Help, I'm Alive

By: RavenHeart101

Disclaimer: No, I do not own Teen Wolf. Or, ya know, shit would happen. The title belongs to the song "Help, I'm Alive" by Metric.

Summary: "I lied to you. I'm in some bad shit, Dad. And I'm scared." An accident causes Stiles to take a step back from the things that go bump in the night. The accident also wakes something inside of him, and while the werewolves scramble to figure out who attacked him, he starts dreaming of people long dead. Okay is relative, and normal is simply a state of mind.

Warnings: Maybe pre-slash? Uh, pre-like every pairing probably. Trigger warning for depression, and anxiety and car accidents and some other stuff that comes with that. Swearing, violence, and the tendency to possibly get things wrong.

A: N – This idea's been plaguing me for a while. So then I decided to pitch it to my friends and then I decided to torture you all with the plot too. Yay.

Smoke floated up into the air, mingling with the rain and coating the already dark sky darker. Off to the left a black truck had its front pushed in, crumbled in on itself. A woman stood off to the side, a smirk on her lips as she spoke into a phone, informing a 911 operator of what happened. She hung up after rattling off the address, throwing it over her shoulder powerfully and the phone plopped down into a pile of bushes. The woman fixed her skirt and started walking down the road, turning and running into the woods. She wouldn't be caught - at least by the police.

In her wake she not only left her truck, still running and broken, but another car - a jeep - rolled over, smashed, and totaled on its side and down a hill. Its glass was almost completely gone, scattered on the grass in chunks. And there, where the smoke was coming from, was the hood of the jeep, torn off beside the car. Whimpers could be heard from inside the vehicle, which soon turned into pained yells, a phone down by his feet, crushed and stuck as they were.

And off in the distance, as sirens started to fill the air, a loud howl was sounded and the race began.

The Sheriff was sitting in his squad car when he got the call. He had his favorite unhealthy dinner in his lap – curly fries from Arby's and a hamburger – waiting diligently for any sort of call to tell him that he was needed somewhere. Things in town had been oddly silent for a while, and while the Sheriff was thankful for that, this sort of silence always tended to set him on edge. He sighed and scratched at his neck as the radio crackled on. "Accident on Freeman Drive, roll over."

He reached over and unclipped it, already shifting gears and putting his car in drive. "On my way." He stepped on the gas; he wasn't very far away, only five minutes or so. And if it was a roll over it was guaranteed that there would be more than one responding officer. In the back of his mind, the Sheriff did what he always did when he got calls like this – made a mental check of where exactly his son had been when he left him. With Scott and that Lahey boy, sprawled across his bed with an old Batman comic open, even though the Sheriff knew that he wasn't reading it. Which meant that he really had no idea exactly where his son was.

He frowned and shook himself. It wasn't as though the rollover could have been Stiles. His son had company and Scott had driven himself over so it wasn't as though Stiles would need to drive him home. No, the Sheriff thought as he flicked on the lights and siren of the car, there was no way that roll over could be his son.

He pulled over when he caught sight of the accident area, two other squad cars pulled over on the right shoulder. One of the officers – Clancy – was searching through a big, black truck that sported quite a deal of front end damage. The other three officers were nowhere in sight.

"Sheriff!" Clancy yelled when the Sheriff stepped out of his car, the lights still flashing against the rain slicked road. Clancy jogged over to meet him, his pale face already shining paler at the possibility of how bad this accident could have been. "The car's empty. No driver." He nodded over at the truck.

"Who called it in?" The Sheriff fetched a flashlight from his trunk and turned it on with a flick of his finger.

"Anonymous 911, sir." The younger officer sidled up to him.

"There someone in the other car?" He asked, walking around his car and shining the flashlight in the window of the truck just to be sure Clancy wasn't making things up. Not that he didn't trust the other officer, it's just that sometimes you had to be sure.

"Think so, sir. Greg and Nancy went down to check."

"Medics on the way?" The Sheriff started towards the hill. Tire tracks rolled down them before disappearing completely, probably when the car started to turn over. Whoever was driving that truck had probably hit the other car deliberately. He frowned at the skid marks on the wet pavement. They needed a CSU team out here. "CSU on the way?"

