Kings of the Moonlight

Nitesky

If you let my soul out, it will come right back to you.

-

While it's true that silence, and the overall lack of substantial noise, has been a monumental part of Derek's life in the past few months, he hasn't felt it quite as keenly as he does in this very moment.

It's not a silence, not when he really thinks about it, not when he can still hear the low, penetrating buzz of the apartment, the relentless tick-tick-ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece and the dull steady tapping of Kate's boots on the hardwood.

But it's definitely the quietening of something.

Derek can hear nothing but the rush of blood in his ears and it's almost like the real world is a thousand miles away, shielded away to the far corners of his periphery behind a shroud, and it feels like he's trapped.

Derek's locked into place, unable to quite understand what's going on, he looks into Kate's face and he feels ...

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It's a sad kind of dullness that wraps around his heart like a vice and leaves him ice cold and trembling.

He finds it hard to turn his eyes away from her, from the way that she looks so familiar and yet so foreign, standing with her hips cocked in easy self-assurance and a smirk on her lips.

Her posture only serves to remind Derek of the great differences between his current love and his old one, of the way that they're on opposite ends of the spectrum; Kate who is savouring the tension in the air with relish, liking the way that it crackles and fizzles like blood infused with venom and so, so different from Stiles.

Stiles who is still kneeling on the floor, cheeks flushed red and his eyes downcast, and yet still brimming with the reluctance to stand down, refusing to give up.

It stops Derek cold to see him like this, because that's the moment it really hits him, that's the moment that he realises that for Stiles it's not just about Derek's ex-girlfriend turning up of the woodwork.

No, for Stiles?

For Stiles it's about being held at gunpoint, with a circle of cold metal sinking into his skin, it's about how his life could end with one minute flick of Kate's fingertips, how the bullet at the end of that barrel is locked into place and so damn close to being fired.

And it petrifies Derek how Kate's so willing to let those bullets fly. She stands there, smirking at him like there's nothing at all wrong with the tension she's creating.

So for Stiles to kneel there, with his shoulders set and his mouth pressed into a hard, tight line, absolutely not breaking down, refusing to let Kate get the better of him is astounding to Derek, it's mesmerising.

Derek's barely a breath's away from collapsing in on himself, like a black hole at the centre of the universe, bringing down everything around him; but it's intuitive for him to move forward, to move towards Stiles in order to comfort him and kiss him and take him away from all the damned danger.

He's faltering towards Stiles before he quite realises.

"Ah-ah," Kate warns, she brings up a single finger to halt him, eyebrow raised like he's a disobedient child. She presses the barrel of the gun more firmly against Stiles head, dislodging it a few centimetres higher and revealing the bright red circle it's left behind.

She hardens her gaze towards Derek, her voice low in her throat as she threatens, "Make one move, just one more move Derek, and we'll see just how nice his brain will look splattered all over your walls."