Chapter Text
Derek remembers the first time it happened.
I mean, he remembers as much as one could expect. Everyone is still unsure, even now, how it actually began. It’s hard to tell when the normal range of supernatural ended and The Feasting began. It was small signs that built over time—that he knows. He remembers the first mouse that smelled just a tad off, the human whose eyes were a bit too tired to be natural, really.
If only they had known, then.
“Derek.”
He turns, titling his head as Stiles strides out of the makeshift Sheriff station at their new base. A gun is slung over his shoulder, his tall, thin frame cast into a bright luminescence from the rising sun. The sky is painted the colors of sherbet, pink tendrils mixing with the orange backdrop over the mountains. Derek wishes that he could find it beautiful, still.
“No, Stiles,” he says, because he doesn’t need to be supernatural to know what the human is up to, and Stiles rolls his eyes and bends down to tie his dirty shoe. Derek looks at him, at how his hands are too familiar with the deadly weapon on his back and the way his muscles tense as he straightens up. He knows that men are expected to gain strength from warfare. It doesn’t stop him from wishing that war had never touched Stiles.
“Shut up, sourwolf. You can’t go on a raid on your own, even if you think you are the big bad beta.” At this, Derek growls at him, flashing his teeth. He can handle a few Feasters; after all, what else is being a werewolf good for, if not surviving? He’s long since lost the chance to run in the woods without care, to feel the satisfaction of curling up with his pack. What’s the point of living anymore if he can’t take care of the others?
After his rumbling has passed, Stiles still looks unimpressed. He crosses his arms and clucks his tongue, patience bleeding through his eyes in a way that is so Stiles that is almost reminds Derek of before. “No matter how much you huff and puff, Derek Hale, you won’t be blowing down the Feasters by yourself.”
“I’m fine on my own.”
“Humor me,” Stiles drawls, and Derek can’t do anything to stop him shoving up one of the wall doors and stepping into the wasteland outside.
It is almost comical that the start of The Feasting was in Beacon Hills. How could they expect anything else?
Derek winces and Stiles digs a knife into his skin, pain shooting through him in a dizzying cacophony of sensory overload. He leans back against the tree, trying not to think about the Feaster nail that is currently imbedded in his skin, hand still attached. The severed piece hangs there, green and with the first sign of a maggot starting to appear as it worms its way through the rotted flesh. He’s had worse, yeah—but it’s been a while since he’s had a Feaster nick him like this.
“I’ve got you,” Stiles murmurs, and Derek shuts his eyes as a pang travels through him.
It was only after The Feasting started that Derek realized he had underappreciated Stiles. Sure, even before this whole mess, Derek had possessed a grudging respect for him. Any human who could stand up to a werewolf without every ounce of him smelling like fear was at least slightly deserving of it. Stiles had stayed loyal to the pack, to his family and friends and classmates, through the thick and the thin. Even after the Nogitsune (and it was so many years ago, now, years that Derek has lost track of and that show in every added line of the Sheriff’s tired face), Derek hadn’t been able to blame him. He knows what it’s like to not feel in control. He lives with it.
So sure, Derek had tolerated Stiles back when Beacon Hills was still around. Appreciated him, sometimes. But it’s only now, with his home in flames and the forest that he once ran in as a pup smothered in the scent of congealing blood, that Derek really can value him. Stiles is methodical, thorough. He works with a focus that is extremely disconcerting, considering how they don’t have medication for ADHD in stock anymore. Granted, he’s no Melissa—but no one can beat Mrs. McCall, not even the other doctors that they found surviving at this camp. And in an emergency, with only a few of the others out hunting with them, Stiles is more than adequate. He’s good.
“All done,” Stiles says, and withdraws his bloodied hands as the nail oozes out of Derek’s body with a sick, wet noise. Stiles tosses it to the side, a look of pure disgust on his face as the nail (and the hand attached to it) plops onto the dying grass. But he doesn’t seem afraid, not phased in the slightest as he looks down at his blood-smeared clothes and the flecks of Feaster membrane on his shoes. Instead he looks at Derek and grimaces. “Scott sure as hell won’t be getting first shower tonight.”
Derek can’t help but laugh at the normalcy of it.
