FIC: Teen Wolf -- The Old Familiar Sting (2/5)

[the_deep_magic]

Title: The Old Familiar Sting (2/5)
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Rating: NC-17
For summary and warnings, please see part one
One

Derek woke up convinced he was actually on fire.  His entire body was burning, and it took him a long time to realize that the crackling sound wasn’t his searing flesh, but the wet rasp of breath in and out of his lungs.

The top sheet was tangled between his legs and he had soaked the bottom sheet with sweat.  As soon as he could move, he made his way downstairs – and straight to Stiles’ collection of duffel bags in the living room.  Derek’s sense of smell still felt dull, but he knew the scent of the powder, and he was getting faint traces of it from somewhere in the bags.  He pulled out DVD and video game cases, opening each one and sniffing them, checking every pocket of the bags before he realized that it all smelled just a little bit like the powder, as if Stiles had rubbed the plastic bag over everything.

Derek growled and started to pull the cloth lining of the duffel bags apart, looking for anything hidden.  Nothing.

Of course.  Stiles wouldn’t leave it out here.  He’d keep it close to him.  Still aching and sweating, Derek crept into the guest room as quietly as he could, and even though he was far less than stealthy in his present state, Stiles was out cold on the mattress.  He hadn’t found sheets for it, but he was wrapped up in an old, soft quilt.

The bag with Stiles’ clothes in it had the same faint scent, and Derek shook out each item before tossing it aside.  When the duffel was empty and the powder was still nowhere to be found, he swung around to look at the bed.

Where Stiles was sitting up, staring at him, mouth agape.

“Where is it?” Derek growled, his voice dropping into alpha command mode.

“I wasn’t going to leave it sitting out,” Stiles said.  His tone was even, but his heart was racing and that merely served to anger Derek more.  His skin was still burning, and Stiles had the only thing that would stop it.

“Where is it?” he growled again, lunging on top of Stiles and pinning him to the bed by his throat.

Stiles reeked of fear, but his face betrayed nothing.  When he didn’t answer, Derek followed his line of sight to look at Derek’s own hand, the one not holding Stiles down, claws out and raised.  Derek didn’t remember doing that.  “Are you going to hurt me?” Stiles asked, his voice only quavering a little, considering the speed of his heartbeat.  “Because you could.  You could tear me apart if you wanted to.  Is that what you want?”

“No,” Derek finally said, pulling away from Stiles.  When Stiles sat up, Derek could see four pinpricks on the side of his neck; evidently, all of Derek’s claws had been out.  He hadn’t been this out of control since… actually, he couldn’t ever remember being this far out of control.

He opened his mouth to apologize, then shut it again as Stiles pressed a hand to Derek’s forehead.  “Jesus, you’re burning up, even for you.  I could feel it coming off of you in waves.  Get in the shower.”

The urge to fight back had left him completely, and Derek went straight for the guest room shower.  They hadn’t cleaned it the other day, but it hardly got used and wasn’t dirty.  Derek stepped in, not bothering to remove his boxers as he turned on the water as cold as it would go.

The spray stung his burning skin, and Derek half expected the water to evaporate into steam as soon as it hit him.  It didn’t, of course, and Derek stared at his hands, watching his claws slowly retract.  Eventually, the water began to cool him, but only from the outside – he still felt like his insides were boiling, even when he began to shiver.

He shut off the water, standing mostly naked and dripping without a towel in sight, feeling utterly lost and humiliated.  There was a soft knock at the door before it cracked open just enough that a hand holding a towel extended into the bathroom.  Derek took it, and the door closed again.

Being a born wolf meant Derek was rarely squeamish about nudity, but he felt utterly naked leaving the bathroom in nothing but a towel.  He’d left his sodden boxers on the floor of the shower, not that they would have helped much.  But before he could get to the stairs, Stiles was waiting for him just outside the kitchen with a glass of cold water.  Derek drained it quickly, and when he handed it back, Stiles said, “Put something on and come back down here, okay?”

Derek nodded, strangely glad to have someone tell him what to do next.  Apparently he’d lost the ability to decide for himself.  He put on pajama pants and a fresh t-shirt, but despite the heat still searing through his body, he was tempted to pull on his jacket, just to feel less naked.

Again, Stiles had water waiting for him when he came back down, and Derek tried to drink it slower this time as they both went to sit on the couch.  He noticed how tired Stiles looked – not surprising, since it had only been about three hours since Derek had gone to sleep.  Fuck, half a dose only bought him three hours.

“Nightmares?” Stiles asked after a long period of silence.

Derek just glared at him.

“Okay, stupid question.  Look, I researched non-chemical ways to reduce nightmares, but you’re not going to like them.  There’s meditation and writing and… talking.”

