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The sky was still dark with early-morning when they found a pile of bones. They were white, picked shockingly clean, and they lay stacked in a messy heap beside the crumpled, ashy remains of a campfire. Derek walked around the scene in a wide circle, his eyes shifting constantly – flicking from the scuffed grey dirt by the fire, to the broken tree branch by the forest’s edge.
“Looks like there were three of them,” he surmised after a while, his voice low and solemn, the bearer of bad news. He pointed at the dirt, tracing out patterns that Stiles’s eyes could never hope to see. “There are still a few tracks,” he explained for Stiles’s benefit, “but they’re barely visible. Whoever was here they left a long time ago.”
“How long ago?” Scott asked. He stood with Stiles and swayed hesitantly at the precipice of the scene. “A week?”
Boyd, who was crouched low by the fire sorting through the coals with a stick, shook his head. “Longer.”
“A month, maybe,” Derek said offhandedly, “it doesn’t matter. They’re gone now.”
Derek’s firm, brusque insistence was a façade for reassurance; it was his way of offering comfort without having to admit to the fear and the danger. They’re gone now. We’re safe now. You’re safe now. They’re gone. See, don’t be afraid.
Once Stiles would have taken comfort from such a thing, but the sentiment didn’t matter anymore, not when they continued to find the same kind of camps all over the country. These people had moved on, yes, but they were still out there, and the bones still remained.
Stiles shifted his weight on his tired feet, feeling the ache of fatigue in his bones and his muscles. He wet his chapped lips. “This is the seventh time we’ve found a scene like this,” he said, and his voice rasped and warbled like an ancient instrument left to decay.
“They’re human bones,” Erica murmured, her eyes unfocused and distant as she gazed across the clearing at the dead campfire – at the white cluster of what could almost pass as snow-white sticks.
Stiles’s memories of Erica were of long, golden hair, and a flirtatious grin. She’d held herself with poise and confidence and her eyes had glinted with the idea that she could do whatever she liked. Now, though, her hair was matted with grey dirt and ash and was kept in a bun on the top of her emaciated head. Her eyes bugged sickly from her skull, cartoonish and crude, constantly bulging, and more than once Stiles had caught her staring at him – her eyes wild and her face sharp, watching him like a starving dog watches their frail owner cough and wheeze closer to death.
Derek looked to Stiles, the only human left amongst them, before he surrendered with a nod. “They’re human bones,” he agreed, letting out a shallow breath and allowing his eyes to shut, “yes.”
In the beginning each encounter with another group they met on the road was an occasion for hope and gratefulness. They weren’t alone, not yet – there were still others. Some were human, some were werewolves, but they were all alive. They’d swap information and gossip and sometimes, once or twice, they’d split their food and share their campsite for the evening when Derek was particularly trusting.
But then the food started to dwindle and their weight dwindled with it, and Stiles no longer rushed for introductions when they met another group on the road, more often than not headed in the opposite direction, and now, mostly packs of wolves. Their bones were thick with flesh and fat and their smiles were glistening and sharp. Their lips would stretch out in obscene grins once they picked up the rising thud-thud-thud of Stiles’s heartbeat, and that was when Derek would make sure he was close enough for their shoulders to brush.
So really, Stiles wondered just how long Derek had hoped he’d be able to keep it hidden from him. It wasn’t as though Stiles was blind to it.
Scott, however, perhaps because he was a werewolf and had never seen the hungry grins directed at him, seemed to have never suspected a thing.
“Wait,” he said after a long while, his voice a crackling, dying sound, “they’re not eating them, are they?” He was looking at the bones.
They were quiet. No one wanted to confirm it.
Isaac, his face full of shadows, curled his arms around his torso and bent a little, looking as though he was trying to twist into himself and disappear in the process. Stiles knew the feeling. “Scott,” he said, just his name. It was a plea.
Scott blinked and tore his eyes away from the bones. He turned his back to the clearing and let out a shuddering breath. Stiles waited a moment before he reached out and place his hand on Scott’s shoulder, trying desperately to give him something that he wasn’t sure he could provide anymore.
He wished that Scott of all people could have remained oblivious to the truth.
“Don’t think about it,” he whispered to him. Allison is fine.
&&&
Things had gone to shit pretty quickly, all things considered. One day everything was fine – Stiles had been aching from lacrosse practice, yes, and his Chem grades were still slipping, true, but he’d gone to sleep knowing everything was okay. He’d gone to sleep listening to his father snoring from the next room. The next day the town started dying. People coughed and vomited and fainted in the streets, and soon the corpses started to pile up behind the hospital with just thin sheets blanketing them.
