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The last thing that Derek wanted to be doing today was worrying about a human. A loud, annoying, energetic human. Of all the humans he could be worrying about, why had he chosen the most obnoxious one to worry about?
To be fair, he hadn’t exactly chosen Stiles. Peter had chosen Scott, and he and Stiles were a package deal.
And as much as Derek tried to tell himself Stiles was an annoying human he didn’t have time for, he also knew that was a dirty lie and he cared about him. A lot. Too much?
No, an adequate amount. A normal, protective werewolf-once-an-Alpha-of-this-specific-pack amount.
Which was probably why he was panicking. A little bit. Tiny bit. Mostly annoyed, but also maybe panicking.
Scott had called him at just after ten in the morning to ask him if he knew where Stiles was. Why Scott thought Derek would know where Stiles was, he had no idea, but apparently Scott was special like that.
Derek had informed Scott that, no, he did not know where Scott’s best friend was. In the past, he probably would’ve hung up, but he couldn’t justify doing that to Stiles. If Scott was calling, while half the time his concern was unfounded, he still didn’t want to find out Stiles was being mauled to death somewhere because Scott couldn’t find his way out of a phonebooth on his own and Derek had hung up on him.
So, he had asked why Scott was worried. Apparently Scott had been calling and texting him all day to hang out, but he’d gotten no answer. Then he’d gone over, but Stiles hadn’t answered the door. His Jeep was still parked in the driveway, and he didn’t usually walk places so him not answering was a concern. He’d waited for almost half an hour in case he had walked somewhere, but Stiles hadn’t returned.
No answer to his calls and texts, no answer at the house, Jeep in the driveway, and Scott panicked.
Derek had managed to insist he was probably with his dad, Scott had grumbled something about checking the station, and that had been that.
When Scott had called back at six, the sun well on its way to being set, the panic was back in his voice. He hadn’t spoken to the sheriff, because there was no need to panic the man with a heart condition, but he’d talked to Parrish.
Stiles wasn’t at the station, and apparently he was meant to be home all day, as far as the sheriff had mentioned offhandedly during a coffee run. Scott had gone back to the house, but it was dark and devoid of life. He’d even climbed up onto the roof to peer through Stiles’ bedroom window, but nothing.
Derek would be lying if he didn’t admit he was a little worried by this point. He agreed to help Scott find him, the two of them splitting the places he may be between them and checking them all one by one. Derek tried calling Stiles himself, just in case he was avoiding Scott for one reason or another, but he didn’t answer.
By nine, Derek was easily in the panicking stage, even if he was hiding it extremely well, if Scott’s angry outburst of Derek not caring was anything to go by.
Lydia was with them now, and insisting maybe it was time to loop in the sheriff. They decided to check Deaton’s one more time while Derek said he’d check the house. If they still didn’t find him, they’d have to tell his father.
Nothing supernatural had come up of late, so Derek wouldn’t even know what to tell the sheriff. Then again, it would be even worse if Stiles was missing because of human involvement. Surviving through hell and supernatural bullshit, and bested by mere humans. That would be laughably horrendous. But Derek would laugh. It’d be hard not to.
Reaching Stiles’ house, he parked his car on the curb and turned off the engine, staring up at the large structure. Scott was right: all the lights were off. Even the porch light, which usually got turned on as soon as the sun began to set because Stiles liked having it on for his dad when he got home from a night shift.
Walking slowly up the drive, Derek’s gaze flickered around the area, looking for anything out of place. He inhaled deeply, but there were no foreign scents—he should probably be embarrassed at recognizing the mailman’s scent.
When he reached the front door, he rang the bell, listening to the sound echo through the house.
Silence.
He rang again, and then began to knock.
Still nothing.
Wondering if maybe Stiles was in there, but just… injured and lying bleeding on the bathroom floor or something, Derek jogged around the side of the house. He climbed the tree by the edge of the roof that led to Stiles’ room with practised ease, walking along the rooftop and bending down in front of Stiles’ window.
