"Derek... Derek, tell me what happened, what can I-"

"Stiles, go," the wolf whispered breathlessly to the teenager, "Get out of here..."

He was hunched over, gripping hold of a tree, clinging to it for dear life. Naked and shaking, his body chilled by the cooling splotches of blood coating his skin. He was drenched, as if he'd jumped in a pool of it and taken a swim. It was still fresh, still glistening in the moonlight, not yet dry or hardening.

"Derek-"

"I said go!" the Alpha shouted, hiding his face from sight.

But the boy wouldn't leave him, knew what he must have done, and wanted nothing more than to help him. "I'm not leaving," he said sternly, his voice all but resolute as the slight shaking shone through. He took a step closer and watched as the wolf flinched, doing the same himself, but stole yet another step. "Let me help you."

Too tired and ashamed of what he'd done, Derek bowed his head and relinquished his resistance, no longer fighting the boy. It was no use, he'd lost control, anything else would only hurt more at this point.

Placing a gentle hand upon the wolf's shoulder, Stiles gradually knelt down beside him. "Tell me what happened."

He'd felt it slipping for months, his anchor, his rage. It boiled over and no longer kept him human, if anything, it made the wolf in him stronger, made it nearly impossible to contain. Denying it for so long, he focused on it still, pretending it wasn't happening, like it could never happen. He was wrong.

The full moon came, he felt his anger rise, this time doing nothing to keep him from changing. He howled and called out to the night sky, felt the beast in him take hold and force its control over him.

All he could remember was flashes, brief images that would flash before his eyes, like a dream upon awakening, a nightmare his mind tried blocking out. There were screams, terrifying and relentless. Flesh tearing, fangs gnashing, and claws swiping followed by beads and streams of blood, jetting out at him, covering him.

Stiles sighed and took his hand from the Alpha's back, mindlessly wiping the blood from it on his jeans. "Let's get you back home," he suggested softly, urging the man to get up off the ground, to stand once more and walk again.

"I'm naked," is all he replies. Voice still nothing more than muffled breath, heart still shattered and body aching like he'd been in a car wreck.

The boy stands and looks at the wolf, beaten, broken like never before. "Derek, come on. We gotta get you cleaned up and out of here, hunters are coming."

He reaches down and grabs hold of the man, his hands both wrapping around one of the wolf's arms. Pulling him with all his force, he barely manages to move the mountain that is Derek, but he tries. Finally he budges, nearly sending Stiles back, but the two manage to right themselves and get to their feet, where Derek wavers and nearly stumbles.

"Hey now! Hey, no dying on me. That, and if you fall and land on me, I'm more than sure I couldn't push you off, even if I tried." Examining the wolf's expression, Stiles sighs dejectedly, recalling a time in which he'd fallen on the wolf and neither of them had been able to escape the situation. "Come on, now, that was funny."

Eyes locked to the ground, lost in space, the Alpha exhales hard and feels his chest cave. "I'm numb," he mumbles out, "there's nothing-"

"Forget about it. I don't ever expect you to laugh at my jokes anyway. Come on, let's get you going, there's really no time to waste. Derek?"

But the wolf is staggering on his feet, shuffling them only slightly, as if chained to the spot.

"Derek, if we don't get out of here right now, the Argents will find you, see you naked and covered in blood, and won't think twice to string you up and bisect you with their ever so anachronistically inappropriate weaponry. DEREK! PLEASE! LET'S GO!" He gives the wolf a hard tug and manages to get him going, moving ever steadily -albeit shakily- back toward his home.

They reach the door, which Stiles kicks open, too caught in the moment to truly revel in how very Neo that made him feel. It was like the Matrix though, kicking down doors, running from Agents, trying to make it to safety on time; all that was missing was the ringing phone. Yet on cue, there was Scott, likely frantic on the other end with a million and one questions.

"What is it, Scott?" Stiles demanded, struggling against Derek's weight as he tries in vain to roll the Alpha into the tub.

"There's cop cars and an ambulance!" comes the voice from the other end, and all the boy can go is groan.

"Did they find a body?" he demands, urgently.

"No, just a ton of blood, but they've got a K-9 unit out looking for it now."

"Just keep an ear out, listen to anything, try and make sure they don't find anything yet."

"Why? What's going on?"

