Archive of Our Own ^beta

“What are you doing?” Stiles jumps at the sudden question, having forgotten that Derek was even with him in the Jeep at all. He’s… a bit distracted.

A nervousness buzzes through him.

Something isn’t right.

“Watching.” He pointedly doesn’t look at Derek, eyes narrowing into a squint as he continues to stare a burning hole through the closed gymnasium doors. “Like you should be doing.” 

He hears Derek sigh, the pitch of annoyance Stiles has become quite familiar with ever present in his tone. He can’t help but smirk at it, the corner of his mouth twisting up as he turns his head away to where the wolf can’t see. If it wasn’t for the fear gripping him he would have mentally cheered that he was able to get any kind of reaction out of the wolf. He hears the shuffle of fabric over fabric as Derek repositions himself in the passenger seat, finding a more comfortable position to cross his arms in, caging himself back in. Stiles feels like rolling his eyes.

Scott is late. Three minutes and- Stiles checks the time- forty five seconds late.

“They’ll be out soon.” Derek starts, cutting Stiles off before he can even argue. “I would know if they were in trouble.” 

It sounded a bit snappish but Stiles decides this is not a battle he should pick, he’s mature like that, unlike someone he knows. But that someone seems to not know when to shut up. For a man of few words Derek always seems to find just the right ones to piss Stiles off. “Stop fidgeting, you're shaking the car.”

That was definitely snappish. “Maybe shut up and listen?” Stiles gives Derek a very tight, very annoyed smile, turning his gaze back to the doors before he can even see Derek’s reaction. He can tell he got under Derek’s skin by the way the wolf freezes up, a low exhale falling from between chinches teeth. Stiles has to give him some credit, at least Derek is trying to control some of that unnecessary dickhead behavior he seems so fond of. He refuses to acknowledge that he is sorta-maybe-kinda fond of it too. 

A quietness like a noose settles over them. It’s so suffocating Stiles is sure that Derek can feel it too. 

The passenger door opens and Stiles sputters out a quick “what are you doing?” as Derek drops to the ground. The door is slammed shut before Stiles is even given the decency of an explanation. He curses, cranking off the jeep and rushing to follow. “Derek!” He hisses out, crouching slightly as he hurries after him. He catches up outside the gate. “Dude!”

“What are you doing?” Derek raises an eyebrow at him, more puzzled than annoyed that Stiles followed him. Albeit still very annoyed.

“Seeing what you’re doing.” Stiles pointedly keeps his voice down. He’s overheard some faculty discussing their suspicions of the pack's late night break-ins, even if they didn’t mention the pack itself exactly there is still that nervousness stuck in Stiles’ gut like a rock.

“I’m checking on them.” Derek says shortly, climbing  the fence in one smooth motion. Stiles curses again, hating how much exercise he is currently getting. His muscles still hurt from helping Scott train his reaction speed earlier the same day, when the sun was nice and he wasn’t breaking into his highschool for the who knows how manyithst time. They scream at him as he hits the ground, rushing after Derek once again.

“You said they were fine!” He glances around, ignoring Derek’s sigh. 

“They are, go back to the car.” But he doesn’t sound sure enough for Stiles’ liking.

“Then why are you-”

“Stiles.” Derek snaps, eyebrows raised. “Car.”

Stiles is just about to argue back with some very colorful words when the gymnasium doors swing open and Scott is running out with an unconscious Allison in his arms. “Shit!” Stiles hisses out as he realizes what’s happening. Derek lets out a snarl, clearly directed at whatever Scott is running from. 

A sudden overwhelming fear comes over him and Stiles doesn’t even stop to think before he’s running back to the car, scraping his knees as he falls from the fence and rushing to crank it and get the other human who is most likely injured away. 

“What happened?” Stiles asks as he launches into his Jeep and swerves into a speed his father would fuss at him for away from the school. 

“I don’t know!” Scott tries to shake Allison awake, she doesn’t seem bruised or bloody at all upon Stiles’ quick check over of her he does while slowing for a turn. “She just collapsed.”

“Collapsed?” Stiles raises his eyebrows, whipping around another corner and praying that no deer finds now to be the time to cross the road. “Did you see what happened to her?”

“No, she just started arguing to empty air, then just fell.” Scott holds her face, eyes wide with fear. 

“Is she hurt?” Stiles needs to assess the damage in order to plan. Either he takes her home or to Deaton. He hopes it’s not the latter.

He hopes Derek is okay.

“No, she just won’t wake up.” Scott lets out a whimper. “She smells so afraid.”

A buzzing finds Stiles ears as he remembers the fear he felt while waiting for them with Derek. The nervous energy that had seemed to affect them… both.

