Preface
I Run In Circles Back To YouPosted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/1644812.
Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category:
M/M
Fandom:
Teen Wolf (TV)
Relationship:
Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Character:
Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Laura Hale, Sheriff Stilinski, mentions of other characters
Additional Tags:
Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Self Confidence Issues, Sort Of, Derek Has Issues, is probably a better tag, Canon Compliant
Stats:
Published: 2014-05-17 Words: 5704
I Run In Circles Back To You
by twinSky
Summary
Soulmate AU where you wake up on your 18th birthday with the first words your soulmate will say to you tattooed on your body so you'll know them when you meet them. The first time Derek meets Stiles, he's 17 –just a couple weeks shy of 18 –and Stiles looked eight (he ended up being ten).
The first time Derek meets Stiles, it's right after his whole family has died.
So of course, when a couple weeks later the words Stiles' had first said to him appear on the right side of his chest, Derek isn't surprised because that's just his life. It doesn't matter, Derek doesn't plan on ever going back to Beacon Hills -and it's not like he deserves the perfection that is one's 'soulmate'.
Of course, life has other plans for Derek, of course, the first -living- person he sees after returning six years later, is Stiles Stilinski.
Notes
Remind me to never write something that goes along with canon ever again, it's horrible. Keeping track of where I am is hard.
So, just have this, just take it.
Warning that Derek is rather self-deprecating in this fic, so, yeah
(P.s., tumblr anon, this is for you.)
This fic is written mainly in Derek's POV, but any page break that is '--' instead of '-' means that it's Stiles' POV for that section
See the end of the work for more notes
I Run In Circles Back To You
The first time Derek meets Stiles, he's 17 –just a couple weeks shy of 18 –and Stiles looked eight (he ended up being ten).
The first time Derek meets Stiles, it's right after his whole family has died. He's sitting right next to the door to the Sherriff's office, waiting for Laura to finish conversing with Sherriff Stilinski so that they can leave for what will probably be forever. Because the Hale house is gone (and it's his fault but he can't bring himself to tell Laura, can't even bear to think of how'd she'd look at him) and they have nothing left here but pain and heartache.
"You look sad, do you need a hug, or maybe a cookie?!" The kid in front of him has hair so long his eyes are practically obscured by the bangs, and is wearing a bright red jacket that looks a size too big. The kid flails, makes a motion that Derek can barely recognize as 'wait here' and then bolts in a direction that he's sure a kid –or anyone that isn't a police officer –should be allowed to go in.
He thinks about saying something, but he just doesn't care enough.
Not even a whole minute later the kid is back and shoving a chocolate chip cookie and apple juice into his hands, a wide grin on his face.
"To cheer you up!" He says, with the childish naivety of a kid who thinks food will fix everything.
"How can you tell I'm sad?" He ends up asking, because Derek is good at reigning in emotions, because when you live in a house full of people (werewolves) who can smell your feelings you learn to put a clamp on them.
"You won't make eye contact with any of the deputies that walk by, your shoulders are slightly bent in, your eyes are dull and, best of all, you're at the police station –no one's ever happy to be here, really." The kid is vibrating, eyes bright, and Derek doesn't need his heightened sense of smell to know that the kid is proud of himself for being able to deduce so much. Derek kind of is too, because it's almost scary how observant a kid that can't be older than ten is.
"… You're really good at this kind of thing."
"Thanks! I want to take over after my dad when I grow up!" He wonders if he's the kid of one of the deputies, it would explain why he's here, but before he can ask he's already moved on. "You still want a hug? I'll have you know I give the best hugs, mom and Scott said so."
He hesitates, because what he wants to say, is "no" in the most hurtful way possible –because Derek is seventeen, sad, and angry, and he wants to share that. But he also can't, because this boy doesn't even know his name and just wants to make him happy.
He'd almost forgotten how selfless children can be, because Derek is a child too and his selfishness got his whole family killed. Except Laura (, except Peter, but Peter would probably be better off dead).
