Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4961731.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Derek_Hale_&_Stiles_Stilinski, Derek_Hale/Other(s)
  Character:
      Derek_Hale, Laura_Hale, Stiles_Stilinski, Scott_McCall, Kate_Argent
  Additional Tags:
      Slash, Canon-Typical_Violence, Alternate_Universe_-_Canon_Divergence,
      Underage_Derek, promiscuous_derek, Derek-centric, Sad_Derek, Angst,
      Claiming, Pre-Slash, Consensual_Underage_Sex, Brief_But_Graphic
      Descriptions_of_ER_Trauma/Injury/Death, POV_Derek, Canonical_Character
      Death
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-10-09 Chapters: 6/6 Words: 17399
****** Decision ******
by verushka70
Summary
     Derek goes out to bars wishing he'd never been born and gives himself
     to almost anyone who wants to take him home. He wets his face in the
     sweat that runs down men's chests and doesn't shower after. Back
     home, the scents dare Laura to say something. She never does.
     Derek grabs her in a quick hug. "I'm fine," he murmurs, face tucked
     into her hair, scenting sister, pack, family, love. They both know
     it's not true. But she lets it go.
Notes
     This prequel to The_Devil_You_Know is Derek's POV after the fire, in
     New York with Laura, on return to Beacon Hills, on Scott and Stiles,
     and what led to The Devil You Know. AU because so is TDYK.
     You need not have read TDYK to read this or vice versa.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Expect Nothing *****
The failure of previous relationships to turn out like he'd hoped (let alone
their tendency to turn out disastrously) has taught Derek to have exactly zero
expectations from any encounter with anyone. From total strangers in checkout
lines at the store, to total strangers he fucks once (and only once), he
expects nothing good from people. It is never a mistake to expect nothing -- or
something bad -- from another person.
But though he is bitter beyond his human years, the wolf in Derek tries to
identify what he senses in others. What he thinks he senses. Repeatedly. In
Stiles. In ways he thinks Stiles himself might not realize.
Derek holds that hunch tight to his chest, a card he'll never show and never
play. He expects nothing. Receiving nothing is no hardship.
* * *
Derek has spent so long derailed from old naive dreams of the future -
- conjured when he was still a child with Paige, before the fire -- that he is
initially happy to fulfill Scott's and Stiles' worst expectations as a means to
an end. (Scott needs to be controlled until he can learn control himself.)
Derek has heard silence spread around him when he walks into a store. Whether
it's because he intimidates or because people remember the fire, he doesn't
care. He cultivates a semi-delinquent look. He hopes he's as scary as Scott and
Stiles expect him to be.
In the beginning he is harsher with Stiles than Scott when they grudgingly work
together. Scott does a lot of stupid stuff, afraid and overwhelmed. Whereas
Stiles is just mouthy and defiant. Whatever the reason for Stiles'
frustratingly ambiguous involuntary response to Derek's presence -- it smells
like fear but not quite, not entirely -- he openly questions Derek's judgment
and states intentions to throw him under the bus at the slightest opportunity.
But in the end it seems Scott does that more than Stiles does.
Over time Stiles proves to be less frail and more of a survivor than Derek
initially gave him credit for. Despite verbally and physically harshing on him
more than Scott, Derek finds himself tolerating Stiles' sarcasm and teasing.
(Scott is less verbally imaginative and not as funny anyway, though Derek would
never let on.) And although Derek is regularly rude, intimidating, and
physically threatening to Stiles, he thinks he gets slightly more (and growing)
good will from Stiles. He still doesn't trust either him or Scott, but the boys
become more than a means to an end. When Scott and Stiles actually help him
after he gets shot by Kate's special bullet, Derek figures it's because he
threatened them into it. Despite his brush with near-death, it's a great lesson
for them. It shows the Argents' true colors.
Stiles helps him while he's a fugitive (thanks to Scott) and maybe it's not
entirely because Derek scares him. He's pissed when Stiles slyly pimps his
half-naked body to a geek friend to get him to trace the text Scott didn't
send. The persuasion (or pimping) works and Danny traces the text, so Derek
can't fault the motive or execution. But while he stands there half naked,
trying on shirts that don't fit, Stiles' heart races. He repeatedly looks at
Derek, then quickly looks away whenever Derek catches him looking. Derek's
anger suddenly cools. A faint tendril of hope uncurls inside him.
It is for that more than anything that he bashes Stiles' face into the Jeep's
steering wheel. With the acidic scent of definite, unquestionable fear pouring
off Stiles, Derek crushes that slim thread in himself. Still he tries to
protect Stiles from Peter at the nursing home. He tells himself it's because no
more innocent people should die just for associating with him.
Stiles wears his emotions on his sleeve. Derek finds that directness a relief.
You know where you stand with Stiles, no guessing required (and pushing his
buttons is that much easier). His physiological response to Derek changes the
more the three of them are together. Derek notices that when he enters the
room, Stiles' pupils dilate. His heartbeat increases, his breath quickens.
Sometimes he hesitates before joining the boys. From out of sight, he waits and
watches a moment, opens all his senses. Scott can sense him if he wants, but
Stiles can't. Derek picks up Stiles' baseline heartbeat and breathing and his
warm skin scent with the underlying tang of sweat. When he finally enters and
Stiles sees him, Derek notes the contrast: faster, shallower breathing.
Speedier, staccato heartbeat. The suddenly richer scent. Slower blinks, longer
gazes, repeated lip-licking. His amber eyes follow Derek around.
Whether it's because Stiles finds Derek attractive or because he fears him,
it's gratifying. That's enough.
* * *
Expectations are not the same thing as the predictability of behavior and
personality traits.
Scott will always try to find non-lethal ways to resolve any current situation.
He'll always try to save the lives of not just the victims but the perpetrators
and he halfway keeps the sheriff in the loop. (As if human justice is the
ultimate consequence, which is just so much bullshit). He tries to always do
the right thing -- as if the road to hell isn't paved with good intentions.
But Derek has come to grudgingly accept that Scott's way is often less
reactionary. The benefit is slightly better planning, more bodies on their
side, and an unofficial contact in local law enforcement.
Despite his best intentions, though, sometimes Scott goes off half-cocked with
no plan at all and barely survives with a combination of luck, Stiles, and the
rest of his human pack. He's come dangerously close to getting them all killed
a couple of times. Stiles' tendency to rally everyone together, come up with
new information, and/or re-interpret existing information helps a lot. Derek
wonders if Scott realizes just how much.
Scott's way of handling things is better suited to peacekeeping and protection
than fighting and war. But he is the sheriff's son's best friend. The boyfriend
of the local werewolf hunter's daughter (which is insanely stupid). He's the
employee of the local emissary and the son of an experienced nurse who runs
interference at the local hospital. Scott is a very useful ally.
Stiles will always be Scott's loyal friend and always supports Scott in his
non-lethal solutions to problems. (He has occasionally seemed more open to
lethal solutions than Scott will ever be, though.) His ability and willingness
to lie convincingly and repeatedly under pressure is surprisingly reliable and
kind of admirable. He is annoying and spastic and scatterbrained, but somehow
he thinks on his feet really well. He's funny, sarcastic, and exasperating, too
-- and unaware of how attractive he is and how much more attractive he'll get.
When he first meets Stiles, Derek can tell the boy has already seen tragedy
despite his youth. It gives Stiles a darker edge than Scott will ever have. He
has a sympathetic vibe to which Derek responds without knowing why or what
exactly motivates it. Instinct, maybe. So he checks up on Stiles and learns of
his mother's death when Stiles was eight years old.
Despite losing his mother so young (so much younger), Stiles nevertheless
somehow maintains a mostly positive (if somewhat anxious) outlook. Derek
secretly envies this. Maybe Stiles was young enough for his mother's death to
make him resilient rather than withdrawn, to see possibilities rather than
pessimism. Or maybe it's because his dad had time to prepare him, knowing what
was coming. Or maybe it's just a matter of quantity: death vs. deaths, mother
vs. both parents, almost all siblings, entire family.
Despite his frailty or maybe because of his unrealized darker edge, Stiles'
reactions to supernatural situations are sometimes more shrewdly expedient than
Scott's in ways Derek can respect. Stiles is a survivor and he's very aware of
his human vulnerability. He often seems open (at least initially) to swift and
severe retaliation, though maybe he only seems open to it by contrast with
Scott's total refusal to go that route. Stiles' tendency to bring a trusted
baseball bat to dangerous encounters with supernatural beasts is "plucky human"
pathetic, stupid, and recklessly brave. Derek wishes he didn't admire it.
Being the son of the sheriff makes Stiles both an asset and a liability. Most
of the time it's an asset, like when Stiles gets inside information on
investigations, suspects, background checks. In other respects, it's a huge
liability (like how often Derek becomes the usual suspect). Though, again,
that's been mostly Scott's fault, the idiot.
Allison will never trust Derek which is fine with Derek because he will never,
ever trust her. She's an Argent, a female Argent, and a loose cannon teenage
girl. She can never be more than a temporary ally, "the enemy of my enemy," and
alliance with her can never be permanent. It must always be terminated at the
resolution of a problem and renegotiated for each new situation. Allison will
always support Scott's "we can save him/her/them!" agenda and will use her
hunter skills to do so. She is moderately badass as teenagers go. Her much more
badass hunter dad is occasionally more useful.
Barely trusting Scott's judgment of Allison is as far as Derek can go -
- uneasily and on a case by case basis. Most of the time he's sure it's a bad
idea. But if it turns out to be, Scott will ultimately be at fault, not him.
Derek is fine with that -- as long as he doesn't wind up dead. He knows Allison
would be happy about his death even if she isn't directly responsible, and he
never discounts the possibility that her anger at the loss of her mother and
aunt will bubble up and spill over again.
But Derek also knows that the Argents' anger and grief are a drop in the ocean
compared to his own rage and anguish. He'll always have that over them. It
makes him stronger than they'll ever be (though maybe also sometimes more
impulsive).
Lydia will always be the wild card of psychic unpredictability who nevertheless
plays some crucial role in discovering clues to the current big bad. She can be
relied upon to be unreliable up until the point she isn't. She's also
apparently the long time hopeless love interest of Stiles. In his cluelessness,
Stiles doesn't see that he'll never have a real shot with her (or that he's
better off for it). Lydia presents a useful distraction for Stiles. She ensures
he won't get too attached to anyone else.
***** New York, Part I *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The loss of his family, his entire pack, leaves a terrible void inside that
nothing, nothing, can fill. He faces each day hollow and empty, putting one
foot in front of the other like a zombie, dead inside. Laura watches him
closely as he shuffles through the days. They keep the TV on nonstop in the
motel because with its constant nattering, Derek doesn't have to think as much
and there is a continual distraction. Even if everything on it is utterly
trivial bullshit he can hardly stand without wanting to smash it to bits, it's
better than the silence of just the two of them and Derek's inability to say,
well, anything. He barely speaks to Laura. When they do talk, she is tired and
he is angry. He doesn't want to talk about any of it; he refuses.

