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Over the course of a few months, Derek and Stiles manage to explore pretty much all the sexual positions that Stiles can come up with. Some of them work, some of them don’t. They get to the point that they can laugh about the failures and move on, try something else. In between as much sex as they can handle, they watch movies, eat Mexican food, drive around in Derek’s Camaro. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes werewolves or other supernatural nasties are making their lives miserable. Sometimes they aren’t. It’s as close to perfect as Stiles thinks his life will ever get.
Sometimes he still wonders if they’re boyfriends or what, and he knows that Derek doesn’t feel the need to label things but he does. He finally manages to explain to Derek that it’s not about society’s approval or wanting to direct his own behavior. It’s just the way his brain works. He categorizes things, files them, wants everything organized.
After some debate, they agree to ask Lydia. She knows more about relationships than most of the other people they know. Lydia folds her arms over her chest and says, “Tell me the last three things you did together.”
Stiles thinks back. “Uh, we went out to see a movie. And then we ate pizza and played Portal afterwards. Before that . . . oh, I know, he was tuning up his Camaro. I wasn’t helping, but he was telling me about what he was doing and stuff, because I don’t know anything about cars. Or didn’t know anything, anyway. Time before that . . . uh, we intended to go hiking in the preserve but actually just kind of wound up having sex most of the day.”
Lydia arches her eyebrows at him. Stiles just gives her a shrug. “No,” she finally says, “you’re not boyfriends.” When she sees Stiles’ face fall, she reaches out and pats him on the cheek. “You’re married.”
With that, she waves over her shoulder and flounces off.
Derek and Stiles decide they’ll settle for boyfriends.
Anything else seems to be moving a little fast. Although, Stiles points out, they’ve actually known each other for almost two years, despite the fact that they didn’t move into this stage of their relationship until recently. Derek agrees that that’s true, but still, married is a little much. Stiles isn’t even nineteen yet.
Everything’s been quiet for weeks, and so they’re all on edge, waiting for some sort of a disaster to strike, because their lives are never quiet for long. The disaster that strikes, however, is not the one that Stiles expects.
He heads home from Derek’s after a very satisfying evening to find his father sitting at the kitchen table, wearing his glasses and doing some work. He looks up when Stiles comes in, and gestures to him. “Come sit down with me.”
“Uh oh,” Stiles says lightly, getting a soda out of the fridge before plopping into a chair (an act he immediately regrets after the day’s activities). “What’s up?”
Sheriff Stilinski shifts in his chair, obviously uncomfortable. “I know you don’t tell me everything,” he says, and Stiles immediately tenses up, “and I wouldn’t expect you to. You’re eighteen, and there are some things a man just doesn’t want to know about his teenaged son. And I know you’ve been hiding things from me for . . . a while now. I don’t like it, but I’ve respected your right to privacy.”
“Wow, Dad, way to psych me out,” Stiles says, resisting the urge to bolt.
“Well, that’s the point,” his father says. “I’m going to give you a chance to come clean. Is there anything you want to tell me? Before I tell you something?”
Stiles grimaces. There are lots of things he would love to tell his father, but he can’t begin to guess what his father has discovered – or thinks he’s discovered. He’s not going to just come out with one of his secrets. It’ll be better to wait and see what his dad has found out. He hopes it’s not about the bruises. Derek sometimes doesn’t know his own strength in the bedroom. The first few times he was wracked with guilt over them, and once even tried to break up with Stiles over it (even though they hadn’t been boyfriends at that point). Stiles eventually managed to convince him that it’s not Derek’s fault that he’s a werewolf, and a few bruises every now and again are worth the relationship they have.
But there are so many things his father could have stumbled across that are worse. Werewolves, murders, sorcerers, lizard monsters. Stiles just braces himself.
To his surprise, his father sets down a DVD on the table. It’s labeled ‘important research’.
Stiles flushes red. “Why do you have that?” he asks.
“I was snooping,” his father says, and then lifts his hands in surrender. “Yes, I know it was wrong. But you’re my son, and I’m worried about you. Staying out until all hours of the night, lying to me about where you’re going and where you’ve been, missing things like lacrosse games and then brushing it off afterwards. I thought it might be drugs, or . . .” He doesn’t elaborate on the other things he thought it might have been. Stiles is just as glad of that. “So when I found something labeled ‘important research’, I thought maybe it would give me some insight as to what’s going on.”
Stiles looks at the DVD. “Did it?”
Stilinski rubs a hand over the back of his head. “I suppose it did, in a manner of speaking.” He studies Stiles for a minute. “Why did you think you couldn’t tell me?”
“Oh my God,” Stiles says, rubbing both hands over his head. He can’t help it; he just loses his temper. “Are you serious, Dad? How about the time I tried to tell you I was gay outside the club and you told me I wasn’t because I don’t dress the part? Do you have any idea how fucking ignorant that made you sound? Like all gay guys have great fashion sense and a limp wrist and take up interior decorating? How about the time you asked how I’d gotten over Lydia and I said I had finally realized she just wasn’t my type? How about the time I admitted that yes, I was having sex, but there was a zero chance I would get anyone pregnant? There’s never a zero chance, it doesn’t matter how many forms of birth control you use, you know that, I know it, and you know I know it. Which means that I wasn’t having sex with a girl, now didn’t it? How about last spring when you asked who I was going to take to the junior prom and I said there really wasn’t anyone in school I wanted to ask? Really, no one in the entire school, because there’s only one other gay guy in school and that’s Danny and he’s got a boyfriend. Should I keep going?”
Sheriff Stilinski has been wincing from the second sentence. He holds up his hands in surrender. “Okay,” he says. “I screwed up.”
“Damn right you did,” Stiles says. “And you know what? I was just over at my boyfriend’s place and we had a great time and I really don’t appreciate coming home and being interrogated about the one secret that I wasn’t trying to keep!”
“I don’t need to know that,” his father says.
“Oh, really? You seemed awfully curious – ”
“Stiles,” his father says. “Come on. Cut me a little slack, okay? I’ve been worried about you.”
“So you looked through my stuff and found out I was gay. Congratulations. You now know what everyone else in Beacon Hills has known for years. I’m serious. Call up Scott’s mom. Say, ‘Melissa, did you know my son was gay?’ and she’ll say ‘well, he’s bi, actually, but yes, I’ve known that for years, why do you ask?’”
“Stiles,” his father says, frowning at him, “why do I get the feeling that this isn’t really about you being gay, or bi, anymore?”
“Because I keep secrets, Dad,” Stiles says. “I do. But I never meant to keep this one from you. You just . . . didn’t seem to want to hear it. And I didn’t want to upset you. So I just – you know what, fuck this. Never mind.” He pushes back from the table, snatches up his DVD (why had he left it lying around in his room, was he an idiot?) and stomps up to his room.
He’s been flopped on his bed, seething, for almost fifteen minutes before there’s a knock on his door. “Go away,” he calls.
His father comes in anyway. He sits down on the edge of Stiles’ bed. “I screwed up, okay? Your old man’s not perfect. That shouldn’t be a newsflash, either.”
