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Fifteen - Thresholds
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When Derek wakes, he feels that something is fundamentally different before he even opens his eyes.
Something missing. Where he used to be conscious of his own boiling point, of the fierce anger that coats his insides at all times, there's only quiet.
He's anchored now. More himself. It's something he hadn't even thought to miss before it was gone, a kind of calmness he hasn't felt in ages, not since his house burned down. Of course, it might have something to do with the strange, floaty feeling in his head.
It's a bit like he's off-balance, like he's drunk, like he doesn't even have to look at the world to know that it's spinning beneath him. It's hard to remember why he feels like this, or where he is. He always has a hard time remembering when he wakes up in the morning, but this time is different. Memories drift slowly to the surface, but they're impossible, dark things. A nightmare half-remembered. I dreamed that I died, he'll tell Stiles when he wakes.
When he finally pries his eyes open, though, he finds himself in a familiar place. Not his room, as he'd half-expected, but the library. He recognizes the bookshelf out of the corner of his eye. He stares up at the paneled drop ceiling, following the lines of the frames where they cross back and forth. The lights are a stark fluorescent white, and for some reason he finds himself profoundly thankful for their brightness.
At last he manages to lift his head, weakly pushing himself off of the ground. He turns to find Stiles seated nearby, tiredly watching Derek's movements. The human's skin has a grimy pallor to it, his scrubs dark and damp. He leans against a bookshelf, shoulders sagging in exhaustion as he toys with the edges of the hard-bound book in his lap. An encyclopedia. A few more of them are stacked at his side. His eyes are red and puffy from crying.
That's when Derek sits all the way up. It was real.
"What happened?" he blurts, his voice hoarse as though he's slept for ages. "Did I...I thought I…"
"You did," Stiles confirms. His tone is thick with some emotion Derek can't name. "You died down there."
Derek gapes a little. His hand has absently settled on one leg, the fabric of his own scrubs damp under his touch, and the sensation brings back the sudden memory of something crawling over his skin, dragging him down into darkness. You died, Stiles said. You died, you died, you died. And Derek knows the words are true.
"How...But how am I here?" Derek manages eventually. "How did we get here? Is this—?"
"It's the library. I made a door here. It's the real one this time, as far as I can tell. No one's around or anything, because it's still night. But I...I think it's real. I think all of this is real. I didn't exactly want to leave you here to go exploring, though."
Derek frowns at Stiles, who won't quite meet his eyes. "Stiles, How am I here?"
"I don't know," Stiles says, his voice cracking a little. Then he shakes his head, probably knowing that Derek can hear his heart jump a bit at the half-truth. "I just...back when I told you about Clem and what happened to her, how she went through the door, you joked about it. 'Maybe you're the grim reaper.' But...I guess that's really what I am. A kind of—reaper. Only I don't, like, pick people, or know when they're going to die, or escort them somewhere. It's different. But I think you were right. I know you were right. I think I've known for a while now."
"Okay," Derek feels off-balance still, like his mind is still struggling to get to full speed. Weakly, he crawls closer to Stiles and drops onto the carpet at his side. "What does that mean?"
"I can make doors, but not just to move from one place to another. It's more than that. And I think it all started with the red door. My mom followed me, and Clem followed me, because they knew I could show them the way. These...these people come to me, and—no, these animals, they bring people to me. They guide people to me. And I show them the door to…" he trails off, eyes growing distant.
"To what?"
After a moment, Stiles slowly shakes his head. "To wherever it is they go. I'm not really sure, I don't...I can never see it. But I can always tell where the crossing is. The threshold. So I can get them there."
Derek leans against the bookshelf, his body curling instinctively toward Stiles's. More memories flutter into his thoughts: a sharp pain, a dark and crawling warmth. "Alsina killed me, somehow," he says quietly, feeling like he needs to say the words out loud. "Her darkness. That was her hand that grabbed me when we were down there."
Stiles is silent for a long time, studying him. "Yeah. She killed you," he says at last. "I watched you die," he adds, his voice thick.
Derek's not sure what to do with that. He swallows. "What did you do?"
"You were looking toward the red door. Do you remember?"
Derek struggles to recall this, but he thinks he would have remembered seeing the red door. He can't imagine what it must be like, the strange light Stiles has described. He slowly shakes his head.
"Okay. Well. Instead of bringing you to the door, I pushed Alsina in instead. Like a—like a trade. I thought, or I hoped...well, if nothing else, I just knew I wouldn't be able to kill her or escape her if I didn't do it. But I thought it might be enough."
"Was it?"
Stiles shakes his head. "You still were trying to go in. You were looking at it like it was time to go. So I...changed you. I didn't really know if I could at first, but I somehow knew how to do it."
"Changed me?"
"Into an animal guide." Stiles looks blankly down at his hands, at the book he's holding. Derek recognizes it as one of the encyclopedias from before. "They're called psychopomps. Or sometimes just harbingers of death." He looks up. "The sparrows were for my mom. Moths for Clem. You're already part wolf, so that's why I think I could. I brought you back, but I don't know if you're really back. I mean, no one can ever see the psychopomps but me."
