A/N: Oops. Sorry I forgot about this for a while. Here's the last chapter. P.S. If you get the chainsaw reference, you're my best friend.
—
The detox isn't fun.
As with most substances, the symptoms are exactly the opposite of the drug effects. Derek has made sure everyone knows to stay away, but it's not, as he let them believe, because he fears they'll fall victim somehow to the animal part of him; it's because he doesn't want to expose to them the human part.
Suffering through it in the burned-out skeleton of his old house isn't helpful in the least. It just reminds him how stupid he was not to kill Peter on sight after the resurrection. His shoulder is healing, slowly, but the skin is sealed over by now, and just the structural damage remains. That'll be a longer process.
The birds sing at him from the trees each day, straight through 'til dusk. When his wolf side manages to surface in the thick, muddled haze of the withdrawal, he can hear the stream behind the house babbling to itself, the constant, murmuring timbre.
Then his human side submerges him again. And he remembers.
He's alone.
Without a pack, yes, practically, because Boyd and Erica left, and he's sure Isaac was about to do the same, and Scott—he should have given up on Scott by now. He just hasn't gotten around to it. But that's only part of it. The terrible solitude. He dealt with it just fine for six years, but he let himself hope, and just like that, all his defenses vanished like mist in the morning.
So it hurts now. He's pissed at himself for that, but it still hurts. Worse because of the detox.
He's sitting on the burned-out bed frame in Laura's room. (Right next to his room. They'd be back and forth all the time, poking their heads in, just to tell the other some dumb funny thing they'd read, or, in his case, to ask for help with schoolwork. It seemed so trivial then. He'd give anything, literally, anything, to have that back.)
"Derek?"
He almost jumps out of his skin.
"Whoa, hey, sorry, I didn't—I mean, I called your name like twelve times—"
"Stiles." Derek goes to stand but can't muster the willpower. He feels like he should be angry at the intrusion—which goes against his express orders—but he definitely can't muster the willpower for that. "What are you doing here?"
"We were getting worried about you." Stiles reaches to put a hand on the doorframe, sees it's a crumbling, charcoal mess, and desists. "It's, you know, it's been three days, and we haven't heard anything—"
" 'We'?" Derek slides forward on the frame, plants his feet on the floor. It's a start. "Who's 'we'?"
Stiles opens his mouth to speak, looks a little dumbfounded. "Well—all of us. Me, Scott, Isaac, and Boyd and Erica just showed up again yesterday, guess they got sick of camping out or something—"
"Oh." This comes as a complete surprise to him, the checking in. He would've thought they'd assume he could take care of himself. After all, he'd done his best to convince everyone of that starting the moment he recovered from the fire. (That's not accurate, he realizes; he'd done his best to convince himself, and convincing everyone else came along with it.)
There's a silence, and Stiles talks to fill it. "Yeah. I got saddled with nurse duty because we all figured I was the one you were least likely to kill if you were still in scary rabid wolfman mode. But, I mean, you look okay." Stiles folds his arms. "No crazy eyes or anything. So, that's good, right? Is it over?"
It takes Derek a moment to break the inertia of the heavy, restless solitude that's been plaguing him the past couple of days, so he leaves Stiles hanging for a few seconds; then he looks over, his voice pitching down to the familiar irritated growl. "Nurse duty?"
"Whatever, figure of speech." Stiles raises his eyebrows. He's apparently become resistant to Derek's intimidation tactics. "Anyway, you were not doing well last time I saw you, and no one's heard from you in three days, so you could be, like, dead or something. So I'm here to make sure you have not yet shuffled off this mortal coil."
Derek breaks the glare, rubs his face. What should he tell them? The words come before he's thought of something. "I think I'll be okay." He discovers as he says it that it's true. It hadn't been, up until this point, had just been some unrealistic state of being he felt he'd never see again; but now it seems simple. Easily within reach.
Stiles takes a few steps into the room. Laura's room. For some reason, Derek doesn't mind. Stiles leans in as if to inspect him. "Hey, your arm didn't fall off after all! Guess that means you don't need a prosthetic one…I was hoping you could get one with, like, a chainsaw extension, so you could—"
"No thanks. I'm pretty attached to this one." He halts and shuts his eyes in mild shame as he realizes the accidental pun he's just made; when he opens his eyes again, Stiles is grinning at him knowingly. Derek tries to growl. "Shut up."
