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rockmusicwrites · 5 years ago

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Dress Me Up In Stitches (Or, Five Times Stiles Got Hurt and Hid It, and One Time He Couldn’t)

The plan wasn't to be bait for the Wendigo, but no one was answering their phones. It's not like Stiles could just sit at home while the pack was out running around in the woods, armed with their useless teeth and claws. Well, useless in this case at least. Even if the wolves did manage to catch backwoods Dahmer, all they were going to do was piss the thing off. They needed fire.

Which is why Stiles was now hiking through the Preserve, alone but armed with the one thing that actually would kill a Wendigo.

"Stupid nature," Stiles muttered, glaring at his cell phone which was informing him that there was no signal this deep into the woods. At least the pack wasn't ignoring him. Not that they usually did these days, aside from Isaac and Jackson. Stiles had more than proved to be the brains of this operation. He was a walking encyclopedia of weird, and the designated researcher who more often than not came up with the right obscure bit of info to keep his friends from dying horribly.

Tonight, however, Stiles was more worried about keeping himself from dying horribly. He could hear rustling in the darkness outside the edges of his flashlight's glow, and his gut was telling him he was being followed.

No, not followed. Stalked.

Figures he would actually wind up getting eaten.

Derek's go-to threat had been a little worrisome back when they didn't particularly like or trust each other, but it got old really fast. Despite the whole throwing Stiles into walls thing, in hindsight, it was super obvious that Derek was all bark. Was he kind of an asshole? Yup. But even when he was actively going after Stiles and his friends while the whole Jackson debacle was happening, he never believed Derek would hurt him. And now, thinking back over all the times Derek had threatened to tear him apart with his scary wolf teeth actually made Stiles feel a little calmer.

Stiles was part of the pack, and there is nothing Derek wouldn't do to protect his pack.

Besides, if he did get snatched out here, that would make Stiles the third victim. And all the lore he'd come across suggested that Wendigos kept their prey alive as long as possible. As the freshest meat, Stiles would have plenty of time for the big bad wolf and his furry pals to find the Wendigo's lair before Stiles made it on the menu.

But that didn't stop Stiles from screaming in a decidedly unmanly way when the Wendigo dragged him into the woods by the collar of his button up.

It was terrifyingly fast, sprinting through the dense brush and deeper into the heart of the Preserve. Its grip had moved from Stiles' shirt to his upper arm, holding him mostly-upright and no doubt leaving some impressive bruising in the process. The toes of his sneakers bounced and dragged across the forest floor, and while the Wendigo had no problem weaving around things like massive trees, Stiles wasn't so lucky.

Already dizzy to begin with thanks to the world whizzing past him at a nauseating speed, slamming into the trunk of a gigantic redwood was enough to both knock the wind out of Stiles, and knock him unconscious.

He came to sprawled on his stomach on the damp floor of a narrow and cramped cave. Stiles could hear muffled sobs somewhere deeper into the cave, but by the time he managed to pick his head up to see just how far back the creepy lair went, the Wendigo was back.

In the dim moonlight, Stiles got a vague impression of how tall the thing was as it shuffled towards him doubled over to move around under the cave's low ceiling. Hooking his backpack with one clawed hand, it dragged him along the muddy ground and towards the sobs. It was impossible to see anything in the pitch blackness, but it sounded like the woman was somewhere to his left.

Stiles just about passed out again when the Wendigo threw him against a cold stone wall. His right side was throbbing, and he was starting to suspect that his ribs were cracked. He didn't put up much of a fight when the rank-smelling creature tied his wrists together with a length of rope.

He let out a startled yelp when the Wendigo moved away, and Stiles found himself being yanked upwards, his head colliding painfully with the cave wall. He came to a stop, twisting slightly as his momentum slowed. Stiles' hands were above his head, and try as he might he couldn't find the ground. He was suspended in the air, the improvised flamethrower in his backpack pressing against his already aching ribs.

He was so screwed.

After what felt like centuries, the Wendigo left. If Stiles had to guess, it was heading out to find the werewolves before they found it. With the monster gone, the level of stank in the confined space lessened. Small mercies and all that.

"So. You must be Tanya." Stiles didn't need to ask who the crying girl was. Under the nasty creature funk and normal dank cave smells was another smell. One Stiles was uncomfortably familiar with. Blood. A lot of it. The first girl, Hannah, was already dead.

"How do you know my name?" she rasped. Her voice was raw like she'd been crying - or screaming - as long as she'd been here.

"My dad is the sheriff," Stiles replied. "He's been looking for you."

"Are you a cop too?"

"Nope. Just a dumb kid who thought he could help."

Tanya didn't reply. She didn't have to. Stiles could picture the disappointment and defeat on her face. She thought he was part of the rescue party. She technically wasn't wrong, but Stiles doubted telling her a bunch of teenagers were looking for them would make her feel any better about the situation. The fact that they were also werewolves would probably only make her even more scared under the circumstances.

So Stiles did what Stiles did best. He talked.

Keeping up a steady stream of chatter was as much to distract himself from the amount of pain he was in as it was to comfort Tanya. He managed to get a few soft laughs out of her, and it made him feel like he was managing to do something right tonight.

Stiles was halfway through the story of the time he dared Scott to climb a tree and he got stuck when a beam of artificial light swept through the tunnel in front of him.

"It definitely smells like a creature lair." Isaac. Stiles never thought he would actually be happy to hear Isaac's voice.

"We're back here!" Stiles yelled, kicking his feet against the wall. A move he instantly regretted when it made him sway, jarring his now-aching shoulders and sending white-hot pain shooting along his ribcage. The flashlight's glow got brighter and brighter until it lit up the 'room' Stiles was being held captive in. Isaac was on all fours, Stiles' Maglite clamped under one arm. Scott was right behind him.

Once Stiles' eyes adjusted, he immediately wished he was still in the dark. What was left of Hannah was in a gory heap a few inches away from his foot, and the wall between him and Tanya (and probably behind him - yuck) was smeared with dried blood.

Tanya was back to crying hysterically, and Stiles didn't blame her one bit.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

Of course Derek was here. While Stiles was strung up like some medieval damsel. Perfect.

"We should invest in satellite phones if you guys are gonna keep playing Scooby Doo whenever something weird happens. The cell service out here sucks."

Derek ignored him, instead helping Scott get Tanya down while Isaac held the light - and tried not to step on any body parts.

"You know that makes you Velma, right?" said Isaac, smirking up at Stiles.

Stiles shrugged. Sort of. Shrugging was difficult at the moment. "So? She's the cute one. And the smart one. The full package, if you will."

Scott gently lowered Tanya to the ground, crouching down beside her when she refused to let go of him. "Hey, it's alright. You're safe now," Scott told her, rubbing her arm comfortingly. "We're gonna get you out of here."

Setting the flashlight down next to Scott, Isaac grabbed hold of Stiles' legs, lifting him up and taking the pressure off of his shoulders and wrists. The beam was pointing towards the opposite wall, and Stiles could see a second room with what looked like a bunch of animal pelts piled in one corner. The rest of the room was filled with bones.

"You're gonna have to cut him down," Derek said, frowning up at the rope above Stiles' head. If he stretched his fingers out, Stiles could almost touch the craggy stone ceiling. He had to be hanging at least two feet off of the ground - a lot higher up than Tanya had been.

Isaac let go of Stiles' legs and took a step back, popping out his claws. Stiles' weight settled none too gently onto his shoulders, and he choked back a gasp of pain. Derek dropped to one knee and laced his fingers together, boosting Isaac up to work on getting Stiles free.

The rope let go with a snap and Stiles hit the dirt floor, falling forward on his hands and knees. His arms gave out almost instantly, and he would have smashed his face on the ground if Derek hadn't caught the handle of his backpack at the last second.

"Now do you want to tell me what you're doing out here?" Derek sounded annoyed, as usual, but the careful way he helped Stiles sit up made him think the Alpha wasn't as pissed off as he looked. At least, not at this exact moment. When the danger was over, that would be a different story.

"You need to kill it with fire." Stiles tried and failed to wriggle out of his backpack straps. His entire torso was one giant throbbing ouch.

"Fire?"asked Isaac. "Seriously?"

"So says the Internet," Stiles groaned, giving up on getting free. Someone else could dig the flamethrower out.

"I'm guessing you brought fire?" Derek tugged open the main compartment of the backpack.

"What the hell is that?" Isaac shuffled closer to get a better look at Stiles' improvised weapon.

While he'd been calling the pack members over and over, Stiles was also multitasking. He'd taken apart his dad's portable camp stove (which he would NOT be happy about) and used zip ties and a random metal bracket he found in a drawer in the garage to rig the flex line into a makeshift nozzle. More zip ties held the nozzle to the small propane tank.

In theory, he should be able to open the tank and use a lighter to ignite the gas. It was an uncomfortably short-range weapon, but it was the best he could come up with in the timeframe he had to work with.

"Is that supposed to be a flamethrower?" Derek asked. Stiles couldn't see his face, but it almost sounded like Derek was impressed. Or exasperated. Derek was hard to read at the best of times.

"It is a flamethrower. You're welcome," Stiles added when the wolves stayed silent.

"We should get you out of here before Stiles starts setting things on fire," Scott said, helping Tanya to her feet. She looked fearfully towards the tunnel. "I'll go first. Just stay behind me, and you'll be okay."

"Okay," she agreed weakly. Scott disappeared into the dark, Tanya following slowly behind.

Isaac fished the lighter out of Stiles' bag, fiddling nervously with the smooth metal lid. "You sure this thing works?"

"I… didn't have time to test it," Stiles admitted. "I was more concerned with keeping you guys from pissing it off."

"And what are we supposed to do if it doesn't work? Shove the lighter up its ass and hope for the best?" Isaac replied sarcastically.

Stiles made a face. "I'm not getting anywhere near that thing's ass, but you knock yourself out."

Outside, Tanya screamed.

"Shit!" Stiles yelped, scrambling awkwardly to his feet, fear-driven adrenaline numbing the pain enough to let him actually move.

Scott howled, the sound meant as a warning. On the list of skills Stiles would never have guessed he'd acquire, differentiating the various sounds a werewolf makes was right near the top. Back off. Fuck you. Oww. Come at me. Stiles, shut up.

That was definitely a back off howl. And it apparently didn't faze the Wendigo one bit, since Stiles could hear it coming towards them. It knew its home had been invaded, and judging by the way it was snarling - the first sound Stiles had heard it make so far - it was not happy.

Derek snatched the lighter out of Isaac's hand and shoved him towards the icky 'bedroom'. "Both of you. In there. Now."

"Really? Really?" Stiles whined, swatting Isaac's hands away. "I don't want to hide in the corpse room, thank you very much."

Isaac looped an arm around Stiles' waist and hauled him the few feet to the low doorway. "Get in," he ordered.

"Ugh. Bossy-pants," Stiles grumbled, ducking through the weirdly slanted gap in the rock. Isaac pushed him into the nest of pelts and dove in beside him just as the Wendigo crawled out of the tunnel.

The flashlight was still lying off to one side, giving Stiles a good view of the creature. It looked like a hairless, emaciated Wookie, and despite the horror of what was happening all around him Stiles couldn't help but laugh.

He was too busy gawking at Nasferatu-Chewbacca to notice that Derek had opened the valve on the tank. Backed against the wall where Stiles had been hung up, Derek held the tank out in front of him and clicked the lighter.

A jet of flames whooshed out of the hose and into the Wendigo's chest. It let out a wail that Stiles would be hearing in his dreams for the rest of forever and staggered backward into the opposite wall. Derek advanced on it, aiming the fire at its face and neck.

"Its heart! You gotta get its heart!" Stiles yelled over the Wendigo's screams.

Derek tilted the tank towards the ground and drove a clawed hand into the thing's chest, ripping a gaping hole in its leathery flesh. Then he shoved the tank into the wound and leapt back as the Wendigo's entire body lit up, incinerating it in a matter of seconds. All that was left was a pile of ash and the lingering smell of a trash fire full of rotting meat.

Sliding to the ground just outside of their hiding place, Derek peered in at them.

"Well that was wild." Derek and Isaac were both staring at him. And smiling. It was deeply unsettling. "What?"

"I can't believe that worked," said Isaac, shaking his head.

"Go team," Stiles replied with a half-hearted fist pump. Now that the excitement was over, all he wanted to do was shower, take all of the painkillers, and sleep for a week.

"Everyone still alive?" Erica called from somewhere in the tunnel.

"We're good," Derek called back, motioning for Stiles and Isaac to join him back in the meat locker. They were all too happy to oblige and leave the disgusting sleeping quarters. Stiles was pretty sure he'd been sitting on someone's femur.

Erica was kneeling just inside the room, but her sassy, unflappable exterior was nowhere to be seen. She was staring at Hannah's remains with wide eyes, for once looking like the kid she really was. Boyd's death had aged her in that brutal, soul-crushing way that only trauma can, making it easy to forget she was only sixteen.

They'd all had to grow up too fast. Even Derek was too young to be in some gross, death-filled cave in the middle of the night, covered in blood and sitting next to what was left of some poor hiker.

