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“You’re a vampire,” is all Derek says in response, as if that explains everything.“Yeah, I am,” Stiles agrees. “But that doesn’t change who I am.”“Yes it does.”
Stiles anticipates the answer because even though he and Derek were never friends he knows him. He knows how he thinks. For Derek, the world is black and white. There’s no room for shades of grey. It pisses Stiles off because he knows Derek is equally capable of violence. He’s seen what Derek can do, what he did to Peter. Stiles has never thought any less of him for it, never considered it made Derek less of a person. Stiles knows he’s not a good person, but he’s not a bad person either.
But Derek, Derek refuses to see past the exterior.Laughter bubbles in his chest bitterly as he gives the shackle another tug.
“Right, because it’s easier to keep me chained up here if you keep telling yourself I’m just a monster.”
Part One Part Two Part Three
Compliant with S1- 3A.
Discliaimer: I own none of the characters. Just the angst.
A/n: Sorry this has taken me a million years to post. Life is crazy. So here’s an extra long chapter to make up!
Black liquid oozes out of his wound. That never means anything good. He’s not caught in a fever or freezing his ass off anymore. A blanket of exhaustion smothers the discomfort he had been feeling. It’s almost a blessing except it means he’s getting weaker, and that can only mean that time is running out. Stiles fights to force himself into a sitting position, or at least into a posture that is a little less pathetic. He can’t think of anything worse than spending what could be his last remaining days, curled up on his side. Surprisingly, his hand comes down on something soft when he tries to use the ground for leverage. A pillow and blanket have been placed next to him while he was out cold, as if someone was trying to be helpful but didn’t want to disturb him. It’s a small comfort; to know that someone at least tried to make things a little easier. But he can’t quite push away the growing sense of resentment that curls at the back of his mind. He tries to remind himself that this isn’t what Deaton or Argent intended, but it feels and awful lot like there was a choice between his survival and Derek’s. And they didn’t pick him.
He also struggles to get past the idea that he’s going to die somewhere that Derek Hale, the glorified hobo, has deemed unworthy of living.
When he vomits, the same black liquid seeping from his wound splatters across the concrete like spilt ink. Stiles remembers how Gerard had spewed out the same viscous fluid just a couple of feet from where he’s sitting now. The marks are still visible. He remembers the dark satisfaction of seeing someone so cruel and twisted getting what they deserved. He had felt guilty afterwards, but he hadn’t been able to shake the sense that it had been the right thing to do.
Shoes scrape on the floor as someone rushes to their feet. Scott slides across the floor, carefully dodging the dark puddle of bile. He drops to his knees at Stiles’ side. Allison hovers close behind. Her hair is pulled back from her face, a long dark waterfall the cascades down the back of her neck. It tremors with every worried shake of her head. Without her hair to shield her expression, she looks more shaken than before.
In her hand, she clasps a cloth doused in wolfsbane. Her fingers quiver as she presses it to the wound on Stiles arm, but she doesn’t hesitate. It hurts a lot less this time, but that might be because Stiles’ body is too beat to really care.
“Sorry,” she says sadly, brushing at his hair. “It’ll help.”
“Where’s my dad?” he croaks, grabbing the blanket and throwing it over his legs. Before Stiles had fallen asleep again he had been sitting by his side, not touching him but watching him intently for any signs of deterioration. They hadn’t talked much, Stiles had been too tired for that, but it had been nice. All the time he’s spent running just seems waste now. It was stupid to think that his dad’s love would be anything other than conditional when his dad has always been there to support him (even when he didn’t necessarily approve).
Scott shares a look with Alison. He clasps Stiles arm firmly, just above the wrist. “He went to get some rest. He sat with you all night.”
Stiles worries about that. His dad never gets enough sleep. Most nights he’s pouring over case files at the station or at the kitchen table. The bags under his eyes are tattooed to his skin. He never eats healthy enough either. In the bottom drawer of his desk, he has a collection of chocolate and snacks he thinks Stiles doesn’t know about. He used to try hiding empty take-out cartons at the bottom of the bin, until Stiles caught him once, hands deep in the trash like a racoon. Scott and Melissa would keep an eye on him if anything happened to Stiles, they already have, but they won’t be able to take care of him the way Stiles can. His dad survived Stiles’ disappearance because he didn’t give up, but what happens when there isn’t any hope left?
