Teen Wolf Big Bang -- Service Weapon (1/3)
Title: Service Weapon (1/3)
Author: the_deep_magic
Artist: maichan
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 22,595
Warnings: domestic violence, car crash, standard Kate warning (if you’d like more information, please see end notes)
Disclaimer: These characters don’t belong to me; I’m just playing with them
Summary: It is 100% against Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Office policy to allow two officers engaged in a romantic relationship to be partners. It is also 100% accurate that no one else on the force can last more than three days in a car with Stiles without begging for either a ball gag or the sweet release of death.
A/N: This is a sequel to Cherrybomb. Quick primer if you haven’t read it: Peter was killed in the fire along with Derek’s family, save for Laura. Mrs. Stilinski is alive, but the Sheriff was killed while on duty when Stiles was ten. Stiles, a reformed juvenile delinquent thanks in a large part to Officer Derek Hale, joined the Beacon Hills police after high school.
A/N II: As always, my eternal gratitude to aliassmith for the feedback and cheerleading! The amazing art was drawn by maichan and the full-size pic can be found here.
One / Two / Three
One of these days, Derek is going to realize there are some arguments he’s just never going to win. Today is not that day.
Really, though, he should have known better than to start any conversation with, “Stay in the car, Stiles.”
That set off a monologue whose essential thesis was that Derek, in fact, should stay in the car and let Stiles take care of this. Derek had tuned out the beginning to reflect on his questionable life choices, but it sounds like Stiles is starting to wind down now.
“…have to let me handle some of these things on my own, and this is the perfect chance. Because we have been through this before, many times, and she’s not going to listen to you. Because she wants in your pants.”
Derek cocks an eyebrow. “Is that why you don’t listen to me?”
“Ha fucking ha,” Stiles says, already opening the passenger door. “I only don’t listen when your ideas suck. And I am already firmly installed in your pants.” Derek keeps his expression impassive and Stiles glares. “Firmly,” he repeats, before slamming the door for emphasis and striding down the sidewalk and around the corner.
Derek doesn’t need to see them to be able to hear the conversation.
“Stiles, sweetheart, long time no see! I believe this is the part where I flutter my eyelashes and ask, ‘Is there a problem, Officer?’”
Stiles sighs, but there’s a fondness he can’t seem to keep out of his tone. “I wouldn’t try to play innocent, Connie. It’s not one of your strengths.”
“Fair enough. But you know I’m providing the good people of Beacon Hills with a unique and specialized service. You wouldn’t deprive them of that, would you?”
“I would when you’re tricking two blocks away from a school zone.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, darling, it’s 11 o’clock at night. All the impressionable little kiddies have gone to bed. It’s their fathers I’m waiting for. And a few of their mothers.”
“I wouldn’t presume to know your clientele, but the residents have been complaining. You need to move your base of operations.”
“And if I don’t? Will your delectable partner come over here and arrest me? I know he’s just around the corner.”
“How about this: if you do move, I’ll make sure Officer Hale gets sent over the next time there’s a noise complaint at your place. Maybe you can convince him to strip for you, bring out the plastic handcuffs.”
Derek’s hand is on the door handle and he’s just about to storm over there to stop Stiles from pimping him out to the local prostitutes when Connie laughs.
“A cop pretending to be a stripper pretending to be a cop. That’s precious. That’s why I like you, Stiles.”
“Enough to move shop out of the neighborhood?”
“Whatever you like. You don’t even need to bribe me with Derek. You’re filling out that uniform quite nicely, Officer Stilinski. Maybe you can help keep the peace when things get out of hand at my place. And by ‘keep the peace,’ I mean-”
Derek would pay actual money to see Stiles’ face at that moment, but he does get to hear Stiles stutter out, “I… I’ll sleep on it.”
Ooh, even Derek knows that was the wrong thing to say.
Connie laughs even harder. “You do that, Officer. I’ll find myself a new street corner away from the delicate flowers of Beacon Hills, don’t you worry. Now scurry back to your partner. But don’t be a stranger now.”
Derek listens to the trudging footsteps coming back around the corner and just barely manages to get his amusement under control before the car door opens and Stiles plops down in the seat.
He turns to Derek, his face beet red and glum. “You heard every word of that, didn’t you?”
“If you need help picking out music for your stripper debut, just let me know,” Derek deadpans, looking Stiles up and down the best he can in the car. “She’s not wrong about the uniform, though.”
Stiles buries his face in his hands. “Now she’s not going to listen to either of us.”
