Fic: Teen Wolf: state of readiness | NC17 | Derek/Stiles (10/10)
Stiles can feel Derek's heart thud, slow and sure under his ear. It's hypnotic, so much so that it takes a minute to realize Derek's talking to him and apparently repeating something that Stiles didn't catch the first time, so he makes a vaguely interrogative grunt in reply.
"I said…I have a question. About the weakness." That gets Stiles' attention, and he blinks and leans up on an elbow to listen. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing to talk about if you aren't looking the other person in the eye. Derek is staring, staring at him like everything is riding on this question. Stiles hopes like hell he's ready for it.
"Shoot," he says softly.
"Why? Why water? Why didn't you pick…" Derek stumbles and trails off, which makes Stiles' heart skip, because he realizes what's coming, what Derek wants to ask, but he also knows that Derek needs to say it, so he just waits while Derek collects himself and tries again.
"It should have been fire," he whispers, and Stiles can hear the tears in his voice before he sees Derek blinking them back so they can't fall.
"Why didn't you pick fire?"
Stiles has a million answers, from the simple to the complex. He could tell Derek the truth. He could tell him about the three-yes, three-pack meetings they had without him, and the painful, bitter arguments they all had about this very subject. He could tell Derek a lie, that he was too chicken to take that one on. (He wasn't.) Or Stiles could pass it off, deflect him by telling a joke and Derek would let him, if for no other reason than he didn't have the strength to ask that question more than once.
In the end, what Stiles tells Derek is a story.
"I heard my mom tell a story once about how she learned to swim."
And he's so glad he'd looked Derek in the eye for this, because there was that gaze, that pure, unwavering empathy that Derek's always had for him every time he's ever mentioned his mom. Even back when they were barely even frenemies. He feels Derek's hand tighten just a fraction where it rests on his hipbone, and continues.
"Her favorite uncle threw her in the deepest part of the lake when she was only ten, and waited for her to sink or swim," Stiles says bitterly. He feels rather than hears Derek stop mid-breath in shock.
"What happened?" he asks, nosing softly under Stiles' jaw. It was a very wolfy, comfort-y thing to do, and he doesn't even think Derek realizes he's doing it. Stiles is so absurdly in love right now he just wants to forget about everything and cling; he can barely find it in himself to finish his story.
But Derek is waiting.
"She figured it out, managed to dogpaddle and flounder to the shallows and climb out," Stiles says softly. Derek noses some more, exhaling sharply in a way that is clearly disapproval, but doesn't interrupt.
"Someone always ended up asking her to tell the story at family reunions, or Christmases, and she always would, and she'd smile, like it was funny, but I could tell…" Stiles chokes and stops, struggling.
"He wasn't her favorite uncle anymore," Derek whispers softly, and presses a kiss to Stiles' forehead, his hand squeezing the back of Stiles' neck.
"No," Stiles says, shaking his head. "No, he wasn't." Stiles looks up, finds Derek's eyes already waiting for him. "You shouldn't do something like that to someone you love," Stiles grits out, fierce and sure. "You shouldn't betray their trust."
"No, you shouldn't," Derek agrees, voice unsteady.
"You were thrown into the fire already, Derek," Stiles says hoarsely, and watches Derek's Adam's apple bob as he swallows. He wasn't, of course, not literally put into the fire, because Derek's still here and the rest of his family is dead. But he burns just the same, Stiles knows.
"You wanna walk back in someday? You tell me you're ready? I'll be right beside you."
"Okay."
Derek's voice has never been so small, his eyes on Stiles' chest and his head down, and he has to snap it back up when Stiles speaks again.
"But as long as I walk this earth, no one will ever put you there again against your will," Stiles promises.
"I mean it Derek. I mean it so hard."
Derek pulls him close, hands scritching in Stiles' hair and stroking aimlessly up and down his back for so long that Stiles feels himself falling toward sleep. Being petted by a werewolf is irresistibly relaxing. Unfair and underhanded. Probably banned by the Geneva Convention.
When Derek finally does answer, so much time has gone by that it startles him. Stiles had assumed he wasn't going to.
"I believe you," Derek whispers, leaning in and dropping the words into the shell of Stiles' ear, so intimate it's like Derek's voice is simply materializing in his head. It makes him tremble, full-body tremors which have him feeling ridiculous, but Derek just tucks him closer and pets some more. NBD.
"Damn straight," Stiles concurs finally, once his heartbeat steadies again, and steals a kiss. Derek's right there, after all. Who wouldn't? During which he yawns in Derek's face. Oh yeah, Stillinski. Smoooooth.
Derek snorts, laughing right into Stiles' open mouth and kisses back anyway, right through the yawn.
"Mmmmph. Can it be sleepy-times now?" Stiles punctuates the question with some nuzzling of his own.
"Absolutely," Derek agrees, folding himself and maneuvering both of them. Stiles is surprised to find himself on the other side of the spoon metaphor, Derek's hips wriggling back into his groin.
"I thought Alphas didn't little-spoon." He smiles into the space behind Derek's ear.
It's nice, being this for Derek. Stiles knows-despite the near-constant pull to curl into the Alpha for security that the pack always feels-he knows that he's tall enough, has the linear span to enclose Derek, if not the same breadth. He rubs his face into the back of Derek's neck, breathing and scenting like he's seen the wolves do (though never unto Derek. Not that.)
Stiles feels the wolf inside Derek twitch sharply but then subside, recognition calming it. He's pack. More than that, Stiles is mate; even if Derek won't let Stiles declare it yet, the wolf already knows. It's good to be trusted with this.
The knowledge that Stiles can feel that connection already, without being a true wolf himself, ought to be enough to prove to Derek that he's sure. But Stiles isn't going to pressure him. One day soon Derek is going to be ready to realize it on his own.
Stiles can wait.
"Too wiped to be the Alpha tonight," Derek mumbles. "Can I just be Derek?"
He laces fingers with the hand that Stiles has draped over him, working himself back even more snugly into Stiles' chest. His toes press into Stiles' shins, and he turns Stiles' palm upward to drop a moist kiss in its center.
"Absolutely."
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