Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1239916.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M, Other
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Derek_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski, Nemeton/Stiles_Stilinski
  Character:
      Stiles_Stilinski, Derek_Hale, Allison_Argent, Scott_McCall, Lydia_Martin,
      Alan_Deaton
  Additional Tags:
      Sleepwalking, Mind/Mood_Altering_Substances, Tentacle_Sex, First_Time,
      Hand_Jobs, Dubious_Consent
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-02-26 Words: 5227
****** stem of the bloom ******
by languisity
Summary
     “I have to fuck that tree,” he tells Scott and Allison at lunch. The
     cafeteria is packed but Stiles doesn’t bother to keep his voice down.
     “Okay,” Scott says. “Wait, what?” He’s been a little slow lately, but
     that’s forgivable. True Alphahood, darkness in his heart. Those
     things build up.
     “The Nemeton,” Stiles says, rolling a tater tot around in ketchup.
     “I’m gonna put my dick in it.”
Notes
     * shows up a month late with a birthday fic *
     Wife, this one's for you. <3
     Thanks to dirtydirtychai, verity, reallyyeahokay, and josie for:
     making sure this fic was in English, cheerleading, hand holding,
     sharing opinions, keeping me honest.
See the end of the work for more notes
This is a dream.
The air is cool and dry on Stiles’ skin. A breeze rustles through the leaves
and over him, gently, like fingers combing through his hair and stroking over
his face. Stiles shivers, feeling it all the way down, enveloped in the heady
scent of damp earth and leaves, musky and sweet.
It feels good under his toes, and then in his hands when he crouches down to
grab handfuls of it. Better when he takes his shirt off and presses dirt and
leaves to his skin. A thought tugs at the back of his mind. This is probably
weird. It shouldn’t feel this good—he shouldn’t—
Stiles lies down and rubs his face on the ground, licks the dirt off his lips
and shivers again at the taste. A branch or rock scrapes against his cheek, but
he doesn’t care.
He is suddenly, achingly aware of how hard he is, how much he needs to come,
how close he is already—
*
He wakes up in the preserve with a broken tree branch digging into his thigh,
mud and come crusted to his stomach and junk.
*
It happens two more times before Stiles accepts that he’s probably not just
having really adventurous wet dreams, and once more after that before he
suspects the Nemeton.
He starts with seeing what Google has to say but, predictably, there’s nothing
online about the effects of tampering with ancient murder trees—although he
does find two articles about shared psychosis and sleepwalking to read and
freak out about later—so he ends up at Allison’s, poring over the bestiary with
a Latin-English translator open in a tab. He’s managed to whittle things down
to thirty entries that might fit.
“You’ve been here for two hours,” Allison says with a sigh. “Can you at least
tell me what you’re looking for?”
“I would,” Stiles lies, “but I don’t really know.” He doesn’t look up, but he
can feel her staring at him, feel the weight of her disbelief.
“But you have an idea.” Allison leans on the desk beside him. Stiles can see
her reflection in the monitor, and she stares down at him until he looks over
at her.
Allison’s voice is careful and soft when she asks,“Is this about—are you still
having the dreams?”
Stiles has a sudden sense memory of spongy loam and crisp leaves, the fresh
taste of morning dew. He holds himself still, tries to breathe through it,
resists the urge to reach down and rub himself through his jeans. “Dreams? No.
Not—no.” His hands are shaking.
“Oh.” Allison frowns, her eyes going unfocused for a moment before she shakes
herself of it. “I thought maybe—anyway, look. You could ask Lydia to help. She
knows Latin. You’d be done a lot faster if—”
Stiles breathes and turns his attention back to the computer.
“Congratulations,” he says, mock cheerily. “You win. That is the worst idea
I’ve heard, like, ever.” It turns out the entry he was trying to translate is
really about fairies, so he closes the tab, crosses it off his list, and moves
on to the next one.
“You can print what you don’t finish, but you need to be gone in twenty
minutes,” she says, voice hard, but she leaves him alone in the study after
that.
