ECDEMOMANIA

It all started once Derek left Beacon Hills.

Three days had passed after the night when they recovered their parents from the Nematon's roots and the pack hadn't yet heard anything essential about either Jennifer or Deucalion. As far as they knew, Jennifer's body had disappeared and Deucalion had agreed to depart from Beacon Hills without attempting any more mischief. Those were good news, right? However, with the bad guys' departure also came the sudden news from Scott, the pack's new alpha: apparently, the Hale siblings had left town.

When Scott broke the news during one of the pack meetings at the McCall house, most of the team didn't seem at all shocked, the news were to be expected, after all, this town held too many dark memories for the two young werewolves. Especially for Derek, who had somehow gotten right in the middle of it all. Paige, the house fire, Laura's death, the tragic loss of two of his betas and now Jennifer's betrayal… it was way too much hurt accumulated into such a small town.

He understood, Stiles knew all the reason why Derek would want to leave, but he just couldn't understand why it felt like sudden a slap to the face as he watched Scott's lips mouth the truth. It was obviously better for Derek to be away, there was no doubt about that. He did deserve some time off from all the crap of Beacon Hills. In less than a year and a half so much had happened, so much grief, too much trouble, and now that he had his younger sister back and Isaac had found a new leader, it was definitely the right moment to step out. Stiles understood that Derek had left for personal reasons, to escape the madness and protect his sister from the disaster; he knew those were the only reasons. But he couldn't help feeling like he had been abandoned.

Over the past year he had begun to get attached to the grumpy man who enjoyed causing him physical pain. And the growling and the hitting hadn't exactly helped much determining the origin of the erratic feelings either.

He just couldn't really wrap his head around the reasons of this sudden connection, the spark had just lit.

At first he thought that it was only a phase he had created unconsciously by the shock of knowing that werewolves and other mythical creatures actually existed. For a long while Stiles thought that maybe that was what intrigued him about Derek, that he was a werewolf and that he was real. But as time progressed, the feelings grew stronger, they grew even more unclear, and his head began to form excuses and excuses to justify all these new sensations.

He even used his years-old crush on Lydia as a way to hinder his newly found attraction, trying to shove it into a box, concealing it and burying it deep into his mind, trying to ignore the edging feeling on his gut whenever Derek was near. He still wondered if the wolves could notice the slight rise on his heartbeat during those close encounters with Derek.

They were always present, though, the peculiar vibrations he felt for the werewolf, the strange sensation that something was missing from Stiles. It was kind of like the darkness around his heart Deaton had warned them about right before he and the others had died as sacrifices a week ago, the only difference was that his 'affection', this 'sensitivity' he had for the werewolf, whatever it was, couldn't exactly be described as darkness… no, it was more of an anchor. His own reminder that everything was real and that he was still human, it was the token that indicated that he was still able to like someone and get tingles down his spine and shivers on his arms. It felt real with Derek. It was real. He made it all feel true.

That's why, when Scott said that Derek had left, Stiles was immediately struck by vertigo and was forced to lean his back against the closest wall. His heart-beat accelerated and he had no control about how his body reacted, not this time. The twins and Isaac noticed, just like he knew Scott had too, but Stiles didn't care at the moment, the only thing he had to concentrate on was his breathing, aiming to hold back the panic attack that had begun to build up on his chest.

Eventually, after some seconds, he was thankfully able to breathe again, and once his heartbeat stabilized he was finally able to ask his best friend if he knew where Derek and Cora had left to. His new alpha didn't have an answer for him, though. Scott shrugged and went back to talking about pack stuff on an effort to target the werewolves' attention away from Stiles peculiar reaction to the news. But Stiles didn't pay attention anymore, not to anything that was said during the rest of the meeting, his head had gone on and on showing flashbacks about his short time with Derek.

He recalled when he was stuck inside the pool with a paralyzed Derek on his arms, which reminded him of a wet smelly dog for some reason. That time, he remembered, Stiles couldn't stop thinking about Derek's wet clothes and their bodies touching, even though there was an evil lizard circling around them. He smiled at the still-present memory and how his thoughts had been so inappropriate and silly at that time.

Still smiling, not noticing that across the room Lydia had noted his oblivious expression, Stiles remembered that first time that Derek was in his room, when the cops had been searching for him. How a dumb idea it had been to hide at the Sheriff's house being a fugitive of the law. That had to make Stiles important for Derek, didn't it? It must've meant something for Derek to go to Stiles during that time instead of immediately going to Scott. It had to mean something.

