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The heatwave has hit Beacon Hills like a sledgehammer.
Harsh, unforgiving sunlight beats down onto the yards and thoroughfares, warping the air into a shimmering mirage, melting the tarmac just enough so that it sticks to the soles of people’s shoes. The air feels thick and unyielding, an unexpected stew of humidity that turns the world into a pressure cooker.
“This,” Stiles says, head-deep in Derek Hale’s freezer, “is hell.”
“Dramatic,” Derek mutters, only just audible from where he reclines on the couch, seemingly untroubled by the oppressive heat.
Stiles removes his head from the freezer for the prerequisite 0.8 seconds it takes to shoot Derek a truly filthy look. The werewolf is going through Stiles’ research with an almost zen-like expression of calm, ignoring the sweat that glistens on his brow. As Stiles watches, a single perfect bead of perspiration slips free of the graceful divot of Derek’s collarbone and slides, unencumbered, down the powerfully muscled plane of his bare chest.
Bastard, Stiles thinks despondently, and sticks his head back into the blissfully cool darkness of the freezer.
“Why doesn’t anyone have a goddamn air conditioner?” he moans. “I know we’re in northern California, but surely someone would have the presence of mind to have central air.”
“Not if you live in a town in the mountains, where it never gets hotter than 70 degrees. And anyway, you know you’re at least partially responsible for this.” Derek’s voice is muffled by the confines of the refrigeration unit, but the judgement there is hard to miss. Stiles glares at an economy-sized box of frozen waffles.
“That’s victim-blaming,” he grumbles. He can practically hear Derek rolling his eyes. “Not cool.”
“How did you manage to mortally offend a tempestarii during the two hours she happened to be passing through town, anyway?”
Stiles snorts derisively, but otherwise remains resolutely silent. There’s no use in denying it, not when Derek could hear him lying from three towns over, but he’ll be damned if he says anything more on the matter. Instead, he rests his overheated face on a bag of frozen peas, and wishes a pox upon all weather-witches.
“Hey.”
His voice is so close that Stiles startles, turning too fast and nearly braining himself on an ice cube tray. Derek steadies him with hand on his shoulder, unable to disguise his amusement even as he sighs long-sufferingly. The blessed chill of the freezer escapes into the kitchen, heat rushing to fill its place, and Stiles levels a glare at the werewolf’s stupid, handsome mug. He’s standing so close that Stiles can smell him, woodsy with a hint of perspiration. He blames the rabbiting of his heart on shock; it has nothing to do with Derek’s sudden proximity, or the way his reluctant smile softens the lines of his face.
“We need to get you a bell,” Stiles mutters, studiously avoiding Derek’s gaze. Derek raises a sardonic eyebrow, but refuses to be otherwise deterred.
“Tell me what happened,” he says, calm as still waters. He squeezes Stiles’ shoulder, and Stiles knows that he means for it to be reassuring, and that makes his own despairing longing that much worse. “If we know what she was thinking at the time, we can figure out what kind of spell she used, and it’ll be a lot easier to break.”
Stiles winces, folding his arms across his chest defensively.
“Can’t we just figure it out the old-fashioned way?” he protests, jerking his head to the pile of papers and arcane tomes that he’d dumped onto Derek’s coffee table. He’s being childish and he knows it, but he can’t shake the memory of the tempestarii’s sneer, the way the hunger in her eyes had turned to mocking rage.
“Of course, we can,” Derek says, shrugging. Then he reaches out and shuts the freezer door, eliminating the vestigial traces of cool air that had been soothing Stiles' burning face. “But you can’t live in my fridge while we do it.”
“Cruel!”
“You don’t pay my power bill.”
Sullen silence reigns for the better part of a minute as Stiles glowers and Derek waits him out impassively, still standing distractingly close. It’s a losing battle, and Stiles knows it, but he’s been avoiding this conversation for so many years that the thought of having it all out in the open now makes him queasy. He grits his teeth and steps back until he can lean against the fridge, trying for casual and missing by several miles.
