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Out of Darkness
Looking back, Stiles thought he was probably the worst person ever to exist. That night Derek and Laura’s entire world had fallen to pieces, had literally burned down while they watched and Stiles? Stiles could only recall it as his world began again.
Stiles had awoken to voices in the night, had made his way down the stairs in his flannel pyjama pants and worn, too-small Batman t-shirt only to find them standing in his hallway. They carried with them the smell of smoke and tired, lost expressions that made them look even younger than they were, Laura with a blanket round her and Derek with his dad’s deputy jacket too large on his fifteen-year-old shoulders.
At nearly 3 o’clock in the morning, it was well passed the time his dad had originally said he’d be home and his dad looked almost as tired and broken as the teenagers in his front hall. He apologised again to the babysitter Stiles had insisted earlier he was far too old to need and when he closed the front door behind her, he hesitated just for a moment before turning, as if he needed just an extra ounce of strength before tackling the next part of his incredibly long night. He looked up the staircase, to where Stiles stood frozen with the last vestiges of sleep still leaving him and offered him a sad, reassuring smile.
“Stiles? Make up the spare bedroom for Laura and Derek would you? They’re going to be staying with us for a while.”
After doing as he was told, Stiles came back downstairs, only to find his dad had moved to the dining room with Laura. He hesitated on the final step, hearing snatches of their conversation, whispers about hunters and wolfsbane, about unnatural fire and how their uncle got out, how he tore ‘them’ to pieces before he fell into a coma from his wounds.
His father hesitated and Stiles edged round the corner to just glimpse his him reaching across the dining table, no doubt to cover Laura’s hand with his in that familiar comforting gesture. His face was warm and weary as he assured her no one would ever find out.
Stiles’s eyes went wide, his heart skipping a beat as he moved forward, but as he did so, he caught sight of the figure slumped down in a huddle against the wall. Stiles cast a single glance at what was happening inside the dining room and then turned fully toward Derek. His head was tipped back against the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest and although he was a good couple years older than Stiles he looked impossibly young.
For the first time ever, Stiles ignored the biting pang of curiosity and lowered himself on his haunches in front of the boy who had just lost everything. “Hey,” he said softly, his hand hovering, hesitating before covering Derek’s forearm, which flinched at his touch. It was grimy, covered with soot, dried sweat and soil and Stiles was struck by the idea of horrors clinging to him even now. He still smelled of smoke.
Remembering the way hospital smell had clung to him after his mother had passed, Stiles said softly, “C’mon, let’s get you clean, huh?”
It was like Derek was catatonic, he was dragged far too easily to his feet and guided into the bathroom upstairs, eased down onto the edge of the bath while Stiles soaked a washcloth in warm water in the sink. He hesitated, not even thirteen-years-old and staring down at this strange boy who he only vaguely knew from just being around town, but knowing he just had to help him.
“I’ve uhhh, got a new shirt you can wear? It’s my dad’s so it’s probably gonna be big on you but it’s clean and…” He bit the inside of his lip, then carefully pulled Derek’s filthy shirt off him and tossed it into the empty tub. Still Derek didn’t really react, just let himself be moved while staring vacantly off to the side.
Stiles lifted the washcloth out of the sink and squeezed out the excess before lifting it to dab at Derek’s cheek. As soon as the damp cloth touched his skin Derek snapped. His head wrenched to the side and his eyes glared bright gold, his face morphing into something otherworldly, with fangs bared as he snarled a wordless warning.
Stiles flinched, hand frozen, still clutching the washcloth as he stared, as Derek studied his face with all the fear and pain of a wounded, cornered dog. Just like a beast, the fight was drawn out of those emotions rather than viciousness and when Stiles didn’t move to hurt him his unnaturally furrowed, hairless brow twisted in confusion, his piercing yellow-gold eyes studying Stiles with wary confusion. He stared about him, before looking at Stiles again, whose mind was racing as he struggled to understand what he was seeing.
