Title: Strings of Fate
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Passive Suicidal Ideation, Forced Relationship (not between Derek/Stiles)
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Tags: Alternate Universe, Soulmates, Angst, Happy Ending
Summary: The day he woke up with his string broken, Stiles stopped hoping.
Word Count: 2,552
Beta: Grammarly



Stiles remembered the string that had always been on his finger growing up, the string he knew that everyone had but no one else could see them. Some called them the red string of fate, but Stiles' had always been purple. Then he found out that for a long time, all strings were red, but not everyone had them. Then, five hundred years ago, something changed, and everyone had one, and the colors became part of everything.

Years had been spent with Stiles researching the strings of fate. He had been happy to know that there was no getting rid of them except for death. He knew his father's string had disappeared with the death of his mother. Of course, that was also when his father kind of checked out of life for a while. Stiles lost both of his parents, and when his father came back, it was never like it was before, and it was more like his father tolerated him more than anything else. He wasn't upset by that because it was what it was.

Then he woke up on his sixteenth birthday, and the string was gone. There was no purple string that connected him to anyone. He had stayed home from school that day, calling and acting like his father, saying that he was throwing up. One day to mourn the person he was supposed to be perfect for in his life. Then, it was like it never happened. He pushed it all away.

"This is the cruelest joke ever," Stiles said before he looked around the room. He found that he was in his bedroom, but dreams were always weird to him. He wasn't sure what would happen, but the dream needed to play out. He had dreamed this so much. When he woke up, the string was there. He would follow it to where whoever his soulmate was supposed to be was dead. The string always led him to a dead body.

Stiles stopped to do his normal morning routine out of habit more than anything else. He hated to delay it; he wanted to wake up, but that would only happen when he was standing over the dead body.

The world was noisy, as noisy as New York City could be. There were a lot of people around, more than normal for one of his dreams, but then the first ones, there had never been anyone around, and he was in Beacon Hills. The dream followed his life from the start to the finish.

Sometimes, Stiles wondered if anyone would even miss him if one day he just stopped being around. He wasn't actively suicidal, but there were times when he nearly got hit when he wondered if getting hit would make his life better. It would probably end, but given his luck, he would be in worse condition. Passive suicidal ideation was what he was told he had. He knew there had to be a term for it. Yet he had never sought out getting better either. He lived his life. He had a few people at work who he talked to. He called his father every Sunday, chattering at his voicemail for a few minutes if he didn't answer, not caring that he was never called back later that day or even the next.

After waking up without the string, Stiles understood his father more. He understood it, and it's why Stiles never hooked up with a woman to have sex. He didn't want to be saddled with a kid because he knew he was broken. The loss of someone he had never met and never loved was soul-crushing, and no child should have to have a parent like him.

The string was leading him to a restaurant. That had never happened before; it was usually the scene of a car accident or his soulmate having been shoved out a window. Something like that. Never this. He hesitated before he opened the door, thinking he was going to find someone slumped over in a chair, dead. He looked around for the cause of the dream, but there was nothing. He kept on walking to the back, following the string. There was more seating back there.

"Sir, you need to wait for me to seat you!" a host called out.

Stiles kept on going, and he stopped as he took in the fact that the string was leading him to someone who was alive. He debated reaching over and pinching himself. His dreams had never been that mean. It was a table with a rather large family at it. He could see three older people and then what looked like four kids, all within a decade older and younger than Stiles. Then, five actual children.

"And for you, sir?" the waitress who was serving the table asked.

"Just the carne platter, please. Eggs over medium, hash browns, sourdough toast."

"Awesome. Did you have another person who was joining you?"

The adult looked up and then back at Stiles, who was still standing there.

"Derek?" one of the people said.

Stiles watched as Derek looked down at his hand that was sitting on the back of the man's chair beside him. Then his gaze followed the path the string made from his hand to Stiles' hand. It was then that Stiles reached over and pinched his arm, hoping to wake up. He didn't need his dreams to show him a happy family. He didn't need this kind of torture.

"Stiles?" one of the men asked.

Stiles pinched himself harder, and he flinched, the bruise already popping up on his skin. The sound of a chair scraping made him start to stumble back. Stiles turned to flee, but the host was there.

"It's okay, Joshua, why don't you close this section?" one of the men said.

Stiles tried to place the man who said his name. He knew he knew him, but it had been a long time. Then he remembered the lawyer who had been someone who pissed off his father time and again when he got people off on charges. Peter Hale. He knew that the Hales had left Beacon Hills after something to do with their son, who was a few years older than him. He never figured it out since he was pretty young. Peter had stuck around for a few years to handle something, and then he had left as well.

A soft hand on his shoulder had Stiles turning to see it was Peter. He allowed the man to draw him over to the table.

"Get him the most popular plate that has pancakes," Peter said as he pushed Stiles into a chair. "And more coffee for the table place."

"Peter, who is this?" the woman asked.

"Talia, dear, this is the son of Sheriff Stilinski, back in Beacon Hills. The man might have hated me for the job I had back there, but I never hated him. He was too wrapped up in his job a lot of the time, and I made sure that someone checked on Stiles. I never knew. You followed your string here, didn't you?"

Stiles could only nod. He was looking at Derek.

"Stiles, this my family. Talia and Gregory Hale. Talia is my sister, and Greg hated his last name. Then, their four children, Laura, Derek, Cora, and Spencer. Then, the four little kids are Laura's four children. Two sets of twins. Tia and Tony are the ones with red hair, while the darker-haired pair are Jacob and John."

