Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5723968.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Derek_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski
  Character:
      Stiles_Stilinski, Derek_Hale, Erica_Reyes, Isaac_Lahey, Peter_Hale,
      Jackson_Whittemore, Alan_Deaton, The_Alpha_Pack_(Teen_Wolf)
  Additional Tags:
      alpha_pack_au, Soul_Bond, Mates, Mates_Derek_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski, BAMF
      Stiles, Magical_Stiles_Stilinski, Pining_Derek, First_Time, Derek-
      centric, Full_Shift_Werewolves, Power_Dynamics, Claiming_Bites,
      Possessive_Derek, Alpha_Derek, Good_Alpha_Derek_Hale, Top_Derek_Hale/
      Bottom_Stiles_Stilinski, Spark_Stiles_Stilinski
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-01-15 Completed: 2017-02-24 Chapters: 6/6 Words: 41381
****** Oh my (let me look at those eyes) ******
by Gorgeousgreymatter
Summary
     "A few months ago, he might’ve been able to solve this with some
     force—a little man-handling, a snarl, a glimpse of teeth. But he
     looks at Stiles’s broken face, knows he’s seen too much horror and
     blood and evil, the whole Big Bad Wolf routine is just going to fall
     flat. Because Derek looks at Stiles and he doesn’t carry himself like
     a teenager anymore. He carries himself like a soldier."
Notes
     Basically I've had this on my computer forever (since 2012), and I'm
     finally getting around to finishing it. I've been pretty down lately,
     and it means a lot that people seem to like it and have managed to
     stick with me despite my snail's pace writing. Kudos and comments are
     love!
***** Chapter One *****
Oh my (let me look at those eyes)
Things spiral quickly after Jackson is “cured.” Erica and Boyd make it back
eventually, left beaten, broken, and near death at the border of Hale
territory. He and Peter carry them back to the Hale house, and Peter holds them
down, quieting their screams as Derek pops their bones back into place, licks
the blood from their open wounds. They fall asleep and Derek doesn’t stay with
them, doesn’t need to stick around and see how Peter looks at him, like he’s
failed, because he knows.
Derek could say he isn’t sure how things got so fucked up, he could claim
ignorance, bad luck, anything, but he knows. He knows why. It’s his fault. From
the moment he let Kate Argent into their world, into his home, his family, his
pack, it was over, because everything he touches burns to the ground.
And now the alpha pack is coming, and he knows—knew from the moment he and
Peter saw that sigil marked on the scorched wood, glowing, incandescent in the
moonlight.
They were all going to die. And Derek can't stop it, feels so bone-tired, that
he just wants to lie down and let it happen.
Derek doesn’t sleep much anymore. How can he? He has a pack, sure, but it’s
splitting apart at the seams, limping on its last legs like a sick and dying
animal. Scott doesn’t trust him, Derek certainly doesn’t trust Peter (a man
whose very re-appearance has defied nature), and Erica and Boyd spend most of
their time wrapped up in each other, speaking in quiet whispers, shrinking away
whenever Derek tries to approach.
Isaac he trusts, thinks maybe the boy is the only good thing to come out of
this whole nightmare. He trusts Derek completely, wholly, like a brother, and
they really are family. When Derek does manage to fall asleep, he wakes up
gasping, his nostrils filled with the memory of the harsh scents of smoke and
fire and ash, and Isaac is there, curled into his side, whining softly.
He thinks a lot about that night, when he bit into Gerard’s flesh, tasted death
and decay and poison. He thinks about the look on that Stilinski boy’s face,
like his whole world was breaking apart.
“The sheriff’s boy—Stiles—he’d make a good wolf,” says Peter.
“He never talked,” says Erica. “He didn’t sell you out, any of us.”
Derek closes his eyes and sees black eyes and bloody lips, freckled skin marred
with bruises.
He doesn’t know why it bothers him so much, but it does.
He doesn’t know why, but he asks Isaac to watch over him—the human boy stupid
and fearless enough to run with wolves.
The new den doesn’t feel right. Sure, yeah, it’s nice not to live in a house
marked by death, haunted by ghosts and guilt, but it still feels wrong. It goes
against every instinct, to run and hide like this, but it’s necessary (that’s
what he tells himself, every morning, every day). At least the house’s
condition, rotted wood and peeling walls, gives Derek something to do,
something to work toward. While the pack is at school, he and Peter do the best
they can to repair it. The master bedroom is all cleared out—it isn’t much, a
pair of ragged curtains to keep out the sun, and a giant brass four-poster,
creaky and a little rusted at the bottom.
As alpha, he supposes he should be the one to stay in it, but he rarely sleeps
anyway, so he doesn’t even snarl when Peter jokingly claims it for himself. He
just shrugs and brushes past him, not saying another word as he jumps down the
stairs, out the door, loping into the dense forest, letting the trees swallow
him up Peter talks too much and doesn’t really say anything. It’s maddening.
This is the only way he feels like he has any control, as he strips bare,
letting the wolf take over.
He hasn’t gone full wolf in so long. It feels like the first exhale after
nearly drowning. His human instincts fall to the background, and he feels
solid, still, standing in the shadows of dappled sunlight and ancient oaks.
He runs until he can’t run anymore.
He runs until he feels free.
//
Derek can hear them coming from a mile away. Stiles has so many tells—the
frantic, hummingbird’s pace of his heart, the way he practically vibrates with
excess energy. So, Derek’s already pulled his jeans back on, coming out of the
trees to meet them when the jeep rolls up. The first frost has passed, so the
air is crisp, and Derek can see his breath like smoke hovering in the air. He
wishes he could feel it. It’s been a long time since he felt the cold.
When the pair jumps out of the car, Isaac already looks guilty, whimpering
softly under his breath as he presses into Stiles’s side. Derek wants to growl
at the beta, show his teeth, but Isaac is already so jumpy, and it’s been hard
enough convincing him he wouldn’t get hit if he so much as breathed wrong.
He settles for what he hopes is a disappointed glare.
Of course, the first thing Stiles does is mouth off—he always does (it’s why
he’d make a terrible Beta, no respect, no submission). His wolf prickles in
indignation, but all Derek sees are the blooms of black and blue against
Stiles’s cheek, the split in his lip, still slightly swollen from where
Gerard’s hands struck. But there’s only anger in the boy’s eyes as he spits
words as hot as fire: “Call off your fucking dogs okay. I don’t need a
babysitter. I don’t need anything from any of you.”
It makes Derek see red, literally.
“We never found Gerard’s body,” he says, trying to keep his tone flat and dull,
disinterested.
“Isaac, go inside,” he adds, turning to the young beta. Isaac flushes, but he
nods, and when he passes by, Derek reaches a hand out to squeeze his shoulder
reassuringly. He watches the tension drain from the boy’s body with a feeling
of satisfaction because that’s the one thing he seems to be able to do right.
“Don’t fight me on this, Stiles,” Derek growls when they’re alone. He isn’t
sure how much Stiles knows—about the alphas, about Boyd and Erica (probably
more than he should, certainly more than Derek wants him to), and seeing
Stiles’s body, bruised and broken like this, all it does is reinforce his
worries.
Derek huffs in annoyance when Stiles glares right back at him. It shouldn’t
drive him crazy like it does, that Stiles won’t give in to him, doesn’t even
flinch under Derek’s gaze, his eyes bright, golden-brown, and unflinching. If
Derek is honest with himself, it makes him nervous, but this rarely happens
anyway, so it’s something he tries to push back down into the recesses of his
mind.
It bothers him, he thinks, because Stiles (despite his struggling, his
stubbornness, the fact that he seems to have been dragged into Derek’s life
kicking and screaming) is pack. He knows Isaac can sense it, Peter can see it,
and Derek can certainly smell it. Stiles, despite his complete and utter
humanness…he feels like pack, smells like woods and earth and den and…
Something.
A few months ago, he might’ve been able to solve this with some force—a little
man-handling, a snarl, a glimpse of teeth. But he looks at Stiles’s broken
face, knows he’s seen too much horror and blood and evil, the whole Big Bad
Wolf routine is just going to fall flat. Because Derek looks at Stiles and he
doesn’t carry himself like a teenager anymore. He carries himself like a
soldier.
It makes something in Derek ache.
He can’t help it, he lets out a soft whine, clipped, brief, but he feels like
the sound echoes in the hollow quiet of the trees, not even muffled by the wind
and the creak of quaking branches. He follows it with a growl, rumbling deep in
his throat, just to cover it up. But he struggles to fight the urge—as alpha—to
comfort and heal. It’s both satisfying and infuriating, and the two feelings
war in him, making his stomach churn and his chest feel like there’s a fire
burning in it.
“You don’t know anything about what’s coming,” Derek says. He knows Stiles
carries his scent, they all do, his pack. Stiles is marked, just as much as
they are.
“Hate me, hate Isaac, fine. But I—we—can’t leave you unprotected.”
Stiles just scoff like what Derek says means nothing. “I’m not unprotected. I’m
not—I have Scott, and I’m not completely inept,” he pauses, breathing deep,
“and I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”
Derek laughs at that, he can’t help it—but it’s cold and bitter even to his own
ears, an empty sound that makes his skin crawl. He knows, and Stiles should
know, better than anyone, that it isn't Scott who plays the role of protector
in that relationship. Looking into Stiles’s eyes, seeing the glimpse of
uncertainty right before it fades into stubborn arrogance, maybe Stiles is
starting to realize that it’s been a long time since any of them could depend
on Scott for anything.
He isn't quite sure when it happens, but somehow Derek is close enough to
Stiles to see the thump, thump, thump of his pulse, beating frantic against the
skin of his throat, stretched thin over sharp collarbone. He sees the marks of
another man’s hands, bruising and cruel, where they dug into Stiles’s
shoulders.
He wants to tell him, he wants to say, they’ll think you’re mine. They’ll think
you belong to me and they’ll punish you for it.
But he doesn't say that. Of course he doesn't, because Derek doesn't know how.
The words feel too raw and bloody in his throat so he swallows them down
because he’s used to the taste of loss by now. And he thinks he’s never missed
Laura so much as in this moment, because even on his best day as an alpha, it
isn't anything close to her warmth and strength, the way she made everything
just hurt less.
Where Laura was brave and strong and warm, he’s hard and cruel, spits words out
that he isn't even sure he means.
“And where is Scott now? Moping over the girl whose grandfather tortured you?
Did she watch? Did she even try to stop it? Do you think she heard you
screaming?” He grips Stiles’s chin, forcing him to look into his eyes, and the
boy’s bones feel so utterly breakable, hollow, like a bird’s wing. It’s tragic,
he thinks, Stiles’s fragility, how easy it would be to smash and twist and
shatter and bite and…
He shakes his head, pulling himself out of whatever trance he’s just fallen
into, stepping back from Stiles like he’s been burned. He doesn’t look back,
just goes into the house, thinking maybe it’s better this way, or maybe it
doesn’t even matter at all.
Because it’s only a matter of time before this town is just bones and blood
buried six feet under the earth and Derek will be the one with the shovel in
his hand, digging its grave.
And Derek, he doesn’t expect Stiles to follow. In fact it’s the last thing he
expects, and it’s maddening and infuriating and strangely awing—how little
self-preservation the boy seems to possess that he’d go up against an alpha
without even batting an eye. He feels the hand, Stiles’s frail human hand, turn
him around. He could toss him off easily, but Derek doesn’t, just lets himself
be drawn back, folding into the touch. Maybe it’s self-sabotage, maybe he’s a
glutton for punishment.
Either way, it’s his fault.
Stiles is almost as tall as Derek, albeit much more lanky and thin, his body
still a little hunched, shouldering the weight of teenage awkwardness; when
their eyes lock, Derek sees fury in the boy’s gaze. Derek’s wolf howls,
indignant, and he feels his eyes shift, the unmitigated lengthening of teeth,
and thinks, a little incredulous, that he hasn't lost control like this since
he was sixteen.
He reaches out, impossibly fast, his fingers curling all the way around
Stiles’s forearm, and Derek doesn’t even think, doesn’t even process what’s
going on as it happens.
The veins in Derek’s arm flex and shudder, turning the color of ink, as he
pulls out all of it, all of the pain, thick like poison, from Stiles’s body. He
feels twinges of it, dull and muted, a little like pins and needles after
moving idle limbs— in his ribs, his shoulders, with a shudder that runs all the
way up into the stiff vertebrae of his spine. Even his lips are numb as he
drops the boy’s wrist.
Derek opens his mouth to say something, anything, but before he can even
breathe, Peter comes into the hallway, whistling a tune like they aren't all
about to be systematically slaughtered like cattle.
“Aww, if it isn't my favorite little human?” Peter practically purrs, and Derek
flinches, not even having to look at Peter to know he’s staring at Stiles like
he’s a piece of prime rib. Derek watches Stiles pallid cheeks flush angrily.
And this time, when Derek runs, he doesn't give Stiles the chance to go after
him.
But the boy does anyway.
Of course Derek hears him coming; of course he does, because only Stiles would
be stupid and reckless enough to go crashing blindly through the forest, making
enough noise that anything and everything within a five mile radius hears him
blundering through the underbrush. Though Derek is tempted to keep running,
fleeing from…he doesn't even know what, the unshakable urge to get as far away
from everyone as he possibly can.
But he doesn't, because he hears Stiles call his name and it’s something he
can’t ignore even though he desperately wants to, because it’s like Stiles’s
words have roped him in, and the boy is just yanking the lead, pulling him back
toward the house. Snarling in frustration, Derek turns on his heels…
And that’s when he hears it:
The chorus of howls that crackles through the air like an electrical current,
and it shocks every nerve, putting his body on red alert.
With a howl, he flies through the trees, not flinching, not feeling at all, as
sharp thorns and spindly branches slice through his skin as he sprints (it
doesn't matter anyway, as the lesions heal before they can even bleed).
By the time he gets there, he feels it, like a punch in the gut. He’s too late.
There’s five of them in all, not the whole pack, but it’s enough—one of them
holding Stiles around the middle, laughing as he struggles. Derek meets Stiles
eyes and he’s scared, he can see it, he can smell it—
And Derek…he’s fucking terrified.
“This belong to you?” one of them cackles, running a clawed finger across the
perfect, unmarred flesh of Stiles’s cheek. “He’s pretty…and he smells good
enough to eat.”
Derek’s vision goes red, and with an almighty roar, he lets go—let’s go of
every shred of control he’s ever claimed to have. All he sees is claws and
teeth and blood.
But it’s not enough.
It takes three of them to hold him back (they lose one, throat ripped clean out
in Derek’s fury), but it’s not enough.
The woman---she gets away. And she takes Stiles with her.
When Derek comes to, he recognizes where he is immediately—the harsh sting of
disinfectant and mountain ash, the frozen metal slab underneath him: Deaton’s
office. He jerks up, hears a metallic clang as he sends a tin of surgical
instruments clattering to the floor, his arms flailing wildly. He feels arms
struggling to hold him down as he thrashes, and he roars, teeth bared, still
fighting the enemies no longer in front of him—just phantoms and ghosts and—
“Derek,” hisses someone, Isaac he thinks, and Derek finally stills, opening his
eyes to see his entire pack crowded into the cramped suite, their eyes blinking
concernedly at him. He doesn't say anything about what happens, not at first,
ignoring the searing pains in his chest and his shoulders where the alphas’
claws tore into his flesh, because it doesn't matter, not now.
“They have Stiles,” Derek says desperately. “They took him.”
There’s a chorus of swears followed by various snarls and whimpers as the
realization dawns on all of them.
And this is how it goes:
They are back at the den, Deaton with them, and they are all looking at Derek
like he’s supposed to know exactly what to do, waiting for him to give them
their orders. It’s almost ironic, really— certainly says something about the
state of his pack, that it takes a human, Stiles, to bring them all back
together under the same roof. Derek sits in the corner, barely listening, his
head hung, shaking as he balls his fists to keep from screaming.
And when Scott burst in, howling with fury, Derek doesn't even fight back when
Scott grabs him by the throat with one clawed hand, even as his lungs scream in
protest. He also isn't surprised when he sees Allison and her father, standing
like sentries by the doorway, guns and crossbows in hand.
“This is your fault,” Scott snarls.
Derek says nothing, doesn't even lift a hand to defend himself, and when he
stares directly into Scott’s eyes, he sees the boy’s anger fade rapidly into
something else—confusion, maybe pity.
“I’m going to get him,” says Derek, finally breaking his silence. It’s not a
question, but a fact, spoken low and soft, with all the weight of a death
sentence, because that’s exactly what this is.
Jackson speaks, barely a whisper, from his place on the sofa, “It’s a trap.
They’re just going to kill you.”
“Yes,” he says, “but I’m going anyway.”
And it doesn't really hurt, the realization that he’s okay with it, he’s ready,
to die, fine, as long as they get Stiles out, he thinks it doesn't really
matter what happens to him.
“You’re just going to let them kill you?” asks Erica hollowly. At that, Isaac
lets out a broken cry, but Derek does nothing to comfort him this time. They
don’t need him, he thinks, not like they need Stiles, not like they need each
other.
He’s ready, and it’s okay.
//
Derek tracks them easily, follows the trail they left just for him, flecks of
Stiles’s blood on leaves, the tattered fabric of the young man’s shirt.
Argent’s car tracks him at a distance—they’re here just to get Stiles out,
purely a retrieval mission, because Derek doesn't want or need anyone else to
die for him tonight.
No one had even tried to fight him on it, seeing his expression, so grave and
determined.
He stops in the middle of a clearing, scenting the air with rapid intakes of
breath.
He hears the growls, the snap of dried twigs, as four of them emerge from the
mouth of a cave carved from water and wind into the cliff-side.
“Missing your chew-toy?” one of them crows, a man with flaming red hair and
eyes to match.
Derek says nothing, his own eyes flashing in return, his hard stoicism broken
only by a flinch as he sees the same brunette dragging Stiles out by the ropes
around his hands, throwing him on the ground like dead weight. She follows with
a swift kick of her foot, aimed at Stiles’s stomach, and Derek can’t help it—he
howls a fractured, broken wail that makes an eerie hush fall over the entire
forest. Even one of the alphas (a lanky boy, appearing no older than Stiles)
winces at the sound.
And Stiles is looking at him, eyes frantic and pleading, and Derek offers him
nothing more than a stony glance, resigned, as if to say, it’ll be over soon.
The boy, the nervous one, flinches again when Derek steps forward, and he knows
this is it—reacts faster than even he thought possible, grabbing the smaller
alpha by the neck, bringing it down against the hard bone of his knee where he
hears the satisfying snap of the boy’s spine. He lets the boy’s body drop to
the forest floor, bent at an unnatural angle.
The others howl maddeningly.
Derek nods, extending his claws, and he lets them come.
It’s not as painful as he always imagined it would be, dying. It’s kind of
easy, he thinks, as he the pack swallows him up, teeth and claws tearing at
every inch of exposed flesh. As they climb over him, he halfheartedly swipes
with his hands, tossing them off, if only to serve as more of a distraction.
His mind is clear for the first time in weeks, and he finds he only thinks of
the night he saw his home burn to the ground, wonders if this is what his
family felt as flames, so hot they burnt electric blue, licked at their skin,
as they choked on ashes and smoke.
Maybe it didn’t hurt at all… maybe it was just like falling asleep.
When Derek sees the Argents, Allison’s father holding Stiles up, he actually
feels himself smiling faintly. Everything goes quiet around him, and all he
hears is his own heartbeat pounding like war drums in his ears. It’s oddly
comforting, and he thinks if Laura could see him now, she might actually be
proud of him. This is what an alpha does—sacrifice, and he’s okay with it.
One of the larger alphas has him from behind, locking his arms so he can’t
struggle, though he’s not trying to anymore. The brunette is on him in seconds,
her teeth gleaming, and blood dripping from her extended canines. Her eyes are
blood red and she’s grinning from ear to ear, her hands raised to finish what
she started. Derek shuts his eyes, feeling only the odd sensation of blood, wet
and hot, dripping down his neck.
He waits, and he waits, but the blow doesn’t come. His eyes flash open when he
hears the woman scream, sees where a bullet has pierced her where neck and
shoulder meet. It’s wolfsbane, and he watches, both horrified and fascinated as
her skin ripples, black and blue and ghostly white as it decays.
Derek doesn’t have to look to know where the bullet comes from. He can hear the
fluttering staccato of Stiles’s heart, the shriek of pain as the gun recoils
against his bruised and broken bones.
“No!” Derek growls, every limb of his own body screaming in protest as he grabs
the woman by the throat and pulls, her head thrown back as Derek rips her
esophagus from the inside out with a horrible squelching sound.
The last two screech in protest, abandoning Derek as they both go sprinting in
Stiles’s direction and it’s everything Derek had tried to avoid.
Stupid, stubborn boy, Derek thinks, as he throws himself in front of their
path, managing to gut the red-haired alpha just before he reaches out to claw
Stiles from chest to groin.
The last one cries out, and it’s awful—the sound of complete and utter loss and
despair—it makes the hair on the back of his neck tingle. Derek feels the tips
of the alpha’s claws dig into his back, right as Derek’s teeth shred the
entirety of his neck and shoulder.
He drops the limp body to the ground away from Stiles, and turns to look at
him. The boy is covered in blood and definitely bruised from head to toe, but
he’s alive. Alive is good.
Derek’s breathing is slow, labored, and he winces as he feels his body trying
desperately to heal itself, so many alpha-inflicted wounds sucking the very
life out of him. His lungs feel crushed from the outside, and his vision
flickers from red to white to red again. He falls to his knees in front of
Stiles, the loudest sound he’s ever heard, and then he doesn’t know anything
else.
While he is gone, lost, asleep, wherever—Derek dreams. They aren’t the
nightmares that have plagued his nights for so many years, no, they are
memories, visions of things he’d forgotten: he’s a child again, his father
picking him up and tossing him in the air, his uncle peter (whose eyes are
kind, not murderous, not crazed) running with him on his first full moon, his
mother’s touch, warm and soft, crooning a lullaby in a language he never had
the chance to learn.
Sometimes, it’s other things, things he doesn’t understand, not consciously,
but knows in his bones that they feel right: freckled skin like the
constellations his sisters taught him, lips— pink and full, a steady heartbeat
to match his own.
He doesn’t want to wake up. He wants to crawl inside these images for ever,
curl into them like he’s a pup again, and never let go.
But slowly, the dreams begin to fade, his mother’s face becomes blurred, the
memories corrupted—pain ebbs its way into the warm, bright lights he hides
behind, and he hears murmuring sometimes ( it’s Deaton, mostly, though
sometimes it’s Peter, sometimes Scott).
But he doesn’t fully wake up. Not for a long time. Not for days.
Though when he does, the transition to the waking world is violent and harsh,
and it hurts. He gasps as his lungs work on their own for the first time in
awhile, constricting rapidly as they rush air throughout his body. Deaton’s
eyes are the first he sees, so dark and old and wise in ways Derek knows he
can’t even imagine.
“That was very stupid of you,” says Deaton, though it’s with a fondness Derek
doesn’t think he’s heard before.
He tries to speak, but nothing comes at first, just sputtering, like he’s
swallowed gravel. Someone hands him water—Peter, he realizes, who’s hovering
over him with an almost authentic-looking expression of concern and relief.
“I notice you didn’t try and stop me,” Derek growls, finally.
“Sometimes stupid works for you,” says Deaton, smiling.
//
Peter goes to tell the pack he’s awake. While he’s gone, Derek gets used to the
idea that he actually isn’t dead, which honestly is something he wasn’t
expecting. He looks in the mirror, finally, when Deaton is satisfied that he
isn’t in any more danger, and it’s bad—but it isn’t the worst he’s seen. Most
of his wounds have healed, faded almost entirely—he thinks, most likely due to
Deaton’s craftiness. There are claw marks that will likely never fade
completely, a shock of raised white lines running from the back his neck to his
hips, a corded rope of scar tissue over his left shoulder, a jagged bite mark
on his forearm.
But it doesn’t matter, because he’s alive.
“It’s something your father would have done,” says Deaton, arms crossed as he
watches Derek in the mirror. “He would be proud of what you have done for the
boy.”
Stiles.
Derek stiffens…”My father was human, he wasn’t…but Stiles,” and he trails off,
his lips already forming the question.
“He’s alive, stable, and very anxious to see you,” says Deaton. The man is
smiling in a knowing way that makes Derek uncomfortable, uncertain.
“In fact, he is outside right now…”
Derek sees Isaac first, the boy looking at him with his trademark dopey grin,
like Derek hangs the moon, and Derek offers him a knowing smile in return. But
then his gaze falls on the stumbling figure that comes barreling in after his
beta, and it stops him cold. It feels a little like the world falls away, as
ridiculously cliché as it sounds, because Stiles won’t stop staring at him, and
it’s like he’s being x-rayed. Derek can’t remember the last time he felt self-
conscious, shifting under Stiles’s intense gaze, maybe when he was thirteen,
but not anytime recently that’s for certain, and the whole thing is incredibly
unnerving and uncomfortable.
The way Stiles is biting his lip, the way his expression changes from familiar,
stubborn indignation, then to anger, finally settling on hurt, it makes Derek’s
insides feel raw. It also is incredibly irritating, something that’s sort of a
relief, a familiar, welcome feeling.
And Stiles croaks out, “I’m sorry,” and all Derek can see is the way he limps
when he walks, the bone-white bandages peeking out from the sleeves of that
stupid red hoodie he always wears.
Derek can see the boy drowning in guilt, the same way Derek has for what feels
like forever, and it makes him feel sick because that wasn’t what this was at
all.
So instead Derek reaches for him, whining as he puffs hot breath into the
hollow of Stiles’s throat, breathing in the scent of him, so very much alive.
Derek allows himself a few moments, longer than necessary probably, finding a
strange comfort in the stable, steady thrum of Stiles’s pulse, though it
doesn’t stay that way for long, quickening in its pace in a way that makes
Derek flinch, thinking it’s him, that Stiles is scared of him…
But before he can step away, Stiles’s arm comes up around his back and they are
clinging to each other. It’s a nice moment, quiet, just of the two of them,
despite the audience. Someone coughs, and Derek looks up, sees that it’s no
longer just Peter and Isaac in the room with them. Scott is gaping at him, with
a look of---something, his brow furrowed as he’s trying to puzzle the whole
thing out.