“What are you?” he breathed, voice quiet and heavy with all the wonder and horrified awe of a child facing something too unearthly for anyone else to believe. He tried to piece together what he had glimpsed of the conversation between Laura and his father but none of it quite made sense. It was like a jigsaw with some pieces missing.
Yet still, whatever Derek was, there was still the glistening light of a scared orphaned boy in his eyes, whatever colour they were.
After a long moment in which neither of them moved but Derek seemed to calm a little, Stiles, with his heart still pounding, reached forward. Derek flinched as the washcloth touched his cheekbone but didn’t pull away when Stiles began to wash the grime from his cheek; ash and soil and God knew what else streaked with dried tears. He watched Stiles with uncertain, distrustful eyes as Stiles cleaned his face and neck, even the worst of the dirt from his hair without a proper shower or bath.
Stiles met his gaze with the raw hopefulness only a child could harbour in the face of danger. Stiles was both afraid and awestruck all at once and by the time he had Derek’s entire upper body clean, his face had morphed back into that of the scared fifteen-year-old he’d first seen downstairs.
“There you are,” Stiles said gently, the same way his mom had done when she’d scrubbed him down in the bath after he’d gotten particularly dirty. He smiled and Derek blinked as if surprised by his gentleness. Before either of them could say another word, there was movement in the hall behind him and Stiles looked up at the doorway to see his dad and Laura standing there.
“Well,” his dad said wearily, swiping a hand over the back of his neck the same way Stiles did. “I guess you’ve got lots of questions, huh, kiddo?”
Slowly, Stiles stood, glancing between the three gathered in the modest sized bathroom. He had never felt so far from the muzzy place of sleep in his entire life. He’d woken up to find not only had his dad come home hours later than he’d intended, but it had apparently been because he was somehow saving these two almost-kids from a horror Stiles couldn’t even begin to comprehend. He didn’t understand but he knew something monumental had happened here.
“What are you?” he asked Laura this time, feeling incredibly young and small with his mussed hair, bare feet and worn pyjamas.
Laura drew in an unsteady, weary breath and moved to her brother’s side. She let her hand slide over his shoulder, which she gripped as if in solidarity or perhaps for strength, Stiles wasn’t sure.
“We’re werewolves.”
Stiles blinked, feeling his dad’s eyes on him and he floundered for a moment in shocked silence before saying simply. “Oh.”
Now he definitely had a lot of questions.
*
When the insurance policy money came through, for the house, for the lives that were lost, Laura and Derek still didn’t leave and Stiles? Stiles hated himself but he was glad for it. He loved his dad, and he was a good dad but he was a good Sheriff’s Deputy too and so sometimes, inevitably, Stiles felt lonely.
Stiles wasn’t lonely with Derek and Laura there. It was so messed up but sharing breakfast and dinner with them and his dad, Laura giving him a lift to school at the same time as Derek and even the hesitant, quiet conversation he managed to coax out of Derek with his constant talking, it all felt good. The house was a little cramped for four, with the basement revamped as a suite for Laura after a time, but it was good. It was family.
He was an awful person, wasn’t he?
Right from the start, Laura had said that he was good for Derek, bringing him out of his shell when his instinct told him to retreat and curl in on himself like a dying leaf. His dad, meanwhile had said the same but in reverse.
Derek was older and ‘cooler’ certainly but since Stiles’s mother had fallen ill, he’d been instilled with this need to care for people. So while he followed Derek around and annoyed the hell out of him with his questions, by chattering and showing him his DC figures and insisting he play Mario Kart with him ‘just one more time,’ he also insisted he eat more and go to bed earlier and that he was always crankiest by the full moon, so he needed to stock up on cookies and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
He couldn’t lie, keeping such a momentous secret did make him feel important, but also, the years went by and Derek and Laura still didn’t leave and somewhere along the line the Stilinski house became their house, Laura became like his sister and Derek…he became Stiles’s best friend.
