Work Text
If only you would touch my heart,
if only you were to put your mouth to my heart,
your delicate mouth, your teeth,
if you were to put your tongue like a red arrow
there where my dusty heart is beating,
if you were to blow on my heart near the sea, weeping,
it would make a dark noise [...]
like the indecision of waters [...]
like bloodfrom "Barcarole," Pablo Neruda (trans. Robert Hass)
You're breaking down and I can tell it's deep
There's a tidal wave that's rushing towards the beach
But your anger has such beauty underneath
from "The Meaning of It All," Delta Rae~ ~ ~Derek pushes open the door of his favorite coffee shop, sees Stiles Stilinski, of all people, inexplicably behind the register, and freezes in place like a deer in headlights. For one horrible, heart-stopping second, he thinks he might literally, actually throw up. The world narrows, circumscribed to the familiar tick of Stiles’ heartbeat.Someone behind him clears their throat loudly. Derek realizes he’s blocking the entrance.“Sorry,” he says, and Stiles looks up.Something purple and bruise-tender like the underside of a storm cloud ripples through the air between them. For a split second, Stiles looks as lost as Derek feels.“Seriously, man?” sighs the guy behind him. Derek wrenches himself into the shop and joins the back of the queue, his heart still stuttering in his throat.In the five years since Derek sped away from Beacon Hills like someone fleeing the scene of a crime, he’s had ample time to consider what he’d say to Stiles if they crossed paths again. Usually he’d land on some variation of I’m so sorry, accompanied with the occasional mental image of dropping to his knees and begging for forgiveness. But Stiles’ bright laugh, creased with a tension Derek’s sure only he can sense, threads through the crowd and crashes over him like a wave. When it recedes, his mind is a complete blank. The wordless longing in his chest could be overwhelming pain or a fierce, insane sort of joy.He blinks and somehow he’s at the front of the line. He stares at Stiles and Stiles stares back, pale in a red flannel rolled to the elbows and navy-blue glasses that bring out the gold flecks in his eyes.He looks much better than he had the last time Derek had seen him, though in fairness, so had most corpses.And he’s alive—of course he is, that was the whole goddamn point—but knowing he’s alive and watching him breathe, scenting his unique mix of salt and pine and nutmeg are two entirely different realities.“Hi,” Derek says, breathless.“Hey,” Stiles says back. The relaxed set of his shoulders and easy smile mask most of his wariness.“How are—” Derek starts. At the same time, Stiles says, “I didn’t—” They break off simultaneously.Derek tries again. “What – what are you doing here?”“Uh.” Stiles looks confused. “Working?”“No, I mean—what are you doing here. In – in my coffee shop.”“Your coffee shop?” Stiles raises his eyebrows. “What are you, some kind of real estate magnate?”“You know what I mean.”“Ahhh, right right. I get it. Of all the coffee shops in all the towns in all the world…” Stiles drawls.Derek snorts, a quick, amused breath through his nose. “Casablanca? Seriously?”Stiles’ eyes widen, all innocence. “Oh shit, Derek, do you—don’t tell me—dislike Casablanca? Damn, if only you’d mentioned that maybe like, once or twice.”“Stiles—”Stiles snaps his fingers as if remembering something. “Oh hang on, the memory’s coming back to me, I think you did bring that up like, every other second the entire summer we spent watching old movies in that monument to late-stage capitalism you called a home.”“Are you guys for fucking real?” says the man behind him, and Derek could throttle him. Stiles sees the impulse flash across his face and smiles, his eyes soft. Derek looks away.Before Stiles can say anything more, Derek clears his throat and says, “Could – could I get a sixteen-ounce hazelnut white chocolate mocha with caramel and extra whipped cream?”Stiles blinks.“Please?” Derek adds."Incredible,” Stiles says, shaking his head. “If I’d known you were downing sixteen ounces of liquid diabetes every day, the leather jacket-eyebrow-Camaro combination would have immediately lost all power to intimidate.”Stiles rings him up, humming under his breath. His hands shake, but they have for as long as Derek’s known him, and he can’t tell whether they’re shaking more or less than usual.“So you come here a lot?” Stiles says lightly, dropping Derek’s change into his hand. “I mean, I assume so since it’s your coffee shop and all that.”