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Being a reaper didn't make Stiles fear death any less. If anything, being aware of the process made the mystery of what happened after even more terrifying. He knew the cold pull of the dark, the building suffocation of one's consciousness, the desperate expression the dying made when realizing they were fading into nothing.
Most days, he tried not to think about it. He carried on the majority of his life without the whole reaper thing getting in the way. He still went to school, still got mixed up in werewolf problems, still ran for his life more times than he preferred. If a note showed up in his pocket, he would steal off to the bathroom or wait until he got home or even just waited until Scott started talking about Allison. All he had to do was open the note, read the name sprawled on the paper in his head, and he would be off to run death’s errands.
The reaping process was unpredictable. Stiles wasn't sure if there was supposed to be some kind of training for this job, but he certainly never got it. Sometimes he'd be whisked off to an old lady sleeping peacefully, and sometimes he'd be dropped in the middle of a busy plaza in Shanghai with everyone looking very much alive and healthy. Sometimes the person who was supposed to die would be able to see him, and sometimes they wouldn't and be completely shocked and unprepared when he reaped them. The living could never see him, and he hoped that they wouldn't see him anytime soon.
When Stiles found the person who was supposed to die, he simply had to touch them. Everything would fade to white and the person--their soul or whatever it was that this whole process dealt in--would drop, become weightless and fade slowly, like ink dropping into water. Stiles hated watching this part. Sometimes they would accept death easily and just give in to the pull, but sometimes they would try and fight back, only to have the tow become stronger and colder.
When it was over, the note would disintegrate, crumble into nothing. Stiles would return to his reality and immediately store the experience in the back of his mind under the very large file labeled: Reaper (Do Not Open Unless You Want To Become A Total Wreck). No one ever noticed since he would return from his reaping trip at the same point in time from which he left. If he got off topic, he could just blame it on his ADHD.
His life went on like that, and he was just fine with having the burden of being death's middleman so long as he could keep pushing it to the back of his mind without side effects.
Then he started dating Derek Hale. Which, what? He thought he had been so comically out of sourwolf's league he might as well have been a plant. Evidently, as Derek liked to point out embarrassingly often, this was a stupid comparison and Stiles should stop being so self-deprecating.
His tendency to be harsh on himself probably stemmed from the witnessing-death-several-times-a-week-in-a-super-creepy-reaper-way, but his hot werewolf boyfriend and the looming mess of the alpha pack distracted Stiles. Confronting his reaper-induced mental defects was not a thing high on his priority list.
"Stiles. Stiles." Derek was leaning forward to shake him when Stiles came back from reaping a particularly stubborn drunk driver. It had been more harrowing than usual, and Stiles may have had zoned out for a moment after returning to reality.
"What?" he snapped, uncomfortably shifting in the driver's seat of his jeep. Derek was sitting in the passenger's seat, staring at him with concerned eyes.
"Are you okay?" He slid his hand onto Stile's thigh, grabbing his hand.
Sometimes Stiles thought Derek could tell when he went off to reap. Somehow, he could tell that the lapses in attention were shrouded by something darker than a lack of adderall. He doubted any of Derek's suspicions were anywhere close to the truth, but it still put him off a bit, since no one had ever suspected Stiles was anything other than ordinary before.
"I'm fine," Stiles gave the man a small smile, squeezing his hand before sitting up to stretch in his seat. They were parked out of sight near a bar on the northern edge of Beacon Hills, performing some kind of stakeout operation. Which, Stiles had thought would have been much more exciting than the three hour snooze-fest that it actually was. Derek shut him up every time someone walked out of the bar, and they had only been able to make out once when a busboy noticed the parked car and they needed a cover. "How much longer do we have to sit here? I know Scott said he thought he smelled one of the alphas around this dive yesterday, but that was yesterday and Scott 'thought he smelled' is very different from 'seeing an alpha walk out of this specific bar.'"
"Our sense of smell is more reliable than our eyes sometimes," Derek pointed out.