After a time, Laura eventually felt ready to return to college and of course, Derek followed in her footsteps when his time came, still quiet but emboldened by the strength of support he’d found in the home they’d made together. They returned every holiday and when they finished, it was the Stilinski house they came back to, to set up their futures from.
It was when Stiles came home from his first Thanksgiving weekend at college that it all changed.
*
Stiles left his dorm building, head in his backpack as he checked again for his phone charger when the low purr of a familiar car pulled up on the sidewalk in front of him. He blinked and had to double-take at the sight of the Camaro, because he’d told them the Jeep was fine to make the drive home but then the window rolled down and Stiles’s breath caught. Not only was it not Laura at the wheel, but Derek looked…different.
It was ridiculous, it’d only been a few months since they’d last laid eyes on each other but Derek had let a short, stubbly beard grow in across his jaw, his expression intense and older and not the boy Stiles had known but a man. It struck him with the sudden impact of a freight train so that Stiles was frozen in place until Derek caught sight of him and his face just lit up. His Derek was still there, just grown. How had he not realised that had happened? It was logical, wasn’t it? He was almost three years older than Stiles, who would be nineteen in April. They were both older and somehow Stiles hadn’t noticed.
Until now. And judging by the way a few of the last Thanksgiving stragglers had stopped to stare, they’d noticed too.
“Hey,” Derek said as Stiles forced his legs into action, feeling oddly dazed as he reached the passenger door and climbed in. “Thought I’d surprise you.”
“You definitely did,” Stiles managed, if a little breathlessly. Derek cast him a curious, sideways glance but didn’t comment on the little rush of his heartbeat or the charge to the air between them, not on the entire ride home. They talked, they laughed like they always had and Stiles would’ve said that it was like they’d never been apart but it was different, so different and he couldn’t help but sneak glances at Derek as he drove. He licked his dry lips and just tried to be normal.
*
The night was unseasonably warm as Stiles stepped out onto the porch after a traditional Stilinski-Hale Thanksgiving dinner. He still wore a sweatshirt though as he lowered himself onto the step beside Derek, silently handing him a bottle of elderflower soda that Derek preferred to the foul taste of beer which he couldn’t even get a buzz from. Stiles said nothing though, just sitting beside Derek in companionable silence as he nursed his own bottle.
Derek always came out back to think about his family on the holidays, it was as much of a tradition as the turkey, Derek’s way of remembering them and Stiles always seemed to find his way out here beside him. He couldn’t bear the thought of Derek out here alone, even with his skin prickling with the newly discovered charge to their connection, which had been fed with accidental touches and close proximity all evening, but at the same time it felt wrong to speak until Derek invited him to, so he waited, content with their companionable silence.
“Are you okay?” Derek asked eventually, seeming to breathe in and come back to himself, having paid his respects to his family’s memory, so unlike the broken, lost boy he’d been all those years ago in Stiles’s front hall. “You seem wired, more wired than usual.” His lips quirked at the corners and Stiles felt his face heat.
“Yeah I…” he swallowed, staring out at the dark yard behind them and the trees beyond where the light from the house couldn’t reach. The moon wasn’t full but it was huge in the sky, its light filling the darkness with a soft pale glow that felt almost warming. It glinted off the treetops and drew Stiles’s eyes in, lulling him into a place of calm as he struggled to put his feelings into words. What were the words for suddenly realising you were attracted to your best friend?
“It just feels different, I guess,” he admitted softly.
“What does?”
Stiles swallowed. “Me and…you.”
Slowly, Derek reached out on the porch between them, letting his fingers slide between Stiles’s on the wood there. He dragged his fingertips along the length of Stiles’s fingers, caressing each tip before tracing down the other side to touch the next. In the end, he let his hand cover Stiles’s completely and squeezed. “Yeah,” he whispered, voice as husky and soft as Stiles’s had been. “It does feel different.”
Just like that, they watched the slow, imperceptible travel of the moon across the dark sky, shifting slightly closer, testing the closeness. After a long silence, Stiles turned his head to the side, eyes searching Derek’s. “Wanna go for a walk?”
