Chapter Text
Stiles tasted blood as his chin hit concrete. He barely managed to flip himself onto his back before the solid weight of another body slammed down across his hips. Rough hands grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the floor.
Damn it.
Swallowing the bile rising at the back of his throat, Stiles bent his knees and kicked off the ground. His assailant grunted and slouched forward, the unexpected buck of Stiles’ hips throwing off his center of gravity.
Stiles wrenched sideways, trying to unbalance the bastard even further, but his attacker had the reflexes of a bull rider and the muscle mass to back them up. The move brought one of the man’s arms within range, though, so Stiles craned his head sideways and bit down hard.
A hot pulse of blood gushed into his mouth as the man snarled and jerked his arm back. Stiles held on tight, teeth grinding into the corded muscle of the man’s forearm. A second, stronger yank nearly dislocated Stiles’ jaw. Stiles braced himself for a third tug, but the guy suddenly switched tactics and slammed his arm forward instead.
Splashes of light sparked across Stiles’ vision as the back of his skull connected with the solid ground. His jaw went slack – he couldn’t help it – and suddenly both of the man’s hands were around his throat.
Stiles tried to pry them off, tried to scratch, bruise, bite, kick, scream– but the man’s grip was tight enough to slow the oxygen flowing to his brain, and Stiles’ limbs weren’t listening anymore.
He fought to pull air in past the vise of the man’s fingers. There was something he was supposed to do in this situation - knee balls or gouge eyes or…God, the lethargic thrum of constricted blood echoed inside his skull blotting out any hope he had of forming coherent thoughts.
Stiles blinked up at the pair of feral red eyes hovering inches above his face and knew it was over.
“You’re dead,” Derek snarled, fingers tightening on Stiles’ throat. “Again.”
☆★☆
Stiles wasn’t sure what had made him ask Derek in the first place.
Maybe it was the fact that he’d been kidnapped for the fifth time in as many weeks, and had to wait around, yet again, for the cavalry to arrive. Maybe it was the seed of darkness, soaked in icy water and sacrifice, still growing around his heart like the tangled roots of a gnarled old tree. Or maybe it was some sort of PTSD, a faulty survival instinct triggered by the mingled horror and guilt of being possessed by the nogitsune.
Even with all that, asking an unstable alpha werewolf to teach him self-defense was probably as close to suicidal as it was possible to get without holding a loaded gun to his own head.
“You’re not the Karate Kid, Stiles,” Derek had snarled that first night when Stiles limped into his wreck of an apartment.
“And you’re not some kindly old Japanese sensei. I get that,” Stiles said, ducking under an exposed beam so that he could face the alpha properly. “It’s just… I’m tired of being a message. Tired of being bait. God. I’m so fucking tired of not being able to breathe around the knot in my chest. I need to learn how to defend myself, Derek, and you’re the scariest monster I have on speed dial.”
There was a feral twist to Derek’s lips as he said, “You have me on speed dial.” He probably meant it as a question, but inflection had never really been his strong suit.
Stiles rolled his eyes. “That’s really not the point.”
“I already have enough pups to train,” Derek said, turning away. “Ask Scott.”
“Wait,” Stiles protested, reaching out to grab Derek’s shoulder before he could leave.
Derek froze at the contact, then turned his head with deliberate slowness, and glared at Stiles’ hand.
“Sorry!” Stiles jerked his hand away. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. It’s just…Scott can’t do this. He’ll hold back. He doesn’t want to hurt me.”
Derek’s gaze shifted to Stiles’ face, and the one eyebrow that Stiles could see rose. “And you think I do.”
The words sounded heavy for some reason, loaded with a meaning Stiles couldn’t parse. Derek’s profile was unreadable.
“That’s not what I…damn it, Derek, I just spent seven hours tied up in the trunk of a Volvo. Worse, I was captured by the incompetent drivers of a Volvo. I need to learn how to fight back, or at least how to run away better or something. If I can figure out how to avoid getting killed by you, then maybe I can avoid getting killed by other things, too.”
