Work Text:
This is how a migraine works:
It sneaks up, quietly, days in advance. It waits, lurks, and it gives Stiles euphoria. It gives him more energy than he knows what to do with. His doctor tells him this is called the ‘prodrome’ stage. He says that it doesn’t affect everyone the same, but that Stiles should get used to telling the difference from his regular levels of energy - which are, admittedly, a lot - to these extraordinary levels. If Stiles can predict the migraine, he has a better chance of staving it off.
Next comes the aura. Not everyone gets auras when they have migraines, but Stiles just guesses that he’s lucky - or whatever the exact opposite of lucky is. It starts as a point of light in his field of vision, a small point of incredibly bright light that he just can’t seem to blink away. It makes him dizzy.
This is the time to get medication in his body, if he hasn’t predicted the migraine already.
The bright points of light morph into rainbow zig-zags of sheer agony. They move constantly, almost like floaters, and trying to focus on them sends sharp pains through his head. Then, comes the partial blindness - his doctor called it ‘scotoma.’ Sometimes his hands and face go numb, sometimes not.
The migraine itself hasn’t even started at this point.
Sometimes he knows the migraine is going to be worse than usual, because words stop making sense. He can hear what people say, but he can't make out the words. His speech slurs. He can’t make words translate down onto paper.
It’s frustrating - and then the migraine hits.
***
Stiles skids across the tile floor in his bathroom, knees catching around the base of the toilet, and he barely has time to mourn the curly fries he ate for lunch before everything is rushing out of his body.
When Stiles was a kid, he could puke during a migraine and miraculously feel better right after. That’s not the case so much anymore. His hands shake when he rests them on the sides of the bowl and his throat burns, the acidic taste of bile thick in his mouth.
Scott is hovering in the doorway and for a brief, shining moment Stiles is overjoyed that Scott is here, even if he doesn’t remember letting him in the house. Stupid werewolves -
Stiles groans, pitching his head forward to the cool touch of the porcelain, and stops that line of thought in its tracks. Thinking hurts. Existing hurts. Everything hurts.
The thing about Scott is that he’s Stiles’ best friend for a reason - for reasons like this one here. Scott has been through so many migraines with Stiles that he’s practically old hat at it now. It doesn’t hurt that his mom is a nurse and caught a few of these attacks personally, murmuring to Scott about what to do when something like this happens. Scott’s picked up a thing or two from her and picked up a few things from Stiles and is exactly the person that Stiles wants to be stuck with through a migraine, especially if his dad is working.
He hears the sound of the water turning on and Scott is by his side in a moment, a cup of water in his hand. Scott cocks an eyebrow at him, and Stiles knows immediately what he’s asking. He tries to slur out that he didn’t catch it in time, that he didn’t take anything for it, but the words don’t come and he whines deep in his throat instead. His head is throbbing.
Scott - bless him, really - shakes his head and reaches for the pill bottle. He shakes out a couple of pills and Stiles takes them gratefully, chases them down with a splash of cool water.
Scott pulls him up carefully, bundling him back into his bed. He disappears for a moment and Stiles can hear the toilet flushing down the hall. He burrows further into the blankets, trying to escape any and all light in his room.
Scott comes back in, quiet in a way only werewolves can manage, and locks the window, tugs the blackout curtain closed. Stiles wriggles back, carves out a space for Scott to slide in, and he presses his forehead to Scott’s chest.
He opens his eyes briefly, just in time to catch Scott cup a hand around the base of his skull, inky black lines trailing up his arm, taking some of the pain in Stiles’ head with it.
Scott winces and says quietly, “Bad one, huh?”
Stiles nods minutely, shuffles in closer, and wraps a hand around the fabric of Scott’s shirt.
Scott huffs a sound out and tugs Stiles closer, hand scrubbing through Stiles’ short hair. He says, “Go to sleep, man.”
So Stiles does.
***
The next migraine comes literally out of nowhere - there are no warning signs, no auras, nothing - and it’s just Stiles’ luck that he’s both at school and surrounded by betas. More specifically, Derek’s betas have cornered him in the lunchroom.
Stiles isn’t sure why they’ve cornered him - they’ve been speaking quietly to him but Stiles hasn’t been paying attention. Erica takes a frustrated step toward him and Stiles immediately hunches over, hand coming up to press against the staccato pain behind his left temple and lets out a short cry he wishes he could take back as soon as it makes its way out of his mouth. The only thing worse than showing weakness in front of betas who might as well be piranhas after blood is possibly the fact that he has a surprise migraine on his hands.
