From the Dark to the Light

On AO3.

Stiles saw Derek, still a wolf, moving like a shadow under the full moon’s glow.

The wolf took his time walking from the trees to their back porch where Stiles sat.

He only brushed past Stiles before standing at the back door, waiting to be let in.

Stiles knew Derek sometimes stayed fully shifted, especially on full moons. He didn’t know why.

He set a large bowl of water on the floor, heard Derek drinking so only stroked the long furry back on his way to bed.

Derek soon joined him there, huffing softly once Stiles’s arm curled around him.

 

The moon ended its course through the night, sinking into the west, stars following it under the horizon. Stars that lingered in the sky faded away against the soft blue of dawn.

Birds already sang, proclaiming their presence and offering musical accompaniment to the sun as it rose.

Mists fled into invisibility while light poured through every window in the little cabin near the forest’s edge, except for the room where two men lay still asleep, one spooned round the other.

Stiles woke with Derek in his arms, their contact skin on skin now that the werewolf’s fur had withdrawn.

 

Derek turned in Stiles’s embrace, so they were face to face.

A thin curtain kept back daylight’s full blaze but the room was bright enough for Derek to note Stiles’s eyes’ amber gleam.

“Sometimes being a wolf, it’s like a dream,” he explained. “One I don’t want to wake up from.”

“I don’t mind,” Stiles said, “As long as you come back home.”

“I’ll always come back home, to you,” Derek promised. “No dream is sweeter than life with you, Stiles.”

They clung closer, pressed together, waiting a little longer, till they awakened more, before deciding what they’d do next.