Stiles tries to distract himself from the thought. “And Derek? How is he?”
Allison presses her lips together. Her hand falters in his hair. “He’s fine.”
“That’s good, right?”
“For him maybe.” She says it likes it’s a bad thing, and although she doesn’t say it outright, there’s a tightness around the corner of her eyes that shows what she really thinks.
“You guys need him, Allison.”
“We need you too,” she says urgently. The fingers in his hair coil, pulling painfully at the roots. Allison glances down at where her hand is embedded in Stiles’ hair with a frown, as if she can’t quite remember her hand curling into a fist. She relaxes it and sighs. “I know I didn’t come to see you when they brought you back here, but it wasn’t because I thought you were a monster or that you weren’t you anymore.”
Scott looks guilty at this, even though she’s not accusing him.
“Then why?” Stiles asks.
Her eyes are glassy, she fights to smile. “I’ve lost a lot of people lately, Stiles. I didn’t want to deal with the possibility of losing someone I care about again.”
Suddenly Stiles gets it. It’s something you can only really understand if you’ve lost a parent; the raw sadness and the unrelenting anger of having the person you’re supposed to be able to count on being ripped away. She lost her mom. He lost his mom too.
“So why did you come?”
“When my dad told me what had happened with Derek, I realised I was letting myself lose someone I cared about anyway because I didn’t want to face it. I hated the idea that if something happened you might think I didn’t care, because I do.”
Stiles smiles at her gratefully. “I think I’m a little bit in love with you right now.”
She laughs, it’s a fragile sound like a flower wilting and losing its petals. “I do occasionally have that effect on people.”
They look at each other fondly. If Stiles didn’t feel only marginally better than death warmed up (or death at room temperature) he might make an awkward joke about Allison and him ‘having a moment’, because weirdly they are. It’s not that they weren’t friends before, but it feels as if they’ve set the groundwork of something firmer.
Then Lydia burst in, ending the moment. Her boots pound against the concrete as she hurries over to them. It’s not a run, because Lydia refuses to run unless she is literally having to run for her life, but its close. Dust cover her red velvet skirt as she slides onto her knees in front of them. She barely looks at any of them as she starts to pull plastic tubing and other ominous-looking medical equipment from her tote bag. Wordlessly she sets out the materials in front of her, eyeing them thoughtfully.
Stiles glances across at Scott who is just as confused by the situation if his pained puppy expression is anything to go by. It takes Lydia pulling out the blood bag, for all the pieces of the puzzle to slot together in Stiles’ mind.
“Lydia,” Stiles says slowly. “Deaton said I can’t feed.”
“I know what Deaton said,” she snaps irritably, as she moves closer to him. “Which is why you’re not ingesting it directly. I’m giving it to you through an IV.”
“How did you learn how to do that?” Scott asks incredulously, unchecked wonder and admiration in his tone.
Lydia glances at him as if she hadn’t realised he was there. She waves the tubing and needles in her hand as if it’s obvious. “The internet.”
She sets about finding a vein in Stiles arm, which isn’t hard considering how prominent they are. The teal has darkened to charcoal under his pale skin. It would be hard not to find one at this point. She inserts the first part of the IV, and tapes it to his arm with medical gauze.
“Plus,” she says, working methodically, “your mom gave me a quick demonstration.”
“She knows about this?” Stiles says, shocked.
Scott shakes his head. “If she did she would have ripped Deaton, Derek and Mr. Argent new assholes by now.”
If anyone could make two grown, highly trained men and an emotionally constipated werewolf quiver, it’s Mrs. McCall. There’s nothing more terrifying in the world then Scott’s mom when she feels Scott or Stiles’ safety has been threatened. Stiles would much rather face a kanima a thousand times over, paralytic venom and all, than face her when she’s angry. Luckily for him, Mrs. McCall has always protected Stiles just as fiercely as she protects her own son. A surge of affection warms him as he imagines Deaton, Derek and Mr. Argent cowering away from her rage.
When she’s finished, Lydia alleviates the blood bag, securing it to the shackle’s attachment on the wall.