*
The next morning, Stiles wakes up twenty minutes before sunrise, nuzzling a
moss covered tree root.
He corners Lydia in the hall before lunch with the printed packet of bestiary
entries, and she pulls him into Finstock’s office and makes him tell her what’s
going on.
“This better not turn out to be some kind of weird fetish thing,” she says when
he’s finished, but takes the packet and slips it into the pocket on the inside
of her binder.
*
Stiles has bark-burn on his shins and a weird rash on the right side of his
ribs that looks suspiciously like a series of hickies when Lydia finally gets
back to him.
“So did you find anything?”
His dad had picked a leaf out of his hair that morning and said in a tone that
could only be described as weighted, “I’m trusting you.” It had been absurd at
the time, but the memory of it makes Stiles queasy.
“Did you really just pick a bunch of pages with pictures of trees?” Lydia holds
her textbooks to her chest, head tilted to one side as she frowns at Stiles.
Her nail polish is the same shade of blue as her Physics textbook.
“…Yes?”
She rolls her eyes. “None of them had anything to do with the Nemeton. Only a
few of them were even remotely about tree spirits, but nothing that would
cause… whatever it is that’s happening to you.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” she says, and Stiles can’t say that she does.
“Maybe next time don’t pick things based on their pictures.”
*
Stiles doesn’t want to go to Deaton, but he’s running out of options. He goes
on Scott’s day off right after school, makes his way straight to the back
before Deaton can tell him to come in.
“It’s not another monster to be vanquished,” Deaton tells him, opening a new
box of disposable gloves. He was feeding the animals staying overnight while
Stiles told him what was wrong, and now he’s restocking the exam room.
Stiles squints. “I literally have no idea what you’re trying to tell me right
now.”
“The Nemeton is like any other tree in many respects, Stiles,” Deaton says,
setting the box of gloves to the side. “It reaches out toward any source of
energy that can sustain it, and it seems to think that it can find that in
you.”
“Okay, but you said energy. What kind of energy. Is this—is this gonna kill me?
Like is it sapping my life force? Stealing my sleep? My—” he starts to say, and
stops, because he’d mentioned the sleepwalking, but not what happens after or
how he wakes up. “My animal magnetism?”
Deaton raises an eyebrow, but his expression doesn’t change otherwise.
“That’s all you’re giving me,” Stiles says. It isn’t a question; he’s pretty
sure he already knows the answer.
“I’m afraid that’s as much information as I have to give,” Deaton says, pointed
but somehow also politely apologetic. He turns his back to Stiles, starts
filling a glass jar with something that’s the consistency of sand but the color
of green peas.
“Thanks for this wealth of knowledge. I think I actually know too much now,”
Stiles says as he starts to leave.
“Goodbye, Stiles,” Deaton replies, voice mild.
Stiles would flip him off if a part of him weren’t sure he’d somehow know.
*
On the tenth day of waking up in the preserve at sunrise—this time only five
feet away from the Nemeton—Stiles comes to a realization.
“I have to fuck that tree,” he tells Scott and Allison at lunch. The cafeteria
is packed but Stiles doesn’t bother to keep his voice down.
Scott puts down a half-eaten fish stick and pushes his lunch tray away, and
Stiles makes a grab for his tater tots. Stiles is so hungry; he spent so long
trying to get sap off of his back this morning that he didn’t have time for
breakfast.
“Okay,” Scott says. “Wait, what?” He’s been a little slow lately, but that’s
forgivable. True Alphahood, darkness in his heart. Those things build up.
“The Nemeton,” Stiles says, rolling a tater tot around in ketchup. “I’m gonna
put my dick in it.”
“You want to have sex with the Nemeton,” Allison says. She brought her lunch,
some kind of sandwich with a slice of avocado peeking out from between the
poppy seed bun, but she hasn’t eaten any of it.
“No,” Stiles says, more or less patiently. “The Nemeton wants me to have sex
with—it.” It’s an important distinction. He makes sure he calls it an it and
not her even if it sort of feels wrong.
