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Stiles took a deep breath, finally feeling like he could breathe.
After being expelled by the Nogitsune, Stiles shuddered at the thought; he hadn’t had a single moment of rest. Everyone was either panicking about Lydia disappearing or questioning Stiles relentlessly about what he remembered about being possessed or any information he had about the Nogitsune.
Deaton had kept poking and prodding at him, trying to assess his physical and mental state. Peter, ever the creeper wolf, stood off in a corner watching Stiles intently. Melissa and Scott wouldn’t stop hovering. Scott was doing so protectively, but Stiles couldn’t be sure who he was protecting. Stiles? Or everyone else in the room? While Melissa was looking at him warily, only coming close to clean the gaping wound in his stomach.
Sitting in the McCall’s living room after everything he’d been through made him feel like he was suffocating. He wasn’t allowed to help anyone look for Lydia. He wasn’t allowed to go home. He wasn’t even allowed to sleep, for fear the Nogitsune might still have some kind of hold on him. There were too many unknowns, too many casualties left in the Nogitsune’s wake, for Stiles to be safely left alone.
He couldn’t take it anymore, croaking out that he had to use the bathroom and using that small space of time to slip out the front door. Stiles figured he had at least a twenty minute window before they realized he was missing and came looking for him. He didn’t care if they brought him back; he just needed some fresh air.
The next thing he knew he was standing outside of Derek’s loft. He wasn’t sure why he had ended up there, he was even more unsure of why he found himself going inside and up to Derek’s floor. He stood there, wringing his hands nervously. He knew Derek would smell him, hear him, so knocking was almost pointless. Still, he hesitantly knocked his fist against the door.
The door slid open, revealing a wolfed out Derek. His teeth were bared, claws unsheathed, blue eyes blazing as he roared in Stiles’ face. Stiles blinked at him slowly before rolling his eyes. He hadn’t been afraid of Derek for a long time.
“Put the teeth away Sourwolf. It’s me,” Stiles told him, wincing at how defeated he sounded.
Derek balked at the name, wolf features instantly fading to be replaced with a wary expression.
“Stiles?” he asked with doubt.
Stiles nodded with a weak shrug.
“Yea. Can I, um, can I come in?”
Derek let him, though he was obviously reluctant to do so. Stiles didn’t blame him. After everything that had happened at Stiles’ hands, Stiles didn’t trust himself either.
“What happened?” Derek asked from behind him, keeping a good distance.
Stiles looked at him questioningly.
“You haven’t talked to Scott?”
Derek’s expression darkened as he reached up to rub at his shoulder blade.
“He tried calling but I was…occupied,” he explained cryptically.
Stiles didn’t push, sure he didn’t want to know what other fuckery was going on in Beacon Hills. Though it probably explained why Peter had been there instead of Derek.
“Well, um, to put it bluntly the Nogitsune puked me up. I guess? I’m not sure how else to really describe it.”
“That’s-“
“A whole new level of weird. I know,” Stiles finished for him.
“I was gonna say backwards, actually. Wouldn’t you have puked up the Nogitsune? Not the other way around? It was inside you after all.”
“You don’t believe me,” Stiles whispered in a hurt tone.
“After everything that’s happened, I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
Stiles nodded. He could understand that. For all he knew, the Nogitsune was playing a trick. He had lost count of how many times it had let Stiles dream that everything was back to normal. Or as normal as life could be in Beacon Hills.
“What about my scent though?” Stiles asked, grasping for a way to convince Derek. “Don’t I smell like me?”
Stiles watched as Derek’s nostrils flared, taking in his scent. Stiles winced and turned away when Derek’s face scrunched up in disgust.
“Your scents been tainted ever since that thing got inside you. Its scent is still all over you,” Derek growled, almost possessively.
Stiles stiffened at that piece of information, crossing his arms as he started to claw at his arms.
“It is?” he asked hysterically before rushing over to the kitchen sink.
Stiles was gasping for air, fumbling with the soap and dropping it a few times before getting a firm grasp on it. He started scrubbing at his arms, rubbing the skin raw in a desperate attempt to get any remnant of the Nogitsune out of his body.
Stiles didn’t hear Derek approaching and flinched away when he felt a hand come down on his shoulder. Stiles fell to the floor, silent tears running down his face as he continued to scrub at his arms. Derek crouched in front of him slowly, silently trying to tell Stiles everything was okay.
“Stiles.”
Stiles’ head jerked up at the sound of his name. He suddenly felt ashamed that Derek had to see him like this. He squeezed his eyes shut, hanging his head onto his knee as he dragged in ragged breaths. He felt Derek reach out and wrap his hand around Stiles’ neck. It was comforting until he felt a prickling along his neck. He knew if he opened his eyes he’d see black veins traveling up Derek’s arm.
Stiles jerked away, eyes snapping open with a glare.
“Don’t do that!”
Derek’s eyebrows rose in shock.
“I’m just trying to help.”
Stiles shook his head.
“Not when it hurts you too. I know you feel it when you take pain away. You’ve been hurt enough because of me as it is.”
Derek pulled a confused expression.
“What do you mean?”
