Thrice (gift for thelustydragon)
Title: Thrice
Author: snarkydame
Recipient: thelustydragon
Pairings: Derek/Stiles
Rating: R
Word Count: 3500
Warnings: some supernatural creepiness, but nothing else to mention.
Summary: Something very old and very powerful comes through the forest, catching Derek's suspicions and Stiles' interest.
Author's Notes: Thanks to the mods for being super nice, and thanks, M, for the last minute beta work. thelustydragon, I hope this doesn't disappoint.
* * *
There had never been light here, of any kind, ever. Not even those creepy glowing fungi or bioluminescent bugs or anything. He was sure of that, because the darkness felt too old, too cold, and too heavy to have ever been anything else.
Of course, Lydia would scoff at the way he arrived at that conclusion, but she'd agree with him. In theory.
He could hear water, somewhere in front of him. Dropping every thirty seconds, regular as clockwork. Judging from the echoes, it was splashing down from somewhere very, very high.
He stood still. His feet were bare, just this side of frozen on what had to be stone. The cuffs of his jeans brushed against his heels - the crawling discomfort of clammy denim was really adding to the ambiance of this place.
He didn't want to move. He could just retrace his steps, back out, find the light and the warmth and the real world, but . . . he'd been in something of a blind panic. He wasn't sure which way he'd run. And now, his subconscious was picturing bottomless pits and jagged stalagmites, deep motionless pools of the sort of water blind, tentacled monsters called home - all around him, waiting to deal him a messy, horrifying death.
Under the weight of the cold and the dark he could feel bruises, all down his right side. His palms were scraped - he could feel the sting of dirt in broken skin. And there was a warmth, slowly spreading down his arm from high on his right shoulder.
Oh right. He was bleeding.
"Perfect, Stiles. You've got this all under control," he said. In the darkness, his voice barely registered at all.
* * *
There was something in the woods. Something bristled deep inside of him, and he could feel his eyes glow red. Something in his territory, something big. Something that didn't belong there.
Yesterday, there were paw prints on the edge of a stream. Huge prints, as wide as his hand. Not a wolf's, but like a wolf's. They faded into nothing before they left the soft dirt of the bank, as if the huge hound they belonged to had vanished mid step.
It smelled like nothing he recognized. But old, older than this forest itself, and full of earth - wet, rotting leaves and mud beneath water, dry bones and grave dirt, moss in the rain.
He'd snapped a picture of the paw prints on his cellphone, and sent it to Stiles.
It's not that he was in favor of involving Scott's sidekick in pack affairs, he told himself. It took a bit of convincing. But it was just that going to the Argents was even less appealing, and he didn't get much in the way of wifi at the house.
It's not like he was going to ask Peter for the use of his personal hotspot.
He'd gotten a quick reply - wtf man, there giants in your family tree? - and then, an hour or so later, Dude, I'm gonna need more than the tracks.
He'd called Stiles on reflex.
"Do not go poking around by yourself!" he said, before Stiles had even properly answered his phone. "And do not bring Scott!" Then they'd be sure to fall in a ditch or break a leg or find something murderous.
"Hi, Derek, how are you? I'm fine, thanks, doing well."
"Don't even start with me. Just stay out of the preserve!"
"Look, do you have any idea how many supernatural things could leave a track like that? Besides werewolves, which, I'm assuming you would have recognized a werewolf track. Could be a black dog, or a hell hound, might be something traveling from a little further away, like one of the Cu Sith, or even a kitsune - did it look more like a hound or a fox? It was hard to tell in the picture. You need a better phone. I need to narrow it down, is what I'm saying."
"Stick to the your computer, Stiles, you're less likely to end up eaten." He was halfway to the car already - if he got to the Stilinski's first . . .
"Aw, grumpypup, it sounds like you actually care!"
"I do not . . . I don't want to have to deal with Scott moping if you get yourself hurt." He could hear Stiles snickering over the grinding of his own teeth.
He never had this sort of trouble with the wolves. Except for Scott. And he blamed Scott on Stiles, mostly.
"Never fear, I will scream like Jackson in sensitivity training and run back to the Jeep if I see anything with teeth bigger than a squirrel's." And he could hear the heavy door of Stile's Jeep slam closed, and the rustle of dry leaves under sneakers.
