fic: hyper heart alone, derek/stiles, nc17, 4/4
masterpost
The next day is much the same, except that Derek is in the office all day, and Stiles gets to stare broodingly at his back for most of it.
He tells himself he’s being subtle, but at five to five Mary waves an energetic hand in front of his face and then says, “If you don’t get over there this second I’m going to introduce him to my nephew Steve and his girlfriend Jessie, lives next door to your dad? Lovely couple, and they’ve been looking for a third party for their-“
Stiles makes a horrified face and darts past her before she can finish the sentence, and then he has to hover at Derek’s back as Derek taps irrhythmically at Swinson’s keyboard, because he has no idea what to do.
Eventually, Derek finishes the longest paragraph known to man, closes down Swinson’s word processor, and spins around in his chair to face Stiles.
He clears his throat. “I don’t want to fuck Jessie Torrance,” he says in a low voice. Stiles can still see people listening. “Or her boyfriend Steve, Mary’s nephew-“
“I know!” Stiles says hurriedly. “Can we-“
He twitches uncomfortably, casting a glance towards the door, and Derek gets up, grabs his coat, and puts a hand on the back of Stiles’ neck, propelling him speedily out of the room, down the corridor, and into the open air.
“That was not subtle,” Stiles says feelingly, because he has been, Mary doesn’t count because Mary knows everything. “Or understanding or-why are we going to your car, I don’t even have my keys.”
“I’ll drop you home,” Derek says, and then ignores every conversational venture Stiles makes until he climbs out in front of his apartment.
“Come on,” he says, and Stiles skitters after him into the building.
“You can’t just say things like that in front of the whole office!” he hisses in the elevator, because he doesn’t recognise this harassed mom either, but never let it be said that Stiles doesn’t learn his lesson; he knows she’ll have a direct line to Mary.
“Why not,” Derek says flatly. “It was true.”
“But you shouldn’t be saying that kind of thing to me,” Stiles says, exasperated, and then the elevator pings and Derek’s hand is tight on the back of his neck, pushing him out and towards the door of his apartment. The lady they leave behind on the elevator calls something after Derek, but Derek doesn’t acknowledge her.
“What are you doing!” Stiles says, squirming under Derek’s hand, though he kind of knows.
When they’re through the door, Derek shoves Stiles back against it, and again until it snaps closed, and he’s close and hard against him as he says, “You don’t get to ask me about Victoria Argent.”
“I didn’t!” Stiles says breathlessly. “I don’t fucking want to know, okay?”
His leg is around Derek’s hip, and he isn’t sure whether he’s trying to climb Derek or rock them both together.
“You-“ Derek says, sounding breathless too, though he doesn’t really get winded.
“I don’t want to!” Stiles says harshly, hands tight on Derek’s shoulders, pulling him closer.
“Asshole!” Derek snarls, but he shoves his hips into Stiles, so Stiles will take it.
“Yeah,” Stiles pants, too eager, “Fucking come on, yes, fucking-“
Derek bites down hard on the junction where Stiles’ neck meets his shoulder, and it kind of hurts, and Stiles wants to yelp, but he’s tilting his head back for more instead.
“Why are you such an asshole all the time,” Derek snarls again, but it’s a real snarl this time, and his rough, lengthening nails are scraping at the waistband of Stiles’ jeans, and Stiles shoves him away abruptly.
“Me,” Stiles says, gesturing at Derek’s body: at the face with the sharp, protruding fangs; at the hands with the thick, yellow nails, with the wiry hair that marks him as pack, as someone who belongs. Stiles knows the resentment makes his voice sound disgusted when he says, “Me!”
“You!” Derek says, voice a bark, and his hands press against the door above Stiles’ shoulders until they’re back to normal. “You leaving, leaving forever, and then coming the fuck back, like you can do that, like you have any right, like-“
“Like I have anywhere else to go!” Stiles yells, and then pants into the silent space between them.
“After being alone for so long!” Stiles bursts out, an ugly torrent of hurt and frustration he can’t regret releasing. “You took everything, you took everyone, and you left me alone!”
“That isn’t true,” Derek says calmly, almost casually removing his body from Stiles’, but Stiles can see the clouds gathering. “I pushed you away, it’s true, and you have every right not to care what my reasons were, but you’re the one who left everyone behind, and if you think otherwise for a second you’re lying to yourself. Nobody here would have chosen me over you. That isn’t what happened.”
And that isn’t true, that’s-Stiles knows that isn’t the truth, but it does sound like it.
“My dad’s calling you son,” Stiles spits bitterly.
“You left him,” Derek says, voice a furious lash. “You went away and you never came back, and if you think he didn’t need to fill that void you’re stupid, and if you think he was ever able to you’re stupider than I imagined possible.”
“That isn’t fair,” Stiles says.
“It isn’t,” Derek agrees, “But it’s the truth.”
“Stop,” Stiles says.
“No.”
“Stop,” Stiles says again, as Derek’s fingers dig into his chin, tilting his head up, and Derek says, “No,” again, not a real snarl this time, though Stiles feels it vibrate through him, and then Stiles is opening his mouth so Derek can bite at him, shoving Derek backwards until they tumble down onto the floor beside the couch.
“No,” Derek says again, calmly this time. Stiles is whimpering in protest as Derek rises, but Derek gets up, leaves the touch of Stiles’ body until he picks him up and carries him carefully into the bedroom before dropping him onto the bed.
Stiles bounces, whining again, limbs loose and sprawling as he relaxes onto the bed, and Derek joins him there almost immediately, but Stiles is reaching desperately for him before he gets there anyway.
“Derek,” Stiles says, legs tight around the backs of Derek’s thighs, arms looped around his shoulders, pulling him in. “Derek.”
Derek pulls away to strip out of his clothes, and Stiles tries to do the same, though his fingers are numb and useless and Derek has to help get his shoelaces undone and pull his pants off. Derek lies on top of him again, skin smooth and warm where they touch, and it’s an accident that they end up settling into something that feels like a full-body hug.
Stiles’ mind is blank of anything else, and he would’ve though Derek’s must be too, but Derek is propping himself up, reaching out to his bedside locker, and when he comes back with his lube it’s half empty, and Stiles has to try not to be jealous, because he knows it isn’t fair. He isn’t very successful.
“I know you’re mad,” Derek says, unscrewing the cap quickly, one-handed, getting gel everywhere and ignoring the mess, reaching down to trace his fingers over Stiles’ ass, press right in, and Stiles’ knuckles go white as his fingers dig into Derek’s waist, though he’s moaning and tilting his hips for more as Derek twists his fingers, works him open quickly. “But that isn’t everything, that isn’t the only thing that matters. It isn’t what matters.”
Derek’s breath is unsteady as he pulls his fingers away from Stiles, and Stiles is going to say something about that, about Derek not getting to tell Stiles what matters, but before he can figure out what he even means, Derek is pushing inside him, sharp and bright and utterly, utterly distracting.
Stiles is pretty sure he should be protesting, should be arguing something, anything, but instead he’s rolling into it, shivering as Derek palms his ass to get a better angle, as Derek says, “Stiles,” like it means something, and puts his forearm on the bed so he can duck his chin onto Stiles’ shoulder, brush their faces together as he starts fucking in.
Stiles’ legs are starting to ache, spread wide under Derek’s belly, so he winds them back around Derek’s hips; it takes an effort, because pleasure is firing through the rest of his body, and it’s difficult to focus on anything else, but it makes it easier, even though it changes the angle again, makes him smaller, makes it better, close and warm and-
“Fuck,” Stiles pants, nails digging into the small of Derek’s back. Everything’s getting a little hazy, the movement of Derek inside him the only thing that matters now, and when Stiles blinks his eyes open, blinks the sweat away so he can see, the world is just a wash of colours.
“I’m sorry,” Derek says, deep inside and not ceding ground, and, “Don’t be,” Stiles says, tightening around him, legs and arms and everything, everything out of his control and clinging. “Don’t be sorry.”
And he means it, even though it hurt, still does, because it was real, is real, and the lingering reminder is a rush of relief under his skin.
It barely takes the touch of Derek’s hand on his cock to make him come, and it’s an aching effort in every part of his body, straining for more of the pleasure, even his shaky gasps hurting his throat, and when it’s over it’s as if a string has been cut.
Derek keeps fucking him, a weak pile of panting flesh on the mattress, and it still feels good, random spikes of useless lust thrilling through him. Stiles watches as Derek’s face twists, as he gets close, and it’s difficult, because he wants to kiss Derek’s mouth, cheeks, wants to look away so he won’t see this, and he can’t do either of those things.
“Come back,” Derek pleads, and they’re both shaking as Derek comes inside him, the first time Stiles has ever felt it, filthy and good. He should have objected to that, but he doesn’t even want to anymore; it feels too much for that. “Come back,” Derek says again, “Come back,” and Stiles presses Derek’s wet mouth deeper into his shoulder to make him stop.
Derek collapses onto the bed beside Stiles afterwards, and Stiles lets himself drift for a little while, but then he has to pull himself to his feet and go into the bathroom to clean up. He twitches as he drags his clothes back onto his sleepy, sensitive body. Derek is watching him with alert eyes when he eventually gets his buttons done up.
“I have to go,” Stiles says awkwardly.
“Of course you do,” Derek says, dragging a hand through his hair and staring up at the ceiling.
“This isn’t-we’re not just going to magically fix things by screwing until I forget everything that’s wrong,” Stiles says. His voice sounds odd, because he’s thinking about what Derek had said, come back, like Stiles isn’t here now, like Stiles isn’t already giving Derek everything he could possibly want from Stiles.
He doesn’t want to think about it, and normally his brain shies away from things he doesn’t want to think about, does the work for him, but it’s repeating in a loop, come back, come back, come back.
“Your belt is under the bed,” Derek says, not looking at Stiles, and that shouldn’t hurt but Stiles flinches anyway.
He grabs the belt and leaves.
*
Stiles floats in a strange sort of stasis over the next few days; Derek avoids him at work while Stiles ploughs through the mountains of paperwork still to be done, and his friends don’t exactly ignore him, but things are stilted and uncomfortable in a way they’d avoided when they were, apparently, pretending everything was okay.
He thinks about letting go, giving up, going out and finding somebody to fill the space and make him stop thinking about it, nothing that would matter, and nobody that would matter, but enough to make it through; but the idea doesn’t bring him any pleasure, not even any satisfaction, and it’s a heavy weight sitting on his chest while he considers it, so he lets that go instead and is almost bewildered at the relief he feels. He doesn’t know if he can figure out the mess everything is in, or if it will bring him any pleasure if he does, but he thinks it might, thinks there might be happiness here, just beyond his reach, and he tries not to think about that too much, because it’s a painful scrape across the surface of his mind, but he can’t quite suppress the bubbling, stupid hope that feels like nausea.
