Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

— Stiles —

Stiles sticks the cap of an expo marker in his mouth as he crosses an X over his current location. Or, what he thinks is his current location.

He’s been trudging through the preserve for over an hour trying to get to this spot, but there’s nothing special about it. There’s a small clearing in front of him, maybe only ten feet wide. The grassy floor is graced with nothing other than some tall foliage and a couple stumps. Just like every other small clearing Stiles has walked past.

He frowns.

There’s still some light left, but the sun is quickly setting. If Stiles doesn’t find the future-murder-spot soon, he’ll have to come back tomorrow, and tomorrow there might be an actual-murder-spot.

He sits on the closest tree stump and cross-references his murder map with the preserve map. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for exactly, but he thought there would be something. Some weird plant, or strange markings, or maybe even a nice, convenient execution set up.

He digs through his bag for his mess of papers and spreads them out in front of them, weighing them down with nearby rocks and sticks. He bounces his leg as he studies them, chewing on his expo marker again.

The county south of Beacon Hills is experiencing a string of homicides.

None of the victims were linked, as far as the police can tell. Different ages, genders, jobs, social circles. But all of them die the exact same way: their throat slit and heart torn from the body. Maybe it truly was just a normal homicidal maniac, but this close to Beacon Hills it was likely the supernatural type of homicidal maniac.

His dad had offered to lend a hand to their county police, but they’d turned him down. They said they appreciated the offer, but the FBI was coming in and they didn’t want to steal another county’s resources when they were already getting help.

Stiles thinks it was fucking stupid, but his dad said if they’d turned him down there was nothing the Beacon Hills Police Department could do about it.

As far as Stiles can tell, even though the bodies were dragged to secondary locations, the areas where the murders took place follow a curved line spanning across multiple towns. Not in sequential order, but a line, and a pretty fucking precise one at that.

At least, that’s what the mess of red expo marker and black ink over a map of Cedar County suggests.

The trajectory is creeping north, and if he’s right, the next murder is going to happen somewhere on the southern edge of Beacon Hills county in a few days, right on the tail end of the preserve.

He thinks, anyway. Stiles squints at the map.

There’s an audible crack of a stick snapping somewhere to the left of him.

He whips his head up from his papers and finds nothing. Just empty, darkening woods and the chirping of crickets.

Stiles rubs the back of his neck and shakes it off. He pulls out his phone for some more light and shines them on the papers in front of him again.

This is the general area where the next murder should be. It matches the trajectory. When it’s going to happen is eluding Stiles, though. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to when the next murder happens. So far there’s been nine, some spaced apart by weeks, some by mere hours.

Another twig snaps.

Stiles jumps to his feet this time. He snatches up his baseball bat from his backpack, deserting the phone entirely to grip it like a lifeline.

The forest is quiet. Only cricket chirps and wind through the trees to fill the silence. Stiles stands there, tense, slowly moving his phone to scan the treeline.

There’s nothing. Just a dark orange horizon and trees. He finally relaxes a little. He’s probably getting freaked out by a bunny or something.

”What are you doing?” Someone growls from behind him.

Stiles screams and whips around, immediately falling on his ass. The papers crunch as he lands on them, bat rolling to the side, and Stiles scrambles to prop himself up on his elbows.

Derek Hale crosses his arms down at him and lifts an unimpressed eyebrow.

“Jesus, dude,” Stiles exhales. He shakily gets up and dusts off the back of his jeans and his jacket. The glare he shoots Derek is nasty as he bends down to pick up his papers. “A little warning next time?”

Derek shrugs. “I gave you a warning.”

“No, you stalked me and came up right behind me.” Stiles brushes the dirt off his notes and shoves them in his bag haphazardly. “How’d you know I was here, anyway? I thought I was pretty far from your house.”

If you can call it a house, anyway. Stiles doesn’t know why Derek insists on inhabiting something that seriously needs to be condemned when he has a perfectly nice loft downtown, but Derek is kind of a weird guy. He’s just good at masking his weirdness with stern eyebrows and sharp claws.

“I felt a disturbance in my territory.” Derek’s gaze drops to Stiles’ belongings. “What’s that?”

Stiles’ face scrunches up. “‘A disturbance in your territory?’ The hell does that even mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like it means.” Derek snatches Stiles’ bag out of his hands and pulls out the papers, ignoring Stiles’ protest. He flips through them with a frown. “Why are you drawing on a map of the preserve?”

Stiles snatches the papers right back out of Derek’s hands. “There’s been murders in Cedar County,” he snaps.

“Why do you care?”

“Why do I care people are getting murdered? Gee, Derek, I don’t know. I’ll get back to you on that one.”

Derek only lifts his eyebrows at him.

Stiles meets his gaze for a moment before he lets out a breath. He holds up his map to show Derek his notes. “I think the murders have a pattern, and I think they’re going to start happening in Beacon Hills. If it follows the line, I think the next one will be in this spot of the preserve.”

Derek inspects the map. Then he looks up at Stiles and raises an eyebrow. “You want to go here?” He points to the spot Stiles circled.

“Yeah?”

“That’s a mile away.”

“Great.” Stiles scrubs a hand over his face. “Can you show me how to get there?”

“No.” Derek turns around and walks back the way he came without another word.

“Wha— Dude!” Stiles grabs his bat and shoves it back into his backpack, slinging the bag over his shoulder and tripping over his feet to follow after him. “Why not?!”

The last dregs of sunlight have officially faded now, and only the moon shines overhead. It’s next to nothing under the shadows of the trees. Stiles has to stick close to Derek just to see him, and even then he keeps running into tree branches and eating webs he can’t see. Derek doesn’t seem to be having the same problem.

“You know, most people avoid places they think a murder is going to happen,” Derek snaps.

“It’s not like it’s going to happen today! Well, probably not, anyway.” At Derek’s pissed look, Stiles throws his hands up. “Not the point! The murders are location-based, so I came out here to see what’s special about the location. That’s all.”

Derek is silent for a minute. There’s nothing but the soft crunch of earth beneath their feet and the chirp of crickets and frogs.

“Where’s Scott?” Derek eventually asks.

Stiles glances away.