Derek straightened where he stood, one hand on the Camaro's door handle. "You're already in the woods? Damn it, Stiles . . ."
"Like I was going to wait for your permission, seriously. Gotta go now, stalking dangerous things in the woods." And Stiles hung up.
Stiles hung up. On him. That idiot.
* * *
This close to the road, the stream was barely more than a wet ditch, full of tumbled stones and fallen branches. A thick white fog clung to it, and Stiles kept far enough up the bank to keep from breaking an ankle.
He knew he wasn't as strong or as fast or as dangerous as the others. He wasn't Batman.
But he had eyes, and he was smarter than they thought he was. He wasn't useless. And after that whole thing with Gerard, and then the Alpha pack, and what happened to Erica and Boyd - he couldn't be a sidekick anymore. He couldn't be the hostage, the one watching as everyone else stepped up and made their stand.
This? This was research, and he was a fucking research rock star.
Overhead, hidden by the last of the autumn leaves and the wisps of rising fog, a murmuration of starlings muttered and whistled and chirped. He liked that - a murmuration. Because they never shut up. He'd always identified a bit with starlings.
The sound of their wings was a constant ruffle, even above the creaking of branches and the crunching leaves beneath his feet. So long as the noise kept up, he thought, there probably wasn't a giant monstrous dog stalking up behind him.
Though there might be a werewolf. Derek was sure to catch up with him soon.
That was more reassuring than it probably should have been. But there was no one out here but him and the birds, so he could admit it to himself.
"You can't call me lovesick," he told the starlings. "I am not that obvious. And he's a jerk, anyway."
The stream deepened as he followed it, wider now, faster. The water was steel and quicksilver beneath the fog.
Here, a massive branch was half buried in the dirt, wood rotted and overgrown. It created a sort of shelf on the side of the hill. Below it, the ground was soft and bare all the way down to the stream.
The tracks were clear, pressed deep in the mud. Derek's crappy cell phone picture hadn't done them justice.
Stiles squatted beside one, and placed his hand over it. His fingers didn't quite stretch far enough to cover it.
Around him, the starlings went still for a heartbeat, and he caught his breath. But they resumed, louder than before, like they were embarrassed at their hesitation over something as common place as a werewolf in this place.
"It's definitely not a kitsune," he said. Derek's shadow, diffuse as it was under the trees and the fog, loomed over his shoulder.
Stiles smiled briefly as Derek's shadow bowed its head. He was obviously trying not to explode out here where something might hear him shouting. Something, judging from the size of its feet, the size of that mechanical bull Stiles had dared Scott to ride last summer.
"I told you not to come out here," he finally said, so measured and expressionless he might as well be frothing at the mouth.
"I was already here," Stiles said, wiping his muddy hand on his jeans as he stood. "Didn't want to waste the gas."
He put on his brightest smirk as he turned to face Derek's scowl. "But hey, I didn't bring Scott. Give me a little credit."
Derek scowled a little harder, and was suddenly much, much closer. He fought the urge to lean back.
"If you'd just listen to me, I'd give you a lot more credit."
"But then I wouldn't be nearly as much fun, would I?" And maybe that came out a little bit more bitter than he'd planned, and maybe his teeth were bared in more of a grimace than a smile now, but whatever. His heart was beating harder than was healthy, he was sure.
Derek was looking down at him, his scowl slowly fading. Stiles blinked, and then Derek wasn't looming anymore. He was just standing, staring down at the mystery tracks.
"So what do you think it is," he asked, like a reasonable person. Stiles blinked again, and gave himself a full body shake.
"Might be a hell hound, but I think those are only supposed to leave tracks on stone. Do you smell anything? Sulfur maybe?"
"Not sulfur. It smells like a forest, but . . . condensed. And deeper."
Stiles pinched the bridge of his nose and squinted over at him. "It smells like a forest. Like the one we're standing in, but. Deeper."
Derek's shoulders shrugged beneath his jacket. "Like what's beneath a forest. Rotting vegetation and new growth. Cold water. Bones and blood. It smells old."
He put his hands of his hips, frowning down at the ground. "That's pleasant." A hound the size of a bull, that smelled like death, and also green, growing things. "And weird. That is deeply weird."
He raised his eyes, mouth open to suggest calling in Deaton's help, if not Allison's, but Derek was tensed tighter than a bowstring, eyes wide and staring through the trees on the other side of the stream.
