Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/807680. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Teen_Wolf_(TV) Relationship: Derek_Hale/Jackson_Whittemore Character: Derek_Hale, Jackson_Whittemore Additional Tags: Consent_Issues, Humiliation, Felching, Biting, Oral_Sex, Anal_Sex, Possessive_Behavior, Fear_Play Stats: Published: 2013-05-19 Words: 6561 ****** A flood of blood to the heart (and the fear slipstreams) ****** by queerly_it_is Summary The thing about Jackson is that more than anything else, he’s predictable. At least to Derek. Notes Written for the Teen Wolf Rair Pairings challenge on LiveJournal. This takes place after the scene with Derek and Jackson in the Season 1 finale, just after Derek becomes the Alpha and Jackson goes to him for the bite. It's some combination of Derek being high on power and Jackson being his usual self-destructive mess, so there's dub-con and power imbalance aspects there, if that sort of thing is not your cup of tea. Huge thanks to nightreveals for the writing battles that saw this fic through to its end, and to all the usual people who cheerlead me on twitter, and to itsathinline for the beta <3 See the end of the work for more notes The thing about Jackson is that more than anything else, he’s predictable. At least to Derek. He’s an addict, when it comes down to it. Addicted to his own self-destructive impulses, the fear that clings to him and worms its way through him, right to the rotten core where he’s so angry Derek can almost taste it. It’s a familiar picture; a sad little mirror Derek would rather break into pieces and be done with, turn Jackson out until he latches onto something else he’s deluded enough to think will ‘fix’ his life. But it’s not so simple now. Not now he has the scorch of an Alpha’s power running around inside his veins, streaming in his blood, a fire all its own. It’s ironic, but Peter got what he wanted in the end, even though he had to die for it. Because now Derek understands. So when Jackson shows up the night after he stood and watched Derek kill his uncle, watched him take away the slim chance Scott had of ever being cured, Derek isn’t surprised at all. Jackson stands uninvited in Derek’s house, reeking of fear and desperation strongly enough to wash out even the charred smell of the walls around him. His heart’s leaping against his chest, his breath’s stuttering and starting along with his words. And the part of Derek that’s glowing red like new embers, raw and searing hot, is enjoying it. He stands in shadows and looks down - so far down, teetering on the edge of the flat, blackened world - at the way Jackson can’t hide the trembling, breathes in the cloying smell of sweat on his skin and sees the want that’s twisted up like mangled rope across his brow. So predictable. “You got what you wanted,” Jackson tells him, taking credit for ‘saving’ Derek like he has any idea what he’s talking about. Like he ever has. “Now it’s my turn to get what I want.” And what can Derek say to that? Jackson stumbles back when Derek lands in front of him, scaling the length of the staircase in an easy leap purely for the startled-prey expression it puts on Jackson’s face. Because he knows he should run, knows he should scurry back to his safe little rich boy life where he’s a bully in a small pond. Where he can lash out at people who can’t see just how easy it would it be to break him. Where he’s safe. Derek smiles, because this is good isn’t it? There’s power humming under his skin, and the easy submission Jackson so plainly wants to show is a sweet note hanging in the air. “Please,” Jackson says, just like that, Derek moving closer until Jackson’s back hits the door. Derek flashes back to that moment in the school, when he’d been powerless and aimless, slowly choking on the Argent’s poison. And then again when he’d seen the marks he’d left behind, reminders of his claws in Jackson’s skin. How easily Jackson had shown his throat. When his hand closes around the side of Jackson’s neck, he can feel the buzzing vibration when he whimpers, the start of the shudder that ends somewhere near his feet. He closes the space left between them until he’s close enough to see the pulse chattering at the base of Jackson’s throat. “Why should I?” he asks, watches idly while Jackson’s brain struggles to take in the words over the roar of all that adrenaline. “Because,” Jackson starts, swallows loudly. “I—I helped you.” “Helped,” Derek says, smirking and letting his fingers press a little tighter, making dents in Jackson’s neck. “Past tense. Don’t exactly need you now, do I?” That’s not really true. He’s Alpha, but that will only go so far without a pack, without betas. But it’s pretty obvious Jackson