AN I don't own Teen Wolf or any of its characters.
When he was a kid, Derek loved the feeling of taking his shoes off after a long day. With sports and school, there was never a time that his feet weren't killing him or dying of heat and, at the very least, he loved to squish the carpet in between his toes once they were free. There was something so refreshing about it, even if it hit him with a rancid aroma of sweat and stink. Like starting over, going back to his roots. He used to go out to help his mom with groceries barefoot if he'd already taken his shoes off, or delay taking them off until they groceries were in, just so he didn't have to bear the hell that his shoes became after his feet experienced freedom. It was one thing to suffer without feeling it, just vaguely noting that he was uncomfortable. But it was quite another thing to feel the air against his soles and then willingly commit them back to that hot, sweaty prison. Once they were off, it was unbearable to think of putting them back on.
He'd never minded shoes the way his sisters or his cousins seemed to, despite being in sports when they weren't. They whined and complained constantly. Often, he could remember his sisters opting for flip-flops or sandals as if trying to compromise with their feet between freedom and prison, even though they just complained about it ten minutes later. He didn't really blame them, though. It was hard to condemn his feet to something like shoes when he knew how tough the skin of his soles were and how much they could withstand. Hot pavement, his mom said, and broken glass. Sometimes, even, if she ran out of excuses, she leaned on social norms and not standing out. But, after running barefoot across gravel on midnight runs with the pack, walking around a school's linoleum hallways felt like nothing.
After the fire, though, he began to see things differently. He wore shoes more often because he didn't want to give anyone a reason to look twice at him or whisper about him behind his back. Still, he loved kicking off his tennis shoes once he got back to the loft. Until Jennifer turned on him. The feeling lost a bit of its appeal, though he didn't understand why, and he didn't kick them off quite as eagerly. Until he made the mistake of sleeping with Kate again. After that, nothing felt good or normal for a long time and he blamed it on that-rather than the countless lies she'd tried to spin for him while they were together. Soon, he just slipped them off rather than kicking them. It always felt a little wrong when he did, even if his feet still breathed a sigh of relief, and he didn't understand. Until Braeden left him. He hadn't wanted to get attached to her because he knew it was going to end but he had. She was the kind of controlled chaos he couldn't ever stay away from. But then she walked away without a word. And then he started to hesitate before slipping off his shoes, feeling a twinge of regret or guilt in his chest when he finally did. Why, though? Something nagged at him the longer he thought about it but it had been years since it started and he shrugged it off as a quirk from the fire. Some kind of lasting damage.
Until Stiles left. Nothing could have prepared him for the blow that dealt to him. They hadn't even been together, barely even friends! But Stiles had been the kind of person that he hadn't realized he was close to until he disappeared. College, they said, but that didn't help. The rest of the pack felt like empty, consolation prizes compared to Stiles. There were days were Derek felt like he couldn't breathe, and there were days he didn't get out of bed because he didn't want to. Maybe he had had feelings for Stiles after all? But it didn't matter now. Stiles was gone either way, and nothing Derek did would change that. He delayed taking off his shoes now, or just didn't put them on in the first place. Not because he liked the feeling of the ground on his skin or because he liked wearing shoes, but because taking them off felt wrong. It made his stomach hurt, more often than not, and it made his brain hurt when he tried to figure out why. Until one day, sitting at the kitchen table, it just hit him.
When he was a kid, he used to love taking off his shoes after a long day. It felt like freedom, like a summer breeze after months trapped inside the walls of a hot, stuffy prison. He used to love it. Shoes felt unnatural, like they were forced on him by circumstance or convenience rather than need or desire. Once they were on, or even before, they didn't seem that bad. He could be aware that his feet were sore or uncomfortable but ignore it fairly successfully and continue on with his day until he kicked them off. Once they were off, though, they became a hell he could never subject himself to again. He used to love taking off his shoes after a long day, loved ridding himself of the unnatural discomfort.
Until he realized that was how people felt about him.
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