"I know, but we've been here for hours, and all I've seen is some comically dressed hookers and several counts of adultery."
"You can go to sleep."
"Pff!" Stiles snorted. "And wake up in my bed alone because you are too much of a sap to wake me up yourself?"
Derek huffed, obviously coming to the same realization that their stakeout was kind of off track, but still somehow clinging onto some threads of stubbornness.
"Also," Stiles started, crossing his arms over his wheel and propping his head on his forearms to look at the werewolf sideways, "I know you know I've been half hard since our make out cover, and I for one don't think we should let the imaginary, no-show alpha cockblock our evening."
Derek gave him a somewhat incredulous look, although it was softened by the slight embarrassed blush that crossed his cheeks. Stiles knew for a fact that his boyfriend tracked his level of sexual stimulation like a hawk, and he liked to use that fact to his advantage with possibly some teasing at the werewolf's expense.
"So are you gonna take me home and fuck me senseless or do I have to deal with this myself?"
Derek's lip twitched, and he half nodded, half put his face in his hand and mumbled, "Just start the car."
Stiles couldn't contain a tiny fist pump of success as he put the key in the ignition.
--
It had been a rough couple of weeks, with everyone on edge, especially Derek The whole reason they were looking for an alpha on their stakeout was because the alpha pack had moved onto Beacon Hills, made some pretty nasty attacks against Derek's pack, and then mysteriously vanished to some extremely well hidden base. Derek had become obsessed with finding it, forcing the pack into a buddy system and having them scour Beacon Hills for any trace of the alpha's secret hideout.
Stiles' reaper job was oddly quiet. Usually he'd get a dozen or so notes in a week, but he had maybe gotten four or five in the last month. Not that Stiles was complaining, the job wasn't the most fun he could imagine, but it did provide some form of release from the stress of his current reality. Going off and doing a reaping always made him realize that the rest of the world carried on even if his own world seemed to be going to hell. Other people still died from old age or accidents or petty murders, and they never had to deal with supernatural teenage angst on a daily basis. It grounded him, in a way.
So when he felt the weight of the note in his pocket while he and the sheriff were cleaning up after dinner, Stiles instinctively pushed his hand into his pocket, grabbing the paper. It had been two weeks since he last had a reaping job, and that had been in during the stakeout. Since then, Derek had only gotten more obsessed with finding the alpha pack. He and Stiles fought constantly, Stiles stubbornly insisting that Derek could not in fact lock him up surrounded by mountain ash.
He turned away from his dad and pulled out the note, unfolding it and reading the name scrawled in a sloppy script.
"No," Stiles gasped before he was whisked away, landing on the forest floor with a thud. He groaned as he sat up, scrambling for the note he had dropped in the process.
He read the name again. No no no no this wasn't fair, this had to be wrong, this had to be some coincidence, a different person with the same name, he couldn't-
An alpha werewolf blew through him, laughing mockingly as she ran. Stiles shuddered. He hated when people walked through him in his reaper state. He heard Derek snarl behind him, running right past him and chasing after the alpha.
Stiles choked when he saw him. He was running fast, but Stiles could make out the telltale sign of death licking at his shoulders. Black wisps of smoke billowed from his body, something only a reaper could see. It was the way they could affirm who they were reaping without necessarily getting the name of the person on the note.
Stiles' mouth went dry and he shook his head, "I can't–" he started before he lurched forward, his reaper state forcing him to follow Derek and the alpha further into the woods. His legs were buckling, unable to actually walk. He just started floating along, white wisps flaring out from his legs.
The alpha stopped, turning on Derek with a sudden lunge. They clawed and snapped at each other, before the girl jumped into a tree, cackling as Derek paced below her.
"Aww, the big bad wolf can't climb a tree, can he, Derek?" she called.
"I'm just contemplating the best way to snap your neck from down here," Derek scowled up at her, eyes flaring red.