He didn’t mention the dark doors in his nightmares, or the suffocating memories of blood and death. He definitely didn’t mention the fact that the only times he felt truly alive anymore were those brief spikes of fear and adrenaline when he and the pack were fighting, tooth and nail, to survive. Derek wouldn’t understand. How could he? Stiles was living it and he had absolutely no idea what was going on.
“Come on, dude,” Stiles pleaded. He hated the desperate note in his voice, hated the fact that he was begging Derek, of all people, for help. He didn’t really have a choice, though. The Aderall wasn’t cutting it anymore. Learning how to fight back was the only way he could think of to stay focused, to hold the darkness at bay. He tried to make his voice firmer as he demanded, “Show me how to fight.”
Derek clenched his teeth, a muscle ticking in his jaw, and Stiles knew if he let the werewolf refuse again, he’d lose any chance of ever getting Derek’s help to blind alpha stubbornness.
Stiles sighed. If logical arguments wouldn’t work, maybe a demonstration would. Derek understood actions better than words anyway, right?
Stiles clenched his fingers into a fist, closed his eyes, and threw a clumsy punch.
Derek dodged and growled and, that quick, Stiles was flat on his back.
It took a full heartbeat for the pain to set in, for Stiles to register the fact that Derek had thrown him halfway across the fucking room, to realize the warm wetness he felt running down his side was blood leaking from a gash where bare rebar had torn across his ribs.
Derek was on him before the shock could dissipate, huge hands wrapped tight around Stiles’ throat, fangs bared inches above Stiles’ face.
“You’re dead,” Derek growled, voice thick with disgust. “We’re done here.”
He stood up and walked out of the room without a backward glance.
Stiles rolled onto his uninjured side and coughed. After several minutes of painful wheezing, he managed to push himself upright and stagger out to his jeep.
He should have given up then.
Derek was clearly unstable, damaged by loss and betrayal.
Stiles knew he was a killer. He’d watched Derek rip out Peter’s throat with his claws, and sever Deucalion’s spine with his teeth. The red in Derek’s eyes was the stain of spilled blood.
Stiles could probably find some other way to hold the darkness at bay – meditation or magic or something. The possibility of death by mysterious monsters had to be preferable to the certainty of death by unhinged werewolf, right?
Any sane person would have turned tail and fled.
As soon as his bruises healed, Stiles returned.
☆★☆
Scott took one look at Stiles after that first night, inhaled sharply, eyes flashing red, and threatened to take Derek apart piece by piece.
It was a sweetly protective gesture, in a weird, homicidal sort of way, but no. Just. No.
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Stiles insisted, grabbing Scott’s shoulder to stop him storming off to challenge Derek. “I threw myself at him!”
Scott spun back and blinked at him. “What?” he demanded, expression even more confused than usual, and Stiles mentally replayed what he’d said.
“What? No,” he flailed a bit to deflect that mental image. “I meant Derek didn’t attack me. I attacked him.”
Scott only looked marginally less confused at that, so Stiles explained his whole super-awesome plan to make Derek train him to fight. It was that or watch Derek rip out Scott’s spleen, and Stiles was just not that shitty of a friend.
Scott might be a True Alpha with all the physical prowess that went along with the flashing red eyes, but he didn’t have Derek’s experience or his ever-burning inner rage. Stiles really didn’t want to be the one to tell Melissa McCall why her son was suddenly sashimi.
“Why don’t you go to a dojo or something?” Scott asked. “Take a community college course on self defense.”
Stiles rolled his eyes. “Dude, do you really think a community college course is going to prepare me for the supernatural shit-shows around here?”
“Maybe?” Scott hedged, doubt clear in his voice. “It has to be better than Derek, though, right? Or, hey, maybe I could train you?”
“Seriously?” Stiles raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Scott, I love you man, but you are absolute shit at explaining things, and you have even less free time than I do.” Stiles carefully didn’t mention what he’d already told Derek – that Scott would hold back, pull punches, and feel guilty about every single bruise he left.
