youshinebrighter21:

icouldbepackstiles:

In which Stiles and Derek hold hands when they sleep.

“You know otters hold hands when they sleep?”

Derek’s response is something between a noncommittal grunt and a noise of inquiry that doesn’t mean talk forever, but it doesn’t mean shut up either.

“They do,” Stiles says, gently tightening his grip on Derek’s hand. “They hold hands while they sleep so they won’t float away from each other.”

Derek’s eyes open, then, and Stiles tries to pretend Derek won’t hear the way his heart skips. In the dim light from the full moon outside, Stiles is having an all too familiar problem trying to figure out if Derek’s eyes are hazel or green or gold or maybe a little red.

“That what you’re doing?” Derek finally murmurs, voice a soft rumble that lilts across the space between them. “Holding me so I won’t float away?”

Stiles could be flippant, he knows. Could answer in a way that masks the lump in his throat and hides the ache in his chest that’s become a constant wherever Derek’s involved. But they’ve spent too many nights pretending that Derek doesn’t wake up shaking because of nightmares -

“You should smile more, Derek. The world should know how happy you are.”

“You mean how happy you make me?”

“Yeah. Something like.”

- and that Stiles doesn’t remember what it feels like to watch the line of his mother’s heartbeat slow until it’s a straight, painstakingly even line.

“We’ll turn the monitors off so you won’t hear when it flatlines, okay? It will make things easier if…”

“Leave them on. I don’t want easier.”

“Maybe,” Stiles finally whispers, stroking his thumb over the back of Derek’s hand. “Or maybe you’re doing that for me.”