It's a split second decision that he makes, knowing Derek's going to die if he doesn't move his ass. Stiles throws himself forward onto his stomach, the air leaving his lungs at the impact with the gravel and undergrowth. He's already reaching for the werewolf, who is about to follow the Waheela and fall to his death off a four hundred foot cliff.
Derek's still wolfed out, and they each clamp a hand around the other's forearm. Stiles' left arm is suddenly on fire, because he's got two hundred and ten pounds of wolfman hanging from it. The claws cut straight into the flesh of his arm and he has to let out a scream of pain.
"JesusfuckchristonacrackerfuckfuckFUUUUUCK!" He screams into the dirt beneath his face, long and hard and enough render his voice hoarse.
Derek, credit to him, doesn't say anything and just waits, as patiently as one hanging from a skinny human teenager's noodly arm can.
Stiles breathes hard and tries to think past the all encompassing pain. His right hand is currently hooked around an outgrowing tree root. Precarious as fuck, but it all appears to be holding so far. Unlike Stiles' shoulder, which is slowly, inexorably being wrenched right out of it's socket.
"Oh God, Oh god, I'm going to be sick," He babbles between breaths. Blood begins to drip steadily from the furrows in his forearm, and he tries to tighten his grip.
"Stiles-"
"Shutupshutup! Dude, seriously, I need a minute-"
"Sorry, but we haven't got a minute." He replies, cool as ever, because only Derek Hale can be inches from death and this calm.
"What?" The human tries to look over the edge of the sheer rock face without moving, which is a futile attempt really. "Is it still alive?"
"No, it's dead." Derek confirms. "But I will be too, you can't hold on much longer."
"I can't pull you up," The reply is strained. "I can't - I don't have werewolf strength or badass muscles like Danny. I can't even use my other arm because it's the only thing stopping us both from going over. I can't get you out."
The nails dig in just a tiny bit more as Stiles' grip gets more slick with blood and sweat. He feels like crying, it's that painful, and fuck the fact that he's baby, this hurts.
"Stiles."
"I know." They need to do 's not coming, no one's coming. Technically, Stiles wasn't even supposed to be here. He'd been asked by Lydia to take something to Derek at the Hale house (she didn't go there if she could help it because after the whole Peter thing it creeped her out beyond belief). Of course, he had walked in on Derek defending his territory from the Waheela. Leading to this exact moment. "I know, Derek, what the hell do you want me to do?"
"Bear the pain." He hears him say, almost apologetically.
And then Stiles doesn't even have the breath to scream as Derek starts to climb up his arm.
He's never felt anything like it - his vision goes white and he clings to consciousness, everything narrowed down to the weight of a twenty five year old werewolf digging bloody gouges into his upper arm. He somehow manages to remember to hold onto that tree root despite the pain.
Then, amazingly, miraculously the weight slacks off a bit - causing both less and more pain at the same time. He hears grunting, both from himself, and from Derek, who has gotten hold of the edge and is now pulling his body up over the lip of the cliff.
Stiles stays where he is, ruined arm still hanging limply over the edge, feeling about half a foot longer than it was 're both panting, him from the pain, and Derek from… well he has no idea why Derek's panting actually. Suddenly he's angry as well as hurting.
"Dude, there are like, a million and a half words in the English language, but I can't string any of them together to explain how much I want to beat you to death with a chair right now."
"Hurts, huh?" He can hear the grin in the dark haired man's voice, but also the abject relief.
"Like a sonofabitch." He feels weak.
"Think you can get up?"
"Uuhhhhh..."
They manage to get Stiles to his feet after ten minutes, and trek back through the woods towards his Jeep. He doesn't remember most of the journey, only that he mumbled something about driving and Derek had snorted derisively.
At the hospital, they hook him up with many many good drugs and call his dad. His shoulder is popped back in (turns out the last heave had done it). They also clean, stitch and bandage the cuts. Stiles doesn't know what Derek tells them as a cover story, and he doesn't care. He's quite content to sit and drift until his dad gets there.
He gets to go home that night with his arm in a sling and a lot of painkillers. He learns that Derek's nails cut deep, damaging the muscle in some places. He won't be playing lacrosse for a long time.
He gets out school for the Friday, and Scott brings over his homework.
"Dude, you're like a superhero, you saved Derek Hale!" He blurts out, looking majorly impressed.
"Yeah, he totally owes me one." Stiles crows. "I own that wolfy ass!"
"Has he been to see you or anything?"
"Nope." He pops the 'p' and settles back in a more comfortable position on the bed. "Dropped me at the hospital and then disappeared into the night. Although," He muses. "I don't think Dad would have been happy to find out that I got messed up from saving the life of Beacon Hills' resident Alpha-asshole-werewolf-ex-suspected-killer."
He makes a valiant effort to not let his eyes stray to the desk, where there's a blank-message card with the word "thanks" and what appears to be Derek's name scrawled in it, and a gift card for Amazon that made Stiles choke when he checked the balance of it.
Derek Hale is a socially backward asshole.
But he's a sincere one.