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By the time Derek found him, they had torn out all his fingernails.
He stared at the oily red smeared across each finger up to the knuckle, growing darker and darker as it reached the tips, before tracking slowly down the arms of the chair. The leather straps on his wrists were pulled too tight; Derek could see the mottled purple shade of each hand from the other side of the room. They hung stiffly, slightly curled. The intermittent twitch of a bloodied ring finger intermingled with the dull, heavy thump of a heartbeat was the only indication that somewhere, in this dank and rusty hellhole, Stiles was breathing.
Stiles was breathing.
Derek could hear it now, shallow and wet. He ignored the weak pushes and grinding swearwords of the man presently locked in his jaws. Instead, he slammed his teeth together, vaguely registering the smack of bone on bone before dropping what was left of the hunter onto the stone floor. Stepping over the crumpled form, he crossed the room in a few quick bounds before crouching in front of Stiles.
At close range, the situation exploded into something that was a thousand times worse. When he first crashed into the dingy room, all he could take in was the smell of blood and pain, but now, Derek was enveloped with the scent of pure despair. The tang of salty tears seemed to run up and down his veins, burning him from inside out.
The taste of ash was on his tongue.
He blinked and steadied himself, dragging his tongue across the roof of his mouth, running it across his fangs, throwing the memories into the furthest recesses of his mind. Focus Derek, focus, this is not your pain. He shifted, hands reaching to undo the leather straps before he even realised that he had retracted his claws. He glanced at Stile’s face, which was the colour of slate-grey, with sporadic purple and yellow splotches. His chin rested against his chest, his eyes closed, as if in prayer.
Please God.
As he undid the second restraint, Derek noticed the blood sliding under his sole, pooling on the cold cement. For one panicked second Derek scanned the rest of Stiles’s body, wondering how he could have missed such a significant wound, before realising it came from the most recent hunter he had disposed of. Not an Argent, he thought, as he glanced at the black fatigues. A different beast altogether. Bounty hunters, with more efficiency and less of a moral compass, if that was possible. This merry band of fuckheads had been roaming around Beacon Hills for months before snatching Stiles from outside the gas station three days ago. Derek had stared at the station attendant’s corpse, his blood mingling with the overflowing gas, for a whole minute before he could even register that there was no Stiles in his jeep.
If he was being honest, it scared him that it scared him so much.
Without warning, he heard a cacophony of footsteps and had barely enough time to see from the corner of his eye a group of dark shapes barrel into the room before he was shifting on instinct. His bones cracked and separated, rushing him into his wolf form, which was always so painful if done suddenly. He disregarded this discomfort, putting himself in between the still-unconscious Stiles and whatever had decided it was a good day for assisted suicide.
But it was only Scott, Isaac, Boyd and Erica, wide-eyed and blood-spattered. Derek let out a warning growl, making it very clear that under no circumstance should they come any closer. Of course, Scott staggered straight towards Stiles, his eyes roaming his body. Derek knew he was taking in everything from Stiles’s bruised face to his torn and split fingers. Scott reached a shaking hand to his best friend, gently palming the soft hair Stiles had decided to let grow. Derek shut his eyes, willing himself to not take a chunk out of Scott’s outstretched arm. He ducked his head and settled for lapping at Stiles’s fingertips, attempting to clean the wounds.
“Grossss Sourwolfffff...”
Derek’s head snapped up. Stiles was looking down at him, a small grimacing smile on his face. He lifted his stiff hand and rubbed the heel of his palm on the top of Derek’s snout. The crevices between his teeth were lined with red; his nose was caked in dried blood and snot. His eyes were red raw and bloodshot, one was tinged with a dark yellow. His lips were cracked and split, white dead skin caught at the corners of his mouth. Derek had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He swallowed before shifting back to his human form.
“Could say the same to you.”
Derek would never admit there was a catch in his voice, but there was.
