It was the middle of the night when Stiles showed up at the abandoned house. I guess abandoned isn't quite the right word to use, but it was fitting. Nothing really lived here. Nothing real lived here.

"Derek!" His voice was choked out, stuck in his throat. He pawed at his eyes angrily, footsteps hard against the earth below him. His body shook and his lips were pressed into a hard line, fingers curled into fists.

The moon was hidden tonight, behind clouds and thick mists. The stars were hardly visible even in the clearest parts of the sky.

Stiles yelled his name again, pushing clumsily through the door and strained his eyes to see through the opaque darkness settled inside the half-standing house.

His heart might as well have been a butterfly. Frantic, like it's wings had been pulled off and it was convulsing on the concrete. Skipping across the ground. Hard. Fast. Desperate.

His chest was heavy. It burnt. It felt tight, like something inside him was drying up and cracking open.

The dark was suffocating and Stiles stumbled through it, tripping over his own feet, catching his breath and trying his best not to sound as completely in shambles as he was. He pushed the tears falling across his cheeks away as his foot hit the bottom of the stair case. His footing wasn't stable and it was the last push he needed to fall against the dusty wooden floor and bury his face in his hands.

"Where the fuck are you?!" he was screaming, sobbing, shaking against the oak panels. His chest heaved and his breathing hitched.

The night was calm and watched him break against its silence.

"What do I do, what the fuck am I supposed to do?"

Stiles held his face, his chewed up fingernails digging into his scalp. It felt like being shot with rock salt, like being burned again and again with the end of a cigarette. There was nothing he could do. Nothing. It wasn't worth it to be the friend anymore, to be the brains or the bravery. None of it was worth it. How do you cope when you're friends are all dying around you? Slowly? Brutally?

It was exhausting.

A hand snaked around his shoulder and Stiles jolted, scrambling to his feet.

"W-why? Why didn't you just answer me, jesus christ..."

He looked at the ground instead of at Derek who stood unphased infront of him. The wolf took in a long breath and sighed into the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the house. Stiles cleared his throat, sniffled, slapped away the salt on his cheeks.

"I didn't want to-"

It wasn't necessarily the snide remark that made Stiles punch Derek in the mouth, but the principal that he could be so cruel to him in this situation.

The boys fist hit a hard jaw and Derek growled, reaching a hand up to touch the already healing split lip the human had left on him.

It happened fast. First how Derek slammed Stiles into the near wall, and second how dangerously close his fangs were to the boys face. Red eyes narrowed and he gripped Stiles' shoulders, claws digging into the flesh underneath the dingy flannel he had thrown on.

"Do it!"

Derek blinked.

His face softened.

"Do it, Derek, fucking bite me, tear my throat out. Do it before someone else does," Stiles spat out the words furiously, tears once again threatening to spill over his lashes. Derek could hear his heart. That butterfly heart, beating like it had nothing to lose.

There was another moment of silence. Stiles stared at Derek as his red eyes faded and he looked passed him, into the wall, into nothing. His grip on the boy didn't loosen and he breathed evenly, not responding to the suicide attempt that Stiles had apparently came here to fufill.

"Everyone's dying, Derek... Everyone's going to die. Scott, You, Me, we're all fucking-"

"I'm not going to die."

It was quiet again after that. Derek finally looked at Stiles.

"You aren't going to die."

Stiles still wasn't breathing normally but his heartbeat had slowed and he relaxed his body against the wall, his head tipping forward before lolling to the side. He looked up to the darkness where the moon should have been through the broken rafters. They were all going to die. It would happen sometime. Everything fucking dies.

"Why, why the fuck are you here, Stiles? For me to kill you? Really?" Derek shoved him back against the wall, letting go of his shoulders and holding his hands up in mock surrender, "You think I'm the one who should kill you?"

Stiles didn't look at him, didn't do much of anything. Who else would he go to? Where else would he run?

"You've taken pity on me before, Derek, so I figured," Stiles shrugged, his hands gripping his scalp again as he kicked the wall and paced back and forth once again in the dark. "You have... been showing fucking pity on me for months so," the boys voice trailed off.

Derek watched him. His mouth parted, eyes searching for some kind of justification to what exactly Stiles was trying to imply.

And then it dawned on him.

