Chapter Text
They don’t actually murder each other over Mario Party. It’s not even a near thing: Derek refuses to play, and Isaac’s adorably bad at it. When Scott’s oblivious enough to ask, Isaac mentions that he wasn’t allowed to have video games with such obviously forced lightness that Stiles kind of wants to die. The whole traumatic abuse thing is super awkward.
When it hits midnight, Derek starts making judgmental eyebrows at them, and Stiles sighs and pauses the game, turns off the console. “We should sleep. This thing doesn’t attack when people are awake, so if we’re going to catch it, we should go to bed.”
Scott looks concerned and brave, which is sort of his default True Alpha expression. Stiles shoves the side of his head. “Go brush your teeth.”
They end up with Stiles and Scott and Isaac all piled too-warm and be-elbowed on the bed, Derek in the chair. It takes a while for Stiles to fall asleep, but it usually does, these days. Eventually, Scott kicks him in the shin and flops a warm arm over his stomach. That’s what sends him off to sleep, because Scott radiates comfort as well as warmth.
*
Stiles wakes up because something feels wrong; a pressure inside his head. There’s a shadow over Scott - Scott who’s breathing shallowly. Stiles is abruptly wide awake and viciously adrenalized. He reaches for whatever’s causing the pressure, and the shadow resolves more clearly. “Shit! Guys, guys, it’s here!”
He dives for it, and his arm passes sort of sludgily through - it’s barely corporeal, and the resistance fades as he loses concentration.
Derek’s up, eyes vicious blue in the dark. “The alp?”
“Fuckdamnit!” Stiles concentrates, tries to ignore the rising chaos of Derek looking for something to hit and Isaac scrambling to panicked awareness. Scott’s still deep asleep. Stiles focuses hard, an uncomfortable mental stretch and one he’s not really built for, and the Alp fades back in.
It cackles in his face. “Seer.”
With a wrench and a writhe, it scratches his face, and Stiles falls back in surprised pain. It makes a break for it through Scott’s open window, and Stiles realizes he’s only going to have this one chance. “Go! You’ll be able to see it.”
He flings out an arm, pointing, and throws his will with it. Derek dives snarling through the window, Isaac gangling behind him.
Scott takes in a deep breath, loud in the sudden quiet.
“Hey, hey buddy, wake up. You still alive?” Stiles shakes his shoulder. All he wants right now is to not have been too late. What fucking use is vision if Scott’s permanently damaged?
Scott rears up, half-shifted, his eyes red, and gives Stiles his second clawing of the night. Hot pain rakes up his arm, and Stiles falls back. He’s crouched half-over Scott, dripping blood on him from his face and now his arm.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
Moving carefully, Stiles backs up and lays down, trying not to drip too much on the bed. “You’re okay, though?”
“You’re bleeding, Stiles. I’m gonna go get the first aid kit.” Scott bounds up, then wobbles.
“Dude,” Stiles says, starting to reach for Scott.
Scott steadies himself on the wall, which is just as well, because Stiles hurts enough that moving is unfun. “No, I’m fine.” He makes his way out of the room moving human speed, and Stiles tries not to bleed too much on the bedspread.
The McCall first aid kit is, of course, fairly industrial, and Scott lugs the whole big thing back from the bathroom. Setting it on the bed, Scott peers at Stiles’ face first. “It missed your eye, right?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says. He’s pretty sure, at least. His whole face kind of hurts, and blood’s starting to trickle over his lower eyelid towards his eye, but he’s pretty sure the scratch is mostly the bridge of his nose and his cheek.
Scott patches him up with the smooth competence of someone who’s had to do this too much. Probably Stiles should go to the hospital, get his face stitched, but - yeah, no. When Scott gets back from putting it away, Stiles flails his good arm at him. “I demand wolfy morphine.”
Half-smiling, Scott flops on the bed next to Stiles. “Think they’re gonna get it?” He puts a hand on Stiles’ arm, and some of the throbbing pain of not one but two supernatural creatures taking swings at him starts to trickle away.
“They’ll be able to see it, at least? I don’t think Alp’s are supposed to be super-fast. If they don’t we’re kinda screwed.” They lay there in silence.
Ten minutes tick by achingly. Scott takes his hand off Stiles’ arm, looking miserable and guilty. “I’m sorry, can I take a break? I know it’s - I just can’t concentrate through the pain right now.”
It takes half a moment, but then Stiles nearly recoils. “It hurts when you do it?”
“Well, yeah.” Scott blinks at him. “I’m taking your pain. There’s not, like, any scale difference.” Scott shakes out his hand and reaches for Stiles again.
Stiles shrinks back. “No, it’s fine. I can just take ibuprofen.”
“No, dude, I can, just gimme a minute.” Scott flexes his fingers, like he’s dispelling a cramp.
