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It's late in the day when the knock echoes through the house, and Stiles drops his pen with a sigh of relief.
History homework sucks.
"Oh, please be Scott," Stiles mutters, to himself or the universe, he's not really sure. He shoves his chair back from the desk, excitement tingling beneath his skin. "Or Lydia." He bounds out of the room so fast he nearly slides into the wall. "God, I'd even settle for Peter at this point."
He takes the stairs two at a time, hoping, praying, willing it to be something fascinating or exhilarating, something that will get him out of the house.
Things have been weirdly quiet since everything happened with Gerard and Jackson and it's starting to feel like his skin is becoming too tight as he waits for the next life-altering event to happen.
When he skids to a stop at the front door, though, he's certainly not expecting to find Elias Stilinski on his porch.
"Uh…Grampa?"
The word feels weird on his tongue. Out of place and awkward. He's pretty sure he's only called the man standing in front of him grampa twice in his whole life.
And he's pretty sure that's almost as many times as he's seen him.
But Elias is there, looking just as confused in the dying rays of the setting sun as Stiles feels, and Stiles only has half a second to think well this isn't what I had in mind before Elias is pushing right past him, mumbling incoherently under his breath as he goes.
"Yeah, sure. Come on in." Stiles shakes his head and closes the door behind Elias, who is already moving deeper into the house. When Stiles follows him in, he finds Elias standing in the middle of the kitchen, his gaze bouncing over everything in the room like he's not quite seeing it.
Stiles slows down once he's halfway through the dining room, never taking his eyes off Elias. He can't quite pinpoint why, but the little hairs on the back of his neck are standing on end and something feels wrong. Once he reaches the entry to the kitchen, he stops altogether.
"Dad's not here," Stiles says quietly. The statement has Elias' gaze swinging his way and the laser-like precision causes Stiles to take an unconscious step back.
It's…disconcerting.
His dad never really got into specifics, but he'd always told Stiles that Elias wasn't a good man. And the way John's body tensed up on those few occasions when he'd mention Elias at all, combined with the slowly spreading dread that's skittering beneath Stiles' skin right now, makes Stiles think that maybe that was an understatement.
"Noah?" Elias asks. His voice is frail but there's a fire in his eyes.
"Yeah….Noah. That's right," Stiles says after just a second. His dad hates that name. As far as Stiles knows, his dad started going by his middle name as soon as he left home at sixteen years old. But he also knows that Elias was recently diagnosed with dementia and arguing that point would be fruitless. "He's out of town, transferring a prisoner. But I, uh, I can call him?"
With his phone. That's upstairs in his bedroom.
Super.
"Call who?" Elias asks.
God, this is not going well.
"Noah. I can call Noah."
There's a moment of silence between them, so profound that Stiles is pretty sure that neither of them are even breathing.
It's Elias that breaks their stalemate.
"Don't just stand there, Noah. Christ, you're as useless as your mother." The doddering old man seems to disappear right before Stiles' eyes, replaced by someone who is all sharp edges and buried rage. "I told you to get your old man a beer. Are you too stupid to figure that out, too?"
Stiles is struck silent, shocked by not only the sudden change but by the hateful words spilling from his grandfather's lips.
Words that are clearly meant for his dad.
An annoyed huff draws Stiles' focus from where it had been parsing through a thousand swirling thoughts, back to Elias as he takes the last couple steps to the fridge. "Let me show you so you know for next time."
John usually prefers a good bourbon or scotch, but he always keeps a few beers in the fridge, and right now, Elias grabs one of the bottles before straightening back up and facing Stiles again.
"See? Not so hard, is it, Noah?"
Elias takes a step towards Stiles. And then another.
"Look, I think you seem to be a little confused. Why don't you drink that and I'll go upstairs and call my d—"
The beer bottle swings at his head so fast that Stiles barely has time to even try to duck. The glass still smashes into the left side of his head, a heavy thud that turns sharp as the glass shatters into a thousand pieces against his skull.