His room was dark, clothes littering the floor, books and papers across his desk, and his bed made.
Wait.
Derek frowned, confused. Stiles never made his bed. He was a firm believer of the “every day” rule, which dictated that anything he used every day had no reason to be tidied up. That included making his bed, because Stiles knew he’d be rolling back into it every night.
Squinting, he focussed his eyes as much as he could, staring at the flattened bedspread. He had to stare for a good thirty seconds before he was sure of it.
Either Stiles was under the covers in bed, or his bed was alive and breathing.
Wrenching the window up forcefully and hearing the lock snap—the fourth one this year, if memory served, why did Stiles even bother?—Derek climbed into the room. He strode up to the bed, bent down, grabbed at the edge of the mattress, and then promptly flipped it over lengthwise so what Stiles went sailing out of the bed, half-landing on his feet. He got tangled in his blankets, righted himself, then let out a shout when the mattress landed on him and made him fall flat on his face.
Derek felt absolutely no remorse, listening to Stiles curse and push at the mattress angrily. He just pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialled Scott, grunted, “Found him,” when the other answered, and hung up.
Stiles was getting to his feet by then, rubbing at his chin and glaring at Derek angrily.
“What the fuck is your problem?”
Derek’s eyebrows rose slightly, giving Stiles a pointed look. Testament to how much time they spent together, Stiles was able to discern what he meant by that one look alone.
“I’m not allowed to want time to myself? I just wanted to be left alone, for once, is that too much to ask?”
Derek scowled. Stiles threw his hands in the air.
“Okay, yes, maybe shoulda told Scott, but he’s not my keeper. Can you guys not use your stupid abilities to figure out where I am and that I just want to be left alone?!”
Something was wrong. It wasn’t the fact that Stiles’ voice was rising and he was getting increasingly angry over something so mundane. It wasn’t even the fact that his eyes looked red and his scent was reeking of misery.
No, what tipped him off was that Stiles never passed up on the chance to call them “wolfy senses” when the opportunity presented itself.
Derek stepped right into his space, making Stiles curse and back up quickly, back hitting the wall. He crossed his arms over his chest, shifting his weight and avoiding Derek’s eye. He was only wearing sweats and a T-shirt, and it looked like he’d been lying in bed all day.
“What happened?”
Stiles’ eyes flickered upwards and then away again, muscles tensing. “Nothing, I just want to be left alone.”
Derek loomed over him, beating down his defences with pure stubbornness. It was hard, and time consuming, because Stiles could be just as stubborn as he was. But, he made one tiny little mistake, and Derek zeroed in on it.
His eyes had briefly shifted towards the desk.
Turning instantly, Derek strode across the room, ignoring Stiles’ shouts for him to stop. He even jumped onto Derek’s back and shoved his hands on his face from behind, trying to wrench Derek backwards that way as if it would actually work.
Derek shrugged him off with ease, hearing him let out a yelp when he fell and hit the floor. Grabbing the papers off the desk, he caught sight of what they were a second before Stiles shouted, “Don’t!”
The letters were wrenched from his hands and Derek felt something rising within him that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Shame.
He turned to look at Stiles, who was breathing hard and clutching the letters in one fist, glaring at the floor.
“Why can’t you just—fucking leave me alone!” Stiles punched at Derek’s chest with the hand not holding the letters, but he’d probably hurt himself more than he had the Werewolf.
Shaking his head, Stiles turned and looked like he wanted to head back to bed, except his mattress was upside down on the floor and his sheets and blankets were all over the place.
Derek didn’t know what to say, so for a long time, they both stood there in silence, Stiles staring at his mattress as if it would magically right itself, and Derek staring at Stiles.
He opened his mouth, scowled, and then closed it again. This wasn’t exactly his domain. This was more something for Scott to handle. Or maybe even the sheriff. Not exactly a Derek thing, but he was the one who was there, so he couldn’t exactly ignore it.
