Archive of Our Own

Stiles thought he knew what torture was. 

Finding Erica and Boyd in the Argents' basement. Hearing Scott recount finding Derek in the cold cellars beneath his house. Countless horror movies, TV shows, books, video games. None of them prepared him for this. 

The pack came for them on a Tuesday, Stiles figured out. He had a system by then. The Alphas didn't particularly care about time, didn't differentiate between day and night when it came to their games, their torture. But every single time Stiles saw the sun through the windows facing west, he bit another scar into his arm. After all, what was more pain to him, at that point?

He'd been trapped in the warehouse for thirteen days.

Boyd and Erica were almost a month, as best he could figure out. They would've healed their tally system, though he doubted they could've tallied themselves besides. The wolves got it far worse than he did.

In the beginning, Stiles fought. Boyd didn't talk, but Erica told him it wasn't worth it. That didn't stop him. He kicked and screamed and punched until they dislocated his shoulder only to pop it back into place and say, "Next time the bone will break, Little Red."

Who the fuck said shit like that, anyway? Movie villains?

The thing about the Alphas was that they didn't trust themselves with him. They liked to play around, liked to string him up and whip him until the welts criss-crossed down his back, but never too much. Never crossing the line. They were careful, almost capricious in their torture. It was almost comical in the way that it was so awful.

Because being careful meant that, for whatever strange reason, they wanted him alive.

That hurt most, maybe.

The thing about being strung up by chains is that metal bites. Ropes burn and fray, cords indent, but metal - metal sinks into skin like teeth. Theirs weren't rusted - do werewolves worry about tetanus? - but they were small, thick but small, and the edges stuck out enough to sting. The first two days, they hurt, ached so badly from taking his weight Stiles thought he might pass out from the exhaustion of it, despite the fact that it would only tire him even more not to be standing on his tip toes anymore.

Towards the end, though? Stiles didn't feel it at all.

They always bound them with their hands together, above their heads, shoulders slightly forward. It was the best leverage, they said. By that point, Stiles was used to it. He'd long since stopped putting up any sort of fight - that would only make whatever method-of-the-day even worse.

When the pack came, they woke Stiles at dawn. The sun was still a soft pink-yellow in the east windows, Kali and Deucalion curled around each other in the corner mattress. Cora was sprawled out on the couch, Erica strapped to the table in front of her, passed out and bleeding. Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. Drip. Her blood hit the concrete. Stiles winced every time.

His wrists were a mess. Blood and puss oozed from the sores that had sprouted during their first week, and the wounds continued to fester. Stiles doubted he was free of infection - apparently werewolves didn't seem to know much about that. He didn't bring it up.

The chains dug into the indents they'd made, but he couldn't feel them anymore beyond a constant dull ache. It had been a relief, to lose the pain - though it meant he wasn't able to open his own water, anymore. Not that they ever gave them the bottles.

Speaking of which. Ethan tossed Aiden a bottle from where he sat doing some sort of paperwork. The more playful twin had just finished stringing Stiles up again, and paused to break the seal on the water, offering it to his mouth. It pained him, but he obediently tilted his head back, baring his throat to the alpha as he did so. Aiden laughed.

"We wanted you," he said, like it was a dirty confession, "Ethan and I. We wanted you to be the one to do it - wanted to turn you first and have you take him down. You'd fit in with us. But you're a fighter, aren't you? So loyal." He laughed again, cruelly. "Loyal to a worthless pack and a hollow alpha."

Stiles wasn't broken. He was smart, but not deaf, and not weak. He snarled, human as they come but vicious all the same. "He isn't hollow. And our pack is something to fight for." 

Ethan joined in on the laughter.

"Your little baby Beacon Hills pack? So small they couldn't protect any of the ones we tried to take?" He paused, a play of consideration going over his face. Stiles tried to remember that he was playing another game - even if what he said could hurt. "Or maybe they just don't care. Maybe they're better off. Maybe you were the weakest link." 

And that - that stung, he knew it shouldn't, knew they were trying to hurt him, but it didn't matter because it was succeeding. He knew they'd hear it in his heartbeat, but he tried to pretend it didn't matter. Where would he be without his bravado?

The chains rattled beside him, and Aiden's grin went positively feral, eyes flashing red.

"Time for the show, then."

Erica's death was not fast. The life didn't pour from her so much as it oozed, dripped in fat, wet droplets of blood against stone that made Stiles want to crawl out of his skin. 

At that point, Erica was barely coherent. Cora had spent half the night alternating between slicing her open and electrocuting her from afar, watching Erica lose consciousness only to shock her awake once more. Controlling her shift, slicing into her skin to slow her healing.

When she was exhausted and covered in slowly healing wounds, they strung her up by her wrists to face them. Her eyes rolled wildly sometimes, trying to focus but failing to see. A deep gash ran through the right, making everything bloody and horrible.

Yet like a car wreck, Stiles couldn't look away. More accurately, he was forced not to, forced to watch as they took every single piece of Erica and left her body broken in front of them, hanging limply from a chain.

The most horrible part of it, for Stiles, was the way she didn't fight.

Erica's injuries were ones that should have been healing. Yet her wounds let blood trickle down like individual streams, her body occasionally wracked with tremors that he could only assume were seizures. Gashes ran across her chest in a crude A, her arms marked up and down with symbols. Her hair was matted with sweat, clothes that had once clung tight loose around her starved frame. She looked like she was dying. Dying from wounds that, for a werewolf, should have been easy to recover from.

She didn't heal. They watched as the electric rod prodded her in the most sensitive places - backs of the knees, nipples, between the legs, the nape of her neck - and the alpha's laughed at every whimper, every wild snarl or roll of her head. Stiles wanted to scream at them, or beg them to stop, or something, anything, but he couldn't - he couldn't. Like his voice had been ripped out of him with every gasping breath she took.

No, Erica did not die slow. It took more whipcracks than Stiles could count, straight to her throat, before her breathing gurgled, her mouth wet with blood. It was strange, that her lucidity came then, but it did - she looked straight up, eyes flitting from Boyd to Stiles and back again.

"Lo - " the sound was interrupted by a choking sound, " - ve you." 

Cora's whip whistled through the air before it cracked against her skin, and with a jerk, Erica slumped forward, chest unmoving, eyes open wide and staring at the ground. The blood from her neck pooled at her feet. DripDropDripDropDripDropDrip Drop Drip Drop Drip Drop Drip - Drop - Drip... Drop... 

He tried to count the drips, the sounds that were all he could hear, until he heard Boyd. Boyd who was screaming and snarling, rattling his chains like Stiles had never seen. Boyd was always the quiet one - Stiles had been the fighter.

