Work Text:
Like most things with them, it starts with an argument.
It had been rogue hunters, yet again. Stiles had behaved recklessly, or, in his opinion, with the amount of recklessness that’s called for when your maybe-friend-maybe-packmate is bleeding out on a warehouse floor. Regardless of the reasoning, it was only pure dumb luck that had the bullet merely glancing his ribcage, as opposed to perforating it.
"Why is it always an abandoned warehouse," Stiles had moaned, holding cold packs to his skinned knees while Melissa stitched him up. He'd pointedly avoided looking over towards where Derek was seething quietly in the corner. “Why can’t it ever be an abandoned mattress factory?”
Derek had driven them back to the Stilinski house in stony silence until Stiles' pestering had finally pushed him past the breaking point, and then it was the same old argument: Stiles puts himself in unnecessary danger, Derek doesn't get to decide what is and isn't necessary when he consistently throws himself headfirst into mortal peril, Stiles is human, Stiles can think for himself.
It was gearing up to be a flat out brawl—one for the books— when, in the space between one furious breath and the next, Derek had kissed him. After a moment of complete and utter disbelief, Stiles had pressed Derek back into the hood of his SUV, ignoring the twinge of his stitches in favor of licking into Derek’s mouth, hot and angry and biting. Derek made a noise like he'd been punched, and before Stiles could fully comprehend what was happening, Derek had hoisted him into his arms, walking him through his front door and then up the stairs to his childhood bedroom. His hands were bigger than Stiles had realized, and hot as brands under his thighs.
He'd laid Stiles down and stripped him of his sweats with a gentleness that belied the ferocity in his face, shoving his own jeans off with less finesse as Stiles palmed himself through his boxers. Stiles had scrabbled for purchase, trying to roll their hips together, but Derek had hissed a soft reproach and braced the younger man to the bed so as not to rip his stitches while they rutted against one another. Anger and relief had Stiles' desire sharpening to a razor fine edge until, groaning Derek's name like a curse, he came messily between them.
It hadn’t taken long for Derek to follow him over the edge, his hands flexing on Stiles' hips, nuzzling into the sweat-dampened patch of hair behind Stiles' left ear as he shuddered into climax. It was, by far, the single hottest thing Stiles had ever seen in his life.
Derek had stripped off his shirt in one lazy motion and used it to clean them up, taking extra care near the bandages on Stiles' rib cage, and Stiles' cock had throbbed half-heartedly at all that rippling muscle being used so tenderly.
To his surprise, Derek had stayed the night, shuffling Stiles over so that he could flop down on the edge of the bed closest to the door, muttering a sleepy, "We're not done talking about this," into the hollow of Stiles' throat. Stiles had had approximately 45 seconds to panic about the fact that he'd just had angry kind-of-sex with the guy he’d been pining over for half a decade, before the night's events and subsequent adrenaline crash pulled him inexorably into sleep.
He'd expected an extremely awkward conversation the next morning about mistakes and heat-of-the-moment decisions, but instead Derek had simply cracked a bloodshot eye at him, sighed long-sufferingly, and then demanded that Stiles make him coffee. And it just never stopped.
That had been three months ago, and they've still never talked about it. They see each other at pack meetings, they go into battle together, and in the moments between, they fuck with an intensity that Stiles hadn’t known was possible.
--
"I can't tell if he even likes me," Stiles moans to Lydia when he surprises her with froyo while she’s working in her studio. It's in a tiny little brick and mortar townhouse in a very chic part of Beacon Hills proper, and the whole far wall has been painted into a chalkboard filled with mathematical proofs so complex that they read like poetry and make Stiles' brain itch.
"I am not asking your boyfriend if he likes you, likes you," Lydia says briskly, inspecting a piece of mango with a dubious squint.
Stiles scowls. Lydia and Derek have developed a surprisingly deep and frankly unholy friendship in the years since Derek's return to Beacon Hills, and it's become the bane of Stiles' existence. No two people that attractive should get along that well. It's against nature.
