Title: Live Hard
Summary: He may not even be considered much of a person anymore but the moon does things that bring out what he used to be, there's a reason the doctor has him on a sedative and there's one unlucky nurse's name on the bottom of the incident report following the bite.
Rating: M
Warnings: Language, violence
Spoilers: There are some but they are few and far between for the most part, this story works around the main storyline while incorporating it at key points.
Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf
A/N: I really did not intend to do a chapter in anyone else perspective but after episode ten I really needed to in order to avoid being way too ambiguous in how certain things unfold after the events in the last chapter in the main story line which follows Lucette. For reference when Derek shows up in this it is after the events at the LTCF by one day so it occurs in the canon timeline gap between the end of episode nine and before episode ten. As a small side-note I should point out that there were in fact no other nurses seen at the end of episode nine besides Jennifer, so my interpretation of that pops up here.
Day 45:
He understood, he sympathized, but he found that it wasn't in him to do more than that. He figured the small submission; his concession of understanding meant the same thing as his assent to the other man. He wasn't stupid enough to refute the position, wasn't stupid enough to show anything besides compliance.
He couldn't.
Not then. Not there, soon maybe, perhaps, if he lived through to the end, if his own motivations weren't something readable in his face and the set of his shoulders.
Only if his uncle was not as skilled with the art of foresight as he was proving to be with the art of retribution.
His uncle wasn't stupid, he would know where he went but his uncle could only assume to know why, and the younger Hale hoped that the assumption would be strong enough to parade around as fact because if it wasn't he was fucked, he was dead, he was worse; useless and unreliable to Scott and everyone else that the teenager had tagging along behind him.
"You bit someone?" The younger Hale stayed in the doorway of the bedroom while the older man picked through the small space, distaste evident in the way his features wrinkled and hardened.
"Hmmm?" Peter looked up from where he stooped to affirm if he really was looking at a cot, and not having some elaborate prank pulled on him by his nephew when he asked to see where he slept.
Derek stood stoic, a sentry at the door. His uncle went on, "oh, for a while I thought I was just imagining that it was a completely different woman, but you noticed too?" The scratch had not been pleasant and on impulse Derek raised his fingers to the spot on his neck where the marks had already healed over.
The younger Hale nodded as the other man picked around with the meager supply of bed linens on the cot, it seemed to surprise the older man that his nephew chose to live in what was a small step above squalor.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"It's already done," his uncle stood and smiled, pleased. "Didn't you look behind the nurses' station? The whole night shift was there in one convenient pile. My nurse really made sure we were able to speak privately."
The admission chilled him.
"Must have missed that," he kept his tone neutral, his uncle nodded empathically, "You were preoccupied."
"…," he didn't reply, just thought and grimaced at what he remembered from the night, the utter and complete powerlessness he had felt, he must have been scowling because he was reprimanded swiftly.
"Derek. Derek."
"What?" He came back to the present moment, shifting his weight and crossing his arms.
"Don't make that face; you don't make that face in front of family," his uncle chided moving towards him and then around him to the stairs.
"Where are you going?"
Without turning the other man all but skipped down the stairs.
"I think I'll go for a run. You should come too."
Derek gave him a look that told the older man exactly what he thought about going for a run.
"Or don't," the equivocation was flippant. The younger man remained as he stood.
"Take some time to think. Just don't think too much, there's no need since you're not the one who has to run everything and pull a wayward pack together."
The dig was sharp and barbed.
"Don't kill anyone."
"Scout's Honor." His uncle gave him a vague hand gesture. "I'm in the mood for venison anyway. Be good, don't stay up too late, brush your teeth," he smiled up at his nephew from the bottom of the stairs and left the house.
He controlled his breathing to control the beating of his heart, never too fast, never letting a skip in the steadiness to break through the façade of solidarity.
For a moment he'd thought the problem had been solved without him having to take care of it, but, no it was still there and it was only that Peter Hale had missed a very important fact that gave him the chance to exploit the one unnoticed variable in the current scheme of things.
His uncle's lucid moments in the nursing home were more frequent at night, things registered then like they didn't during the day when Jennifer wasn't there to bring him out of the stupor with a careful cocktail of cardiac and neuropathic stimulants.
Apparently his uncle hadn't been clocked in when the nurse he bit first introduced herself as his one-to-one for the day shift.