It hurts. Not just his arm, and his face, but the fact that he’s hurt Scott, and that he’s been hurting Derek for - for ages, apparently. He thinks about the times Derek has just taken his pain, casually and unprompted and continuously, at times. The room spins, or maybe just his stomach. “Do you know if it’s different for born wolves?”
“No - I don’t know. Deaton’s the one who showed me, not Derek. It’s cool with animals, because they don’t process pain in the same way. And, like, with people I can do it, and when it’s just taking it and stopping, there’s kind of an endorphin rush when it’s over?”
Scott reaches for Stiles again, and Stiles only barely catches the motion and jerks out of the way. “No, seriously, it’s fine. I’m just a wimp.”
Scott lets him go, which means it definitely hurt a lot. Stiles’ encroaching panic attack stalks closer, and he breathes carefully. Fucking Derek Hale does not get to spark a panic attack.
Isaac comes crawling through the window. “We got it!”
“Where’s Derek?” Stiles demands before he can think better of it.
Isaac runs his fingers through his curls and tries to lounge artfully against the window. “He got more torn up, so he went to the loft.”
He sits up, past pretending he’s not an idiot. “How torn up?”
Isaac looks at him like he’s an crazy. “We’re werewolves, Stiles. It doesn’t matter.”
Scott smiles secretively. “Is the supernatural crisis over, then?”
“Looks like,” Isaac says, and looks at Stiles. “We good?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, but he’s distracted. He passes a hand over his mouth.
“Go,” Scott says.
Stiles could argue his intent, but that’d be stupid. He shoves his shoes on and heads for the door. “Later.”
Someone really should check on him, Stiles rationalizes as he starts the Jeep. And then, if he doesn’t have too many holes in him, rip him a new one for being a self-flagellating bastard and using Stiles as the flail. The drive sends jolts of pain up Stiles’ arm, but that doesn’t matter right now. At least he’s not bleeding on the Jeep.
Stiles parks sloppily across two - okay, maybe three - spaces in Derek’s parking lot, and punches the buttons on the elevator angrily.
Derek’s waiting at the door when the elevator opens, and he’s shirtless and not bleeding anymore.
Stiles stalks towards him until they’re toe to toe, and hisses, “I should punch you in your stupid masochistic face, but I won’t give you the satisfaction.”
Derek’s face closes off like shutters slammed shut, and he steps back to let Stiles into his home. “You’re hurt,” he says.
“Fuck you.” He takes the couch, sprawls out all over it and rests his aching head on the arm. There’s no sign of Peter or Cora. “Why would you do that when all it does is hurt you?”
Derek doesn’t answer. He closes the door and walks to the kitchen area. Stiles can hear doors open and close, hears the sink run. It’s tempting to fill the silence with his rage, but everything feels too complicated for that, and he doesn’t know how to start.
Derek puts a glass of water on the table, and a saucer with two pills in it. He sits in Stiles’ usual chair and rests his elbows on his knees, hands tucked against each other like he’s resisting reaching out. “It’s the only thing I can do for you.”
Turning his head is painful, but Stiles still scrunches around to he can fully see Derek. “Are you actually delusional? Have you missed the thing where our life-saving ledger is totally even, and all of us do everything we can to make sure we get out in one piece? You hurting yourself so I don’t have to spend money on over-the-counter pain meds doesn’t help us survive better.”
Derek beetles his eyebrows and mutters, “Take your stupid pills.”
Stiles rolls upright and swallows the pills with the water. His dad would disapprove of him taking any kind of unmarked pill from anyone but a doctor, but, well, Derek. His arm is being annoying and painful, and he tucks it close against his side as he eyes Derek.
He’s still shirtless, which is kind of cheating, especially when he’s not even covered in blood. He’s just wearing soft-looking sweatpants. His bare toes are curled in protectively. Stiles hates everything about him, especially the way his shoulders are rounded like he’s ashamed of himself. “You meant for me in particular, not the plural ‘you.’”
“It’s not like I don’t deserve -”
“Nope! Nope, we are backing up from the endless pit of trauma and talking more about how you wanted to do something nice for me in particular.”
Derek looks up at him, still uncomfortable and guilty, but at least now Stiles gets to look at his stupidly perfect eyes. “I didn’t want to talk about this until next October.”
Stiles heart starts thumping wildly, and he knows Derek can hear it. It’s not embarrassing, though, or not exactly: Derek put himself out there first. He takes another sip of his water. “Okay. We can - I can - October is fine.” He hates that he’s tripping over his words already, when it’s the next part that’s got him in knots. “But then can we talk about, uh, about the part where you liked it? Not just - not the helping part, and not the fucked up penance part.” He’s more assured, because he knows he’s right, and Derek hasn’t cut him off yet. “After my birthday, can we talk about how you liked that it hurt?”
Something in Derek’s gone loose; there’s a kind of give in his posture that’s new and strange but still infinitely better than his hunched up shame. “Yeah.”