He doesn’t know why he’s feeling this now, when everything is worse than ever, but he clings to it unsteadily, though he doesn’t think he could make it go away if he tried.
He spends more time with his dad, which is nice, but the second time he accidentally interrupts a phone conversation with Helen while checking to see what his dad’s doing and if he wants to be doing something with Stiles instead, Stiles realises it’s weird even before his dad starts throwing him worried looks.
“I know,” he says when his dad approaches him about it. “I know, okay?”
“Yep,” his dad says awkwardly, and Stiles hopes that will be the end of it, but his dad seems to think the situation requires something more, lingering awkwardly.
“You don’t have to worry,” Stiles says, though he knows his dad will.
His dad grunts. “Derek hasn’t been around lately,” he says.
“No.”
“I’m just worried,” his dad says.
“About Derek?”
“Those marshals are back stirring trouble up for him and I haven’t seen him since they got back into town. It isn’t good timing, that’s all. Tell him to come see me, will you?”
“Uh-“
“I’ll have to go out and find him if he doesn’t.”
“Fine!” Stiles says, knowing he’s being played. “Fine, God.”
“No rush,” his dad says, and then waits for Stiles to leave.
*
Derek is at the office when Stiles gets there; Stiles sees his car outside, and Jill Lightbody waves him vaguely to the conference room down the hall when he asks where Derek is, but by the time he gets there the room is empty, and when he checks back outside the car is gone.
“Great,” Stiles mutters.
He scratches at his jaw and stares at the bright sky, thinking about using Scott as GPS and finally running Derek to earth, and his blood rises at the idea, a sick excitement bubbling in him. He thinks he feels more excited than sick, but he’s still a little queasy when a dark car pulls into Derek’s vacated space and two men in suits get out.
It takes him a second to recognise Mitchell, faded to insignificance beside his partner, who is striding towards Stiles like an invading army.
“You must be Peterson,” Stiles says, with a cheer he doesn’t feel.
“Mr Stilinski, we need to speak to you privately,” Peterson says.
“Nice to meet you too.”
“We have questions about Derek Hale,” Peterson says. It feels like an attack.
“Deputy Hale,” Stiles corrects, sparing a glance for Mitchell, hanging back and staring at a point over Stiles’ shoulder.
“And given the nature of your relationship with him you probably don’t want to answer our questions in front of your friends,” Peterson says, nodding past Stiles at the building. “We understand this is a delicate situation given Hale’s relationship with your father.”
“Not really,” Stiles says, though Peterson is right; he doesn’t want it getting back to his father that he was interrogated by federal marshals because of Derek.
“Do you have an office inside?” Stiles asks reluctantly.
“We’re about to visit a witness. We can interview you in the car on the way and drop you off somewhere,” Peterson suggests.
“I was on my way in,” Stiles says, which is true enough: he’d actually been about to shake Mary down for information about Derek’s schedule today and attempt to track him down.
Peterson puts a guiding hand on Stiles’ arm, directing him towards their towncar, but Stiles shakes him off in irritation. “I can walk,” he snaps, and makes his own way to the backseat.
Peterson’s sunglasses flash with reflected glare as he directs Mitchell into the car with a jerk of his chin.
The car rolls smoothly to the exit of the parking lot.
“Where are we going?” Stiles asks to fill the silence as they wait for the light to change so they can pull out into traffic.
“Montrose,” Peterson says after a brief pause, and flicks on the radio.
“Huh,” Stiles says. Derek lives on Montrose, but he doesn’t want to volunteer his knowledge of the fact to Peterson. “You’re better off taking Beechview to get there,” Stiles offers, and at Peterson’s grimace, “Turn left. Don’t you have GPS in this thing?”
Peterson switches the turn signal and angles the nose of the car slightly, taking Stiles’ advice, but he doesn’t look very grateful.
“So, am I interrogating myself here or what?” Stiles asks once they’ve joined the flow of traffic and the two marshals are still silent.
“If you like,” Peterson says, surly, ignoring the uncertain look Mitchell throws him.
“Because it doesn’t take that long to get to Montrose, so if you want to get this interview finished in time for the next one-“
“Jesus Christ,” Peterson snarls, switching lanes abruptly. “We’re not going to interview you.”
“Uh-“ Stiles says, disconcerted.
“Gary, we were going to ask him some questions,” Mitchell says tentatively.
“We were going to pretend to interview you so you didn’t get suspicious, but you’re so annoying I can’t pretend to care about your answers.”
“Oh,” Stiles says breathlessly, “fuck,” and tries the door even though they’ve reached the end of the traffic jam and are speeding up. It’s locked.
“Get his phone,” Peterson says, and Mitchell is fumbling out his service weapon and pointing it at Stiles with a shaky hand, face an apologetic wince. Stiles hands his phone over.
“We should call the girl,” Peterson says.
“He’ll warn her,” Mitchell protests. “Her husband will be waiting for us.”
“Fuck,” Peterson says, and Stiles feels a spike of hope that Peterson is actually listening to Mitchell, hope that Mitchell can talk Peterson out of this, but then Mitchell is saying, “We should kill him before we pick up the girl.”
“No,” Peterson says. “She won’t answer the door to us alone.”
“Shoot her through the wood,” Mitchell says, “the way we did with the Sheriff.”
“He’s still alive,” Peterson says. “I’m not taking any chances.”
“We don’t want to kill her anyway.”
“Maybe we should forget about her, since we have this one-“
“We need to kill Hale,” Mitchell says. “We need-“
“You’re not werewolves,” Stiles says. “Derek would have known.”
“We were going to be,” Peterson says.
“Were you-were you part of Dale and Williams’ pack?” Stiles asks.
“We’re human-“ Peterson starts, but Stiles is yelling, “How the hell do you two idiots get to count as pack?”
“We’re human!” Peterson yells back. “Dale was going to turn us once we released him, but then Hale killed him!”
“And now you’re what, starting your own revenger’s tragedy?”
“We’re going to get Hale to turn us to get you back,” Peterson says, “and then I’m going to kill you both and take his place.”
“You do realise that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard?” Stiles asks calmly, because it is, for several reasons, but before Peterson can answer Stiles is trying to dive over the front seat at Mitchell, one hand digging into the leather of the seat to gain traction, the other scrabbling at the cool metal of the gun, and he does realise this is the dumbest thing he’s ever done even before Mitchell bites out, “Fuck-“ and pulls the gun away, and then Mitchell’s fist is coming towards his cheek and there’s a blinding pain in his head and everything goes black.
*
Stiles is surprised when he wakes up.
He’s surprised he wakes up at all, but he’s more surprised to find himself dumped in a heap on Scott’s armchair, Allison and Melissa sitting on the couch across from him, staring tensely at him.
Allison’s white face flickers when he opens his eyes, but she doesn’t say anything to draw attention to him. His cheekbone and the back of his skull both hurt, but he can deal, because some things aren’t a choice.
“-get here?” Peterson’s voice says in the background. “It’s going to be dark soon.”
“Are werewolves more powerful after dark?” Mitchell asks, skittish. “Maybe we should just tap these guys and get out of here, Pete.”
“No,” Peterson says. “We’ve put too much into this to walk away now.”
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
“They’ll be here soon,” Melissa whispers, eyes on Stiles, hand tightening on Allison’s.
“Maybe we should just do one of them,” Peterson says, and Mitchell’s gun shoves into the underside of Stiles’ chin.
“If we’re killing Hale it should be this one,” he says, and Stiles can’t help the sound that escapes him at that.
“Hey, he’s awake,” Mitchell says, leaning over the back of the chair to get a look at Stiles’ face. “Good, I might feel kind of bad about killing somebody while they’re unconscious.”
Stiles should be thinking about Derek now, he decides, staring into Allison’s wide eyes; about how maybe he was never actually able to stop loving him, and never will be, though never might not be much of a test, now; about how much he regrets that they never did get to make things quite right; about how ridiculous it is that the thing he’s sorriest about is that he knows Derek’s going to blame himself for that as well as everything else; but he’s too terrified to think about any of that at the moment, and he knows all of it with too bone-deep a certainty to have to bother anyway.
“Why would you feel bad about that?” Peterson asks.
“I need to use the bathroom,” Allison says.
“Again?” Mitchell asks.
“I’m pregnant!” she says shrilly. “Are you seriously going to ask me to hold it?”
“No,” Mitchell says, irritated, and when he leans over Stiles to gesture at the bathroom with the gun and say, “Don’t even think about moving, smart guy,” Allison leaps off the couch like a parachuting elephant and clamps onto his wrist.
“Stiles!” she yells, “Do something!”
But Stiles is too busy watching Melissa with wide eyes: somehow Peterson’s gun is on the floor and Peterson is in a headlock, face bright red already, expert pressure on his airway rapidly deciding the fight, though he scrabbles helplessly at Melissa’s side in a futile attempt at escape.
“Stiles!” Melissa yells, and Stiles jumps woozily to attention, but he doesn’t know what to do.
The back of the chair is protecting Mitchell’s front, so Stiles slithers onto the floor and ducks around it, and then he can’t even kick him in the balls, so he goes for the kidneys instead, and Mitchell lets out a harrumph that Stiles judges a success.
Allison’s nails are leaving gouges in Mitchell’s wrist, but Mitchell is still tugging on his hand, trying to get the gun free, and when that doesn’t work he backhands her across the face, and when she makes a hurt sound Stiles does too.
“Bite him!” Melissa is yelling, “Bite him!”
Stiles looks for somewhere to bite, but Mitchell is wearing a suit and Stiles doesn’t think his teeth are strong enough to penetrate, so he goes for the neck like a vampire, and Melissa is yelling, “Yes, yes, bite him, get it, go for it!” so Stiles feels like he must be doing something right.
He doesn’t think he’s going to get anywhere with the biting, though, so he abandons that course of action and looks around for a weapon, but when he hits Mitchell over the head with Allison’s iPad, Mitchell has the deep imprint of a set of teeth in his hand, and Allison has his gun in hers.
Stiles watches as her prisoner loses consciousness and slides to the ground, and then he avoids Allison’s accusing face entirely and looks from the smashed screen of her tablet to Melissa, standing over Peterson with her hands on her hips and the familiar vicious triumph of a satisfied mother on her face. The last time he’d seen that expression she’d been directing it at Chris Argent, what feels like a lifetime and a world ago.
“You can stop pointing that at him, baby,” she says, but Allison shakes her head.
“I’m fine. You get Peterson’s.”
Melissa does, though Peterson looks out for the count. “Stiles, call Derek,” she says.
Stiles’ fingers shake when he dials.
Derek’s tone is curt when he answers, until Stiles says, “Derek-“ ragged and broken, and then Derek is speaking so frantically that Stiles can barely pick up a single word.
“We’re fine,” he says when Derek falls silent, because he assumes that question was in there somewhere. “Peterson and Mitchell are here, they-they were going to kill us, they were trying to get you to turn them and they were talking about killing one of us. Did you know they wanted to be werewolves?”