He asked Scott for help, but Scott is doubtful about Stiles’ conclusions, and he has a date with Allison tonight. And tomorrow. And the entire week, probably. They’re in their on-again phase, but things have been tense, so Scott’s been desperate to smooth things over. Or something. Stiles can’t really keep track anymore. He knows better than to ask.

He asked Lydia for help, but she said his map looked like nonsense. She wasn’t getting her weird psychic thing about any murders in Beacon Hills. Not even a spidey-tingle. So as far as Lydia was concerned, it wasn’t supernatural and it should be left to the police to handle.

He’d thought about asking Allison, if only to get Scott involved, but ultimately decided against it. Scott would be pissed.

“Stiles?”

“He isn’t here. It’s just me.”

Derek stops dead in his tracks.

Then he’s suddenly whirling on Stiles, utterly furious. Stiles takes a step back, but Derek doesn’t stop advancing on him until Stiles is backed up into a tree and Derek is shoving a finger in his chest.

“You came out to the middle of the woods, at night, where you think someone is going to get murdered, and you didn’t even bring Scott?”

Stiles shoves at Derek’s shoulders, but Derek doesn’t even let himself budge. Douchebag. “Look, I told him about it, but he didn’t think it’d be our problem. So I just did a little investigating myself, okay?”

“You can’t do that!” Derek snarls so hard his canines glint in the moonlight.

Stiles stares at him. His eyes roam Stiles’ face, and seeming to realize how close they are, there’s suddenly empty space where Derek used to be.

Stiles stumbles forward, glaring at Derek’s retreating back. He rolls his shoulder blade to ease the pain of getting it shoved up against tree bark and brushes the dirt off his flannel.

“And why not?” Stiles follows Derek through the woods again, pushing branches out of his face and stumbling over rocks and roots.

“Because you’re human. And a high schooler.” Derek snaps without looking back at Stiles. “What would you have done if the murderer was out here?”

“I would’ve figured it out.”

Stiles can’t see Derek’s face very well in the darkness, but when Derek looks back at him, Stiles gets the feeling his expression is fairly pissed. Always assuming Derek is pissed is a pretty safe bet.

“You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days.”

“Yeah, well,” Stiles sticks his hands in his pockets and kicks a nearby rock as he follows behind Derek. “No one else will look into it, so I have to.”

Derek is quiet as they continue trudging through the forest. Leaves and sticks crunch under their feet, crickets chirping near by. It feels a little more peaceful walking through the woods at night when he’s with a werewolf.

“I’ll do it,” he says eventually.

“Wait, what?” Stiles startles. When Derek doesn’t respond, he jogs to catch up to Derek, grabbing his arm. “Seriously?”

Derek’s head snaps to look Stiles’ hand. When Stiles catches his eye, there’s red simmering just under the surface. Stiles yanks his hand back in surrender. “Sorry. No-touchy. Got it.”

Derek turns away from him. “If it’s a potential threat to the pack, I’ll check it out. Especially if you think it’s going to happen on my territory.”

“You believe me?”

“Unfortunately, you’re usually right about these things. Scott’s an idiot.” At Stiles’ stunned face, Derek narrows his eyes. “But you’re an even bigger fucking idiot for coming out here alone.”

“Alright, alright.” Stiles holds up his hands in surrender. “How much further is it?”

“A mile and a half.”

“Huh? You said it was a mile just a few minutes ago.”

“I’m taking you to your car,” Derek grunts. “You’re going home.”

Stiles stops dead in his tracks. “What? No. We don’t know how time-sensitive this is. If someone gets murdered it’ll already be too late. The whole thing will be taped off by the police.”

Derek lifts an eyebrow. “So you admit the killer could be here any moment.”

“I get it! I’m an idiot! But now I have you, Mr. Alpha Werewolf, so it’ll be fine! We’ll look around, see if there’s anything weird, or screams someone-should-kill-someone-here, and—”

Derek’s gaze abruptly turns away from him. “Shut up.”

“Hey!” Stiles frowns. “I’m not—”

“Stiles,” Derek hisses with a sudden urgency, and Stiles’ mouth obediently snaps shut.

Derek is standing tall and tense, slowly turning his head, eyes darting across their surroundings looking for something. Stiles frantically looks around too, but he can’t see anything in the darkness.

Stiles realizes it’s quiet. Way too quiet.

There’s no crickets, or rustling of the grass, or tiny paws scurrying across the forest floor, or even the brush of leaves in the wind. A chill goes down Stiles’ spine at the unnatural silence. He takes a step closer to Derek, fumbling for the pocket knife in his jeans.

Derek slowly stalks forward.

When he walks under a beam of moonlight, Stiles jerks a little to see he’s half-wolfed out. His ears twitch and his lips are curled into a snarl. But when Stiles goes to follow him, Derek holds up a hand.

Stiles stops. For another minute there’s nothing but more eerie silence.

Then Stiles squints at something shiny behind Derek. And moving.

It’s a white mask, Stiles realizes with a sinking pit in his stomach. A fucking creepy one too, pale porcelain with no mouth or any facial features, only eye-holes that look completely black in the darkness. They must be wearing dark clothes, because Stiles can’t see anything but the mask, floating in the darkness.

Stiles starts to shout, but Derek is already whirling around, roaring and swinging with his claws.

He stumbles a few steps back, turning to run, but something pulls tight around his ankle.

Before he can even react, Stiles’ leg is yanked out from under him, and he hits the ground so hard the breath is knocked out of his lungs.

He struggles desperately to pull in air, only managing tiny gasps, as he tries hard to yank his foot out of whatever wire is wrapped around it. He resorts to trying to take his sneaker off completely, but cries out as the wire only tightens further, digging the eyelets of his high-tops into his ankle.

Briefly looking up, Stiles finds two other masks reflecting the moonlight in the distance. Not doing anything. Just watching. Somewhere to his left, Derek roars in agony, but Stiles can’t even see where Derek is.

It takes him a second to realize there’s someone standing right behind him.

The pain exploding behind his eyes is brief before Stiles is knocked out cold.

—

— Derek —

Derek is losing his fucking mind.

He woke over an hour ago, finding himself stuck in an empty chest freezer with Stiles’ unconscious body on top of him. He doesn’t know what the hell they knocked him out with — Derek doesn’t even remember being hit. He remembers pinning a masked stranger to the ground, claws ready to strike, and then nothing.