It turns out his answer is unnecessary because the kid is hugging him already and Derek, Derek is stunned and confused and pleasantly warm.
"Mom said that the people who hesitate to accept hugs are the people who need them the most." The boy says, and grips small arms tighter around Derek. He wants to tell him that his mother is a smart woman, a wise woman –because the words remind him of something his mom would say, and she was the wisest person Derek ever knew, maybe it's just a mom thing –but he finds that he can't. Can't because this small boy is hugging him as if it would solve all of Derek's problems, and Derek almost believes that's true.
They break apart and the boy begins to chatter aimlessly about one topic ("I grow my hair out because my mom loves running her hands through it!") to another ("Back in Ancient China, hair was seen as a sign of honour, or something like that.") with a fluidity that seems odd for such seemingly disconnected topics. He gives the kid as best of a smile as he can manage and takes a bite out of the cookie –the boy beams.
Laura and the Sheriff walk out of the office a few minutes later and the boys eyes light up once again –the kids eyes are impossibly bright, he assumes they're brown but they look almost gold, a gold that shines but is nothing like the beta gold he's used too.
"Dad!" He yells, flinging himself at his apparent father, and it's then he realizes that he's been talking to the Sheriff's son.
"Hey, son." The Sheriff replies, ruffling the kid's too shaggy hair with a smile.
He frowns, because his dad will never do that to him again because he's dead –because Kate killed them, because he killed them.
"Well, Ms. Hale, you've done everything we've needed you for; you and your brother are free to go. We'll keep you posted on any changes or developments.
"Thank you Sheriff, we really appreciate it." She's smiling when she says it, but Derek can see the slight strain, can see how she's clenching and unclenching her fist. He knows she's barely containing a shift –ever since she became Alpha it's been harder for her to keep control.
The look on the Sheriff's face says he doesn't notice –or if he does is doing a good job of not showing it –but the kid is staring openly, a wide-eyed look of curiosity (but not fear, no fear at all) having over taken his features. He wonders what the kid saw to spike his curiosity too much, wonders if he should be worried that he saw too much.
The Sheriff and Laura say their goodbyes and then the Sheriff places one hand on his shoulder, gives it a light squeeze, and wishes him the best of luck. He says thank you, ignoring the odd feeling in his stomach.
"Hey wait!" The kid yells, running up to them. "What's your name? Mine's Stiles." His smile is sheepish, embarrassed by having forgotten such a standard formality most likely.
"Derek." He answers after a moment, because what does it matter, it's not as if he'll ever see this kid again.
"It's nice to meet you Derek, I know we're goanna be great friends." Derek says nothing, because he doesn't know how to tell Stiles that he's moving away and they really can't be friends –that Derek doesn't want to be friends because he doesn't deserve anything that brings even an iota of happiness to his life.
"Stiles," Laura says, and god bless Laura, he doesn't know what he'd do without her, "I'm sure Derek would love to be friends with you, but he can't, we're moving away, far away."
Stiles simply shakes his head, as if everything Laura just said is inconsequential. "No, you'll see, me and Derek are goanna be the greatest friends! More than friends! I can tell."
Stiles says it with such certainty that Derek freezes, Laura freezes, hell, even the Sheriff looks at Stiles oddly.
"Well then, okay Stiles." Laura says, her voice off and stilted. "We're going now, may our paths cross again Stiles Stilinski."
"Alright, see you later Derek!" And he says later, not goodbye; Derek can't help that it's done on purpose, that he's trying to prove his point.
Derek doesn't care how sure Stiles is, Derek is never seeing Stiles again because Derek doesn't plan to ever step foot in Beacon Hills again.
-
A couple weeks later, after they've settled into their new apartment in New York, Derek wakes up on his 18th birthday.
He doesn't even remember until he's getting himself undressed to take a shower and notices neatly written words etched into the skin just below his right breast.
He stares, doesn't laugh, doesn't cry; simply stares. He thinks he might be shaking, thinks his heart might be beating a bit too loud. It probably is, because not too long after Laura rushes into the room, her expression frantic.
