okdeannawrites

“I know he likes me. I just know it.”

Please read inside for further details and link to the AO3 collection.

Please read inside for further details and link to the AO3 collection.

For @sterekdrabbles 21 January, 2026: fierce, yellow, tart

The Bitter Taste of Fear

Sterek, General Audiences, 100 words | Stiles doesn't regret what he did, even if it has Derek angry at him.

Stiles trailed after Derek into the loft, ignoring the fierce, yellow glow from his eyes as it bounced off the windowpanes.

He knew the werewolf was pissed. Disappointed and afraid for him.

But Stiles had no choice. There had been fifty-fifty odds that Derek might not survive the fight, and he’d rather have the tart taste of the wolf’s riled fear in his mouth than the knowledge that he hadn’t done everything he could to save the other man’s life in his brain.

So yeah, Derek could be furious with him.

Please read inside for further details and link to the AO3 collection.

Please read inside for further details and link to the AO3 collection.

Please read inside for further details and link to the AO3 collection.

2026 Schedule !

Signups are OPEN!

January 17th: Signups Open

https://forms.gle/ckeJbRp4mh4w1dZA6

January 31st: Summaries/Story proposal form opens

Link will be on Discord/email when live.

February 7th: Summaries/Story proposals Due

February 8th: Summaries/Story proposals Posted on Discord

February 14th: Claims Day

February 21st: Matches sent out

February 28th: First Check-in

How are we doing? Have you made contact? Are there any concerns so far? Minor check-in

March 21st: Second Check-in

April 18th: Third Check-in

Should be around half finished. Podfic pairs may want to begin recording if possible.

May 9th: Fourth Check-in

Do you have a beta? Are you finished and can you help beta for anyone else?

May 23rd: Fifth Check-in

Do you have a beta? Are you finished and can you help beta for anyone else?

June 6th: Final Check-in

You should be just about done and communicating posting expectations with your partner. AO3 Collection link will go live on this date.

June 8th: Fics and Art Due June 13th: Posting Begins!

This is inspired by the official @yearoftheotpevent blog, and is in no way an official event or challenge, just something fun I put together ahead of 2026 with my own spin and style on the spirit of the original.

The Premise: for each month of 2026 you can select one of your OTPs (or just pick one for the whole year for an extra challenge) and there will be 5 potential prompts per month for you to play with: An AU Setting, A Common Trope, A Line of Dialogue, A Smut/Kink Prompt, and finally, a Song from my personal writing playslist.

It is entirely up to you which prompt you use each month. If only one speaks to you, or you'd like to mix and match, or if you're interested in really challenging yourself, try incorporating all five.

That being said, this is not an official challenge or event, so there are really no rules; just go nuts and see what happens!

What the Jeff? - Sterek x Veronica Mars 

Kissing Derek feels anything but safe.

And really, Stiles thinks, that should have been the first clue.

Because they’re not good at this. Loving doesn’t come easily to Derek – doesn’t come easily to Stiles either – and it was only so long before that caught up with them. Relationships shouldn’t feel like war. Stiles and Derek – they may keep each other safe from the world, but it’s pointless, really. At the end of the day, they’re the ones who hurt each other the most.

Kissing Derek for the first time feels like adrenalin. It jolts through every fibre of Stiles being like electricity, and feels dangerous and fleeting and addictive. He knows right from the start that he’s not going to stop after one kiss.

And they don’t.

At first their relationship feels like a mistake.

Kissing Derek isn’t safe – it’s secret and new and exciting – and part of Stiles, the dangerous, fearless part of him that made him think going to look for half of a dead body in the woods was a good idea, doesn’t want it to be. It would destroy the point.

When Scott finds out, brows levelled in judgement at the two of them, Stiles realises that the reason why it feels like a mistake is because it is one. But it’s his mistake to make. His heart to be broken.

And it doesn’t come as a surprise to either of them when they break each other’s hearts.

There isn’t really time for heartbreak, though. Seconds later – angry, loud seconds – Scott’s calling them and Stiles and Derek are running for the door, baseball bat and mountain ash in hand. They fight side-by-side because that’s what they do now, but at the end, when they’re panting and bleeding on the tarmac, Stiles doesn’t roll into Derek’s arms and Derek doesn’t pull Stiles into his embrace.

And the rational part of Stiles catches up with him and says, you knew this was coming, right from the start.

So Stiles stands – doesn’t offer a hand to Derek – and makes his way home. Alone.