Stiles' skin was crawling before he realized why - the starlings had gone silent.
* * *
He pulled Stiles with him, hand over his mouth just in case, and put his back to a tree. There was nothing he could do about the prints they'd left in the dirt, but getting out of sight was somehow much more important.
There was an instinct shivering in his blood, something he was entirely unused to. He was afraid of this thing. He felt like prey.
Stiles was still, unnaturally quiet, and Derek realized he'd pulled him tight against his chest. His heart was beating like a rabbit's underneath his arm.
Slowly, he relaxed his hold, but Stiles didn't pull away. He was barely breathing, but his back was straight, and his fists were clenched at his side.
There was a soft splash behind them, as something crossed the stream. It padded softly up the slope, barely audible even with his hearing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw it, an enormous, shaggy hound, moving easily between the trees.
Its tail was long and intricately braided, and its fur was as green as the moss on the rocks.
And then it was gone, vanished in the fog.
He could feel Stiles drawing breath to say something, and gave his arm a warning squeeze.
For a moment the forest was unnaturally silent.
And then a particularly bold starling gave a peculiarly grumpy mutter, and its whole flock answered him.
Stiles' fist thudded against his ribs as he turned, and his eyes were huge and bright. "Cu Sith," he hissed, all but jumping in place. "It's a Cu Sith! What the hell is it doing in Beacon Hills?"
"Stiles," Derek growled, catching his fist as he swung it again. "What is that?"
"I just said . . . " Stiles rolled his eyes. "It's a fairy dog. A barrow hound - though Lydia corrected that translation, she says barrow is obviously not the right word - anyway, it kidnaps nursing women and takes them to give milk for fairy babies." He slapped a hand to Derek's chest and turned. Took two steps and visibly wilted. Derek waited.
"But." Stiles looked over his shoulder. His jaw was tight, and his eyes had darkened with an all too familiar resignation.
"But?" Derek asked, keeping his voice level with an effort.
"They're also harbingers of death. They take the souls of the dead to the afterlife. And a Cu Sith's bark is so awful, so terrifying, that if you hear it bark three times before you can hide in a safe spot, you'll die. Of fright."
Derek stared at him. "A fairy dog. That scares you to death," he said. "It sounds like an old wives' tale."
"It is an old wives' tale," Stiles growled, and his eyes were suddenly full of fire. "The Cu Sith is a myth. Like werewolves. Like magic. Like half the things that lurk around my town these days."
His voice was rising as he stepped back towards Derek, hands flapping in agitation. "That doesn't mean it won't kill you!"
His shout echoed weirdly beneath the fogbound trees, and the flock of birds above erupted into furious flight. As the sound of their wings faded, Derek found himself holding Stiles' hands out away from their bodies, Stiles leaning in towards him, teeth bared and eyes a little desperate.
He couldn't help it.
* * *
He kissed him. Stiles didn't even try to free his hands, he was so shocked. Derek kissed him, hard and fast, and maybe it was the adrenaline, and maybe it was a reckless impulse, but Stiles kissed him back.
He kissed him back with a truly embarrassing fervor, brain whiting out, good sense dribbling away like there was a hole in his head. He kissed him.
And then there was a sound like the sky cracking apart, like the world crumbling.
They jumped apart like they'd been yanked by burning wire, and stared. Six feet from them, braided tale wagging slowly, the Cu Sith stepped out of the fog.
Stiles forced his brain to work. "It barked," he said. His voice was very small. The hound's eyes were a hypnotic golden green, and they were staring right at him.
Derek's hand fisted in his shirt. "It barks three times?"
"And then you die." Stiles couldn't stop staring back at the hound.
Derek was wolfing out even as he shoved Stiles down the slope, towards the stream. "Then run," he growled, and he crouched in front of the Cu Sith.
"You can't fight it!" Stiles yelled, even as he scrambled to keep his feet. There was blood on his shoulder, caught by Derek's claws. Derek was already leaping forward, swinging his claws through the green hound's throat.
It was as if he'd attacked the fog.
Derek tumbled, rolled back to his feet, and took off running, all in one motion. "Hide!" he yelled, and he was gone.
The Cu Sith's great eyes gleamed. Then it took off after Derek, dissipating in a swirl of green and gold.