Everyone thinks that a zombie apocalypse would mean that stars would shine brighter. After all—cities fall. Civilization sputters out. The lights that caused the sky to dim are gone. Yet Derek can barely see the stars anymore, over the smoke of people burning the dead to stop the spread of the disease, and the fires they fuel to keep the Feasters away.
“I think if someone could see the stars, they’d have to be outside the settlement at night,” Stiles muses to him, when he sees Derek looking up at the sky.
“So they’d be dead,” Lydia chimes in, and Derek feels sick.
They all have useful skills that they bring to the base. Melissa and Deaton help the medical team, sometimes direct them. The Sheriff is a co-leader, elected by the survivors at the camp along with a woman named Charlie. They keep things in order, keep people calm. Liam looks after some of the kids, the survivors—people who need someone to hold on to. Scott is a great peace-maker, skilled at diplomacy: Derek saw that when he convinced the neighboring base to merge with them, despite past tensions between the two groups. Lydia flits around the base and yells at people in her makeshift lab coat, a vial of whatever attempted cure she’s made up that month in her hand. Malia, with her sensitive nose and ears, is the perfect scout. Everyone knows how to fight, but Kira is particularly good at aiming rocks at the Feasters to keep them away from the wall while the hunters retreat back into safety.
And Derek? Derek is good at doing supply trips. He can carry a lot and move fast, and he’s so paranoid that things rarely sneak up on him. If they do—well, he knows better than to get bitten, and any claw marks will heal fast. They figured that out when Satomi got attacked: the claw marks heal, but werewolves sure as hell aren’t immune to the virus. After what happened to her, they’ve been careful. He’s one of the few werewolves here now, though. He’s respected, even admired by some of the others who came all the way from Oregon to find a safe place. But it doesn’t make him feel proud. Just worried.
Worried sick.
June 27th is the worst day of Derek’s life.
It’s the day that the imagined becomes real.
He doesn’t know when it happened, but it’s already early January and Stiles has become his partner in the trips most weeks. He’s grown stronger and faster, less flailing limbs and more hard muscle from hours of work and worry. He has a few lines on his face, even though he’s not even twenty-two yet. He is as tall as Derek now, and it’s annoying as hell. His smell is changing, the bright notes of citrus and mint that were once so prevalent being overshadowed by a dark, musky, amber smell that makes something in Derek tingle. It’s disconcerting, and because of that, Derek brushes it off as yet another frustrating thing about Stiles that he won’t bother to try and explain.
As much as Derek likes to complain, it’s useful having him along. He can see patterns that Derek doesn’t, can predict in a way that Derek has always been unable to. Stiles is still wicked smart, the tent he shares with Scott and Liam covered in maps and makeshift sketches of Feaster hideouts. He’s infuriating and stubborn and thinks he knows best, and Derek never fails to smile when he thinks about how Cora punched Stiles in the face after he told her that one of her theories on Feaster biological deterioration was wrong. He remembers old Stiles: afraid of blood and guts, wary of the supernatural, always joking and messing around. And it makes him realize that even though they all like to pretend they are the same people as before, things have changed, now. Stiles still jokes, true; but in the in-betweens he’s a bit quieter, a bit more reflective. Sometimes he meets Derek at dawn, the gun always over his shoulder, and joins him in a quiet walk around the outside of the base. Occasionally, they talk. But most of the time, they listen. There’s an eerie peace about it all, to have everything completely silent except for their breathing.
Even though he knows they could die any second, Derek finds comfort in having another living, breathing body next to him for the time being.
“Do you ever think what it would have been like if The Feasting hadn’t happened?”
Derek raises his eyebrows, looks over at Stiles from across the makeshift fire they’ve made in the middle of the dry clearing. Stiles is gazing up at the sky, still dark before the coming dawn, his smooth throat lit by the flickering flames.
“Sometimes,” Derek admits, and Stiles nods.
They don’t meet eyes, and they don’t say anything else.
“Stiles, Stiles!” cries the little voice, and Stiles whips around just in time to catch a small girl in a dirty sundress. He hosts her up and she squeals, laughs as he spins her around in a circle. He grins at her, eyes crinkled and dimples tracing his cheeks, and she shrieks as he flips her upside-down. Her dress falls over her head, revealing scarred legs and worn pantyhose, skin flecked with spots and tears from the roughness of the camp.
