Chapter Text
Was it crazy to smile while running for your life?
Stiles thought not, proved his point as he ran furiously, dodging large air vents and chimneys with agility. The grunts and wails coming from behind did nothing to his concentration, only making him throw almost mirthful glances back at his four pursuers.
Man, were they ever slow.
He spotted his destination a few buildings over, so he diverted his course to lose them, picking up speed as if he had been jogging beforehand. They kept their chase, their cries growing louder and more desperate. This seemed to make them faster, and Stiles only panicked for a second.
A virtual map seemed to be drawn behind his brown eyes, following paths he’d been over hundreds of times. He jumped over the small gap between two adjacent buildings, using the heavy bag in his hands as a balance, then braced his legs with another jump, this one to a lower building. He felt the slight jolt of pain spring up through his legs, but one glance up at the hesitating chasers urged him to take advantage of the distance he could create.
His course circled the block around the building he was trying to get to. Down a fire escape he went, long and steep, taking it two steps at a time or jumping down flights altogether. Reaching the street, Stiles kept to the shadows, slipping in through the no longer hinged doors of a busted up building, puffing short breaths as he ran up the stairs. Some were missing, and he nearly fell through a panel which split under his weight. He could no longer here anyone behind him, but his relief didn't keep him from slowing down.
Stiles counted sixteen endless floors before bursting through the door and running across a room of smashed walls and broken desks, coming to an abrupt halt at the window. Or the whole where a window had once been. From where he stood, Stiles could just see into the rather small, empty room he had to get to. The only problem was the sixteen-story drop in between.
This jump was one he’d never done, and he had to clear his throat multiple times to ignore the possibility of missing it. The trajectory was downwards, about a two meter arc from where he calculated, wringing his hands and throwing his head from side to side distractedly. The ledge on the opposing windowsill was tiny, barely enough room for him to fit the length of his foot.
Lean where you want to go, he reminded himself, you can make it, just like you've made it on so many other accounts.
Deep breath, firm grip on his bag, mind set.
One jump, that was all it took to get back to safety, although death was a slight technicality between where he was and where he wanted to go.
Taking three large steps back, Stiles planted his feet steadily on the ground and, counting down from three, he sprinted forward, his last step pushing off the edge of the building.
The mad grin vanished from his lips as he held his breath.
The brick wall seemed closer than he had predicted, body landing too heavily on the sill. He grunted, eyes wide as he realized there was no time to reach out and grab hold of something firm. His left foot slipped from the edge, and his heart almost stopped as his body pulled him back, further away from safety, arms flailing, hand unwilling to let go of the bag he had tried so hard to find.
The drop was a long one, at least 200 ft, and there would be no luck for him after this fall.
The tip of his toes just about left the platform when a hand grabbed hold of his collar, yanking his body through the open window with a strong tug.
Feet landing with a thud, heart pounding in his chest, breath coming out in short puffs, Stiles still found the energy to speak.
"And here he is," he wheezed through struggling breaths, "Everyone's favourite hero has come to the rescue once again."
Although he refused to let it show, he was grateful for Derek's impeccable timing, but the snide remark couldn't be stopped as it slipped past his lips. He wasn't really one to say thank you.
"What were you thinking?" Derek said through gritted teeth to keep his voice low. The veins in his neck almost burst through his skin.
"Just running some errands, as you do.”
Derek pushed past him to look out the window, shaking his head because Stiles, you fucking idiot. He scanned the street below and the surrounding rooftops, making sure that none of the walkers had followed the sound and scent all the way to the room in which they stood. It would be one thing losing Stiles; it was another to lure the walkers to everyone else.
He shut the window and bolted it, a procedure he'd learned to never, ever, forget.
"I got loads of bullets, gun powder... Some non-perishable foods," Stiles was saying, swinging the heavy black material bag idly at his side, letting it weigh down on his tired arm.
Derek gave a small sound of acknowledgement, keeping his attention on the locking mechanism, just in case he'd somehow not shut it right.
