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Stiles feels like he can’t breathe, like he is dunked into ice cold water and this time no one’s there to pull him out.
He’s dimly aware that he’s screaming, yelling Derek’s name as he watches the other man go crashing to the forest floor.
There is so much noise, so much happening all at once he can’t even keep his focus on Derek as he weaves his way across the battlefield of the hunter attack. There are shots being fired, wolfsbane laced bullets flying through the air as Stiles runs.
He doesn’t even care if he’s being hit, all he needs is to reach Derek. Derek who is lying on the ground, entirely too still, not moving, not getting up.
“Derek,” he yells as he reaches him, crashing to his knees next to his too still body. There is blood oozing from the wound on Derek’s stomach, black blood. Stiles presses his hands over the wound, trying to stop the bleeding but at the same time not sure if that’s the best thing to do.
He needs to get the wolfsbane out of Derek so his body can heal but also he’s bleeding profusely, more than even his werewolf body can handle.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he curses.
“Stiles,” Derek says weakly, his eyes fluttering open.
“Hey, Sourwolf,” Stiles answers with his voice cracking. “Don’t move, okay? Just don’t move.”
“Are you hurt?” Derek asks and Stiles has to choke back a sob.
“No, I’m fine.”
“That’s good,” Derek says and his eyes close again.
The tears are now streaming down Stiles’ face and he knows he has to do something. He can’t lose Derek, not like this, not now.
“Just hang on for me please,” he begs quietly, desperately.
As he removes his hand from the wound on Derek’s stomach, Stiles sees a thin line of dark powder following his hand. He stops, frowns.
It’s the wolfsbane, he realizes. He concentrates harder, tries to pull all the wolfsbane from Derek’s body and by some miracle it does.
Relief floods him as the black ooze that was Derek’s blood turns red and then finally, finally the wounds start to heal. Slowly but surely.
Stiles lets himself drop forward, resting his head against Derek’s chest. He sighs in relief and feels the tension of the fear that had taken hold of him at the thought of losing Derek ease.
Suddenly it feels like all sounds are rushing in on him again. He hears the shouting of the pack and the men that had attacked them, mostly he hears his name. He turns when Scott calls him and sees most of the pack standing in an odd sort of half circle around him at least 2 meters away. The hunters seem to be kept in check by Chris Argent and his men.
“Holy shit, Stiles! What the fuck was that?” Scott yells.
Before Stiles can even figure out what he’s even talking about, Cora is rushing forward, her hands reaching for her brother.
“What did you do to him? I swear if you hurt him I’m ripping your head off!”
“He never responds well to threats like that,” Derek tells her weakly. “And I’m fine. Thanks to him.”
“Yes, I pulled the fucking wolfsbane from him,” Stiles tells her, his hand is resting against Derek’s side, feeling the reassuring warmth of his skin and his regular breathing.
“Well, sorry but that’s not what it fucking looked like when he did fuck knows what with his magic,” Cora hisses at him.
“Magic?” Stiles asks. “I only pulled the wolfsbane.”
“I don’t trust Druids,” Cora tells him, venom in her voice. “You people always mess with everyone. You have no allegiance to anyone.”
“Cora!” Derek’s voice cuts through her. “Enough!”
“Wow! Fuck you too,” Stiles only says. He watches Cora turn back to her brother, effectively closing him out.
Stiles knows he should leave, is all but being asked to leave. And for a moment he wants to but then Derek's hand closes around his and Stiles tangles their fingers together.
This thing between then it's… he wants to say it's new but it's not, not really. They've been dancing around each other for a while, for months before they ever fell in bed with each other for the first time. And now they've had this, this thing between them for a while.
They never really talked about it, Stiles regretted it the second he saw Derek’s body hit the ground and not get up again. He’d been terrified of losing him. He’s still shaking with the shock of it, his hand trembling ever so slightly where Derek is rubbing soothing circles with his thumb into his skin.
“What the fuck was that, Stiles?” Scott asks. Him and the rest of the pack have gotten closer now. They’re all staring at him, in fact everyone is staring at him, the hunters and even most of Chris Argent’s men.
“He was hit by a wolfsbane bullet, I pulled the poison from his body. Look, he’s healing now,” Stiles explains, his voice oddly defensive. He knows he didn’t do anything wrong, anything bad. Except they all keep treating him like it.
“Dude, you did some seriously awesome spell that made this shield appear out of thin air and we sort of all were trapped,” Scott explained, waving his hands around as if to demonstrate.
“I didn’t do anything,” Stiles just says. Because he honestly didn’t. He had just hoped to all hell that he would be able to reach Derek before it was too late and well, he knew he could sort of move mountain ash with his mind, that wasn’t a new skill, so pulling the wolfsbane from Derek’s wound wasn’t out of the norm for him.