“Your shoulder. I can see the wound Derek. I know you got it protecting that thing. It’s not healing. I’m sorry…” Stiles trailed off in a whisper.
“It is healing. Just slowly. I’m okay. You don’t have to be sorry. I was protecting you Stiles. Because I wanted to.”
“Why?” Stiles asked in disbelief.
“Because you’re pack,” Derek answered immediately, though he avoided Stiles’ eyes.
Stiles smiled, though it was small and sad, before jerking his chin towards Derek’s wound.
“You should put something on that before it gets infected.”
Surprisingly, Derek let out a quick laugh.
“That’s exactly what Peter said.”
Stiles rolled his eyes, slowly standing up and to go over to the drawer that held a first aid kit. He chuckled, remembering Derek glaring at him and saying, “For the humans,” when Stiles had mocked him for buying it. Stiles took out the bottle of peroxide and a cotton ball.
“Ironic that the first person to need this is a werewolf,” he told Derek as he leaned over his shoulder and dabbed peroxide onto the wound and blowing on it occasionally.
“Shut up,” Derek growled, tensing up at the sting of the peroxide. “So, are you a hundred percent you now?”
Stiles froze for a moment before continuing to clean the wound.
“I-I honestly don’t know. I feel like me. But everyone…Peter, Deaton, Melissa, even Scott…they were all looking at me like I was a ticking time bomb about to go off any minute. Deaton thinks that the Nogitsune might still have some power over me and…it terrifies me.
I remember everything. Isaac, Coach, the bomb, stabbing Scott, hurting you, everything. I was trapped inside my head, watching it hurt everyone I care about. I was screaming for it to stop. Screaming so hard and for so long I thought my throat would burst.
I can’t go through that again Derek. I’d rather die,” Stiles choked out on a sob, tears falling onto Derek’s back.
“You won’t,” Derek said fiercely as he turned to face Stiles. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”
Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to believe Derek. Stiles just didn’t know if he had any hope left in him. The Nogitsune had left him feeling utterly defeated.
“What if I’m asleep and this is all a dream? It’s done this before. Let me believe that everything’s okay again. Or that none of this ever happened. Or it’s shown me standing around all of you, everyone I love, dead because of me. I have no way of knowing what’s a dream and what’s reality,” Stiles told him, sounding distraught.
Derek reached out for Stiles’ hands, cutting off the boys panicked ramblings.
“Scott said something about counting your fingers to know you’re awake. Is that right?”
Stiles nodded, swallowing when Derek squeezed his hands comfortingly. He started to slowly tick each of Stiles’ fingers off, whispering each number as he counted. When he reached ten, he gave Stiles what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
“Stiles, you need to get some sleep. You look dead on your feet.”
“Yea, well that’s probably because of the gaping gash in my stomach.”
Derek frowned when he look down and realized the wound for the first time.
“No arguments,” he told Stiles as he reached out and leached some of his pain away.
Stiles grimaced but otherwise didn’t complain.
“You really don’t need to do that,” Stiles told him quietly.
“I don’t need to do a lot of things. I do them because I want to. But you do need to get some sleep Stiles. It’s been weeks since you’ve slept.”
Stiles frowned as more tears started to leak out.
“I’m too scared to sleep Derek. What if I wake up and it’s in control of me again? I don’t want to wake up and not be me again. I don’t want to go to sleep and wake up to find out this was all a dream.”
“You won’t,” Derek promised as he reached out to wipe the tears from Stiles’ face. “This is real and you’re going to stay you. We’re going to find a way to fix this Stiles. I’ll be here when you wake up and you’ll still be you. Everything’s going to be okay.”
After much convincing and coaxing, they ended up on the couch. Derek was sitting with his back to the arm of the couch while Stiles was curled up against his chest, his head resting in the crook of Derek’s arm. Despite all his protests, Stiles had fallen asleep almost instantly, completely comfortable and at ease in Derek’s arms.
Derek was still reassuring Stiles that he was okay and all of this was real as he ran his hand through Stiles’ hair when his phone started going off.
“Scott?”
“Derek! I’ve been calling you all night! Look, something’s happened with Stiles and Lydia went missing and now Stiles has disappeared-“
“Scott, relax. I know. Stiles is here. He’s okay. As okay as he can be.”
“He’s there? Thank god. I’ll come get him soon.”
“No. He’s sleeping. Let him stay here for the night.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea? We still don’t know if that’s even really Sti-“
“It’s Stiles!” Derek growled.
“Derek…I know we’d all like to think that but-“
“It’s Stiles,” Derek repeated, almost desperately. “It has to be. We need to do something Scott. I-We can’t lose him again.”
“I know! But what do we do?”
“I don’t know…Just…We need to figure something out. I’ll call you tomorrow after he wakes up.”
Derek ended the call and dropped his phone, burying his face into Stiles’ hair.
“Let this be real…” Derek whispered fervently, tightening his hold on Stiles. “Just let this be real.”
Stiles shifted in his sleep and mumbled, “Count Derek. Just count to ten.”
And so he did. He held Stiles’ hands as he counted their fingers over and over again, whispering each number as he counted until he fell asleep as well.