"Sure thing, sweetheart. Are you always this romantic with your little boyfriend or am I just special? What was his name? Stiles?"
"He has nothing to do with this," he snarled. "You don't want my pack, you just want me to join your pathetic alpha club."
"Course he does!" the girl laughed, shooting Derek a smile dripping with bad intentions. "Just think of how much you'd want to join our pack if we had our own very Stiles. We'd have to turn him of course. Hopefully he'd survive, although I don't know if I'd be able to keep my paws off of him–!"
Derek growled and jumped up at her, resuming their fight, Derek becoming more vicious and focused on the alpha.
Stiles watched this whole thing undetected in the reaper world, anger silently building inside of him. He was furious at Derek, who was obviously alone, abandoning his own buddy system, and he was furious at the piece of paper in his pocket, telling him to do something he absolutely couldn't do.
Derek was leaping at the alpha when another werewolf attacked him from the side. There was immediately blood all over the white shirt Derek was wearing under his jacket, and Stiles screamed, although no one heard it. Derek acted fast, turning on the new alpha with vicious speed, grabbing the werewolf's head and snapping it with a sickening crack.
The girl alpha screamed from the tree she had jumped back up into. The now dead alpha, a boy not much older than Stiles, lay on the ground, red eyes fading to a pale, vacant blue.
Derek shot up, nostrils flaring, backing off from the dead body.
"Yeah, you smell that, Derek?!" the girl alpha shouted hysterically from the tree. "We're coming for you now, and you're so DEAD!"
Derek scowled at her one last time before taking off in a direction Stiles hoped was the opposite from where the incoming alpha pack was. Stiles felt the reaper’s pull of Derek's retreat, looked at the dead body, and lunged at it before he could be whisked away. He grabbed the guy's arm and watched him fade to nothing.
Stiles was dropped back in his own body in the kitchen of his house. He fell to the ground, dropping the plate he had in his hand. It shattered on the floor.
"Stiles?!" His dad was at his side, helping him up.
"I'm fine, I'm fine, dad," Stiles reassured him, clutching at his throbbing head. "I just suddenly got a migraine, I…I'm going to go to bed, if that's okay."
The sheriff gave him a long, uncertain look before nodding. "Yes, of course. Are you okay, though?"
"Yeah, yeah," Stiles waved him off as he walked out of the kitchen. "Sorry about the plate."
The second he had the door closed behind him, Stiles collapsed on the ground. He was breathing fast, his chest clamping up around his heart. Something wet dripped onto his hand. His nose was bleeding.
He grabbed a handful of kleenex and shoved it at his nose, pinching it to keep the blood from getting onto the floor. He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe slowly, eventually feeling the panic subside.
His nose stopped bleeding, but his chest still felt like it was being pressed in from all sides. The note was still in his pocket. He pulled it out and nearly started heaving again when he saw 'Derek Hale' written on the paper. He folded it back up and put it back in his pocket, not bearing to look at it any longer.
This wasn't fair. Stiles had never been assigned to reap someone he knew. Hell, he rarely got people that resided in California. He sort of assumed that it was some unspoken rule that reapers were never given names of people they knew, much less the person they were dating. It seemed cruel to be faced with this assignment, but Stiles couldn't help remembering when his mom died, before he had become a reaper, and how he had prayed and wished on every fucking star in the sky that he could have some control over death so he could somehow save her. He remembered how she used to try and tell him how death wasn't that scary, that everyone faced it, and that when the time came, it wasn't something a person should try and run away from. It always made him wonder if his mother had been a reaper as well. Maybe the right hand of death was passed down through generations, and when she died, Stiles got handed the torch.
Either way, Stiles got his wish. He now had the control he had wished for when his mother was dying, and he was fucked if he wasn't going to use it to save Derek.
Then he remembered that he had left Derek running for his life from a pack of vicious alphas. Stiles scrambled for his phone, first accidentally throwing it clean across the room from his bedside table before lunging at it and hitting the speed dial assigned to Derek's number.
