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So, Stiles gets injured.
This isn’t new, and it isn’t even particularly life-threatening -- after Peter, the kanima, Gerard, the crazy Alpha pack, DIY house refurbishment, a couple of witches’ covens, Peter the sequel, Scott getting a little too plan-crazy, and a wendigo, getting his face scraped to hell and his lip busted via bumbling hunter is really pretty minor.
The problem, though, is the context: he was kidnapped (again, and seriously, can’t this happen to someone else for a change? he’s too mouthy to be a good kidnappee, people should know this); he was subjected to a terrible villain monologue, so much so that he had to jump in and offer suggestions, because, c’me on, he’s been subjected to Peter (twice!) and to Gerard (so much Shakespeare!) -- going the old “killing vermin on a mission for God” is really kind of lame; and, finally, he was beaten up as a message.
Bumbling hunter or no, the similarities to the Gerard-kanima clusterfuck two years ago are clear as day, and Stiles really doesn’t feel like going down the road of remembrance. Like, really not. Panic attack not. With the benefit of time and experience, he’s put those hellish days behind him, but he hates how easy it is for every fiber of his being to feel like that again: going through hell, no possibility of escape or victory, the helplessness of knowing he was deadweight warring with the futile hope of being useful, even if just a bit.
Hindsight tells him that the spiral of anxiety he was under made everything look worse than it was, and that he has many, many advantages he didn’t have then. But everything he can tell himself, rationally, isn’t really getting through to the part of his brain that’s stuck back there, drowning again, choking, struggling to hold on until his body gives up on him as a reflex.
He’s barely pulling air in, black spots dancing at the edge of his vision, when he finally makes it to the front steps of Derek’s house, and traitorous memory serves the old, derelict haunted structure of old, instead of the new, smaller home they all helped rebuild. He stumbles, and he’s bracing himself for the fall when someone catches him.
“Stiles, what happened?”
Isaac. Stiles tries to smile, reassure him, but all he manages is a panicked attempt to inhale.
“Fuck. Fuck. Guys? Derek! Scott!” Isaac yells, clearly freaking out, but helping Stiles inside with that strange gentleness he always has when someone is in pain.
Stiles hears the howls, and in what seems like seconds the rest of the pack is barreling into the house, Derek at the front.
He doesn’t pause for even a second, he just kneels in front of Stiles, puts his hands on either side of his neck, and says, “Breathe, Stiles. Come on, breathe. Breathe with me.”
It takes a minute, but reality catches up to Stiles’ head, and the part of his brain that was stuck in two years ago gears forward, slowly but surely taking in Scott, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, Jackson, Lydia, Allison, and Derek in front of him, eyes concerned and wide and not even a little bit scary, not even a little bit distrustful, not anymore. He’s not sitting in the middle of rotten wood, spiderwebs and ash, but in the warm living room, on the couch he picked out and made Derek buy because it looked comfy. He’s safe -- he’s not drowning.
He lets himself fall forward onto Derek, his forehead resting on Derek’s neck, and he feels the wolves crowd around them, anxiously scenting him, touching him to reassure themselves he’s okay.
“Stiles?” Derek asks softly.
“Yeah. Yeah,” Stiles replies, leaning back, meeting everyone’s eyes one by one, letting them look at him, because they need it, and he needs it, too. The idiosyncrasies and ins-and-outs of pack behavior have become second nature to him at this point.
He sees when they get it -- Erica and Boyd first, then Scott, Lydia, Isaac, and, of course, Derek. Allison and Jackson are a little slower on the uptake, because, well, their heads where elsewhere that night, but they get with the program when Derek asks, “Who was it? What does he want?”
“And where is he? I’m gonna rip his throat out,” adds Scott.
“Whoa, buddy. It’s okay -- I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, Stillinksi, look at your face. I’m getting you an ice-pack,” Jackson bites out, and, god, only he could make concern look that brand of annoyed.