Erica's body let her still-warm blood escape, and Boyd howled.

They were only hours too late. Stiles couldn't tell how many - time had ceased meaning to him some time after the fiftieth crack of the whip - but he knew it had to be hours. Not even a full day, and they were still too late.

He didn't notice they'd stopped working on him until a body flew through his line of vision.

They'd cut off his shirt, were marking his side with a bloody, garrish A, when they stopped. He didn't look down to inspect it. 

It was strange, that there were clawed bodies flying through the air. Strange, but somehow Stiles couldn't quite bring himself to care. Even at the sudden recognition - Isaac? - it was meaningless, somehow.

Meaningless because they were too late.

Meaningless because how the hell were they supposed to be rescuing them when the best of them was already dead?

The fight could have taken several sunlit days - Stiles blacked out for most of it. When he came to, the silence was almost profound. He was shaking, he realized even as he hung perfectly limp in the hold of the chains. He couldn't stop shaking.

Boyd rattled somewhere to his left, and what sounded like Scott's voice could be heard. But it was - fragmented. Warped, like through water. Stiles couldn't make it out. He wanted to look, but he was too... apathetic to turn his head. Not when his shoulders ached the way they did.

For a moment, almost blissful silence.

Derek's face loomed in front of him between one blink and the next.

He would have been surprised. Old Stiles would have definitely said something about creeping, despite the situation. But over Derek's shoulder was where Erica's lifeless body still hung, and Stiles didn't feel like talking, anyway.

Derek blocked the sight.

He expected his voice to sound like Scott's - blurred and warped and wrong - but when Derek talked, it was clear. Sharp, and still a little fuzzy, but distinct. Understandable. "Stiles."

Nothing. A nod.

"I'm going to undo the chains."

Nothing. Silence. Another nod. 

The chains rattled as they came down, but Stiles didn't pay attention to them. Every moment Derek's eyes stayed locked on his. He wasn't quite sure how the chains were undone at all, with Derek staying so locked on. And yet... and yet.

It helped. Like Derek's eyes were blades of green grass with a brown supernova at their center, and Stiles could hold onto those blades, feel them beneath his fingertips and cling until the world made sense again.

His eyes never once bled red. Stiles didn't thank him aloud, but his heartbeat slowed.

Stiles didn't remember what happened between the warehouse and Deaton's clinic. He remembered Derek, eyes not leaving his, asking him in the same non-inflection tone to wrap his arms around his neck and not to hurt his wrists. Stiles couldn't feel his wrists, but he obeyed the first part. He remembered how Derek anchored him with his gaze until Stiles had his face buried in the man's neck, carried him like he was nothing, slid him over his lap in the car. 

He remembered being pulled gently out of the car - who's car it was, Stiles never figured out - and carried inside. But the ride between was a blur of flashing and dimming lights and a soothing hand on his back, beneath where the whip once met his skin, where it still burned raw.

Derek set him on the examination table, which was cold. He could feel that it was cold. Derek's hands not leaving him, but letting him go. A hand on his neck, squeezing slightly in a way that made him sigh. Derek looming over him again, catching his eye and almost asking a question. He couldn't figure out quite what it was.

"Stiles."

Nod.

"Can Deaton examine your hands." Didn't Derek usually have more inflection than this? But it didn't really matter - it was sort of nice, not having to worry about parsing a tone, reading into it. Stiles nodded again.

There was a gentle touch and Derek moving back, but no one moved into his line of sight. He hadn't been able to hear much of what was said, but he thought Derek might have had something to do with that. Like maybe he understood that there was no way Stiles could look at anything else.

Anyone else.

Erica.

His breathing sped up, heartbeat racing. Erica. Erica. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, and thought he heard a growl before hands touched his face. Hands. Face. The Alphas hadn't touched him, there, not with their hands. With a blade, once, with claws too, but not... not hands. Gentle. This was familiar and... not. He opened his eyes to find Derek's shocking greens staring back.

"Breathe."

In. Out. In. Out. Derek's pupils were expanding and dilating minutely, to adjust for fractional changes in light. Stiles focused on them, timing his breaths with every expansion and retraction of the blackness. He nodded, slowly, and Derek's hands drew off his skin.

"Again."

The touch at his wrists started up, but Stiles couldn't really feel it. There were certain things that made him jump, twitch away from the sensation, but nothing... it wasn't pain. Discomfort was the better word. Like he knew it should be painful, and something in his brain recognized it and tried to get away, but he couldn't feel that.

He could feel most of it. But not his wrists. Not his hands.

The A carved into his side burned like a brand. It was fiery and dripping blood down his skin and - and his face, felt caked and dry from where Kali dragged her claw deep into his skin across his cheek. His left leg wouldn't support his weight anymore, no matter how many times he'd tried when they threw him aside. The lashes across his back stung, but there were hardly as many as would've been put on Boyd or - or Erica, or Erica's throat dripping blood onto the concrete drip drop drip drop - 

"Breathe."

This happened several times, each shorter than the last as Derek picked up on what was happening, calming him the same way every time. By the time Deaton had patched up his leg - exhausting and more painful than the actual wound had been, at first - and practically covered his torso in gauze for the A, he was almost falling over on the table. He wanted to sleep. He wanted - he wanted. 

He'd been on the way to his apartment when they'd taken him. It felt - not safe, not safe. He clung when Derek tried pulling him out of the car outside, tightly, using all the force he could possibly exert. He heard a voice - Scott - and Derek's mixing together, angry, quiet but angry and he whimpered.

Silence reigned.

"I'm taking him," Derek said, and Stiles nodded into his throat. Derek's apartment was safe. A growl seemed to start from behind him, making Stiles' arms tighten, and it stopped, followed by a sigh. Voices again. Then the car.

"It's okay," the gruff voice near his ear said, and despite the fact that they were probably breaking about a hundred traffic laws, Stiles felt... more safe than he had in a long time.

Even before thirteen days.

Time passed strangely. It didn't pass, it jumped, hopped, skipped and stretched. The first morning Derek found him biting deep into his arm he pulled it away, pulled him tight against his chest. "Breathe," he said, and Stiles did. He breathed, and slowed, and realized he was in a bed.

Derek's.

It smelled like him, which was... strangely comforting. Stiles wasn't sure where Derek was sleeping, but he knew it was Derek's bed because he was upstairs, in the loft.

No one else came upstairs.

Even when Stiles learned to count the days by the alarm clock instead of the sun, when he learned how to sleep longer than two hours without screaming, when he learned how to breathe without Derek's eyes showing him how. 

