By Any Other Name 2/4
Title: By Any Other Name 2/4
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: 2x12
Word Count: 32,000
Warnings: Amnesia, violence
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: He doesn't know his name, he doesn't know who he is, and neither does the werewolf he's on the run with. But he's pretty sure they hunt monsters, because they seem to be really good at it.
Derek does eventually reappear, toweling his ridiculous hair dry, in a way that will probably leave it looking sexy and effortless. Whereas Stiles suspects he shaves his own head because he couldn't get any sort of hair to go with his face. Derek surveys the mess of paper that Stiles is currently in danger of being consumed by, if appearances are to be believed. It covers every inch of the bed, including his lap. Notes on random pieces of paper are slapped in wherever there seems to be even a vague connection. There are a lot of vague connections - but everything about Stiles's life is pretty vague right now, so he thinks that's only fair.
At Stiles's gesture Derek drags a chair over and sits in it. Stiles holds his hands over the huge mess of it, making sure nothing gets swept out of place, because it's in order, it's mostly in order, and he's really hoping he's got this right.
"Ok, so some of this I'm guessing about - some of this I have to guess about, since we have no memory of anything that happened more than two days ago. As far as I can tell three days ago we were in Beacon Hills, just inside the woods, roughly here." Stiles points it out on the map. "That's where we started, where we lost our memory, where we fought the witches." He taps the paper he's settled on top of the map. "Either we tracked the witches coming in, or we followed them there. I don't know for certain. I do know, with a fairly high degree of certainty, that we set a trap for the one that has a name." Stiles twists the pad around until Derek can read the name 'Andrew Frain.'
"We set a trap?"
"Yeah." Stiles says with a frown. "Which didn't exactly go as planned, as you can probably guess yourself by the way it turned out."
"Why?" Derek asks.
Stiles picks up several of the newspaper articles, and passes them over. Derek gives him a look and straightens them out.
"I think this is why. They're all stories about children - well technically anyone under eighteen, but they're mostly children - disappearing. The disappearances move through three states. In a few of them the bodies were eventually found. But mostly they just disappear without a trace. They don't say a lot, but something about the way they were saying it told me the official stories were hiding something really unpleasant. And when you put it together with the other stuff I found in the car it starts to make a horrible sort of sense."
Stiles unfolds a piece of printed paper, and turns it so Derek can see it. There's what looks like an ugly green brooch lying on red velvet.
"This is apparently called the Stone of Echoes, which is a horribly pretentious name for a piece of horribly gaudy jewelery. But it's in the book with the curses and cursed artifacts. It was made in the eighteenth century, in France, by some aristocrat that went crazy and killed all four of his children. According to the book it's supposed to be able to increase the power of the witch who possesses it, to a freakin' insane degree. Believe that or not, I have no idea if it's true. But it's also supposed to be cursed, and it will literally rot your body from the inside out if you don't feed it. So pretty much your average magical ring of power, and Frain has it."
"Feed it?" Derek's mouth twists.
"Yeah," Stiles winces because he's been thinking about that, and wishing he didn't have to. "And I'll give you one guess what the creepy stone eats."
"He's feeding it children?" Derek grinds out.
"It doesn't actually say that, but I'm guessing, yes. Which is why we were after him. Which is why we tracked him from...wherever he came from, to Beacon Hills."
"Which is why we laid a trap for him," Derek says, and he's nodding, so Stiles assumes he's following this.
Stiles nods back. "And I think I was the bait in our trap," he says slowly.
Derek's teeth press together. Stiles keeps going before he can speak.
"No, it was actually a good plan, in fact I think it was my idea." He flips through the pad he'd scribbled in. "Here's a list of similarities between the other kids, as if we were making a list - and I fit more than a few of them." He flips another few pages. "And this is something about something called mountain ash being used to mask the presence of werewolves, to make protective circles as well I think. I've underlined that three times, so I figure you probably put up a protest at least. There are a few references to Deaton here, that's the same name as in your phone. I get the feeling he's our go-to guy for magical information, and possibly weapons? And, ok, fine, I could be making our life sound less like an episode of Supernatural. But the evidence was kind of in your car, I can only work with what you give me. There are some mentions of 'the house,' which I have no context for. But it seems to relate to Beacon Hills again. A meeting place for them? Frain's house maybe?"
Stiles drops the pad.
"I don't know what went wrong, but I'm going to take a wild guess that the one thing we didn't expect was the sheer number of witches that would be tracking Frain as well. For the stone, I'm assuming they want to steal his shiny jewelery for themselves, or, I don't know, maybe followers? So, yeah, I think we were prepared, but we were outnumbered too. The only thing I'm not clear on is how we lost our memories." He chews the pen he's holding, looks up at Derek to see what he thinks.
"You worked all that out while I was showering?" Derek says quietly. He looks kind of stunned.
Stiles grins at him a little.
"Yeah, I get the feeling that I do the planning," he says. "I mean obviously I don't remember anything. But the putting things together, the making things work, I feel like I'm good at that. So, I'm thinking, maybe I take care of the what, and the why, and you take care of the how with your enormous werewolf muscles." He doesn't bother gesturing, because they're both aware of the enormous werewolf muscles. Stiles has had trouble not looking at them for the last twenty four hours. "It works, right?" He really wants Derek to say yes, because this is first time he's actually felt like he has a grasp of what's going on.
But Derek doesn't look convinced. He shakes his head.
"We're not monster hunters, Stiles," he says carefully.
"Are you sure about that?" Stiles throws the pad down, watches it bend the map, and paper rushes into the dip it makes, a scatter of notations, and names, and places. "Are you absolutely sure?"
Derek exhales and stares down at the map, covered in circles and wind direction and what looks like the range of his own hearing and sense of smell. Stiles can tell that he's really not. The evidence has gone way beyond circumstantial, because they were clearly hunting something - and everything here says that they've done it before. That they had experience, somehow.
"You trust me right?" Stiles asks quietly.
Derek goes very still, and it's only then that Stiles realises what a stupid question that is. They don't even know each other. How can Derek be expected to trust him in a day and a half.
"No," he says quickly. "I mean, forget I said that, it's stupid -"
"Yes," Derek says, which seems to surprise him as much as Stiles. "Yes, I trust you. I probably shouldn't right now, I shouldn't trust anyone. But I trust you."
Stiles stares at him, because for a second Derek looks something that comes frighteningly close to vulnerable, like he really doesn't know why he trusts him. He shuffles on his knees to the end of the bed, pushing paper out of the way, until their knees brush, and Derek's hand lifts briefly, as if it wants to touch him, before settling on the folded edge of a map instead. Stiles doesn't know what that means.
"I mean obviously you can do things I can't do. You can heal, and you're super-strong, and I'm pretty sure a bunch of other things you haven't told me, or we don't know about." Stiles glances at Derek, but his expression isn't really helpful. "So, I was thinking maybe it was because you trust me to tell you what to do - I don't mean like all the time," Stiles clarifies, when Derek huffs disbelief. "I mean that I tell you where we're going, what we're hunting. Is that stupid? Because that didn't sound stupid in my head. When I was working it all out it sounded like it made complete sense. But I'm obviously not who I'm supposed to be, and I'm up to my neck in stuff I don't know, and if I'm getting things like this wrong -"
Derek catches his hand mid-flail.
"Stiles, breathe," he says simply.
And just like that, he does, slow and briefly painful, and he hadn't even realised how tight his chest was getting. He gives a shaky laugh.
"Fuck."
"No," Derek starts, cautiously. His hand's still tangled with Stiles's, thumb dragging on his skin like he hasn't noticed, which makes something in Stiles's chest tighten. "I - you may not be entirely wrong. The telling me what to do part, maybe, sometimes."
"You're really sore on that aren't you? You want to be the one telling people what to do, don't you? Oh my god, you probably boss me around in bed all the time." Stiles realises what he's said a second after he says it, and he can feel heat flood his face. "I mean - I didn't mean to say that. Wow, I really do just say whatever I'm thinking don't I?"
Derek's still watching him, expression amused, and - not just amused, oh my God, kind of intrigued as well.
"Er, where was I? Oh, yeah, I never said you agreed to it all, did I? You probably complain, and growl at me all the time, and yell at me for talking too much - but if I've proven that I can do it. That I don't put you in danger. If we do this, do you think we do this, Derek? Is this who we are?" Stiles's heart is beating so fast, and it was all so easy when he was laying it all out like a puzzle. It was easy when he was treating it like a game, when it wasn't their whole life. Because this is as good as a name when you don't know who you are. But who Stiles apparently is - he's confused, and awed, and fucking terrified by it.
"Yeah," Derek says quietly, and his face goes some way towards reassuring Stiles that he isn't crazy, that it isn't just him. "I think maybe this is who we are."
Stiles gives a weak little laugh, and Derek's hand is still on him somehow, but that's ok, that's more than ok.
"This is dangerous for you, more than dangerous." Derek seems to realise, all at once.
Stiles nods, shakily, because, yeah, obviously. But he thinks they must have had this conversation already, because he's still here.
"If I didn't want danger I'd probably still be in school somewhere, and not dating a werewolf, with witches out for my blood. Something tells me you don't fall into crap like this without seeing it. I think I made a choice somewhere, that I chose this. That maybe I chose you - to stay with you, I mean." It's so awkward to say, like some weird declaration he doesn't intend, in a relationship he doesn't remember. That he still doesn't know how to talk about it.