Laura says nothing, because she doesn't know why he's freaking out so much. It's normal to wake up on your eighteenth with words somewhere on you, the first words your soul mate will say to you on the day you meet.
So of course she can't understand why the words, 'You look sad, do you need a hug, or maybe a cookie' are (despite the oddness) making him freak out so much.
But, they do, and Derek doesn't know how to explain that Stiles was right, that they we're meant to be more than great friends because they are meant to be together.
Doesn't know how to explain that he lost his soulmate before he even knew he had him because even knowing Stiles is it won't motivate him to go back.
Not while all those memories still swirl around there like a bad fog, not while he still has Laura who won't go back either.
Besides, it's not as if he deserves a soulmate, not after what he has done.
(He doesn't think about the fact that that means Stiles will never have his eithers, that he's not just hurting himself with this. He doesn't think about this, but even if he did, it wouldn't matter because Derek is selfish, so selfish.)
-
It's six years later when Derek finds himself returning to Beacon Hills (and it's six years too soon, he doesn't want to be here, he can feel the death like a hand on his back and can smell the ashes burning his nostrils).
He's searching for Laura, who left the moment she saw the pictures, who wouldn't listen to him when he said they needed to approach this calmly. (She'd laughed in his face, a bitter sound that had made him cringe. Had told him that someone who had found an anchor in anger had no business in telling her to keep calm. That she loved him so, but she needed to do this as soon as possible.) She left anyway, told him that if he didn't want to he didn't have to come, but she was going.
She had been gone barely half a day before he broke down and followed her. He wouldn't make her face this alone, couldn't make her face this alone.
It takes a bit over two days to reach Beacon Hills from New York.
It takes two and a half days for Derek to find Laura's body cut in half, one half missing.
It takes two days, 12 hours and ten minutes for Derek to work up the courage to stumble forward and grasp her. Two days, 12 hours, eleven minutes for him to sit on the ground next to her, clutch her close, and think not about how cold she is but how she smells. Just like Laura, warm and strong and comforting. Like home, which is now, once again, gone.
It has been two days, thirteen hours and twenty-five minutes since Derek left for Beacon Hills, since he last saw her, that he buries her body next to the remains of their house. Surrounds the grave with wolfsbane as is tradition for their family.
It has been two days, fifteen hours and sixteen minutes since Derek arrived in Beacon Hills that he sees Stiles again.
There is a curious look in the boy's eyes, which spark with something, but it is not recognition. It doesn't hurt, because Derek wouldn't remember the random person he spoke to six years ago for all of ten minutes either. (Except he does, because it's Stiles.) So he says nothing to him, focuses on the boy that smells like new wolf (which can only mean alpha, the one that earned his powers from killing Laura) and what he is doing here.
And, if something in him warms a little when he can hear Stiles say "Dude, that's Derek Hale", well then there's no one there to judge him for it.
--
When Stiles first sees Derek, it doesn't feel like the first time. When he sees the man step out of the treeline and towards them Stiles wants to run forward and say hi, as if they're old friends. He doesn't though, because he doesn't know this man (doesn't even remember his name until they are walking away –even though he can't explain why he knows it at all), he doesn't even have friends outside of Scott. Never has.
Still, it's when he's at home trying to remember why Derek Hale seems so familiar that he remembers something sharp and dangerous, a split second of bright red.
He remembers being young and being convinced werewolves are real, ends up convincing himself –realizing –that Scott has to be one.
He remembers drawing upon drawing of sharp claws and wolf-like creatures.
He still doesn't remember Derek.
-
The thing is, Derek plans on avoiding Stiles –possibly forever –at least until he turns eighteen. Derek's life, however, is constantly and permanently against him and allows for the exact opposite to happen.
Because of course Stiles is the best friend of the newly turned wolf (Scott, he mentally chides), of course Stiles is fiercely loyal and wildly protective of the boy. Of course Stiles will stop at nothing (even his own possible well-being meaning nothing) to make sure the boy makes it out of this ordeal still standing.
