Chapter Text
The sharp sound of metal clinking is soft in the air, and he almost doesn't hear it, but the feel of the metal beneath his foot is unmistakable. It's hard against his foot even through the thick construction boots he chose to wear today (and what a good, smart choice that was!) He looks down and sees it - the bear trap - with it's sharp teeth poised and ready to attack. It hasn't yet, because by some miracle, Stiles hasn't shifted his foot and set it off, but it could, at any moment.
His heart races, and he tries to remember what happened to Danny in gym class when it was him and a bear trap, in the forest preserve.
He can't remember.
His phone is useless in his pocket, and he curses for the umpteenth time not having any service to use it out here.
A bird caws somewhere, within his hearing range, and he wants to yell at it to shut up, but that would be counterproductive.
Looking down, he wonders how good his chances would be of removing his leg unharmed if he tried to deactivate the trap. Not good, he thinks.
"Okay, Stiles," he mutters softly to himself. "You can do this, you can totally free your leg without having large sharp metal jaws snapping it in half."
He bends over at the waist to get a better look at it and can see immediately that he has no clue what to do. He is so screwed.
"Fuck."
A twig snaps in response, and he freezes, his heart pumping quickly. He looks up to see a lanky body walking in the distance, not having noticed him yet, sort of bumbling about.
It's one of them. Fucking mother fuck!
Stiles panics a little, trying not to draw any attention to himself. He looks around the rest of the forest, behind him and to the sides, and sees only the one Walker so far. He'll be lucky if it doesn't notice him.
It moans uselessly as it wonders around, stumbling over it's own feet on the forest floor. A rock trips it's foot and it falls down, head turned towards Stiles. He swears quietly and tries to hide behind the tree he's inches from, all without removing his foot from the trap.
He's not exactly hidden, but he can't see the Walker, so it'll have to do.
He looks around the ground, searching for a branch within reaching distance, and sees nothing. He also hears nothing. What?
Peeking around the tree, he sees the empty space where the Walker was, and cold sweat breaks out on his forehead. Where the hell - ?
Snarling sounds behind him and Stiles turns around quickly to see the Walker less than a foot from him, hands already outstretched to grab him.
He yells in surprise and fright, grabbing hold of the Walker at the same time and trying to push it back. It's deceptively strong, not budging at all.
Stiles grunts, bear trap forgotten in the sudden panic, and his caught foot slips when the Walker shoves forward. His foot lifts off of the trap for a second, half of a second, even, but that's all it takes.
The steel jaws ascend with the bite force of a wild predator, jagged zigzag teeth entering flesh and crunching on bone. The pain itself is almost crippling, and Stiles loses balance at the same moment.
He's crying, and screaming in pain as he lands on his back, taking the Walker with him. It settles on him heavily, knocking the breath from him, and he quickly grabs its hands in his own, pushing them up as a barrier between him and it's mouth.
Smelling blood in the air, the Walker attacks with renewed frenzy, like a shark, and Stiles kicks it away with his good foot. It rolls away and he reaches into his belt to grab his knife, unsheathing it just as the Walker attacks again. The knife practically sticks itself into the Walker's chest as it lands on him, but of course that does nothing.
"Fucking shit!" He curses. He yanks the knife free again and struggles to get past the flailing arms long enough to stab it somewhere useful - like it's brain.
"Motherfucking - !" The Walker snarls ferociously, acrid spittle flying from it's mouth to land on Stiles' face. If smells could kill...
It scratches him in the face, mouth coming dangerously close to his wrist, and Stiles yells, shoving the knife into it's head, through skull and the squishy dead matter below. It gurgles at him and falls still, a literal dead weight on him.
Stiles pants into the ensuing silence, staring up at the blue sky above.
He shoves the Walker off of him, pushing it aside, and sits up carefully, looking around the forest. He doesn't see any more Walkers - yet.
A sharp throbbing in his leg reminds Stiles of his biggest concern - the bear trap tearing and crushing his leg. Fucking shit!
"Jesus fucking motherfuck!"
