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This is for stilinskyed who asked for blind!Stiles and Marine!Derek. Happy Holidays! I hope this fits the bill.
The Stories In His Skin
There is a scar on the side of Derek’s neck, towards the back, just along the curative. Stiles fingertips always manage to find it. It’s small-only an inch or so in length-but the cut was deep, leaving hard, raised edges that have become a tactile addiction.
Stiles rubs the scar with his thumb when they sit together on the couch watching Dr. Who, palm wrapped around the back of Derek’s neck, ragged fingernails scratching across his hairline (a favorite affection that gets Derek to actually sit through an episode of Dr. Who.)
His lips and teeth tease the scar when they are kissing, hot and heavy. After watching said Dr., Stiles straddles Derek’s thighs and grinds against him, chest to chest, groin to….uhh, Fuck, Stiles...groin. Wet, sucking kisses pepper Derek’s throat; incisors pull at old wounds.
Stiles fingertips ghost over it when Derek fucks him--reaching, pulling, grazing. On the rare night that Derek lets Stiles take over, he drapes himself over Derek’s back, seeking every point of possible contact, resting his forehead briefly against the scar.
Stiles has demanded it confirmed over and over that Derek is hot. “Fucking smoking,” Lydia said, fanning herself with her theoretical physics paper after forcing herself into his apartment for a full debrief after his second date with Derek. “Brooding, scowling, bad-boy sex-in-leather hot.”
Stiles has been blind since the car accident that killed his mother and left him with enough swelling inside his five-year-old skull that his optic nerve and visual cortex no longer communicate effectively.
It’s cool, Stiles learns and adapts and does things his own way. He is awkward, but, it’s all part of his amazing Stilinski charm, right? With the help of his ever-present and incredibly loyal guide dog, Scott, Stiles lives a normal life--well, not really, Stiles is….Stiles--but it has nothing to do with sight.
The point is, it doesn’t usually bother him, the darkness. But, confirmation on the hot boyfriend is a must. He gets the ladies perspective--and it’s a rare moment when Erica, Lydia and Allison all agree on anything. He gets the gay point-of-view and a “hell yes” from Danny. He even gets a reluctant, no-homo grunt of agreement from Jackson.
The man is Hot.
Stiles doesn’t actually need people tell him this. He KNOWS--those ads and dear lord, that ass. But, he asks every now and again simply because he likes to hear it.
Stiles knows what Derek is. He can smell it and feel it and taste it. He can read all of the stories of Derek’s life on his skin. Some of them are so fucking sexy it makes his toes curl and the back of his neck sweat. Some are traumatic and painful, Derek doesn’t talk about them but they are there for Stiles to feel even if Derek refuses to. Others places are silly and ticklish. Fewer and more precious are warm, intimate and melting.
Stiles knows. Stiles feels. He doesn’t need eyes to see Derek.
Stiles likes to touch the scar on Derek’s neck because it is a happy scar--Derek’s first scar and the only one that came out of playful joy rather than frightening violence. The story is somewhat lost to time now, being that Derek was so young when it happened and is the only person left alive to remember. Stiles knows it involved Derek’s older sister Laura, adventurous tree climbing, laughter-filled play-fighting, pretending to be wolves, and some sort of thicket.
Stiles makes fun of Derek for using the word thicket. Who even says that? He giggles, but his hand traces the raised tissue and he thinks of how different both of their lives were when they were young and each had a mother to bandage hurt and kiss it better.
Derek has other scars, of course. And Stiles touches those too. They do not hold the same reverence or comfort as The Scar, but they are a part of Derek just the same, and so Stiles knows those stories just as well.
There are the burns on his left forearm and shoulder that have been graphed and repaired but the strange-texture flesh--along with the smell of smoke and sound of screaming children--remain. Only Derek and Laura escaped the house, and neither one of them unmarred. It took two years and thousands of touches before Derek stopped flinching slightly each time Stiles hands caress those marks. He talks about it now, sometimes, just small memories, once two painful, now shared between them on quiet mornings walking Scott through the woods.