Derek stares at him. "I'm...am I still dead?"
Stiles shrugs helplessly. "I don't even know, Derek."
Derek doesn't feel any different from before. Minus that newfound sense of calm, the sense that he can be himself again without exploding into anger. Gingerly, he reaches out to run his fingers over Stiles's forearm. It's cool to the touch, and the solid feel of it settles a fear Derek hadn't even realized he had. He pulls Stiles's arm closer, running fingers over his hand.
Stiles watches all of this with an expression of pure misery twisting his face. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I didn't know—what you wanted. I mean normally, you'd be like 'hey, here's my living will' or whatever. But we didn't exactly discuss this, and I didn't know what you wanted, and I just didn't want you to go," he adds, his voice wavering.
"I didn't want to leave," Derek tells him, squeezing his hand. "I don't remember it, but—I know I wouldn't have. I don't. It's better to be here, with you, any way that I can." Stiles opens his mouth to interrupt, but Derek leans in to kiss him before he can get anything out. "I feel calm now. Like I used to be," he says. "I think...I don't know if it's some drug wearing off, or if whatever you did brought me back into balance, but I feel better. If this is what it takes, and if the alternative was dying, I'll fucking take it. I'll absolutely take it."
Stiles leans into him as though he can sink into Derek's skin. "Okay."
"I love you," Derek tells him roughly. "You don't have to say it back, I just wanted—"
"I love you, too," Stiles says, his eyes wide. A teary grin spreads over his face. "And just so you know, I told you first, you just don't remember because you were too busy dying on me like a fucking dick."
Derek laughs. He sweeps his free hand down the side of Stiles's mole-speckled cheek, his thumb falling onto Stiles's bottom lip. He can feel the subtle movements of Stiles's body beneath his fingers, the slight jump of his jaw muscle, the faint beating of his heart, a shiver that might be either cold or anticipation. He wants to make Stiles understand how glad he is to still be here, alive or even half-alive, to be able to touch him right now. But anything he might have said is lost to the press of Stiles's mouth against his own.
This kiss is hungrier and more consuming than anything Derek has known, and he groans against it low in his throat. Stiles's breath is warm against his skin.
They pull apart, and when Derek has managed to stop staring at the way Stiles's mouth quirks, or the feel of his hand clenched in the fabric of Derek's shirt, he takes a deep breath. "Let's see if we can get out of here, then."
He pulls Stiles to his feet. The encyclopedia falls to the floor, and neither of them bothers to shelve the others. Derek stares down at them as he passes, though, thinking of the way that all this had begun, thinking that he may never see this place again once he leaves it.
And then he follows Stiles out into the hall, where he creates another door. It spills over the white wall, a deep chestnut wood rising under the amber light, and Stiles moves forward to meet it. It looks no different from the other doors Stiles has made, its dark grain and four rectangular panels, its worn silver knob. But with Alsina gone, maybe her hold on them both is over. Maybe Stiles can get them out.
Stiles turns the doorknob and then stills, looking back to hold his hand out to Derek. "Let's give it a shot?" he says.
Derek has no idea what will happen when he steps through the door, what's on the other side of it. But Stiles is looking at him, his mouth still quirked gently upward, his eyes rich and dark. So Derek takes his hand.
The door opens to darkness, but it's darkness of a kind that Derek hasn't seen in years.
They find themselves standing shoulder to shoulder outside in the open. The sky above is moonless, but as Derek's eyes adjust, he can make out pinpricks of stars. Their distant glow is barely enough to illuminate the world, but it's more than Derek needs now, more than enough to see the weathered trunks of the pine trees that box them in, needles rustling in whatever soft breeze stirs them overhead. Farther off, streetlights filter through the trees. There's a distant rush of cars on a nearby road.
It's unreal. Impossible. But there it all is, the world laid out before him, just like it used to be.
Behind them, the door is still open, and when Derek turns back, he recognizes the beige bricks of the Eichen House walls to either side of it. Stiles must have brought them directly from the library to one of the external side doors.
Stiles follows his gaze. "Okay. Time for Prison Break."
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For all the wonder and magic of his newfound abilities, Stiles still proves unable to create a door to somewhere he's never been before—like all of the patients' private rooms. Instead, they snag the set of keys, still safe on the bed in Derek's room where Stiles had tossed them what feels like years ago now.
Door by door, they wake each patient.
"We're getting the fuck out," Stiles tells them.
"Come if you want," Derek adds.
Most of them jump on the chance, rattling off questions that Stiles and Derek can't answer. Like Where will we go? How did you get out? Where are the nurses?
This last is particularly troubling, and though Stiles and Derek keep a keen eye on the dark shadows of the hallways, no one comes to stop them. The darkness still feels normal. Non-sentient. They see neither hide nor hair of any member of the staff, despite the amount of noise that quickly builds as more and more patients spill out of their rooms.
