Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
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It’s something he tries not to think about.
Like most of the traumatic events in his life, it’s buried deep in the back of his mind. He only brings it out to pick at it anxiously in the dead of the night, unable to sleep out of the overwhelming fear that something might happen to his father while he’s unconscious. In the middle of the night, the moon hanging high in his bedroom window, he picks. Thinks about her. Thinks about the life he could’ve had if it weren’t for his poor mother losing her mind. Thinks about how the disease is hereditary. Thinks about how long it’d take for him to succumb, to end up like her.
But there’s one part about the whole ordeal that he doesn’t dare think about. A part that he feels if he so much as ponders, his father will wail. He tells himself he made it up, that it didn’t really happen. He tells himself over and over again.
Stiles Stilinski never had a brother.
***
They’re young. Around seven, maybe eight. It’s like looking in a mirror. A mirror that is almost the exact opposite of him in every way. Taller. Faster. Less impulsive. They’re twins, yet somehow Stephen seems to be better than him in every way humanly possible.
Stiles hates him.
“Mieczyslaw!” his mother’s voice hollers out, echoing down the hall to their shared room. “Stephen!”
He can hear their mother’s footsteps ascending the stairs. Quickly, albeit extremely clumsily, he hops up from the floor where he had been picking at loose strands in the carpet, stumbling over to his and his brother’s shared wardrobe. His mom had told them to get ready half an hour ago, and he still hadn’t put pants on. So, he pulls out a pair from the wardrobe, haphazardly yanking them on and searching for a jacket to put over his T-shirt. As he shrugs on a zip-up hoodie, Claudia knocks on the door, letting herself in.
“You two ready yet? We can’t leave the doctor waiting forever!” she crosses her arms and props her hip on the doorway. Stephen approaches her, hair freshly washed, face clean, eyes shining.
“We’re ready, mom,” he states. Claudia grins and runs a gentle hand through his still damp hair. Stiles sidles up next to his brother, showcasing his readiness to go.
“Honey, we’re going to the doctor’s office, not Scott’s house. You couldn’t dress a little bit nicer?” Claudia sighs. Stiles scans his outfit, then his brother’s. They’re basically wearing the same thing, only Stiles has a jacket on.
“Isn’t this nice enough?” he complains. “Stephen doesn’t have to dress up, why do I have to?” He gestures dramatically to his twin, who also seems confused by her antics. He’s about to start blabbing about how it isn’t fair that Stephen always gets special treatment, but his mother has that look on her face - the one that he doesn’t understand. The one he hates. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
Claudia sighs again, trying to hide that weird, sad look in her eyes as she speaks to him. “Nevermind, my little myszko. Just be sure to put some shoes on before we go. I’ll be in the car.”
As she turns to leave, Stiles feels guilt wash over him. Why did she seem so disappointed? Why does she only fuss over him like that, why does Stephen get a free pass? It isn’t fair. Not at all. He glares at his brother.
“You’re wearing my clothes again,” Stephen points out dumbly. Stiles bares his teeth and hisses at him. Then he crouches down to grab his shoes from by the door - a worn pair of sneakers his dad got him two years ago. They’re too small. He glances to Stephen’s feet. His sneakers are new. Dad got them at the start of the year. Apparently Stephen “grows faster” and “actually uses them for running in”, and Stiles would be “better off wearing something less boyish”. None of that makes any sense. It sounds to him like his parents just love Stephen more.
He glares at his brother as he straightens up. Shoves his feet into his worn out sneakers. Hisses at him again. And bolts out the door.
***
The brothers are in the backseat, groaning silently about the check-up they have to go to. One of the few things they agree on: this doctor’s office sucks. It’s not the same one they’ve been going to as a family since Stiles can remember, not the one with lollipops at the reception and puzzles in the lobby. Through Stiles’ window, the dull cement building comes into view as they near the edge of town. There’s a barbed wire fence surrounding the whole place, and the driveway to the entrance is way too long. It’s like the place is screaming, “Turn around! Do not enter! We’re going to dissect you!” It gives Stiles the heebie jeebies, and if Stephen’s face is anything to go by, he’s not too fond of it either.
When they enter the waiting room, it’s nothing like the regular doctor’s office. There are no paintings on the wall. No toys for kids to play with while their parents talk to the receptionists. There aren’t even any of those flyers for dental health and preventing cancer on the front desk. There’s only a computer. Behind it sits a young lady with her blonde hair swept into a neat low bun. She’s very pretty, but scary. Her face is devoid of emotion, even when she smiles down at Stiles with her perfect white teeth, he thinks to himself, she looks like she eats baby kittens. When Claudia’s done exchanging papers with the lady, the boys sit down in the waiting room chairs.
By the time the doctor calls them into her office, they’ve played five games of chopsticks (Stiles won 4-1, obviously). The doctor seems much nicer than the receptionist lady, but she still has an air of scariness to her that Stiles just can’t shake. They sit in her office, Claudia talking grown-up stuff with the doctor. Stiles can’t sit still, like normal. Not that the doctor seems to care, she seems very excited about whatever she’s telling his mother. He decides to try and pay attention, see what they’re saying.
“... results are very promising, Mrs Stilinski. Actually, we’d like to take him for further testing at our labs in Denver, if that’s alright.” Claudia seems to falter at that.
“Denver? As in Colorado?” she inquires. “I… it’s just… that’s pretty far away, isn’t it? How long would he have to stay for?” She squeezes each of her fingers on one hand with the other, one by one.
