| “ | You think Stiles-- skinny, defenseless Stiles-- is a Nogitsune? A powerful dark spirit? | ” |
| “ | Aw, come on! Just give us Derek. You don't want him anyway! Haven't you noticed what a downer he is? No sense of humor, poor conversationalist... | ” |
The relationship between Evolved Werewolf Derek Hale and Human Stiles Stilinski
Derek and Stiles first met in the first episode of Season 1, right after Stiles' best friend Scott McCall was bitten by the Alpha and turned into a Werewolf. From the start, their relationship was antagonistic, as Stiles, believing Derek to have killed his sister, found him untrustworthy and suspicious, whereas Derek believed Stiles to be yet another naive teenager like Scott. However, the two began reluctantly working together to keep the citizens of Beacon Hills safe from the Alpha (who was later revealed to be Derek's uncle, Peter Hale), as well as keeping Derek and Scott safe from the Argent Family of Hunters who were pursuing them.
Though their interactions continued to involve the two being snarky and occasionally even rude, Derek could bearly tolerate Stiles, he did team up with derek but only because of scott, when their friends needed to protect Beacon Hills from threats, such as the Kanima, the Darach and the Alpha Pack. During their time working together, each saved the other's life on several occasions. For example, despite Stiles' human nature and lack of supernatural powers, he helped keep Derek alive long enough to be cured of his wolfsbane poisoning, kept him afloat in a swimming pool after Derek had been paralyzed by Kanima venom, and confronted the feared matriarch of the Calavera Family, Araya, with Lydia Martin in order to try to buy Derek's freedom, as the McCall Pack believed her to have captured him. Likewise, Derek has saved Stiles' life as well, with Derek helping to protect Stiles from Peter while he was still an Alpha, and putting his life on the line several times to try to end Stiles' possession by the Nogitsune, but just because they saved each other's lives doesn't mean they liked each other.
Stiles and Derek's last team-up for some time occurred in Season 4's Smoke and Mirrors, when they helped the newly-bitten Werewolf Liam Dunbar learn control over his transformations on the full moon while they drove to Mexico to save Scott and Kira from Kate Argent. During this time, Derek was gravely wounded after being attacked by one of Kate's Berserkers, though Derek urged them to go in and finish their mission. Afterward, Derek managed to recover from the wounds as a result of his evolution into a Werewolf who can full-shift, and he left Beacon Hills shortly afterward. The two didn't see each other again until Season 6B, when Stiles, who was in his internship with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, learned that one of the "unsubs" they were tracking was, in fact, Derek, whom they believed to be a serial killer after he was (wrongly) accused of killing twelve people in Brazil who were ultimately revealed to be Werewolves killed by Gerard Argent and Tamora Monroe's Hunter army. The two then returned to Beacon Hills separately to ultimately team up to help save the rest of their pack from Monroe and her Hunters.
In 2026, Stiles was working for the FBI and far from Beacon Hills and was left in the dark in regards to the Nogitsune's return and thirst for vengeance against the McCall Pack members. Unfortunately, Derek sacrificed himself and was incinerated to death along with the Dark Kitsune to save the lives of his loved ones, particularly his son, Eli.
After Derek's death, Sheriff Stilinski indirectly implied that Derek may have had romantic feelings for Stiles when he tells Eli "Your dad had complicated feelings about that Jeep" - the Jeep representing Derek's feelings for its previous owner.
In Wolf Moon, although Stiles Stilinski was aware of who Derek Hale was by reputation for an unknown period of time, they did not actually meet until the day after Stiles and his best friend Scott McCall went into the Beacon Hills Preserve in hopes of finding the other half of a corpse that had already been partially found and recovered by police earlier in the evening, which was also when the two were forced to split up and Scott was inadvertently bitten and turned into a Werewolf, though this was still unbeknownst to Scott at the time.
They had returned to the woods after school and lacrosse try-outs to try to find Scott's inhaler, which he had dropped in the chaos during the attack the night prior. They eventually ended up where the edge of the woods met up with the edge of the Hale House property, upon which they were eventually confronted by Derek, who was standing in the middle of the yard and scowling. He demanded to know what the two were doing there, citing the fact that it was private property, and Stiles, clearly intimidated, assured him that they didn't know, with Scott adding that they were just looking for something. When Scott saw Derek glare at them, he decided they should both leave as soon as possible and announced that they were doing so; however, before they could walk away, Derek held up Scott's inhaler and tossed it to him, giving the newly turned wolf one last look before walking away, completely ignoring Stiles in the process.
