Chapter Text
Stiles had been like this for weeks.
He had become a lanky shell, a human husk that embodied the once bright-eyed, fast paced teen who stopped at nothing for his pack.
Now he lay still, limbs drawn inward on his curled body near the edge of the mattress. He had been like this everyday Derek came to visit, big blank hazel eyes staring into nothingness.
The nogitsune, though defeated, literally broke Stiles. Scott still doesn’t visit often, and has trouble looking him in the face. Hell, after month one everyone stopped visiting. They didn’t mean to, but it was so hard to see Stiles like this and keep moving forward. Or so he believed.
Derek sat near the boy’s feet, looking the same direction as Stiles into the blank wall. They would be like this everyday, for hours, until Derek absolutely had to leave. Derek would fluff his pillows, tuck him in or grab him a glass of water before disappearing (sometimes hesitantly).
Stiles noticed his pattern, and on his worst days he would outright cry. Never in front of Derek, he didn't deserve the comfort. All he ever really felt was alone anymore. Why was he living anymore? The tears stung his eyes, and he held a sob in his aching throat until he was sure Derek was out of earshot. He told himself he had already caused so much irreversible pain and suffering, that he secretly deserved the all heartache.
Derek understood the feeling.
+++
Stiles couldn’t hold back his tears. The sob erupted out of him, strangled. Derek hadn’t made off the porch when he immediately changed direction back to Stiles. He was upright in his bed, hugging his knees like a small child. He was blushed a deep red and his tears were already falling.
"Shit." He glanced up, guilty.
Derek immediately rushed beside him and lifted him into his lap, tucking the younger man's face into his neck. Stiles melted into the contact, wasting hot tears down Derek’s collarbone.
Stiles was turning pale. "Breathe Stiles, please. You’re scaring me." Derek’s words came out more worried than he had wanted them to. The boy’s gasps quickened, his heart racing out of control. He struggled for air and began to shake. Derek was frantic. He knew nothing of panic attacks in humans. He sat Stiles facing him in his lap, grabbing his face to make eye contact. Derek’s eyes flashed blue, as a calming mechanism that unfortunately only worked in werewolves. Stiles' vision was darkening.
Derek no clue how he had found Stiles lips with his. His pressed against the soft cupid’s bow that peaked ever so slightly upward at all times. The kiss lit up his entire chest; his heart. And then Stiles pulled away, bright red with no response.
Derek’s heart dropped as Stiles stared at him in utter surprise. He forgot just how much rejection hurt. He slid from underneath Stiles and made way for the door.
Stiles let him.
+++
Derek didn’t visit the next day, and ran into the Sheriff off duty at the market. He looked completely exhausted.
"Don’t give me that pity look, Hale." The sheriff’s words came off sharp.
Derek felt guilty, juggling an apple in his hand. “I’m sorr— I didn’t mean to.”
The sheriff sighed deeply. "I don’t know what happened to my boy. Last night..."
"Last night?"
"It was worse than ever before. Stiles screamed and screamed and thrashed for hours in his sleep. I took the day off. He sobbed and threw things when he was awake. Hasn’t ate, drank…" Sheriff Stilinski's eyes closed.
Derek could tell by his heartbeat there was something more.
"I dozed off…he had my gun…spinning the barrel with a single bullet…I was so tired, I thought I locked up, I was so so tired…"
The Sheriff's face was pained.
Derek lost color.
"Its my fault, I didn’t visit and I left Stiles alone I knew better than to leave him alone I didn't tell him what was I thinkingimsosorr—"
"No. Stiles has to cope. Derek, you’ve been there every step of the way. I couldn’t have asked for more. Don’t blame yourself."
Derek hadn't been this panicked since the Hale fire.
"Where is he?"
"I had him admitted some hours ago…"
"What?"
"Eichen House has a great program for teens. He needs professional help Derek. I need my son back."
With that, Derek spun on his heels towards the door. He had to see him. The sheriff caught his shoulder.
"No visitors until next month. That means me too. Its part of the program."
He had to be kidding.
The sheriff’s eyes weren’t kidding.
+++
Derek lay flat on his back, shifted halfway human in the middle of the forest. A Derek sized dent was made into the oak trunk of the tree before him.
"Dude, did you really not see that? What happened?" Scott said shifting back, attempting not to giggle.
Derek was completely off his instinct. He was thinking about Stiles every other second. His wolf couldn't even focus.
Scott was too busy joking about being the better Alpha, when Isaac scented Derek’s pain. It wasn't physical.
"Hey man…" Isaac offered a hand. Derek ignored it and jumped up. He didn't want anyone's help. Scott noticed and glanced Isaac’s way.
"Derek."
"Derek!"
No response from the man walking away.
"Hey Sourwolf!"
Derek jerked around looking pained, eyes glowing red.
"Don’t you fucking call me that. You know god damn better than to ever call me that."
Derek glared at the both of them.
"Told you it was about Stiles. I knew a human in our group was a bad idea in the first place. He can’t focus." Isaac whispered to Scott.
Derek was furious.
Scott waved his hand at Isaac to quit. “No look Derek. We understand…”
"Shut up. No you don’t."
"No you shut up!" Both Isaac and Derek were taken aback by his tone. "Derek we’re frustrated too. We obviously didn’t have the heart to stick around as long as you. It hurts. How can we expect to protect the pack and him if we’re emotionally drained off him? It doesn’t mean we didn’t care."
