Outside the street's on fire
In a real death waltz.
-Bruce Springsteen.
Stiles is nineteen when the lights go out and the world shuts down. He doesn't even notice at first. Not for 24hrs. Stiles will forever be grateful that the pack was together. Looking back together is what kept them alive for this long. It was the first time in months that they were all in the same state, same room. They all had off for Fall Break and were catching up with a sleepover, in Derek's railway car. Even though it has been four years, he still doesn't have running electricity in the damn thing.
For twenty- four hours, they are blissfully ignorant, laughing and throwing popcorn at each other. Not knowing what is coming, the survivors they will turn into, and things they will do to stay alive.
It's the last time any of them will remember being happy.
Stiles wakes up before anyone else and before the sun is even up. He untangles himself from Derek with some difficulty. He curses Derek's lack of power for a moment as he fumbles around in the darkness, tripping over shoes and bodies in sleeping bags. He makes it to his phone with only a stubbed toe. He tries to send a text message to his Dad (who may know about werewolves now but still isn't cool with adult sleepovers between Stiles and Derek) and he can't get a signal. It his first sign that something is wrong.
Bitterly he throws on his favorite red hoodie and drags himself outside of the railway car, cellphone in hand. He stops mid-step. The whole town around him is plunged in darkness. Automatically Stiles brain tries to soothe his initial panic. It could just be a freak blackout. Doesn't have to mean monsters or mayhem. Deep in his gut though, Stiles knows better.
He just doesn't dare say it out loud.
Denial isn't just a river in Egypt. Denial holds them over a little awhile, placates them and keeps them calm. After 15 days no believes it is just a freak black out anymore. There's a panic that starts to stir among the town. It is only after a month though, when everything really falls into darkness. Darkness like that breeds fear and chaos. People start to move, and the ones who don't start to die. The food supply is running low, stores have been raided and people are desperate. Bodies litter front lawns, streets, and store fronts. Food and shelter are worth dying for now. Numbers ensure survival. The pack survives and the lone wolf dies after all. Personal issues and the like get pushed aside and they band together to survive. The pack including Peter and Danny, along with Ms. McCall, Erica's Parents, Lydia's Parents, Greenburg, Finstock, Chris Argent, and his band of hunters, take refuge in the old Hale house. It's further out, harder to get to, and gives them a tactical advantage.
They board up the windows, and block the doors. Everything becomes done in shifts now. They sleep in shifts, and they go to town in shifts to raid the store for any can goods or water that happens to be left. Two werewolves per a group at all times is the rule.
It's the small group of Hunters that die first. In a fight for food in an abandoned Walgreens full of curdled milk and rotting food. Fighting skills are no match for desperation of the starving.
They bury them in the backyard of Derek's house, out of respect for the dead. Food is scare and bodies of the dead or alive have become substance. Even Chris doesn't have the energy to mourn.
This is the first dead body that Stiles bury. It isn't his last though.
They decided to leave Beacon Hills after they bury the hunters. There's literally nothing left for them. It is either leave or starve to death. They don't plan where their going, they just pack whatever food and water they can carry and head out. Everyone is too hungry and too tired to care.
It's the last time they ever make that mistake.
They end up going west, to Portland, Oregon. The only reason they know is because Scott bludgeons someone to death with the welcome sign.
It takes them 22 days to get to Portland. Stiles keeps tracks of the days with little tally's carved into the back of his now useless Iphone case. He thought about throwing it away, but he can't bring himself to. It's the last reminder he has of what life was like before the blackout.
Halfway to Portland, winter starts to set in. No one is prepared. The wind alone leaves any exposed skin with burns that blister and itch. Stiles tries to share his hoodie but no will take it. He resorts to wrapping people up in when they're sleeping. The werewolves don't need it in the sleeping bags, they are hot enough. So he puts it on the other humans. Derek holds Stiles close enough that he is always warm enough at night.
Not everyone survives the cold though. Lydia's mom dies first; she goes to sleep and never wakes up. Lydia's screams ring in Stiles head on his worst nights.
They run out canned food by the fifteen day. At night the wolfs hunt for food and there's no way to make a fire. They have to eat anything they can get raw.
Stiles never enjoyed the taste of blood in his mouth.