isn’t going to run, even though he should, even though a big part of him probably wants to. There’s no reason Derek can’t enjoy this. A petulant frown starts to cross Jackson’s face, but it breaks and falls away when Derek grabs him by the shoulder and turns him, shoves him against the door. The marks - Derek’s marks - are still red and barely healed. They’ll fade eventually, even with whatever power accidently Derek pushed over to him, but there’ll be scars there eventually; tiny white lines he won’t ever be rid of. Through the hot, pinkish fog that sinks into Derek’s head at the sight of them, there’s the thought that it’snot enough. “How many times?” he says, pressing against Jackson’s back and breathing against the marks, gooseflesh springing up in his wake. “How many times do we have to end up like this before you learn?” He ducks his head until he knows Jackson can see him, a vague blur at the edge of his vision. “Before you learn your place?” He punctuates it with another shove, and Jackson twitches against him, makes a frightened sound. “There’s still no one here,” Derek says, keeping Jackson pinned with easy strength. “Still no one coming to save you from yourself. Because no one cares.” “I know!” Jackson shouts like it was stamped out of his chest. He chokes on a breath and says, “I know,” again, like a shattered echo. Derek eases up enough for Jackson to turn his head in profile, the tendons of his throat straining out harshly, the pale blue veins under his skin. “I’m not gonna be the first to start,” he says, taking a step back. The pleading look is still there when Jackson turns all the way around. “I need this,” he says, looks away, blinking hard then twitching back to staring at Derek again, uncontrolled and jerky like a puppet with its strings all tangled up. “I’ll do anything you want, okay? Just please I need—I need to be like you.” The worst part, Derek thinks, is that he really means that. “You’ve got nothing I want,” Derek drawls, enjoys knowing that it’s a lie and Jackson can’t tell, listens to the hammer of Jackson’s heartbeat. “Please,” Jackson says again, steps towards Derek like he’d been about to turn and walk away. In Jackson’s sad little view of things maybe he was. All it does is accentuate the difference in height between them, how easily Derek could throw Jackson like a ragdoll. Judging from the heavy bob of his Adam’s apple, Jackson knows it too. “One of these days,” Derek starts, “you’re gonna find someone with even less patience than me. And that’ll be the last stupid leap you ever take.” Whatever Jackson was going to say to that vanishes like thin smoke when Derek moves quickly and grabs him by the hair, pulls until Jackson rolls up onto the balls of his feet, a wince playing around the edges of his eyes. “D-Don’t,” Jackson stutters out, heartbeat skipping and kicking in time with his breath. “I’ll—” “You’ll what?” Derek asks like it’s a challenge, and honestly maybe it is. He’s curious to see just how far Jackson’s willing to let this go. How badly he really wants it. He needs to know what he’s working with, if his pack is going to begin with the mess of a boy in front of him. Judging from the way his eyes drop and then skip gradually back up, how he licks his lips and summons a daring glance into Derek’s face when his hand moves for Derek’s waistband, it looks like pretty badly. Offering himself up already, Derek thinks, and it echoes in his head like a war drum.  “I— I’m good at it,” Jackson says with only a tiny tremble in the words, and it sounds so earnest. He tugs on Jackson’s hair a little harder, watches the pinch at the corner of his eyes tighten. “So prove it,” he says, and lets go. He doesn’t push on Jackson’s head because he doesn’t have to, Jackson folds to his knees the second Derek gives him the chance, panting like he’s been running and tugging at Derek’s zipper with unsteady fingers. Derek doesn’t even know how long he’s been hard. Probably since Jackson showed up and Derek accepted he was going to be first one he turns. Maybe even longer than that; he’s been coasting on the high of power and avoiding sleep too long to be able to tell, every outside stimulus pressing against him, tugging at him. Either way, he hisses when Jackson pulls his jeans open enough to free his cock, the air feeling cold and Jackson’s breath colder still when it brushes over the wetness smeared across the head. Then it’s the slick heat of Jackson’s lips spreading around him, tight and sucking until half of Derek’s dick is in his mouth, his tongue rolling up the underside and working into the skin around the head. It’s practiced in an obvious sort of way, so Derek pushes harder, past the point of resistance until he feels