He waited an excruciating five rings before the werewolf picked up, sounding a little out of breath. "Stiles?" a hint of strangled concern in his voice.
"Where the fuck are you?" Stiles asked sharply.
"…I'm at the house," Derek answered slowly, taken off guard by Stile's harsh tone.
He may have started to say something else, but Stiles didn't hear it as he hung up and crawled out his window. He started his car and drove, not caring if his dad could hear him leave after bailing on doing dishes for supposedly having a migraine.
Stiles’ phone was vibrating, but he only pressed his foot to the gas harder, ignoring the blue light coming from his pocket. His chest still hurt. It hadn't stopped clenching after his panic attack subsided or even after he heard Derek's voice. It wasn't just the fear that Derek's was supposed to die that made his chest constrict. It was the fact that he hadn't reaped him. Stiles had only ever reaped the wrong person once, accidentally, and it had been haunting, to say the least. He knew what would happen to him if he didn't fix this. He still had the note in his pocket. He knew what he was supposed to do. He also knew it was absolutely not going to happen if he had any say in the matter.
His jeep skidded to a stop in front of the Hale house. Stiles practically did a somersault getting out of the car, ripping the door to the house open with a slam, made louder by the echoey nature of the house that was still more ruins than a livable building.
"Hey Stiles," Isaac greeted him slowly, eyebrows raised. Boyd and Erica were there too, sitting off in the corner eating a pizza.
"Where--" Stiles started when Derek walked in from his bedroom, frowning more than usual. He was wearing a different shirt, apparently discarding the white one he had gotten bloody in the fight against the alphas.
Stiles charged forward and pushed Derek back into the room, leaving the pack speechless behind them.
"Where the hell were you?" Stiles had to force himself to keep his voice down, the contractions around his chest making his anger at Derek's recklessness more intense.
"I--" Derek stepped back, giving Stiles a confused glare. "What? I was here, what is wrong with you?"
He made a move towards Stiles, hand reaching out to his elbow. Stiles jerked away, slapping his arm away. Derek winced, hand going to his injured side. "You're lying. You tried to find the alpha pack on your own, didn't you?"
Derek looked surprised. "Who told you? It was Erica, wasn't it?"
"Hey! I didn't say anything!" Erica shouted from behind the door.
Derek glared at the door. "Get out, all of you!" he ordered, irritated by the pack's obvious eavesdropping. There was grumbling and shuffling as the three werewolves left them alone.
"She didn't tell me. It only took me one look at you to know you have an injury that is not healing. And if you have an injury that your dumb werewolf body can't fix right away, it must mean you took on another alpha, which you probably did by yourself because no one else even has a scratch on them." Stiles crossed his arms, giving the werewolf what he hoped was a furious look.
"I…" Derek stared at him, not used to seeing Stiles vibrating with so much anger. "I picked up one of the alpha's scent, and I was just going to follow her and find their hideout, but I--"
"You lost sight and got jumped by the rest of the pack, I'm assuming."
"Yes. Boyd and Erica showed up before they did though. They know we're looking for them now." Derek's expression turned dark for a moment, recalling the girl alpha's threats against Stiles.
Stiles stepped forward. "Okay. It's okay. Just…don't break your own buddy system rule. That's so hypocritical, come on!" His expression softened a bit, his anger finally starting to subside after seeing Derek alive. "Let me see it." Stiles pulled at Derek's shirt, helping him take it off.
"Why did you rush over?" Derek murmured as Stiles grimaced at the red gauge on his abdomen.
"Oh my god you didn't even wash it off. Have you ever heard about infections? Wait--no, don't answer that of course you haven't."
"Stiles."
"Okay I think I hid a first aid kid around here somewhere." Stiles ignored Derek's question and slipped out of the room.
He returned with a little white box and a wet washcloth. Derek was sitting on the bed that Stiles made him buy after the first night of sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Stiles went about cleaning the werewolf's wound, telling him to suck it up when he swabbed the disinfectant on.