"Yes, sir." Clancy nodded and followed after him.

"Set up a perimeter and a detour for traffic." The Sheriff advised and he waved the flashlight down to the bottom of the hill, trying to find the wreck and his other officers. A hood was dislodged and separate not too far from him, cracked and the rain pinged off the metal. It looked familiar. He swallowed down the unnatural terror that clawed at his stomach. No. Stiles was at home with Scott and Lahey and safe.

He wouldn't be out at this time of night.

He shouldn't have been out at this time of night.

"Stiles!" He shouted and sprinted down the hill, the flashlight clanging to the ground the moment it passed over the familiar Jeep.

He heard Clancy swear behind him and he nearly tripped and rolled down the hill himself, the wet grass hard to keep a grip on, even in his best sneakers. He must have looked like a lunatic, throwing himself down that hill and pulling Nancy out of the car before crawling in where she had been. Glass cut into his knees and is hands were shaking horribly.

But there was his boy. Slumped against the steering wheel, making some sort of pathetic half yells, broken by sobs and exhaustion. He had blood on his face, blood on his hands, his arm was twisted in an unnatural way, and his eyes were screwed shut. "Stiles." He spoke softly, brokenly himself.

His boy let out a whimper and opened his eyes. They were unfocused, unsure, scared, absolutely terrified.

The Sheriff's hands floundered over his son's broken body, and he bit his lip before throwing a yell over his shoulder. "Where are the medics?!"

"On their way, Sheriff." Greg stuttered out and the Sheriff nodded, knowing that, in reality, it had only been a minute since he had arrived. Only ten since he got the call.

"Dad." His boy's voice was soft, almost devoid of anything but pain.

"I'm here, Stiles." He kept himself kneeled beside him, reaching out to cradle his head in between his hands. He probably should have done that earlier, kept the neck steady. But there wasn't much else that he wanted to do besides hug his son to his chest – make sure that he was okay and that he wasn't going anywhere. He shouldn't have been out. Shouldn't have been driving. Why had he been driving?

"S'ry." He slurred and his body slumped just a bit more.

"Don't apologize." I'm sorry means you're giving up and you're not giving up. "Where does it hurt?" He had to keep him talking. It was never a problem to keep him talking before.

Stiles was quiet for a long moment, drifting in and out and the Sheriff could tell from the way his body would sway forwards and then back again, almost as though he were afraid that he would be alone if he closed his eyes. "Doesn' hur'."

His eyes fluttered shut and then he let out a low whine. His pulse was weakening under the Sheriff's fingers.

"You're gonna be okay, Stiles." He wasn't sure who he was trying to say it to, himself or his son.

The Sheriff looked down and his stomach dropped at the blood that seemed to be covering his son's legs. The entire drivers' side of the car was crushed in on itself, the roof caved down and the front not too far off from caving in. They were going to need some heavy duty material to get his boy out of this thing. "'M so'ry, d'd." The Sheriff snapped his head up to look at his son.

Resigned and tears coated his pale cheeks. "You have nothing to be sorry for, kid." Why were you out at this time? Why?

"I li'd."

The Sheriff shut his eyes for a moment before opening them. He had known his son had lied to him – had been lying to him. He had just chosen to believe that Stiles would tell him the truth one day, and that, hopefully, it wasn't anything truly bad or illegal that his son was doing. "It's okay." And if he got out of this okay and alive than it truly would be okay. He didn't care if his son had been killing people, so long as he was alive.

He brushed the glass that was Stiles' shirt off with a shaking hand, trying his best to smile reassuredly. It didn't work. And Stiles let out a shout of pain when the Sheriff pressed too hard. "Shit." He muttered and that press seemed to wake something up in his son because suddenly he was sputtering and crying harder than the Sheriff had ever seen him cry. Harder than he had when his mother died, harder than he used to during one of his panic attacks. "Shit, shit." His hands floundered over his son's broken body. Where was he supposed to place them? It was as though Stiles was a child again and the Sheriff didn't know the right way to hold him without hurting him. "You're okay." He whispered as soothingly as he could, even though his own cheeks were started to feel wet. "You're okay." He smoothed down his son's hair and kept one hand securely on his neck, holding it in place as much as he could.

