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Should he put something on his ceiling? Maybe he should put something on his ceiling. Like, a poster. Or even glow in the dark stars. Did they still make those? He remembered having them all around his room when he was younger, but he hadn’t seen them in a long time. He’d taken them down when he turned thirteen because he was too old for such childish things. Now he was regretting it because one was never too old for whimsy.
And it would make staring at his ceiling less boring, if he was honest. Even having just glow in the dark stars would do wonders for his view, because it was getting quite boring staring at nothing but a blank, white ceiling. How did people deal with this on a regular basis?
More important question: how was his brain such a dick that even dying of boredom didn’t lure him into slumber?! What the fuck was this?!
Sitting up so he could turn and flip his pillow over, Stiles Stilinski punched at it a few times, as if to make it less lumpy, and then fell back down again, shifting until he was comfortable beneath the covers and staring up at the ceiling again. He wiggled his head a bit to get it into a good position, then reached back to bury one hand beneath his pillow, the other resting on his stomach as he continued to stare up at nothing and willed his brain to sleep.
Seriously, it made no fucking sense that boredom didn’t cause unconsciousness.
Stiles wasn’t usually an insomniac. In point of fact, he’d never been an insomniac. But, one possession by a vengeful demon fox spirit and he found himself staying awake late into the night whether he wanted to or not.
He knew the fox spirit was gone. He knew he wasn’t possessed anymore. He knew things had returned to normal, he did.
But still.
A part of his brain was always terrified to sleep. He felt like most of the time he’d lost with the Nogitsune had been at night, when he’d been sleeping. At first, anyway. When it became clear he’d figured out he was the possessed one, the Nogitsune had just taken over and left him buried in the back of his mind.
It felt stupid sometimes when he thought about how scared he was to sleep, especially when he was dead tired, but a more logical part of his brain insisted it was perfectly normal for him to have fears and reservations after everything he’d been through.
Still, that had been almost a month ago. Surely he should be better by now?
Trauma doesn’t go away overnight, a voice said in his head, and he couldn’t help the aggrieved sigh. It was what his therapist had told him after his mother’s death when he’d insisted he should’ve been better after seeing them for two months. He felt like bad things happened, and he should just be able to get over it and move on, but life wasn’t like that. Things stuck with people, and he was pretty sure being possessed by a vengeful demon fox spirit and killing a whole bunch of innocent people kind of fell into the ‘trauma’ bucket.
Rolling onto his side after staring at his ceiling for another twenty minutes, he reached out towards his phone on the night stand, pulling it over to check the time. It was almost two in the morning, because of course it was.
He had fucking school, this was the worst.
He contemplated texting Scott, but his best friend was probably passed out dead to the world. No amount of trauma could keep him from his coveted sleep, and that actually kind of irked Stiles. How was it that Scott could survive a horrible experience, and still sleep at the end of it all.
Probably because he wasn’t the one killing everyone. Stiles was just thankful that the attempted killing blow on Allison had missed. She was still in the hospital, even a month out, but she was alive and recovering and happy. The last time he’d visited her, she’d been so glad to see him because the hospital was boring and she just wanted to go home.
He couldn’t believe how happy she was for him to walk in, considering he was the one who’d almost killed her. Though every time he brought that up, she reprimanded him and insisted it wasn’t his fault because he wasn’t in control, and that spiralling down that rabbit hole was only going to do him more harm.
He tried to listen to her, he really did, but it was hard. He still couldn’t believe she hadn’t died, and while everyone said she was just lucky and had moved at the last second to avoid the killing blow, their resident Alpha said differently.
Derek Hale was positive that Stiles had managed to regain just enough control before the blow to shift the angle. Stiles insisted that wasn’t possible, but Derek held firm.
“Everyone else the Nogitsune aimed for died,” Derek had argued. “It didn’t ‘miss’ any of them. Just her. I don’t think it was a coincidence.”
Stiles hated Derek sometimes, especially when he was probably right. He just didn’t want to think about the entire mess, despite it being all he could think about.
He was ready to toss his phone aside, knowing staring at it wouldn’t help him get any sleep, when thoughts of their resident Alpha gave him pause. Stiles knew Derek didn’t sleep much, either. He’d never said why, whether it was from his own trauma, nightmares, or even truly being an insomniac, but he knew the guy was awake more often than not.
Stiles texted him a lot on nights like this, where he couldn’t sleep. He’d never actually said he couldn’t sleep in his texts, but he was pretty sure Derek had figured it out on his own. At least nine times out of ten, Derek responded, proving he slept just as little as Stiles did. The one time out of ten when he didn’t text back, Derek usually responded first thing in the morning. Stiles was always glad on those days, because it meant at least one of them had gotten some sleep.
Staring at his phone for a long while, Stiles hesitated before biting the bullet and texting him. The worst he could get was no answer, but if Derek was awake, well—he wouldn’t tell Derek why he was awake, but at least he’d have someone to talk to, even if their conversations weren’t usually riveting.