Stiles just glowers at him.
“Would you believe I really hadn’t seen it?” Stilinski asks. “That I really did miss all those cues? That I was so invested in finding something complicated that I missed the simple thing sitting right underneath my nose?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says. “I guess. Perils of being a cop, maybe.”
“I’m not going to lie and say that . . . this won’t take some getting used to,” Stilinski says. “It’s not what I wanted for you. Not because I think it’s a choice or a sin or anything like that. But just because . . . I know it means your life is going to be a lot more difficult and complicated than a lot of other people’s are.”
“You have no idea, Dad,” Stiles mumbles into his pillow.
They sit in silence for a minute. “So,” his father finally says. “You and this boyfriend. Serious?”
“Yeah, Dad, I . . . I think it’s pretty serious,” Stiles says.
“Well, then, I want to meet him,” Stilinski says.
Stiles actually laughs. “How about no?”
His father folds his arms over his chest and gives him that terribly unimpressed look. “If it’s serious enough that you two are doing the deed, as the kids say – ”
“No kids say that, Dad.”
“ – then I want to meet him.”
“You won’t like him.”
“Of course I won’t like him. He’s my son’s boyfriend. It’s practically a rule.”
“I think that only applies to daughters.”
Sheriff Stilinski shrugs. “Dinner. Saturday night. I’ll grill some steaks.”
Stiles sighs. “I will agree to this on one condition. Which is that you do not make a big deal out of this, or specifically try to make him uncomfortable, or clean your shotgun while he’s here.”
“Deal,” his father says.
Stiles buries his head in his pillow. “Now go away. I have to go complain to Scott about how mortified I am that my dad found my porn stash.”
“Going away,” his father says, surrendering again.
~ ~ ~ ~
“My dad wants to meet you,” Stiles says the next day. He’s sitting at Derek’s kitchen table, writing down answers to his Spanish homework. Derek just got home from work half an hour previous, and he’s immersed in some letters he’s gotten. Pack politics, territory stuff. He doesn’t like to talk about it, and Stiles doesn’t push him.
“Your dad has met me,” Derek says, taking a pull on his beer. “Hell, your dad arrested me.”
Stiles sighs. “Let me rephrase: my dad wants to meet my boyfriend.”
“Oh.” Derek sets down his beer. He shifts uncomfortably in his chair. Stiles doesn’t blame him for being uncertain on this issue. He doesn’t know a lot about how teenagers interact with their parents. He was only fifteen when his died. He never had to deal with any of this.
“Dinner. Saturday night. My place.” Stiles continues to scribble vocabulary so he doesn’t have to look at Derek. “Would you rather show up, or make a run for the border?”
Derek frowns faintly. “You get along with your dad, don’t you?”
“When he’s not looking around in my room for drugs and finding my gay porn stash, then sure, yeah, I get along with my dad.”
“Then I guess I’d better show up.” Derek goes back to his letters.
Stiles decides this will all work better if his father has some time to adjust to the fact that his son’s boyfriend is a) older, b) wears leather, and c) was once suspected of murder. Of course, Derek was cleared of all charges, but Stiles suspects he didn’t make a great impression at the police station that night. He remembers his father saying something along the lines of, “I’ve never met a man who could so civilly follow every instruction, never say a threatening word, and still make me believe that he was internally ripping out my intestines.”
Yeah. This is gonna be great.
So in the interest of both not going into this blind and getting a little of his own back, he asks Derek to go by the station the next day. He’s in the back, having brought his father a chicken salad sandwich (low-fat mayo, whole grain bread) and some veggie sticks to round out his dinner. His father is still giving him that annoyed look when the receptionist comes back to tell him that someone wants to see him. “You just wait here, we still need to talk about tomorrow night,” his father says, leaving his office.
Stiles peers out the door so he can observe this meeting. Derek has taken a half-day off from the bank, but he’s still dressed in his work clothes, complete with tie. Stiles firmly tells himself not to get excited. He’s developed something of a fetish for Derek and his ties.
“Mr. Hale,” Sheriff Stilinski says, clearly somewhat surprised. “What brings you down to the station?”
“Call me Derek,” is the reply, and it comes out at least courteous if not actually friendly. Stiles hasn’t told him what to say. He just told him to invent some excuse to come by the station and chat with his father for a few minutes. “I, uh, wanted to talk to you about the old Hale house. I know it’s not technically my property anymore, but I’m concerned that some local teenagers have been using it to throw parties in. Or just explore. It’s not safe to be inside. I know it’s scheduled to be torn down in a couple months anyway, but I was wondering if we could get a fence or some signs put up. For everyone’s safety.”
Sheriff Stilinski nods. “Seems like a reasonable idea to me,” he says. “I know there are some ‘no trespassing signs’, but they’re not really a deterrent to kids.”
“It would be really easy for a kid to fall and hurt himself,” Derek says.
“Well, I’ll talk to the county commissioner about it,” Stilinski says. “Easiest thing would probably just be to bump up the demolition date, but . . . not sure how you would feel about that.”
Derek looks away. “It’s not my home anymore,” he says, and shakes his head. “I have to get back to work. Thanks for taking the time to see me.”
“Any time,” Stilinski says. He looks a little puzzled by this encounter as he goes back into his office. “What were we talking about?”
“My boyfriend,” Stiles says.
“Ah, yes. Tomorrow night. I get to meet your boyfriend.”
“Actually,” Stiles says, and holds his breath, “you just did.”
His father blinks at him for a few moments. He looks out into the hallway. Then back at Stiles. “You’re dating Derek Hale?” His voice goes up a notch. “You’re having sex with Derek Hale?”
“Gee, Dad, shout it a little louder,” Stiles says. “I’m pretty proud of myself for such a score, so if you could announce it to everyone in Beacon Hills, it’d save me the trouble – ”
“But he – he’s – ”
“Twenty-six,” Stiles says. “The word you’re looking for is ‘twenty-six’.”
Sheriff Stilinski scowls at him. “Which means that he was twenty-four when you were sixteen – ”
“Yes, and when I was sixteen he had absolutely no interest in putting his hand in my pants,” Stiles says, and his father winces. “We didn’t start dating until I was eighteen, so technically, you’re not really entitled to an opinion about it – ”
“I’m your father, bucko, and I – ”
“Okay, legally, you’re not allowed to have an opinion about it,” Stiles says.
His father folds his arms over his chest. “How long has this been going on?”
“About, I dunno, six months now? And don’t you even start with that ‘why didn’t you tell me’ thing unless you want me to get pissed off again,” Stiles adds.
Stilinski looks a little annoyed, but then sighs and nods. “Okay, fine. I just . . . can’t even begin to see what you two have in common.”
“Yeah, you’re right there,” Stiles says. “I’m just a little shit, whereas he’s a handsome, caring, surprisingly sweet individual who just happens to look like a thug. Way to boost my ego, Dad.”
