Archive of Our Own ^beta

There’s a sharp sting of pain behind his eyes.  It swells and throbs and, for a second, his head feels fuzzy.  Worse, unfamiliar.  He sets his hand down blindly, taking it away from his temple, which aches at just the thought of being touched.  Whatever he’s seated on is cold and smooth and utterly alien to him.  He can’t open his eyes; the white-yellow light burned into his eyelids already agonizing.

“Stiles?”

The word resounds, bounces back and forth between the sides of his head and he groans.  That hurts, too.  It takes a moment for it to gain any meaning.  He’s too hurt to make sense of it and then comes his name and Scott.  He wants to say something back but the groan has taught him his mouth is better shut, less likely to take the opening to upchuck his guts.

The room, wherever he is, is quiet.  He can’t even hear Scott breathing, only his own huffing pants coming in through his nose, too fast and sending whistling cold air through him and he wants to stop.   He wants all of it to stop.  He clenches the hand on whatever cold thing he’s touching when he realizes the other is hanging above his head, and not of its own volition.  There’s a strap, something tight and rough on his skin, keeping him tied to whatever is above him.

He becomes aware of how freezing he is in that moment.  His back and ass are like ice and he wants to open his eyes, but every time he steels himself for it, his head begins to pound in protest.

He opens his mouth and it tastes stale and bloody.  He scrapes his tongue on his teeth and starts to pull a face but the strain of his muscles strains everything else and the pain is unbearable now.  Every move he makes seems to upset his entire body, like it’s not built for use anymore.

“I have something that might help the transition,” says a voice to his left, from the side of the hand that’s still bound.

Stiles’ brain tells him: Deaton and then transition?  Before he can think better of it, he cracks open his eyes and the pain is blinding.  He can’t see anything other than a rush of light and he makes a sound like a wounded, dying thing that he’s never heard come from a human mouth.  “Fuck,” he hisses as prickles of pure agony dance over every inch of his skin.

Something touches the small of his back and Stiles jumps forward with a start and instantly regrets it.  Everything hurts so much and he just wants to fall into unconsciousness and never have to feel this again.  He’s so close to tears, the pain and helplessness so fucking intense, but he knows it will only make everything hurt a thousand times more.  Whatever it is, and Stiles thinks it might be fingers – a hand –  hardly pauses at the flinch and instead smooths across his skin and it’s so warm that it makes his arctic body shiver.  Then the omnipresent ache is draining away from him.

He hadn’t even known exactly how bad it was until it’s gone.

“Oh my God, thank you,” he whimpers, the gratitude in him making his voice shaky.  In fact, his entire body is shaking.  It’s like he’s pushed his muscles too hard on a run and he’s trembling and weak, everything threatening to give out under him.  “Scott?” he guesses, because Deaton can’t do this and Scott is the only voice he’s heard aside from that.

“Over here, buddy,” comes from almost across the room.

Stiles frowns and nothing in him aches at the movement.  He picks up his free hand and carefully moves it around, trying to catch on to the person offering this.  He feels the hand on his back falter, like they’re moving away from him, and he drops it.  “Thank you,” he says again, almost tearing up with how grateful he is, clenching his hand on thin air instead of skin and muscle like he’d wanted.

“Stiles,” Deaton again, softer this time and much more close at hand, “drink this.”

The light’s so harsh on the backs of his eyelids, and even thinking about opening them to it makes his stomach lurch.  Why don’t they know to have it turned off by now?  “What is it?” he chokes out, his mouth too full of saliva.  He’s feeling sick again, his head dizzy even though he’s been holding it carefully still.  He drops it gently on to his drawn knee so he can be sure it’s not moving at all as every even miniscule shift seems to make him feel woozy.

A hand touches his shoulder before withdrawing barely a second later, as though it has no idea how to go about offering him comfort and gives up almost before it begins.  “Something to help you sleep,” Deaton says, voice rich with something Stiles can’t suss out.

Sleep sounds heavenly and Stiles knows he’ll never find it if the hand draining his pain away leaves him.  He nods his head and feels the lip of something cool rest against his own.  And he wants to know why everything but the hand on his back is ice cold.  His body is wracked with shivers and his muscles ache from the constant, low-level trembling he sometimes doesn’t even realize he’s doing.

A hand helps him tip his head back and Stiles has no idea whose it is, his mystery healer or Deaton’s, as something freezes its way down his throat.  Cold, cold, cold.  He’s so cold.  The impression of light on the inside of his eyelids begins to fuzz to black around the edges when he realizes his eyes must have been open to have an imprint of light left behind.  It’s been with him since he became aware of the throbbing in his head.

If they were open earlier, then why doesn’t he know where he is, or who he’s with?  Why doesn’t he remember it?

His head feels so heavy and he drops it to his knee again.  It feels like something slams into his chest and his breathing goes slow and deep and something is eating away the genuine fear plaguing him, leaving behind nothing but blankness and he can’t think in full sentences anymore.

“Do we even know if it worked?”

Terror claws its way up Stiles’ spine.  It’s Scott’s voice, but not as he’s ever heard it.  There was nothing hopeful or joyous about it.  Instead it was harsh and hateful and he has the brief thought, ‘That’s not Scott,’ before he loses grip on it and falls down into the darkness.

His hair is caught in a strong breeze, moving back and forth over his forehead against its own sleep-made design.  “Hey, kiddo.”

Anxiety he hadn’t even known he felt dissolves into nothingness at the sound of his dad’s world-weary voice.  It’s run down, the words slipping together and the timber reedy and thin.  Stiles frowns.  He’s working himself too hard, though Stiles remembers he’d been taking more days off to spend with him since the werewolf reveal.  When had he found the time to work himself to the bone?

He opens his eyes, remembering how impossible that had been the last time he’d tried, and takes in his dad kneeling by his bed, hand on his forehead.  He shoots upright – the last time coming back to him – and sees his dad’s hand fall to his belt, to the butt of his weapon, which is most definitely at his side.  He recoils instantly, mouth hanging open in shock.  What the hell was that?  That was almost like… his dad planned to shoot him.  Which doesn’t makes sense because last Stiles checked he wasn’t a criminal mastermind or a punk with a switchblade – which is more Beacon Hills’ speed.

Whatever he’s feeling, it must show on his face because his dad’s waving his hand, rubbing his forehead with the other.  “Long night, kid.  I’m sorry.”

“S’okay,” Stiles mutters and it isn’t.  It so, so isn’t.  His dad even wearing his gun on his belt in the house isn’t okay, let alone what just happened.  He swallows and sits back on his heels, mostly because it will take him further away from his dad, and the anxiety is back to buzzing under his skin, this time harder and meaner, like a swarm of insects.  “What happened last night, with Deaton and Scott?”

His dad looks away, expression careful.  “I was on duty last night.”  His gaze is back, slightly reproachful.  “I do remember you saying you planned to stay in.”

Stiles shakes his head.  “I don’t remember that.  I don’t remember talking to you at all.”  Why can’t he remember any of this?  There’s a haze in his head when he tries to think back to the last time he talked to his dad.  “You went to bed, after patching up Derek.  He fell asleep on the couch and I…” his eyes widen, “I tried that spell with the Nemeton.  But it didn’t do anything, it didn’t even work!” he insists, because that couldn’t be the cause of this.

His dad’s face has grown serious and there’s something like devastation in the lines around his eyes.  But nothing had happened.  Stiles would swear nothing happened.  “What spell with the Nemeton?”

Stiles rubs at his forehead, trying to remember exactly.  “Deaton was teaching me boundary wards, like what mountain ash does, only more specified.  I thought if I could find a way to set up an elimination boundary around the Nemeton, then it wouldn’t be able to exert its influence over me or Scott or Allison anymore.  It was supposed to hold its effects static, turn its darkness in on itself and hopefully that would neutralize it entirely.”  Stiles remembers standing there, kicking at the rocks at his feet when the magic refused to stick.  “But it didn’t work, it was like as soon as I closed the circle, a part of it would break or even just fizzle and evaporate.  It would never make a complete ring so I gave up.”

“Is that the last thing you remember?”

And that should strike Stiles as an odd question, but his memory’s so hard to pull back, like it’s buried under more recent ones only there’s nothing there.  His father’s curiosity implies he suspected that.  But why?  Where the hell has Stiles’ head been?  “Peter was there.  I ran into him when I was leaving, then I decided to come back home.”  Stiles scrunches his forehead.  “But I don’t remember actually getting there.”

His dad touches Stiles’ knee, gripping tightly, as though trying to pull him back into the present.  “What did Peter do to you?”

