This fic does start a little bit slower than the others, mostly so I could take plenty of time tormenting poor, sick Derek. I hope nobody minds. ^_^
Chapter Two
The next morning, Derek still has a low-grade fever, but it isn't any worse than the day before. Stiles waits impatiently for Dr. Deaton's call, which fortunately for him comes before school starts. "What's the news, doc?"
"Well, the good news is that it's not meningitis," Dr. Deaton says. "The bad news is that everything came back negative, so we still don't know exactly what we're dealing with here."
Stiles gives a little grimace. "But it could just be a particularly nasty virus, right?" he asks.
"Yes, it could still be mono," Deaton says. "Those titers take a little longer to come back, so I don't have the results yet. Did any of you get a flu shot last year? Because it may theoretically still be protecting you, depending on the strain."
"I know Scott did, because of his asthma," Stiles says. Scott had been a werewolf at the time, but his mother hadn't known it yet, and he had gotten his yearly flu shot regardless. "I bet Erica did, too. But I don't think any of the rest of us would have, and I know that I didn't. Save some for the pregnant and the elderly, y'know?"
"Well, then, I'd say mono is the most likely explanation," Deaton says. "How was he feeling this morning?"
"Better," Stiles says. "His fever was lower and he's been coughing less."
"Okay. Then hopefully it'll pass in a few days. Keep me updated."
"Thanks for everything," Stiles says, and hangs up.
He's glad now for the heavy academic schedule. It keeps him from worrying all day, which to be fair is one of the reasons he did it. He worries a lot, even when there's absolutely nothing to worry about. But it's hard to worry while trying to keep up with Ms. Beaulieu's explanation of Ohm's Law, or Miss Jimenez's lesson on the beginning of the Vietnam War. He keeps his head in his books and notes all day, and then finally heads to lacrosse practice.
He texts Derek a couple of times during the day, and gets responses devoid of both emotion and grammar. 'How are you feeling?' at ten AM is met with just 'ok'. 'Am I missing any good soaps on TV?' at eleven thirty is met with, 'you suck'. Ten minutes later, Derek says, 'going to sleep for a while', so Stiles doesn't text him again until school is actually over. Then he sends him a message to remind him that he's going to lacrosse practice so he won't be home until about four thirty. He gets no reply, and assumes that Derek is still sleeping, so he texts again to tell him there's leftover soup in the fridge if he gets hungry, and not to forget about taking his medication, since he knows that Derek might not think of it on his own.
As Scott had suggested, Stiles just shows up on the field like he tried out with everyone else. "Nice of you to join us," Jackson snipes at him. Stiles ignores him. When Finstock starts going down his list, there are at least four names where he can't read his handwriting, and Scott helpfully volunteers that the scribble that starts with 'S' obviously has to be Stilinski.
"You weren't even at the friggin' try-outs," Jackson protests.
"Yeah, I was," Stiles replies. "Don't know how you could have missed seeing me. I mean, I would have had to be pretty awesome to make first line, right?"
"Yeah, that's how I know you weren't here," Jackson says.
"Blow it out your ass," Stiles says, smirking at him.
Jackson seethes, but since Finstock believes Scott and can't read his own handwriting, he doesn't have a lot of recourse. That, of course, adds a whole new level of violence to the practice. Jackson's learned not to mess with Scott and Isaac, although he sometimes does anyway, but he obviously feels like Stiles is fair game. He's never figured out exactly what went on with Stiles; he assumes he's a werewolf but has better control of his extra strength so as not to draw attention. Unlike Scott, Stiles has never dislocated Jackson's shoulder by accident. And unlike Isaac, Stiles has never dislocated Jackson's shoulder on purpose.
The girls are there, cheering them on from the sidelines, although Boyd, who decided against trying out, has gone home to take care of his siblings. Every time Stiles does something particularly awesome, he walks over to the sidelines and says, "Ladies," which causes Erica and Lydia to both hug and kiss him. Seeing Jackson turn redder and redder each time is totally worth every new bruise he gets.
Stiles decides to shower after practice because he's sweaty and dirty, and the wolves have a much more sensitive sense of smell than he does. Scott and Isaac do the same, so it's past four by the time they leave the school grounds. They've just gotten in the Jeep when Stiles' phone rings. He glances down to see that it's Boyd calling, and grabs it. "Yo, what's up?"
