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They were in Derek’s car, the windows rolled down, the sunroof open. It was early morning; they’d been out most of the night. In the deep of the preserve, it was almost pitch black. It was the type of dark that scared people that weren’t used to it. Stiles had grown up with it, though, patrolling these woods with his father, running them as a kid with Scott, defending them with the pack, and now, in a Camaro, after a first date with Derek Hale.
The date had been nothing like Stiles had thought it would be.
It had been quiet, comfortably so.
Stiles Stilinski doesn’t know anything about how to be quiet. If his mouth wasn’t going, his brain was. Derek knew a lot about quiet. Something about Derek exuded quiet. Maybe it was his strength or the set of his brow or the way he carried himself, straight back, tall, and proud. It used to intimidate Stiles, or make him angry, or just confuse him, Derek’s quiet presence, but now it made him feel calm, safe, and rested.
It was early morning, nearly 4:30. Derek had picked him up at midnight and taken him to the all night diner for coffee and pie. When Derek had proposed the date, Stiles had questioned the hour, but Derek had only told him that what he had planned didn’t happen until the early morning and Stiles hadn’t questioned it. Somehow it made sense that a date with a werewolf would happen when it was dark, when the moon was out and the supernatural felt closer. They’d ended up ordering burgers and fries in addition to the coffee and pie, smiling at each other while teasing the other about their shared past. They’d flirted shamelessly and Derek had laid every sexy look in his arsenal on Stiles, including a few new ones that Stiles hadn’t seen before. It had been easy and buoyant and fun. Neither one of them had wanted it to end.
After they’d eaten, Derek told Stiles that he was taking him to one of his favorite places to stargaze. Stiles had secretly hoped that “stargaze” was a euphemism for “get nasty in the back of the Camaro,” but Derek had actually wanted to look at the stars. He’d driven them to a large clearing deep in the preserve, another one of those spots that only Derek knew, high on a bluff, the sky so much closer. There were millions of stars - galaxies and universes and the entire everything - and they’d just sat there and stared at it all in wonder.
It was hot, still early August, a late burst of summer had come. In the damp of the rainforest, the air was sticky and heavy with the smell of loam and pine. The sky seemed bigger than Stiles ever could remember it being, vast and endless and bejeweled and alive.
And then it started. Meteors, hundreds of them, streaking through the sky.
There was no stopping the gasp that came from Stiles' mouth.
“It’s the Perseid meteor shower,” Derek whispered.
Stiles nodded his understanding with mouth agape, too awestruck by what he was seeing to form words or look away. Leave it to Derek Hale to take him on a date so awe inspiring that he was struck silent.
In the quiet of the moment, Derek’s pinkie finger brushed up against his, and Stiles stopped breathing. Derek looped his pinkie over Stiles’ and brushed the taut skin between his pinkie and ring finger and then relaxed his finger, keeping it looped over Stiles’, occasionally rubbing the side of his pinkie gently against Stiles’.
And that’s how they’d sat, on the ground, the air muggy, crickets chirping and the last of the year’s cicadas singing as meteors shot across the sky, their pinkies moving against each other’s, backs against the front bumper of the Camaro, otherwise quiet and still, the sky streaked with fireballs and trails of stardust.
Stiles was in love with Derek Hale, had been for years - since another moment in the preserve, when an angry boy in a leather jacket had stalked out of the trees and glared at him. It was instantaneous, even if Stiles had written it off as confused teenage lust at the time, even if it had taken him years to admit it. He’d loved Derek Hale then, or at least, he should have, because it was inevitable that they would love one another.
There are just some things you can’t run from forever.
Those few hours under the meteors had felt like breathing for the first time. Just sitting side by side, saying nothing, he’d felt more solid and real than he’d felt in years.
Once upon a time, Stiles’ father had told him that on his first date with Claudia he’d known that there wouldn’t ever be anyone else. That he’d known by the end of the date that he would be asking her to marry him. He’d only been 15 at the time, but he’d known with every cell in his body that Claudia Gajos was the one.
Stiles had always wondered what it would be like to know something with that much certainty, to be so completely sure of another person.
He finally understood as he sat, twenty years old, pinkie intertwined with Derek Hale’s. Derek was his forever, had been since the moment they’d met. It had just taken them a few years to admit it.
Not that it had been admitted, but it would be. Stiles knew this. It was immutable. A law of the universe. Ineffable.
He and Derek just were .
When he looked at Derek, the clear, icy green of Derek’s eyes meeting his, he knew that Derek understood this, too.
xxx
He was sitting in the passenger seat, arm out the window, hand riding the breeze as Derek drove into town. His other hand was intertwined with Derek's, both of their fingers slowly moving and feeling, learning the shape of each other’s hands.
Derek’s fingers were strong and thick, more calloused than Stiles’. He had hair on his fingers that was coarser than Stiles’. He would run the pads of his fingers over Stiles’ and shivers would run up Stiles’ arm into his elbow and he’d scratch Stiles’ palm and Stiles would feel it fluttering in his belly.
