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Okay. Derek thinks hanging up his phone. Okay, should I call Scott? Get the Sherrif- no that's a terrible idea Derek, even for you.
"Was that... Stiles?" Cora asks.
She's leaning over the iron railing at the top of the stairs looking down at him. She looks like she's hesitating, her foot hovering imperceptibly above a step, and her face is twisted in confusion, like maybe she thinks she heard wrong.
"No," Derek says tersely. He crosses the loft to pull a jacket out from between two couch cusions where it's been stuffed negligently, and he can hear Cora stepping softly down the stairs. She always moves like she's about to pounce, and Derek wonders which event in her life that's the result of.
"I heard 'Stilinski,' I distinctly heard that Derek." She says calm and low, in a voice that reminds Derek of their mother so much he actually stops. "I also heard 'Beacon Hills General Hospital,' so answer me Derek, was that Stiles?"
"No," Derek says again, pulling his jacket on and walking toward the door. He can hear Cora start to speak again, but he wrenches the door open and snaps out over his shoulder, "It was about him," and steps outside.
He closes the door and takes to the stairs before she can protest or ask any more questions, because he just doesn't have the answers for them. He never has the answers, he just works his way through life on blind instinct, and he knows that's a terrible way to live, but attempting to act like he knows what he's doing always makes matters worse. Because he's just as confused as anyone else about everything else. He has questions too.
Most of them consist of Why Stiles, why? and Do you ever shut up? Though climbing into his car it's more a steady stream of What have you gotten yourself into now?
-
Derek steps into the hospital, and a small part of him whines about how familiar he is with the place. Only people who work at hospitals should be this familiar with hospitals. He thinks, easily making his way to a nurses station. So why am I? He lets the question hang, like a framed masterpiece in the back of his mind, and instead leans on the desk toward an old and tired looking nurse.
"I got a call about a Stilinski?" he asks. One day he's going to ask Stiles about his first name that no one says out loud.
"Oh, yes okay." says the nurse, as if she's finally understanding something. "We'll have to go through some paperwork, but I'll let you step in if you like, first. Though he is still asleep."
Asleep?
The word and all that comes with it follow Derek like a dark and heavy cloud as the nurse leads him down the hallway. She shows him to a room where she tells Derek where Stiles was picked up and lists his injuries (claw marks from an animal attack), all from a chart she'd picked up from a table.
"Nothing vital was hit however," she purses her lips, looking over the chart. "He was lucky."
"You don't know the half of it." Derek mutters.
The nurse doesn't hear him though, he wonders if it's because her hearing's going from age, or if he's just too used to being around werewolves. She puts the chart down, pats him lovingly on the arm, and leaves him to the room filled with beeping noises and machinery.
Derek wanders around the room slowly, walking his fingers over tables and the arm of a chair, more interested in the pattern on the cushion than the pale boy laying a few feet from him.
"Oh come on, I expected at least a little concern," Stiles croaks at last.
He sounds like hell.
"I was waiting for you to say something," Derek says calmly, his hands still taping across surfaces, this time a cabinet. "You're a terrible actor, I knew you weren't asleep."
Derek spares a glance at the kid, just in time to see the smirk he was expecting, then turns away again.
"I'm a great actor. You're a werewolf, that's cheating." Stiles says.
Derek taps out a beat on the window sill, then looks back at Stiles again. He's got a scrape along his jaw, but the nurse said most of his wounds were along his side. Derek has an overwhelming urge to step across the small room and rip back the coverings and bandages to see for himself just how close to death Stiles got this time.
Without me there to protect him.
Derek's hand is on the railing of the bed that he doesn't remember stepping close to and Stiles is looking up at him like he's waiting for a punchline and Derek wants to tell him that this is it. You here in a hospital bed and me being the one they called that's the joke. Our lives. That's the joke.
"Want me to call your dad or something?" Derek asks, looking away at last.
Out of the corner of his eye he can see Stiles visibly deflate. "No." Then a beat. Stiles breaks into a surly grin and looks up at Derek, "You, call my dad? That's a terrible idea, even for you."