Jackson choke even though he’s trying so obviously not to, tipping his head to open his throat like instinct. He almost wants to ask how many times Jackson’s done this, if he’s been sucking off jocks in the locker room or if he trades his mouth for coke like a prep school cliché. Mostly he just wants to ask because Jackson can’t answer with a mouth full of cock and it’ll just frustrate him more, wear his prissy, haughty mask even thinner. Instead he pulls his hips back, just enough for Jackson to swallow once, his blinking harsh and rapid, then drives forward until the wet O of Jackson’s lips meets the curls of hair around the base. He makes a rough noise, covering the choppy, slick sucking one that Jackson makes as he tries to cover his teeth and hollow his cheeks, his hands rolling into fists against his legs. Derek doesn’t grip his face or pull his hair, even though Jackson’s probably expecting it, just drags his hips back and watches Jackson’s lips slide along the length of him, until the flare of the head is between them, then shoves forward in a slick push until Jackson’s swallowing and taking choppy breaths through his nose. The room is full of the sounds of it, the slippery noises breaking out of the vacuum of Jackson’s mouth, the slight drag of Derek’s feet on the floor when he leans his weight forwards again. The sharp clicks of Jackson’s throat while he swallows down precome and spit, panting like a trapped animal. And always the rabid clatter of his heartbeat, slapping dull and hollow and human against his ribcage. When fat tears start to roll down Jackson’s face, Derek watches them like he’s proving a point. Jackson’s eyes have dropped to somewhere around Derek’s chest, the swell of his throat just visible when Derek fucks deeper into his mouth, a tiny crease getting deeper between his eyebrows. Derek thinks it’s probably the ruin of his disaffected, by rote movements that’s pissing him off, pulls his dick free with a grunt and a wet pop, smears the head across Jackson’s mouth, from one side to the other and back again. He presses back at the tacky-wet part between his lips, and Jackson sucks him back down as the flush on his face spreads down his neck. It’s a pretty sight, Derek has to admit, his precome all over Jackson’s lips, the spread of them turning bloodless at the corners and the shine of drool running over his chin. He fucks in harsher, in sharp weightful jabs of his hips, more tears trailing through the drying tracks from the corners of Jackson’s eyes. There’s tightness building and clenching in Derek’s balls now, pulling them up against his body as Jackson sucks and slurps around him, the small groans he can’t help carrying loud in the noiseless room. Derek thinks he’s probably hard, would bet he has been since Derek broke him open a little. He seems the type to get off on being frustrated out of his own control. Heat’s pooling in Derek’s hips, a slight tremble in his thighs. He speeds up again, keeps his eyes on Jackson’s face as he swallows around Derek’s cock. Finally something snaps like a rubber band pulling against his spine, and he comes with his dick crammed into the back of Jackson’s throat, feels more than sees him splutter around the pulses of come that have nowhere to go. There are veins standing out in relief along Jackson’s throat and at his temples, his face is a wet and red smear of tears and spit and precome, but he’s looking right back at Derek through the black voids of his pupils where they’ve eaten away almost all the blue. Derek’s cock slips out from between his lips, wetness sending a chill along his skin, and one last jerk paints white over Jackson’s lower lip. He uses a thumb to smudge it, a slick film over Jackson’s chin that smells purely like Derek. Another mark. Jackson’s knuckles are bloodless and his fists are pressing down hard into his thighs, his breathing harsh and ragged. He stumbles to his feet when Derek rolls his eyes and pulls him up with a hand on his arm, and Derek can see where he’s tenting out his pants, can smell where he’s wet and full of blood, the echo of his pulse between his thighs. “Should’ve known that’d do something for you,” Derek says with a dry throat, and Jackson’s jaw tightens in a way that has to hurt or ache. But then maybe he likes that too. “Now will you—” he starts, his voice a shredded mess out of his fucked-out throat, and Derek smiles when he has to stop and give a badly-suppressed little cough. Trying so hard to look composed, even now, doing his best to tug the mask back on. Derek’ll just have to try harder. “You thought it was gonna be that easy, huh?” he asks. “You just show up and buy your way into this with your mouth? Like this is some back alley thing you can weasel out of with daddy’s help when it’s all too much?” Jackson flinches just a little, but his face holds onto that bitter and empty look that Derek thinks is always buried just half an inch under his expression, lurking there like the skull underneath his skin and muscle. “Look, what d’you want?” he asks, shrugging like his shoulders are weighted. “I can—” He sighs and it breaks apart like rotten wood. When he looks Derek in the eye the emptiness is all right there, the artifice flayed open right down to the empty skull, staring Derek in the face with its beggar’s grin. It’s nothing Derek didn’t already know. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, too many times. | | There’s not a lot in the way of furniture in Derek’s living room, or in the whole house combined. He’d dragged the couch inside after he’d found it dumped on the edge of the preserve. Somehow that makes it fitting that it’s what he presses Jackson down against the first time he fucks him. Ill-fitting and unwanted. How’s that for a theme? He’s got Jackson bent over the back of the thing, his pants bunched in a messy knot around his knees while Derek twists his fingers inside of him, spreads them wider and wider, taps and scrapes against the place that makes him squirm and curse. There’s not exactly a lot of lube, just what Derek had in a duffel that’s been slumped against the stairs for weeks now. Not that Jackson seems to care, he’s all twitching muscle, hands splayed on the seat, clenching in the fabric of the shirt that he’d pulled off so fast two buttons had rolled across the floor and slipped between the boards. Derek watches where his fingers are working Jackson open, the stretch of his hole as he uses his free hand to hold the tight swell of his cheeks apart. He could say it was surprise that welled up in him when Jackson gave it up so easily, but he’d be lying to himself. It’s dull irritation and heat, mixed with a mocking kind of enjoyment that makes his eyes flash red when he focuses on it. Jackson whimpers, fingers twitching fitfully and hips shuddering. The back edge of the couch is probably scraping hard against his dick, hard as he is from Derek shoving his fingers in him, probably leaking on the fabric. He pushes in as deep as he can, spreads the curl of three fingers until Jackson’s legs jerk like his knees are on the edge of buckling, and then rolls smoothly to his feet. The blunt head of his dick presses between Jackson’s cheeks, smears precome where he’s slick with lube and swollen hot, spreads whatever’s on his fingers down his shaft. He rakes his nails down Jackson’s back as he pushes in, a heavy push that spreads Jackson wide around his cock until his hips meet Jackson’s ass, blunt nails turning sharp as they reach the small of his back, faint pink lines becoming red cuts and Jackson moaning, fragmented and helpless. “There,” Derek breathes through teeth that want to shape into fangs so badly his head’s aching with it. “See? Knew you could take it.” His hands slip down to Jackson’s hips and squeeze, fingers pressing until he knows there’ll be bruises. Wonders what that much pressure must feel like, Derek’s hands gripping from outside and his dick shoved inside, stuffing Jackson full. Jackson’s almost painfully tight, gripping and clenching like his body is stuck between pulling Derek in and pushing him out. He leans his weight forward, drives the air from Jackson’s body as he does in a long, low noise that’s ironically inhuman sounding. He leans over until his chest is flat to Jackson’s back, the tops of his thighs to the undersides of Jackson’s, their knees not quite fitting. He sets his teeth into the curve where Jackson’s neck meets his shoulder, and rolls his hips slowly, deliberately. It’s a dizzying grip around his cock, lightning-quick gashes of hot pleasure that splash up against his nerves and make him groan, move his mouth higher on Jackson’s neck and suck as hard as he can. Under him, Jackson is shuddery and slick with sweat, making tight, high sounds from the back of his throat and biting at his mouth. Derek smells the coppery tang of blood where his teeth have worn through the skin of his lower lip, and he almost shifts then and there. Derek knows Jackson’s been hard as stone since he got on his knees and sucked Derek off like his life depended on it, and he hasn’t even gone slightly soft now. He works a hand between Jackson’s body and the couch, feels the hot, hard line of his dick, the sticky-wet head where he’s been drooling precome for who knows how long. He pulls back and grinds forwards, and the motion pushes Jackson’s dick into the waiting tunnel of Derek’s fingers, more wetness spilling out between his knuckles and Jackson’s ass