If you have read any of my previous stories, you know that I'm a sucker for a good hurt/comfort, medical, fluffy, whump fic. I've written a lot of them (Once Upon a Time, Graceland, mostly Teen Wolf) but I really enjoyed writing my TW fic That's What Packs are For, which is basically a fluffy little bloody piece about Stiles patching Derek up after a fight. They are two of my favorite characters to write and I really loved exploring the hurt/comfort side of their relationship since we got so little of that in the actual show.

So I decided to write this. Each chapter will be a random little hurt/comfort fic involving Stiles and Derek. It won't be romantic Sterek, but if that's your jam it can easily be read as pre-slash. If you're into bromance it can be read as that too. I read both but I understand that not everyone can do that so I try to keep my fics general so all fans and shippers can enjoy. Each new chapter will be inspired by a h/c prompt I find online or requested from readers. If you have any ideas please leave them for me in a comment or message me and let me know. If I'm intrigued, I'll add it to the list! So enough about me, on to the story!

Title loosely translates to "Strength is restored through wounding."

It was never a good thing when a band of hunters rolled through Beacon Hills. This group, though, had seemed harmless; Five middle aged men armed with nothing more than shotguns and southern accents who thought they knew everything there was to know about werewolves despite admitting to never actually having seen one before. Derek, knowing that the group was no real threat, decided that the best course of action would be to let the hunters think they had chased the pack into the woods, only for the pack to turn on them, scaring the hunters into leaving town.

It was a good plan. Easy to execute, quick, effective, and hidden from the eyes of the ever-dwindling number of Beacon Hills residents who didn't know about the supernatural creatures lurking in their town. Derek had weighed all the risks and decided it would be hard for his pack to screw this up. He had forgotten one very important risk though: He had a Stiles in his pack.

Everything was going great, the plan had worked out perfectly and the hunters were currently screaming and running for their lives as Scott and Liam, in full wolf form, chased them through the woods towards the Beacon County line. Derek was hanging back, close enough that he could be with the younger wolves in seconds if they needed him but far enough away that they could feel that they were doing this on their own. He was perfectly content to slow his run down to a slow jog and fall behind, letting Scott and Liam take the credit for saving the town's supernatural population this time.

He froze when he smelled the blood. Stiles's blood.

Stiles, who was supposed to be waiting back at the entrance of the preserve with his Jeep. Stiles, whose only weapons consisted of a baseball bat and endless sarcasm. Stiles, who didn't have any supernatural healing abilities and was currently somewhere in the forest. Bleeding.

So Derek turned and ran, the slideshow of ways Stiles could be hurt flashing through his mind getting progressively worse with each footfall.

The scent was easy to follow and Derek was pretty sure that the time it took him to sprint through the two miles to the younger man would have beaten his old record if he had cared enough to time himself.

He found Stiles sitting on the forest floor, back against the trunk of a tree. His red hoodie smeared with dirt and a leaf sticking haphazardly out of his hair.

"I fell." Stiles announced upon seeing Derek.

"Yeah I see that." Derek answered, eyes scanning for any visible injuries. "Where are you hurt?"

"I'm hurt?" Stiles asked, tilting his head to the side. Confused, glazed eyes looked up at Derek raising his suspicions of a concussion.

"You're bleeding."

"Oh. Right. Yeah." Stiles nodded vigorously, causing himself to sway slightly. The leaf somehow managed to stay stuck to his hair. "Cause I fell."

Derek brushed a frustrated hand through his own hair, and suppressed a groan. "Where, Stiles?"

Stiles automatically lifted his left hand and pointed towards the scuffed up leaves on the forest floor a few feet away. "Over there."

"No. Stiles. Not where did you fall, where are you hur…" Derek's words trailed off as he answered his own question. A second glance at Stiles's outstretched hand revealed the source of the blood: there was a broken branch run clear through the younger man's hand. One end in middle of his palm and the other protruding from the top, blood dripping from both ends.

"Stiles…" Derek began as he slowly crouched down at his side. "Stiles let me see your hand."

"Why?" Stiles asked, holding his uninjured hand in front of his face. "Looks fine. A little dirty… But I fell..."

Derek gave up trying to reason with the obviously concussed human and grabbed the injured hand himself.

"Ow ow OWWW!" Stiles exclaimed, trying pointlessly to take his hand back from Derek's grip. "That hurts!"

Derek's fears were confirmed upon further examination of Stiles's hand. "Alright, get up. Hospital. Now." He ordered, standing up without letting go of Stiles.

"What? No. Don't like hospitals. Hospitals mean needles. And they smell bad. The hospitals, not the needles. Though the needles probably don't smell good either. Never wanted to get close enough to find out what they smell like…"

"Stiles!" Derek practically barked, interrupting the younger man's rambling. "We need to go see Melissa. Now, okay?" Derek explained.