It’s a testament to the supernatural shit-show their lives have turned into
that the only thing Scott says after a long pause is, “…Where?”
*
It’s easy enough now that he knows what he has to do.
Stiles goes to the clearing a little before sunset with his backpack; he brings
a flashlight and change of clothes. He isn’t exactly sure how this is going to
go, but it seemed like the smart thing to do. There’s lube, too, tucked into
his pocket.
He hesitates when he gets near the Nemeton, but there’s a rush of wind at his
back that pushes him forward, giving him no choice but to take those last few
stumbling steps.
“Okay,” Stiles says, “Okay. I get it. I’m going.”
He lies down on top of the tree stump, wiggles until he’s something approaching
comfortable. He looks up at the canopy the leaves make above his head, at the
faint light filtering through them, and starts to undo his jeans. The area
around the Nemeton is eerily quiet, so there’s nothing to muffle the sound of
Stiles sliding his zipper down or the whisper of fabric as he pushes and kicks
his jeans and underwear down until they’re bunched around his ankles. The air
is cool but still, and there’s a sharp clarity to the experience, almost
hyperreal. Stiles thinks he can still smell the bright warmth of the afternoon
sun on the forest floor.
The wood scrapes against his ass and his lower back when he bends his knees. He
touches himself lazily, skims his fingers over his half-hard dick and then down
to play with his balls a little.
Stiles feels watched and wanted, like the clearing is hushed to better hear him
breathe, the way his heart is beating a little faster now. He bites his lip at
the low swoop in his gut that’s like taking a hill too fast as he starts to get
hard. He pushes his shirt up under his armpits to pinch and rub his nipples.
Stiles doesn’t do this a lot, doesn’t usually get much out of it, but it feels
good now. Right. He can almost imagine it’s someone else’s hand trailing down
his stomach to fist his hand around his dick. The first touch makes him sigh.
A breeze rustles through the trees, and it feels like approval.
*
Stiles is right about the fucking, just wrong about who’s going to be doing it.
The Nemeton feels warm under him. There’s a groan and then a sharp crackling
sound around him when he starts to jerk himself off, palm slick with spit and
precome. Vines reach out of the stump to twine around his wrists and over his
stomach, more like an embrace than a restraint. They slither around his legs
and stomach in a way that would tickle if Stiles weren’t so keyed up. There’s
something curious about it, which is the only reason Stiles can come up with
for not completely freaking out.
Another vine brushes against his cheek and over his mouth, and a white flower
blooms against his lips. It smells like spring, and it leaves something sticky
and sweet tasting on Stiles’ lips when he tries to lick it away. He looks down
down to see flowers blooming all around him, up and down the vines.
“Either my dick is magic or you really like me,” he slurs, then something warm
and slick, thick but tapered, starts probing at his hole, gentle at first but
then more and more insistent.
Stiles bites his lip, tries to stop long enough to think about what’s happening
here. He’s only touched himself there a few times—twice in the shower and once
in bed mid-jerk when his dad was on patrol and he had the kind of alone time
that bred experimentation—and he never stuck with it enough to get past some
light teasing and maybe the tip of his finger inside. It had felt,
unsurprisingly, like a finger in his ass. He’d been a little better prepared
the last time he’d tried, but had just ended up feeling greasy and kind of
itchy after.
But this is going to be more than a finger, and the stuff oozing against him is
more than slick enough.
There’s more of that sticky sweetness on his lips from the flower, then,
trickling out in a steady stream. The more of the stuff he swallows, the less
he cares. He feels too good to care, tingly and warm right down to his toes.
It’s so smooth and wet, flesh-hot against him, and it wants in. It nudges
against him again like it’s asking politely and a giggle bubbles up out of him
at the thought, but Stiles spreads his legs as wide as he can with his jeans in
the way and lets it in.