Erica's mom is the first to get a fever, Lydia's dad the second. For the first few days it just looks like indigestion, but the 8th day everyone knows their dying. Melissa says it Camplyobacter Jejuni from the raw meat. They eat barks and twigs for awhile before they stop eating all together.
Derek and Jackson dig holes in the snow with their bare hands, and they bury them in the middle of nowhere. They leave markers with stones, even though no will ever go back.
Lydia never cries again after that. Erica has always been too accustomed to lost.
By the 19th day, they run out of water completely. Before Melissa can stop them, Jackson's parents drink out of a lake. They die of dysentery a two days later, a few hours after they make into Portland.
The fight starts over a small group of survivors attacking for the bodies. They are weak, even with a group full of werewolves. They are starving and dehydrated. Scott bludgeons one guy to death, Peter rips out a woman's heart, and Danny stomps another boy's head in.
He doesn't talk much after that, and the small group makes off with Jackson's mom.
They bury Jackson's dad in the woods and that is how they meet two other survivors, Monroe and Nick. Derek attacks first and suffers wounds that make Stiles have his first panic attack. Ironically, Derek kisses hard enough, that normally took his breath away. This time it steadies it.
Derek always steadies Stiles.
Monroe and Nick share what food and water they have and set the pack up with shelter. Nick and the Sheriff grow close, and become friends. Something about the cop life bonds. Monroe founds his place among the pack. Stiles enjoys his company, he is odd like Stiles but can be as vicious as Peter when provoked.
They adjusted the life without little food and crumbling shelter. Melissa becomes the healer for whatever survivors stumble through in exchange for food or water. It keeps them alive for longer.
On the 49th day there is an ambush on the apartment building they appropriated, it's always suppose to be two werewolves for a group but they got cocky and comfortable.
Most of the group is out gathering food, water, and clothes. Monroe and his Dad die in the ambush. Stiles tries to cry but there's no tears.
Just numbness that takes months to go away.
Monroe buries them both and his howls ring in Stiles ears. It's a hollow kind of comfort.
They stay in Portland till the spring, till it is warm enough to travel. Greenburg plans their route. Navigation is his hidden talent.
Stiles leaves his Iphone in Portland, the life he knew is dead. He doesn't need to remind himself of that.
Forty-nine days and a casualty (Erica's Dad) later they make it into Texas, Starling City. Stiles takes an arrow to the gut and Derek rips the head off the archer with a green hood. Melissa does her best, but even Stiles knows that it can go either way. Peter offers and Derek begs to turn him.
But Stiles refuses, he was born and human and he will die that way. Scott holds on one hand and Derek another. He starts to heal and then suffers an infection that sets them back another two weeks. They have to move though as food and water always run short. Stiles tries to push past the pain.
His body gives somewhere near Arizona, Stiles can't remember much. It is a haze of darkness and pain. Derek carries him across state lines. He is delirious with fever, crying out for his Dad.
Stiles is saved by a shaggy brunette who he later he finds out is named Sam. Sam has penicillin and shares in exchange for water and three cans of beans. Stiles is pretty out of out it for a couple days, but he hears things, bits and pieces when is conscious.
Turns out Sam is a hunter, Chris knew their father. Sam, his brother Dean, and an Angel named Cas are the only living people in Arizona.
It takes another week but Stiles heals and gets his first scar, a pucker mark above his belly button.
His whole body will become littered with scars before it is over.
They leave Arizona as soon as Stiles is well enough. Sam and Dean heard there were survivors in town in Maine, called Storybrooke, who had built a town. A safe house of sorts. That was where they were headed.
Greenburg and Dean plan the route together. Finstock pretends not to be jealous at all the time they are spending together. But, it fools no one. Cas reminds Finstock, that Dean and him share a profound bond.
Dean blushes when Sam relays the story back to him. Stiles laughs for the first time since his Dad died.
Derek was beginning to think he lost him, but he can see a glimpse in that laugh.
Stiles takes his first life about a month later. Traveling with Sam and Dean has consequences. It's hell on earth for all the demons, all the survivors are just happy meals on legs. And, all the demons want their time to shine. They want a piece of the Winchesters, or them in pieces actually.
Stiles doesn't even have a moment of hesitation and he never told anyone how much that scared him. Dean throws him the knife blindly, and Stiles knows that if he wants to survive he has to stab.
