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Chapter Text

The first time that Stiles saw McHotty— sorry, Dr. Hale— was in the ER, McHotty straddling a patient as he was doing chest compressions, getting wheeled off to surgery. 

Everything slowed down as they wheeled the bed right past Stiles, the sounds of the ER going quiet. He could see the way that a piece of McHotty’s perfect hair was falling down in front of his face, the soft exhale from his lips as he pressed down firmly and evenly to the beat, the way that his thighs looked straddling the patient. He was even covered in blood, which was not a good thing as far as the patient was concerned, but somehow made everything better. 

“Who’s that?” Stiles said, mouth open as he watched the other residents roll the whole bed down the hall, rushing to the OR. 

  “That’s the new head of trauma,” Chief Deaton said, crossing his arms. “He called me on his way here and said that a man had been hit by a car when he was walking to the hospital. He doesn’t even start until tomorrow.” 

“Head of trauma?” Scott asked, his eyes practically shining hearts in them. Since he had started at the hospital, he had been waiting for someone to be appointed head of trauma. He was practically salivating at the mouth for it, since he wanted to ‘save as many lives as possible.’ That was a direct quote about why Scott got into medicine. 

“As long as I get to stay on ortho, I’m all good,” Stiles said, crossing his arms. The ortho attending was this hardcore chick named Braeden. Or Dr. Smith, but she rarely let anyone call her that in the hospital. She was more than willing to break bones to fix problems, to insert metal rods, and to let Stiles take the easy cases so she could put her feet up and read her biker magazines. She was hardcore. 

Dr. Argent— or Dr. Asshole to anyone who wasn’t a plastics freak— strided into the ER, eyes scanning the residents. “Who paged me for a consult?” 

“That would be me,” Allison said, trying not to clear her throat. “I have a patient on bed 4 who has significant burns on her hands and arms.” She walked immediately away towards the bed, not looking to see if her dad was following her. Scott, as per usual, watched Allison walk away. The hearts hadn’t left his eyes, but simply turned from doctor admiration to pure lust. 

“When are you going to ask her out?” Stiles said, elbowing Scott in the side. 

“Stilinski! Are you coming or what?” Braeden asked from the other side of the ER, wheeling some guy who looked like he had been rolled over by a truck. 

With a simple salute to Scott, Stiles rushed over towards where Braeden and the nurses were quickly stripping the patient. It looked like both of his arms were broken, for sure, but based on the darkening over his ribcage, something more drastic might be going on. Stiles immediately started pressing on the belly, looking for tenderness or firmness. Both upper quadrants were firm. Internal bleeding. He said as much to Braeden. 

“Let’s get him to an OR. You can scrub in for the arms. Page Dr. Martin please,” Braeden said, getting ready to move the patient. 

The one thing Stiles really loved was this: the chaos, the movement, the quick thinking. His ADHD didn’t like sitting still and studying or researching, but it loved chaos. Stiles thrived in chaos. He could page Lydia, mentally remember how to set humerus fractures, and still have brain space to think about that new head of trauma that rolled in. 

***

“How’d the surgery go?” Scott asked, shivering. He refused to stand all the way outside with Stiles, preferring to stand under the overhang and watch as Stiles stood in the snow, looking up to the sky. 

“Good. Lydia was perfect, as per usual. She patched him up good, and got the bleeding under control. One of his ribs that broke had ruptured his spleen. We got his arms set and Braeden even let me insert the pins. It was great,” Stiles said, closing his eyes. “Did you watch your new head of trauma scrub in?” 

“He was incredible. Barely spoke, but was a genius. He served in the army, apparently. Was a doctor over there until recently. He’s next level,” Scott said. It sounded like he was in love. 

“Braeden level hardcore?” Stiles asked, looking back at Scott. “Apparently we have some surgeries coming in this week for some guy who needs his pins removed after a motorcycle accident. She said I could be in charge of the removal.” 

“Not that hardcore,” Scott said, crossing his arms tighter. “But maybe I can stop being on Argent’s service. I feel like he can read my every thought.”

Stiles laughed openly. “He can read everyone’s every thought. He’s almost worse than Deaton at this point. He’s just mad he’s the old fuddy-duddy of the hospital now that the new head of trauma is a total babe. How old is Argent again?” 

“Almost 60,” Scott said. He shivered, his teeth audibly clicking together. “How are you not cold?” 

“I’m riding the high of a surgery, dude. How could I be cold when I watched Lydia repair a spleen? How could I be cold when I helped set this guy’s arms? How can I be cold when surgery is so much fun?” 

“Can we go inside yet?” Scott asked, glancing back. “Snow means surgeries, you know.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, stepping closer to Scott. “They’d page us if they needed us. It’s all hands on deck, we are mandated by law to take a 15 minute break, so can we enjoy it?” 

“I’m not,” Scott muttered. 

“Fine,” Stiles said, walking back towards Scott. “We can go back—” 

The ground slipped out from underneath Stiles, and the next thing he knew he was on his back, looking up at the dark sky, out of breath. He could see the overhang, the icicles hanging down looking at him. He was dazed, the wind knocked out of him. He gasped once before he saw Scott standing over him, shaking his head. 

“—in,” Stiles said breathlessly. “Did I seriously just slip on ice?” 

“I think you did,” Scott said, laughing and backing up. “Are you coming?” Scott opened the side door to the hospital, letting it slam shut. 

Stiles heard the slam, shaking his head at the audacity for Scott to leave him outside alone. The next thing he knew, he saw an icicle breaking off and headed straight for him. It was like he couldn’t even move, the icicle hitting his side hard. 

“Fuck!” he yelled, his words muffled by the snow. “Scott!” 

There was only quiet and the intense pain radiating from Stiles’ side. He clenched his hands again and again, trying to fight the wave of nausea that was overcoming him. He could feel the throbbing in his side, the deep puncture aching. 

“Scott!” Stiles yelled again, the shout causing his whole body to tense in pain. He breathed raggedly, trying to get some semblance of control over the situation. “Anyone!”
As if a knight in shining armor, it was McHotty from earlier— Dr. Hale. He stood over Stiles, lips quirked into a small smirk. Wordlessly, he bent down and scooped Stiles up bridal-style, acting as if he weighed nothing. 

The motion caused Stiles to make a grunt out of surprise, then a second, louder grunt from the way the icicle was jostled. “You can’t just pick a guy up,” Stiles said quietly, trying not to breath too heavy and jostle the icicle more. “Kinda emasculating to be carried like a princess.”

Dr. Hale ignored him, grabbing the door and swinging it open, walking steadily down the hallway. Once they were back in the ER proper, he paused. “Gurney!” he shouted. 

One of the nurses came running with a gurney, pushing it in front of Dr. Hale. He offloaded Stiles onto the gurney as gently as possible, but even then it was still uncomfortable as Stiles straightened back out, tipping his head back in pain. 

“Take him to trauma room 2,” Dr. Hale said to someone that Stiles couldn’t see. 

Stiles had never been on the patient side of things as an adult. Sure, as a kid he had broken his fair share of bones. That’s why he wanted to work in ortho— because he knew first hand what it was like to be a kid who broke a lot of bones and needed a lot of bone setting. Eventually, Sitles wanted to work in pediatric orthopedics so that he could help kids like him who broke a bone once a year.

But that was when he was a kid, barely feeling the pain because the adrenaline from riding his bike down the biggest hill in town was stronger than the arm that he broke. Or he had his dad with him, holding his hand and dealing with all of the scary things, like when they had to pull his leg to reduce the fracture, or send him into surgery because he managed to tear a few things at the same time. 

As an adult, being the one lying on a gurney with an icicle sticking out of his side, he was scared. And uncomfortable. And he did not want his peers to see him in a vulnerable position, not when they were all fighting for whatever surgeries they could get their hands on. 

“It’s okay, I’m right here,” Allison said, standing above his head, looking at him with that kind, Allison smile on her face. 

“No, not you. Get Scott,” Stiles said, trying to swat her away. Allison was cute and sweet, but she was not good in an emergency. And, Stiles was half convinced she only went into surgery to spite her father, who had wanted her to go into obstetrics.  

“Hold tight, Stiles,” Allison said, bustling around him. 

“Get this fucking thing out of me!” Stiles yelled, struggling to sit up. Any time he moved or jostled the stupid icicle, his whole body hurt. He laid back flat, annoyed at the way the nurses were fussing around him, getting an IV started and hooking him up to machines. “Where the hell is Scott?” 

“Scott got pulled onto Argent’s service,” Allison said, leaning over Stiles. “I’m paging Lydia to help out with this,” Allison added. 

“Not the strawberry blonde goddess,” Stiles groaned, tipping his head back. “Can you at least give me some good meds? I seriously do not want to feel the fact that there is an icicle inside of me!”

“Let’s get two of morphine,” Allison said to one of the nurses. She leaned over to look at the area, her gloved fingers gently touching the skin around the icicle.

“Why can’t you be Scott,” Stiles moaned, trying to keep still. Any movement jostled the icicle and the cold pain would prod him again. It was uncomfortable, and it was the worst thing that had happened to him in a long time. 

Allison flicked his forehead. “Dr. Hale assigned you to me, so I’m going to be doing your workup. Besides, I’ve got interns to teach.”

That was also the thing about Allison: her interns. She was a year ahead of everyone else, entering her 5th year, and she was assigned the group of interns to teach. Because she was doing general surgery, she was almost done with her program, and was practically hands off. She mostly had whatever general attending standing near her, ready to jump in if something catastrophic happened. But, most importantly, she had interns . 

The interns were like little ducklings that followed her around. Liam, Mason, and Hayden. They acted like the ground she walked on was sacred, which was the typical response to Allison. She was this perfect doctor that everyone thought was amazing. 

Stiles thought she was far too nice. 

“What are the first steps for an impalement?” Allison asked her interns, gesturing towards where the icicle was sticking out of his body. 

“Stabilize and imaging,” Mason said, eyes wide at the sight of the icicle. “Pack the area around the icicle, get imaging to see if there are internal damages, assess from there.”

Allison smiled, turning to the computer. “Get BP, temperature, and take blood for tests to see if there’s any nasty germs in that icicle,” Allison said to Hayden. “Stabilize the wound,” she said to Mason.

“You’re going to be fine. Liam is going to get you up to CT so that you can get it scanned, see what the damage is, then get you into surgery!” Allison said, almost cheerfully. She could be way too nice sometimes. 

Stiles groaned. “Stop sounding so chipper. I’m going to be the laughingstock of the hospital. Worse! People are going to start calling me Dr. Icicle or something.” He resisted the urge to rip the icicle out, laying his palms flat on the gurney to remind himself to keep. “Is this thing going to melt inside of me? Do we just wait for it to melt before pulling it out?” 

“That’s a question for Dr. Martin,” Allison said, sounding way too chipper. “I’m sure that she’ll know exactly what to do.” Allison flounced out of the room. Flounced . It was as if Stiles’ pain renewed her energy for the night. 

Hell, it was going to be one of the busiest nights, and he was stuck in a patient room with an icicle inside of him. He could be out there fixing broken bones and seeing all of the nasty ways people slipped and fell in the snow and ice, but instead he became the guy who slipped in the ice. If he saw a patient with an icicle inside of him he would have openly laughed. 

The nice nurse said something about morphine, and everything went fuzzy. And then immediately he felt nauseated. And then fuzzy again. The pain was subsiding slowly, as if it was leaking out of him. Or maybe it was the way that the icicle was leaking onto him. He felt so damn cold, now that he could feel things besides pain.

He barely even noticed that Mason had stabilized the icicle, and certainly didn’t hear him say anything about leaving to check on the blood tests. He hadn’t even noticed someone had taken his blood. Morphine was a hell of a drug. 

It felt like hours had passed before Lydia had shown up. When he glanced at the clock, it had barely been thirty minutes. She paused at the doorway, a haggle of interns behind her. Immediately she stopped, shooing them away, before letting only herself inside. 

“Oh, Stiles,” Lydia said, immediately moving to the icicle. 

“Don’t pity me,” Stiles said, trying to shift his weight up to his elbows. “Just make sure those stupid interns of yours don’t start making fun of me. I’ll kick their asses. Tell them I know how to break bones,” Stiles said, glancing down at the icicle. “Also, am I supposed to feel freezing cold?” 

“I would assume the cold is because of the icicle, but that doesn’t seem abnormal,” Lydia said. She frowned, looking more closely at the entrance wound. “Minimal bleeding?” 

“I think the ice is keeping my blood inside my body,” Stiles said, leaning back. He felt so tired. “Am I supposed to feel this tired? I really just want to sleep until you pull this out.”

“The ice is helping keep your blood vessels constricted so that you’re bleeding less. I’m more worried about the gross roof water leaking into your body via the icicle. There could be a lot of bacteria,” Lydia said, pausing to check something on the computer. “Tests came back totally fine on most everything, so there’s nothing we should worry about. How about you go to CT and when you come back, I’ll have Dr. Hale here to consult with me about how to handle this.” 

“Dr. Hale?” Stiles asked, half closing his eyes. 

“The new head of trauma,” Lydia said, checking his IV. “I think I’ll have the nurses bring a blanket for your legs. I don’t want you to get too cold.”

“McHotty already carried me inside like a damsel in distress,” Stiles complained, closing his eyes. “I really do not need him thinking I’m this pathetic. Why him? Why?”

“I’m thinking he’s the head of trauma surgery, and that before pulling an icicle out of my colleague and friend I want a second opinion,” Lydia said, patting Stiles’ leg. “And I’m so going to ask you later about McHotty carrying you inside.” She left with the toss of her hair, gone before Stiles could even try to take back the McHotty comment. 

