Two nights later, half the town lost power for no apparent reason. The Sheriff and his deputies were out patrolling now, thinking that someone was purposely sabotaging the cities power. They were also making sure the town stayed in order during the blackout.

Derek sent his betas out to search as well, although with instructions to stay out of the way of the police. He only wanted them to interfere if this did turn out to have a supernatural cause.

Lydia stayed at home to search through a few more sources she had found. Stiles insisted on joining the search, since he had no new leads and the power was out both at his house and the loft anyway. Derek reluctantly agreed he could come along, but he insisted the human came with him. He even let Stiles drive them in his beat up jeep.

He knew Stiles was capable looking after himself, he just felt better knowing the human was safe with him. That was it. Especially now that he knew Stiles was hearing impaired. He needed a wolf's senses to balance them out. And his beta’s senses weren’t as good as his, so Stiles was really best off with him. Scott and the others had already paired off and left anyway, so he didn’t know why he kept making these excuses...

Derek jerked himself out of his thoughts as Stiles parked beside the town’s main power station. Derek jumped out, sniffing the air for anything unusual. He got nothing more than a few humans, metal and dirt. He could hear a few people up in the office working at trying to fix the problem. They hadn’t noticed Stiles’ jeep pulling up.

He glanced over at Stiles as the boy rounded the car towards him. “Why this place?” He asked.

“My latest theory is that something is using the power supply as food. So where would the best place be to feed off of? The main power station!” Stiles proclaimed, lifting his arms towards the building.

Derek stared at him, unimpressed, “isn’t that from a Spider-Man movie?”

Stiles beamed at him, “I am very proud of you for knowing that. And yes it is. But what are comic books if not today’s modern mythology?”

Derek glared at him as he moved to enter the building, picking the lock with ease and sliding in. Derek rolled his eyes and followed. Might as well make sure nothing was here.

The building was cement, with thick wires covering the walls and ceiling. There were gated areas full of power boxes and signs everywhere warning people not to touch. Derek made sure to keep a close eye on Stiles, the teen probably ignored signs as much as locks.

Their footsteps echoed as they walked through the halls. Derek was pretty sure he could also hear the squeak of rats close by. The main lights were off, and the generator lights hummed dimly above them. Derek didn’t mind, but Stiles pulled out a flashlight, looking into every corner and nook they walked past.

They made it to the center of the building before Derek stopped. “There’s nothing here.”

Stiles kept walking.

“Stiles,” Derek said louder, “there’s nothing here, we should go.” His voice echoing off the walls. Stiles stopped walking, looking around in confusion. He started to turn around when suddenly all the lights went out, including Stiles flashlight.

Derek blinked, trying to get his eyes to adjust to complete darkness. He heard Stiles heart jack up to an alarming rate.

“Stiles? What’s wrong?”

Stiles didn’t respond. If anything, his heart started to beat even more erratically. He heard shuffling, something clattering to the ground, and the squeaks of the rats. Then Stiles shouted in alarm.

“Stiles!”

Derek shifted, scanning the room with his alpha red eyes, running toward where he could hear the kid’s heart pounding.

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Stiles was huddled beside a gate, his arms wrapped around his chest. There were two rats sitting close by, sniffing his shoes. Derek swatted then away, crouching down beside the scared teen.

“Stiles, what-?”

Stiles jumped when Derek touched him. Derek immediate brought his hand back.

“I can’t, who’s there? I can’t-“ Stiles’ panted. Derek was worried he would start to hyperventilate if Derek didn’t get him to calm down.

“It’s me, Stiles it’s me, Derek. It’s okay. Calm down. It’s Derek.” Derek said. He wanted to reach out again, but Stiles looked like a ball of nerves.

“Derek. Derek?” Stiles reaches out on his own, and Derek grabs his flailing hands. Leaning forward so he had most of his body pressed up beside Stiles. Stiles untangles one of his hands to pat at Derek’s face. He leans into Derek’s arms with a sigh after he feels along Derek’s jawline. “Okay. Okay, it’s you. Thank god for your scruffy face.”

Derek holds onto Stiles as he calms his breathing. He doesn’t talk until Stiles heart rate is semi back to normal.

“Are you alright?”

