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Some days, Stiles will sit in class and he will just think. He thinks about all of the things in his life that have changed. He thinks about his dad and how much he’s drinking now. He thinks about how his crush on Lydia has faded away to make room for a new unattainable desire of the male alpha werewolf variety. He thinks about the danger he and his friends are constantly in. And then, as usual, Mr. Harris will yell and degrade him in front of everyone for not paying attention.
When the bell rings, Stiles goes through the rest of his day think about the things in his life that haven’t changed. The always present urge to just go back to bed, feeling an empty nothingness and a tightness in his chest, thinking ‘I just want it all to stop’.
Now Stiles is not stupid. He understands that he has depression. He knows he is broken, he knows how much of a burden he is to Scott, and to his Dad, and to Derek. He knows he is not good enough for them. He knows it’s not his fault, but somehow, in his mind, it is his fault.
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Some days Stiles will go through class without thinking about anything. Well, that’s not true, he thinks, but all of the thoughts rush together. There becomes too many of them and they sound like white noise in Stiles’ head. They become too much. On these days, Stiles is quiet, pensive. He avoids people. When the bell rings, he rushes out the door as fast as he can.
“Dude, are you feeling okay?” Scott asks him when he caught up to him.
Stiles will smile at him and say “Yeah, I’m fine.” And if Scott catches the lie, he doesn’t say anything about it and they go to their next class.
When lunch comes around, Stiles tells Scott some lame excuse about homework or that he’s not feeling well. Like always, Scott doesn’t call him on the lie, too amazed by Alison’s hair or something, and just mumbles a ‘see ya later’.
He sits out on the lacrosse field, enjoying and hating the silence. When the white noise finally gets to him, finally becomes too much to bare, he reaches into his book bag and pulls out a small cloth bag, inside is his one relief from the daily problem that is life. He rolls the sleeve of his flannel up, takes out the razor and makes three straight cuts on his wrist. He watches, mesmerized, as his pale skin is stained crimson and he feels the relief flow through him. He pulls out the old washcloth he keeps with him for times like these and covers the cuts with it. He closes his eyes and waits for the bleeding to stop.
“What are you doing out here?” an all too familiar voice growls. Stiles quickly pulls his sleeve down when he hears him.
“Hello Derek, how are you?” Stiles asks with all his sass and sarcasm.
“Shouldn’t you be in class,” Derek asks, but it sounded like a statement. Like even though Derek has no business here, Stiles should leave because his mere presence is the bane of Derek Hale’s existence.
“Lunch,” Stiles answers.
Derek looks around suddenly, wrinkling his nose in that adorable way he does when he smells something. He looks back to Stiles just as suddenly.
“Are you bleeding?” he asks the younger man.
Stiles knows Derek is not stupid, if he lies to him he will say something, so he tells him, “Derek, I receive so much bodily harm on a daily basis it would not surprise me if I was bleeding and didn’t even know about it.”
The older man gives him a suspicious look, but doesn’t question it. By this point, Stiles just wants Derek to leave so he can put his stuff away and wash up before he has to go to class again. But he doesn’t, he just stands there, creating an awkward silence.
“Did you want something?” Stiles asks, finally breaking the silence.
Derek doesn’t say anything at first. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, so he closes it again. When he opens it again, he is not expecting what he says to come out of his mouth.
“Are you okay?” Stiles’ scent is always tinged with a bitterness that Derek could never quite pinpoint and pain, but today it seems so much stronger. That and the smell of blood worried Derek. He couldn’t tell you why, but he felt he needed to protect the loud mouthed boy in front of him.
Stiles thought he seemed genuine, and for a minute he thought he saw concern etched in his handsome features, but then it is gone as quickly as it appeared.
“I’m fine,” Stiles tells the lie like he always does. He knows Derek knows he’s lying and for a second it looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. He just nods and walks back the way he came.
Stiles is confused when he packs his bag again and walks inside to the bathroom. When the confusion passes, he only hurts a little because it’s Derek. What was he really expecting?
He removes the cloth from his arm and wets some paper towels to clean up the blood. When he’s done, he goes to the library to actually do some of his homework.
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After Derek had talked to stiles, he completely forgot what he had originally came for in the first place. He doesn’t think it was so important anyway or else he wouldn’t have forgotten it. He was just too distracted by the absolutely morose feeling Stiles was giving off. He was absolutely sure he smelled Stiles blood, but the boy didn’t show any signs of being hurt, but he had lied to Derek when he asked is he was okay. Even if he couldn’t hear his heartbeat, Derek would have known Stiles was lying. Derek told himself he’d check on Stiles again later and then started to run.
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When Stiles got home, his dad had already left for work, so the house was empty. It was a marginally warm day so Stiles stripped off his flannel in favor of his t-shirt. He finished most of his homework during lunch and the house was reasonably clean, so he didn’t have much to do, which was never a good thing.
Stiles snagged some mountain dew from the kitchen and went up to his room. He played x-box for a while, read a little bit in the book he has to read for english. He made himself some dinner, ate in a crippling silence, and cleaned his dished when he was done. He went back to room and started to finish up his homework.
When he hears his window open he doesn’t even look up. There is only one person who climbs through his window at seven o’clock in the evening when his father isn’t even home.
“Derek, pleasure seeing you again,” Stiles says as he spins around in his chair to face Derek.