“Do you think this has a better chance of working?” Stiles questions. He wants to prod at the cannula poking out of his arm, but he worries he might be sick if he does.
She nods firmly, looking a little relieved and apprehensive at the same time. “It should.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not just anyone’s blood, Stiles. It’s your dad’s.”
That’s why his dad isn’t here then. Giving blood has, ironically, always made Stiles feel queasy. He’s never actually gone through with it himself, although he probably could now, given his familiarity with blood bags and needles, but he used to think the experience would be unpleasant. People get light-headed after donating, sometimes faint. With his heart as it is, his dad shouldn’t be risking his health, not for Stiles. They shouldn’t have let him do this. Someone should have stopped him.
“It’s not a permanent fix,” Lydia warns him. “But it should buy us some time until I can figure out the rest of what the grimoire says.”
*
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Stiles tells his dad when he appears, a light layer of gauze wrapped around the crook of his elbow. He wants his voice to carry the disapproval and concern he’s experiencing but it just sounds tired and guilty.His dad bristles, his good arm moving defensively to cover the medical bandage.
“Of course, I should,” he says fiercely. “You’re my son.”
“Dad-“ Stiles sighs.
“No,” his father interrupts. “You’re my son, Stiles. It’s my job to take care of you.”
Stiles offers his father a watery smile and doesn’t bring it up again. For the rest of his dad’s visit, Stiles’ listen to the erratic rhythm of his heart, just in case.
*
“You know something,” Derek says angrily, like he knows Stiles is listening even though his eyes are squeezed shut.
Stiles doesn’t answer. He conscientiously keeps his breath shallow and even to mimic the signs of sleep. It’s much harder to authentically imitate when breathing is no longer a necessity, but he thinks he’s doing a convincing job. A shiver catches him off guard, tensing his muscles. He doesn’t fight it, just lets it pass through his body and waits for it to pass. The blood his dad gave has gone now, and so have most of its positive effects. He can’t remember what it’s like to be hot and cold at separate times anymore.
“I know you know something, Stiles,” Derek insists, louder this time. Grit crunches under the soles of his heavy boots as he moves closer.
Stiles cracks open an eyelid halfway. It’s like looking directly into sunlight. Worse than that, it’s like staring straight at the sun. It hurts. Everything is indistinct, except the solid blur of Derek’s outline, looming over him. He can imagine the look of barely suppressed frustration on Derek’s face anyway.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbles, shutting his eye again. White dots blink behind his eyelid as he presses his face into the welcoming crook of his good arm.
Derek growls. He’s never exactly been patient, and he hates when people don’t give him the information that he wants. “Did you know that this would happen?”
Stiles manages half a nod.
“Fuck, Stiles. Why didn’t you say anything?”
The easy answer is that he was hoping he wouldn’t have to. It hadn’t taken that long really to figure out what was wrong with Derek, or why they needed him, but he had hoped that there might have been another cure for the wolfsbane poisoning that he hadn’t considered. Call it self-preservation, but at the time confiding to the people who were basically holding him captive all the things that he was vulnerable to hadn’t seemed like a good idea. Now, he can admit that the main reason was he had been terrified that even if he had told them the risks they would have done it anyway. He’s too tired to say any of this though, so he goes with a simpler, less truthful answer. “Didn’t have time.”
He instantly regrets his choice of words. Derek already blames himself for this, Stiles knows. The werewolf already has a serious guilt-complex. Since the fire at the Hale house, Derek has taken every bad thing that has happened, however tenuously linked to him, to heart as if he is personally accountable for everything that goes on in Beacon Hills. Which, obviously, is completely ridiculous. Derek is no more to blame than anyone else, and Stiles doesn’t want to be added to the tally of casualties Derek thinks he’s caused by making poor decisions. Derek may or may not have been complicit but he wasn’t the only one involved.
And Stiles somehow knows, with the clarity that only the feverish and ill have, that if Derek had known, he wouldn’t have gone through with it.