But the obvious avoidance only makes the emptiness of their lives that much
more obvious. Derek can not talk about it but he also can't stop thinking about
it, about his role in everything, thinking about ...her. Her sick joy at
informing him that she -- he -- was responsible for his entire family's
decimation by fire. She was proud. Of course she was. Evil people are always
proud of the evil they do. He saw the crazed fanaticism in her eyes, a glint
that he'd previously mistaken for the mirror of his own passion and obsession
when her touch had him trembling and crying out again and again.  When she
leaves and he no longer has to hide every hint of vulnerability, Derek vomits
the bile and sickness roiling his stomach, vomits until he feels as hollow
physically as he does in every other way.

Laura takes him far away from Beacon Hills. Takes him somewhere insanely busy
and crammed full of more people than he's ever seen in one place in his life.
New York is always in motion, always loaded with crowds in which he and Laura
can anonymously blend in, hiding in plain sight. The city literally never
sleeps. The garbage is collected three times a week where they're staying in
mid-town until they find a more permanent place. It's amazing to Derek, even in
the midst of his chronic numbness that so many people create so much garbage
that it has to be collected three times a week. But it enrages him that he is
surrounded by so many stupid, silly people who have no idea how good they have
it. How lucky they are to still have parents and siblings they don't talk to
and never see.

Anger was always an ally before but now it is essential. It alternates with
numbness as his two constant companions. Between the two, Derek can't cry.
Laura can fake her way through the days, but he has never been good at
pretending he isn't feeling what he's actually feeling. And when he's not angry
at her for behaving with strangers like there's nothing wrong, he understands
her desire to keep their grief and loss utterly private. It's probably safer
that no one know the tragedy they've left behind since -- as far as Laura knows
-- it isn't clear if it was a tragic accident or intentional.

But anger and numbness make Derek incapable of even pretending he cares what
people think. He didn't exactly have great people skills before but now it's
impossible even to fake politeness. It takes weeks -- months, actually -- for
the fire and insurance investigations. He has to work. They need the money and
Laura thinks he needs to occupy his time anyway. Since Derek refuses to go back
to school and says he has learned all he needs to know (in ways he can never
reveal), Laura helps him get a series of low-paying, menial jobs. Bus boy.
Housekeeping. Pushing a broom or mop.

It should be a struggle to find a halfway decent wage slave job. He can barely
muster the common courtesy to apply and doesn't care if he doesn't get the job.
He gets hired despite himself -- despite his lack of experience, despite his
apathy, despite his attitude. Derek finds that, more often than not, the
increased heart rate of the person interviewing him -- usually women -
- indicates they find him attractive. No one ever makes a move on him, but he
keeps getting jobs despite poor or no references from previous jobs.

But it's only a matter of time before he gets fired from -- or quits -- each
job in turn. He always gets another, but within days or weeks he explodes at
someone and loses it in some way, for some reason or for no reason. Or
something makes him just walk off the job.

One of his housekeeping jobs is at a hospital. The pay is better and he doesn't
need the benefits but if he did, they tell him they're good. In the Emergency
Room he comes to clean up blood and vomit. At least as a werewolf he has a
strong stomach. Night after night he watches doctors and nurses pull people
back from the brink of death -- from cardiac arrests; from drug overdoses; from
attempted suicides; from gun shot wounds and stabbings and car accidents. Some
arrive in police custody.

Barely breathing blue junkies, the scent of death already clinging to them,
magically improve when their ODs are pharmaceutically reversed. Hearts are
defibrillated and a good rhythm comes back. Tubes are inserted and stomach
contents suctioned out. Chest tubes drain blood from collapsed lungs; traumas
are whisked up to surgery.

But not everyone is saved. The SIDS baby in rigor with lividity, face
permanently screwed up with colic, little fists tight beside her cheeks. The
twenty-something girl whose fatal asthma attack isn't stopped in time. The
toddler whose mother pushed him around in a baby buggy, dead, all afternoon
before her friends realized he wasn't breathing and called 911. His legs were
covered in half-healed burns when they uncovered him in the ER. The nice
gentleman who tripped, fell, and hit his head on a curb whose new seizures are
explained by the black blossom of a brain bleed on the CT scan. Those people
can not be snatched from the jaws of death.

Some of the people saved from 'circling the drain' (the nurses' words, not his,
although Derek grimly appreciates them) are just plain scumbags as far as he
can tell. Yet complete innocents are doomed to die. The pitiless arbitrariness
of who lives and who dies only further embitters him. The verbal abusiveness
and ungratefulness of some of the saved patients are just the icing on the
cake. It makes Derek resentfully wish he could trade them for his own lost
family. Why should these idiots live, while his entire family had to die? Why
do innocent people, many of them children, die -- when adult morons whose
injuries are their own fault and who should know better, get to live? It's
inexplicable and enraging. Derek is judge and jury and doesn't care how unfair
he's being. He would be executioner too, if only he could be -- if only he
could trade other lives for his family's.

One night two little boys, brothers, are dead on arrival from smoke inhalation.
They reek of burnt wood and soot but they're physically unblemished -- no
burns, no marks. They look angelic in their footed pajamas, like they're only
sleeping and might easily wake. But their bodies are limp and lifeless. The two
hyper masculine cops who first responded couldn't break down the door because
of the 2' x 4' used to "lock" it. They stand in the hall outside the boys' ER
room, tears streaming down their silent faces. The nurses tuck the dead
brothers side by side in a bed, awaiting the arrival of their father, the only
survivor. Derek walks off the job and never returns.  

* * *

In New York Derek learns the value of many things. Such as a pretty face. His
own pretty face.

When he's not working at (or losing) some shitty job, he can't stay home under
Laura's scrutiny. Eventually he will crack and Derek will not allow that to
happen. She can not know how the fire came about, can not know his role in it,
no matter how unwitting. Even if she couldn't possibly loathe him more than he
loathes himself, even if it eats him up inside, he absolutely will not unburden
himself and risk what love there is left in his life, the love of his only
remaining family member.

He leaves the apartment to avoid Laura and this is how he almost gets mugged
the first time. Little does the mugger know Derek has claws and fangs and can
easily defeat him. The guy runs screaming into the night, his face ripped open
and gushing blood like head wounds do. For the first time since the fire, Derek
smiles. He wanders around a few more hours, exhilarated in the aftermath of his
righteous self defense.

When he gets home, Laura's nostrils flare. "What happened?" she asks quietly.

"I almost got mugged," Derek says smugly.

"Almost?" she asks.

"Almost," he repeats.

She doesn't ask if the mugger survived and Derek goes to the bathroom to wash
the blood off in the shower.

So he prowls through the streets of the biggest city in North America, looking
for criminals preying on the weak and unsuspecting. He takes care of them -
- does he ever. He takes the subway at hours of the night and in neighborhoods
you shouldn't, just to foil the animals who would otherwise try to mug and rob
and leave people for dead. He looks for trouble and he finds it in abundance.

He leaves many unexplained maulings behind but doesn't care. He bites and rips
and slashes and it feels good and righteous when his fangs and claws are
covered in the blood of bad people. He leaves them for dead because it doesn't
matter if they make it or not. If they die, the world is rid of them. If they
live, they know someone worse than them waits to punish them when they prey on
people. Win-win. What little emotion he can muster other than numbness or rage
are fleeting moments of happy blood lust when he watches them realize what's in
store for them.  

He slashes them to ribbons because he never got the chance to do it to ...her.
He can't even admit to himself that even if she stood in front of him now, he
still might not be able to rip her to shreds the way she deserves. But when he
confronts criminal predators there is no doubt -- nothing to stop him. Not the
way there would be if she were to suddenly appear and his treacherous body and
devastated heart tried to convince his brain that it was all some terrible
misunderstanding, that it wasn't her (his) fault his entire family except for
Laura is dead -- even though she not only admitted it, she bragged about it.

He and Laura are watching TV one night in their apartment. The local news comes
on and the top story reports on an inexplicable increase in animal attacks in
the city. The victims all appear to have criminal records with long rap sheets.
Coyotes are suspected (which Derek finds preposterous until he later reads at a
local library branch that coyotes are very well adapted to urban life). The
victimology suggests a vigilante with an attack dog. Though authorities haven't
excluded the possibility that it may be a larger wild animal such as a wolf or
cougar that came down river, the victimology merely coincidence.

Laura shrewdly eyes him from across the room. "Have you been mugged again
lately?" is all she asks.

He shrugs and says nothing. He gets up to put on his jacket and go out. He
almost always leaves when she wants to talk, when she tries to draw him out. He
goes out walking, looking for more bad people to hurt. Or he catches the subway
and glares at the few people on the train who dare to look him in the face. He
comes up out of the subway who knows where. Doesn't matter. He finds his way
home every night by scent anyway. He roams fearlessly, probably recklessly, but
he hasn't yet encountered anyone with that knowing look in their eye, who knows
what he is.

At the mouth of a dark alley he hears the short gasps and pants of hard
breathing and exertion, the spiking pulses of two men engaged in a physical
struggle. Thinking it is a fight or maybe a mugging with a victim who refuses
to surrender his stuff, Derek enters the alley and follows the sound. As he
gets closer, he smells two distinct male scents that are a strange combination
of fear laced with excitement and, bizarrely, even enjoyment.

Intrigued, with his senses attuned to what doesn't sound like every other
robbery or mugging he's foiled, Derek silently rounds a garbage dumpster and
sees them. There in the flickering light of a dying "Exit" sign at the back of
a building, he sees one man on his knees on the ground, the other man backed up
against a brick wall. The man against the wall exhales in rushed gasps through
clenched teeth. Neither man sees him. They don't even know he is there. He
watches the mouth of the man on his knees move up and down the exposed cock of
the other man. He sees tender throat when the man up against the wall lets his
head fall back. He hears the soft moan break from it as the man comes.

He smells their beery breath even at this distance; the crescendo of the
standing man's heartbeat is a drum beating at his brain; the sharp scent of
their sweat blossoms into the moist, oceanic scent of orgasm and ejaculation.
It catches in his throat and makes his nostrils involuntarily flare. Derek's
cock throbs to full hardness as the man on his knees swallows and swallows
again and the standing man sags helplessly against the wall.

He feels dizzy for a moment, his spontaneous arousal at seeing live sex in
front of him a shocking reminder that he's not the walking dead person he feels
like inside whenever he's not fighting muggers.