“Talking?”

“About the nightmares.  Telling someone else.”

Derek could feel his eyes start to glow red with fury.  “Do you really think that after more than six years, talking is going to—”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, surprisingly firmly.  “Yeah, I kind of do.  Because wolfy healing doesn’t do a damn thing for PTSD.”

“I’m not crazy,” Derek growled, unable to keep his fangs from dropping.

“Never said you were.  But you’ve been through so much trauma I’m amazed you’re still functioning at all.”  Then, softer: “I understand why you started using that stuff.  I do.  But you can’t tell me that it fixed anything, that you’re better off than you were before.”

Derek shut his eyes and breathed deeply until he felt his anger slowly recede.  “I can’t control the dreams,” he managed.  “And my control is all I have.”

Suddenly there was a cool hand on his forearm; Stiles had slid next to him on the couch.  “That’s not true.  You have… okay, this is going to sound corny as fuck, but you have me and Isaac and Boyd.  And Scott if you really need him.  And Lydia sort of indirectly, you know, depending on her mood and the weather and… okay, maybe not Lydia.”

Derek almost smiled at that, but couldn’t quite manage it.  “None of you can help me with this.”

Stiles shook his head.  “That might not be true.  Did you ever talk about the fire with Laura?”

“Not… not really.”

“It can help.  They put me on medication for the panic attacks, but they didn’t go away until I started talking to someone.  And not my dad – we just… couldn’t.”

“You just want me to start talking about the fire?”  Derek felt like it would be easier to saw his own arm off.

“And Erica.  And Peter.  What happened with the alpha pack.”  Stiles gave a small, rueful smile.  “I told you that you weren’t going to like it.”

Derek closed his eyes again and leaned his head against the back of the couch.  What was Stiles expecting from him?  Derek wasn’t even sure the words would come if he tried.  Laura had talked to him about maybe seeing a therapist after they left Beacon Hills, but Derek didn’t even want a stranger knowing that he was responsible for the death of his entire family.  Stiles hadn’t actually said that he expected Derek to talk to him about any of it, but it was implied.  He couldn’t tell the full truth about the fire to any therapist even if he wanted to, nor could he talk about the alpha pack.  And he couldn’t talk about any of it with his betas.

The hand returned to his forearm, but this time it was warm and gripping him tightly.  “Derek,” he heard Stiles say.  “Derek, you’re shaking.”

Derek opened his eyes and came to the sudden realization that he was freezing.  The sweat-soaked clothes he was wearing now felt like ice against his skin, and his teeth were starting to chatter.  “Cold,” he managed.

Stiles was already up off the couch.  “I’ll get you some blankets.”

Derek didn’t know how Stiles knew where to find them, but he’d found one for himself.  It seemed like an eternity before he returned with the quilt that had been on his bed and a second one that smelled stale and dusty.

“These were all I could find.  Remind me to take you shopping for more than one set of bedding.”  He glanced over Derek.  “Better take that shirt off.  It’s probably making it worse.”

Derek wordlessly stripped out of the shirt and accepted the blankets, allowing Stiles to help him wrap himself up and lay down across the couch.  He even lifted up to allow Stiles to sit at one end and hold Derek’s head in his lap.

“I don’t guess your, uh, supplier said anything about withdrawal symptoms.”

Derek growled by way of answer.

“Didn’t think so.  Are you tired at all?

“No.”

“Okay, that’s… that’s probably for the best right now.”

“Why?  Are you going to make me talk all night?”

Derek’s head shook a little with the vibration as Stiles laughed.  “I’m here to help you, not torture you.  I wouldn’t even subject me to that.”  Then his tone became more serious.  “But I’ll always listen.  Please remember that.  If you need to talk, I am actually capable of shutting up.”

Then he leaned down and sort of awkwardly hugged Derek’s shoulder and head.  Derek didn’t complain because he was cold and Stiles’ body heat felt good.  He had the brief urge to ask for more, but bit down on his lip just in time.

“You want me to put in another movie?” Stiles asked.

That would mean Stiles getting up and leaving him there, cold and shivering, if only for a minute.  “Not really.”

“Okay.  You feeling any warmer?”

Derek still felt the cold deep in the core of him, just as he had felt the burning heat, but the blankets were helping.  “A little.”

“Good.  I might nod off here in a few minutes, but if you need something, just wake me up.”  With that, Stiles laid one arm easily across Derek’s shoulder and sank back into the couch.