"He is pack."
"What?"
"Stiles is pack. Don’t say ‘pack and him’. That’s where this all starts! You all excluding him. You forgot he was willingly in this from the start. He is every bit us, just without the bite! Without him, we would all be dead! He did so much for us at his expense. HIS LIFE! You hurt him! He needed you…and you hurt him…"
Derek trailed off, subconsciously yelling more at himself than anyone else.
Scott and Isaac looked guilty. Isaac walked off.
Scott offered an apologetic look.
Derek sprinted away.
+++
Derek had unofficially departed from the pack. Unfortunately, Boyd, Erica, Jackson, Parrish, even Lydia either sided with Isaac or wanted to pity Derek, which he was absolutely not up for. He hadn’t ran with them in weeks, and no one came past his house. They knew better than to bother him, though he wish they had cared enough to try.
Today was Stiles’ first visiting day and Derek hadn’t been more nervous. The sheriff called Derek yesterday to say Stiles’ doctor reported him making decent progress. Derek was ecstatic to hear anything positive. Unfortunately the sheriff would miss first visiting day due to a murder investigation, but Derek had been up and ready since four am, though the doors didn’t open to visitors till seven.
On the ride to Eichen, Derek realized he hadn’t confronted his feelings over Stiles. What was he even going to say? He was a huge tangled mess of incommunicable emotion and Stiles was so fragile, so broken. Why had he even kissed him?
Because I love him.
Derek thoughts caused him to fly past a stop sign. He jumped at an angry horn. His realization had shocked him to the core. Why else would he have sat days upon days beside Stiles? He had 23 moles scattered across his torso, neck — his pale flushed face. Those hazel eyes between long dark lashes that seemed to kiss the air with every blink. His mouth parted perfectly with the rarest of smiles in his most peaceful hours of sleep that only seemed to come in Derek’s presence. Derek fought the urge to cuddle him and kiss him and care for him constantly -- somehow he wrote his feelings off as platonic for so long, until his wolf got the best of him and his lips...
Derek parked and mindlessly walked into the facility doors. He signed in to a happy employee and sat in a cheerful blue waiting room with plants and smiles and Pine-sol smells.
“Hale for Stilinski, correct?”
Derek quit picking at his fingers and he stood to approach the bright yellow scrubbed assistant.
She smiled and eyed his physique. Normally he would be flattered but his heart rate was increasing with anticipation.
“Room 223, last room down the hall to your left.”
Derek entered the security double doors and paced himself down the long grey tiled hall. Why had I decided on a long sleeve shirt again? Why did I insist on blue stripes? I look like a tool. This shirt is too tight…
He was yanking on his sleeves when he crashed into a body. Familiar hazel eyes caught his blue-green ones and both stopped breathless.
“Genim.”
Stiles looked blank. “When the hell did I tell you to call me that?”
Derek’s hope dropped. Stiles hates him.
Stiles caught Derek’s expression and his hand.
Derek looked back up at the boy he loved.
“No its okay, it totally is. What are you doing here?”
“Your dad…he’s uh…tomorrow he’s gonna be here. I um… hi.”
Stiles face broke out into the slightest of smiles that Derek’s heart jumped for.
“Come, we need to talk.”
Stiles pulled Derek into his room.
+++
Stiles was criss-cross facing the side of Derek, while he sat on the edge of the boy's bed. Stiles had the ugliest blue sweatsuit on, that Derek swore complimented him. He still had Derek’s hand and tried to pull it back. Derek caught Stiles’ hand with both of his, lacing them together. Stiles furiously blushed red.
Stiles looks down and starts in with a quiet voice.
“I thought you had broke me…”
Derek’s throat tightens.
“Derek, I fell hard for you every day you sat at my bedside when no one else would. I had hurt everyone around me. Everyone left me, but you. You. You were my anchor, Derek. I told myself I didn’t deserve anyone or their kindness. I would have been content for the rest of my life with the fact that you even cared to sit beside my pathetic sorry excuse for…”
Derek nearly whimpered. Stiles cut himself off.
“My bad. I’m working on myself. I'm sorry I don't make sense." The silence between them became the thickest before Stile's next words.
"Derek, the kiss…” Stiles looks up for a second, only to lower his head back down. Derek scented sadness, fault and embarrassment on the boy. He couldn't let him keep hurting like this.
Derek pulls him into his lap and grabs his chin. Their lips are only centimeters away, and Derek goes to kiss him again.
He collides with Stiles’ hand. Derek was truly hurt.
“No Derek, I’m learning not to depend on others for happiness. I can’t…its just part of the process…”
“But I…” He gently grabbed the smaller boy’s hands.
“Derek please…”
“Let me explain, Genim…”
“Stiles! Its Stiles!” He shouted at Derek harshly and ripped his hands away.
Derek froze. Stiles was shocked at himself.
“I did break you.” Derek was a ghost.
Stiles started in. “No…that's not…no..."
“I’m…I...”
Stiles saw Derek’s eyes flood. Derek jumped up for the door and walked out.
The teenager slowly laid out onto his bed sheets and let his tears blind his vision.
Derek was broken on the floor of the bathroom stall of the hospital, soaking his arm sleeves for the next hour.