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It was times like this that Derek almost regretted selling the loft. The sale had been the right financial choice, at the time, but it had been nice to have a guaranteed place to stay when he came back to town. Not that he came back all that often nowadays—hence selling his property there—but this wasn’t an occasion that he could ignore.
Honestly, it was no surprise that all of Beacon Hills' three hotels were booked up; Sheriff Stilinski’s upcoming memorial service was drawing in mourners from near and far and everywhere in between. He’d been a good man, a good detective, and a good friend to a lot of people. Even just driving into town, Derek thought he could feel the pall of grief over the whole town. Everyone and everything was subdued in the wake of Noah’s passing.
Derek couldn’t blame them. He may have fallen a bit out of touch in recent years, too busy traveling with Braeden at first and then just all too happy to leave Beacon Hills and every one of its bad memories in the rear view mirror, but that didn’t mean that he had completely cut contact with the people he still considered his pack. He’d skyped regularly with Scott and Stiles and Lydia and even Chris. And he’d spent plenty of hours on the phone with Noah, consulting on various supernaturally influenced cases, advising him on pack dynamics and hunter conflicts, just catching up.
Derek’s suitcase felt heavier than it should as he dragged it out of the backseat. The motel parking lot was dim, lit by a few wan streetlights and the red flicker of a neon sign. The place was a few steps below anything Derek would usually subject himself to, but it was also the only vacancy Derek had been able to find, so it would have to do. He could suffer through a few nights of questionable smells, for Noah’s sake.
Despite all the cars, it was late enough for the lot to be empty of people as Derek crossed it. The tiny office, though, was not. A stooped, middle-aged man was behind the counter, pecking at a clunky keyboard one finger at a time, and in front of it—
It might have been a few years since Derek had last seen him in person rather than on a computer screen, but his scent hadn’t changed a bit. Drowned as it was by the heavy, musty chemosignals of grief, Derek could never mistake Stiles’ scent. Even when it made no sense for him to be here.
“Stiles?”
The clerk stopped his typing, but Stiles didn’t react. He didn’t even seem to hear it.
Derek dropped his suitcase by the door. Stiles had his at his feet, the handle in a white-knuckled grip and pressed tight against his thigh. His hoodie was rumpled, his khakis creased. One of his shoes was untied.
He still didn’t notice when Derek said his name again, but the hand on his shoulder made him flinch. Wide brown eyes landed on Derek, though they took a few seconds to really focus.
“Derek,” he said finally. “What are you doing here?”
There was a rasp to his voice that was painful to hear, gritty and raw, but the blankness of his tone was even worse. He looked away, too, gaze sliding back into that thousand yard stare before he’d even finished his question.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
Derek tightened his grip on Stiles’ shoulder to get his attention back. It didn’t work very well, but Stiles did make a vaguely acknowledging noise, even if he wouldn’t make eye contact again. Derek traded a look with the clerk instead, an uncertain sort of concern on the man’s round face.
“Stiles,” Derek tried again. “Why are you here? You’ve got somewhere to stay. You should be at home.”
The tense muscle under Derek’s fingers tightened further and his throat worked around a swallow.
“No,” he said. “No, I— I tried that. It wasn’t—” He shook his head, tongue flicking out to wet chapped and bitten lips. It took him a few tries to get any more words past them. “I couldn’t get through the door. Not without—”
His jaw shut with an audible click of teeth. It didn’t matter; Derek didn’t need to hear the end of that sentence. It may have been a long time since the Hale house had been demolished, but he would never forget what it had been to stand in the remains of his happy childhood and feel the ghosts of what he had lost. He could only imagine how much worse it would be with the home intact, nothing changed but the emptiness of it.
“Why here, though?” Derek asked. “Surely there’s someone you could stay with.”
Stiles was already shaking his head again, eyes sliding absently over the bland wallpaper behind the clerk’s head. “No, I didn’t want to—” His breath hitched in his throat. “I just wanted to be alone.”
Derek dragged his free hand across his mouth. Then, with a decisive nod, he turned to the clerk and said, “A room for two, please.”
That pulled Stiles out of his daze a bit, just enough to earn him a frown and an open mouth, but Derek cut him off before he could speak.
“Stiles, trust me,” he said. “Alone is the last thing you need to be right now.”
For a second, Derek thought Stiles might protest anyway, but then his pale cheeks flushed and he looked away again. Derek kept a hold of him, fighting down the irrational feeling that this odd, vacant version of Stiles would drift away and disappear if he let go. When a moment passed with Stiles swaying and unsteady but not going anywhere, Derek turned his attention back to the clerk.
