Rise if You're Sleeping (Stay Awake)

Part 1

The first thing Stiles notices is not the blood.

Which, wow, there's a lot of that, actually, and it's not that he hasn't noticed it, because he isn't totally freakin' blind, and even if he he had been, the smell is kind of a dead giveaway.

Aaaand that is a terrible choice of words. The point is, yeah, he notices the blood pooling around him, soaking into his shoes- which, by the way, is gonna be super awesome to explain to his dad- but that's not the first thing he notices, and that's the not thing he's kind of hopelessly fixating on right now.

The first thing he notices is the sound.

Because if anyone should be making a sound like that, it's him.

Okay, small side note: all that blood on his shoes? Is not really restricted to his shoes. It's more everywhere, actually, except where it should be, namely, his insides.

So, yeah, he's a little bit out of it. A little bit ramble-y. A little bit less focused than, say, Scott, who is swearing through Derek's shiny new disposable cell phone.

The thing is, Derek isn't really contributing much to the conversation. And not in a less talk, more brood kind of way.

The thing is, he's whimpering.

Dude, you're not the guy who got cut up by Kate Argent's psycho hunter boyfriend, so, get your shit together-

-is what he would say, if he was a complete asshole. Which he kinda has a right to be, seeing as he's kind of, maybe, dying. He's not totally oblivious. It's a lot of blood, and it's on the wrong side of him, and Scott is shouting "Answer me, motherfucker! Where are you? Where is he?" through the phone, and Derek is holding the phone, and his hands are shaking, and he's shaking, and there's a thin, trembling, high pitched whine where his growl should be, where words should be.

And fuck, it is freaking Stiles out more than the whole near-death situation. Which is freaking him out plenty. Because Stiles really, really doesn't want to die. He's a virgin, for god's sakes. He's sixteen. He has like four episodes of Supernatural waiting for him on his TiVo.

And he's pretty sure his dad still hasn't figured out how to make salad happen, and if he's alone-

Stiles swallows a sudden lump in his throat. Swiping at his eyes with the driest part of his sleeve, he tries to remember how words work. He manages to force out directions and some bleary exposition before everything goes dark.

"She was doin' her job," the hunter growled, eyes glittering with unshed tears as he traced Stiles' spine with his Bowie knife . "She was cleanin' up the world's messes. She was a good hunter."

"She George Foreman Grill-ed eleven people alive," Stiles snapped back, trying not to shake in the vicinity of really, really sharp pointy things. "Maybe you should rethink your definition of 'good.'"

"Eleven monsters!" the man said hysterically, running the knife along Stiles' ribs. "She made the world safer!"

"They lived in a house," Stiles said, remarkably not shitting himself. "They went to school. Laura was my babysitter, okay, when my mom-" The knife lunged closer. "Whoa, whoa, easy!" Stiles eyes met the hunter's. "What's the goal here, huh? Revenge? 'Cause then you're barking up the wrong tree. Peter's dead, and Derek'll probably thank you for shutting me up."

"Derek." The hunter spat. Literally. He gathered a gob of saliva in his mouth and spat it at Stiles.

"Dude, gross!"

"You're gonna tell me where he is- No. You're gonna bring him here. Or I'm gonna cut you open, hang you with a noose of your own intestines, and set you on fire."

"Oh my god." Stiles' voice sped up into a frantic babble. "Look, he's not gonna come for me. The guy hates me, okay? I got him arrested for murder. Twice. He's not coming over to bake me cookies, no matter how nice I ask. So… so you should just let me go, right, no hard feelings-"

"Shut up," the hunter hissed, pressing a cell phone into Stiles' hand, "and get him over here."

"Okay, okay!" Stiles stared down at the phone. "Um… how?"

"I don't give a goddamn fuck how you get that bastard over here!" The knife slashed into Stiles's hip. He bit back a scream. "But if I don't have a werewolf to carve in the next thirty minutes, I'm gonna settle for the next best thing."

"A defenseless, fragile human?" Stiles suggested, cupping his palms over the wound and trying to ignore the warm blood trickling down his thigh.