Stiles’ eyes widen.  “What?  Nothing.”  He frowns, trying to make sense of the concern and desperation on his dad’s face.  “Was something done to me?  Dad, what’s going on?  This is definitely beginning to feel Buffy Summers bad, waking up in an insane asylum and being told werewolves don’t exist bad, and it is freaking me the fuck out.”

“Werewolves exist.”  His dad chuckles to himself.  “And who would’ve thought that’d be the test for what’s real and what isn’t?”  He mutters to himself, “Jesus, what is my life coming to?”  He stands up and ruffles a hand in Stiles’ hair.  “You hungry, kid?”

Stiles opens his mouth to answer just as the uneven board on the landing creaks outside his door.  His head jerks towards the sound and Scott steps inside.  His usual grin is in place, quirked up to one side like it always is, but there’s a tightness around his eyes that makes Stiles’ skin feel too small for his body.  “You okay, man?”

Stiles stares at him, uneasiness rocking back and forth in him like a churning sea.  Then it comes back to him, the harsh words he’d heard before he’d passed out, said in Scott’s voice but without Scott behind them.  There’s no trace of that now.  He’s Scott, a big enthusiastic goofball and with hope and camaraderie in his tone.  Stiles nods, still more stilted with Scott than he ever would’ve been before.  “Besides feeling like I’ve been hit with an asteroid the size of Helion Prime, just peachy.”  He plasters on an exaggerated smile and Scott laughs.

He looks and sounds exactly like he always has and Stiles was pretty out of it last night.  It may have been his own mind distorting the words because Scott with genuine hatred in his voice?  Stiles is fairly certain those things don’t go together, like putting people who’ve read the book in the same room with people who’ve only seen the movie.  They would cancel each other out… by ripping each other’s faces off.  Scott and hate, nope.  Both can’t exist in the same place, Stiles is sure of it.

Scott sticks out his hand to help him stand, so maybe last night actually happened even if the Scott part didn’t.  At least he knows enough not to ask why Stiles feels like he’s been trampled by the entire cast of The Lion King.  Stiles takes Scott’s hand and a frisson of something shoots up his spine.  Scott’s skin is cold and clammy and it gives Stiles something of a shock and Stiles pulls away from it, brow furrowed, staring at his own hand and wiggling his fingers.

He notices almost instantly that Scott is staring, too, hard and gauging.  His expression lifts when Stiles is steady on his own two feet and only then does Stiles realize how much darkness had been creeping around the edges of him.  Scott shares a look with Stiles’ dad and then lurches forward, his arms flying around Stiles in a rather Stilesian flail.  His grip goes the slightest bit uncomfortable and then he’s saying quickly, breath hot against Stiles’ neck, “Missed you, man.”

Stiles rubs his neck where Scott breathed on him to negate the tickle it causes and smiles uncertainly.  “Um, okay?  Pretty sure I’ve been right here though.”  Stiles keeps it to himself that he’s not nearly as sure of that as he would like.

Scott gives him a bug-eyed look but there’s a stiffness to him that hasn’t gone anywhere.  “I know, dude.  It’s just been a while since we’ve hung out due to the whole ‘True Alpha’ thing, and I’ve missed the quality time.”

Nice recovery, Stiles thinks, and then wonders what the fuck he means by that.  Scott is acting a bit shifty.  And come to think of it, so is his dad.  Something is clearly up and no one seems to want to tell the civilian what it is.  Well, Stiles calls bullshit on that.  “So, what was that?  Last night, at Deaton’s?”

Scott snorts, his eyes dancing over Stiles’ room, like he’s forgotten what makes it up.  “You being you,” his voice is far away, the words coming easily like he’s been preparing for the question, “so sure you could handle something huge like that.”

Stiles has no fucking idea what Scott is talking about and he’s feeling increasingly uncomfortable by the fact that Scott won’t meet his eyes.  “Like what?”

Scott’s lips twitch a little and he’s staring at the shelf up against the wall of Stiles’ room, filled with comic books and novels and action figures – half of them either from Scott or bought with him.  “The spell?” he says, with that same distance in his voice.  “Deaton told you it wasn’t going to work.”

Deaton?  Stiles has no memory of discussing anything with Deaton the night before.  It had been almost a week since he’d gone to him for instruction actually.  His memory is in shards, fractured images coming back to him.  “Derek.”  Scott freezes, everything going still, and Stiles tries to drag the memory up.  It comes in fragments.  He tells Scott like he’s commentating on a sporting event, “Derek was here, he came in through my window.  Dad and I were downstairs enjoying our sacred bonding time.”  His dad laughs a little but it feels unreal, dissolves when Stiles tries to find the warmth in it.  “He was hurt, like he always is, but we got him patched up.  Dad went to bed, I stayed up, Derek went downstairs to sleep on the couch.”  Stiles’ head is starting to pound, the light stabbing into his corneas.  “I walked past him on my way out.  He was out cold, but healing, then driving out to the Preserve, the Nemeton, the spell not working, talking to Peter, walking back through the woods, seeing the Jeep.”  Stiles lets out a hiss as the pain gets too intense for him.

Scott’s there in an instant, handing him a glass of water from his bedside table and two tablets he has ready and waiting.  “Deaton said this might happen after—” his mouth tightens, “after the spell.”

“Black outs?” Stiles says, throat raw.

Scott pauses.  “Headaches,” he corrects carefully and Stiles watches a shadow pass over his eyes.

He takes the pills when his head gives a violent throb and hopes he can trust it – trust Scott.  “I’m missing things,” he croaks, feeling terrified that he doesn’t know how much.  He’s been losing track of time since the ice bath, the Nemeton, the end of the Stiles he was, but it’s never felt like this.  It was never a vacuum, more like a dream he shouldn’t have been having with his eyes open.  But this is just… erased.  “I remember seeing the Jeep but I don’t remember getting in it.  I don’t remember how I got home that night, but I must have because Dad says I told him I was staying in, but then somehow I came to and you and Deaton and someone else were there.”  He remembers the hand on his skin, the only warmth in the cold, the firm almost defiant press of fingers.  He looks up at Scott, eyes wide and fear trying to claw its way out of them, and Stiles just wants Scott to be his best friend, to have him when he’s not even sure he has himself.  “What the fuck is happening to me, Scott?”

Scott swallows and some of the tension bleeds away from him.  He steps close, closer than he’s dared since the impromptu hug and glances to Stiles’ dad.  “Nothing,” he says and Stiles’ chin drops almost to his chest.  This isn’t Scott.  Scott doesn’t lie to his face, doesn’t treat him like he’s fragile, doesn’t hide from him.  Whatever he’s missing, Stiles adds his best friend to it.  A hand comes up under his chin and props his head up so their gazes meet again.  “You tried a spell you shouldn’t’ve,” he says tightly, like he shouldn’t be parting with the words.  “I don’t think you’ve lost that much.”  He shakes his head.  “I wasn’t with you in the woods but I was there when you came by Deaton’s office.  You said you had a plan to drain the Nemeton of its power.”

Stiles frowns, trying to remember, even if it’s only just the memory of him forming the thought to go to Deaton.  Failure had been bubbling up in him at his plan not working, the circle refusing to close no matter how much belief he poured into it, but he’d thought of nothing but pulling the covers over his head and not coming out until morning.

Then Peter.  Peter telling him his mind was broken, that coming back to the Nemeton wasn’t his plan at all but its plan.  It had just needed a plausible lie to get him there, to work itself deeper inside of him.  The pact.  His skin had prickled and he’d known Peter was right, that he couldn’t trust his reality since it was all warped through his own filter.

Stiles had stared at him for a long moment and realized Peter was a monster in a way little else was.  And a monster was exactly what Stiles needed.  “Kill me.  If it comes to it, kill me,” he’d said.

Peter had considered him for a long moment, dipped his chin once in agreement and left.

That was Stiles’ master plan.  He hadn’t come up with a way to still the Nemeton’s creeping darkness.  It was twisting through all of them, diving and digging deep, until it was more a part of them than anything else ever could be.

Death was his plan.  And it’s still the only one he has.

“It was something to do with the roots, how they weren’t buried, you were going to try to poison it, I think, and hope it fed into the rest of it.”  Scott’s mouth purses and his eyes go a little hard.  “I didn’t really understand it.  You were almost manic explaining it, but Deaton parsed it out.”  The words are pouring into Stiles’ head, trying to fill in the empty spaces, but no images come with them so they’re doing a poor job of it.  Still, he loves Scott for giving him what he needs even when he’s almost certainly been told not to.  “He told you that you weren’t ready for anything that advanced but you wouldn’t listen.  You were being driven insane by an evil plant,” Scott’s lips twitched, “and that wasn’t the way you wanted to go.  You and Deaton set up the runes and there was some sort of backlash and something went… into you.”