The thought of trying to find where Stiles had hidden the bag only came in passing – Derek was still shaking, and he didn’t want to leave the cocoon of blankets.  And Stiles’ arm over him felt so warm, even through all the fabric, that he briefly wished Stiles would stretch out next to him.  There wasn’t much room on the couch, but if Stiles held him close…

But Stiles was already falling asleep, his breathing evening out.  Derek tried to focus on Stiles’ heartbeat to block out the unfamiliar coldness.  He never quite managed to drop into sleep, but the steady beat lulled him into a drifting haze as the shivering eventually stopped.

&&&

Once daylight was shining through the curtains, Derek could no longer stay still, even though Stiles was snoring.  Make that especially because Stiles was snoring.

The sun hurt his eyes.  Usually he could consciously scale down his heightened vision, but he seemed unable to do it now and his head throbbed.  Maybe this was what being hung over felt like.  Still, he gravitated toward the window.  The bone-deep cold was gone, but the warmth of the sun still felt good on his skin.

There was a gnawing in his stomach that took him a good thirty seconds to recognize as hunger.  Had he been merely feeding himself, when he remembered to, out of habit all this time?  It was disturbing, being so out of sync with his body.  All his life, he’d been taught how to listen to his body, control it, feel its changes and know what they meant.  And then his survival had depended on it.  He couldn’t believe that he’d not only thrown that away, but that he hadn’t even realized it until now.

Despite his hunger, the fully-stocked kitchen intimidated him with choice.  But he wasn’t too out of it to hunt for breakfast food, and even his rudimentary cooking skills were up to the task.

He intended to let Stiles sleep as long as possible, but thirty seconds after the bacon hit the frying pan, Stiles was stumbling into the kitchen, making soft humming noises of approval.  “Bacon, yes,” Stiles mumbled, wiping the sleep out of his eyes.  “Bacon makes everything better.”  He went for the fridge and pulled out two cartons of orange juice.  “Are you a pulp guy or a no-pulp guy?  I didn’t know, so I got both.”

Derek snorted.  “If I want pulp, I’ll eat an orange.”  He definitely did not blush thinking about doing just that the day before.

Stiles made an offended noise.  “This is never going to work out between us.  I’m sorry, we’re too different.”

“I’m sure I’ll survive,” Derek said dryly, wondering if that was something Stiles thought about, the two of them.  It was a thought that was popping up distressingly often for Derek with Stiles making himself impossible to ignore.

“More pulp for me then,” Stiles said cheerily, hopping up on a kitchen stool and drinking straight from the carton as he watched Derek finish up the bacon and scramble some eggs.  When Derek turned around, Stiles was waiting for him with two plates and a bag of shredded cheddar.

As breakfasts went, it was fairly basic, but Stiles grinned anyway, particularly when Derek followed his lead and drank his pulpless orange juice from the carton.  That had worked out pretty nicely, actually.

&&&

Derek put up an enormous amount of resistance before he let Stiles drag him out shopping for bedding, but truthfully, it felt kind of good to get out of the loft.  His head still ached and he felt exhausted, but he was pretty sure laying around all day would only make him dwell on it.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to try to sleep, if he even could.

Shopping with Stiles was an experience unto itself.  Derek knew Stiles couldn’t possibly be like this when he went to the store himself – after all, he’d managed the groceries – but the Bed Bath & Beyond had to have been specifically designed with ADHD kids in mind.  Anything with “As Seen on TV” written on the box yanked at Stiles’ attention like a fishing line.

“Do you think you need one of these?”

“Stiles, nobody needs a spinning mop.”

“You’re gonna need some kind of mop, because—ooh!”

His eyes suddenly went wide as he reached for something called a Pocket Hose, the words THE HOSE THAT GROWS written prominently on the box.  Before he could even open his mouth, Derek swatted his hand and said, “No.”

“But—”

“No.”

“Fine,” Stiles muttered, stuffing his hands in his pockets.  “I’ve already got one of my own, anyway.” And then Derek could’ve sworn he heard, “In my pants.”

They managed to buy several sets of sheets and some extra pillows and blankets, plus fresh cleaning supplies, before Derek gave in to his urge to throttle Stiles.  Just barely.

They got lunch from a Mediterranean food truck and sat in the shade to eat.  The heat didn’t bother Derek, and the brightness of the sun was dampened by his sunglasses now, but Stiles was starting to turn pink and began shedding layers of clothing until he was down to a t-shirt that said “My other car is your mom.”  The sight of Stiles wolfing down a gyro should have been disgusting, but he had a smear of tzatziki sauce on his cheek that Derek wanted to lean over and brush off with his thumb.  Or his tongue.

Before his brain could process that thought, Stiles had finished his last bite and cleaned his face – his whole face – with a napkin.  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

Derek bit back on the urge to simply say “fine” and instead took stock of himself.  “Better,” he said.  “There’s still some light sensitivity, but my headache’s gone.”   He paused.  “Should my headache be gone?  My senses are still dulled, but shouldn’t I feel a lot worse?”