gripping down on his dick again. It’s a jarringly hard pace, Derek’s hips dragging back and then snapping up against Jackson’s, feeling Jackson’s hole give to the pressure of his cock over and over, slippery and tight and perfect. And each thrust drags the head of Jackson’s dick against the spanned-out ridges of Derek’s fingers, the loose grip he forms around the hot-iron shaft. The faster he moves, the harder he fucks, the more Jackson can’t stop the punched-out little noises from slipping past his lips. He’s mewling with every stabbing shove of Derek’s cock, grunting over and over, his sweaty palms almost shredding the shirt that’s tangled on the seat. “You’re so close,” Derek says into the side of Jackson’s neck. “So close to falling apart with a dick in you – mydick in you.” He shoves in harder, grinds his hips almost cruelly into the swell of Jackson’s ass. “I can smell it; how used you are; like it’s all you’re good for.” The slap of skin’s so loud he’s surprised he can’t feel it in his feet, Jackson’s legs trapped in the bunched- up confines of his pants around his knees like rope. “You’re so wet, Jackson,” he grunts, scrapes his teeth up to Jackson’s ear. “Wet like a girl.” Jackson makes a pathetic, broken whine, and then there’s come pulsing out against Derek’s fingers, his ass clenching over and over around Derek’s cock as he comes. Derek fucks him through it, brutally hard until he feels it in his bones, aching in his hips and his legs and lancing fire up his back. When the swell of his orgasm hits him in the chest like a hammer, he pulls out as the first few pulses streak up and soak Jackson deep inside, another falling across his ass like a lash, and then over the small of his back, Derek nearly bent at the waist from the aftershocks. He slides his fingers through the come on Jackson’s back, follows the wavering lines of claw marks up to between his shoulder blades, rubs it in as Jackson hisses and jerks under the sting of it. “You’ll get used to it,” Derek tells him, feels Jackson’s shaky exhale under his hands as he presses down his back to the dimples above his ass, back up to the bruises around his throat. On a whim he drops to his knees again, pulls Jackson’s cheeks apart and ignores the questioning half-word Jackson manages before Derek gets his thumbs either side of Jackson’s hole and tugs. “Shit,” Jackson hisses, and Derek laughs a little to himself, watches the abused, swollen muscle of his ass open to the air and let out more of Derek’s come. He leans in and runs his tongue along the tight skin between Jackson’s hole and his balls, pushes his come back inside and then works his tongue in and curls it. Jackson jerks like he’s been electrocuted, and Derek hums into the wet cling of his body, tastes himself there alongside the cloying, artificial taste of lube. The flat of his tongue runs up to the jut of Jackson’s tailbone, over the deepest points of the claw marks where his skin gives way to blood and more of Derek’s come. As the Alpha red spreads across his eyes again, he starts to think it won’t everbe enough. | | Once he’s reigned in his breathing, Derek practically hauls Jackson up and into one of slightly less ruined rooms at the back of the house, where there’s still a pile of blankets heaped onto a ratty mattress. He’d been sleeping there before he’d fixed enough of the upstairs floor, and just never got around to moving any of it. It’ll do for now, until Jackson’s... what? Ready? Until he feels like pack enough for Derek to let him move around the house? Until Derek feels like he trusts him? Is that ever going to happen, really? Jackson takes stumbling, uneven steps, Derek’s hand on the back of his neck with a thumb pressed tight to a purpling bruise in the shape of his mouth. He shoots a few guarded, edgy looks at Derek out from the corners of his eyes that Derek ignores. He isn’t talking, not yet, but it takes just the barest push for him to fall to his knees and onto the blankets, the thin mattress cratering with his weight. He’s looking up at Derek, not quite wary, just… waiting. Maybe he’s learning after all. Or maybe Derek’s just outpaced whatever horror trope ideas he’d stuffed his head with before he came over. There’s tacky tear residue around his eyes, flaking come around his mouth and on his chin, but his shoulders are loose and his hands are just resting on his thighs. He smells hot and wet and fucked, and it’s already sending heat up from the base of Derek’s spine again. “Are you gonna do it now?” he asks, and Derek’s almost, almostimpressed that he let himself voice the question, even if it comes out hoarse and just above the threshold of a whisper, even if his heartbeat’s picking up speed again. He swallows, and