McHotty. Dr. Hale. There were a lot of attractive doctors and nurses at Mercy General, but he might have been the most attractive man that Stiles had seen in a long time. At least since Andy, the night nurse that Stiles had an on-again-off-again thing with, moved away. Even then, Andy couldn’t hold a candle to Dr. Hale. That man had the face of an angel and the body and talent of a seriously hot doctor. 

Stiles let himself think about McHotty rather than the embarrassment of being wheeled through the hallway to CT with an icicle in his side. It was heavy and cold, and even though the nurses put a blanket on his legs, he was still shivering slightly. It was uncomfortable, the morphine was now barely doing its job in pain management, and he was still feeling nauseated. He could feel everything, just muted. Like it was far away. 

The CT was quick and simple, and after being wheeled back he was stuck in the patient room. He didn’t even have his phone on him. All he had was his pager and anything in his reach, which was pretty much just some extra bandages and the IV. Which, at this rate, the IV was going to make Stiles have to pee more than anything. 

He was sitting alone, practically twiddling his thumbs waiting for someone to come back, when McHotty was at the door. Sorry, Dr. Hale. The man pushing through the door, totally interrupting Stiles’ thumb twiddling, was the hottest man that Stiles has ever seen alive. Up close he was somehow more attractive than before. His perfect stubble was perfect, his hair was gently tousled like it was slowly coming out of its gel, his eyes a piercing green that had Stiles practically melting. The fact that this man was a doctor and not a model was a shame. 

“Stiles Stilinski,” Dr. Hale said. He glanced down at the paper notes, eyes flicking up to the icicle before back down to the notes. His scrubs hung off of his body perfectly, shoulders practically bulging with every movement. “So you want the icicle out.”

“Um. Yes?” Stiles said, unsure of how to respond to the not-question. 

Dr. Hale merely stared at him. 

“I would like the icicle out, please?” Stiles tried. 

Dr. Hale looked down at the paper. “Your scans show some general damage, but there’s more danger in leaving it in, so I’m going to take it out before we go to the OR.”

“Here?” Stiles squeaked, looking around. “What if I start bleeding? Or hemorrhaging? What if the icicle is hiding a perforation to my bowel?” He was just saying things as Dr. Hale confidently moved towards him. 

Before Stiles could protest, Dr. Hale grabbed the icicle and pulled it out. 

Stiles expected pain, or at least a relief of pressure, but he didn’t feel anything. Not a single thing. “Huh.” 

“I’m going to send you to surgery and put a note in about some antibiotics that you’ll have to be on afterwards, just to make sure that icicle doesn’t give you an infection,” Dr. Hale said. He simply turned and left the room after that, leaving Stiles alone. 

“What the fuck?” Stiles asked himself, alone. He wanted to sit up, to see where McHotty was going, but nurses were in the room sweeping him off to surgery before he could say otherwise. 

***

It wasn’t until two weeks after the snowstorm— and the icicle— that Stiles got to actually see Dr. Hale at work. After healing up for two weeks, taking his antibiotics, he was cleared to come back to work. Even if he wasn’t cleared for surgery for another few days, he was cleared to do pre- and post-ops, which was good enough for him. 

“Lydia!” Stiles said, walking into the lounge. 

“Icicle boy!” Lydia said back, pressing her lips together into a fake smile. “Look who finally healed from a chunk of ice hitting him.”

“Are people actually calling me icicle boy?” Stiles asked. He looked up at where Scott was sitting. “Are they?” 

Scott shrugged. 

“You’re a bad friend,” Stiles said, gesturing at Scott. “You’re an angel for telling me,” Stiles said to Lydia. He bowed to her, only wincing slightly as it pulled at his mostly healed scar. 

Lydia flipped her hair over her shoulder, rolling her eyes. “Good to have you back, Stilinski. We always need more residents annoying us. And Braeden scared away all the interns, so you’re needed on her service.”

“She always scares away all the interns!” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. “When we get interns next year, I’m going to have them terrorize you instead. They need a tour through general surgery anyways.”

“Need I remind you that I’m the only person in this hospital who graduated from medical school at the ripe age of 21?” Lydia said, crossing her arms over her chest. Despite being perfect and strawberry blonde, she was sort of the bragging type when it came to talking about her med school experience. She had some photographic memory thing, and the smarts of an actual genius, and despite the fact that they went to elementary school together way back when, she was the youngest attending at the entire hospital at age 27. 

“Baby genius. I didn’t forget,” Stiles said, turning away from her. He set his things down in the cubicle, grabbing out his scrubs to change. “Do you mind? Or are you excited to watch me change?” 

“I wanna see the scar that Derek left behind,” Lydia said, waving her hand in a circle as if to motion for him to hurry up. 

“Derek?” Stiles asked, taking off his jacket and his sweatshirt. 

“Dr. Hale.”

So the enigma has a name. Derek. He was going to have to adjust his whole mindset. Besides, McHotty didn’t even do his post-ops apparently, making Lydia do them while Stiles was in the hospital. Stiles hadn’t even seen him since the whole ‘I’m gonna take the icicle out’ thing.

“He did my surgery?” Stiles asked, frowning. “I figured it was you, since he just walked out.”

“I was going to, but at the last second he pulled me, had me do a bowel resection instead. Yours was quick, just making sure that your liver didn’t take any damage and repairing the muscle underneath. I’m surprised he bumped me,” Lydia said, shrugging. “Now, lemme see that scar.”

Stiles stripped off his shirt, turning his body towards Lydia. Where the icicle had hit him on his right abdomen was a shiny pink scar, only about three inches in length. It stretched diagonally, extending from just under his ribs towards his bellybutton. It was healing nicely, and if Stiles had to bet, there would barely be more than a shiny white scar there in another few weeks. 

“Smooth,” Lydia said, leaning down a little to look at it. “Whoever closed did a good job. I think it might have been Jackson.”

“Jackson worked on me?” Stiles said, pulling back from Lydia. He quickly grabbed his scrub top, pulling it on. “I didn’t say Jackson could stab me with things.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “He’s already chosen plastics for his fellowship. Be glad that he practices by closing on the general surgeries. At least all you’ll have is a nice shiny scar, rather than a puckered mess.” 

“I’d rather take a puckered mess than Jackass sewing me up,” Stiles muttered. 

The other residents started filing in, dumping their bags and being generally loud. Lydia slipped out before everyone else got in, finding her way out the back entrance towards where the attending room was. In moments like this, Stiles could almost see Lydia as lonely. Her boyfriend, all of her friends, and her entire peer group were in their third or fourth year of residency. Stiles had this year and next, and that didn’t include any fellowships that he would have to complete to specialize in pediatric orthopedics. It was still a long way away for him, and Lydia was already teaching residents. It was a weird dynamic. 

“Stiles is back!” Scott cheered, grabbing Stiles by the shoulders and shaking him. 

There was a chorus of cheers, and far too many people calling out ‘icicle boy’, but it did feel good to be back. He would hate to miss out on too much more of his work. Things moved fast, and losing any time with Braeden was like a death sentence. He needed to prove he was 100%. Even if he wasn’t cleared for surgery. 

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Stiles said, backing towards the door. He ducked out before anyone could congratulate him on having the most ridiculous surgery anyone had ever seen. He was already mostly embarrassed by it, and two weeks at home watching shitty daytime tv was only another reminder about how stupid it was. 

When he checked who was on rounds, he saw that he was assigned to Dr. Hale’s service in the ER. Great. A day of sutures and crying babies and throwing up kids, all because he was stabbed by an icicle on hospital property. And he was going to be stuck with McHotty, who he couldn’t look at without being both turned on and embarrassed. He was sort of looking forward to doing Braeden’s post-ops. 

He found Dr. Hale in the ER, pressing on someone’s belly, his eyebrows furrowed downward. His hair, spiked and gelled to perfection, was not even moving as he went through checking the four quadrants of the patient’s belly. 

Stiles waited for Derek to step away, making a note on the chart, before he jumped in. “Reporting for duty,” Stiles said, smiling. He immediately felt awkward, the patient looking between him and Dr. Hale. 

Dr. Hale didn’t even look at him, only muttering at the chart for a few more seconds. When he finally spoke, he didn’t bother turning around. “Get her up to CT for a scan, and report to Martin with the results. Looks like a distended bowel. After that, there’s a list of patients who need stitches. I’m sure the healing process doesn’t prevent you from sewing skin?” He only looked over once he had finished his question, glancing over his shoulder. 

Those green eyes were both stunning and distracting, but Stiles straightened up and smiled instead. “On it!”

Dr. Hale walked away. Or, more accurately, he stalked away. Long lumbering strides, his doctor’s coat not moving an inch as he walked. It was almost eerie.

“Was that real? Was he a real doctor?” the woman asked, watching him stalk into the trauma room. She turned to Stiles, grabbing his arm. “Where am I?”

Stiles pulled up the flashlight on his keychain, shining it into the woman’s eyes. “Are you having a hard time remembering where you are?” he asked, watching for pupillary response. 

She batted his arm away, scowling. “I drive myself to the ER with stomach pains and suddenly I’m in a medical drama. Are all of you doctors really that attractive?” she asked, gaping as Braeden walked by, Isaac hot on her heels. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” Stiles asked, rounding her bed to the computer, scanning his ID so he could order her a CT. When he glanced back over, she looked at him raptly. “Sometimes I don’t even know why I was accepted into this program. It’s like they had headshots we were supposed to send in, and only the hottest were hired.” 

“Wild,” said the woman, tilting her head back. “I think the morphine they gave me is working.” 

With her silence, Stiles left her alone, knowing that the CT tech would come by to pick her up and take her. He had made a note to send the results directly to both Lydia and him, so that way he could have all of the information and be able to report on it at a moment’s notice. 

When it came to being a doctor, there were few things that Stiles actively disliked. He didn’t particularly like going into any brain or heart surgeries, and despite some of the other residents yearning for it, he wasn’t a fan. He also actively disliked when he was on suture duty, wandering from person to person in the pit sewing them up. It was tedious work, and considering the fact that Stiles would rather be working with bones and ligaments and structural things, he was stuck sewing skin.

By 2pm, he had stitched up almost a dozen patients, the most interesting was a woman who had tried to catch a knife in midair after throwing it. Other doctors might have been excited, but Stiles was a bone guy. No one in his program was even sort of interested in it, but there were so many different and versatile applications of orthopedics. He would rather be resetting broken bones than suturing anyone. And yes, he would keep complaining about it in his head until things changed. 

It wasn’t until almost 3pm that Derek came to check on him while he was suturing some poor woman who’s kid had accidentally cut her arm open with a knife. He was halfway through a line of stitches, ignoring the pain in his side, when Derek appeared over his shoulder. He didn’t appear, per say, but more apparated and lurked. Stiles could feel the weight of his presence before he even heard or saw him. 

“Need something, Dr. Hale?” Stiles asked, slowly threading another stitch. The woman’s kid, barely 4, was sitting on her lap with a sucker in his mouth, watching Stiles work. So was the woman. And now so was Hale. He really did not need to be messing up stitches in front of his attending. 

“The woman with the distended bowel?” Hale asked. 

Stiles hummed for a moment, letting himself do another stitch before speaking, trying not to talk and sew at the same time. “Her CT showed a distended bowel. I sent Lydia the results and got her booked into the hospital. They are opting for a non-surgical route for now, with fluids and time, but if she doesn’t improve in the next 36 hours they are going to operate,” Stiles said. Once he finished speaking he began stitching again, putting in the last two stitches. “All done, ma’am. A nurse will come by to discharge you and provide aftercare instructions.” 

He stood, spinning to face Hale. Apparently Dr. Hale hadn’t moved in anticipation of Stiles standing, and the two of them were practically chest to chest, staring each other down. He could barely move— or even inhale— without touching Dr. Hale. 

Hastily, Stiles took a step back. “Anything else? I was going to check in to see if anything else is needed in the pit.”

“Have you taken a break?” Hale asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Stiles’ silence was telling enough that he hadn’t, outside of scarfing down a terrible sandwich from the cafeteria on his way back from checking on the CT earlier. 

“Take a break. Rest. Come find me so I can check how you’re healing in thirty minutes,” Derek said. With that he stalked away. 

Dumbfounded, Stiles blinked a few times before he moved. Following the instructions of your attending was fairly easy when he was that attractive, but Stiles was not one to follow anyone’s instructions. Even people he liked. He wanted to throw himself even further into work, finding even better cases in the pit. 

But Hale was sort of right. His side did hurt, and if he leaned too far forward he could feel how he was pressing on his own injured tissue. He wasn’t doing himself any favors by making his injury worse and extending the healing time more than he needed to. 

Reluctantly, Stiles headed to an on-call room after grabbing a bag of chips from the vending machine. He scarfed them down while watching a video on his phone, letting himself lay down and relax for the first time that day. 

That was how Hale found him later, asleep on the on-call bed. He startled awake when he heard the door open, sitting up hastily. He could see Derek in the light of the hallway, his stupid white coat more like a superhero’s cape than anything. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if Hale was real or imagined. 

“Shit, did I fall asleep?” Stiles asked, immediately grabbing his pager, checking to see if he missed anything. He swung his legs off the bed, wincing at how he jostled himself. There was nothing. Not even a peep. Nice to know he wasn’t needed. 

“Let me look,” Derek said, gesturing towards Stiles vaguely. 

“At my sick scar?” Stiles asked, standing. He pulled his scrub top up, showing the line across his abdomen. “I heard you let my enemy close up,” Stiles added, poking gently at the skin around it. 

