Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It started sometime in the late afternoon, just another ordinary spring day. Thick clouds drifted lazily across the sky, dimming the sun and shielding Stiles' mole-dotted skin.

He muttered to himself as he stomped through ankle-high grass, arms flailing in dramatic frustration. The blades brushed against his legs with every step.

"Stupid Sourwolf, playing games with my stupid heart," he grumbled, swatting at the tall flowers crowding his path. A gust of pollen caught him in the mouth, and he gagged, coughing until his chest heaved.

Still, he trudged forward, sneakers slipping on patches of mud as he stepped deeper into the trees.

He hadn't even known the woods stretched this far. After all they'd hiked through, he figured they'd be near the edge by now—civilization, a parking lot, something. But no. Just endless trees. And still no sign of Moonshade Root.

"I thought we'd be together," he huffed between breaths. "So far, I'm by myself and smell like a swamp. I deserve a shower and maybe a pizza."

He ducked under a low-hanging branch, still grumbling under his breath.

The shade was a relief—cooler, quieter—but the wind kicked up dirt that clung to his arms and face. He made a mental note to write, in bold and underlined letters: Never trust Derek Hale when he says 'quick trip to the woods' or 'let's split up.'

Then again... it wasn't like he'd had a chance to say no.

Hours earlier, Derek had burst through the loft door, hair a mess, cheeks a little pink, a heavy book tucked under one arm, and dirt on his hands like he'd run from Deaton's dusty library.

A wild gleam lit his eyes, unfocused and thrilled. He didn't even say hello before blurting, "Stiles, I think I found something."

Stiles had hardly sat up before Derek dropped the book onto the table with a loud thud. He flipped it to a marked page, revealing a delicate illustration of pale, curling blossoms. 

Nestled between the pages was a shriveled root—dark and dry, its twisted form traced with faint silver veins.

Derek traced it with the tip of his finger, careful not to break the fragile piece. His voice rang with amazement. "Moonshade Root," he said. "It's real. Or it was. Deaton's notes say it hasn't grown in decades, but there are signs, and it only appears in places soaked in emotional or magical residue."

He looked up at Stiles, eyes bright with urgency. "It could be growing near the quarry line." He didn't wait for a response, the words tumbling faster now. "It helps during full moons. It calms everything down and makes the shift smoother. It could ease the pain for younger wolves, stop the panic before it starts. It might even..." His voice dipped, more uncertain. "It might help me, too."

Stiles had just stared at him.

Derek Hale—king of brooding silences and three-word conversations—was lit up like a damn Christmas tree over a magical plant. His hands moved when he talked, clumsy and animated. He paced, flipping through pages to cross-reference sketches and scribbles, unable to stop.

It was adorable. Unfairly adorable.

So when Derek looked him in the eye, buzzing with restless energy, and said, "Will you come with me? It'll be quick, I swear," in a voice far too soft for Stiles' heart to handle...

There wasn't a chance in hell he was saying no.

That's why Stiles was here—hiking uneven terrain with muddy sneakers and bug-bitten ankles. And beside him, Derek walked like a man on a mission—focused and determined, the perfect wilderness guide.

Derek was in his element—sort of. His damp shirt sleeves were pushed up, backpack strapped across his chest and packed with gear. He kept glancing at the old, creased map in his hand and muttering things like "topographical changes" and "moonshade root cluster zones," which made exactly zero sense to Stiles but sounded so hot coming out of Derek's mouth that he didn't care.

Still, the excitement hadn't faded. If anything, Derek was buzzing even harder now that they were out in the field, sniffing at the air occasionally, crouching to examine the ground like a wolf-shaped botanist on a mission. It would've been ridiculous, but Stiles could tell how much it meant to him. He felt it in every hurried step and in how Derek kept glancing back to make sure Stiles hadn't tripped or wandered off.

Rude. Stiles had only tripped twice—maybe three times—and wandered off once. Okay, twice.

"You're sure it's out here?" he asked, swatting a mosquito. "Because if this ends with me faceplanting into a poison ivy patch and you saying 'my bad,' I'm suing for emotional damage."

Derek didn't even glance up. "It's here. I can feel it."

That should've been ominous. It should've sent a chill down his spine or something. But the way Derek said it, with that sure, steady voice and a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Stiles felt safe. Even if they didn't find the root today, it didn't matter. Derek glowed, and for once, Stiles stood in the warmth.

They hiked deeper until the ground began to slope. The trees crowded in close like they were listening. The air thickened with moss and damp earth, laced with a sharp, metallic scent that clung to Stiles' throat.

Every step kicked up the smell of old leaves and decay. It wasn't scary, exactly, but the stillness felt wrong. It was the kind of quiet that pressed against his ears and made his skin prickle, like the forest was holding its breath. Watching.

Derek paused, crouched, running fingers through dirt as if reading it. "We're close," he said quietly. "The energy's shifted."

Stiles raised an eyebrow. "You mean cursed witch vibes, or ‘I just stepped into an ancient druid murder circle' vibes?"

Derek shot him a flat look that didn't stick. There was too much excitement in his eyes, barely contained even now.

"The field splits up ahead," he explained, straightening. "It curves around the old ridge. If we take both paths, we'll cover more ground."

Stiles' stomach twisted. A strange buzzing thrummed under his skin. "You mean... split up?" he whispered.

He caught the flicker of hesitation in Derek's eyes. His brows tightened like he was wrestling with something. Derek hated leaving him alone—Stiles knew that—but here, in this place, something else was pulling at him. Stiles felt it too. The quiet, magnetic draw beneath their feet. Derek's jaw clenched, a silent battle behind that sharp gaze.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low and tense. "Only for a few minutes. I'll stay close. If you find anything—roots, markings, old structures—shout. I'll hear you." Even in those words, Stiles could hear the edge of protectiveness struggling against the lure of whatever they'd come looking for.

Derek's eyes locked onto his, calm and sure, a silent promise. He reached out, fingers brushing Stiles' arm—deliberate and grounding. Then came the small, confident nod, an unspoken I've got you.

Stiles chewed on the inside of his cheek, glancing at the path splitting between the trees. "I don't know, man. Something about this place feels... off."

Derek stepped closer, his hand firm on Stiles’ arm. Not just a touch—an anchor.

“Stiles, I won’t go far,” Derek said. “I’ll take the path to the left. You stay in the clearing on the right. If anything feels off—even a little—just yell. I’ll hear you.”

He nodded, a knot of worry in his chest. He didn’t love the situation—Derek’s tunnel vision made him uneasy—but he couldn’t help admiring that intensity. He loved him for it.

Derek was already turning, moving towards his path, every muscle alert and careful.

It wasn't like he'd wanted Derek to see him getting all jumpy over a bunch of trees. So here he was—sneezing, alone, and walking deeper into unfamiliar woods—just because Derek had pointed and Stiles had followed, grumbling and stomping the whole way.

The farther he walked, the heavier everything felt. Birdsong faded first, like someone turning down the forest's volume. Just minutes ago, the trees had swayed, their leaves whispering in a steady rhythm. Now the air felt too still—like the forest itself was bracing for something.

He paused in the clearing Derek had mentioned, scanning the underbrush for anything remotely root-shaped. But the longer he searched, the tighter his chest grew.

Something felt wrong.

The grass here was flattened in strange, spiraling patterns, like too many people had stood in a tight circle. The air hung heavy with the smell of wet soil and something acrid beneath it, like old blood clinging to stone.

Stiles edged forward, each step slow and careful. His sneaker sank into something wet—but not mud. It was thicker. Darker. It clung to the rubber sole like it wanted to pull him under. He didn't dare look down.

Then he heard it.

A whisper.

So soft it could've been the wind threading through the trees. But it wasn't. It carried weight. Purpose. Malice.

"...Stiles..."

He froze, breath hitching, heart pounding so hard it hammered against his chest like a warning drum. It started as a breath. Then a gust swirled close to his ear. Not cold, but suffocating—like something pressing in, leaning just beyond the edge of sight.

"Come here."

He spun around, hand searching for a weapon that wasn't there. Nothing but trees, moss, and an empty, uncaring sky. Something skittered down his back, the phantom brush of fingers that left no mark.

"Very funny, Derek," he called, voice trembling but trying to sound brave. "Real mature. You're lucky I'm not peeing my pants."

No answer came.

He took another step—and then saw it.

Half-buried behind a fallen log, wrapped in vines and decay, the earth was scorched in a perfect, unnatural circle. Blackened burn marks gouged deep into the soil. Jagged symbols carved into the surrounding stones, some smeared and raw like fresh wounds, as if etched by frantic, desperate hands.

Bones lay scattered—animal or human, he dared not guess—many shattered, hollowed, remnants of something long dead and violently disturbed.

The weight of the place pressed down on him, suffocating, ancient, merciless.

Bile clawed at his throat, hot and bitter, but he forced it down as a cold shiver crawled up his spine. The wind slammed through again, harsher this time, dragging him forward against his will.

"Stiles."

This time, it wasn't a whisper. It was a voice. Familiar, low, and safe.

Derek. Only Derek wasn't here. Not behind him. Not to his right. Nowhere within sight.

"Come here," the voice called again, sweet and coaxing, but beneath the softness lurked something sickly smooth.

Stiles' chest tightened, squeezing the breath from his lungs. "Nope. Nope, that's—that's a big ol' red flag."

But his feet refused to obey, rooted deep like vines twisting into the earth, holding him hostage.

He swallowed hard, heart hammering so fast it felt like it would burst out of his chest. Panic welled up from his stomach, razor-edged and unyielding.

When he looked up, really looked, his breath hitched as the shadows between the trees shifted, writhing like living things.

Something was watching. Waiting. Patient and ravenous, just beyond the edge of sight.

The whispering started again, low and soft, like a breeze teasing leaves—then sharper, more urgent, curling around his thoughts like thick smoke.

"Come to me."

The voice tugged at something deep inside him, drawing him onward into the woods, even as every instinct screamed at him to run.

The forest pressed from all sides. The air hung dense and suffocating, closing around him like a living cage. Every path twisted back on itself, every tree warped and bent until nothing made sense anymore.

Stiles was lost—trapped inside a nightmare maze with no escape. His breath came in ragged gasps, the world narrowing to sound and fear and the rush beneath his skin.

And through it all, the voice called— “This way."

Time didn't stretch; it shattered. Hours folded over one another like worn pages in a forgotten book. The sun, if it had ever pierced the gray clouds, was lost somewhere in a sky that refused to shift or change.

He stumbled through the forest, but the trees betrayed him. Every path led cruelly back to where he'd started, and each landmark looked familiar before turning strange. This wasn't a place anymore. It was a trap. A suffocating, endless maze designed to swallow him whole.

His breath came in broken gasps, fogging the sudden wall of cold air as it mingled with the scent of earth and decay. The ground beneath him shifted unpredictably. One moment it was soft and sucking with mud, the next it turned jagged with twigs and stone, as though the woods were breathing beneath his feet.

"Come here," the voice hissed, never far, never silent. It was never the same tone twice. Sometimes silky and coaxing, other times harsh and hungry—but always laced with that impossible familiarity that made his skin crawl.

Stiles tried to scream back. He tried to call out for Derek or his packmates. But his voice cracked, lost among the trunks and dead leaves.

Hours bled into one another. His legs grew heavier with every step, muscles screaming under skin torn by thorns and branches. His sneakers were soaked through, caked in mud that seemed to seep up from the ground itself. Cold crept deeper into his bones. He wiped dirt and sweat from his face, but grime always returned, clinging like a second skin he couldn't shed.

His fingers trembled as they brushed against the faint carvings on ancient trees. The woods seemed to pulse with the memory of the ritual, its dark energy whispering secrets no human should ever hear.

Each time Stiles thought he'd found a way out, the trees shifted. The same path stretched endlessly ahead, the same choking silence pressing in.

His mind frayed. Memories blurred: the ritual, the strange symbols, Derek's urgent voice. Were they real, or just ghosts haunting the edges of his sanity?

Then the fall came fast and brutal.

His foot caught on a root buried beneath a crackling carpet of leaves. Time seemed to halt as he pitched forward, tumbling uncontrollably down the steep slope. His hands scrambled at the dirt and knotted growth, desperate to stop the fall, but the earth surged up to meet him like an avalanche.

His temple slammed hard against a sharp rock, a white-hot explosion of pain blasting through his skull. Stars burst behind his closed eyes, and everything tipped into dizzying blackness.

Through the fog of agony and vertigo, the voice pierced the dark—closer now.

"Stiles."

Cold sweat slicked his skin. His breath came out shallow, heart pounding like it was trying to break through his ribcage and run.

Mud oozed from his ears, slick and chilling, dripping down his filthy, torn clothes. Each heavy drop thudded against the cracked earth below his shaking hands.

He couldn't run anymore—not really. He was barely holding together, staggering forward with every breath, muscles shaking as he fought to keep himself upright. The gnarled trees loomed like claws, threatening to drag him into endless darkness.

Stiles stumbled again, collapsing hard onto the freezing, uneven ground. Pain shot through his body with every impact, breath knocked out of him as he lay gasping, the world spinning dangerously out of control. The forest fell into crushing silence, unnatural and suffocating.

Then came the sound: A sickening, wet crack ripped through the night like bones breaking. Something monstrous unfurled its jaws—wide, impossibly wide—slow and deliberate, each movement dripping with lethal intent, ready to snap shut and crush with savage force.

"Come to me." The pretense fell away, the voice becoming a snarl.

Stiles’ stomach tightened in wild terror. Unless he moved and got up right now, he was going to get torn apart like a midnight snack someone forgot to hide.

