"Mom would have believed me." Oh, hey, low blow, Stiles caught the second he delivered, but didn´t care anyway.
His father stopped walking. His shoulders tensed. He bowed his head in utter defeat.
Score! Yeah. Sure. For a second there he´d wanted to hurt him. He´d wanted to make him feel like he felt right now. Helpless. Betrayed. Abandoned. But success had never tasted that bitter. He turned around and walked down the corridor, though his legs felt like jelly, and his hands were shaking. Crap! How his life sucked! Outside Cora´s room he slumped against the wall. He sniffed. No. No. He wouldn´t cry. He´d done nothing wrong. His dad was the one who was wrong. His dad considered him to be as crazy as fuck. He hadn´t believed the truth. Werewolves, dad, that´s the explanation for everything happening in Beacon Hills. Scott is a werewolf. Derek is a werewolf. Cora, too.
The whole day had been a series of disasters. First the murder of Tara, a woman who had often helped him with his homework. Next he had to listen to Miss Blake in class. She didn´t even pretend to like him anymore. Duh! Neither did he. His mouthing off to Ethan afterwards wasn´t that clever either. And then Cora had passed out right in his room. So they had landed here, at the hospital, the one place he hated the most. So? What next? What blow of fate is coming?
"Stiles!" Derek sprinted through the hallway. "Where is she?" He almost bumped into Stiles.
"Hey. Easy there, alpha wolf." He plucked himself from the wall, shivering. "She´s in here." He gripped the doorhandle tightly to hide his turmoil. After their arrival at the hospital he had called Derek, not sure Derek was yet back from his secret hiding spot. That Derek was had been a relief. Well. Almost. He wasn´t ready to meet him yet, particularly not here, and certainly not after his dad made him feel so miserable. Okay. Telling the truth backfired but whatever he was dealing with, Derek got it worse. He looked like hell, more damaged than usual, as if that was even possible. "I´m sorry."
Derek wasn´t even listening to him. He only had eyes for his sister, lying deadly pale under the covers, looking like a lost cause. Derek made a devastating sound. He whined.
Oh God! Derek! Don´t. "I wanted to protect her." He gulped. "I don´t know what happened. She just-"
"Not your fault. I´m the one who should protect her. Not you."
Doesn´t matter. I´d have liked to keep her safe. He squirmed. "Okay. I gotta go." I wanna stay, though. I wanna be close to you. I wanna help you. You don´t have to go through this alone.
Again Derek wasn´t listening. He seized Cora´s hand and held it gently. His shoulders drooped in defeat.
"See ya." He rushed out before he could change his mind. He needed some distance before he said or did something he would regret forever. He´d already succeeded in making his dad turn his back on him. He couldn´t deal with Derek doing the same. Not today.
*****************************************************************************************
The rain came down in sheets flooding the streets, making the world look dark and hopeless, Derek thought, staring gloomily through the windshield. Maybe he was driving right to hell. Maybe he finally got what he deserved. Maybe this was the end of his no-good existence.
"You should know, I´m not doing this because I have to. I want to," Jennifer said, sitting right next to him. "I could still run. And you wouldn´t have an easy time stopping me. And I don´t want your sister to die. I´m only doing what I had to do."
"Shut up." His insides were on fire. He fought the urge to slash her throat. She was the Darach. A cold-blooded killer. He had slept with an evil worse than Kate. A real monster. Once again he had made the worst choice.
"You need to know the whole story, Derek. You need to know just how connected we really are," she went on mercilessly.
"Stop. Talking." He wouldn´t listen to one word she had to say. Stiles was in pain because of her. Stiles of all people. Derek could barely keep on driving, he was so deeply affected by Stiles´s misery. His wolf wanted to break free and rip Jennifer apart. He only stopped himself for the sake of Stiles and his father. Not now. He forced his wolf to wait. Stiles needed him to stay calm and focused. Stiles needed her alive. Later, yes, later, he would kill her. He would make her pay and then...then... He gripped the steering wheel harder. His knuckles turned ashen, the veins swelling painfully. Good. Pain was good. I deserve to feel much worse. I fucked up. Why this was happening to him again he didn´t know. Why did he never get a break? Why was he so crushed having seen Stiles cry? Maybe because he had never seen him cry before. Not once. Not even when they were in danger of dying. That boy did not cry easily. He was a lot tougher than he looked. He was brave. He was a fighter. And now this. His girlfriend being the evil that threatened to kill the only family Stiles had left. The sheriff. And Cora, the sister he had only just got back. No matter how much he hated Jennifer and wanted to rip her apart he had to play along to save Cora and the sheriff. He owed that to them. He owed that to Stiles. What would come later he didn´t care. His life was fucked anyway. Definitely fucked.