“Every day,” Derek says, “unless I’m working.”He can tell Stiles wants to ask more—Derek wants to say more—but he can feel the guy behind him vibrating with annoyance verging on malice. Instead, Derek sighs, drops his change in the tip jar, and says, “So I guess that means I’ll see you here tomorrow.”“Cool. Yeah. I guess I – will.” The hesitation in his voice is so slight Derek doubts even a made wolf could’ve caught it; only a born wolf could, and one who knew Stiles better than he knew himself.Had known, anyway.Derek makes himself meet Stiles’ eyes. “Good,” he says.“Yeah?” Stiles asks.Derek nods once, heart in his throat. “Yes.”“Cool. See you then,” Stiles says, and Derek retreats across the room to the dilapidated take-a-book, leave-a-book community bookshelf in the far corner. He hunches, waiting for Daniel to finish making his drink, aware that he looks more than slightly unhinged.Incredibly, Stiles draws a laugh from the guy behind him in line, who Derek can now see is sporting the typical tech-bro Silicon Valley uniform of a too-small gray suit and semi-ironic flip flops. Stiles spins a sharpie between his fingers before jotting down the guy’s order, saying something with a smirk that makes the asshole laugh again.“Hey Derek, this yours?” Daniel calls from behind the bar. He looks harried, which suggests today’s crowd of commuters have been more like the guy behind Derek in line with fewer of the wannabe surfers and beachcombing stoners who round out the morning clientele.Derek weaves through the messy maze of tables and chairs between the far wall and the counter. “I think so,” he tells Daniel. “Why?”Daniel rotates the cup so Derek can see that under his order where Stiles should have written his name, he’s scribbled “Wolverine” instead.Derek laughs, surprising himself. He feels more than sees Stiles look up at the sound. “Yeah, that’s mine.”“Want me to tell the new kid to be more normal?”“This is as normal as he gets.” Derek takes his drink.Daniel snaps his fingers. “Aha, so you guys do know each other. Looked like it based on how you were talking back there.”Derek fights the urge to duck his head. “Yeah, we’re – friends. From back home.”Daniel waits for Derek to volunteer more information. When he doesn’t, Daniel says, “Right on,” bemused. “Jane’ll think that’s funny. What are the odds, right?”“Right,” Derek says, and forces a smile. “See you tomorrow.”“See ya,” Daniel says, and sends him off with a cheerful wave.Derek usually sits at a table by the window for about an hour, drinking his coffee slowly and watching the waves before he jogs home. Today, he skulks in the corner by the bookshelf instead, shifting his weight from foot to foot, hoping he doesn’t look as weird as he feels. If the confused looks Daniel keeps shooting his way are any indicator, he’s not succeeding in any measurable way.After five anxious, jittery minutes, Derek gives up. He ducks out the door like the coward he knows himself to be while Stiles is busy with a customer.He walks across the road to the boardwalk, then down the stairs to the public beach, and it isn’t until he’s halfway home that he notices the phone number scrawled just beneath the lid of his cooling coffee cup.~ ~ ~Once he’s home, Derek does, in fact, throw up.He then proceeds to have the worst panic attack he’s had in years. While he’s gasping on his bedroom floor, fingers curling into the carpet, Imp wanders in and wedges herself under his chin, purring madly.“Sorry,” he tells her, or tries to. She ignores him, which is typical, and settles in with her head on his shaking hand, occasionally licking his wrist with her sandpaper tongue.When he can finally breathe again, he pushes himself to his feet (Imp nips at him; he scritches her under the chin in weary thanks for the company) and drags himself into the kitchen to retrieve his phone. When he texts Judy to see if she wants him to cover her shift tonight, she responds almost immediately with a string of prayer emojis and an all-caps “YES, THANK YOU!!!!” followed by “I’ll let Taylor know!”“anytime. have a good night,” he types, then throws himself into an ice-cold shower.He’s fresh off the run of four 16-hour night shifts he works every two weeks. Ordinarily, the weird sleep schedule doesn’t bother him. This afternoon, he blearily sets his alarm for six before falling headfirst into bed. He’s asleep before Imp can finish clambering onto the bed and curl up in the space between the top of his head and the headboard.He dreams about his teeth on Stiles’ soft throat and wakes choking on imagined blood.~ ~ ~Derek clocks in at seven and heads to the break room where he finds Sam about to leave.