My Head is an Animal - Side B [McHaleinski]

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

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Before:

Side A, Ch4

John doesn't see Derek in the weeks following, and he no longer gets approached by concerned parents. But Beacon Hills is anything but quiet.

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Something's wrong with Scott. There are hunters running around shooting up the alleys at everything that moves and lizardy revenge monsters chasing them down and ripping through walls and people and Stiles has done some freaky magic shit and his dad has showed up with that disappointed look on his face and something is wrong with Scott.

Stiles is going to have an anxiety attack about this tonight, once he's hidden away in the safety of his bedroom and no one will hear him having a mild breakdown. The adrenaline is the only thing staving off a breakdown now, the hysterical whirlwind of his thoughts narrowing down to a single point:

Something is very wrong with Scott.

Stiles doesn't care that he's gripping Derek's arm too hard as he drags the man away from the crime scene and his dad's judging eyes, that his nails are biting into flesh. He's a werewolf, the Alpha as he so likes to remind them. He can take it. He's going to have to because Stiles is freaking out just looking at Scott. He looks small in Derek's arms, his face sickly and pallid, almost bloodless, and his breath is rattling in his chest without seeming to go anywhere. His chest doesn't even expand all the way before it's trying to draw in the next stilted breath and--

It's an asthma attack. Stiles has seen enough of Scott suffering through them to know what it looks like. But how - how?

"Stiles. Breathe." Derek's sharp reprimand jolts him back to reality. He realizes he's feeling short-of-breath himself, and quickly reins his breathing back in before he actually manages to trigger his own anxiety attack.

'Four seconds in, hold for seven, eight out.' He repeats, forcing himself to breathe. 'Don't do this. Not here.'

"What happened?" he snaps once he feels like he can breathe without counting.

"Victoria Argent." Derek says with a breathless snarl. Or it could be a wheeze. Come to think of it, Derek isn't looking too great either. (Objectively speaking. Because Derek Hale is the kind of disgustingly beautiful person that can be thrown in raw sewage and come out still looking like a GQ model. Albeit GQ model covered in raw sewage. 'Focus, Stiles.') His skin is glittering with a thin sheen of sweat, his breathing coming in shuddering gasps that make his expression twist in obvious pain. "She had... she was filling the room with smoke, but it was wolfsbane. She was making him breathe it in. I don't know for how long."