A day shift nurse might not have ended up in the pile of dead night shift ones behind the nurses' station, she could have but may not have.
He remembered how she thanked him for not trying to kill her during their last meeting, she thanked him for not killing her like the janitor whose body she'd found.
If he was lucky the sheriff brought his work home with him. If he was very lucky the sheriff's annoying son wouldn't be home to accost him.
He came through the window and had to back up to keep himself from being barreled into.
"Where the hell did you go? Dude! Not cool, I could have died!"
The teenager was rattled enough to put his face within centimeters of his own and point a finger at his face, close enough that he could see the bloody cuticle and the chewed ragged, dirty nail on it.
"Stiles."
"What?" The question was yelled into his face.
"Back up," he bared his teeth in a show of agitation that left the teenager sprawling backwards to trip on the edge of the bed and catch himself sloppily and disjointed against the rolling chair at his desk.
"Are you going to tell me what happened?"
"No." Derek stepped further into the room and looked around, not concerned with the notion of being especially pleasant or forthcoming with information.
The chair made a sound as Stiles flopped into it, all limbs and lack of grace and rolled towards him, "Well how did you get away from him?"
"I didn't."
The chair banged back against the desk and tipped over as the teenager jumped from it and made a circuit around the room that was less circular and more haphazard to and fro.
"Oh my god! He's here right now, he's gonna kill me. You son of a bitch!"
The older man tried not to scowl while he rolled his eyes at the hysterics, "Relax. No one's here besides me."
"So he's not going to kill me?" Stiles stopped pacing wildly like a caged animal.
Derek shrugged. "I didn't say that."
The admission made the teenage pale visibly and step toward him in anger and desperate fear. "You have to do something! He's your crazy alpha uncle!"
The intrusion of his personal space made him close the gap and lurch himself closer to the boy, he walked forward until he tripped and toppled to the floor next to the chair, the sound of him clipping his elbow on the desk was almost amusing.
"What the hell do you want me to do? Hmmmm?" Derek sucked his teeth, waiting mockingly for a snarky response. "What do you think I can do?"
"You and Scott can take him; join up together make a new pack. You know fight for dominance, wolves do that. Don't they?" From the floor Stiles waited rubbing his sore elbow and glaring at him.
"He's stronger than me."
"But Scott…"
"If I'm stronger than Scott who wants to kill him in order to be cured do you think he has a chance alone?"
"No. But-…,"
"There's no 'but' Stiles, I can try to help him and then Peter can still kill me and Scott. I can't take him outright and I can't team with Scott to take him outright, my uncle isn't dumb, he's already assumed I'd come here or Scott's or the school."
The teenager picked himself up from the floor and sat on the edge of his bed, sullen and disheartened. "What are you going to do?"
Derek turned stiffly and looked out the window pausing for a beat. "I don't know yet."
Silence sprung up like grass between them.
"Well what did your crazy uncle say?"
"He's not crazy," Derek answered angrily, he watched Stiles' reflection in the window gesticulate without purpose behind him.
"Really? Because going out at night killing people and slaughtering nurses and hospital patients is pretty fucking crazy."
Turning he didn't fail to notice that the teenager backed further down the edge of the bed. "He's not, he's different. He lost parts of who he used to be, most of what was able to be healed is not human, it's animal."
"Oh well, that's fantastic," Stiles announced before flinging himself back onto the bed and slamming an arm over his eyes.
"Does your dad bring home his files?"
The boy didn't move from his position on the bed, or move his arm away from his face.
"Some of them, all of them pertaining to you and the fact that you are considered a wanted murderer."
"…"
Derek waited for the teenager to realize the irony of what he had just said. It didn't take long. "Oh, yeah. I said I was sorry I-…,"
Derek banged his fist against the wall to cut him off. "Stiles."
"Yeah, got it. Shutting up."
"Where does he keep his files?"
Finally he sat up and got serious again. "You can't steal them. He'd notice that."
"I'm not going to steal them."
"Then what do you want with them?"
"I want to read them." The response seemed to exasperate the younger man.
"Why?"
"Do you want Scott to get his throat torn out by my 'crazy' uncle or do you want me to do what I can to try and fix this mess?"
"Fix," Stiles answered without pause.
"Files." Derek gave back a half sarcastic smile that only moved one cheek and crossed his arms.
"Hold on a second."
