I'd always heard people ask the question but I never really gave it much thought, why would I? with my current choice of lifestyle choices it was pretty much an unspoken rule that I ignore how easily the squishy humans can get hurt and focus on keeping the rest of the pack alive. If you dont think about it, it cant happen right? I'd always heard people ask the question but I never really gave it much thought, why would I? With my current choice of lifestyle it was pretty much an unspoken rule that I ignore how easily the squishy humans can get hurt and focus on keeping the rest of the pack alive. If you don't think about it, it can't happen right?
Denial is a beautiful thing.
But here I was, stuck in this stupid hospital bed, unable to think of anything other than that ridiculous question.
If you were in a coma who would visit you.
A simple enough question to most people. But I'm not most people. Also most people aren't actually in a coma when they think about their answer. I am.
I'm not actually sure how long its been since I first lost consciousness but going by what other people have said, mainly my dad and Scott, it's been about a week and a half since I last opened my eyes for more than a minute. Since then I've been a prisoner in my own body, listening to the world carry on around me.
~_~_~
So far the only visitors I've had have been my dad and Scott, who both visit me daily, and on one memorable occasion the terrible trio. Erica, Isaac and Boyed didn't stay long nor did they say much whilst they were here. Erica and Isaac simply whispered their own get wells and gave my hand a powerful squeeze each, they still weren't used to being werewolves yet and they sometimes forgot how strong they now are now which often ended with mumbled apologies and even more bruises for me, whilst Boyed stood guard by the door. They didn't visit again after that and Scott's visits started becoming less frequent the longer I was stuck here in this bed.
It got to the point were he hadn't been around for almost 4 days and I was starting to get annoyed. Just because I wasn't responsive didn't mean that I wasn't his best friend anymore, it didn't mean he could just leave me here to rot whilst he was out there running around with his puppy friends having the time of his life. After everything I've done for him, including my latest rescue attempt which had resulted in me getting stuck in this coma, he could at least spend an hour with me every now and then. Its not like I'm asking him to stay by my side 24/7
On the rare visits he did grant me I started to notice something. At first I didn't really pick up on it, it was only after my dad began doing it that I noticed. For some reason people started opening up to me in my comatose state. It started off with small things. Dad or Scott would be catching me up on their lives and they would throw in a thought they had had on something. At first it was just small things, Scott commenting on how nice Isaac had looked that day or dad complaining about his latest case and giving away a few to many case details that he maybe shouldn't be talking about outside of the station, before they were soon sharing personal things that they would normally keep to themselves.
"You're mother would have been so proud of you. I'm not sure what you've got yourself into kid but I can see how your trying to protect your friends, new ones and old, from whatever is going on." Dad started speaking after a long period of silence in which all I could here was the distant beeping of the multiple monitors, both in my room and the ones neighbouring it, mixed in with the footsteps of the nurses walking back and forth along the corridors as they went between their patients and the nurses station as they did their hourly checks.
"You're so much like her." I hate how broken he sounds.
I hate that I can't comfort him, that I can't do anything.
"Seeing you here brings back to many memories from when she was..." I knew what he was talking about. I should have taken better care of myself, I wasn't being fair to him. It hadn't been that long since mum had been where I am now, u. Unconscious and slowly slipping away from us whilst all we could do was sit back and watch her disappear.
I wonder if this is what it had been like for her. Could she hear everything going on around her? Did it hurt her to lay there and listen whilst we all tried to convince ourselves that she was going to be okay, that she was going to pull through, when she knew she wasn't? had she listened to dad falling apart knowing there was nothing she could do?
"I miss her so much, I can't go through that again. I just can't do it Genim, do you hear that? I can't do it so you had better pull yourself together and wake up sometime soon or so god help me-" he broke off with a strangled sob before quickly standing and rushing out of the room.
~_~_~
Scott's ramblings were normally much more amusing. In fact there was a number of times during his visits where I wished that I could roll my eyes and how normal it all was. The only thing different to our usual conversations, the ones where I'm awake and able to respond, was the subject of his thoughts. Instead of the usual sonnets on Allison, Scott now spent the majority of his time waxing poetic about a certain angel faced, curly haired, blue eyed boy. I can't help but wonder if he would have spoken so freely about Isaac had been conscious or would he have continued with the straight boy ruse.
"Things with Isaac are so much simpler than they were with Allison." He confessed one night after talking about his crush non stop for the last hour. At least he had moved on to something deeper that how the boys hair shone in the moonlight for once.
"There isn't anyone trying to keep us apart, he doesn't lie to me, we don't keep breaking up and he hasn't tried to kill me,not recently anyway, isn't that great?" Scott gushed.
