Chapter Text
“There!” Derek yells, pointing to a hidden structure, which kinda looks like a mansion. Stiles attributes the mansion’s existence to his lack of sleep, food, water, and, well...anything that isn’t fighting killer monsters and running for his life. “Do you see it? There’s a...castle,” Derek says, and he sounds just as confused and pained as Stiles feels. “Duck!” He yells, and Stiles hits the ground as he hears Derek’s loud growl, an indicator that he just shifted. He hears the wet sound of Derek’s claws slashing through something with a heartbeat, and soon sticky blood is raining down on top of him.
“Thanks,” Stiles says. Maybe a year ago that statement would have been sarcastic, but he’s sincere as he pats Derek on the arm after the werewolf helps him up.
“Let’s hurry. If it isn’t overrun, that place will make a fantastic shelter.” Stiles tries not to laugh at Derek’s use of words. He’s always been like that: saying things like ‘fantastic’ in the middle of the end of the damn world. Derek’s funny like that.
They both start running towards the shelter. Derek’s faster than Stiles, but only slightly--the apocalypse makes you do things you never thought you could, like run as fast as a werewolf. Anyway, Derek always runs slow enough to keep in pace with Stiles. He’s sweet like that. When they get to the mansion, Stiles can hear more things behind them, and he doesn’t bother telling Derek because he knows he can hear them too. “Find a way in. I’ve got it,” he tells the werewolf, spinning around to face whatever’s coming, and he can hear Derek’s protests before he even says them. “Go,” Stiles says again, and Derek’s gone.
He raises his machete and starts slashing. He can hear guttural noises and hisses, and it only means one thing: vampires. “C’mon, assholes,” he murmurs as they lunge, and he slashes one, two, three. They fall at his feet, their teeth still gnashing in their working mouths. Black blood oozes from their disembodied heads, right out of the neck. “Gross,” he mutters, kicking a head so it’ll stop looking at him. Fucking bloodsuckers. He can’t hear anymore for the moment, but Derek’s still in his beta shift and that means that Stiles can hear him breathing through his fangs if he focuses hard enough. Stiles follows the breaths until he walks around the side of the mansion to see a front door, and Derek standing in front of it.
“You got it, big guy?” Stiles asks, and Derek rolls his eyes, twisting the doorknob so hard the lock breaks. “Well, that could be a good or a bad sign. Someone either wanted to keep something in here, or out,” Stiles says optimistically.
“Which one would be good?” Derek asks, his words garbled by his fangs.
“Not sure. You ready? I can’t be sure more of the bloodsuckers won’t come back.” Derek nods his response and pushes the door open with his shoulder.
They stumble into what looks like a grand foyer, and Stiles gasps because there’s actual electricity on, and it’s working. There’s a bloodstained rug beneath their feet, but the pattern on it looks like it was once worth a lot of money. Stiles can hear Derek closing and barricading the door behind them as he himself looks on. There’s a dining room with a huge oak table to their right, and straight ahead it looks like the foyer turns into a large, open sitting room that’s connected to a kitchen. To their left is a grand staircase.
“What is this place?” Derek asks, and Stiles turns to him, annoyed.
“Fangs in, please. Not all of us were raised by wolves.”
Derek rolls his eyes but complies, and he looks human in an instant. “But really. What happened--or didn’t happen--here?”
“Hello?” Stiles raises his voice. “Is anyone here?” They both wait a second. “We don’t mean to intrude, but we were just escaping from a bunch of vampires when we stumbled upon your place. It’s very nice, by the way,” Stiles says, and him and Derek slowly begin walking towards the sitting area.
“Did you kill Uncle Frank?” A voice from above asks, and Stiles and Derek both take fighting stances, whirling around as fast as they can to meet their new opponent. Stiles has his machete raised and Derek’s already growling, claws out. Stiles startles when he sees a small asian boy standing at the top of the staircase, leaning over the balcony like he hasn’t a care in the world. “He’s been trying to get in here for weeks.” Stiles lowers his weapon. The child doesn’t look a day over eight. He elbows Derek to see that the werewolf has already retracted his biological weapons.
“Hello,” Stiles says, ignoring the kid’s question. “I’m Stiles, and this is Derek. What’s your name?”
“Jung,” he says softly. “Did you kill my uncle?” He asks again.
“Stiles,” Derek mutters under his breath, “he doesn’t have a heartbeat.”