Derek watches from the opening of his tan tent.
“Stiles,” Liam warns, and Stiles rolls his eyes and places the girl on the ground. She’s instantly begging to be picked up again, but Stiles just flicks her on the nose with a gentleness that Derek hadn’t realized the human had.
“Sorry, cupcake, but I think Mister Liam wants to ruin all the fun.” Derek feels a smile tug at his lips and Liam scowls. The movement feels strange, as if it hasn’t happened in a while, and it takes Derek a moment to realize that it’s because it has been ages since he smiled. They’ve been at the camp for fourteen months now, away from Beacon Hills for years, and Derek doesn’t even know how he really feels anymore.
Across the camp, Stiles glances up from the little girl. Their eyes meet, and it takes a moment but Stiles finally offers him a small smile. It feels like it is just for Derek, somehow, and when the werewolf ducks back down into his tent, his heart feels a bit fluttery. He sleeps even less than usual, that night.
June 27th is the worst day of Derek’s life.
It’s the day that everything stops mattering.
In early April, Derek is pacing back and forth by the wall, Scott sitting next to him with tense muscles.
“They should be back,” Kira says, and Derek wants to strangle her for a cruel, horrible moment. Because she’s right—they should. Cora and Stiles left on the supply mission with the promise that they would be back before the sunset started to color the sky.
So where are they?
“They’ll be back,” Scott says, but Derek can smell the unease on him. The alpha won’t look at him, instead rubbing Kira’s arm in an attempt to soothe her. Malia wraps and arm around the kitsune’s shoulders and glances up at the darkening sky, a frown on her face.
“It’s been hours, Scott. We need to send someone.”
Scott shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous.” Derek stops pacing to glare at him, and Scott holds up his hands. “Derek, c’mon, you know we can’t go out now—”
“I’ve been out before, at this time,” he argues, and Scott frowns again.
“Against my requests, yeah. And you haven’t been going alone for a while. Stiles has been with you.”
Rage hits Derek. “I don’t need a human with me to take care of myself,” he snaps, and Malia growls lowly at him. Her and Stiles haven’t been a thing since the Nogitsune disaster, but they’re still protective of each other. It bothers Derek, although he doesn’t know why. He feels his eyes flash, and she does the same in return. Scott steps between them.
“Guys! C’mon. Stop. Fighting isn’t going to help anyone.”
“That’s my sister out there, doing that scavenge, in case you forgot,” Derek hisses, and a look of hurt and anger flashes across Scott’s face.
“And my best friend, Derek. My brother.” Derek feels guilt rush through him in a wave, and he bites his own tongue to stop from wincing. Scott looks at him, pitying, and rubs a hand over his eyes. “I’m worried too, Derek. But I can’t let anyone else get lost out there. If they aren’t back within the hour, then—then we can go, together.”
Derek opens his mouth to argue, say that it’s his job to protect the pack and that risking Scott’s life is just too dangerous, when Malia jerks suddenly and twists her head to the opposite side of the wall. At the same time, the scent of blood fills Derek’s nose, and Scott lets out a growl.
Derek bolts to the other side of the camp, the warm scent of Stiles’ blood mixed with the spicy smell of confusion that he knows well to be Cora’s. There is a crowd gathering near one of the lookout windows, and Derek shoves through them to try and catch a glimpse. As he does, someone opens the door.
“Cora!” he cries, and darts forward to grab her as she stumbles through the opening. There’s a bruise across the side of her face and scratches exposing the bones of her neck, still not healed even though they are crusted with dried blood. He jerks her away from the wall, grips her shoulders the way a sinner grips a cross. “Are you—did they—what happened?” he manages, and she sags into him with the smell of exhaustion heavy on her skin.
“Not bit,” she grunts, and Derek feels a hot wave of relief rush through him. He hugs her, tight, and only then notices Stiles.