At the hospital he had no time to think anymore just to fight and run. Unfortunately in the heat of the moment Jennifer got away. He couldn´t do a thing about it, because he had his hands full fighting the twins. Stiles made him responsible for her disappearance anyway. Okay. Maybe he was kind of responsible for all the shit happening, but Stiles needed to shut up. He didn´t, though, he was really, really mad.
"Quiet," he hissed as nicely as possible.
"Me, be quiet?" Stiles was shouting into his face, spitting with fury. "Me, huh? You´re telling me what to do now? When your psychotic mass murdering girlfriend, the second one you dated, by the way, has gotten my dad somewhere tied up where he will be ritually sacrificed?"
He stood his ground and endured the blame. He knew Stiles was out of his mind because of what was happening to his father and couldn´t think straight right now. Yet he wondered how Stiles could know about him and Kate. He never told him or anyone. So what about that? Did Stiles tell Scott? Did anyone else know? Had his past caught up with him after all?
Scott stopped Stiles´s raging at him. "Stiles, they are still out there."
"And they want her, right?" Stiles turned to Scott. "Which means now we don´t have her either."
Derek´s heartbeat ran amok. He knew Scott could hear it. He tried to think of something he could do. Something to ease Stiles´s pain. Something. Stiles returned to shouting at him. "So my dad and Cora are both dead."
No. His eyes and teeth stung. His skin prickled like a thousand ants were crawling underneath. The need to do something became literally excruciating. That´s when Jennifer came back. "Bitch!" he freaked out and attacked her. He´d had enough of her making speeches. She had ruined his already messed up life. She had ruined his one last chance to find some happiness.
Scott kept cool and got in his way. He made him listen to her. She offered a deal. If they protected her from the Alpha pack and brought her to safety she promised to heal Cora and reveal the location of the sheriff. He had no choice but to agree, though he rather wanted to torture and kill her.
Forcing their way out they came to the point where he had no choice but to leave his unconscious sister in the care of Stiles. He had to leave them both behind to lure the enemy away. He would trust nobody else with his sister´s life. Only Stiles. "Derek!" Jennifer cried out for him. He turned to her and Stiles touched him lightly on the arm. For a second he froze in motion and looked at him. He was all confused by the affection in Stiles´s eyes. Clearly Stiles must hate him for betraying him with Jennifer, for putting his dad in danger, and for getting them all in this hell of a situation. Still the way Stiles touched him and looked at him told a different story. Derek went running with a strangely blissful burning sensation in his heart, something he had never felt with anyone. Maybe with Paige, but that had happened such a long time ago, he didn´t know for sure.
**********************************************************************************
Fuck! Scott went with Deucalion. Jennifer vanished. The police were on the way. Derek was still lying unconscious on that floor in the elevator. Stiles couldn´t just leave him here to get arrested. Not due to his undoing. Clumsily he sagged down next to Derek and slapped him. Once. "Derek!" Twice. "Derek! Come on!" Screaming his name like he was going nuts. Thrice. Shaking him, begging him to wake up. Please. Sourwolf. Please. Desperate he made a fist to punch him really, really hard. He couldn´t finish. Derek came out of it and grabbed his arm before he could land the punch. He looked around, confused, like he didn´t know what was going on and why Stiles was even there. Because he was at a loss himself Stiles let Derek get a grip. Yeah. He let Derek crush his bones, like he even enjoyed the rather bruising touch after all the time they had spent apart. Catching his breath Derek asked about Jennifer. Stiles spilled the explanation rashly. There was no time. He pulled Derek into a sitting position, casually rubbing his shoulder. Why is it always me keeping you alive? Why is it always us ending up like this? Why for the love of- Still holding hands they were closer than they had been for days. Intimately close.
"What about Cora?" Derek worried, trembling under his touch.
"She is safe. She is already on her way. Now we have to-"
"Thank you," Derek breathed against his neck, fisting Stiles´s shirt.
Stiles shivered. Crap! No. Not now.
Derek didn´t agree, considering he sealed Stiles´s lips with a soft kiss. The sensation came unexpectedly and turned pretty passionate, involving a lot of tongue. Stiles struggled a bit, but mostly with himself, before he found the strength to break away. "Cheap shot," he complained, slightly pouting.