Scrambling off the bed and swinging himself out his bedroom door Stile's warned him not to touch anything while he went and swept the police files off the dining room table and brought them to him.
When he returned he cleared the desk of food wrappers and school textbooks, Derek took the chair and turned on the lamp, waving Stiles away impatiently as he searched for the information he wanted. After a short search he found the report he wanted and flicked it open.
"What are you looking for?" The question coming from the bed behind him, Derek looked over his shoulder to give an unsaid warning about trying to lean over his shoulder while he read.
"Don't worry about it," he grumbled after turning his head back around.
"I am worried about it," his company whined like a child not getting its way.
"Shut up."
"But, look maybe I can help I've looked through those things about a thousand tim-…,"
The teenager came over his shoulder and tried to peer down at the file until Derek swiveled the chair and blocked it with his body.
"Sit down and shut up," he pointed at the bed.
Stiles sat down and said no more.
Derek came to the discovery page of the report and memorized the address of the woman who had found it. He rearranged the files and left them in a neat pile on top of the desk.
"Where are you going?"
He was halfway to the window.
"To convince my 'crazy' uncle that it would be inconvenient to kill you now."
"What?"
"I'm buying some time," he sighed.
"Yeah. Excellent. Buy as much as you can!" The teenager shouted at his back as he opened the window. He stopped as he was just about to climb out and descend from the roof.
"Stiles, there is something you can do," he turned and looked at the boy.
"What."
"I need clothes, something with someone else's scent on it, a scent my uncle won't recognize."
"You want me to go shopping for you?" Stiles looked incredulous and Derek closed his eyes and took a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"No, it has to have a scent on it."
"So like steal stuff from the boys' locker room?"
Derek nodded. "I'll need it by tomorrow."
"So where do I bring it?"
"Keep it here, I'll come and get it."
"Wait!"
"What?"
"I need a favor."
"No."
"Seriously."
"What?"
Derek realized that he was going to not enjoy whatever the favor was.
He ran into his dad and his coach in the parking lot after he sent off a text filled with expletive and exaggeration.
"How's the deer?" His dad asked.
"About as mangled as my car." He pointed a thumb at the Jeep in all its smashed windshield, dented bummer, and blood covered glory.
"Talk about overkill, Stilinski." His coach intoned with an expression of revulsion.
He told his dad he was going to go see Scott but after a few steps his dad called after him to wait a second. He was on the phone and from the look growing on his face it wasn't a good call.
"Hey, I got to go. Emergency, if you need a ride," his father looked at his lacrosse coach who looked back blankly until he realized his father was designating him as his son's ride home if the Jeep didn't feel like starting.
"What me?"
Stiles watched his father shift his stance and give his coach his patented Sheriff face.
"Yeah, sure. Stilinski just hurry up," his coach waved him off.
He almost forgot the entire mission of coming to ransack someone's gym locker when he saw Scott, bleeding from the neck on the shower floor and scared shitless as he related the events that had just occurred with Derek and his uncle.
It scared him shitless to.
While Scott got dressed he snuck over to Danny's locker and grabbed a pair of athletic shorts and a cut off sweatshirt thinking while he did it that if the locker's owner returned it would be hard to explain, and that the only lie he could use would have to be a homoerotic come on to the other boy.
Pausing and considering the idea with a wave of his head on his shoulders he wondered if just telling Danny the truth would work, telling him his cousin Miguel just wanted to borrow a shirt.
For a brief moment Stiles wished for him to come into the locker room and catch him stealing his clothes, it would be a sweet way to get back at the werewolf for his constant threats and belittlements.
He was disappointed when the only one who caught him in the act of pilfering other boys' clothing was Scott who let the issue go when Stiles explained it was a necessary evil and directed him out of the locker room and to the parking lot.
Thankfully his Jeep started and Scott didn't ask for further explanation beyond the deer hitting lie that he spit out on impulse, later he thought it was a good thing he hadn't mentioned asking Derek to wreck his car, he had no idea if he was supposed to tell anyone about that or about Derek trying to work out the problem on his side.
It all felt too much like Derek trying to play double agent, Stiles hoped it worked out soon because he did not at all enjoy playing Robin to Derek Hale's Batman.
A/N: I had planned on making this in Derek and Sheriff Stilinski's perspectives but Stiles ended up taking his dad's place. I think I'll try to do one of these short perspectives every so often in the story. Maybe I don't know, have to think it over.