Stiles hand is still on his face, he rubs Derek’s beard for a second before withdrawing it. “I’m okay. Sorry for freaking out.”

“What happened?”

Stiles swiveled his head around, before giving up on whatever he was trying to do and shaking his head. “Could you get me out of here please?”

“Yes.” Derek agreed immediately. He hauled Stiles to his feet, and then practically dragged the guy to the exit, grabbing Stiles phone for him on the way. Stiles didn’t seem to mind. He was leaning on Derek heavily the whole time.

Once they were outside, they both breathed a sigh of relief. They silently made their way to the jeep. Stiles passed Derek the keys and slid into the passenger side without a word. Derek moved to start the car, but the engine wouldn’t turn over.

“Well that answers that question.” Stiles said, looking at his car forlornly.

“What?”

“Only one thing I’ve read about has the power to pull energy from all objects. The town’s grid, the generator, the flashlight, our phones, my car. It’s probably a kitsune.”

Derek thought about for a second, “the Japanese fox?”

“Yeah, they’re mostly human and don’t want to harm other humans. Maybe this one's young or something. That’s probably why you guys haven’t been able to smell anything.”

Derek nodded, “I’ve heard of them. I didn’t know they could do this.”

“Not all can. There’s different types, this is a thunder kitsune.” Stiles said with a shrug. “Guess we’re stuck here for a while. Unless we want to walk back.”

Derek thought about it before shaking his head. “Let’s sit here for a minute. You need to rest.”

Stiles nodded, looking away in what Derek thought was embarrassment. “It’s okay, you know, that you panicked. A lot of people dislike the dark.”

Stiles laugh sounded self deprecating. “Most people can rely on other senses in the dark. I go full Helen Keller.”

Derek frowned, “is that what happened in there?”

“Yeah,” Stiles finally turned to him, his eyes were sad, “I was having trouble hearing because of the echo in the first place. And then it was just nothing. I really started freaking out when something touched me… I hate it, how easy it is to turn me into a ball of useless panic.”

“You’re not useless.” Derek said fiercely.

Stiles shrugged, looking out the window. “Thanks for getting me out of there. What was touching me, by the way? Did you see it?”

“A rat.”

Stiles jerked in a full body shiver, sticking his tongue out at the end, “ew!”

Derek laughed at him, “it barely touched you.”

“Easy for you to say! It wasn’t sniffing you out for dinner.”

Derek rolled his eyes, “it wasn’t going to eat you.”

“Yeah, cause big bad wolf came and saved me.” Stiles grinned, swatting Derek’s arm playfully.

“I would hardly call it saving. I just helped. That’s what we do, we help each other.”

Stiles gave him a thoughtful look, but didn’t say anything. They fell into a silence. It was comfortable, but Derek liked it when Stiles was talking. Which was strange, because he used to only think of ways to get the kid to shut up.. He would think about that later though. When he was alone.

“You know, she was a pretty cool woman.”

Stiles turned to him, confused, “sorry, what? Who?”

“Helen Keller, she was pretty cool. She raised a lot of awareness for blind and deaf people.”

Stiles laughed, “yeah? You know a lot about her, do you?”

“You and Lydia aren’t the only ones who know how to research, you know,” Derek grumbled.

Stiles laughed even harder, “why were you researching Helen Keller?”

Derek rolled his eyes, “I found out a member of my pack is partially deaf. I was researching anything related to deaf and hard of hearing people.”

Stiles looked surprised, he opened his mouth but before he said anything else the jeep jerked and all the lights in the building beside them flickered on. Both Derek and Stiles winced at the sudden brightness.

Both of them phones immediately started buzzing. Derek turned the car on as Stiles started to read through the texts.

“Scotty found her! She is a kitsune. She’s here with her parents to learn to control her powers.. oh yeah, I guess it makes sense to take half of Beacon Hills out instead of half of New York City. She’s doing her last year of high school here next year, poor gal..”

Stiles kept talking as Derek drove them home. He was proud of his pack for being able to solve the problem mostly on their own. He needed to make plans to meet these new foxes in his neighborhood.

He glanced over at Stiles, finding the boy smirking down at his phone. His face was so full of joy, Derek's heart skipped a beat.

—