Chapter One: 58 DAYS; 3 HOURS; 22 MINUTES || Derek


Sleeping.

That's what they'd said. He's just sleeping. But he wasn't. And Derek refused to be patronized. Stiles was gone; dead to the world, just as he'd been for the previous fifty-eight days. He didn't speak. He didn't come up with any sarcastic remarks or any obscure pop culture references. He didn't laugh, and he didn't drive around in his Jeep. He just laid motionless in that hospital for days on end, hanging onto his life by the thinnest thread.

Derek hadn't moved from Stiles' bedside for more than fifteen minutes at a time, apart from the nights that the hospital staff would kick him out of the building and force him away. The alpha only left voluntarily when the sheriff was there, or to take short showers, or to grab small meals. Every once in awhile, he'd drive to the Stilinski House to snatch a movie or a book he and Stiles could dive into. For two months, the werewolf had kept up this routine, the whole time, telling himself that it was his fault Stiles was even there in the first place - injured; and lost in a deep sleep it seemed he'd never wake up from.

"Hey," Derek said softly, tiptoeing into Stiles' room. He closed the door quietly behind him and pulled the chair in the corner of the room over to its usual spot beside the teenager's bed. He then sat down on the mattress and tilted his head slightly to the side, delicately brushing the back of his hand over Stiles' hairline. Derek looked down at him for a moment or two, trying his best to remain hopeful in an attempt to lift his own spirits. Without him being fully aware of it, his thoughts drifted away for a little while, running off this way and that, down dirt paths and scaling city walls. It had to be nearly five minutes later when Derek realized what he'd been doing and snapped himself out of his daze. The book in his arms was placed on the nightstand, and the chair nearby was tugged even closer with his foot. He refocused on Stiles after that, swallowing over a lump in his throat the size of a golf ball.

"Good morning," Derek whispered. The saddest smile was on his lips as he leaned forward to place a soft kiss to Stiles' forehead.

The entire predicament would've been difficult enough for Derek without the overwhelming amount of guilt thrown into the mix. He still would've been torn to pieces, and his should still would've been completely demolished - but at least he could've let somebody else take the hit for the damage done. He could've been angry; could've placed the blame on somebody else's shoulders for once. But no, of course, he'd screwed that up too. The one person other than Derek that was responsible for what had happened to Stiles had been very brutally murdered not thirty seconds after his gun had been fired.

Derek had ripped his throat out.

He couldn't have let him live after what he'd done, even if the bullets that had pierced Stiles' body hadn't been intended for him. Undoubtedly, they'd been intended for Derek, as they'd been fired from the tip of a hunter's gun, and were very carefully laced with wolfsbane. Stiles had jumped out in front of Derek, taking the bullet for him. Miraculously, it skirted right around his lung as it made impact with Stiles' body. It was truly a miracle that Derek had gotten him back to the hospital in time, let alone that Stiles had remained breathing long enough for the doctors to get the fragmented shards of lead out of him.

The whole time Stiles had been in the Operating Room, Derek had sat in the guest area, focusing intently on singling out Stiles' heartbeat. For nearly four hours, he'd sat in one of those chairs, with his elbows resting on his knees and his hair sticking to his forehead in cold sweat. It took everything in him not to scream and to try to stay calm. It was so difficult for him to relax, in fact, that he'd been 101% ready to burst through the double doors at the end of the hallway and bite Stiles in front of everybody if his heartbeat faltered even for a moment.

Thankfully though, it didn't.

Derek pulled away from Stiles, still smiling as he sank down in the chair next to his bed. "Your dad wasn't home, so I grabbed a good one this time." His words were soft, like velvet, and spoken ever so tenderly.

Derek picked up the book off the bedside table, setting it down on the mattress, next to Stiles. "The Outsiders," He stated happily. He looked up at the boy on the bed, half-expecting some kind of reaction from him. It made his heart clench, but he kept on smiling, kept his tone lighthearted, just in case Stiles was listening. "It's uh..." He chuckled darkly and flipped over the book so that he could get a brief look at the blurb. "It's one of my favorites."

The werewolf looked up at Stiles' face once more, his own falling as he did so. He swallowed hard over the now painful tightness in his throat, slipping the boy's hand into his. Derek slowly moved his thumb over Stiles', gazing longingly at his closed eyes, aching to see them open. He carefully brought Stiles' hand up to his lips, ever so gently kissing the back of his palm. He allowed his eyes to fall shut for half a second, then forced himself to smile again as he set their joined hands down on the mattress. Derek's thumb glided soothingly along Stiles' all too cool skin as he onehandedly flipped open the paperback in front of him.

"Chapter One," He began. "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home..."