He coughs, feels acid in his lungs. The black goo isn’t leaking from his wound anymore or spilling from his mouth. For a werewolf, that would be a good sign, an indication that they had finally started to heal. For Stiles, it means his body has stopped trying to fix the problem. Instead it’s giving up. He wants to tell Derek that he doesn’t blame him, that whatever happens, this wasn’t his fault. An irrational part of his mind, the part that is feverish and hungry wants to grab Derek by the shoulders and shake him, tell him that he wasn’t the one who lit that match all those years ago. He wants to tell him that he can’t protect everyone all of the time, it’s physically impossible, but maybe protecting some people most of the time is enough.
Stiles wants to tell Derek all of that, but he’s so drained that he can barely get the words to make sense in his head. When he finally lifts his head to say it all, hours have already passed. Derek isn’t standing over him anymore. Lydia is sitting, staring at him tearfully. He’s propped up against someone, the warmth of their body heating the length of his back. The scent, he can barely detect anymore, but it’s definitely Scott. Stiles doesn’t need heightened senses to tell that it’s his best friend.
“I told you, you weren’t allowed to die again,” Lydia whispers, attempting a smile that is shaky at best, like autumn leaves tremoring on a branch. “And I meant it.” She looks down, composes herself.
It’s stupid because she already knows, but Stiles still wants to tell her that he doesn’t want to either.
“Which is why we’re doing this,” she continues, and Stiles can see her white hands lightly touching the pages of the Argent’s grimoire. It’s all been transferred onto a compact, little USB now, but Lydia prefers to read the original. She glances over her shoulder and Stiles notices Derek standing there stoic as ever. Lydia picks up the dusty old book in both her hands, cradling it like a new-born and shuffles out of the way. Her eyes stay focused on the grimoire in her hands.
Derek steps forward and kneels in front of him. The pressure of Scott’s arm across is body increases, crossing the line between comfort and restraint. It makes Stiles wonder why Scott thinks he’s going to start struggling. It’s not like anything worse can really happen, now that he’s already been bitten. He’s accepted Allison and Lydia’s attempts to help him without protest. Just because Derek’s about to try doesn’t mean Stiles is suddenly going to start kicking and screaming. He’s bigger than that.
But then Derek rolls up the sleeve of his dark henley. The expression on his face is one that Stiles has seen before, a hundred times. It’s one that says he anticipates pain, but is fiercely determined regardless. Stiles understands exactly what’s happening when Derek bites down deep into the flesh of his own wrist, using sharp canines. Lydia must have found the answer she was looking for in the grimoire, what Stiles has known all along but kept hidden. He tries to shift in Scott’s tight grip, but he’s too weak to compete with the strength of a werewolf.
Derek barely flinches as the blood flows freely down his arm, rivulets running down towards his elbow. At any other time, the scent of blood, tantalisingly fresh would send his mouth watering but he’s so feverish that it’s impossible to focus on the smell. Derek’s bloody wrist looms close to his face. A drop splatters onto his cheek. It would be so easy to lick it away and give in to the hunger.
Stiles turns his head away from the sight, just as Derek pushes his arm further forward. Warm blood smears his cheek.
A frustrated growl emerges from Derek’s chest. He presses the wrist insistently against Stiles’ mouth, urging him to part his lips. Stiles firmly presses them shut, shakes his head in answer. He won’t drink. He won’t, not in front of his friends, not if it means serious repercussions for both of them.
But then a clawed hand digs into the tender flesh of his thigh, and he gasps at the sudden pain. He should have known that Derek wouldn’t take no for an answer, it’s never stopped him before. Blood floods his mouth, rushing over his tongue, thick and rich. He gulps it down on instinct, dimly aware that Scott is angrily scolding Derek for hurting him. He doesn’t really care though. All his senses snap into focus. All the pain and anxiety gets pushed to the back of his mind as his hunger starts to spike. He’s finding it hard to remember why this is such a bad thing, why he didn’t want to do it in the first place.
His hand coils around Derek’s forearm and clamps it in place, feeling the tense muscles there. Into the skin of Derek arm he digs his fingers, pulling Derek further forward so that his hot, laboured breath hits Stiles’ face. He sinks his own elongated teeth into the flesh, feeling the skin, veins and muscles part. Derek grunts, the closest sound to discomfort he’s ever made, but he doesn’t pull away. And Stiles drinks down as much as he can.
