yodas-yo-yo:

So, I kind of merged two prompts here! @rieraclaelin, thanks for this prompt and your kind words! I didn’t use the exact dialogue, because I couldn’t quite make it fit the story, but I used the essence of it! I hope that’s okay. 

Also the lovely @faladrast sent me a link to an awesome banner  that they’d made, and asked if it would inspire any fic. So this fic was written off the back of  these two prompts 😀 

This is a little bit of post-nogitsune hurt/comfort for you all with Derek taking care of Stiles.
–

It’s been six weeks since the Nogitsune was defeated. Six weeks with Stiles wrung out, every nerve scraped thin. Not eating. Not really speaking. Distant from Scott and his dad, unable to look Lydia in the eye, absent from pack meetings. Feeling less a person, and more a tightly wound collection of guilt and anxiety existing in an increasingly sleep-deprived skin.

He doesn’t really know how he’s going to keep going.

Then, at the start of the sixth week Stiles startles from the beginnings of a nightmare to find a wolf in his bed.

He’d been in that twilight of not quite awake that he seemed to inhabit so easily these days. Never fully sleeping, never quite able to allow himself to give up that much control. He dozed lightly if he slept at all.

In his dreams he saw Allison again. Her blank staring eyes. Her face pale and still. When he jolts awake he’s sweating, heart pounding. He doesn’t scream though; he’s long past the point of calling out for help.  

Sitting up in bed, with nothing but the red glow from his digital alarm clock lighting the room, he feels the weight of the wolf on his legs before he sees it. But as his eyes grow accustomed to the dim light he can make it out. It’s big and black, it’s fur thick, claws wickedly sharp. It’s curled over his feet and legs, tail tucked under its nose, a warm, heavy weight.

Still Stiles doesn’t scream.

Doesn’t make a sound.

Just slowly reaches out a hand, heart still hammering in his chest, and sinks his fingers into the thick ruff of fur at its neck.

It opens its eyes and looks at him steadily, and Stiles looks back. Then, as he watches, it leans into his touch and closes its eyes.

It’s tail thumps once. Twice. Three times. Then it stills.

“Huh.” Stiles murmurs. “This is new.”

He fusses it a while, feels his heartbeat start to slow. That pressure in his chest start to ease. When he finally drifts back into that state of half sleep again, he’s aware of the wolf lying across his legs, anchoring him to the bed.

For once he doesn’t dream.

–

This is Stiles’ life since the Nogitsune: No sleep. Limited food. Body in a constant state of exhaustion. Mind in a constant state of vigilance.

He can’t let his guard down.

Not even for a second.

The last time he did something snuck into his dreams and took away his control. His choices. Took every callous word or thought he’d ever said or had and turned them into blood-soaked reality. Up until that point he thought actions were what mattered. That as long as you did the right thing what you said, what you thought, didn’t matter.

Now he’s careful. Second guessing himself at every turn.

Now he’s quiet, because he knows there are demons out there listening, waiting for an opportunity to exploit any sign of weakness.

He can’t be weak. Can’t allow himself any vulnerability.

And sleep? Sleep makes him vulnerable. One of many vulnerabilities his possession had exposed.

Up until the Nogitsune he’d considered himself to be a safe pair of hands. Steady. Loyal. Keeping a watch over Scott and the pack.

Now Stiles spends his nights trying to keep a watch on his own mind.

Who watches the watchmen?

Stiles has learned the hard way that it’s nobody good. 

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