Sterek One Shots: Book Two

The Possibility of Silence and the Reality of Sound

The Possibility of Silence and the Reality of Sound by crossroadswrite
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Derek's sixteen and he's tired of people side eyeing him because of the voices in his head.

Well, voice. Singular.

It's not his fault that he has a soulmate, neither is it his fault that soulmates are so wrongly perceived by the rest of society just because most people don't get one.

Derek thinks that they ought to not be that rare since his parents are soulmates and his littlest cousin Malia has started complaining about a voice inside her head, babbling back at it.

Then again maybe people side-eye him because he'll smile or laugh out of nowhere, or roll his eyes or make a disgusted face in the most inadequate, inopportune situations.

Most of his friends are intrigued by it, asking question after question, some of his friends aren't his friends anymore because they don't understand it, limiting themselves to calling Derek a freak, something unnatural and walking away.

Derek knows what he has – what he'll definitely have when he finally meets his soulmate – is something amazing. He knows it because he can see it in his parents, how they love and how they support each other, how they complement each other, fitting perfectly in the place the other has left.

Derek grew up knowing that soulmates are something to be cherished, so when he got a voice in his head, childish thoughts and flashes of color and objects, he'd excitedly jumped on his mother's bed to tell her. She had smiled, ruffled his hair and told him how she was proud of him, even though Derek hadn't really done anything.

Having a soulmate was more like being visited by your fairy godmother and be given a gift than working towards your goal. It's Cinderella versus The Princess and the Frog.

His soulmate is younger than him. He can tell that much even though he can't possibly know who he is since the bond censors all directed thought.

They can't talk to each other even if they really want to. They can, however, think at the world around them and through that he knows his soulmate is younger and lives in the same town and has all these expectations about life and about Derek. That's how he knows h has an energy inside him that is so intense, so all consuming that it leaks through the bond and makes Derek fidgety, sometimes gives him that extra boost, allows him to run that extra mile just to dispel it.

When he's sixteen he honestly can't wait to meet him.

But then he's sixteen and a half and it's truly impressive how in the same year, the snap of a moment can destroy your world.

When he's sixteen and a half his father tells him he's going into town to buy his aunt pears because she's pregnant and has a craving.

"You don't want your littlest cousin to come out looking like a pear, do you Derek?" he asks, ruffling his hair.

Derek just huffs and doesn't think much of it, ducks his father's hand when he tries to tug on his ears just like when Derek was younger. He has a suspicion that's why he hasn't quite grown into them yet.

"Be back in a moment," he had said cheerfully, one hand around his mother's waist as he kissed her on the cheek, "seems like it's going to rain, better hurry anyways."

His mother had patted him on the butt and told him to hurry up so he wouldn't be late for dinner. Derek and his younger sister had made a disgusted noise and told them to stop, mindlessly going back to their Smash Bros game.

Neither of them ever expected for him to not come back.

It had started raining barely seven minutes after he had left the house and none of them had paid it no mind.