Summary: There are stories out there, mostly made up and sugar coated. This is not one of them.
There are stories out there, mostly made up and sugar coated. Fairytales, they're called. With talking animals and mermaids and magical houses. But it's not really like that. It's much more gritty, so much more bloody and human. Nightmares, they could be called. Secrets and shock and tears. A girl by the name Allison, does not know - those fairytales don't exist, and the nightmares are real - that she's in one.
You see, the girl - the soft innocent girl - is in love. Deep, unforgivable, unforgettable love.
He's a local boy with a past he doesn't talk much of, and a family that Allison never sees. But he tells her that they would love her, almost as much as he loves her. He's strong and protecting and loves with all he has, which sometimes makes him look like he's in pain. But he promises that she's the best thing that ever happened to him, and then he kisses her, makes more promises against her lips.
What Allison doesn't realize, is that he's got scars on his heart, burned slashes that never will really go away.
But he tries. He tries so hard to love her, be whatever she needs him to be. And it's when he's late for one of their dates - this boy is never, never late - she becomes worried. She phones him, asks him why he didn't come, and he only answers with a short "I can't." and hangs up.
Oh, he never does this. He'll try to soothe and make her problems go away, try to make it better for her, but he doesn't this time. He sounded winded, scared. And that makes Allison scared.
She heads for his apartment, where a boy by the name of Isaac, his next door neighbor, says he's not there. He's thinks maybe he's at a house - his home, the boy says - deep in the woods.
Allison didn't know he had another home. But she goes, looks, weaves her way in and out of trees, over fallen ones and through fog. She doesn't know where he is, or why a house would be so far away from the town, with a path that hasn't been used for years.
But she finds it, just when she thinks about giving up and phoning someone for help, a burnt out shell of a grand house that once was. He's never talked of this place, this place where everything makes her heart heavy as she walks up the steps. The front door creaks and the smell of ash is in the air, closing up her chest. Either that or the growing fear creeping up on her, reaching its peak when she sees the love of her life, in a haze, propped up against a tattered green couch.
He calls his name, asks him if he's okay, her voice shaking - Derek, please. Derek, Derek wake up. Are you okay? Derek - and receives no answer. She steps close, heart drumming fast like it'll come out of her chest, and sees a pool of blood, smells it sickly in the air.
"You're bleeding."
But he's still unresponsive. She kneels down next to him, bullet wound embedded in his arm and her heart pulls. She touches his face, at his cheekbone, something she uses to comfort him. His whole body convulses, head jerks to look at her. She gasps, his face menacing, red bleeding into his eyes, making a frightening, glowing red. A growl escapes his lips and he looks terrified for a moment, before he's gone, bolting off with so much force that it knocks her back from her already wobbly position.
What she comes to realize later, after many research attempts in a night of not sleeping, that her beloved boy with a scarred heart, is a werewolf; and an Alpha werewolf, at that.
She realizes that an Alpha is supposed to heal fast, be almost invincible… But Derek wasn't healing. He was dying. And it strikes her heart when the thought runs through her head, hits her so hard she clutches her chest and falls into a chair in her living room.
No matter what he is, he is still her's.
So, she searches again. She can't let him die.
She finds him in the woods, like he's run until he's made himself pass out. One hand is in the dirt, fingers dug deep in like he was holding himself there. He's still bleeding, right there onto the dirt and leaves, and his face is pale. She's afraid that maybe she's too late.
She falls to her knees with tears in her eyes, resistant to let them fall as her hand touches his chest. He sucks in air raggedly, suddenly, eyes flying open to look at her. He says her name soft and surprised, like he thinks she's a hallucination. The noise she makes sounds pained, but so relieved, and touches his face, holds it in her hands. "It's okay," She says.
"What do you need?" She says quickly after, knowing she's losing him.
He doesn't talk for a moment, like he's memorizing her face, then says, "Wolf's bane."
And then she doesn't remember much else but a mantra of don't die, I need you and fast, faster, get him help. She saves him, the soft innocent girl and her big bad wolf who actually wasn't so bad. She cries when she hears him screaming, shouting in complete agony, but he gets better, everything but his breathing. His breathing is a blessing.
He kisses her after, pushes away her tears with his thumbs. He tells her he loves her, more than anything in the entire world. And he apologizes. Apologizes for lying, for what he is, for what he's done with putting her through this, and that she can leave him if she wants to.
She only shakes her head, tells him she loves him and kisses him back, hard, makes him promise to never ever apologize for what he is. And to tell her the things he hasn't.
His heart pulls in a way it never had before, something too raw but good this time. And he makes the promise against her lips.