Work Text:
“Derek? Can you hear me?”
Derek didn’t open his eyes. One of his eyelids was split right up the middle, the other bruised and swollen shut, so it wasn’t exactly an option anyway.
He’d taken some good hits, this time.
“Derek?”
He wanted to touch the back of his head, where his skull had cracked against a tree, but the tendons in his shoulders were still healing, and couldn’t lift his arms.
Oh well. The thing was dead, that was all that mattered.
He thought he could hear Stiles, weeping quietly. The thought made his fingers twitch, but he couldn’t do anything more.
He passed out again.
-
The next time he woke, it was all at once, and each part of his body was at least sluggishly responding. His head usually healed first – the body understanding where its priorities lay – then his chest. The extremities last.
“Derek?”
He grunted acknowledgement, blinking something clotted out of his lashes.
Healing hurt, but it was the good kind of pain. It tingled, like putting your hand on a buzzer. The time they’d made out at the Laundromat, sitting on top of the dryer while it was running; it reminded him of that. Vibrations you could feel right down to your bones.
“C’mon, Derek, are you with me?” Stiles’ hands were suddenly all over him, his chest, his neck. Derek didn’t like him touching his neck. He was relieved when the hands skated on, up his face. “Are you alright? I can’t reach Deaton, and I was afraid to move you. You looked … really bad.”
He could hear Stiles’ heart, too fast, too loud. He was close to a panic attack, Derek registered, in the slow, wondering way he got after a long healing.
He pushed Stiles back gently, and tried to sit up. One of his arms felt wrong. He glanced down to see his entire forearm twisted the wrong direction, palm-up instead of down. He took hold of his wrist and snapped it back into place. The healing kicked in immediately, fizzling up and down the joint.
“Derek?”
Stiles sounded tearful, young, and Derek remembered again how old he was. Usually he tried not to think about it too much.
“M’fine,” he said. It came out stilted because at one point he had bitten right through his tongue, and now it flopped in his mouth. Clumsily, he patted Stiles’ shoulder in reassurance. His knuckles were split, ugly. They would probably stay that way for a while.
“Oh thank God.” Stiles’ hand found Derek’s arm, squeezing tight, and Derek realized that he was leaning back against the trunk of a tree, with Stiles kneeling in front of him. “Oh man, you really scared me that time! Thank god for wolfy healing, huh?”
The sight of Stiles, making direct eye contact and baring his teeth, made Derek’s wolf hackles rise. It was too close after a fight for aggression displays. Human, he reminded himself. He’s just smiling.
“I’m okay,” he said again.
“I called the others. They’re tracking down the witch, now that the creature is dead. They’ll get her, don’t worry.”
“Good.” Derek wished for his pack, vaguely, the reassurance of his smell on them, their heartbeats in his ears. But if they couldn’t be here, then Stiles was an acceptable substitute.
“You ready to get up? Okay, nice and easy, here we go. . .”
He made it to his feet, a little unsteady. A few hours ago, he’d almost had his ribcage torn out of his chest. But he would heal. He counted the cost of the victory cheap.
Stiles left him propped against a tree while he looked for the car keys he’d apparently dropped somewhere. “Then we can get out of here, doesn’t that sound good?”
Derek grunted again. He could smell the creature he’d killed, which was scattered in bits across the clearing. It made his nose itch.
He listened to Stiles’ noises (so loud; did he even know how to hide himself? Every living thing for a hundred miles must know exactly where he was) while his vertebrae popped back into place, one by one. When his spine had straightened out, he limped slowly towards the bulk of the corpse, deflated and ripped apart. It had looked like parts of different animals, sewn inexpertly together; a lot of it had been bear.
Stiles was muttering under his breath, keys-keys-keys, where are you stupid things? C’mon keys don’t do this to me.
Derek had an aversion to witches, on principle. He disliked that they could stand at some safe distance, far away, to work their magic. They didn’t have to deal with the world of blood and claws and fangs – his world.
Or maybe he just hated that they could reanimate the dead.
With a bare, bloody foot, he nudged the pile of fur at his feet. Then, when he was sure Stiles wasn’t looking, he peed on it.
Hard to explain why it made him feel better.