"He's not my boyfriend," Stiles grumbles, poking listlessly at his frozen yogurt before perking up. "Unless he said that–"
"Goodbye, Stiles," Lydia says in a singsong voice, shoving him out her front door.
--
Stiles is under no illusions. He knows that Derek is wound so tightly that it comes as a surprise that his joints don't creak when he moves– the werewolf carries himself with the utmost economy of movement, even these days, after things have settled down for the most part and they've been…doing whatever it is they’ve been doing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Derek's hyper-vigilance remains intact even in the the throes of sex, and he fucks like he fights– all precision and power and microscopic focus. It's not like Stiles is complaining, exactly, because he's been gone on Derek for years, but he can't help but feel like he's being robbed of something every time they lay next to each other, spent, and Derek's face closes down, goes internal and quiet.
He's never considered himself to be an unnecessarily violent person- too squeamish- but there's a vindictive fury that pools in his stomach every time Derek's shoulders go tight, or like when he'd gone stiff and nonverbal the one and only time Stiles had slipped up and called him 'babe'.
Stiles can think of a thousand ways he'd like to make Kate Argent pay.
--
It's getting better, though. At least, Stiles thinks it's getting better. Lydia threatens him with a lecture on Archimedes and the Euler-Lagrange equation the next time he brings the topic up, so Stiles goes to the only people he knows who seem to be able to love each other without complication. Scott smiles reassuringly when Stiles gets drunk and spills his concerns across his and Kira's kitchen table, but his dark eyes are uncertain, and it's Kira, of course, who rallies him.
"You'd have to be blind not to see that he cares," she says, skillfully maneuvering the beer out of his hand and replacing it with a glass of water. "After all the stuff he's been through, the fact that he's even trying again speaks to how he feels about you."
"But he won't talk," Stiles wails, and then at her worried frown he quietly amends, "I mean, we bicker all the time, and you know I literally never shut up, but I never know what he wants. Y'know, sexually." Scott shoots Kira a panicky look, and Stiles flaps a hand at him- this way, that way. "And emotionally, whatever. I have no idea if he's even happy."
"I mean," Kira says, "you could ask him."
Stiles glares in the face of her implacable, useless good sense. "Sure," he says, in the thickly sarcastic tones of a born procrastinator. "I'll just ask him."
--
"Are you happy?"
Derek is halfway through peeling him out of his jeans when Stiles blurts out the question, and the younger man claps a hand over his eyes in mortification as the words hover between them. Kira and her goddamn logic.
The query has been simmering in the back of his brain for the better part of a week or so, nearly bubbling out every time Derek goes distant, and he's been able to force it down on each occasion. A shameful, secret part of himself is afraid that by asking, Derek will finally be able to admit that he feels trapped, that Stiles is no good for him, that he deserves better. So of course now, with his pants around his knees and Derek's mouth hot with intent on his hip, is the time that his brain-to-mouth filter decides to malfunction for good.
"What?" Derek blinks at him, his eyebrows raising in mounting incredulity.
Stiles sighs and shimmies out from underneath the other man to sit up at the head of Derek's bed. He kicks his jeans off the rest of the way, deeming them a lost cause, and his stomach swoops a little when he sees Derek watching his bare legs with guarded interest, the way it always does when Derek looks at him like he wants.
"Uh," Stiles says, feeling a flush begin to creep across his cheeks. "Sorry. That was probably the worst possible time to ask that." He brings his knees up to his chest, tasting acrid nerves in his mouth.
Derek sits back on his haunches, impassive, his eyes shuttered. "What did you mean," he asks, characteristically dropping any and all upward inflection from his voice.
Stiles stares at his familiar face, trying to stop his hands from shaking through pure force of will. Okay, he thinks, time to be an adult.
"I was just, uh, wondering," he says, picking at a hangnail and studiously avoiding Derek's bewildered stare. "I don't really know if you're happy. Or not." Now that he's started, he can't seem to stop. "With me, I mean. Which, okay, if you aren't, I just wanna know, because I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything that you don't want to do, and if you weren't– I mean, if I'm not what you– you know. I just want you to be happy, man."