For a fraction of a second, Stiles is nothing but shocked. His dad has yelled at him, threatened him (in a way that Stiles knows is supposed to be intimidating, but his dad is basically a teddy bear with a gun so it's never really all that scary), glared at him so hard that Stiles is relatively certain his dad was trying to use the Force to make his head blow up, but John has never, not once, hit Stiles.
And he can't comprehend having a father who would.
But then the pain sets in, just as the kitchen around him turns fuzzy and starts to get a little dim around the edges.
Stiles stumbles backwards until he hits the wall, sliding halfway down without even realizing it. But then Elias is in front of him, both fists wrapped up tight in the front of Stiles' t-shirt, hauling him back up to his feet.
"Why do you make me do this, Noah?" Elias tuts, and even though the kitchen is blinking in and out of focus, Stiles would swear Elias actually looks disappointed with where they've found themselves.
But then his fist is smashing into Stiles' cheekbone and Stiles sort of loses track of everything for a second or two.
"I don't want to hurt you, Noah, but you need to learn."
It's a backhand this time, hard enough that Stiles can feel the sharp bite of his teeth as they break the skin inside his cheek. A bitter tang bursts over his taste buds as warm blood fills his mouth and trickles down his throat. He nearly chokes on it, too, only turning his head at the last minute to let the blood fall from his mouth in one awful gush.
He just can't seem to think straight.
"Stop. Please."
The words come out distorted and slurred and Stiles doesn't even recognize it as his own voice. Elias doesn't seem to hear it at all, or maybe he just doesn't care, because he tugs Stiles back up and bars a forearm across his throat to hold him in place, then smashes his fist three times, quick and brutal, against his ribs.
That pain stops Stiles in his tracks. He can't breathe, can't think, can't move as the sudden ache explodes in his side and wraps around his torso. It's like his lungs forget how to expand as his body lights up with the type of pain that doesn't even seem real at first.
But it is. It's very real. And Elias seems hell bent on dishing out more.
"You can do better, Noah. A little discipline is all you need."
When Elias releases his hold on Stiles, he has a brief flicker of hope that the pain is going to stop, that he'll slide down the wall and disappear into the blackness that's trying so hard to overtake him. But instead, as soon as he hits the ground and tips to the side, the cool press of linoleum soothing against his cheek, a boot slams into his stomach. It's just once, but it's hard enough to punch the air from his lungs as he gags at the sudden impact.
It feels like his insides have just been rearranged.
He can't even cry out. Doesn't have the air or the strength for it. Doesn't understand what the hell is even happening. All he knows is that everything hurts and he needs to get away.
"Now. I'm gonna grab a beer," Elias says, towering over him. "Since you wasted my last one, you little piss-ant."
The smell of beer on Stiles' clothes, on the floor around him, isn't helping with the way his stomach is roiling. And as he tries to push himself up, his hand lands in a puddle of beer and broken glass, and he hisses as the shards dig into the meat of his palm.
"Then maybe my belt can teach you a lesson about being wasteful, hmm? Since you don't seem to be listening to your old man."
Despite the way his head is spinning, the way his thoughts are starting to become some sort of chaotic patchwork in his head, Stiles knows he needs to move. He needs to get away from the pain that just keeps coming. So as soon as Elias turns his back, Stiles starts to move.
He can't get to his feet. The room is spinning and swaying too much to even try, but he manages to get on hands and knees, manages to ignore the way the glass embeds deeper in his palm as he puts his weight on his hands and drags himself forward.
movemovemove
It's the only thought in his head. He needs to get away. But by the time he gets to the bottom of the stairs, he can't even remember what he's running from.
All he knows is he's hurt and he's scared and he doesn't know what to do. His body moves on instinct, scrambling up the steps, picking himself back up each time he slips and stumbles and falls.
He's at the top of the stairs, curled on the floor, when he hears the footsteps stomping his way.
"You know you can't hide, Noah. Not like when you were little and you'd rush behind your whore of a mother, hiding behind her skirts like a little girl. She can't keep me from teaching you how to be a man, son. I won't let her."
Stiles doesn't understand and the words seem to float into his head out of order and jumbled up and he can't put them together, but his body seems to catch on just fine because he lurches to his feet in a panic. He slams into one wall, and then another, but then he's at the door to his room and he rushes inside, flinging it shut behind him before he flicks the lock and lets out the breath he'd been holding.