He looks… rough. Now that Derek sees him, the smell of his blood is all the more potent. Scott has an arm looped under his shoulders, holding him up as his head bobs in some type of semi-conscious state. His pants are soaked with blood (blood that Melissa is looking at with a firm expression, the one she uses when things are really bad but doesn’t want to show it), the fingers of his left hand mangled and twisted at odd angles. Derek’s stomach contracts painfully, and he wants to throw up.
“He was such an idiot,” Cora says, and Derek pulls away from the hug to look at her. The color is already returning to her skin, and it makes him feel like wagging a tail he doesn’t have. “A goddamn idiot. Freaking threw himself between me and one of the Feasters, the asshole. I probably would have been bitten if he wasn’t there, but it was so—so—” She seems lost for words, and Derek just nods, numb and feeling more thankful for Stiles than he ever has in his entire life.
“He’s clean,” Lydia announces, and there’s a rush to get Stiles to the hospital tent now that they know he hasn’t been bitten. His eyes flutter open, just slightly, and as he’s carried by Derek, their eyes meet.
Derek’s stomach jolts again.
The first time he kisses Stiles, it’s not how he imagined it.
Because he does imagine it, often—especially as the scavenging missions become more and more frequent, the time spent together turning from hours into days of constant company. Stiles makes up games for them around the fire, while rooting through medical supplies, when passing by the rubble of abandoned buildings. He teases Derek, complains when the werewolf makes him carry something too heavy, points at the few stars they manage to see and tells Derek how beautiful the sky still is.
They pretend that they never heard Lydia’s comment on what it meant if they could see the stars—the world is dark enough already, without them thinking about how often they are away from the campsite and putting their lives at risk to get these supplies.
They’ve never been ones for convention.
When he sees Stiles in the community showers, nursing a huge cut across his leg and wearing a sling on his left arm, Derek gets so mad that he shifts accidentally for the first time in ages.
Because he is mad; the only thing special about it is that it normally stays under the surface, like lava about to erupt from the dark rocks of a volcano. He’s mad at the world, mad that the one home he managed to find was destroyed by this horrible virus, mad that he had to lose his entire family and now everything else, and god—why can’t it just end?
Stiles doesn’t even flinch at the unexpected movement, so used to Feasters showing up around corners that a werewolf is hardly something to blink an eye at, now. It makes it so much worse—to realize that their lives have become this messed up. He wishes Stiles would be afraid, that he would yell about how unfair it is that he never got to go to college or become a writer or have any semblance of normalcy. He needs Stiles to stop sacrificing his safety for the sake of the Hale family and little girls and his best friend, wishes that he would just stay within the walls and be safe for once in his goddamn life— because he’s making Derek feel things like companionship and appreciation, and those emotions have no place in this wasteland they now call their lives.
They stare at each other for a few moments, the soft pitter-patter of Stiles’ heart and his amber-tinged scent bleeding through the sounds of water and the smell of fresh blood. Derek feels oddly unhinged, and the more he looks at Stiles’ leg and arm, the worse it becomes.
He bolts out of there like a mouse running for cover when it sees a hawk, and wonders when he started to care so much about Stiles.
There was blood—lots of it. He remembers smelling rotten flesh, human meat devouring itself from the inside out. Proteins decomposing themselves, fat going rancid. He remembers the dust settling slowly on places where it shouldn’t: the school, the forest, the houses, and then the hospital.
He remembers the look on Stiles’ face as they left Beacon Hills for good.
He had looked too old for being 19.
“What do you think the Feasters think about?” Stiles asks him one night, and Derek frowns. This is long before they kiss, long before Derek knows what the fluttery feeling in his stomach means. “Like, what is up there, in their brains?”
Derek doesn’t answer, and Stiles is quiet for a moment. They watch some members of the camp walk from tent to tent, checking in on those sleeping. The moon is nearly full, and it itches Derek’s bones. It makes him want to run.
He's still not fully comfortable talking to others. Something about the empty landscape, the dirty children, the bloodstained clothes—it takes away a person’s voice, their will to speak. But he can talk to Stiles, sometimes. Because Stiles asks the questions that others don’t want to. He’s the one who asks if someone is going to die, if they’ll have to decrease rations to get through the next month. He’s the one who points out that sometimes what they have to do isn’t normal, like when they had to make up children’s stories about Feasters so the kids wouldn’t try to sneak out of the camp but wouldn’t be scared shitless. It’s a strange kind of trait, to be so upfront and so honest about the fucked up direction that their lives have turned. In a way, Derek finds it refreshing.