The freezer walls must be lined with mountain ash, because every time Derek leans too much against them, there’s an itching pain under his skin and his muscles lock up.

Which is a shame, because it’s fucking cramped. Derek’s shoulders are wedged tightly on either side of the wall, his legs bent and feet pressed against the opposite side. Stiles has his knees on each side of Derek’s waist, his torso scrunched uncomfortably on Derek’s chest.

Or it was, until Stiles woke up five minutes ago.

“Do you think it’s chained shut? I feel like it shouldn’t be this hard to open even if it is locked,” Stiles groans. “God, I think my leg is cramping. Do you think they those masked weirdos would let us out to let me stretch it? Or maybe…”

He’s been rambling in a panic ever since, and as of now, he has his back pressed against the roof of the chest freezer they’ve been put in, trying desperately to push the lid open.

All Derek can focus on is the smooth pale skin of Stiles’ neck only inches away from his teeth. Every time he breathes, he gets fresh lungfuls of Stiles’ scent in the confined space. He can already feel his canines begging to lengthen, to bite, to claim.

His mind feels like a fucking broken record. He can’t even focus on getting them out of here because all he can think is Stiles, Stiles, Stiles.

Derek’s been breathing through his mouth and glaring at the freezer roof for the past half hour.

“Derek!” Stiles shakes his shoulder urgently. “C’mon! You’re the freaky werewolf with the freaky werewolf strength! Why am I the only one trying to bust us out of this thing?”

“I can’t,” Derek grits. He can feel the repulsion of the box like a buzz under his skin. “They must’ve lined it with mountain ash. See if you can break the seal.”

Stiles puts his face closer to the lid. He furrows his brow in concentration. “It’s not mountain ash.”

“What?”

“There isn’t any mountain ash on this. I can see some weird tiny shapes carved into the upper walls and roof of this thing, though. It goes all the way around.”

Derek snarls, hitting the side of the freezer wall with his fist. He was tempted to try and actually punch through the walls in an attempt to escape, but now he knows that all his efforts would be futile.

Stiles eyes him nervously and leans away as much as the space will allow. It’s not far. “Do you know what they are?”

“Runes. Maybe sigils.” Derek glares at the top of the freezer like it might bend to his will from sheer intimidation. “Someone planned this if they went through the effort to carve in spells for warding werewolves. Or trapping them.”

“You think it’s another darach?”

Derek sighs. “Maybe.”

“Not another one you’re sleeping with, I hope,” Stiles mutters.

Derek shoots him a warning look.

He never slept with Jennifer Blake, or whatever the hell her name actually was, even if he let her flirt shamelessly with him. He helped her, gave her a place to crash, had sympathy for a woman down on her luck, but never allowed them to cross any further lines.

Admittedly, he wanted to feel something for her at times. It’d be easier that way. He’s sure Jennifer could tell that Derek was considering something more, would almost say yes at times. But every time he tried, he just couldn’t get those stupid brown eyes and that shit-eating grin out of his head, and he’d inevitably pull away.

When Derek was a kid, his mother used to sit him and his siblings around their hearth and tell them stories. Most were werewolf legends passed down orally through generations.

Some were clearly just stories, like werewolf packs living on the moon or the werewolves the size of buildings that slept in the mountains of the Andes. Some were about historical figures and their incredible feats in times of war or strife. Often they were cautionary tales of what happens when you lose control or abandon your pack.

But sometimes, his mother would talk about the legends of werewolves themselves. How pack bonds and family bonds were rooted in each other’s souls. How the moon called to them, how it blessed them, and how it reminded them every full moon those blessings came with a heavy burden. And as a reward for the never-ending struggle with control and retaining their humanity, the moon gifted them True Mates.

Laura used to roll her eyes, but Derek remembers the awe in Cora and Cody’s faces. His mother would lean in close, stars in her eyes, and tell them how they’d know instantly if they found their mate. That their True Mate’s scent would smell perfect, that the instinct to be near them would be overwhelming, that they would complement and challenge each other in all the right ways.

That just meeting their True Mate would ruin anyone else for them.

Derek fucking hates that she was right.

“Hey,” Stiles suddenly perks up. “There are some tiny holes drilled up here. For breathing, I guess.”

Stiles rearranges himself clumsily to put his eye up to the hole, shoving Derek’s head down in the process and eliciting a growl. Stiles mumbles an off-handed apology while Derek glares at the roof of the freezer. Stiles doesn’t say anything for a long minute.

“Well?” Derek snaps. “Do you see anything?”

“It’s too dark.”

Derek pushes Stiles away and awkwardly tries to maneuver himself so that he can be eye-level with the tiny holes dotting the upper walls. Stiles does his best to give him space but their arrangement of limbs makes it difficult, and Stiles has to awkwardly contort himself to give Derek room.

It doesn’t help that there’s a painful buzz under his skin that gets worse as he gets his face closer. He can’t bring himself to actually make contact with the wall, so he levels his eye a few centimeters away from the breathing hole and squints.

It’s a garage, he thinks, but he can’t really tell. There’s nothing in here, not even other storage. There’s weird stains on the concrete floor, but it doesn’t smell like blood. Or anything, really. Derek can’t even see a door from this angle, just blank walls and floors.

“Well?”

“It’s an empty garage.”

Stiles sighs. They rearrange themselves once more to be as comfortable as the confined space will allow them. Which isn’t much. Stiles has braced his hands on the wall behind Derek's head to maintain as much space between their bodies as possible. It’s not much space.

“It’s a Friday night,” Stiles complains. “I could be on a date with a girl right now, and I’m stuck in a popsicle stand with a guy that might eat me.”

“First of all, you couldn’t get a date with a girl if you tried—”

“I could!”

“No, you couldn’t. Second of all, you’re the reason we’re in here in the first place.” Derek shoves a finger in his chest. “Remember that?”

Stiles mumbles something under his breath. Derek pretends he didn’t hear it.

“Where’s your phone?” Derek demands.

Taking one hand off the wall behind Derek, Stiles pats the back and front pockets of his jeans. He pauses, and then pats his jeans a little more frantically. When he jerks his head up, he looks at Derek like a deer caught in the headlights.

Derek stares at him, unimpressed.

“Sorry!” Stiles snaps. “The next time someone knocks me unconscious and kidnaps me, I’ll make sure to superglue it to my jeans! Where’s yours?”