Stiles' back hit the ground hard, the back of his head slamming against the floor boards. Derek's hand circled his throat and he lifted Stiles to face him, hovering above the boy like a nightmare would a sleeping child.

"Really?!"

His voice was a growl and Stiles flinched beneath him.

"You think that I have been pity fucking you?"

There it was. That silence again. The kind where tension had weaved its way into every single crevice that it had to offer. Stiles looked away uncomfortably, biting down angrily into his bottom lip. That wasn't it. That wasn't what this was about.

Stiles punched him again. As hard as he could and the wolf did nothing more than roll his eyes.

It hurt. It hurt that Derek had figured out just how insecure Stiles was and it hurt more that he wasn't taking him seriously. This isn't what he signed up for. His junior year of high school was not supposed to be spent making sure his best friend doesn't eat the cat and casually fucking his alpha on the side. He wasn't supposed to watch his friends get hurt, watch more parents die, dig up dead fucking bodies.

He was supposed to go to prom, get good grades, steal his dads alcohol.

But no, that just wasn't in the cards for him.

"Yes," Stiles finally answered and lifted his hands to claw at Derek's grip on his neck. The wolf released and sat poised above him with his hands settled on either sides of the young adult.

Derek leaned his forehead against the boys, taking in a heavy breath, "That's not fair, you can't use that-"

"Are you fucking kidding me," Stiles squirmed, his eyes shifted away from the wolf who kept him locked in place with another low and threatening growl.

"No, I am not fucking kidding you, Stiles. This almost concerns me."

Stiles looked up at him, eyebrows raised as he sniffled again. A sarcastic laugh dripped from between his lips and he squirmed again, shifting to try and crawl out from under the much larger man.

"Almost concerns you... Almost concerns you? This is exactly why I came here, this is why I came to you, because you obviously do not give a shit about anyone but yourself and your pretty little pack so what good am I to you? Get the fuck off me."

Derek's fist slammed against the floor inches from Stiles' head but he did nothing more than blink up at him.

"You missed."

"Don't talk to me like that."

They stared at each other. Stiles trying to contain his emotions and Derek trying to contain his anger. Both of them hurt but neither of them willing to admit it.

It took a moment before things became blurry. Before Derek had pried at Stiles' lips with his own and their teeth knocked together because of just how furious they were with each other. The silence was still there. Between the sound of the buttons on Stiles' shirt popping off, or the sound of Derek's jeans being pushed down by mismatched socks.

This isn't what he came here for tonight.

It wasn't.

He didn't come here for a quick fuck in the woods. He didn't drive all the way out here to leave bruises on the condescending alpha who had been fucking with his head for what? Six months now? Eight? He had lost count.

Derek's skin was covered in tiny scars, his wrists, his chest, his shoulders and even his hips which grinded and dug into Stiles who writhed beneath him. His breath hitched and he bit down on the wolf, his teeth sinking into the supple skin below his ear.

The bruises always healed minutes after they finished. Derek was always careful about where he left his marks. Thighs, hips, ribcage. Scott had only seen them once and he was too stupid to question Stiles when he said he had slipped at school on his way to chemistry.

It was always like this. Needy and fast and out of control.

Derek had only hurt Stiles once. Fractured his wrist. Since then Derek had never pinned his arms.

Their breathing had occupied the space where the silence had been. Soft whimpers, demanding growls.

This was the first time it had ended with Stiles looking down at Derek, his face flushed and his body trembling.

"You aren't going to die," Derek said it softly through the shadow of a smile as he calmed his breathing and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

Stiles dragged the tip of his finger along the wolfs jawline, where he had hit him. His thoughts were swimming around inside his skull like confused fish in an unfamiliar pond.

"I'm already dead."

It was the first time Stiles saw Derek look anything but angry. The hurt twisted his lips and his eyes turned away from the boy hovering above him. He grabbed Stiles hand as he stroked his unshaven jaw and placed it to his mouth, kissing it gently.

"No," he sighed, sitting up and wrapping a strong arm around Stiles' lean figure, "I can smell the life in you." Derek pressed his face into his neck, pulling their chests against each other.

"I can hear it."

Stiles ran his fingers through the alphas hair and the silence was back.

This isn't what he came for.