Pretending can become exhausting, after all.
“Hunger, probably,” Stiles decides, well after the sun has gone down over the horizon, and they don’t say anything for the rest of the night.
Later, when he sees a Feaster tear into a rotting corpse on the side of the road, Derek wonders if Stiles is right.
June 27th is the worst day of Derek’s life.
It’s the day when everything changes.
It’s too close of a call, one time.
Derek and Stiles are out at an abandoned shed in May, scavenging for medicine that is running in increasingly short supply. That’s one of the horribly ironic things about all of this: there is more than just the Feaster virus to fight. People forget that the flu and colds and infections still happen during times of war. In a way, it is worse. The Feaster virus, at least, is quick. As long as you make it back to the camp, you die with a bullet in the head and it’s over. It’s not the same when you’re in the medical tent, praying to god-knows-what that you won’t die. Hoping that medicine will be found on the next scavenge.
Stiles is sharp, attentive. Derek feels oddly comfortable around him now— it’s almost impossible not to, when you have to put your life and mind in someone else’s hands. Sometimes he wishes that it wasn’t like that; that he and Stiles could have the same distant, aggressive relationship as before. It was so much simpler back then.
They’re moving aside pieces of wood, Stiles talking to him about his brief attempt at woodworking in high school, when Derek smells it. He lets out a snarl and Stiles tenses, hands going to his gun with practiced instinct.
They next few moments are a blur, really. Looking back, Derek can hardly remember how they got out, or how many there were. All he knows is that there were too many, and that Stiles is all soft flesh that is easy to rip into. And he is so, so stupid; so stupid that it makes Derek angry. Because he does it again—the self-sacrificial bullshit that makes him so impossible to protect.
When they’re finally to safety, gashes against Derek’s stomach and a bloody bruise already forming against Stiles’ face where he was slammed into the floor by a Feaster, Derek turns on him. He can’t get the image of Stiles pinned down, about to die, out of his head. His claws are still coated in Feaster blood that had splattered across the wooden floor.
“How are you so damn idiotic?” he shouts, infuriated. “You could have died, Stiles! Or worse: bitten! What the hell is wrong with you?”
Stiles seems taken aback, all big eyes and heaving chest. It’s then that Derek realizes that he hasn’t yelled at Stiles, not in a very long time. Sure, in this case, Stiles probably deserves to be yelled at. After all, he did take the time to grab the medicine and throw it to Derek instead of running away as soon as they were ambushed. But Derek can’t help find it funny that this is what surprises Stiles—not the fact that they were being attacked by killer zombies, not that Stiles was close to death, but that Derek yells.
Stiles clears his throat. “I had to do it,” he says, as if that is enough of an explanation, and Derek is so frustrated and relieved and alive that he leans forward.
It shouldn’t surprise Derek that their first kiss is out of desperation. When he tells Cora, she tells him it isn’t unexpected, really. But for Derek, the way Stiles kisses him back is.
“They’re getting smarter,” Scott says, and Derek resists the urge to pace.
It’s been two days since he and Stiles kissed. Derek can still taste him in his mouth, feel his rough skin and dry lips, the warmth of his body pressed against Derek’s.
Naturally, they haven’t talked about it.
“What do you mean?” Kira asks, and Stiles chimes in.
“The attack at the cabin where we got the medicine was more than just coincidence,” he says, and Derek nods. Stiles’ eyes flick over to him and Derek looks away. He can’t see Stiles’ expression when he says, “It was an ambush,” but he knows the look that is in his eyes.
There is silence around the group. Everyone looks to Scott, expecting. Derek knows that they must be more tactical, now. Larger search parties to defend themselves. Taking alternate routes that the Feasters don’t know about.
I won’t be able to scout alone with Stiles anymore, he thinks, and his stomach feels like a stone. He is so frustrated that he wants to howl—because why the hell should he even care? They’re all going to die, after all. When he finally looks up, Stiles is looking straight at him.
