***The common thing I tend to see is that Stiles' mother died after a long, serious illness. However, I'm going for personal therapy through writing today (I find one of the worst sounds in the world to be that of a car crash, and I saw one today that wasn't serious but my mind won't stop replaying the sound), so I'm messing with common fanon a bit.
Warnings: there will be insider and outsider descriptions of a panic attack here (based loosely on those my friend has been known to have), as well as some non-graphic description of a past fatal car crash.***
There was always a slight sense of unease at the back of Stiles' mind when he drove at night. It never stopped him from getting from point A to point B, but he was almost hyper vigilant during the nights when he absolutely had to drive somewhere. He knew he would never forget that just one mistake could end a life.
He was on his way to the grocery store, hands idly tapping the steering wheel to the beat of the radio. He was almost at the shop when he heard it: the horrific noise of tyres screeching, metal crumpling, glass shattering. A quick glance in his rear view mirror confirmed what he'd already assumed, two cars with crumpled front ends were left strewn across the road.
Stiles felt his heart speed up, his breath immediately starting to come in quick, pained gasps. He fought back the rising feeling of dread, though, forcing himself to stay focused long enough to pull into the parking lot of the grocery store. At the back of his mind, he was aware of the fact that he was most likely quadruple-parked; but as he quickly killed the Jeep's engine, he couldn't keep the panic attack at bay any longer.
His body might have been in the present, safe in his own car, but his mind was trapped in the past as he watched through the eyes of his ten-year-old self, strapped into the passenger's seat of his mom's car. Stiles could hear himself babbling madly about something utterly unimportant, could see his mother smiling as she pretended to listen intently to her hyperactive son.
Her eyes locked with his for a moment, just for one single second, before she looked back at the road. The child didn't recognise the expression her face twisted into as she slammed on the brakes, but seventeen-year-old Stiles could easily tell that it was fear and panic marring his mother's beautiful features.
Horns blared and rubber burned as the car spun in a semi-circle, and then Stiles' ears were filled with the grotesque crunching of metal and glass as a speeding Ute slammed into the driver's side. He hadn't realised it until years later, but if his mother hadn't had the instinctive urge to protect her son by turning the car, he would've been the one who died that day.
The guilt that always flooded him at that thought only made the panic attack worse, and it was becoming harder for him to force air into his lungs. His vision was blurring between the past memories and the parking lot in front of him, and his head was getting simultaneously lighter and heavier.
He'd always managed to avoid having panic attacks while alone through pure luck: Scott had helped him through a few in the past, and his father had been there for the bulk of them. This time, though, he was alone. There weren't many cars in the store parking lot at this time of night, and no one was actually nearby.
That only added to the overwhelming sensation of unstoppable panic. He couldn't breathe, or think, or do anything to help himself.
He was on dry land, but he could've sworn that he was drowning.
Some days, Derek really regretted making a pack out of teenagers. Actually, it would probably be a shorter list if he counted the days where he didn't regret that particular choice, at least a little bit.
Adult werewolves already ate more than regular humans, but teenage shifters were the absolute worst, and his pack was literally eating away his savings. As much as he wanted to tell them to go out and catch their own goddamn food, he was smart enough to realise that they'd been human for most of their lives, and so probably had some issues with tearing into live, raw game when it wasn't the full moon.
As it was, he usually made the betas go shopping, but staying in the abandoned depot was making him restless and so he'd decided to go himself for once. It was late enough at night that no one was going to be around to pay attention to his distinctive Camaro, and the store workers would be too tired and bored to suspiciously watch a former murder suspect.
Carefully steering his precious car around the shards of glass littering the road, obviously remnants from the two damaged cars sitting on the side of the street, Derek could smell the anger and fear leaking from the physically unharmed people arguing beside the cars.
However, the stench of panic didn't lessen as he got further away from the accident site; if anything, it only got stronger and more potent as he pulled the Camaro into the nearly-empty parking lot of the grocery store. Normally, Derek would just ignore it. If he got involved in the problems of every person who reeked of painful emotions, he wouldn't be able to go an hour without feeling like the world's personal psychologist.
He knew this panic, though. He'd smelt it before somewhere, though he was certain it had never been as strong as it currently was.
That was when he saw the beat-up Jeep, parked haphazardly across more spaces than any one car could possibly need. So that was why he recognised the subtle individuality of this particular panic.
Parking near the Jeep, Derek focused on the source of the horrible scent. Underneath the panic, he could hear harsh gasping and a pounding, erratic heartbeat. The pieces fell together as he realised what was happening: Stiles was having a panic attack.
Derek's first reaction was to ignore it, but ever since Scott had tentatively joined his pack, Stiles was in the outer pack circle by association. He couldn't leave the kid to suffer alone, because he was making a concerted effort to be a better Alpha, like Laura would have been. His second, slightly more informed reaction was to call Scott and make him deal with the issue. As he was reaching for his phone, though, he remembered that he'd never cared enough to bother getting McCall's number.
His third reaction was almost going to work out. He figured that one of his betas, any of his betas, would be better equipped to deal with this than he himself was. He'd just started to call Erica when Stiles' heartbeat sped to critical levels, only to begin falling quickly, far too quickly for the kid to be calming down.
