There is More than One of Everything
Title: There is More than One of Everything
Author: pyjamagurl
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Derek/Stiles
Word Count: 2860
Disclaimer: Completely not mine.
Warnings: None
Author's note: This is a sequel to entangled_now's fic Echoes and was written both with her permission and collaboration.
Summary: Scott's supposed to meet him after his shift at the vets so they can study together...
Scott’s supposed to meet him after his shift at the vets so they can study together. Differential equations aren’t Scott’s friend. But he doesn’t show up at seven like they’d planned, so Stiles assumes that he got held up and goes to raid the fridge for something for dinner, and then heads back upstairs to do more reading. Midterms are a bitch, but a necessity.
He texts Scott at half past seven, telling him to hurry up, and then falls asleep somewhere around the third page of his textbook after reading the same paragraph four times.
He wakes with a start to find his computer screen has gone to sleep, and his book is stuck to his face. He peels the page away from his face as he sits up, frowning at his chemistry notes; hadn’t he been reading about Stalin before he fell asleep?
He checks his phone. Still nothing from Scott. There’s a couple from Derek though, but he ignores those, Derek’s texts tend to be the boring kind that remind him to keep an eye on Scott, or ask if Scott is aware of their next bout impending doom. There’s also a text from Laura, and he doesn’t think he knows a Laura so he ignores that too. He fires another text of did you forget? then spins around on his computer chair, working at a kink in his neck, eyes stopping on the Slow Kids at Play poster on the wall. Hadn’t he put that on the other wall last week? His phone buzzes.
Did I forget what?
Stiles frowns. Studying? He waits a second and then sends; Did you ditch me for Allison again? He doesn’t have to wait long for a reply.
Who’s Allison?
What? Stiles scrubs a hand over his bristly hair. Has he woken up in an alternate universe or something, because at the moment things feel distinctly weird. Perhaps he’s still dreaming.
I’m with Lydia comes the next text, and okay, yeah something is definitely going on. There’s a niggle of hurt unfurling in his chest, because for all that Stiles is slowly accepting that he and Lydia are never going to happen, there’s still a part of him that loves her, that has loved her since he was nine. And even though they don’t talk about it, Scott knows that.
Doesn’t Jackson mind? Stiles bounces his knee as he waits for a reply, holding the phone too tightly in his hand. He’s starting to get worried, too much doesn’t feel right, and he can’t work out why.
Why would Jackson mind?
Yeah, something is definitely wrong. Heart beating so loudly his pulse is thumping in his ears, he scrolls through his cell back up to Derek’s texts, and those aren’t making any sense either, too familiar, too worried. And the one from Laura says give him a break, he’s trying. Which what?
The doorbell rings, and Stiles looks up in confusion, he doesn’t think he’s heard their doorbell ring in years. Everyone he knows either tends to have keys, walk right in or jump through a window. It rings again as he raises himself from his seat.
Everything seems the same as he heads downstairs. The same wallpaper, the middle stair still creaks, the same chip in the banister from where Stiles dropped Megatron from the top landing when he was seven. The same pictures of his mom and dad on their wedding day, and another from that summer before his mom got sick sit on the table at the bottom of the stairs.
The doorbell rings again as Stiles reaches out to open the door, and he’s about to snap something about patience, but instead he ends up standing there with his mouth hanging open.
Derek Hale is standing on his doorstep. Derek Hale whose face lights up a bit when he lays eyes on him, whole face softer than Stiles has ever seen. It takes him a moment to realise the lack of black clothing too. Derek is wearing a dark green hoodie and dark blue jeans and he looks younger and more relaxed. Even his hair is less spiky and angry looking. It scares the hell out of him.
‘Uh, what are you doing here?’ Stiles asks. ‘Normally you use the window.’
‘I er, thought you’d appreciate the gesture,’ Derek says, looking like he’s fidgeting as he shifts his weight from one foot to another. Is Derek nervous? ‘We were meant to meet twenty minutes ago, I tried calling you.’