His fingers pressed at the throbbing pain in his head. A whine escaped his lips, but he forced himself up into a sitting position. Every blink sent the world spinning like a carnival ride, churning his stomach with nausea.

"Don't kill me, don't kill me, don't kill me," he chanted.

Finally, he saw it—an impossible nightmare hovering just ahead. Not quite solid, its form flickered like smoke in the cold air. It looked like a man, distorted, with limbs stretched and bent at unnatural angles. Its mouth was a ragged, blood-streaked maw, teeth misshapen and too many, stretched wide in a grotesque grin. The jaw flexed wetly, hungry and slick, dripping dark saliva that seemed to burn the air.

There were no real eyes—just empty sockets glowing with cold, ancient hunger that gnawed at his soul. The creature's presence pressed down like a storm that never ended, bending shadows and twisting silence into something alive and waiting.

Stiles jerked back, terror sending him stumbling and crashing down for the third damn time. This time he hit the ground flat on his back, eyes snapping wide to the black sky as fresh, stabbing pain exploded in a new part of his skull.

He tried to scream, “This is not the end of Stiles Stilinski…” but his words stumbled.

A soft voice cut through the chaos: "Stiles, it's okay." The voice was calm and gentle, heartbreakingly his favorite to hear.

Stiles' eyes fluttered shut, but even in the darkness, he saw a face: soft, warm, with a smile that promised safety. It was Derek, or at least something wearing Derek's face. It was the shadow of a man reshaped by something starving.

Just beyond the edges of that nightmare, Stiles sensed the real Derek standing firm and alive, reaching through the darkness with reassuring hands to pull him back.

A sudden voice broke through his haze. “Hey—where’s the fuckface who took you?”

Stiles' ears twitched, his pulse spiking as he cracked his eyes open just enough to catch Erica—fierce, angry—cutting through the forest with growls echoing behind her.

Everything fractured as blackness swallowed him whole.

Time lost all meaning after that. The world slipped in and out of focus, broken into flashes and fragments. Stiles wasn't sure how long he'd been out, but every time he surfaced, it was like breaching lead-filled water—slow, disoriented, painful.

Sounds came first. A whimper. Harsh whispering. Rapid, uneven breathing.

The pain came after, ripping through his body like fire racing along a frayed wire. Even blinking felt unbearable.

Somewhere in all of it, a hand found his face. Fingers curved around his jaw, guiding his head to rest against something solid. Someone solid.

He didn't know what hurt more: his body or the ache of not knowing where he was, who he'd become, or if any of it had been real.

His lashes fluttered. The world bent and shimmered—distorted, too bright. But a face came into view, blurry at first, then sharpening like a lens adjusting.

"...You okay?"

Stiles hummed softly, lips curling into a small, tired smile. Tan skin kissed by sunlight. Lips plump and pink. Dark hair wild as the wind. And eyes—lush green, glowing like the world after rain, reaching into the fog of his mind.

Were they still floating? Had dream-Derek been holding him this whole time?

A snort echoed near his ear. "What are you mumbling about?" the real voice asked. "We'll be home soon. You'll be safe, I promise."

But Stiles couldn't tell where the dream ended and Derek began. Everything blurred around him—the pain, the voice, the warmth.

He blinked sluggishly, lids weighted. Tried to focus, but the image dissolved.

Then nothing. No sound. No pain. Just quiet. Total darkness.

Stillness stretched for minutes, maybe hours, before something finally stirred in the silence.

A voice—sweet, almost too trusting—with something dangerous curling just beneath the surface. "Come to me."

Sleep peeled away as a cold shiver traced his spine.

His eyes snapped open.

He lay on his stomach, limbs splayed awkwardly across a bed far too big. The sheets felt unfamiliar but comfortable against his skin. His nose twitched with a half-stifled sniffle, and a low groan slipped from his throat.

Then it hit him.

The face. That monstrous, gaping mouth. Blood and teeth.

Stiles' breath caught in a sudden choke that burned in his lungs, and his body convulsed with an involuntary tremor. Panic surged through him as he tried to sit up, but his muscles locked like iron traps. His heart pounded wildly against his ribs.

Where was he?

Where was it?

His limbs felt strange, weighed down by something unseen, stubborn and unresponsive no matter how hard he tried.

"Okay, cool. Is this some torture chamber, or am I losing it?" he called out, voice shaky and tight, sarcasm barely holding back the edge of panic bubbling below the surface.

His eyes scanned the room. The walls were bare and white, rising up around him like silent witnesses. Thick black curtains hung drawn tight, swallowing every bit of light.

An old wooden dresser, nightstand, and desk stood in the corners, their surfaces worn and etched with faint scratches, like they had survived countless sleepless nights. On the desk, a stack of weathered books leaned slightly to one side, their cracked spines whispering stories of forgotten lore and late-night research.

The bed beneath him was enormous, far larger than anything he'd ever owned. The sheets were rumpled, still holding the ghost of someone else's weight.

"Okay," he muttered, voice hoarse and tired, finally rolling onto his back as recognition sank in. "Not the worst place I've woken up."

This room belonged to Derek completely. Every corner held the weight of his presence, deliberate and controlled, with a roughness that hinted at years lived hard. It was undeniably his, shaped by quiet strength and stubborn edges.

He drew in Derek's scent—musky cologne mixed with leather and pine, softened by a creamy sweetness that wrapped around him like warm sugar melting on the tongue. It settled deep in his chest, tugging at something unspoken.

Stiles had been drawn to all kinds of people, but this scent had a gravity of its own. Whenever it found him, no matter the place or moment, he felt the urge to drop to his knees, powerless against the quiet command threaded through its familiarity.

The thought of actually dropping to his knees for Derek made Stiles laugh weakly, but a sharp pain stabbed through his head, cutting through the humor and forcing a wince that quickly turned into a shaky cry.

From somewhere downstairs came the loud crash of falling objects and quick footsteps thundering up the stairs.

He folded in on himself, clutching at his head as if he could hold the pain at bay. The flare burned through him while a face echoed in his mind.

The door slammed open. "Hey, hey." A panicked whisper touched his ear, gentle and urgent. Derek.

But even as that voice reached for him, something else lingered beneath it. A rasping breath, harsh and wet, like air dragging through shattered bone. Under Derek's words, the other sound slithered—a low murmur that was no longer human. It didn't form words anymore, just noise.

Derek was crouched low beside the bed now, his brows drawn tight with concern. His expression was unusually open with emotion, so different from his usual stoic frown.

"You're safe," he said softly. His hand found Stiles' shoulder and squeezed gently. It was meant to anchor him, a reminder of where he was and who he was with. It worked. Almost.

Because beneath that warmth, Stiles could still feel it, the other presence—watching and smiling, whispering without sound and breathing without form.

He turned away, his breath catching as shame heated behind his eyes. He wanted to curl inward and disappear into the mattress, but Derek was there, and the thing still clung to the edges of his thoughts like soot.

"At first, I definitely thought I was being held captive," Stiles said, his voice trembling with the edge of something close to a laugh that never came. "The pounding in my skull and the full-body ache? Yeah, that killed the dream."

The attempt at humor wilted on his tongue, drying up bitter and thin. He stared at the ceiling, trying to keep his expression still, trying not to give away just how close the tears were.

He didn't say what he saw. He didn't mention how the thing had worn a face he trusted. It hadn't felt like the Nogitsune, with its cold malice, cruel games, or that smirking manipulation.

This?

It whispered, drawing him close like a warm hug in a blizzard, only to twist tight around his throat. It smiled with Derek's mouth and said his name like a lover's promise. Then, all at once, it shifted. A different face emerged, the sharp curl of a jaw snapping open like a trap as it dragged him under.

It hadn't taken control like the Nogitsune had. Instead, it made him want to give himself over.

"I'm fine," he said quietly, though it felt like a lie spoken out of habit. The words came too easily, as if rehearsed.

He didn't look at Derek when he said it. He couldn't, because the real Derek was sitting right there, breathing beside him, yet all Stiles could feel was the echo of something wearing that same face, calling him home.

Derek's hand lifted Stiles' chin with careful tenderness, guiding his gaze to meet those vibrant green eyes.

"What happened today was a mess, but none of it was your fault," he said. His eyes flicked away, then returned to Stiles with a warmth that quieted the fear. "I'm so sorry I got carried away. I shouldn't have brought you there."

He leaned in a little closer, his expression weighted with concern and quiet regret. There was something vulnerable in that look, something that made Stiles' breath catch—like the world had paused for just a moment.

Stiles was no longer the boy who stole glances and buried feelings. This was real now, all weight in his chest and fire in his blood. And Derek, so heartbreakingly beautiful, was here, looking at him like he was something worth holding on to.

Derek's lips moved, but only a soft buzzing reached Stiles through the fog in his mind, and a blush bloomed hot across his cheeks.

"Uh, what?" he murmured, too lost in admiration to focus. Derek's brows knitted together in concern.

"Stiles," Derek sighed, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes. "It's almost five in the morning, and you're still out of it. You need more rest."

He stood, picked the blanket up off the floor, and carefully pulled it over Stiles. He paused for a second, uncertainty flickering across his face.

Stiles blinked slowly, trying to focus through the pounding behind his eyes.

"I..." Derek began, his voice unsure. "If you need anything, just—" He trailed off, struggling to find the right words.

Stiles swallowed hard, surprised by how delicate Derek was being. Years of their chaotic history hadn't prepared him for this. "Thanks," he whispered, letting himself sink fully into the comfort of the sheets.

Derek gave a small, almost shy nod before stepping back, careful not to crowd the space Stiles needed. The faint scent of him lingered, wrapping around Stiles like a quiet reassurance.

For a long moment, they just looked at each other. The silence stretched between them, charged with unspoken tension, the weight of everything that had happened and everything that might still come.

Stiles' eyelids fluttered closed again, exhaustion winning the battle.

"Sleep," Derek said, voice like a promise. "I'll be right here."

Stiles believed him.

Chapter Text

It must be Sunday morning when Stiles wakes to the prickling bite of chilled air pressing against his skin. His breath fogs faintly before him, an odd cloud in the dense silence. The ground beneath his feet is damp with a layer of fallen leaves. He sways on the spot, confused. Each breath is a sharp stab that quickens his pulse. Barefoot, he feels the rough grit of earth and the brittle snap of twigs underfoot, a cruel contrast to the softness of his ruined pajamas hanging loose from his frame.

Slowly, he turns. The trees tower like dark sentinels. Their branches, skeletal and grasping, claw at the dim sky, tangled in the morning mist that curls like smoke through the underbrush. The faint scent of moss and wood mingles with a sour tang—something rotten. His skin crawls, and the hairs on his arms rise.

It comes: breathy, almost a caress in the stillness—a whisper from just behind him.

“Stiles…”

He spins, heart hammering as panic tightens its grip. The forest offers only shadows and mist. His voice shakes with disbelief. “Not again. You’re not real.”

But the whisper coils tighter, like a vine wrapping around his mind, pulling him into the dark woods.

“Come to me.”

He stumbles backward, lungs burning with uneven breaths. Tears sting his eyes, blurring the dim light of dawn. The world tilts and spins as his legs give out. He collapses, clutching handfuls of cold grass, the chill biting his skin, wrapping him in icy dread.

Somewhere beyond, a twig snaps.

His head jerks up, eyes wide, scanning the shadows for a shape, a sign. Silence swallows the sound.

In the fading mist, a large footprint presses into the moss beside the ancient ritual circle—a monstrous print, too large and too perfect to be human. It pulses faintly, echoing with the presence of something unseen.

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut as terror and exhaustion crash over him in relentless waves. Beneath it all, at his core, a single spark flickers. Small, desperate, defiant. Breathe. Stay sane. Survive.

Something shifts. A presence brushes too close, and that fragile focus shatters.

Cold pressure trails down his back like a phantom touch, and he jolts violently. His feet react before the rest of him, launching him from the ground into a blind sprint, each step carving fresh agony into his soles. Branches lash his arms and shoulders, leaving stinging welts in their wake.

He doesn’t dare open his eyes. He can’t.

Because something is there.

Something is watching.

Something is coming.

His arms flail, swatting at the dark, smashing into gnarled trunks and tearing through undergrowth. His head pounds, each heartbeat like a hammer behind his eyes. It feels—God, it feels like something is trying to pry his eyelids open from the inside. Like it’s crawling beneath his skin, whispering at the edges of his mind.

He staggers into the clearing, chest heaving, gaze sweeping the emptiness for a path that doesn’t exist.

The air changes. Subtle at first, but deeply disturbing—the kind of shift that sends an icy chill up the back of his neck and robs the breath from his lungs. He doesn’t see it. He feels it, like the forest itself has gone still. A force looms just behind, so close it seems to dissolve the space between his skin and the air.

A cold presence drifts through his hair, its fingers impossibly long and chilling to the bone. It glides down the back of his head with a gentleness so mocking it twists his stomach. Before he can pull away, that same unseen force tightens, yanking his head back with a cruel grip. His body arches, neck stretched taut, muscles screaming as his eyes snap open. Pain flares behind his skull, and a broken cry rips from his throat while the sky above blurs and spins.

It looms above him now, a towering figure cast in shadow. There’s no real face—only the idea of one, as though the creature is still trying to remember how to wear a human shape. Its features shift like smoke in the wind, never solid. Eyes blur into hollows, then back again. Teeth glisten wet in the muted light—sharp and too many.

A smile curls at the corner of its warped, flickering mouth. Something disturbingly intimate, as if it knows him, loves him, and is delighted to see him again. The affection in that smile feels unfamiliar, like the echo of a memory that was never meant to be sweet.

