I Will Run You Like A Thread (Fem!Stiles x Derek)

I need you so much closer

Somehow, even after nine years, the date still manages to sneak up on her. Even now, when Stiles feels, for the first time in a long time, remarkably settled. Happy. Dare she say – calm. And she thinks maybe that's why it hurts even worse, the element of surprise. As brutal as a slap right to the face. It doesn't take much to send her hurtling back there: a stray thought, a memory, the strange, phantom scent of her mother's shampoo, and suddenly she's nine years old, crouched, crying and shaking in the hallway outside of her mother's hospital room, waiting, always waiting for her to get back up, but she never does. For a long time after that, everything had fallen apart. Her father had tried to help, done what little he could. There had been doctors, seemingly unending visits to psychiatrists and counselors and sleep therapists, pills that helped only when she took enough to almost be too many. Most of the time, they just seemed to keep her trapped in the same loop of nightmare after nightmare after nightmare. The panic attacks were always bad, but the night terrors were the worst. Sometimes they made her thrash so hard she'd wake up bruised and bloody from where she'd clawed at herself, her throat hoarse and sore from screaming, yelling for someone who would never come.

Nothing had ever helped, not the way Derek did. As cliché as she totally knows it is, she feels safe. Safer than she ever remembers feeling, and it wasn't just because of the whole what-big-teeth-you-have thing, even though that was definitely a bonus. It was like instinctual, like some pure biology shit, like her body just knew his on a molecular level, his scent, the exact way his skin felt against hers, knew it even at her most vulnerable, knew him even in her sleep. Yeah, she is the first to admit she isn't in the most tip-top shape in terms of mental health compared to a lot of (okay, most) people, but being with Derek makes her feel almost...normal. The most normal she's ever felt.

Whatever the fuck normal means when your fiance is a werewolf.

So yeah, despite all of that, it still manages to sneak up on her, to fuck everything up like it always did, Like Stiles always did. Because today is the anniversary her mother's death. Of her dying right in front of her face.

And Stiles...Stiles is drunk.

It's pretty much the same thing she's done every year since she was old enough to see substance-abuse-based escapism as a plausible coping mechanism. Basically ever since she was able to pilfer from her dad's liquor stash. Besides, it's not like her dad isn't currently in the same state she is; he's just slumped over some bar stool eating the fried foods she never lets him eat, and throwing back whiskey shots instead of passed out at home, like she is. It's the unspoken rule of the Stilinksi household – everybody gets a free pass on Death Day.

If Derek was a normal boyfriend – fuck, fiance, goddammit – she would've just avoided him. Dodged his calls and texts, you know, ghosted him, so he wouldn't ever have to see her like this. Because fuck, Stiles doesn't want to even see herself like this. But it's kind of impossible to do that when you're never left alone, not really. Can't hide from someone who won't let you. So she's drunk, starfished across her bedspread and waiting to hear that thud of Derek sliding her window open because it's simply inevitable. When she finally hears it, the squeak of the sill being forced open, she manages to get herself at least semi-upright.

"You're drunk."

Stiles slowly cracks one eye open but doesn't turn her head. She can visualize the whole thing, the look of disapproval on his face, even though technically she can only actually see half of it.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Stiles says. "I never would have noticed unless you said something."

Derek is scowling, but that's nothing new. It's like second nature for him at this point, particularly where she's involved. She crawls across the bedspread and straight into his lap, because she can't think of anything else to say and nowhere she'd rather be. Might as well commit.