Counting Puppies (This Is Real), a teen wolf fanfic

Teen Wolf || Sterek || Teen Wolf || Counting Puppies || Teen Wolf || Sterek || Teen Wolf

Title: Counting Puppies (This Is Real) – Writer's Pride Month Bingo 2024

Tags: m/m, post-Nogitsune, hurt/comfort, PTSD, tattoos

Main Pairing: Sterek

Teen Wolf Characters: Mieczysław 'Stiles' Stilinski, Derek Hale

Writer's Pride Month Bingo Prompt: dreams

Summary: Everybody in the pack was worried about Stiles after the Nogitsune, but ultimately it's Derek who comes up with something that actually helps. Stiles takes his idea a step further.

Counting Puppies (This Is Real)

Writer's Pride Month Bingo 2024

Normal people counted sheep when they couldn't fall asleep. Stiles? He counted puppies. Werewolf puppies. It had started out as an exhaustion fueled thought experiment – what would the betas look like as werewolves? Naturally, his mind provided adorable chibi versions of wolves. So he imagined them jumping over a fence, counting them. Usually, he counted them in order of their shifts. Not shift in the sense of changing into their werewolf form, but shift in the sense of 'watching Stiles sleep and make sure Stiles is safe' shift. Because of course had his overbearing pack decided to take up shifts so Stiles wouldn't have to sleep alone.

It would be overbearing, it would make him roll his eyes, if… he didn't so desperately need it.

Ever since the Nogitsune, Stiles was… terrified to go to sleep. To let it back in. To no longer be able to tell what was real and what was dream. He still struggled with that. Whenever something happened that was even the slightest bit out of the ordinary, he started counting his fingers or searching for any written words near by to check if he could read them.

The pack had noticed, pretty quickly. They'd had a pack meeting about it, without him. It was cute that they thought he wouldn't know about that. It was also cute that they worried about him this much. And so Stiles' time of sleeping with supervision started. Every night, two pack members would stay with him and they would sleep in shifts so one was always awake, watching out for any threat – watching out for Stiles waking up as someone else. That part was left unspoken, but Stiles knew his pack was as worried about that possibility as him. They tried to split the couples up to not make it too awkward for Stiles, because he refused to play third wheel in his own bed.

Monday was his dad's day off, so the sheriff took a shift himself, together with Peter. Much to Stiles' mortification were those two starting to actually become friends thanks to that. Stiles was both disturbed and touched by the fact that the creeper wolf watched out for him too.

Tuesday, Boyd and Kira would be by. The three often studied before bedtime.

Wednesday, Malia and Cora, and Stiles was happy to help the cousins get closer.

Thursday, Allison and Lydia, which usually ended with a lot of gossip before sleep.

Friday, Erica and Jackson, who by far were the most terrifying combo and Stiles still didn't quite know how he felt about that recently unlocked friendship.

Saturday, Stiles slept over at the McCalls', under the watchful eyes of Melissa and Scott.

And Sunday night, Derek and Isaac were staying with him, concluding Stiles' week.

It was touching, he really was touched that they all were so worried about him, cared so much about him, that they were watching over him like that. And it was also great pack bonding. Because the Nogitsune hadn't just rattled Stiles – and it took him a bit to realize that. That they weren't just there for him, they were also there because they worried about him, were afraid to lose him again. They didn't watch for the return of the Nogitsune because that would be the return of a threat, but because that would mean they'd lose Stiles again. When he'd realized that, he spent half the night crying, because at that point, he didn't feel like he deserved that.

He'd nearly killed Allison, if not for Boyd and Jackson attacking him in the last second, he didn't know what would have happened. If their pack wasn't as strong and big, he might have killed her. And then there were all the people he did kill. Everybody could tell him that it had been the Nogitsune and not him all they wanted. Their blood was still on his hands.

The only one who really understood that was Jackson. It was weird that a killer fox possessing Stiles was what it took for him and Jackson to become practically inseparable. But Jackson understood, he'd been through this before, as the kanima. He understood like nobody else. And if Stiles sought him out more than the others in the first couple weeks, he couldn't bring himself to feel overly guilty, regardless of how much Scott looked like a kicked puppy. And Stiles knew the kicked puppy eyes weren't to guilt-trip Stiles, he knew they were about how helpless and useless Scott was feeling himself, because Scott always wanted to help and save everyone.

Every day, two of his pack mates would stay in his room. And Stiles wished it'd help. He really did. He wished that was enough to magically cure him and make him feel safe enough to actually sleep. Every night, he woke up screaming, sweating and/or crying. He'd curl into whatever pack mate was the closest and cry until he had no more tears left. Either he cried himself to sleep, or they'd just stay awake and maybe watch a movie or something to distract him.

Stiles sighed softly and turned onto his side, staring at the wall in front of him. There was a post-it sticking to the wall, on eye-level for Stiles to see when he'd open his eyes. This is real was written on it in Derek's scrawny yet elegant hand-writing. When the first week of pack watch had ended and Stiles had barely slept, he'd had a heart-to-heart with the Alpha, admitting to the fact that he still sometimes struggled with telling reality from dream. Derek had reached out for the note-pad on Stiles' desk, scribbled the sentence and pinned it against the wall, so it was the first thing Stiles saw when waking up. So he could be sure that he had actually woken up.