“Next time we’ll send Officer Greenberg. If she can flirt her way out of that, she deserves a medal.”
&&&
It is 100% against Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Office policy to allow two officers engaged in a romantic relationship to be partners. It is also 100% accurate that no one else on the force can last more than three days in a car with Stiles without begging for either a ball gag or the sweet release of death. Derek’s certain Stiles did it on purpose, systematically verbally terrorizing every other officer until Derek was the only one left, and while everyone does know they’re together, as long as no one talks about it, it’s not technically a problem.
And Derek’s sure that Stiles actually engineered this whole thing in the first place because he really can shut up for more than ten seconds, and when they’re on duty, he’s… well, professional wouldn’t quite be the word for it, but he can absolutely keep his hands to himself and his mind on the job.
“C’mon, Derek,” he’d said. “I’m the only one who knows what you’re really capable of. You don’t have to hide anything from me, and you know I’ve got your back.” As loath as Derek was to admit it, Stiles had a point.
It meant going back to uniformed beat patrols and shitty hours most of the time, but Stiles was still a rookie and needed a partner, preferably one who wouldn’t kill him with his own service weapon. Derek was so used to working on his own - and the “lone wolf” jokes were probably yet another part of Stiles’ master plan - that he’d forgotten what it was like for somebody to have his back.
And he’s never had a partner who knows, who doesn’t ask questions when Derek goes straight to the stash of coke taped inside the toilet tank or rips the door clean off a car to get to an accident victim faster. Stiles has also proven incredibly vital when it comes to damage control - two minutes of talking and he can persuade a witness that there’s no way Derek can see in the dark or rip through a chain link fence or jump a ten-foot wall, that’s just ridiculous, the light’s dim and your eyes are playing tricks on you.
After Derek had basically offered to let Stiles in on the secret in the first place, he realized he’d never actually revealed what he was to someone who didn’t already know. He nearly balked, but of course he couldn’t dangle something like that in front of Stiles and not expect Stiles to pounce on it like a five-year-old on a pile of Halloween candy. Or Stiles on a pile of Halloween candy.
He’d made Stiles wait until the night after the, uh, despoiling of the Camaro in the woods (well, the first despoiling; it kind of became a thing after that), back when Stiles was still in the Academy. Stiles still gives him shit about making it into a dramatic moment, but Derek will take the ribbing if it means he never have to admit that he was nervous. No, terrified. That Stiles would take one look at his fangs and his claws- never mind the hairy face - in the bright daylight and run screaming in the other direction. Or at the very least decide he didn’t want to be with a freak, a monster.
Turns out Derek seriously underestimated Stiles.
Or possibly overestimated him, because after gaping at Derek, half-shifted and lit up only by the headlights of the Camaro and the gibbous moon overhead, for a full minute, Stiles said, “So, basically, you’re Wolverine.”
“…the fuck?” Derek had said. Or tried to say around retracting fangs. “No, Stiles, I’m not Wolverine.”
“You so totally are, with the claws and the stubble and gruff exterior hiding a heart of gold-”
And Derek will swear up and down that he didn’t mean to do it, but one leap and suddenly he was right there, lifting Stiles easily with one hand fisted in his shirt. “I’m faster than Wolverine. I can smell fear and walk through bullets and hear your heart skip when you’re lying,” he growled, shifting into full beta form.
Stiles squeaked.
Derek dropped him harder than he meant to, but he backed off immediately, convinced he was frightening Stiles.
Wrong again.
“Oh my god,” Stiles said, picking himself up off the ground and dusting himself off. “That’s how you… in New York. All those things you did. Derek, that’s fucking awesome. So why’d you come back to this shithole? Somebody figure it out?”
“No,” Derek sighed, shifting back to human form again. “But it was only a matter of time. There was so much I could do, so many people I could help… but there are people that know about us. That want to kill us just for existing.”
“Us?” Stiles asked, stepping forward. “How many of you are there?”
Derek snorted. “We don’t have meetings, Stiles. But there are at least a few packs in every state. They’re pretty spread out here in California, and the Hale pack is… was one of the oldest.”
He could see the gears turning in Stiles’ head and braced himself for the barrage of questions that was sure to follow. But instead, Stiles came out with “Oh my god, Derek. Those people that want to kill you. Is that… Is that why your family…”
“Those people are called hunters,” Derek said quietly, looking away. “And yes.”
