Forget Me Not
Summary: "Please come back to me," he whispered before leaning down to place a soft, chaste kiss to Stiles' forehead. After Stiles wakes up from a coma he doesn't remember anything, not even his boyfriend, Derek. Through lots of patience and gentle coaxing Derek plans to bring back all of Stiles' memories. STEREK. AU.
Disclaimer: Don't own. Just dreaming.
[Prologue]
The whiteness to the room was overpowering. The walls were white washed. The linen on the bed, white. Even the fucking floor was white. And that methodical bleep! It was driving Derek insane. He sat in a hard cushioned chair, watching Stiles' chest rise and fall, slowly, so slowly. He wasn't taking the breaths though, a machine helped him breathe, helped him survive, live. It was painful to look at the kids face, his eyes had deep shadows underneath them, blue-black, the colour bleeding down his cheeks where little blue veins webbed under his skin.
Drips were shoved into his arms, their tangled line of cords hooked up to various machines that were there to keep him alive. Derek shifted in the uncomfortable chair, his feet squeaking on the polished ground, and ripped his eyes away from Stiles' chest. Watching him breathe wouldn't bring him back to the living. In fact, Derek could do very little to bring him conscious.
It was only when Scott shifted from the doorway that Derek looked fully away from Stiles. Focusing instead on the other wolf.
"How is he today?" Scott's voice was quiet, as if he might risk waking Stiles up if he used a normal volume. But they both knew that that wasn't the case. Stiles was deep in a coma, lost to the outside world.
Derek felt his eyes retreat back to Stiles' chest, where he watched it rise and fall again. "Same as yesterday and the day before that. Same as always." He didn't need to say more. The hospital staff hadn't been optimistic. But Scott and Derek held to hope, tightly, they clung to it desperately.
"What have the nurses said?" Scott wanted to know as he stepped fully into the room. His eyes lingered on his best-friends pallid appearance briefly before he pulled his eyes away and looked at Derek. Both of them refused to acknowledge the presence of the bandage wrapped snugly around Stiles' head, stained pink from not being changed that day, and hiding the wound the weapon he'd been hit with had made. They ignored it, fitfully.
"Very little." Derek said, shortly. He wasn't in the mood for one-hundred and one questions. Clearly Scott picked up on his feelings on the matter, for he stopped his questions and sat down on the chair on the other side of Stiles.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the bleeping of the machines and the sound of Stiles' breathing machine pumping air down into his lungs. Stiles looked vulnerable. With tubes coming out of his mouth, needles in his veins, and the tips of his toes not even touching the end of the bed. He looked absolutely defeated also. Sickly, pale, drawn and not like the Stiles both wolves knew.
He'd been in the hospital for almost a week; six days and seven hours to be precise. He had been unconscious when the ambulance had arrived, unresponsive and quiet, so fucking quiet. It wasn't like Stiles to be quiet. But he had been. Derek shut his eyes for a pause, trying to clear away the image of a limp, bleeding Stiles laying in his arms. The police were still working on finding whoever had attacked Stiles. Derek wanted to track the bastard down and rip his throat out with his teeth, but that would involve leaving Stiles' bedside. And he had slept at the hospital for six nights, he wasn't about to break his streak.
Scott sighed, breaking the silence and causing Derek to open his eyes. They both went back to staring at Stiles. Derek at his chest, Scott at his hand, as if hoping that his fingers might twitch and that he might subsequently wake up. Neither of those things happened in the hour the two wolves sat with Stiles. They stayed in silence, the only sounds were nurse's voices floating down the corridor and the insistent bleep of the machines.
"I've got to go," Scott had said around 6pm. It was growing late. Derek nodded to show he had heard the words, but didn't drop his eyes from Stiles' chest. "I'll see you tomorrow." Scott added, and then he was gone, but not before touching Stiles' hand lightly and saying goodbye to the 'sleeping' teenager. If only he was just sleeping. Not in a coma.
Derek's heart was constantly twisted in his chest nowadays. Hurting with each breath he took, aching with each exhale. And he knew it was because his boyfriend was lying, barely clinging to life, in a hospital bed.
When a nurse wandered in he perked his head up and watched her check everything, making sure the drips were still in place and had not fallen out, though how could they? Stiles hadn't been moving. Couldn't move.
"Will he wake up?" Derek fired a hard question at the brunette nurse. Her hair was tied tightly into a bun and she was young. Her blue eyes watched Stiles for a moment, jumping over his drawn features.
"Don't keep him here if it's his time to go." Was her reply, and it answered nothing yet told him all he needed to know. Stiles wasn't waking up any time soon. If ever. And Gods if his heart didn't stop twisting into knots he'd end up dead!
"If he did wake up? What then?" Derek wanted to know. He gripped his knees with his hands and stared hard at the nurse.
"If he was to wake up the chances of him having brain damage is very high." Was her short answer, her eyes looked lost and sad and Derek vaguely realised they mirrored his own eyes.
"Would he remember what happened? Who attacked him?"
The nurse's fingertips went white on the clipboard she was holding. "He might not remember anything."
The word 'anything' was delivered purposefully and Derek knew, he got the hint. Stiles probably wouldn't remember him, or anyone. Anything. Would he know that they had been together almost a year? Would he think Derek was a stranger? He didn't think he could handle that.
When the nurse had left Derek got to his feet, taking the three steps to Stiles' side. He pursed his lips and swallowed around the thick lump in his throat and then reached out his hand to touch gently at Stiles' fingers. His fingertips brushed softly over the teenager's knuckles and he frowned heavily at the chill to his skin.
"Please come back to me," he whispered before leaning down to place a soft, chaste kiss to Stiles' forehead. It was a rare show of affection. Stiles had always been on his case about not showing affection properly. If only he could see him now. Tears behind his eyes and lips pressed against Stiles' soft skin. Very close to letting the tears fall, very close to not ever ending the kiss. But he did end it, and he didn't let his tears fall.
He drew back and watched Stiles' closed eyes. They didn't even flutter, they were still and his eyelashes fanned out, little shadows cast onto his cheeks by them.
"I'll be right back." He promised, intent on grabbing a coffee at the small kitchenette down the corridor and returning to watch Stiles through the night.
He let his fingertips leave Stiles' hand and then he was walking from the room. He didn't bother to look back, perhaps he should have done, for the moment his back was turned, Stiles' pinky finger twitched ever so slightly. It twitched and his eyelids fluttered as he stirred to the surface of consciousness.