The sense of giddy relief was gone, leaving them in suffocating silence. Without another word from anyone, Derek crossed the room, handed Erica the flashlight, and watched as Stiles and the two Betas escaped to freedom.

Tanya was sitting in the grass between Scott and Cora, staring off into the trees with the vacant look of someone who was clearly in all kinds of shock, while Jackson stood a few feet away trying to look like he didn't care about what had just gone down. Scott jumped up as soon as he saw the other Betas, running over to pull Isaac into a hug.

"I'm fine," Isaac said, smiling sheepishly when Scott ran his fingers through Isaac's curls. Much as he loathed to admit it, they were actually pretty cute together. Even Stiles found Isaac's shyness at being shown affection kind of endearing. And a little sad.

Gritting his teeth, Stiles took advantage of the temporary distraction to use the rocky surface of the outer cave to get himself upright. Even breathing hurt now, and the last thing he needed was Scott getting worked up over nothing. He was just a little banged up. No big deal.

"You're an idiot," Cora said when Stiles joined her and Jackson, wanting to be as far from the cave as possible. "You're going to get yourself killed one of these days."

"Y'know, it's still super creepy how much you sound like your brother," Stiles sighed. "Especially since you barely know each other."

"She's right." Derek was standing beside him, arms crossed and eyebrows in their signature annoyed position.

"Hey. This idiot saved your ass."

"After we rescued yours," Isaac pointed out.

"How about we continue this conversation after we get her to a hospital?" Stiles nodded in the direction of the still-catatonic victim huddled against Cora's side.

"And you," Derek added.

"Me?" Stiles gave him what was probably a poor approximation of Derek's what the hell? face.

"You're hurt."

"My arms hurt. Because I was hanging by them," Stiles said slowly, like he was explaining a very basic concept to a small child. Derek bristled at the condescending tone in Stiles' voice. Stiles' rolled his eyes. "I'm fine. It only had me a couple hours, and it didn't do anything to me besides string me up. I swear." It wasn't a lie. Not really. The Wendigo didn't hurt him, the tree did.

"Can you two walk and argue at the same time?" Jackson snapped. "I'd like to get to sleep at some point tonight."

"Yup," Stiles replied, heading across the small clearing towards the trees.

"Wrong way, genius," Jackson said loudly.

Stiles paused, waiting impatiently for the wolves to get moving. Erica slipped into the trees to his left, and he followed.

The sun was creeping up over the horizon when they finally made it back to the Hale house, the pack piling into various vehicles. Derek and Cora were taking Tanya to the hospital, and the rest of the teens were heading home.

"You sure you're okay?" Scott asked, standing next to the open back door of Jackson's car. Normally Stiles would have offered Scott and Isaac a lift, but right now he just wanted to get away from the pack as quickly as possible. He made up a plausible excuse about wanting to make sure he beat his dad home to avoid a lecture, and no one argued.

"I'm good, Scott. I just need some sleep." Scott frowned, studying Stiles carefully. "Scott."

"Okay. Text me later?"

"Yeah," Stiles promised, heaving himself into the driver's seat of his Jeep and doing his best to ignore just how much his ribs did not appreciate that. He waved as Jackson pulled onto the driveway, watching his taillights vanish behind the dense trees that bordered the property.

The drive home sucked. A lot. By the time Stiles got himself into the shower, he was ready to collapse on the bottom of the tub and either puke or cry. Maybe both. It was almost enough to make him reconsider getting checked out. Almost, but not quite.

After the shitshow that was Derek's crazy sort-of-ex sacrificing people left and right, Stiles was fed up with being seen as weaker than the rest of his friends. He might not have superhuman abilities, but he wasn't defenseless. He'd been working his ass off to get stronger and faster, and he was good at problem solving. But the pack would never believe he could hold his own in a fight if he kept getting hurt.

So Stiles sucked it up, got cleaned up, and downed a double-dose of Tylenol. He even managed to retrieve the icepack he kept hidden at the back of the freezer and climb into bed before his dad's cruiser pulled into the driveway. He feigned sleep when Dad peeked in on him a few minutes later, and spent the rest of the morning trying and failing to sleep for real.

The ice was taking the edge off as far as his ribs were concerned, but it was next to impossible to find a comfortable position. His shoulders were stiff, his wrists were raw with rope burn, and he had a lump on the back of his head from the cave wall. He'd taken more than his share of beatings in the last year and a half, but this was by far the worst shape he'd been in. Thank god lacrosse season was over.

His Google search for how long do cracked ribs take to heal? was interrupted by a text from Derek.

