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Stiles can feel his heart stutter, his lungs compress until it’s physically painful to suck in a breath, hear the blood rushing in his ears, when Scott – his best friend Scott – stabs a very fragile, very human Derek.
“How bad is it?”
It’s only natural, Stiles thinks, that Peter be the first person to respond. He wants to turn to Peter, to see if he looks as gutted as he sounds, but Stiles can’t tear his eyes from where he sees Braeden’s hands come away from Derek’s stomach covered in blood. He can only stand and stare at Derek bleeding out, his brain moving a thousand miles an hour, trying to come up with a way to save somebody from a wound that is obviously bleeding too much.
“I’m fine,” Derek replies, even as he writhes in pain. “I’m fine,” he repeats, a little bit stronger, like he’s trying to convince himself of the fact. “Just get to Scott.”
In his periphery, Stiles can see Peter share a glance with somebody behind him – probably Malia – before he feels the hair on the back of his neck raise. He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that there are eyes on him, knows exactly why everyone is looking at him, but he doesn’t think that he’s capable of tearing his eyes from Derek. His breath hitches when he sees, even with weak, human eyes, the blood staining Derek’s mouth, the red stark against white teeth.
When Stiles doesn’t turn to face the rest of them, he feels their eyes slide off him as their attention turns back to Derek, who still manages to look irritated as he bleeds out on the dirt.
“Just find him,” Derek wheezes. “I’ll be right behind you.”
If the situation was less serious, Stiles might’ve had it in him to make a joke about how Derek doesn’t look very ambulatory at the moment. As it is, though, his heart twists violently in his chest, and his rib cage feels too small for his lungs.
“Go,” Derek says, and nobody even flinches. They all just stare – Stiles knows they’re as desperate to help Derek, and just as helpless.
“Go!”
This time, it’s the kind of roar that would’ve been accompanied by a flash of his eyes and snarl, and behind him, Stiles can hear everyone else move towards the decrepit church. He turns his head for the briefest of moments, watching Liam’s back as he disappears into La Iglesia.
Not once does he consider following them.
Instead, Stiles turns back to Derek again, and finds himself pinned under the weight of Derek’s gaze. Stiles can read the pain written all over the other man’s face; he can see it in the slackness of his mouth, in the way his breath escapes him painfully, in the deep furrow between his brows. When Stiles finally meets Derek’s eyes again, he’s almost shocked by the clarity in them. Instead of the usual derision, or irritation, or hesitant tolerance, Stiles is thrown by how… understanding Derek looks. How calm.
“Save him.”
It takes Stiles a minute to catch up, and when he does, his jaw clenches so tight that his teeth clack together as his mouth shuts – he hadn’t even realized that it was open, that he’d been taking in labored breaths. As the understanding of what Derek’s asking him to do sinks in, he can feel himself being torn in two directions. As much as he wants to help Scott, wants to get his best friend back from the Berserkers, Derek’s… Derek. Derek is Derek.
If this were two years ago, if Stiles hadn’t been possessed and hadn’t had to bury his friend and hadn’t had to grow up way too young, he’d probably crumble into a ball on the ground, head in his hands as his chest tightened up on him to the point that he couldn’t breathe.
But this wasn’t two years ago, and Scott could be saved. But Derek…
Stiles doesn’t want to finish that thought – he can’t finish that thought. Fortunately or unfortunately, Derek is doing it for him. He holds Stiles’s gaze, those stupid multicolored gray-green eyes that have haunted Stiles for years so heartbreakingly full of understanding, and dips his head once in a nod. An acknowledgement. Permission.
Almost without realizing it, Stiles takes a singular step backwards, away from Derek and towards the church, and appallingly, Derek seems to relax, slumping heavily against the concrete barrier he’s leaning on. He holds Stiles’s gaze, and Stiles jogs a few steps before he turns away, trying to ignore the way that his heart breaks the moment he stops looking at Derek, trying to ignore the way that goodbyes never seem to work out for him.
He can feel Derek’s eyes on his back for as long as he’s in view of the entrance.