Stiles mumbled another string of words, incomprehensible, slurred, like he had gotten at his father’s whiskey again. Before Scott or the rest of the pack could move, Derek slipped an arm under Stiles’s armpits and an arm under his knees, hoisting him up. Ignoring the hiss of pain and the barrage of unintelligible protests coming from Stiles’s mouth, most likely to do with masculinity and his sudden loss of it, Derek carried Stiles away from the room he had been kept in for three days.
Three days.
“Hospital?” Erica enquired, as they stood in the main corridor, kicking aside the remainders of the fight. Boyd nodded, shifting the prone forms, clearing a pathway for Derek to stride down.
Scott worried at his lip. “My mom has a shift tonight.”
“So?” Isaac’s big eyes never left Stiles’s face when he posed the question, only whipping around when Erica smacked him on the back of the head, with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary.
“So, asshole, she’s got Stiles’ dad on freakin’ speed-dial. And they’re both going to wonder why someone has used Stiles as a human knife-sharpener.”
“Erica, please.” Derek’s voice felt strange in his ears. Distant, strained. Like something coming down from the other side of an old radio. Not his at all. “What about Deaton? He could at least look him over and patch him for now.”
Scott shook his head. “Out of town, something about a sick sister.”
Perfect. Just perfect.
Derek shifted Stiles in his arms, cursing himself when he felt the whimper of pain ripple through his body. There was nothing for it; he’d have to come back to the house. He strode out of the bunker, feeling the foul air seep off him as he climbed into the sunlight. Stiles gave a cry of agony, squeezing his eyes shut. How long had they kept him in the dark like that? Without a word, Boyd handed Derek his jacket and he covered Stiles’s distress.
It was the second-longest car ride of Derek’s life.
By the time they were back at the house and had quickly slid into fresh clothes, he thought he had a pretty good assessment of the damage. At least three broken ribs, a sprained ankle and sprained wrist, considering the discomfort at any jostling. Numerous cuts and bruises and what Derek suspected to be that vaguely defined human inconvenience - a concussion. And of course, no fingernails.
What the hell were they looking for?
As he attempted to settle Stiles on the ratty couch, the pack inched forward. Erica pushed long fingernails through his sweat-stiff hair while Scott toyed with his frayed shoe-laces. Boyd and Isaac leant forward, resting their arms on the couch. Stiles’s forehead crinkled slightly, and a little puff of air escaped his mouth. He lifted his claw-like hand and tried to make a weak swatting motion, but all it did was make him gasp and for the bloodied digits to catch the dim light. That, along with the sudden wild desire to maim his own pack, was Derek’s cue.
“Get out, all of you.”
They turned in unison, a look of frank shock etched on each of their faces. Derek could feel his eyebrows doing that thing (sometimes he swears they have a life of their own) that communicates “Yes, you heard right, and?” Erica’s expression turned mutinous, her fingers tightening in Stiles’s hair. Scott angrily opened his mouth as if to say something, and all at once, Derek had had enough.
“I said GET OUT. NOW.”
The last word was more of a roar than anything. Derek hadn’t meant to be so loud. From outside, he could hear each bird taking off, heading in the opposite direction. With difficulty, he withdrew his claw from the surface of the coffee table. By the time he had flicked the last piece of wood out from under his nails, the house was quiet. It was just him and Stiles’s laboured breathing.
Right. Stiles.
He managed to prop the kid’s skinny form up with as many cushions as he could scrounge before grabbing a bottle of water from the cooler and opening it. Realising that he would probably have to be hands-on due to Stiles’s, well, lack of hands, he placed what he hoped to be a gentle hand on the back of the boy’s head, lifting him slightly. By degrees, he allowed Stiles to sip at the water, cupping his hand under his chin and wiping the overflow with edges of his t-shirt. He wished he had a straw or something. He had the suspicion that Stiles would be overjoyed if Derek suddenly produced a Crazy Straw. When Stiles seemed satisfied, or at least hydrated, Derek took out the first aid kit he kept under the sink since Stiles decided to come into his life and not heal like everyone else. Tape, gauze, cotton wool, bandages, antiseptic wipes...Jesus, how did humans survive just being human? That’s not even considering being human and chasing wolves around the forest in the dead of night. As he dabbed gingerly at some of the cuts on his face, Stiles cracked an eyelid.
