For Kendall (minipanhale on tumblr).
Based loosely on the song Hear You Me by Jimmy Eat World.
-x-
There's no one in town I know.
-x-
Being back here is like being sixteen again. The world tastes like ashes and smells like smoke and Derek wants to leave it all behind for the second time.
But there is no Alpha to tell him what to do. There is no sister to boss him around, to laugh as she pushes him out the door or makes him socialize with strangers. Not anymore.
He doesn't know how to leave, but he doesn't have any reason to stay.
Derek doesn't know anyone in Beacon Hills. Not anymore. He doesn't know what happened to his friends from high school, and even if he did, he doesn't think he could trust them at all. He's not the same kid he was then.
And for the first time in his life, he's truly alone. His family is gone, Laura is gone.
He feels it under his skin like the hum of electricity, the inherent loss of friendship, of family, of pack.
Packless.
-x-
The first few days go by in a strange mix of slow and fast, all at once and achingly still at the same time.
The two boys in the woods feel like an omen, like some flashing neon sign that perhaps he's meant to form his own pack.
Instead, he ends up pushing them away with angry words and a glare and it tastes like ashes.
-x-
He ends up with the human boy when he's being destroyed from the inside out from the insidious bite of wolfsbane in his blood and despite the boy's words and false bravado, he can see the promise in him. This boy, who in truth has no reason to help him, refuses to back down. He's terrified to do it, but he knows the boy will.
The beta saves the human from a choice he never had to make, and Derek is glad for it. The human boy did not deserve the agony of that.
-x-
You gave us someplace to go.
-x-
When he's on the run from the police, when the wreckage of his home is overrun by bloodthirsty hunters, and the facsimile of some sort of healthy lifestyle is completely washed away from him, Derek expects to die. A part of him, perhaps a small part or perhaps even a large part, wants it. He would never take his life on his own, no. He doesn't deserve the peace of that.
But, he doesn't.
"You're sleeping here tonight."
Stiles, this human kid who's in far over his head, who doesn't have any reason to keep himself so involved in a world that would kill him as soon as anything, refuses to let him go. This stupid idiot who doesn't need, has no reason, he just won't. And it... just makes no sense at all.
Stiles gives him some place to go. Stiles gives him a place to sleep, feeds him leftovers and early morning breakfasts, and leaves candy bars in his jacket before he leaves for school. Stiles hides a twenty dollar bill next to his gas tank, and never brings it up.
Derek doesn't understand.
-x-
I never said thank you for that.
-x-
He doesn't thank Stiles for doing any of it. He thinks about saying it, about proving it. But the longer he waits, the harder it is to say anything at all.
Derek tries to tell him with a look, but he doesn't think that Stiles understands at all.
-x-
I thought I might get one more chance
-x-
Peter isn't who he remembers. (Except, sometimes, Derek wonders if that's really true.)
Even with the divide between Derek and Scott&Stiles being so big with his forced betrayal, Derek really believes that he might still be able to thank Stiles for... giving him home.
It doesn't last.
Kate Argent is the same woman she was six years ago, and Derek wishes he could have seen her true nature before the first time he pressed his mouth to hers in a hard kiss, before the first time he slept with her in the backseat of her SUV, before she left the voicemail on his phone of her ringing laughter and his family screaming as they suffocated and burned to ash.
-x-
For the second time since he returned to Beacon Hills, Derek truly expects to die.
-x-
The night they kill Peter, Stiles could have died. Stiles could have died with his only reason being that he cared too damn much. About Scott, about Lydia. About him.
-x-
"You could have died tonight. Stay the fuck out of this, Stiles."
"Do you really think I can just abandon Scott? Pretend I don't know what the fuck is happening in this damn town? Who do you think I am, Derek?"
"Stay away from me, Stiles. Or you'll regret it."
Or I'll get you killed, like Peter. Like Laura. Like Paige, and everyone else I ever cared about.
-x-
And what would you think of me now?
