kedreeva:

Stiles was seventeen the first time Derek slid his rough hands up along his bare sides, ghosting them reverently over the lines of Stiles’ ribs. Derek remembered the moment, remembered the constellations of beauty marks upon his pale skin, the shaking nervous breath that flexed Stiles’ chest beneath his hands. He remembered the way Stiles had looked at him, heart fluttering like a bird in a cage, waiting because Derek had stopped.

Because when he touched Stiles, when he smoothed his hands up Stiles’ sides, all he could feel was the glide of Kate’s hands over his own ribs, the feel of her tongue licking from belly to chest, and he had frozen. He couldn’t do that, he couldn’t be Kate, couldn’t fathom corrupting the teen straddled under him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, not past the fear, the panic.

It was the cool touch of Stiles’ hands upon his that drew him back to the moment. Their eyes met and Stiles knew. Derek had told him, because there was no way he could have kept Kate away from Stiles no matter how much he didn’t deserve the burden of that knowledge. He did deserve to know what he was getting in to, how Derek had been damaged. Derek had had to give him that chance to leave.

“Hey,” Stiles murmured, fingers curling around the edges of Derek’s hands. The concern in his eyes was nearly crushing but his voice was firm. “You’re not Kate, Derek.” You won’t hurt me. “I’m not Kate either,” he added. “Kate’s dead. She’s not coming back to get you. Not either of us, okay?”

Derek had nodded and then leaned down, pressed warm lips to Stiles’. That was the first night he had hesitantly let go of the demons in his past, let Stiles chase them away with warm words and heated touches. The first night he had let Stiles into those haunted spaces, and begun to heal.

Stiles was only seventeen the night he saved Derek from himself.