Stiles and Derek stay at the diner even when Derek is finished talking. Stiles is staring numbly into the nothingness while chewing on his straw, and when Derek nudges his foot he looks up.
"The waitress is giving us frustrating glances, maybe we should go." Stiles looks in the direction of the bar and yes, she's staring grumpy in their direction. He nods and they stand up to leave, Stiles is grabbing his wallet to pay when Derek already throws money on the diner table - how did he get to it so fast? - and nudges him along, towards the exit.
The fresh air does Stiles good when they come outside, it isn't too cold - since Stiles is still wearing Derek's jacket, but since he hasn't asked it back he'll just keep holding onto it. He wants to go home and sleep, because he hasn't slept for a while but the nightmares make sleeping less and less desirable for him. Stiles drives them to his house and invites him in, his dad isn't home and Stiles wonders if that would have made this situation more or less awkward.
"If you need anything just call okay?" Stiles says as he stops in front of the guest bedroom and when he looks at Derek he notices he looks all wrong.
"I'd rather not sleep there." This simply just confuses Stiles, because why would anybody rather sleep on a couch than a good comfy bed. His confused expression doesn't go unnoticed to Derek and he explaines.
"Laura slept here when we were staying at your place, the whole room reeks of her." Oh... shit. Stiles just keeps managing to think correctly before saying or deciding something else.
"Okay, sorry, you just sleep in my room and I'll sleep here." Derek just shakes no with his head, which makes Stiles rethink what he'd said again but coming up blank.
"If you'll sleep there, you'll eventually end up reeking of her because of her lingering scent." Which , also, makes sense, but means that either one of them must sleep on the couch. Stiles does in fact know the rule about putting guests before himself, but damn, the couch sucks to sleep on.
"Stiles," Derek says before Stiles can fully turn around.
"I'm not obligating you to sleep on the couch, I'll just sleep while sitting in that chair of yours."
"Are you sure?" Stiles asks doubtingly but when Derek just simply nods Stiles vastly walks towards his room - because he really does not want to sleep on the couch - grabs his sleeping stuff and locks himself up in the bathroom, getting ready for bed.
It's really awkward. Stiles doesn't know how long he has been trying to sleep but even though Derek hasn't moved in his chair, he can't sleep.
"Derek?" Derek hums so Stiles continues, "I can't sleep with you sitting in that chair." Derek looks grumpily at him but does move from the chair towards the floor next to Stiles' bed and he lies down. Stiles tries to fall asleep again but it still doesn't work.
"Derek..." He says doubtingly.
"Seriously Stiles I can't possibly be bothering you from down here, you can't even see me." Derek answers grumpy, which just makes Stiles decide to shut up and just try to sleep.
He's still lying awake when Derek starts making noise by moving.
"Move," He simply says, Stiles is confused but he moves anyway. The situation gets even more awkward when Derek climbs into bed next to him - and even though the bed is big enough for two fat dudes - he panics just a little.
"Calm down Stiles, the bed is big enough and I'm not going to do anything to you, just sleep." And so Stiles does. He listens to the intakes and outtakes of Derek's breathing and shortly after his last turning around he falls asleep.
The woods. He's in the woods, a faint sound of howling in the distance. It is freezing and Stiles' clattering teeth make a very distinct sound. He doesn't know why, but he is running. It begins to storm and it gets even darker, he runs faster. He is out of breath and hides behind a tree, hoping that he can rest for a while. A thunderous sound startles him and he starts running again. He thinks that he was getting closer to the outskirts of town when he suddenly falls down. As he looks at what he fell down on, lifeless eyes are watching him.
Of course he wakes up to a nightmare, the only thing he didn't expect was to wake up to Derek being there to calm him down.
"Stiles? Stiles! Calm down, you're okay. Breathe." The funny thing is - even though there's nothing funny about nightmares haunting you - that it helps. He focuses on his breathing and looks at Derek - who's breathing with him, and it does in fact calm him down.
After his mother died - and before when her death was coming closer day by day - Stiles used to have nightmares too. His dad woke him from them most of the time but he never really got him to calm down. But Derek calms him down immediately, and even though his tears are still on his cheeks and the nightmare is still in front of his eyes he's thankful.
The nightmares he has about Laura make him think about her death. How horribly disgusting and wrong in every way that it happened like it did, if Peter wasn't already dead Stiles would probably want to kill him. The nightmares also make him panic, because after a while what if he could only remember Laura the way he found her on the ground in the woods. Her beautiful way of talking around things and making the most stupid conversations useful were much nicer to remember her by, but every nightmare more made her lifeless body more permanent in his brain when he thought about her. It scared him.
