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When Derek allows himself to feel things - real things, the things he would actually like to feel, that exist separate from the fear, the guilt, the anger - it seems to flip an hourglass. He stands with his feet submerged within the grain, covered in grit right up the bend of his knee, and he says, “I feel this and I want to feel it” - then suddenly he's on the ceiling, watching everything trickle away around him until he can no longer reach it. Until something else turns him upside down and drowns him so that he may do it again, and again, and again.
He has marred scar tissue all over him in the careful shapes of women’s names, silk-soft loops of vowels spoken in low-voiced whispers, the lullabic pronunciation of inked cursive fingerprints marking him as someone else’s. Always someone else’s. Derek Hale belongs to everyone but himself, doesn’t he? Who is Derek Hale if not pieces of charred debris mosaicked together until he is more fire than man? Look at him, everyone poke and prod at the glass encasing him as the sand slips down until he has nothing left.
Stiles sits across from him, dragging a limp french fry through the pliant ice of his chocolate milkshake, talking faster than Derek can follow about nothing at all as he pops it into his mouth as though everyone does it, as though it is the societal norm for someone to coat a fistful of fries in ice cream and find delight in it. His cheeks are flushed, dusted pink like pixie stick powder while his lips are dark from the press of the straw, the hollow carved beneath his cheekbones. Derek can hear the slick press of his tongue, the plastic scrape as he tucks it within the curl, pinches between his front teeth to get the thick of it through. Derek taps an uneven rhythm on his thighs and focuses on the slight denim-sting against his skin rather than how much it makes his chest hurt to be here, in the hourglass, unable to reach Stiles no matter how far he stretches.
The sheriff still has Stiles’ acceptance letter to Stanford stuck to the fridge by a child’s alphabet magnet, the letter S. There are several more holding pictures up along the side of the appliance, a C on a photo of Stiles holding a science fair ribbon, a J on a blurry snapshot of late-night fireworks. There’s an unspeakable history buried in that, an alternate alphabet with entirely different phonetics for two people who stood side by side and buried someone who transcended definition. Everyone still knows anyway, Derek cannot count how many times he has opened that goddamn fridge with his eyes on his shoes.
Stiles attends Beacon Community College, enrolled himself in their anthropology program with a minor in mythology and folklore. There’s some anger embedded within that - homed in the refrigerator’s crisp letter on display, the way Scott is four counties down and smiling in all of his online photographs, how Derek sits alone at home and has to tuck his hands beneath his thighs so he doesn’t cover the wall in spots. There is no reason for Stiles to be trapped here, walking aimlessly as though he has nowhere else to go, as though he needs this place and not the other way around. An elephant tethered to a wooden stake believing they are bound right where they are, for good.
Derek sighs and taps the tabletop, trying not to stare at the whipped cream smeared at the corner of Stiles’ mouth. He gestures to the half-full milkshake. “Would you like another one?”
Stiles blinks, going silent mid-tangent, blinking once, then twice, just looking at Derek like he’s making a sincere effort to understand what Derek has just said. Then, he laughs this small, huffed exhale of a laugh and shakes his head. “No. Thanks, though.” He looks down, still grinning, and pats at the barely-there press of his belly through his shirt. “I don’t think I need any more milkshakes.”
He isn’t sure what to say to that. He likes that Stiles is a little bit softer around the edges, not so sharp all the time, Beacon Hills’ scarecrow strung up and unable to move until there’s nothing left to scare. It’s not fair. Derek clears his throat, feeling words that are a little too close to the truth threatening to claw their way out. “I think you can have as many milkshakes as you want.” It isn’t a declaration, it’s subtle enough that Derek can still breathe and Stiles rolls his eyes as he tucks the straw within his tongue like Derek didn’t just say that he loves him.
They do this. Every Tuesday, they sit in this corner booth at this diner. Stiles sits with his back facing the rest of the restaurant and Derek sits on the side with the cracked vinyl that scrapes into the back of his right thigh. Stiles always orders french fries and a milkshake, Derek orders a black coffee and never drinks it. Sometimes, Stiles brings his textbooks and they sit in silence while he highlights the pages and takes notes on linguistics and structures of culture, intermittently stopping to ask Derek what he thinks on the matter, which usually isn’t much. Stiles nods along and taps the end of his pencil against the metal spirals of his notebook, slides it up and down as though playing a makeshift rubboard, but Derek never thinks he is actually listening. He thinks sometimes Stiles just likes Derek to talk. He doesn’t examine that too closely.