Stiles frowns and says, almost dazed, “I don’t remember any of this.”

Scott’s grin is a little shaky.  “Kind of glad, man.  It changed you.  Your pupils widened until you couldn’t see anything but black and these dark veins cracked up the sides of your face and neck.  You tried to run at Deaton but we tied you down and Deaton did some spell or something and got it out of you.”

Stiles swallows.  “What was it?”

Scott shrugs carefully.  “I don’t know.  Not you,” he decides.  His voice hardens, lip rising like he’s barely keeping a snarl in check.  “All that matters is that it’s gone and it’s never coming back.  You’re okay, and that’s the best part.”  A smile widens Scott’s mouth.  “Even if you do feel like space rocks the size of fictional planets are trying to flatten you.”

“I can second that,” his dad says from behind him.

Stiles had almost forgotten he was there.  With his gun at his hip.  And Scott had pills at the ready and who knows if those were what he said they were.  And they’d both looked ready for a fight when they’d stepped into his room, like they weren’t sure Deaton’s fix had worked.  But he’s himself now, he thinks.  His skin is tight and dry but he’s definitely the only one under it.  It may take them a while to trust that, but Stiles can at least understand the reticence now.  What must it be like, to stare at something you loved and know it’s gone?  Even though something else is walking around and wearing its face?  Stiles shivers.

“Breakfast then?” his dad says, breaking the moment.

Stiles looks up from staring at his forearm, where the hair is prickled, tingling on skin that’s his.  He feels it through every layer of him.  He glances up curiously, gaze sliding between Scott and his dad.  “Don’t we have to get to school?”  He has no idea what time it is, what day it is, or if he’s even up for it, but it feels like someone should address it.

Scott’s eyes are dark but his lips are quirked.  “Looks like your brain was scrambled a bit more than we thought.  It’s Saturday.”

They’re both staring at him again, wary, standing like they’re on tenterhooks and Stiles tries to put them at ease.  He scoffs and punches Scott in the shoulder.  “Scott, why would we go to school on a Saturday?  Of course we want breakfast instead of the monotonous hell that is high school.   Stop trying to talk me into unscheduled learning, you nerd.  You know I don’t approve of that unless that learning comes with the preface: Shark and ends in the word: Week.”

Stiles watches the tense line of Scott’s shoulders ease and sees his dad’s hand finally fall to his side, no longer poised near his hip.  It will be slow going, but at least Stiles knows what he’s up against now.  He can handle it provided he knows what he’s handling.  Scott sets a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, his smile the most genuine Stiles has gotten out of him so far.

The tangled knot in his gut loosens some.  It’s not broken beyond repair and that’s something he can hold onto.

He can’t even wait until the morning.  Scott’s gone back home despite some bluster about staying and his dad’s in bed, though Stiles is almost certain he isn’t sleeping.  He tries to reverse the situation.  If his dad had been someone other than his dad for even a second, could he trust him enough to sleep?  He doesn’t think so.  He decides not to risk the creaky landing and slides up his window, climbing down the tree towards the end of his roof.

It’s not the first time he’s done it.  He doubts it’ll be the last.

He drives his Jeep out to the Preserve and parks close enough that the Nemeton is only a fifteen minute trek away.  He blinks at it.  At first glance, it looks the same.  The flat, ringed face, the malice that seems to seep towards him.  He’s only a few steps from its roots, shoe scuffing against the ash that’s still sunk deep into the dirt – which proves he was here, that his memory isn’t completely faulty, when he notices the changes.

There are claw marks in the wood and the branches and leaves immediately surrounding it are shriveled and burnt.  Stiles frowns at it.  Someone was trying to destroy it, by any means necessary.  He holds his hand up to the slashes in the side but, even if he did have claws, these belong to someone with a much bigger handspan than his own.  His eyes flit over the whole area and land on the hatch that leads down to the root cellar.

He hasn’t been down there since the night Jennifer died, since Deucalion fled, since the whole thing nearly collapsed and crushed his dad.  He feels sure he wouldn’t have come up with a plan that involved the roots.  He’s blocked the place out as best he could.

His mouth tilts to the side and he shores up his shoulders and throws open the door.  The stairs are just as perilous as they’d been the last time he’d set foot on them.  The roots seem even more numerous though, like the thing’s been growing downwards, burrowing deeper into its earthy prison, becoming permanently entrenched in it.

Stiles swallows and goes down another few steps and now he can see the withering roots stacked up against the far wall.  Someone had tried to chop them all away and only made it more resilient and Stiles is getting some really disturbing Fantasia flashbacks.  Someone had wanted it finished and he wondered if it was Scott or Allison, if they had finally cracked under the barrage of images in their heads the way Stiles nearly had.

Stiles isn’t sure what to make of any of it besides the fact that the efforts had obviously failed.  The Nemeton is more a beacon than ever, drawing him close, pulsing through him.  He can feel it more clearly than before, like it has a direct line to him.  Had this been the result of his plans about the roots?  Had someone else tried to follow it through for him?

He doubles over, the pain in his head sharp and strident and he pulls away from trying to remember.  Scott said he hadn’t understood what Stiles had meant.  Deaton had.

Somehow it doesn’t surprise Stiles that the light at the clinic is still on at half past two in the morning.  He knocks on the locked door, a shiver dancing up his spine even though the air is heavy and humid.

Deaton doesn’t look particularly surprised to see him standing outside with his shoulders hunched up and his hands in his jacket pockets, one still wrapped tightly around the keys to his Jeep.

It confirms for Stiles that this was his only next move.  He doesn’t even wait until Deaton has led them to the back to say, “Someone tried to destroy the Nemeton.”

Deaton dips his chin in concession.  “Yes.”

This must have been the exam room Stiles had been in the night before.  There are scuff marks on the floor and it smells of something strongly antiseptic.  The strap his arm had been strung up in is still hanging over the side of the metal table, the other is ripped in half.

“Thanks for, um,” Stiles swallows past the lump in his throat and it scrapes all the way down, “for getting it out of me.”

Deaton’s eyes narrow, gaze sharp.  “What exactly do you know, Stiles?”

Stiles licks his lower lip, suddenly not feeling entirely safe here.  “I’m sure Scott wasn’t meant to say – that was the impression I got anyway – but he told me about the spell we set up.  That I tried to poison the Nemeton and I guess it backfired?”  He shrugs.  “Ended up embodying me instead.”

Deaton frowns.  “Scott means to protect you from this but I believe that you’re entitled to the knowledge, should you decide you want it.”  He raises his eyebrows, as though prompting Stiles to say one way or the other.

Stiles’ eyes widen.  “Scott being the shady one and you being Mr. Open Book?  Talk about a role reversal for the record books.”

“Stiles, I need your answer.”

Stiles feels like he’s teetering on the edge of a precipice, only no matter which direction he steps, he’s going to fall.  He licks his lower lip.  “What knowledge?”

Deaton’s lips twitch down.  “Of what actually happened to you.”

Stiles’ hands clench in his pockets and the keys dig into his skin painfully, blunt pressure that’s sure to leave bruises.  And somehow he knew what Deaton was going to say before it was said.  His heart seizes and he decides, “I want to know.”

Deaton nods once, a quick jerk, like it was the answer he’d been waiting for and the only assurance he needed.  “Do you remember what I told you?” he asks instantly.  “That with your death you opened a door in your minds?”  Stiles nods slowly, already feeling uneasy.  The lines around Deaton’s mouth tighten and his face darkens some.  “I should have taken the time to explain to you all that would entail.”  There’s a slight look of shame in the drag of his eyes over Stiles’ face.  “You became not only a conduit but also an amplification of the Nemeton’s energy.  You, yourselves, became a signal boost to every supernatural creature looking to glut itself on power.  All who could receive the call, did.  Because of you and Scott and Allison, you widened the reach of the message.”

Stiles clenches his jaw, resisting the urge to bite out, ‘maybe, yeah, you should’ve fucking explained exactly what we were signing up for before you let us put our names down.’  Instead he bites the inside of his cheek so hard a metallic tang fills his mouth.  His lips twist and he says mordantly, “That sounds bad.”

“Yes.”  Deaton nods, and his eyes slip from Stiles face, like he’s heard the silent recrimination.  The moment’s over barely a second later.  “A door is a passageway between two worlds,” he explains, “between our reality and the reality the Nemeton was born to, but it can also act as a station.  You can stop between one side and the other because it’s not necessarily solely a channel from one place to the next.  You also had the potential to be end points, even if your design doesn’t particularly encourage it.”

