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Stiles Stilinski was told that he would never amount to much. He was a hyperactive little bastard that couldn’t sit still for 30 seconds. Calls home from his teachers were a regular occurrence; the disappointed looks when they called on him and he couldn’t answer because the lights were too bright and Jackson wouldn’t stop tapping his toe against Stiles’s chair.
“Focus, Stiles.”
It’d echo through his head, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, but never sticking.
Just fucking focus.
FOCUS.
It got better around high school. He was quirky, skinny, annoying, but that was his personality. He harnessed his ADHD and weaponized it. He could make connections like it was no one’s business, jump between conversations, and poor Scott- blank faced, his first friend, overwhelmed- would attempt to follow, flounder at the sheer amount of word vomit, and nod.
Stiles knew he was a lot.
Discovering werewolves, falling in love, falling out of love, being possessed by a Nogitsune, and disappearing into the ether…it tempered him.
ADHD made him sharp, but trauma- so much trauma- softened the edges. He couldn’t stay still to save his life, but his mantra of “Focus, just fucking focus” disappeared.
He was kinder to himself and to those around him. He was still a sarcastic asshole, but he was a more reserved sarcastic asshole. He talked a mile a minute but he talked around the conversation, getting what he needed, and always cataloguing information because information is survival.
The FBI apparently likes people with a power to observe, and they were willing to overlook a few of his quirks (see: symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that he later read the FBI’s psychologist said were concerning and means for re-evaluating placement within the bureau). It probably helped that he was one of the few agents in the know.
If only he could tell 7-year-old Stiles that the X-Files were real and much scarier than Mulder and Scully’s cases…
He was a specialist, but not a special agent. That would involve Quantico, and they had more specialized training in store for him (most of it on the job). The academy was a piece of cake compared to becoming a supernatural liaison for the federal government.
Field work, while more rare than you’d expect, usually involved cover-ups and under the table agreements with foreign governments. You had to learn to do that shit right, or the higher ups tend to make a fuss about needing to spin another serial killer story to sell to the public.
Luckily, most Creatures (always with a capital C) were also tax-paying American citizens and their information was relatively easy to find and nip major problems and territorial disputes in the bud before they became public spectacles. Luckily, the bureau hired a master bullshitter that could talk around a snarling alpha werewolf over dinner, broker an agreement for building on protected federal lands without killing a colony of Wood Fae, and when off the clock…well, when Lydia left, let’s just say he expanded his horizons.
Stiles loved his job.
He hadn’t visited Beacon Hills in four years. He talked to his Dad every night, and was called to consult over the phone on cases in Beacon County that could have been a bit hairy in nature.
Or scaly, snarly, generally homicidal but misunderstood…lonely, searching for anyone like them.
Sometimes he would see Parrish in the background of his Dad’s FaceTime calls (“I need to see that you are alive and your apartment isn’t a potential haz mat situation, kid.”), and even more rarely, Derek.
Derek was typically line of defense and font of knowledge numero uno when it came to any situation that might have been supernatural in nature. But even he knew to concede that sometimes Stiles was more knowledgable about the habits of certain Creatures than the Hale bestiary would likely ever be. Not that he’d ever concede that Stiles knew more, but Stiles felt smug when he saw Derek’s scowling face and crossed arms in the background because Stiles solved the case from 3000 miles away and without fancy supernatural senses.
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Derek and Stiles’s relationship was complicated.
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After Stiles had left with Lydia and moved across the country to Virginia, the Hell Mouth known as Beacon Hills long behind them, everything felt strained. They couldn’t communicate, tip toeing around the trauma and chaos left behind. Lydia had nightmares. He had nightmares. But her’s typically led to bleeding ear drums and profuse apologies through tears and shadowed, haunted eyes.
