Sterek: "I thought you were on my side."
“I thought you were on my side.”
Derek stiffened mid-climb through Stiles’s window. “What?”
Stiles tossed his headphones onto his desk and swiveled his chair to face the window. “You told my dad you agree with him about waiting until I graduate college.”
“It’s your dad, Stiles. Of course, I agreed with him.”
Shaking his head, Stiles gave him a disappointed look. “I’m over eighteen. I’m a legal adult and I can make my own decisions but instead of allowing me to do that, the two of you decided to make them for me. How exactly is that you being on my side?”
“No. No,” he snapped, shoving his chair back and getting to his feet. “You don’t get to make me feel bad about this. You went behind my back, Derek. You had a whole ass conversation with my father, and the two of you agreed for you and I to wait when you both knew how I felt about that. And for what? Because you think I’ll lose focus at school? Drop out? Give up my goals, my dreams, my future career? You would hate it if I did that to you, so why the hell did you think it was a good idea to do it to me?”
“Because of my age, right?” he asked, glaring at Derek as he continued his verbal assault. “Because I’m so much younger than you and therefore, I can’t possibly know what I want. How I might feel. That’s a shitty thing to put on someone, especially when you know it’s such bullshit.”
Derek frowned at that. “It’s not. It’s not bullshit. And I know you think you’re ready, that you want it, and I get that might be true. But Stiles…just because you’re ready doesn’t mean I am.”
“Then you could have communicated that to me. Instead, you had that talk with my dad, who is delighted that you were so sensible and levelheaded about things.” Stiles turned his back then and started tossing a few things into one of his duffle bags. “I’m heading out in the morning. Going back to school a few days early. I don’t know when my next break will be, if I’ll even take one. I mean, the sooner I get done with school the sooner I can make decisions for myself, right?”
“Isn’t it?” he asked, whirling around to face him again. “Isn’t it exactly what you wanted for me? To head back and get done with school. To put off you and me becoming an us so I go back and get my degree. That’s what you two decided, and so that’s what I’ll do. I’ll be the dutiful little Stiles and go back to campus and do all my work and forget about the fact that the man I wanted to be with chose not to be with me because he thinks he knows what I need better than I know it.”
Derek reached out then but Stiles darted away from him, putting himself on the other side of the bed from him. “No. No, Derek, you don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to try and placate me. You did this, and now you get to live with it. Until I come back.”
If. If he came back. That’s what he was really saying. That’s what Derek heard him say. “You’re punishing me. For wanting what’s best for you. How is that fair?”
“Best for me.” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you for real right now? You can’t possibly be for real right now. Because the only person in this room, in this whole fucking town, who gets to determine what is best for me is me,” he said, jabbing a thumb to his own chest. “No one else gets to decide that. Not you, not my dad, not Scott. Not anyone. Just me, and screw all of you for thinking that you do. That you’re allowed.”
When Derek reached for him again, Stiles batted his hands away. “No. I am a fully functioning and capable human being. I have my own mind, my own feelings, and all of you completely disregarded that. And don’t think I don’t know Scott had his grubby little werewolf paws in on this because I know that he did.”
“You can tell me you aren’t ready. I can understand that. But that’s not the truth here. The truth is you didn’t trust me to know my own feelings, my own heart, and that…that isn’t okay. If you can’t trust me, Derek, we can’t be together. If you can’t talk to me, tell me what you’re thinking, why you’re thinking it, then this is never going to work. And that’s because you won’t let it, or maybe just don’t want it to, work.”
He blinked back tears and moved to pull some of his clothes off his hangers, all but shoving them down into his bag. “You should go. I have to pack, and I don’t need the distraction your presence causes right now.”
The words hurt, but so did the knowledge that he’d screwed up. Badly. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, you shouldn’t have. But you did it, and now you can’t undo it. There is no going back from this, man. There is no work around. You three took my autonomy away, and I can’t deal with that. Or accept it. Not anymore.”
Derek pushed his hands into the pocket of his leather jacket, knowing better than to try and reach for him again. “If I call, will you pick up?”
“No. Not for a while. You wanted this. You wanted me to focus, so I’m going to focus. Without you. Without any of you. Maybe then, after I graduate and decide where I want to go, what I want to do, I’ll see if you can fit into my life. But I won’t plan for that. I will never plan for that. Not ever again.”
He finished shoving a few things into his bag then straightened and looked toward his bedroom door. “I left some things downstairs. I need to go and get them. Please be gone before I come back. I—can’t do this anymore.” Then he was gone.
Derek shut his eyes against the silence of the room then craned his hearing to pick up on Stiles’s dad talking and Stiles ignoring him as he picked up all the things he’d left downstairs. The anger in the house, the disappointment and hurt, was almost unbearable. Worse, it was all his fault.
He never should have listened to Scott. Or Noah. He never should have let his own fears, his own failures, cloud his judgment. Because if he hadn’t, Stiles wouldn’t be hurting, and he wouldn’t be leaving a full week earlier than he was supposed to do.