He heard them, sometimes. Voices drifting up, quiet but somehow soothing, too. He never bothered to pick out the individual words - it was too much work, too much effort he didn't want to take. But he listened to the quiet sounds, occasional laughter, sometimes the radio, though never the TV. Mostly, it sounded like Scott, brazen as usual. Lydia, too, soft feminine tones that at first worsened his nightmares before he remembered that Erica's voice was lower and rougher. Isaac, though less, because he was always less talkative. He couldn't hear Boyd, but he knew he was there, found comfort in it almost, that the man he'd been with those thirteen days was surrounded by pack.

Healing, even if he only heard him speak once or twice.

It could have gone on for weeks. It could have been days. He wasn't sure when he started remembering. When it got worse.

One night, he went to sleep and Erica was waiting.

"Took you long enough." Her voice was the same as it always was - brave and low, unbroken, how it had been before. She was still in her rough clothes, blood dripping down her neck, throat split wide, but she walked like she was fine, like it didn't bother her.

He guessed it probably didn't, in a dream.

She went straight for him, and Stiles realized he was chained at his wrists, the same as he'd been when she died. She rolled her eyes, staring up at him, blood running down her body in thick rivers. "Is this what you want?" she asked.

"Is what?" Outside of dreams he didn't talk. Couldn't make the words come out, couldn't be the way he was. But in here they were free, because they weren't words, they were thoughts, coming unbidden. Erica gestured to his body, chained and bound. "To hurt."

He looked at her, at the blood gushing down, like it would never stop, like there was a never-ending supply inside her body. At the dark circles under her eyes, the blood smeared across her face. The exposed bone at her throat. "I don't know what you mean," he told her.

Erica's head tipped back, the bone breaking, splitting until the air that slid out was a rattle, and she laughed.

Stiles screamed.

"Stiles!"

His eyes shot open, stinging even in the dim light of the room. No, not from the light. He realized he was crying, sobbing, shaking beneath Derek's hands on his shoulders, and screaming, the same horrible scream he'd let out in the dream.

He remembered.

"Stiles," Derek said again, squeezing his shoulders, looking somewhere between terrified and calm. It cut the sound, to see Derek worried, an expression he'd only ever seen before when talking about Boyd and Erica. He gulped in huge breaths, tears still streaming down his face. Derek pulled him into a sitting position, fitting himself into the space behind him so that Stiles was pillowed on his chest, sitting in the V of Derek's thighs. He gasped, gasped and gasped until he could match the rises and falls of his chest with Derek's behind him. It didn't hurt - the gauze and healing scabs of the lashes on his back helping cushion from the pain - and Derek's arms wrapped around him, gentle on his stomach, made him feel... safe.

He breathed in time with Derek and relaxed.

Stiles didn't talk and Derek didn't press. He wasn't sure he could explain the dream even if he wanted to. It meant something, he knew it did, but not what, exactly. And it had felt... real. Like it was Erica and himself, both controlling it, which seemed strange but not quite out of the picture as a possibility.

When he slept curled against Derek's body, he didn't dream at all.

It happened like that, over the next few days. Stiles would go to sleep on his own, wake up in the dream, chained and bound with Erica bleeding out in front of him. She would ask him if this was what he wanted. He would ask what she meant, and her head would fall off.

As dreams went, it wasn't his favorite.

But it did get... easier. To handle. It only took Derek moments to get him to stop shouting, and the more Stiles' body healed, if he remembered to take his meds before bed... it was nice. Not painful, not anything but warm and safe, to curl into Derek like he was the only thing tethering him anymore.

Some days, it felt like he was.

By the way Stiles was counting, he figured it was around the end of June when Boyd came upstairs. He didn't say anything, and Stiles didn't talk - hadn't, not even once outside of a dream since that day - but he did stare, from the top step. Never quite coming all the way up.

This happened a few days, sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the afternoons, always only for a few minutes. Stiles didn't really know what to make of it. He wanted, more than anything, to be close to him again - wolves were tactile creatures, and in the warehouse, when it was only him and Erica to curl around, Boyd had been very touchy-feely. Not talkative, hardly saying anything at all, but... Stiles could still remember the feeling of his hand running through his hair, detangling from where blood matted it to his scalp after a beating. The way he'd let Erica and Stiles crawl up and curl around him like children, and had sighed, shoulders relaxing, falling asleep to their breaths. He missed it. Boyd understood. Had seen everything Stiles had. Been hurt ten times worse, too.

On the fifth day, Boyd came into the loft room and climbed into bed.

They still didn't talk, but Stiles exhaled a relieved sigh, and put his head on Boyd's huge shoulder. An arm came around him, and they both relaxed into the touch - almost like reveling in the knowledge that the other was safe, after spending so much time together and then apart.

"We're okay, Stiles," Boyd said quietly.

Stiles nodded and closed his eyes.

After that, Boyd came up more. It wasn't all the time, but once a day, for a few minutes or an hour, he would sit next to Stiles on the bed. Stiles didn't talk, but Boyd did sometimes. Little things Stiles wouldn't know otherwise - Derek never spoke around him beyond helping him, though he was usually more verbose when he'd done so in the past.

Boyd talked about the little things. How Scott and Isaac smelled like arousal around each other, but didn't smell like each other, and it was annoying the whole group. How Peter apparently had the chance to kill one of the Alphas himself and gave him to Derek instead, proving his loyalty. How the others had welcomed him into the fold again. Stiles wasn't sure he could ever really trust Peter, but he thought that if Lydia had been able to... he might learn to. Apparently, Peter was also a culinary fiend, meaning they weren't living on take-out and junk. He was pretty sure Boyd only said it to make Stiles smile - which worked.

"I bashed their heads together today," Boyd said late one night, Stiles' legs draped over his as Stiles lay down, Boyd sitting against the headboard. Stiles' eyes flew open, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Scott and Isaac," Boyd added, and Stiles rolled his eyes. Of course. "Over the Chinese. Isaac leaned across him to get at the orange chicken, Scott leaned in, I was done." Stiles couldn't help it - he laughed, a small sound, but a positive one, one he made of his own volition.

Boyd's smile really was blinding.

A week and a half after they'd been rescued, Stiles went downstairs.

He didn't say anything, but the pack froze before resuming normal conversation in softer, almost hushed tones. Stiles rolled his eyes at Boyd, who grinned.

"You don't have to shut up," Boyd told them. "He isn't deaf. Just fucked up."

The rest of them stared, shocked - besides Derek, who looked blank - mouths practically hanging open. Until Stiles laughed, head thrown back. Boyd shook his head, but he was smiling, too.