It was after one of those nightmares that he curled in the bathtub and sobbed, finding refuge in the enclosed space. He couldn’t do this. He wasn’t sleeping; she wasn’t sleeping. He was hallucinating that blood was everywhere. Allison’s face, her eyes, were at the forefront of his mind and he couldn’t breathe without smelling death. He tried breathing through his mouth but always ended up hyperventilating, tipping into panic attack after panic attack until he passed out.
——————————
It was during one of these panic attacks that Derek had called him for the first time. Curled up with the side of his face pressed against the porcelain tub, face hot and hand pressing into his chest, sobbing into his fist because Lydia didn’t need to hear him and his problems when she was sleeping for the first time in a week. God, they were so fucked up.
The vibration of his phone that had dropped somewhere on the floor forced him up, but he kept an arm curled around his chest, gasping for breath, squeezing and grounding himself because the only people that called him were his Dad and Lydia and his Dad was sound asleep after a double. Or should have been.
Derek’s name flashed on the screen and he froze. He could have faked it with his Dad (“It’s just a cold, don’t worry about it!”) but Derek would call him out because there was no way he wouldn’t hear his heart.
Fuck it.
He swiped his finger across the screen, answering the call.
“Hello?” God, he sounded like he had swallowed glass. He took in a shaky breath and readjusted the phone to sit against his shoulder, crouching back into the tub with his knees to his chest, trapped. Pressure will help.
“…Stiles?”
“Yeah, hey man. Can I call you back later? Now isn’t a good time.”
He brought his knuckle to his mouth and bit down, trying to control his breath.
“I need your help with a case.”
Derek didn’t sound as gruff as normal. In fact, he sounded as exhausted as Stiles himself felt. He could hear shuffling on Derek’s side of the line, a faucet turning on, and an odd bubbling sound. There were more muffled noises, the sound of something plastic hitting a countertop, and then the sound of shifting powder.
“How’s Eli doing?”
Eli was Derek’s one year old. Eli’s Mom had skipped town after dropping the kid off to Derek at two weeks old. She said she couldn’t afford a baby, and maybe that was true because babies cost a lot of money, but it also might have had something to do with intermittent flashes of little yellow eyes that had started around the full moon the week before.
“Teething again. The only thing that seems to help are bottles on tap and car rides, but I don’t trust myself behind the wheel after being awake for 3 days straight.”
Stiles felt his breath coming in slower gasps and he moved his hand away from his face, grasping his shirt again.
“That fucking sucks. I don’t know how you do it,” Stiles paused. “He’s lucky to have you.”
And where the fuck did that come from?
Stiles could hear Derek huff out a breath on the other end of the line. If Derek was anyone else he would probably say he sounded amused, but it was more likely an aborted sigh or growl.
“Can you help?”
“With Eli? I’m 3,000 miles away. I don’t think I can do much other than maybe bore him to sleep with-“
“No,” Derek interrupted, this time there was definitely a growl in his voice. “With the case.”
Stiles stretched out one leg, leaning back against the slant of the tub and taking a deep breath. He felt more centered, like his skin wasn’t as tight and restrictive as it felt 5 minutes ago.
“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.”
There was a heavy pause. A less emotionally stunted person would probably ask if Stiles was okay after interrupting an obvious breakdown, but this was Derek Hale. Stiles knew he cared in his own way, but he had been abandoned and hurt too many times to reach out. Stiles understood that; it’s why they worked so well together. Stiles will never be the paragon of mental health and wellness.
Stiles must have zoned out because Derek is saying, “-dead bodies, organs removed but meticulously. Bestiary indicated wendigos but they are so precise that,” Derek hesitates here as though he is waiting for Stiles to interrupt and continue the thought process.
“There have been reports of ghilan on the west coast. Unsubstantiated but fit the MO. I’m guessing the body was found near a cemetery? How many people have they killed so far?”
The silence over the line was heavy.
“They?”
Stiles breathed out again and his eyes drooped.
“Singular, ghoul or ghul. Plural, ghilan. From my research they tend to be a bit more clean in their eating habits than your typical wendigo, but they fall within the same realm of Creature. Eat people, typically disappear quickly, terribly hard to kill. We have a team investigating in Colorado, but the details are classified.”
