He hadn’t thought even for a second, instincts roaring, and jumped in front of Derek, taking the blow.
And then he got lost in the darkness.
When Stiles came too, he found himself on the cold, dirty ground of the warehouse, blood still pooling around him from his injury. In the background, the fight went on, growls and snarls all he could hear, but he couldn’t focus on that. Not when Derek was cradling him in his arms, an expression on his face that Stiles hoped he would never have to see again. Black veins ran up through his arms.
Huh. That was why he didn’t feel any extreme discomfort, only a slight amount when he moved.
He brought his hand up, wincing at the sudden pain in his shoulder, pressing it against Derek’s cheek with whatever energy he did have remaining. His fingers brushed against something wet yet not quite as sticky as his own blood.
Tears.
Stiles took a sharp breath, regretting it almost a split second later, and began to rub his thumb against Derek’s cheek. Derek was sporting a fresh cut on the bridge of his nose and on his forehead. He ran his fingers across Derek’s face, tenderly brushing over his lips and down to his chin, and then towards his jaw, engraving it to memory.
He felt Derek’s jaw clench tight and then release over and over again, almost rhythmic. Stiles tried to mimic it with his breathing. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
Derek’s eyebrow furrowed and that caught Stiles’ eye. He traced those brows with the gentlest touch, moving to the forehead to smooth out the creases.
“What are you doing?” Derek asked, his voice barely above a whisper. Stiles could hardly hear him what with all the noise in the background.
He tried to force a smile, a comforting one—though it was probably more like a grimace—clearly not succeeding when he heard Derek’s whimper. “Memorizing you.”
“Why?” Derek’s voice broke. And in turn, it broke Stiles’ heart.
“Because,” he took one last good look at Derek, his voice trailing off, “I want to remember you forever.”
Derek’s face began to blur and Stiles squinted, trying to fix his vision. And then the thrum in his head began to become overwhelming, his vision swam, and Stiles could feel his entire body go limp with exhausted.
It was stupid. It was impetuous and reactionary and so fucking stupid of him. The rushing water drowned out the noise of his labored breathing. Well, it would for human ears. He didn’t want Stiles to wake up and hear him, maybe get the wrong idea, like Stiles was the problem here. It wasn’t Stiles, it was Derek, always him fucking it up for everyone around him. He should have kept his distance. He should have kept everyone away from the destructive force that was Derek Hale, Stiles especially.
Stays away. And there’s more than definitely a few stolen moments between the two of them. A first kiss here, a hot and heady make out session while on the hunt for the baddie of the week, but it all comes to a head right after Stiles thinks Derek is gonna die, cause after the fight, Derek comes to tell Stiles that he’s leaving Beacon Hills, but they don’t get around to talking that night because all Stiles wants to do is kiss and touch and feel Derek, and know that he’s alive and safe and hold, and the moment is beautiful!
And Stiles makes plans for the morning during whispered conversations and soft kisses. In the morning he’ll make chocolate chip pancakes, and they will talk about what this means for them. But in the morning, Stiles gets up and Derek is gone. All that’s left is a note that says ‘I’m sorry. I love you’.
Why……why would you hurt me in this way???
Okay, but let me make this better. Because Derek travels around the world and he can’t just shut Stiles out of his life, okay? He thought about it but when it comes to Stiles, Derek is actually pretty weak. Although, he thinks with a smile, maybe not weak. Just….less inclined to put more walls up. Not that Stiles hasn’t found several ways of climbing over Derek’s walls already, but Derek can’t say he’s ever been truly upset about that. Not really.
So he takes to sending Stiles notes from wherever he is. He sends a note on the back of a napkin saying the milkshakes in Paris are good and another one on a motherfucking rock, the wordscarved out by one of Derek’s claws; it reads, ‘it’s warm here but not as warm as in your bed’. He hesitates for five whole days before sending it.
(The rock is something Stiles cherishes for weeks; he sleeps with it under his pillow and looks at it before he goes to bed. He holds it when he’s scared and eventually puts it in a box where, up until that point, he only put things that had belonged to his mom. He figures she’ll keep Derek safe.)
Neither of them call – it’s a rule neither of them voiced, but it’s rule all the same. It’s only when Stiles shows up in Washington and runs into Derek – literally, runs into him, late for class – that Derek realises the utter fucking hell Stiles and the pack went through after he left, and all Derek can do is say ‘sorry’ over and over again, practically shaking because he should have been there, he never should have left. Why did he think him leaving would make Beacon Hills a safer place? He’s babbling, he’s pretty sure, in a way he wants to blame Stiles for because he never babbles, that is until – until Stiles is cupping his face and shushing him; saying things like, “I’m glad you weren’t there, sourwolf. Knowing you, you would have died.“
Derek rolls his eyes at that but Stiles is 100% serious. “You could have died,” he says again. He says it over and over until he’s the one shaking and Derek is the one cupping his face.
“I’m going to protect you,” Stiles then says, after a minute. “I…..I want to protect you, Derek Hale. For the rest of…..well. Yeah.”
Derek smiles, raising an eyebrow. His heart is beating so fast. Stiles always wants to protect him. “You always want to protect me,” he whispers, biting his lip.
His heart beats faster.
Stiles snorts. “Want is a strong word, big guy. I didn’t want to do jack for you in the beginning.”
“Then why save me, all those times?”
“Dunno,” Stiles shrugs, his own heart beat caught between steady and a stutter. “Guess I just thought you were worth saving.”
Derek smiles again, ducking his head. “Guess I thought you were too,” he breathes, leaning in for a kiss.
Stiles stared at the email in horror. He went to shut the lid of Derek’s laptop, then froze, fingers hovering in mid-air. Because he wasn’t supposed to see this, and he knew it… hell, he hadn’t wanted to see it, he’d just been bored and looking for something to watch on Netflix and goddammit Derek had no fucking television and…
And none of that mattered. Because Stiles was a moron. A moron who’d stupidly clicked on the email popup notification unthinkingly because it was what he did, okay? He clicked on his own email popups and he’d been in that weird zone, watching Supernatural while spread out on Derek’s couch and when the popup had, well, popped up, he’d clicked it.
And now he couldn’t unsee what he’d seen.
It was everything. Every goddamn thing he’d ever asked for, ever vaguely mumbled about being ‘cool’ or awesome or whatever. It was an Amazon wishlist he’d never even thought to put together because it literally contained every damn thing he could ever want – and about ten extra things he didn’t even know he did want but which were fucking perfect.
There was even a weeping angel tree ornament, for fuck’s sake.
The total cost was more than his dad made in three months. Hell, maybe even longer than that. It made a sick feeling swoop through Stiles and that was what moved him to close the laptop and shove it off him and onto the coffee table so he could sit up properly and drop his head into his hands so he could breathe for a minute.
It was as he was trying to gather himself together that the door to the apartment opened – Derek’s shitty apartment that Stiles was planning to ask him to move out of when his lease was up in January, or so he’d thought before Derek went and spent over ten grand on him and… Yeah, there was the panic attack he’d been trying to stave off.
“Stiles?”
Stiles just shook his head, too focused on controlling his breathing to answer Derek. When jeans-clad thighs – perfect, thick thighs that Stiles loved to get pinned between – moved into his line of vision, Stiles closed his eyes too, because he just couldn’t deal with this right now.
shealwaysreads 