“Whittmore?” Hale asked, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“That guy is a douche, but he’s gonna make a good plastics doc one day,” Stiles said, shrugging, letting his shirt fall. “Am I in trouble for sleeping? Because I swear I didn’t mean to.”

“No, but I’m backed up in the pit. Braeden is setting some bones in a few, if you care to join,” Derek said. He left the doorway after that, disappearing. 

That might be Derek’s M.O., to disappear. Whatever the case, it was nice to have someone give instructions and not bother with personal life. The rest of the residents were far too wrapped up in each other’s drama that it was so not worth it to talk to any of them for longer than 5 minutes. Finally, a doctor that was as drama free as Braeden, but seemingly only half as crazy. 

“When am I going to have a normal day at this godforsaken hospital?” Stiles muttered to himself, scrubbing both of his hands over his face. 

***

The one thing about the hospital that drove Stiles to apply for their residency was the fact that it was the only level 1 trauma center in the county. That meant there was never a dull moment, especially in the ER. Even if he was on Braeden’s service, she spent half her time in the ER and the other half consulting on the more intense ortho cases, so he always got taken through the rounds of some crazy shit. 

Case in point: the climbing group who had been trapped in the mountains for the last few days, all three of them ridden with frostbite and the third having a broken femur. 

“Lahey, Reyes, with Martin in trauma 1. McCall and Whittmore, with Argent in trauma 2. Stilinski, with me in trauma 3,” Dr. Hale called out, grabbing the clipboards and handing them out accordingly. He was smart and decisive, making sure that the residents and attendings would work well together. Isaac was leaning towards general, and Erica was leaning towards neuro, so putting them on a case with a rigid abdomen and a head injury was a good fit. Scott wanted trauma, and he would anchor the two plastics in Whittmore and Argent. Stiles was in ortho, so heading into the room with the broken femur was likely a good idea. 

As he followed Hale, he glanced at the notes the EMT wrote up. “Compound fracture of the femur, suspected infection, severe frostbite on nose and toes, fingers seem fine,” he muttered, flipping it up. “Body temp is still low,” he added, a bit louder. 

“Page Braeden and the other Argent. Tell both of them it’s a 911,” Hale said, pushing through the trauma door. 

Stiles waited outside to quickly page both of them. When he stepped inside the trauma room 30 seconds later, he had to fight from gasping. 

The man was clearly out of it, mumbling incoherently. His nose was practically black, and his face was so red it was painful to even look at. His body was mostly covered with a warming blanket, but his left leg was sticking out, the compound femur fracture wet with blood and hastily tied off with a tourniquet near the hip. The tourniquet looked to be someone’s belt, tight enough to restrict some blood flow but not tight enough to completely cut off circulation. 

Stiles immediately jumped in, taking a pulse in the foot of the broken leg, seeing if it was still viable or if they were looking at an immediate amputation. It was weak, but still there. He said as much to Dr. Hale. 

“Hang a bag of warm saline,” Dr. Hale said to one of the nurses. He shined the flashlight in the guy’s eyes, checking for pupillary response. “I’m Dr. Hale. Can you hear me?” he asked, gently pressing down the sides of his neck, moving to the chest. He was looking for any sort of reactionary response, to see if anything else was damaged. 

“My face hurts,” the guy mumbled. 

Stiles started doing the same to his other limbs, making sure nothing else was broken. His toes were mostly black, but his fingers looked like they’d escaped most of the damage, only the very tips starting to turn darker. “Can you tell us what happened?”

“Thought we saw a helicopter,” the guy said, his eyes sliding shut. “Slid on the ice and fell. Leg broke. They left me to get the rescue team.” He breathed out, his breath sounding shallow. 

Hale immediately grabbed his stethoscope from around his neck to check for the breath sounds. If he had fallen any height, he could have broken ribs, a punctured lung, or internal bleeding. Apparently it all sounded normal, based on his immediate move to lean up. 

“Do we remove the tourniquet?” Stiles asked, gesturing towards the leg. 

“Assess, Stilinski, tell me what you think,” Hale said, feeling all the way down the arms now, taking care around the affected fingers as he examined the frostbite. 

Stiles looked at the leg, seeing the compounded fracture. He did some quick mental math on how long the leg had been compounded, and how long the tourniquet had been tied. There was going to be muscle damage around the tourniquet, and there was going to be a sudden rush of blood as the tourniquet was removed. He could bleed out. He could also have lost a lot of blood, and a little more would send him crashing. 

“We need to get to an OR before removing the tourniquet, in case we have a bleeder. We also need to debride the wound before removing the tourniquet, so we don’t contaminate the wound site,” Stiles said, gesturing towards the leg. 

Both Braeden and Allison came crashing into the room in their own ways; Braeden was bridled chaos, immediately pushing Stiles out of the way to examine the wound, while Allison paused at the doorway, hands still at her sides. 

“Internal injuries?” Allison asked. 

“Argent, book him a CT and an OR. I’m going to assess the frostbite,” Hale said. 

The swirl of the room didn’t calm down after that. Stiles followed Braeden’s lead, debriding the wound since the man was fully passed out from shock. They sent him off to CT, and immediately moved to scrub in. 

Stiles had never worked on a compound femur fracture before. He had helped Braeden reset plenty of limbs, had worked plenty of solo surgeries not in the orthopedic field, but this was different. It was managing several things at once; making sure there was enough blood flow to keep the limb viable, but also trying not to flood the field or cause blood loss. There were bone fragments embedded into the muscle that he had to painstakingly pull out. 

Hours later, Stiles was sitting in the cafeteria, the shitty sandwich on his tray. It was exhilarating, but exhausting. When the excitement and adrenaline runs out, it is like crashing. Hard. People might have judged him for his meal: the shitty cafeteria sandwich, a soda, and a candy bar. But despite how unhealthy it was, he needed the sugar to make it through the rest of his shift. His endless energy did have a breaking point, on occasion. 

Wordlessly, Hale dropped across from him. He had a matching tray, but instead of a candy bar he had a bag of chips. Without talking, he started shoving the sandwich into his mouth, eating inelegantly. Even then, he was still so attractive that Stiles let his mouth hang open, sandwich forgotten in his hand. 

Hale looked up, swallowing thickly. “You did good today.”

“Thanks,” Stiles said plainly. He started eating his sandwich, taking care to savor the sort of bland experience. He didn’t want to accidentally disturb whatever outside force that had caused Dr. Hale to sit at his table.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, Hale inhaling his sandwich and tearing through his chips, idly sipping his soda. He glanced up at Stiles every once in a while, eyes flicking across his face before he would look back down. 

When Hale was finished eating, he leaned back for a moment, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. After two breaths, he opened his eyes, looking back to Stiles. “Are you on Braeden’s service today?” Hale asked, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“On Lydia’s today,” Stiles said, sipping his drink. He glanced at Hale, unsure of himself for a small moment. “Dr. Hale—”

“Derek,” Hale interrupted. 

“Derek,” Stiles corrected himself, leaning back, mirroring Derek’s position. “How do you do it? Being on and right all the time? I came into surgery because I wanted to save lives, and I wanted to do ortho because of the many ortho docs I had visited as a kid. But it's cases like this where I doubt myself. Whether or not I have what it takes to even do all of this anymore,” Stiles said, letting go of his pose, rambling, hands flailing. 

He hadn’t originally intended to say that, but he wasn’t sure he could hold onto that for much longer. And, on top of that, he wasn’t sure that Scott or even Lydia would understand. They were both self assured, confident, and capable at their jobs. He knew he did good today, and he held it together, but he had fallen lax in the last few months. Since deciding to specialize in ortho, he had taken a pause in the chaos of the ER, and had inevitably only been in the OR for a handful of solo surgeries and to accompany Braeden for her various procedures. 

It had been a while since he had been on-call for a case as drastic as this. And with the ease he saw Allison perform, and the way everyone jumped in, he was almost unsure that he was doing enough. 

Derek stared at him for a moment, unwavering. “I think that everyone knows a lot less than they appear to,” he said, shifting himself slightly. “It takes a lot of experience to do something effortlessly, and everyone else is just faking it.”

As expected, Derek stood to leave. He grabbed his tray and soda, sliding his chair back in. “Don’t doubt yourself.” With that, he left, striding out of the cafeteria. There was something about his shoulders as he walked away that slowly straightened up, returning back to the square shoulders of the confident Derek that Stiles had first seen. 

There was something comforting about seeing that change in Derek. 

***

The passing of time frequently happened without any of the residents even realizing. One day they were baby residents, fresh off of their internships, hoping to get onto some solo surgeries. The next they were in their fourth year, new interns coming into the hospital, pushing them up higher on the hierarchy and opening them up to more and more opportunities. 

But that didn’t prevent them from doing stupid things either. Like throw a house party at the house that Stiles, Scott, and Isaac shared. 

In all honesty, Stiles didn’t really want to party. He was focused on learning more about general surgery in his own time. He didn’t just want to be the bones guy, he wanted to be able to jump in at any moment and assess any injury. He didn’t want to just be this niche doctor who no one could trust. And he preferred to spend more of his free time in the skills lab than at home. 

On the other hand, Isaac had gone an entire month without a loss. Which apparently was something to celebrate, all things considering. He had lost more patients than any other resident in the last two years, and this was a big deal for him. Scott had even made a banner, hanging it across the doorway to the living room, congratulating him on no deaths. 

By the time Stiles had gotten home from working in the skills lab, working on the mattress stitch that Derek had told him to brush up on, the party was in full swing. There was a mystery punch on the kitchen counter, a game of beer pong on the dining table, and at least two couples making out on their shitty couch. Stiles barely even recognized half of the people in attendance, but assumed that they were all from the hospital. Otherwise the cheery sign that said, “Congrats on Zero Deaths!” would look extremely out of place. 

“Stiles!” Scott called, holding up a bottle of rum in one hand, standing on a chair. “Icicle boy everyone!” 

The whole crowd started cheering, a few whoops of joy and a few calls of “Icicle boy!” coming from them. That cheer alone set the tone of the party for Stiles. 

He waded his way through the crowd, dodging people as he made his way back to the kitchen. Stiles grabbed a beer out of the ice bucket and opened the fridge, unsurprised to see that most of the food had been cleared out in favor of more beer. He should have stopped and grabbed food on the way home. Scott normally didn’t go all out, but it was Isaac. He had an extremely soft spot for Isaac. 

As Stiles tried to worm his way back through the crowd, he was stopped by a very drunk Scott, who was no longer standing on a chair and instead standing in front of him, swaying slightly on his feet, eyes already squinting and practically bloodshot. “Stiles!” he said, far too loudly, almost collapsing on Stiles as he leaned in for a hug. 

The one thing that Stiles never understood was how aggressively doctors drank. They got drunk to forget, sure, but they seemed totally and completely unaware of the consequences. Not that Stiles was pious or pure, he just preferred not to be hungover. 

“Buddy,” Stiles said, patting Scott on the back, trying to lean away from where his hot breath was on his neck. “Having fun?”

“I think Allison is here,” Scott said, trying to whisper. It instead was a loud stage whisper, where everyone in the vicinity had the potential to hear. He pulled back, his lopsided grin so earnest. “I think tonight’s the night to really go for it.”

“I think you should have some water first,” Stiles said, gesturing towards the kitchen. “Do you want me to get you some?”

Scott shook his head almost comically. “Only alcohol,” he said, holding up his rum. He took a swig of it, grimacing afterwards. “Why does this taste so bad?”

“Because it’s straight rum,” Stiles said, prying it out of his hands. “Let’s get you water.”

It wasn’t until Scott was propped up against the counter, having already drunk an entire glass of water, that Stiles left him there, another full cup in his hands. He seemed stable enough to handle himself, and maybe Stiles could go to his room without another drunken interruption. The party had been happening far too long for Stiles to willingly jump into the deep end. He couldn’t possibly drink enough to keep pace with everyone who was already there. 

He headed up the stairs, keeping his bag tucked close to his body as he wove through those sitting and talking on the steps. Stiles’ only hope was that Scott had remembered to lock the bedrooms before the party, or at least put some sort of sign up. 

Unfortunately, as Stiles saw upon opening his bedroom door, Scott did neither of those things. 

He wasn’t sure who was having sex on his bed, but there were definitely two naked bodies of people he did not recognize. He ducked out of the room quickly, squeezing his eyes shut to try and rid himself of the image. Scott was going to do his laundry tomorrow as payment for the absolute horrors that Stiles had just witnessed. 

The beer he was clutching in his hand suddenly seemed not worth drinking anymore. He set it down outside his door, standing and pausing for a second. He let himself take a deep breath, trying to still his mind for a second to figure out what he was going to do. 

It was likely that everyone he knew was at this party. So asking to crash at someone else’s place was out of the question. He could just suffer and see if anyone else’s bedroom was empty, but there was a low chance of that happening. It was already after midnight, and there was no way he could figure out how to get a hotel room this late. 

His only choice was the hospital, the place he already spent all day every day at. At least he could try and sleep through the night, get enough rest that he could stomach the cleaning he had to do in the morning. 

Stiles picked his way back down the stairs and outside, trying to ignore the way that beer was splashed across the walls and people were spilling things. There was pizza that clearly someone had ordered, a piece of it facedown on the carpet. He closed the door behind him, glad that the sound of outside was much better than the loud chatter of inside. 

He drove back to the hospital, hoping that he didn’t run into anyone who saw him leave earlier. All he wanted was to lay down somewhere quiet and dark and sleep, and if anyone was having sex in the on-call rooms Stiles was going to have a breakdown. 

