Work Text:
Despite his tough exterior, Derek Hale was a very physically affectionate person. He reserved it for only the select few able to win his trust, but once they did, he was as clingy as a newly adopted puppy. He found it difficult to fall asleep without a warm body next to him, and he cherished the comfort his partner, Stiles, provided.
Derek was also tired. Really tired. And as much as he loved sharing a bed with his companion, he was starting to consider sleeping on the couch. He wasn’t exactly the lightest sleeper, but Stiles’s incessant twitching, scratching, and shifting would have made even Sleeping Beauty stir. He gave a low growl as Stiles kicked him dangerously close to his crotch.
“Stop spazzing.”
“I can’t sleep.”
Derek blindly rooted around the sheets for his phone to check the time. 2:36. 4 hours until Stiles’s alarm would wake him up and the sun would sear through his eyelids and keep him from getting anymore much needed sleep.
“I really need you to try.”
“I’m trying,” Stiles whined. “I can’t get comfortable with your beefy ass taking up half the bed.”
“Ok, just,” Derek reached for some sort of hold on Stiles, grasping what was probably his shoulder and yanking him into his arms. “C’mere.”
Stiles settled for a moment, tucking an arm under Derek’s neck to return the embrace, the warmth and pressure soothing his need to shift positions. “This is… better.”
There was a beat of calm, Stiles distracting his racing mind with Derek’s steady heartbeat and deepening breaths while Derek allowed himself to be pulled back into the sweet lull of sleep, able to ignore the light stirring of his partner fighting to keep himself still. He felt himself slip from the clutches of consciousness, his mind turning over into the dreamscape when-
Bam.
“Ow, seriously dude?” Derek pinched his throbbing nose, nursing the sudden attack from Stiles’s elbow.
“Shit, sorry.” Stiles sounded sincerely apologetic even as he continued to squirm, restless legs shaking the whole bed frame. “I can’t help it, I feel jittery.”
“Are you even tired? You have to get up at 7.”
“I know! I am!” Stiles sighed. “I don’t know, even when my mind wants to sleep, my body keeps going. Usually it’s not a problem and I can wear myself out eventually, but now I have a cranky werewolf in my bed to worry about.”
“Hmm…” Derek took a second to think. Stiles was hyper beyond what Derek thought was humanly possible at times, and he was often still full of energy even after a full day of activity. There was, however, one fool-proof method he’d stumbled upon that was guaranteed to make Stiles passive and pliable. “So if I wear you out, you think you’ll be able to sleep?”
“Jeez, Derek, I don’t know what kind of smut you’ve been reading but I’m not that kind of guHH-!” Derek cut off Stiles’s jab with a jab of his own, a more physical one aimed at the squish above his hip. “Wahahait, c’mohon-”
Derek did not wait nor come on, instead poking up and down the other’s exposed side, using Stiles’s self-imposed restraint against him.
“Wait wahait, nonono that’s not fahahahair!” Stiles frantically pulled at the arm wedged underneath Derek’s neck, giggles picking up in desperation as he realized how trapped he was.
“It’s not fair for you to keep me up after midnight, I’m just evening the score,” Derek smirked, readjusting their position to better secure his hold over Stiles’s arm. He shuffled upwards, pressing the weight of his back onto the captive arm all while clawing each ticklish bone that made up Stiles’s ribcage.
Stiles was squirming more than before, and making much more noise on top of it, but Derek figured that a problem usually worsens before it gets better. A little bloodletting (tickleletting?) was exactly what Stiles needed to get all his squirminess out. He crawled his middle and index finger up towards the hollows of his arms, and while Derek usually preferred a little more build up before getting Stiles’s death spot, he also preferred getting to bed before sunrise.
“No! Nohohoho, plehease!” Realization hit Stiles like a truck, and he tried one last time to pull his arm free before resigning himself against Derek’s chest, pulling at the fabric of his shirt in a feeble attempt to garner sympathy. Derek, undeterred, lightly traced the rim of his armpit, taking special care to brush over the patch of nerves directly above his ribs that made his laughter pitch. All the sensation hitting him was made worse by the fact that he couldn’t see it coming, couldn’t even see Derek’s face, the room and everything in it blanketed in a wash of darkness. “I caha- *snrk* I cahaHAN’T!”
“Aw, come on, yes you can!” Derek chuckled at the snort, a feature of his laughter that Derek adored but Stiles himself was unreasonably embarrassed of. He felt the grip on his shirt release as Stiles repurposed his free hand as a face cover, shielding his blush from the potential of wolfy nightvision. “I’ve done much, much worse and you were fine. Don’t sell yourself short.”
As Derek finally scrabbled his fingers into his lover’s underarms, he took in the familiar scent of panic, thrill, and joy unique to a ticklish Stiles. Though Stiles would vehemently deny it, it’s hard to hide your inner thoughts from a creature that can literally smell emotion, and the excitement currently rolling off Stiles was intoxicating. Derek was also fully aware of the fact that while he was restraining one of Stiles’s arms, he was free to use the other to fight back in any way, a freedom that was being purposefully ignored.
As Stiles’s laugh turned a bit too wheezy and his struggling turned into weak slaps to Derek’s chest, Derek ceased his attack, planting a kiss on Stiles’s forehead to signal its end. He returned Stiles’s arm with a complementary pat on shoulder as he caught his breath, breathing the last of his giggles out in puffs.
“Good?”
“Goohohod…” Stiles was visibly much more relaxed, making no other movement but breathy tittering and a few rubs to dispel the last of the tingling. From the looks of it, he was pretty drained, and with any luck he’d stay that way.
“Great, please go the fuck to sleep.”
“Ok, sheehehesh.”
After a quick drink of water, Stiles was back in Derek’s arms, resuming his cling around Derek’s neck. He did his best to keep still, and to his credit he did manage much longer than last time, but the itch he felt growing on his arm was getting to be unbearable. He scratched it, felt the relief, and then realized how itchy the rest of his body was by comparison as he frantically scratched from spot to spot.
“Nope. Nope nope nope,” Derek tutted, recognizing the pattern. He pulled Stiles closer and pushed his hands up the back of his shirt, slowly dragging his fingers up and down the warm skin. “Nipping this in the bud.”
Stiles gasped at the first moment of contact, expecting another all-out attack, before completely relaxing, nuzzling his head under Derek’s chin and breathing a deep, giggly sigh. His breathing slowed as he melted into the touch, the steady rhythm interspersed with soft huffs whenever Derek strayed too close to his sides.
“This is actually pretty relaxing for me too,” Derek said, a bit more awake than he would like to be at this hour, but having too much fun to care. “Maybe we should do this every night. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
Stiles seemed a bit too exhausted to answer, instead responding with a string of loopy, uncontrolled giggles. He only gave a curt shake of his head, not fully sure which part he was objecting to.
“You wouldn’t? Sounds like a plan.”
Stiles couldn’t find the energy to reply, and as the tracing turned to petting turned to the comforting pressure of Derek’s hand on his waist, he found himself drifting off to the thought of being held and doted on and loved so completely that he knew wouldn’t refuse even if he could.