If Derek Hale had been a bit bigger and hairier, would he be considered a Bearwolf? XD
OMG I have the best anons! Thanks nonny- this inspired a little fluffy ficlet and some horrible photo editing, and I blame you entirely!
----------
The knock comes just as Derek lifts a chipped white porcelain bowl to his lips to slurp up the last dregs of sugar-sweet milk. He sighs, stands, tucks the old bowl to his chest like a pig-skin football and stalks over to the door, sliding it along the track and revealing Stiles, standing on the threshold.
Derek’s not surprised to see him. If Stiles’ distinct, rabbit-like heartbeat thumping on the other side of the reinforced steel didn’t give away the game, then the Jeep’s dying engine rattle as it turned onto the street surely did. What does surprise Derek, however? The props.
Stiles is holding a stack of what looks like crudely-cut posterboards, resting them against his chest so the signs face Derek.
“What the h—?” Derek starts to declare, but Stiles holds a long finger up to his own lush lips, silencing him. Stiles lowers his hand to the outer edge of the boards, and thumbs one forward so it falls with a soft whoosh onto Derek’s dirty welcome mat, revealing words.
I know you’ve been struggling…
The letters are black and blocky, and Derek can detect the faded, sour-sharp scent of Sharpie marker on the paper and Stiles’ pale skin.
…since you gave up your alpha powers…
A blush creeps up the back of Derek’s neck. He has been struggling. Stiles isn’t the only person to notice, if the pitying, puppy-dog eyes Scott flashes or the uncharacteristically gentle shoulder squeezes Cora bestows are anything to go by. But—and this is a terrifying thought—Stiles may be the only person who understands why Derek’s been struggling.
The thing is, Derek never expected to be an alpha. No one plans to lose their beloved big sister, or for their uncle to go on a murderous rampage and bite a teenage boy. Kate ran Derek’s mind and body through the proverbial ringer, years before he ever took up the mantle of blood-red eyes and an extra fifty pounds of pure muscle. At least when he’d been alpha, the bulk had a purpose; strength, protection, power. Now the extra few inches of shoulder width and bicep circumference only serve to draw the wrong kind of attention to the one thing Derek doesn’t want people to notice; his body.
People would kill for Derek’s body, but it’s brought him nothing but misery.
And of course, Stiles had an uncanny way of showing up right when someone shined a glaring spotlight on Derek’s best and worst features. The low appreciative whistles on the street when he walks past. The horny housewife who knocked into him in the chip aisle of the supermarket when Derek and Stiles drew short straws for pack night snack shopping, and pretended she needed to steady herself with a tinkling laugh and a manicured hand against his pectorals. Or the skinny guy at Jungle wearing too much body glitter and a drunken smirk, who leered at the dark hair covering Derek’s thick thighs when the pack stopped a rogue, reincarnated Erymanthian boar from damaging anything other than Derek’s favorite pair of jeans.
Stiles bore witness it all the last few weeks, and he hadn’t said a word. Until now.
Whoosh.
...and the last thing you need or want…
Whoosh.
...is to talk about the body you have now…
Whoosh.
...or the one you had before…
Whoosh.
...so let me just say write this…
Whoosh.
...big, small, thin, heavy, hairy, bald, twink or bear…
Derek stifled a smile, fingers clutching his almost-empty glass bowl. Whoosh.
...to me, you are perfect...
“Stiles.” The name was a sharp inhale, but Stiles just shook his head, and let that card fall too.
...you deserve to be loved and respected, and I’d still think that, even if you looked like this…
“In my defense,” Stiles said, flipping the final card for Derek to see, “it started as a sketch of the boar from last week, and then ADHD happened, so just ignore the hooves.”
Derek barked out a laugh at the pencil drawing. “That is the most hideous thing I have ever seen.”
“Uh, rude,” Stiles scoffed, jiggling the posterboard. “I call it Bearwolf, and I thought I did an exceptionally good job on the doomsday eyebrows.” He cocked the picture one way, and his head the other. “And the nipples.”
Derek will never admit it, on pain of death, but the nipples are pretty stellar. He steps across the hall over the discarded messages, fingers of his free hand curling around the picture, and leans forward to plant a small, barely-there kiss on Stiles’ scruffy cheek. “Do you, ah, want to come in?”
“Yeah, dude. I totally do.”
Derek isn’t good at thank-you’s, isn’t good at saying a lot of things, but the picture goes straight up on his refrigerator, held in place by the ragged photo-magnet of Derek and Laura on the top of the Empire State Building, and he thinks Stiles understands him perfectly.