And he does, right in the jugular as the demon goes for his throat. Blood splashes on his fingers, arms, and face. The metallic taste clings to his tongue.
He hates that taste.
The lifeless eyes of Melissa stare back at him.
Isaac holds Scott's hand when they bury Melissa. Stiles pretends not to see how everyone looks at him like they are seeing him for the first time.
Stiles isn't sure he would recognize himself either.
Scott and Stiles aren't the same after his Mom. They don't talk for months. When they start to it's just basics. When they start to become best friends again, they are strangers; radically different from the people they used to be.
They have to start all over again. Deep down Stiles knows the bond isn't the same as it was. Just something they claim to have, to hold on to something even slightly familiar.
Familiarity is a ghost that haunts them all.
Killing gets easier and something they have to do quite often. Humans and demons alike, all in the name of survival. Pieces of Stiles start to chip away and he wonders if he was always this dark. His father used to say that even a monster can look like a man until darkness reveals his nature.
Darkness revealed Stiles, and Stiles learned he would do anything to keep the pack alive.
A person can be persuaded to do just about anything to stay above water.
By the time they reach Virginia, Stiles has killed fourteen people already and collected six new scars, broken so many bones. So much pain. Agonizing, horrible pain that could never be forgotten. So many times, he had prayed for death and death hadn't come.
Derek doesn't know how to fix it, but he tries. Kisses scars on Stiles skin and whispers promises into his ears.
It's Cas that helps him heal. Stiles doesn't want to hear it and fights with all he's got to just shut Cas up. But he doesn't. Not even when the blood bubbles up from his mouth and dribbles down his chin. He lets Stiles beat him and then let him sob it out on this chest, into a trench coat that has seen better days.
Cas just holds him and tells him his father would be proud of him and that one day, God will give them a happy ending. Stiles just needed to have faith. Stiles let himself cry for the first time since the blackout.
Dean breaks his rib in retaliation for Cas.
There are good moments in all of this, Stiles just forgot how to see them. The view of the stars is breathtaking and it warms him to think how much his Mom would have loved them.
He likes the quiet nights they spend with everyone, surrounded by the campfire. He spends those nights trapped between Derek's legs. It makes him feel safe. During these times, they just talk about everything and anything and share memories. Stiles lives for stories about Derek's childhood and all the trouble he got into with Laura. Peter joins in at times, and it bonds them together again. Chris has even started to share and Stiles is surprised to see how many memories of his involve Peter. Stiles thinks there was something between the two of them once upon a time.
During these fireside nights, in that orange glow Stiles can even pretend that him and Scott were like they were again.
There are even times that make them laugh.
Scott trying to catch fish in the lake with his claws and accidently catching Erica instead, her startled and then murderous face still makes Stiles laugh whenever he thinks of it.
Dancing and singing ridiculously at the top of their lungs around the fire, spinning in circles and falling over. It is an odd sense of freedom, if freedom were as heavy.
Stiles will miss those nights of dancing when their gone. The silence of the nights spent in fear stifle and strangle.
Winter comes as they hit an abandoned town by the sea, which makes Stiles think its what left of Savannah, Georgia because they have been traveling north east for months now, which would lead them towards the south. They spend the winter there. A time as bleak as the weather, they were running low on supplies. The food isn't so much of a worry, by now they know how to survive on very little. It is the lack of water that is potentially dangerous; they can't even boil the water from the ocean because they are out of matches and lighters.
The darkness comes earlier in the winter, creeping on them with a colder chill, and Stiles never felt more hunted.
They set out again a month earlier then they would have liked but they couldn't make it much longer, living like they were living. Monroe refuses to come. Derek tries everything he can, ordering him as Alpha, and then begging him as a friend.
But, Monroe holds steadfast in his decision. He claims he can throw off any demons from their trail for as long as he can.
Stiles hugs him goodbye, knowing he will never see Monroe alive again. Lydia refuses to acknowledge Monroe, even when he goes in for a hug. Her grip on Jackson's hand is extra tight when they leave him behind though.
Stiles thinks that Monroe has been looking for a way out since Nick died, and he finally found out.
Stiles didn't understand how he could just give up like that though.
