fic: hyper heart alone, derek/stiles, nc17, 2/4
masterpost
He hasn’t had to give his dad a spongebath so far; in fact, he’s had to do less for his dad than he’d expected, and he’s getting worried he’s taking on more than he’s ready for at this stage in his recovery, so when he comes down one morning to his dad already at the kitchen table with a congealing fried egg pushed off to the side, mumbling curses at the laptop he’s tapping away at, he says, “When’s your next appointment?”
“Huh?” his dad asks, attention on the screen. “I do not know what Derek thinks he is doing giving Lampard authority over that, Lampard is a thrice-forsaken moron-“ The tapping gets more aggressive as he trails off into expletives, though Stiles can’t tell who they’re directed at.
“Your next check-up?” Stiles presses. “When is it? I’ll drive you in.”
“Yeah,” his dad says, eyes on the laptop but fingers still. “You’ll have to.”
“You’re doing better than they expected, I think,” Stiles offers. “Definitely better than Nurse Helen seemed to expect.”
His dad starts typing again, and this time the muttered imprecations are towards Helen. “Week and a half,” he volunteers once his spleen is vented sufficiently. “Helen’s going to come by and check on me before, though.”
Stiles’ eyebrows fly up. “Really.”
His dad glares, but refuses to acknowledge the implication. “Derek’s coming by before heading out.” He looks askance at Stiles, boxers and washed-thin tshirt apparently not meeting the dress code. “You want to run get changed before he arrives?”
“No,” Stiles says defiantly. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes.” His dad snorts. “He hasn’t come over much. I thought he was supposed to be keeping you in the loop all the time or whatever.”
“He is. He has a lot to take care of out at the prison. The marshals are giving us hell over this-“
There’s a knock on the door and Stiles’ dad starts to stand, but Stiles waves him back down, already on his way to the door.
“Hey, Derek,” he says, leaving the door wide as he goes back to the kitchen.
“Fred,” Derek says when he joins them.
“Can you not call him Sheriff?” Stiles asks. “That would be less weird.”
“Stiles,” his dad reprimands, but Stiles is busy digging through the fridge for more eggs.
“You were saying about the marshals?”
“Yeah.”
Stiles carefully cracks the first egg into the bowl and lifts his head to look at his dad. His attention would usually be on the food Stiles is preparing, but then a fried egg would never normally be left begging for love on his plate. Derek’s attention is on the food, watching the shell in Stiles’ hands. “What were you saying about the marshals?” Stiles prompts. “They’re blaming you for the escape?”
“Yeah,” his dad says.
“No,” Derek says.
“Derek.”
“They’re blaming me.”
Stiles cracks another egg while he thinks about Derek filling the sort of position that would mean he’d be in line for that kind of blame. He cracks two more in quick succession and watches Derek’s eyes track the movement of his hands.
“They’re blaming Derek,” his dad admits.
“You took care of it, though, right?” Stiles asks, ignoring the part of him that’s shying away from knowing anything about that one time a couple of weeks ago his father almost died. “They’re dead, you killed them.”
“Derek,” his dad says again, and Stiles realises that’s his father’s attempt at an explanation. “But we can’t talk about it with you, you know that. You shouldn’t even be asking,” he says, while Stiles tries not to watch Derek’s face, eyes oddly intent on his own hands on the table. “Though you always did, don’t know why I expected that to be any different.”
“No,” Stiles says, surprised at the sudden shock of pleasure he feels when Derek’s eyes lift to meet his. They’re bluer than he remembers, and the feeling doesn’t dissipate immediately, and he isn’t sure what he means when he says, “I don’t know why either.”
Derek doesn’t drop his gaze, so Stiles offers, “Scrambled eggs?” as an out. “I know you’re hungry.”
He’s been watching the food like a hawk.
“Sure,” Derek says. “I had breakfast already, but I could eat.”
He finishes the food, but Stiles has to make him.
*
It hadn’t been a new thing when Stiles decided to talk to Derek about it.
It had been an old thing even at that point, though not as old a thing as it would become, and Stiles knew better, he did, or he should have, with all the snarling and snapping and shoving at him Derek did, but that hadn’t been it, that hadn’t been all there was, and he built on everything, every time he thought he saw a softening, every time he thought he saw Derek looking back.
So the day before he was due to move halfway across the country he sought Derek out, because he had do it, didn’t ever want to regret this, not when there was a possibility, and if it turned out there wasn’t, well, he wasn’t coming home until Christmas, so he wouldn’t have to deal with it for months.
Derek was on the phone when he showed up, biting out terse apologies to somebody, which was weird, because Stiles wasn’t sure he’d seen Derek offer an apology before, even an obviously insincere one, and when Derek ended the conversation and turned to him his face was set in a snarl.
“Why would you do that?” he grit out, furious, and Stiles watched warily for signs of impending change, but Derek seemed to be totally in control.
Also, there were a lot of things Stiles potentially might have done, but when Stiles started to question which of them Derek was objecting to, Derek said, “You have no right to interfere in our business with the Argents.”
“I-“ Stiles said, “-didn’t? Not really, I just-“
“I’m not actually sure what you did,” Derek said evenly. “But whatever it was fucked up the last two months of concessions and endless, useless negotiations, and I don’t actually blame you for that, because I understand how easy it would be to do, I do understand how batshit crazy Argent actually is, but what I do not understand is why you were talking to her to begin with.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You had no right,” Derek snarled at him, and it was somehow worse coming from a human face. “You have no place here, and you had no right to interfere in pack business.”
“I-“
“Overstepped,” Derek said. “This has nothing to do with you. You aren’t pack, and you have no right pretending.”
“I’m-I know I’m not pack,” Stiles said, heart beating frantically. “But-“
“No,” Derek said. “There is no ‘but’. I don’t know why you even hang around all the time when you’re not part of us, I don’t understand why you insist on doing that-“ He cut himself off abruptly, but his face when he looked at Stiles was just as disgusted.
“Scott-“ he said, like it was a talisman, a passkey, but Derek was shaking his head.
“Scott knows you aren’t one of us.” His shoulders slumped, and his face was strained and determined. “You should just go,” he said slowly. “You don’t belong with us, everyone knows it, and you should stop acting like you do. Leave, and try not to screw anything else up for me on your way out.”
Stiles left the Hale place then, stumbling a little on his way out, because he had pictured it going badly, he had, but not quite that badly.
He missed Christmas that year.
*
Stiles doesn’t see Derek for two days after that, and the couple of times he asks whoever’s manning the front desk at the office about it, he just gets a terse, “Prison,” and a harassed look.
Late in the afternoon on the third day, Derek shows up in Petra’s office. He brings a muffin. Blueberry.
“It’s all they had,” he says pre-emptively.
“Thanks,” Stiles says anyway, and then Derek watches him eat it, which is a little weird.
“Didn’t get one for yourself?” he asks, catching falling crumbs in his palm and licking them off, and it takes Derek a minute to respond.
“Huh?” he says distantly. “I wasn’t hungry. I don’t know why you always think I’m hungry.”
“Because you are,” Stiles scoffs. “Obviously. And you don’t even need to be hungry to eat a muffin, that’s like saying ice-cream is food.”
Derek opens his mouth to argue the point, so Stiles jumps in with, “Wrong!” and triumphantly stuffs the last of the muffin into his mouth.
Derek watches him chew and swallow, watches Stiles’ tongue when it darts out to gather up the last of the crumbs lingering around his mouth.
“Oh,” Stiles says blankly, and Derek lifts dark eyes from his mouth to meet his gaze. “Oh.”
Shit.
“What-“ he squeaks, as Derek’s face shutters.
“I have to-“ Derek says, backing towards the door. “-get to a meeting.”
Stiles leans forwards, thinking about saying something, stopping him, but he didn’t see what he thought, thought he’d seen before, when Derek hadn’t felt a thing for him if you didn’t count resentment of his presence, and Stiles drops his reaching hand and watches Derek’s back vanish through the door.
And if it is true, he thinks, feeling the unwelcome anger build in his gut, a constant presence lately, if it is true, Stiles isn’t going to leave this time.
*
Stiles is still angry when he goes out to ask Mary if Susie Zafist had really married a man who also had the surname of Zafist, and if so, how the hell the Zafists had kept their freakiness under the radar for so long, so he isn’t really paying attention to anything when he bumps into someone in the corridor.
“Sorry,” he says, blinking at the stranger in surprise.
“No harm done,” the man says.
They don’t usually let strangers wander around the building unescorted. “Do you need any help, Mister-“
“Marshal Mitchell,” the man says, and Stiles has to choke down his snicker. He thinks he does a pretty good job, but maybe Marshal Mitchell is used to the reaction, because he’s glaring at Stiles’ lips, and they’re barely even twitching. “I was told Hale would be here.”
“No, he isn’t,” Stiles says, and the marshal pushes past him, pushes the door open and sticks his head in to check.
“Hey! You’re not allowed in there,” Stiles says. And Mitchell probably is, but now Stiles doesn’t want him in there. He grabs the handle from Mitchell’s hand and slams the door shut, almost hitting Mitchell’s nose.
Mitchell glares at him, apparently blaming Stiles for his nose, his name, and Derek’s absence.
“Where’s Hale,” Mitchell raps out, eyes darting around, like he’s expecting to catch Derek scurrying past, trying to escape Mitchell’s notice through strategic placement of a file over his face or something. Stiles wouldn’t blame him.
“Probably in his office,” Stiles offers. “I’ll show you where-“
“I know my way around,” Mitchell says, taking off in the direction of Derek’s office.
“I’ll still show you,” Stiles says, chasing after him and then outpacing him, just making it to Derek’s door first and throwing it open triumphantly.
“Derek!” he says, basking in Mitchell’s outraged scowl.
Derek has a pencil stuck behind his ear, and a pen is hanging out of his mouth, cap between his white teeth. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, and his hair is messy, like he’s been running his hands through it. He looks tired and stressed, and his voice is strained when he says, “Stiles. Marshal Mitchell.”
Mitchell bristles, although the greeting was perfectly respectful.
“I need to speak to you about your movements on the night of-“
“Where’s Peterson?” Derek asks.
“Marshal Peterson is busy elsewhere,” Mitchell says defensively, and opens his mouth to start in again when Derek mutters, “Great,” and heaves himself out of his chair, coming slowly towards the door.
“I’ve answered your questions already, and I don’t intend to go through this with you again, unless you’re here in an official capacity this time? No?” Mitchell’s face is pale and anxious and seething. “I’m not willing to speak to you until you are.” Derek leans in close to Stiles, reaching around his body to grab the door. “And I don’t see that happening.”
Derek swings the door shut; Stiles has to lean out of the way, into Derek’s body, and he can smell Derek’s aftershave on his shirt, nose brushing the open neck. Derek places a steadying hand on Stiles’ back, and the last thing Stiles sees before the door closes is the thwarted fury in Mitchell’s face.
Derek scowls at the expanse of wood for a second, palm warm and comfortable on the small of Stiles’ back, and then he meets Stiles’ skittish eyes and pulls his hand away as if it’s been burned, face darkening.
“You should go,” he says, and Stiles nods mechanically, knowing that’s true.
He fumbles the door open, and glances warily around, but Mitchell is already gone, so he feels safe slipping out.
“See you-“ he starts, but when he turns back around, Derek’s door is already closed.
*
The next time Stiles sees Derek is almost a week later, and Stiles knows Derek is busy, but Stiles has seen people gaping after him as his uniform vanishes around a corner as Stiles enters the room, so Stiles knows Derek is avoiding him.
Stiles won’t say he doesn’t feel a vindictive satisfaction at that; he doesn’t even feel guilty about it.
Stiles gets back early from Jackson and Lydia’s on a Saturday afternoon, and when he gets inside Derek and his father are in the sitting room with Helen.
“-too much on your plate as it is,” Helen is saying, extending his father’s arm and squinting at something in a measuring fashion, though what she could be squinting at Stiles has no idea.
“I’m fine, Fred,” Derek says quietly. “I don’t need you to do this.”