Biting his lip angrily, Stiles raised his voice, "Are you serious? That's all I get? I risked my fucking life for everyone and all I get is 'Mm'?"
Derek spun around, eyes dark and face stern.
"You left your group to scavenge on your own when you know you're not allowed to. Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
At that Stiles threw his head back, a sick grin gracing his lips.
"If you actually thought I'd leave for one of these missions and never come back, I think you'd be a little more distressed than this, buddy. Look, I did my fucking job, and I didn't die. Why don't you go jack off to how you saved my life again."
As a self-proclaimed jerk, Stiles was pretty good at riling people up, jabbing at sore subjects or insecurities with just a little too much ease. And he just so happened to know most of Derek's, like his hero-complex and his feelings for Stiles.
Derek's face went blank for a moment, his skin paling as a series of looks passed through his eyes. It was only for the briefest of moments, then his face turned dark again, staring Stiles down, jaw set so tight his teeth could break with the smallest added amount of pressure.
He slipped back through the open metal door across the room, barely checking if Stiles had followed inside before slamming and locking it, turning the large dial and pulling down the crossbar.
They walked silently down the dimly lit tunnel, Derek up front taking long, impatient strides. At the end, another door awaited them, similar to the first one except locked from the other side. One glance up at the hidden security camera and the door buzzed open.
On the other side, the welcoming noise was always a scare if you spent too much time away from the Haven. A couple hours out in a deserted, noiseless metropolis could double as a year of solitude.
"Finally! It's almost sundown, we was gettin' worried." Bert walked up to the two men, giving Stiles a rub down the back. She turned to Derek to do the same, but he was already gone.
"Alright, wha'did you do this time?"
When the disease had erupted thirteen years before and the world went nuts, Bert had been the one to seek out deserted survivors, offering shelter and a motherly figure to those who so desperately needed it. The Haven had been her idea as the epidemic was growing and a bigger refuge was necessary. An old warehouse built 30 storeys above ground level was found after countless days of searching and was then transformed into, undoubtedly, the safest place on Earth. The entire building had been fortified from the inside, out, every entrance hidden and replaced by either impenetrable metal or industrial designed doors.
But, of course, that had been thirteen years before, and at age 53, Bert had passed over some of her authority to those who she trusted most. Lyra, now twenty-eight, was forever by her side. She had been the first of Bert's many rescues, and nothing had ever come between them. As one had lost a daughter and the other, a mother, they created an unbreakable bond. Derek was her undeclared second favourite, and she always consulted him on everything and anything, watching over him because he carried the weight of the entire community on his own shoulders.
Benny and Natasha occupied the rest of the leadership roles, being strong alone and even stronger together. They had travelled from Mexico to Chicago by foot, escaping the crash-landing of the last Boeing 777 200 to ever fly.
That, of course, had been back when walkers were scarce and only problematic in South and Central America, and everywhere else across the Atlantic. In one year, North America, with little to no desire in doing so, let 21 million refugees enter their borders. Six months later, the North American population went from 528 million, to 200 million when the virus could no longer be stopped, to 20 two months after that, and now, thirteen years later, those who still lived chose not to think of the human-to-zombie ratio.
The Haven counted two hundred and seven people, a number usually fluctuating do to new arrivals or, because of infection, deaths.
Surviving had been an enormous struggle the first few years, mainly because everyone was scared, unable to grasp the notion that what they knew and what they were used to had entirely come to an end.
Foraging for food had been a terrifying experience once the stocks had run out; finding medicine for the sick had been, and still was, a frustrating complication; learning every possible thing about the walkers had become one of the only forms of education.
Sometimes, when it was Stiles’ turn as Raider (as the assignment of searching for supplies was soon dubbed), he always made quick pace to find what was necessary and needed, which gave him enough time to detour to the Magnificent Mile, a street once bustling with life and people. Barely any walkers ever came to that part of the city, mainly because it was even more lifeless than they were. The public library had been destroyed, missing an entire wall from a probable blitz, and all the books from the first floor had been stolen to use as tinder during the winter.
