Derek falls asleep the way he usually does - completely against his will. He’s face-down on one of the four Mythos and Magicka encyclopedia’s he managed to “borrow” from the Beacon Hills Public Library. It’s a good thing rustic tomes of magical significance are useless to the majority of the population, because Derek finds a lot of them in the gardening sections of libraries and used book stores.
He starts having that dream again, the one he expected.
He’s running to Stiles from across the warehouse; he’s watching the sword cut through Stiles like he’s made of paper. Derek feels it stick between his ribs, coughs feebly as his lungs fill up with his own blood. Stiles’ eyes go so wide he can see where they curve back into the sockets.
The witch twists and then starts lifting him.
A 90 pound woman who, by all appearances, probably remembers the start of the Boer Wars manages to lift the sword high enough that Stiles’ feet dangle. And Scott is screaming and Derek is bleeding and he can’t feel the floor and Stiles is reaching down the length of the sword, cutting his palms on the edge of the the blade.
Derek feels his own palms split, hears the echoes of Lydia just shrieking, just shrieking -
He wakes up with his mouth open in a silent scream, his throat too dry to make anything louder than a mournful squeak. Derek’s hands are flat against his ribs, as if he’s holding his guts in. Wouldn’t be a first.
Derek doesn’t have a scar, but Stiles does. He’s had peeks of it since Stiles got out of the hospital; when his bandages were changed, when Scott helped him put on a t-shirt for the first time since he was skewered.
It’s been a grey three months of breathing tubes and wilting flowers, aching wrists from taking the pain and a lot of bathroom crying on the part of everyone. No one’s had it easy. No one.
Well, Derek doesn’t want to say it’s been the hardest on him, but living your life normally isn’t exactly possible when you’re nerve endings are preternaturally connected with a nineteen-year-old in an induced coma.
Every ache, every twinge, every fever dream and laboured breath has driven its way through Derek’s body. He’s exhausted even when he’s asleep and now that Stiles is out of the hospital it isn’t getting any better.
Derek shuffles his way to the bathroom and prays to God that he actually has to pee this time. Stiles has a habit of holding it in until he’s about to burst and Derek never knows for sure if he actually has to go or if Stiles is just being lazy.
It’s weird. He’s standing alone in his bathroom, scrunching his toes against the cold tile and rubbing sleep from his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater, but there’s this awareness. Stiles is out there, awake and alive. Derek’s eyes won’t adjust and he knows that Stiles is looking at his computer screen. It’s almost three in the morning. Derek sighs, washes his hands with extra hot water and hopes that tells Stiles he’s awake too. They never talk about the connection, ignore all the mirroring they do when they’re near each other.
No one talks about Derek saving Stiles’ life. If it wasn’t for his werewolf healing worming its way over the physical connection the witch created, Stiles would be sleeping at Beacon Hills Crematorium and Cemetery right now. Derek doesn’t like thinking about it.
He’s looking through the medicine cabinet for those sleeping pills Deaton gave him when he feels it. This sudden, erratic drop in his stomach and his breath goes out of him. He panics for half a second, trying to remember where his phone is so he can call Scott when -
It’s like phantom hands running over his chest, down and down and down and when the feeling reaches his dick he keels forward because the hand isn’t so phantom anymore. “Oh shit,” he whimpers. Derek tries to will himself to not feel this, to not get hard but it’s so real.
Derek turns the faucet onto hot and watches the steam rise, but he hesitates before he dips his fingers into the stream.
This hasn’t happened before. Derek feels everything Stiles feels, and this is the first time Stiles has jerked off since he almost died. Derek could burn his own hands, could make Stiles stop - but that wouldn’t be fair. Stiles needs this.
Yeah, he needs this. He needs it so bad. It isn’t about Derek. No…. It’s…. He’s helping.
It’s when he senses the lightest brush against his ass that he loses it. Derek tries to catch himself on the edge of the sink, but he gives up and drops hard to his knees. The sensation stops and there’s a couple heartbeats where Derek is hard and alone and holding his breath before the hand starts again, slower this time.
Derek can’t handle slow. He needs this faster.
He pops the button on the jeans he fell asleep in and tugs them down below his hips before giving up on getting them any further. His hand hovers over his cock for a breath before he goes for it, massages the head the way he likes it. There’s a sudden dull throb at the back of his head and Derek laughs at the image of Stiles knocking his head against the wall, pausing to make sure his Dad didn’t hear.
Derek bites his own lip like a warning and Stiles gets back to it, the same languid strokes. Derek imagines his hands, those fingers - that mouth. He moans a little and wonders if Stiles feels it in his chest, if it takes up the space that fucking sword left.
He doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t want to think about anything that isn’t this, right here and now.
He wishes Stiles were with him, but he wouldn’t know what to do if he was. Where to start?
Derek feels the fingers ghost over his ass again and the thought of Stiles sprawled out on his bed, touching himself, feeling Derek right along with him - it’s too much. Derek gets the distinct mental image of eyelids, the inside of them. Lips forming the words, “Oh holy shit, Derek.”
And that’s it. He’s coming on his bathroom floor with his face pressed against the cabinets.
Oh holy shit, Derek is right.
Afterwards…. Well, he feels kind of silly. He’s all alone in his big loft, kneeling with his dick out and he’s made a huge mess on his jeans. His whole body is shaky in a way he’s never felt before and he forces himself to get off the floor and take off his pants. He thinks of taking a shower, but it’s late and he’s so tired now… Derek never gets sleepy after sex. He usually gets so nervous that he basically vibrates.
But now he just wants to get a snack and lay down on the couch, which is exactly what he does. Derek puts on a re-run of a basketball game he’s already watched and starts to doze off, doing his best not to feel ashamed of himself.
His phone vibrates in between the cushions and he fishes it out, half-asleep. It’s from Stiles, and it takes Derek a minute to actually realize it’s the second of three messages.
‘next time be here for cuddles’ Stiles said right after the incident in the bathroom. And then, ‘i mean unless that was uncool’ with ‘im sorry’ at the end.
Derek doesn’t know if he’s out of his mind, if he’s exhausted or thankful or just in love, but he says ‘cuddle you tomorrow’ and smiles like a goof when Stiles sends ‘im holding you to it’.