That day, Stiles immediate reaction had been shock, for he had imagined Derek in his room many times, yet he had never thought that it would be a possibility. And then, just as he had nervously talked his dad into leaving him alone in his room, he had been shoved against his bedroom door by the one and only grouchy and irresistible Derek Hale.

Stiles' smile widened as he remembered how fast his heart skipped at that very moment and how he had entirely forgotten the fact that Derek could sense almost every emotion that Stiles' awkward body emitted. That flash, though, that tiny instant when he noticed Derek shoot a quick glance at his lips, that moment will forever be tattooed into Stile's memory. He had probably made it up in his overzealous adolescent mind, but he really didn't care, for him it had happened and he knew that it rather meant something. But, what exactly?

"Stiles?" He was suddenly brought back to the present by a familiar voice, "Are you alright? You look completely out of it." It was Lydia, with her hair pulled back into a pony tail, who stared right into his eyes.

It took him some seconds to find his voice back, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, it's just…" he wasn't even sure what was happening to him, so he just smiled at her and nodded his head.

She placed her left palm into his shoulder and grinned, "If you need someone to talk to, I'm always there, okay?"

He nodded again and pulled her into an embrace. "Thank you, I know." They pulled apart slowly, and after some seconds of standing next to each other awkwardly next to the wall, she waved goodbye with her hand and walked away. He watched as the door closed slowly right after her.

Stiles and Lydia had apparently turned into really good friends. During his panic attack the other day, when Lydia had kissed him, he thought that everything would change, that their complicated friendship was either going to end drastically or that it would somehow become awkward. Perhaps maybe his years-old crush on her would take a leap. But none of that happened. It was as if this huge wall that had been standing between them had crumbled to the ground and they could now see each other for who they really were for the very first time.

At first he thought that maybe it had been one of Lydia's hidden abilities acting upon him, but after talking to her about it, they had learned that the feeling had been mutual. And after that day, they had been able to talk to each other without any more hesitation and without any more barriers.

He still wasn't sure if he was ready to talk about his feelings for Derek, though, because he wasn't entirely sure what was happening inside his mind… inside his heart.

"Is everything okay?"

Stiles turned around to find Scott sitting on a couch of the living room.

"I mean, I haven't seen you react like that to anything since… since a very long time." Scott made a gesture for Stiles to sit next to him but he decided to stay standing up.

"I really don't know." He knew exactly what Scott was talking about, "It was just really weird to hear that he is now gone." He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away from Scott, unable to look at him in the eyes, scared that his friend could possibly read his mind. "Everything, it's everything shoved into one spurt of energy that had waited to manifest, it's like the aftershock of my entire freaking out from before." His glare stopped once it met with the living-room window. "You know the thing that Deaton told us about, this 'darkness around our hearts'?" He quoted with his fingers. "I have felt it every second since we came back."

Scott stood up and walked towards his friend, trying to make eye-contact but failing to do so. "I feel it too."

Stiles shrugged, "Yeah well, when you said that Derek had left, even though I haven't seen him since the lunar eclipse, for some reason, I felt like that thing clung even deeper… just a bit, but it felt horrifying. It wasn't pain exactly, panic maybe, it was something worse, it was…"

"Like a desperate cry for help?"

He was forced to look up then, connecting his eyes to Scott's. "Yeah. Something like that." Somehow, though, Scott's words kind of made him laugh, helping his body's tension escape. "Since when do you talk like that, big new alpha?"

Scott also smiled, "Since I'm able to understand." He got closer to Stiles now that the slight strain between the two had worn off. "I felt it too, the darkness, when my dad tried to talk to me the other day, it felt like a piercing of metal that ran straight through me, it reminded me of my asthma." He grabbed Stiles' shoulders and made sure that his friend would hear his next words, "My dad really is an ass."

Both of them laughed then, knowing that, even though it was true, somehow it was amusing. There were still things worth laughing about, Stiles knew that, he just needed to be reminded of them every once in a while. The two of them hugged it out and then they said their goodbyes.

Stiles walked out his friend's house, climbed into his Jeep and headed home, a bit less distressed than minutes before. But the feeling that there was still something inside him missing made his gut tremble and his mind wonder. Where was Derek? And why had he left him in this crazy town without even saying goodbye?

