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In hindsight, this wasn't his smartest idea ever. Not the rescue op; that was pretty genius, if he did say so himself. A loud conversation with Scott in his bedroom while half the Alpha pack was home about Isaac being hurt in the woods, some BS about Derek being missing, Scott running off towards the preserve...half an hour later, every Alpha they'd seen enter the house that day was gone again. At that point, Stiles and Alison broke in the back door to see what was happening, along with a totally not hurt Isaac. It was pretty brilliant, and actually worked. They found Boyd and Erica, bound with wolfsbane and silver, bruised and barely breathing in the basement, broke their bonds and hauled them upstairs. It was so easy. He couldn't stop being surprised about that.

Too bad they hadn't counted on the twins. Two alphas, lying in wait for this very reason. Just in case. They jumped the bunch of them at the top of the stairs, Isaac dumping the much-larger Boyd on top of Stiles to take the brunt of the attack. Alison made hauling the mostly-unconscious Erica while working a crossbow one-handed look almost effortless, and Stiles was trying to drag Boyd towards the door, but Isaac could only hold two of them off for so long. As he went flying into the wall, Alison made the door, and Stiles had to make a choice. It was stupid, made no sense at all, was based entirely on a dumbass idea and desperation. Grabbing one of Alison's silver arrows, he dumped Boyd back on the recovering Isaac and told him to leave. He didn't stop to see if Isaac listened, because if he stopped he'd have to think about what he was doing, running past the two snarling werewolves and yelling anything he could to get them to follow. He just wasn't planning on both of them actually following him.

He almost made it. All those layers of his working in his favor for once. They'd grab him, he'd wriggle out of another layer of clothing. Coat, hoodie, flannel... he was at the back door when they finally grabbed him for good. His resistance bought the rest of them maybe five minutes at most, but hopefully that was enough for Scott to make it back. Not that he could think or worry, after everything went black.

When he finally came to, with the worst migraine and blurry vision, Stiles was alone. Down in that same basement they'd just grabbed the others from. Alone was probably good, but being tied to a chair? Probably less good. Yeah, not his smartest idea ever. All he could hope was that Scott and Derek had managed to get the three alphas into the trap in the woods, and that the others had actually made it to the clinic. And maybe that this was just a concussion, and not actually brain hemorrhaging. He couldn't think beyond that. Probably a good thing, because nothing good was coming of this.

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Stiles glowers in response to Derek's growled retort, a muscle clenching in his jaw as he sets his face. A more stubborn expression would be hard to find, especially as he seems to be taking that last bit as a challenge. He can so manage. Okay, maybe Derek is a werewolf, and an alpha, and would probably be freakishly buff and rugged even if he were just human, whereas Stiles is at best wiry, and at worst scrawny and kind of awkward and just now starting to grow into his overly-large hands and eyes, but whatever. "Don't be an ass," Stiles shoots at him, managing to almost find the energy to be pissed. As it is, he only manages to find a vague irritation. "I know it's hard for you, but seriously, just because I'm human doesn't make me any less--"

His words stop when Derek reaches for his face, and Stiles can't help the involuntary breath he hisses in through his teeth, waiting for the touch to hurt, like everything including that breath has hurt so far. It never occurs to him that Derek would hit him or hurt him, something he hasn't thought in months, but he has no idea what Derek does intend.

It's a surprise, then, when it doesn't hurt. In fact, those fingers do the opposite of hurt. They're cool, soothing, a blessed relief from the dull, burning throbbing he's been feeling for days now, refusing to take the painkillers he's been offered. And while he still can't quite breathe through his nose, he can at least blink without flinching and swallow without feeling like his entire sinus cavity is going to launch through his eye sockets, and that is blessedly wonderful. Unthinking, his face turns further into Derek's hand, seeking more of that relief, before the weirdness of what's happening finally sinks in and he starts to straighten, the old curiosity and suspicion beginning to shine through. "You're doing a thing, aren't you?" A thing. A Werewolf Thing. He so isn't mad about this one. This one can stay.