Stiles says it-they’d wanted to be werewolves-like they’d wanted to move to Mars, but Derek answers like Stiles is understanding anything right now.
“No,” he says calmly. “But I suspected they’d helped Paul and Brian escape, and there was nothing else they had to offer as inducement. It doesn’t surprise me.” Stiles’ breathing is evening out, gradually lengthening to match Derek’s, audible over the phone, and he watches idly as Allison relaxes too, eyes on his face as he speaks to their Alpha. “We’ll take care of it, Chris is coming-“
Mitchell jerks awake, lunges for Allison, gets his hand on her stomach, and she shrieks and shoots him in the head.
Derek is still speaking, but Stiles’ mind is a white buzz as he stares at Mitchell’s ruined skull, smashed beyond repair, worse than Allison’s iPad, blood and thick, messy grey matter spilling out on the carpet.
Allison heaves in a breath, and all she does with it is start wailing, “Fuck, fuck, fuck-“
Derek is still speaking, but Stiles drops the phone.
“Allison!” Melissa says sharply, coming over to her, throwing a suspicious glance over her shoulder at Peterson and then shoving her gun into Stiles’ hand and sending him past her towards Peterson’s supine body, presumably to shoot him in the head also, should it become necessary. “Allison, it’s fine. Calm down, you’re fine.”
“I am not-“ Allison says, and her face is deathly pale. “I am not fine, I am not-oh, fuck.”
“You are fine,” Melissa reiterates, and Allison says, “I am in labour,” and when she sucks in another breath the exhale is a sound of terror.
“You’re fine,” Melissa says, though she looks a little white herself. “This is well within a normal birthing schedule, you are fine. And this is nothing, this is nothing to worry you at all, this-“
“Scott’s going to freak,” Allison says, head tilted back to the ceiling, breaths shallow and shaky. Melissa’s hands are tight around her upper arms, holding her upright.
“Scott will listen to his mother when she explains prenatal development and-“
“I killed somebody!” Allison says hysterically. “His brains are on our new carpet, Scott will not listen-“
“Scott’s killed people,” Melissa says blankly, uncomprehending in the face of Allison’s fear. “Scott’s killed plenty of people, Scott killed your mother, as she would have killed him, and Stiles, and you, in the end, because-“ She cuts herself off abruptly, looking like she regrets that train of thought, and shakes Allison gently. “As mothers do, as you did.”
For a second, it seems like Allison is willing to go with that, nodding understandingly, but then she shakes her head frantically, a look of horror overtaking her blanched face.
“No,” she says, “no, he didn’t, he didn’t, he wouldn’t, I can’t-“
Her voice is rising, but it’s hysteria, not disbelief.
“Yes,” Scott’s mother says urgently. “He did.” Her nails bite into Allison’s arms. “Stop this.”
Allison keeps shaking her head, making distraught noises of denial even as her face twists in pain, as Melissa supports her, the only thing keeping her on her feet.
“Allison, stop,” Melissa says. “You do not have the right.” She’s looking right into Allison’s eyes, and her voice is kind but unrelenting. “He is the father of the child you are about to have, and you can be angry with him, you can be angry with what he did, but you know why, and you are about to become a mother and you do not have the right.”
Allison stares into Melissa’s face, and then she nods, a wavering motion, but her face firms, gains some colour, and her breathing becomes something Stiles recognises as Lamaze, for his sins.
“Is that Derek?” she asks after a minute, eyes fixed on the wall. “Is that Derek, is he coming, is Scott coming?”
And then Stiles has to dive for the phone at his feet and realign the gun on Peterson’s head at the same time.
*
Stiles doesn’t have much to do while they wait for Derek and Scott to arrive, just puff along uselessly with Allison’s heaving breaths, pat Allison’s hand until she snaps at him and yanks it away, and then obey Melissa when she raises her voice to demand, “A towel, a wet towel, Stiles, right now!” He’s pretty sure she’s just losing her freaking mind, and even she doesn’t know what she would possibly want a wet towel for.
When he hears the noise of Derek and Scott’s arrival outside, he drops the half-soaked towel in the kitchen sink and rushes back into the living room.
Scott is kissing Allison’s face, her hair, utterly helplessly, and her hands are tight around his fist, but she holds him off, face strained beneath the messy curtain of her hair, until she draws one more breath with a sound like a sob, and collapses forward into him, hands twisting tightly in his shirt.
“-fine, you’ll be fine, you’re-“ Scott is mumbling into her shining hair, shaking hands petting the curve of her back carefully.
“We are leaving for hospital right now!” Melissa says, still kind of crazed. “You’re useless, I’m driving, give me your keys!”
Scott searches his pockets until he finds them, and maybe it takes him a little longer because he’s only willing to remove one hand from Allison, but it probably takes him longer because his mom is shouting at him while he searches, her panicked, commanding voice blaring, “-idiot, how did I raise such an idiot, how can you not find your keys, we have a situation here!”
When Melissa has the keys in her hand she sprints for the door immediately, stopping only when she realises Scott is still helping Allison up off the armchair, hustling them along with a string of incitements to, “Come on, come on, come on,” until the word loses all meaning.
Derek is standing over Peterson, still prone on the floor. “Aren’t you coming?” Stiles asks.
“I have to take care of this,” Derek says.
“Oh,” Stiles says. “Do you need us to stay and give statements?”
“I’m not staying!” Melissa yells.
“No,” Derek says, grinning. “I’ll send someone out to the hospital.”
“Oh.” Stiles had wanted to talk to him, doesn’t really want to leave now, but Allison calls, “Stiles, come on, come on!” and they are not starting up another round of that, so Stiles goes, throwing a glance back over his shoulder at Derek, nudging Peterson’s unresponsive body with his boot.
*
Allison vanishes once they arrive at the hospital, and after Stiles gets checked out he’s left sitting alone in a corridor for a long time, nothing to do but read yesterday’s newspaper and year-old magazines and think, which is never his favourite thing to do.
He calls his dad, but Derek has already filled him in, and Stiles smiles wryly, surprised at his lack of resentment.
Carl Branning shows up to interview him at some point, and tells him Derek is still stuck out at the scene, asks if Stiles knows why Argent is hanging around out there, and then Stiles gets to swap places with Melissa while she takes her turn being questioned.
Allison actually appears to be asleep, so he takes a quick gander at what’s going on down there under the covering and then really, really regrets it, joining Scott up at Allison’s head and desperately trying to ignore his queasiness.
“Guess there’s a reason I’m gay,” he says, but Scott says, “No, I’m up here too.”
“I don’t want you looking!” Allison says suddenly. “Nobody look!”
“I already looked,” Stiles says, “Sorry.”
“Oh, you don’t count.”
“Thanks?”
“I didn’t look,” Scott says. “I don’t think I want to.”
“Wouldn’t recommend it,” Stiles says.
They make idle conversation, nothing important, nothing that really registers with Scott or Allison, he doesn’t think; he spends most of the time with his shoulder pressed solidly against Scott’s as they stand by the bed, which feels like the important thing.
Allison is asleep again by the time Melissa returns, so Scott can leave the room without too many separation pains, though he makes his mom promise to run get him if anything happens three times before he goes, and then Melissa sends Stiles to get ice-chips for some reason and then very politely throws him out.
Stiles is back with celebrity breakups-though this celebrity has remarried in the months since the magazine was published-when Scott and Branning emerge. Branning just nods at him and squeaks down the corridor, but Scott comes over and drops into the chair next to Stiles.
“Nothing, right?” he asks.
“No.”
“So-yeah.”
Scott had been with Derek; he’d heard that conversation over the open phoneline, heard his mother talk Allison down. Stiles doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, but what he gets is silence.
“So,” he prompts. “You and V?”
Scott shrugs. “She’d been threatening us for a while, and I couldn’t really do anything because of Allison, because she didn’t know. She’d been threatening to hurt you, to hurt-to hurt Allison for a long time, and I never believed her, but then I did, and I-“
He swallows, tries to speak again, but just shrugs instead, face wobbling a little.
“You know.”
Stiles has seen less people die than you would think, given how many people his best friend has apparently killed, up to and including his wife’s mother; he’s never killed anybody himself.
“Not really,” he says, and watches as Scott contemplates apologising for keeping him in the dark and decides against it, “but Allison does now.”
Scott has spent years trying to protect Allison, has murdered to do it, but brightens a little anyway, relieved that he might be understood.
“Yeah,” he says, heartened, and jerks a thumb towards the delivery room. “I should-“
Stiles waves him off, and settles in for the wait, but he doesn’t pick up the magazine again; he has better things to think about now.
*
Chris Argent shows up shortly afterwards, taking his place at his daughter’s bedside. Stiles is pretty sure he doesn’t want to know what it was Chris was doing that kept him away.
Lydia and Jackson show up at the end of the workday, and Derek isn’t far behind them.
After flicking through Stiles’ discarded magazine for twenty minutes, Lydia heaves a disgruntled sigh. “Should we go home and wait for word? These things can take hours.”
They can take days, actually, but Stiles isn’t willing to be the one to jinx Allison.
“No,” Derek says curtly.
“Fine,” Lydia says, and stalks off to the vending machine, Jackson in tow.
“We need to talk,” Stiles says.
“No, we don’t.”
Stiles blinks. “Are you mad at me?”
“No,” Derek says. “I just don’t see the purpose of going through it all when you’re just leaving soon anyway, so why don’t we just-“
“Let’s talk,” Stiles interrupts, “about that.”
“No,” Derek says again, and then Lydia comes back, complaining volubly about the width and quality of the selections on offer in the vending machine, and Stiles settles back into his chair reluctantly, and he and Derek watch each other warily.
When Lydia goes to the bathroom, Jackson bolts for the front doors, planning to sneak a cigarette, though how the hell Jackson thinks Lydia doesn’t know he smokes Stiles does not understand.
Derek’s shoulders tense before Stiles gets the first word out, and when he does, he only manages, “So-“
“Let’s just not,” Derek says, eyes on the grey-green of the wall opposite. “I really don’t need to hear it.”
“I don’t think-“
“Stiles,” Helen says, because of course his dad phoned her. “How’s she doing?”
Stiles thinks he manages not to insult his father’s potential girlfriend too badly, though he kind of wants to right now, and then her beeper goes off and she hurries away and Jackson and Lydia still aren’t back, yes! Stiles is choosing to take that as the sign, rather than the two previous interruptions, because he’s decided the universe wants him to have what he wants, and if it doesn’t he’s taking it anyway.
“You know there’s a teaching job going next year, right?” Stiles says, all in, and Derek’s protest dies unvoiced, but his mouth remains open, eyes wide, and he looks-disbelieving, which was not the reaction Stiles had been hoping for.
