Thirteenth Night (or, IDEFK OK) (Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles)

The sea, cruel mistress it may be, spits men onto the shore like driftwood thrown upon the sand. Stiles falls among them, gasping and gagging, choking out the briny water that so shortly pressed upon his lungs. He grips the sodden sand in his hands as he stumbles forward on hands and knees til he’s free of the surf, wishing for another’s grip in his own. “Scott?” His gaze searches the shore but that familiar face, like a brother to him, is gone. “Scott?”

Captain Deaton shakes his head.

Hope refuses to die in Stiles’s heart. “Perchance he is not drowned.” He looks to the crew scattered around him. “What say you, sailors?”

“It is perchance that you yourself were saved,” Deaton says. He squeezes Stiles’s shoulder. “I last saw him clutching to the mast, drifting as the waves would carry him.”

“Then I hold hope he is saved.” Stiles looks across the shore. “What country is this?”

“This is Hale, lord.”

“Who governs here?”

“A noble duke, in nature as in name.”

“What is his name?”

“Derek.”