"Man, you'd better get home," Boyd says. "Derek's a lot worse."
"Shit." Stiles feels panic flare up in every inch of his body. He hangs up without saying anything else and says, "Hang on," to Lydia and Erica, who are riding with him. He peels out of the school parking lot in a screech of protesting rubber. The drive from the Stilinski house to the school normally takes about ten minutes; this time he makes it in six, narrowly skating through two yellow lights and leaving Allison's car in the dust.
He bolts out of the car as soon as he's gotten the keys out of the ignition and runs into the house. Boyd's waiting for him, sitting on the steps. "What happened?" Stiles demands.
"I just came straight here from my house and let myself in," Boyd says. "He'd fallen out of bed. I think he was maybe trying to get to his phone? I got him back in bed, but he's really hot to the touch, like burning hot, and he didn't seem to recognize me."
Stiles swears and takes the steps two at a time, skidding into his bedroom. Derek's back on the bed in his human form, again covered with blankets, but Stiles doesn't need to even touch him to feel the fever. He realizes now that the physical stress and pain of lacrosse practice has kept him from noticing Derek's distress. Now it's crashing against him in waves. Derek is pale, his skin beaded with sweat, each breath rasping in his throat.
"Derek," he says, his voice hushed as he kneels down at the side of the bed. "Hey, Derek."
The older man opens one eye and looks at him blearily. "Mmf," he says.
"Open up, gonna take your temperature," Stiles says, and gets the thermometer into his mouth. It comes back at 104.9. "Holy Jesus fuck," Stiles says. "Derek, we've gotta get these blankets off you."
"Cold," Derek protests, his voice barely a mumble.
"Yeah, I know you feel cold, but we've gotta get this fever down," Stiles says, peeling the layers off him. Derek feebly tries to grab the blankets back, but Stiles just shoves his hands away. He shouldn't be able to do it so easily. "Have you drunk anything today?" he asks.
"Tried to," Derek says. "But my throat hurt so bad."
"Fuck," Stiles says. He leans into the hallway and says, "Hey, will someone bring a glass of water up here?" He goes back to the bed, where Derek is shivering. "No, don't shift," he says, seeing Derek about to do so. "I can't monitor your temperature if you shift." Derek lets out a low growl that's really more of a whimper and curls up around him instead.
Scott comes in with a glass of water. "Holy crap," he says. "He looks awful. I haven't seen him look that bad since he got – "
"Yeah, I know," Stiles says. He doesn't need to think about the night that Derek got shot with wolfsbane and nearly kicked off in his Jeep. Those are not helpful memories right now. He grabs the bottle of Tylenol on the dresser and shakes four pills out into his hand. "Get him to take those. I need to call Dr. Deaton."
The clinic's number gives him a recording, but it has an emergency number on it, so Stiles calls that instead. He gets the operator to put him through to Dr. Deaton's cell phone, only realizing after the fact that Scott probably knows it. "Dr. Deaton, it's Stiles," he says. "Listen, Derek's a lot worse and I'm not sure what to do."
"Worse how?" Dr. Deaton sounds as calm as he always does.
"He's not coughing so much anymore, but his fever is really high, nearly 105," Stiles says. "He says he's freezing cold, and he's shivering. He says his throat hurt too much to drink anything, and when he tried to get out of bed to either call me or take his medicine, he passed out and fell over. He was confused and disoriented when Boyd found him that way."
"I'm going to come right over," Deaton says. That has the effect of making Stiles feel both a lot better and a lot worse. Better, because he can turn this over into the hands of a professional. But worse, because Deaton obviously thinks this is something serious. "I'll just need to stop at my clinic and pick up a few things. I'll be there in twenty minutes, okay?"
"Okay, yes, okay. Thank you."
Stiles paces around the room while he waits, and dispatches Scott to update the others. He reminds himself that he has an entire pack to take care of, not just Derek. "I'm going to be right back, okay?" he says to Derek, who just blinks up at him and then curls a hand around his forearm. "Or not," Stiles says, and takes out his phone and calls Scott.
"Uh, you know I'm right downstairs, right?" Scott says.