 —

Stiles Stilinski is three months away from graduating high school. He’s eighteen years old and has endured more battles than most war veterans – has more faith and belief than the most devout worshipper – but he somehow feels younger than all this. Maybe it’s because he likes the layer of security that being a teenager supplies him with.

It lets him make mistakes.

He’s allowed to make mistakes.

That’s his creed and, after all the shit that’s been thrown at him, he thinks he’s entitled to cling to that.

Mistakes. Wrong choices. Stupid decisions.

He can makes them all.

But sometimes, sometimes you have to let go. Because he’s eighteen years old, just three months away from graduating high school; it’s time to grow up. He’s already fought the war and he’s tired of looking at his dad with dead, had enough, seen enough eyes. He’s tired of feeling like he has to fight and struggle and never let go of the things that should come easiest to him.

And he thinks that maybe, just maybe, Derek’s kind of tired of it too.

He gets drunk next to Scott the day after his and Derek’s break up, and ends up relaying the gruesome tale in half-incoherent sobs.

“Don’t,” Scott says, trying to tease the bottle of Jack away from Stiles’ grip. “Don’t do this to yourself over Derek. He broke your heart. He’s not—” Scott sighs. “He’s not worth it, Stiles.”

“I broke his too,” Stiles slurs. It sounds half-hearted, even to his own ears.

“He’s not worth it Stiles,” Scott repeats. “And if you really didn’t believe that, you wouldn’t be like this right now. I know you, Stiles. If you honest to God thought that Derek was worth it, you wouldn’t let him go.”

It’s the truth, Stiles concedes, so he lets Scott take the bottle away from him and slumps back on the forest floor.

It feels like surrender, and that feels like betrayal.

 —

Kissing Derek doesn’t feel safe.

It feels like falling off a cliff, with a stomach-lurching drop, and a panicked, last-minute gasp of air.

He’s read enough to know that that’s not how a relationship’s supposed to feel.

But—

Since when has anything in Stiles’ life been easy? Since when has anything ever happened like it’s supposed to? Since when has he ever made the right choices, the smart decisions? He makes the wrong choices, makes the stupid decisions, makes his mistakes, but he’s never cared about that before. They’re his decisions, his mistakes to make, and to him they feel right.

And, after all that he’s been through, doesn’t he deserve the one thing that makes him feel alive again? Doesn’t Derek deserve that too?

And—

“I always thought that our story was epic, you know, you and me,” he tells Derek, sprawled over one of the chairs in Dr. Deaton’s clinic.

Derek’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “Epic,” he echoes flatly.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, voice raising in volume. “Epic. Spanning years and continents, lives ruined, blood shed – epic!”

Derek sighs, and Stiles can tell that he’s not buying it. “Ruined lives, bloodshed – do you really think a relationship should be that hard?”

Stiles meets Derek’s gaze. “No one writes songs about the ones that come easy.”

He can see Derek’s resolve waver – knows how to read the tiny twitches of his facial muscles – and then they’re surging together, crashing mouths to mouths, because this is what they do. This may be a mistake, but it doesn’t feel like one, and Stiles has already had his heartbroken, so he’s ready. He’s so ready.

Kissing Derek never felt safe. In a way, Stiles supposes that’s why he used to cling to that feeling, because it may have been terrifying, but terrifying was familiar.

This kiss though – Stiles thinks he finally gets it. Because kissing Derek makes him feel alive, and that’s scary and strange. It feels like being in the freefall, but it feels like he’s never going to hit the ground. And this is his own version of safe. It’s not easy, but that’s easier for them both, because neither of them feel able to trust life when it turns out simple.

The first time they say that they love each other is during a fight. It’s tossed out carelessly like some other ammunition and for a few moments they stop screaming at each other as it sinks in. And then they’re colliding themselves together all over again, rushing at each other and clinging to skin and hair and bone, because they can’t, won’t – they refuse to – lose this too.

And they may break each other, but they’re already broken, and they fix more than they break, and that’s all Stiles needs and wants.

To a part of Stiles, it never stops feeling like a mistake, but years in, when he’s curled up in their apartment, Derek sleeping on his head, he realises that it’s the best mistake he’s ever made. Things tend to just happen to Stiles, but this is all his. He worked for it. He got this, got Derek – fought every second of the war, even when he felt like giving up.

It’s not a fairy tale and this isn’t a happily ever after.