Chapter Text
So Stiles is… some kind of evil demon creature now. Which is, you know, different. And kind of annoying given all the trouble he’s put into not becoming a werewolf.
You’d think, after all the time he’d spent cavorting (although totally not cavorting because that’s a stupid word) with dark creatures, he’d have learned to protect himself by now. But in his defense, he’s never come across a single instance of someone being turned into any kind of a creature of the night by an angry four year old at two in the afternoon in a public place before.
He’d just been walking through town, thinking about maybe getting a smoothie, when this demented little kid had rushed across the street and sunk its horribly pointy little teeth into Stiles’ bare arm. He hadn't thought much about it, beyond a kind of generalized ‘kids today are all psychos’ and maybe a bit of ‘why does the Universe hate me so much?’. Although looking back, the mom had been awfully apologetic. There’d been tears and hand wringing and she’d tried to drag him to hospital. In retrospect, he probably should have let her.
He hasn’t told the others yet because, well mostly because it’s seriously embarrassing, and also because he’s the man with the facts and he has no idea what’s going on. After the kid bit him he’d gone home and fallen instantly asleep. He has vague memories of bloody, disturbing dreams and the impression that pain had happened and then he’d woken up with that nagging feeling of craving something really specific but not knowing what it is. He’d poked around in the kitchen and rejected pretty much everything, until he’d found a couple of raw steaks at the bottom of the fridge. He didn’t think about it, just grabbed and bit. His first though was ‘oh thank god’ and his second was that, while this was certainly better than anything else in the fridge, it was still really unsatisfying. Kinda like getting a veggie burger when what you wanted was steak. Since he was eating raw steak, he really didn’t want to think about what it might be he really wanted.
Despite the craving still gnawing at his gut, he’d resisted eating the second steak. He could ignore it long enough to hit Google. The trouble was that he had had pretty much nothing to go on. A search for ‘demonic toddlers’ had got him some really weird YouTube links and something about a series of horrible murders in South Korea. Nothing helpful
Despite having slept all afternoon, he found himself exhausted by ten. Normally he sleeps spread out on the bed, taking up all available space and generally kicking the quilt onto the floor. That night though, he found himself shivering, despite the warmth, and had gathered every spare quilt and blanket he could find and arranged them into a kind of nest. He curled up in the center, doing his best to ignore the hunger burning inside him, and fell into a fitful sleep.
He wakes to the weird sensation of being hungry twice over, once for human food and once for something which he’s really not ready to think about yet. It takes him a moment, still dopey with sleep, to fight his way out of the blankets tangled around him. He pulls on clothes, though not with his usual randomness; letting some pressing instinct he can’t name tell him what to choose.
The second steak is still in the fridge, his dad must have got takeout on the way home from work, so Stiles eats it, and this time he’s conscious enough of what he’s doing to feel a little queasy. He still licks his fingers clean afterwards though. He’s also conscious enough to notice that he can bite through the steak like it’s white bread. He prods carefully at his teeth with his tongue and winces as his mouth fills with blood.
It tastes… weird. Not that he’s some kind of freaky blood connoisseur or anything, but he’s been bullied and generally injured enough to recognize the taste of his own blood, and this isn’t it. This is sweeter than blood and spicy like it’s been laced with chili, and thin too, like cordial that’s got too much water added.
He’s seriously considering taking the day off from school and trying again to figure out what the hell’s going on, but since he’s still got nothing to go on, and his dad is threatening to stop helping him with his gas bills if he doesn’t stop skipping all the time, he grabs his bag and heads out.
He expects Scott to notice something, the fact that he’s now eating only raw meat if nothing else, but apparently there was more method to his madness than usual this morning because Scott wrinkles his nose when he sees him and says, “Dude, when’s the last time you washed?”
He’s pretty sure it was yesterday so he sniffs his clothes and some part of his brain he didn’t know he possessed tells him they smell of human. Unwashed teenage male human, but human is the thing that sticks out. Camouflage. Apparently he’s some kind of ninja now, as well as being an evil flesh eating demon.
Things go okay during the morning. He’s quieter than usual, mulling things over in his mind to the point where Scott actually asks him if he’s overdosed on his Adderall, and he has to force himself to eat his lunch. It all tastes like healthfood. Really really boring, really healthy healthfood. That’s okay though, some days he feels too jittery to really eat. Scott looks even more worried, but he doesn’t mention it. The ADHD is a bit of a sore point.
The problem comes during P.E. They’re just running round and round the playing fields in seemingly endless, pointless circles. He’s finding it easier than usual to keep up with the jocks. He’s not the fastest, certainly, but at least he isn’t embarrassing himself for a change. He’s running behind Danny, wondering vaguely whether he can afford to buy more steak or whether it would have to be something gross like raw ground beef for dinner, when suddenly Danny isn’t in front of him anymore. He stops himself before he actually trips over Danny’s prone body, and then next thing he knows, he’s on his knees, his nose full of the scent of blood, fresh human blood, and suddenly he knows exactly what it is he’s been craving. Kneeling on the school playing field in front of the bleeding body of an almost friend really isn’t the best time to realize he’s some kind of vampire.
