Fic: Occam's Razor (3/?)
See the masterpost for disclaimer, summary, and previous parts.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“Hi, Dad.”
For an awkward moment, Sheriff Stilinski stood in the door of his son’s old room, looking in at Stiles on the guest bed. Stiles looked down at his hands, trying not to notice how stripped and gutted the room felt. He’d come here hoping for a refuge, the familiar, but his room wasn’t his room anymore. He felt like a guest.
Turned out he had nowhere to go.
“Derek called me, said you asked him to bring you here,” John said as he took a couple of steps into the room.
Stiles was sitting on the edge of the bed, hating the floral print bedspread and the ugly fucking pillows and missing the corkboard where he’d pinned notes and photos and connected them all with color-coded yarn.
Now there was a framed print of a sailboat on the wall. What the fuck? His dad didn’t even know how to sail.
“Stiles?”
“Yeah, no, I just… it was weird being in that house.” Stiles looked up at his father. “Are you okay with me staying here?”
“You don’t even have to ask.” John pursed his lips. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to go in for testing?”
“That is not happening,” Stiles balked.
“You could have a brain tumor.”
“Well, I wasn’t ready to jump to that worst-case scenario yet, but thanks for blazing a trail, Dad.”
John moved to the bed and sat down beside his son. “I’m worried about you. So is Derek.”
“I know, and I get it, but I can’t. Last time I went into that thing, I came out and I hurt people. Allison died. I have nightmares about that sound, that god-awful clanking, like the bastard was pounding to get in. And he did. You put me in that machine again, and I’m going to have a panic attack. There’s no maybe about that, I will.”
“Okay, okay… calm down, Stiles… take it easy.”
Stiles didn’t realize his hands were clenched into fists or that he was gulping for breath until his dad’s hand fell on his shoulder and he buckled. His breath stuttered and he forced his fingers open, tucking them underneath his thighs to hide the fact they were shaking.
“We’ll hold off on testing,” John was saying, rubbing Stiles’ back with his hand, “but if this doesn’t get better - or if it gets worse - you’re going in for tests. I don’t care if they have to sedate you.”
That was fair. He couldn’t ask his dad to just stand by and not act if things got worse. Besides, they would have to sedate him, and presumably he couldn’t freak out in the MRI machine if he wasn’t conscious for it. He nodded jerkily.
“Want to talk about Derek?” John asked as an opening.
Stiles groaned. “I don’t even know what to do about Derek. I’m married to him.”
“I’m aware,” the sheriff said with a tiny smile.
“Well, I’m kind of having trouble with that. It doesn’t make any sense! I mean, I…” he cut an uncomfortable look at his father, “I’ve kind of felt for a while that I might not be totally, completely straight -”
John snorted.
“But admitting that I might be bi is a far cry from marrying Derek!”
His father was being far too calm about this, Stiles thought. He of all people should be affronted by the Derek-married-to-Stiles thing. If Stiles had ever day-dreamed about hooking up with Derek - not that he had, but if he had - all those daydreams would have heavily featured a very disapproving father. Because Derek.
Instead, John gave Stiles a long, thoughtful look. “I never told you this - mostly because I didn’t have to, but situation being what it is, I guess now I do - but you and Derek… at first, it was hard to be okay with it. He was older, and there was that whole werewolf thing. I thought you could do better. Or I wanted you to pick someone safer.”
Stiles could see that. From a father’s perspective, Derek had to be a horrifying partner for one’s child to choose.
“But you weren’t a kid anymore, and it wasn’t my decision. So I had reservations, but I kept them to myself and watched you marry him. And I hoped for the best. I hoped you wouldn’t get your heart broken.” ‘Or end up dead for loving a werewolf,’ John’s expression said, even if he didn’t say as much.
“I don’t have those reservations anymore. I’ve seen you two together, and over the years you guys have become… solid. It works. You’re both… steadier.”
Stiles’ lips twitched. “Earlier today, Derek said I tamed him.”
“You do. And he’s tamed you. And truth be told, you both could have done with some taming. The world’s a better place for it.”