“Waaaaydahgo Derrrk, you sure told ‘em...”
Even without complete control over his sneer muscles, Stiles managed to communicate his own special brand of biting sarcasm. Derek had to hand it to the kid, he was good. He informed him of this, and took advantage of Stiles’s wet giggle to dash an antiseptic wipe on a particularly nasty cut just under his right ear. When he finished this, he moved onto the wrist and the ankle. Before long, it was only the fingernails, or lack thereof, to deal with.
He took Stiles’s ruined hands in his. Truth be told, he had always liked Stiles’s fingers. It sounded strange, but they were used to such great effect that it was hard not to notice them. They were long and slender, but not in the least bit delicate. Pinkish knuckles interrupted the ivory lengths, now caked in brown blood. Derek had never seen them so still before. They were always twitching and moving, as if there was an entire invisible orchestra in the air around and Stiles wanted to play all the instruments at the same time. They would catch the air and the light around him as he flailed in excitement, either with some harebrained, overcomplicated scheme or some surprisingly helpful research. At the moment, he had difficulty even extending them.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Derek set a bowl of warm water mixed antiseptic solution on his lap, lowering Stiles’s hand, which was still bleeding sluggishly, into the water. The howl of agony that followed made him think that perhaps the ripping-off-the-Band-Aid method wasn’t the best. Instead he settled for gently dipping each finger at a time, dabbing at the pink and white torn remains with a wipe, before tying each one of them up with a thin bandage. It was a slow process, as with each finger the bowl would have to be emptied and refilled. For a while, all Derek could hear was the slow movements of the water and the slight hitches in Stiles’s breaths.
“Just ask me dude.”
The slightly clearer voice took him by surprise, and he looked up from where he had been intently cleaning Stiles’s index finger.
“Ask you what?”
Stiles managed to roll his eyes before squeezing them shut with apparent discomfort. Jesus, the lengths the kid would go to in the name of snark.
“I know you have to ask, so just ask. Occupational hazard of being an Alpha and all that crap. That’s why you got rid of the rest of the Scooby gang. Ask.”
Derek gazed intently at the mangled finger he was cleaning; refusing to meet what he knew to be the big honey-coloured orbs boring into him. He was slightly relieved that Stiles had misunderstood his dismissal of the pack. It made things less complicated. This finger was giving him a bit of trouble. While most of them had been extracted bit by bit, probably for maximum interrogation purposes, this one had been yanked, as if in a fit of rage. Along with the nail, much of the surrounding flash was also torn away. When he touched it, he could almost feel the ghost of Stiles’s scream. He looked up, finally meeting Stiles’s eyes.
“What did you tell them?”
He would have preferred to ask later, when Stiles didn’t look in constant danger of passing out and resembled a scarecrow a little less. But he was right; Derek had to ask the questions now. If important information had been...extracted, then speed was of the essence. If the intelligence the pack had gathered in the past couple of months was accurate, the dozen or so hunters that they had disposed of in the bunker were part of something much bigger. And that something was going to be pissed as hell at any interruptions in their operation. They had to work fast. He didn’t know whether he felt glad or sorry that Stiles understood that.
Stiles swallowed roughly, gnawing at his bottom lip, tearing at the newly healed skin. His eyes tracked the tendrils of scarlet trailing from his middle finger in the water, which Derek had now turned his attention to.
“There may...may have been...some...”
Derek nodded, focusing on his work, trying to ignore the heavy sensation at the pit of his stomach. It was to be expected. Stiles wasn’t made of stone. His skin and bones didn’t knit back together seconds after the trauma. The fear alone would have made most people break, and Stiles was seventeen fucking years old. He should be worrying about homework assignments, or girls, or whether his favourite cult-scifi-whatever-the-fuck-he’s-always-talking-about gets renewed for another season. He certainly shouldn’t be concerned with the possibility of having his kneecaps separated from his shins and the release of sensitive information. This wasn’t the way he planned any of this. When he chose a bunch of ragtag teenagers for a pack, he thought he was giving them a better life. He’s starting to realise that he might as well have just painted targets on their foreheads and left them lying in the middle of the road.