So, they do this. And Derek always pays the bill - nine dollars and some change, but he tips twenty - walks Stiles to his jeep and he says goodbye from two feet away, even though he would like to whisper it directly into Stiles’ mouth, while the sand drains around them. Derek tries to say things without actually saying them, but Stiles never hears them.
Last week, they went to the movies; Derek bought the popcorn and put all of the things Stiles likes in it (peanut m&ms, enough butter to make you sick, white cheddar powder) to show that he remembered, that he files away all the things that Stiles enjoys and holds tight so he never forgets them. They went to Beacon Hills’ Park two weekends ago, walking around at nearly three in the morning while Stiles smelled like tequila and ginger ale and laughed like windchimes about things that weren’t funny. It was the park that has the small commemorative garden with a rusted plaque at the very front and Derek stood off to the side while Stiles swayed side to side on the swingset.
Surely Stiles must know, he has to know. When Derek stands with his hands crammed into his pockets to stop himself from clinging, when he holds the door open and tries too hard not to make eye contact, cataloging Stiles’ existence in his peripheral - everyone must know, with the way Derek has written it in flashing bulbs and party lights, injured eyes and gritted teeth, a tick in his jaw and a tally on his wall. But, Stiles never says anything. Derek tries not to let the lack of reciprocation eat away at him, drip acid over his bones. It isn’t a bad thing. It just means that Stiles is his friend. Sometimes, it is just better to have a friend.
So, their waitress brings the check and he aims her a tight smile, listening too hard to how Stiles’ straw gurgles at the dredges of ice cream, trying not to lament for something he never lost.
Stiles is draped across Derek’s couch like Venus of Urbino if she were wearing a too-loose red zip-up jacket over a colorful flannel. He has his feet kicked up on the table, with his shoes still on - one unlaced - because he must know that Derek would sooner gouge his own eyes out than reprimand him for anything. And he is right.
He’s absently clicking between the channels, but his scent is laced through with a frantic-edged sort of apprehension, something that makes the skin at Derek’s nape prickle, pins and needles as Stiles’ heart pulses fast in his chest even though he looks like he’s relaxed. Stiles chews his lip and scrapes his thumbnail against the rubber buttons before pressing the point of it into the volume control, coating the room in silence.
“Can you do me a favor?” he asks, too high-pitched to be casual, cracked a little at the end like he practiced it too much in his head. Stiles clears his throat and purses his lips before trying again. “Could you do something for me?”
Derek resists the urge to say anything, you set the hoop aflame and I leap through it as the audience cheers.
Stiles reaches in his jacket pocket and produces an empty prescription bottle in a too-tight, pale-fingered grip. “My refill should be ready,” he croaks as Derek steps forward to carefully take it from him. “I just,” shaky exhale, “I don’t like pharmacies.”
Which explains the nervousness and air of general unease. Derek turns it over in his hand, stares down at Stiles’ real name printed in fading ink. “Yeah,” he rasps, nodding, “of course. Do you need me to go pick it up now?”
He nods but keeps his eyes trained on the television. Derek takes that as a dismissal, uncomfortable with the way Stiles’ heart is still hammering behind his ribs, so loud that it is all he can hear. Even when he shuts himself in the camaro, it is like he is covered in the pulse.
They have a CVS on the corner between the road that leads to the sheriff’s station and the one that ends with the high school. Derek holds his breath while he waits in line, the air saturated in cough syrup and inhaler puffs. When he steps up, greeted by the dead-eyed pharmacy tech, he simply holds out the bottle and requests to pick up the refill. They type a few things into their computer, clicking the mouse before frowning and bringing the empty bottle close to their face, squinting at the label. They extend their hand to Derek, tapping a finger at the date on the bottom. “The refill isn’t due for another two weeks. I am not allowed to fill it for you.” Derek frowns, accepting the bottle and staring down at it. He tucks it into his pocket, sending a rigid smile, “Thanks.”
He tries to call Stiles when he gets to the parking lot and it goes straight to voicemail. Twice. He tries not to crush it in the curl of his fist as he levers himself into the car, attempting to call again before he has his hands gripped at ten and two, making a conscious effort not to rip the wheel from the dash. He feels like he isn’t in on something that everyone else knows, something that Stiles knows.
The drive to the preserve feels longer than it has ever been. Longer than when a cruiser brought him back six years ago to pick through what was left of his things. There’s still ash in his fingerprints from that, but this feels like it takes hours. When he pulls in, Stiles’ jeep is still sitting in the same spot. But, it smells like fire, and Derek is through the door before he has time to remember that he is afraid of the way things can burn.