Derek rumbles a warning growl under his breath as Stiles starts to argue, because god dammit why can't he just accept that he has physical limitations? The growl fades out into a more satisfied rumble when Stile simply stops, mid-sentence as black veins start snaking up Derek's arm from where he's touching Stiles. He can feel the pain being absorbed into his system, his healing dealing with it as quickly as it does his own hurts. More importantly, he can smell the shift in Stiles' scent, the sour tinge of pain fading into the background.

"Yes, Stiles, I'm doing a thing," he answers, deadpan, and rolls his eyes. "And no, being human doesn't make you any less," he adds, while he possibly has the upper hand. "But it does make you more breakable, and it's my job to keep you from ending up broken beyond repair." There's something solemn and intense in the way he says it, the way he reaches across with his free hand to squeeze Stiles' wrist.

Edited 2014-09-17 03:49 (UTC)

Having the upper hand with Stiles is always debatable. Kid's got a mind like lightning, a mouth that's even faster, and enough sarcastic quips and bad jokes to put Burt-Ward-Robin to shame. Derek's smart, pressing the advantage while he has it. Might as well get the words in while Stiles is too busy adjusting to life without pain to argue. And the words manage what he intended with them; Stiles quiets, the seriousness, the intensity of Derek's voice pushing past the walls he's carefully constructed and nesting somewhere deep in him. Warm, and right.

"What are you, my mechanic?" he grumbles, but there's actually a marked amount of...maybe affection, or something nearly like it, in his voice, and his other hand automatically lifts from between his legs to lay on Derek's wrist. Now that the pain is gone, it's so much harder to ignore the rest, the exhaustion and fear and doubt. After a moment, he sighs, and his always-moving fingers settle over the pulse in Derek's wrist. "I'm sorry," he says, and his voice is quiet and so markedly different from the Stiles Derek is used to. Older. Sadder. "You shouldn't have had to do what you did. I should have come up with a better plan. I'm sorry." If there's anything he regrets, it's Derek having to kill. His life has been hard enough. He's got enough nightmares. Who is Stiles to add to that?

Derek is irrationally satisfied by the fact Stiles actually shuts the hell up long enough for him to get that out. Maybe he'll actually listen for once, rather than discarding anything that doesn't fit with whatever world view he's already decided to adopt--mostly the one where anyone trying to protect him is trying to belittle and demean his strength and accomplishments.

"No, I'm your Alpha, if you get broken enough someone needs to fix you I haven't done my job," he answers, with the kind of automatic ease that clearly marks it as what he considers the absolute truth, and he's tired and distracted enough by Stiles' hand settling on his wrist, warm fingers sure against the steady thud of his pulse, that he doesn't think to backtrack on the statement. And, well... it's true to him, even if it isn't to Stiles. And he's not going to think, right in this moment, about just how badly broken Erica and Boyd are, and how he failed them.

He should probably take his hand off Stiles' face, he's drained away everything he can, and the touch is probably inappropriately intimate, but with Stiles' hand at his wrist, the bitter twist of sadness to his scent, he can't make himself. "No." He doesn't growl or snap, it's just steady and solid and true. "You came up with a plan that worked. You saved them. And-" He frowns and looks down, voice going slower and thicker. "That had to happen. Someone had to... had to kill them, or they'd have just kept on the same. With us, or with the next pack down the road. I couldn't let them just... leave. Not knowing that. It was my call, my responsibility." No one else's. He'd kept Scott from having to be a killer, kept the Argents from spilling his peoples' blood, even if they were murderers and monsters. It had been his burden, no one else's.

"It shouldn't've had to be you." Even as he says the words, he knows there wasn't anyone else. This wasn't a job for the Argents, even if the Alpha pack were a bunch of monsters. This wasn't hunting, this was...this was justice. Pack justice, blood for blood, and there was no one for it but Derek. No one else could have done it. Scott couldn't. And Stiles...Stiles did bring kidnapped well, and that was about it. It was Derek's hands, but the blood guilt fell to him, too. It wasn't just Derek's to bear.

