Author's Note:

I started writing this story a long time ago, as a prompt. In general this story explores some difficult topics, and because the second season of the show came out, and some of the "backward" character ideas I had turned out to sort of just be the regular versions, I never finished it.

I'm going to try to set a lot of that aside and just finish it. I was nearly done with it, but I've decided to go back and rewrite to some degree all sixteen previous chapters, and then continue to the end.

Here was the prompt:

Derek/Stiles

Derek and Laura are hunting the pack that killed their family. They've been somewhat successful in killing some of the pack.

The Argents are a ruthless pack who will tear into anyone who get in their way (or even the ones that they feel like killing), human or wolf. They're a traditional pack who live by old values.

Stiles is the omega of the Argent pack, mistreated and abused.

One night when Derek's found a trail through the woods he comes across a battered werewolf running from his abusive pack. He holds a gun to the wolf's head...but something stops him and instead he brings the wolf home.

Derek could be a werewolf or not (In my version of this story he's not), but either way he's tough as nails until a pair of big brown eyes melt a little of his hardened heart.

Warnings: Adult content, dark themes, I don't own Teen Wolf, I don't make any money from this, I just do it hoping that people find something in the stories to care about.

Derek cocked the hammer of his pistol, stared down the cold metal length of the barrel. The creature on its knees in front of him didn't even flinch. Derek knew what he was supposed to do. He pressed the gun to the thing's forehead. It didn't move, nothing changed, not even its steady shallow breaths.

They'd been chasing their prey for weeks, had driven a few of them into the woods outside town. The sun was going down, they were running out of time. He knew what he should do, but he didn't know why he didn't do it.

"What are you doing, Derek?!" Laura hissed. "Take the shot. The others are getting away!"

Brown eyes the color of dried and dying leaves watched him impassively. Derek's chest began to tighten, there wasn't enough air. There was nothing there in the depths of those eyes. It was like the creature believed it had nothing that Derek could take away.

It was wrong, it was all so wrong, those eyes on any living creature, like they had seen things that Derek couldn't even imagine. Horrors and pain that people read about, saw on television, but never really believed could exist, that there were monsters that could make those things real. Those empty eyes looked like they had seen all of that and more. Derek watched everyone he had ever loved except for his sister burn to death as his family home crumbled into ash, and he still wasn't prepared for what was hidden in the dull unblinking gaze that watched him. It was like the werewolf couldn't even muster up enough emotion to be indifferent, it was just empty.

"This gun is loaded with bullets that will kill you. You know that, right?"

His hands were beginning to shake, but that unnerving gaze never shifted. The werewolf leaned slightly back from the gun, removing its forehead from barrel. The muscles in Derek's arm tensed up, his finger twitched on the trigger but didn't pull it. Those broken brown eyes looked at him steadily as the werewolf opened its mouth and stuck it over the end of the barrel. It folded its arms behind its back, and just sat there.

Something in Derek broke.

The monster, it was just a teenager, maybe a couple years younger than him. It… the werewolf… he had short buzzed hair. He wasn't wearing a shirt, arms and ribs covered in bruises, blotchy purple and yellow masses. For them to even be there it meant they were fresh. The werewolf's healing power should have already cleared them away if they weren't. There were claw and bite marks all over pale skin, a latticework of suffering that Derek couldn't imagine having lived through.

He thought he saw scars. His throat constricted around the idea. How badly did you have to hurt a werewolf to leave it scarred? He had hunted them mercilessly for years and he didn't know. His arm started to burn, to shake harder. He looked down into the face of that… boy, that broken hurt and lost thing and he couldn't pull the trigger.

Those pale bloodless lips should have been smiling. Those eyes like the color of withered leaves should have been full of life, barely able to contain the energy and wonder of being young and thinking they would live forever. The kid should have been stretched out on green grass wondering who the first person he was ever going to fall in love with was, what his first kiss would be like. Those eyes told Derek that the boy thought he had done enough living already, that he didn't need to see what else the world had in store for him.

"They killed our whole family Derek, burned them alive. Hunted down and tore apart the ones who made it out of the flames. They're monsters. Every single one of them is a bloodthirsty raving beast. If it wasn't for them, we'd be sitting around our dinner table with our parents instead of hunting these things through the woods."

Laura was right beside him, her voice was a calm fury in his ear. Derek didn't turn to look, he couldn't meet the anger and pain he knew he would find in her face. He kept looking at the werewolf who was on his knees waiting for Derek to help him. To take away all that pain. All he had to do was pull the trigger.

He pulled the gun out of the werewolf's mouth, released the hammer, and tucked it into the holster strapped under his arm. He couldn't do it. The look in those brown eyes changed, but it wasn't relief. It was fear, fear of having to take another breath, having to see what new pain tomorrow would bring.

It was all so wrong; the kid should have been laughing. He shouldn't have been on his knees silently begging Derek to kill him. What had happened to the world? How had it gotten so turned around?

"It's not supposed to be like this," he said softly. He wasn't sure if he was talking to Laura, to the werewolf on the ground, or to a god who would let something like this happen. He didn't know.

Derek reached down and wrapped his arms around the broken body on the ground in front of him, picked it up, didn't flinch at all when arms wrapped around his neck and legs wrapped around his waist. He felt the soft dark hair on the boy's head brush against his cheek, felt the small body trembling as hot tears spilled out of its eyes and down Derek's neck. The werewolf cried silently in his arms. It wasn't making any sounds at all, he couldn't even hear its breathing.

Derek turned away from his sister, putting his body between her and the werewolf he was clutching as he heard her cock her own gun. He covered the boy's head with his hand, stroked the hair soothingly while using his own body as a shield.

"What are you doing Derek?" Laura's voice was too soft, too calm.

"The right thing," he told her as he walked back the way they had come, away from the pack of werewolves they were hunting.

The boy he was holding shook, tears fell silently from his face onto Derek's skin. He didn't know why, but that was the worst part, the kid had never made a sound. He never cried out for help, he never begged them to let him go. He had just watched them, silent.

It wasn't supposed to be like that, the world wasn't supposed to let something like that happen. He was going to fix it. He wasn't sure how, but he was going to find a way to make this kid laugh, he'd find a way to make him smile. If he could do that, then maybe the world wouldn't feel quite so backwards to him anymore.