"Your lunch is in the fridge," Derek said, completely normal, not even looking up from the book he'd gone back to reading. Stiles rolled his eyes again, but he went, padding barefoot onto the cool tile and getting out a sandwich, presumably left there for whenever Stiles woke up from his nap. He couldn't use his hands to open anything, but his elbows worked fine, and if he held the plate with two hands he knew it wouldn't fall. Derek must've known that too - trusted him with it, which made him smile. He shook his head at the meal, only a little skeptical - Peter had probably made it, after all. But in a moment's consideration he took it, the soft sounds of his feet - uneven due to his damaged leg - the only he made as he trudged back towards the living room.

Apparently, nothing he did was shocking anymore, because when he plopped straight into Derek's lap, feet hanging off one arm of the chair and leaning against him with his side, all that happened was Scott pausing before resuming in a slightly strained tone, and Peter raising a single eyebrow.

Stiles flipped him off, and he and Boyd both laughed.

Derek didn't pause either, which really made Stiles stop and think about just how close Derek let him get. He'd lifted his book out of the way last-minute, and was now holding it with an arm over his thighs, making room for Stiles' plate on his lap but still giving him space to read. He nibbled on his sandwich, using both hands again and thanking Peter for making it big enough to hold, reading sideways until -

He hit Derek in the arm, making him look up. Stiles set down his food and closed the book over a loose hand, the other brushing over the title while raising an eyebrow. The intent was clear - Dante's Inferno, Derek, really? 

Derek rolled his eyes and snatched the book back, tapping Stiles on the nose with a fingertip before returning to his reading. Stiles snorted, but he went back to nibbling on his sandwich. It wasn't until after a few moments he realized the room had gone quiet again.

Apparently, Derek had also noticed. He snapped the book shut in his hands, looking around the room. Stiles didn't look - couldn't, not really - but he was positive his eyes were red. "Stiles is not an animal in a zoo," he said, calm but almost deadly, "Stop watching him like he is." 

The pack managed to keep talking around him, after that.

When Derek carried him up to bed - the walking earlier had tired his leg - Stiles curled into him, as close to a thank you as he could get.

Two days. He was around them for two days before it happened.

Stiles had been doing well. He was making progress. He could walk better, though not for very long, and ended up needing help if he walked up and down the stairs more than once. He was laughing more and more, and now that he was around the pack he could make wild gestures to Boyd when they talked after everyone else had left. Apparently, Boyd was staying in Lydia's apartment for now, but he stayed late to talk to Stiles. It was... nice. Better. Sometimes he even tried talking, though nothing came out.

All it took was Scott getting a glass of water.

Stiles had been taking showers, up until then. Turning the water on full blast, letting Derek turn it off. The man never questioned it, waiting until Stiles was dressed and back in the loft bed to turn off the water. He probably didn't understand, but he knew it was what he needed. Stiles drank from a pitcher in the fridge instead of using the sink. He didn't like to turn the shower off. Two important things.

When Scott got a glass from the tap and the faucet started leaking, Stiles heard the drops like hammers to the head.

Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. Drip.

"Turn it off." The pack looked up, stunned into silence by the first words they'd heard from him in weeks. Scott almost dropped his glass.

Stiles stood, trembling - his knees weak. He tried to run and collapsed, his bad leg failing him once again. Derek caught him. "Turn it off," he said, his voice unmistakably a growl.

The water continued leaking from the loose faucet, and all Stiles heard was Erica's blood against the concrete. Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. Drip. 

Boyd didn't say anything. He didn't have to. When he came up, all he did was sit on the bed and pull Stiles into his lap, the way he'd done in the warehouse when it was them and Erica, like they were children. It reminded him so much of her it was painful.

"Erica," he rasped into the plaid of Boyd's shirt.

"I know."

They didn't talk, after that, but they didn't need to. It was only fifteen minutes before the rest of them trudged in, Lydia fitting into Boyd's other side and tangling her legs with Stiles'. Scott at his back, murmuring apologies and settling an arm around his waist on top of Boyd's. Isaac curled around Scott, his legs over Boyd's calves and hand in Stiles'. Even Derek came, though he didn't join the puppy pile - apparently the alpha had to lean against the wall and watch broodily instead.

Stiles fell asleep and the nightmare never came.

It wasn't a surprise, necessarily, when Scott told him about his dad. He figured it would come up at some point. He just... hadn't been thinking about it, really. When he'd moved out, it was with the condition that he'd bring groceries once a week so his dad wouldn't have a heart attack. He hadn't wanted to move at all, but with the werewolf problem still being a secret problem, it was the best idea. No one had been happy about it.

Suffice to say, his Dad was a little more than pissed at the lack of communication.

"I held off as best I can, Derek, but he's knocking every day now," Scott said from the kitchen - he really needed to work on keeping his voice down. Stiles couldn't hear Derek's responses, but Scott was easy to eavesdrop on, especially from the vantage of the alpha's own armchair. It truly was the best place to keep an eye on things.

Boyd threw himself down on the couch, raising an eyebrow in Stiles' direction. Stiles cupped a hand around his ear, and Boyd motioned for him to get on with it.

Stiles sighed, but he stood, hobbling towards the kitchen with slow, even breaths.

Derek, of course, was there in moments, frowning and motioning at Stiles' leg. In response, Stiles stood still, crossing his arms and pointing at Scott, who was in the kitchen. He still wasn't talking unless absolutely necessary, but he was getting the message across.

"I told you to be quiet," Derek growled, turning on Scott. Stiles reached out and squeezed Derek's shoulder, which made him relax and Scott throw a grateful look in his direction before turning back to Derek. "Can't help it, dude - John's been yelling at me for the past five days. We have to do something - we can't just..." he trailed off, and Stiles sighed.

How do you explain this to someone? Especially with Stiles injured, yet not having been to the hospital. There was nothing left.

Nothing but the truth.

And if Stiles needed to have a panic attack or two before deciding his father deserved it, that was his business.

His and Derek's, who breathed with him.

"Dad?" his voice was raspy and hoarse from weeks of not being used. He winced at the relief in his father's tone. "Stiles, thank god. I've been trying to get ahold of you for weeks, son. Where have you been?"

He sighed. He wasn't really prepared for this. Already he could feel the creeping on his spine that signaled panic - but Derek was there, right in front of him, eyes close enough he could almost count the lashes. He relaxed slightly. "I can't explain, Dad."