And Derek rolls his eyes, almost reflexively, and looks down at Stiles. He shakes his head, and walks away, running his fingers down the side of the bed.
"Restless tonight are we?" Stiles asks.
"I'm still waiting." Derek says, his hand trailing along the end of the bed.
"If you're waiting for me to tap dance I have some bad news for you." Stiles says as Derek breaks away from the bed and moves toward the door. "Hey," he calls after him. "What are you-"
Derek shuts the door quietly and smoothly, so that the noises of the nurse's station and the people in the hallways are shut out. Derek can still hear them though, muffled, but still there. It's never quiet for him.
"You know, you do that silent intimidation thing very well. Is that a werewolf trait? Because Scott missed out on that one."
Derek quiets him with a look. He's still standing by the door, hands in the pockets of his jacket, watching Stiles.
"You deflect like a champ." Derek drawls out.
"Practiced skill." Stiles says almost immediately.
And Derek takes the implication behind that statement like a blow to the chest because he know just how many times Stiles has lied for him alone. He looks away because guilt belongs to only him, and not even Stiles gets to see it on his face. Instead he pulls his hands from his pockets to run along this side of the room.
"What?" Stiles snaps, more exasperation than anger.
Derek looks over his shoulder at him.
"What are you waiting for?" Stiles asks.
And Derek can see the nervous energy running through Stiles laying there in that bed, making him twitchy, making his foot shake faintly. Derek walks his fingers along the counter next to a sink.
"Answers."
"Only you can make someone feel like their convalescence is their own fault." Stiles says, crossing his arms. But he takes a breath and keeps right on talking, before Derek can even process what that means. "It was a coincidence. I was out at Roddenberry's getting dinner for myself, and one of them picked up my scent I guess. Said they could smell me a mile off. Don't know which one, all wolves look the same browless ugly when wolfed out— no offense."
Derek scoffs, half at Stiles' wording, but mostly because it's not by sight that wolves identify each other. And Stiles will never fully understand that. But Stiles was going on without Derek's attention, about how his 'life spared was a gift given' and he should be grateful for it. Stiles voice wavers, and Derek's hands stop.
No one else would have noticed, but Derek did. Derek always did. He could see the cracks in Stiles' defenses better than anyone— they're much like his own. He sees too much of himself in Stiles; they're too alike. And that's not a specific thought he's ever had, but a feeling that's brought them together time and time again.
Stiles used the phrase "affectionate scratchies" and waved vaguely down his right side, and Derek felt that urge again to pull back those covers. A small part of him sighs in victory when he controls it.
"You know, I know I'm Token Human Character here," Stiles says at the end of his story (That involved telling the paramedics that the mountain lion attacks around these parts were suspiciously high, and that he knew his days were numbered.), "But I'm really over being used as a message board to send vague threats to you."
Derek's hand was on the machines next to Stiles' bed, tapping out the same rhythm that indicated his heart beat. Stiles was absently looking out the dark window, probably lost in every memory where he'd received the worst end of the stick because of werewolf problems.
Not really werewolf problems, just werewolf life. Derek thinks rather dismally, and tap-taps, tap-taps away on the machine under his hand.
At length, Stiles gets fed up with chewing his lip and gazing out the window, and looks around for Derek. He turns himself around to try to look at Derek where he stands, behind the bed but off to the side and utterly impossible to see from Stiles' position. Which is probably why Stiles gives up on that too, and lays back down on his bed.
"What, dude?" Stiles asks, but he sounds right and properly annoyed, instead of guilty or nervous like before.
That's better. Derek thinks. Stiles' voice sounds better when he's angry. It's strong and even, not soft and faltering like when he's nervous.
"Still haven't gotten answers." Derek says mildly.
In a flash of movement Stiles jerks his whole body around to actually look at Derek. And the position looks painful, but Stiles clings to the edges of his bed and down right glares at Derek whose hand goes still.
"What the hell, dude." Stiles says. "I told you what happened."
And there are cords and tubes in the machine under Derek's hand and they loop their way between him and Stiles like they're Ariadne's Yarn, guiding him home.