"Thank you." He whispers, and Derek nods. They're both still on the bed, Stiles is leaning against the headboard and Derek is sitting on the bedside with one feet on the ground and the other on the bed so he's able to look at Stiles.
"I have a feeling that I know what you were dreaming about." Derek says numbly. Stiles decides not to react because he simply just doesn't want to talk about it.
"Did you sleep at all?" Stiles asks Derek as he looks at the alarm clock on his nightstand, it says 4AM - and Stiles is surprised he slept that long because it's the longest he has slept in a while.
"When you fell asleep I dozed off a few times but no, I didn't really sleep." Which makes absolute sense to Stiles, in contradiction with Derek, Stiles' trauma was simply just a minor thing happening, and with Derek... With Derek it's a whole other story. It makes him feel bad, because he doesn't know what to do about it or how to help him through these tough times. That makes him feel stupid, because why would Derek possibly want his help? Before everything happened they never even spoke to each other. How things can change. The whole mindset just makes him think of Laura again. He really misses her. Before she told him that her family existed of werewolves everything was perfect. But she's gone, and Stiles is just going to have to cope without her, just like he's coping without his mother.
He needs to learn to move on without her - just like he had to learn the same when his mother passed away - and he already knows that it's going to be one hell of a job. Nobody's going to like it. Pushing his thoughts away from Laura makes him think about Derek again. Basically that's all his mind does these last few weeks – or rather months. When he's not thinking about Laura, he's thinking about Derek.
Derek's an alpha now, so the next full moon is going to be tough. He's also severely damaged - with losing his whole family - and Stiles really doesn't know how to help him. He'll try though.
"What are we going to do?" Stiles asks Derek.
"I don't know." It's quiet and if Stiles wouldn't be afraid of new nightmares he'd probably be going back to sleep again. A thought comes up to him.
"Derek, aren't you supposed to have a pack as an alpha?" Derek looks at him shockingly but nods.
"Lets find you a pack then." Stiles states. Because what would an alpha be without a pack? Derek lets go of a breath.
"For a second there I thought you were going to ask me to change you." That surprises Stiles, because he hadn't even thought about it himself. But what he says in reply, he finds out he really means. "I like being human, even though I'm fragile and useless and all that stuff. I want to stay human."
"You're not useless." Derek replies. "Anyway I would have thought that you wouldn't want anything to do with werewolves after everything that has happened."
"Well, I am very good at surprises" Stiles jokes. Derek lets go of a little laugh and it's in that moment that Stiles thinks maybe everything can turn out okay.
"Lets go back to trying to sleep, you've got school in the morning." Derek says, and Stiles is pulled back into his teenage high school life which he had totally forgotten about.
"Okay." He says and lays back down. He feels the bed moving next to him and Derek lets go of a sigh. His eyelids are getting heavy and the bed is less cold with Derek in it, so he falls asleep sooner than he'd thought.
When he wakes up the next morning he's surprised about not having anymore nightmares that night. When he gets downstairs his dad's car is already out of the driveway - a few glasses a proof that he had been home at all. Derek is not in the kitchen and the rest if the house sounds too still to Stiles. He has enough time to get to school, so that's what he does. Back to the normal teenage, high school life.
School sucks. Obviously everybody knows that but Stiles has the feeling that with him it's worse. Lydia and Allison keep asking him how he's doing, Jackson keeps looking cocky at him - which makes him rather uncomfortable, and Scott keeps acting like nothing happened - and Stiles hasn't decided yet if that's worse then Allison and Lydia or better...
Turns out when Stiles and Scott walk towards class together, he hadn't forgotten about it after all.
"Okay so I know Allison and Lydia are already bothering you enough with these questions, but how are you holding up man?" Scott starts. The walk towards their class is pretty long - because it's on the other side of the building - so Scott picked a perfectly well time for this subject.
"I'm fine." It's all he's been replying to others as well these days.
"Don't start that shit with me man. Really tell me how you're holding up." It rather surprises him that Scott really wants to know - since he wasn't particularly a fan of Laura. And all Scott could think about the last time they spoke was Allison.
"It's hard but I'm coping." He decides that's the best way to react, to let Scott know that he doesn't want to talk about it. Because if Stiles starts talking about it, it's hard not to start crying. Scott gets the signal and changes the subject to lacrosse. Stiles just nods along, not really interested about the lacrosse Beacon Hills High school team, at least not anymore.
The day flows by rather quickly, and when he pulls up in his driveway - to his surprise - he sees his dad's car parked in front of the house. As he walks inside it's indeed true that his dad is home. Stiles can't remember the last time he has seen him.