-x-
But the more that Derek thinks about it-about the pack he's building, and about the man he can feel himself becoming-the more he wonders what Stiles would think if he knew the reasons behind every decision. If Stiles could see him as Derek again, and not the man who pushed him away with red eyes and a feral smile.
He doesn't know how. If he even can. If he should.
-x-
So lucky, so strong, so proud
-x-
Even though they're rough and hot headed, Derek is incredibly proud of his betas. He feels so incredibly lucky to have found them, so strong when he's around them. It's like having a little piece of happiness back and it's worth it.
Even when it feels like drowning.
But he still misses Stiles, who managed to do all of that for him without trying.
-x-
I never said thank you for that
-x-
Derek lies.
Derek doesn't trust easily. Not since Kate, not since the fire. Not since his whole world burned to ashes.
But Derek trusts Stiles. Derek has trusted Stiles since the three second glance in the vet clinic when Stiles was going to cut off his arm. Derek has almost always trusted Stiles and it feels like it's an intrinsic and permanent part of him anymore.
There are people he wants to trust, like Isaac and Erica and Boyd. Like Scott.
And there is Stiles, who repeatedly proves his worth with actions, sarcasm, and wit. Who does it without thinking.
Derek lies and tells Stiles he doesn't trust him.
And Stiles hold him up in a pool of water for two hours. When he lets him go, he comes back.
Derek wants to thank him, but the words lodge in his throat and refuse to come out.
-x-
And now I'll never have a chance
-x-
Though Stiles could have run, could have attempted to save himself, he keeps treading water. And then they slip beneath the water.
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
Scott saves them at the last moment, like a guardian angel. Not Derek's, not ever. But Stiles'.
Always Stiles'. Derek doesn't deserve one.
-x-
Hear you me my friends
-x-
In the aftermath, standing wet outside in the darkness, and watching each other, Derek thinks that maybe Stiles finally understands.
"Abomination."
-x-
On sleepless roads the sleepless go
-x-
A few nights after the pool and the kanima, Derek gets a text message. It's almost four in the morning, on another sleepless night.
[From Stiles: Did you really not trust me?]
It takes half an hour to answer, because nothing seems right.
[To Stiles: Even if that had been true before, do you really think it could be now? Go to sleep, Stiles.]
[From Stiles: Thanks.]
[From Stiles: I can't sleep.]
[From Stiles: It feels like drowning]
[From Stiles: Please ignore me. I'm not a fourteen year old girl.]
Four texts come in quick succession, the first stamped only a minute before the last. Derek stares at them for a long time before he answers.
[To Stiles: Unlock your window. Be there in twenty.]
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
Stiles plows his jeep through the wall and hits the kanima. He brings Lydia with him, and it's her that saves Jackson and the rest of them in kind.
Stiles risks his life again, gives the girl he loves a fairy tale, and does it without being asked.
Derek doesn't think he will ever understand Stiles.
-x-
So what would you think of me now?
-x-
After Gerard, Derek feels like less than an Alpha, less than a werewolf, less than human.
He feels like a tool, cast and used for another's game. He feels dirty, like a used tissue. Worse.
But Stiles... Stiles shows up in his bedroom in the middle of the night, a set of lockpicks in his hands and a face full of bruises.
"What Scott did to you wasn't right. He might have had good intentions, but it wasn't right."
-x-
So lucky, so strong, so proud
-x-
Isaac struggles with Boyd and Erica's disappearance. He doesn't sleep at night, and he rarely stops to rest.
It hurts Derek to see it, but he doesn't know what to do. He's not the poster child for mental health himself, he knows this. But Isaac is running himself ragged, trying to find a sign-any sign-that Boyd and Erica are alive, that they're not dead, that he didn't fail them.
Of course, he's not the only one to notice the haunted look in Isaac's eyes, to notice the way he flinches back from touches like the past few months have been erased.
Stiles is there within days, making terrible jokes at Isaac's expense and pulling out city maps. He doesn't try to force Isaac to sleep or to eat, and he doesn't do it to Derek either.
But Isaac does it anyway.
-x-
I never said thank you for that.
-x-
Stiles joins them most days, but Scott never joins in on the search. Isaac confirms that Scott doesn't know, and Derek is glad.