‘Yeah… I-why?’ Stiles says. Derek doesn’t reply immediately, he takes a step forward, leaning too close into Stiles’ personal space, so close that it really looks like Derek is about to kiss him or grab his hand, or something else weirdly intimate. And whoa, no. Stiles raises a hand to Derek’s shoulder, holding him away. Derek pulls back, looking confused, like Stiles is the one behaving oddly.
‘Look, I’m sorry about how I reacted,’ Derek says. ‘I get it, okay, Laura ranted at me for half an hour about going easy on you and giving you a break. I know we… I know this is a lot, okay. I know you’re worried about what the Sheriff will say.’
‘Laura?’ Stiles echoes. Everything about what Derek has said makes no sense, none of it, he has no context to put it in, though clearly there’s something going on here, and Stiles is sure he’s still dreaming. He has to be, it’s the only explanation. It’s the only way Laura Hale can possibly be in this conversation without a look of pain crossing Derek’s features. Laura’s the easiest part of all that to latch onto.
‘Uh huh,’ Derek says, a frown pinches his features, but it’s not like any that Stiles is used to, it’s confused and worried but in an affectionate way that Stiles doesn’t even know how to deal with. ‘She always sides with you.’
‘She does?’ Stiles says, he can feel the edges of a panic attack forming, the familiar bubbling of nausea in the pit of his stomach, his heart beating erratically as he tries to make sense of what Derek is saying.
This isn’t right. Derek is talking like Laura never died, acting like he’s not got the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Scott has never heard of Allison. Things are twisted, different in a huge way that Stiles doesn’t know how to deal with.
He takes deep breaths, cowers away when Derek’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, the look on his face is pure worry, but Stiles pinches his eyes shut and focuses on steadying his breathing.
‘Stiles?’
Stiles’ eyes fly open, his breath stolen from him as he looks up and sees a woman with dark brown hair and eyes the same shade as his own.
‘Mom?’
He doesn’t think. He closes the distance between them, pulling her into a hug and holding on tight. It doesn’t feel right. The last time he hugged her he was ten and he’d been tall enough that he could reach her chest when he hugged her-there’d been machines too, wires he’d had to be careful to avoid pulling out, and he’d had to be careful not to hold so tight she’d bruise-now he’s taller, his mom’s head barely coming to shoulder height. But he holds on and he breathes in and remembers. She doesn’t smell like he remembers either.
‘Honey,’ his mom says, voice muffled by Stiles’ shirt, she’s hugging him back tentatively, like he’s scaring her. ‘Are you okay? Did something happen?’
‘Sheriff,’ Derek’s voice is stiff, and Stiles pulls back to look at Derek-he’s all rigid straight lines and awkward, more the Derek he’s familiar with-and then looks out the door expecting to see his dad wandering in. There’s no one there, he blinks down at his mom instead.
It’s then that he notices the khaki uniform he’s used to seeing on his dad, smaller and neater. The familiar gold star clipped to the pocket of the jacket reading Sheriff, but that’s not right either. She looks older than the pictures that Stiles has of her, than the childlike memories he has hidden away, but healthier and whole in a way he and his dad hadn’t seen for too long.
‘Derek,’ his mom says, but her eyes are on Stiles, wide and worried. The panic attack is building again, his heartbeat too loud in his ears. His dad isn’t the Sheriff, his mom is, so then where is his dad?
‘Where’s dad?’ Stiles hears himself ask, and he barely registers the look of shock and confusion on his mom’s face before her hands are on his face, and she’s rubbing her thumbs soothingly across his cheeks. And he knows. He knows that the opposite of his world is true in this one. His dad isn’t here. ‘No…’
‘Stiles-’
‘No,’ Stiles says more firmly. Her face is a blur as he pulls back and away, pushes past Derek as he stumbles towards the stairs. He ignores his mom calling his name and their worried looks and flees to the bathroom, slamming the door and sitting down on the edge of the tub. He puts his head between his knees and tries to remember how to breathe.
His hands are shaking where they are resting on the back of his head, the tears that seep from his eyes drip onto the knees of his cargo pants, and he runs a quivering hand over his face. His dad isn’t here, that means his dad is stuck somewhere else without him and is probably worried sick. This isn’t right at all. He’s wished his mom never died a hundred million times, but this isn’t what he wanted. He can’t imagine a life where his mom survived and his dad didn’t.
