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Stiles is being too quiet.
They’re walking in the preserve, and all Derek can hear is the thud of their hiking boots on the forest floor, and the birds singing, and the wind blowing, and Stiles’ heartbeat, a beat too fast like always. But something’s missing. It’s unsettling; Stiles should be talking.
He’s been quiet all day, and only in abundance of noise does Derek really notice his absence.
“What’s wrong,” Derek grunts, brows furrowed, as he looks behind him to catch Stiles quickly evening out his own brows. Stiles glances up at him from his downward gaze.
“Nothing,” Stiles tries. At Derek’s raised brows (and seriously, his eyebrows are a whole language of their own, which Stiles has luckily mastered), he heaves a sigh and continues, “I’m fine.”
Like that’s ever worked.
“No, you’re not,” Derek states, seeing through his boyfriend like a pane of glass. He halts in the middle of walking, and Stiles nearly bumps into him, catching himself on Derek’s form. Derek tugs one of Stiles’ hands free and clutches it in his own, grip tight and stable.
It’s like Stiles melts a little at the contact, the reassurance, but he still doesn’t speak. He avoids Derek’s eyes again, turning his focus back to the trail and tugging Derek along beside him.
It’s a beautiful day; rays of sunlight beam across the path, foliage bright green and vast. It’s warm with a slight breeze. Derek knows the preserve like the back of his hand, so they’ve found a hidden trail no one else knows about to avoid the usual swarms of hikers on a Saturday.
Derek knows if he keeps pressing, it could go one of three ways. Stiles will either get frustrated and lock up even more, ruining their hike; could attempt to lie and insist that nothing’s wrong; or, most likely, he’ll cave under Derek’s insistence and spill out all his thoughts in one big jumble, ultimately feeling better after it’s all out.
What happens is the latter. Stiles knows he can’t get away with lying to a werewolf, anyway. He deals with most of his problems by talking them out, and Derek’s so easy and comforting to talk to, he usually can’t help himself.
“Fine, god,” Stiles scoffs, like it’s a hardship. Sometimes it is. Derek observes how Stiles’ eyes flit all over the path as they continue walking, like he’s trying to sort out his thoughts, face a little screwed up in frustration.
Derek only squeezes his hand in silent comfort.
“Y’know those days where everything just feels like too much?” Stiles starts, and looks up to finally meet Derek’s hazel eyes again, seeing him nod in agreement. Of course Derek understands.
“It’s like that, but — all the time, these days,” Stiles continues. To feel his emotions is one thing, but expressing them in all their intensity is another. Usually he’s pretty good with words, and it’s Derek who struggles with them. But it’s clear Stiles is overwhelmed by all he’s feeling.
Derek doesn’t know where this is coming from, if he missed some subtle cues the last few days or what. Stiles usually isn’t this quiet, isn’t this overwhelmed. And if he is, it’s not usually turned so inward.
“Like, college is fine, all my classes are a breeze, you know this. But the people — I just feel so out of place,” Stiles starts to ramble, and Derek is glad for it again, for the noise and the words. He loves Stiles’ voice. Loves that Stiles trusts him enough to open up.
“It’s just so fucking hard for me to talk to anyone these days. I’m trying, but it’s like a light switched off in my brain and suddenly I feel like I don’t know how to talk, like I’m always saying the wrong thing, and the amount of time I spend before and after each conversation going over the whole stupid thing, it’s ridiculous. Like, this isn’t me, where the hell did I go? What’s happening to me?”
Stiles is a bit out of breath now, and it’s not just from the hike.
Derek can feel his words in his heart with how largely they resonate. There’s rarely been a conversation that he hasn’t felt that way about. Just because he doesn’t speak as often as Stiles doesn’t mean he isn’t constantly thinking and worrying and regretting.
It just happens silently.
“Like I’m trying to text this guy from class about his weekend, right,” Stiles starts before Derek can interject. “Trying to make friends like you suggested. Well it turns out I completely forgot how to hold a normal conversation. This morning I was spiraling over using a fucking emoji. Not — I don’t mean a fucking emoji, like the eggplant or whatever—”
Derek has no clue what Stiles is on about.
“—I mean, like, the use of an emoji is stressing me the fuck out.” Stiles waves his hands in emphasis, including the one Derek is still gripping onto. “What if he hates emojis? So eventually he just responds, ‘going good, you?’ and I’m like how the hell do I respond to that? Does he actually care? Do I actually tell him how my day is going? Will that overwhelm him? Do I even care about being friends with him in the first place, or do I just want to feel like I have friends again?”