There is a soft cry on the other side of the line and the sound gets louder suddenly as Derek drops the phone on what Stiles assumes is a table and places it on speaker. He can hear the sound of wood brushing against wood, and he imagines Derek is settling into the rocking chair in Eli’s room that Stiles’s Dad scrounged up from the attic and forced Derek to take after seeing how woefully unprepared for fatherhood he was.
The soft sounds of Eli taking the bottle and gurgling as he settles in, and the soft shushing sounds carrying over the phone make something in Stiles’s chest tighten and then release, leaving a feeling of warmth in their wake.
He hears Derek release a breath, and another creak, the sound coming in even intervals.
“That sounds about right.” He says after a few minutes. Stiles must have lost time listening to the steady, soothing sound of the chair moving softly over the phone. He closed his eyes and curled into himself.
Stiles hummed.
“You okay?”
The question surprises him.
“I think so.”
He keeps listening to the sounds of Derek moving, placing something beside the phone. There is a soft scratching noise and the sounds in the background become muffled.
“You need to go to sleep, Stiles. It’s 3 in the morning.”
“I can’t go to sleep. I’ll wake up and it’ll be even worse.”
He feels a sob build in his chest again and pushes his hand against his sternum. If he pushes hard enough maybe he’ll be able to keep himself from falling apart.
“Fine. You can stay on the line but you aren’t allowed to comment.”
Stiles’s brow furrowed and he shifted against the side of the tub.
He could hear movement, the phone probably propped against Derek’s shoulder as he maneuvered Eli around. There were snuffling noises and baby cries, and then a soft sound. At first he couldn’t identify the tune, but after a few notes he smiled softly.
Derek Hale was humming “You are my sunshine” to his kid. Fucking hell.
It shifted into another song that Stiles didn’t know, and then moved onto another song just as smoothly. Stiles could imagine that Derek had been cycling through any song that would come to mind to get Eli to stop screaming and it was working.
He could feel his own heartbeat slowing and his body growing heavy. With the position of the phone against his own shoulder, he was sure Derek could hear him slowly losing consciousness.
Stiles was in that state between wakefulness and sleep, teetering at the edge about to fall off, when he heard Derek moving again. There was a small whine from the other side of the phone, a shushing noise, and then a door softly opening and closing.
The silence was heavier than before. Stiles shifted again, clearing his throat.
“I’m going to try to sleep.”
“That’s good,” Derek turned on a sink, and Stiles could hear bristles scratching against plastic.
“You should try to sleep too.”
The silence was heavier this time, only interrupted by the sink turning on and off again as he washed several more dishes.
“The house is too quiet. It doesn’t feel safe.”
God, they were so fucked up.
——————————-
Stiles couldn’t help but feel a lingering sadness for the person he was three years ago. Soon after that phone call, Lydia had left. There hadn’t been an explanation; she had simply packed up her belongings and headed back to the West coast.
He expected the ache from her absence to hurt more than it did. He had been in love with her for so long, but the relief he felt when he saw her note sitting on the kitchen counter after getting back from a particularly stressful case brought nothing but relief.
He was free.
It was like the last tether (God, when did he start thinking he was tied down in his own relationship) had snapped and he was floating.
He could breathe.
Maybe she genuinely loved him, but it seemed superficial. The note had simply said, “I’m sorry,” with a looped, cursive L and a small heart. He had devoted years to her, that’s all that was left?
He should feel sad.
He had texted his Dad and, surprisingly, Derek to let them know about Lydia heading back their way. His Dad had called. He’d been surprised that Stiles wasn’t a sobbing mess, but was calmly making dinner at the range, stirring pasta noodles calmly as he prepped the ingredients for an alfredo sauce he was going to use for meal prep that week.
“Dad, I’m going to be fine! You’re always telling me to embrace challenges, this is just another challenge.”