"Yeah, well, I don't feel like shouting," Stiles says. "Look, you're in charge for the night. There's some sandwich stuff in the fridge. Will you make sure everybody eats something, tell them I'll be up here if anybody needs me and for now just to do their homework like everything's normal?"
"Sure," Scott says.
Stiles puts down his phone for a minute, but then picks it up and dials his father. "Hey, what shift are you on today?"
"Swing," Stilinski says. "I'll be home around eleven. Why, do you need me?"
"Derek's sick, like really sick," Stiles says. "I may need you to pick some stuff up."
"Okay. Just let me know."
Stiles hangs up and runs his hand through Derek's hair. The wolf has curled up around him in search of warmth, even though Stiles can feel the heat radiating off of him. He swallows down his panic, holding it at bay with grim determination.
Dr. Deaton arrives with a bag full of things and comes into Stiles' bedroom with his usual reassuring smile. "Not your best day, hm?" he says to Derek, setting the bag down. Derek murmurs something but doesn't respond. Deaton listens to his heart and his lungs while Stiles tries to calm down his shivering. "When was the last time he had Tylenol?"
"Right before I called you," Stiles says.
"And his fever then was . . .?"
"104.9."
"Then it hasn't really gone down much." Deaton is quiet for a few moments. "He's obviously dehydrated, so the first thing we need to do is get some fluids into him."
"I tried to get him to drink, but . . ."
"We're a little beyond that point now." Dr. Deaton starts pulling equipment out of his bag, including what he'll need to set up an IV. "Derek, if you could let me see your arm."
Derek isn't really listening, so Stiles takes his arm and holds it steady while Deaton slides the needle in. Derek flinches but not with enough force to disturb them. Deaton gets the IV hooked up and hangs a bag of saline on the handle of one of the bureau drawers.
"What's going on?" Stiles asks, frustrated.
"I'll be honest with you, Stiles; I'm not sure. What I'm going to do now is treat this like an illness, probably some kind of high-grade infection." He starts looking through his bag and pulls out a vial of medicine and a syringe. "We're going to start him on a high dose of broad spectrum antibiotics. Hopefully that, along with the saline, will get his fever down. Go ahead and cover him up. We don't want him going into shock."
Stiles nods and pulls the blankets back over Derek, who huddles into a ball underneath them. "Did you ever get that last blood test?"
"The Epstein-Barr titers? Yes, those were negative, too. So this isn't mono." Deaton sits down in Stiles' desk chair. "I've never seen a werewolf get this sick. At least, not from a natural cause. The wolf healing should have fought this off by now, regardless of what it was."
"So if it's not a natural cause, then what is it?" Stiles asks, and swallows hard. "Wolfsbane or something like that?"
"There are a few supernatural poisons that could have effects like this," Deaton says, "but I don't know how one would have found its way into his system without affecting the rest of you. It's possible, of course, but since the illness began, he's stayed here except for the visit to my clinic, and I doubt he's eaten anything that hasn't come directly from you. Which means that the toxin would have to be airborne, in which case you all would have been exposed."
"Okay," Stiles says, nodding. "What, then?"
Deaton hesitates for a second before saying, "Witchcraft is a possibility, although I don't know why someone would have targeted Derek. There are spells you can use to hurt someone from a distance."
"How do we find out?" Stiles asks, frustrated. "I mean, how could we stop them?"
"One thing at a time," Deaton says. "If this is an illness, the treatment should help. If he doesn't feel better by morning, we'll have to consider other possibilities. On the off chance it is a poison, I'm going to draw some more blood to test for the ones I know of. Okay?"
Stiles nods. He runs his hands through his hair, leaving it standing in lopsided spikes, trying not to show how frustrated he is. He knows that Deaton is trying to help, and that being methodical is the best way to go about this. He knows that Derek is tough, and can survive almost anything that's thrown at him. But it's hard to be rational when his lupa's distress is something he can feel in every inch of his body.
"Stiles," Deaton says, "we'll work this out. Okay?"
Stiles nods. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, thanks."
He runs downstairs to check on the others while Deaton is doing a more thorough physical exam, just to check for an infected wound or anything that he might have somehow missed. They're sitting around, eating sandwiches and doing their homework. Scott was apparently removed from the role of stand-in pack mommy because of incompetence, leaving Boyd to make sure everyone was properly fed. This brings a tiny smile to Stiles' mouth. He can just picture Scott staring into the refrigerator and saying, "Uh . . ." until Boyd rolled his eyes and took over.