“I found them!” Jingling loudly, Stiles came running back to his side, as Derek turned away quickly. “I’m pretty sure the car is this way.”
Stiles slid himself under one of Derek’s arms, which had formerly been shredded down to the elbow but had mostly healed over now. “So, zombie bears, huh?” He was trying to sound calm, but it didn’t matter; Derek already knew Stiles had vomited in the bushes while he waited for Derek to heal. Derek could smell it, knew what he’d eaten (fried potatoes, no surprise. Derek couldn’t deduce shape from smell but he was guessing they had been curly).
“Some of it was other stuff.”
“Yeah, well let’s just hope it rots quick. Now how about we get the hell out of here.”
Part of Derek wanted to say that he would heal faster if he stayed under the moonlight, surrounded by green and growing things. He wasn’t too good to let his blood soak into the dirt; he was just an animal too, after all, and also cobbled together from different parts. But Stiles was tugging on him, saying, C’mon tough guy, lean on me. Let’s get you somewhere safe. His voice rough, struggling to sound even. So Derek complied, too healing-stupid to explain himself, and unwilling to be parted from Stiles now. If the boy was leaving, then Derek was too.
They struggled together, Derek too heavy for Stiles to easily hold up, not quite equal to a long walk by himself. His legs were slow to heal today, probably because small, irritating shards of bone were trapped under the closed-over scars. Derek could feel them nudging at the surface of his skin. Eventually his body would either dissolve them or push them out.
They got lost once or twice, staggering into bushes that tangled around their feet. Derek stopped to squint at the sky before pointing in the direction of the car, too tired to talk.
“It’s alright, we’ll find it,” said Stiles, as if he was the problem.
Finally they came out of the trees and found the Jeep, parked on the roadside. One of the windows was broken, on the driver’s side, where the – thing – had smashed its nerveless paws through the glass, trying to reach for Stiles. The passenger door hung from its hinges.
“Looks worse than I remember,” said Stiles glumly.
Using a fraction of his strength, Derek tugged the door clean off and tossed it into the back seat. “Let’s just go.”
Stiles helped him climb in, one arm around Derek’s waist to brace him. He took off his own jacket and handed it over, and Derek took it unthinkingly. What was he supposed to do with it? He sat holding it, getting blood on the collar, smelling spatters of vomit.
Thankfully the jeep started up as soon as Stiles turned the key in the ignition. The breeze buffeted the through the open door. “Buckle up,” he said, giggling a little hysterically, peeling out.
Derek leaned back against the seat, ignoring the wind and fixing his eyes on the moon, imagining the light of it bathing his wounds.
“Are you asleep?” said Stiles, anxiously, as soon as they stopped at an intersection.
“No,” said Derek.
“Okay, good. Don’t go into the light, okay? Ten minutes, we’ll be back at my place.”
Which was the exact wrong place to be, Derek thought – the home-territory of another Alpha, which the Sheriff was, in human terms. Derek would smell his authority in every room, touched with the citrus tang of his grief for a dead mate, and it would make him defensive.
But he didn’t protest. Stiles’ heart was still too fast, and he stunk of fear. Being in his own house would be good for him.
Eyes closed, Derek reached out to put his hand on Stiles’ arm, trying not to distract him while he was driving. “I’ll be okay,” he said.
He felt cold fingers reach to cover his own. Stiles squeezed his hand.
The thing between them was new, and Derek had been keeping the breaks on it pretty deliberately. A lot of clothes-on, over-the-pants fumbling. ‘Keeping it grade-school,’ Stiles called it. Derek enjoyed Stiles’ honest curiosity, innocent and unashamed. It felt like healing an old, scarred over part of himself. But Stiles was headed to college in the Fall, thankfully only an hour away (twenty minutes, if Derek was driving the Camero after dark). Derek was pretty sure Stiles would make new friends out there, new lovers. He didn’t expect him to wait.
“I’ll be fine,” he said.
Stiles nodded vigorously, eyes on the road. “I know that!” But his voice was too high.
The wolf didn’t understand Derek’s fascination with Stiles. His womb was empty. He wasn’t even a wolf. It was Derek’s human side that liked the hyperactive, too-sharp kid with the flailing limbs. Trusted him.