He can't quite look at Derek, sliding back into the mire of self-doubt and recrimination he's been drowning in the last few days, but he doesn't pull away from the touch of skin on his own. It is too intimate, that hand on his cheek, Derek's pulse under his fingers, but it's a lifeline he's clinging to without conscious thought. The touch of his Alpha, because he doesn't even think to disagree with Derek's words. Derek has come for him so many times already, and he's contributed in return everything he can. All his most clever ideas, and the beginnings of that pushy insistence that Derek stop with the brooding loner bit and acknowledge that he's just a guy doing the best he can. It's a touch that, if he were better, he'd read way too much into and possibly get too worked up about, because hormones, and then things would be weird. Weirder. As it is, it's just what's keeping him sane.

"Erica and Boyd are okay? Spending time with you is helping?" He hadn't forgotten the way they bolted into Derek's arms. Hasn't forgotten the way he'd wanted to join them. To comfort, and be comforted in return. Maybe that's what he's looking for now; that, and some sort of proof that his plan wasn't all bad. That something good came of it all. "I have some stuff for you to take back to them."

"I'm the Alpha," he points out quietly. "It was my responsibility, no one else's." He doesn't like it. Doesn't like the sticky itch of blood on his hands, no matter how often he washes them, or the stink of it clogging up his nostrils, but he does know it was necessary, and that it inarguably fell to him to take care of it. He might be the monster his mother had said he never needed to become, but those deaths have no part in it, and he knows she would have done the same if it had come to it.

And, god, Stiles hadn't denied it. Not that he's the Alpha, but that he's his. Even now, with everything else, he'd expected an instant, kneejerk protest or correction, but it hasn't come, and that combined with the way Stiles hasn't pulled away, the way he's added to the contact with the hand at his wrist, uncoils something in Derek's chest. He slides his hand around to the nape of his neck with automatic care and pulls, gently but steadily, until Stiles' forehead rests against his shoulder and he can press his nose into the hair above his ear and breathe him in. Like he's done repeatedly for Erica and Boyd these last couple of days.

"They're... they're recovering." It would be a stretch he can't make to say they're okay, but he thinks that, at least, is the truth. "All the physical damage is gone, but-" He shrugs. God knows how long it'll take before they can sleep through the night, or bear to be out of each other's sight... or set foot in the woods again. "You could bring it to them yourself?" he suggests before he can talk himself out of it. "They've been asking about you, but I... I told them we needed to let you rest. Let you have your space." He thinks now, after the way he found Stiles, that that had been a mistake, and he lowers his voice a little. "But Pack should be together. Everyone heals faster when they are."

His mom used to do that for him, when he'd had nightmares or when he was sad or sick. They'd sit there like that for hours, on his bed or on the couch, Stiles breathing in the scent of her and finding comfort in her heartbeat. It's maybe why he allows Derek to complete that familiar gesture, even when it puts an uncomfortable amount of pressure on his sinuses, why a minute amount of tension seeps out of his shoulders as he takes a long, shuddering breath. In that moment, Derek isn't just a friend or a not-quite-mancrush, he's almost a surrogate parent, but...without the weird connotations. It's only when Derek speaks again that Stiles realizes just what he's doing, and those doubts start to come back.

He isn't Pack. He can't be Pack. He's human, and he's vulnerable, and he'll make them weaker, and he's never even once wanted to be a wolf. He might consider Derek his Alpha, but Stiles can't be pack. He doesn't belong with anyone. "I can't take anything anywhere, I'm grounded," he says as he sits up again, both hands running through his messy hair. "And I also kinda look like Halloween came a couple days late, so it's probably a good idea I'm literally not allowed to leave the house. Not even to take the trash out. Will you take the stuff for me?" Because while he doesn't mind Derek being there, might even want Derek around, he's not sure he could stand being around anyone else right now. Even Erica and Boyd would just be reminders of how he took too long to find them. It's okay that Derek's left him alone, and better that he's told everyone the same thing.

The proximity and contact eases something, and Derek relaxes minutely as Stiles simply leans into him, tension seeping away with each long breath. He might be a shit Alpha, but maybe he's at least getting this much right, finally. It's as much the Alpha's job to offer comfort and reassurance as it is protection and guidance, and he's sucked at all of them so far, but after everything that's happened he can't just keep going on the way he has. He's trying to fix things.

He almost doesn't let Stiles pull away from the contact, but that's something he can't force and he lets his hand fall, though only to the boy's shoulder. He doesn't bite back the disappointed growl at not just the words, but at the way Stiles' scent changes and the tension seeps back in. He clenches his jaw and looks down.