“Oh,” the man said. “Uh…”
He turned back to his computer, poking sluggishly at the keys. A heavy frown pressed wrinkles into his forehead and he scrunched up his nose in a grimace when he looked up.
“We’re pretty full,” he said haltingly. “I’m afraid we don’t have any doubles availa—”
“Whatever you’ve got is fine,” Derek told him.
The clerk hesitated a moment, eyeing the two of them, before he nodded. A few more painfully slow minutes of clicking, some fumbling with Derek’s debit card, and he was handing over a cheap plastic key card with the number 37 on it. He offered up a weak, “Sleep well,” which Derek didn’t bother responding to before he retrieved his suitcase and steered an unresisting Stiles out the door.
The room was like every other cheap motel room Derek had ever been in: sparsely decorated in beige and green, rusty AC unit sputtering beneath the window, tasteless landscapes on the walls, dresser with drawers that were half real and half fake. As was his habit in settings like this, Derek made the conscious decision not to pay attention to whatever his nose tried to tell him, and their neighbors were blessedly quiet even through the thin walls.
There was only one bed. It looked to be a queen, at least. The plasticky comforter rustled when Derek pushed Stiles down onto it, and still he didn’t say anything. He didn’t offer even a token protest when Derek pried his fingers off the handle of his suitcase and set it aside. His empty hand curled itself into a fist instead, fingernails digging into his palms and knuckles going bloodless again.
Derek stood back, at a loss.
He’d never been on this side of grief. At least, not while he wasn’t drowning in it himself. Laura had been the one taking care of him, after they lost their family, and Derek was sure that he had been just like Stiles back then. He hadn’t spoken for weeks, even when Laura had begged and pleaded and cried for him to say something, anything. But he hadn’t had anything to say that she would’ve wanted to hear.
She’d given up on talking eventually. Maybe she’d run out of words, or she’d just given up on reaching him when nothing she did made any difference. The only thing had gotten through to him at all was touch. He’d flinched at every movement and cringed away from her hands on him, but once the lights were out, Derek had burrowed into Laura’s bed, pressed up close to her side, and cried out all the things he couldn’t make himself put into words. That she had held him close through those nights had said more to him than anything else.
Derek had never been that close with Stiles. With any of the pack, really. He hadn’t tried all that hard to form deep or lasting relationships with any of them—a fear of attachment, according to his therapist, of coming to love more people that he could someday lose—so maybe this would be weird. No, Derek thought as he knelt to tug Stiles’ shoes off for him, it was definitely going to be weird. But it was an extenuating circumstance.
Weird or not, Derek dug through Stiles’ suitcase until he found pajama pants and a t-shirt and, when Stiles made no move to take them from him, he pulled Stiles to his feet and reached for the hem of his hoodie. Stiles didn’t provide any assistance in getting his clothes off, but he didn’t stop Derek from undressing him either. He just stood there, letting himself be manhandled out of one outfit and into the other. As soon as Derek released him, he collapsed onto the bed again, a puppet with no strings to hold him up anymore.
Grief wasn’t a particularly acrid scent, but it stung Derek’s nose all the same. He escaped to the bathroom with its tiny plastic-wrapped cups, fumbling with the clingfilm until he could get a clean, if cleaning-product-scented, breath in his lungs. He held it for a long moment, waiting for it to burn before he let it go in a slow, controlled stream.
Derek had to say Stiles’ name three times before he could get him to take the cup. Once he roused enough to notice what he held, he tried to set it aside. Derek blocked the way before the cup made it to the bedside table.
“You need to drink,” he said.
“Not thirsty.”
“Don’t care. Drink it.”
Stiles rolled his eyes. It was only a little eye-roll, not one of the exaggerated, melodramatic ones Derek remembered, but it was a sign of life. An exasperated Stiles was a present Stiles, and the water got drunk, so it was an all around win. He took the empty cup Stiles offered up with a satisfied, “Thank you.”
By the time the cup was thrown away and Derek had changed into sleep clothes of his own, Stiles had lain down. He hadn’t bothered to get under the covers, but he moved when Derek nudged him so they could be pulled out from under him. It wasn’t until Derek flipped off the light and climbed into bed too that Stiles seemed to comprehend the arrangement. He twisted around to frown over his shoulder at Derek, then glanced around the room with its lack of any other beds. A second later, he was kicking the blankets off and moving away.