He worries his hangnail back too far and it tears, a small bead of blood welling up at the base of his thumb. Slowly, as if afraid of spooking him, Derek maneuvers himself to sit next to Stiles at the head of the bed. Ever so gently, he takes Stiles' wrist and pulls that hand into his lap, blotting the wound between his own thumb and forefinger. Stiles stares at his knees and tries not feel awful about the fact that this is as close as they've ever come to holding hands.
"You think I'm unhappy." It's a definite statement this time, although Stiles would be at a loss to tell you how he knows the difference. Derek cradles Stiles' hand in his own like an injured bird, letting the silence stretch between them.
"I don't know," Stiles says softly, as if the truth will sting less if he whispers it. "Sometimes. You kinda have this habit of shutting me out anytime I do something wrong, so it's hard to tell."
Derek makes a small, pained sound in the back of his throat, like Stiles had struck him. His hands tighten briefly around Stiles' own. "That's not– Stiles."
He sounds so miserable that Stiles wants to curl himself around him, wants to hold him close and kiss him for a long time and tell him how dear he is, how Stiles can't imagine wanting anyone else for the rest of his life. He settles for clambering over so that they're facing each other, and rearranging their hands until their fingers are intertwined.
"Ya gotta talk to me, dude," he says on a sigh. "I'm pretty good at picking up when I do something that upsets you, but–"
"It's not you." It comes out on a snarl, Derek's lip curling back to reveal just the slightest hint of elongated canine. Stiles has to stamp down on a completely inappropriate flare of arousal, and wonders what that says about him. Luckily, Derek seems to be too frustrated to notice. "You don't do anything wrong. I'm the problem, it's not your fault I'm so– fucked."
He spits the word out, and it's so rare for Derek to curse that Stiles knows it belongs to someone else. It makes the rage burn low in Stiles' belly, and he imagines a slow and excruciating death for Kate Argent before shoving the thought of her away. He doesn't want her anywhere near Derek, even in the confines of his own mind.
"Hey," he murmurs, rubbing his forefinger along the delicate skin of Derek's wrist. Derek's hands are broader that his, but surprisingly fine boned. "I'm not claiming responsibility, and I don't think you're–," he shies away from the word, knows he'll never be able to say it again without thinking of her using it like a knife in flesh, "–messed up. I mean you are, like, compared to the average American citizen, I guess, but so am I. So's everybody we know, actually. Even Scott has his issues, although I think he just converts all of his problems into moral righteousness. I have a theory about that, actually– it has something to do with the thickness of his skull versus his level of self-awareness at any given moment."
This startles a huff out of Derek that's almost a laugh, and he looks less like a puppy being thrown into a river. Stiles considers leaving it at that, of cracking another joke and letting the conversation drift back to a place that isn't so scary. It's tempting, but he has the feeling that if he does– if he lets this moment pass without saying what he means, what he's meant to say this whole time, he might not ever do it.
"Derek," he begins, his throat suddenly thick, "you gotta know that I– that I'm crazy about you, dude."
Derek's head snaps up, mouth falling open either in shock or denial, but Stiles plows on before he can lose momentum.
"I've been pretty much gone on you since I was seventeen," he confesses. He runs the tip of his thumb along the creases of Derek's palm– crooked life line bisected by a jagged line of fate, a heart line so deep it almost feels like a scar. "So I guess what I'm saying is, unless you tell me you don't want this—"
me, me, you don't want me,
"—I'm not going anywhere. I'm not telling you that love is gonna conquer all, or anything, like, we should probably both go to therapy– and, hey, are there supernatural therapists? Probably, right? I mean, Deaton's a vet, and Melissa's basically nurse to the whole paranormal population of Beacon Hills, so it stands to reason—"
"You love me?"
Derek is staring at Stiles like he's never seen him before, jaw slack with genuine astonishment. Stiles swallows down a wave of panic as he reviews the key points of his last few sentences. And okay, yes, he's been distractingly, persistently, overwhelmingly in love with Derek Hale for the better part of the last six years, but he hadn't actually intended to say the word yet.