After a few days the television channels turned to static and the only thing on the radio was a pre-recorded evacuation protocol, constantly repeating itself, going on into eternity. This is not a drill. Please remain calm. This is not a drill. After that they packed their things and left.
The reason for the outbreak was still unknown, and Stiles figured it had died with the rest of the population. It could have been some kind of biological warfare, he supposed, or it could have been the accidental combination of two test tubes in a far away laboratory. Maybe it was a new strain of the common cold. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was divine intervention.
It made no sense why the werewolves were immune, but Stiles was grateful for it all the same. He didn’t know what he’d have done if he’d been left alone. He didn’t like to think of it.
&&&
Stiles filled their water bottles with river water and watched the murkiness slowly thin until the dirt sank to the bottom of each bottle, creating a muddy film against the plastic. It was a visible reminder that they were fucked, truly and sincerely. The dirty water no longer bothered him – since the effort of making distilled water was too great – and he drank it with only a slight wince, but it was still there – an obvious sign.
“Do you ever think about the others?” Stiles asked, holding a bottle against the sun and watching specks swirl within the liquid, slowly settling.
Derek was a few feet downstream, crouched low by the river as he washed the dirt from his hands. He’d buried the bones and now his hands were pruning in the icy water. “I try not to,” he replied shortly.
Sometimes when Scott got melancholy and quiet Stiles wondered how he’d feel – how he’d be – if he didn’t know what had happened to his dad. He’d seen him die – and he’d died early, which (fucking Christ) was a blessing – and even though it had hurt him beyond belief, Stiles was still glad that he, at least, knew. He preferred knowing. It beat the alternative.
He watched a speck of dirt settle in the bottom of the bottle. “I think Lydia died,” he admitted for the first time. He’d been thinking about it a lot lately, more and more each time they crossed paths with others and there weren’t any humans amongst them. “Jackson too, probably.”
Derek looked at him, eyes shuttered. “You don’t know that,” he said wearily.
“The last time I saw Lydia,” he said, “she was running through the hospital.”
Lydia’s hands had been covered in blood, he remembered, and her hair had been streaked with it – so much of it, in fact, that it had made her hair stick to her neck, to her forehead, to her cheek. He’d spotted her from across the waiting room and for a moment he’d panicked – was she okay? – before he realised. Realised that the world was falling apart around them, and no, she wasn’t okay, he wasn’t okay, things weren’t okay. His dad wasn’t okay – his dad was dying. Mrs McCall had already died – had fallen to pieces in the McCall’s living room right in front of Scott and Stiles; it had been early days, then.
But Lydia hadn’t seen him – she’d been busy. She was carrying a pack of water bottles, the clear kind, with the clear, clean water, and she’d run past him. Her heels had hit the tiles like a hammer, clack-clack-clack-clack-clack, and then she was gone – swallowed up by the crowd. Gone.
He’d expected to see her again like he always did, but this time he hadn’t. They’d left town a few days later.
“Lydia’s strong,” Derek said, like Stiles had somehow forgotten. “She’s fine.”
Stiles smirked, though the gesture was bitter. “You don’t know that,” he reminded him. Despite all of Derek’s words and his insistence that they were fine, Derek knew no more about their situation than Stiles did, and from where Stiles was standing things were pretty damn hopeless.
Derek sighed and went back to washing his hands again. There was a smudge of dirt on his jaw – grave dirt, really – and Stiles came close to wipe it off with the hem of his t-shirt and a dab of spit. Derek eyed him warily but didn’t shift away when Stiles’s fingers pressed gently at his jaw to hold him still.
Despite everything – despite the whole damn thing – Derek somehow seemed the same. He was still quiet and he still gave off an air of intimidation, and more than once he’d threatened Stiles with bodily violence that he may or may not have genuinely meant. The only real change that Stiles had noticed was just how desperate he’d become. Derek spoke as though he could change reality with his words – as though he could will them to safety, as though his determination could make everything bad go away. He clung to hope with pleading desperation, but hid it all behind orders and authority. Derek wanted for them to be safe so desperately that it hurt Stiles to watch.
But – it helped, sometimes, being around Derek. It was easier than being around Scott, whose smile had disappeared when Allison had, or Erica, whose smile was becoming more and more like those of the well-fed travellers they passed on the roads. Isaac had retreated into his own arms, shrinking back into a safe place inside him, and Boyd was more detached than Stiles had ever seen him.