Even without the biting cold of the usual weather this time of year, there was still an evening chill as they walked leisurely through the trees. They were thin enough together that Stiles still had a decent enough view of where he was putting his feet just by moonlight, though he knew Derek wouldn’t let him break his leg.
They walked closely together, unselfconscious and Stiles thought of when his dad had been caught at work, unable to take him to see the new Star Wars movie and so Derek had grudgingly volunteered. He’d taken him for ice-cream afterward without even blinking, even though the movie had ended late, even though he’d been older and ‘cooler’ and the waitress had smiled flirtatiously at him and Stiles had been a goofy kid.
They’d walked close together then too, shoulder-checking each other every now and then as they recalled the high points of the movie. Stiles remembered feeling so happy, buzzing with it and he felt the same now, but the buzz was low and constant like a humming heat rather than the erratic, frazzled excitement of a firecracker. Now instead of leaping onto Derek’s back, hyped up from ice-cream and demanding to get a piggyback ride he was far too old for, he felt a giddy, shy sort of current.
Tentatively, he edged his hand sideways to brush his knuckles against Derek’s in a feather-light caress. Derek’s nudged his back in answer, before threading their fingers together. He was so warm, holding onto Stiles, linking them together as easy as breathing.
“I don’t think you know what it was like for me that night,” Derek said softly, tipping his head skyward as he sought out the moon. “I’d lost everything and you just…handled things, like it was so easy for you. You saw me, the wolf in me and you weren’t afraid, you didn’t see a monster. You took care of me, even though I was older.” He hesitated. “You brought me out of myself. Made me feel things again and then I…”
He stopped then, turning his head to look at Stiles. The moonlight caught his eyes with a glistening shine, casting an ethereal light across his face and Stiles’s breath caught.
“And then when I saw you again I realised…” His fingers squeezed a bit tighter around Stiles’s but his gaze didn’t drift for a moment. “…you’re not that kid anymore, you’re…you’re a man and my feelings have become something else.”
Stiles blinked, inhaling shakily as his heart pounded and Derek’s words rushed through his head and instead of struggling through his thoughts for a reply that would utterly fail to match up with Derek’s heartfelt honesty, he leaned in. Their eyes locked, their mouths hesitated a breath apart, like they had both been caught on the lingering thin thread of realisation that things were about to change. Any doubt was blasted away by the perfect sense it all made.
Their lips met, soft, brief, parting enough for them to check each other’s responses, if they had felt the same spark. Stiles couldn’t help the breathy, nervous chuckle that tumbled over his lips unbidden, or the little accompanying smile. Derek gave a little growl of his own fond amusement, before snatching him up and bringing their lips together more ardently.
It was slow but deep, a languid massage of damp lips and searching, coy tongues, vibrating with half-smothered chuckles and soft little moans. It felt like sinking into warm comforting heat and Stiles was melting with it.
When he drew back, giddy with it all and smiling so hard his face hurt, Stiles whispered out, “chase me.”
Derek’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“Chase me!” Stiles stole another kiss before bouncing back a few steps, as if to coax Derek into a run.
“We haven’t done that since I was fifteen,” Derek laughed but when Stiles bounced back a few more steps, he advanced and Stiles spun and darted back the makeshift trail they’d travelled down. He was as inelegant and all-limbs when he ran as he had been back then and he felt the same timeless exhilaration. He tore across the soft leaves, hearing Derek behind him and leaping the loose tree roots.
Instead of heading back to the house though, he turned off the trail, his heart pounding hard and fast against his ribcage. The ground gave way to a slight incline and his steps staggered as he struggled to maintain pace and remain upright. A growl sounded behind him and his breath caught, just as he tripped and made a beeline for the floor.