The second floor, or what was left of it, still had three rows of comic books, and that was where Stiles found himself whenever he was allowed.
The staircase was in a pile of rubble, so climbing was always a little tricky, even with all his years of practice. He would perch on a high windowsill, comic in his lap, and alternate between Wolverine and watching the street below for the tiniest signs of movement.
There was one thing that had gotten drilled into every survivors’ head: never put your guard down.
He’d often imagine himself as Scott Summers, fearless saviour of the world, wondering how this all would have happened if mutants existed. And then time would tick by too quickly, and the Sun would warn him to hurry back to the confines of the Haven where his family was waiting for him.
It was an unvoiced yet unanimous rule that no one under the age of fourteen could shut their eyes before everyone was back safe behind metal doors.
There were only about twenty kids in total, a number that declined as they grew older and most refused to have children; it wasn't safe, either for the mother or the child. Amongst them were Quinn and Onawa, both seven years old. They were born after the beginning of the apocalypse, small miracles and attempts at countering extinction. The wise Enapay, the father of Onawa and the last of both their parents, took Quinn in as his own and endlessly watched over both girls.
People cannot prevent themselves from protecting those that surround them, especially when it all comes down to survival. Bert refused to let anyone be egocentric, because, as she put it, “We all need’a be there for one another in times like these. ‘Specially in times like these. Don’t go being all ‘lone wolf’, we need you’s, and you need us.”
Stiles carried his bag to the kitchen where Benny was busy preparing supper; old canned peas and old canned peaches, with a side of old, stale almonds.
“Hey, kid, get anything good?”
“I haven’t seen good food in five years,” Stiles said, sliding over three jars of peanut butter and a bunch of canned meat.
Benny eyed the meat wearily, but shrugged when he remembered that it was meat, something they didn't see that often.
“You did good. Mind plating some of this with me?”
The long table in the adjacent room began to fill with hungry, tired people. No one ever really got a break, always working on something to keep everything else going.
There was an empty seat next to Margaux, a strong and talented girl in the domain of blowing things up, but Stiles didn't think too much about it.
“You’re excused,” Natasha announced, gliding past both of them to pick up some plates. She arched her eyebrow at Stiles, nodding at two platters set aside, “Go eat, and bring Derek his meal.”
Benny gave him a look, one that mainly conveyed I’m not saying you should do what she says, but do what she says.
He exhaled exaggeratedly, knowing full well that he had no choice in the matter.
Derek wasn't on his cot, staring intently at the wall like he usually did, nor was he in the shop where most things broken were repaired.
From there, Stiles crossed out every place in the Haven with possible human activity, which only left the Study, where certain important books about health and healing were stored.
Derek was practically hunched over himself, reading a dusty, falling-apart-in-your-hands manual that Stiles couldn't determine the subject of.
He put Derek’s meal on a small table proximate to his spot on the floor, took a couple steps back, then attempted getting comfortable on the hard splintered wood.
The man in front of him didn't bother to look up, mainly because he'd known it was Stiles the minute he'd reached the doorway. He ignored him, though, intent on finishing whatever he had started.
It was a secret to no one that Derek felt things, blindly hidden and all too showing, for Stiles, things that no one, not even himself, could understand. The feelings somehow seemed to have been there from the beginning of it all. It was a subject barely ever approached, and Derek refused to say a word about it. He sometimes let it show in his words, in the expressions his deep set features would let slide and in the way he subconsciously watched over Stiles.
Stiles. on the other hand, was a complete asshole to Derek, which further baffled him on the presence of these feelings. Not that it bothered him, not like it used to.
He remembers some awful things said to Derek with barely any care of the latter’s emotional state, which had been dented pretty badly over the years.
He also remembers how none of his words ever seemed to affect Derek, because getting a reaction from him was a hardship of its own.