That was new. Stiles usually had a multitude of explanations - his plan with his dad had always been to ramble until the man gave up. What else could he do? Introduce him to the underbelly of danger and death? Show him a world where his badge wouldn't matter, where he could do nothing to save people, where he had to let them break the law in order to serve justice? 

Apparently, that was the only option left.

His dad let out a low breath into the speaker. "You can't, or you wont?"

Stiles paused, trying to gather his strength enough to talk. "Can I come over?"

The answer was immediate. "Of course. How many should I set the table for?"

Stiles relaxed. That was something. Whatever happened, his dad was at least ready to listen. And not forcing Stiles to do all of the talking. "Three." He paused, shaking his head, coughing slightly. "No, four. Sorry."

"Four. Got it. Anything else?"

His smile almost cracked his chapped lips, but he knew his dad would hear it, despite the rasp of his voice. "Don't forget salad."

It wasn't perfect, nothing was solved, but his dad still laughed and hung up on him. Some things never changed.

When his dad answered the door, the shocked gasp that followed made Stiles wince. Which made his cheek hurt, which was probably the source of the gasp. Layers did wonders for hiding most of his injuries, but there was nothing for the jagged cut across his cheek.

"What the hell happened to you, kid?"

He shook his head, reaching back to squeeze Derek's wrist once, who grasped his very loosely back, trying not to agitate the newly-revealed indentations and cuts there. "S'okay, dad," he whispered, pleading him with his eyes not to ask. It wasn't a conversation for the doorstep, anyway.

His father sighed, but let them in, eyeing Derek with only marginally evil eyes. Stiles wasn't a teenager anymore, and his father couldn't tell him who to hang out with, but he'd never liked the idea of him and Derek being friends.

He wondered how much less his father would like it when he found out Derek was actually an alpha werewolf.

"I didn't start on dinner - figured it was more of a formality, anyway," the Sheriff said, throwing himself down onto the chair in the living room. Even Stiles could hear Scott's nervous gulp, to which Stiles merely rolled his eyes. He went to the sofa, pulling Derek down beside him so he could throw his legs across his lap, leaving Scott with his feet. They took it in stride - Derek realizing quickly that what Stiles needed was for him to take some of the pain from his leg, which was killing him. Though he was probably right on waiting until his dad knew about the werewolf thing.

His dad's eyebrows shot up, but he didn't comment - he seemed to realize there were bigger things to worry about. With a cough, Stiles began.

"I've been lying. I know - I'm sorry." He paused to swallow, trying to gather himself. His heartrate picked up at using this many words, which made Derek squeeze his good leg and catch his eye. He coughed again. "Right."

Turning back to his father, he blew out a low breath. "The truth is... werewolves."

The sheriff said nothing.

Stiles said nothing.

Scott and Derek said nothing.

"Is that the best you can do? Werewolves?"

Stiles sighed, and moved his feet so Scott could stand. He moved towards the center of the room, holding his hands up in something like surrender. "Right. Right. Okay, Mr. S? Please don't shoot me."

"Scott, you haven't called me Mr. S since you were seven. What's this all about, really?"

After a moment and a look to Derek, Scott closed his eyes, rolling his shoulders. "Don't shoot me!" He said again, and then he opened his eyes, which were glowing gold in the dim lighting of the room. His hands, still held up, had extended into claws, sideburns coming out and claws digging into his lip until he was forced to open his mouth.

The sheriff didn't shoot him, but he went for his gun.

"Dad!" Stiles gasped, flailing wildly and almost falling off the bed, save for Derek catching him.

"No, Stiles. What the hell did you do to that boy?" he'd directed his words at Scott, as if he wasn't the same person. Scott reigned in the transformation, shaking his head wildly. "Still me, Mr. S! Just... you know, werewolf me."

His dad relaxed marginally into the chair, running a hand over his face before slapping it into his lap. "Werewolves, Stiles? Really?" His voice was tense - whether with shock or disbelief he couldn't quite tell.

"Not my fault," Stiles breathed out, sighing in relief when Derek apparently found it appropriate to take his pain, regardless of the black vein problem he would have.

Apparently, his dad was still distracted enough not to notice. "And Derek? Is he... a werewolf?"

Gently, Derek turned Stiles' face so he could look at him, green eyes clear and open. "Don't look," he said quietly, and Stiles nodded with a shaky sigh, pressing his face into the meat of Derek's shoulder. 

He assumed Derek did the alpha eyes, and that's when their story began.

An hour later, the sheriff was mostly caught up. After threatening Derek sufficiently until they explained it was Peter who'd bitten Scott, then threatening Peter sufficiently until they'd explained his humanity was gone and he's been in the doghouse ever since, then going back to threatening Derek about his other betas until they explained none of them would've wanted it any other way, the sheriff was at last able to look at the situation clearly.

"You keep mentioning Boyd and Erica. You mean Vernon Boyd and Erica Reyes? The kids who went missing?"

At Erica's name, Stiles flinched, as he did every time. His dad finally seemed to notice. "You okay, kid?"

Mutely, Stiles shook his head. Derek clasped a hand on the back of his neck, and Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, willing his heartrate to go down and his breathing to even out. He turned to Derek, asking with his eyes, and the alpha nodded, turning to Scott. "Get Stiles some water. His voice is still weak."

The alpha command did not go unnoticed by John, but he didn't say anything, watching almost in fascination while Scott obediently rose, got a glass and filled it, making sure to twist the nob hard and stop any drops from hitting the sink before returning to the room and handing the glass to Stiles, flopping back onto the couch and putting himself under Stiles' feet again. His veins blackened in the arm that was on Stiles' ankle, and he sighed in relief, head tilting back a moment because wow, werewolf pain stealing was cool.

He took a gulp of water before turning back to his dad. "The Alphas took me around two weeks after graduation."

"Alphas?" The sheriff was getting mad again, hands tightening on his chair. "Like Derek?"

Stiles shook his head, vehemently. "Same rank - nothing like Derek." His dad relaxed. Slightly

"Alright, then. Who are they?"

"Were. They were a pack, all like Derek. Extremely powerful. They wanted... one of Derek's betas, to - kill him. And... join them."

The sheriff sucked in a harsh breath. "And they took you? But you're not - "

"No, dad. I don't... know why, they took me. For - fun?"

John winced.

"Boyd and - " he gasped out the word like it was painful, " - Erica, were there since... just after - graduation. They - tried torture, to... motivate. To kill Derek. Werewolves heal... very fast." He paused to drink again.

"Don't know why - they took... me. But I was there - thirteen days. There were... five of them." He gasped, and Derek turned his face to his, anchoring him with his eyes until he could speak again, because this was the worst part.