He pushes himself away before he can do anything weird, like stick his fingers into the bleeding gash on Danny’s leg and tear it wider (and he’s never wanted anything as much as he wants that, including Lydia Martin) or just plain take a chunk out of guy, and runs like hell for the locker rooms.
He doesn’t bother to change, just grabs his clothes and his bag and heads for the parking lot. He doesn’t know where he’s going, and he doesn’t care, just so long as it isn’t near any injured people.
Eventually he pulls up by the side of the road somewhere in the woods and just sits, staring at nothing. He’s even sitting still, which is probably a bad sign given his usual restlessness.
Blood drinking he could have dealt with. He would have been totally down with the whole vampire deal. Super strength, super speed, secret identity. Although he might still get the secret identity. He doesn’t think that will make up for the part where he wants to eat living human flesh though. Like, really wants.
His internal scale of weird has changed considerably since Scott became a werewolf, but this has to be top. He goes home. Though he does remember to stop by the butchers on the way and pick up a family pack of steak.
Half an hour of lying on his bed trying to think about everything except Danny and the smell of fresh blood achieves nothing. Thirty seconds of actively contemplating the, admittedly small and undramatic, hole in Danny’s thigh gets him harder than he’s ever been before. He’d be pretty much okay with that if he thought it was Danny rather than the blood that was getting him off. He’s pretty comfortable with most aspects of human sexuality, but apparently flesh eating demon sexuality is another matter.
A basic Google search into blood-drinking and flesh-eating lead him to some of the weirder depths of the internet and net him no actual knowledge unless you count the fact that humans are really really weird. A deeper search leads to a lot of information and absolutely no way to verify how much of it is accurate short of trial and error, which, given it deals with his possible need to kill people, doesn’t seem like the best idea.
Probably he would have ended up testing it that way anyway if Derek hadn’t chosen that exact moment to break into his bedroom.
His first thought is blank, just pure fear, but his second, close on its heels, is that maybe Derek won’t attack him now he’s a fellow dark creature. What can he say; he’s good at looking for silver linings. Derek strides towards him with his usual air of menace and then stops, sniffs and pulls a disgusted face.
“You’re a Peuchen now?” he asks. “Was being the token human around here not good enough for you anymore?”
“I’m a what now?”
“Wait, you don’t even know what you are? What the hell happened to you?!”
“I was bitten by this psycho little kid in the street. I didn’t think anything of it ‘till the whole eating raw steak thing happened.”
“Just raw steak?” Derek’s actually looking worried, which is kinda new and also completely terrifying because this is Derek Hale. Stuff’s supposed to be scared of him, not the other way around. Also, he didn’t laugh at the whole little kid thing, which is good.
“I didn’t eat Danny if that’s what you mean. I wanted to, obviously, but I got the hell out of there before anything happened.”
“Danny as in tanned skin, big eyes, gay Danny?”
“Yes that Danny. I only know one Danny. Does that matter? I kinda feel like that’s not the most important issue here!”
“Well that depends on why you wanted to eat him,” Derek says, as though it’s the most reasonable thing in the world.
“Because he was bleeding everywhere! He tripped in PE and cut his leg.”
Derek runs a hand through his hair. “Christ I’m hanging out with people who still have to take PE.”
“Dude, are you only noticing this now? My dad keeps threatening to put you on some kind of register!”
Derek paces for a moment and then turns back to Stiles. “You said you had steak. Bring me steak and we’ll talk.”
Talking with Derek is not exactly top of Stiles’ list of fun things to do today, but he needs information so he nods. “You want it cooked? ‘Cos I’m not really supposed to use the stove. Or, you know, anything involving fire. There was an incident.”
“Raw is fine.”
Somehow Stiles isn’t surprised that Derek eats raw steak. Not that there’s actually anything that weird about that, given how much better it tastes. Although that’s probably just his inner man-eating monster talking.
He fetches the steaks, shoves them onto a plate and, after a moment’s consideration, grabs a beer for Derek and a bottle of water from himself. He’d really like a Coke but he’s supposed to avoid caffeine and he’s probably in enough trouble without self-medicating with stimulants. Again.
Derek is staring at the doorway when he comes in, sitting topless on his bed. Stiles really wished it were the first time that had happened.
“Shirt?” he asks.
“Raw steak,” Derek replies. “I like that shirt.”
Stiles wonders just how messy an eater Derek is and really hopes his bedclothes aren’t going to smell of dead cow later.
He puts the plate on the edge of the bed and hands Derek the beer. He hasn’t opened it, he realizes, but Derek flicks the top off with one long claw. He takes a sip and then stares pointedly at Stiles. Politeness is so unexpected from the Alpha that it takes him a moment to realize what he’s waiting for.
“Help yourself,” he says, and watches as Derek snags the topmost steak with a claw.
He isn’t an especially messy eater, which would make Stiles suspicious that there were ulterior motives to his shirtlessness, except that this is Derek. Shirtless is his ground state of being.
He takes a steak for himself and as he bites down, he realizes that he’s actually ravenous. He devours it in about four bites and has to stop himself from reaching for another. In the back of his head his mum’s voice says, ‘visitors first’.