“You might come nightfall.  Or you might not.  We know nothing about this stuff – could be that your metabolism and healing will burn the rest of it out of your system and cover the physical withdrawal.  But…”

“But?”

Stiles grimaced.  “I don’t think there’s a shortcut on the psychological addiction.  Sleep and nightmares both have a big psychological component.  And you don’t crave the stuff now, right?”

Derek shook his head.  “I think about it if I’m not doing anything else, but I only feel like I really need it at night.”

“I think that’s the psychological part.  The part that’s going to be the hardest to get through.”

Derek buried his face against his hands.  “I can’t go back to the nightmares, Stiles.  I can’t live like that, either.”

“I know,” Stiles said quietly, resting a hand on Derek’s shoulder.  “But you don’t have to do this alone.  I’m not going anywhere.  And we can call Isaac and Boyd if you want.”

“They wouldn’t come.”

“Of course they would.  They’re still your pack, Derek.”

“Are they?” Derek asked miserably.  “I haven’t seen them in weeks.”

The hand on Derek’s shoulder gave a squeeze.  “They’re hurting, too.  Scott told me that when Isaac hangs out with him nowadays, most of the time it seems like he’s somewhere else in his head.  I don’t think Boyd’s parents know where he goes half the time.  They see their alpha dealing with it on his own and I think they decided that’s what they’re supposed to do.”

A chasm opened up in Derek’s chest when he thought of his betas suffering alone.  He’d hardly spared them a thought; he’d convinced himself they didn’t need him.  Still, though, he didn’t want to add to their pain by putting his own on their shoulders.  “I still don’t think I can face them.”

“I think it would help all of you,” Stiles said.  “But I get it.  I haven’t told them anything.  Once you’re clean, will you take them back?”

Derek nodded, the lump in his throat making him unable to speak.  He couldn’t imagine they’d want to take him back.

They sat in silence for another minute or so before Stiles said, “Let’s go find somewhere air-conditioned before I melt.”

&&&

The rest of the house wasn’t nearly as filthy as the kitchen and Derek’s bathroom had been, but it still needed a good cleaning.  Stiles didn’t even have to talk Derek into it this time, and splitting up the work made it faster. 

The evening passed with another movie marathon – well, okay, it was just the extended version of Fellowship of the Ring, but it felt like a marathon.  Derek had no idea how Stiles, who couldn’t stop moving all day long, could sit transfixed for nearly four hours, draped across Derek’s couch but completely still.  Even Derek had started to fidget by the time the Fellowship were paddling down the river. 

It had nothing to do with the way Stiles’ shirt was riding up just a little, exposing a dark trail of hair leading down from his navel, a sharp contrast to the pale skin around it.  Nothing at all.

Once Frodo and Sam had finally sailed off in search of Mordor, Stiles was yawning so hard that his whole body was stretching with it, pulling the t-shirt up until Derek could see softly defined abs.  It was definitely time for bed.

Stiles put the DVD away and turned to Derek.  “So, how do you want this to go tonight?”

He waited for more, a suggestion from Stiles, but apparently Stiles was leaving it all up to Derek.  “Maybe… try without anything.  See if it really is out of my system.  Do you, uh, still have—”

“Yes,” Stiles said, giving Derek a moment to read his heartbeat.  “I do.  But can we make a deal that if it gets intolerable, you won’t try to attack me this time?”

Stiles looked genuinely concerned, and Derek felt the weight of guilt pressing against his chest, because he had to answer honestly, too.  He could still see the four small puncture marks on the side of Stiles’ neck.  “I don’t know if I can promise that,” he said quietly.

Stiles scooted closer to him on the couch, putting a hand on his knee, and Derek couldn’t help staring at it as Stiles spoke.  “You’ve been able to stop yourself from hurting me – I mean really hurting me – so far.  Just… maybe you could stop before anything sharp touches my skin?  Considering the look of this place, I hate to tell you to punch a wall, but if that’s what it takes—”   Derek snorted.  “If it is mostly psychological at this point, theoretically you can control it.  You’ll still want it, but your body won’t crave it to the point where it physically overrides your control like it did before.”

That sounded overly optimistic to Derek, but he was determined not to frighten Stiles again.  Quite frankly, he couldn’t figure out why Stiles hadn’t left already.  But after a quick squeeze of Derek’s knee, Stiles smiled tiredly and headed toward the guest bedroom, which had a brand new sheet and comforter set – bright red, because Stiles was still a little bit of an asshole and insisted one room not be decorated “like the inside of a cave,” direct quote.