“Enough, Stiles,” Derek says firmly after a while, eyes flashing blue and he wrenches his arm away. Stiles tries to hold him in place but the blood hasn’t taken effect yet and Scott’s arm his still carefully holding him in place.
Lydia steps forward.
“A vampire bite will take longer to heal,” she tells Derek, examining his wrist with the sort of clinical curiosity usually reserved for doctors, “but it shouldn’t scar.”
“Good,” is all he says. He leaves as Stiles, warm and satiated drifts to sleep.
*
Stiles isn’t dying anymore but is massively pissed off about the situation. He’s also wearing a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms and a black oversized t-shirt that aren’t his and definitely aren’t Scott’s. He’s lying in a bed with plain white cotton sheets, in a room which with its exposed bricks, sparse furniture, and strong resemblance to a warehouse, he can only assume is Derek’s upgraded living quarters. As he orientates himself, the cloying stench of Derek’s scent becomes apparent. The sheets, even the clothes he’s wearing are saturated with it. He pulls a face at the covers as if they have mortally offended him and throws them back. His arm is still a little sore, but it no longer feels like it’s about to fall off completely so he’ll take that as a win. Jumping out of bed lessens the overbearing smell but he needs to get out of the room before he chokes on it.
The door to the room is slightly ajar, he slips through it silently. Wooden stairs lead down into the main living space. The sound of Lydia, Scott and Allison’s talking drifts up to him. They all sound less tense that they had the last time he saw them. He hadn’t really realised how much it had all affected them, but now that the strain has eased from their voices he realises how much pressure they were under. The thought quells his anger, but only slightly.
His bare feet make moving down the stairs without alerting the others an easy task. He’s at the bottom of them and crossing the room before Scott has a chance to look up. Him, Allison and Lydia are all crammed onto the leather couch facing the impossibly large window that looks out over town. Stiles ignores Scott’s surprised expression, instead storming directly towards the open plan kitchen where Derek is preparing some sort of meal. Stiles would take a moment to be shocked that Derek has a domestic bone in his body but he’s so monumentally pissed that he doesn’t have room to experience another emotion.
“Stiles!” he hears Scott say cautiously, as he closes the distance between Derek and himself, but he brushes off the warning. He doesn’t feel like being logical right now.
Derek looks completely unalarmed as he glances up from the pan he’s frying onions in. He watches Stiles’ approach in the same way that he would watch TV. His stance stays relaxed, wooden spatula held lightly in his hand, as if it hasn’t crossed his mind that Stiles might actually try something. He must be anticipating it though, because even without heightened sense, Stiles rage is painfully evident. His expression only flickers to mildly surprised when Stiles grabs him by the throat, fingers wrapped tight around the muscles in his neck, and lifts him two foot off the ground, slamming him into the nearest red brick wall.
“You had no right,” he growls.
“Stiles, maybe you should put Derek down,” Lydia advises perfectly reasonable. Her, Scott and Allison have moved from the sofa and are now hovering on the opposite side of the kitchen counter. Instinct forces Stiles’ to scan their body language and asses for threats. None of them are on the offensive, which doesn’t really surprise him. Scott’s always encouraged a pacifist approach to conflict. They seem to have decided to wait for him to calm down without interference, so he quickly ignores them and turns his attention back to Derek.
He allows his grip to tighten ever-so-slightly, tilting his head to the side in curiosity as he gauges the effect it has on Derek’s complexion, turning it from pink to red. He knows he’s dangerously toeing the line between the part of himself that’s still human and the darker part that was created the night he was turned, but he can’t quite get a handle on his control.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he asks, expecting his voice to shake. It doesn’t though. In fact it sounds eerily calm, even to his own ears.
Derek, despite the lack of oxygen, looks unimpressed by the show of force. His eyes have started to water at the edges. He has a hand firmly grasped around Stiles wrist. There’s strength in it; Stiles can feel the power of Derek’s muscles working to pull Stiles off, but his claws haven’t come out. It startles Stiles to realise that after days and days of weakness, he’s actually stronger than Derek.
“I saved your life,” Derek chokes out. His tone indicates the Stiles is being completely ungrateful and should be thanking him instead of throttling him in his own kitchen.
