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Walking is agony, the crunch and drag of glass against skin and bone is constant, the sharp pain of nerves severed and regrown, over and over. Derek is mostly dragging one leg behind him, stumbling from one shadowed space to the next. He knows where he's going, body overriding his homing instinct, in a way that shouldn't surprise him but still does. The slow, grating retreat to somewhere safe. Or to someone safe. Because there are some things you can't fight, even when you're waiting for them. The second you stop watching, they'll curl up and make themselves at home inside you.
The house is empty, save for Stiles, more his space than anyone else's. His window has never looked so high off the ground. But Derek's been through worse than this, so he hauls himself up, leg that has the worst damage only used when he has to.
He doesn't know how much noise he makes, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Stiles is curled into his computer, all headphones and lazy sprawl, one leg balanced on the desk, the other jiggling helplessly, in a rhythm that has no rhythm at all.
Derek just watches him for a minute, feeling every breath grate like fire in his throat. He exhales something like relief, which makes no sense, because Stiles wasn't in any danger tonight. But this thing they have is still new enough to tangle around everything else in his life, to colour all the pieces of it. Derek's not used to having things, it's still an unfamiliar feeling, and he can't stop touching it, like a wound that won't heal, or maybe a healed wound that he expects to start bleeding afresh. This thing that's his, and no one else's
He moves into Stiles's peripheral vision, and the reaction is immediate, Stiles turns his head, unbalanced for half a second. Derek must look like a nightmare, because Stiles drops everything, wrenching the headphones off without even stopping the music, and stumbles in his direction.
"Derek, oh my God, Derek." The hands that curl round his arms squeeze, and glass grates under the skin, shifting in ways his body doesn't appreciate. He clenches bloody teeth and breathes out like he's been punched.
The hands relax.
"You look like hell," Stiles says quietly, and there's no amusement there at all, this is soft and honest. Stiles touches people like he's never had to stop himself, like he never needed to learn restraint. No one had to teach him how breakable people were. "What happened to you?"
Derek stops himself from leaning into Stiles's space, an instinctive search for something Stiles won't even understand. Straightening up is an exercise in pain management, and it's been a long time since he's dealt with this repetitive burn of skin tearing and healing, over and over. It gnaws, persistent and vicious. He doesn't like it at all - though Stiles would say he doesn't like much, so that isn't really a surprise.
"There were ghosts in the warehouse I went to check out." Derek's still berating himself over that, about underestimating how much damage they could do, not expecting it. He was over-confident and he's paying for it. "We didn't exactly make friends. They smashed all the windows. Hit me with pretty much all of them," he explains.
He can feel Stiles's fingers pressing down, wiping away blood, and Derek doesn't wince, but he does hiss through his teeth. Because they're all under the skin now, every single one of them.
"Yeah, you're not exactly good at making friends, I keep telling you to work on that." Stiles's hands are uncertain on him now, as if they're not sure whether to pull him closer, or shove his clothes aside and find where the blood's coming from. "I can't see anything," he says quietly. "Derek -"
"I'm full of glass shards," Derek says, through bloody teeth, hot and angry. He can see realisation grow on Stiles's face. He can see the wince there too, like he has to feel it, like he has to feel everything, everyone else's pain included. Which makes anger and guilt churn together inside Derek, a sickly mixture with nowhere to go. Like a dog gnawing at itself.
"Jesus, you healed over them all, didn't you?" Stiles crouches next to him, pushes hair off his forehead, and Derek can tell that there's blood there too, it's all over him, tones of animal wetness everywhere he turns his head. But Stiles doesn't stop touching him, doesn't wipe his hand off. He must be able to smell it too, it's so strong Derek can taste it in the back of his throat.
He knows why he came here, all at once, and it doesn't surprise him but it does hurt. Because he trusts Stiles to dig under his skin, to cut into him and find them. Derek trusts him without question, in a way he doesn't trust anyone else, and he knows that's dangerous, he knows that's more than he's prepared for - though he can't stop it, he doesn't want to stop it. Stiles never tried to earn his trust, not really. He just keeps slipping in where Derek is vulnerable - filling in the holes, shoring him up - until he's all shields again. But he never asked Derek for anything, not for anything real.
It took Derek a while to realise that's just what Stiles does. That's just who he is. He does the best he can, and when that isn't enough he's somehow better. Which is something Derek's never been able to pull off. Is it any wonder - how was he ever supposed to stop himself from wanting that?