It leans in, impossibly quiet despite its monstrous frame. For the first time, Stiles doesn’t scream. He doesn’t even flinch. He stares, wide-eyed and frozen, breath shallow and caught in his throat as the thing’s form ripples. Melting, molding itself like wax until it settles: dark hair. Warm skin. That crooked, knowing smirk.

Derek.

Or what it wants to be Derek.

It’s not him. Stiles knows that with every bone in his body, but his chest still tightens at the sight.

It speaks, hush, and is friendly. “I missed you.” Its mouth doesn’t even move.

The words land like a knife dipped in honey. Stiles shudders violently—the voice is perfect. Too perfect. Like it was stolen right from Derek’s mouth.

His throat burns as he starts screaming, shoving at the figure with all the strength terror can give him. His limbs thrash wildly, every kick a frantic burst of instinct, fear driving his body faster than thought. The creature’s teeth flash as it lunges forward—

But something stops it.

Just for a moment, its body falters—like it’s hit an invisible wall it doesn’t understand. The snarl that tears from its throat isn’t anger exactly; it’s frustration. A crack in its shape pulses outward, distorting the illusion. Its form flickers—Derek’s eyes, his mouth—but distorted now, twitching at the edges like it’s unraveling.

Still, it stays.

Hovering.

The creature leans in again, not attacking this time, but studying. Its head tilts slowly, curiously, like it’s trying to see past Stiles’ eyes. Like it’s searching for a reason to remain.

It breathes in his fear like perfume, savoring it.

And then something changes. Not in the creature, but in Stiles.

He shoves harder, his voice cracking as he screams again, raw and furious. The effort isn’t just physical, it’s defiant. A refusal. A declaration of something the creature wasn’t expecting.

It recoils slightly, the edges of its shape glitching like bad reception. Its limbs jerk unnaturally, mouth twitching into that not-quite-Derek smile again before twisting violently out of sync. It hisses, a sound that isn’t made by lungs or throat, more like steam escaping from something broken.

It tries again to step forward—but can’t. Its body quivers, resisting some invisible force. It lifts one trembling hand as if to reach for Stiles, fingers stretched long and yearning.

The mimicry begins to shatter.

Derek’s face fractures, splitting down the middle into two smirking, mismatched halves. One eye stays human, green, and soft. The other turns black and endless, like a void opening wider.

Its smile falters.

It wants to stay.

It almost does.

But then another scream rips from Stiles, pushed out by instinct and the last shreds of sanity. “You’re not real. You’re not stronger than me!” He launches himself backward, one final shove of resistance in every limb.

And that does it.

The thing jerks like it’s been yanked by a hook through the chest. Its form stutters and tears at the seams, light cracking along the outline of its body. There’s a noise—low, deep, and unnatural, like a thousand whispers at once trying to speak over each other.

It snarls again—one last sound of fury—and then it splits apart in a blur of shadows, pulled back into the forest like a thread unraveling into mist.

Gone.

But not far.

Stiles doesn’t wait. Doesn’t breathe. He scrambles backward on his hands, gravel slicing into his palms, until he finds his feet and runs.

Every step is agony. His soles rip open against the forest floor—sharp stones, broken twigs, and roots tearing at skin already raw. But the pain anchors him. Reminds him he’s alive. Reminds him he can run.

The trees press in close, scratching at his arms, trying to trap him. But he keeps going. His heart pounds against his ribs, frantic, like it’s trying to break free. He doesn’t stop. His lungs burn, vision narrowing to a pinprick tunnel of light.

Then, at last, the trees thin ahead, spilling out onto cracked pavement. The glow of Beacon Hills’ backstreets hazes in the early morning light. Streetlights flicker to life one by one, casting long, gold-tinted shadows across the empty asphalt. The sun is just starting to rise, streaking the sky with hues of pink and blood-orange.

Stiles stumbles from the trees like a madman—clothes torn, feet bloodied. His knees hit the road. He pitches forward, cheek scraping against cold, rough concrete. His entire body trembles from exertion, sweat pouring from his skin, steaming faintly in the chill air.

He coughs, a wet, wrenching sound that tears from his throat and echoes down the vacant street. His chest heaves, lungs dragging in greedy gulps of air that taste like dirt and freedom. The sheer relief stings his eyes.

Behind him, the forest looms. Still. Breathless. Like it’s waiting.

But ahead, he has to move. He has to keep going. Somewhere safe. Somewhere real.

His limbs quake as he pushes himself up, balance tipping dangerously with each shaky step. The road stretches on, empty and silent. The quiet isn’t comforting. It’s wrong. No cars. No voices. Just flickering lights and the occasional chirp of a waking bird.

All he can think of, all that keeps him moving, is Derek. The safety of the loft. The scent of leather, pine, and vanilla. The weight of sheets pulled tight around him, and arms that never let go.

The creature wore Derek’s face, but Stiles knew the difference. Even when Derek was guarded, even when his walls felt impossible to climb, his body still betrayed him. Heat and quiet devotion simmered beneath the surface like something sacred he didn’t know how to give but offered anyway.

That’s what Stiles needs. Not just safety. Not just shelter.

He needs him.

Staggering forward, each step more collapse than stride, Stiles follows the winding backstreets—guided by memory and desperation. His blood paints the asphalt in smears and half-moons, a breadcrumb trail no one would follow.

But still, he moves.

Toward the only place that’s ever felt like a sanctuary.

He doesn’t remember how he made it to the metal door. Doesn’t recall leaving the street behind or climbing the stairs. One moment, he’s dragging one ruined foot in front of the other, and the next, his fingers brush cold steel. The contact sends a tremor up his spine, and a thin, broken sound escapes his throat.

The door slams open.

Stiles stumbles back, heart hammering against his ribs, just as a figure fills the doorway. Eyes burn electric blue in the dim light, locking onto him with terrifying precision.

But it isn’t just the wolf staring out of him. Under the sapphire flare, green flickers through—sharp with recognition, raw with fear. Derek freezes for a second. His breath hitches, shoulders tensing like something inside him has snapped taut. Then he moves.

Stiles collapses.

Not by choice. Not dramatically. His knees simply give out. The last thread of strength snaps, and his weight pitches forward into the solid wall of Derek’s chest. His head lands against muscle, cheek pressed to cotton. He doesn’t even lift his arms to catch himself.

Derek catches him anyway.

Strong arms close around him with something like desperation. There’s a soft grunt, a jolt of movement—quick, searching. Derek’s hands skim over his back, his ribs, his arms, checking for damage. One hand buries briefly in Stiles’ tangled hair. The other locked around his waist like a lifeline.

A sound rumbles in Derek’s chest. Not quite a growl, but lower. More animal than man. It vibrates between them, laced with protectiveness and unease.

He looks wrecked. His hair sticks up in wild tufts, like sleep had been impossible. His clothes are rumpled, thrown on in a rush. But it’s his face that hits hardest. The scowl carved into his features can’t mask the distress softening his eyes. He doesn’t stop pulling Stiles closer, like he needs constant contact to believe he’s real.

Derek says nothing.

He just holds on and begins to move.

Stiles doesn’t resist. He can’t. Every step burns through his feet, shredded soles screaming with each shift of weight. His limbs are scraped and bloodied, raw with bruises. His head throbs dully, like his skull’s been rattled for hours.

After everything—running, falling, screaming—his body is a battlefield.

He barely registers Derek guiding him into the bathroom. The scent of clean tile and vanilla rises around them. Derek speaks, voice low and steady, but the words blur through the haze.

Stiles knows he looks like hell. Pale. Drenched in sweat. Blood crusted in places he can’t see. He doesn’t need a mirror to know what Derek’s seeing. When the bathroom light flicks on, it stings, and he flinches from the sudden brightness.

Derek doesn’t let go. His voice comes again, softer this time. A murmur meant just for him, paired with the gentle press of a washcloth drawn from the shelf.

Stiles’ knees buckle. Derek’s grip is the only thing keeping him upright.

The shower clicks on, water rushing to fill the silence. Stiles stands still, chest tight, heart pounding, as Derek leans in. Warm breath brushes his skin. Derek gestures toward the ruined pajamas clinging to his sweat-soaked frame.

Stiles swallows and nods.

He trusts him. Not blindly, but fiercely. Trust forged in shared silence. In the way Derek always grounds him when the world spins off its axis.

Derek’s fingers are gentle as he peels away the filthy clothes. Cool air bites at exposed skin as each piece hits the floor. But Derek never looks away—not in shame, not in judgment. His gaze remains steady. Quiet. Almost reverent.

It makes Stiles’ chest ache.

Goosebumps rise where Derek’s hands brush him. The care in each touch is a jarring contrast to the brutality of the last few days. A small ache stirs low in his belly—warm and confusing. Not quite arousal, but close enough to make him ache for something more than safety. A flicker of want threaded through the wreckage, reminding him that beneath all the fear, he’s still him—still alive, still feeling.

Haunted. Broken. Exposed. But him.

He stands there, caught between wanting to vanish and craving Derek’s warmth like it’s the only thing left tethering him to the earth.

The water roars louder. Steam wraps around them in slow curls, promising relief, maybe even peace.

Derek guides him beneath the stream. The heat crashes over Stiles’ skin, drawing a hiss through his teeth. Derek’s fingers move carefully through his hair, combing out twigs and grit. When they brush over bruises, something strange ripples through the contact. Inky black lines snake up Derek’s arms like living veins, pulsing with unnatural light.

It feels like magic. Pain drawn out, pulled into Derek instead.

It drains from Stiles’ body—each ache, each burn, unwinding under the warmth of the water and Derek’s hands. Bruises fade. Muscles loosen. It’s like Derek is taking the hurt into himself, bearing it silently.

Stiles has no words. Thoughts scatter like ash. All he can do is breathe through the steam and let himself feel.

This isn’t just pack duty. Not just loyalty.

He feels it in every careful pause, every breath Derek takes before touching him. Something lingers between them—unspoken, real. It presses gently against the coiled panic in Stiles’ chest, loosening it with every touch.

For the first time in days, his heart doesn’t feel clenched tight. Instead, it beats slow and soft—fragile, but alive.

When the water finally runs clear, Derek shuts it off. Silence returns all at once—thick and heavy. He wraps Stiles in a towel, warm fabric pressed firm to chilled skin.

Then Derek lifts him effortlessly. Like he weighs nothing. His heartbeat thunders under Stiles’ ear, steady and solid, grounding him in the here and now. Stiles closes his eyes and lets go. He’s dreamed of something like this—being held—but never with this much pain clinging to every breath.

In the bedroom, Derek sets him down with deliberate care. The blankets are kicked loose, as if someone had fallen into them and left in a hurry.

Stiles sinks into the sheets, comforted for a brief moment by the lingering heat before Derek is gone again.

His gaze drifts toward the desk. A new stack of books leans precariously, their spines cracked, covers weathered with time. Some titles have faded beyond recognition, others are almost familiar. He squints, trying to place them, but a sudden flare of pain behind his eyes forces them shut with a low groan.

Derek returns quickly. Stiles hears the click of a case opening, the quiet rustle of supplies. He doesn’t lift his head. Just listens.

Then the towel slips away.

Cold air bites instantly, and he folds in on himself. He’s been naked in front of someone before, but this is different. This is Derek. And right now, he’s nothing but bruises and blood and aching exhaustion.

But Derek doesn’t comment. He doesn’t back away. He just works in silence. Quick hands and the sharp scent of antiseptic are the only signs of motion.

There’s tension in Derek’s shoulders, even as his hands remain careful. He cleans each wound with patience, bandaging them with practiced precision. Gentle pressure. No hesitation.

Stiles watches through heavy lashes—the angle of Derek’s spine, the fresh cut on his cheek, the way his jaw tightens each time he uncovers something worse than expected.

He tries not to think. But memory presses in.

The creature wore this face. It whispered with this voice. It mimicked Derek’s calm, quiet strength, but it wasn’t him.

And now the real Derek is here—wrapping his ankle with calm focus, saying nothing, asking nothing. Just staying.

Stiles flinches when Derek’s fingers brush over a swollen patch near his ribs. Derek stills instantly, his touch hovering instead of pulling away.

“You with me?” he asks, voice low, words frayed with concern.

Stiles nods. A small, unsteady dip of his chin. His throat tightens, any answer trapped behind it. The room feels too charged, too full of everything they’re not saying.

Derek’s jaw flexes. Something flickers in his eyes—not just concern, but a flash of hurt. Like Stiles pulling inward feels like a kind of rejection. Like the silence between them is something personal. But he doesn’t push. He just smooths the final bandage into place, every motion slow and deliberate. Like he’s scared that one wrong move might make Stiles shut down completely.

When he’s done, Derek doesn’t immediately move away. He sits back on his heels, eyes locked on Stiles’ face, searching. Not demanding. Just there. Present in a way that feels unbearable and necessary all at once.

“What happened to you?” he asks finally, voice hardly more than a breath. It sounds like the question is too hard to ask.

The silence that follows is stretched out between them like a held breath. Stiles drops his gaze, unable to hold Derek’s eyes any longer. His fingers curl into the sheets, twisting the fabric until his knuckles pale.

“I don’t…” The words come out hoarse. His throat tightens, and he tries again. “I don’t know.”

The admission scrapes out of him like something fractured.

Derek doesn’t speak. He watches him—silent, unmoving—as if he’s trying to read everything Stiles can’t say aloud. The air between them pulses with weight, thick with unanswered questions.

After a beat, Derek glances toward the dresser. Then he exhales, slow and tired, the sound more like surrender than relief.

“You must be cold,” he mutters. He rises with quiet purpose, crossing the room in quick strides.

Stiles doesn’t answer. He couldn’t if he tried. The chill isn’t just in his skin, it’s in his bones, his breath, wrapped around his ribs like frost. So he says nothing. Just stays where he is, hands still clenched, staring at the place Derek just stood.

