Hero (Sterek)

Chapter 17

Stiles found himself being violently awoken under a surge of ice cold water. He gasped and sputtered as his vision slowly came back from the black abyss. He was in some sort of metallic tub in a brightly lit room, and someone was holding a metal spray on the coldest possible setting over his face. He tried to move, but a firm hand pushed him back.

"Stay still. I've got to wash your eyes," Dr. Deaton said.

And then there was a towel on his stinging eyes and it was horrible.

"Derek," Stiles finally said when he could a word out through his chattering teeth and shivering.

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

The spray shut off. Dr. Deaton helped Stiles out of the tub and tossed him a towel. Only the upper half of him, thankfully, was soaked. Stiles rubbed his puffy eyes with the towel until they stopped stinging.

"God, what happened?" he asked as he pulled at his wet tee.

"You tell me. I found you on the side of the road by the forest. Asleep. I told Derek that you could relapse..."

"What? He never... oh that douchebag."

Dr. Deaton waved a hand. "It doesn't matter—tell me what happened."

Stiles shook his head. "I don't...remember." He thought back. What was he doing before? He remembered his first ice bath with Derek, the very personal dressing session, and then they were by the river... Everything came flooding back in that second.

"Holy shit!"

"What?"

"Derek!"

Dr. Deaton just impatiently gestured for him to keep going.

"He-he—" Stiles waved his hands in the air.

"Words. Use your words."

"Disappeared!"

"Disappeared?"

Stiles nodded vigorously. "One second we were the forest—a really weird part of the forest too—and the next he was just poof gone. And then...I don't remember anything."

Dr. Deaton took a seat on one of the stools behind him. "You're going to have to explain from the beginning."

So Stiles told him—omitting certain conversation—how they further they traveled upstream the greener the forest became. It was like everything was already in spring but it was still cold as hell. And he told him about Derek's weird feeling—like something was off in the world—and how Derek suspected the place wasn't real.

And when he was done it took several minutes for Deaton to process what he was saying. But finally he nodded as he seemed to be coming to some conclusion. "Is there anything else?"

Stiles racked his brain and then remembered. "Oh yeah, and we maybe figured that it was some sort of sleep demon spirit thing. Like the sandman—but evil. And invisible."

"Ah, I had a suspicion when you told me about Derek's feeling."

Stiles raised his brows. "So you know what it is?"

"Well now I do. You should have told me this before. I could have told you a lot more."

"We just figured it out."

Deaton just raised a brow.

"Okay, okay."

"The thing is, it's not invisible. Follow me." Deaton stood up and led Stiles out of the washroom and into the main room with the metal table and most of the operating equipment. "Stay here." He walked into his office and came out a minute later with a laptop. He booted it up, waited for everything to load, and then searched for a specific file. It was a scan of a really old, decaying map of the world. There were several lines that stretched across continents crossing each other and strange markings and symbols that Stiles didn't recognize.