He doesn't trust Scott, though he thought he was close to trusting him before.
He also doesn't understand why Stiles didn't tell him about the Alpha pack, and Boyd and Erica.
But Stiles shows up almost every day and does what he can to help them and he never asks for anything in return.
Derek doesn't know how to make the words come out, and doesn't ever thank him for that.
-x-
And now I'll never have a chance
-x-
Derek thinks he's going to die. He lays paralysed for hours, bleeding out onto the stairs. No one comes to save him, no one comes to make sure he's dead.
Eventually he can move, and he manages to get as far as the school parking lot.
But Stiles isn't there.
Everything goes fuzzy after that.
-x-
Derek wakes up wrapped in someone's arms, and for a few brief moments he thinks it might be Stiles.
It's not. It's the teacher.
-x-
She reminds him of Stiles though, and maybe that's the healthier route anyway.
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
His hands are covered in Boyd's blood.
Jennifer isn't the one who places her hand on his shoulder.
No, that's Stiles.
Stiles always knows.
Stiles is always... there.
-x-
Hear you me my friends
-x-
Cora is sick, terribly so, and Derek doesn't know what to do. She's his sister and he's already lost her once and he can't lose her again.
-x-
Jennifer is the Darach. She killed all those people and used their sacrifice to seduce him, used her skills to poison his sister, and took Stiles' father.
She needs to die. She tries using Cora to stop him from killing her but Derek doesn't stop.
It's Stiles pleading and begging for his father's sake that saves her.
-x-
Stiles saves Cora's life and Derek can never explain how much that means to him.
-x-
When it's all over, when Jennifer Blake and the Alpha pack, and Deucalion are dead or gone, and his eyes are blue again, Derek goes to see Stiles before he leaves with Cora, and they sit in Stiles' kitchen in the middle of the night, drinking hot chocolate.
"Are you coming back?" Stiles asks.
"Always," Derek answers.
-x-
On sleepless roads the sleepless go
-x-
Derek and Cora are in Oregon when he gets the first text at three in the morning, the day after they leave.
[Text from Stiles: You're not dead, right?]
[Text to Stiles: Not as far as I know?]
[Text from Stiles: Good.]
-x-
It happens the next night, too.
[Text from Stiles: Derek, you're alive, right? The alpha pack didn't kill you?]
[Text to Stiles: I'm alive.]
-x-
When Derek calls Stiles the next afternoon, Stiles admits to having nightmares. Nightmares where Scott and Derek and his dad and Lydia and Isaac and Allison and every single person he has ever cared about dies or do something so horrible to him that he wakes up screaming.
-x-
"Text me any time, Stiles. I mean it."
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
[Text from Stiles: Cats sleep sixteen to eighteen hours a day.]
[Text from Stiles: Do you think I'd make a good werecat?]
[Text to Stiles: Why do you know that?]
[Text to Stiles: Like a pet cat, werecat?]
[Text from Stiles: Maybe a weretiger. Or a werecheetah.]
[Text to Stiles: A werecheetah? Really?]
[Text to Stiles: We'd have to get you a bell. Speaking of which, Cora wants to stop at a mall. I should get you one now.]
[Text from Stiles: Maybe I should by a doggie door for my window then.]
[Text to Stiles: I'm not a dog.]
-x-
[Text from Stiles: The nose print of a dog is like the fingerprint of a person: no two are alike. Get a good relief and you can identify a dog by the mark it leaves behind. ]
[Text from Stiles: Can I make a relief of your nose?]
[Text to Stiles: STILL NOT A DOG.]
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
[Text to Stiles: I'm not stopping at Arby's, Stiles.]
[Text from Stiles: But then you can't enjoy the delicious seasoned nectar of the gods.]
[Text to Stiles: Curly fries aren't nectar.]
[Text to Stiles: Cora wants to go to this diner we passed on the way into town, anyway.]
[Text from Stiles: Get a slice of pumpkin pie.]
[Text to Stiles: Why?]
[Text from Stiles: Because it's the best pie, obviously.]
