Work Text:
A cloud of condensed breath curls out and away from him as he watches the dark figure stumble assertively away. He feels a tug in his gut, a silent promise of regret. He jerks forward, but the silhouette has already evaporated, blending into the harsh, January night. The loss is overwhelming, clutching at his limbs, making everything heavier. He can’t catch up to him, no matter how hard he pushes himself forward. Oh god, oh god, oh god…
Stiles gasps awake, heart pounding in his concave chest. A strong arm is wrapped around his waist, a cool hand pressed to his forehead. He stares blindly at the ceiling as his chest heaves, frantic breath cutting thickly through his throat, while the world tilts back into perspective around him. Seconds tick by as he waits for his thoughts to slow down to a pace that makes them actually possible to process.
“Stiles?”
He lets out a silent breath, an irrational amount of relief flooding his entire being, and follows the voice to the beautiful face staring up at him. There’s concern etched into its features, but also patience and understanding. He’s not demanding a response, just offering the communication of it. Of course, because Derek understands his pain. Stiles gives him a weak, but hopefully, reassuring smile.
“Another panic attack?” he asks, spurred on by the acknowledgment.
“A dream, actually,” Stiles murmurs, breath catching in his throat like a frightened animal, terrified to be the breath that vocalizes the image in his head. “A nightmare. You don’t keep in contact with Kate, do you?”
“What? Kate Argent?” Derek exclaims, disbelief coloring his face and tone. “No, Stiles, I don’t keep in contact with my homicidal ex-girlfriend. Why?”
The teasing sarcasm in his tone reassures Stiles, and he lets out an unsteady laugh, mind still lagging behind in that dark place. He knows the truth in Derek’s face, knows his devotion to Stiles. So where did that nightmare come from? He murmurs, “No reason. Come over here, you overgrown dog—oof!”
He groans playfully as Derek drops his entire weight down, draping his body lithely over Stiles’. Big hands are cradling his head instantly, pulling him in for a heated kiss that drags out as it slides slowly from teasing to sensual. A knee glides in between his, thighs pressing against each other and leaving Stiles totally breathless. He pulls his face back and sucks in a much needed breath.
When his eyes open, it’s to Derek’s eyes sparkling down at him as if he’s the most precious thing the man’s ever seen. A chill runs down his spine, and he finds he can’t break away from that gaze, not even to finish that passionate kiss. He can feel the moonlight bathing against his skin from the window, where the thin curtains billow out softly. However, the effect it has on Derek is uncontested. The long, pale stretch of his neck almost glitters in the dim, white light; faint stubble rising from his Adam’s apple and growing thicker as it reaches the perfect line of his jaw and covers the lower half of his face. His full, pink lips, lips that have traced his entire body, carved his name into Stiles’ skin in breathy sighs of pleasure, part now into a small, contented smile. Eyes of gray mist—forest green, shocking aqua blue?—peek out from under low lavender shaded lids, as if the sheer weight of his arousal drags on them.
Stiles wonders for a moment how someone as crazy beautiful as Derek had ever fallen in love with him in the first place. And, with that little inkling of doubt, the dark, inky shadows edge their way back into his mind, leaving his thoughts and feelings tainted with the acidic burn of loss.
Of course he notices in the next second that something has shifted, because he’s Derek, and madly in love with the man (so why can’t Stiles get this hideous taste of his mouth?). His head reels back, eyes sharply refocusing on Stiles’ now strained face.
“What? What’s the matter, Stiles?”
“It’s nothing—it’s, just that damn dream!” he bursts suddenly, a frenzied look in his eyes.
“Well, what happened?” he asks calmly, passionately.
But Stiles doesn’t want to speak the words, doesn’t want them floating around in the real world. Suddenly, and irrationally, he acknowledges, Stiles needs to hide away those words, to keep them locked away somewhere. He doesn’t know why, but that feeling in his gut from the dream is telling that this is no fucking joke. He murmurs, in a rushed tone, “It’s nothing, Derek. Let’s go back to sleep.”