“Scott,” his voice betrays his nerves. “Did you feel afraid at all?” He corrects himself before Scott can say something stupid and romantic. “Before. Did you feel afraid or uneasy at all before she collapsed?”

He’s quiet for a second then “yes.”

“Shit.” Stiles slams on the breaks, backing up and speeding right back around to the school. 

“What are you doing?!” Scott all but shrieks as he’s flung around in the backseat. 

“Saving the dumbass you brought as backup.”

“What?” Scott manages to get his footing- well, seating- buckling him and Allison up. “Stiles!”

“Just trust me.” The pedal gets closer to the base of the car, wind whipping through the small gaps of his doors as he speeds. He assumes Scott’s silence is an agreement all in itself. Then- “Stiles!”

Stiles jerks the wheel just in time to avoid colliding with the goddamn deer that had run into the road. But he was going too fast, and his Jeep flips.

Stiles blinks heavy-lidded eyes open with a ringing in his ears and a nauseating spinning in his head. He hears a groan next to him, Scott, Scott who is already healing as he unravels himself from his protective grip on Allison, the gashes from the glass disappearing and only leaving blood in its place.

Stiles hisses as he tries to ask if they’re okay, feeling the damage from the glass in his own skin. Skin that doesn’t heal at super speed. 

“Oh crap, Stiles.” Scott looks over at him the second he’s sure Allison is okay, eyes wide as he watches Stiles drop to the ceiling of the jeep, which is now upside down. Stiles bites his tongue as he feels more glass cut him, his shirt ripping as he drags himself from the wreck. He knows adrenaline is hiding the worst of his injuries, if Scott’s expression is anything to go by. “What are-"

“Get her home.” Stiles chokes out, throat raw from the scream he must have let out when they crashed.

“Stiles.” Scott is now in front of him, Allison in his arms. 

“Or to a hospital- a hospital is probably better.” He nods quickly to himself, ignoring the nausea that falls over him.

Scott’s eyes are wide as he stands there frozen, obviously torn between two of the people he loves the most. 

And that’s fine, Stiles will choose for him. “Scott! Go!”

He’s gone in a flash.

Stiles vomits into the dirt.

He has no clue how he made it to the school in the time he did, or even at all if his now screaming body has anything to say for it. He cries out with each step, sure he has dislocated several something’s throughout his very human body. 

By the time he makes it over the fence he nearly blacks out, he does but it goes noticed, the world spinning in two as fear chokes him as well as the pain. “Derek!” He chokes out, cringing at the break in his voice.

The lack of an answer was expected, but still disappointing. 

He really did not want to have to go in there.

He takes a few deep breaths and powers through the pain, ignoring how dizzy he feels.

He better earn pack member of the month after this.

Stiles finds Derek in the library with several bookshelves knocked over from a clear sign of a fight. With what Stiles doesn’t know.

Derek is unconscious. Stiles feels sick when he sees him.

He stumbles over to him, eyes wide with Derek’s name on his lips. It must be the concussion he probably has that makes him do it, but he take’s Derek’s face in his hands the way he saw Scott do to Allison. “Derek, come on, wake up!” He whispers, that fear even closer now.

Then he gets a sudden horrible thought. 

“Derek?” He panics, reaching up to check his pulse and leaning down to listen to breathing he hopes hasn’t stopped.

He doesn’t feel anything.

He doesn’t hear anything.

A brief sob cuts its way from Stiles’ throat, hands rushing to Derek’s chest as he performs what he hopes is correct CPR and not a pointless action from the desperate human he currently feels like. 

The human he is.

“Derek come on.” He begs between failed attempts of counting how many times he beats down on Derek’s chest, leaning down to exhale broken air into his mouth.

It’s stupid how all Stiles can think of is how soft Derek’s lips feel as he tries to bring him back to life.

He pulls back, choking on a cough as the fear he had replaced with desperation slams into him.

“Stiles."  

Stiles jerks his head up, staring at Derek and hoping. 

But he isn’t moving.

And it isn’t him.

A hand in his hair yanks him backwards and throws him to the ground, not even giving Stiles a chance to get his mental footing over what is happening before his attacker is leaning over him and pinning him to the ground. The eyes that stare into his are red.

An Alpha. 

A hand at his throat causes him to gag, nails ripping into human skin as the Alpha grins manically at him. “Oh Stiles.” She tsks at his whimper of pain and fear. “You really thought you could come in and play the part of the big bad wolf?”

Hot breath ghosts his skin and makes it moist as the wolf brings his fangs close to Stiles face. Stiles tries to push her away but is stopped by a quick punch to the gut as the hand around his throat tightens.

“Or maybe you thought you were the huntsman.” The Alpha laughs, looking back over her shoulder at where Derek lays still. “Saving Little Red, god you’re pathetic.”