It was so early that the traffic lights blinked red and yellow. There were no other cars. Derek stopped the Camaro at a blinking red light, engine on, and gently rubbed his palm into Stiles’, looking at their intertwined fingers, a contented, small smile curling the corners of his mouth.
It was still. Stiles could hear the blood wooshing through the vessels in his ears and the air as it flooded into his nostrils. Derek looked at him, lips parted, unguarded, and then, just as quickly, looked back at their hands. The red of the traffic light blinked into the car like a heartbeat, steady and resolute.
Derek took a long breath in, as if calming himself, bit the inside of his lower lip, and closed his eyes. After a moment he opened them, and, still looking at their intertwined hands, said, “I need this to be slow. I move too quickly into things and you’re - you’re too important for that.”
“Yeah, okay,” Stiles agreed with a whisper, because anything louder felt too harsh for the quiet that had surrounded them. “We can go slow.”
Derek looked at him with that same open expression and Stiles felt tears welling in his eyes. The moment was too big, too everything . It felt fragile, thin like hoarfrost, brittle.
It was also an acknowledgement of a beginning, that there would be more, a future.
That he was important.
A tear escaped, and Derek wiped it from Stiles’ cheek with the side of this thumb, touch lingering a bit longer than was necessary.
“Why are you crying?” Derek asked, voice barely a whisper.
“I’m just - I think I’m happy,” Stiles answered, simply and honestly.
Derek tilted his head, giving Stiles one of his small, contented smiles.
“I am, too,” he said.
xxx
They were in the parking lot in front of Stiles’ apartment, and it was time for Stiles to get out of the car, to leave Derek and the date behind.
He wanted to kiss Derek so badly that it physically hurt, his stomach in knots.
Derek had a tight grip on Stiles’ hand, staring at their joined hands as if trying to will himself to let go, which only made Stiles want to kiss him more.
What did slow mean? Did it mean no kissing, did it mean the third date rule applied to even making out? Stiles didn’t have the answers, and he was too embarrassed and nervous and clueless to even ask the right questions.
“Don’t think so hard, Stiles,” Derek finally said, looking Stiles in the eyes.
“Can I kiss you? I want to kiss you,” Stiles asked, hoping he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt.
Derek looked surprised, bashful, like he couldn’t smell the want pouring off of Stiles. He swallowed, lips parting, and gave a small nod.
Stiles cupped his jaw, running his thumb along Derek’s cheek, feeling like he was 16 again, totally inexperienced and in over his head. But then his lips were on Derek’s, and Derek was gasping and cradling the back of Stiles’ head and he could taste Derek and breathe his breath and he could fall so hard and so fast if Derek would just let him.
They were going slow, so Stiles pulled away, just enough that he could look Derek in the eyes and see that Derek was as affected by the kiss as he was. Stiles could see in Derek’s eyes that he didn’t want to move away, he wanted to jump in with both feet, too, that if Stiles pushed just a little more that Derek would come in with him.
Stiles pulled back more, putting distance between them, and said, “You’re important, too.”
Derek inhaled sharply, looking at Stiles so intently that Stiles had to will himself to stay on his side of the Camaro.
“You’ve always been important, Derek,” he explained in a rasp. “You’ve always been important to me.”
Derek nodded, looking back at their joined hands. "I know," Derek admitted as he let Stiles' hand go.
"I want this - I want you and I want more, so much more - but we're taking it slow, right? And so I'm going to get out of the car right now," Stiles stated, not making any move to leave.
After a few more moments of staring at each other, Derek rolled his eyes, smiled softly and said, "You have to open the door to get out, Stiles."
"Yeah, I guess I do," Stiles finally capitulated after a few moments more, moving to get out. He added, "Text me when you wake up. I'll come over and make you lunch."
Derek raised his eyebrow, smirking.
"I will be coming over to cook, Derek, and to help you get ready for the pack meeting; you have my word that nothing untoward will happen," Stiles teased.
Derek smiled warmly and said, "Okay, I'll text you."
The door was open. Stiles had to actually get out of the car. "So see you in a few hours," Stiles said before he slipped of the car.
"Stiles, sleep. You need it," Derek said, leaning over the center console.
"You get some sleep, too," Stiles said, not wanting Derek to leave. He stood looking at Derek for a moment longer and finally said, "Okay. Um, thank you. The meteor shower was beautiful and yeah, I need to shut the door and go," as he slammed the Camaro's door shut.
Derek drove away, but not before looking over at Stiles and giving him a little wave, which Stiles returned. He stood and watched as Derek drove away, the very beginnings of dawn coloring the horizon.
He dreamt of stardust and comet's tails and soft lips and stubble, of beginnings and forever, the peace and calm of that night lulling him to sleep.