That startled a coarse laugh out of Stiles.
“I’m not saying you have to do anything you’re not ready for yet. You can stay here as long as you want. I’m just saying that I’ve seen you genuinely happy with Derek. And the same goes for him with you.”
“I’m not breaking up with him,” Stiles mumbled. Because he couldn’t. He had no right. He couldn’t zap into this strange universe, fuck up Derek’s life and alternate-Stiles’ life, and then just pop right out again. He owed other-Stiles that much. But that didn’t mean he could play the part.
He couldn’t be Stiles Hale. He didn’t know how to be. All he could be was Stiles Stilinski.
The only problem was, this world didn’t have a place for Stiles Stilinski.
********************
Stiles didn’t sleep for shit that night. There was a laundry list of reasons why. Finding himself in an alternate universe where he was twenty-four and married to Derek Hale was just the top reason. The cut on his forehead that still hurt like a bitch didn’t help. Or that he didn’t have his pillow.
That and he’d finally looked at himself in the mirror while getting ready for bed, and it was weirding him out. He looked different. Not remarkably. He was still clearly Stiles, nobody from high school he ran into on the street would mistake him or fail to recognize him. The problem was that in his head, Stiles looked seventeen. The guy looking back at him was most definitely not seventeen. He was still on the skinny side, but his shoulders were broader, his arms bulkier, his face more square and angular. He had an actual five-o-clock shadow.
Stiles peeled out of his clothes to take a shower (and hopefully scour off the funk of inter-dimensional travel), and he felt weird looking at a man’s body in the reflection. He wasn’t ripped, but he wasn’t too shabby, either. Being married to Derek was probably enough to shame Stiles into not pulling a Jabba the Hutt. There was a scar on the left side of his chest, about eight inches long, that he had no idea how he got.
When he turned toward the shower he caught a glimpse of black in the corner of his eye and twisted in front of the mirror to look at the tattoo on the back of his right shoulder. A thick black line traced the outline of a howling wolf’s head on his skin. It was simple, yet powerful. Shit, the wolf motif from the house carried over to his body. He wondered how many times he passed out in the chair while they were doing that - and how dead-set he must have been on getting the tattoo to put up with, you know, the actual tattooing.
Really, Stiles’ life was full of suck. So that hadn’t changed across universes. When he got back, he should write a book. ‘How to Suck in All Realities’. Actually, no… that sounded like a bad fellatio how-to manual.
So he woke up almost more tired than he was when he’d gone to sleep, then realized he had been in such a hurry to get out of the house where he lived with Derek that he hadn’t grabbed his phone. Or laptop (because in his mind he thought it would be here, at his father’s house). He had nothing to entertain himself with while his father was at work. He couldn’t even walk over to Scott’s house, because Scott didn’t live there anymore.
A bored Stiles was a danger to civilized society.
He eyed the two items he’d brought with him from the house. His hand lingered over the photo album a second, but he wasn’t ready to open that can of worms. His mind raced just imagining the images he’d find inside. Pictures of him living a life he didn’t know. Pictures of a Stiles in love with Derek.
He picked up the book instead and settled on the couch to read.
********************
Stiles was a good way into ShineGold - and still had no idea if this was his book or Derek’s, which continued to drive him crazy - when his father came home.
“Hey, Dad.” He set the book down on the end table and moved to get off the couch when he froze.
Because Derek had walked into the house right after John. In uniform.
And yes, it was as hot as Stiles imagined it would be.
Stiles blinked. “Um… hey.”
“Hi.” There was an awkward pause where Derek stood in the foyer with a bag held at his side and Stiles sat on the couch at a loss for words. “I brought over some of your stuff.” He held out a duffel bag.
Stiles got up, took the bag, and opened it to look inside. Right away he saw his pillow, the side of a laptop case, and a cell phone.
“Dude, thanks. These are all the things I was missing.” Then he looked up at Derek and winced. “I mean, not that I didn’t miss you, or… uh…”
The unintended slight hurt Derek, his face betrayed that much, but he gave a dismissive wave. “I made peace with your affair with your laptop years ago.”