Stiles’ brain is conjuring images of someone standing in the middle of a doorway, not taking a step back and not taking a step forward, stuck in some limbo of no place.  If he understands this right, then he, and Scott, and Allison are those midway points.  Before something decided to make Stiles its end.  But that can’t be right.  He would know, he would’ve remembered if his body was walking around even if he wasn’t in the driver’s seat.  He shakes his head, trying to make sense of all of it.  “What are you saying?” he demands.

Deaton’s left eyebrow twitches up.  “I’m saying something took you up on the offer to come in.”

Stiles swallows.  “Not the Nemeton?” he says, somehow already knowing the answer.

“I’m afraid not,” Deaton says sadly.  He steps away from the table and opens a cabinet.  He reaches in with both hands and pulls out a huge, leather-bound tome.  He sets it on the metal slab of table between them and Stiles’ stomach gives a violent lurch as he reads the title.

     The Compendium of D æmons

Stiles feels bile rise in his throat and he sways into the table, his head feeling slightly dizzied.  This isn’t real life.  Demons are… folklore, scary stories designed for social control.  They’re not monsters, they’re morals dressed up in fangs and scare tactics.  “You’re telling me I was possessed by a demon?” he says, and he wishes he sounded incredulous rather than winded.  “Demons exist and I was possessed by one?”

Deaton frowns slightly.  “Possession is a misleading term.  It implies you cohabited when a more accurate description is that you were taken over.  A demon has no corporeal form but it does have a will that is stronger than anything I’ve ever known.”  His eyes flash, compassion in the heart of them.  “It didn’t possess you, Stiles.  It became you.”

Stiles swallows and it feels like it takes an age to work its way down.  “You’re saying something twisted me to… evil?”

Deaton is quick to shake his head.  “No, that implies it constructed itself off you, that it used you as its most basic building block, when nothing could be further from the truth.  It repurposed you.”  Stiles’ head is spinning and it must show on his face because Deaton slows down and says more evenly, “It didn’t erase you so much as it completely changed you.  It isn’t a slow process either, as though it takes time to learn your memories and mannerisms.  It’s instantaneous.  You ceased to exist as you are now and the demon existed in your stead.  It was like a stain, obliterating what was underneath it completely.  You may know something is beneath but you have no way of knowing what because all that can be seen is one or the other, they can’t coexist.  It took your life force, your soul – if you’ll grant the expression – and used it to live but couldn’t access it.  It had none of your essence but it did have all that had been hardwired into your brain paths, your memories but not your emotions.”

Stiles can feel defeat rise in his throat.  “I don’t remember it,” he admits.

Deaton purses his lips and says forcefully, “You didn’t truly exist to.  You became the demon.  Think of it like an infection, only once you were cured of it could you form your thoughts and experiences again.”

Stiles is having trouble standing on his trembling legs.  His entire body is shaking and his mind is begging him to succumb to the blackness that promises oblivion, even if only for a little while.  “It wasn’t just a few hours, was it?”  He knows the answer to that, too.

Deaton comes around the table and says softly, “No, Stiles.  I’m sorry.”

Stiles’ chin quivers and he nods to himself, trying to withstand the blow.  “How long?”

“From what Scott and your father have told me,” Deaton says carefully, holding him by the shoulder in a firm but gentle grip, “well over four months.”

Stiles’ nostrils flare and he can feel his eyes instantly well up at the thought.  It’s worse, so much worse than he could have guessed.  He leans over, hands on the exam table, but it’s not helping his breaths come any deeper.  He’s huffy, panting, panicking, and his head feels dense, like it’s too heavy to hold up.

Deaton’s grip tightens.  “Stiles, listen to my breaths, count them in your head.”  His voice is calm, trying to anchor him in the turbulence of his thoughts.

Stiles shakes his head, breaths coming shallower, body less steady and he can feel his legs giving out beneath him.  “I can’t, I—”  He slides down, his forehead to the cool metal and he’s staring into his own distorted face, the lines of him wavy and inhuman.  He slams the side of his fist into the image and tries to pull in air but his lungs are closing off.

Deaton kneels next to him.  He grabs his shoulder again and pulls him around until Stiles is staring into his dark eyes.  “You can,” he says, not pandering, just patient certainty.  “Listen,” he commands.

Stiles does.  He closes his eyes and finds the sound of Deaton’s easy breaths.  One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  Five.  When he’s to twenty-two, he slowly feels his chest stop straining for more and instead settle into the rhythm of Deaton’s.  He breathes deeply and lets his thoughts settle, too.  They all suck.  “I’m seventeen,” is the first thing he realizes.  He was sixteen the last time he was aware of himself.  He rolls it around for a long time, attaching other thoughts to it.  “I’m a junior,” he winces, “God, if I even passed.  I didn’t take any of my exams.  I didn’t—I missed the anniversary of my mom dying.”  The thought hits him hard and it’s not as much shock now as it is anger.  “I missed winter.  No wonder it’s so fucking hot.  I thought—” Stiles bites his lower lip, sucks it into his mouth, and digs his teeth in.  Hard.  Tears are rolling down his cheeks but he doesn’t even notice them.  And the thought he’s been trying to fend off won’t be ignored any longer.  “I did some really nightmarish things, didn’t I?  Stuff fucking Michael Myers would judge me for, huh?”

Deaton sits next to him and clasps his hands between his knees thoughtfully.  It’s strange, a casual position for a man shrouded in mystery.  It makes no sense to Stiles.  “It’s important that you remember that you didn’t do anything.  You can’t blame yourself for something you had no responsibility for.”  He sounds serious, honest, and suddenly Stiles is glad he’s hearing this from Deaton and not anyone else.  He doesn’t think Deaton would lie to protect his feelings.  He thinks he can trust the words even if he can’t trust the man.

Even so, the guilt and shame is gnawing at his bones.  “It was my body, my life force it was living from.”

“Stiles,” Deaton starts, “would you blame a victim for getting shot?”  Stiles frowns, considering, but there’s no way he can twist that to his own reasoning.  Deaton goes on, like he knows he can’t argue the affirmative, “This is no different from that.  This was done to you, not with you.  You can’t forget that.”

Stiles wants to believe that more than he actually does.  He knows he’ll never be able to convince Deaton that he had any hand in it, no matter what he feels, so he asks instead, “What was done with me then?”

Deaton’s face is drawn.  “Here is where Scott and I agree, Stiles,” he says soberly.  “You don’t need to know what happened while the demon wore your skin, nor should you.  You would only feel guilt over events that in no way lie at your feet.”  He gives Stiles an incisive look.  “The healing will hurt less if you don’t spend your time gazing at the wounds.”

Stiles swallows as Deaton stands and leaves him to his own thoughts and an empty room.  He lets out a huff of breath that could be a laugh if it wasn’t so beaten and says out loud, “How can I heal from them when I don’t even know how deep they go?”

Stiles closes the door softly behind him.  His head is a mess but at least it’s one of his own making.

“Deaton told you then?”

Stiles nearly jumps out of his skin and, man, is that an expression he now despises.  His dad is sitting in the dark and Stiles finds the lamp on the end table by the couch and turns it on.  The light is a harsh yellow and his dad’s eyes close against it for a second.  Stiles’ head aches from it, too.  His dad’s got a glass of scotch in one hand and the other is resting on his forehead, or maybe his forehead is resting on it.  He twirls the glass in the circumference of his fingers, staring into its depths.  Stiles has the feeling that if he reached out to take it away from him, his dad might break his hand purely on instinct.

Stiles frowns, it makes his temples pound a little.  He tries to feel out his own thoughts so he can decide which ones have merit.  “He shouldn’t have had to,” he says.  And maybe that’s not his call to make.  Who knows what hell he’d put the people he loves most through; who was he to tell them how they should cope with it?  All he knows is that even if it was best coming from Deaton, it still shouldn’t have been him who said it.

His dad snorts.  “Another in a long list of mistakes then,” he toasts, downing his shot and Stiles recoils slightly.

“Dad, I—”

He shakes his head.  “Scott said it didn’t react.  Says it should have if you were still… if that thing was still in you.”  He sounds tired and his eyes droop.  “Like Blake with the mistletoe, should’ve shown your true face when he grabbed your hand if there was one to show.”  Stiles swallows, remembering the way both he and Scott had stared at his hand after he’d helped Stiles out of bed, remembers the jolt he’d felt when their skin had touched.  His dad squints.  “I’m supposed to believe it’s you now, kiddo.”  His voice hardens.  “Not the first time I’ve gotten the all clear though.”