He dropped his stuff in the residents lounge, tucking everything away into his locker. He took a moment to lay across the bench, closing his eyes and trying to will himself into getting up and trying to sleep in an on-call room. He vaguely heard the door open and close, but didn’t move. It was probably one of the other residents on the night shift, coming in to grab some food. 

“What are you doing back here,” Derek said, his voice soft but not particularly questioning. When Stiles opened his eyes, he saw Derek’s face upside down, leaning over him, brow furrowed. 

“Scott threw a party,” Stiles said, closing his eyes again and putting his forearm over them. “Let’s say they are going to be very hungover tomorrow, and I’ll need to change my sheets.” 

At the complete silence from Derek, Stiles sat up, turning to look at him. Derek looked vaguely confused, standing there stiffly. 

“I walked in on people having sex on my bed, so I can’t sleep in it until I change my sheets,” Stiles explained, rubbing his eyes. “I want to sleep here, but I’m afraid I’ll walk in on someone else having sex in the on-call rooms.” 

“Come with me,” Derek said vaguely, turning and walking out of the room. When Stiles didn’t immediately follow, Derek held the door open. He raised one eyebrow, looking at Stiles. 

Stiles followed him dutifully, trailing after him. After walking down several hallways and heading up two floors to the kids floor, Stiles opened his mouth to say something. “I thought you were supposed to end your shift at the same time as me.”

“I stayed,” Derek said gruffly. He stopped outside of a door, opening it for Stiles. 

It was an on-call room. One that Stiles had never slept in, but one nonetheless. There was no rotation posted on the inside of the door, like there was for the other rooms. It was seemingly not in use. 

“What room is this?” Stiles asked, glancing at the single bed, tucked away. It was practically a closet, but it was a quiet room with a bed. For Stiles, that was all he really needed.

“No one rotates into this room. It’s a spare one,” Derek said, shrugging. “It’s the one I use,” he added, looking away. He crossed his arms over his chest, glancing back at Stiles. 

“You didn’t have to show me your special on-call room,” Stiles said, staring at it. The bed looked as attractive as Derek. “Especially since you need to sleep if you’re going to stay up all night working a double.”

Derek stayed silent. After a few seconds he gestured towards the bed, as if inviting Stiles to lay down even further. “I don’t want to sleep,” he said finally, gesturing again. With that, he left the room, shutting the door behind him and leaving Stiles inside. 

Taking the invitation, Stiles kicked his shoes off and removed his jeans. He tucked himself into the bed, taking pleasure in the silence of the room. He could see why Derek had found this place, and had kept it a secret. Until now. Why Derek had revealed his special room, Stiles wouldn’t know. But he wasn’t going to turn down a good thing. He was going to sleep. 

***

“I’m so bored,” Stiles moaned, leaning against the nurses station, looking around at the closed patient rooms. “I did pre-ops, I did post-ops, and Braeden decided to take Allison and the interns into her hip replacement today,” Stiles said, laying his head in his arms. 

“You complain too much,” Lydia said, checking her pager again. “I was supposed to have a hernia repair at 3, but I guess it got pushed back for some reason.”

Both of their pagers went off at once, calling 911 to the ER. 

“Well, now we know why,” Stiles said, following Lydia towards the elevators. 

Rolling into the ER was a group of people caught in an escalator collapse. 

It was wrong to enjoy the weird cases, but Stiles couldn’t help but silently cheer at the fact that it was all hands on deck for the escalator collapse, including the man who had his hand sucked into the conveyor belt aspect of the steps. There were very few times in his life that Stiles could say he worked on someone harmed by an escalator. 

With as many people as there were involved in the collapse, all of the residents were dividing and conquering with oversight from the attendings. Jackson got to go with Argent Asshole on the mangled hand, but the rest of the residents were doing stitches and getting CT scans for the victims who had fallen nearly three stories from the escalator. The collapse had left quite a few of them with broken bones, which Stiles was more than happy to deal with when he had the chance. 

Stiles had just finished sewing up a woman’s arm from where glass had sliced it open when Derek came practically skidding around the corner. He glanced up, hoping that Derek was looking for him. He sort of always wished Derek was looking for him, since he had seen the nicer side of him. 

“Stilinski, trauma room 2,” Derek said, gesturing towards him. 

Stiles passed off the patient to a nurse and followed Derek, holding his stethoscope as he ran so it didn’t go flying. When he got into the trauma room, he was surprised to see someone mangled lying on the bed. “What happened?” Stiles asked incredulously. 

“This man was found all the way underneath the collapse, with severe crush injuries. I need you to help assess while I’m waiting for Martin. She’s stuck repairing a pierced liver right now.”

There were so many things to check before going into surgery. Stiles started with finding a pulse in all of the limbs, which was evident, but the bruising was extensive to the arms and legs. The crush injury had a clear line across his chest, and his abdomen was distended. He said as much to Derek, who merely nodded. 

The two of them worked nearly silently. It seemed like each other knew exactly what the other was going to do. They swirled around each other, taking tests and portable x-rays, working together simultaneously while the nurses made sure the man had oxygen and enough pain meds to knock him out. Stiles didn’t have time to think about how well they worked together over the last few weeks. They had only worked on the same patient a handful of times, most notably the broken leg frostbite guy, but the two of them seemingly knew what each other was thinking at all times. 

Stiles wasn’t going to think too hard about how well he worked with Derek. It wasn’t even really worth thinking about, all things considered. Stiles worked that well with Lydia and Scott, and it wasn’t a big deal to understand how other surgeons worked. When you all had the same goal, it was easy to divide tasks. 

“Book an OR,” Derek said, checking his pager. “Get the young Argent to scrub in if she’s free, since Martin is still busy.” 

After assessing that he had a broken hip and internal bleeding, Stiles booked an OR and paged Allison. He met her in the scrub room, Derek having already scrubbed in and talking with the anesthesiologist.

“Where’s Braeden?” Allison said, scrubbing her hands together, watching the other surgeons through the window. 

“She’s with the guy who shattered two of his vertebrae,” Stiles said, half shrugging. “I’ve done a hip repair before.”

“How bad is it?” Allison asked, her eyebrows pinching together in worry. 

“CT was a mess. The hip is an easy fix, just a few pins, but the internal injuries are extensive,” Stiles said, shaking his head, scrubbing under his fingernails. “It was bad enough that he requested Lydia too. This guy is in rough shape, his BP is down, and his abdomen is rigid all over.”

“Well, shit,” Allison said. “Let’s do this thing.”

On Stiles’ part, the surgery went smoothly. It was easy enough to get the pins in his hip to make sure the bones stayed in place. Afterwards, he mostly held the retractor for Derek and Allison. He even got to help with the perforated bowel and watched the splenectomy. And while Stiles was a bones guy, there was something special about watching the magic of general surgery. 

It wasn’t until they were out of surgery that Stiles, wiping his face off with the back of his hand, finally saw the look that Allison was giving him. She had stood by his side, assisting Derek for the entire surgery and watching as he let Stiles help with the bowel. She had watched as Stiles read Derek’s eyes (and his eyes only) as he moved his instruments, patching up pieces alongside him. 

It was hard to explain why Stiles knew what Derek was thinking. And, up until this point, he hadn’t thought too hard about it. Most of the doctors at the hospital he had a good rapport with, and since he knew the steps of each surgery, he could easily slide right in when needed. Stiles made sure that he could easily work with any attending and had good general knowledge, even if his destiny was ortho.

It could also have been because he understood the gruffness and lack of speech because of his own father’s attitudes on occasion. Maybe it was because he was so used to reading people that he immediately started reading Derek from the moment that they had met. But he was certain almost no one knew about them eating lunch in the cafeteria, or the special on-call room. But even then, that was nothing. 

“When did you start doing general surgery?” Allison said, scrubbing her hands in the sink, glancing over at Stiles. 

“I mean, we all do general surgery. Braeden is being picky about when she has me on her service,” Stiles said, shrugging.

“Hale let you do the bowel resection. He let you fly solo on the hip fix. I’m a 5th year resident and I’m going to be graduating from this program in 9 months, and he let you do it solo,” Allison said, shaking her head. “I know my dad will treat me like this, but now this new trauma guy is doing it too. And you aren’t even a general surgeon.”

“Alli, ortho is my jam. But I’m not going to pass up cases and surgeries because they aren’t ortho,” Stiles said simply. He wiped his hands down, shrugging himself. He didn’t look at Allison, afraid of what his face was going to say. He merely pushed out of the scrub room, heading down the hallway. 

The one thing Stiles hated about this stupid hospital was how close of friends everyone was. He couldn’t go ten feet without running into another doctor, and the likelihood that it was someone who had seen him drunk or naked was getting higher by the day. He didn’t want questioning looks when he followed the surgery trail where it went, or when he was merely operating under the service he was on that day. Especially when he wasn’t asking for special treatment, or trying to snipe Allison for surgeries. 

Allison was especially sensitive because of her dad. There was a deeper story around why— and how— she ended up in the surgical program working at the same hospital as her father, but she was sensitive to getting pushed around. When she was an intern, her dad made her life hell and she nearly failed the intern exam. Since then, the only way she got surgeries was working with the general surgeons and under the chief, since he didn’t let Arget push him around. 

It probably looked a lot worse than it was, and Allison was a quiet but critical observer; she was the kind of person to call out others bullshit, but only after knowing exactly what to call out. Knowing her, she was probably keenly aware of Scott’s crush on her, and exactly why he didn’t ask her out. 

When Stiles reached the elevator, Derek was waiting in front of it, staring at the lights where it stated which floor the elevator was currently at. He didn’t move, but he relaxed a bit as Stiles stood next to him, his shoulders slumping. 

“Thank you for letting me do the hip by myself,” Stiles said, smiling to himself. “Braeden has been pretty selfish with her surgeries lately, and I’m supposed to be working towards diagnosing and setting treatment plans for my own cases by now. It’s nice to get some level of freedom in the OR, considering I am at Braeden’s beck and call all the time. Did you know that she called me by the wrong name the other day? She’s scary, but I need her to write me a letter of recommendation when I graduate this program—”
The elevator dinged, interrupting Stiles’ rant. They both got on, Derek punching the number for the surgical floor. He didn’t say anything to Stiles, but he did stand closer than socially accepted. 

“You are probably tired of me talking already,” Stiles said, shaking his head. “I’m going to annoy every attending into hating me. I can just feel it.”

“You’re not annoying,” Derek said gruffly, exhaling. 

Stiles looked at him, his brow pulling together. “Even my best friend thinks I’m annoying.”

Derek shrugged. “You’re not annoying,” he repeated. 

The elevator dinged, the doors opening. Before Stiles could say anything further, Derek was stalking out the doors, walking quickly away. 

“Huh,” Stiles said, exiting slowly. He turned and watched as Derek walked away, his shoulders tight as he ducked around people, avoiding conversation. A man that was generally peeved by the public to the point of avoiding at all costs thought Stiles wasn’t annoying. 

If Stiles was younger, or maybe less ashamed of how he conducted himself in the hospital, he would have let out a small whoop of excitement. It wasn’t every day that Stiles found himself in the good favor of an attending. A hot attending, at that. 

***

“Hey Derek!” Stiles called out, half jogging down the hall towards him. “Parrish said you needed some help down at the pit,” he said, smiling. 

The ER was the one place that Stiles was truly left to his own devices, and he figured that Derek was a big part of that. He had a very hands off approach, having residents work immediately and checking on them if there was anything serious. 

Plus, Derek had been sort of nice to him over the past few days. Ever since their last surgery, really. The storm cloud that usually settled over him was lifted and while he certainly didn’t have a sunny disposition, he seemed less unhappy. 

His typically flat affect was becoming a problem around the hospital. He had a reputation of being a hardass, more so than anyone else. He was known for barking orders at residents like he was a drill sergeant, kicking interns out of the ER when they made mistakes, and overriding other attending’s treatment plans in favor of his own. If Deaton didn’t like him, he would’ve already been kicked out.

But even then, in the last month or so since he started, he had never treated Stiles that way. He had been indifferent or quiet at times, but he was a kind person. He might not have said much, but it was the way he would silently sit next to Stiles while they charted, or give him the better ER cases without threats. 

“Derek?” Stiles asked, brow furrowing as he followed in step next to him, trying to get any sort of response from him. He was used to talking to Derek with no response, but Derek’s usual demeanor was tighter than usual, like he was wound up. 

“I’m good in the pit,” Derek said dismissively. He picked up the pace of his walking, causing Stiles to fall behind him slightly. 

“Parrish said there was incoming car crash victims, and Braeden is already down there—”

“Are you on Braeden’s service?” Derek asked. 

“Well no, I’m with the scary Argent today—”

“And did I page you?” 

Stiles frowned. “No, but—”

“Then I don’t need you,” Derek said with an air of finality. 

Stiles stopped, watching Derek walk quickly down the hallway, almost stalking towards the ER doors. Not once did Derek pause or act like that wasn’t completely out of the ordinary for him. 

But that was a lie. It was completely in his normal scope to act like that towards pretty much everyone. He’d seen Derek do the same thing to Scott and Isaac when they had asked in the past, and he had seen Derek do much worse when it came to talking to interns. But it was not normal for Derek to act like that towards Stiles. He might ignore Stiles, or dismiss him gently, prodding him towards post-ops or another attending. But he did not simply dismiss him. 

“What did you do to him?” Lydia asked, coming up from behind Stiles. 

“Nothing,” Stiles said, frowning. 

Lydia shook her head. “You must’ve done something. He’s usually sort of nice to you.”

