R I C H • Stiles Stilinski BAMF

M E N D E D

MENDED⎮CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Oh thank god!" Allison exclaimed as Derek and I entered the loft. The pack stared at us in alarm as their minds drew extreme conclusions as to why the both of us were in shredded clothes which were soaked in what felt like glue. My bare feet shuffled in the pool that I had created beneath me. Derek seemed only slightly aware of our situation. The both of us were overwhelmed with exhaustion having not realized how far we had traveled in the few hours we'd disappeared for. 

"Where the hell were you guys?" Lydia grumbled, whilst drawing a blanket over my shoulders. I sighed, pushing the material off of my shoulders before marching off up stairs. Lydia gaped up after me, admittedly I felt bad in the way I had disregarded her kind gesture, but my exhaustion drove me towards the warm shower that awaited. Near death experiences also had the tendency to keep me in my mind, disconnecting my mind from my voice box. "Stiles," she called, I turned to face her, though she was abruptly stopped from having me explain myself when Derek placed a hand on her shoulder. 

"Don't," he muttered before also making his way upstairs. I guess he had also been as mentally affected as I. Removing my eyes from Lydia's unrelenting glare I followed after Derek, though as soon as we were out of sight he roughly grabbed my shoulder steering me into a spare bedroom. "I know you're tired but you need to explain whatever the hell that was, okay?"

I fell back on the bed, feeling my eyes close despite my best efforts to keep them open, "It happens," I whispered roughly. Derek began to pace, his mind churning loudly and I had half a mind to tell him to shut up before he even spoke. 

 "Whatever it is, nearly killed you, Stiles. I know I was calm on the beach but now that my adrenaline has passed and you're not choking on the water in your lungs you better explain yourself," he growled, and I couldn't help but stand and make way towards the door. I didn't have to explain anything to him, as I had said it happens; regularly, and there's never much I can do but get the hell away from any living, breathing thing. "Stiles," he sighed, placing his hand past me and on the door, "you blew up in a white array of flames. You became nothing and then you were rebuilt in front of my eyes. Yo- you were dead-"

 "I know what happened to me Derek," I hissed, "and it's because I'm weak; there. There's the big freaking secret, oh look how cool you are now that you know, I'm just as weak as I was when I first left the damn pack-" Derek stuttered, "-Oh yeah but I'm so incredibly powerful, the son of Zeus, half god- half fox yet so incredibly human-" I coughed harshly, fighting the rasp in my voice to produce more explanation of all that was wrong with me. "Every once in a while I have to rebuild myself because my body cannot handle the power I possess, Mark has had to go back to camp-bloody-half-blood to find a solution because there's only so many times you can re-create yourself before- before, well you can't. Does that comfort you Derek, does the knowing feel better than the not knowing?" 

Derek stared with guilty eyes- 

E I G H T    Y E A R S     A G O 

I ran a hand through my dirty brown locks, my mind felt disarrayed like it was being attacked and my every move seemed calculated as though I was slowly losing control of myself. The hospital bed beneath my legs felt hard and the whirring of the MRI slowly leached all hope from my body. I couldn't remove my eyes from my hands, Scott's pain seemed to suffocate me. 

"You know what they're looking for right? It's called frontal temporal dementia, areas of your brain start to shrink; it's what my mother had before she died in that car accident. It's the only frontal dementia that can hit teenagers," I shook my head, fighting the tears, "and there's no cure." My eyes searched for Scott's, though he kept his on the ground rubbing them as he sniffled. 

" Stiles," he croaked, "if you have it, we'll do something, I'll do something." My lips wavered as reality had been doing. I'd rejected the bite before; if I was dying would I really take the bite, would the bite take me? Scott's arms wrapped around me tightly, patting my back as the tears blurred my vision; I couldn't let him go, I couldn't let life go. I would fight for him, for the pack and for my family.

N O W 

Derek gripped my shoulder in his recent and slightly alarming calm comforting way. "If there's something I've learned from Scott, it's that there's always a way." I stared at him finding myself speechless. However, not for long as always. 

 "Seriously Derek, I'm happy someone abducted your sour ass and replaced you with a nicer wolf." He growled in response and I smirked before letting myself out of the room, the wolf hot on my tail.