His jaw ticks. “In my back pocket.”

Stiles’ gaze drops.

Derek’s arms have maybe an inch of leeway on either side of the freezer walls, and he isn’t able to lean up enough to give himself the room to be able to reach back into his own pocket. Derek watches the blood drain from Stiles’ face as it dawns on him.

“Just grab it,” Derek hisses.

“No thanks,” Stiles says weakly. “I prefer my hand attached to my body. And maybe my throat intact.”

“I’m not going to kill you for helping me get the fuck out of here,” Derek practically snarls. He doesn’t think his sanity is going to be left intact by the time he gets out of this damn box. “Grab my phone.”

“Oh god,” Stiles says it like it’s a prayer for mercy. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

Derek tries to tilt his hips as best he can, but it really isn’t much. Stiles reaches a hand out to feel the back of Derek’s jeans while leaning his body as far away from Derek as much as the space will allow.

In order to reach, Stiles has to lean forward enough that the pale, soft skin of his neck is practically shoved in Derek’s face, even with Stiles doing his best to maintain space. Derek focuses very, very hard on controlling his breathing as Stiles does his best to get his hand under Derek’s ass.

“Stiles,” Derek urges.

“I’m trying! It’s not actually easy to get my hand underneath 200 pounds of muscle!”

Stiles continues to struggle for a minute, practically groping Derek.

“Wow, you do have a pretty nice ass, though. Not that that should inflate your ego or anything, most people who work out regularly have a nice ass—”

“Stop talking,” Derek snaps.

“I’ll stop talking,” Stiles agrees immediately, returning to his blind fumbling with urgency.

And then an all-consuming, mouth-watering scent begins to waft in the minuscule amount of space between them. Derek’s canines lengthen before he can stop it, his mouth filling with saliva, and the chant of Stiles, Stiles, Stiles is practically ringing in his head as the scent of his arousal permeates right under Derek’s nose.

He throws his head back hard enough against the wall that the bang reverberates across the entire freezer. Stiles yelps.

“Stiles!” Derek snarls, loud and dangerous.

“Here! I’ve got it!” Stiles practically rips the phone out of Derek’s jeans in his haste, and then almost smacks Derek in the face with it in his scramble.

“Call Boyd.” While the most stand-offish in his pack, Boyd was usually the most dependable… ish. Hot headed sometimes, but somehow also good at thinking things through, a virtue all of his other betas lacked. All of them. Peter would probably also be able to get them out, but Peter was… Peter.

Stiles flipped through Derek’s contacts, slightly pink-cheeked. “Wow, dude. You have, like, no friends. I’m a loser and even my contacts list isn’t this short.”

“For fucks sake!”

“I’m calling him!” Stiles furiously punches a few buttons. Then frowns. He shoots Derek a nervous look. “Or… not.”

“What?”

“There’s no signal.”

Derek grits his teeth, breathing hard.

“What are we supposed to do?” Stiles’ voice was a pitched a little high. The panic was starting to sink in.

“My pack knows something’s wrong,” Derek exhales forcefully. “They’re looking for me.”

He yanked on the pack bonds when he realized they weren’t alone in the woods. His betas all would’ve gotten a general sense of where Derek was when he did so, and he’s glad for it, because now reaching for the pack bonds feels like trying to grab water. He can still feel the connections, but it’s like they aren’t tangible. Derek knows he has the spells to thank for that.

Between this and Jennifer he thinks he’s had enough magic bullshit for a lifetime.

“And we’re just supposed to wait until then?” Stiles shoves at the freezer lid again.

“You have any other ideas?”

Stiles sighs.

—

They sit there for what Derek estimates to be a couple hours.

It shouldn’t be taking this long. He knows they’re looking for him, they just aren’t able to find them for some reason. It doesn’t bode well, and every passing minute is time that Derek knows is precious.

He doesn’t know what these people would want him and Stiles alive for, but Derek can’t imagine it’s anything good.

Stiles’ arms are shaking now. He’s still trying desperately to maintain their space, pushing himself off the wall and therefore off Derek.

And he’s been rambling. So much rambling. Derek’s been content to watch him struggle, not really wanting Stiles to close the distance either, but enough is enough.

Derek sighs. “Just sit, Stiles.”

Stiles goes wide eyed, glancing down at Derek’s lap and then back up again. “What? No, I can’t— I can’t do that. I’m fine. Totally fine. Better than I’ve ever been, really.”

“Your arms are going to give out any minute now, and then you’ll be sitting on me anyway.”

“Hey, I’m strong! Just because I’m not a werewolf doesn’t mean I’m not a fit and healthy young man who can hold his own. This is a minor workout.”

Derek raises an eyebrow at Stiles. He bounces his leg to jostle him, and Stiles immediately loses his balance and comes crashing down into Derek’s lap. In a panic, Stiles immediately scrambles to get back up again. Derek smacks Stiles’ arms off the wall before he can try to push himself off them again.

Stiles is warm, and his weight adds a pressure to Derek’s stiff limbs that feels nice. Derek restrains himself from grabbing Stiles’ thighs to hold him there.

“I said it’s fine. What you’re doing is pointless and we both know it. We’ll just have to suck it up and deal with it until someone comes.”

“That is not nearly as reassuring as you seem to think it is.”

Derek glares at him.

“Dude, seriously, you’re really not convincing me that you’re not going to eat me or something.”

Derek glances up at the symbols lining the upper walls of the freezer. They were detailed and intricate, though clearly hand-carved if the metal shavings were anything to go by. Stiles has been studying them this whole time, but he assumed it was out of boredom more than anything. Derek stopped responding to Stiles’ rambling over an hour ago and Stiles had nothing else to do.

“Are any of the symbols familiar?” Derek asks, but already knows the answer.

“No,” Stiles sighs. He sags a little more in Derek’s lap, and Derek does his best not to hyper-fixate on it. “I have no idea what any of these mean. Do you think they’re going to try and sacrifice us or something?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope they at least let us out of the box to do it. I have this awful crick in my neck right now and I can’t even roll my head back to unkink it. I mean, if they’re going to kill us, they should at least let us stretch our legs—”

“Shut up,” Derek snaps in a whisper. There’s murmuring somewhere outside the freezer. It’s low and quiet.