Scott tells Stiles as gently as he can that he doesn’t think Derek is coming back to Beacon Hills – which isn’t particularly gentle. He only mentions it when Stiles notices Derek’s mom-car headed west, towards the coast.
“Where’s Derek going?”
Stiles almost doesn’t recognize his own voice; he sounds hoarse, tired. Older.
Barely managing to tear his eyes from Kira, Scott twists his head back to Stiles and shrugs, a sympathetic expression on his face.
“He left with Braeden – I’m not sure where he’s going, but I don’t think he’s coming back to Beacon Hills.”
Stiles is proud of the way his heartbeat remains steady as he asks, “Now, or not ever?”
The wince on Scott’s face is all he needs to see, and the relief Stiles has felt since he learned that Derek was alive starts to war with an inexplicable dread.
Stiles leans back against the bench seat of the van, closing his eyes and trying not to dwell on how his gut twists at the thought of Derek leaving him without saying goodbye and never coming back.
He sends the text before he can even think it through.
Most of the others were flippant little notes – updates on the pack, notes written on his essays from his weird English teacher, a tiny kitten at Deaton’s all puffed up and hissing at Stiles’s hand. Stiles sends Derek a few texts a week, and he’s honestly not sure Derek even reads them. All he knows is that the number isn’t disconnected, and that it offers enough small comfort for him to make it on the days where it feels like he can’t even find the energy to breathe.
This one is not like one of those.
there’s a new wolf in town. an old classmate. shows up right when we need him to help and nobody else thinks it’s suspicious. i miss you. you’d trust me.
When he reads it back to himself, he regrets not letting it sit unsent and coming back to it later, because it sounds desperate. It sounds desperate and needy and fuck, it is so obvious that Stiles did not think that one through at all.
Despite the instant regret, though, some part of him still relaxes. It’s probably a response Stiles has Pavloved himself into, but just having the words off his chest that have been weighing on him for the last twenty-four hours eases his mind. Even if Derek doesn’t read these texts, Stiles has put the words out there; they’re real now, they have substance, but most importantly, they’re not just rattling around in his brain, feeding his anxiety.
Taking a deep breath, Stiles shuts his phone off and sets it aside, screen down, by his laptop. The infinitesimal amount of relief provided by the text is enough to let him focus on committing to a questionably legal internet deep-dive on Theo Raeken.
Derek’s not here, Stiles thinks. He’s not going to be here. Nobody is going to help me, so I’ll just help myself.
With that thought, Stiles opens up his laptop, and gets to work.
Someone is touching his arm and gently shaking.
Assuming it’s his dad – who else would it be? – Stiles fights the urge to startle and simply groans, shrugging his shoulders hard enough that the hand drops from his arm.
“‘M fine,” he mumbles as an afterthought, settling back down onto his folded arms. Typically, his dad’s content to leave him contorted in his desk chair if he puts up too much of a fight. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case tonight, because he feels the hand settle back down on his shoulder.
“Stiles.”
His name cuts through a little bit through the haze – it sounds a little off, but Stiles is fucking tired, and his dad sometimes sounds weird after a long shift.
“Stiles,” the owner of the hand hisses, shaking his arm more aggressively, and it finally clicks that holy shit, that is definitely not his fucking dad. Before he can even finish processing, Stiles is jolting, going from that hazy space between sleep and wakefulness to fully alert in a split second. He spins in his chair, one hand grabbing the stranger’s arm while the other searches fruitlessly on his desk for anything he can use as a weapon.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Stiles, it’s just me. It’s just me.”
The combination of those words, the voice saying them, and his night vision finally adjusting, has Stiles stopping in his tracks, hand on his desk falling slack at his side while the other continues to helplessly grasp at the not-so-stranger’s wrist.
“Derek?” Stiles asks, unable to keep the total shock out of his voice. He almost can’t believe his eyes, despite how unmistakable Derek’s silhouette is to him, even after almost a year. Any illusion that it might not be Derek, though, is shattered when eyes flash in the darkness, bright beta-blue.
