January seventh. Seven days since the start of 2015, and seven days since his father's death.
The bastard, he thinks bitterly. The past year Derek Hale had made it very obvious that he hated his scrawny guts, taking every given opportunity to shove...
Life at the Hale house was kind of dull, to be honest.
Stiles spends most of his time in the room Derek gave him, which (despite his stubborn efforts to remain loyal his old room) was starting to grow on him. It was quiet, spacious, and the bare atmosphere seemed to dampen his anxiety much more than a paper bag ever could. In particular he took a liking to the bed, which was like like a plushy nest of downy feathers wrapped up in what he estimated to be seven-hundred thread count sheets. He thought it was weird because before he left home it was impossible to get some sleep, but now sleep was impossible to resist. The ultra-soft pillows Derek provided him with only encouraged his droopy eyelids, and for the most part he would just knock back a couple of Advils, crawl beneath the comforter and conk out for most of the day. It was easier that way, instead of being left awake with his grief.
He cleaned up his messes, wiped the fallen toothpaste from the sink and all that jazz (after he caught Derek wrinkling his nose upon his arrival, he figured he'd better start brushing again). Outside of bed kept to himself, which was fine because Derek kept to himself, too. In fact they hardly even saw each other outside the couple times a day when he would drag himself out from underneath the covers and stumble to the bathroom or wander into the kitchen for a glass of water, often passing the inscrutable werewolf on the couch or doing chin-ups on the bar by the front windows.
Derek would always stiffen upon hearing him, often pausing briefly to glance back at him with those stupid furrowed eyebrows, but never uttered a word in his direction. It both pleased and infuriated Stiles at the same time, because he never felt much like talking anyway, but it would still be nice to know what the hell the stubbly grump was thinking once in a while.
Writing words, however, was apparently something the werewolf could deal with. Sometimes Stiles would come out to kitchen and discover little notes on the counter, scrawled in messy all-caps like his dad used to do.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
They always amused him, making him huff out little humorless chuckles that sounded more like perplexed sighs. He didn't know why the guy bothered, but a small part of him liked the notes anyway.
It continues like that for about a week. He becomes accustomed to his daily routine of sleep, Advil, take a piss, repeat. Numb away the world, block out the surly werewolf brooding down the hall. The silence filled the halls like an empty dream, stark in contrast to the vivid night terrors that plagued his mind during sleep, although for whatever reason those hadn't been reoccurring as often since he moved in. He thought maybe it was the memory foam, because it certainly had nothing to do with the guy in the other room, who acted like there was an invisible wall between them.
The yellow sticky notes keep appearing, and each time Stiles would shortly debate if he should actually take up any of the offers, but always shied away from the thought, leaving them untouched on the counter before quietly returning to the bedroom. If he came out again later they would be gone, added to the discarded pile in the kitchen wastebasket. Derek never mentioned it and Stiles never brought it up.