He’s shadowed by someone unexpected, however.
And it’s the Sheriff— Stiles’s father, looking so much older, grayer, his face
more ashen and lined than even Derek has ever seen. And he thinks of the only
other time he’s ever seen that look on the man’s face, the night he led a boy
and girl, young, yet no so young, into the back of a police car, murmuring,
don’t look son, not anymore as they drove away from the smoking ruin of his
home, and nine bodies, crudely covered with blankets, splayed like broken dolls
on the scorched leaves of the forest floor.
Derek looks into the man’s eyes, and they stare back at him, and he knows now,
thinks Derek. He has to understand, now.
And the man clears his throat, says, “Thank you.” It's soft, but Derek hears
the weight behind it.
So he nods, steps back, even though the wolf in him howls in protest, reaching
again for Stiles in a way Derek doesn’t yet understand.
“Take him home, he—you should take him home.”
Things are better after, not necessarily easier, but certainly calmer. It takes
a while for Derek to feel normal again, for the sting to leave his muscles and
joints, and it’s frustrating to say the least, because he isn’t used to having
to take time to heal. Though when he does, he feels stronger than he did
before, and he knows, knows without even asking Deaton, that it is the state of
his pack that is the source of it, this new-found strength.
Their bond is healing, along with Derek wounds, and like the cuts on his skin,
it is a slow yet steady process. It is hard for him, letting down the walls he
spent years building up, but he tries. He fixes up the house almost completely,
and when Isaac moves in, when Erica and Boyd set up a room to share, it almost
feels like a real home. Almost.
Even Scott and Jackson have come around more, sparring with the other betas,
letting Derek teach them how to fight, how to track, how to avoid detection. He
knows Jackson wants him to give Lydia the bite, hears them talk about it in
hushed whispers, but Derek just can’t, and even if he did, he isn’t sure what
would happen, if Lydia’s immunity would put them all at risk.
If anything, Derek is more cautious than ever.
//
Stiles doesn’t come around anymore, and even Scott doesn’t seem to be seeing
him much these days. When he visits Deaton, Derek doesn’t ask about him, though
the vet says in soothing tones that he’s fine, he’s healing.
Several full moons pass, and the Derek feels proud that most of his pack can
control themselves without his help. Erica still struggles, and he knows it
bothers her that she cannot run with the rest of them, that she still has to be
chained up like an animal. On the nights when it’s worst, Derek stays with her,
wrapping her in his arms, even as she snarls and scratches at him.
Things get better, slowly, but they do.
//
It’s the third full moon since the night Stiles was taken, and Derek feels the
pull in his veins, but he doesn’t show it. The others don’t often realize it,
that sometimes it is harder for him as a born wolf—that he cannot separate
himself from the animal as easily as they can. For him, the wolf is not
separate, not a thing he can shut on and off, and that it took years for him to
develop the iron-clad control that he now possesses.
He has done his best to let Stiles be, doesn’t even ask his betas to watch over
him (though he suspects that they do, regardless). Despite the fact that every
instinct claws at him, tells him to watch, care, protect this strange human
boy.
And he realizes, as he finds himself outside the Stilinksi home, with the hazy
yellow moon raised high over the trees that today is his birthday. It isn’t a
thing he often thinks about, especially after, when more years simply meant
more unwanted time to mourn and grieve. He and Laura had long stopped
celebrating.
And Derek, he recognizes the scent of the boy immediately—woods, something
homey, spicy, tainted only slightly by the smallest stench of chemicals (the
adderall, he thinks). Derek doesn’t mean to scare him; he’s used to moving in a
way that makes little noise, if any at all, and he can’t help it that his eyes
automatically track every little movement of Stiles’s nimble fingers, like any
predator might its prey.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Stiles sputters, dropping whatever it is he’s got in
his palm. Derek’s eyes narrow, but he still smells the thing before he sees it.
And Derek scowls, his eyes narrowing as he catches an odor so naturally
repulsive to his kind, mixed up so unwanted in Stiles’s natural scent. Derek
steps closer, his hand reaching into the boy’s pocket, pulling out the source
of his distaste.
It’s such a tiny thing, no bigger than a cigarette, with a tip as slim and
pointed as a sewing needle. A silver dart dipped in wolfsbane and hemlock.
Derek growls, the dart laid flat in his palm as he holds it in front of
Stiles’s face.
“Argent teaching you some nice tricks?” he asks, not even bothering to hide the
venom in his voice.
And Stiles doesn’t hesitate to snatch back the tiny weapon, tuck the dart
safely away again. “Something tripped my mountain ash…alarms,” he mumbles, “and
it was Deaton, by the way. I’ve been learning some things, I want—no, I need to
be ready, for—for next time.” Stiles trails off again, his twitchy fingers
tugging on his shirt, white and thin and a little too long for him.
For next time, Derek thinks. For the next time Stiles suffers because of them.
Stiles’s words seep like ice into his veins, stinging as harshly as the venom
in that dart would if it were to ever pierce his skin. The way that the boy
talks, like he means nothing, like he’s worth so little to them, it makes
Derek's blood run cold and sluggish, like he’s frozen in place. He doesn’t
understand, doesn’t know how Stiles can see it that way, when it’s obvious to
everyone else what it means— when they hurt him like that, he must know, thinks
Derek, he must know what it means…
Because that’s what your enemy does in war, goes after what’s most precious,
what’s most valued, prized above all other things.
In the pack, if Derek is brute strength, cold and hard, immovable and unfeeling
as granite, Stiles is all fire and heart, and he must know, that the only
reason they are whole again is because of him.
Derek’s eyes flash as they follow Stiles’s hands, the way they pull and tug at
the hem of his shirt, and that’s when Derek sees—what they’ve done to him, how
they’ve marked him forever, found a way to haunt them all even after they’ve
gone.
The sound that escape from his open mouth is a deafening, anguished cry, and
Derek can’t help it, he has to see, has to touch. And his own hands are shaking
as they cover Stiles’s, lifting the thin fabric in a slow reveal of skin, and
it’s all sharp, angry lines, white and glowing in the moonlight.
And he knows in his bones, sees the hard line of Stiles’s mouth, that there
isn’t a way he can ever make this right. Even if he sucked every last bit of
pain from Stiles’s body, that there’d be an ache, a part of him broken that
can’t ever heal right.
He wants to say something, anything, but nothing comes because he doesn’t know
how to do this, not when any apology he offers would carry the same
weightlessness as saying nothing at all.
So Derek traces the raised scar tissue, the triangles and curves of the mark,
ingraining the memory in his own flesh because he knows that he doesn’t ever
deserve to forget what he’s done to something so good and warm and perfect.
Derek, he’s lost in thought as his fingertips brush over skin he’s never really
touched before, not really, not like this—Stiles feels cool and soothing under
his own hands, underneath his own skin that runs so much hotter than a humans.
The boy shivers, and Derek feels the gooseflesh that prickles underneath his
palms, catching like wildfire as it trails up his arms too.
And Stiles mouth is open, his breathing quickened, his cheeks flushed, and
Derek jerks his head when the boy speaks, when he hears the tremor in his
voice, sees Stiles’s eyes alight with confusion, not fear, not hate, but
something neither of them can really place.
“What are you, god, Derek….you have to stop,” and the boy’s voice is quivering,
choked.
Derek pulls his hand away, slow, and smooths the fabric over Stiles’s stomach
and he steps back, though the wolf in him screams in protest, wants things
Derek doesn’t even know how to begin to understand.
“I—sorry, I---“
And he thinks, with a realization that hits him as solidly as a strike across
the face, that he would do whatever the boy asked of him, now, in this
moment—anything.
That if Stiles told him to go away, to not come back, he would go, and he would
go and never look on him again.
“I don’t know—I don’t understand,” he says desperately, and the words come out
hoarse and jumbled and Derek wishes he had never spoken at all.
“And you think I do?” Stiles says with a laughing, shaking his head. “Fucking
wolves, man. Why can’t anything normal ever happen to me? Why are you even
here? I mean..it’s me for fuck’s sake. You hate me…you hate me right? I
just…fuck, it’s so cold and look at you, and you’re not even shivering. I—I
need to go inside.”
For Derek, it’s a relief to hear Stiles’s familiar babbling, a welcome white
noise that drowns out the half-formed doubts and questions that have been
plaguing the alpha for months. A year ago, when Scott was first bitten, the
boy’s endless chatter had been nearly insufferable, so alien to him, someone
who’d lived so long in almost complete silence, moving through the day-to-day
as immaterial as the ghosts he’d tried his best to bury.
Maybe he should go, he thinks, looking up to see that the moon has moved to its
highest point, just past midnight. He thinks of Erica and Boyd, Jackson, Peter
(a problem he’s yet to even ponder solving), but the thought of running
tonight—it’s not what he wants, not what he needs.
“Tired,” he grunts, “Isaac and Scott can take over for one night.”
And he watches Stiles watch him, adding, “They've been better, since…”
Though he doesn't want to add that they all know what’s—who-- has been missing
from the equation for far too long, longer certainly than Derek has wanted.
“I’ll go, if you want,” he says quietly, in what he thinks are the most words
he’s ever said to Stiles at one time, “but I’d like to stay.”
He cocks his head, listens for a moment, not hearing the tell-tale footfalls of
the Sheriff’s heavy boots, or the hum of the television, the man’s heartbeat
that tends to be just a touch out of sync on the fifth beat.
“I could even use the front door for once. It might be a nice change,” he says,
his tone flat, but offering Stiles a smile that’s all teeth, white and
gleaming.
And Stiles actually smiles back, not a full one, just a tilt upwards of soft,
pink lips. “Come inside.”
Derek follows Stiles wordlessly; his hands dug into the pockets of his jeans,
doing is best not to trail too close, though he wants to. Consciously, he even
tries to make noise when he moves just to put Stiles more at ease because he
notes the subtle way the boy’s shoulders shake as he walks into the house and
heads up the stairs, two at a time. Derek shuts the door once he’s inside the
hall, it closes with a click, and he turns the lock too, just to be safe.
There aren’t any lights on in the house, it’s nearly pitch-black, though Derek
can see fine, no real difference to his eyes than if it were broad daylight.
He’s never been into the main parts of the Stilinksi house before; it’s
comfortable here, homey, lived in, and it’s been a long time since Derek felt
something like that. There are a few pictures on the walls, the ones that are
there, they’re mostly of Stiles: a few school photographs, one of him in
lacrosse gear. Noticeably, there are none of Stiles’s mother, though Derek
remembers seeing her in town, a slight blonde, with bright eyes like Stiles’s,
soft features, a thousand-watt smile.
They get to Stiles’s room, and it’s more cluttered than Derek remembers. It’s
dimly lit as well, just a desk lamp switched on, the muted glow of a reading
lamp. Stiles’s scent fills Derek’s nostrils—it’s everywhere in the room, and
he’s swimming in it. He feels slightly dizzy, so he crosses the room, past
Stiles where the boy is still standing awkwardly by the bed like he doesn’t
know what to do, and slides into the armchair in the corner. He moves with an
easy grace that belies his uneasiness, thankful in this case for his natural-
born gifts. The boy’s room is covered with books; they line several bookcases,
strewn on the floor and the desk. Some of them are older, leather-bound, and
there a few he recognizes from his old home, thinks that the vet must’ve
rescued them because they still bear the acrid smell of burnt wood and ash.
His eyes fall on Stiles’s bed, and he notes that the boy’s scent is faintest
here, like it hasn’t been slept in. Derek isn’t surprised, though he can’t deny
it worries him (although he worries a lot in Stiles’s case, regardless). He can
imagine Stiles, propped up at the desk, bent over the tomes, twitching
restlessly, most likely sprawled over his keyboard when he finally managed to
fall asleep. There’s a book lying closest to Derek, resting on the windowsill,
and he picks it up, running his fingers over the dusty spine, the thin pages
yellowed with age. It’s mostly sketches, creatures Derek remembers his father
telling him about—wendigos and redcaps, will-o-the-whisps, the other things
besides them that haunted the forests at night.
“You can sleep, if you want,” says Derek, pressing into the back of the chair,
trying his best to relax his stiff shoulders, unclench his taught muscles so he
can breathe again. “I’ll just read, I’m just—I need to rest. It’s comfortable
here…”
Stiles still hasn’t moved, even though Derek’s doing his best not to even
glance in his direction, scared of pinning him to the wall with his eyes.
Stiles’s own gaze is flitting across the room, and Derek can see his eyelashes
fluttering, thin and blond, as delicate as moth wings.
Derek cocks an eyebrow, his mouth falling into its characteristic hard-line
scowl. Stiles doesn’t look fine, any finer than Derek feels, and it’s not hard
to know why. But honestly, here, Derek already feels more relaxed than he has
in weeks, which isn’t something he cares to dissect at the moment, not at all,
with the knowledge that even with the heady pulse of the moon, the wolf in him
is settled here, surrounded by Stiles’s calming aura.
“I won’t bite,” he says, smirking as he pulls off his leather jacket, unties
the laces of his boots, toes them off so he’s just in his socks (which is sort
of funny, absurd, because he’s sure without looking at Stiles’s face that it
boggles the boy’s mind that Derek is actually a person, sort-of, who wears
things as arbitrary and human as socks).
“The house is—it doesn’t feel like,” Derek starts, resting his hands on his
thighs as he watches Stiles pointedly, how he won’t look even look at him.
Though he can hear the boy’s heart, beating fast again, and wishes he knew how
to make him calm, quiet.
“Anyway, you should try to rest, too, I know it’s not—but I wouldn’t let
anything hurt you,” he says. I won’t hurt you is what he really means, as he
rises out of the chair and moves so he hovers over Stiles where he sits perched
on the edge of the mattress, curled in on himself like he’s trying his best to
turn invisible.
“Sure,” Stiles mutters. “Whatever,” and his thin, bony fingers are tugging at
the fraying edges of the bedspread and he looks like a damned ghost to Derek.
What Stiles says, it hurts just as much (more, actually) as if he had slapped
him, and Derek feels his mask slip just a little and it’s irritating how
frequent that’s happening lately. It hurts because he can tell, even if it’s
not meant as an attack on him, that Stiles doesn’t believe him, and he probably
shouldn’t, why would he?
When has Derek ever actually succeeded in protecting the things he cares about?
Derek is first to look away, because he doesn’t—he’s not ready for Stiles to
look into his eyes and see everything that he’s sure is written plain across
his face. He shifts, moving slowly so Stiles can track his movements, until
he’s sitting next to him on the bed, a respectable distance away—even though
the wolf is screaming touch, get close, close, closer.
“I’m sorry I let this happen to you,” he says gruffly, and the apology sounds
as stupid as he imagined it, lame and weak and just fucking meaningless.
And Stiles is laughing, laughing. “Jesus Christ, sourwolf. I mean, you
literally took down the alpha pack to save me. You almost died for me. I was
the fucking idiot that went crashing through the forest…looking for you… right
after you’d just warned me and—“ and Stiles is rambling again, biting his lip
and shaking his head.
And there he goes again, always downplaying his worth, and it makes Derek
furious because Derek has never hated Stiles, despite what the boy might think,
but simply kept him at arm’s length, distant, for this very reason.
There’s no way he can escape, hide from the way Stiles’s eyes rake over him,
searching it seems, for a reason that Derek would do something as unreal as
trading his life away for him. Derek doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say,
how to tell him that there was never any choice, that he knew from the moment
Stiles was taken from him (not away, but from him, there was never any doubt
who it was meant to hurt).
He wants to reach out, offer a touch that if only Stiles was wolf, he wouldn’t
find unwelcome or uncomfortable. But he does, Derek knows the boy doesn’t
understand why Derek wants his hands on him all the time, wants Stiles to smell
like Derek, belong to Derek, be Derek’s.
Derek doesn’t even understand it himself, how things changed so quickly, after.
“You have to know,” he says, feeling his green eyes flicker with the force of
his words, “that I will always come for you.”
“I mean why? I’m not even part of your dumb pack. I’m just me. I’m just Stiles.
Scott would have gone, the Argent…it didn’t have to be you. ”
The wolf in him is gleeful at the challenge, at the way Stiles stares so
unabashedly, and it yearns to mark and claim. Derek’s hands shake, and he
cringes as he feels his claws lengthen, so he grips the blanket on Stiles’s
bed, bunches it in his fists in an attempt to release the tension strung rigid
and taut in his forearms like a bowstring. It helps a little, but the feeling
stays.
“Because you are pack, you always have been, they trust you—more than me, I
don’t blame them for it…” Derek says, rushed and quiet, fixated on the swell of
Stiles’s mouth as he bites at his own lip.
And it’s not all, that doesn’t even come close to the real reason, he thinks,
but he doesn’t know how to put into words the way he’s drawn to the boy because
Stiles doesn’t—can’t possibly feel it the way Derek does. The way the wolf in
him howls to be near him, how it’s been agonizing to be apart from the comfort
of his scent.
“And you, you’re important…to me,” he murmurs vaguely. “I can’t---I have to—“
and he doesn’t know how to explain the instinct that feels so inherently animal
in its reasoning, how it feels like every hurt that Stiles suffers hurts Derek
more, ten-fold.
“Things have changed, that’s all I know,” he says. And it is cowardly, he
knows, that he can’t even form the words that Stiles needs, that he won’t. But
it isn’t right, to burden him with it, because Stiles is so young, and it’s not
right, even though everything in Derek screams that it is, that is has to be.
It happens so fast, Derek hardly gets the chance to process what’s happening
before it does, and he feels like he blinks and misses it. Stiles’s hand pulls
him close and Derek goes, his flesh hot, veins singing at the contact.
And then, then, Stiles lunges at him, and Derek doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even
move as Stiles’s lips press quick as lightning against his own and Derek goes
still, can’t react fast enough because he’s so shocked at the fact that Stiles
has kissed him, that Stiles wants him.
But he’s gone, before Derek can even process this new information. He doesn’t
even need to look up to know that the expression on Stiles’s face is horror,
mortification, because he’s already miles away from Derek, who feels the loss
immediately, whose wolf feels anguished and cheated at losing what it wants
most.
If Derek were cautious like he knows he should be, if Derek actually took the
time to think about this, he would bury the idea because of so many reasons—too
old, too dangerous, not right, not right at all.
But Derek doesn’t, can’t, not when he had him so close, there in his arms, for
just a second even though that’s all it really took.
The noise he makes is positively animalistic in its neediness, but Derek
doesn’t give a shit, reaches for the boy, using his brute strength to yank him
into his lap before grabbing his chin and crushing their mouths together. He
should be gentle, he should do a lot of things, but he’s bound under the spell
of Stiles’s pulse that’s racing because of him, because of Derek’s mouth and
hands all over him.
He tries not to grip his hips too hard, even though the wolf wants to replace
every mark on the boy’s body with one of his own, wants to cover him until the
only person Stiles smells like is him, just him, wants everyone to know it,
feel it.
Derek doesn’t believe in God, he never has, but when Stiles touches him, it
feels like the laying on of hands, absolving every sin, scraping off the layer
of scar tissue, tough and horrible, that’s formed over his body and his heart
like an icy cage. Stiles’s hands are as hot as Derek’s skin, the warmth running
through him like an electric current.
When he nips lightly, bites gently at Stiles’s lips, whatever bond they had,
once tenuous and thin, feels solid and real, shocking him like an electric
current—it feels like licking a battery. Derek swallows Stiles’s needy sounds,
the boy pressed so close to him he can feel the angles of his ribs, his sharp
hipbones, even through his clothes.
Derek wants more, wants everything, wants to pluck notes from the boy’s spine
like a piano, and it’s terrifying how much he wants. He feels his teeth start
to lengthen, feels his eyes shift and he doesn’t know how this human, so much
energy buzzing underneath his skin, has frayed the edges of his control,
altering him so utterly.
He pulls away with a groan because he knows he needs to, looks away because he
doesn’t want Stiles to see him like that. But he reaches between them with his
fingers, thankfully not claws, feels the heat radiating off the boy’s cheeks,
flushed red where all the blood’s rushed to his head, and Stiles’s skin is a
shock paddle, and his own body thrums heavily in response with an energy and
life he can’t recall feeling in years.
It feels like frostbitten limbs coming in from the cold. Hurts at first, but
the burn feels so good.
“Sorry, I don’t---want to hurt you,” he murmurs, his heart beating loud and
erratic, he’s sure that even Stiles’s weak human ears can hear it.
“Oh my god,” Stiles is panting into his ear and Derek just groans, “the only
way you could fucking hurt me right now if you fucking stop. Because I would
hurt you, because this is amazing and…”
When he feels Stiles’s lips, feather-light, touch as soft as a bird’s wing,
it’s like someone’s got Derek’s lungs in a vice and even he can’t stifle the
sharp intake of breath, the gasp that escapes his lips, chapped and cracked.
And it’s then that he realizes just how deep this boy’s managed to entrench
himself inside of him. That even though he wasn’t really aware of it, not
consciously, not at first, he’s managed to burrow underneath his skin until his
essence has wrapped tendrils around every inch of him, bones, muscles, nerves,
even blood. The weight of something so bright trying to shine in his shadow,
like a cut in his mouth that he can’t stop tonguing. And now, he’s the wolf in
sheep’s clothing and Stiles is following him blind.
His eyes don’t leave the place on Stiles’s face, where Derek still gripping
him, the bones of his cheekbones feeling almost avian-like, sharp and
hollow—fragile, and he knows he could crush them easily in his fist. But Stiles
doesn’t care, says you won’t like he really believes it.
Derek wants to believe it, too.
So he slides his hands under Stiles’s clothes, pulls the zipper of that
ridiculous sweatshirt down, and underneath Stiles is just wearing a thin t-
shirt, a little too big for him, the collar stretched.
And Stiles is staring at him under heavy lids, soft lashes framing his gaze,
but by no means subduing its intensity. The boy is so pale, he glows in the dim
lights of the room, as bright as the moon outside, and it makes sense since
they are both the things that haunt him most.
So Derek grips the sleeve of Stiles’s shirt and tugs; it falls, revealing the
smooth expanse of Stiles’s ivory curved shoulder, the long, lean line of his
neck, and Derek mouth practically waters. He stalls, just for a second, but
realizes he’s halfway to hell already and it’s not like he’s going to turn back
now. When he lowers his mouth to the hot skin there, he wears the air gets
sucked straight out of the room because right now, Derek’s sure as hell not
breathing. His lips skim a trail back to the hollow of Stiles’s throat, scrapes
the dip there with his teeth before swirling his tongue around that pulse
point, pounding determinedly, and he tastes salt and soap and grass and den
and, he sucks and licks, abusing the skin there until he’s certain Stiles is
marked, branded.
The animal in him is howling in victory, reveling in the claim, the bruise
that’s sure to last for days. And all Derek can think is mine, mine, mine,
finally mine.
“You’re marking me, oh my god, that’s so hot. I can’t---“ And Stiles is
shivering and twitching like a livewire, Derek has to tighten his grip just to
keep him upright. And suddenly he feels the force of Stiles’s weight pushing
him down, nails scratching at his shoulders.
e lets himself be pushed, lets Stiles scramble over him, pinning him to the
mattress. Every one of his alpha instincts prickle, and he can’t lie and say he
doesn’t panic just for a moment at the idea of submission, of letting go of an
ounce of control. But Stiles’s breath is coming in heavy pants, his eyes like
black pools, pupils dilated wide with want and he knows that this isn’t
anything like that; it’s not a challenge, it’s desire, plain and simple, for
closeness, for skin against skin.
He lets Stiles claim his mouth, opening to him, winding his hand into the
strands of Stiles’s hair, grown longer than it’s ever been, and he tugs,
scratching at his scalp with blunt nails. And just because he can, because he
knows he wants it like Derek does, he rocks their hips together because he
wants to hear him gasp again. Because Derek wants to give him this. He kisses
him, traces the contours of his open mouth, and maps the shape of his lips
until he’s sure he’s memorized them. He slips his hand up Stiles’s spine until
he arches above him, digs his fingertips into the soft flesh of his hips.
Derek’s touches are forceful, but controlled. For Stiles, he takes his time,
lets his hands wander all over and tries his not to lose his mind when the boy
is so soft and warm and perfect.
It’s still terrifying, how real this is, the weight of Stiles on top of him,
but he needs this, finally feels like the missing pieces, the hollow, aching
parts of him are slowly being filled. He pulls back, holds Stiles’s face in his
hands, mesmerized by the boy’s bee-stung lips, swollen and raw because of him,
runs the pads of his callused fingers over his bruised mouth and bares his
neck, submitting, even though it goes against everything he knows, because
he….because he wants, needs Stiles to know that the trust goes both ways, that
it always has.
It’s still not as easy as he wants it to be, as he exposes the most vulnerable
part of him, as he let’s Stiles’s mouth, full and pink, trace the lines of his
veins, the arteries pumping, life, oxygen through his body. He lets his hands
fall to his sides because he feels the bones of his fingers shift as his claws
extend, so he grips the blankets again, like he did earlier, because it seemed
to help, cringing as he hears the fabric rip under his ministrations
“ m’sorry,” he mutters brokenly, arching up unwittingly against the wet press
of Stiles’s tongue under his shirt. His skin feels scorched, like he’s been
burned, and he feels the sweat pooling on his forehead, the hammering of his
heartbeat like lead in his chest, his blood spiked with want, thick and heavy.
He groans again, biting his own lip this time, and he tastes blood, metallic
and sweet, his own, and it’s ridiculous, he thinks, how undone he is by the
simple press of the boy’s mouth on his flesh, so alive. But he wants more, he
thinks, than the boy can give, wants everything, wants to swallow him whole.
As fast as a blink, he flips them and he stills for a moment, his weight braced
on his forearms resting on both sides of Stiles's head.
ek’s mouth falls open, gaping at the boy who’s so willingly laid himself bare
for him—it floors him, he can’t even---thinks if he shuts his eyes, looks away
from Stiles’s eyes, closes them, that Derek will wake up and it will all have
been a dream, fleeting and errant like the wind.