Derek wonders just how sharp the bruised ache at the back of his throat is, how much his mouth still tastes like Derek’s come. Jackson’s lashes flicker down against his cheeks when Derek grips him by the hair, the move turned familiar and easy already. It’s cheap domination, obedience that’s barely paid for and that’ll probably wear off once Jackson pulls himself together enough for his pissy attitude to bob back to the surface. The Alpha part of Derek really doesn’t care, though. “Soon,” is all he ends up saying, something dismissive but still reassuring in whatever tone the word rides out on. Something pathetically close to gratitude staggers loosely across Jackson’s face. “Soon,” he says again, turns his fingers to press blunt nails to Jackson’s scalp. His fingers slide out of Jackson’s hair, down across his temple where his pulse is flickering away like an old bulb, over the apple of his cheek and stopping at his mouth, playing lightly against where he’d bitten through his lip. It has to hurt, or sting at least, but Jackson’s lips part around Derek’s fingers just the same, a roll of his tongue and gentle suckling pressure with his eyes fixed to Derek’s face. Looking for approval. Derek hums, feels himself smirk when he pushes his fingers to the second knuckle and Jackson’s eyes flutter at the corners, his chest shuddering a little. “Good,” he murmurs, almost absently enough to be an accident. He watches the pink flush rise on Jackson’s cheeks. So desperate to please. So ready to break. | | The second time Derek fucks him, it’s like Jackson’s drugged. He’s loose and pliant, edged in hungry need like a starving animal, his eyes just barely meeting Derek’s in the dimness, there and gone again like sparks falling to the floor. Derek’s got him leaning back on his haunches, riding his dick in uneven, jagged motions of his body, that puppetesque jerk back again, like his strings are being tugged vertically by a careless drunk. Three of Derek’s fingers are between his lips now, playing with the slickness of his tongue, fucking his mouth, lips hot and puffy around his knuckles. “C’mon, Jackson,” he drawls, goading, mocking, because that’s how you motivate Jackson, he knows that now. “You can do better than that can’t you?” He slows the upward pushing of his hips to a painfully slow crawl. Against the pads of his fingers he can feel the breaths Jackson wants to take, the flutter of his tongue like letters he can’t string into actual words. “You like people watching you, don’t you?” Derek asks, playing at casual while shoving up once, hard, to feel the buzz of Jackson’s whimper against his fingers. “Like showing off?” Another thrust, another whine from Jackson’s blue-red-purple warzone of a throat, almost collared by Derek’s bruises now.  “I promise I’m paying attention.” Jackson’s thighs are shaking, probably burning with the effort. Derek uses his other free hand to grip Jackson by the hip, fits his fingers to the claw marks and brand-hot scratches, pulls him down and then lifts him again. There’s sweat running down Jackson’s chest, his nipples tight and still red, sore, Derek watching where his cock’s pushing up inside him and then dragging out again when Jackson raises up on trembling knees. Derek’s not surprised when Jackson’s dick twitches and starts to fill, the skin flushing and tightening, getting closer to being hard against his belly. Or when Jackson’s face turns an even darker pink once he notices. Wanting so badly and hating himself for showing it. “Can’t help it can you?” he asks, his voice a little on the rough side of controlled now, abs flexing as he works his cock into Jackson’s body, aiming for that spot in him that’ll probably get him coming again. Derek spreads his fingers inside Jackson’s mouth, widens his grip on the skin of his hip, pushes him up when Jackson lifts then lets him drop down again, feels him shudder on the inside as well as the outside. Maybe he should’ve kept him on his back, worked his fingers in alongside his cock. Jackson’s eyes are glassy and unfocused; his hair’s dark with the sweat that’s running down his forehead and along the curve of his jaw. Derek’s gritting his teeth and curling his toes, tightness in his spine that’s spreading out into every joint and every muscle. But he’s not loosing the grip on his own orgasm until he sees Jackson lose it first, until he makes him come all over himself again, one more reminder of how he was meantto take it. It doesn’t take long. Derek can feel him fluttering and clenching around his dick, the wet slap of his hips down onto Derek’s body. Jackson’s cock is hard and leaking now, clear beads of precome rolling down towards where Derek has him split open, still wet and