"I asked Derek about it, why everything felt so easy, so natural, and he said its because we're mates. Mates! How awesome is that. I don't really know what it means because Derek started getting really weird before he could tell me anything else. I asked him if he had a mate but he just ignored me and left the apartment. It was really weird man but I don't really care because once he was gone me and Isaac had the loft to ourselves and-"
After that I stopped listening, there are only so many times you can hear your best friend talk about what kinky things him and his new boyfriend get up to in the bedroom before you need to see a therapist. Instead I tried to focus on what he had said about mates. Why had no one told me about them, surely as the pack researcher I should know everything there is to know about werewolves so why had Derek, or even peter, failed to mention them even once. As soon as I wake up from this stupid coma me and Derek are going to be having words.
It turned out that I didn't have to wait until I woke up to see Derek, or hear from him at least. The next week (seriously how long had I been here?) the alpha was sitting somewhere to my left speaking in a soft voice about the pack, his family and anything else that he thought of. It was the most I'd ever heard him speak and I wasn't even awake to tease him about it. It was nice though, just being able to lay there and listen to him talk for once instead of it being the other way around. Normally I was the one talking his ear off whilst he brooded in a corner somewhere creeping on unsuspecting humans.
~_~_~
"Its hard with Scott sometimes. He reminds me so much of myself before the fire, not a care in the world for anything other than his current love interest. He won't listen to anything I say, especially with you in here, unlike the rest of the pack who will always follow my orders no matter what. Even you listen to what I say more than he does and when you don't obey me at least its for a good reason unlike him. I swear he does it just to annoy me." Derek let out a frustrated sigh and threw himself further into the chair.
"I don't know what to do with him Stiles, what should I do? Tell me what to do." the alpha half spoke and half shouted at me. If we had been in this situation 6 months ago, me unable to move and him shouting, I would have feared for my safety. But now I know he would never do anything to hurt me, to hurt any member of the pack.
"You have to wake up Stiles, I can't do this without you. I n- I need... I need you Stiles. I don't know how to be the alpha without you by my side."
Derek carried on speaking about this and that for a little bit longer before he quietly left, rubbing his hand over my quickly growing hair has he passed in what had to be the closest thing to affection to ever come from the wolf. If I wasn't already unable to speak I would have been speechless.
~_~_~
After that Derek started coming to see me more often. I must have heard him talk more in these past few visits than I have the entire time I've known him. He seems to think that now is the perfect opportunity to get everything off his chest. Everything from Paige, the fire, Kate to how he never should have been an alpha. He speaks as though no one is listening and I guess that what's he thinks. That I can't hear. That I'm dead to the world, trapped inside my own head. I can't complain though. Its pretty much a win win situation. He gets a chance to open up without the vulnerability that it usually comes hand in hand with and I get a chance to learn more than I ever thought I would be able to about old sourwolf here.
I'm not going to lie though, there are times when I wish I could turn it off and just stop listening. When Derek is words away from breaking and I can't help but feel guilty.
If he knew I could hear him he would never of said that
The thought runs around my mind yet again as Derek lets slip another forgotten memory of his long lost family.
He would kill me if he knew I could hear
I think after he tells me about his hidden worries for the pack.
Why now?
I scream to myself the day he starts talking about mates.
~_~_~
"I know he doesn't understand why I won't, can't, answer his questions but you'd think after so long he'd just stop asking all these stupid mate questions." Derek had been talking at me for over an hour and I'd started to zone out. It wasn't that I didn't care what he had to say, it was just nothing that I hadn't heard before, but the mention of mates caught my attention.
"Even the rest of the pack has learnt to stop asking but as always Scott refuses to listen." the wolf sighs
"Isaac tried to get him to stop, to wait until your're better or go to Deaton for answers, but he wont listen to him either. I don't know what he wants me to say, I've told him pretty much everything I know and the rest he could easily get from the doctor. Yet the questions keep coming.Why do we have mates Derek? Do you have a mate Derek? Who's your mate Derek? How did you know they were your mate Derek? It just never ends. No matter what I do he just won't let it go. He's your best friend Stiles, you must know how to shut him up."
It breaks my heart that he actually pauses, as though he's waiting for me to answer, to do anything.
"Who am I kidding, you probably just talk so much your self that he never gets a chance to speak himself. That's one of the things I lov-" Derek cut himself off ,but I have a pretty good idea what he was about to say. There aren't many other ways that sentence could end.
Derek loves me? What? When did that happen? How did that happen? He hates me.
Question after question run through my mind as I struggle to breath. Of course I'd be the one person who could have a panic attack whilst in a coma. I tried to focus on my breathing but it was hard with all these new thoughts flying around my head and the loud beeping of the heart rate monitor playing in my ear. As soon as my heart rate picked up Derek was on his feet and out of the door shouting for help. Of course he noticed the changed rate before the monitor had. By the time he came back, a startled Melissa McCall at his side, I was almost fully unconscious.