After Derek left and the two teens began heading back into the woods, Stiles incredulously pointed out that the man was Derek Hale, and when Scott didn't recognize the name, Stiles scoffed in exasperation. "You remember, right? He's only a few years older than us..." When this fails to jog Scott's memory, Stiles reminded him that his family burned to death in a fire years earlier, leading them both to wonder what brought him back to town. Stiles, still intimidated by the menacing young adult, insisted that they get out of there. By this point, Derek seemed to have figured out that Scott had been bitten and was in the process of turning into a Werewolf, and Stiles would soon come to the same conclusion a few days later, warning Scott that he should stay home on the upcoming full moon but ultimately accepting that he couldn't stop him from going on his date with Allison Argent.
That following Friday night, a party was held at Lydia Martin's house after the Beacon Hills High School lacrosse team's first scrimmage, which Stiles, who had a major crush on Lydia, and Scott, who had his first date with Allison, planned to attend. Though Derek also came to the party and lurked outside to keep an eye on Scott, since it was the night of the full moon, he and Stiles did not actually see each other or interact until after Scott began feeling the effects of his transformation and left the party in a hurry, when Stiles saw Derek offer Allison a ride home; Stiles would not realize until later that Derek was trying to see how much Allison knew about the supernatural due to her family being descended from a centuries-old family of Werewolf Hunters.
Stiles immediately went to the McCall House to check on Scott, and when Scott, who had briefly seen Derek at the party as well, theorized that the older man was the Werewolf who bit and turned him, Stiles became concerned because Derek had taken Allison home from the party. Believing Derek had malicious intentions toward his crush, Scott instructed Stiles to go to Allison's house to check on her while he went to track down Derek himself, knowing he couldn't hold back his transformation. Stiles ultimately found Allison safe at home, and Derek ultimately revealed to Scott that he had used her scent from the jacket he stole of hers to lure him to the woods to ensure that Scott wouldn't hurt her during his first transformation. The two were then briefly attacked by a trio of Hunters led by Allison's father Chris Argent, but they managed to get away from them with only an injured arm on Scott's end. Stiles then picked Scott up in the woods the next morning after his transformation was over, but Derek had already left.
In Second Chance at First Line, Stiles was in a video chat with his best friend Scott when the video feed started to get glitchy and froze up. Suddenly, Stiles noticed a dark shadow in the background of Scott's video and was forced to switch to text-chatting to warn him of this. Scott, alarmed, tried to ask him what he meant, but his computer was still frozen and wouldn't let him respond. Stiles looked just as scared when he realized it was Derek, who came out of the dark to shove Scott against the wall and berate him for almost exposing Werewolves when he lost control during practice earlier that day and threatening to kill Scott himself if he tried to play in the upcoming lacrosse game.
The next day at school, Stiles saw his father Sheriff Stilinski and several of his deputies and asked Scott to use his superhuman hearing to eavesdrop on what they were talking about down the hall. After a moment, Scott revealed that Stilinski was implementing a town curfew because of the body they found, causing Stiles to scoff in annoyance at the trouble Derek had caused for them. "Unbelievable. My dad's out looking for a rabid animal, while the jerk-off who actually killed the girl is just hangin' out, doing whatever he wants." Scott grimly pointed out that it wasn't like they could tell Stilinski the truth about Derek, but Stiles insisted he could do something to get Derek to pay for his alleged actions—finding the other half of the body.
After school, Scott had gone to the Hale House to tell Derek to leave Allison Argent (whose family was revealed to be a centuries-old family of Werewolf Hunters) alone and caught the scent of what he believed to be the missing part of the body Stiles was intent on finding. During their conversation, Derek snidely remarked, "You think your little buddy Stiles can just Google "Werewolves," and now you got all the answers? Is that it?", making it clear that he thought both Scott and Stiles were in over their heads and was confident that he was a better teacher than Stiles when it came to learning control. Once Scott returned to his home after this confrontation, he called Stiles, who excitedly rushed over and demanded to know the details of how he figured out where it was, admitting that he had taken a lot of Adderall that day. Scott explained that he smelled blood at the Hale House and that this was what they were talking about—they could go figure out what was buried out there, and then Stilinski could arrest Derek for the murder.
