Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/552650.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Derek_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski
  Character:
      Derek_Hale, Stiles_Stilinski
  Additional Tags:
      Lovely_Bones_AU, Necrophilia, Paedophilia, Afterlife, Self-blaming,
      Bittersweet_Ending
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-11-02 Words: 6783
****** The memory of you emerges from the night around me. ******
by Rou_en
Summary
     Stiles thinks if Peter had never happened. If Peter hadn’t forced
     Stiles down onto the earth and pinned him there. But Peter had
     happened. And all he and Derek had left was a single kiss.
     (Stiles was fifteen when he was raped and killed in the fall.)
Notes
See the end of the work for notes
The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
~
It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.
- Pablo Neruda, “A Song of Despair”
~
 
His name was Stiles Stilinski.
(Stiles wasn’t his real first name, it just sounded better.)
He had been a student at Beacon Hills High, smart, could move up a grade or two
but refused to, and was always a loudmouth. He had a caring father, a loving
but deceased mother, a close friend with asthma, and a maybe-boyfriend-now
frenemy.
Stiles was fifteen when he was raped and killed in the fall.
 
*
 
There is everything to do and nothing to do in Limbo.
If Stiles wanted he could craft worlds for himself as he waited to ‘find peace
and ascend’. (It wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.) He could rebuild his home
from mind, brick by brick, down to the stain on the kitchen ceiling from Dad
and his attempt at making a Mother’s Day gift involved morning breakfast in bed
and two kitchen-blind men. He could have everything he wants, from the XBox his
dad had been balking to get him for Christmas to old Fluffy (his missing plush
wolf).
Whatever he could think of, so shall it appear.
Every other kid in Limbo does that.
Fill up the endless stretching landscape of grey and woods with relics and old
color.
Stiles? He cannot bring himself to replace it with meaningless objects and
cheap imitations.
Because no matter how much he wants, no matter how much he feels thinks
believes — he can’t replace or replicate the people he wants to see into Limbo.
So he doesn’t bother.
Just lies huddled under a blanket fort — like the ones he used to make during
sleepovers with Scott, and the only thing he’ll pull back from his life to this
goddamn place — and remembers.
He thinks about his dad, how devastated he must be that Stiles is missing. As
Sheriff he would know. Know all the implications of Stiles’ disappearance, and
has likely came to the correct conclusion about what happened to his son. His
dad will hate himself for knowing. For being unable to protect his son. From
being unable to do his duty and prevent tragedy, even one so literally close to
home. Knows that this will break him, to lose Stiles after he had already lost
his wife.
He thinks about Scott, his best friend and brother from another life. Wonders
how Scott is going to handle nerding without him. How Scott is going to woo
Allison (new girl he’s drooling over) without Stiles’ help as wingman. Scott
who’s going to be teary-eyed and puppy-dog-sad and Stiles won’t be there to
help him get over it with gaming and junk food because this time Stiles will be
the cause.
Stiles also thinks about Derek.
(Stiles thinks about Derek a lot in Limbo.)
Derek who Stiles had had one of the most sexual-frustration-charged, hate/love
frenemy relationships never before seen in the history of forever at Beacon
Hills.
Derek who was the biggest oxymoron in history, one minute the most aloof
sourwolf in the world, and the next the sweetest and most considerate person
Stiles has ever known. Derek who tried to be tough, but was actually a big
softie. How Kate Argent, grade A vapid bitch, could trample on Derek’s poor
sparkly heart will always be a mystery to Stiles.
Derek, who Stiles had kissed in the school swimming pool the noon of the day he
was murdered.
He remembers the way their lips had just melded during that kiss. How Derek had
felt warm and reassuring as he held both of them up, treading water and holding
onto Stiles’ waist like he never wanted to let go.
He sometimes thinks he can still feel the chapped softness against his own
lips, warm puffs of breath, and the smell of forest pine and fresh earth and
forest that surrounds Derek and his home.
Always too soon, that sensation will disappear, and Stiles will be left with
only desperate memories.
Over the horizon he can see Lydia pacing furiously and glancing at his huddled
form, as if by glaring hard enough she could make him come out from his hiding
place and actually face the fact that Stiles is stone-cold dead.
But he can’t leave. Not yet.
He doesn’t think he has the strength to.
 