His father sighs again. “Stiles, I didn’t mean – ”
“No, I know what you meant,” Stiles says. “You meant that you don’t think Derek is good enough for me. But, you know, it’s cool, Dad. I know that on the surface, we don’t have a lot in common. He’s got a job and a Camaro and an apartment, whereas I’m still in high school and live with you and drive a beat-up Jeep. But we like the same movies, and he doesn’t mind the way I fidget, and he’s always telling me about how I shouldn’t feel like I have to measure up to him, we’re both terrible at mini-golf, he likes it when I make him healthy food because otherwise he would eat crap all the time, he lost his family, I lost my mother, we, we just, we do have things in common. And the sex is out of this world, like, you don’t even know.”
“Would you please stop reminding me that you’re having sex?” Stilinski asks. “Before I have to remind you about that time you walked in on me and your mother when you were seven?”
“What, no, that never happened, I have thoroughly blocked that out of my memory – ”
“Just like I intend to do with this conversation,” his father says, somewhat sourly. “I can’t even imagine how you two met.”
“Oh, well, you know.” Stiles is getting a little annoyed at this entire interrogation. “We hunt werewolves together, it’s kind of a thing, you know, he’s a werewolf from this big werewolf family and sometimes we fight evil together. Are we done here?”
His father narrows his eyes into a glare. “Saturday night. Six thirty.”
“Right,” Stiles says. “Six thirty.”
He leaves feeling about as good about things as he thinks is remotely possible.
~ ~ ~ ~
Sheriff Stilinski greets Derek in a friendly enough manner that Stiles is very sure is just a clever ruse. He can barely even look at the two men as Stilinski tells Derek that the steaks will be about another five minutes. “Like a beer?” he asks.
“Sure,” Derek says, and Stiles smarts a little at that because it seems like his father is making a point that Derek can drink legally because he’s older than Stiles. He’s probably just overreacting. But he takes the opportunity to ‘show Derek around the house’ because, of course, Derek’s never been there before, as far as Sheriff Stilinski knows, and Stiles would like to keep it that way.
“Okay,” he says, as they sit down around the dinner table. “I have a list of approved conversational topics. Everyone ready? 1) Sports. 2) The unseasonably cold weather. 3) The new stadium they’re building – ”
“Stiles,” his father says, “can it.” To Derek, he continues casually, “So where is it that you work?”
“No, see, that’s not an approved topic,” Stiles jumps in before Derek can answer. “Because that’s a step away from ‘you do have a job, right, you’re not just a vagrant who’s going to kill my son and make him into a lampshade’ – ”
“Stiles, for God’s sake,” Derek says, with a hint of affectionate amusement underneath the impatience in his voice. “He asked where I work, not whether or not I had aspirations to be the next Edward Gein. Will you get a grip?”
Stiles pouts.
“That’s not cute,” Derek tells him.
“Screw you, jerk. I’m adorable and you know it.”
Derek just rolls his eyes. “I work at a bank in Redding. It’s not really that exciting.”
“Hell of a commute.”
“I don’t mind. I like to drive.”
The conversation seems to be progressing as naturally as possible, although it’s a little stilted, so Stiles relaxes enough to start eating. They actually do wind up talking about sports for a while, although they never venture anywhere near the weather, and then things get really embarrassing because the subject of college comes up and Stiles is going to need to make a decision soon. He’s looked at Columbia and Cornell, but everyone knows he’s not going to leave California.
“You shouldn’t limit yourself,” his father says, for what feels like the umpteenth time.
“I’m not limiting myself by considering Stanford my top school – ”
“You didn’t get in to Stanford, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah, Lydia won’t let me forget it, I didn’t have enough extra-curriculars. I’m just saying, the California schools I applied to are just as good as the east coast schools and shit,” Stiles says. “So don’t make it seem like I’m ruining my life because I don’t want to go to Yale.”
Stilinski shakes his head. “What do you think, Derek?” he asks, a question that he’s asked several times over the course of dinner, which Stiles is beginning to really dislike.
“Stiles should go wherever he wants,” Derek says, evenly.
“Even if it’s Columbia?” Stilinski says. “Have you two thought about that?” He frowns at Stiles. “That’s not the reason you want to stay in California, is it?”
“Dad, no, stop embarrassing me.”
“I don’t have to quote statistics about teenaged romances or long-distance relationships, do I? Because the college you go to is going to be very important, if you’re really interested in joining the FBI or the – ”
“Dad, I swear to God – ”
Derek is just frowning at both of them. “Stiles should go wherever he wants,” he repeats. “If it’s Columbia, fine. I’m not really attached to Beacon Hills anymore.” He gives a little shrug. “I can go wherever he goes.” He drops this statement casually, clearly having no idea of its weight, that Stiles is ready to die over on his side of the table from equal parts embarrassment and bliss, and that Sheriff Stilinski is just staring at him in surprise. “What?”
“That’s . . .” Sheriff Stilinski clears his throat. “That’s a pretty remarkable statement to direct at an eighteen year old and a six-month relationship.”
Derek’s frown deepens. “We may have only been dating for six months, but our relationship is over two years running,” he says. “I don’t see why it’s such a big deal.”
Stiles ducks his head and pretends his cheeks aren’t flushed a bright shade of pink. “Can we please talk about the new stadium now?”
“Er, yeah,” his father says. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”
They steer clear of sensitive topics for the rest of the meal, including topics that could turn into something sensitive. Once dessert is on the table, Stiles is starting to relax, feeling like maybe this won’t be the biggest disaster ever. He’s got a mouthful of pie when his father says, “So Derek, Stiles tells me that you’re a werewolf.”
Stiles chokes on his pie. Derek nearly spits out a mouthful of coffee before turning on Stiles and demanding, “You told him?”
“What? No! I – ” Mortification passes over his face. “Well, I, I did, but it was a joke, I was just being a smartass, I – Dad! I didn’t mean it!”
“Well, no,” his father says mildly, watching this little interaction with interest. “And I wasn’t sure until I saw Derek’s reaction just now.”
Derek makes a strangled noise of dismay.
“Take a look at something for me, will you?” Sheriff Stilinski stands up and goes over to his desk in the other room. Derek turns a fierce, accusing glare on Stiles as soon as he’s gone, with Stiles returns with a pleading, desperate look. His father comes back a moment later with two photographs. Stiles recognizes the setting instantly. It’s the video store, the night the clerk was murdered. Peter is visible in them, although he’s pretty blurry. In one of them, he’s obviously a beast. In the other, he’s obviously a man. The time stamp reveals that the two photos were taken within seconds of each other.
Derek and Stiles study these damning photos in complete silence.
“For almost two years, I have been trying to figure out what’s happening here,” Stilinski says. “Trust me when I say that I have ruled out every conceivable explanation. At least, every explanation that doesn’t include ‘werewolves’.” He picks the photographs up and puts them back in a folder. “This was, of course, around the same time that wolves were attacking people around here, despite the fact that wolves are rarely seen in this part of California.”
Stiles’ mouth opens and closes wordlessly.
