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Stiles wont take the bite. Derek has offered, repeatedly. On the first notable occasion it had been brought up he had actually threatened.
That had been the day he found out about Peter’s offer his world was turning to red, mouth like ashes and bile as Stiles casually states what Peter had offered. Laughs almost self consciously as he relays the story of how Peter had offered the bite to Stiles, to his Stiles. The doubt in his voice tell Derek how little Stiles knows of his own value, and how close Stiles had come to saying yes. but he had said no, first to Peter and then to Derek and it takes a lot to pull back from the edge that day. Leaving Stiles furious and frightened and on the edge of cutting Derek out of his life for good.
But Derek has sworn never to take and Stiles not being part of the pack, of Derek's life is not an option and so he doesn’t take, each time the threat rises, harsh breath and firm control allows him to hold onto what he knows, that taken by force Stiles would never forgive him. He offers again, routinely, almost habit now, over breakfast as a joke, on days that Stiles is hurt and the damned vulnerability of how human he is scares Derek senseless but the answer is always the same, whether with a smile or a frown. No.
Derek knows that he walks a fine line. The wolf inside him wants Stiles, clamours for release, for the freedom to claim, to mark, to take what belongs to them. But Stiles no never wavers, and so he holds the wolf at bay.
He finds other ways to bind Stiles to him. Hard kisses, frantic fumblings that lead to long nights of sweat soaked skin and sticky sheets, a word where Stiles becomes his, in every way that matters, smells of Derek, tastes of Derek, their bodies joined, Derek's scent, his sweat and his come marking Stiles completely. It is here with Stiles writhing under him, his voice a whimper, a plea and a promise to stay that Derek can sometimes hope.
But the hope always withers by morning, even though Stiles stays, laughs with the pack over breakfast, cuddles into Derek during pack movie nights, surprises him with soft kisses on the neck and the feel of a warm hand within his own. But Derek knows it’s a lie, an illusion, that one day Stiles will leave, move on, move upwards from the small town of Beacon Hill and the pack that think of him as theirs. Move on from Derek. Which is why why he avoids Stiles every full moon, his pack on high alert, orders to kill if they have to. To stop him by any means necessary. He has the sharp relief of knowing that Scott will, that he would die stopping Derek, Stiles has that effect on people.
And so they carry on their dance. Stiles holding onto his humanity, while fitting into his role place of Derek's partner, Scott's friend, the packs carer, his mouth full of smiles and mind set only on a future of them of pack and Derek and family. And although Derek knows the lie for what it is, even without the faltering heartbeat, he is happy to believe, to maintain the illusion and hold onto Stiles with the fragile strings of sex, pack and belonging, praying desperately to stave off the day that the strings finally snap.