It's hard for him to comprehend exactly what's happening. He can see the basic outlines of two males – the two whose voices are splitting his head in two as everywhere else on his body begins to burn – and the treetops darkening in the dusk just above their heads.

It takes him a minute to focus in on their voices, takes him another minute to be able to understand the words they're blabbering are actually snippets from their argument.

"—you need to, or he's going to die." The older Beta wolf growls to the teen kneeling across from him, both holding vigil.

He feels pressure sliding against his chest as his fingers prod and looks down, craning his neck against the burning to try and find out why his chest hurts so fucking much. They come back soaked in blood. His blood.

It takes all of three seconds for Stiles Stilinski to run through his head everything that had happened and lead to him bleeding to death on the forest ground with pebbles and twigs digging into his back and leaves crunching under his head and elbows as he tries to sit up.

He and Scott had been leaving Derek's dilapidated house when they came out from behind the trees. With all the fighting that Derek and Scott had been doing for training, and Stiles eating popcorn while announcing commentary, neither of the wolves had heard the half dozen hunters making their way towards the house.

The three – two wolves and a human, outnumbered, outgunned and certainly screwed – took off into the woods to try and use home court advantage as means of escape. But Stiles wasn't as agile and fast as the wolves and ended up with a bullet straight into his back, exploding out of his chest. Everything after that was a blur of feet and inhuman growls with shotgun blasts and sizzles of electricity peppered in.

"Look, he's awake!" His obtuse best friend, Scott, stated triumphantly. "We just need to get him to the hospital and he'll be fine."

"No, he won't." Derek growled, "Trust me on this. He only has a few minutes, I can sense it."

"How?"

"I just can!" There's a look in Derek's eyes beneath the ice blue anger his inner wolf emanated. With a deep breath through his nostrils, he calmed himself, "He has two options, Scott. He dies or he gets bitten."

"Do I get any say in this?" Stiles asked weakly, giving up on trying to sit up when his wound pulled and stretched. If he lived, he would be a werewolf. If he died… well that was pretty self-explanatory.

"No!" The wolves answered simultaneously, never taking their glowing eyes off one another. Two Betas trying to be an Alpha. Just what Stiles needed.

"Okay, hate to break up the wolf-off you guys are having, but I'm kinda dying here!" He spluttered, his lungs feeling weird as he tried to inhale. It was like he was drowning. He was smart enough to know that he wasn't far from dying like Derek had said. When you watch stuff like Grey's Anatomy for Katherine Heigl, you pick up on enough medical crap to know when you are completely and utterly screwed, even though you think you'll never have to apply it to actuality.

"I'm not biting him!" Scott staunchly refused. He couldn't do that to his best friend. He couldn't – wouldn't– be the one to inflict that on Stiles, of all people. Jackson, maybe. But not Stiles.

"Fine." Derek said, his voice tight with something Stiles couldn't place.

The human felt his stomach knot underneath all the agony he was in, when Derek directed his gaze down to him. He could practically see an apology written in his eyes. If that wasn't enough to set him on edge, he wasn't sure what could. But he had no time to contemplate it as he watched through blurring vision as Derek's body began to morph.

"Stiles!" Scott shouted, slapping his friend's face as his eyes closed and his head lolled. This wasn't right!

"Move." Derek growled, sitting on his haunches and looking so protective of Stiles in that one position that it sent Scott toppling on his ass in surprise.

With a growl that vibrated through the Earth and skittered through the core of trees to ruffle leaves, Derek clamped his jaws into Stiles' hip. Scott expected that to be it. A simple bite, like the Alpha did to him. But Derek stayed, and stayed, and stayed, unresponsive to Scott trying to get his attention and even when he tried pulling him off.

"Derek!" He yelled one final time, clawing down his back. He was fearful that if he just yanked him off, a chunk of Stiles' hip would go with him.

The older Beta groaned his way back to humanity, writhing in the dirt as if he was taking on Stiles' pain. For all Scott knew, he could be. He had no idea what was going on and sometimes, he preferred it that way.

But Stiles still wasn't conscious, and the wound hadn't healed – then again, he rationalized to himself, his wasn't gone 'til the next day – so how were they to tell if it even worked? "Now what?"

"We wait to see if it worked."