“Now,” his father says, “being in that I’m not an idiot, when you told your little ‘joke’ the other day, it got me thinking about it. I’ve been doing a little research. But I’m not going to tell you my conclusions, because I don’t want you working out a way to fit the current facts into what I’ve figured out and get out of telling me the truth. Because strange things have been happening around Beacon Hills. Fewer lately, but oddly enough, I don’t think that’s because less has been going on. I think certain parties at this dinner table have just gotten better at covering it up. So how about you tell me the story from the beginning? And this time, don’t leave anything out.”
Stiles looks at Derek and says, hesitantly, “Is it okay?”
“Does it matter?” Derek snipes back.
Stiles cringes, then turns to his father. “I’m . . . not a werewolf,” he says.
“No, I know that,” his father says evenly. “You still come home with bruises and scraped knees. It’s Scott who’s the werewolf, right? That’s why his asthma’s been so much better.”
After a pause, Stiles caves to defeat. It’s obvious that his father is onto the truth, and he didn’t get his intelligence out of nowhere. Once Sheriff Stilinski was able to accept the existence of werewolves, a lot of the pieces must have fallen into place, the same way they had for Stiles in the beginning. He’s willing to bet his father already knows about the Hale family, that the Argents are hunters, that Peter Hale killed Kate. It’s impossible to guess what he has and hasn’t worked out.
So Stiles starts at the beginning and tells him everything. He skims over some of the lesser adventures and tries to avoid the weight of Derek’s judgmental gaze on him. Despite how obviously pissed off Derek is, there’s relief in the telling. He’s wanted to come clean with his father for a long time. He kept his silence out of fear for the man’s welfare, but it was never easy, and he always hated seeing that look on his father’s face, the combination of concern, confusion, and disappointment over what was going on with his son. So he tells him everything, and when he finally runs dry, he feels like an anvil has been lifted off his chest.
His father asks questions: lots of them. It takes almost an hour to work through all of it, and even then he thinks there’s probably a lot of things he had to cut out. It’s getting late. Sheriff Stilinski says he’s going to clean up in the kitchen, and shoos the two of them out of the house.
Derek has barely spoken for the last hour, and it looks like he’s going to head to his car without another word. Stiles grabs him by the sleeve. “Hey. Are you mad at me?”
“Yeah, a little,” Derek says, clearly grudging every word.
Stiles pushes both hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. I – I didn’t know he would – fuck, that’s a lie, though, isn’t it? I’m not an idiot. I guess subconsciously I had to know he could figure it out, even if I didn’t know he would. I’m sorry, okay? I was just so tired of lying to him. Or just outright refusing to talk to him. He’s my dad, you know? He’s important to me.”
Derek’s jaw sets in that mulish, stubborn expression. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s fine. Whatever.”
Stiles sighs. It’s not a great answer, but he supposes he can’t really push for more. “Hey. Did you really mean what you said? About going wherever I go?”
“Yeah,” Derek says, his tone guarded. “So what?”
“So it’s just . . . I guess I didn’t know you . . . were that . . .” Stiles is trying to choose his words carefully, sure that if he uses anything like ‘commitment’ or ‘love’ or even ‘feelings’ that Derek will run screaming into the night. “Interested.”
“It’s not about that,” Derek says. “It’s just that you should be concentrating on what you want out of life. You should do whatever’s best for you, and go wherever you want, regardless of what anyone else thinks about it. Especially me.”
Stiles frowns. “Why ‘especially’ you?” he asks. For the first time, he thinks that maybe Derek is just as much in awe of this relationship as he is. It’s a completely foreign concept to him, that Derek would feel the same uncertainty about why Stiles wants to be with him as Stiles feels about the reverse.
“Because teenaged romances don’t last,” Derek says abruptly, which is approximately the last thing on earth Stiles wants to hear. “You shouldn’t throw away your life over it.”
“Okay, wait, now I’m confused,” Stiles says, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. “First you say that you’ll drop everything in your life and move to New York if I decide to go to Columbia. Now you’re saying this won’t last. I’m getting some, some mixed signals here and I’m not sure what to do about them.”
“I’m just saying, we should enjoy this while it lasts.”
Hesitantly, Stiles says, “Do you . . . not want this to last?”
Derek scowls at him. “That’s not what I said.”
“Well, it kind of is, and I, I just don’t know what the fuck is going on in this conversation,” Stiles says, pushing his hand through his hair and giving it a vigorous rub. “Or this relationship, for that matter.”
“Why do you always look to me to have all the answers?” Derek snarls at him. “What makes you think I have any reason to be better at this than you are? I don’t fucking know, okay? I – I just – this was stupid, okay? It was a fucking mistake right from the beginning, and we were both stupid not to have seen that earlier.” He heads for his car and opens the door with a yank so vicious that he nearly pulls it off the hinges.
“Derek – !” Stiles protests, too taken aback to find something witty to say. “Derek!”
But Derek’s already in the car, and he backs out of the driveway without waiting to hear what Stiles has to say. Stiles stares after him in stunned silence.
Sheriff Stilinski pokes his head out the front door. “That sounds like maybe it didn’t go well,” he observes.
“Oh my God!” Stiles says. “This is all your fault! You – you just couldn’t stand the fact that I was happy with someone you didn’t approve of. You – ” His frustration boils over and he snaps out something he hasn’t said since he was eight years old. “I hate you!” Then he heads for the Jeep and gets in, slamming the door.
He drives for a while, to let off some steam, and because he doesn’t know where else to go. He’s mad at his father and he’s mad at Derek and he really doesn’t know what to do about any of it. He doesn’t want to go to Scott’s because he’s sure that Scott will be full of useless advice and say things like, ‘well, he didn’t say he was breaking up with you, right?’ Although to be fair, when it comes to break-ups, Scott is something of an expert. He and Allison have broken up and gotten back together about six times now.
He’s just angry, so he drives to the preserve and decides to go for a walk. It’s late, and dark, but there’s a flashlight in the Jeep and at least he can burn off some steam that way. His feet take him to the old Hale house. It occurs to him that if they’re going to move up the demolition, it might be the last time he’s there. It makes him sad, although he can’t really say why. Like he’s closing a chapter in his life. It’s frightening more than it’s sad, once he thinks about it.
“Aw, fuck, that ain’t him,” a voice says, startling him, and he realizes that three people have walked up behind him while he’s been lost in thought. “That isn’t even a wolf.”
“Nah, but if he’s a member of the pack, he’s good enough,” one of the others says, and there’s an ugly laugh, and blue eyes shining all around him.
Stiles turns to run, because he’s not stupid and although he’s learned a lot in the last two years, he knows where his limits are. Taking on a pack of werewolves is definitely not something on his schedule, now or ever. Of course, he only makes it two steps before he’s tackled to the ground. He struggles and flails.
“Got a lot of fight in him for a human,” a voice above him says, and a hand clamps down over his mouth before he can shout for help, not that anyone would be around to hear him.
Stiles takes a moment to think about how ridiculous this is, what a terrible cliché, that of course if he’s going to get kidnapped by a bunch of asshole werewolves, it would be right after he had a big fight with Derek and with his father. Because this is his life now. A strange combination of fantasy novel and soap opera.