There are the thin, barely noticeable lines that interrupt the smooth expanse of skin on the inside of Derek’s right wrist. Self-inflicted, misguided attempts at comfort--just deep enough to numb rather than harm--etched into him after Laura was murdered in a robbery gone awry Derek’s freshman year of college. Stiles hands shook the first time his curious fingers glanced over the delicate dots and dashes of this tragedy.
Derek’s nose has a slight indent on the left side from a break suffered in basic training. There is a small grouping of scar on his right pectoral that Stiles knows came from an incident during Derek’s Marine Corps Special Forces Training. Stiles doesn’t know exactly what. It’s not an emotional secret, but a military one and Stiles knows which battles to fight and which to leave alone.
There are two healed over bullet holes in Derek’s abdomen and one mid thigh. Stiles marvels at how so much mental and physical damage could leave behind such a small physical remembrance--imperfect circles only two fingertips wide. It does not seem like enough, but it tells Stiles all that he needs to know.
Even harder to discern with a light touch are the indented marks left in Derek’s right hand where Scott’s canines pierced Derek’s skin the night that Stiles woke Derek from a deep nightmare sometime in between his first tour in Iraq and his second tour in Afghanistan. Derek pinned Stiles and shook him with such force and that it not been for Scott’s painful and bloody interruption, Derek fears he may have left scars of his own on Stiles.
There were doctors and counselors and too much alcohol. There was yelling and tears and Derek moves out to words like PTSD, broken, and to keep you safe. When Derek leaves for Afghanistan, Stile is not sure that he will ever see him again.
But, he does. And as he re-reads Derek’s body in the dark there are a scattering of shrapnel wounds on his calves and a small imperfection added to his upper lip. He returns to Stiles apartment with a regular weekly appointment to speak with Dr. Deaton on his calendar and words whispered through slightly clenched teeth, telling Stiles about each and every scar, giving some wounds real words for the very first time.
Stiles sees Derek, even if he is will never be able to see him. Stiles listens. Stiles soothes with his fingertips against those scars. Stiles reads all of the stories written in his skin--like he is researching the depths of Derek’s soul--and when Derek is ready to talk, Stiles hears.
When Derek finishes his final tour in Afghanistan, Stiles takes an adjunct professor position at Berkeley so that Derek can work on restoring his old family home in nearby Beacon Hills. The fire left little, but there is enough for a new start. Derek has decided that it is time to remember rather than fight everyday to forget. He is tired of fighting.
One night Derek comes home with a bandage across his neck, over The Scar. Stiles fingers worry the edges of the tape until the ends fray. Derek tells him a piece of decaying ceiling plaster gave way on top of him and he ended up needing stitches. Stop touching it, Stiles.
Weeks pass. Derek finishes painting the first story and starts to drywall the second. Stiles travels with Scott to give a lecture at Columbia University. When he returns, Derek has him pinned against the door before he can even get all the way through it. He nuzzles into Stiles neck as he fumbles with his fly--stripping clothes and licking skin. Stiles. Stiles. Stiles.
Stiles fondles and pulls at Derek with equal enthusiasm while Scott huffs, trotting through the house as far away from them as he can get, unmanned leash dragging behind him.
They hit the floor, clothes scattered. Stiles crawls on top of Derek, caressing and exploring until he wraps his hands around Derek's neck and kisses him. His fingers move to the scar-- towards the back, just at the curve-- like turning onto the road to home. But, something is different. Traveling along the scar are new marks, still healing but starting to raise and harden--dots of the braille carved expertly into Derek’s skin that spell out Stiles name. Not “Stiles,” but his real name. The one that Derek can’t even pronounce (and Stiles made him promise to stop attempting).
Stiles stops breathing. There it is, right under his fingertips--a chapter of himself clearly printed into Derek’s skin.
“Derek...wha---” And Derek is kissing him. Stiles holds on, smiling against his lips.