The last thing Stiles wanted was to be coddled.
“I still think this is a bad idea,” Scott insisted, forehead creased with worry.
Stiles shrugged, the motion making the haphazardly bandaged cut on his side throb in protest. Scott probably wasn’t wrong.
☆★☆
“Shit,” Stiles cursed, getting his hands up just in time to avoid yet another headfirst collision. He grabbed hold of the cold, metal banister and slid, shaking and bruised, to the ground. At least it was the stairs he’d crashed into this time, and not the wall again. Variety was an important part of life, and the wall could probably a use a break. Stiles’ head definitely could.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It came away red.
“Why are you still here?” Derek snapped, eyes crimson and voice sharp in the way that made most of the wolves in the pack go immediately belly up.
Fortunately, Stiles wasn’t a wolf. He licked his cracked lips and spit out blood.
“Your charming company,” he said with a crooked smile that pulled painfully at his torn skin. “Also you’re teaching me how to fight.”
“No,” Derek insisted, “I’m not.”
Stiles glared at him, pulling in air in greedy lungfuls.
Derek hadn’t even broken a sweat. He’d barely moved since answering the door, still standing there, in the middle of his strangely empty apartment, as immobile as one of the ancient Grecian sculptures he so unfairly resembled.
Stiles shoved himself upright, ignoring his protesting muscles and the way his legs felt more like overcooked noodles than working limbs.
Derek sighed. “Go home, Stiles.”
Stiles stubbornly rose to the balls of his feet, knees bent and hands raised in a close approximation of the street-fighting stances he’d seen on YouTube.
“No,” he said, and charged.
☆★☆
Stiles knew it wasn’t terribly bright to keep fighting against a man who beat him bloody every time. He didn’t like the pain, didn’t enjoy the bite of knuckles hitting flesh or the choking panic of the unyielding grip around his windpipe. He wasn’t a masochist, no matter what it might look like. But there was definitely something addictive about throwing himself headlong into a fight.
Stiles knew he would lose. He harbored no delusions about overcoming an alpha werewolf singlehanded and weaponless, but there was a strange sort of relief in the knowledge that he was allowed to kick and bite and scratch and yell as much as he wanted to, as hard as he needed to. He had absolutely no control over so many things in his life and, while the sparring sessions were a terrible, painful kind of chaos, something about the visceral struggle for survival loosened the constant knot in his chest just a little bit, let him breathe a little deeper for a few hours at least.
☆★☆
The fifth time Stiles showed up at the loft, bruises just fading to a sickly yellow green, the door was already wide open.
Stiles swallowed and fought back a twinge of panic.
Derek wasn’t the type to leave his doors unlocked. In fact, Derek had three deadbolts, two chains, and a mountain ash crossbar that would lower into place to complete an ingenious supernatural barrier that Deaton had designed. Danny had rigged it so even a werewolf could activate the barrier with a numeric code and the push of a button, making Derek’s loft a nearly impenetrable fortress against all the non-pack supernatural beasties out there.
In other words, Derek wasn’t exactly the trusting type. That meant the open door was a very, very bad sign indeed.
Stiles listened to the absolute silence inside before knocking quietly on the door frame. The noise would be too low for any humans in the apartment to hear, but if Derek was inside, his wolf ears should pick it up.
Nothing.
Stiles sighed and pulled out his phone, tapping a quick message to Scott – Derek’s loft door open...break in? checkin it out – because if he managed to get himself killed, he at least needed Scott to know where to come to avenge him.
He probably should have waited until Scott replied, waited until a less breakable member of the pack arrived before going inside, but if Derek was in there and hurt badly enough that he couldn’t reply, he needed help now.
Stiles phone vibrated as he slipped it back into his pocket, but he ignored it and squared his shoulders, stepping quietly inside.
“Hello?” he whispered, hoping desperately that he wasn’t about to find a body. The loft looked empty, all the furniture upright and untouched. There was no sign of a struggle that Stiles could see, but there was no sign of Derek, either.
Stiles took another hesitant step into the room.