"Alsina's gone, and so is her darkness," Stiles murmurs to Derek as the patients swarm around them. "Maybe, whoever they were, they can't exist without it."
"Or maybe they got stuck inside of it when it faded," Derek muses. "Maybe they can't get back here."
The chaos grows, the voices growing louder. Someone manages to figure out how to override the dimmed lights, and an unruly cheer goes up once the fluorescents are back to full blast. The bitter tang of fear starts to dissipate from the air, a thrill of excitement replacing it.
Eventually, they reach Isaiah's room. To their surprise, he's waiting right by the door, and his eyes squeeze shut in pure relief at the sight of them.
"Did you know?" Stiles asked him, incredulous.
"I hoped," the man returns, his salt-and-pepper beard twitching around a wry smile.
Some of the patients sob openly upon their release. Some of them speed off to find their friends. Some of them seem to think it's a trick, and they settle stubbornly back into their beds. Derek leaves their doors open in case they change their minds.
At last, when they're sure all the rooms are open, Stiles and Derek lead the patients to the door Stiles has made, the one by the library. It's an impossible door, leading from Eichen's ward on the second floor directly to the ground floor outside, and to an area way on the other side of the building. This fact goes largely unnoticed by the long-term patients, who are too distracted by the nighttime world, the starry sky. They dissolve into chaos, crying and scattering. Vern and some of the old-timers direct them toward the sounds of the road.
From the hallway, Derek and Stiles watch them go. They can't leave the strange door open for anyone to stumble across it, so they wait until everyone who's leaving has left. The halls are clear, and anyone still inside will have to sit tight for the rescue that's sure to come once news of this escape leaks out.
At last, Derek takes Stiles's hand again. "That's it for me," he says. "No more good deeds tonight."
Stiles smiles, the half-dimpled one. "We got them this far," he allows.
He and Derek step outside again. For a moment, the light from the door behind them casts their twin shadows across the leaf-strewn ground, dark figures that stretch off into the night. And then the door swings gently shut behind them, the light disappears entirely, and Stiles lets door fade into nothing.
Derek takes a moment to breathe it all in, to listen to the night. Babbling patients farther off, sure, but also frogs croaking in thickets nearby. The ground is soft with rain, and it sinks a little underfoot. In the air is the loamy smell of earth and dying leaves.
"Where should we go now?" Derek asks Stiles.
Stiles's face is hard to make out in the dark, but Derek thinks he's still smiling. "Anywhere we want."
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And they've finally made it out! I have literally never been so anxious about the ending of a story, so I hope you like it as much as I do :)
If you've ever read any of my other stories, you'll know I can never give a clear answer about whether or not there'll be a sequel. But this fic is for sure most likely to get one. I do really love how it ends, despite the unanswered questions (see below). But at the same time, I have some concrete ideas about what I'd want to explore with both of their upgraded powers (and relationship!). It would likely be a story of a very different tone - less horror, more drama - so I'd have to figure out how to balance it going forward. So I'm calling it...eh, 75-85% chance of a sequel at some point. After I work on the other fics buzzing around in my head right now!
That being said, let's chat about two unresolved mysteries (although some of you have heard back about these already in the comments):
Uncategorizable magic: I really enjoy the idea that there are certain magics that can't be labeled, much in the same way that we don't understand everything about our own biology, the earth, the universe, etc. I mean, it's magic—how boring would it be if there was nothing arcane about it? Sure, some creatures like werewolves and vampires may be well known with "standard" powers, but other rarer magics might not have a full explanation or source, like Alsina's ability to bend darkness to her will or Stiles's ability to jump between doorways. Plus, one of my favorite horror tropes is when things aren't fully explained. You get the big-picture "why" and "what" but the details aren't completely fleshed out. I know that isn't everyone's preferred horror vibe, so hopefully it's not too unsatisfying :)
Restricted hospital access to families: I didn't intend for this to be as big a mystery as it became, so I feel like I should mention why the Hales and the Sheriff couldn't access Stiles and Derek. The idea is that the Eichen House staff keeps them from communicating thanks to bureaucracy and red tape, which is technically illegal but still apparently happens irl from time to time due to complications related to HIPAA (I say confidently, not being a doctor at all and only having done my fair share of googling for this fic lol). This was only suggested in the story but never confirmed. If/when I do a sequel, it'll be much more explicitly discussed, as it's a topic I really wanna run with!
If you've stuck around, thank you SO, SO much for coming on this weird journey with me. Every time I went to post a chapter, I had serious imposter syndrome and always thought, "Well this is the one where I'm gonna lose all the readers for good." And yet I'd get another couple comments or favorites on each new chapter and you KEPT COMING BACK FOR MORE (side note: what's wrong with you?) 😭 Thanks so much!
I hope the last days of the year are good to you, and may you have a wonderful (and fic-filled) new year!