Stiles immediately understands what that means. It also means that one of the vamps he beheaded just outside was probably Jung’s uncle. “Uh, yeah,” Stiles says, despite feeling Derek’s disbelieving and incredibly pissed-off glare boring into him, “He was trying to kill us and I beheaded him. So technically not dead, just impaired.”
The kid looks relieved. “Oh, good. He was really kinda vicious,” the kid looks at Stiles and Derek seriously. “I couldn’t leave.” Stiles and Derek share a look. “I have food, but I was gonna run out soon with Uncle Frank out there.”
Stiles swallows. “Is there anyone else in the house, Jung? Or have you been living by yourself all this time?”
The little boy pauses, seemingly to ponder the question. “Well, Morgan was here for a while, but she got infected and ran off. She was my cousin. But I guess Marta’s still here. Marta!” He calls, and Stiles prepared for a fight, but Derek places a hand on his arm and shakes his head.
“Look,” he says softly, and Stiles sees a rather large dog barreling around the corner, tongue out and tail wagging frantically as she sees the new people.
“Marta is my best friend. I used to have more, but Morgan ate them when she got infected.”
“What do you eat?” Derek asks, and Stiles almost punches him.
The little vampire, though, just beams. Stiles can see his little fangs, but he’s very aware that, when feeding, the fangs grow at least twice the size. “You mean, do I eat humans?” He giggles. “I’m a vegetarian! I only drink animal blood and tomato juice.” He adopts a more serious look. “But once you get diseased, you drink everything. You can’t control it,” he says solemnly.
“Why aren’t you infected?” Stiles asks carefully.
“I must be lucky,” the kid says, and it’s a testament to his age that the words are not even sarcastic.
“How old are you, kid?” Derek asks.
“Ten.”
Derek and Stiles share another look. There’s no way in hell Stiles is leaving this kid alone to fend for himself with an uncoordinated dog named Marta who doesn’t look like she could maul a rabbit if she tried. And Derek knows that.
“Are you guys infected?” The boy asks.
“I’m a human,” Stiles explains, “and Derek here is immune. He’s a werewolf.”
The two of them had found out, long ago, back in the beginning of their partnership, that Derek was immune. He had been bitten by another wolf, a feral one, and the wound hadn’t healed for days. Derek had isolated himself, convinced he would become infected like the rest of his family had been, but nothing had happened and the wound had healed. And nothing happened to humans until they were already dead. Then they turned into what modern media would probably call zombies, but what they just called the infected. The odd magic that crackled through the air took over the dead human bodies and reanimated them, causing them to be slow, decomposed, gross-smelling killers. Zombies were honestly the least of their worries, and easy to take care of. Besides, they decompose after a few weeks anyways, and most humans died when it all began about a year before, so there weren't many around anymore.
“You’re bloody,” the small vampire observes. “Did my uncle hurt you?”
Stiles purses his lips, reminded that he’s an absolute sticky mess. “No, I’m not hurt.”
The little boy laughs to himself. “Good!” He considers Stiles for a moment more. “Do you want to shower?”
Stiles feels his jaw drop to the floor. “You have running water?”
“Yeah! Morgan tried to explain it to me, we have a water thing that makes it so we won’t run out of water for a long time. I don’t remember exactly, but you can take a shower, or drink some water from the sink, or even run in the sprinklers! But we probably shouldn’t do that.”
Stiles swallows, thinking of running water that's not a creek or stream. “Please. I’d love a shower. And I’m sure Derek would appreciate one as well,” he gestures to his friend, and the little boy crinkles his nose.
“Yeah, he smells,” he says, and Stiles laughs, patting Derek on his back.
“Ain’t that right,” he agrees.
“Come on, the shower is up here!” Jung says, and Stiles chuckles at him.
He turns to Derek. “You’ll be alright here?”
Stiles knows Derek’s answer before he even says it. “I want to check the barricades. I’ll shower once you’re done.”
Stiles smiles. “A shower. I never imagined that I’d be taking a shower again.” Derek smiles back at him, a rare thing. It melts away pretty quickly, though.
“Do you think this kid is dangerous?”
Stiles thinks carefully before answering. “Well, he’s a vampire, and I honestly think that’s the most dangerous thing about him. He’s ten, Derek. And all alone.”
Derek seems to understand where Stiles is going with this, and he sighs tiredly like he’s put up with too much of Stiles’s shit lately. Which is probably true. “Let’s just see how tonight goes before we go adopting random vampire children.”