Derek headed upstairs to his own room.  He was sleepy, but he didn’t foresee himself falling asleep for a few hours, if at all.  He’d gotten at most three hours the night before, but in the past he’d been able to go much longer without sleep.  Of course, it was usually because he was coasting on the adrenaline of facing some sort of grisly death.

Stiles had changed Derek’s sheets before dinner, and though he’d washed them, underneath the familiar smell of Derek’s detergent, the plasticky smell of the packaging still clung to them.  Derek figured tonight was as good as any to break them in and mark them with his scent.  Really mark them.  With any luck, it would relax him and possibly help him sleep.

As Derek reached into his boxers, he had the startling thought that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done this, the last time he’d wanted to do this.  He almost laughed – there was a whole anti-drug campaign right there.

It took him a while to get hard, like his body needed time to remember how, but Derek wasn’t in a rush.  He tried to remember what he used to do when he was looking for more than just a quick release.  Fingering himself was probably a little too much for right now, and he didn’t want to go hunting for the lube anyway, so he stretched out on his back on the bed, pulling his boxers off and feeling the softness of the sheets all over his body.  He’d been pissed at Stiles for insisting on what seemed like a stupidly expensive thread count, but now they felt worth every penny.

He absently dragged a hand up and down his chest until his thumb caught the edge of a nipple and he shivered.  It took some restraint to tease himself, toy with both of his nipples lightly until they were pebbled and demanding more attention.  Pinching was too much, but gently rolling them between his thumb and forefinger made his blood start to rush south, and he waited as long as he could stand before reaching down and fisting his cock.

He started slowly, rubbing the foreskin over the head as he felt himself harden in his own hand.  It felt good, remembering a long-lost pleasure, like biting into the orange.  Along with that sense memory came the hitch in Stiles’ breathing, the uptick in his heartbeat as he ignored Derek a little too studiously.  Derek had done that to him just by eating a piece of fruit.

He knew he was heading into dangerous territory here.  Stiles might be better able to take care of himself than most of the adults Derek knew, but he was still seventeen, and also the only person Derek trusted to help him now.  Derek had never really fantasized about specific people when he jerked off – Kate had been the exception, but for a long time after the fire, just the thought of her face nearly made him retch.  So Derek fantasized about sensations, bodies, racing heartbeats and the heady smell of someone else’s arousal.

So if he just imagined a strong hand wrapping around his cock, long, nimble fingers starting up a slow, steady rhythm, maybe that was all right.  There was no need to hurry, and it felt good after so long.  Not the sudden, ethereal high of the drug, but something grounded in his body, in his muscles and bones.  The inward focus made him hyperaware of the slide of the sheets against his skin, the sound of his breathing, the feel of his other hand stroking his chest.

His cock was fully hard now, starting to leak a little at the tip, and as he rubbed his thumb over it to spread the slickness around, his mind wandered a little further.  To the sweet friction of skin against skin.  To a smooth, leanly-muscled body, lithe and flexible, pressed up against his own.  Panting breaths and a racing heartbeat, soft cries of pleasure.  Bright amber eyes flying wide open…

Despite the long buildup, Derek’s orgasm hit him out of nowhere.  It rushed through him like a wave, leaving tingling pulses in its wake as he kept stroking himself past the point of oversensitivity, wanting to feel that, too, the nearly-painful sharpness of it that made his abs clench until he let go entirely, feeling a strange sense of peace rush in.

He had the presence of mind to clean himself off with a tissue, but when he laid back down, he was surprised to find the calmness still there, quieting his mind and body.  He didn’t fall asleep right away, but he drifted slowly, until finally he was so deeply relaxed that sleep took over.

&&&

It couldn’t have been more than an hour before the nightmares hit.  Though they were as intense as ever and Derek woke up sweating, he didn’t feel as though his skin was on fire this time, and some of the immediate terror backed off as he dragged himself fully awake and made himself pull on his boxers and a pair of sweatpants.

He went to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face, then came back and sat on the bed.  He didn’t especially want to try to go back to sleep, so he descended the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible.  This, of course, was negated entirely when he accidentally turned the ice maker on while trying to get a glass of water.

“Derek?” he heard softly from the guest room.

He spun quickly to tell Stiles it was okay, not to get up, but the glass slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor.  And then, all he could do was stare down at the mess.  He couldn’t clean it up; his hands were shaking too badly.  Maybe the rest of him, too.  When had that started?

That was how Stiles found him, standing in the kitchen surrounded by ice and water and shards of glass, staring at his hands.

“Jesus,” Stiles breathed.  “Don’t move, I’ve got it.”  And, piece by piece, he picked the glass up.  He cleaned up the rest of it, too, while Derek just stood there, watching as Stiles mopped up the water with a wad of paper towels and tossed the melting ice cubes in the sink.