A flash of movement behind him was all the warning he had before something large and solid slammed into his back.
“Shit!” Stiles cursed, flailing as he staggered forward. He tried to twist around and away, tried to gain his footing and make a run for it, but he was pulled up short by an arm slamming like an iron bar around his neck.
He felt a moment of blind panic before he was hauled bodily back into his assailant and collided with a startlingly familiar wall of solid muscle.
“You ass,” Stiles croaked, trying not to examine the fact that he apparently knew Derek’s chest by feel.
“You idiot,” Derek retorted, ever one for eloquent wordplay. “Don’t walk into a dangerous situation without backup.”
“You could have been hurt,” Stiles wheezed, prying at Derek’s arm and swinging his foot in a feeble attempt to kick Derek in the knee.
“And getting yourself killed would have helped me how?” Derek demanded, moving so Stiles’ blow glanced harmlessly off his shin.
“Alright,” Stiles gasped, still tugging at Derek’s arm. “I get it. Next time I’ll leave you to rot. God.” He tilted his chin up, trying, without success, to open his airway a little further. “You can let go now.”
“Make me,” Derek growled, not giving an inch.
Stiles stilled, sweat beading on his forehead as he absorbed the challenge. It was the first time Derek had actively engaged him, the first time he’d done something other than deflect Stiles’ blows and toss him aside like yesterday’s garbage.
If Derek was giving him a chance to prove himself a worthwhile student, Stiles had to make it count.
He brought his left arm up, trying to hit Derek’s face over his right shoulder. The angle was awkward, and the werewolf dodged easily, giving a little chuff of laughter that wasn’t at all encouraging.
Stiles cursed, panting and squirming as he tried to figure out his next move. His first instinct was to go for Derek’s groin, but in this position, that was all but impossible. His flailing feet hadn’t had much effect and going for the eyes wouldn’t work either since Derek was apparently able to keep his face pretty well out of punching range.
Suddenly, his racing thoughts snagged on a half-remembered bit of advice from one of the many YouTube self-defense tutorials he’d browsed over the last few weeks.
“Your fists and feet are not your only options,” the tiny woman on the screen had said, holding up petite, doll-like hands that looked more suited to tea parties than tae kwon do. “Your whole body can be a weapon if you know how to control it. Use your hips. Use your elbows. Use your head. Never underestimate the effectiveness of an unexpected blow.” Then she’d demonstrated her point by taking down a man three times her size with a few unconventional strikes.
Stiles grinned a little crazily at the memory. He might not be a tiny superwoman, but he could definitely use his head.
With a snap, he whipped his skull backwards, smashing it straight into Derek’s face.
Stiles winced at the impact, teeth clicking together, but the sharp intake of breath and slight, startled slackening of the arm around his neck told him it was worth it. He’d managed to take the werewolf by surprise.
Derek wouldn’t stay startled for long, damn his supernatural reflexes, so Stiles acted as quickly as he could, swinging an elbow back hard to connect with Derek’s stomach, trying to knock the wind out of him.
Instead of sinking in to his gut like Stiles had hoped, the blow hit the taught muscle over Derek’s ribcage and bounced harmlessly off to the side.
Stiles cursed and brought his arm forward to try again.
“No,” Derek snapped, grabbing Stiles’ elbow mid-flail, “Like this.” He shoved until Stiles shifted his hips sideways, then guided his elbow back to the vulnerable point on his own abdomen. “Hit here.” He pushed Stiles’ arm forward again, then pulled it back unerringly towards his own solar plexus.
Stiles froze, blinking the sweat out of his eyes so he could peer over his shoulder at Derek. Unless Stiles was hallucinating – not an impossibility considering the way Derek’s headlock was preventing necessary oxygen from getting to his brain – Derek had just given him advice. Direction. Constructive criticism, even.
Stiles resisted the urge to pump a victory fist in the air, but only because both of his arms were occupied. Granted, five gruff words and some manhandling wouldn’t usually be a reason to celebrate, but Derek Hale was actually teaching him to fight! Clearly Stiles was a genius, and all his plans were golden.