"So, where are we going?" Derek asks, like he can see it and he's willing to set it aside for now. "You're the one with the maps. You're the one that decides what we do." He's looking straight at Stiles now, he trusts him to do this. Something in Stiles's chest clenches tightly. He grins and reaches out for Derek's hand, tugs him over until he can sit in a clear space on the bed.
"I think I know where Frain's going to be six days from now."
*****
The third day of his new life Stiles doesn't wake up being aggressively spooned by a werewolf. He wakes up curled into the side of one. He has an arm thrown over Derek's waist, and their legs are tangled together. They're both in danger of slipping off the bed. Not remembering anything about his life is making everything feel like the first time he's ever done things, his whole life is just a continuous stream of new experiences right now, which is mostly frightening and confusing. But this - not so much.
The last thing Stiles remembers was yawning his way through reading the curse book, a dusty collection of ugly trinkets that did gruesome things to people, trying to find some way to track the witch with the stone. He'd clearly managed it before somehow, past-him had found a way to do it. He was honestly starting to get a little - a lot - annoyed at past-him, for making everything seem so easy. The TV's still on, though it's muted now, playing what looks like a cookery show. A smiling chef in kitchen whites is crushing garlic, with an unbearable amount of enthusiasm. Derek makes a low, grumbling noise, when he moves, like he knows Stiles is awake and doesn't want him to be.
Derek has an arm thrown over his eyes, chest rising and falling in a way that's hypnotic. The sheets have slipped down just far enough to meet the elastic of Derek's underwear, and suddenly Stiles is faced with the reality of being in bed with an amazingly hot, twenty four year old werewolf. In a way that had never really come out last time, when he'd flailed his way out of the bed like a nervous virgin, with his face too hot and his underwear too tight. But then he hadn't been face to face with it then.
The fact that this time he's pressed close enough to breathe against Derek's skin, arm feeling the heat of him all along its length, it's intimate, and a little scary. But in a way that makes his heart race, and his fingers want to curl and pull Derek closer. Close enough that he can press his face into his skin - like he probably would if they were actually together - if Stiles remembered them being together. He wonders what Derek would do if he slipped his hand down, pushed it under the elastic of Derek's briefs and touched him. He wonders whether he'd push Stiles away, or whether he'd let him curl a hand round him, work him slowly until he came, all over his own stomach and Stiles's fingers. Even the thought of it makes him hold his breath, and swallow, and resist the urge to push into Derek's hip. He wishes he felt brave enough to do that. That he remembered something about them. Because Derek kisses him like it's easy even without his memories, and Stiles wants that too. He wants to feel that.
"What are you thinking about?" It's a low, tumbling, grate of sound from Derek. All of Stiles's tentative thoughts are knocked apart, by a wave of embarrassment and uncertainty. He doesn't remember how to do this, which is exactly the same as never having done it at all right now. It leaves him feeling young, and useless, and clumsy, and he just can't.
"Nothing, I wasn't thinking about anything." Stiles struggles his way out of the sheet, before Derek can wake up properly, and ask any more questions, see any answers whether Stiles wants him to or not. In his heartbeat or his face, or the way he smells so strongly of arousal he might as well have rolled all over him - and Jesus, it's like he can't stop punishing himself.
Stiles stumbles his way to the bathroom, pushing the door shut behind him and then leaning against it, chilly air prickling against his skin. He's so hard it's just a continuous throb of tension, and he knows there's no way he's going to be able to just leave it. He turns the shower on, as hard and as loud as it will go. He lets it pour over him, hopes it'll drown out the bitten-off noises, and the soft sound of his hand working on himself. Until he's leaning against the chill of the tiles, panting, feeling loose and light-headed, and watching the water wash the evidence away.
He stumbles out, wraps a towel around his waist and attempts to wash his teeth, until they don't feel as awful. Then he stares at his reflection, until his cheeks don't look so incriminatingly flushed.
He should really have locked the door, because he gets no warning at all before it's clicking open and then shut, and then he's blinking at Derek, who's leaning back against it. He's wearing his jeans, zipped but unbuttoned, and he's bare-chested, hair flat on one side in a way that should look silly, but manages to just look artfully rumpled instead.
"This seems fair." Derek's voice is quiet, but pointed, and Stiles thinks that's supposed to mean something.
"What?" he says stupidly, trying to make his voice work, trying not to look as if he did anything in the shower other than wash. Which he thinks is a losing battle against Derek's werewolf senses.
"I seem to remember you watching me yesterday." Derek gestures at the towel Stiles is wearing. "Though that's kind of cheating."
He knows what Derek wants straight away, and his first instinct is to refuse, to laugh his way through embarrassment, through the jittery realisation that Derek wants to see him naked. But he doesn't - he doesn't. Feeling oddly self-conscious - no, feeling amazingly self-conscious - Stiles leans back against the sink. He can do this, Derek's probably seen him naked enough times that it won't even matter. It's probably not even a big deal, he's just making it one. Derek's eyes darken when he lifts a hand to the tucked-in edge of the towel. Then Stiles swallows down the frantic jump of his heartbeat, and tugs it open with shaky hands, lets it drop.
Derek inhales sharply, nails grating on the door behind him, like maybe he hadn't expected Stiles to actually do it. Stiles is pretty sure he's never felt this exposed before in his life. Cold air rushing over his naked body like a reminder. Derek isn't doing anything, he's just staring, which was kind of the point, Stiles guesses. But it still feels jarringly intimate, unfamiliar, exciting and terrifying at the same time. Stiles's hands slowly drift inwards, think about making some sort of embarrassed attempt to cover himself. Derek takes two steps forward and catches his wrists, eases his hands away from his body, pins them loosely against the sink and just looks at him. Stiles is pretty sure his face is some shade of red as yet undiscovered by science, because he's hard, he's so obviously hard, chest heaving. There's no way to pretend that it's not Derek, and even if they are together - it all still feels so new.
Derek's looking at him like he doesn't want to ever stop, and Stiles is hot and shivery, and a little bit scared. But the way Derek looks genuinely rattled, as if Stiles standing here naked is too much for him, might be the only thing keeping him upright.
"I wake up to you smelling like sex," Derek says roughly. "Smelling like an invitation, and then you come in here and jerk off." The words are so low they grate and Stiles swallows. "You have no idea how much I wanted to touch you this morning, how much I want to touch you now. I want to put my mouth all over you." Derek takes another step, shoe pushing between Stiles's bare feet, hands tightening on his wrists. There's a low burn of noise in his throat that sounds like intent.
That makes Stiles's entire body jerk, skin suddenly tingling all over, heartbeat slamming in his chest, and it doesn't matter that he came ten minutes ago, he's in serious danger of humiliating himself right now. Without anyone even touching him. Derek's voice grates over his skin like a physical thing.
"Oh my God, you can't just say things like that," Stiles says shakily.
"Why not, why can't I say it if I mean it?" Derek's close enough that his shirt is spotted with damp patches.
Stiles's whole body feels tight, and confused and greedy, shifting against the sink, in a way that makes Derek's fingers tighten and then relax. He's leaning closer, all red eyes and stubble, and he smells like cheap motel shampoo, and sweat, and something that's probably familiar, because Stiles can feel this jump of nervous tension in his skin, and he wonders if that is his sense memory. The way he reacts to Derek's hands, his voice, to the way Derek smells. But his body is still a stranger, and he doesn't remember, God, he doesn't remember any of it.
"Because I don't remember you," he stutters out. "And I know - ok, I know you're huge, and insanely hot but it's still weird for me." He has to swallow then, mouth too dry to finish until he does. "Because I can't smell that we're close, or just know that we're cool because I don't want to eat you, or anything like that. You're just very hot and naked and confusing, and a werewolf for God's sake, and yet sort of...mine. But it still scares me, and I don't even know what to do with all of that."
Stiles can't quite believe that he's talking a hot guy, who's almost certainly his own boyfriend, out of having sex with him, out of touching him, when he clearly wants him to. Is this the sort of thing he does? It's a wonder he found anyone that was willing to have sex with him at all.
"I'm sorry," Stiles says helplessly. "God, I'm sorry, I'm being stupid." He's embarrassed suddenly, so much so he can barely breathe.
"You're not being stupid," Derek says quietly, the aggressive, predatory look is completely gone from his face. He eases back, fingers sliding free of Stiles's wrists.
Stiles feels awful all at once, as if he's ruined something he didn't even know he had.
"I don't know what I'm doing, and I want - fuck, I'm sorry."
Derek sways forward again, just long enough to press his forehead against Stiles's, one gentle push, which makes Stiles's stomach stop clenching and jumping. Makes him sigh out a breath.
Then he's alone in the bathroom.
"You are so fucking stupid," he tells his reflection. Which looks damp and rumpled, and confused, really confused.
-
When he gets back to the room he's determined not to be embarrassed, even though he's clearly failing at dealing with his own relationship. The amnesiac werewolf is dealing with this better than he is, what does that even say about him? Stiles is so busy trying to act casual that he doesn't notice at first that Derek has stolen his old shirt, and replaced it with one of his own, out of the bag from the trunk of the car.
"Are you trying to tell me something?" Stiles holds the shirt up, the collar's frayed, and there's a tear at the hem, but it smells clean...clean-ish. "Or is this some weird scent-marking thing? I'm not your territory you know." Stiles isn't even sure Derek wants him to be any more.
"Funny, because you smell like you are," Derek decides, from where he's stretched out on the bed, reading the curse book. He's smiling, and it looks weird and unfamiliar, like everything else about him. Stiles throws the towel at him.
He puts the stupid shirt on.