A hard body crashed into his side, dragging him sideways off the path toward the ground until he landed with an “ooof” against the hard body that had saved him from his clumsiness. They rolled slightly down the incline of the ground, scuffing up dirt and leaves and Stiles was laughing again as they did so. Derek answered with an ethereal growl, like an excited beast riled up from the chase and when Stiles stared up at him from the ground, Derek caught his rapid breaths with his tongue.
The kisses were faster now, fuelled by urgency in absence of the tentative newness. Blood was pounding, driving them into a breathless frenzy on the leaf-strewn bed they’d made and Stiles couldn’t help the noise of need he emitted when Derek dragged his voracious kisses down across the point of his chin to his throat.
Stiles let his fingers drag down Derek’s back, let them skitter sideways under the hem of his sweatshirt to scrape his nails across Derek’s side. Derek writhed at the ticklish touch, gasping into Stiles’s open mouth and arching without volition. He hauled Stiles backward with him until he was sitting upright with Stiles astride his hips.
Stiles bent his head to claim Derek’s mouth again, hands cupping his jaw, thumbs brushing the stubble there and enjoying the rasp of it as Derek’s cupped the back of his head. They tightened there, holding him close with shaky strength as if Derek were afraid he would vanish entirely if he let go.
Kiss-bruised and flustered, they were eventually driven back to the house by the inevitable evening chill, that was warm by November standards but still not comfortable enough to be rolling around in the woods. What he didn’t bargain for was Laura waiting for them both on the back porch with a cup of coffee in hand and a Cheshire Cat grin that made Stiles’s face flame. He didn’t dare look at Derek, for fear he would utterly self-combust with mortification but judging by his tense silence, he felt the same.
“Good run boys?” she asked casually as they approached, sipping at her cup.
In all the years they’d shared a house, the werewolf portion of their odd little family had always used their supernatural senses with as much discretion as possible, especially with two teenage boys in the house. Stiles himself had tested their limits with his bizarre affinity for both their skills and his need for masturbating in privacy, but even he couldn’t say exactly how much Laura had heard while they’d been making out in the woods.
“Don’t say a word,” Derek warned but when Stiles did risk a glance at him, he saw the tips of his ears burning red.
Laura raised her perfect brows in mock surprise. “I really don’t know what you mean and I will continue to not know what you mean for exactly forty-eight hours, in which you’ll find time to tell both Noah and I about this new beautiful development so that we can be simultaneously surprised, pleased and congratulate you.”
“Going somewhere?” Derek asked, sounding hopeful.
“Well, I did come out to tell you but found you gone and when I heard…” She winced, “Nevermind. I was going to ask if you wanted to come and visit Peter with me but I’ll let him know you’ll be by tomorrow. He’s been in a good mood since they told him he should be strong enough to move out of assisted living and into his own place soon, so he’ll be lenient with you.”
Derek nodded, lips tight with embarrassment and Laura gave them a final gleeful smirk before turning back into the house. When even Stiles heard the dull sound of the front door opening on the other side of the house and the low purr of the Camaro as Laura pulled out into the street, Stiles lead them inside.
As predicted, his dad was dozing in the armchair and Stiles covered him with the blanket from the back of the couch before turning to see Derek watching him with a fond, if a little flustered expression. Their life was one of countless domestic moments, of supernatural abilities and experiences woven so finely into everyday life that it was their own brand of normal. He’d found every little quirk in Derek’s character, in his species fascinating rather than alarming and Derek, for his part, had somehow come to appreciate Stiles’s less supernatural ones just as much.
They’d shared a home for three years, had helped each other heal from two incredible tragedies and for the first time ever, Stiles felt a little less guilty about finding happiness and solidarity in the boy who’d lost everything that night, because he knew now Derek had found something that night too.
Out of darkness, comes light, or something like that, his mind supplied as he crossed the room soundlessly to slide his fingers between Derek’s, not for the first time that night. It was something he could definitely get used to.
“Walk you to your door?” Derek suggested in a whisper and Stiles had to stifle the laugh that threatened to spill from his lips by pressing them to Derek’s.