*
 
When he first came (and had yet gone into shock about the fact he was dead)
Lydia showed him that he could look through the pagoda, across the side where
the sun always stays in its muted golden glory, and see the outside world, see
Beacon Hills and his family.
Stiles has not yet stopped looking.
He stalks and sees his dad become increasingly desperate to find him, the
police force who are like a second set of aunts and uncles to him questioning
and double questioning everyone if they had seen Stiles that day.
(No one had, because his shortcut went right through the woods from the school.
There’s no one there, and he should have known there was something fishy with
Peter being out there, looking oh-so amiable-like.)
He watches as their threadbare hopes crash and burn, when the search team finds
his torn and broken belongings in the woods without him.
His father turns to the whiskey and curls up sobbing on Stiles’ bed every
night. Scott doesn’t just mope. He wallows everywhere he goes, leaking gloom at
every single possible corner.
Derek. Derek is the exact opposite.
Where it’s an outpour of emotions from Dad and Scott, Derek shuts down
completely.
Turns into a freaking zombie. Barely eats to live, barely speaks, barely even
twitches beyond robotically going to school and back home. He doesn't
communicate anymore, shuts down and out everyone, even his family.
It is as if Derek’s emotions had died with Stiles.
At least his dad doesn’t label Derek as a suspect like all those horrid cop
flicks. There’s enough witnesses in the swim team that Derek stayed back and
Stiles left first.
Enough proof that Derek had left Stiles alone to walk to his death (or so Derek
thinks).
All Derek does do now is go to a clearing in the woods every day after school,
where he and Stiles had buried a time capsule filled with their favorite
childhood toys and a lock of each of their hair. Back during Derek’s first year
of high school and Stiles’ second year at middle, when they had just
transitioned from cordial rivals to slightly-more-than-friends-but-not-going-
there.
There the dam bursts. There he howls like a wolf, distraught, desolate, aching.
As if his heart was smashed beyond repair.
Each howl and sob racks through Stiles and stabs him equally.
All Stiles can do is keep watching and screaming “Peter did it! It’s Peter!”
Stiles howls like Derek does, all pain and desperation.
There’s no one besides Stiles who hears him.
 
*
 
Stiles thinks that if Peter had never happened.
Had never caught him walking through the woods on the shortcut back to his
house. If Stiles hadn’t let his guard down long enough for Peter to grab and
pull him into that subterranean mockery of a lovers’ den. If Peter hadn’t
forced Stiles down onto the earth and pinned him there, ripped at his favorite
shirt and filthily licked through every inch of Stiles’ mouth. If Peter hadn’t
bit, licked, sucked up and down every inch of him like he was succulent prey
just right for the taking.
If Peter hadn’t held Stiles down as he cried and struggled against the
oppressive weight of the man’s hands and body, as Peter slowly slid his hands
down past the band of Stiles’ boxers and bared him to the world. If Peter had
stopped tearing Stiles apart from the inside with his fingers and later his
brutal cock, lancing pain and sick sick pleasure up and down Stiles, racking
sobs and shivers, painful gasps and moans from him like he was wrangling a bird
for its final song.
If Peter had just never happened.
Stiles think he would have had all the things Peter did to him with Derek.
With Derek it would have been the most sweetest romantic sentimental thing he
did for their first time. They would have gone to the woods under the stars,
probably on a patch of mildewy but soft grass that they always like to roll in
after they tired from practising lacrosse. Derek’s touch would have been true
reverence, not like Peter’s perverse worship.
It would have been the most goddamn perfect thing in the world.
But Peter had happened.
There is going to be nothing more with Derek. Peter has wrecked him, and then
made sure no one else could have him.
All they had (all Stiles had) now is a single stolen kiss.
 
*
 
No one celebrates Thanksgiving.
His dad, Scott and Derek hold a candlelight vigil on his birthday that ended up
with his crying in his untouched bedroom and illegal underaged drunkedness.
Christmas is filled with more tears and burnt turkey.
Stiles can only watch as the people he loves try to stay strong.
He thinks even old Mrs Taylor down the road can tell they’re failing miserably.
 