Nice work with the flamethrower. But next time stay home. You really are going to get yourself killed someday.

~~~

Firing up the Nemeton had all kinds of fun side-effects. The vivid nightmares and crippling bouts of depression were just the best, and exactly what Stiles needed to make his junior year super fun. He and Scott had been leaning on each other a lot in the months since their ice baths. They were a lot closer these days, which was great. But it would be nice if just once they could bond over something that wasn't, y'know, traumatic.

Then there was the whole creature beacon thing, which was already starting to attract unwanted attention from all manner of yikes. At least Dad's new deputy seemed like a good guy. Stiles hadn't figured out what he was yet, but he was working on it. The wolves, and even Lydia, sensed something… otherworldly about him. Parrish didn't seem to know he was a 'what', but Stiles was keeping tabs on him.

The only good thing to come out of that mess was that with the sheriff in the know about all the crazy supernatural shit happening in Beacon Hills, it gave Stiles the chance to help close cases. They had a routine worked out for getting Stiles' help with open investigations without drawing unwanted attention. If something weird was going on with a case, Stiles would get a call from his dad asking him to swing by the station with dinner. They'd pretend to be hanging out, and Stiles would get to look through evidence, witness statements, and anything else the department had managed to dig up.

Which is why Stiles spent the last two weeks of his summer vacation trying to figure out how to deal with a Water Wraith.

His plans to get a jump on training for track and field went out the window when kids started drowning in Wolf Lake. Yeah. He'd asked Derek about that one, but the Alpha swore it was a coincidence. Regardless, people had started going into the water at night and never coming out again.

A couple of skinny dipping teenagers. Three out of the five soon-to-be sophomores who decided that alcohol and night swimming was a winning combination. A pair of twelve-year-old girls who thought it would be fun to sneak out with the rest of their slumber party to see if they could spot a lake monster. Seven victims that had been seen wading into the lake and then straight up disappearing.

One missing body could be explained away, but seven? That was nowhere near the realm of normal. Not this far from Amityville, anyway. So Stiles hit the books. And the Internet. And Lydia's copy of the Argent Bestiary. Between the two of them, they managed to narrow down their list of potential suspects to one likely perp - a Water Wraith.

Which is how Stiles wound up on the shore of Wolf Lake on a moonless late August night (because he didn't already feel like he was about to get eaten by the Creature from the Black Lagoon) with Lydia, Jackson, Erica, and Cora. Scott, Isaac, and Derek were on the opposite side of the lake, and they were all armed with iron stakes.

Technically, the lore said a Wraith could be killed with an iron blade. But since they weren't living in 16th century Europe, they had to settle for six-inch chunks of various fire stoking implements scavenged from the Hale house and ground to a point on one end. It was still iron, and it was better than nothing.

"You know what would be great right now? Iron arrows," Jackson said pointedly, shooting an irritated glance at his girlfriend.

Lydia let out a frustrated sigh. "We promised we'd leave her alone, Jackson. She doesn't want anything to do with this town after what happened with her mom."

"Aren't you the captain of the swim team?" Cora asked.

"Yeah. So?"

"So what are you whining about? It's not like you can't swim," Cora replied.

"I'm not scared of the water. But I'm more than a little concerned about the fugly hag that's living in it," Jackson scowled.

"Speaking of, we're never going to lure her out standing around like a hunting party," Lydia said pointedly.

"But… that's what we are?" Stiles replied uncertainly. He had a feeling he knew where Lydia was going with this, and he didn't like it. Not one bit.

Ignoring him, she took a small flashlight out of her bag and pointed it across the lake, clicking it on and off a few times to get the attention of the rest of the wolves. They signaled back, and Lydia turned to Jackson while swapping the flashlight for her keys.

"Everything we need is in the trunk," she instructed, holding the keychain out to Jackson. He cocked an eyebrow in confusion. Lydia just stared at him until he took the keys with a huff and stomped off towards her car.

"You gonna fill us in on your plan, or…?" Erica crossed her arms and eyed Lydia suspiciously. As far as everyone else knew, the only plan was find the Wraith, stab the Wraith.

"I'll explain when he gets back."

Cora and Erica exchanged a look but said nothing. Stiles plopped down in the sparse grass that bordered the beach and pulled his knees up to his chest.

Jackson came trudging back from the gravel parking lot lugging a cooler with a small duffle bag balanced on top of it, and a cloth bag slung over one shoulder. "Please tell me you're joking," he said, dropping the cooler on the ground next to Stiles with a thud. Stiles could hear ice sloshing around inside, and there was a piece of something flannel sticking out of the top of the bag Jackson was still holding.

Lydia shrugged. "We need to draw her out."

"With beer?" Erica asked, lifting the lid of the cooler to peek inside. She helped herself to a can and offered one to Stiles. "I'm okay with this plan."

Stiles took the beer from her, rolling the unopened can between his palms nervously. He had a pretty good idea of what was in the bags. Beach towels, a blanket or two, a light source, and probably a Bluetooth speaker. They were staging a lake party to trick the hag into thinking they were more dumb, drunk teens for her to prey on. Fuck.

Lydia handed Jackson and Cora drinks and started unpacking. She left the towels in the duffle, set the speaker in the grass between Stiles and the cooler, and spread out a huge, well-worn flannel blanket on the sand. A small camp lantern sat crookedly in the middle of the blanket, tilting to left a little on the uneven ground.

"Don't just stand there. Act like you're having fun," Lydia ordered, kicking off her sandals and settling on the blanket with a beer of her own.

Erica shrugged and pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her shorts, working on syncing it up with the speaker. When she finally got it connected and had what sounded like '70s soft rock playing just quiet enough to avoid attracting attention, the rest of the wolves showed up.

"Uh… what's going on?" Scott asked carefully, like he wasn't sure if he was supposed to already know the answer.

"We're bait," Erica said cheerfully, knocking her beer can against Cora's and taking a swig. Cora huffed out a soft laugh and settled in closer to Erica, slipping her arm around the other girl's waist and dropping a kiss on her bare shoulder. She looked up at her brother and gave him a I guess we're doing this? look.

Derek, on the other hand, looked like he really, really wanted to put the kybosh on Lydia's plan. Stiles could see his jaw muscles twitching in the faint glow from the street lights back in the parking lot. It was interesting, watching Derek think. He'd always saw Derek as someone with a killer poker face, never giving anything away. But the more Stiles got to know him, the more he realized the exact opposite was true. Derek was the kind of guy who wore his heart on his sleeve and once you learned how to read him, dude was an open book.

Which is why Stiles knew in a matter of seconds that Derek couldn't come up with a reason for them to ditch the plan other than I don't like how risky this is. Which was a very valid reason, but a weak one given the fact that they were pretty much constantly at risk these days. They didn't have a whole lot of room for caution if they wanted to stay alive. Which was stupid, and kind of an oxymoron, but still true.

Derek sat down wordlessly next to Stiles. Stiles handed him his still unopened beer and leaned back on his hands, staring out at the still water. They could make as much noise on shore as they wanted to, but if they wanted to get this thing they were eventually gonna have to get wet.

Stiles cracked opened a beer.

The pack hung out for over an hour, drinking and laughing and almost forgetting why they were really there. While the wolves couldn't get drunk (at least, not on what they had here) they put on a good show. Well, Erica, Jackson, and Isaac did. Having never actually been drunk, Scott and the Hales were mostly doing an impression of drunk people, which was honestly adorable. Lydia stopped after one beer, Stiles after two. Not because that was their limit, but because they couldn't risk slowing down their reflexes.

One was probably plenty for Stiles too, but his nerves needed calming. Drowning was pretty high up on the list of painful and terrifying ways he didn't particularly want to die.

Once the cooler was empty, Lydia casually sidled up to Jackson and wound the hem of his t-shirt around her finger. "Ready for a dip?" she asked. She was grinning at him playfully, but her eyes were stone cold serious. It was show time. Jackson hesitated, and Lydia kissed the corner of his mouth, her free hand squeezing his. "You're not gonna make me go all alone, are you?"

"You're not afraid of the dark, are you Jackson?" Erica teased loudly, already wiggling out of her shorts. She threw her tank top at him, then helped Cora to her feet.

Lydia started moving around the blanket under the guise of cleaning up their empties, slipping the second part of her plan to each of her friends. It was going to be kind of hard, for the girls especially, to take their stakes in with them. They were kind of hard to hide, and waving them around in the water was a great way to scare the Wraith off.

Stiles took the rubber bands that Lydia handed him and felt his stomach drop. The idea of trusting his life to something that flimsy was slightly terrifying.

Beside him, Derek pulled off his shirt. Then stood up and unbuttoned his jeans. Suddenly, Stiles was very interested in a small bit of driftwood poking out of the sand by his foot. It's not like he'd never seen Derek shirtless before. That was weirdly common, but still not something he was entirely used to. But seeing Derek in his boxers was something Stiles needed a little more time to prepare for.

"You coming?" Isaac was suddenly standing in front of him, hands on his hips. Stiles blinked up at him, hoping he looked calmer than he felt. At least half-naked Isaac wasn't an unusual sight either. Between the locker room, Scott's room, and pretty much anywhere that wasn't public, Stiles had already seen much more of Isaac than he ever wanted to. It was like Scott and Derek were the only werewolves not allergic to pants.

"Uh. Yeah." Stiles stood up, brushing sand off the back of his pants. Isaac was still standing there, staring at him. "What?"

"Move your ass, Stilinski!" Jackson yelled from the water's edge. The girls and Scott were standing with him, fidgeting with the weapons stuck to the inside of their forearms. Derek - only-wearing-underwear Derek - was standing in the sand between the group at the water and Isaac, glowering impatiently at Stiles.

"You don't have to stare like a bunch of creepers," he mumbled under his breath, turning his back to the lake and stripping down. He stayed facing away from the pack until he had his stake as secure as it was going to get, the rubber band closest to his elbow cutting painfully into his arm. Keeping his head down, he set off in a half-jog towards the water.

Erica and Cora headed in first, splashing their way through the shallow water and shrieking at the cold. Derek followed them, wading out at a much slower pace with Isaac, Scott, and Lydia close behind. But Jackson wasn't moving. Stiles glanced over at him to see him frowning thoughtfully.

"What?" Stiles shuffled from foot to foot, not caring for the sudden scrutiny.

"Since when are you actually in shape?"

Stiles' mouth fell open in shock, and he could actually feel himself turning red. He wasn't embarrassed, exactly. He was actually pretty stoked that someone finally noticed. But the thought of Jackson checking him out for any reason was awkward as hell. Because Jackson. Flailing a little, he took off into the lake, stumbling along the rocky bottom and crashing into Derek. They both went under, and Derek caught his arm to haul him back above the waterline.

Wet, mostly-naked Derek was… a sight. Especially when Stiles was standing close enough to see the way his damp hair fell over his forehead, and follow the path of the water droplets trailing down his stupid, perfect abs in the starlight. Stiles blushed even harder. He was pretty sure his face just invented an entirely new shade of red. Kill Me Now Crimson.

Derek was looking at him like he was an absolute moron, and Stiles yanked his arm out of Derek's grip. "I'm good," he squeaked. Honest-to-God squeaked. Fucking hell, where was that Wraith when you needed her? Death by soggy hag was starting to sound pretty sweet right about now.

Realizing he was just going to have to drown himself, Stiles dove back under and swam just past where Erica and Cora were treading water and splashing each other. Turning on to his back, Stiles floated there for a few minutes while he waited for his heart rate to return to something approaching normal. He really hoped the lake made it so the wolves couldn't smell arousal in the same way bloodhounds couldn't follow a scent over water.

Stiles closed his eyes and tried to relax, bobbing almost peacefully on the lake's surface. Until a hand closed around his ankle and dragged him under. He screamed, bubbles gushing out of his mouth as he kicked frantically at… the arm that was no longer there?

Coming up coughing and gagging, Stiles tried and failed to gulp down air while he spun around wildly, looking for any sign of where the Wraith went. Then he heard laughter.

Scott swam over to him, half holding him up while Stiles worked on remembering how to breathe. A few feet away, the Betas were giggling their furry asses off. Stiles narrowed his eyes, regaining some of his composure. Then he remember the stake strapped to his arm.

"Alright. Who am I stabbing?" Stiles pushed away from Scott and in the direction of someone who was about to be very sorry.

"Relax, Stilinski. It was a joke," Jackson smirked.

"You!" Stiles growled. "Of course it was you! C'mere! I'm gonna-"

"Take it easy. He's our strongest swimmer. You can stab him later." Somehow, Derek had come up behind him and locked an arm around Stiles' waist without Stiles noticing.

Stiles craned his neck to look back at Derek. "Promise?"

"I'll help hold him down," Derek replied. His face was carefully blank, but there was something like mischief in his eyes that had Stiles heart skipping a beat. Which reminded him that they were still pressed together, with Derek holding him up like he weighed nothing.

"Deal." Stiles was proud of how steady his voice sounded. Derek let go, and Stiles headed back towards Scott. Who was getting cozy with Isaac. Rolling his eyes, Stiles joined the girls instead. They drifted back towards the shallows, and wound up having a chicken fight in the waist-deep water.

Lydia must have been a little pissed with Jackson over his hilarious joke, because she decided it would be her and Cora against Stiles and Erica. He didn't remember the game being this vicious, but it was totally worth a few scratches and bruises to hear Erica genuinely laugh. She had one of those loud, full-body laughs that would have been called boisterous once upon a time, and it was contagious.

After a few more rounds they tried to recruit Derek, but he kept swimming away from them. Stiles dipped under the water to get a little more speed, looping around behind Derek in the hopes of spooking him. He resurfaced as quietly as he could, only to hear Derek yelling his name.

"Seriously, Stiles?" Scott shouted, treading water like he was looking for something.

"Uh, guys?" Stiles asked cautiously.

Derek spun around to face him, expression shifting from surprise to confusion to terror in the time it took Stiles to blink.

"Jackson!" Lydia screamed, the girls thrashing wildly to close the distance between them and what had to be the spot where Jackson went under. Crap. She had him.

Stiles and Derek dove down at the same time, kicking frantically. It was too dark to see anything but the vague shape of Derek just in front of him, so Stiles stuck close until he needed to come up for air.

At least, he tried to. Something had him by the ankle again, and he could tell by the blunt nails pressing into his skin that it was a human hand. Jackson? Stiles ignored the burning in his chest and squinted at the darkness below him, but it was useless. Then Jackson tightened his grip and dragged him down even further.

The next few seconds were a blur. On the verge of blacking out, Stiles pulled at the stake to get if free from the rubber bands. Then almost simultaneously his foot slammed into something hard, pain sliced through his calf, and someone elbowed him in the face. The world faded into a haze.

"Stiles!"

Derek's face was inches from his, and someone had their hands hooked under his arms. He could hear a weird gurgling noise, and realized it was coming from him. Derek was slipping farther and farther away. Someone was dragging Stiles through the water.

"Lydia?" he wheezed.

"It's okay. You're okay," she soothed, voice shaking.

"Jacks'n?" No response. Stiles willed his arms and legs to move in a useful direction, and was thrilled to realize he could still swim. "Go. 'm fine."

"Stiles…"

"Go," he insisted, pulling out of her grip and continuing towards the shore. Lydia shot off in the opposite direction.

By the time he made it to the beach, Stiles' leg was on fire. He sat down in the shallows, watching the water lapping gently at his lower half wash blood away from a deep and really ugly-looking gash in his right calf. Leaning to one side, Stiles puked up what felt like half the lake, coughing and gagging until he could take in air without feeling like he was suffocating. With his luck, he'd wind up with pneumonia after this.

Careful not to step on the blanket, Stiles grabbed the darkest colored towel in Lydia's bag (dark green and navy stripes) and dried himself off as fast as possible before pressing the towel against his still profusely bleeding leg. He most definitely needed about a thousand stitches, but if he went to the hospital his dad would find out. If his dad found out, he'd never let Stiles take the lead on another case. The last thing Stiles wanted was his dad out here facing this kind of shit.

The chaos erupting out on the lake pulled him out of his own head. He couldn't tell what was happening from this far away but the yelling sounded more victorious than terrified, which Stiles was cautiously calling a win until he was told otherwise.

Either way, he was running out of time. Out of necessity, Stiles had first aid supplies in his backpack. Digging the hard plastic case out, Stiles grabbed a fistful of self-adhesive squares of gauze and hastily slapped them over the gash. They wouldn't last long, but it would buy him enough time to get home. He tugged his jeans on to cover the bandages, and realized there was blood dripping from his face.

He touched his cheek gingerly. Whoever hit him had split his face open. Picking up the now disgusting blood and sand caked towel, Stiles scrubbed as much as he could off of himself before stuffing it in the bottom of his bag and opening the kit back up.

"Set him on the blanket!" Lydia staggered out of the water, pushing her hair out of her face. Behind her, Derek and Cora were holding up an unconscious and worryingly pale Jackson between them. They laid him out as instructed, and Lydia started CPR while the Betas crowded together anxiously in the wet sand at the edge of the lake.

After what Stiles was sure was way, way too long, Jackson finally jerked back to something like alertness, water spilling out of his mouth. Derek helped Lydia turn him onto his side, and she bent over him, rubbing his back encouragingly and whispering to him. It took him a few more minutes and a lot of vomiting, but he was shockingly okay. Frickin' werewolves…

"You're bleeding." Stiles jumped, nearly falling over sideways. Erica was standing over him, her hand pressed against her bicep and blood trickling through her fingers.

"So are you. Band-Aid?" he offered, holding out his first aid kit.

Erica grinned, sinking to her knees in front of him. "Sure. Thanks."

"You might want this first," said Cora, holding out another one of Lydia's towels, this one pink and flowery and damp with lake water.

"Thanks, babe." Erica held her arm out for Cora to clean up a little, and Stiles gentle put his last gauze square over the cut. "Friendly fire," she explained, gesturing at the bandage.

"Me too. I think." Stiles frowned. He still wasn't sure what happened down there.

Erica bit her lip, giving him a sheepish smile. "I'm pretty sure that was me. Sorry."

"Eh, don't worry about it. I can't stay mad at my fellow Chicken Fight Champion."

"Then I guess the least I can do is patch up my partner," she said, taking the kit from him. Stiles sat still while she used some of the regular gauze to clean and disinfect the impact cut before carefully closing it with a couple of butterfly bandages. "There," she said, squeezing his shoulder. "Good as new."

"Thanks. Oh! Did we get her? Please tell me we got her."

"I got her," Erica replied.

"I helped," Isaac said from the confines of the inside out t-shirt that was sticking to his damp skin.

"If by helped you mean stabbed me instead," Erica shot back, rolling her eyes.

"Grazed. I grazed you," he pouted, glaring at her through the shirt's neck hole.

"You still got me and missed her."

"I think the important thing is that Erica is okay, and no one died," Scott interjected, coming up behind Isaac and wrapping his arms around the taller boy's waist.

"And I don't know about you guys, but I really need a shower," Stiles said, reaching for his shirt. "I have sand in places no one should ever have sand." He wriggled uncomfortably in his jeans to emphasize his point.

"No one wants to hear about your junk, Stilinski," Jackson groaned. He was dressed and on his feet, but leaning on Lydia for support.

Lydia shook her head, lips quirked up in a half-smile. "Let's get you home."

"Don't think I'm going to forget that you tried to drown me!" Stiles yelled after them. "Twice!"

Jackson flipped him off before he and Lydia disappeared from sight.

Somewhere in the depths of the front pocket of Stiles' backpack, his phone buzzed. He fished it out to see a text from his dad. Got called out. 273D. Might be a long 1. Let me knw ur ok? Stiles stared down at his phone, the knot in his chest loosening. With his dad out at a scene, he wouldn't have to dodge a million questions before he could deal with his leg.

He sent back a quick Mission accomplished. All safe. and tossed the phone back in his bag. Stiles put his first aid kit back together and stuffed his sandy feet into his high-tops while the Betas packed up Lydia's stuff and loaded it in Cora's car - an eighteenth birthday/glad-you're-not-dead gift from Derek. Once they removed any traces of them having been at the lake, they headed out.

Scott squeezed into the backseat with Erica and Isaac. He was spending the night at the loft with Isaac, and Erica was staying with Cora. Usually, the fact that everyone but him was coupled up made Stiles feel pretty crappy. But tonight he was glad to be on his own.

Back at home, Stiles peeled off his now blood-soaked jeans and tossed them into the corner of the bathroom, behind the door. The bandages were so saturated they practically fell off. Oh. No wonder he felt light-headed. Oops.

Sitting on the edge of the tub with his other first aid kit, he started on the grim task of picking bits of rotted wood out of the gash with tweezers. That was another mystery solved; he'd hit a submerged tree and caught his leg on a branch. Once he was sure he'd got all of the soggy splinters out, he used an entire bottle of alcohol on the cut before reaching up under the sink and pulling a plastic bag out of its hiding spot in the front right corner of the cabinet.

He only felt slightly bad about having stolen a few suture kits from one of the prep carts at Beacon Hills Memorial. He made a point of doing it when Mrs. McCall wasn't working, which had to count for something. Besides, he knew this night was coming. Propping his phone up against his shampoo bottle on the shelf in front of him, Stiles hit play on the YouTube video he'd bookmarked for the occasion and got to work.

Making a mental note to swipe some Lydocane or something ASAFP, he spent the next two hours carefully giving himself thirty-eight stitches, thanking whatever deities were out there that the gash hadn't been deep enough to need both internal and external stitches. He'd already thrown up once from the pain. He didn't have it in him to do that twice.

Exhausted and shaky, Stiles showered quickly and then filled the bottom of the tub with cold water to soak his clothes and Lydia's towel in before he washed them. While he waited to be able to start his laundry, he downed two bottles of Gatorade and a handful of painkillers.

It wasn't until he'd thrown everything in the dryer and crawled into bed that he realized he'd been play-wrestling with a soaking wet, bra and panties clad Lydia Martin, and he hadn't even noticed. Stiles was way too fucking tired to deal with whatever the hell that meant. It could wait until morning.

Or until never.