Stiles snorted.
“I invited Derek to join us for dinner,” John said on his way to the kitchen.
“If that’s okay,” Derek added, looking over at Stiles.
“No. I mean, yeah, sure. It’s cool. I don’t mind.”
He anticipated it being awkward as fuck, like everything else had been, but he couldn’t avoid Derek forever.
But it was, in fact, not bad. They ordered pizza (and Stiles wanted to object on behalf of his father’s cardiovascular system, but John was clearly using the situation to his advantage to indulge in a meat lover’s), and Stiles mostly listened to his dad and Derek talk shop. About a vandal who’d been breaking into the bus lot and putting graffiti on the school buses, which was such a big problem because a lot of it was inappropriate and those buses picked up elementary and grade school kids. About a station picnic a lot of the staff were planning on attending (and from the uneasy pause Stiles got the feeling he’d been planning on going, too, but now no one wanted to assume he was on board). About the logistics of the extradition of a guy in lock-up who had outstanding warrants for arrest in a neighboring county. About an inexplicable but severe shortage of coffee cups at the station (John suspected an office thief, but Derek refused to use his sense of smell to track down such a trivial criminal).
It was kind of relaxing, actually, to just be there but not be the center of attention. Of course, Derek’s eyes landed on Stiles a lot during dinner - Derek wasn’t even subtle about it, and Stiles didn’t pretend not to see it - but it wasn’t stressful the way Stiles had been dreading it would be.
Of course, his father had his own plans. After dinner, he decided they needed dessert. Specifically ice cream. Because it was the one dessert item they definitely didn’t have in the house.
“I’ll just run to the store and get some,” John said as he moved toward the front door, leaving no room for anyone to object. “I won’t be long!”
Then Stiles and Derek were left alone.
Stiles glared at the door where his father had fled. “He wasn’t even subtle about that.”
“Not even close,” Derek agreed. Then he studied Stiles. “How are you?”
Stiles shrugged one shoulder and picked at a leftover piece of crust on his plate. “Same as yesterday, mostly. What, uh… what about you?”
Derek pulled back a little. “Fine.”
Stiles quirked an eyebrow. “Uh huh.” But he got it. He did. Just for something to do, he stood and picked up his plate and his father’s to take them to the sink.
When he came back for Derek’s, Derek turned purposefully toward him. Stiles froze, watching Derek.
“Stiles, would you…” Derek bit his lip (that should not be cute, god damnit), “Would you let me do something? I promise it’s nothing lurid.”
Stiles took a step back. “Umm… yeah, sure, I guess.”
Derek stood, considered Stiles cautiously a moment, then stepped right up into his personal space and buried his face in Stiles’ neck.
“Oh!” Stiles stammered, then stood stock-still as Derek breathed deeply against Stiles’ skin. Pretty much pegging a ten on the weird-o-meter, but definitely not the worst thing to ever happen to Stiles. Derek was warm, and his stubble tickled, and he honestly didn’t smell too bad himself. Woodsy and musky and wild.
Derek took deep lung-fulls of Stiles’ scent. His hands drifted up to Stiles’ hips and held him in place. Stiles doubted Derek noticed, but Stiles sure as hell did.
It didn’t last long, objectively, but subjectively was a whole other story before Derek sighed and rested his forehead ahead Stiles’ shoulder. His fingers flexed against Stiles’ hipbones.
“Ummm…” Stiles mumbled, because Derek needed to quit that before Stiles embarrassed himself.
Derek tensed and pulled away. “Sorry.” He leaned back against the table and averted his eyes.
“No, it’s okay… uh, care to explain?”
Derek blushed. “I have trouble sleeping without your smell.”
“But… I mean, surely you go out of town for work and stuff.” Stiles’ childhood was full of sleep-overs with Scott when he was little then alone at home when he was older because his dad had to go out of town.
“Yeah, sometimes… but we always talk on the phone or Skype, plus I know when I get home… just, this is different.”
Stiles swallowed. “Yeah, okay. Fair enough.”