“Hey, no bones are broken and I’m conscious -- I’ll take it,” Stiles says. Boyd and Erica start grumbling a little, and, seriously, he’s never gonna tell them how cute that sounds -- more like an offended kitten than a threatening wolf -- but he keeps going before they can freak out more. “It was a hunter, and a really crappy one. I mean, yeah, he kidnapped me and beat me up and whatever…”
“Stiles…” Derek says, rubbing the bridge of his nose, and, right, Stiles should maybe stop making the pack bristle with revenge-lust.
“… Uh, moving on. The point is, he really has no idea what he’s dealing with -- no idea about the deal with Chris, the fact that we have two Alphas… he was clueless and on a mission from god and I got everything I needed to find him and hand him over to Allison’s dad while he was doing a really crappy version of Villain Monologue 101. So, no throat ripping allowed, okay? I’m fine. This is nothing that won’t heal.”
“That’s not the point, Stiles,” Boyd says. “You shouldn’t have gotten hurt at all -- not again. I know you don’t like it, but we’re not letting you drive home from work alone anymore, not when you have the late shift.”
Erica nods decisively at that, and the two of them walk out of the living room, probably to concoct nefarious plans to trail him everywhere. Before following, Isaac touches a hand to Stiles’ neck for a second, and Stiles feels his pain lessen.
“What? No, c’me on. Totally unnecessary! It’s just a scratch!” Stiles yells after them, gesturing to his face.
Lydia leans close to him, over Derek’s shoulder. “Missing the point, Stiles. Do you think that was meant to hurt you?” she asks, and, wow, way to make him want to retroactively eat his words. “I’m gonna go see about that ice-pack.”
Stiles hangs his head, sighs, and steels himself for the two-punch Derek-Scott lecture. But it doesn’t come.
After an entirely too awkward moment of silence, Stiles peers up, and sees that Derek, Scott and Allison are just staring at his face. Or, more accurately, at the side of his face. Ugh, fucking jesus-freak hunter. He was an idiot, but he unknowingly did the exact right thing to bring a whole bunch of trauma rearing to the surface: Allison, feeling guilty over her Gerard-induced hunter madness and the fact that, last time, Stiles had gotten beaten up under her roof, while she was communing with her crossbow upstairs; Scott, feeling guilty because it was a message for him, again, and Derek feeling guilty because, well. Derek.
“Hey. Enough with the guilt-tripping,” Stiles tells them.
Scott frowns, and, seriously, never not gonna look like a puppy throwing a tantrum. “I just -- I’m so sorry, Stiles.”
“No need to be. If you really wanna make it up to me, though, how about some hot chocolate?”
Scott nods, a tiny smile finally peeking through the guilt-face, and Allison follows him to the kitchen, because she knows as well as Stiles does that Scott can’t make hot water, let alone hot chocolate.
Derek’s still crouched in front of him like an incongruously attractive gargoyle, and, seriously, Stiles knows he’s a werewolf, but even werewolf knees can’t hold out that long, right?
“Hey, sourwolf. Why don’t you come up here to the couch? You don’t want to hasten the arrival of arthritis.”
“Werewolves don’t get arthritis, Stiles,” Derek replies, but he sits next to Stiles anyway, so he’ll count it as a victory.
They’re quiet for a moment, and then Stiles nudges Derek’s thigh with his own. “I’m okay. Really. And we’ll take care of this hunter. This,” he gestures at his face again, shrugs, “just a downside of the job.”
Derek glances at him, eyes piercing, before looking down again. “I hope there’s upsides, too.”
Stiles smiles, not minding the sting of his lip. “You’d be surprised.”
After some much needed first aid and hot chocolate -- which was surprisingly good, thank you, Allison -- Stiles knows it can’t be avoided anymore.
“So, I think I need to go tell Mr. Argent about the godly hunter now.”
Derek doesn’t reply. Yeah, Stiles knows that if it was up to him, Stiles would stay inside for a week, wrapped in bubble-wrap or something, but no rest for the mildly tortured and all that.
“I mean, I doubt he’ll move until tomorrow, but better safe than sorry.”
Still nothing. Damn. Stiles gives it one more try.
“Scott can come with me, and Allison.”
Finally, Derek looks up from his in-depth contemplation of the area rug -- success!
“It’ll be okay, Derek,” Stiles adds, softly.
“I know. But I’m coming with you.”
