The first few weeks after Scott and Allison break up are insufferable. Really it's Scott who's insufferable, but Stiles isn't the type to hold grudges against his painfully single best friend, especially not when Scott cranks up the puppy eyes to eleven and then promptly bursts into tears.
No, grudges wouldn't help at all.
It's July and there's a mini-heatwave, so they've set up this giant yellow umbrella in the middle of Stiles' back yard and they're sitting underneath it, eating popsicles out of a mini cooler Stiles' dad has rolled out for them. Stiles' patience is wearing thin and with an eyeroll he thinks that if this isn't some sort of divine test for his fortitude, he doesn't know what is.
"... and that's when her dad knocked on the door and thank God he didn't come in because if finding us in a car in the woods made him almost kill me, I don't even know what walking in on us in the shower would've done to him, or me--wow, I've been really lucky in my life, haven't I? I mean I met Allison and she went out with me and..."
Scott's voice trails off and Stiles is knocked out of his strawberry popsicle reverie by the dangerous sound that is his friend sniffling, because--yep, there he goes, crying again. 'Oh, goody,' Stiles thinks with exasperation, but really a piece of his heart breaks every time he sees Scott like this, so he does the first thing that pops in his head.
"Hey, Scott," he says, and Scott looks at him and his face morphs from depressed to confused to snorting with amusement in less than three seconds, because yes, Stiles' nose is red, and yes that is Stiles' tongue on his nose, and that's a skill he's proud of because it's awesome, thank you very much. He does that wiggly thing with the tip of his nose as well, and that just gets strawberry popsicleness smeared all over it, and that smells so good and it makes Stiles want another strawberry popsicle stat.
Scott is laughing now and wiping the tears from his eyes--could even be laughter tears, or at least Stiles hopes it is--and he isn't talking about Allison anymore, so points, Stilinski. Sometimes it's minutes before Scott lapses into it again by default, and sometimes it's hours, but either way Stiles will always be there to shake him out of it with something ridiculous, until it's time to do it all over again.
The cooler empties within the next hour and Stiles' stomach feels absolutely vile, but damn if those weren't the most delicious popsicles he's ever had.
Why is lighthearted stuff so difficult to write omg D:
also, Quiet Me turned out to be something I might have to use in one of my ongoing fics. Nice prompt, Ria, thanks :) [although, apologies for the angst.]
The warehouse is empty so everything echoes: Derek's muttered curses, his boots shuffling on the dusty ground, rainwater dripping onto the tin roof overhead, wind making the walls sway and creak--and Stiles' sobs, loud and rumbling and heartbreaking, reverberating on every surface.
Derek has never felt so helpless before. He has to fight back a morbid chuckle as he thinks that he could lose his family all over again, he could lose Laura or have to kill Peter all over and rip open the wounds of his profound loneliness, anything over the devastating sound and sight of this kid bawling his heart out, retching and heaving and sobbing while his eyes pour more and more tears on his streaked face. He's doubled over in the corner, curled into a ball, and he cries, he cries, and Derek has no idea what to do.
Then he remembers all the times he was in a dark place and Stiles brought him back. And then he knows.
"Hey," he whispers, hand tentatively reaching for Stiles' shivering form. "Stiles, hey." He kneels beside him, eyes wide and searching, hands close but not touching, voice low and kind.Stiles' sobs grow no quieter--at least not until Derek places a warm, steady hand on Stiles' shoulder, thumb softly tracing the curve of Stiles' neck. Derek can feel the boy shudder under his touch, and the crying goes on for a while, but as the seconds tick by Stiles' breaths get deeper and his sobs softer, until he's left a snuffling mess, head still hung low and hidden behind gangly arms and bent knees, Derek's hand still firm on him.He feels so goddamn responsible, so damn at fault for all of this, that it takes all the self-control and anchoring in Derek's power not to wolf out completely and wreck not just this warehouse, but this entire fucking town.'A bit too late for that', he muses.Stiles looks up eventually, eyes red, nose swollen. He looks into Derek's eyes pleadingly, and Derek can feel the despair and the misery and the grief and he hates himself for what he's about to say but he says it anyway, because he must. Because there's nothing else to say."We have to run."