“Stiles, jesus. It’s okay, just tell me what’s going on in your head,” Derek chides quietly, an edge of impatience cutting in by the end of the sentence. When Stiles is silent, chin tucked into his chest, Derek huffs in frustration, “Come on, Stiles, this is ridiculous. You can tell me anything!”
And, of course, he knows that’s true. It always has been, ever since they first met that chilly morning out in the woods. But that day felt like forever ago, in this moment, with his head filled with tragedy and his chest filled with heartbreak. So Stiles does the only thing he knows to do, and tells his boyfriend about his dream, about the darkness and the gut-wrenching image of the love of his life stumbling away into it. He pushes out from under Derek as he does it, and the man is a cloth puppet under his hands, falling away to however far he pushes. He curls up against the wall beside the window, out of the line of moonlight streaming weakly in.
When he’s finished, he glances up to see Derek completely still, kneeling on the bed with his feet under him. His hands lie lifelessly on the crumpled sheet between his knees, back hunched in concentration. His face bores into Stiles, as if he’s seeing the dream, rather than hearing it. And it is clear by his expression that it hurts Derek in all the same ways that it hurts Stiles.
After a long moment where no words disturb the cacophonous silence between them, Derek whispers, “That’s not me.”
Stiles’ eyes jerk up to his face, confused by the phrase.
“That’s not me, Stiles. I wouldn’t leave you. Not in this lifetime.”
And his face is so broken, his body so spent, that Stiles feels his heart break in the very next moment. Of course, of course, it’s not Derek. This is Derek; teasing him and loving him, comforting him and pushing him when he needs it. Feeling guilty for something he would never do. Derek is right here in front of him, and of course he’s never going to disappear.
Stiles is an idiot. He mentally kicks himself for thinking anything otherwise. Then, as delicately as he can manage, he untangles himself from where’s been curled stiffly in on himself and moves to sit directly before Derek. A little ray of warm light flickers in his stomach when he reaches out to gingerly rest a hand on Derek’s downcast face, and the man leans desperately into it. He gives a small, amused laugh. This great big ofe is just a little puppy deep down.
“I know it’s not, Derek,” he murmurs back softly. Then adds halfheartedly, “Der-bear.”
He catches scuff over the back of the head for that and falls into carefree chuckles that soon turn into full-blown guffaws. Then, Derek is turning him upside down on the bed and tickling him with unwavering fervency, and he can’t even hold back the unmanly squeals of delight, his heart lifting out of its ugly funk.
“Okay, okay, no more!”
Derek relents, still pinning Stiles to the bed, and as they catch their breath, hearts moving like a stampede together, a friction surges between them. It lights up their skin, making every breath, every shift—every little disturb—an electric shock of desire. Stiles sighs, feeling his body relax on instinct, knowing that no matter what, they will always have this. He surges up and takes what is his, and only his—not some crazy psycho bitch’s, thank you very much, Mr Nightmare—and the two spend the late night wrapped up in each other, a vision of ‘almost perfect.’
Stiles stands twenty feet out from the chaotic crowd on a cold, November night sometime later, pale hands shaking and breath billowing out in unfurling clouds, and feels the slightest inkling of déjà vu. He turns, raising his phone to his ear as some drunk asshole collides into the back of his shoulder with a shot of pain and a huff of surprise. His body stumbles forward a bit from the force, but he’s already righting himself as the phone begins to ring, and isn’t paying attention as the other man half-heartedly apologizes and melts back into the crowd.
The voicemail picks up, playing back the familiar quiet, yet articulate voice that says, “This is Derek,” as if that’s all the information necessary, before the other voice breaks through. “Yeah, if he’s not answering, we’re probably…”
Stiles listens to the familiar voicemail play out, heart pounding as that same nagging sense of déjà vu pulls at the edges of his mind. Except it’s less about remembering this same instance, and more as if his subconscious is trying to warn him, to drag him away from what it remembers as dangerous. He feels a dreadful foreboding in his gut, yet can’t find the strength in himself to step back. Something in him—something stronger than the fear, and the apprehension, and the disturbing sense of awareness that something really bad is coming—knows that this needs to play out. Something in him needs to see this ending through, and oh god, ‘ending’?