sticky, used. Derek’s hand tightens on his hip until Jackson makes a broken noise around the fingers that’re just pressing against his tongue, his mouth slack and uncoordinated, drool spilling down one side and down to his chin. He pulls Jackson deeper onto him and fucks upward at the same time, and Jackson makes a thready, harsh cry as his cock jerks and a few thin pulses streak up the ruddy skin of his chest, drip down to his hips and the blankets under him. The squeezing pull drags Derek over the edge with a choked and shuddering groan, and he feels himself swell and pulse into the heat of Jackson’s body, the come that’s pushed out around the shape of him running down to the mattress. His fingers pull free of Jackson’s mouth and his hand presses against his chest, smearing spit and come over the swells of muscle. He scores fresh lines into Jackson’s hip that from crimson trails down onto his thigh. The room is loud with heavy breathing, stinks of sweat and sex. Jackson’s eyes roll down from where they’d spun up into his head, blinking dazed and useless, and Derek pulls out of him, lets him fall to the mattress as he rolls up until he’s sitting on the edge with his feet flat to the floorboards. He looks down at Jackson where he’s dragging in air like he’d been drowning, his mouth bright red and the soft pink of his tongue, come on his chest and the muscles in his legs twitching. He listens to the frantic gunshots of his heart slowing down again. Derek doesn’t think he’d notice right then if a train slammed through the side of the house and turned him into a gory smear. “Good boy,” he lets himself say, watches Jackson’s face. He gets just the barest flicker of an expression, Jackson still coming back to himself, surfacing slowly. Not much point giving him the bite when he’s barely conscious, Derek thinks, and heads for the kitchen to suck down whatever water he can get out of the unreliable faucet, leaves Jackson to piece himself back together. | | In the end it doesn’t feel so much like keeping a promise, or sticking to an agreement. It’s not even the basic need and want of the Alpha for a pack that’s growing up through him like thorny vines around a tree.  If it’s anything, it’s pressing a knife against unblemished skin, tighter and tighter, just waiting for the sting. Waiting for the blood to run free. The house is quiet, muffled in the night that’s wrapped around it. The air reeks of sweat and come almost as much as Jackson or Derek, standing in the shadow of the foyer like they’ve come full circle. Jackson’s gone tight with anticipation, hands clenching at his sides. He’s a mess of bruises and scratches, still wet between his legs and sticky-chested where Derek hadn’t let him clean up. He’s not really expecting Jackson to stick around once this part is over, not with how far he’s been pushed already. Once the shock and raw newness of everything has its chance to dull, his pride will rear up again and drive him off, like running away is the same thing as having control. It doesn’t matter. He’ll be back before too long. The bite will make sure of that. And then Derek will teach him. He reaches out and grips Jackson by the jaw, tilts his head back until the slick and bitten softness of his mouth and the wetness of his eyes catches in the thin, gray light. Jackson swallows, and Derek watches his throat bob, the sharp jut that sinks like a pale stone into the dark water around his neck and collarbones, surfacing again. Like a lure, he thinks with a snort. He knows he’s going to do it, has known it from the minute Jackson slipped into his house stinking like fear and aggressive need, but the preyful little twitch of Jackson’s eyes makes it better, somehow. Because this is the way it’s supposed to be. This is how he should look, how an Alpha shouldmake him look. “Say it,” Derek whispers like the eerie white noise of an ocean in the dark, not even knowing what he wants to hear. A cracked “Please,” pries Jackson’s lips further apart. It’s turning into a watchword. Another swallow, shuddering against Derek’s fingers. “I’ll—anything, okay, you know that. I want—I want to be like you, to be yours.” Derek’s teeth press tight together, fire spreading through his gums into his jaw. “You already are,” he says, holds Jackson’s eyes as effortlessly as his fingers hold his head back to bare his throat. His teeth pull down into razor points, lips tugging into a smile without the humour, and he lets his fingers press new bruises into Jackson’s jaw. He sees Jackson’s mouth go to form another plea, but Derek drives him back until he hits the wall with a thump, the whites of his eyes getting wider. Derek holds him there as he shifts, lets him feel the pinprick sharpness of his