“I’m not saying you do,” his dad says, irritated. “Just that you do, and it’s nothing against you.”
“No,” Derek says, and when his father looks like arguing more, he says, “Stiles.”
“What does Stiles have to do with anything, unless it’s to do with how you haven’t been over here-oh, Stiles!”
“Hey,” Stiles says, and he feels awkward as he comes into the room, but he doesn’t let it show.
“Good to see you again,” Helen says briskly.
“You too. How’s he doing?”
Helen folds her arms, unwilling to give too much away. “Could be better,” she says. “But I’m pleased enough.”
“Good,” Stiles says, a relieved breath shaking out of him, though he manages to hide it from the humans in the room. “That’s good.”
“It’s acceptable,” she says firmly. “I expect much better progress the next time I’m here.”
His dad’s head comes up to watch as she grabs her things, but he doesn’t say anything, so Stiles says, “Oh, don’t go. I was just about to start dinner.”
“I couldn’t impose,” she demurs.
“We have so much stuff for meatloaf, you’d really be doing me a favour,” Stiles says. “My dad doesn’t-“ He stops the thought before it comes out, but his dad’s face goes sour anyway. “My dad’s still used to the way I ate when I was a teenager, I think,” Stiles says. “He still buys so much, and we can never get through it all.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to break up the party,” she says, looking to Derek for confirmation, but Derek says, “I’m busy right now, but I-“
“But he’ll always make an exception for Stiles’ meatloaf,” Stiles’ dad says, although actually, he doesn’t much like meatloaf at all. Neither does Stiles; he has no idea why he said meatloaf, but it seemed like something guests might want to stay for. Stiles doesn’t really cook for guests much. Mostly he orders takeout. He’s cooked more since he got home than he has in the past year.
“I will,” Derek says, and now Stiles has to figure out how to make a meatloaf that is both big enough to feed an army and tastes like it deserves having an exception made for it. Great.
Stiles isn’t quite sure how he and Derek end up alone in the kitchen together, because Derek looks uncomfortable as all get-out, and Stiles thinks it would be better for everyone if he could manage to pretend Derek didn’t exist. It probably has something to do with how his father was glaring at Derek when Stiles left the room and has somehow since managed to gently corner Helen out by the yucca.
“That’s new, right?” Stiles asks, gesturing in their direction with his eyes; there’s a wall between them, but he can hear their conversation so he can’t be more forthcoming.
“Yeah,” Derek says. “Far as I know.”
“You’d know.”
“Maybe.”
They leave it at that for a while, but eventually the lack of conversation makes Stiles’ shoulders twitch, and he says, “So,” but then the only follow-up he can come up with is, “How’ve you been.”
He doesn’t want to know.
“Fine,” Derek says. “Nothing much.”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, and then, though Derek hasn’t asked and won’t care, “Same here.”
“Really?” Derek asks, sounding a little surprised. “Thought you’d be living the dream, out there on your own.”
“Well, obviously,” Stiles says, and shushes Derek for a minute so he can concentrate on the cookbook open on the counter in front of him.
“I haven’t had meatloaf in years,” Derek says, wistfulness strong in his voice.
“Really,” Stiles says, “Would’ve thought you’d have people lining up around the block to make you a nice home-cooked meal.”
It comes out snide, which is stupid, because he never had confessed anything to Derek, and although Derek should have known, same way he’d know if Helen had been around Stiles’ dad, Derek had never paid that much attention to Stiles. Stiles would bet real money he still has no idea; there’s no reason to give him one.
“Next door,” his dad calls in from the sitting room.
“No,” Derek says.
“Jessica Torrance?” Stiles asks.
“No,” Derek says, shaking his head, but, “Yeah,” his dad yells in.
“Busted!” Stiles says, faking cheerfulness rather well, if he does say so himself, but then Derek’s hand is sliding over Stiles’ where it’s resting on the recipe, and Stiles is just trying not to shake.
“No,” Derek says, mouth against Stiles’ ear, body against his back, and Stiles is shaking. “What about you?”
“That’s what you ask, that’s what you want to know?” Stiles asks, disbelieving.
“Yes,” Derek says quietly, hand tightening on Stiles’, and, “Yes,” Stiles spits out, “loads,” because it’s true.
He steps forwards to look at the cookery book through blurry eyes, brushing Derek away from him, and Derek lets him go.
*
The meatloaf turns out pretty well, and Stiles doubled all the quantities, so there’s even a little left on the plate.
His dad and Helen appear to have heard that little discussion with Derek, because they’re both stilted in a way they weren’t beforehand.
“So, Helen,” Stiles ventures at one point, “do you specialise in thoracic surgeries?”
“I’m an ICU nurse,” she says, over-bright, and that line of conversation dies a death.
Stiles can’t even blame his dad for the glare sent his way.
After dinner, Stiles’ dad walks Helen out to her car, keeping Stiles and Derek in their seats with a look that should have left them both with frostbite.
Stiles starts clearing the table.
Derek tries to help, but Stiles says, “Don’t,” and he stops, stands there awkwardly, hands hanging at his sides.
“Your mother’s was the last meatloaf I ate, I think,” Derek says, and Stiles almost drops the pile of dishes, puts them down carefully on the draining board. “She brought it down to the office after the house burned down. Hers was good too.”
So Stiles is already raw when he turns on Derek.
“You don’t get to come into my house and do that,” Stiles says, shaking again, but at least it’s anger this time. “You don’t get to do that to me.”
“I understand why you’re mad at me-“ Derek says, like he does, like there’s any way he could.
“So what, you want me to be part of the pack now?” Stiles asks. “You’ve had a look around and decided there are no better prospects? Is this a Marx Brothers thing? Nobody you’d want to turn would want to be turned, so you’re thinking, hey, Stilinski isn’t as much of a loser as I remembered, might as well throw him a bone?”
“No-“ Derek starts, moving towards Stiles, hands coming up, but Stiles backs away, and Derek stops dead, looking at him helplessly.
“Seriously, what is this?”
But Stiles knows, because Derek would have known, even if he never had cared to pay Stiles very much attention there’s no way he would’ve missed that, no way he could’ve, he’d always known, and Stiles feels sick with the realisation.
“You think if you-snap your fingers I’ll come running?” Stiles sneers. “Like I used to, like I-no. Not a chance in hell. I have better things than you to spend my time on.”
“Stiles, that isn’t what-“ Derek starts, taking a step forward, hand reaching out again.
Stiles has nowhere to go, and he can’t let Derek touch him, so he says, “The second my dad’s well enough I’m out of here. I’m never coming back,” and Derek drops his hand and turns and leaves through the back door.
*
“So,” his dad says, when he gets back in and finds Stiles clutching a cushion in front of a reality show set in a gym.
Stiles hasn’t had reason to go on a self-pity binge since the last time Derek made him feel like this, but this is great accompaniment, because Stiles also feels tragic about his exercise routine, given the buff state of most of the guys he ends up bringing home. If he had a vodka, and he wants one, he would be crying crocodile tears into it right now, and it has been years since he’s felt like this, and he hates Derek like burning for it, and also just on general principle.
“You and the Hale kid?”
“He isn’t a kid,” Stiles says sulkily. “He’s thirty-two, dad.”
“You’ll both always be kids to me,” his dad says, and when he sits down it’s less ginger than Stiles has seen yet.
Stiles feels some of the tension leave his body despite himself.
“Did you two-ah, did he ever-?”
“No, Dad, Derek never statutorily-raped me,” Stiles says petulantly, pretending he isn’t proving his dad’s point about eternal children with every word coming out of his mouth.
“Well, that’s a relief,” his dad says, gets up, pats Stiles on the shoulder, and leaves him to it.
*
And everything would have been fine, because it may have been a while since Stiles has felt like decking somebody-not since that time in college when he stopped taking his meds like a total loser, just to prove he could, and ended up dickpunching that smarmy TA and doing about a zillion hours of community service for it, but that got him back on track and into teaching, so it all worked out-but it isn’t like he’s actually going to do that to Derek.
For one thing he doubts Derek would collapse as satisfyingly as that TA had.
Except Scott comes over the next afternoon, while Stiles is mainlining Lifetime, because god knows he needs somebody’s mother to tell him what a fucking terrible idea it is to sleep with danger, and catches Stiles by surprise while he’s feeling weak, and that’s how Stiles ends up going over to Scott and Allison’s for a dinner at which Derek will also be present.
“I have had enough of dinner with Derek to last me a lifetime,” he says, on his way over in Scott’s car, because Scott still knows him too well.
“What is up with you two?” Scott asks.
“He’s a dick who hates me,” Stiles says. “Some things never change.”
“You-I don’t think Derek ever hated you,” Scott says, and he actually sounds surprised that Stiles would have thought so.
“He’s never given me cause to believe otherwise,” Stiles says, staring out the window to avoid Scott’s concerned gaze.
Possibly wanting to fuck him doesn’t count, and even that isn’t a sure thing; he probably thinks if he does Stiles he’ll just roll right over and offer his throat up, and fuck that.
“He-was looking forward to seeing you,” Scott says uncertainly. “We all were, but-“
“Right,” Stiles says.
“No, I mean-he likes you, dude. Even back then, he was more of an asshole I guess, but he was the only person who wasn’t surprised when you got yourself straightened out and-no offence.”
“None taken,” Stiles says, even though that’s a little bit of a lie.
“But a teacher, man, who would’ve thunk it?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, grinning. “Karma, probably.”
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“Why would I have come back?” Stiles says, and he feels bad about it, about the hurt look Scott flashes him, but it’s still true.
“We missed you when you left,” Scott says, a little aggressively. “We all did. You were pack, and you just left.”
“I wasn’t pack,” Stiles says, and he’s smiling, but it isn’t pleasant.
“You were,” Scott says, and he sounds sure, but Stiles knows better.
“Thanks, but Derek didn’t think so and he outvotes you.”
“Derek did,” Scott says.
“Derek told me he didn’t,” Stiles says.
Scott sounds bewildered when he says, “That’s-Allison’s pack. There’s no reason you wouldn’t be. You were.”
“If I wasn’t then I’m certainly not now.”
“You-you could come back,” Scott says urgently. “You could still-“
“No,” Stiles says, definite enough that Scott shuts up, and the ensuing silence is awkward enough that Stiles is thankful they’re close to home, because at least it’s brief.
*
Scott’s house is nicer than Stiles had been expecting. It’s off the beaten track a little, probably couldn’t afford anything closer to town, but it’s a sprawling three-story from the seventies, and they’ve built onto the back.
“Allison wanted a bigger kitchen,” Scott explains. “I don’t know why, because she never uses it. Don’t tell her I said that.”
When they get inside, going through the screen door around the back where the cars are stowed, Allison and Derek are standing in the beige expanse of kitchen-cum-living-room, and Allison is on the phone, ordering enough Italian to feed a platoon.
“It’ll be ready in twenty,” she tells Scott when she hangs up. “My dad’s coming over.”
“It’ll be good to see him,” Stiles lies, so he can soften her up for, “I was sorry about your mom.”
Stiles had been barrelling through his last few weeks at college when Allison’s mom had died, together enough that he actually made the effort to get in touch with Allison when he heard; he had called and left messages that weren’t returned, and eventually he had given up and sent a sympathy email that he received no response to, and now he watches pain twitch across her face before it shuts down.
“Thanks,” she says. “Do you mind if I go with Scott to pick up the food?”
“Uh,” Stiles says, because he does, but he doesn’t need to be told he fucked up mentioning her mom somehow, so he doesn’t really have a choice, says, “Yeah, get out of here, we’ll set the table,” and watches them walk out the door.
“Wait,” Stiles says belatedly. “They’re going to be back before her dad gets here, right?”
“It’s fine,” Derek says. “Chris is fine.”
“Whatever you say, crazy,” Stiles says. “I’ll just-“
He goes over to the kitchen and starts pulling out drawers. Cooking mitts and placemats, papers, assorted junk, saucepan lids. No cutlery. He swings around into Derek when he moves to try somewhere else.