Please, Stiles mouths at him, and Derek’s heart lurches. Because he realizes that Stiles is thinking the same thing that he is—that it’s over. Whatever it was. Stiles’ eyes are desperate. Talk to me, he mouths again. Shame burns in Derek’s eyes—he can see it reflected in the beautiful ones that Stiles possesses.
Derek is too cowardly too meet his eyes again. Instead, he turns to the others. Scott seems to be thinking. But it’s Lydia who lets out a loud sigh and throws her hair over her shoulder. “Alright, then,” she declares, and grabs the other scientist by the arm. “Let’s get back to work on the cure.”
Sometimes the pain is all-consuming. The smell of pain –not only his, but those of everyone else in the camp—makes him want to be human.
He would rather have weaker flesh and a higher chance of dying than smell this much pain ever again.
“Are we ever going to talk about it?” Stiles asks, and Derek jumps. It’s midnight, and he’s on the job of guard for the evening. The wall around the camp has been reinforced recently, and it’s high enough now that a human could probably fall to their death if they stepped just a little wrong. The image is disturbing, and Derek swallows it.
It’s been five days since they kissed.
“Stiles—” Derek begins, but Stiles interrupts.
“No, you know what, Derek? Shut up,” he hisses, and Derek turns to him in surprise. It’s only then that he sees the fire in his eyes. There is a rage simmering in Stiles, about to rise up and engulf everything in its path.
“Let me just—” he attempts again, but Stiles isn’t having it.
“Don’t give me this shit, Derek,” he snaps. “I thought—I thought it meant something. Normally, when someone decides to smash their face against yours and cling to a person –who was very much consenting, mind you, I was very much OK with that— it means they like you. It means, at the very least, that you have a conversation with the person and generally discuss what the fuck just happened.”
“Stiles—”
“Not done yet, Sourwolf! Do you have any idea what it’s been like, wondering what the hell is going on in your head? To try and reach out to you and have you just shove me away? If you don’t want romance, that’s fine, man. I can deal with it. We can be just friends; I wasn’t helping you or spending time with you just because I hoped you would like me back. But just—just fucking tell me.”
Silence hovers between them. Stiles stands straighter, crosses his arms. The muscles there are lean and strong. It is then that Derek looks at Stiles—really looks at him. He seems paler than normal. More shivery. Derek wonders if he is as nervous as Derek is. His eyes have blue shadows under them: a sign of no sleep. His lashes are still long, but the white of his eyes are tinted with red from the dust and dirt and destruction that they have to live in every day. His lips are dry—after all, who has time for chapstick now?
His lips are captivating.
“I can’t get you, and then lose you.” The words slip out of Derek’s mouth without his consent, twirling and twisting through the static air between them. He bites his tongue, hard, to silence anything else that might want to come out of his mouth.
Derek takes a step back when Stiles takes one forward, and the human holds up his hands to still him. There is something soft in Stiles’ eyes when he murmurs, “Derek…”
Derek shakes his head. “No,” he says, and Stiles looks down at his feet. “Things that I touch—they die, Stiles.”
Stiles looks him straight in the eyes at that. “Derek,” he whispers, “I’m going to die anyways. You being with me isn’t going to speed that up.”
June 27th is the worst day of Derek’s life.
It is the day that Derek wishes he was dead, so he doesn’t have to feel the pain.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Or—or anyone?” Derek demands of Lydia the morning after Stiles tells him, and she shoots a glare in his general direction as she drops some type of liquid into a clear solution on the table. It’s early June, and some small patches of flowers are blooming in the camp. They call it a miracle—Derek calls it nature.
“It’s not my job or right to tell,” she tells him, calm and controlled, and Derek wants to flip the table over and scream. Because he can’t be like her—he can’t contain this pain right now.
“Cancer, Lydia?” he snarls, and with a loud sigh she turns to him. He is taken aback—because Lydia’s cool expression seems slightly broken. She smells… sad.
“Yes, Derek. Cancer. Stiles had a higher chance with his family history, after all. He came to me a month or so ago, saying strange things were happening. We thought it was the Nogitsune, maybe. But it’s not, which you obviously know since he must have told you, and no one else has noticed—well, besides Scott, but Stiles isn’t telling him.”