The pack argues and argues. Cora accuses him of hurting Derek, Derek keeps weakly protesting but Stiles can feel him waning as most his energy is being taken up by the healing process. The rest of the pack argues about whether Stiles used magic or not.
And Stiles just keeps tightening his hold of Derek’s hand. He wants nothing more than to be left alone with Derek, for them all to leave and let him check over Derek, make sure the wolfsbane is all gone and the wound is healing properly.
He doesn’t get that. In the end the pack leaves, Cora hefts Derek up and out of Stiles’ grasp and they all walk off. The hunters are being taken care of by the Argent clan and Stiles is left behind in the clearing.
It’s not the first time. He’s used to it. He has a car, he can drive himself home. It’s fine. He tells himself as he does just that. It’s fine.
He keeps telling himself that as he washes Derek’s black blood off his body and clothes and crawls into his bed. He wants to make sure Derek’s fine but he can’t. Cora will be watching him like a hawk, maybe the rest of the pack is at the loft too, sticking around, still arguing about Stiles’ alleged magic use.
He’s almost asleep when the window is being opened behind him. He wants to be annoyed, tell Scott to piss off but instead he turns half expecting it to be bad news about Derek, the worst news.
But Derek himself is climbing through the window, his motions stiff and jerky. He’s still in pain, Stiles realizes, cursing he gets out of bed and helps the werewolf into his bed.
“What were you even thinking, you moron?” he whispers. “Do they know you left? Does Cora know? Is she going to come over and yell at me some more?”
“Didn’t notice I left,” was all Derek says as he goes down onto the bed easily, shrugging off his jacket and his shoes and all but face planting into Stiles’ pillow. Stiles flushes when he sees Derek inhale deeply.
“Get in here, Stiles,” Derek demands and Stiles follows. He climbs back under his covers, helps Derek strip down to his boxer shorts and runs his hands over the pink, slightly raised scar tissue on his abdomen.
“It’ll heal soon,” Derek tells him.
“I should have…” Derek silences him with a firm kiss before he can say anything else.
“You saved me, Stiles. You fucking saved me, okay?”
“With some crazy magic apparently,” he says, still not sure what to think about it. Had he really used some kind of spell without meaning to?
Derek bites his lip and doesn’t quite meet his eyes.
“Shit,” Stiles curses. “I really used magic to freeze everyone like Scott said?!”
“Sort of,” Derek admits quietly. He curls a hand around Stiles and pulls him in. He clearly doesn’t share his sister’s aversion to magic. “I didn’t see anything but from what Peter explained…”
“Fuck, I didn’t mean to do anything like that,” Stiles rushed out. “I really didn’t.”
“I know,” Derek simply says. “That’s sort of the whole point. You have a spark of magic, you’re not trained, you don’t use spells, you just tap into whatever you’re feeling and your magic reacts.”
“Okay,” Stiles says slowly. “And my magic wanted everyone to freeze in place?”
“Not quite,” Derek says. He’s running a hand up and down Stiles’ back. “You put a shield up around us, around me. You protected me.”
“Oh,” Stiles says. So this is how Derek finds out that Stiles is in love with him, Stiles thinks. Well shit. “I’m sorry.”
“Will you stop apologizing?” Derek rolls his eyes. “I’m trying to thank you here.”
“Oh.”
“Thank you for saving my life, Stiles,” Derek finally says. He tugs carefully on Stiles until they’re curled around each other as tightly as they can. Derek’s hands keep running over his back and it takes Stiles a moment to realize that Derek is pulling pain from him.
“Stop that,” he complains. “I’m barely hurt. I just twisted my ankle a little and you need your energy to heal.”
Stiles runs his own hands across the scar on Derek’s body, wishing he also had the ability to pull pain from Derek.
“I let you fuss, you let me fuss, deal?” Derek just says.
“You’re right. It’s healing,” Stiles whispers after a while. He can feel the raised tissue disappearing under his hands.
“I heal better when I’m with you,” Derek just murmurs. He’s half asleep in Stiles arms.
“You’re staying the night?”
“That okay?”
“Yeah,” Stiles agrees easily. His dad won’t be home until 4 am and won’t be up until at least 10 am. They’re good. “Unless your pack hunts you down, you’re good here.”
“They won’t,” Derek says. “Peter yelled at them for keeping you from me.”
“Peter what now?” Stiles frowns.
“Stiles, you put up a shield to protect me, I think it’s safe to say that the fact that we’re dating is out in the open.”
“Oh,” looks at Derek surprised. He doesn’t seem mad or upset, he seems simply content curled up around him. “I’m in love with you,” Stiles blurts out.
“Love you too,” Derek tells him, kissing him softly before finally going to sleep.
Apparently it’s as simple as that. Huh, Stiles thinks. Now all he has to do is drill into his magic spark that it needs to do everything to keep Derek from being hurt in the first place. But he has a good feeling about that.