He looked up and nodded encouragingly, indicating that Stiles should continue.
“I might have told them about...”
Derek held his gaze, trying to keep his expression impassive.
“...Your weakness for Reese’s Cups.”
Derek nodded grimly before actually taking in what Stiles had said. He stared as Stiles cracked up, holding his ribs as he let out a battery of wet laughter. With the back of his hand, he limply slapped the side of Derek’s mouth, which had fallen open slightly. He begun to chuckle as well, setting aside the bowl so he could drop his head into his hands, carding them through his hair. Jesus Christ, this kid was going to be the death of him. The laughter died away and the room was silent once more, save for Stiles’s occasional painful hiccup of amusement.
“So you didn’t...?”
“ ’Course not you asshole. Although, they didn’t share my sense of humour if you catch my drift.”
With the heel of his hand, he absently rubbed at a spot on his chest, wincing slightly. Derek stood up quickly, immediately regretting it when Stiles flinched.
Okay Hale, clearly everything is not sunshine and daisies.
“Erm...Want me to run you a bath?”
Stiles looked up from the spot on the floor he had recently become fascinated with.
“Uh, what?”
“A bath, y’know, for your ribs or whatever. Also, you kind of stink.”
Stiles let out a sudden bark of laughter and hoisted himself up with his elbows.
“I’m still a little suspicious about how you get running water in this place, but I’ll take it.”
Derek cleared away the bloodstained nest of bandages and wipes that had somehow built up to frankly frightening volumes around them. He made a movement to pick Stiles up.
“Whoah whoah, ease up there caveman, I sprained my ankle, legs are doing just fine thanks very much.”
Derek nodded, refraining from reminding him that he had carried him all the way home. Admittedly, he hadn’t been conscious for most of it. He helped Stiles to his feet, snaking his arm around his waist. Stiles let out a little “hrrmph” and they began to hobble towards the staircase. By the time they had crossed the room, Stiles was leaning heavily on him, his breaths coming out in little gasps. They both stopped, looking up at the staircase, long and foreboding. Derek thought it looked like a long way up. For Stiles, it must have looked like a fucking mountain. Derek sneaked a glance. Underneath the blotches of purple and grime, his skin was ashen. How long had it been since he’d eaten? Since he’d slept?
Fuck this shit.
Derek hefted him up, ignoring the squawk of indignation and protests over masculinity for the second time today. Stiles had instinctively wrapped his arms around his neck, and the brush of bandage against his skin made Derek hold him a little tighter than he would perhaps care to admit. He made the slow pilgrimage to the bathroom, trying to take care not to jostle Stiles on the climb up.
By the time he set Stiles on the toilet lid, his face was roughly the same colour as the washed out-grey of the wall behind him. Derek turned away from its reflection in the speckled mirror and busied himself drawing the bath. He was sure he had spotted Erica planting some bath-bubbly-gel-thing in here a couple of weeks ago. A quick search of the cabinet proved successful. Derek could almost hear the smirk on Stiles’s face when he squirted the pink substance into the rushing water. He certainly wasn’t expecting to be hugged around the middle.
“You’re awesome dude. And not just like, tsunami awesome. I mean, I always just thought you were tsunami-awesome but it turns out you’re also cool-side-of-the-pillow awesome as well and that’s just awesome that you’re both types of awesome and –“
Derek awkwardly patted Stiles’s forearm, fully aware that this could go on for the next hour if he let it. He gently twisted himself out of Stiles’s grip, pulling him to his feet. He swayed slightly, flashing an awkward smile up at Derek.
“S-sorry dude, I haven’t had my Adderall in a while and it’s been a stressful few days y’know?”