The wolf had liked Kate. Thought she’d bear strong children, didn’t care about the rest of it.
Derek decided he would stick with his human instincts on this one.
“Okay, here we are. Home sweet home.” Stiles parked in his driveway and came around to Derek’s side to help him out, apparently not understanding that Derek had healed more on the drive. Derek leaned into him anyway, letting Stiles bear his weight if he wanted to. It was good to give him something to do.
“Gotta say, I’m not sure how I’m going to hide the Jeep from my dad. Maybe we should call a tow.” Stiles held the door for him, waited patiently while he crossed the threshold, thinking it was his injuries that made him slow. Actually it was the faint scent of Scott, which made Derek’s wolf raise its hackles and wonder if it was going to be asked to fight again.
It was ready, if need be.
He wished again that he was with his own pack; the sight of their safety, their contentment would reassure his wolf. But they weren’t here, and Stiles was, and Derek chose to follow him down the hallway.
“Dad’s working a double,” said Stiles, guiding him into the living room. “He won’t be back tonight.”
Unwise of the Sheriff, Derek noted, to leave a child as trouble-prone as Stiles unattended so long. There were worse creatures than zombie bears in the world.
Like werewolves.
“Here.” Stiles tried to settle him on the couch, pushing him down when he hesitated. “Don’t worry, we’ll have you back to chasing rabbits in no time!” He was spreading a blanket over Derek’s lap, tucking it carefully over his feet. Wrong, thought Derek dully. Wolves ran hot, and healing made him hotter. More than ever he missed the moon, which gave off gentle light and no heat. He wished he was lying quietly under a bush somewhere. He did not want to lie on a couch that smelled like Fritos, under an afghan knitted by feeble, long-dead hands.
But he submitted quietly to being tucked in, because Stiles’ heart was still beating too-fast, irregular, skipping every twelfth or thirteenth beat, and somehow the act of smoothing down the blanket was helping him. Derek could tolerate it a little longer, just until Stiles wound down and fell asleep, and then he could slip out, into the cool night dew. Find something defenseless and warm-blooded to stalk.
“You’re quiet,” said Stiles, his fingers sliding through Derek’s hair. It felt – good. Derek closed his eyes and enjoyed it.
“Sometimes I get like this after a big heal,” he said gruffly.
“Okay. Do you want to sleep?”
Derek shook his head. He’d done all the sleeping he’d needed to do when he was unconscious. If he’d needed more sleep, he wouldn’t have woken up.
“Can I look?” There were fingers, tugging at the shredded hem of his shirt. Derek shrugged out of it indifferently, letting Stiles see the still-visible marks on his body.
An indrawn breath. “That looks bad.”
“I’ve healed worse.”
“I could try to find some painkillers?” Stiles offered.
As if pain was of any interest to Derek. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Wouldn’t help.”
Stiles traced one finger over what had been near-disemboweling gashes across his belly, now merely faint ridges of skin. “You need ice.”
“No I don’t.”
“Look, when something hurts, we ice it. I don’t make the rules.” Stiles carefully tucked the blanket up over his battered chest, then scampered off to the kitchen. When he came back, he had a cold pack, a wet cloth, and a carton of ice cream. The latter he set open in front of Derek, a spoon sticking out of it. ‘Comfort food,’ he recalled Stiles calling it once – but after healing, the wolf needed meat. The fresher, the better. Usually he’d run some long-legged thing down, tear out its warm-blooded throat. Gorge.
He ate the ice cream. It tasted like chalk in his mouth.
Meanwhile, Stiles concentrated on setting the cold pack over the ugly black stain that spread across Derek’s chest. He was thinking of it as a real bruise, Derek realized, a beat too late – but actually the wound was already healed, and the dead, spilled blood was just leaking its way out of his system.
Stiles wouldn’t understand it.
“How does that feel?”
“Good,” said Derek. “Feels good.” He concentrated on healing slowly so that Stiles could feel like there were still wounds for him to treat.
“Good.” Stiles moved on, frowning at a slow-closing gash, low on his hip. “I’m going to cover this, just to keep it clean,” he said.