Stiles swallows and it hurts, his head throbs with the motion.  “I don’t remember it.”

His dad snorts.  “So Deaton said.  I can guarantee you,” he makes an all-encompassing gesture with the hand that’s holding his drink, “all the rest of us have crystal clear memories of every godforsaken second.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says quietly, throat dry and pulsing in time with the beat of his heart.

His dad shakes his head, makes an irate sound.  “No, that’s not—” he stands and sways a bit.  He touches Stiles’ shoulder and it’s stiff but not as hesitant as it could be.  “You didn’t do anything wrong, Stiles.”  He squeezes tightly before he lets go.  He quirks an eyebrow and gives Stiles a long stare, pointing at him with the hand holding his glass.  “I need you to understand that.  You need to know that you don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, but it’s grim.  He stands too and it stretches his torso.  He hisses in pain, which only makes his head give a particularly violent thump.

His dad scrunches his forehead, rubbing his fingers into it.  “That’s my fault, kid.  There’s a pill bottle on the kitchen counter.”  He snorts to himself.  “Wouldn’t want you to know how much pain you’re actually in.”

Stiles’ brow furrows, aggravating his head further.  He lifts his shirts and jacket and nearly stumbles over his own feet.  Scrapes and bruises seem to be the dress code of the day and dug into his side, where the sting of pain is radiating from, are four puncture wounds.  He reaches behind him and he can feel a fifth scabbed injury around the side.  He holds his hand up to it.  Someone had dug their claws into him from behind, probably to stop him before they could land a fatal blow.  One that never came it seems.

Stiles’ nostrils flare out slowly, trying to stave off another panic attack, while his eyes follow his dad’s back as he disappears into the kitchen.  “How bad was it?” he croaks, he’s not even sure his dad will be able to hear him it’s so choked.

His dad comes back minutes later, his own drink abandoned.  He’s holding two pills in one hand and a glass of water in the other.  Stiles swallows them without hesitating.  His dad looks away and moves past him, stopping to clasp his shoulder.  “Bad enough,” is all he says, inflection absent.  He grips tight before letting go and walking away.

Stiles hears him creaking up the stairs, his head no longer amplifying every little noise until it’s resounding painfully through every bit of him.  “Hey, dad?”

The sound stops, waiting.

“Did I pass sophomore year?”

There’s a huff of breath, almost amused, and then: “Yeah, kid.  It took massaging the hell out of the truth and brushing up on my basic algebra, but you passed.”

“Hey, dad?” he says again.

“Yeah, kid?” his dad says and it doesn’t sound wary.  It sounds indulgent.

“I’m pretty sure it’s trig next year.  You up for it?”

His dad lets out a bark of a laugh.  “Go to bed, Stiles, before I call the school and tell them who’s really responsible for that ‘A’ you snagged in Chemistry.”

He hears the sound of feet climbing the stairs again and calls up to it before he can lose his nerve, “Love you, Dad.”

The response is immediate.  “Love you too, kid.  Now get some sleep already before I handcuff you to your bed.”

Stiles grins to himself.  “Aye, aye, captain.”  He waits until he hears his dad’s door close to make his way up to his own.  The man’s dealt with him enough for one day.  He barely has time to think that there’s no way he’ll ever get to sleep before he’s falling headlong into it.

He has no idea what wakes him but it’s jarring, his whole body jolting him into it.  His heart is a thudding cymbal-crash in his chest while he tries to calm himself enough to examine his room.  Everything is exactly as he last saw it except for the dark shadow that’s blocking the light of the stars through his window.

Stiles scrambles, trying to get upright and get his hands on something blunt, when the shadow says, “Deaton says he told you what actually happened to you.”

Panic leaves Stiles in the time it takes for him to slump his shoulders.  “Derek, shit.”  He pulls himself up to sit on his bed and rests his elbows on his drawn knees.  He rubs a hand over his face, trying to brush the sleep from it.  “Yeah, he did.  Thanks for the heart attack by the way.”

There’s a heaviness to the silence and Stiles waits for the break in it.  His eyelids are starting to linger closed on his blinks for longer and longer periods of time when Derek speaks again.  His words are decided yet brittle.  “I took your virginity.”

Stiles’ eyes widen as though they’ve never closed before and never will again.  “What?” is all he can bring himself to choke out.

Derek’s voice is tight and Stiles can’t see him in the darkness but he would bet his jaw is clenched to some unholy degree.  “I figured it was only fair you knew.”  He hesitates, turning back to the window, and throws over his shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

He’s gone, undoubtedly already halfway down the street, before Stiles can even rasp out a response to that.  His brain feels stupid and stuttered to a permanent stop because the words don’t make sense.  Him and Derek?  Fuck.  He digs his fingers into his hair and clenches.  It’s the last thing he wanted, the two of them together.

And now Stiles is just another in a long line of people who’d fucked over Derek Hale.

“Leave him alone,” Scott says coldly.

Stiles winces, setting down the toy basketball rather than trying to throw it into the hoop stuck to the back of Scott’s door.  He sits down next to Scott and doesn’t miss the way he shifts away from him on the bed.  “He said he was sorry, Scott.  That’s not okay.”  Stiles sighs explosively, lashing out with his hands to narrate, at least until he notices how closely Scott is watching them.  He folds his hands into his lap and it feels unnatural.  He’s too small like this, too unfamiliar.  He sucks it up if it’s going to make Scott less wary of him.  “He didn’t do anything wrong.  He doesn’t get to blame himself for this, too.”

“Stiles, you—” Scott looks pained and Stiles feels bile rise in his throat.  Whatever he’d done to Derek, it’s likely worse than he can imagine.  “He gets to decide what he wants from you,” Scott says finally.  “I get that you mean well, but this is Derek’s say, not yours.”  His eyes flash red and Stiles can’t help the way he shrinks away from them.  “I mean it, stay away from Derek.”

Stiles chews on the inside of his lower lip before letting out a long, unsteady breath.  “Okay.”

Stiles doesn’t get the text about the Pack meeting until almost twenty minutes before it’s set to start.  He knows why immediately.  It’s at Derek’s loft.  He texts back a guarded, ‘Okay,’ just in case Scott needs to send him a panicked retraction.  None comes, so Stiles puts on his jacket, says goodbye to his dad – who does a shit job of pretending not to watch his every move, and goes.

He clenches and unclenches his hands outside the door.  He closes his eyes, breathes deeply and tells himself they wouldn’t have asked him to come if they didn’t want him there.  He hopes.

He knocks rather than barges in and it’s Cora whose face is on the other side.  “Stiles,” is all she says and there’s nothing to give away how she feels about seeing him.

Stiles tries to grin at her, but he’s sure it looks like a broken grimace instead.  “Hey,” he says, stepping past her when she moves aside.  He regrets it instantly.  It’s like he’s stepped into a photorealist painting, only there’s tension in every brush stroke of it.  Every single one of them is on alert.

Allison’s fingers are itching, clenching on her thigh as though she’s actively stopping herself from reaching for a weapon.  Isaac is standing behind her, hands tense on either side of her chair, his eyes gauging every tic of Stiles’ movement.  Scott’s sitting up ramrod straight, though his expression is the only one with even the slightest bit of welcome in it.  Ethan’s face is drawn, slack and listless, and Lydia has dark circles under her eyes, which are rimmed red.

Stiles feels a hand curve over his side and he starts violently until a voice is hissing in his ear, “I think it’ll scar nicely, don’t you?”  The fingers press exactly where the claw marks are.

It’s completely disturbing how calm he is in Peter’s presence but he supposes it’s because they’re the same now.  Both people who aren’t to be trusted, who it’s best to be on guard around, who it wouldn’t be amiss to have a weapon or six on hand around.  Stiles turns his head so he can see the mischief in Peter’s eyes.  “You didn’t keep up your end,” he accuses quietly.

He can practically feel Peter’s smirk and he tilts his head toward the other side of the room where Derek is standing and says, “Not for lack of trying.”

Derek sees them looking and his mouth tightens, gaze falling away.  His arms are crossed over his chest like a protective barrier and it’s puffed up and large, making him appear bigger than he is.  Stiles can almost see the cracks he’s put in the facade, and he knows whatever it was that was in him, it had enjoyed it.  It had taken pleasure in finding the weakest spots and stabbing the pins in deep.  And Stiles had known exactly where to jab hardest.

