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The rumors started almost as soon as Derek came back; whispered words about the “prodigal son”, hissed little remarks of “looking like trouble itself”, hushed and unwanted opinions of “what would his parents say”. He shouldn’t care and he didn’t really – he’d only gotten back for a few days, to get what had remained in the vault and finally sell all his properties around town. People whispering behind his back was nothing new and something he was well used to.
That’s why it took him some time to figure out the rumors weren’t meant for him.
It took him an embarrassing amount of time to clue in. And he only did once the Sheriff was mentioned more than once.
Stiles had come back too.
At first Derek almost didn’t believe it. There was no roar of a powder blue Jeep around town, no weird shenanigans, no teasing phone calls or texts. No sign of messy brown hair and glaringly mismatched clothes – graphic tees and plaid shirts and baggy jeans. But most disturbingly – no trace of Stiles’ usual scent.
People said Stiles was back in Beacon Hills. But Derek’s wolf didn’t seem to agree.
And then he saw him one day, right in the middle of the supermarket. Stiles but not quite. Not really.
“Hey, Sourwolf”, the stranger smiled.
His plush bottom lip was pierced and so was one of his ears. The smile itself was easy, confident. His hair was still messy but rather in a ‘just got lucky’ way instead of ‘gone through a research binge and haven’t slept in a while’. There was no graphic tee, no plaid – he wore a simple white t-shirt, pointedly stretched across his shoulders, and his dark jeans were hugging a pair of strong thighs. He was taller. And broader. His scent was different – gone was the sweet and innocent smell of a teenage boy, gone was almost everything Derek had ever smelled on him. Faint traces of the Nogitsune’s darkness and the ozone promise of more than what-meets-the-eye were of the few notes that remained. The rest… was fog and danger, capability and newfound confidence, a bittersweet tang of something like acceptance of what he was and understanding of everything that came with it.
And Derek suddenly got the whispers about ‘looking like trouble itself’ and ‘what would the Sheriff say’.
Stiles was waiting and Derek knew he should say something.
And like all those years ago he said just the wrong thing.
“So, instead of the FBI you went the other way, huh?”
Stiles frowned, his tongue absently playing with his bottom lip. The piercings caught the light, with a dangerous glint.
“What other way?”
Derek’s eyes traced the industrial bar on Stiles right ear, the snake bites rings on his bottom lip, the width of his shoulders and the bloodied knuckles of his big hands. Even just the way Stiles carried himself nowadays screamed trouble.
And confidence. But mostly trouble.
“Ah”, those sinuous lips pulled into a smile. “The criminal way, you mean.”
He chuckled but it came off sounding bitter and forced.
“You know, I didn’t expect you of all people to be so… stereotypical.”
With another dark smirk he pulled on the aviators and nodded briskly.
“I’ll see you around, Derek. Or not.”
And just like that, he was gone.
New York was a big city and Derek didn’t expect to catch a newly familiar scent right in the middle of it. Realistically, what were the chances?
Then again, with the two of them and the world they lived in – pretty high, apparently.
Derek didn’t expect to come back to New York one day. And then actually settle down here. But it turned out it hurt far less than Beacon Hills ever had and it provided way more job opportunities for someone with werewolf strength.
And, apparently, for someone with piercings and take-no-shit attitude.
Derek was on his way back from work when he caught the scent, the one he now knew was Stiles. He followed his nose, curious and naïve like a new cub, uncaring of where it led him.
Even if it turned out to be a crime scene of all things.
He crouched low, hidden behind some dumpsters and trying to ignore their smell and focus only on Stiles’. There were many cops gathered, the sirens blaring and the blue and red lights flashing and almost causing Derek a migraine. Even a SWAT unit was on the scene, a few of the heavily armed officers guarding the perimeter as the rest of the team seemed to be extracting… the felons? The victims? Derek wasn’t sure. He sighed in frustration. Stiles was probably one of the criminals then. Hopefully not a wounded one or a victim…
And then, with no warning whatsoever, one of the SWAT officers’ head shot up and slowly turned around, his sharp gaze focused right on Derek. Those eyes narrowed. He took a few steps in Derek’s direction, then stopped.