All of the movement makes his head spin, though, and he just manages to lean to the side before his stomach rebels and he throws up everything he's eaten today.
At some point, he drops to his knees, though he doesn't really remember it. He just heaves and heaves until his stomach is empty and his head is pounding and he just wants to curl up and make it all stop.
But the door knob rattles and there's pounding on the wood and a part of Stiles knows he needs to do something because there's a monster on the other side of that door and he can't face it on his own.
He doesn't recall crawling across his room, but he leaves a trail of beer and blood behind, one he only notices once he gets to his desk and grabs his phone and promptly falls on his ass with his back resting against the leg of the desk.
His dad's gonna be mad at the mess.
When he looks down, he's surprised to find his phone in his hand. But he has a fuzzy recollection that he's supposed to call someone.
"Open the door, Noah!"
Noah? No, his dad's name is John. And John's gonna be annoyed with the mess Stiles made, so he doesn't want to call him. Not until he's cleaned up the mess.
When he opens his phone, the screen lights up with the text thread he has going with Scott, and even though he has to squint against the sudden light, Stiles kind of half smiles because he can always call Scott.
Except Scott doesn't answer when Stiles presses the call button, and Stiles has a fleeting thought about Scott being at work today, but it's gone before he can really grasp it and besides, he's really not feeling too well and he's not sure he should be calling Scott to go out at all.
Maybe it would be best if he just laid down for a little.
But then the monster is banging on his door and Stiles thinks he should really call for backup.
He tries to hit the button to call Lydia but the icons keep moving and it's Derek's name that pops up on his screen. Stiles frowns because Derek doesn't even like him and he probably shouldn't be calling him, but the little red phone picture that's supposed to end the call keeps dancing away from his thumb and the line is ringing and ringing and ringing.
Until it's not.
"What?"
Derek sounds mad. Or maybe just grumpy. It's a sourwolf day for sure.
"Stiles?"
He sounds a little less grumpy now.
Maybe he even sounds worried.
And if Derek is worried, Stiles should be worried too. Right?
"Stiles, what's happening? Where are you?"
"Mmm'in my room?" Stiles looks around. That's definitely his bed. He knows those sheets.
"What's that banging?" Derek asks. He sounds winded. Like maybe he's exercising. Or out for a run? Stiles supposes that's probably the same thing. But the banging at the door makes him forget all about the image of a shirtless Derek that just popped into his head.
His whole body is shaking with fear, even if he can't quite remember why he's afraid, and it gets worse each time the door rattles in its frame. It's so bad that it takes a few seconds to realize his face is wet and his eyes are burning. He thinks he must be crying, but when he swipes the back of his hand over his cheek, a hot sting builds up under his skin and his hand comes away smeared in red.
Blood.
"A monser," Stiles whisper-slurs into the phone. That's what it is. A monster. It's trying to get him.
And Stiles left his bat in the jeep.
Shit.
"I'm on my way. Just. Don't get killed." It almost sounds like Derek cares. And that's a nice thought. It makes Stiles smile. But smiling makes him frown because his cheeks ache and his head hurts and maybe he should just lay down.
Just for a little.
He sets the phone down on the ground and starts the slow crawl to his bed — which looks close at first but somehow seems to be about a hundred miles away — when the door to his room bursts open, splintered wood flying through the air as it does.
"I told you not to hide, you little shit."
Elias has his belt in his hand, the worn leather hanging in a loop as he grips the buckle and the far end of the belt.
"Grampa?" Stiles asks. He's so confused. He doesn't know what Elias is doing there or where the monster went and he's pretty sure he was supposed to be doing something but he can't remember what.
And then the belt comes down, fast and powerful, on the middle of Stiles' back.
Stiles screams and falls flat on the floor. It feels like fire has erupted across his back, flames lapping at his skin as a relentless ache wends its way deeper, settling into muscle and bone.
A tinny growl from across the room almost draws Stiles' attention but the belt comes down again, just a little bit higher on his back this time, and all Stiles can do is try to curl up against the pain and hope it goes away.