Because this, this is exactly what he dreamt of that night, he knows it now,
that lying on Deaton’s table was moment that Stiles’s soul was scratched on
Derek’s bones, marking him as much as the bruise that blooms like the sweetest
flower across the boy’s throat.
Derek’s shaking, he can feel it, suspended over Stiles’s body, all lithe limbs
and pointed angles. The wolf basks in Stiles’s blatant show of submission, in
the way his pulse quickens so notably that Derek can practically see it trying
to beat its way through to the other side. The boy’s name slips out from
Derek’s mouth as he eases down, presses a little more of his bulk against
Stiles’s, relishing the way they slot together, like Stiles was made for this,
for him.
He nuzzles into the dip of Stiles’s shoulder, lapping at sliver of skin behind
Stiles’s ear where his scent is strongest. The taste of him is more than Derek
could ever imagine, sweeter, headier than wine, than honey. And as a born wolf,
he’s never been drunk, but he imagines that this must be exactly what it feels
like, every nerve buzzing, his vision swimming.
“You drive me crazy,” he murmurs pressing the tips of his canines over Stiles’s
throat with the barest pressure, and the darkest parts of Derek sing at the
contact, knowing how stupidly easy it would be to bite down because Stiles
would make the most gorgeous wolf, so strong and perfect. But Derek would
never, knows he would never ever hurt him like that, that Stiles holds on to
his humanity like it’s the greatest gift because it is.
Derek doesn’t even try to stifle the moan that’s ripped from his throat as he
feels Stiles’s nails, the palms of his hands warm and damp with sweat, as they
skitter down his back. Derek feels his spine ripple pleasantly as he bucks into
the touch, resuming his assault on the swell of Stiles’s bottom lip, fucking
into his mouth with his tongue, tracing seams of that stupid, sinful mouth. Any
restraint he might’ve had is gone, out the window, and Derek grinds shamelessly
into the supple curve of Stiles’s hip, seeking his own release as much as
Stiles’s.
His touches are fearless, teetering on the edge of almost too rough, now as he
hooks his thumb into the waistband of Stiles’s jeans, teasing the
hypersensitive skin hidden just underneath. He bites at the soft flesh of
Stiles’s earlobe, scraping his teeth over the boy’s pebbled nipples, the middle
of his chest where the most perfect blush as spread under Derek’s lavish
attention.
“Fuck---so gorgeous, everyone’s gonna look at you, know you’re mine,” Derek
growls, punctuating the words with another slow drag of his hips.
nd when Stiles goes still beneath him as he says those words, for a second,
Derek’s sure he’s ruined it all, whatever this is. He panics, his mind flooding
with all the ways that this could possibly be wrong. He thinks of Kate, how
she’d been with him when he was just sixteen. And Stiles, he’s just a kid, just
seventeen and isn’t what Derek doing just the same? Doesn’t this make him as
much a monster as the Argents claimed that him he was? He shuts his eyes under
the weight of all that doubt, and when he opens them again, gazes at the boy’s
face, it feels like Derek has emerged from the darkest depths of an ocean
filled with bad memories, has narrowly avoiding being dragged beneath by the
undertow.
Stiles’s breathing is labored, the bright gleam of his eyes like melted amber,
honeyed mahogany; he knows that it’s not anything like what Kate did to him
because the boy looks so utterly desperate for whatever Derek can give him, and
from the jackrabbit’s pace of his pulse, it sounds like Stiles’s heart is ready
to beat itself out.
And he’s so quiet, which Derek never imagined Stiles to be, especially in a
situation like this. He’d thought Stiles would be running his mouth off non-
stop, because that’s how he seems to react to everything, like talking is the
only way he can handle what gets thrown to him day-to-day.
But so far, Derek’s only heard muted sounds, needy, wanton little moans and
gasps that catch in the hollow parts of his throat. Derek, who never speaks if
he can help it, is the one who can’t stop murmuring nonsense into the soft
expanse of Stiles’s belly, his neck, because he wants to brand him with not
only his teeth, but his words, hoping they’ll stay just as long beneath the
skin as the bruises on top of them.
“What do you want, tell me, I want you---whatever you need, I want to give it
to you, just let me---“ he whispers, his fingers fiddling with the buttons on
Stiles’s jeans. Derek already knows what he wants, what the wolf wants—Stiles
spread open and vulnerable underneath him, naked and begging for his touch
And Stiles laughs, grinning into Derek’s mouth. “I want you, you idiot. I
fucking want you.”
That’s everything Derek needs to continue, the frantic pleas spilling from
Stiles’s lips, consenting wholly to Derek’s will. Groaning at the way Stiles
arches for him, he works quickly with practiced fingers, tugging Stiles’s jeans
off, leaving them in a crumpled heap on the floor, followed shortly by the
boy’s underwear until Stiles is just there, laid out like an offering to the
gods, to him, and it’s so close to being too much. Derek’s eyes rake over the
white ivory of uncovered skin, and his pupils feel blown wide, so dilated, his
vision so painfully enhanced that the way the beams of moonlight play on they
boy’s bare flesh is as hypnotizing to him as the moon itself as it dapples
across the expanse of him, glittering like the most precious of jewels.
He can see every goosebump, the hair like soft down all over him, the arousal
that hangs over them both like hazy fog. Derek takes several steeling breaths
to steady himself, reaches down to unzip his own pants, just freeing himself
enough that the ache, the pain of wanting, doesn’t kill him. He can’t help
stroking himself a few times, either, just because the way Stiles is naked,
bare for him, makes him pulse, makes him crave.
Because he doesn’t know how this can be real, all for him. Can’t believe that
this is what was hidden, underneath the baggy, shapeless clothes, underneath
that shell of restless, buzzing energy, the clumsiness Stiles hides behind like
a shield. But he’s glad, he thinks, with a possessive jolt of noise, that no
one else can tell, can see it, because if they all knew what was there, under
the surface, who wouldn’t want to devour the boy?
Derek kneels between the boy’s legs, reaching underneath the bends of his knees
to pull him close so that he can run his palms over everywhere, all of him. And
yeah, it’s pretty wolfish, what he does next, scraping the scratch of stubble
over the bow of Stiles’s foot, then his calves, the fleshy inside of his thighs
just so he’s sure to smell like Derek’s everywhere. He scrapes his rough tongue
over the fine bones of Stiles’s ankle, kittenish licks all the way up the lean
lines of his legs. Derek never knew it was possible for someone to blush with
their entire body, the flush spreading hotly all the way to the tips of
Stiles’s toes, blood humming for it.
Or, he thinks, how Stiles has freckles everywhere, even on his thighs, the arc
of his hipbones. Someday Derek will count them all, taste every last one with
teeth and tongue, but the way Stiles thrashes under his hands, now isn’t the
time when they’re both so close to breaking.
He digs his nails into the glowing stretch of Stiles’s flanks, nuzzling into
his groin where Stiles's scent is so rich, an alluring bouquet of sweat and
salt and longing. Finally, he touches where Stiles needs it most, gathering the
moisture at the tip of him with his thumb, wrapping his hand over the swelled
flesh. Derek licks his lips, because it’s mouthwatering, the sight of him, and
he follows with the trace of his mouth, licking a heated stripe over his length
before swallowing him down, relishing at the weight, thick and soft as velvet.
He wants to hear Stiles come apart, wants to see it, wants to burn it into his
memory like cauterizing a wound.
nd Derek, he’s fine, he’s under control—really, as he holds Stiles between his
lips, his palm a steadying weight in the dip of Stiles’s bellybutton. But the
boy grabs onto his hair, pulls hard, fingertips a delicious grate against his
skull and Derek can’t help it—the pace of it all becomes brutal as Derek takes
him down so fully, utterly, that the boy is essentially fucking up into his
mouth, but it’s okay because Derek wants it, needs it. It’s a sharp contrast to
the gentle, reassuring massage of one hand on the concave of his hips.
He looks up, moans as he takes in the sight of Stiles, with his mouth thrown
open, a perfect ‘o’, his lips shiny and abused, so blood red and completely
indecent. It’s not like Derek has had a steady stream of romantic partners, and
never any relationships, not since Kate, not since his world collapsed. And
he’s seen people in all matter of wanton displays, girls who moaned so
juvenilely, loud enough to make his ears ring painfully, men that swore like
sailors, but nothing compares to this skinny teenager with a face that’s so
strangely beautiful. Nothing. And when Stiles cries out Derek’s name, he
thinks, no, knows, that he could come just from this, just from watching Stiles
fall so gorgeously apart underneath his hands,
Derek sees him bite his own lips, and he’s drawn immediately forward, pulls off
with an obscene pop that, if Derek had any shame whatsoever, might’ve made him
blush. The grip he has on Stiles’s chin is bruising, and the thought thrills
him, a perfect replica of the pads of his fingertips on Stiles’s cheekbones. So
blatantly vulgar in its display, leaving no doubt as to what caused it. He
attacks Stiles’s mouth, not really even a kiss, just a sloppy, hot press of
teeth and tongue as he continues to stroke him.
“Let go, let me—fuck, let me see it,” he hisses, his voice so course like
gravel it doesn’t even sound remotely human.
He smells the blood before he feels it, a flash of pain (yet, not pain, not
really, just feeling) and it makes him whimper because the sparks that tickle
up his spine, like they do every time he heals, hits him deep in the pit of his
stomach, makes him sweat, makes him moan, and he gasps into Stiles open mouth,
clinging to him.
And then he feels it, the way Stiles goes rigid in his arms, throws his head
back like he’s looking to the sky, and Derek thinks yes, yes, yes, as his grip
tightens, forcing Stiles to look right at him because there’s no way he’s
missing this, no way. Stiles’s release comes in ribbons, spilling over Derek’s
hands, Stiles’s chest, and it’s gorgeous, fucking gorgeous, and Derek doesn’t
even hesitate, ducking down, lapping at it with his tongue, sucking it off his
fingers, because the scent is so bitingly Stiles it makes the wolf in him wail.
He works his way back up to Stiles’s chest, his neck, pressing lips wherever
they happen to fall—the bridge of Stiles’s nose, the slight furrow in his brow,
his eyelids, his ears, ending with kiss on the boy’s forehead so gentle and
sweet, it’s more than Derek ever thought he could give anyone. His hands come
up behind Stiles, resting at his lower back, fingertips playing in the divot in
between his hips.
Derek is still hard, but he barely notices, so enraptured by the blissful,
fucked out glaze that's fallen over Stiles’s face, his eyelids heavy over
darkened eyes--almost black.
And Derek thinks, in that moment, I love you, I do but he can’t say it, not
yet, not when it still catches in his mouth, still makes him choke. And he
hasn’t cried in so long, didn’t even when he buried Laura, when he stood over
her open grave and saw her lying there, stiff and motionless and gone. Nothing
came then. But now, he feels his vision cloud, and there’s a lump in his
throat, though it doesn’t feel like sadness. It feels like everything.
And he would never ask Stiles to do anything for him, but he doesn't get a
chance to even entertain the idea of simply taking care of it himself because
the boy is touching him, soft, cool fingers surrounding him whole and he
grunts, pressing into the hand that reaches for him. And the teenager's words
are tinged with tentative uncertainty, honestly like Derek would, could ever
say no when Stiles looks like that, looks at Derek like he isn't as broken and
fucked up as he feels.
"You are--" and Derek tries so hard to find the words to say what he wants to
but he can't, he feels too much, as he juts his hips frantically, mumbling
quietly into Stiles's hip, gripping the boy so hard like he's afraid he'll let
go because he is, it's what he's always afraid of. That someone will look
inside and figure out he's rotten, ugly and twisted in side like charred wood.
There’s nothing more he can do than just fall into the touch, letting Stiles
bear the brunt of his weight as he burrows deeper into the crook of Stiles’s
shoulder, his breathing heavy and labored. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut
because he knows without opening them that he’s shifted and he doesn’t want to
see the world as an alpha now, tinged an angry crimson, he just wants this—the
silk touch of Stiles’s hands on him.
His release hits him with all the subtlety of a bullet, and Derek barely has
time to react as he frantically turns his head away from the boy, his fangs
sharp and deadly as razors as he snaps his jaw, aching for something to bite,
something that isn’t Stile, because it can’t be. He settles on his own wrist,
groaning at the sweet pleasure-pain of piercing of his body’s own thick flesh.
He feels hot blood, metallic and sweet, spurt freely from the wound, and he
winces, looking down in awe as the gash flickers and shrinks until it’s nothing
more than a pinprick of silver-white scar tissue, like it didn’t happen at all.
His heart is still pounding in his chest, and he’s sure Stiles can see it, feel
it too, as every muscle in his body goes boneless and lax. And he isn’t sure
how this has happened, how the hyper-vigilante control he works so fiercely to
maintain could be unraveled at the slightest touch from this boy so young, so
human. The way Derek feels, the way his emotions are so real, bubbling so close
to the surface, he feels like he did when he was thirteen, so erratic, a slave
to instinct and desire. He’s still shuddering and shaking from his climax,
still feels it humming like bees in his veins. And he’s so tired, drowsy, drunk
on the high of so much bliss all at once. He wants nothing more than to curl
around Stiles, nest together in a pile of blankets, to wake up with the warm,
secret knowledge that he has found his other,
His Mate.
***** Chapter Two *****
Chapter Notes
     Okay, fine. You get more. It's all just a big pile of smooshiness,
     anyway, and I guess that's all why we're really here, isn't it?
That’s the word that comes to mind, and he’d never thought it was a real thing
before, never thought there would ever be a person who could shoulder that
burden, who he’d want to.
But he recognizes the signs now, the way Stiles scent is rich and comforting,
like den, like the promise of life and future.
It’s too much to think about right now, too much to analyze and worry over
right now, so he just manhandles Stiles until the bend of Stiles’s spine is
flush against Derek’s chest, so he can mouth at the back of Stiles’s neck.
For Derek, the drift off to sleep is the easiest he’s ever had, blanketed by
the warm of heat of the body in his arms, the cloudy tendrils of Stiles’s scent
like the air after a storm. He feels calm, settled, completely at ease in way
he hasn’t since the day he stumbled onto Laura’s corpse. Since Peter came back
from the dead, twice, since all of it. His slumber is dreamless, so deep and
utterly senseless that when he wakes up, his bones feel like lead, like he’s
filled with concrete.
He doesn’t open his eyes, can hear without doing so, that Stiles is hurriedly
showering and dressing, a whirlwind of kinetic energy. Derek grins into his
arm, burrows closer into the feathered pillow that still smells like soap and
sweat and Stiles. He wants to whine, pout, grab the boy by his hips and throw
him back onto the bed, keep him there, squirming and bucking under his hands.
But last night was cushioned by the glow of moonlight, an empty house, and it’s
morning, and Derek has no illusions that under the harsh glare of daylight, it
won’t be as easy, it won’t be like that always.
But he wants, and that doesn’t just go away.
Derek has never been one to laze around in bed, and without Stiles lying next
to him, he feels silly and stupid in Stiles’s bedroom. Without the slightest
bit of noise, he creeps out from underneath the blankets, gathering the soiled
blankets and sheets in his arms (and maybe Derek smells them with a satisfied
growl, but he’s alone, and there are no witnesses) and deposits them into the
basket he finds in Stiles’s bathroom.
He stills suddenly, hearing the stirrings of the Sherriff’s waking breaths, a
rustle of a jacket thrown onto the ground, and footfalls heading in the
direction of the bedroom. In a second he’s across the room, leaping over the
windowsill with practiced grace, landing on his feet with the faintest thud and
the crackle of dead leaves.
//
When he bursts through the door of the new house, he’s not expecting anyone to
be there. He’s never sure where Peter goes, but he doesn’t spend much time
around—and Derek’s warned him enough to stay away—from the school, from Lydia,
to abandon the strange, sick satisfaction that he gets from sniffing around
Mrs. McCall.
He’s not sure it works, but there’s nothing Derek can do short of killing him,
which he imagines he’ll have to do someday, but he’s not yet ready to have the
blood of his family under his nails again.
But Peter surprises him, descending grandly down the rickety staircase like
veritably royalty, wearing a smirk that Derek already wants to claw off of him.
But when Peter gets close, his mischievous grin turns sour, he sniffs the air,
sniffs Derek, and blanches visibly.
“You stink—you should take a shower, wash that human stench off of you,” the
man spits. “Smells like weakness.”
At that, Derek snarls viciously, snapping at his neck, to which Peter nods,
backing off with a cock of an eyebrow and another scowl.
“Like ‘em young, don’t you, like her?”
And Derek wants to roar, to feel Peter’s spine snap under his fingers, but he
thinks of Stiles, what they shared, and the memories sooth him, like balm on a
burn.
“ You don’t know anything,” he murmurs, and he says it sadly, pityingly,
because it’s true.
//
Deaton is not an unobservant man—in fact, just the opposite, as it’s his job,
especially with the Hale pack as he’d once promised so long ago, to watch out
for the health of the bonds that form between weres (and others). So, to say
the least, he is remarkably unsurprised when the Stilinksi boy finally comes
around, a frantic, wild look in his eyes, his arms flapping wildly like a
flightless bird trying to lift itself into the air.
He tries not to smile, because it’s obvious what he’s here for, the expression
on his face clearly saying, advise me, wise advising man!
But before the man even gets a chance to speak, to tell Stiles to calm down
long enough to actually take a few breaths so he can make coherent sense, the
words come spilling out of him and there’s really nothing he can do but let the
boy vent, sitting back with his arms crossed until he’s finished.
And it’s nothing unusual, just exactly what he suspected would happen the
minute he saw Derek Hale so fiercely determined to rescue the young man, and it
was satisfying, seeing that finally Derek was willing to accept his role fully
and completely, to finally recognize that as Alpha, his job is not simply to
conquer, to demand obedience, but to repay it in kind with self-sacrifice, with
humbleness. This, he thinks, is the spark it took to ignite the fire underneath
the man, to take the blinders off so Derek could finally see what had been
waiting in front of him all along.
“Stiles, listen to me. For werewolves, it’s not the physical that matters, not
when it comes to finding a mate, finding a match. In an alpha, especially, it
desires strength, loyalty—not obedience—compassion, devotion, everything, it
seems, that Derek sees in you.”
And he’s not wrong, thinks Deaton, as the minute Scott had brought this boy to
him, with bumbling speech and clumsy steps (not to mention one of the sharpest
minds he’d seen in many years), he could tell that Stiles was more important
than perhaps they all could’ve imagined. Not just a spark, but a fire, that
could be, and surely was the very thing to revive Derek’s dying, dwindling
pack. To heal the cracks wrought so deeply by so many years of mistrust and
betrayal.
“Will you refuse him?” he wonders aloud. And it’s not asked with malice,
suspicion, or judgment. Certainly, in the end, it is the boy’s choice, and
Derek will no doubt respect it, even if it may destroy him. With a mate, Derek
will be more powerful than he could ever possibly imagine, with Stiles by his
side, it will make him faster, stronger, more deadly, certainly—but it will
also make him cautious, more pragmatic, able to show a tenderness to his pack
that had been walled up previously by so much loss.
And Stiles, Stiles is just standing there, mouth agape. “I don’t know—I don’t
understand, I can’t even decide on a favorite color half the time—“
“It’s red,” Deaton interjects, smirking, and it’s infuriating to Stiles, like
Deaton somehow knows, like it was all just some cosmic joke that everyone else
in the entire fucking world was in on and he’s just finally got it. And Deaton
just shakes his head, “If it’s here now, it’s always been there. And part of
you has always known.”
“Bullshit,” Stiles says, and he’s practically hyperventilating right now, but
he goes on, “I mean, I think I always suspected I was kinda gay…I’m not that
surprised but—“
“Gender is irrelevant to the mating bond,” Deaton says.
And at that, he just can’t even process anymore, feels like his mind is
undergoing a forced reboot, and he follows his body’s first instinct: run.
Stiles launches himself up from the chair he's been perched in, taking off for
the door like a shot. He knows he has things to do yet, things to learn, but he
can't stay here, not now. "I'm sorry, I just can't-- I have to-- " He needs
time, needs to be alone, needs to sort out his own head. So he leaves Deaton
behind, climbs in the Jeep and just drives, into the reserve but away from the
pack's den, out until there are trees and earth and sky around him and even
then he can't focus, because it seems like just being freaking outside makes
him think of Derek, and he just can't.
The boy leaps out of his chair like a rocket, before Deaton can even raise a
hand to try and stop him. The look in Stiles’s eyes is all confusion and fear
of everything he doesn’t understand, and he skitters away like a deer in the
headlights with barely a glance back. As the door slams shut with a resounding
crash, Deaton sighs, rubbing his hands over tired eyes. While it’s neither an
unwarranted nor unanticipated reaction (after all, being told you are something
so huge and finite as someone’s other half, it’s not easy to take, and there’s
really no delicate way to put it), it signifies to the doctor that there’s a
long and arduous road ahead of them, and the transition will mean growing pains
for everyone, himself included.
He considers calling Derek, but it might be best, he thinks, for him to stay
away from the boy while everyone’s feelings are sorted out. It seems a little
like the conditions are stacking up dangerously, like there’s drought coming
on, thirsty ground, cracking air, and something’s opening the flood gates to a
forest fire of an enormous magnitude. And if it somehow strikes, Deaton isn’t
sure they (or specifically, Derek) can recover from this one.
//
Peter’s face as Derek speaks, it’s like he’s been slapped, and the answering
snarl makes Derek’s skin crawl because it’s so pained and desperate with
fragility. Apparently, he’s hit a nerve.
And Derek’s just about to speak, but the door to the house is thrown open, and
Derek knows without looking by recognizing the scents—sandalwood and cotton,
Astroturf and antiseptic—not to mention the scrambling footfalls about as
inconspicuous as a stampede of elephants, that it’s Scott and Isaac. When he
turns, he sees Isaac tugging anxiously at Scott’s sweatshirt sleeve, a river of
soothing murmurs spilling out of his mouth, the blonde wolf’s lips barely
moving as he tries his best to calm the older boy down. Scott is all frenzied
resentment, his shoulders draw tight, ramrod straight, his chest puffed up with
all the faux-bravado he can muster.
Derek hisses under his breath, already steeling himself for the fight that’s
sure to break out, but before Scott even gets a chance to start grilling him
for, Derek’s sure, a number of things, Derek’s vision explodes in a sea of
white dots that pop like firecracker, and he doubles over, thrown off-kilter by
the sudden partial blindness.
Something in his chest feels like it’s being crumpled by an invisible fist
trying to pop his lungs like balloons. He feels like he’s dying, his eyes
watering as he gasps for breath, feeling an ocean of panic crash over him,
panic, he realizes, that isn’t his own.
“Fucking Christ---”he spits out, his hands gripping the guard rail on the
porch, the wood splintering under his drawn-out-claws.
Within seconds, Isaac is on him, whimpering steadily under his breath as
Derek’s knees buckle and the younger wolf catches him, shouldering the brunt of
his dead weight as they’re both lowered to the floor. And in Isaac’s arms,
Derek’s thrashing violent, chasing the breath he can’t quite seem to catch, his
extremities tingling and numb from a steadying lack of oxygen. His claws catch
painfully on slivers of rotten wood as he slides them over the floor with a
screech akin to the horrible wail of nails pressing down on a chalkboard.
Behind him, Peter winces.
“What’s happening to him?” Isaac asks through gritted teeth, desperately
searching Derek’s face for some kind of clue, some kind of reasoning behind
what’s happening. But when he sniffs the air around him, he doesn’t find any
injuries, and turns helplessly to Scott for any kind of answer.
Scott shakes his head, kneeling in front of the alpha, his palms pressing down
on either side of Derek’s neck.
Derek tries to speak but he can’t, his tongue lying fat and useless in his
mouth, as tries to choke out not me, it’s not me, and behind him Isaac is
crowding Peter into a corner with an accusatory snarl and Derek is dizzy, so
dizzy.
Something in Scott’s features ease into clear recognition, as his hands find
Derek’s pulse, and he takes in the alpha’s desperate gasps for air.
“It’s a panic attack, isn’t it?” he asks low and fierce, to which Derek can
only nod, because the feeling of dread crushing him is like someone’s doing a
dance on his chest, with shoes and bells on. “Yeah, yeah, Stiles used to get
these all the time, especially after his mom died. My mom taught me how to—”
Isaac makes another frantic noise, waving his palms as if to say fine, okay,
get on with it! (Which Derek is grateful for, to say the least).
“Right,” says Scott, shaking his head as if he’s clearing dust out of there.
“Okay, first you have to take a deep breath, and hold it as long as you can,
yeah, like that—“
And Derek thinks it’s absurd, holding his breath when he can’t even find it in
the first place, but he’s not doing this for himself anyway, not really, trying
instead to focus all of his energy on stopping the onslaught of terror, like
maybe it’ll somehow make it easier for Stiles, wherever the stupid kid is,
probably freaking out for no reason, and jesus, Derek’s mind won’t quit and he
wonders, briefly, if this is what Stiles feels like all the time…
Because holy fuck
“And then you’ve got to take these breathes, in and out, four seconds in, four
seconds out, focus on my voice—Stiles said that helped sometimes,” and Scott’s
voice is kind of like fuzzy radio frequency in the back of Derek’s head as he
finally feels the knots in his chest start to untangle, the only thing going
through his mind some form of the words ‘Stiles’, and ‘breathe’, and ‘okay.’
And when he finally feels oxygen, sweet and rich in his throat, he growls,
examining the blackened blood crusting his nails where wood splinters split his
skin wind open.
“Stiles used to get these?” Derek finally gasps. “Jesus Christ, that—god
dammit.”
Well.
Shit.
When everything is calmer, when the painful buzzing in Derek’s brain finally
quiets, he stands, a little shaky, like a newborn colt testing out its legs for
the first time. Isaac reaches for him, but Derek shakes the beta off with a
gentle push of his fingers.
“I’m fine,” he says, gentle, yet firm. And he knows he is, now, and that
somewhere Stiles is fine too.
