I said I'd come back to this whenever I had an itch. Well, the itch was pretty big after seeing some photos online of Dylan wearing fake teeth coupled with wanting to write something a bit darker that wasn't part of A Warm Gun. I don't know. This isn't a regular continuing story like my Labyrinth series (Another Night's Dawn, A Warm Gun, the future Tearing You Asunder). But it seems to be slightly popular 'cause I still get alerts for it, so I figured that I'd scratch the itch and surprise y'all with a new tidbit.

Also, just wrote this and it's completely unbeta'd, so all mistakes are my own and I'll read through it later and fix any errors that I didn't catch in my once-over.

Dead animals scattered the woodland floor – rabbits torn in two, a fawn ripped apart with such brutality that Derek felt a churning in his gut – the blood trailing forward, deeper into the trees like there was a path in mind.

Stiles was thoughtful enough to leave a trail of destruction in his wake. It was like his body was warring with itself against the transformation, against the wolf's personality, as Derek scented him on trees. The tracks told him of stumbling, of a body tripping and writhing. Stiles should be in more control of himself by then with the moon held high in the sky. Derek himself could feel the lunar pull to give into his animal but he was older, born into it, so he could tamp it down.

Stiles probably didn't even know what that sentiment meant.

He should be concerned with the fact that he was being lead deeper and deeper away from the sanctuary of Hale property; the place where he had ties to his humanity and would hold back from releasing the side of him that scratched at his ribcage and growled in his head. He wanted to, had more control over it than the bitten, normally would and run through the woods and let the beast run itself content, but Stiles was his responsibility and he needed to find him on his first full moon.

The whispers in the leaves were more than wind, getting louder with each step he took.

The apprehension settled itself in his gut as a full grown deer laid splayed for him in the middle of the clearing, its insides spilling out to stain the Earth with blood. The anger and brutality shown in the deaths of the animals was not Stiles at all. His wolf was almost completely overtaking him, had to be, for this sort of carnage.

The aggression the teen had displayed in the last few days was making more sense. It wasn't just the full moon, it was his personality. Stiles had been Scott's tie to humanity in his first transition, but Stiles had cut himself off from humanity in the two days leading up to the full moon. He was scared for his father, for the people he'd known since he moved to Beacon Hills after his mother's death; had whimpered about it as his bones cracked and shifted and broke apart to form new shapes and muscle.

His wolf's essential birth hadn't been weighted down by the smells of humanity, hadn't had much concern for it, because Stiles had starved themselves of it. He'd thought it would be for the best, but Derek should've seen this coming. Now he had a feral werewolf to deal with.

"Stiles!" He called out, claws extending in case the mutt wanted to try something. While Derek had turned him, his loyalty wasn't as strong with Derek as it would be to an actual Alpha. The only reason Derek had been able to turn Stiles was because he was born a werewolf and because he would be Alpha one day. Until then, they were like fostered werewolves – no real bonds to one another.

There was a cruel chuckle from above, a flutter from a branch before a body dropped down deftly. Stiles stood to full height, his brown eyes overtaken by a murky green that glowed into the blue of the woods as the moonlight sliced through the treetops into the clearing.

"It took you long enough." The wolf in Stiles – (Derek refused to admit it was Stiles doing this, that he had any control or knowledge because that was just too scary to think of) – smirked as he crept closer, patches of his covered in blood from his mouth to his feet. "We'd begun to think that blow to the head was too much. We don't know our strength yet."

The unease tripled. He'd seen this type of personality before and it never ended well. "Let's go."

"You're not our master." Stiles' body dropped into a crouch, fists slamming into the packed floor as his teeth bared.

The wolf in Derek took that as a challenge from a lesser Beta, shifting into existence with little resistance. "I bit you, you're mine. Now let's go."

Stiles laughed, the anger melting away into a boyish expression that was so human it was scary with the glowing eyes and canines. "You're no Alpha. You say that like we owe you something when we owe you nothing."

"I did it to save his life."

Stiles' eyes flickered to the deer, a sick smile twisting his features that were stained in blood. "I'm sure he'll appreciate that once he sees what you've unleashed in him."

"I'll help him." Derek argued, taking several steps forward. He wanted to attack the wolf, show it who was boss, but it had Stiles' face, Stiles' voice, Stiles' body, manipulating them for fun. It caused a hesitance in Derek that was dangerous, that could be exploited.

"I am him. He'll deny it, you'll deny it, but you know it's the truth. We're one now. This is what the wolf is: what he wants, deep down, to be. Strong, safe, better."

"He was all of those things without you."

"And yet you still gifted him with me."

Derek felt the conversation going in a circle. He gestured to the deer's carcass, "This isn't what he wants. He wants to be a protector of all of us and you're not that. But you will be. I'll help him make you that." With that, Derek charged at the wolf wearing Stiles' clothes.

The battle was worse than Derek thought it'd be. While Derek thought that he'd have the upper hand by being older and more adept with his wolf, Stiles seemed to do what he did best: learn and adapt. His claws raked deep through Derek's stomach and Derek retaliated by slicing his from collarbone to ribcage on Stiles. After that, the upper hand was his and he was able to catch a roundhouse kick to Stiles' temple.

The wolf went down, crumpling unconsciously to the dirt as Derek heaved breaths above him from the fight, slowly shifting back into his human visage.

As Derek stared down at the unconscious body sprawled at his feet – limbs thrown about messily, mouth dropped open and the slightest bit of drool trying to edge out while his chest shuddered from wheezing breaths as blood poured from the slashes to his chest – he saw the human who'd saved his life more times than he could count on one hand. The brilliant kid who was too tenacious for his own good.

Couple that with the werewolf that would paw at his insecurities and desires for the rest of his life, and Derek felt a trickle of fear of just what Stiles could become without proper guidance and motivation.

Something dangerous.

Something formidable.