Derek didn’t know how long Stiles had been calling his name before he felt warm hands cup his face and he blinked back to awareness.  “Thank god,” Stiles said.  “I was afraid I was going to have to slap you, and as satisfying as that would have been, I don’t think it would’ve ended well for me.”  Derek didn’t say anything, merely blinked at him.  “You’re shaking all over.  Are you cold again?”

Derek had to take a moment to process that.  “No.”

“Derek, you’re freaking me out a little.”

“I’m kind of… out of it,” Derek managed.

Stiles sighed, sounding relieved, though his brow was still furrowed.  “Do you want to go back to bed?”

“I don’t…”  Derek paused.  He legitimately didn’t know what he wanted to do.  He didn’t think he wanted to go back upstairs, but what else was there?

“Tell you what, come to my room,” Stiles said, taking Derek by the hand like he would a child and leading him away from the kitchen.  Derek wasn’t even offended by it; Stiles’ hand felt warm and solid, an anchoring point.  “Change of venue.  Maybe you can get settled in there.”

And it did help, Stiles tucking him into the guest bed.  It was a little too warm, but the pressure of the blankets around him was soothing.  Like being held.

Stiles extended his hand toward Derek, like he intended to run his fingers through Derek’s hair, but he seemed to change his mind at the last moment and pulled back.  “Need anything else?” he asked.

“Where are you going?”

“Couch.  Pretty sure I could crash on any horizontal surface right about now.”

“Stay,” Derek said, the word out of his mouth before he could think better of it.

“Um.” Stiles looked around the sparsely furnished room.  “There’s just the bed, and I know I said ‘any horizontal surface,’ but hardwood floors aren’t exactly—”

Derek rolled his eyes; apparently Stiles’ babbling brought him back to himself a little.  “In the bed.”

“Oh.”  Stiles’ lips pursed around the sound, and suddenly Derek couldn’t help but stare at Stiles’ mouth.  Soon it was moving again, rapidly as usual.  “I guess it’s a pretty big bed.  Just to warn you, I kind of flop around in my sleep, but you can shove me out of the way if you need to.  I’ll usually just roll over without waking up.”

He circled around to the other side of the bed and Derek watched as Stiles untucked his side of the covers, carefully sliding in and keeping his space.  Derek was surprised to find he didn’t want Stiles to do that.

But Derek remained still.  His steady gaze seemed to be enough to make Stiles anxious.  Derek’s thoughts were simple, short and dazed, but he didn’t want Stiles to feel anxious.  Not now.  He forced himself to talk; talking would make Stiles comfortable.  “What were those things you mentioned the other day?  The things to reduce nightmares.”

Stiles’ eyebrows shot up.  “The things I said you wouldn’t like?”

“Yes.”

“Well, um,” Stiles began, “they sound kind of trite.  Apart from, y’know, talking to someone, which I already told you about, there’s different kinds of meditation.  Before you go to sleep, you try to clear your mind of thoughts.  Or you purposefully think about good things, concentrate on how they make you feel.  It’s not, like, a cure, but it’s supposed to help.”

Stiles had started fidgeting, and no, that wasn’t right.  Derek couldn’t have said why, but he needed Stiles to be calm and relaxed, especially since Derek still felt involuntary trembles in his arms and hands.  So he pushed toward the middle of the bed, getting into Stiles’ space.  He didn’t move to embrace him, just buried his head against Stiles’ neck and pressed in close.

“Whoa, okay,” Stiles said, going perfectly still.  “So now this is a thing.  That is happening.  Derek, are you alright?”

“Don’t know,” Derek muttered, his voice muffled against Stiles’ skin, and Stiles gave a quick shiver.

“You’re… you’re in bed with me and you’re close to me.  Like, really, really close.  I’m not sure but there might be some nuzzling?  Just wanted to update you on the situation.  In case that’s not what you want to be happening.  Because it is.  Happening.”

Derek lifted his head.  He knew Stiles must get this close with Scott – they smelled too much like each other sometimes for there not to be a lot of body contact – so Stiles should be all right with this in principle.  Was Derek the problem?  “Is it okay?”

He felt Stiles slowly relax, muscle by muscle.  “If that’s what you want, yeah.  I don’t want to brag, but I’m a pretty awesome at cuddling.  Nine out of ten body pillows agree, and the tenth one’s a jerk, anyway.”

His voice was strained, like he was trying to joke and not quite making it, but when Derek didn’t move away, Stiles put his arms around him.  “Fuck, you’re still shaking a little.  Is this what you need?”

Derek tucked his head back against Stiles’ shoulder and nodded.

“O-okay.  I just wanted to make sure you’re cool with this, because I never really pictured you as a snuggler.  I guess it kind of makes sense, though.”  He made a soft, low noise, something that sounded to Derek like sorrow.  “I mean, when was the last time someone touched you just to touch you?  You’ve got to need that, right?  Everybody does.”

