Kings of the Moonlight

I'll make a Beast of Myself but I'm a Real Hero

You know, you know, it's the end of our sweet universe. You know, you know, that we blame it on ourselves.

-

When Derek stirs into consciousness, the first thing he notes is the warmth of somebody else around him, followed by the light of the morning it  as streams in through the glass and the sound of birds flitter in the early morning sky.

Derek instinctively knows that the body wrapped around his is that of Stiles, he recognises the familiarity of his broad shoulders pressed close to his back, the man's long legs tangled in his, and Stiles' fingers fitted in the spaces between Derek's.

When Derek finally opens his eyes, slow and unwillingly, he blearily focuses on the alarm. The digital clock face shines a brilliant azure blue and shows that he has precisely thirty-three minutes until it goes off and he has to get up to face the day, pretending like he hadn't broken down the night before.

He doesn't move at all though. Derek knows that today is going to be one of those days.

Those days in which he can hardly stand to get out of bed, the days he has a crippling dependency on the familiar comfort of his bed and the promise of isolation from reality.

On some level Derek recognises that his son needs him, that he needs to get up and smile at Isaac and assure him that "Daddy's alright, pup" like he's had to do on so many occasions. But Derek doesn't think he's going to be to be able to do that today, not with the unmistakable, heavy presence of dread and guilt and sorrow that has pierced deep into the centre of his chest.

He does take some comfort in the sleeping man beside him; in the way that Stiles' nose presses just behind his ear and his breath flutters against Derek's skin and how he curls around him so tightly - like by holding on tight enough, he can chase Derek's worries away.

Derek breathes steadily, matching his heart's rhythm to the slow cadence of Stiles' breathing; like an organic symphony made solely by and for the two of them and kept in the safe comfort of Derek's bed, it swirls around them like honey - silken sweet and golden.

Derek blinks lethargically, he can still feel the drainage from yesterday chasing after the blood in his veins and his skin vibrates with the ghosts of his tremors.

He can feel the cold starchiness beneath his eyes from his dried tears and he imagines that he looks like chaos personified: with a thick, haggard stubble, gaunt cheeks and a dead blankness in his expression.

It's not fear, Derek knows, that makes him look like this.

It hasn't been just fear in a long time. It runs deeper than that, and it sears and boils. It's a thing that creeps around the borderlines of his consciousness and waits until the most perfect moment to strike and burn down his defences into ash and cinders.

It feels like he's burning inside himself, slowly, utterly trapped.

Derek loved Kate; he still loves her if he's completely honest with himself. She wasn't the first person he had ever fallen in love with, but she was the one he had loved the longest.

Kate, the mother of his child, had been the one with whom he spent long nights curled in with blankets and the warmth of hot cocoa, surrounded by city lights and toiling clouds - talking about forever, as if forever was something they could keep.

She was the one who knew him, knew of him, of his fears, and his hopes. She was his everything.

Derek remembers the first time Kate told him she loved him, how everything changed when she looked up at him one day and said, "I love you, Derek," smiling like it was that simple. He remembers how she'd wrapped her arms around his neck and laughed, "You've ruined me now, there'll never be anybody else."