"Wont... tell you - my injuries. You'll - be too mad. But... I'm getting better... physically." Unconsciously, he pulled his sleeves lower to hide the wounds on his wrists, which were finally free of bandages but still looked a little like something out of a horror movie. His hands moved slowly, but it did the trick.

His father tensed, then relaxed, as if resigning himself to the fact that he was getting most of the information, and that was better than nothing. Stiles gulped in a huge breath. This was the first time he'd be saying it out loud.

"Erica's dead, dad."

John's eyes widened considerably. For a long time it was silent, with Stiles squeezing his eyes shut so he wouldn't cry and Derek squeezing the back of his neck gently. "I saw - there's no... she's dead. They killed her. And we - had to bury her, ourselves. For... protection." He hadn't been part of the decision, but he knew that was how it had to be done, for a wolf. Unless you had enough money to keep certain rituals private. Which they didn't, though Derek was pretty damn rich. "But you should - know."

His dad reached across the space between them, taking Stiles' hand and squeezing. Though he couldn't feel it much, it was a nice gesture. "I'm sorry, son."

Stiles nodded, a little shaky. "Yeah."

They paused, almost in a moment of silent respect, before Stiles was tripping over the story again. "The pack came and saved us. Me and Boyd. The Alphas are dead - all of them. Boyd's healed... physically. And I'm - getting better." But never really healing. Never again.

The rest of the night is spent answering his dad's questions, which range from strange to ridiculous to surprising to smart. By the time they leave, it's past midnight, but - 

Stiles hasn't felt this close to his father in almost a year.

 Things got better. Stiles was talking normally after about a month of summer, which was definitely progress, though he still didn't babble on the way he used to. Not that he'd done that very often unless he'd been scared or nervous, but after, he was almost taciturn, similar to the way Derek had grown after Boyd and Erica had gone missing.

Hig leg was mostly healed, by then, though he still couldn't run on it. Deaton had told him, officially, he'd never be able to feel what he used to in his hands, or do what he once did. Typing was something he might gain back, writing if he was lucky, driving, holding large objects, all of that. But never anything delicate. Never anything intricate. And he'd never feel the way he once did. 

He didn't come down from the loft, that day.

"Is this what you want?" Nothing about the dream ever changed. Stiles wondered why that was, exactly - though he knew at this point that if he asked, it would only stay the same. Instead, he finally decided to shift, switch things up.

"No." He replied.

"No?" Erica asked, tilting her head. The blood spurted from her neck at the motion; Stiles repressed a shiver.

"No, this isn't what I want."

Silence. Then -

"Why didn't you say so?" She reached up and undid the chains that bound him, and Stiles rubbed at the ghostly pain in his wrists. Now that they were more the same height, it was strange, to look at her, to ignore the blood running in heavy streams down her chest and body. 

It reminded him of the first time they met - averting his eyes to her own gaze. She was smirking, then. "Progress, Stiles," she told him, "But you really have to mean it."

Her head tipped back again, the same as all before, and Stiles screamed, as he always would.

Derek told him they were tearing the Hale house down on a Friday. School started in October at Humboldt, which was nice for Scott and even nicer for him, and it meant that though normally he'd have only three weeks of break left, he had an extra four now. 

The tuesday before that, Stiles had finally asked Derek back into his bed.

It wasn't sexual, though Stiles would once have jumped at the chance. It was like... he slept easier, when he wasn't alone. And driving to his apartment still gave him panic attacks, so until he could go back, there were no other options. Making Derek sleep on the couch for months on end seemed like the less likely solution.

For the first time in his life, Stiles fell asleep with another body curled around his every night. Derek didn't sleep in much clothes, and now that Stiles' chest wounds had healed, neither did he - werewolves were like furnaces. Sometimes, when he woke, he could almost imagine something... different. Domestic. Not the alpha caring for his pack, but the... lover caring for his partner.

On very rare days, the wolf caring for it's mate.

He'd thought about that, before. He was eighteen and a virgin - who, attracted to men, wouldn't fantasize about Derek Hale from time to time? But when he'd moved out and Derek had stepped up after losing Boyd and Erica, he'd started to feel... more. Stiles was known for falling in love by putting people on pedestals (read: Lydia), but with Derek it had been different.

Partially because he'd started off hating him entirely. He'd picked him apart, deliberately trying to point out all of his flaws so that he could find more things to hate about the guy he thought had ruined his life. Ruined the lives of people he cared about. Slammed him into walls and steering wheels.

But Derek... wasn't really responsible for much of any of it. Even though Scott had blamed him for months about killing Peter and his chance for a cure, Stiles almost saw where he was coming from. If it hadn't worked, Scott would be an alpha, and whatever he might have said to the contrary, there was no way Scott could've handled that. Plus... it was his uncle. If he'd been in that situation with his dad, could he really let some seventeen year old kid who hated him kill the last of his family?

He was pretty sure the answer would be no. 

So Derek. Had... crept up on him. Because he didn't idolize him, or hero-worship him. He blatantly pointed out his flaws and exploited them, and then, even after he'd stopped that, he still knew they were there. He understood them. Liking Derek was far more dangerous than the 'love' he'd had for Lydia. Because once he got to know the real Lydia, all he could feel was friendship.

Derek, on the other hand... the closer he got, the more he craved. Like an addict - he couldn't stop.

So yeah. Sleeping next to him in bed might've been a little bit of torture. Watching him tear down boards with his hands while shirtless was definitely a lot of torture, especially considering he was sort of surrounded by werewolves who could scent arousal a mile away. But it was fine. Stiles was handling it.

If by handling it, he meant he was swinging a large hammer with abject fury and pointedly not looking anywhere else every day they worked.

Stiles' dad in the know was a massively huge help, as they'd always known it would be. In this case, it meant making up a cover story for Boyd (the official report was that he'd taken off after Erica, hoping to stop her and bring her home but losing her trail somewhere near Arizona and coming back home) so he could go back to seeing his family - though that didn't stop him from growing closer with Lydia, which Stiles teased them both for whenever he had alone time with either.

It also meant that getting the permits for the house was a breeze. A recommendation from the sheriff and town hero did a lot for you in a middling town like Beacon Hills. With werewolf strength (and a rented wrecking ball which was unsurprisingly difficult to get through the trees), the house was demolished by the start of September.

Derek told them he wanted to rebuild for family, for pack, but Stiles thought it was a little more than that. There's only so many ghosts a person can take before they have to get away. Derek's family - Laura included - had been almost too much for him to bear. Seeing Erica in every turn through the broken remains had to have been killing him.

It killed Stiles.