Derek was the only vaguely normal thing Stiles had left to him. He’d heard Scott talk about ‘anchors’ before and now he understood.
“The others,” Stiles said, dragging the greyed cotton of his shirt over Derek’s jaw, “they’re eating people.”
Derek watched him cautiously. He didn’t reply and he didn’t need to.
“Eating humans,” he pressed. It was strange to say it aloud; voicing it seemed to cement it in truth.
“Stiles,” Derek tried. He gently pushed Stiles’s hands away from his face and Stiles allowed it. He kneeled in the damp riverbank, the knees of his jeans absorbing the moisture, and he studied Derek’s expression.
“No,” he muttered, “it’s alright. It’s – it’s to be expected, really. I mean – think of all the post-apocalyptic stuff from before. Did you ever play Fallout 3? Did you read The Road? Cannibalism is par for the course.”
Derek’s hands dripped cold water into his lap. “Is that what this is?” he asked. “Is this the apocalypse?”
His throat tightened and he swallowed painfully through the constriction. “Well,” he murmured, “yeah, I figure so. I mean…” He scratched his chin. “Pretty much everyone else is dead.” He’d seen the bodies.
“You’re still alive,” Derek told him.
“Yeah, and so are you,” he replied.
“You’re a human, though,” Derek said, the word rising from his lips like a holy prayer. “You’re – Statistically, you’re almost impossible.”
Stiles knew that was true. For every twenty werewolves they met, there was only one human. Somehow the tables had turned and suddenly the humans were the supernatural ones, lost amongst the crowd of werewolves.
“Do you think you’re – immune, or something?” Derek asked. He watched Stiles, his eyes fixed gently upon him. Derek tip-toed with Stiles. “I don’t understand why you didn’t get sick like the others.”
“Allison didn’t get sick,” Stiles reminded him. Her skin had never blistered and she’d never coughed blood. “She just--”
Derek narrowed his eyes at him and raised a finger to his lips. He glanced in the direction of the others. Any mention of Allison left Scott watching his feet as they walked, his face crumpled and shadowed. Her departure was still an open wound.
Stiles’s words left him in a foggy, wishful sigh, and he looked out across the river, almost hoping to see Allison on the other side, miraculously whole and returned. It had been a few months since she left but in their unchanging landscape her absence was the greatest change so far.
“I don’t think I’m immune,” he said eventually, to answer Derek’s question. If he were immune he’d know. He’d feel it. He’d have something more to give. “I’m just.” The word lucky wilted and died on his lips like a decaying flower. No one was lucky anymore.
Sometimes he had dreams where he was sick – where his skin turned red and raw and peeled away under his fingertips. Sometimes he convinced himself that he was sick – that he was dying, that he’d been dying from the moment his dad coughed red and wet and fainted in the hall, his handkerchief only half-way to his lips. Sometimes Stiles wondered what they’d do if he died: if they’d cry, or if they were all out of tears already. He wondered if Derek would bury his body like he buried the bones.
“Come on,” Derek said, hyper aware of Stiles’s heart rate and emotional state. He wiped his hands on his shirt and stood tall and sturdy. “We should help the others.”
“Yes,” Stiles murmured, “we should.”
&&&
Before, Stiles had dreamed of his life in a post-apocalyptic America.
He’d dreamed of road-tripping across the dry, baked countryside with an ancient Polaroid camera slung around his neck on a lanyard. He’d take pictures of the broken, collapsed buildings, silently decaying without any aid, and he’d keep the pictures in between the pages of a bible. He’d listen to cassette tapes in prehistoric cars, Neil Young and Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan crackling out into the deathly silent landscape. He’d wear steel-capped boots and his jeans would be frayed and faded, worn thin with age. He’d find a strange peace amongst the quiet wasteland.
He’d never imagined this.
&&&
“Give up,” Erica said. “You’re not getting anywhere.”
Isaac turned a glare over his shoulder at her. “At least I’m trying,” he pointed out, and her lip minutely curled.
Boyd placed a large hand on Isaac’s arm. “Don’t,” he muttered.
Boyd seemed to always be there whenever Erica was involved. He was the one who held the others back, and he was the one who crowded beside Erica when they were outnumbered. Stiles had seen the way Boyd watched her – as though she was something fragile and rare, something that needed to be collected and held close for protection. He also saw the way Boyd worried – his lip caught between his teeth, his eyes darting from Erica’s feral expression to the looks of frightened contempt that the others so frequently showed her.