Stiles froze for a second, wondering if Lydia had thought any deeper about his McHotty nickname for him. He couldn’t deny that Derek’s attractiveness fueled his desire to be in his proximity. That man was hot and the way he held a scalpel made Stiles weak at the knees sometimes. But he was keeping that information to himself. 

“Don’t act surprised. Others might not see it, but you know me,” Lydia said, pinching Stiles’ upper arm. “I’m just happy that you bring out some shred of humanity in him. And he’s the most attractive doctor at this hospital, so I would also be happy to receive any of his niceties.”

“I’m telling Jackson you said that.”

Lydia laughed, tossing her hair off of her shoulder. “And he would agree.”

Stiles glanced back at the doors to the ER, screwing up his face. He would have rather worked with a few traumas than run the post-ops on Argent’s latest face lifts. Hell, he’d rather do sutures for the rest of his shift than talk to the ladies who were ‘watching their figure’ and moaning about how they couldn’t do a skin care routine on their freshly operated faces.

He couldn’t help but be a little bit disappointed by Derek’s behavior. Up until this point, he had only received the good side of Derek. He had even been starting to think that Derek might have even liked him as a colleague. He couldn’t help but hope that Derek liked him, but when Stiles thought like that he felt like a blushing teenager. 

“I have to go check on scary Argent’s cases,” Stiles muttered, turning and moving past Lydia, trying to ignore the heat rising in his cheeks.

He spent all afternoon listening to women ask when their face lifts were going to heal enough for them to go home, or when they could have sex with their husbands after their face lifts. And if it wasn’t a face lift Stiles was checking in on, he was changing the wrappings on a burn victim and trying not to cry as they winced in pain from every touch. 

On top of that, Argent had him doing his scut work. Stiles was a fourth year resident doing scut for a man that wasn’t even his own specialty. He had been typing in his chicken scratch into the filing system for nearly an hour before he looked up at the world around him. 

In front of him on the counter was a coffee. Behind that coffee was Derek, face neutral. He nudged the coffee closer to Stiles, raising his eyebrows slightly. He pulled his hand back, nodding thoughtfully towards him. 

“A coffee?” Stiles asked, grabbing it. He took a cautious sip, tasting the chocolate as well. “A mocha?”

“How are Argent’s patients?” Derek asked quietly. 

“Fine, a bunch of women complaining about leaving and looking beautiful again after all the bruising,” Stiles said, shaking his head. “A lot less interesting than the car crash.”

“I had plenty of residents to cover it,” Derek said with a frown. He gestured vaguely towards the coffee.

“So you brought me a coffee as… what? An apology for not having a spot or an apology for how you said it?” Stiles asked, feeling brave. It was because of Derek that he spent the last four hours of his shift dealing with all of Argent’s unwanted work. 

Derek looked at him. He really looked at him, his eyes softening slightly and his gaze piercing through Stiles. It was as if he could read Stiles’ true intentions, see down into Stiles’ motivations. But at the same time, Stiles could see the way Derek cared a lot more than he let on. 

“Drink the coffee,” Derek said gruffly, his lips curling up on the ends. He walked away, the typical tension in his shoulders visibly not there. 

“Huh,” Stiles said, taking a sip. An attending delivering him a coffee. He could get used to that, even if it was an apology coffee. 

***

Stiles hung his dripping wet rain jacket into his locker, wincing as each drip hit the bottom of his locker. The rest of the other residents were all stripping off their wet clothes and changing into their scrubs. 

After becoming ‘icicle boy,’ Stiles was vaguely insecure about changing in front of everyone. Jackson did a good job sewing up his side— there was only a pink scar there, which would fade to a silvery white soon enough— but there was something vulnerable about showing it. It was a reminder of how Stiles had managed to get impaled by an icicle of all things. 

Stiles shucked his jeans and changed into his scrub bottoms first. He faced his locker as he stripped his shirt off, trying to make sure no one could see the line across his upper abdomen. It was just his luck that Parrish swung the door open at that moment to announce the rotations for that day. 

And, in an even greater turn of luck (or rather, misfortune), Derek was following behind Parrish. 

Stiles gulped, pinning his arm down to his side, trying to cover both the scar and as much of his torso as possible. He wanted to shrink away, to hide, but he froze in the moment, his eyes locking onto Derek’s as he walked into the room. They held eye contact for a second before Derek’s eyes flicked lower, looking at Stiles’ bare torso. 

Quickly, Stiles pulled his scrub top on, pulling it down over his torso quickly to hide both himself and the scar. He might have thought Derek was hot, but he wasn’t going to flaunt his scrawny body next to someone who’s muscles could be seen through the loose scrubs. 

“Whittmore, you’re with Argent,” Parrish said, reading from his list. “Allison Argent, you’re with Chief Deaton. Reyes with Blake. Boyd with Morrell. McCall, Lahey, and Stilinski, you’re with Hale and the incoming CVCs,” Parrish continued, looking up. 

“I only need two,” Derek said, glancing at Parrish.

“Alright,” Parrish said, checking the paper, showing Derek the list. Derek tilted his head, looking out at the residents as if deciding who to pick. 

“Stilinski,” Derek said, voice quiet and firm, “go with Martin.”

Stiles’ stomach dropped, his heart beating faster. He was expecting to go with Derek, all things considered. He thought they were on a good note, and they seemed to work well together. Stiles had been with Braeden the last two shifts, but he and Derek had been fine. 

They had lunch together the last two shifts. They had sat across from each other, Stiles yammering on between bites and Derek listening, throwing in a one word comment here and there. It was 20 minutes out of the day, but Stiles thought it was significant. Derek didn’t normally talk to anyone else, and he certainly didn’t eat lunch with anyone else. 

“But—” Stiles protested.

Derek turned and walked out of the room, not even looking at Stiles. 

“You heard him,” Parrish said, shrugging. He marked it down on the list. “If Braeden needs someone, I’ll page you,” he added. Parrish was good that way; he was sympathetic enough to put everyone on their specialties as much as possible, and ensure that everyone got enough of everything else to fill their quotas. 

“Man, I’m stuck with Hale again?” Isaac said, rubbing his hands over his hair. “All he does is bitch about how I’m bad at trauma.”

Scott only grinned, clapping Isaac on the shoulder. “Good thing I’m good at trauma.”

“Are you good at it or do you like it?” Isaac questioned. The two of them laughed as they left the lounge, leaving Stiles behind, acting like he didn’t exist. 

“Sorry Batman,” Erica said, sending him a wicked grin. “You and your little girlfriend get to hang out together though!”

“You know we aren’t dating!” Stiles called after Erica as she left. Boyd shot him a sympathetic smile, ducking out of the room. 

Stiles sat and threw his shirt down into the bottom of his locker, shaking his head. He could feel the frustration bubbling up under his skin. 

The frustration that he had been carefully hiding for the last year was finally starting to surface. Not only was he in the hot and cold throes of Braeden, who seemed to either love him or hate him at her whim, he was now in the same situation with Derek. Dr. Hale. McHotty, or rather, McAsshole. 

He had spent so long trying to earn Braeden’s respect and it had gotten him nowhere. If he didn’t get another ortho doctor willing to take him under their wing, he’d be stuck without a fellowship, or worse, without an attending job at the end of it. He wasn’t anywhere near prepared, and it was too late to switch now. 

Stiles was hopeful that he would actually get to be a surgeon since Derek seemed to actually want to give him cases. And now Derek was cold again, and Stiles was stuck with Lydia. The same Lydia who he had a failed relationship with when he was an intern and she was a second year. The same Lydia who he later came out to, because it turns out that he was a little less straight and a lot more bisexual. It was the same Lydia who helped Stiles and Danny patch their friendship back together after their disastrous attempt at dating. 

Lydia was sweet, she was kind, and she was a good teacher. She also knew Stiles far too well, and would see straight through him the moment he talked to her. The last thing he needed was for Lydia to take one look at him and know that his heart was a  little bit broken by McHotty. 

“Reporting for duty,” Stiles said, tracking down Lydia before rounds. He smiled at her without feeling, clapping his hands together as he rocked back on his heels. 

“Well, someone is certainly excited to see me,” Lydia said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “I figured you’d be Derek’s shadow again today. Did he turn you away?”

Stiles grimaced, knowing any response would have Lydia seeing right through him. 

“Ah, so he did cast you away,” Lydia said, looking up at Stiles’ face. “Well, you don’t have to look like such a kicked puppy. I have a whipple today, and if you beg, I might let you do most of it.”

“I am not a kicked puppy,” Stiles said with indignation. “I am merely annoyed that I’m here, doing a procedure I won’t use again, when there are CVCs and broken bones in the pit. Which will be handed off to Braeden, and I will never see them again.”

Lydia made a noise of disapproval, grabbing a stack of binders from the counter. “Well, let’s round on today’s surgeries. Maybe Dr. Hale will take pity on you after lunch.” She said that final part as if she knew something that Stiles didn’t. 

“Let’s round,” Stiles said, wanting to change the subject. He certainly did not want to dive deeper, especially with the way that Lydia was implying things. He was not necessarily in the mood to continue to analyze why Derek did what he did. 

After rounds, Stiles helped with Lydia’s whipple, getting to do the retropancreatic tunnel creation himself with Lydia’s supervision. She was clearly taking pity on him, and while Stiles would normally turn it down, he would rather do any surgery than no surgery. He could add another couple of general surgery hours to his docket. 

He headed to lunch, knowing that Lydia’s next surgery was a laparoscopic tumor removal in a few hours. Stiles figured he had enough time to eat and send an email to the chief about Braeden’s lack of interest in teaching him anything. 

To his surprise, Derek was in the cafeteria already, sitting at their usual table. His head was down as he ate, and as Stiles walked by, he realized Derek was reading a book, eyes focused enough that he didn’t notice Stiles walking by him. 

After grabbing his tray, Stiles sat down heavily across from Derek, letting his tray thud to the table heavily. He stared at the top of Derek’s head, waiting for him to finally look up. He had his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for Derek to pull his head up. 

“You’re mad,” Derek said, not looking up.

“Yes, I’m mad,” Stiles said, letting his hand thump onto the table. “I don’t need more general surgery hours, I need more ortho hours. And I am far more likely to get those hours in the ER than I am scrubbing in on a whipple.”

Derek looked up, closing his book. On the cover, which Stiles tried to get a peek at, he read The Body Keeps the Score before Derek slapped his hand on the top of the book, blocking the rest of the title. “I can’t show you favoritism.”

“It’s not favoritism,” Stiles said, shaking his head. “And what if I said I wanted to switch specialties?” 

“You’re not switching specialties,” Derek said gruffly, taking a bite of his sandwich. 

Stiles huffed, taking a bite of his own food. He watched Derek for a moment, trying to see if he could read anything from his facial expression. Despite the efforts to have his face be completely neutral, Derek still flicked glances at Stiles’ face, as if he was trying to read him too. 

“I have to file a complaint with the chief if I don’t start actually getting ortho hours,” Stiles said, sighing, setting his sandwich down. “And if I file a complaint and it doesn’t go through, then there’s yet another reason for Braeden to hate me. So I lose out on all my hours, fail my fellowship, and then crash out of the program.” 

Wordlessly, Derek picked up the pudding from his tray and put it onto Stiles’ tray. 

“For me?” Stiles asked, gesturing towards it. 

Derek nodded. 

“Why?” Stiles asked, narrowing his eyes. He wasn’t simply going to be bribed by food every time Derek did him wrong. Although, he did love pudding. 

“You get one of those every day,” Derek said quietly, his eyes softening. “I figured you needed an extra.”
Stiles watched his face, seeing the way that he was fighting having any expression at all. “You noticed I get a pudding every day.”

“Yes,” Derek said gruffly, taking a big bite of his sandwich, presumably so that he didn’t have to answer any more questions. 

“And you’re giving me an apology pudding,” Stiles said, raising his eyebrows. 

Derek refused to say anything. 

“Apology accepted,” Stiles said, smiling fully. He tucked into his own food, trying not to let his smile overtake his face the whole time. He didn’t want to seem too eager, but he also couldn’t help the fuzzy feeling that was warming him. 

His interest in Derek— his crush— was starting to peek out beyond his brain. It wasn’t just Stiles staring at his eyes or his hands and thinking about what it would be like to have sex with him. It was Stiles pining after him, thinking about what would make his day better and coming home to a home cooked meal by him. 

Stiles shoved those thoughts down, trying to think of anything else. There was no space in the hospital for those stupid moments. He’d think about it late at night, giddy in his bed at the thought of Derek holding his hand. And even then, he’d be gagging at how ridiculous he was being. 

“You on shift tonight?” Derek asked quietly, looking up at Stiles. His eyes were always so intense. 

“Scott and Danny and I,” Stiles said between bites, nodding his head. “Why do you ask?”

Derek shook his head, crumpling up his sandwich and his chip bag. He glanced at Stiles’ tray, eyeing the chips for a second, not moving. 

“Here,” Stiles said, sliding the chips over. “I have to go fetch Lydia a sandwich, since I’m on her service and doing her favors now.”

Silently, Derek stood up from the table, leaving the chips. Stiles watched as Derek crossed the cafeteria back to the line, grabbing a sandwich and heading up to the counter. When he got back, he put the sandwich in front of Stiles, nodding silently. 

“Huh,” Stiles said, smiling as he bit into his sandwich. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Derek getting up to do something for him. It was small, it was silly, but it was Derek showing that he cared. Stiles might be getting his hopes up thinking about him, but he certainly had reason to. 

