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1989dreamer · 7 years

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Chapter 10 of Looking for a Place to Call Home

Please note: I am going a on short, month long hiatus to work on some projects. Thank you to all who take the time to read this. It is greatly appreciated.

~ * ~

Everything is a blur—sight, sound, and smell. It makes Derek upset, disorientated, and he whines softly. He can feel his sisters nearby but he can’t hear their heartbeats or smell their scent.

If he had to guess at what’s happened to him, he’d have to say that his body is shutting down due to his expounded energy compared to his lack of Calorie intake. It’s even too taxing for him to raise his voice and ask where he is.

So he drifts, scared, mostly alone, and unable to discern anything aside from a few jumbled words in the mess of everything.

Eventually, though, his vision clears and his ears pop and he can smell properly again. Well, not really. Everything seems affected, like he can’t quite use his senses.

He’s definitely at the hospital though, the off-white walls and uncomfortable looking furniture soaked through with a mix of muted emotions ranging from joy to fear are a giveaway.

The room is empty of people, and there is a privacy curtain pulled around a second bed. Two mauve-patterned armless chairs have been dragged next to his bed and they smell of his sisters and the pungent dad-ness of John.

They must have just left if he can still smell them this clearly.

Derek feels strong enough to sit up, a marked difference from what he recalls of the urgent rush from earlier—which is not much at all really. The crook of his left elbow itches, and he scratches at it absently as he swings his legs off the bed, feet impacting the cold tiles. He runs a hand over his arm where gooseflesh has sprung.

There is a machine attached to him by a series of sticky patches on his chest and trailing wires. It reminds him of the taser, and before that the battery the hunters liked to use on him. His heartbeat ratchets up, and the machine starts beeping frantically at him. It sounds like a countdown. He scrapes the patches off, wincing at the sticky residue that clings to his skin, but it has the desired effect of making the machine stop beeping.

Derek heaves a sigh of relief that he immediately chokes on when the machine lets out a sustained squawk.

The noise hurts his ears, so he scrambles away from it, ducking through the first door he finds. He ends up in a bathroom as tiny as the one from the vet clinic, only much cleaner and more well-lit when he flips the switch. He can still hear the machine in here, so he heads for the other door.

It opens before he can grab the handle, and a female nurse, long dark curls streaked with gray and white tied back in a ponytail, dark purple scrubs, sensible shoes, light perfume, and dark smudges under her eyes, strides in forcing him backward. With her comes a brief, overwhelming sense of sound and smells before she shuts the door. Derek tries to not recoil at the intensity of it all.

“And just where do you think you’re going, mister?” she demands, a no-nonsense tone.

Derek shrugs. Better than flinching at her demeanor, he thinks. “Away from the noise?”

“That noise will stop once you’re hooked up again,” the nurse says, kinder. “Come on, it won’t bite you.”

“Will it shock me?”

A looks of surprise flits over her face and her scent spikes with fear and anger. “No, it won’t,” she assures him gently.

Derek eyes her with suspicion. Her heartbeat is stead, but she’s twitching like she’s lying. “Promise?” he asks. The nurse smiles.

“I promise.” At least she seems more amused than anything right now, so Derek allows her to press him back onto the bed and reattach the sticky pads.

While she leans over him, he grabs her nametag and tugs it free. It’s magnetic, and he plays with it, noting that her name is Melissa. When she’s done with the machine, she takes her tag back and slips it into her pocket.

“Comfortable?”

Derek nods because a little lie like that means she will leave him alone again sooner.

No such luck.

She pins him with a steady gaze as if she knows he’s lying. He scents the air subtly, unsure about how he feels when it turns out she’s just a human.

“It’s time for another feeding.”

Derek looks at her hopefully. He wants more of the food Stiles got him. It takes better than the road kill and dog food. Melissa-the-nurse goes to the exit door and returns wheeling a cart covered in clear bags, some filled with liquid, others with supplies, and sharp needles.