“What do you want me to do?! There’s nothing to do in here but talk, and—”

“There’s someone nearby,” Derek hisses.

Stiles shuts up.

Derek presses his ear to the freezer wall, but he still can’t hear anything but faint murmuring. It’s too muffled to make out what they’re saying. His brow furrows.

There are footsteps, and Derek realizes with a jerk that he can hear them in all directions. They’re in the same room as them. Derek should be able to hear a pin drop in a crowded room, and yet he can’t even hear what people are saying just a few feet from him. It doesn’t make any sense.

“What are they saying?” Stiles whispers.

“I don’t know.” The furrow in Derek’s brow knits deeper. “I can’t hear them clearly.”

“But they’re close?”

“I don’t know! Stop talking!”

Derek concentrates hard, pressing himself as close to the wall as the space will possibly let him, and still can’t hear anything. Derek can’t help the frustrated growl that escapes him.

Suddenly, the box jostles hard.

Stiles yelps as he’s thrown against one of the walls, snagging Derek’s shirt as he goes. The box then tips the other direction, and they’re both thrown on the other wall. Stiles head hits the corner with a concerning noise that has Derek snarling at the roof of the freezer. The freezer remains the uncomfortable slanted angle.

“Hey!” Stiles shouts as he struggles to unpin his arm from under him. “Watch it! You can’t be a little more careful with the precious cargo?”

There’s a loud slam on the wall behind Derek’s head as someone’s foot makes contact with it. He takes that as a no.

The freezer jostles again, and Derek can feel that it’s moving. Stiles has to reach his hands out to either side to steady himself. They’re slanted because someone’s transporting them on a dolly, Derek realizes, and suppresses the urge to punch the freezer walls again.

“Where do you think they’re taking us?” Stiles asks, not bothering to keep his voice down anymore.

“Not anywhere we want to be.”

The freezer shakes as they’re walked to another location. Derek remains tense, ready in case someone opens it. He’s ripping out someone’s throat if they give him the chance.

The freezer never opens, though. It’s not long before Derek recognizes the sounds of asphalt underneath them, and the quiet hum of truck. There’s some more murmuring and footsteps around them as they’re momentarily set back upright and left alone.

“C’mon, let us out!” Stiles thumps his fist repeatedly on the roof of the freezer.

There’s another loud kick to the freezer wall.

“Alright, I get it, asshole!” Stiles snaps. He settles his weight back onto Derek’s lap and shoots a glare up at the freezer roof.

Derek sighs.

They’re left alone for only a few minutes before they’re thrown against the wall again, and dollied up a metal ramp that rhythmically clanks underneath them. The hum and hiss of the truck grows louder. There’s a loud metal clang as they’re thrown against another wall, and the world rights itself once again. The footsteps withdraw.

Disturbingly, Derek can hear things in the quiet that Derek can’t make sense of. Odd shuffling and muffled thumps. A quiet, barely audible moan in one direction. A strange chirp in another. Derek’s face furrows in concentration as he presses his ear to the freezer wall again. A scratching noise. A sniffle.

“What is it?” Stiles whispers.

Derek ignores him in favor of shuffling himself into a position where he can stick his face in one of the tiny, drilled holes toward the top of the freezer. Stiles does his best to shuffle and shift his weight off of Derek to let him.

Derek sees nothing but large crates and boxes. Some metal, some wood, and occasional fridges and freezers like this one. He still can’t hear for shit, but he can pick up faint traces of sent if he sticks his nose to one of the holes. He gets whiffs of musty air and metal, but also fur. Sulfur. Scales. Feathers. Lots of sweat. None of it human.

Derek’s blood runs cold. Stiles must be able to see it on his face when he settles back down to the bottom of the freezer.

“What? What is it?”

Derek listens to the quick clangs of metal rungs and loud slam as the loading hatch of the truck is shut.

Abruptly, a faint light above them begins to glow. Their heads jerk up, and they watch together as the symbols pulse a few times before fading. Suddenly, the world plunges into silence, leaving only Stiles’ quickened breathing. The whiffs of inhuman scent also vanish.

“It’s the spells,” Derek says distantly, looking up at them.

“Huh?”

“I can’t hear or smell anything properly because of the spells. They’re cutting it off.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. “Well, shit.”

The freezer jostles and the feeling of moving returns, accompanied by the hiss of the semi-truck’s engine. Stiles sighs leans the best he can up against one of the walls when he still has to hunch his back under the roof. Derek lets his head fall against the freezer wall with a soft thud.

—

There’s nothing for hours. Just the soft, quiet hum of a moving truck that Derek knows should be deafening with his normal senses.

Derek has his phone placed where he can grab it and awkwardly tilt his head to see the screen. He keeps turning it on to check for signal, and turning it back off again when there’s none. The pit in his stomach tells him it’s not the location that’s giving them bad signal, it’s this damn box.

Stiles has managed, somehow, to ramble through all of it.

”The Mists of Pandaria expansion is kind of just alright, in my opinion,” Stiles drones to a wall. “They hyped it a little too much, and I don’t think I’ll ever play the new monk class. I mean, it’s something new, so there’s that, but…”

Derek sighs.

—

“—but they released, like, a million games between 2000-2003. Armada, Elite Force, Bridge Commander, and some others I haven’t played yet. Armada was based on the original Star Trek series, but Elite Force was based on The Next Generation series—”

“Why the hell are there two series?”

“There’s actually, like, six or something. If you count the animated one and the prequel that only aired for like, four years.”

“How is that not confusing?”

“It sort of is, but the multiverse is canon so it’s fine.”

“What?”

“Anyway, pretty much all of these games were Microsoft or PlayStation, and…”

—

“Do you think Lady Gaga is part of the Illuminati?”

Derek throws his head back to think against the wall. “Stop talking.”

“Just asking, sheesh!” Stiles shifts back and forth, getting himself comfortable. “And I’m just saying, I’ve read some forums, and—”

“Shut up, or I might actually rip your throat out this time.”

“Sensitive,” Stiles mutters.

—

Stiles keeps nodding off. He always catches himself just before he makes contact with Derek’s shoulder, straightening himself before inevitably almost falling asleep again a few minutes later.

“Just lie down,” Derek sighs.

“What?” Stiles mutters, leaning his head against the wall.

