What I Love: Tropes Meme
It's a long weekend, it's raining, and I'm working on two stories, but doing that thing where instead of stories you have documents full of weird notes and halves of sentences. In other words, nothing is getting done. So let's have some fun
( Read more... )
Derek isn’t sure where he is. He feels like he just fell down the rabbit hole. Every blink is intense, rippling out from his eyes, but he keeps doing it, trying to clear his head.
He looks at his hands. They’re definitely scraped up - from what, he doesn’t remember, but they don’t hurt - but he’s having trouble telling if the purple is a real stain or not.
He brings his hands to his face to smell, but they just smell like Stiles.
Blinking again, he forces himself up onto his knees and his numb hands, just in time for Stiles to come crashing through the bush.
His mouth is purple and smiling and he’s like Bambi on ice, feet all over the place, knees knocking.
“Whoa,” he says, happy, like they were playing tag. “It’s the Beast from the East.”
Derek gets up into a crouch. “What are you talking about?”
Stiles looks around, at the setting sun, the wind in the trees. His mouth turns down a little. Some juice has dripped down from his chin to his shirt, little berry blood drops.
“Stiles?”
Stiles looks at him, lost, before mumbling, “Goosebumps.” He sways on his feet before slowly getting down onto his knees and then flat on his ass, just as Derek stands up.
“We should go,” Derek tells him, but his head is swimming and the wolf is confused, unsure where they came from and unable to scent anything but Stiles and the leaves.
Stiles nods, but he’s holding onto his knees carefully, looking down like he might be sick. Derek shuffles closer, because Stiles is cold and the wolf needs an anchor.
It was such hard work getting up but getting down next to Stiles is easy. Derek just lets go and he’s there, sprawled next to Stiles, who looks suddenly miserable.
“Where are we?” Stiles asks, looking at all the trees that look the same, shadows creeping up them.
“I don’t know,” Derek admits, wiping his wrist over his mouth. It comes away greyish-purple and smells sour. What did they eat? When? Why?
Stiles swallows, overwhelmingly loud. He’s still holding his knees. He ducks his face. “I want to go back. I don’t feel good.”
His voice wavers, quivering in the air, reminding Derek of a little howl, a sad howl. The wolf wants to answer it but doesn’t remember how.
Derek puts a hand on Stiles’ arm, to try and stop the heave of his breath. “Don’t,” he tells Stiles. “Don’t.”
There’s another part of him, that knows better, knows why he doesn’t often like Stiles, but that part is far away and Stiles is here and cold and sick and even if the wolf wants to go, it can’t leave an unhappy pup like this. Can’t can’t won’t.
“Here,” Derek says, talking softly because his voice is echoing. He pulls the hood on Stiles’ sweater up and coaxes Stiles into tucking his cold fingers into the pocket on the front of his sweater, squeezing them once to help them stay. Stiles curls up into a ball without being told to. He puts his face against Derek and Derek doesn’t stop him. He rests a hand over Stiles’ sweater, cupping his ear.
“It won’t last. Just close your eyes,” Derek says. He’s never been drunk but he knows that’s what people say. It helps somehow. Stiles does it. Derek hears the heavy sound of his eyelashes brushing Derek’s jacket.
Stiles breathes out hard once, like it helped, so Derek tries it too. He closes his eyes, one hand holding him to the ground and one hand holding Stiles to him, waiting in the dark for the wolf to find the way home.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment