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

I only have eyes for you

Derek had always been more sensitive than the rest of his family, whether he was just born that way or it was just weakness on his part (his family had always insisted the former was true while Derek had always suspected the latter, and it's not like any of them were alive to disagree). It had been agony in New York, a veritable maelstrom of stimulation. Lights too bright, smells too overpowering, noises practically perforating his eardrums at all hours of the night, his own senses drowning him daily in a sea of people talking, feeling, fighting, fucking, needing things. All the time. Never stopping. Never shutting the hell up.

That had felt nothing short of torture.

Beacon Hills, as much as Derek had hated it, as much as he'd wished he'd never had to come back, he couldn't deny the relief he'd felt in solitude. Not that it had lasted long. Stiles had seen to that. And so had his wolf, which despite Derek's vehement protests, had taken one whiff, had one little taste of the girl's scent, and that had been it. It had been the most visceral, most primal reaction Derek can ever remember feeling toward another person before. One that he'd felt not just under that superficial human skin he wore like an ill-fitting suit, but deep in the marrow of his bones, in the most mystical, beastly parts of him that bore whatever ancient magic made his blood run hot, made it sing low and long just like the howl of a wolf on a full moon.

Not Paige. And certainly not Kate. Both of whom, looking back, had made the hackles of that beast in his chest rise in a way that his dumb, hormone-soaked-with-human-urges brain had been far too successful in tempting him to ignore. Maybe it would have been different for him if he'd listened. Derek thinks about that sometimes. Especially since Stiles had revealed how she'd been drawn to him from the beginning. Even as a child.

Obviously it wouldn't have been like that, if he'd actually pulled his head out of his ass at the time and paid attention to his wolf instead of constantly doing the opposite out of spite. But he could have protected her. Kept her safe. Watched over her (in an entirely non-creepy fashion) until she was ready.

Probably would have saved himself a fuckton of heartache. Maybe saved her some too.

At least, Derek thinks, he can spend the rest of his life, their life, making it up to her now. Not that she doesn't get her own licks in, taking a special sort of joy in driving him absolutely crazy. In the best ways and the worst. All the ways, really. Because after all this time together, Derek has sort of stopped counting the occasions he's looked at Stiles and thought that girl is trouble. He imagines calculating the actual number at this point would be akin to trying to divide pi. The answer would be one of those irrational ones that go on forever and ever and never repeat. It was the first thought he'd had even before Stiles had opened her mouth that night on his property. When Derek had taken one look at her -- those too-big, too-wide, far-too-discerning eyes that flared golden-brown in the moonlight almost the same way a beta wolf's did -- and known it like someone had cut the top of his head off and carved the words into his brain.

Not that it had mattered at the time. Not when all he could taste was ash in his mouth, walking around feeling like his body was getting torn apart from the inside. Not when all he'd wanted was to feel flesh tear under his claws and in his teeth. Not when all that he'd wanted was revenge. So, Derek had done his best to not need her the way the wolf was constantly whispering in his ear and telling him they did. He'd snapped and snarled and threatened, but it hadn't mattered in the end. Even supernatural powers weren't enough in the face of Stilinski stubbornness. Because even though he could smell her fear from a mile away, she'd still climbed into that cop car with him that night so long ago and stared him down. Knowing all the while that he could have snapped those handcuffs off in a second, if he'd wanted. Still, some part of her had trusted him not to, which even then Derek was smart enough to know meant something, with or without his wolf howling at him in the back of his mind.