It didn't seem to work. The Sheriff never felt so helpless than he did at that moment.

His boy was crying loudly, yelling and screaming and he supposed he should be happy that at least it wasn't silence. But there had to be a way to help him. There just had to be away to help him.

Sirens started in the distance and the Sheriff looked up at Nancy from where she was kneeling in the back, her hands floating around to grab Stiles' neck and hold it in place. She nodded at him and he nodded back, leaning forwards to rest his head against his son's. The glass cut into his knees and legs even farther. He didn't care.

Eventually his yells gave way to whimpers and even more crying and he was probably making himself sick. "You're okay." The Sheriff said again and continued to smooth his hair, brushing it off his forehead and back again. "You're okay."

"Down here!" It was Greg's voice as the sirens filled the air. The Sheriff couldn't really hear them, though, too focused on his boy to hear anything other than each breath that he took and each noise he made and, if he listened close enough, he was sure he could hear each tear hit the seat belt that was still around his body, holding him in place.

"M'sorry, m'so'ry." Stiles cried over and over again and the Sheriff just held on tighter.

"Shh, you're okay."

"Sir, we have to get through." A paramedic tried to move him out from beside his son.

"No." He fought them back. "This is my son."

"Sheriff, please." Greg hoisted him back and him and Clancy held him back. Even as Stiles started yelling again. Screaming for him. "You have to let them do their job."

"They're hurting him!" It was irrational. They weren't hurting him. They were probably doing their best not to hurt him. And it wasn't as though the Sheriff would rather Stiles be stuck in that car forever. Some pain was going to be given in order to remove him from it.

"Sheriff, you're bleeding." Another paramedic skidded next to him, looking down at his cut legs.

He blinked at her. Was he supposed to care? "Help my son." He ordered her and she stared at him for a moment before nodding and running off to help the others.

He didn't slump back into the grip of his other officers and they didn't let go. Which was a good thing, for, if they did, he would probably have flown forwards and pushed his way to his screaming son anyway.

He could see them through the smashed in windows, one of them securing a neck brace over Nancy's hands before she slid them out. Another checking for a pulse. Another cutting off the seat belt.

"We need a back board!" One of them yelled out, and someone automatically handed it over. He should probably be thankful for the promptness in the way they were acting. But he couldn't help wondering what took them so long to get there in the first place.

In reality, it had only been a few minutes after he had.

"Let's get him out." One of the older paramedics said in a rush. "Come on people!" They snapped back into action, and they turned him sideways. Stiles was scarily silent after that.

"Why is he quiet?" He asked the other officers quickly. "Stiles!" They renewed their tight grip on him as he tried to lunge forward. "Why is he quiet?!"

"Sheriff calm down!" Greg grabbed at his shirt and pulled him back sharply. "You're not going to help him if you keep acting like this!"

He knew he was right. Knew he couldn't just stop worrying though. His fellow officers understood that much, anyway. "Just let them do their job, sir." Nancy added stiffly, she touched his arm gently and nodded down at his cut legs. "You're going to need those to be looked at, sir."

"Not until he's all set."

She nodded and stood at his side.

Stiles was pulled from the car then, and he looked even worse now than he did in the Jeep. His face, the Sheriff could see now, was covered in tiny cuts, a big gash on his cheek and forehead from where a piece of glass had cut and from where he had slammed his head on the steering wheel. His arm was definitely broken, his leg was losing too much blood and those were just the injuries they could see. But the most terrifying thing of it all was the fact that his eyes were open, but he wasn't making any sort of noise. The moment he was moved from the car he had an oxygen mask strapped over his mouth. "We need to get him to a hospital, stat!" They rushed him up the hill and the Sheriff followed, stopping when something a-light caught his eye.

