Derek awoke because he felt like he was falling. The sensation kicked him in the gut. He shot up into a sitting position and caught his breath, gripping hard at the mattress and sweat soaked sheets beneath his hands. He felt a heartbeat in his fingers and sour feeling in his stomach. He closed his eyes and took long deep breaths trying to even out the panic he was feeling. This is the fifth time he has jolted awake in as many days. Sleep is so hard to come by as of late, but he never rises easily anymore. As his skin begins to cool and his mind begins to go sleep fogged again, he lays down onto his back again and lets the slumber take him away. The worries that have been plaguing him are not gone, but he has decided to push them away for now. Focus on the cold, focus on the dark, focus on the empty. He returns back to the mostly evasive dreamland until it's time to pick up his jolted mistress later in the early morning. Bitch won't let sleeping dogs lie.
/
"You really don't look like you've been sleeping well Derek," Deaton mentions to him while packing up his medical bag with the supplies he used to examine Derek just moments earlier. He gives him one last long look, waiting for a response, which Alpha boy will never give him. He abandons the fight and pulls his bag over his shoulder before exiting the dank room he was calling his living room. Derek has no more answers now then he had earlier in the day when he called the good Vet and asked him to come by and examine him. The only thing he got was a prescription for a sleep aid to give to his nonexistent dog. He must make sure Stiles never finds out about this, or the dog jokes will never cease. But at least tonight he will sleep like a babe.
/
Nobody ever called Derek a lucky man. Shit doesn't come easily to him. So why would he believe that something like a good nights rest would be a thing he could attain? It wasn't in his cards to get the things he most needed. What made him think drugs would do the trick? Silly wolf. He took four times the dose of sleep aid to be rewarded with a fit of the shakes, a pounding headache and double the amount of sweat leaking out of his hair, armpits and rolling down his back. This was the worst night of his whole life. Restless and tired, but no closer to an easy peace. He decided to throw in the towel and get out of bed. Perhaps if he overworked his mind it would force the sleep to come.
His plan was to read. Something he did a majority of the time. He walked to his footlocker and squatted down searching to the bottom for the box his father made for him when he was five. It was inside a pillowcase nestled in the corner. He unwrapped it slowly. Inside were the few prized possessions he had left of his family. Things that had no significance to anyone but him. He took everything out of the box and lined up his nicknacks into a pattern. This was his ritual. He had to make sure each treasure was perfectly distanced from the previous and he would fidget with them until a wave of contentment came over him. His wolf was centered and calmed.
The last thing in the box was his Mother's journal. It was old. She started writing in it when she was thirteen. She didn't run out of pages until half way through her twenty-second year. She didn't write in it everyday, although she tried to when she first got it. She would sometimes abandon the diary for months on end, then find it and write for a few days before losing interest again. But she always came back. She started drawing and pasting interesting things into the journal when she was sixteen. It evolved with her age. It was the most personal thing Derek retained of his family. It was the single most important thing he owned. He's read it so many times he's lost count. It is the thing he does when he is sad or happy. When he is troubled or sleepless. He comes back to it during all seasons of emotion. He looks for answers to questions he didn't know he had. It is his safe house. His Mother's words, her penmanship, her dreams and thoughts. Her histories and love stories. A piece of her soul. A piece of his soul as well. His communion with the book is on the level with some peoples spirituality. He may not believe in God, but he believes in this thing that he can touch and smell and see.
Derek's mother was destined to be an Alpha. She realized this when she seventeen. Her alpha was her Uncle and he never took a mate or bred more weres. She was the youngest of her siblings. She grew up thinking either her brother Peter or her Sister Esther were next in line. But her Uncle always showed favoritism toward her. It dawned on her when he gifted her the family library on her seventeenth birthday that the legacy would pass to her when the time came. It took her months to read through the books he gave her. Her favorite of them was an old, shiny green leather bound book called The Gleaning. She refers to it dozens of times during her seventeenth and eighteenth year. She says the secrets to her legacy and all her dreams lie in this book. It makes Derek long and mourn that the book was lost in the fire. He would give limbs to know it's secrets. His wolf is longing for knowledge. Derek turns to the ribbon holding his place from the last time he had read the journal. He reads about his parents courtship. She wrote in the book a lot during this chapter of her life. He obsessively returns to one entry she wrote after she had married Derek's father, talking about the "dream" being the defining moment of her life. Derek's wolf somersaults at the word.