He pinches his arm hard, praying this is a dream, but all it does is hurt and when he opens his eyes it’s the same familiar but unfamiliar bathroom that he’s sitting in. Bizarro world it is then.
He has no idea how long he sits there before there’s a soft knock on the door, but he ignores it. He scrubs at his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie, and tries to wrack his brain as to how he got here, where here. is and how he can possibly get home to his dad. It’s not much comfort that there must be another Stiles, a Stiles that belongs to Derek and his mom, a Stiles that’s going to look at his dad the way he looked at his mom.
‘Stiles,’ Derek’s voice carries through the door, soft and careful. He knocks again and then tries the door; it swings open enough that Derek can peer around at him. ‘Something’s going on, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ Stiles says croakily, swallowing thickly as he rubs a hand over his mouth. ‘This isn’t… this isn’t-’ he wants to say “right” but that’s not the word he’s looking for, not when Derek is looking at him like someone has stolen something important to him. Because someone has, this Derek has a sister and probably has friends; this Derek doesn’t know loss like the Stiles Derek knows, he can tell by how he holds himself. This Derek knows a Stiles who might love him, and lost his father instead of his mother. ‘Mine.’
Derek cautiously takes a step further into the room, closing the door behind him before he steps towards the tub and sits a foot or so away from Stiles. Stiles knows he’s holding himself back, can tell by the awkward way he doesn’t know what to do with his hands before he settles them on his knees. He’s still frowning like he doesn’t understand, like he’s missing some grand piece of the puzzle that Stiles has already put together.
‘Did you… did you hit your head?’ Derek asks. He reaches out a hand to Stiles’ shoulder like he can’t help himself, the touch gentle but strong, intended to ground Stiles but when Stiles looks at it he feels scared, this isn’t meant for him.
‘No,’ Stiles says, he stands up, ignoring the hurt look on Derek’s face as he begins pacing across the bathroom. ‘Look, I was studying, I fell asleep and when I woke up everything was different.’
‘Different?’ Derek asks quietly, Stiles can practically see the cogs in his brain working as he tries to make sense of what Stiles is saying.
‘Yes, different,’ Stiles says, frustrated, waving a hand in the air. ‘My mom’s alive, my dad’s dead, Scott’s never heard of Allison-don’t,’ he says when Derek looks confused at the mention, ‘And you… I don’t even know where to begin. You’re still a werewolf, right?’
‘Uh huh,’ Derek says slowly.
‘And your sister’s alive.’
‘Why wouldn’t Laura be alive?’ Derek asks.
‘Because in my world she’s dead,’ Stiles says clenching his jaw when Derek looks at him in bemusement.
‘I think we need to talk to my parents,’ Derek says, confused. Stiles stares at him, Derek’s parents are still alive. He feels something uncomfortably leaden settle in his stomach.
‘Oh god your parents are alive too,’ Stiles says before he can stop himself. Derek looks alarmed and stands up, carefully putting his hands on Stiles’ arms and drawing him to a stop. He doesn’t think he can do this, this Derek is so untainted, undamaged, and unburdened that he’s almost unrecognisable.
‘Stiles,’ Derek says. ‘It’s okay. We’ll go to the house, and you can tell them what happened.’
‘Derek, I don’t-’
‘They can fix this,’ Derek says. ‘They can find a way.’
‘We don’t know what this is,’ Stiles says, feeling angry when he meets Derek’s gaze and there’s not answering anger there, just fear and affection and concern.
‘They know things,’ Derek says in a voice intended to be soothing. ‘Maybe this is a spell like the one those witches did to Jackson last summer.’
‘This isn’t a spell, Derek!’ Stiles shouts, pulling away from Derek’s hold, putting as many feet between them as the bathroom will allow.
‘You can’t know that,’ Derek says.
‘My life isn’t a lie,’ Stiles says, hunching his shoulders. ‘Your life isn’t a lie either… I need to get home.’
