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The first time Scott kisses him, he wants nothing more than to kiss back. He wants to wrap his arms around him, hold him close, press against him, whisper in his ear.
But he doesn’t.
He pushes Scott back, away from him, takes a step back and regretfully wipes at his mouth.
“I-” Scott stumbles, looking confused. “I’m sorry. I thought, I mean…”
Derek shakes his head as steadily as he can. “I’m sorry. I don’t feel that way.” And he lies, like he’s become so good at doing. It’s the only thing he knows how to do right now. It’s the only answer to this impossible situation he’s gone over a hundred times in his head since Scott entered his life.
“Oh,” Scott says, and he nods, his face hardening. “Right. Okay.”
Derek avoids him for a week, lets Scott get his feelings in check, and then things go back to normal. They train, protect the town, put on a friendly front at pack meetings, and he lets Scott go back to comfortably touching him; a hand on his shoulder, a fist bump, a playful tug on his shirt collar. It’s normal. It’s good. It’s back to how they were after taking Kate and Peter down in Mexico.
It’s never enough.
Derek tries not to think about it. About all the reasons he can’t have the only thing he wants. About how stupid it is, in this day and age, to be feeling like this. To be stuck, bound to traditions that shouldn’t define him, but do.
He’s the only Hale left. He’s the one who has to make sure his family name doesn’t die. He has no other choice. And all of it’s both true and not true at the same time, and Derek tries not to think about it.
Because even if the day did come where he could step down, where he wouldn’t have to carry on his name, he knows there would still be obstacles to their being together. The world is not a kind place.
It’s a burden no one else seems to care about. None of them held the guilt Derek still holds about what happened to his first love nor do they hold the guilt from being the reason his family died at the hands of the second person he thought he loved, they’d never understand why he has to sacrifice his happiness.
Only he’s lost so much already. Must he really lose Scott too?
He tries to tell Scott one night, in the dim porch light. He tries to explain about bloodlines, and having children, and belonging to a pack. He tries to make it clear that he doesn’t have a choice, that if Laura or Cora were alive then he could do this, but they aren’t and it’s up to Derek to carry on the family line so the Hale Pack lives on. He tries.
Scott narrows his eyes at him from where he sits on the steps, his face going hard the same way it had right after their first kiss. “What are you telling me?”
Derek looks at him, tries to will him to understand, but in the end he just shakes his head and turns his back. “Nothing,” Derek says, walking away. “I’m not telling you anything.”
He remembers his uncle that night, trying to explain to a confused Derek what a mate was. He can’t even remember if he’d asked, or it his uncle had said something… All he remembers is saying “So went I meet a special boy he is gonna be my mate?”
And then the disappointed look on his Uncle Peter’s face, as though Derek hadn’t understood. As though he had it wrong. “No, Derek. A boy is not going to be your mate.”
Derek remembers shaking his head defiantly. “Yes he will, Uncle Peter.”
“No,” his uncle had said firmly back, “A boy is not a mate. Mates are a boy and a girl.”
And Derek, confused, had asked, “Why? That’s not fair.”
“It’s the way it is.” His uncle had answered, and that had been that.
Scott kisses him again. It’s quick, and there’s nothing to do about it at the time but let it happen, let Scott draw back with a relieved smile to see Derek alive. And he doesn’t mind it, as long as no one sees, and as long as it’s the only time it happens.
But it’s not. It happens again that night, when Derek goes to check on him. Scott reaches out an arm, wraps it around Derek’s middle, and when Derek turns his head curiously, Scott leans close, and presses their lips together.
Derek grips Scott’s arm, his fingers tightening with self-control, as he pulls back. “Scott,” he says his voice anything but level. “I told you… I can’t.”
Scott looks at him like he doesn’t understand. “That isn’t what you said.”
Derek tries to pull away, but Scott holds onto him tighter than he can fight right now.
“You said you didn’t feel that way, but you do. I see the way you look at me, Der,” Scott whispers in a rush, his voice a low growl. “It’s not disgust in your eyes when I kiss you, it’s something else. What is it?”
Derek does pull away then, unable to confront it. He pushes Scott’s arm off, flushes his back against the wall to put a foot of distance between them. Its duty to his family line, Derek wants to say. Its obligation to something bigger than what he wants. But he can’t get the words out, because Scott looks so heartbroken, so shattered, and Derek can’t say anything at all.
“What’s wrong with me?” Scott asks quietly, his voice choked.
“Nothing,” Derek says, rushing forward. He pulls him close, wraps his arms around him, and gets out of range of that awful, crushed look on Scott’s face. “Nothing’s wrong with you.”
Scott wraps his arms around Derek with such fierceness that Derek knows Scott is ready to lose him, that he’s preparing himself for the worst.
“It’s me,” Derek says, and he feels Scott huff against his neck dejectedly. “There’s something wrong with me.”