“There aren’t any fish in there,” Erica continued. She stood on the rocky river-bank, her feet bare and filthy. She watched them like their struggle was a spectator sport and she was their biggest fan.
Isaac shot her another glare, but before words could be exchanged Boyd dragged him further into the shallows and away from Erica. Stiles was limited with his hearing, but Boyd ducked his head close to Isaac and the two of them stood still together, shoulders slumped. He wondered how often Boyd had to play the mediator.
“I think I’m glad,” Stiles murmured sideways to Scott. “I was getting sick of fish, anyway.”
Scott didn’t answer, but Erica did.
“Without fish,” she said, her eyes sharp and wild as they stared at Stiles, “we starve.”
Derek paused in his attempts at building a fire. “Erica,” he warned.
She jumped guiltily and met his gaze, caught red-handed at bullying the underdog human. After a moment she glanced back at Stiles, her eyes trailing over him, studying him. He felt sick under her gaze.
“I’m going for a run,” she said hollowly, and even though she was looking at him when she said it he knew she wasn’t talking to him. She rarely did anymore, unless it was to tell him something upsetting or to make sure he knew he was unwelcomed. “Don’t wait up for me.” She skipped down from the rocky bank and started at a run towards the thick of the forest, her shape rippling with the transformation as she went.
“I’ll go with her,” Boyd said, already following her, “just in case.”
They were quiet without them.
&&&
Allison’s parents had been the last of their family members to die, but Allison herself had never succumbed. She was like Stiles in that neither of them slowed, neither of them felt the fever or the itch under their skin. They survived when others didn’t.
Despite the tears still in her eyes and the speckled blood on her sneakers she’d still gone with them. She’d brought her crossbow and carried it against her chest as she walked, her fingers always ready, always itching. She’d been the best hunter out of them – killing more game than any of the werewolves had managed – and whenever she brought food back to the campsite Stiles had felt a little punch of pride; Allison was living proof that humans weren’t as weak as the others believed.
But she had family in Wyoming, she said, and they were in the business. They had a bunker, she said, that was filled to the ceiling with weapons and supplies. They lived in the middle of nowhere, she insisted, and she was sure they were alive. They should go there, she said. They should leave as soon as possible.
She’d grasp Scott’s hands and stare up at him with beseeching eyes. “We can find them,” she said earnestly, “please, you have to trust me with this. Scott – Scott, I know they’re alive. We can go to them – they can help us – we can help everyone.”
After a while it was all she’d talk about and she had nothing but bitterness for anyone who wouldn’t listen. When Derek kept saying no and Scott kept begging her to see sense, she made her mind up without them.
They woke up to a note (I’m so sorry, but I know this is what I have to do.) and after that Scott seemed to walk as though drawn to the North-East – drawn to Wyoming.
Stiles didn’t like to think about it but he knew it all the same – the chance that she’d survived, that she’d made it there, crossbow or no…
But she was strong, and she was determined, and she’d proven them all wrong before.
&&&
They’d been following a road for three days when they came across another pack headed in the opposite direction. The way they dealt with strangers on the road was routine by now, and they wordlessly got into formation. They grouped tightly together with Stiles in the centre and Derek at the lead as the Alpha, angling himself so Stiles was hidden behind his broad shoulders. Stiles supposed the familiarity of the routine ought to have made him feel better but it never did. Danger was still danger.
The group before them had only five people in it, but that was larger than most they met on the road. There was one woman amongst the otherwise male group and they all stood tall and confident, like the Erica of old. Two of them were twins, identical in every way, and they smirked at each other and rolled their shoulders menacingly. Stiles didn’t need werewolf senses to know that they were a pack of wolves.
One of the men stepped away from the group to meet with Derek in the centre. He was wearing dark glasses and a serene smile, and goose-bumps erupted along Stiles’s flesh. “What a surprise,” he said jovially, “another pack on the road. It’s been a week since we’ve met anyone else.” He made a show of looking at them all, giving each the gift of his time. “Where are you headed?”
They didn’t have a destination; they rarely travelled with any purpose other than find safety, find supplies, find a place to sleep, but Derek lied and said, “Seattle.”
The Alpha’s eyebrows rose high behind his glasses. “Really? Well, good luck with that hike. We’re going to Los Angeles, ourselves.” He half-heartedly glanced over his shoulder at the rest of his pack. The woman smiled at them, her lips sharp, in confirmation.