*
 
Stiles knew from the dark light he sees in Peter’s eyes that the freak was
never going to let him go. Not ever. Not alive.
But when Peter asked Stiles again on the third day after he’s done having his
way, in that deceptively soft and calming voice of his, “Do you love me?”
Stiles answered anyways.
“Yes,” he whispered. Stiles voice had cracked with the exertion, hoarse from
crying and screaming and not saying a coherent word for so long.
He knew subconsciously, what Peter was going to do next. His dad’s a cop, so of
course he’s read up all about psychopaths and murderers. How twisted their
minds are and how normal they can pretend to be before they pull a Saw act on
you.
He still didn’t expect having his throat ripped out from him to be so fucking
painful.
Peter had watched, sated and basking as Stiles choked on his own blood, as he
gurgled to the end of his heart beating and his brain dying. He had leaned
down, covering Stiles with his horrid heat and mouthing so closely to Stiles’
ear, his right hand on Stiles’ wrist as if to catch the last few pulses of his
heart, his left cradling Stiles’ mangled throat affectionately.
The whisper of 'No one else is ever going to touch you' chased Stiles into dark
oblivion, and continues to chase him out of his dreams, screaming back into the
muted yellow tones of Limbo.
 
*
 
It feels like a fever dream on days like this, when Stiles starts to wonder if
maybe he’d made up the whole pool incident with Derek.
(But if he had dreamt up the pool incident, he wouldn’t be dead now, would he?)
Stiles had found Derek by the pool, glaring at the waters as if it had somehow
offended and betrayed him. In a way he guess it has, what with the whole Kate
Argent fiasco. Kate the college girl working part time at Beacon Hills High as
a lifeguard, who Derek had worshiped like the moon and who had subsequently
used and dumped him like a stone before hightailing back to her college and her
boyfriend.
The bitch had even laughed and said it was all good sport.
Most people would think Derek was angry about it.
Stiles could tell from the over-hunched shoulders and unhappy crease of Derek’s
brow that really? Derek was heartbroken.
He sighed and plonked down to sit cross-legged besides Derek’s crouching form.
“So,” he started. “Grumping and crying tears of heartbreak — manly, in your
soul— is done by angrily staring at the swimming pool like some Greek god
reincarnation seeking retribution from the waters that have scorned and wronged
you! So the way to go for emotional therapy, man. I should take note of that.”
Derek scowled harder (if that was possible) at Stiles’ sarcastic joking. Years
ago he may have immediately started off with making to tear Stiles’ throat out
(well not literallly) for his sass, but now he’s used to it.
Knows that it’s how Stiles shows he cares.
“What do you want Stiles?” Derek grouched.
“Are you going to swim again?” Stiles asked.
Derek looked taken aback for a second at the supposed non-sequitur before he
resumed glaring at Stiles like he said something offending (which Stiles always
did, trufax). “Of course I’m going to swim. I’m the captain of the swim team.
Why in the world would I quit?”
Stiles nodded sagely at that. “Good. I was worried that you’d start getting
chicken feet about swimming since you met Kate through it, but I’m glad to see
that vapid bitch doesn’t have a hold on you.”
The glare faltered as Derek tries to process what Stiles had just said. “Ho-
Why- Did you.....call Kate a ‘vapid...’
Stiles waved him off, “Yes yes you heard me. She’s a bi...”
“Why would you call her that?” Derek’s question is cutting and in a few ways
searching. It was Stiles’ turn to frown at that.
“Because she is? Look, if it’s all the same how I feel, dude. She doesn’t know
what she’s missing. I mean, look at you! Well not just the ripping bod, I mean
you’ve got a grade A stellar personality, except you shouldn’t be such a
sourwolf. All the other girls and boys are lining up to kiss that frown of your
face...okay maybe being a sourwolf does help...”
“Stiles.”
And Stiles has never managed to build an immunity to Derek’s tell-me tone.
“Because you deserve better than her.”
“How would you know?”
“I know you like I know the history of the male circumcision. Which is very
well by the way,” Stiles scoffed, and then shifted closer and shoulder bumped
him affectionately. “Dumbass.”
Derek let out a huff that means he’s laughed. Stiles fistpumped in victory.
Inside his mind of course. Mission Distract and Make Derek Happy, meet Success!
“Do you have your phone?” Derek asked suddenly, face serious.
“I don’t,” Stiles said, curious. Did Derek actually forget his phone? Did he
need to call someone? “why-”
Derek had just grinned like a shark and lunged at Stiles, grabbing hold of his
sweatshirt and hauling Stiles into the pool with a thunderous splash.
Stiles choked on chlorine water before resurfacing and spluttering, “Cheat! You
absolute nutter!”
Derek, who was now soaking wet in his shirt and jeans as well, had laughed.
There was an all out splash war that Derek has the upper hand of and laughter
and undulated joy. And Derek was smiling again and not moping about the crazy
Argent bitch, and Stiles is always happy when Derek’s smiling, more so
recently.
Derek dunks Stiles again. Stiles retaliates by pulling him under by his ankle.
They break the water surface at the same time, clutching at each other.
It’s then Stiles noticed how close they are.
Their bodies were molding together, like a puzzle piece that fitted and was
just waiting to be completed. The water was cold around them, but the space
between them was warm with a phantom heat that seemed to come from Derek, that
pulled them even closer together.
Derek’s eyes had been a glinting blue, water reflecting and amplifying them
like they were a beacon.
They were always the same height, so it was easy for them to align in the
water. Hips to hips, chest to chest, mouth to mouth. Lips so close that they
could almost kiss.
And they did.
 
