This is a soulmate au where you start to see color when you meet your soulmate.
The time is what confuses Derek the most. He’s known Stiles for years, but only today did Derek notice the weird thing happening to Stiles face. At first he didn’t know what it was, he went to Deaton worried that his eyes were messing up. The man laughed at him and told him he was probably experiencing the coloration that happens when you meet your soulmate.
That… that confused Derek. Because he never thought this would happen to him. He lost everything, his family, his friends, his pack, the last thing he expected was to find his soulmate. Yet there he was, sitting with Scott’s pack smiling at the girl he brought like she hung the fucking moon, a spattering of color shifting on his face.
Derek has known Stiles for years and just now he’s doing this to Derek. Derek decides to do nothing about it. Stiles obviously wasn’t seeing what was seeing, so Derek should just leave him alone. What’s one more thing he’s lost before he even had a chance to have.
Slowly Derek’s world gets filled in like a paint by number. He loves blue and orange, he hates yellow though, and the brown color of Stiles eyes is the most unreal thing in the world. He’s sad to see most of his wardrobe is black, and goes to buy a some color for it, but keeps it in the dark tones so no one will figure out that he sees the world in a whole new way. Stiles wears a lot of bright colors, and Derek wonders how he knows what he’s putting on, and how nothing clashes spectacularly compared to some of the other people he sees in town.
The thing is, now that Derek knows Stiles is the epicenter of his new sight, it’s like he sees him in a whole new way too. The things he did in while he was in high school that he found absolutely unbearable make butterflies bud in his stomach now. The way he laughs with his whole body is memorizing thing.
Derek always feels jealous when he looks to the girl who seems to hang around a little to much with him. She makes Sitles laugh and smile, and Derek hates it. But there is nothing he can do but keep his distance and fall completely in love with him.
Eventually, Derek gets tired of seeing himself in black and grey, so he goes out and buys an orange and blue stripped shirt that looks ridiculous. Derek loves it though, and if anything he’s learned these past few years is how to love himself enough to indulge in one stupid t-shirt.
He only wears it around the loft. It’s soft and comfortable and just wearing it makes Derek feel happier. The shirt makes him feel safe and like he can actually be himself while lounging at home. No one stops by unannounced anymore so it’s easy to hide from everyone.
Until one day the loft door slams open.
“There’s a fucking hive of fairies in the forest and we have to go move them,” Stiles announces as he barges in on Derek reading a book on his couch, in his blue and orange striped shirt. Stiles stops a few feet away and huffs out a laugh, “nice shirt. You realize those colors don’t go together?”
Derek sets his book down on the coffee table, “shut up Stiles, I like these colors.
The two pause for a second, both seeming to process what the other just said.
“You can see color?” Stiles asks first, “since when?”
“A few months,” Derek answers, afraid that Stiles will put it all together in the way that Stiles does.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Stiles asks, his hands are on his hips like he’s really upset about the fact that Derek can now see colors.
“It’s no one’s business but mine,” Derek replies, very very nervous about this whole exchange.
“You know who your soulmate is?”
“Yes but I-” Derek gets cut off as Stiles closes the space between them and grabs the back of his head and pulls him in for a kiss.
Stiles licks into Derek’s mouth, and Derek cannot hold himself back and does the same until Derek decies to ask a question of his own.
“The day we saw you in the woods, my entire world exploded into color. I’ve known for years, but I knew you didn’t see it. Not yet. So I waited.”
“Heather? She’s my oldest friend, nothing for you to worry about sourwolf,” Stiles says, closing the space between them again.
Derek has seen many colors in the short period he has been able to see them, but his favorite is the color of pink Stiles lips get when they are kiss swollen.
He wants to pull Stiles down to the couch, and never let him go but it’s broken by Stiles saying, “as much as I want this to never stop, ever, we have fairies that need to be moved.” Derek huffs out a laugh and the two head out the door, Derek still wearing his blue and orange striped shirt.