"You're not sleeping, you're hurt. You shouldn't be alone and... you'd heal faster too," he points out, because it might not be anything like with wolves, but Pack makes everyone stronger, and Stiles at least hasn't repudiated that. Yet.

He doesn't dispute any of it out loud, little as he actually believes it. How could he heal faster, too? He's not a wolf, not Pack. Can't be. And the rest...well, he can't argue the not sleeping part, either. Derek could smell the lie, and it's obvious to him, too, to the point where he avoids the bathroom mirror every time he goes. Derek can be growly all he wants, Stiles isn't changing his mind. He's going to stay hermity until he can get his shit together, and that's that.

"I really can't," he says, and there's the barest flash of guilt at how he's making Derek look. He's trying to be less stressful, he swears. "My dad...he doesn't know anything about this side of things. He can't. And me going running off or sneaking out, I mean...I've done that to him enough, the last year. I really can't. I should be ungrounded by Thanksgiving, though. Probably." Unless something else happens. Like it apparently tends to.

But there's that guilt, still, and so after a moment, he hesitantly adds, "But you could hang out for a while, if you want. If you don't have to get back right away or anything. I have some reading I'm supposed to do for school." And even with the tension and the doubt, he does feel better having Derek here. More than he'd have thought. Weird how used he's gotten to Derek's presence, especially considering where they stood a year ago.

Derek bites back on the urge to growl in frustration. He'd thought that, maybe, this time he was getting it right, but he should have known better. It helps at least a little, though, that Stiles is making excuses rather than outright refusing. That he hasn't laughed in Derek's face for daring to claim him. And it's not like it isn't a valid excuse, even if Derek knows for a fact that Stiles rarely, if ever, pays any attention when his father grounds him.

He's preparing for a round of orders and threats, about sleeping and eating and making Scott get his ass over there (and he'll be taking care of that conversation on his own, dammit) when Stiles stops him before he even gets started with that offer. He's silent for a moment, brows still furrowed, as he processes it.

"You should rest, not do schoolwork," he finally answers. He should get back to the others, but they know where he is and how to reach him, and they're together and safe for now... and Stiles is Pack too, and needs to be taken care of. "If I can't tell Erica you're getting better and have it not be a lie when I get back she's going to try and go for my throat."

Derek is quiet just long enough for Stiles to start regretting the offer, to start rethinking hasty excuses to take it back, when Derek finally answers. And the answer, once he parses it, isn't at all what he was expecting. Derek is going to stay, and Erica...really? There was that brief moment of enlightenment he'd had a month or so before they'd disappeared, the almost conversations, but he was pretty sure that was all it was. Just a reminder of something else he'd overlooked or ignored, been too self-centered to see. He's trying to get better about that. To be better for everyone: for his mom, for his disappointed and struggling dad, for Scott who needs a practical conscience, and for Derek. Derek, who needs to remember sometimes what it means to be human, because it's so much harder than being wolf. But Derek wouldn't say it if it weren't true. He can be evasive and refuse outright to answer things, but he's never lied to Stiles. Sometimes Stiles thinks he might be incapable of it. And that's not a bad thing, with how very good Stiles is at it. "Yeah, well, my English teacher doesn't really accept 'knocked around by power-hungry werewolves' as an excuse to not finish reading Camus, sadly," he says, finally pullung away from Derek's hands and flopping backwards on the bed. Somehow he still ends up with one calf pressed against him, almost an unspoken reassurance that he is doing things right. It's not his fault Stiles is too stubborn for the both of them. "Besides, I can't sleep, might as well be productive, right?" He didn't really mean to say it, but...well, it's not like Derek can't tell. Not like he doesn't already know, and maybe it's better for Stiles to say something, so Derek doesn't just wonder and come to his own conclusions. He's really starting to think that's a big part of Derek's problem. Maybe even part of his own, too.

"How about fell down the stairs and got a concussion?" he suggests, practically, and because there's no question that Stiles was concussed. He doesn't like it when Stiles pulls away, but he makes himself let him go and drops his hand reluctantly. The press of Stiles' calf is some comfort and reassurance, and he's not even thinking again when his hand shifts to settle, warm and large, over Stiles' ankle instead.