"So, two hundred and sixty miles West. We follow the map, scout out the town, see if we can find some witches. I'm assuming you know what witches smell like?"
"Yeah," Derek says roughly. "Do you really want to chase this guy. We don't even know who we are."
"He's killing children," Stiles bites out. "Maybe that makes me an idiot, but I want to go after him. I want to make him stop."
Derek nods, like he's just confirmed something he already knew. "But this time, we're not using you as bait," he says firmly, like he's angry at his past self for letting it happen. Stiles tries not to feel anything about that.
"No kidding, but he might remember us, even if we don't remember him. Because, you do realise I have no idea what he looks like. I'd need a computer and maybe even then I wouldn't know." Not having a computer right now was kind of a pain.
"I'll get one," Derek says simply.
"You want to just stop and buy a laptop?" Stiles asks, because sometimes he's not sure what to do with the fact that Derek accepts everything so easily.
"We might need one. I'm assuming you know how to work it?"
Stiles flexes his fingers.
"I'm pretty sure I could do that, yeah."
Derek pulls on a new shirt, grabs his jacket off the bed.
"Pack everything up, we don't want to stay in one place too long. I'll bring back lunch and then we'll leave."
"Hey, buy toothbrushes and toothpaste too," Stiles says. "New phones too, if we're going to be out of contact with each other. Maybe some food if we're going to be on the road, flashlights." Stiles bites his lip, looks up, at where Derek's still waiting, hand on the doorknob. "I can't think of anything else."
Derek eyeballs him, waits an extra handful of seconds to make sure, then disappears out the door.
Stiles tosses the bag on the bed, packs all their clothes into it, and the papers, maps and book, and a couple of towels, just in case. Because it turns out maybe he is a little bit of a criminal after all. Or possibly he used to be an awesomely well-behaved kid, and Derek has been a horrible influence on him. It's suddenly irritating that he has no idea. Who was he? What was he like? He's too young to be able to tell by frown lines, or laugh lines, whether he's happy, or sad, or stressed out. Whether he chose this life, or it chose him. But he's young - and he's checked his body in the bathroom mirror, no scars, no obvious scars. He can't have been in this life for long. What happened to him?
He watches TV, biting the skin at the edge of his nail, and waiting for Derek to come back. He feels a little adrift without him, and he briefly worries that they have an awful, co-dependant relationship. But then he remembers that he and Derek probably have friends, parents maybe? He just doesn't remember them.
Derek brings burgers, and a shiny silver laptop (and everything else Stiles asked for). They eat on the bed, leaning against each other, in their jackets, with the motel door open, and the late sun streaming in. Stiles makes up stories about their childhood, how they met, some of them best guess, some of them hopeful, some of them ridiculous, and all of them are probably wrong. But some of them make Derek huff laughter, and shove fries in Stiles's mouth, which makes it totally worth it.
So, they're doing this, without their memory, running off into possible, terrible danger to save people they don't even know from witches, who may or may not know how to give them their memories back.
Stiles wonders if he's always been this crazy?"
*****
Arnville isn't exactly a hive of activity. It's small and it doesn't have a motel, so they stay at one in the next town, picking up what they can from news stories and police reports they manage to catch hold of. Stiles gives in to the urge to Google himself almost straight away, and it turns out there are more Stilinskis than you'd think. Not millions, but enough for him to scroll through three pages, wondering if he's related to any of them. The doctor, or the college student, or the sheriff. Though Stiles still isn't sure if Stilinski is even his real name, or whether they just snagged one from the Beacon Hills phonebook. He's half way through typing in Derek's name when Derek distracts him by throwing a bag at him. Which turns out to contain a jumble of clothing, tags still attached.
"Should I be worried that you're apparently dressing me?" he asks, while unfolding a pair of jeans. "And that you know my size?"
"I've seen you naked," Derek reminds him, and manages to peg him in the face with the next bag. Judging by how gently it was thrown that was totally on purpose. "And I just got you stuff that's the same as what you're wearing."
"Because my style is classic and timeless?"
Derek's face seems to disagree, but is keeping the rest of its opinion to itself, possibly to avoid sleeping on the couch - if they had a couch, or anything was actually happening in the bed. And Stiles is just going to leave that whole thing alone now.
It's hard to wait, to wait for something to happen, something that might be bad. He feels useless, spends too much time researching things he doesn't know enough about, and watching reruns of old TV shows, while sprawled next to Derek on the bed.
Until it's time to go looking for Frain.
-
Derek parks on a side road, just out of town, where they can't be seen by anyone who lives there, or anyone passing by.
"This isn't exactly a safe place for your car," Stiles points out, giving her an affectionate pat. "Have you seen your car, she's beautiful and she doesn't deserve this. I feel it's my duty to defend her from your terrible mistreatment."
Derek shrugs like he doesn't even care. Stiles gets the feeling his other self is probably more attached to it than this one. That Derek's other self would probably be horrified at the impending abandonment of this beautiful machine. Though getting that across to Derek is going to be a losing battle, because he already looks impatient.
"We can't just stroll into town, we don't know if any of them will recognise us, we don't know enough about what they know." Stiles shakes his head. "I tried looking for Frain online, but there are too many. There's an auction house attached to his name, probably not him, but because of that the name just goes everywhere. Seriously, you type it in and you don't get any faces, just ten pages of freakin' antiques."
"But he was supposed to show up here?" Derek's asking like Stiles hasn't already checked and double-checked.
"This was the next stop according to the map that past-me made. Do we trust past-me? I mean I know I'm heavily biased and everything, but I'm going to go with, yeah." Stiles scratches the back of his neck, because that's about as far as he's gotten, to be honest. "So, how exactly do two strange men who've just come into town subtly inquire if any children have gone missing?"
Derek does the jaw tightening thing. "They don't."
Stiles nods his head because they really don't.
"Not unless they want to become people of interest. We don't want to become people of interest. That's the one thing we definitely do not want to be." He sighs, because he's just had a horrible idea. "Shit, ok, if we find me some sort of sports kit I could probably pass for younger than seventeen, fifteen maybe. People will talk to a stupid kid."
"Do not try and pass for fifteen," Derek says stiffly, and judging by the look on his face this is non-negotiable.
"It's either that or cruise around looking conspicuous, until you smell a witch," Stiles says. "Which - yeah, that's going to get us noticed. We're going for the 'doesn't get us noticed,' plans, where at all possible, remember." He throws up his hands. "Maybe we could try the whole road trip thing, and rely on small-town gossip. But if anyone asks you're my older brother. You'll have to be a Stilinski though, if anyone asks. Because Stiles Hale sounds really freakin' stupid. And take the leather jacket off, wearing that you're like an ad for the guy everyone's mother warned them about."
Derek shoots him a look, more amused than offended. He shrugs his jacket off, dumps it through the passenger window. Stiles isn't exactly sure whether that's better or not, because now he's all muscles and stupid hotness in a more accessible sort of way. He's going to get groped by every waitress within a hundred miles. Stiles is in some weird space where he's not sure whether to feel smug, or jealous.
Not that it can be helped, because they're clearly doing this.
"Come on, buy your little bro a soda." Stiles thumps Derek on the arm.
"I will bite you, I swear to God."
-
Small towns.
Stiles is only half way through his soda, which Derek bought for him, on the express understanding that he not pretend to be a day younger than he actually was, when the waitress of the diner - who doesn't try and grope Derek, but does bring him a suspiciously large piece of pie - starts talking about an old house, three miles past the old farm road, that's suddenly got people in it. Nosing around looking to buy, the burly man behind the counter suggests. People from the city, unpleasant, rude, arrogant.
Stiles tongues his straw, and gives Derek a significant look.
"I thought that would be harder," Derek grumbles, as if he's actually giving this one to Stiles, grudgingly and with ill grace. But he's totally giving it to him.
"You're really not a people person are you?" Stiles ignores the frowning, and finishes his soda. Because he's actually thirsty, and chewing the straw is an oddly familiar sort of stress relief - hey, sense memory!
-
It's a slow, short drive, Derek wary and tense the whole way. He stops the car at the end of the grown-over driveway. The house looks tatty and disheveled from the outside, and it's empty. It has that special, creepy, empty house look about it.
"Stay here," Derek says firmly.
Stiles watches him get out of the car, with a slow-burning prickle of angry disbelief.
"Do I really strike you as the sort of person who listens to the phrase 'stay in the car?'" He's more incredulous than annoyed. Because they've only known each other just over a week, but Stiles is pretty sure that if nothing else has come through, that one should have been fairly obvious.
Derek stares at him for a second, watches the climb of his eyebrows, and his little head bob of acknowledgment, that, yes, the minute Derek turns his back Stiles will be out of this car, and following him inside. Derek growls quietly, and then grasps Stiles by a handful of his shirt and hauls him out of the car.
"Stay close," he amends. This time it's rough enough that Stiles knows this is something Derek needs him to obey - or to at least give the impression he's obeying anyway.
The house doesn't look like much from the outside. It's neglected and dusty, paint peeling, and there are cracks in the floorboards and walls, just wide enough that sunlight can make its way through the gauntlet of dust and spiders. This is definitely the crappiest house Stiles has ever seen. But it's still weirdly imposing. There's something about its size, the way that it sits. On a less sunny day Stiles would joke about it being haunted.
"Why can't witches have nice apartments in the city?" Stiles says carefully, while avoiding suspicious piles of what looks like dirt - of what he hopes is dirt. "Didn't anyone tell them this is the twenty-first century? This place is in serious need of some Fantasia mops."
