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Stiles had ten fingers.
He counted once, and he counted again. But the number never changed. Ten fingers, wavering in front of his face as he held them in the air. Ten fingers that weren’t covered in blood, though Stiles still felt like he could feel it underneath his nails.
He had ten fingers and it had been ten days since he’d been released from the hospital. His father still watched him like he was waiting for Stiles to crack, and his still friends flinched every time Stiles spoke. But that was fine. He was here, he was himself, and everything was fine.
Except it really wasn’t.
Stiles sat in the cafeteria on Monday and studied his fingers, counting them over and over again. The weekend had gone by in such a blur, Stiles felt like he was missing time once more. But he remembered every moment. He hadn’t left his bed unless it was to pee or get a glass of water, after all. He hadn’t answered his phone or bothered to charge it as it drained.
Stiles had ten fingers and everything was fine. Except everything wasn’t. But who was he to break the facade?
“Stiles?” Scott said, looking at him in concern. Stiles blinked across the table.
“Sorry, what?”
“We were talking about meeting up tonight. After practice.”
Stiles looked at him in blank confusion. Scott offered a cautious smile, fingers stretching across the table for his own but never quite touching.
“Pack meeting, Stiles.”
“Without Derek?”
Scott flinched away. All around the table, the others went quiet too. Stiles looked around and didn’t understand the constipated looks that had overcome his friend’s faces. It wouldn’t be a pack meeting without Derek, after all. It couldn’t be. Derek had been their alpha once and he’d been their friend.
“Has anyone heard from him yet?”
“No one’s heard from Derek since he vanished in the middle of the night, Stilinski,” Jackson said. Stiles clenched his jaw, glancing down at his fingers again.
“He hasn’t called or texted?”
“Derek doesn’t call or text,” Jackson huffed. Lydia elbowed him in the side and he made a sound of protest, glaring at her. “What? We all know it’s true.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole about it,” Scott said. Jackson glared at him.
“Derek’s gone and he’s not coming back. Why does anyone care anyway?”
Silence reigned around the table. Stiles continued to focus on his fingers, knowing why nobody answered. Because nobody really cared at all. In their pack, Derek was the one piece that didn’t fit. Even more since the Alpha pack. Since he’d lost his spark. Since the nogitsune had nearly taken his life.
Stiles counted his fingers. All ten.
“I don’t care,” Malia said bluntly. “I never even knew him.”
Stiles closed his eyes. He could hear the others talking again, but their voices blurred out, sounding more like a droning scream in his ears. He saw flashes of color; yellow and black, the Oni forming out of the darkness. He saw the notigsune sneering at him with his own face and heard Lydia’s shriek as she screamed out Allison’s name.
Someone touched his hand. Stiles jerked back so hard, he knocked his tray off the edge of the table and it went clattering, the entire cafeteria going silent. Scott’s fingers gently touched the tips of his own.
“Stiles, I’m worried, man. Are you okay?”
Scott’s voice sounded far off. Stiles thought he nodded, pushing himself up, but he wasn’t sure. His mind was spinning and his chest hurt. He turned, stumbling out of the cafeteria, and barely heard Lydia’s call at his back. Her cracked voice was too close to a banshee’s scream.
Stiles didn’t remember making it to his jeep. But one moment he was in the school parking lot and the next he was driving, heading anywhere but the school. To see anything but his friends’ faces, so patient and calm, sympathetic even though that was the last thing he deserved. Hell, even Scott didn’t hate him. Scott should hate him. They all should hate him.
Stiles’s therapist told him those were unhealthy thoughts. But she thought he was struggling through a friend’s unexpected death. Not her murder.
Multiple murders, Stiles reminded himself, not just one. He could close his eyes and see their faces, hear Lydia screaming their names. See the distant look in her eyes that separated the girl from the oracle of death. Only seconds before she shrieked.
Somehow, Stiles found himself at Derek’s loft. He didn’t know if he could call even it that anymore. What if Derek never came back? Stiles almost wished he had the senses of a werewolf, just so he could feel the scent of pack once more. Before it faded from the floorboards and the stink of mold overtook what had once been a home. A home Stiles used to joke about and make fun of, but a home all the same. One that had its magic and its nightmares.
Nightmares.
One where he’d faced the Oni. Where Boyd had died at Derek’s claws. Where Jennifer had shown her true form, and Derek had been gutted with a metal pole.
But it was also the place where the pack had movie nights. Where Cora had kicked Isaac’s butt in Mario Kart so many times, he’d almost cried. Where Stiles had taught Erica how to make chocolate chip pancakes and Derek had allowed himself to smile when he thought nobody was looking.
Stiles was always looking. He looked when nobody else would, when nobody else was brave enough to, when he just wanted to meet exasperated grey-green eyes and grin. Stiles was always looking back then, anchoring himself to something he didn’t quite understand. But Derek was gone now, and Stiles looked at his hands instead.