"Stiles," Derek started when Stiles finished wrapping the bandage around his chest.
"I just had a feeling," Stiles lied. "I don't know, I was taking a nap and I dreamed that you were dying and I…I…"
"C'mere." Derek pulled him into his lap, so he was straddling the werewolf on the bed. "I get it. I have those dreams too."
Stiles paused for a moment. "Oh my god, is that why you always wake me up with your weird rooftop booty calls in the middle of the night?"
Derek blushed slightly. "Sometimes."
"Good to know," Stiles shrugged. "Look, I just…you have to be more careful. You always tell me that, and it's high fucking time that you take your own advice."
Derek pursed his lips. "They don't want you or the pack. The alphas just want me. It's not worth risking everyone else's safety if I can just deal with it myself."
Stiles hit him on the shoulder, earning a bitten back groan of pain from the injury. "Sorry–no, I mean, you dumbass! Do you think they're going to let the rest of the pack live after you've crossed over or are eliminated or whatever the hell they want with you?! People depend on you now. You can't just go and throw yourself at the problem and expect everyone to accept it. The pack needs you. I need you." He leaned forward and leant his forehead on Derek's shoulder, bringing his arms up around the man's chest. "You dying isn't an option, okay?"
"Okay," Derek mumbled into his hair, warm hand rubbing circles into Stiles' lower back.
Stiles hummed at the touch, arms wrapping tighter around the Derek. The man's touch gave him relief from the clenching of his chest, just enough to let him sigh out some of the stress from over the past hour. It turned out to be momentary, however, as the tightening around his chest returned, even worse than before. Stiles winced, his breath catching in his throat.
Derek was immediately all over him, putting him down on the bed and checking over him for injuries. "Alright, what's wrong with you?"
"I'm fine," Stiles tried to laugh through the pain, making a feeble attempt at pushing Derek away.
"Don't lie to me. Your heartbeat has been off since you walked in." The werewolf pulled up Stiles' shirt to find nothing but unblemished, familiar skin.
"I was angry." Not a lie, but not the whole truth.
Derek eyed him suspiciously. "And you're still angry?"
"Uh." Stupid werewolf senses. "Yes? No? No, I'm not. I just--I had a panic attack when I thought you were-- I don't take the thought of people I love dying very well, Derek."
Derek was silent. Oh, oops, Stiles had not meant to let that slip at that moment. Well, it was true, just presented in a much less flowers-and-shoujo-manga-bubbles way than Stiles had maybe secretly imagined. Then he thought about it. What if he couldn't prevent Derek from getting reaped? What if he failed and they never had another moment like this? Suddenly it seemed very important let the man know his feelings.
"That's right, I love you," Stiles spat out, almost making it sound like a challenge. Yeah, he wasn't so great at the tender confession thing.
Derek flushed a comically perfect shade of pink. Stiles couldn't help the stupid grin that broke out when the werewolf hid his face in Stiles' neck. For a big bad alpha werewolf, Derek had an adorably short tolerance for direct feelings.
"…ve you too," he faintly heard being whispered against his neck. Stiles didn't ask him to say it again, more clearly. He got it and–okay now Derek was scenting him which was weird, but Stiles was sort of weird and they kind of fit. He wrapped his arms around Derek, pulling him closer, not caring if it meant that Scott was going to scrunch up his nose when he saw him for the next few days. Even though his chest still hurt, even though he still felt the weight of the note in his pocket, Stiles was really fucking happy right now. He would hold onto this no matter what happened. Even if he had to bear the weight of an un-reaped name for the rest of his life, Stiles wouldn't let Derek die at his hands.
--
Stiles lasted for a few weeks before he started crumbling under the pressure of the note. He had gotten used to the tightness of his chest, but he had sort of stopped sleeping entirely. He could take a few sleeping pills and get a few hours of rest if he were lucky, but he always woke up heaving, grotesque images of black smoke and blood and mutilation floating in his mind.