At the bottom of the car, where his son's feet had been, was his phone. He kneeled down and picked it up, pressing the home button with shaking fingers. A piece of glass snagged the skin and the screen was cracked into a dozen tiny pieces.

But he could still make out the name that had been pulled up on his son's phone. Derek.

He frowned and dropped the phone before rushing up the hill after the paramedics. The only Derek his son knew was Derek Hale. And, as far as the Sheriff knew, those two weren't even on speaking terms. Yes, there was something odd going on, but no; the Sheriff wasn't going to focus on it. Not now. Not when his son was being packed into the back of an ambulance.

No one questioned him when he jumped into the back of the ambulance with them, they all knew who Stiles was, and all knew who his father was. Stiles' eyes found his and the Sheriff gently dragged his hand up to his lips, kissing the knuckles lightly and holding the hand tightly in both of his own. He could see the cuts there too. Could see so much blood. He knew it wasn't natural to lose so much blood. Wasn't natural at all.

"Let's go." One of the paramedics slammed the doors closed and the driver stepped on the gas, the sirens filling the air and the vehicle snapping forwards at an unnatural speed. "What's his name, Sheriff?" The paramedic asked as they hung up an IV bag and got to work on cutting off his shirt to see what was under there.

One of his coworkers was working on his boy's leg, cutting off the jeans to get at the gash. It looked nasty, some of the blood crusted over and almost looking black from the pure amount of it. "Stiles." He muttered. "His full name is Genim."

The paramedic nodded and grabbed a small flashlight. "Stiles?" He shinned it in his son's eyes. The boy looked away from him and turned his head towards his father's knee. "Stiles, can you talk?"

He seemed confused by the question and just shut his eyes and leaned a bit closer to his father. The Sheriff felt his throat constrict at the sight. "Unresponsive." The paramedic deemed and Stiles' eyes fluttered shut.

"Hey, hey." The Sheriff squeezed the hand that was in his own. "Stay awake, kid." Never thought I'd have to say that. Stiles seemed inclined to listen, his eyes snapping open, unfocused as they were. He's lost too much blood, the little voice that sounded suspiciously like his dead wife pointed out in the back of his mind.

Stiles' mouth moved to form words behind the oxygen mask. The Sheriff leaned close, trying to make out what it was he was trying to say. His breath caught. Mom. He was mouthing out mom and looking somewhere behind his father and the Sheriff had never been more scared in his life. "Stay with me, Stiles, please."

But his son's eyes still fluttered shut and the paramedic still swore and grabbed one of the oxygen pumps and his hand still slackened in his own. "We're losing him!" The paramedic yelled out and one of the paramedics pushed him out of the way, beginning compressions on his son's chest. The ambulance picked up speed. "Paddles?" One of the others grabbed them down from the shelf they were on.

He rubbed them together and held them over his son's chest, waiting for the charge and then he pressed them down to the skin. His boy's body jumped violently before settling back down. "Come on, kid!" The paramedic whispered. "You can't leave your dad like this."

She pressed them to his chest again and then the one checking his pulse waved her off. "He's back!"

"We're here!"

The Sheriff let out a stream of breath and rushed after them as they pulled him from the back of the ambulance and in through the emergency doors.

His son was swarmed by people in a matter of seconds, someone calling ahead to warn the staff of what was coming in. "John?" Melissa McCall grabbed onto his arms and stopped him from going any farther. "You can't go after them, John." She told him, holding him back. He looked at her for a long moment.

"Make sure he's okay." He begged her and she nodded, squeezing his forearm before rushing after her coworkers as he slumped into a chair, his head falling into his hands.

Another nurse came over and asked him to follow her to a room himself, to check at the cuts that covered his legs from the glass. He followed her numbly, silently, his mind spinning with the echo of his son's screams.

He settled back into a chair in the waiting room, a pair of scrubs now covering his body and one of Melissa's friends sitting down beside him, offering him a cup of water. It was a waiting game now.

He sent up a quick prayer that his son would be alive. Okay was relative, alive… that was all he wanted.

A: N - So... we want more? Or should Raven not write Teen Wolf fanfic? Like ever?