Inspired by this gif set.
Originally posted on Ao3 in 2013.
xxxxxxx
Stiles' first thought upon waking up is that he needs to change his ringtone immediately. Duran Duran was funny at the time but it's way, way less funny at 3:00 am.
He feels like he hasn't slept a single minute.
He mashes his phone up against his face and mumbles something into it that could be hello.
"My arm is cold," Derek says.
Stiles blinks incredulously into the darkness.
xxx
"You're sure about this?" Stiles feels it bears repeating, and he is going to repeat the question until he feels Derek's sincerity.
Derek is using his mouth to tie off the tourniquet. He glares. The fluorescent lights in the surgery room of Deaton's veterinary office make him even paler, shadows stark on his face.
"I'm sure about this," Derek says, and points.
The bone saw is a fucking nightmare, Stiles' interest in crime scene photos and phantasmagoria notwithstanding. He picks it up.
Stiles wills his hands to be steady for once in his life and asks, "Like, a hundred percent sure?" as he rests the blade against Derek's arm. "I've seen 127 Hours, man, this is gonna suck."
He wants to give Scott more time, for Scott to burst in, bullet in hand, saving the day.
"Do I look like I have a choice?"
Derek does not look like he has much choice, but he does look like he's about to die.
"Wait," Stiles says and he finds some gauze. "Maybe bite down on that? I don't know if we need to attract undue attention to a vet's office in the middle of the night with hysterical screaming."
Derek glowers. "No more stalling," he says, but he dutifully puts the cotton in his mouth and grimaces.
"I'm just saying you threaten to kill me a lot; I don't want you to change your mind after I'm done sawing your fucking arm off." Stiles sounds hysterical, voice pitching high. He sounds scared and it pisses him off that Derek doesn't appear to be freaking out at all.
Derek locks eyes with him. He's sallow, sweaty, and okay, maybe a little freaked out.
He breaks the eye contact first. "Stiles, just do it," he mumbles around the gauze.
It's as close to a please as Stiles thinks he's gonna get.
The saw is heavy and cold and shaped like a gun.
Stiles swallows and pulls the trigger.
xxx
Slicing through the muscle is easy.
Relatively.
Derek's eyes are squeezed shut and leaking tears and his jaw is tight and he's moaning, probably, but Stiles is mostly focused on blood, the blood that is spraying out of Derek's arm. The saw is loud enough that it covers up whatever horrible noises Derek is making.
The saw slices right through the meat and hits bone and the grinding, impossible noise makes Stiles want to shake, want to throw up, but he holds his hands steady as possible and pushes against it. He thinks of marrow, of splintering, of —
It pops out suddenly the other side of Derek's arm and the limb falls over with a horrible, awful thunk against the metal. The blood that oozes out is purple-black: poisoned.
Stiles gags, lets the bone saw clatter powerless onto the concrete floor. He can't look at Derek or anything right now, so he stares at the wall and hopes Derek isn't dead or going into shock behind him.
His phone rings.
"I got the bullet," Scott says. He sounds like he's smiling, which makes Stiles smile at the phone automatically.
"Deaton's," Stiles says and hangs up.
He takes a deep breath, lets the smile drop off his face.
"He got —"
"I heard," Derek grits out. He's slumped against the wall, sitting down. "Is Deaton coming?"
Stiles calls him next. "Uh, we have kind of a situation here."
"What kind of situation." Deaton is business as usual.
"An amputated arm, wolfsbane bullet situation?"
"Be right there." Deaton doesn't even sigh in resignation, which Stiles finds refreshingly professional.
He turns around to survey the scene. His heart is hammering, hasn't slowed down since they got there, and his head hurts. Derek's stump is oozing blood.
"Okay," Stiles says, slowly, staring at Derek's arm on the table. "Okay, this is seriously messed up."
Derek shrugs and his amputated arm jerks a little. He's panting and glistening with sweat. He's not any less pale than he was before his arm was cut off, but the black poison hasn't spread to his shoulder so the skin there is fine. Fresh. The blood seeping out is redder by the second.
"Make a fist," Stiles says, and Derek closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, nostrils flaring. He's probably swallowing back a death threat.
The hand on the table curls into a fist.