Still, he thinks, meeting Derek's gaze and seeing the wonder and disbelief there, even if it's too much and he walks away now, at least he'll know. Strangely, the resolve abates the worst of his panic.
"Yep," he says, hunching into himself a little, because a guy can only be so vulnerable, and then without really knowing why, "sorry."
He starts to pull his hand out of Derek's grip, which had gone limp in his surprise, but the other man springs to life and snatches it back.
"You really mean that," Derek murmurs, eyes intent on Stiles' face, searching.
His obvious shock is starting to get on Stiles' already strung-out nerves. The younger man narrows his eyes and says, “Derek, you are a literal werewolf." He puts on his Obi Wan voice and adds, "Use the chemo signals, Luke."
Derek frowns, exchanging that vaguely concussed expression for the standard miffed eyebrows that Stiles knows and wants to lick. "I'm not telepathic, Stiles. I can smell primal chemical reactions– Fear, lust, anger, grief. Human love is a bit more nuanced. I know Scott's explained this to you."
"Yeah, well," Stiles mutters, inordinately pleased to be back on familiar ground now that Derek is in a snit, "you didn't need to sniff it out. I wasn't exactly being covert."
Derek disentangles his right hand and bridges the gap between their bodies, slipping his fingers around the curve of Stiles' jaw.
"I didn't know," he says slowly, like he's figuring something out. "I thought– I mean, we trust each other, and I knew that you wanted me, but other than that I had no idea."
The bottom falls out of Stiles' stomach. We trust each other, and I knew that you wanted me echoes on a loop in his mind, and he bites down hard on a sudden surge of nausea.
"Is that why you–" Stiles chokes on the words, and screws his eyes tightly shut, blocking out the alarm on Derek's face. He starts again. "Is that why you've been with me, this whole time? Because you knew how much I wanted you? How desperate I– Jesus, Derek, do you even want me back?"
Stiles feels the bed bounce a little as Derek shifts up onto his knees and crawls towards him, and he has to stop himself from scrambling out of reach. Derek maneuvers Stiles' legs until he can straddle his bare thighs, the denim of his jeans rough against supple skin. He cups Stiles' chin in his palms.
"Stiles," he says, gently, "look at me."
Stiles grits his teeth and resolutely keeps his eyes closed. Starbursts of color flare in the darkness behind his eyelids, but it's better than the rejection he's sure to see– or, worse, pity. He wonders if that makes him a coward.
Derek huffs again, and Stiles can actually feel the warmth of it on his face. His thumbs trace the hollows of Stiles’ cheeks.
"Stiles, come on, cut it out. Look at me," he grumbles, and he sounds so earnest, so Derek, that Stiles sighs and gives in.
Derek is so close that Stiles can see his individual eyelashes, could probably count and catalogue the colors of his irises if he had the presence of mind to. He's so beautiful in that moment that it makes the breath catch in Stiles' throat. He licks his suddenly dry lips, his heart wobbling precariously in his chest.
Derek tracks the movement of his mouth like he can't help himself, and his eyes are hot on Stiles' when their gazes meet again.
"I want you." He states it as simple fact, as if he were saying his own name. "I want whatever you're willing to give, I– I'm greedy with it. That first night, when we– got together," he stumbles over the phrasing, unsure, but presses on regardless, "I thought that was what was on the table. Sex and comfort. And I took it. I would have kept taking it until you were done with me, because if it meant that I could have you in some way–"
Derek cuts himself off and frowns, frustrated with the inadequacy of words, but Stiles is buoyant, hope rising in him like helium, barely daring to breathe in case it all comes crashing down.
"I'll ask Lydia about finding someone to talk to," Derek says seriously, and then with a wry little smile: "she's been dropping hints about it for months."
"I've been thinking about asking Deaton," Stiles confides, "but Lydia is probably a better bet."
"Probably," Derek agrees. He lets his forehead rest against Stiles'. "Whatever it takes. If this is what you want."