Derek caught hold of his wrist before he could make it off the bed. “Where are you going?”
“You shouldn’t have to…” Stiles didn’t seem to know how to finish that sentence. “You don’t have to do this.”
Whatever “this” was. Derek wasn’t entirely sure himself. All he knew was that he didn’t want Stiles to leave.
“I don’t do anything I don’t want to,” Derek said. “Besides,” he added with as much of a shrug as he could manage lying down. “That carpet is disgusting. I’d much rather put up with your cold feet and blanket-hogging than catch chlamydia from a motel room floor.”
That shocked a laugh out of Stiles, weak and rusty. It took another tug on his wrist, but Stiles settled back down onto the bed, stiff and ginger now that awareness had set in. He made no move to shake off Derek’s hand, so Derek left it there, the pads of his fingers against the thin skin of the inner wrist where he could feel Stiles’ pulse.
For a few minutes, there was nothing but the soft shush of their breathing, a distant whisper of voices from a few rooms down, traffic rumbling past outside the window, the almost imperceptible thump of Stiles’ heartbeat. The bed was big enough that Derek’s hand on Stiles’ wrist was their only point of connection, but Derek could still feel the heat of another body nearby. He hadn’t shared a bed with someone in years. It would’ve been nice if it weren’t such terrible circumstances.
If Derek was honest with himself, it was sort of nice anyway. At least, until the heartbeat under his fingertips spiked.
Stiles’ breath caught in his throat, lodged there so tightly that no more could get through, and the air whistled through his lungs as he fought to breathe. He clawed at his chest as if he could reach through and force his lungs to work properly, but all it did was leave red, angry scratches where his t-shirt had slipped. His heart tripped over itself, frantic and wild, and the sharp stench of panic seeped into the air from every pore.
Cursing, Derek fumbled with the nearest lamp until it clicked on. The wan light fell across Stiles’ face, red and tear-streaked, but his eyes were screwed shut. Derek hovered over him, hand outstretched. He didn’t know the protocol here, what would help and what would hurt. But it only took a few more painful-sounding gasps to push him into action.
He cupped Stiles’ face, wiping at the wetness on his cheek. When that didn’t get him anything, he moved his hand down to Stiles’ chest. It heaved under his palm, heart banging against his ribs like it was trying to escape.
“Hey,” Derek said. “Hey, Stiles, you’re okay. Do you hear me? Can you look at me?”
With Derek’s hand in the way, Stiles couldn’t scratch at himself anymore. His fingers closed around Derek’s wrist instead, grip painfully tight, and his eyes fluttered open. They roamed around, fever-bright, before they landed on Derek’s face.
“Hey,” Derek said again, trying to force a smile on his face, or at least some expression more reassuring and less lost than he felt. “You’re gonna be okay. You just need to breathe. Can you do that? Just breathe for me. Come on, Stiles.”
He wasn’t so sure that Stiles was even hearing his words, but having something to focus on seemed to help him. So Derek kept talking. Vague reassurances, mostly, empty promises that Derek would’ve hated if anyone had said them to him, but Stiles’ eyes never left his.
It seemed like hours before the worst of it passed, but the digital alarm clock on the bedside table showed only a few minutes had gone by. It must have felt like even longer to Stiles. When he could finally take a slow, semi-steady breath, he shut his eyes again, turning his head away. His fingers squeezed around Derek’s wrist and then slid away.
“Sorry,” he breathed into the silence between them.
Derek shook his head, not that Stiles was looking his way to see it. “Don’t be.”
“This is why I didn’t want anyone around,” Stiles said thickly. “No one should have to deal with… God, it’s pathetic. It’s just a house. It’s my freaking house, and I couldn’t even go inside. I just stood on the porch for forty freaking minutes.”
“I don’t blame you,” Derek said. “Nobody could blame you for that.”
Stiles shook his head at the ceiling, whether at Derek’s words or his own. “The neighbors probably thought I was crazy.”
“It’s not crazy, Stiles. It’s grief.”
Stiles heaved himself upright. The abrupt motion dislodged Derek’s hand from where it had still rested on his chest and it was left hovering again, unsure. Stiles hunched over his raised knees, long fingers burying themselves in his hair to pull at the strands until it had to hurt.