“She was an asshole,” he mutters, trying to focus on anything other than Derek’s questioning frown and his emphatically bare torso.
Derek is unmoved.
“And?”
Stiles makes the mistake of meeting that wonderful green gaze, and folds like a cheap suit.
“She approached me when I was out for a drink with some of my work friends,” he says, hoping to gloss over most of the details of the exchange. “Probably thought it was safer to approach the pack human, I doubt she knew I was your emissary. She said some stuff, it rubbed me the wrong way, I…responded. Et voilà.”
He throws his hands out as if to encompass the town, the heatwave, his own shitty mood. Derek cocks his head to the side the way he always does when he picks at a puzzle, his eyes narrowing.
“Elaborate.” His tone brooks no argument, and Stiles slumps, resigning himself to his fate.
“I’d had a few drinks,” he admits, each word falling out of his mouth like a pulled tooth. “She had heard about the pack, about…about the alpha. About you.”
“Me?” Derek blinks, and Stiles takes a grim sliver of satisfaction at the bewildered expression on his face. “What about me?”
“She said it was a shame that you hadn’t taken a mate,” Stiles snarls, and just like that the anger from the previous night is back, flooding his senses and loosening his tongue. “She went on and on about how important it was to pass on the full-shifting gene, how she would gladly volunteer to keep the Hale legacy going. When I told her you weren’t interested in being treated like, like some stud animal, she said not to worry. She said you’d want to, and even if you didn’t, she could always make you.”
Fury pounds with the beating of his heart, and his magic responds in kind, a crackle of electricity in his veins. He flexes his hands, tasting ozone on his tongue, and starts to pace in an effort to expel some of the energy buzzing away in his chest. The smothering heat of the day bears down on him like the punishment he knows it to be, turning Derek’s kitchen into an oven. Such a temper, the tempestarii had hissed. You think he will love someone as hotheaded as you?
“She just stood there all smug, like I’d thank her for her time. As if I’d offer you up like some piece of meat.” The last word actually sparks as it falls from his lips, a pop of actinic static. “I mean, what kind of garbage is that?”
“Stiles.” Derek has managed to sneak up on him again, is much closer than anticipated. He catches Stiles’ wrist in his hand, stopping his pacing with a jolt. His face is the mask that Stiles hates, the one he’d worn all the time when they were younger. “Tempestarii are usually incredibly old, and old-fashioned. She probably thought it was a great honor.”
“Honor my ass,” Stiles spits. “It’s objectifying and manipulative, and you shouldn’t have to deal with someone treating you like that, not again. Nobody deserves that, especially not you.”
“What do I deserve?” Derek’s voice is low and soft, carefully blank.
“Better than that!” Stiles throws his free hand in the air, waving it around in wild punctuation. He’s too caught up in his anger to notice the way that Derek’s gaze has fallen to his mouth. “You deserve to be happy. If you ever want to be with someone again– and with your history, that’s a huge and understandable if– then it should be with someone you love. Someone who respects you, someone who–.”
Derek kisses him.
Derek kisses him
It isn’t at all what Stiles had been expecting, and so his mouth is half open, his rant cutting off on a yelp as he falls back against the kitchen counter. Derek barely misses a beat, just curls an arm around Stiles’ waist and tugs him forward, grounding him against his bare chest. The scruff of his beard tickles sensitive skin as he buries his face in Stiles’ neck.
“What?” Stiles squeaks, his voice cracking with shock. “I mean– what?”
“You said it yourself,” Derek murmurs, his lips ghosting over the thrum of Stiles’ pulse point, sending a shiver up his spine. “I deserve this.”
There’s a beat as the gears in Stiles’ head shift into maximum overdrive, scrambling to process Derek’s actions in the context of the last few minutes. When the penny finally drops, he blushes so hard he feels faint.
“Oh,” he says, his voice very small. “Uh. Are you sure?”