‘You think…’ Derek frowns and goes quiet, his whole body radiating unhappiness as he processes everything Stiles has said. His jaw is bunched, his eyebrows pulled together, for a brief moment he looks like the Derek Stiles knows, and Stiles’ heart clenches in his chest. He doesn’t want to be the one who puts that look there. ‘You think you come from another reality?’
‘Yes,’ Stiles says. ‘I know it sounds like something from a TV show, but trust me-’
‘I do,’ Derek says quickly, and Stiles meets his eye. His mouth goes a bit dry because this is a Derek that trusts people, that trusts him. It doesn’t feel right to have not earned it somehow.
‘So I don’t know how I got here, but this isn’t where I’m from,’ Stiles says, biting his lip as he looks away again. ‘It’s like… like a mirror, distorted, some things are the same but things are different too. I have… I have people I have to get back to.’
‘And I need my Stiles back,’ Derek says, and when Stiles looks around at him in surprise it is to Derek looking a lot more determined and sure than he has in the last ten minutes. ‘So we go and talk to my mom and dad and Laura, and we figure this out, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Stiles says.
‘You probably want to get back to your Derek too,’ Derek says, brushing past Stiles as he moves to open the bathroom door. He pauses to let Stiles pass him. The look on his face is open and earnest. ‘Right?’
‘Right,’ Stiles says, because it’s easier than explaining that whatever Derek has with Stiles here is something different and more special than anything he’ll ever have. He doesn’t want to think too much at just what that all is. He doesn’t want to think too much about the fact that he does want to get back to his world and his Derek who is angrier and damaged, but fits.
And he doesn’t want to think about the odd hopeful feeling in his chest that is that maybe, maybe if Derek and Stiles got a chance in this world, then perhaps somewhere along the line he and Derek will have something too.
It isn’t a thought he lets himself have often.
More importantly, he needs to get back to his dad, he needs to get back to a world that makes sense even if it is filled with dark things and danger, and life-threatening peril.
He leads the way down the stairs, stopping at the bottom to look at the pictures that stand on the table. He can feel Derek draw up behind him, careful to keep his distance.
‘Can I say goodbye?’
‘Yeah,’ Derek says, the hand that lands on Stiles’ shoulder squeezes lightly. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’
Author: pyjamagurl
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Derek/Stiles
Word Count: 2860
Disclaimer: Completely not mine.
Warnings: None
Author's note: This is a sequel to entangled_now's fic Echoes and was written both with her permission and collaboration.
Summary: Scott's supposed to meet him after his shift at the vets so they can study together...
Scott’s supposed to meet him after his shift at the vets so they can study together. Differential equations aren’t Scott’s friend. But he doesn’t show up at seven like they’d planned, so Stiles assumes that he got held up and goes to raid the fridge for something for dinner, and then heads back upstairs to do more reading. Midterms are a bitch, but a necessity.
He texts Scott at half past seven, telling him to hurry up, and then falls asleep somewhere around the third page of his textbook after reading the same paragraph four times.
He wakes with a start to find his computer screen has gone to sleep, and his book is stuck to his face. He peels the page away from his face as he sits up, frowning at his chemistry notes; hadn’t he been reading about Stalin before he fell asleep?
He checks his phone. Still nothing from Scott. There’s a couple from Derek though, but he ignores those, Derek’s texts tend to be the boring kind that remind him to keep an eye on Scott, or ask if Scott is aware of their next bout impending doom. There’s also a text from Laura, and he doesn’t think he knows a Laura so he ignores that too. He fires another text of did you forget? then spins around on his computer chair, working at a kink in his neck, eyes stopping on the Slow Kids at Play poster on the wall. Hadn’t he put that on the other wall last week? His phone buzzes.
Did I forget what?
Stiles frowns. Studying? He waits a second and then sends; Did you ditch me for Allison again? He doesn’t have to wait long for a reply.
Who’s Allison?
What? Stiles scrubs a hand over his bristly hair. Has he woken up in an alternate universe or something, because at the moment things feel distinctly weird. Perhaps he’s still dreaming.
I’m with Lydia comes the next text, and okay, yeah something is definitely going on. There’s a niggle of hurt unfurling in his chest, because for all that Stiles is slowly accepting that he and Lydia are never going to happen, there’s still a part of him that loves her, that has loved her since he was nine. And even though they don’t talk about it, Scott knows that.