The front door is unlocked and it creaks ominously when Derek pushes it. Stiles is smart enough to leave it open when they go inside, and he has to wave away a couple of cobwebs. Though there's definitely a clean spot through the middle of the room. The smeared tromp of shoes through the gauntlet of tools and broken wooden struts. Someone has been here recently. One of the floorboards sinks unexpectedly beneath Stiles's foot, and he flails, briefly, before Derek catches his arm and tells him to be careful in a low, hissing voice. It jerks up when he steps off of it, looking completely harmless again.
"Can you say deathtrap." Stiles is judging this house, and he's judging anyone that meets here. "Can you smell anything?"
"Yeah, but nothing recent, there's no one here now."
Derek wanders towards the back, and Stiles follows, at a distance. It's easy to see where the dust has been disturbed, where people have stopped, shuffled around. Against the far wall there's what looks like a rolled carpet, two bags, a stack of books. Surely witches wouldn't leave their stuff unguarded? Even as he thinks it he sees the half-circle in the dust, drawn thinly in yellow chalk. It looks completely harmless - but Stiles is still opening his mouth to say 'don't cross it.' A second too late though, because Derek's boot is already stepping over it.
A lot of things happen at once, loud, painful things. But the only thing Stiles really registers is being thrown across the room. He hits the floor, painfully hard, a broken half-tumble that jars his elbow and neck. There's no air in him at all, and everything is fuzzy and washed in shades of crackling blue.
Then everything is completely black.
-
There's a dragging noise, which registers only vaguely in the back of Stiles's head. He knows his eyes are closed, because he can't see anything, but he can't figure out how to make them open. The sensation of being sprawled on the floor keeps coming and going, like pins and needles in his brain. He can't even twitch his fingers, he's just numb. He's afraid he's going to wake up and forget everything all over again. That he'll forget about Andrew Frain, and the murders, and Derek. He doesn't want to forget Derek.
-
Someone is moving him, and talking, but the voices are sluggish like they're underwater, or speaking another language, all garbled together.
-
"Christie, stop screwing around." The words echo, as if they're coming from far away. The world tips, briefly, and then resettles.
"I was just looking."
Stiles can see floorboards, they're so much dirtier up close. They keep blurring in and out. There are three, no, four voices talking in the other room, and the slow tread of boots somewhere behind him. He shuts his eyes again.
"The boy should be awake by now."
Stiles thinks he should be pissed about being called a 'boy,' especially considering what's been happening to the kids that went messing.
"Aidan's watching him."
That's a female voice, Christie? They're getting further away, more muffled.
"How old is he do you think? We could keep him. He might be useful later -"
"I know you're awake." The boots walking around Stiles's body belong to a man, with a raspy, deep voice. Aidan, he assumes. "You can either stop pretending, or I can kick you in the stomach."
Stiles opens his eyes, and glares up at him.
Aidan's a heavy man, as big as Derek, but he's not wearing it as well.
"There we go. We have some questions for you, and I think you're going to have some answers."
There's a snarl from the other room, and the smash of something hitting a wall. Which takes Aidan's attention away from Stiles just long enough for him to snag the piece of wood he'd been eyeing to his right, and swing it at his head. The man put his arm up, and it breaks across it. It barely even pushes him back, and then he's grasping the front of Stiles's shirt, hauling him upright, and slamming him into the wall. The impact knocks all the air out of him, and rattles his teeth, dust and bits of wood shower over his head and shoulders.
Someone's screaming in the room behind them. But Stiles is too busy trying to struggle his way out of Aidan's hold to worry about that right now.
"You didn't tell me he was a fucking Alpha, the circle isn't going to hold, get Marcus, get Marcus now."
The shouting in the other room cuts off, with a noise that says whoever that was, he won't be talking again.
Throwing a punch seems like it should be an instinctive thing. But Stiles's instincts must be shittier than most, because he only gets a glancing blow across Aidan's jaw, and manages to kill all the feeling in his hand. Then he gets shoved into the wall for his trouble. He's still dizzy from whatever knocked him out, sound cutting in and out, and someone's still screaming. Stiles thinks it's probably Christie.
He pulls against the grip on him, manages to haul him forward one step. Aidan swears, stumbles when he hits the broken floorboard, and his grip on Stiles goes loose. Stiles yanks himself backwards, towards the doorway, a flail of movement, but he doesn't manage to pull himself free. Punching didn't do him much good, time to go for the low blow. He knees the guy in the balls, as hard as he can. He's immediately dropped on his ass, when the hands on him spasm and let go, and Stiles moves instinctively towards the sound of snarling, towards the sound of Derek, only to get jerked back by the collar of his shirt, and half-choked in the process. Seriously, what sort of man can get kneed in the balls and then get back up a second later. Is this guy even human? There are witches and werewolves, what else is out there?
"I'm going to smash all your teeth in, you little bastard." The hand in his shirt tightens, knuckles almost pressed against his throat. This has happened to him before, Stiles thinks, with an horrible sort of realisation. Because he remembers how much getting punched in the face is going to hurt. It's the first thing he's remembered. Which suggests his brain is kind of a dick.
Aidan settles for one punch, hard enough to make the side of his face vibrate with pain, cheek and jaw roaring with blood, and then the guy pins him to the floor, and brings his own face in close.
"Where's Frain," he shouts, hand tightening again in Stiles's shirt, until his knuckles are crushed up tight to his windpipe. "Tell me where he is."
There's a heavy, wet growling from across the room, and Stiles decides that's a pretty sweet distraction. He scrabbles out to the side, for the wrench he'd seen on his way down to the floor. He catches it by the head, rather than the handle but he swings it hard enough that it probably isn't going to matter. Metal cracks against unprotected skull, and the witch staggers on his knees. Nothing happens for a second, and then blood just rushes down the side of his face. The blue-green glow of his eyes goes bright, and then gutters and dies. He slams into the floor like there's nothing left to brace himself with, and Stiles doesn't know whether he killed him or just knocked him unconscious, but at the moment it doesn't matter. At the moment he doesn't care.
"Derek." He's scrabbling backwards, twisting onto his knees. The noise in response to that goes all the way through him.
Stiles is scrambling upright, when he catches sight of the witch stood by the doorway. He has Derek pressed against the wall, impossibly still, lips curled back from his teeth. Derek's still making that raw, wet noise, somewhere between a groan and a snarl, and it's not until Stiles stumbles a step to the side that he realises it's because the witch has him pinned. Worse then that, he has his glowing hand pushed inside Derek's chest.
Stiles is going to take a wild guess that this is Marcus.
"Let him go." Stiles can feel his heart hammering against the inside of his ribcage.
"No, I think I'll keep a choke chain on the dog, thank you very much," Marcus says flatly. "Drop the wrench, please." He gestures, elegantly, with the other hand, to where Stiles is still holding the dripping length of metal.
Stiles drops it, hears it clunk sharply against the floorboards.
"I remember you," Marcus says. "You were the ones hunting Frain." His eyes narrow as he considers them both. "Did you kill him?"
Stiles doesn't know what the right answer to that question is, the answer that will help them. But he can't afford the pause to think about it, so he goes for honesty.
"No, we're still looking for him," Stiles says."Which I'm pretty sure you're doing too. You're all after the same piece of tacky jewelery."
The man's trying very hard not to react, but Stiles sees his mouth tighten briefly.
"Where's the stone?" he says simply, and Stiles knows they're not pretending to be civil any more.
"We don't know. We were after Frain - we were tracking him for the murders."
"But you know about the stone?" Marcus confirms, as if just knowing about it isn't going to end well for them. Stiles isn't surprise, cursed artifacts probably don't bring out the best in people.
He nods slowly.
"How? How do you know about it?"
Stiles thinks about it for a minute, thinks about it hard.
"I have a book, about cursed artifacts -" He lifts a hand. "I'm going to go into my pocket."
"Oh be my guest," Marcus says, as if they have all the time in the world.
Stiles reaches in, and carefully pulls the book free, then flips it open to the page he left the folded print-out inside.
"The Stone of Echoes." He opens the book, turns it so the other man can see.
"Come closer," Marcus stiffly.
"I could throw it," Stiles offers, and his voice sounds just a tiny bit hopeful.
"I don't think so." Marcus is smiling now, small and amused, and Stiles gets the feeling that he knows he's always the smartest man in a room. He takes a step towards Stiles, to read the curling writing on the page. His foot hits the loose board and drops, further than he's expecting, he stumbles, and his hand slips out of Derek's chest.
Which Derek had obviously been waiting for.
He catches Marcus by the hair, and jerks his head back. Derek's whole mouth comes down on the front of Marcus's throat, and there's nothing but blood. They go down together, but Derek's the only one moving after they hit the floorboards, pushing himself up on his hands, gasping through red teeth.
Stiles scrambles over to him, where he's hunched over on the floor, heaving in every breath, mouth and throat bright red. Derek catches his sleeve the moment he's close enough, hauls him in. Rough and too hard and Stiles doesn't even care.
"Stiles, God damn it, Stiles."
"Derek." Stiles presses a hand to Derek's chest. The rips in his shirt are ragged, but there's no wound. Stiles doesn't think there ever was. It's like the bastard just phased his hand through Derek's chest. He's trying to heal something which was never physical damage. "Derek, hey, you're ok, whatever he was doing he's not doing it any more. We're ok, we're good."
"That was not fucking pleasant." Derek's voice sounds gritty and awful.
Stiles buries his face in Derek's throat, doesn't care that he's smearing the dead witch's blood into his hair, and across the side of his face. Derek wraps a hand round the back of his neck, hard enough to hurt, and holds him there.
Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4.
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: 2x12
Word Count: 32,000
Warnings: Amnesia, violence
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: He doesn't know his name, he doesn't know who he is, and neither does the werewolf he's on the run with. But he's pretty sure they hunt monsters, because they seem to be really good at it.
Derek does eventually reappear, toweling his ridiculous hair dry, in a way that will probably leave it looking sexy and effortless. Whereas Stiles suspects he shaves his own head because he couldn't get any sort of hair to go with his face. Derek surveys the mess of paper that Stiles is currently in danger of being consumed by, if appearances are to be believed. It covers every inch of the bed, including his lap. Notes on random pieces of paper are slapped in wherever there seems to be even a vague connection. There are a lot of vague connections - but everything about Stiles's life is pretty vague right now, so he thinks that's only fair.
At Stiles's gesture Derek drags a chair over and sits in it. Stiles holds his hands over the huge mess of it, making sure nothing gets swept out of place, because it's in order, it's mostly in order, and he's really hoping he's got this right.
"Ok, so some of this I'm guessing about - some of this I have to guess about, since we have no memory of anything that happened more than two days ago. As far as I can tell three days ago we were in Beacon Hills, just inside the woods, roughly here." Stiles points it out on the map. "That's where we started, where we lost our memory, where we fought the witches." He taps the paper he's settled on top of the map. "Either we tracked the witches coming in, or we followed them there. I don't know for certain. I do know, with a fairly high degree of certainty, that we set a trap for the one that has a name." Stiles twists the pad around until Derek can read the name 'Andrew Frain.'
"We set a trap?"
"Yeah." Stiles says with a frown. "Which didn't exactly go as planned, as you can probably guess yourself by the way it turned out."
"Why?" Derek asks.
Stiles picks up several of the newspaper articles, and passes them over. Derek gives him a look and straightens them out.
"I think this is why. They're all stories about children - well technically anyone under eighteen, but they're mostly children - disappearing. The disappearances move through three states. In a few of them the bodies were eventually found. But mostly they just disappear without a trace. They don't say a lot, but something about the way they were saying it told me the official stories were hiding something really unpleasant. And when you put it together with the other stuff I found in the car it starts to make a horrible sort of sense."
Stiles unfolds a piece of printed paper, and turns it so Derek can see it. There's what looks like an ugly green brooch lying on red velvet.
"This is apparently called the Stone of Echoes, which is a horribly pretentious name for a piece of horribly gaudy jewelery. But it's in the book with the curses and cursed artifacts. It was made in the eighteenth century, in France, by some aristocrat that went crazy and killed all four of his children. According to the book it's supposed to be able to increase the power of the witch who possesses it, to a freakin' insane degree. Believe that or not, I have no idea if it's true. But it's also supposed to be cursed, and it will literally rot your body from the inside out if you don't feed it. So pretty much your average magical ring of power, and Frain has it."
"Feed it?" Derek's mouth twists.
"Yeah," Stiles winces because he's been thinking about that, and wishing he didn't have to. "And I'll give you one guess what the creepy stone eats."
"He's feeding it children?" Derek grinds out.
"It doesn't actually say that, but I'm guessing, yes. Which is why we were after him. Which is why we tracked him from...wherever he came from, to Beacon Hills."
"Which is why we laid a trap for him," Derek says, and he's nodding, so Stiles assumes he's following this.
Stiles nods back. "And I think I was the bait in our trap," he says slowly.
Derek's teeth press together. Stiles keeps going before he can speak.
"No, it was actually a good plan, in fact I think it was my idea." He flips through the pad he'd scribbled in. "Here's a list of similarities between the other kids, as if we were making a list - and I fit more than a few of them." He flips another few pages. "And this is something about something called mountain ash being used to mask the presence of werewolves, to make protective circles as well I think. I've underlined that three times, so I figure you probably put up a protest at least. There are a few references to Deaton here, that's the same name as in your phone. I get the feeling he's our go-to guy for magical information, and possibly weapons? And, ok, fine, I could be making our life sound less like an episode of Supernatural. But the evidence was kind of in your car, I can only work with what you give me. There are some mentions of 'the house,' which I have no context for. But it seems to relate to Beacon Hills again. A meeting place for them? Frain's house maybe?"
Stiles drops the pad.
"I don't know what went wrong, but I'm going to take a wild guess that the one thing we didn't expect was the sheer number of witches that would be tracking Frain as well. For the stone, I'm assuming they want to steal his shiny jewelery for themselves, or, I don't know, maybe followers? So, yeah, I think we were prepared, but we were outnumbered too. The only thing I'm not clear on is how we lost our memories." He chews the pen he's holding, looks up at Derek to see what he thinks.
"You worked all that out while I was showering?" Derek says quietly. He looks kind of stunned.
Stiles grins at him a little.
"Yeah, I get the feeling that I do the planning," he says. "I mean obviously I don't remember anything. But the putting things together, the making things work, I feel like I'm good at that. So, I'm thinking, maybe I take care of the what, and the why, and you take care of the how with your enormous werewolf muscles." He doesn't bother gesturing, because they're both aware of the enormous werewolf muscles. Stiles has had trouble not looking at them for the last twenty four hours. "It works, right?" He really wants Derek to say yes, because this is first time he's actually felt like he has a grasp of what's going on.
But Derek doesn't look convinced. He shakes his head.
"We're not monster hunters, Stiles," he says carefully.
"Are you sure about that?" Stiles throws the pad down, watches it bend the map, and paper rushes into the dip it makes, a scatter of notations, and names, and places. "Are you absolutely sure?"
Derek exhales and stares down at the map, covered in circles and wind direction and what looks like the range of his own hearing and sense of smell. Stiles can tell that he's really not. The evidence has gone way beyond circumstantial, because they were clearly hunting something - and everything here says that they've done it before. That they had experience, somehow.
"You trust me right?" Stiles asks quietly.
Derek goes very still, and it's only then that Stiles realises what a stupid question that is. They don't even know each other. How can Derek be expected to trust him in a day and a half.
"No," he says quickly. "I mean, forget I said that, it's stupid -"
"Yes," Derek says, which seems to surprise him as much as Stiles. "Yes, I trust you. I probably shouldn't right now, I shouldn't trust anyone. But I trust you."
Stiles stares at him, because for a second Derek looks something that comes frighteningly close to vulnerable, like he really doesn't know why he trusts him. He shuffles on his knees to the end of the bed, pushing paper out of the way, until their knees brush, and Derek's hand lifts briefly, as if it wants to touch him, before settling on the folded edge of a map instead. Stiles doesn't know what that means.
"I mean obviously you can do things I can't do. You can heal, and you're super-strong, and I'm pretty sure a bunch of other things you haven't told me, or we don't know about." Stiles glances at Derek, but his expression isn't really helpful. "So, I was thinking maybe it was because you trust me to tell you what to do - I don't mean like all the time," Stiles clarifies, when Derek huffs disbelief. "I mean that I tell you where we're going, what we're hunting. Is that stupid? Because that didn't sound stupid in my head. When I was working it all out it sounded like it made complete sense. But I'm obviously not who I'm supposed to be, and I'm up to my neck in stuff I don't know, and if I'm getting things like this wrong -"
Derek catches his hand mid-flail.
"Stiles, breathe," he says simply.
And just like that, he does, slow and briefly painful, and he hadn't even realised how tight his chest was getting. He gives a shaky laugh.
"Fuck."
"No," Derek starts, cautiously. His hand's still tangled with Stiles's, thumb dragging on his skin like he hasn't noticed, which makes something in Stiles's chest tighten. "I - you may not be entirely wrong. The telling me what to do part, maybe, sometimes."
"You're really sore on that aren't you? You want to be the one telling people what to do, don't you? Oh my god, you probably boss me around in bed all the time." Stiles realises what he's said a second after he says it, and he can feel heat flood his face. "I mean - I didn't mean to say that. Wow, I really do just say whatever I'm thinking don't I?"
Derek's still watching him, expression amused, and - not just amused, oh my God, kind of intrigued as well.
"Er, where was I? Oh, yeah, I never said you agreed to it all, did I? You probably complain, and growl at me all the time, and yell at me for talking too much - but if I've proven that I can do it. That I don't put you in danger. If we do this, do you think we do this, Derek? Is this who we are?" Stiles's heart is beating so fast, and it was all so easy when he was laying it all out like a puzzle. It was easy when he was treating it like a game, when it wasn't their whole life. Because this is as good as a name when you don't know who you are. But who Stiles apparently is - he's confused, and awed, and fucking terrified by it.
"Yeah," Derek says quietly, and his face goes some way towards reassuring Stiles that he isn't crazy, that it isn't just him. "I think maybe this is who we are."
Stiles gives a weak little laugh, and Derek's hand is still on him somehow, but that's ok, that's more than ok.
"This is dangerous for you, more than dangerous." Derek seems to realise, all at once.
Stiles nods, shakily, because, yeah, obviously. But he thinks they must have had this conversation already, because he's still here.
"If I didn't want danger I'd probably still be in school somewhere, and not dating a werewolf, with witches out for my blood. Something tells me you don't fall into crap like this without seeing it. I think I made a choice somewhere, that I chose this. That maybe I chose you - to stay with you, I mean." It's so awkward to say, like some weird declaration he doesn't intend, in a relationship he doesn't remember. That he still doesn't know how to talk about it.