"So messed up," Stiles says, running his hand over his scalp. He's fidgeting, needs more to do, so he washes his hands and gets to work bandaging up Derek's stump, because that's not weird at all.
"Magic is gross," he says as he tapes the bandage to Derek's skin. He pops the tourniquet open and Derek winces and doesn't say anything.
Stiles takes a deep breath and manages to find a cup, fill it with water, and bring it to Derek.
Derek's right arm jumps on the table, hand open, and Derek rolls his eyes and takes it with his left.
"How long is Thing over there going to be hanging out? Should I go stick it in some ice or something so we can reattach it?"
Derek shrugs again. "Deaton'll probably know what to do. I can't touch it, too full of poison."
"Thanks," Derek says when he hands the empty cup back. He doesn't make eye contact.
Stiles takes the glass and holds it with both of his own hands, because he's seized with the urge to run his fingers through Derek's hair soothingly like his mom did when he was sick, like his dad does now if he gets a panic attack and Stiles should really not think those words.
He doesn't have a panic attack. Derek looks pale. They wait.
xxx
Scott shows up, 25 minutes late and so thoroughly besotted that it takes him five minutes to notice Derek's hand rapping against the table in annoyance as they wait for Deaton to arrive.
"Jesus Christ Stiles, did you cut off his arm? I know you don't really like each other but wow." Scott stares, horrified, but he can't get near it either. The blood that seeps out onto the table is black, rife with poison.
"The wolfsbane would have killed me otherwise," Derek says, and Stiles is glad he's sticking up for him. Stiles does not feel heroic about this whole endeavor and was just going to apologize and flail.
Stiles gets Derek some more water.
xxx
Deaton just sighs heavily when he takes in the scene.
"Okay, Stiles, we'll just neutralize the poison in his arm with the powder in the bullet, let it detox for a night, and then reattach it."
"What." Stiles says. It's the only appropriate thing that comes to mind.
"You can take it home, since Derek is going to rest up here for the night and the wolfsbane is going to take awhile to neutralize. Scott can't take it for the same reason."
Scott looks infinitely relieved and is already starting to inch toward the door.
"I'm not babysitting some guy's arm. Especially not an arm I had to cut off myself."
"Stiles," Deaton starts, but Stiles shakes his head.
"No, seriously, that thing is creepy as hell. Heebie-jeebies all over the place."
Deaton just stares at him, and it's almost as effective as Derek not even looking at him.
The fingers of Derek's severed arm drum against the table once, and Derek doesn't even seem like he knows he's doing it.
xxx
Stiles takes the arm home begrudgingly and manages to smuggle it past his dad, who's in the kitchen looking over police stuff that Stiles would love to be peering at.
Instead, he's staring at Derek's arm. The bandage on its open wound is fresh and it's slowly turning grey, and will probably be black by morning. He leaves it by his closet and gets ready for bed.
When he settles into his covers, the arm is just there, elbow a little bent. It freaks him out so he turns the other direction. He thinks about putting it in his closet but figures he should probably be able to see it if something happens. Also it could bleed on his clothes.
He fidgets some more in bed and finally puts in headphones. The arm isn't making any noise, per se, but he needs to fill his head with something that isn't the thought of "holy shit there's a severed goddamn arm in my room."
xxx
This is how they've gotten here: Derek calling Stiles at 3am about his now-amputated arm.
The limb is just chilling in the corner of Stiles' room, creeping him the fuck out.
"It's not like I'm putting a sweater on it. You'll probably just bleed poison all over my bed."
"Stiles, I can't sleep, and I'd like to be alert tomorrow. Since, you know, there's someone out there shooting wolfsbane bullets. At me."
"Ugh, fine. Wolf can't take an overhead fan, I get it."
"Just put a blanket on it, okay." Derek sounds exasperated.
Stiles only has one blanket, and it's the one he's currently under.
"Okay."
He hangs up and sighs.
xxx
Stiles stirs in the morning when light hits his windows.
He feels warm and fuzzy, content. A kind of slow Saturday morning where you just want to bask in the sunlight and lazily masturbate. He scritches at his stomach and yawns, feeling good, except —
Except that's not his hand on his stomach.
It doesn't even feel like that time he managed to get his hand to fall asleep to see if it felt like someone else jacking him off.