So with a sigh, he surrenders.
~ ~ ~ ~
By the time a few hours have passed, Stiles has planned an entire urban revitalization campaign in his head. The problem, he thinks, is that Beacon Hills has way too many abandoned buildings. It seems like every time they drive a group of bad guys out of one, someone else is setting up camp in another. Empty warehouses, closed banks, abandoned apartment buildings, even an old department store.
The obvious solution is that they need to fix up Beacon Hills’ economy. Without all these boarded-up buildings, it will be a much less attractive target.
Because he’s bored, and annoyed, and hanging from the ceiling with his wrists in handcuffs, feet brushing the floor just enough to keep his shoulders from dislocating and keep air in his lungs, he starts telling his captors all about said urban revitalization. He’s getting to know them, gradually, as they lurk and skulk around the – where the hell is he? Some old apartment building, he thinks.
There are five of them: three men and two women. They’re all betas, and nobody is really in charge; they bicker constantly. Stiles has gathered that they’ve decided to lure Derek in, and whoever kills him first gets to be the alpha. A fair proposition, and five betas probably could take out one alpha. They seem to be in fighting trim.
The two girls are sisters, but they don’t seem to get along. They snap and snark at each other. One of the men is older, and the de facto leader, but he doesn’t get as much respect as he wants. The two younger men, well, one of them is your standard thug, and the other . . . is a creeper. Stiles keeps singing ‘do the creep’ whenever the guy looks at him. Which he really wishes he would do less often.
“So part of the problem,” he says, “is that Beacon Hills is just a little too far from any of the major cities to be a sleeper town. Which is a weird term, I know. It makes me think of sleeper cells and sleeper agents – ”
“Please can I knock him out, Dave?” one of the girls asks, with a sigh. Dave is the older, sort-of-in-charge guy.
“Or we could at least gag the little prick,” her sister agrees.
“I beg your pardon, I have been assured that my prick is quite normally sized and requires no gagging – ”
“I’ll bet,” the creeper says, leering at him, and Stiles makes a mental note not to bring up his dick again.
“I don’t want him gagged because I’m still waiting for him to answer my question,” Dave says, eyes narrowed and annoyed. He has indeed been peppering Stiles with questions about the layout in Beacon Hills, about Derek, about the pack. Stiles hasn’t so much been refusing to answer as he’s been pretending he hasn’t noticed.
Besides, he’s learning more about them just from the questions they’re asking than they’re getting from his economics lecture, which he is definitely going to write down and turn in to Finstock when all this is over. Five betas can take out an alpha, sure, but they can’t take out an alpha and a bunch of his betas. The very fact that they’re here means they don’t realize that the pack has actually become a pack. And Stiles has no intention of disillusioning them.
“But seriously, how long are we going to have to wait?” the thug asks. “It’s been hours already.”
“Well, duh,” Stiles says. “Nobody even realizes I’m gone yet.”
He jumps a little as he feels someone reaching into his back pocket. “Nice,” Creeper says, pressing his nose into the crook of Stiles’ shoulder and taking a long breath.
“Ugh, get off me, you perv,” Stiles says, which isn’t his best comeback, admittedly, but something about him is deeply unsettling.
“Why don’t we send a message for Hale to come get him?” Creeper suggests, and tosses the phone to Dave.
He nods and snags it out of the air. But pulling up Stiles’ contact list makes him growl. Everyone is saved under a false name.
“You guys think you’re the first ones to ever have this idea,” Stiles says, with a sigh. “Give me enough credit to have taken some basic precautions, for fuck’s sake.”
“We could beat it out of him,” one of the girls suggests.
“Just see who he’s dialed most frequently,” the creeper adds.
Unfortunately for them, Stiles has been calling a lot of people lately, mainly because he’s been freaking out about having to introduce Derek to his father, so it’s no help whatsoever. Dave growls and tosses his phone aside. “They’ll realize he’s gone eventually,” he says, and takes out a roll of duct tape. Stiles sighs and rolls his eyes towards the ceiling as a piece of it is firmly placed over his mouth.
The problem, he thinks, is that it honestly might be a while before anyone realizes he’s gone. His father will probably assume he followed Derek to clear the air, or maybe went over to Scott’s to bitch. Derek will assume he’s at home sulking. And nobody else in the pack has any reason to look for him until he doesn’t show up at school on Monday. He sighs and resigns himself to a long night.
~ ~ ~ ~
It doesn’t take long for the group of betas – he can’t think of them as a pack – to get impatient. By the time the sun is rising Sunday morning, they’re already snarling about how long it’s taking. Stiles tries to explain to them that it’s likely nobody’s realized he’s gone, but that’s made impossible by the duct tape.
Around noon, one of the girls takes it off and holds a cup of water to his mouth. He drinks thirstily, then wonders if it’s drugged. He realizes he doesn’t care. Hell, he could go for being drugged right now. Maybe that would take some of the terrible ache out of his shoulders and spine. “You know, people can suffocate if you leave them chained up like this for too long.”
“Better hope your alpha shows up soon, then,” she replies coolly, before putting the duct tape back on. His stomach growls. She laughs at him.
An interesting side effect of being werewolves, Stiles notes, is that they tend to assume that because humans don’t have superior werewolf hearing, they’re all completely deaf. Sure, Dave and his pals withdraw to the other side of the room when they’re arguing about him, but he can still hear them.
“We should just kill him and move on,” the thug says.
“And do what then?” Dave snarls at him. “We’ve got one of his pack members. He’ll come for him eventually.”
“What, for some pathetic human?” one of the girls says. “We didn’t even get one of the ‘wolves. He’s not going to give a shit. Hell, he probably figures he’s already dead.”
An hour of intense arguing leads to the agreement that they should beat the shit out of Stiles until he agrees to call Derek and beg for a rescue. Stiles lets them take him down and puts up with this for ten minutes before saying, “I give, I give!” and then listens to their smirking remarks about weak, pathetic humans. Dave hands him his phone and he chucks it at the floor as hard as he can. The screen shatters.
“Son of a bitch!” There’s a lot of swearing and cursing, and Stiles spits blood in Dave’s face and tells him he’d rather rot in hell than beg his alpha for a rescue. They try to get the phone to turn back on, but it won’t. After some debate and some rough handling, he’s chained up again. The girls are frustrated and leave. Dave and the thug withdraw to another room to either talk about what to do next or play rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets to kill him.
That leaves him alone with the creeper, which really isn’t where he’s interested in being. The man is just walking around him in slow circles, watching him.
“What?” Stiles asks, since nobody had bothered to duct tape his mouth shout again.
“I’m trying to decide exactly how I want to violate you,” the man says, in a conversational tone. “There are just so many options.”
Stiles can’t hold back a shudder. “Well, I can narrow it down for you by telling you that if you put anything in my mouth, I’m going to bite it off.”
“I don’t doubt,” the man says, running a hand along the back of Stiles’ shoulders, his claws just barely scratching the skin. “You’ve got balls of solid rock.”