Typing out his message, he hesitated before sending it. He didn’t know why, but maybe a part of him felt weird admitting it this time. Usually he sent Derek memes or shitposts, but tonight he was feeling a bit more honest.
His finger hovered over the ‘send’ button for a few seconds before just doing it, watching the words appear in their messages as he waited to see if he’d get a response.
[Stiles]
I can’t sleep :(
He knew staring wasn’t going to make Derek respond any faster—if he was even awake this time—but he kept the message open anyway, waiting. After a solid minute, he was pretty sure Derek was asleep, and was about to put his phone back down when he finally saw the three dots appear, denoting that he was typing.
Waiting, he knew Derek had to be typing and deleting things, because he spent much too long typing for the two words he sent in response over thirty seconds later.
[Derek]
Who cares?
“Wha—?” Stiles sputtered aloud, and then began to respond immediately.
[Stiles]
:(
[Stiles]
don’t you care about me now?
Surely after everything they’d been though, Derek cared! He certainly seemed to care after the whole Darach incident, and he’d been the one to try and save Stiles’ life when Chris Argent had been aiming to kill him for being possessed.
Stiles refused to believe Derek didn’t care.
[Derek]
I always don’t care.
Scowling slightly at that response, Stiles couldn’t decide if he was being overly optimistic in his thoughts of their friendship, or if Derek was just pretending to be an asshole to keep up appearances. Either way, he was having a hard enough time falling asleep without dealing with this bullshit so he just turned his screen off and dropped his phone back onto the night stand. Rolling over onto his side with his back to the room, he pulled the covers up over his head and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep.
It didn’t work, because his brain was an asshole, and every time he tried to think about something other than the Nogitsune, all his brain could come up with was Derek’s “I always don’t care” response.
He didn’t want it to hurt, but it kind of did. Weren’t they friends now? Derek was his Alpha, shouldn’t he have cared more now rather than less?
Stiles was probably being too emotional about the whole thing because he was tired and sleep deprived. Derek didn’t have to care about him, he was an asshole anyway. Not like they’d both saved each other from death multiple times. Not like he and Derek had bonded over all their close calls.
Meant nothing at all. Barely even knew the guy, Derek who?
Stiles almost hit the ceiling when he heard a loud rap at his window, blankets flailed right off him as he whipped around to look over at it. The blinds were down, so he couldn’t see anything, but that had definitely been someone knocking right? Was he crazy?
Who would be knocking at the window? It was two stories up, he was just imagining things. It was a branch or something, yes, just a branch. His overactive imagination was playing tricks on him, it was absolutely nothing.
The loud knock came again and Stiles leapt to his feet on his bed, looking around for his baseball bat before remembering he’d broken it. He hadn’t gotten around to getting a new one. Fuck!
Snatching up his phone before backing up against the wall once more, still standing on the bed, he started to call Derek before realizing whoever this was would be able to hear him. He didn’t want them to know he was aware of their presence if they were trying to break in, so he quickly opened his messages with the Alpha once more.
[Stiles]
SOMEONE IS KNOCKING AT MY WINDOW
[Stiles]
WTF WHAT DO I DO?!
He waited, heart pounding as the rapping against the glass stopped. He could see Derek typing, the three dots appearing, and then paused at the next text he got.
[Derek]
Open up stupid
[Derek]
It’s cold out here
Stiles stared for a long while before slowly lifting his gaze towards the closed blinds. There was another insistent rap against the glass and Stiles slowly walked to the end of his bed, stepping down onto the floor. Making his way cautiously towards the window, he stood a bit to one side of it, grabbed the cord for the blinds, and wrenched it up, holding his other fist up threateningly, phone clenched in his hand.
He then dropped it immediately.
“Christ, Derek. What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demanded as he moved to unlock his window. He wrenched it open, moving aside when the other man climbed through it. “Why didn’t you use the door?”
“Your neighbours are nosy when your porch light turns on,” Derek said. “Didn’t want anyone to see me.”
Because scaling the side of his house was totally inconspicuous.
He watched as Derek turned to shut the window, locking it for good measure. Then he pulled at the cord so he could lower the blinds once more. With that done, he turned back to Stiles, the two of them staring at each other.
“What are you doing here?” Stiles asked, because he didn’t know what else to say. Derek had told him he didn’t care that Stiles couldn’t sleep, and not even ten minutes later he was standing in his bedroom.
“You said you couldn’t sleep.”
“You said you didn’t care,” Stiles reminded him.
“You’d bother me all night if I didn’t come by.” Derek looked away from Stiles when he said it, and Stiles knew he was lying. After all, when he’d texted about not caring, Stiles had put his phone down and not even responded, so Derek knew his own words were untrue.
He probably knew that Stiles knew that too.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Stiles shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know why you think being here is going to help me sleep,” Stiles argued.
“You won’t be alone.”