In the ensuing awkward silence, Stiles took a closer look at Derek. He could see tired, now that he looked for it. He could see frustration, too. He felt bad about that. Derek didn’t deserve this.
“So…” Stiles snatched up Derek’s plate and took it over to the sink. “I was thinking of talking to Deaton, see if he has any ideas how this happened and how to fix it.”
“I hope you have a Ouija board, then.”
“Huh?”
“Deaton died three years ago.”
“How?”
Derek sat back down in his chair, rubbing his hands over his face. “There was a situation with a harpy that got messy. Deaton was killed. And you… you got pretty torn up.”
“Is that where I got this scar?” Stiles rubbed at his chest with the heel of his hand.
Derek nodded, face grim. His expression spoke volumes.
“I’m guessing it was bad.”
“Bitch ripped right down to your ribcage. When I found you, I thought you were dead. There was so much blood. They had to stitch your muscles back together. You had to do physical therapy for months.” Derek looked kind of ill at the memory.
“Damn. Well, it turned out okay. I mean, I’m still alive.” He pondered a moment. “What story do we use with people for how I got hurt?”
“Car accident. Because the Jeep was totaled, just not at the same time you got hurt. They both happened on the same night, though, so people bought it without question. The Jeep got hauled to the scrap yard, you got hauled to the emergency room,” Derek held up both hands like he was weighing the one against the other.
“Ah, man! My Jeep? Damn… I was hoping she was just in storage somewhere.”
“No such luck. But I gave you the Camaro, so you got over it pretty fast. Worked as an incentive to make you do your PT, too.”
Stiles whistled. “Nice. Do I want to know what happened to the Camaro?”
“Nothing horrific. We traded it in for the Honda earlier this year.”
“Lame,” Stiles sing-songed.
Derek laughed. “The Honda’s practical.”
“So is fiber. That doesn’t make it fun.”
Derek shook his head with a chuckle.
Stiles opened his mouth to ask about the house, about how long they’d lived there, but stopped short when he realized those questions would lead to the conversation about when they started living together. About when they got married.
He wasn’t up for that yet.
“So if Deaton’s dead, who’s your emissary?”
That wiped the smile off Derek’s face. “There isn’t one.”
“But… I thought all packs had one.”
“What pack?” Derek snarled.
Oh… wow, he’d stepped in something there. Stiles blinked at Derek, taken aback by the bitterness in his voice. He’d been so nice lately that Stiles almost forgot how broody he could get, but nope, there it was. Sourwolf at his finest. It was kind of comforting to see that growly, grumpy side of Derek. That Stiles knew.
That still left the problem of how he was going to get to the bottom of this mirror universe. “Okay… well, then who do we go to for answers when something hinky happens?”
“Between you and Lydia, we usually do okay.”
Well, great. Stiles was the one who was supposed to have all the answers? Or at least a clue? Talk about fucked seven ways from Sunday. “Okay, that’s a problem.” Stiles drummed his knuckles on the counter. “I’ll call Lydia, then.”
“Don’t -” Derek started, then he bit back his next words. Clearly rephrased them. “Let me talk to Lydia.”
“Fine, whatever.” Stiles narrowed a look at Derek. He looked twitchy all of a sudden. Were they on the outs with Lydia or something? If so, Stiles having a big chunk of missing time would probably clomp his clumsy ass all over whatever had them tip-toeing around Lydia. So yes, fine, let Derek who wasn’t missing the last seven years talk to her. Whatever they had to do to get some answers.
At least he had his laptop. He could do what he’d always done. Scour the internet for clues.
“I should get going,” Derek said wearily as he stood.
“Yeah, sure. Look, I’m…” When Derek turned toward him, Stiles rambled, “I feel like I should apologize, though I’m not really sure what I’m sorry for. For not being your Stiles, I guess?” That sounded stupid, but it was true.
Derek stilled and looked intently at Stiles. There was something frighteningly tender in his gaze. “You are my Stiles. We’ll get your memories back somehow, I promise.”
If only it were that easy. Because Stiles kind of thought he wouldn’t mind this life. It was not at all what he expected, but it didn’t seem so terrible, either.
