Stiles Needs A Hug - Sterek snippet (Teen Wolf)
“Derek.” Stiles’ voice wavered as he clutched the phone to his ear, pressing it to his face to hold it steady while he waited.
“Stiles?”
“Yeah,” he cleared his throat, stood up to pace around in his room. “Yeah, how’s it going?”
He knew how off, how boarderline panicked he sounded, but he was struggling for the right words and there was no surprise when Derek responded with, “What’s happened? You didn’t call to see how I am.”
“No, uh… no. But I guess, well, it’s been a while, right? No harm asking how you are. You must be good though, all wolfy an’ all? Does it get, like, really hot though, running with all that fur?”
“Stiles.”
“Right, yeah, I guess you can just shift back if it gets too much. Does it feel different though, shifting to the wolf, and to your bumpy face?”
“Stiles.” Derek’s voice was still calm because it always was, but the tone of complete frustration got through Stiles’ rambling and he caught his breath, thought clearly for a second and started off again.
“I killed someone.” His voice was back to a shaky, barely-there, hoarse whisper, but Derek heard him.
“What? Who?”
“Some kid, after me and my Dad, I- it doesn’t matter who… he’s dead. And his body was taken and there was blood and I… I’m not dealing too well. I don’t know-”
Derek cut him off again, this time with a softer utterance of his name. “Where are you?”
“At home,” Stiles said, still pacing. He stopped beside his board, where he’d messily scrawled and part erased Donovan’s name. By his ear he realised Derek was asking him something else.
“… your Dad?”
“He’s not here.”
“Does he know what happened?” Derek said, frustration clear as if he was repeating himself.
“No, no, I can’t tell him, or anyone… I-” He didn’t really know why, but he was talking to the only person he could go to with this. “They’re not-” he sighed, voicing it for the first time. “They’re not listening. They’ve all got stuff going on. My Dad, he… he’s dating.” Why had he even said that?
Derek was quiet for a while and Stiles wouldn’t have been surprised in all his incoherence so far, not that that was anything unusual, but Stiles knew he wasn’t making much sense - Derek would be well within his rights to hang up on him. But then his voice was there in his ear again, soft and sure. “Tell me what happened. From the start.”
Stiles focused on that thought, on the fact of being able to tell someone, someone non-judgy - on Derek. He didn’t interrupt, just listened as Stiles told him everything. At the end he was staring at his free hand, it was shaking and God, was there still blood on there?
Derek hummed. “You didn’t kill him,” he said finally. “It was self-defence. You know that, right?”
Stiles nodded stupidly, realised Derek couldn’t see him and managed a, “Yeah. But…” He rubbed at his face, over his hair, thoroughly mussing it in his reflection on the screen. He barely recognised himself, could barely look himself in the eye. “It doesn’t matter. He died because of me. I killed him.” He ran a finger over the kid’s name, over the reflection of his own haunted eyes.
In his ear Derek was saying his name again, trying to get him to talk, or maybe to listen. Stiles gave the board a forceful shove and finally sat down on the edge of his bed. “I gotta go,” he said quietly into the phone. “Thanks for listening, I appreciate it.”
“Stiles.”
“I have to go… wash my hands.” He ended the call before Derek could say anything more and tossed his phone down on the desk as he went to the bathroom to scrub his hands again.
To be continued
So the rest of this fic is sitting on Googledocs waiting for me to be brave. I thought I’d go for it with this first part before I fail to post it at all! My first Sterek fic, a little angsty with Stiles trying to work through the horrible events in the library - but with Derek to talk to because that would have been GOOD. (Ep 5x5)