Derek has dealt ruthlessly efficiently with his morning erections since he and
Laura came to New York. It is literally self-abuse in the shower -- he gets it
over with as fast as possible, focusing on the mildew in the tile grout so he
won't close his eyes and see her face, see her heavy eyelids open wide, the
whites of her eyes gleaming above her wet mouth around his cock. He has pounded
his free fist against the tile while hot water drums the back of his neck,
while he slapped and pulled his cock until he came, trying not to remember how
she teased and tormented him with lips and tongue until he writhed in ecstasy
and spurted helplessly. He has not sought out companionship or sex since they
got to New York, despite having numerous scribbled phone numbers shoved at him
or tucked into his pockets.

Derek backs quietly away before the two men see him. There's a traitorous throb
of want in his pants. He retreats and stands at a distance under a street
light, catches his breath and pushes down the arousal that threatens to eclipse
his rage and numbness. After a moment, his cock softens. But a curl of arousal
sits low in his belly still. He watches the two men come out of the alley. He
follows them quickly and quietly, keeping his distance as they walk together.
They come to a bar and one goes in as the other leaves. Seconds later Derek
finds himself at the door.

He is eyed through a small diamond shaped window by a large, bald bouncer with
a headset. The bouncer doesn't open the door for him until he cocks his head at
something he's heard through his earpiece. It's only when the lock buzzes on
the door that Derek registers the small closed-circuit camera over it. He
uneasily steps through the door.

The bar is filled with men -- most in their twenties and thirties, some older,
a few much older. They look over their shoulders at him and slide their gazes
up and down him before they look back at each other or at the various
televisions or games like pool and darts. He is by far the youngest person
there. There are no women. The bouncer behind him is like a silent challenge.
Derek hesitates but just then two men at the bar get up to leave. So he walks
over to one of the empty bar stools and takes a seat.

The bartender asks what he's drinking. He names a popular American beer and in
less than ten minutes he has three beers he didn't pay for lined up for him.
Every time one appears, Derek looks stonily up at the bartender, who silently
points a finger down the bar to a different man each time. Each tips his drink
at Derek. He slowly drinks, looking down at the bar in front of him and not
into the faces of the men around him. He won't get drunk but he wonders if he
should fake it, to pass for the human he's pretending to be.

Eventually the man who bought the second beer comes to stand next to him.

"You're a little young to be in here," says the warm, boozy voice. Derek
registers dark hair and a scruffy goatee out of his peripheral vision.

"They're serving me," Derek mutters in reply.

"That's 'cause you're a handsome new face here. Plus they've paid their
protection for the month," the voice chuckles. The man smells of sharp, herbal
cologne and woodsy soap. Derek can smell the latex condoms in his pocket.

The man puts a hand on his elbow then and Derek fights the instinctual reaction
to throw it off. He has finished the first two beers and starts drinking the
third. He's only been here about half an hour.

"Slow down," the man beside him advises. "You're in the right place, don't
worry."

He hasn't been looking around to see what the men are doing with each other.
But the way his benefactor says he's in the right place, it dawns on Derek that
this is a gay bar, these are all gay men, and the man with a hand on his elbow
standing close to him has intentions. Sexual intentions. He turns to look at
the man, who is not unattractive. His eyes are as brown as Derek's mother's. He
appears to be in his late twenties, maybe. He blinks under Derek's suspicious
scrutiny and mistakes it for something else.

"Hey, hey, it'll be all right," he reassures Derek. "First time in a gay bar?"

Derek hesitates, then nods curtly.

"Looking for something?" the guy says, and his voice become both throatier and
quieter. His heartbeat picks up slowly.

Derek shrugs.

"Well, whatever you're looking for, I have no doubt you'll find it," the man
says. He pauses, and then adds much more quietly, "How old are you, anyway?"
with just a hint of worry in his voice. The slight staccato increase in his
heart rate is unmistakable.

The corners of Derek's mouth feel foreign to him as one turns up and the other
down. "Old enough," he answers shortly.

"Look, don't take this the wrong way..." the guy sighs. He trails off when
Derek puts a hand on his arm.

"Where," Derek begins, his voice tight in a way he can't control, "are we
going?"

"We?" the guy breathes. His pupils dilate and Derek doesn't need to have done
this before to know what he senses.

"'We'," Derek affirms, clenching his jaw as his hand tightens on the guy's
forearm.

"I... I, uh," the guy murmurs inarticulately. "Um, wh-wherever you want," he
finally finishes, and Derek can feel the heat radiating off the guy's face.

"Then let's go," Derek says, stepping closer to the guy.

"I don't live alone," the guy explains. "I have roommates."

"Whatever," Derek mutters, draining the last of his third beer. He registers
that some of the men around them are watching them.

"All right," the guy says. He glances over his shoulder sheepishly at another
man he seems to know, who raises an eyebrow. He and Derek turn to go. Past
curious glances they cross the bar to the impassive bouncer, who watches them
leave. Standing out on the sidewalk outside the bar, the other guy looks more
than a little stunned.

"You ever done this before?" he asks Derek, who starts walking in the direction
of the alley where he first saw the two men he tailed to this bar.

"Depends what you mean by 'this'," Derek mutters as the guy falls into step
beside him. They walk silently a couple blocks to the mouth of the same alley
where he saw the one man giving the other a blowjob. The man hesitates as Derek
steps into the alley.

"What?" Derek turns and looks over his shoulder at the guy.

"No offense, but this isn't..."

Derek grabs the guy's sleeve and pulls him along, not entirely unwillingly,
until they are on the far side of the same dumpster, shielding them from what
few passersby might be out.

"Look, kid," the guy starts to say, but Derek leans back against the wall and
uses his wolf strength to pull the man close.

"I'm not a kid," he mutters.

It doesn't come out at all the way he'd planned. It was supposed to be defiant
denial. Instead it sounds half petulant and half forlorn. Derek grits his teeth
and tosses his head at the way his body won't let him lie.

"Hey, look, it doesn't have to be this w--" the guy begins.

Derek shuts him up by pressing their mouths together. He hates where everything
he knows about good kisses comes from. But he uses all of it. He pulls the man
closer, holds his upper arms tighter, kisses him harder. The roughness of the
other guy's facial hair feels completely foreign. The lips molded to his own
are surrounded by coarse hair, longer than stubble but not like fur. It's like
nothing Derek has ever felt before. Their lips part and their tongues tangle,
wet and hot and like it was with (...her) but utterly, completely different.
The arms in Derek's grip are hard and muscled. There's no softness. No long,
silky hair. He smells skin and warmth and masculinity and beer and the turkey
on rye sandwich the guy had earlier tonight in his mustache. Instead of being
gross, it's kind of weirdly enticing.

When their mouths part, the other guy whispers, "Look, you're probably jail
bait--"

"That you followed into an alley," Derek points out quietly.

The guy tries to pull out of his grasp but Derek won't let him. "What the--?"
he asks, and now he really starts look scared, eyes widening, limbs tensing. "I
don't want any--"

"Trouble?" Derek murmurs. "Me either."

"What do you want?" the guy says, and his heart is beating double time now, the
tang of fear overtaking the muzzy scent of lust rising from his pores. "Oh,
shit," the guy gulps and now his voice wavers. "Oh, shit, fine -- take my
wallet, all of my cash--"

"A blowjob," Derek cuts in.

The guy freezes then, his heart pounding wildly, an insistent thrum on Derek's
eardrums.

"That's it?" The guy says after a long pause, his limbs loosening, his
heartbeat slowing.

Derek nods.

"What if I don't?" the guy asks.

Derek shrugs.

They look at each other. Derek feels the other man's heartbeat pick up again,
this time with the growing warmth of desire on his scent. The sharp scent of
fear subsides and the warm, musky scent of desire returns.

"God, why didn't you fucking say so?" the guy sighs, exasperated. He sags
against Derek as his hands slide down his sides to his hips.

They kiss again and Derek's cock pumps up to full hard as the guy's hands slide
around his ass. Before he realizes it, Derek's own hands are frantic at his
fly, unbuttoning and unzipping as his new friend sinks down to his knees in
front of him. He pulls his cock out into the cool night air. The guy glances up
briefly but quickly focuses on Derek's cock. He swears under his breath,
inhales, and then sucks Derek's cock into his mouth. His mouth is hot and wet,
moving slick and snug on Derek's cock.

Derek puts a hand in the guy's hair. It's slightly gummy with some kind of hair
gel and nothing at all like the beautiful tresses that are the only thing his
hands ever touched before when a mouth was on him like this. It gets better:
longer, faster strokes. Swirls of tongue around the head on the off-strokes
spike Derek's arousal. Nibbling on the underside of the head of his cock makes
him half-swoon. He tightens his grip on the guy's hair, adds his other hand
until his fingertips are down to scalp. He feels the tingle of his claws
wanting to burst forth, but he learned control with... with ...her.

He never did this with her. She was always in control. He never put his hands
on the back of her head and forced his way into her mouth, into the back of her
throat. She knew what she was doing; he didn't.

It's different now. The smells, the sounds, the way the other man feels in his
grip, the willing and eager slide of hot, tight mouth up and down Derek's cock.
He fucks the man's face, thrusts into his mouth and throat. The desire of the
man sucking his cock blooms into a rich, earthy scent surrounding them both and
Derek inhales it deeply. The guy tries to say something around his cock, but
Derek is too busy thrusting hard into his mouth, too busy forcing that mouth to
stay on this cock, to move up and down, holding the man by his hair. Pleasure
climbs up Derek's spine; his balls tighten and as the inevitable gathers inside
him, it feels like something breaks. He moans and knows the timbre of his voice
has too much wolf in it. But the wave rising inside him carries him along. When
his balls churn he knows there's no stopping it now.

He comes, hard, fingers tight in short hair. He spurts down the throat of the
man kneeling before him and feels the man swallow around the head of his cock,
which only makes him spurt more. His breath hisses out between his teeth. He
half-grunts, half-moans with each weakening spurt. He shakes and shivers and
feels the bite of brick through the denim on his back. When the man pulls his
mouth off finally, Derek trembles with aftershocks, letting his tight grip
loosen.

"Jesus, I haven't done that in--" comes the hoarse voice, and then the man cuts
himself off.

He gets to his feet, gripping Derek's hips because Derek is too spent and too
new at this to have the courtesy to offer a hand up. The guy wipes his mouth on
the back of his hand and then his sleeve, eyeing Derek warily. Derek just looks
at him, eyes slitted with pleasure and exhaustion.

"So...?" the guy asks. Derek reaches his hand out to cup his erection. The guy
thrusts into his hand. "You, uh," he begins again, voice husky. "Ever done this
before?"

