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With a heavy slowness, Stiles opened his eyes.
His room was dim, thin moonlight from the open window laying pale shadows like ghosts over his possessions.
His body felt comfortably contented, blissfully fulfilled, but his mind was a dark place, filled with more shadows than the room in which he lay. He sat up gently, feeling the chilled air raise goosepimples over his naked skin. That comforted feeling fled quickly, and a numbness took its place, spreading through his chest and limbs like a tumour. Stiles rubbed his hand over his face and drew his knees towards him like a shield. He pressed his fingers up against his cheek, pushing the skin against his teeth, and glanced to his right.
Derek lay with his back towards Stiles, blankets pooled around his hips. The open window was above him, bathing his form in those pale white shadows. They outlined his body in grey, like his skin was made of silver bullets. His shoulder blades were sharp against his back, like daggers about to burst through the skin; shoulders made of smooth muscle like marble; hair a spiked black shadow against the pillow. Moonlight and stone, silver and shadows, that was what Derek was made of. Tough as granite and just as cold.
Stiles glanced away, his eyes skimming over his bony arms, his lean torso with the faint outline of ribs on either side. And the scars, of course the scars.
A slash across his upper shoulder. Three long gouges across his heart. Claw marks down his back. Stiles doesn’t have a werewolf’s healing. He can’t regrow his flesh to replace what was lost; he can’t make it appear as though a battle had never been fought. Stiles did heal eventually, but he healed red and purple, puckered and rough. He healed ugly.
And what was Stiles made of? Ashes and brittle bone and ice laced flowers made to shatter.
“Go to sleep, Stiles.” Derek’s voice was rough with exhaustion.
Stiles couldn’t see Derek’s face, and he was glad. Because Derek was beautiful, and cold, and hard, and as remote as the moon that he lived for. And Stiles loved him, and he hated him.
Why should he go to sleep? So they can wake up the next morning, and go on their separate ways with barely a glance or a goodbye? So that Stiles can look at Derek and feel his heart being yanked up his throat like someone had stuck it with a hook, and Derek can look at Stiles like he was a stranger?
Stiles’ voice is a whisper, like he’s afraid Derek may hear, “we need to stop.”
Derek doesn’t move, nor does his voice change, “don’t say that.”
“I’m saying it.”
“Why? We have something good-.”
“Don’t,” Stiles shook his head emphatically, and hated that Derek could hear how fast his heart was beginning to beat. “Just don’t.”
He felt Derek shift, felt the movement in the bed as he turned onto his back. A cloud had covered the moon as they spoke, and the darkness concealed his face. Stiles was grateful. He knew what he would have seen there.
“I know what you want, and maybe later we can-.”
“Stop it, Derek.” Stiles’ voice was strained, almost desperate, “Please, please, don’t patronise me. Please don’t lie to me.”
“And what about what we have now, Stiles?”
Stiles barely choked back an ugly laugh, “We have nothing. We have…” A bed, a fuck, cold mornings and a look between strangers. “Nothing, Derek.”
Derek didn’t say anything, he kept his silence, and that was worse than any words he could have spoken.
Why did Stiles think he loved this man, when all Derek ever shared were his hands, his mouth, his body? When all he gave were silence and distance? Stiles had other demons that he needed to face, and he wouldn’t have Derek and his greedy mouth as one more. Stiles had enough to fight on his own, in the dark, in the night.
He heals ugly, inside and out.
Derek finally replied, “If that’s how you feel.”
Stiles wanted to strangle him. “No, that isn’t how I feel! I just…” he trailed off again, running jittery hands through his thick hair. He knew they could be something more, but Derek was cold, and hard, and remote, and had lost his entire family to flames and greed. And so his body was all he was ever going to give.
Stiles pushed his fingers into his eyes, making red sparks pop behind his lids. His voice was a whisper in the dark, “I can’t make you love me. I can’t make you feel something you don’t. So, please, just…” He opened his eyes, like he was hoping the moment may have changed while he wasn't looking. A childish wish. “I’ll leave in the morning, and so will you, and that will be the end of it. In the morning. Just…just give me until then.”
Stiles felt Derek’s gentle hand on the base of his spine, and he wanted to grab it and press his cheek against it. He wanted Derek to hold him and kiss him, really kiss him. Not hard and desperate with a hope of it leading to his bedroom, no. He wanted Derek to kiss him because his chest sparked and ached beautifully when he felt their mouths fit together, like it did for Stiles. But none of that happened.
He always thought that he could be an anchor for Derek, but he never realised it’s the anchor that drowns.
I won't drown for you