“But—Derek,” says Isaac, his eyes darting across the alpha’s face. “You’ve, I
mean, you fought the kanima, and hunters, and you’ve almost died like a million
times and I’ve never seen you—”
I’ve never seen you weak, is what Derek knows he means, but Isaac continues to
speak, adding— “You don’t get panic attacks. You don’t—”
“But Stiles does,” Scott says lowly. And when Derek turns, there’s a static
crackling in the air, and Scott’s eyes shift cornflower yellow, and Derek’s
flash red in return.
“Derek,” says Scott, stepping closer. “Derek, what did you do?”
“Nothing, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Derek
starts, and the wolf in him yowls in protest, a ominous voice that whispers
devils in his ear, says that he shouldn’t have to explain anything, that it’s
his right as an alpha to take and take without justifying it. It’s the part of
him that wants to see Scott bend his knee and show his throat, be the wolf he
was always meant to be.
But Derek knows that Scott feels like Stiles belongs to him. That if they were
to draw the pack lines, here and now, the boy would still think it would be him
and Stiles on the other side, against the world like always.
Derek wonders if this is still true.
 
In the midst of this standoff, two more cars roll up, spitting gravel across
the road-- Boyd’s rattling pickup, and Jackson’s douchey Porsche. Derek assumes
they felt him panicking, and they’re all here to make sure he’s still alive and
breathing. It's almost suffocating, and Derek wishes with every fiber of his
being that they'd all just leave him alone.
And Derek, he’s not stupid. He knows this is a problem, that this connection,
whatever it means, it’s not a good thing. It’s dangerous, maybe the worst
possible thing for all of them—a weakness that can be exploited and abused.
Anything that can knock him on his feet like that, it can't be right, it can't
be...
And Derek, yeah, he feels Stiles before he even sees him, which again is more
glaring evidence that something pretty fucked up and weird is going on between
them. And even as the boy comes into view, hunched and rigid like a board,
clearly angry—furious, more like it—Derek’s wolf is positively giddy at the
sight of him. And it’s a swirling, stifling, disorienting mix-up of emotions as
the alpha feels not only his own joy at the welcome presence of
matemineyesmine,, but also the sudden rush of frustration and anger that pours
into him straight from the source.
There’s a hush that seems to catch and infect as Stiles comes up the steps, his
hands stuffed in his pockets, and Derek digs his heels into the ground to keep
from automatically reaching for him. It’s not even really like he gets a chance
to either, because Scott is suddenly lurching toward him. Isaac and Boyd both
go after the boy with identical snarls of concern, but it’s not necessary, as
Derek strikes his arm out to catch across Scott’s sternum, and with a
resounding crack, Derek has the boy pinned under the point of his elbow, bent
gracefully on one knee, his back a perfect bow as he looks up to catch his eyes
on the edge of a bruise peeking out above Stiles’s collar.
Behind him, Peter clears his throat awkwardly.
“Well, now that we’ve all gotten to witness another shining example of Scott’s
poor impulse control, I think we should all just go ahead and address the
er—elephant in the room, I believe the expression is?”
Derek rolls his eyes, but rises to his feet, brushing imaginary particles of
dust off the front of his jeans, his arms crossed as he bears himself up to
full height.
“Besides, this is a happy occasion,” Peter sing-songs, throwing an arm around
Derek’s shoulders, to which Derek flinches visibly.
“Don’t,” growls Derek, his expression dark. He turns to Stiles, whose
exasperated words are clue enough that this is certainly not the way either of
them wanted this situation to play out.
“We’ll go to Deaton, figure this out—figure out what’s wrong,” he says, doing
his best to sound like he actually has any idea that what he’s saying is even
true, which he doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, because it’s not like he had a
lot of time with his parents to learn about all of this—this stuff.
“No need for a lovers’ spat, you two” Peter says toothily, “Perfectly normal at
the commencement of the bonding, it’ll all sort itself out nicely.”
The response to this, of course, is immediate, with everyone all talking and
shouting at once and it’s impossible to even—jesus.
And when Stiles voice cuts clear through the din, yelling at them all to just
shut the hell up for a second so he can think, Derek feels both relief, and a
strange sense of pride in seeing that immediately the betas all seem to fall in
line at his order. The alpha nods, agree with a quiet, “Thank you,” as he
motions for the rest of the pack to either make their way inside the house, or
get out altogether. Isaac, Erica, and Boyd head up the steps, Scott dragging
his heels behind them, looking glum and not a little put-out by the whole
thing.
Jackson feints like he’s going to head back for his car, but Lydia hisses and
yanks him towards the doorway, flashing an entirely-too-pleased-with-herself
grin in Stiles’s direction before shutting the door behind them with a loud,
clamoring sound.
Peter makes no motions to move, and Derek glares at him.
The older wolf has the audacity to look scandalized, scoffing, “Hey, I’m the
one with valuable information here. I can help you out, surly nephew of mine.”
“Just go inside. Make sure they don’t kill each other.”
Peter grumbles something about babysitting being a job for the hired help, but
Derek is no longer listening to him.
//
The werewolf stands awkwardly across from the boy, hyper aware of every
movement Stiles makes—every flicker of uncertainty that plays across the boy’s
delicate features, his cheekbones carved into an expression of clear distaste.
“I didn’t know this would happen,” Derek says quietly, and it’s the truth.
Honestly, he knows about as much as Stiles does when it comes to the
more...sensitive topics concerning werewolf lore. It would have fallen to his
parents to tell him about that, and Derek hadn’t exactly been at the age where
it was pertinent, and by the time he was, it was already far too late.
And Stiles, his eyes are blazing, and he looks completely lost, so confused,
because he is, because of course he doesn’t understand. He’s human, for
Christ’s sake. “This? You mean us? You mean the fucking fact that I felt
you—you made me breathe again, I was going to pass out, I always do—I wasn’t in
control of my own lungs.”
“Don’t be childish,” Derek grits out, taking in Stiles’s defensive posturing,
the way his mouth is set in a hard pout, the way he’s staring at Derek like
it’s all his fault (even though, the wolf supposes, it sort of is). But he
didn’t choose this, any more than if he woken up one morning and decided, ‘hey
I think I’ll pick a teenager for a mate, that’ll probably be a good idea,
nothing to weird can come of that…’
Yeah, fat chance.
And it isn’t like Derek did some kind of ritual, said some magic words, it all
just…sort of happened.
“This—whatever we are, I didn’t know that my---that being with you, would do
that—link us, whatever this is, whatever that was,” and he looks right at
Stiles, his own nails digging painfully into his thighs because he doesn’t
quite know what to do with his hands, and he can’t decide if the prickles of
irritation he feels are his own, or if they’re Stiles’s feelings and it’s
incredibly awkward and unsettling and kind of horrible.
But also kind of not, if he doesn’t think about it too hard, because for once
in his life, Derek doesn’t feel quite so alone with himself.
Judging from Stiles’s anger, from the feelings of terror and revulsion he’s
doing such a poor job of hiding, he doesn’t feel the same way.
It makes Derek feel sick, with himself, with what he’s done.
“Listen, I take it all back then, is that what you want to hear? Get out, go
home, you don’t want to be here, you don’t want this, so I take it all back,”
he says fiercely.
“I ‘release’ you, ‘unchoose’ you, fine. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll get
someone to fix it. You won’t have to be stuck with me a minute longer than you
have to be.”
“That’s not how it works,” Says Stiles, shaking his head, his feet tapping
restlessly in the dirt. “That’s not what this is—this is magic. This is old.
Sacred You’re like the worst werewolf ever, I swear to god.”
Derek knows just as well as Stiles that standing here sniping at each other
isn’t helping, of course it isn’t, but they’re both so irritated and frustrated
(not just by each other, but by all of it) that talking rationally has sort of
gone out the window. And, yeah, Derek doesn’t really know anything about any of
this, and the fact that Stiles rubs it in his face like doesn’t make the fact
any easier for him to swallow.
It’s pretty much something that’s become unbearably clear to him—that he’s
pretty much the worst, most unqualified alpha on the planet and this whole mess
isn’t stacking any points up in his favor.
Not to mention that the way that Stiles looks at him like that, it’s exactly
the way Laura used to whenever she was annoyed with him, and it makes him ache
in all the worst places because even Derek’s not so much of a self-flagellator
that he blames himself entirely for not knowing what this means, how to undo
it, what blood bonds like this even entail.
Because not even Laura got a chance to—before.
And Stiles won’t stop feeling the marks on his neck, won’t stop rubbing at
them, which is exasperating in the fiercest of ways if only because it reminds
Derek that despite how frustrated and unhappy with the situation he is at this
moment, he still wants Stiles. And every touch reminds him of that, takes him
right back into the seconds where Stiles was writhing underneath him.
“Stop that,” Derek grumbles, grabbing Stiles’s wrist like one might a child
who’s been caught touching something he’s been explicitly warned not to.
“Let go of me,” is all Stiles says, soft, hollow.
“Let go of me.”
The words echo in Derek’s ears like the most chilling of sounds , and he
recoils immediately, grip loosening on Stiles’s wrist like he’s been cut with a
blade. Which, Derek thinks, that’s sort of what it feels like, a hot, stinging
edge of a knife, like the pricks of the alpha packs’ claws in his side. He
feels gutted.
He looks away to settle himself, to throw up the mask he was sure he wouldn’t
need with Stiles, though he supposes he was all wrong about that, in every
possible way, he was wrong about that. The blood in his veins feels frozen, and
his gaze is steeled and impassive when he turns back, letting it fall on the
Stiles’s face again. He finds he doesn’t quite know what to say, staring into
the wide, frightened eyes of this boy.
“Go see Deaton, find out how to sever the bond,” Derek says finally, and his
words are quiet, like every one pains him because it does. It hurts more than
any wound he’s ever endured. Inside, his wolf howls in protest, thrashing and
beating against the walls of his skin until Derek thinks he’ll go mad from it.
“I won’t touch you again.”
//
Peter steps into the clearing when the sun is just beginning to set, smudges of
yellow and brassy orange mixed with shadow, and it’s all very Hitchcockian, he
thinks, very spooky-scary, as the wind whistles through the bare branches of
winter-dead trees.
Really, it was getting all B-horror movie up in this bitch.
“Here, alpha-pack, here boys!” Peter whistles theatrically, and he claps his
hands for added effect, crossing his arms defiantly as two figures finally
emerge—an older man, around Peter’s own age (or appearing so, at least), and a
young woman, their presence made known only by the sharp, crackling sounds of
twigs snapping under their leather boots as they step toward him.
“We didn’t think you’d actually show,” the younger one says snottily. She’s
willow-thin, with long hair the color of dirty dishwater, and a scrunched face,
with impish eyes and an upturned nose.
“Well, you know what I say—always keep my promises—no, I never say that, that’s
why I’m here,” Peter says, grinning.
The older man’s face remains blank and impassive. “Yes, I’d imagine so. Honesty
is not usually a trait held by those willing to let their own family be
slaughtered by another.”
Blondie makes a disgusted noise, and Peter winks. “Well, us Hales like to put
the “funk” in dysfunction, know what I mean?”
“So you wish to help us get our retribution?” says the man.
“If by that you mean I get to watch you tear my sniveling nephew limb from
limb, then by all means, I say go for it boys. C’est la vie, bon chance, as
they say in France.”
The older man’s eyes are a harvest-moon yellow, marked by deep, black pupils,
and at that, he smiles complacently, revealing a mouthful of flashing white
teeth. He has a scar, Peter notes, white and shiny with age, which pulls at the
side of his mouth, giving him a permanently warped grin.
“As long as,” Peter adds slyly. “I get what we discussed.”
“Yes,” murmurs the man, “Yes, I think that can be arranged.”
//
Derek doesn’t even watch Stiles go, just turns to head back into the house,
leaving the others standing there huddled like sheep on the porch. Even Jackson
doesn’t sneer as Derek pushes past, ducking their attempts to comfort him, as
this isn’t something a few simple, reassuring touches can heal. Not when this
cuts so much deeper than that.
In the days that follow, Derek never tells the wolves explicitly to leave him
alone, to get out, but eventually, they start to keep their distance, if only
to get a reprieve from the stifling gloom that’s settled like dust in the air
of the den. And this is fine with Derek, because though he is never outright
cruel, hardly raises his voice to them, he is apathetic and listless, flinching
away from their fruitless attempts to engage him. Eventually, they stop trying,
even Isaac, who has taken instead to following Scott around like a second
shadow.
The days become weeks, and the season starts to change again—he can smell it,
the wind losing some of its bitter bite as spring approaches, and the ground
thaws. Thankfully, this means most of his pack becomes busy with the demands of
school, and Derek does not have to worry about them hanging around with Peter.
Most days it feels like he’s going insane, with the knowledge that he isn’t
fully alone in his own head. Sometimes he is hit with strange rushes of anger,
despair, that aren’t his own, and he struggles to bury them in the back of his
mind. He gets headaches, has an aching hollow feeling in his chest that never
quite goes away.
Derek feels him like he thinks an amputee might feel a phantom limb—an empty
space that throbs and itches, and no matter what he does, how much he howls and
bites, the wolf can’t get relief.
//
He only goes to Deaton once, after a week of sleepless nights, begging him to
do something, anything, because the nights are the worst, when he can’t shut
anything out, and he tosses and turns, wakes up more exhausted and vacant than
when he falls asleep.
But the vet does nothing, only shakes his head, tells him in soft, pitying
tones that there’s nothing to do, that to break a bond like this, the damage to
their souls would be irreparable.
Derek leaves with the taste of mountain ash in his mouth, an aching hand where
he punched clean through the drywall in Deaton’s office.
//
After that, there is only one person to turn to, though it fills him with
disgust, to go crawling to him, weak and helpless. But Peter does not seem
surprised when Derek finally comes to him. Only gives him a watery smile, tells
him, “Find an anchor, hold on to one thing, block everything else out. Let it
consume you. It’s the only way.”
So Derek chooses anger. Lets it leech into his bones like black poison, until
every inch of him is infected with a rage that he can’t shake. Not at Stiles,
not really, but at everything, at himself. He lets himself choke on it,
swallowing it like black smoke. It feels it, toxic, oozing out of his every
pore.
Instead of spending his nights lying in cold sweat, he drives, flying down the
dusty back roads outside of town in the camaro, white-knuckling the gearshift,
grinding the gas pedal down as he makes turns that would scare the shit out of
even the most reckless of adrenaline junkies.
He stops at every seedy, shithole bar, tossing back drinks that he can’t even
feel, but relishing the burn as the liquor slides down his throat. Sometimes
women approach him, sometimes men, their eyes dead and vacant, looking at him
like he might be able to do something about it, but the idea of that, it’s
actually repulsive, makes him feel physically ill.
What he really wants is a fight, wants to feel bones crack under his knuckles,
wants to smell the iron-bite of somebody else’s blood, somebody he doesn’t care
about…
Someone he doesn’t love.
But even in the most fucked up places, where the skinheads and the junkies hang
around outside just waiting to mess someone up, nobody approaches him. Derek
thinks it’s probably something in his eyes, something so wild and animal that
even their weak human instincts rise in response, whispering in their ears to
stay away.
It’s probably better that way.
//
When they come for him, he doesn’t see it, blinded by so much that he doesn’t
even feel it, the panic of the pack as they are snatched, one by one, from
their homes, from the school.
The dart hits him from behind, he thinks, jabbed deep into his spinal cord,
paralyzing him like the kanima’s venom. Right before he blacks out, loses
consciousness, he’s aware that his last thought is a sliver of hope that maybe
he won’t wake up at all.
But he does, and when he does, he knows. Derek is fully cognizant of where he
is, his whole body recoiling from the unnatural, familiar chill of death and
decay. Whatever they jabbed him with, it makes his muscles burn and his joints
ache like he’s been stung by a hundred bees. The floor is like ice under his
cheek, and when he finally pulls himself upright, he feels the sharp, stabbing
pains in his ribs, around his neck, and his wrists, where they’ve tied him up
with silver chains and rope soaked in what feels like some kind of wolfsbane.
The scent of his own skin being slow-roasted is nauseating.
He opens his eyes and there’s another sight waiting that makes him want to
retch, it’s so vile, so utterly wrong, Stiles, kneeling at Peter’s feet, tied
up like a damned dog. Derek’s still weak, dizzy, but he hisses, pained as he
feels his teeth try to bite fruitlessly through the gag that’s been stuffed in
his mouth. He thrashes, tests his bonds, but he only succeeds in tiring himself
out more, flopping around like a fish out-of-water, starved for oxygen.
And he thinks of his pack, how he smells them now, underneath the floorboards,
waiting to be gutted like animals in a slaughterhouse.
“It’s time for your debt to be paid,” says a voice, low and serious. Three
figures come out of the shadows, one he recognizes—the red-haired wolf he’d
thought he’d killed the night that Stiles was taken, and what has to be the
last remaining members of the alpha pack.
“Peter tells me that this human boy is your mate. Very odd, I think, an alpha
mated to a human, they’re so---breakable,” the man murmurs, grabbing Stiles by
the roots of his hair, yanking up to stare at the boy’s throat where Derek’s
mark is still visible, but only just.
“But he’s not really my concern,” the alpha says, though he adds, like an
afterthought, “Though, I wonder if the bond is the same for them. Lena here,
for instance, knew the moment you killed her mate, that lovely brunette whose
throat you ripped out—it’s agony, I’ve heard. I wouldn’t know.”
The alpha steps closer to Derek now, the blonde following closely at his heels.
With his claws extended, he lets one, razor sharp, dance over Derek’s pulse,
teasing.
“Let’s find out.”
Derek doesn’t flinch under the needle-point prick of the alpha’s claws, his
eyes wide, staring right into the red-fire gaze of the man hovering over him.
He cringes though, at Stiles’s pleas, expecting the boy’s cries to be followed
by a crack across the face—which they are—the blonde backhanding the boy with
the precision of a whip.
The man snarls, and she shrinks back with a whimper, her eyes downcast,
submissive. So, Derek thinks, this man is The Alpha, with a capital A, which
means deep shit for all of them. Peter mutters filthy, soothing words into
Stiles’s ear, stroking the swollen flesh of his cheek, and Derek roars,
drowning in the sound.
“Your human begging for your life,” the blonde spits, her breath hot and sour
in his face, “it’s pathetic.”
The Alpha shrugs, and with no ceremonials, no more words, strikes quick and
true, plunging claws into Derek’s chest, dragging them down with a terrible
ripping sound, cutting all the way into bone, sinews of muscle unwinding like
string over Derek’s chest. The gag is removed, and even Derek can’t stay
quiet—and it’s a terrible shriek, blood-curdling, that falls out of his mouth,
echoing lonely throughout the crumbling walls of the house; and his own blood
fills his throat, thick and viscous, and he falls to the ground, twitching and
sputtering.
And he’s not dead, not yet, but he’s dying, his chest heaving the way he’s seen
animals do—deer hit by passing cars, dogs struck by stray bullets.
He shuts his eyes, tries so hard to block what he can, so Stiles can’t feel it,
but he’s so tired, his body vibrating with so much rage and panic.
What happens next, Derek sees through a hazy curtain of raw pain and lack of
oxygen. His Stiles, his perfect, beautiful, crazy-stupid-brilliant boy throws
himself down on the ground, spitting a mouthful of wereblood onto the floor.
There’s a hum, and a buzzing, crackling sound followed by the pungent scent of
sulfur—and even the Alphas feel it, their hackles rising—magic.
“A witch,” the blonde bitch snarls, though her words are cut off by the fact
that she’s suddenly body-slammed violently by a writhing, fast-moving blur,
what ends up being Jackson, Isaac, and Erica. They pin her down—it takes all of
them, working together, to contain the flailing—her limbs like concrete
bolstered by brute alpha strength. Lydia comes up behind her, her incredibly
human eyes glinting with mischief as she waits for Jackson to nod before
pulling a silver blade out from a holster in her boot.
She plunges it straight into the alpha bitch’s heart, and Derek’s own leaps
with what he thinks must be pride, hiding underneath layers of throbbing aches
and blood loss.
Derek struggles in his bindings, especially as he sees Stiles cornered by
Peter, who’s more animal than human at this point (but then again, wasn’t he
always).
But Scott is there, muttering in his ear, his claws slicing through the ropes
that still hold him. And he’s gripping Derek’s shoulder, and the others are
suddenly around him, and they’ve all got a hand on Derek’s exposed flesh, their
own veins twisting like snakes as they absorb the brunt of his pain, as it’s
shared between all of them.
The Alpha lets out a sound, wounded, barbaric. But he’s gone in a second, and
Derek shakes his head, not wanting any of his pack to follow because he knows
it like he knows his own name that they will never see his face again, not
ever.
When Stiles hits the wall, every single wolf in the room goes still, their eyes
flashing eerily, and the pack descends on Peter. They’re ripping him apart,
Derek sees, and he lets them, doesn’t even think about revenge, about getting
his share, because Stiles is lying crumpled in a heap, his leg bent at an
unnatural angle.
“Scott,” Derek whines, and the boy nods, gathering Stiles in his arms,
assessing the extent of the damage. And when Scott looks up at him, eyes wild
and desperate, face ashen and pale, Derek knows it’s bad, as bad as it’s ever
been.
“Derek—it’s so—you have to save him, he’s—”
And Derek knows what that means, knows that saving him means bite him, make him
like us. It’s everything Derek knows Stiles doesn’t want. It’s everything Derek
never wanted for him.
He’s on his knees, his own wound still dripping blood, drops like a torrent of
red wine across Stiles’s pale skin and Derek is shaking his head because he
can’t.
And Scott is yelling, screaming in his ear, but he sounds so very far away.
Derek’s not expecting what Stiles does next, but then again, that should be a
new rule of thumb when it comes to the boy. The older wolf never knows what
Stiles is going to do, because the human is constantly surprising him with his
intelligence, his bravery, and now this---
His power.
When the boy’s dull nails hook into Derek’s flesh, he bristles, biting back the
growl in his throat at the fresh stab of pain. But the boy’s muttering words,
and the alpha’s eyes widen in recognition as runes from an ancient tongue
skitter across his skin like spiders. It’s not easy magic, not like healing a
cut, or opening a lock—this is a trade.
Life for a life. And as sure as he knows anything, he knows that the Alpha is
out there, out in the forest, slowly being drained of his life-force.
Derek holds on tight, pulling Stiles closer as he feels foreign energy draw
through his veins, foreign blood pump through his heart, using his body like a
conduit as life force flows like water between them. When Derek looks into his
eyes, it’s not the bright coffee-colored irises he’s used to seeing, but pupils
black and empty, far away because Stiles isn’t there—he’s reaching into a void
that Derek, being what he is, can never follow him into.
“That’s enough, Stiles,” Derek hisses, feeling the last dregs of the Alpha’s
power slide through him, but Stiles doesn’t stop, not immediately, his energy
still now latched on to the next available source of the most power in the
room—Derek.
“Stiles,” Derek mutters, his palms coming up to cup Stiles’s face “come on,
come back, that’s enough.”
And Scott is yanking on his arm, like that’s actually going to help, and
Derek’s vision is going all blurry again, though he notes that Stiles’s color
is returning, his body warm and pliant against him, so that’s a plus.
The whole still dying thing, not so much.
Derek is shuddering and shaking as that energy pushes its way back inside him,
so pure and raw and unfiltered, his own skin feels too small and tight to hold
it all. Little slivers of energy pour out of him, his pores, his eyes, like
rays of light bouncing off a prism, like cracks in a mirror. The red in his
eyes blazes like fire, and he smiles, feeling no pain as the fragmented pieces
of his ribs align back together, his spine straightens, the shallow cuts
closing like the zippers on a coat.
“Holy shit,” someone says behind him, Boyd, Derek thinks, as he stands, flexing
his limbs testily. He feels good, better than good, like he spent all night
running under the full moon, breathing in cold, clean air, positively drunk on
it. And the bond he shares with Stiles, it doesn’t tug at him in all directions
like before; it’s still there, just under the skin, but it feels as much a part
of him as him own limbs, an arm, a leg, his own teeth.
When Stiles doesn’t open his eyes, Isaac and Scott hover over him, concerned,
but Derek knows that the boy is fine, the steady, healthy drumming of his heart
is sturdy and strong.
They all look like extras in the worst kind of gore film, but they’re all fine.
It’s sort of a miracle.
He tells Scott and Isaac to take Stiles to Deaton, to get themselves all
cleaned up while he takes care of what’s necessary.
//
Needless to say, it’s a good thing that the Sherriff knows what he is now,
because showing up at the Stilinksi home covered in the blood of many, many
different people would totally be justification enough for the man to pull a
gun on him and shoot without a second thought. Instead, he just goes shock
white, gulping in air, while Derek quickly assures him that Stiles is totally
fine, just resting—not a scratch on him (which is true, but sort of a half
truth).
“So—you killed them,” the Sherrif says quietly, later, as he follows Derek into
the now completely ruined wreckage of the Hale house, examining the bodies (or
what’s left of them) with a nudge of his boot, “the ones that took him—the ones
that—” and he motions to the blood on Derek’s shirt, assuming there are
injuries hidden underneath his clothes.
Derek considers lying, considers downplaying what’s happened here, but Stiles’s
father deserves to know as much as Derek can actually tell him.
“Yes,” he says quietly. “No one will ever touch him again.”
And it’s not just a statement, it’s a promise, and he thinks Derek’s father
understands the weight behind his words because he’s stock still, his shoulders
relaxing visibly, and he’s silent, though Derek is pretty sure he hears a
mumbled, “Good.”
And it’s enough, for now.
//
Derek drives the remains a few miles outside of town, burying them in the
middle of the forest, in a place where normal, human eyes cannot find them.
But in a way that serves as plenty a warning for the not-so-human things that
may still be out there.
He should go back to the den, check on his pack, his family that tonight proved
more capable, more unified than he ever imagined. He’s brimming with pride, but
there’s a longing that needs to be filled, a need to comfort and protect.
The window to Stiles’s room isn’t locked, and he lifts it with nimble fingers,
the muscles in his face going lax with relief when he sees Stiles, gleaming,
not a trace of blood and gore on him, lying sprawled across his bed, fast
asleep. Derek still hasn’t cleaned up, still mostly covered in blood and dirt
and sweat. He doesn’t want to lie down, soil the perfect image in front of him.