~~~

Stiles would absolutely be lying if he said he hadn't thought about what it would be like to spend some up close and personal time under Derek Hale. But in Stiles' version of this scenario, Derek was a little less clothed and a lot more conscious.

"C'mon, dude. This is a terrible time for a nap," he wheezed, trying and failing to move the Alpha off of him with his free arm. Stiles wasn't sure what exactly hit Derek, but whatever it was sent him crashing into Stiles, pinning him to the ground. There was a rock digging into his left butt cheek, his right arm was still tangled up in an aggressive, sentient tree root, and he was slowly suffocating under a whole lot of werewolf.

And to think Stiles had actually been kind of excited about this particular supernatural incident when they started to figure out what they might be up against. Most Fae creatures could at best be considered Chaotic Neutral, but even the ones that leaned towards meaner alignments were more assholish than aggressive. If you'd asked him to guess which ones had the potential to be terrifyingly vicious, wood nymphs wouldn't have even crossed his mind.

There was no trail of bodies, no strange disappearances, and no one had gotten hurt. As a matter of fact, no one even seemed to notice that there was anything freaky happening in the Preserve. People getting spooked out of popular camping spots was nothing new, especially in the years after Peter woke up and spawned a bout of mountain lion hysteria that never quite died down. Most of the time there was nothing more dangerous out in the dark than mosquitoes, but once in a while, there was something weirder at work.

Stiles had gotten into the habit of keeping tabs on communications coming from the park services team, just in case they caught wind of something potentially dangerous before the sheriff's department did. There was a higher than usual number of campers noping out of a particular area over the course of the summer, with some of them swearing the trees around their tents were going all Evil Dead on them. In a get off my lawn! kinda way, not a paddle faster, I hear banjos! kinda way.

They couldn't not look into rumors about trees coming to life.

Now, the pack was learning the hard way that these particular wood nymphs, at least, were willing to gently shoo away unintentional trespassers in the section of the forest they'd decided to claim as their new home turf but had zero restraint if you came nosing around on purpose.

Wood nymphs, as it turns out, are less ethereally beautiful women with flowers in their hair and more the hellish offspring of Poison Ivy and Audrey II. Their skin was a sickly grayish-green, their long dark hair was a tangled mess full of moss and leaves, and their teeth and nails were razor sharp.

Oh, and they could control anything with roots. Like the sycamore that was squeezing Stiles so hard it was cutting bloody lines into his forearm right through the sleeve of his hoodie.

The Betas were getting their asses handed to them, and Stiles was starting to think Lydia had the right idea, staying home and letting the werewolves and their supernatural abilities deal with the other things that had supernatural abilities. He wasn't sure if it was a Banshee thing or just a Lydia thing, but she always seemed to know when she should help, and when she should stay out of it.

Stiles wasn't that smart. Which is why he now found himself pressed up against Derek in the least sexy way possible. He tried one last time to get Derek to move, shoving at his shoulder. With one arm being yanked above his head, Stiles couldn't get enough leverage to do more than jostle the heavy ass wolf slumped over his entire body.

Finally, Derek moaned against Stiles' neck, which was really the last thing he needed right now. Nope. The actual last thing Stiles needed right now was for Derek to press his forehead against his shoulder and his knee against the inside of Stiles' thigh in an attempt to get up. While still moaning.

This had to stop. If Stiles kept being forced to associate danger with boners, he was going to need so much therapy.

Lying perfectly still, he focused on the pain shooting up and down his arm until Derek was coherent enough to get to his feet and out of Stiles' personal space. Blood was trickling down the side of Derek's neck from somewhere behind his right ear. He swiped at it, eyes glowing red as he snarled at something behind Stiles.

Something hissed back. Shit. One of them was standing over him. Twisting onto his side, Stiles reached up to yank on the roots that were slowly snaking their way around his elbow. His fingers were going numb from the lack of circulation. If he didn't get loose now, the damn thing was going to snap his wrist. If the nymph hovering over him didn't kill him first.

Two nymphs against six werewolves seemed like an easy win a couple of minutes ago, but as far as Stiles could tell the wolves were yet to land a hit. They were too busy fighting off the scenery to go after the pissed off Fae.

Derek lunged at the nymph and managed to throw her against the tree that had a hold of Stiles, but it didn't seem to faze the nymph or the tree. Cora slammed into the ground next to Stiles, and he lost track of Derek. Fully wolfed out, Cora grabbed the tree roots and bit down, chewing through the fibrous tendrils. The severed half that was still attached to Stiles went slack, and he tugged it loose and flung it as far away as he could.

Cora was gone before Stiles had a chance to say thanks. Scrambling to his feet, he surveyed the scene and tried to figure out where he could jump into the fray and actually be useful. His trusty bat was a less than ideal weapon in this fight. A machete would be awesome right about now. Or another one of his surprisingly effective flamethrowers.

Stiles was okay with burning a few trees down if it meant not getting strangled by one.

Then, he remembered he had something even better in his backpack. If he could find it. Hunkering down behind a tree that wasn't currently trying to kill anyone, Stiles looked around frantically for any indication of where it ended up after one of the nymphs yanked it off of his shoulder.

He spotted it. And groaned in frustration. The stupid thing was up a fucking tree.

Resigning himself to the fact that he was definitely going to die before he got up there, Stiles slipped deeper into the woods and did his best to move stealthily along the edge of the fighting. At this point, he just hoped whichever wolf found his body figured out he was going for his backpack for a reason.

He approached his target, jumping up to grab a lower branch and feeling a rush of pride when he pulled himself up on the first try. "Please don't grab me. Please don't grab me. Please don't grab me," he muttered to the tree, climbing higher. Somehow, Stiles managed to reach the backpack, sling it over one shoulder, and start his decent without attracting any unwanted attention.

Two branches from a safe jumping distance, Stiles felt something slither against the small of his back. He froze, the vaguely ticklish sensation creeping along his spine and over his right hip, dipping below the waistband of his jeans and brushing against the nape of his neck. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder and down. SHIT.

One of the nymphs was standing below him, the greenery in her hair twisted into thick vines like some sort of leafy gorgon. The vines were what was touching him. Squeezing his eyes shut, Stiles braced himself for a crash landing on the forest floor.

The impact came, but not before the skin the vines were resting on was ripped open. The sensation of being stabbed with dozens of knives simultaneously had him choking on a scream he suddenly didn't have the air to produce. Stiles felt the nymph jerk the vines, and he threw himself towards the trunk of the tree, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the rough bark as he lost his footing.

His first stroke of good luck for the night was that he fell straight down instead of backward, the lower branches slowing his momentum just enough to keep him from breaking anything when he hit the ground, landing hard on his back. His second bit of luck was his head bouncing off of the vines still connecting him to the nymph, narrowly avoiding a concussion.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw yet another vine reaching for the strap of his backpack, which was tangled around his arm. Stiles curled onto his side and clutched the bag to his chest, fumbling with the zipper. He jammed his hand inside, feeling around for the one thing he desperately hoped would kill these goddamned nymphs. Stiles' fingers closed around the iron spike, and he let the nymph take his bag.

All three of the vines retracted, and Stiles got his feet under him as fast as he could, charging at the Fae before he was even fully upright. Her face was turned away from him, her attention on the bag she'd hurled out of sight.

This was his one shot.

Stiles dove at the nymph and drove the length of iron into her stomach. She let out a deafening screech and tried to jerk out of Stiles' reach. He tightened his grip on the spike, backing her against a massive pine and forcing the iron in deeper.

"Is this what you were trying to keep away from me?" Stiles taunted. The nymph stared back at him with pure hatred in her too-green eyes. "Yeah, I thought so. You fair folk don't like iron." Stiles smirked, yanking the spike free. The nymph slumped to the ground, blackish blood gushing from the wound.

A howl of pain pulled his attention away from the corpse at his feet. The wolves had ganged up on the remaining nymph, who was still making the trees do all the work for her. She had Cora pinned against another pine, roots crushing her like a boa constrictor, and managed to drive another root into Isaac's calf and out the other side, holding him at bay. Scott was trying to get Cora free, and Erica was gingerly picking herself up out of the dirt, favoring her left knee.

Jackson charged at the nymph, who just barely deflected him. Derek looked like he was about to try the same move, and the Fae had her sights on him. But something was off. She looked like she was having trouble concentrating. Suddenly, her head snapped up, and her focus was on Stiles. She can sense the iron, he realized.

Stiles could work with that. He took off running towards the nymph, fully expecting the roots that came up to meet him. "Derek!" Stiles held the iron spike up over his head, ready to throw it. The nymph shifted her focus from Stiles to Derek, who had turned towards him at the sound of his name. Derek took a half-step forward, and Stiles threw the spike as hard as he could. Right towards Erica.

The split second of confusion after Erica snatched the weapon out of the air was all she needed to turn on the nymph and stab her in the neck. Now there were two dead nymphs lying on the forest floor.

The trees around them went still, their roots falling to the ground like coils of frayed rope. Cora dropped to her hands and knees, gasping. Isaac limped away from the pool of his own blood he'd been standing in and sat himself down carefully, reaching for his leg with shaking hands. Scott crouched down next to him, gently easing the root out. Erica offered them her flannel shirt as a makeshift bandage, which Scott tied in place.

"Everyone else okay?" Derek asked, his arm around Cora's shoulders. The rest of the Betas looked at each other and shrugged. They weren't dead, and anything else would heal. The fact that everyone but Isaac was still on their feet counted as a yes. "Stiles?"

"Huh?"

"Are you okay?" Derek's tone was a pretty clear indication that he was going to need more than a shrug out of Stiles before he dropped the subject.

Stiles touched the tips of his fingers to his forehead. He'd gotten a face full of tree bark on his way down, scraping the hell out of the side of his face. He waved a hand at the angrily stinging scratches. "Flesh wounds," he said. "No biggie."

"You fell out of a tree," Derek replied.

"I was mostly out of the tree. I just… got interrupted during the dismount." It wasn't the fall that hurt. It was whatever the vines did to his back and side that had him gritting his teeth against the pain. Every breath felt like it was shifting razorblades under his skin.

"You got pulled out of the tree."

Derek was glaring at him now. Stiles sighed. "She was trying to get my backpack away from me. She could like… feel the iron in there or something. It's why she stole my bag in the first place."

"Is that why the Swamp Thing Barbies tried to kill us? Because you made them think we were here to kill them?" Jackson snapped.

"They tried to kill us before Stiles, Erica, and Cora caught up to us," Scott pointed out, giving Stiles a reassuring sidelong glance. Jackson might have mellowed out considerably since joining the pack, but he still turned back into a raging douche when he was scared or stressed. Stiles let the accusation slide.

"Pretty sure it was the Alpha stomping around in their territory that pissed them off," Cora added in agreement. "And half of us would be dead by now if Stiles hadn't brought that spike."

"Whatever," Jackson grumbled. "What are we doing with the bodies?"

"You mean those bodies?" Erica pointed towards the spot where she dropped the second nymph. In a matter of minutes, the forest had already started to reclaim the remains. She looked more like a moss-covered log than anything person-shaped. Erica grinned over at Stiles. "Gotta love fairy magic."

Jackson scrunched his face up in disgust. "Gross. Can we go now?"

"Do I need to remind you about the time me and Scott had to drag your gooey cocoon-covered body all over town?" Isaac shot back. "That was gross. This is a mess we don't have to clean up for once."

"You forgot naked," Stiles added, taking the gore-coated iron spike back from Erica. "Half the pack had to see your twig and berries after your little Beauty and the Beast routine."

"I'm sorry I missed that," Erica smirked.

"You didn't miss much," Stiles, Scott, Isaac, and Derek replied in near-unison. The sheer indignation on Jackson's face made the entire miserable night worth it.

The pack was still laughing when they split up to help Stiles find his backpack. Again.

Derek stuck close to Stiles on the way to the lot they'd parked their vehicles in a half-mile into the Preserve and another mile and a half from where they found the wood nymphs. Which meant Stiles spent the entire hike back pretending he wasn't in agony. After twenty minutes of feeling Derek's eyes burning holes in the back of his head, Stiles was beyond fed up.

"I fell out of a tree and landed on my back! It hurt, okay? And I'm gonna have some awesome bruises, but I'm fine," Stiles insisted, returning Derek's glare with as much anger as he could muster. Two years out of high school and Derek still looked at him like he was just a scrawny, fragile kid who kept getting himself into trouble Derek was gonna have to get him out of. Like Stiles hadn't spent the last five and a half years saving Derek's ass. And everyone else's.

It hurt a lot more than Stiles cared to think about. Not because it made him feel like he would never be good enough to deserve his place in the pack (that was a whole other set of issues Stiles didn't want to examine too closely, either) but because it was a painful reminder that Derek would never see him as anything but an annoying kid. Even when everything else in his life changed, that never would.