“Here,” Derek says, reaching past Stiles to pull out a corner drawer filled with messily mixed silver. “Placemats?”
“Oh,” Stiles says, as Derek leans in to dig through the drawer for whatever it is he’s looking for, and Stiles breathes him in, a scent he’s never quite been able to identify, never found anywhere else, and he shivers in the heat Derek radiates, the heat that’s transferred to him as Derek brushes against him. “What?”
Derek stills against him, too warm and too close, and Stiles is struggling for breath, mouth open to taste Derek’s scent, and he lifts heavy eyes from Derek’s shoulders to his face just as Derek lets the cutlery fall back into the drawer with a clatter and steps back.
“Placemats?” Stiles says after a moment, watching Derek’s empty hands flex as he looks at Stiles. “They use the placemats?”
Derek nods, eyes fixed on Stiles, and says, “Why would you leave?”
“Why would I stay?” Stiles asks. He doesn’t go back to the drawer, but he sinks back against the counter, and Derek watches the movement.
His fingers fumble for the metal of a drawer-handle and tighten around it, needing an outlet for the jumpy, irritated arousal he can’t contain.
Derek’s head drops but his dark eyes stay intently on Stiles, and his mouth drops open seconds before he says, “Because I want you to,” and Stiles has to pretend he isn’t ablaze. The handle is cutting into his fingers.
“That’s a lie,” he says, missing breezy by a mile, and, “I have a life. It isn’t here.”
“I know,” Derek says, but he doesn’t move or look away.
Stiles wants to do something, but he can’t, can’t move and open the drawer to break the tension because if he does he’ll have to move right into Derek’s body and he can’t do that, doesn’t trust what would happen if he did.
And he hates that it might be that easy, that Derek might just have to say I want you and that’s all it would take, that’s all. He hates himself for that.
It’s a lie, anyway.
Stiles isn’t sure if he cares.
Derek wets his lips, and his voice is uncertain when he says, “But I want you to,” and that’s what does it, and Stiles leans forwards, clenched fingers dragging the drawer out slowly with the movement of his body, and when he’s close enough and getting closer he lifts his face to Derek, and that’s when Chris Argent walks in.
*
Dinner is incredibly awkward.
Stiles eats, knuckles white on his fork, and he thinks he manages to keep up a brittle pretence of normality, while Derek sits too close, totally too close even if Chris put the placemats out. And Derek keeps looking at him, and that totally shouldn’t be allowed, because it’s distracting and unfair, and Stiles can’t settle back into himself, into the sureties he’d been clinging to, because every time he lets himself look back he’s trapped by Derek’s glittering eyes. He wants to fidget out of his skin, but he doesn’t.
Derek and Chris seem to get along, which is weird, because when Stiles left it was trouble, trouble, trouble, a constant waltz along the edge, onlookers waiting for a false step to send the dancers stumbling over into war. Stiles had half-expected someone to shove.
And now here Chris is, sitting at a dinner table with his heavily pregnant daughter, her werewolf husband, and their alpha. He’s looking at an ultrasound printout, and his face is soft.
Stiles had asked what had happened when he’d come back for the wedding, but he hadn’t really gotten an answer. At the time he’d been shocked there was a wedding at all; he’d never been able to imagine Scott and Allison breaking up, but he’d never really imagined that things would settle down enough that they could get married, either. Now he wishes he’d tried harder to get an answer.
“Did you get the DVD?” Chris asks, and it’s also weird thinking of him as Chris, though not as weird as Derek calling his dad Fred.
Allison answers, and Stiles tries to look at her instead of letting Derek’s determined focus waylay him, but when he looks their way, Scott is staring at him. He glances at Derek, then back at Stiles, eyes sharpening, and Stiles can see the moment the penny drops.
Now is the time Scott chooses to pay attention to what’s going on with Stiles, obviously.
“Scott?” Allison is saying, but Scott is looking frantically between Derek and Stiles, says, “You-“ and lands wide, disbelieving eyes on Stiles.
Allison and Chris are looking at them now too, puzzled, but Allison doesn’t stay that way long, not when she can see that look on Derek’s face, the way he’s still refusing to look away from Stiles.
“Oh,” she says, and starts to say something else, but then she sees Stiles.
Stiles has learnt a lot of things he never thought he’d know, and one of them is that if you refuse to acknowledge something is happening, sometimes you can make it so it’s like it never did.
Allison’s face falls back into its smooth lines of placid incomprehension.
“Are you ready to watch the DVD?” she asks, probably not for the first time.
“Yeah,” Stiles says, rising, and refuses to notice when Derek rises with him, puts a hand on the back of Stiles’ chair.
Allison leads the way to the television, and the group shuffles after her. Derek sticks near, and Scott looks briefly conflicted, then grins, elbows Stiles and says, “I already made you a copy,” so at least Stiles has a distraction.
But then Derek sits on the arm of the couch beside Stiles, thigh resting against his arm, and nothing is that distracting.
“There’s a still that you can use as a screensaver,” Scott says pointedly. “I paid extra.” Derek’s thigh shifts very slightly, brushing against Stiles, and that’s how Stiles accidentally agrees to setting an ultrasound image as both his screensaver and desktop background.
Stiles twitches throughout the short, boring DVD, while Scott aahs and coos and generally makes an idiot of himself. Allison spends most of the time smiling at Scott’s reactions, and Chris watches the screen like he’s going to have to take a test on this later, and Stiles notices all this because he’s desperately trying not to notice anything about Derek, not the way his arm is resting along the back of the couch, sending his body curving towards Stiles, and definitely not the way he keeps getting closer, or the way it maybe just feels like he is.
Stiles knows Derek can detect every response, and he supposes he should be grateful Scott is too caught up in fantasies about his future child, but he doesn’t actually care.
When he can’t help it, when Allison is telling them all something about growth rates and how that’s expected to affect dates, he looks up at Derek and can’t look away.
And then Allison switches off the television and Scott says, “You’re totally going to watch that again before bed, right?” like that’s a thing people do with ultrasounds of babies that aren’t theirs, and then Derek pushes himself to his feet with a hand on Stiles’ thigh and says, “You need a ride home, right?”
And when Stiles says yes it doesn’t feel like a decision.
Scott looks mildly dubious but just forces the DVD on Stiles and waves them off amiably; Allison keeps smiling.
Chris is still on the couch, already rewatching like a weirdo, or a future-grandpa, Stiles supposes. He wouldn’t know.
He feels a moment of hesitation before he gets into Derek’s car, but it’s ridiculous, totally ridiculous, and then he busies himself with his seatbelt while Derek starts the engine, and then he has to look up at Derek, staring out at the road that’s speeding by. Derek’s mouth is tense, jaw firm, and Stiles would say there’s no reason for that but he doesn’t want to lie to himself about this. Derek looks over when Stiles doesn’t look away, and the car swerves. There’s an irritated tic in Derek’s jaw, and he returns his attention to driving, hands clenched on the wheel, foot sinking down on the accelerator.
Stiles keeps watching, because he can now, it’s okay, because he thinks-he thinks he might be able to do this; he might actually be okay.
It takes too long to get home.
“I’ll walk you in,” Derek says briefly, on his way out of the car, and Stiles barely manages to open his door before Derek gets there. Derek looks annoyed, but he keeps his feelings to himself, puts a hand on Stiles’ back and walks him to the porch, and Stiles is still deciding.
The lights are all out, even the one on the porch; Stiles’ dad must have gone to bed early. It’s a relief, to be able to think about this without worrying about anything else, without worrying that his dad is going to come out in the middle of everything and ask what’s taking him so long. Stiles takes the opportunity to turn and look at Derek, even though he feels like that’s all he’s been doing lately.
He doesn’t want to do it; he doesn’t want it to be all he’s doing; he wants more.
“That was strange,” Stiles says, and kicks himself for chickening out.
“What was strange?” Derek asks.
“Argent. The evening. Everything.”
“Oh,” Derek says. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Oh,” Stiles says. He licks his lips, but his mouth is so dry it hardly makes a difference. “What do you want to talk about?”
It’s too dark to really make out Derek’s features, but he can guess, he does, and his breath catches when Derek comes closer. Derek’s hair is blowing in the light breeze, and Stiles tries to watch that, tries not to imagine anything.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Derek says. “I just want you to understand.”
“Now who sounds like a kid,” Stiles says, trying for lightness, but Derek shakes his head, abruptly closer, and Stiles can feel Derek’s breath on his face when he speaks again.
“I don’t want you to go. I want things I-I want you.”
Derek’s face is too close to be anything but shadow, and still Stiles stares at it like seeing it will unlock all of Derek’s secrets, like it will unlock all of Stiles’; he stares at Derek, hidden and obscured, and listens to the wind-chimes ring so he can hear something other than his own pounding heart.
And maybe Stiles can believe those words and maybe he can’t; but he doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to believe them and doesn’t want to do anything about them, because he’s afraid, terrified, and then he thinks about not, about how he’ll feel if he doesn’t, if he lets this possibility go, and he kisses Derek.
Derek kisses him back.
Of course Derek kisses him back, but Derek kisses him back, and by the time Derek stumbles them across the porch and Stiles’ shoulders hit the front door, Stiles is biting at his tongue.
Derek makes a hungry noise and Stiles’ jaw drops a little, and then Derek licks and licks at his open mouth, and Stiles is glad Derek’s hands are underneath his jacket, fingers digging into his hips through his jeans, because Stiles is clawing at Derek’s back and he needs that to be okay.
He tears his mouth away from Derek’s so he can drop his head to Derek’s shoulder and pant.
Derek nuzzles-Derek nuzzles at Stiles’ face, trying to get to his mouth again, and Stiles has no choice but to lift his head so he can see Derek as he pulls him in, as he presses their bodies together so he can ride Derek’s thigh. It’s still too dark, and Derek is good, Derek is with him, Derek is moving his leg to give Stiles the perfect angle to rock against, but when Stiles throws back his head to groan he’s saying, “Key.”
“What?” Derek asks breathlessly, and Stiles curses, shoves him off, and digs through his pocket until he can brandish the key at Derek with a shaking hand.
Then he has to get it into the lock, but once he manages that it’s clear road up ahead, and he slaps the lightswitch as he twists around to pull Derek from the dim light of the street outside to where Stiles can see him.
Stiles pulls a little too hard, tripping back across the threshold, but that’s okay, because Derek is a werewolf, Derek is in control, and then they’re both crashing to the floor, Derek’s mouth on Stiles’ skin as soon as they’re down.
“Shh,” Stiles says, trying not to laugh, but Derek hears it in his voice anyway, and grins wildly up at him, bites down hard on his neck, nudges Stiles chin back to make him feel it.
Stiles isn’t laughing when he says, “Don’t wake my dad, don’t wake-“
Derek growls, and Stiles can feel the reverberation in his chest.
“Yeah, okay,” Stiles says, shuddering. “Door. Door, door-“
He has to kick it closed himself, and he curses at the noise.
Derek’s hands are under his shirt again, tugging at his jeans, and Stiles makes a weak noise when Derek gets them open, gets his hand on Stiles’ cock, hates himself for it.
“Light,” Derek says shortly.
“Huh?” Derek jerks his head to the ceiling, towards Stiles’ dad, maybe. “No,” Stiles says, “No, it’s fine, it’s fine, I want to see you, I want-“
And then he makes a noise he doesn’t recognise as Derek’s hand strips his cock, once, fast and too tight, and Stiles is trying to fuck up into it even as Derek tugs his jeans down.
“Yeah,” Stiles gasps, kicking the jeans away, trying to help, not knowing what he means. “Yeah, yeah, yeah-“
“Yes,” Derek says urgently, and Stiles’ jeans are still stuck around one ankle but Derek is already unbuttoning his own.
He sighs once his cock is free, and Stiles wants to look at it, wants to see, finally, red and huge and hard and waiting for him, but he’s caught up in the expression on Derek’s face, the relief and pleasure.
Derek’s eyes are closed, so Stiles can see as much as he likes, can watch and watch and watch Derek, never stop, but then his hands slide over Derek’s ass, over the rough denim, and yank Derek into him.