"Get up, boy. Take it like a man," Elias shouts, but before he even finishes speaking, that tinny growl from across the room becomes a much bigger growl from outside the window and suddenly there's shattered glass and a scream and something that sounds so furious, so enraged, that Stiles can't help but whimper as he tries to scuttle across the room. To get away from the monster.
He wedges himself between his bed and his night stand, pulling his knees up to his chest before he covers his head with his arms.
There's too much movement, too much noise, too much uncertainty, and Stiles can't even remember how he got there or what they're fighting or what he's supposed to be doing and he can feel a sob bubbling up in his chest that he really doesn't want to let out.
But everything sort of…slows down when Derek crouches in front of him.
"Stiles?" Derek's voice is hardly a whisper but the single word is wrapped up in worry and Stiles forces himself to uncoil. To look up and see what's wrong. "Hey. Hey, you're safe now, okay?"
Stiles doesn't quite understand. But he doesn't have long to worry about it, because as Derek reaches forward and gently takes Stiles' face in his hands, wincing as he does, Stiles loses the battle against the darkness that's been trying to claim him.
"No, no, no!" Derek yells.
Stiles can feel warm hands on his face, then on his body, but he can't keep his eyes open any longer.
"Stay with me, Stiles."
It's the last thing he hears before everything…stops.
~~~
He's in and out all the way to the hospital and every time he wakes up, it's to blinding bursts of pain throughout his body and face. His head aches and spins and makes him feel like he's going to puke, but any time he tries to move, his back and ribs scream and stop him in his tracks until he's finally pulled back under again.
But each time he wakes up, it gets just a little more bearable.
Eventually, something floaty and soft pumps through his veins, taking the edge off as it makes the pain tolerable. And once that happens, there comes a point where he can finally open his eyes without feeling like knives are jabbing into his brain.
The problem is, flickers of memory start to assault him each time he regains consciousness, or maybe they're dreams, because every time he wakes up, Derek is there. By his side. Sometimes even holding his hand.
And that's definitely a dream.
"Your dad's on his way," Derek says at one point. Stiles finally feels like he's really woken up this time as Derek looks up and meets his eye.
The statement seems to come out of the blue and Stiles' face scrunches up as he wonders if he'd asked about that, because he doesn't remember saying it out loud but he thinks he remembers wondering where his dad is. Either way, the accidental movement hurts his face.
Which makes him realize that literally everything hurts, even if it's wrapped up in cotton and far less severe than it should be.
"It's the first thing you ask each time you wake up," Derek answers the unspoken question. "You have a concussion."
"That explains the…pounding in my head," Stiles murmurs. Even though he keeps his voice quiet, he's pretty sure his brain tries to break free of his skull to get away from the noise. And the quiet groan he lets out only fuels the headache which is battering at his skull with a single-minded relentlessness.
When that pain abruptly stops, offering Stiles an unexpected reprieve, it actually startles a gasp from him.
Turns out Derek is holding his hand.
And siphoning his pain.
It's freaking amazing.
His head is still fuzzy without the pain, but he can think just a little bit clearer. Enough to ask the most important question on his mind.
"What happened?"
The flow of black sludge through Derek's veins slows until it's barely even noticeable, but Derek's hands remain wrapped around Stiles' as he speaks, and Stiles is surprised by just how much comfort he takes from the simple touch.
"Your grandfather," Derek practically spits the word, like it's personally offended him, "somehow managed to sneak out of his care facility. Your dad thinks he went looking for someplace familiar."
It surprises Stiles that Elias would've ended up at their house if he was searching for a place he knew. He doesn't ever recall his grandfather visiting them there.
Not that it really matters.
"He, um. He said things. I think he thought I was my dad." It's all a little hazy but some of the things his grandfather said, did, will haunt Stiles forever. "I think he hurt him. I think he hurt my dad when he was a kid."
"I think so, too," Derek says quietly.
And that hurts more than anything else. Everything that just happened, all of the pain and the fear, Stiles only lived it for a matter of minutes.
His dad spent sixteen years of his life with that man.