Derek was intolerable in his concern over Stiles' deteriorating state. He made sure Stiles was in bed at ten, watched his vitals like a hawk, and even cornered Stiles into going to a doctor.
"You smell like latex," Derek glowered at him from Stiles' bed.
"Yes, well, someone made me go to the doctor despite having a completely clean bill of health," Stiles waved the doctor's note in front of him, which Derek snatched away and tore up.
"Hey! I needed that for school!"
"Sorry," Derek huffed and picked up the now quartered yellow sheet. "I just…I wish I knew what was wrong with you."
"Hey," Stiles leaned over from his desk and touched his knee. "I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me. You're just being a neurotic worrywart."
"I'm not. You…you're starting to smell like death." Derek blurted out, nostrils flaring.
"I--that's creepy." Stiles hadn't known that. The gratuitous scenting sessions made more sense now.
Derek took his hand, covering it with both of his own. "It terrifies me," he whispered.
"You have no idea," Stiles mumbled under his breath.
Derek shot him a weird look. Oh, right, werewolf super hearing.
"Look, I'm fine. The doctor said it was just stress. My lack of sleep and my elevated heart rate, or whatever it is." Stiles got up from his chair, pulling Derek to his feet. "Now, you should go home, because I'm actually tired for probably the first time in a month."
"Are you sure?" Derek's face was still scrunched up, partially in concern, possibly also because Stiles smelled like death.
"Positive. I might not even have to use sleeping pills!" He smiled, actually excited at the idea of having a normal night's sleep.
Derek leaned forward and kissed him. It was sweet and warm and Stiles didn't want to pull away because he was sort of cold, but the lure of sleep was too good to pass up.
"Call me when you wake up," Derek reminded him as he climbed out the window.
Stiles gave him a sleepy salute. "Aye, aye, super boyfriend!"
Derek left with a laugh, and Stiles collapsed on the bed.
--
When he did wake up, he wasn't in control of his body. Stiles thought it was another one of those sleeping paralysis deals where you consciously wake up, but your body hasn't left the sleep cycle yet so you're just stuck paralyzed for a few minutes. That happened a lot to him, even more so in the last month.
Then he started moving, but he still wasn't in control of his body. Internally, he was freaking out. Stiles definitely wasn't dreaming because this adrenaline was way too intense to be mistaken as anything other than reality. He raked his mind through all the weird neurology articles he liked to read. Alien hand syndrome but with your entire body?? Nothing came to mind and it only made him more terrified.
Stiles' body drifted toward the drawer he had hidden the note in. He couldn't bring himself to get rid of it, not sure if in doing so it would effect Derek, so it just sat there, a physical object he could constantly feel.
His hand opened the drawer and shifted through the contents clumsily. It was like he was sleepwalking, but he was awake and someone else was doing the sleepwalking for him. His hand found the note and pulled it out, opening the now heavily creased paper. Stiles tried to fight against the unseen force that was controlling his body. He knew what was happening. The reaper side of his being was taking over. It had only happened once before, when he had accidentally reaped the wrong person, but it had only gotten so far as the chest tightening and really intense sleepwalking before Stiles caved in and let the reaper whisk him away to finish the job. But he had still been in control. This was entirely different. Stiles had purposely ignored the reaper's call for almost a month, and he was too exhausted to fight back.
"Derek Hale," he heard his mouth read aloud, without any emotion or lack of conviction.
Stiles was at the warehouse Derek had used while he was hiding from the Argents. The first thing he saw was blood on the dirty ground right before it was obscured by black smoke. He still wasn't in control of his body, and he was forced to look up where Derek was laying in a pool of his own blood. If Stiles could have screamed he would have. Instead he was silent, the reaper coldly staring at the werewolf barely clinging to life before him.