Stiles ran.
His feet sank in the soft mud by the stream, so he ran out of his shoes. His socks didn't last long either, soaked and caught on sticks and rocks. Barefoot, he slipped on leaves and left blood behind, but he ran. It felt like his brain was short circuiting. It felt like sparks were breaking against the inside of his skull.
The forest had never seemed so open. The lack of undergrowth had never been so apparent. There was no place to hide.
The Cu Sith barked for a second time. It was just as close, just as shatteringly loud. Stiles fell, hard, against the dirt and shuddered as his bones resonated with the sound.
He picked himself up with difficulty, swaying to his feet like he'd been drinking. He didn't know which way he'd been running, what direction he'd been facing. All the trees felt like fun house mirrors, hiding the only way out.
But there, there, was a pile of rocks, covered in moss and half hidden by the lightning struck trunk of a gray old tree. And there was a cleft in that pile of rocks, dark and deep and hidden.
Stiles stumbled to it, stuck his arm in as far as it would reach. He touched only empty space.
* * *
Derek wasn't used to running. Not away, like this. Not from. But the drive to fight and stand his ground had been overtaken by something older, and far more powerful - the drive to run and hide.
Half buried by that instinct was the thought of Stiles, shocked and frozen against him. The noise Stiles made when he kissed him, the heat of his mouth and the hungry twist of his wrists trapped in his hands. The thought burned at the bottom of his heart.
And so he ran away. Away from Stiles, away from the stream. The Cu Sith would follow him. He willed it to.
He knew this forest better than anyone alive. And there, there it was, the huge old walnut, straight and tall and still holding up its crown of dying leaves.
He went straight up, higher than anything with as much mass as a werewolf had should have been able to climb. He flattened himself to a swaying branch and held on.
The fog stretched ghostly arms around the trunk, softening the ground in wisps and veils. But up here the air was clear and cold. The breeze carried his scent away.
And the Cu Sith barked, for the last time.
He nearly fell from his perch; his heart nearly gave out. Leaves fell all around him as the walnut quaked to the overwhelming sound.
But he lived.
For a long time, nothing moved. The forest was silent.
And then, at the foot of the tree, he saw the Cu Sith pace deliberately out of the fog. It sat on its haunches, braided tail wrapped all the way around its feet. It looked up, and Derek knew there weren't enough leaves left to hide him.
But the great hound's tongue lolled. It got to its feet with a shake of its shaggy green fur, and walked away. Long before it should have been, it was lost to sight - part of the fog and the forest.
By the time Derek pulled his claws from the wood and dropped to the ground, he couldn't even smell the Cu Sith anymore.
"Stiles," he said, and ran again.
* * *
Stiles failed to remember, for a really long time, that he had a flashlight hooked on his key chain. This was the sort of thing he would only ever tell Scott, really.
It was blinding, at first, that brilliantly blue LED light, and he threw up a hand against it.
Squinting as he turned it away from his face, Stiles found he'd gone much farther underground than he'd thought possible - the cave was narrow and twisty, and sloped sharply down to where he stood. There was water, twelve, fifteen feet in front of him, black and still and spread out as far as his light would reach. But that was it. There weren't even any bats - the floor of the cave was as clean as stone could be expected to be.
It made Stiles deeply, entirely, uncomfortable.
He backed away from the dark water, up the twisted slope he'd fled down in his panic.
"I'll just. . . be leaving now," he said to no one. His voice was alien in this place. Unwelcome. "I have to go . . . find Derek."
Something kept him from running. Something kept him from turning his back. He crept backwards, all the way out, one hand pressed to the wall of the cleft as it narrowed around him, until he could feel the cool breeze, and hear starlings.
Of course, that's when a clawed hand wrapped around his upper arm, and he screeched like a spider had fallen on his head.
"Derek fucking Hale," he yelled as soon as he could breathe. "Don't do that, ever again!"
Derek said nothing, just pulled him into a smothering hug. "It's gone. The Cu Sith. It's not in this forest anymore."
Stiles tried twice before he could make his words work. Derek was warm against him. "Well. It only barks three times, so . . . I guess we're safe."
And didn't that set off alarms in the back of his mind.