It should be comforting, knowing Derek would be one of the few constants in his life. But all it did was reinforce that Stiles' one-sided infatuation with this stubborn, grumpy, closed off, pain in the ass would only ever be one-sided. And that just plain sucked.

Derek didn't offer any kind of response to Stiles' outburst, but he also didn't try to catch up with Stiles when he pushed past Jackson and started walking a little faster. Behind him, the pack went back to chatting quietly. Stiles tuned them out.

Everyone split up when they reached the lot. Derek headed back to his mostly-rebuilt childhood home, Jackson headed to Lydia's mom's place, and Scott, Isaac, and Erica headed back to the loft with Cora.

Stiles was heading to an empty house. With Scott and Isaac crashing at the loft, Mrs. McCall had her place to herself. So that's where his dad would be. Stiles was kind of surprised it took them as long as it did to finally admit they were into each other, and he couldn't be happier for them. They both deserved to have something good in their lives.

And it didn't hurt that with Dad sleeping over at his girlfriend's house, Stiles could deal with his injuries without having to tiptoe around like he was still sixteen and breaking curfew.

Over the years, Stiles had built up a first aid kit any field medic would be envious of. It was still hidden in the back of his bedroom closet, waiting for nights like this. Whenever he came back to Beacon Hills during college breaks, shit inevitably hit the fan at some point. He couldn't afford not to be prepared.

Stiles set the kit on the closed toilet seat and slowly stripped down to his boxers. As soon as he unbuttoned his jeans, he realized why he was still hurting as bad as he was. A pair of gigantic thorns were embedded in his hip, right through the fabric of his underwear. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that more thorns were sticking out of his skin along his side and up the middle of his back, stopping just below the knob of his spine.

Steeling himself, Stiles flipped open the kit and took out the sleeve of basic surgical tools he'd acquired the year before thanks to eBay. He grabbed a pair of forceps and got to work on the first thorn. It came out easy enough, and Stiles studied it for a few seconds before tossing it into the sink. It was smooth and curved with a slight hook on one side, and about an inch long.

The ones in his hip and side weren't so bad, but the ones in his back took a while. Then he had to clean and dress each of the half-inch cuts. They needed stitches, which Stiles absolutely couldn't do on more than the first five, maybe six wounds. But it was already four in the morning, and he was exhausted.

There were plenty of people he could call for help. But he wouldn't. He wasn't in the mood for a lecture, and he wasn't about to give anyone a reminder that his wounds wouldn't miraculously heal overnight. So Stiles used surgical glue on the cuts he could reach and taped thick squares of gauze over the rest of them (which involved the creative use of two pairs of surgical clamps and some mirror-aided guesswork). He cleaned the abrasions on his face and the cuts on his arm, and wrapped a length of bandage around the latter before falling into bed still wearing his bloodstained boxers.

If nothing else, Stiles was accumulating a very interesting collection of scars to impress the occasional coed with. And an increasingly long list of reasons to keep his distance from Derek. He could convince the cute girl who usually sat behind him in his Tuesday morning criminal code class of some ridiculously lie that made him out to be adorably clumsy. Derek would take one look at the marks on his skin and see physical proof that no one around him was safe.

Stiles could live with his scars, but he wasn't willing to risk giving Derek more of them.

~~~

The plan was always to come back to Beacon Hills after college. The town wasn't safe anymore, and probably never would be again. The only thing standing between the residents and gruesome death was the Hale pack, which meant the Betas had to stay. Derek couldn't protect the town on his own.

Not that he wasn't trying to.

In the two months Stiles had been back, things had been mostly quiet. He'd managed to finish his four year Criminal Justice degree from Sacramento State in three and a half years, and started with the Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department while Lydia and the werewolves headed back to their rented house in Davis for the spring semester. Everyone but Lydia and Jackson would graduate in May. Until then, it was just Stiles and Derek.

It was weird, actually being allowed to be at crime scenes for a change and not having to sneak around or wait for his dad to slip files to him. And when Deputy Stilinski ended up at Beacon Hills Cemetery responding to a report of vandalism that was more of a grave robbery situation, he knew this was his first 'special case'.

After the third fresh body was dug up and dragged off, Stiles called Derek.

Sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor of Stiles' childhood bedroom, leaning back against the foot of the bed with books piled around them and his laptop balanced on his knees was surprisingly comfortable. His fresh from college and broke as hell self was currently living with his dad and stepmom until he scraped together enough savings to get a place of his own. It was more necessity than nostalgia.

Stiles half-jokingly asked if Derek had ever actually used his bedroom door before after Melissa (he was still getting used to her not being Mrs. McCall anymore) let him in downstairs. Derek asked if Stiles still had Star Wars sheets on his bed. (He did.) His dad yelled up the stairs after them about not staying up too late because it was a school night, which actually made Derek laugh.

Still awake well past what anyone could consider a reasonable hour, they finally landed on what felt like the right answer. All of the stolen bodies had been in the ground less than forty-eight hours, and they'd all been relatively young and healthy. Of the seventeen people that had been buried in that cemetery since just before the first body went missing, the ones that were snatched were the only ones who weren't either super old or died of some kind of illness.

Something wanted the freshest, nicest meat it could get. And that something was a ghoul. By the time they worked out how to find a ghoul's lair and how to kill one, it was too close to sunup to head over to the cemetery and start poking around. Well, Derek couldn't. Stiles had been first on scene for two of the three incidents, so nothing was stopping him from showing up to look for more evidence in between calls.

Stiles chose to blame sleep deprivation for the fact that he was dumb enough to text Derek photos of what he was pretty sure was the mausoleum the ghoul was living under. Like Derek would actually bother to wait for him to get off shift and nap for a couple of hours so they could go after the ghoul together.

When his alarm went off at midnight that night, Stiles got dressed and texted Derek to let him know he was on his way. After sending three more texts and getting nothing back, Stiles tried calling him. Voicemail. For fuck sakes, Derek…

Derek's Camaro was, of course, already parked at the cemetery when Stiles got there. Hoping no one saw him climbing over the chain link fence with a hatchet in one hand (he really, really needed to invest in some better weapons and stop borrowing his dad's camping gear to kill monsters) Stiles hit the ground running on the other side. Weaving around headstones, he headed straight for the mausoleums at the back of the property.

He heard the fight before he saw it. Derek was half-shifted and snarling at a trio of terrifying zombie-looking bastards who had him backed against the cracked stone wall of one of the crypts. The ghouls didn't seem to care that they were facing off against an Alpha werewolf. They were eyeing him up like he was an especially tasty midnight snack, and Stiles had never been happier that Derek insisted on wearing nothing but leather jackets. Stiles wished he'd thought to wear something heavier than his quilted bomber jacket.

The ghouls hadn't noticed Stiles yet. He stepped up behind the nearest one and swung the hatchet at its neck, almost managing to cut completely through it with one blow. And everything went downhill from there.

Now that the remaining ghouls were seriously pissed, they both turned on Stiles. Derek wrestled one of them to the ground next to its dead buddy, but the other ghoul hit Stiles in the face hard enough to send him stumbling backward. Off balance and a little dazed, it didn't take much for the ghoul to knock him flat on his ass. Fumbling the hatchet, Stiles barely managed to keep the corpse-muncher from taking a bite out of his face.

Pressing the fiberglass handle against the ghoul's throat, Stiles brought his knees up and twisted to one side, shoving the rank-smelling creature off of him. Derek roared in pain, and before Stiles could see if he was okay, the ghoul was back on its feet and charging at him. This time, the ghoul was quicker. Grabbing the front of Stiles' jacket, it flung him towards the graves.

He cleared the first two rows before he landed. The hatchet bounced out of his grip on impact, and Stiles rolled in the grass until his head connected with the back of a marble cross. Groaning, Stiles pushed himself up on his hands and knees. The ghoul was already on him again, kicking him in the face for good measure before picking him back up and throwing him farther into the center of the cemetery. This time he was less lucky, slamming full force into a thick slab of granite.

The air whooshed out of his lungs, leaving him stunned and on the verge of blacking out. The headstone had caught him from hip to armpit, and he was convinced he'd just broken every last bone on the right side of his body. Stiles curled in on himself, gasping in agony. He was toast now, because there was no way he was getting up after a hit like that.

He waited for the ghoul to finish him off, but the end never came. Stiles could hear one of the creatures screaming, and then the cemetery was dead silent. Finally able to take a breath, Stiles carefully turned onto his stomach and tried to get up. It hurt like a motherfucker, but he could still move and stand. So nothing was busted. Just incredibly bruised.

"Stiles?" Derek was walking in the opposite direction of where Stiles was.

"Not dead," Stiles called out, wincing as he forced himself to stand a little straighter. Derek spun around and jogged towards him. There was something like relief on his face, which was splattered with congealed blood.

"Are you okay?" Derek reached for the bruise Stiles could feel forming on his jaw. His hands were coated in blood, too, leaving a wet smudge on Stiles' chin before either of them noticed. "Sorry," he said, wiping his hands on his jeans.

"What happened there?" Stiles gestured at the spatter that seemed to cover Derek from the waist up.

Derek shrugged. "Dropped my knife. I had to improvise."

"Did you… did you rip a ghoul's head off with your bare hands?" The fact that that was even something Derek could do should have scared the hell out of Stiles. Instead, he realized, he found it kind of ridiculously hot? Therapy. So. Much. Therapy.

Derek neither confirmed nor denied what happened with the ghoul. Instead, he changed the subject, asking "You wanna tell me why you're here?"

"Because that was the plan?" Stiles reminded him, not bothering to hide how irritated he was at Derek's stupid question. "I didn't tell you what I found so you could come out here with no back-up like a moron."

"I was handling it." Derek turned away from Stiles, surveying the scene around them. They had one hell of a mess to clean up.

"Sure. Of course you were. 'Cause the big bad Alpha never gets in over his head," Stiles replied sarcastically, limping past Derek in search of the hatchet. If he was gonna be an asshole about this, he could deal with the dead ghouls on his own.

"You're hurt." Derek was following him through the headstones.

Taking as deep a breath as he could, Stiles calmly insisted, "I'm fine. The grass broke my fall." He spotted the hatchet and bent down to pick it up. His aching side did not like that at all.

"Stiles-"

"I said I'm fine!" Stiles hissed through clenched teeth. Once he got himself upright, he glared at Derek and headed towards the cemetery gates. "If I were you, I'd just stuff them back under the mausoleum!" he called over his shoulder.

His hopes for a quick departure were dashed when Stiles realized there was no way he was getting through the gate. He was going to have to scale the fence again. Bracing himself for a whole lot of kill-me-now, he tossed the hatchet over with this good arm and started to climb. Willpower alone got him up and over. Gravity got him down the other side.

Refusing to look back to where Derek may or may not be watching him, Stiles tried to play off his less than graceful dismount as his own lack of coordination instead of his hip locking up on him and dumping him into the patchy grass that separated the cemetery grounds from the road. He picked himself up a lot faster than he should have, hobbling towards his Jeep.

The drive home sucked. A lot. It felt like someone had stuck a very large knife into his side and was twisting it every time he moved wrong. Or moved at all, really. He was stuck trying to drive with his left foot since his right leg was all but useless. His right arm wasn't much good for anything either. It was a good thing it was the middle of the night and traffic was sparse.

At least he wasn't bleeding for once.

Years of practice made it easy to move from the front hall to his bedroom without making a sound despite the fact that he could barely walk at this point. Stiles slipped into the bathroom and gave himself a quick once-over. Besides the bruise on his jaw, he had one hell of a black eye. That was gonna look awesome when he went back to work in two days.

Stiles brushed his teeth and limped across the hall to his room. He didn't even bother to look at his side. He knew he probably should, just like he knew he needed to head downstairs and grab an ice pack for his face. But he didn't. Didn't even bother with painkillers. It was taking everything he had to stay standing, so stairs were totally out of the question. Leaving his jacket, jeans, and socks in a heap on top of his boots, Stiles crawled under his covers and tried to find a comfortable position.

Breathing hurt. Not breathing hurt. Everything hurt. And to add insult to (literal) injury, he could feel tears rolling across his swollen cheek and soaking into his pillow. He was exhausted and sore and had no one to turn to for comfort. Admitting the ghouls got the best of him would mean admitting that he wasn't tough enough to keep up with the pack. That he'd always be their weak link. That he was just something else for the people he loved to worry about.

So Stiles did what he'd been doing since he was sixteen and got the shit beat out of him by Allison's psychotic grandfather to send a message to Scott. He kept his pain to himself and broke down in private, where no one would ever have to know he wasn't as strong as he should be.

He'd been lying there for what felt like centuries failing to fall asleep when his window slid open, a familiar shape ducking through the opening. Stiles closed his eyes, hoping if he stayed like that long enough Derek would just leave the way he came. The window shut with a soft click, and then Stiles could feel him standing next to the bed.

"I said I was fine," Stiles mumbled into his pillow, still refusing to open his eyes. Derek would have to take the hint eventually.

"You know, you've always been a terrible liar."

There were a half dozen sarcastic responses Stiles could've fired back with, but something in Derek's voice stopped him. He said nothing. Derek continued to stand there, and Stiles continued to ignore him. He couldn't do this tonight. He didn't have it in him.

Derek sighed, and Stiles figured that was him finally giving up. Instead, he felt a hand settle in his hair. His eyes snapped open, and Derek groaned, his other hand slamming onto the mattress to steady himself. Stiles smacked his arm away and propped himself up on his elbow, scowling at the dumbass werewolf who was now kneeling on the floor.

Stiles wanted to yell at him. He wanted to give Derek hell for showing up here uninvited, and invading his privacy, and not trusting him enough to actually stick to the plan and going alone like the stubborn fucking idiot he was. But when Derek finally lifted his head, the look on his face stopped Stiles cold.

He'd never really understood how someone could look raw. It just seemed like an overly dramatic way to say someone looked vulnerable or worn out. Now he got it. Because there was no other word for the expression staring back at him. Stiles looked away, confused and concerned and a little freaked out.

"Why are you here and not at the ER?" Derek was holding the wrist of the hand that had been touching Stiles, and his fingers were shaking.

"Because I don't need a two thousand dollar hospital bill to tell me I have a couple of bruises," Stiles replied. "I'm very familiar with the difference between broken and bruised. I don't need a second opinion." As soon as he said it, Stiles knew it was a mistake. Derek made a soft, pained sound that made Stiles' chest ache almost as badly as the rest of him.

"How many times have you been hurt bad enough to be able to know the difference?"

"A few," Stiles admitted, trying to sound casual. "I played lacrosse, remember?"

"You got hurt once in three seasons, and it was a sprained wrist your Junior year," said Derek, leaning his forearms on the bed so that his face was only inches from Stiles'.

"How do you even remember that?" Stiles asked, thrown off kilter by Derek's response.

"Because I was at the game."

"No you weren't," Stiles scoffed.

"I was."

"You never went to a single game after the night Jackson 'died' on the field," Stiles insisted. "I would have noticed if you were in the bleachers. You don't exactly blend in."

"I wasn't in the bleachers. But I was at every one of your home games." If Stiles didn't know better, he would have thought Derek was blushing. But Derek Hale didn't blush. He glowered and frowned, but he definitely did not blush. If his cheeks looked distinctly pink, it was just a weird shadow or something.

"Why?" Stiles asked suspiciously.

Derek shrugged. "All of you were on the team. And you were pretty good. I was… proud of you guys. Especially you," he added.

"Me?" Stiles didn't know how the hell to respond to that.

"You worked really hard to make first string, and you did it all on your own. And you were great."

"But you always said us caring so much about lacrosse was stupid," Stiles said lamely. This conversation had gone in the complete opposite direction of where he expected it to go, and he didn't like it.

After losing Boyd, almost losing Erica, and getting Cora back, Derek had changed. He was less angry and less distant, but he was still Derek. This was a side of Derek Stiles had never seen before, and he didn't know what to do with it.

"When there were hunters and a pack of bloodthirsty Alphas actively trying to murder all of us, I seriously questioned your priorities. But you were in high school. That's where your priorities should have been. It's where mine would have been if…" Derek shook his head, like that would make the memory of Kate Argent go away.

That was another topic Stiles did not want to touch right now. "Thanks for checking on me, but I'm okay. A little banged up, but I'm good."

"You're not." Derek ghosted his fingertips over the bruises on Stiles' face, making him shiver. Which made the rest of his body throb in agony. Stiles grimaced, and Derek frowned. "Where else? Show me."

It wasn't a request.

Reluctantly, Stiles gestured at his side. Pushing the blankets out of the way, Derek lifted up Stiles' shirt to see he was black and purple from his ribs right down past the waistband of his boxers. "Holy shit."

"Looks worse than it is," Stiles said dismissively, reaching to tug his shirt back down. Derek caught his arm and bunched the fabric up further, revealing more ugly bruising. "Don't worry about it."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Derek sounded genuinely hurt, and once again Stiles was at a loss.

"I don't need you worrying about me. I can take care of myself."

"You think I don't worry about you anyway?"

Stiles' heart sank. This exact moment was what he'd been trying to avoid. "Just because I'm not a werewolf, that doesn't make me useless. I'm tougher than I look."

"I know you are. I don't worry about you because you're human. I worry about you because you're Stiles," Derek replied softly. "I worry about you because I can't lose anyone else. I can't lose you."

That was so not the response Stiles was anticipating.

"What makes me so special?" Stiles joked weakly. That sounded dangerously close to some kind of declaration, and it was really fucking with his emotions.

"Everything."

He couldn't tell you who moved first, but the end result was that Derek was kissing him. Really kissing him. It was soft and sweet and so much better than anything Stiles' imagination had been able to come up with. When it was over, Derek pressed his forehead against Stiles', fingers curling around the back of his neck.

"Well that was awesome," said Stiles, because he was incapable of not ruining the moment.

"Does that mean you'll let me help you?"

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Just, take it easy, okay? Don't take more than you can handle," he replied in what he hoped was a stern voice. He was pretty sure he mostly sounded breathless. Derek nodded, getting to his feet. He shrugged off his jacket and moved to the end of the bed, carefully climbing in behind Stiles and stretching out on top of the covers. "Well if you're gonna do that, you might as well get comfortable."

"I am comfortable."

"You're wearing jeans. No one is comfortable sleeping in jeans."

"I'm not sleeping."

"Dude. If you think I'm gonna let you spoon me and then skedaddle as soon as I pass out, you are sadly mistaken."

Derek sighed but eased himself off the bed. Stiles smirked into his pillow, watching Derek strip down to his boxers and t-shirt. He still felt like he'd been hit by an entire convoy of eighteen wheelers, but his night was suddenly ending on a very high note. Derek got back on the bed, this time under the covers.

Spooning wasn't actually a valid option, seeing as how Derek couldn't really touch any part of Stiles' right side. The arrangement they eventually settled on was Derek laying on his back with Stiles half laying on his side and half laying on Derek with his head on Derek's shoulder. Lacing their fingers together, he started to take Stiles' pain.

Slowly, it got easier and easier to breathe, and Stiles felt himself relaxing into Derek's embrace. "How's that feel?" Derek asked, lips brushing against Stiles' forehead.

"'s good," Stiles murmured, already half-asleep.

When he opened his eyes again, it was daylight. And Derek was still holding his hand.