++..++..++

Stiles walked into his house and found it empty. He hadn't really expected his dad to be there, with the entire town gone crazy about the sacrifices and the whole finding-out-about-the-supernatural, the Sheriff had gotten even more responsibilities to carry on his shoulders, and it was his duty to 'legally' find a way to clean it all up. Stiles had been so worried about his father finding out about everything that he hadn't really expected for him to be so understanding about it all. Maybe he was just grateful to finally have an advantage point, now he could continue doing his job with the blinder off, protecting the innocent people of town.

He turned on the lights in the kitchen and left them on for his dad to grab dinner whenever he arrived. He then grabbed a glass of milk from the fridge and headed to his room. Stiles kind of felt dirty from his day at school and from the pack meeting, but he was too tired to even take a shower and his homework could wait until the morning.

Still dressed, he jumped into bed and kicked off his shoes. His eyes were beginning to give out and he didn't even get an opportunity to slide under the covers when he drifted into sleep.

He had been too tired to even remember that, since the night of his sacrifice, he could no longer sleep.

He didn't notice how long his serene sleep lasted, but it wasn't long until the aura around him grew dense and eyes began lurking around the darkness, forcing him awake.

Every night since had been the same routine, always worsening slightly and lasting longer. The longer he kept his eyes closed, the longer and more desperately his heart would throb and his breath would hastened. And once he was aware, once he opened his eyelids in the middle of the dark, out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed shadows shifting. Stiles felt an urge to turn and look at the shapes that formed around him, but a slight fear clung to his stomach, a harbinger that begged him to resist the impulse. He couldn't handle it anymore. He felt like he was melting and the space around him only closed in on him, making it harder for him to breath and more difficult to ignore the creatures that slid around him. With his arm, he looked for his nightstand, not daring to move his eyes from their focus on the window, and he flicked on the lamp... A cloth of yellow engulfed his vision.

The shadows suddenly disappeared and he could now start to breathe. It was then when he noticed that his clothes were damp once again and his hands had continued to tremble.

It took him minutes to calm down enough to stand up and walk to the bathroom.

He stared back in the mirror that hung above the sink, almost not being able to recognize his own reflection. His eyes were red and his lips were dry, he didn't think it was possible for his complexion to look paler than normal, but damn, he resembled a ghost! He looked down and turned on the warm water, splashing his face and rubbing his palms against his sweaty forehead. He then changed clothes and walked over to his desk.

Stiles knew that it would be impossible to go to sleep now, not after that freak out; he didn't want to go through that again. He looked at his wrist watch, 2:48 am.

He sat there for a while, just staring at the open window and admiring the moon… "You little bitch."

He spent an hour doing his homework, and by the time it was 4 he had run out of productive things to do. That's when he decided to clean up his mess of a room.

He began by taking down all of the articles and photos and sticky notes he had hung on his wall from the whole Darach/Jennifer investigation he had tried to solve for the past weeks. He figured he wouldn't need that anymore, so he scooped it all up into a trash bag and threw it out his window, thinking he would take care of it later before going to school. Maybe burn it all. He didn't want to think about it anymore, it all just reminded him of… yeah.

Stiles then began to clear his desk. There were books and reports and printings from the bestiary of the Argents all neatly disorganized. He was separating all the library books, figuring that he would need to urgently return all them back, when he spotted the ripped piece of paper that rested on top of a book. White Fang. It had been on Scott's summer reading list and he had been insisting on Stiles to read it for weeks, he hadn't even gotten a chance to open the damn thing.

A bit befuddled by the unknown handwriting, he took the ripped notebook page and began to read.

I'm sorry we didn't get to say goodbye, me and Cora figured that the quicker we left the easier it would be for everyone. It was kind of a rushed decision.

Peter insisted that I should only tell Scott about our departure so he would inform the others, but it felt unfair to not tell you as well, since you've been there since the beginning of all this. We are leaving.

We're not sure if we are ever coming back, we just felt… I just felt like I needed a break. Too much has happened… you know all about that.

I'm also sorry about all the trouble that I've caused, I know that I haven't been a great alpha, I never was meant to lead, it all just happened. And I'm sorry for what Jennifer did to you and your father, I hope you know that I had no idea about who she really was, I never meant for your father to get hurt either. All that stuff you told me the other night at the hospital, you were right. I'm sorry.

Anyways, Cora is waiting in the car and we have to get on going, I still have to go meet Scott to talk about all this.

Don't get yourself in trouble, alright?

- Derek.

He re-read the note twice. Could it be true? Had it really been Derek the one to write this? He hadn't seen Derek's handwriting before, it looked so... neat. Stiles would expect the angry wolf's writing to be... well... at least messy, not at all what was shown before him. If it hadn't been Derek, then who might've written the note? Nobody would be that cruel. It must've been Derek. That means… it was Derek. Derek had been in his room. Derek had left a note on his desk right before he had left. He had said goodbye to Stiles….

