Unsteady | Sterek

Nineteen: Two kids, you and me

Something chases Stiles out of the darkness and he wakes up in a world that he can't make sense of. Everything is slightly blurry and his head hurts and his heart pounds; the lights are too bright for him. His hands shake, he can't make his fingers work. His legs are cold.

He's scared.

He tries to calm his breathing, tries to count his fingers but they double and blur and go fuzzy and then his head starts throbbing in time to the rapid rhythm of his pulse and he's a mess of things he doesn't understand.

There's something that scares him in the chaos of his body. It scares him so much that it forces him to become as still as the world around him. The heavy silence settles in his bones and pins him to the strange bed that he's on. He's not sure he could move if he wanted to but that's okay because if he's not moving then he only had to concentrate on breathing.

It takes him longer than usual to calm himself enough that he can focus and something forgotten in his chest longs for the comfort that Isaac gives. But Isaac isn't there right now and Stiles has to fight away that panic by himself.

Something in his head mourns Scott's absence from his everyday life.

Stiles tells that something to shut the hell up because Scott made that choice on his own and Stiles wasn't going to hold that against him because good friends don't hate independent people that make their own choices.

He manages to sit up, fighting the weight of the world once he's sure his bones won't break from the pressure of it all. Now that he's calmer again, he realises he's in Derek's room. He's only been here once before, when the werewolf had told him to rest. Memories lay thick here and Stiles wonders if the supernatural creatures can smell the meaning embedded in the air.

He hopes not, he thinks, because then that means that Derek knows it meant something. Then again, Stiles might want him to know.

He hauls himself out of bed, still in his torn clothing from when he...from when the coven had killed that boy. He hadn't remember before, he hadn't remembered actually using the knife but he remembers standing above him, standing like he was someone with enough power to hold sway over life and death. He'd stood there, pretending, thinking, that he could dictate who lived a full life and who didn't.

He wonders if that had been the Nogitsune or not.

Then he wonders if it had been him, if it had been Stiles that had used that knife, murdered that boy. Maybe the Nogitsune had needed someone with darkness in their heart as a host. Maybe everything that Stiles had blamed on the Nogitsune was just him and he didn't want to know.

His hands started shaking again and Stiles just stared at them.

He thinks about the boy's parents. He thinks about them crying at the funeral, he thinks about the anger they must hold, anger that is really pain and grief and loss and love disguised by something that is more acceptable and easier to withstand. He knows what it's like to use anger to cover the overwhelming sadness that comes with death.

He decides that he can't stay in this room, can't breathe without inhaling memories and words that mean nothing and everything all at once so he stumbles downstairs and freezes before he can make it off the last step.

Derek stares back at him and for once in his life, Stiles can't think of what to say.

The werewolf had rescued him from the darkness, the werewolf had saved him from the things that watched him from the shadows, the werewolf had watched him as the Sheriff had locked him away the werewolf had seen it all and the silence scares Stiles.

"Derek," he says and then he waits. He stands and he stares and he waits until there's movement and he braces himself but Derek isn't attacking him.

"You fucking idiot," Derek mutters as he rests his cheeks lightly on Stiles head. The young human boy tries to keep his surprise from chasing Derek off because the werewolf is warm and Stiles is cold and it's the first proper hug he's had in so long because Stiles dad doesn't like to make contact with his son anymore because Stiles is a murderer.

And he waits for the realisation from Derek, the knowledge that this stupid, spastic human piece of nothing has gone and tried his hand at being Death and now there's a family out there who's lost one of the most precious things on Earth. But Derek doesn't pull away for a long time and Stiles determines that maybe the hug is more for Derek than him and that's okay because Stiles has been there for everyone for so long that he can keep doing it without a doubt.

He just thinks it's nice to feel affection again.

And sure enough, Derek yanks himself away and escapes back to the other side of the couch as if it makes a wall between him and Stiles. That's okay, Stiles thinks, because he wouldn't want to be close to a murderer either.

"You should call my dad," Stiles rasps and his voice must be worse than he thinks because he's sure that Derek just flinched. "I'm supposed to be in jail. Pretty sure that means I'm not supposed to be having slumber parties with werewolves."

There isn't a reaction so Stiles makes himself walk towards the door even though he wants to stay with Derek, even though he wants a coffee, even though he wants to rewind time and go back to when things weren't so complicated and he felt safe.

Back to before he was a murderer. Back to when his Dad loved him.

But maybe that time doesn't exist. Maybe Stiles is thinking of a time that happened in a dream. Because the more he thinks about it, the more he's sure that once his mother died, his father didn't love him anymore.

He blinks away the sudden tears as Derek just watches him disappear out the front door.