Stiles had his arms around him before Derek even knew what was happening. For a few seconds, Derek was afraid Stiles was going to keep pushing, ask questions Derek wasn’t ready to answer yet, even if he had just shown more of himself to Stiles than he had to anyone outside his family. Or maybe worse, say I’m sorry or That’s awful or something else equally meaningless. But Stiles just held on, burying his face against Derek’s neck like he knew what that meant, like he was part wolf himself.
“Are there still hunters in Beacon Hills?” Stiles asked after a few long minutes.
“Not anymore. They still have connections here, but when people started getting suspicious in New York… I thought it would be safe to come back. New York never felt like home.”
Stiles pulled back a little, enough to look Derek in the face but not letting go. “Promise me something.”
“That depends on what it is.”
“Promise me that if the hunters ever come back, you’ll tell me.”
That was absolutely not what Derek was expecting. “Stiles…”
“You showed me this for a reason,” Stiles said, his gaze steely. “Now that I think about it, you’ve been dropping hints practically since we met. I think you don’t want to be alone anymore. And I think if you wanted revenge, you’d have taken it a long time ago. Hell, maybe you did. You don’t have to say anything. Just promise me that if you ever have to face that threat again, you’ll at least tell me.”
From his voice alone, Derek knew immediately that Stiles would be willing to do innumerable reckless things to protect him. He also knew that he wouldn’t be able to hide it from Stiles anyway if the hunters came back - if they did, if they had any brains at all, they’d know Stiles was the way to get to Derek. Stiles would automatically be in danger, so it was better that he know ahead of time. Derek sighed again, leaned his forehead against Stiles’. “Yes. I will. But I reserve the right to pull rank on you if you try to do anything stupid.”
“Please, I’m not even a cop yet,” Stiles laughed. “And you’re allowed to pull my rank whenever you want. Now show me what else you can do, you sexy beast.”
“As long as you never compare me to Wolverine again.”
“Nah, you’re way hotter than Hugh Jackman.”
Derek absolutely did not preen at that.
&&&
The barrage of questions had started in the car ride back and has yet to stop in the year since.
“Can you bite other people and turn them into werewolves?”
“Only an alpha can do that, and it’s dangerous.”
“What if there’s a full moon on an equinox or there’s an eclipse or something? Do you get extra wolfy powers?”
“No.”
“How much blood do you have to lose before you can’t heal?”
“I really don’t want to find out.”
“Is there anything that can kill you?”
“I probably shouldn’t tell you that, but… certain types of wolfsbane, yes. And the kinds of injuries that would kill anyone instantly.”
“Okay, so I looked it up and when real wolves mate, they do this thing where they-”
“Stiles, if you say the word knot, I am going to shove you out of this car and I am not going to slow down first.”
Surprisingly, he has yet to ask whether werewolves mate for life. If he did, Derek would have to admit that he doesn’t know.
&&&
Officially, they don’t live together. Stiles’ address is still his mom’s house. But somehow, most of his stuff has managed to migrate into Derek’s apartment, and it’s a good thing Derek didn’t have many worldly possessions to begin with, because the apartment’s not that big and Stiles’ things, much like Stiles, have a tendency to spread out to occupy whatever space he’s given.
But there’s something comforting about having Stiles’ scent permeating nearly every room, even if it’s just because he left his dirty socks in the bathroom again. It makes the bland little apartment feel like home in a way that even living with Laura hadn’t. Derek tries not to dwell too much on that.
Especially not when he and Stiles are laying in a tangle of sheets, Stiles a sweaty, fucked-out, grinning wreck, smelling of deep satisfaction and tracing Derek’s collarbone with the tip of his finger. “Tell me a story,” he’ll say, mouthing at the spot on Derek’s neck that still makes him shiver even after he’s spent.
He knows Stiles would listen to anything and wants to hear everything. Especially things that happened before Derek left Beacon Hills as a teenager. But there’s so much he can’t say, not because he doesn’t trust Stiles, but because the words just won’t form. So he tells Stiles about New York, about scaling scaffolding to bust into a drug dealer’s seventh-story window. About taking an entire clip full of bullets from an armed robber who simply dropped his gun in shock when Derek just kept coming at him.
And it feels so good to have somebody to tell those stories to after all that time spent making up plausible lies just so he could keep doing his job, keep helping people. Before they started getting suspicious in New York, they called him a hero. Stiles has never used that word. He just listens for once, only cutting in with the occasional laugh or oh my god or awesome. Then, when Derek is done, Stiles cups his face and kisses him for a long time, whispers “G’night,” and rolls over to go to sleep.
