Can't Shift the Tide
Dec. 21st, 2018 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glorious_spoonTitle: Can't Shift the Tide
Link: On AO3
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek Hale/Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinksi
Warnings: Injury
Other Tags: POV Outsider; Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon
Summary: Stiles's college roommate unexpectedly finds an injured werewolf in her kitchen, and the night only gets weirder from there.
When Mackenzie hears a clatter and then a crash coming from the kitchen, the first thing she thinks is that Stiles has smashed another coffee cup. The lack of swearing is a little unusual, but not enough to make her think anything of it, not enough to stop her from ducking out of her room, into the kitchen, shoving the pen she’s still holding into her messy bun and saying, “Stiles, I swear to god, if that was the one with the roses that my grandma got me—”
It’s not Stiles. Stiles is nowhere to be seen. The window over the sink is open, curtains blowing in the breeze, and crouched on her kitchen floor is something out of a nightmare.
It’s shaggy and black as night, impossibly glowing eyes directed her way. As she comes to an abrupt stop next to the broom closet, bluish lips peel back to reveal gleaming teeth. A rattling growl builds in the creature’s throat, and it rocks forward like it’s about to lunge at her. Mackenzie lets out a squeak and gropes blindly for the knife block next to the fridge. Her fingers find the handle of a heavy cleaver, and she grasps it, scrambles back, holding it up defensively in front of her.
“Stiles,” she says out loud. Her voice comes out cracked and strange, and she’s suddenly completely certain that Stiles is sprawled in the living room just past the arch out of sight with his throat torn out, horribly, horribly certain that he’s dead and she’s going to be next. “Stiles!”
Sudden quick footsteps from the hallway behind her, and then Stiles shoves past her with a metal bat clutched in both hands. The rush of relief that hits her makes her go weak in the knees, even though Stiles is only a couple of inches taller than her and skinny as a string bean, even though all he has is a baseball bat. He’s not dead, and at least now there are two of them.
The thing in the kitchen makes another low, rumbling noise. It looks like a wolf, almost, or what she imagines a wolf might look like if it had been built by some mad god who had only the vaguest idea how animals were meant to fit together.
“Get back,” Stiles says softly, pressing the flat of his hand against her shoulder without looking. Mackenzie takes a step back, instinctively obedient to the calm fearlessness in his tone. That’s another reason she’s glad he’s here. He might be skinny and spastic and occasionally a real pain in the ass, but he’s got a clear head in a crisis.
Of course, the instant she thinks that, Stiles stoops to set the bat against the broom closet door and steps closer to the monster, hands outspread. “Hey,” he says softly. “What happened to you, huh?”
Another low, wet, rattling growl. Stiles takes another step closer, and Mackenzie swallows a protest in the back of her throat before she can draw the thing’s attention back toward her.
“Come on. You’re safe here, it’s cool. We’re cool. You’re safe.”
Claws click on the floor as the thing moves. Limps, actually, and it’s moving away from Stiles, teeth still bared. The growl doesn’t abate, but now Mackenzie can see blood on the tile floor, and lots of it. More is dripping from its belly, its straggling dark fur wet and matted. It’s wounded, and badly.
That doesn’t make it safe, as anyone who’s ever had even a passing familiarity with injured wildlife sure as shit ought to know, but Stiles takes another step forward.
“Come on,” he says, soft and low. He sounds completely calm, completely certain. Fearless. “You’re not going to hurt me. I’m not going to hurt you. We’re cool, right?”
The monster lets out a rumbling growl, and Stiles reaches out with one open palm, totally ignoring the helpless way Mackenzie jerks forward like she can do anything now, like she’s close enough to stop that thing if it decides to rip his throat out.
His fingers settle in the creature’s scruff, digging in. It’s not an attack of any kind; it’s too gentle for that. It’s a caress. The monster whines, low in the back of its throat, and turns into his touch, and then—
“Oh, my god, you’re licking me. There’s licking going on.” Stiles doesn’t sound the least bit freaked out, even when those huge teeth clamp down gently on his fingers. He sounds affectionate, a little self-conscious, like someone whose boyfriend drank too much and got embarrassingly handsy at a party, and not at all like a person who’s about to be mauled by a giant mutated thing. “We are in public, you lunatic.” Then, softer, “You’re safe here, I promise. I’m okay. Everything’s fine, except for the part where you’re seriously freaking out my roommate.”
The creature chuffs and turns its glowing gaze on Mackenzie. She swallows, lightheaded and dizzy with fear, and manages a stupid little wave with the hand that isn’t holding the meat cleaver. When she speaks, her voice comes out high and tight. “Hi?”
“Her name is Mackenzie,” Stiles says, still calm, his fingers still buried in the monster’s shaggy fur. “She’s a nice girl and she has a microbiology final tomorrow, so really she has enough stress in her life without being terrorized in her own kitchen by strung-out werewolves. Come on, dude.”