Derek raises his head again, finds Stiles’ eyes with his own. After a moment, he smiles, and it’s unlike anything Stiles has ever seen; delighted, carefree, wild. It lights up his face like a miniature supernova.
“I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” he states.
“Oh, thank god,” Stiles mutters, and throws himself at him.
Derek kisses Stiles like it’s a luxury, like it’s the rarest thing on earth. He kisses like every second is worth savoring. Stiles shudders in his arms and presses impossibly closer, like he would take up residence in Derek’s body if he could. The heat is still unbearable, but he hardly notices it now, his hands tangled in the thick black wave of Derek’s hair. His breath catches as they rock into each other, the ever-present want that simmers below the surface when he’s in Derek’s presence now flaring to the foreground. His shirt gets tossed somewhere over Derek’s shoulders, his pants disappearing in a similar fashion. With an ease that has Stiles achingly aroused, Derek hoists him up, guiding Stiles’ long legs to wrap around his waist.
“Bed,” Derek growls, a bit of wolf in his voice. Stiles nods his rapid agreement and tries not to come in his briefs like a teenager.
The trek from the kitchen to the bedroom passes in a blur of searing kisses, the tortuous barely-there slide of Derek’s abs against Stiles’ cock nearly driving him to the breaking point. There’s a click and whir as they make their way into the room, and Stiles gasps when a breeze hits the sweat on his face.
“A fan?” he crows, delighted. The ceiling fan above the bed gains momentum as Derek lays him down carefully, and Stiles starfishes across the covers, luxuriating in the relief of the cooling draft. “You should have brought me up here ages ago.”
“I should have,” Derek agrees, eyeing his lean frame hungrily. Stiles flushes, and suddenly the fan isn’t nearly effective enough. “I wanted to.”
He settles above Stiles on the bed, caging him against the mattress, and it’s all Stiles can do to keep himself from rutting senselessly against the long line of Derek’s body. He lets his hands roam where they please, slips his tongue into Derek’s mouth. They lose time like that for a while, in the slow roll and press of each other’s bodies. Need coils hot and tight in Stiles’ belly, a live-wire that reacts to every touch, every soft exhalation of his name.
“Tell me what you want.” Derek’s voice is low and intent in his ear.
“You,” Stiles gasps, arching off the mattress as Derek licks a hot stripe across his nipple. “Just you.”
There’s a quiet snck of a bottle cap, and Stiles focuses enough to see that Derek has stealthily acquired a tube of lube from his bedside table. He moans at the wet glisten on Derek’s fingers, cants his hips up in anticipation.
“Like this,” he whispers, shoving at the waistband of his briefs until Derek gets the hint and peels them away. “Wanna see you.”
“Christ, Stiles,” Derek mutters, his eyes flaring brilliant red. He runs his clean hand down the length of Stiles’ torso, the too-sharp-to-be-human prick of his nails sending a delicious shiver up Stiles’ spine. His pupils are blown out, and he keeps taking deep, careful breaths, like he wants to catalogue Stiles’ scent, and the way that it intermingles with his own in this moment. “You’re beautiful.”
Stiles can feel his checks going beet red, and is about to protest that Derek is the beautiful one, when the blunt tip of Derek’s finger ghosts across his hole and any thought of protest is thrown out the window. He shudders and sighs as Derek works him open, pleasure sparking across his skin every time Derek crooks his fingers just so. By the time Derek manages to slip a third finger inside him, Stiles is nearly incomprehensible with the force of his need, a steady litany of expletives and garbled half-words filling the meager space between them.
“Now,” he moans, insistent. He slaps weakly at Derek’s sweaty, wonderful shoulders. “Now, Derek, while we’re young.”