It’s easy at first, like the tip of his finger that very first time, then
thicker. The vine sinks into him slow and smooth, one long aching stretch that
makes him feel so full he can’t take a full breath. When it finally stops, he
has to pant around it. Then it moves, does some kind of twist inside of him
that makes Stiles angle his hips up and moan out a wrecked, “Oh, fuck.”
“Stiles?”
“Derek?” Stiles would have something to say, would try to stop or at least
cover himself, but the vine is fucking into him in long hard thrusts that hit
up against that spot inside that makes everything feel so good it almost hurts.
He can feel it pulsing in time with the thrum of his heartbeat in his dick, and
he’s just holding himself now, can’t think enough to move his hand but it’s
still too much.
“Shit,” he gasps, coming in sticky hot spurts all over the flowers now blooming
across his chest and stomach.
He thinks Derek huffs out a sigh.
*
“I thought you were supposed to be smart,” Derek says.
“Can you—” Stiles makes a twirly motion with one hand and a clump of vines
falls off of him; the Nemeton is still covered in them, each one dotted with
white blossoms. Stiles isn’t going to say it, but he thinks it might be happy.
There’s a definite aura of contentment. “How did you even find me here?”
Derek rolls his eyes but turns his back to Stiles. “You’ve been humping every
tree within half a mile.”
Stiles shakes off more vines and pulls his underwear and jeans up. He’s covered
in more pollen and the sticky syrup from the Nemeton’s flowers than jizz,
anyway. He can clean up when he gets home. “Yeah,” Stiles says, “But how did
you—”
Derek glances at Stiles over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. Stiles takes a
second to parse that look and remembers all of the times Derek’s snuck into his
room to sniff around in ways that are probably more literal than Stiles had
thought before. “I am the smart one,” he says.
“You just had sex with a demonic tree,” Derek says, voice flat.
“Yeah, well.” Stiles pushes himself up and stands, ignoring the weird empty
achy feeling in his ass; everything still feels so wet. “Somebody had to. I’m
fine,” he says, but he doesn’t feel fine. His head is throbbing and he’s dizzy.
A wave of nausea hits him so hard he has to stay hunched over for a few seconds
when he bends to pick up his bag and hoodie so he doesn’t throw up or fall
over.
Derek’s suddenly at his side, grip firm on Stiles’ arm to help him up and keep
him steady. “It could have hurt you. It could’ve killed you,” he says. He lets
Stiles go but then sort of just hovers at his side, standing too close.
“Not all of us have death dick,” Stiles says. He holds his backpack between his
knees and puts on his hoodie, then slings his bag over one shoulder. The
afterglow is wearing off fast.
Derek’s eyes flash blue but all he says is, “We’re leaving. Let’s go.” He makes
Stiles walk ahead of him, herding him away from the Nemeton.
Stiles uses the cuff of his hoodie to wipe at a sticky spot on his neck and
shuffles ahead, too tired to put up a real fight. He doesn’t want to be here
anyway.
Derek walks them out of the forest and to Stiles’ jeep. Derek’s SUV is there,
parked exactly one car’s length behind the jeep, but he steps up to the
driver’s side of the jeep and says, “Keys. You’re not driving.”
Stiles stares.
Derek steps closer. “You can give them to me or I can take them.”
Stiles wants to lean into him. He leans against the jeep instead, but hands
over his keys. “If you crash us, I’ll kill you,” he says, climbing into the
back seat to lie down.
“If I crashed us,” Derek says, “you’d probably be dead.” He slams the door just
to be a dick.
“I’d be more worried if you ever actually managed to successfully kill a person
dead. You know, permanently,” Stiles mumbles, but he’s already drifting off.
*
“Wait, you seriously—”
“Got deflowered by a tree? Yeah, There were literally hundreds of flowers. I
think it just wanted me to feel beautiful.” Stiles is on his third coke of the
day, but it’s like he has the world’s worst hangover. Everything tastes wrong
and everything hurts.
Allison pauses with a forkful of salad halfway to her mouth. “I don’t
understand what’s going on,” she says.
“You actually did it?” Scott asks, eyes wide.
“What? Yes. I told you this.”
