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Stiles’ hands shake where he clutches the kitchen knife in one, the onion in the other. The tears leaking from his eyes are just from the allium, really.
“Stiles, I can smell your anxiety from upstairs,” Derek calls from the other floor where he’s been working, not unkindly. “Stop thinking about it!”
“I can’t,” Stiles mutters back, knowing Derek can still hear him. The onion gets stabbed repeatedly and angrily, Stiles slicing it with more irritation than needed. What did the onion ever do to him?
“The less you think about it, the less it’ll matter,” Derek replies, abandoning his work to stroll into the kitchen now, but Stiles only grumbles.
“Don’t you think I know that?” he retorts, mad at himself now more than anything. “If I could’ve let it go hours ago, I would have!”
Derek sighs, leaning up against the counter and watching Stiles continue to take his aggression out on the poor onion. He knows how Stiles is feeling, is prone to overthinking at times, too, but he also knows his own words aren’t necessarily helpful when stuck in a thought loop. So he tries another tactic, instead, aiming for reassurance this time.
“Scott will get back to you eventually, he always does,” Derek says in his most soothing voice. The other half of the onion threatens to fall off the cutting board onto the floor, but Derek catches it in time; Stiles doesn’t even notice.
“It’s been hours, Derek,” Stiles huffs with a sniffle, and it’s still because of the onion, Stiles swears.
“You know this is just how Scott is. Hasn’t he been like this for years?”
“Yeah, but — we had plans. He knows this is the only day I have free, the only time I have to see him for months. Where the hell is he?” Stiles’ cheeks are flushed, and Derek won’t say this aloud right now, but he looks beautiful like that, pink and pretty, with his long eyelashes and pouting mouth. Derek adores him.
Stiles looks up at Derek’s silence, maple eyes glassy with onion fumes and maybe a little emotion, he can admit it now to himself. What else does he have to lose?
Derek meets his eyes and Stiles knows they’re both thinking the same thing. Scott’s new girlfriend. He’s been like this ever since Allison, putting all his plans with his friends on hold to prioritize his new relationships. But still, this is Stiles, his best friend, and Stiles can’t help but feel hurt at the radio silence. Is it naive of him to think he’s worth more than that?
“I’m just sick of it,” Stiles grumbles croakily, fed up with the whole situation. He’d been texting Scott all day trying to confirm their plans, but hadn’t heard back. It’s now creeping towards the evening and Stiles doesn’t want to acknowledge just how much of his day he’s spent worrying and being on edge and generally stressing the fuck out.
It’s just Scott, but he hasn’t seen him in months, and he was already worried that his friend was pulling away from him; they’ve both been so busy with college and work. But the one time they’re both in town, and Scott can’t get it together to text him back?
He’s sure Scott is safe, at least, tapping into his location on his phone and seeing Scott’s location pin hovering over the diner he’s been sat at for the last hour. On one hand, Stiles is relieved that hunters aren’t involved, or worse. But on the other hand, what’s Scott’s excuse now?
“You have every right to be,” Derek agrees, heart aching for his boyfriend. He’s seen the way Scott’s treated Stiles, treated both of them all these years, and he hates it for Stiles, but for some reason Stiles can’t let him go, still keeps up the friendship even if it’s barely reciprocated. It’s not right. “You deserve more than this, you know that, don’t you?”
Stiles only sighs and puts the knife down on the cutting board with a clang. Derek is secretly glad; Stiles and knives don’t go well together even on the best of days.
Stiles’ hands go to cover his face with exasperation before he can think, and he yelps when onion fumes seep into his eyes immediately. Saltwater drips down his pink cheeks, and he can’t stop it, this time.
Derek goes to him at once, pulling his hands away from his face and into his own, squeezing tightly. He kisses Stiles’ forehead, the press of his lips staying for a long beat while Stiles pulls himself together.
“I hate that it still affects me this much,” Stiles rasps out, feeling ashamed and embarrassed and angry and sad all at once. “I hate that I haven’t learned, that I can’t just go with the flow, that I’m expecting too much after all this time. I should know by now; it shouldn’t… it shouldn’t still hurt like this.” His voice breaks on hurt, and Derek pulls him fully in his arms, now, Stiles clinging back with all his strength.