“Fuck,” Stiles bites out, low, but Derek’s eyes are open and black, and Derek’s hands are on Stiles’ hips again, flipping him over, and then Derek’s mouth is on Stiles’ ass.
“Fuck,” Stiles yelps, too loud, and Derek’s whispered, “Shhh,” vibrates through the soft skin that surrounds Stiles’ hole.
It doesn’t help, and Stiles is panting, head on his trembling hands, and he has to bite into a forearm to silence himself when Derek licks into him.
“Derek,” he forces out, chest heaving.
“Mmm,” Derek says, a long, satisfied sound, and Stiles can’t stop the whimper, can’t stop rocking back into Derek’s face, and Derek’s tongue turns into a lash, fast and slippery and deep, and Stiles can barely interpret what he’s feeling, the sensations Derek is forcing through him, but by the time Derek stops Stiles’ fingers have left bruises on his own arms.
Stiles finally shakes off his jeans as Derek moves up over him; the floor is hard under his knees and Derek’s jeans are rough against the underside of his thighs, but he can’t feel anything where Derek’s chest is resting against his back, because they both still have their jackets on. Stiles feels it when Derek’s hands pull his cheeks apart, though, when Derek’s cock nudges against him, and he’s scrambling for his discarded jeans before he can even get out a protest.
Derek’s face goes blank when Stiles slaps the condom into his hand, but he goes with it after a second, releases Stiles so he can tear the packet and roll it quickly down his cock, and then he stands and Stiles has a moment of discombobulation, looking at Derek, fully dressed, barely rumpled, glittering eyes and exposed cock the only things that betray what’s happening, equally incredible.
And then Derek lifts Stiles effortlessly, takes two long strides that bring Stiles up against the wall by the door, pushes until he’s right there, almost inside, and then lets Stiles go, lets gravity pull him down, almost where he needs to be, and Stiles slams his palm against the wall as Derek works his hips, works himself all the way inside, finally, finally.
Derek pulls Stiles back up, holds him there this time, so he can fuck into him, hard and jarring and perfect, and Stiles knows he’s groaning with every thrust even before Derek bites deeply into his mouth, snarls, “Quiet.”
And he tries, he does, but he can’t contain the muted stream of ohs that escape him, and Derek won’t stop, won’t stop fucking them out of him, so after a while Stiles stops trying, just coils his leg tighter around Derek’s waist, electrified by the sliver of skin his calf finds between Derek’s sagging jeans and his shirt, and if Derek is going to insist on biting him quiet every time it gets too much Stiles isn’t going to complain.
Derek’s hand against his ass is a shock, and when he clenches down fast and tight in reaction Derek shoves closer, shoves deeper and stays there, long thrusts turning to short, deep rocks. The blunt edge of one of the buttons on Derek’s jeans catches Stiles’ skin, little pulses of pain when Derek moves, and Stiles shivers out a moan and spreads his legs wider, and when Derek sinks in that fraction deeper he doesn’t do anything to silence the cry Stiles lets out because he’s releasing one of his own.
And Derek keeps moving, keeps going, keeps Stiles with him though he feels like he’s going to die, like he’s going to sweat to death through his clothes, and Stiles knows what he can take, exactly how much, and this is too-too-
Stiles bites down hard into the leather of Derek’s jacket, moves his teeth to Derek’s neck, and Derek’s hand isn’t even on his dick when he comes, just Derek’s cock inside him forcing it, making him, scraping him raw and perfect until he has to come or cry, and he thinks he might do both; but he comes and comes and comes until he blacks out, feels nothing for a moment, and then all he knows is his own breath rasping in his ears, seconds before he realises he can hear Derek’s too, and then Derek is letting his legs go, pulling out of him, pulling the condom off, cock messy and softening, and Stiles’ legs buckle when they hit the floor.
Derek catches him, and Stiles is still gasping, body shaking awake, back to life, echo of pleasure living in his cells growing with every breath he takes, and if it were possible, he would be looking at Derek with something approaching peacefulness.
But this reminds Stiles of the first time he’d had sex, when everything had been new and scary and brilliant. Derek has always been all of those things.
So he’s feeling somewhat jangled when he says, “That was nice,” in a final tone, and he watches Derek freeze up, and he didn’t even mean it, knows they’re going to do this again.
All Derek has to do to put himself back together is get his jeans done up, and he manages it quickly though it must be painful.
“My dad’s asleep,” Stiles says, and he means to tell Derek that’s why he has to go, but he stops himself before it comes out, not wanting to encourage Derek to believe that Stiles would want him to stay otherwise. “We didn’t wake him.”
“No,” Derek says, moving towards the door, and Stiles follows him, even though he can’t contain the flush that spreads at the realisation that he’s walking half-naked through his father’s house with a dude he’s just fucked, with Derek, perfect and contained, already untouchable again.
When the door is open and Derek is sliding out, Stiles says, “I’ll see you in the morning,” an offering he doesn’t quite understand, and Derek turns back, still close enough to kiss; for a minute Stiles thinks he’s going to, and hovers on the brink of stepping back, but Derek doesn’t move, just lets his lips curl up and shuts the door quietly behind himself.
*
In the morning, Stiles has an extremely important phone call to make.
“Why do you let me do these things to myself?” he groans down the line at Scott.
Scott doesn’t pretend to misunderstand.
“Went for it, huh? Didn’t figure-“
“What?” Stiles moans. “This is all your fault, and you know you could’ve stopped it. You need to stop holding out on me.”
“Didn’t figure you had the guts,” Scott says.
“That is-“ Stiles says. “-totally inaccurate and your opinion is irrelevant. You’re supposed to stop me when I do shit like this.”
“When have I ever done that?” Scott scoffs, which is a fair point. “And also, I don’t know if-“
“Opinion irrelevant.”
“Whatever,” Scott says, annoyed. “So was it-?”
“Was it what?” Stiles asks, because he should get some pleasure out of this conversation.
“Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
“It was,” Stiles tells him. “Derek is very accomplished in bed, what’ve you guys been getting up to during pack bonding time?”
“Gross!”
“And you already know this-you’re right, gross-but that strength is a godsend when you really just need somebody to put their back into it and-“
“Lalalalalalalah!” Scott sings.
“You are such a child.”
“Tell it to mine!” Scott says. “I mean, tell my kid I’m immature. Because I can’t be, because I’m having one!”
“Such science at work there,” Stiles says approvingly. “Quality stuff.”
“Yeah, my kid won’t need you to teach him science or logic,” Scott says. “By the time he’s able to speak, which Chris informs me will be early because he says so, he’ll be like-“ And here Scott starts speaking in a ridiculous babyvoice. “Uncle Stiles, your logic is both refutable and dumb, and I knew this before I was capable of processing thought, because the cornerstones of my universe are that my parents are the awesomest and that it sucks to be you, Uncle Stiles.”
“That’s Mister Stiles to your hellspawn,” Stiles says. “No favouritism.”
“Total favouritism,” Scott laughs. “What else is an uncle for?”
“Yeah,” Stiles admits, cheerful, though he feels a sudden pang with the realisation that Scott and Allison are both only children, and he is in fact the closest thing to an uncle this child will ever have, for whatever that will be worth.
Or maybe that isn’t true anymore, maybe Derek and Jackson will fill that role so well Scott’s child will never even notice Stiles’ absence.
“You know Mr. Goldstein is retiring, right? There’s a job at the school next year.”
“I have a job,” Stiles says tightly, and Scott hmms.
“Hey,” Scott says abruptly. “My mom wants you to come over for dinner.”
“Now?” Stiles asks.
“I can ask her how tonight is.”
“Because now would be good for me.”
“I’ll call you back about it,” Scott says, and hangs up.
“Rude,” Stiles says affectionately.
All of his friends at home would probably hang up on him too, but mostly they just text each other times and places to meet, so it hasn’t happened in a while.
He’s smiling at the phone, thinking about what he’s going to say to Derek when he calls him, and there’s a knock on the door.
He knows it’s Derek immediately, and his feet drag on his way to answer.
“Morning,” Derek says, holding up his brown paper bag like he thinks it’s the key to gaining access, and Stiles does take it from him before stepping back to let him in, so maybe he isn’t entirely wrong.
“Dad isn’t up yet,” Stiles says through his mouthful of bagel, trailing Derek into the kitchen. Derek is in his uniform, crisp and smelling of laundry detergent; Stiles is still in boxers and tshirt, although at least they’re not the ones he’d worn the night before.
“He texted to ask me to come over,” Derek says.
“Well.” Stiles stands corrected. “Dad isn’t down yet.”
“Maybe I should go up,” Derek says, taking a seat at the table and lifting his eyes to the ceiling. “It’s business.”
“No,” Stiles says, swallowing the last of his food, “you should stay here,” and shifts his body in a way he knows will attract Derek’s attention, just to see what will happen.
Derek’s eyes darken, fix on Stiles’ face, and his mouth opens, and when he leans forward his hands tighten on his knees.
Stiles thinks about taking the couple of steps necessary to join him at the table, shove him back in his chair, and crawl all over him, but when he hears his dad’s slow step coming down the stairs he leans back against the fridge instead.
Derek releases a breath that Stiles can hear, and Stiles isn’t reading into this, knows better than to let himself get too deep, but it’s a heady feeling anyway.
“Derek, Peterson is saying-“ his dad says as soon as he gets into the room, and then, “Stiles. I left my tablets upstairs, can you get them for me?”
“No,” Stiles says.
“Stiles,” his dad says sternly, so Stiles goes, because his dad is like that about official business, and Stiles jogs in place on the first step and then creeps back to listen outside the door, because Stiles is like that about official police business.
“-were the inside man,” his dad is saying.
“You know I wouldn’t do that,” Derek says quietly. He knows Stiles is listening, and is probably used to pulling the old phonebooth whirl and change around the sheriff to hide his werewolf advantages, but he won’t reveal Stiles because he knows Stiles would just drag it out of him later.
Stiles doesn’t want to hear it from Derek, though.
“I know,” his dad says. “But they’re going through official channels with this, Derek, and we need to find something to fire back at them. You don’t need me to tell you the kind of stain this can leave, son.”
“I’m confident it will come to nothing,” Derek says, and he sounds it, but Stiles can hear the anger boiling under.
“Peterson is also saying he can link you to Dale and Williams,” his dad says. “He was throwing around the word ‘cohorts’.”
“That was a long time ago,” Derek says, and his dad sighs. “I never mislead you about that, Fred.”
“I know. I was just hoping it wouldn’t come back to bite you on the ass.”
“These things will.”
“Yeah,” his dad says equably. “But you need to swing at this hard.”
“I will,” Derek promises.
“Well,” his dad says, as if the matter is settled, as if any of that meant anything to Stiles, and then all he can hear is his dad slurping coffee, so he’s about to start sneaking back to the stairs when his dad calls out, “Stiles. Need those tablets.”
Stiles winces. “On it!” he calls back, and darts upstairs to change.
When he gets back down, toast has appeared, Derek is still eating, and Stiles barely manages to grab a slice before it’s gone.
“Thanks,” his dad says wryly, taking his blue plastic box, one of those days-of-the-week pill thingamajigs. There are more tablets than Stiles remembers, and he wonders if they’re all due to the injury. The doctor reduced his dosage at his check-up, so that’s something, anyway.
“You’re welcome,” Stiles says cheerfully. “You okay if I head out with Derek?”
“Yes,” his dad says forbiddingly, looking at Stiles from under his eyebrows, and Stiles looks back blandly so he can avoid Derek’s eyes while he looks between Stiles and his father, bewildered.
“Fred-“ he starts, but, “No,” Stiles says, grabbing Derek’s arm and pulling him to his feet. “That is most definitely not happening. Let’s go.”
“But-“
“You’re giving me a ride into the office now,” Stiles says, taking pains to make it sound the least suggestive he can, because he is not that much of a douchebag.
“Okay,” Derek says, and then Stiles has to say, “And by ‘now’ I mean get moving,” and Derek finally gets his ass in gear.
