Fic: Rewind
Title: Rewind
Author: yellow_pomelo
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Derek/Stiles
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Implied character death.
Word Count: ~600
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf or any of it's characters.
Summary: It is such a human thing, the wish to turn back time.
Notes: Look at me experimenting with writing styles. And of course, nothing makes me feel more comfortable about writing for a new fandom than brutally squashing the hearts of my favourite characters. Enjoy.
Pause
Rewind
Your eyes open.
You blink once. Twice.
Your damp lashes turn dry, dark star-spikes unstuck and feather-light. Your breath returns to your lungs, rushing back across your heavy tongue; rasping softly through slack-tight vocal chords. Your still heart pumps rabbit-quick and too loud. You hear the blood rush through your veins; the drumbeat of your heart. You hear nothing else.
The heat returns to your flesh and you burn from the inside out. Your sweat rolls up your brow, the salt water retreating into pink-flushed skin. The air feels thick and electric and finite. Everything moves too slowly.
Please, God, you think. No.
No.
Your eyes unsnap from the dark void of the gun’s barrel.
You see: gun, finger on trigger, long sleeve of a lab coat, wild eyes of a lab technician-
Your head swivels back to the left. Away.
Your feet have carried you back - sliding step by sliding step - around the corner. Your hands fly behind you to catch your body against the wall. Your fingers glide across the pockmarked paint, tracing you back to the beginning. Your shoes skid clumsily on the dust and linoleum, the bits of dry wall and powdered concrete.
You retreat back down that hall. Toe-heel, toe-heel.
Past the rusting doors of those open cages. Past the crates of new laboratory equipment stacked alongside old. You rewind through the maze of scientific detritus - of inhumanity - as if pulled by a string, a single thread woven between the vertebrae of your spine. The fluorescent lights flicker in time with your gasping breaths. Carbon dioxide: in. Oxygen: out. Repeat. You’re sprinting, but it feels like you’re underwater, everything moving too slowly. There is not enough air, and the ripples return to their origin.
You are in the laboratory again. Glass shards reform and melt seamlessly together; droplets gather and liquid unspills. You don’t care to watch the phials fly up from the ground, returning to their rack as your elbow brushes past them. You have a task to complete.
More time, you plead, as your run unwinds, slows down, as your arm arcs up and you glance away from your watch.
3:58
3:59
4:00
You look at your watch and count the seconds. You have evidence to destroy and there are enemies on the way.
You trust your friends and they trust you, but it still hurts until you have returned, whirling back with a dancer’s grace, because you are only ever graceful in his time of need.
And then you are back, and he is there.
You unsling his arm from your friend’s shoulders. You let him rest his weakened body against your own. His fingers slide across your nape again. They try to tangle in your unkempt hair. The world is right with his hands upon you. Finger tips, hands, arms, like the ocean tide they wrap around you. He holds you with all the strength he’s lost. You babble against his bones, against his pale skin, grown translucent with incarceration. You breathe him in and pray to keep him in your lungs; in your blood. He looks at you like you are the moon; like he has felt your call even through these cold, stone walls.
And you are in his arms again.
Resume
“Stiles, no.”
“I ‘ll be back, okay, big guy? There can’t be any record of you left behind.”
“Don’t-”
“Get him out of here, Scott.”
“Stiles-”
“I’ll be right back, Derek.”
“Stiles-”
“I’ll be right back.”
Stop