He hadn't actually seen her much, in the old house. But he knew she spent a lot of time there, when they were training, before Derek had discovered the railway station. He could imagine the sound of her laughter as she jumped down the stairs, how she'd tease Derek about cleaning before having guests over. 

He was glad to see it go.

The chains stopped after the first time she took them down. The dreams shifted after that, back to the corner they'd been thrown into whenever the Alphas grew bored playing with them. They sat on the ground, Stiles' hurt leg oozing out in front of him though it had long since healed, at least on the surface.

"Do you believe it yet? That this isn't what you want?"

When Erica tilted her head down, it almost looked like the wound wasn't there - if it weren't for the fact that the motion squeezed the blood out in spurts. "I think I've finally figured out what you're asking."

Her smile was the wicked one he'd missed when she disappeared. "And that would be?"

"You want to know if I want to keep hurting."

Erica's smile softened into something more real, and a little sad. "I want to know if you want to keep hurting yourself."

Her claws came out, extending yellow in the fluorescent lighting. "Sorry, batman," she whispered, and her head tilted back, the sound of the bone crunching so much more distinguishable close up as her claw wrenched it's way across the wound on his face.

When he woke, he was sitting up, Derek's hands on either side of his face, thumbs rubbing circles at his temples. He breathed a sigh, closing his eyes a long moment before opening them again and finding Derek's holding his. "That was different," he said.

"No screaming?" He hadn't screamed in the dream, either. He was... getting used to it, almost. And this one had been different. A progression. Like there was a maze inside his mind, and he'd finally started to make the right turns.

"No," Derek answered, "No screaming. But you..."

Stiles waited, almost with bated breaths. What had he done?

"You said her name."

Oh. Oh. 

"Understandable," he replied, trying not to wince or flinch away. He hadn't told anyone what his dreams were about, what happened in them, what he saw. But he'd always been a sleep-talker - he supposed he should've realized this would happen, eventually.

Derek's hand moved to his hair, rubbing through it in soothing motions while the other propped his weight against the bed. Stiles relaxed into it a moment before falling forward, resting his forehead on Derek's shoulder and wrapping his arms around him. It felt good, the touch, to be so close to someone. He wondered if maybe they should've been doing this before, like they'd done to help Boyd - wolves weren't the only tactile creatures around.

"Do you want to talk about it?" 

That was it, wasn't it? The kiss of death. Because Derek didn't do talking. Boyd told him that while Derek was good with the tactile stuff and the physical, he'd sort of made it Lydia's job to work with him on the emotional side. Which was probably for all of their best interests, but still. The fact that Derek actually was offering to listen to him and talk to him about it was... It just was. How could he resist that?

"It's Erica," he said quietly, going with the flow as Derek laid them back down on the bed, hand still carding through his hair as Stiles practically sprawled out on top of him. "They're all about her. She's - she looks like the last time I saw her." He closed his eyes, willing the image away. "The very last time. Throat torn open, bleeding like she'll never stop. But she talks like she's fine." He felt Derek slide his other hand down his spine, thumbing circles at the small of his back, and he relaxed into the touch with a sigh.

"She asks me if I want to stop hurting. For a long time I couldn't figure out what that meant. But tonight... she asked if I wanted to stop hurting myself." He still didn't know what to make of that. How to interpret what his subconscious was trying to say. "At the end of all the dreams, her head falls off. Slow. That's... why I scream. But tonight, I just gave up. I gave up being afraid of it because I'd seen it so much. And she - clawed my face." He brought a hand up to touch the scar that marred his cheek. "There. I don't... know what it means. I don't know why it keeps happening, or - what I'm supposed to do. I just dream, and try and get through it."

Derek's hand dug into his scalp in a way that felt really nice. He didn't respond for a while, which was fine with Stiles, who was being lulled back to sleep by the motions of his hands and the rise and fall of his chest beneath his head. 

"It's not your fault."

Stiles jolted awake. "Huh?"

"It's not your fault," Derek repeated quietly. "That's what I think it means. That you blame yourself, for what happened. For not finding them sooner, or for not giving me the information so I could've gotten there faster to get you guys. But it's not your fault."

The silence was profound. Not because Derek was wrong - because he was right. Because Stiles liked to be in denial, but just like with his mother's death, he was blaming himself for this one too. And he wasn't sure if Derek was right, if it wasn't his fault. But he couldn't ignore it anymore. The guilt, that sometimes seemed to swallow him.

"It's not yours, either," Stiles said quietly, already falling asleep again.

He didn't hear Derek's answer, but he thought he felt lips brushing his temple. It was probably another dream.

The next day, Boyd was in his room when he woke up, sitting on the edge of the bed. Derek was gone, but Stiles was pretty sure he'd brought Boyd, because it was still early and he was positive the big guy would rather have been with Lydia this early in the morning.

"Derek called."

Stiles rubbed his eyes weakly, sitting up and blinking away exhaustion. Nightmares were tiring. He got out of bed and moved towards Derek's drawers, comfortable being mostly-naked since it was only Boyd, and slipping into some of Derek's sweats, leaving his shirt off. When he turned around, Boyd was staring at his chest.

For a moment he was confused, before looking down and realizing he was looking at the scars. "Right," he said quietly, only a little bitter, "You didn't get to keep these, did you?" 

Boyd shook his head. They were both quiet for a tense moment, and then: "I'm sorry, Stiles."

He sighed, moving to the bed and sitting next to someone who, once, he'd thought hated him. Now, he was pretty sure Boyd was nearing Scott on the best-friend territory. "I'm sorry, too," he said quietly.

Boyd shook his head. "Nah, man. You're the human. Before... everything, when Derek was training us, he told us about humans in the pack. You're supposed to anchor us, remind us how to live in our world, think things through when the wolf gets too agitated to think rationally. And you do that. But on our side... we're supposed to protect you from things you can't protect yourself from. Things like that."

The old Stiles would never have been able to sit through that. He would've interrupted right off the bat, explaining how none of this was Boyd's fault and really it was on him and stop doing that and insert something sarcastic here. But the new him... the new him got it. Understood, even if he didn't agree, what it felt like to be guilty. To think that you were supposed to be protecting people only to watch them slip through your fingers.

"It's not your fault," he quoted Derek. "There was nothing you could do, and I don't blame you. I never did."

Boyd sighed out a shaky breath, and Stiles drew in one of his own. "My turn."