He had ten fingers.
Stiles counted them once, and he counted them again. But the number never changed. Ten fingers, wavering in front of his face. Ten fingers that didn’t hold the blade of Kira’s sword, twisting it into Scott’s chest, though Stiles still sometimes felt like they did.
He gazed around the empty loft.
Derek hadn’t left much behind. Nothing to suggest he’d ever be back, or he’d ever even been here in the first place. Nothing except an open window, an empty bed, and a moth-eaten couch. Someplace that had once been home. There was blood splattered on the floor.
Stiles didn’t remember curling up on the bed. But he woke up hours later, when darkness filled the loft and the moonlight bled in through the window. His phone was dying. He had twenty-one missed calls and forty-three panicked messages.
Stiles still had ten fingers.
He tried not to think about that as he curled up on the bed and wept.
Stiles had a board in his room.
There used to be multiple colors across it; green, yellow, red, blue (blue is just pretty). It was covered in red now. Red because he was broken, red because he was bleeding, and red because Stiles had been searching for sanity for three months now, and he still hadn’t found it.
His heart pounded against his chest. Stiles took a deep breath, burying his face in his hands, and took a stumbling step back. He fished out his phone and scrolled through his contacts. Over Scott’s name, over Lydia’s. Resting on Malia’s for a second before scrolling over that too.
Derek had texted him three times since he’d left. One to tell him Scott needed to call. One to say he hoped everything was alright. One to wish him happy birthday.
Stiles took a shaky breath and gazed at the call button. He did this to himself too many times, never with the guts to actually click it. He liked to imagine he was sixteen, thinking about angry eyebrows and leather jackets, calling Derek just to get him riled up. The one time he’d done that hadn’t ended well. But he’d had the strangest dreams after.
Stiles thought that’s when he started to look. To think. To wonder.
His finger trembled over the call number now. They still didn’t know where Derek was; he’d gotten in touch but he didn’t want to be found. He didn’t want to be dragged back into this mess and who could blame him? Certainly not Stiles.
Three months later and he still had ten fingers.
He always counted them once, always counted them again. But the number never changed. Ten fingers, wavering in front of his face as he held them in the air. Ten fingers that he still imagined being wrapped in cuffs, looking at his father with a smirk before snapping them like string.
“You’re not my son.”
“Hey, Stiles?’
Stiles startled, spinning around on his heel. His dad leaned against the frame of the open door, eyes going nervously over the board in the middle of Stiles’s room. The Sheriff’s fingers always lingered near the handle of his gun now, though Stiles didn’t think he noticed it. Stiles forced a smile.
“Yeah, dad?”
“I’ve got to go out, son, late-night shift. I might not be back till morning, yeah?”
“I’ll be here, dad. I’m not going anywhere tonight.”
The Sheriff nodded with a small smile, like he didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Stiles didn’t go much of anywhere anymore, not like he used to. It’d been a while since he’d seen the pack. Stiles didn’t go to the meetings. He thought they’d be empty; missing Allison’s warm smile, Erica’s barking laugh, and Boyd’s fond expression. Missing Derek’s looming personality and the way he always rolled his eyes. Missing Stiles.
Just Stiles.
He looked down at his phone again. Then back at the board, with lines of red string and nonsense words and symbols. Taking a shuddering breath, Stiles hit the call button and lifted the phone to his ear.
It rang. Once, twice, three times. Stiles pulled it away and closed his eyes, cursing himself silently. There was something about never calling that had kept the fantasy of things going differently. Stiles rested the phone on his chest and laid back on his bed, listening to the phone continue to ring.
Shadows stretched over the darkness of his ceiling. The call cut off and Derek didn’t have his voicemail set up yet. Which was probably for the best. Stiles didn’t know what he’d say anyway. Other than the fact he still had ten fingers, he always did.
Stiles got tired of counting sometimes.
“I feel like I lost something. I feel like I can’t get it back.”
“It’s gonna be alright.”
“Is it? Am I? I can’t do this anymore.”
“You’re gonna be alright.”
“What if I told you to come back? That you had to come back?”
“Stiles—”
“Derek, I need you to come back.”
Summer wasn’t as hot as it used to be.
Stiles liked to go down to the preserve and sit with his feet dipping in the river than ran nearby, listening to the sounds of water gurgle. He and Scott used to do the same when they were younger. Before the werewolves, the supernatural, and the death.
Stiles closed his eyes and listened to the sound of water run. His toes were numb, but the feeling was real. There was a breeze today and the forest was louder than usual. Everyone else was too quiet around him. Like they thought if they said the wrong thing, he would break. And maybe he would. Stiles didn’t know what his tipping point was anymore.
He opened his eyes and looked at his fingers.