Next
“Hey, kiddo.”
“Hi, Dad.”
For an awkward moment, Sheriff Stilinski stood in the door of his son’s old room, looking in at Stiles on the guest bed. Stiles looked down at his hands, trying not to notice how stripped and gutted the room felt. He’d come here hoping for a refuge, the familiar, but his room wasn’t his room anymore. He felt like a guest.
Turned out he had nowhere to go.
“Derek called me, said you asked him to bring you here,” John said as he took a couple of steps into the room.
Stiles was sitting on the edge of the bed, hating the floral print bedspread and the ugly fucking pillows and missing the corkboard where he’d pinned notes and photos and connected them all with color-coded yarn.
Now there was a framed print of a sailboat on the wall. What the fuck? His dad didn’t even know how to sail.
“Stiles?”
“Yeah, no, I just… it was weird being in that house.” Stiles looked up at his father. “Are you okay with me staying here?”
“You don’t even have to ask.” John pursed his lips. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to go in for testing?”
“That is not happening,” Stiles balked.
“You could have a brain tumor.”
“Well, I wasn’t ready to jump to that worst-case scenario yet, but thanks for blazing a trail, Dad.”
John moved to the bed and sat down beside his son. “I’m worried about you. So is Derek.”
“I know, and I get it, but I can’t. Last time I went into that thing, I came out and I hurt people. Allison died. I have nightmares about that sound, that god-awful clanking, like the bastard was pounding to get in. And he did. You put me in that machine again, and I’m going to have a panic attack. There’s no maybe about that, I will.”
“Okay, okay… calm down, Stiles… take it easy.”
Stiles didn’t realize his hands were clenched into fists or that he was gulping for breath until his dad’s hand fell on his shoulder and he buckled. His breath stuttered and he forced his fingers open, tucking them underneath his thighs to hide the fact they were shaking.
“We’ll hold off on testing,” John was saying, rubbing Stiles’ back with his hand, “but if this doesn’t get better - or if it gets worse - you’re going in for tests. I don’t care if they have to sedate you.”
That was fair. He couldn’t ask his dad to just stand by and not act if things got worse. Besides, they would have to sedate him, and presumably he couldn’t freak out in the MRI machine if he wasn’t conscious for it. He nodded jerkily.
“Want to talk about Derek?” John asked as an opening.
Stiles groaned. “I don’t even know what to do about Derek. I’m married to him.”
“I’m aware,” the sheriff said with a tiny smile.
“Well, I’m kind of having trouble with that. It doesn’t make any sense! I mean, I…” he cut an uncomfortable look at his father, “I’ve kind of felt for a while that I might not be totally, completely straight -”
John snorted.
“But admitting that I might be bi is a far cry from marrying Derek!”
His father was being far too calm about this, Stiles thought. He of all people should be affronted by the Derek-married-to-Stiles thing. If Stiles had ever day-dreamed about hooking up with Derek - not that he had, but if he had - all those daydreams would have heavily featured a very disapproving father. Because Derek.
Instead, John gave Stiles a long, thoughtful look. “I never told you this - mostly because I didn’t have to, but situation being what it is, I guess now I do - but you and Derek… at first, it was hard to be okay with it. He was older, and there was that whole werewolf thing. I thought you could do better. Or I wanted you to pick someone safer.”
Stiles could see that. From a father’s perspective, Derek had to be a horrifying partner for one’s child to choose.
“But you weren’t a kid anymore, and it wasn’t my decision. So I had reservations, but I kept them to myself and watched you marry him. And I hoped for the best. I hoped you wouldn’t get your heart broken.” ‘Or end up dead for loving a werewolf,’ John’s expression said, even if he didn’t say as much.
“I don’t have those reservations anymore. I’ve seen you two together, and over the years you guys have become… solid. It works. You’re both… steadier.”
Stiles’ lips twitched. “Earlier today, Derek said I tamed him.”
“You do. And he’s tamed you. And truth be told, you both could have done with some taming. The world’s a better place for it.”
That startled a coarse laugh out of Stiles.