“Stiles—”
“What?” he interrupted, voice hard. He turned to glare at Derek, and every line of his face displayed how much he hated him in that moment.
Derek didn’t take it to heart. “There are other schools.”
That had been the wrong thing to say. Stiles’ face contorted with rage and he got right into Derek’s personal space—a change from their usual encounters—and spat the next words so hatefully that spittle hit Derek’s cheek.
“Get out of my house.”
“Stop being a child.” Derek scowled at him. “You had Scott running around all day convinced that you were in trouble, or missing, or dead. So you got rejected from one university, so what?”
“So I wanted to go there!” Stiles yelled, still in his face. “So I thought maybe I could actually do one thing right in my life! That I could get one thing! I wanted to fucking leave, to get out of this shithole before it swallows me whole like it does everyone who lives here!”
“And what about your dad?”
Stiles’ mouth snapped shut, eyes darting back and forth between Derek’s.
“Your dad’s the sheriff. This school is on the other side of the country. How often would you visit? How much time off do you think he’d get, being sheriff, to go and see you? Who would look out for him like you do? Watch what he eats, make sure he doesn’t drink too much, watches himself on the job. Who would do that?”
The other said nothing, but his grip was loosening on the pages he held. Derek reached out and took them from him, Stiles not resisting, then turned to set them on the desk behind him. When he faced Stiles again, the other had moved back to his mattress and was righting it so he could push it back onto the base of the bedframe.
Derek moved past him to the bedroom door, pulling it open and heading downstairs. He walked into the kitchen and inhaled before turning and hunting down the bottle of whiskey the sheriff usually hid from Stiles. Grabbing it from the cupboard it was not so expertly hidden in—maybe he was going for a ‘hide in plain sight’ thing?—he moved to grab two glasses from another cabinet and then headed into the living room. Setting the whiskey and glasses down on the coffee table, he fell onto the couch, pulled out his phone, and ordered a pizza.
When Stiles came downstairs twenty minutes later, he paused in the doorway, shifting his weight and eying Derek, who’d made himself comfortable and was watching the fourth Star Wars movie.
The whiskey remained untouched.
“What are you doing?”
“Watching Star Wars,” he informed him easily. “Pizza’s on its way.”
He didn’t say he was doing this for Stiles. Stiles didn’t mention that, either. He just wandered over to the couch and fell down beside Derek.
Once he was settled and staring at the screen, the older man leaned forward and unscrewed the bottle cap. He poured a small amount into both glasses before replacing the lid and standing so he could put it back.
The point wasn’t to get drunk—not that Derek could—but he knew Stiles would appreciate it all the same. When he was back on the couch, holding one glass out to Stiles, the teen hesitated before taking it, clinking their glasses together.
Derek downed his without a word, but Stiles just stared at his own for a long while. Sighing, he set his down untouched, punched Derek hard in the arm, then settled himself back into the couch to watch the movie.
Pizza arrived shortly thereafter, which Derek paid for, and then they spent the evening enjoying each other’s company.
Until the sheriff came home, took one look at the glass that still contained whisky in it, and promptly yelled Derek out of his house for trying to corrupt his son.
Derek wasn’t really bothered by the yelling, the sheriff often yelled at him. The corruption of Stiles, though, he took offense to.
If anything, Stiles was the one who corrupted other people.
Derek was climbing into his car when his phone went off. He took a seat and buckled himself in before checking it.
[Stiles]
Thanks.
[User]
Anytime.
[User]
You’re not the only one to get rejected.
Derek tossed his phone aside, knowing Stiles would think he meant university, when really Derek meant actual rejection.
Ironically, it had been Stiles who’d rejected him.
Even worse: Derek wasn’t entirely certain Stiles was aware of that.
Something to discuss with him another day. So Derek started the car and pulled out of the drive.
At least Stiles had been found. That was really the most important thing.
END.