*
next
He hasn’t had to give his dad a spongebath so far; in fact, he’s had to do less for his dad than he’d expected, and he’s getting worried he’s taking on more than he’s ready for at this stage in his recovery, so when he comes down one morning to his dad already at the kitchen table with a congealing fried egg pushed off to the side, mumbling curses at the laptop he’s tapping away at, he says, “When’s your next appointment?”
“Huh?” his dad asks, attention on the screen. “I do not know what Derek thinks he is doing giving Lampard authority over that, Lampard is a thrice-forsaken moron-“ The tapping gets more aggressive as he trails off into expletives, though Stiles can’t tell who they’re directed at.
“Your next check-up?” Stiles presses. “When is it? I’ll drive you in.”
“Yeah,” his dad says, eyes on the laptop but fingers still. “You’ll have to.”
“You’re doing better than they expected, I think,” Stiles offers. “Definitely better than Nurse Helen seemed to expect.”
His dad starts typing again, and this time the muttered imprecations are towards Helen. “Week and a half,” he volunteers once his spleen is vented sufficiently. “Helen’s going to come by and check on me before, though.”
Stiles’ eyebrows fly up. “Really.”
His dad glares, but refuses to acknowledge the implication. “Derek’s coming by before heading out.” He looks askance at Stiles, boxers and washed-thin tshirt apparently not meeting the dress code. “You want to run get changed before he arrives?”
“No,” Stiles says defiantly. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes.” His dad snorts. “He hasn’t come over much. I thought he was supposed to be keeping you in the loop all the time or whatever.”
“He is. He has a lot to take care of out at the prison. The marshals are giving us hell over this-“
There’s a knock on the door and Stiles’ dad starts to stand, but Stiles waves him back down, already on his way to the door.
“Hey, Derek,” he says, leaving the door wide as he goes back to the kitchen.
“Fred,” Derek says when he joins them.
“Can you not call him Sheriff?” Stiles asks. “That would be less weird.”
“Stiles,” his dad reprimands, but Stiles is busy digging through the fridge for more eggs.
“You were saying about the marshals?”
“Yeah.”
Stiles carefully cracks the first egg into the bowl and lifts his head to look at his dad. His attention would usually be on the food Stiles is preparing, but then a fried egg would never normally be left begging for love on his plate. Derek’s attention is on the food, watching the shell in Stiles’ hands. “What were you saying about the marshals?” Stiles prompts. “They’re blaming you for the escape?”
“Yeah,” his dad says.
“No,” Derek says.
“Derek.”
“They’re blaming me.”
Stiles cracks another egg while he thinks about Derek filling the sort of position that would mean he’d be in line for that kind of blame. He cracks two more in quick succession and watches Derek’s eyes track the movement of his hands.
“They’re blaming Derek,” his dad admits.
“You took care of it, though, right?” Stiles asks, ignoring the part of him that’s shying away from knowing anything about that one time a couple of weeks ago his father almost died. “They’re dead, you killed them.”
“Derek,” his dad says again, and Stiles realises that’s his father’s attempt at an explanation. “But we can’t talk about it with you, you know that. You shouldn’t even be asking,” he says, while Stiles tries not to watch Derek’s face, eyes oddly intent on his own hands on the table. “Though you always did, don’t know why I expected that to be any different.”
“No,” Stiles says, surprised at the sudden shock of pleasure he feels when Derek’s eyes lift to meet his. They’re bluer than he remembers, and the feeling doesn’t dissipate immediately, and he isn’t sure what he means when he says, “I don’t know why either.”
Derek doesn’t drop his gaze, so Stiles offers, “Scrambled eggs?” as an out. “I know you’re hungry.”
He’s been watching the food like a hawk.
“Sure,” Derek says. “I had breakfast already, but I could eat.”
He finishes the food, but Stiles has to make him.
*
It hadn’t been a new thing when Stiles decided to talk to Derek about it.
It had been an old thing even at that point, though not as old a thing as it would become, and Stiles knew better, he did, or he should have, with all the snarling and snapping and shoving at him Derek did, but that hadn’t been it, that hadn’t been all there was, and he built on everything, every time he thought he saw a softening, every time he thought he saw Derek looking back.
So the day before he was due to move halfway across the country he sought Derek out, because he had do it, didn’t ever want to regret this, not when there was a possibility, and if it turned out there wasn’t, well, he wasn’t coming home until Christmas, so he wouldn’t have to deal with it for months.
Derek was on the phone when he showed up, biting out terse apologies to somebody, which was weird, because Stiles wasn’t sure he’d seen Derek offer an apology before, even an obviously insincere one, and when Derek ended the conversation and turned to him his face was set in a snarl.
“Why would you do that?” he grit out, furious, and Stiles watched warily for signs of impending change, but Derek seemed to be totally in control.
Also, there were a lot of things Stiles potentially might have done, but when Stiles started to question which of them Derek was objecting to, Derek said, “You have no right to interfere in our business with the Argents.”
“I-“ Stiles said, “-didn’t? Not really, I just-“
“I’m not actually sure what you did,” Derek said evenly. “But whatever it was fucked up the last two months of concessions and endless, useless negotiations, and I don’t actually blame you for that, because I understand how easy it would be to do, I do understand how batshit crazy Argent actually is, but what I do not understand is why you were talking to her to begin with.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You had no right,” Derek snarled at him, and it was somehow worse coming from a human face. “You have no place here, and you had no right to interfere in pack business.”
“I-“
“Overstepped,” Derek said. “This has nothing to do with you. You aren’t pack, and you have no right pretending.”
“I’m-I know I’m not pack,” Stiles said, heart beating frantically. “But-“
“No,” Derek said. “There is no ‘but’. I don’t know why you even hang around all the time when you’re not part of us, I don’t understand why you insist on doing that-“ He cut himself off abruptly, but his face when he looked at Stiles was just as disgusted.
“Scott-“ he said, like it was a talisman, a passkey, but Derek was shaking his head.
“Scott knows you aren’t one of us.” His shoulders slumped, and his face was strained and determined. “You should just go,” he said slowly. “You don’t belong with us, everyone knows it, and you should stop acting like you do. Leave, and try not to screw anything else up for me on your way out.”
Stiles left the Hale place then, stumbling a little on his way out, because he had pictured it going badly, he had, but not quite that badly.
He missed Christmas that year.
*
Stiles doesn’t see Derek for two days after that, and the couple of times he asks whoever’s manning the front desk at the office about it, he just gets a terse, “Prison,” and a harassed look.
Late in the afternoon on the third day, Derek shows up in Petra’s office. He brings a muffin. Blueberry.
“It’s all they had,” he says pre-emptively.
“Thanks,” Stiles says anyway, and then Derek watches him eat it, which is a little weird.
“Didn’t get one for yourself?” he asks, catching falling crumbs in his palm and licking them off, and it takes Derek a minute to respond.
“Huh?” he says distantly. “I wasn’t hungry. I don’t know why you always think I’m hungry.”
“Because you are,” Stiles scoffs. “Obviously. And you don’t even need to be hungry to eat a muffin, that’s like saying ice-cream is food.”
Derek opens his mouth to argue the point, so Stiles jumps in with, “Wrong!” and triumphantly stuffs the last of the muffin into his mouth.
Derek watches him chew and swallow, watches Stiles’ tongue when it darts out to gather up the last of the crumbs lingering around his mouth.
“Oh,” Stiles says blankly, and Derek lifts dark eyes from his mouth to meet his gaze. “Oh.”
Shit.
“What-“ he squeaks, as Derek’s face shutters.
“I have to-“ Derek says, backing towards the door. “-get to a meeting.”
Stiles leans forwards, thinking about saying something, stopping him, but he didn’t see what he thought, thought he’d seen before, when Derek hadn’t felt a thing for him if you didn’t count resentment of his presence, and Stiles drops his reaching hand and watches Derek’s back vanish through the door.
And if it is true, he thinks, feeling the unwelcome anger build in his gut, a constant presence lately, if it is true, Stiles isn’t going to leave this time.
*
Stiles is still angry when he goes out to ask Mary if Susie Zafist had really married a man who also had the surname of Zafist, and if so, how the hell the Zafists had kept their freakiness under the radar for so long, so he isn’t really paying attention to anything when he bumps into someone in the corridor.
“Sorry,” he says, blinking at the stranger in surprise.
“No harm done,” the man says.
They don’t usually let strangers wander around the building unescorted. “Do you need any help, Mister-“
“Marshal Mitchell,” the man says, and Stiles has to choke down his snicker. He thinks he does a pretty good job, but maybe Marshal Mitchell is used to the reaction, because he’s glaring at Stiles’ lips, and they’re barely even twitching. “I was told Hale would be here.”
“No, he isn’t,” Stiles says, and the marshal pushes past him, pushes the door open and sticks his head in to check.
“Hey! You’re not allowed in there,” Stiles says. And Mitchell probably is, but now Stiles doesn’t want him in there. He grabs the handle from Mitchell’s hand and slams the door shut, almost hitting Mitchell’s nose.
Mitchell glares at him, apparently blaming Stiles for his nose, his name, and Derek’s absence.
“Where’s Hale,” Mitchell raps out, eyes darting around, like he’s expecting to catch Derek scurrying past, trying to escape Mitchell’s notice through strategic placement of a file over his face or something. Stiles wouldn’t blame him.
“Probably in his office,” Stiles offers. “I’ll show you where-“
“I know my way around,” Mitchell says, taking off in the direction of Derek’s office.
“I’ll still show you,” Stiles says, chasing after him and then outpacing him, just making it to Derek’s door first and throwing it open triumphantly.
“Derek!” he says, basking in Mitchell’s outraged scowl.
Derek has a pencil stuck behind his ear, and a pen is hanging out of his mouth, cap between his white teeth. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, and his hair is messy, like he’s been running his hands through it. He looks tired and stressed, and his voice is strained when he says, “Stiles. Marshal Mitchell.”
Mitchell bristles, although the greeting was perfectly respectful.
“I need to speak to you about your movements on the night of-“
“Where’s Peterson?” Derek asks.
“Marshal Peterson is busy elsewhere,” Mitchell says defensively, and opens his mouth to start in again when Derek mutters, “Great,” and heaves himself out of his chair, coming slowly towards the door.
“I’ve answered your questions already, and I don’t intend to go through this with you again, unless you’re here in an official capacity this time? No?” Mitchell’s face is pale and anxious and seething. “I’m not willing to speak to you until you are.” Derek leans in close to Stiles, reaching around his body to grab the door. “And I don’t see that happening.”
Derek swings the door shut; Stiles has to lean out of the way, into Derek’s body, and he can smell Derek’s aftershave on his shirt, nose brushing the open neck. Derek places a steadying hand on Stiles’ back, and the last thing Stiles sees before the door closes is the thwarted fury in Mitchell’s face.
Derek scowls at the expanse of wood for a second, palm warm and comfortable on the small of Stiles’ back, and then he meets Stiles’ skittish eyes and pulls his hand away as if it’s been burned, face darkening.
“You should go,” he says, and Stiles nods mechanically, knowing that’s true.
He fumbles the door open, and glances warily around, but Mitchell is already gone, so he feels safe slipping out.
“See you-“ he starts, but when he turns back around, Derek’s door is already closed.
*
The next time Stiles sees Derek is almost a week later, and Stiles knows Derek is busy, but Stiles has seen people gaping after him as his uniform vanishes around a corner as Stiles enters the room, so Stiles knows Derek is avoiding him.
Stiles won’t say he doesn’t feel a vindictive satisfaction at that; he doesn’t even feel guilty about it.
Stiles gets back early from Jackson and Lydia’s on a Saturday afternoon, and when he gets inside Derek and his father are in the sitting room with Helen.
“-too much on your plate as it is,” Helen is saying, extending his father’s arm and squinting at something in a measuring fashion, though what she could be squinting at Stiles has no idea.
“I’m fine, Fred,” Derek says quietly. “I don’t need you to do this.”
