Chapter Text
Stiles is in the room and halfway to his desk before he sees Derek sitting in the darkness.
'Oh my God!' he half shrieks, but he's just startled, not scared, and he grins wide.
'Holy hell, it's been a long time since we've done this.' 'This' being, Derek assumes, him coming in Stiles' window and lurking until he shows up. It's 1AM, and he's been sitting here for hours, claws gouging furrows in the arm of the chair, but in the dark, he's sure Stiles can't see that. Hours, where he's clung to control simply by not moving.
Stiles is unbuttoning and shrugging out of his overshirt, reaching over and clicking on the desk lamp to give enough light for him to rummage around in his draw for a clean t-shirt. 'So,' he teases, 'come to check if my virtue's intact?'
'Is it?'
Stiles strips his t-shirt off, baring toned skin that's smooth until his navel, where a thin dusting of hair trails down to disappear under the waist of his jeans. He's been around the pack too long to be embarrassed about changing in front of any of its members, to even think before he does it.
'Ah ah ah, a gentleman never tells.' He's flying high, buzzing and contented like he's just discovered something new. Derek supposes he should be able to smell if he's had sex, but he can't get past the reek of Danny that covers him, as if he's somehow rolled in him. He's never smelled of anything other than pack before, almost always of Derek, but Danny's scent is almost strong enough to drown that out.
Derek runs his teeth over the points of his canines, as Stiles toes off his shoes and kicks off his jeans, bare except for his boxers for two seconds too long before he shrugs into a clean, white undershirt and sprawls facedown on the bed. Danny's smell diminishes a bit with the clothing change, but it's not enough.
'So, what'd you need, grand puba?' Stiles is nuzzling deep into his pillow, making his voice come out muffled, his back muscles flexing as he stretches and burrows into the mattress.
'You weren't coming back to the house tonight?'
Stiles flops over onto his back, sending a fresh wave of scent flying through the room. 'Nah, I'm beat. I'll head over in the morning...well, later this morning. I know, sometimes I forget I actually have my own house, too.'
'You stink,' Derek finally manages to grit out, while the wolf is snarling markhimtakehimsomeonehastouchedhim in a looping chant that thrums through his blood and his veins and demands an answer.
'It's called sweat, Alpha o' mine. S'what happens when you run around for hours in the laser tag arena. I won, by the way. Thanks for asking. Gotta admit it's kind of nice playing with someone I actually have a chance against, instead of supernatural talent that always kicks my ass.'
'No, you stink. Take a shower.' The order is a barely there growl, and Derek doesn't know how Stiles can't sense the gathering danger, or if he's just become so comfortable with the werewolves he's confident Derek wouldn't really hurt him.
'Ugh, and no. I'm beat. I'll think about it in the morning.' He curls on his side to face Derek. 'So, did you really want to know how it went?'
'No.' And before Derek can stop himself, he's vaulted from the chair and is looming over Stiles, knees on either side of him. 'I want you to go shower.'
'Whoa, whoa. Whaa!' Stiles flails a bit beneath him until he's on his back again. 'Dude!' There it is, that hint of fear, and Derek is sick, sick, sick to his stomach at it. Stiles breath has tracked to short, gasp-y pulls, but he won't look at Derek. Something in his scent is changing, but the air is still too full of that boy for Derek to concentrate on it.
'Stiles,' he hates the way his voice comes out in the wolf's voice, a rasping snarl, 'shower.'
'Okay, Jesus, Derek. Get off!'
Derek forces himself to slide back instead of press down, and ignores the angry scowl on Stiles face as he rips a clean pair of boxers from the drawer and stalks out of the room, muttering about bossy wolves and sensitive noses.
That should be the end of it. Derek should leave the way he came, know that Stiles won't sleep drenched in Danny, but instead soap and water and clothes that even when washed smell like the Hale house. Instead he's looking out the window, back to the door, when Stiles returns, water scent rolling off him.
'Happy now,' he hisses, the earlier shine of the night worn off under the weight of his irritation, and Derek gives a sharp nod.
He hears Stiles sigh in a long suffering sort of way, and the creak of the floor as he walks across it. Then he's pressing against Derek's back, resting his hands on his shoulders and burying his face in his neck. Derek stiffens in one way, and then another, when he realizes what Stiles thinks he's doing.
'Stiles, you are not puppy piling me. Go to bed.'
Stiles just clings tighter. 'Ah yeah, yeah I am. I have no clue what's going through that wolfy brain of yours, but you're jacked up like crazy. No way I'm letting you out on an unsuspecting populace until you're calmed down. Come on,' he tugs on Derek's arm. 'Even big bad Alphas need some pack time.'
All at once, Stiles logic sounds like perfect sense, even if it's not for the reasons he might think. He does this, and Stiles will smell like him again; he can put a leash on the wolf, and he can go back to the way things were. He doesn't resist as Stiles pulls him to the bed.
* * * * * *
Lydia sits up from where they've been leaning against the a tree trunk for hours, right at the edge of the Stilinksi property. 'Oh god, can we go now? You realize this is bordering on Derek style creepy, right?'
Adam just shakes his head, listening intently to the interaction taking place in Stiles' bedroom. 'It was a good plan, but I told you before we started it's too dangerous to leave him unsupervised right now. Do you have any clue how close he is to killing Danny right now? How easily he could have accidentally hurt Stiles? If he keeps holding back, he's going to hurt somebody, and if he snaps, better to do it here than when he's alone with no one to stop him. So no. Until he stops being such an idiot, we're sitting.'
Lydia rolls her eyes, but scoots back into Adam; he loops his arm back around her waist. 'There's no way Derek would hurt Stiles. He couldn't.'
'He wouldn't mean to. And if he did – you have no idea what happens to a wolf after that. That violence isn't going to settle until he accepts what's already there. The imperative we have, to protect what we've taken, at any cost..bonded werewolves...he will kill for Stiles. And Stiles – not even one of us, and you wouldn't think he had it in him, but he gets this look...
Lydia watches the way the moonlight glints off her perfect manicure for several silent minutes, while the sounds of Stiles maneuvering Derek into the bed filter out. She gives Adam a sideways glance. 'Would you? For me?'
The bond they're creating is different than the one between his brother and Jackson, Derek and Stiles, formed first by their human sides and then their wolves, as opposed to the reverse, but it's no less strong, so his answer is absolute truth.
'Yes.'
'Good,' she smiles, deadly. 'Because I'd rip the throat out of any bitch who tried to touch you.'
And just like that, he falls in love with her just a little bit more.