It was something so small and so silly, but it meant the world to Stiles. Because it actually helped. At least when it came to waking up. The problem was still in the day to day though. Sometimes, he'd zoom out – which, was pretty usual considering the ADHD – but then when he came to it, he… often struggled with figuring out if he actually had come to it. And not every place had books standing around or posters to let him read something. The post-it wasn't always with him.

His fingers tapped against his wrist, tracing it. He hadn't shown the pack yet. The only person who knew was his dad, because he'd needed the sheriff's permission. It was funny, they'd talked about tattoos before, when Stiles was younger, and his dad had, very firmly, told him that he was under no circumstances to have a tattoo until he was at least 30 because 'only delinquents get tattoos', claiming he'd regret whatever his jumpy mind would pick in his youth. Yet when he'd told his dad what he was planning, there had been a solemn expression on his dad's face and he'd agreed.

"Hey, Stiles," Derek's voice was soft as he climbed through the window.

"Will you ever start using the door, Sourwolf?" Stiles sighed softly, smiling to himself.

"Faster this way," Derek grunted. "Besides, you would have had to get up, go downstairs and open the door for me. Why not just… take the direct approach."

Rolling his eyes, Stiles sat up. Most of the pack was well behaved at this point and actually rang the doorbell (most of the pack also got here early enough to have dinner with Stiles, because they loved his cooking and he loved cooking for his pack; aside from Erica and Jackson, because Friday was pack night at the Hale House and Stiles would be cooking for the entire pack).

Stiles looked around the room. "Where's Isaac?"

"Isaac's at the library, working on his lit essay with Lydia and Kira. I told him that he should finish it first and come here after," Derek replied while shrugging out of his jeans.

Stiles had gotten far too used to hot people getting changed in his room. An entire shelf in his bedroom was dedicated to pajamas and night shirts from the pack. Each of them had their own brush in the bathroom – it looked really ridiculous. He also loved it.

"You're a good dad," Stiles grinned softly.

It could have been taken as a quip, but Stiles was being genuine. Ever since Derek had become Isaac's legal guardian, he'd worked so hard to do right by the pup. Rebuilding the Hale House had been step one on that list. And Stiles was proud of every single step Derek had taken. The light blush on Derek's cheeks told him that the Alpha knew Stiles meant it.

"Hey, Derek," Stiles swung his legs over the edge of his bed, turning toward the Alpha. "There's something I wanted to show you. I want to show it to the whole pack, but you first."

One of Derek's expressive eyebrows was cocked in curiosity as the Alpha approached him. "Yeah?"

It had been easy enough to hide it from the pack. It was winter, so it wasn't attention drawing that he was wearing long-sleeved shirts and hoodies. He'd wanted to wait until it was properly healed before showing it off though. He fidgeted with the sleeve in nervousness. Derek simply looked at him with all the patience in the world, another testimony to how far he'd come.

"You know when you wrote me that note?" Stiles jerked his head toward the post-it, earning a nod from Derek. "It… really did help me, in the mornings. But… not so much during the day, since I'm not always carrying it with me. So I had an idea, how I could always carry it with me."

He pulled up his sleeve, showing the tattoo on the inside of his wrist. This is real, an exact copy of the writing on the post-it. Derek's writing. He could have picked any font at the tattoo parlor, but this note meant something, these words meant something because of the note. And while he was at it, he'd taken one tiny liberty. There was a small, red triskelion at the center, beneath the writing, right on top of his pulse (that had hurt like a bitch). So he wasn't just reminded that this was real, but that he was himself, he was part of the Hale Pack, he was not the Nogitsune, he had a place where he belonged, he was the boy who ran with wolves.

"That's… my handwriting," Derek stared at it, startled and confused. "And my mark."

"That way, I will always have something to read with me, to see if I can read it, or if it's a dream," Stiles explained softly. "Wherever I am, if I'm at school or in the woods, I know it's real."

"That… is clever," Derek grinned at him with soft eyes. "But the triskelion…"

"To remind me that I'm still me," Stiles furrowed his brows. "That the Nogitsune didn't take this from me. I'm still pack. I belong somewhere, I belong to the Hale Pack. I'm not alone."

He couldn't begin to describe the expression on Derek's face. The next moment, he found himself pulled against Derek's chest in a tight hug, tucked under the Alpha's chin. He closed his eyes and relaxed into Derek, relishing in the soothing scent of musk, forest and cinnamon.

"You aren't alone," Derek whispered, brushing a kiss against the top of the head.

And Stiles realized that this hug was about reassuring Derek that Stiles was still here, was himself. That he indeed hadn't lost Stiles. A small smile spread over his lips as he leaned into the Alpha. When they stepped apart, the atmosphere between them was different. There was something heavy in the air, an implication in the way Stiles now bore Derek's handwriting, Derek's family crest, forever inked into his skin. It wasn't subtle. Stiles was done being subtle. Stiles was done pining from afar. He'd nearly died, had nearly lost himself. He wasn't wasting any more time.

"Derek," Stiles whispered into the silence of the bedroom. "Kiss me?"

That was all it took. Derek cupped Stiles' neck and brought him in for a kiss. His other hand curled around Stiles' wrist, thumb gently running over the tattoo. Stiles smiled into their kiss. The kiss was followed by another, and another. Soft, slow, lazy kisses. Kisses filled with years of longing and love. And when they curled together and Stiles closed his eyes, he fell asleep counting puppies.

~*~ The End ~*~

Author's note: So the prompt "dreams" HAD to go to post-Nogitsune Stiles. I made a tumblr post of the premise a couple days ago and then decided to just use that for this prompt fill! ;D