/
A dream would be greatly welcomed right now. But to dream would require sleep. A luxury Derek hasn't the wealth for. He fell asleep for almost two hours last night, but was jolted awake by a violent dream involving a maritime shipwreck. He was able to get some rest, albeit, no sleep earlier in the day when his pack of betas came by and they had a nap cuddle fest in the living room. He shut his eyes and stilled himself, calm flushing over him as he heard the inhales and exhales of his wolves and humans having cat naps next to him. He let those sounds build in his chest until Boyd got up and announced he was leaving to go get happy hour wings at the diner. Most of the pack up and left within the hour and he was catapulted back into his uneasiness. The only one that stayed was Stiles, and he fidgeted and bounced off everything like he usually does. Not sure if his conversation actually was going anywhere, he let Stiles babble on and it helped to soothe the sleep deprivation until the wiry kid left mumbling something about midterms.
/
There was a dull pain in Derek's head. He had laid himself in the center of his bed, taking deep breaths. In and out, in and out. He could barely hear his own heartbeat. There was something wrong, something different. He couldn't open his eyes. He had no energy left. He felt a cloud of white noise cover him. He was drifting off….but this wasn't sleep. It was something else. He was shaking. He could feel his body convulsing. He was seizing, violently slapping his body against the palette underneath him. He had no control over his limbs. It felt like an earthquake in his blood. There was a blackness surrounding him.
Then he stilled.
There was only darkness. A black as pitch emptiness. Had he died? Had his body given away to the stress? He felt a calmness now. In his life, that was so out of control, he never felt this calm. But the calm was then replaced with a euphoria. And the euphoria was surrounded by a light. The luminescence dimmed, his eyes were adjusting. He searched his surroundings and discerned where he was. This wasn't an afterlife, this was his house. His house when he was a child. He recognized the rocking chair his Mother always sat in. The crocheted blanket that his Grandmother made was laying draped across the stiff couch. He loved that couch. His eyes went to the clock on the wall. It was 1pm. That can't be right. It was nighttime when he laid down.
Then a noise spooked Derek. It was coming from the breakfast nook. He heard a woman's voice. She was cursing. Derek could hear her heartbeat. It was fast, like she had startled herself. It started to slow, and get closer. He followed the sound and started walking towards the door, but before he could reach it, the door swung open and through it appeared...His Mother. Her scent punching him in the gut.
"M-mom. Mommy…Is that you?" He hadn't called her 'Mommy' since he was a child.
"Of coarse it's me Der, who else would I be? No shifter would be able to duplicate my magnificent scent!" She rolls her eyes and grabs his face and places a quick kiss on his jaw.
"Wow, you've gotten big!" She is amused by his facial expression. "You haven't changed. You can still tell a story with your eyebrows and pout. You emote so much without saying anything, my lovely Boy," she remarks to him without breaking his gaze. His mouth had dropped and tears were swelling in his eyes. He didn't know where to begin, but he knew he had so much to say to her.
/
"This is your Alpha Dream, my Love." She smiles the Hale smile that Derek will never be tired of seeing, all teeth. "You would have had it earlier, but you weren't ready yet." Answering the question that was written across his face.
"Every Alpha has one to set them upon their path. It's a right of passage to become leader," she says.
"It will put you on your coarse to become the Alpha you were meant to be. It will show you your way." She pets Derek's hair, cupping his cheek, then setting her hand against his left breast. She is wearing her wedding ring. He rubs his thumb over it. The ring Derek keeps locked away forever in his trunk. Laura had gotten it back after they removed it from her charred hand. His eyes turn sad at remembering its current state located in his Father's box.
"And by showing me my way…my path…it is showing me you? In my past?" Derek asks with a look of confusion.