Stiles has a right to be hurt. With everything he and Scott have been through, of course it’s painful when he doesn’t feel like he matters as much anymore, when all of Scott’s subtle actions have finally come to the surface like this, and Stiles can’t look away anymore, can’t stop ignoring how it makes him feel.
“It’s not on you, Stiles,” Derek soothes into Stiles’ ear. “There’s two people in the friendship. What you’re feeling is normal, anyone in your place would feel like this. Cut yourself some slack.”
It’s hard to think of the right thing to say; Derek doesn’t want to upset his boyfriend more, especially in his fragile state, his fears come to light. Fears that Derek is all too familiar with himself: fears of not being good enough, of being left behind, of getting his hopes up and expecting too much and caring more than the other person does. He never wants Stiles to feel like that; his heart breaks for him.
“I just want to go back to how we were before,” Stiles says into Derek’s shoulder, voice small like his words aren’t allowed.
“I know,” Derek whispers, sliding a warm palm up and down Stiles’ back through his sweatshirt. It’s Derek’s clothing, a bit oversized and faded, softened by age. Stiles likes to wear it when he’s sad, says it feels like Derek himself hugging him. “But people grow apart.”
“I don’t want to, though, I’m not ready,” Stiles exclaims, gripping Derek even more tightly. “Like, yeah, I miss him, but it’s not like I care that badly about seeing him today. I just don’t wanna feel like I’m always fucking left behind, like I’m so low on his list of priorities. It fucking hurts.”
Derek understands, since he knows firsthand how that feels, how Scott himself has made him feel. But he doesn’t want Stiles to ever feel like this, even though he saw the signs coming a mile away. Since he saw them pile up, beginning years ago. Still, Stiles deserves better, and Derek’s chest is pulled tight with all the pain he wishes he could ease for Stiles.
“I know, baby,” is all he can think of to say, but it seems like enough for Stiles, who burrows into his neck and stays there, unmoving, where it’s safe.
After a few long, quiet moments, the pair jump reluctantly apart at the sound of Stiles’ phone vibrating, shocking in the silence. Stiles grabs it off the counter immediately, peering at the screen with a hopeful look on his face he doesn’t even try to hide.
But his face falls just as quickly when he sees it’s some useless notification, “Update your phone to the newest software!” and not the message he’s been dying to get all day.
“Forget it,” Stiles mutters, before turning off his phone completely with the angry press of a button and nearly throwing it on the counter. He doesn’t even care if it breaks right now; his friendship with Scott is breaking, and that’s more important.
Stiles would say he hates Scott, doesn’t even want to be friends with him anymore, but it’s the opposite; he hates himself more than anything for feeling like this, for caring so much. It sounds dramatic, but he worries if Scott secretly hates him as well, if that’s the reason for the silence.
Stiles can’t help but go over and over these thoughts as he has been all day, in a vicious cycle in his mind, playing like a loop that he has no power to stop.
Did I do something wrong? Say something wrong? Overstep? Talk too much? Text too much? Offend you? Am I a bother, an inconvenience? Do you hate me or do you even think of me? Am I not important to you anymore? Do I care about you more than you care about me? Am I too much for you?
Or am I not enough?
Not for the first time, Stiles yearns to shut off his brain for a while, to let Derek’s words of comfort in, to listen to his own rationality. But it’s not happening. He gets these thought loops frequently, and while Derek helps to soothe him more often than not, and his relationship with Derek often helps him feel secure enough in the first place, this knife cuts deep. It’s Scott; they’re supposed to be brothers.
If he lets himself go there, it’s on par for Scott. If he allows himself to think back to all the other times this has happened in their lives, ever since Allison, ever since the aconite bullet, the pool, the kanima. It’s not unusual for Scott to treat him like this; but that doesn’t mean it feels good, that Stiles is used to it.
He’s used to it in the sense that it doesn’t typically bother him like this, he refuses to put this much thought into it normally. But maybe he’s been feeling a bit lonely at college, misses his brother, wants to feel like someone other than Derek and his dad miss him. So sue him if he thought his best friend was still his best friend.
