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Derek had a need prickling under his skin that only seemed to dowse once things were calm and the world made sense around him. He tended to prefer the structural, straightforward approach to things.
So when Stiles crashed into the room, dumped his bag onto Derek’s lap and began to chatter incoherently about nothing at all, Derek felt his fists clench impatiently until the words coming out of Stiles’ mouth were blurring and all he could comprehend were the movement of his lips and the faint scent of blood lingering from his fidgeting hands.
Stiles raised his arms and waved them empathetically, and Derek noticed small cuts lacing his fingertips, and then the feeble traces of crimson along his lower lip, like he’d ran the bleeding fingers across them and created paths that had declined into the small creases of his supple skin.
Derek flickered his gaze back to Stiles’ and focused on the flecks in his eyes rather than his words, stark golden streaks in his irises that wouldn’t be visible to a human without close proximity and bright light.
He rambled on, passed grammatical mistakes, voice totally wrecked and discordant but his movements told Derek exactly what he was thinking. It was his mother’s birthday.
Derek got up and pressed his broad hands against Stiles’ body until he was rammed back against the wall. His eyes widened and his mouth was still open, words trying to crawl out like snakes out of the ground.
“Why are you bleeding?” Derek gritted out through clenched teeth, fangs visible in the corners of his mouth. Stiles’ heart was beating its way out the roof and his hands were grabbing at Derek’s arms uselessly. Thoughts were evidently racing through his mind like he’d forgotten about Derek’s question as soon as it was asked. Then he went pliant and rolled his eyes,
“Oh. So I dropped my phone and the screen cracked and now when I try to swipe it I get cut by tiny pieces of glass but I don’t have enough money to repair it, it doesn’t even hurt and mmph-“
Derek splayed his hand over Stiles’ mouth and kept it there until his warm breath began to fog the skin of his palm, and where he had expected annoyance there was instead a blend of emotions visible that Derek could hardly interpret.
Stiles tried to push him off weakly, but then he stilled and his arms went slack by his sides. His whole body spoke of relief and there was resignation swimming in his eyes, meddled with gratitude and something Derek couldn’t comprehend, then they were shut suddenly,
And Derek realised that this was what he had been looking for. Stiles wanted someone who could shut him up when he rambled on about nothing, when his anxiety took over and humiliation was flaring through his veins; because he always made a fool of himself when his words weren’t processed, they just tumbled out.
Maybe like how people were afraid of darkness and heights, Stiles was afraid of letting the silence linger, hyperactivity always flashing though his limbs but then speaking of nothing was worse than not speaking at all.
Derek clamped his hand down tighter, and parted his fingers only a little bit so that Stiles could breathe through his mouth like he did.
Derek saw clammy hands reach out towards his torso, ghost along his skin though the fabric and tremble like this was something important, like this wasn’t what it usually was and Stiles was trying to tell him something real.
Each gush of air pulled in through Derek’s fingers was like an undertow, dragging him out into the ocean,
“It’s okay to be scared.” He breathed, and wide, burnt umber eyes blinked open and he nodded distantly.
The hand covering Stiles’ mouth was removed, and Derek wiped the wetness off on his jeans.
He let go of his shoulder, reached behind him and cradled his body to pull him closer until they were pressed tightly enough that Derek could feel the pattering of his heart, slowly placating until it leveled out with his own.
Stiles’ hands were still shaking and he stroked Derek’s back like he was the one in pain, like he was the one scared enough to rather live entirely on the outside then being stuck in his own head.
They stayed like that. Only for minutes probably but it felt like eternities because of what it meant, that Derek actually
knew
Stiles, that he saw him in a way most people would look right through.
Derek noticed the horror that sometimes flared in Stiles eyes, repressed fast enough for others to pass it by and then laugh at the random, cluttered sentence that didn’t answer the question, but Derek knew that Stiles had just gotten dragged into that other world where the walls were screaming at you, because he had been there too.
“but m’ not scared-” Stiles mumbled, mind drifting away, hands clenching to Derek’s shirt. "-I'm just falling sometimes."