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

All I need is the air that I breathe (and to love you)

Derek doesn't think he'll ever be able to look at Stiles and not feel it. That achy tight feeling in his chest of his heart being squeezed. It doesn't last long. Maybe a millisecond, but it's there. Enough for him to notice, to take his breath away. But he's not stupid or clueless because he knows why, knows exactly what it is. Because whenever he looks at her, it's like his body's reminding him: There she is. That's our heart. So don't look for it anywhere else, because it's not in here anymore.

It's not that she's perfect. Because lord knows, she isn't (and neither is he, of course). But even the things that he thought used to irritate him – like how she never shut up, ever — now they only make him think of all the things he loves about her. Maybe she talks too much, but Derek doesn't think he'll ever get tired of hearing Stiles crying out his name, babbling all those sweet, filthy words in his ear when she's all warm and soft underneath him. She was always the only one from the beginning who wasn't afraid to look him in the eyes – used to drive him insane, how unsettled she used to make him just because as nervous as she always seemed to be, it still never seemed to stop her from reaching out. Fingers curled softly around his wrist. A hand placed so gently on his shoulder he should have hardly felt it. How instead, those touches had practically burned straight down to the bone.

And she's so damn beautiful, he thinks, and she doesn't even see it. Refuses, more like it, but he understands hating what you see in the mirror probably more than anyone else could. Those eyes of hers, the color of honey, big and doe-eyed and so damn warm whenever she looks at him. If he has to spend the rest of his life getting her to believe it, how fucking magnificent she is, he'll do it gladly.

"You're staring at me."

"I always stare at you," Derek answers automatically. He's making dinner, or he's supposed to be, but at some point the world had definitely gone fuzzy around her for a minute and he'd forgotten what he was doing. She tended to do that to him without even trying. Case in point, she's perched on one of the chairs at the kitchen table, in what looks like the most uncomfortable position Derek has ever seen. She's all sharp angles, arms and legs and bony knees. She's on her laptop, and she's got that funny little look on her face she gets when she's concentrating really hard on something. Where her mouth gets this sweet little pout that makes him want to lunge across the counter and bite it right off. "What are you looking at?"

Stiles squirms in her seat. "Nothing." Of course he doesn't believe her, not with the way her porcelain cheeks redden, her color high.

Derek's lip curls into a knowing smirk. Not only is her skin flushed that pretty pink, but the air is filled with that mix of nerves and lust and the slightest bit of embarrassment – the one that always makes his more predatory instincts prickle, makes the wolf in him stir and sniff the air with interest. Suddenly, he's far more hungry for something other than the stir fry he's making.

"Why don't you try blinking, Hannibal Lector."

He's across the room and behind her before she's even finished talking, and Stiles squeaks in surprise, slamming her computer shut. "Quid pro quo, Clarice," Derek says, laughing, snapping at her ear playfully. "Show me."

Stiles shakes her head. "No. You're gonna laugh at me."

"No, I won't."

"You just did!"

The sweet scent he's been chasing sours slightly, and he frowns. "Stiles," he murmurs, soft and sweet against her jaw, "I won't. You know I won't." Stiles's heartbeat thrums like a hummingbird's – that and the way she's gone all shy lets him know whatever this is, it's definitely not something to laugh about.