Derek shrugged. "Yeah, totally worth it tough."
"Okay." For seconds he clung to the line of Derek´s body. The heat radiating off him felt so good, in the weirdest way familiar. Damn it...comeoncomeoncomeon. The sound of sirens wailing made him move. "Let´s go, wolfman." He pulled Derek to his feet and dragged him along the corridor.
"Fine," Derek snorted. "Lead the way."
They got to the parking deck. "Get in and out of here!" Stiles ordered sharply to smooth over his anxiety. No panic attack. Not now. Not-
"What about you?" Derek got into the Toyota, though he didn´t look compliant.
"I´m gonna hold off the cops."
"Stiles-"
"Don´t argue. Just go!" And miracles never ceased to exist. Derek did. Coated by the remaining warmth of Derek´s body Stiles felt properly armed for the confrontation with the police. He couldn´t know that he wouldn´t see Derek again. He couldn´t know that he had to live on this warmth for a very, very long time. He couldn´t know how much he had to depend on this warmth considering what was coming. Maybe that was good. That he didn´t know.
*********************************************************************************
The terror was over. Deucalion was beaten. Jennifer was gone. In the end their sacrifice to save their parents had paid off. Everything was good again. Well. No. Not everything. Just now, eating lunch in the breakroom, Stiles sensed that something was off. "What is it?"
His best friend winced guiltily. "Derek and Cora left town."
"Huh?" A piece of already chewed sandwich dropped from his mouth. He gaped at Scott like a drooling loony. This can´t be true. Derek would never do this to me. He would never leave without saying good-bye. Not after all that had happened between us. Not after I saved his ass once more. Not after he kissed me like that. He just can´t do this. "Why?" he croaked huskily, disguising his confusion and hurt behind a heavy cough.
"I don´t know. He just sent me a text message this morning. A very curt message."
"This morning?" he echoed stupidly. "Why didn´t you tell me earlier?"
"Sorry. I didn´t think-"
"I´d care? You´re right. I don´t. Fuck the Hales. Fuck Derek. Fuck this shit!" He smashed his lunch on the table and banged his chair back. "I have to go to the bathroom." He sprinted down the aisle, hearing Scott calling out his name, though he didn´t stop till he was out of his sight. Hiding in a corner he checked his phone frantically. Maybe Derek had texted him, too? No. No messages. Derek didn´t considerer him as worthy as Scott. Yeah, well, he was not pack, he was not werewolf material. He was only human. The human Derek had kissed, jerked off and licked clean afterwards. Did he do the same to Scott? Did he? Fuck! I hate you. I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW! How could you do this to me? He sniffled. Holy Crap! Stop this! Pull yourself together. That bastard doesn´t deserve your tears or a scrap of compassion. He punched the wall. "AH!" The self-inflicted pain gave him proper cause to wipe his eyes dry.
Scott didn´t dare to say one more word about Derek after Stiles came back to go to class. The matter was just dropped. After school Stiles waved nonchalantly at Scott and drove off immediately, giving the impression that he fled from further confrontations, which he most certainly did. Not that he cared much about what Scott was thinking. For no reason he drove all the way to the loft even though he knew what he would find there. Empty silence. "Derek, you asshole!" he shouted at the walls. "Didn´t we mean anything to you?" Didn´t I mean anything to you? Not a chance he would say that out loud not even with no one listening. He just took off. He left me. He abandoned me. I´m even unworthy of a simple good-bye. How could Derek do this to him? And Cora? He thought she liked him. He saved her life for god´s sake. So ungrateful. She and her brother deserved to be punished. Yeah! He didn´t care that Derek was a werewolf. He would make him pay by spanking his ass. How about that! He would make him beg for forgiveness. Oh, really? How exactly? Don´t you get it? Derek will never come back. He´s gone, idiot. He doesn´t care what you want. He never cared. Violently he kicked the chair standing close by. The stupid thing flew right into the big windowpane. Pang! The glass trembled in biting coldness. Darkness was creeping up on him. He was chilled to the bone. Oh God! Why did you leave? What did I do wrong? Derek?
***************************************************************
As usual night was coming hauntingly fast. Not unexpectedly death showed up also, chasing him mercilessly, dragging him to the place where he really belonged, the land of eternal cold, where any hope had died a long time ago, and evil was feeding on flesh and spirit...slurp slurp slurp...