"Your Alpha dream is conforming to your mind. It is showing you what you would be most comfortable seeing. That just happens to be the time when you were happiest in your life. To show you the comfort of home, pack, Alpha, Mother. It is your mind convincing you that you are safe so you may accept the vision that you need. What your wolf needs."
The realization hits Derek like a 2x4 to the gut. This isn't real. This is just a figment of his imagination. But why does it have to feel so real? Why does the vision of his Mother have to smell like his Mother? Like burnt sandalwood and clove. She smells amazing. Derek gulps down the saliva that is overrunning his mouth. She looks up at him reading his body language, sensing his revelation.
"There is so much you should have known. It was a failure on my end by not preparing you better. Your Laura was always destined to be Alpha. But I should have taught you both the same. In case the day ever came. Because the day indeed came." She looks to the bookshelf across the room. His eyes follow her path, he sees the Hale library. Rows and rows of books on Lycanthropy. His missing links. Everything that burned all those years ago, and with it the knowledge he needs to lead his pack of misfits.
"The Gleaning would have prepared you. The way it did me…for what was expected. It taught me how I was supposed to lead." He sees it sitting on the second shelf, all green and shiny. It makes his mouth water. He wants to touch it and run his fingers down the spine. He is craving it all the way to his bones.
"Your wolf is crying. He is incomplete. He is howling and you can't hear him," she tells him.
"What is he saying?" Derek humors her. She looks at him for a long time, trying to figure out what she needs to tell him.
"He's saying…He wants….Your wolf will only be at it's strongest when you mate. When you find your missing puzzle piece. You will only thrive and lead your pack when you have your mate there to hold you up. Until you claim your mate, your wolf will be restless. He will know no peace. You will struggle and fail." She delivers the words fast, like a person would rip off a plaster. He has a sick feeling in his stomach. The words set in.
"You were not meant to lead my son. You will only be complete when you find the moon within you." The Moon Within Her. The poem his Father wrote for his Mother to woo her. He always said she was the moon in the sky. She always said he was moon within her. Her mate and the part of her that made her whole. He understands.
"But what if I can't find them? What if I am not meant to cross paths with them yet?" Derek takes a deep breath. He feels the wolf within him shaking. His mother widens her eyes at the realization that he doesn't know.
"Oh my Love. You are having your Alpha dream because your wolf recognizes your mate. You have already met. You already know. Your wolf has already seized claim. You are just blind to it." What is this craziness she is bleeding out? The only thought running through his mind….Who?
"How will I know Mom? Who is it?" Derek searches for the answer, but the sick feeling just continues to rise within him. He has no clue.
"Close your eyes." She places her thumbs, pointing them towards each other, over Derek's eyes. "Clear your mind. Let your wolf come to the periphery….Who in your life makes you crazy and anxious? Who challenges you and doesn't let you off easy? Who calms you and comforts you? Who makes your blood run hot and whose touch makes your wolf yelp with content?" Derek's mind forms an image. He sees a body, a movement, a secret memory usually buried in the deep.
"Whose face do you see?" Derek's eyes jolt open, mouth slack jawed.
"No! I don't believe it." He bellows at her. This isn't happening. This is a sick joke his mind is playing on him. His wolf is a trickster.
"Your wolf wouldn't lie to you. He knows what he wants, what he needs. This is your answer, and it is your destiny. Don't reject your wolf. He can only be given once and he has made his choice." She pauses. She has to say what will make him understand.
"It was the same with your Father." Derek jerks his eyes toward her, staring intently into her. "My Alpha dream showed me my future. With your Father, your Sister, and you. I saw you. I was headed on another path, but my wolf showed me my life. She cried out for YOU. I couldn't turn my back on her." Derek's heart pangs. Skips and jumps at her words. He hears the truth in her words, but he feels the guilt radiate through him.
"What if you had though? What if you had gone down the other path, lived your life not based on a dream? You would still be alive." She looks saddened by this. What goes through his dense mind sometimes. Derek Hale: forever enslaved to his martyrdom. Silly boy.
"No Derek! There was never another option. It may not have been what I wanted, but my wolf wanted it. And she was right." She takes his hand again. "Listen to your heart. Open it up and let your wolf bask in his Moon." Derek leans onto her shoulder. He knows she is right. His wolf is a fickle bitch.