Derek gave a hollow laugh, dipping his hand into the bath, checking the temperature. Seemed warm enough.
“It’s fine. Need some help with your t-shirt?”
Stiles glanced down at his chest. Derek watched him track the torn fabric, the dull spatters of blood mixed with dirt. It was one of those stupid novelty shirts he always wore. The silhouettes of Batman and the Joker stood laughing in the rain against a white backdrop. Well, it used to be white. Stiles seemed to be entranced with its ragged hemline, pulling and plucking at it with his stiff fingers. It took a few seconds for Derek to realise that this was Stiles’s attempt to take off his shirt.
“Uh, let me.”
He lifted the shirt gingerly. Then promptly dropped it again. The map of black and purple that covered every inch of Stiles’s torso seemed to seep through his eyelids, burning into his retinas. When he opened them again Stiles was looking back at him.
“That bad huh?”
“I don’t think you’ll want to lift your arms that high, no matter how much help I give you.”
Stiles nodded, giving an involuntary twitch when Derek flicked out a couple of claws and tore down the length of the t-shirt, separating him from the stiff fabric. They both turned on instinct to the mirror, taking in the extent of Stiles’s injuries. Derek suddenly felt wildly irresponsible. What was he doing wasting so much time? Why the hell hadn’t he taken Stiles to the hospital? Fuck Melissa McCall, they could have gotten around that somehow. What if Stiles had internal bleeding? What if one of those clearly broken ribs had punctured a lung? Was there any way to check?
Somehow sensing that Derek was feeling out of his depth, Stiles nudged his arm softly.
“S’cool man, I’m not gonna go die on you, it just hurts like a bitch is all. Now um, this is a stage in our friendship I never thought we’d reach, but could you undo my jeans for me? I’m kind of at a disadvantage.”
Derek nodded. He unzipped the jeans and shoved them down Stiles’s long legs, grabbing him by his narrow waist as he unsteadily stepped out of them.
“Do you need me to...?”
“Oh hell no dude, that is a stepping stone we have not jumped to yet. I’ll just have to summon the miniscule amounts of masculinity I might have left and man up. Now, turn around.”
Rolling his eyes, Derek faced the wall. After much hissing and prolonged bouts of frankly colourful swearing, he heard Stiles lower himself into the tub.
“Can I turn around now?”
“Yup.”
The overwhelming scent of pain-relief tugged at something in Derek’s chest. He turned around to see Stiles submerged to his chest in bubbles, with his bandaged hands hanging out either side of the tub. His eyes were closed, his lips were slightly parted. Derek sat down on the toilet lid and quietly waited, examining his own fingernails.
“You okay dude?”
Derek nearly gagged on the bitter laugh that rolled up through his throat. Stiles was asking if he was okay. He couldn’t for the life of him fathom Stiles Stilinski. On what plane of existence did this kid’s brain operate?
“You’re asking me if I’m okay?”
“Yeah, I’m asking you if you’re okay.”
Stiles’s gaze was hard and unrelenting, as if daring him to ignore him. Derek suddenly had the magnified feeling of being put under a microscope.
“Uh-h, yeah, I’m okay. It’s just –“ he made an expansive gesture at Stiles’s body, his eyes zeroing in on his fingers.
“These really freak you out huh?”
Stiles lifted his hands, examining the bandages with interest.
“Not a bad Sourwolf, you’d made a good nurse.”
Derek gave a shallow growl that turned into a rumbling laugh as Stiles blew suds at him. For a few minutes the bathroom was silent, both of them examining their fingers closely.
“Yeah, not gonna lie, they freak me out too.”
Derek looked up. Stiles’s voice was whispered, light like he was talking to a child just before they fell asleep. But any child would know that the voice wasn’t normal, frayed around the edges. Stiles was looking at his hands as though he had never seen them before, horror stretching his eyes too wide. His hands shook as he tried to extend his fingers, again and again trying to stretch them out.
“Stiles?”