*
 
It is still that phantom warmth, the feeling of slotting together and
belonging, that Stiles holds the closest.
That helps him stay sane.
 
*
 
Unlike the other victims Peter has had before, he doesn’t burn Stiles’ body and
leaves him out in the woods for people to find.
Not like Jackson Whittemore, the first victim at the age of seven back in ‘92.
Not like Isaac Lahey and Erica Reyes in ‘94. Not like Greenberg in ‘95. Not
like Lydia in ‘97.
All of them were found burnt black and recognizable only by their dental
records.
Stiles is Peter’s final stoke. His masterpiece.
The fruit that Peter found when Stiles was eleven and still too young for what
Peter planned to do to him.
Peter preserves him in that underground bunker where he first took Stiles.
Keeps his body with a cooler of dry ice in the bunk and embalming fluid running
through his once-veins. He doesn’t really need it though, as the winter cools
the earth further, and makes it almost impossible for his body to rot.
Stiles doesn’t know whether to be glad at first, that at least he won’t be
returned a charred crisp to his dad.
He is not glad later when Peter fucks his dead body again.
The bastard still does almost every other night on an altar made of earth.
Stiles can feel it all in Limbo.
Peter’s hard grip and savage thrusts make Stiles writhe and squirm and cry out
in horror all over the wooden floor of the pagoda. The pain lances like a
burning rod and crashes through him like a thunderstorm. It chokes him as Peter
shoves his thick cock down Stiles small throat. He feels like vomiting from the
bitter taste and constant phantom feel of cum in his belly, but nothing will
come up from his stomach. It crushes him in waves as the older man uses the
full weight of his thirty-three years to drive himself into Stiles’ now wet and
loose hole. Made easy from now-countless times.
To Stiles though, it’s still the first.
It’s alway too hot, too tight, and bursting in bright flashes of torture.
The brutality breaks Stiles over and over again.
Every time after, he thinks he’ll remain like this; numb, unfeeling, shattered
on the floor. It is like the strength has been leached from him through the
sex. He can’t tell where he begins and ends beyond the cracks in his soul.
He is never certain if he can piece himself back together.
But every time after, he does.
He doesn’t know how not to.
 
*
 
Once during summer, when Scott had been off to summer camp and Stiles had been
left with Derek, they had stuck on the idea of making a time capsule.
Stiles had placed his favorite DC comic cards and a broken piece from his first
baseball trophy. Derek placed his junior league mitt and a wolf whistle he got
from a fair.
Stiles cut a lock of Derek’s hair, and Derek cut a lock of his.
They buried it all together in a small metal lockbox, in a hole they dig in a
glade in the middle of the woods.
Then they had went to get ice creams, dirty and sweaty.
Stiles could still remember how the ice cream had dripped down Derek’s shirt,
and how Derek had wiped away some of the dirt from Stiles’ cheek, skin soft and
warm.
With the time capsule, they had wanted the chance to look back at the things
they had preserved and cherished, and laugh at their youth and rejoice at being
adults.
It’s a reminder now that Stiles will never grow up.
 
*
 
Everything is sullied with Peter. Kisses, touches, love.
Stiles can’t quite remember what it was like feel less dirty.
 