And then Lydia appears, looking around, ignores the elephant, and asks, “How long does it take for one stupid smoke?” just as Jackson sprints around the corner, face falling as he sees her, and then the midwife sticks her head out of Allison’s room and asks, “Who would like to see the baby first?”
*
Tessa is a big, red ball of mush, pretty much, but everybody in the room is incandescent with happiness, and Stiles makes all the appropriate noises about her awesomeness anyway, and he’s sure they’re true, or they will be once she’s enough of a person to actually look like a proper baby.
He feels like they’re true.
After a few minutes, he and Derek trail out to let Lydia and Jackson take their turn, and they walk side-by-side down the corridor, through the doors, and out of the hospital. Stiles tilts his head back to the black sky overhead, breathes in deeply, can’t help the reasonless smile that curls his mouth, and jumps when Derek speaks.
“I’ll give you a ride home. We need to talk.”
“Okay,” Stiles says steadily, and he smiles all the way across the hospital lawn, through the parking structure and the drive to Derek’s apartment.
During the drive, his phone vibrates, a text from an old buddy, checking if he’s back in town, if he wants to meet up for drinks. It takes him a second to place the name.
“Okay,” he says when Derek stops the car, and gets out without question.
“You-“ Derek starts, as if he’s actually going to attempt to have this conversation on the pavement outside his apartment building, but then he catches up with Stiles and follows him in.
The elevator is empty of mommies and buggys for once, and Stiles considers just pushing Derek up against the wall and going to town, get some of his jumpiness out, but he doesn’t think that would help Derek’s jumpiness, so he keeps his hands to himself and lets Derek lead the way into the apartment, and when he stops once, halfway down the corridor, to look at Stiles over his shoulder, totally bewildered, Stiles even waits for him to start moving again and doesn’t shove him towards his door, the way his palms are itching to.
“So I don’t care what you say,” Stiles says defiantly, watching as Derek puts his hand on the door and uses the weight of his whole body to close it, propped up against it with his head bent and his eyes closed. “I’m staying anyway, you can’t make me go this time.”
“Stiles,” Derek says, pinching the bridge of his nose, like he’s getting a headache or something, even though werewolves don’t get tension headaches and there’s no reason for Derek to be tense anyway, because Stiles is perfectly willing to help out with that. “I never wanted you to leave.”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, though it feels like they’re changing tracks, because the destination is in view and he doesn’t want to make any more layovers. “But I don’t think that matters. You don’t get to make that choice. You didn’t then.”
“It was dangerous,” Derek snaps, turning to face him. “It was necessary.”
“It was my life!”
“Exactly!”
“You know, this argument is pointless,” Stiles says calmly. “Because after everything that’s happened, I’m never going to listen to anything you say again anyway, so it’s in your best interest to start telling me stuff.”
“That-“ Derek is struggling to come up with a response, as he should be, because Stiles’ logic is impeccable, and Derek needs to recognise.
“So that’s what’s going to happen,” Stiles says. “My dad will need someone to stay with him for a while, so living with him won’t be embarrassing or anything, and we can just-“ Stiles makes a wide, circular gesture with his hands, encompassing everything and the kitchen sink besides. “-see how things go.”
“You’re just doing this because Scott told you he’s making you godfather,” Derek accuses.
Stiles flushes pink with pleasure. “Nah, man,” he says sheepishly, ducking his head. “Did he say that? Because I would, don’t get me wrong, but that isn’t why. I never wanted to leave either. And I don’t want to now.”
“You have a life,” Derek says. “You have friends, you-“
Stiles is shaking his head. “I don’t have anything I want more than what’s here,” he says, and because he’s looking at Derek when he says it he can see that Derek doesn’t believe him.
“Okay, so-I wasn’t going to tell you this, but-“ Derek is watching him gravely, and Stiles can feel the remnants of smile slip off his own face. “I loved you.” Derek makes a movement, something that’s trying to be denial, so Stiles hurries on. “When you told me to leave back then, I wasn’t going to tell you that, I was going to tell you less than that, but-it was true. I loved you.” He swallows around the lump in his throat, eyes on the carpet. This is embarrassing. His face is burning. “And I don’t know if-I want to know if I can have that now. I don’t know, but I want to try, I want to find out-“
Derek is in front of him suddenly, Stiles’ vision taken up by his shirt, and his hands are gentle on Stiles’ hot cheeks as he lifts Stiles’ head for his kiss, a slow question that Stiles tries to answer.
“Okay,” Derek says, “We can-“
Stiles pulls away to say, “Plus, now my dad will kill you if you ever do anything to me again,” and Derek is grinning as he grabs Stiles’ tshirt and pulls him into the bedroom.
Derek is heavy when he collapses on top of Stiles on the bed, lips dragging over the skin of his jaw, and it’s nice to be held, to be anchored by Derek’s weight. They scuffle together to remove each other’s clothes, and when they get down to skin Stiles can’t stop touching.
Derek strokes over his limbs, arms and legs and down to his feet, and he laughs when Stiles kicks him because the soles of his feet are sensitive. Stiles rolls Derek onto his back and puts a hand in the centre of his chest to keep him there, so he can look, finally, all he wants to. Derek’s lips curve and the corners of his eyes crinkle, willing and amused, though he has no idea what Stiles is looking at. Mostly Stiles is looking at his face now anyway, so he relaxes onto Derek’s chest to kiss him again, still lush and mindless and long.
Stiles spends some time figuring out Derek’s body, then, where he likes to be touched, the strange places he doesn’t, like behind his left kneecap, and then Stiles figures out where he likes pressure, deep suction, teeth, and where a glancing brush of lips will get more of a reaction.
When Stiles touches Derek’s left elbow-not even the fragile skin of his inner elbow, just the sandpapery stuff that covers the bone-and Derek nearly elbows him in the face to get him to stop, he asks, “So are you going to give me any pointers here, or?”
It takes a minute for Derek to reply, “Where’d the fun be?” His voice is dazed.
“Okay,” Stiles says, unsteady laughter colouring the word.
He drops down to lick at Derek’s cock, lick around it, more a tease than anything, and then Derek’s hand is on his head, nudging him down, so Stiles licks at Derek’s balls, takes one in his mouth, and then Derek nudges him down again.
Stiles has to let it go to follow Derek’s direction; he makes a surprised sound when he releases it, but Derek touches his head again and Stiles goes.
Stiles doesn’t really like doing this, but when he sweeps his tongue over Derek’s hole, Derek moans and his whole body jerks, and by the time Stiles has all that dark pink skin wet the sounds Derek is making are almost shouts, worked up as he’s gotten, so quickly, and Stiles puts his hands on Derek’s vulnerable stomach before he eagerly pushes his tongue inside.
He isn’t really sure what to do then, just goes on instinct, and he seems to figure it out pretty quickly, judging by the reaction he gets. He figures out what Derek likes here too, slow withdrawals and sharp sucks around his rim, and then when Stiles kisses it like Derek had kissed him, all wet and deep and endless, Derek comes off the bed, dislodges Stiles.
When Derek sinks back down he pulls away, reaches over to the locker for the same tube they’d used last time. Stiles is surprised when Derek hands it to him, and Derek is impatient, unscrewing the cap for Stiles and squeezing, getting most of it into Stiles’ palm.
Stiles is good at this, so he knows Derek will like it, and he’s careful, because he doesn’t think Derek looks like he’s sure.
Derek’s legs fall open when Stiles gets the second finger in, tension leaving his body all at once. Stiles kisses the inside of his knee. “You’re good at this,” he says, because it’s true. “Tell me what you like.”
He asks just before he slides as deep as he can, brushes his fingers over Derek’s prostate, so the response is immediate.
“There,” Derek says breathlessly, leg spasming. “That, that, there-“
Stiles hums, kisses Derek’s leg again, though they’re wide open now and he can only reach Derek’s thigh. His dick is throbbing, getting the sheets underneath him wet, but he doesn’t really think about it until Derek reaches down and pulls his fingers out, groaning at the last drag.
Derek wraps his legs around Stiles when he works his way up Derek’s body. When he flips them over Stiles thinks he’s changed his mind, but then he’s reaching down to take Stiles’ dick in hand, positioning it blindly and sinking down.
“Oh,” Stiles says, eyes shutting against the feeling.
Derek starts moving right away, awkward motions quickly fading into an easy ride.
“Lydia’s never going to let me forget this,” Stiles says dreamily.
Derek puts his forehead on Stiles’ shoulder. “You’re not telling Lydia about this.”
“Not about this,” Stiles says indignantly. “About-“
The change in position did something good for Derek; he’s getting noisy, tightening up around Stiles and staying pressed all the way down, shoving as hard as he can against Stiles, trying for more, deeper.
Stiles puts his hands on Derek’s hips and starts moving, suddenly aware that he really hasn’t been doing his part to make this work, but all he has in him are slow rocks, helpless liquid pushes of his hips into Derek, because he thinks it’s as good as it can get already.
“Or Scott,” Derek says suddenly. “He told me what you said.”
Stiles laughs unexpectedly, body jerking under Derek, inside him, and Derek is sitting up again and Derek’s hand is on his own cock, pulling frantically until he’s spilling all over Stiles’ skin, getting it everywhere.
He sinks down when he’s done, sweat and come sticking their bellies together, and Stiles’ hips snap up, urgent now, and he tumbles Derek onto his back so he can spread him wide and get where he wants to be, move the way he needs to.
Orgasm hits him like a kiss, that first kiss such a short time ago, like Mitchell’s fist, blinding colours and sparks and darkness.
He’s on his back again when he comes out of it, but Derek is still beside him and they’re both still filthy.
“Don’t you have superfast werewolf recovery time?” Stiles asks. “We’re saying clean-up is your job, okay?”
Derek just grunts, nosing at Stiles’ armpit, breathing in deep, and maybe attempting to make a werewolf wash away come isn’t going to be a successful endeavour.
“I can’t sleep like this, though,” Stiles says, though his eyes are already drooping, and Derek unbends enough to wipe them off cursorily with the sheet before dumping it onto the floor, and then he licks at the bits he missed until he’s satisfied.
“Fine,” Stiles allows. “We can work on your domestic skills. Add it to the pile.”
And then he’s done, he’s pretty sure.
There’s a lot going on in Stiles’ head in the moment before he falls asleep: that he should call his dad; and how happy Scott’s going to be to have somebody to spaz at; and the new niece he has, and screw anybody who says she isn’t, who probably isn’t as ugly as he’s remembering her; and the warmth of Derek’s body as he curls around Stiles, his easy, comfortable closeness as he lets his head come to rest on Stiles’ shoulder; and everybody who’s going to be at the hospital tomorrow, so many people it’ll be like a party and they’ll have to have one of those when Allison is released; whether buying a massive stuffed pink teddy is gender-essentialist; and whether it’s worth turning to kiss Derek back, because that feels nice; and the best thing, the absolute best thing is that he doesn’t have to think about any of it now.