“I’m not saying you have to do anything you’re not ready for yet. You can stay here as long as you want. I’m just saying that I’ve seen you genuinely happy with Derek. And the same goes for him with you.”
“I’m not breaking up with him,” Stiles mumbled. Because he couldn’t. He had no right. He couldn’t zap into this strange universe, fuck up Derek’s life and alternate-Stiles’ life, and then just pop right out again. He owed other-Stiles that much. But that didn’t mean he could play the part.
He couldn’t be Stiles Hale. He didn’t know how to be. All he could be was Stiles Stilinski.
The only problem was, this world didn’t have a place for Stiles Stilinski.
********************
Stiles didn’t sleep for shit that night. There was a laundry list of reasons why. Finding himself in an alternate universe where he was twenty-four and married to Derek Hale was just the top reason. The cut on his forehead that still hurt like a bitch didn’t help. Or that he didn’t have his pillow.
That and he’d finally looked at himself in the mirror while getting ready for bed, and it was weirding him out. He looked different. Not remarkably. He was still clearly Stiles, nobody from high school he ran into on the street would mistake him or fail to recognize him. The problem was that in his head, Stiles looked seventeen. The guy looking back at him was most definitely not seventeen. He was still on the skinny side, but his shoulders were broader, his arms bulkier, his face more square and angular. He had an actual five-o-clock shadow.
Stiles peeled out of his clothes to take a shower (and hopefully scour off the funk of inter-dimensional travel), and he felt weird looking at a man’s body in the reflection. He wasn’t ripped, but he wasn’t too shabby, either. Being married to Derek was probably enough to shame Stiles into not pulling a Jabba the Hutt. There was a scar on the left side of his chest, about eight inches long, that he had no idea how he got.
When he turned toward the shower he caught a glimpse of black in the corner of his eye and twisted in front of the mirror to look at the tattoo on the back of his right shoulder. A thick black line traced the outline of a howling wolf’s head on his skin. It was simple, yet powerful. Shit, the wolf motif from the house carried over to his body. He wondered how many times he passed out in the chair while they were doing that - and how dead-set he must have been on getting the tattoo to put up with, you know, the actual tattooing.
Really, Stiles’ life was full of suck. So that hadn’t changed across universes. When he got back, he should write a book. ‘How to Suck in All Realities’. Actually, no… that sounded like a bad fellatio how-to manual.
So he woke up almost more tired than he was when he’d gone to sleep, then realized he had been in such a hurry to get out of the house where he lived with Derek that he hadn’t grabbed his phone. Or laptop (because in his mind he thought it would be here, at his father’s house). He had nothing to entertain himself with while his father was at work. He couldn’t even walk over to Scott’s house, because Scott didn’t live there anymore.
A bored Stiles was a danger to civilized society.
He eyed the two items he’d brought with him from the house. His hand lingered over the photo album a second, but he wasn’t ready to open that can of worms. His mind raced just imagining the images he’d find inside. Pictures of him living a life he didn’t know. Pictures of a Stiles in love with Derek.
He picked up the book instead and settled on the couch to read.
********************
Stiles was a good way into ShineGold - and still had no idea if this was his book or Derek’s, which continued to drive him crazy - when his father came home.
“Hey, Dad.” He set the book down on the end table and moved to get off the couch when he froze.
Because Derek had walked into the house right after John. In uniform.
And yes, it was as hot as Stiles imagined it would be.
Stiles blinked. “Um… hey.”
“Hi.” There was an awkward pause where Derek stood in the foyer with a bag held at his side and Stiles sat on the couch at a loss for words. “I brought over some of your stuff.” He held out a duffel bag.
Stiles got up, took the bag, and opened it to look inside. Right away he saw his pillow, the side of a laptop case, and a cell phone.
“Dude, thanks. These are all the things I was missing.” Then he looked up at Derek and winced. “I mean, not that I didn’t miss you, or… uh…”
The unintended slight hurt Derek, his face betrayed that much, but he gave a dismissive wave. “I made peace with your affair with your laptop years ago.”
Stiles snorted.