The trap is pure metal, cold and unforgiving, and he sees no immediate way to unlock it from his leg. "Fuck." Stiles knows there's some way to unlock it, all of these fucking traps have an unlock mechanism, but he's screwed if he knows what it is.
**
The sun is almost set when Stiles lays back against the ground, giving up on the trap for the moment. He's been fiddling with it all day since killing the Walker, trying to free his leg. But he can't keep this up for much longer, for many reasons. Blood loss, hunger, exhaustion, being so exposed and vulnerable in the middle of nowhere, to name a few. Stiles is lucky there's been only the one Walker so far. He's sure more will come, eventually.
Groaning quietly, Stiles curses his life and his luck and sits up to try to improve his situation before the light fades, and with it, his protection.
**
The trap isn't going anywhere, no matter what he does.
Stiles wants to lash out, but the only attention that'll gain him is the wrong kind.
Swallowing back on a dry throat, he leans forward again, this time his knife in hand.
The jaws don't move even a tiny inch, but then Stiles supposes he wasn't really expecting them to. He could try the next best thing, though: undoing the chain and walking off, trap and all.
A rustling sounds somewhere, echoing in the open space of the trees, and Stiles squints in the darkness trying to see.
It's a pretty useless feat, and he feels around the trap with his hands to locate something he can undo the chain with.
A bird cries out overhead and he fumbles to hurry, panic creeping in again in the dark.
The chain is made of thick steel rings, like a necklace, just bigger. And he knows each ring is capable of opening, so -
Something tumbles about in the trees, like a kicked rock, and Stiles freezes, listening, before fumbling for the ring closest to the trap jaws.
Leaves rustle and Stiles hurries to shove the knife in the steel loop, forcing it deep and twisting, trying to open it.
Another bird caws, followed by more noise, and then a body crashes through the trees into his clearing.
The loop opens and he scrambles his fingers to unhook it from the others, praying to a God he doesn't believe in that it wasn't another Walker.
The loop is only halfway undone when a light suddenly turns on, flashing straight to him and blinding him.
He covers his eyes instinctively, almost screaming out of some mixture of surprise and fear.
The light wavers, moving all over the place, and then it's not shining in his face anymore, not completely at least. When he lowers his hand, the other still holding his knife wedged in the steel loop, he sees a burly looking man holding the flashlight, staring at him.
Their eyes meet and it's several long tense moments of silence, while Stiles' thoughts race. Who is this man? Is he dangerous? Is he going to kill him and raid his body for supplies?
The man steps forward and Stiles shuffles back on his ass, free hand raised in warning.
"Hey hey, woah, no!" He says to the stranger. "What do you think you're doing?"
"You're caught." The man says, swinging his flashlight to point at Stiles' bloody leg.
"Yeah, I'm aware of that." Stiles says, frustration evident in his voice. "Kind of hard to miss what with the crippling pain and all."
The man's face hardens, his brows lowering over his eyes. "Do you want my help or not?" He asks.
"How do I know you're not planning anything nefarious?"
"Nefarious?" The guy repeats in disbelief.
"Yeah, like pretending to help until I lower my guard, and then wham! Kill me and steal my valuables!" He gestures vaguely with his hands to illustrate his point, but the man's face is still pretty blank.
"Don't you think," he says after several long quiet moments, "that if I wanted to kill you, I would have already?"
Stiles opens his mouth in protest.
"I mean, you're pretty vulnerable like this," the man continues, gesturing at Stiles' everything with a shotgun he hadn't noticed before now. Stiles swallows uneasily, gaze caught on the firearm, on the additional threat. "You're pretty easy pickings."
Stiles glares at him, knowing it's true. But he wouldn't go down without a fight, that's for damn sure!
"Anyways, I just figured I'd offer my help, since it's dark out and there's a lot of undead in the area. But if you think you've got it, then by all means, I'll just be on my way."
The man turns to head back the way he came, and Stiles debates with himself on the genius of accepting a stranger's help.
"Okay, wait!" He rushes to say. "Don't go!"
The man turns to him, eyebrow raised, waiting.