I could feel my brain going in to the same state as the rest of my body and I knew once my mind goes there's no coming back so I have to fight. I have to fight for my dad, for Scott, for the pack, for Derek. But its hard and quickly becoming harder and I soon begin to debate whether I should just give up or not. But then I think of the way my dad had sounded when he spoke of losing me, the way Derek had sounded when he spoke of the pack, of his family, of me and I know that I have no choice. I have to keep going, if not for me then for them.
I can hear several pairs of feet rushing to help me and the doctors hurried words as he commands those around me. I can't make out his words, not anymore, everything is just noise and every noise hurts. One sound stands out over the rest but it sounds far away. As though I'm at one end of a tunnel and its at the other, everything is echoy and faded but if I try I can just make it out. The steady thrum of a heartbeat. Its the last thing I hear before everything disappears.
~_~_~_
For a moment I can't hear anything, see anything or feel anything. I know I should be panicking right about now but I just feel calm. After a moment I realise I can breath again and have been doing so for the past few minutes in my senseless world. As I focus on my breathing everything starts coming back to me. At first it the feeling of the rough hospital bedding beneath me and the cool breeze coming in from the open window. Then the sound of my heart beating steadily on the monitor to my right, the nervous chatter of those stood around me and a voice calling my name. Finally, once I've found the strength to open my eyes, I see the collection of doctors and nurses standing around my bed matching looks of relief on their faces. Its only once I've taken everything else in the room in that I notice the lone figure lurking in the corner and I can't help but grin the moment we lock eyes.
As the doctors and nurses finish checking me over for any lasting injuries before leaving neither of us looks away from each other. My eyes staying on his face whilst his flicker up and down my body in quick strokes as he checks for anything the medical staff may have missed. Obviously finding nothing he slowly makes his way across the room and sits on the edge of the sturdy hospital bed with a gentleness I didn't know he possessed.
His face was more open than I've ever seen it as he reaches towards me, as though he needs to touch me to make sure I'm real. That I've finally woken up and this isn't all a dream for him.
"It's been 2 months Stiles, do you have any idea what you put us all through. What you-"
"Yes."
"-u put your faith- wait what?" and Derek's usual frowny face was back.
"I... I could hear everything you said, what all of you said." I whispered knowing Derek could still hear me. After several moments in which neither of us spoke I continued my explanation.
"I don't know how long I was out before I first woke up, or at least before my mind woke up, but since then I've been able to hear everything. Even today when I almost died I couldn't really hear much but I could still hear a heartbeat right till the end, I'm guessing it was yours."
This time Derek wasted no time voicing his thoughts.
"You didn't almost die Stiles, you did die! Your heartbeat stopped for over 3 minutes before they got it going again, they were seconds away from pronouncing you dead. I'm not surprised you could hear my heart, it was trying to break out my chest from the moment you flatlined. If you had died Stiles, if..." Derek trailed off.
If I wasn't feeling guilty before I definitely was now. Hearing Derek voice break as he spoke before was one thing but now seeing the way his eyes shone with unshed tears was even worse. Ii couldn't bring myself to look away though, it felt like we were truly seeing each other for the first time.
I reached out as far as I could from where I was prompt up against a giant pile of pillows towards Derek counting on him to close the rest of the gap between us. He moved further up the bed without any hesitation and leaned down until his face was inches from my own. Balancing on one hand Derek placed the other on my cheek, cupping my face and bringing it just that bit closer to his.
We were now so close that every breath he took tickled my nose and I had to fight off the urge to sneeze because how embarrassing would that be. I finally get the chance to have my first kiss, with the hottest guy in town no less, and I go and sneeze in his face. Yeah, That's not going to happen. So before the risk of me sneezing and ruining the moment got too great I pulled him towards me and closed the small gap between our lips.
It wasn't amazing but as first kisses go I think it was pretty good. There were no fireworks, no magic or any sparks just the light pressure of his lips against mine and the slight clash of teeth. It just felt right, natural, and I'id rather that than any off that other crap any day. And anyway we'd have plenty of time to practice because if I was right, and lets face it I'm always right, Derek is going to be stuck with me for a very long time.
"Hey Derek?" I broke the kiss but didn't move away leaving enough room so we could talk but I could still feel Derek's lips against mine.
"What?" Derek responded gruffly chasing my mouth as I moved away.
"Who's your mate Derek?"
"Shut up stiles." he whispered before sealing out mouths back together in a much fiercer kiss than the previous. Looks like he's finally found a way to shut me up that's beneficial to both parties.
The End
Hey so I was listening to Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds when I wrote this so if I had to say what inspired it then I would have to say it was that song but not hugely. As always I'm sorry for how badly written this is, I had an idea and tried to stick with it and it didn't really go how I wanted but eh, oh well.
Let me know what you think?
If you're lonely like me come chat on Tumblr, I'm HTDBE and 99.5% of the time I follow back.