“Bossy.” Derek grins down at him, beautiful and, yes, wolfish, and then his fingers are slipping out of Stiles’ hole, leaving a conspicuous absence in their wake. Stiles whines at the sudden emptiness, hips rolling as he seeks sensation, and Derek leans down to capture his lips in a bruising kiss. In the space of a second, he’s lining himself up, and then Stiles actually sees stars out as the thick, blunt head of Derek’s cock breaches his hole. It’s slow, agonizingly so. Stiles writhes and groans and tries to buck up, tries to take more, tries to establish a rhythm, but Derek grins into their kiss and holds him fast against the mattress.
“Let me,” Derek murmurs, and for the first time he sounds as wrecked as Stiles feels. Stiles leans back a little to see the flush on the werewolf’s face, the way his muscles are rigid with control. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Right,” Stiles moans, and it’s the work of a moment’s concentration to call to his magic. With an actinic crackle, he flips them so that he straddles Derek’s thighs, a shit-eating grin spreading over his face as he takes in Derek’s shell-shocked expression, the werewolf’s eyes flashing again when he realizes what Stiles has done.
“I’ll be the one to determine my own breakability,” Stiles informs him piously, and then his vocabulary takes a dive towards the monosyllabic as he lets himself sink down onto Derek’s cock.
Pleasure skitters across his skin as he rocks down, the hot thickness of Derek’s cock filling him nearly to the point of pain, a delicious burn that ignites the roiling coil of desire tightening in his belly. Derek breathes his name, his hand sliding reverentially up the lean length of his thighs. Any thoughts of taking things slow go flying out the window when Derek wraps one broad, strong hand around the aching length of Stiles’ erection.
They move together in a frenzy, nearly a decade of unresolved lust and emotion crashing over them in a wave. Stiles grinds down on Derek’s cock, reveling in the way the pressure builds, and builds, and builds, Derek’s name falling from his lips on loop as the werewolf fucks up into him, hitting his prostate with punishing accuracy.
“Mine,” Stiles pants, lips ghosting across the bolt of Derek’s jaw. “Mine. You’re mine.”
Derek howls, the claws of his free hand digging into the tender flesh of Stiles’ thigh, and Stiles comes like a freight train.
He spasms and shakes as his orgasms takes him, clenching down on the hard length of Derek inside of him, only abstractly aware of Derek following him, shuddering, over the edge. They cling to each other through the aftershocks, until their heartbeats slow and the ability to form coherent thought returns.
“Holy shit,” Stiles mutters, breathlessly, into the crook of Derek’s neck. He nearly purrs as Derek absently runs a hand up and down his spine. “Let’s never stop doing that.”
“Sounds good,” Derek says, and there’s the hint of laughter in his voice that Stiles loves. “Might make work a little awkward, but I’m game if you are.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
With a groan, Stiles pulls himself off of Derek’s dick, flopping down to starfish across the entire bed, sweaty werewolf included. Derek huffs a sigh and manhandles Stiles into a more agreeable position, curling around his back until their bodies are flushed. Soon they’ll have to get up and shower, or else risk being permanently glued together by the mess of come on Derek’s stomach, but for now that can wait.
“We’ve still got to figure out how to break this dumb heatwave spell,” Stiles mumbles, mournfully. Derek smiles a slow grin against his neck.
“Let Scott and Deaton figure it out,” he suggests, nosing at the sweat-sticky hair behind Stiles’ ear. “I’m not leaving this bed for anything but food for the next two days.”
“It is technically my fault.” Stiles grins into the pillow, feeling absolutely no guilt at all. “It’s only right that I help out.”
“If I overnight an air conditioner to the apartment, will you stop trying to get out of bed?”
Stiles snorts, gesturing to the inextricable tangle of their limbs as if to say, Do you see me trying to leave?
“I’m not going anywhere, big guy.” He slots his fingers through Derek’s, plants a kiss on the back of his hand. “You’ve got me for good, now.”
“Good,” Derek sighs, tightening his hold around Stiles’ torso. “Now go to sleep.”
“When we wake up, we order that A/C,” Stiles teases, and then nestles back against the comforting bulk of Derek’s body and allows sleep to claim him.
Heatwaves aren’t so bad, after all.