Stiles had told Derek, up on the wall. About the extreme pain. About the seizures, the vomiting. Blood. How it was a secret—because if anyone knew, the misery would be extreme. So much better for Stiles to die on a scavenging expedition, something that was expected now, then the surprise of cancer.
And Derek had felt cold, so cold that he couldn’t move, even as Stiles stepped back and said “Just think about it—about us, ok? Because I’d be pretty happy to spend my last however long not feeling like Derek Hale is inaccessible. You’ve lost a lot—so I’m not asking to be, like, yours. I’m just asking to… I don’t know. Know you’re here.”
Derek is drawn back to the present by Lydia, who is still talking. “Aren’t you all supposed to be able to smell it?” she asks, and Derek shakes his head.
“Only… only certain kinds, sometimes. And there’s so much death and sickness and sadness that we smell. It—it drowns out stuff like that.”
Lydia nods, turning back to her vial. Derek stands there, hating himself. Because how had he not noticed?
It’s late at night. The smoke covers the sky, wind blowing it across the landscape and giving the illusion of a misty evening. The Feasters stay outside the wall, wandering aimlessly across the desolation they have caused.
Derek’s hands are shaking when he opens Stiles’ tent, the zipper sliding roughly underneath his fingers. It gets stuck a few times, the fabric old and ratty and in need of an upgrade that they don’t have resources for. Stiles is always the last one to ask for his things to get fixed. Why bother, he once told Derek, months ago, and Derek knows it’s because some part of Stiles always knew he was going to die.
When he steps in, Stiles is sitting up with his hand already on his gun.
At the sight of Derek, Stiles’ eyes grow in surprise. A softness comes into them. “Derek,” he whispers, and Derek steps in further. He doesn’t know what to say, but Stiles pats the spot beside him and Derek sits. The gun is set aside.
“I don’t…” Derek whispers, but trails off. I don’t want you to die. I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want life to be so unfair and painful anymore.
Stiles nods. “It’s ok, Derek,” he says. But it’s not. It really isn’t.
The cure isn’t working.
Derek can hear Lydia whispering to herself, sometimes, when she thinks no one is around. “Maybe this time,” she breathes, and Derek tears himself away from the tent.
How does one even hope anymore?
June 27th is the worst day of Derek’s life.
It starts out as any normal day does—or as normal as one can get when living in the equivalent of a zombie apocalypse. They’re running low on medicine. Many people in the camp have become anemic, and they need iron pills. One of the children has a nasty fever.
“I can go,” Derek says, and the rest of the group looks at him with worry. It’s early morning, and there will be light for many hours—but they have seen some Feasters roaming closer to the camp during the day lately.
“Maybe we should wait for a few other scavengers to heal,” Scott suggests, but Derek shakes his head. They all know that the others who would normally scout with him need time to heal. Malia’s intestines were ripped out in her last hunt, and somehow got infected, and Kira is bed ridden with a fever of some sort.
“We can’t wait,” says a voice, and Stiles appears behind Scott. He is pale, and Derek’s gut twists with worry. Another episode? Another seizure? Has he been throwing up? It is impossible to tell, with Stiles. He disappears sometimes, and comes back paler. He won’t tell anyone anything—makes an excuse. He has one ready now, as well. “I must have gotten some nasty food poisoning or something. Sorry I’m late.”
“Maybe you should rest, man,” Scott cautions, eyeing his pale skin, but Stiles shakes his head. He looks at Derek.
“Nah, I’m fine now. Anyways, like I was saying—we can’t wait. And Derek can’t go alone. I can go with him.”
Derek’s stomach jolts. It’s been just a little more than a month since they had a scavenge with just the two of them—and that one didn’t go so well. Derek can see Scott and Liam thinking, brows creased with the weight of the decision. Finally, Scott looks at Derek.
“Is that ok with you?” he asks, because Scott always asks. Derek looks at Stiles—the firm set of his jaw, the fire in his eyes. He swallows.
Later, Derek will hate himself for what he says next. He will go over it again and again in his head, curse himself and throw himself against the ground until his claws bleed from trying to escape from his own body into hell.
“Yeah, it’s ok,” he says.
June 27th is the worst day of Derek’s life. It’s the day Stiles gets bitten.