Derek was propped up against a wheel of the old bus, barely breathing through the blood pouring out of his mouth. He had a hand over his abdomen, which was torn open, and was attempting to hold together. He wasn't healing. There was too much blood on the ground. He was alone. Stiles knew he was done for. Even if he had really been there, even if they had been somehow teleported to a hospital by some miracle, there was no way Derek was coming back from this.
The dying werewolf shuddered, opening his eyes. There was a faint flicker of red that flared before going out. He looked right at Stiles. Right into his eyes, which were cold and uncaring because the reaper had complete control over him.
"Stiles…" Derek croaked out before going limp against the wheel. Black smoke billowed from his body, drifting towards the ghostly white wisps that floated from Stiles' now outstretched hand.
Stiles tried to fight back, but seeing Derek so broken and lifeless took everything out of him. He was hysterical inside his mind, but the body that contained him walked calmly forward to do his job. His hand disappeared through the black smoke surrounding Derek. He felt his fingers brush wet, deathly cold skin.
Derek dropped down as the background around him started to fade to a white abyss. Stiles almost immediately felt relief from the constriction around his chest. He gasped, dropping to his knees as he regained control of his body.
"Derek!" Stiles choked on his own sob, the man's name coming out as more of a muffled cry. He noticed pieces of paper floating away in front of him. He looked at his hand. The note with Derek's name was starting to break apart, disintegrate into nothing.
Stiles looked at Derek in horror. He was almost fully immersed in the black smoke, and the warehouse had completely faded to white. He only had mere moments before Derek would be gone entirely. Without thinking, without even caring, Stiles dived after him.
He didn't know what was going to happen. He would probably die. Or worse. He didn't even know if he could save Derek. Stiles knew that a reaper interfering with the death process after they did their job was absolutely not allowed.
Stiles sunk into the black cloud of mist that Derek had started dissolving into. He felt his body strip away to nothing, becoming ethereal and diluted as he drifted further into darkness.
Then he felt the brush of cold, lifeless skin against his fingers. Stiles wrapped his arms around Derek as best he could, not being able to get a good hold on the man in their zero gravity state. He tried to pull him up, but the black had surrounded them both. Stiles didn't know which way was up or down or dead or living. He didn't even know if he had any leverage in this situation. He may have just jumped into a tar pit and was dragging them both down with his desperate fighting against the dark.
It was starting to get cold. He could feel the adrenaline drain out of his body, his heart rate dwindling to nothing. Stiles looked at Derek. He looked dead, his eyes shut, dark circles surround them. There was no color to his face. Everything was black and white, but mostly just dark. Stiles pulled Derek up to him, kissing him for probably the last time as they sunk into death.
"I'm sorry," he whispered against his lips.
Stiles flinched when he felt Derek's arm wrap around him. There was suddenly warmth coming from him, and Stiles trembled when he felt the man move against him. Then the black was gone, the white around them started to fade, the warehouse coming back into view, reality slowly grounding them both once more.
"Stiles?" Derek groaned through the blood still in his mouth.
Stiles blinked. Somehow, by some grace or out of pure stubbornness, they were both alive. Stiles didn’t feel any different after breaking the one reaper rule he knew. He felt alive, and Derek looked alive except for the blood and the fact that he was holding his insides together.
"Oh my god!" Stiles pulled up Derek's shredded, bloody shirt. There was blood everywhere and he couldn't tell what was wound and what wasn't. He tried to move Derek's hand away, which was pawing at the torn flesh, trying to keep it in place. The moment he touched the werewolf's skin, Derek's breath hitched sharply. "Oh shit, I'm so sorry, I-"
Derek grabbed his wrist, pushing his hand back onto his stomach. "No. Stay." He coughed as he spoke, his breath slowly becoming calmer.
Stiles' eyes widened as he felt the skin beneath him repair and heal. The blood was even disappearing, the red pool around them fading like it had never even been there. Whatever he had done by pulling Derek up from the grip of death, it had fucking worked. His werewolf healing powers were working at full throttle now, repairing Derek at a record pace.
"Okay," Stiles said slowly, hand still on Derek's now healed stomach. "Are you...okay?"