The two then went to Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, where Stiles helped Scott break into the morgue to see if the scent matched the half of the body the police had found in the woods. Once he had confirmed that it did, Stiles was appalled to have confirmation that the other half of the body was buried on the Hale House property, and Scott pointed out that they had what they needed to get the proof. Stiles didn't hesitate to state that he thought they should go for it, but first asked Scott if they were doing this because they want to stop Derek, or because Scott wanted to play in the lacrosse game and Derek wouldn't let him out of fear of him exposing himself as a Werewolf on accident. Though Scott had inadvertently implied the latter earlier in the day, Scott pointed out that the legs of the dead girl they found were covered in bite marks, which was all Stiles needed to know to continue the plan, insisting that they needed a shovel.
That night, Stiles and Scott hid out at the edge of the woods and waited until Derek left the Hale House ruins in his Camaro before heading out to try to figure out where he buried the body. They ended up finding a newly dug-up patch of earth on the side of the house. They were about to start digging when Scott stopped them, sensing somehow that something was different, but when Stiles asked for clarification, Scott shrugged it off and insisted that they just get it over with quickly. After a few minutes of digging, Scott started to get anxious and asked what would happen if Derek came back, and Stiles assured him that they would get the hell out of there as soon as possible. When asked what would happen if Derek caught them, Stiles explained his plan for such a scenario-- "You run one way. I run the other. Whoever he catches first? Too bad," a plan Scott made explicitly clear that he hated immensely.
A short time later, the two finally managed to dig far enough to reach a burlap sack that had been tied in a bundle with a long rope of twine with purple flower petals woven into it, which Stiles struggled to untie due to the numerous tight knots holding it closed. When he finally got it open, they were both stunned to find, not the top half of a human female, but the front half of a wolf. Stiles sarcastically reminded Scott that he had said he smelled human blood, but Scott argued that he had said that something felt different. Realizing that this didn't make sense, the two agreed to leave and went to rebury the body when suddenly, Stiles noticed a small purple flowering plant attached to the other end of the twine and identified it as wolfsbane. When Scott did not recognize the name of the plant, Stiles used The Wolf Man and Lon Cheney, Junior as references, which went completely over Scott's head and caused Stiles to exasperatedly exclaim that Scott was "so unprepared" for life as a Werewolf.
Stiles began pulling at the twine attached to the wolfsbane plant, and it began unfurling in a circle around the wolf's body, as though it had been buried in a spiral shape. Once Stiles had removed all of the twine, they were both shocked to see that the wolf's body had turned back into the top half of the human girl that Scott had stumbled upon the night he was bitten, proving that their theory was correct.
The next morning, Stiles and Scott watched as Sheriff's deputies descended upon the Hale House and arrested Derek, who glared at them angrily, scaring them both. Once Derek was left unattended in the back of the deputy cruiser, Stiles got into the front seat to talk to him, immediately prefacing their conversation with a timid "Okay, just so you know, I'm not afraid of you." Derek looked at him skeptically, and Stiles conceded that he may actually be scared before changing the subject to the body they found; he guessed that the girl Derek allegedly killed was a Werewolf, but a different kind from Derek and Scott, because she could turn into an actual wolf.
When Stiles asked Derek if this was why he killed her, Derek irritably asked Stiles why he was so concerned about him, when it was his best friend Scott who was the actual problem. Stiles looked taken aback by this question, and Derek continued on by asking him what he thought would happen when Scott inevitably shifted on the field in front of everyone-- "What do you think they're going to do? Just keep cheering him on?" He went on to say that, while he obviously could not stop Scott from playing, especially now, Stiles could, adding, "And trust me-- you want to." Before Stiles could ask any further questions, he was yanked out of the car by his father, Sheriff Stilinski, who immediately began interrogating Stiles about how he got involved in this situation in the first place.
The next night at the game, when Scott insisted upon playing in the game despite Derek's warnings, Stiles reminded him not to stress out too much about everything going on, including that Derek would kill him if he shifted on the field, or that Derek already allegedly killed someone, since that would just make Scott more likely to do just that. Fortunately, they made it through the game without incident, though Scott did nearly shift right when he got off the field and was able to stave it off with a shower. However, Stiles ultimately talked to his father and wasted no time rushing to see Scott to tell him what he had learned—the medical examiner did the autopsy and determined that the girl's killer was an animal, not a human, which meant they had no grounds to keep Derek in jail. To make matters more confusing, the body was identified as Laura Hale, Derek's older sister, adding another mystery to the entire situation.