His Dad hadn’t known how to respond to that, and had gotten off the phone soon after.
Derek texted him.
“Congratulations?”
Stiles had laughed uproariously at that one.
“Bachelors have to stick together,” He’d responded. He added, “But hey, we can totally make a marriage pact. If we aren’t married by the time I'm 35…”
“Fuck you Stiles.”
That time, Stiles had laughed until he cried.
——————————-
So yeah, complicated.
——————————-
Stiles was sitting in a hotel room in Oklahoma when he received a phone call from Derek. His heart dropped when he saw his name flashing on the screen. They had communicated primarily through text over the past 3 years. Derek communicated better through text than over the phone, which would never not surprise Stiles. He even knew how to string more than three words together, and had even sent him videos of Eli’s most recent milestones on more difficult days.
His most recent message, if he recalled correctly, was a picture of a four year old Eli standing next to a Lego castle about the same size as him. How the kid was related to Derek with that floppy hair and giant smile, standing with his arms wide grinning at the camera with chocolate on his face, Stiles would never know.
He answered the phone and his heart stuttered and then beat double time hearing a child screaming on the other end, and louder, shaky breathing that very nearly sounded like a sob closer to the phone’s mic.
“Derek? Are you there? Eli, is that you? Buddy, it’s me, it’s Stiles. Where’s your Daddy?”
There was no answer as Stiles continued to get someone to fucking answer him.
He put his phone on speaker and texted his Dad, asking if everything was okay.
Finally, there was movement and then frantic speaking.
“There were coyotes. They scratched through the door and attacked. They have to be shifters, there’s no other reason…no…it doesn’t…I roared, God, I’m such a fucking idiot, I’m so sorry, so sorry.”
The sound was distorted, as though the phone was a distance from Derek’s face but he was still able to understand every word.
Stiles, finally losing his patience after receiving a text that everything was okay from his Dad, yelled, “Derek! I need you to get your shit together. What is happening? Where is Eli? Why is he screaming?”
This time Derek did sob over the phone which concerned Stiles even more. There was a crying kid and a historically emotionally constipated werewolf sobbing over the phone and Stiles was too far away to help.
“I got to him in time.” Okay, that’s a start.
“That’s good Derek. That’s really good. Can you explain to me what happened from the beginning?”
There was a whine, more animal than Stiles has heard in some time from Derek.
“Coyotes scratched through the door. Eli was playing on the floor, I was in the kitchen making lunch.” Whatever had happened was recent then. It was around noon in Beacon Hills. Stiles had probably been the first person Derek called to help.
“They attacked, they had him by his pants and were pulling him towards the door.” Derek swallowed, the noise audible over the speaker. Stiles wondered if he was about to throw up, but dismissed that thought. Not the time.
“I roared so loud it shook the entire house. Eli had shifted, but when he saw me…God, Stiles he won’t let me near him. He won’t stop screaming.”
Stiles let out a breath.
“I need you to do something for me, okay? You aren’t going to be able to help him right now, and I’m assuming you don’t want to call my Dad to come help. Put the phone on speaker and slide it between the two of you. Let him hide where he wants to, that’s okay. Just get the phone closer to him.”
Stiles heard movement as Derek followed his orders. The sound of Eli’s cries grew louder as the phone slid agains the carpet and he could hear Derek sob again in response to the increase in volume. It wasn’t that the distance between Eli and the phone that had decreased, the volume of his cries had increased too. He was terrified of his Dad.
“Hey buddy, can you hear me? It’s Stiles. It sounds like you’ve had a bit of a rough day.”
He let the statement hang in the air for a moment. Eli’s cries softened slightly, and then picked up volume again.
“You are feeling a lot of things right now, Eli, and I’m sorry about that kiddo. When I get scared or when things are overwhelming sometimes I need to take some big breaths to help calm my body down. Do you want me to help you figure out how to do that?”