He does come to understand a month and a half later. They were halfway through Virginia according to Greenburg. The axe is flying towards him before Stiles has time to even realize it. When he blinks, Derek is standing in front of him, and Stiles is pushed back into a tree. Derek's claws were out and digging in, his mouth open in a soundless whisper of his name. There's an axe sticking out his back.
Stiles can't remember how to breathe when Derek drops to his knees. Allison kills the axe thrower but Stiles doesn't see it. Doesn't care, doesn't register anything other than Derek.
And, Derek isn't healing.
The axe was laced with something and they don't know what. Non one, not even Scott who has a great sense of smell can pick it out. Stiles feels the hopelessness creeping in. Derek makes him promise that Stiles will live for him, to go on. Stiles promises but he crosses his fingers behind his back. Without Derek, Stiles wouldn't make it. He just wouldn't want to.
He begs Derek not to leave him. Everyone leaves him.
It's the first time that Stiles tells Derek he loves him.
Stiles just shuts down as Derek starts to die. He won't have long now, probably by night fall. Stiles refuses to eat, drink, or sleep. He never leaves Derek side, never lets go of his hand. He can't, without Derek, Stiles will lose himself. He needs Derek to anchor him. Surprisingly Greenburg, sits by him so Stiles will never be alone.
Stiles wishes he remembered to tell him thank you.
Dean, Chris, and Scott track down the axe throwers group, using Scott's sense of smell and Dean and Chris's hunting abilities. It's a group of survivors who happen to be vampires.
Stiles hears the screams and knows that Dean tortured one of them, but Stiles doesn't feel anything. He doesn't even care.
He has lost himself again. He tries to pray, like Dean has been teaching him.
Elena, Elena is the one who heals Derek, smashing up some herbs, mixing it with some of her blood, and shoving it into his back. It takes two weeks for Derek to get even half his strength back. Stiles can't remember feeling such relief. But, he still doesn't trust a single one of them.
Forgiveness is just something Stiles forgot how to do.
They stay with the vampire group for almost four months; maybe they would have stayed longer if circumstances had been different. Vampire blood is handy, and wildlife is abundant in Virginia. It is the first time they ever have more than enough to eat and drink.
They are raiding a grocery story for soup to go with the deer meat they have, a luxury not a necessity for once. They were in a sporting goods store, seeing if they could snag a new bow for Allison, when another group of survivors wanders though. Instinct tells them to hide, and instinct has always been their friend. The group is all humans with dangerous glints in their eyes, they are looking for all them.
Rumors of the pack have been spreading around. Their group of survivors is large, larger then most wanderers. They have a reputation for being dangerous and fast. And, weapons, they have weapons.
There is an army forming, the Monroe Militia, and they are looking for recruits willing or not. Apparently, the Monroe Militia has a bounty out of anyone who can bring back any members of their group. From what Stiles can hear, they have good descriptions of them too.
They decided that the two groups should split up and go in different directions. Elena and her group will go south and Stiles and his group will go north. No one breathes a word of that town in Maryland. Which makes Stiles think, he was not the only one that didn't trust the vampires.
Stiles isn't sad to see them go, especially Damon. In fact, Stiles hoped he got impaled by a tree in the future.
Greenburg gets sick about a month later, a cut on his finger that gets infected. They get lost and all turned around. Dean is good at maps but Greenburg is better.
He lives though and Stiles is relieved. He's gotten close to Greenburg and he knows that if anything happened to Greenburg, they would lose Coach too.
Stiles is tired of losing people he loves.
By the time they get in the right direction again, they have to turn back because the Militia was invading what used to be Philly, in order to create his Monroe Republic.
They end up in Chicago in the early fall and Stiles prays they can gather enough supplies to make it out before the winter starts to creep in. Stiles used to go to Chicago to see his mom parents before they died, spent many Christmas there and he knows how cold it can get. They won't make it out of Chicago if they don't.
Chicago becomes the catalyst that starts it all but they won't know that for another fifteen years.
Danny falls in love in Chicago. Stiles notices he was acting differently lately but Stiles can't put his finger on why, he is always tired and distracted but always the first to go into his tent and sleep.
Stiles decides to find out just what's going on. Sure enough, Danny sneaks out of his tent once he thinks everyone is asleep. Stiles follows him about two miles into the woods.
There Danny meets an Militia solider with open arms and an open mouth.