It will keep.
end
Thanks so much for reading!
The next day is much the same, except that Derek is in the office all day, and Stiles gets to stare broodingly at his back for most of it.
He tells himself he’s being subtle, but at five to five Mary waves an energetic hand in front of his face and then says, “If you don’t get over there this second I’m going to introduce him to my nephew Steve and his girlfriend Jessie, lives next door to your dad? Lovely couple, and they’ve been looking for a third party for their-“
Stiles makes a horrified face and darts past her before she can finish the sentence, and then he has to hover at Derek’s back as Derek taps irrhythmically at Swinson’s keyboard, because he has no idea what to do.
Eventually, Derek finishes the longest paragraph known to man, closes down Swinson’s word processor, and spins around in his chair to face Stiles.
He clears his throat. “I don’t want to fuck Jessie Torrance,” he says in a low voice. Stiles can still see people listening. “Or her boyfriend Steve, Mary’s nephew-“
“I know!” Stiles says hurriedly. “Can we-“
He twitches uncomfortably, casting a glance towards the door, and Derek gets up, grabs his coat, and puts a hand on the back of Stiles’ neck, propelling him speedily out of the room, down the corridor, and into the open air.
“That was not subtle,” Stiles says feelingly, because he has been, Mary doesn’t count because Mary knows everything. “Or understanding or-why are we going to your car, I don’t even have my keys.”
“I’ll drop you home,” Derek says, and then ignores every conversational venture Stiles makes until he climbs out in front of his apartment.
“Come on,” he says, and Stiles skitters after him into the building.
“You can’t just say things like that in front of the whole office!” he hisses in the elevator, because he doesn’t recognise this harassed mom either, but never let it be said that Stiles doesn’t learn his lesson; he knows she’ll have a direct line to Mary.
“Why not,” Derek says flatly. “It was true.”
“But you shouldn’t be saying that kind of thing to me,” Stiles says, exasperated, and then the elevator pings and Derek’s hand is tight on the back of his neck, pushing him out and towards the door of his apartment. The lady they leave behind on the elevator calls something after Derek, but Derek doesn’t acknowledge her.
“What are you doing!” Stiles says, squirming under Derek’s hand, though he kind of knows.
When they’re through the door, Derek shoves Stiles back against it, and again until it snaps closed, and he’s close and hard against him as he says, “You don’t get to ask me about Victoria Argent.”
“I didn’t!” Stiles says breathlessly. “I don’t fucking want to know, okay?”
His leg is around Derek’s hip, and he isn’t sure whether he’s trying to climb Derek or rock them both together.
“You-“ Derek says, sounding breathless too, though he doesn’t really get winded.
“I don’t want to!” Stiles says harshly, hands tight on Derek’s shoulders, pulling him closer.
“Asshole!” Derek snarls, but he shoves his hips into Stiles, so Stiles will take it.
“Yeah,” Stiles pants, too eager, “Fucking come on, yes, fucking-“
Derek bites down hard on the junction where Stiles’ neck meets his shoulder, and it kind of hurts, and Stiles wants to yelp, but he’s tilting his head back for more instead.
“Why are you such an asshole all the time,” Derek snarls again, but it’s a real snarl this time, and his rough, lengthening nails are scraping at the waistband of Stiles’ jeans, and Stiles shoves him away abruptly.
“Me,” Stiles says, gesturing at Derek’s body: at the face with the sharp, protruding fangs; at the hands with the thick, yellow nails, with the wiry hair that marks him as pack, as someone who belongs. Stiles knows the resentment makes his voice sound disgusted when he says, “Me!”
“You!” Derek says, voice a bark, and his hands press against the door above Stiles’ shoulders until they’re back to normal. “You leaving, leaving forever, and then coming the fuck back, like you can do that, like you have any right, like-“
“Like I have anywhere else to go!” Stiles yells, and then pants into the silent space between them.
“After being alone for so long!” Stiles bursts out, an ugly torrent of hurt and frustration he can’t regret releasing. “You took everything, you took everyone, and you left me alone!”
“That isn’t true,” Derek says calmly, almost casually removing his body from Stiles’, but Stiles can see the clouds gathering. “I pushed you away, it’s true, and you have every right not to care what my reasons were, but you’re the one who left everyone behind, and if you think otherwise for a second you’re lying to yourself. Nobody here would have chosen me over you. That isn’t what happened.”
And that isn’t true, that’s-Stiles knows that isn’t the truth, but it does sound like it.
“My dad’s calling you son,” Stiles spits bitterly.
“You left him,” Derek says, voice a furious lash. “You went away and you never came back, and if you think he didn’t need to fill that void you’re stupid, and if you think he was ever able to you’re stupider than I imagined possible.”
“That isn’t fair,” Stiles says.
“It isn’t,” Derek agrees, “But it’s the truth.”
“Stop,” Stiles says.
“No.”
“Stop,” Stiles says again, as Derek’s fingers dig into his chin, tilting his head up, and Derek says, “No,” again, not a real snarl this time, though Stiles feels it vibrate through him, and then Stiles is opening his mouth so Derek can bite at him, shoving Derek backwards until they tumble down onto the floor beside the couch.
“No,” Derek says again, calmly this time. Stiles is whimpering in protest as Derek rises, but Derek gets up, leaves the touch of Stiles’ body until he picks him up and carries him carefully into the bedroom before dropping him onto the bed.
Stiles bounces, whining again, limbs loose and sprawling as he relaxes onto the bed, and Derek joins him there almost immediately, but Stiles is reaching desperately for him before he gets there anyway.
“Derek,” Stiles says, legs tight around the backs of Derek’s thighs, arms looped around his shoulders, pulling him in. “Derek.”
Derek pulls away to strip out of his clothes, and Stiles tries to do the same, though his fingers are numb and useless and Derek has to help get his shoelaces undone and pull his pants off. Derek lies on top of him again, skin smooth and warm where they touch, and it’s an accident that they end up settling into something that feels like a full-body hug.
Stiles’ mind is blank of anything else, and he would’ve though Derek’s must be too, but Derek is propping himself up, reaching out to his bedside locker, and when he comes back with his lube it’s half empty, and Stiles has to try not to be jealous, because he knows it isn’t fair. He isn’t very successful.
“I know you’re mad,” Derek says, unscrewing the cap quickly, one-handed, getting gel everywhere and ignoring the mess, reaching down to trace his fingers over Stiles’ ass, press right in, and Stiles’ knuckles go white as his fingers dig into Derek’s waist, though he’s moaning and tilting his hips for more as Derek twists his fingers, works him open quickly. “But that isn’t everything, that isn’t the only thing that matters. It isn’t what matters.”
Derek’s breath is unsteady as he pulls his fingers away from Stiles, and Stiles is going to say something about that, about Derek not getting to tell Stiles what matters, but before he can figure out what he even means, Derek is pushing inside him, sharp and bright and utterly, utterly distracting.
Stiles is pretty sure he should be protesting, should be arguing something, anything, but instead he’s rolling into it, shivering as Derek palms his ass to get a better angle, as Derek says, “Stiles,” like it means something, and puts his forearm on the bed so he can duck his chin onto Stiles’ shoulder, brush their faces together as he starts fucking in.
Stiles’ legs are starting to ache, spread wide under Derek’s belly, so he winds them back around Derek’s hips; it takes an effort, because pleasure is firing through the rest of his body, and it’s difficult to focus on anything else, but it makes it easier, even though it changes the angle again, makes him smaller, makes it better, close and warm and-
“Fuck,” Stiles pants, nails digging into the small of Derek’s back. Everything’s getting a little hazy, the movement of Derek inside him the only thing that matters now, and when Stiles blinks his eyes open, blinks the sweat away so he can see, the world is just a wash of colours.
“I’m sorry,” Derek says, deep inside and not ceding ground, and, “Don’t be,” Stiles says, tightening around him, legs and arms and everything, everything out of his control and clinging. “Don’t be sorry.”
And he means it, even though it hurt, still does, because it was real, is real, and the lingering reminder is a rush of relief under his skin.
It barely takes the touch of Derek’s hand on his cock to make him come, and it’s an aching effort in every part of his body, straining for more of the pleasure, even his shaky gasps hurting his throat, and when it’s over it’s as if a string has been cut.
Derek keeps fucking him, a weak pile of panting flesh on the mattress, and it still feels good, random spikes of useless lust thrilling through him. Stiles watches as Derek’s face twists, as he gets close, and it’s difficult, because he wants to kiss Derek’s mouth, cheeks, wants to look away so he won’t see this, and he can’t do either of those things.
“Come back,” Derek pleads, and they’re both shaking as Derek comes inside him, the first time Stiles has ever felt it, filthy and good. He should have objected to that, but he doesn’t even want to anymore; it feels too much for that. “Come back,” Derek says again, “Come back,” and Stiles presses Derek’s wet mouth deeper into his shoulder to make him stop.
Derek collapses onto the bed beside Stiles afterwards, and Stiles lets himself drift for a little while, but then he has to pull himself to his feet and go into the bathroom to clean up. He twitches as he drags his clothes back onto his sleepy, sensitive body. Derek is watching him with alert eyes when he eventually gets his buttons done up.
“I have to go,” Stiles says awkwardly.
“Of course you do,” Derek says, dragging a hand through his hair and staring up at the ceiling.
“This isn’t-we’re not just going to magically fix things by screwing until I forget everything that’s wrong,” Stiles says. His voice sounds odd, because he’s thinking about what Derek had said, come back, like Stiles isn’t here now, like Stiles isn’t already giving Derek everything he could possibly want from Stiles.
He doesn’t want to think about it, and normally his brain shies away from things he doesn’t want to think about, does the work for him, but it’s repeating in a loop, come back, come back, come back.
“Your belt is under the bed,” Derek says, not looking at Stiles, and that shouldn’t hurt but Stiles flinches anyway.
He grabs the belt and leaves.
*
Stiles floats in a strange sort of stasis over the next few days; Derek avoids him at work while Stiles ploughs through the mountains of paperwork still to be done, and his friends don’t exactly ignore him, but things are stilted and uncomfortable in a way they’d avoided when they were, apparently, pretending everything was okay.
He thinks about letting go, giving up, going out and finding somebody to fill the space and make him stop thinking about it, nothing that would matter, and nobody that would matter, but enough to make it through; but the idea doesn’t bring him any pleasure, not even any satisfaction, and it’s a heavy weight sitting on his chest while he considers it, so he lets that go instead and is almost bewildered at the relief he feels. He doesn’t know if he can figure out the mess everything is in, or if it will bring him any pleasure if he does, but he thinks it might, thinks there might be happiness here, just beyond his reach, and he tries not to think about that too much, because it’s a painful scrape across the surface of his mind, but he can’t quite suppress the bubbling, stupid hope that feels like nausea.
He doesn’t know why he’s feeling this now, when everything is worse than ever, but he clings to it unsteadily, though he doesn’t think he could make it go away if he tried.