Stiles them counted once, and counted them again. But the number never changed. Ten fingers, wavering in front of his face as he held them in the air. Ten fingers he sometimes still felt reaching down his throat, grabbing handfuls of bandages and pulling them up as he felt himself dying.
Stiles shuddered.
He’d been himself for six months now. His therapist told him things would get better with time, but Stiles thought she was growing tired of him. He thought a lot of people were. Scott, with his attempts to pull Stiles back into the pack. Lydia, with her late-night calls and rare hugs. Malia, who’d stopped knocking on Stiles’s window so late at night.
Stiles was scared that one day, they wouldn’t try anymore. Even if it’d be his fault, his doing. These days, Stiles looked at his fingers and counted them in his head, but some part of him was still anchored to the pack. If they were gone, he might actually lose his mind.
Stiles didn’t think he had yet.
Sunlight leaked through the trees and doused him in warmth. Goosebumps crept up Stiles’s arms and shuddered down his spine, despite the heat of the day. He was still cold. He was always cold. His dad watched him move around in hoodies and frowned, though only when he thought Stiles wasn’t looking.
Stiles was always looking. He looked because he was an observer. It was a quiet form of awareness, watching those around him. He saw Scott grow closer to Kira, watched Lydia begin to forgive Jackson once more. He saw the bags under Isaac’s eyes grow lighter, watched the feral side of Malia turn softer. Stiles looked at his hands and watched them become wearier. Sometimes the shaking stopped, sometimes it worsened. He saw Derek’s loft go up for sale.
The sunlight between the leaves began to fade. Stiles knew his dad had a nightshift, so he didn’t bother to move. He couldn’t really feel his toes anymore. It was strange to feel a body part go numb. It felt like when the nogitsune would take over. His limbs would go limp and another presence would make its way into his mind. Stiles could still see through his own eyes but he was just a passenger. A guest in his own body as someone else used his voice and looked with his eyes.
Stiles bit down on his arm, realizing he’d begun to tremble again. But this time, it wasn’t from the cold. He looked at his fingers and counted, letting out a whimper when they showed ten. Messy tears slipped down his cheeks, hotter than the river at his feet. They didn’t feel like his own even though Stiles knew they were more real than the thoughts in his head.
“I’m sorry,” Stiles whispered, closing his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry”
“Stiles?”
He looked sharply up. The sunset was on the horizon and the forest was the color of burning flames. A figure stood against the light. Hands tucked into his pockets, shoulders slightly slumped. Eyes shadowed from sight. Stiles felt his breath catch.
“Derek?”
“What if I told you to come back? That you had to come back?”
“Stiles—”
“Derek, I need you to come back.”
“… Okay.”
Derek looked around the loft. It smelled like mold.
But it wasn’t Derek’s anymore. They’d come in to gather the last of his things, to do one more sweep of the place. The blood splatters had been cleaned up. The pipe overhead had been replaced. The window was closed tight and the bed was stripped empty.
“You were here,” Derek said. Stiles nodded.
“Once.”
“After I was gone?”
Stiles nodded again. Derek looked at him, searching his face like the way he used to. Like when they’d be in a life or death situation and Stiles would say something ridiculous, and Derek would just look at him. Or when something would go wrong and Stiles would throw himself in the face of danger, and Derek couldn’t stop looking after him. Back when things had been different.
It seemed so long ago.
Derek always looked back then. He looked when everyone else was looking away, when they were too busy to see the light of Stiles’ smile, or when Derek looked just to see dancing amber eyes and a sarcastic grin. Derek always looked, anchoring himself to something he understood but was afraid of. But then he’d left. So Derek had taken to looking at the horizon.
The sun always set.
Derek would watch the moon and the next night, he’d watch it again. It was always there, like a beacon hanging over thick grey clouds. He watched it and remembered the time Stiles had stood in the parking lot, dripping pool water and defending him against Scott’s judgment. The look he’d gotten and the nod Derek had returned.
"But it's like us?"
“A shapeshifter? Yes. But it's-it's not right. It's like a..."
"...An abomination."
Derek gazed around the empty loft.
The scent of pack had long since faded and Derek wished he could go back in time to smell it again. This place was so full of memories, both good and bad. This was the place he’d first brought his betas, determined to be the alpha they deserved. The place Stiles had come into and unwittingly made a home unlike Derek had ever seen before. The place he felt he could smile and someone would notice— Stiles would notice— and always smile back.
The good and the bad.
The bad.
The place he’d watched two of his betas leave, hand in hand. The place Isaac had called home until Derek had turned him away, sure he was doing the right thing. The place he’d faced the Alphas, submitted to his own wrought betrayals, and watched the wrath and ruin of his pack.
But once, it had been a home. Derek didn’t know where he would find that again; or rather, he did. But he was scared of it more than he was willing to take a chance. Too many nights had been spent watching the moon rise and disappear, fading into a crimson distance as Derek was left alone. He’d watch it disappear and curl up on his bed, trying not to think about how many miles were between him and his home.