Derek doesn't reply or even shake his head. He just hauls the guy towards him
and they change places, so The Guy is up against the brick. He can return the
favor, Derek thinks hazily. It's not like he'll catch anything. How hard can it
be? He settles to his knees in front of the guy, whose fingers fumble at his
fly until Derek pushes them aside and unbuttons and unzips it himself. He
steels his hands so they don't tremble as he pushes the guy's briefs down to
reveal his ridged, veined erection. It twitches and the scent is like nothing
Derek has ever smelled before aside from his own arousal: musky, animalistic.
He takes it in his hand and strokes it and the guy exhales with a long sigh.

Derek moves closer, tilts the guy's cock down from its sharper angle, registers
the glistening drop of pre-come at the tip, and takes it into his mouth. It's
bigger than he expected. Aside from the slight bitter saltiness of the pre-
come, it doesn't taste like anything other than flesh. But the scents this guy
gives off mingle around them. Derek tries to keep his mouth tight on the guy's
cock as he goes down on it, but then his teeth scrape and the guy jumps. He
dimly remembers ...she... used to cover her teeth with her lips. Shaking off a
memory he doesn't want to recall, he nevertheless puts it to use. His eager
recipient cants his hips slightly and thrusts harder now and though Derek grips
his hip tight he lets it to happen.

Pretty soon he's being choked rhythmically with the back and forth of this
guy's cock entering his mouth and going all the way past the back of his
tongue. Every time Derek thinks he can't breathe or swallow the saliva
gathering in his mouth, the guy pulls his cock back and he suddenly can, sort
of, except only around the cock in his mouth. It feels weird and difficult to
swallow around it, but it can be done and every time he does it, the guy's
breath hitches.

He figures out that he needs to breathe through his nose and that it's doable.
But that combined with keeping his lips tight over his teeth, and maintaining
suction, and moving his tongue when he remembers -- it's a lot to keep track
of. Too much. Maybe it's the beer that didn't affect him or whatever but Derek
finally just gives in, goes slack, and lets the guy fuck his mouth. Maybe he
isn't even really fucking his mouth like Derek just did to him, because it's
not like he's holding Derek in place by his hair, by a hand at the back of his
head. The guy just cups his jaw and when Derek looks up, the guy is looking
down at him, his mouth a small "o" of arousal and amazement in the middle of
his goatee. He speeds up his thrusts until they grow fiercer and now the hand
on Derek's jaw is joined by a hand on his cheek and they both tighten. The
man's breathing accelerates and gets louder until he chokes out--

"I'm--"

He comes, hot semen spurting bitter on the back of Derek's tongue. Derek feels
it gather there, spurt after spurt. Now he can't hold it in the back of his
throat and breathe through his nose because the two acts are incompatible. He
doesn't want to swallow, he's not sure why. But the guy's cock is still moving
in and out of his mouth. So semen mixed with saliva starts to squeeze out the
sides of Derek's mouth and dribble down towards his chin. It's messy and
bestial and Derek is mildly surprised to find that he doesn't mind. It gets a
little gross, mainly because the feeling of it sliding down his chin is
irritating. But the guy already did this for him so Derek figures he should
just put up with it. It's no one's fault but his own that he doesn't know what
he's doing.

He feels the guy's cock slow down, twitching. Just as it stops moving and
starts to soften a little, the guy pulls out completely. Derek leans to the
side and spits everything out onto the ground. He wipes his mouth and chin with
his hand, wipes his hand on his jeans, and then wipes his mouth again with both
sleeves of his denim jacket.

The guy is breathing hard above him, leaning over, eyes closed.

"Jesus," he says hoarsely.

Derek grabs the guy's hip, and the guy is nice enough to give him a hand up.

"Want... want another beer?" the guy asks. Derek can tell by his scent that
it's half hopeful, half hesitant.

"No," Derek answers. It feels like something's been accomplished but what
exactly he doesn't know. He turns and begins to walk away.

"Hey... Hey, where you going?" the guy calls after him, quickly tucking himself
in and zipping up and buttoning.

"Home," Derek answers.

"We can share a cab."

Derek shakes his head, not looking back. The guy catches up to him.

"Was that your first--ever?" the guy asks breathlessly.

Derek shrugs.

"Listen, kid," the guy begins.

That's it. Derek grabs him and shoves him up against the window of a storefront
with enough force to make the glass vibrate.

"Stop calling me kid," he growls and the guy raises his hands.

"Okay, all right," he quickly agrees, his scent changing to fear again.

Derek releases him and stands there looking at him. Then, before he can stop
himself, he kisses the man again, feels the rough facial hair around the guy's
mouth, inhales deeply of the almost furry animal scent that comes with it.

"Jesus, you're a piece of work," the guy breathes when their mouths part.

"Yeah," Derek agrees grimly. He supposes he is. He turns away again and the guy
catches his sleeve.

"Look, you're obviously not from here--" Derek frowns at him and looks at the
guy's hand on his sleeve. The guy snatches his hand back but looks Derek in the
face and continues quietly. "However old you are, you shouldn't be walking
around at this hour. Let me put you in a cab."

They walk two blocks to a busier street together and say absolutely nothing to
each other the entire time. Derek can smell the guy's combination of fear and
curiosity. He admires the way the guy restrains himself. Then again, he didn't
give him much choice. The guy hails a cab. Derek would've taken the subway. The
cabbie pulls over and the guy opens the door for him. Derek gets in but the guy
is still standing there in the open doorway.

"Guess I won't see you again, huh?" the scruffy guy says. Derek shrugs. The
guy's warm brown eyes lock on his, and he sighs. "Take care of yourself..."

Derek hears the suppressed 'kid' and sighs too. He just nods silently and shuts
the door. The cab takes off and Derek doesn't look back at the guy standing on
the curb.

When he gets home, it is after three in the morning. Laura is awake, sitting on
the couch watching TV, clearly waiting up for him. It's motherly of her and he
hates that it's not his mother doing it. He takes off his denim jacket and
throws it over a chair at the kitchen table and stands there, fists clenched,
not speaking. Laura's nostrils flare and he knows she is scenting him. Neither
of them says anything for a long moment, though he stands there waiting for her
judgment. When it doesn't come, Derek walks away towards the bathroom.
Laura calls after him, slightly irritated. "Next time you go out, pick up some
milk."

* * *

The gay bar and his first guy/guy blowjobs -- received and given -- distract
Derek from his grief and rage for a couple of days. For the first time in
months, smoke and fire (and ...her) are not the only thing he sees when he
closes his eyes. He sees the guy's scruffy goatee. Imagines the rough touch of
facial hair around lips. Remembers bitter spurts almost choking him, how he had
to stop breathing at that point. Recalls the sloppy way come and spit slid out
the sides of his mouth, whereas the other guy just swallowed and didn't lose a
drop of it. He feels guilty for thinking about sex instead of his dead mother
and father and siblings. He feels even guiltier for going right back to
thinking about sex with the scruffy guy. He beats off to the memory of it in
the shower.

Laura never does say anything about it.

A few days later Derek picks up a free weekly newspaper and reads the LGBT bar
listings. He tears it out and folds it up and puts it in his pocket. He tries a
different bar in the listing every week or two. He keeps it as it gets more and
more creased and worn. Many of the bars don't let him in, either because he's
too young and has no ID and they have scruples, or because they're high end
clubs and he's not appropriately dressed. But he gets into many of them. He
drinks for free, though he brings money. He is told over and over again how
pretty, how handsome, how hot he is. A few men try to slip him date rape drugs,
but his senses allow him to taste the chemicals and his werewolf metabolism
makes him immune even if he does gulp some down before he realizes it. He deals
with those men the way he deals with muggers.

He goes out to gay bars wishing he'd never been born and gives himself to
almost anyone who wants to take him home. He has few criteria. They can't be
sketchy. Their scent must be pure, unadulterated lust. They can't have tried to
slip him something. If those three things are true, he goes home with them.
It's a bonus if they are initially more concerned about his age and seeming
youth and inexperience than about getting him in bed, but that does not have to
be true for Derek to agree to go with them.

Of course, he has to feel some spark of attraction with them. He is surprised
to find that this does not always occur with the most attractive men. Sometimes
it's just a warm smile or the way the corners of their eyes crinkle or the
strength and shape of their hands or the way that they touch him while drinking
or dancing or even just a vibe he gets. He tries to forget that ...she... made
him uneasy at first, that there was always a flutter of uncertainty in his
chest when they were together. Now he realizes those were instincts he failed
to heed, gut feelings he ignored, red flags he blew past and all for what. He
listens now, to all those feelings and instincts. But they just lead him from
man to man.

He finds that some of the best lovers are ordinary, even sometimes
unattractive, men -- easily overlooked -- and that some of the most attractive
men are often superficial, arrogant pricks. Ordinary guys often seem especially
enamored of him. The way they touch him is shy, grateful, even sometimes
reverent. Derek lets them enjoy what he has come to see through their eyes is
his youthful masculinity. He sometimes likes to leave with sweet, warm ordinary
guys in full view of the much handsomer arrogant assholes whose advances he's
rejected.

He tries different kinds of men, from slim and slight and hairless young men
not unlike himself to  bigger, hairier, and more muscular men. He tries a young
man, an older man. Inked, not inked. Ugly, beautiful. Circumcised,
uncircumcised. Non-pierced and pierced -- from ears to tongue to nipples and
cock. Derek takes loads of come in his mouth and deposits his own even more
often, there being something about him that makes men want to suck him even
more often than they want him to blow them. He learns to swallow. He progresses
from blow jobs (which are great) to getting anally fingered (which is even
better) to getting ass fucked (which is amazing but also potentially horrible).

The first time Derek gets it in the ass is not good. He almost rips the guy
with claws and teeth. Of course he'll heal, but it hurts like a bitch. The only
brakes on his violent reaction are the guy's obvious drunken eagerness, his
pungent, overwhelming scent of lust, and Derek's own inexperience and
stupidity. It take two to tango, after all. It wouldn't have happened if he
hadn't let it, and he no longer lets himself off the hook for stupidity.

The next time he is very blunt on his hunt. He has several cut-to-the-chase
conversations with older men who seem like they might experienced. He finally
finds one with a warm smile beneath icy eyes. He murmurs in Derek's ear exactly
what he would do, all while sliding his hand over Derek's ass in repeated slow
caresses and squeezes. His description includes rimming and fingering and so
much detail about prepping his ass that -- aside from turning Derek on -- it
sounds like he's done it a thousand times.