“I’m not saying you do,” his dad says, irritated. “Just that you do, and it’s nothing against you.”
“No,” Derek says, and when his father looks like arguing more, he says, “Stiles.”
“What does Stiles have to do with anything, unless it’s to do with how you haven’t been over here-oh, Stiles!”
“Hey,” Stiles says, and he feels awkward as he comes into the room, but he doesn’t let it show.
“Good to see you again,” Helen says briskly.
“You too. How’s he doing?”
Helen folds her arms, unwilling to give too much away. “Could be better,” she says. “But I’m pleased enough.”
“Good,” Stiles says, a relieved breath shaking out of him, though he manages to hide it from the humans in the room. “That’s good.”
“It’s acceptable,” she says firmly. “I expect much better progress the next time I’m here.”
His dad’s head comes up to watch as she grabs her things, but he doesn’t say anything, so Stiles says, “Oh, don’t go. I was just about to start dinner.”
“I couldn’t impose,” she demurs.
“We have so much stuff for meatloaf, you’d really be doing me a favour,” Stiles says. “My dad doesn’t-“ He stops the thought before it comes out, but his dad’s face goes sour anyway. “My dad’s still used to the way I ate when I was a teenager, I think,” Stiles says. “He still buys so much, and we can never get through it all.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to break up the party,” she says, looking to Derek for confirmation, but Derek says, “I’m busy right now, but I-“
“But he’ll always make an exception for Stiles’ meatloaf,” Stiles’ dad says, although actually, he doesn’t much like meatloaf at all. Neither does Stiles; he has no idea why he said meatloaf, but it seemed like something guests might want to stay for. Stiles doesn’t really cook for guests much. Mostly he orders takeout. He’s cooked more since he got home than he has in the past year.
“I will,” Derek says, and now Stiles has to figure out how to make a meatloaf that is both big enough to feed an army and tastes like it deserves having an exception made for it. Great.
Stiles isn’t quite sure how he and Derek end up alone in the kitchen together, because Derek looks uncomfortable as all get-out, and Stiles thinks it would be better for everyone if he could manage to pretend Derek didn’t exist. It probably has something to do with how his father was glaring at Derek when Stiles left the room and has somehow since managed to gently corner Helen out by the yucca.
“That’s new, right?” Stiles asks, gesturing in their direction with his eyes; there’s a wall between them, but he can hear their conversation so he can’t be more forthcoming.
“Yeah,” Derek says. “Far as I know.”
“You’d know.”
“Maybe.”
They leave it at that for a while, but eventually the lack of conversation makes Stiles’ shoulders twitch, and he says, “So,” but then the only follow-up he can come up with is, “How’ve you been.”
He doesn’t want to know.
“Fine,” Derek says. “Nothing much.”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, and then, though Derek hasn’t asked and won’t care, “Same here.”
“Really?” Derek asks, sounding a little surprised. “Thought you’d be living the dream, out there on your own.”
“Well, obviously,” Stiles says, and shushes Derek for a minute so he can concentrate on the cookbook open on the counter in front of him.
“I haven’t had meatloaf in years,” Derek says, wistfulness strong in his voice.
“Really,” Stiles says, “Would’ve thought you’d have people lining up around the block to make you a nice home-cooked meal.”
It comes out snide, which is stupid, because he never had confessed anything to Derek, and although Derek should have known, same way he’d know if Helen had been around Stiles’ dad, Derek had never paid that much attention to Stiles. Stiles would bet real money he still has no idea; there’s no reason to give him one.
“Next door,” his dad calls in from the sitting room.
“No,” Derek says.
“Jessica Torrance?” Stiles asks.
“No,” Derek says, shaking his head, but, “Yeah,” his dad yells in.
“Busted!” Stiles says, faking cheerfulness rather well, if he does say so himself, but then Derek’s hand is sliding over Stiles’ where it’s resting on the recipe, and Stiles is just trying not to shake.
“No,” Derek says, mouth against Stiles’ ear, body against his back, and Stiles is shaking. “What about you?”
“That’s what you ask, that’s what you want to know?” Stiles asks, disbelieving.
“Yes,” Derek says quietly, hand tightening on Stiles’, and, “Yes,” Stiles spits out, “loads,” because it’s true.
He steps forwards to look at the cookery book through blurry eyes, brushing Derek away from him, and Derek lets him go.
*
The meatloaf turns out pretty well, and Stiles doubled all the quantities, so there’s even a little left on the plate.
His dad and Helen appear to have heard that little discussion with Derek, because they’re both stilted in a way they weren’t beforehand.
“So, Helen,” Stiles ventures at one point, “do you specialise in thoracic surgeries?”
“I’m an ICU nurse,” she says, over-bright, and that line of conversation dies a death.
Stiles can’t even blame his dad for the glare sent his way.
After dinner, Stiles’ dad walks Helen out to her car, keeping Stiles and Derek in their seats with a look that should have left them both with frostbite.
Stiles starts clearing the table.
Derek tries to help, but Stiles says, “Don’t,” and he stops, stands there awkwardly, hands hanging at his sides.
“Your mother’s was the last meatloaf I ate, I think,” Derek says, and Stiles almost drops the pile of dishes, puts them down carefully on the draining board. “She brought it down to the office after the house burned down. Hers was good too.”
So Stiles is already raw when he turns on Derek.
“You don’t get to come into my house and do that,” Stiles says, shaking again, but at least it’s anger this time. “You don’t get to do that to me.”
“I understand why you’re mad at me-“ Derek says, like he does, like there’s any way he could.
“So what, you want me to be part of the pack now?” Stiles asks. “You’ve had a look around and decided there are no better prospects? Is this a Marx Brothers thing? Nobody you’d want to turn would want to be turned, so you’re thinking, hey, Stilinski isn’t as much of a loser as I remembered, might as well throw him a bone?”
“No-“ Derek starts, moving towards Stiles, hands coming up, but Stiles backs away, and Derek stops dead, looking at him helplessly.
“Seriously, what is this?”
But Stiles knows, because Derek would have known, even if he never had cared to pay Stiles very much attention there’s no way he would’ve missed that, no way he could’ve, he’d always known, and Stiles feels sick with the realisation.
“You think if you-snap your fingers I’ll come running?” Stiles sneers. “Like I used to, like I-no. Not a chance in hell. I have better things than you to spend my time on.”
“Stiles, that isn’t what-“ Derek starts, taking a step forward, hand reaching out again.
Stiles has nowhere to go, and he can’t let Derek touch him, so he says, “The second my dad’s well enough I’m out of here. I’m never coming back,” and Derek drops his hand and turns and leaves through the back door.
*
“So,” his dad says, when he gets back in and finds Stiles clutching a cushion in front of a reality show set in a gym.
Stiles hasn’t had reason to go on a self-pity binge since the last time Derek made him feel like this, but this is great accompaniment, because Stiles also feels tragic about his exercise routine, given the buff state of most of the guys he ends up bringing home. If he had a vodka, and he wants one, he would be crying crocodile tears into it right now, and it has been years since he’s felt like this, and he hates Derek like burning for it, and also just on general principle.
“You and the Hale kid?”
“He isn’t a kid,” Stiles says sulkily. “He’s thirty-two, dad.”
“You’ll both always be kids to me,” his dad says, and when he sits down it’s less ginger than Stiles has seen yet.
Stiles feels some of the tension leave his body despite himself.
“Did you two-ah, did he ever-?”
“No, Dad, Derek never statutorily-raped me,” Stiles says petulantly, pretending he isn’t proving his dad’s point about eternal children with every word coming out of his mouth.
“Well, that’s a relief,” his dad says, gets up, pats Stiles on the shoulder, and leaves him to it.
*
And everything would have been fine, because it may have been a while since Stiles has felt like decking somebody-not since that time in college when he stopped taking his meds like a total loser, just to prove he could, and ended up dickpunching that smarmy TA and doing about a zillion hours of community service for it, but that got him back on track and into teaching, so it all worked out-but it isn’t like he’s actually going to do that to Derek.
For one thing he doubts Derek would collapse as satisfyingly as that TA had.
Except Scott comes over the next afternoon, while Stiles is mainlining Lifetime, because god knows he needs somebody’s mother to tell him what a fucking terrible idea it is to sleep with danger, and catches Stiles by surprise while he’s feeling weak, and that’s how Stiles ends up going over to Scott and Allison’s for a dinner at which Derek will also be present.
“I have had enough of dinner with Derek to last me a lifetime,” he says, on his way over in Scott’s car, because Scott still knows him too well.
“What is up with you two?” Scott asks.
“He’s a dick who hates me,” Stiles says. “Some things never change.”
“You-I don’t think Derek ever hated you,” Scott says, and he actually sounds surprised that Stiles would have thought so.
“He’s never given me cause to believe otherwise,” Stiles says, staring out the window to avoid Scott’s concerned gaze.
Possibly wanting to fuck him doesn’t count, and even that isn’t a sure thing; he probably thinks if he does Stiles he’ll just roll right over and offer his throat up, and fuck that.
“He-was looking forward to seeing you,” Scott says uncertainly. “We all were, but-“
“Right,” Stiles says.
“No, I mean-he likes you, dude. Even back then, he was more of an asshole I guess, but he was the only person who wasn’t surprised when you got yourself straightened out and-no offence.”
“None taken,” Stiles says, even though that’s a little bit of a lie.
“But a teacher, man, who would’ve thunk it?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, grinning. “Karma, probably.”
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“Why would I have come back?” Stiles says, and he feels bad about it, about the hurt look Scott flashes him, but it’s still true.
“We missed you when you left,” Scott says, a little aggressively. “We all did. You were pack, and you just left.”
“I wasn’t pack,” Stiles says, and he’s smiling, but it isn’t pleasant.
“You were,” Scott says, and he sounds sure, but Stiles knows better.
“Thanks, but Derek didn’t think so and he outvotes you.”
“Derek did,” Scott says.
“Derek told me he didn’t,” Stiles says.
Scott sounds bewildered when he says, “That’s-Allison’s pack. There’s no reason you wouldn’t be. You were.”
“If I wasn’t then I’m certainly not now.”
“You-you could come back,” Scott says urgently. “You could still-“
“No,” Stiles says, definite enough that Scott shuts up, and the ensuing silence is awkward enough that Stiles is thankful they’re close to home, because at least it’s brief.
*
Scott’s house is nicer than Stiles had been expecting. It’s off the beaten track a little, probably couldn’t afford anything closer to town, but it’s a sprawling three-story from the seventies, and they’ve built onto the back.
“Allison wanted a bigger kitchen,” Scott explains. “I don’t know why, because she never uses it. Don’t tell her I said that.”
When they get inside, going through the screen door around the back where the cars are stowed, Allison and Derek are standing in the beige expanse of kitchen-cum-living-room, and Allison is on the phone, ordering enough Italian to feed a platoon.
“It’ll be ready in twenty,” she tells Scott when she hangs up. “My dad’s coming over.”
“It’ll be good to see him,” Stiles lies, so he can soften her up for, “I was sorry about your mom.”
Stiles had been barrelling through his last few weeks at college when Allison’s mom had died, together enough that he actually made the effort to get in touch with Allison when he heard; he had called and left messages that weren’t returned, and eventually he had given up and sent a sympathy email that he received no response to, and now he watches pain twitch across her face before it shuts down.
“Thanks,” she says. “Do you mind if I go with Scott to pick up the food?”
“Uh,” Stiles says, because he does, but he doesn’t need to be told he fucked up mentioning her mom somehow, so he doesn’t really have a choice, says, “Yeah, get out of here, we’ll set the table,” and watches them walk out the door.
“Wait,” Stiles says belatedly. “They’re going to be back before her dad gets here, right?”
“It’s fine,” Derek says. “Chris is fine.”
“Whatever you say, crazy,” Stiles says. “I’ll just-“
He goes over to the kitchen and starts pulling out drawers. Cooking mitts and placemats, papers, assorted junk, saucepan lids. No cutlery. He swings around into Derek when he moves to try somewhere else.