“Does this mean you’re going to stop randomly slamming me into walls to try to make me go away?” Stiles asked hopefully.
“Don’t count on it,” Derek deadpanned.
“Alright,” Stiles nodded, “I can work with that,” and he slammed his elbow back into the exact spot Derek had shown him.
The werewolf grunted, and the pressure against Stiles’ windpipe eased momentarily.
“Not bad,” Derek growled grudgingly, then wiped the smirk off Stiles’ face by shoving him headfirst into the wall.
☆★☆
Sometimes, in the early hours of the morning, when the night was silent and still in a way Stiles’ thoughts never could be, he closed his eyes and imagined he could see tendrils of inky blackness snaking their way through his body – the dark seed of his sacrifice and the stain of the nogitsune twisting and writhing and strangling his heart.
Stiles didn’t really know how Scott and Allison were dealing with the aftermath of their sacrifice. He’d asked them, of course, but they’d both shared a look and Scott had shrugged and said “I don’t know, dude, I just try not to think about it,” and Allison had smiled a little sadly before adding, “Being with Isaac helps.” Words of advice that were about as useful to Stiles as a screen door on a submarine.
Deaton had been a little more helpful. He’d listened calmly to Stiles frantic list of questions before interrupting gently with, “There are no easy answers, Stiles. You were a willing sacrifice, and the Nemeton’s darkness has taken root. If you feed it, if you give in to despair and sadness, the darkness will grow, and eventually your will to live will dissipate. But if you fight it, if you continue to value your life and the lives of others, you can hold the darkness at bay. You are strong enough to fight. You fought off the nogitsune. It may have scared you and scarred you, but when it mattered, you fought it and won.” Then, because apparently Deaton couldn’t help but be an enigmatic asshole, he’d smiled and added, “The path you’ve chosen to walk may stray into the shadows from time to time, but there is always a light inside guiding you, Stiles. You just have to follow it.”
Deaton’s words didn’t really do anything for him though. There was still that fractured feeling inside, thoughts scattered like loose jigsaw pieces, and no matter what Stiles did, he couldn’t find the edges that fit.
Maybe it would have been easier just to leave Beacon Hills. The heavy knot Stiles felt when he breathed, the constant, aching pressure against his ribs, and the feeling that the ground beneath him was crumbling might have eased with the distance. The pull of the Nemeton was strong, but could it reach another city? Could the memories of the nogitsune taint another state? If he ran far enough, put enough miles of mountains and valleys and oceans between, maybe he’d find a place where he could actually lead a normal life.
Dying might have seemed the easiest way out, simple and final and sure. But Stiles had seen too much of death to ever think it easy, and too many resurrections to ever think it final or sure.
It didn’t really matter. Stiles would never be able to leave the continual supernatural crises in Beacon Hills. Not when Scott was still involved, not with Derek and rest of the pack depending on him. Leaving his dad alone wasn’t an option, either.
So he sought out Derek day after day and trained. He landed punches and dodged kicks. He nursed sore muscles and sprained knees, and he finally learned how to take a fall.
Stiles had to survive.
He had to be hard.
He had to be stone.
☆★☆
“Again,” Derek growled, fingers clasped painfully tight around Stiles’ wrist.
Stiles could feel his pulse thrumming against the pad of Derek’s thumb, feel the sweat slicking his overheated skin, and he glared at Derek, panting hard. They’d been drilling for over two hours, and Stiles couldn’t feel his feet. He wished he couldn’t feel the rest of his body, either.
“You know,” he quipped, trying to buy a little time for his screaming muscles to recover, “I usually wait until the first date before I let someone hold my hand.”
Derek raised an eyebrow, grip tightening. “You’ve never been on a first date.”
