down for a talk. He explains that werewolves and all the monsters are real. They’re real and not hiding under anyone’s bed anymore. That they aren’t really monsters but nice people like the Hales....

Another day, maybe Xander walked into Seattle Grace Hospital and headed for the surgery wing. He was here to get a glass eye. After the third time being arrested in Africa and after the fifth being detained at an airport for ’looking suspicious,’ he decided enough was enough. Sure the eye-patch helped deter other sorts of people from bothering him, absolutely nothing, nothing was worth sitting in a dirt floor cell with nothing but a hole in the ground....

1 After seeing the wreck his father turned into after his mom’s death, Stiles Stilinski decided that soulmates were bullshit and he didn’t want to have anything to do with them. The fact that he lived in a world where they were an actual thing irritated him to no end. The whole thing was bullshit! You could be going about your perfectly ordinary day, cross paths with some stranger, and—bam!—you just met your fucking soulmate....

Xander came to on a red beach. While this was unusual, it wasn’t the strangest thing that he had seen. The red sand made the water near the shore look bloody, as the crashing waves churned the sand. The cliffs nearby were also red. Slowly standing up and dusting himself off, he began to wander up the path, away from the beach. Xander was mildly curious about where he was and how he got there....

(Inspired by Holding On Too Tight by Green & ohfeelya) It’s only days after Derek gave up his alpha spark to save Cora that the last part of him breaks. Kate cracked him open. Peter killing Laura broke pieces of himself. Killing Peter killed something in him. He’d already killed so much of his family but he’d never had their actual blood on his claws. Being forced to kill Boyd, his own beta, crystalized his self-hatred into an unbreakable stone....

Derek climbed into Stiles’ window. He froze because everything felt wrong. Stiles wasn’t sitting at his computer flipping through a million tabs. Or doing homework. Or playing videogames. No, he was lying in bed. Doing nothing. Still. Derek had never seen Stiles be so still. So used to Stiles’ frenetic energy. All flailing limbs and enthusiasm. Not to mention the smell in the room. It was heavy. None of the brightness Derek was used to....

The alpha pack is dangerous. No one knows what they want but they’ve been making their presence known. Especially to Stiles. He can barely step outside his door without one of them lurking or stalking him. It’s incredibly annoying. Also scary. But mostly annoying at this point. Eventually he learns the reason: he’s a human who is essentially at the periphery of the pack. He smells enough like them to draw attention but not enough to seem claimed....

The night of the winter formal is chaotic. A lot of stuff goes down. Lydia is attacked by Peter Hale. Derek is rescued from being tortured by Kate Argent. Who is subsequently killed by Peter. Who is then killed by Scott, proving an old myth true by becoming human again. Just like he wanted. Amidst all of this, Peter Hale asks Stiles Stilinski if he wants the bite in a parking garage....

People always ask if it’s hard dating Derek. Stiles gets it. He does. Derek is a broken man. His life too filled with loss and pain for him to be anything else. Stiles can’t even pretend that the love a good man will heal him. (He’s the good man, btw.) He can’t even pretend that time or whatever trite platitude will heal Derek. Stiles saw how the loss of his pack broke Peter....