Screaming himself awake he fought with the blanket, tightly wrapped around him like a second skin, stinking of sweat and fear. His heart pumped like frenzy, poured in with blackness, choking him...choking... Oh God! He couldn´t breathe. Gasping he switched the lamp on crashing the stupid thing almost to the ground. Crap! CRAP! He fumbled for his phone. He needed to talk to someone. Scott. No reply. Lydia. The same. Oh, please. Someone. Anyone. Not Derek. No. Not him. He didn´t need Derek. Not anymore. Derek was dead to him. No more tears for the fucking traitor. He was stronger than the void Derek had left inside of him. Cora. Yes. He would try to talk to Cora. The fact that she was the closest one to Derek he simply ignored. That was not important. He liked her. She was fierce and honest. He considered her a sister in arms, though she never thanked him.
Hey. I always thought there was some sort of a code like those who slay together stay together. You read me? I´d have liked to say good-bye. His hand trembled above the send button. Don´t do this. Don´t. But he couldn´t resist. He hit send. There. Done. No way of taking it back now. Shaking with exhaustion he pulled the covers back up. He left the light on and tried to relax. No more darkness. No more dreams. No more. His phone peeped. Oh. Did she reply? Really?
Bye, Stiles. Nice to meet you. I bet you have that look on your face that makes me wanna punch you.
He snorted and felt better already. Ha Ha. You are a Hale. A pain in the ass but okay. I miss you already. Not as much as sourwolf. Holy God! Are you nuts? Don´t you dare to send this. Don´t let anyone know how much you care for him, particularly not his sister. He erased the stupid sentiment and sent the first part only.
*********************************************************************************
Cora punched her brother. "You should have said good-bye. He really misses you."
"What? Who´re you talking about? And don´t do that while I´m driving," Derek growled and put his attention back on the deserted street. The sun was hot and he already regretted taking this trip. He must be nuts to think a plan of his would work just this one time.
"You know who. Don´t play this game. You know I could smell him all over you the morning after Boyd was killed."
"What?" In a hurry he steered the car to the curb and stopped. "Give me that." He tore the phone from her hand.
"Hey, you jerk. Never heard of something like privacy?"
"Shut up." He skimmed through her text messages. His jaw clenched. His eyes blazed fiercely blue. Even his heartbeat skipped a few beats, but he didn´t care that his sister could read him like an open book right now. At last he gave the phone back to her, huffing a bitter sigh.
"Derek?" Gently she rubbed his shoulder. "Do you want to send something back?"
"No." He wiped the sweat off his forehead.
"Hey, you know he came back the morning you´d left to heal. He only came looking for you. He cares, you know. A lot."
"Doesn´t matter. He´s-"
Peter, napping in the backseat, opened his eyes. "What´s going on?"
"Nothing," Derek grumbled, and drove the car back on the street. "Go back to not annoying me."
For once Cora kept her mouth shut. Even she knew that they shouldn´t discuss matters of the heart in front of Peter.
"I don´t know since when I´ve had this reputation," Peter complained lazily, but did as he was told.
*************************************************************
For two days he succeeded in not texting anything to Cora, though he didn´t succeed in not thinking about Derek. He missed Derek so very much. Holy God he missed the jerk a great deal. He was hurt, yeah, but still he wished for Derek to come back and kiss him senseless.
On the third day he failed. Peter vanished. Which is no tragedy. But I don´t trust him. What is he up to? Really? What? He´s a creep. Somehow texting Cora helped him feel better if only for a short time. Somehow he felt more connected to Derek texting his sister. Somehow he felt less alone.
Don´t worry about Peter, though I agree about him being a creep.
He frowned. Did that mean Peter was with them? Did that mean they were all together in some sort of plan whatever it was? Oh, man. He didn´t know how and when the Hale family became such an important part of his life.
Mostly Cora texted just tiny trivial things about their trip, though she never mentioned a location or where they were headed. Sometimes she missed out on a reply.
Those were the days he wrote messages for Derek. I know about Paige. Peter told me. I know what you had to do. I´m so sorry. He never sent them, though, just saved them on his phone to read them himself from time to time. Yeah, fucking ridiculous, but he couldn´t help it because he thought about Derek all the time. Every time he jerked off as well as all the times he didn´t, day or night, having one of the nightmares from hell, which scared the shit out of him, or sleeping peacefully, dreaming about him and Derek doing the good stuff. Duh!