“I’m so sorry,” Derek murmurs in Stiles’ ear, tugging him back in his arms. He says it like they’re mourning something, like Stiles has lost something, and maybe he has. He just didn’t expect it to be so soon, to be today, on a normal Sunday when he’s making pierogi of all things, with his mom’s recipe.
He can still remember when Scott used to help him in the kitchen when they were younger, being his sioux chef and cutting up ingredients very badly, pinching the dough together with sticky, clumsy fingers but being proud of his work nonetheless, proud to help Stiles. They’d eat the dumplings on the couch together while watching bad movies and playing video games late into the night, laughing and teasing each other the whole time.
They hadn’t done that together in months; Stiles doesn’t know if they ever will again.
“It’s fine,” Stiles mumbles back, but it’s not fine, and both he and Derek know it. This is the last straw, and Stiles knows it, knows that what he’s been feeling and pushing away all this time is real. He knows it because he feels the opposite from Derek.
Derek, who makes him feel cared for, treasured, loved, respected, revered. Derek, who always makes time for him, who mourns their time apart, who embraces him when they come back together like they haven’t seen each other in years. He hasn’t felt from anyone else what he feels from Derek, and that’s how he knows what it’s supposed to be like, and how wrong it feels otherwise.
Sure, his friendship with Scott is platonic, but Scott’s his brother, his family. He at least knows family shouldn’t reduce him to tears.
Stiles wipes them away now where they’re falling down his cheeks again, and why can’t he stop crying, god, it’s not a big deal. But it is; Stiles just doesn’t want to admit it.
Seeing Stiles’ distress, Derek leans into his space again now and gently kisses away his tears like the perfect romantic boyfriend he is, leaving more trails of kisses all over his face, warm presses of his mouth familiar and soothing. Stiles leans into it until he finds Derek’s mouth with his own, and the mated pair kiss for long moments, standing wrapped around each other in the kitchen.
Derek kisses away Stiles’ grief, his insecurities, his longing, his misery, his shame. He gives him love in return, trades his worries for comfort, his stress for ease.
It’s working; slowly but surely, Stiles melts into him, his arms wrapped around Derek’s neck, kissing him until all his many thoughts have left his head for the time being, until all that matters is Derek.
When they break apart at last, Stiles sighs, nestling into Derek’s embrace again, Derek’s arms still tight around him. Derek holds him like he’s the most important thing in the universe.
Stiles can’t help but think back to his last hug with Scott, how awkward it felt, how he clung on a little longer than usual, and Scott had grinned uncomfortably when they parted, patting him on the back like all was cool. But it wasn’t, and it had left Stiles overthinking a fucking hug. He never had to overthink anything with Scott before. Which should’ve been a clear sign that things were going downhill.
“What can I do?” Derek’s warm voice floats into Stiles’ ear and breaks him out of his stress-induced reverie, but Stiles only shakes his head into Derek’s shoulder.
“I’ll get over it,” he mutters, but he really shouldn’t have to get over it in the first place, it shouldn’t have happened. But he still can’t believe he’s upset over some fucking texts, or the absence of them. Even so, it’s not the texts themselves, not completely, that’s affecting Stiles so much; it’s what they mean, what lies underneath them, what they’re bringing out of Stiles and forcing him to think about.
He still feels a bit ridiculous for getting so worked up, but as hard as he tries, he cannot change how he feels, how he ruminates obsessively, how he stresses. He cannot change the situation, though, either.
“I’m here, you know?” Derek prompts, leaning back to meet Stiles’ eyes, and Stiles nods. That’s one thing he’s sure of; that Derek is here for him, always. He can’t help but smile, just a little, and meet Derek’s lips once more, briefly.
“Love you,” Stiles says softly against Derek’s lips, before Derek echoes his words right back to him. Stiles’ chest feels warm again, untangling the knot that’s suspended there little by little.
“Lemme help you cook,” Derek offers. Stiles sniffs once more, for the last time, goddamnit, and steps away from Derek at last.
He moves back to the cutting board, handing the knife to Derek to finish slicing the onion after he washes his hands. There’s been too much crying on his part today, already.