The doctor hesitates. “Best case scenario he only has to stay for a week. Worst case… well…” she clears her throat into the back of her hand, “a few months? We’re still not sure, the laboratories are still very new, and the virus is spreading at an alarming rate down south.” Her eyes tell Stiles this isn’t good news. He looks back over at his mother. She looks like she might be about to cry, worrying her bottom lip and squeezing her hands even harder than before. Stiles puts his hand over hers, taking her left hand away and holding it firmly. She smiles down at him. That weird, sad smile again. Why does she keep making that face? Stiles wants to rip his hair out. He wants to punch the doctor. Why does Claudia have to have that look on her face and why doesn’t Stiles know what it means?
It isn’t fair.
***
CHAPTER ONE
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He rolls over, stretching his arm across his pillow. Something sticky and warm coats his cheek.
“What the f…” he grumbles into the dark, wiping the drool off his face and twisting back around, curling further into his blankets. He’s about to doze off again, but he can feel something. Someone. In his room, watching him sleep.
He darts awake, shooting upright and throwing his hand in the direction of the lamp. After smacking the button about three times, the lamp flickers on and gently illuminates the room, revealing a dark figure scowling in the corner.
“Derek, what the fuck, man?! I almost had a freaking heart attack, oh my god!” he whisper-yells at the figure. He doesn’t say anything, just steps forward, turning to Stiles’ desk and tracing his fingertips over the piles of papers and books on it. Stiles rolls his eyes and flops back down onto his bed, attempting to hide the way his head hurts from whacking the headboard on the way down by scratching his ear. “You know, you could always just knock on the window. You really don’t need to sneak in while I’m sleeping like a psycho, dude,” he comments.
An unamused snort filters through Derek’s stubble. “As if you care,” he scoffs. He’s picked up one of Stiles’ books now, analysing the cover and flipping through its contents. “I wouldn’t waste my time with stuff like this if I were you. This author has no reliable sources, it’s pretty much all myth.” He discards the book on the edge of the desk. Stiles is sitting back up again, huffing his scruffy hair out of his eyes.
“Yeah, I coulda told you that one myself. He blabs on about silver for like seven chapters, literally no reference to the actual Argents. Also he has a whole chapter insisting it’s pronounced lichen-thropy? For some reason?” Derek grunts at this and picks up a different book entitled ‘The Key to the Supernatural World: Opening your Mind’s Eye’.
“... This one’s got some pretty accurate stuff in it,” he offers. “Sounds like total bull at first, chapter eleven’s where he actually gets into the facts.” he turns to Stiles again, looking uncomfortable. Not sure what to do with the book. Derek decides on gingerly placing it on the foot of the bed and nodding upwardly at Stiles. Stiles nods upwardly right back, giving Derek his best awkward no-lips smile-frown. A grimace. A friendly one, though. Stiles still hasn’t figured out where he stands with Derek right now. Are they friends? Well, sure, but not like he and Lydia are. Or even Danny. He feels closer to him than just that - a friend, like Danny - but even that still feels far away. It’s so strange and supremely uncomfortable to have a non-passive-aggressive conversation with Derek. Making small talk with him is like pulling out your own teeth. With a fork.
He clears his throat as Derek finds something apparently very interesting on the wall about a metre away from Stiles. Those quick hazel eyes dart back to his immediately before finding something else very interesting on the other side of Stiles’ room.
“Dude.”
Derek shrugs innocently. “What, I can’t visit you sometimes?” He spares a sheepish glance back at Stiles before turning back to the books and papers scattered on and around the desk, fiddling with softening paper edges with his fingertips again.
This man is going to be the end of me.
“Maybe not at three in the morning! Y’ever considered some people aren’t nocturnal like you? Huh?!” Stiles whisper-shouts at the brooding wolf in black leather and expensive cologne. “Some people have schedules, Derek. I have school tomorrow morning.”
“No you don’t,” he sneers. Stiles barely has any time to pull a ‘what the hell are you on’ face before he clarifies. “You have Thursday mornings off. First class isn’t til eleven.” He says it nonchalantly, as if it’s his own schedule, as if he hasn’t somehow memorised every aspect of Stiles’ life just to relay it to him snarkily in the dead of night. “You’re freaky for even knowing that,” he croaks at him, giving up and flopping to his side, curling his face back into the warmth of his pillow.
Stiles can hear his snort of amusement, imagining the almost unnoticeable smirk on Derek’s face when he makes that sound. Asshole.
“Whatever. I’m goin’ back to sleep.” The sound Derek makes this time is similar, though it’s less like he’s making fun of Stiles, more like his sleepiness is endearing. Or something. He’s probably thinking way too hard about Derek’s stiff grunts and what they mean. He’s tired. Whatever.
Derek stays for a few more minutes, until he hears the steady rhythms of Stiles’ heart and breath falling into place, into a restful slumber.
A sigh, then the window clacks open, letting the cool night air wash over Stiles’ room.
He dreams of soft echoes and whispers passing by, each one just loud enough to hear, not enough to understand.
***
Stiles awakes again, this time when the sun’s actually up. His clock reads 9:52. Forty minutes to get ready. That’s doable. He flops his back onto his bed, huffing out a long breath and staring at the three tiny glow-in-the-dark stars still clinging to his ceiling in the corner. He tried to take them all down on his thirteenth birthday, deeming them too childish to take with him into adolescence. He couldn’t reach them all, even when standing on his desk chair. He fell off trying to unstick those three stubborn stars, hit his knee on the corner of his desk and vowed to never try to climb to the ceiling again. He scoffs. Thirteen-year-old Stiles had such small problems.
He’s tall enough now, at eighteen, to easily pick them off without more than his tippy toes. He doesn’t.