All Stiles can see is red, furious that Danny would risk them all. He attacks with a savage fury and it takes Danny's swift kicks and punches for Stiles to back off. It takes tears for Stiles to come back down to himself. To realize how alone Danny has been this entire time, and that Danny would never risk them all.
The solider isn't a solider, at least not anymore. He is a deserter on the run from Monroe. His name is Miles, and he used to be the president of the republic.
Danny gets two months with him before things turn to shit. Monroe runs into their camp in the middle of the night, Derek already waiting for him, having heard the frantic beat of his heart miles away.
Miles warns them that Monroe knows that their group was there in Chicago and that they need to leave as soon as they can.
Danny never talked much after he killed that man in Portland, but after they leave Chicago Danny doesn't talk at all.
Derek says that losing your mate is a fate worse than death.
It makes Stiles shudder. He promises himself he'll never find out.
Sam and Allison ask Dean to marry them randomly one night as they sit around the fire, the silence suffocating. Fear the Militia could be lurking around and that any unnecessary noise is a risk they can't afford.
Dean does something like a ribbon ceremony with a cut of piece of his leather jacket. There's some symbolism there that Stiles doesn't get because Sam looks like he might cry when Dean slices it with the knife.
It the first time Stiles realizes that life is moving on and isn't just standing still.
Derek promises that one day, they can have that too.
When they reach Boston they are tired of being tired, it's been two months since Chicago. They camp out in Boston for another month to wait out the winter. They squat in a half burnt down apartment complex.
They all gravitate toward it, even though there is better shelter nearby. It reminds them of the Hale House even though it looks nothing like it.
But, it reminds them of home.
Allison faints in the middle of serving beans. Dean catches her. Lydia worries. Allison stresses that she was just dizzy. But the fainting happens twice more and a month later, the vomiting starts. Stiles tries to think of anything that could have made her sick and falls short.
It's Peter who notices the scent change first. Allison is pregnant.
Stiles wants to feel joyful, relieved that Allison isn't sick, or dying.
But all Stiles can feel is worry.
By the time they make it to Maine, Allison is already heavily pregnant, showing. It makes them vulnerable and they can move in the cover of darkness. It also slowed them down both in pace and in energy. They've had to cut portions to make sure that Allison is getting enough to eat.
They are hungry and exhausted. This is how a group of four, three males and a blonde sneak up on them. Isaac catches the first male, trying to steal their water in the dead of night.
Isaac breaks an arm in the struggle and gets taken hostage. Scott's fury makes him stupid and he attacks anyway, getting a chest full of arrows for his trouble.
The blonde hair girl stops a slaughter from happening, something about her oddly soothing. Stiles knew from the moment he saw Isaac struggling that they weren't human.
And, they weren't. Kinda of. They were troubled. There was Duke, Audrey, Nathan and Dwight. If Duke touched the blood of anyone supernatural or troubled he became super strong. Nathan can't feel any pain, and Audrey was some kind of soother for the troubled or supernatural and apparently might be immortal. Dwight, attracted bullets.
They heard about the town of Storybrooke too and were headed in that direction. They decided that they will travel together to Storybrooke.
Scott hates the idea, and so does Stiles. But, Derek pulls rank and they are all forced into submitting.
Chris and Stiles agree that should anything go wrong, they will use Dwight and Nathan as shields.
Stiles doesn't know which is worse, trusting in Chris Argent or thinking of innocent people as expendable.
Stiles doesn't get close to Audrey, her ability to placate him makes him too wary. Nathan is never far from Audrey, so Stiles doesn't bother with him either. But, Duke, Stiles likes.
He knows what it's like to feel like a monster.
Stiles knows what it means to want to be a better version of yourself.
He knew that before the blackout.
Finding Storybrooke isn't easy. It takes them three months to find it, wandering up and down Maine looking for a little town. It's hidden and enchanted by powerful magic.
It takes a dying Coach and Greenburg's love for him for the town to materialize in front of them.
The Blue Fairy helps Coach's infection and be pulls through with a just a mild limp in his leg. Stiles can't believe that all the fairytales that his mother used to read him are true.
Only Snow White isn't a Queen of a beautiful castle but a crumbling town in Maine.
Stiles never seen anything more beautiful. For them, Storybrooke was always a hope, a wish for peace that they all made.
It's been almost two years since the blackout and this is the first time that Stiles feels like things can finally be okay.