“I didn’t ask you to,” Stiles spits back, releasing his hold. Derek’s feet hit the floor with a loud thud. His hands instantly move up to touch his neck, inspecting the damage. The flush of red will have completely healed in half an hour, but its raw appearance still manages to elicit a pang of guilt from Stiles. He steps away, putting as much distance between himself and Derek as he can, before he does something he’ll certainly regret, like seriously maiming him.
“You could act a little more grateful, you know,” Lydia huffs, throwing her arms out in frustration. “You’d be dead by now if we hadn’t done anything.”
“Yeah,” Stiles laughs humourlessly, pacing in front of the couch. “Instead, I now get to spend the rest of my existence blood bound to an emotionally constipated werewolf.”
Allison frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh,” Stiles barks in mock surprise, “was that not in the grimoire? Shocking!”
“Stiles,” Scott says calmly, “Just tell us what’s going on.”
Derek has turned off the gas from the cooker and come to stand around the side of the counter, next to Scott. His arms are crossed over his chest in a way that makes him look broader somehow. Stiles isn’t sure how much Derek might now about what he’s talking about- his mom had contacts all over the continent- but this seems to be new information to him as well.
Stiles sighs and cards a hand through his wild hair. He can’t believe he’s discussing this in pyjamas. “Blood bonds are an old buried tradition that requires a werewolf,” at this he gestures angrily at Derek, “and a vampire,” he points a thumb at himself. “It’s supposed to strengthen the abilities of the werewolf by sharing blood.”
“So what does it actually do?” Lydia asks, cutting to the chase.
Stiles shrugs. “It makes Derek’s impervious to most forms of wolfsbane, which I’m sure will come in handy considering how often he pisses hunters off, and his life expectancy has gone up considerably.” Derek glares at him. “For me, it’s more of an inconvenience.”
“Why?” Allison asks.
“Because forming a blood bond means that I’m immune to werewolf bites but that I can only feed from the werewolf I’m bonded to.”
“So what you’re saying is Derek gets to live longer and gains immunity to wolfsbane but in return he has to become your personal blood bag?” Lydia summarises.
“He doesn’t have to. He could refuse and I’d be dead in a month, that’s why the vamps are pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing.”
“Derek wouldn’t let that happen,” she says firmly, as if she has any idea what Derek would and wouldn’t do. She considers him thoughtfully for a second. “You know an awful lot about this for someone who claimed he didn’t know how to reverse the bite.”
Stiles looks down at his bare feet. “I didn’t know a way that I was prepared to take.”
Lydia throws her arms up, exasperation on her face. Derek shifts behind her. He looks considerably less calm than he has before and to Stiles’ satisfaction looks almost worried.
“You were going to die!”
“I’m already dead, Lydia,” he shouts back, immediately regretting losing his temper when her face begins to fall. “I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference.”
A silence hangs over them then. Stiles bundles his hands into the bottom of the thin black pyjama top hanging from his frame, twisting his fingers into the fabric. Now that he’s diffused his anger, Derek’s scent is more noticeable again. He’s not sure if he should be this aware of Derek’s scent or whether it has something to do with the bond. He never really thought he would end up in a situation where he would actually need to know all that information. Now might be an appropriate time to dig deeper.
The door to the loft slides open, breaking the uncomfortable silence that envelopes the space. Melissa McCall strides in holding a large flask in both her hands. She sets the flask down on to one of the kitchen counters swiftly, barely acknowledging Scott who looks comically alarmed that his mother has just stormed into Derek’s loft. She makes a beeline around the sofa to Stiles, and although she looks perfectly calm, Stiles knows he’s about to get the biggest telling off of his life.
“Miss Mcall-“
She slaps him across the face with an open palm. The hit doesn’t hurt, there’s no real force in it, but it still shocks the hell out of him. He lets out a baffled squeak as she glares at him.
“That is for worrying me sick,” she tells him and then marches over to where Derek is leaning against a support beam. She slaps him too. It’s much more pleasing to watch someone else taking the hit, especially when that person is Derek. Derek doesn’t even flinch, but his eyebrows have been startled into his hairline. And that,” Melissa continues, “is for everything else.”