"I could use your help, if you're offering." It almost pains Stiles to admit it, but it doesn't make it any less true.
"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" The guy says, a hint of mocking in his tone.
The man walks over to him, settling his gun out of reach and pointing the flashlight at Stiles' foot. He whistles lowly when he gets a good look at it.
"Man, you did a real number here, didn't you."
"Yeah, I ran into a bear trap on purpose." He mutters.
The man levels a hard look at him, turning back to the contraption.
"Well this isn't going to be easy to remove, I'm sure you're aware."
"Yeah, you could say that."
"And unfortunately I don't have the knowledge to do this myself. But there's a man in my settlement, Deaton, who could help." The man picks up the knife still in the loop (which Stiles had forgotten about briefly) and before Stiles can protest it, the man is finishing the job Stiles tried to do. The loop comes free and now the trap and the confining chain are two separate entities. He hands the knife back to Stiles, handle first, and looks at him.
"As I see it, you have a couple of options."
"Yeah? What are they?" Stiles asks as he takes back his knife.
"Well, first, I could help you remove the trap from your leg, but I think it's a pretty safe bet to say you'd die from blood loss."
"Always fun." Stiles mutters.
"Two, you could try to go wherever you were going with this thing on your leg, but you'll probably be caught by an undead sooner rather than later."
"Is there a door number three?" Stiles asks faintly.
"Yeah." The man says. "Option three, you can trust me and take your chances with me. I have a doctor of sorts, and a certified nurse, at my settlement, and we have supplies and protection."
"Protection?"
"Mhmm." The man nods. "We have a pretty strong barricade against the undead, and guards on watch. We haven't had one get in for a long time."
"How long is a long time?" Stiles asks.
"Long enough." He says. "So? What are you going to do?"
Stiles looks at him, doubt and skepticism large in his mind, but for whatever reason, he wants to trust this man.
"If I went with you, then what if I wanted to leave?"
"You wouldn't be a prisoner." The man says, forehead furrowed with disbelief . "You could leave whenever you wanted. There are rules that would have to be abided by, but those are in place for the safety of the community."
"What are they?"
"How about this, you come with me, and I'll tell you some of the rules on the way there."
"Why not now?" Stiles asks.
The man looks around them, gesturing at their surroundings with his finger.
"Do you really want to wait out here while I go over every single aspect of my settlement? In the dark, in the middle of the woods? While you still have a bad leg and there are undead walking around?"
"Yeah, you're probably right." Stiles agrees.
"So?" He asks. Stiles looks at him. "Do you want to come with me or not? What do you want to do?"
"Oh. Right. Yeah, I guess I'll go with you. Better than bleeding out in the woods, or being Walker-chew."
"Alright then." The man says, standing up. "Come on then, we've got a walk ahead of us." He extends his hand for Stiles to grab onto, and Stiles takes it, letting himself be helped up.
The man grabs hold of Stiles' arms, slinging one over his shoulder while he grabs onto Stiles' waist. They walk carefully, since Stiles can't put any weight on his injured leg at all, and the terrain of the forest is rough and uneven.
After several long minutes of quiet, Stiles finally speaks up. "You know, I still have some questions for you."
The man snorts. "I'd be more surprised if you didn't."
"Like, what's your name? And what are you doing in the woods in the first place?"
The man grins at the "path" ahead of them. "Ya know, I could ask you those same things."
"Hmph." Stiles glares at the leaf-covered ground, annoyed by his response.
"My name is Derek." The man says, gently readjusting Stiles' weight.
Stiles looks at him, trying to make out his features in the minimal moonlight. "Derek?"
"Derek Hale."
Stiles nods. "I'm Stiles." He says.
"That a nickname?" Derek asks.
"Yeah. My real name is tough on the English tongue."
Derek snorts. "Fair enough. Do you have a last name, Stiles?"
"Stilinski." He confirms.
"Stiles Stilinski? Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously!" He glares at Derek's amused profile.
"Okay, alright. Stiles it is."
Stiles mutters to himself, only half of it decent language.
"What were you doing in the woods anyways?" Stiles asks again. "And how did you find me?"