He trails off and they stare at each other in silence for a moment, close enough to breath each other's air, drinking each other in. It's the most he's ever heard Derek say in one sitting.
"So, just so we're clear," Stiles says, breaking the spell, "you totally dig me, right? Like, that was the takeaway, yes? You're ass over elbows for me, I make you swoon and you never want to let me g– oof."
With a groan, Derek tackles him back onto the mattress, burying his face in Stiles' clavicle as the younger man throws back his head and laughs. It's rare to hear Stiles actually, truly laugh with abandon, and Derek almost regrets it when he drags his teeth up the tendon of Stiles' throat, causing the laughter to melt into a whine.
"Christ," Stiles gasps, dragging his fingertips through the soft hairs at Derek's nape. "Do that again."
Derek complies, humming approval at the soft sigh it elicits. He sucks a mark onto the delicate juncture of Stiles' throat and jaw and leans back to watch the bruise bloom with satisfaction. He runs his hands up the length of Stiles' thighs, slipping his thumbs under the edges of his boxers.
Stiles stares up at him through heavy-lidded eyes, noting the way that Derek's breath quickens when he lets his knees fall open slightly and cants his hips up in implicit invitation.
"C'mere," he says, pulling Derek off balance and rolling them over so that he kneels between Derek's legs. He pushes the hem of Derek's henley up impatiently, running his palms along the taut muscles of his stomach. "You've got, like, 100% too many clothes on right now."
Derek hides a grin, pulling the shirt up over his head. Stiles takes advantage of the baring of his chest, ducking his head low to lick a stripe across Derek's left nipple.
"Stiles," Derek says, softly, like a prayer, dragging blunt human fingernails across Stiles' shoulders. His heart is beating double-time under Stiles' lips, and it makes the younger man smile as he works his way across Derek's chest, the last of his worries slipping away.
Derek's breath hitches, coming in fast and uneven as Stiles sinks his teeth into the vee of his hip. He can't stop staring down at the crown of Stiles' head, a tumbling mess of brown leaving a trail of quickly fading hickies in its wake.
Loving him.
The thought sends a jolt through his system, and he feels the pull of his shift, the wolf trying to come through, to claim, to flip them back around so he can fuck Stiles into the mattress, but—
Stiles seems to have developed a plan of action, and for first time in his life Derek doesn't mind giving up the reins. He watches Stiles clumsily try to unbutton his fly, grinning. The wolf subsides, stretching happily under his skin.
"Who designed these, Louis A. Simon?" Stiles grouses, giving up with a flap of his hands. "A little help?"
Derek obliges, flicking open the buttons with practiced ease. "They're from the Gap," he says innocently, just to watch Stiles' eyes narrow.
"Smug," Stiles mutters, helping him maneuver his pants down, tugging his briefs along with them and flinging both into the corner once they pull free of Derek's ankles. "It's 2016, Derek. Who even buys button-front jeans?"
Derek opens his mouth to say something snotty, but the words mangle themselves in his mouth as Stiles leans down and wraps his lips around the head of Derek's dick, and what comes out is a random collection of vowels.
"Jesus," Derek hisses when he gets his breath back, unable to stop himself from thrusting instinctively into that wet heat. He has to bury his hands in the bedsheets as Stiles hums appreciatively around his cock.
They've never really done it like this, not in the three months they've been sleeping together. Slow. Tender, if you feel like being specific and slightly more embarrassing– Derek feels a flush burn at his ears when the word pops into his head. There's always been a rush, the frenzy of this time could be the last time making every sensation sharp with tension.
Now, Stiles takes his time opening Derek up, working him methodically, torturously, until he can fuck three fingers into him with ease. Derek's vision swims when Stiles flicks his tongue experimentally between his fingers, lapping at the rim of his hole.
"Tastes like lube," Stiles says quietly, then laughs at himself, blissed out by the noises Derek's making, by the way his cock twitches when Stiles curls his fingers just so, by the impressive puddle of precome gathering in the dip of his abdomen. Incredible.