Werewolves. Jesus fucking Christ, someone must have slipped her something. Or someone slipped Stiles something and he’s about to be torn limb-from-limb by some mutated stray dog—
The monster chuffs again, softer this time, and then it’s folding in on itself, writhing in a way that shouldn’t be possible, that should break bones and tear flesh. Its skin ripples, hair disappearing, claws receding, and a moment later there’s no monster there at all, just a bloody, naked man lying dazed on her kitchen floor.
She drops the knife with a clatter. Stiles is on his knees a moment later, turning the man over with gentle hands. His bare belly is a mess of seeping gore, a sickeningly deep wound with wet red edges, blackened lines spiderwebbing up the surrounding veins. It’s not a wound that anyone should have and still be breathing, but the man is, gasping wetly at Stiles’ touch before he stills.
“Hey,” Stiles says, and then, “Jesus Christ, what happened to you?”
“Hunters,” the man rasps.
“Yeah, obviously, but I mean—”
“Can we talk about it later?” the man snarls, cutting a hostile glance at Mackenzie. Even human-looking and seriously injured, he’s pretty fucking terrifying.
“Yeah, hey, Derek, nice to see you, I’ve missed you too, we should catch up more often.” Stiles’s voice is light, but his hands are gentle as he pats the man over. It’s hard to tell if he’s checking for more injuries or just trying to soothe; either way, the man relaxes slightly into his touch. “Is anyone going to be following you? Should I call—”
“No,” the man interrupts shortly. “I got away clean.”
“And you came here.”
“Sorry.”
“God, don’t apologize, you dick.” Stiles rubs a hand over his face. “We’ll handle it.”
“I can—” the man claws at Stiles’s shoulder; it takes Mackenzie a moment to realize that he’s actually trying to pull himself up. He’s got a gut wound so deep that she can see viscera, and he’s trying to stand up.
“Stop it, Derek,” Stiles says, calm but forceful. “You’re not going anywhere, you idiot. Come on.”
“I’ll call an ambulance,” Mackenzie says. Her lips feel numb and her brain feels frozen and she’s at least fifty percent sure that she’s actually dreaming right now, but one thing that’s obvious is that she’s never seen a guy more in need of immediate medical attention. “I can—”
“It’s cool,” Stiles says, sounding astonishingly unconcerned. “I’ll take care of him.” He helps the man up, steadies him when he stumbles. There’s a practiced comfort in the way they move together, in the absent, soothing way he runs a hand over the man’s bare shoulders as he looks over at her. “Mackenzie, I’m really, really sorry about this. He’ll be gone in the morning, okay?”
The man looks over at her too. His face, already twisted in pain, makes what could be deemed an apologetic expression. “Sorry,” he grits out again, like it actually pains him to say it.
Stiles squeezes his shoulder. “See?” he says with a brightness that sounds brittle and false. “Look at that, that was almost a civilized human interaction. There’s hope for you yet.”
“What the fuck,” Mackenzie says, and then, because she’s pre-med, because werewolves and monsters and seriously what the fuck, but she’s seen injuries like that on her rotations and there’s no way he’s going to survive much longer without medical attention, it’s a wonder he’s even lucid, “we need to get him to a hospital right away.”
“No,” the man spits.
“No hospitals,” Stiles echoes.
She’s always thought of him as— okay, not a sensible person, but a person with a functioning brain, at least, and he’s got to see how bad this is. “Stiles, he needs professional medical attention— at least let me—”
“He’ll be fine,” Stiles interrupts, and it’s like before, that absolute confidence. “We just need to get the— trust me, Kenzie, he’ll be fine. I promise. He’ll heal once the wound is clean. Would I let somebody die in the middle of our apartment?”
The man makes a choking noise that she realizes abruptly is a laugh, and she’s still gaping at them when Stiles wraps an arm under his shoulder and half-drags, half-carries him into his bedroom. The door slams shut behind them.
Mackenzie stares at it, then sinks down into one of the kitchen chairs.
There are muffled sounds coming from the other side of the door. Stiles and the other man, the werewolf, are talking too quietly for her to make out the words. There’s a sharp sizzling sound that’s accompanied by an acrid odor like burnt socks, and then a chilling, inhuman howl, the sound of claws scrabbling at the wooden floor. She’s on her feet before she can think, the panic that had almost faded buzzing up around her ears like a swarm of bees, and then Stiles says sharply, “Stop that, Derek.”
Something crashes over, and then there’s silence. Mackenzie stands still, her heart pounding in her throat, wondering if the door is going to burst open again—
The knife is on the floor, right where she left it, but she can’t bring herself to move a muscle.
Another long moment of silence, and then Stiles speaks again, and she feels her heart unclench. “Better?”
“Yeah,” the other man says roughly. “Sorry.”
“God, you’re a dick.” There’s something fragile in his voice that isn’t fear, that isn’t worry, something brittle and sad and strange. “I’m really pissed off at you right now, just for the record. Really, really fucking pissed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Two months, Derek. Two fucking months with no word, and then— we thought you were dead, you asshole.”
“I had to ditch my phone. It wasn’t safe. I’m sorry, okay?”
Another silence, and then something clatters and Stiles says, all in a rush, “No, don’t— look. Just. Stay, okay? Just for tonight?”