~~~

So this one might have been his own fault. But in Stiles' defense, he hadn't planned on this turning into a total shitshow. He was just doing a little recon in the hopes that he was wrong.

This was the third Christmas in a row that was about to be interrupted by supernatural shenanigans. Last year they were stuck dealing with more stupid Fae nonsense, but they were more of a pain in the ass than anything. The year before that they found out there was a pair of Omegas living in Beacon Hills, and somehow none of the wolves noticed until Stiles and Parrish responded to a supposed wild dog incident at a winter break rager.

Turned out that over the summer, a pair of sixteen-year-olds were camping with friends on some family property in Wyoming, and both of them got bit. They managed to keep out of trouble for the first few months and were over-confident in their ability to ignore the full moon. At least they had the sense to take off into the woods before they killed someone.

The fact that the pack never noticed two more werewolves in town was extra embarrassing since Stiles and Parrish knew one of them. Her older sister had joined the sheriff's department a year after Stiles, and they'd both seen Hayden doing homework in the bullpen dozens of times. Stiles had even helped her with her English assignments.

They caught up to Hayden and her boyfriend Liam later that night. Once the kids calmed down, realized the other wolves weren't going to hurt them, and got their story out, Derek offered them a spot in the pack. Scott was the one who ended up playing Obi-Wan to the newbies, and other than it being a little awkward trying to explain why a bunch of twenty-six-year-olds were suddenly spending time with two kids a decade younger than them, things had been good with the baby Betas.

Well, they really did not like being referred to as the baby Betas. Especially as eighteen-year-olds. Which Stiles had to admit just made it much more fun to keep calling them that. It was one of the few things he and Jackson agreed on.

And it was because of the babies that Stiles was in his current predicament. Not because of anything they did, but because Stiles was trying to keep the holidays drama-free for a change. Most of his high school years were ruined by a never-ending string of crises. He was trying to avoid the same thing happening to Hayden and Liam.

But it was mostly because he sort of… didn't bother to tell anyone where he was going. Or what he may or may not potentially be walking into. Which was such a boneheaded teenage Stiles move, and if Derek ever found out about this, he was never going to hear the end of it. Provided Stiles managed not to die out here.

For obvious reasons, Stiles was always wary of new faces in town. Most of the time they ended up just being regular people, like Liam's family before the whole bite thing. But once in a while a new group of people moving into Beacon Hills was a sign of something much more sinister. How Parrish was still the only not-evil creature to be lured in by the Nemeton was a complete mystery.

And that godforsaken magical tree stump was directly responsible for tonight's mess. The half-dozen twenty-something women who were staying at the Twin Pines Motel at the edge of the Preserve had Stiles' spidey-senses tingling the first time he spotted them. Besides the fact that they looked like they were on their way to audition for a remake of The Craft, they were claiming to be college students studying the flora and fauna of Beacon Hills for some research paper.

As someone who had spent significantly more time in those woods than he ever wanted to, Stiles could attest to the fact that there was nothing unique or interesting about anything in the Preserve. Nothing natural, anyway.

Which only left the Nemeton.

Stiles had promised his dad the day he got his badge that he wouldn't cross any legal lines unless it was a dire, life or death situation. So as much as he would've liked to invent an excuse to get into their rented rooms or have Parrish and Valerie help him tail them around town, Stiles had to settle for making a few educated guesses about what these girls might be up to.

He thought it was a pretty great plan. It was Christmas Eve, and also the first full moon of the Winter Solstice, which he figured had to have some kind of Wiccan, Druid, or Pagan significance. The pack was busy with werewolf stuff, giving Stiles an excuse to disappear for a few hours. So he staked out the Nemeton and waited to see if they showed up.

After an hour spent freezing his ass off, they finally showed. Stiles dropped to his stomach, keeping his head low as he watched them set up their ritual. There were the usual candles and fancy daggers, and what looked like mistletoe and… evergreen? No. Meadowsweet, maybe? Either way, the only thing missing from the scene was some poor helpless little animal that didn't even know it was about to get its throat slit.

So Stiles, wearing his uniform jacket over his regular clothes, clicked on his Maglite and popped out of his hiding spot. "Before we get to the animal cruelty portion of the evening, I'm gonna stop you there," he said loudly, crossing the clearing to hopefully spook at least a few of the girls enough to get them to pack up and leave. "I don't know what kind of laws you have wherever you came from, but here? We frown on this kind of thing."

The girls looked at each other, completely unfazed. "Who said anything about an animal?" one of them asked, smiling sweetly in a way that reminded him uncomfortably of Lydia's you're about to be very sorry grin.

He wasn't sure which one of them hit him, but the next thing Stiles knew he was flat on his back on top of the Nemeton, spread eagle with his arms above his head and rope tied around his ankles and wrists. Oh, and he was naked. In ten degree weather. Fucking perfect.

"I'm glad you decided to follow us out here. Now the sacrifice doesn't have to be one of us." The smiling girl was standing behind him, leaning over so her face was in his sightline.

Stiles sighed. "Dare I ask what it is you're trying to appease? Or conjure? Because trust me, nothing good has ever come out of messing with the energy in this place."

"We're not trying to commune with something good. We're here for power," Smiling Girl replied, petting his hair. Stiles jerked his head away from her hand, and she giggled. "There's no better place to pull power from than a nexus. Especially one as strong as this. You can feel the energy for miles."

"And those bad vibes made you want to come here?" Stiles rolled his eyes. "You kids have no idea what you're messing with. You're going to get yourselves killed."

"Our hearts and minds are open. We're ready to receive whatever he chooses to give us," said another of the girls, this one with a face full of piercings.

Stiles tugged experimentally at his bonds. Being back here was all kinds of bad, and he needed to make his move while he still could. He was already feeling lightheaded and queasy from being this close to the source of the darkness he still carried with him.

"It is kind of a shame, though," said the one with the silver hair. "He's kinda hot."

The one with the white girl dreads nodded in agreement, stepping closer to the massive stump. "I've always been a sucker for a guy with freckles," she smirked, tracing her finger from spot to spot from his collarbone to his hip.

Shuddering from both disgust and the cold, Stiles thrashed against the ropes. He couldn't see what they were tied to, but whatever it was couldn't be that secure. There had to be a way to get loose. Because even if there was some way to alert Derek, there wasn't much him or any of the other wolves would be able to do with Stiles surrounded by mistletoe.

"Sisters, it's time." Smiling Girl picked up a dagger with an intricately carved blade and motioned for her fellow lunatics to do the same. The six of them arranged themselves in a wide circle a good ten feet away from the Nemeton on all sides and started murmuring and chanting in Latin. Their eyes were closed, and they were holding the daggers over their heads in both hands.

This was his chance. Stretching the fingers of his right hand to wrap around the length of rope around his left wrist, he pulled as hard as he could. The chanting intensified, but the Pagans' eyes were still shut. Stiles felt the rope start to slacken, and gave it one final yank. Something came loose, and he quickly got to work on freeing up his other arm.

Tilting his head back, he lifted his arms and saw a pair of thick metal stakes like the kind you'd use to tie down guide lines on a giant tent dangling from the ends of the ropes. Stiles stretched his arms back into their previous position and hoped no one noticed the stakes lying on the ground.