But now Stiles has that badly masked look of horror on his face. This is too much for him. Derek understands that. He shouldn't have brought this here. Stiles is human, Stiles is human and he's barely more than a kid. It's different for him, this isn't his world, and Derek can't ask him to cut through his skin, get knuckle-deep in his blood, and make him whole piece by piece. He can't expect Stiles to be ok with doing that. He doesn't have the right to ask.
"I shouldn't have come here," he says quietly, shakes his head, because this was stupid, stupid and unfair and cruel. "I can't expect you to do this." It comes out angry, in a way Derek doesn't mean - because it always sounds like he's angry at Stiles, and it's always wrong.
But Stiles already has his fingers curled in his shirt, determined but careful.
"No, fuck no, seriously. You're not going anywhere. Do you do this shit to yourself on purpose? You're covered in blood. I feel like I should ask, how are you even moving right now?"
Badly, Derek thinks. But he doesn't say it. He can't even manage a shrug, without his back and shoulders burning.
"Stiles, I need someone to cut them out, and I know that's not - I can't ask you to do that, maybe before but not now. I'm not going to ask you to do that." He's sweating, he can feel it, and there's no poison this time, but there is pain.
Stiles frowns at the words.
"This is you though, right? This is what I signed on for. All of it, the normal stuff, and the parts where you show up at my house with some sort of horribly gruesome wound. This is what you do, with your - you're the Alpha and this is expected of you, the whole fighting and protecting the pack and your territory. If I'm going to be part of that - I can't be with you and not be part of that, right? I mean, it makes sense. You're the Alpha, people come gunning for you -"
"No," Derek says roughly, anger genuine now. Because he can't be responsible for that - he can't be the one responsible for that. He doesn't want to be like her, he can't be like her.
Stiles's fingers tighten in his shirt, tighter than Derek's expecting, as if he thinks he can keep him from getting up and leaving. Though Derek hadn't even tried - he hadn't even fucking tried.
"Yes," Stiles swallows and nods, mostly to himself, Derek thinks. "These parts too, I want these parts too. Because I need to know these things, even when they scare the shit out of me. To know that you're ok, even if it means this." It's as if Derek hadn't spoken at all, and now Stiles is trying to get him up again, long fingers pulling. "Come on, bathroom."
He lets Stiles haul him upright again, without complaint, and he's leaving a wet trail of blood all the way there. Smearing red across the walls of Stiles's house when he sways there, shoulder pressing hard into the paint. Every argument he had against this, there in bright red.
"I'll clean it up later," Stiles murmurs, like he'd noticed Derek noticing it. He makes it sound as if it doesn't matter at all. As if he expects Derek to leave everything around him covered in blood.
Stiles pushes the bathroom door open with a foot, and carefully settles Derek on the edge of the bath, hands not so rough when he winces half way down.
"Where's the worst of it?"
Derek grits his teeth, shakes his head, because there is no worse, there's no categorising pain. It just is. Stiles looks so determined though, hands already searching, gentle but insistent.
"The middle of my back," Derek grates out, after a moment's thought. "And my left leg."
Stiles half gathers the bottom of Derek's shirt, then pauses, looking oddly uncertain.
"Can I...?"
It's always questions, as if Stiles is never sure of himself, never sure what Derek will let him do, what he should do, or what he's allowed. It's new, because before - before everything Stiles wouldn't ask, he would forge ahead in jittery, nervous movements, cover the awkward uncertainty with restless anger. As if Derek's attention, as if their relationship, makes him more afraid and not less. Which hurts, because Derek isn't sure why. He isn't sure if it's something he did, to encourage this uncertainty.
Derek doesn't say anything now, he just lifts his arms, slowly, painfully, and Stiles carefully peels his shirt up and off, it's too blood-stained to try and salvage. The movement is not a happy one, Derek can actually feel glass crunching inside him, and he has to stop for a second and breathe, one hand pressed to Stiles's shoulder. Stiles reads him well enough to go still, until he relaxes again.
"Do you want me to start at your neck?"
"Yeah." Derek swallows. "You're going to need a sharp knife."
Stiles's mouth is soft and unhappy, and Derek wants to tell him again that he doesn't have to do this, he can get back to the pack. Isaac has steady enough hands. He could bear it, if he had to. He could cope with it, without hurting him, without wanting to hurt him. But Stiles is already halfway down the stairs, and Derek is already panting. He can feel the glass trying to push its way free, but there's too much of it, he's clawed out as much as he can, but his body can't keep replacing his blood over and over. He doesn't have an endless supply of strength.