Derek waited and listened as Stiles rambled and ate the rest of his lunch. He sat patiently as Stiles complained, and even offered a few words of advice about approaching the chief with the whole Braeden problem. 

Supposedly, Derek wasn’t a talker. But he would talk to Stiles. 

“Are you heading back to the ER?” Stiles asked when he finished, standing. 

Derek grabbed his tray with the garbage on it, stacking it with his. “I left Scott and Isaac alone down there.”

“So you’re either going to go back to rainbows and sunshine or absolute hell,” Stiles said, nodding in understanding. He trailed after Derek, smiling at the fact that Derek was cleaning up after him. This was a complete 180 from the morning, when Derek had gruffly dismissed him. But it didn’t really matter that he was so cold when the warm fuzzy feeling Stiles had now was so strong. Derek was doing a good job of making his crush bigger. 

“If Scott does one more thing to ‘try’ to be helpful, I’m going to kill him,” Derek said, shaking his head. 

“He means well,” Stiles said, pressing his lips together. “One time, when we were kids, I had broken my leg at the start of summer and was laid up in my bed for two weeks. I ended up missing the beach trip that his mom was supposed to take us on, and instead of planning another trip, Scott decided he was going to bring the beach to me.” Stiles smiled at the memory. “He snuck back a whole bucket of sand, and when he came to visit, dumped the whole thing on my floor so we could build a sand castle.”

Derek’s brows pulled together, and there was a look on his face, a mix between worried and a smile.

“I bet if you went back to my childhood bedroom, there would still be sand in the carpet,” Stiles said, laughing a little at the thought. “Poor Scott thought he was doing something good for me, but I ended up spending hours cleaning.”

“Tell me you got him back,” Derek said, grabbing Stiles’ arm to pull him to a halt. 

“At the end of the summer, I put glitter in his bed sheets. Even after he washed them, there was still glitter everywhere,” Stiles said, smirking as he looked at Derek. 

“You two have been friends for a long time,” Derek commented, looking down at where his hand was still holding onto Stiles’ arm. He dropped his hand quickly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. 

“Since middle school. Scott wouldn’t be here if I didn’t diagnose him with dyslexia and get him into the right programs at school,” Stiles said, looking down at his own arm as if he could see the place that Derek touched. “I gotta feed the beast,” Stiles said awkwardly, giving Derek a tight smile. He ducked away, afraid of what he was going to say next.

When Stiles looked back at the corner, Derek was there, watching him walk away.

***

“Stiles,” Derek said, catching Stiles’ attention as he walked down the hall, gazing at a chart. He fell into step with Stiles as he walked, his shoulder practically brushing Stiles’. “Are you busy?”

Stiles shrugged, holding the chart in one hand, letting his other dangle between him and Derek. He could feel the way their shoulders were brushing as they walked, the two of them shoulder to shoulder. “You were right about talking to the chief,” Stiles said, glancing at Derek’s profile. “He’s going to look into it and potentially reassign me. But the chief has me helping Blake and Reyes with a scoliosis patient this afternoon.”

“Good,” Derek said. He shifted his shoulder, and suddenly their hands were brushing up against each other, pinkies bumping together. 

Stiles took a deep breath, his heart beating quickly as their fingers brushed against each other. He let the anticipation grow, wondering if Derek was going to do anything more than let the back of his hand brush against the back of Stiles’.

“Lunch?” Derek asked, stepping away from Stiles, headed towards the stairs. 

“You know it,” Stiles said, stopping suddenly, feeling really awkward. He watched as Derek took the stairs down, disappearing out of sight. He felt his heart rate slowly coming down, gradually, as he walked away. His mind kept slipping to Derek, the way that they barely touched. 

Once Derek was out of sight, Stiles let go of a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He was going to be dreaming about them touching pinkies. He felt like a middle schooler again, desperate to hold Alexandra’s hand under the table during lunch. 

At least no one could see him smiling under the surgical mask. 

***

As Stiles and the other residents were changing in the residents lounge, all of their pagers started beeping almost simultaneously. 

“911 in the pit!” Erica called out, letting out a small whoop of excitement. She hastily stripped her shirt off, not bothering to try and be modest in any way as she changed. 

“Blood and guts and cases, oh my,” Stiles said, throwing his scrub top over his long sleeve, pushing his sleeves up as he attached his pager to his pants. 

Scott grinned, punching Stiles’ shoulder as they started out of the room, the two of them walking quickly down the hall. “Cases! It’s been so long since there’s been a good trauma.”

“A good trauma? Oxymoronic,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. 

“Did you just call me a moron?” Scott complained, heading towards the stairs rather than the elevator. 

Stiles snorted, following after him quickly. “If you think that me saying oxymoron means you’re a moron, then you actually are a moron.”

The two of them jogged into the chaos that was the pit, eyes scanning for anyone who currently didn’t have a resident or attending treating them. It was all teenagers, eyes glazed over, some screaming bloody murder in the corner. 

“Stilinksi, McCall, trauma room 2,” Derek called out, surveying the scene. “The second they’re stable, Stilinski you’re with me.”

The patient in trauma room 2 was a teenage boy, wincing in pain as the nurses pressed down firmly on his abdomen. He howled when the nurses switched out bandages, moaning and writhing as they moved. 

“Push two of morphine,” Stiles said, rounding the table so that Scott could have the injured side. “What do we got?”

“16 year old shot in the abdomen by a paintball gun,” the nurse said, grabbing the morphine for his IV. 

“What’s causing the bleeding?” Scott asked, pulling the gauze off of the wound. There was a perfectly round hole, blood pouring out of it the moment Scott pulled the dressing off. 

“The paintball gun was filled with marbles,” the nurse said. 

The two of them got to work quickly, and with the morphine quickly spreading through the kid’s body, they were able to dress the wound and prep him for surgery. When Scott went to book an OR and find an attending, there was almost no one to help. If he didn’t find anyone, he’d have to fly solo to fix the intestine where the marble hit. 

Stiles pulled his gloves off and ducked out of the room, looking around for Derek. He didn’t spot him on the floor of the pit, the chaos starting to ebb as the patients got treated. There were a few teens still getting stitches from stray hits on the beds, and the rest of the critical patients were in trauma rooms or up to surgery. 

“Hey, Erica, where’s Hale?” Stiles asked, catching her attention as she wheeled a patient back towards the elevators. 

“Trauma room 4!” she called, not stopping for a second. 

Stiles grabbed a new pair of gloves, pulling them on and pushing through the doorway. “What do we got?” 

“Multiple gunshot wounds to the femur,” Derek said, performing CPR on the patient. “He just went down. Can you get the tourniquet on and stop the bleeding?”

The nurses looked on as Stiles grabbed a tourniquet from the drawers, quickly wrapping it around the femur. The multiple wounds were causing blood to pour out of the kid and onto the table, soaking the gurney. If Stiles had to guess, one of the marbles had damaged the femoral artery. 

Stiles tightened the tourniquet until the bleeding ceased, but the heart rate hadn’t improved. “You have to shock him,” Stiles said, stepping back. 

“Charging,” Derek said, grabbing the paddles off of the cart. “Clear.” He pressed the paddles to the patient’s chest, shocking him. The heart rhythm stabilized, and Derek relaxed minutely. 

“Get the IV wide open,” Stiles said to the nurse, taking the chance to inspect the femur now that the wound wasn’t actively bleeding and he could have a clear field. The bone was fragmented in the three spots that the marbles had impacted the bone. 

Derek rounded the kid to look at the wound, stiffening on sight. He took a hasty step back, moving back to his check of the rest of the kid’s stats. “Assess Stilinski.”

“Three impacts on the femur, causing sharding of the bone,” Stiles said, grabbing a pair of tweezers. He picked a few bone splinters out of the surrounding tissue, patting with gauze to keep the field clear. “Femur is practically shattered here,” Stiles said, shaking his head. 

“His vitals are improving,” Derek said, glancing at the heart rhythm. “Book an OR and make sure they have a blood transfusion set up, and meet me there.”

Derek was hasty to get out of the room, stripping his gloves as he went and dropping them in the trash, his shoulders tense. He barely looked back. 

Once they were scrubbed in and in the OR, Derek’s bad mood was extremely apparent. He was a typically gruff guy; in the ER his words were commands, and he reserved them for only the most important situations. It wasn’t atypical for him to be silent. 

 As Stiles got the metal screws and plates necessary to patch up the bone, Derek was tense next to him, nonverbal and refusing to speak, even when Stiles would talk to him. Derek’s eyes were trained on the way the bone was fragmented, as if he couldn’t look away. He kept his hands busy repairing the femoral artery, trying to get some control over it so that they could take the tourniquet off and have a real chance at saving the leg.

“How are you doing? You went quiet on me,” Stiles said, screwing another plate into place. He checked his handy work, making sure that there were no other fragments embedded. 

“The patch isn’t holding,” Derek grunted. “And the damage is sporadic. It’s hard to keep anything patched.”

Derek went to throw one more stitch in, tightening the knot. As soon as it was tightened, he let out a sigh of relief. The patch was on the artery, and they were ready to take the tourniquet off. 

The tourniquet was loosened slowly, to test the patch. Everything seemed fine after the first two loosenings, so Derek reached up and loosened it all the way. They both held their breath as the field stayed clear. No bleeding. 

“Thank god,” Stiles said, fixing his attention back to the bones. He was fairly close to finishing his repair, and only had one or two more screws to put into place. He started humming under his breath, feeling his shoulders start to relax. 

The field started flooding with blood and the machines started beeping loudly around them, startling Stiles and alarming all of them. Blood was coming out quickly, spilling beyond the wound and starting to splash onto the table. 

“What happened?” Stiles asked, immediately trying to suction the field, to keep it clean enough to even see what was happening. 

“The patch blew and the whole artery tore. Get the tourniquet,” Derek said, scrambling to fix it. 

Stiles quickly went to tighten the tourniquet but his hands were slippery with blood, and it took extra effort to get it tight enough to staunch the bleeding. He could feel time slipping away, and yet he couldn’t get it tight enough. It was still sluggishly bleeding as he tightened it. 

“Stiles!” Derek yelled, trying to get any stitch to stitch to work. 

“Sats are low,” the nurse said.

“Transfuse a unit,” Stiles said, trying to fix the tourniquet. 

“Let me,” Derek said, shoving his hands out of the way. After a few seconds, Derek realized that the tourniquet was as tight as they were going to get it. 

Stiles hurried to suction the field, trying to get any sort of visibility. There was too much blood, and the tourniquet wasn’t helping the blood flow anymore. The transfused blood was coming out faster than it was going in, and they were losing their progress. They were scrambling to keep the field clear enough to get another patch to fix it, but after a few minutes, Stiles wasn’t surprised to hear the flatline. 

Despite the flatline, Derek was still struggling to work. 

“Derek,” Stiles said, stepping back. 

“Stilinski, get in here and help me,” Derek growled, trying to get anything to stick. 

“Derek,” Stiles repeated, touching the back of his hand. “He’s gone.”

Derek looked up at Stiles, ire in his eyes. He held Stiles’ gaze for a moment before his face changed, eyes dropping down to the wound. He took his hands away, looking at the  bloody field and the way that the blood had spilled out from off of the table, splashing onto their shoes and the floor. 

“He bled out. There was nothing we could do,” Stiles said, watching Derek carefully. “His femoral artery was severed. He had already lost a lot of blood before the surgery, and we couldn’t do anything.”

Derek nodded, stripping his gloves off. “Time of death 10:37.” He stalked out of the room, leaving Stiles there to close. 

It wasn’t until later, after Stiles had closed the patient and headed to the cafeteria, that he truly realized that Derek was not alright. He was missing from the cafeteria, even though it was their normal lunch time. And, now that Stiles had any time to think, Derek’s whole demeanor throughout their treatment of the patient was off. 

Derek was obviously tense from the very beginning. He looked shocked by the sight of the marble-impacted femur, and he immediately called him Stilinski. Derek only ever called him Stilinski when he was mad or tense. He was agitated before they went into surgery, and in denial about the fact that there was nothing they could do. 

Before Stiles went back to the ER or to find Braeden, he figured he’d check one more place to find Derek. He headed towards the residents lounge, heading through the center and to the door on the other side where the attendings lounge was. 

Unsurprisingly, that’s where Derek was, sitting on the bench with his head hung in his hands. 

“Derek?” Stiles called out, approaching slowly so as to not scare or startle him. 

“Go away.”

“No,” Stiles said, moving around to the front of Derek. He crouched, bringing them to eye level. “You’re not alright.”

“Go away Stilinski,” Derek said flatly, pressing his palms to his eyes. 

Stiles reached forwards and touched his hands gently. When Derek didn’t resist, Stiles grabbed his wrists and pulled, his hands coming away from his eyes. “I am not going to let you sit here and wallow because of something someone else did.”

“I killed him,” Derek said, voice hoarse. “He looked like he got hit with shrapnel.”

The pieces clicked together in Stiles’ brain. The victim on the table was a kid who was shot with a paintball gun rigged with marbles, causing what looked like shrapnel impact on the femur. There were a lot of different factors that triggered every single part of Derek’s experience in the military. 

“The man with the paintball gun killed him,” Stiles said firmly, not accepting any other answer. 

Derek kept his head down, trying to avoid Stiles’ gaze. 

“It’s not your fault,” Stiles repeated. 

His words fell on deaf ears. 

“Do you want to see my place?” Stiles asked, ducking his head to try and catch Derek’s eyes. 

Derek didn’t say anything as Stiles got up, pulling on his wrists to get him to stand up. Derek was pliable, letting himself be pulled up. When Stiles let go of him, he followed behind him dutifully, not asking any questions as they walked.  