Stiles is panting for air now, and Derek can’t smell the beginnings of a panic attack, but it’s close. Stiles’ heart rate is skyrocketing and his scent is souring, the smell carried away by the gentle breeze only to resurface again and again.
Derek knows it’s not just about the social interaction for Stiles; there’s something deeper going on.
“Hey, come here,” Derek murmurs, coming to a standstill in the middle of the path again and tugging Stiles close to him. His free hand comes up to Stiles’ face, with his wide, searching eyes and downturned mouth. Derek’s thumb soothes along Stiles’ reddened cheek as his palm cups his jaw. Stiles leans into it and his body relaxes minutely, sagging ever so slightly like Derek’s pulling pain.
He’s not; he’s just being Derek, helping how he can. His touch always helps Stiles in the same way that Stiles’ touch helps Derek. It just does, every time.
“Sorry,” Stiles mumbles. It’s so foreign a word from Stiles’ mouth, and Derek can see his boyfriend’s insecurities as though they’re laid out on a picnic blanket.
“What’s going on?” Derek asks softly, seeing straight through Stiles, and Stiles knows this, lets out a huge sigh.
“I should save this for therapy,” Stiles grumbles, and it’s obvious now. He feels like a burden to Derek, to those around him. Doesn’t want to overwhelm them. Doesn’t think he’s worthy of their time, of their energy.
“You know you can tell me anything,” Derek presses. When he meets Stiles’ maple eyes, he’s shocked by the sadness in them. How did he miss Stiles feeling like this? How long has he been feeling like this?
“I shouldn’t have to, though,” Stiles insists, a bit of a cute whine creeping into his voice. The corner of Derek’s mouth quirks with adoration but he schools his features, doesn’t want Stiles to think he’s teasing him. “After everything we’ve been through, I’m bothered by socializing? I’ll get over it, really,” he tries to convey, like he’s regretting ever bringing up the subject in the first place.
But his words only speak more to how he’s feeling.
“Stiles, you know I would listen to you speak for hours. About anything. About your dream last night or what you had for breakfast or the shopping list or your deepest fears. You know I care, right?” Derek says, voice gentle, skin warm through all his and Stiles’ points of contact.
“Yeah, I — I guess, it’s just — isn’t it too much, sometimes? Like, someone really needs to tell me to shut up at some point—”
“No,” Derek almost growls, can’t stand Stiles putting himself down like this. “The right people will want to listen to you, be around you. I’ve never wanted you to shut up. Not even when you skipped your Adderall.”
Stiles looks skeptical. “You don’t think I’m putting off all the friends I’m trying to make? Hi, I’m Stiles, I talk incessantly, want me to make a joke about your trauma? ‘Cause I’m really good at that. By the way, I have a lot of baggage, and not just the ones under my eyes.”
Only the wind and their heartbeats fill the silence.
“You think you’re too much?” Derek murmurs, heart breaking for the boy.
Damn Derek and his Spidey senses, how easily he can read Stiles, see through him to places Stiles wasn’t even aware of yet.
“I — yeah?” Stiles sighs, resigned. He sure as hell didn’t intend to spend his Saturday having a therapy session with his boyfriend. They were meant to be hiking, holding hands and kissing in a meadow or something romantic like that, not — not dealing with Stiles’ everpresent insecurities yet again.
“I mean — I am too much. You know me,” Stiles tries to laugh, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and his fake smile falls right away.
Derek shakes his head, his eyes boring into Stiles’ as if he could convey all his love and respect for Stiles in this way. He’s never been as good with words as Stiles.
“You’re not. Too much. You never have been. I love you how you are. Even on your worst days. You’re everything to me, Stiles.”
Stiles’ cheeks heat up even more and his hand fidgets where he’s not clinging onto Derek.
“But you — you have to say that, we’re mated—”
Derek shakes his head again, resolute. “I choose to. Like I choose you, every day.”
Stiles swallows back tears, a lump forming in his throat. Where did all this sudden emotion come from?
“If you want them, the right people will find you and choose you, too,” Derek continues. “You know I’d hate to share you,” he smiles a little, “but if it’s what you want, you deserve to have friends who see you for who you are.”
Stiles sniffs, eyes shining. “Thanks, big guy,” he rasps, but he still looks so sad, a bit broken like he still thinks there’s something wrong with him. Is it not enough for Derek to think the world of him? Do others’ opinions matter more? Or is Stiles’ own opinion of himself getting in the way?
