Drag Me Down Quick (So they don't notice)

The Pack Reunion (And More Dialogue)

     Stiles laid in bed again, on top of his covers, staring at the ceiling. It was again after midnight. Scott's unceremonious announcement of Stiles' manifestation of latent supernatural abilities had upended the conversation so entirely that Stiles had ended up giving his dad and Melissa a verbal powerpoint about his supposed abilities. Noah had had so many questions that Scott had given up and called Deaton, turning it to speaker phone and letting him explain so Stiles could stop talking. That had taken several hours. Then they had finally cleaned up dinner and the following conversation had taken place:

      Stiles: "You finally got new cabinets?" 

     Noah: "Oh yeah. Derek helped put them in last year."

    Stiles (incredulously): "Derek."

    Noah, nodding: "Yeah. He came by a lot, actually. Fixed that leaky spot on the roof for me and showed up with a new dryer one day and installed it, wouldn't let me pay him back or anything."

     Then he had spent a long time making sure Stiles wasn't upset that he and Melissa were together and telling him their love story, which apparently they had just started spending a lot of time together after what happened and then they got married. Stiles spent half an hour reassuring his dad that he didn't care, and that he and Scott had had a bet back before about how long it would take them to get together.

     But now Stiles had a lot of questions, more specifically, questions that no one was going to answer. He couldn't just go to Derek's and ask him why he helped his dad out without sounding ungrateful. Stiles wasn't ungrateful. He was very grateful. He wondered if Derek had done it out of guilt. He'd felt guilty that Stiles was dead because he had never laughed at Stiles' jokes so he showed up to help his dad. That sounded likely.

      Stiles was very aware that he was thinking way too much about Derek. He couldn't help it. It was either thinking about Derek or thinking about hell, and hell was a no. 

     He'd shoved down any thoughts of the future as well. Noah had promised that the next day he would sit down with Stiles and they would make some sort of plan. Stiles didn't want to plan. Stiles didn't want to think. 

      He'd checked his arms when he changed for bed. They hadn't healed. Neither had his knuckles, or the cut from the knife. His tattoo still was though, so he hadn't been imagining that.

     After they had finished cleaning up, everyone had gathered in the living room and helped set up Stiles' phone. It was charging on Stiles' bedside table now, the numbers of his dad, Melissa, Scott, and the whole pack safely stored in his contact's list. Stiles had added Sam and Dean's number later.

     Scott slipped through the door. Stiles slid over automatically. 

     They lay in silence.

     "So do you feel different? Like, supernaturally different?" 

      Stiles took a deep breath and cleared his mind. He felt the mountain ash in the walls of the house and instead of ignoring it he focused on it, drawing on whatever energy connected him to it. He could feel the whole house, down to the foundations. He could feel his dad and Scott's mom in the other room, and Scott and himself in his room. There were rats in the crawl space, and a family of garter snakes. And Derek was lurking outside. 

     Stiles' eyes flew open. "Dude. Derek is outside." 

     Scott laughed. "You can sense that? Yeah he's there, being a creeper. How did you tell?"

     Stiles hit him. "You knew he was there and you didn't say anything?"

     Scott shrugged. "Yeah. It's not my business. And you didn't answer my question."