The chanting stopped, and the girls strode towards the Nemeton with their daggers still up in the air. Hoping none of them were planning to go for his legs, Stiles waited until they were almost in stabbing distance. Then he lifted his arms and whipped them around, letting the dangling ends of the ropes - and more importantly, the spikes attached to them - swing in a wide arc right at face-level.

Stiles caught Silver Hair with a direct hit, and clipped Piercings and the quiet one with the elaborate neck tattoo on the first go around. White Girl Dreads shrieked and dropped her dagger, backpedaling so fast she crashed into Neck Tattoo and took them both out. His second swing got Smiling Girl in the side of the head. The sixth girl was already running for the tree line, heading back the way she came.

Taking advantage of the temporary chaos, Stiles pushed himself up on his elbows and reached for the dagger White Girl Dreads dropped, which was sticking straight up with its point buried in the wooden pseudo-altar. Gripping it in one hand, he swung the spikes again to ward off Smiling Girl and Piercings, who were both trying to slash at him.

This time, the point of one of the spikes embedded itself in Smiling Girl's leg. She screamed and dropped to the ground. Her momentum yanked Stiles to one side, which pulled him out of Piercings' reach. She stabbed the Nemeton instead of him, and she couldn't get her weapon back out.

Adjusting his grip on the dagger he'd swiped, Stiles sawed at the ropes around his wrists. Once his hands were free, he started on his legs. White hot pain shot down his left arm, and he could feel warmth running down the icy skin of his bare back.

Silver Hair was kneeling on the stump beside him, her blade red with blood along one edge. She looked confused, and Stiles realized she'd meant to stab him, not slice him open. There was too much of her own blood in her eyes to see what she was doing.

Stiles punched her in the face and went back to getting himself free.

Yanking Piercings' dagger out of the stump, Stiles got to his feet and brandished both blades at the battered and terrified girls. Very aware of the fact that he was naked, bleeding, and probably looked like a total psychopath, Stiles turned and pointed one of the daggers at White Girl Dreads, who looked like the most coherent one of them at the moment.

"Clean up your candles and shit, clear out your rooms, and get the fuck out of my town. There will be a squad car outside the motel at six am, and if any of you are still there, you'll find out exactly what kind of power lives in these woods. And it will eat you alive."

Pale and shaking, White Girl Dreads whispered a barely audible "Okay."

"Glad we understand each other. Now where the fuck are my clothes?" Stiles demanded.

Neck Tattoo pointed to where their bags were piled, and Stiles could see one of his boots lying on its side on top of a duffle bag. Stiles stomped over to the edge of the clearing and pulled on his boxers. Still keeping an eye on the girls scattered around the Nemeton, Stiles unzipped the nearest bag and dug through it. He found some kind of altar cloth and wrapped it around his shoulder as a makeshift bandage before putting the rest of his clothes on.

His fingers and toes were numb, and his teeth were chattering. With one last threatening glare, Stiles trudged into the woods and towards his Jeep.

It was past midnight when he finally reached the spot where he'd parked, and the first thing he did was crank the heat up as high as it would go. Once he got some feeling back into his hands, he wrapped the daggers in his bloody t-shirt and stashed them under the back seat, and pulled the first aid kit out of the glove box.

Stiles wiped as much of the blood off of himself as he could, cleaned the cut that ran along the outside edge of his shoulder blade, and closed it up with surgical glue. The rope burn on his ankles and wrists wasn't as bad as he'd expected and only took a couple minutes to deal with. He grabbed a clean shirt from the bag he kept under the passenger's seat, got himself dressed again, and finally checked his phone.

He had three missed texts from Derek, one from Scott, and one from his dad. None of them were urgent or gave any indication that anyone was wondering where he was just yet.

Pulling onto the narrow dirt road that led to the highway, Stiles dialed the number for dispatch.

"What kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time?"

"Arlene, I am offended," Stiles said, feigning hurt. "Why would you assume it was my fault?"

"Because it usually is. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything's fine. I just need you to put in a request for me."

"Sure thing, hun. What do you need?"

"Can you get someone on the early shift to swing by the Twin Pines Motel around six? I just had to chase some dumbass college kids off our property. I caught them…" Stiles trailed off, acting like he was trying to decide how to phrase the rest of that thought. "Let's just say they seemed to think it was All Hallows Eve instead of Christmas Eve. I decided to be charitable and let them off with a warning. But I told them to clear out."

"And you want someone to make sure they took your advice?"

"I'm gonna have twenty people at my house in… eight hours? I really don't want to spend my Christmas dealing with statements and paperwork if I don't have to."

"Fair enough. I'll get someone on it."

"Thanks, Arlene. I owe you one."

"Any time, hun. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas."

Stiles ended the call and tossed the phone on the seat next to him. His shoulder was throbbing, and he could feel a knot forming just above his right ear. But if he was quick, he could grab a shower before Derek realized he was home, and no one would have to know he'd almost gotten himself sacrificed.

It was a little after one when he let himself into the house, tiptoeing up the stairs to the master bedroom. Sneaking past a sleeping werewolf was no easy feat, but Stiles managed to get to the ensuite door before Derek stirred. Safe inside the bathroom, Stiles locked the door and started the shower.

Standing under the hot spray, he finally let himself relive everything that happened tonight. Everything that could have happened. It had been years since Stiles had a panic attack, and it was definitely not something he'd missed. The water had gone from hot to lukewarm by the time he got his shit together again.

Ignoring the tremor in his hands, Stiles turned off the shower and dried himself off, taking care to avoid irritating his shoulder. He popped a couple of painkillers, brushed his teeth, and dressed in a lightweight hoodie and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, crawled into bed beside Derek.

"What's wrong?" Derek asked sleepily.

"Nothing's wrong," Stiles replied, stretching out on his uninjured side and facing Derek.

"Super hearing, remember?"

Right. Of course Derek heard him crying in the shower. "I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

"You're shaking." Derek propped himself up on his elbow and reached out to stroke Stiles' cheek. "Talk to me."

"I…" Stiles couldn't bring himself to tell Derek how close he'd come to losing him. Not now. He could keep this to himself for a couple of days, and they could talk about it when the holidays were over. "I went to see Mom," he lied. It felt shitty using her like that, but Stiles didn't know what else to say. "And I just… I hate that she's not here to see all of this."

That part at least was true. He knew she'd be proud of the life Stiles had built for himself. And while like Stiles she was more of a Halloween person, she would have loved to be part of the three-ring circus that was Christmas with the Hale pack. She would have loved Derek.

"I'm sorry," Derek said softly. "I know how much you miss her. How hard days like this can be."

Stiles turned his head to press a kiss against Derek's palm. "It'll be even harder if we don't get some sleep," Stiles joked.

Sliding his arm around Stiles' waist, Derek pulled him against his chest. Stiles tucked his face into the hollow of Derek's shoulder and breathed him in, letting his familiar warmth soothe Stiles' frayed nerves.

The chaos started a little after eight that morning.

His dad and Melissa were the first to arrive, each with an armful of grocery bags and Tupperware containers. Derek showed them where to put what while Stiles got the first pot of coffee going. He still wasn't fully awake when Lydia and Jackson showed up with breakfast and a giant bag of gifts. Stiles gestured vaguely in the direction of the tree and took a couple of the bakery boxes from Lydia.

"Were you planning on getting dressed?" she asked, following him into the kitchen and taking a stack of plates out of the cupboard. Stiles grunted in response, squinting at her over the rim of his mug. She ducked her head to hide a smile and busied herself arranging pastries.

Scott, Isaac, Erica, and Cora came barging in not long after that, and Stiles decided maybe it was time to get dressed, if only to buy himself a few more minutes of relative quiet. By the time he threw on a pair of jeans and one of Derek's henleys (who would have guess that one day he'd actually be able to fill out one of Derek's shirts?) and made a half-assed attempt at finger combing his bed head into something a little more presentable, Hayden and Valerie were knocking on the door and the Betas had made themselves at home in the living room.

Stiles waved them inside and ducked into the kitchen to put on another pot of coffee. "Y'know," he said to Derek as he measured out a scoop of grounds, "If we're gonna be the official spot for family get-togethers? We should consider investing in one of those tank things that hold like, fifty cups of coffee."

"You should have asked Santa for one," Derek replied, dropping a kiss on the top of Stiles' head. "And stop stealing my clothes."

"It looks better on me and you know it." Stiles winked at Derek, who rolled his eyes and went to answer yet another knock at the door.

By nine-thirty, Liam, his brother Mason, their parents, Jackson's parents, Lydia's mom, and Parrish were all squished into the newly redone living room of what Stiles still thought of as the Hale house. His dad had a cheerful little fire going in the fireplace, and everyone had at least tried to fit their gifts under the tree. Most of them were stacked on either side or spilling out onto the carpet to pile against the sofa.

Once everyone had a cup of coffee in hand and the pastries were demolished, the pack played rock, paper, scissors to decide who was stuck handing out gifts. Scott lost.

"So do I just… pick one?" Scott asked, standing in the middle of the sea of brightly wrapped packages.

"Start over by the girls and work your way in," Mrs. Martin suggested, pointing at the boxes that had slowly started to slide under the wingback chair near the fireplace where Cora and Erica were curled up together, Erica in Cora's lap.

It took the better part of two hours to get through all of the gifts, by which point the living room looked like a warzone. Stiles was glad that the only thing they actually had to cook was the turkey, because he was going to be ready for a nap by the time he got all of this wrapping paper stuffed into trash bags.

Melissa took charge of the food, figuring out which of the alarming number of sides needed to be heated up when and ordering Derek, Scott, and Isaac around. Stiles' dad helped him set up a card table at one end of the giant twelve person oak dining table, and it actually looked like they'd be able to fit twenty people into the dining room.

Mason and his parents volunteered for clean up duty, and everyone else scattered around the lower level of the house, drinking and laughing and enjoying the kind of warm, comfortable feeling you only got from spending time in a loud, happy home.

"Is this what it was like when you were kids?" Stiles asked, handing Cora a glass of bourbon with a splash of eggnog in it.

"Pretty much," she told him, clinking their glasses together and taking a sip. They were lounging on the love seat together, watching Erica, Scott, Mason, Hayden, and Liam try to figure out the rules to the extremely complicated-looking board game Hayden had got for Mason. Everyone else was in the dining room playing poker, using Christmas cookies as chips. By the sounds of it his dad was cleaning everyone out.

"Mom used to bake these little round gingerbread cookies, and Dad and Peter would build a bonfire in the yard for us to roast marshmallows on. We'd make special Christmas s'mores, and we were always allowed to stay up as late as we wanted to," Cora said, staring into her drink. "That last year, I fell asleep in the grass. Laura carried me to bed."

"I'm sorry you didn't get more years like that."

Cora shrugged. "Looks to me like we're going to have plenty of years like that from now on."

People started filtering out around eleven, and by one-thirty Stiles and Derek had the place to themselves again. Stiles was standing at the bathroom sink when Derek came up behind him and put his hands on Stiles' shoulders. And squeezed. There was no hiding his reaction with both of them in front of a mirror.

"Stiles?" Derek frowned, dropping his hands. They stared at each other's reflections for a few long, awkward seconds.