“Stiles,” Derek replies, and yeah. That’s unmistakably Derek Hale, standing in Stiles’s bedroom, playing a familiar scene like so many other countless nights. Stiles suddenly feels aware of the fact that Derek’s hand is still resting on his shoulder, aware of how he can feel Derek’s pulse, steady and calm, underneath his fingers where they rest on the inside of wrist.
Reluctantly, Stiles releases Derek’s wrist, silently thankful when Derek doesn’t drop his hand – the touch is anchoring Stiles in reality – and fumbles around for his desk lamp. When the light finally clicks on, bathing the room in a warm glow, Stiles sucks in a gasp. Derek looks good. Not happy – he looks more concerned than anything, right now – but… warm. Softer around the edges, like maybe he’s learned how to smile more, and it takes Stiles’s breath away, enough that he forgets, just for a second, how to be surprised.
Not for long, though; within seconds, Stiles has the wherewithal to sift through some of the questions whirling in his mind and stammer out, “What - what are you doing here? When did you get back?” How long are you staying? Why did you come back? Why did you leave without saying goodbye?
Derek’s brows arrange themselves into a familiar furrow, his expression of bemused concern something that Stiles shouldn’t find so comforting. “I’m here to talk to you,” he says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world and Stiles is the ridiculous one for not being able to keep up. “I just got back.”
Stiles is torn between falling into the time-worn routine of bickering and holding onto his indignation. He settles on something between the two, letting out a deep sigh, before muttering, “What does that – Derek, it’s three in the morning.”
There’s the Hale eye roll. Stiles can’t tell whether to be thankful that whatever seemed to smooth some of his jagged edges didn’t beat that out of him, or whether he should punch him in the mouth for going missing for a year only to show up in Stiles’s room and roll his eyes.
“I’m aware of the time, Stiles,” Derek deadpans, and Stiles throws his hands up in the air in an incredulous gesture. Derek’s hand slides off his shoulder as he scoffs.
“God, I can’t believe you leave for fucking months,” Stiles hisses, “and then have the audacity to come back just as fucking irritating.”
Inexplicably, this seems to amuse Derek, because an unmistakably fond smile spreads on his lips, and there’s a warm expression in his eyes – tension even seems to leach from his frame where Stiles hadn’t even been aware that he was tense. It irritates Stiles at the same time that the expression makes his heart beat just a little bit faster.
“Why are you here?” Stiles asks before the silence hangs too long, before his heartbeat and staring gives him away. “How long are you back?” He does his best to sound as nonchalant as possible, like he hadn’t felt Derek’s absence as acutely as he’d feel a missing limb.
Derek pulls his hand back from Stiles’s shoulder, and for a moment, Stiles is worried that he’s said the wrong thing, that Derek’s gonna disappear out his window and never come back; instead, Derek just settles on the edge of Stiles’s bed, resting his elbows on his knees, arms loose and crossed at the wrists. He’s got this look on his face that Stiles has never seen before; he looks confused, like he can’t imagine why Stiles would even be asking such a thing, but his expression is undeniably fond.
“I’m back because you asked me to come back, and I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.” Derek says it like it’s one of life’s simple truths: the sky is blue, the earth rotates around the sun, and he’s back because Stiles Stilinski spoke it so.
Stunned doesn’t even begin to cover what Stiles is feeling. His traitorous heart thumps an irregular beat, painfully loud in his own ears. “I - what?” he manages to spit out, about as eloquently as could be expected when Derek Hale is in his room, sitting on his bed after a year of no contact, saying that Stiles Stilinski is the reason he’s back in Beacon Hills. For as long as he’ll have him. “When did I ask you to come back?”
When he gets around to the second question, Stiles has a feeling he knows what the answer is going to be. I miss you, you’d trust me, his mind reminds him, and Stiles’s hands clench reflexively in his lap, nails digging into his palm.
Derek raises an eyebrow, managing to look concerned and condescending all at once, and Stiles is convinced Derek can read minds, because the next words out of his mouth are “Your text message sounded different from the others.”