The boy stirs, barely even conscious, eyelids heavy, dark lashes trembling, and
Derek hears him, whispering so quiet, but so full of need. “I don’t want you to
go. Stay with me. Stay.” And it’s so dark in the room, that it’s just Derek’s
eyes that flare like a camera flash, illuminating the room. He shakes his head,
presses a finger to his lips so Stiles doesn’t try to speak anymore, and moves
closer, perching on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes, his shirt, so at
least some parts of him aren’t bloodstained and grimy when they finally touch
Stiles’s skin.
The werewolf thinks his heart feels a little like bursting when he sees Stiles
reach for him involuntarily with these adorable little grabby-hands that, Derek
knows, if the younger man were more conscious, more aware, he’d totally deny
ever having.
He slides in close, wrapping himself around the boy with the full extension of
his limbs, sighing happily with a soft exhale into Stiles’s hair, as their
bodies fit like keys in a lock. The buzzing under his skin quiets, finally, and
the link between them feels heavy and solid—stronger than ever.
As he drifts of to sleep, Derek’s thoughts are mostly shapeless, wordless, but
there’s a fleeting image of Hale manor, in all its glory, a veritable
mausoleum, a scorched relic— but with it there is no accompanying twinges of
guilt or pain. And he knows, without words, without any acknowledgement that he
will never go there again.
He doesn’t need to.
Derek sleeps clear through the night, barely stirring, though in the early
hours of the morning he does hear footsteps coming down the hallway.
Automatically, his hold on Stiles tightens, and the boy lets out a noise like
maybe he’s gripping him a little too hard, and Derek begrudgingly loosens his
grasp. The door opens with a click, the hinges squealing a little, and the
alpha’s eyes glow red as he turns, laser-like focus on the sudden intruder.
But it’s just Stiles’s father, whose expression is blank, if not a little sad.
There’s a moment where Derek is certain he’s going to say something, anything,
dare him to do something---but the man only nods, almost imperceptible.
And Derek thinks, this is not the end; someday there will be a time and place
to discuss this, but it isn’t now.
The door shuts, and Stiles whimpers in his sleep, burrowing closer against
Derek’s chest, and he nuzzles against Stiles’s cheek to quiet him.
//
It’s actually Stiles who wakes Derek next, pulling away, mumbling into his
pillow. Derek grumbles, rolling closer to close the gap between them.
But when he opens his eyes, he does cringe a little, noting the discernable
layer of grit and dried blood cracking over his skin. Slipping out from between
the blankets with a last lingering graze across Stiles’s spine, he heads to the
tiny bathroom attached to the bedroom, stepping out of his jeans and into the
shower. It’s nothing more than a quick, cursory rinse, his nose wrinkling at
the idea of using the scented soaps perched on the tiles floor. Derek doesn’t
even bother to adjust the temperature of the spray, which is blistering hot as
it beats across his tired muscles.
When he checks his reflection in the mirror, he notes, with a look of awe, that
the scars he’d gotten from the alphas are gone, his skin new and unmarred,
almost glowing.
Which makes him wonder.
He slips his jeans back on, hair still dripping as he climbs over Stiles,
maneuvering him onto his back as he lifts the boy’s shirt up.
And it’s gone…
The alpha’s mark. It’s gone.
And Derek notes immediately how the boy’s pallid flesh blushes pink under his
hands, exhaling sharply when he feels the kittenish swipe of Stiles’s tongue
rough over his damp skin. He finishes taking inventory of the boy’s
skin—satisfied that every unwanted scratch on him is gone, wiped clean, a fresh
slate. It’s beautiful, Derek thinks, such a smooth, blank canvas, as he ignores
the hunger in him that leaps like a catching fire at the idea of marking it all
up again. The air around Stiles is already thick with arousal, pulsating and
swirling—it’s incredibly distracting. The alpha rolls his eyes, eyebrows raised
as he ignores (against the pleas of the beast howling inside him) the twitch of
interest in his cock as he gently presses Stiles away, holding him against the
mattress with the heel of his palm.
Derek’s not keeping him immobile, just away, because he doesn’t want to—he
can’t just jump right back into this so easily. He wants to, of course he does,
how can he not, with the warm, heavenly scented body soft and willing
underneath him?
“You have to be sure,” he says, because he doesn’t think he can take it if
Stiles pulls away again. He’s all in, has been from the beginning, that he
can’t—
“I won’t just give you up again.”
Stiles scoffs and Derek doesn’t even have to look him at him to know he’s
rolling his eyes. “Did I ask you to?” And at that, Stiles grabs Derek’s wrist
and pulls himself upward and suddenly Derek’s blinded by molten gold. The wolf
huffs, his hand come up to brace against the curve of Stiles’s spine, ducking
his head into the touch. Stiles’s breath is warm, ticklish on the sensitive
skin of his jaw. It gives him goosebumps, and he makes a noise, a happy one,
because he is—happy, that is. Here, with Stiles near him, surrounding him. He
feels safe here. Stiles is home to him.
“When did you get so good at making me say yes to you?” Derek grouses. A year
ago, the werewolf was immovable, fiercely stubborn and unwavering in his need
for control, and now all Stiles has to do look at him like that. With his
stupidly wide eyes, the way he’s moving, scent wild, all ozone, crisp leaves,
the taste of mountain air on his tongue. Stiles smells like power, and Derek’s
like a junkie coming back for more.
And Derek knows he’s in trouble.
Big trouble
“C’mere then,” he says, despite the fact that they aren’t alone in the house,
despite all the questions still nagging in the back of Derek’s mind.
They do deserve this, that can’t be denied.
“I never left, silly Sourwolf,” Stiles whispers with an easy grin, the boy’s
grip on his wrist becoming less of a hold, more searching, his delicate
fingertips dancing, stark white, against Derek’s bronzed flesh.
And of course, that’s not what he means, but Stiles is past listening now, past
any sort of reasonable, logical discussion. Derek knows by the way he reaches
for him; by the way he arches into his chest, the way he boldly brands him with
the wetness of his tongue and sweet, hot breath in the hollow of his ear.
So Derek gives him exactly what he wants, showing a flash of teeth before
flipping them with a growl, feeling it deep like a lump in his chest, pinning
Stiles to the bed by his wrists, eager to quiet that smart-ass perfect mouth
with a few marked nips to his lips.
“You have to be quiet,” he rumbles into the nape of Stiles’s neck, even though
he traces the words with his tongue in a way that doesn’t really encourage the
sentiment, “or your dad’s going to come in here and shoot me.”
From Stiles’s bedroom, Derek can hear the muffled noise of the ancient t.v set,
the high-frequency whine of the ray tubes that makes Derek’s ears hurt if he
listens too hard. But he can also hear Stiles’s father’s breathing, slow, even,
like he’s dozed off in front of it. And at that, he laughs, an easy,
lighthearted sound because he’d never pictured this—in all the scenarios with
Stiles that he’s certainly spent enough time imagining—that they’d be making
out like teenagers in high school, trying not to get caught.
“You saved me,” Stiles says quietly, “he’d never shoot you.”
The words are wrong, so Derek stills, head cocked in disbelief. “Stiles….you
saved us all.”
At that, Stiles flushes pink and shakes his head. “But, I wasn’t supposed
to...I shouldn’t have...Deaton’s going to be furious, and I almost killed you,
.again. which is kind of a record, even for me, and I--,”
And Derek cuts him off with a harsh, scraping kiss, and a murmured, “Shut up,
Stiles,” against the boy’s lips, and Stiles makes a noise that might have
started out as a moan, but comes out more like a growl.
Stiles's little growl hits Derek low in his belly, and the heat that pools
there makes him ache in all the best ways. He's tracking his mouth all over the
boy, pulling at the fabric of his shirt, not caring a bit when he hears the
threads stretch and rip under the force of his hands. And before, Derek had
done all that he could to put this behind him, to not think of this when they
had been apart, to settle with the fact that he'd never get another chance to
touch, to taste, feel.
But he was wrong, and he's not taking anything for granted. Not anymore.
This time he doesn't worry so much about being too rough, about holding him too
tightly because he's seen firsthand now, the strength in every sinew of
Stiles's muscles, the power he keeps hidden under all that awkward grace.
This time he traces every mole and freckle like he's committing them to memory,
writing them down with teeth and tongue and fingertips, a map made of flesh and
bone, just for him.
And yeah, Derek’s not going to deny that he loves this, loves the way Stiles
arcs under the rough pads of his fingers, the way he goes soft and pliant
beneath the sturdy cage of Derek’s weight. The boy is still so warm, eyes
drowsy, half-lidded and heavy from sleep, and with the sun streaming in,
blazing, from the windows, Derek can see all of him, every dusty freckle, and
every perfect flush in high definition—in Technicolor.
Okay, yeah, and if Derek admitted to ever making a sound so—cuddly and
unthreatening as a purr, it would be now, as Stiles cards his fingers through
the strands of his hair, pulling just enough for the werewolf’s hips to buck
reflexively as they seek out familiar friction, the familiar shocks of
pleasure, like sense memory, like remembering a dream.
He goes willingly, happily, letting Stiles ravage his mouth, groaning as he
tastes the copper bite of his own blood, spilled out of pure recklessness, out
of Stiles’s eagerness to taste him. And if their story must still be written in
blood, Derek hopes they can carve a new one, and that the ink comes from
moments like this, from passion and lust and desire, and not the same pain and
death and tears that have been haunting them for months.
He rids them of the rest of their clothes with frantic pulls, babbling pleas
into Stiles’s mouth, the only sounds in the room the slight rustle of blankets
and fabric, Stiles’s heavy, labored breathing, because Derek wants skin on skin
everywhere, needs it after too many nights of longing, of lying awake restless
and bitter and angry, always so angry.
With Stiles laid bare, as pale and ghost-white as the sheets on the bed, Derek
sits back on his heels, eyes following the fullness of his hips, the curves of
his thighs, the marked planes of his chest and remembers what he’s heard about
scorched earth.
That in there can be no hope, because nothing grows from ground that’s been
choked and gutted with ash.
But when Derek looks at the boy, the newness of him, he thinks what he’s heard
must be wrong.
“I had sisters besides Laura,” he says suddenly, talking just to talk, though
he doesn’t know why—because pillow talk isn’t exactly a thing he’s ever had a
proclivity for. But maybe he wants to share more with Stiles than just flesh,
more than blood, he isn’t sure, but the words spill out anyway. “Twins…just as
human as you,” the words he punctuates with presses of lips into skin.
“Scared me to death, when I was younger, because I couldn’t feel them like I
could everyone else, like weres. Used to sit in their room at night when they
were little, check that they were still breathing, that they were safe.”
“I like that I can feel you,” is all he says before falling silent again,
watching the sun go down from a peek of glass through Stiles’s curtains. It’s
not ‘I love you,’ but it’s enough for now.
But Stiles won’t stop staring at him, but not like other people did, like they
do, whenever he goes anywhere, just the man with the dead family, but Stiles,
he never looks at him with pity in his eyes. It’s something else entirely, that
makes Derek shiver.
And he couldn’t tell you quite how it happens: Stiles’s arms are surround him,
caging him in, but Derek notes surprisingly that he doesn’t fight it, doesn’t
feel trapped. His cheek rests against the boy’s and there’s wetness there.
“Why are you crying?”
“Oh, my sourwolf,” Stiles sigh against him, “I’m not crying. “ And Derek feels
a kiss pressed reverently against his eyelids, and he knows, knows the truth in
that moment. There’s a touch, gentle and reverent, and it’s Stiles, holding his
face in his hands.
“I’m not crying,” Stiles says again,“ but you are.”
That lingering touch on his chin, it’s the last thing he feels before sleep
claims him. From the moment he closes his eyes, he dreams, sinks into the
images like he’s falling into water. Some of them he recognizes, because some
of them…are him. He’s watching himself, standing over Laura’s body—her wolf
body—and he remembers that night, when he found them wandering around his
property, how they’d –
And then it’s gone
And he’s watching himself sink to the bottom of pool, his lungs filling with
water, limbs paralyzed from Jackson’s venom as he’s screaming for air but he
can’t make any noise, and then someone’s lifting his head above water and he
takes that breath like a victory.
But that’s gone too, and then he’s nowhere he recognizes, seeing things that
aren’t his to see, that don’t belong to him.
A boy, small and pale, with his face buried into the folds of his father’s
overcoat, fast asleep.
A woman in a rocking chair, singing a song softly, under her breath, beautiful,
happy.
Another little boy with eyes too big for his face, too much hair, dark and
hanging into his eyes, laughing and smiling a crooked smile.
//
Derek wakes up with a gasp, still pressed into Stiles’s side. He’s knows what
everything he saw belongs to Stiles, were the boy’s memories bleeding through
his skin, into Derek’s. It’s still dark outside, probably still the middle of
the night Derek thinks, and he knows that he should leave, even though he
doesn’t want to—that he’s stayed too long wrapped up in the boy, ignored his
other duties, his pack.
He gets up, dresses quickly, pausing by the boy’s bedside to nuzzle into his
forehead.
He hopes that Stiles never sees into his memories like that. Because there’s
nothing good in them. Nothing worth being remembered.
***** Chapter 3 *****
It isn’t as if it’s magically easy afterward. They still get on each other’s
nerves, pretty much all the time. Stiles is still infuriatingly stubborn, with
an almost supernatural disregard for his own life and safety. And it isn’t like
Stiles’s dad is over-the-moon about the whole “fated lovers” situation. Now
that Derek actually tries to use the front door, it seems like more and more he
walks in on the Sheriff conspicuously cleaning the entirety of his firearms
collection. This doesn’t really bother Derek, as he’s been shot before and
lived (har har), and he agrees with most of the Sheriff’s thoughts regarding
Stiles’s safety and wellbeing, anyway. Any awkwardness or tension seems worth
it to Derek, in the end. After three or four weeks of this, however, Stiles
puts the kibosh on the whole unsubtle threatening with some threatening of his
own: nothing but kale burgers and quinoa for the next six months if the guns
didn’t start to disappear.
Stiles’s dad had folded like a three-dollar-suitcase, so the matter seemed
somewhat settled, for now. With the exception of one thing--no matter how much
Derek baulked and growled and brooded, Stiles wouldn’t stop pushing. Because
Stiles had to know everything about everything, he’d made it his job to find
out everything about their...whatever their thing was. This bond, which Derek
didn’t really know anything about, not really, was something that Stiles
brought up frequently, especially when he was frustrated. So of course, Stiles
had been reading. Stiles had been researching. And really, Derek shouldn’t have
nearly choked to death on his own tongue like he did, shouldn’t have really
been shocked at all, when the boy looks over lazily at Derek one afternoon,
fluttering those damn lashes of his as they both lie sprawled in the thick
grass below the porch of Stiles’s house, and says, without pretense, “I think
I’m ready for you to have me...you know, claim me. For real.”
At the words, Derek’s thoughts race with the possibilities, and he knows his
eyes are flashing red, because Stiles is smirking at him in that way that he
does when he’s proud of himself, when he knows he’s succeeded in pushing one of
Derek’s buttons. “Jesus, Stiles,” Derek groans, “you can’t just--”
“I can do whatever I want,” the boy answers matter-of-factly, “and I want this.
It’s the natural progression of things, all the books, they say it stabilizes
everything, so no more mood swings, no more panic attacks...no more shared
nightmares,” Stiles’s words trail off into a whisper as he leans over to nuzzle
Derek, whose body has stiffened at Stiles’s verbal confirmation of Derek’s
biggest fear. He doesn’t dare open his eyes, doesn’t want to see the expression
on the boy’s face. It’s never been pity, and he doesn’t want to see if that has
suddenly changed.
Now that the boy had seen it all, felt it all: seen the cinematic horror of all
the fucked up tragedies that marked most of his life. All the people who’d
suffered because of him. All the death, and the anger, and the loss. He feels
goose- bumps on his neck, and he shivers. Stiles presses lips into his
shoulder, and Derek lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“You saw it then…the fire, Peter, Laura….all of it. All the people I killed.”
Derek opens his eyes and Stiles is watching him, his golden gaze completely
focused. It’s not pity. It’s something else: rage.
“Don’t you dare, Derek. You had to realize...it went both ways. I know you saw
her, my mom, how she was at the end... I know you saw Gerard torturing me, and
Peter offering me the bite, all the times I got the shit kicked out of me, and
pretty much all the other majorly fucked-up things that have happened, but
it’s...it’s okay, you know that, right?”
Stiles is speaking so fast that Derek can only keep up due to his werewolf
senses, but the whole time, Stiles’s eyes still don’t leave Derek’s, not for a
second. “How can it be okay, Stiles? If we do this--if I do this--it’s forever.
It’s permanent. And I don’t even know what that even means, and christ, you’re
so young.”
“If you call me a fucking kid, I’m going to kill you.”
“Stiles...” And suddenly, Stiles’s hands are on both sides of Derek’s head, and
he’s straddling Derek’s waist, his lips so close and tempting, and Derek’s
vision blurs, then focuses, on a newly-bloomed freckle he hadn’t yet noticed on
the side of Stiles’s mouth, and that’s it. He’s lost. “I love you,” Stiles
says. And It’s so easy, the way the words seem to fall out of the boy’s mouth,
fiercely, almost a challenge, Derek thinks, as he grasps the back of Stiles’s
head to pull him in for a bruising kiss:
“I think I’ve always loved you, Stiles.”
//
It’s strange, Derek thinks, to have someone else in his head. He’s so used to
being alone that his natural instinct is just to keep pushing, to push and push
until his walls are strong and hold fast around him, finding the suffocation of
it almost comforting. But Stiles doesn’t give a shit about walls, boundaries,
or obstacles; he just rockets his way into Derek’s orbit like he was made to be
there--leaving Derek’s walls shattered into pieces on the floor, pieces he
never wants to put back together again.
Plus, Stiles, he never ever, ever...
shuts
the
fuck
up.
“What if I had two heads?”
“What?” Derek manages to gasp between gritted teeth. It’s a little difficult
for him to form words at the moment, given that his cock is surrounded by the
perfect, wet heat of Stiles’s mouth.
Stiles pulls off Derek’s dick with an obscene pop, talking to Derek as if he’s
discussing something as arbitrary as the weather.
“You know, if I had two heads, purple skin, scales, a residual tail—you’d still
have to love me just as much, right?What if I was green? What if I had my legs
cut off? What if--”
“Stiles! Fucking—christ—will you just…” Derek’s looking down and the picture he
sees is so sinfully perfect, Stiles with his mouth around Derek’s cock, gazing
up at him through those outrageously thick eyelashes. But he’s been teasing
Derek with that mouth and those questions for what feels like an hour now, and
Stiles has gotten him so close to the edge again and again until the wolf can
barely even see straight. It’s taking all of his self-control not to just take
what he wants and fuck into Stiles’s mouth until the boy chokes on him.
Stiles is grinning, stroking Derek tenderly, gently, so much more gentle than
Derek needs and it’s literally killing him. “What? You want something, big
guy?”
There’s that glint in Stiles’s gilded eyes that proves he knows exactly what
he’s doing and he’s fucking pleased as punch about it. “You know what I
want—please, just let me…” Derek doesn’t beg. He never begs. Okay, maybe he’s
begging a little, but fucking Christ. The words seem to satisfy Stiles, who
lets out a pleased hum and begins sucking him in earnest, until finally,
finally, Derek feels his release like a punch to the gut. When he looks down
and sees Stiles licking Derek’s cum from his fingertips like candy, he can’t
help it: he throws his head back and roars, the back of his skull hitting the
hood of the jeep with a resounding, metallic crunch.
"Dude!” Stiles is gripping the front of Derek’s shirt, but Derek is too blissed
out to notice, just continues zeroing in all laser-like on the beating drum of
Stiles’s pulse. It’s fluttering nicely, like the translucent wings of a
butterfly. Christ, Stiles certainly was so his fucking drug of choice, so
fucking addicting and pleasing and—“You just dented my car, you dumb werewolf.”
Derek blinks back to reality and sees that Stiles is crossing his arms, peering
around Derek, poking at the considerably sized concave dent in his jeep. Derek
can’t help it. He snickers.
"Not funny, dude!” Stiles says, pouting. It’s infuriatingly cute.
"You can’t call me dude when you had my dick in your mouth five seconds ago,”
Derek grumbles as he zips up his jeans and closes his belt buckle.
“I can call you whatever I want, whenever I want,” Stiles says, sticking out
his tongue.
Derek rolls his eyes and runs his fingers over a sizable rust spot on the hood
of the car. “I can fix it, Stiles. I’ve got tools at the house. Though, come to
think of it, I don’t know why I even let you drive this deathtrap around in the
first place...”
He trails off, glancing up to see that Stiles’s face is pale, and his
expression is wooden. “Oh, Stiles,” Derek murmurs, “I didn’t—I’m sorry…“ He
takes a step and Stiles flinches. Derek’s stomach flops nauseatingly. The boy
bolts faster than Derek can react, and he swears harshly as Stiles takes off
into the thick and quiet darkness of the forest.
//
Stiles doesn’t know at first why he runs, only that the thought of his car had
led to thoughts of his mother, and Derek, and he’d felt the sudden, crushing
weight of panic that set the adrenaline firing off into his bloodstream like a
bottle rocket. He knows where he’s going, he doesn’t quite know how, but he
does. His feet seem to know, at the very least.
By the time he reaches the graveyard, his breath comes in gasps, and his heart
is pounding so hard he can feel it hammering in his throat and vibrating in his
temples. The gate is locked and chained, as it’s well past dusk, but Stiles
just uses the tips of his fingers to trace runes over the links and the heavy
shackle fizzles and snaps before crumbling to the floor, limp and useless.
Who knew magic and vandalism would go so readily hand in hand? He walks across
the grass, the blades still damp and springy from the previous night’s rain.
He’s shivering, suddenly realizing that he’s clad in just a t-shirt, his
customary red hoodie left forgotten in the driver’s seat of the jeep. He hadn’t
even noticed the cold while he was running. Shoving his hands in his pockets
and with his shoulders hunched, Stiles trudges through the yard anyway, weaving
haphazardly through the headstones.
And he feels nothing but alone.
//
Derek feels the ache of that loneliness settle in his chest like a chasm. He
doesn’t intend to shift, but he feels it, the siren call of Stiles’s pain, and
with it, a sudden yearning to run. As the wolf, everything is sharper,
clearer...more. And Stiles’s scent is as heavy in the air as perfume. He
follows it willingly, because he can’t not.
As the forest gives way underneath his feet, he runs as if he’s being pulled,
like he’s an anchor on a line and Stiles is the ship reeling him home to
harbor. He doesn’t even need use his eyes, his ears, because Stiles has made
him an arrow shooting at a target. He can’t miss.
When he approaches the cemetery, the gate is already open, and what’s left of
the lock is just a melted, twisted pile of metal left to lie in the dirt.
Inside, Stiles’s scent is even stronger, permeates completely, but Derek
doesn’t need to follow it to find him, anyway, because here, swathed in the
glow of the stars and the moon, Stiles is a pale specter gliding amongst the
tombstones. His skin catches the light like a beacon, because to Derek, that’s
exactly what he is.
Derek watches as the boy falls to his knees, gasping, in front of one of the
largest headstones, and from where he stands, Derek can see etchings, bright
and clear, of wings splashed across the glossy surface of the marble. He’s not
surprised that Stiles senses him before he approaches, and the boy speaks,
barely a whisper, the words all soft and low and hollow: “You shouldn’t have
followed me here.”
I didn’t, Derek thinks, slinking calmly and gingerly through the grass like
Stiles is some skittish, wild thing. You were calling for me. You made me
shift. I didn’t mean to.
Stiles scoffs. “And I didn’t think wolves could talk.” And at this, Derek cocks
his large, canine head and blinks, puzzled.
You can hear me?
Stiles nods and shrugs, wiping what Derek assumes are drying tears from his. “I
guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re in my head all the time anyway. And I
still don’t know how to control all this—I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t
want to hurt you. I don’t want to fuck this up.”
Stiles is babbling now, his breathing still coming in frantic, shallow gulps.
Isn’t that my line? The wolf edges closer to where Stiles sits slumped forward
with his forehead resting against the side of the gravestone. He doesn’t press,
but Stiles reaches for him anyway, and Derek winces a little bit when Stiles
buries his fingers in Derek’s shaggy coat, the boy’s nervous grip just falling
barely on the side of too tight.
Stiles exhales harshly, gripping Derek tighter with one hand, using the other
to trace the grooved letters that spell out Claudia Stilinki’s name, white as a
scar and shining. He feels the tension in the boy’s spine, the way his slim
body quivers against him.“She’ll never get to meet you.”
And Derek understands now. You know you’ll always have me. I’m not going
anywhere. I promise…where you go, I go. Always. You don’t need to be anything
but you. That’s all I need. That’s all I want. 
At this, the teen shakes his head as if in disbelief. “You’re so sure. And you
really believe it don’t you? Even though…you’ve lost everyone, everything...
more than anyone ever should. But you’re still here, and you’re so
strong...what if I can’t ever be like that? What if I screw it up?”
A growl rumbles heavily in Derek’s chest. You won’t. We won’t. Trust me. I will
never lie to you.
Stiles offers Derek a wan smile. “I guess I can’t really lie to you either,
huh? Human lie detector and everything.”
Derek bares his teeth in a sharp, indulgent grin. Not really human. And as for
lying, you were always crap at it.
Stiles laughs and Derek howls, the mingling sound echoing through the cold
night air. They would be okay.
***** Chapter 4 *****
In the days that follow, Derek resigns himself to the indisputable fact that
there were always going to be certain things to which Stiles would not cede—he
would never stop calling Derek, “Sourwolf,” or “Dude”; he would always throw
himself into dangerous situations for the people he loved;  he would never
allow anyone to touch his car, ever. 
So, needless to say, Derek is as shocked as he is pleased when Stiles shows up
at the old garage Derek’s been working at part-time. It wasn’t as if he’s been
trying to hide it, but he hasn’t even mentioned having the job to Stiles. It
falls under the umbrella of personal details, something Derek admits are still
a struggle for him to share (with anyone, let alone with Stiles).
