Six Feet Under | Sterek

twenty-three;

Once, not long before she'd died, Claudia Stilinski had taken her son to a park. Young Stiles had been ecstatic, because it had been late at night and it had been raining and it had felt forbidden. He'd run and run and run, until he hadn't been able to breathe properly, and then he'd gone to sit by his mother's side as she told him stories about the stars.

"I won't be here for much longer," she'd told him gently, looking up at the infinite sky. "But I hope someone will love you, Stiles. And I hope they love you deeply and wholly, and I hope that they don't let you go."

When they'd gotten home, his dad had been frantic and had shouted at them for ages. Young Stiles had cried, because he hadn't understood why his daddy was angry, and then he'd gone to bed and dreamt about the type of love that burned like a star.

Present-Stiles stands in the water at some nowhere beach, tastes salt on his tongue, stares at the one person who was supposed to love him, and feels the last ember of hope flicker out. Because Derek doesn't love him, Derek is giving up on him, Derek is going to go home and leave Stiles alone in a world that doesn't want him. 

And Stiles is going to let him, because Stiles is nothing if not self-destructive.

"Okay," he says carefully, swallowing against the scream that's bubbling up his throat. "That's okay. Yeah." He backs up a step, not because Derek scares him, but because Stiles is afraid that he's going to crumple into a million pieces and he doesn't want Derek to see that. The ocean can have him, but Derek can't, which is great because Derek doesn't want him anyway.

Derek moves forwards, the water swirling around his ankles, but Stiles makes a panicked sound and Derek stops. "Stiles," he says, voice pained, but that isn't fair, because Derek is the one who's causing this so Derek shouldn't be the one in pain.

"Stop," Stiles says, and his voice is shaking and his hands are shaking and everything is shaking because he doesn't want to hear this. He can't bear to hear Derek leave him one last time. "Just...stop." 

"Stiles." 

Derek takes another step forward, and Stiles takes another step back, and it's like some twisted dance between them. But Stiles can't do this right now. Because he's in love, but nobody loves him back, and maybe that means he can't ever go home. Maybe Stiles doesn't care. 

He laughs, and shakes his head, and he sounds like he's about to cry. He isn't, he knows he isn't, but it sounds like he is and perhaps that's why Derek is looking so dismayed. "Okay," Stiles says again, because that's all he can say, all he can form in his mouth. Derek makes a small sound, but the wind whisks it away before Stiles can truly hear it. "You can go. Just...Just let me go first, yeah? I can't watch you walk away again. Let me...Let me walk away this time."

Derek takes another step forward. Stiles takes another step back. It's smaller this time, because his resolve is weakening, because he wants Derek to love him back. Stiles just wants someone to love him back.

"I'm not asking to leave," Derek says, and Stiles hiccups a hysterical laugh because fuck, Derek still thought he had to ask permission? "I just..." He trails off and exhales sharply, frustration painted across his features. His pretty gemstone eyes are fractured in pain, held together only by the words he's holding back. 

Stiles doesn't want him to hold back. "Just tell me," he says, because he's tired and he wants Derek to make up his mind. "Just say it."

"I can't watch you destroy yourself," Derek says plainly.

Stiles almost reels back - almost, but not quite. He gets it now, or at least he thinks he does, because he knows how hard it is to watch someone you love wither away. He'd watched it happen to his mother, and he'd watched it happen to his father, and now Derek's watching it happen to him, and Stiles finds that he really can't blame Derek, because this means that Derek cares.

Stiles takes a deep breath and holds it, and then takes a step forward into Derek's space. The werewolf tenses, and Stiles jerks away because he doesn't want to make Derek uncomfortable. This isn't about prompting reactions. This is about finding each other in the whirlwind of pain they've been swept away in.

"Stiles," Derek breathes, and Stiles reaches a hand up to touch Derek's cheek. It's barely a touch, but it's enough for Derek's breathing to stutter and for his pretty gemstone eyes to become glossy. "Oh Stiles."

Stiles presses his palm to Derek's cheek a little more firmly, and maybe he needs this more than Derek does. Maybe he needs to know that Derek is real and that Derek cares, even though Derek isn't strong enough to watch Stiles fall apart. "I love you," Stiles confesses in a whisper, because he can't let Derek walk away without knowing.

Stiles just needs someone in his life to know.

Derek grips onto Stiles's gently, lowering it from his face. His voice is heavy as he says, "No you don't."

The quiet that had settled into Stiles's bones splinters under the force of the sudden shrieking in Stiles's blood and body and soul. This is Derek rejecting him, again, and Stiles thinks that maybe he's just that unlovable. Or maybe he's just that stupid, because people keep making his decisions for him, and now Derek is deciding how Stiles feels.

"Yeah," Stiles says, dropping his hand and stepping away. "I figured as much." Derek blinks, Stiles's name sitting on his tongue, but Stiles doesn't want to hear it because he's tired and he wants to go home. "It's fine," Stiles mutters to himself and to the wind. He knows that Derek will hear him. "It's okay. I mean, it's not as though I know what I'm feeling. No, how could I possibly know my own emotions?"

"Stiles-"

"I am so sick of people deciding they know me better than I do." Stiles stares at Derek's nose, because he can't make himself look into Derek's eyes. He'll drown in the endless sea of hazel, be crushed by stone. Derek's pretty gemstone eyes are dangerous right now. "What, suddenly I can't see into my own mind? I know that I love you, Derek, because you make me happy and you stop my skin from itching and I don't feel like a monster around you. You make me miss Beacon Hills."

Derek's face softens, and his lips twitch into a smile. "You miss Beacon Hills?"

And Stiles stares, because fuck he really does miss the stupid town. He misses the cafe by the hospital that always has chocolate chip muffins. He misses his house, and his dad, and his friends. He misses home.

He sucks in a big lungful of air and lets it swirl in his chest, savouring the taste of salt and freedom and love. There's something magic about this beach, he decides, looking out across the water. It's the thing you might read about in books. Places like this don't exist. And yet here they are, clothes soaked and hearts hurting, and Stiles opens his mouth and he laughs.

And laughs.

And laughs.

And when he stops laughing, he looks at Derek's glimmering gemstone eyes, and Stiles feels like maybe he'll be okay. 

So he steps forward, reaches up to Derek's face, and kisses him.