Scott is nowhere in sight. Stiles lets out another noise uncomfortably close to a whimper and backs away from the trio, but the ground wobbles uncertainly beneath him. He reaches out and grabs the first thing he can - Boyd’s arm - and the last thing he sees is Isaac’s wide eyes before he blacks out.
When he comes to, he realizes he’s in the nurse’s office. His dad sits next to the cot and Stiles reaches out instinctively. His dad lets Stiles pull his hand up until it’s curled around his aching forehead, lets Stiles seek the comfort he needs. Stiles mutters out, “You didn’t have’ta come, Dad.”
“You passed out, Stiles, of course I did.” His dad’s voice is firm, but soft. “I made you an appointment with your doctor this afternoon.”
Stiles doesn’t even fight it like he normally would. He just nods into his dad’s palm and shuts his eyes. He’s never passed out from a migraine before. He’s slept off migraines, but he’s never been forced into unconsciousness by one. He knows to be careful with new symptoms.
He very pointedly does not think about his mom.
“I’m going to go pull the car around. Scott’s going to drive your Jeep back to the house after school. There’s a friend here to see you, if you’re up for it.”
Stiles just nods, even though he doesn’t want his dad to let go of him, even though he doesn’t know who is waiting to see him.
His dad slips out of the room and Stiles is surprised to look up and see Erica making her way into the small room.
Erica sits down in the chair his dad left and the corners of her mouth pulls down into a frown. She looks more like the girl she was before the bite. She opens her mouth, shuts it, and finally says, “I spent a lot of time in here, before.”
He doesn’t say anything, partly because he’s not sure he can. Another part of him doesn’t want to interrupt her.
She goes on, “I sent Isaac and Boyd back to Derek. It can wait.”
Stiles slurs out, “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Erica quietly laughs. “Trolls.”
“Those are a thing -” ouch, visible wince -" really?”
Erica leans toward him, her movements careful, and she wraps a hand around his elbow. He almost asks her what she’s doing, but then he feels the pain seeping away and he sees the thick black lines curl up and disappear beneath her sleeves.
Erica breathes slowly through her nose and she says, “I wish I’d had someone to do that for me.”
Stiles reaches out a hand, but he misses the first few times until Erica gets the idea and tangles their fingers together. Stiles squeezes gently and they sit like that until his dad gets back.
***
Witches - Stiles hates witches, seriously. It’s always witches. Freaking witches.
Stiles hasn’t had a migraine in nearly two months, but now he’s got a whopper of a magically-induced migraine. He’s on his knees in the dirt, both hands pressed against his head. It’s the whole shebang, too, auras and migraine all at once because apparently magic missed the memo that migraines are more or less supposed to happen in stages.
He can feel the blood pumping through his head, piercing behind his eyeball, rolling down one cheek, can feel the ache behind his top set of teeth. He wrenches open his eyes for a moment before he realizes that it doesn’t even matter - it’s not like he can see or anything - and he slams them back shut. He’s only tentatively aware that noises are pulling their way out of his mouth and he rocks forward so his elbows touch the ground, so he can get some leverage against the pain in his head.
The werewolves around him are restless and the only thing holding them back is their alpha. Stiles would think they were panicking, except for the fact that he can’t think much of anything, not with this pain inside his head.
He could probably pass out, but he’s not going to, not in the middle of a fight over - over territory of all things. Stiles wants to laugh about how absurd this entire thing is, but he can’t - he can’t, oh God, he’s not even sure that he can breathe at this moment in time.
He can hear people shrieking around him and he wishes they would just be quiet. Every shriek is a nail to the forehead. He’s shaking, can feel the rough tremors that rack his body.
He falls forward and hits the ground, fingers scrabbling uselessly in the moist dirt, head pounding - and he reaches inside, deep, and pulls on that tiny spark (he knows it’s there, despite what Deaton may think. Stiles just knows that he doesn’t need to rely on it often, because he’s so much more than that).
Stiles pulls on that tiny spark, uses the magic cast on him to mold it into something bigger, tugs it back. He can feel the tension in every part of his body that isn’t affected by the blinding pain in his head. When he can’t hold it back anymore, he lets it go -
everything goes silent and bright, bright white.