The man was wearing a mask over the bottom half of his face. It looked like a part of the standard issue gear, something confirmed as another guy came jogging, face also half covered, and addressed the first man with a respectful,
“Captain.”
The first man’s eyes, those familiar whiskey brown eyes, seemed to glimmer with mirth. Derek was ready to bet that behind the mask a pierced mouth was pulled into a smile. Those eyes didn’t leave Derek, making it more than clear that the man was well aware where exactly in the shadows Derek was hiding and was looking at him as if he were out in the daylight. He nodded briskly at the other man, a gesture also painfully familiar, then, more subtly – to Derek as well, before the squad disappeared into the armored rescue truck. The captain was the last one to go and right before the doors closed after him Derek could swear the man winked at him.
He ended up on Stiles’ doorstep right on the following night. Now as he knew his scent it was so tempting, so easy to follow it, even across the whole New York City. He had no idea what time it was and gave zero fucks of how loudly he was banging on that simple brown door.
Stiles opened the door looking dazed and sleep-ruffled, hair even messier than usual. His sweats were riding dangerously low on his hips and the shirt – a standard issue SWAT shirt, Derek noted with hysterical despair – looked old, well-washed and soft.
Stiles blinked slowly.
Derek lunged.
He’d gone for a kiss but Stiles didn’t seem to see it that way. The sleepy and relaxed man who’d opened the door was gone in a split second, replaced with lightning-fast reflexes, soldier instincts having kicked in place of any rational thought. Derek found himself facing the wall, arms bent awkwardly behind him, body unable to move.
Just for a second.
Then, with a quietly mumbled ‘fuck’, Stiles let go and stepped back. Derek turned around slowly, more aware of his every movement and how it could possibly trigger Stiles’ soldier reflexes. Stiles was rubbing his slightly pink face, looking everywhere but at Derek.
“Guess that kinda ruined the mood, huh?”, he tried for a joke, a smile, but the wince he ended it with belied his true feelings.
“Not really”, Derek said.
Stiles finally looked up, his eyes wary and searching.
“That was just a little taste of what I’m like now”, he whispered. “It’s not always pretty”, his eyes seemed to add. To warn.
“Works for me”, Derek whispered back, stepping closer. He let his eyes flash blue, a wordless “you know what I’m like, too”. “You can let go with me”, he allowed a small smirk. “You know I can handle it.”
Those pierced lips finally stretched into a smile. “Can you, now?”
Derek smiled back slowly, a seductive little thing from back when he knew how to do this. “Guess we should find out, hm?”
Stiles fucked like he carried himself nowadays – freely and confidently; like that special way he had of getting into your very core – deep and hard and with the intention to stay. He had no qualms, no hesitance to lead – obviously, both on the field and in bed. He took Derek first on his back, then on his side and finally – from behind. And all of that in a single round, pulling out and changing positions every time Derek was about to come. It was some of the most athletic and mind-blowing sex Derek had ever had.
He was panting, chasing his orgasm for the third time that night, long beyond the phase of begging. They had ended up facing the bottom edge of the bed, Derek’s hands fisting what had survived of the sheets after he had ripped them with his claws in his sheer desperation.
“Stiles… come on…”, he rasped around fangs.
“Hmm. But I’m good like that, Der”, the bastard teased, grinding slow and deep in a dirty move designed to make Derek lose his mind.
“Fucking please!”, he growled.
The demon chuckled, his voice deep like his thrusts, caressing Derek’s very soul like his cock was doing magic, pure magic inside Derek, especially now that it started moving faster, fuck, please, yes!
Stiles grabbed his hair and pulled. Their eyes met on the opposite wall and it made Derek choke in surprise. A mirror. Fuck. He hadn’t even noticed it.
He should be embarrassed by how he looked, twisted and panting under Stiles. But it didn’t look like he was dominated. It looked like he was being taken apart and loving every second of it. Just like Stiles.