"Scott- I can't really- Uh keep your head up. I can't really talk right now, I'm kinda- stuck with something." Cringing as he pulls his hand from the wolf, he watches as a line of coagulating blood webs its way from his fingers to the man's flesh, as if cocooning him. "Oh, that's disgusting."

"Stiles? Stiles!" Scott shouts from the other end, but the boy merely hesitates, looking from one hand to the other, and drops the call (and effectively his phone into the tub).

"That's wonderful. I hope you appreciate this. Always slamming me against things and accusing me of-" He continues to grumble as the water fills the filthy, ash lined tub. It won't get the Alpha completely clean, but it's better than nothing at this point. He might have done them both a favor though and just pushed him down the hill and kicked him into a stream, but Stiles was too nice for that.

Instead, he'd opted to bring Derek back to his home, to get him cleaned up and in his own clothes, ready to go save the day in his usual attire. "Hey, nude wonder, keep your eyes open."

Derek wavers and is overcome with guilt, too dazed to even lift his own head. "I'm so stupid," he mutters, and Stiles barely catches it, "I should have locked myself up."

"Yeah, well, you didn't, and this is what happened. Deal with it. Seriously though, why didn't you take control, you know, use that anchor I heard you've talked so much about to the rest of the pack?"

A sigh escaped the wolf as his eyes slowly drift up to look into the boy's face. "It isn't working anymore," he grumbles, though it's less threatening and more mournful than anything.

"Slipping? Like slipping how? It isn't working anymore?"

Listlessly Derek shook his head, resting it against the edge of the tub in defeat. "I used anger-"

"What kind of anger?" As if there were different kinds. "Last time I checked, that was the one thing that made Scott wolf out without fail. Why the hell would you use that?"

Giving no reply, knowing the boy wouldn't understand, not without an explanation best left for some other time -likely never- he let the question hang in the air until it puttered away into nothing.

"Look. You're almost clean. I'm gonna go grab you some clothes, please don't try and drown yourself in your self-pity while I'm gone. We have to get you up and out of here before the Argents come looking, if they're not already." With that, Stiles pulled himself away, his arms outreached and hands lingering on Derek a moment longer, before quickly bolting away toward Derek's room.

Finding the strength in him to sit himself up, knowing the boy was right and only trying to help him, the wolf began washing the rest of the blood from his body. He managed to stand, though nearly slipping and falling, he scrubbed the last of what he could from his skin, and stepped out of the tub. A few lines of water ran along his back and down his thighs, while the rest dripped off him from a number of places, he searched for a moment, looking for a towel.

His eyes finally rising toward the doorway, he found the boy standing there, frozen in place. They share an awkward exchange of glances -Derek glaring as Stiles finally stammers incoherently- before the flustered human fumbles in the room with his arms full of clothes.

"Not sure what you wanted to wear-"

"It doesn't matter." Snatching up what was there, aware he was still wet and would feel everything cling to him uncomfortably, Derek feels finally the urgency of time and what little they have. If the Argents weren't already at his door, they would be soon, and if the police hadn't found the boy, they would even sooner.

He rushed to dress himself, taking no time to bother with his jacket, which Stiles had thoughtfully grabbed, and lead the way out the door. "We'll go around back," he said suddenly as he stopped just feet from the front door. The hunters were outside, bows at the ready, and would fire at him indiscriminately, equivocally hitting -and possibly killing- the human before any of them realized, or cared to take into account the innocent caught in their cross-hairs.

Leading the way, quickly, Derek quietly slipped out back, before any of the hunters had chance to cover the perimeter. Stiles, keeping pace, raced after the Alpha as he ran through the forest, back toward the scene. They darted through the trees and found their way back to the street which lead into town, and followed it to the train yard, still abandoned but streaked with red and blue light.

The police cars sat off in the distance, not far from where they stood; they watched as the officers leading the K-9's circled the grounds, pacing over each step carefully, in search of the body. There was too much blood to find it right away, even Derek would have had a difficult time finding it, had he not known where it was. But as soon as they had a clear path, he carefully opened a gap in the fence for Stiles to crawl through, before following suit.

Inside, the building sat empty, abandoned, his Betas scattered to the wind the second they heard the sirens wail. "Look over there," the Alpha commanded, pointing off toward a haphazard stack of crates, "I think part of it flew off that way."

"Flew off!? What the hell did you exactly do, Derek? Make shish-kabobs?"