"You're incredible," he says, because he can, and because of the way it makes Derek flush all the way down to his chest. "You're so amazing, Derek, all the time. You feel so good."
"Stiles," Derek growls, hiding his burning face in the crook of his arm. Stiles has to squeeze the base of his cock with his free hand, because there was definitely a little bit of fang in that voice, and the realization that Derek is too far gone to truly control his shift nearly undoes him then and there.
"Yeah," he breathes, reaching for the lube and squeezing a liberal amount directly onto his shaft, coating himself with his free hand, still working Derek's hole with the other. He scissors his fingers, touching a spot that makes Derek's back arch up off the bed. Christ.
"I want-," Derek pants, clutching at the bunched up sheets near his hip. "Stiles, I need–"
"Yeah." Stiles braces Derek's right thigh against his shoulder and pulls his fingers free. Derek makes an unintelligible sound at their absence– word soup. His abs twitch as he forces himself to relax. "I've got you," Stiles soothes, lining himself up. He presses a chaste kiss to the inside of Derek's knee.
They groan in unison as Stiles slides into him, inch by gradual inch. Derek tries to roll his hips up, desperate for contact, but Stiles splays his hands across his waist and anchors him to the bed, mirroring that first night.
“Let me,” Stiles pants, and even though Derek knows he could easily overpower him, he lets himself be held. Every nerve in his body sings, every instinct focused on Stiles with singular concentration— his rapid heartbeat, the salt of his sweat, the juncture where their bodies meet. Derek inhales him, imprints that scent into his memory.
Stiles bottoms out, feeling like all the air has been punched from his lungs. “Holy shit,” he whispers, taking a second to catch his breath.”God, Derek.”
He allows himself fall onto his forearms, shifting to let Derek wrap his legs around his waist. If anything it pushes him impossibly deeper, and Derek reaches both hands above his head to dig his fingers into the pillow. There’s the sound of tearing fabric. He’s half shifted, panting around sharp canines, his eyes flashing electric blue. Stiles kisses him carefully, lingeringly, before he starts to move.
He keeps his thrusts measured and unhurried, building a steady rhythm, hitting the spot that makes Derek gasp as often as he can. Stiles babbles as they rock into each other, unable to stop the flood of words as they tumble into the scant space between their bodies: You’re beautiful. So good, so perfect. I love you. Derek. Derek. Derek.
Derek smells saline, and registers that there are tears on his cheeks, but can’t be sure why. His body feels like a live wire, his cock throbbing against the lean muscle of Stiles’ stomach, his imminent orgasm coiling tighter and tighter in the base of his navel. He throws his head back, exposing the line of his neck, man and wolf in perfect accord. Stiles’ rhythm stutters, the enormity of that gesture not lost on him. He lets his head fall forward, grinding into Derek like he means to stay, like he’s trying to give Derek more than the physical evidence of the past hour— like he’s trying to give Derek a part of himself to keep. As he reaches his breaking point, he rests his mouth on Derek’s throat, just below his Adam’s apple, and bites.
Derek howls. Every muscle in his body clenches down, his vision whiting out as he comes. Stiles whimpers as Derek tightens around him, his restraint dissolving into need as he pounds into that heat, once, twice—
He has Derek’s name on loop as he topples over the edge, burying his face into the other man’s neck as he rocks them both through the aftershock.
“Oh my god,” he pants, wiggling his toes to make sure they’re still there, just in case he’d transcended his body. “I mean, oh my god.” He nuzzles at Derek’s collar bone and breathes him in.
Derek makes a noise that sounds like, “nnhmgh,” and wraps an arm lazily around Stiles’ back, holding him close.
Soon, Stiles will roll out of bed and drag Derek into the shower. Later, (much, much later if Stiles has anything to say about it) they’ll get dressed and leave the apartment to pick up Chinese food from Derek’s favorite restaurant. Later still, they’ll go to the McCall house for movie night, and Lydia and Kira will share knowing smiles from across the living room.
For now, though, they breathe together, hearts keeping time, two points connected, finally, finally.