"I was scouting." Derek says. "One of the guards had noticed more undead at our gates than usual, so I thought I'd take a look around the area, see if there might be something attracting them here."
"And me?"
"You I just happened to find."
Stiles frowns at this, the answer rubbing him the wrong way.
"You just found me? Just like that?"
"Yeah. I mean, I heard a lot of noise in the area, probably from when you killed that undead, and I heard your screaming."
Stiles looks at him warily. "Yeah, but you showed up hours later."
Derek huffs, like Stiles is a child he's trying to explain a simple concept to.
"I heard you scream, because you were loud, but I was still far away. I'm walking, remember?"
"Okay, sure." Stiles says, still feeling uneasy.
"What were you doing in the woods?" Derek shoots his question back to him.
"I was trying to get to Beacon Hills." Stiles says.
"Beacon Hills?"
"Yeah. That's where my dad is, or - was - the last time I talked to him."
"That's funny." Derek says. "Beacon Hills is where I'm from."
"Oh yeah? Me too. I grew up there. I just moved away for college, when all this happened."
"Hmm."
They lapse into silence for another while, just focusing on walking straight. Stiles' hip is starting to cramp real bad from the awkward way he's walking though, so he asks for a break. They stop and Derek deposits him on a fallen tree to rest, sitting down next to him.
Stiles' breathing is a little harder then before, and he wishes he had some water.
"Where did you say this settlement was?" He asks.
"I didn't." Derek says. "It should be another few miles or so from here, though."
"Oh geez." Stiles groans. "I'm never going to make it!"
"Sure you will." Derek says.
"No! Seriously, Derek! Everything is going to fall off and stop working. I doubt I can walk another fifty feet, let alone a whole nother mile! Or more!"
Derek rolls his eyes and stands up, and Stiles fears for a moment he's scared him off, that he's going to be left here alone. But then Derek is pulling him to stand and stepping up to him, his back facing Stiles.
"Come on then." He says.
"Wha-what?"
"You said you can't walk anymore, I'll carry you. Now get on."
"Are you sure? I mean, you said it yourself: it's a couple miles, Derek! And I know I'm skinny, but I'm not light!"
"Just get on my back, Stiles." It's practically a growl.
"Yeah, okay." Stiles says, placing his hands on Derek's shoulders. "I'll just ride on your back for a mile, no big deal."
"It will be if you don't hurry up."
"Okay okay!"
Derek grabs Stiles around his thighs, crouching at the same time as Stiles jumps slightly, and he straightens up with Stiles clinging to his back. The weight off his leg is already better, and Stiles sighs into Derek's neck, wrapping his arms around the man's throat/chest/shoulder area. Derek starts walking right away, his pace easily two or three times that of what they were averaging before.
It's quiet while they walk, almost peaceful, or relaxing, and Stiles tries not to enjoy the feel of the man under him too much. In other circumstances, this kind of thing might even be romantic.
"Thank you." Stiles sighs quietly. He's not sure if it's just for carrying him, or for not leaving him to die alone in the woods also. Either way, Derek replies. "You're welcome."
Stiles tries not to fall asleep, not entirely certain that would be a good idea right now, and instead focuses on looking out for any Walkers. He doesn't see any.
**
The sun is almost up when they arrive to what must be Derek's settlement. The trees break and Stiles sees a small town encircled by a large steel wall. It looks tough, thoroughly built. There are two men standing guard at the gate closest to them, and they easily spot Stiles and Derek. Derek is quick to call out to them before the men raise their guns to them.
"Roger, Ned, it's me. Derek."
The men nod, exchanging greetings while they open the gate just enough for Derek to slip through with Stiles.
"Where's Laura?" He asks them.
"Down in the infirmary." One of the men answers. "Cora injured her ankle just before you got back."
Derek makes a frustrated noise and walks away from them. "It's a good thing that's where we need to go anyways." He mutters.
They walk towards one of the smaller sized buildings and enter it, Derek walking up to a steel door behind a counter. He kicks at it twice with his foot and it slides open from the inside, a descending staircase on the other side.