“Heads up,” Sam says quietly, brushing their jagged black bangs back from their forehead, “Got a call that Clare’s coming in tonight.” They make a face at Derek’s expression. “I know. Important thing is she’s still here. Girlfriend seems nice, too.” They set their palm on Derek’s shoulder, letting him lean lightly into the touch.As far as Derek can tell, Sam’s the only witch on this floor of the hospital; for their part, Sam knows Derek’s the only wolf in the area. Sam isn’t a very physical person, but around Derek, they make an effort to communicate with him in ways that come more naturally to Derek than speaking. Derek appreciates it more than he can say—doubly so since, with Sam, he doesn’t have to.While the town tends to attract people like him in need of solace or shelter, it doesn’t often keep them around once they’ve found what they need. The ones who stay—people like Sam and Derek; like Jane, Stiles’ half-fae manager, and Clare, a young seal-woman; and like Teresa, the artist who’s lived here the longest and hosts a bi-weekly supernatural knitting circle that Derek calls a coven and Cora calls a stitch and bitch—are aware of each other. Sam and Derek aren’t necessarily close, but they’re friendly. Clare’s one of their regulars at the ER, though Derek hasn’t seen her in about six months; she desperately needs inpatient therapy that she can’t afford, making do with the hospital’s emergency holds.Clare’s newest girlfriend looks a little shaky when she shows up with Clare, whose pale face is still swollen with tears, her arms and throat and chest red with frantic scratch marks. Derek offers to sit with her while the girlfriend runs home for clothes. Clare curls up in the hospital bed facing him, her long, wispy blonde hair pillowed around her like clouds. He tells her stories about his childhood while they wait together for the Ativan to kick in. She watches him quietly, her wide blue eyes tracking his movements.Once Clare’s asleep and the girlfriend—Bridgette—is back, Derek walks her through the paperwork for the 72-hour hold. He’s impressed with how steady her handwriting is even through the shock. When she goes back to the room to kiss a sleeping Clare on the forehead and leave the small bag of clothes with her, Derek finds himself hoping this one lasts.Apart from Clare, it’s a pretty typical shift—a few kids with fevers and worried parents, two seniors with chest pain, and a man with a the worst case of food poisoning Derek’s seen in a while. He clocks out at six and drives home to shower and change into sweats. He feeds Imp, then jogs down the beach to the boardwalk, listening for the waves out of sight behind the early-morning fog.He takes the wooden steps from the beach up to the boardwalk two by two, his heart thrumming. When he sees Stiles through the window at the same table Derek usually sits at, wearing a soft grey Henley under a candy-apple-red jacket, his glasses pushed up on his forehead as he glares at his laptop over steepled fingers, Derek’s relief is so strong he doubles over to catch his breath.Jane’s at the register, barely visible through the crowd even in her tallest combat boots. She runs the coffee shop with the same no-nonsense efficiency she uses to corral the junior high wrestling team, which she coaches between her hours at the shop and classes at the local college. Derek’s closer to her than anyone else in Teresa’s circle apart from Teresa herself; the three of them often spend Sunday nights together, playing canasta and eating nachos at Teresa’s comfortable old beach house.Jane waves at him when he reaches the front of the queue and snaps her gum, the motion making her shoulder-length black hair bob. Her short-sleeved concert tee shows off the elegant, lacy tattoos that twine up her forearms, spiral around her (impressive, thanks to the wrestling) biceps, and ribbon and pool around her collarbones.“Seems I hired a friend of yours,” she says with a smile. Seven years in California have mostly tempered Jane’s southern accent, but her words still round at the edges, the vowels long and warm.Derek nods as he hands her his $10 bill. “Yeah, can I get him a 24-ounce drip with my regular?”“’Course.” She breaks the bill and says, “So I guess y’all know each other from back home?”He meets her mercurial grey eyes, the whites of them almost opalescent in the right light. “It’s – not really home anymore.”Jane raises her eyebrows. “Huh,” she says, a skeptical little noise. By virtue of being half-fae, Jane can tell when someone’s telling less than the full truth even more reliably than Derek, but she lets it lie. “Well, Teresa’d love to have him over, I bet. They remind me of each other. You working tonight?”Derek’s had this same thought about Teresa and Stiles more than once over the last two years. He shakes his head. “Done for the week.”