“I invited Derek to join us for dinner,” John said on his way to the kitchen.
“If that’s okay,” Derek added, looking over at Stiles.
“No. I mean, yeah, sure. It’s cool. I don’t mind.”
He anticipated it being awkward as fuck, like everything else had been, but he couldn’t avoid Derek forever.
But it was, in fact, not bad. They ordered pizza (and Stiles wanted to object on behalf of his father’s cardiovascular system, but John was clearly using the situation to his advantage to indulge in a meat lover’s), and Stiles mostly listened to his dad and Derek talk shop. About a vandal who’d been breaking into the bus lot and putting graffiti on the school buses, which was such a big problem because a lot of it was inappropriate and those buses picked up elementary and grade school kids. About a station picnic a lot of the staff were planning on attending (and from the uneasy pause Stiles got the feeling he’d been planning on going, too, but now no one wanted to assume he was on board). About the logistics of the extradition of a guy in lock-up who had outstanding warrants for arrest in a neighboring county. About an inexplicable but severe shortage of coffee cups at the station (John suspected an office thief, but Derek refused to use his sense of smell to track down such a trivial criminal).
It was kind of relaxing, actually, to just be there but not be the center of attention. Of course, Derek’s eyes landed on Stiles a lot during dinner - Derek wasn’t even subtle about it, and Stiles didn’t pretend not to see it - but it wasn’t stressful the way Stiles had been dreading it would be.
Of course, his father had his own plans. After dinner, he decided they needed dessert. Specifically ice cream. Because it was the one dessert item they definitely didn’t have in the house.
“I’ll just run to the store and get some,” John said as he moved toward the front door, leaving no room for anyone to object. “I won’t be long!”
Then Stiles and Derek were left alone.
Stiles glared at the door where his father had fled. “He wasn’t even subtle about that.”
“Not even close,” Derek agreed. Then he studied Stiles. “How are you?”
Stiles shrugged one shoulder and picked at a leftover piece of crust on his plate. “Same as yesterday, mostly. What, uh… what about you?”
Derek pulled back a little. “Fine.”
Stiles quirked an eyebrow. “Uh huh.” But he got it. He did. Just for something to do, he stood and picked up his plate and his father’s to take them to the sink.
When he came back for Derek’s, Derek turned purposefully toward him. Stiles froze, watching Derek.
“Stiles, would you…” Derek bit his lip (that should not be cute, god damnit), “Would you let me do something? I promise it’s nothing lurid.”
Stiles took a step back. “Umm… yeah, sure, I guess.”
Derek stood, considered Stiles cautiously a moment, then stepped right up into his personal space and buried his face in Stiles’ neck.
“Oh!” Stiles stammered, then stood stock-still as Derek breathed deeply against Stiles’ skin. Pretty much pegging a ten on the weird-o-meter, but definitely not the worst thing to ever happen to Stiles. Derek was warm, and his stubble tickled, and he honestly didn’t smell too bad himself. Woodsy and musky and wild.
Derek took deep lung-fulls of Stiles’ scent. His hands drifted up to Stiles’ hips and held him in place. Stiles doubted Derek noticed, but Stiles sure as hell did.
It didn’t last long, objectively, but subjectively was a whole other story before Derek sighed and rested his forehead ahead Stiles’ shoulder. His fingers flexed against Stiles’ hipbones.
“Ummm…” Stiles mumbled, because Derek needed to quit that before Stiles embarrassed himself.
Derek tensed and pulled away. “Sorry.” He leaned back against the table and averted his eyes.
“No, it’s okay… uh, care to explain?”
Derek blushed. “I have trouble sleeping without your smell.”
“But… I mean, surely you go out of town for work and stuff.” Stiles’ childhood was full of sleep-overs with Scott when he was little then alone at home when he was older because his dad had to go out of town.
“Yeah, sometimes… but we always talk on the phone or Skype, plus I know when I get home… just, this is different.”
Stiles swallowed. “Yeah, okay. Fair enough.”