“Okay.” Derek enjoyed the sight of Stiles, kneeling on the carpet between his legs. He held still while Stiles unfolded a white cotton pad, pressed it lightly over the wound.
“Sorry,” said Stiles, watching his face. “Does it hurt?”
Derek shook his head. Now that Stiles couldn’t see, he healed the injury out of sight, like relaxing a muscle. It tingled as it closed over and disappeared.
For all he knew, that was pain.
Stiles taped down the edges of the bandage and continued his examination downwards, to Derek’s formerly dislocated knee. There was no sign of injury now, but neither of them was likely to forget the crack it had made, giving out.
“Maybe I should wrap this. You know, give the muscles extra support?”
Wolves didn’t work like that. They couldn’t be hurt deep down after the skin was already healed, because they healed the insides first.
“It’s fine,” said Derek.
Stiles traced the smooth shape of bone under the skin. “I hate that you get hurt,” he said quietly, his voice cracking.
“Weres have a … different relationship with pain, compared to humans,” Derek said. “It’s not existential for us. It’s just temporary.”
Stiles shook his head, picking up the damp cloth to wipe away the blood from Derek’s mouth. “Hold still.”
He wasn’t understanding, thought Derek. Stiles wanted to erase the ugliness of the death on his body, find him clean underneath. Whereas Derek wanted to wait until Stiles was asleep, then find the blood of the defeated creature and roll in it.
“That’s better,” said Stiles, his smile tremulous. “There you are.”
Here I am, thought Derek.
Stiles moved slowly, scrubbing the blood away from his neck, his chest, his shoulders, his arms. Most of it had been Derek’s; dead animals didn’t bleed much, their veins already dry. Derek relaxed and let him do it, enjoying the touch, even through the rough cloth.
“I can’t see any other wounds through your manly body hair,” said Stiles, looking at his forearms.
“There aren’t any,” said Derek.
Stiles ignored him, lifting Derek’s hands into his lap. “Gross,” he muttered. “Zombie guts.” Still, he was careful, sliding the fabric into the V of each one of Derek’s fingers, then scrubbing his palms.
Did he really know, Derek wondered; did he understand that the creature which had shoved its claws through the throat of the bear and tore its second life out of it – that that was the real Derek? Not this human shape which he wore over the terrible rage of himself. When Derek looked at him out of human eyes, that was the lie – it was the glow of the wolf was real.
“Oh!” Stiles snapped his fingers. “I bet I know what will help. Hold on, I’ll go get it.” He hopped up off his knees and ran up the stairs.
While he was gone, Derek pushed off the blanket and stretched, feeling the last sore joint in his body snap back into place. He looked down at himself, flawless and whole again, dressed in a ragged pair of track shorts. He wished he could take them off, shift all the way. Run.
“Found it!” Stiles came back with a white tube in his hands. “My dad used to use this muscle rub on my shin splints. I could use it on you, if you want?”
Derek had forgotten which groups of muscles were supposed to be hurt. “Okay,” he said anyway.
“Okay. Here we go. Try to relax, okay?” Stiles rubbed something strong-smelling and oily over Derek’s perfectly healed shoulders, and Derek wrinkled his nose and tried to concentrate on the warm calluses of Stiles’ hands instead of the chemical tang of the medication. “Sorry,” said Stiles. “This is probably really smelly to you. But does it feel good?”
Derek couldn’t really tell if it was working; his werewolf-healing probably metabolized the chemicals faster than they could take effect. But the motion of Stiles’ hands was soothing, moving down over his arms, his wrists. “Sure,” he said.
Stiles was careful to tuck the blanket back around each limb after he anointed it. His other hand stroked Derek’s side, soothing, like you might pet a dog. But Derek had never understood the habit of collecting pets. Most domestic animals had a side that was feral and half-tamed, and more violent for it. How could people see the teeth, and fail to understand what lurked in the hearts of the creatures that shared their beds?
“How’s that?” asked Stiles.
“Good,” Derek said.
Stiles looked satisfied, capping the tube and dropping it on the carpet. He looked at his hands, made a face, and wiped them on Derek’s chest. “Do you want to watch TV?”
Derek shook his head again. The chatter and noise would just jangle his nerves at this point, he was pretty sure.