Derek pulls a clean shirt and boxers from the drawer, soft from wear with edges curling from too many washes. When he returns to the bed, he lowers the shirt over Stiles’ shoulders, easing the fabric down with gentle hands. His palms remain for a moment, as if he’s afraid to let go too soon.

Then he shifts, sinking to his knees at the edge of the mattress. The boxers are gathered with care, his fingers brushing along Stiles’ calves. Stiles shivers at the touch as he guides the cotton up past scraped knees.

The hem of the shirt lifts slightly as Derek reaches his thighs.

And that’s when he sees it.

Stiles’ breath catches. Not from shame, though heat still rushes across his skin. It’s from the sheer vulnerability of being seen like this. His body has responded, just faintly, yet unmistakably. Not in lust, not exactly. More like instinct. The kind that rises when safety returns after pain. When a touch is soft instead of cruel. When the scent of someone trusted surrounds you and your body remembers what it means to want, to be cared for, to ache for closeness without fear.

Derek hesitates. His hands falter at Stiles’ hips, fingers tightening slightly around the waistband.

But he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t pull away.

His lashes flutter, as if blinking back something he doesn’t want seen. His jaw stays tight as he draws in a slow breath, holding it like a dam against whatever threatens to rise. His thumb smooths the fabric into place with care.

The air between them hums. Not just with heat, but with something heavier. A quiet ache that doesn’t push forward or pull away. It stays, warm and fluttering softly, caught between longing and restraint.

Stiles doesn’t hide. He watches Derek from beneath lowered lashes, heart pounding as warmth curls in his belly. It feels dangerously close to hope.

Derek moves away slowly, the space between them widening, though the moment hangs like static.

Something inside Stiles aches at the way Derek breathes, just a little too deep, like he’s holding a piece of himself tightly under lock and key.

He slips into his chair. His eyes, caught between human green and the quick flash of beta blue, stay fixed on Stiles. His fingers twitch, like they’re itching to reach out—to touch him again.

Stiles wants to speak. To tell him everything about the voice, the creature, the imitation. To tell him how much he loves him.

But the words won’t come.

Derek already looks so tired. So haunted.

So instead, Stiles turns into the pillow. Tears well in his eyes.

He doesn’t say it. But as he drifts into sleep, he hopes Derek stays.

Chapter Text

The days start bleeding together after that.

He skips his Monday and Tuesday classes. At some point, his phone vibrates with an email from one of his professors. The subject line makes him snort aloud: Stiles Stilinski, Are You Dead?

He skims it with bleary eyes, lips twitching at the awkward mix of sarcasm and genuine concern. The professor sounds alarmed. This is the first time Stiles has missed class all semester. Not exactly the track record of someone gunning for the FBI with a spotless academic record.

Right now, school feels like a lifetime away. He skips the rest of the week. There doesn’t seem to be a point anymore. By the second week, he barely remembers he’s even enrolled.

It’s not like him. Stiles used to be the kid with color-coded notes and calendar alerts for every deadline. He sat in the front row, asked too many questions, and turned in assignments early to ease the twitch under his skin. He had a system. He had control.

Now the calendar sits untouched. Alarms get silenced before their first ring. His inbox overflows with unread messages from classmates and professors, each subject line a reminder of the person he’s become.

He tells himself he’ll catch up eventually. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe after one more night of nothing. But the laptop stays buried beneath a hoodie he hasn’t washed in weeks, as if he’s afraid of what might be waiting on the screen.

The textbooks sit untouched at the foot of his bed, spines warped from the steam of too many showers that didn’t help. The campus portal might as well be a black hole—one he circles closer and closer, unsure whether he wants to fight gravity or fall in.

His phone lights up now and then. A missed call from Scott. A check-in text from his dad. Something from Lydia that looks long and urgent, but he doesn’t open it. He can’t. What if it’s not them? What if it’s that thing again, copying their words, mimicking their concern, baiting him back into something he won’t survive?

Scott’s been trying. He always does. He’s been Stiles’ best friend since before grade school, loyal in a way only Scott can be: stubborn and endlessly hopeful. But he doesn’t understand. Not this. And Stiles doesn’t know how to explain it without hurting him.

So he lets the calls ring out. Lets the knocks on his door go unanswered. And when Scott keeps reaching anyway, Stiles only pulls back harder. It’s easier than admitting the distance is his fault.

Paranoia creeps in like water through cracked concrete. Slow, cold, and quiet, until everything inside feels damp. He starts second-guessing every vibration and ping. He silences his phone and flips it face down, but it still hums and waits.

Eventually, he shoves it under a pillow and turns away, hoping that might be enough to shut out the world. But the fear stays. It always stays.

He starts carrying a mirror, just a small one. It’s old and smudged, barely the size of his palm. He can’t quite remember where it came from. Maybe it was from one of his mom’s old purses, something she left behind without meaning to, tucked away in a drawer after she died. Or maybe it was a thrift store find from years ago. Either way, it becomes a quiet tether to who he is, or who he’s trying to remember.

He checks it constantly when he’s alone. Sometimes lying in bed at home. Other times hiding in college bathroom stalls after Derek shows up in his sleek car to drag him to class. He catches himself behind vending machines or staring into the reflection of his phone camera when the light hits just right.

His eyes look wrong. Too dull. Too wide. Sometimes dilated and pale. Always haunted. Always like they’re waiting for something to slip out.

He hasn’t slept more than three hours at a stretch. When sleep finally drags him under, the dreams come fractured and dark. Whispers crawl just out of reach, never forming words but clawing at the edges of his sanity. Faces twist and contort. Mouths stretch wide with hunger. Then, without warning, they shift.

The creature’s body ripples like disturbed water, as if reality can’t quite decide what it’s looking at. Bones crack faintly beneath skin that bubbles and folds, pulling tighter and reshaping. The hollows of its cheeks fill out. Its stretched mouth recedes, teeth dulling. Eyes change last. Still too dark, but something in them softens, like it remembers how to look at him.

Hair darkens. Skin smooths. A familiar jawline takes shape. The brows furrow in a way that always makes Stiles feel seen.

And it smiles. That crooked, knowing smirk. Almost right.

It leans in, impossibly quiet for something so monstrous, voice smooth against his skin.

“You know I need you,” it murmurs. “I always have.”

It sounds like Derek. Warm and rough in all the right ways. Like truth. Like temptation. Like something he’s secretly begged to hear for years. The kind of confession whispered when no one’s listening.

And that’s how he knows it’s a lie.

More often than he wants to admit, he wakes up sprawled on the cold forest floor, mud dried on his hands and thorns embedded in his skin. He gasps for air, tangled in old vines, blood blooming where his nails dug into his palms.

He can’t remember leaving the bed, but dirt stains his sheets. Pine needles cling to the worn hem of his hoodie. Faint leaf prints smear across his pillowcase. It’s as if the forest is bleeding into his room. As if the woods are pulling him back—or worse, dragging themselves inside.

He stares into the mirror, voice scared and shaky as he mutters, “Stay awake. Stay in control.” But every passing second, it feels like the edges are fraying. Like he’s slipping.

And then there’s Derek.

He pretends Derek isn’t always there, but Stiles can feel him, like static in the air, like heat pressing hard against the edges of his mind. Derek has never been subtle, but lately it’s worse. Quieter. Heavier. Like a weight Stiles can’t shake.

He’s already forcing Stiles into classes, but now he lingers close. He doesn’t push or ask questions. Still, he never leaves.

Stiles notices Derek more than he wants to admit. Not just the looming presence in the doorway or the occasional sound of boots outside the window at three a.m., but the way Derek looks at him now. Like he’s reading more than Stiles says. Like he’s already figured it out, and the knowledge is killing him.

Guilt lives in Derek’s eyes, dark and unsettled, even when he tries to hide it. It’s like he wants to say sorry over and over, but the words get stuck, eating him alive. Derek never needs to say it aloud. Stiles can see it in every tight breath, every flicker of regret behind those dark eyes.

He sees it in the way Derek’s jaw clenches the moment he flinches under harsh lights. He catches the flare of Derek’s nostrils—sharp and quick—like he’s smelling something false. Like maybe Stiles is carrying a threat that could hurt them both.

Derek doesn’t say much anymore, and when he does, his voice is gentle in a way that feels almost strange. It’s not cautious, like he’s afraid Stiles will break. It’s tender, like he already has.

Stiles pretends not to notice the Tupperware that appears on the counter: soup, pasta, chicken and rice. Things he used to eat without a second thought. Now, he stares at them too long before shoving them into the fridge, untouched. But Derek keeps bringing them. Keeps trying.

He lingers when they share a room, finding reasons to stay. He claims a spot near someone else, pretends to glance through his phone, feigns interest in something unimportant. But his attention always shifts, drawn back to Stiles with quiet focus, like he’s constantly checking to make sure he’s still breathing.

It happens late one day, golden light filtering through the blinds and painting long, fractured lines across the counter. Stiles is hiding out at Derek’s again, for what feels like the hundredth time. The space between them is thick with things neither of them knows how to say. Stiles has been drinking coffee like it’s medicine, chasing wakefulness one bitter sip at a time. Derek keeps refilling the cup without a word, like it’s the only language he trusts himself to speak.

When Stiles reaches for the chipped mug near the edge, his fingers brush cool ceramic. A moment later, a hand appears, covering his. It’s careful, like Derek is afraid to startle him.

And for a moment, neither of them moves.

That contact holds a fragile warmth, a flicker of something unspoken. Derek’s fingers trail along the inside of Stiles’ wrist, light as a thought but unmistakably intentional. Not forceful. Not urgent. Just the weightless press of presence. Like Derek needs to be sure Stiles is solid beneath his hands—that he hasn’t disappeared completely.

Stiles stays still. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look up. Just watches the quiet point of contact between them, his pulse fluttering under Derek’s touch like it’s confessing everything his mouth won’t.

Eventually, Derek lets go. His hand pulls back reluctantly, brushing away as if he shouldn’t reach too far. The distance between them returns, but it isn’t the same. The air feels gentler now.

Even after Derek steps away, Stiles still feels the ghost of that touch tingling on his skin like a brand. It lingers, soft and scorching. Derek feels achingly real in a way that makes Stiles want to lean in and never let go.

He is nothing like the cold, bony hand that reaches for him at night.

A helpless sound slips past Stiles’ lips as Derek turns away. His fingers curl around the cup, but he doesn’t lift it. Doesn’t drink. Doesn’t move. Not until the ache in his chest spreads, like something breaking open.

Carefully, he pushes the mug aside and turns—just enough to catch Derek’s silhouette retreating into the living room.

His voice is a whisper, raw and shaky. “Wait.”

Derek stops. His shoulders stiffen, spine pulled taut like a wire. He tilts his head slightly, not looking back, just listening. The air tightens around him like it’s waiting for something to happen.

Stiles steps closer, slow and unsure. Every movement feels like walking across thin ice. His hand lifts, trembling, and finds Derek’s forearm.

“Please don’t go.”

The words land quiet, but final. A plea he doesn’t know how to take back.

Derek shifts his weight, tension slowly easing from his shoulders. His head turns, eyes softening when they find Stiles.

For a heartbeat, time stills. The space between them charged with all the moments they never allowed themselves.

Derek doesn’t answer right away. His gaze searches Stiles’ face, like he’s reading every crack, every fracture. His mouth opens, then closes. For a second, it seems like he might still walk away.

But Stiles’ fingers tighten on his arm. Not pulling, just holding.

And something inside Derek breaks.

Derek’s body turns toward him, and he takes a cautious step. Stiles doesn’t wait. He moves in, closing the gap, something urgent in his eyes. Their foreheads pressed together, breath unsteady, hearts pounding too loudly between them.

The space becomes something safe. A place where pain doesn’t have to be hidden. Where all the fear and all the want finally settle into the same breath.

For the first time in weeks, Stiles closes his eyes, not out of exhaustion but peace.

Derek’s question is almost inevitable, but it still strikes Stiles in the chest. “What happened that night?”

He doesn’t move away, doesn’t open his eyes. But his breath hitches like something inside him just splintered. Derek notices, but he doesn’t push. He stays still, his hand hovering near Stiles’ side like he wants to touch him but is waiting to be allowed.

“You don’t have to tell me everything,” Derek sighs. “But I need to know what it did to you.”

Stiles swallows. The memories choke him: the cold, the blood, the thing in the dark that wore Derek’s face. It all snarls together in his throat.

“I didn’t come back alone,” he says at last. The words are ghost-thin. “Or maybe I didn’t come back the same. I… I don’t know anymore.”

Derek doesn’t flinch. He just eases closer and wraps his arms around Stiles like a vow. “You’re still here,” he says, voice sure.

Stiles lets out a breath—somewhere between a laugh and a sob—and presses into the warmth of Derek’s chest like it’s the only anchor he has left. “That’s the part I’m not sure about.”

Derek’s hand rises to cradle the back of his neck. His thumb brushes just behind his ear, grounding. Gentle. Real.

“I am,” he says, pressing the words like a promise he needs Stiles to hold onto. “You’re here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Stiles lifts his head, just enough to meet Derek’s eyes, but the doubt is still there. Flickering like a candle in a storm.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Stiles admits, voice cracking. “Not even Scott. I thought if I said it out loud, it’d make it worse. Like it’d… make it real.”

Derek says nothing. He just holds him.

“It wears your face,” Stiles says. The words hit hard and pulse with fear. “And it didn’t always come at me like a monster. Most of the time, it looked like you. Sounded like you. Said things I—” He swallows, voice catching. “Things I wanted to hear.”