Even from underneath the rusty pick-up truck he is currently tinkering with,
Derek can smell Stiles before he even hears the strangled whining of the
rattling old Jeep, the human’s scent honeyed and cloying through the harsher
stinging ones of oil, gasoline, and ammonia. Stiles’s essence wraps itself like
tendrils of pleasing fog around Derek until he just has to push himself out and
up from underneath the truck-bed to see the boy descend from the cab of the car
with an exaggerated hop. The boy stumbles a little off the step, his landing a
little graceless, and Derek goes to him eagerly, whooshing across the garage
floor to wind his arms around Stiles’s slender hips, taking expert care to rub
a stubbled cheek into the alluring hollow of the Stiles’s collarbone. He hears
the boy giggle in response, and the sound makes Derek go a little cross-eyed
with need. Slender hands try to swat Derek away playfully, but the wolf is
immovable, feeling his body melt under the warmth of Stiles’s wide, electric
smile.
“Watch the super-speed, Sourwolf,” Stiles murmurs, tugging on Derek’s hair as
if that’s meant to scold him. All it does is send shivers down his spine.
“Why? Humans are stupid,” Derek mumbles against Stiles’s throat.
“Hey!”.
“Fine. Most humans except certain ones named Stiles,” Derek amends, nipping the
boy lightly on the chin before releasing him from his grasp, unable to stop the
low, rumbling growl building in his throat when the sweet, hot scent of arousal
rolls off of Stiles like a wave.
“Derek!” Stiles hisses, his cheeks flaming a brilliant crimson. Right, thinks
Derek, probably not the place, as they aren’t exactly alone. Taking a few deep
breaths, Derek steadies himself, reels in the wolf that can’t help but come out
with the presence of his mate (specifically his mate seeking his help, letting
Derek take care of him. Sure, it’s a simple, base need, to care for another,
but that doesn’t diminish the pleasure he feels, given the ability to
provide).  The old man who runs the shop is fiddling in his office with some
papers, and the fool of a boy that Derek works with, no older than twenty, is
muttering curses into a broken carburetor he’s been trying to fix for the past
two hours.
“Sorry,” he mutters, stepping back to survey the damage on the car. Stiles
still has his thin fingers wound with Derek’s, and the idea that Stiles hasn’t
let go thrills him to the point of embarrassment.
“How’d you even know I was here?” Derek asks.
 “I heard Mrs. Kusinich from next door tell my Dad that she saw you working
here. She thinks you’re using it as a cover to run your own chop shop. She
wanted him to…let’s see, how did she put it? Oh yeah,” Stiles says animatedly,
“…give me a ‘talking to.’”
Derek scoffs, rolling his eyes. “She’s worried I’ll strip her soccer mom van
for parts?”
“She thinks you’re corrupting my innocence,” Stiles clarifies with a sly wink.
At that admission, Derek just squeezes his hand tighter. “If anyone’s been
corrupted, it’s me. I have it on good authority that I used to be scary, you
know.”  The boy laughs, surging up to catch Derek’s mouth in a chaste kiss, and
Derek finds he wants to open wide and swallow the sound whole, maybe Stiles
along with it. He’s not sure if he’s ever heard anything more appealing in his
entire life.  But the blissful high he feels thrumming in his veins is cut
short by a sharp, unwelcome sound of disgust.
“Never took you for a fag, Hale,” A voice cuts through the pleasant haze of
Stiles’s skin and scent, and Derek manages to rip his gaze away from the boy
long enough to see his coworker, (Gavin? Garret? Honestly, he can’t remember)
leaning against the Honda they both have been working on for days, the man’s
eyes leering and cruel. Derek can’t help it, the snarl that builds in his
throat, the sour note of rage that shudders up his spine. His grip on Stiles’s
hand loosens as he feels his knuckles crack, claws and teeth lengthening.
Stiles’s grip on him only tightens, and Derek goes still under the steady
stream of soothing words that Stiles is muttering against the shell of his ear.
Derek is lucky that the boy is here. He’s Derek’s anchor, the wolf has never
doubted that for a second, and the soft, lilting tone of the boy’s voice is the
only thing that’s keeping the wolf in check at the moment, considering all
Derek wants to do is feel the man’s blood pouring hot and heavy, see him
crumple to the floor.
A growl builds low and throaty and threatening in Derek’s chest, but Stiles is
already in front of him, bracing himself between the man and Derek, his long,
bony fingers still wound tightly around Derek’s arm to steady them both.
“Like you’ve even had a date in the last year that wasn’t your right hand,”
Stiles says haughtily, his mischievous eyes flashing gold as he squeezes
Derek’s arm in tandem with Derek’s rapidly unsettling heartbeat. His breath is
coming in rapid pants, his vision flickering from red to white to red again. 
The wolf in him still wants to tear the man from limb to limb, to feel him
squirming and helpless and begging under his claws.
The man holding the carburetor starts to looks uneasy, his eyes darting
frantically under Derek’s hostile stare.
“Gabriel!”
At the sudden intrusion, Derek and Stiles both stiffen, turning to see that the
door of the tiny office garage has been blown open.
“Are you seriously trying to fuck with the Hale kid?” The old man, Derek’s
boss, is shaking his head, laughing, his gnarled hands gripping the doorframe
to steady himself. “I mean, look at him. He could rip you in half without
breaking a sweat. If you’re gonna be a dumbass, do us all a favor and at least
go after someone on the same playing field as you. I know that doesn’t leave
many options, but shit, boy, at least pay some fucking attention to who you’re
spewing that bullshit to.” As he speaks, the man leans against the oak walking
stick he holds in his right hand, moving slowly until he’s square with Derek,
who visibly unclenches, clutching Stiles’s hand tightly one last time before
releasing the boy and edging closer to Gabriel, who will no longer meet his
gaze head-on.
“Derek,” Stiles says, his voice a low and gentle warning, and Derek, he’s in
control now, but he’s still grinning with the barest hint fangs, as he slinks
closer to the man who’s now pressing himself against the wall.
“Ahem,” the older man coughs and Derek and Stiles share a knowing look as the
man raises a hand and motions them back into the office. “Why don’t you boys
follow me in here, and we’ll get your paperwork squared away, huh?”
The office is cramped and Derek’s instincts are on high alert—he feels trapped,
stifled and uneasy— but Stiles’s heartbeat is steady and even, so he follows
wordlessly anyway. Once the door is shut, the old man sinks into his chair with
a relieved sigh, kicking his feet up on the desk with an easy smile. Stiles is
uncharacteristically silent, Derek thinks, watching the boy’s eyes narrow as
they scan everything in front of him, the way his slender fingers tap in the
same ancient rhyme of  his swirling thoughts.  And he can see it: the moment
Stiles figures something out, like a light turns on behind the boy’s eyes , how
they seem to flare almost like a wolf’s.
“He knows,” Stiles says simply.
“What?”
“He knows about what you are. I can see it. Plus, you weren’t exactly super
subtle when you almost put your claws into the Rick Santorum wannabe out
there.”
The man’s grey eyes twinkle mischievously , though Derek notes the man’s
heartbeat is as steady as Stiles’s, and there doesn’t seem to be any
malevolence in his expression as he crosses his arms and shrugs.
“He’s not wrong. Not every human is an idiot, Hale. I’ve been in this town
going on forty years now. Long enough to know that the only people who don’t
know about the shit going on here don’t wanna know.”
At that, Stiles tosses his head back and laughs. 
//
By the time Derek gets home later that day, the house is full again, with Isaac
and Boyd tossing a lacrosse ball back and forth in front of the house while
Erica looks on, feigning boredom. He’s shocked to see Jackson there, Lydia
notably absent, sulking with a sour expression on the front porch.   Derek
strips out of the clothes that smell like dirt and gasoline and motor oil and
then goes back outside, standing off to the side, arms crossed, just watching
them all intently. 

He’s not surprised that Jackson makes his way over there, moving slowly like
he’s suspicious that Derek’s going to bite his head off (which, with both of
their track records, it’s not that implausible).

He makes a point not to look at Derek when he talks, deliberately keeping his
eyes focused on the game still happening on the lawn, like it’s the most
fucking interesting thing he’s ever seen, and just grumbles, “so you got stuck
with Stilinksi as your mate, huh? Sucks for you.” 

And Derek just snorts, doesn’t even answer because this is the only way Jackson
knows how to be, he doesn’t necessarily mean anything by it. 

“…so how’d you know? That he—what’s it feel like?”

And Derek, his mind is suddenly racing with the meanings behind the words, what
Jackson’s really getting at. 

Lydia.

“It feels like I’ll die if I can’t have him,” says Derek, because it’s true. He
knows it is.

And he doesn’t have to look at Jackson to see his face, to see the longing in
it, for something he wishes he felt, wishes he possessed the capacity to feel. 

//

That night, there’s no moon in the sky, not at all, just dark and empty sky
when he vaults onto the roof of the Stilinksi home. There’s mountain ash runes
still scratched on the shingles, but they aren’t meant for him, not meant to
keep him out. 

He lifts the window pane, pleased that it isn’t locked. He can already feel his
body relax, the tension in his muscles easing as he breathes in familiar
scents—the musty books, Stiles’s laundry detergent, the stale coffee abandoned
in the kitchen downstairs. He moves wordlessly, soundlessly, sitting on the
bed, content to watch as Stiles is bent over his desk with several aged and
cracked manuscripts sprawled open in front of him, loose-leaf pages fluttering
like birds as he flips them in his hands. He likes watching Stiles taking
things apart, the faraway look he gets in his eyes when he’s trying to solve a
puzzle with all the pieces laid out in front of him. He likes the way his
fingertips twitch every so often, how he bites the perfect swell of his lip,
like he doesn’t realize how completely pornographic his mouth looks to everyone
else.
And Derek almost falls asleep, just sitting there, sprawled across Stiles’s
bedspread, because he’s as comfortable here, more-so even, as he is at the
reserve. Stiles’s heartbeat, his breathing, it’s a steady vibrato that lulls
him to the precipice of drifting off. It’s only when Stiles turns in his chair,
swearing softly as he shoves the book away from him in a clear frustration that
Derek moves at all, blinking the tiredness from his drooping eyelids. When
Stiles stretches, the hem of his shirt rides up, flashing an alluring strip of
paleness, the jut of his hipbones where the faint purpling bruise of teeth can
be seen peeking from underneath his waistband. It makes Derek’s mouth water at
the memory of putting it there. And Derek, he’s never hated what he is, not
really, even for a second, but he wishes he could bear the marks like Stiles
does his, even though he’s branded just as surely and deeply underneath.
Because it isn’t fair, he thinks, that Derek’s body doesn’t show his sins, the
pain he’s caused, the things he’s seen. If he could be marked, there’d be a lot
of them—there’d be burns on his right hand where he ripped the doorknob off of
his burning home, the searing metal melting the flesh right down to the bone,
and there’d be marks on his back where Kate scraped her nails as she rode him,
leeching her rancid poison into Derek’s heart. There’d be deep and crooked
lines on his wrist where Derek tried futilely to end himself for weeks, so many
times, and the acrid taste of fury he’d felt when each time the vein closed
itself so flawlessly.
That was the only time Laura ever hit him, the only time he ever saw her with
eyes burning with rage. Because, she never blamed him, not even once, though he
didn’t know why, even though anyone could see where the blame really lay (on
him, entirely on him). That was why he’d gotten the triskelion in the first
place, let that witch doctor use ink weighed down with wolfsbane, scarring
flesh concealed under thick, black lines. Even though he was sick for days
because of it, delirious with fever, and Laura curled around him, helped him
heal, all the while, and crying softly into his shoulder.
Derek’s lost in thought until Stiles squeaks suddenly, like a startled rat, and
Derek’s not really surprised that he didn’t notice his presence. When Stiles
gets like this, the wheels in his mind turning as he breaks down whatever
obstacle's in front of him, he’s pretty blind to anything else. But then Stiles
is smiling, and he’s just staring at Derek in a long, stretched moment of
quiet, the same way that Derek normally stares at him. And as usual, Stiles
can't stay still for long, and Derek tracks his movements as he pushes himself
up off the desk chair to the edge of the bed, leaning in to press lips against
Derek’s collarbone, sucks marks along the curve where his shoulder meets his
throat, nipping sharply at the skin just above his quickening pulse. Derek
knows Stiles can't help himself, the same way the wolf can’t. Even though no
mark he makes will stay, he still tries, placing them delicately against
Derek's skin like a promise.
When Stiles crawls into his lap, Derek hums, pleased, into the column of his
throat. “Hi,” he murmurs, arms looping around the boy’s waist, settling around
it like they were always meant to be there, fingers searching out the sharp
rungs of his spine, pressing gently. He’s remarkably cold underneath Derek’s
flame-hot skin, and the alpha mentally chastises himself for forgetting about
the boy’s…humanness, how he could be damaged by something as benign as a
forgotten open window.
When Stiles leans in and rests his forehead to Derek’s chest, Derek makes an
approving noise, but it’s not close enough for him (though it never is, when it
comes to the boy), so he lifts him into his lap, lifting Stiles’s leg to wrap
around him, so Stiles can loop his arms around Derek’s neck. This is better, he
thinks. So they’re pressed so close, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, so Derek
can scrape his nails down the sensitive skin of Stiles’s back, where his skin
is softest, where it prickles under his insistent, needy touches.
“Should’ve used the front door,” Derek murmurs, but shrugs, following it with a
kiss, “but, you know what the say—old dogs, new tricks. Your dad even gave me a
key.” He reaches under the collar of his shirt, revealing a small skeleton key
hung on a ragged twine string.
“He gave you a key? Did he ask you to go steady, too?” Stiles asks, running his
fingertips carefully over the grooved metal, tugging gently, the corners of his
lips turned upwards in a coy grin. 
It had been one of the most awkward interactions that Derek can remember.
Stiles had been busy making dinner, forcing Derek and the Sheriff to “bond,”
which normally included them sitting quietly in front of the television,
football or some other game that Derek pretended to watch with as much feigned
interest as he could possibly muster blaring on the tv, the intermittent static
making Derek wince.  The older man hadn’t even looked in his direction, just
grunted and thrust the key, small and freshly cut,  still smelling a little of
burnt nickel, into his palm, grumbling under his breath some sort of
indecipherable combination  of words like “Stiles,” and “safe,” and maybe some
sort of roundabout thank you? It’s not like Derek had ever needed a key to get
in, he’d wanted to say. If Stiles was ever in danger, Derek knows he would move
heaven and earth to get to him. He would rip the hinges off a door like they
were nothing, like tearing the wings off a fly. But part of Derek had also
understood, the need for this hollow human ritual, and had simply nodded,
tucking the key carefully into the pocket of his leather jacket and not saying
another word about it, much to the Sheriff’s visible relief.
//
“Brat,” Derek chides, biting down hard on Stiles’s bottom lip, swollen from his
worrying attentions, nosing underneath his chin against Stiles’s answering
tremble.   And Stiles, he shivers under the press of fingers into day-old
marks, leans into the touch like reliving a dream, because it’s all Stiles
seems to think about, the only thing that calms him, the flesh memory of Derek
holding him steady. One hand traces idly over Derek's neck, taking in the feel
of his pulse beating. Maybe Derek is capable of forgetting Stiles' humanity,
but Stiles is never quite able to forget the wolf that waits just beneath the
other's skin; there are too many physical cues, tiny things, like the fact that
he's fever-hot all the time and the faint thread of something more-than-human
in his voice when he gets emotional or intent about something. Stiles doesn't
mind. It's part of the appeal, honestly.
Besides, without the werewolf thing there'd be no bond, and his draw wouldn't
be nearly as strong. He knows that for a fact, feels mildly guilty about that
if he thinks about it too long, because it's not that it's all on that, all on
some sort of supernatural mumbo-jumbo. And yeah, Derek tends to set him on
edge, just as much as he puts him at ease. It's the swift movements, the
unexpected responses, the things the werewolf can't help and Stiles wouldn't
want him to. That's not it at all. He loves Derek, unequivocally he does, he
just... he thinks there might always be a tiny, secret  part of him that won’t
ever really trust that the other actually wants him, honestly, without the
constant tug of the bond there to remind him
Derek’s hands are rubbing steady, searching circles into the backs of Stiles’s
knees, and it’s becoming very hard for him to focus, and who could blame him,
really? Stiles can’t help it, the way his nails dig into Derek’s arms,
relishing in the way that they wrap around him, tight and unbreakable as a
steel cage. It’s not a trap though. It doesn’t feel like that. He just
feels…protected. He feels grounded.
“I’m glad I didn’t have to cut your arm off,” Stiles whispers, a little
breathlessly, squeezing Derek’s arm while punctuating the action with a kiss.
“Would it really have healed? Would you really have grown another arm?” And
yeah, this is the babbling part of things Stiles can’t really help, can’t
really deflect or reroute the constant stream of questions that plague his
conscious, waking thoughts.
Derek murmurs against his mouth, “Probably, maybe.”
Stiles beams. “You would have staked your entire arm on a probably? Even then?”
 Because at the time, Derek hadn’t trusted him, hadn’t trusted anyone, not
ever. It seems odd, to the think that he would have staked his life on the
whims of a hyperactive teenager.
At the question, Derek just shrugs, kisses him in a way that’s all force,
before muttering. “Laura, my sister, she regrew a toe once.”
“A toe is not an arm,” Stiles breathes into Derek’s collarbone. “How’d you find
that out, anyway?”
Derek chuckles . “Let’s just say, it wasn’t…not my fault?”
“Trying to confuse me with double negatives isn’t going to help,” Stiles
admonishes. “You ripped your sister’s toe off, didn’t you?”
Derek at least has the decency to look sheepish about it. “We were
experimenting with our abilities and she asked me to. It grew back!”
Stiles shakes his head, because werewolves.
Derek is staring at him again, and Stiles doesn’t miss the emotion that flashes
across the man’s face. It’s easier for Derek, maybe not so much now, but
certainly back then when they’d first met, to hide it under anger, tucked
beneath the shadow of the wolf that Derek wears like armor. Stiles can
recognize it for what it really is, is better at it than most because he’s seen
it before on his own face staring right back at him in the mirror.
 Grief.
Stiles reaches out, rests his palm against Derek’s cheek. “I wish I could have
met them.”
“Met who?”
“You know who.”
Derek nods, and Stiles can’t hear his heartbeat or track his scent the way the
werewolf can, but he can read Derek like an open book. It’s an odd thing,
Stiles thinks, whenever Derek’s family is mentioned, how Derek brushes over
them like they are a small glitch, just a blip in his unspoken, tumultuous
history.
“It doesn’t matter,” Derek says a little desperately. And yeah, Stiles knows
the alpha isn’t very good at the whole talking thing. Stiles used to think that
Derek was kind of like a paper mache person, if that makes sense, all hollow
and empty inside, but he was wrong. Derek feels everything. He feels it too
much, because he can’t not.
“What if I could though?” Stiles whispers.
 Derek flinches. “You can’t bring back the dead, Stiles. We know that better
than most. What’s dead should stay dead.”
Stiles shakes his head because that’s not at all what he means. With a last
lingering touch, the boy slips out from Derek’s grasp, and tries not to think
about how noticeably different he feels when he’s not touching the wolf—how he
feels it, the intrinsic sensation of loss-- to grab the books from his desk
that he’d been pouring over for the past few weeks.
“Here,” Stiles says, laying the books out on the bedspread and crawling back
into the wolf’s lap to show him what he’s been working on. “Look,” he says,
pointing to one of the light-bleached pages in the largest, oldest tome, the
writing on it looking like some kind of chicken scratch, all crisscrossed
lines.
Derek’s brows furrow. “What language is this?”
“It’s the Ogham alphabet,” says Stiles. “The druids used it in medieval times.
I’ve only just finished translating it completely—“ and Derek interrupts him
for a moment here, looking dumbfounded.
“What? Is there something on my face?”
“You can read this?” Stiles doesn’t miss the tone of awe in Derek’s voice, and
he flushes. “Lydia helped. Mostly with the physics stuff…I’m not the best at
String Theory, and she’s always been better than me at science but,” and Stiles
is babbling again, but he can’t help it. Derek’s doing distracting things with
his hands, running his fingers in Stiles’s hair, blunt nails harsh against his
scalp. Stiles doesn’t even think Derek’s  aware that he’s doing it, how he
always has to touch him. It makes Stiles feel needy. It makes him ache.
“Stiles,” Derek prompts gently, “what’s the ritual?”
“Oh, right, um…well the simplest explanation would be, I don’t know, memory
walking, I guess?  And it’s easier to do if I have something that connects the
memory to the present. You know…that ties them together, something that existed
in both places in time.”
“Like a tether,” Derek says.
“Yeah, yes, even if it’s just a photograph. I tried to find some, I even asked
Deaton, but he said they were all lost during—“
“During the fire,” Derek finishes.
//
“Yes,” Stiles says quietly.
Derek’s mind races.  It’s not a thing he ever thought was possible before, but
then again, so much wasn’t, before Stiles. When the hunters laid waste to
Derek’s family, to his whole life, it ripped something right out of him, out of
his soul. It broke him. Sure, he was alive—walked around like any other
breathing, talking, living thing…
But he was really just a thousand shards of glass in a mirror that someone put
back together wrong.
“Remember that night,” Derek says, “when I touched you for the first time?” His
voice sounds rough, even in his own ears, as his throat tightens with the
memory of his first real taste of the boy’s mouth, how it was like food to a
starving man, the way his flesh seemed to sing under Derek’s fingertips,
setting the all-consuming fire ablaze that’s been raging in Derek ever since.
 “There was a book on the windowsill. It was a journal.” Stiles doesn’t wait
for Derek to continue. He just runs to his desk, and Derek actually has to duck
to avoid being hit by the books Stiles is throwing around as digs through the
piles in his room. 
He hears Stiles’s breath hitch, his jackrabbit heart racing when he finally
finds it, holds it out to Derek who takes it wordlessly, flipping to the very
last page to find the words  he remembers scratching with the heavy bronze
fountain pen he’d gotten from his sister Cora for his fourteenth birthday. He
can even still taste the mildewed, woodsy scent of the Sailor ink his father
used, thinks how even then it tasted like ash coating his tongue.
                                 Derek S. Hale
                                     2002
“It was mine.”
Stiles’s pale, slight fingers find Derek’s on the page.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” Derek says. There’s no hesitation, no waver.
“Then close your eyes and promise not to let go, okay?”
“Okay.”
So Derek does, even though it makes him feel stupid and vulnerable, his other
senses blaze to life when he follows Stiles’s command. 
Stiles is murmuring in a foreign tongue, words so impossibly quick and fast and
light that Derek can’t pick one phrase out of the other. There’s a crackling
sound that makes the hairs on Derek’s neck stand to attention. Magic. Derek can
sense it, the ozone scent of it tickling his nose.
Stiles falls silent. Derek can hear him panting heavily, leaning against him as
he uses the wolf’s bulk to steady himself.
“Open them.”
So Derek does.
//
The walls of Stiles’s room have fallen away. They’re back in the preserve, but
it’s different. Looks a little shimmery, the light from the sun that shines
overhead seems to refract a little bit wrong, and Derek notes that he doesn’t
cast a shadow here. It’s a confusing assault on his senses, can’t pick any one
sensation out over the other like he can normally. Sounds are too, too loud.
Smells are a tangled, Gordian knot and he can’t untie them, can’t separate the
threads into anything concrete.
Birds screech overhead.
 And Stiles—the boy is grinning at him like a victory.
 “Come on, or we’ll miss it. I don’t know how long I can keep us here. When
Lydia and I tried it, it was only a few seconds before I lost it. We went to
her fourth birthday party. It was unicorn themed. It was very illuminating.” 
Stiles hums as he pulls him to his feet and Derek follows, keeps the boy’s hand
in his own just like he promised.
The path is achingly familiar, and Derek knows where Stiles is taking him, but
that doesn’t mean it feels any less like a hot knife in his chest when he sees
it, the Hale house, what Derek thought could only be burial ground, resplendent
and glittering like some kind of castle straight out of a storybook peeking out
from a blanket of oak trees. He doesn’t know how he could have ever forgotten
it.
“It’s beautiful,” Stiles says.
“Yeah,” Derek says, “It was…It is.” Stiles propels him forward again as they
climb the steps to the front door. There’s no scorch marks. The doorknob is
brass. It’s whole again.
The staircase isn’t splintered anymore. It’s whole too, oiled maple, and the
walls are the same olive color he still sees sometimes when he closes his eyes
at night, right before he falls asleep. There’s no gnarled roots busting
through rotting floorboards.  Even the air, it smells warm and welcoming, and
he thinks that he knows what that scent is so immediately because he’s felt the
absence of it for so long.
Joy.
There are voices coming from the room to the left, tucked under the awning of
the staircase. It’s the kitchen.
Derek stills. His hands are shaking.
“We don’t have to,” Stiles says, his tone nervous and weighted with doubt. “I
don’t want to make you.” I don’t want to hurt you, is what he really means,
Derek thinks. But Stiles makes him brave, so he opens the door and he walks in.
“It’s you,” Stiles breathes, and Derek follows where he’s pointing, and is
stricken when he sees himself, freshly fourteen, sulking at the kitchen table.
His face is still slightly rounded with youth, the hollows of sharp cheekbones
still un-carved and not yet realized. His mouth is curved into Derek’s
trademark scowl. He’d forgotten how long he used to keep his hair back then.
It’s damp and hanging in his younger self’s eyes like a curtain.
“You were short,” Stiles says, bewildered. “And your hair is wet.”
“I hadn’t had a growth spurt yet,” Derek says defensively. “And I think…this
was the day Laura pushed me in the river."
“Why?” Stiles asks.
And Derek actually laughs, though it comes out more broken sounding than he
means it to. “Andrew Dunkirk.”
“You fought with your sister over a boy?” Stiles asks, one of his delicate
eyebrows arching pointedly.
“He was her date to junior prom. I told her he smelled bad so she threw me into
the river and held me down in the mud. She broke two of my fingers. My mom was
furious.”
“Rude,” says Stiles, “but then again, you kinda deserved it for the whole toe
thing.”
“Andrew Dunkirk smelt like patchouli oil and bad pot. He made me listen to
Phish.”  Stiles makes a face like he gets it now.