Stiles let that process for a minute, listening to the four-year-old gulping for air. He had never been more grateful for the required classes in trauma-informed practices when working with children in the field. It wasn’t an area many specialists chose to take additional training in, but he thought it’d be beneficial to know how to deal with children, no matter their species or status as a human, potentially experiencing some of the worst days of their lives.
Finally, Eli gulped out a strangled sounding, “Y-yes,” before his cries picked up again.
“That’s great, I’m glad you’re going to let me help you. I know sometimes it can be hard asking for help. We are going to take a breath, we’re going to hold it, and then we’re going to let it out. We are going to do this for 3 seconds each, okay? For the first few I’m going to count and then I’m going to do it with you. Ready?” Stiles stood up, moving across his room to his laptop, opening up a screen for flights to San Francisco with a direct connect to Beacon Municipal. He found the earliest one, leaving in one hour, and booked it.
“Take a breath for one, two, three and hold it for three, two one. Now let it out for one, two, three…” He repeated the sequence, praising Eli for trying to follow along. Sometimes he would break into new sobs and take a moment, and some quick encouragement from Stiles that he is doing great, to get back to breaths. Eventually Stiles increased the sequence to 5 seconds between breaths, and Eli gradually began to calm down.
By this time, Stiles had already packed his bag, grateful that he could pass on his case with a quick text to his partners. He explained that there was an emergency in Beacon Hills he needed to take care of. Luckily, Beacon Hills’ reputation, and Stiles’s own experience there, meant the other three specialists on his team wanted nothing to do with any emergency going on within a 50-mile radius of the city. Fine with him.
On the drive to the airport, Stiles kept up his gentle conversation with Eli, ensuring he never mentioned the incident. They talked about how their bodies were feeling (“Really hot, Stwiles. My eyes hurt.”) and Stiles recommended Eli take a nap in the small reading nook he had lodged himself into after Derek frightened him.
After another twenty minutes, he was bypassing security and getting to the gate to board the plane.
There was a small shuffle on Derek’s end of the line, and the beep of the speaker being turned off.
“Thank you,” Derek mumbled softly, almost whispering.
Stiles’ heart clenched. He recognized that tone from when Boyd and Erica had left, when they had died. If he was in the room with Derek, he was sure he’d feel waves of self-loathing radiating off of him.
“No problem, I’m on the plane and will be in Beacon Hills in 3 hours.”
The other line was silent.
“You don’t have to come, he stopped crying. I can take care of it.”
“I’m sure you’d figure it out, but guess what? You don’t have to. Let me help.”
“I’m such a fucking idiot, I shouldn’t have left him alone. He’s terrified of me,” Oh no, that was definitely a sob. And not just one sob, but a series of sobs that were quickly devolving into hyperventilating.
“Derek you didn’t do anything wrong, and I need you to try to stay with me, okay? I’m going to be there soon and we will figure this out.”
“You hate Beacon Hills.”
“We all hate that fucking place, but you are both there and nothing is going to keep me from coming to help you.” Stiles may have been a bit too blunt there, but Eli can’t have the only adult in the vicinity losing their shit without another adult to take over.
“Why?” Derek whispered.
“Because sometimes we need help piecing ourselves back together. Even if we don’t know it.”
“You don’t owe me anything. You don’t have to force yourself to-“ “Force myself? Derek, fuck, I’m not doing this over the phone. I am coming there now. Let Eli sleep, and if he wakes up feed him something he can eat himself. I have to get off of the phone in a minute, we are about to take off.”
The plane was already taxiing and the flight attendants were looking at him with hesitation. He realized he still had his badge from the bureau around his neck. He tucked it into his coat and raised one eyebrow. They quickly walked up the aisle to check on the other passengers.
“Plus, we have a marriage pact that definitely comes into play in, oh, 10 years? I have to make sure my future husband and child are okay.”
“Fuck you, Stilinski. See you soon.”
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Yeah, complicated is definitely an understatement.