But Stiles closed his eyes. He let his head fall against Derek's broad shoulder, and said, very quietly, knowing Derek would hear him, "For now, at least."
fin
Author: snarkydame
Recipient: thelustydragon
Pairings: Derek/Stiles
Rating: R
Word Count: 3500
Warnings: some supernatural creepiness, but nothing else to mention.
Summary: Something very old and very powerful comes through the forest, catching Derek's suspicions and Stiles' interest.
Author's Notes: Thanks to the mods for being super nice, and thanks, M, for the last minute beta work. thelustydragon, I hope this doesn't disappoint.
* * *
There had never been light here, of any kind, ever. Not even those creepy glowing fungi or bioluminescent bugs or anything. He was sure of that, because the darkness felt too old, too cold, and too heavy to have ever been anything else.
Of course, Lydia would scoff at the way he arrived at that conclusion, but she'd agree with him. In theory.
He could hear water, somewhere in front of him. Dropping every thirty seconds, regular as clockwork. Judging from the echoes, it was splashing down from somewhere very, very high.
He stood still. His feet were bare, just this side of frozen on what had to be stone. The cuffs of his jeans brushed against his heels - the crawling discomfort of clammy denim was really adding to the ambiance of this place.
He didn't want to move. He could just retrace his steps, back out, find the light and the warmth and the real world, but . . . he'd been in something of a blind panic. He wasn't sure which way he'd run. And now, his subconscious was picturing bottomless pits and jagged stalagmites, deep motionless pools of the sort of water blind, tentacled monsters called home - all around him, waiting to deal him a messy, horrifying death.
Under the weight of the cold and the dark he could feel bruises, all down his right side. His palms were scraped - he could feel the sting of dirt in broken skin. And there was a warmth, slowly spreading down his arm from high on his right shoulder.
Oh right. He was bleeding.
"Perfect, Stiles. You've got this all under control," he said. In the darkness, his voice barely registered at all.
* * *
There was something in the woods. Something bristled deep inside of him, and he could feel his eyes glow red. Something in his territory, something big. Something that didn't belong there.
Yesterday, there were paw prints on the edge of a stream. Huge prints, as wide as his hand. Not a wolf's, but like a wolf's. They faded into nothing before they left the soft dirt of the bank, as if the huge hound they belonged to had vanished mid step.
It smelled like nothing he recognized. But old, older than this forest itself, and full of earth - wet, rotting leaves and mud beneath water, dry bones and grave dirt, moss in the rain.
He'd snapped a picture of the paw prints on his cellphone, and sent it to Stiles.
It's not that he was in favor of involving Scott's sidekick in pack affairs, he told himself. It took a bit of convincing. But it was just that going to the Argents was even less appealing, and he didn't get much in the way of wifi at the house.
It's not like he was going to ask Peter for the use of his personal hotspot.
He'd gotten a quick reply - wtf man, there giants in your family tree? - and then, an hour or so later, Dude, I'm gonna need more than the tracks.
He'd called Stiles on reflex.
"Do not go poking around by yourself!" he said, before Stiles had even properly answered his phone. "And do not bring Scott!" Then they'd be sure to fall in a ditch or break a leg or find something murderous.
"Hi, Derek, how are you? I'm fine, thanks, doing well."
"Don't even start with me. Just stay out of the preserve!"
"Look, do you have any idea how many supernatural things could leave a track like that? Besides werewolves, which, I'm assuming you would have recognized a werewolf track. Could be a black dog, or a hell hound, might be something traveling from a little further away, like one of the Cu Sith, or even a kitsune - did it look more like a hound or a fox? It was hard to tell in the picture. You need a better phone. I need to narrow it down, is what I'm saying."
"Stick to the your computer, Stiles, you're less likely to end up eaten." He was halfway to the car already - if he got to the Stilinski's first . . .
"Aw, grumpypup, it sounds like you actually care!"
"I do not . . . I don't want to have to deal with Scott moping if you get yourself hurt." He could hear Stiles snickering over the grinding of his own teeth.
He never had this sort of trouble with the wolves. Except for Scott. And he blamed Scott on Stiles, mostly.
"Never fear, I will scream like Jackson in sensitivity training and run back to the Jeep if I see anything with teeth bigger than a squirrel's." And he could hear the heavy door of Stile's Jeep slam closed, and the rustle of dry leaves under sneakers.