Derek’s hands tighten slightly around him, a gentle reminder that he’s here. His breath stirs against Stiles’ skin, shallow and uneven, as if he’s holding something back. And that’s what does it. That weight of worry, felt more than heard. Stiles knows he can’t stop now. He has to tell him everything.

“It would look at me like… like it loved me. Like it craved me.” He’s shaking now as he buries his face deeper into Derek’s chest.

“But when I said no, when I turned it away… it changed. The smile cracked open. The eyes hollowed out. And I’d remember—it wasn’t you. It never was.”

He clenches his fists, nails biting into Derek’s shirt, knuckles white.

“It still shows up. In dreams. In mirrors. Sometimes it’s just a shadow. Sometimes it doesn’t change at all, and that’s worse. Because I want to believe it. Because it feels like you.”

Stiles looks up, eyes shining with tears. “I don’t know what it wants. Maybe… maybe it just doesn’t want to let me go.”

There’s a pause, then: “Or maybe it loved me,” he whispers. “In its own sick way.”

The silence that follows is weighted, not empty but full of confusion, guilt, and something darker that neither of them can name.

And still, Stiles doesn’t pull away.

He leans harder into Derek’s arms, desperate for something true.

Derek presses a hand flat against Stiles’ heart, steady and firm. “I’m right here,” he says, his voice dragging like gravel but landing soft. “That thing isn’t me.”

Stiles nods, just once, hesitant. “I know that. I do. But sometimes… sometimes I can’t tell the difference. Not in the dark. Not when it talks like you. Not when it looks at me like I’m the only thing it’s ever wanted.”

Derek’s eyes find his, unwavering and fierce, yet holding a fragile kind of care. “I’m not that thing, Stiles.” His voice catches at the edges, strained with emotion. “What I want is different.”

He doesn’t pull back. Instead, he leans in until they’re pressed together, chest to chest, nothing between them but heat and breath. His hand rises slowly, cupping Stiles’ face with trembling fingers.

“I want you,” he says. “Not to take. Not to trap. Just… to love.”

His breath ghosts against Stiles’ skin, sending goosebumps spreading in its wake.

“I love you,” he admits, and the words sound like they cost him. Like they scraped their way out from some hidden place inside.

“God, I love you more than anything. More than anyone. I don’t even know how to want anything else.”

The weight of it crashes into Stiles. His breath stutters, heart hammering against his ribs. The room tilts as colors blur, sounds twist, and the world distorts around him.

For a moment, Derek’s eyes flicker. Still full of love, but the shadows shift. Something darker slips in, sharper and familiar in the worst way.

Stiles blinks. Reality wavers. The line between them blurs.

“No…” His voice stumbles, caught on disbelief. “It can’t be you.”

The love in Derek’s confession doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t exist. Not like this.

Stiles reels, torn between the warmth of Derek’s hands and the chill wrapping around his thoughts. His breath shortens. His chest tightens.

Derek’s fingers slide down the curve of his neck and gently curl around his hand. 

“It’s me,” Derek says quietly, his thumb brushing over Stiles’ knuckles. “Only me.”

But Stiles can’t hold on.

His thoughts scatter. The ground beneath him buckles. The shadows in his mind bloom outward, moving around the corners of the room.

He wants to believe.

He does.

But the fear presses harder, whispering that the face he trusts could still be a lie. Another trick. Another mask.

Stiles’s breathing goes ragged. The confusion spirals, and suddenly, his body acts before his mind catches up.

He shakes Derek’s hands off, stumbling back as though burned. His palms slam into Derek’s chest, a hard shove meant to break contact, to tear away from the comfort that feels too dangerous to trust.

Derek doesn’t fight it. He staggers but doesn’t fall. He stays rooted, steady as stone, his expression cracked with pain.

He doesn’t reach for Stiles. Doesn’t step forward.

He waits. Letting the storm pass.

Stiles stumbles again, chest heaving. Every breath feels like glass. He blinks, trying to clear his vision—but something’s not right.

Something is moving behind Derek.

No footsteps. No presence. Just unfolding.

The shadows stretch thin and precise. They slither over Derek’s shoulder in inky veins, twisting behind his ear, creeping down his arm like liquid seeping through paper. Derek doesn’t notice.

He watches Stiles with concern written across every inch of his face, unaware of the darkness latching onto him.

Stiles’ vision swims.

It isn’t stepping into view.

It’s becoming him.

Derek’s body stands there, still and open, but his eyes don’t blink.

They watch him. Unmoving. Unbreathing.

“It’s me,” Derek tries again, more desperate this time. “I love you, Stiles. I swear it’s really me.”

But the voice shifted. Just slightly. Just enough.

He recoils like he’s been struck. His hands tremble violently. The shadows spread faster now, curling beneath Derek’s collar, spidering across his jaw like they’re writing something only Stiles can see.

“Stop,” Stiles gasps, but he doesn’t know who he’s talking to.

Derek steps forward.

Just one step.

But it’s enough.

Stiles runs.

The door slams open behind him—steel cracking against the frame. Bare feet hit the porch, then the dirt, then the half-frozen ground. He doesn’t think. 

He just runs.

Behind him, something follows. Not with footsteps, but with presence. It presses close. His name wraps around his ears, soft and sweet. “Stiles.”

It sounds like Derek.

But it isn’t.

The forest yawns open in front of him like a mouth, darkness spilling far and choking out the light.

And he runs straight into its throat.

Chapter Text

Stiles drifts back to himself in pieces. Not all at once, but in sharp flashes, like waking from a strange dream. 

First, the chill of the air brushes his skin. Then the scent rises: damp soil and decay. A faint coppery bitterness lingers at the back of his tongue.

His body won’t move. Not even a twitch, no matter how hard he wills it.

Stiles lies at the heart of the ritual site, encircled by ancient stones and freshly carved dark symbols that pulse with a faint rhythm. 

Like they remember him. Waiting in silence, sensing him. Hungry for this moment.

His shirt clings to him, heavy with blood. His hands—slick, trembling beneath the suffocating wetness.

He finally manages to drag himself upright, but the world tilts wildly. A stabbing pain cracks through his shoulder, maybe a joint giving out. Around the ritual circle, carcasses lie scattered. 

Broken animals soaked in blood. The scent clogs the air, thick and overwhelming, a sacrifice to something he can’t begin to understand. The trees sway silently, whispering secrets, as if they already know how this ends.

For one blissful second, Stiles thinks he’s alone. That whatever brought him here left him hollowed out and half-dead.

But something shifts behind the trees.

It’s not loud or obvious. No cracking branches, no snarling. Just slow movement like something watching him, deciding whether to step forward.

He tilts his head to the side and catches sight of it.

The creature stands beyond the stones, just outside the circle, but close enough that Stiles can feel it. The air around it hums, vibrating in the pit of his stomach. 

The smell of it hits hard: a mix of rot and old smoke, like it crawled out of something that used to be alive.

Its body is too long. Arms stretched, bones jagged. Skin that isn’t skin—gray and peeling, like something molded from ash. It’s hunched, spine bent in all the wrong ways.

But it’s the face that always breaks something in Stiles.

Because it’s Derek’s.

Or, it was.

Not a perfect copy anymore. Just a sad attempt. Skin pulled too tight over bone, eyes stretched huge, the grin too big for any human mouth. Like it’s been wearing Derek’s face too long… and now it’s starting to forget how he really looks.

It speaks to him, but the voice doesn’t rise from its throat. It slips in from behind Stiles’ eyes, from the spaces between the trees, from the folds of his thoughts.

“There you are.”

His chest seizes. Legs refuse to move. He tries to scramble back, but his hands slip, smearing through wet dirt and leaving frantic, useless streaks.

The creature steps into the circle and nothing stops it. The symbols don’t flare. The boundary doesn’t resist. It wants them here.

“You always come back.”

“You were made for this.”

“You feel it, don’t you? The belonging?”

It crouches down, face inches from his. The mouth splits slowly and deliberately, like it wants him to savor it. 

Every tooth gapes apart, as if the creature is grinning through starvation. Black drool slips down its chin, thick and tar-like.

Stiles shakes so hard, he’s not sure how he’s holding himself together. He tilts his head back and away, desperately avoiding the creature’s gaze.

His voice cracks as he whispers, “What are you?”

The figure tilts its head to match his, mocking him with cruel precision. Its grin stretches wider. “Yours.”

Then it reaches forward. Not fast. Not urgent. Just inevitable.

Its hand hovers over Stiles’ chest, fingers long and jointed like cracked branches, shaking slightly with anticipation.

When it touches him, it doesn’t meet skin. It passes through it, like fog parting around a blade. The cold blooms behind his sternum. 

It’s not just freezing; it’s ancient and consuming.

The cold spreads behind his sternum with venomous grace. Each vertebra stiffens, one pulse at a time, until his fingers fall still.

The feeling worms through him, dragging claws through the marrow of his bones, burrowing past memory, past soul, into the raw, secret places no one should ever touch.

It doesn’t steal breath; it replaces it.

It doesn’t stop his thoughts; it clogs them, thick and syrupy, like his mind is drowning.

Stiles tries to gasp, but no sound comes out. His mouth falls open, his vision flickering like a weak signal. 

His head tips forward, weighted and loose, like a puppet whose strings have been cut too suddenly. His body sinks, his back curling inward as the last of his strength seeps away in invisible drips.

Color bleeds from the world, from his face, from everything.

He blinks, still conscious, but it’s like watching himself in slow motion. Each heartbeat thuds faint and distant, muffled, slipping further away.

It’s pulling him under.

Not drowning, but something worse.

Like surrender.

A sharp crack shatters the silence. Not a whisper in his mind. Not a cruel trick of the dark. Something real. Something breaking through.

The creature’s head snaps upward, eyes flashing with sudden awareness. Its body pulls tight like a spring, muscles tensing in an instant. With a speed that makes Stiles’ heart slam in fear, it explodes into motion and vanishes into the trees before the next breath can fall.

The forest falls deathly silent, like the world itself has gone still, holding its breath in dread, uncertain of what just shifted.

But the cold lingers, the kind that seeps in, pressing down on Stiles with a force he can’t escape.

When Stiles blinks again, he finds himself completely alone. 

Alone in the circle, surrounded by blood, by bodies, and by a crushing silence that unnerves him more than anything. 

He doesn’t even remember curling into himself, and he doesn’t realize he’s rocking back and forth until a voice calls his name from far away, distant and fragmented.

Hands grip his shoulders tightly, and Derek is suddenly crouched beside him, his voice cracking with desperation, his eyes wild with worry.

But Stiles can’t understand the words he’s saying, and he can’t feel the warmth of Derek’s presence. All he hears, all he can focus on, is the echo pounding inside his skull:

“You were made for me.”

“I wear his face for you.”

“We’ll become one and feast together.”

Derek scoops him up. Stiles doesn’t fight it. He sinks into the dark, weightless like sleep.

And then—silence.

The car jerks to a stop.

Derek is moving before the engine cuts. He’s out the door, rounding the vehicle, yanking the passenger side open. His hands shake as he gathers Stiles again—one arm behind his shoulders, the other beneath his knees. 

He nearly fumbles, moving too fast, too desperate. But he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even think to. He grips tighter, grounding himself in the weight of Stiles’ body, driven by instinct and something far more fragile.

He won’t let go.

Stiles’ skin is cold and clammy, his breath shallow and uneven. He murmurs nonsense, words tangled and slipping away. The sickly scent of death clings to him, like it’s sunk into his skin.

Scott jumps out of his car, heart pounding from weeks of worry and silence. The rest of the pack pulls in close behind. Without hesitation, he sprints to the clinic just as Derek charges up the walkway. Scott reaches the door first and throws it open. 

His hands hover near Stiles’ limp form before he even fully processes what he’s seeing. His voice cracks with urgency as he shouts, “Deaton! We need you. It’s Stiles.”

The veterinarian is already there, surrounded by open books, scrawled whiteboards, and low-burning candles beside jars of crushed herbs and dark ash. His eyes widen as Derek storms in with Stiles limp in his arms.

For weeks, Derek had been quietly pushing Deaton, his voice low but insistent. This wasn’t just Stiles being shaken. He was unraveling. Something had followed him back from that ritual site. 

Derek’s eyes were rimmed with exhaustion, but it was the desperation behind them that made Deaton finally understand.

Now, standing in the clinic doorway, soaked in sweat and shadow, Derek didn’t have to speak. Stiles sagged in his arms, lips parted with shallow breaths. Under the harsh fluorescent light, his skin looks deathly pale. 

Deaton sees it in the way Derek holds him, clutching him close like something precious already slipping away. 

The signs are no longer subtle. They are undeniable.

“Put him there,” Deaton says, calm but firm. He sweeps books and jars off the exam table with practiced motions. “Carefully. Don’t jostle him.” 

His hands hover over Stiles’ face, watching the flicker of his eyelids and the unnatural stillness in his limbs. A thin line of drool slips from the corner of Stiles’ mouth. For a moment, his teeth seem to shift, elongating into something monstrous.

Derek lowers him with painstaking care, as if Stiles might break. He smooths sweat-damp hair from Stiles’ forehead, fingers ghosting across his skin like a silent plea.

Stiles flinches, an instinctive jerk like the touch burns. His eyes flutter open but remain unfocused, pupils wide. 

His lips move, slurring half-formed sentences. “Too loud… it’s in the trees…Derek… it wears your face. It’s so hungry.”

“Stiles,” Derek chokes, cupping his face. “Hey. Stay with me. You’re here. Look at me. Please.”

His thumbs brush Stiles’ cheeks, searching for heat in his skin, any sign that he’s still there.

But Stiles slipped further. The silence inside the clinic heightened, no longer just an absence of sound but a presence all its own. The air grew colder, like ancient breath seeping through cracks.