"So, where are we going?" Derek asks, like he can see it and he's willing to set it aside for now. "You're the one with the maps. You're the one that decides what we do." He's looking straight at Stiles now, he trusts him to do this. Something in Stiles's chest clenches tightly. He grins and reaches out for Derek's hand, tugs him over until he can sit in a clear space on the bed.
"I think I know where Frain's going to be six days from now."
*****
The third day of his new life Stiles doesn't wake up being aggressively spooned by a werewolf. He wakes up curled into the side of one. He has an arm thrown over Derek's waist, and their legs are tangled together. They're both in danger of slipping off the bed. Not remembering anything about his life is making everything feel like the first time he's ever done things, his whole life is just a continuous stream of new experiences right now, which is mostly frightening and confusing. But this - not so much.
The last thing Stiles remembers was yawning his way through reading the curse book, a dusty collection of ugly trinkets that did gruesome things to people, trying to find some way to track the witch with the stone. He'd clearly managed it before somehow, past-him had found a way to do it. He was honestly starting to get a little - a lot - annoyed at past-him, for making everything seem so easy. The TV's still on, though it's muted now, playing what looks like a cookery show. A smiling chef in kitchen whites is crushing garlic, with an unbearable amount of enthusiasm. Derek makes a low, grumbling noise, when he moves, like he knows Stiles is awake and doesn't want him to be.
Derek has an arm thrown over his eyes, chest rising and falling in a way that's hypnotic. The sheets have slipped down just far enough to meet the elastic of Derek's underwear, and suddenly Stiles is faced with the reality of being in bed with an amazingly hot, twenty four year old werewolf. In a way that had never really come out last time, when he'd flailed his way out of the bed like a nervous virgin, with his face too hot and his underwear too tight. But then he hadn't been face to face with it then.
The fact that this time he's pressed close enough to breathe against Derek's skin, arm feeling the heat of him all along its length, it's intimate, and a little scary. But in a way that makes his heart race, and his fingers want to curl and pull Derek closer. Close enough that he can press his face into his skin - like he probably would if they were actually together - if Stiles remembered them being together. He wonders what Derek would do if he slipped his hand down, pushed it under the elastic of Derek's briefs and touched him. He wonders whether he'd push Stiles away, or whether he'd let him curl a hand round him, work him slowly until he came, all over his own stomach and Stiles's fingers. Even the thought of it makes him hold his breath, and swallow, and resist the urge to push into Derek's hip. He wishes he felt brave enough to do that. That he remembered something about them. Because Derek kisses him like it's easy even without his memories, and Stiles wants that too. He wants to feel that.
"What are you thinking about?" It's a low, tumbling, grate of sound from Derek. All of Stiles's tentative thoughts are knocked apart, by a wave of embarrassment and uncertainty. He doesn't remember how to do this, which is exactly the same as never having done it at all right now. It leaves him feeling young, and useless, and clumsy, and he just can't.
"Nothing, I wasn't thinking about anything." Stiles struggles his way out of the sheet, before Derek can wake up properly, and ask any more questions, see any answers whether Stiles wants him to or not. In his heartbeat or his face, or the way he smells so strongly of arousal he might as well have rolled all over him - and Jesus, it's like he can't stop punishing himself.
Stiles stumbles his way to the bathroom, pushing the door shut behind him and then leaning against it, chilly air prickling against his skin. He's so hard it's just a continuous throb of tension, and he knows there's no way he's going to be able to just leave it. He turns the shower on, as hard and as loud as it will go. He lets it pour over him, hopes it'll drown out the bitten-off noises, and the soft sound of his hand working on himself. Until he's leaning against the chill of the tiles, panting, feeling loose and light-headed, and watching the water wash the evidence away.
He stumbles out, wraps a towel around his waist and attempts to wash his teeth, until they don't feel as awful. Then he stares at his reflection, until his cheeks don't look so incriminatingly flushed.
He should really have locked the door, because he gets no warning at all before it's clicking open and then shut, and then he's blinking at Derek, who's leaning back against it. He's wearing his jeans, zipped but unbuttoned, and he's bare-chested, hair flat on one side in a way that should look silly, but manages to just look artfully rumpled instead.
"This seems fair." Derek's voice is quiet, but pointed, and Stiles thinks that's supposed to mean something.
"What?" he says stupidly, trying to make his voice work, trying not to look as if he did anything in the shower other than wash. Which he thinks is a losing battle against Derek's werewolf senses.
"I seem to remember you watching me yesterday." Derek gestures at the towel Stiles is wearing. "Though that's kind of cheating."
He knows what Derek wants straight away, and his first instinct is to refuse, to laugh his way through embarrassment, through the jittery realisation that Derek wants to see him naked. But he doesn't - he doesn't. Feeling oddly self-conscious - no, feeling amazingly self-conscious - Stiles leans back against the sink. He can do this, Derek's probably seen him naked enough times that it won't even matter. It's probably not even a big deal, he's just making it one. Derek's eyes darken when he lifts a hand to the tucked-in edge of the towel. Then Stiles swallows down the frantic jump of his heartbeat, and tugs it open with shaky hands, lets it drop.
Derek inhales sharply, nails grating on the door behind him, like maybe he hadn't expected Stiles to actually do it. Stiles is pretty sure he's never felt this exposed before in his life. Cold air rushing over his naked body like a reminder. Derek isn't doing anything, he's just staring, which was kind of the point, Stiles guesses. But it still feels jarringly intimate, unfamiliar, exciting and terrifying at the same time. Stiles's hands slowly drift inwards, think about making some sort of embarrassed attempt to cover himself. Derek takes two steps forward and catches his wrists, eases his hands away from his body, pins them loosely against the sink and just looks at him. Stiles is pretty sure his face is some shade of red as yet undiscovered by science, because he's hard, he's so obviously hard, chest heaving. There's no way to pretend that it's not Derek, and even if they are together - it all still feels so new.
Derek's looking at him like he doesn't want to ever stop, and Stiles is hot and shivery, and a little bit scared. But the way Derek looks genuinely rattled, as if Stiles standing here naked is too much for him, might be the only thing keeping him upright.
"I wake up to you smelling like sex," Derek says roughly. "Smelling like an invitation, and then you come in here and jerk off." The words are so low they grate and Stiles swallows. "You have no idea how much I wanted to touch you this morning, how much I want to touch you now. I want to put my mouth all over you." Derek takes another step, shoe pushing between Stiles's bare feet, hands tightening on his wrists. There's a low burn of noise in his throat that sounds like intent.
That makes Stiles's entire body jerk, skin suddenly tingling all over, heartbeat slamming in his chest, and it doesn't matter that he came ten minutes ago, he's in serious danger of humiliating himself right now. Without anyone even touching him. Derek's voice grates over his skin like a physical thing.
"Oh my God, you can't just say things like that," Stiles says shakily.
"Why not, why can't I say it if I mean it?" Derek's close enough that his shirt is spotted with damp patches.
Stiles's whole body feels tight, and confused and greedy, shifting against the sink, in a way that makes Derek's fingers tighten and then relax. He's leaning closer, all red eyes and stubble, and he smells like cheap motel shampoo, and sweat, and something that's probably familiar, because Stiles can feel this jump of nervous tension in his skin, and he wonders if that is his sense memory. The way he reacts to Derek's hands, his voice, to the way Derek smells. But his body is still a stranger, and he doesn't remember, God, he doesn't remember any of it.
"Because I don't remember you," he stutters out. "And I know - ok, I know you're huge, and insanely hot but it's still weird for me." He has to swallow then, mouth too dry to finish until he does. "Because I can't smell that we're close, or just know that we're cool because I don't want to eat you, or anything like that. You're just very hot and naked and confusing, and a werewolf for God's sake, and yet sort of...mine. But it still scares me, and I don't even know what to do with all of that."
Stiles can't quite believe that he's talking a hot guy, who's almost certainly his own boyfriend, out of having sex with him, out of touching him, when he clearly wants him to. Is this the sort of thing he does? It's a wonder he found anyone that was willing to have sex with him at all.
"I'm sorry," Stiles says helplessly. "God, I'm sorry, I'm being stupid." He's embarrassed suddenly, so much so he can barely breathe.
"You're not being stupid," Derek says quietly, the aggressive, predatory look is completely gone from his face. He eases back, fingers sliding free of Stiles's wrists.
Stiles feels awful all at once, as if he's ruined something he didn't even know he had.
"I don't know what I'm doing, and I want - fuck, I'm sorry."
Derek sways forward again, just long enough to press his forehead against Stiles's, one gentle push, which makes Stiles's stomach stop clenching and jumping. Makes him sigh out a breath.
Then he's alone in the bathroom.
"You are so fucking stupid," he tells his reflection. Which looks damp and rumpled, and confused, really confused.
-
When he gets back to the room he's determined not to be embarrassed, even though he's clearly failing at dealing with his own relationship. The amnesiac werewolf is dealing with this better than he is, what does that even say about him? Stiles is so busy trying to act casual that he doesn't notice at first that Derek has stolen his old shirt, and replaced it with one of his own, out of the bag from the trunk of the car.
"Are you trying to tell me something?" Stiles holds the shirt up, the collar's frayed, and there's a tear at the hem, but it smells clean...clean-ish. "Or is this some weird scent-marking thing? I'm not your territory you know." Stiles isn't even sure Derek wants him to be any more.
"Funny, because you smell like you are," Derek decides, from where he's stretched out on the bed, reading the curse book. He's smiling, and it looks weird and unfamiliar, like everything else about him. Stiles throws the towel at him.
He puts the stupid shirt on.
"So, two hundred and sixty miles West. We follow the map, scout out the town, see if we can find some witches. I'm assuming you know what witches smell like?"