Doesn’t Jackson mind? Stiles bounces his knee as he waits for a reply, holding the phone too tightly in his hand. He’s starting to get worried, too much doesn’t feel right, and he can’t work out why.
Why would Jackson mind?
Yeah, something is definitely wrong. Heart beating so loudly his pulse is thumping in his ears, he scrolls through his cell back up to Derek’s texts, and those aren’t making any sense either, too familiar, too worried. And the one from Laura says give him a break, he’s trying. Which what?
The doorbell rings, and Stiles looks up in confusion, he doesn’t think he’s heard their doorbell ring in years. Everyone he knows either tends to have keys, walk right in or jump through a window. It rings again as he raises himself from his seat.
Everything seems the same as he heads downstairs. The same wallpaper, the middle stair still creaks, the same chip in the banister from where Stiles dropped Megatron from the top landing when he was seven. The same pictures of his mom and dad on their wedding day, and another from that summer before his mom got sick sit on the table at the bottom of the stairs.
The doorbell rings again as Stiles reaches out to open the door, and he’s about to snap something about patience, but instead he ends up standing there with his mouth hanging open.
Derek Hale is standing on his doorstep. Derek Hale whose face lights up a bit when he lays eyes on him, whole face softer than Stiles has ever seen. It takes him a moment to realise the lack of black clothing too. Derek is wearing a dark green hoodie and dark blue jeans and he looks younger and more relaxed. Even his hair is less spiky and angry looking. It scares the hell out of him.
‘Uh, what are you doing here?’ Stiles asks. ‘Normally you use the window.’
‘I er, thought you’d appreciate the gesture,’ Derek says, looking like he’s fidgeting as he shifts his weight from one foot to another. Is Derek nervous? ‘We were meant to meet twenty minutes ago, I tried calling you.’
‘Yeah… I-why?’ Stiles says. Derek doesn’t reply immediately, he takes a step forward, leaning too close into Stiles’ personal space, so close that it really looks like Derek is about to kiss him or grab his hand, or something else weirdly intimate. And whoa, no. Stiles raises a hand to Derek’s shoulder, holding him away. Derek pulls back, looking confused, like Stiles is the one behaving oddly.
‘Look, I’m sorry about how I reacted,’ Derek says. ‘I get it, okay, Laura ranted at me for half an hour about going easy on you and giving you a break. I know we… I know this is a lot, okay. I know you’re worried about what the Sheriff will say.’
‘Laura?’ Stiles echoes. Everything about what Derek has said makes no sense, none of it, he has no context to put it in, though clearly there’s something going on here, and Stiles is sure he’s still dreaming. He has to be, it’s the only explanation. It’s the only way Laura Hale can possibly be in this conversation without a look of pain crossing Derek’s features. Laura’s the easiest part of all that to latch onto.
‘Uh huh,’ Derek says, a frown pinches his features, but it’s not like any that Stiles is used to, it’s confused and worried but in an affectionate way that Stiles doesn’t even know how to deal with. ‘She always sides with you.’
‘She does?’ Stiles says, he can feel the edges of a panic attack forming, the familiar bubbling of nausea in the pit of his stomach, his heart beating erratically as he tries to make sense of what Derek is saying.
This isn’t right. Derek is talking like Laura never died, acting like he’s not got the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Scott has never heard of Allison. Things are twisted, different in a huge way that Stiles doesn’t know how to deal with.
He takes deep breaths, cowers away when Derek’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, the look on his face is pure worry, but Stiles pinches his eyes shut and focuses on steadying his breathing.
‘Stiles?’
Stiles’ eyes fly open, his breath stolen from him as he looks up and sees a woman with dark brown hair and eyes the same shade as his own.
‘Mom?’
He doesn’t think. He closes the distance between them, pulling her into a hug and holding on tight. It doesn’t feel right. The last time he hugged her he was ten and he’d been tall enough that he could reach her chest when he hugged her-there’d been machines too, wires he’d had to be careful to avoid pulling out, and he’d had to be careful not to hold so tight she’d bruise-now he’s taller, his mom’s head barely coming to shoulder height. But he holds on and he breathes in and remembers. She doesn’t smell like he remembers either.