The hunter slammed a fist into Stiles' stomach. He doubled over, gasping.

The man scrubbed a palm over his eyes. "A traitor."

He's not dead when he wakes up. Score!

The whole hospital situation is less exciting. Stiles doesn't like hospitals. He doesn't have a lot of happy family memories involving big white rooms and flat white beds and tired white faces and enough wires and machines to reanimate Frankenstein's monster.

And the few he does have, well, that just makes it worse.

The pain's manageable, which is a refreshing change, and nothing seems completely out of commission based on a cursory glance. Okay. Now on to the hard part.

Right hand, check, all five digits fully posable, good bend at the elbow. Excellent.

Left hand, check, pain receptors clearly in perfect working order.

Right leg-

…Right leg-

"Oh my god." He's talking to himself, that's perfectly healthy, a lot fucking healthier than his completely unresponsive limb. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

The heart monitor goes nuts.

On the floor beside him, a wolf whimpers.

"Heyyyyyyyyyyyyy, Derek," Stiles said into the phone, using all his brainpower to send it's a trap! vibes to the werewolf. "Remember how you hate me and wish I was dead?" The hunter made a throat-slashing motion with one hand, flourishing the knife in the other.

"What are you talking about?" Without the mouthful of sharp teeth and the whole wolf thing going on, Derek's voice was actually kind of… not scary. Huh.

Or maybe he was just the lesser of two evils right now.

"Um, basically, there's a guy here who really wants to talk to you… about Kate."

"What?" Derek hissed. Ah, back to scary.

"So if that sounds interesting, or if you wanna come watch me get stabbed in the face, that's, uh, that's the live entertainment going on right now."

The hunter snatched the phone from Stiles.

"Okay, you son of a bitch, this is how this is gonna work. You call for backup, you howl, you bring anyone with you, and I set the kid on fire. Don't try anything stupid. He's already looking pretty bad. Wouldn't want to risk him bleeding out before you get here."

"He's human!" Derek growled, sounding outraged. Actually, his voice was kind of nice in general. "You have a code!"

"He's defending you. I'd say that makes him dangerous." The hunter grinned. "But don't worry, I think I've got the threat neutralized."

He grabbed Stiles' arm and snapped it behind him, and yeah, there was definitely some girlish screaming involved.

"I'm going to kill you," Derek swore through the phone. Stiles managed a smirk through the pain. It was actually a freaking fantastic voice, and he could probably listen to it for the rest of his life.

Admittedly, the way things were going, that didn't seem like the longest stretch of time.

"Stiles!"

Stiles' dad charges through the door, a nurse close behind him. For a moment Stiles imagines Lydia with him, frantic with worry and willing to do anything she can to make him feel better. Anything.

Then he remembers how he's basically a cripple now, and yeah, that's sure to be wonderful for his sex life.

"Oh my god, I'm gonna die a virgin," he says between shallow breaths.

"Stiles, what the hell happened last night?" His dad leans over him, and shit, those dark circles under his eyes put a lump in Stiles' throat again. He forces himself to swallow, to focus, to breathe.

After about a million years, his dad's palms come down on Stiles' shoulders, and the machine calms down, leaving Stiles with a question he has no idea how to answer.

"Iii-," he stammers instead, "I can't move my leg, Dad. I can't-"

The monitor beeps out a warning. Stiles takes a long, shaky breath.

"You're gonna be fine," his father says, and Stiles tries not to see the lie faltering. It's harsher the second time, practically an order. "You're gonna be fine." He gives his son's shoulders a supportive squeeze, and Stiles tries not to wince as his nerves scream under his father's fingers. "Dad," he says, and his father closes his eyes, opens them, and releases him.

Stiles' stomach twists.

The wolf curls in on itself, fur standing on end, gagging on the stench of guilt and shock and fear and worry where only Stiles' scent should be.

Derek never hung up the phone. After a few seconds, the hunter got tired of waiting and started without him.

a.n. : The title is a lyric from the Mountain Goats song "High Hawk Season."