Stiles almost bled out tonight. It’s the closest they’ve ever come to losing him. Derek doesn’t know who he’s more angry at—Scott for abandoning the territory to go to college in another state when he could have stayed here and studied, or himself for refusing to end the life of the rogue last month that could have given him back his own Alpha eyes. Derek hadn’t wanted the burden again. He hadn’t wanted to risk what the rush of power might do to his mind. He’d been selfish, and tonight it had almost cost the life of the Pack’s emissary, and someone Derek...
Derek should go home. The waiting room is at the opposite end of the corridor to Stiles’ room. It’s long since past visiting hours and unlike the Sheriff, Derek has no familial nor law-enforcement-sanctioned reason to be here. But he can’t leave, he won’t. Not at least until he hears Stiles speak, sees his eyes when he wakes. Derek is tired, though, and he can’t be comfortable where he is. He took off his jacket and long sleeve shirt when he got here and stuffed them in a plastic shopping bag that smelled like Melissa had carried her lunch in. It was better than the stink of Stiles blood soaked all through them, but not strong enough to drown the odor out. Especially when there’s blood on Derek’s shoes and at the cuffs of his jeans, too. A proper cleanup will have to wait until he gets home.
He’s glad the weather is bad enough that he was wearing more than one layer. He’s glad it’s still cold for a werewolf now, inside the hospital in only the t-shirt he was wearing for an extra bit of warmth. The cold is the only reason Stiles is still alive. The cold and the Pack bond that had Derek up and moving into the night when he felt that something wasn’t right.
The Sheriff raged when he saw his son. He turned and faced Derek and made it very clear that if Stiles died, he would too. He didn’t say sorry when Melissa stepped between them to say that it had been a regular old mugging, nothing supernatural. The man’s face had shut off and he’d made a phone call to the station and then he’d sat by his son’s bed and wept. The scent of the salty tears mixed with the scent of Stiles blood and the general chemical air of the hospital had almost made Derek heave. Being banished to the shitty waiting room at the other end of the building had helped, a little.
His battery has run out on his phone. Lydia had called not long after Derek had started searching for Stiles; she’d told him to hurry and refused to be hung up on until he found Stiles. She cried in his ear when he’d called her again from the emergency room. She can’t get away from school until the end of the week, but she demanded a Skype session be set up as soon as Stiles is awake again.
Derek sent the baby-betas, as Stiles still refers to the rest of the pack, home not long after they’d all arrived. Scott didn’t pick up his phone when Derek called. He didn’t respond to the texts everyone sent him either. Derek would be worried, but it’s not the first time Scott’s gone been MIA in someone’s bed, and it probably won’t be the last.
Derek should have killed the rogue that came through last month. He should have given into the pleading look on Stiles’ face. He shouldn’t have made Stiles use the gun he hates instead.
Derek sits up in his chair again when he hears footsteps moving to the other end of the corridor.
“He’s stable, John. You need rest, yourself. I know you want to be here for him, but you’d be just as well to spend the night in one of the visitors rooms. We have them attached to I.C.U. for a reason.” Melissa’s voice is echoing in a way that means she’s standing in the doorway to Stiles’ room. There’s barely space in it for a chair beside the bed, so it’s possibly not just because she doesn’t want to intrude. “The bump on his head isn’t as bad as it could have been. He’s breathing steadily. His temperature is normal again, and he doesn’t need anymore blood. He isn’t even going to have a scar much bigger than the hole that asshole made in him.”
There’s a shuffle, and then John takes a couple of steps in his heavy boots. His voice echos in the hall. “I know, logically, that he’s going to be okay. I just. I don’t want him to be alone if he wakes up, is all.” He’s a little hoarse. “I don’t. I know it’s selfish, but I want to be the first person he sees.”
Melissa does something that, from the distance and in the echoing hallway, sounds like an actual snort. “It’s damn selfish. I understand that he’s the only thing you have left, John, but you aren’t the only one who cares about him. I know that if it was Scott in that bed I’d be feeling exactly like you are. But I’d also understand that whoever my boy saw first was going to be someone important to him. And you know that, too.”
Derek doesn’t hear it, but he can imagine all the strength going out of John Stilinski’s shoulders again, the way they had when the surgeon had come out with good news.
“I should apologize to Hale. He was covered in blood, though and—”
“You made an assumption that no one in the know will blame you for. You should still say sorry for being an ass, and thank you for saving my kid, but, Derek will understand.”
John’s words are a little clearer when he says, “Are they? I mean…” Derek can’t smell the awkwardness, of course, but like father like son, and Derek knows just how embarrassed the Sheriff is from the tone of question and the way he sucks in a breath instead of finishing the thought out loud.
Melissa chuckles. It’s more of a huff, but it’s definitely in amusement. “I don’t think they are. Not yet, anyway. Still, and I don’t know much about the whole Pack bond thing, but I’m fairly sure Derek wouldn’t have been able to feel any of the other non-wolves in the Pack bleeding out. He probably wouldn’t be waiting around all night just in case they woke up, either.”
John shifts again, and drops his voice. “Hale’s still here?”
“Hale? Yes. Derek is. He’s in the waiting room, though, not one of the visitors’ ones. I could technically toss him out, but I’m not attempting to move a born-werewolf by myself, and besides, he saved your son’s life. I think he’s earned the right to stick around, don’t you?”
♠
Linger(ing): [v] to be tardy in action; delay; dawdle: [v] to remain or stay on in a place longer than is usual or expected, as if from reluctance to leave
July CampNaNoWrimo - my prompt table and ‘rules’ are here.