&&&
“If you’re a beta, that means you’ve got to have an alpha, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, you can’t just say ‘yeah’ and stop there.”
“It’s my older sister, Laura.”
“Oh, cool. Is she in Beacon Hills, too?”
“No, she’s still in New York.”
“Didn’t want to come back to the old stompin’ grounds, huh?”
“After the fire, she… she didn’t deal so well.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“Yeah.”
&&&
Beacon Hills is not New York City. Derek likes that he can focus on one thing at a time, not worrying about all the other people who he could be helping but can’t because he’s can’t be in two places at once. Being out of the spotlight is a huge relief, too, and even though he has some seriously bad memories of Beacon Hills, he has good ones, too. It’s his home.
It’s also boring as shit a lot of the time. There was paperwork in New York - there’s paperwork fucking everywhere - but it seems particularly obnoxious now. And Stiles is unpredictable when it comes to helping out; sometimes he’s laser-focused and tears through it all in half an hour, sometimes he stares at one sheet for minutes on end and Derek can tell he’s thinking about Batman fighting Iron Man or something.
As for the actual police work, it’s about what you’d expect for a small town: juvenile delinquents (Derek loves making Stiles handle those little brats; it’s the most satisfying payback he can imagine) and traffic accidents and a surprising amount of meth that actually isn’t all that surprising, statistically speaking. And domestic dispute calls.
The first night they got a domestic out on patrol, Derek shot a quick look at Stiles. His face wasn’t giving anything away, but his heart rate shot up and after a moment, he started to sweat. It didn’t sound like a bad one - no weapons reported, just neighbors calling in loud fighting - but Derek didn’t know how to handle it. Or rather, how to handle Stiles, who was obviously thinking of his father. He hadn’t been sheriff long when he’d been shot while responding to what was supposed to be a routine domestic. Stiles had only been ten.
They pulled up to the house and Derek didn’t need werewolf hearing to know that the fight was still going on and that breakable things were involved. He took a longer look at Stiles, who was still stone-faced. “Hey,” Derek started, “if you want to sit this one out-”
“Don’t,” Stiles said, a little quietly. He smelled of anxiety but not fear, and Derek knew Stiles was going to have to face this sooner or later. They got a disheartening number of these calls, though very few were truly dangerous.
Derek took the lead, and for a moment, he thought Stiles would stay in the car. But Stiles got out, took a deep breath, and gave Derek a solemn nod. He hung back a little - which he should have been doing most of the time anyway as a rookie, but usually didn’t - standing at the base of the stairs as Derek knocked on the front door.
The couple was young, and they seemed shocked at the sight of Derek’s uniform - probably their first time getting called out. But neither was accusing the other of violence, just an argument that got out of hand, and Derek couldn’t hear a lie or smell injury on either of them, so he strongly advised that they leave the dishes out of it and that the guy go crash on his brother’s couch for the night. And when Derek strongly advised something in his Cop Voice, people tended to listen.
Stiles stayed mostly silent, scribbling occasionally in his notebook more for something to do than because anything needed documenting. When they got back in the car, he stayed silent for a long time. Eventually, he asked, “Are they always like that?”
“Most of them,” Derek said. “Seventy-five percent are just noise. You’re going to see signs of abuse sometimes, though, and people who don’t want to press charges when they clearly should. If there are visible injuries, we can hold the other party for 24 hours, which usually gives them time to cool off. But we’ll be warned if… if there’s reports of a weapon.”
“That they know of,” Stiles muttered.
“That they know of,” Derek repeated, not sure what else to say. The inside of the car was quiet for a long time.
“What do you do?” Stiles asked at the end of their shift. “When there’s a fire?”
Derek wanted to help Stiles, give him advice, but he didn’t know how. “I do my job,” was all he said.
Stiles kissed Derek then, pressed his hand over Derek’s heart. Derek dropped Stiles off to stay at his mom’s house that night.
&&&
Mrs. Stilinski knows about them. Of course she does; she knew even before Stiles graduated from the Academy. And mostly she seems okay with it, because Derek’s a nice boy who’s been through a lot and come out the other side stronger, and also because she knows everyone at the Sheriff’s Office and could get him knocked down to permanent crosswalk duty if he so much as makes Stiles’ lower lip wobble.
Of course, it would have helped if she hadn’t found out that Stiles was gay and dating Derek at the same time, but nothing about that is Derek’s fault. Nothing.