Glaring over his shoulder at the boy, as he leaned to see between the subway car and platform, Derek shot an incredulous look at Stiles, one that said-

"I know, throat, teeth. Jesus," the boy groaned, and threw up his hands before turning to look for the random body part.

It took them a few minutes, but they managed to collect everything, all but the head. Stiles stood choking back vomit, nose raised and eyes hesitantly dropping from time to time to look at the tarp they'd filled with body parts. "You really did a number on this guy," he mused, feeling the chunks swiftly rise.

"Girl."

"Ah yeah," he hummed in singsong as he saw the shredded fatty tissue of what once was a breast spilling out of the torn top wrapped around part of the torso, "I see that now."

"And yes, I did much worse than Scott or any of them could. Born werewolf, remember? Now do your best not to throw up, you'll leave behind DNA."

"What about footprints and hair and fingerprints- What are you doing?" He watched as the wolf began dragging the tarp across the floor.

Striking his glance up at the boy, Derek looked at him, baffled, "Moving the body. We weren't laying it out to make it easier for the cops to find."

"Yeah I got that, but where are we taking it?"

"We're gonna burn it," the wolf replied calmly, "And as for any other evidence, we're gonna torch the place too."

"Wait! What?!"

With a huff, the wolf dropped his hold of the tarp, trusting it -as best as one could fabric- to the ground and glared at the boy. Dipping his head inquisitively, his aggravation beyond words, he impatiently awaited whatever protest the boy might have.

"So you're adding arson to your list of felonies now? I mean, I'm just curious since I'm now accessory to I-don't-know-how-many crimes."

"If you've got a problem with it, get out, otherwise-"

"I'm staying, aren't I? This isn't a game to me, Derek. I didn't help you out of those woods and away from the hunters for nothing. And I definitely didn't follow you here just to turn tail and run- Forgive the pun," he watched as the wolf's eyes grew red and temper rose, "Point is, I'm helping you, I'm just-"

"Stiles!" Derek growled in shushed tones, "Shut the hell up, grab that end of the tarp, and get ready to run."

Obeying the order, Stiles bent down, grabbed the tarp, and began dragging it along with the werewolf toward where they had entered. Slipping it to a spot far enough away from the building, Derek let go of his end and walked back toward the building. "Start dragging that back toward the woods," he ordered, and disappeared inside the building.

For a moment, all Stiles could do was worry, knowing what the wolf planned to do. He imagined the flames lapping at every inch of the structure, smoke filling the sky, and the man trapping himself inside to die as his family had so many years ago.

Trembling, the boy fought through his fears, shutting his thoughts aside, and began doing as Derek had ordered, dragging the body toward the woods. He'd managed to drag it so deeply into the forest, he could no longer see the lights from the cruisers or hear the sound of voices. It still didn't feel safe, not far enough, not deep enough. He kept going until he heard an explosion, and for a moment thought his heart had as well.

Turning sharply back toward the blast, Stiles watched as smoke billowed up and blocked out the moon, creating a giant cloud in the once spotless, night sky. Feeling a tear roll down his cheek, Stiles hoped that irony had not met with the wolf, who deserved more time to make amends with his demons. He shut out his thoughts once more and turned to the tarp carrying the body.

Unsure if it was what Derek had intended, Stiles found a deep enough ditch and let the parts roll through the mulch to the bottom, thick with sludge and surely a few toxins. He could smell the runoff from the road, damp gasoline from the night before, saturating the ground, leaves, and twigs. They'd make perfect kindling, the gas an accelerant, and realized suddenly what a good pyromaniac he would have made in another life.

Searching his pockets for matches or a lighter, he quickly groaned and let out a forlorn sigh, remembering that he wasn't a smoker and didn't tend to keep flammable devices on his person at any point in time. But a sound behind him stole him from his thoughts, causing him to turn and nearly stumble back into the ditch himself. A hand reached out and caught him, pulling him back to safety, and his eyes met with red, glowing orbs as they emerged from the darkness.

It wasn't anger on Derek's face but concern, as Stiles let relief wash over his own. "I thought you died."

The wolf let his grip go of the boy's hoodie and shook his head, moving toward the edge of the ditch to look down at what his partner in crime had done. "Perfect spot. I ran out of gasoline, so this will have to do." Striking a match, Derek lit the slender stick and threw it down, watching the flame lap at the air rushing past it, then ignite in a line of fire all throughout the far stretching ditch.