[Text to Stiles: Cherry is the best.]
[Text from Stiles: TAKE THAT BACK, RIGHT NOW.]
[Text to Stiles: No.]
[Text from Stiles: Dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow.]
[Text to Stiles:]
[Text from Stiles: you got curly fries]
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
[Text from Stiles: My dad accidentally said he was used to me screaming him awake.]
Derek stares at his phone for almost ten minutes, trying to find a way to respond. What could he say? What could anyone say?
[Text to Stiles: A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than those found on the sun's surface.]
Stiles doesn't respond for almost five minutes.
[Text from Stiles: So, you're hot like lightning then?]
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
[Text to Stiles: Cora doesn't want to come back.]
[Text from Stiles: Do you want me to ship your stuff to you?]
[Text to Stiles: No.]
[Text to Stiles: I promised you I was coming back.]
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
[Text from Stiles: Where are you now?]
[Text to Stiles: Same place I was five minutes ago?]
[Text from Stiles: But you're okay, then, right?]
[Text to Stiles: Yes, Stiles.]
[Text to Stiles: Is something wrong?]
[Text from Stiles: Just a bad feeling. I'm going to call my dad and check on him.]
[Text to Stiles: Let me know if I need to head back, okay?]
[Text from Stiles: I will.]
-x-
[Text from Stiles: Everyone is fine. Take your time.]
[Text to Stiles: I'll come home soon. Taking Cora to her pack.]
[Text from Stiles: Let me know if you need anything. Anything at all.]
-x-
And if you were with me tonight
-x-
Derek declines the Alpha's offer of a room to stay in and sleeps at a hotel ten minutes away. It's the farthest he's been from Cora in weeks, but he needs it if he expects to be able to let her go again.
He wishes Stiles wasn't so far away.
[Text to Stiles: How'd your test go today?]
That was a nice, normal thing to say right? Juniors in high school had tests all the time, didn't they?
[Text from Stiles: Dude, nice attempt at deflection, but it's Saturday.]
Oh.
[Text from Stiles: What's wrong?]
[Text from Stiles: Derek?]
Derek almost doesn't pick up the phone when the incoming call tone goes off.
"Derek?"
"What?"
"Is Cora okay?"
"She's fine."
"Then what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Derek, I know you. What is wrong?"
And that's it, isn't it? Stiles knows Derek. Stiles has known how he works for so long that it's like Stiles has been a part of his life for what feels like forever.
"She's with her pack."
Stiles is quiet for a moment and Derek is half afraid of what's coming next.
"She's not going to die, Derek."
"What? I don't think she's going to-"
"Her pack saved her. I know she should have been with you the whole time, but she wasn't. That's already done."
"Stiles, it's not like-"
"She's going to be protected there, Derek. In a way we can't protect her back in Beacon Hills right now."
"She's my sister,"
"And she always will be. You got her a cell phone, and told her you loved her. You gave up being an Alpha for her. She needs time to adjust to being a little sister again, and you need time to figure who you are again too."
"You're not Doctor Phil."
"That's kind of a dated reference there, big guy. But you're right, I'm not. I like to think, though, that I am a werewolf whisperer-or at the very least a Hale whisper."
"You're an idiot."
"But I'm your idiot. Er, or something. Shut up."
It's quiet for a few minutes, and then Derek speaks again.
"Stiles?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. I expect you to pay back the favor when you get home. Maybe with some scintillating conversation over milkshakes and curly fries."
"I'm not taking you out to eat, Stiles."
"Okay, fine. Over hot chocolate with marshmallows and those double chocolate chip cookies that you love that I totally buy from Subway."
"I knew you didn't make them. Last time you pulled them out of the packaging right in front of me."
"Yeah, well, shut up."
"You're the one that called me, you know."
"I know. I'm going to go now, but seriously. If you need to talk, just text or call okay? You know I'm not going to tell anyone else."
"Thanks."
"Good night, Derek."
"Night."
Derek ends the call and spends several long minutes staring at his phone.