*
 
One winter morning, his dad went into the garage to look for a spare heater.
Inside it was the project that he and Stiles had been working on in the summer.
The blue jeep is sitting there, fully restored after all of his and Dad’s hard
work over the long hot days, replacing broken parts and polishing metal until
the jeep had looked like it was road worthy again. They had had plans to take
it for a spin the weekend of his disappearance and death. But now, there was no
way his dad could get into the jeep, or even consider driving it.
For his dad, that is all there is left of Stiles.
A haunted object that held every cherish moment, now turned toxic with longing
and desperation and heartbreak.
It is all that is left after Stiles' death.
He watches his dad as if he was watching from inside the jeep, sitting on the
driver’s seat. Watches through the windshield as the man snaps. As if the grief
was a taut string, just attached to the deep-welled rage of loss, and now that
the line has been cut by the memories of happiness in the garage, the rage is
surging up in his dad. Until the only thing left to do is just trash and
destroy.
He flips the work table, crashing screws and throwing car parts. The carburetor
that didn’t fit goes somewhere behind the old cupboard. There’s an old bumper
piece that is kicked halfway across the floor almost through the front. Metal
parts and wooden bits are broken into pieces and scattered across the floor.
His dad lifts up a wrench and surges at the jeep, as if he wants to smash every
window and dent every piece of metal on it.
He surges, but he stops. Red-faced, muscle-screaming, a tense line that shakes
him so hard that Stiles can see it.
But he can’t bring himself to break it. Not the last piece of his son that
still remains with every touch on the damn jeep.
Not all the last happy memories he has of them together.
Stiles watches as he deflates. As he drops the wrench, curls and sobs into his
hands, palms squeezing his eyes as if he could squelch away the pain.
Stiles touches the image of him, wants to get out of the driver’s seat and hug
him. But Stiles now is only a phantom. A ghost with no corporeal form that
would never be able to hold and take away pain with a comforting touch.
His dad stands up again, wipes the tears from his eyes. He looks desolately at
the car. Then he moves closer, hand outstretched to touch the windscreen.
As if by touching the jeep, he’d be touching Stiles.
Dad may or may not see him, but their hands meet. His dad’s fingers have always
been broader than Stiles. And even now they dwarf his skinny digits, casting
them into a light shadow through the glass as their palms flatten and touch
through the glass.
Stiles knows his dad. And this feels like his dad is making Stiles a promise.
The sheriff sighs, and it’s less heartbroken. Like he knows that Stiles is
there.
Like they are connecting even over and through space-time.
“I’ll find you,” he hears his dad whisper, quietly but fiercely, fingers
curling and gripping at the windscreen. Almost as if he was gripping Stiles’
hand. “I’m going to bring you home, son. I promise.”
And his dad has never broken his promises to Stiles. Never. Not even when Mum
was fading.
Stiles cries.
He can’t tell whether it’s in joy, longing or sorrow.
 
*
 
Bit by bit, life does moves on.
His dad still burns for revenge, burns to catch the slimy bastard and find
Stiles’ body to put it to rest. The grief and the bottle still call for him,
still make him want to give up. But crime doesn’t sleep or grieve or wait. He
cannot shut down and deny the people of its sheriff. So while he still flips
through Stiles’ file — filled with all the statements and evidence and dead
ends — with almost religious devotion, he tickets Mrs Hayes for speeding on an
under-thirty lane. He gives the key to the whiskey cabinet to Mrs McCall.
Scott does get the girl (go, buddy!), and starts dating Allison Argent, who is
so unlike her aunt that Stiles sincerely believe that Kate must have been
dropped in a tub of bleach as a baby. The girl is a saint and manages to
distract Scott from wallowing (too much) in the loss of his best friend.
Derek who was stricken with such wallowing guilt finally caves in under the
pressure of his family’s worry, understanding and tender love. Somehow they
manage to bring him out of the wallows of depression that he’d gotten himself
into. (Well, everyone except Peter of course. The man had been distant from his
family for a long time now. Stiles sends silent prayers that Derek never comes
into constant contact with the psycho.)
He starts following them out again to the reserve to care for the wolves again,
like he did before Stiles’ death. Somehow Derek starts smiling again at Laura’s
horrid jokes and scowling at Michael’s teasing (it’s less torture now and more
a force-of-habit, Stiles can tell). He still visits the clearing in the woods,
but it’s less heart-wrenching and more bittersweet, as Derek uses this time to
sit by the spot and talk about his day, like he was talking to Stiles again.
Somehow the stabbing pain does dissolve to a more manageable ache. More a dull
throb, but not as suffocating as before.
The leaves change and fall. Fall turned to winter, winter to the beginning
greys of spring. Time ticks on, seconds diminishing into the swirl of a new
year.
Everything is moving on.
Everything except Stiles.
(He doesn’t know whether to be grateful or hateful of that fact.)
 