Stiles can feel something shattering in him.  He had known about Paige.  About Kate.  About the fire.  About Jennifer.  About how Derek looked at him when he thought Stiles couldn’t see him.  Had the thing inside Stiles used all of it against him?  Had it given Derek everything he thought he could ever want and then ripped him apart with that same thing?  It was beyond cruel that Stiles was the one capable of causing the most destruction and that Stiles had been the one seized for the opportunity.  What the fuck had Derek let him get away with because he was so sure he deserved that and worse?  And how had this thing known that Stiles would make the best weapon against him?

He stares at Derek, the way he’s barely holding himself together, and he’s just so fucking sorry.

Scott clears his throat.  “Let’s get started then,” he says soberly, and Stiles is sure this isn’t the first gathering they’ve had since he’s gotten his body back.  This is just the first time they could stomach including him.

They’re playing Pack with him now and it’s exactly as hollow as it sounds.

Stiles shifts on his feet uneasily while Cora takes the seat next to Scott and Peter slinks back into the shadows.  Derek stays standing, as far away from Stiles as he can get and still in the same room.  Stiles resolves to stop looking at him, to follow his lead and pretend he doesn’t exist altogether.  He slowly trails his gaze around and shrugs.  “Shouldn’t we wait for Aiden?”

Ethan roars and only Scott’s inhuman reflexes keep Stiles from being on the sharp end of his claws.  Scott catches him by the throat and his responding howl is thunderous and imbued with authority.  He slams Ethan down and says in the gravelly command of an Alpha, “Enough.”

Ethan simply deflates, the fight going out of him in an instant until there’s nothing but cowed defeat and Stiles has a very good idea of why they’re not waiting for Aiden.  He stares down at his hands, his fingers trembling, and feels a perfect disconnect from them.  What else are they capable of made independent of him?

He doesn’t even realize he’s backing away until Peter catches him by the shoulder and leads him into the room.  He sits them both down on the empty couch across from Scott.  Stiles spends the entirety of it staring down at his knees.  No one tries to pull him out of that, which he’s beyond grateful for.

Lydia doesn’t look at him.  Not once.  She and Ethan are the first to leave, Ethan’s arm around her shoulders.

Stiles has to stay to explain the blueprints to Scott and he hates it.  He just wants to leave, run until he doesn’t recognize his surroundings, until there’s no one looking at him like he’s not him.

Scott spreads everything out over the table in front of the window and he’s mid-explanation of what they’re looking at when he stops, turns to Stiles, and says, eyes hard, “I won’t apologize for not telling you.  I still think it was the right call, whatever Deaton says.”  This Scott is so much more intractable, hardened by losing his best friend, and deaf to anything that isn’t his own voice.  He holds himself like there are wounds the naked eye can’t see and he’s still healing from them.  Stiles realizes this has changed Scott – changed all of them – just as much as it has him.

He may have been the one that was used to inflict damage but they were the ones who’d had to weather it.  As different as Scott is, he’s leveling with Stiles in that moment and he thinks Scott will be the first one he gets back.  The hesitance is gone but not the anger and Stiles can deal with the latter.

Stiles shrugs.  “I don’t think there was a right answer,” he says and he hopes that Scott understands what that means to Stiles, that no right answer means Scott can’t have made a wrong one.

Scott stares at him for a long moment, gaze no longer zesting for life but instead beaten down by it, and he nods once, sharply.  “I left some of these down in the car.”  He raises his brows carefully.  “You’ll wait?”

So Stiles’ discomfort here has been noted and then some.  He swallows and says, “Yeah, I’ll wait.”  His gut twists at how unfair this all is.  He’ll forever be making up for something he didn’t even do.  Apologizing for something he doesn’t even remember.  Walking on eggshells so as not to make anyone else uncomfortable.  The righteous anger is almost immediately swallowed up by a wave of guilt because – responsible or not – none of it could have been done without him.

He stares out the wall of windows, everything he can see industrial and cold.  He may never feel like himself in Beacon Hills again, he realizes.  He’s a stranger to these people and maybe he always will be.  Maybe there’s no way back and they’re all deluding themselves to think otherwise, to think this could ever be anything other than standing around together anticipating the worst.

“How’s your head?”

Stiles jumps, gulping, feeling like he’s swallowing back down his heart, which had tried to jettison out his mouth.  Derek is standing there just behind him, arms still crossed, gaze focused on the spire of a cell phone tower rather than Stiles’ face.  Stiles hates himself for it, but he stares openly at him.  

There’s a stiffness to him, like his muscles ache and he’s trying to go easy on them.  Stiles wonders how much of that is due to injuries that have only superficially healed, because Derek moves like there’s tissue damage that has only just begun to knit back together.  There are lines around his mouth, shadowing it in a permanent frown, and a defeated slump to his shoulders.

Whatever had kept Derek Derek after the hell he’s been put through is gone.  This was the last hit he could take.  The way his arms are fixed tight over his chest, it’s like they’re all that are holding  him together.  There’s nothing but sheer force of will there and who knows how quickly Derek will run through that.

Stiles is looking at a broken thing and the tape isn’t going to hold much longer.

And he has the fucking audacity to ask how Stiles is?  “That’s pretty much the last thing I would have expected to hear from you.”  He snorts but there’s no amusement behind it.  It still helps him to not start yelling.

Derek shrugs, eyes squinting and still focused on anything but Stiles.  “Deaton said it might be more than you could handle.”  He clears his throat.  “Pain like that, sometimes people don’t survive it.”

Stiles whirls on him and Derek tenses.  “It was you, in Deaton’s office, you took my pain.”

Derek’s mouth tightens but he doesn’t deny it.

He should’ve welcomed it.  Stiles dying in a way that still gave him clean hands and, even better, a clean conscience.  Stiles frowns, remembering Peter’s, ‘Not for lack of trying.’  Even after all he was responsible for, Derek still wanted to ensure he didn’t suffer if he could help it.  He deserves so much better than what the universe keeps throwing at him and, the worst part is, he doesn’t know it.

Stiles isn’t angry anymore.  No, now he’s just sad.  “When are you finally going to deal with your own, Derek?”  He sighs, and he can’t stay here, he can’t watch Derek torture himself just by being close to him.  He doesn’t want to be another platform Derek Hale can martyr himself on.  They’re both worth better than that.

He hopes Scott can forgive him for leaving but he can’t stare at the destruction he’s caused and not want to fix it somehow, even if he knows his hands can only make it worse.

Stiles keeps his distance.  Scott always invites him to the loft but he’s never surprised when every invitation goes unanswered.  He’s seen Lydia once since the last Pack meeting, and she bursts into tears at just the sight of him.  Stiles doesn’t go back to Beacon Mall just in case.

He thinks the wolves might be avoiding his scent, which he appreciates.  He doesn’t see Allison either but he didn’t see much of her before.  He wishes he could avoid his dad as well as the rest of them but that has to be dealt with, for better or worse.  They do their best and it’s not as awkward and stilted as it was two months ago.

His dad drinks too much and he looks perpetually sad but his gun gets locked in the desk drawer and conversation is no longer so hard to come by.  Even when Stiles sometimes wishes it was.

“It took things, you know?” he says one night.  He’s watching a baseball game and Stiles is sitting on the couch near him.  They’re both pretending it’s normal rather than trying for it.  “Facts, memories, it had ‘em all.  Called me an absent father, didn’t even know my kid had taken up with werewolves, didn’t know my kid wasn’t my kid.”  He laughs hoarsely and his eyes water.  “Once it realized we weren’t fooled by it any longer, it got vicious, said you’d wanted it – oblivion, death, whatever – because you never felt wanted by any of us.”

Stiles bites his lip so hard it bleeds.  “I didn’t.  It was lying.”

His dad nods, says, “Okay.”  And maybe it is.  Maybe it’s finally getting there.

Scott doesn’t go anywhere either.  As much as Stiles tries to give him an out, he still shows up and it’s a complete role reversal and Stiles has no idea what to do with that.  “Scott, really, you don’t have to—”

“Shut up,” Scott says, angry and vibrating with it.  He points a finger in Stiles’ face and bites out, “Just shut up, okay?  I’m not going anywhere.  You’re my best friend and, Stiles, why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

Scott stares at him, incredulous.  “That you were the one who was putting all the work into it?”  Stiles feels like he could swallow his own tongue in his surprise.  It’s true that he’s always put more in but it’s because Scott’s the type to trust everything to come up roses.  Stiles is the more practical one, the one that knows it sometimes takes effort and persistence to keep a friendship going.  He’s never blamed Scott for it.  It’s just the way Scott is and always has been.  “It’s my turn,” he says, “and that’s only fair.  I’m not looking for a way out so stop acting like I am.”

