Sterek(oneshots)

Only Fools Rush In

Dread wasn't the right word for how Derek felt staring at the boxes that sat on his dining room table, but it was pretty close. His stomach was in knots. It had been since Cora told him they had to clean out the storage shed of their old things. A handful of boxes that he and Laura had hastily gathered after the fire. A place to store memories that neither one had been ready to go through. Now they sat on his table like a ghost before him.

He pushed off the lid of the first box. The smell of Ash filled his nose. Bile rose in his throat. Inside sat a set of blackened alphabet blocks, a half-melted children's xylophone, and a deformed doll.

These had been Lily's things. Taking in a slow breath he put the lid back on. He blinked back tears as he moved on to the next box.

A fusion of Hot Wheels cars, a charred soccer ball, and a singed teddy bear. Lucas.

Derek's cousins had both been so young, only two and six.

He put the lid back on and closed his eyes. Keeping this stuff had been pointless. It was useless. Just a painful reminder. But Laura had gathered anything that still had shape, tears streaming down her face. He'd been too numb to object at the time.

He reached for another box. He peered inside to see if it was just as depressing as the others. It was from his room. The giver, half burned. An incinerated Walkman that was too damaged to open. An unharmed baseball. A few baseball cards, a partially melted basketball trophy. All things from a life he hadn't been a part of in so long.

He pushed it away from him. Why had they kept this? These people were gone. These weren't happy trinkets to remember them by. They were sad, twisted reminders of a family long gone. Even his box was nothing but a ghost of a boy who died in that fire.

All these tombs, cradled remnants of people he loved. Opening these boxes didn't flood him with memories he wanted to remember. They filled him with the grief and guilt he'd been working so hard to let go of. To move past. To accept.

Taking another slow breath out he reached for another, pushing aside the lid and peering in. His brows furrowed when the smell of ash didn't hit his nose, but instead, stale, faint Jasmine and bergamot. His mind swept through memories of walks in the woods, gentle lectures, and coffee dates. Laura's perfume.

He plucked the small purple bottle. This box wasn't from their house. It was things Laura had left in their apartment in New York. This was the box Derek had packed after she died. He pulled out a framed picture of the two of them. A coffee date two days before she left for Beacon Hills.

He pulled a book on flowers. She had gotten into flowers after the fire, picking up a hobby his mother had loved. She was the best florist he knew. She could make even the ugliest flowers fit into a beautiful arrangement. Laying the book next to the perfume on the table, he continued to rifle.

A small jewelry box that held a simple silver necklace. A flower charm dangled from it. A recipe book she bought when she wanted to learn to cook. And a familiar purple box, gilded in silver stars and moons.

It had been a gift for her birthday. Another hobby she had taken up. Derek had never teased her about her many hobbies. He knew they were something to fill the emptiness she was feeling. He knew because he had felt it too. He had attempted to fill his own void, but he often found himself numb and distant.

He brushed his fingers along the small box before plucking it out. He opened it, making his stomach roll.

"So the three-card spread has many variations but I really like past, present, and future. Watch." Laura had laid the cards out in an arch. "Pick three." He did as told plucking three from the deck. They were black with gold filigree.