Contact is good. It's not the same as the whole pack being together, but even just being with the Alpha should be enough to help at least a little. He stays there for just a moment before settling slowly next to Stiles. Not too close, but stretched out on the bed, still holding loosely to his ankle. "You need to sleep, you can't heal properly if you're not getting any rest."

Stiles does consider that answer for a long moment. "They do know Scott broke my nose. Or, you know, the story we told my dad and his mom." He doesn't know if they've told Derek that yet, and the last thing he wants is Derek getting even more pissed at Scott for something he didn't do. "And Scott's mom said something about mild concussions or whatever. I mean, I'm out of school for a day, but that's it. And knowing my English teacher, he'd fail me anyway. I don't know why they all have it out for me."

Maybe he knows a little. It's why Derek growls at him so much. People who see potential being wasted in this scrawny, stubborn kid. He just doesn't know what he can do about it. He can't be anyone else. But for some reason, not all of them have given up on him. Derek's still there, and that's surprising, but kind of reassuring. Like that grip on his ankle. He waits as Derek settles in next to him, a little tentative, waiting for his hormones to make everything weird, but he remains calm. He's just so tired. Tired, and unhappy, and bruised all over in ways that aren't purely physical.

"Sleeping isn't resting, not lately," he says, after a long pause, unconsciously settling so he's got a little more contact with Derek. "Even before the other night. I keep having dreams..." he trails off, remembering again and forcing himself to suppress a shudder. Anticipation, discomfort, a slow dread, and above it all just exhaustion. He's just so tired. Sleep without dreams would be nice.

Derek rolls his eyes at the cover story, more because it's perfectly believable than anything. He doesn't want to think about how often Stiles lies to his father, or how long it'll be before the sheriff refuses to let the blatant falsehoods stand... and what will happen when that day comes. He definitely isn't going to follow through on the urge to tell Stiles he should just come clean and tell his father everything, because he knows that will just end in a screaming match and he's not up to that right now.

"If you're out of school for a concussion you should get extra time to do the work," he points out, and the growl in his voice is more for the teacher(s?) making Stiles' life hell than for Stiles himself. The irony of that isn't wasted on him, of course, given he's probably the single most important factor in making Stiles' life hellish.

He pulls in a slow breath through his nose as Stiles explains, or starts to, and doesn't tell him he knows exactly what he means. That he can't remember the last time he slept more than an hour at at time, and that hour restless and broken. Always conscious of the fact that he's weak and vulnerable, that the Hunters or the Alphas are after him and he has no strong Pack to count on. No one to watch his back... and that he hadn't even been able to give that much to the children he'd turned. Hadn't been able to even give them the illusion of safety, let alone the reality.

"Try now," he orders instead, low and gruff, but his grip on Stiles' ankle is still steady and firm. Warm. "You're exhausted, maybe you're exhausted enough to get at least a little rest now." Maybe... just maybe having him here, his Alpha, even if Stiles hasn't explicitly accepted him as much, will help the way it should. Or at least a little, anyway.

Yeah, what his dad should and should not know is so not a fight they're having anytime soon. Stiles has that fight with himself often enough as is. In the one hand, knowing something would maybe keep his dad safer on those weird calls that Beacon Hills tended to get too many of. On the other, he'd ground Stiles permanently for all the risks he'd taken. And besides, Stiles knows better than anyone; knowing more just means more can happen to you. The weird and the horrifying finds you that much faster.

But the funny thing is, he doesn't blame Derek for any of it anymore. He blames Peter some, for starting all this and sucking Scott and Derek into it. He blames the Argents for being so bugfuck crazy, all of them, even the ones he doesn't dislike as much as the others. He understands maybe better than Derek does that none of that is his fault. They just...got sucked into this mess. Maybe it would be easier if he did blame Derek and cut all ties. He can't do that, though. Definitely not anymore.

Picking up the book, Stiles holds it over his face, eyes not quite focusing on the words. "You're exhausted, too," Stiles points out, clearly too tired for French existentialism. "But you're here taking care of me instead of resting. Who's taking care of you?" He wouldn't even have said anything if he weren't so tired, but he is--and for once, he's not really thinking.

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