Derek straightened where he stood, one hand on the Camaro's door handle. "You're already in the woods? Damn it, Stiles . . ."
"Like I was going to wait for your permission, seriously. Gotta go now, stalking dangerous things in the woods." And Stiles hung up.
Stiles hung up. On him. That idiot.
* * *
This close to the road, the stream was barely more than a wet ditch, full of tumbled stones and fallen branches. A thick white fog clung to it, and Stiles kept far enough up the bank to keep from breaking an ankle.
He knew he wasn't as strong or as fast or as dangerous as the others. He wasn't Batman.
But he had eyes, and he was smarter than they thought he was. He wasn't useless. And after that whole thing with Gerard, and then the Alpha pack, and what happened to Erica and Boyd - he couldn't be a sidekick anymore. He couldn't be the hostage, the one watching as everyone else stepped up and made their stand.
This? This was research, and he was a fucking research rock star.
Overhead, hidden by the last of the autumn leaves and the wisps of rising fog, a murmuration of starlings muttered and whistled and chirped. He liked that - a murmuration. Because they never shut up. He'd always identified a bit with starlings.
The sound of their wings was a constant ruffle, even above the creaking of branches and the crunching leaves beneath his feet. So long as the noise kept up, he thought, there probably wasn't a giant monstrous dog stalking up behind him.
Though there might be a werewolf. Derek was sure to catch up with him soon.
That was more reassuring than it probably should have been. But there was no one out here but him and the birds, so he could admit it to himself.
"You can't call me lovesick," he told the starlings. "I am not that obvious. And he's a jerk, anyway."
The stream deepened as he followed it, wider now, faster. The water was steel and quicksilver beneath the fog.
Here, a massive branch was half buried in the dirt, wood rotted and overgrown. It created a sort of shelf on the side of the hill. Below it, the ground was soft and bare all the way down to the stream.
The tracks were clear, pressed deep in the mud. Derek's crappy cell phone picture hadn't done them justice.
Stiles squatted beside one, and placed his hand over it. His fingers didn't quite stretch far enough to cover it.
Around him, the starlings went still for a heartbeat, and he caught his breath. But they resumed, louder than before, like they were embarrassed at their hesitation over something as common place as a werewolf in this place.
"It's definitely not a kitsune," he said. Derek's shadow, diffuse as it was under the trees and the fog, loomed over his shoulder.
Stiles smiled briefly as Derek's shadow bowed its head. He was obviously trying not to explode out here where something might hear him shouting. Something, judging from the size of its feet, the size of that mechanical bull Stiles had dared Scott to ride last summer.
"I told you not to come out here," he finally said, so measured and expressionless he might as well be frothing at the mouth.
"I was already here," Stiles said, wiping his muddy hand on his jeans as he stood. "Didn't want to waste the gas."
He put on his brightest smirk as he turned to face Derek's scowl. "But hey, I didn't bring Scott. Give me a little credit."
Derek scowled a little harder, and was suddenly much, much closer. He fought the urge to lean back.
"If you'd just listen to me, I'd give you a lot more credit."
"But then I wouldn't be nearly as much fun, would I?" And maybe that came out a little bit more bitter than he'd planned, and maybe his teeth were bared in more of a grimace than a smile now, but whatever. His heart was beating harder than was healthy, he was sure.
Derek was looking down at him, his scowl slowly fading. Stiles blinked, and then Derek wasn't looming anymore. He was just standing, staring down at the mystery tracks.
"So what do you think it is," he asked, like a reasonable person. Stiles blinked again, and gave himself a full body shake.
"Might be a hell hound, but I think those are only supposed to leave tracks on stone. Do you smell anything? Sulfur maybe?"
"Not sulfur. It smells like a forest, but . . . condensed. And deeper."
Stiles pinched the bridge of his nose and squinted over at him. "It smells like a forest. Like the one we're standing in, but. Deeper."
Derek's shoulders shrugged beneath his jacket. "Like what's beneath a forest. Rotting vegetation and new growth. Cold water. Bones and blood. It smells old."
He put his hands of his hips, frowning down at the ground. "That's pleasant." A hound the size of a bull, that smelled like death, and also green, growing things. "And weird. That is deeply weird."
He raised his eyes, mouth open to suggest calling in Deaton's help, if not Allison's, but Derek was tensed tighter than a bowstring, eyes wide and staring through the trees on the other side of the stream.