It was down two stairwells, through the old tunnel in the original part of the hospital, and through a narrow hallway to where the door was. 

Inside was some sort of air duct room, with a big panel controlling some of the fans and central air within the hospital. It was loud in just the right way, all the noises a cacophony of air whooshing to its destination. 

Stiles had found it his first week of his intern year when he got lost in the old tunnel, giving up and opening every door to see if it was a stairwell. When he had opened this door, he immediately took comfort in the way the whooshing of the air filled up every spare gap within his brain. 

“Come here,” Stiles said, gesturing for Derek to enter in after him. He watched as Derek reluctantly stepped inside, eyeing the space. 

“Stiles—” 

“Stand here, across from me,” Stiles said, gesturing to the spot across from him on the grate. When Derek didn’t move, he made another impatient move with his hand, as if urging him on quicker. 

The two of them stood across from each other, staring at each other. They could see eye to eye, being roughly the same height. They held prolonged eye contact, Stiles absently counting down the seconds in the back of his brain. After about twenty seconds, air burst from the grate below them, blowing up their bodies. The rush of air was cold, so cold, and it had Stiles grinning, tilting his head back and reveling in the air that consumed him. 

When it was over, a mere ten seconds later, Stiles looked at Derek. He couldn’t help but grin, smiling at Derek uncontrollably. 

On Derek’s face was an expression that could only be read as a smile. It was the slight upward tilt of the lip, the glint in his eyes. His face was like the Mona Lisa: the longer you looked at it, the more emotion it gave you. Stiles wanted to stare at Derek’s face forever, reading every single thought as it transformed itself into a facial expression. 

“Nice?” Stiles asked, raising his eyebrows in question.

“Grounding,” Derek said, the smile dropping from his face. He let his shoulders slump, taking a deep breath.

“That happens like every few minutes or so,” Stiles said, gesturing downwards at the grate. “It’s nice when you just need to feel something that isn’t the oppressive sadness that being a surgeon comes with.”

“Oppressive sadness,” Derek said, repeating after him.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what that means,” Stiles said, pressing his lips together weakly. “Everything feels a little more real here. Like the banalities of the world have slipped away and it’s only you and the air.”

Derek looked at him a little bit like he had grown two heads. “It’s nice,” he said quietly, barely audible over the loud air ducts behind them. “It’s real.”

“It’s a great way to feel human again, avoiding all of the stupid angst and problems of life.”

“Angst?” 

Stiles waved his hand in a circle, as if that would explain anything. “The other residents have a lot of drama on their plates. Who’s dating who, who’s on who’s service, what specialty you are, have you published, when was the last time you got laid or drunk, et cetera. Angst,” Stiles explained, shrugging. “All of that goes away when I’m here.”

Derek nodded as if he understood. He let out a huff, shaking his head slightly. “To think you’re the drama-free one of the bunch,” Derek said, as if in disbelief. 

“I have drama, I just don’t want to be a part of it,” Stiles said, shrugging. He tried not to think too hard about the fact that said drama was standing in the same room as him. Or the fact that he wanted to kiss this drama. 

“I’m sure that you and Martin will end up together,” Derek said, getting as close to rolling his eyes as he ever would. 

“That was never a possibility,” Stiles said, shrugging. He glanced down at his feet, trying not to think of the lump in his throat that suddenly appeared. “She doesn’t even have the right parts.” Saying those words out loud to Derek was as much bravery as he was going to get in the moment. It wasn’t every day that Stiles had to imply that he was gay to his sort-of-boss and crush. He fiddled with the edge of his shirt, not daring to look up. 

“I see,” Derek said. He stepped slightly closer to Stiles, their feet almost touching. 

When Stiles looked up, he was face to face with Derek. The two of them were practically nose to nose, their hands and arms and chests only a breath away. He could feel the way the tension was taut between them— the same tension that Stiles could feel building day after day of working with Derek. He assumed all of that tension was one-sided, Stiles making all of it up for the sake of a silly crush. That was not the case. 

“Derek—”

Derek cut him off with a kiss, hand coming up to cup his cheek. He kissed him like it was the last time he was ever going to kiss him, lips immediately parting and pressing with an insistence that spurned urgent movement from Stiles. The two of them pressed their lips together again and again, Stiles losing himself to the feeling of Derek’s hand on his face and the way that his lips tasted. He wanted nothing more than to kiss Derek forever; the way Derek’s mouth slipped against his like it belonged there had Stiles practically whining into the kiss, begging for more. 

A gust of air from below startled both of them, breaking them apart. Stiles laughed at the timing of it all, his scrubs billowing with the air. When he looked at Derek, there was a real smile on his face. Not a smirk, not a half smile, not a shy or coy smile. A real smile, a grin, stretching from ear to ear as he grinned, shaking his head. 

“You just kissed me,” Stiles said, when the air had finally died down. 

“I did,” Derek said, matter of factly. His face was slowly dropping away from the grin, back to the stern Derek face he always wore to face the general public. 

“I never thought you would,” Stiles said honestly, looking down at his hands as he said it. 

Derek reached out and brushed something off of Stiles’ shoulder, focusing on a spot behind Stiles. “I have wanted to since the moment I met you.”

“With the icicle sticking out of my side?” Stiles asked, letting out a little laugh. “I didn’t realize that was really attractive to you.”

“It wasn’t that,” Derek said, smirking in thought. “It was the way you immediately criticized me for helping you. You said something smart ass.”

Stiles let out a bark of a laugh, caught off guard. “So you like it when I mouth off.”

“I like your mouth,” Derek murmured, ducking in to kiss Stiles again, capturing his lips. He kissed him like he really liked him, moving his mouth slowly, as if to savor every moment. He grabbed Stiles’ hips, tugging him close and pressing his hand into the small of Stiles’ back. He gave Stiles one final kiss, pulling back, eyes intense and focused on Stiles.

“Does this mean something?” Stiles blurted, wincing at how he ruined the moment they were having.

“What do you think,” Derek said, looking down, hands dropping to his sides. 

Stiles pushed at Derek’s chest, smiling at the fact that he could do that without feeling like he was stepping over boundaries he shouldn’t cross. “We can play it by ear, take it one day at a time,” Stiles suggested. Jumping into bed with his attending was likely not the best idea for Stiles, and it wasn’t going to be the best thing for Derek either. The last thing either of them needed was a rumor, or more drama. 

“Okay,” Derek said. He leaned forward and kissed Stiles once, quickly, before pulling away. “I have to be in the pit, can you lead me back?”

“Better yet, I’ll show you a shortcut,” Stiles said, smiling. He took a deep breath, really relishing the moment, before letting his smile drop. The last thing he needed was questions about why he was grinning so much. 

***

After that, Stiles was on Derek’s service more often than not.

He spent more hours than he wanted to in the skills lab, working on whatever stitch or procedure that Derek would quietly instruct him to work on. He would be in the pit, pulled onto any major case that came through. His ortho experience allowed him to make assessments on broken bones, and his growing trauma experience had him side by side in the OR, cauterizing and stitching bleeders as they popped up. His death rate went up, but ultimately his surgery rate went up as well. 

He could see some of the questioning eyes as he was day after day put on Derek’s service. Everyone else took a slot with Braeden, complaining about how they were doing mostly scut work and post-ops instead of any real surgery. It wasn’t until he was with Derek that he realized how much scut he was doing for Braeden. 

“I’m trying to go into trauma, and you’ve been on Derek’s service for the last two weeks,” Scott said, huffing a little bit as they walked down the hallway. 

“I don’t make the rules,” Stiles said, shrugging. “Parrish makes the resident rotation schedule. Take it up with him.”

“He’s buddies with Derek, so he’s going to do whatever Derek wants. Apparently Derek wants you on his service,” Scott said, rolling his eyes. 

There was a small thrill Stiles had whenever he thought about the fact that Derek wanted him on his service. And maybe there was something ethically wrong about being on the same service with someone he was involved with, even if Derek had refused to kiss him since. He was just happy to get surgeries. In fact, he was happy that today he was going to work on a follow up surgery for the frostbite guy, resectioning his bowel and potentially amputating a few toes that had not recovered.

“Look, you want to be on trauma? Talk to Parrish. Otherwise have fun with Blake and neuro today,” Stiles said, making a beeline for the OR board, double checking to see what time the surgery was. 

Stiles was completely unsurprised to see Derek standing there. Usually if Derek had a scheduled surgery, he stood staring at the board. Most people assumed that Derek was a serious person, from the military, merely standing still until it was time to fulfill his orders. But Stiles knew better. Not that Derek would ever say it, but the scheduled surgeries made him nervous. He couldn’t enable the adrenaline to push him through a surgery, and there was so much more to planning the approach to a surgery than jumping in and doing what he could in the moment. 

The only reason that Stiles knew this was because he felt the same way. The more time he spent in the pit, doing surgeries and procedures on the fly, the more he found himself relaxing and letting the movement and flow of the pit take over. Any planned procedure with Braeden felt like he was never really prepared, his whole body tense until they were already cutting. He could relax in the pit, which was something not many surgeons would understand. 

“We’re going to do good today,” Stiles said, standing next to Derek, trying to psyche himself up. “We’re going to go in there, get that bowel nice and resected, and handle the toes. We have a plan, and we’re going to execute it.”

Derek turned and stared at Stiles. It was not one of his murderous stares, like when Isaac or Danny disappointed him and he gave them a stare so blank and unfeeling that it had them practically shrinking back. And it wasn’t a glare, which was good. It was merely a stare. Blank and perhaps a little unnerving, but not in a negative way. It was almost like Derek was staring right into his brain. 

“No pep talk?” Stiles said, straightening his shoulders, trying to project an air of confidence. 

Derek glanced down at his shoulders, blinking a few times. He looked back up to Stiles’ face. “Not so loudly,” Derek said quietly, looking back to the board. “Say it again,” he said, almost too soft for Stiles to hear. 

“We’re going to kill it today. Metaphorically, not literally,” Stiles said softly, trying to keep his voice quiet. “We have the resectioning and the toes, and we know exactly what we’re going into.” 

Derek nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “Get the patient prepped, I’ll meet you in OR 4,” Derek said, striding off down the hallway. 

Stiles had no idea what had just happened. Did Derek willingly let him pep talk the both of them? Did he encourage it? The man was an enigma, and no matter how Stiles approached it, he was still this person that was hard to read. Stiles had more practice than anyone, and felt like he had a good grasp on Derek’s various expressions, and yet he still found new things he couldn’t read.

Maybe it was because they saw each other as more than resident and attending. Their lunches, despite the fact that they were very lowkey and frequently more Stiles talking than anything else, allowed them to grow closer than Derek with any other resident. Hell, Stiles doubted that anyone knew about the kids Derek had operated on in Iraq, or the fact that half of his platoon was blown up, causing him to be discharged. It took a lot to pull a story out of Derek, but he could. He knew how to. 

And they had kissed that one time in the air duct room. Stiles hadn’t really tried since, but he really wanted to. And based on the way that Derek would stare at his mouth, he knew Derek also wanted to. There was something undoubtedly complicated about their particular relationship. 

Stiles headed up to the patient's room, smiling and chatting as they went over the procedure one more time, having the nurse prep and wheel him down to the OR. He caught Lydia looking at him from the nurses station, her own binder only open in front of her as an excuse. She was practically staring through the glass door, eyes narrowed as she studied him. 

As Stiles left the room for the final prep, he approached Lydia. She was not someone to avoid for very long. She had the nickname Medusa among the interns for a reason. 

“Get it out now before I go down to surgery,” Stiles said, tucking the binder under one arm. 

“You’re on Hale’s service again,” Lydia said, raising an eyebrow. 

“Yes I am, and you’re going to make me late for a surgery if you don’t get it out now,” Stiles said, gesturing for her to continue on. 

Lydia merely shrugged, giving Stiles a once over. “Didn’t peg you for a trauma guy. Ortho made sense, maybe even cardio. But trauma? I wouldn’t have expected it from you.”

“There’s a lot of ortho in trauma,” Stiles said. This felt like a repeat of his conversation with Scott, merely a half hour earlier. Just because he was on Derek’s service didn’t mean anything about leaving ortho, or even anything about his relationship with Derek. He could have interests outside of getting shitfaced and worrying about what the rest of the doctors were doing. 

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Stiles,” Lydia warned. 

“That would be a great warning if I was playing any sort of game, Lydia,” Stiles said, holding his hands out wide. He gave her a little shrug, watching her face try and analyze what he said. He was already feeling jittery enough as it was for the surgery, and here was Lydia trying to psyche him out. He really didn’t need that when both he and Derek were walking into a follow up surgery. 

Despite Lydia, the surgery went well. Derek let him amputate the two toes they needed to amputate, cauterizing and sewing them up with the techniques that Derek had forced him to practice over and over. The bowel resectioning went fine enough considering the amount of scar tissue they had to remove from the initial surgery, but it was nothing they weren’t prepared for or thought about. 

After the surgery, they both scrubbed out and headed to the cafeteria. Stiles kept up a line of chattering about the surgery, talking it over. Derek said nothing, but he usually said nothing. He almost never talked when they walked anywhere together. 

They got their lunch trays and sat at their normal table, the two of them digging in. Stiles kept sneaking glances at Derek’s face, sort of happy that he had an excuse to stare at him. The scruff he normally wore— slightly more beard than scruff right this moment— really highlighted his cheekbones. He didn’t get to see the beard while they were operating, but it was so nice to sit opposite of him and stare at the beard now. 

