AN: I do not own Teen Wolf or any of its characters.

The Smell of Blood

The copper tang of blood filled Derek's nose as he neared the Stilinski house. His first instinct was to panic. His next, and the one he listened to, was to assess the situation before going in. Already the back of his mind had filed that particular blood smell through a list of the people he knew. It was no doubt that the blood was from Stiles. He had smelled that blood more times than he liked to recount. Carefully and quietly he crept around the side of the house peering in each window as he went. Nothing looked wrong with the first floor so he leapt to the roof and started a visual search of the second floor. As he rounded the corner on Stiles' room the blood smell intensified and he had to force himself not to tear into the room without paying attention to the situation. Instead he took a deep calming breath, which was less calming then he would have liked since it was tainted with the smell of the blood of someone very important to him, and he craned his neck around the window to see inside.

Derek didn't know what he had been expecting. Perhaps he thought he would see the alpha pack standing over a dying Stiles, or maybe Gerard had come back for revenge, or perhaps even it was just some human robber that had chosen the wrong house to rob. The last thing on Derek's mind was that all he would see was Stiles. Stiles with a razor.

For a moment Derek was frozen. He didn't know how to process this new information. His mind tried denying what his eyes were telling him. Stiles wouldn't be hurting himself on purpose. There had to be a reason. Derek snapped back to reality when he saw Stiles preparing to draw another mark on his already broken skin. In an instant the window was thrown open and the werewolf had ahold of the razor. Stiles blinked up at him in shock for a moment, then suddenly connecting the werewolf in his room with the marks on his body he tried to hide the evidence of what he had done.

"Oh hey, Derek, what are you doing around here?" Stiles asked feebly. As he casually moved his arm around so that it was behind his back. He knew it was stupid, but some small part of him was in denial that Derek had seen anything.

Silence met his question and Stiles sat awkwardly staring at Derek for a while. Derek had his head down and refused to meet Stiles eyes. He wasn't sure he could speak over the lump in his throat.

"Well um… This has been fun and all," Stiles' voice was higher than normal and laced with panic, "but I have somewhere I need to be so I'm going to leave." Stiles got up delicately and made to exit the room. He found his way blocked by a wall of Derek. Derek's hand had found its way to his shoulder and was lightly keeping him in place.

"Why?"

It was the most broken sounding word Stiles had ever heard from Derek's mouth. It sounded choked back by something. It could have been anger, or fear, or even perhaps tears. Stiles didn't really want to speculate, he just wanted to escape this whole situation. "Well you know… places to be… not really my choice. There isn't much 'why?' to it. I just need to go."

Finally meeting his gaze Derek growled out, "I'm not asking why you're trying to leave and you know it. I want to know why you would do this to yourself."

Finally looking into Derek's eyes was what broke Stiles. He was floored by the pain and sorrow that he saw swimming in those big blue-gray eyes. Stiles felt his control of the situation start to slip. He couldn't keep pretending that everything was fine and he couldn't keep brushing off what Derek had walked in on. When faced with those eyes all he could do was break down. So he did. At first just a few tears slipped out but soon they were cascading down his face. Just as he lost the ability to stand Derek was there to catch him. He found himself on the floor enfolded in Derek's warm arms. Stiles clung to him like his life depended on it.

They sat for a while together on the floor as Stiles continued to weep. Derek just held the boy and rubbed soothing patterns onto his back to calm him down. Once Stiles had reasonably more control, Derek stood up, gave Stiles a look that told him to stay put, and went to the bathroom for a washcloth. He grabbed a small bucket that he found under the sink and filled it with warm water and brought that with the washcloth. Wordlessly he came back into Stiles' room and picked up the arm that was still slightly bleeding. Very gingerly he started to wash away the blood that had already dried. As he went, his heart broke more and more. Not just because of these new marks covering the Stiles' skin but because underneath the blood he found scars of past cuts. Derek tried to think of a time that Stiles had ever worn anything that didn't hide his arms and his mind came up empty. He had no idea how long Stiles had been hiding this secret.

"It started after my mom died."

Derek paused briefly in his work as if to absorb Stiles' words.

Stiles had watched the werewolf work in silence for a few minutes before he decided to speak up. Something about the atmosphere in the room had shifted and Stiles felt that he owed an explanation to this man who was so carefully taking care of him. Receiving no more response from Derek, Stiles continued, "It was how I dealt with my panic attacks. When I felt myself slipping… losing control… I would do what I could to try and focus on the present instead of on whatever was trigging my attack. At first I just would dig my nails into my hands but once I realized that the pain from that kept me grounded I started finding easier ways to cause the pain. Now I've been doing it for so long… I'm…I'm not certain anymore how to stop."

Derek looked up at him then. There was no judgment in his gaze, no blame or anger either, just understanding. "Stiles," He began, his voice cracking a bit, "I don't know what you've gone through and I can't erase the past. But I promise you that you can stop this. I can help you. You're one of the strongest people I know, and you have people who love you all around you, you can find it in yourself to beat this." He trailed off for a moment before adding, "I'm so sorry I didn't realize sooner."

"No Derek, this has nothing to do with you. Don't try to blame yourself. I didn't want anyone to know. It's not your fault that you never noticed."

"No, I'm the alpha. It's my job to know when one of my pack needs help. Especially when that person is the one I care most about. The one I love." Derek said the words quickly as if he were embarrassed to say them but his eyes never left Stiles' and they spoke of nothing but truth.

"Derek… I thought… I never knew…" Stiles paused briefly to collect himself, "I feel the same." His stuttering answer was broken as Derek pulled the boy closer and wrapped his arms around him.

"I know."

Stiles pulled away from the embrace to look the alpha in his eyes. Encouraged by the affection he found in them, Stiles leaned forward and gently kissed his sour wolf. It was brief and chaste but it communicated the depth of the love that the two shared for each other. Stiles felt sure that in the future, and in a less serious setting, they would do much more kissing. "So," Stiles said, "What now."

"How about we start with you promising me that we can work to help you stop hurting yourself? Because I don't think I could bear ever seeing you do this to yourself again. We'll get through this together."

"I promise. And Derek?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you."

Derek quietly tightened his hold on Stiles and he didn't let go for a long, long time.

AN: Well, that's the end. I could potentially write a sequel if there is interest because I can see this going somewhere but I'm not certain. I mostly just wanted to write a more realistic self-harm fic. I've read a lot where Derek find Stiles self-harming and it somehow leads almost immediately to sex or making out and while I enjoy sex and making out as much as the next girl I find it really isn't a realistic thing for people to do right after one of the two is found cutting. As a former cutter myself, this is a much better way to deal with someone you love cutting. The proper response is never, "You're bleeding, let me screw your brains out because I love you and don't want to see you hurt."