Stiles knew, without Derek saying it, that he was remembering the last time his sister left him. It was Laura, then, and he never saw her alive again.
Stiles was right when he said he knew him. And he was right when he said he was Derek's idiot, even if he hadn't meant to day it.
Derek types in a text to Stiles and stares at it for a long time without pressing send.
I think I'm in love with you.
He presses delete.
-x-
I'd sing to you just one more time
-x-
Leaving Cora behind is hard. She's his family, his little sister. And he only just got her back.
He can feel the splinter of her leaving his pack like an ever present ache, until finally it completes when he's an hour from the Mexican American border and her text comes through his phone.
[Text from Cora: Come back to visit my pack soon, okay?]
-x-
He calls Stiles from the side of the road, not caring that his plan definitely did not include Mexico anymore than it had included the whole of South America.
"You're on your way back, right?"
"Almost to the border now. Should be back soon. Meeting up with Peter to check out some family stuff first."
"I'll drop some groceries off for you."
"I can shop when I get back, you know."
"I was going to pick up some groceries tonight anyway, it's no big deal."
"It's eleven already, isn't it? Why are you shopping so late?"
"It's nothing."
"Stiles."
"The nightmares are worse, okay? Now, please, let it go for now?"
"I'll be home by Halloween most likely. I might not text for a few days. The last thing I want is more of Peter's commentary about us."
"If I need to check-"
"If you need me, I'll answer. I always will. Okay?"
"Thanks."
-x-
Peter manages to get them caught by some psycho hunters looking for Cora, but they survive. He doesn't respond to Stiles for a few days, even with the text message in his inbox reading, "you're not dead, right?"
Once he's free of Peter and away from Braeden, he calls Stiles and leaves a message.
"I'm okay. Back in town tomorrow. Peter got us into some trouble but I'm not even hurt. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner."
And he is. He hates that he made Stiles wait, worry.
-x-
A song for a heart so big
-x-
He shows up at Stiles' house, but although the jeep is parked out front, Stiles isn't home. He leaves a note on his laptop, along with a cat collar with a bell, and heads to the loft instead.
There is indeed a small bit of groceries in his kitchen, packed away neatly in just the right places. It's a comfort to know Stiles did this for him, and it makes him smile.
For the first time in a long time, coming back to Beacon Hills actually feels like coming home.
-x-
Talking to his mother is an experience he doesn't expect to ever forget. He feels lighter when he leaves her, even if he's a bit more cautious around Peter again.
He refuses to tell Peter what his mother said, and feels he made the right choice when Peter's face goes dark.
-x-
He thinks, now, that it's okay that Scott is the Alpha and he's not. What matters is that his family's legacy as protectors of Beacon Hills continues. Scott isn't a Hale, but he's pack. He's Derek's Alpha.
And that's okay.
-x-
He still doesn't see Stiles, though he leaves another message and sends another text, and it continues to feel very strange.
-x-
On Halloween, he goes to the grocery store for hot chocolate and candy. He meets a group of trick-or-treaters when he gets back home and gives them a scare they'll remember for ages.
He doesn't see Stiles.
A minute later, he's attacked by black shapes dressed in samurai gear and he feels, for a few seconds, like he's going to die. He wasn't prepared to fight. It's been weeks and he wasn't ready.
He howls.
-x-
He breaks up the party in his loft, and fights the samurai again.
He still doesn't see Stiles and something feels very wrong.
-x-
God wouldn't let it live
-x-
Stiles goes missing.
Stiles goes missing and it takes all that he is not to react poorly.
He teaches Scott, calm and steady. Like his mom told him to. The way a Hale was supposed to do things.
-x-
You think Stiles, skinny defenseless Stiles, is the Nogitsune, a powerful, dark spirit?
He knows that, for Stiles' stature and general appearance of weakness, he's far from defenseless. Even without gaining some semblance of muscle from months of running with (and from) wolves, he's not undefended. Stiles carries words like a weapon, pointed and sharp. He knows where to cut and where to slice. And Stiles is smart, though he plays it down far too often.
Derek knows Stiles isn't defenseless, but he doesn't want the truth behind Stiles' sudden and complete break from him to be because he's possessed.
