alocalband:

Sterek #15 “loud, so everyone can hear”

“Because I love you!” Stiles shouts, and then immediately sucks in a hard breath, eyes bulging wide in horror and disbelief. Did he really just…

Derek’s own eyes go wide as well, though the rest of his face remains carefully frozen. Scott looks like he swallowed a bug. So yep, Stiles really just. He did that. In front of basically everyone he knows.

“I mean.” He starts and stops. His dad’s got an unimpressed eyebrow raised in his direction. Cora looks like she’s fighting back mean laughter. This is not the direction any of them probably expected this newest argument between Stiles and Derek to go, but none of them seem exactly shocked by it. 

Except for Derek.

“Okay, so.” Stiles shakes it off and launches back in on the topic at hand. “Tabling that embarrassing outburst for the time being, I’m still right and Derek still shouldn’t be the one who plays bait for this asshole.”

“Why, because you just can’t bear to live without him?” Isaac smirks, rolling his eyes.

Stiles grits his teeth and digs his fingers into his thighs to keep from punching the douchebag. “Because the warlock is expecting it. We need the element of surprise on our side here, and Derek playing martyr yet again won’t give us that.”

The group easily falls back into battle planning mode then, and even if they don’t necessarily forget Stiles’ heated confession, they’ve got bigger fish to fry at the moment and they all know it. Derek included, who shakes his head minutely when Stiles starts talking, and then pipes up with an idea for a new plan as though nothing ever happened. 

Stiles is outwardly grateful for Derek’s composure, but internally bereft. He can feel a hollow point in the center of his chest appear and slowly grow.

Later, when the blood has been shed, and the bad guy has been slain, and Scott is offering up his Hallmark card platitudes to those who need it as they shuffle their way towards a shower and a bed. Later, when they’ve all somehow survived another life-or-death go around with another big bad and don’t have the energy to wonder if the next one will finally be their last one…

Later. Derek falls into step beside Stiles, and asks, without looking at him, “Did you mean it?”

Stiles rolls his shoulders and stuffs his hands firmly into his pockets. He lets his eyes obsess over the grooves in the battered blacktop they’re walking across to get to their respective vehicles. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Derek.”

“Don’t tell me you’re in love with me in the middle of a fight then.”

Stiles stops walking and turns on him, throwing his arms out into the air uselessly. “Fine! Shit. I’m sorry, alright? What do you want from me?”

Derek purses his lips thoughtfully for a moment. Then bites down on the tiniest of smiles and steps forward, into Stiles’ personal space. “I just wish I had been brave enough to say it first is all.”

Stiles blinks. Forgets how to breathe. Blinks again. “Wait. What?”

Derek shrugs one shoulder and pretends to study his shoes while unsubtly inching even closer. “I’m just saying. We should probably take turns with the romantic declarations, or I’ll never actually get the chance to tell you I love you too.”

Either Stiles passed out at some point or this is a very crass prank. 

But Derek takes his hand then and holds it like it’s sacred. Like it’s normal. 

“Holy shit, pinch me,” Stiles whispers.

Derek winks, and looks like a complete dork while he does it. “Maybe later.”

Stiles has never been more in love with him.