“Mom!” Scott protests, diving over to where she is standing in front of Derek, as if he’s expecting her to start slapping everyone. He has the decency to look mildly terrified. His mother when angry is a force to be reckoned with.
She breathes out a long, calming breath and then her face resettles into something less alarming. She gives Scott’s shoulder a firm squeeze.
“I made soup,” she tells them all as if that was the real reason for here visit. She sighs, shakes her head. “Actually, I didn’t make soup. I heated some up in the microwave and brought it over.” She looks at the food Derek has been preparing and frowns. “Which evidently was a waste of time.”
“No!” Scott quickly jumps to tell her. “I was actually thinking that, uh, soup would be great.”
Melissa laughs, clearly not believing a word of it. Scott is a terrible liar. He always has been. Stiles doesn’t know why he continues to think he can pull it off when clearly he can’t. She touches Scott’s cheek warmly and then moves back to Stiles. This time she wraps her arms around him, enveloping him in a motherly hug. He squeezes her back desperately.
“It’s good to have you back,” she tells him sincerely as she steps away. Fondness is clear in her gaze. The corner of her lip twitches as she moves away. “But the next time one of you disappears for six months and come back as faery, I am so done.”
Her departure seems to jostle everyone else into action. Allison wipes her hands on the thighs of her jeans and then gestures to the door.
“I should go,” she says apologetically, “otherwise my dad will send out a search party. I’m glad you’re okay, Stiles.”
“Me too,” Scott adds, “I need to drop into the animal clinic. I’ll catch you tomorrow?”
“Sure thing,” Stiles says.
Scott waves as he and Allison leave together. Lydia glances between Stiles and Derek for a moment. Neither of them seem to be in a talkative mood. She rolls her eyes at them both. “I’m going to let you boys sort out the intimate details of this on your own.”
Her long hair swings like a pendulum across her back she leaves. Stiles watches her go with the same mix of awe and admiration he has always felt around her. It’s a little different now though. Its foundation isn’t rooted in a teenage crush but in a solid friendship. He’s not sure when exactly that happened, but he’s grateful for it. The door shuts behind her.
Stiles peers over at Derek, who is staring down at the vegetables he chopped earlier with a new level of intensity.
“So,” he says, drawing out the ‘o’. He feels suddenly awkward and unsure of himself, like he’s navigating a highway in the dark. “If you could lend me some clothes I can also leave you alone.”
Derek moves back into the kitchen and retrieves a bowl from one of the cupboards to the right of the sink. He starts to scoop the vegetables into the bowl. When he’s finished he places them neatly into the fridge.
“You can’t,” he says.
“Excuse me?”
Derek waves a hand at the door. “There’s a salt line running across the apartment.”
“But you can break it.”
“I could,” Derek concedes, grabbing another bowl to pour some of Melissa’s soup into it. “But I won’t.”
Stiles’ shoulders sag. It was stupid for him to think that he would actually be allowed to leave. The loft is a thousand times better than the warehouse, it has furniture and a TV at least, but the reality is he’s just been moved from one prison to another. He doesn’t really get it. Everyone seems to have come around to the idea that Stiles isn’t all that different to the person he was before, except for Argent, but Stiles wasn’t under any illusions that he would be able to change his opinions easily. So he’s finding it hard to understand why he can’t be trusted on his own.
“Why?” he whines.
“Because,” Derek answers between mouthfuls of soup, “we don’t know what side effects the bond will have.”
Stiles throws his arms out. “Do I look like I’m going to go on a rampage?”
Derek levels him with a look. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Great,” Stiles huffs. “So how long am I trapped here?”
Derek slumps down onto the couch, the leather squeaky as he shifts around on the cushions. He swings his feet up onto the walnut coffee table. It’s only then Stiles notices that Derek is barefoot. He’s not sure why that detail is so important, but Derek is lounging around on a couch wearing sweatpants and no socks. He looks more relaxed that Stiles has ever seen him, than he has any right to be considering Stiles was choking him no all that long ago. Derek continues to ladle soup into his mouth. He shrugs.
“Until the bond settles down. I figured you’d rather do that here than at home.”