Stiles frowned, not understanding. Derek still wasn’t looking at him, instead turning to make sure the window was locked, even though he’d just locked it.
“Meaning?” Stiles asked when it became clear Derek wouldn’t elaborate.
“You always text me this late at night when your dad is at work.”
Stiles stared at him for a long while, trying to figure out the significance of that statement before realizing that—it was true. This wasn’t the first time Stiles had texted Derek when he couldn’t sleep, it was just the first time he’d admitted he was texting because he couldn’t sleep.
Usually he just texted him dumb shit and memes, which was how he knew Derek was likely to still be awake, but he didn’t usually admit he couldn’t sleep.
And it occurred to him that Derek had come over every time. Usually he didn’t climb through the window, but maybe his comment about the front porch explained why he didn’t want to use it. Maybe his neighbours really had been nosy and noticed Stiles letting a strange, leather-clad man into his house when his dad wasn’t home.
Obviously his dad didn’t care, he knew the Pack came around all the time when he was out, but Derek probably didn’t like that the sheriff got a call every time it happened.
He slapped his brain for getting off track, since it should’ve been focussing on the more important part of the entire discussion, which was that Derek was there specifically because Stiles couldn’t sleep.
And apparently had clued in before Stiles that it was because he was home alone.
“What does being home alone have to do with anything?” Stiles asked quietly, trying to cross his arms tightly enough to disappear into himself.
Derek was silent for a long while before saying, “You’re scared to sleep when no one is here to make sure you stay in bed.”
Stiles didn’t like that Derek had figured that out. Not just because Stiles himself hadn’t clued in, but because he didn’t like being vulnerable and he felt very vulnerable right now.
“It’s gone, Stiles,” Derek said after a long, awkward silence. “You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“You can sleep.”
Stiles just tightened his grip on his own arms, still trying to disappear into himself.
“I’ll stay,” Derek promised, voice quiet. Almost too quiet for Stiles to hear over the pounding of his own heart in his chest.
“Why?” Stiles asked. “You don’t even care.”
The look he got for that was annoyed. “What do you believe more, my words, or my actions?”
Stiles didn’t understand at first, but then realized what Derek meant. He’d said he didn’t care, but he was still standing in his bedroom at two o’clock in the morning telling him to sleep and that he’d stay with him.
If that didn’t mean more than the false words that had come across his screen, Stiles didn’t know what did.
“What about you?”
“I’m fine,” Derek said.
“That’s the biggest pile of horseshit I’ve ever heard.” Stiles rolled his eyes, then finally managed to uncross his arms so he could tug at Derek’s jacket. “I have sweats you can change into. Might as well get some sleep, too.”
“I don’t need sleep.”
“You do. It’s probably why you’re always so grumpy.”
Derek said nothing, he just scowled. Stiles ignored him and went to his dresser, digging around in it until he found some sweats that should fit Derek. He was more muscled than Stiles was, but sweats stretched, and they were mostly loose so it should work out. Turning, he tossed them to Derek.
He expected the Werewolf to just let them fall to the floor without bothering to catch them, but he actually reached out with one hand, snatching them out of the air. Stiles waited, because he could tell Derek was debating what to do, but maybe Derek didn’t like being alone either, because he eventually set the sweats down on Stiles’ desk before shrugging out of his jacket.
Stiles went back to his bed, tugging at the blankets to get them back into some semblance of order after his mad flail out of them, and then climbed back under them, shifting so he was closer to the wall.
Derek was in the process of pulling the sweats up over his boxer-briefs by the time he looked over at him, and the Werewolf didn’t say a word as he walked over to the bed and climbed in beside Stiles.
This wasn’t the first time they’d slept together, and Stiles was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Derek was a Werewolf, and Stiles was Pack. It was just a thing they did sometimes.
Lying down and getting comfortable, Stiles rolled onto his side, facing Derek as the other man settled in beside him. Derek was on his back, but he turned his head to glance at Stiles, eyes flashing red in the darkness.
“Go to sleep,” Derek ordered.
“Only if you do,” Stiles said in response.
Derek responded by closing his eyes, and Stiles half-smiled before doing the same, half-burying his face in his pillow.
He was asleep within minutes, and when his alarm went off much too early the next morning, Stiles was sure Derek would be gone.
But when consciousness was forced back upon him, he found himself crushed up against the wall by a sleepy Werewolf, Derek holding him tightly as if he’d shifted in his sleep.
It was Derek who rolled over to grab his phone, probably breaking it with how aggressively he hit the snooze button. Stiles expected him to shift and go back to sleep for fifteen more minutes on the other side of the bed, but Derek just rolled back over and wrapped his arms around Stiles once more, pulling him close and inhaling deeply.
Stiles couldn’t help the small smile at the fact that he helped Derek sleep just as easily as Derek helped him sleep.
Closing his eyes, Stiles buried his face in Derek’s chest, and went back to sleep.
For fifteen minutes.
School was the worst.
END.