Not now. He needs Stiles, he came back for Stiles because Stiles means he's home. (Though that, he will never admit to anyone else.)
Because somehow home isn't about his sister or his uncle or the shell of his burnt out house or the town that he grew up in. Home is the teenage boy with a baseball bat and a sarcastic mouth, and Derek doesn't want to lose him.
-x-
Stiles' baseball bat in the power plant tells him that he may already have lost him.
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
"So, I don't suppose you have any idea why Stiles would frame us for murder?" Argent asks, and Derek doesn't know how to answer.
So he lies and says the first thing he can think of, "I didn't think Stiles was smart enough to frame us for murder."
-x-
"Don't expect me to risk your life for yours."
-x-
He saves Chris Argent, when he had no reason to do it. When he had every reason not to actually care.
Stiles would have done it in an instant, so Derek does it without thinking.
-x-
Argent tells him he'd feel remorseful for killing Stiles, but not the Nogitsune, and Derek wonders where the line will be when they find him.
-x-
"I won't be the first wolf to run from a fox."
And I could never forgive myself if I didn't help Stiles.
-x-
Hear you me my friends
-x-
Everything is hazy for a while, but he remembers trying to kill Chris Argent. He remembers threatening to burn him alive.
He wants to scrub out his skin until the dark feeling leaves him.
And Argent forgives him.
Derek is the reason most of his family is dead, and he almost killed him and yet... and yet, Argent forgives him.
It doesn't make sense.
-x-
Derek is pretty sure he sounds like he's the president of the Scott McCall fanclub, and he's not sure when or why it happened.
It might have been Stiles, during one of their late night phone calls or texting sprees.
Derek isn't sure he cares.
"When there is no chance of winning, he keeps fighting. When all hope is lost, he finds another way. When he's beaten down, he stands up again."
He's talking about Scott when he says it, but he also thinks it's about Stiles too.
-x-
Allison Argent dies.
Allison Argent dies, and Derek finally gets a text in his phone from Stiles.
[Text from Stiles: It's my fault she's dead.]
-x-
And then it's over.
The nogitsune is sealed in the wooden jar and hidden away and it is peaceful again.
-x-
On sleepless roads the sleepless go
-x-
Stiles doesn't have any more trouble sleeping than he did before. It's just... different.
He doesn't dream of possibilities as much, but of truths. He sees the faces of the Nogitsune's victims and takes the guilt upon himself until he lies awake at night too afraid to close his eyes and see their faces.
Sometimes he calls Derek and asks in a tiny little voice for him to come and watch him, as if the Nogitsune will crawl back into his bones and take control.
He does it.
Sometimes, Stiles lets himself into the loft at night and slips into Derek's bed, curled up into a ball and pressed up against him like Derek is his lifeline.
He thinks Stiles might have acted like this with Scott instead, if Stiles didn't feel like Allison's death was his fault.
But he doesn't say anything about the way Stiles whimpers in his sleep when Derek watches, or the way he curls into him like he belongs there.
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
A week after she dies, they release her body. They bury Allison in a plot next to her mother, and Aiden in the woods with Derek's family. Honorable burials for honorable deaths.
Argent leaves Beacon Hills that evening, and takes Isaac with him.
Derek thinks that whatever relationship Isaac and Chris Argent have formed since Allison's death can only be a positive one for them.
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
How do you know you're still dreaming?
-x-
"You're real."
-x-
The pain of being shot echoes through his body like it keeps recurring.
The pain of Kate Argent as she shifts in front of him is worse.
She was dead.
dead. dead. dead.
-x-
Why isn't she dead?
-x-
He knows it's the legend. A scratch so deep.
Her living is Peter's fault.
But why isn't she dead?
-x-
Hear you me my friends
-x-
Someone help me.
He thinks it hard, like a prayer inside his head.
And then his phone rings.
-x-
He can feel everything getting fuzzy, but he manages to pull the phone out of his pocket.
Kate knocks it out of his hand with a swing of her gun, but it answers on speakerphone as it slides across the floor.