Stiles jerked. Not a twitch, but a violent arc of his back, pulled by something inside. His jaw clenched, teeth grinding. Fingers scraped at the table. His breath stuttered, the pulse in his neck hammering like it didn’t belong.

Veins rose along his arms, dark and twisted. His mouth parted, but what escaped wasn’t his voice. It was wet, gurgling, like something speaking through water.

Derek stands frozen, watching something sacred come undone. Stiles is being hollowed out from the inside. 

He stays close, hands still stained with blood from the ritual site, eyes fixed on Stiles like sheer focus might be enough to hold him together. He can feel something pulling at Stiles just beyond reach, and he’s straining to keep him here, silently willing him to stay.

Deaton breaks the silence with a weary breath.

“I know what it is.”

Every head turns.

He looks worn, the toll of sleepless nights etched into his face. Ink stains blot his fingers, the result of hours spent combing through ancient texts. 

His hand drifts toward the open tome beside him, its cracked spine threatening to collapse under the weight of scorched pages filled with faded sigils and druidic symbols.

Scott leans in, frowning.

“That plant… what is that?” he asks, nodding to the shriveled sprig pressed between the pages. “I’ve never seen it before.”

Deaton glances up. “It’s Moonshade Root, a rare plant. For werewolves, it soothes the torment of transformation, eases pain, and keeps the wolf grounded. It’s a protector’s tool—something that helps restore balance.”

Isaac shifts beside Scott, his curiosity overcoming his unease. “How come we’ve never heard of this?”

“I didn’t share it,” Deaton admits. “I only showed Derek.”

At that, the pack’s eyes snap to Derek, who stiffens but stays quiet.

Deaton looks back to the page.

“This ritual site,” he began, voice rough with age and regret, “was meant to protect this land. To banish darkness. To trap malevolent spirits and leave them powerless. It was a druidic circle forged to shield the forest and all who walk its shadows.”

His fingers brush the root, reverent and regretful. “The druids didn’t guard it just for wolves. It’s vital to many natural creatures. It strengthens life force, bridges the wild and the human, and roots the magic running through this forest. Guarding it meant preserving the balance of everything that draws power from the earth.”

Lydia flips her hair with a sharp edge to her voice. “Then why did it fail?”

His voice dropped. The root crumbled beneath his touch.

“Centuries ago, that protection collapsed. During a renewal ceremony, one druid miscarved the runes. A small mistake. A single corrupted line in an ancient script. What should have sealed out the darkness… let it in.”

Jackson’s voice carried a hint of worry beneath his usual sarcasm. “Typical. One idiot ruins it for everyone.” 

Erica scoffed beside him. “And the rest of us get to deal with the fallout.”

Deaton closed the book gently, his voice low. “The intention was to use it as a binding agent. A safeguard. But when the ritual faltered, it became a key instead. The thing that locked the door now opened it.” His hands tightened around the spine as he added, “I showed Derek where it grew. I thought I was helping—giving him a lifeline.”

He swallowed hard, voice cracking. “But I fear I led you straight into the heart of what this circle was meant to contain.”

Tension hangs over the pack, thick and suffocating. Scott and Isaac exchange a look, both visibly shaken. Lydia moves closer to the table, brushing her fingers over Stiles’ arm like she’s willing him to wake. Erica paces with sharp movements while Boyd stays stone-still beside her, jaw tight. Jackson leans against the wall, uncharacteristically quiet. And Derek—Derek just stares at Stiles, barely breathing, looking like he’s holding himself together by a thread.

“This place isn’t a sanctuary,” Deaton continues. “It’s a prison. And the thing it once held back… it’s free now. It’s unleashed and hunting.”

Isaac shifts from foot to foot, his hands clenched into tight fists. “So what the hell is it?”

Deaton carefully unfolds a brittle page. The drawing is grotesque—skeletal, stretched beyond natural form. Its face is hollow, the mouth twisted into a jagged snarl, eyes glowing like coal.

“This,” he says grimly, “is what came through.”

Lydia leans in, eyes narrowing as a chill snakes down her spine. Her breath catches in a quiet whisper. “Is that… a wendigo?”

“Not a normal one,” Deaton replies. “This isn’t just a creature. It’s a spirit. A wendigo ghost. A soul-eater.”

He turns the page. The next illustration deepens the worry: a lone figure sits at the center, eyes wide in terror, surrounded by mangled bodies like offerings.

“This text shouldn’t even exist,” Deaton says. “The druids who performed the ritual were all supposed to die that night. But one never made it to the circle. An apprentice. Delayed… we don’t know why.”

He traces the image with a heavy finger.

“They found the site ruined. The circle broken. The coven dead. The apprentice recorded everything— runes, signs of possession, the failure of the ritual. Maybe they hoped someone would read it and never make the same mistake.”

A pause.

“Unfortunately, I found it too late.”

He lets out a tight breath. “It couldn’t feed on flesh. Not yet. It needed something deeper. Something unseen.” 

His eyes darken as they flick to Stiles. “I believe it feeds on trust. On fear. On the slow unraveling of a soul. It consumes pain like a sacrament, draining its victims until there’s nothing left to hold onto.”

A silence settles over the room.

“When it finished,” Deaton continues, “it discarded the husk of the druid, sank into the forest, and went still. Not dead—just dormant. Watching. Starved.” His voice drops to a whisper. “And it waited… until Stiles crossed the boundary and woke it.”

Derek’s shoulders sag, fists clenching as his jaw tightens, struggling to hold himself together. His eyes sweep the room, searching, before settling back on Stiles. “Why him?”

The question lands like a blow.

Scott steps forward, his voice quiet but steady. “Because he was already fractured. Because he’s been scared like that before.” 

He glances down at Stiles, his expression softening. “He’s been through too much. And that thing knew it.”

Deaton nods. “The creature recognized that pain. That history. It latched onto the splintered pieces he hasn’t healed. And it’s been feeding ever since.” His eyes settle on Derek. “It uses what Stiles trusts most. What he loves. It burrowed inside that bond to draw him in. It’s not just feeding off him—it’s becoming him.”

Derek’s breath stutters. His fingers twitch at his sides, like his body’s bracing for a blow he didn’t see coming. Cold locks up his chest.

He wants to rip the creature out by force. But all he can do is stand frozen as the weight of what’s coming crashes down.

“It’s draining him,” Derek whispers. “And it’s using me to do it.”

Lydia lifts her head slowly, realization blooming. “That’s what he meant,” she murmurs. “When he said, ‘It wears your face.’ He was afraid of being tricked by something that looked like the one person he—”

She stops, the words trailing off, heavy with meaning.

Scott runs a hand through his hair, his voice tinged with quiet hurt. “Why Derek? He always used to come to me. We’ve been best friends for so long… I just don’t understand what’s changed.”

She meets his eyes, sympathetic but unflinching. “You were his anchor for a long time. But this… this is different. It’s not friendship he’s holding onto now.”

Scott blinks, his eyes narrowing slightly as he tries to process the words. When he speaks, his voice is slow and hesitant. “What do you mean?”

Lydia’s voice drops to almost a whisper, the words weighted with certainty. “Stiles is in love with him.”

Scott exhales sharply. 

The words hit harder than expected. His mouth opens, then closes. He doesn’t argue. He just nods, slowly, blinking away the shock.

Lydia’s tone softens. “This thing didn’t just look for trust. It looked for something deeper. Something unguarded. A bond Stiles didn’t even know how to protect.”

Derek says nothing, but grief settles in his chest.

Deaton speaks again. “The spirit didn’t just prey on his fear. It took advantage of the one thing Stiles would never fight against—his heart.” 

He pauses. “If we don’t stop it, if Stiles can’t fight it off, it won’t give up. Eventually, he’ll lose himself. And when that happens, the spirit will consume his soul.”

The silence drags on until Jackson breaks it.

“So what do we do?” His voice is sharper than expected, eyes darting away. “We can’t just stand here and watch it destroy him.”

Erica’s gaze lands hard on Stiles, full of fire and something protective. Then she turns to Derek, searching his face—not for approval, but alignment, old instincts flaring in crisis. “We kill it. If it’s inside my Batman, we drag it out and end it. No matter what it takes.”

Deaton hesitates, fingers tightening around the edge of the book.

“There’s no record of a wendigo spirit ever possessing someone,” he says slowly. “And I don’t think it can be killed… at least, not physically.”

His gaze shifts toward Stiles, heavy with uncertainty.

“It’s not like the creatures we’ve faced before. This thing is ancient, intangible. It feeds on something deeper. Severing its hold might be the only way to stop it, but I can’t say for sure.”

Lydia reaches forward and grabs the book from in front of Deaton, flipping through the pages with quick motions. 

“There has to be something we can do, right?” Her voice is tight with urgency, eyes scanning for anything that might help.

Deaton exhales. “That’s the problem. I don’t think we can help him from out here.” He nods toward Stiles. “This fight has to come from him. From the inside.”

Derek leans over the table, one hand braced beside Stiles’ head, the other brushing his knuckles across his cheek. His touch lingers, then curls into a fist against the blanket. His jaw is clenched, eyes locked on Stiles’ face.

“Hold on,” he says, voice tight. “I’m here. You’re not doing this alone.”

His shoulders go taut, every muscle tight as if holding the weight of everything that matters.

Derek doesn’t say the thought burning behind his teeth—if Stiles loses this fight, they won’t just lose his body. 

They’ll lose everything he is.

Chapter Text

He doesn’t remember how he got back here. The space between is smeared and blank, like a page left out in the rain.

But he remembers Derek.

He thinks there was strength in the way he was touched, in the way that voice broke through, rough and desperate, like it was trying to pull him back.

Or maybe that’s just what he wants to believe.

Because then, the voice was so distant. Muffled, like it was reaching him through water. He couldn’t make out the words, and he couldn’t feel the warmth that should have come with them.

Now, the circle stretches around him again, wide and wrong. But it isn’t quite the same. The stones are misshapen, their edges blurred and soft, like wax melting beneath a slow heat. Shapes shift when he looks too long, sliding in and out of focus, like they’re being remembered by someone else entirely.

He blinks, and the world glitches. It feels like it’s running on memory, not matter.

His body feels unfamiliar. Weighted in places, hollow in others. His limbs resist him, moving out of sync with what he wants. It’s like he’s wearing a version of himself stitched together wrong, too tight in the skin. Each breath comes shallow, brittle at the edges, like he’s forgotten how to take it in properly.

Stiles doesn’t remember stepping into the circle. Doesn’t remember moving at all.

Somehow, impossibly, he’s here again.

Only… not really.

The air feels thin. Artificial. Like he’s breathing through someone else’s lungs.

And the place hasn’t forgotten him.

And now the place is inside him.

At the center, something pulses. A flicker of light, twitching in and out of existence, growing stronger each time his gaze lingers. It breathes in the dark like a thought taking form, like it’s coming from him now, not toward him.

Around him, the trees seem to lean in. They don’t move, not exactly, but their limbs curl inward with unnatural purpose, reaching without touching.

Like thoughts closing in.

Cold needles run through his body and settle deeper. Not on the surface, but somewhere within, threading into bone, into thought.

Then the smell hits: rot and metal, thick in the air. It clings to his tongue, stings the back of his throat. Bitter. Sharp. Like rust bleeding into something already dead.

He breathes hard and tries to move, but the ground gives under him. Soft and wrong, like skin stretched thin over something that breathes. Something alive and waiting.

He’s not alone.

But there’s no one here.

Beyond the edge of the circle, or maybe within him, something watches.

It’s changed. Larger now. Its shape is distorted and stretched in ways that defy sense. Gray, blistered skin barely holds the thing inside. Its eyes glow brighter than before, fed and gleaming like they’ve learned something new.

It’s not Derek anymore.

It’s wearing Stiles.

The voice comes soft, almost kind: “Why do you keep running?”

The words don’t travel. They appear in his head, whole and waiting, like they’d always been there.

“You’ll always come back.”

It lands hard in his chest, like something pressing down, testing the limits of what he can take before he breaks.

Stiles’s throat tightens. He forces the words out in a whisper, each one fragile and shaking. “This is a dream.”

The creature tilts its head. That smile spreads across its rotting face, wide and too familiar.

“No,” it says, with awful certainty. “This is the truth.”

It takes a step forward, and the world reacts. Leaves curl inward and blacken, like thoughts scorched at the edges. The ground cracks beneath him, thin as breaking memory. The air thickens with rot, clinging to his lungs like something trying to stay. Even the light seems sick, flickering at the corners of his vision, dimming like a mind losing its hold.

“You’re tired,” it murmurs. “Worn down by the screaming. The fear. The noise that never stops.”

Its eyes shimmer, shifting in sync with something inside him. It studies him, matching the tempo of his thoughts, adjusting to his breaths.

Syncing not by force, but by familiarity—like it already knows the shape of him.

“I can give you peace,” it says. “I can make it quiet.”

Stiles trembles. He tries to look away, but his gaze stays locked, helpless. It’s like looking into something he used to be. Like watching himself from the other side.

Before he can react, a hand hovers above his head, close enough to stir the air. But it’s not air. Not really.

It’s thought. Memory. Space folding in on itself.

Its shadow brushes something inside him, and the visions hit.

They don’t ease in.

They slam through him. Sharp. Overwhelming.

Not dreams.

Not memories.

Something worse.

Scott.

He doesn’t look angry, just worn down, already breaking under the weight of a decision he’s about to make.

His eyes flicker softly for a second. Stiles knows that look. Then they shut down. Go blank.

“We can’t trust him anymore.”

The words hit harder than a scream.

No one argues. No one steps forward.

Stiles tries to speak, but the air leaves him. His voice dies in his throat.