“You tell me a lot of things! I didn’t think you were serious.”
“Stiles, you—” Allison puts her fork down and leans in, drops her voice, “you
had sex with the Nemeton?”
“It wasn’t that hard,” Stiles says and for a second Scott seems to forget to be
alarmed and snorts. Stiles winks back.
“This isn’t funny. This is— Honestly, Stiles? Nothing about this strikes you as
a little strange? You were, what, compelled to have sex with a tree.”
“No, I—” Stiles starts but remembers the flower and the sticky sweet stuff it
fed him, remembers how easy it had been to just give in. There’s a cold feeling
that starts in his chest and spreads its way down his arms all the way to his
fingertips.
“She’s right, dude,” Scott chimes in. He claps Stiles on the shoulder. “This is
definitely weird. And it’s not even the usual kind of weird.”
“Look, I get it, okay?” Stiles shrugs Scott off. “But I handled it. It’s fine.
And it’s not like going to happen again. So, hey, can we just, you know, eat
lunch?”
Scott and Allison trade concerned looks, but they don’t make Stiles talk about
it anymore.
*
He showers and gets ready for school, snatching up Derek’s jacket just before
he leaves. It stays in the back seat of the jeep for the day and Stiles doesn’t
think about it until he has to, goes to his car after the last bell instead of
meeting Scott by their lockers and heads for the loft.
Stiles lets himself in. Derek doesn’t look surprised to see him.
“Why do I have this?” Stiles balls up Derek’s jacket and throws it at him, but
Derek snatches it out of the air before it can connect.
“You wouldn’t let it go,” Derek says. He sniffs his jacket and makes a face,
shakes it out.
There’s a brief flash, watery like the memory of a memory, where Stiles sees
himself clutching Derek’s jacket but he can’t remember if that’s how it really
happened.
“You can’t tell Scott,” Stiles says.
Derek drapes his jacket over the back of a chair, doesn’t look at Stiles when
he says, “I’m not lying to him.”
“I didn’t say you had to lie, just—don’t tell him.”
“If he asks...”
“He won’t,” Stiles says firmly. “So you just need to… not say anything. I’m
handling it. It’s—” fine, he wants to say, but Derek looks at him then, mouth
pressed into a thin line, eyebrow raised, and Stiles can’t finish.
*
It’s raining the night Derek drags Stiles back from the edge of the forest
kicking and screaming. He doesn’t know this when it’s happening, but it comes
back to him here and there the next day. When he gets home from school, his
pajamas are still in a soggy heap on the floor.
*
“You’re a virgin, Stiles,” Deaton tells him when he goes back looking for less
cryptic answers. Stiles snorts because at the moment he doesn’t feel very
virginal, but Deaton goes on, “You don’t have to be dead for the Nemeton to get
power from you. There are other forms of sacrifice.”
Stiles waits for Deaton to follow that up with some sort of explanation.
“Okay,” he says after a few moments of silence. “I’ll bite. What other forms of
sacrifice?”
“It wasn’t the most common form of worship, but some druids would… serve the
Nemeton in other ways. Give themselves over to it. Think of it in the same
manner that nuns are said to be married to God. Furthermore, you’ve given
yourself to it twice now,” Deaton says. It’s almost gentle. “Once in death and
once in life. It’s safe to assume that the Nemeton has come to take it as
somewhat of a… declaration.”
“Are you telling me I’m married to a friggin’ tree? This is what we’re going
with? That’s what’s happening now?”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” Deaton says dryly. “But you could say
that, yes. I had my suspicions, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“So what am I supposed to do now, then?” Stiles asks, impatient. “Divorce it?”
Deaton doesn’t answer right away, and when he does it’s to say, “There are a
number of ways to break that kind of bond of exclusivity.”
"Exclusivity," Stiles repeats. "You're saying I have to cheat on the Nemeton.
To break my engagement with the Nemeton. Or get it to break my engagement with
it—"
“Whether it’s your virginity or lack of a romantic partner remains to be seen,
but...” Deaton pauses, not quite smiling, “this is a solution that would take
care of both possibilities.”
