Chapter Text
Something is happening in the city. Derek's not sure what, but his dreams have been even more wretched than usual lately, and he's been called out to help no less than six possessed people in ten days, each one harder than the last.
This most recent one is the worst. It's in the body of a boy around ten and is restrained to a bed with thick rope. It's turned the boy's dark skin a gangrenous shade, and his brown eyes a jaundiced yellow.
"Fuck, I hate when it's kids," Stiles says from just behind Derek's shoulder.
Derek used to try to leave Stiles in the car, because Stiles is just supposed to drive Derek where he needs to go and then wait for him. But there's no leaving Stiles anywhere when he wants to be involved. It really only worked the once. Kind of. Okay it never worked. Stiles is a stubborn little shit, Derek has learned in the year since he cornered Derek on the street and hired himself as Derek's driver. Derek's still not sure how that happened.
Derek nods a greeting at Father Boyd, who called him in, and then strides to the bed, ignoring the ten or so family members gathered in the cramped one bedroom apartment. The scavenger demon inside the kid bares its teeth. "Derek Hale," it hisses at him.
Then it looks past Derek, to where Stiles is, and it cackles and starts thrashing violently. Stiles yelps and stumbles a bit, but Derek just reaches into his jacket for the keyring of small sigils he carries with him. He's resting the third one against the thing's cheek—no luck—when it breaks free of one of the arm restraints.
Derek grabs the arm and leans all of his weight down on it. "Hold him down!" Derek calls out. When Stiles comes to Derek's side, Derek shoulders him back. "No. Go find us a mirror. The larger the better."
Five people come forward to keep the kid's body, infused with the desperate strength of the scavenger, down. It shouldn't be this strong. Shouldn't have this much of a hold in the kid. Not unless it's been in there for a long while.
Derek just barely manages to not be bucked off the thing's arm. Two others aren't so lucky, and the scavenger gets a leg free just as Stiles comes back in with what looks like a mirrored sliding closet door. Boyd takes one side of it and they're about to position it over the kid's body when it frees its other two limbs and throws everyone, including Derek, off of it.
Derek fumbles immediately for the keychain and pushes to his feet. The scavenger grins, too wide and full of rotting teeth, and then launches itself from the bed and right for--
Stiles. It goes right for Stiles. Son of a bitch.
Derek is moving before he realizes he should, scrambling across the room to where the thing has both hands wrapped around Stiles' neck. Stiles is kicking at it with his feet and trying to pry its hands away, but the thing just cackles and spits.
Derek's hands are shaking as he goes through the sigils, fast and frantic, with one hand, the other trying to help Stiles get it off his neck. One sigil after another fails to elicit a response, and Derek is freaking out, but the tenth one, the tenth one makes the thing hiss and rear back. Derek curls his lips into a sneer and presses the copper sigil against its forehead with all of his strength.
He bears the thing back onto the floor, straddles its hips, and snarls, "The mirror."
Boyd managed to keep hold of it when the scavenger tackled Stiles. He brings it over now, stands behind Derek and holds the door panel directly over the scavenger. Derek turns its head with his free hand and smiles meanly when its eyes widen, enchanted and distracted. He levers himself off the kid as he chants the words to free the kid from the scavenger, so that when he finishes the last word he isn't in the way when the scavenger is sucked out of the kid and into the mirror.
Derek tries to get to his feet quickly enough to help Boyd balance the mirror against the impact, but Stiles is already there, wheezing for air, tears streaming down his face, and a ring of bruises coming up around his throat.
Stiles and Boy hold onto the mirror while the scavenger fights them in it. "You can't protect him, Derek Hale."
Derek curls his hands into fists and glares. "Break it."
Just before Stiles and Boyd smash the mirror against a walls, shattering it to pieces, the scavenger hisses something that starts with a Z sound but is completely incomprehensible to Derek. Stiles, though, goes wide-eyed and scared.
The family members rush forward to embrace the kid and to thank Derek and Stiles. Derek looks at the way Stiles is pale with shock and leads him out of the apartment. Honestly, he's glad for the reason to avoid the teary gratitude. He's never quite sure what he's supposed to do in the face of it.
Outside of the building, Stiles leans against the car while Derek talks to Boyd, who followed them out.
"Is the kid in your parish?" Derek asks.
Boyd nods, face troubled. "He took Communion two days ago, Derek."
Derek blinks. If the scavenger was in there that short of a time, and was that strong, it wasn't just hitching a ride. It was trying to come through. "Fuck."
*
Derek takes Stiles' keys and drives them away. Stiles doesn't argue which speaks volumes to how crappy he must be feeling; Stiles can, and has, argued with Derek about practically everything, the more ridiculous and mundane the better.
Stiles is also strangely quiet on the ride. It could be because of his throat, but Derek thinks it has to be about whatever the scavenger said right before it got sent back to hell. Derek doesn't ask during the drive, or even during the ride up the old freight elevator to the loft.