"Dr. Deaton is starting Derek on some drugs," he says. "Antibiotics and that sort of thing. Hopefully he should feel better by morning."
"But what's going on?" Lydia asks. "I've been doing research and there's only three recorded cases of a lycanthrope suffering from any sort of natural illness."
"That's probably because most people don't bother writing it down," Erica says. "Sheesh, y'all are such babies."
Stiles tries to see the humor in things, but fails to smile. "Well, Dr. Deaton says he's seen it before, particularly because born wolves don't typically get vaccinated against all the stuff humans are vaccinated against. But we've ruled out most of the likely suspects, so he says for now we'll just treat the symptoms and see if that helps."
"What are the other possibilities?" Allison asks.
"Poison," Stiles says, "which he's going to draw some blood to test for. And magic."
Nobody seems happy with those answers, but Stiles wants to get back upstairs to Derek, so they don't have much more discussion about it. He grabs his backpack so he can at least start his homework. Deaton is packing up his bag when he gets back to his room. Derek has fallen asleep again.
"Listen," Deaton says, "I don't want to alarm you, but there is another possibility. This could be some illness he's had all along, but never noticed because his werewolf healing handled it."
"You mean his healing abilities could be failing?" Stiles asks.
"For a variety of reasons," Deaton says, "primarily just because they've been stressed for so long that they're finally giving out."
Stiles chews on his lower lip for a minute, then forces himself to be rational. "I don't think so," he says. "He's gone through some pretty terrible injuries. Peter practically ripped his lungs and his spine out. Then he got shot by Kate twice, the night Peter . . ." He skips over the rest of the incident. He's never been sure of exactly what Deaton does and doesn't know. "If his healing could be overstressed enough to cause the emergence of some genetic or congenital illness, I think we would have seen it by now."
"That's true," Deaton says. "There's an easy enough way to check this, but I didn't want to do it without asking your permission." When Stiles just gives him a questioning look, Deaton shrugs a little and says, "Injure him."
Stiles swallows. He doesn't like it, but it's worth checking out, if only to rule out the possibility. "Yeah," he says. "Okay." He runs his hands over his hair again, then goes into his desk drawer and takes out one of his knives. He's been learning to use a variety of weapons lately, but the knife is something he uses more for utility purposes. He leans over and speaks right into Derek's ear. "Derek. Hey. You awake?"
Derek stirs slightly. "Mm?"
"We want to make sure your healing isn't affected by whatever's going on. I'm just gonna make a little cut on your arm. Okay?"
Derek shifts a little and says, "'Kay," then appears to fall back to sleep. Stiles takes a deep breath and then draws the knife against the back of Derek's forearm. Blood blooms out of the cut, but it closes almost immediately, just as it normally would. Stiles breathes a sigh of relief.
"At least we've ruled something out," he says.
Deaton nods. "Well, he should sleep pretty soundly," he says. "There's a painkiller-slash-sedative in the drug cocktail I gave him. The IV bag will run dry in about four hours. I'm leaving some replacements here; Scott knows how to change them out. Check his temperature every hour. If it goes over one-oh-five, take him to the emergency room. Call me and I'll meet you there."
"I don't think you have admitting privileges," Stiles says, with an almost hysterical laugh.
"They know me there," Deaton says, with a rather enigmatic smile. "But hopefully it won't come to that. I'll call you when I'm up for the day to check on him."
"Okay," Stiles says. "Thanks."
Deaton nods and leaves. Stiles sits and watches the IV drip-drip-drip for what feels like a long time. Derek's sleeping more peacefully now, and there's a little bit of color in his cheeks. Stiles takes his temperature again, and it's dropped back down to 103.4. With a sigh, he takes out his books and starts his homework. It's going to be a long night.
Derek sleeps soundly for several hours, and his temperature drops another degree by the time it's late enough that everyone is thinking about going to bed. Allison texts Stiles at one point asking if he wants company upstairs, but Stiles replies that he doesn't want to disturb Derek with chatter and he's fine by himself. Before he had the pack, he spent a lot of time by himself. It doesn't really bother him.