"Stiles, would you join me in the living room please." His dad shouts, Stiles shouts a ' in a minute back ' and hangs his jacket up - technically still Derek's jacket.. He still hasn't asked it back. When he walks into the living room his dad is sitting on the couch facing the television while a game of football is playing.
"Hey dad what's up." He sits down on the seat across of his dad so he's facing his dad - paying no interest to the game on television.
"How was your day at school?" His dad asks and Stiles wonders why he ignored his question. "Good." Stiles numbly replies.
"Anything interesting happened?"
"Nah." It's quiet and Stiles realises that his dad is fishing for something that he's doubting to ask about, not really in the mood to lose too much time Stiles decides to give him the easy way out.
"Just ask what you want to ask dad." Doubt disappears from his dad's face.
"I just wanted to know how you've been holding up since... you know since Laura." It still hurts Stiles that every time that he hears her name the image that appears in front of his eyes is the one when he fell on her dead body in the woods. "I'm okay." Stiles says, noticing that his dad doesn't believe him one bit.
"It's just that when it happened I wasn't around to support you... And I've been rather absent these last few weeks. But I don't want to be a bad dad to you or anything." His dad's expression hurts Stiles. He's already working so much and doing his best, Stiles just wants him to take a few days of rest. He wants him to smile a little more.
"You're not a bad dad. And sometimes your work just requires your full attention there's nothing wrong about that."
"Don't make excuses Stiles, you lost your best friend and I was never around to support you." His dad sounds angry, but his face says that he isn't angry at all. At least, not at Stiles.
"I'm okay dad." Again, his dad doesn't look likes he believes Stiles.
"I just want you to know that if you ever need to talk to somebody or need a shoulder to cry on," Stiles blushes, talking about feelings isn't a thing the Stilinski's do very often. "You can always come to me, you know that right."
"Yeah dad I do." He gets up and gets ready to leave when his dad grabs his wrist. Stiles looks down at his face in surprise.
"You really are okay?" Stiles nods.
"Okay son, go do your homework or something." Also a typically Stilinski thing to do, make jokes in uncomfortable or intimate situations. Stiles nods again and just before walking up the first stair his dad calls his name again.
"Stiles. I really am sorry." His dad's back is turned to him, so he can't see his face.
"It's okay dad." His dad turns around and they look each other in the eyes when the Sheriff nods and looks towards the kitchen - an indication that he won't begin talking about the subject again.
"I'm making pancakes in an hour." His dad states.
"If you'll call me I'll come down and help you."
"Okay." His dad replies, before turning his attention back toward the game playing on the television. Stiles walks up to his room and spends the next hour before dinner thinking about the conversation with Scott and his dad while staring blankly at his chemistry homework.
As he gets back up to his room after dinner, he vaguely hears his dad drive away. He was called back to the station just at the end of the dinner, which left Stiles to do the dishes. The house is quiet again so the shade of someone in his room startles him. Of course it's Derek and that realisation immediately calms him down again.
"You could always use the door you know." Stiles states sarcastically. "Or you know, wear a bell or something." Honestly he's glad that Derek's back again. He has the tendency to be worrying about him almost the whole day these days. Also, he doesn't sleep when Derek is not here. Telling him this is not supposed to ever happen, so he expresses himself by making sarcastic comments. Which luckily Derek rarely replies to, because if Derek were to leave because of Stiles' sarcastic and stupid comments Stiles wouldn't know what to do. Derek sits down on his bed and Stiles - with the reoccurring thought that his chemistry homework has to be finished tomorrow - tries to get something on paper while sitting at his desk with his back towards Derek. He doesn't maintain it long though. Because the shifting of Derek behind him and the boringness of the homework makes him turn around and face Derek. He's not up for another awkward conversation today, and it looks like Derek understands him. Stiles grabs his sleeping clothes and goes into the bathroom to get into his pyjama's and get ready for bed. When he walks back into his room again the lights are already out - only the light of the street lanterns which he doesn't really need because he knows his room - make it clear that Derek's already lying on his bed, at the same side he was on last time. It's too early for Stiles to actually sleep. But the sleepless nights of these past few weeks greet him as he collapses on his mattress. While turning around to find the right sleeping position he bumps against Derek a few times, every time muttering sorry. Until Derek eventually pulls Stiles against his chest. His heart raises like he has just run a marathon and he doesn't know how to react. The warmth of Derek and the softness of his chest are like a lullaby to him. He tries to relax and eventually falls asleep on the best pillow he's ever had.
Thank you all very much! :)