“Tom got the solar panels out back to work again,” he supplied, pushing soggy peas around on his plate. His appetite hadn't returned since his near face-to-face encounter with death earlier that day.
Still, his words incited no reaction.
Stiles wasn't all that surprised; he’d been a dick and Derek wasn't one to talk.
He cleared his throat, rubbing the palms of his hands over his knees impatiently. There was the tiniest presence of an apology at the tip on his tongue, but Stiles bit it down. No way was he going to break, not after all the other times he's gotten away with being an ass.
He sat up straighter, mouth open and ready to say something moderately offending to get a reaction out of the guy, but said guy beat him to it.
“You can leave if you want, Natasha won’t kill you.”
Derek was almost as good as Natasha at knowing everything. When he was thirteen, Benny and Natasha had started taking him with them on daily patrols and some Raider assignments, training him from a young age to be one of the strongest people, physically and psychologically, amongst the inhabitants of the Haven.
“Actually, she will. And either way, being here is better than having to watch Clyde pile fork-loads of food into his mouth while he explicitly recites every detail of how he managed to lift another 20 pounds.”
Truth was, he had no trouble looking away from Clyde as he ate, focusing rather on mapping out safe routes in his mind, but right then, he felt like he needed to stay by Derek. Oddly enough.
The guy needed company, be it by someone he hated or liked, or both.
They didn't bring up the earlier fiasco, which prevented them from arguing like every other time they were in each others company.
By seven o’clock, few words had been exchanged, except a non-verbal apology on Stiles’ behalf had been accepted and Derek no longer had to sit on his hands so prevent himself from doing something he might regret.
Bert’s smooth voice scratched through the handheld transceiver attached to Derek’s waist, announcing it was time to make rounds and seal off the Haven.
They parted ways at the door, Derek going off to the top floor while Stiles turned to the North wing, taking a look over his shoulder to make sure Derek wasn't still angry.
To assure complete lockdown, the Haveners were divided into eight groups, one for each floor of the building. Every precaution had been taken to protect those inside from those outside, nighttime being when walker activity was at its highest and most dangerous. They would venture in from all parts of Chicago and its surrounding cities, conglomerating around the urban district where the refuge just so happened to be.
Sometimes, by pressing your ear to the metal walls, you could faintly hear their moans and screeches, sounds so terrifying Stiles always slept with a pillow pressed to his ears.
Their hunger for human flesh heightened at dark and so did their senses, hence why no one was allowed out at night.
Stiles often ventured from one group to another during the lockdowns, mentally checking off every area possible. His stress often leveled up to anxiety and paranoia, because his worst fear was allowing the zombies a free entry to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
That night, he purposely walked past Derek’s bunk, quick enough to go unseen by the man reading squinty-eyed under the light of his flashlight. He couldn't exactly explain his actions, nor could he justify to himself a good enough reason for walking through a room at one side of the Haven when his bed was in another wing.
Wednesday started slowly, it being Stiles’ “day-off”. He hadn't been assigned as Raider that day, nor did he have chores to do around the building.
Work was mandatory for everyone, had been since the day Bert got the place going, because it kept things rolling and distracted from the whole zombie apocalypse situation.
He crossed another day off on the calendar he’d made the year before with his nearly dry black pen -his trusty black pen-, and counted the days until winter: 111.
Winter made things a little trickier, although it was never as bad as his first couple years hidden away in Toronto, Canada, when temperatures reached -30 and heating was scarce. Those many, many days had been torture, and he’d seen his fair share of frozen bodies and lost members to never want to have to go through it, or let anyone else go through it, ever again. Solar energy helped immensely; the power distributer stored extra energy and supplied them with just enough on dark, cold, stormy days. Stiles didn't like to think about all the lives they could’ve saved with their developed technology a couple years before.
That, of course, was something he didn't allow himself to think about for more than a minute. It never ended well, the panic attacks he dealt with in the confines of a closet or bathroom so no one would hear him.