Stiles comes back with two knives from the kitchen, small and sharp, and a pair of tweezers, because he's smart and he thinks ahead. He's already carefully turning Derek's shoulder.
"I can't see them, Jesus, I don't even know how to -"
"You can find them, most of them, with your fingers," Derek says numbly, feels worse when Stiles takes a deep breath
"Oh God, yeah, ok, right." Stiles gently does as he's told, long fingers pressing, testing, and then stopping when he finds the hard edge of a foreign object.
"I don't want to do this," he says quietly.
Derek swallows, cold and sick all the way to the bone, because he's heard that voice before, at the clinic, when it was his arm, his whole arm. Before Stiles cared about him at all, when Derek tried to force him into it.
"No," Stiles corrects before Derek can speak. "That's not what I meant, I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to do this to you. You know that right, you have to know that? But I'm going to do it, because you need someone, and you should know that I can do things like this, I have to be able to do things like this, when you need someone to do them."
Derek knows that's the truth, but he doesn't want it, he doesn't want to be responsible for it.
"I need you," he says simply, and there's honesty there, maybe too much of it. But there's no way to take it back, no way to do anything but leave it out there, naked and painful.
Stiles is staring at him, and Derek doesn't know how much he sees. He's always shown too much, he's always given more than he should.
"Ok," Stiles says quickly. "That's - ok." His hand is spread open on Derek's shoulder, palms and fingers covering three spots of pain. Stiles takes a deep breath, horribly, jarringly audible in the quiet of the bathroom, and very carefully presses into and through Derek's skin. The first piece of glass isn't deep, but it's big, all broken edges and it comes slowly, raggedly, Stiles doesn't rush as he draws it out. Derek knows he's trying to be careful, rather than pulling it in one quick, manageable burst of pain. Derek thinks about reminding him again that he'll heal, he'll heal all of it. But Stiles doesn't want to hurt him, and as long as he doesn't think he is - Derek can let him think that.
Stiles is close, so close, all lines of warmth and scent, and movement. Derek is aware of it all, and he focuses on that instead of the pain. Stiles smells like Scott, it's a heavy overlay to his skin, like they'd sat slumped together today, close enough to seep into each other, and it's familiar on him - Derek doesn't like it, but that's one of those things he doesn't say. There's so many of them now, a messy, deafening collection of things he bites down on every time. He thinks, at some point, that he'll choke on them, ruin this in a moment of anger, or worse, spill them all and ruin this with honesty. Admit to all the things he's not, all the things he can't do. So he bears it, and says nothing at all.
Kate had liked his possessiveness, she'd reveled in it, pushed it, treated it like a fire to stoke and encourage.
Derek knows that Stiles wouldn't laugh like her, that he wouldn't push it, wouldn't use it. He knows that Stiles is nothing like her - that he never could be. But it's hard to separate - when Derek feels the same, and he wants to flinch away, or lash out. It's exhausting to pretend he's not broken, over and over.
Derek is always trying to find something to say, for Stiles. Because he knows the more he holds back, the less he has to give, and Stiles communicates with words. It's just finding something safe, finding something that won't catch alight. Derek's never been good at conversation, and he doesn't know the right words to get that loose, easy smile out of Stiles yet. But he thinks it's a puzzle he can find the pieces to, eventually. If they have enough time.
"You smell like Scott." Derek hears himself say anyway, reluctantly. Because Stiles knows, he knows what Derek is, and Derek thinks it would be stranger now, after all this time, he thinks it would worry Stiles more if Derek never admitted these things. Stiles needs to understand. Derek thinks he likes the control of it, when he can't control anything else.
Stiles's fingers stop poking, the slice of pain gone. When Derek looks up there's something close to a smile, slanted and strange.
"Is that weird for you? I mean I never really thought about it, how much you could smell and everything. Which, yeah, I can kind of guess because Scott gets distracted by the way things smell all the time. I swear if I stole one of Allison's shirts, and hid it somewhere in his room, I could literally drive him mad. I guess me wandering around smelling like a wolf who's not part of your pack must be sort of...weird?"
"He'd be pack if he wanted to," Derek says, because it's still true, and because that's the safest part of the question to answer.
"Yeah, he's stubborn but I'm working on him." There's a wry smile after that, an admission that Stiles doesn't have a clue what he's doing, and he'll admit to it, freely, like it's not a weakness, like it's just being human.
But Derek isn't human, he never has been.