Derek goes home with him and they spend nearly an hour in foreplay just
prepping him. It's fucking unbelievable, the guy's tongue and fingers all over
his hole and inside him, the lube and condoms slightly off-putting but
ultimately vastly improving the outcome. When Derek comes clenched around thick
cock in his ass, it almost wipes his slate clean. The body high from his orgasm
almost makes him forget the numb void at the very center of him.

But even if he hadn't seen the possessive glint in the man's eye afterward
while putting his clothes on, his sudden, unbidden feelings of gratitude and
intimacy -- the man was inside him, in his ass -- can not be tolerated. Derek
longs to do it with the man again (and again and again) and that is
unacceptable. He files the new experience and information away. Now he knows
how to prep himself -- or someone else so he can do it to them. He's definitely
doing it again. Just not with this guy. He would rather spend hours having sex
over and over with someone he'll never see again, than fuck the same man more
than once.

Sometimes he doesn't come home until the middle of the next day because he's
been up until dawn fucking and sucking. The first time it happens, Laura is
ready to kill him when he shows up. The third time she threatens to chain him
to the radiator so she'll at least know where he is, and she sounds serious. He
agrees to text her if he's not coming home, and he does. She always texts back
"OK" with no other comment.

When he gets home, even from across the room Derek can tell by her stillness
and the cant of her head that Laura is scenting him -- where he's been, what
he's been doing. Sometimes he wets his face in the sweat that runs down men's
chests and doesn't wash his face or rinse his mouth before coming home. It's
bestial and animalistic to walk around reeking of sex and sweat and spunk and
Derek fucking revels in it. The scents dare Laura to say something.

But she never does. Sometimes she sighs, but that's it. Only once Laura stops
him by the bathroom. She puts a hand gently on his arm and levels a piercing
gaze at him.

"Is someone making you do something you don't want to do?" she asks.

He coolly meets her eyes and shakes his head. Her fingers tighten in his arm
until his cheeks warm and he unwillingly verbalizes it. "No," he says sharply.

Her gaze softens and her hand slides off after one last squeeze. He sees in her
expression that she's about to say something else. But she doesn't and they go
their separate ways, her into the kitchen and him into the bathroom.

He would rather risk bad sex than the dependence of attachment. He will never
permit himself that again. It's not hard to disappear since the men with whom
he goes home -- or to hotels or a friend's apartment -- don't know where he
lives, he never gives out his phone number, and he usually doesn't go to the
same bar twice. He never dates these guys. Their knowledge of each other is
strictly via bars and sex. They don't have dinner, don't go to the movies,
don't go to gallery openings or free concerts or films in the parks.  

Derek does those things, but with his sister Laura or alone. He has on occasion
run into someone he's previously fucked while at such events with Laura. It's
been awkward occasionally, but since he's never gotten involved enough to have
a falling out, let alone a breakup, there's no bad blood. It's usually just a
minor surprise. Occasionally they dog him for a bit because they want to see
him again. Sometimes when they see Laura, they assume she's a girlfriend. Their
reactions become more discreet, so Derek doesn't contradict the assumption. She
can scent their interest but she never says anything or asks any questions.
Derek silently thanks her for that.

When the insurance money for the fire eventually comes through, Derek
grudgingly goes back to school for his G.E.D. The stream of shitty wage slave
jobs slightly improves with his G.E.D. but it's not like they need the money
now. It's just something to do, to fill empty hours when he's not working.

Laura puts most of his share in a trust so he won't blow it all in a few years.
He bickers with her about it, but he isn't really that pissed off. He gets
enough liquid cash to buy a car. There's also enough to go to school, kind of.
Not a four year school though. College was always his mother's plan for him and
though he hates Laura reminding him of it, it feels like he should try. What
with his not stellar high school GPA and not finishing high school, it's not
like he'll get into a great university. But that's okay. Community college is
cheaper anyway. He takes 100-level general education courses with no real aims
or ambitions other than his nocturnal prowling for bad people or sex.

There is a slight change in his choice of jobs; with his build and strength and
senses, he winds up in private security. It's still a shitty wage slave job,
but one with the solitude to suit him. Plus he can study at work. His favorite
security job is as a lone guard in a food storage warehouse. He makes his
hourly rounds and listens to the rats squeaking and fighting in the walls. He
watches TV in the security office as he keeps an eye on all the closed circuit
camera feeds. He reads his textbooks and tries not to fall asleep.

He hunts muggers and thugs less often and pursues less anonymous sex not
because he doesn't want to, but because there's only so many hours in the day.
He's still got moments where rage or lust surface in him and will not be
ignored, can only be deferred for a time. But between work and school he's too
busy most of the time. And it's hard to hold onto rage and numbness for so
long. Numbness subsides into a kind of blankness and Derek lets rage subside
into simple distrust and suspicion. The emptiness behind the numbness is always
there inside him. The absence of so many people he loved and used to see daily
and can never, ever talk to again seems like it will never leave him.
Chapter End Notes
     The line "he goes out to gay bars wishing he had never been born and
     gives himself to almost anyone who wants to take him home" is
     paraphrased from a lyric from the Garbage song Cup of Coffee
     (original lyric: "hanging 'round bars at night wishing I had never
     been born / and give myself to anyone who wants to take me home").
     The line "he wets his face in the sweat that runs down men's chests"
     is paraphrased from the Pretenders' song Up The Neck (original lyric:
     "I rubbed my face in the sweat that ran down his chest").
***** New York, Part II *****

Derek still sometimes talks to his mother in his head even though it's been
years since he lost her. Somehow though he's taller and filled out, her death
was only yesterday. They're always one-sided conversations. He can ask all his
questions about life and the future and what he should do now, but she'll never
answer. He was too young and self-absorbed to know his mother as a real person,
as anything other than his mother. So he can't even supply what he thinks she
would have said. And he can't discuss these things with Laura because that
would open the door to other subjects he can't and won't address with her.

Even though they live together still, Derek feels a growing gap between he and
Laura. She's older, more mature; she has a life whereas he's just on a
treadmill. The numb sameness of his days is both boring and secretly comforting
in its predictability. He knows they're drifting apart because he holds himself
back. When she pushes he simply leaves. He feels bad that she's the only family
he has left and that they're not that close, but he can't make himself open up.

It isn't that Derek doesn't love Laura. He loves her terribly because she's
blood and pack and she kind of gets him even though he tells her nothing. Or at
least she lets him be who he is, whoever that is. She could be much more
directive if she wanted to -- she is the Alpha, after all. But she isn't. She's
sympathetic because she understands all that he lost -- she lost it too. Her
nonjudgmental and unconditional love are an offering that frightens Derek with
how much he needs it but won't let himself completely have it. He can't bear to
enjoy it too much because it could be taken from him -- something that occurs
regularly in nightmares from which he awakens sweating and shaking. In them,
either something violent happens to Laura or she finds out his involvement with
Kate is behind the fire. Either way she is taken from him. They're awful and
eviscerating and he wakes choked with fear.

Laura knows of these nightmares, too, though he never talks about them. In the
beginning when they were first on their own together, she would come to his bed
when she heard him wake from nightmares, growling and half-transformed. She'd
hug him or wrap an arm around him until his breath calmed and his heart slowed.
Now the nightmares are more about losing her and she mostly just calls out to
him in the dark to make sure he's okay.

There is always the unspoken understanding that they are all they both have and
that, no matter what, come hell or high water, they'll be there for each other.
He cares deeply about Laura but she is better at life after the fire than he
cares to be. So it's not like she needs his advice or protection, aside from as
her brother and beta. He knows she cares about him, too, and he tries to
convince himself that that is enough, that true closeness isn't necessary, it
would just be a bonus.

A few months after he begins courses at the community college, Laura suggests
he get some counseling there too. As she does with most things, she says it
very carefully, not using her Alpha authority so he is not compelled to do what
she says. Despite that and his underlying gratitude that she doesn't command
him to do so, they have their first huge argument since the fire. Derek slams
out of the apartment and hunts down someone to fuck and suck and stays gone
until the next morning except for a brief text saying he's not dead and he's
not coming home.

She doesn't get it. The way he is now is not damaged. It's a decision.

* * *

After a while of dating different guys, Laura has a boyfriend. She and Derek do
less together because she's spending more time with her boyfriend. He -- Jake -
- is nice enough, all shaggy hair and easygoing body language. He doesn't make
the mistake of acting paternal towards Derek when Laura is maternal.

A couple times Jake and Laura suggest Derek bring his "boyfriend" on double
dates with them. Derek's not sure whose idea it is. It could be Laura's or
Jake's or even both. The second time they invite him to bring a boyfriend to
the movies with them, Derek declines again. He waits until he can talk to Laura
alone and catches her in the kitchen the next morning, after Jake's gone. They
are talking about groceries.

"Pick up some toilet paper on your way home, will you?" Laura says, pouring
milk in her coffee. "I got it last time and we're almost out."

"I'll get toilet paper if you buy beer," Derek replies. "And I don't have a
boyfriend."

"Oh," she replies, turning to face him. "But--"

"Don't I smell like someone different every time?" he interrupts harshly.

She thinks about it and he sees her effort to remain expressionless. It makes
him love her a little bit more. "I guess," she finally agrees.

"They're just fucks," he says tersely. "There's no relationships."

She says nothing, still looking at him. He gives her this much: he doesn't look
away. They eye each other and Derek waits for her judgment but it still doesn't
come.

"Bring a friend, then," she finally says, carefully avoiding assigning the
hypothetical friend a gender.

"No friends," Derek replies.

"Oh," she says again. Now she seems at a loss. "Look, Derek--" she begins.

He steps close and squeezes her in a quick hug to stop her.

"I'm fine," he murmurs, eyes closed as he briefly tucks his face into her
auburn hair, scenting sister, pack, family, love. He lets go and just before he
turns away, he sees her bite her lip. They both know it's not true, but she
lets it go.