“You were moody even then, Sourwolf,” Stiles says, sounding pleased. Derek
nods, but then he hears them, two distinct heartbeats whose patterns he thought
he’d never ever get the chance to ever hear again.
“Is that…” Stiles starts, and Derek looks up, frozen in place and so thoroughly
rattled by who’s standing in front of him that he almost doesn’t want to look
because he’s afraid if he does, it won’t be true and it won’t be real.  But
Stiles is here, with him, is giving him this. Dragging him out of the darkness
and filling that gaping wound in him that grief hollowed out, the one he hasn’t
ever been quite able to fill back up. Because Stiles knows what it is to feel
alone, and truly, utterly so.
It’s his mother.
She’s as tall and strong and as beautiful as he ever remembered her, with her
long, dark hair and eyes as deep and vast as the ocean.
 “Talia,” Stiles says, awestruck.
“And my father.”
//
The look on Derek’s face is mesmerizing. And as Stiles appraises the Hale
family, he thinks he understands Derek more than he could have ever hoped to in
this very moment. He gets why Derek kind of forgot what it was like to be
human, because how could he be after what happened?  He had this, all this, and
he lost it.
Maybe Derek can’t ever quite get it back, but Stiles can try to give him
something.
Stiles wants to give him everything.
Derek’s father looks like Derek. He has the same broad shoulders and big hands,
the same thick eyebrows and dark hair, the same bronze coloring. He can see
where Derek gets his toothy, white smile. The man is heart-wrenchingly
handsome, Stiles thinks, though he looks older than Stiles thought he would,
his beard a mix of salt-and-pepper gray, laugh lines and crow’s feet hooding
his eyes.  His hands are at Talia’s waist, tugging on the strings of the floral
apron she’s wearing, when she whispers something into the shell of Derek’s
father’s ear, and he laughs. The sound is booming, full and rich. He bares the
column of his throat and Stiles sees it, a scar peeking out from under the
collar of the button down he’s wearing.
Stiles watches as Talia’s gaze falls on it too, and he notes how she reaches up
to trace the mark with a polished fingertip, her green eyes bleeding that alpha
red, just for a second
It’s the same way Derek always looks at Stiles: hungry.  
 “I thought werewolf bites heal after you turn. They don’t leave a scar,”
Stiles says.
“No,” says Derek, “they don’t. But claiming bites do. And everything scars when
you’re a human.”
//
And he doesn’t mean to let go, but Derek’s words shake him enough that he loses
the last of his concentration, feels the chords of magic he’s been holding onto
slip out of his fingers like frayed threads. The walls of the Hale house
shimmer and melt around them until they’re gone, and they’re back in Stiles’s
musty bedroom.
Stiles wobbles in Derek’s arms before falling to his knees as energy pulses its
way back inside him, a rush that leaves him feeling untethered, dizzy, and
high. He wonders if Derek can still smell it on him, the magic, because Stiles
can still feel it tingling, a little like sparks flying off a campfire, each
one stinging, but only just.
He’s shaking so violently he can feel his teeth clinking together. It’s
deafening to him, so he can only imagine what it sounds like to Derek.
Derek.
The sparks still on his skin seem to catch, igniting a licking flame of lust
that flares and pulses around him like heady perfume.  
“Stiles.” His name on Derek’s lips sounds like a prayer, and then Derek is
touching him and his hands feel like a fever. It feels like his skin is tinder
and Derek’s the match.
“Stiles,” Derek says again, his voice sharp and clear amid the high-pitched
whine that’s buzzing in his ears.  Stiles doesn’t even realize that he’s
tearing at his own clothes until they’re off and he’s naked from the waist up,
because it feels like he’s going to burst, because he’s too big for his skin
and he’s drowning in it.
“Tell me what you need,” Derek commands.
“I need you,” Stiles says desperately. “I need you to touch me. Touch me and
don’t stop.”
//
And oh god, those certainly weren’t the words Derek was expecting to hear, not
now, not tonight, and they go straight to his dick, it practically hurts, fuck,
and he’s so hard and straining against his jeans…He’s never heard that tone in
Stiles’s voice before, never, even before, so raw and pleading. There are alarm
bells that go off, in the miniscule part of his brain that’s still sort of
functioning at a rational level that whispers, warns him, ‘no, no, don’t, you
can’t.’
 So Derek grabs Stiles’s chin with his other hand, grip bruising, and forces
him to turn his head so Derek can look at him, see into his eyes, know for sure
that he really means it.
And god, they look like melted gold, practically rolled straight into the back
of Stiles’s head, his mouth so wet and pink and full, gasping Derek’s name
already, like he was made for it.
Because he was, he is…
And if Derek trusts anything, he trusts this, that the bond—it knows better
than he does, that Stiles was made to be his, his body made to fit his own so
perfectly, his scent, the way he feels in Derek’s hands, and it all points to
the indisputable fact that…hurting Stiles, it would go against every instinct,
every fucking law in nature, to harm what belongs so utterly to him.
So even if Derek’s brain has lingering doubts, his body obviously doesn’t, as
he capture’s Stiles lips in kiss that’s filthy, really, just mostly them
gasping into each other’s mouth, before he pulls away—which is painful enough,
fuck—to get rid of the rest of their clothes.  
“Come back,” the boy begs brokenly. Stiles never stops moving, not his mouth,
not his hands, not his body as he undulates like a live wire in Derek’s lap.
The boy doesn’t shrink away at all, not a bit of self-consciousness or
embarrassment as he grinds shamelessly against Derek’s frame, whimpering,
crashing into him like waves. And if Derek closes his eyes, focuses just on
this, on the way his nerve endings sizzle under the boy’s touch— he can almost
pretend he’s afloat in an ocean, somewhere warm, somewhere different.
He kisses Stiles, filthy and open-mouthed, drinking in the words like he’s
dying of thirst. He could do this for hours, just this, teasing and nudging
Stiles apart, breaking him down into pieces just to see how he works, just so
he can put him back together again, all shiny and new. All Derek’s.
He slots his thumbs into the grooves, the dimples in Stiles’s lower back, and
the way the boy jolts, he knows he’s found another one of Stiles’s sensitive
spots—the reaction, the aching whine he pulls out of him, hitting every button
in Derek’s body marked lust. Stiles is moaning brokenly, his whole body still
shuddering, his toes curling into the carpet like he can already feel Derek,
like a ghost’s touch.  
“God, look at you,” Derek breathes, just watching him, following the sharp
lines of the boy’s body, first with his eyes, and then with his fingers, sun-
bronzed against moon-pale.
Derek lets his fingers wander, squeezing and pinching tender flesh, playing the
symphony he promised on the rungs of the boy’s spine, the curves of his ribs
where the boy’s breathing comes in rapid gasps, teasing his hands lower where
the promise of heat and slickness lay.
He wonders as he sucks hickeys into the scraped skin of the boy’s collarbone if
there’s a pattern, an archaic design his wolf seems to follow as he watches in
awe as the bruises bloom ruddy and purple, a swirl of colors straight out of
the oil paintings in the museums he saw in New York so long ago.
“You should see yourself, hear yourself,” he murmurs. Stiles could be a figure
right out of something like that, he thinks, too pretty to be anything but
statuesque. He mouths into the unmarred, perfect flesh of Stiles’s wrist, bites
down with blunt human teeth.
 “I love you. So much. You’re mine.”
“Say it again,” Stiles begs. So Derek does. And then Stiles is pulling back,
holding Derek's gaze as he slides a hand across his own skin, tracing
fingertips along the line of marks left across his collarbone, trailing down
over his chest, his stomach, until he can wrap a hand around his own cock,
biting back a sound as he falls into a familiar pattern of touch. Eyes go half-
lidded, but they’re open just enough, pupils blown open wide as windows, making
sure Derek's still watching, How could he ever look away?
“Again,” the boy is practically sobbing, and he’s a wild, wanton thing, with
his nails digging so hard into Derek’s back— just like that first night—that
the boy draws blood.
“You belong to me. Forever.”
The sound that slips out of the seam of Stiles’s lips is almost unearthly. Pure
pleasure.
And Derek’s hunting instincts are on red-alert now, with such pretty, perfect
prey begging for it underneath him. His eyes are brilliant garnet, hyper-aware,
following the trail of Stiles’s hands, not moving, not even to breathe.
Stiles’s heart is hammering, his chest heaving; Derek can see it, hear it,
blood and air, like the pounding of bass out of sound system hooked up directly
to his ears, directly to his brain.
His body rejects the separation wholeheartedly, feels how thebond practically
tears inside him, urging Derek to follow, pressing Stiles back into the floor.
Derek lifts his hand, follows the exact path of Stiles’s own fingers,
skittering across the milk-white expanse until they meet around Stiles’s
length, lava-hot as he dwarfs Stiles’s grip with his own, stroking with
practiced twists of his wrist, mirroring the caress with his thumb over the
pulse point on Stiles’s neck where it still throbs determinedly.
When Stiles comes, Derek takes it in, licking his lips at the way the boy’s
hips buck and stutter, the way he crooks his neck, a half-moon curve, to bare
it to Derek’s fangs on instinct because he knows Derek loves it.
“I could watch you come over and over,” Derek hisses, stroking himself as he
murmurs the words against the fleshy curve of Stiles hip where he’s mouthing,
“someday I’ll do it, spread you out.” It doesn’t take much more than that, the
image of Stiles at Derek’s mercy—he breaks apart with a snarl. And the animal
in Derek, so very close to the man, loves the messiness that comes with sex,
the stink of sweat and release and the way scents mix into one. It’s primitive,
primal, sure—and Derek’s convinced the way he rubs his own release into
Stiles’s skin, the wolf positively exuberant at the thought of Stiles’s reeking
of him for days, claimed, will seem gross and barbaric to the boy, but he’s so
fucked out he doesn’t even care.
All he can think is mine.
Forever will never be long enough.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Notes
     I'm hoping to only have a few more chapters to wrap this up.
     Thanks for reading!
     Comments and kudos are lurve.
Chapter Five
Before all of this, the part of Stiles that had so fervently held on to every
shred of his humanity would have been thoroughly, well, weirded out, by Derek’s
behavior. Instead, now and like this, still shuddering in Derek’s arms, Stiles
gets it. The part of him that holds the bond, that runs with wolves, and wields
power out of nowhere, understands. Derek's marking him, not like he has with
the scatter of bruises across his skin, but with scent. The marks he can hide.
This, anyone or anything with the capacity to notice will be able to
comprehend:
Someone owns him.
And the possessiveness thing, Stiles never really thought that’d ever be so
fucking appealing, but he also thinks that maybe it’s because a large part of
him he thinks he has always secretly wanted that— to belong, to be a part of
something, to be someone's.But part him also thinks it might just be
Derek—Stiles wants to be his.
Because nothing else has ever managed to quiet the panic and anxiety and
uncertainty that’s been crawling like spiders through his blood and under his
skin ever since his mom died—not the pills, not therapy, not lacrosse, not
Scott or his dad or Lydia, not anything.  
He’s clinging to Derek still and panting into the man’s shoulder, but he
already feels like the wolf’s unbreakable grip and his even stronger words, the
way he’s branding them into Stiles’s hip, have slipped into the cracks in him
and tied some of the loose parts back together, pulled him back to the earth
from where he almost flew away.
“You’re still shivering,” Derek says, and Stiles leans into the warmth of his
hands as Derek pushes away the sweat-soaked curls of hair falling into Stiles’s
heavy-lidded eyes.  
“I’m fine,” Stiles says, but even he’s surprised by how slurred and thick his
voice sounds. He still feels a little frantic and needy, like if Derek lets go
of him he might float away again like some kid’s lost party balloon.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Derek whispers, and Stiles almost wishes he
wouldn’t, wishes Derek would leave the mess so Stiles can feel it, know it’s
there, feels like he needs to be able to see it because he can’t smell it the
way the wolf can. He must be shaking his head, because Derek sort of laughs at
him as he gathers Stiles up in his arms, easy, like he’s carrying a ragdoll,
and the boy is thankful for that because honestly Stiles wasn’t sure he’d be
able to stand or walk on his own, his legs still all tingly and numb from
exertion.
“You’ll think otherwise in the morning,” Derek says, and sets Stiles into the
nest of blankets of his unmade bed in a way that’s so gentle and reverent that
Stiles is pretty sure he might actually break into a million pieces. So he
can’t really be held accountable for his actions when the alpha tries to
extricate himself from Stiles’s grasp and all he can do is whine, high and
clipped, the sound of it coming out a lot more wolfish than he intends it to.
Derek’s eyes flash and Stiles wonders if that’s an every werewolf thing, a sort
of call and response, or if it’s just a Derek and him thing (because Stiles
seriously thinks his body has like a Pavlovian reaction to Derek when he wolfs
out, because, jesus).Either way, he just tightens his grip and mumbles, “Stay,
please,” even though he knows he’s being stupid and clingy and childish because
the idea of getting left alone even for a second right now sets his heart
racing, and not in a good way.
“Okay, shhh, I’m not going anywhere,” Derek says soothingly, and Stiles sighs,
goes limp and lax against the bed as he steadies somewhat, feels his heart rate
slowly return to normal under the weight of Derek’s hands. He doesn’t even
recognize that he’s nodded off until he wakes up violently with a shock of cold
dripping its way down his chest. It’s a disorienting moment before he realizes
that it’s Derek running a wet, warm cloth over his stomach and his thighs.
Where the water dries, goose bumps spread over his skin and set him trembling
again.
“I thought you said you weren’t gonna leave me,” Stiles says. And yeah, he’s
pouting, but whatever.
“I didn’t,” Derek says matter-of-factly. “I carried you with me into the
bathroom.”
“Oh,” Stiles says, “I guess you must have really tired me out, then. How long
have I been asleep?”
Derek’s face is doing that scowly thing again, like he’s running the words
coming out of Stiles’s mouth through some kind of internal translator, into
something more. And honestly, who would have thought it’d be Derek freaking
Hale who would be fluent in Stiles?
“About forty-five minutes,” Derek says. “You scared me a little, you know.”
And it’s weird, Stiles thinks, how he used to be so scared of the dark, used to
cry and cry if his parents shut his door, always made them keep the hall light
switched on so at least some of it bled into his dim bedroom. But here with
Derek, whose eyes are like two lamps glowing in the dark, he thinks he might
actually be okay.
“It’s like that sometimes, I mean not like that,usually, like with Lydia all I
got was a pretty gnarly nosebleed and a stress migraine, but this time it
felt…” and Stiles flushes here, before saying, “it felt like touching the sun,
or a super nova or something.” Coming back from wherever it was that Stiles had
to fall into to access whatever spark he allegedly possessed, it wasn’t easy.
It was exhausting, and usually left him weak in the knees and nursing a
headache far worse than any Scott-and-Stiles’s-misadventures-in-binge-drinking-
hangover he’s ever experienced. This time, though, it had just felt like his
internal battery had been drained and somehow, Derek—touching him, and tasting
him—was the key to recharging it. 
Derek grimaces. “If I’d known you could get hurt, I wouldn’t have let you do
it.”
 “You don’t get to “let me” do anything. I chose to, and I would choose to
again. And for the record, I had a pretty good feeling that I’d be okay,”
Stiles answers, indignant.
“Yeah? How’d you figure that?”
“Because I’d be with you, idiot,” At that, Derek huffs, but Stiles continues
fiercely, “and I was, you know, okay, that is.” And yeah, Stiles knows this
kind of Derek’s thing, the gigantic chip he carries on his shoulders, that dark
and ugly, monstrous part of him that tell him he’s doesn’t deserve anything
good, whispers in his ear and tries to dig up all the sins he’s tried to bury .
And Stiles, it’s not like he’s some shining paragon of mental health or
anything, but he trusts what his gut tells him (and has always told him, if
he’s being honest) about Derek: that he’s worth it.  Just saying the words
won’t really mean anything to Derek, who rarely trusts himself, not really, so
he hopes that the man can feel it, see it written plain as day across Stiles’s
face instead. 
His teeth are chattering again, but before he can protest, Derek is pulling
away. He’s back in flash, pulling Stiles up by his elbows. “Arms up,” he orders
in that low, gentle voice that makes Stiles quiver in a way that has nothing to
do with the cold. So he obeys, exhaling audibly when he finds himself enrobed
in soft cotton that shrouds him in a calming blanket of the wolf’s familiar,
earthy scent. Derek’s henley hangs off of him, the sleeves way too long and the
neck wide enough to droop off an embarrassingly bony shoulder. And normally,
Stiles, with his impudently self-righteous independent streak, would have
balked at the way Derek manhandles him, but some part of his anxious lizard
brain is soothed by the way he lets Derek have this, can relinquish the control
he’s always depended on to keep him upright and still be okay.
Derek’s bulk feels like a solid wall against him and Stiles realizes with a
jolt that he’s been digging his fingers into the thin skin of Derek’s wrists,
leaving half-moon imprints, swollen and leaking tiny pinpricks of blood around
the sharp points of his nails, and the man hasn’t even tried to shake him off.
Stiles wonders if it even hurts, or if Derek just doesn’t care.  
“Sorry,” Stiles whispers, hiding his face into Derek’s forearm and willing his
fingers to unclench even though he never wants to let go. He watches, rapt, as
the imprints shimmer and fade and there’s no evidence of the wounds, just
Stiles’s memory of putting them there.  He wonders if Derek can feel them ever,
all those old injuries long healed, like scar tissue hiding underneath the
skin.
 “When you shift, when you heal, what does it feel like? Does it feel like
magic?” Stiles asks.
“It feels as natural as breathing,” Derek answers.
Stiles thinks that’s kind of beautiful.
And the last thing he hears before the tempting pull of sleep claims him is
Derek’s rough voice in his ears resounding like an echo:
“Just don’t go where I can’t follow.” 
I won’t, Stiles thinks, and he’s certain he’s never made an easier promise in
his entire life.
***** Chapter 6 *****
Chapter Summary
     idk anymore. Write all the tropes? There was a plot once, but we lost
     it. I will go down with this ship, dido style.
Chapter Notes
     THEY DO IT IN THIS ONE GUYS
     I'm really nervous about it. I don't write dirty sex that often. Let
     me know what you think?
Stiles wakes to the sound of raindrops pelting against the windows. A quick
glance at his alarm clock tells him it’s only a little after five, so the sun
hasn’t quite risen yet, and the room is lit up in that strange way where
everything looks and feels like it’s underwater. And Derek, he looks so relaxed
in sleep; it’s almost unsettling not to see his face framed by the worried
furrow of his brows, or to see the corners of his mouth curled down into a
frown. Like this, he seems calm, unburdened.
He looks…almost young, Stiles thinks.
Stiles hopes one day he’ll always be able to look at Derek in the waking light
and find a smile there, just like now. Because he’s seen those rare appearances
before, and thinks out of all of his most favorite things in the whole, wide
world, Derek Hale smiling…yeah, it’s way up there.
He’s still not used to feeling so relaxed in the morning, because sleep has
never come to him this easily, not when he’s normally plagued with bad dreams
and waking panic attacks that leave him paralyzed and gasping; Stiles wonders
briefly if he’ll ever be able to sleep as soundly and fully as he does with
Derek’s body all wound up with his. He doesn’t think so.
And the wolves, and Deaton, they had always seemed amazed that he seemed
so…well, so utterly unsurprised by the sudden appearance of the supernatural in
his life, by how easily he adapted to it, accepted it. Stiles had just thought
it was their polite way of saying that like usually fits in with like; he’s
always felt like a freak, so was it really that shocking he fit in so
swimmingly with the freaky?
But maybe Deaton and Derek were right all along.
Maybe he was made for this, meant for something more.
“Do you have to think so loud? The sun isn’t even up yet.”
Derek’s voice is gruff against his ear, the words still weighed down and laced
heavily with sleep.
“Sorry, Sleepywolf,” Stiles mumbles into his pillow, trying to hide his
unapologetic snickering. By now, he’s woken up with the wolf enough times to
know that Derek is so decidedly not a morning person, which Stiles finds
especially hilarious considering Derek hadn't even slept in a real bed with
sheets, blankets, and actual pillows and everything until like six months ago.
“Maybe you should go back to sleeping in that abandoned train car,” Stiles
says. “I’d order you a dog bed, but I think all these modern amenities are
making you soft.”
Derek’s answering growl makes Stiles’s heart race, like it always does.
“I’ll show you soft,” Derek grumbles, and suddenly Stiles finds himself stuck
underneath the wolf’s not insignificant bulk, which, okay, no, and then to add
insult to injury, Derek starts rubbing his stupid, scratchy beard all over the
very thin, and very sensitive skin of Stiles’s neck. Which is just going to be
so, so great, because Stiles totally needs to add copious amounts of beard burn
to the list of all the other big, flashing, neon signs Derek’s left all over
him that just happen to scream, “Yes, in case any of you were still wondering,
I HAVE IN FACT BEEN DEFILED.”
“Jeez!” He yelps, trying his hardest to wriggle away from Derek’s prickly
assault.  “Is your scruff made of knives or something? Should I be calling you
Edward Scissor-beard?”
It’s pretty impressive, Stiles thinks, that he can actually hear Derek rolling
his eyes.
“Oh! Werewolverine! That’s a good one…adamantium stubble, although that analogy
might not track as well considering you’ve got sharp, scary claws, too. Do
werewolf claws break like normal nails? Do you have to like, clip them or
something, or do they—hey, quit it, you weirdo!”
Derek’s jabbing his fingers rather uncouthly into Stiles’s ribs, making him
squirm again. It tickles.
 “I’m looking for an off switch,” Derek says.
“Rude! And not to mention totally unfair. You’re making me fight a two-front
war here, what with your stupid hands and your even stupider face.  And you’ve
got like sixty pounds on me. You aren’t even ticklish,” Stiles pouts.
Derek presses his sharked-tooth grin against Stiles’s throat.  “What an
unfortunate tragedy. My heart breaks for you,” he deadpans.
The werewolf makes jokes, and it’s something that still jars him, the
unexpected discovery of Derek’s remarkably dry sense of humor. And there’s a
clever retort just on the tip of Stiles’s tongue, he swears there is, but like
he said before, the whole smile thing?
Kind of amazing.
And Derek can totally tell. Stiles knows this—those damn wolfy senses of his
never let Stiles get away with anything, which, talk about the definition of
categorically unfair.  But the alpha obviously doesn’t seem to mind, because
the graze of fingertips on his ribs become more stroking, teasing, and the
combination of that and Derek’s palms, hot and searching and splayed against
the concave of his belly, is a more than worthy aforementioned distraction.
But then Derek’s got his big, dumb muscular arms looped tight around Stiles’s
middle and Stiles will deny it, but he can’t help the squeal that escapes when
the room suddenly goes upside down as the wolf jostles him into his preferred
position. Derek really likes being the big spoon, apparently.
“You’re hideously evil and I hate you,” Stiles says.
“Lie,” Derek whispers against Stiles’s earlobe, pulling at the flesh with his
teeth.
He’s right.
 It’s not true.
 Not even one little bit.
 
//
The next time Stiles opens his eyes, it’s because of the piercing, shrill blare
of his alarm and nothing has literally been more terrible. Derek seems to
agree, considering the clawed hand that shoots out to swat the offending clock
right off the nightstand where it soars across the room, hits the wall, and
breaks apart with a loud clunk.
“I hate that thing too, but you didn’t have to murder it. I’m putting it on
your tab.”
 “Go to school,” Derek grunts, rolling back into the blankets and hiding his
face underneath a pillow.
“My car isn’t fixed yet. You have to drive me,” Stiles says, reaching out to
tug on the dark strands of hair sticking out wildly from the top of the wolf’s
head.
Derek doesn’t speak, but Stiles figures that the pair of keys that gets thrown
at his face is answer enough.  “We’re going to have to work on your
communication skills, buddy. Okay? Good talk.”
With a last lingering graze of fingertips and a kiss pressing against Derek’s
jaw (he can’t help it, okay? When you’ve got someone like Derek in your bed,
you take advantage of it), he slips out of bed, hissing as his bare feet touch
the floor, which feels like ice against his sleep-warmed skin.  Everything
seems colder and harsher when he’s not around Derek, because of course it
does—the guy’s basically Stiles’s own personal space heater.
He goes about his morning routine with a laughable amount of normalcy, pulling
on a pair of crumpled jeans and brushing his teeth with mechanical, practiced
efficiency. But he skips his usual shower and pulls one of his threadbare
sweaters over Derek’s shirt instead of putting on a clean one. Because it still
smells like Derek, feelslike safety, and even though the wolves are definitely
going to be all, “I smell what you did last night,” when they see him, Stiles
can’t really bear the thought of being without that right now.
Being Derek’s, it makes Stiles’s feel strong. It makes him feel protected.
It makes him feel like he’s actually worth something.
Derek’s quiet snoring breaks him out of the trance he’s fallen into, and the
sound makes Stiles smile goofily.
He could get used to this.
//
Downstairs, the house is still empty, quiet and dark. His Dad’s not home from
patrol yet, but he will be soon, so Stiles busies himself with the task of
making breakfast. For someone with as bad a case of ADHD as he has, Stiles
think it’s to his credit (and his mother’s) how remarkably task oriented he’s
become in this regard. Sure, he might be a total spaz, but cooking was always
something he and his mother did together. It calmed him, helped him focus when
the world spun out of his control, and it’s with fondness that he remembers
waking up early with her just to help her with breakfast. They both liked
seeing the light spread across his father’s face when he came home and saw them
both waiting, the table full and groaning from their efforts. But once his
mother died, it became something of a rarity, with Stiles tending to sleep
late, leaning on the excuse of teenage laziness, but really it was because the
idea of doing it without her was too raw, too painful to think about.
But now, humming softly under his breath, Stiles whips up the oatmeal his dad
likes to complain about but secretly loves, along with some scrambled eggs, and
a few slices of bacon for himself. He’s just finished setting out a couple of
plates and a carton of orange juice when he hears the front door open and shut
with a soft click, followed by the familiar thud of his dad’s old work boots
against the scuffed kitchen floor.
“Breakfast?” His dad asks as he walks through the kitchen door and tosses his
heavy, sheriff’s jacket on the back of the chair before sitting down. “It’s
been awhile.”