Stiles is not in the living room and the smoke is coming from the kitchen, but Derek presses forward, following the familiar heartbeat so he doesn’t slip out of his own skin. He steps through his bedroom into the adjoining bathroom and goes rigid.
When Derek was rebuilding, Stiles went with him to Lowe’s to browse the appliances. Derek had joked, then, like a stern parent, that Stiles better not ask for anything. It devolved into Stiles joking that they needed to invest in one of those child harnesses, or the velcro cuff that links their wrists via a colorful cord. He teasingly would drop things into the small basket Derek was carrying: a sanding block, a pack of nails, a small cactus that he named Gertrude - and Derek would stand and wait, theatrically tapping his foot while trying entirely too hard not to smile as Stiles did the walk of shame to put them back on the shelves. It is one of the better memories Derek has of the two of them together - some nights he lies awake and stares at the ceiling, thinking of how Stiles had smiled at him like they were both in on the same joke, like they were sharing something worth smiling like that about. But when they were walking down the aisle decorated with showerheads and bathroom furnishings, Stiles had stopped and blinked at the clawfoot tub on display. Derek scoffed and rolled his eyes, waiting on a quip that never came. He turned, a question on his tongue, and stopped, floored by the look on Stiles’ face. It was a bath basin in a hardware store, that is all it was, but Stiles was staring at it as though, if he could hold it in the palm of his hand, he would never want for anything else. Then, he shifted his head toward Derek, never moving his eyes from the display, and croaked, “You should get this one.” A beat. “My mom wanted one like this when we planned her dream house.” He swallowed and Derek watched how his adam’s apple dipped with it. “The one that would be waiting in heaven for her.”
Stiles is currently curled over the tub, the bottoms of his converse soaked, creating a dark line around the otherwise cherry-red material. The water makes a small noise when Derek steps in, adhering to his rubber soles and rippling around his feet. Stiles won’t look at him, leaking panic like there’s something to be afraid of, like maybe Derek is something to be afraid of. Derek rolls his shoulders, trying to resist the itch in his gums.
Before he can open his mouth, Stiles cuts him off. “I watched a lot of videos,” he says, shaky, like he is trying to convince himself. “I promise, I made sure that I knew what I was doing. I didn’t just,” he gestures around, huffing a humorless laugh, “I didn’t want to mess anything up.” Derek watches a little helplessly as Stiles rubs a hand over his hair, his lips pulled taut, making his whole face look like it’s dripping downward. “That’s what I do, isn’t it?” He smiles, looking at Derek for the first time since he got here. “There goes Stiles Stilinski, always fucking everything up.”
It feels like Derek’s heart has splintered the cage of his ribs, clawed its way up his throat so he can’t speak even if he really wanted to. He reaches out, but he doesn’t know what he intends to do. Derek Hale has never been one for tactile overtures.
“You don’t fuck everything up.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Derek tries not to feel frustrated, because Stiles is talking about himself in a way where, if it were coming from anyone else, Derek would rip their fucking teeth out. “Tell me what you think you fucked up, Stiles.”
Stiles points to the tub and tells Derek how he went to a specialty store when he was out of town with his dad, how he got a bath bomb scented with vanilla because he knows that it’s Derek’s favorite. “I know you try to hide it,” he attempts to joke while Derek still carries the weight of his own frown, “but I’ve seen the candles in your room.”
Then, Stiles circles a hand around Derek’s wrist like they touch all the time, like Derek can focus when Stiles’ fingers are looped over his skin, framing his pulse point as he leads Derek down the hall. The kitchen is worse, but he doesn’t react since the embarrassment is still billowing off of Stiles in waves. There’s a baking pan of black cookies, small tendrils of semi-opaque smoke rising from them. The Mr. Coffee is unplugged and teetered over into the sink, the cord hanging down against the cabinets.
Derek clears his throat, surveying the damage while Stiles removes his hand to rub at the back of his neck.
“It was supposed to be perfect,” Stiles says, timid. “You deserve something perfect. Just once. I just wanted you to have something good one time and,” he cuts himself off, gritting his teeth while his skin inks red. Derek can’t help but feel that they are standing on opposite sides of this, only one of them knows what is actually going on, and it isn’t Derek.
“I have good things,” Derek insists, anxious to make Stiles feel better. He is leaking distress signals, the kinds that predators know how to pick up on: he won’t make eye contact, shifting from foot to foot as he looks anywhere else, he has his shoulders curled forward to make himself look smaller, to take up less space, he smells like sour candy and sunscreen, a little bit of bittersweet chemical.
Stiles scoffs, disbelieving and a little mean. “Yeah? What good things do you have, Derek?”