In the ensuing awkward silence, Stiles took a closer look at Derek. He could see tired, now that he looked for it. He could see frustration, too. He felt bad about that. Derek didn’t deserve this.
“So…” Stiles snatched up Derek’s plate and took it over to the sink. “I was thinking of talking to Deaton, see if he has any ideas how this happened and how to fix it.”
“I hope you have a Ouija board, then.”
“Huh?”
“Deaton died three years ago.”
“How?”
Derek sat back down in his chair, rubbing his hands over his face. “There was a situation with a harpy that got messy. Deaton was killed. And you… you got pretty torn up.”
“Is that where I got this scar?” Stiles rubbed at his chest with the heel of his hand.
Derek nodded, face grim. His expression spoke volumes.
“I’m guessing it was bad.”
“Bitch ripped right down to your ribcage. When I found you, I thought you were dead. There was so much blood. They had to stitch your muscles back together. You had to do physical therapy for months.” Derek looked kind of ill at the memory.
“Damn. Well, it turned out okay. I mean, I’m still alive.” He pondered a moment. “What story do we use with people for how I got hurt?”
“Car accident. Because the Jeep was totaled, just not at the same time you got hurt. They both happened on the same night, though, so people bought it without question. The Jeep got hauled to the scrap yard, you got hauled to the emergency room,” Derek held up both hands like he was weighing the one against the other.
“Ah, man! My Jeep? Damn… I was hoping she was just in storage somewhere.”
“No such luck. But I gave you the Camaro, so you got over it pretty fast. Worked as an incentive to make you do your PT, too.”
Stiles whistled. “Nice. Do I want to know what happened to the Camaro?”
“Nothing horrific. We traded it in for the Honda earlier this year.”
“Lame,” Stiles sing-songed.
Derek laughed. “The Honda’s practical.”
“So is fiber. That doesn’t make it fun.”
Derek shook his head with a chuckle.
Stiles opened his mouth to ask about the house, about how long they’d lived there, but stopped short when he realized those questions would lead to the conversation about when they started living together. About when they got married.
He wasn’t up for that yet.
“So if Deaton’s dead, who’s your emissary?”
That wiped the smile off Derek’s face. “There isn’t one.”
“But… I thought all packs had one.”
“What pack?” Derek snarled.
Oh… wow, he’d stepped in something there. Stiles blinked at Derek, taken aback by the bitterness in his voice. He’d been so nice lately that Stiles almost forgot how broody he could get, but nope, there it was. Sourwolf at his finest. It was kind of comforting to see that growly, grumpy side of Derek. That Stiles knew.
That still left the problem of how he was going to get to the bottom of this mirror universe. “Okay… well, then who do we go to for answers when something hinky happens?”
“Between you and Lydia, we usually do okay.”
Well, great. Stiles was the one who was supposed to have all the answers? Or at least a clue? Talk about fucked seven ways from Sunday. “Okay, that’s a problem.” Stiles drummed his knuckles on the counter. “I’ll call Lydia, then.”
“Don’t -” Derek started, then he bit back his next words. Clearly rephrased them. “Let me talk to Lydia.”
“Fine, whatever.” Stiles narrowed a look at Derek. He looked twitchy all of a sudden. Were they on the outs with Lydia or something? If so, Stiles having a big chunk of missing time would probably clomp his clumsy ass all over whatever had them tip-toeing around Lydia. So yes, fine, let Derek who wasn’t missing the last seven years talk to her. Whatever they had to do to get some answers.
At least he had his laptop. He could do what he’d always done. Scour the internet for clues.
“I should get going,” Derek said wearily as he stood.
“Yeah, sure. Look, I’m…” When Derek turned toward him, Stiles rambled, “I feel like I should apologize, though I’m not really sure what I’m sorry for. For not being your Stiles, I guess?” That sounded stupid, but it was true.
Derek stilled and looked intently at Stiles. There was something frighteningly tender in his gaze. “You are my Stiles. We’ll get your memories back somehow, I promise.”
If only it were that easy. Because Stiles kind of thought he wouldn’t mind this life. It was not at all what he expected, but it didn’t seem so terrible, either.
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