"He's okay, you know. Your dad," Derek says. His thumb strokes over the back of Stiles' hand in a slow and abstract pattern, and it's only when Stiles calms down enough to pay attention to that gentle motion that he realizes he's squeezing Derek's hand.
Hard.
"I spoke to him. He's…worried about you. Blaming himself for not telling you what Elias was capable of," Derek sucks in a breath. There's always an aura of anger wrapped around Derek Hale, but Stiles thinks he looks especially pissed off today. "But he's good. He's safe. And Elias won't hurt either of you ever again."
A stutter of breath — hope and relief and regret and remorse all tangled up together — gets caught in Stiles' chest. "Did you…?"
Derek's eyes flicker, so quick Stiles would bet Derek doesn't even realize it's happened.
"No. I wanted to. But no."
If Stiles didn't know better, he'd say Derek is worried about how Stiles will react to the news, but he pushes on before Stiles can say anything at all.
"Your dad is already arranging transfer papers. He's moving him to a more secure facility a few towns over so this never happens again."
Stiles honestly doesn't know how he feels about that. He doesn't know if it would have been better if Elias had just died tonight instead of being the monster that will always be lurking in the dark corners of their minds.
"If you want me to, I could…"
Derek's offer comes as a surprise. It's not that he's unaware that Derek is capable of killing, it's more that he's willing to do it for Stiles.
"You'd do that for me?" Stiles asks quietly. He's starting to feel tired, groggy, confused again, and the quiet click of the IV next to his bed, followed by a sudden rush of feel good chemicals in his blood, doesn't help with that.
He thinks he may need to sleep for a bit.
But right now, Derek is nodding, his gaze cast down on where their hands are still linked together and Stiles forces himself to pay attention as he asks, "Why?"
Derek's face does a thing. A twisty, growly, broody kind of thing. And Stiles doesn't have the slightest clue what the hell that means.
"He hurt you."
"A lot of people hurt me. I think I remember you smashing my head into a steering wheel."
"You had it coming." Derek smiles. Almost. Maybe it's more of a smirk. A really, really small smirk.
"You're handsome when you smile."
A slight flush creeps over Derek's cheeks and Stiles realizes he said that out loud.
"Oh shit."
Derek is still siphoning the pain, but the concussion is still clearly messing with Stiles' brain, because he sure as hell wouldn't have said that out loud if his head was on straight.
"You…" Derek starts and then stops. When he speaks again it's quiet. Unsure. "Think I'm handsome?"
"Duh. Have you looked in a mirror?" Stiles can't quite stifle his yawn, but he freezes midway through, his jaw dropped down so his mouth is wide open. "Shit. I said that out loud, too, didn't I?"
It pulls an honest to God chuckle out of Derek and Stiles feels kind of warm and bubbly on the inside at the feat.
"I should probably stop talking now." Stiles mumbles after just a few seconds. "Kinda tired."
The sudden blood flow to his cheeks is making the cut on his cheekbone ache, and he'd really like to avoid saying anything else fantastically embarrassing while his brain-to-mouth filter is offline.
Honestly, that thing barely works on the best of days, but this is something else entirely.
"Sleep. I'll be here. And I'll wake you when your dad gets here."
That warmth is bubbling up inside again and Stiles has to bite down on his swollen lip to keep from blurting it out loud.
"You don't need to keep doing that, you know?" Stiles looks down at their hands. He doesn't want him to let go. Not even a little. But he can't stay there forever. "You can't stay here forever."
It's starting to feel like there's an echo in his head.
"Says who?"
"Whom," Stiles corrects. His words are starting to come out slow and thick like they're coated in maple syrup. "And like, the laws of physics. And hospital visiting hours."
He's having trouble keeping his eyes open. Now that his body isn't aching with every breath and every movement, it seems to be demanding rest so it can begin to heal and recuperate.
"We'll see about that."
"Mhhmm," Stiles can feel the tug of unconsciousness getting stronger with every second that passes. But he tries to fight it. To stay awake.
"Why? Why are you fighting sleep, Stiles?"