Even though he’d expected the answer, Stiles actually feels like he can’t breathe for a minute. He can’t tell if his chest feels tight because of Derek’s presence, or the look Derek’s been giving him, or because he’s ecstatic that Derek was here for him, or because he’s embarrassed that Derek even saw the texts in the first place. Stiles is pretty sure it’s a mixture of all that and then some, but that knowledge doesn’t stop him from sitting at his desk chair, mouth agape and staring at Derek, until he can formulate a response.
“You’ve read all of those?” Stiles manages to ask. It’s not really important, honestly, not in the grand scheme of all the other shit that Derek’s said to him, and especially not when compared to the fact that Derek is physically in his room, but he has to know.
Derek just nods, a barely-there smile gracing his lips, eyes crinkling fondly at the corners, and Stiles could cry at how well Derek wears that tiny bit of happiness. “Yeah,” he says, voice soft, “I read them all. Pretty big fan of the cats at the clinic and the drunk texts.”
Stiles groans before he can help it, because of course Derek would go there. He sobers up quickly, though, as Derek continues.
“The last one, though… I do. Trust you. And it sounded… like you might want me here. I was in Spokane, and I decided it was time to come back home.”
Stiles thinks this must be what drowning feels like. Derek’s words wash over them, and it’s almost too much. So, instead of attacking exactly what he thinks Derek might be getting at, he latches onto the safe part of that sentence.
“Spokane, Derek, really?” Before Derek can grow too irritated by the mock disdain in his voice, Stiles presses on. “Didn’t I send that text at like, five? Did you get here from Spokane in ten hours?”
Derek sighs in exasperation, eyebrows shooting up at the same time. “Really, Stiles, that’s what you’re gonna focus on?”
Stiles sighs right back, hands jerking with aborted movements as he actively tries to get himself in control. “Derek, I don’t know what else – don’t look at me like that, Jesus! I just don’t get – I just don’t get it. I don’t get this at all. I don’t know what you’re saying.” Frustration colors his voice, and his fingernails bite painfully into his palms. He feels like he’s missing something important, some key piece of information that would connect all of the pieces in this puzzle.
Inexplicably, Derek softens again, irritation wiped completely from his face and posture open. He’s looking right at Stiles with those gray-green-blue eyes, and Stiles can’t look away. Not when Derek is looking at Stiles like he matters, and there’s nothing Stiles can do to get his heart back under control, now. Derek leans forward, reaching out and settling his hand on Stiles’s knee. The weight of it’s warm, comforting, grounding Stiles in the present and giving his mind something to focus on instead of wandering.
“Stiles,” Derek started, voice warm, “I came back because you asked me to. And,” he said, shooting Stiles a hard look when he started to open his mouth in protest, “I know you didn’t use those words. But that text was you asking me to come back. Maybe I missed you, too.”
Stiles swallows hard. He’s not speechless — not even Derek Hale can render him speechless — but there are so many things that he wants to say, words that he’s spent so long burying deep in the back of his mind that he isn’t sure he knows how to say them at all, let alone to Derek. He thinks, though, that he might hear some of those same words buried deep in what Derek’s said.
“I… I don’t think I’m following,” is what Stiles settles on (the safe route — it’s always the safe route, Stiles thinks). He nervously holds Derek’s gaze, because he feels like if he looks away, Derek might just disappear. The last time he saw him, really saw him, he was dying. “Or, I feel like maybe I am following,” he continues, “but I’m not following what you’re following, because I don’t think we’re both talking about the same thing here –”
“Stiles.” Derek interrupts him with his name and a soft chuckle, and all the sudden he’s leaning into Stiles’s space, so close that Stiles can smell past whatever subtle cologne he wears, so close that their noses are a hairsbreadth from brushing.
“That’s my name,” Stiles breathes, the quip almost instinctive, but he’s really just too focused on how, up close, Derek’s eyes are multicolored beyond all belief, all green and gray and blue and brown and everything in between and fathomless with warmth, to come up with anything better.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” Derek says, his hand that isn’t braced on Stiles’s knee coming up to cup Stiles’s face and draw him in. His fingers feel hot enough to scald on Stiles’s skin, but Stiles just leans in, eyes fluttering shut, something settling in him that’s been off since Derek left.
The last thing Stiles can think before he feels Derek’s lips press against his is I guess I was following.