"Down we go." Derek says.
There's no light down here, just darkness, but as soon as they reach the last step, a light turns on, illuminating a tunnel. Derek carries him down there, and Stiles isn't sure if he should be scared or not, but his heart is pounding faster anyways.
"Where are we going again?" He asks faintly.
"You'll see."
"So helpful." He snarks.
The tunnel splits into two and Derek follows it to the left, soon stopping in front of a door on the left side. There's a medical logo on it, two snakes and a staff, and Stiles reckons it's the so-called "infirmary".
The door opens at his command, and a black bald man with a goatee ushers them inside.
"Derek." He greets them.
"Deaton." Derek says, the name familiar to Stiles. "This is Stiles, he needs your help."
"Of course." The man agrees easily. "Here, I have a spare cot set up over here."
Derek sets him down on the bed, moving out of the way of the man, who comes close to examine Stiles' leg.
"That is a nasty injury." He says lightly, as if talking about the weather. "But don't worry young man, I'll get you free and fixed up in no time."
"Oh, good." Stiles says.
"Deaton," Derek says, drawing his attention. "Ned told me Cora and Laura were both here?"
"Ah, yes. They're in the next room. You shouldn't worry though, Cora's injury is very slight: a sprained ankle. Shouldn't take more than a week to heal; assuming she follows my directions."
Derek's hard expression doesn't change, but he nods to the man and turns to Stiles. "I'll be back in a few minutes. You'll be safe with Deaton." Then he exits through a different door than they came through, and Stiles is alone with another stranger.
"So, Mr...?"
"Stilinski."
"Mr. Stilinski. Interesting. Well Mr. Stilinski, I'll have you fixed in no time."
He smiles at Stiles, pulling on a pair of gloves and wheeling over a tray with medical tools and supplies on it. Stiles gulps nervously.
"You can lie back, if you'd rather not watch." Deaton says. "Unfortunately this isn't the first time I've dealt with a bear trap."
Stiles nods and settles on his back, eyes turned to the ceiling. He can hear the man fiddling with the contraption, and he's not sure if that makes him feel better or worse.
"Okay," Deaton says. "I have it unlocked now. The next part will be to remove it, and unfortunately there's no way for me to avoid it causing you pain."
"It's gonna hurt?" Stiles asks, imagining it and remembering the pain of it going in, chomping down on his leg, all the way to the bone.
"Yes, it's going to hurt." Deaton confirms.
"Oh Jesus." He swears.
There is no count of three before Deaton starts prying the steel jaws from his leg bone. The constant ache that settled as a throbbing in his leg transforms into white hot pain, encompassing him from his toes to his head.
He screams as Deaton did whatever he was doing, and Stiles doesn't notice Derek coming back into the room and grabbing his hand. But then the pressure on his leg is gone and Stiles feels faint, and kind of nauseous.
"It's okay, Stiles," he hears. "Your leg is free. Now we can fix it."
"Uh huh." He mutters, eyes closing. His leg was on fire, tingling and throbbing, half numb and half livid. It was worse than breaking his arm in third grade.
He heard voices talking, and could feel things being done to his leg, but he was too out of it to really pay any attention. It was a long time before everything stopped, and he noticed a hand pushing the hair off his sweaty forehead.
"Stiles?"
"Hmm?" He opened his eyes sleepily and saw Derek above him.
"Deaton's done now, if you want to sleep."
He nodded his agreement with that plan. "Yeah, sleep..."
"Alright." Derek said. "We're gonna scoot you up the bed so you're not at the edge anymore, and then you can sleep."
"Kay." Stiles says.
Derek chuckles under his breath and Stiles closes his eyes. A few moments later, with Deaton holding his bad leg off the bed, Derek helps Stiles scoot up the bed until he's resting on the pillows. His right leg is propped on another pillow and Stiles tries to ignore it.
"He should be off of it for a while," he hears. "Especially since I don't have any pain relief to give him."
He hears Derek's voice in reply, the two men talking quietly, and then he's letting sleep drag him down into sweet nothing.