Instead, they’d be on the bed, laughing and enjoying all the days they had left to spend together. Now, Derek had no idea if he would ever share those days with him again. And he had no one but himself to blame.
Because at the end of the day, he was the one who let Stiles down. He was the one who took away his right to choose, and that…was worse than anything else Derek could ever have done to him.
He knew what that was like. Not having a choice, and the fact that he’d done it to Stiles, a person who had always made sure to give him a choice, to give him a chance, nearly crippled him.
Derek turned and stalked toward the window. Even placed his hands on it to leave as Stiles asked, but then he sensed the apprehension in the air, the fear that followed Stiles’s trek back up to his room.
It was the fear that kept him rooted. It was the fear that held him back. Made him turn and watch as Stiles opened the door, his brown eyes wide as he realized Derek hadn’t left. That he hadn’t disappeared.
“You’re still here. Why are you still here?”
Derek looked at him. “I love you. I didn’t show it, and I didn’t say it, and I didn’t factor it into my decisions. I’m sorry. I owe you more than that and I’m sorry I didn’t give it to you.”
He pushed away from the window and didn’t stop until he stood in front of Stiles. “I do support you. In everything. And I am on your side. I should have remembered that when Scott came to me about his worries and your dad spoke to me about his. I let their feelings get into my head because of how much they love you, and I didn’t realize that by agreeing with them, I was essentially telling you I didn’t care enough to want you or listen to you or love you. That isn’t true. I’m sorry I made you think it was, even for a moment.”
Stiles dropped the items in his hands. “You said the words.”
“You asshole! You weren’t supposed to say those words to me. You were supposed to let me go. You were supposed to—”
“Support you and love you and tell you I trust you,” he interrupted, closing the last bit of distance between them. “I do, Stiles. I do trust you. Not just with my life, but with my heart. You earned that, and I promise I will do whatever it takes to earn yours again. Because you are right. I don’t want to wait until after you graduate. I don’t want to wait to become whatever can be together. I want you now. I’m ready for you now and I was lying to myself, lying to you, by pretending something differently.”
Stiles squinted at him. “What about my dad?”
“I respect your dad. A lot. But you were right in what you said to me. This is your decision, and I had no right—we had no right—to try and make it for you. Whatever we are to each other is between you and me, and the only ones who get to decide what we are—when we are—is you and me.” Derek drew in a breath and dared to ask, “So, what are we, Stiles? What are we going to be?”
“What do you want us to be?”
“I want everything with you. All of it. Date nights. Coffee and breakfast and afternoon reading times and just…all of it. All of you. All of us. As soon as you’re ready to have it with me.”
Stiles tilted his head, studying him thoughtfully. “What about school? What about my career plans?”
“I’ll move to Virginia, I’ll support you in finishing school, and I’ll go wherever you choose to go after that, too. If you’ll have me.”
Stiles frowned. “You’ll just upend your whole life. For me. What about the auto garage you just bought? And your house?”
He shrugged. “The house will be there. Peter and Malia can run the garage. I’ll hire a few outside mechanics to work on the cars with them. It’ll be fine.”
“You trust Peter and Malia to run your garage for you?”
“Peter is a businessman. He knows a good investment when he sees one, and purchasing the garage was a good investment. He’ll keep it running, and Malia will help him. She’s surprisingly good at fixing things. They both are. Believe it or not, Peter used to work on cars in high school. He knows his way around a motor just as well as I do. Maybe even more given he’s the one who taught me about them.” Derek looked at him. “You haven’t told me what you want yet. If it’s me.”
Stiles rolled his eyes. “Of course I want you. Did you hear me berating you about it when you came in? You know damn well I—”
Derek didn’t let him finish. Instead, he caught his mouth with his, letting him know just how invested Derek was in the two of them. When he pulled back, Stiles looked dazed…and one hundred percent resolved as he spoke, “I want this. I want you. So much.”
“Then it’s done,” Derek assured him. “I’ll pack up and join you in Virginia. I’m sure I can find a house close to campus. We can date. Spend time together. And then, when we’re ready for more, we can do that, too.”
Stiles furrowed his brow. “You’re sure? This is what you want. It’s not something I bullied or guilted you into. You really—”
“I want this,” he promised, interrupting again. His lips spread into a smile as he wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him in closer. “I want you, and not out of guilt or bullying or any of that. I want you for you. Just you.”
Twin arms wrapped around his neck as Stiles softly whispered, “Thank you. Thank you for listening to me and knowing what a big mistake letting me go would be. I love you and I don’t want to—”
Derek lightly gripped his hair and gently pulled his head back until he could meet his eyes. “You love me. Still?”
“I love you always. Even when you piss me off and make me want to shove my bat up your—"
Derek didn’t wait for him to finish his statement. He simply kissed him again. Telling him with words, showing him with lips, what the moment, the admission, meant to him.
It had been a long time since he heard those words from someone, and even longer since he believed them.
With Stiles, he believed.
He would do whatever it took to never forget that fact again.
Stiles deserved that. And so did he.
Side note: @millinerswings I didn't forget about the other prompt ask I owe you. I'm working on it!