“Mom,” Stiles had said with surprising calm from where he was seated in Derek’s lap on the couch, erection pressed hard against Derek’s stomach and lips swollen from hungry kisses. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. Okay, two things.”
Mrs. Stilinski, who was supposed to be at work for another three hours, I swear to god, Derek, set down her purse, blinked a few times, and asked, “And you managed to land him right out of the gate?”
Stiles grinned uncertainly. “Um, because I totally take after you?”
Mrs. Stilinski sighed. “Well, at least Derek knows what he’s getting into.”
“Uh, ma’am,” Derek said with a nod by way of greeting. At that point he and Stiles hadn’t even done anything with their clothes off yet.
She rolled her eyes. “Stiles, I’m going into the kitchen. You have exactly one minute - no more - to get yourself in order, and then we’re going to talk.”
“I’ll just be going then,” Derek muttered, slowly extracting his hand from the back of Stiles’ pants.
“Not a chance, Officer Hale,” she snapped. “You’re staying for dinner. Non-negotiable.”
Through Stiles’ groan of embarrassment, he could hear Mrs. Stilinski in the other room, chuckling and muttering something about Janice is going to shit a brick.
&&&
“Which one of us is going to look more out of place in there?” Stiles asks, gesturing at the club. Even outside, the music is so loud that he has to shout.
Derek looks down at his own jeans and leather jacket. Then he looks at Stiles in his hoodie and baggy cords. “You don’t even look like you’re old enough to go in there.”
Stiles pulls his badge out of the pocket of his hoodie, briefly flashing it at Derek before tucking it into the back pocket of his pants. “Well, this says I am. Also, I can be ready to party at a moment’s notice. You… you look like you’re ready to rip someone’s throat out.”
“This is how I always look.”
“Um, that’s kind of my point.”
Derek rolls his eyes. “Stiles, this isn’t a sting operation. He’s got an outstanding arrest warrant. We can just walk in there and get him.”
“We both know he’ll try to run again, and it’s so packed and sweaty in there even you can’t scent him out.”
“Stiles…”
“This guy’s a petty thief, not a serial killer.” He stares Derek down, and for a second he looks like an actual cop, even in plainclothes. “C’mon, Derek, you have to start trusting me with stuff like this.”
Goddamn it, he has a point. And sometimes Derek wonders if their partnership really isn’t a good idea, because by this point he’d probably be pushing any other rookie to show more independence. “Fine. You’ve got ten minutes before I come in there after you.”
Stiles strips off the hoodie, balling it up and shoving it at Derek’s chest. The white v-neck underneath is a little too tight across his shoulders, around his biceps, and it’s rucked up at the hem to show a strip of pale skin just above the low rise of his pants. “Make it fifteen. I need some time to work the ol’ Stilinski magic.”
Derek doesn’t even bother to ask what the hell he’s talking about. Stiles just has to ask the guy for a smoke or something to get him out of the building where arresting him won’t cause a scene. And out in the open, where there’s no chance of him outrunning or hiding from Derek.
He leans against the wall, pretending to dick around on his phone while he watches the minutes tick by. Seven minutes in, he’s doing deep breathing exercises and convincing himself that nothing could possibly go horribly wrong. Eleven minutes in, he’s ready to charge into the building, gun drawn.
He pockets his phone to do just that when the door opens and the guy comes out. It takes Derek a second to recognize him, not because it’s dark (which it is, but that’s not an issue) but because he’s walking backwards, tugging Stiles along with him. Stiles is grinning, leans in to whisper something in the guy’s ear and the guy visibly shivers and drags his mouth across Stiles’ jawline-
Derek yanks the guy’s arms so hard he stumbles backwards, almost taking Stiles with him from his grip on Stiles’ belt loops. The guy looks confused and terrified until Stiles smirks and pulls out his badge and Derek cuffs him and begins to read him his rights. Then he just looks terrified because maybe Derek is growling him his rights. A little bit.
They drag him around the corner to where the Camaro is parked and Derek sort of regrets that the guy’s already cuffed and Derek can’t shove him up against the car. (Though that’s usually something Stiles tries to do - too many cop shows as a kid - with reliably hilarious results.) Instead, he just tosses the guy in the backseat and slams the door so hard the car rocks.
Stiles has circled around to the passenger side by then and glares over the top of the car at Derek. “Jesus, you didn’t have to beat him up. I know I’m pretty new at this, but I think that’s the kind of thing that’s frowned upon, police brutality and all.”
“And you didn’t have to fucking seduce him,” Derek grumbles, pitching Stiles’ hoodie back at him.