“Here,” Derek says, reaching past Stiles to pull out a corner drawer filled with messily mixed silver. “Placemats?”
“Oh,” Stiles says, as Derek leans in to dig through the drawer for whatever it is he’s looking for, and Stiles breathes him in, a scent he’s never quite been able to identify, never found anywhere else, and he shivers in the heat Derek radiates, the heat that’s transferred to him as Derek brushes against him. “What?”
Derek stills against him, too warm and too close, and Stiles is struggling for breath, mouth open to taste Derek’s scent, and he lifts heavy eyes from Derek’s shoulders to his face just as Derek lets the cutlery fall back into the drawer with a clatter and steps back.
“Placemats?” Stiles says after a moment, watching Derek’s empty hands flex as he looks at Stiles. “They use the placemats?”
Derek nods, eyes fixed on Stiles, and says, “Why would you leave?”
“Why would I stay?” Stiles asks. He doesn’t go back to the drawer, but he sinks back against the counter, and Derek watches the movement.
His fingers fumble for the metal of a drawer-handle and tighten around it, needing an outlet for the jumpy, irritated arousal he can’t contain.
Derek’s head drops but his dark eyes stay intently on Stiles, and his mouth drops open seconds before he says, “Because I want you to,” and Stiles has to pretend he isn’t ablaze. The handle is cutting into his fingers.
“That’s a lie,” he says, missing breezy by a mile, and, “I have a life. It isn’t here.”
“I know,” Derek says, but he doesn’t move or look away.
Stiles wants to do something, but he can’t, can’t move and open the drawer to break the tension because if he does he’ll have to move right into Derek’s body and he can’t do that, doesn’t trust what would happen if he did.
And he hates that it might be that easy, that Derek might just have to say I want you and that’s all it would take, that’s all. He hates himself for that.
It’s a lie, anyway.
Stiles isn’t sure if he cares.
Derek wets his lips, and his voice is uncertain when he says, “But I want you to,” and that’s what does it, and Stiles leans forwards, clenched fingers dragging the drawer out slowly with the movement of his body, and when he’s close enough and getting closer he lifts his face to Derek, and that’s when Chris Argent walks in.
*
Dinner is incredibly awkward.
Stiles eats, knuckles white on his fork, and he thinks he manages to keep up a brittle pretence of normality, while Derek sits too close, totally too close even if Chris put the placemats out. And Derek keeps looking at him, and that totally shouldn’t be allowed, because it’s distracting and unfair, and Stiles can’t settle back into himself, into the sureties he’d been clinging to, because every time he lets himself look back he’s trapped by Derek’s glittering eyes. He wants to fidget out of his skin, but he doesn’t.
Derek and Chris seem to get along, which is weird, because when Stiles left it was trouble, trouble, trouble, a constant waltz along the edge, onlookers waiting for a false step to send the dancers stumbling over into war. Stiles had half-expected someone to shove.
And now here Chris is, sitting at a dinner table with his heavily pregnant daughter, her werewolf husband, and their alpha. He’s looking at an ultrasound printout, and his face is soft.
Stiles had asked what had happened when he’d come back for the wedding, but he hadn’t really gotten an answer. At the time he’d been shocked there was a wedding at all; he’d never been able to imagine Scott and Allison breaking up, but he’d never really imagined that things would settle down enough that they could get married, either. Now he wishes he’d tried harder to get an answer.
“Did you get the DVD?” Chris asks, and it’s also weird thinking of him as Chris, though not as weird as Derek calling his dad Fred.
Allison answers, and Stiles tries to look at her instead of letting Derek’s determined focus waylay him, but when he looks their way, Scott is staring at him. He glances at Derek, then back at Stiles, eyes sharpening, and Stiles can see the moment the penny drops.
Now is the time Scott chooses to pay attention to what’s going on with Stiles, obviously.
“Scott?” Allison is saying, but Scott is looking frantically between Derek and Stiles, says, “You-“ and lands wide, disbelieving eyes on Stiles.
Allison and Chris are looking at them now too, puzzled, but Allison doesn’t stay that way long, not when she can see that look on Derek’s face, the way he’s still refusing to look away from Stiles.
“Oh,” she says, and starts to say something else, but then she sees Stiles.
Stiles has learnt a lot of things he never thought he’d know, and one of them is that if you refuse to acknowledge something is happening, sometimes you can make it so it’s like it never did.
Allison’s face falls back into its smooth lines of placid incomprehension.
“Are you ready to watch the DVD?” she asks, probably not for the first time.
“Yeah,” Stiles says, rising, and refuses to notice when Derek rises with him, puts a hand on the back of Stiles’ chair.
Allison leads the way to the television, and the group shuffles after her. Derek sticks near, and Scott looks briefly conflicted, then grins, elbows Stiles and says, “I already made you a copy,” so at least Stiles has a distraction.
But then Derek sits on the arm of the couch beside Stiles, thigh resting against his arm, and nothing is that distracting.
“There’s a still that you can use as a screensaver,” Scott says pointedly. “I paid extra.” Derek’s thigh shifts very slightly, brushing against Stiles, and that’s how Stiles accidentally agrees to setting an ultrasound image as both his screensaver and desktop background.
Stiles twitches throughout the short, boring DVD, while Scott aahs and coos and generally makes an idiot of himself. Allison spends most of the time smiling at Scott’s reactions, and Chris watches the screen like he’s going to have to take a test on this later, and Stiles notices all this because he’s desperately trying not to notice anything about Derek, not the way his arm is resting along the back of the couch, sending his body curving towards Stiles, and definitely not the way he keeps getting closer, or the way it maybe just feels like he is.
Stiles knows Derek can detect every response, and he supposes he should be grateful Scott is too caught up in fantasies about his future child, but he doesn’t actually care.
When he can’t help it, when Allison is telling them all something about growth rates and how that’s expected to affect dates, he looks up at Derek and can’t look away.
And then Allison switches off the television and Scott says, “You’re totally going to watch that again before bed, right?” like that’s a thing people do with ultrasounds of babies that aren’t theirs, and then Derek pushes himself to his feet with a hand on Stiles’ thigh and says, “You need a ride home, right?”
And when Stiles says yes it doesn’t feel like a decision.
Scott looks mildly dubious but just forces the DVD on Stiles and waves them off amiably; Allison keeps smiling.
Chris is still on the couch, already rewatching like a weirdo, or a future-grandpa, Stiles supposes. He wouldn’t know.
He feels a moment of hesitation before he gets into Derek’s car, but it’s ridiculous, totally ridiculous, and then he busies himself with his seatbelt while Derek starts the engine, and then he has to look up at Derek, staring out at the road that’s speeding by. Derek’s mouth is tense, jaw firm, and Stiles would say there’s no reason for that but he doesn’t want to lie to himself about this. Derek looks over when Stiles doesn’t look away, and the car swerves. There’s an irritated tic in Derek’s jaw, and he returns his attention to driving, hands clenched on the wheel, foot sinking down on the accelerator.
Stiles keeps watching, because he can now, it’s okay, because he thinks-he thinks he might be able to do this; he might actually be okay.
It takes too long to get home.
“I’ll walk you in,” Derek says briefly, on his way out of the car, and Stiles barely manages to open his door before Derek gets there. Derek looks annoyed, but he keeps his feelings to himself, puts a hand on Stiles’ back and walks him to the porch, and Stiles is still deciding.
The lights are all out, even the one on the porch; Stiles’ dad must have gone to bed early. It’s a relief, to be able to think about this without worrying about anything else, without worrying that his dad is going to come out in the middle of everything and ask what’s taking him so long. Stiles takes the opportunity to turn and look at Derek, even though he feels like that’s all he’s been doing lately.
He doesn’t want to do it; he doesn’t want it to be all he’s doing; he wants more.
“That was strange,” Stiles says, and kicks himself for chickening out.
“What was strange?” Derek asks.
“Argent. The evening. Everything.”
“Oh,” Derek says. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Oh,” Stiles says. He licks his lips, but his mouth is so dry it hardly makes a difference. “What do you want to talk about?”
It’s too dark to really make out Derek’s features, but he can guess, he does, and his breath catches when Derek comes closer. Derek’s hair is blowing in the light breeze, and Stiles tries to watch that, tries not to imagine anything.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Derek says. “I just want you to understand.”
“Now who sounds like a kid,” Stiles says, trying for lightness, but Derek shakes his head, abruptly closer, and Stiles can feel Derek’s breath on his face when he speaks again.
“I don’t want you to go. I want things I-I want you.”
Derek’s face is too close to be anything but shadow, and still Stiles stares at it like seeing it will unlock all of Derek’s secrets, like it will unlock all of Stiles’; he stares at Derek, hidden and obscured, and listens to the wind-chimes ring so he can hear something other than his own pounding heart.
And maybe Stiles can believe those words and maybe he can’t; but he doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to believe them and doesn’t want to do anything about them, because he’s afraid, terrified, and then he thinks about not, about how he’ll feel if he doesn’t, if he lets this possibility go, and he kisses Derek.
Derek kisses him back.
Of course Derek kisses him back, but Derek kisses him back, and by the time Derek stumbles them across the porch and Stiles’ shoulders hit the front door, Stiles is biting at his tongue.
Derek makes a hungry noise and Stiles’ jaw drops a little, and then Derek licks and licks at his open mouth, and Stiles is glad Derek’s hands are underneath his jacket, fingers digging into his hips through his jeans, because Stiles is clawing at Derek’s back and he needs that to be okay.
He tears his mouth away from Derek’s so he can drop his head to Derek’s shoulder and pant.
Derek nuzzles-Derek nuzzles at Stiles’ face, trying to get to his mouth again, and Stiles has no choice but to lift his head so he can see Derek as he pulls him in, as he presses their bodies together so he can ride Derek’s thigh. It’s still too dark, and Derek is good, Derek is with him, Derek is moving his leg to give Stiles the perfect angle to rock against, but when Stiles throws back his head to groan he’s saying, “Key.”
“What?” Derek asks breathlessly, and Stiles curses, shoves him off, and digs through his pocket until he can brandish the key at Derek with a shaking hand.
Then he has to get it into the lock, but once he manages that it’s clear road up ahead, and he slaps the lightswitch as he twists around to pull Derek from the dim light of the street outside to where Stiles can see him.
Stiles pulls a little too hard, tripping back across the threshold, but that’s okay, because Derek is a werewolf, Derek is in control, and then they’re both crashing to the floor, Derek’s mouth on Stiles’ skin as soon as they’re down.
“Shh,” Stiles says, trying not to laugh, but Derek hears it in his voice anyway, and grins wildly up at him, bites down hard on his neck, nudges Stiles chin back to make him feel it.
Stiles isn’t laughing when he says, “Don’t wake my dad, don’t wake-“
Derek growls, and Stiles can feel the reverberation in his chest.
“Yeah, okay,” Stiles says, shuddering. “Door. Door, door-“
He has to kick it closed himself, and he curses at the noise.
Derek’s hands are under his shirt again, tugging at his jeans, and Stiles makes a weak noise when Derek gets them open, gets his hand on Stiles’ cock, hates himself for it.
“Light,” Derek says shortly.
“Huh?” Derek jerks his head to the ceiling, towards Stiles’ dad, maybe. “No,” Stiles says, “No, it’s fine, it’s fine, I want to see you, I want-“
And then he makes a noise he doesn’t recognise as Derek’s hand strips his cock, once, fast and too tight, and Stiles is trying to fuck up into it even as Derek tugs his jeans down.
“Yeah,” Stiles gasps, kicking the jeans away, trying to help, not knowing what he means. “Yeah, yeah, yeah-“
“Yes,” Derek says urgently, and Stiles’ jeans are still stuck around one ankle but Derek is already unbuttoning his own.
He sighs once his cock is free, and Stiles wants to look at it, wants to see, finally, red and huge and hard and waiting for him, but he’s caught up in the expression on Derek’s face, the relief and pleasure.
Derek’s eyes are closed, so Stiles can see as much as he likes, can watch and watch and watch Derek, never stop, but then his hands slide over Derek’s ass, over the rough denim, and yank Derek into him.