He was biting his pierced lip, hips moving relentlessly, eyes, those fucking whiskey eyes, fixed on Derek’s. It was enough to finally tip him over the edge and Derek came with something like a sob, so hard it almost hurt, so soul-shattering that he finally found himself again. It should be a stupid and corny thought. But no less true.
Stiles came with a grunt, freezing for a moment before giving a few more hard thrusts and pulling out suddenly. Derek didn’t have time to feel empty and abandoned because Stiles gathered him back in his arms and gave him a kiss that was somehow bone-deep and grounding and just what Derek needed at the moment.
Turned out, even last night hadn’t prepared Derek for a sleepy, half-naked Stiles, puttering around in his kitchen. In all his pierced and tattooed glory.
His whole right leg was covered in ink: a sheriff’s badge; a quote in Polish; a redheaded woman, screaming; a blue-eyed coyote; two simple thin lines around his ankle; an arrow; a lightning and a sword; a wolf howling at the moon; even a hint of a powder blue Jeep.
He drank his coffee, carelessly leaning on the counter while he waited for their toasts, the only thing he proclaimed himself capable of cooking so early in the morning. He looked sleepy and relaxed again but Derek knew it could be just on the surface. He stood up, making his every movement slow and easily predictable.
“Can I kiss you?”, he asked when he was just a step away from Stiles.
The corners of Stiles’ lips lifted in a small, charming smile. He ditched his coffee to the side and leaned in for a kiss himself. It was sweet and chaste and obviously just for the sake of it and not the intention of leading into anything more. Or maybe it did, just not into something hard and primal like last night had felt, but softer somehow, more… domestic.
Derek didn’t know if it was the slow kiss or the sunny kitchen or just general mood of there and now when the words slipped from his lips, unrehearsed but no less true.
“Can I love you?”
Stiles pulled back, startled. His eyes suddenly lost their dazed look, focused and then got wide, earnest and vulnerable as he whispered,
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I can be loved anymore.”
Derek figured he ought to give Stiles some space after the horrendous turn of the events on that otherwise perfect morning. If he’d only been able to keep his mouth shut maybe he wouldn’t have made things so painfully awkward between them. Love? Hadn’t love hurt him enough by now? And love on first fuck? Gee, great, well done, Derek.
That’s why he was really surprised when he found Stiles waiting for him in front of Derek’s building a few nights later.
“Not to sound like a ghosted one night stand but – you didn’t call”, he grinned, the snakes bites glinting.
Derek rubbed his face. “I thought that was for the best.”
Stiles hummed, smile fading. “So was I?”
“What?”, Derek frowned.
“Ghosted? Or a one night stand?”
“No”, Derek wheezed.
Stiles’ eyes narrowed as if trying to catch a lie. Then he nodded, curt and soldier-like, and opened the door.
“Then you better make it up to me tonight, loverboy.”
It seemed that as good as Stiles was on top, he had no problems giving up the reigns sometimes. And he looked perfectly happy to let Derek set the tempo tonight. That was good because as much as Derek had loved the frantic energy of their first night together, he wanted to take things slow tonight.
They kissed for a long while, Derek’s lips and tongue and teeth playing with Stiles’ piercings.
“You like?”, Stiles murmured with a smile between kisses.
Derek nodded dazedly. “I like.” Another kiss. “How did you decide to do it?”
“Hmm…Saw it on a guy in some porn...”
Derek snorted. “Was it your little rebellion, Captain Stilinski?”, he teased, making Stiles chuckle against his lips and then beam proudly.
So, a yes then.
“They did make you think I was a criminal though”, Stiles mused.
Derek looked at him, unimpressed. “My face made you think I was a murderer, though.”
Stiles laughed, tossing his head back. “Touché.”
Derek took advantage of his exposed neck, licking and biting until it was properly marked, making his wolf preen and Stiles roll his eyes fondly. Derek’s lips followed a path down Stiles’ defined pecs and abs and had just reached the hem of his boxers when a hand shot up and caught his chin and Stiles muttered, somewhat reluctantly,
“Wait.”