Stiles nods and dishes out the food (no bacon for his dad, of course), before
settling down cross-legged in the seat next to him. “Just felt like it, I
guess?”
“Your jeep’s not outside. You need a ride, kiddo?”
Stiles shakes his head, pulling out Derek’s key ring from the pocket of his
hoodie and shaking it cheerfully. “Today, I drive in style.”
“You’re not driving the Camaro. You’ll speed, and I’ll have to give you a
ticket, and it’ll be a thing. There’ll be paperwork. Make Derek drive you.”
Stiles tuts indignantly, the sound dotted by a particularly harsh stab of his
fork into a piece of scrambled egg.  “I don’t speed. I’m a great driver.
Besides, I’m not gonna call Derek and make him come all the way over here just
to take me to school. Turns out the dude so totally isn’t a morning person.”
The sheriff rolls his eyes. “So if I were to go upstairs right now, I wouldn’t
find a two-hundred-pound werewolf asleep in your bed?”
Stiles gulps, choking a little on his juice. “Um, probably not? I mean, he’s
pretty good at jumping out the window, supernatural reflexes and all.”
“Why couldn’t you just do drugs like a normal teenager?”
“Because I’m nothing if not a textbook overachiever?”
He waits for his dad to yell, threaten him with the grounding of all
groundings, or threaten Derek, anything, but the man says nothing, just
continues to chew thoughtfully on his slice of toast.
“You’re being remarkably cool about this. Is this a test? Am I being punked?
Are you giving me a head start? Are you going to at least count to ten after I
run away?”
The sheriff takes a long sip of his coffee. “You turn eighteen in two weeks.
Would saying anything make a difference?”
Stiles considers this for a moment. “…No?”
His dad nods, but reaches over to snag the strips of bacon on his son’s plate
like that’s his answer. “Hey! You can’t eat that. You’ll clog your arteries. We
already agreed you have to live forever, remember?”
“Understanding fathers get bacon privileges. It’s in the rulebook.”
Stiles sticks out his tongue. “Well jokes on you, because it’s Tofurky.”
The sheriff shudders, drops the offending fare, and gets up from the table,
grabbing his jacket and moving toward his bedroom. “If Derek’s going to be here
in the morning, the least he can do is show up for breakfast and take you to
school.”
Stiles opens his mouth to respond, but a dark shape whizzes by him like a gust
of wind. He stares, dumbfounded, at the sudden appearance of Derek in front of
him, completely dressed and infuriatingly unruffled. In one hand, he’s holding
out his keys like a prize he’s won, and in the other, he’s got the rest of
Stiles’s bacon, which he’s currently shoving into his mouth. 
“Nobody likes a show-off!” Stiles says emphatically.  
“You do,” Derek says, licking grease from his fingertips. The wolf is
positively beaming and Stiles is annoyed at how hard he actually has to try to
not literally swoon at the sight. What an asshole.
“I’m still driving!” Stiles insists. Derek rolls his eyes in that way he does,
before bolting out the front door without saying another word. A few metered
seconds pass before Stiles hears the roar of the car outside. Derek’s waiting
for him.
“I’m a great driver,” Stiles says quietly, mostly to himself and for his own
benefit, since Derek’s long gone.
The sheriff offers what Stiles thinks might actually be an approving smile as
he ruffles the boy’s hair before heading upstairs to sleep. “You know, son, you
could do a lot worse than Derek Hale.”
And yeah, that’s really the truth, isn’t it?
//
He should admittedly still be huffy on the drive in to school because he’s
totally earned that right, but Derek’s got his enormous hand resting on
Stiles’s knee, squeezing just gently enough to sort of short-circuit the
relentless stream of thoughts racing through his brain like he’s having a track
meet up there.   
“Quit looking so pleased with yourself. You’re going to crash the car.”
“We’re not going to crash,” Derek answers. “I wouldn’t crash the car with you
in it.”
“You smashed by face against a steering wheel once, so forgive me if I remain
skeptical.”  There’s no force behind the words, but Stiles winces as he sees
Derek’s face fall anyway.  “Hey, I was just kidding, I didn’t mean anything by
it. I trust you.”
Derek nods, but his expression remains grim. “I am sorry, you know, for how I
treated you.”
“I know. And it’s not like I don’t get why. I mean, Peter, and Laura, and the
Argents…and that whole me telling my dad you were a murderer thing. You were a
dick, yeah, but I get why.”
“That wasn’t the only reason why,” Derek says quietly.
Stiles eyes him warily. “What do you mean?”
Derek sighs and shifts uncomfortably in the driver’s seat, his hands clenching
the gear shift, before muttering, “Yeah, I was angry and grieving…but you—you
were an unwelcome distraction.”
“Oh, that’s not surprising. Unwelcome Distraction should be my Indian name.”
And Stiles, he should seriously be collecting money every time Derek rolls his
eyes. He’d be rich.
 “That’s not what I mean. You—you were prettier than any sixteen-year-old had a
right to be. You talked more in two minutes than I had in three years. And your
scent…” At that, Stiles watches in awe as a visible shudder works its way over
Derek’s body, and when the alpha gazes at him, as if he’s gauging his reaction,
his eyes are tinged red, and the sight knocks the wind out of him.
“I didn’t realize it until now. The wolf…it knew you,” Derek says finally,
slowly, as if he’s savoring the words. “It wanted you. I didn’t listen. I
should have listened. I wasn’t ready. But I am now.”
And seriously, Stiles is just supposed to hear that and say thank you and go to
school and not think about all the naughty and inappropriate ways he could
really thank Derek?
“God, Stiles,” Derek says (okay, so he’d said that part out loud), and the
man’s voice sounds more than a little rough. Rough in that way that Stiles
really, really, really loves.
“Change of plans,” Stiles says calmly. “Turn right up here.”
Derek eyes him, askance. “That’s the road to the preserve. That’s the opposite
direction of the school.”
“I know. But I’m really not into the whole losing my virginity in the parking
lot of my high school trope, so just shut up and make the turn.”
“But I’m supposed to take you to school. You’ll be late.“
“Oh my god,” Stiles says, pinching the bridge of his nose like Derek’s giving
him a headache (because he is, dammit). “On paper it should be so much easier
for me to convince someone with your brushes with law enforcement to break the
rules.”
“Those brushes were your fault,” Derek says, though Stiles notes, pleased, that
the wolf’s breathing has markedly quickened. 
“Can we argue semantics later, after you fuck me?”
And really, it is a credit to Derek’s driving ability that he doesn’t crash the
car.
//
Derek can literally feel it, the want and desire that pulses and glints in the
air around Stiles, how he positively stinks of it. Derek might be the alpha
werewolf here, but the way he’s incapable of saying no to the boy—there’s no
doubt who really owns him.
“I’m going to hell,” Derek rumbles, jerking the wheel so they’re barreling down
the gravel road toward the preserve, toward his den, and his bed... And yeah,
Derek’s speeding, but no cops ever come out this far anyway (unless they’re
looking for something), and Stiles isn’t exactly making things easy on him.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll be there with you,” Stiles mumbles into
Derek’s palm, pressing his lips against his fingertips with a tenderness that
aches.  
“If you don’t keep your hands to yourself, I really will kill us,” Derek says,
but the words peter out into a hiss as a warm, slick tongue curls its way
artfully around his thumb and pointer finger. “Stiles,” he warns, feeling the
tell-tale tingling in his knuckles that precedes the lengthening of his claws.
But when he watches for any signs of panic or repulsion, there aren’t any. The
boy is still sucking on his fingers like they’re the most delicious thing he’s
ever tasted.
“I’m going to sink my teeth into you,” Derek groans. And his own body seems to
supplicate the words with the sudden and unintentional appearance of his fangs.
He doesn’t have to look at Stiles to know that he’s thrilled with himself.
Derek can smell the smug satisfaction on him.  They’re only a few minutes from
the house, but it feels like a fucking eternity.
“Yeah?” Stiles says, face blushed and chest heaving. “Where? Here?” And he
hasn’t let go of Derek’s hand, not once, etching a path across his own flesh
with it, all the places Derek’s ever let himself think about biting down on,
when he’d finally claim him—the indent of his hip, the pale canvas on the back
of his neck. The boy pauses, hovers over the slight skin of own wrist, worrying
at his lip like he’s trying not to speak.
“Not there,” Derek says firmly, and Stiles exhales deeply, nodding, because
they both know that stretch of skin brings to mind another time and another
Hale.
“Here,” Stiles finally says soft, eager. “I want it here.” And he threads their
fingers together, resting them in the dip of his collarbone, and Derek can feel
his pulse like it’s his own heart beating.
Derek groans again, but the sound catches in his throat. “You want people to
see. You want them to know. That you’re mine.”
“I am yours,” Stiles all but purrs.
Derek turns so harshly into the drive in front of the house that his brakes
squeal and he sprays gravel all over the front steps.
“Smooth, Sourwolf,” Stiles says, sniggering.  Derek doesn’t get a chance to say
anything before the boy is scrambling out of his seat, cursing as he gets all
tangled in the Camaro’s seatbelt before bolting from the car toward the front
steps.
“Don’t run, please,” Derek says, sounding pained.
“Why not?” Stiles calls, turning around to wink suggestively at the alpha whose
eyes are tracking his every move.
“Because I’ll have to chase you,” Derek says between gritted teeth. He can hear
Stiles’s heart thundering, and it’s dizzying, distracting—Derek is salivating,
god. He can’t help it, how he lunges for him, and it’s quick, faster than a
blink, a breath, and he’s got Stiles right where he wants him, up against the
wall in the entryway, his arms roped tight around the boy’s lithe frame, and he
feels so good like this, that’s all he knows, how right it is, for his mouth to
be ravenously on Stiles’s own, with mercifully flat, human teeth biting hard
into the boy’s shoulder.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he breathes, lifting Stiles’s legs up to wrap like a
vice around his waist, cupping his ass, grinding against the cock hard and
pulsing against his belly. “I want to hear you say it.” When Derek speaks,
Stiles lets out a low, throaty laugh teetering on the edge of a moan, nails
digging into the other's clothed back. "Oh, I'd like to see you make me."
Derek stills, head cocked in a way he knows that Stiles will call unmistakably
canine. “Why do you always have to keep pushing, huh? I think you like it when
I’m like this. When I can’t control—even though you know I still worry I could
hurt you,” he states pleadingly against Stiles’s jaw. And he’s usually so
aware, careful at least, knows how to control his strength around fragile
things, human things like Stiles—was taught from a young age exactly how much
force is too much, what’ll snap bone or break skin.
But he’s not even—he can’t even think about anything other than the taste of
the boy on his tongue when he’s swirling it around the thin skin at the curve
of the boy’s neck trying to coax blood to the surface. Derek’s got one hand
clenched on the doorframe, anchoring them both, and he winces when he hears the
wood whine and crack in his grip.
Derek won’t lie, he’s shocked when Stiles’s hands hold his face and the world
stops spinning, screeches to a halt, because he speaks, so sure and steady
despite the rapid rise and fall of his chest. “Because it’s part of you.
Because I don’t want you to have to control it around me. I love you. I know
you won’t hurt me, and I know you know it, too.” 
The alpha whimpers, capturing Stiles’s mouth in a bruising, heated kiss and
sucking feverishly on the searing flesh of the boy’s tongue until he’s
trembling in Derek’s arms.
“Take me to bed, wolf,” Stiles commands, gasping when they break apart.
And Derek, pinned under the boy’s gaze, he’s powerless to disobey  
//
Derek thanks the gods in this moment for his supernatural strength, because
without it, it’d be a god-damned miracle that he manages to get them up the
stairs without any bodily injuries. Stiles is relentless in his need, squirming
and wriggling in Derek’s arms like he thinks he can somehow feel bare skin
through the barriers of their clothes if he just tries hard enough. They only
manage to make it a few steps at a time. From the sounds he makes, the boy
seems to actually really love it when he’s shoved forcibly against every flat
surface he can reach.
“Stop,” Derek hisses between rough kisses against the boy’s mouth when they
finally make it to the bedroom, where he’s able to walk them backward until his
knees hit the familiar back of the mattress. “Stop thrashing, or I’ll have to
tie you up.” Not that the idea seems to does anything to dissuade Stiles, who
bites down so hard on Derek’s mouth that he’s surprised that the boy’s teeth
don’t come away bloody.
“Next time,” Stiles gasps, tugging on the hem of Derek’s t-shirt. “Off, off,”
he pleads.
“You first,” Derek says, running a clawed fingertip underneath his shirt, just
hard enough to follow the delightful shudder that trails all the way down the
boy’s back.
“Don’t tear this one,” Stiles admonishes, ducking out of the wolf’s grasp long
enough to shrug out of the offending garment. “I like it. I’m keeping it.”
It’s not like Stiles does a Vegas strip-tease or anything, The boy’s not even
remotely graceful as he divulges himself of the last of his clothes, tripping
over the legs of his jeans so Derek has to shoot out a steadying hand (though
Stiles doesn’t take it). But it doesn’t matter, not to Derek, whose eyes are
glassy and wide as Stiles locks an unwavering stare on them. The alpha can’t
even hide the rush of pride he feels, that Stiles doesn’t keep his eyes
downcast, doesn’t try any half-hearted attempts to cover himself.
Like this, with Stiles standing in front of him, Derek can see every inch of
him, perfectly exposed. With his paleness, the boy looks like he’s been carved
out of white marble—he’s radiant—the only color on him the marks from the
alpha’s own mouth, his own teeth—sucking contusions on the collar of his
throat, a perfect line of finger-shaped bruises where Derek had gripped his
thigh.
“Come here,” Derek says, whispers it, beckoning the boy forward with a crook of
his finger. Derek’s still sitting on the edge of the bed, pulls the boy to
stand in the cage of his thighs, smiles up at him before reaching for him. His
touches are gentle, simple caresses up the boy’s legs, which are shaking
slightly still, a slow ascent upwards as Derek’s palms look huge splayed across
his skin, as they roll shameless up over his thighs, his ass, settling into the
narrow jut of the boy’s hips.
“You’re so beautiful,” is all he says, and it’s said simply, not meant to be
some huge overture, just a fact—an indisputable fact, because Derek believes
it, wholeheartedly.
“Says the guy whose six pack has its own six pack.” Stiles flushes,
embarrassed, but Derek can smell how happy he really is from the compliment.
“That doesn’t count,” he says serenely. “I have an unfair evolutionary
advantage. You were made like this.”  
He can’t lie, he finds it kind of ridiculously sexy, Stiles stripped and
vulnerable in front of him while he’s still clothed, still calling all the
shots. He guesses it’s a predator/prey thing, appeals to his…baser needs,
because while Derek might wear the hide of a man, he still can’t ever fully
bury the animal underneath—which these days seems to be scratching its bloody
way to the surface more and more, especially with Stiles—with the incessant
draw of mate, and claim, and mine.
Every time the rough fabric of his clothes scrapes up against Stiles’s skin,
rubs it a fresh, sensitive pink, it’s like he can hear the fire-crackle of
nerve endings, can literally see, like sparks, how skin meets skin.
And with the boy so willingly wrapped up in him, Derek can’t help it, continues
his assault of touches, kneading, grasping hands. He knows he’s so much more
patient that Stiles, it’s always the boy that begs first, frantic and pleading.
And even if secretly, Derek’s the one dying for more, it’s so worth it, to
wait, to draw it out, just to hear what spills unbidden out of his scarlet
mouth.
“You better get naked right now before I find some other guy who thinks I’m
pretty,” Stiles says, breathless.
And Derek flashes his teeth, lips stretched over the white tips of his fangs, a
devil’s grin, as he reaches for Stiles instinctively, who ducks out of his
hands. Stiles, the way his voice is low and smooth, it hits him in all the
right places, which is horribly annoying.
And it’s taking all of Derek’s restraint, every bone in his body, not to just
strike and take and have. Because Stiles is playing a dangerous game, and from
the look in the boy’s eyes, he knows it, is giddy with the knowledge that he
can do it, that Derek’ll let him.
“No one else touches you,” he snarls. “Those marks on your neck say you belong
to me.”
“Oh yeah? Prove it” Stiles says, laughing. It’s like he’s daring him.
The wolf in Derek is practically preening, Jesus, watching Stiles fingers dance
across all of that skin that Derek has touched, that he’s tasted, claimed as
his own, his territory. It’s fucking spell-binding, and with every graze of
fingertips, it’s like he feels it on his own body, makes his muscles clench
taut with something more than just want—with hunger. He leans back to take in
the defiant jut of Stiles’s chin, the flash of arrogant glee in his gaze.
Stiles’s eyes are so bright and clear, the color of brown sugar, molten hot—and
Derek wants—he wants so much. The laugh is what does it, drives him absolutely
mad with an ache for things he doesn’t even know how to—
And fuck, Stiles is a reckless, crazy idiot for goading him like this, but
Derek’s so far past hitting the brakes, so far past “Go” that he’s pretty much
made his bed, metaphorically, more or less. Stiles’s tell, it’s in his eyes,
and maybe he’s nervous, though it’s not out of fear, just—inexperience, he
thinks, like he just doesn’t know what to expect. And the boy’s fierceness, it
all but makes up for it, ten-fold. Because the boy, he craves, Derek can see
it, smell it, so he’s just going to have to show him exactly what it is he
wants, what he needs.
“You’re going to love to see me try,” he grunts, and even though he’s
practically vibrating with lust, he manages to keep a hold on Stiles (who’s
certainly not helping things by writhing in his arms trying to touch Derek all
over), and drop him on the bed, pinning him so he’s practically face-first into
the mattress, the perfect arc of Stiles’s back just begging to be tasted.
He holds Stiles hands down, his grip tight as handcuffs, and taking long,
leisurely licks down the boy’s spine like it’s a Popsicle.
“Put that mouth of yours to good use,” he growls into the shell of Stiles’s
ear, breathing feverish gasps against his hair as he rubs two fingers against
the seam of Stiles’s lips, begging for entry, “and suck.”
And the fact that Stiles doesn’t even protest, just opens his mouth and lets
him in, Derek’s brain kind of shorts out for a second, and he goes lax against
Stiles’s back, hips stuttering as he wallows in the sensation. “Your mouth,
fuck, it should be illegal,” he says, punctuating the words with nips against
the peaks of Stiles’s shoulder blades.
But images flash like fire in Derek’s mind, of what could be, and he’s reminded
of his mission, and pulls his fingers out of the scorching, wet cavern of
Stiles’s mouth, away from his eager tongue, though he rubs his spit-slick
fingers over the boy’s lips before completely removing his hand. And even
though he can’t see his face, Derek can picture it so clearly, how his lips
would look, all shiny and candy-apple red.
With a moan, he noses his way back down Stiles’s spinal column, scraping his
teeth across the perfect globes of flesh there before parting them with his
hands. And here, Stiles’s scent is dark and rich, and he smells clean like soap
and sweat. Derek growls, his wet fingers just catching on Stiles’s entrance,
teasing.
 “No one’s touched you here,” Derek marvels, kneading the sensitive flesh
that’s never been paid such attention. “Have you? Touched yourself here? You
think of me?” The man shudders just imagining it, the boy naked and prone, with
his long fingers stuffed inside of his hole, just trying to fill himself.  
Stiles mewls, hips snapping back, and when he finally speaks, his voice is
raspier than Derek’s ever heard it. “No, I laid back and thought of England.
What do you think?”
 Derek doesn’t answer with words, but instead with a sharp and stinging slap
against Stiles’s ass, basking in the way he hears the abused flesh sing
alongside Stiles’s yearning cry.  “You have moles everywhere. Makes me want to
eat you up,” the alpha says, nuzzling him.
He’s so caught up in taking in Stiles’s reactions,  it’s kind of like he’s
having an out of body experience, because he can’t even feel anything, doesn’t
even know anything, but Stiles’s scent, his heart-beat, the arousal thick as
oil.
And suddenly it’s not even about playing any game. Derek just wants to give him
this, wants to make Stiles feel so good. So he just listens, listens for when
Stiles’s breathing catches, when his pulse skips, gets erratic and jumpy. He
lets his tongue lave back over Stiles’s rim, pressing in, until he’s wet,
practically dripping, from Derek’s tongue fucking into him. Only then does he
curl a finger inside, followed almost too quickly by another, making slow,
gentle circles until he finally presses in, not searching, not just yet. When
some of the rigidness goes out of Stiles’s spine, when he starts nudging back
against Derek’s hand, that’s when he eases out, leaning down to press soothing
kisses against the curve of Stiles’s hip, sticky with a sheen of sweat.
Stiles is an absolute wreck beneath him, the room filled with his insistent
noises.
"God, Derek," the boy breathes, and Derek quivers as his name comes on the edge
of a moan, comes with Stiles arching against the hand holding him down to try
and get more. "I need-- fuck, need you, need you in me, just fuck me, Derek,
please, please."
And then the wolf is yanking Stiles back by the hair, kissing him until Stiles
is the one who has to pull back just to catch the air again. It’s crazy, how
just kissing the boy, just this, is enough to unravel Derek utterly and
completely.
“I am going to ruin you,” Derek says, marveling that the young man feels so
loose and open and ready for him, with three of his fingers sliding so
perfectly inside as the boy clenches against him, trying so hard to keep him
there.
“Do it,” Stiles pleads. “Fuck me.  Claim me.”
Derek’s jaws snap, and even though it almost kills him, he lets go long enough
to rip the clothes from his body, relishing the sound of Stiles’s protests of
his absence.
When he crawls back into the bed, he sits back on his heels, an iron grip on
Stiles’s waist as he pulls him up, places the boy’s hands against the bedpost
so he has something to anchor himself with, some leverage, at least some sense
of control.
But Stiles is shaking his head, and Derek stills immediately, bracing himself
for the worst.
“I want to see you,” Stiles says, his hand reaching for Derek’s like it’s a
life preserver and a he’s drowning man.
“It’s easier the first time, like this.”
“I don’t care,” the boy says, and Derek knows he means it, that he can’t do
anything but obey, rolling them so Stiles is in his lap, straddling him. There
are freckles on Stiles’s shoulders, and Derek focuses on them, thinks he sees
stars there, constellations inked out in the tint of skin that he traces with a
thumb.
“You ready, baby? I need you to talk to me,” Derek says, a hand braced over
Stiles’s cheekbone. The young man’s eyes are half- open, cloudy with desire,
and he’s rocking his hips just enough so their cocks slide together, hard and
leaking.
“I want it,” Stiles says, and Derek can’t help the way he cants forward when
the boy takes hold of him, guides him towards his entrance until he slowly
starts to sink down.
Even when he’s finally fixed into Stiles to the hilt, Derek doesn’t move, not
really, not at first. He’s so still in fact, his spine ramrod straight, rigid,
the only movement in his fingers, rubbing up and down the boy’s sides, soothing
him with delicate touches. He’s spent so many nights imagining just this, the
moment he’d finally fill Stiles up, bury himself inside so much perfect heat.
But this is so much more, so much better than anything he could have imagined.
The minute he bottoms out, pressing sloppy, wet kisses into the boy’s neck,
Stiles gripping him like a vice, like hot silk, so tight, all his, it’s almost
too much, the bond literally exploding like gunshots in his veins.
And the sounds Stiles makes, they fill his ears, buzzing in his brain, and he
can’t—
“Stiles, jesus, fuck, you’re so perfect like this,” he says. It’s ridiculous,
that Derek’s the one who can’t keep his god damn mouth shut, can’t keep from
spitting out every filthy thing he’s ever thought about Stiles like this,
writhing and arching above him. He’d always thought it’d be Stiles, who never
shuts up, ever, who would say anything, everything, with Derek buried inside
him.
Stiles is a vision, the frantic way he bounces on Derek’s cock, wanton and
shameless. The boy is close; Derek can hear it, sense it, the way his movements
are becoming aborted, erratic, and his blood rushing through him.
“Please, Derek, I’m so close—I need you to do it. Bite me. Do it, do it, god,
please. ” And Derek doesn’t miss the way he’s practically sobbing now.  Nosing
at his eyelids, he can taste the salt of the tears caught in the boy’s
fluttering lashes, how he’s so fucking desperate for whatever Derek can give
him.
His fangs come out, and even he’s taken by surprise by the sound of relief that
escapes the boy, when he rushes forward to slam their mouths together messily.
 
When Stiles arches his back, bares his throat, that’s it—Derek roars and his
hands clench tight, holding the boy still as he finally, finally bites down on
Stiles’s perfect, unblemished shoulder. 
He’s pretty sure Stiles is screaming, feels the hot, spurt of the boy’s come as
it splatters across their stomachs. The blood that fills his mouth, it’s the
sweetest fucking thing he’s ever tasted. It’s hot and thick and the taste of it
is like someone’s plugged him in to a nuclear reactor. The power that thrums
through his veins feels infinite.
Derek’s own release, it falls out of him in a snarl that he muffles into
Stiles’s collarbone, convulsing as he empties into Stiles’s body, fills him up
completely, fully.
It’s so…
The boy, he smells so much like Derek, like his scent is practically oozing out
of his pores. The alpha’s vision whites out, and the bond feels so fucking
blown open it’s like he can touch Stiles’s soul, like some kind of supernova,
all crackling energy and power he feels in every cell of his body, like he’s
being supercharged.
Stiles, he’s still twitching like a fish caught out of water and Derek comes to
enough that he can unclench his jaws, pull back his teeth.
“I love you,” Derek says, claiming the boy’s mouth in a long, heavy kiss.  “You
did so well, you’re so good for me.” He tries to maneuver them so he can curl
around the boy’s back. But when he pulls out, slow and easy, the boy whimpers,
a little sad, like he’s mourning the loss, clamping down hard around Derek’s
softening cock, his hands scrabbling to find purchase again,
“Too empty,” Stiles cries, and Derek notes that the boy’s breathing is still
coming in shallow pants and gentle hiccups.
“Okay, okay,” Derek sooths, pressing fingers back into Stiles’s entrance,
fucked open and slick and sopping from his come, licking leisurely at the
freshly minted mark he’s left on the boy’s neck.  “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
“Promise?” Stiles murmurs, grinding against Derek, the boy’s body still
shuddering like he could come again, just from this.
“Always.”
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