Stiles' skin was crawling before he realized why - the starlings had gone silent.
* * *
He pulled Stiles with him, hand over his mouth just in case, and put his back to a tree. There was nothing he could do about the prints they'd left in the dirt, but getting out of sight was somehow much more important.
There was an instinct shivering in his blood, something he was entirely unused to. He was afraid of this thing. He felt like prey.
Stiles was still, unnaturally quiet, and Derek realized he'd pulled him tight against his chest. His heart was beating like a rabbit's underneath his arm.
Slowly, he relaxed his hold, but Stiles didn't pull away. He was barely breathing, but his back was straight, and his fists were clenched at his side.
There was a soft splash behind them, as something crossed the stream. It padded softly up the slope, barely audible even with his hearing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw it, an enormous, shaggy hound, moving easily between the trees.
Its tail was long and intricately braided, and its fur was as green as the moss on the rocks.
And then it was gone, vanished in the fog.
He could feel Stiles drawing breath to say something, and gave his arm a warning squeeze.
For a moment the forest was unnaturally silent.
And then a particularly bold starling gave a peculiarly grumpy mutter, and its whole flock answered him.
Stiles' fist thudded against his ribs as he turned, and his eyes were huge and bright. "Cu Sith," he hissed, all but jumping in place. "It's a Cu Sith! What the hell is it doing in Beacon Hills?"
"Stiles," Derek growled, catching his fist as he swung it again. "What is that?"
"I just said . . . " Stiles rolled his eyes. "It's a fairy dog. A barrow hound - though Lydia corrected that translation, she says barrow is obviously not the right word - anyway, it kidnaps nursing women and takes them to give milk for fairy babies." He slapped a hand to Derek's chest and turned. Took two steps and visibly wilted. Derek waited.
"But." Stiles looked over his shoulder. His jaw was tight, and his eyes had darkened with an all too familiar resignation.
"But?" Derek asked, keeping his voice level with an effort.
"They're also harbingers of death. They take the souls of the dead to the afterlife. And a Cu Sith's bark is so awful, so terrifying, that if you hear it bark three times before you can hide in a safe spot, you'll die. Of fright."
Derek stared at him. "A fairy dog. That scares you to death," he said. "It sounds like an old wives' tale."
"It is an old wives' tale," Stiles growled, and his eyes were suddenly full of fire. "The Cu Sith is a myth. Like werewolves. Like magic. Like half the things that lurk around my town these days."
His voice was rising as he stepped back towards Derek, hands flapping in agitation. "That doesn't mean it won't kill you!"
His shout echoed weirdly beneath the fogbound trees, and the flock of birds above erupted into furious flight. As the sound of their wings faded, Derek found himself holding Stiles' hands out away from their bodies, Stiles leaning in towards him, teeth bared and eyes a little desperate.
He couldn't help it.
* * *
He kissed him. Stiles didn't even try to free his hands, he was so shocked. Derek kissed him, hard and fast, and maybe it was the adrenaline, and maybe it was a reckless impulse, but Stiles kissed him back.
He kissed him back with a truly embarrassing fervor, brain whiting out, good sense dribbling away like there was a hole in his head. He kissed him.
And then there was a sound like the sky cracking apart, like the world crumbling.
They jumped apart like they'd been yanked by burning wire, and stared. Six feet from them, braided tale wagging slowly, the Cu Sith stepped out of the fog.
Stiles forced his brain to work. "It barked," he said. His voice was very small. The hound's eyes were a hypnotic golden green, and they were staring right at him.
Derek's hand fisted in his shirt. "It barks three times?"
"And then you die." Stiles couldn't stop staring back at the hound.
Derek was wolfing out even as he shoved Stiles down the slope, towards the stream. "Then run," he growled, and he crouched in front of the Cu Sith.
"You can't fight it!" Stiles yelled, even as he scrambled to keep his feet. There was blood on his shoulder, caught by Derek's claws. Derek was already leaping forward, swinging his claws through the green hound's throat.
It was as if he'd attacked the fog.
Derek tumbled, rolled back to his feet, and took off running, all in one motion. "Hide!" he yelled, and he was gone.
The Cu Sith's great eyes gleamed. Then it took off after Derek, dissipating in a swirl of green and gold.
Stiles ran.