Stiles does.

He and Derek don’t cross paths and Stiles hopes he knows, that Scott has told him, that Stiles doesn’t blame him for anything, that his apology was not only laughably misplaced but also patently unwelcome.  Stiles doesn’t know.  He doesn’t bring up Derek with Scott.  He doesn’t think he has a right to it.  Scott does once and Stiles is almost sick to his stomach knowing the little he does.

They’d been in his room, playing Halo, and Scott had said, apropos of nothing, as though he thought Stiles was dying to ask but knew it wasn’t his place to, “He loved you.”

Only Stiles wasn’t dying to ask.  He didn’t want to know.  He didn’t want to know any of it.  He still doesn’t.  His controller had dropped from his hand and suddenly there wasn’t enough air in his bedroom.

Scott had gone on without pausing.  “It knew that, and it used it.”

His dad brings him up once, too.  It’s after the talk during the baseball game.  It’s football now and Stiles has a harder time feigning interest in this one.  His dad laughs, and there’s no edge in it.  It’s such a welcome surprise that Stiles actually smiles back.  His dad knocks his beer bottle into Stiles’ elbow and says, “You still don’t even know the names of the teams.  We’re to the half, Stiles.”

“I know the names of the teams,” Stiles bluffs, “that one there is the Lightning Bolts, and over there we’ve got the Horseshoes.”

His dad shakes his head.  “Pathetic.  I remember you were a lot better at this when Derek was around.”

Stiles’ eyes widen.  His dad had known about them?  Oh God, how deep into this had he been with Derek?  He had watched games with him and his dad at the very least.  He stares up at his dad, who’s tense because he knows he’s said something he shouldn’t have, and Stiles knows the answer of exactly what their relationship had meant to Derek.  He’d had a family again.

When Scott texts him about the next Pack meeting, Stiles texts back:

I’ll be there.

Avoidance isn’t the best strategy then.  He and Derek have dug their claws too deeply into each other.  Stiles has to make it clear that even if they aren’t… what they were, he can still have everything else.  He can still have Stiles’ dad, he can still have Stiles’ friendship.  Disappearing on him was probably the worst possible decision Stiles could have made.  He’d been trying to offer him space but he’d probably only managed to confirm for Derek that Stiles’ interest in him could never be genuine.

Stiles shows up, keeps to himself, and eventually the gauging, tense looks in his direction lessen.

Scott gives him a slight smile as he leaves and Stiles realizes he’s been waiting for him to figure out that this was where he needed to be if things were going to get fixed.  It took him long enough but he thinks he gets it now.

It takes time.  It’s a road he has to take slowly and it’s slippery and narrow and there’s more than one day when Stiles wants to throw up his hands and plop down and declare himself done.   But then the day comes when he walks up behind his dad while he’s looking in the fridge and he doesn’t jump when he turns around and finds him there.  He makes a crack about getting him a bell and his hand doesn’t go to his side, it pops the top on his beer and then pats Stiles’ shoulder as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Scott doesn’t stay attuned to him the way he has been, he tackles him when Stiles makes a crack about mooning after Kira and picks him up with a laugh when he falls over before getting even three feet on his stupid motorbike and hugs him so tight his bones creak when he surprises him with midnight tickets to 22 Jump Street.  They’re friends because they both want to be and that’s still pretty fucking cool.

Lydia sits down next to him on the first day of their junior year and announces that they’re lab partners because she doesn’t intend to fail and all the rest of their classmates are idiots.  And that’s that.

Allison and Isaac sit with them at lunch and strike up conversation easily and no one spares him an extra glance, even when he starts smiling so widely to himself that he feels half-mad with it.

Cora treats him with complete indifference so nothing’s changed there.  Ethan stops looking murderous when they’re together and just looks tired.  It doesn’t come as much of a surprise when he tells Scott he’s leaving right before the school year starts.  Scott lets him go with the assurance that he always has a place with them should he want it.

He stops next to Stiles and says in a quiet tone, “I don’t blame you,” and then he’s gone.

Stiles doesn’t even get a chance to thank him.  He thinks Ethan gets it anyway.

Derek’s harder to read, torn between reaching out to him and recoiling from him.  He’s quiet when they’re together, and Stiles thinks it’s because he’s listening to every—single—solitary—thud of Stiles’ heartbeat just to be sure it’s still the same person standing in front of him.  There are moments, when Derek closes his eyes, that it looks like he’s trying to feel safe in the familiar pattern and has forgotten how.  Stiles wonders what it means to him, the steady beat of his heart, what the rhythm reminds him of.  Stiles supposes part of his punishment is that he’ll never remember even a moment of them.

He wonders if that’s a source of pain or pleasure to Derek.

Derek leans back against the post next to him, watching the Pack run.  There’s a shift under his skin that Stiles knows he’s suppressing.  There’s this rare moment of isolation between them.  They don’t seek each other out so the Pack is always there to act as buffer between them, but now they’re lost to the animal in them.  They’re alone for the first time in longer than Stiles cares to remember.

Stiles reaches over to him and Derek flinches violently.

“Don’t,” he says hoarsely.  He rubs a hand over his eyes.  “I just—I can’t, Stiles.  I’m not there yet.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, shoving his hands into his jean pockets.  And it is.  It’s not good but it’s okay.  He can live with the strain between them because it means Derek is still willing to try.  He stares up at the stars, tilting his head back and pretending he doesn’t feel the weight of Derek’s gaze.  “You’re the one who tried to destroy the Nemeton, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, and he doesn’t sound embarrassed by it.  He doesn’t sound anything by it.

“Shame it didn’t work,” is Stiles’ only comment.  His nostrils flutter as he breathes deep.  The air is cool and fresh and Stiles feels perfectly at peace here.  It’s strange that they’re standing here in the same moment and it’s so opposite for Derek.  “My dad misses watching the games with you.  It’s not the same when you’re cheering with someone whose specificity bottoms out at, ‘Go, Pointy-hats.’”

Derek actually chuckles at that.  “That wouldn’t be weird for you?”  He seems genuinely curious.

Stiles shrugs.  “You not popping up to scare the crap out of me every other week is weirder.”

“I’m sorry that it’s—”

Stiles’ expression hardens.  “Apologize to me again and I’m going to ask Cora to punch you in the face.”

Derek’s quiet at that but Stiles can tell there’s something he wants to say that he isn’t.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

Derek doesn’t show up.  Stiles doesn’t really expect him to.  It’s too broken when it comes to them and there’s a good chance there’s no way back from that.  He hopes Derek at least knows that it’s not his fault he can’t slot it back into place.  They were done for as soon as Derek let that thing inside.

It’s been ages and Stiles is starting to feel like himself again.  It’s not perfect but his life never was.  He’s not sure whether he’s worse off for the four month void of memory or better.  He still doesn’t know how he killed Aiden and his nightmares are varied and vivid trying to fill in the details but maybe it would be worse to know, to relive the same scene over and over again instead.

He misses Derek, too.  He misses the easy grin he’d had on his face when Stiles had found him slumped on the floor under his window, bleeding.  The last memory Stiles has of him that was real and untainted.

Stiles hadn’t even balked at finding him like that, just snarked something about Derek being chronically incapable of just playing nice with the other kids.

Derek had rolled his eyes while Stiles had rummaged around under his bathroom sink.  His dad had come into the room and loudly wondered why Stiles didn’t seem all that surprised to find Derek Hale in his bedroom.

Stiles had chastised his dad for trying to intimidate the dying man and Derek had looked rather terrified at being caught in the bedroom of the Sheriff’s underage son until he realized his dad was kidding.  Mostly.

Stiles had burned the wolfsbane Derek had identified as the culprit and pressed it to his side with a soft smile and Derek had watched him, gauging but trusting, and Stiles had let his fingers linger a little on his skin.  They’d both obligingly pretended not to notice.  They’d been going someplace good and now they weren’t.  Stiles can’t pretend not to be crushed by the loss of that promise.

He hopes it was good for Derek, at least at first.  He would hate if the only memories of them are poison.

He’ll never ask.  He knows better than that.  Even if Scott does think that’s the fix.  Scott’s an eternal optimist and he’s held on to that by the skin of his teeth even after everything that’s happened.  Stiles almost envies him that.  He doesn’t have it in him, but then, he never quite did.

Stiles powers down his laptop, rubbing at his eyes, and stretches.   There’s nothing on the strange graffitied symbols that have been showing up all over town and Stiles is defeated, at least for the night.  His dad’s working the late shift, but it’s not an escape anymore.  He goes downstairs for a glass of water and nearly drops it when he comes back into his room to find Derek standing in front of his desk.