She and Jake stop suggesting he bring a boyfriend after that. But they still
invite Derek to come along with them on outings. He repeatedly declines even
though it widens the gap between he and Laura. But then Jake's presence would
widen the gap anyway, with or without invitations. She's moving on, living her
life. Derek isn't. Won't. Can't. 
Jake and Laura's efforts to include him in their little duet are kind but
pointless. It's bad enough being in the apartment with them when they're there.
Being their fifth wheel would be ten times worse. Their warmth with each other,
their cuddling on the couch, is a thing of sweetness that makes Derek's throat
ache for what he won't let himself have. The necessary vulnerability for such
intimacy is impossible. The scent of their gentle affection and humor together
awakens old sense memories of pack and play and safety and security, everything
and everyone he lost in the fire. To try to find even a shadow of that with
another person now feels like a betrayal of everyone he lost. He doesn't
begrudge Laura the happiness she clearly feels. It's just not for him.
* * *
He hears her one night, talking on the phone with Jake, her voice low. It's low
enough that he wonders if she's hiding something from him, but then she knows
he can hear her voice no matter how quietly she speaks. They are in the same
apartment, after all, and she is his Alpha. Normally he tunes out her
conversations with Jake, whether they're on the phone or talking here in the
apartment. It's less to grant them privacy and more to avoid the inescapable
longing they engender, a helpless envy of what they've got, the incapability of
seeking it out for himself.
But this is different. He hears Laura say something about claiming Jake. The
word 'claim' or 'claiming' comes up several times, along with 'protection' and
'pack' and 'family.' When she hangs up, Derek is standing in front of her.
"'Claiming'?" he asks.
She looks sharply up at him from the couch, gauging how much he heard. "It's
something Mom talked about," she admits.
"Claiming who?" he demands.
"Humans. To protect them," Laura says, like it's the most normal thing in the
world.
"Humans. You mean Jake? Why?" He is angry now. He isn't sure why, but this is a
bad idea, he's certain of it.
"If they don't want to be turned," she answers calmly, "this is how you include
them in your pack and protect them from other alphas and packs."
"I'm your pack," Derek snarls.
"He is too," she says softly. 
"I don't remember any of this with our family," Derek growls. He will not say
mention their names.
"We inherited it."
"Not everyone," he grits, thinking of his little sisters and brother, who were
not wolf.
"No, not everyone," Laura agrees. "But we were all of the same bloodline, human
or werewolf. Mom didn't have to claim her own children."
Derek's fists clench and unclench. "It's a mistake to let someone in the pack
this way," he mutters. "Jake is not family. Why did you even tell him about us,
anyway?"
"He has a right to know what he's involved with. It's inherently dangerous for
him to be with a werewolf, but he should at least know..." Laura trails off,
then continues. "If I Claim him, he's protected. Besides, this is how Mom
protected Dad," she tells him.
"What?" This is a bombshell for which he's not prepared.
"Dad wasn't a werewolf, remember?" Laura reminds him, and Derek's heart drops
into his stomach. He knew that, he just never considered the full implication,
the history behind it. "She claimed him," Laura continues, "so no other alphas
or packs could mess with her mate, even though he wasn't a werewolf."
"Claimed him how?" Derek demands.
Laura sighs patiently. "It can be done through sex, it can be done non-
sexually--"
"So you're going to 'Claim' him? Just like that?" Derek interrupts
incredulously.
The knowledge that there was so much more going on than he ever paid attention
to bothers him. Even if he was just a stupid kid at the time. He should have
paid closer attention. But then, he also didn't want to know. It was something
that set him apart. Something that was a struggle. Something that made him
different at a time when all he wanted was to be the same as all the other
kids.
"He loves me," Laura replies, her voice steady and controlled. "He just doesn't
want to be turned."
"If he doesn't want to be turned," Derek says harshly, "why is he fucking a
werewolf?"
Her expression darkens. "We're not just fucking. We love each other. We can be
different and still love each other," she growls, like it's a truth that he's
an idiot for not understanding.
Derek grabs his jacket from the hook on the wall by the door and doesn't look
at her as he speaks. "He's going to reject it. Betray you," he says as he puts
on his jacket. "Eventually."
But she grabs his arm from behind. He shrugs her off, opening the door. She
misunderstands spectacularly, probably because they've never talked about it
and he never will.
"Paige's body rejected the bite," Laura says softly. "Not her heart or soul."
Hearing that just makes him angrier. Claiming Jake is a mistake. He knows it in
his bones. But Laura is his Alpha and he can't stop her. Derek slams out of the
apartment to search for someone bad who deserves a beat-down. He knows he'll
find both.

* * *

When she tells him she's got to go back to Beacon Hills, Derek looks at Laura
like she's insane. She explains she's got to take care of some other family
paperwork that came up. He takes her word for it though he senses the lie in
her heartbeat. But it's probably to protect him, so he figures she'll tell him
when she gets back if he really needs to know. Even if she doesn't, Beacon
Hills is not a place Derek plans to return and if it's something that will
eventually drag him back there, he'd rather not know until and unless it is
absolutely necessary. Everything seems to be fine after she leaves. Jake
sometimes looks in on him and they occasionally share a pizza while they watch
The Knicks.

Now that Laura's gone, Derek could bring home the men he has sex with. He
doesn't. Alleys, bathrooms, back rooms -- these he can do -- or their places,
borrowed apartments, hotel rooms. But he never, ever brings anyone home.
Actually, with Laura gone and the chronic low level threat that she'll make him
talk abated, Derek spends more time home alone. He knows he is a lone wolf,
somewhere between beta to Laura's alpha and omega. Maybe that's not a bad
thing. Laura hasn't mentioned anything about the pack or packs in whose
territory they've been allowed to stay, and he hasn't asked. Whoever they are,
either they don't care about Derek's vigilantism or Laura has persuaded them to
let it go. It's just as well. Joining another pack is unimaginable.

Everything is all right and he and Laura stay in touch up until Laura stops
responding to his text messages. When he calls, her phone rings several times,
then goes to voice mail. When it stops ringing at all and just goes straight to
voice mail for a day straight, he knows her phone is dead, something is wrong,
and he has to go back to Beacon Hills. He hates her a little it for it. But
it's not like he can't leave New York. There's no one and nothing to hold him
there.
***** Smolder *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
He leaves most of his stuff in their New York apartment and pre-pays two months
rent, thinking he'll easily be back in that time. He takes with him some dirty
laundry of Laura's which is a bit silly. It's not like he doesn't know her
scent already. He doesn't admit to himself it's also for the comfort of her
smell. He drives the whole way and watches the landscape change around him,
from green forested mountains to rolling farmland to flat as a pancake
heartland to bone dry desert with distant, painted mountains, and then to
forested green mountains again. With every mile closer, his dread increases.

When he gets back to Beacon Hills, he reluctantly goes to their old house.
Standing in the half burnt out carcass of the building, the scent of soot and
smoke and burning flesh still dimly present, it all comes back to him: The
shrieking horror and the empty void where family used to be in his life and his
heart. It settles on him like a dead weight and a black rage. He knows that
Laura has been there; he can tell by her scent. He follows it all over town,
and his last stop is the Sheriff's office to file a missing persons report.

The Sheriff is concerned and sympathetic when he realizes who Derek is. He
soberly fills out the paperwork with Derek though he could just as easily have
delegated it to a deputy. Derek feels increasingly uneasy about Laura's
disappearance. He spends the night in the burnt out house because there's
nowhere else to go except a motel and it feels disloyal to go anywhere else.
There is also the slim chance Laura might turn up here again.

The howl he hears that night isn't Laura, but it is an alpha. Derek grinds his
teeth and sets his jaw. Beacon Hills will have a Hale alpha or no alpha at all.
After he kills this alpha and gets out of this town, he'll try not to burn it
to the ground. He stands in the shadows of the porch and Laura's scent comes to
him strongly on the wind. But it's wrong, threaded weirdly with welcome and
abject terror. With a sinking feeling he suddenly knows he'll find her dead. He
heads off into the woods and finds her -- half of her --  but not before
joggers find her other half.

He vomits at the sight of the top half of her body, ripped in two. Now the
tears do come. He can't stop them as he picks her up and carries her home. His
face is wet by the time he stumbles into the shell of their family home and
lays her down. He stifles sobs, looking down on her broken body, as sorrow
slowly leaks away and black rage rises in its place. He returns to get the
other half of her body, but it's too late -- deputies are already out searching
the preserve. He gets his gloves and gathers wolf's bane to bury her on the
Hale property, sealed under a wolf's bane spiral to keep her in wolf form and
because he intends to find and kill whoever killed her.

That is the night Scott gets bitten by the alpha. The rest, as they say, is
history. It's also history repeating. Derek can not convince Scott that he
needs to lose Allison because it is insanely dangerous to be involved with the
daughter of werewolf hunters. But he can't give Scott or anyone else the real
reason he knows Allison is the last girl in the world Scott should date. He'll
lose the argument anyway. You can't tell a teenage boy anything he doesn't want
to hear. Derek knows with bitter recrimination that if anyone in his family had
confronted him about Kate and forbid him to see her, he wouldn't have stopped.
So why would Scott. But he continues telling Scott to lose Allison, anyway.
It's all he can do, but he must do it.

Once Scott gets shot with an Argent arrow by Allison's father, Derek doesn't
have to give reasons. But Scott is young and dumb enough to think it won't
matter if he can keep his secret. Derek wishes he could spare Scott the harsh
knowledge that his relationship with Allison is a mistake he'll regret for the
rest of his life. But he can't. Some things you have to learn for yourself, no
matter how painfully. He just hopes Scott survives it when it comes.

* * *

Derek watches Stiles warm the bench at most lacrosse games while he monitors
whether the werewolves on the field keep their werewolf eyes and teeth and
claws in check and invisible to the humans. He thinks about how much more
popular he was among his friends on the basketball team back when, than Stiles
seems to be on the lacrosse team now. How he was first string because he came
into his werewolf powers shortly after he made the second cut of basketball
tryouts. How all that popularity meant shit later. God, such a short time
later.

Derek remembers how he ignored girls who had crushes on him or was a little
casually mean to them because that's what the other popular jock guys did. How
his sisters said he was a little asshole for that.

(Until Paige.)

(No... even at the beginning with Paige.)

(The one person he should have treated that way... he didn't.)

Derek knows Stiles is better off simply being who and what he is -- bench-
warming, fast-talking friend and detention-earning sheriff's son -- than
popular, desired jock. It will actually better prepare him for the real world,
for adulthood.

Better to start out humble.

* * *

Sometimes Derek gets thinly veiled contempt from Scott. Other times, Scott
doesn't even bother to veil it. Because he's older than Scott in more than just
years, he tolerates the judgment. Scott doesn't have a clue anyway and someday
he'll realize that. But until he does, nothing Derek says or does will convince
him that his current certainty may be on dangerously shifting ground. Derek was
the same at Scott's age. No one could tell him anything. He thought he knew
everything, like all kids do. Only bitter experience taught him that he didn't
have a fucking clue what was really going on until it was far too late.

The sudden reversal of what he'd thought was tender and unspeakably erotic
passion with Kate into duplicitous treachery, violence, and horrific loss
ignited a burning shame and guilt in Derek that has yet to die out. It smolders
under virtually everything he does and thinks. (And much of what he doesn't do.
Won't do.) It probably always will. He would fan its flames if it were ever in
danger of sputtering out.