"Yeah," Derek says roughly. "Do you really want to chase this guy. We don't even know who we are."
"He's killing children," Stiles bites out. "Maybe that makes me an idiot, but I want to go after him. I want to make him stop."
Derek nods, like he's just confirmed something he already knew. "But this time, we're not using you as bait," he says firmly, like he's angry at his past self for letting it happen. Stiles tries not to feel anything about that.
"No kidding, but he might remember us, even if we don't remember him. Because, you do realise I have no idea what he looks like. I'd need a computer and maybe even then I wouldn't know." Not having a computer right now was kind of a pain.
"I'll get one," Derek says simply.
"You want to just stop and buy a laptop?" Stiles asks, because sometimes he's not sure what to do with the fact that Derek accepts everything so easily.
"We might need one. I'm assuming you know how to work it?"
Stiles flexes his fingers.
"I'm pretty sure I could do that, yeah."
Derek pulls on a new shirt, grabs his jacket off the bed.
"Pack everything up, we don't want to stay in one place too long. I'll bring back lunch and then we'll leave."
"Hey, buy toothbrushes and toothpaste too," Stiles says. "New phones too, if we're going to be out of contact with each other. Maybe some food if we're going to be on the road, flashlights." Stiles bites his lip, looks up, at where Derek's still waiting, hand on the doorknob. "I can't think of anything else."
Derek eyeballs him, waits an extra handful of seconds to make sure, then disappears out the door.
Stiles tosses the bag on the bed, packs all their clothes into it, and the papers, maps and book, and a couple of towels, just in case. Because it turns out maybe he is a little bit of a criminal after all. Or possibly he used to be an awesomely well-behaved kid, and Derek has been a horrible influence on him. It's suddenly irritating that he has no idea. Who was he? What was he like? He's too young to be able to tell by frown lines, or laugh lines, whether he's happy, or sad, or stressed out. Whether he chose this life, or it chose him. But he's young - and he's checked his body in the bathroom mirror, no scars, no obvious scars. He can't have been in this life for long. What happened to him?
He watches TV, biting the skin at the edge of his nail, and waiting for Derek to come back. He feels a little adrift without him, and he briefly worries that they have an awful, co-dependant relationship. But then he remembers that he and Derek probably have friends, parents maybe? He just doesn't remember them.
Derek brings burgers, and a shiny silver laptop (and everything else Stiles asked for). They eat on the bed, leaning against each other, in their jackets, with the motel door open, and the late sun streaming in. Stiles makes up stories about their childhood, how they met, some of them best guess, some of them hopeful, some of them ridiculous, and all of them are probably wrong. But some of them make Derek huff laughter, and shove fries in Stiles's mouth, which makes it totally worth it.
So, they're doing this, without their memory, running off into possible, terrible danger to save people they don't even know from witches, who may or may not know how to give them their memories back.
Stiles wonders if he's always been this crazy?"
*****
Arnville isn't exactly a hive of activity. It's small and it doesn't have a motel, so they stay at one in the next town, picking up what they can from news stories and police reports they manage to catch hold of. Stiles gives in to the urge to Google himself almost straight away, and it turns out there are more Stilinskis than you'd think. Not millions, but enough for him to scroll through three pages, wondering if he's related to any of them. The doctor, or the college student, or the sheriff. Though Stiles still isn't sure if Stilinski is even his real name, or whether they just snagged one from the Beacon Hills phonebook. He's half way through typing in Derek's name when Derek distracts him by throwing a bag at him. Which turns out to contain a jumble of clothing, tags still attached.
"Should I be worried that you're apparently dressing me?" he asks, while unfolding a pair of jeans. "And that you know my size?"
"I've seen you naked," Derek reminds him, and manages to peg him in the face with the next bag. Judging by how gently it was thrown that was totally on purpose. "And I just got you stuff that's the same as what you're wearing."
"Because my style is classic and timeless?"
Derek's face seems to disagree, but is keeping the rest of its opinion to itself, possibly to avoid sleeping on the couch - if they had a couch, or anything was actually happening in the bed. And Stiles is just going to leave that whole thing alone now.
It's hard to wait, to wait for something to happen, something that might be bad. He feels useless, spends too much time researching things he doesn't know enough about, and watching reruns of old TV shows, while sprawled next to Derek on the bed.
Until it's time to go looking for Frain.
-
Derek parks on a side road, just out of town, where they can't be seen by anyone who lives there, or anyone passing by.
"This isn't exactly a safe place for your car," Stiles points out, giving her an affectionate pat. "Have you seen your car, she's beautiful and she doesn't deserve this. I feel it's my duty to defend her from your terrible mistreatment."
Derek shrugs like he doesn't even care. Stiles gets the feeling his other self is probably more attached to it than this one. That Derek's other self would probably be horrified at the impending abandonment of this beautiful machine. Though getting that across to Derek is going to be a losing battle, because he already looks impatient.
"We can't just stroll into town, we don't know if any of them will recognise us, we don't know enough about what they know." Stiles shakes his head. "I tried looking for Frain online, but there are too many. There's an auction house attached to his name, probably not him, but because of that the name just goes everywhere. Seriously, you type it in and you don't get any faces, just ten pages of freakin' antiques."
"But he was supposed to show up here?" Derek's asking like Stiles hasn't already checked and double-checked.
"This was the next stop according to the map that past-me made. Do we trust past-me? I mean I know I'm heavily biased and everything, but I'm going to go with, yeah." Stiles scratches the back of his neck, because that's about as far as he's gotten, to be honest. "So, how exactly do two strange men who've just come into town subtly inquire if any children have gone missing?"
Derek does the jaw tightening thing. "They don't."
Stiles nods his head because they really don't.
"Not unless they want to become people of interest. We don't want to become people of interest. That's the one thing we definitely do not want to be." He sighs, because he's just had a horrible idea. "Shit, ok, if we find me some sort of sports kit I could probably pass for younger than seventeen, fifteen maybe. People will talk to a stupid kid."
"Do not try and pass for fifteen," Derek says stiffly, and judging by the look on his face this is non-negotiable.
"It's either that or cruise around looking conspicuous, until you smell a witch," Stiles says. "Which - yeah, that's going to get us noticed. We're going for the 'doesn't get us noticed,' plans, where at all possible, remember." He throws up his hands. "Maybe we could try the whole road trip thing, and rely on small-town gossip. But if anyone asks you're my older brother. You'll have to be a Stilinski though, if anyone asks. Because Stiles Hale sounds really freakin' stupid. And take the leather jacket off, wearing that you're like an ad for the guy everyone's mother warned them about."
Derek shoots him a look, more amused than offended. He shrugs his jacket off, dumps it through the passenger window. Stiles isn't exactly sure whether that's better or not, because now he's all muscles and stupid hotness in a more accessible sort of way. He's going to get groped by every waitress within a hundred miles. Stiles is in some weird space where he's not sure whether to feel smug, or jealous.
Not that it can be helped, because they're clearly doing this.
"Come on, buy your little bro a soda." Stiles thumps Derek on the arm.
"I will bite you, I swear to God."
-
Small towns.
Stiles is only half way through his soda, which Derek bought for him, on the express understanding that he not pretend to be a day younger than he actually was, when the waitress of the diner - who doesn't try and grope Derek, but does bring him a suspiciously large piece of pie - starts talking about an old house, three miles past the old farm road, that's suddenly got people in it. Nosing around looking to buy, the burly man behind the counter suggests. People from the city, unpleasant, rude, arrogant.
Stiles tongues his straw, and gives Derek a significant look.
"I thought that would be harder," Derek grumbles, as if he's actually giving this one to Stiles, grudgingly and with ill grace. But he's totally giving it to him.
"You're really not a people person are you?" Stiles ignores the frowning, and finishes his soda. Because he's actually thirsty, and chewing the straw is an oddly familiar sort of stress relief - hey, sense memory!
-
It's a slow, short drive, Derek wary and tense the whole way. He stops the car at the end of the grown-over driveway. The house looks tatty and disheveled from the outside, and it's empty. It has that special, creepy, empty house look about it.
"Stay here," Derek says firmly.
Stiles watches him get out of the car, with a slow-burning prickle of angry disbelief.
"Do I really strike you as the sort of person who listens to the phrase 'stay in the car?'" He's more incredulous than annoyed. Because they've only known each other just over a week, but Stiles is pretty sure that if nothing else has come through, that one should have been fairly obvious.
Derek stares at him for a second, watches the climb of his eyebrows, and his little head bob of acknowledgment, that, yes, the minute Derek turns his back Stiles will be out of this car, and following him inside. Derek growls quietly, and then grasps Stiles by a handful of his shirt and hauls him out of the car.
"Stay close," he amends. This time it's rough enough that Stiles knows this is something Derek needs him to obey - or to at least give the impression he's obeying anyway.
The house doesn't look like much from the outside. It's neglected and dusty, paint peeling, and there are cracks in the floorboards and walls, just wide enough that sunlight can make its way through the gauntlet of dust and spiders. This is definitely the crappiest house Stiles has ever seen. But it's still weirdly imposing. There's something about its size, the way that it sits. On a less sunny day Stiles would joke about it being haunted.
"Why can't witches have nice apartments in the city?" Stiles says carefully, while avoiding suspicious piles of what looks like dirt - of what he hopes is dirt. "Didn't anyone tell them this is the twenty-first century? This place is in serious need of some Fantasia mops."