Stiles grinned. “I bet I know what you want.”
He scrambled up on the couch, all limbs and neck, like a deer – part of Derek watched with a predator’s eye, thinking prey? but he didn’t let that part rule. Sweet Stiles, who liked school and books, and human roofs, and soft blankets and flickering computer screens, who could barely see in the dark, whose fingers ended in blunt, useless nails.
“Scoot over.” Derek shifted obediently and Stiles squeezed himself into the gap between Derek’s body and the back of the couch. He pulled Derek’s arm around him like a seatbelt. “This is better,” he said.
They laid there together – Stiles, studying Derek’s face, and Derek looking back. For a long time they were silent.
“What are you thinking?” asked Stiles finally.
Derek had been remembering statues of Egyptian gods with the head of a jackal and the body of a man. There were still whole tribes of people, out there, that worshipped weres. And why shouldn’t they? Now that he was an Alpha, he could survive almost anything. He could change forms, cure illness, take away pain. And he could heal. Even be resurrected from the dead, if Peter was anything to go by.
“Derek?”
“Nothing,” said Derek. “Just – healing. It’s slow. Makes me think weird thoughts.”
Stiles frowned. “Can I help?”
But Derek didn’t want any more human fussing; he just wanted to be close, feel the heat of him, the skin-hunger of healing looking for a diversion. “Can you - take your shirt off?”
Shyly, Stiles obliged. Derek’s eyes were fixed on his skinny chest as it was revealed. As soon as the shirt was gone he reached out, impatient, to seize the boy around the waist and drag him on top, groaning softly when they were finally pressed together.
“Woah,” said Stiles, but he allowed himself to be man-handled down, cheek mashed into Derek’s pecs. Finally, his heart beat slipped into proper rhythm, matching itself to Derek’s.
“This helps?”
“Skin,” said Derek gruffly. “Feels good.”
“Oh yeah? Craving an application of the sweet, sweet Stiles-flesh?”
Derek grunted, too tired to argue over the phrasing. “If that creature had come any closer to you,” he managed instead, “I would have torn it apart with my human teeth.”
Stiles muzzled into his shoulder. “I feel the same,” he said.
They laid together until Stiles started to squirm, and Derek let him pull away, sit back. Stiles shifted around to clamber up on top of Derek, who rested his – human, he checked – hands on the boy’s hips to steady him. “You’re too big for this,” Derek grumbled, moving to accommodate him as Stiles settled awkwardly into his lap.
“Hush,” said Stiles, “I wanna try something.”
“Oh yeah?” He probably wanted sex, but Derek doubted he was up for that tonight. He thought about offering to let Stiles rub off against him, which they had done a few times – he liked it alright – but even that sounded like too much work. He looked up at the boy and prayed he wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t initiate.
Luckily something (the sight of Derek’s intestines, bone-white in the moonlight?) seemed to have turned Stiles off as well. Instead of grinding down, chasing friction, he kept a safe distance between his dick and Derek’s.
“Look at me?”
Derek lifted his face for what he thought would be a kiss. Stiles let him get just close enough to touch, but then, smiling, drew back just out of range.
“Hey!”
A warm hand on his shoulder settled him back down. When Stiles leaned in again, it was just his nose, nudging against Derek’s cheek. He put his face right up to Derek’s, but when Derek turned to catch his lips, he kept pulling away, not letting him make contact.
“Stiles, what – ”
“Shh.”
Slowly and deliberately, Stiles rubbed their cheeks together, their temples touching, then their foreheads.
“What are you doing,” asked Derek, allowing it.
“I’m showing you that I love you, in Wolfish,” said Stiles. He licked delicately at the corner of Derek’s mouth, then under his chin. His tongue was warm and soft. “Is it working?”
Derek knocked his head back, sniffing luxuriously. Sharp, anxious Stiles-smell; old, stale fear, bright as copper, the lingering touch of sorrow.
They had never said the L-word, although in Derek’s opinion he had said as much already, jumping between Stiles and the corpse of whatever long-dead animal that had been.
“I don’t know,” said Derek, burying his face in the dark, safe curve of Stiles’ neck. “Don’t stop trying.”
-End-