His feet sank in the soft mud by the stream, so he ran out of his shoes. His socks didn't last long either, soaked and caught on sticks and rocks. Barefoot, he slipped on leaves and left blood behind, but he ran. It felt like his brain was short circuiting. It felt like sparks were breaking against the inside of his skull.
The forest had never seemed so open. The lack of undergrowth had never been so apparent. There was no place to hide.
The Cu Sith barked for a second time. It was just as close, just as shatteringly loud. Stiles fell, hard, against the dirt and shuddered as his bones resonated with the sound.
He picked himself up with difficulty, swaying to his feet like he'd been drinking. He didn't know which way he'd been running, what direction he'd been facing. All the trees felt like fun house mirrors, hiding the only way out.
But there, there, was a pile of rocks, covered in moss and half hidden by the lightning struck trunk of a gray old tree. And there was a cleft in that pile of rocks, dark and deep and hidden.
Stiles stumbled to it, stuck his arm in as far as it would reach. He touched only empty space.
* * *
Derek wasn't used to running. Not away, like this. Not from. But the drive to fight and stand his ground had been overtaken by something older, and far more powerful - the drive to run and hide.
Half buried by that instinct was the thought of Stiles, shocked and frozen against him. The noise Stiles made when he kissed him, the heat of his mouth and the hungry twist of his wrists trapped in his hands. The thought burned at the bottom of his heart.
And so he ran away. Away from Stiles, away from the stream. The Cu Sith would follow him. He willed it to.
He knew this forest better than anyone alive. And there, there it was, the huge old walnut, straight and tall and still holding up its crown of dying leaves.
He went straight up, higher than anything with as much mass as a werewolf had should have been able to climb. He flattened himself to a swaying branch and held on.
The fog stretched ghostly arms around the trunk, softening the ground in wisps and veils. But up here the air was clear and cold. The breeze carried his scent away.
And the Cu Sith barked, for the last time.
He nearly fell from his perch; his heart nearly gave out. Leaves fell all around him as the walnut quaked to the overwhelming sound.
But he lived.
For a long time, nothing moved. The forest was silent.
And then, at the foot of the tree, he saw the Cu Sith pace deliberately out of the fog. It sat on its haunches, braided tail wrapped all the way around its feet. It looked up, and Derek knew there weren't enough leaves left to hide him.
But the great hound's tongue lolled. It got to its feet with a shake of its shaggy green fur, and walked away. Long before it should have been, it was lost to sight - part of the fog and the forest.
By the time Derek pulled his claws from the wood and dropped to the ground, he couldn't even smell the Cu Sith anymore.
"Stiles," he said, and ran again.
* * *
Stiles failed to remember, for a really long time, that he had a flashlight hooked on his key chain. This was the sort of thing he would only ever tell Scott, really.
It was blinding, at first, that brilliantly blue LED light, and he threw up a hand against it.
Squinting as he turned it away from his face, Stiles found he'd gone much farther underground than he'd thought possible - the cave was narrow and twisty, and sloped sharply down to where he stood. There was water, twelve, fifteen feet in front of him, black and still and spread out as far as his light would reach. But that was it. There weren't even any bats - the floor of the cave was as clean as stone could be expected to be.
It made Stiles deeply, entirely, uncomfortable.
He backed away from the dark water, up the twisted slope he'd fled down in his panic.
"I'll just. . . be leaving now," he said to no one. His voice was alien in this place. Unwelcome. "I have to go . . . find Derek."
Something kept him from running. Something kept him from turning his back. He crept backwards, all the way out, one hand pressed to the wall of the cleft as it narrowed around him, until he could feel the cool breeze, and hear starlings.
Of course, that's when a clawed hand wrapped around his upper arm, and he screeched like a spider had fallen on his head.
"Derek fucking Hale," he yelled as soon as he could breathe. "Don't do that, ever again!"
Derek said nothing, just pulled him into a smothering hug. "It's gone. The Cu Sith. It's not in this forest anymore."
Stiles tried twice before he could make his words work. Derek was warm against him. "Well. It only barks three times, so . . . I guess we're safe."
And didn't that set off alarms in the back of his mind.
But Stiles closed his eyes. He let his head fall against Derek's broad shoulder, and said, very quietly, knowing Derek would hear him, "For now, at least."
fin