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When you’re a pack animal, alone time is not desirable. Derek hasn’t always been a typical werewolf; he preferred to be alone, at least since the fire. Guilt was a more powerful influence than instinct. He’d hidden away from Laura when she’d wanted to spend time with him, only giving in when Laura accidentally Alpha-voiced him into it.
Now, Laura was gone, and Uncle Peter was a resurrected nightmare that his instincts told him to avoid. Erika and Boyd were dead. Isaac off in France or some such nonsense. Cora was back, but she was even more independent than he was, or maybe she just preferred spending her time with anyone other than Derek. It had been so long since he’d seen her that he was convinced she’d moved in with Lydia and her mother.
Scott didn’t like him, but that wasn’t a big deal. Derek didn’t like him either. Stiles was the only person in the ragtag Beacon Hills Pack (he refused to call it the McCall Pack, even if Scott was an Alpha) who had any tolerance for Derek. Unfortunately, Derek had complicated feelings about Stiles, and being alone was better than trying to understand them.
That day, Derek wanted to be alone more than anything, so he drove out to the remains of his family home. He groaned when he pulled to a stop and saw familiar tire tracks in the fresh mud from the rain the previous night. The Jeep wasn’t in sight, but when he opened the door, he could smell Stiles fresh in the air.
Walking away from the house, Derek approached the small burial plot where he had reburied Laura after the county had released her body. He thought about that day and Stiles taking the wolfsbane out of his hand, following Derek’s instructions to lay the spiral around the grave, saving Derek from hurting himself again. Once the spiral had been laid, Stiles had disappeared, leaving Derek alone to grieve his sister.
Two years after Laura’s death, Stiles’ footprints approached the gravesite. Derek saw fresh flowers, sunflowers, and daisies, Laura’s favorites, in front of the stone. Another round of wolfsbane added to the spiral, and Derek knew Stiles had to have been there for hours working on it. Kneeling in front of the stone, Derek pressed his forehead against the stone, closing his eyes and letting tears fall as he remembered Laura.
The tears dried, and he blinked open his eyes, noticing a small post-it note stuck to the base of the stone so that he wouldn’t have seen it without being in this position. Stiles’ handwriting spelled out, “‘Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.’ – Leo Tolstoy.” Derek reached out and picked up the note, shoving it into his pocket as he stood to head back to the house.
Climbing the steps, he pushed open the door, surprised by the smell of coffee and muffins. Following his nose to the table in what used to be the living room, Derek saw a to-go bag and travel mug. Another post-it was stuck to the mug. “You need to eat,” was all it said, and Derek smiled as he sipped the coffee. “Black as my soul,” he whispered before detecting a bit of sweetness.
He blinked and saw another post-it stuck to the table where the mug had been. “You’re soul is not nearly as dark and bitter as you’d like people to think. You have a sweetness that you think no one sees.”
Derek stumbled back a couple of steps. He looked around, feeling Stiles’ presence, but he didn’t hear or smell him. Taking another sip, Derek reached into the bag and pulled out a sizeable double-chocolate muffin. He carried the food over to the wall, ready to slide down and sit there when he noticed a blanket and a large pillow in that spot.
Stiles’ scent covered both, and Derek couldn’t fight back a smile. He sat on the pillow, pulling the blanket over his lap. He took a bite of the muffin and leaned his head against the wall as he chewed. A voice startled him.
“I like him, Derek.”
It was Laura’s voice. He’d know it anywhere. “Laura?”
“He cares about you.”
Derek dropped the rest of the muffin and mug as he leaped to his feet, shifted, and snarling. He couldn’t see anyone else, but he sensed her presence. “Laura?”
Her laugh floated in the air, and Derek’s heart clenched. “You shouldn’t be alone,” she whispered, and then the sense of her disappeared.
Derek blinked back tears and then let just let them fall. He picked up the muffin and righted the mug before settling onto the pillow again. He arched his back to take his cell phone out and looked at the screen, smiling at the photo of Laura and him as kids Stiles had found in a dark corner of the basement while exploring and had scanned and restored.
Before he could second guess himself, Derek opened his contacts and brushed over Stiles’ name. The call connected before the first ring died out. “Derek?”
“Can you…” He didn’t know what he wanted to say, wanted to ask of Stiles. Stiles had already done so much for him and not just that day, but since the day Peter had bitten Scott, dragging him into the supernatural world.
“Yeah,” Stiles said. “Give me half an hour.” The call disconnected, and Derek wasn’t sure what Stiles had agreed to or what he’d gotten himself into, but he felt a lightness in his chest.
It was closer to twenty minutes when Derek heard Stiles’ Jeep, and he wondered where Stiles had been when he’d called. He stood and opened the front door, watching Stiles climb out carrying a carryout bag from their favorite Thai place.
“So, I’ve got my computer, and I downloaded a bunch of movies,” Stiles said, his mouth starting as soon as he saw Derek. “I also brought sustenance, and if you could grab the cooler of drinks from the back along with the pillow and blanket I brought, that would be awesome.”
Derek did as requested and then returned to the house to find Stiles setting up a small nook where Derek had been sitting. “Did you kill the muffin?” he asked, looking at where Derek had set it after dropping it. “Good thing I brought more.”
Derek watched Stiles for a few minutes and thought he smelled Laura’s perfume. Typically, he only wanted to be alone, but maybe, just maybe, it would be better to be alone with Stiles.