Derek wouldn’t even be considering this under normal circumstances, but Stiles is exhausted. His back muscles are clearly starting to give out on him, and there was a weariness in his face that made Derek want to punch something. He’ll figure out how to reign in some self-control if meant not having to watch this any longer.

“Go to sleep.”

“What if something happens? I can’t sleep like this anyway.”

“I’ll wake you if something happens.” Derek huffs. “Just lay on me. It’s fine.”

“No!”

“You’re already sitting in my lap.” Derek would scrub a hand over his face if the cramped space allowed it. As it is, all he can do is give Stiles an unimpressed look. “What does it matter?”

“It’s the principle of it!”

“Of what?!”

“Of the no-homo, no-weird-cuddling, no-ripping-my-throat-out-when-this-is-over thing! That principle!”

Derek sighs. “Stiles.”

“You know what? Fine!” Derek frowns at how quickly Stiles relents. He must be more exhausted than he was letting on. “But when this is deeply awkward and uncomfortable once we get out of here, it’s going to be your fault. And I’m telling everyone that.”

Derek lifts an eyebrow.

Stiles falters. “Or… I tell no one. And we forget this ever happened. That works too.”

Derek doesn’t respond.

Hesitantly, Stiles lowers himself onto Derek. They’re chest to chest now, Stiles’ head resting stiffly against Derek’s shoulder. Derek does his best statue impersonation.

After a long moment, Stiles seems to deem Derek true to his word, and he finally lets go. He sags with a deep sigh, letting Derek bear his full weight, and Derek shifts to accommodate him before he even realizes what he’s doing.

Stiles moans his appreciation right into Derek’s ear as his back finally straightens from its hunched position for the first time in hours. Derek grits his teeth and digs his nails into his thigh hard enough that it bleeds.

The scent of contentedness rolling off Stiles in waves does nothing to help. Derek closes his eyes and does his best not to breathe through his nose. He almost regrets offering, but he knows he’d regret watching Stiles struggle more.

“Thanks,” Stiles mumbles into his shoulder.

Something loosens in Derek’s chest. He takes another steadying breath and focuses on calming his racing heart.

For a while, there’s nothing but silence. Stiles’ slow breaths tell him he’s on the verge of falling asleep. Derek hopes he does. If Stiles is more exhausted than he’s letting on, he needs the rest for whatever is waiting for them outside the freezer chest.

“How long do you think we’ve been moving?” Stiles murmurs.

“I’ve been checking my phone for signal. The time says it’s been about six hours,” Derek murmurs back.

“Any wild guesses on where they’re taking us?”

“East. That’s all I know.”

Stiles shifts to rest his head more comfortably on Derek’s shoulder. It’s sleepy and unintentional and has Derek’s fisting his hands at his sides. “How do you know we’re moving east?”

“I just do.” He’s always had innate sense of direction. Most werewolves do.

“Right.” Stiles huffs. “Any plan on what to do when we get to wherever they’re taking us?”

“I jump them as soon as they let us out.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” Stiles’ tone is sour. “Play distraction?”

“You run.”

Stiles sighs. “I’ll think of a better plan. Just give me a few minutes…”

His breathing evens out soon after.

—

They both wake to a loud growl. Derek’s eyes fly open, and Stiles jerks his head up so hard that he smacks it against the roof of the freezer.

“Fuck!” Stiles yells, hunkering down again with a wince. He presses a hand to the sore spot. “What the hell was that?”

Derek shuffles to sit up with urgency, Stiles doing his best to give him room to do so. He looks out of one of the holes but sees nothing but crates.

“What’s out there?”

“I don’t know,” Derek scowls. “They’re all in boxes.”

“What?!” Stiles shoves Derek aside to look, and Derek begrudgingly lets him. By the way Stiles squints, Derek knows he can’t see anything in the darkness. “What do you mean they’re in boxes? What’s in boxes?”

“I told you, I don’t know. But they don’t smell human.”

“Dude!” The thundering of Stiles’ heart is rapid, and his yelling is practically deafening. “We’re trapped in an enclosed space with a bunch of animals and you didn’t think this might be important to tell me?!”

“Nothing we can do it about it,” Derek mutters.

“I still want to know!” Stiles snaps. He puts his eye up to the hole again as if he might see something this time. “Can you tell what they are?”

“No. I smell fur, something reptilian, and a lot of sweat. Can’t tell anything more than that.”

“This day just keeps getting worse.” Stiles pulls away and sags defeated against the freezer wall. “We’re going to die as bear food or something.”

“We’re not going to die.”

“The odds don’t really seem to be in our favor!”

“You went into the woods alone looking for a fucking murderer,” Derek snaps right back. “You’re going to draw the line at a bunch of animals in crates?”

“I already said I fucked up, okay?!”

Derek’s nostrils flare. He takes a very long, very steadying breath. Except it isn’t so steadying, because Stiles’ stench of fear does nothing to help Derek’s howling instincts to get them out of this fucking box. Derek can barely think of anything over the roar of protect, protect, protect.

Stiles lets out a breath. He hangs his head for a minute, collecting himself. Derek doesn’t interrupt. He needs Stiles to calm down to think clearly himself.

“Sorry,” Stiles sighs. The scent of fear abates, and Derek relaxes the claws out of his thigh. “Next time tell me stuff like this, okay?”

Derek meets his eyes for a moment before looking over at the wall. “Alright.”

Stiles settles himself more comfortably on top of Derek. His earlier hesitance is nowhere to be found, and Derek doesn’t know how to feel about that. “So. Your plan is to just jump out of here and start swinging?”

“Yes.”

“Do I need to tell you that’s a stupid plan?”

“Witches and druids are human,” Derek shrugs. Or tries to. The freezer box is too snug on his shoulders. “If I can attack them faster than they can react, they won’t be able to use their magic.”

“You don’t think maybe they’re counting on that?” Stiles raises his eyebrows.

“I think that’s our best shot,” Derek raises his eyebrow right back. “Unless you have any better ideas?”

“Maybe we could talk to them?”

“Right, because they were so keen on talking to us earlier,” Derek drawls.

“I don’t know! Maybe we could offer them something!”

“Like what?“

Stiles frowns, thinking. After a minute, he sighs. The defeat written across his face makes Derek’s stomach lurch, but Derek chooses to stay silent.