*
 
It’s Derek that finally suspects Peter.
Maybe because Derek has always felt vibes from his uncle. Maybe because Derek
could hear Stiles screaming and screaming ‘He’s the one!’ all the way from the
other side.
Whatever the reason, Derek suspects.
But it is his dad that takes the first step. His clever sheriff of a dad who
starts to put together some form of investigation.
He starts by tailing Peter during his free time. Keeping tabs on him wherever
he goes. Pulling favors from old friends, mobilizing the troops and having one
of the most informal guard watches on Peter.
His dad burns with a kind of righteous fury and determination that Stiles has
seen when he takes on his sheriff superpower cape and doesn’t stop until the
bad guy was behind bars, but it’s magnified. Turn up to eleven because this
time it’s the sheriff’s own kid that has been taken.
Peter is smart though. Knows that his dad is on to him.
During this time, Peter doesn’t go to the woods, not once at all. He knows that
if anyone followed him there, they would find the underground crypt Peter is
keeping Stiles in. And Peter does not want that. Ergo, he doesn’t fuck with
Stiles’ death booty anymore.
(Stiles is man enough to admit he cried pitifully in relief about that fact.)
So Peter acts as normal as possible. Smiles at the sheriff, asks how is his
day, gives him condolences, ignores how frequently he sees the man around. He
even humors Derek, who has taken to doggedly following Peter around like a
bloodhound with the most vicious and awkward smile-scowl Stiles has ever seen
on his boyfrienemy’s (?) face.
Peter wants to drag it out, sow disbelief and doubt. Make people forget about
Stiles and make his dad and Derek and Scott lose trust in their instinct. That
Peter is a predator and a killer.
And sometimes they do. They do think they are chasing up the wrong tree. Too
blinded by grief maybe, his dad mumbles into his whiskey bottle. Derek feeling
guilty that he’s suspecting a family member, no matter how distant and creepy.
But they still search and watch. Keep tabs on Peter like a hawk.
Because they believe they are on the right track.
And Stiles believes in the people he loves.
Believes that they will find him.
Because if Stiles is a stubborn obstinate mule most days, his loved ones are
even more so when they are focused.
 
*
 
Sometimes Stiles blames himself.
He tells himself during these moments of depression and self-loathing that he
was supposed to be smarter than this. His dad had warned him so many times
about these incidences. He had known about the other cases, had read the case
files out of some sense of morbid curiosity to find out why his class had been
mysteriously shrinking.
It was because he had been so fucking naive. Thought that there was no way in
the world that any serial rapist-cum-killer would even look twice at Stiles to
see him as any form of paedo-bait.
Peter Hale of all people, smirking and cooing about how Stiles is the sweetest
and most perfect catch he’s ever had, is something even Stiles didn’t see
coming, but still.
He should have been more goddamn careful.
Logically Peter suddenly deciding to take some siesta from his pedo spree for
five years had made everyone let their guard down. Folks started leaving doors
open. Started letting their kids stay out past nine again.
It hadn’t been just him.
But it had been him.
Him dragged through the woods and fucked and killed and now still trapped in
that underground dungeon feeling Peter rut against his body even in death.
Maybe he fucking deserves to have Peter Hale of all people take him down
literally six feet under and pound into him like he’s nothing more than a body
to be used.
He’s stupid and idiotic and clumsy and overconfident and so so so sorry and he
wants to see his dad Scott Mrs McCall Derek Derek Derek Derek......
He wants to see them all again, he sobs into Lydia’s shoulder whenever she
comes into the pagoda to ride him through these periods of castigation and
mental craziness. Not just see them, but actually see see them.
He wants to not have to look at them through a one-way window and be unable to
touch them. He wants them to see him — to hug him, hold him, comfort him. Wants
their touch to cleanse away all the haunting memories and moments when he can
still feel Peter’s hands on him. He wants to hug them, hold them, comfort them.
He wants to live again.
.
.
.
.
.
.
None of them can though.
Not Jackson, skulking around as a fifteen year old version of himself just by
the tree line of the Beacon Hills forest, conjured from all their memories.
Not Isaac, the only one of them still remaining as a child and curling up in
the bed of his not-home.
Not Greenberg, who Stiles has never seen but knows hides in a hidey hole he
created.
Not Erica, who he can sometimes hear letting herself seize up (even though she
has willed that away already), just for the sake of feeling something,
anything, other than her overwhelming loneliness where there’s no one to even
see her writhe.
Not Lydia, who looks at him with sad worn-out vulnerable eyes because she’s
smart and knows too well about how this must all end yet still holding out
hope.
Not Stiles.
Stiles who is trapped here in the pagoda by his own memories and desperation.
No matter how much Stiles fucking wishes, Death is the only thing left waiting
for him.
 