“Well then,” she says, adopting a mock-stern tone, “make sure to get some sleep, young man.” A few Sundays ago at Teresa’s house, the three of them had been surprised to discover that Jane’s older than Derek rather than the other way around—only by three months, but she hasn’t stopped milking it since.“Yes, ma’am,” Derek says, and she laughs and shoos him away.At the bar, Derek chats with Daniel about the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs. Derek’s never really understood the appeal of sports, but Laura had been obsessed—with hockey and soccer in particular—and he’d watched enough NHL games with her during those long New York winters to talk about it cogently all these years later. He can feel Stiles’ attention on him the whole time he and Daneil are talking, though by the time Derek turns away from the bar Stiles has his head down, typing like it’s the only thing he’s been doing for the last ten minutes.When Derek sets Stiles’ coffee down next to him, drops a handful of sugar packets in the middle of the table, and slips into the chair opposite him, Stiles doesn’t look up from his computer. He says mildly, “This better be an apology for not texting me last night.”“I’m sorry.” Derek gently tears open one of the sugar packets. “I only use my phone for work.”Stiles’ eyes flick up at this. “Okay, that’s the second time in two days you’ve mentioned work. Are we using the same definition of the word? We both mean, like, you go to a place of employment and perform a specified function in exchange for real human dollars?”Derek pretends to consider this while tipping sugar into Stiles’ coffee. “Sure. That sounds right.”Stiles grabs the remaining sugar packets and rips them all open simultaneously. Derek tries not to wince at the grains that spill onto his keyboard. “I’m gonna need to see proof of concept here.”Derek pulls his phone out of his pocket and sets it on the table.“Of the job, not the phone.”Derek raises an eyebrow. “What, you want my W-2?”“Hm. A suspiciously correct reference to employment-related tax forms.” Stiles indicates Derek’s phone with his chin. “Also, that’s your phone? What is it, a fucking original iPhone?”“I think it’s an iPhone four,” he says, knowing full well it’s a 3GS.Stiles stares at him. “Dude.”“It’s a work phone. For work. Cora doesn’t even have the number.”“Whatever, man. I was going to offer to put a bunch of charms on it, but I’m not wasting a series of perfectly good spells on…that,” he says.Derek shrugs, reaching for the phone to put it back in his front pocket. “Suit yourself.”“And exactly where is this supposed place of employment?” Stiles asks.He sips his mocha carefully so he can taste the whipped cream before it finishes dissolving. “I’m an ER nurse at the regional hospital.”Stiles nearly chokes on his swig of coffee. “No shit,” he says, sounding genuinely delighted. “Damn, dude, that’s awesome!”Derek shrugs, a little flustered. “Yeah, I like it.”“I bet you’re amazing at it.” Stiles smiles broadly, his tone warm.“Thanks,” Derek says. “What – what about you? What are you working on?”Stiles immediately heaves a deep sigh. “Writing.”He sounds so gloomy about it Derek can’t help but laugh. Stiles grins in return, tilting back in his chair so he’s balancing on the back legs. “Yeah, I’m really getting a lot out of these student loans.”“You’re in school?”“Master’s program as USC.” Stiles sighs again. “And before you ask, yes, I’m aware that I’m not currently in Southern California. As long as you’re not teaching or taking classes, you don’t technically have to be on campus. And I am emphatically not teaching, oh my god, I tried it for a semester and those fuckin freshmen ate me alive, dude.”Apparently Stiles is halfway done with a graduate program in journalism that emphasizes environmental writing. He’s done with classes and has only his thesis hours left; he tells Derek with a practiced weariness Derek doesn’t buy for a second that he’s writing about “the intersection between gender, sexuality, class, and climate change through the lens of increasing inequality within the Northern California surfing community.”