Of course, Derek is absolutely not jealous of the boy who got to watch Stiles grow up and be so close to him that Stiles ended up as loyal to him as he is.
He wonders, that if in another life, perhaps Stiles would feel, and do, the same for him.
It definitely isn't this one.
-
Throughout the time Derek has known Stiles, a lot has happened.
(Stiles sent him to jail, and he can't even be mad at him because Stiles just wanted to protect and of course, the suspicious guy who lives in a burnt house is to blame. He doesn't ever apologize but Derek notices the look of slight shame and embarrassment the first time Stiles looks at him after learning that that body had been Laura's.)
But even at the very beginning, when he knew Stiles looked at him in slight fear, looked at him in slight anger as if it was his fault that Scott had ended up like this, Derek couldn't help but comes to Stiles for help. It wasn't on purpose, but Stiles was his soulmate and the instinctual part of him recognized that as safe, as home.
However, despite those reasons, the (rather valid at the time) ones Stiles had for disliking him, Stiles never let him down in terms of helping him. He let him stay in his house (the Sherriff's house) when he was wanted as a person of interest, as a felon. Despite his whining at having to look after him and obvious anxiousness at the possibility of having to cut of his arm, at the end of the day Stiles would have done it. At the end of the day, Stiles risked punching an injured werewolf just to make sure he'd survive.
(And Stiles continued to do so, at the pool with the Kanima, warning him about Jennifer, even being just a shoulder to lean on. For all that Derek is sure he and Stiles won't ever end up together –not the way the words on his chest say, not the way he wants –he's glad to at least be a part of Stiles life. Glad that in the end he's become Stiles will protect with as much passion as he would Scott or Lydia.)
-
Killing his uncle isn't even that hard. There isn't any 'this is my uncle' or 'can't kill my family', because Peter doesn't deserve that. He doesn't deserve even the beginnings of those thoughts because Peter killed Laura, Peter killed the last thing Derek had to cling onto and keep him grounded for the past six years.
Derek helped Kate, Kate killed his family, Peter killed Kate (and Laura), and Derek killed Peter.
It's some weird twisted cycle that started the moment Derek noticed Kate and ended the moment Derek sunk his claws into Peter.
The only regret Derek ever has about killing Peter, is becoming alpha because of it. Derek ruined lives –ended two of them –because of some desperate desire to have pack, to have family.
In the end, it's just another tally to the ever-growing list of things he has fucked up on.
Life goes on, Derek moves on (except he doesn't).
-
It's not as if Derek has never thought about telling Stiles. In fact, over the course of this year and a half it's come to mind quite a bit.
He thought about it that first night, after he had seen Stiles again for the first time after six years. He realized the boy's hair had been shorn, shaved straight to the scalp and it was such a contrast the mess of a mop he had had those six years ago. He remembers him saying something about his mother running his hair through it and something somewhere goes cold.
He doesn't tell Stiles after that, but he does go by his house and listen to the calm, rhythmic sound of his heartbeat.
He thought about it after everything with the alpha (with Peter), realizes how easily life can be lost –it's not that he never knew, but now it's happened again; everyone he knows dying around him –but then he just thinks about how he doesn't want Stiles to be one of those people. Doesn't want to intertwine their lives any further then they already are.
It's hard to keep true to that statement because despite how consciously he knows it has to be better, every part of him says otherwise.
He thought about telling him after the night of that full moon, the one that brought Peter back. It's not because of any of that, but because he had told Isaac that his anchor was anger, and he realized soon after that it really wasn't –not anymore. He doesn't think about it though, not about what it means because it can't mean that. It's not fair to Stiles.
He scraps that idea then and there, because how does he even explain this to Stiles. Put that kind of pressure on a boy who isn't even eighteen yet. He doesn't, just berates his traitorous heart for doing things without his approval, but then again it's always done that.
He almost, almost, does it after the alpha pack, after Jennifer. Almost does it because he died –or at least, it felt like dying –because kissing Jennifer had made his stomach turn and his heart twist. Because Jennifer had taken Stiles' father and the stress and hurt, so open on Stiles' face had felt like an open wound to Derek. So he almost tells him, tells him he'll always be there no matter, because he wants to, because his heart tells him too –makes it feel right.