Derek remained silent, but Stiles squeezed him a little bit tighter.  Derek could feel each of Stiles’ fingers spread out across his back, the solid presence at his front, and he remembered what he’d done just a few hours ago.  What he’d imagined as he was jerking off.  He hadn’t had the time to feel guilty about it then, but he did now, especially when Stiles was holding him so carefully.  Derek could feel himself tremble a little harder, but at least he was too ashamed to feel aroused.

All Stiles did was rub a hand up and down Derek’s back, a slow, soothing motion that Derek didn’t think he deserved.  But his body disagreed, and the shivering faded, though it didn’t go away entirely.  Soon he began to feel sleepy, but he didn’t want to fall asleep.  And Stiles was still stroking his back, so he was obviously awake.  Derek didn’t really want to talk about the details of his nightmares, but he had to start somewhere.

“It’s not like I think about it all the time,” Derek said, breaking the quiet in the room.

“Think about what?” Stiles asked softly.

“The fire.  That’s… that’s what the nightmares are about.”

“Always?”

No.  Kate showed up, of course, sometimes with the fire, sometimes without.  And Laura and Peter and the betas, in various forms.  Sometimes they were burning, too.  “Usually.  But it’s not like a… a story or anything.  It’s just images and sounds.”  Scenes Peter had shown him from the fire: hands and claws alike scraping at glass, the home that had been their protection crumbling around them, crackling and screaming.  Kate’s grinning face.  Peter clawing his way up out of the ground.  Erica’s body, charred and blackened instead of cut in half.

“I’m so sorry,” Stiles whispered.  “That’s terrible.  You don’t deserve to go through that every time you close your eyes.” 

Before he could control his reaction, Derek went rigid in Stiles arms, and Stiles’ hand paused on his back.  “Unless,” Stiles whispered, his voice cracking.  “You think you do deserve it.” 

Derek tried to consciously relax, but he just ended up breathing harder, his heart racing so fast that even a human would be able to tell.  Particularly a human with most of his body wrapped around Derek.

“I know you feel responsible for Erica and Peter – even though that wasn’t your fault – but this is about more than that, isn’t it?  Do you… do you blame yourself for the fire?”

He wanted to say no, wanted to go back to Stiles just silently holding him, but he’d already given himself away.

“Derek, why?  You were just a kid then.  You were at school, right?  So you think you should have known to go home and save them?”

Derek shook his head, a jerky motion against Stiles’ shoulder.  Part of him wanted to yell stop, to get up and leave, to find something, anything that would push the feeling away.  But part of him actually wanted Stiles to drag it out of him, to make him say it.  He’d hidden the truth so deeply because of Laura, because she was the only thing he’d had left and if he’d told her, he would have lost her.  Just like he’d lose Stiles, but he could feel the words pressing against his vocal cords and he wouldn’t be able to hold them back much longer.

“Then what is it?” Stiles asked, resuming the stroke of his hand down Derek’s back.

“Kate,” Derek croaked miserably.

And then proceeded to spill all of it, starting with meeting Kate as the substitute P.E. teacher whose gaze always lingered on him a little longer than the rest, who made him pick up the equipment at the end of the period so he’d be alone in the locker room showers when she came in.  Who had met him in secret for months, not just fucking him but asking questions about his life, his family until he thought she cared.  Who told him she loved him, then sent three of her hunter buddies to surround the Hale house with mountain ash, pour chemicals down the hidden entrance to the basement that Derek had shown her once, right at the time she knew most of the family would be home. 

Who chained him up years later in that same basement and did everything she could to shred whatever dignity he had left.

Through all of it, Stiles’ hand never stopped rubbing his back, never slowed down, not even when Derek’s voice broke and he had to wait for it to come back.  Only when he was finally finished did Stiles dig his fingers into Derek’s back to clutch him as tight as he could.  “Jesus,” Stiles whispered, burying his face against Derek’s hair.  “I’d dig that bitch up and kill her again if I could.”

“If I hadn’t told her everything—” Derek began miserably.

“She’d have found a way anyway,” Stiles finished.  “Look, I spent maybe ten minutes total around the woman and I could tell she was psychotic.  She was going to… do what she did no matter what.  She probably even tried other stuff before going after you.”

“But I—”

“You were a teenage boy.  I’d probably have done the exact same thing you did if someone like that seemed the least bit interested in me.  I’d have lost my mind trying to make her happy.  She used you, Derek.  She was an adult and you were a child.”

“I was sixteen.  I should have known—”

“What, that a hot older woman who was finally paying attention to you was out to kill your whole family?  Why would that have possibly crossed your mind?  Your family had been living safely here for generations.  How could you have known?”