Stiles catches it and laughs. “Oh my god, is that what this is about? Seriously?” Derek just glowers. “He looked like he was kind of into me, and that was the quickest way to get him out. I can’t help it if I’m totally irresistible.”
Stiles gets into the car, and Derek has to take another deep, cleansing breath before he can do the same. Tonight he’s either going to completely ignore Stiles out of spite or fuck him into the mattress until he’s clawing at Derek’s back and gasping his name.
Derek goes with the latter.
&&&
“Did you ever use your werewolf powers to spy on me? Y’know, back in the day?”
“What, you mean back when you were Beacon Hills’ most wanted?”
“Because there’s no way you just happened to be out by the water tower that night.”
“Stiles, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s a little creepy, dude. And I want my fireworks back.”
“Too late. The Sheriff’s Office had a hell of a Fourth of July barbecue last summer.”
“Goddamn it.”
&&&
“What the hell is a ‘Stiles’?”
Laura never could answer the phone with a simple hello. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” Derek says dryly. He’s beginning to regret texting his sister about Stiles.
“What do you want, Derek?”
“I can’t call my big sister just to say hello?”
Silence. He can almost hear her eyebrows doing that thing.
“All right, fine. I’m not going to be able to fly out to see you like I’d planned. We’re understaffed and I don’t think I can get away. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Laura snaps, but Derek hears the slight uptick in her heartbeat.
It’s been two and a half years since he left New York, and he’s only been back once. He and Laura aren’t close, not by any kind of normal definition of “close,” but they were, for years, the only thing that the other had. It started going downhill when Derek’s career started to take off, when he saved that little girl and suddenly began getting attention. He and Laura had argued about it endlessly - he talked about the help he could do (the penance, they both knew but never said the word), she talked about the publicity endangering them both.
When Derek’s superiors started to get a little suspicious and he had to leave, Laura took it as confirmation that she’d been right all along. And when he’d told her he was moving back to Beacon Hills, she looked at him like he was dangerously insane.
Still, she’d let him go. She’s his alpha, always will be, and she could have kept him there. Made him give up his job, even though most of the time it was the only thing that kept him from going off the rails, or moved them both to somewhere new. But she let him go like it was the last favor she was ever going to do him, and it still hurts. It’s not right for him to be so far away from his packmate, his alpha, the only family he has left. Even Stiles has picked up on it, the restlessness that grips Derek sometimes, though he hasn’t pushed Derek to talk about it.
So even though Derek knows what the answer’s going to be, he has to ask. “You could always come visit me here, you know. I’d like that. And there are people here… people who welcomed me back. They’d do the same for you.”
“Not all of us are heroes,” she spits out, like it’s a filthy word. “I’m never going back to that place. And I’ll never understand how you could.”
She hangs up, just like that, and the disconnection hits Derek like a visceral blow. He stands there, in the middle of his living room, staring at his phone like he could fix this if only he tried hard enough, knew the right words to say.
He’s so lost in thought that he doesn’t even hear the unmistakably familiar stomping up the stairs. The knock on the door is what finally snaps him back to reality, and he opens it to find Stiles - who has a key, what the hell - standing there with an enormous pizza box.
“Did somebody order a pizza?” he asks in what he refers to as his “sexy voice.” The eyebrow waggle doesn’t help. “Extra sausage?”
Derek grabs the pizza box, sets it aside, and hugs Stiles so hard he lifts him a foot off the ground.
“Oh my god,” Stiles wheezes, arms wrapping around Derek’s neck. “Next time I’m totally springing for the breadsticks, too.”
&&&
“He’s my best friend and I’m happy for him, but if he doesn’t shut up about her for five minutes, I’m going to disembowel him with a shrimp fork. Ooh, or you could bite him. Nowhere, like, vital or anything. I know it wouldn’t turn him, but it’d be fun. Y’know, for me.”
Derek has his own feelings about Scott, few of them positive. It’s not like he started it. He doesn’t try to listen in on Stiles’ phone conversations, but Derek knows Scott refers to him as “Creeper Cop,” and the few times they’ve all tried to hang out have been… well, awkward would be generous. Derek has the weird feeling Scott thinks Derek stole Stiles’ virtue or something and that’s not… That upsets Derek on many levels, several of them bitey.
But he’s Stiles’ best friend. When he moved back to Beacon Hills, right before Stiles started at the Academy, Derek could see the change immediately. Something about Stiles just brightened, and anyone who makes Stiles happy is worth having around. So Derek sucks it up and grumbles, “I’m not going to bite him. Probably.”