“I didn’t used to get that way before surgery,” Derek said quietly, glancing around as if trying to make sure no one was looking at him. “I used to be very confident.” 

“Yeah?” Stiles prompted, pausing his eating. He looked at Derek, really giving him his full attention. Derek shared stories, sure, but almost always in conjunction with something Stiles would say. Stiles would talk about his dad, Derek would share something about his sisters. Stiles would mention traveling, Derek would talk about the places he went while in the military. It was rare that Derek would open with something that was so raw. 

“The reason why I came home,” Derek said. He cut himself off, not continuing, glancing off to one side. “It was because of…” 

Stiles was trying to wrack his brain for any mention of the reason why Derek came home. Talking to Derek was a little bit like talking to a spooked horse; if Stiles moved too fast or tried to reach beyond what Derek was allowing, he’d clam up and freeze. It really halted their conversation, and it made Stiles feel terrible. 

“Does this have something to do with the shrapnel?” Stiles asked, trying to think of any other time Derek clammed up about surgery. 

“There was an explosion,” Derek started. He took a bite of his food, chewing aggressively.

Stiles nodded. He had heard parts of this story before. 

“We thought we had it handled,” Derek said, swallowing thickly. “It was planned ahead. We made plans on how to infiltrate that building, set everything up perfectly, and they all died anyway.”

Stiles only nodded, trying to allow space for Derek to continue. He wanted to reach out, touch Derek to comfort him, but he tucked his hands underneath his legs to resist the urge. 

“Planning ahead feels like I’m planning to kill the patient,” Derek said, looking down, avoiding eye contact. He picked up his sandwich and ate one more bite, chewing slowly and deliberately. He dropped his sandwich roughly, taking a sip from his water. 

“I understand,” Stiles said, sliding his foot towards Derek’s under the table. He pressed the side of his ankle to Derek’s. He waited, expecting Derek to pull his foot back, to disengage. 

Instead, he left their feet tangled together, his eyes closing as he looked down. “I am trying. To be better,” Derek said, shaking his head. “I thought I was.”

“Trying is what counts,” Stiles said, leaning forward and talking quietly so only Derek could hear him. “Healing is not a straight line. It has a lot of stops and starts, and it’s never really over.”

Derek looked up at him, a question on his face. 

“This is not the same at all, but I’ll share,” Stiles said, letting out a breath. “My mom died when I was 10 years old. She had Alzheimer’s. It was months of lapses and confusion before anyone took her to the doctor, and with the way her disease progressed, she couldn’t recognize me within the year.” Stiles cleared his throat, fighting back the choked feeling. “A few days after my 10th birthday, her symptoms overtook her and she passed in her sleep. I was holding her hand.”

There was a quiet beat between the two of them. Derek pressed his foot more firmly against Stiles’ ankle. 

“It’s not the same, but I’m telling you I know how you’re feeling. Grief is hard and healing is hard. For years afterwards, I blamed myself for my mom’s death,” Stiles said. He looked at Derek, seeing the slight downturn of his lips, indicating his confusion. “It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not rational. And it takes a lot to figure it out.”

Stiles finished eating in silence, letting Derek sit there and think. It was something that Stiles was perfectly willing to do because he cared about Derek. And he knew that Derek cared about him, if the extra pudding and the footsie was anything to go by. 

“I’m sorry,” Derek said, looking into Stiles’ eyes. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Stiles said. He almost winced at how desperate that made him sound, as if he would do anything for Derek. But he probably would do anything for Derek, and that being the truth was a harder fact to face than anything. 

***

“Erica Reyes, where do you think you’re going?” Stiles called out, watching her run from one end of the hallway to the other. 

“Incoming traumas!” she called back, her blonde hair streaking behind her. 

Stiles paused, looking after her, trying to process what she said. When it hit him, he took off after her at a fast walk, trying not to disturb the patients on the surgical floor. 

Last week, Stiles got transferred to a different attending: Dr. Geyer. He was an older man, nice, and he actually let Stiles do surgery. He didn’t seem to mind that Stiles was on a trauma rotation either, as long as Stiles cleaned up all of the ortho cases and brought them back to him. In a week, Stiles had gotten more guidance from Dr. Geyer than the last year with Braeden. It was kind of incredible. 

In the middle of the ER was a man on a gurney, Derek leaning over him doing chest compressions. The man’s stomach was torn out, obvious claw marks on the rest of his body. His whole skull was practically slick with blood. 

“What the fuck?” Stiles exclaimed, rushing forward. 

Now that Derek was no longer giving CPR, Stiles could see the massive wound spanning his stomach, his intestines threatening to spill out. His head was bleeding excessively, and upon further investigation, his skull was cracked, revealing brain matter. 

“We have to get him into the OR and fix this skull fracture,” Stiles said, grabbing gauze to pack the wound. 

“We have to patch the abdomen,” Derek said, packing gauze into the stomach area. 

Stiles shook his head, trying to finish the wrapping on his head. Scott came up next to them, trying to see what he could do to help, checking the patient for other injuries. He had scrapes on his arm and claw marks, presumably from fighting off whatever attacked him. 

“He won’t be alive long enough for us to patch the abdomen if we don’t get this head injury looked at,” Stiles said, trying to get the bandages on to staunch the blood flow. “Scott, page Blake.”

“He won’t be alive if his intestines are on the floor,” Derek growled, trying his best to pack the wound, the gauze turning red almost immediately. 

“What’s better? Brain dead, but alive, or alive with a colostomy bag?” Stiles asked, pushing back hard. He looked at Scott again, fixing him with a glare. “Page Blake now .”

Scott took a step back from the table, moving to page Blake, looking between the two of them. No one would dare to speak to Derek like that, and here Stiles was, pushing back against an attending, yelling about a treatment plan. 

“Stilinski, you’re off the case,” Derek said, keeping his eyes fixed on the patient, his shoulders tensing as he flatlined again. He started CPR, not bothering to even look at Stiles. “I said leave.” Derek growled when Stiles refused to move from the head of the patient. 

“Derek—” 

“It’s Dr. Hale, and I said leave,” Derek said, looking up to Scott. “Take over for Stilinski and get Blake down here as soon as possible.”

A burst of anger spread through Stiles’ body quickly, and a spiteful part of him was angry at Scott for being the good, pliable resident that he was. But then a larger part of Stiles was angry that Derek took everything so damn personally. Stiles couldn’t point out a fatal flaw in his plan without being tossed out of the ER. 

Stiles stripped his gloves off and took off down the hallway, unable to keep himself calm and level. He couldn’t go to the residents lounge without getting asked questions, the on-call rooms were always busy (for a variety of reasons), and Stiles knew he needed space before he could jump onto another case. 

He ended up in the special on-call room, the one that Derek had shown him a few weeks prior. The single bed tucked into the corner and the dark coziness was what Stiles needed. He needed time to not freak out. 

Part of him was so mad because of the fact that he and Derek were an item. Not that Derek thought that way— clearly— but Stiles did. He had kissed Derek, he spent all of his time not doing surgery with Derek, and he spent most of his day thinking about Derek when he wasn’t around. He thought that he and Derek were on another level when it came to treating patients; they so often agreed that it was hard to imagine that they’d disagree. 

Stiles threw himself down onto the bed, putting his arms over his eyes and trying to breath steadily and evenly. He could calm himself down enough to go out and practice medicine. The situation with Derek would melt away in the face of everything else in the hospital. 

After a while, Stiles felt like he had thought about it enough and calmed down enough to be rational about it. He knew that Derek could be tense about cases— to a point of anger— and that it clearly had something to do with the PTSD that Derek was experiencing. He also knew that Derek was trying; oftentimes, pushing people away was his way of protecting those people. It happened again and again with the other residents and interns, when he needed space he simply ordered them away. 

Despite knowing this, Stiles needed more respect than that. He could make excuse after excuse for Derek, but he still needed to be treated well. He needed someone who could treat him like an equal and cherish him for who he was. 

Stiles was about to leave the room when the door burst open, Derek in the doorway. “What are you doing here?” Stiles asked, taking a step back. 

“I’ve been looking for you,” Derek said, shutting the door behind him. “That was unacceptable.”

“Trying to make a decision about a patient’s wellbeing?” Stiles asked, taking a step back away from Derek, furrowing his brow in confusion. “We disagreed about a course of action, and you’re mad about it?”

“You disrespected me in front of another resident and the whole ER,” Derek growled, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Stiles fought the urge to laugh in his face. “Disrespect? How do you think I feel? You can’t go around kissing me one day, and then ordering me around the next. I don’t work like that.” Stiles locked eyes with Derek, tilting his chin up a little to show that he was defiant and going to stand up for his words. 

“I can’t have you interfering in my ER!” Derek said, throwing his hands out. “Butting in and making decisions about my patients is against protocol.”

“I was fighting for the decision that I thought was best,” Stiles explained calmly, folding his hands together. He took a deep breath in. “I apologize for stepping in. I thought it was a critical moment and I should have followed your lead.” 

The calm apology practically deflated Derek. He looked at Stiles, shoulders slumping fully. He looked more tired than ever, like this. When he was standing and bossing everyone around, he seemed like he was invincible, but seeing him relaxed even for a moment revealed the real truth. 

“It’s not fair to you,” Derek said, stepping forward into Stiles’ space. He slowly slid his hands onto Stiles’ hips, looking down at Stiles’ torso. “I make things complicated.”

In more ways than one , Stiles thought. He didn’t say anything, letting Derek run his hands along his sides. He stepped a touch closer, the two of them practically chest to chest. 

Derek leaned forward and kissed him once, softly. “I won’t do that again,” Derek said quietly, taking a step back but not letting go of where he was touching Stiles. 

“Let’s sit in silence for a moment,” Stiles suggested, sitting down on the on-call bed. He turned his back to the pillows, swinging his legs up. He gestured towards the end of the bed, skeptical that Derek would even lay with him, but hopeful considering that Derek seemed to want to kiss him whenever they were behind closed doors together.

“I have patients,” Derek argued weakly, glancing behind himself at the door. When he looked back at Stiles, it was like all of his strength to keep himself going had petered out, and he sat on the bed, slumping forward so his elbows were on his knees. He sat hunched on the end of the bed for a few moments in silence, clearly focusing deeply on his breathing. 

Knowing it might take a while, Stiles grabbed a book from the shelf. His tentative relationship with Derek (if you could even call it that) was much like trying to become friendly with a skittish dog. He could present himself as tough, bark instructions all he wanted, and one reach to pet him the hackles would go up and he would attack. 

It took only a few minutes before Derek was turning, refusing to make eye contact, and crawling into bed with Stiles. He laid side by side with him, his head next to Stiles’ hip. He wasn’t touching, refusing to touch, but it was progress. Next thing he’d be begging for pets. Or whatever the human equivalent of that was. 

Stiles flipped through a few more pages of the book before Derek sighed and rolled over, putting his arm around Stiles’ waist and burying his face into his stomach. His leg came up too, knee resting against Stiles’ leg. It almost made Stiles drop the book, but he recovered and sat for a few moments, listening to his breathing. After another few minutes, it had slowed to a clear sleeping pattern. 

This was unprecedented. Not only was Derek occupying the same space as him in the hospital without arguing, he was cuddling. Cuddling . Stiles didn’t even think Derek would say the word cuddling out loud, and yet Derek was clutching him like his life depended on it. For a man who didn’t relax at work, he certainly knew how to quickly fall asleep when he had a moment to relax. 

The book seemed far less interesting than petting Derek’s magnificent hair, but he knew he had time. He kept reading, carding his hand through Derek’s hair lightly, enjoying the warm heat of his body. Time passed quickly in the silence of the on-call room, and Stiles actually got to relax. It was the first time he had ever spent time in an on-call room and actually had a moment to wind down, letting his brain wander and focus on Derek and his book rather than his patients. 

Stiles carded his hand through Derek’s hair again, listening to his soft breathing as he slept. It was hard not to join him, but he kept reading the book. Some thriller by some author, likely abandoned in the lost and found and put into a small basket in the on-call room. He flipped the page, running his hand one more time down Derek’s head. He was so content, escaping from the bustle of the hospital to their own quiet area, where he could know that Derek was safe. 

The door to the room burst open, Scott starting to say something. Whatever words were on his lips disappeared when he saw Derek, confusion immediately crossing his face. “What the hell is he doing here?” Scott whispered, gesturing towards Derek. 

Stiles only shrugged, glancing down at Derek’s soft face. “He needs this.”

“Does he need you? Does he?” Scott asked, his voice coming up nearly to full volume. 

“Shh,” Stiles said, closing his book. “Let it go, Scott. Please.” He tried to give Scott that look. That look could mean anything, but it could also mean Scott letting it go and tabling the conversation for later. 

“Fine. Whatever,” Scott whispered. He backed out of the room, closing the door behind him. 

His secret, his little secret, was now known to Scott. What Scott previously assumed was friendly conversation and a professional preference was now clearly flirting. The stares across the room were not of confusion or hatred, but of a longing that was deep in Stiles’ chest. There were very few times that Stiles had experienced a spark, and none as intense as when he first locked eyes with Derek. If Scott didn’t see it right away, that was his problem. 

People were so nosy in this hospital, he wanted to have one secret. Before the end of his first day as an intern, the entire intern class knew he had a minor crush on Lydia. And that was just the start of every piece of his personal life being stripped away from him. He didn’t want the entire hospital knowing he was with Derek, or knowing that his mom had died of Alzheimer's, or that he had shaved his head last year because he got gum stuck in his hair. 

He looked back down to Derek’s head, smiling down at how soft his face looked. He could have this. He could keep this a secret.