Derek's fingers are pretty broad, and a little rough. His palm is shoved up against Stiles' stomach, right over the course hair there. Stiles jerks away, but it just follows, pressing against the skin.
It tickles a little but it also makes him feel warm and turned on and he's grabbing his phone before he can really process everything.
The problem with being a fast texter is that often Stiles sends messages he doesn't really think through. "is ur hand supposed to be there?" is one of these messages.
"Where exactly do you mean by 'there?'" Derek texts back. His hand moves, fingers pushing into the muscle of Stiles' stomach and feeling him out. Stiles' dick jumps.
Derek has probably slept in the same bed as someone else, someone he'd want to cuddle. It's probably a reflex now, for him to curl his arm over someone's waist and pull tight.
Stiles carefully moves Derek's hand off his hip and puts it palm down on the bed.
"don't worry abt it," Stiles writes back.
"Fine," is the reply he gets back. If Derek was the type of person to use an emoji, it would probably look like :| , but Stiles just has to use his imagination.
xxx
The problem is that Stiles can never keep his mouth shut.
"Your arm is an aggressive snuggler," Stiles says as he passes it over to Derek. "It also threatens to kill me a lot less than you tend to. So it's probably my favorite Derek part, thus far."
Derek's eyebrows raise incredulously. He's still pale but he looks and smells much better than he did about eight hours ago, and he's managed to not bleed out. He looks off balance when he stands up.
His disembodied hand waves a little at Stiles and Derek stares down at it. He looks betrayed — his arm made a friend while he hasn't quite managed it yet.
Stiles waves back.
"And with that nightmarish chapter of my life over, I'm gonna be on my way," Stiles says after an extremely long silence.
Deaton coughs politely, stopping Stiles in his tracks.
"I'll need you to stay here while we reattach," he says. "You're the one that did the actual sawing, right?"
"Oh no," Stiles says. "I'm not sewing it back on."
Deaton actually chuckles and that makes Stiles' blood run cold.
"You don't have to do any stitching, Stiles. You just need to be here as an anchor."
Anchor — that word again. Stiles isn't sure what could possibly make him a good anchor for anyone; they're supposed to be steadying and solid and immobile, and he is none of these things. His hands shook when he dropped the saw in the first place.
"Fine," Stiles says, because he doesn't really want to be the reason Derek loses an arm. Again.
xxx
"Well this is weird and horrible," Stiles says as he grasps onto Derek's hand. "I'd probably still lose if we arm wrestled, huh?"
He expects another glare, but Derek smirks at him. "No question."
Derek's hand squeezes his and it's friendly, almost. The arm's been lined up to his shoulder stump, some kind of medicinal or magical paste smeared on either side of the cut. Derek hissed when they connected but other than that seems calmer than Stiles.
Maybe it isn't his first limb reattachment. Werewolves don't tend to have scars.
"I need Derek to stay conscious. You won't need to do much but it might sting a little."
"Are you purposefully being evasive so I won't bolt?" Stiles doesn't want to straight up ask why holding Derek's hand is gonna sting — is Derek going to squeeze really hard? Is magic always painful? Will he have to do some bloodletting?
Deaton shrugs.
"I ask because I'll stay. I'm gonna stay, okay? But just tell me what to expect."
"You just need to be calm and believe that it's going to work. Really commit yourself to believing that, and don't panic. Keep your eye contact up."
"Not losing my shit is definitely my best skill right now,."
Deaton smears more of something that smells like a used books and candle shop around the seam of Derek's arm and shoulder stump.
Derek looks like he wants to scream but he doesn't, and Stiles can feel a dull tingle in his fingertips as the magic (he assumes) starts to work. He feels like a conductor, a wire, and it makes his molars itch.
Derek's sweating, grimacing as Deaton works, and Stiles makes a fleeting wish that this procedure could be pain-free for Derek.
With that thought, the metal taste in his mouth gets sharper, and his hand feels a jolt like a static shock. Derek's eyes flash blue, unfocused, and Stiles gapes a little as black moves up the veins in his own forearms, seemingly pulled from Derek's arm. The pain is a trickle and then it gushes as his veins turn thick, the pain sharp and biting.
"Don't overdo it, Stiles," Deaton says as he starts to stitch Derek up. Deaton explained earlier that the thread would dissolve as Derek's healing powers kick in, which seemed convenient.