Okay, perhaps that was not as enthusiastically supportive as it could have been.
Stiles types away at the laptop, filling out the forms for the party they just broke up - noise complaints, underage drinking, one kid hopped up on peyote or some damn thing and thoughtfully eating a bouquet of carnations. He’s safely in an ambulance, and now Stiles has to write it all up. Derek smiles to himself; there are occasional perks to having a rookie for a partner.
But somehow Stiles can bitch and type at the same time. “I mean, he had a couple of ‘things’ - I’m not even going to call them relationships, they were clusterfucks - in high school, and he always went a little overboard. But this is just… I mean, he met her at the beginning of the semester. That’s almost three months ago and he still won’t shut the hell up. ‘Allison’s a championship archer. Allison’s hair is like a chestnut waterfall. Allison loves animals, too.’ Because you know there are so many people out there that just hate animals. I swear to god, he’s like a middle school girl. I don’t even want to see his notebooks. He’s probably in class doodling in his notebook ‘Scott McCall-Argent.’ No, screw that, he’s just going to change his name to Scott Argent.”
Derek’s hands go loose on the wheel and he starts to drift into the next lane. He catches himself almost immediately, but then pulls over to come to a halt on the side of the road.
“Gahhhh, what the fuck, Derek?” Stiles yelps, arms wrapping around the laptop. “If this breaks, you know they’re going to make me pay for it.”
It feels like Derek’s chest is caving in. “Argent?” is all he can get out.
Stiles looks at him warily, and Derek knows his eyes have probably gone incandescent. “Yes,” Stiles says slowly. “That’s Allison’s last name.”
It can’t be a coincidence. It can’t. “Where does she come from? Who’s her family?”
“I… what? I don’t know, she didn’t mention any brothers or sisters.”
“Her parents.” Derek can feel his fangs lengthening and he’s gripping the console so hard the plastic cracks under his hands. “Who are her parents?”
“I don’t know!” Stiles says, putting his back against the door and the laptop out in front of him like a shield. “I’ve only met her twice. She started at Beacon Hills Community College the same time as Scott, but they just met a few months ago. I mostly hear about her eyes and her hair and her voice and- Derek, what the hell?”
Stiles’ heartbeat is through the roof and his sweat stinks of fear. Fuck, fuck, Derek is scaring him. He’s scaring Stiles. He has to get out of here. Derek tears through his seatbelt with claws he didn’t realize had come out and stumbles out the door of the car. He staggers dazedly toward the treeline, the woods pitch black to human vision, and tries to remember if there was an Allison. He can’t… He can only remember Kate. She had a brother, but Derek never even knew the brother’s name. He was older, Derek thinks, could have a kid around Stiles’ age, maybe. Would sure as hell teach her to shoot a bow and arrow if he were training her-
By the time he realizes Stiles is calling his name, fumbling towards Derek in the dark, Derek is panting and his claws are deeply embedded in the tree he’s leaning against.
“Derek! Derek, fucking- I’m sorry! I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry! Where are you? Please, Derek, I can’t see you and I left my fucking flashlight in the car because I’m an idiot. Are you okay? I’m so sorry.”
“Stop-” Derek gasps. “Stop apologizing. It’s not your fault. And stay still. You’ll trip over something.”
“Oh my god, Derek, you can’t just… just wolf out on me in the car and go running into the woods and then snap at me for coming after you. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry,” Derek says, too softly, but Stiles hears him anyway and stops moving about thirty feet away from Derek.
“It’s… it’s okay. I mean, I’m okay. You’re not, obviously. Do you-okay, this is kind of fucked up because it’s not the time or the place and I can’t actually see you, but do you want to talk about it?”
Derek really, really doesn’t. But he promised Stiles. And something about the dark, about being able to see Stiles gesture madly (facing about thirty degrees off from Derek’s actual position in front of him) while Stiles can’t see him, makes it a little easier to talk. “There’s a family named Argent. They’re hunters.”
Stiles freezes, his heart practically tripping over itself. “But not the ones who-”
“Yes. One of them.”
“But… Allison seems so nice,” Stiles says after a long moment.
“Kate seemed nice, too,” Derek whispers, and this time he’s sure Stiles didn’t hear him.
“We- Shit. This is not good. Okay,” Stiles says, his voice firm and certain. “Okay. We will deal with this. But you need to come back. If you need to, I don’t know, wolf around in the woods first, that’s cool. I get it.” His voice softens. “I’ll be waiting in the car. I won’t go anywhere until you get back.”