“I don’t know,” Stiles murmurs. The weight on Derek’s chest feels heavier than ever.

—

“Hey Derek?”

“What?” Derek sighs.

“Can we play a game or something?” Stiles’ words are a little muffled against his shoulder.

He’s been rambling, mostly to himself, for over an hour straight again. Stiles doesn’t cope well with boredom for more than five minutes, let alone over half a day. Derek thinks they’re both on the precipice of losing it.

“Like what?” Derek stares blankly at the roof of the freezer.

“I dunno. Twenty questions. Truth or dare. Just something.”

“Truth or dare?” Derek scoffs. “What am I going to dare you to do? Leave the box?”

Stiles groans.

—

Derek is getting worried now.

It’s been fourteen hours with no signs of the truck stopping. And not once has Derek managed to catch a signal. At this point he’s scared of turning his phone on and wasting more battery. He’s down to 30% and it’s proven useless so far.

The itching buzz under his skin is getting painful. Derek does his best to shift his shoulders and arms off of the freezer, but nothing he does helps. The constant, pressing need to get away from the walls but no room to do so is making Derek want to rip someone’s throat out.

But mostly Derek is worried about Stiles. A few hours ago he was complaining about having to pee, and being hungry, and needing an itch scratched.

Now Stiles’ just quiet, even when his stomach growls or when he makes a pained noise as he shifts a cramped muscle. Stiles spends most of his time sleeping because there’s nothing else to do.

Derek doesn’t remember how long humans can go without food or water. He thinks it’s at least a few days, but he’s scared to ask Stiles and freak him out. He also feels somewhat embarrassed he doesn’t know.

Meanwhile, the sounds outside their freezer box are only growing louder. Whatever creatures are in those crates are clearly about as happy to be here as Derek is. Periodically he leans up to look out the breathing holes again, and is somewhat reassured that he can’t see anything walking around. Somewhat.

Derek lets out a breath. Stiles scent is slightly different when he sleeps. Softer. Soothing. When they first got stuffed in this freezer, Stiles’ scent in such close proximity was fucking maddening. Now Derek has to use it as an anchor to keep himself calm. Exposure therapy, or something. Maybe cosmic irony.

Derek selfishly lets himself take a deep breath to center himself, and ignores the warm, yet gutted feeling in his chest.

—

It’s been twenty hours.

Twenty hours stuck inside this chest freezer.

The itch under his skin from the wards has progressed from very uncomfortable to excruciating electric shocks throughout his whole body. The pain is making him lose control over his shift. He can feel the pricks of his canines lengthening bit by bit, the slow lengthening of his claws, and the deepening burn behind his irises.

Derek hit a breaking point not that long ago, waking Stiles when he tried to slash his way through the wall. All he has to show from it is a pristine freezer, an excruciating buzz in his hand, and a visibly shaken Stiles. Whatever they spelled the walls with, it’s fucking strong. The blood under his nails took over a minute to heal, which is disconcerting in its own right.

He grits his teeth.

“Does it hurt that bad?” Stiles asks tentatively. He’s watching Derek with unease, like Derek is a ticking time bomb that might detonate at any second. Stiles might be right.

“It’s fine.”

“Pretty bad then,” Stiles winces. “Okay. Maybe I can move and you can—”

“I’ve tried.” Derek snaps. His breath is coming out short, and he fucking hates the concerned look on Stiles’ face. He needs to be strong for both of them. “When you were asleep I tried moving you. It doesn’t— nothing helps. It’s just like this.”

Stiles bites his lip. His foot that’s pressed against the wall behind him bounces with repressed panic.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says simply, not knowing what else to say.

Derek refuses to make eye contact. “It’s fine.”

—

“Maybe we could play a word game?” Stiles quietly offers.

“No,” Derek grits. His canines are fully lengthened now, and he can feel that his face is half-wolfed. Derek has to use all his concentration on holding back his shift. If he gets any larger, it’ll only make their problem worse.

Stiles, for his part, is doing a surprisingly good job at pretending the situation isn’t quickly becoming disastrous. “I’m just— maybe a distraction could help.”

“Silence would help a lot more,” Derek growls. The edges of a true wolf growl rumbles deep in his chest.

Stiles doesn’t say anything after that.

—

Derek sits up with alarm. Stiles, who’s been sleeping on top of Derek again, wakes up with a flail. “What—“

“The truck’s stopped.”

His blood is singing. The pain is almost enough to try and make him bash his head against the wall in an effort to relieve it. Derek can’t even care about the joints that creak and muscles that pang from such long times spent sitting in one spot. He was relying on Stiles’ scent to keep him calm before, but now he has an outlet for the shift simmering just under the surface. His claws lengthen, and his clothes feel tight. More than anything, he wants his teeth around someone’s throat.

Stiles scrambles to rearrange himself. He practically slams his face up against one of the breathing holes trying to see something. Growling, Derek pushes Stiles’ face out of the way and ignores his squawk of protest. Derek’s the only one who can see anyway.

A heavy door clangs as it’s opened, but the room doesn’t get much brighter. There’s distant footsteps to the left of the box and out of view.

Derek does his best to switch their positions and shove Stiles underneath him best he can, ignoring Stiles’ wincing and oww-ing. Derek needs to be ready as soon as someone tries to open the freezer lid. If he doesn’t kill them the second he gets a chance, it’ll be too late.

The footsteps get closer. Stiles’ breathing quickens.

The steps come to a stop right outside the freezer. Derek holds his breath during the silence. There’s nothing but the pounding of Stiles’ heart in his ears.

The freezer is suddenly filled with blue light. Derek’s head snaps up to see the runes glowing. The light is brighter than he’s ever seen so far.

Abruptly, Stiles’ head hits the freezer walls with a reverberating thud. Derek looks down to see that he’s out cold. He frantically grabs Stiles’ shoulders and tries to shake him.

“Stiles?”

The light pulses once more. There’s a spark of pain behind his eyes, and then nothing.

—

Derek wakes again in the fucking freezer chest.

“Fuck!” He slams his fist into the wall, not even caring about the pain that shoots up his arm or that every hair stands on end as his skin makes contact.

Stiles screams, and a startled elbow immediately plants itself in Derek’s stomach, eliciting a grunt.