Stiles’s heart was thick and heavy in his chest, a weight trapped behind his ribs, and each beat was like a pound of a drum. Human, human, human. He was painfully aware of his every movement, from the beat of his heart to the gentle rasp of his breath. The other wolves didn’t look malnourished – not in the way that Derek and the others were.
Derek cocked his head. “What’s in Los Angeles?” Whenever Derek met with new packs on the road his voice took on the quality of hard plastic – it had an artificial kind of stiffness, a sharp kind of tone that would break before it would bend. His shoulders would bunch tightly, taut with nerves, and he’d bite out words.
“Humans, mostly,” the Alpha replied, “and we go where the humans go.” He smiled, his teeth bared, and a few of his pack laughed – the twins.
The female stepped forward, coming to the Alpha’s flank. “If you don’t mind me asking,” she started, voice low, “what’s in Seattle?”
Derek didn’t hesitate. “Family,” he lied. “Pack.”
“You’re a family man,” the Alpha said, “I can see that.”
“Yes,” the woman agreed. “You’ve taken on a stray, it seems.” She craned her neck theatrically, and then her eyes were locked upon Stiles.
Stiles jolted a little, bumping into Isaac who stood behind him, and she smiled. Scott’s hand twitched and his fingers brushed against Stiles’s wrist.
Derek bristled at the front but didn’t make a move. “Like you said,” he said firmly, “I’m a family man.”
“Kali,” the Alpha said admonishingly to the woman, “we’re not trying to pick fights.” He returned his attention to Derek but the majority of his pack continued to stare at Stiles, watching him hungrily. “I’m sorry,” he said, “we’re only passing through, same as you are.” He raised both of his palms in a gesture of good-will and innocence. He seemed to glance at Boyd, whose arms were as thick as Stiles’s body.
“We have to keep going,” Derek announced, “so--”
“Of course,” the Alpha agreed, “we don’t want to keep you too long.” He sunk back into his pack, Kali following with a sigh. “Good luck getting to Seattle, friends. Perhaps we’ll see one another again?”
“Perhaps,” Derek allowed. “Good luck with Los Angeles.” He stood in place and ushered Boyd behind and around him, and the others followed quickly. Stiles bounced between the members of the pack like a ping-pong ball, herded like precious, illegal cargo.
It wasn’t until they were several miles away from the other pack that Derek’s shoulders eased and Boyd unclenched his jaw.
“We gotta make sure we keep a wide distance from Los Angeles,” Isaac said quietly. “If there are people there--”
“There’ll be werewolves, too,” Erica finished. She looked to Boyd, who looked away.
“Let’s just keep moving,” Derek said. “The more space we put between us, the better.”
&&&
Three days after Allison disappeared Stiles almost died in a Walmart.
He’d been in the outdoor living aisle weighing the pros and cons of getting a big family sized tent or several smaller tents, and he was just about to call Scott over for a consultation when a middle-aged man in a baggy coat and jeans came around the corner and stood there, staring at him, looking almost as surprised to see Stiles as Stiles was to see him.
The shock of meeting a stranger in a place they’d thought was abandoned and empty left Stiles speechless and utterly frozen in place.
“Uh,” he said, taking a stumbling step backwards, “are you--”
And then the man had started to run at him, and Stiles, who had never been afraid of running away from things, turned heel and sprinted back out of the aisle, dodging fallen pool lounges and chrome barbeques as he went.
The linoleum floor was covered in a thick coat of dust and debris and it crunched and slid under his sneakers as he struggled to keep ahead of the werewolf. He threw things behind him as he ran – a compost bin, a laundry basket trolley, an overgrown potted palm tree – and rasped for breath. His heart was against his throat, pounding, pounding, pounding, and he nearly choked as he wordlessly screamed out for help. The werewolf was faster than he was and it was only a matter of time, anyway—
Scott appeared ahead of him, darting out from one of the aisles, and before Stiles could pull the brakes Scott had shoved him sideways into the vitamins and health foods aisle. Stiles stumbled and fell to the floor, sprawling in the dirt. He scrambled to his feet, his sneakers slipping against the dusty floor, and he staggered in the opposite direction to the snarls and growls behind him.
The others entered the aisle, all of them hunched over and ready for war, their claws and teeth glistening in the dimness. They ran past him to help Scott, all of them save for Derek who caught Stiles by the shoulders and pulled him away.
“Christ, Stiles,” he said when they were an aisle over and Stiles could almost pretend the snarls he heard were animals fighting over a bone, “Christ, are you okay?”
