Chapter Text
in you the wars and the flights accumulated.
from you the wings of the song birds rose.
the song of despair, pablo neruda
A week without Will is not, actually, as much as a hardship as Derek had claimed it would be, back when he was clinging to Will's back in an effort to convince him to give him "five more minutes, please?" of what he is not ashamed to call cuddling. It was the Friday before spring break, and even though Derek had Fridays off for the semester he had postponed driving home until that afternoon under the guise of not wanting to drive home after a six o'clock class. In reality he was trying to crawl into bed with Will again, which was an act he was rather successful with, in all honestly.
Will, that fateful morning, had given him his most unimpressed look, the one that Derek was on the receiving end of so often that it didn't even faze him anymore. Much. It was half-past eight, and they'd had a rather busy night.
"Some of us have class," Will said, and Derek groaned, dramatically enough to earn a grin from the other. Will said, "Come on, we didn't go to sleep that late. Aren't you always going on about how it's 'quality, not quantity that matters'?"
"Poindexter," Derek said, seriously, "quoting me about essay length does not translate well to our sex life." He beamed at Will's flush, twisting further in the sheets so that it would be practically impossible to be thrown out of bed, like he'd been the week before when they were running really late for practice. They'd woken up a bit too frisky, he could admit that.
"I have to go to class," Will reminded him, pointedly ignoring the way Derek pouted at him.
"You have an hour," he said, "and it's like, a ten minute walk, tops. Come back to bed."
"Breakfast," Will said, pulling his jeans up and digging through one of Derek's drawers to borrow a shirt. Actually, it was also possible that it was his shirt, and that Derek had stolen it first. He wasn't quite sure he owned a button-up in that color.
"That'll take fifteen minutes?" Derek tried, and glanced at the clock. He'd been awake all of six.
"Okay," Will said, obviously ignoring everything about Derek (he would normally say, "Like always," but Derek is a romantic in every sense of the word and very enamored of the redhead, so), and then, "be right back," and ducking out of the room to presumably brush his teeth and get presentable for his last two classes of the week. Derek slumped in bed for approximately thirty seconds before deciding that convincing Will to lie down again was a lost cause, and that he could use them going to breakfast as an excuse to engage in PDA. Sometimes his ideas were great.
It was a quarter 'til by the time the two of them were presentable (not that, like, Derek managed to get an eager Will up against a wall or anything), and on their way to the dining halls. Derek was almost tempted to just go to class with Will, but he a) had no interest in stats and b) actually needed to pack, so he disappeared back to his dorm to do some last-minute cleaning before taking off. Will was done with class around noon, and Derek was on the road by one.
Break felt too short, if he were being honest. Mom and Mamá had asked him if he wanted to do Florida, so they spent a few days in Orlando before he drove back to school the Friday before classes. This time, he does drive at night, which earns him Mom's stink eye (which he is definitely not used to) and Mamá saying, "Introduce him to us sometime, yeah?"
In all honestly, (or, as Shitty would text, TBHHHH) Derek did not realize how much he missed Will until he got the text message "back at my place" that Saturday morning. It's not like they haven't been texting all week, and they've even got the floating pink hearts on Snapchat (Chowder finds it all very endearing, though Derek's lying if he says he doesn't, too). He's thrown off by the sudden uptick his heart goes through, flushing a little for no particular reason.
"You okay?" Bitty says, noticing his sudden discomfort, and Derek plays it off quickly, grins.
"Yeah," he says, "Dex just got in though, so," and begins to inch out of the kitchen.
"Of course!" Bitty says, and Derek almost misses the sly grin on his face, "Don't forget to come by later, I've gotta Anadama recipe y'all'll love."
"You mean Dex will love," Derek says, already halfway out of the hallway, and nearly misses Bitty shouting, "Exactly," after him as he rushes out of the Haus.
One of Will's roommates is there when Derek arrives, and lets him in with a nod towards Will's room in the back. Will hadn't been entirely sure how chill they'd be with Derek around, and in truth Derek had been a little nervous too, but neither of them turned out to care much, besides the standard "he can't start living us" spiel. In fact, one of them was now dating the same fake-redhead that had made fun of Derek's crush on and subsequent relationship with Will during the Fall semester.
"Thanks, man," Derek says, and very calmly (really, truly calmly) heads back to Will's room. He gives a quick half-knock before walking in, and finds Will unpacking all his freshly-laundered clothes. He feels his face heat up, suddenly hit with a wave of adrenalin, or oxytocin, or something else that makes his hands itch. Will looks up, and Derek doesn't know how to describe the way his face lights up when he realizes who's there.
"Hey," Will says, mouth curling into a smile, and Derek takes one, two, three steps forward to kiss him, face cupped in his palms. He feels Will's hand curl around his hips, the way he's smiling into the kiss, the way their noses press together like always. His heart is still racing.
"So you did miss me," Will says when they pull apart, and he's flushed like he usually gets when they kiss. Derek feels weak.
"Yeah," he says, completely honest, and Will's expression softens to something closer to how Derek feels in that moment, his lungs still constricting, and then he says, "I love you," stomach bottoming out the split-second after he says it.
Time stops. Derek swears it.
Will's still in his arms, though, still inches away from him, and one of his hands moves up to curl around the back of Derek's neck. He's staring—they both are, really, and the door's half-open behind Derek. But he can't look away from Will right now, he's so terrified; they're looking into each other's eyes like one of the many romance movies he'd binge-watched during rough breakups in high school.
Will says, "You love me?" like it's astounding, and Derek swallows, says, "Yeah, of course," and then Will hooks an arm over his neck to kiss him deeper this time, the two of the scrabbling at each other like they're afraid of disappearing. The door shuts with a bang against Derek's back, the two of them practically hurtling into it, and then they're both laughing into the kiss, hard enough that they have to stop. They're still wrapped up in one another though, Will tucked between Derek's legs, fingers gripping his waist, Derek framing his face with his hands and rubbing over his cheekbones with his thumbs. For a long moment they just breathe and look at each other.
"I love you too," Will finally says, and Derek ignores the way his eyes prickle to grin at him, the expression mirrored with a sense of relief he hadn't expected.
"Good," he says, and Will is still grinning when he leans in to kiss him again.