He drags a ragged, desperate breath painfully across his dry, scratchy throat, heart racketing in his ribcage like a homicidal songbird.
“I’m—“
“Stiles!”
One instant.
One instant in time can sometimes last decades. Can leave you breathing out a stale breath, feeling totally ancient; a relic of heartbeats. In that instant, nothing changes, yet everything becomes completely new. You breathe in seeing the world in black and white, and breathe out in Technicolor. This is Stiles’ instant.
A familiar series of steps approach him, but Stiles can’t bring himself to move. His hand clutches the phone fervently, as if it held all of his most precious parts, and maybe, in some reality, it did. There’s a winded breath near the side of his neck as the jogger catches his breath. Then suddenly, there is a big, warm hand on his shoulder. But Stiles is still stuck in his instant.
“Are you ready?”
And, the words are so light, so innocent of fault or tragedy, that they catch Stiles off-guard with the punch they pack at his gut. Because that is Derek’s voice—not some shitty recording, not a distorted memory, not a tragic nightmare—
And then the instant is over, and it took a thousand lifetimes or less than a second, but now Stiles has every answer he never knew he was looking for. He turns and looks every one of them in the eye, a wide grin ripping his face in two.
“Hi,” his voice is a whisper, but his eyes are dry, and ain’t that the true miracle?
“Hi,” Derek repeated, eyes on that radiant smile. He sidles up closer to it, wrapping his strong arms around his entire world. “I got the tickets.”
“In that ridiculous green Henley?” Stiles scoffs happily, feeling light as the wind, feeling like the air around him is this man, like his entire body is lit up, like there’s a radiant sun in there—instead of guts and organs, feeling like Christmas or sex or something in between (but not totally creepy, the way it sounds). “A goddamn miracle!”
Derek cackles, obviously enjoying the abuse far more than Stiles thinks he should. His arms tighten where they’re clutching Stiles closer, and he slides his hands up Derek’s broad shoulders to wrap them eagerly around his neck. “I think the real miracle is that I managed to refrain from touching you the entire way here.”
Hot breath against his neck as Derek drops his face towards him, lips brushing faintly against Stiles’ ear and sending tingles of burn across his skin. A shutter runs through his whole frame, eliciting another derisive chuckle.
“You little asshole,” he murmurs, voice already croaky and harsh. Another chuckle. “We should get going before the crowd gets too packed to get through.”
“Mmm.”
“Der-eeek…” Stiles whines futilely.
A nip at his clavicle shuts him up. However, a tender lick over same spot has him moaning rather sharply. Laughter reverberates from the giant chest pressed hotly against him. He drops a hand to it, blindly punching at all the muscle he can find, somewhere between wanting to smack the man upside the head and beg him on hands and knees to never stop.
Then Derek’s hands find their way south of the border, and his lips are doing things to his ear that are just sinful. And that’s it, that’s fucking it. Stiles head shoots up from where it has begun to sag in distressing pleasure, his unfocused eyes roving over the perfection before him. In a hoarse, crazed voice, he cries, “Your stupid face.”
He lunges forward, lips colliding with Derek’s in perfect synchronization, and oh god, it’s like that stupid saying about how every time feels like the first time. Because it’s pure magic, is what it is.
(There’s one moment in time—similar to an instant—when the world halts around you. Every breath, every heartbeat, every vivid emotion, every fevered thought, becomes a rung in the timeline of that moment, because it is made out of magic, and everyone knows that magic is only for lovers. This is Derek’s moment.
And in it, he makes a very apparent discovery about himself.)
“Can we please go enjoy the concert now?” Stiles asks weakly, once Derek finally pulls back for air, eyes dazed and pupils blown.
Derek ignores him, because the words aren’t right, but he hears what they are meant to be anyway. He bends down an inch and kisses lightly at the moles along his jaw. He answers the question that sat just beneath the words, in a breath, “Yes.”
He pulls back then, with one last peck to Stiles’ swollen, grinning lips, and takes the other man’s hand in his. “Okay. Now I’m ready.”
Stiles rolls his eyes, amusement clear in his still grinning face. He murmurs, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I love you.”
Stiles stops in his tracks.
“I love you back.”