Stiles can’t help the feeling of anger that washes over him, can’t help the desperation and the worthlessness that has taken root in him. He tries to bite out something but the Alpha beats him to it. “Did I touch a nerve?” Another laugh, it rings through the air as the hand on his throat moves to his jaw and angles his head backwards. “He’s already gone, Stiles. Your little plan failed.” The Alpha grins manically at the drop of Stile’s expression, that anger morphing into disbelief. “If only you were a few seconds faster. If only you turned your car a little sooner. You could have made it on time in that ruined jeep you love so much.”

Stiles whimpers as teeth scrape along his jaw, right over the cuts that now bring him a different kind of pain. Tears hot and heavy fall down over the corners of his face. The Alpha seems to delight at the sight of them, leaning down to lick one from his clammy skin. She keeps Stiles still as he tries to jerk away, moving down to breathe vile right into his ear. 

“You failed him, just like you failed your mother.”

Only this does the exact opposite of what the Alpha had wanted. Realization snaps into Stiles like a rubber band that was stretched slightly too far. There is no way this Alpha should know anything about his mother. Weeks of research catch up to him, countless sleepless nights he spent combing over several folklore legends to avoid the nightmares that had found a home in his head. “Mare." He chokes out, the Alphas red eyes going wide before morphing into blue. Her face morphs along right with it.

Derek stares down at him, a sinister grin on his usually stoic face. “What gave me away?”

“Let us go.” Stiles struggles, now held down by an invisible force as he refuses to look at the monster impersonating his friend. He tries to think back to when he could have dropped like Allison and what he assumes Derek has, but he comes up short.

“Why in the world would I do that? I’ve been so hungry lately. I deserve a little treat.” It’s wrong to hear those words in Derek’s voice, the way they are purred out unnaturally conniving.  

“This isn’t real.” Stiles whispers, shutting his eyes and trying to force himself awake. “This is just a dream.”

“Shut up.” His own voice snaps at him, a sudden pressure on his chest forcing his eyes open. He stares up at himself, bruised and bloody and maniacal. His own mirrored hands grab at his wrists and yank, forcing a scream out of his throat that the him above him mocks almost perfectly. “Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?” He coos at himself. “You should have known that wouldn’t have worked.”

Stiles sobs around the pain radiating throughout his body, wondering if this is what Allison and Derek are going through as well.

The Mare that holds his face smiles down at him, tasting the fear that radiates off of him. “Yours is so strong.” The words travel through his ears and latch in his chest. “There’s so much of it.”

His face gets closer, flickering between solid and not. A nose against his throat. Stiles whimpers involuntarily.

“You’re so scared to lose anyone else you don’t even realize you’re dying.”

He freezes, can’t help it.

“Oh you don’t remember?” The laughter rings into the shell of his ear. “You really are just like her.”

Stiles wants to sob, he knows that this is just tactics used to scare him but from his research he knows that Mares only use materials that are already there.

“And you know it too. I’m sure you can see the signs.” Teeth against skin as a pointed tongue laps over his neck. “You’re dying.”

“No." Stiles manages to sob, trying to fight back. He’s slammed back down onto the ground with a snarl as the Alpha from earlier is suddenly back. 

“I could save you from that pain.” She hisses at him. “I could make it quick and painless.”

“Then how would you get your fear?” He spits out, laughing a bit himself at how horrible this all is. “You’d starve.”

She seems to fall back a bit at his laugh, snarling as her eyes flicker red. “You really think I can’t find it somewhere else? You’re nothing but a desert, human.”

“At least I’m not the side of vegetables no one eats.” Stiles finds himself almost hysterical with all the emotions swirling around through him. He feels hopeless, he feel dead already.

She stares down at him puzzlingly, for once keeping her mouth shut as she assesses her meal. But then her eyes widen and she's looking up at something behind Stiles that he can’t see. She goes to scream, probably a warning or a curse, but then she’s gone. A blinding light taking her place and causing Stiles to black out at the sudden loss of control.

When he comes to, he is in someone's arms. His head lolls around on the shoulder it’s resting against as wind whips around him. Whoever is carrying him is running. He blinks, fighting away nausea as he turns to stare up at the underside of Derek’s jaw. But before he can ask what is happening, or even relish in the fact that Derek is alive, the darkness once again finds him and he's back under the claws of dreamless sleep. 

He wakes up on a cold table shaking from either the temperature or pain. Pain that he is in a lot of. He groans, squeezing his eyes shut to try and block out the harsh lighting that is making his head spin. He jumps as he feels his wrist being grabbed, hissing out in pain at the sudden movements. The hand doesn’t let go, merely slides into his own and tangles itself there like a rope. It’s strangely comforting.

“...was it?” A voice that is definitely Scott’s asks.