He understands the Greek tragedies now in ways no college course could ever
teach. The inexplicable tyranny of fate. The inevitable consequence of hubris.
The brutal necessity of revenge; its expanding, circular, insane nature. The
evil poison of betrayal -- sweetly, seductively offered and willingly
swallowed. The inescapable madness of realization. The consequent putting out
of one's own eyes.  

Derek understands all of it now, sees unbelievable pain for the truth it
contains. That knowledge is burned into him for the rest of his days. It has
freed him from all normal expectations of life and other people. He doesn't
expect any of them to get it. Least of all Scott.

* * *

Stiles' body language changes when he sees Derek observing them at lacrosse
games. It becomes more guarded, stiffer, as if he's deliberately trying to calm
nervousness. The few occasions where he gets to play, though, Derek notes that
Stiles seems able to shake off his awareness to fully immerse himself in the
game. This is a good thing, he decides. Stiles is human. He could really get
hurt if he didn't give it his full attention.

The terrified bravado Stiles musters when Derek appears in those early days -
- when all bets are off and they are all unknown quantities to each other -
- sometimes brings a twitch to the corner of Derek's mouth. He suppresses it
but remains secretly amused and slightly admiring. The boy is ballsy. Partly
it's because Stiles has no clue what Derek could do to them, but he thinks it
might be less the reckless bravery of adolescent boyhood than it is Stiles'
chin-up tendency to face into danger when he knows he can't avoid it. It's
actually rather instinctive and wolf like. He finds himself finding as many
small things about Stiles to like as he finds irritating qualities.

One of the things Derek likes most is the way he physiologically affects
Stiles. He tries not to overuse or abuse that effect. Intermittent positive and
negative reinforcement will keep Stiles on his toes. It's better for both of
them that way. When Derek realizes he is deliberately standing too close to
Stiles or cornering him just to get the little frisson of physical excitement
Stiles gives off, he abruptly withdraws. Usually.

Sometimes he just can't, though. He wants to bask in that crackle between them.
The closer he gets, the warmer it feels, even if it is fear on Stiles' part;
but it's ambiguous and Derek can't tell for sure if it's fear or attraction or
some weird combination of both. He's not sure why he can't tell, if it's
because Stiles doesn't know himself or because he's still a boy. It's
especially fierce when Derek grabs hold of Stiles. He enjoys that too much,
too.

He and Stiles go through a lot of weirdly intimate but utterly nonsexual
experiences together, from him feverishly demanding Stiles cut off his wolf's
bane-poisoned arm, to Stiles keeping him afloat (mostly, anyway) in the
swimming pool for two hours while Jackson-as-Kanima traps them in the water
until Stiles is almost too exhausted to keep them up any longer.

Stiles comes through it all with flying colors, able to help again and
seemingly always willing. On good days, Derek wonders if maybe they've finally
reached the unspoken understanding that Derek's threats are just as empty as
Stiles' defiance and distrust. They always help each other. It's what they do.
For the good of everyone or for the good of one of them.

He will never say this out loud to Stiles. At most he admits in the pool that
neither of them trust each other but they need each other. But after the pool/
Kanima incident there is trust between them. It was building slowly over time,
but the pool incident puts them over the edge with each other, into earned
trust. This is also something he'll never admit aloud to anyone, least of all
Stiles.

Derek reminds himself harshly several times that it could change at any moment.
He thinks maybe it would be best if it did. He should do something
unpredictable and mean to deliberately break Stiles' trust. But though he
contemplates that more times than he can count, whenever Stiles' amber eyes
meet his own he finds that he can't. If there is a moment where Derek can relax
and let his guard down even for mere seconds, it is in those fleeting moments
when he invades Stiles' personal space and Stiles lets him, when his young body
takes on that strange combination of stillness and vibrancy and his response
fills Derek's senses.

Unless they're up against some new big bad and he has an excuse to be around
Stiles more often, Derek rations it very carefully. Besides, he has other
people to worry about now. But Stiles is never too far from his mind. Which is
exactly why Derek stays away and why Stiles can never know his effect on Derek.
There are other ways of releasing the pent up energy of taking in Stiles'
reaction and never giving anything back.

Chapter End Notes
     "After he kills this alpha and gets out of this town, he'll try not
     to burn it to the ground" is a paraphrasing of a lyric from the
     Headstones song Nothing Changes (original lyric: "when I get out of
     this town I'll try not to burn it down to the ground").
     The line "Derek understands all of it now, sees unbelievable pain for
     the truth it contains" paraphrases a lyric from the Headstones song
     Take It (original lyric: "just unbelievable pain and the truth it
     contains is the only thing that set me free").
***** It Is What It Is *****
After one particularly healthy dose of Stiles' nearness in a meeting with
Scott, Stiles, and Deaton, Derek finds himself driving the Camaro out of Beacon
Hills into the nearest big town with bars where he can blend anonymously yet
find what he's looking for. This isn't the first time he's done it since he
came back to Beacon Hills, and he won't go to Jungle.

He prowls through a few clubs and bars, shrugging off looks and touches and
temptations, leaving appreciative drinks undrunk, until he finds what he's
looking for: A boy about Stiles' height and build and old enough. Liquid amber
eyes, long lashes. His hair is too long and darker than Stiles', but he'll do.
He's either legal drinking age or has a decent fake ID. He's a little drunk and
about to be pounced on by another, much older man.

Derek cuts in and smoothly pulls the kid to the dance floor. The throbbing
music changes to something slower and smuttier. It's not that Derek can't
dance. He just doesn't indulge in it very often. Now he puts everything he has
into the press of his body against this boy, the touches he slides along the
boy's throat, shoulders, flanks, hips. The boy's delight in this is obviously
drunk but also sensual and awestruck. He touches Derek back, first tentatively,
then more boldly.

By the time he puts his hands on Derek's hands on his hips, by the time he has
let Derek push against him from behind as they sway rhythmically together, by
the time Derek is not quite grinding into the boy's ass, he knows the boy is
his for the taking.

"Let's get out of here," he says in the boy's ear, adding the darker timbre of
his wolf voice.

"Yeah," the boy says breathlessly. Derek pulls him by the wrist. He doesn't
have to drag the boy to the Camaro; he goes willingly. Derek never lets anyone
be the aggressor but him.

In the car he keeps one hand on the boy at all times, alternately caressing
knee, thigh, shoulder, crotch. There is a fleabag four hour nap motel not far
from the blocks of bars and sleazy strip clubs where Derek goes when he does
this. He usually makes the offer to leave together when the given boy is a
little too drunk but not dangerously so. He likes them easy and uninhibited,
not incapacitated. When they accept and get in his car, he gives them a choice
between another bar or the motel. They almost always choose the motel.

Once in the motel, he slowly peels the clothes off this boy, this boy who looks
the most like Stiles of all the boys he's done this with since he met Stiles.
He pushes him down on the bed and while the boy looks up at him with long
lashes and bites lips that are too thin to be Stiles', Derek removes his own
clothes slowly.

The boy's eyes are big and blink slowly and Derek moves to the bed and leans
down to take the boy's mouth. He doesn't even know his name. It doesn't matter.
Just like in New York, he will never see this one again. If he does, he will
rebuff him -- repeatedly. Cruelly, if necessary.

When their mouths slide together, he murmurs into the kid's lips, "I want you
to suck me."

The boy eagerly accepts Derek's tongue and rough kisses and murmurs back,
"Okay..."

In a few minutes he has a hand behind the boy's head, gripping his hair,
fucking his mouth slowly, all the lights on in the room so he can watch his
cock enter and withdraw, watch the hollowing of the boys cheeks, see the
growing smear of pre-come and saliva gathering at the corners of the boy's
lips, smell the heat and musk of the boy's own arousal. He watches the boy's
other hand snake down to his own cock.

"No," Derek orders quietly. "I'll do that." The hand slowly comes up again.
"Handle my balls," Derek suggests huskily.

The boy rolls them in the hand he was about to use to stroke himself. This
control, this ordering and moving a boy like a puppet on a string is so right
and so wrong and the only thing Derek gives himself since he returned to Beacon
Hills. He absolves himself of the way he uses them by only doing it once. But
in that one encounter, asking first and waiting for drunk, sensual agreement,
he uses them hard and happily. And if they have all started to look too much
like Stiles, whatever.

"Look at me," Derek demands.

The boy's closed eyes open dreamily, only a little bloodshot. The lovely amber
of his eyes, looking up at Derek through his lashes, is Stiles-like. He can
almost imagine it's Stiles' mouth, though the smells are all wrong (and all
right -- the smell of spunk and musk and sweat and sex can never really be
wrong).

He puts a hand under the boy's chin, can tell by the way it trembles that the
boy's jaw is beginning to ache. He keeps fucking the boy's mouth, though, until
he's good and ready to pull out and do the same thing to the boy -- suck him
off, let the boy fuck his mouth.

Derek will use this boy hard in whatever ways are consented to. He'll ask blunt
questions to determine where the boy is willing to put his mouth, which holes
he can use, how much he should prep him if that's on the menu. If necessary,
he'll put his jeans back on and go out to his car shirtless for the lubricant
he keeps in a small lock box in the trunk. He's made churlish demands and had
them obeyed. He does all of this until their four hours are almost up.

Then he will finish them (and himself) off -- pound into them, growling, never
transformed, reining in his wolf, and let go the only thing he can with these
breakable human boys: A tremendous orgasm built over hours of stimulation,
ruthless self-control, and self-denial. He will make them moan, groan, whimper,
beg. It's deeply satisfying to feel and hear and smell them fall apart on his
cock or his mouth or hands.

The squirming loss of control of these boys, their utter vulnerability, their
dependence on him for release, his command of the entire situation -- it's a
beautiful, dark pleasure that touches something deep in Derek, something
twisted he can't deny himself. He tried for a while but he couldn't stop and he
won't look at it too closely or drag it out into the light for a more thorough
examination because why? It is what it is. Fucking is just fucking and there's
nothing special about fucking him or how he fucks them. He knows he uses these
boys as fucktoys -- and more and more often, as Stiles substitutes. He also
knows it's exactly what many of them are looking for, just like he did at their
age. Everyone gets what they want, what they came for. Win-win.

When the four hour time limit is nearly up, there's no time for afterglow. He
hustles them dazed and weak-kneed into a hot shower, briskly washes them up and
rubs them down. He bundles them back into his car and drops them off where he
picked them up or at a friend's or a bus stop or taxi stand or wherever.

When pressed for a phone number, he gives the old land line of the Hale house
which has long been disconnected though it was his home phone number for so
long, he will never forget it. He never accepts their phone numbers. When he
finds scribbled numbers on scraps of paper tucked in his jeans or jacket
pockets, he tosses them in the trash without a second glance. The only reason
he doesn't let them blur together is so he can be certain he's not with a boy
more than once.

