Kings of the Moonlight

Playing God

Next time you point your finger, I'll point you to the mirror.

-

Derek can hear the muffled conversation between Stiles and Jackson whispering through the door; it's not loud enough to distinguish individual words but it is loud enough to let him know that a serious discussion is taking place.

A ball of feverish nerves is making a home in the base of his stomach as he stands there, still rooted to the spot. It turns out that he was right in assuming that people wouldn't take well to his and Stiles' relationship, but he just didn't think it would be so soon.

He needs a distraction, he thinks, if only to stop himself from plastering his ear to the door in the faintest hopes of hearing what Stiles and Jackson are saying to each other.

As it is, Derek can only hear the sound of the fridge opening and closing, the shifting of feet as they move around the kitchen and soft tinkle of glass against glass.

Derek closes the front door quickly, before he moves to the couch, to pause the game that is still going on, and takes a look around Stiles' apartment.

It's much smaller than Derek's, that's for sure, and a lot more cluttered.

Stacks of books occupy almost every intermittent space, the coffee table, the side table, the television stand, the floor; and the books share space with video games, DVDs and CDs that have escaped the two large black metal stands over by each side of the TV.

There's a corridor alongside the door to the kitchen, though it runs dark with the lights switched off, and in the white space of wall between the corridor and the kitchen door hangs a large corkboard.

The board is filled to the brim with tiny snippets of Stiles' life; photographs of a younger Stiles with a neat buzz cut and surrounded by his friends, one of him and Jackson with cat-ear headbands, painted whiskers and noses making funny faces at the camera, another of him in his Lacrosse uniform pumping his fist in victory and grinning behind his helmet, one of him and Scott with ridiculous moustaches on their faces, and another one yet of a younger Sheriff looking proud in his brand new Beacon Hills Police Department Uniform with his wife standing beside him, beaming.

But there are other things too, a set of post-it's with long forgotten to-do lists, a letter signed by someone named Heather, house bills and appointment letters for a Doctor Pilgrim, with the dates and times underlined thrice and "don't forget!!" scrawled in somebody else's writing beneath the most recent one.

It reveals a lot about Stiles, and how much his life, at least right now, revolves around being dependant on the people around him, dependant on them to not let him fall into his addiction again.

Derek is struck by the thought that perhaps this whole thing between them is too much, too soon. For Stiles that is, Derek forgets how young he is sometimes, because they bypassed the whole initial dating stage and fell head first into the seriousness of their relationship.

And yet it's good and it's whole and it makes something in Derek's heart just sort of lift, it makes that impression of misery in his chest a little easier to cope with and he's not sure that he can let it go now, let Stiles go, now that he's with him.

The distraction proves futile for Derek, his eyes keep drifting to the closed kitchen door without really meaning to, and he winces each time voices are raised.

Jackson's really the only one whose voice raises, Stiles remains calm, from what Derek can tell, as he moves around his kitchen.

It's not like he can really blame Jackson for being wary of Derek, and of course he realises how it all sounds for someone who's just discovered their relationship without any prior information.