*
Stiles has been to Jungle enough times to know that’s exactly where he doesn’t
want to go. His life isn’t an early 2000s gay drama. There’s also the fact that
Shirley Tempest and Pixie Dustin know him too well to even consider giving him
a polite handjob, especially since he can’t explain why it’s potentially a life
or death situation.
So he goes to Derek.
He has it all planned out, thinks about how he’s going to pitch this all day,
but when he sees Derek sitting at the table reading and eating fried rice from
a take-out box, nothing comes out.
“Do you want something or are you just going to—” Derek gestures slightly with
his fork, looking up at Stiles, “—stand there.” He sounds vaguely annoyed, but
not enough to be a deterrent.
Stiles shuts the door and explains around the parts Derek already knows. He
finishes up with, “So maybe you could, you know, give me a hand,” half-
heartedly miming jerking off.
Derek’s stopped eating and he’s set his book to the side, hands folded on the
table as he watches Stiles. “If I do, it’ll stop?”
“Yeah? I mean, yeah. That’s the plan. Deaton said—”
“Okay,” Derek cuts in. “Fine.”
Stiles blinks. “What, just like that? That easy? You’re just—gonna go with it.”
Derek rolls his eyes. “Are you trying to talk me out of it?”
Stiles opens mouth to reply, but Derek huffs and says, “Don’t answer that,
idiot.”
“I’m not really into verbal abuse. That’s not gonna expedite this whole
process,” Stiles says, but the point is moot; he’s already turned on at the
thought of Derek and him and some sort of sex happening soon. Now.
Derek pushes his chair back and stands, wipes his hand off on his thighs, then
starts toward the couch. Stiles follows.
They sit in the middle of the couch, Derek turned in toward Stiles, but not
boxing him in. "You should probably close your eyes, imagine someone you—it
might help,” he says quietly. His breath smells like Chinese food. If they
kissed now, Derek would taste like soy sauce and spring onions.
Stiles doesn’t really need help, doesn’t need to imagine it’s someone else, but
he tries to relax. He leans his head against the back of the couch and spreads
his legs until his knee knocks against Derek’s leg, and waits for Derek to do
something. “You didn’t wash your hands," he points out after a moment.
Derek rubs Stiles through his jeans, fits his hand over the shape of Stiles’
dick for one long moment until Stiles twitches up into his touch. Derek's hand
is hot, even through the fabric.
“I didn’t eat with my hands,” Derek says.
“No, but you—”
“Do you want me to stop?” Derek’s voice is neutral but he moves his hand away
before Stiles can answer, rests it lightly on Stiles’ thigh for a second and
then pulls away.
“No.” Stiles sucks in a quick breath and shakes his head. “Go ahead. Keep—keep
going,” Stiles says, and Derek does. He undoes Stiles’ button and zipper, then
pulls Stiles out through the slit in his underwear to stroke him a couple of
times. Stiles stills Derek with a hand on Derek’s wrist after a few seconds,
tugging until Derek lets go, then spits in Derek’s palm twice and brings it
back down again. He doesn’t need it but it feels good, that extra bit of
slickness. Derek doesn’t say anything, picking up where he left off.
Derek is warm and solid, pressed along his side, hand firm around Stiles. It’s
weird. The loft feels full of the wet sound of Derek's hand on him and Stiles'
own harsh breaths. His heart's beating so hard it feels like he's rocking with
the force of it.
It doesn’t take long—Stiles grapples at the soft cotton of Derek’s shirt,
hooking his fingers in the hem of it to pull Derek in closer, and Derek lets
him. Stiles nudges his nose against the side of Derek’s neck where Derek smells
faintly of sweat and soap, presses his face to that spot when he comes with a
whimper. He thinks he feels Derek shiver, but he can’t be sure.
Derek holds Stiles’ shirt out of the way but most of his come ends up on
Derek’s hand, anyway. He strokes Stiles through his orgasm, wet and messy, and
stops just before it’s too much and Stiles has the urge to squirm away.