He spends more time with his dad, which is nice, but the second time he accidentally interrupts a phone conversation with Helen while checking to see what his dad’s doing and if he wants to be doing something with Stiles instead, Stiles realises it’s weird even before his dad starts throwing him worried looks.
“I know,” he says when his dad approaches him about it. “I know, okay?”
“Yep,” his dad says awkwardly, and Stiles hopes that will be the end of it, but his dad seems to think the situation requires something more, lingering awkwardly.
“You don’t have to worry,” Stiles says, though he knows his dad will.
His dad grunts. “Derek hasn’t been around lately,” he says.
“No.”
“I’m just worried,” his dad says.
“About Derek?”
“Those marshals are back stirring trouble up for him and I haven’t seen him since they got back into town. It isn’t good timing, that’s all. Tell him to come see me, will you?”
“Uh-“
“I’ll have to go out and find him if he doesn’t.”
“Fine!” Stiles says, knowing he’s being played. “Fine, God.”
“No rush,” his dad says, and then waits for Stiles to leave.
*
Derek is at the office when Stiles gets there; Stiles sees his car outside, and Jill Lightbody waves him vaguely to the conference room down the hall when he asks where Derek is, but by the time he gets there the room is empty, and when he checks back outside the car is gone.
“Great,” Stiles mutters.
He scratches at his jaw and stares at the bright sky, thinking about using Scott as GPS and finally running Derek to earth, and his blood rises at the idea, a sick excitement bubbling in him. He thinks he feels more excited than sick, but he’s still a little queasy when a dark car pulls into Derek’s vacated space and two men in suits get out.
It takes him a second to recognise Mitchell, faded to insignificance beside his partner, who is striding towards Stiles like an invading army.
“You must be Peterson,” Stiles says, with a cheer he doesn’t feel.
“Mr Stilinski, we need to speak to you privately,” Peterson says.
“Nice to meet you too.”
“We have questions about Derek Hale,” Peterson says. It feels like an attack.
“Deputy Hale,” Stiles corrects, sparing a glance for Mitchell, hanging back and staring at a point over Stiles’ shoulder.
“And given the nature of your relationship with him you probably don’t want to answer our questions in front of your friends,” Peterson says, nodding past Stiles at the building. “We understand this is a delicate situation given Hale’s relationship with your father.”
“Not really,” Stiles says, though Peterson is right; he doesn’t want it getting back to his father that he was interrogated by federal marshals because of Derek.
“Do you have an office inside?” Stiles asks reluctantly.
“We’re about to visit a witness. We can interview you in the car on the way and drop you off somewhere,” Peterson suggests.
“I was on my way in,” Stiles says, which is true enough: he’d actually been about to shake Mary down for information about Derek’s schedule today and attempt to track him down.
Peterson puts a guiding hand on Stiles’ arm, directing him towards their towncar, but Stiles shakes him off in irritation. “I can walk,” he snaps, and makes his own way to the backseat.
Peterson’s sunglasses flash with reflected glare as he directs Mitchell into the car with a jerk of his chin.
The car rolls smoothly to the exit of the parking lot.
“Where are we going?” Stiles asks to fill the silence as they wait for the light to change so they can pull out into traffic.
“Montrose,” Peterson says after a brief pause, and flicks on the radio.
“Huh,” Stiles says. Derek lives on Montrose, but he doesn’t want to volunteer his knowledge of the fact to Peterson. “You’re better off taking Beechview to get there,” Stiles offers, and at Peterson’s grimace, “Turn left. Don’t you have GPS in this thing?”
Peterson switches the turn signal and angles the nose of the car slightly, taking Stiles’ advice, but he doesn’t look very grateful.
“So, am I interrogating myself here or what?” Stiles asks once they’ve joined the flow of traffic and the two marshals are still silent.
“If you like,” Peterson says, surly, ignoring the uncertain look Mitchell throws him.
“Because it doesn’t take that long to get to Montrose, so if you want to get this interview finished in time for the next one-“
“Jesus Christ,” Peterson snarls, switching lanes abruptly. “We’re not going to interview you.”
“Uh-“ Stiles says, disconcerted.
“Gary, we were going to ask him some questions,” Mitchell says tentatively.
“We were going to pretend to interview you so you didn’t get suspicious, but you’re so annoying I can’t pretend to care about your answers.”
“Oh,” Stiles says breathlessly, “fuck,” and tries the door even though they’ve reached the end of the traffic jam and are speeding up. It’s locked.
“Get his phone,” Peterson says, and Mitchell is fumbling out his service weapon and pointing it at Stiles with a shaky hand, face an apologetic wince. Stiles hands his phone over.
“We should call the girl,” Peterson says.
“He’ll warn her,” Mitchell protests. “Her husband will be waiting for us.”
“Fuck,” Peterson says, and Stiles feels a spike of hope that Peterson is actually listening to Mitchell, hope that Mitchell can talk Peterson out of this, but then Mitchell is saying, “We should kill him before we pick up the girl.”
“No,” Peterson says. “She won’t answer the door to us alone.”
“Shoot her through the wood,” Mitchell says, “the way we did with the Sheriff.”
“He’s still alive,” Peterson says. “I’m not taking any chances.”
“We don’t want to kill her anyway.”
“Maybe we should forget about her, since we have this one-“
“We need to kill Hale,” Mitchell says. “We need-“
“You’re not werewolves,” Stiles says. “Derek would have known.”
“We were going to be,” Peterson says.
“Were you-were you part of Dale and Williams’ pack?” Stiles asks.
“We’re human-“ Peterson starts, but Stiles is yelling, “How the hell do you two idiots get to count as pack?”
“We’re human!” Peterson yells back. “Dale was going to turn us once we released him, but then Hale killed him!”
“And now you’re what, starting your own revenger’s tragedy?”
“We’re going to get Hale to turn us to get you back,” Peterson says, “and then I’m going to kill you both and take his place.”
“You do realise that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard?” Stiles asks calmly, because it is, for several reasons, but before Peterson can answer Stiles is trying to dive over the front seat at Mitchell, one hand digging into the leather of the seat to gain traction, the other scrabbling at the cool metal of the gun, and he does realise this is the dumbest thing he’s ever done even before Mitchell bites out, “Fuck-“ and pulls the gun away, and then Mitchell’s fist is coming towards his cheek and there’s a blinding pain in his head and everything goes black.
*
Stiles is surprised when he wakes up.
He’s surprised he wakes up at all, but he’s more surprised to find himself dumped in a heap on Scott’s armchair, Allison and Melissa sitting on the couch across from him, staring tensely at him.
Allison’s white face flickers when he opens his eyes, but she doesn’t say anything to draw attention to him. His cheekbone and the back of his skull both hurt, but he can deal, because some things aren’t a choice.
“-get here?” Peterson’s voice says in the background. “It’s going to be dark soon.”
“Are werewolves more powerful after dark?” Mitchell asks, skittish. “Maybe we should just tap these guys and get out of here, Pete.”
“No,” Peterson says. “We’ve put too much into this to walk away now.”
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
“They’ll be here soon,” Melissa whispers, eyes on Stiles, hand tightening on Allison’s.
“Maybe we should just do one of them,” Peterson says, and Mitchell’s gun shoves into the underside of Stiles’ chin.
“If we’re killing Hale it should be this one,” he says, and Stiles can’t help the sound that escapes him at that.
“Hey, he’s awake,” Mitchell says, leaning over the back of the chair to get a look at Stiles’ face. “Good, I might feel kind of bad about killing somebody while they’re unconscious.”
Stiles should be thinking about Derek now, he decides, staring into Allison’s wide eyes; about how maybe he was never actually able to stop loving him, and never will be, though never might not be much of a test, now; about how much he regrets that they never did get to make things quite right; about how ridiculous it is that the thing he’s sorriest about is that he knows Derek’s going to blame himself for that as well as everything else; but he’s too terrified to think about any of that at the moment, and he knows all of it with too bone-deep a certainty to have to bother anyway.
“Why would you feel bad about that?” Peterson asks.
“I need to use the bathroom,” Allison says.
“Again?” Mitchell asks.
“I’m pregnant!” she says shrilly. “Are you seriously going to ask me to hold it?”
“No,” Mitchell says, irritated, and when he leans over Stiles to gesture at the bathroom with the gun and say, “Don’t even think about moving, smart guy,” Allison leaps off the couch like a parachuting elephant and clamps onto his wrist.
“Stiles!” she yells, “Do something!”
But Stiles is too busy watching Melissa with wide eyes: somehow Peterson’s gun is on the floor and Peterson is in a headlock, face bright red already, expert pressure on his airway rapidly deciding the fight, though he scrabbles helplessly at Melissa’s side in a futile attempt at escape.
“Stiles!” Melissa yells, and Stiles jumps woozily to attention, but he doesn’t know what to do.
The back of the chair is protecting Mitchell’s front, so Stiles slithers onto the floor and ducks around it, and then he can’t even kick him in the balls, so he goes for the kidneys instead, and Mitchell lets out a harrumph that Stiles judges a success.
Allison’s nails are leaving gouges in Mitchell’s wrist, but Mitchell is still tugging on his hand, trying to get the gun free, and when that doesn’t work he backhands her across the face, and when she makes a hurt sound Stiles does too.
“Bite him!” Melissa is yelling, “Bite him!”
Stiles looks for somewhere to bite, but Mitchell is wearing a suit and Stiles doesn’t think his teeth are strong enough to penetrate, so he goes for the neck like a vampire, and Melissa is yelling, “Yes, yes, bite him, get it, go for it!” so Stiles feels like he must be doing something right.
He doesn’t think he’s going to get anywhere with the biting, though, so he abandons that course of action and looks around for a weapon, but when he hits Mitchell over the head with Allison’s iPad, Mitchell has the deep imprint of a set of teeth in his hand, and Allison has his gun in hers.
Stiles watches as her prisoner loses consciousness and slides to the ground, and then he avoids Allison’s accusing face entirely and looks from the smashed screen of her tablet to Melissa, standing over Peterson with her hands on her hips and the familiar vicious triumph of a satisfied mother on her face. The last time he’d seen that expression she’d been directing it at Chris Argent, what feels like a lifetime and a world ago.
“You can stop pointing that at him, baby,” she says, but Allison shakes her head.
“I’m fine. You get Peterson’s.”
Melissa does, though Peterson looks out for the count. “Stiles, call Derek,” she says.
Stiles’ fingers shake when he dials.
Derek’s tone is curt when he answers, until Stiles says, “Derek-“ ragged and broken, and then Derek is speaking so frantically that Stiles can barely pick up a single word.
“We’re fine,” he says when Derek falls silent, because he assumes that question was in there somewhere. “Peterson and Mitchell are here, they-they were going to kill us, they were trying to get you to turn them and they were talking about killing one of us. Did you know they wanted to be werewolves?”