"He smells like he belongs on you." Derek's veering sharply into 'things he doesn't say,' territory. But Stiles is so close, fingers light on his skin, breath a curl on Derek's shoulder. The whole world smells like him. Stiles makes things feel easy. Which is why Derek is fucking terrified of him sometimes.
"We've known each other for years," Stiles says, smile loose and fingers careful again. Because he doesn't understand. He doesn't understand what it means. No one has ever smelled like Derek, not like that. He doesn't touch enough for it to ever happen. It's easier that way, but Derek's never hated it before. The way it's been so long that it doesn't come naturally to him any more. Derek wants to though, his shoulders roll with it every time Stiles's comes close, fists clenching in his pockets, and he thinks, by the hovering, by the nervous shifting that Stiles wants it too. Even if he doesn't know what it is.
There's a thin, wet slice of pain and something clinks into the sink. A long shine of red glass when Derek turns his head.
"Is it like a -" Stiles stops like he's not sure of the next word. "Is it a jealousy thing?"
There's a hitch in his heartbeat after that, something slow and curious. Derek doesn't know what the right answer is. His first instinct is usually wrong, too honest, but the thought of lying - he can't do that either.
"Yeah, sometimes."
Stiles swallows, mouth going crooked, and then trying to straighten again. He clears his throat, fingers left to fidget on Derek's skin.
"Because, yeah, no one's ever been jealous of me before. I've never really, it's weird and kind of good. I don't know if that's ok. That I kind of like it. You have to tell me these things you know. I mean, I know that sometimes I'm all about pointing out our differences, but we are different. I know you have trouble with facial expressions, and I can't tell, y'know, all of the things, because I only have boring human senses. And there are things I should know right? There are things I should know about you. Not like personal stuff, just general werewolf stuff. Or maybe Alpha stuff, like what I'm supposed to do, or not do. Or stuff that we - if we're going to -" Stiles stops, and Derek can see enough of him to catch the flush on his cheeks, the brief, sharp and unexpected note of arousal.
Derek's tensing under the knife, feeling the click of it against glass, and the stab of that glass rolling inside him.
"It can wait," Stiles says quietly, hurriedly. "It's nothing important, I'm just saying for later. There'll be stuff we need to talk about later."
"Later," Derek hears himself say. He's trying for flat, but he thinks it comes out wrong...numb and hollow.
Stiles makes an apologetic, nervous sort of noise.
"I'm sorry, I'm rambling because, blood." Stiles is gesturing, Derek thinks, but he can't see. "And I'm just keeping my mouth occupied so I don't make noises at you. Or....."
"It's ok." Derek forces his voice to sound normal. "I wouldn't have asked you to do this. I wouldn't have expected, not on purpose, that's not what we are. I didn't want to bring that to you. I just came here - without thinking."
Stiles hands go still again.
"So I'm...safe?" he sounds surprised, and Derek doesn't know if he realises what it means to ask that question. But he nods anyway, face half turned away.
Stiles is quiet, fingers moving on Derek's shoulder, not actively seeking another piece of glass, moving on the skin in slow arcs, as if he's touching Derek just because he can. Until he ends up with his hand curled round his neck, perfectly still, knife loose in his other hand. Derek knows he has blood all over his face, blood across his teeth, and it still hurts to breathe, still hurts like there's glass gone deep and wretched. But Stiles is staring at him like he can't look away, and Derek still doesn't understand that, still doesn't understand the why of it.
"Don't look at me like that," Stiles says. He sounds annoyed now, and Derek doesn't know what he did wrong, he rarely knows, it's frustrating, and depressing.
"Like what?" he asks cautiously.
"If you want me to pick glass out of you, stop looking at me like you want to kiss me."
It's soft, and if they were anyone else it would be teasing. But Stiles is all amusement and exasperation and something softer, thick and genuine.
"I do." Derek says, before he knows he means to, because it's easier to be honest now. He's forgetting how to be anything else. Even though he knows he shouldn't. Because sooner or later they'll find that place where they can't meet in the middle.
Stiles sighs through his nose, like he's impossible, leans down, thumb pressing into the meat of Derek's neck. It hurts to tip his head back, a jagged line of fire down his spine. But his fingers are dragging through Stiles's short hair, and his mouth is soft and familiar.
When Stiles draws back, with a shaky noise of impatience, there's blood on his lower lip, across his chin. It's bright on the skin.
Derek is going to ruin him.