The man looked up, confusion on his face - as much as was possible for someone like Boyd, who rarely displayed much of his emotion in his actual appearance. Not to say that he didn't have them - Stiles knew thinking that was a mistake. "I should've made you and Erica more of a priority. I spent more time researching the Alphas than researching a way to locate missing pack members, without knowing that the two of those things were connected. It was worried more about protecting Scott - " and Derek, though he didn't mention it aloud, " - than finding you, because there was a chance you'd just run away. And I'm sorry that I didn't try harder. We could've avoided this altogether if I'd just done what I was supposed to."

They looked at each other a moment, human and not, and really saw. That any time someone comes out of a situation like that, the guilt of the survivor will follow them. That maybe they'd been spending so much time on what they'd done that they couldn't look beyond and blame the true people at fault - the Alpha Pack. That if they'd addressed the situation earlier, both of them might've slept easier at night, knowing the other didn't blame them and never would.

"It's not your fault," Boyd echoed.

Tears slid down both of their faces, but neither commented on it. There was nothing more to say.

Stiles started physical therapy in the middle of September. They'd agreed not to involve doctors - being unable to actually explain the injuries made it difficult for a doctor to actually be of any help - but they did ask Deaton, who knew a little, and in what was a far less surprising move than it should have been, Derek started researching. 

They all helped. Lydia threw herself into research with Derek, figuring out little exercises, things for his hands and leg especially. Isaac used tender hands to stretch his leg while Scott coached him through it, reading from pages and pages of information, Boyd's hand on his shoulder leeching the feeling of pain from the act, making it easier, to start off with.

Derek sat him down at the table in front of his laptop, putting his fingers over Stiles' and helping him press down the keys while he went through a basic learning-to-type program, helping patiently until he was able to apply enough pressure by himself.

Lydia brought him her books, using the aid of Peter's laptop and a latin-to-english dictionary to start teaching Stiles the language, understanding his need to never feel so helpless again, because she'd gone through the same thing, once. When Stiles tired of Latin, she would read aloud to him from books like War and Peace, in what she called "expanding your natural strategizing abilities to include battle technique". He thought, really, that it might've just been her way of telling him he was smart, and he could be smarter.

Even Peter helped, though Stiles was wary of him at first. He kept his cutting remarks to a minimum around Stiles, calling him into the kitchen every day before dinner and coaching him carefully through chopping vegetables - something mechancial, easy to follow through on but still aiding in the recovery of his hands and motor movements. After a while, Peter joked with him and Stiles laughed, and after a couple of weeks, Stiles could definitely see it. How the pack treated him like a zany uncle. Because that's who he was, who he'd been before the fire burned the life from his eyes. Who he was now, when his mind was once again intact, when the wolf's thirst for revenge had been sated.

He understood Derek even more, with that.

It wasn't easy, the aftermath. Stiles still had nightmares, and when the time came for school, he still wasn't capable enough to attend. They had to transfer his classes to online courses, and most of the time Boyd had to type his papers, because he'd taken a year off school to work for the money instead of taking his tuition from Derek, who'd apparently offered. 

Now that his dad knew everything, Stiles started having dinner with him again, twice a week if he wasn't too busy. It took time, to heal the bonds that had been broken when Stiles lied to him all those months on end. Their relationship would never go back to how it had been before. But somehow it was better, to just be able to talk to his dad about everything. About how he was healing, how angry he was at his professors, how Derek tried to use the alpha voice on him the other day and how pissed it made him. His feelings for Derek stayed out of the conversation, but he caught his dad giving him knowing glances whenever the wolf's name came up, so he doubted there would be a problem if he'd said anything. It felt good, to be close to his dad. They were closer than they'd been even before Scott got the bite, and that was something Stiles would never take for granted again.

Lydia and Boyd getting together was no real surprise. One day they were still glancing at each other tenderly across the room, and the next she was seated firmly in his lap, hands entangled. Stiles was happy for them. Lydia in high school had needed someone like Jackson, someone who needed her to order him around, someone to control. But Lydia in college, Lydia after Jackson, that Lydia needed someone strong, someone who could anchor her and understand her. Someone who cared but didn't throw it in everyone's face. And Boyd needed her, too, needed someone to take care of him after the death of his best friend, after being tortured for a month. He needed someone who would fuss over him, and he needed someone to help him with his humanity. 

Scott and Isaac danced around each other for the first couple months of school, still hesitant and unsure of one another, afraid to break the bonds of friendship. It took Stiles driving to their once-shared apartment and taping a very huge "YOU AREN'T STRAIGHT DUDE JUST GO FOR IT" sign on the door, because he couldn't stand to be there long enough to actually go inside, for Scott to get his shit together and tell Isaac. The relationship was tentative and new, full of confusion, but Isaac smiled brightly for the first time in the time Stiles had known him. It wasn't perfect, they were too young for that, not really aged by their lives the way Lydia and Boyd had been. But it made them both happy, and it eased everyone's tension when they were honest with each other.

Stiles and Derek continued sleeping in Derek's bed together all the way through Christmas without anything more happening between them. Derek was still the person who comforted him through nightmares, who held him when he woke with tears splashed down his face, who worked as a chair for him when the others were occupied. He was still the person always researching new ways to heal him, to make things easier on him, make him feel strong again. 

Falling in love with Derek, truly, was probably the easiest thing Stiles had ever done.

It was when he saw him use the alpha change, the eyes that haunted his dreams, that he knew it was love. More than infatuation or the petty imitation he'd had for Lydia. Because when he saw those eyes, all he could feel was safe, because Derek was safe. He was home and safety, and that would never change.

Derek took a while, to be coaxed into it. When Stiles first kissed him, after waking from another nightmare to find Derek thumbing across his cheekbone, he'd gone back to sleeping on the couch, avoiding Stiles as much as possible when you shared an apartment and needed help picking wood for the living room floors in your new house. But eventually he came back to bed, kissing Stiles softly and whispering, "Why me?"

So Stiles told him. Every single thing he could think of that he loved about him, every night he'd cared for him, everything he could think of that, bottled up, was love. And Derek whispered back, so many things Stiles had never noticed, so many things he'd never thought Derek would say. And when they kissed again, it was for them both.

Nothing was easy. He would never fully heal, never really be the same. None of them would be. But being pack, it meant being a family, caring for one another and themselves. Happiness would come in time.

Right then, it felt something like the relief of cool water against a burning flame.

"I didn't kill you," he said when she appeared in front of him. The blood still eased down her body like she was bathing in it.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then:

"I'm proud of you," Erica whispered, pressing a dry kiss to his cheek. She laid out on the ground, eyes closed almost as if she were falling asleep. The blood dried rapidly on her skin, and when he opened his eyes, he cried not in fear, but in the sadness of memory.