"Whyyy?" Stiles drug out the question into a pitiful whine that would have left Derek reconsidering his decision if Stiles had not been impaled and bleeding out on the forest floor. In lieu of explanation though, Derek took the injured hand and held it up in front of Stiles's face for him to see.

"Oh. That's um… my hand." Stiles said quietly as he slowly rotated his hand, examining the piece of wood from all angles. "There's a broken tree. Going through my hand."

Derek sensed the panic forming behind Stiles's words. "I'm sure it's not as bad as it looks. You couldn't even feel it a few minutes ago, remember? But we need to go get it checked out. Alright?" Derek placated, knowing that the last thing Stiles needed on top of a busted up hand, blood loss, and a concussion was a panic attack.

Stiles tilted his head to the side again, still pondering his injury, as the leaf finally fell from his hair. Derek watched whiskey colored eyes follow a single drop of blood as it fell, seemingly in slow motion, from the end of the branch and land onto the leaf. That one drop of blood was the final straw. Stiles looked up at Derek and in a shaky voice said "I was right. I totally would have fainted at the sight of your chopped off arm." Right before his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell forward towards Derek.

The first thing Stiles noticed when he woke up was the smell. "Mmngh… no h'spital." He mumbled through his sleepy haze.

"You finally awake this time?" Derek asked in response from his chair in the corner of the hospital room. He didn't bother to get up yet, Stiles had been mumbling nonsense in his sleep for the past hour and Derek had no proof yet that this time was any different than when Stiles had been talking about dragons chasing the tooth fairy.

"Der'k?" Stiles asked, attempting to open his eyes. "Hand hurts."

"Yeah I bet it does. That's what happens when you drive a stick through it." Derek told him.

"Not my fault I tripped." Stiles said, forcing his eyes open and wincing at the overwhelming whiteness of Beacon Hills Memorial. "Head hurts too. When can I go home?" He asked.

"Whenever you feel like it." Derek said, holding up a white paper bag. "Melissa pulled some strings, already had a prescription to help with the pain filled for you but you can't take one for a couple more hours."

"But I can get out of here?" Stiles asked, struggling to sit up with one arm in a sling.

Derek stepped closer, placing a hand on Stiles's good arm and helping him sit up, taking some of the younger man's pain while he was there.

"Thanks." Stiles said with a sigh of relief as the pain was siphoned from his hand. The sudden euphoria from the pain-drain didn't combine well with his concussion and he slowly began swaying as the room started spinning around him.

"Careful." Derek warned, moving a steadying hand to Stiles's shoulder. "And yes, you're allowed to leave but you can't be alone for another," Derek paused to glance at the clock hanging above the door, "eight hours. Someone has to make sure you're not gonna go into a coma because of the concussion."

"I don't need a babysitter." Stiles insisted.

"Maybe not. But Melissa gave me strict instructions that if you left the hospital before tomorrow morning you were to be brought to her house so she could keep an eye on you until your Dad got off work." Derek replied.

"Fine. Whatever. I just want out of this place." Stiles said as he swung his legs off the hospital bed and carefully stood up.

Derek helped Stiles get safely into the passenger's seat of his car and before they were out of the hospital parking lot Stiles's head was leant against the window and he was sound asleep again. Derek bit back a smile and headed towards the McCall's house.

They were halfway there when Derek was surprised by Stiles's sleepy voice coming from the other side of the car. "Der?"

"Yeah, Stiles." He answered.

"Thank you. For taking care of me. And staying. And taking me home. And everything." He finished with a yawn.

"No problem." Derek told him, not taking his eyes off the road. "You know, if you don't feel like staying at the McCall's house I can just take you to your's? Stay there till your dad comes home?" Derek offered.

Stiles yawned again. "You really don't have to. I think you've done plenty, carrying my broken, unconscious self out of the woods and all."

"Exactly." Derek smiled. "I've taken care of you for this long, I might as well see it through."

Stiles went silent and closed his eyes again and Derek assumed he had drifted back to sleep before the young man's voice broke through the silence again.

"You know how wooden stakes are supposed to kill vampires?" Stiles asked.

"Yeah…?" Derek responded, confused and wondering if Stiles's concussion was more severe than Melissa had thought.

"They don't kill Stiles either!" Stiles said with a laugh.

"Well let's just be thankful it went through your hand, not your chest. Otherwise that may not be true." Derek said, turning his car into the Stilinski driveway behind the Jeep that Scott had driven home earlier.

"Once a Sour Wolf, always a Sour Wolf…" Stiles muttered.

Derek shook his head and opened the car door, thinking back to a time when he would have threatened to rip the younger boy's throat out (with his teeth) for a comment like that. Instead he walked around the car, opened Stiles's door, and helped him up the sidewalk to his house. Content to spend the next few hours keeping his pack's human safe.

So there's chapter one! If you have any ideas, suggestions, or prompts for a chapter (hurt/comfort featuring Stiles and Derek only please!) leave them in the comments or drop me a message.

I'd also love to hear what you thought so feel free to leave comments and critiques!