Stiles wasn’t even thinking about the fact that he wasn’t wearing his flannel, so when Derek asked about a book Stiles had talked about earlier that week, he didn’t think twice about just pointing to the bookshelf, putting his arm on display for Derek to see everything.
Derek knew something was wrong, no one can be in as much pain as Stiles is in all the time without something being seriously wrong, but he never thought it was this bad. From his wrist to halfway up his upper arm he sees scars. Some big, some small, older, newer, some worse looking than other. He also see cuts, just like the scars, big, small, older, scabbed over ones, and some as fresh as this afternoon.
Derek doesn’t know what to do and he just ends up staring. Stiles is confused only for a second and then he realizes the biggest mistake he’s made since taking Scott into the woods that night.
“Jesus Christ!” he shouts as he literally jumps out of his chair for a sweatshirt on the floor, but he wasn’t fast enough. Derek catches his arm before Stiles even has a chance to reach for the sweatshirt. He grabs Stiles’ wrist so he can see all of them.
Derek is angry. He wants to scream and yell. He wants to break things. He wants to rip whoever made Stiles do this to himself apart. He wants to kill Scott for not knowing how much pain his best friend was in. But he also wants to cry. He wants to hold Stiles close and tell him everything is going to be okay. He wants to kiss each and every scar and cut. He wants to make Stiles promise he won’t do it again.
Stiles is frozen with fear. Derek thinks he is disgusting, pathetic, crazy. He knew he didn’t have a chance with before, but this just seals the deal. Stiles is waiting for something to happen. For anything to happen, other than this deafening silence and horrified look. He wants Derek to get angry, throw him against the wall, growl at him like he always does, tell him he’s worthless and that he doesn’t know why he wastes his time on him. He closes his eyes and braces himself for whatever is to come.
He is expecting anger and revulsion, but he is definitely not expecting for Derek to sound so broken when he asks in the smallest voice Stiles has ever heard him use, “Why?”
Stiles isn’t sure how to answer him. He’s just always been this way. He doesn’t know why he does what he does and he doesn’t know why he feels the way he feels.
“Stiles, just please say something,” Derek pleads with him.
“What do you want me to say!” Stiles shouts at him.
“I don’t know. I just... I don’t know.”
They’re both silent then. Neither one sure what to say, both too afraid to say anything even if they did.
“What are you even doing here!?” Stiles is angry now. He is secret is no longer his. He doesn’t know what is going to happen now. What if Derek tells Scott? What if Derek tells his Dad? He doesn’t know how to handle this. Werewolves? Sure. Kanimas that turn into werewolves? Good with that too. Someone finding out that he self-harms? He can’t deal with that.
“I was worried about you,” Derek tells him. He figures there is no point in lying to Stiles now.
“Bullshit! You don’t care about me, no one does!” Stiles is still shouting.
When Derek hears this, he feels like someone just ran over his lungs with a mac truck and he has a look on his face that looks like someone just crushed his entire world. Stiles feels slightly guilty now.
“Stiles, how could you ever... No. How could you ever believe that no one cares about you?” Dereks asks him.
“Because it’s true. I’m just in everyone’s way all the fucking time. I’m fucking useless,” Stiles is whispering by the end and he’s feeling the prickle of tears at his eyes, but he refuses to acknowledge it.
“I don’t understand,” Dereks says. And it’s true. He does not understand how Stiles could ever believe such horrible things about himself. It just intensifies his urge to hold him close and make all the bad things in Stiles’ life go away.
“Of course you don’t, no one would,” Stiles uttered.
“I want to help you,” Derek said.
“Derek, I’m a freak, I can’t be helped,” Stiles replies, looking straight into Derek’s eyes. The worst part is that when he says this, his heart beat doesn’t waver. Not even a little bit. Derek’s heart is breaking more and more each minute.
“Yes, you can. But just, you have to help me understand, please just help me understand,” Derek is pleading with him again. He’s starting to sound desperate and Stiles doesn’t know why he’s acting this way. Derek has never showed this much emotion before, not even angry, scary emotions.
“Why does it matter to you so much?” Stiles demands softly.
Derek gives him an incredulous look and says, “You really have no idea, do you?”
“No, thats why I’m asking!” Stiles exclaims.
Derek takes a step forward, so he and Stiles are just inches apart, and brings his lips to Stiles’. He’s not sure why he did it, but it seemed better than words right now. He’s never been good with words.
At first, Stiles is unresponsive and Derek starts to think he’s made a terrible mistake by kissing the younger man but then Stiles’ hands go around his neck and he starts kissing back. Derek’s hands find Stiles’ waist and it’s simple. Just a simple press of lips, but it means so much more than that to the both of them.
When they pull away, they’re both slightly out of breath, but Stiles say to Derek, “Don’t leave me alone tonight.”
“I’ll never leave you alone unless you ask me to.”
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Stiles is sitting in class and he is thinking about all of the things in his life that have changed. His best friend is a werewolf. He has a boyfriend who is also a werewolf (a very attractive werewolf). He has not had fresh cuts on his arm in a week, which is a record for him.
He still has the constant urge to be in bed, but now that urge has expanded to include Derek in his bed with him. The tightness in his chest is still there, but he thinks that one day maybe he’ll wake up and it will be gone, replaced with something warm and exciting.
Stiles isn’t better, but he will be, one day.