Stiles has a hot bath and sleeps in warm bed for the first time in two years and it is glorious. In that bed safe under the covers and in Derek's arms he lets himself cry for everything that they lost in the struggle to get here.
They never turn the lights out.
It takes the pack awhile to adjust and awhile to trust. They aren't used to sleeping apart and for a while they can't bare to. The separation causes them all panic attacks. Their vicious frightens some of the towns people. Snow White and Charming are patient with them though. They give the pack space and time. Emma and her son Henry come around often, showing them around and explaining who is who and how the town works.
Ruby comes around a lot too, never having met another werewolf before.
Derek knows what is like to be alone and Derek and her bond, but it's her and Erica that truly bond. They become like sisters.
A month into their time at Storybrooke, Allison and Sam have their first child, it's a beautiful baby boy with tuffs of brunette hair and Allison's eyes. They name him John Patrick.
For Sam's Dad and for Stile's dad. Stiles cries and promises to love that boy within every inch of his life.
Allison makes Dean and Lydia their godparents. Cas dubs himself, John's guardian Angel.
Chris just cries.
After a months the pack finally feels ready to move into their houses. All next to each other but it was far enough for them. Danny takes the farthest on the end.
It's been a year since Chicago and Danny still hasn't said a word.
Some wounds don't heal.
They stay in Storybrooke for thirteen years. Isaac and Scott get married quietly on their own. They don't tell the pack for awhile. Greenburg and Coach do so too soon after. Lydia and Jackson have two children Holland and Will. Erica and Boyd have little May who is just learning to walk. The epitome of cuteness. Allison and Sam have twins, Mary and Victory. There's another on the way. Chris and Peter spoil every single one of them rotten. It is easy to see why Peter used to be the favorite Uncle.
Derek gives Stiles the wedding he promised him back in Boston all that time ago. It's just the original pack there and Stiles feels like everything finally healed for him.
They have thirteen long and happy years there. Until suddenly it gets ripped apart.
In the middle of the night, alarms blare and startle them. Hyper vigilance is hard to break. That alarm hasn't rang in thirteen years since Greenburg and Coach broke that enchantment and let the pack in. The alarm signals that the spell has broken, other survivors.
It's Miles and he isn't alone. He has a young girl bleeding in his arms, and a man with glasses and a revolver.
Danny utters his first words in thirteen years.
Danny doesn't separate from Miles as the young girl, his niece, named Charlie recoups from a gun shot wound to the chest.
Miles tells them everything, about Charlie, Monroe's Militia and their quest to find Charlie's captured brother.
Stiles knows what coming. He can feel it in his bones.
He knows that when Miles sets off again that Danny will going with him.
And, so will Derek.
Derek doesn't talk to Stiles about it about a week. Stiles knows they both lay awake at night in their bed, thinking about it and what is going to happen. What needs to happen.
Stiles breaks by the seventh day and spills all his worries and fears to Derek. Derek promises that he won't just go in the middle of the night, that if Stiles doesn't want him to, that he won't go. That Stiles matters more than being Alpha ever will.
But, Stiles knows that if Derek doesn't go, it will hang over them for the rest of their lives. Derek will never truly be at peace.
So Stiles says that Derek can go, should go. But one condition.
He goes too. Derek flat out refuses and their fight takes out a wall in the kitchen.
Stiles wont' back down. He vowed till death to them part.
Stiles will live, die, and fight by Derek's side. By his mate's side.
Chris and Peter decided that they will come too. Dean says he will go as well. Cas will go where ever Dean goes. But, Stiles reminds him that Sam needs him. That Sam deserves to have the family he always wanted.
He is glad that Dean stays behind. He deserves to live out the rest of his life, growing out with his lover, his angel by his side.
They leave in the middle of the night, because it is easier. Stiles can't bare to say goodbye to one more person.
Stiles doesn't know what the future holds for them. Doesn't know if he will live to see this through. To see his house, or his friends, his family, ever again.
Luck has to run out at some point.
But Stiles prays that if he can't make it through, that he dies before Derek. Prays that not that his death is painless or quick. But that it is a good one.
That it matters.
He looks over at Danny, and Danny smiles for the first time in a long time. Derek twines their fingers together and squeezes.
For Stiles it's enough.
It's enough.