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"I love you," Stiles mumbles into Derek's chest, his eyes snapping open when he feels Derek's hand still against his neck.
Shit.
If he was tired before, his exhaustion seeping in and weakening his defences, Stiles is suddenly wide awake. He is on high alert. He is panicking, just a little bit, okay. He launches himself off Derek, off the bed, across the room.
"Shit, shit, shit," he is muttering.
"Stiles," Derek says, his voice sounding strained. He hasn't moved, still spread across Stiles' bed with his hands suspended over the space Stiles had just been inhabiting. His face is pinched.
"No, ah," Stiles starts, barking out a laugh that he knows sounds hysterical, "Sorry. Shit. Sorry."
"It's... It's okay," Derek says, but Stiles knows it isn't. Knows it isn't because Derek looks more uncomfortable than he's looked in a while, in front of Stiles.
In front of Stiles, who's seen him laugh now, really laugh - bent over, eyes watering, gasping for air. Stiles, who's seen him half asleep, soft and open, smiling and mouthing lazily at Stiles' fingers. Derek looks more uncomfortable than Stiles has seen him in ages; since they started this, since they became -
What the fuck were they?
"What the fuck are we?" Stiles asks, his voice a little shrill with panic. "Shit."
"Stiles," Derek says again, and this time it sounds like a warning. Derek has moved now, is reaching out to him slowly. Like he's approaching a wounded animal.
Stiles realizes he is hyperventilating. He flinches back from Derek's touch.
"Stiles."
"Derek," Stiles counters, just to be petulant, and Derek sighs and lowers his hands.
"Stiles, I... I really didn't." Derek huffs out his frustration, his lips pursing between words. "I didn't expect that."
"Oh," Stiles says, just for something to say. He's gripping the side of his desk so hard his arm is shaking. "Okay. Yeah. Okay."
"Stiles," Derek says, and now he just sounds sorry. Stiles slams his eyes closed so he doesn't have to watch Derek not look at him. He can't.
He feels Derek's hand come down over his, over the one white-knuckled in its grip on the desk, and Stiles keeps his eyes shut tight. He's seeing splotches of random color by the time Derek lifts his hand off, and Stiles' grip has only loosened slightly.
"Please, Stiles. It's not... I don't -"
Stiles maybe snaps, a little bit.
"You don't feel that way about me. Got it." he says, his voice flatter and steadier than he'd expected it to be. "It's fine. My bad."
"It's not... It's complicated, Stiles," Derek is growling. Stiles wants to punch him but he knows what little good it would do.
"Explain it to me," he demands.
"I can't."
Stiles turns, fiddles with a pen on his desk just for something to do, mutters,
"Sounds like explanation enough to me."
He hears Derek sigh.
Neither of them speaks for a moment, and Stiles ends up flicking the pen off his desk entirely. When it thunks onto the carpet, he turns to look at Derek's feet - he can't look at his face.
"I should go," Derek says. He waits for a response, but Stiles has none.
Stiles watches his feet cross the floor, hesitating briefly at the window, and then disappearing.
He doesn't know how long he waits before he crosses to close his window, setting the latch in place for the first time in - in so long. In too long.
Then he crawls into bed, where he definitely does not start to shake. Where he absolutely doesn't curl into a ball and pull the blankets up over his head.
Where he most certainly does not cry himself to sleep.
---
7 hours
---
He is woken by the sound of Derek's knuckles rapping on his window. Still sleepy, unthinking, Stiles stumbles over and flicks open the latch.
Derek swoops in, pressing a large cup of coffee into Stiles' hand. Stiles blinks down at it, then back up at Derek, whose face is drawn down in a conflicted frown.
"Uh," Stiles says, and Derek seems to take that as some sort of cue because he leans in and kisses Stiles.
Stiles kisses back for all of three seconds before he remembers last night and shoots back like he's been burned. He drops the coffee, but Derek catches it mid-air, the stupid fucking werewolf.
"Derek," Stiles huffs, rubbing his face. His eyes feel swollen. He's sure they are. He probably looks like shit.
Great.
"Stiles," Derek counters, and sits on Stiles' bed, placing the coffee cup gingerly on the floor beside his foot. "I, uh. I wanted to talk."
"Doesn't seem like there's much to say," Stiles mumbles, then laughs bitterly. "Didn't seem like you had anything to say last night, actually."
"Stiles -"
"I get it, Derek." Stiles says. He's tired. He's cranky. He wishes he could drink that damn coffee but he's afraid to go that close to Derek to get it. "What I said, it's - that's not what this is, okay? No need to fucking baby me about it. I already apologized."
"No," Derek growls in frustration, "That's not what I -"
"What did you mean, then, Derek?" Stiles hisses. "Was I supposed to take your silence as a fucking 'yeah, totally, me too'?! Was I supposed to be cool with you just being like 'hm, not for me, thanks'? Or was there some other secret hidden meaning behind your lack of response that didn't mean you don't feel the same way?"
"Stiles," Derek tries, but Stiles isn't done.