Stiles’s head snapped away from his outstretched hands, blinking slightly.
“Yeah?”
“What, uh, what are you going to tell your dad?”
It was the first thing that popped into his head. He didn’t really care, he just wanted that look off Stiles’s face. And nothing got Stiles’s attention like mentions of fathers.
“I, uh, dunno. He’ll be back from the conference at the end of the week. Probably pissed as hell that I didn’t call him. I’ll just have to think of some Scott-related accident with all...this.” He gestured to himself.
“You can sleep in my bed tonight; I’ll sleep in Isaac’s. He’ll probably stay at Boyd’s grandparents tonight.”
“What? No dude, I don’t want to do that to you, you’ve done enough already, just give me a lift home and drop me on the couch, I’ll sleep this motherfucker of a headache off and I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”
Derek rolled his eyes before handing him a towel, turning his back.
“Don’t be stupid Stiles, you’re staying here.” He heard irritated protests beginning to formulate before he said quietly “I’m not just going to leave you all alone again.” He heard Stiles’s mouth clamp shut with a small snap.
After some incredibly awkward manoeuvring and some truly impressive swearing on Stiles’s part, they had managed to put Stiles into a pair of sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. He looked so young in Derek’s clothes. A gangly kid who didn’t understand the length of his own legs yet. He didn’t think Stiles could take another trip up and down stairs so he brought the little television set up to his room, plugging it in. Stiles barely had time to make scoffing noises before catching sight of a rerun of I Love Lucy. He proceeded to spend the next twenty minutes completely captivated, his mouth hanging slightly open. Derek had a sneaking suspicion that the Sheriff may have conditioned the young Stiles to sit and stay whenever the glowing screen was talking to him.
Which reminded him, Stiles’s Adderall.
He sent a quick text to Erica before ordering pizza, figuring Stiles was not at optimum level for forks and knives at the moment. Erica arrived first, with pain medication and the Adderall. She shoved them into Derek’s hands before sticking her nose through the door and inhaling deeply. Apparently satisfied she threw him one last evil look and stormed away without a word. Derek shrugged at her retreating back and made his way back upstairs with a bottle of water. He gave Stiles one Adderall and two pain reliefs. He stowed the bottles in Isaac’s room. Stiles smelled too much like medication sometimes.
After they finished the pizza, they lounged on Derek’s bed, absently kicking the TV set as it occasionally lost signal. It was pitch black outside, Derek could hear the branches gently tapping on the window as a breeze whispered through him. A cricket had made himself at home on the front porch. After awhile, he realised that the incessant diatribe about the entire history of I Love Lucy had died away. Stiles had finally fallen asleep.
Finally.
Over the past couple of hours he had grown more and more aware that Stiles was attempting to keep himself awake. Never tearing his eyes away from the flickering screen, talking non-stop. He was propped up with as many pillows as Derek could find, his hands settled stiffly in his lap. Now, with his eyes closed and his breathing soft and ragged, he looked like some kind of martyr, a despairing saint in one of those gloomy medieval pieces of art.
Derek gently lowered him down, pulling the blanket up. Clearing the pizza boxes away, he gave one last glance at the huddled form before shutting off the light, making sure to leave to door open behind him.
X X X
Terror.
Pure terror clung to his lungs, threading up and down his rib bones, constricting his breathing. His heart was beating a violent tattoo against the constriction, the one last remaining survivor, furiously attempting to break the walls down. The taste of ash was hot on his tongue, searing his mouth, trickling down the back of his throat.
But no.
This wasn’t his panic.
It couldn’t be.
It couldn’t be.
Stiles.
Derek hurtled around the corner, throwing himself into his room. There was Stiles, bolt upright, attempting to claw at some invisible force that was encircling his chest. Blood was smeared across his lips and the tips of his fingers were wet with blood. Stiles had torn the bandages off with his teeth. He wasn’t breathing out, only sucking great lungfuls of air in and in and in. The scent of pain that was rolling off the middle of his chest nearly knocked Derek sideways as he tried to move toward him, tried to find Stiles amidst the wounded animal he was now confronted with.