Derek looked up. Stiles was a bit pink. And he was definitely avoiding Derek’s eyes. He cleared his throat and looked at the ceiling, the nightstand, anywhere but Derek really when he said,
“I have another tattoo.”
“…Okay?”, Derek frowned.
Stiles huffed, still avoiding his eyes.
“Look, just, don’t make a big deal of it, ok?”
Intrigued, Derek pulled down the hem of his boxers.
There, right on Stiles’ hipbone, was a simple black triskele.
“Right, so. Moving on!”, Stiles urged, wriggling a bit under Derek and looking distinctly uncomfortable. Derek didn’t want him feeling like that. But he had to know.
“When did you have it done?”
Stiles pursed his lips, eyes stubbornly glued to the ceiling. Derek pushed.
“Stiles.”
“I was 19, okay! That was my first tattoo, can we not make a big deal out of it?!”
“…No.”
Stiles frowned, looking down at Derek in a way that made it clear he was ready to end everything and bolt right through the door but Derek didn’t let him. His tongue licked at the tattoo, as if tasting it, as if having it confirmed that Stiles was… that he had personally and permanently marked himself as…
Don’t ruin it. Don’t rush things up again.
It was unmistakable though, the effect Stiles’ smallest and most hidden tattoo had on him. Stiles was his, marked in so many ways that there was no mistaking it. Those were Derek’s marks on his neck. Derek’s mark on his hipbone. Derek’s cock so deep inside Stiles that there was no way to wash away that scent, the proof that Stiles was his and his only.
And as he rocked inside Stiles slowly, deeply, he felt a pull stronger than just an orgasm. And as Stiles bit into his shoulder to muffle his scream as he came Derek knew that some fairytales were true.
*
In a weird throwback, the first thing Derek heard when he woke up the next morning was,
“Just so you know: I’m not afraid of you.”
Derek frowned a bit, lips twitching with the memory of them in a police cruiser, young and stupid and stubborn – Stiles with a silly buzzcut and eyes too big on his face and Derek too lost in his grief and looking like he truly belonged there, cuffed and going to jail.
Derek looked into those big round whiskey eyes, too awake for that hour and tried to make sense of what Stiles – still gloriously naked and marked – was saying.
“And. I’m not afraid of love. It hasn’t always been easy on me but hey. It’s been a nightmare for you and if you still have it in yourself to give it another try, and with me of all people…”
“No”, Derek interrupted him. “Just you of all people.”
Stiles’ eyes were suspiciously shiny even though he tried to turn that into a joke.
“Awe. You Squishywolf.”
Then he sighed, squared his shoulders and took another deep breath.
“You asked me something the other day. If there was ever anyone able to love me… it’s always been you, Derek.”
“Then. Can you love me?”, Derek asked with tentative hope.
To his surprise Stiles burst laughing.
“And here I thought you were smart”, he shook his head. “It’s always been you, Derek.”, his fingers traced the tattoo that only him and Derek knew about. “I’ve fucking loved you since I was 19.”
“…so I’m thinking lasagna?”
“Sure.”
“…Derek. I’m thinking you make the lasagna.”
“No.”
“Come ooon! You know I could kill for your cooking!”
“No.”
“Come on, I’ll do that thing you like.”
“…which one?”
“The one with the-…”
“Khem.”
They turned around at the same time. The cop, a petite woman with pale skin (already blushing madly) looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“Gentlemen”, she said squaring her tiny shoulders in a way that Derek could bet Stiles wanted to coo at. “We received a call about shop-lifting.”
Stiles' brows shot up in his surprise. “We haven’t seen anything, officer.”
She lifted an eyebrow. Stiles eyed her and then the mousy cowering cashier behind her.
“Ah”, he said.
Derek decided it was time he intervened.
“Officer”, he said with an even voice. “I can guarantee that the only thing this man stole is my heart.”
She blushed a deeper shade of red. But her lips twitched as well while Stiles was howling with laugher right beside her.
Stiles looked good when he laughed. Even with the piercings. Especially with the piercings.
But most importantly – with Derek’s bite-marks on his neck.