But it's clear that nobody's going to let him sleep alone or stay up all night. When Scott comes up to change the IV bag around ten PM, the others are trailing upstairs with him. "You look wrecked," he says to Stiles. "Did you sleep at all last night?"
"Some," Stiles says. "I'm okay."
"Why don't we take the night in shifts?" Isaac suggests. "That way nobody will miss out on much sleep."
Stiles opens his mouth to protest, but then rubs both hands over his face and forces himself to face reality. Without chemical intervention, there's no way he can stay up all night. He's bound to fall asleep whether he wants to or not. Derek undoubtedly would not approve of him dosing himself with caffeine and Adderall, and to be fair, if he has to spend the entire night cooped up in his room, his claustrophobia will set in sooner rather than later. "Yeah," he says, "okay, that's a good idea."
There's a quick debate about shifts. There are seven of them and it's eight hours until they have to be up for the day, so everyone's shift will last about an hour and ten minutes. Lydia volunteers to take the first one, since she's not tired enough to sleep yet. Scott will by necessity get the one in the middle, since Derek's IV will need to be changed out again at that point. Stiles takes the last one, since once he's gotten to sleep nobody will want to wake him, but he says he'll trade if he wakes up on his own. The others draw straws and settle down into a pile on the floor. Stiles makes himself some herbal tea and takes his melatonin. It works about as well as it usually does, and ten minutes later he's crawling underneath the blankets next to Derek.
It feels strange to sleep with the other man in his human form, since Derek prefers to sleep as a wolf and Stiles long ago got used to using him as a pillow and/or teddy bear. He lies on his back and blinks sleepily at the ceiling until he dozes off.
He does wake twice during the night – once after a nightmare and once when Isaac is shuffling Derek to the bathroom – but falls back to sleep both times. Allison gently shakes him awake when it's time for his shift. "I'm just going to stay up," she says in a low voice, with that sweet smile of hers. "Gonna go take a hot shower."
"How is he?" Stiles murmurs.
"Still asleep," she says. "But his fever's a lot lower. 101.4, almost back to normal."
Stiles breathes a sigh of relief. "Okay," he says, and climbs out of bed. Allison leaves to take her shower. He sits down next to Derek and sees a stack of post-it notes that someone has taken off his desk. The others have written little notes during their shift. Lydia obviously started the trend, since she had the first watch. Her neat handwriting states, "10:22 PM, all quiet on the Western front. Some coughing, not too bad. Don't worry, Stiles, I'm sure he'll be fine in a day or two."
In between the medical updates like, "1:05 AM, woke up for a while, needed to use the bathroom. I had to help him but he was pretty steady on his feet," in Isaac's neatly packed handwriting and "2:15 AM. Temp is 102.1. Seemed to be having a little trouble breathing so I propped him up a bit with an extra pillow. That helped a lot. Always helped me too. :)" in Scott's scrawl, there are bits of encouragement like, "looks a lot better now than he did earlier, the meds sure are helping" and "he's going to kick my ass when he finds out how many pictures of his pathetic face I've taken" and lastly, "I hope he gets better before one of us needs to give him a sponge bath, yikes".
Stiles can't help but smile at the reassuring antics of his pack. Since everything seems to be stable, he starts thinking about food. Derek's face looks narrow and gaunt, and Stiles can almost see the weight he's lost. He knows that the healing process takes a lot of energy, that the wolf typically eats more to compensate for it. He's seen all of them gorge themselves after injuries, even routine ones like the ones received at lacrosse practice. Derek's burning off too much energy but not replacing it.
So he goes down to the kitchen and makes a family-sized pot of oatmeal, adding in extra brown sugar, ginger, and nutmeg. His father is still asleep, so he takes care to do it quietly. There isn't a lot else to eat at the moment, so he hopes nobody is too hungry. He dishes up a bowl and goes back up to his room.
He hesitates for a moment before waking Derek, not wanting to disturb his rest, but the man has been sleeping for what seems like three days straight now. He needs food more than sleep. So Stiles gives his shoulder a gentle nudge. "Hey," he says. "Hey, you. Wake up. Breakfast."