He doesn't though, he worries and panics and ends up running away. Sure, he has an excuse, Cora doesn't want to be here anymore –can't be here anymore–and Derek is more than willing to take her wherever she needs to go because he needs a break too. Because sometimes all that is left to do is runaway.
When Derek comes back, there is no time to consider telling Stiles because so much is happening and all Derek feels is a dull ache he can't describe but persists so stubbornly. There is running around and worrying and Derek wants to find Stiles, wants to check up on him but they never seem to meet. Always a second to late, a room apart, as if something is forcibly keeping them apart. The ache grows worse, as if it is screaming and vying for his attention, and when Stiles disappears after that night in the hospital Derek realizes that that ache is Stiles. That it's his soul and that it is screaming.
He doesn't know what do with that knowledge, doesn't know what to do when it gets worse, and doesn't know what to do when it finally lessens but definitely doesn't go away.
He does however know what to do when Kate comes back.
He just stops trying.
-
At this point, Derek has convinced himself that he isn't even Stiles' soulmate.
He's never heard of soulmate's being so far apart in years –his parents were barely months, the ones in movies are never more than a year or two. There are seven (or is it eight?) years separating him and Stiles and it just doesn't seem right.
Maybe, he supposes, Stiles might be his soulmate but he isn't Stiles', maybe Stiles will find his real soulmate in someone else and Derek will just be there. Perhaps, Derek wasn't even meant to have a soulmate and it's some cruel twist of life that the random line he got (and really, who would ever even say that) was actually spoken to him. But he can't believe that one because the warmth in his chest when he sees him feels to real, the ache too strong.
(Maybe Derek just fell in love with Stiles soulmate status withstanding –it's not as if everyone always ends up with their soulmate, it's not like there isn't love outside it. Maybe Derek just loves the boy that looked at him with a smile and talked openly when everyone else looked at him as if he was broken and jagged and would cut if approached too harshly.
It doesn't matter though, not anymore.)
Derek makes up a million scenarios about why Stiles isn't his soulmate, why Derek can't be Stiles. Because Stiles deserves better than Derek does, and Derek doesn't deserve anything at all –he never has. The pain at the thought of it doesn't matter, because Derek can and will be the bigger person here. He can move on no matter how much it hurts –for Stiles, for everyone really.
Stiles 18th birthday comes and goes and Derek still does nothing, doesn't even entertain asking Stiles what his says, where it is.
Six years ago, Derek believed he had lost his soulmate before he even had him, now he can say that almost had him –that he does have him- but he remains lost all the same.
It's better that way.
--
The day of Stiles eighteenth birthday he spends far too long staring at the mirror. He stares at just before, and along, his collarbone where the words 'How can you tell I'm sad?' rest in a neat, almost cursive, scrawl. The words are odd, definitely not the conversation starter Stiles had expected from his supposed soulmate, but it's more than that.
The words tickle at the back of his head, feel like they are wrapping him around and around with the vague promise of remembrance. Stiles wants to say he's heard these words before, that this message etched into his skin is not the first time these words have appeared before him.
Nothing comes to mind though, just the elusive memory of something that has already happened.
Stiles doesn't remember.
-
Life continues after Stiles' birthday, the pack begins to apply to universities and colleges and they deal with whatever ambiguously evil creature stumbles into their town. No one aside from Lydia (and it took excessive nagging at that) is going more than a three hours' drive away from Beacon Hills, no one wants to be so far when things could go south so quickly. Even Lydia ends up being less than a day's drive away.
Derek keeps to his self-made promise of staying away from Stiles, especially now that he's eighteen and free to search for who could be 'the one', since it probably (definitely) isn't Derek. He tries to not make it obvious, and he hopes Stiles doesn't notice –and if he does, doesn't feel hurt. But it's small things, like texting instead of calling, almost always keeping someone in between the two of them, he tries his best to avoid Stiles while still being around him. He may be staying away but he can't keep away, Derek at the very least, needs Stiles presence in his life.