The front door is unlocked and it creaks ominously when Derek pushes it. Stiles is smart enough to leave it open when they go inside, and he has to wave away a couple of cobwebs. Though there's definitely a clean spot through the middle of the room. The smeared tromp of shoes through the gauntlet of tools and broken wooden struts. Someone has been here recently. One of the floorboards sinks unexpectedly beneath Stiles's foot, and he flails, briefly, before Derek catches his arm and tells him to be careful in a low, hissing voice. It jerks up when he steps off of it, looking completely harmless again.
"Can you say deathtrap." Stiles is judging this house, and he's judging anyone that meets here. "Can you smell anything?"
"Yeah, but nothing recent, there's no one here now."
Derek wanders towards the back, and Stiles follows, at a distance. It's easy to see where the dust has been disturbed, where people have stopped, shuffled around. Against the far wall there's what looks like a rolled carpet, two bags, a stack of books. Surely witches wouldn't leave their stuff unguarded? Even as he thinks it he sees the half-circle in the dust, drawn thinly in yellow chalk. It looks completely harmless - but Stiles is still opening his mouth to say 'don't cross it.' A second too late though, because Derek's boot is already stepping over it.
A lot of things happen at once, loud, painful things. But the only thing Stiles really registers is being thrown across the room. He hits the floor, painfully hard, a broken half-tumble that jars his elbow and neck. There's no air in him at all, and everything is fuzzy and washed in shades of crackling blue.
Then everything is completely black.
-
There's a dragging noise, which registers only vaguely in the back of Stiles's head. He knows his eyes are closed, because he can't see anything, but he can't figure out how to make them open. The sensation of being sprawled on the floor keeps coming and going, like pins and needles in his brain. He can't even twitch his fingers, he's just numb. He's afraid he's going to wake up and forget everything all over again. That he'll forget about Andrew Frain, and the murders, and Derek. He doesn't want to forget Derek.
-
Someone is moving him, and talking, but the voices are sluggish like they're underwater, or speaking another language, all garbled together.
-
"Christie, stop screwing around." The words echo, as if they're coming from far away. The world tips, briefly, and then resettles.
"I was just looking."
Stiles can see floorboards, they're so much dirtier up close. They keep blurring in and out. There are three, no, four voices talking in the other room, and the slow tread of boots somewhere behind him. He shuts his eyes again.
"The boy should be awake by now."
Stiles thinks he should be pissed about being called a 'boy,' especially considering what's been happening to the kids that went messing.
"Aidan's watching him."
That's a female voice, Christie? They're getting further away, more muffled.
"How old is he do you think? We could keep him. He might be useful later -"
"I know you're awake." The boots walking around Stiles's body belong to a man, with a raspy, deep voice. Aidan, he assumes. "You can either stop pretending, or I can kick you in the stomach."
Stiles opens his eyes, and glares up at him.
Aidan's a heavy man, as big as Derek, but he's not wearing it as well.
"There we go. We have some questions for you, and I think you're going to have some answers."
There's a snarl from the other room, and the smash of something hitting a wall. Which takes Aidan's attention away from Stiles just long enough for him to snag the piece of wood he'd been eyeing to his right, and swing it at his head. The man put his arm up, and it breaks across it. It barely even pushes him back, and then he's grasping the front of Stiles's shirt, hauling him upright, and slamming him into the wall. The impact knocks all the air out of him, and rattles his teeth, dust and bits of wood shower over his head and shoulders.
Someone's screaming in the room behind them. But Stiles is too busy trying to struggle his way out of Aidan's hold to worry about that right now.
"You didn't tell me he was a fucking Alpha, the circle isn't going to hold, get Marcus, get Marcus now."
The shouting in the other room cuts off, with a noise that says whoever that was, he won't be talking again.
Throwing a punch seems like it should be an instinctive thing. But Stiles's instincts must be shittier than most, because he only gets a glancing blow across Aidan's jaw, and manages to kill all the feeling in his hand. Then he gets shoved into the wall for his trouble. He's still dizzy from whatever knocked him out, sound cutting in and out, and someone's still screaming. Stiles thinks it's probably Christie.
He pulls against the grip on him, manages to haul him forward one step. Aidan swears, stumbles when he hits the broken floorboard, and his grip on Stiles goes loose. Stiles yanks himself backwards, towards the doorway, a flail of movement, but he doesn't manage to pull himself free. Punching didn't do him much good, time to go for the low blow. He knees the guy in the balls, as hard as he can. He's immediately dropped on his ass, when the hands on him spasm and let go, and Stiles moves instinctively towards the sound of snarling, towards the sound of Derek, only to get jerked back by the collar of his shirt, and half-choked in the process. Seriously, what sort of man can get kneed in the balls and then get back up a second later. Is this guy even human? There are witches and werewolves, what else is out there?
"I'm going to smash all your teeth in, you little bastard." The hand in his shirt tightens, knuckles almost pressed against his throat. This has happened to him before, Stiles thinks, with an horrible sort of realisation. Because he remembers how much getting punched in the face is going to hurt. It's the first thing he's remembered. Which suggests his brain is kind of a dick.
Aidan settles for one punch, hard enough to make the side of his face vibrate with pain, cheek and jaw roaring with blood, and then the guy pins him to the floor, and brings his own face in close.
"Where's Frain," he shouts, hand tightening again in Stiles's shirt, until his knuckles are crushed up tight to his windpipe. "Tell me where he is."
There's a heavy, wet growling from across the room, and Stiles decides that's a pretty sweet distraction. He scrabbles out to the side, for the wrench he'd seen on his way down to the floor. He catches it by the head, rather than the handle but he swings it hard enough that it probably isn't going to matter. Metal cracks against unprotected skull, and the witch staggers on his knees. Nothing happens for a second, and then blood just rushes down the side of his face. The blue-green glow of his eyes goes bright, and then gutters and dies. He slams into the floor like there's nothing left to brace himself with, and Stiles doesn't know whether he killed him or just knocked him unconscious, but at the moment it doesn't matter. At the moment he doesn't care.
"Derek." He's scrabbling backwards, twisting onto his knees. The noise in response to that goes all the way through him.
Stiles is scrambling upright, when he catches sight of the witch stood by the doorway. He has Derek pressed against the wall, impossibly still, lips curled back from his teeth. Derek's still making that raw, wet noise, somewhere between a groan and a snarl, and it's not until Stiles stumbles a step to the side that he realises it's because the witch has him pinned. Worse then that, he has his glowing hand pushed inside Derek's chest.
Stiles is going to take a wild guess that this is Marcus.
"Let him go." Stiles can feel his heart hammering against the inside of his ribcage.
"No, I think I'll keep a choke chain on the dog, thank you very much," Marcus says flatly. "Drop the wrench, please." He gestures, elegantly, with the other hand, to where Stiles is still holding the dripping length of metal.
Stiles drops it, hears it clunk sharply against the floorboards.
"I remember you," Marcus says. "You were the ones hunting Frain." His eyes narrow as he considers them both. "Did you kill him?"
Stiles doesn't know what the right answer to that question is, the answer that will help them. But he can't afford the pause to think about it, so he goes for honesty.
"No, we're still looking for him," Stiles says."Which I'm pretty sure you're doing too. You're all after the same piece of tacky jewelery."
The man's trying very hard not to react, but Stiles sees his mouth tighten briefly.
"Where's the stone?" he says simply, and Stiles knows they're not pretending to be civil any more.
"We don't know. We were after Frain - we were tracking him for the murders."
"But you know about the stone?" Marcus confirms, as if just knowing about it isn't going to end well for them. Stiles isn't surprise, cursed artifacts probably don't bring out the best in people.
He nods slowly.
"How? How do you know about it?"
Stiles thinks about it for a minute, thinks about it hard.
"I have a book, about cursed artifacts -" He lifts a hand. "I'm going to go into my pocket."
"Oh be my guest," Marcus says, as if they have all the time in the world.
Stiles reaches in, and carefully pulls the book free, then flips it open to the page he left the folded print-out inside.
"The Stone of Echoes." He opens the book, turns it so the other man can see.
"Come closer," Marcus stiffly.
"I could throw it," Stiles offers, and his voice sounds just a tiny bit hopeful.
"I don't think so." Marcus is smiling now, small and amused, and Stiles gets the feeling that he knows he's always the smartest man in a room. He takes a step towards Stiles, to read the curling writing on the page. His foot hits the loose board and drops, further than he's expecting, he stumbles, and his hand slips out of Derek's chest.
Which Derek had obviously been waiting for.
He catches Marcus by the hair, and jerks his head back. Derek's whole mouth comes down on the front of Marcus's throat, and there's nothing but blood. They go down together, but Derek's the only one moving after they hit the floorboards, pushing himself up on his hands, gasping through red teeth.
Stiles scrambles over to him, where he's hunched over on the floor, heaving in every breath, mouth and throat bright red. Derek catches his sleeve the moment he's close enough, hauls him in. Rough and too hard and Stiles doesn't even care.
"Stiles, God damn it, Stiles."
"Derek." Stiles presses a hand to Derek's chest. The rips in his shirt are ragged, but there's no wound. Stiles doesn't think there ever was. It's like the bastard just phased his hand through Derek's chest. He's trying to heal something which was never physical damage. "Derek, hey, you're ok, whatever he was doing he's not doing it any more. We're ok, we're good."
"That was not fucking pleasant." Derek's voice sounds gritty and awful.
Stiles buries his face in Derek's throat, doesn't care that he's smearing the dead witch's blood into his hair, and across the side of his face. Derek wraps a hand round the back of his neck, hard enough to hurt, and holds him there.
Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4.