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Derek doesn’t expect to find solace in the sound of a guitar.
He's more of a silence kind of guy. Or at least, the type who doesn’t mind the quiet. Brooding, the pack calls it, but Derek knows better - it’s control. Safety. Quiet doesn’t surprise you. Quiet doesn’t leave.
But then there’s Stiles.
Loud, fast talking, impossible to ignore Stiles, who’s never been quiet a day in his life.
Except now.
Now, he’s sitting cross legged on the floor of the loft, a battered acoustic guitar in his lap, shoulders hunched, fingers picking at the strings like he’s trying to put himself back together with the sound.
Derek didn’t even know Stiles played.
It’s a Sunday. No one else is around. The pack has dispersed for the evening, post training, post dinner. Stiles had stayed behind to “help clean,” which meant throwing napkins at Derek and refusing to let him touch the dishes. Derek had gone upstairs, needing the space, needing… something. Now he doesn’t remember what.
He pauses on the landing, out of sight, and listens.
Stiles doesn’t sing. He just plays. Soft, slow chords that bleed into each other like watercolor. There’s something raw in the way he moves, tentative, then sure, then faltering again. Like maybe he hasn’t picked up the guitar in years and forgot it remembered him anyway.
Derek’s wolf settles inside him, quieting for the first time all day.
The music feels like an answer to a question he hasn’t figured out how to ask.
He doesn’t realize he’s stepped down until Stiles looks up at him with wide eyes and stops mid strum.
“Shit, sorry,” Stiles says, cheeks flushing. “I didn’t mean to be… intrusive.”
“You’re in my loft,” Derek says, then realizes that sounds harsher than he means. He softens it with, “You can play. I didn’t know you did.”
Stiles shrugs, suddenly shy. “I don’t really. Not anymore. Just… after everything with Void-me and the brain stuff and the therapy, they told me to find an outlet. Something non verbal. It helped back then. I guess I was just feeling... off tonight.”
Derek nods, stepping closer, gaze on the guitar.
“Do you want me to stop?” Stiles asks, but there’s a note of hesitation in it, like he already knows the answer.
“No,” Derek says. Too quickly, maybe. He adds, “It’s nice.”
That earns him a smile. A real one. A small, quiet thing that tugs at something behind Derek’s ribs.
Stiles pats the ground beside him. “You wanna sit?”
And maybe it’s the music, or maybe it’s the way Stiles is looking at him like he sees through all the sharp edges, but Derek sits.
Close, but not touching.
Stiles starts to play again.
Derek watches his hands. Long fingers callused from use, plucking strings with surprising delicacy. He doesn’t ask what the song is. He doesn’t need to know. It’s not the kind of song with a name.
It’s the kind that says everything without words.
Eventually, the music shifts into something brighter. Familiar.
Derek frowns. “Is that-” he pauses. “-Taylor Swift?”
Stiles doesn’t miss a beat. “Hell yeah, it is. ‘You Belong With Me.’ Acoustic version. Eat your heart out, Folklore.”
Derek snorts before he can stop himself.
Stiles looks pleased. “What, you think brooding alphas are too good for pop?”
“I think this brooding alpha has taste,” Derek retorts, but there’s no heat in it.
“Uh huh,” Stiles says, grinning as he launches into a dramatic rendition of the chorus. His voice cracks on a high note and he laughs, the sound tumbling out of him so bright and warm that Derek almost forgets how to breathe.
The song ends. Stiles lets the final note hang in the air.
Then, softly, he says, “I used to write songs.”
Derek blinks. “You did?”
“Well. Kind of. They were bad. Like, epic cringe. But I tried. After my mom died, it was easier to sing than talk, y’know?”
Derek does. Too well.
He doesn’t say anything, but Stiles must read something on his face, because his expression softens.
“Do you ever sing?”
Derek huffs. “No.”
Stiles grins. “Bet you hum, though.”
Derek narrows his eyes. “What does that even mean?”
“You strike me as the secret humming type. All gruff and stoic in public, but you get a song stuck in your head and suddenly you’re humming in the shower like it’s a Grammy performance.”
Derek doesn’t hum, except he kind of does. And judging by the smugness on Stiles’ face, he knows it.
“Are you writing again?” Derek asks, steering the conversation away.
Stiles shrugs. “Sometimes. I’ve got one song that’s... not awful.”
“Play it.”
Stiles stills. “It’s not done.”
“That’s okay.”
For a moment, it seems like Stiles won’t. But then he looks at Derek, really looks at him, and nods.
He shifts the guitar, takes a breath, and plays.
It starts gentle. A hesitant chord progression, stitched with pauses. Then the words come, low and raspy:
I was a storm, and you were the tree
Still standing strong while I tried to leave
But somehow you stayed, and somehow you knew
That something like love might still make it through.
Derek’s heart thuds.
Stiles keeps singing.
You don’t ask for much, you don’t say a lot
You just look at me like I’m all you’ve got
And maybe I am, and maybe that’s true
But you’ve always been more than I deserved from you.
The song ends unfinished, the last note suspended in silence.
Derek swallows. “That’s not awful.”
Stiles lets out a breathless laugh. “High praise.”
“I mean it.”
Something passes between them then. Not a song. Not a word.
Something quieter. Truer.
“Derek,” Stiles says, voice small. “Was that too much?”
“No,” Derek says immediately. “It was honest.”
They sit in silence again.
And then Derek says, “I hum when I’m doing the laundry.”
Stiles looks at him, eyebrows raised.
“Usually Fleetwood Mac,” Derek adds.
“Oh my God,” Stiles says, delighted. “You have taste. I’m so proud.”
Derek rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling now. A real smile. He hasn’t done that in a while.
“Play another?” he asks.
And Stiles does.
And maybe it’s not silence Derek finds solace in after all.
Maybe it’s the music.
Maybe it’s Stiles.