“Throw those in the pan when you’re done,” Stiles instructs wearily, as he turns on the stove. If he goes through the recipe he’s had memorized for years, switching into his left brain, maybe that’ll halt the emotions, make him forget about things for a while.
He just wanted to make his mom’s pierogi; they’re his comfort food, they always make him feel better, and he loves sharing them with Derek. Sometimes he follows Claudia’s recipe exactly, and sometimes he switches it up depending on what they have on hand.
He and Derek had just brought back some chanterelle mushrooms from the woods, and he knows his mom would be proud, wishes she were here to enjoy the meal with them. He’ll make sure to bring some over to his dad.
Stiles opens the fridge and stares blankly at it for a moment, forcing the rest of his thoughts out of his head a bit unproductively as he makes himself rummage through the vegetable bin, pulling out half a cabbage, and a couple apples from the fruit keeper. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it.
Luckily he’s left the caramelized onion part for Derek; he doesn’t have the focus to attend to them right now. He should make the dough, though — fuck, the dough.
Everything feels a bit insurmountable right now, when really Stiles just wants to sink into the couch at Derek’s side and never get up. Maybe they can watch some crappy reality TV after this, make him feel a bit better about his own life.
He really shouldn’t have picked a dish to make that was so personal to him, that he remembers making all throughout his life with Scott, that holds so many memories, good and bad. It almost feels like a breakup, now that Stiles has come to this unsaid decision, but he’s not going there, nopenopenope.
But hey, if the pierogi come out a little saltier than usual, so sue him and his stupid tears.
So he and Derek make the pierogi together, and it’s fine, but there’s no heart in it, and Stiles just wants to be done already, scarf them down and go to sleep. Maybe throw his phone away as well, while he’s at it.
He knows he’s being dramatic, but as Derek keeps telling him, he’s allowed to be, he’s allowed to feel whatever emotions he’s feeling, they’re all valid, blah blah blah. And Derek is right, as always, but Stiles currently hates how he feels, is the problem.
Still, Derek comes up behind him as he’s rolling out the pierogi dough, wrapping his big arms around his waist, and Stiles can’t help but melt into it, into Derek’s warmth and comfort, dependable and familiar.
What feels like the end of the world now isn’t really, because it’s times like these that Stiles thinks he doesn’t have any more room in his heart for anyone else after all, with Derek filling it so thoroughly.
As, uh, thoroughly as Stiles is filling the pierogi, which is to say, a bit overfull, but Stiles can’t think properly with Derek’s face tucked against his neck like that, his warm breath on Stiles’ skin.
It’s almost enough to overtake Stiles’ thoughts completely, but even if it doesn’t, it just helps Stiles realize even more that Derek is always here when he needs him, will stop anything he’s doing just for Stiles, seems to live and breathe just for Stiles.
And that’s the best feeling in the world. Derek deserves that in return, too, and with less time worrying about Scott in his life, now, Stiles wants to devote every moment he can to Derek, in between school and work and his dad.
It hits him over the head like a shovel, like an icy bath, how much Derek is there for him, and always has been. There was never any doubt, but now it’s clearer than ever in the face of his feelings around Scott — that Derek is everything to him and vice versa, that he wants nothing else for the rest of his life but to be with Derek and make him feel happy and loved. That Derek deserves that as much as he always says Stiles deserves it.
So they stand there in the kitchen like lovesick idiots, wrapped around each other and making Stiles’ favorite meal and sharing it with his favorite person. Derek pays attention to all this ramblings when he eventually spills out more word vomit, kisses him here and there, stays close by and warm around him and cooks by his side, compliments him and tells him how proud his mom would be of him.
And this time when Stiles tears up, it’s not because of the onions, or because of Scott. It’s because of Derek, and they’re happy tears, and Stiles is so fucking in love, and Derek is in love right back.
And Stiles knows he’s making the right decision, knows every minute with Derek is the right decision, because he feels so utterly treasured and valued and loved when he’s around the wolf, it makes it that much more foreign when he feels anything else, like how he felt around Scott. And that’s why it had been such a slap in the face.
Stiles is so used to feeling good more often than not these days, all because of Derek. Now, with his pierogi — er, priorities in order, it’s easy to imagine feeling that way for the rest of his life, as long as Derek’s by his side.