*
 
They cannot move on. Not until Peter is ended.
 
*
 
It’s Derek and Scott working together, putting aside the animosity that has
existed between them for the sake of putting Stiles’ ghost to rest.
They find the scrapbook under the plank in his bedroom and just barely make it
back to the sheriff with the incriminating evidence to make a case, without
being detected by Peter.
The book is filled with pictures, annotated with all of Peter’s updating and
planning, him recording all the little changes, how much Stiles has grown, how
much more longer to wait, tracking Stiles before through his youth and after in
his death.
Their faces are a mixture of green and white after verifying the contents (so
is his dad after flipping through it). But nonetheless it’s cold hard evidence.
Peter Hale is arrested one day at the end of spring.
 
*
 
Later the police will find the closed off tomb that Peter created for Stiles in
the woods. Will find his white naked body placed on the dais of raised earth
and quilts, still littered with bruises and bites from Peter’s worshiping.
Will find out from the coroner that not all those bruises happened when Stiles
was alive. Will know that the post-mortem marring and scarring comes from
Peter’s trips to the little closed-off basement room and his indulgence in
necrophiliac tendencies alongside the pedophile ones.
Stiles’ dad breaks down in his office when he receives the autopsy reports.
None of his deputies question him when the sheriff goes to Peter Hale’s cell
and beats the living shit out of him.
Peter laughs harder with each punch, and when his dad is spent and out of
breath the crazy asshole says peacefully, “I was his one and only.”
It was then Derek (a taut clenching muscle of contained anger, who had been
standing just outside the right side of the cell bars) roars like a wounded
animal and pounces on his uncle.
 
*
 
Peter Hale is sentenced to death by the court in a unanimous vote.
Stiles is buried three days later in the Beacon Hills Cemetery on a crisp
summer morning.
 
*
 
His dad starts breathing again. Starts living beyond the combined ghosts of
Stiles and his mum.
The other kids in Limbo have moved on, laughing and crying.
Scott and Allison finally do the deed.
Scott burns a note saying ‘The Wolf Has Howled’ in the moonlight, as if it
would reach Stiles as a message in the astral plane.
Derek.
Derek still comes to the glade everyday.
And Stiles still can’t move on.
He is haunting.
But not for much longer.
 
*
 
Stiles feels it. A pull that feels like fresh air and autumn leaves. Like life.
He senses the tug when he is looking at Derek, Allison and Scott working out in
the woods, lobbing lacrosse balls at each other (Derek and Scott, Allison just
cheered and watched from the sidelines). The boys had gained some camaraderie
from solving the murder cases, and had been having more awkward bonding
sessions (though Stiles applauded the fact they were getting less stilted).
Scott moves to leave early for his shift at Deaton’s, and Allison and Derek are
left clearing up the fallen equipment and pack them onto the jeep.
Stiles thinks his dad must have an idea what happened at the pool, because he
has given it to Derek.
The sheriff had only clapped Derek’s back, looked into his stunned eyes and
said, “He would have wanted someone to take the girl for a whirl, and he would
have taken you with him first time round anyways.”
Stiles had been with Derek for that first spin.
If he had taken the opportunity to rest a phantom head on Derek’s shoulder, no
one has to know but himself and the ghostly community.
Stiles can feel the tug pulling him now from behind the jeep’s screen towards
Allison, as if he could just slip into Allison, borrow her flesh and make it
his own, just for a few minutes.
Lydia looks at him knowingly and sadly, and says ‘Go on, say goodbye, you
deserve it’.
Stiles hesitates. He doesn’t know if he can handle it, going back and facing
Derek and knowing that they only had so little left.
But Lydia looks at him as if saying “that time is worth more than anything”,
and tells him “He deserves it”, gesturing to Derek.
And Derek does.
He’s released them all.
Released Stiles.
Now Derek needs to be released from the memory of Stiles.
He needs to let go and move on.
Stiles closes his eyes and submits to the pull.
The world explodes around him.
 