If he was a better man, he'd make himself stop this, he'd make himself leave. Because Stiles is young, almost as young as Derek was, and he doesn't know how to do this right. But the more he does this, the more he wants it. He hasn't felt this real since - he misses feeling like this. Will miss feeling like this after.
The last time he was selfish, the last time he had something for himself - he lost everything else. It makes him angry, mostly at himself, but there's too much of it, and it just ripples out, touches everything close to him. Stiles just shakes his head though, lets it flow around him like a break.
"Oh my God, you're going to kill me," Stiles says quietly, on the end of a laugh. But it doesn't sound harsh, it sounds like Stiles has been waiting for this, like he's wanted it. Which hurts, because the words are true enough to burn, like a piece of glass that he can't carve out, where Stiles is already too deep, dangerously deep. Derek doesn't know how to stop that, doesn't know if he wants to. This masochistic urge to hurt, warring against his need for something. Something he doesn't think he deserves.
Then Stiles's hands are back on his skin, gentle and efficient, every dig of a blade comes with a murmured apology, and thumb curving against his skin. He works down Derek's spine, and he can feel blood running into the back of his jeans, over the stinging curve of his hip, and the hot, glass-filled edge just below his waist.
Stiles carefully nudges the waistband of his boxers down, to cut the skin open, and Derek can hear him breathing, occasionally making noises to himself, that Derek doesn't think he's supposed to decipher. The burn is fading under the skin. He can feel the prickle and scratch of pieces Stiles has missed, but they're small enough to work their own way out. Or for Derek to pry at himself, now he can twist and bend without ripping his skin apart. Stiles can stop now, he can stop.
But Derek lets Stiles's hands wander across his skin without saying anything, listening to the quiet of his ramble, letting him find the tiny shards and slivers, some almost certainly too small to see. Derek lets the slow, persistent touch continue, because he doesn't want it to stop. There's a easy familiarity to the touching which is - Derek wants to say soothing, but it's firmer than that, he wants to lean back into it, feel Stiles's hands go solid and hold him. Derek doesn't know where that comes from. It's like starving to death, and forgetting what food is. Stiles's words are slower now, amusement leaking back into them, tension leaking out. Long after he could finish on his own. Stiles's long fingers are unearthing a curved piece of glass from the meat of his hip, tugging at the waistband of his jeans.
"Er, do you want to - so I can get to your leg?"
Derek can feel Stiles's fingers under the denim and he stretches away from them, shakes his head.
"No," he says roughly. "I can do that."
Stiles pulls his hands up, like he doesn't know what to do with them any more. Derek knows he did that.
"No, ok, cool, I was just making sure. That's - that's pretty much it, I think. The bits I missed they'll work their own way out, yeah? I guess you're going to do your leg yourself, when you get home or something." Stiles sets the knife down, scrubs hands through his short hair. He looks exhausted, hands leaving blood - Derek's blood - against his forehead, and through his hair.
He's leaning on Derek's shoulder, trying to smooth over the awkward moment Derek made, the way he always does. Derek wants - it's not easy, it's difficult, and it feels so fucking awkward and strange, human, but he does it anyway. He curls an arm round Stiles's waist, and pulls him closer.
Stiles goes still, like he's not expecting it, like it's not something Derek would do, and Derek doesn't know whether that should make him feel guilty, or just sad. But then Stiles relaxes, leans into him, arm looped round his neck, smearing blood and sweat against the sleeve of his shirt - and when Derek tips his head up Stiles kisses him, like he's forgotten how to do anything else.
Stiles is warm, restless and constant, so sharp and so real. Derek wants to keep him. But Stiles is also all tones of arousal, thicker this time, and Derek wants him too. He's forgotten how it feels not to want him. Which makes lust and unease coil together inside him, like snakes that Derek never quite manages to wrench apart, sometimes one more than the other. Derek doesn't tug away, but eases back slowly, forces himself to stay half tangled with him. Stiles is breathing into his hair, every exhale warm and damp.
"Yeah," Stiles says, and Derek doesn't know what he's agreeing too, can't even remember if he asked a question. But he likes the way it's quiet and easy. The way it makes him feel.
Derek thinks - he knows that Stiles will leave eventually. There are easier people than Derek, people who know how to give, who know how to be what Stiles wants, without all the complicated mess underneath. People who don't have to be put back together, before they can even start something. Derek has nothing to give, not really. But until then - until then he's going to stumble his way through this, claws dug in, and he's going to be fucking grateful for it. For as long as it lasts.