Derek knew what Stiles was trying to do, but it still felt like twisting the knife.  “I didn’t even question it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Stiles whispered.  “It wasn’t your fault.  None of it was your fault.  I know you don’t think of yourself as a victim, and I don’t want you to, but you were.  You were every bit her victim as the rest of your family, except you were taken advantage of sexually – which, legally, was rape – and then physically and psychologically tortured.  Even if you did something wrong, which you didn’t, haven’t you paid enough?”

“It’ll never be enough,” Derek whispered miserably.

Stiles was silent a moment before asking, “Am I the only one you’ve told?”

Derek nodded.

“Not even Laura?”

“Especially not Laura.”

“Christ, you’ve been keeping it a secret this long?  I’m amazed you didn’t try this werewolf heroin shit years ago.”

“I couldn’t.   Laura would’ve—”

For the first time Stiles pulled back and tilted Derek’s chin up, meeting his eyes.  “She would’ve told you what I’m telling you now.  That it wasn’t your fault, and slowly killing yourself won’t bring them back.”

Derek tried to push him away, unable to bear the earnestness in Stiles’ eyes.  “Don’t you think I’ve tried telling myself that?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles admitted.  “But you haven’t heard anyone else tell you that, and maybe that’s part of the problem.”

“What, you’re going to absolve me of this?”

Stiles brushed his thumb over Derek’s cheekbone, but Derek didn’t jerk away.  “I would if I could.  It’s not my forgiveness you want, but if it helps, I can forgive you for the mistakes you made since I met you.  I forgive you for cutting yourself off from the rest of your pack and finding a dangerous way to escape the nightmares.  I even forgive you for knocking my head against the steering wheel – which really fucking hurt, by the way.”

Derek wanted to grumble that Stiles was taking this too lightly, but Stiles’ steady heartbeat told Derek he meant every word he said. 

And then Stiles’ face fell.  “Sorry, I just remembered why you tried to give me a concussion.  I used your body to get Danny to do what I wanted.  I should be asking your forgiveness.”

“Y-you don’t have to,” Derek stuttered, thrown by the sudden turn in the conversation.

“I feel like I do,” Stiles said.  “I’m sorry for using you like that.  It wouldn’t have been right anyway, but especially not after what you’ve been through.”

Truthfully, Derek bore Stiles no resentment over it.  It had gotten them the information he needed, and it wasn’t like Derek was unaccustomed to being stared at.  “It’s all right.  You didn’t know.”

Stiles pulled Derek back into his arms.  “You didn’t know either,” he whispered.  “You didn’t know who Kate was or what she was planning to do.  You didn’t know the alpha pack was so close when you let Boyd and Erica go.”

“Not the same.”

“Maybe not.  But it’s still not your fault.  Maybe if you hear me say it enough times, you’ll start to believe it.”

“Maybe,” Derek said to appease Stiles, but doubtful it would actually have any effect.

“You can forgive yourself, though.  I’m not saying it’s easy or that I even know how, but it’s possible.  And I think that’s the key to the nightmares.”

After that, Derek fell silent, because what else could he say?  He still felt like he was too damaged to be fixed, no matter what Stiles said.  How was he supposed to just let go of seven years of blaming himself, even if he could believe it wasn’t his fault?

A few minutes later, Stiles let out a ferocious yawn, and his arms were too wrapped around Derek to cover his own mouth.  “Sorry,” he said.  “Still tired.  You?”

“I don’t know,” Derek muttered.  His eyelids were heavy, but his brain was spinning, and he couldn’t imagine falling asleep anytime soon.

“Flip over,” said Stiles, opening his arms and poking at Derek’s side.  He assumed Stiles wanted more room, but as soon as Derek was facing away, Stiles scooted right up against his back, draping an arm over Derek’s stomach and resting his cheek between Derek’s shoulder blades.

“What are you doing?” Derek asked dumbly, body starting to tighten up again.

“Being the big spoon,” Stiles chuckled.  “This okay?”

Derek tried to force himself to relax.  It was easier than he anticipated, with Stiles’ warmth at his back and Stiles’ arm tight around his middle.  “Fine.”

“’kay, good.  I’m probably gonna drift off pretty soon.   If you fall asleep and the nightmares come back, just wake me.  I’ll be right here.”

&&&

Eventually, Derek did fall asleep, but when he woke up soaked in a cold sweat, Stiles was already awake, smoothing his hand down Derek’s arm and whispering soft, reassuring nonsense in his ear.

Derek drifted off again, and there were no nightmares this time, though he wasn’t sure waking up with Stiles like that hadn’t been a dream.

Continue to part three.