“Stiles? Stiles? It’s Derek, Stiles listen to me okay you have to listen to me! Stiles listen to me, listen to my voice.”
The attack still continued. Stiles looked like he was trying to claw his own lungs out with bleeding stumps which at this stage could barely be called fingers. In a fit of hopelessness, Derek grabbed one of his hands, shushing the screech of pain before pushing the palm to his own chest. He took one deep breath in and exhaled slowly.
“Breath with me Stiles, breath with me.”
Stiles attempted to twist from his grasp, now making sounds that Derek had only ever heard from a dying deer that had lain in the forest for days before Laura had the heart to put it out of its misery.
Derek tried again, inhaling and exhaling. And again. And again. And again. After awhile his t-shirt was smeared with Stiles’s blood, but it was working. Bit by bit, his breathing began to even out. After a few more tense moments Stiles fell back against the pillows, raising a shaky, bloodstained hand to cover his eyes.
“S-sorry, I’m s-so sorry, I just – it was like – “
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Derek kept his voice low, hoping that it didn’t betray any of the bone-cracking panic that had just recently blown through him. “I’ll re-bandage your fingers and we’ll find you a clean t-shirt.”
When he had finished, for a moment he stood awkwardly in the half-light of the room before beginning to turn away.
“Oh my god, don’t you dare leave.”
When he turned back around he could see the flush of Stiles’s skin even under all the purple and yellow.
“Erm, I mean...Could you stay for a bit? Please?”
Derek sat stiffly on the edge of the bed before Stiles’s puppy eyes won him over, and he lay down next to him. He felt the warm length of his body pressed into his side. He could feel Stiles trying to move his fingers, gripping the sheets and letting them go.
“I’m sorry this happened to you, it’s all my fault.”
It came out a bit blunter than he wanted it to, but at least he said it. At least they could both acknowledge it, in this darkness.
“Your fault? How the hell is it your fault?”
“I brought you into this, they used you to –“
“Whoah, first thing, I never really gave you a choice in any wolfy matters. I engineered that downfall personally. No regrets there. Second thing, you were not the dude dressed up like Terminator Salvation with the pliers in his hand. So no, none of this is your fault Derek.”
Derek swallowed down his retorts. Another time maybe. When the dark was less dark and Stiles’s heartbeat had returned to normal. The pain still rolled off his like thunder, as he fidgeted around, trying to get comfortable. Derek allowed himself to inch closer, trying to unearth the scent of Stiles underneath all that pain. Suddenly, his nose bumped up against the soft skin of his neck, just behind his ear. And there. There was all Stiles. No blood, no pain, no ash. Just Star Wars and curly fries and Sour Patch Kids and all the other things that Stiles was crazy about.
When Stiles turned to face him, surprise colouring each corner of his features, Derek couldn’t believe how easy it was to inch that little bit closer and press his lips to his own. The kiss was dry and soft. It didn’t set off fireworks in Derek’s brain but released warm tendrils which ran up and around his lungs before sinking down comfortably to the pit of his stomach. When they broke apart, Stiles smiled weakly up at him, gently tracing a thumb across his hairline. Derek could feel the soft brush of gauze against his skin. Pressing one more kiss to the side of his mouth, Stiles allowed Derek to carefully roll him over, settling an arm across his hip.
Derek knew that the situation was hopeless. He knew that somewhere there was a wolfsbane bullet with his name on it and long obituary in the Beacon News with Stiles’s. That’s what happens if you keep throwing yourself onto the road with a target painted on your forehead. At some point, you’re going to get hit. And it sucked, because Derek has coughed up the metallic taste of blood enough times to know that no pain is worth it, that no death is glorious. But for once, just this once, it felt like someone, somewhere, had an ounce of compassion. And as Stiles snuffled in his sleep, his bandaged fingers entwined with Derek’s own, he had never been so thankful for small mercies.