"I didn't even say anything!" Stiles raises his hands in a gesture of innocence. "Jeez, always gotta pick on the skinny little human kid—"
That reminds him. "Stiles."
"Hm?"
"Thanks. For getting me out of there."
He shrugs. "Well, I mean, it's not like there was anyone else—"
"That was really dangerous." Derek rises, finally, gets his feet back under him. "And you don't even like me. So thanks." This feels good, for some reason. Normally, any attempt at thanking Stiles would be grudging at best. But this is the right thing to do. Not just for Stiles. It's mildly embarrassing, actually, that he's so okay with this. He blames the withdrawal.
"Yeah, well, you are a massive killjoy, and you are way too self-important, but, I mean, what you did for Erica and Boyd—" Stiles sighs. "Yes, you're not a total asshole. Okay, I'll admit it. Just wish you'd crack a smile occasionally. And stop being so grumpy all the time. Jeez."
"I'm the Alpha. I'm not allowed to smile." He brushes past Stiles and heads for the stairs.
Stiles is right behind him. "Did you—did you just make a joke? Oh my God. Scott's not gonna believe me."
"If you tell him, I'll kill you." Derek takes the stairs slowly to avoid jarring his injured shoulder. He has half a mind to go visit Erica and Boyd. See how they're doing.
"Wait, you're—" Stiles follows him out the door. "You're still joking, right?"
"Wanna find out?" He grabbed his keys on the way out and he goes for his car, which is sitting in front of Stiles's familiar turquoise Jeep. But the footsteps have stopped behind him, and he turns.
Stiles is hanging back uncertainly, standing on the edge of the porch. Derek waits for an explanation, receives none, prompts him. "What?"
"Damnit," he mutters. "Um, it's just, when Peter was taking you apart, and I was trying to knock you back to your senses, and I said—"
" 'He killed your sister.' " Derek nods. "I remember."
"Yeah. Sorry." He tips his head down, scratches the back of it. "Feels like—it wasn't my place. To bring that up."
"Don't worry about it, Stiles. I needed to hear it." He leans against the side of the Charger.
"Okay." He takes a deep breath. "Sorry, I just—felt weird about that—"
"Stiles. It's fine." Derek folds his arms. "Although you shoulda been gone by then. As soon as Peter showed up."
"You kidding? I wasn't gonna ditch you. That would be a serious dick move." He trundles down the porch steps.
"It was dangerous. You were in way over your head. We both were. You should've left." He turns as Stiles passes, jabs a finger at him.
"Yeah, well, I couldn't leave your poor, confused werewolf ass all alone in the woods with your creepy zombie uncle who undoubtedly had some evil maniacal plan laid out for you. Because you sure as hell weren't getting out of there on your own." He hops into his Jeep.
Derek plants his hands on the hood of the Charger, his keys, hooked around one finger, splaying on the black metal. Stiles starts his Jeep, but he apparently notices something's up, because he turns the engine off, climbs out. "What?"
Derek's having trouble parsing this. "Thanks."
"You already said that, dude."
"You risked your life for me." Derek catches his eye. He needs Stiles to understand. He needs to understand. "And you barely know me."
Stiles shrugs. "I know you well enough to know you were worth saving."
Derek can't meet Stiles's gaze anymore. His eyes flick down to the hood of the car.
"I mean, yeah, you're still occasionally an asshole, but you're actually a good guy, from what I can tell, and, you know, I thought it was pretty important that you made it outta there alive." Stiles is rattling this off with utter nonchalance. Derek is used to making other people cower before him. But he's the one quailing now. Because that's what it is. He can't remember the last time he felt important. But he is, somehow, to Stiles, at least. Despite the constant fuckups, despite the failures, Stiles thinks he's a good person. That he's worth something. Worth saving.
"I guess I never thought of that." Derek pushes himself off the roof of the car and slips inside before Stiles can respond. He doesn't think he could take any more.
Watching the skeleton of the Hale home shrink in his rearview mirror, he finds some new resolution welling up in the bottom of his chest. The drive to be a good Alpha is no longer fueled by attrition. Because he's a good man. (If he can't take his own word for it, he'll take someone else's, the word of a kid who's pretty remarkable himself.) He's got something of value to give here. Something to build. It's time for him to start trusting himself. To do things right this time.