Then he turns around, takes two steps, and runs smack into a tree.
Derek is there to catch him before he even finishes shouting “Motherfucker!”
“What have I told you?” Derek says, his tone more fond than scolding. “Never leave the car without your gun and your flashlight.”
“I remembered my gun,” Stiles grumbles, gripping Derek’s biceps a little harder than he needs to. “You want me to use that?”
“Come on, let’s get you back to the car,” Derek says, steering them both safely out of the woods.
When they can see the car’s headlights pointing down the stretch of deserted road, Stiles stops and turns to face Derek. “Listen, I’ll find out as much as I can. Allison is Scott’s favorite subject and he’s, like, the least suspicious person on the face of the earth. Plus, Google.” He hesitates. “Is… there a particular name I should be looking for in connection with Allison’s family?”
Derek’s voice, when it comes out, is cracked and hoarse. “Kate. Kate Argent.”
Stiles has that expression he always gets right before he’s about to pester Derek with questions… but then he puts a hand on Derek’s chest and he’s got to be able feel the way Derek’s heart is about to beat its way right out of his ribcage. Stiles just nods. “Got it. Are you… are you good for right now? Because it’s okay if you’re not.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Derek murmurs.
“I know.” Stiles’ hand squeezes a little in the fabric of Derek’s shirt. “I only have one more question and then I’ll shut up.” He takes a deep breath, and Derek steels himself. “How fucked up is my face? Like, too fucked up for me to kiss you right now? Because I want to do that, but not if I have, like, Harvey Dent face.”
Derek feels like a weight’s been lifted off his chest, and there are a thousand right things he could say, should say, but instead he just carefully presses a soft kiss to Stiles’ mouth, which (thank god) escaped any damage from the tree - just a few scrapes on his nose and cheek that probably hurt worse than they look.
Stiles sighs, his eyes closed, and gently bumps his nose against Derek’s. It could almost be a nuzzle. Then, softly: “You didn’t answer my question, dude.”
&&&
After Derek told him about being a werewolf, Stiles got bolder in bed. Not that he was ever shy, really, but he became less concerned with his own inexperience, more willing to take charge.
“So have you been holding out on me?” he asked between biting, sucking kisses where he was draped across Derek’s body.
“What?” Frankly, Derek had been focused on trying to get Stiles to quit squirming long enough for Derek to thrust up into the groove of his hip, get some friction on his hardening cock.
“I mean, do you have, like, super-stamina that you’ve been hiding from me?”
Derek cocked an eyebrow, held Stiles’ hips still. “I’m sorry, are you trying to register a complaint? Because if you want to talk stamina-”
“Shut your mouth, I’m totally getting better at that,” Stiles grumbled, biting hard enough at Derek’s shoulder that Derek had to clamp down on a gasp. “And you know I have zero complaints. I guess I’m just saying… if you were holding back before, you don’t have to.”
The truth is that Derek probably hadn’t been holding back enough. Stiles gets him going like no one else ever has. If Stiles had more experience (outside of porn), he’d probably know that most people weren’t strong enough or flexible enough to do half the things they’ve done. It was quite possible that Derek had set the bar way too high, ruined Stiles for anyone else, and that thought… that thought shouldn’t make Derek rock hard and proud enough to howl.
A growl rumbled up through his chest and Stiles moaned, rutting gracelessly against Derek’s abs for a few seconds before reaching for the lube. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Then Stiles was riding him, hands planted on Derek’s chest. They’d done it like that before, but Stiles had always been a little bit hesitant, a little self-conscious, and holy god, a totally shameless Stiles was fucking gorgeous.
Maybe Stiles had been the one who was holding back, and now that Derek had opened up to him, this was the result: Stiles’ blunt nails digging into Derek’s skin, Stiles’ head thrown back, eyes closed and mouth open as he shoved himself down over and over onto Derek’s cock until Derek growled again, planted his feet against the bed and thrust up, so hard it lifted Stiles right off his knees.
Stiles’ eyes flew open, a helpless noise of pleasure punching out of him. He barely got a hand around his cock before he came, thick stripes landing across Derek’s chest as Derek followed right behind him, Stiles’ clenching muscles milking him dry.
For once, Stiles didn’t complain about the mess, just carefully pulled off Derek’s cock and flopped forward to sprawl on top of him. He snuffled a laugh and slapped Derek weakly on the shoulder. “You were totally holding out on me.”
On to part two