His face was his own now and his hands were on Stiles’s forehead, his throat, his wrists. Stiles focused on breathing and watched as Derek watched him in turn, gentle and hesitant, like Stiles could break if his touch was too firm.
“Are you hurt?” he asked again. His hands fell on Stiles’s shoulders and he held him there, held him steady. “Are you okay?”
Stiles forced himself to nod, knowing that if he didn’t he was only causing more worry. “I’m okay,” he managed, “just--” He could feel hysteria building in him, bubbling to the surface. He’d nearly been killed. “Y’know.”
Derek’s eyes swam over Stiles’s face. His fingers grazed Stiles’s jaw, his cheek, his temple.
I could kiss you, Stiles thought, knowing it was true; I could kiss you and you wouldn’t push me away.
“You’re safe now,” Derek promised him.
“I know.”
&&&
The others were at the water trying for fish. Stiles knew as well as they did that there weren’t any fish left to catch, but it was all a part of their great act. Someone gathered wood, someone made the tents, someone went fishing. It was the routine. It kept them sane – kept them deluded.
Stiles was stacking firewood as Derek pinned the tents. They’d been quiet all afternoon ever since they’d left the other pack, but Stiles had been thinking about Los Angeles the entire time; the thought had been running rings around him as he walked. There were people in Los Angeles, and with people was food, and with food there was survival.
“We should be going to Los Angeles,” he said finally. “We should be going where we know there are people.”
“You’re going to take the word of a stranger for fact?” Derek scoffed.
“I’d rather go off a rumour than wander the back roads like we’ve been doing,” he decided. “There might be food in Los Angeles, Derek--”
Derek abandoned the tents and turned to him instead. “The only thing we’ll find in Los Angeles is death, Stiles. Death – and more bones.”
Stiles clenched his jaw and met Derek’s eye squarely. “Am I the reason why we’re hiding like this? Is it because I’m a human?”
“We’re not hiding--”
“We’re living in the woods, Derek.”
“—we’re staying alive.”
Stiles shook his head and fought the urge to start throwing punches. He was frustrated, that was all. Frustrated and tired, and so was Derek, and Derek was only trying to help.
“Don’t you think it’s worth a try, at least?” He tried a new, closer approach. “What if we go to San Francisco? We’d have no trouble getting there.”
Derek cast a secretive glance in the direction of the others before he leaned in and whispered, “And how long do you think we’ll last in a big city, Stiles? There are only six of us remember, and you’re human – and Erica’s – Erica’s lost to us already. We’re safer where we are, okay? At least here we’re alone.”
Stiles swallowed the sour taste in his mouth and forced himself to nod. Derek was the one who caught him when he fell in the forest, the hem of his jeans having snagged on a fallen branch and tripping him. They always stood around him when strangers approached. They avoided main roads because he was with them and he was human.
Stiles had always been aware of his own limitations – had accepted them and moved on readily – but it had never occurred to him that maybe the others were just aware, if not more so, because his limitations weren’t only his but theirs too. In this new world he served no purpose, had no value. He had become their handicap. He was an anchor holding them back.
Derek watched him. He came closer, almost crowding into Stiles’s space, but Stiles wouldn’t raise his eyes to him.
“I don’t want you getting hurt,” Derek murmured. There it was – the desperation.
“I’m fine,” Stiles promised him. “I can look after myself.”
“I know you can,” Derek said, “but won’t you let me help?”
The others returned with one fish, a shrunken little thing, and for a while it was the happiest they’d been in months.
&&&
Boyd and Erica were gone when they woke up. They’d left with a tent and two bottles of water. They hadn’t taken any of the food.
Derek surveyed the scuffed space where their tent had been and the faint trail they’d made as they’d left. He could follow them, Stiles knew. He had the skills to follow them wherever they went, to find them and tell them to come back with him, but he wouldn’t.
Stiles stood hesitantly beside him, unsure of what to say to make things better. He wanted to ease the strain from Derek’s shoulders. He wanted to help him carry the weight.
“Don’t,” Derek said, stopping him before he started. “It’s okay. They chose this for themselves.”
They could now count the members of their pack on one hand.
“They didn’t even leave us a note,” Scott muttered sourly, kicking at the dirt.
&&&
Stiles had kept his wallet.
“I don’t see the point,” Isaac sighed, watching as Stiles rifled through the contents by the fire. “You’ll never need it again.”
“It has sentimental value,” he told him.
