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Derek is still pretty shaken up. The Nogitsune is no more, besides the fly in the triskele box, and everyone is trying to return to some sense of normalcy. Derek has never known normal to exist in Beacon Hills, but loose ends need to be tied sometimes. He just wishes those loose ends weren’t funerals and vague police reports.
The loft doesn’t need as many repairs as previous disasters demanded, though the roof still leaks around the place where Jennif-no, the Darach, had smashed through it. There are no new bloodstains than the ones already there, and the glass windows are still intact. After finally getting rid of the last flecks of glow-in-the-dark paint (kids and their raves these days), Derek takes to constantly rearranging the minimalist furniture to keep his thoughts away from Aiden’s shaky breaths, from Allison’s tinny voice over the phone, from Stiles’ face crying in front of a gun only to twist and demand they fire, from Isaac’s beaten stance as he announced he was leaving. Derek winces as he feels his last beta slipping away from him, and he decides the couch cushions should all be flipped.
This is how he comes across an aluminum bat, and the night he found it feels like a lifetime ago. It’s lost most of its identifying scent, but Derek would still know it’s Stiles’ anyway. A bat may not fight off a demon in one’s head, but it was still a weapon, a personal item. Another loose end.
When Derek slinks through Stiles’ window, the bat in hand, Stiles is taking down his investigation display that wallpapers most of the room. He gives Derek questioning eyebrows, but Derek doesn’t know how to explain, doesn’t know how to say Yeah, you told me to use the front door, but a father almost lost his son, again, this time to a japanese-void-fox-spirit demon, and that father is downstairs with tired shoulders and heavy sighs that I cannot face.
Or maybe the look has to do with the fact that Derek is wearing his maroon sweater with the thumb holes. Whatever, it’s soft, and Derek doesn’t need to explain his reason for coming over just yet.
So he shrugs instead and sits on the bed.
He turns the bat over and over while he waits for Stiles to start the conversation, because it’s much easier to snark back than to speak first. Stiles, per usual, is stubborn and continues to tear and cut at the collage, his heartbeat picking up and his movements becoming less rhythmic until he finally spins around.
“Okay, I’ll bite.” He immediately flinches and thunks into his desk chair. Derek has heard from Scott that he had to bite the Nogitsune to kill it. The last three people Derek had bitten were dead too. He tries not to dwell on this and focuses on Stiles’ expectant gaze instead.
“You left your bat at the power station a few weeks ago. Thought you might want it back.” Derek holds the end out across the room to Stiles, who slowly grabs it, then lobs it under his desk. Derek stares at the bat, one loose end that doesn’t involve tears, at least. The silence stretches on.
With sudden purpose, Stiles attacks the strings and pictures with new vigor, a violence in his precision that keeps Derek’s jaw shut tight. Instead, he brings over the trashcan to catch the falling shreds and begins to collect thumbtacks from the floor. Derek finds his voice when placing the pins on the desk, under which the bat lies safe, surviving when others couldn’t, didn’t.
“I know what it’s like to feel responsible for others’,” he hesitates, “pain. If you want to talk, when you’re ready to talk--” Stiles leaves a piece of tangled string dangling and whirls around.
“I’m responsible for others’ deaths, Derek. Just spit it out. I can’t look Scott in the eye anymore because I killed his first love. I can’t look at my dad because I asked Chris Argent to shoot me, right in front of him. I kidnapped Lydia, I broke your arm, I might as well have taken Ethan’s brother from him, too, all because I couldn’t close a door in my mind, and I took that bat,” he gestures wildly under the desk,“to try to save a freaking thunder kitsune. Whose mother threatened to kill me.” Stiles crumples a picture of Eichen House in his hand and throws it in the trash with too much force. With icy anger, he hisses, “I remember it all, Derek, and it’s fucking hell.”
Stiles turns back to the wall with tears in the corners of his eyes, from both frustration and grief. He brings his hand up to the collage but just rests it there. Then he lets his head join it against the wall as he tries to even out his breathing.
The smells of all the destructive, horrible emotions emanating from Stiles are almost suffocating to Derek, but he wants to help, to make sure everyone recovers better than he did after the fire, to be there to ease the process as much as possible. Knowing more words won’t do any good, Derek simply puts his hand on Stiles’ left shoulder, letting his right pinky finger just barely touch Stiles’ neck in case there’s any pain to take away. Of course there isn’t; the pain Stiles--and Derek--are feeling isn’t the kind that can be sucked out of the veins, only patched over in the heart with time.
The contact releases the tension in Stiles’ turned back, but he starts to cry quietly, and it only gets worse. With just a hitched breath as a warning, Derek finds Stiles turning into him and burrowing into his chest, clutching at his shirt. Derek instinctively wraps his arms around him, the unexpected contact distracting him from what Stiles is repeating amongst his crying.
“I’msorryI’msorryI’mso-sorryI’msosorryI’msorry-”
Derek tries to shush and comfort him as footsteps pound up the stairs, and the Sheriff appears in the doorway with wild eyes. Derek wonders how many night terrors the man has had to hear throughout the house, always coming running when Stiles screams. This time, Derek shakes his head at him, mouthing, give us a minute, and the Sheriff gives a grim nod before slowly ducking back down the hallway.
Rather than support both their weight, Derek moves them to sit side by side on the bed, Stiles still turned into his shoulder, clutching like a life-line. Derek runs his hand over Stiles’ back, subconsciously drawing the familiar pattern of the triskele again and again, hoping to give Stiles something to focus on. They sit there while Stiles’ voice goes raw and his sobs turn to hiccups, neither of them moving from the comforting presence of another person, another pack member.
With his talent at never remaining quiet for long and his ability to ruin moments, Stiles eventually mumbles from his place on Derek’s chest.
“I got snot on your sweater. And it’s the one with the thumb holes too.”
Derek shrugs. “This old thing? I was going to burn it anyway.” Stiles gives a weak smile and a big sniff.
“How do you do it, Derek? How can you make jokes about fire and carry a lighter and just, keep fighting?” Stiles looks up at Derek, and his eyes are earnest and tired, his green shirt too vibrant for the somber mood.
“You keep going, survive, live day-to-day if you have to. Your new best friend is time, and your family, friends, your pack. Tell them you love them; let them love you.” Derek thinks back on how important it was that Laura always told him that she loved him, no matter what. Even a pack of one can make all the difference. “We’ll keep you from blaming yourself when you were no longer yourself, keep you from being alone.” Stiles nods, then looks at the ground and slowly blinks once. He visibly deflates, the fight leaving him for today, so Derek eases him off his shoulder so Stiles can lie down for some much needed rest.
“Trust me, Stiles, we’ll make it through this.”
“I’ve always trusted you,” Stiles yawns, snuggles into his pillow. “Do you trust me, believe that I can get better? Even after everything that’s happened?” His eyes are drifting closed, his sorrow finally giving him a reprieve.
“Yeah,” Derek whispers. “Yes, Stiles, I do trust you.” He wants to say more, but Stiles’ breaths are evening out, so he pulls a blanket over him and heads downstairs. He tells the Sheriff that Stiles is resting and to call if he needs any help with the reports, or even old cases. He leaves with a firm handshake, pushing all the fortitude he can into it. They all need a little extra strength these days.
Driving back to the pristine loft, a knot in Derek’s heart loosens to counter the tied-up end of returning the bat.