"Hi," Stiles said. He made himself look around the table. The kids were all engaged with their books or coloring, so they didn't pay any attention to what was going on. "How?"

"That's a long story that can be talked about later, but why don't we start off with Derek being taken in by someone a long time ago, and because of that, he was hurt," Talia said.

"I woke up from a coma two weeks ago. I was drugged up pretty bad for a while, and today was the first time I was allowed out."

Peter snorted. "No, that's a gross misinterpretation of it. You were fucking recused today."

Talia glared at Peter, but she said nothing.

Stiles thought about what had gone on for the Hales and how Derek had caused issues that made the Hales want to leave. Then there was the fire that happened after they had left, part of why Peter had stayed.

"My father always said that your soulmate hurt you, and it was why you left when I asked why the Hales all left Beacon Hills."

"Something like that, but she wasn't my soulmate. I thought she was."

"But your string...didn't it go to her?"

"It did, but it was a little weird, like it wasn't tied right, and her string was poison green in color, and my string was purple. She tried to convince me that all of her family was like that. It might have been the cause of what she did. I never knew that she could do magic," Derek said.

Stiles looked at the Hales. He had learned a lot about the parts of society that were just whispered about in connection with the strings of fate. Stiles himself had a little bit of magic in him, a spark, and it was why he had ADHD; it wasn't enough to train, but it was enough to cause him issues. ADHD was just how it presented.

"I wasn't dreaming."

"Dreaming?" Derek asked.

"I've had this dream before. Usually, if I follow it, I will find a dead body. My string broke years ago. We all know what that means. I never thought that magic could do something about it. That magic could be used to hide my soulmate from me. I'm not...I'm not mentally healthy at all."

"I've been in a coma for years, kept there by the woman I thought was my soulmate to get my money to hunt down people and kill them after her family cut her off after killing a family up north. I was already bound to her, and it was why I was in a coma. We are both fucked up. My family broke me out of the mental health facility, and we are eating here and waiting for the FBI to show up after Peter gave them everything he found on the Argents over the years to make sure that I'm safe. Kate bribed a judge and got restraining orders against my family, but I knew who they were."

Stiles wasn't sure what to say to any of that. He hadn't ever thought he would have a chance at happiness in his life again. Not since waking up with his string gone. This was too much but not enough at the same time.

"You are more than welcome to wait with us. Peter figures that they will get here in about an hour. Since we don't trust anyone, we have the kids all here. The staff know what to do if the FBI try and take them if they try to arrest us," Talia said.

"I think I need to think, but I can do that here."

Stiles let himself be pulled into his thoughts as he lifted up the coffee placed in front of him by Peter. It was just like he had taken it when he had last drunk it in the coffee shop in Beacon Hills before Peter had left. Peter had come back to Beacon Hills a few times after Stiles' string had broken, and he had balked at Stiels drinking coffee. The pills did nothing for him, but the upper that caffeine was helped a lot with his ADHD. He wasn't sure if that was the way of it for all people who had magic and couldn't use it.

No one really ignored him, but they didn't expect him to say anything. The conversation seemed to go back to what it was before, talking about what to do with Derek. Stiles realized that there was a buffer around the kids, and they were off in their own little world and not able to hear their family. It seemed to work well for them. Stiles listened and took it all in. He watched the way that Derek looked at him.

They were both broken. Hurt by the woman who had done this to them. It would take a while to get healed up, but Stiles thought that maybe it would be worth it. He could be happy if he let himself be happy. He had never really thought about it that much. Being happy was something he thought he would ever be able to be. Maybe he wasn't broken because of losing Derek but because he had let himself be that way.

"Derek's going to see a therapist as soon as we get him cleared to allow us to make decisions," Peter said.

Stiles looked at him and held out his cup for more coffee. Peter gladly took it and made it up the Stiles liked.

"How do you know that?"

"He drank too much, and I tried to feed him a lot. He would be on his laptop just researching things, and I would make sure he was fed. I worried about him when I was leaving there, so I made sure there were others around who would take care of him. It worked out well; he's alive."

"I wondered about the tab at the coffee shop and the sandwich shop next door. I figured it was someone telling my father and him taking care of it. I never thought anything of it."

"That was on purpose; I had a friend help me with it." Peter looked down the table at Spencer. "Spencer, am I feeling him right?"

"You are. He's got a lot of magic."

"No, I just have a spark."

"Oh, Stiels,' Derek said.

"What?"

"A spark is not like a small amount of magic. A spark is a type of magic user who has the most power of any." Peter picked up the coffee and held it out to Stiles again. "That's where the ADHD comes from. Someone with just a little magic wouldn't have ADHD. Spencer's got a fair bit himself, and he's also confirmed to have ADHD."

"How the hell did no one tell me this? That guy back home, some random guy I met once who taught me a little until he decided I had nothing worth training." Stiles drank half of the coffee.

"Deaton?" Talia asked.

"Yes."

"He was our emissary for our pack until I couldn't trust him anymore. He stepped back and refused to take part with the pack anymore, even if he was considered to be a part of it. He was doing it for a reason. We will have to take the time to make sure that nothing is going to happen to you over this and make sure that you are taken care of. You and Derek need to heal, and you need time, but you are not going to be left alone anymore," Greg said.

Stiles felt like crying. He looked at Derek, and for the first time, he allowed hope inside of him.

The End