“That word you called me,” he says instead. “Peuchen? What’s that?”
“Something my Grandfather told me about. He said they’d pass through werewolves’ territory from time to time, but that there was a pact of non-interference and they never stayed long. They’re probably the origin of the vampire mythology.”
“If I’m a vampire, how come I want to eat people, not drink their blood?”
“Because blood drinking is the safe alternative.”
Stiles stares at him.
“The way my Grandfather explained it, Peuchen are designed to eat humans, but they choose not to. They can survive perfectly well on a diet of human blood and raw meat, which means they don’t have to kill or maim anyone to survive.”
Stiles groans. “Please tell me I get some really awesome superpowers to make up for this?”
Derek gives him that intense but not actually psychotic stare that seems to be his version of a laugh and says, “According to the legends, Peuchen can control the minds of humans. And some stories mention shape-shifting. Oh, and you get healing powers even better than werewolves. I’ve heard it said that they can regrow whole limbs and they don’t seem to have any equivalents to wolfsbane or silver.”
Stiles nods in satisfaction. “That sounds like a decent trade-off. Not that I want to be a creature of darkness, but, you know, if I’m going to be, I want to be an awesome one.”
That’s definitely a grin on Derek’s face, which is going to haunt Stiles for the rest of his days.
“Do you need to feed?” Derek asks, and Stiles eyes the one remaining steak. “That’s not what I meant.”
He looks at Derek and suddenly the toplessness makes sense. “I knew you had ulterior motives!” he exclaims. “Are you offering me your blood?”
“Depends if you can drink it. How do I smell?”
“I’m just gonna resist making any smart comments because I really don’t want to test the whole healing thing.” He leans forward and, somewhat awkwardly, sniffs Derek. He smells… nice. Not human, but close enough to make him a potential meal. “Apparently I eat werewolves too.”
Derek holds out his wrist. “Go on then. I can’t have you wondering round my territory just eating random civilians.”
That’s unusually thoughtful of Derek and definitely suspicious, but on the other hand, Derek Hale is topless in his bed and offering to let Stiles drink his blood, and fuck his human self and all its hang-ups, that is definitely the best thing ever (and way better than the time Lydia danced with him because that was sweet but this has toplessness and blood).
He’s staring, he realizes. Just sitting there, staring and not actually doing anything, which is stupid. He takes Derek’s wrist in his hand and tries not to be too obvious about the fact that he’s mentally tracing all the veins he can make out pulsing beneath the skin.
“How do I do this?” he asks, because yeah, he’s aware that pop-culture Vampires didn’t get fangs until the sixties, he knows his movie history, but all the pre-sixties vampire flicks involved people getting their throats ripped out and dying, so they’re not what he wants to base his feeding technique on.
“Just bite as little as you can while still drawing blood,” Derek says. “Because bite wounds I can heal, but you taking a chunk of my arm, probably not.”
Stiles carefully schools his face into an expression which isn’t disappointment because firstly, he’s not going to risk doing anything that scares off his potential meal and secondly, wanting to eat people is weird and icky and definitely not something he wants to do at all. Not even a bit.
He does as he’s told, bending his head to Derek’s wrist, still held tight in his grip, and bites gently. It’s a good feeling, but it doesn’t break the skin. He tries again, and this time he maybe bites a bit too hard because Derek makes a soft little noise of pain that Stiles files away to think about later because right now all he can think about is that his mouth is filling with blood. It tastes perfect, the exact thing he’s been craving, rich and hot and delicious enough that it’s easy to resist the urge to bite down harder, to tear chunks of flesh from Derek’s arm. Instead he pulls back, just enough to detach his teeth from the wound and swallows his mouthful of blood. He runs his tongue over the wound to collect more and moans at the exact same time that Derek makes another little suppressed noise of pain.
He’s vaguely aware that he’s hard, and the part of his brain that never shuts up, even with Adderall, the only part that isn’t just chanting BloodbloodbloodbloodDerekbloodblood, points out that getting off on what essentially boils down to having his dinner is depraved even for a teenager.
The wound heals up depressingly quickly and he resists the desire to bite down again, tear it wider, because he’s not actually hungry anymore and that kinda seems like taking advantage.
He blushes like crazy as he licks the last traces of blood from the wound because he’s conscious enough now to be aware of the fact that he’s licking Derek fucking Hale and that’s probably the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to him, but he can’t just let it go to waste. Starving children in Africa and all that. Or starving demons, or something.
He drops Derek’s arm and stares down at his lap. He has absolutely no idea what he’s supposed to say.
“Thanks,” he mumbles.
He feels the bed shift as Derek gets up. “That’s fine. You should try and find the kid who turned you, find out more about what you are. If they’re still in town, tell them they’ve got twenty four hours starting now to get the fuck out of Dodge. If they’re not gone by then, I kill them.”
“I thought you said Peuchen and Werewolves got along?”
Derek’s eyes narrow. “They came into my territory without making any effort to contact me and then they turn someone, someone I know, against his will. They have no right to my good will. Twenty four hours, and then I hunt them down.”
And then he’s gone, swinging out of the window and disappearing off into the darkness.