"I know what happened." Derek says. "Your involvement in business that has nothing to do with you got you hurt. Don't argue with me about if it's your business or not," Derek holds up a hand and closes his eyes. "You could, technically, walk away at any moment." His hand drops, and his eyes open again, now gazing somewhere near the ground. "But you stay, and you get hurt."
Derek's hand on the machine falls to one of those tubes, traces it down and back up to where it's taped into Stiles' hand and his finger tips tap-tap, tap-tap out the rhythm that he would be able to hear even without the beeping.
A moment too late he realises what he's doing, and his hand goes still. He looks up to meet Stiles' eyes that look wondering and curious, but mostly just tired. Tired like they all are these days. Derek lifts his hand from the back of Stiles' to push him back into the bed.
"You always get hurt." Derek says.
Stiles' hand, the one with the tube, comes up to rest on Derek's still on his shoulder, trapping it there.
"So do you." he says.
"I heal faster and better." Derek scoffs. Like implying concern for injury was a quip he wasn't satisfied with.
"Not all wounds are physical." Stiles says.
And Derek wants to jerk his hand back and storm out of the room and not talk to Stiles for a week. Who cares if the kid's laying half cut open.
I care. Derek thinks. And then, I care.
So Derek leaves his hand there, Stiles' own still over it. And he recognizes that as a sign of defeat in their unspoken game of chicken. Finally beaten, Derek gives in and asks,
"Why am I your contact in case of an emergency?"
Stiles looks down, looks away, but his hand is still on Derek's.
"You tried to kill Lydia once, do you remember?" Stiles says.
What?
He continued, "You thought she was a threat, and you were willing to eliminate that threat because there were other people in danger. Lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few." Stiles looks back at him then. "You can make really difficult decisions, no matter the emotional consequence. I need that one assurance, that one bit of solid footing in my otherwise crazy life."
"You need me to pull the cord?" Derek asks, almost amused.
"Well when you put it like that." Stiles says, rolling his eyes. "I was thinking more like, I trust you to keep your head in emotional situations, especially emotional situations concerning me."
"That does sound a lot better." Derek says, and he almost manages to smile.
Stiles actually does.
Derek's acutely aware that his hand is still on Stiles' shoulder, and at some point during Stiles' explanation his hand slipped down to Derek's wrist. Derek could feel the tightness in Stiles' fingers, like Derek actually was solid ground he was afraid to let go of. Like what Stiles had said was true.
Derek shook his head, clearing his thoughts. "How bad are your wounds?" he asked. He wanted to hear it from Stiles; the next best thing to looking them over himself.
"Got something like forty some-odd stitches, most of the cuts are on my right side, none of them very deep. Bruising along my chest and back." Stiles reported, very perfunctory. "I passed out mostly from blood loss on the ride back."
Derek nods, and moved his hand from Stiles' shoulder, five inches over to rest against his neck, Stiles' hand still holding onto Derek's wrist the entire way. "Not injured here, are you?"
Stiles stared up at Derek, held his gaze and his wrist, and almost imperceptibly, shook his head.
Derek made a noise of assent, and let Stiles' pain flow into him. It bites stronger than he thought it would, and takes Derek by surprise. He feels that urge to look at Stiles' wounds himself again. But instead he pulls his hand away from Stiles who whimpers, and holds loosely to Derek's wrist still as he moves away.
"Calm down," Derek says, full of affectionate exasperation. "I'm just getting comfortable."
And Derek's hand slides through Stiles' as he moves away, around the bed. But he's able to just reach the edge of the chair whose pattern he had been examining earlier without letting go of the tips of Stiles' fingers. He drags the chair over to beside the bed, and sits down in it. He gets himself comfortable, adjusts then readjusts his chair, pulling it closer and closer, until he can reach the exposed spot on Stiles' neck again.
Stiles sighs into it, and his hand around Derek's wrist goes tight for a moment, then loosens up, and his eyes drift closed. Derek leans on the bed, one arm up along Stiles' chest, one tucked under his chin. And he sits there quiet and contented, and holding on to the boy in the bed.