He tries not to draw attention to the strangeness of seeing him there.  He buries the brief thought about what this room means for Derek and says in a stretched voice, “Hey.”

“There are things you don’t know, Stiles, things—” He’s clearly been practicing this and Stiles has to wonder for how long.  “I owe you more than an apology.”  He looks drawn and pale.  The skin under his eyes is dark, heavy with all the sleep he isn’t getting.

Stiles swallows and he sets the glass down, shaking his head.  “You don’t owe me anything.”

Derek doesn’t even seem to hear him.  He runs a hand through his hair, tugging slightly.  “I knew,” he croaks out, voice high and strident.  “I knew something was different. You’d never looked at me like you could want but I—I didn’t question it because I did.”

Stiles is so angry his hands are shaking.  He clenches them into fists at his sides.  Derek stares at him, waiting, taking it all in like he’s expected nothing else, like he’ll take whatever hate Stiles wants to throw at him.  “You,” Stiles’ voice breaks it’d come out so forceful and he beats it into a fierce calm before trying again, “You are so fucking deluded.”  Derek’s brow furrows and Stiles bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from winding up any further.  He needs to explain this, simple and to the point.  “It’s true.”  He lets out a shaky breath through his nose.  “I didn’t want you to be my first.”  Derek reacts like he’s taken a blow, the air slamming out of his lungs and Stiles glares at him.  “Because I wanted you to be my last.”

That seems to throw him for a loop.  He blinks rapidly.  “What are you talking about?”

Stiles deflates.  He doesn’t know if he should bother telling Derek any of this.  It won’t change anything, it won’t fix them.  But he can’t have Derek going around thinking he’s taken something from Stiles that he never intended to give.  Because that’s just so far beyond wrong it’s laughable.  “I had a plan for us, Derek,” he sighs, “and it was the hardest fucking thing I’d ever done, even though it was a simple nugget of a thing, and I wasn’t anywhere close to through with it but it was worth it, it was going to be so worth it.”  He meets Derek’s eyes and says simply, “I was waiting.”

Derek swallows, eyes fixed on Stiles’ face and Stiles can tell he never once considered it before this moment: That he wasn’t alone in this.

Stiles closes his eyes and hates himself for never being more transparent about it.  It had made sense at the time but now… Derek shouldn’t have had to doubt himself for so long.  He decides to go for broke.  “You deserved something, something perfect for once and I was trying so hard to be it.”  Stiles bites his lip.  “You—you are just so used to being that guy, you know?  The guy who never does anything right.  And even though you aren’t him – couldn’t be farther from it actually, you still believe you are.”  He clenches his fingers in frustration and says tightly, “I knew, I knew, if I didn’t do it just right then you’d find a way to feel guilty about us.”  He fixes Derek with an intense stare only to find Derek gazing right back at him with the same ferocity.  

Stiles swallows.  “We were not going to be something that you could ever feel like shit for, I was going to make sure of it.  We were going to be something that you could fucking pride yourself on if you wanted to.”  Stiles looks away, voice going smaller.  “I didn’t want it to happen while I was in high school because I knew you’d take our age difference and run with it.”  He shrugs, admitting, “I wanted to be older anyway, not the kind of person who would throw Kate back in your face just because they were scared,” he winces, “because that is one of the shittiest things I’ve ever done and I kind of lead a life full of shit things so that’s saying something.”  Stiles runs a hand through his hair and says thinly, “You deserved better than that, you still do.”

Derek opens his mouth like he means to say something and Stiles shakes his head.  Derek doesn’t question it, mouth closing with a snap.

Stiles huffs.  “I knew you’d regret taking away my freedom at college, shackling me in a relationship before I’d had a chance to see what was out there, so I was going to wait at least a year.  I was going to try things out, explore my options, so that when I came to you and told you that this,” he gestures between them, “was what I wanted, you would know that I was done rather than just starting.”  He laughs and it’s strangled and choked with so much emotion it hurts.  “You were the fucking endgame, Derek, and now.”  He shakes his head.  “Now it can never happen.”

Stiles can see Derek’s eyes shining in the dark and he’s sure his are no better.

There was no point in telling him all this, not when there was nothing either of them could do with it.  But now that the floodgates have opened, Stiles can’t stop pouring out his guts.  His voice is less controlled but still understandable for the most part.  “This was supposed to be the one thing that you could be sure of and you can’t now, can you?”  Stiles stares up at him but Derek looks lost in his own head, drawn down into some hell he can’t stop experiencing.  Stiles knows the feeling.  He swipes at his eyes and says angrily, “The universe takes every opportunity to fuck you over, Derek, and no matter how small that voice gets, it’ll never disappear.  That voice that’s telling you that maybe I’m not who I say I am.”  Derek’s shoulders jerk back and Stiles knew.  It still fucking hurts to have it confirmed.  He tries for wry but he’s too throttled with anguish for it.  “No one can even blame you for waiting for the other shoe to drop, because that’s your entire fucking life.  Just one long line of dropped shoes.”

Stiles takes a step forward and now he can see that Derek’s trembling.  Standing there and trembling because maybe he could have had this if he’d just been patient enough for it.  Which is such a bullshit fucking thought and one Stiles isn’t going to let him hide in.

Stiles touches his cheek, sliding down to gently tip up his chin.  The scruff against his fingers is rough and real.  “Don’t you doubt for one fucking second that I wanted you.  That I still want you.”  A thick sheen is wavering over Derek’s green eyes and Stiles hates himself for putting it there.  “I wanted you more than I knew it was possible to want,” he admits.  “But you haven’t lost me.  I’m not going anywhere.  I’m at your back and at your side, whenever you want me, and maybe this is some sick way of putting things on an even keel.”

Stiles shrugs.  “The kanima taught us that the universe needs balance.  Maybe it had to kill this for us so you could have someone else,” Stiles smiles grimly, “because I wouldn’t have let you go once I had you.  You get the memories and I get to let you go and we both get the short end of the stick this time but I think it’ll work itself out.  I believe in that balance.”

Derek looks away from him, jaw clenched and eyes angry.

“You know why it can never be us, right?”  And, oh God, he has to choke down a sob.  His eyes start to water and he angrily forces it down.  “You can never be comfortable with me, Derek, and you deserve someone you can relax with, someone you can fall asleep next to.  I told you, I’m not going to let you punish yourself anymore.  You’ve earned more than that.”  He sniffs and tries to grin but it’s unsteady and wrong.  “All I know is you had better find someone amazing,” he squeezes both hands on Derek’s shoulders, “because I will take it really fucking personally if I have to lose this and you don’t end up with someone better than me.”

Stiles hears Derek’s jaw pop as he clenches it and then he nods his head once.

It’s more than Stiles thought he would get out of him.  He tries to step away but instead he’s leaning into him, pressing their mouths together, dragging his lips against Derek’s more than anything else.  He presses a desperate, chaste kiss to Derek’s mouth and he knows he doesn’t have any right to this but Derek isn’t pushing him away.  He’s curling his fingers around Stiles’ side, pulling him closer and opening his mouth.

Stiles slides his tongue inside, twisting his fingers into Derek’s shirt and breathing into his mouth as much as he’s kissing him.  He wants to stay in this moment for as long as they both can stand it because this is the last one he’ll ever get.  He twists his mouth against Derek’s, surges deep, lifts a hand to smooth up the back of Derek’s neck and into his hair.  It’s softer than he’d imagined it and it parts easily around his grasping fingers.

He tries to pour how in love with Derek he is into every bite of his teeth and push of his tongue.  Derek stands up, presses a hand to the small of Stiles’ back and wraps the other around his shoulders until he’s supporting almost all of Stiles’ weight and Stiles has to let him go.  He’s said he would and he knows Derek isn’t going to be the one to step away from this.

If it’s going to hurt then Derek’s going to make sure he finds some way to be first in line for it.

Stiles pulls away from him and it’s torturous.  He pushes back on Derek’s chest and Derek loosens his grip by increments.  Stiles kisses him one last time, their upper lips still dragging together as he lingers there.  “Goodbye, Derek Hale,” he says on a puff of breath.

He takes a step back and it might as well be a chasm he’s carved out between them.

Derek rolls his lower lip into his mouth, rubbing a hand over it with dazed eyes.  He swallows and walks to the window like he’s moving on autopilot.  He pauses with his fingers poised on the sill and says blankly, “Goodbye, Stiles.”

The breeze from the open window is cold and Stiles shivers, the only thing that’d been keeping him warm long gone.