"Derek?! Derek! Are you okay?"
"Damn it!" Kate snarls, and it's loud enough for Stiles to pick up.
"Oh my god, Derek. It was real."
"Derek can't come to the phone right now, kid. Why don't you go tell Scotty that he's mine now."
"Derek-"
Kate stomps on the phone and it shatters.
-x-
On sleepless roads the sleepless go
-x-
Derek wakes up in a place that he doesn't recognize.
He's alone, strapped up with cables and copper wire that sting him with a continuous stream of pain.
He doesn't go back to sleep.
And no one comes.
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
Derek thinks about Stiles.
He thinks about the awkward kid in the woods who knew his name. He thinks about the boy who was willing to saw off his arm to save his life when he didn't know him at all. He thinks about the teenager who gave him a place to sleep and food to eat and paid for his gas.
Derek thinks about the kid who protected Scott from anything that would try to hurt him, about the boy who helped stop Peter, and the teenager who made Derek want to build a pack just to make him proud.
Derek thinks about Stiles, who was willing to die for him if it meant he didn't have to die alone. About Stiles, who understood him long before he should have been able to. Who came to him for the comfort of silence and gave it in turn. Who gave the girl he liked a fairy tale with someone else, and who stood up to his best friend when he wronged Derek.
Derek thinks about the boy who gave Isaac back his smile with sarcastic humor and a distraction. He thinks about the kid who squeezed his shoulder as his world fell to pieces with hands covered in Boyd's blood. The teenager who tells him about Blake, and who pleads for his father's life by stopping him from taking hers, and then saves Cora.
He thinks about hot chocolate and Subway cookies and text messages. He thinks about sleeplessness and cat collars with bells. He thinks about curly fries and pumpkin pie and a million other things that he shared with Stiles in the middle of the night and on the phone and over text message.
He thinks about lightning bolts and promises, about Stiles knowing him as well as he knows himself.
He thinks about the text he didn't send: I think I'm in love with you.
And wishes he did.
Derek thinks about Stiles and hopes that Stiles can make it past the guilt of what happened without turning into the kind of person Derek was before Stiles saved him.
-x-
On sleepless roads the sleepless go
-x-
"You didn't think we weren't going to come for you, did you?" Kira asks as she pulls a cord down.
Derek doesn't know how long it's been since he saw them but it feels like an eternity.
Someone presses a bottle of water to his lips and makes him drink. He drinks too much and throws it up.
With some time, he keeps some down.
-x-
The drive back to Beacon Hills is long and quiet. Derek spends most of it pressed tightly between Kira and Stiles, and no one speaks.
-x-
No one sleeps either.
-x-
May angels lead you in
-x-
Scott helps him inside the loft, and Derek notices that it's been fixed. What couldn't be repaired is replaced, and the blood is gone from the floor.
The pack leaves once Derek collapses on his bed.
Except for Stiles.
"I dreamed about me and you in the locker room at school. And you asked me how you know you're dreaming? And you grabbed my hand and I had six fingers. And then I woke up in my bed, and I knew something was wrong. And Kate..."
"You saved me."
"No, I didn't. I was a mess! Scott didn't even believe me at first when I said Kate took you because I was a hysterical mess."
"But you still found me. And that's not what I meant."
"What could you possibly have meant, Derek? When I almost drowned you in the pool? When I almost got you killed protecting me from Peter?"
"Shut up, Stiles. You saved Cora. You're the reason I didn't go crazy. You saved me." Derek sits up and looks at Stiles as he says it, refusing to look away.
"Are we having another Dr. Phil moment here, Derek?"
"You gave me some place to go, and I never said thank you for that."
"What? You're quoting ten year old songs at me now? What's next? Poetry?"
"If you want it."
Stiles stared at him for a long moment, looking right into him.
And then he pressed his lips to Derek's and it is bliss.
-x-
When Derek gets a new phone two days later, Stiles gets a text.
[Text to Stiles: I'm in love with you.]
And Stiles hears him, and knows it's true.
[Text from Stiles: I know.]