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He’s a shell of a heart, pumping blood like water over the edges and down the drain. Spilling like a tipped cup onto the carpet of Stiles’s room. Derek is bleeding again.
Derek’s always bleeding, but not always the kind of blood that can be washed away, not always the kind of wounds that can be mended.
Shell of a heart, blood is thicker than water, but ash is lighter than air, floating in with each breath you take and settling in your lungs until it chokes you to death. Until you’re drowning in your own private sea of blood and ash.
Derek’s bleeding on Stiles’s carpet, his face pale and washed out, like the blood is draining out of him inch by inch, and his face doesn’t have any left.
Stiles’s hands are cold, his blood fizzing with panic and fear, and thank god his dad’s not home.
His hands shake, and he says “My dad totally thinks we’re fucking,” instead of something logical or useful, like ‘You’re bleeding on my floor,’ or ‘lets get you cleaned up before one of us passes out.’ Derek huffs and Stiles is surprised. He can feel his hands again. Derek must be out of it if he can almost laugh at something not even funny instead of the not-quite-smirking thing he thinks is subtle. He can’t be happy drowning in his own private sea.
“Off to the bathroom, with you,” Stiles shoos him, “you’re bleeding on my carpet.” He grabs Derek’s hand to help him up, because his pallor leaves something to be desired, and the circles under his eyes remind Stiles of the orbit of the earth. Large and dark and old. “I’ll just get you some of my dad’s--” he starts, when Derek is swaying on his feet.
“No.” Derek interrupts, his voice hard and forceful in a way that Stiles knows his body can’t enforce right now. It can later though, so he stops.
“You’ll need different clothes,” Stiles starts, frustrated. He’s got Derek in his room, Derek bleeding and in need of a shower, and some clothes that aren’t bloody and beaten up.
Derek needs a new body that isn’t bloody and beaten. That’ll come with time.
Derek looks at him like he’s an idiot. “My dad has-”
“No.”
“Derek, all my clothes are too small for you, Mr. ‘I-Work-Out’. I might have some sleep pants that are big enough, because we’re about the same height, but you remember how you wearing my shirts went, Derek. You smashed my head into my steering wheel.”
Derek doesn’t say anything, but he looks less like he’s drowning. How did he get here, anyway, and when. Stiles isn’t going to ask why, because he knows and doesn’t know all at once.
“Oh-kay. Sleep pants it is.” Derek makes a humming noise that is probably agreement, and shuffles to his door. Stiles digs out the pants - his favorites - and Derek eyes the wolf-patterned pants for a second before he takes them.
“C’mon dude, they’re the biggest ones I’ve got.” He’s not even lying, and it’s hilarious. He’d bought them before Scott, and held onto them afterward because they were just too appropriate.
He wears them on full moons, after he’s home from whatever wolf mischief Derek and his puppies plus Scott and Stiles get into.
“Have a good shower,” he calls, and goes down to make Derek a sandwich.
Healing werewolves need their strength.