Stiles feels loose and tingly everywhere, and Derek is so close that all he can
think about for one long moment is leaning in and kissing him. Derek’s lips are
shiny, a little greasy from the food he was eating just a handful of minutes
ago.
“Um,” Stiles says breathlessly when Derek pulls away. “Thanks.”
Derek hums, gets up and goes over to the table, wipes his hand off on a few
flimsy take-out napkins. He brings a couple back for Stiles to clean up with.
Stiles wipes himself off and tucks himself back in. He doesn’t realize Derek’s
watching him until he’s buttoning up.
“Do you need a ride back?” Derek asks, mouth turned down in a frown. His shirt
is wrinkled and stretched out where Stiles twisted his fingers in it, and for
some reason that’s what makes Stiles blush.
“No,” Stiles says. “You should probably finish, you know, whatever.” He waves
his hand at what’s left of Derek’s food, the book lying open on the table.
Derek walks him to the door, and for a second, Stiles thinks Derek’s going to
follow him outside to his car, but he doesn’t. He does stand by the door,
though, and Stiles doesn’t hear it shut until he’s in the elevator.
*
Scott sniffs him at lunch and says, “You smell different.” Allison’s somewhere
with Isaac. They aren’t talking about it.
“We’ve had this conversation,” Stiles says, picking the soggy noodles out of
his beefaroni. The tomato sauce tastes like it was made with ketchup. “Don’t
smell me. It’s weird, okay? And kind of invasive.”
“You stole my house key and made a copy of it.”
“Yeah, but that was for your own safety. It’s a dangerous world out there.”
“My mom keeps threatening to change the locks,” Scott says. “She—I really hate
it when you do that.”
Stiles grins around his spork.
Scott makes a face and reaches for his milk. “I just mean, you were kind of…
grassy before? But it’s weird, like I’m only noticing now that it’s gone. Now
you just smell like you.”
Stiles shrugs. An entire week has passed and nothing’s happened. He did have
one vaguely erotic dream a few nights ago where he’d been eating spring rolls
and then a noodle that had no end, but that’s been it. “I told you I’d take
care of it,” he says. “And now you know better than to doubt me.”
“…Do I wanna know how?”
“I had—” is as far as Stiles gets before he realizes he doesn’t want to talk
about it. He’d have to talk about Derek, and that feels—not quite like a
secret, but private. “Uh. No. Probably not.”
Scott watches Stiles, head tilted and eyes narrowed—long enough for Stiles to
get uncomfortable—then nods.
Stiles breathes, rolls the tension out of his shoulder. “Yeah, trust me. I’m
doing you a favor.”
“Sure,” Scott says after a beat. He snatches up Stiles’ bread roll and takes a
bite, smiles. “Okay.”
*
Stiles shows up at Derek's on Saturday with a John Grisham paperback that his
dad has two copies of and a styrofoam container from the diner—a double
cheeseburger with extra fries. The food is still hot enough to burn his hand
through the styrofoam while he waits this time for Derek to let him in.
Derek's dressed when he opens the door, but he's wearing a pair of well worn
sweatpants instead of jeans and he's barefoot; it throws Stiles off for a
second.
"Here," Stiles says, and thrusts out the container with the book on top.
There's enough force behind it that the book almost falls to the floor. Derek
takes everything without being prompted.
"I owed you. So, here. I hope you like burgers and courtroom dramas." It comes
out too sharp, almost defensive, but Derek just shrugs.
"It's not the first time you've done something stupid."
There are a lot of things Stiles could say to that, and he's close to settling
on one of them when it occurs to him that maybe the best sign of gratitude he
could give Derek is his silence.
"Yeah. Have fun with that," he says finally, waving a hand in Derek's general
direction, and turns to go.
*
Outside, the sun is shining and the air is crisp. The wind rustles through the
small, sad looking trees planted by the sidewalk of Derek’s building. If Stiles
shivers, it’s just because he’s a little cold.
End Notes
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