“So, do you wanna be Dad or Papa?” Stiles asks playfully, and Derek shoves him towards the staircase.
“Go take a shower Stiles!” He says, walking away.
Stiles smiles to himself and makes his way up the stairs, still on high alert. Just because Jung said that there wasn’t anyone else in the house doesn’t mean that he isn’t lying. He’s satisfied with the first few rooms he passes, which are just empty bedrooms. Then he gets to the bathroom, which Jung is standing in front of. “We have towels under the sink, and you can use my shampoo!”
Stiles ruffles the kid’s hair. “Thanks, Jung.” Jung just beams at him. Stiles closes the door behind him and sheds his backpack, then his soiled clothes. He’d love to say that he can salvage them by washing out the blood, but he’s afraid that if he washes out the blood the clothes will fall apart. So he just sighs and chucks them into a waste bin beside the toilet. Then he figures out how to work the shower and steps under the lukewarm spray.
The second the spray touches him, he moans. He can feel the water running into every single scrape and crack that covers his body. The last year has been nothing short of hell, and it shows. The spray, though, reminds him of everything Before. Living with his dad, getting ready to go off to his second year of college, playing video games with Scott almost every night of summer since they both worked days. Shopping trips with Lydia, ice cream dates with Danny, bowling games with Allison. He misses it, but it’s at the point that he can think about the memories without it feeling like his heart is being ripped from his chest. It still hurts, but the thing about the end of the world is that it forces you to accept things and deal with things more easily. Everything is shit, it’s not worth getting hung up on it. He’s accepted that they’ll all die soon anyways, and that the ones who are already gone are easily the lucky ones.
Even though it’s only a year later, most people are dead. Many of them died in the first wave. The disease began, and supernaturals were being infected. It was slightly worrying at first, but then it got very bad, very fast. The supernaturals who were infected began going on rampages, and it just spread so fast that even once the military got involved, it was too late. Everything fell apart in a matter of weeks. Hospitals were overrun, cities shut down, people died. And then people were reanimated. A few weeks after that, people began forming tiny societies. Humans created large barriers to keep out supernaturals, and uninfected supernaturals created quarantined communities to keep themselves in.
But soon those all deteriorated as well. The supernaturals who were not immune or could not build up an immunity became infected, and the infected supernaturals were too much for the human communities, and those, too, were overrun. Between supernaturals and humans, the death toll rose drastically. Humans died, supernaturals died, and afterwards only the strongest survived. Stiles doesn’t think about himself as someone who is particularly strong, but he does know that his ability to compartmentalize really helps him get over things and move on.
The end of the world is easily on its way, but Stiles decided long ago to keep fighting, mostly because he’s the only thing that can keep his family and friends alive in memory: he’s the last living piece of all of them, and he’ll be damned if he lets go that easily.
He finishes wiping most of the blood from himself and uses the strawberry shampoo to try and get most of the blood flecks from his hair. Once the water goes from pink to clear again, he deems himself clean, turns off the shower, and dries off. He dresses in some of his other clothes that he digs out of his backpack and heads back down the stairs.
He finds Derek standing awkwardly by a rear door, staring at Jung with a mixture of mistrust and confusion. Jung, unperturbed by the werewolf's glare, is playing what looks like Jenga on the kitchen table. Stiles sits in a seat next to him. “Are you playing this all by yourself?” Stiles asks, shooting a look at Derek.
Jung nods, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he pulls another wooden block from the tower. He succeeds and looks at Stiles. “I asked Derek, but he was too busy looking for threats,” he says, and Stiles knows that he’s quoting Derek.
“For real?” Stiles glares at the werewolf, knowing that his insistence on looking for threats actually referred to the little vampire, not the supernaturals outside the walls of the mansion. “Go shower, leave the poor boy alone,” Stiles rolls his eyes, pointing towards the staircase. Derek returns the favor, but as he walks past Stiles he brushes his knuckles on the back of Stiles’s neck, scent marking him. Yeah, Stiles can’t stay mad at that man for long.
Stiles plays jenga with the boy while Derek showers, and Stiles finds himself getting information out of the young vamp, knowing that Derek was listening right upstairs. ‘Where are your parents, Jung?”