Stiles sighs. “Of course you are. Just try to keep the growling to a minimum, okay?”
They take the Camaro, because the jeep was abandoned in the parking lot of the library thanks to the asshat hunter, and Stiles works through everything that he remembers; he wants to go in, relay the information, and get the hell out before Argent can insinuate anything that makes Derek angry, or sad, or guilty. They have an arrangement, sure, but at the end of the day, Chris Argent is still a hunter, and there are prejudices and hangups he’ll never get past, no matter how often the pack help save Beacon Hills from whatever supernatural menace decides to set up shop.
Allison leads the way into her house, and barely a second passes before Mr. Argent intercepts them, hand going to whatever firearm he has stuffed in the back of his jeans.
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
“A hunter decided to use Stiles as bait,” Allison gestures behind her to Stiles, and Mr. Argent takes in his injuries at a glance.
“I figured it’d be best if you took care of it,” Stiles explains. “He was definitely working outside the code -- told me he knew I was human before he grabbed me, rambled about being on a mission from God to exterminate all werewolves and anyone who “consorts” with them… He was sloppy, though, I can tell you where he’s hiding, what weapons he has, anything you need.”
Argent raises his eyebrows. “And you’re okay with that?” he asks Derek.
Derek moves a little closer to Stiles. “I am. Stiles speaks for the pack.”
“Okay. Well, let’s go to the office, then.”
+++
Later that night, Stiles is trying and failing to sleep. His brain is still racing, firing in a million different directions at once, and he briefly considers taking some Adderall to settle the fuck down before dismissing the idea -- he doesn’t want to fuck up his dosage if he can help it.
He’s in the room he claimed as his own in the Hale house -- filled to the brim with books, maps, diagrams, and a couple of Lord of the Rings posters -- because the pack (Derek) refused to let him go anywhere. He fully expects most of them to show up at some point tonight, cuddling close until he feels utterly safe, if a little crowded.
He’s contemplating the map of Middle Earth framed on one of the walls when the door creaks open. Probably Isaac -- he’s always the cuddliest when someone gets hurt.
“Stiles.”
“Derek?”
Derek nods and steps fully inside, slowly moving toward the bed. Huh, that’s kind of unexpected. Derek usually lurks and only joins the cuddle-pile sometime before dawn.
“Are you okay? Your heart-rate…” Derek trails off, fingers on one hand twitching up and down.
“Yeah, just. Y’know. Can’t sleep. Brain’s going a little crazy.”
“Can I help?”
And, jesus, why does Derek do this? Stiles’ crush was so more manageable when it was just this thing in the back of his head, like, whoa, Derek Hale got insanely hot and also maybe insanely psycho, and, huh, is being shoved a kink, maybe? But after the insanity of those first months, of that first year… The thing is, Stiles likes Derek. Not just as an objectively hotter-than-a-thousand-suns person, although, duh, but just as a person. He’s surprisingly funny, and so damn loyal, and, when not being driven by grief and/or new-Alpha-high, really smart. It’s getting harder and harder to put his crush out of his mind, to stop himself from wanting more.
“Stiles?”
Fuck it. Stiles dares anyone to stop themselves from wanting more from Derek Hale.
“Maybe, uh -- talk to me? I know it’s not your thing, but. Yeah. Talk?”
For a second, Stiles thinks Derek is going to bail, call Scott or Isaac or even Boyd, who have all been on Stiles-entertaining duty before, but wonder of wonders, Derek comes closer, settles next to Stiles on the bed, and he starts talking.
“I -- I taught Isaac how to make casserole yesterday.”
“Seriously? And nobody got werewolf-poisoning? The kitchen survived?”
Derek huffs out a laugh. “It was fine. He’s actually good -- better than Scott, anyway.”
“Dude, a toddler using a stool is better than Scott at cooking. But kudos on teaching the pups the basic survival skill of casserole-making -- my arteries were getting second-hand clogging from all the takeout.”
Derek makes a soft, considering noise.
“What?”
“No, just. Sometimes you remind me of my mom.”
Stiles really doesn’t know how to answer that. On the one hand, considering Derek’s past, big compliment. On the other… his mom? Stiles really isn’t angling for that.