Scott pulls back from him, and Derek has to let him go. He knows he does. But he can’t. He can’t stop gripping Scott’s shoulder, and whatever it is Scott sees in his eyes when they kiss, he’s seeing it now, because he reaches up and grabs onto Derek’s hand with his own before he leans forward and presses their lips together again.
Derek doesn’t pull away. He lets Scott kiss him, but he can’t kiss back. He realizes, as Scott moves closer, how much more it’s going to hurt to have Scott and then lose him than it would to have never had him at all. Only never having him was never an option, and Derek knows it.
He’s always had Scott. Ever since that first night in the woods.
That’s probably what makes it so hard to turn his head away, to let Scott clash into his neck, making a noise that sounds like some part of him is in agony.
“I’m sorry,” Derek says, stepping back, looking away. “I just… I can’t. Please try to understand.”
Maybe he flirts a little bit with Braeden the next day. But its Scott he runs to when the fight with the town’s newest monster turns ugly. It’s Scott he takes a bullet for. It’s Scott he lifts to his feet when Scott, Liam and Malia are hit with wolves bane arrows. And it’s Scott who shoves his hands off and steps away, giving Derek that same hard, crushed look.
It’s not normal anymore. And it’s not good.
Scott doesn’t touch him. He keeps his distance, purposefully sits on the opposite end of the table during pack dinners, and doesn’t talk to Derek that much outside pack training and meetings. Suddenly, they aren’t friends with a great deal of unresolved sexual tension anymore. Suddenly they’re not even friends.
They’re just pack mates. And Derek is alone again. More alone than he’s been in a long, long time.
Kira sees it. Keeps asking if Derek is alright. If he wants to talk. But as much as he loves Kira, as much of a sister as she’s been to him in the past year, there is nothing Derek can tell her. There is nothing Derek can confide about this particular issue that won’t end badly.
He keeps asking himself if there’s a way, if there’s something he isn’t seeing. He keeps trying to figure it out, because every time he sees Scott, every time their eyes meet, and every time Scott looks away, ashamed, his heart aches.
“I miss you,” he tells Scott one afternoon, when he’s headed out to lacrosse practice.
Scott turns to him, gives him a small smile. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
“It’s not fair,” Derek says, keeping his hands in his pockets and taking a step forward, “What I’m about to ask of you. But I need you. And I can’t be what you need in return. But I still need you.”
Scott looks at him, but his face doesn’t look hurt, or confused, or angry. It just looks like Scott. Scott reaches out, puts his hand to Derek’s face. It’s the closest they’ve been in weeks. “You’re right,” he says easily. “It’s not fair.”
Derek lets out a sigh. He turns his head away, ready to walk back to his car with his head held high, alone on his pedestal of power, when Scott touches his arm.
“But it’s okay,” he says gently, and he gives Derek’s arm a squeeze before he drops his hand. They’re silent for a moment, and then Scott grabs up his duffle bag. “I’ll see you later Der.”
The casual touches return. Derek’s never been so grateful for a pat on the back, or an arm slung around his shoulders in playful teasing. And sometimes, when no one is around, he lets himself have a few moments of just holding Scott, who holds him back like he’s precious, like he’s something to be cherished.
And even though Derek can’t be what he needs in return, Scott is always there, is always offering up bits of himself to keep Derek whole. He’s always giving, and never getting, and he never complains.
It gives Derek hope.
Hope that one day, maybe, he will be able to give those pieces back. And he hopes, he really hopes, that that day will come before Scott has given Derek everything he has to give. He hopes that day will come before Scott gives up on him.
“You don’t give up on people you love,” Scott tells him quietly one day, the first time Derek voices his hope. “You can get away from them, and you can love other people, and you can try to stop loving them, but you don’t ever really give up.”
Derek moves in close to him, pushes their foreheads together and draws strength from Scott’s certainty.
“I’ll never give up on you,” Scott tells him. “And I never will.”
And Derek hopes. He hopes that one day it'll be simpler, that they can show the love they share. He reaches to Scott, their fingertips brushing together with the same crackling energy through his nerves that he felt since day one. Every kiss before came rushing back to him, and he leaned his head down. His eyes fell shut when their lips finally pushed together, and it didn't matter if that was the first or last kiss. It lasted for what seemed like ages, their breath rising and falling gently across each other's face, before Scott moved his head back. His familiar eyes were warm and soft and he brushed the pad of his thumb against the back of Derek's hand.
It was enough to melt his heart when they touched. "Der, it's going to be okay." There he was, always so soothing. His voice alone made Derek hope that it would be okay, because if not. He didn't even want to think about it. "I promise. We'll always have each other." With those words, he looked to Scott as he never had before. His friend, the only thing he had left, the only one who made him feel real again. He knew that it would be okay. It had to.