Chapter Text
The first time Derek realized that slamming random teenagers into walls wasn’t a particularly good idea was about two seconds after Stiles kneed him in the balls.
She waited until after he had straightened her flannel shirt, and she had straightened his with a goofy look on her face, then wham!
“I know you’re trying to be a badass, but you’re just an asshole.” Stiles sounded more smug than annoyed as she looked down her nose at him while Derek was busy cringing away from her, staggering to one knee.
Derek healed of course, but he’d also backed the fuck off, sheepishly realizing that yeah, confronting the underaged only daughter of the Sheriff of Beacon Hills in her bedroom was probably not his best plan. Laying his hands on the underaged daughter of the Sheriff of Beacon Hills in her bedroom made Derek want to knee himself for reacting like that. He didn’t miss the way that after kneeing him, Stiles had shifted her weight back so that she could attack, shifting her center of gravity. The acrid scent of her fear had made him take a step back, and another, trying to give her some distance.
He felt like a creep.
He said something, stammering some sort of awkward apology, and disappeared out the window. Derek heard the window slam shut behind him, and the click of the window’s lock.
Stiles was twitchy, and weird, and ran her mouth with the most irreverent bullshit more than any human Derek had ever met.
Derek absolutely loathed the little shit.
The first time Derek realized that he could trust Stiles was at about an hour and a half after Stiles had pulled him from the bottom of that pool…
…the second time.
The first time he’d been furious that she hadn’t just fucking run when he’d told her to. But she’d done the impossible- treading water for over two hours with ihs heavy ass literally dragging her down. She’d kicked and grunted and bitched and moaned and kept him above water. There were a few times when Derek had slipped under as Stiles had tried to change her hold on him, but he managed not to snark at her too much, given their relative positions.
But the second time? Derek had felt absolutely, completely betrayed when Stiles had slung his arm off her shoulders, already flinging her lanky body towards the edge of the pool to scramble for the phone he had told her not to grab . Derek had one split second to yelp her name before he’d gone under. He’d instinctively tried to hold his breath as he sunk to the bottom, but even he couldn’t breathe underwater. Derek tried not to panic as he lost some of his air on the way down, and most of the rest when his back hit the bottom of the pool. Derek felt heartbeat thunder and fought his instinct as he tried not to suck in a deep breath of the pool water when Stiles’ long, skinny fingers had clutched at his henley and jerked him above the surface. She somehow kept him from drowning. Stiles had obviously been scared to death, her heart hammering in her chest as she absolutely refused to give up on Derek, although he’d ordered her to do so enough times. He could feel how her muscles trembled with exhaustion, could hear the way she panted for air, the occasional desperate little gasp making Derek growl low in his chest when the Kanima got too close.
Derek had smelled chlorine for days afterward.
A few hours later, he snuck in her room to thank her, only to see her passed out on her bed, burritoed into her blankets, with one foot kicked free. She had bright yellow toenails and Derek blinked stupidly at them for a good thirty seconds before jerking his gaze away. Her face was smooshed into her pillow, drool staining the dark pillowcase under her pale cheek. Derek could smell how sore she was, the scent heavy over the chemical reek of her medicine and the eucalyptus and mint scent of something she showered with. He reached out to take her pain, but stopped himself, uncomfortable at touching her without her explicit permission. Derek frowned, cocked his head to listen for the sheriff, and made his silent way to her bathroom. His own father used to keep pain medicine in his medicine cabinet, and Derek knew he wouldn’t wake either the sleeping sheriff or his daughter if he retrieved the pills so she’d have them in the morning.
Derek stepped over the small puddle of water and the kicked aside red tracksuit that she’d worn in the pool, wrinkling his nose at the reek of harsh chlorine that made him want to sneeze. Derek took a second to use a towel to get the extra water (with his luck, Stiles would wake up in the middle of the night, slip and knock herself out) drape the wet bathmat rug over the lip of her tub to dry, before grabbing the bottle of Advil and the wet clothes and making his way downstairs to the washer. It made him feel a little uncomfortable to touch Stiles’ things in a house that he hadn’t been invited into, but given everything, he also knew it was the very least he could do.
Derek washed her clothes, straightened up what he could of her bathroom, got her a bottle of water out of the fridge, and left that and the pills on her nightstand along with the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Derek bought on his way over.
The candy looked woefully inadequate, and Derek rolled his eyes at himself for his stupid attempt at a thank you.
Stiles snuffled in her sleep, and Derek disappeared through her window before she could wake up.
TBC