The man doesn’t answer. The door doesn’t open. After a while, Mackenzie breathes out a shaky sigh and goes to look for the bottle of coconut rum she has stashed around here somewhere. She has a feeling she won’t be sleeping anytime soon without it.
***
The werewolf is not gone in the morning. Neither is Stiles, although she knows for a fact that he has an early morning class on Wednesdays. When she pokes her head into his room, queasily half-expecting to see a blood bath, the two of them are tucked into Stiles’s narrow bed. The sheets and blankets are flung across the floor, and the werewolf is wearing a pair of neon-green boxers that must be Stiles’s and nothing else. Stiles is shirtless, curled around the bigger man like a seed pod and snoring softly into his shoulder. They fit together like puzzle pieces, like two halves of a whole.
Mackenzie hears the soft, startled noise leave her mouth without even meaning to make it, and the stranger shifts like he’s about to wake up. Stiles’s arm tightens around his hips, and he mumbles some soft slurry of consonants into the man’s bare neck, and Mackenzie takes that opportunity to duck out into the hallway before either of them can catch her.
She’s halfway to the kitchen when she hears the sharp clatter of footsteps on the stairs, and then a firm rap at the front door.
For a second, she seriously considers escaping down the fire escape. Then she goes to answer the door. On the other side of it, wearing an expression of thinly-concealed impatience, is a small, curvy redhead in sky-high Louboutins and a skirt that displays a long expanse of pale, muscular thighs.
Lydia Martin. Stiles’s girlfriend, or at least Mackenzie is pretty sure they’re together; Stiles has always been squirrely as hell about it when she asked, which considering what the just walked in on suddenly makes a hell of a lot of sense.
“Um,” she says, and Lydia makes an impatient kind of huffing noise and stalks past her into the hallway in a dizzying breath of expensive perfume.
“I really don’t have time for this,” she says, moving purposefully toward Stiles’s bedroom. “Is he still here?”
“Um,” Mackenzie says again, trailing in her wake. “He’s not--I mean—”
She has no idea how the hell to explain anything that’s happened in the last twelve hours that won’t sound completely fucking insane, especially since the sharp tightness in Lydia’s voice sounds a lot more like a girl who just discovered her boyfriend is cheating on her than anything else, and this is a whole other layer of complication that Mackenzie does not want to deal with.
Too late. Lydia pauses in the doorway, peering into the room. For a moment, all Mackenzie can see is her tense jaw, her tight shoulders, and then she makes a soft noise like a sob in the back of her throat and Stiles shifts in the bed.
Mackenzie’s heart drops down to the soles of her feet. She doesn’t want to be watching this. She shouldn’t be watching this. Werewolves are one thing, but this--whatever this is—
“Hey,” Stiles says softly, lifting his head. “Did you get in touch with Scott?”
Lydia takes another shuddering breath, but when she speaks, her voice sounds perfectly normal. “He’s on his way into town. Derek—”
“He’s okay,” Stiles says, still quiet. He’s still wrapped around the werewolf, one hand still resting on the man’s bare hip, his face soft and lined with sleep, and this isn’t what Mackenzie thought, not at all. “Lydia, he’s okay.”
“Of course he is. I would have felt it if he died,” Lydia says, a sudden quaver in her voice, and then she’s crossing the room in purposeful clicking strides, leaning down to press a kiss to the sleeping werewolf’s forehead. He makes a soft noise but doesn’t stir. Lydia stokes her fingers through his hair, then says, quiet and fierce, “You son of a bitch.”
Stiles laughs softly, cups a hand around her cheek. She wraps her fingers around it, then kisses him briefly on the lips. “I’m mad at you, too.”
“You’re always mad at me,” Stiles says affectionately. “I’m gonna stay with him for a little while, okay?”
“Obviously,” Lydia says, but there’s no real bite in her voice. “What should I tell your roommate?”
“Oh,” Stiles says, his eyes flickering over her shoulder toward Mackenzie. She winces, starts to back away. “Uh. The truth? Or, like, an abbreviated version of it anyway? She kind of saw the full monty last night, literally and figuratively.”
“Really, Stiles?” There’s a note of exasperation in Lydia’s voice.
“Hey, don’t blame me. Derek climbed through our kitchen window all wolfed out with his guts spilling out. Yell at him.”
“When he wakes up, I will,” Lydia says. “Believe me.”
She leans down again and says something too soft for Mackenzie to hear, and then she’s crossing back out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her. For just a moment, her beautiful face looks raw and soft and too open in the dim morning hallway, and then she shakes the expression away like water and aims a smile at Mackenzie. “Well. I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”
no subject
Date: 2018-12-22 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-22 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-22 05:33 am (UTC)You owe Stiles too but I don't even know what. I fear a spanking from Lydia would just encourage him.
*hugs Mackenzie*
(This is a DELIGHT)
no subject
Date: 2018-12-23 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-23 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-23 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-23 07:49 pm (UTC)Derek is SUCH AN ASSHOLE, even when he's not trying to be. I'm so glad you enjoyed this!
no subject
Date: 2018-12-23 07:49 pm (UTC)