“Also not interested in your opinion on my balls,” Stiles manages through his rapidly closing throat.
“Do you know why I prefer to rape men?” the wolf asks. When Stiles doesn’t reply, he trails his hand down over Stiles’ abdomen and hips. “Because of the . . . response I can elicit. The male body is a fascinating thing, the way it can be . . . convinced . . . that it should be enjoying the fun. Women don’t respond the same way.” One hand rubs over Stiles’ groin as he presses his face into the crook of his shoulder. “That’s my favorite part. Watching boys beg their own bodies not to betray them. But they always do. They always do . . .”
“Cal!” It’s Dave’s voice, from across the room, and he looks pissed as hell. “We can’t use him as bait if you’ve ruined him.”
“I’ll only ruin him a little,” Cal says, biting and sucking the skin of Stiles’ shoulder, little bruises blooming in the wake of his mouth.
“You are incapable of only ruining someone a little,” Dave snarls. “If I let you have him, he’ll wind up in pieces. Behave yourself and you can have him after this is done. But for now, back off.”
Laughing, Cal withdraws. “Anticipation . . .” he sing-songs, and then walks from the room, leaving Stiles shaking and sweating behind him.
Dave regards him for a few minutes. “Give it to me straight, kid. Is Hale going to come for you?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says. “We’re madly in love. He’s talked about moving to New York with me so I can go to Columbia.”
“Jesus, kid,” Dave says. “You’ve got one hell of a death wish.”
He walks out of the empty apartment and slams the door.
Stiles lets out a slow breath that turns into a half-sob despite his best efforts. His shoulders are killing him, and he can still feel Cal’s teeth lingering against his skin. He’s more than a little freaked out, in a lot of pain, and hungry on top of it. His stomach has that feeling of gnawing emptiness. He hadn’t eaten much at dinner the night before, too nervous. And on top of it, he needs to piss. He had been thinking about asking before they had started beating him.
As the seconds trickle by and turn into minutes, panic starts to set in. He flails a little, but doesn’t get anywhere. He has absolutely no leverage.
When the betas show up again, nearly two hours have passed. So has the hysteria. He’s a little embarrassed about having wet his pants, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. They come back with buckets of fried chicken, and the smell makes his mouth water. But he doesn’t say anything as they come inside. The break has put them in a better temper. They start laughing when they smell what he’s done in their absence.
“Cal, get him cleaned up,” Dave says.
Cal’s eyes gleam. “With pleasure,” he says.
Stiles pulls his knees up to his chest as Cal approaches, and kicks outward as hard as he can. “Touch my dick and you will lose something valuable,” he says.
Cal just laughs at him, but after a minute he has to admit that it’s going to be impossible to get Stiles’ pants off of him while he’s hooked to the ceiling and swinging wildly. Finally, one of the girls has to come over and hold his feet so he can’t kick. Cal doesn’t seem quite as interested in molesting him while there’s direct supervision, so he just strips Stiles out of his pants and roughly cleans him up with a damp washcloth.
Of course, it’s not like they have extra pants for him, so then he winds up swinging from the ceiling wearing nothing at all. “This is not going on my list of best days ever,” he mutters.
They take shifts watching him, and it’s a long, restless evening and night. When the sun starts to dawn Monday, the girls say, “Forget this shit.”
“Look,” Stiles says, now that the duct tape is off. “You’ve got to wait for them to realize I’m missing. You can’t just kidnap me on a Saturday night and expect everyone to figure it out right away. It’s not like I have an amazing social life.”
“Nice try, kid,” the thug says, “but we’ve been watching Hale. We know he’s fucking you. Even if we hadn’t been watching him, we can smell him all over you.”
“Yes, we can,” Cal murmurs, with a smile that suggests exactly which parts of Stiles he’s been smelling.
Stiles lets his head tilt backwards, wishing there was a wall to thump it against. “Okay, yes, he’s fucking me, but that doesn’t mean he keeps tabs on my whereabouts every minute of every day . . .”
“So he doesn’t care enough to protect you, is what you’re saying,” the thug says.
“Hey, you wanna shut up?” Stiles asks, and the thug smirks at him. Stiles knows he’s being baited, and tries to calm down, which is difficult, given the givens.
Dave looks at his watch. “He’s got eight hours,” he says.
“If you’re that worried about it, why don’t you go kidnap somebody else and just leave me here for extra insurance?” Stiles suggests. “I mean, two hostages are better than one. Then you can kill one to show that you mean business.”
“Normally I would agree with you,” Dave says, and then shrugs one shoulder. “But Cal is going to lose control long before that would happen, so . . . he’s got eight hours.”
“He’s right,” Cal agrees. “Hell, I can barely control myself right now.”
“Nobody’s surprised by that,” one of the sisters snarks at him. “You may as well let Cal have him, Dave. Nobody’s coming for this kid.”
Dave just shakes his head. “Eight hours.”
“Well,” the thug says, stretching, “at least Cal will give us a good show.”
“Y’all are sick,” Stiles tells them.
“It’s not the rape we enjoy,” the girl says. “It’s the screaming.”
“That helps,” Stiles says. “Totally makes it all better. We’re a-okay now.”
There are two possibilities now, Stiles knows. Scott will see that he’s not in school. He’ll probably text or call him to find out where he’s at. Obviously, Stiles won’t be answering, since his phone is in several pieces on the floor. Then he’ll either leave school to try to track Stiles down – or he’ll stay in school and decide to do it at the end of the day. If he chooses the latter, Stiles is dead. If he chooses the former, Stiles might live. So he casts his eyes to the Heavens and prays that Scott will be worried enough about him that he’ll ditch school. He’s been trying to do better about his attendance record lately, so Stiles can only hope that his absence will ring alarm bells. While he’s at it, he prays that Scott will be smart enough to call the others and not just charge into this himself.
An hour later, it becomes clear that Scott has done all the right things, and his praying has totally paid off. There’s some commotion outside. Cal is sitting on a table, staring at Stiles with greedy eyes, while Dave paces. The other three are on patrol. Then one of the girls runs in. “He’s here, but it’s not just him, he brought – ” and then Erica jumps on her, grabbing her by the hair and swinging her into the wall.
Everything dissolves into chaos, and Stiles is hooting and shouting encouragement, and possibly also Bulgarian proverbs, and then suddenly he’s free and he’s ready to cheer except then he realizes it’s not one of his packmates who got him down. It’s Cal. And the werewolf is dragging him away from the fight. He drags him into the next room over and throws him down on a table, hard enough that it actually knocks the wind out of him. “They said I could have you,” he says, his eyes gleaming pure blue. “And now I will.”
Stiles opens his mouth to shout for help because fuck a bunch of machismo, but then Cal’s hand is over his mouth, clenching down like steel, and all he manages is a muffled whimper. He tries to struggle but there’s just no point, and he can’t even try to keep Cal from getting his clothes off because he’s already not wearing any. He kicks and flails but Cal is between his legs in just a few moments and then Stiles just starts to laugh hysterically because this is the exact same position from the porn that he and Derek watched together, the one they really liked, with the table and everything, and now he’s going to get raped like that.