He swallows, keeping the word trapped behind his teeth because if it slips through he will not be able to catch it, he curls the chain around its neck and binds it to the tree out front to bark and bark with no one to hear. He just looks at Stiles, and Stiles looks back at him, and Derek thinks it loud enough that Stiles blinks.
You.
“No,” Stiles shakes his head. “I am not a good thing.”
“You are to me,” Derek says, as quiet as he can while still audibly speaking, letting the dog off its collar. He pulls the prescription bottle from his pocket. “You didn’t really need these, did you?”
Shaking his head, Stiles blows a raspberry. “They’re in a ziploc in my center console.”
Derek frowns. “You never have to lie to me.”
Ignoring that, Stiles waves a hand to the kitchen’s destruction. “This was supposed to be for you. You like hot chocolate, but the coffee machine - I forgot. I left it and it overflowed. I left the cookies in the oven for too long and when the smoke alarm went off I was trying to fill the bathtub.” Stiles looks down and scuffs the front of his shoe against the tile. “I ruined everything.”
Slowly, Derek steps forward to the counter by the stove where small rivulets of hot chocolate are still slowly dripping from the granite lip, staining streams down the cabinets. He runs a finger through it, bringing it between his lips. “It tastes good,” he tells Stiles, whose eyes look like they may very well slip from his skull. “I don’t think you ruined it.”
The cookies are still on the stovetop, Derek picks one even though it stings a little to the touch. Cracking it open, he takes a bite, and it isn’t bad. There is a slightly charred crunch that makes Stiles wince and hiss out, are you crazy, but Derek shrugs. “That isn’t bad either. I am having a hard time seeing what you ruined, Stiles.”
Dropping his head, Stiles mumbles, “I ruined my chance.”
Derek deposits the cookie on the tray with a rattling metallic thud before taking a step toward Stiles. “Your chance at what?”
“My chance with you. This was supposed to be,” he huffs at himself, locking eyes with Derek. “I think I love you.”
Derek looks around, watching the sand slip through the hole in the floor, the moments evading him faster than he can stop it. Stiles misreads Derek’s silence and backpedals. “Not that loving you isn’t something I can be sure about. I am mostly sure. Because when you smile at me it makes me feel like you have set me on fire just a little bit. And when we eat at the diner, sometimes I just think that I could look at you forever and never get tired of it. I just,” he gestures a hand at Derek, “I just want to look at you forever.”
Derek has never really known how to say what he feels, declarations always ending in flame. He isn’t sure what to say now, doesn’t know how to hold tight to something he’s never been allowed to have.
Wordlessly, he reaches out and slots his fingers between Stiles’, the knobs of their knuckles pressing into one another, a little unsteady like buoys lining a fishing net. “Forever is a long time,” he whispers, reluctant to disturb the water, feeling the sand funneling beneath him.
“I’d give it to you,” Stiles promises, like he’s allowed to promise things like that. His heart pulses steady in his chest, scent spelling out sincerity. A small part of Derek wishes it had skipped, wishes that Stiles were lying so that he didn’t feel like he’s been rubbed raw at the edges. “If you wanted it, I’d give it to you.”
If he wanted it. If he wanted it. Like Stiles’ name isn’t written on Derek’s eyelids, spelled out in the ceiling cracks and the kitchen tiles. Like he doesn’t hear a tinkling laugh whenever he sees the color red, blue jeeps and amber eyes. Stiles lives in him, there is nothing he has ever wanted more.
“For me, giving has always felt a little too much like taking,” he glances at Stiles. “I am tired of taking.”
Stiles squeezes his hand a little harder. “You’re allowed to want things.”
Using the interlock of their hands, Derek pulls lightly to press Stiles into his side. Looking around, he rakes his eyes over the stains, the coffee maker, the slight wet trickle still sounding from the bathroom. He thinks of Tuesdays at the diner and late night trips to the park, private smiles at hardware stores and pieces of themselves buried within one another. The way they say things without ever opening their mouths and still manage to sometimes hear it anyway. Stiles says Derek is allowed to want things, and he has never wanted anything more than this, a black hole festering in his chest until it swallows what’s left of him.
Stiles tucks his head into the juncture of Derek’s neck and shoulder, the warm tip of his nose singeing a brand into Derek’s flesh. Reluctantly, slowly, so slowly, Derek presses his lips to Stiles’ temple, who expels a soft, shuddery sigh. For just a moment, he feels like there is no more sand. Just him and the way he wants to feel.
He buries his smile into Stiles’ hair, not ready for the world to see it yet, deciding to keep something just for himself.