It held $4 in small change, and hidden amongst the pockets were ancient movie tickets, gum wrappers, photos. His mother and father smiled at him on their wedding day from one, and he and Scott stuck their tongues out at him in a sandpit in kindergarten from another. His photo in his licence was a blurry one, the laminate having scuffed until it was a cloudy pigment. He’d wanted to bring his car keys with him when they’d left but there hadn’t been any time. The roads weren’t safe for cars anyway – too many obstacles, too many dangers. Besides, the gas shortage had never been more real.
“I miss fast food,” Scott sighed drearily, his chin in his hands as he stared into the flames. “I miss hot water.”
“Electricity,” Isaac moaned longingly. “God, electricity.”
Stiles looked to the heavens and sighed, “The internet.”
He waited for Derek to offer his own but he never did.
&&&
The run-in with the other pack had turned them away from the roads and instead they walked alongside the river, mostly for convenience. Occasionally they stopped to refill the bottles, or to rummage through their packs as though hoping more food had magically appeared since their last meal, but mostly they walked. Stiles hummed sometimes, trailing his fingers against the rough bark of trees they passed, and thought guiltily of how much easier things were now that Erica had left. He no longer felt her eyes sparking against the back of his neck.
They’d been aimlessly following the river for several days before they found the farmhouse. The house had two storeys and large, tall windows, and for a long time Stiles blinked at it, certain that he was faced with a mirage in the desert. It wasn’t until Isaac took the first hesitant step for it that they all seemed to wake up from the shock.
“Think anyone’s home?” Stiles asked. The upstairs windows were thrown wide open and lace curtains had escaped out against the slate roof tiles, flapping lamely in the breeze.
Scott shook his head. “It’s silent in there. They’ve gone.”
They started walking across one of the four paddocks that surrounded the house on all sides. There were dried animal bones in places, some still with thin skin stretched over the ribcages.
“They had livestock,” Derek murmured thoughtfully, eyeing one of the skeletons as they passed.
Isaac was the one who tried the front door. It opened at his touch as though it hadn’t been shut, let alone locked. There was a long hallway behind it and it seemed to loom in Stiles’s vision like a scene from a horror movie.
“This kind of feels like breaking and entering,” he muttered, stepping nonchalantly closer to Scott and Derek. “God,” he breathed, “what if we find corpses?” It had happened before.
Derek climbed the steps to the porch and met Isaac at the doorway. “Come on,” he urged, “let’s check it out.”
The house was empty. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a pantry full of food.
“I feel like the owners are going to come home any minute and catch us in here,” Scott muttered around a nervous grin. He was searching the cupboards under the kitchen sink, digging through drain cleaners and sponges, trying to find anything that might come in handy later on.
“The fridge is full of rancid food,” Isaac pointed out, gesturing to the fridge over his shoulder and wafting a hand before his nose, “so I think it’s a safe bet to say this place has been abandoned for a while, man.”
“Still,” Scott maintained, “it feels weird.”
Stiles was kneeling inside the pantry sorting the edible things from the stuff that might cause death if consumed. So far it looked as though they’d never be lacking in tinned food ever again. “These people really fucking loved tinned peaches,” he said appreciatively as he sorted another tin.
“We should stay here,” Derek said, and the world seemed to come to a shuddering halt. Stiles’s hands stilled around the tin of peaches; he heard Scott drop something with a clatter and Isaac’s breath gush out of him as though he’d been punched. “Just for a while, at least,” he added. “It’s a sturdy house and it’s in the middle of nowhere, miles from the road.” He paused and Stiles looked over at him for the first time – Derek was already watching him. “Stiles, you said there’s enough tinned food?”
He jumped a little, startled by the sudden inclusion. “Uh,” he said, looking from Derek to the pantry and its contents, “yeah.” He weighed the tin in his hand and listened to the faint slosh of the peaches within. “There’s – there’s a lot of food here. Like, more than I’ve seen in a long time.” It was kind of dizzying, really. They’d searched for food wherever they went, seeking out stores and farms, and somehow they’d managed to stumble across the mother of all pantries without even meaning to.
Derek nodded thoughtfully, considering this. “What do you think, then?” he asked everyone, and for the first time there was shaky hesitance in his voice. His eyes lingered on Stiles before he looked to the others. “We don’t have to stay here if you think it’s a--”
“No,” Stiles interrupted, “let’s stay.” He glanced at Scott and Isaac hopefully and continued, “God, Derek, I’m so sick of camping.”
Isaac nodded fervently. “I want to stay here. I mean – Derek, there are beds here.”
“I vote beds,” Scott agreed, earning a high-five from Isaac.