The little boy is unfazed by the question. “They died before everything started. But it’s okay, my aunts and uncles stayed with me. Where are your parents?” He aims the question back at Stiles. He figures it’s only fair.
“Well, my mom died when I was your age, long before all of this happened. And my dad. Well, he died when our community was overrun by supernaturals.”
Jung is quiet as he asks, “Were there any vampires?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, and Jung’s head drops, and he places a hand on the little boy’s shoulder. “But guess what? It was a werewolf that killed him. And not long after that, I met Derek.”
Jung looks up in surprise. “A werewolf killed your dad, and you still stayed with one?”
Stiles nods. “The werewolf that killed him was infected. It wasn’t their fault. And when Derek and I met, we knew that our best chance of survival was together.”
“How did you meet?” He asks.
Stiles leans back in the wooden kitchen chair, blowing out a long breath. “Well, I had escaped from the raid on my community. Everyone else was dead, and so I tried to get as far away from the place as possible. The infected overran everything, and all of the humans that had died were reanimating. I decided to head east, since I didn't want to be trapped between the ocean and some infected. I was on my own for a week, close to starvation and trying to find shelter constantly. I was always fighting. Then, I ran into another group of humans,” he knows that his face looks grim. “They weren’t nice ones. These were the kind of humans that eat others to survive. They captured me and held me in their cellar, keeping me there until they planned to eat me.
“It was there that I met Derek. They had him in a cage laced with wolfsbane so that he couldn’t escape, and he thought his future looked pretty bleak. Well, I happened to have a blade on me that they hadn’t found, so I cut through my bindings and was able to get free. Then, I helped Derek escape his cage with the promise that he would help me escape and not eat me. He agreed, and together we overpowered the humans that had captured us. After we had done that, we learned that neither of us had anyone else, and decided to join forces. It was a little rocky at first, since it took awhile for us to trust each other, but ever since then we’ve been a great team.”
Stiles remembers those days with great clarity: using his backpack as a pillow so he would know if Derek tried to steal it, falling asleep with a knife clutched in his hand, collecting mountain ash so he could circle himself with it when Derek was around or during full moons. Derek would sleep with his claws out on bad nights and never come within a few feet of Stiles, making the whole experience even more awkward. They went on like that for weeks, dancing around their fragile partnership, but then they were attacked by a pack of feral wolves. Derek and Stiles had both fought valiantly, and Stiles remembers the look of determination and horror on Derek’s face when he told Stiles that he had been bitten, asked him to make a circle of mountain ash, and to kill him once he became infected. It was at that moment that Stiles knew he could trust Derek completely. That the werewolf was more human than some of the people Stiles had shared a community with, as oxymoronic as that sounded. And when he hadn’t turned and the bite wound healed, well...no one has to know about their little cry fest in the middle of the woods.
They had been fighting side by side for nine months out of the twelve that marked the beginning of the end, and Stiles knows that he can trust Derek with anything. He just hopes that he can convince him to let the vampire boy come with them. Hell, he hopes he can convince Jung.
Derek comes stomping back down the stairs, freshly clean. Stiles whistles at him, and he rolls his eyes back. The interaction makes Stiles feel warm inside, a reminder of how much they’ve been through together to get to this point. The point where one of them can create ease in the other just by looking at them. Or wolf-whistling them. The first time Stiles wolf-whistled Derek had been a little uncomfortable, until Derek’s eyes had widened in understanding and his eyebrows had scrunched accusingly as he had pointed at the man, saying, “Was that a fucking dog joke?”
“A wolf one, actually,” Stiles had replied, laughing his relief. “But I suppose that, if you think about it, dogs respond to whistles.” Since that moment, Stiles uses the wolf whistle to ease Derek and welcome him into rooms. Also, it doesn’t hurt that Derek is hot like smoking and the shower did great things for his skin. Plus, it seems like he had found a razor or some scissors up there, and Derek with a trimmed beard? Oh, be still his heart.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving,” Stiles says, pulling his backpack towards him. “Any requests?” He directs the question towards Derek, but makes sure to make brief eye contact with Jung too.
“I could really use that pack of peanuts,” Derek growls, and Stiles tosses the turquoise-colored plastic bag to him. Derek rips it open and pours the entire contents into his mouth.