Scott doesn’t budge. Doesn’t turn away. He just stays there, unmoving, like this is what leadership looks like now: choosing silence over friendship.

They’ve shared everything since childhood—bruises, comics, plans for something better than all this. That should matter.

But it doesn’t.

No rage. No disgust. Just that flat, aching quiet of someone who already let go.

And the worst part is…

He agrees with it.

Like he’s not worth the risk anymore. Not even to Scott.

His dad.

The kitchen is still. Too still.

Slanting morning light cuts through the bent blinds, striping the counter in dusty gray lines.

The Sheriff's badge sits untouched beside a full mug gone cold. He stands at the sink, not moving, not looking at him at first.

“What happened to you?”

No anger. No disbelief. Just exhaustion, quiet and heavy, like it had settled into his bones overnight.

He finally looks at Stiles. Not sharp. Not soft. Just searching, like he’s hoping there’s something left in there worth saving.

Then he turns away. Not with pain or fury. Just… done.

No door slam. No warning. No parting words.

He walks out, and Stiles is left in the silence.

If he’d let go sooner—if he’d just surrendered—maybe his dad wouldn’t have had to see him like this.

Wouldn’t have had to look through him like that.

Derek.

He stands beneath the trees like part of the forest, solid and unreachable.

His shoulders are set tight, like he’s already lived this scene a hundred times and knows how it ends.

His face doesn’t hold anger or grief. Just distance. Decision.

“It always follows you,” he says, barely louder than the rustle of leaves. “The wreckage. The weight. Like you were built to carry destruction.”

There’s no accusation. Just resignation, worn smooth with time.

Stiles reaches for him, hand trembling, desperate for something to hold onto.

But Derek doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t accept him.

He steps back—not afraid, just certain.

The distance feels permanent.

Then he turns and disappears into the trees.

The creature doesn’t touch him. It doesn’t have to. Its presence slips through his ribs like smoke and whispers, curling around the hollow parts of him with sick familiarity.

“They’ve already seen what you are,” it breathes into his mind, smooth and low. “They’re just waiting for you to admit it.”

He drops to his knees. His chest feels like it’s folding inward, like something’s peeling him apart one thread at a time.

“I was just trying to help,” he rasps, barely audible. “I didn’t mean—”

It kneels beside him. One gray, brittle hand brushes his cheek. The touch is damp, freezing—wrong. Its smile is his own, stretched and unnatural.

“You don’t have to hurt anymore,” it says, syrup-sweet. “Let me carry it. Let me carry you.”

He closes his eyes. Sinks under the weight.

No more fighting. No more failing.

Just quiet.

But a warmth brushes his hair — real, steady, and close.

And a voice, thin and shaking, reaches him from somewhere distant: “I’ve got you. Please… don’t let it take you from me.”

Stiles freezes.

The creature jerks, a flicker of hesitation slicing through its grin.

“He’s lying,” it snaps, but the edge is dulled now. 

The sound cuts through again, sharper now, like a blade of light.

“Please, Stiles,” Derek says, his tone unsteady. “Fight for me.”

Fingers cradle his face. One hand curls at the back of his neck, like it’s holding something slipping through its grasp.

“I’ve got you,” Derek whispers. “You’re not alone.”

Stiles doesn’t answer, can’t, not with words. But he leans into the touch. His whole body trembles.

“I need you to fight,” Derek says, steady despite the break in his voice. “I know fading feels easier. But we need you. I need you.”

Something cracks open inside him—a pull, not from fear or memory, but from Derek.

“I can’t lose you. Not like this.”

Derek’s forehead rests against his. Breath brushes his lips, steady and real.

“I love you. I love you so much. Please… come back to me.”

The creature screeches, lunging in a final burst of rage.

“He can’t save you now.”

Its claws sink into Stiles, not into flesh, but into something deeper, hooking into his will like smoke-tipped barbs.

He tries to scream, but the dream swallows the sound. His hands claw at the creature’s wrists, but nothing yields.

Its face shifts as it leans in, flickering between Derek, Scott, Lydia—each one distorted, wrong. “There’s no coming back,” it hisses. “You’re mine.”

Darkness ripples outward, thick and tar-like, wrapping his limbs. Each strand drains a memory, a feeling:

A distant trace of his mother’s laugh.

His dad’s quiet pride. Scott’s joy, Lydia’s touch, Erica’s grin, Boyd’s quiet strength, Jackson’s sharp, reluctant loyalty.

One by one, they fade.

And then: Derek.

Not a flash or a memory, but a constant. Always there after every nightmare, every collapse. Never demanding. Never leaving.

He remembers hands helping him up, the touch on his back, a steady glance in the mess. Derek had whispered once, quiet as breath, “You don’t have to go through this alone.”

A growl cuts through the dream, not from the creature, not from Stiles, but from Derek. Something tears through the fabric of the space as heat surges in, not like fire but like presence, like gravity. Then Derek slams into him like truth, not soft, not tentative, just real.

Hands seize him, shaking, desperate, anchoring. One over his chest. One cradling his neck like something special.

“Stiles,” Derek breathes. “You’re stronger than it. I know you are.”

The voice finds him, claims him, and something inside answers. Not slowly, not gently. It rises all at once, like stars locking into orbit, like gravity reversing, like a vow that had always been waiting.

The bond doesn’t form. It ignites. 

It pulses between them—grief and love braided like a lifeline, molten as gold, ancient as instinct. A force older than fear. Stronger than pain. Derek pours it into him, not asking, simply choosing.

And Stiles accepts, because he already had. Long before this moment. In every glance, every silent rescue, every unspoken truth.

The bond fuses, deep and unshakable. It doesn’t burn. It binds.

The creature recoils like it’s been branded. Its edges warp. Its form begins to waver.

“You can’t have him,” Derek snarls, voice low and full of something primal. “He’s mine.”

The shadows flinch. The dreamspace cracks. “My mate,” he says, and the words hit with the weight of truth. The creature screams, a sound torn between rage and fear.

“That bond,” it gasps, staggered. “It’s not meant to—”

But Derek doesn’t stop. He holds Stiles tighter in the real world, forehead pressed close, breath mingling. “That’s us,” he whispers. “You feel it? That’s real. You’re not alone.”

The creature snarls again, but it’s faltering. Derek’s voice stays steady, fierce. “You’re mine, Stiles. And I’m yours.”

The words tear through the dream. The creature staggers back, blistered by something it can’t name. It lunges, jaw unhinged, too wide and too hungry.

Stiles moves first. His hand cuts through its smoke-body and finds something solid. “I’m not yours,” he growls. Its claws rake across his thoughts, ripping into memory, but he doesn’t let go. “You don’t get to have me.”

He drives his elbow into its face. Something cracks. “You wore the people I love like masks. You fed on my fear.” He grabs its shoulders—real for a breath—and slams it into the ground.

The void shudders. The dream groans under the force of it.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

It lashes back with flickering faces and broken illusions, but he keeps hitting. Smoke tears like paper. Shadows split beneath his hands. Grief and guilt claw up again, but Derek is still there, hand steady over his heart.

“I’ve got you,” Derek says.

Stiles draws from him and throws himself forward in one final strike. His fist connects.

The dream explodes.

Light doesn’t just break through. It detonates—wild, ancient—slicing through the creature’s core. It screams, but the sound is shredded mid-breath as the world itself turns against it. The ground splits beneath its feet. The sky rips open. Runes blaze like firebrands across the earth.

Chains of light tear free from the soil, not wrapping but lashing. They hit and bind, dragging it down like the end of a sentence long overdue. It thrashes, screeching in stolen voices, but escape isn’t possible. Light burns hotter. Ground surges like a tide. The dream closes in with teeth.

Its spirit unravels. Its stolen faces peel away. Its voice fractures into silence.

And then, there’s nothing.

No scream. No shadow. Not even ash.

Just silence, vast and final, as if it had never existed at all.

Stiles stands trembling, chest heaving, face wet with tears. “I’m done running,” he says to what’s left. “This is my mind. My life.”

He turns toward where he feels Derek, unwavering as ever. “You don’t get to take me,” he says, quiet but unshakable. “Because I already chose who I belong to.”

And then he falls. Not into darkness this time, but into Derek.

Chapter Text

Stiles wakes like he’s drowning.

His body jerks upright, back arching off a freezing slab of metal as air floods his lungs. A hoarse, guttural gasp tears free—more instinct than voice—as if something is ripping loose from the inside out.

The table beneath him is unyielding, biting through his sweat-soaked shirt. Fingers twitch, scraping across the slick surface in search of something—anything—to hold. All he finds is grime. Grit. Dried blood. Forest rot clinging to his skin as if it belonged there.

The overhead lights buzz, harsh and sterile. The air tastes of bleach and bitter herbs, thick with the burn of salt and something older. Head throbbing, limbs trembling. Every breath is a war.

Then strong arms wrap around him. Solid. Heated. Real.

He thrashes before he can think, heart pounding like it’s trying to escape his chest, but the hold doesn’t loosen.

“Stiles!”

The words cut through the noise. Rough. Familiar. Derek.

He doesn’t process the name so much as the weight of it—the force behind it. It lands heavy in his chest, anchoring him as the world spins. Derek’s grip stays firm when Stiles jerks again, still fighting like it isn’t over.

“You’re safe,” Derek says, low and even. “It’s over. You’re here. You’re okay.”

The words catch on something inside him. A hook, lodged deep. The room is still, not silent, just still. Like the storm is waiting just beyond the walls.

Stiles blinks. Vision clearing in flickers, watery, and slow.

Scott stands near the table, shoulders taut, eyes wide like he’s staring at a ghost. Lydia is beside him, arms crossed, face unreadable, knuckles white on the counter. Erica’s pushed into the far wall, frozen. Boyd stands in the shadows, arms folded, gaze fixed. Jackson looks wrong—too pale, too muted. No smugness. Just unease. As if he doesn’t know what came back.

No one speaks. No one moves.

Then it hits.

The circle. The rot. The dream. The thing wearing his face. Its tone still slick in his head:

"You’ll always come back."

Breath shuddering out. Body locking—not from pain, but from memory. From the weight of what he let in.

“It was me,” he whispers.

Derek doesn’t move. The hold stays firm.

“I let it in,” Stiles says louder. “It didn’t even have to fight. I—I almost gave up.” His words falter, like the weight of it is just now catching up to him.

A bitter laugh slips out, sharp and cracked. “You didn’t see what it made me believe. How tempting it was to stop fighting. No fear. No chaos. Just… silence.”

Hands trembling. He folds his arms over his chest like he’s trying to hold himself together, keep the cracks from spreading.

Derek draws him closer, one palm caressing his cheek. “You didn’t give up,” he says. “You came back.”

Stiles swallows. His words break. “Because you pulled me.”

“I tried,” Derek says softly. “But I couldn’t do it alone.”

Stiles lifts his head, startled. Derek’s face holds no pity. Just truth.

“You weren’t alone,” he says. “Not for a second.”

The words cut deep—and somehow, they don’t hurt. They stitch. Weave something new beneath the damage. Something still alive.

And Stiles feels it. That bond. Not searing or bright, but subtle. Woven through him like a hum under the skin. Not magic in the usual sense, but just as binding.

He’s still here. He fought. And someone held him.

Derek starts to draw back, slow and careful, like space might be what Stiles needs.

But it isn’t.

He surges forward, legs unsteady, arms locking tight around Derek like gravity itself is trying to yank him away again.

“Stiles—easy,” Derek says, catching him without hesitation. “I’ve got you.”

The room shifts.

Scott steps forward, hand raised. “Wait—just a second. You shouldn’t be moving—”

“He’s not strong enough to stand,” Deaton says as he enters at last, tone calm but firm. “His body’s been through something… significant.”

Jackson shifts uncomfortably. “Okay, but if he starts raving or levitating, I’m out.”

Stiles doesn’t move. Doesn’t lift his head. “I’m not losing it,” he mutters. “I just… didn’t want him to leave.”

Derek holds firm. One hand moves gently to the nape of his neck, grounding him.

Scott stares, stricken. “I didn’t know,” he says softly. “None of us did. Not like this.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” Stiles murmurs. “That was the point.”

No one answers. Lydia’s jaw trembles. Erica looks pale. Boyd hasn’t blinked. Even Jackson holds his tongue.

Stiles breathes in, shaky and shallow. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud. Maybe the first time he’s let himself think it all the way through.

“I didn’t want to drag you down with me,” he says, his words low. “Not again.”

The words settle deep in his chest, like something long-buried finally rising. Because he’d known. Somewhere inside, he’d known how scared he was. How far he was slipping. He hadn’t just shut them out—he’d started to believe he had to.

Throat tightening. The next part hurts to say.

“Last time… someone died. Allison died.”

The name lands hard. They haven’t said it in years. Not since the aftermath. Not since it ended, and no one wanted to touch what came before.

“I know it wasn’t all me,” he says. “But it took over my life. My speech. My hands. Everything I was. And no one ever blamed me—not out loud—but I felt it. That look in their eyes.”

He exhales, sharp and uneven. “I thought if it happened again… if I let anyone in… it’d end the same way.”

He’s practically in Derek’s skin, clinging like he could fall apart if there’s even an inch between them.

“I kept seeing you all in there,” he says, barely a whisper. “But I couldn’t tell if it was real. It wore your faces. Spoke in your tones. Part of me thought… maybe I didn’t get to have you anymore. Maybe this was just what I deserved.”

A breath catches—maybe Scott’s.

“If you knew,” Stiles continues, “you’d stop trusting me. Stop looking at me like I was still me.”

Deaton steps closer, words even. “You are still you. What happened doesn’t change that.”

Stiles lifts his head, just a little. Eyes bloodshot. Wet. Too open. “I didn’t want to be saved if it meant you’d all look at me like I was broken again.”