“Um. Okay?”
“No, I mean, in a good way. She always told us that knowing how to fight and how to track, run, that it was all very important, but that there were no werewolf powers for doing laundry or cooking something edible.”
“Smart woman,” Stiles remarks, feeling that ever-present pain spike a little. Moms -- moms should be immortal. Someone should get on that, they really should.
“Yeah. It was her recipe -- the casserole.” Derek pauses, glances at Stiles for a moment, eyes pausing on the scratches on his face, and then looks down at his hands. “Whenever I think about my family, my life before the fire, I focus on the good stuff. Living in a house full of family, of people who loved me and looked after me, home-cooked meals, laughing… but, I mean. It wasn’t all perfect, you know? Kate wasn’t the first hunter to ignore the code. There were rival packs, and witches, and ghouls, and sometimes my parents got hurt; my uncles and aunts fell into traps… I was just young. So I didn’t fight those fights. But they happened.”
Stiles nods, crowding a little closer to Derek, letting his head rest against his hip. He knows what it’s like, when you walk down memory lane; platitudes are useless, but contact, the knowledge that someone is there, that helps.
“I remember this one time, my uncle John got caught in the middle of a turf war, ended up with an arm in a sling and a ton of stitches; scared the crap out of my aunt Rachel. I was maybe six or seven, and I asked my mom why my aunt hadn’t turned John into a wolf -- obviously being human was dangerous. Obviously loving a human was dangerous, because they got hurt. And my mom told me that there were downsides to everything, but that without humans who loved us, who we loved, we’d be lost. And that the risk was worth it, for both sides.”
Stiles is quiet for a while, letting the words settle. Any other time, and that speech would’ve had his heart racing, his mouth going a mile a minute, but right now, tonight, it just feels like a confirmation of something he already knew. It feels like truth; like hope.
Derek shuffles down a bit, so he can lie down properly, moving carefully enough to not dislodge Stiles, their bodies close enough that Stiles can feel the warmth coming off Derek. Stiles closes his eyes, and breathes. He finally feels calm enough to sleep.
He says one last thing before slumber claims him.
“She was right. Your mom.”
“I know.”
+++
The bed is filled with werewolves in the morning, as Stiles predicted.
He wakes up to Erica’s hair tickling his nose and Boyd’s elbow digging into his bladder. Jackson and Isaac are curled into truly impressive positions near the foot of the bed, and Lydia managed to claim the other pillow. Allison and Scott are snoozing on top of a sleeping bag on the floor, but Derek is nowhere to be found.
Which means he’s probably in the kitchen, mainlining coffee, and, maybe, brooding a little.
Stiles extracts himself from the bed and pads to the bathroom because there’s only so much werewolf-elbow his bladder can handle without complaint, and then heads downstairs where, bingo, Derek is drinking coffee and looking out the window, shoulders in classic brooding pose.
Stiles grits his teeth, and does what he does best: pestering people into a good mood.
“Morning, sourwolf,” he says, grabbing a nearby cup and pouring himself a little caffeinated bliss. “How many cups have you had? Confess, is this the second pot of coffee?”
Derek turns around slowly, and holy werewolf, contrary to all indicators, he’s actually smiling a little.
“Whoa. I get a smile this early in the morning? After one joke? I must be getting good.” He considers for a moment. “Or you’re getting soft.”
Derek shakes his head, looking at Stiles fondly (fondly!), before leaning over the counter and, after meeting Stiles’ eyes, that clear green piercing, pulling him into a soft, slow kiss. Mother of god, Derek Hale is kissing him. And Stiles is kissing him back, and it’s better than anything he could’ve imagined because there wasn’t any shoving (although Stiles likes the shoving), there wasn’t any yelling (although arguing with Derek is always fun). It’s just them.
“Today’s just a good day, is all,” Derek whispers, when he finally pulls away.
Stiles smiles back helplessly, because, yeah.
“Thank god,” says Lydia, standing in the doorway. “Jackson owes me a new Chanel bag -- I totally called this last night.”
Stiles buries his head in his hands, laughing. Seriously, what is his life?
the end.