Stiles says it-they’d wanted to be werewolves-like they’d wanted to move to Mars, but Derek answers like Stiles is understanding anything right now.
“No,” he says calmly. “But I suspected they’d helped Paul and Brian escape, and there was nothing else they had to offer as inducement. It doesn’t surprise me.” Stiles’ breathing is evening out, gradually lengthening to match Derek’s, audible over the phone, and he watches idly as Allison relaxes too, eyes on his face as he speaks to their Alpha. “We’ll take care of it, Chris is coming-“
Mitchell jerks awake, lunges for Allison, gets his hand on her stomach, and she shrieks and shoots him in the head.
Derek is still speaking, but Stiles’ mind is a white buzz as he stares at Mitchell’s ruined skull, smashed beyond repair, worse than Allison’s iPad, blood and thick, messy grey matter spilling out on the carpet.
Allison heaves in a breath, and all she does with it is start wailing, “Fuck, fuck, fuck-“
Derek is still speaking, but Stiles drops the phone.
“Allison!” Melissa says sharply, coming over to her, throwing a suspicious glance over her shoulder at Peterson and then shoving her gun into Stiles’ hand and sending him past her towards Peterson’s supine body, presumably to shoot him in the head also, should it become necessary. “Allison, it’s fine. Calm down, you’re fine.”
“I am not-“ Allison says, and her face is deathly pale. “I am not fine, I am not-oh, fuck.”
“You are fine,” Melissa reiterates, and Allison says, “I am in labour,” and when she sucks in another breath the exhale is a sound of terror.
“You’re fine,” Melissa says, though she looks a little white herself. “This is well within a normal birthing schedule, you are fine. And this is nothing, this is nothing to worry you at all, this-“
“Scott’s going to freak,” Allison says, head tilted back to the ceiling, breaths shallow and shaky. Melissa’s hands are tight around her upper arms, holding her upright.
“Scott will listen to his mother when she explains prenatal development and-“
“I killed somebody!” Allison says hysterically. “His brains are on our new carpet, Scott will not listen-“
“Scott’s killed people,” Melissa says blankly, uncomprehending in the face of Allison’s fear. “Scott’s killed plenty of people, Scott killed your mother, as she would have killed him, and Stiles, and you, in the end, because-“ She cuts herself off abruptly, looking like she regrets that train of thought, and shakes Allison gently. “As mothers do, as you did.”
For a second, it seems like Allison is willing to go with that, nodding understandingly, but then she shakes her head frantically, a look of horror overtaking her blanched face.
“No,” she says, “no, he didn’t, he didn’t, he wouldn’t, I can’t-“
Her voice is rising, but it’s hysteria, not disbelief.
“Yes,” Scott’s mother says urgently. “He did.” Her nails bite into Allison’s arms. “Stop this.”
Allison keeps shaking her head, making distraught noises of denial even as her face twists in pain, as Melissa supports her, the only thing keeping her on her feet.
“Allison, stop,” Melissa says. “You do not have the right.” She’s looking right into Allison’s eyes, and her voice is kind but unrelenting. “He is the father of the child you are about to have, and you can be angry with him, you can be angry with what he did, but you know why, and you are about to become a mother and you do not have the right.”
Allison stares into Melissa’s face, and then she nods, a wavering motion, but her face firms, gains some colour, and her breathing becomes something Stiles recognises as Lamaze, for his sins.
“Is that Derek?” she asks after a minute, eyes fixed on the wall. “Is that Derek, is he coming, is Scott coming?”
And then Stiles has to dive for the phone at his feet and realign the gun on Peterson’s head at the same time.
*
Stiles doesn’t have much to do while they wait for Derek and Scott to arrive, just puff along uselessly with Allison’s heaving breaths, pat Allison’s hand until she snaps at him and yanks it away, and then obey Melissa when she raises her voice to demand, “A towel, a wet towel, Stiles, right now!” He’s pretty sure she’s just losing her freaking mind, and even she doesn’t know what she would possibly want a wet towel for.
When he hears the noise of Derek and Scott’s arrival outside, he drops the half-soaked towel in the kitchen sink and rushes back into the living room.
Scott is kissing Allison’s face, her hair, utterly helplessly, and her hands are tight around his fist, but she holds him off, face strained beneath the messy curtain of her hair, until she draws one more breath with a sound like a sob, and collapses forward into him, hands twisting tightly in his shirt.
“-fine, you’ll be fine, you’re-“ Scott is mumbling into her shining hair, shaking hands petting the curve of her back carefully.
“We are leaving for hospital right now!” Melissa says, still kind of crazed. “You’re useless, I’m driving, give me your keys!”
Scott searches his pockets until he finds them, and maybe it takes him a little longer because he’s only willing to remove one hand from Allison, but it probably takes him longer because his mom is shouting at him while he searches, her panicked, commanding voice blaring, “-idiot, how did I raise such an idiot, how can you not find your keys, we have a situation here!”
When Melissa has the keys in her hand she sprints for the door immediately, stopping only when she realises Scott is still helping Allison up off the armchair, hustling them along with a string of incitements to, “Come on, come on, come on,” until the word loses all meaning.
Derek is standing over Peterson, still prone on the floor. “Aren’t you coming?” Stiles asks.
“I have to take care of this,” Derek says.
“Oh,” Stiles says. “Do you need us to stay and give statements?”
“I’m not staying!” Melissa yells.
“No,” Derek says, grinning. “I’ll send someone out to the hospital.”
“Oh.” Stiles had wanted to talk to him, doesn’t really want to leave now, but Allison calls, “Stiles, come on, come on!” and they are not starting up another round of that, so Stiles goes, throwing a glance back over his shoulder at Derek, nudging Peterson’s unresponsive body with his boot.
*
Allison vanishes once they arrive at the hospital, and after Stiles gets checked out he’s left sitting alone in a corridor for a long time, nothing to do but read yesterday’s newspaper and year-old magazines and think, which is never his favourite thing to do.
He calls his dad, but Derek has already filled him in, and Stiles smiles wryly, surprised at his lack of resentment.
Carl Branning shows up to interview him at some point, and tells him Derek is still stuck out at the scene, asks if Stiles knows why Argent is hanging around out there, and then Stiles gets to swap places with Melissa while she takes her turn being questioned.
Allison actually appears to be asleep, so he takes a quick gander at what’s going on down there under the covering and then really, really regrets it, joining Scott up at Allison’s head and desperately trying to ignore his queasiness.
“Guess there’s a reason I’m gay,” he says, but Scott says, “No, I’m up here too.”
“I don’t want you looking!” Allison says suddenly. “Nobody look!”
“I already looked,” Stiles says, “Sorry.”
“Oh, you don’t count.”
“Thanks?”
“I didn’t look,” Scott says. “I don’t think I want to.”
“Wouldn’t recommend it,” Stiles says.
They make idle conversation, nothing important, nothing that really registers with Scott or Allison, he doesn’t think; he spends most of the time with his shoulder pressed solidly against Scott’s as they stand by the bed, which feels like the important thing.
Allison is asleep again by the time Melissa returns, so Scott can leave the room without too many separation pains, though he makes his mom promise to run get him if anything happens three times before he goes, and then Melissa sends Stiles to get ice-chips for some reason and then very politely throws him out.
Stiles is back with celebrity breakups-though this celebrity has remarried in the months since the magazine was published-when Scott and Branning emerge. Branning just nods at him and squeaks down the corridor, but Scott comes over and drops into the chair next to Stiles.
“Nothing, right?” he asks.
“No.”
“So-yeah.”
Scott had been with Derek; he’d heard that conversation over the open phoneline, heard his mother talk Allison down. Stiles doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, but what he gets is silence.
“So,” he prompts. “You and V?”
Scott shrugs. “She’d been threatening us for a while, and I couldn’t really do anything because of Allison, because she didn’t know. She’d been threatening to hurt you, to hurt-to hurt Allison for a long time, and I never believed her, but then I did, and I-“
He swallows, tries to speak again, but just shrugs instead, face wobbling a little.
“You know.”
Stiles has seen less people die than you would think, given how many people his best friend has apparently killed, up to and including his wife’s mother; he’s never killed anybody himself.
“Not really,” he says, and watches as Scott contemplates apologising for keeping him in the dark and decides against it, “but Allison does now.”
Scott has spent years trying to protect Allison, has murdered to do it, but brightens a little anyway, relieved that he might be understood.
“Yeah,” he says, heartened, and jerks a thumb towards the delivery room. “I should-“
Stiles waves him off, and settles in for the wait, but he doesn’t pick up the magazine again; he has better things to think about now.
*
Chris Argent shows up shortly afterwards, taking his place at his daughter’s bedside. Stiles is pretty sure he doesn’t want to know what it was Chris was doing that kept him away.
Lydia and Jackson show up at the end of the workday, and Derek isn’t far behind them.
After flicking through Stiles’ discarded magazine for twenty minutes, Lydia heaves a disgruntled sigh. “Should we go home and wait for word? These things can take hours.”
They can take days, actually, but Stiles isn’t willing to be the one to jinx Allison.
“No,” Derek says curtly.
“Fine,” Lydia says, and stalks off to the vending machine, Jackson in tow.
“We need to talk,” Stiles says.
“No, we don’t.”
Stiles blinks. “Are you mad at me?”
“No,” Derek says. “I just don’t see the purpose of going through it all when you’re just leaving soon anyway, so why don’t we just-“
“Let’s talk,” Stiles interrupts, “about that.”
“No,” Derek says again, and then Lydia comes back, complaining volubly about the width and quality of the selections on offer in the vending machine, and Stiles settles back into his chair reluctantly, and he and Derek watch each other warily.
When Lydia goes to the bathroom, Jackson bolts for the front doors, planning to sneak a cigarette, though how the hell Jackson thinks Lydia doesn’t know he smokes Stiles does not understand.
Derek’s shoulders tense before Stiles gets the first word out, and when he does, he only manages, “So-“
“Let’s just not,” Derek says, eyes on the grey-green of the wall opposite. “I really don’t need to hear it.”
“I don’t think-“
“Stiles,” Helen says, because of course his dad phoned her. “How’s she doing?”
Stiles thinks he manages not to insult his father’s potential girlfriend too badly, though he kind of wants to right now, and then her beeper goes off and she hurries away and Jackson and Lydia still aren’t back, yes! Stiles is choosing to take that as the sign, rather than the two previous interruptions, because he’s decided the universe wants him to have what he wants, and if it doesn’t he’s taking it anyway.
“You know there’s a teaching job going next year, right?” Stiles says, all in, and Derek’s protest dies unvoiced, but his mouth remains open, eyes wide, and he looks-disbelieving, which was not the reaction Stiles had been hoping for.