claws pressing into his neck, the sharp creak and snap of his bones changing and his skin sprouting coarse fur, until he’s standing – looming – over Jackson where he’s panting and pushing against the wall like he’s trying to be smaller. The snarl Derek lets out rips the air. Jackson whimpers and clenches his eyes shut, and Derek decides just then not to bite him on the throat. Why should he, when Jackson’s throat is covered in marks already? His teeth meet the pale, soft skin on Jackson’s hip, and it feels like exactly what he should do, feels right as Jackson whines high and broken and his body opens to Derek again, in a new way that tastes hot and metallic and alive. He can’t see it, but he knows his eyes are red, glowing like fire set to Jackson’s blood. He growls and Jackson makes another sound, a trapped and desperate sound, his feet kicking uselessly against the floorboards. And like a hook catching and a line pulling taut, Derek can feelthe bite changing him, spreading out into every vein and cell, thin strands anchored to his bones that will only get thicker and stronger. He ownsJackson in that moment, more than he did when Jackson was kneeling for him or when Derek’s dick was shoved up inside him, more than anyone will ever get inside him. The connection is thready and raw, exposed like a nerve, but Derek tugs at it inside his head and feels the full-body jerk Jackson gives up. He smiles with Jackson’s flesh between his teeth. When he finally lets go, Jackson smells of blood and hot tears, of pain and fear that’s already ebbing away. But more than that he smells like the shift, and overwhelmingly of Derek. He smells like he belongsto Derek. Derek stands with his shoulders back and roars loud and rumbling with Jackson’s blood on his teeth and his tongue, in his throat, and Jackson stares back at him, pushed over the edge of fear and adrenaline, shoved finally into something morethat Derek will mould him into, empty potential for the gift Derek will make him earn. He moves almost right against Jackson again, looks down into his blown-apart pupils and the bright tracks of moisture running down his face until they meet the bruises on his neck. Jackson’s breathing is fast and ragged. Down between them, his cock is hard and angry-looking. Jackson startles when Derek pushes hard against him, like he’s been electrocuted back to life. He’s a wreck, and Derek can’t look away, even when Jackson tilts his head to bare his neck again like he can’t help himself. Derek licks slowly up his throat, from the hollow at the base to behind his ear, breathing in and smearing Jackson’s blood over Derek’s bruises. “Good boy,” he says like a taunt right into Jackson’s ear, follows it with a hard scrape of teeth to the edge of his jaw. Jackson shudders right down to his feet. He’s still hard, and his face is getting hotter until the salt of his drying tears. Derek idly wonders how close to coming he is right then, if there’s even anything left for him to shoot, or if he’ll come dry and sobbing, twitching hard and empty. | | Jackson doesn’t come dry, not quite. Derek takes his wrists in one hand and holds them up against a wall, pins him chest-first against it, his body molded to Jackson’s back, his dick riding the crack of Jackson’s ass as Jackson’s rubs harshly against the wall, Derek grinding against him. He grips Jackson’s cock and twists his fingers up to the head, claws pressing just lightly enough to make Jackson shiver against him. He’s pushing his hips out, back into Derek’s crotch, and Derek knows he could slip inside him again, fill him up and come inside him, stretch him wide. Knows Jackson would take the pain and the ache and like it. But now he’s more interested in coming against the small of Jackson’s back, the head of his dick pressing up through the clench of his cheeks and into the groove of his spine. Marking Jackson is almost too easy, and it’s a rush like the air’s been thinned out, his blood boiling. He puts his teeth in Jackson’s neck, not breaking the skin but effortlessly holding him still, one sharp jab of his hips, then another, and then he’s groaning as he comes onto Jackson’s skin. A brief splash of wet slicks over his fingers almost at the same time, and Jackson’s forehead slumps forward against the wall, breathing hard and fast again. Derek’s nose fits into the hollow behind Jackson’s ear. “Mine,” he mutters, breathing against Jackson’s skin, fingers still tight around his wrists. His scent’s already changing, getting closer to something like pack. “Y-Yours,” Jackson says, wide-eyed and new, everything suddenly so new. Outside, the sun is rising. End Notes Title from Alt-J's "Bloodflood" Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!