Son of a bitch Stiles thinks. Or maybe says. He's not entirely sure anymore. Good God things are getting fuzzy.
"Gonna have nightmares."
He's been here before. He knows that Elias will haunt his dreams, but even worse, that feeling of utter helplessness will sink into the deepest reaches of his soul to make a home there when he closes his eyes.
He doesn't want that.
"I'll chase them away." Derek's offer is simultaneously the sweetest and most ridiculous thing he's ever heard. But when Stiles peeks an eye open to see Derek's eyebrows furrowed, like he's getting ready to face an unknown enemy, that balance tips completely to sweet.
Stiles isn't entirely sure he's not just hallucinating the whole thing.
"Can you just, like, talk to me?" Stiles asks, though the end of the sentence runs together so much it's nearly incoherent. Really, he's just hoping that having a voice to focus on will keep him from falling asleep.
"Talk? About what?"
"Anything."
There's a few seconds of complete silence and Stiles absolutely begins to drift off despite his best intentions, but Derek eventually fills the space with something that's so far off from what Stiles was expecting that it almost startles a laugh out of him.
"You're growing your hair out. It looks good. I like it."
They haven't seen each other in over a month, and with Stiles growing his hair out from a buzz cut, the difference is pretty noticeable. But even still, he never, ever would have expected that Derek would notice, let alone like the change.
Thankfully, he manages not to say any of that out loud.
Unfortunately, he can't seem to stop his stupid mouth from saying, "I like you."
Derek chuckles and slows the movement of his thumb so it's running slowly up and down Stiles hand in a way that immediately begins to lull him to sleep.
"That's the concussion talking," Derek whispers.
"Prob'ly," Stiles hums. His body is relaxing into the bed, limbs becoming heavy as sleep comes to claim him. "But s'true."
Derek keeps talking after that but the words just wash over Stiles without ever taking form in his mind. They're like a warm blanket that wraps around him, keeping him safe and warm. They even keep the nightmares at bay.
And the next time he wakes up, feeling infinitely clearer in his head, even if his face is pounding and his body aches something fierce, he's a little surprised how unsurprised he is to find Derek next to his bed, asleep in the chair.
He's also unsurprised that his dad is sitting in a chair on the other side of his bed, looking heartbroken and relieved and maybe just a little weary about the grown man whose head is resting on the bed next to Stiles' hip.
"How are you feeling?" John whispers as soon as he notices Stiles is awake.
He hurts, but he'll live, and he certainly doesn't want his dad worrying about him. "I'm okay."
"I'm so sorry, kiddo."
"It's not your fault, dad." Stiles starts to shift but the second he moves, Derek begins to stir in his sleep, so Stiles falls back against his pillows with a quiet grunt. "I um, think we maybe need to talk. About grampa?"
"Yeah," his dad's sigh is weary and cuts off as he scrubs a hand over his face. "But Elias lost the title of father and grandfather a long time ago. So maybe we don't call him grampa?"
And that's just fine by Stiles.
"And I think maybe," John nods towards Derek's sleeping form. "We have more than just Elias to talk about?"
Stiles doesn't know what the hell is going on there. He's actually more confused about what's happening between him and Derek than he is about why his gran—, why Elias, beat the everloving hell out of him.
"We can talk about all of that when you're released," John says, saving Stiles from having to figure out what to say about Derek. "They want to keep you for another twenty-four hours to make sure there's no complications from the cracked ribs." His dad's voice cracks as he says it and Stiles can see the way he's trying not to wince at the idea of what led to that particular injury. "But the doctor said your head CT was clear, so that's good news."
It is good news. But Stiles is still really freaking tired of old dudes beating him up.
Still, as he looks down at Derek, he wonders if maybe something good came out of this bizarre and agonizing situation after all.
He hopes so.
And when Derek reaches out in his sleep to wrap his fingers around Stiles' hand once again — not taking his pain this time, just giving, or maybe taking, some comfort — he thinks it might all have been worth it.
He's pretty sure his prayer for a life-altering event was actually answered, even if it's not at all what he was expecting.
Life's funny like that, he supposes.
And for once, he kind of likes the punchline.