“I just couldn’t go in there knowing he wouldn’t be there.” His voice broke, but he didn’t stop this time. “This is stupid. It’s so stupid, I mean, it’s not like I haven’t been in the house without him before. But it’s so different now, knowing that— And I just can’t stop thinking about it. God, Derek, it’s all I can think about. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since I got the call, and I don’t know how to do this, I can’t do this without him, I can’t—”
Derek’s hovering hand found a place on Stiles’ knee and the flood of words stuttered to a stop. His eyes were red again when they met Derek’s, wetness clinging to his eyelashes, and his lower lip quivered with more tears barely held at bay. For a second, he looked seventeen again, desperate for Derek to believe him, begging the darach to give him his father back before it was too late to save him.
But there was no saving him this time. All the pleading in the world wouldn’t be enough now, and there was nothing Derek could say that would take away the broken, hollow look on Stiles’ face because he knew that. They both knew it.
Derek’s mouth opened and closed around the wordlessness of that feeling. Stiles’ eyes followed the motion, hanging on the wild hope that a word from Derek could change something. When none came, they fell to Derek’s hand, pale-looking against the dark blue of Stiles’ pajama pants. They found Derek’s face again with a new brightness to them.
That was all the warning Derek got before Stiles was pushing forward, their lips colliding hard. The kiss was clumsy and off center but determined, all of the force Derek would’ve expected with none of the focus, and yes, maybe Derek had thought about kissing Stiles before. But all Derek could think of in the moment was that this wasn’t how he wanted it to happen. He wasn’t going to be Stiles’ distraction.
Derek turned away, Stiles’ lips skating across his jaw before Derek managed to get a good enough grip on his shoulders to put distance between them. It earned him a strangled noise of protest, almost a whimper, and Stiles shrugged the restraining hands off to try again. Derek leaned out of reach and pushed him back.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to,” is what Stiles came out with, which wasn’t an answer at all. “I’ve wanted to for the longest time. So why don’t we just—” He reached out to cup the back of Derek’s neck, trying to pull him forward. “And you want it too, I know you do. Don’t you?”
“Stiles, I—” Derek started but, even as he freed himself from Stiles’ hold, he couldn’t lie. “That’s not the point.”
“Sure, it is!” Stiles said, pushing up onto his knees and leaning closer. “Why not? I want you, and you want me. So let’s just—”
He took a fistful of Derek’s shirt, trying to tug it off. It was a clumsy attempt and his grip was easy to break, but it took some real effort for Derek to get a hold of both his wrists at once and hold them still.
“Stiles, stop.”
“No, Derek, please, just—” Stiles jerked back, fighting against the restraining hold. “I need this, okay?” he said, voice cracking. “Please, Derek, I need—
“This isn’t what you need,” Derek told him. “You thought you needed to be alone, but you don’t. And you think you need this, but, Stiles, you don’t need this either. Not with me or anyone. Trust me, okay? I’ve been here. What you need right now is—”
Stiles cut him off with a wordless scream, hoarse and agonized. With one more yank, he succeeded in tearing himself free. He nearly knocked himself over in the process, but before Derek could reach out to steady him, Stiles shoved him, hard.
“What I need—” he gritted out, fists colliding with Derek’s chest. “—is—” And again, catching him in the shoulder. “—my—” Another blow. “—dad.”
With a growl, Derek threw his arms around Stiles, pinning his flying fists against his sides. Stiles thrashed and shouted, but it was only a few seconds of struggle before he collapsed. All at once, he was crying again. Deep, wracking sobs that tore at scabs in Derek’s gut he had thought long healed over.
Derek held him. His shirt was damp with tears and his chest stung a bit with bruises that healed before they could form, but he cradled the back of Stiles’ head where it was buried in his shoulder. He didn’t shush Stiles or tell him it was going to be alright, not this time. He just carded his fingers through the soft hair at the nape of Stiles’ neck and let him be because this was what he needed. Or, at least, it was the only thing Derek could give him.
Bit by bit, Stiles settled. His sobs quieted until they were a flood of silent tears, and after a while, those ebbed too. He stayed where he was, though, tucked close into Derek’s body, face hidden and fingers twisted into the back of Derek’s shirt like he thought Derek might try to pry him off and push him away again.
He didn’t need to worry. All Derek did was shift them around a bit until they could lie down properly, pressed together from head to toe. The light was clicked off and the covers pulled up without a word, and then there was nothing but the breathing and the distant whispers and the traffic. And Stiles’ heartbeat, steady and strong against Derek’s side.
Derek could almost have been fooled into thinking Stiles was asleep. That was probably what Stiles wanted, but he had run with werewolves long enough to know there was no point in faking it. Even in the darkness, when Derek glanced down, he found Stiles’ eyes open, red and hazy and unfocused. Dry now, at least, for better or for worse.