Derek sat up a little, internally checking himself over. "Yeah, I think so."
He tried to get up, but Stiles pushed him back down with an angry huff. "You stay there, mister. You. Were. Dead. Do you get that? You died. I watched you die. You broke your promise and I had to watch you die and I couldn't do anything."
Stiles trembled from sheer exhaustion. He was kneeling next to Derek, wearing the clothes he went to bed in. Stiles wasn't in his reaper form any more. He had apparently been transported fully to the warehouse while he was being controlled by his souped-up auto-reaper mode.
"But you did do something, didn't you?" Derek asked quietly, staring at Stiles.
"I…" Stiles paled. He hadn't realized that saving Derek would mean revealing his reaper secret until now. "…did a thing, yes."
"Stiles." Derek gave him a narrowed look.
"Hey, you're not dead and I'm not dead and no one is dead and everything is perfect so don't--"
"Stiles. What did you do? What was that? All I remember was black smoke and you pulling me out."
"I…may have sort of un-reaped your mortal soul?" Stiles blurted out.
Derek blinked. "What…what does that mean?"
"I…don't know, actually. Reapers don't exactly get a manual, so I'm just winging it, really--"
"Hold on." Derek grabbed him by the shoulders. "You're a…a reaper?"
"Yes…?" Stiles' heart was hammering in his chest. He had never told anyone about this before and the last person he wanted to reveal his creepy secret to was the guy he was dating. "Derek? I know it's insane, but--"
"No," Derek sighed, but didn't look less confused. "No, it's just--I had been told stories as a kid, but I had always thought reapers were you know, legends. I never thought..."
"Wait. You've heard of reapers before?" Stiles grabbed at Derek's jacket. "You have to tell me everything, holy fuck you probably know more about this than I do and--oh god do you have a secret werewolf book of the dead? Please tell me you do I have been following dead ends--oh gross, pun, sorry--for years and--"
Derek cut him off with a kiss, swallowing his complaint about online encyclopedias with his tongue. "Stiles," Derek broke their kiss, grinning a little. "There's no book. They were just bedtime stories."
"Oh my god, your parents told you reaper bedtime stories? No wonder you're always so grumpy!"
Derek ignored him and stood up, pulling Stiles to his feet. "You don't smell like death any more."
"Thanks?" Stiles staggered a little when he stood up. The relief in his chest was so relaxing that he was finally starting to realize how tired he actually was. Derek caught him, making an unhappy huffing noise.
"Your heartbeat isn't off either. Does this have something to do with the reaper thing?"
"Yeah." Stiles bit his lip. "I was kinda supposed to reap you a month ago and I chose not to. Not the best for the body, but what can you do?"
"Stiles." Derek gave him a stern look.
"Okay, see, this is why you can't go off running on your own to sacrifice yourself. Because I'm going to be the one that is going to have to reap you, and that is something I will not do! So, reckless werewolf boyfriend equals slowly dying on the inside reaper Stiles." He hit Derek for good measure.
"Right," Derek looked guilty, averting his gaze. "Sorry, I'm going to have to get used to the whole dating a reaper deal."
Stiles laughed. "Now you know how I feel about werewolves on a daily basis. Also, please tell me you parked the camaro close by. I am about two minutes away from passing out cold from exhaustion."
"Yeah, it's around back." Derek put an arm around Stile's waist, helping him from falling over as they walked out of the warehouse.
They'd deal with the alpha pack later. Stiles would try and answer Derek's questions about his reaper job, but it would be less answers and more Stiles giving animated shrugs emphasizing his lack of concrete knowledge on the matter. Derek would try and chastise Stiles about jumping after him in his suicidal attempt to un-reap his soul, but Stiles would only turn it against him to attack him on his recklessness. For now, Stiles would fall asleep against Derek's side while he drove him home, and Derek would carry him into his room through the open window, and not leave his side until Stiles woke up 22 hours later.