‘Honey,’ his mom says, voice muffled by Stiles’ shirt, she’s hugging him back tentatively, like he’s scaring her. ‘Are you okay? Did something happen?’
‘Sheriff,’ Derek’s voice is stiff, and Stiles pulls back to look at Derek-he’s all rigid straight lines and awkward, more the Derek he’s familiar with-and then looks out the door expecting to see his dad wandering in. There’s no one there, he blinks down at his mom instead.
It’s then that he notices the khaki uniform he’s used to seeing on his dad, smaller and neater. The familiar gold star clipped to the pocket of the jacket reading Sheriff, but that’s not right either. She looks older than the pictures that Stiles has of her, than the childlike memories he has hidden away, but healthier and whole in a way he and his dad hadn’t seen for too long.
‘Derek,’ his mom says, but her eyes are on Stiles, wide and worried. The panic attack is building again, his heartbeat too loud in his ears. His dad isn’t the Sheriff, his mom is, so then where is his dad?
‘Where’s dad?’ Stiles hears himself ask, and he barely registers the look of shock and confusion on his mom’s face before her hands are on his face, and she’s rubbing her thumbs soothingly across his cheeks. And he knows. He knows that the opposite of his world is true in this one. His dad isn’t here. ‘No…’
‘Stiles-’
‘No,’ Stiles says more firmly. Her face is a blur as he pulls back and away, pushes past Derek as he stumbles towards the stairs. He ignores his mom calling his name and their worried looks and flees to the bathroom, slamming the door and sitting down on the edge of the tub. He puts his head between his knees and tries to remember how to breathe.
His hands are shaking where they are resting on the back of his head, the tears that seep from his eyes drip onto the knees of his cargo pants, and he runs a quivering hand over his face. His dad isn’t here, that means his dad is stuck somewhere else without him and is probably worried sick. This isn’t right at all. He’s wished his mom never died a hundred million times, but this isn’t what he wanted. He can’t imagine a life where his mom survived and his dad didn’t.
He pinches his arm hard, praying this is a dream, but all it does is hurt and when he opens his eyes it’s the same familiar but unfamiliar bathroom that he’s sitting in. Bizarro world it is then.
He has no idea how long he sits there before there’s a soft knock on the door, but he ignores it. He scrubs at his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie, and tries to wrack his brain as to how he got here, where here. is and how he can possibly get home to his dad. It’s not much comfort that there must be another Stiles, a Stiles that belongs to Derek and his mom, a Stiles that’s going to look at his dad the way he looked at his mom.
‘Stiles,’ Derek’s voice carries through the door, soft and careful. He knocks again and then tries the door; it swings open enough that Derek can peer around at him. ‘Something’s going on, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ Stiles says croakily, swallowing thickly as he rubs a hand over his mouth. ‘This isn’t… this isn’t-’ he wants to say “right” but that’s not the word he’s looking for, not when Derek is looking at him like someone has stolen something important to him. Because someone has, this Derek has a sister and probably has friends; this Derek doesn’t know loss like the Stiles Derek knows, he can tell by how he holds himself. This Derek knows a Stiles who might love him, and lost his father instead of his mother. ‘Mine.’
Derek cautiously takes a step further into the room, closing the door behind him before he steps towards the tub and sits a foot or so away from Stiles. Stiles knows he’s holding himself back, can tell by the awkward way he doesn’t know what to do with his hands before he settles them on his knees. He’s still frowning like he doesn’t understand, like he’s missing some grand piece of the puzzle that Stiles has already put together.
‘Did you… did you hit your head?’ Derek asks. He reaches out a hand to Stiles’ shoulder like he can’t help himself, the touch gentle but strong, intended to ground Stiles but when Stiles looks at it he feels scared, this isn’t meant for him.
‘No,’ Stiles says, he stands up, ignoring the hurt look on Derek’s face as he begins pacing across the bathroom. ‘Look, I was studying, I fell asleep and when I woke up everything was different.’