“I just — this sounds horrible. I just want people to like me,” Stiles murmurs to the ground. “I guess I still want to feel… lovable after all I’ve been through. I want to make people laugh and have them care about me and know I’m still someone. But it’s too hard. All this overthinking and worrying, it’s exhausting, all to get a two word response back from someone—”
There’s the kicker.
“How could I not be seen as too much after that? No one talks as much as I do, no one cares as much. So maybe I’m the problem.”
For Stiles, words are his love language. So it makes sense that when they’re taken away, he doesn’t know what to offer. When he doesn’t get them in return, he falters.
He can read Derek like a book by now, and while words aren’t Derek’s language, he’s fluent in all Derek’s other languages — touch, eyebrows, how to read between his handful of words and find the wolf underneath. Their love goes both ways and they understand each other perfectly.
It’s intimidating to start over with others, though they’ll just be friends at most, god, would never have what he and Derek have. But that doesn’t mean Stiles doesn’t want to be seen by his peers, as a peer. Derek’s enough for him, of course, and while Stiles has never had many friends growing up, it starts to get lonely at school since Derek can’t be there with him. So, understandably, Stiles is craving connection, anything to make him feel less alone and more seen.
He deserves that, Derek thinks, even if he doesn’t feel the same way himself, would be happy to be around Stiles and only Stiles for the rest of his life.
But maybe Stiles needs another pack, too. People who aren’t tied to him by a mating bond or blood, people who can show him he’s worthy of knowing, who talk just as much as him, who can bond over Star Wars and Obi Wa— whatever. Stiles deserves for people to like him.
And Derek is more than okay with this, as long as Stiles still comes home to Derek at the end of the day, and lets Derek replace others’ friendly, faintly lingering scents with his own, the strongest scent of all. He knows he’s enough for Stiles, with how many times Stiles has told him this, and made him believe it, finally. He wants others to make Stiles feel like he’s enough, too, if Derek isn’t enough to convince him.
Ultimately, Stiles deserves to go through life feeling like he’s not too much for anyone, not too little, just perfect as he is. But Derek can’t tell him this without sounding like his own therapist, so he says the next best thing.
“I love you. All of you. No matter what, okay? You’re not the problem. You’re the answer to the problem,” Derek says, warmth and love tinting his voice despite how cheesy his words are. “I’m sorry I can’t make you see that, or that no one else has yet, either. But you’re worth everything to me.”
Where Derek is a man of few words, the ones he does choose are somehow exactly what Stiles needs, and he leans forward now to feel Derek’s lips under his, kissing the source of the words, speaking his love language.
He wraps both arms around Derek’s neck, and the mates stand there together in the middle of the forest, lost in each other for far too many minutes. Stiles’ heart rate slows at last as he soaks up all the attention from the one who loves him the most, like a shadow finding its sun.
Derek’s enough for him, as well.
When they break apart, bodies still flush together, no more words are needed, but Stiles says them anyway, and it’s okay. Everything about Stiles is okay.
“Sorry,” he can’t help but apologize again. “Didn’t mean to spiral. You know how I get — too many thoughts—”
“I understand, it’s okay, Stiles,” Derek smiles reassuringly at him, thumb still brushing lovingly up and down his cheek. Derek gazes at him besottingly and sees the same affection reflected back in Stiles’ eyes. “You’re all good.”
Stiles reads easily what’s underneath, and he’s never felt more loved and accepted than he does in Derek’s arms. Others be damned; he’ll still try, still put himself out there and attempt to make friends, but nothing can compare to the way Derek looks at him, the way he values him and makes him feel seen.
Maybe it speaks to the extent of Derek’s attention on him that makes everyone else’s pale in comparison. No one will see him like Derek does; no one will make him feel as enough, as not too much as Derek does.
As embarrassed as he is about his little breakdown in the forest, at least his mind quieted for a few minutes, Derek’s reassurance all he could ask for. Everything he does to cement their relationship makes Stiles fall more and more in love with him every day. He thinks it’s almost too much, at this point, for how wildly his heart beats for Derek, how strongly it pulses in his chest.
If Stiles is too much of anything, it’s in love.
It’s still not a bad thing.
“I love you,” Stiles whispers against Derek’s lips before melting into him again. They stand pressed together in the middle of the woods, yet again. Derek can hear the birds singing around them, still, hear the breeze rustling the leaves, and Stiles’ heart pounding, but it’s the good kind, this time.
His absence of words isn’t silence anymore, for he knows Stiles is pouring his love into Derek in another way, now, speaking Derek’s language right back at him. His lips form silent words against Derek’s, pressing them again and again into his mouth, and it’s not too much.
It’s perfect; it’s Stiles.