A wide involuntary smile crept across Stile's face, and he couldn't help to hold on tight to the sheet of paper, trying hard not to wrinkle it. He sighed and looked towards the open window; the moon was still hanging on the sky. That's when the idea hit him.

It was stupid, he knew that, and he had resisted the urge to do so the entire day, but now that he had just read Derek's goodbye he couldn't fight the urge… or more likely, he didn't care about the outcome anymore. He leapt (yes, literally dove) into his bed and grabbed his phone from his nightstand. He went immediately to his messages and began to write.

Hello there, Sourwolf. So I just read the little note you left on my desk, I hope you and Cora are alright wherever you might be. I must admit, it kinda freaked me out when Scott told the pack earlier today about your departure, I didn't even notice the sheet of paper on my desk until literally minutes ago. Anyways, I just wanted to say hi and I hope that everything's alright.

He paused right before sending the text. He read over the message three times before finally being satisfied. With a slight tremble in his chest, he clicked send.

Stiles waited, lying on his bed. He counted the seconds after a while of fidgeting around with his own hair, getting slightly bored. Once he got to three hundred and seven, he decided that Derek wasn't going to answer after all and the smile that had been lingering on his face had worn off. Maybe Derek didn't care about Stiles after all. Maybe he read the text and decided to ignore it. Maybe the letter he had left on the teenager's desk had actually been an official goodbye. What if Derek had left his phone at Beacon Hills? What if he had decided to leave everything and everyone behind… everyone, even Stiles.

His reverie was suddenly interrupted by his phone vibrating on his belly. He picked it up hastily, still lying down, almost dropping it on his face as he saw the little picture of a black wolf on the phone's screen. Stiles opened the message, a bit disappointed by the little amount of text shown, but still quite excited.

Stiles, you do realize it's 4:20 am, right?

He tapped "reply" and typed as fast as he could.

It's just that I barely found the note, I felt like I needed to tell you that… so yeah. Sorry to bother you.

He clicked send and a message came back in less than a minute.

I left that note last night, what do you mean you just read it?

Shock ran through his body as the words sunk in. He typed the next words anxiously, not really sure if he wanted to get an answer to his question.

What do you mean last night? You were on my room last night? Like, at night?

You make a lot of noises when you sleep.

Those are called nightmares, I haven't been able to sleep a lot lately, that's kind of the reason I'm texting you at 4:30.

What do you mean you haven't been able to sleep lately?

Yeah well, not since all the crap that went on, you know…. It's all so weird. It's as if every time that I finally feel like I can close my eyes and catch a breath, there's something pushing me over the edge once again, ready to make me tumble.

Stiles knew that that was probably much more than Derek cared to know about, but he needed to tell somebody about it, and it just felt right to let someone else know about his strange case of insomnia. Every time he tried to bring it up with Scott he felt as if he were whining about it all, as if he was weak, and he surely couldn't tell his dad. Not at the moment. So he sent the message, not really sure about what to except.

I'm sorry about that, Stiles. And I understand.

Stiles couldn't help but grin. There was no way to know if Derek was being honest or if he felt pity for Stiles, but he didn't care, it was exactly what he needed to hear.

So, Derek, why are you awake?

I felt like going for a run.

At 4 in the morning?

You can't help what you feel, Stiles.

He actually giggled at the response.

Who knew you could be humorous.

There's many things you don't know about me.

Oh, really? Tell me one of them.

Like what?

I don't know, anything. What's your favorite color? I would guess it to be leather, since it's what I always see you wear.

Leather is not a color.

You still wear it a lot.

Red. My favorite color is red.

Really?

Yes, really.

I wear red a lot.

I know.

Like that time with the kanima and the pool, do you remember? I was wearing only red… and I was also saving your ass. I actually do those things a lot, wearing red and saving your ass.

I remember, Stiles, and thank you; I never got to thank you for that.

Yeah well, don't worry about it, that's what I'm there for.

Stiles didn't get a text back after that. He looked over to his alarm clock, it was 5:00, he still had an hour to kill before he prepared for school. He thought about going over to his desk to finish clearing it from his mess, but decided to grab Scott's copy of White Fang instead and begin to read it.

Satisfied about his conversation with Derek and his not-so-boring-book-recommendation-from-Scott, he headed to school at 7 without thinking to eat breakfast.