"Don't. Just fucking don't. You don't -" and he blushes when he realizes he might as well have been repeating his 'I love you' this whole time, but - "You don't feel it. That way. The way I feel. About you."
His anger is gone, flooded out of him in one big rush. He closes his eyes.
"Wrong," Derek snarls, and Stiles snaps his eyes open again to see Derek's hands fisted into his sheets, his gaze intense and locked onto Stiles. "Shut up and fucking listen to me."
Stiles sighs again and then flinches involuntarily when Derek stands up to approach him. He just pulls Stiles by his wrists until they're both seated on the bed though, facing each other. Stiles is about to start fiddling with the seam on his pyjama pants when Derek reaches down and hands him the coffee cup just for something to do.
Derek takes a deep breath.
"It's -" he starts, and already has to take another calming breath, "It's the last thing I said. To her. Before."
Stiles stops mid-sip, stares, says nothing.
"Kate," Derek grinds out. "That was - and then she."
There's a mix of both guilt and jealousy mixing in Stiles' gut as he lowers his cup of coffee to his lap. He doesn't know where to look. He stares at his knees for a lack of anything better to do, trying to swallow the lump in his throat.
"Stiles," Derek is saying, sounding like he's having to scrape the back of his throat for every word, "I can't - it's not that I don't, but I just -"
Derek snarls suddenly and raises his shaking fists to his temples, and Stiles almost spills his coffee in alarm.
"She - she fucking ruined everything," Derek is growling, his face twisted and his eyes screwed shut, "She fucking - she took what I had, and now she's still - she's still fucking taking things from me, still fucking ruining everything. She fucking ruined me."
Stiles lowers his coffee cup to the floor, slowly, realizing his hands are shaking. The lump in his throat has grown, turned into a weight on his chest, and when he gets enough air to speak, he's saying,
"I love you."
And Derek sags, his hands falling to his lap and his face crumpling, broken.
"I love you," Stiles whispers again, crawling forward, into Derek's lap, cradling Derek's head into the crook of his neck and leaning back when Derek droops forward, clutching at the back of his shirt and just collapsing in on himself, on Stiles. "I love you, Derek. I love you."
"I can't," Derek's muttering into Stiles' collarbone, and Stiles kisses behind Derek's ear and says the words into his skin. "She broke me."
One of Stiles' arms is tucked between them, his fingers at the base of Derek's neck. The other hand is wound into Derek's hair, rustling through in slow strokes.
"I love you," Stiles murmurs, "I'll fix you."
---
4 months
---
"I love you," Stiles mumbles into Derek's chest, and Derek rumbles back groggily.
Stiles snorts, looking up at Derek's face as he half-snoozes and plays with the waistband of Stiles' sweatpants. He looks peaceful, in a way that's become startlingly familiar, in front of Stiles.
In front of Stiles, who knows now that what Derek can't say - a lot of things, but mainly the important stuff - he shows in the way he growls when anyone but him tries to touch Stiles' food. In the way he insists that Stiles shower first in the mornings, so he can make Stiles coffee just the way he likes it. Stiles knows it now. They're learning.
They've learned a lot, grown a lot, since they started this, since they became -
It doesn't matter.
Derek looks peaceful, and Stiles fumbles for his phone beside the bed so he can take a picture and update Derek's contact photo. He fights back a gleeful snicker, then grabs Derek's phone and attempts to take a bad Zoolander selfie and set it as his own contact card. It's blurry, but it'll do.
When he clicks out of his contact info though, Derek's phone directs him to their messages. And under their messages, a box of draft messages Derek evidently never sent to Stiles.
Curiosity killed the cat, but Stiles figures he has to have at least four lives left, so.
DRAFT 091
I love you
DRAFT 090
Stiles, I lo
DRAFT 089
I want to say it.
DRAFT 088
Stiles. I
DRAFT 087
I love you.
DRAFT 086
I love you Stiles
DRAFT 085
I want to tell you.
DRAFT 084
Stiles,
Derek grunts, opening one eye to peer down at Stiles, who blushes violently when he realizes Derek can probably pick up on his heartbeat and deduce what he's reading.
"Sorry," he mumbles, but Derek just scoffs and closes his eyes, keeps playing with Stiles' sweatpants. So Stiles turns to toss Derek's phone onto his computer chair -
"I love you," Derek says.
- And promptly hurls it way off-course, into the corner of his bookshelf.
"Shit, sorry, shit!" he says, scrambling to untangle himself from the blankets so he can get up and make sure Derek's phone is alright, but Derek grabs his wrist and he stills. His heart is pounding a mile a minute when he looks down at Derek, who - the bastard - is smiling up at him.
"You snoop." Derek mutters, and Stiles breaks into a laugh that is a weird mix of relief and joy.
"I love you," Stiles says, "I love you."
Derek grunts when Stiles throws his full weight on top of him, hiding his grin under Derek's chin.
"I love you," Derek echoes, his hand coming up to stroke at Stiles' neck.