But then someone is dragging Cal off of him, and he thinks thank God, Derek’s here but then he sees the flash of gold eyes. It’s not Derek, it’s Scott. But Stiles isn’t in the mood to feel picky. He bolts up off the table and away from Cal, back out into the main room. Cal follows him a moment later, but not under his own steam; Scott literally throws him through the wall, and he lands in a heap. Everything in the main room is chaos and snarling wolves. Stiles dives for cover in a niche in the corner.
Cal has just made it back to his feet when Derek comes in, eyes crimson and blazing. The betas have been beaten into submission by this point, although their wounds are healing and they look like they might be considering round two. Only Cal is on his feet.
“We’ve got it under – ” Scott starts to say to Derek, but then Derek’s gaze lands on Stiles. Bruised, naked, and bloody. He doesn’t even remember why he’s bloody and know if he’s bleeding. But Derek takes one look at him and then his gaze darts back to Cal, whose pants are undone, his hard-on in plain view. Derek lets out a roar so terrifying that even his own betas go running for cover.
Thirty seconds later, all five of Stiles’ captors have been torn to pieces. Derek is standing in the center of the room, fists clenched at his sides, taking deep, panting breaths.
Stiles cautiously crawls out from where he’s been hiding and gets to his feet. He’s a little wobbly. Scott hastily tugs off his T-shirt and hands it to Stiles, who nods in thanks and pulls it on. A quick survey reveals he’s not bleeding. The blood must be Cal’s, from when Scott attacked him. He’s actually in remarkably good shape, given the givens. “Derek?” he says, cautiously.
Derek turns to him, and as the rage fades out of his eyes, Stiles sees the fear replace it: fear that Stiles is hurt, that Stiles will reject him after what just happened, that Stiles will blame him for what just happened. Stiles opens his mouth to say something, although he’s not sure what, but then Derek says roughly, “Let’s go get you cleaned up.” He turns and marches out of the abandoned apartment building without another word. Stiles sighs and follows.
~ ~ ~ ~
They manage to make it back to the loft without drawing any attention, which is somewhat impressive, given that Stiles is a mess and Derek is covered in blood. But Allison has borrowed her father’s car, which has room for them and tinted windows besides. Isaac drives the Camaro back on his own. Then Stiles winds up on the sofa, thirstily guzzling down some water, while Scott carefully checks over his injuries. Derek paces around, fists clenching and relaxing, while he does this.
“I’m fine, Derek,” Stiles says, approximately nineteen times, before Derek finally grunts out some approximation of ‘gonna shower’ before slamming his way into the bathroom. “Man, what crawled up his ass and is decomposing there,” Stiles grumbles.
Scott snorts. “What do you think? You’ve got actual bruises, dude.”
They all know that what really bothers Derek is the sight of Stiles naked and cringing, while Cal stood there with his fly undone and his cock out, but nobody’s talking about that. “Yeah, well, I’ll survive,” Stiles says.
“You’re pretty bruised but nothing seems to be broken,” Scott says. Lydia silently hands Stiles another bottle of water. “Lucky they didn’t really want to hurt you.”
“Lucky that you didn’t wait ‘til after school to wonder where I was,” Stiles says.
“Yeah,” Scott agrees, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. “I called your dad and he said you two had gotten in a fight and he was pretty sure you were spending the weekend at Derek’s. But I was worried that you weren’t answering my texts, so I called him and he hadn’t seen you either.”
“He was really worried,” Erica chimes in helpfully.
Stiles gives the bathroom door a somewhat amused glance, knowing that Derek can hear every word they’re saying. After a pregnant pause, the water turns on. Stiles shakes his head a little. “I’m starved,” he says. “Why don’t you guys go pick up some food? I could really go for some Mexican right now.”
“Sure,” Lydia says, getting to her feet and arching her eyebrows at Jackson. He sighs and stands up as well, rolling his eyes but not actively protesting.
“We’ll go rent a movie or something,” Erica says brightly, grabbing Boyd by one arm and Isaac by the other.
“We’ll just . . . go,” Scott says, smirking at Stiles, as he and Allison leave along with the others. He gives Stiles a quick thumbs up as he exits the loft.
Stiles waits until their footsteps have faded down the hall. Then he walks over to the bathroom. He gives a quick knock, then walks into the bathroom, peeling off the shirt Scott had given him as he does. He’s just been sitting with a blanket over his lap; he’s already not wearing any pants. He knows that Derek knows he’s there, that he can hear his pulse, but he doesn’t say anything until Stiles pulls the shower curtain back. Then he just grunts, “Go away.”
“Nope,” Stiles says, stepping into the shower with him. It’s not quite big enough for two, but that’s never stopped them before.
“Stiles,” Derek says, in a tone of exasperation, and then Stiles has wrapped his arms around Derek’s waist and presses his cheek against Derek’s chest. Derek huffs out a sigh, but then reaches out and smoothes down his hair, rubs a hand over his back in gentle circles.
After a minute, Stiles lets go. “C’mon, I’ll help you get the blood out of your hair.”
Derek winces a little. “It doesn’t – ”
“Bother me?” Stiles asks. “You do realize that this isn’t the first time I’ve seen you kill someone, right? I mean, it’s not like there haven’t been other bad guys and other territory disputes. And you say it like I’ve never helped. I mean, hell, you’d known me three months when I chucked a Molotov cocktail at Peter. What did you think I thought that was going to do, tickle? Fuck no. I was trying to kill him. So you killed the asshole who was going to rape me and his pals who were going to laugh while he did it and then probably post that shit on YouTube. Cry me a fucking river, Derek. I am seriously not even one iota of upset with you about this.”
Some of the tension leaves Derek’s shoulders. “Okay. I – ”
“Get under the water, you emotionally constipated thug,” Stiles says, tugging him. Derek gives a little growl, but obeys. Stiles grabs the shampoo and starts rubbing it into Derek’s scalp. “So, just so you know,” he says, “if you’re blaming yourself for me getting hurt, that’s really fucking stupid.”
Derek growls again. “You were hurt because you’re part of my pack.”
“So what? I’m part of your pack because Scott got turned, and that was Peter’s fault, not yours. And, you know, at least partially mine, since it was my bright idea to go looking for a body in the woods. Not my brightest moment. But you see my point? Everything’s all, all connected and shit. Rinse.”
Derek ducks back under the spray to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. “You wouldn’t have been wandering in the woods if I hadn’t upset you.”
“That’s true,” Stiles says, “but I also could have tried putting on my big girl panties and dealing with it instead of wallowing in self-pity and wandering around a dangerous, monster-infested forest.”
There’s a pause while Derek deals with that. “If you wear any sort of girl panties, I don’t want to hear about it.”
“Cross-dressing not a kink with you? Okay, I can deal. Although you would look fabulous in a silk teddy.”