“Yeah, well I’ve never let someone hold my hand, either,” Stiles shot back, then immediately winced when he actually heard what he’d said. “I mean, I could have,” he said, backpedaling frantically because the last thing he needed was Derek thinking he was even more of a sad sack loser, “Held hands. Or had a date. Or whatever. Because obviously I am awesome, and who wouldn’t want a piece of this?” He gestured grandly with his free hand. “I’m just doing the world a favor by withholding this amazingness until I find the right person, because it would just be unfair to let someone get a taste of me and then–”
“Stiles,” Derek growled, and Stiles’ jaw clicked shut mid-word. “Again.”
“Right,” Stiles nodded, ignoring the flush he could feel stealing its way across his cheekbones. He squared his shoulders and met Derek’s eyes. “Ready.”
☆★☆
It wasn’t exactly easy to keep explaining away the bruises. Dad was in on the whole supernatural secret these days, but it didn’t mean he was ok with seeing the evidence of violence pooling purple under Stiles’ skin.
Stiles couldn’t stand seeing the pained look on his dad’s face; couldn’t stop the gut-wrenching guilt it brought on, but he knew it would be even worse if he died because he was too weak to defend himself – if he left his dad completely alone.
His mom had fought to stay with them. She’d fought long and hard against the disease that waged war on her mind like an enemy inside her own skull.
Stiles had a enemies inside his skull now, too. The Nemeton’s seed of darkness. The nogitsune’s insidious stain. Stiles would be damned if he didn’t fight just as hard.
☆★☆
“Sparring in a controlled environment can only take you so far,” Derek said, calmly pinning Stiles with one hand.
Stiles twisted far enough that he could see Derek over his shoulder, cheek scraping against the exposed brick of the apartment wall. “You call this controlled?” he panted, trying to maneuver around to get in a good kick.
Derek raised an eyebrow and casually twisted Stiles’ arm farther up behind his back.
Stiles yelped and squirmed.
“When you’re here,” Derek said, leaning in until his mouth was mere inches away from Stiles’ ear, “You’re expecting an attack.”
Stiles could feel the heat of Derek’s body pressing up against him, a sharp counterpoint to the cold brick of the wall. The whisper of Derek’s breath along the nape of his neck stilled him more effectively than the armlock ever could.
Shit.
Stiles closed his eyes and tried to ignore the way small shivers raced up and down his spine every time Derek shifted behind him.
It was just the friction.
It had to be.
Stiles was a teenage boy and, between the chimera attack on Monday and cramming for his physics midterm last night, it had been nearly three days since he’d had any quality alone time.
Derek was ridiculously hot. It wasn’t like Stiles had missed that memo. All of the werewolves were beautifully sculpted and absurdly built; it was enough to give a boy a complex, really. Still, it was one thing to appreciate the regularly scheduled shirtlessness (tune in at 9!), and quite another to feel his body reacting to the plane of hard muscle pressing up against his back.
“I’ve watched you,” Derek said, and yeah, that whole husky thing his voice had going on was definitely not helping Stiles with his current sexual-identity crisis. “I’ve seen you at school, at lacrosse, at home. You let your guard down. If you want to survive, you always have to be aware of your surroundings.” Derek leaned in even further, until his lips brushed the shell of Stiles’ ear. “You always have to expect an attack.”
Stiles jerked at the contact, then groaned as Derek twisted his arm into an even more uncomfortable position.
With a betrayed look down to his groin - clearly it was trying to get him killed – Stiles riffled frantically through his thoughts for something non-incriminating to say. He gave a pained laugh as he hazarded, “Constant vigilance?”
Derek snorted, and Stiles could practically feel him rolling his eyes. “Right,” he said, “Ten points to Hufflepuff.”
Despite his raging internal struggle, Stiles’ brows drew down at that. “Hey,” he glared, indignant, “I’m not a Hufflepuff. I’m totally a–ohmygod,” he gasped, all other thoughts wiped clean from his mind. “Are you a closet Potter fan?”
Derek only smirked, finally letting Stiles’ arm drop as he stepped away.
“Be ready,” he warned.
“Shit,” Stiles muttered to himself as Derek turned and walked out of the room, leaving Stiles alone with his astonishment and the most confusing boner of his life.