"Yeah, that's gonna draw some attention!" Stiles batted frantically at the wolf's arm, urging him to flee, for them to make their escape.

Knowing the ditch ran deep and spread underground, Derek grabbed hold of Stiles' sleeve and began running as fast as the human could keep up, in the other direction to the other end of town. Slowing as they neared the all too familiar road, Derek heard the boy stop and catch his breath behind him.

"Come on, we can't stop here," and he sniffed at the air, "Hunters."

"Right, hunters, because no one can let up on the asthmatic for a second."

"Catch your breath and come on, we have to keep going."

Making their way into rows of houses, Stiles soon realized where they were headed. "My house? You're gonna hide out in my house?"

"It's the safest place right now."

"Well, gee, thanks, glad to know fugitives feel comfort in seeking refuge under the roof of the town's sheriff."

"It's familiar, it's quiet, no one will bother with us there."

Giving no further argument, the boy followed, trailing not far behind the wolf. They entered the house, making no bother to be quiet, as it was most definitely empty, and climbed the stairs to the boy's room.

Once inside, Stiles flipped on the lights and reached for his phone, swiftly holding up a hand to the Alpha as he attempted to protest -or question or make demands.

"Yeah dad?" Urgently he waved the wolf at bay, in no position currently to explain his plan. "Yeah hi. I saw the fire. Was there an explosion? Yeah, no, I was over at Scott's house and felt something like an earthquake. Do we even get those here? Yeah, sure... Alright. No, I'm home. Right. Got the doors and windows locked, killer on the loose," and he shot a glare Derek's way. "Yeah, I got it- And dad? Be careful. Love you too."

Watching the boy lower his phone, Derek stole a small breath of relief, only to have it ripped from his chest as the phone rose to Stiles' ear once again. "What are you doing?" he demanded forcefully.

"Saving your ass and building you a semi-solid alibi- Yeah Scott? Something happened, I'll tell you later. Yeah I know, I saw the smoke. Find out where everyone is and get them together. No, the train station's gone. I said I'd explain later. Just hanker down and let my dad know I was with you... Derek too. We'll let everyone know what's going on in the morning."

Finally setting the phone down on his desk, Stiles looked over at Derek, who notably looked calmer. "See, not so bad."

"Thank you," he spoke softly, his eyes looking into the boy's most sincerely.

Taken aback slightly, Stiles nodded, slinking himself over to sit beside the wolf on the edge of his bed. "Well- Sure! I mean, what are friends for? They help you move, but the really good ones help you move bodies- Or burn them and blow up buildings, same difference."

Turning his head, he looked over to the Alpha, who still had a sort of stunned, appreciative expression on his face. "Seriously though, you keep looking at me like you might kiss me. I know you're grateful and all but-"

But nothing, there was nothing else to say, Derek wouldn't allow it. After all they'd been through, without question, despite the irrefutable proof that Derek had just killed an innocent person -for all any of them knew could have likely been Allison, Lydia, or Scott's mom- but hadn't hesitated once to come to his aid. Stealing the gap between them, the slightest motion needed to clear the space, he had leaned in and kissed the boy on his lips, silencing him.

They remained that way for a moment, before Derek slowly inched himself away, leaving a few inches there for the boy to breathe. Stiles looked blankly at him for a moment, stunned in disbelief. "So... You're welcome?"

Again the wolf silenced the boy, his hand this time cupping his slender face, holding him there in place. It wasn't the thanks Stiles had expected, nor would he have expected it any other time, but he'd wanted it. He'd wanted it long before he saw the wolf naked, dripping wet just out of the bath, long before that night even. This wasn't how he'd imagined it -and yes, he'd imagined it a few times- but it was close, or almost. It was good, whatever it was, why for what reason it was, it was good and he liked it.

Their lips parted once more and Derek sat looking at the boy, watching him blush and dart his eyes toward his shuffling feet. "Aw man!" he whined, forcing the wolf to look down as well, "I got blood on my shoe!" And suddenly, as awkward as any conversation pertaining to their kiss could have been, it didn't matter anymore. Their heads were stolen back to reality, where they should be, and the world would keep spinning on the way it had been.

Maybe later they'd talk about it, or not talk and do more of it, either way. They'd escaped a very huge mess, yet again, all because the boy wouldn't leave, he stood by his friend, his Alpha.