“I have some food!” Jung says, looking excited. He jumps up from the table and runs into the kitchen behind them. When Stiles joins him, the kid is inside a walk-in pantry that has a shitload of non perishables and tomato juice cans. The little vampire turns around and sees Stiles’s mouth hanging open in astonishment. “My parents adopted a human, and she had to live off of something. We usually gave her canned soup and mac n cheese, she liked it so much.” The little boy looks sad, and Stiles decides not to ask what happened to his adopted sister. “But vampires don’t eat this stuff, it tastes yucky, so we have lots of it!”
“Wow,” Stiles breathes, still unable to process it. There’s enough food to last them a few months, if they ration and scavenge like they have been.
“You guys can have it all, I don’t use it. You’re my first guests that can actually eat food!”
“Oh my gosh. Thank you, Jung,” Stiles says, feeling his throat closing up in gratitude.
“Yup!” The boy says, reaching forward and grabbing a can of tomato juice. Stiles watches as he uses his fangs to open the can, then sucks the juice right out of it. He remembers killing tiny vampires just like him, ones that were feral and infected. What if one of them had been Jung? The thought makes him sad, but reminds him how important it is to talk the little vampire into accompanying them.
Stiles decides to leave the food in the pantry for now, and he and Jung join Derek at the table. Stiles snacks on a cup of diced peaches from his own pack as he looks at the two supernatural creatures, who are making faces at each other over their own food, and he bites down a sigh of contentment. It’s like their own little family. And it’s been a damn long time since Stiles has had anything like that. Hell, it’s probably been a while since any of them have had that.
Derek catches Stiles’s eye across the table and gives him a meaningful look, one that Stiles can decipher without even trying. It’s a warning. Derek knows that Jung will come with them, especially if Stiles has anything to say about it, but he’s warning Stiles that another member of their rag-tag team means another person to feed, to house, to clothe, to watch, to trust. Another person to lose.
Derek and Stiles had only picked up one other person during their time together, a young boy named Liam. He was older than Jung, in his young teens, and after a few days under Stiles and Derek’s protection, he had disappeared one night without a sound. Stiles had always wondered what happened to him, especially when Derek couldn’t follow the scent. It was a dark few days after he disappeared, and Derek is letting Stiles know that it might happen again, but it might be bloodier this time.
Obviously, Stiles knows this. But when he looks back at Jung, the tiny little asian vampire, gulping tomato juice and grinning at Marta as her tail thumps on the ground contentedly. “Jung,” Stiles starts, and Derek takes another bite of his food, decidedly staying out of it. “You know you can’t stay here forever, right?”
Jung wipes at his mouth, looking suddenly serious. “I know. But I’m too afraid to leave.”
Stiles pauses, looking kindly at the child. “What if Derek and I came with you? You can stay with us, and we’ll protect you.”
“Really?” Jung looks at both Stiles and Derek, eyes bouncing between them before landing on Derek. “I can come?”
Derek nods cautiously. “If you want to come with us, you can. But if you don’t, we won’t force you to, Jung.”
“Can Marta come too?”
“Of course,” Stiles says.
The little boy is silent, considering. “I...I want to.”
“Okay. We’ll stay here for another day, but without your scary uncle out there, I don’t think this place will be monster-free much longer,” Stiles tells him.
“Okay,” Jung agrees. He pushes himself away from the table, standing suddenly. “What should I bring?”
“Some clothes, your toothbrush, and anything that you really can’t imagine yourself without.” Stiles sees the lost look in the boy’s eyes, and he chuckles. “C’mon, I’ll help you.” The stress in the boy’s face melts as he bounces away and up the stairs. Stiles starts to follow, but Derek’s hand on his wrist stops him.
“Are you sure about this?” Stiles looks at Derek, so serious, so concerned. His eyes are doing that melty-thing that makes Stiles feel weak in the knees, and his face is soft for one short moment.
“Derek, we can protect him. Better than we did with Liam. We can give him a life. He can be ours.” Stiles places a hand on top of Derek’s, which has taken to holding his. Stiles clasps Derek’s hand in both of his and brings it slowly to his lips. “Can you imagine how lonely he must be?”
Stiles watches Derek’s eyes cloud, and his voice is rough as he whispers, “Yes.” Stiles pulls Derek’s hand so that it’s cupping his cheek, Derek’s rough finger pads scratching his skin.
“We can help him. I believe that. Do you?”
Derek swallows. “I believe in you.”
Stiles smiles, soft and sweet and just for Derek. “Good. Because I’m right.”
Derek’s smile is just as soft and just as private. “I know.”