Stiles is lying on top of Derek again, but this time he’s facing up, his back against Derek’s chest. It’s somehow even more uncomfortable than their previous arrangement.

Derek doesn’t even care at the moment. All he can think about is how he was so fucking close. If the druid had opened the freezer before activating the runes, Derek knows he could’ve killed him in half a second. And now they’re back to square one.

The only reprieve is that it’s no longer excruciating to be pushed up against the freezer walls. It’s just an itch under his skin, just like it was when they first got thrown in here. Derek isn’t losing control over his shift anymore.

“Welcome back,” Stiles says a little nervously.

Derek closes his eyes, sighing.

“So. Good news— I don’t have to pee anymore,” Stiles says to the top of the freezer. “Bad news— I have no memory of peeing.”

Derek frowns. “It doesn’t smell like piss.”

Stiles sags against him. Derek grunts. “Oh thank god,” Stiles breathes out. “Glad I pissed on our darach friends instead of the angry werewolf I’m stuck little tin box with. Although maybe it’s more concerning a bunch of strangers whipped my dick out and made me pee.”

Derek really wants to bash his head into a wall. “What are you talking about?”

“My jeans are dry, so I clearly didn’t pee my pants. And my boxers are only half pulled-up in my jeans.” Stiles looks down. “I don’t think they really cared to put these back on properly.”

Stiles starts sticks a hand in his pants and starts shimmying to try and fix it, but in the process, he keeps digging his bony elbow into Derek’s side and muttering aborted ‘sorry’s. Derek grits his teeth. “Stiles.”

“Yeah, just— gimme a second,” Stiles keeps squirming, his ass rubbing against Derek’s crotch.

Derek takes a deep breath, and immediately regrets it when he gets lungfuls of Stiles’ scent. He digs his nails into the palm of his hand hard enough to bleed. “Stiles!”

“Fixed it!” He settles, and Derek lets out a breath. He disengages his claws, lets his wounds heal over. “How far do you think we are from Beacon Hills?”

“Depends. I don’t know how long we’ve been knocked out for.” Derek glares up at the spell runes with vitriolic hatred. “Maybe Kansas.”

“How do you know we’re not like, in Mexico or Canada or something?”

“We’re still moving east.”

“Oh.”

Derek pats around for his phone, wanting to know how long they've been knocked out.

He doesn’t feel it.

Derek’s brows furrow, and he starts feeling around more and more urgently, but only meets empty air.

“Derek?”

“My phone,” he says. “Can you feel my phone anywhere?”

Stiles starts patting around just as frantically, the two of them doing an awkward shuffle around the box as much as possible to feel everywhere that they can.

Nothing.

“Fuck,” Derek says, his head thumping against the freezer wall, ignoring the jolt it sends down his body.

—

“Hey Derek?” Stiles asks weakly.

Derek head snaps up with alarm. Stiles hasn’t sounded like this before. “What?”

“I’m really thirsty. And hungry. It’s…” Stiles swallows. “It’s really starting to hurt.”

Derek doesn’t think twice before he’s got a hand wrapped around Stiles’ bare wrist. The pain is like a punch to the gut, but it’s worth it when Stiles’ head falls back against Derek’s chest with a moan in relief.

Objectively, it isn’t the worst pain Derek’s ever felt, but Stiles is human. Hunger is something Derek knows they can tolerate to a degree, but he’s worried about the water. It’s been likely over a day now, not including the hours Stiles decided to gallivant in the woods looking for a serial killer. Derek still can’t remember how long humans can go without water, but he knows it’s not nearly as long as they can go without food. And there’s no sign the truck is stopping anytime soon.

Stiles’ breathing evens out as he falls asleep. Derek doesn’t let go of his wrist.

—

Stiles is getting worse.

It’s likely a day and a half at this point. It’s hard to tell with how often they’re sleeping to distract themselves.

It’s getting harder to control his shift again. The uncomfortable buzz under his skin progressed to electric pains a few hours ago, and Stiles’ pain is progressing. He can’t feel any of it, Derek has been stubborn about maintaining skin-on-skin contact to keep it that way, but it’s getting worse.

Stiles is pale and starting to sweat. He’s at a point where he’s not even bothering to ramble to keep his mind occupied. He just stares blankly above them at the freezer chest lid.

The temptation to full-shift is overwhelming. Derek knows it would be bad, that these runes mean it would be a futile effort and Derek’s expanded size would make it even worse for them. But a nagging part of Derek’s mind tells him to try it anyway, and it grows louder as Stiles gets worse.

—

He doesn’t know how long it’s been anymore. He doesn’t think humans are supposed to go this long without water.

—

The second the chest freezer moves, Derek’s eyes fly open.

The tell-tale tilt tells him they’re being fucking dollied again. There are voices outside, but they’re so muted that Derek can’t tell if they’re close or far. Derek can barely even hear the footsteps of the person pushing them, or the dolly wheels against asphalt. Derek doesn’t understand why sometimes it’s so easy to hear the outside, and other times it’s completely lost to him. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the spell.

Derek tries to get Stiles under him again. He’s half-shifted already at this point, and has been for hours. His claws dig into the sides of the chest freezer, and it hurts but it feels good.

Stiles flails, an arm smacking Derek in the face. “Whoa, what—?”

“Don’t talk,” Derek says low and quiet. “Try to get under me.”

It takes Stiles all of three seconds to connect the dots. Stiles and Derek do their best to switch places. It’s deeply uncomfortable, and Derek has to contort his limbs in odd angles they shouldn’t be in. It must be clear they’re moving, because someone kicks the wall next to Stiles’ head. A low growl rips out of Derek.

Derek hears the creak of wood underneath them. There’s more talking and shuffling outside, though Derek still can’t make out what they’re saying. It’s like everyone sounds underwater.

They jolt when the chest freezer suddenly tilts and they start sliding downwards. Derek’s head slams into the back wall as the box goes thud, thud, thud down wooden stairs that creak and groan. Miraculously, they end right-side-up.

There’s a slam of a large metal door behind the freezer. Stiles rubs the back of his head, wincing.

The runes glowing faintly above them abruptly go dark. The buzzing, shooting pains up Derek’s arms suddenly disappear. Derek doesn’t think twice before he slams the lid of the freezer open.