Derek's not sure how Stiles ended up living with him. It just sort of happened about a month after Stiles hired himself, and Derek didn't realize it until he went to brush his teeth one morning and saw the second toothbrush on the counter. He woke Stiles, who was contorted awkwardly on the couch that was his bed, and held the toothbrush out like an accusation. All Stiles did was take it and mutter, "Didn't realize you were so sensitive to morning breath, dude."
"Don't call me dude," Derek said, and Stiles stumbled towards the bathroom. Derek let it go.
They go through the door and Derek strips off his leather jacket, tosses it over the back of a chair, and points Stiles in the direction of the kitchen. "Sit."
When Derek turns around from grabbing the first aid kit out of a cabinet, Stiles is perched on the counter, head bowed. Derek touches his chin with two fingers, gently urges his head up and back. The bruising already looks bad, and will look even worse before it starts getting better.
Derek soaks a cloth in diluted witch hazel and steps closer. Stiles parts his knees, eyes lowered. Derek folds the cloth and holds it carefully across the bruising. He moves the cloth up and down as gently as he can, to rub the liquid in. After a bit, he sets aside the cloth and dries off Stiles' skin, then reaches for a flexible cold pack. Stiles wraps his fingers around Derek's wrist to hold him off.
"Let me get those scratches on your face, first," he says, his voice a little raspy and dry-sounding.
Derek starts, one hand reaching up to his face. He grimaces when he touches them. Stiles bats his hand away. "Stop that. I'm already grossed out wondering what that thing might have done with the kid's hands, and what could be gouged into your skin."
Derek rolls his eyes, sets the ice pack aside, and shifts the kit so that Stiles can reach it easily. Stiles pulls out what he needs, and Derek turns his head to the side so that Stiles can sweep a cotton ball soaked in peroxide across the scrapes. He hisses through his teeth and Stiles smirks.
"Big bad demon fighter," Stiles teases.
Derek glowers. "Shouldn't you not talk?"
Stiles' smirk spreads into a grin. "It's not that bad. Between me and you, the thing couldn't get a hard enough grip to do as much damage as it could have."
Stiles tosses the cotton ball on the counter and takes out a tube of ointment and a gauze pad. His touch is soft as he applies the ointment to the scratches, but Derek balks when he reaches for tape and another pad.
"I won't make you leave the loft with the bandage on your face, but you need to cover it up for now."
Derek sighs. "I really wish you weren't friends with a doctor."
Actually, he wishes that for more than one reason. Lydia does not approve of Stiles being involved in this shit (and how she's aware of it, Derek doesn't know) and blames Derek. She's especially vitriolic towards him whenever she has to treat Stiles for something beyond his and Derek's basic capabilities. When it's Derek she has to treat, she's meanly smug and hard-handed.
Stiles rolls his eyes and rips off a piece of tape. "Yeah, because an infection on your face is the fashion accessory of the season."
When the scratches are bandaged, Derek lifts Stiles from the counter by his hips and sets him on his feet. "Go change."
While Stiles is in the bathroom, Derek strips himself down and pulls on a pair of sweat pants. He doesn't bother with a shirt, never does. Stiles comes out in a pair of shorts and a worn t-shirt and Derek presses the ice pack into his hand as he passes. "On the couch, keep your head elevated and take it off--"
"After ten minutes," Stiles finishes. "I know. I was there for the first aid course Lydia gave us. Relax."
Stiles settles down with his laptop and pulls up an episode of Battlestar Galactica. It seems to be his comfort TV show, which makes no sense because Derek thinks it's the most depressing thing ever made.
It's almost eight at night, too early for sleeping, and so Derek settles himself at the rickety table between the kitchen and living areas and busies himself with filling up small, portable containers with holy water from giant jugs that line the walls. He glances up at Stiles now and then, notices the pull of his brows and the way he chews nervously on his thumb.
Near to ten, Stiles puts the laptop aside and goes for the bookshelves that surrounds the arched window at the back of the room. Stiles' collection of books were brought into the loft one box at a time and were originally stacked around the couch. After Derek tripped over a pile and sprained his ankle, he told Stiles to do something with them or he'd take them out back and burn them.
Stiles came home two days later with a bunch of wood and power tools. Watching him try to build a bookcase was frustrating and amusing for Derek, and also the reason why Lydia forced first aid lessons on them. Derek waited until he went to visit Scott for a weekend, then disassembled the rickety, lopsided monstrosity Stiles had "built" and which leaned precariously against the wall at a sixty degree angle.
It only took him a few hours to make the shelves and install them around the window. Stiles didn't stop smiling for days and Derek made himself scarce due to not knowing how to deal with Stiles' pleased reaction.
Derek has moved on from holy water to cleaning his guns. He finishes the last, puts them up, and moves to sit in a chair by the sofa that Stiles is stretched out on. Stiles has the ice pack back on and is yawning as he turns the pages of a book.
"Stiles." Stiles looks up briefly, then starts chewing on his thumbnail again, the book falling closed on his lap. "What did it say. What was that word."
Stiles fidgets and then sighs and drags a hand down his face. "It said Zdzisława. It's my name. My real name."
Today wasn't the first time Derek's heard something say that word, say Stiles' true name. Derek sucks in a breath. "Get dressed, we're going to see Deaton."