In Pack Mentality, after Scott had an incredibly vivid dream about killing his girlfriend Allison Argent, Stiles remarked that Scott was handling his transition into a Werewolf extremely well considering there "wasn't a Lycanthropy for Beginners" class he could take, leading Scott to remark that there may not be a class, but there may be a teacher. Stiles, realizing that Scott was referring to Derek, immediately took issue with Scott seeking out Derek's help in learning more about his dream and what it could mean by pointing out that they just got him thrown in jail, which meant that he could potentially be an enemy of his now. They were both then stunned to find out that the events of Scott's dream were apparently real, only instead of killing Allison, he seemingly critically wounded a bus driver named Garrison Myers.
Troubled by the fact that he couldn't remember the circumstances that led him to the bus bay where they attack took place, Scott was insistent upon going to see Derek, leading Stiles to once again argue that they had no way of knowing that Derek had any of the answers. Scott, however, believed he did, as Derek was completely in control during Scott's first full moon and wasn't transformed at all, which meant that he knew how to assert absolute control over his Werewolf side and could potentially help him access his memories.
Scott did indeed go to see Derek, who agreed to help Scott that day in exchange for a future favor. He then encouraged Scott to use all of his superhuman senses and his body to remind him of what his mind was suppressing, leading Scott and Stiles to go back to the crime scene to do just that. However, after Scott managed to regain his suppressed memories, he came to the conclusion that he was preventing another Werewolf, whom he believed was Derek, from killing Garrison and got hurt in the process, which explained a lot of the blood in the bus. Despite having argued against trusting Derek earlier in the day, Stiles didn't understand why Derek would encourage him to access his repressed memories if those same memories were just going to implicate Derek in another murder later, and Scott agreed that it didn't make sense to him either.
The next night, Stiles informed Scott that Garrison Myers had succumbed to his wounds and died, leading a furious Scott to go to the Hale House to confront and fight Derek. Unfortunately for Scott, Derek easily overpowered him, but he did end up learning more about Werewolves; specifically, that he and Derek were considered "Betas," and that the Werewolf who lured Scott out the night of the attack in the Beacon Hills High School bus bay was an Alpha, the most powerful type of Werewolf, the only kind that can turn humans into Werewolves, and specifically the Werewolf who both killed Derek's sister, Laura, and also bit and turned Scott.
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In Magic Bullet,
In Heart Monitor,
In Night School,
In Lunatic,
In Wolf's Bane,
In Co-Captain,
In Formality,
In Code Breaker,
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In Omega,
In Shape Shifted,
In Ice Pick,
In Abomination,
In Venomous,
In Frenemy,
In Restraint,
In Raving,
In Party Guessed,
In Fury,
In Battlefield,
In Master Plan,
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In Tattoo,
In Chaos Rising,
In Frayed,
In Motel California,
In Currents,
In Visionary,
In The Girl Who Knew Too Much,
In The Overlooked,
In Alpha Pact, Stiles finds Derek unconscious on the floor and slapped him awake. Stiles told Derek that Jennifer abducted Melissa and Scott left with Deucalion. As Derek went to rejoin his sister, Isaac, Chris and Allison, Stiles remained at the hospital in order to stall the police.
In Lunar Ellipse,
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In Anchors,
In Galvanize,
In Illuminated,
In Silverfinger,
In Riddled,
In Letharia Vulpina,
In Echo House,
In De-Void,
In Insatiable,
In The Divine Move,
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In The Dark Moon, Stiles and the pack went to Mexico to find Derek after Kate Argent abducted him. When Scott and Brayden found him, Derek was a teenager. Stiles was in shock upon seeing him.
In 117, Stiles and Derek pretended to be cousins when they dined with Rafael McCall.
In Weaponized,
In Smoke and Mirrors,
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In Said the Spider to the Fly, Stiles left Beacon Hills and joined the internship with the FBI. Here, he learned that Derek was accused of killing twelve people in Brazil.
In The Wolves of War,Trivia[]
- Though Derek and Stiles' relationship can be quite antagonistic at times, they have developed a good friendship throughout the series.
- Sterek is the most popular ship in the Teen Wolf fandom.
- In both Wolf's Bane and 117 they pretended to be cousins.