He wonders though, if he perhaps is being too obvious, because sometimes he'll catch someone looking at him with a curious expression. It's mainly Stiles who he notices looks at him, there is no disgust, or wariness, or even a hint of him being uncomfortable, it is simply a pensive face. He thinks about what makes his brows furrow so, eyes slightly narrowed and lips pulled in a thoughtful frown. He wonders what it is about him that Stiles is trying to figure out.
He isn't sure he wants to know.
-
He finds out during the fall break, when the pack is home in Beacon Hills, and enjoying the short reprieve from the laborious torture that is college.
Stiles corners him one night, after the rest of the pack has left, and Derek doesn't think about the look of anger on Stiles' face because he's too busy wondering when the last time he and Stiles were alone together. The last time Stiles was close enough for Derek to be able to count even the smallest moles on Stiles face.
(It's been over a year; Derek can count the days because ever since he decided he wasn't going to even try, the ache in chest switched to a different kind, and has been persistent through it all.)
"It's you." Stiles says, eyes firm, voice heavy, expression furious.
Derek knows exactly what he means (doesn't feel hurt at the anger, Derek would be angry if he was his soulmate too) but he tries his best to feign ignorance. Ignorance is bliss, and the best form of ignorance is straight up denial and obviousness.
He doesn't answer Stiles.
"It's you and you knew." Stiles hands lift, they flutter, they hover, they don't touch Derek –he drops them back to his side. "You knew this whole time and didn't say anything."
He glares, but not at Derek, at the sky, at the wall, somehow, Derek thinks, at himself.
"I would stare at it every day and wonder –why it felt so familiar, why it felt like something was missing when I couldn't place the familiarity, who it was, if they knew." One hand lifts, he runs it through his hair (it's long again lately, Derek wonders if it means it doesn't hurt –or if it does and Stiles has learned to live on). "When I looked at you something felt right, and I could never understand. And then I –and then I remembered that day in the woods where you felt so familiar, like someone I had met even though that didn't make sense."
He steps away from Derek, rolls on the balls of his feet; he remains trapped all the same, because Stiles' gaze is still locked on his, pinning him in place.
"I asked my dad –my dad, isn't that ridiculous –if I had been there the day of the fire, I used to hang out at the station all the time when I was a kid, he looked at me for a moment, like he was trying to remember too and then he smiled. Said of course, that it was kind of funny, he'd been talking to Laura and when he came out I was all over you, insisting we'd be friends forever. He started laughing, and I joined in but it just kind of hurt."
Stiles pauses, presses the palms of his hand to his eyes.
"Am I that bad?" He asks, whispers, "At least before –before –I knew I was sort of spastic and a bit annoying, but was I really bad enough you never planned on telling me I was your soulmate? And don't tell me you didn't know –I've noticed you avoiding me ever since I turned eighteen, I didn't care –much –at first but now, now it makes sense."
Derek doesn't know what to say because he's never planned for this moment. Never planned for it because it wasn't supposed to happen, Stiles was never going to find out –Derek was going to take this to the grave with him. Stiles definitely wasn't supposed to find out and think it was because he wasn't good enough, because it's anything and everything but that.
He doesn't know what to say so he just says nothing.
"Could you at least tell me I'm right? That I didn't make myself look like an idiot for nothing." He snaps, impatient, eyes flitting around the room in a way that betrays his nervousness.
"I –there's nothing wrong with you. I couldn't –didn't –want you to be stuck with me. You deserve a lot better than me."
Stiles laughs and it's anything but a nice sound. It sounds warbled and cruel, rude and mocking.
"I deserve a lot of things Derek Hale," and something coils at the way Stiles says his name, tight and painful, "and 'better' most definitely isn't one of them."
"You've known for over seven years about this and just what? Never planned to tell me this? We're going to go on for the rest of your life knowing you were my soulmate and just never clueing me in?"