And he’d wept.
Derek played with his phone too often.
There were always names he scrolled through. Cora, Scott, even Peter when he was feeling desperate. But there was always one he’d rested on. Derek never had the guts to send more than one message at a time; three at the very most.
One where he’d almost demanded Stiles call him, but had gone for Scott instead. That had been the longest conversation of Derek’s life and while Scott continued to ask where he’d gone, Derek couldn’t find it in himself to answer. Maybe he wanted to go back, maybe he didn’t. But he only wanted one person knowing his location, and that person had yet to contact him. Scott said Stiles wasn’t doing good. He’d separated himself from the supernatural and the pack. Stiles didn’t want to be dragged back into the mess of things and who could blame him? Certainly not Derek.
The second time he’d texted, he hadn’t been able to reign himself in. It had been a simple ‘I hope you’re okay’ text, even though he knew Stiles probably wasn’t. And the last thing the kid needed was Derek as a reminder of what he’d escaped from. But Derek considered himself selfish. And he didn’t have the control to stop himself.
Stiles hadn’t answered
His last text had been a surrender. “Happy birthday’ and Derek promised himself he’d never contact Stiles again. The moon rose and fell with each passing night and Derek had come to accept he didn’t have the right to claw his way back into Stiles’s life. He’d spent too long looking at Stiles’s number and debating whether or not to call it. He always chickened out. And he always hated himself for it.
Derek deleted the number from his phone.
One day, months later, he received a call he didn’t recognize. He didn’t answer.
Derek would watch the moon and the next night, he’d watch it again. It was always there, like a beacon hanging over thick grey clouds. He’d watch it and remembered the time Stiles had approached him when nobody else would, one hand laid gently on his shoulder as Boyd’s body went cold on the ground in front of them.
One day, after even more time had passed, the number called again. This time, Derek had answered.
“D-Derek?”
“Stiles?”
“Oh my god.”
“Stiles? Stiles, what’s wrong?”
“You.”
Derek knew what made him return home.
It was cruel, how he’d been gone from Beacon Hill for so long, but it had never lost its sense of home. He’d watched his family burn there, watched his life turn upside down, buried his sister, and watched a pack he called his own break apart.
But it had still remained home. Maybe because of who remained there.
Derek’s loft smelled like Stiles, but it was empty. The Sheriff’s house smelled like Stiles, but the jeep was gone. Scott no longer smelled like Stiles, but he knew where his friend went to hide.
Stiles was shaking and covered in waning sunlight when Derek arrived at the preserve. His face was buried in his hands and he sobbed, crying out the same apologies over and over again. Derek stood frozen, unable to tear his gaze away. It was cruel how something so wretched and painful could be so beautiful at the same time. Somehow, Derek had forced himself to move.
“Stiles?”
Something in Stiles’s scent changed. He’d looked up so fast, the sunlight had reflected off his eyes like a gunshot, tears streaked down his cheeks. He’d stared at Derek like he was seeing a ghost, and maybe he was. Derek still didn’t know if he was welcome here. He didn’t know if he’d read things wrong and he was making things worse. But then Stiles had called his name, gentle like his mother used to and nervously as if he thought Derek would vanish.
“Derek?”
“... I’m here.”
“I think I lost you, once.”
“You never lost me, Derek. I was always waiting.”
“I should’ve stayed.”
“Yeah, Sourwolf, you should’ve. But who are we to change the past?”
“I’m here now.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not leaving again.”
“Good. Because I think I need you to stay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I guess I’m home.”
Stiles had ten fingers.
He didn’t need to count again. The number never changed. Ten fingers, steady and calm hovered in front of his face as he held them in the air. Ten fingers that weren’t tools of anyone but himself, no matter what his nightmares said.
Derek smiled softly and intertwined Stiles’s fingers with his own. His expression was gentle, his smile was warm, and Stiles rarely felt cold anymore. The smell of pack filled the apartment.
He had ten fingers and it had been ten months since he’d been released from the hospital. His dad hugged him close whenever he could, and his friends smiled fondly every time Stiles spoke. And it was fine. He was here, he was himself, and everything… well, everything wasn’t always fine.
But it was getting there.
Stiles had ten fingers, though he didn’t look that much anymore, and a home to keep his anchored. One that felt like Allison’s soft smile, Erica’s barking laugh, and Boyd’s fond expression. Like Derek’s exasperated expressions and the werewolf smiling even when the rest of the pack was looking.
“Derek?”
“Yeah?”
“You know I love you, right?”
A kiss on his temple answered, soft laughter rumbling against his skin. Stiles was always looking, but he didn’t need to do that anymore. He didn’t need to look in order to justify what he knew. What he felt with all his heart.
“Yes, Stiles. And I love you too.”