“A Mara.” Deaton. Stiles wants to cry from relief alone. “Or well I guess you would call it a Mare here. It’s a sleep demon, feeds from the fear nightmares create.”

A low growl falls from the person next to him, the hand in his tightening. Stiles slowly opens his eyes, squinting through the light. Derek stares back at him with his blue wolf eyes glowing, assessing. 

The hand covering his flexes. 

Stiles offers a smile, a wet laugh following suit as the relief of seeing Derek alive hits him. The others in the room stop talking, the two rushing to his sides.

“Stiles don’t ever do that again.” Scott lunges at him, engulfing him in a hug that has all the pain in his body to flare up. His best friend whispers apologies at the sound of Stiles’ yelp, pulling back with a glance up at Derek. 

A bit of that pain leaves him suddenly, the rest following suit as he glances over at Derek, his arm covered in those black pain leeching veins. “Derek-” Stiles begins to protest only to be shut up with a look he has never seen before on the wolf’s face. 

“Let him.” Deaton says, grabbing a light to look into Stiles’ eyes with. He clicks his tongue with a hum as he moves away. “He’s fine, Mare wise, but you should get him to the hospital for everything else. Let your mother fuss over him for a bit.” Deaton tells Scott whose eyes widen at the mention of Stiles needing hospital care. 

The two fall into a hushed conversation as Scott asks about Allison. Stiles chooses then to turn his attention away and back to Derek whose eyes have never left him. “Are you okay?” Stiles whispers, squeezing Derek’s hand in a way that only hurts his injuries slightly.

“You crashed your jeep.” Derek breathes. “You broke your arm and who knows what else and then ran another half mile to get me.”

“You would have done the same.” Stiles tries, only to be cut off with what sounded like a growl but not.

“You’re human. I would have healed by the time I got to where you collapsed.” Derek’s eyes are wide as he looks over Stiles bloody body. He looks scared.  

“What did the Mare show you?” It falls from his lips before he can even think. Derek seems to flinch, smoothing out his expression before Stiles can comment on it. He tries to move his hand away but Stiles doesn’t let him. When Derek doesn’t say anything, Stiles does instead. “She showed me you.”

Hazel eyes flicker blue as Derek stares at him, his emotions completely hidden other than his betraying eyes. 

Stiles smiles slightly, shaking his head. “Not like that. I’m not afraid of you, sourwolf.”

“Then what-” Derek starts.

“You were dead,” Stiles looks at the ceiling, hating the way his voice trembles slightly, “and I had failed to save you. That’s what she used for my fear.”

Derek is quiet for a second, his hand flexing repeatedly in Stiles’ grasp. “You were mine too.” 

Stiles looks over to him, those eyes staring into his soul with a fierceness so surprisingly gentle it floors him. 

“Only when I woke up you were dead.” 

Stile’s brows furrow and his mouth opens to ask for an answer to what Derek meant, but he’s cut off with a low growl. Only this growl is from Derek directed at himself. 

“I dreamt you died in my arms only to find you dead when I woke up.” Derek repeats. “If Scott hadn't shown up, I don’t know what I would have-” Derek cuts himself off. “We were able to bring you back, but you kept fading.” 

Stiles can’t breathe.

The hand not intertwined with his own comes up to hold the back of his head, Derek’s forehead pressing against his own as he grounds himself. “I almost lost you.”

This is all too much. Stiles feels frozen. He feels burning hot. He feels- he feels-

He kisses Derek. 

It’s not a good kiss, one of clashing teeth and dry lips. It tastes like sleep and the sour taste Stiles had had in his mouth since the crash. But it does the job of communicating everything into one action, one thing that no one can confuse. Derek blanks at him, eyes wide as Stiles falls back onto the table with a groan of pain. 

Stiles closes his eyes, not wanting to see the repercussions of his actions. He expects the silence that follows to be laced with rejection, but Derek’s hand never leaves his and the air feels lighter as he once again listens to Scott and Deaton plan.

Stiles smiles to himself as he feels Derek’s eyes on him, turning his head to match his stare. Derek’s expression is soft, open, something Stiles has never had the opportunity to witness. “Don’t worry.” Stiles whispers softly as Derek brings their hands up together to press his lips against, less of a kiss and more of a way to ground them together. Something to let him know they are both alive. “I’m not going anywhere.”

They will eventually have to talk about it, about them. 

But they can do that another time. A time when Stiles is healed and out of the hospital and his Jeep is out of the shop. A time when they are finally alone and away from the pack and the kiss they will share tastes like the desert Stiles had made them split just for the fun of sharing.

A time where two will become one and something that they will eventually call love continues to grow. 

But until then they are fine only holding each other in dreams of sweet nothings, the nightmares having finally been chased away and replaced with something beautiful.