There was no time to call someone else. Stiles wasn't breathing, despite the hoarse gasping noises he was making. Derek's protective Alpha instincts finally reached breaking point and he tore out of his car, almost ripping the door off Stiles' Jeep as he leant into the car, quickly undoing the smaller male's seatbelt.
He'd helped Laura through panic attacks before, in the years that followed the fire. Even if werewolves didn't get physically sick, their minds could cause just as much damage as a human's, and the loss of their entire family had been more than enough to provoke some serious mental issues.
He'd been able to help Laura because she was his sister, his Alpha. The physical need to help her had allowed him to wing his way through calming her down, the same need that had him thoughtlessly grabbing Stiles' hand, pushing it down on his own thoracic diaphragm.
The kid didn't acknowledge the movement, his eyes unfocused and chest heaving violently.
"Stiles," Derek growled, before taking his own deep breath and forcibly relaxing his tone. "Stiles, listen to my voice."
There was still no reaction and Derek rolled his eyes, lightly slapping Stiles across the cheek. The jolt of pain brought glazed eyes into focus a little more, and Derek physically turned Stiles' head until he was looking directly into that half-conscious gaze.
"Feel my breathing under your hand and try to match it. I need you to listen to me and do what I say." Stiles was still gasping to no effect, but another light slap made his heartbeat stutter in a way that implied understanding.
"Breathe in through your nose, slowly, and breathe out through your mouth when I tell you." There was the slightest hint of a jerky nod.
"Stiles, breathe in." Taking a slow, deep breath through his nose for about two seconds, Derek pressed more firmly on Stiles' hand, making sure the boy could feel the pattern he needed to follow.
Stiles couldn't get a proper breath the first time, but Derek knew his instructions wouldn't have an instantaneous effect. If this had been one of his betas, he would have let his eyes flash red in an Alpha command, forcing their werewolf minds to obey; but doing that here would most likely have made Stiles, a human, panic even more.
"Hold the breath in, Stiles, as well as you can." Derek counted out two beats, knowing that Stiles was struggling to hold onto his lungful of air. "Okay, let it out through your mouth, slowly."
Another two seconds passed, and Derek told Stiles to wait two more beats before repeating the cycle all over again. It was a slow-going procedure, but Derek's unease at actually getting so close to someone faded away quickly enough. At some point, Stiles' free hand had fisted in Derek's shirt, something the shifter knew he was doing for a physical grounding point. It took Derek longer to realise that his own free hand had migrated, resting reassuringly on the back of Stiles' head.
That was yet another learned response from dealing with Laura, but where his sister had been in possession of long, soft hair, all he could feel from Stiles was close-shaven fuzz.
The kid was slowly heading back to a normal breathing pattern, and Derek made to take his hand away from behind his head. The moment he did, though, Stiles' heartbeat started rising again, and he lost his measured breathing. With a grumble that was more for show than anything else, Derek let his hand rest back in position, quietly talking the younger man back to normality.
Although it didn't take too long to get Stiles out of the danger zone, Derek spent at least ten minutes hunched into the car, making sure that his pack member was going to be okay.
Finally, Stiles' breathing and heartbeat returned to their normal resting rates, and he turned tired eyes on the man whose hands were still touching him. Derek, realising that last fact, quickly pulled his arms back and shoved his hands into the pockets of his customary leather jacket, stepping away to stand properly upright.
"Sorry," Stiles mumbled, exhaustion practically dripping from him. "S'been a while since I've had a panic attack."
Derek just stared, not wanting to acknowledge the fact that it was finally occurring to him that he'd (eventually) wanted to help Stiles as much as he used to help Laura.
"So, uh, goodnight?" A clumsy hand went to the Jeep's ignition, missed the keys by at least an inch, and fell awkwardly to the side. Derek groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Get out."
"Wha'?"
"Passenger's seat. Now."
"…Why? Gotta drive home."
Derek gave up on asking, instead forcibly shoving Stiles out of the driver's seat and across the centre console. "I didn't talk you down from a goddamn panic attack just to have you crash and die. That's a waste of my time."
The kid was obviously trying to glare, but the attack had left him both physically and mentally drained. It looked more like he was about to fall asleep than any sort of anger. "Of course you're only worried 'bout you."
Giving a noncommittal grunt, Derek slid into the Jeep and started it up. Stiles quickly started dozing, sprawled across the passenger's seat, so the drive to the Stilinski household was uncharacteristically silent. It didn't take much effort for Derek to hoist the one fifty-odd pounds of dead weight through Stiles' bedroom window, but he drew the line at anything further than dropping the kid, fully clothed, on his bed.
"Derek…" Stiles whined just as the werewolf was starting to climb out the way he had come. Pausing, Derek waited to see if anything else would come out of Stiles' half-asleep mouth.
There was silence, and Derek shook his head as he restarted his exit. Because of his enhanced hearing, though, he didn't miss the slightly louder comment that carried down from the bedroom and out into the yard of the house.
"Thank you, Sweetwolf."
With an agitated growl, Derek began the long run back to his Camaro, still parked at the grocery store. The whole way, he most definitely did not acknowledge his lack of an urge to tear Stiles into shreds for that stupid, disrespectful nickname.
Goddammit.