Stiles sniffled. His gaze shifted up to meet Derek’s, just for a second before darting away again. Derek can hear the click of his throat as he swallows through a dry mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Derek rubbed lightly at the taut muscle of Stiles’ back. “I told you earlier,” he said. “You don’t need to be sorry for feeling what you’re feeling.”
But Stiles shook his head. “No, I mean, I’m sorry for kissing you. That wasn’t…” He shook it again, the motion dragging his cheek over Derek’s shirt, stubble catching on the fabric. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Derek bit down on a sigh. “No, probably not.”
With a weak, wet laugh, Stiles muttered, “Let’s see, how many ways can Stiles make a fool out of himself in one day? Stuck outside his own house like an idiot, worst panic attack in years, complete and total mental breakdown, and failed romantic overture.”
None of that had been romantic, Derek couldn’t help but think. It had been desperate and miserable and so full of pain that Derek couldn’t blame him for wanting to distract himself any way that he could. Derek had done the exact same thing. For weeks, months, years, Derek had poured everything he had into other people to escape himself, even if only for a few hours. But it hadn’t worked. It hadn’t made his pain any less, and it had hurt the people he was using too.
He didn’t want to be a part of that again, on either end. And he didn’t want it for Stiles either.
But.
“Try again in the morning.”
Stiles—always moving, always fidgeting, even in his sleep—went still. “What?”
Fighting the sudden urge to fidget himself, Derek licked his lips and said, “Your overture. You should try it again.”
A few seconds of silence, then a rustle of blankets, and Derek’s side was left cold and empty as Stiles levered himself up on an elbow to face Derek directly. Even in the dark, Derek could make out his features, brow furrowed and lips parted. There was no way that Stiles could see him in return, not with his human eyes, but he studied what little he could make out of Derek’s face intently.
“Yeah?”
“In the morning,” Derek reiterated, fingers curling into the bedding to keep himself from reaching out then and there. “If you still want to.”
Stiles’ frown eased, smoothing out into the first smile Derek had seen on him all night, weak and wan but comfortingly familiar on a face much more suited to smiling than not. Slowly, carefully, his hand came to rest where his head been, palm over Derek’s heart.
“Trust me,” he said. “I’ll want to.”
Derek smiled back. He curled a hand around Stiles’ wrist, as Stiles had done to him earlier. Not tugging or restraining, but just holding. A point of connection.
“Then it can wait until you’ve had some rest,” he said. “When’s the last time you really slept?”
The hand on his chest twitched, but Stiles didn’t pull away. His smile went tight and thin.
“Too long,” he admitted. “I’ve tried. Really, I have, but I just…I can’t.”
Derek gave his wrist a squeeze. “Try again.”
He waited until he got a reluctant nod to reach out. Stiles let himself be moved, not with the absent limpness he’d had when they arrived but the pliancy of trust. Laying him down, Derek fitted himself along the length of Stiles’ back, arm encircling his waist. His nose brushed along the nape of Stiles’ neck and Stiles shivered with it.
“Sleep,” Derek told him. “You’re not alone. I’m right here with you.”
Stiles’ hand found Derek’s where it rested on his stomach, fingers sliding between his and gripping tight. “Promise you’ll still be here when I wake up?”
There was a tremor to his voice and a very real, if irrational, fear underneath it, though he tried to keep his tone light. Still, Derek hid a grin in Stiles’ shoulder.
“We’ve got plans for the morning, remember?” he said. “Can’t skip out on those.”
Stiles let out a shaky laugh. “Right.”
Before he could talk himself out of it, Derek pressed his lips to the soft spot behind Stiles’ ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The hard line of tension in Stiles’ shoulders eased a bit. He settled back into Derek’s embrace, heart rate evening out, until finally the vise grip he had on Derek’s hand went slack.
Derek let out a sigh of relief. His next breath was full of the sweetness of real rest. The acrid tang remained, of course, even in sleep, but for now he was somewhere the pain didn’t reach.
He held Stiles closer and sent up a vague prayer-like hope that Stiles would sleep through the night. The next few days were going to be the hardest of his life. He would survive it—Derek was living proof that he could, and Stiles himself was more than enough proof of how resilient he was—but he deserved a few peaceful hours before he had to face the memorial service. And Derek would make sure he didn’t have to face it alone.
As the clock on the dresser ticked over to 3am, Derek made a mental note to look into apartments for rent nearby. He would be staying in town a lot longer than he’d planned.