“That sounds really interesting,” Derek says, which is all the prompting Stiles needs to launch into a treatise on gender inequality at Mavericks, the surfing competition formerly held up the coast at Half Moon Bay. He tips forward again on his chair, eyes bright as he tells Derek about copyright disputes and the impact of climate change on winter storms, and it’s a unique form of torture, being this close to someone he used to touch so casually, without conscious thought, especially during those the last golden months before it all went to shit.I can’t believe you’d be so fucking selfish, he’d hissed at Stiles during their final conversation on that night five years ago; and Stiles, pale and drawn and dying in that dark room, had curled in on himself like Derek had hit him.“Sorry, I’m rambling,” he hears Stiles say. Derek blinks back to the present moment and sees Stiles looking at him, the tips of his ears pink.“Sorry,” Derek says. “It’s not you, I just got – lost.”“Nah, it’s fine, I’ve been going on and on.” He ruffles the back of his hair, rueful. “Tell me more about what’s been up with you, how’s Cora?”“She’s great,” Derek says honestly, and tells him about the international law degree she’s getting at the University of Buenos Aires. In turn, Stiles tells him about Lydia. The two of them had gone to the University of Chicago for their undergraduate degrees, Lydia studying pre-med, Stiles doing environmental journalism while double-minoring in ecology and Polish. She still lives there, living in a house by the lake with some friends and going to med school at the University of Illinois. She and Stiles are still best friends, talking every day, and Derek has to resist the urge to ask if Stiles told her they ran into each other yesterday.Derek and Lydia had been something like friends toward the end, but he doubts their fragile trust survived him disappearing from their lives without a word. Plus, no one else in the old pack seems to be in Stiles’ life anymore, which makes him think only Lydia had helped pick up the pieces Derek had smashed Stiles into with casual violence that final night. Add that to the fact that Derek killed Allison as surely if he’d held the blade himself and he can say for sure she’ll never willingly talk to him again. The last thing he’d do is blame her for it.Neither of them notice how much time has passed until Derek registers Stiles squinting in the sun coming through the window. When he checks the clock on the far wall Stiles follows his gaze. “Oh shit,” he says, “how is it three o’clock, no wonder I have to pee so bad, I’m literally starving and I have to finish this works cited page by eight. Ohhh my god, I’m so screwed—wait, wait, holy fuck, dude, did you just yawn?”“Sorry,” Derek says, and yawns again. “I worked five nights in a row. Haven’t gotten much sleep.”“I have never seen you yawn before, that was freaky, and oh my god you didn’t say you worked nights, go home and sleep you masochist, oh my god!”“What are you doing the rest of the day?” Derek asks.“Ugh. Finishing this research, I guess.” Stiles finishes off his (by now) ice-cold coffee, then sighs as he drags his finger over his laptop’s trackpad. “Shit, I think my battery died.”“Do you – would you like to come over and work on it at my place?” He clears his throat, not sure how to read the expression on Stiles’ face. “You could meet my cat.”“You have a cat??” Stiles honest-to-god shrieks, the sound so loud it startles Daniel, who yelps. “Oh my GOD, Derek, lead with that, what’s her name, what kind of cat is—”“Stiles!” Jane peeks her head out of the back room followed by the scent of freshly baked scones cooling on the counter behind her. “Sweet Jesus. Inside voice, please god.”“He has a cat, Jane,” Stiles says indignantly. “A motherfucking cat, can you believe this?”“Her name’s Imp and she’s a sweetheart. Now simmer down, Stiles.” She’s exasperated enough that her accent appears and drags out his name, turning the “I” sound into more of an “aah.”“A cat,” Stiles sighs dreamily as she turns on her heel and vanishes back into the kitchen.“You can come over and meet her,” Derek says, amused.“I can’t. Literally any other night, it’s just this for real due tonight and I already got two extensions from my chair, I have to get this done. Goddammit.” He scrubs a hand through his hair, forlorn.“She isn’t going anywhere,” Derek says. “Just come over and see her tomorrow instead.”Stiles brightens instantly, his smile wide and genuine. “Yeah?”“Of course. Come over for dinner.”“Okay,” Stiles smiles, “Yeah, I’d love to. Hey, go buy a phone. A real goddamn phone, Derek, then prove you know how to use it by texting me your address.”“Asshole,” Derek sighs, and Stiles smirks, waving him away.As he heads out the door and back down the beach, Derek turns that smile over in his head. It hit him like the sunrise, so quick and unexpected he had to catch his breath. It lingers as he walks, bright and sweet as honeycomb beneath his tongue.