And then Lydia appears, looking around, ignores the elephant, and asks, “How long does it take for one stupid smoke?” just as Jackson sprints around the corner, face falling as he sees her, and then the midwife sticks her head out of Allison’s room and asks, “Who would like to see the baby first?”
*
Tessa is a big, red ball of mush, pretty much, but everybody in the room is incandescent with happiness, and Stiles makes all the appropriate noises about her awesomeness anyway, and he’s sure they’re true, or they will be once she’s enough of a person to actually look like a proper baby.
He feels like they’re true.
After a few minutes, he and Derek trail out to let Lydia and Jackson take their turn, and they walk side-by-side down the corridor, through the doors, and out of the hospital. Stiles tilts his head back to the black sky overhead, breathes in deeply, can’t help the reasonless smile that curls his mouth, and jumps when Derek speaks.
“I’ll give you a ride home. We need to talk.”
“Okay,” Stiles says steadily, and he smiles all the way across the hospital lawn, through the parking structure and the drive to Derek’s apartment.
During the drive, his phone vibrates, a text from an old buddy, checking if he’s back in town, if he wants to meet up for drinks. It takes him a second to place the name.
“Okay,” he says when Derek stops the car, and gets out without question.
“You-“ Derek starts, as if he’s actually going to attempt to have this conversation on the pavement outside his apartment building, but then he catches up with Stiles and follows him in.
The elevator is empty of mommies and buggys for once, and Stiles considers just pushing Derek up against the wall and going to town, get some of his jumpiness out, but he doesn’t think that would help Derek’s jumpiness, so he keeps his hands to himself and lets Derek lead the way into the apartment, and when he stops once, halfway down the corridor, to look at Stiles over his shoulder, totally bewildered, Stiles even waits for him to start moving again and doesn’t shove him towards his door, the way his palms are itching to.
“So I don’t care what you say,” Stiles says defiantly, watching as Derek puts his hand on the door and uses the weight of his whole body to close it, propped up against it with his head bent and his eyes closed. “I’m staying anyway, you can’t make me go this time.”
“Stiles,” Derek says, pinching the bridge of his nose, like he’s getting a headache or something, even though werewolves don’t get tension headaches and there’s no reason for Derek to be tense anyway, because Stiles is perfectly willing to help out with that. “I never wanted you to leave.”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, though it feels like they’re changing tracks, because the destination is in view and he doesn’t want to make any more layovers. “But I don’t think that matters. You don’t get to make that choice. You didn’t then.”
“It was dangerous,” Derek snaps, turning to face him. “It was necessary.”
“It was my life!”
“Exactly!”
“You know, this argument is pointless,” Stiles says calmly. “Because after everything that’s happened, I’m never going to listen to anything you say again anyway, so it’s in your best interest to start telling me stuff.”
“That-“ Derek is struggling to come up with a response, as he should be, because Stiles’ logic is impeccable, and Derek needs to recognise.
“So that’s what’s going to happen,” Stiles says. “My dad will need someone to stay with him for a while, so living with him won’t be embarrassing or anything, and we can just-“ Stiles makes a wide, circular gesture with his hands, encompassing everything and the kitchen sink besides. “-see how things go.”
“You’re just doing this because Scott told you he’s making you godfather,” Derek accuses.
Stiles flushes pink with pleasure. “Nah, man,” he says sheepishly, ducking his head. “Did he say that? Because I would, don’t get me wrong, but that isn’t why. I never wanted to leave either. And I don’t want to now.”
“You have a life,” Derek says. “You have friends, you-“
Stiles is shaking his head. “I don’t have anything I want more than what’s here,” he says, and because he’s looking at Derek when he says it he can see that Derek doesn’t believe him.
“Okay, so-I wasn’t going to tell you this, but-“ Derek is watching him gravely, and Stiles can feel the remnants of smile slip off his own face. “I loved you.” Derek makes a movement, something that’s trying to be denial, so Stiles hurries on. “When you told me to leave back then, I wasn’t going to tell you that, I was going to tell you less than that, but-it was true. I loved you.” He swallows around the lump in his throat, eyes on the carpet. This is embarrassing. His face is burning. “And I don’t know if-I want to know if I can have that now. I don’t know, but I want to try, I want to find out-“
Derek is in front of him suddenly, Stiles’ vision taken up by his shirt, and his hands are gentle on Stiles’ hot cheeks as he lifts Stiles’ head for his kiss, a slow question that Stiles tries to answer.
“Okay,” Derek says, “We can-“
Stiles pulls away to say, “Plus, now my dad will kill you if you ever do anything to me again,” and Derek is grinning as he grabs Stiles’ tshirt and pulls him into the bedroom.
Derek is heavy when he collapses on top of Stiles on the bed, lips dragging over the skin of his jaw, and it’s nice to be held, to be anchored by Derek’s weight. They scuffle together to remove each other’s clothes, and when they get down to skin Stiles can’t stop touching.
Derek strokes over his limbs, arms and legs and down to his feet, and he laughs when Stiles kicks him because the soles of his feet are sensitive. Stiles rolls Derek onto his back and puts a hand in the centre of his chest to keep him there, so he can look, finally, all he wants to. Derek’s lips curve and the corners of his eyes crinkle, willing and amused, though he has no idea what Stiles is looking at. Mostly Stiles is looking at his face now anyway, so he relaxes onto Derek’s chest to kiss him again, still lush and mindless and long.
Stiles spends some time figuring out Derek’s body, then, where he likes to be touched, the strange places he doesn’t, like behind his left kneecap, and then Stiles figures out where he likes pressure, deep suction, teeth, and where a glancing brush of lips will get more of a reaction.
When Stiles touches Derek’s left elbow-not even the fragile skin of his inner elbow, just the sandpapery stuff that covers the bone-and Derek nearly elbows him in the face to get him to stop, he asks, “So are you going to give me any pointers here, or?”
It takes a minute for Derek to reply, “Where’d the fun be?” His voice is dazed.
“Okay,” Stiles says, unsteady laughter colouring the word.
He drops down to lick at Derek’s cock, lick around it, more a tease than anything, and then Derek’s hand is on his head, nudging him down, so Stiles licks at Derek’s balls, takes one in his mouth, and then Derek nudges him down again.
Stiles has to let it go to follow Derek’s direction; he makes a surprised sound when he releases it, but Derek touches his head again and Stiles goes.
Stiles doesn’t really like doing this, but when he sweeps his tongue over Derek’s hole, Derek moans and his whole body jerks, and by the time Stiles has all that dark pink skin wet the sounds Derek is making are almost shouts, worked up as he’s gotten, so quickly, and Stiles puts his hands on Derek’s vulnerable stomach before he eagerly pushes his tongue inside.
He isn’t really sure what to do then, just goes on instinct, and he seems to figure it out pretty quickly, judging by the reaction he gets. He figures out what Derek likes here too, slow withdrawals and sharp sucks around his rim, and then when Stiles kisses it like Derek had kissed him, all wet and deep and endless, Derek comes off the bed, dislodges Stiles.
When Derek sinks back down he pulls away, reaches over to the locker for the same tube they’d used last time. Stiles is surprised when Derek hands it to him, and Derek is impatient, unscrewing the cap for Stiles and squeezing, getting most of it into Stiles’ palm.
Stiles is good at this, so he knows Derek will like it, and he’s careful, because he doesn’t think Derek looks like he’s sure.
Derek’s legs fall open when Stiles gets the second finger in, tension leaving his body all at once. Stiles kisses the inside of his knee. “You’re good at this,” he says, because it’s true. “Tell me what you like.”
He asks just before he slides as deep as he can, brushes his fingers over Derek’s prostate, so the response is immediate.
“There,” Derek says breathlessly, leg spasming. “That, that, there-“
Stiles hums, kisses Derek’s leg again, though they’re wide open now and he can only reach Derek’s thigh. His dick is throbbing, getting the sheets underneath him wet, but he doesn’t really think about it until Derek reaches down and pulls his fingers out, groaning at the last drag.
Derek wraps his legs around Stiles when he works his way up Derek’s body. When he flips them over Stiles thinks he’s changed his mind, but then he’s reaching down to take Stiles’ dick in hand, positioning it blindly and sinking down.
“Oh,” Stiles says, eyes shutting against the feeling.
Derek starts moving right away, awkward motions quickly fading into an easy ride.
“Lydia’s never going to let me forget this,” Stiles says dreamily.
Derek puts his forehead on Stiles’ shoulder. “You’re not telling Lydia about this.”
“Not about this,” Stiles says indignantly. “About-“
The change in position did something good for Derek; he’s getting noisy, tightening up around Stiles and staying pressed all the way down, shoving as hard as he can against Stiles, trying for more, deeper.
Stiles puts his hands on Derek’s hips and starts moving, suddenly aware that he really hasn’t been doing his part to make this work, but all he has in him are slow rocks, helpless liquid pushes of his hips into Derek, because he thinks it’s as good as it can get already.
“Or Scott,” Derek says suddenly. “He told me what you said.”
Stiles laughs unexpectedly, body jerking under Derek, inside him, and Derek is sitting up again and Derek’s hand is on his own cock, pulling frantically until he’s spilling all over Stiles’ skin, getting it everywhere.
He sinks down when he’s done, sweat and come sticking their bellies together, and Stiles’ hips snap up, urgent now, and he tumbles Derek onto his back so he can spread him wide and get where he wants to be, move the way he needs to.
Orgasm hits him like a kiss, that first kiss such a short time ago, like Mitchell’s fist, blinding colours and sparks and darkness.
He’s on his back again when he comes out of it, but Derek is still beside him and they’re both still filthy.
“Don’t you have superfast werewolf recovery time?” Stiles asks. “We’re saying clean-up is your job, okay?”
Derek just grunts, nosing at Stiles’ armpit, breathing in deep, and maybe attempting to make a werewolf wash away come isn’t going to be a successful endeavour.
“I can’t sleep like this, though,” Stiles says, though his eyes are already drooping, and Derek unbends enough to wipe them off cursorily with the sheet before dumping it onto the floor, and then he licks at the bits he missed until he’s satisfied.
“Fine,” Stiles allows. “We can work on your domestic skills. Add it to the pile.”
And then he’s done, he’s pretty sure.
There’s a lot going on in Stiles’ head in the moment before he falls asleep: that he should call his dad; and how happy Scott’s going to be to have somebody to spaz at; and the new niece he has, and screw anybody who says she isn’t, who probably isn’t as ugly as he’s remembering her; and the warmth of Derek’s body as he curls around Stiles, his easy, comfortable closeness as he lets his head come to rest on Stiles’ shoulder; and everybody who’s going to be at the hospital tomorrow, so many people it’ll be like a party and they’ll have to have one of those when Allison is released; whether buying a massive stuffed pink teddy is gender-essentialist; and whether it’s worth turning to kiss Derek back, because that feels nice; and the best thing, the absolute best thing is that he doesn’t have to think about any of it now.
It will keep.
end
Thanks so much for reading!