It surprises Stiles how right Derek is, because yeah he’s missed his home. Of course he does. He misses his dad, and the pictures of his mom. He misses the squishy old couch they could never afford to replace, its seat so battered it would mould to the shape of your body so that you would literally sink into it. He misses the smell of burnt toast every morning because his dad can never get the settings right. He misses his dad’s whistling on the way to the bathroom, and the comfort you only ever really get from your own bed. He misses it all, but he’s not ready to face it yet. He doesn’t want to stand in his own room and smell his fading human scent. If he goes back now, he’ll be confronted everyday with the fact that someone, something, stole a part of him. At least Derek’s house is neutral. It doesn’t hold any memories like that for him. It’s a blank slate.
“Thanks,” he says, awkwardly as Derek sets his bowl down on the floor. Stiles always thought Derek would be meticulously clean around his own house, but maybe he’s confusing the sparseness with being tidy.
Derek walks over to him and raises an eyebrow, asking a question that Stiles isn’t sure of.
“What?”
Derek rolls his eyes. “You need to feed.”
It startles Stiles. He hasn’t really thought about the last time he fed on Derek. He never expected Derek to be the one to voluntarily bring it up in conversation. Now that he’s thinking about it, he remembers the overwhelming surge of desire and his complete lack of control. It had been messy, and frantic, but there had been a strange intimacy to it all. Stiles is used to drinking measured amounts, one blood bag at a time. It feels a whole lot more personal drinking from someone directly. He stumbles back and clears his throat. “Actually, you know, I think I’m good.”
“Stiles,” Derek says firmly.
“You’re going to keep pushing this aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Alright, fine. How do we do this?”
Derek looks as if he’s actually thinking. “I could bleed myself into a cup, but the wound would keep re-healing. It’s probably better if you do it straight.”
That sounds weirdly reasonable considering the topic of discussion. Stiles nods slowly. “It’s better if I drink from somewhere with a large blood source, a vein or artery, probably the neck, thigh or wrist.” He looks up then, catching Derek’s unimpressed stare. “Right, wrist. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Derek echoes. His voice is toneless. Stiles can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not.
Stiles steps forward, pushing down his nerves, but Derek holds up a hand.
“We’re not doing it here,” Derek tells him as if it’s obvious. “You’ll get blood all over the floors.”
“Right,” Stiles says as if that wasn’t what he was about to do.
“The bathroom will be easier to clean,” Derek says and then leads Stiles up the stairs to a large white bathroom, as if he regularly has conversations about where the most convenient place to clean up blood is. Although, knowing how often he ends up beaten and bloody, Stiles would be surprised if it was a regular topic of discussion.
Standing in a shower fully-clothed, holding the wrist of a werewolf is one of the weirdest things Stiles has ever done, but he’s done a lot of weird things in his time, so he decides not to question it. Derek stands motionless, he looks almost bored by the entire situation. Stiles thinks it might be his emotionally constipated way of trying to calm Stiles’ nerves, but it’s not really working. When he sinks his teeth into Derek’s skin, he grunts. The instant the blood starts to enter his mouth, Stiles feels the desire rising again. He wants to clamp down harder, drag his teeth up along Derek’s veins. His grip starts to slowly tighten, so Derek won’t notice when he has him trapped. The pulse in Derek’s veins starts to throb, picking up its pace. He seems to have already sensed the danger. Forcefully, he pushes Stiles off and stumbles quickly out of the shower, slamming the glass door shut between them.
They watch each other silently through the thin sheet of glass, both panting, although Stiles’ laboured breaths are a habit, not a necessity. He could smash through the glass and finish what he’s started if he really wanted to, but the distance between them lessens the strength of Derek’s scent and rational thought re-enters his mind.
“Sorry,” he says.
Derek blinks at him. “It’s okay.”
“I thought the blood bond would make me want to eat you less.”
“But?” Derek asks, raising an eyebrow.
“But I seem to want to eat you more.”
Derek coughs in a way that sounds like he’s trying to cover something up. “I’ll watch my back then.”
“But you can’t feel bad every second, I wanted to tell her. Laughing doesn’t make bad things worse any more than crying makes them better. It doesn’t mean you don’t care, or that you’ve forgotten. It just means you’re human.
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