Derek smiled until he realised, then caught it between his teeth. Stiles grinned back at him.
&&&
Derek was on the back porch, a bowl of water beside him and shaving cream slathered over his jaw. He’d found a razor and shaving supplies in the upstairs bathroom, a clear gift from the gods. Now, though, he held the razor with hesitant hands and turned it this way and that, gentle and inquisitive. He looked lost.
“Let me help,” Stiles said, and before Derek could so much as argue Stiles reached out and stole the razor from him. “I used to help my dad shave when I was a kid,” he explained. This was a little different, though. Derek was different.
His hand shook a little as he brought the razor close to his skin. He breathed shallowly, hyper aware of Derek’s eyes fixed upon him and the proximity between them. When he pressed the blades softly to his cheek and dragged them across his skin he let out a breath. The razor caught the hairs and the shaving cream, leaving paths of clear, naked skin in its wake. When Stiles chanced a look at Derek’s eyes he was already watching him, not flinching in the slightest.
It had been a long time since he’d seen Derek without an inch or so of beard covering his face, and for a while it was all Stiles could do but look at him. Even before the outbreak Derek had more often than not favoured a fine stubble, but now – now there was nothing but the soft skin of his jaw. It made him look younger. It took away the weariness.
Stiles pulled his t-shirt up to wipe what was left of the shaving cream off his face, being careful not to smother him with it. When he stepped back Derek was watching him solemnly.
“What is it?” he asked. He wanted to put his hand on Derek’s jaw – wanted to feel his skin and see if it felt as good as it looked.
“I’d give you the bite, you know,” he said. “If you wanted it I’d give it to you.”
He wet his lips. “I don’t understand,” he said, not knowing if he was lying or not.
Derek got to his feet and when Stiles took a step back he followed him. “You’d be safer,” he explained. “You wouldn’t have to worry anymore.” He paused. “I wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”
“Hey,” he murmured, “I worry about you as well. Just because you’re – y’know – a billion times stronger than I am doesn’t mean I worry any less. In fact, sometimes I worry more. You always have to talk to the other packs on the road; it’s enough to worry me to death.”
He shook his head. He didn’t understand. “It’s different,” he said, “you’re a human, Stiles, and there are people who’d--”
Stiles reached out and caught his forearm. Derek came closer. Stiles could feel the warmth of him under his fingers and he squeezed, just slightly, just enough to know he was there. “Don’t,” he murmured. “We’re safe here. I feel safe here.”
“But if you were a werewolf you’d--”
“I wouldn’t be the same person I am right now,” he told him, “and I don’t want to be anyone else.”
Derek’s eyes flickered across his face.
“I’m not lying,” he told him.
“I know you’re not,” Derek said, “I’m just trying to understand how you do it. How you stay so optimistic.”
“Well I have you, so--”
Derek stepped forward and pressed their mouths together, the clash of their lips so sudden and so desperate that Stiles groaned into the touch. His hands found Derek’s body – his shoulder, his jaw – and Derek wound an arm around him and brought him impossibly close. Stiles’s heart raced and this time he didn’t care. Let them hear, he thought, let them know I’m human, I don’t care.
Derek smelled of soap and the dusty sunshine that had settled in a thick film throughout the house. His hair was soft between Stiles’s fingers, soft from the shampoo they’d found in the bathroom and the tank water that was connected to the shower. He was a combination of many things: of Beacon Hills, of Stiles’s past, of the present, of their future. He was a safe place. Stiles wondered why they hadn’t done this sooner.
They parted slowly and feeling returned to Stiles in small increments. His breathing evened, and then there were his fingers, his toes, his legs, his arms. He took a shaky breath and watched the shadows that Derek’s eyelashes left splayed across his cheeks.
“I can’t promise that we’re safe here,” Derek told him in a low voice, “I can’t be sure of that. Someone might find this place tomorrow just like we found it today – there’s no way of knowing or guaranteeing anything.”
Stiles nodded softly. “I know,” he said, “I know.”
Derek wet his lips. “I’ll try, though. To keep us safe.”
“So will I.”
That would be enough.
&&&
Isaac made the discovery.
“I found seeds in the basement,” he said, laying a dozen odd battered packets of seedlings on the kitchen table. Carrot, one read. Tomato, said another. Corn, potato, onion, snowpea, pumpkin… “I don’t know much about gardening,” he went on, “but – I mean – we could try, couldn’t we?”
Derek let out an ancient breath, Scott laughed in delirium, and Stiles tackled Isaac to the ground in a hug.