Part 3 of the Wake Up Dead series.

The door is several inches of steel. It slams shut behind the three of them and there's no way the sun's getting in here but Stiles still scrambles for the deepest, darkest corner. It smells like cheap paper and grease and old blood. He huddles in his dark place, arms around his knees, reeling from the overload of waking up dead and all the scents and sounds and emotions that went with it.

He'd felt the sun slowly inching toward the horizon before any of them registered that they were running out of time. He'd dug his fingernails into Derek's arm, tearing the skin open. "Sunrise," he'd said. "It's coming."

Then there was chaos. The boiler room in the school basement, Derek told him. Until they could find somewhere better. Stiles heard them talking about the cruiser, his dad insisting he could get them there the quickest and Stiles is his goddamn son and he'll make sure he's safe, and his voice came down the hall, and then that scent filled the room.

Stiles knew it was his father. He knew his father's scent, the smell of his aftershave and his soap and his car and coat and gun but blanketed over all of it there was the blood.

He knew Derek's blood, he'd tasted Derek's blood only minutes before, and it seemed so perfect. Scott had been there, Lydia was somewhere out in the hall and Stiles could smell her blood too, but it wasn't anything like this.

It wasn't like his father's blood.

He needed it. He'd die without it. He had to have it and every part of his mind was focused on the pulse at his dad's throat, the fat artery there, taking hot, rich, pure blood straight from the heart.

A tiny part of him wondered why, wondered what was different. Because even Lydia didn't smell better or worse than the werewolves, just human. His dad smelled human but...

"Get him out," Stiles yelled, then turned on Derek, tore into his throat because the only way he would be able to stop himself from going after his father and drinking until the body was a dry husk would be to drown himself in blood, even if it paled in comparison.

So they left in Derek's truck, Scott driving, Stiles huddled under tarps in the back even though the sun wasn't over the horizon yet. And now he's cowering in a corner, shaking with fear, but still thinking about the scent of his father's blood, irresistible and essential.

His mind races off without him, makes plans to go back there once the sun's set, taste that perfect blood.

Derek's shadow falls over him. Stiles looks up. "Don't let him go home," he says. "Once the sun goes down, he's gotta be somewhere I won't find him."

Derek crouches down, rests his forearms on his knees. He's paler than he should be. "You're not going to kill your father, Stiles."

"I want to. I want to tear his throat out, drink him dry. You should have let me die. Not my dad, Derek. Not my fucking dad."

"I won't let you. I swear." Derek leans closer, reaching out with his hand, all reassurance and care and it doesn't seem right because such a short time ago he was fighting, clawing at Stiles as his heartbeat gradually slowed, as the blood pumped out of him and down Stiles' throat.

Stiles moves, and then Derek's on his back, blinking up as Stiles crouches over him, pinning him to the floor with one hand on his chest, the other tipping his head to expose his throat. "How are you gonna stop me?" Stiles says. "How are any of you going to stop me?"

"Stiles."

It's Scott's Alpha voice, and Stiles turns and sneers. "That doesn't work on me, dumbass."

Scott shrugs it off. "Get off him. It's not Derek's fault." He holds out a hand, waits for Stiles to take it.

After staring at it for a while, Stiles does, he lets Scott pull him up.

"Your dad was right there, and you didn't hurt him," Scott says. "You made sure we got him out of there."

Derek pulls himself to his feet behind Stiles. Stiles can hear everything, the brush of his palms over his thighs as he dusts himself off, the easing of his heartbeat as he calms down. "You don't know what it's like," Stiles says. "I'll never be able to resist that. I'm never going to be able to see him. I know where he sleeps. His blood is all I'm going to think about until he's dead."

Just thinking about it now makes Stiles' throat feel dry, makes him feel empty, hungry. He looks back at Derek, remembering the way his blood eased the craving. But Derek's not done healing yet, his body couldn't keep up, not with the violence of Stiles' attack.

"No," Stiles says when Derek nods, tries to lead him away. "You shouldn't even be in here. I could have killed you."

"I'll do it," Scott says, rolling up his sleeve.

Stiles wants his throat. The blood will be warmer there, but he takes Scott's arm and lifts it to his mouth, his teeth aching as they get closer to the vein.

"Jesus," Scott laughs, a little breathless as Stiles exposes his fangs, and then he gasps in pain as they sink deep into the vein at his wrist.

Scott's heart is beating hard and fast, his blood coating Stiles' tongue, filling his aching stomach, but Derek takes much of Stiles' focus. He should be moving away, he shifts his weight as if he can't decide whether he should or shouldn't, and his heart is pounding harder than even Scott's.

He smells different. Even Scott looks up at Derek, a half smile on his face and a tiny crease of confusion between his eyebrows. "Dude," he says, and Derek glares and walks away into the labyrinth of shelves and cupboards.

"It only hurts for a second," Scott muses, then Stiles pulls Scott down to the ground, because the flow of blood into his mouth is slow and easy and Scott's accelerated healing keeps up without a problem so he can stay here for as long as he likes.

"You should give him a break, today," Scott says.

Stiles vaguely remembers Scott telling Derek to stay outside and Derek refusing, but it's all a blur of horror and fear. He blinks, nods over Scott's wrist, then curls himself behind Scott's arm, pressing his back against Scott's body, soaking up some of his warmth, settling in.

---

Glutted on Scott's blood, almost drunk on it and sleepy, Stiles lets himself drift into a doze because there's nothing to do here, and he might as well sleep.

When he wakes, Scott hands him his phone. "Your dad called," he says.

Stiles pounces on the phone, jabs at the screen impatiently because he should have thought of it before.

They speak for almost two hours, both of them in tears, the sheriff because he never thought he'd be scared of his own son, Stiles because he's got so many things to apologize for and he doesn't know where to start.

The battery goes dead and Stiles tucks it back into the backpack someone must have grabbed on the way out of the house. He scrubs his hands over his face to wipe away the tears, but they still keep coming, and when he looks up, Derek's there.

Derek drops down beside him, sits against the cinder block wall with his legs out in front. "I'm sorry," he says.

Stiles looks up.

They'd been flirting, before it happened. Stiles somewhat awkwardly, Derek acting like he was amused by it. Stiles had taken that as promising, because Derek. But now Stiles is dead, and he's pissed, because he's seventeen, pale, and awkward for all of eternity and no one fucking asked him if this was what he wanted.

"I'd do it again," Derek says, elbows on his knees, eyes on the floor between his feet.

Stiles' death has ruined his relationship with his father, and it's ruined whatever he might have had with Derek. He wants to cry again, and he does, figuring he can lie, tell Derek he's still upset about his dad.

Stiles won't be going back to school and he won't be going home, and he'll be relying on werewolves to feed him and that's all his existence will be. All the things he wanted out of life are gone.

Derek pulls him in close. Stiles goes for the warmth at his throat, punches his teeth through where the blood won't spurt out too fast, and suckles, feeling Derek's body healing itself even as he drinks.