“Fuck,” Stiles bites out, low, but Derek’s eyes are open and black, and Derek’s hands are on Stiles’ hips again, flipping him over, and then Derek’s mouth is on Stiles’ ass.
“Fuck,” Stiles yelps, too loud, and Derek’s whispered, “Shhh,” vibrates through the soft skin that surrounds Stiles’ hole.
It doesn’t help, and Stiles is panting, head on his trembling hands, and he has to bite into a forearm to silence himself when Derek licks into him.
“Derek,” he forces out, chest heaving.
“Mmm,” Derek says, a long, satisfied sound, and Stiles can’t stop the whimper, can’t stop rocking back into Derek’s face, and Derek’s tongue turns into a lash, fast and slippery and deep, and Stiles can barely interpret what he’s feeling, the sensations Derek is forcing through him, but by the time Derek stops Stiles’ fingers have left bruises on his own arms.
Stiles finally shakes off his jeans as Derek moves up over him; the floor is hard under his knees and Derek’s jeans are rough against the underside of his thighs, but he can’t feel anything where Derek’s chest is resting against his back, because they both still have their jackets on. Stiles feels it when Derek’s hands pull his cheeks apart, though, when Derek’s cock nudges against him, and he’s scrambling for his discarded jeans before he can even get out a protest.
Derek’s face goes blank when Stiles slaps the condom into his hand, but he goes with it after a second, releases Stiles so he can tear the packet and roll it quickly down his cock, and then he stands and Stiles has a moment of discombobulation, looking at Derek, fully dressed, barely rumpled, glittering eyes and exposed cock the only things that betray what’s happening, equally incredible.
And then Derek lifts Stiles effortlessly, takes two long strides that bring Stiles up against the wall by the door, pushes until he’s right there, almost inside, and then lets Stiles go, lets gravity pull him down, almost where he needs to be, and Stiles slams his palm against the wall as Derek works his hips, works himself all the way inside, finally, finally.
Derek pulls Stiles back up, holds him there this time, so he can fuck into him, hard and jarring and perfect, and Stiles knows he’s groaning with every thrust even before Derek bites deeply into his mouth, snarls, “Quiet.”
And he tries, he does, but he can’t contain the muted stream of ohs that escape him, and Derek won’t stop, won’t stop fucking them out of him, so after a while Stiles stops trying, just coils his leg tighter around Derek’s waist, electrified by the sliver of skin his calf finds between Derek’s sagging jeans and his shirt, and if Derek is going to insist on biting him quiet every time it gets too much Stiles isn’t going to complain.
Derek’s hand against his ass is a shock, and when he clenches down fast and tight in reaction Derek shoves closer, shoves deeper and stays there, long thrusts turning to short, deep rocks. The blunt edge of one of the buttons on Derek’s jeans catches Stiles’ skin, little pulses of pain when Derek moves, and Stiles shivers out a moan and spreads his legs wider, and when Derek sinks in that fraction deeper he doesn’t do anything to silence the cry Stiles lets out because he’s releasing one of his own.
And Derek keeps moving, keeps going, keeps Stiles with him though he feels like he’s going to die, like he’s going to sweat to death through his clothes, and Stiles knows what he can take, exactly how much, and this is too-too-
Stiles bites down hard into the leather of Derek’s jacket, moves his teeth to Derek’s neck, and Derek’s hand isn’t even on his dick when he comes, just Derek’s cock inside him forcing it, making him, scraping him raw and perfect until he has to come or cry, and he thinks he might do both; but he comes and comes and comes until he blacks out, feels nothing for a moment, and then all he knows is his own breath rasping in his ears, seconds before he realises he can hear Derek’s too, and then Derek is letting his legs go, pulling out of him, pulling the condom off, cock messy and softening, and Stiles’ legs buckle when they hit the floor.
Derek catches him, and Stiles is still gasping, body shaking awake, back to life, echo of pleasure living in his cells growing with every breath he takes, and if it were possible, he would be looking at Derek with something approaching peacefulness.
But this reminds Stiles of the first time he’d had sex, when everything had been new and scary and brilliant. Derek has always been all of those things.
So he’s feeling somewhat jangled when he says, “That was nice,” in a final tone, and he watches Derek freeze up, and he didn’t even mean it, knows they’re going to do this again.
All Derek has to do to put himself back together is get his jeans done up, and he manages it quickly though it must be painful.
“My dad’s asleep,” Stiles says, and he means to tell Derek that’s why he has to go, but he stops himself before it comes out, not wanting to encourage Derek to believe that Stiles would want him to stay otherwise. “We didn’t wake him.”
“No,” Derek says, moving towards the door, and Stiles follows him, even though he can’t contain the flush that spreads at the realisation that he’s walking half-naked through his father’s house with a dude he’s just fucked, with Derek, perfect and contained, already untouchable again.
When the door is open and Derek is sliding out, Stiles says, “I’ll see you in the morning,” an offering he doesn’t quite understand, and Derek turns back, still close enough to kiss; for a minute Stiles thinks he’s going to, and hovers on the brink of stepping back, but Derek doesn’t move, just lets his lips curl up and shuts the door quietly behind himself.
*
In the morning, Stiles has an extremely important phone call to make.
“Why do you let me do these things to myself?” he groans down the line at Scott.
Scott doesn’t pretend to misunderstand.
“Went for it, huh? Didn’t figure-“
“What?” Stiles moans. “This is all your fault, and you know you could’ve stopped it. You need to stop holding out on me.”
“Didn’t figure you had the guts,” Scott says.
“That is-“ Stiles says. “-totally inaccurate and your opinion is irrelevant. You’re supposed to stop me when I do shit like this.”
“When have I ever done that?” Scott scoffs, which is a fair point. “And also, I don’t know if-“
“Opinion irrelevant.”
“Whatever,” Scott says, annoyed. “So was it-?”
“Was it what?” Stiles asks, because he should get some pleasure out of this conversation.
“Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
“It was,” Stiles tells him. “Derek is very accomplished in bed, what’ve you guys been getting up to during pack bonding time?”
“Gross!”
“And you already know this-you’re right, gross-but that strength is a godsend when you really just need somebody to put their back into it and-“
“Lalalalalalalah!” Scott sings.
“You are such a child.”
“Tell it to mine!” Scott says. “I mean, tell my kid I’m immature. Because I can’t be, because I’m having one!”
“Such science at work there,” Stiles says approvingly. “Quality stuff.”
“Yeah, my kid won’t need you to teach him science or logic,” Scott says. “By the time he’s able to speak, which Chris informs me will be early because he says so, he’ll be like-“ And here Scott starts speaking in a ridiculous babyvoice. “Uncle Stiles, your logic is both refutable and dumb, and I knew this before I was capable of processing thought, because the cornerstones of my universe are that my parents are the awesomest and that it sucks to be you, Uncle Stiles.”
“That’s Mister Stiles to your hellspawn,” Stiles says. “No favouritism.”
“Total favouritism,” Scott laughs. “What else is an uncle for?”
“Yeah,” Stiles admits, cheerful, though he feels a sudden pang with the realisation that Scott and Allison are both only children, and he is in fact the closest thing to an uncle this child will ever have, for whatever that will be worth.
Or maybe that isn’t true anymore, maybe Derek and Jackson will fill that role so well Scott’s child will never even notice Stiles’ absence.
“You know Mr. Goldstein is retiring, right? There’s a job at the school next year.”
“I have a job,” Stiles says tightly, and Scott hmms.
“Hey,” Scott says abruptly. “My mom wants you to come over for dinner.”
“Now?” Stiles asks.
“I can ask her how tonight is.”
“Because now would be good for me.”
“I’ll call you back about it,” Scott says, and hangs up.
“Rude,” Stiles says affectionately.
All of his friends at home would probably hang up on him too, but mostly they just text each other times and places to meet, so it hasn’t happened in a while.
He’s smiling at the phone, thinking about what he’s going to say to Derek when he calls him, and there’s a knock on the door.
He knows it’s Derek immediately, and his feet drag on his way to answer.
“Morning,” Derek says, holding up his brown paper bag like he thinks it’s the key to gaining access, and Stiles does take it from him before stepping back to let him in, so maybe he isn’t entirely wrong.
“Dad isn’t up yet,” Stiles says through his mouthful of bagel, trailing Derek into the kitchen. Derek is in his uniform, crisp and smelling of laundry detergent; Stiles is still in boxers and tshirt, although at least they’re not the ones he’d worn the night before.
“He texted to ask me to come over,” Derek says.
“Well.” Stiles stands corrected. “Dad isn’t down yet.”
“Maybe I should go up,” Derek says, taking a seat at the table and lifting his eyes to the ceiling. “It’s business.”
“No,” Stiles says, swallowing the last of his food, “you should stay here,” and shifts his body in a way he knows will attract Derek’s attention, just to see what will happen.
Derek’s eyes darken, fix on Stiles’ face, and his mouth opens, and when he leans forward his hands tighten on his knees.
Stiles thinks about taking the couple of steps necessary to join him at the table, shove him back in his chair, and crawl all over him, but when he hears his dad’s slow step coming down the stairs he leans back against the fridge instead.
Derek releases a breath that Stiles can hear, and Stiles isn’t reading into this, knows better than to let himself get too deep, but it’s a heady feeling anyway.
“Derek, Peterson is saying-“ his dad says as soon as he gets into the room, and then, “Stiles. I left my tablets upstairs, can you get them for me?”
“No,” Stiles says.
“Stiles,” his dad says sternly, so Stiles goes, because his dad is like that about official business, and Stiles jogs in place on the first step and then creeps back to listen outside the door, because Stiles is like that about official police business.
“-were the inside man,” his dad is saying.
“You know I wouldn’t do that,” Derek says quietly. He knows Stiles is listening, and is probably used to pulling the old phonebooth whirl and change around the sheriff to hide his werewolf advantages, but he won’t reveal Stiles because he knows Stiles would just drag it out of him later.
Stiles doesn’t want to hear it from Derek, though.
“I know,” his dad says. “But they’re going through official channels with this, Derek, and we need to find something to fire back at them. You don’t need me to tell you the kind of stain this can leave, son.”
“I’m confident it will come to nothing,” Derek says, and he sounds it, but Stiles can hear the anger boiling under.
“Peterson is also saying he can link you to Dale and Williams,” his dad says. “He was throwing around the word ‘cohorts’.”
“That was a long time ago,” Derek says, and his dad sighs. “I never mislead you about that, Fred.”
“I know. I was just hoping it wouldn’t come back to bite you on the ass.”
“These things will.”
“Yeah,” his dad says equably. “But you need to swing at this hard.”
“I will,” Derek promises.
“Well,” his dad says, as if the matter is settled, as if any of that meant anything to Stiles, and then all he can hear is his dad slurping coffee, so he’s about to start sneaking back to the stairs when his dad calls out, “Stiles. Need those tablets.”
Stiles winces. “On it!” he calls back, and darts upstairs to change.
When he gets back down, toast has appeared, Derek is still eating, and Stiles barely manages to grab a slice before it’s gone.
“Thanks,” his dad says wryly, taking his blue plastic box, one of those days-of-the-week pill thingamajigs. There are more tablets than Stiles remembers, and he wonders if they’re all due to the injury. The doctor reduced his dosage at his check-up, so that’s something, anyway.
“You’re welcome,” Stiles says cheerfully. “You okay if I head out with Derek?”
“Yes,” his dad says forbiddingly, looking at Stiles from under his eyebrows, and Stiles looks back blandly so he can avoid Derek’s eyes while he looks between Stiles and his father, bewildered.
“Fred-“ he starts, but, “No,” Stiles says, grabbing Derek’s arm and pulling him to his feet. “That is most definitely not happening. Let’s go.”
“But-“
“You’re giving me a ride into the office now,” Stiles says, taking pains to make it sound the least suggestive he can, because he is not that much of a douchebag.
“Okay,” Derek says, and then Stiles has to say, “And by ‘now’ I mean get moving,” and Derek finally gets his ass in gear.
*
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