Isaac and Scott are best bros now. Okay. Almost. The fact that Isaac wants Allison is a small drop of bitterness in their friendship. He snorted. Yes. He was selfish enough to gloat about that.
Nights with a full moon were the worst. He could swear he heard Derek howling close by. He even saw him standing by the window, eyes glowing blue. He imagined his touch taking the pain away, making him come like fireworks. All that was scary. Devilishly good but scary.
Isaac is a pain in the ass. Sorry for the harsh words. He keeps bothering me. Like he knows something I don´t know. Like he´s goading me on purpose.
Maybe he is not the only one who knows. ;)
"Um..." He eyed the message warily. Shit! Maybe he was really naive to think nobody knew. Okay. Deaton didn´t count. He was not the kind of man who would share such knowledge just like that. He was the kind of man who didn´t share anything until it was almost too late.
Sometimes I go to the loft. Just looking around. I have a spare key. I look out the window. I remember everything. I...
No. He didn´t write that once he jerked off in Derek´s bed. That was nothing you could confess to anyone. Anyone!
He started dreaming of different and strange places. The locker room. The woods. The nemeton. He started being afraid of falling asleep. He started being afraid all the time. Strangely enough putting on a red shirt made him sometimes dream of Derek instead, like the color was some kind of magic charm keeping them connected, but on more and more nights he yearned for that connection because he was feeling utterly weird even by day now. He couldn´t read anything anymore. He couldn´t focus. He didn´t know when he was sleeping or when he was awake. He didn´t know much anymore, like he was losing his mind. Maybe he was.
*********************************************************************************
"Something is wrong. He stopped texting," Cora said to Derek, settled in a battered garden chair in the back yard of her new home.
"So? He just found better things to do." Derek´s face darkened. He didn´t admit that he sensed that something was off, too, though he didn´t know what that could be. Why was he so worried? Why couldn´t he shake off that feeling of being anchorless? Why did he dream of Stiles drowning in black water so often?
"I don´t believe you, you know, that you don´t care one bit about him. You´re just pretending."
"Believe what you want. I don´t need your opinion," Derek turned her down. He was missing Stiles´s texts. He was missing Stiles. He felt the urge to check Cora´s phone. He needed to see for himself if Stiles had started texting again.
The next day he bought Cora a new phone. She smirked like the little brat she sometimes was when he gave it to her. "Go back. Be happy." Easily she turned her old phone over to him.
"Shut up," he murmured, clutching the acquired possession tightly. He couldn´t go back right now. There was one thing he had to do. The one piece he came here for. He wouldn´t go back without it.
"Love you, too, bro." She laughed.
He rolled his eyes and fondly messed up her new haircut.
"Hey!"
*************************************************************************************
The moon, a drop of bleeding red, or maybe shards of flashes in the mirror, whispering in the dark. His heart, a raw and open wound, answering the eerie call by beating like frenzy. What now? What was hunting him? Was he dreaming? Was this real? Was he running through the woods again? Was he lying in his bed, sweating fear? Was he even real? He didn´t know. He only knew he was scared and Derek wasn´t here. Derek. Not lurking in a corner. Not licking away his pain. Not whispering his name. An illusion made up by his mind, a dream in a dream, a scar slowly fading away. How often he screamed himself awake, hoping to find him at his side, the grumpy wolf, who always was able to take his fears away. The asshole he hadn´t considered scary in a long time. He needed him to come back and save him from hell. Yeah. This was hell, and if you´re going through hell just keep going. "Derek!"
**********************************************************************************************
DEREK! He jerked awake, arms burning like fire, heart pounding like a drum in his chest. He blinked in confusion. No. He wasn´t home. So that must have been a dream. Stiles screaming his name. Stiles?
"What?" Peter barked at him, staring curiously. His body was covered in sweat. His eyes were blood-shot, matching the crimson drops dripping from his mutilated hand.
"Nothing," he growled, hating that his uncle was witness to his own personal turmoil. He turned his head the other way and tried to calm his heartbeat down. He couldn´t hide further from Peter due to the fact they were both chained to a fucking wire fence. Captured. Tortured. Once more abused and violated. Still he worried more about Stiles than himself. Why did he dream about Stiles? Again. Why was he not able to forget him? Why didn´t he focus on more urgent problems? He snorted. Yeah, like losing my head, maybe even my life. Yes, he was losing in every way possible and yet he worried about Stiles. What was happening to him? Why was he in danger? Who would want to hurt him? No, no, no. Don´t even think that. Not him. Not Stiles!