***
Stiles comes to violently, jerking upward, arms flailing, and at home in his own bed. He has exactly zero ideas about how he got home. His hands immediately find his head, because apparently his brief brush with unconsciousness did nothing to relieve the pain. Jerking awake does him no favors either, because it feels like his brain is knocking around in his skull now.
He didn't think that there could be anything worse than his regular migraines, but Stiles is so wrong. Magically induced migraines are about a billion times worse.
But he can see again! The temporary blindness is gone. His nausea, on the other hand, is decidedly not gone, so he rushes up and to the bathroom to empty the contents of his stomach. He meanders back to his bedroom, not incredibly keen on doing anything that will break the tenuous truce he’s holding with the migraine that’s taking over his head.
When he makes it back to the bedroom, he’s surprised to see Derek perched on the side of his bed. It makes sense, though. Someone had to bring him home, and why wouldn’t it be Derek? Guy’s got a complex that apparently extends to making sure the humans who run with his pack are safe - or Stiles assumes it applies to all the humans and not just him, but he’s never asked Lydia or Danny if Derek shows up in their rooms at night. He hopes not.
He must have been out of it to miss Derek when he woke up, though.
Stiles tries to say hi or thanks or anything really, but the words don’t come to him. He closes his eyes as he sways in the doorway and this is the part that kills him, the part when the words don’t come. He knows what they should be in his head, but sometimes they don’t translate over to his mouth. It’s the worst. It’s worse than the pain from the migraine, it’s worse than the way a migraine knocks him out for a couple of days.
Stiles is good at talking, until suddenly something as stupid as a headache takes all of that away from him.
(His doctor calls it ’aphasia’ and although it’s something that happens with migraines sometimes, Stiles knows it intimately as a part of a bigger something that took his mom from him.
He hates it.)
He opens his mouth, taps his forehead, and then gently shakes his head. Derek motions him forward and Stiles goes. He slips to his knees in front of Derek and presses his forehead into Derek’s leg and let’s himself breathe - in, out, in, out.
Derek’s hands are bigger than Scott’s and he slips one back to cup Stiles’ neck, soothes his thumb behind his ear. Just that feels good, but he tucks his nose nearer to the bend of Derek’s knee and he catches the thicker than usual black lines crawl up Derek’s forearm.
“You’re pretty good at that,” Stiles slurs, grateful for the disappearance of the pain. There’s still a slight thrumming beneath his temple, but he can push it to the side. It’s unimportant at the moment.
Derek doesn’t move his hand and Stiles likes the measure of comfort it gives him. Stiles turns his head into his big palm and Derek resumes the stroking.
“Witches?” Stiles asks, because he has to know.
“You don’t remember,” Derek says and it’s not a question. Stiles wishes Derek would stop being so cryptic. It’s one personality trait that is so not attractive.
Stiles makes a sound in the back of his throat and Derek huffs out a breathy laugh.
“The spell wasn’t aimed at you, but I guess the caster had really bad aim because it ricocheted off a tree and hit you.”
“I’m lucky like that, you know,” Stiles mutters.
“You hit the ground and the betas freaked out.”
“I remember that.” That's true, he does remember that.
“Stop interrupting me, Stiles.”
Stiles grins into the seam of Derek’s jeans, but doesn’t say anything. The steady back and forth of Derek’s thumb doesn't slow.
“I don’t know how you did it, Stiles, but you sent the witches packing. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about them for a while.”
Stiles hums under his breath. He wonders if Derek is talking more than usual to fill up the silent spaces Stiles leaves. He pushes up on his knees and motions toward the bed. He lets Derek manhandle him back into his bed.
“You going to be okay?” Derek asks and Stiles nods. Derek pulls the covers up to Stiles’ chin, tucks him in, and Stiles thinks the fight must have gotten really bad before it got better.
He waits until Derek is about to leave through the window and then he says, “You know I’m not magic, right?”
It’s important that Derek understands that, even if Stiles isn’t particularly sure why.
Derek pauses for a moment, eyes on his hands, before he looks up at Stiles and nods.
He says, “I know,” and he’s gone in the next blink.
***
This is how a migraine ends:
It goes away slowly, over the span of a couple of days. His doctor tells him that he could feel weak for a few days after an attack, that he might not be hungry, that he might feel lethargic for a while.
What the doctor doesn’t know is that now Stiles has a group of werewolves overeager to take his pain away.
He can cope with that.