Derek's eyes flutter open, and he blinks a few times when he sees Stiles, mumbling something incoherent before waking up enough to say, "Time is it?"
"About five thirty," Stiles says. "How are you feeling?"
There's a pause for self-assessment. "Better," he says. "Throat's still pretty sore." He leans over and coughs a few times. "I ache less, though."
"God knows you're on enough painkillers to tranq an elephant," Stiles says. "Maybe even a were-elephant."
Derek rolls his eyes.
"Breakfast," Stiles says, and holds out the bowl. Derek looks at the oatmeal and sighs. "C'mon, it's got ginger and nutmeg in it. Think of it like an extremely smushy gingersnap cookie."
"That would be really compelling if I could smell anything at all," Derek says, rubbing his hand across his nose. "Eating just seems like too much effort."
"Yeah, yeah," Stiles says. "I've been sick, you know."
"Don't know how you stand it," Derek says. "Jesus. Being human must . . . suck."
"Eat your oatmeal," Stiles says, amused despite himself, and Derek groans but obeys. His hands are shaky, and Stiles has to support them several times, but he manages to get by well enough without actively needing to be fed, which is somewhat of a relief to his pride. By the end of the bowl, he seems to have realized how hungry he is, and eats a second one without prompting while the others are getting up and getting ready for school.
"You know," Lydia says, as she applies her makeup, "you should probably go to school, Stiles."
"Fuck that," Stiles says. "I went to school yesterday and the genius here didn't eat or drink or take his medicine all day."
"Do you even know how to change out the IV?" Scott says, checking to see how much medicine Dr. Deaton has left them.
"No, so you'd better show me," Stiles says.
The others look at each other and exchange some eye-rolling glances. Then Erica says, "Look, Stiles, why don't I stay home with him today?" She sees him open his mouth to protest and adds, "I miss school all the time; nobody will bat an eyelash. The teachers all have specific instructions about letting me make up my work and shit. It's not so easy for you."
"Yeah, but . . ." Stiles says, squirming.
"On top of that, you've got a way heavier schedule than I do," Erica says. "Come on. Do you even have a study hall?" she asks, and he shakes his head. "Didn't think so. Let's sum up. I'm taking economics. You're taking pre-calc. I'm taking earth sciences, rocks for jocks. You're taking level one physics. You shouldn't miss a day if you don't have to."
Stiles hedges for a minute. He doesn't want to leave Derek, but Erica has a real point about the difficulty of his classes. He looks at Derek. "Would you be okay?"
"Don't leave me alone with her, are you crazy?" Derek asks, and when Erica leans over and ruffles his hair, he manages a wan smile and says, "I'll be fine. You go to school."
Seeing that he's on the fence, Erica says, "I'll text you every hour to let you know how he's doing. And text you if anything changes. And before you ask, I already know how to change out the IV and do all that stuff. I've seen it done a zillion times. No worries."
"I guess it'd be okay," Stiles says. He really doesn't want to fall behind on his school work if he can avoid it. And although he doesn't want to say this out loud, if things get worse, he's definitely going to be missing school, so he may as well attend while he can. Before he can say anything else, maybe give Erica specific instructions on exactly how often she should be texting him, his phone rings. He sees that it's Dr. Deaton and picks up.
"How's Derek doing this morning?" Deaton asks.
"Definitely a lot better," Stiles says. "His fever is down to 101.4, and he says he feels better. I got him to eat some breakfast, too."
"Okay, good," Deaton says. "I'm going to run over in an hour or so to check on him and give him another dose of the antibiotics. Will you be home?"
"Erica's going to stay with him today so I can go to school," Stiles says. "She'll let you in. Shit, I probably owe you a ton of money for all this stuff, don't I."
There's a slight pause, and then Dr. Deaton says, "You don't have to mention this to Derek, but actually his parents made sure that any care he needed would be covered in their will. So you don't need to worry about that."
"Oh," Stiles says. "Okay." He decides that he'll hold off on talking about that until Derek is feeling better. "Oh, hey, did those tests come back?"
"For the supernatural poisons? Yes, all negative," Deaton says. "Since he's responding to treatment, I'm not going to change anything right now. But, well . . . let's keep an eye on him. I still can't conceive of any natural disease that could have affected a werewolf like this, and if magic is involved, things could change quickly."