"Stiles –"
"I bet you thought some stupid shit Hale, about how I'd be happier without you; maybe you even thought that you weren't my soulmate. Because that's just the kind of thing that can happen isn't it!"
"You don't have to be with me Derek; don't have to even like me. It just would've been nice to know that my soulmate was right next to me –that I could've gone on all those dates in college because there was no point in waiting for my soulmate. No point in hoping that I could be just like my mom and dad." It stings, Derek knows Stiles meant it too, because Derek's always wanted that too –want the same love his parents had shared.
Stiles leaves than, turns on his heel and doesn't spare a glance back all the way out and through the door.
The ache in his chest goes away, mostly because everything feels sort of numb.
-
Derek sneaks into Stiles' room three days later after most of the pack has come by either angry or sympathetic –or some weird mixture of the two- after finding about Stiles and Derek. He doesn't know what to say, but knows he needs to say something.
"What do you want, Derek?" Stiles asks, voice flat, when he walks into his room.
"I wanted to apologize."
"Cool, great, you just did, you can go now. Wouldn't want you to waste your time with me."
"No, spending time with you isn't a waste, it never was, still isn't."
"Sure seemed that way to me." Stiles replies wryly, Derek offers him an awkward smile.
"It's just, Stiles I'm seven years older than you and everyone I've loved is either evil or dead. I really thought you were better off not knowing it was me." Stiles lips quirk up, in what was probably meant to be a smile but just looks like an awkward twist of the lips.
"Well, I've already done both haven't I?" Derek thinks that maybe Stiles meant it as a joke, but his voice cracks halfway through and his already not-quite-right smile falters. "And I'm legal now so who cares about age, right?"
In Stiles' eyes, Derek can see the same hope he can feel inside himself. And, just like that –it feels too easy, and nothing in Derek's life has ever been easy, but maybe this can be –the anger in Stiles' seems to fade, along with the tension, and for once something in Derek's life feels right.
"Are you sure?"
"If I can't be sure about wanting to be with my soulmate, than what can I be sure about?" Stiles is smiling –and it's such a nice, bright, thing that Derek wonders how he went so long without it, without it being directed at him.
Derek leans in, and Stiles flinches back. "Just, just give me one second." He rushes out, not meeting Derek's questioning (and worried) gaze, he turns away just the slightest bit, and spreads his hands out.
Derek watches, feels the ache that Derek has come to acknowledge as the permanently broken part of Stiles that is the Nogitsune, and places his hands over Stiles. Holds them out for him, and counts them out, one by one.
"This is real, you're real, you're not dreaming." He says, then clutches Stiles hands tight and leans in once more and presses their lips together.
After eight years of knowing, eight years of wondering, and two of being so close Derek wanted so bad, it feels like a weight off his chest.
That ever present ache in chest dissipates into something warmer and brighter, and all at once Derek is overcome with so much that can only be Stiles, that feels like Stiles. They break apart and Derek nuzzles into Stiles necks, smiles when he laughs, and let's himself be completely immersed in a moment he never thought he would get.
"I told you I'd see you later," Stiles says later, when they're lying in bed foreheads pressed together, "told you we'd be more than friends."
"I'm glad you were right."
"So am I."
-
They don't live happily ever after together. They live ever after, together. And they live happily, on occasion.
But both Stiles and Derek are people who never planned on getting a 'Happily Ever After', are both people who were certain there were many things planned in life for them but that that definitely was not one of them.
Maybe that's why they end up together, why the fates assigned them to one another, because neither Derek nor Stiles is whole anymore, but they can try their best to be that together.
Afterword
End Notes
Adversely to my other fic, I like the last little bit of this a lot more compared to the rest of it.
Part of writing is never being happy with your writing hah, hope it wasn't too bad, I got lost somewhere between the first paragraph and the last one.
Also, according to a timeline I looked up Claudia dies before the Hale fire? I wrote it as after (my thoughts have always been her symptoms are progressing during the Hale Fire, and she dies sometime shortly after) my tumblr
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