Stiles wants to shut his eyes but he was warned not to.
"The pain transference is just a secondary effect of the spell, and it's not why you're here," Deaton continues. He sounds way too calm for a man reattaching a limb.
Stiles wishes for a mouthful of gauze because grinding his teeth together this hard hurts, but that wish doesn't come true.
Derek's staring at him, hand tight around Stiles', and Stiles can feel his eyes water as he looks at Derek's face.
"Stiles, don't," Derek says. He looks alarmed, but his eyes stay glued to Stiles' face.
"Hush," Deaton says as he crouches awkwardly to complete the circle of stitches.
Stiles swallows hard. He can feel each stitch as a bright little snap of pain in his tendons.
"Okay," Deaton says, straightening up. "Just hold hands for about five more minutes and it should be done."
There's a weird noise like dishware breaking and Derek actually snarls, and Stiles feels the deep throb of what must be the bone remaking itself. Derek squeezes his hand, hard, and that pain is more direct.
"Hey, buddy," Stiles says softly. "Ease up there a little."
"Ngh," Derek says, but his grip loosens a bit. Stiles can feel sweat along his own hairline, like the start of a fever, and they stare at each other without trying to be invasive. Derek's eyes flip from man to wolf to man. His mouth is full of teeth.
It is, in a word, intense, and Stiles feels feverish and strange.
Deaton looks down at his watch. "You can break eye contact now."
Derek looks away and Stiles' eyes slide shut before Deaton even finishes talking. He feels exhausted. The pain is dulling fast but it leaves an echo behind, a soreness and lethargy.
He startles when Deaton puts a hand on his wrist, eyes snapping open. It feels weird when he and Derek let go of one another, like pulling apart velcro.
"Stiles, you didn't need to do that," Derek says, rubbing at his wrist and frowning.
Stiles shrugs. He feels woozy, but not bad. Like after a hard run that you should have stopped sooner.
"It's the least I could do since I, you know, sawed off your arm."
Derek looks away, awkward. "That was kind of a favor."
"Well, there's plenty of times you could have killed me but didn't, so it's like a mutually beneficial nightmare." Stiles definitely feels off balance, like he's in the middle of sobering up.
Deaton is staring at them so Stiles adds, "Let's try to never do this again," for good measure. He could spend the rest of his life never ever again hearing a saw buzz through bone.
"Can you drive him home?" Deaton asks and Stiles gives a cursory protest.
"Hey, no, Derek's the one that just lost an arm — shouldn't he be going to bed to like, sleep it off? Eat some chicken noodle soup?"
Derek is staring at him and Stiles can feel himself blushing for no particular reason.
"Gimme your keys," he says, finally, and Stiles digs them out of his pocket.
xxx
"Am I gonna have some kind of magic hangover?" Stiles asks when Derek pulls the Jeep into his driveway. "Because I'm feeling pretty alright now but I've said that before and had disastrous mornings."
Derek laughs, and it sounds nice. He sounds nice, looks alright too — the deathly pallor is gone, and he smells freaking great, which is amazing. Deaton must keep some nice bodywash in the office.
It takes a minute for the whole tableau to sink in: Stiles is in a Jeep, his Jeep with a werewolf, who could have been a murderer but maybe wasn't. At least he has two arms for driving now.
Stiles can't keep a hysterical laugh down.
"Do you want me to help you inside?" Derek asks, like he really, really hopes Stiles doesn't.
Stiles swings open the door of his Jeep and gets out without dignifying that with a reply. He ends up falling onto the asphalt, which stings his knees under his jeans.
Derek hauls him up the porch, and Stiles tries to shake him off at the door.
"I'm fine, I can crawl upstairs on my own now, thanks," he says, squinting at Derek. "But before you go, I need to know if werewolves eat chicken noodle soup."
"I...what?" Derek stares at him. "Are you sure you can be left alone?"
"Like, if they do, you should have some. You had kind of a rough couple days, buddy." Stiles slaps him on the arm but makes sure to hit the left one.
"I'll get right on that." Derek's eyebrows look amused even if his mouth isn't smiling.
Stiles waves as Derek turns away from his house, and though Derek scowls, his right arm waves back.