The machine attached to him gives away his spike of fear.

Melissa smiles warmly, her off-center lips reminding him strongly of Scott-the-vet.

“You’re a very brave boy, Derek,” Melissa tells him. “Now, this will hurt a little because I need to reinsert your IV line. This will provide you with necessary fluids. I’m sure you’ve realized that you are dehydrated.”

Derek was aware that he was lacking fluids, yes, but he’d chalked it up to traveling into California where there were less backyard pools or outdoor spigots. He knew, as a wolf, he would replenish much of his lost fluids by eating things with liquid in them. He’d spent a few hours during his first night away from the hunters, teaching himself how to puncture a half-full bottle of soda pop so that it looked like it had burst on the side of the road. California was a little more conscientious with their littering and that source had dried up almost as fast as the outdoor water.

He doesn’t want to tell her any of this, not sure if she would take it as badly as Allison had earlier. After all, she’s a nurse.

Melissa swabs his inner left elbow with an alcohol wipe and then deftly inserts a needle into his flesh. She wriggles it briefly, forcing the metal in farther, and Derek grits his teeth at the pinch of pain.

He concentrates on not healing while Melissa works to detach the needle, leaving a plastic piece embedded in his vein. When she depresses the plunger to flush the tubing, he looks away, determined not to break. He’s suffered worse than a bit of fluid in his hand. Melissa does a few more things, including taping the contraption to his skin, and then steps back to hang one of the clear bags of liquid from a silver pole he hadn’t noticed earlier.

“All done,” she says smiling at him. It hasn’t even been five minutes. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“No,” he agrees. He wonders if the IV is the reason he’s had more strength. He can feel it inside him when the liquid from the bag goes into his arm. It’s cool, wet, and foreign and he can taste it in the back of his throat. It takes all of his self-control not to rip it out.

Melissa notices his concentration and laughs softly. “I know it doesn’t feel the greatest but it’s really helping you.”

“A cheeseburger would help more,” Derek mutters. Melissa laughs again.

“I’m sure you think that. Truth is, while it’s high in Calories, most of those Calories come from fat and you don’t need that. What you need is proteins and carbohydrates—something that’ll stick to your bones while filling your belly.”

“Can I at least have one cheeseburger?”

The door opens before Melissa can answer, and Stiles steps in carrying a plastic bag. While the door is open again, Derek focuses on the hustle and bustle of the hospital, disappointed when he can’t pick his sisters out of the busyness.

As soon as the door swings shut behind Stiles, the noise, the smells, everything stops abruptly, like it was snuffed out.

Derek stares wide-eyed at both Stiles and Melissa, worried that it’s only now occurred to him that this is a trap. They’re going to give him back to the hunters because he won’t ever hear them coming. In fact, that’s probably where Laura and Cora are right now.

That whole showdown at the vet clinic, Stiles’ declaration, it was all a ruse.

The only person here he can trust is Allison. She’s smelled strongly of anger when she was accusing her of trying to kill her mate. She also hasn’t betrayed him yet. Maybe he can trust Lydia too? And then he remembers Lydia’s insistence that he come to the hospital.

Everyone, except Allison with her doctor-patient privilege, is working to keep him exposed, ready for the hunters. Especially Stiles. Derek growls at him, allowing the hole in his arm to heal, dislodging Melissa’s IV.

The nurse swears and scrambles to stop the drip while Derek launches himself at Stiles.

This time it doesn’t matter that he’s smaller than Stiles or that he only weighs fifty pounds, he has healed enough that the force behind his punch lays Stiles flat.

Probably as a reflex, Stiles lets go of his bag, and it spills sideways. Derek pauses, sniffing. Food! He jumps on the bag and scrambles to the bathroom, twisting the handle sharply so that it breaks, leaving Stiles and Melissa no way to get at him.