His words land like a punch. Shoulders tense. Eyes drop. But no one turns their back.

Deaton moves again, slower now. Less cautious. More stunned.

“I didn’t think it could happen without a catalyst,” he says, mostly to himself. His gaze shifts between Derek and Stiles. “Not like this. Not without a bite. Not without blood.”

Everyone looks at him.

“I’ve studied bonds for decades,” Deaton continues, words edged with reverence. “The kind strong enough to anchor someone lost in spirit. In mind. They always require something. Pain. Magic. Shared trauma. A transformation.” He looks at Derek, eyes lit with awe. “But this… You forged it with nothing but presence.”

He turns to Stiles. “And you let it hold.”

Stiles blinks, breath catching—but this time, not from fear. From recognition.

That hum inside him isn’t possession. It’s not something dark. It’s connection. Real. Rooted. Chosen.

“You shouldn’t have been able to come back,” Deaton says softly. “Not from where it had you. But he pulled you. Not with ritual. Not with power. With love.”

No one speaks at first. The silence just hangs there. Heavy. Full.

Then Erica steps forward. “You scared the shit out of us,” she says softly.

Lydia joins her, words cracking. “You didn’t have to do it alone.”

Jackson mutters, “You didn’t exactly give us a chance to help,” eyes still on the floor.

Boyd nods. “Next time, tell us. We don’t run from our own.”

Stiles breathes out. Fingers tightening in Derek’s shirt. “I didn’t think I was worth saving.”

“You are,” Derek says. Absolute.

No one disagrees.

Footsteps thunder down the hallway—fast, heavy, the kind that make walls vibrate and hearts lurch.

Somewhere beyond the clinic doors, a shout tears through the silence like a siren, sharp with panic.

“Stiles! Where is he? STILES!”

Stiles’ stomach drops.

“Oh, shit,” he breathes.

The door slams open.

The Sheriff barrels into the room like he ran the whole way from the station. His badge is askew, shirt half-buttoned, belt clipped wrong. Eyes wild, already scanning for blood, for signs of life—for his son. Panic clings to him like sweat. He looks like he didn’t stop to think. Just moved.

Then he sees Stiles—sweat-soaked, pale, curled against Derek’s chest—and a flicker of pain cracks through his expression.

He stalks forward, barely stopping to breathe. “I got a call from Scott,” he snaps, words cracking. “Said you were unconscious. That Deaton was stabilizing you.”

He stops short, fists clenched at his sides.

“You told me you were laying low at Derek’s. That you just needed time. That you were fine.”

Stiles doesn’t lift his head. Just sighs, thin and brittle. “I was,” he says. “Sort of...”

The Sheriff’s tone rises, strung tight with disbelief. “You didn’t think I deserved to know you were being possessed again? You didn’t think that mattered?”

Stiles flinches. “I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

The Sheriff’s voice drops, trembling with desperation. “See you like what?”

“Like I was slipping,” Stiles says, finally looking up. His words are wrecked. “Like I was giving up. You always look at me like I’m still your kid. I didn’t want to lose that too.”

The Sheriff’s face twists, trying to hold everything in—rage, heartbreak, fear. It all bleeds through.

“You could’ve died,” he chokes. “And you let me believe you were okay.”

“I wasn’t trying to lie,” Stiles murmurs. “I didn’t want to scare you with how bad it got.”

The Sheriff steps forward—slower now, the fight draining from him. He stops in front of Stiles. Then, without a word, he tugs him into a hug.

It’s rough and desperate, like he’s keeping them both from falling apart. One hand clamps the back of Stiles’ head, fingers trembling.

Stiles stiffens in surprise—then sinks into it, breath hitching, face resting against his father’s shoulder. The last of his resistance gives way. Something tight in his chest finally lets go.

For the first time in weeks, he feels whole.

When the Sheriff leans back, his palm lingers on Stiles’ arm, like letting go might make him disappear.

“You’re still my kid,” he says softly. “That doesn’t change.”

Silence settles again, softer now. The air is still heavy, but the weight has shifted. Not fear anymore—just aftermath.

Derek stirs, just enough to ease the tension in his spine. He’s still wrapped around Stiles, caught in the edges of the Sheriff’s touch, like he doesn’t know where he belongs in all this. His voice stays steady. “I’m taking him home.”

The Sheriff looks over, brow furrowed. “You don’t even look like you can drive.”

“I’ll manage,” Derek says, his palm never ceasing its gentle circles on Stiles’ back. He makes no move to stand.

“You’re not wrong to want that,” the Sheriff says, words flat with exhaustion. “I’m not fighting you on staying with him.”

He glances down at Stiles—wrecked, dazed, curled tight against Derek—then back up.

“But you’re not going far. You’re both staying at mine.”

Derek blinks, surprised. “Are you sure?”

“You think I’m letting either of you wander off after whatever the hell just happened? I still need a full-blown explanation in the morning.”

The tone isn’t stern. Just final.

“I’ve got a couch, a spare bed, and a coffee pot that still works,” he adds.

Derek is silent, then nods.

Half-asleep against him, Stiles mumbles, “I like your couch.”

“You hated that couch,” the Sheriff mutters, but his mouth twitches despite himself.

Stiles exhales something like a laugh. “Don’t care. Still want it.”

The Sheriff brushes his fingers one more time over Stiles’ arm, then turns to the door.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”

Derek shifts to move, already supporting Stiles before he can sway.

The pack closes in on instinct.

Erica reaches him first, one hand curling around the back of his head, forehead leaning into his for a beat before she’s gone. Lydia follows, arms winding around his neck, holding tight for just a moment.

Boyd’s palm lands heavily on his back. Jackson brushes his knuckles down Stiles’ arm, rough and too brief to be casual.

It’s fast. Tangled. Wordless.

Fingers comb through his hair. Arms wrap around his ribs. A shoulder knocks gently into his. Warmth grazes his jaw—the soft press of skin. Another touch finds his side, hesitant, searching. Nearby, someone exhales like they’ve been holding it in for days.

It’s too much. It’s everything.

It’s pack.

Scott steps forward.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t smile. Looks at Stiles like he’s trying to find something he thought he’d lost.

“I didn’t stop calling because I gave up,” he says. “I just thought maybe you needed space.”

Stiles blinks. “You thought I needed space from you?”

Scott nods. “You weren’t answering. I figured if you wanted me there, you’d pick up. I didn’t want to push.”

“I saw the calls,” Stiles says. “I just… I didn’t think you’d still want to be there. Not after everything.”

Scott’s expression falters. Not angry. Hurt. “You really thought I’d stop showing up?”

“I thought maybe I broke it,” Stiles whispers. “That thing took everything. I figured if you saw me again—really saw me—you’d stop trusting me.”

Scott doesn’t hesitate. He pulls him in.

The hug is slow and solid. No tension. No caution. Just Scott, holding on like it’s all he’s wanted for weeks.

“I never stopped thinking about you, man,” he says, words thick. “I kept hoping I’d hear your voice again. Even if it was just you calling me an idiot.”

Stiles lets out a sound—half laugh, half breathless sob—and curls into the hug like it’s the only thing keeping him up.

“I missed you too, bro,” he says.

They stay like that for a moment. Just the two of them, in a world that’s finally stopped spinning.

Derek is beside Stiles again, closer now, fingers curling around his elbow like he’s bracing for the moment the world forgets how to hold him.

“We should go,” Derek says, low and urgent.

Stiles leans into him, drawn by something deeper than thought. Letting the contact ground him.

Scott sees it and smiles.

Not big. Not flashy. Just enough.

As they near the door, Deaton exhales slowly, the weight of everything that just happened still settling in his eyes.

“Try not to make a habit out of this,” he says, words dry but not unkind. “Ancient wendigo spirit sets a pretty high bar.”

Stiles glances back over his shoulder.

“Yeah, well. I’ve always been an overachiever.”

Deaton sighs—long and wary. Doesn’t say anything else. Just watches them go like he’s already expecting to see them dragged back through that door.

Stiles doesn’t blame him.

He turns forward again. Derek’s fingers find his. No big gesture, no words, only presence. And Stiles holds on like he doesn’t know how to let go.

They step into the hall. The air outside the clinic feels colder somehow, more hushed, like even the world isn’t sure how to follow what just happened. The drive is mostly silent—Stiles half-dozing, Derek never letting go. By the time the front door opens and familiar shadows stretch long across the living room floor, something in his chest has begun to unclench.

Stiles makes it as far as the couch.

He manages to slump sideways, arm flung over his eyes like he might pass out right there, still wearing half-dried blood and ash. His body trembles from the adrenaline crash, but he barely notices. He mutters something about muscle fatigue, spiritual trauma, and not caring if this couch turns his spine into a question mark—it’s his now. He’s claiming it.

The Sheriff huffs, somewhere between fond and annoyed, glancing down at him with a look that says this kid will be the death of me. Then he turns to Derek. “Come on. There’s some spare clothes upstairs.”

Derek follows without a word.

A few minutes pass. Then he returns, tired but purposeful. “Come on,” he says, slipping an arm beneath Stiles’ shoulders.

Stiles tries to protest, but his limbs betray him. Derek lifts him with practiced ease, supporting him as they move down the hall toward the bathroom.

The harsh light stings his eyes as Derek turns on the faucet, letting cool water run over his palms. Derek starts with Stiles, gently wiping away the grime, dried blood, and sweat from his arms and face with a soft cloth. His touch is careful—almost tender.

He finishes cleaning Stiles, then grabs a towel to wipe off his hands and forearms before pulling off his shirt. Stiles watches in silence, his embarrassment bubbling as Derek moves with natural grace and care.

They’re both cleaned up by the time Derek starts digging through the cluttered medicine cabinet. He pulls out a faded box of bandages, wrappers still covered in cartoon characters that Stiles instantly recognizes. They’ve gotta be from before his mom died—bittersweet and kind of gutting.

Derek wraps the bandages carefully around small cuts and scrapes on his palms and arms, his fingers gentle and coaxing, doing the work Stiles can’t. He closes his eyes against the hushed intimacy of the moment, feeling the weight inside him shift just a little.

Once Derek looks content with the bandaging, he reaches for the clothes the Sheriff left—a worn, oversized sweatshirt and loose pants that still smell faintly like his dad’s cologne and distant memories. Stiles gets a little flushed as Derek helps him into them, gentle and unhurried, like it’s no big deal. He doesn't say anything, just moves on to dressing himself like it's the most normal thing in the world.

Together, they walk down the hall toward his old bedroom, a spare room that still clings to the past. Sun-faded movie posters line the walls. Dusty lacrosse trophies sit untouched on the shelf. Stiles doesn’t remember the last time he was in here. The bed is neatly made, the scent of detergent barely covering something familiar.

He lies half-draped over Derek’s side, his pants slipping low, with one knee knocking his thigh. They’re both too tired to move. Too tired to care.

And maybe that’s why it’s easier to say what’s been buzzing in his chest.

“I can’t believe this is where I kiss you,” he mutters.

Derek shifts, barely a breath. “Here?”

“On this bed,” Stiles says. “My childhood, back-bruising, pizza-scented bed. The one my dad refuses to throw out because he thinks I’ll move back in one day.”

Derek’s silent for a beat. “It’s comfortable.”

Stiles snorts. “It’s Stockholm Syndrome.”

Derek glances at him. “Do you want to kiss me or not?”

That short-circuits Stiles’ brain for a second. “Uh. Yeah. Very much yes. Sorry. Just—processing the absurdity of the moment.”

“You’re allowed to.”

“I know. I just figured if I was gonna fall in love and soul-bond with a werewolf, it’d happen somewhere cool. Like a mountaintop. Or a haunted library.”

Derek’s mouth twitches. “You’re really bad at staying silent.”

Stiles opens his mouth, closes it again, then nods solemnly. “Wow. Brutal. Accurate. Shutting up now.”

He leans in before he can psych himself out. Their lips meet somewhere between exhaustion and inevitability. It’s not perfect. He misses a little, tilts the wrong way, and nearly noses Derek in the eye.

But Derek catches him. One hand rising to cradle his face.

And it settles something in Stiles that’s been shaking loose all night.

The kiss is soft. Tired. A little uncoordinated. But it’s real. Derek’s mouth moves against his like they’ve done this in another life—slow, deliberate. No rush. Just the simple fact of being here. Of choosing this.

When it ends, Stiles rests his forehead against Derek’s cheek, heart fluttering in his chest.

There’s a beat. Then he blurts:

“You bonded me before even asking me on a date.”

Derek huffs against his hair. Definitely a laugh, though he tries to hide it. “You started the bonding.”

“Okay, yeah, technically—but you emotionally anchored me out of a supernatural death coma, which I’m pretty sure counts as a first move.”

“I brought you back.”

“Exactly,” Stiles mumbles. “Now you owe me dinner.”

Derek doesn’t answer. Just brings him closer, kisses his temple.

From the hallway, a floorboard creaks.

Stiles freezes. “Do you think he heard that?”

“I’m pretending he didn’t.”

Stiles groans into Derek’s shoulder. “If my dad makes a comment, I swear to God, I will spontaneously combust.”

Derek shifts, the bed groaning beneath them like it’s struggling to hold their weight. “He already let me carry you into the house. Pretty sure I gave your dad enough material to write me up if he wasn’t a fan.”

“Great,” Stiles mutters. “Can’t wait for that breakfast conversation.”

But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t pull away.

And neither does Derek.

The bond hums beneath his skin, quiet and warm.

Stiles exhales, barely more than a breath. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Derek doesn’t say anything. Just pulls him a little closer like he knows it’s exactly what Stiles needs.

He closes his eyes.

For once, he doesn’t brace for the fall.