His whole body is accepting her words. Imprinting them to his soul. He wants to find his moon. He wants his mate. He wants to be the leader his pack needs. He wants what his Mother had. He wants to honor his Mother and her legacy. He wants to bury himself in this feeling that is washing over him. They sit for a while, saying nothing. Derek listens to her steady heartbeat. He could put a metronome next to her and she wouldn't falter in matching it. The sweet sound of love in steady beats.
"Are you going?" he asks after she starts to stir, moving away.
"Yes, Darling. I'm off now. I said what I came to say. I set you on your path. My work is done." Derek's face goes white. He can't let her leave yet.
"I'm not ready for you to go. You just got here and I've missed you." She breaths out a small sigh and runs her hand down his cheek.
"I'm always with you. I'm always right here with you. I'm not going away." She pulls his head to her shoulder. "I guess no harm in sitting here for a bit."
He grips onto her. Her emoting heaviness lulling him in. A silence envelops him. He falls. Falls. Falls. Until he is awoken. He has slept through the night.
Peacefully.
/
6:03 am His headache has vanished. The panic, the unease has faded. He feels rested and better than he's ever felt. His mind is filled with the memories of his dream. They felt so real. The constant memory of his revelation. His wolf sighs. He knows. He's always known. He was just never ready to admit it to himself.
So where is he supposed to go from here? There are no books on how to claim your mate. No books on how to have the most awkward conversation of your life. To proclaim love to someone you didn't really even know you liked. Damn wolf. Fucker. He hears the uptick, his heart skips a beat. Maybe that's what they really mean when people say 'my heart skipped a beat.' It's really just the uptick of the lie finally being acknowledged. Of coarse, he's in love. Of coarse he always knew. He rolls his eyes. His wolf sings in contentment.
6:37 am Derek gets out of bed. Walks to the bathroom. Showers. Spends far too long taming the wolf. He really is a fucker. Of coarse now that he's claimed his mate in his heart, he's going to be plagued with endless dirty thoughts about mating. About flesh, naked flesh, moans, sweat, salt, hair, muscles moving beneath him. He has to wank twice. Asshole. The wolf is mischievous.
He dresses quickly. If he hurries he can make it to the diner for breakfast. Heavens knows he's not delivering this proclamation on an empty stomach. And he's not waiting or he will lose his nerves. He's going to march right up to the door and spill his guts. The damn wolf is now laughing at him. Derek almost can't wait to give the fucker away.
8:41am Derek pulls slowly up to the curb. Most of the street have already left for work. Kids are making their way to school. Derek looks at the house. Takes a deep breath. He can hear only one heartbeat inside the house. He sees his mates car in the driveway. He knows that this is the right time. He gets out of the car. Takes several more deep breaths. Rounds the front of his car and walks up the sidewalk. Slow steps. Sure steps. The wolf is buzzing inside his head. He's circling him, making him dizzy, nipping his heels in excitement. Settle the fuck down! He takes the steps up to the door. One by one, like a toddler.
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. He reaches up, makes a fist. Hovers over the door for longer than he should. There is a split second where he knows he's stalling. The wolf smirks. He closes his eyes. He inhales one last time, his nostrils flair like it's his last breath. He knocks and holds his breath.
The fucking world stops. His wolf is howling. He is seeing stars. The door opens….
"We-llllll good morning, Sourwolf," Stiles is beaming with a smile he's never seen before in a tone that is far too chipper for the time of day. "What brings you here so early? You look grumpier than usual." He flashes teeth and his mouth smirks up and it's all Derek can do not to throw his head back and actually howl. His wolf is satisfied.
Notes: Popped into my head. It wanted out. Had constant anxiety about other fics in which Derek refers to his wolf constantly. Almost didn't post it because I've read sooooo much fic I am sure the idea has been written and with a lot more success. Hope I didn't rip anyone off. When you've read thousands of Sterek fic you forget what was an original idea and what has amalgamated into a Sterek stew in your brain. Hope you like it. It's my first ever attempt at writing.