For omens' prompt of, "someone can't sleep without a night light" on DW. This plot bunny had very sharp teeth. Wrote it in one sitting.
Warning: Description of a minor panic attack (haven't had one since I was eleven, so I apologize for any inaccuracies).
"It's just a habit," Stiles tells Scott whenever it comes up. Usually Scott will be sleeping over and will tuck his sleeping bag between the bed and the window, the little crescent moon glowing peacefully and right in his face. "I forget it's there half the time!"
Scott will grumble and make some comment about Stiles being a complete baby and Stiles will amend, "And when I say half the time I mean all the time."
The subject will move on after that, because Scott doesn't know a time when Stiles didn't sleep with a night-light on.
Stiles had actually graduated from the night-light a couple months before his mom died. They'd even had celebratory cookies and milk after he'd slept the night through without knocking on his parents' door with a whine about the shadows coming to get him.
After she died the shadows followed him around during the day. And he remembered the rabbit-fast battering of his heart in his chest, like the scramble from his room down the dark hallway to his mom's side whenever he had a nightmare, and his dad would find him, time and again, choking on his own breaths. And he would hold Stiles' hands and tell him to listen to his breathing - in and out, slow. And after two months of panic attacks, Stiles found the night-light in the basement, feeling only a twinge of guilt when he plugged it in and he could breathe better, having kept the shadows at bay if only so he could sleep.
Now, the shadows are real. Things may actually be out to get him, and he knows deep down that a stupid glowing moon plugged into his outlet won't save him. But it's just a habit, after all, and if he can sleep better after doing all the werewolf research that Scott should be doing, or trying to help his dad solve a case that's beyond anything he can comprehend, then screw it. He's sleeping with a damn night-light on.
He's rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands one evening, spread eagled on his bed and feeling exhaustion pulling him in when Derek leaps through the window and lands unceremoniously on his carpet with muddy sneakers. The fear lasts only a millisecond but it's got him plastered against his headboard until Derek straightens up and adjusts his leather jacket with a swift tug. He looks like a fucking Abercrombie model in the low lighting. Stiles takes stock that he doesn't look like a scary supernatural monster, even if he is one, so Stiles doesn't have to worry. That much.
Stiles lets out a shaky breath. "Oh my God - warn a guy, will ya? I could've been jerking off!"
Derek's eyebrows tell him in great detail what he thinks of Stiles, and Stiles wonders briefly if Derek would've been able to smell him were that the extremely embarrassing case.
There's silence for a moment. For a couple moments, actually, where Stiles believes Derek's allowing him to stew in the hypothetical mortification before the werewolf says, "I was going to see if you could research some folklore for me."
"Yeah, well, no, I couldn't," Stiles says, irritated and flopping back into a sprawl across his bed. He ignores the fact that Derek is still standing there.
He's been doing that a lot, lately. So much so that Stiles has taken to leaving the window open for fear that Derek might just crash through the glass if he's so inclined. Every other night, it seems he's flying in through the window and making himself comfortable and making Stiles do whatever bitchwork he bids when he could go to the local library to find out for himself.
Stiles throws an arm over his eyes while he contemplates Derek's potential inability to use a computer. "It's three a.m. and I'm sleeping," he adds.
Derek stays where he is. And then, with a laugh, "How the hell can you sleep with that thing on? And when I thought you couldn't get more pathetic!"
Stiles bites his lip and opens his eyes. Derek is indeed pointing at the night-light.
Goodbye, sleep, Stiles thinks, and then sits up with a falsely guileless expression on his face. "It's just a habit," he mutters. "I forget it's there."
"Oh," Derek replies with another quirk of his eyebrows. "So you don't need it."
"Nah," Stiles says with a wave of his hand.
He's walking closer now, and Stiles knows this could quickly spiral out of his control.
"So, what if I unplugged it?"
The "Sure, whatever!" is out of his mouth before he can stop himself, the odd sense of social self-preservation winning over his wellbeing.
Derek unplugs it, and it's dark as pitch as suddenly as Stiles' heart starts battering around in its cage like it wants to jump out of his throat, and he's sweating and he can't catch his breath, and he can't see and he knows there's nothing wrong—not at this very moment—but he can't stop from scrabbling at the sheets as he starts to hyperventilate.
"What the—" Derek's voice cuts through the haze of panic, and then the bed dips and Stiles feels light-headed and then Derek's hands grab his. "Stiles. Stiles, breathe. Can you hear my breathing? Come on."
Stiles listens, shuddering with the effort not to gasp in a lungful that won't fill him up enough.
"Come on, Stiles," Derek says.
Stiles listens harder, distantly recognizes that Derek's wrapped one of Stiles' hands around his own wrist. Stiles can feel his calm heartbeat.
It takes a while. It always takes a while. But, Stiles doesn't go into another panic like he used to if his dad didn't get to him fast enough. Derek doesn't let him.
"I'm…" Derek begins, once Stiles' heart steadies.
Stiles swallows and pulls his hands from Derek's, wrapping them around his knees and opening his eyes.
The night-light is plugged in again, so Stiles can see Derek looking worriedly at him.
"Worried wolf," Stiles says after a moment, and Derek looks a little more like himself when he glares at him.
"Sorry," Derek says. Stiles can tell he's trying to sound not-sorry, but he knows better.
"It's fine. I didn't exactly set you up for success."
Derek lets out a gust of air.
"I didn't know it was gonna happen, though. It hasn't happened for a year or so."
"It's happened to you before?" asks Derek.
"Yeah."
Silence.
"You did the right things, which is way cool. My dad didn't know what the hell he was doing the first time it happened."
"My sister," Derek says, "helped me through a couple panic attacks after our house burned down. She always knew what to do."
Stiles' eyes widen, because this is not actually happening, is it? "Wow. Sharing time," he replies.
"Shut up."
"Shutting up."
"You look less like a ghost now."
Stiles rubs his cheeks. "It'll stay with me for a while longer, though."
"What helps?"
Stiles snorts. "For some odd reason, I don't think you'd be amenable."
Derek rolls his eyes and growls, "Try me."
Five minutes later, Stiles finds himself under the covers, spooning with a werewolf as he stares at the little night-light.
His eyelids are getting heavy when Derek mutters behind him, "It's actually really dumb that your night-light is a moon."
Stiles laughs, partly to shake off the shiver that rolls through him when Derek's breath ghosts over his ear, and partly because he knows. Oh, heknows.
"Destiny," Stiles warbles out, laughing more when Derek squeezes him likely in the effort to warn him of potential doom if he doesn't shut up. What really happens is that Derek just hugs him closer.
"Go to sleep, Stiles," Derek mutters, nose poking into the nape of Stiles' neck.
Stiles smiles, and right before sleep takes him he mumbles, "Worried wolf."
A/N: Hope you enjoyed! This was my first TW ficlet, so any constructive criticism is welcome!