*
 
Derek feels it. A chill down his spine, a shift in the air, a static charge
that prickles at the hair of his arms.
He turns to ask Allison if she feels it too.
But it’s not Allison. Not exactly. Allison looks hazy, like a mirage, wavering
in and out. When Derek blinks and looks again, he sees Stiles.
Stiles, with bright amber eyes and cream pale skin, freckled and ruddy cheeked.
Looking at Derek with shining eyes and a sad hopeful look.
Stiles, who is not deathly white and bruised black by Peter’s cruelty.
“Hi,” he says, somewhat timidly. As if he’s afraid Derek will run.
Derek doesn't run. He surges forward, crushing Stiles in a hug.
He sobs into Stiles’ neck, feels warm long fingers rubbing circles in his back,
like only Stiles knows how to, to soothe and calm Derek.
“You’re gone. I thought you were gone.” Derek manages out.
Stiles stiffens slightly in his arms. “I am,” he finally says. “I’m dead,
Derek. I can never come back.”
Something in Stile's voice makes Derek look up from Stiles’ neck to see tears
pooling in his eyes. “I can never come back,” Stiles repeats. And Derek knows
that Stiles has not thought about it. Has ignored the problem for as long as he
could until he couldn’t.
That this is as much Stiles accepting his death, as it is Derek.
“I thought we could have had forever,” Stiles finally sobs, as Derek hugs him
even more tightly.
“I thought so too,” Derek says.
They move from their hug, down to the ground to lie besides each other. Derek
is spooning Stiles, and the younger boy curls in closer to Derek. They fall
silent, and Derek can feel the thrum of static energy that has never came from
Stiles before. Can feel the slight ghost chill beneath Stiles’ hands now. Knows
that he’s only borrowing warmth from Allison.
(He’ll think about Allison later, but Stiles would never do anything to hurt
Scott. So Allison is likely safe.)
Derek is smart though. Read enough stories and theories about the afterlife and
ghosts to know what this is, a final meeting between the two of them, using
Allison’s body as a conduit for Stiles. So he doesn’t ask how or why or
anything about Stiles being here.
He just asks, “How long?”
Stiles smiles sadly again. “Only for a few more minutes. Half an hour at most.”
They fall silent again.
Derek can tell though, that Stiles is only waiting for the right words to come
to him. Derek doesn’t say it as often as Stiles, but Derek knows Stiles equally
well as Stiles knows him. Knows that Stiles would want to tell Derek not to
worry about him. Not to hold on too long to him. To be happy and to make sure
to remember the fond moments. Derek is almost certain that Stiles would want
him to remember Stiles by being happy.
He is not certain he can.
Stiles says instead, “Derek, don’t be such a sourwolf,” softly, wistfully.
Conveying everything in a final fond farewell.
And Derek aches. He wants to say “I can’t forget you, don’t leave me”, but
Stiles shushes him with a finger to his lips, quiet and sad.
“For me. Please.”
Derek wants to laugh. It comes out like a howl. How could he? How could Derek
do that?
Stiles just says, “I know you.”
And Stiles does know Derek. Knows him like the back of his hand. Knows him
enough to believe that Derek can promise Stiles this, and remember Stiles like
this. Believes that Derek will be happy again.
“The time capsule,” Stiles says. “Keep all of it. When you dig it up.”
“I will,” Derek says silently, and grips him tighter, closer, trying to feel
Stiles as much as he can before...
“I will never forget you.”
Stiles, like always, can tell what Derek wants. He scoots closer to Derek,
until they are like two puzzle pieces that fit together. Holds on more tightly
as well, and whispers, “I know.”
(They kiss one last time, hungrily, passionately, and Stiles passes on with a
burning warmth pressed on his lips, etched into his memory and into his
darkness.)
 
*
 
His name was Stiles Stilinski.
(Stiles wasn’t his real first name, it just sounded better.)
He had been a student at Beacon Hills High, smart, could move up a grade or
two, refused to and was always a loudmouth. He had had a loving mother, a
caring father, a close friend with a brave heart, and a frenemy-turned-
boyfriend.
Stiles was fifteen when he was raped and killed in the fall.
He passed on one peaceful fall morning.
He had been sixteen years old.
 
 
—fin.
End Notes
     Again this was not beta-ed. I couldn't find anyone to D:
     My tumblr is rou-en (I can't seem to hyperlink OTZ). I post snippets
     and originals there, as well as just blog about Teen Wolf , Sherlock,
     Avengers, life etc.
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