When Derek comes, it's in the latest boy's mouth minutes after he swallowed the
boy's come. He at least does that, lets them come first (if not simultaneously
with him). He growls and fucks the boy's face, hand firm behind the boy's head,
until he begins spurting. Then he thrusts all the way in, feeling the faint
twitch of either a gag reflex or swallowing around the head of his cock deep in
the boy's throat.

Eyes slitted, Derek shudders through orgasm, each spurt dragging something from
him. It takes long, drawn out, gasping, twitching seconds -- seconds where his
heart cracks slightly open. Open enough to long unapologetically for the real
thing, for more than merely physical arousal and ejaculation. Then it's over
and the crack closes and in less than twenty minutes he's back on the road, the
nameless Stiles look-alike no longer even in his rear view mirror.

He drives back to Beacon Hills, hair wet, hand firm on the wheel, just the
right amount of tired. Bliss beaten back, emptied of desire, hollow hearted,
he's doesn't even check his hair in the mirror. He's not sure what he'll see
there.

It's dark out anyway.
***** Everything He Thinks He Knows *****

He is at the vet clinic meeting with Scott and Deaton about catching Boyd and
Cora. As they discuss what to do, Derek tolerates Deaton's judgmental attitude
about his alpha leadership with only minor irritation. The promise to Talia
doesn't excuse Deaton's comments. If this is his advice as an emissary, Derek
can live without it -- he's there just for practicalities, like ketamine to
take down moon-starved werewolves. Everyone's a critic until they walk a mile
in your shoes.

Scott mentions that Stiles discovered the two human victims were virgins, one
of whom almost took Stiles' virginity in pursuit of losing her own. Apparently
Stiles thinks another virgin will be killed -- something about a threefold
death and virgin sacrifices. Derek doesn't voice an opinion but suspects Stiles
is right because he so often is. When Deaton's eyebrows lift at the manner of
death, he and Derek silently exchange glances. But Scott thinks virginity is
just an irrelevant coincidence and Boyd and Cora are responsible.

Since the immediate priority is catching Boyd and Cora before they hurt anyone
(else), he and Scott work out a plan with Deaton and set a time to meet later
to put it into action. Derek drives aimlessly away from the animal clinic.
They'll gather after nightfall, so while the sun is still up he drives the
county highways around Beacon Hills taking curves too fast, feeling the Camaro
hug the road and pushing her harder while he tries to think. Deaton's reaction
seems to validate Stiles' opinion. Which makes sense because why would Boyd or
Cora slit their throats, garrotte them, and bash them in the head -- when they
could just rip their throats out with their teeth?

That means Stiles is probably right. And, still a virgin, he could die. Soon.

Derek tries to imagine the weird Beacon Hills band of humans and werewolves
without Stiles. The uneasy alliances and friendships and acquaintances that
have developed since he came back for Laura and found Scott bitten by his uncle
-- he can't imagine it without Stiles because Stiles has been in the thick of
it, all along. Even if he is still young, he'll be on the cusp of adulthood
soon, with what should be brighter things ahead. And for the sheriff to lose
not only his wife years ago but also his son now seems utterly wrong. Derek
knows that inside and out. He knows losing Stiles would leave the Sheriff
totally bereft, adrift in the kind of hopelessness that makes a cop eat his own
gun.

There has to be something he can do. He reviews everything he thinks he knows
about Stiles besides the new information that he's a virgin. (Derek doesn't
that find terribly surprising given the superficiality of teenagers -
- children, really -- and Stiles' lack of social capital. But then again he can
hardly believe it because Stiles' shoulders and hands make him think things he
shouldn't. Even if Stiles is too young, his luminous amber eyes and his lush
mouth not only lift Derek's spirits but bring to mind even hotter thoughts he
has to push away.)

Although (or maybe because) he is the sheriff's son, he's often in trouble at
school -- but never for anything really bad, mostly for protecting Scott. He's
kind to animals (to werewolves, anyway). He loves Scott like a brother and is
incredibly loyal. He's a fantastic liar if you don't have werewolf senses, but
he lies mostly to keep his friends' secrets. He's kind of whipsmart and he
makes leaps of thought with greater scope than the others.

For a human, Stiles is pretty brave. He's helped save everyone -- and
specifically Derek -- a couple of times. He was willing to traumatize himself
by cutting off Derek's arm in order to save him. He held Derek up in the water
though neither of them trusted the other because, well, he's basically a good
kid and maybe because he's had his own dark days. He often references scifi and
horror movies. And despite the fact that Googling couldn't teach Scott
everything about being a werewolf, Stiles has done a pretty good job coaching
Scott and saving their collective asses repeatedly -- a combination of thinking
well under pressure and being a really good researcher.

That last item, more than anything else, convinces Derek that Stiles is right.
Virgin sacrifice is not a conclusion Stiles would arrive at lightly.

Derek has to do something about it. It's so wrong to think of Stiles' life
snuffed out, he can hardly think straight. Every solution seems somehow wrong.
He can't force someone on Stiles... And he would never foist just anyone on
Stiles. (Stiles deserves better than that -- he should have some say in it.)
Derek doesn't know who Stiles would sleep with other than Lydia, but it should
be someone Stiles wants. Based on some open-minded or flexible things he's
overheard Stiles say, Derek's not even sure it has to be a woman. But if Stiles
were okay with a guy, Derek has no idea who. Even if Lydia were willing, Derek
could never coerce anyone into having sex with someone they don't really want
to.

So it has to be someone who already wants to have sex with Stiles, or who would
if the opportunity suddenly arose -- like, tonight. Considering that the first
time is, well, the first time (Derek pushes away thoughts of his own with
...her), it should be someone with experience. (Or maybe that's less of an
issue for boys than girls? Derek isn't sure.) It should be someone who actually
cares to make Stiles' first time wonderful, not just a quick wham bam. (All
right -- if it came down to "wham bam or nothing/you die," then obviously wham
bam is better than nothing. But it's not at all ideal. Stiles deserves so much
more than that.)

Stiles deserves a first time that's unhurried and erotic and good with someone
who genuinely cares. It also has to be someone who won't consider this
virginity-relieving experience an invitation to an ongoing sexual relationship
if Stiles doesn't want that. So it's not just who Stiles would want and how
they go about it, but also how they treat Stiles afterward.

Derek doesn't know everything about Scott and Stiles' circle of friends and how
they intersect with his pack. But he's met virtually all of them and he can't
think of a single person who meets all these qualifications.

Except one.

He shakes his head, alone in his car. No. No. Absolutely not. That's desire
talking, his own selfish want. It would be statutory rape. Of course Derek
wants Stiles; he wants what he wants. He's been walking around for weeks
(months) secretly enjoying what he hoped was Stiles' little crush on him
without ever testing that theory because he couldn't. What if he's been dead
wrong the whole time? What if he's read Stiles wrong since the beginning? What
if Stiles just feels fear with Derek, nothing more? What if his ambiguous
physiological response to Derek is only ambiguous to Derek, while everyone else
knows it's fear and dislike -- or even hate?

Derek wracks his brain for any other way -- any other person. But there's no
one he can think of. Asking Scott, who doesn't even believe the virgin
sacrifice theory, is probably pointless. Nevertheless, Derek decides to text
Scott. He pulls over and takes out his phone. But then he types and erases
several messages in quick succession, not sending any of them. It isn't that
Scott wouldn't know who Stiles likes. It's that what Derek really wants to ask,
Scott might not know the answer to because Stiles might not realize it himself.
Or, if he has, he might not have told anyone, not even Scott. *If* being the
operative word. Derek reluctantly decides not to text Scott and puts his phone
away. He pulls back onto the road, more determined now.

No, better to just go straight to the source, to Stiles, and proposition him -
- let the chips fall where they may. He can do this; he's done it who knows how
many times. (But none of them were Stiles. And none of them were virgins, at
least not that he knows of. And none of them -- oh, God -- meant anything.)
Derek wants Stiles alive, needs Stiles in Beacon Hills -- oh, admit it, needs
Stiles in his life, even if there is nothing between them except working
together on supernatural crises. He's older. He's very experienced. If Stiles
would have him, Derek could make his first time really good -- and he wouldn't
expect anything in return, would only want to ensure Stiles lost his virginity
under the best possible circumstances despite the urgency of the situation. He
would treat Stiles no differently afterward.

Oh, who the fuck is he kidding? He doesn't even treat Stiles nicely now -- he
barely talks to him. He trusts him implicitly, but does Stiles know that? Has
Derek ever said so? No. Never in so many words... Never in any words. Why would
Stiles believe Derek cares for him, when there is so much evidence to the
contrary. It's hopeless. But if it's hopeless, then Stiles is doomed. That's
unacceptable.

Derek drives back to Beacon Hills, his thoughts gloomy. Stiles would reject the
entire premise, let alone Derek, but he feels he has to try. There's no one
else. He has to try because it's Stiles. He can't lose Stiles even if he never
really had him and never really could and would never have tried anything like
this if it weren't for the situation. Maybe it's not even supernatural. Maybe
it's just a human serial killer with a thing for virgins.

Derek tries not to think about the actual sex with Stiles. That's putting the
cart before the horse. But some visuals slip through as he tries to think what
he might say. He pictures Stiles' lips, his surprisingly broad shoulders and
the light hair that's grown thicker on his forearms... Why has he even noticed
that? He thinks about Stiles' hands and his amber eyes with their long lashes,
the pupils dilated, imagines them blinking slowly like they do at him
sometimes.

This is insane. Derek shakes his head again. Either it's going to happen or
it's not. If it does, he'll do what he has to do make it really good for
Stiles. And he will never do it again because he doesn't do that. Ever. With
anyone. Stiles should be no exception. For his own good, Stiles can't be an
exception, because he deserves someone better. Someone who would talk to him.
Tell him how they really feel. Someone trusting and giving, who can be present
and in Stiles' life to make it better, not drag it down. None of which Derek
considers himself. He grits his teeth and keeps driving.

But then something occurs to him -- the conversation about "claiming" Jake with
Laura in New York. But she didn't give any details, and he hadn't asked how it
was done, only argued that she shouldn't. He has some books at home -- maybe he
can ask Deaton --

Derek drives to meet Scott and Deaton and resolves to approach this thing with
Stiles calmly and rationally.

To hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

He's really good at the latter.
End Notes
     This is unbeta-ed, so all mistakes are mine. (If you would like to
     beta, that would be awesome -- feel free to send a PM or email.) This
     is a prequel The_Devil_You_Know (but I wrote it after TDYK). But they
     are wildly different stories. This story has a lot of sex -- not
     necessarily happy. TDYK is a much happier, pornier PWP-ish story and
     is pure Derek/Stiles.
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