Stiles and Derek are in love okay? Like married/mated/forever together in love. They’re great at communicating and always expressing themselves to each other. After all, it was a long road to get to where they are now so they’re happy. And sometimes, life has a way of throwing obstacles at people. Now, life throws a particular obstacle in Derek and Stiles’ way that they weren’t expecting but hey, they know how to adapt. (Also there’s a conference and Stiles is great at storytelling, especially with kids)
It’s late, but Stiles knows
these woods like the back of his hand. Probably even better than that, seeing
how he’s acquired several new scars over the past year and a half. The
leaves rustle under his heavy boots and he feels himself start to relax for the
first time since the war started.
Home was never a concept Stiles understood.
Well, maybe back when his mother was alive. After she died, the house he grew
up in lost that feeling. So Stiles spent his youth drifting, feeling rootless and
unanchored, never quite belonging. Until he met Derek. It took time, but
as Stiles approaches the house nestled far from the road, he can’t help but think
that this is what home feels like.
Despite the late hour, there is a light burning in the
kitchen. It spills, warm and inviting, across the clearing floor and Stiles
hesitates. It’s been one year, five months, and four days since he last saw
Derek. Five hundred and twenty-one days
in total. There had been letters at the start of the war, but during the final
months Stiles was behind enemy lines and had no way of even letting Derek know
he was still alive.
Then it had been a rush of medical evaluations and discharge
paperwork and frenzied troop convoys. Stiles doesn’t even know if California
still has working telephones. Most likely not, since the blackout affected the
entire northern hemisphere.
Taking a deep breath, Stiles walks up the wooden stairs and
onto the porch that he and Derek had built that last summer, when everything
was still bright and hopeful. He sets a hand on the doorknob, remembering Derek’s
laugh when he’d griped about locking the door before bed.
No one will come this
far from the road, he’d insisted. Plus,
I’d be ready for them before they even reached the tree line.
And with that memory in mind, Stiles steels himself and turns
the knob. Just as he’d expected – just as he’d hoped – the door swings inward. Stiles may have changed a lot in
his time away, but he’s relieved to find that Derek has retained at least one
of his bad habits.
“Hands where I can see them,” a familiar voice growls and
Stiles freezes.
Even in the dim lighting, he can see Derek’s eyes go wide in
shock. The gun in his hand drops to the floor and Stiles wants to roll his
eyes. The idiot hadn’t even taken the safety off.
But then he has an armful of alpha werewolf, Derek squeezing
him tight as if he’s afraid Stiles is going to vanish before his eyes.
“Easy on the ribs, big guy,” Stiles says, though he makes no
move to free himself, just slides one arm around Derek’s back and strokes the
other through his soft hair.
Derek hums contentedly at the touch, pausing his scenting to
suck a bruise onto Stiles’ throat. All of a sudden, it’s a frantic push and
pull of limbs as they drag each other down the hall. Derek keeps stopping to
burying his face in Stiles’ neck and Stiles loses his duffle at some point;
then they’re falling onto a soft mattress that smells like their homemade
detergent and Derek’s fancy soap.
Derek stares at him until Stiles gets uncomfortable, turning
his face toward the windows. He isn’t the same person who left this house a
year and a half ago. There are frown lines carved into his forehead and
crinkles around his eyes from squinting too much. Bits of shrapnel left twisted
scar tissue behind and chemical burns cover the majority of his lower legs.
But Derek doesn’t seem to notice any of that. “I can’t
believe you’re here,” he whispers, as if saying the words too loudly will
shatter the dream.
Stiles pushes away the dark thoughts, filing them alongside the
memory of a thick stack of letters currently taking up too much space in his
duffle. “I am here, Derek. I promised I’d come home.”
At that, the disbelief and worry fade from Derek’s expression,
leaving nothing behind but pure joy. Stiles smiles back and finally, finally, Derek leans in and kisses him.
He couldn’t use the compass to ensure he wasn’t just walking in circles, or even check how much time he’d wasted on this likely wild goose chase. He was sure the old lady – babushka, she had insisted he call her – was sitting at home, her air conditioning on at full blast, laughing at him with a bottle of vodka in her hand.
In which Stiles is sent on a quest, plagued by mosquitoes and odd cat photos, and ends up with something (someone) that makes it all worth it.
The woods were deep and shadowed, dark in a way that had nothing to do with day or night. Stiles could feel the weight of a malevolent force dragging at his spark. It was an ugly sensation, making his skin crawl and his stomach flip uneasily. This was it. The outcome that he had fought so hard to avoid. And yet, he had failed. He had failed to protect the land from the evil creeping through the trees, sinking poisoned tendrils into everything it touched.
theproblemwithstardust 