‘Different?’ Derek asks quietly, Stiles can practically see the cogs in his brain working as he tries to make sense of what Stiles is saying.
‘Yes, different,’ Stiles says, frustrated, waving a hand in the air. ‘My mom’s alive, my dad’s dead, Scott’s never heard of Allison-don’t,’ he says when Derek looks confused at the mention, ‘And you… I don’t even know where to begin. You’re still a werewolf, right?’
‘Uh huh,’ Derek says slowly.
‘And your sister’s alive.’
‘Why wouldn’t Laura be alive?’ Derek asks.
‘Because in my world she’s dead,’ Stiles says clenching his jaw when Derek looks at him in bemusement.
‘I think we need to talk to my parents,’ Derek says, confused. Stiles stares at him, Derek’s parents are still alive. He feels something uncomfortably leaden settle in his stomach.
‘Oh god your parents are alive too,’ Stiles says before he can stop himself. Derek looks alarmed and stands up, carefully putting his hands on Stiles’ arms and drawing him to a stop. He doesn’t think he can do this, this Derek is so untainted, undamaged, and unburdened that he’s almost unrecognisable.
‘Stiles,’ Derek says. ‘It’s okay. We’ll go to the house, and you can tell them what happened.’
‘Derek, I don’t-’
‘They can fix this,’ Derek says. ‘They can find a way.’
‘We don’t know what this is,’ Stiles says, feeling angry when he meets Derek’s gaze and there’s not answering anger there, just fear and affection and concern.
‘They know things,’ Derek says in a voice intended to be soothing. ‘Maybe this is a spell like the one those witches did to Jackson last summer.’
‘This isn’t a spell, Derek!’ Stiles shouts, pulling away from Derek’s hold, putting as many feet between them as the bathroom will allow.
‘You can’t know that,’ Derek says.
‘My life isn’t a lie,’ Stiles says, hunching his shoulders. ‘Your life isn’t a lie either… I need to get home.’
‘You think…’ Derek frowns and goes quiet, his whole body radiating unhappiness as he processes everything Stiles has said. His jaw is bunched, his eyebrows pulled together, for a brief moment he looks like the Derek Stiles knows, and Stiles’ heart clenches in his chest. He doesn’t want to be the one who puts that look there. ‘You think you come from another reality?’
‘Yes,’ Stiles says. ‘I know it sounds like something from a TV show, but trust me-’
‘I do,’ Derek says quickly, and Stiles meets his eye. His mouth goes a bit dry because this is a Derek that trusts people, that trusts him. It doesn’t feel right to have not earned it somehow.
‘So I don’t know how I got here, but this isn’t where I’m from,’ Stiles says, biting his lip as he looks away again. ‘It’s like… like a mirror, distorted, some things are the same but things are different too. I have… I have people I have to get back to.’
‘And I need my Stiles back,’ Derek says, and when Stiles looks around at him in surprise it is to Derek looking a lot more determined and sure than he has in the last ten minutes. ‘So we go and talk to my mom and dad and Laura, and we figure this out, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Stiles says.
‘You probably want to get back to your Derek too,’ Derek says, brushing past Stiles as he moves to open the bathroom door. He pauses to let Stiles pass him. The look on his face is open and earnest. ‘Right?’
‘Right,’ Stiles says, because it’s easier than explaining that whatever Derek has with Stiles here is something different and more special than anything he’ll ever have. He doesn’t want to think too much at just what that all is. He doesn’t want to think too much about the fact that he does want to get back to his world and his Derek who is angrier and damaged, but fits.
And he doesn’t want to think about the odd hopeful feeling in his chest that is that maybe, maybe if Derek and Stiles got a chance in this world, then perhaps somewhere along the line he and Derek will have something too.
It isn’t a thought he lets himself have often.
More importantly, he needs to get back to his dad, he needs to get back to a world that makes sense even if it is filled with dark things and danger, and life-threatening peril.
He leads the way down the stairs, stopping at the bottom to look at the pictures that stand on the table. He can feel Derek draw up behind him, careful to keep his distance.
‘Can I say goodbye?’
‘Yeah,’ Derek says, the hand that lands on Stiles’ shoulder squeezes lightly. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’