Inside the pilfered bag is a white Styrofoam box, but instead of cheeseburgers and curly fries, this is meat loaf with gravy and peas and mashed potatoes. Everything is all jumbled together from when it fell, but Derek doesn’t care. He scarfs it down, using his fingers to shovel it into his mouth. When he’s done, he licks the box clean and then dives back into the bag.

A smaller box yields an upside down brownie smushed into melting vanilla ice cream. Derek eats it too. Then, he drinks from the sink and studies his reflection.

Someone changed him from Stiles’ clothes into a set of scrubs like his sisters. His feet are still bare and dirty.

A shower would be nice, he decides. There is a stall with a showerhead and a railing and the curtain that he slides open is patterned with large, oddly colored plumeria flowers. Everything smells of bleach, and underneath that, like mildew and ammonia. Derek doesn’t care. It’s a shower and he needs one.

He blasts the hot water and then stands under the spray. Bliss.

~ * ~

Stiles stares at the bathroom door, ruefully rubbing at his aching shoulder.

Whatever Derek did to the door, it’s not opening anytime soon. It hadn’t even budged when he rammed his shoulder into it.

Melissa returns from talking to security and hands him a cold pack. She doesn’t say anything, for which Stiles is grateful. She is justified in an I-told-you-so since she definitely told him not to break her solid door. Pointing out that Derek had already broken it had earned him a nice smack to the back of his head.

“I think we should remove the dampeners,” Stiles suggests. “That’s probably why he freaked out in the first place.”

“Do you know how difficult it is to treat the supernatural without those dampeners in place?” Melissa demands. “I’ve had werewolves in here who could hear surgeries six floors away and were to agitated for me to treat them. The dampeners stay on.”

“And what about Derek’s well-being?” Stiles glares at her. (It’s better than demanding (again) why neither she nor his father revealed the existence of supernatural creatures to him.) “Obviously, Kate Argent did something horrible to him, but we don’t know if she used sensory deprivation in addition to the sustenance deprivation.” He waits for her to shrug before adding, “He’s also just been told that most of his family died three years ago.”

“Who told him that?”

“Who else? Parrish. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I know Derek hasn’t had time to process it. We’ve separated him from his sisters, his only living relatives, and we’re disallowing him from using his senses to his advantage. We’re no better than Kate Argent right now.”

Melissa looks conflicted. “Do you sincerely believe that we need to remove the dampeners for Derek Hale’s mental well-being?”

Stiles nods. He truly thinks that Derek only attacked because he felt threatened when he realized they were doing something to his senses.

“I’ll talk to the director and see about getting the dampeners lifted.”

“And the bathroom door?” Stiles asks.

The door to the hallway opens and in steps the fire chief, another graduate of the class of ’99. A narrow-shouldered woman who Stiles knows can bench press nearly twice her weight (as she proves at the annual Firefighters versus Police games every year). Rebecca “Harley” Harlowe, former crush (hey, Stiles was young, he had a crush on nearly every classmate of his growing up—the exception being Scott).

She is standing in her black Beacon Hills FD t-shirt and holding a long-handled axe.

“Stilinski,” she greets wearily.

“Harley. Good to see you.”

“Would be better if I hadn’t had to be called out.” She points at the bathroom door. “He’s behind there?”

“Yep.”

“Can he hear me?”

Stiles looks to Melissa. She shakes her head and Harley lets out a long sigh.

“You got your taser ready?”

It’s clipped to Stiles’ belt again. He pulls it free and preps it.

“On three.” Harley hefts her axe while Stiles aims at the door. “One.”

Stiles swallows hard. He hopes Derek doesn’t attack again.

“Two.”

He really doesn’t want to hurt the boy more. He’s gone through so much in the last three years.

“Three.”

Harley swings her axe.

~ * ~

MP, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

#Teen Wolf Fanfiction #Derek Hale #Stiles Stilinski #My Story/My Writing #LfaPtCH

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