Stiles huffed out a sigh, scrubbing a hand across his forehead. He was busted. "So… I may not have been totally honest about where I was last night…"

~~~

It figured that Stiles would die in the dumbest way possible. And that it would happen in the fucking woods.

This was not how the night was supposed to end. Death wasn’t even on Stiles’ radar when he stepped off the front porch barely an hour ago. The pack wasn’t after anything, and nothing was after them. They were off the clock.

Lydia and the Betas were here for movie night. It was a gorgeous July evening, and he and Derek had hung a sheet from the porch roof and spread blankets on the front lawn. Isaac borrowed a digital projector from work, and they were going to lounge in the grass eating junk food, drinking beer, and watching the original Friday The 13th once the sun went down.

But that was before the power went out. Barely ten minutes into the movie everything went dark. Stiles radioed into the station and found out there was a city-wide blackout. The on-duty officers had it covered. He could enjoy his night off. But with no power, they needed a new plan.

Stiles had been joking when he suggested flashlight tag. Sure, it was something he and Scott loved when they were kids, but they weren’t exactly kids anymore. When Jackson immediately objected like the buzzkill he was, Stiles couldn’t help himself. He doubled down and insisted it would be fun. He wasn’t expecting everyone else to agree, least of all Derek.

Which is how Stiles found himself running through the now all too familiar woods in search of werewolves. He knew he didn’t have a hope in hell of finding Lydia.

Stiles was ‘it’, both because the game was his idea and because unlike the rest of the pack, he didn’t have night vision. At least their speed wasn’t an advantage here; Stiles only had to catch them in his flashlight beam, not physically catch them. For once they were practically on even ground.

That might have been true metaphorically, but physically Stiles wasn’t on even ground at all.

He’d almost caught Erica a few minutes ago, but she was more a glimpse of blonde hair in his peripheral than an actual target. Now, Stiles could hear movement up ahead, and somewhere to his left. He hesitated for a second, deciding on a direction to take.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, veering off the main path and deeper into the trees. Clicking the light off so as not to give away his position, Stiles crept through the brush as quietly as he could towards where he thought someone was hiding. He could just make out the shape of a large rock about twenty feet ahead. Flashlight at the ready, he picked his way over fallen branches towards his prey.

He made it a good fifteen feet before whoever was crouched behind the rock made a break for it. Stiles hit the switch on his trusty Maglite and swung it towards the retreating figure. It was Isaac, and he was just outside the reach of the flashlight beam. Cursing, Stiles took off after him.

One minute he was closing in on his brother-in-law, and the next he was flailing like a lunatic to keep himself on his feet. The thick tree root came out of nowhere, tripping Stiles up and sending him to the ground despite his best efforts.

He knew something was wrong the moment his body made contact with the forest floor. Pain shot through his thigh when he landed hard on his back, then proceeded to tumble down a leaf-strewn embankment. When he came to a stop, his leg was throbbing. The Maglite was still on, but it had rolled out of reach, beam facing away from him.

He didn’t need the light to know he was in trouble. There was a broken stick poking out of the top of his thigh, right through his jeans. And he was bleeding very, very badly.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice was screaming at him to do something. So he ran through basic first aid in his head. Put pressure on the wound. Apply a tourniquet. Leave the foreign object in place, or you’ll only make it worse. A damaged artery can cause a grown man to bleed to death in four minutes.

The stick was still there, but it wasn’t doing a damn thing to slow the bleeding. The wound was jagged, torn open from the stick digging into the earth on his way down to where he’d landed. He was trying to put pressure on it, but blood was gushing between his fingers and pooling in the dirt and leaves under him.

He was bleeding out.

He was tired. And cold. All he had to do was lie down, and everything would be okay.

The last thing Stiles saw was Derek’s silhouette skidding down the embankment towards him, his wedding band glittering in the moonlight.

It had been over a week since Derek had last set foot inside their house. He hadn't been able to make himself come back here. Not after that night.

He hadn't even got the door closed behind him, and he was already regretting letting Scott talk him into this. Stiles' scent was everywhere. It was more than Derek could handle, standing here breathing in the lingering reminder of his presence when Stiles was…

Derek wouldn't let himself finish that thought. Couldn't let himself go there. Because that would mean admitting this waking nightmare was real. He couldn't get rid of the image of Stiles lying on the ground, pale and still and covered in blood. Too much blood. More than anyone could lose and expect to survive. That image would haunt him for the rest of his life, threatening to taint the good memories he had of his husband.

You need to go home. Shower. Eat something. Sleep in your own bed. He hadn't been able to argue with Scott. He didn't have the energy. So here he was, standing in the entryway and trying to work up the courage to climb the stairs. Showering he could do. He might even shave. But food had no appeal, no matter how much he needed something in his stomach. And he sure as fuck wasn't going to sleep. Not in their bed. Not alone.

Lowering his gaze to the floor, Derek pushed the front door shut and made his way upstairs, refusing to look at anything but his feet. The framed photos that lined the wall at the top of the steps weren't something he needed to see.

Stiles wasn't even in most of them. He'd been the one behind the camera, capturing the grinning faces of their pack. Summer afternoons at the Martin's lake house where they were all tan and happy and relaxed. Full moons when they let themselves run until they were too tired to do anything besides collapse in a heap on the front lawn, Stiles and Lydia laughing down at them from the porch.

But then there was the candid shot from Scott and Isaac's wedding day, the grooms and the groomsmen in their matching suits with their arms thrown around each other. And the New Years Eve bonfire where Stiles fell asleep sitting on the ground between Derek's legs with a half-empty beer in one hand. Derek had meant to propose that night but wound up carrying his boyfriend to bed and asking him the next morning while they were still curled up under the covers, sleepy and warm.

At least there were no photos in the bedroom.

Derek walked straight into the bathroom, ignoring the unmade bed and the high top sneakers lying on the floor beside it. He showered methodically, losing track of how long he'd been standing under the hot spray. He didn't have the energy to shave.

Wrapping his towel around his waist, Derek stepped out into the bedroom and opened the closet. Pulling a random shirt and pair of jeans off of their hangers, he set the clothes on top of the dresser (covering Stiles' keys, wallet, and badge) and opened his drawer. Underwear. Socks. Pants. Shirt.

He froze with the front of the long-sleeved t-shirt still bunched in his hands. It was definitely Derek's shirt, but he hadn't been the last one to wear it.

That was what finally broke him. His knees buckled, and he hit the floor. Curling in on himself, everything that the numb haze he'd been walking around in was keeping at bay came pouring out. He sobbed until his chest ached and his head pounded, until he felt hollowed out and raw, and had nothing left in him to let out. He was nothing but an empty shell.

Derek stayed in that spot on the floor, fading in and out of something like sleep until late into the afternoon. Finally, he pulled himself together enough to get to his feet. He couldn't be here anymore. Shuffling unsteadily into the en-suite, Derek splashed cold water on his face. Letting out a long, shaky breath, he grabbed his keys and wallet from the bathroom counter.

He couldn't be here anymore. He needed to be with Stiles.

The interior of his Camaro still smelled like blood. Erica and Hayden had done a good job getting rid of any visible traces, but the scent was embedded in the carpeting. It would fade with time. Probably the only part of that night that would. Derek could see it in the faces of his pack mates and father-in-law. This was a wound that would take a very long time to heal.

Derek drove the familiar route to where Stiles was waiting on autopilot. Settling into the hard pleather chair, he rubbed his tired eyes with his fingers, the steady beeping of the monitors sounding painfully loud to his still aching head. Careful not to jostle the IV, he took Stiles' hand in his.

The longer it took for him to wake up, the less likely it was that he ever would. The fact that he was breathing on his own was a good sign, but Stiles' odds were getting worse with each passing minute. He'd already coded twice since he'd been here, and that wasn't counting when they had to fight to get him back before they could take him into surgery.

That he made it that far was already a miracle. Stiles was stubborn and seemed to live for proving anyone who dared to doubt or challenge him wrong. But his luck had to run out eventually, and Derek wasn't ready for this to be the day Stiles finally backed down from a fight.

"Well, you lasted longer than I thought you would."

"I even napped a little."

"Liar," Jackson smirked at him and took a sip of bad hospital coffee from the paper cup in his hand, leaning against the doorframe. "But at least you smell a little better."

Derek glared at him, but it lacked any real heat. "Who sent you to try and drag me back out of here?" he asked. "Scott or Cora?"

"No one. It's just me here."

"What?"

Jackson shrugged. "You're not the only one who's wiped out. The rest of the pack is at Scott and Isaac's place, and his parents are crashing in an on-call room somewhere. I volunteered for the night shift."

"Thanks."

"Sure."

While he might have started out as the Beta Derek didn't want, he was glad Jackson decided to stay in Beacon Hills. After what he went through, no one would have blamed him for staying in London when he had the chance. But Jackson stuck by them - with only minimal complaining - through the worst years of Derek's life since the fire. He was as much family to Derek as any other member of the pack.

"You want some of this crap?" Jackson asked, holding up his coffee cup.

"I'll pass. Grab a seat."

Jackson dropped into the second uncomfortable chair and stretched his legs out. The plastic-y cushion made an obnoxious, squeaky fart noise, and they both burst out laughing. Once they started, neither of them could stop. Jackson had tears running down his cheeks, and Derek was doubled over with his forehead pressed against the mattress next to Stiles' hip, wheezing.

The evening nurse poked her head in, a confused smile on her face. "Everything okay in here?"

"We're good, Susan," Jackson managed to get out, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. Then he hiccupped, and Derek lost it all over again.

They eventually managed to calm down, and despite the cramp in his side Derek felt better than he had in days. Resting his hand on Stiles' arm, Derek scooted a little closer and dropped his head on his own arm. Just maybe, he might be able to get a little rest tonight.

He must have fallen asleep for a bit because when he opened his eyes again the door was shut and the main lights in the hallway were off. In the glow of the streetlamp outside of the window, Derek could see that Jackson was out cold, slumped down in his chair with his head tipped back.

Then Derek realized what had woke him up. Someone was playing with his hair.

"He's cute when he sleeps." The corner of Stiles' mouth was curved into a faint, crooked smile. "But you? Look worse than I feel."

"Then you must feel great."

"Smartass." Stiles' voice was raspy and weak, but his heartbeat was steady.

Which is more than Derek could say about his own heart. It was thudding painfully against his ribs, and his hands were shaking when he cradled Stiles' face and pressed his lips to his husband's forehead. "And you're a jackass. Don't you ever do that to me again," he whispered against Stiles' temple.

"I love you," Stiles whispered back.

"I love you, too."

"You uh, want me to get a doctor or something?" Jackson asked, stretching his arms over his head and yawning. "Or at least leave the room?"

"Right. A doctor would be a good idea," Derek agreed, grateful that at least one of them was still thinking clearly.

"On it."

The doctor kicked him out of the room, leaving Derek standing in the hallway with Jackson while she examined Stiles. "We should figure out where Noah and Melissa ended up," Jackson said, his gaze still focused on the closed door in front of them. "Maybe one of the nurses knows?"

"Yeah. I should ask," Derek replied, looking over his shoulder at the nurses' station at the end of the hall. Derek headed towards the desk, and the two women standing behind it smiled at him. "I don't suppose either of you know-"

"Where your in-laws are?" the blonde nurse (Sheri? Shirley?) interjected. "Already paged Melissa. They should be on their way."

"Thank you."

"Of course, sweetheart."

Derek turned to go and rejoin Jackson when the elevator doors opened, and the sheriff came running out, Melissa on his heels. They both stopped short when they spotted Derek.

"Is he okay?" asked Noah.

"Seems to be. The doctor is in there with him now."

The rest of the night was a blur. There were tests, and scans, and more tests. Melissa stepped in and took over talking with the doctors, and Derek was happy to let her. After he sat down in the waiting area while Stiles was taken for an MRI, Derek had hit a wall. After a week of terror and stress and no sleep, he was no use to anyone.

They kept Stiles for another week, but the prognosis was good. He'd need physiotherapy for his leg, but it was healing well. There were no indications of brain damage, and despite having seven broken ribs and a cracked sternum from repeated CPR, there were no signs of complications. As long as he took it easy for the next couple of months, he'd be good as new.

It took six months for him to be cleared to go back to work. Other than the scar on his thigh, it was like the whole thing never even happened.

"Don't tell me you're done already."

"Hmm?"

"Hey. You alright?" Stiles rolled onto his side, brows furrowed.

"I'm fine," Derek replied, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I was just thinking."

"If you can still think, then clearly I'm doing something wrong," Stiles smirked, reaching over to trail his fingers down Derek's stomach.

Derek shook his head and playfully swatted Stiles' hand away. "It's not you. I promise."

"Isn't it?" Stiles' teasing tone was gone, and he was frowning at Derek like he knew exactly what Derek had been thinking about. He probably did.

But it wasn't a conversation they needed to have again. So Derek kissed him until they both forgot that there was a time when either of them cared about doing anything else.

Much later, Stiles was stretched out on his stomach with his face smashed into his pillow, sound asleep. Propping himself up on one elbow, Derek took in the sight beside him with no small amount of awe.

"Y'know, the staring thing is still creepy," Stiles mumbled.

So, not asleep. "Sorry."

"No, you're not." Stiles yawned, pushing himself up to mirror Derek's position. "Not that I blame you. I'd have a hard time not staring at me, too."

"You're an idiot," Derek said fondly, rolling his eyes.

"And yet you put a ring on it." Stiles yawned again and shoved Derek's shoulder. "So who's the real idiot here?"

"Fifteen years and you have not changed at all."

"I peaked early."

Derek laughed. "You know that's not a good thing, right?"

Stiles squinted at him, clearly turning the exchange over in his head. "Whatever," he grunted. "If you were looking for intelligent conversation, you should've-"

"Married someone else?" Derek suggested.

"Thought of that two rounds ago. Asshole." Scowling, Stiles flipped onto his other side, his back to Derek.

Derek grabbed his arm and tugged, rolling Stiles towards him until he was sprawled against Derek's side, Stiles' head resting on his chest. "You're cranky when you're tired."

"Whose fault is that?"

Grinning to himself, Derek nudged his chin against Stiles' forehead until his husband took the hint and leaned up to kiss him again. It was the kind of soft, lazy kiss that wouldn't lead to anything besides more soft, lazy kisses, which was just fine by Derek.

Switching from Stiles' lips to the top of his shoulder, Stiles hummed happily and flopped onto his stomach, letting Derek trail kisses along the thin scar near his shoulder blade, and each of the little scars that marked his back at regular intervals. Derek followed those marks along Stiles' side and down to his hip, then moved to the crooked line on his calf, and finally the fresh knot of scar tissue on the back of his thigh.

There were other marks to find on the back of one knee, the inside of an elbow, behind an ear. Some of them Derek was there for. Some of them predated him. Some of them were just regular, run of the mill clumsiness and bad luck.

But there was one thing they all had in common. They were permanent reminders that Stiles, the love of his life, the boy who ran with wolves, was stronger than any werewolf Derek had ever known.

#fiction tag #teen wolf #otp:always yes to you

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