Derek huffs out a laugh, and it’s the best noise Stiles has heard in days. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Yep.” Stiles is still working the conditioner into his hair, although really he’s just using it as an excuse to massage Derek’s scalp at this point. He leans forward and licks a few beads of water off of Derek’s neck. The other man gives a little shudder. “So, we should talk about what happened Saturday night. Can we do that later? Because right now I just really want to focus on the fact that I’m naked in the shower with you.”
Derek backs away so he can soap himself off. “You, stay over there,” he says, pointing, and Stiles laughs but doesn’t protest. He can see how Derek wants to get the blood and sweat off before Stiles tackles him. Then Derek tosses him the bar of soap and he realizes he’s probably pretty rank himself, after being held captive for almost two days.
“Turn around, I’ll do your back,” he says to Derek, doing a quick job soaping himself.
“You’re incorrigible,” Derek tells him.
“You wouldn’t want me any other way.” Stiles soaps up his hands and slides them up and down Derek’s back, watching the muscles twitch and jump underneath his fingers. He ducks to one side to let the spray clean him off. “Your turn,” he adds, turning around.
Derek takes the soap back, but doesn’t use it. Instead, he runs gentle fingers over the line of bite marks that Cal had left on Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles can feel more than hear the low growl that Derek is making in the back of his throat. “Can I – ”
“Oh God yes please,” Stiles says, all in a rush.
Derek’s mouth closes on one of the bruises. For a moment it’s just soft lips and tongue, but then he bites down, hard. It’s not quite enough to break the skin, but it definitely hurts. Stiles moans a little, bracing himself against the wall of the shower with one hand. Derek methodically works his way down the line of bruises, overlapping each one with a newer, larger bruise that he himself has made. Then he runs his fingers over them in gentle apology. “Better?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says. He turns around and shakes the water out of his eyes. Then he leans in for a kiss.
Derek returns it, with interest, but then breaks free. “Are you sure you want to – ”
“Trust me, I’m very sure,” Stiles says, taking steps forward until Derek is backed against the wall of the shower.
“After what happened, I’d understand if you didn’t want to – ”
“Derek, shut up,” Stiles says, and drops to his knees. Derek’s only half-hard, but Stiles doesn’t let that bother him, pressing kisses into his hips and his abdomen, bracing him against the wall. Derek lets out a breathy groan and lets his head fall back, one hand winding into Stiles’ hair. Stiles doesn’t want to take things too slowly, since God knows when the others will get back, but he knows that he can’t rush Derek, not after a morning like that. So he just keeps caressing Derek’s skin with his tongue, kneading his hands into Derek’s ass, keeping him pulled forward.
“Fffffffuck,” Derek breathes out, as Stiles swirls his tongue around the head of Derek’s cock. “Need to . . .”
“Yeah, fuck,” Stiles agrees, because he’s tired and sore and can’t hold Derek up for very long. He turns around and fumbles at the faucet – the water is tepid by now anyway – and shuts it off. Then he helps Derek slide to the floor of the shower. He settles between Derek’s legs, where there’s barely enough room for him, and takes Derek into his mouth, slow and easy. Derek swears again.
Stiles pulls away long enough to grab at the bottle of conditioner and say, “We’re not, uh, we’re kinda pressed on time here so.” He squeezes some of it into his hand. It’s not the best lube, but Derek is pretty resilient overall, so he’s not too worried about it. He certainly isn’t about to make a trip back out into the apartment for the good stuff. “Just gonna . . . have to make it a quickie.”
“You,” Derek starts to say, but then Stiles’ mouth is on him again, and his words dissolve into a groan. Stiles gets his hands underneath Derek’s hips and lifts him up a little, sliding a finger into him. “Holy fuck, I love your hands,” Derek says, all in a rush. “You, your fingers were made for this.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Stiles pulls away long enough to say, curling his fingers in just the way he knows Derek likes.
“Oh God, why are you stopping, put your mouth back on me right now,” Derek says.
Stiles is laughing as he takes Derek back in. Practice makes perfect, and, well, they’ve been practicing a lot. Derek squirms and groans underneath him, caught between the slow, easy, up and down rhythm of Stiles’ mouth and the firm pressure of his fingers inside. The first time Derek had done this to him, he’d gasped out, ‘too much, too much’ and orgasmed about twelve seconds later. The combination is deadly. He loves it.
The position is incredibly uncomfortable, with Derek flat on his back on the shower floor, both of them sopping wet and Stiles squeezed in between Derek’s legs. It doesn’t matter to either of them. One of Derek’s hands splays out against the shower wall, the other tangles in Stiles’ hair. His body arches up, hips bucking helplessly, and he lets out a strangled moan as he comes in Stiles’ mouth. Stiles manages to swallow most of it down, then wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. He leans down, ignoring the way his back twinges, to press kisses against Derek’s neck and face while the tension leaves his body.
“Fuck, Stiles,” he finally murmurs.
“Mm,” Stiles agrees, sitting back on his heels so he can look at Derek. “Look, I’m going to school in California, okay? I already decided I want to go to Cal Tech. They have a great forensics program there. There are tons of good schools in the LA area, I can double up and get some psychology and criminology credits elsewhere. I won’t say it’s not entirely about the distance, but it’s not entirely about you, either. Scott’s going to UC Davis, and Lydia’s going to Stanford – this is where I want to be for a lot of different reasons. That doesn’t mean I’m not fucking thrilled that you’d be willing to move to New York if I went to school there. I want us to last, Derek. I don’t know if there’s any label in the entire world that could really apply to us, but whatever this is, I never want it to stop. Okay?”
Derek’s been silent throughout this speech, and when it’s over, a little smile curls up on his lips. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay. Me too.”
It’s not exactly eloquent, but it’s all Stiles needs to hear, and he grins back. He’s guessing the pain and stress of the last few days is going to catch up and bite him in the ass, probably as soon as he tries to sleep, but at this precise moment, he’s never been happier. “Okay, then,” he says.
Derek manages to struggle back into a sitting position. “You gonna let me take care of that, or what?” he asks, gesturing to Stiles’ erection.
“Thought you’d never hhhnnnnnghk,” Stiles says, closing his eyes and letting his head tilt forward as Derek wraps a hand around his cock. “Fuck, yeah, definitely never wanting this to stop.”
“Come up like – ” Derek gets his hands on Stiles’ ass and pulls him up so he’s on his knees. It takes a little maneuvering, but they manage to get situated so his hips are on level with Derek’s face. Derek’s fingers dig into the small of his back as he gets his mouth around Stiles.
“Okay, yeah, yes,” Stiles says, licking his lips and leaning into it. “God, I want to – ” His voice cracks a little, and then Derek finishes the thought for him, giving his hips a tug. Stiles groans and thrusts into his mouth, bracing himself against the shower wall. They’re really getting much better at this, he muses to himself with the three brain cells that are still capable of coherent thought. They clearly should continue practicing diligently. He leans his forehead against the cool tile, one hand slapping against it as he fights to control himself.
He’s not going to last long, not after the day he had, but that’s probably good because the others are going to be back soon. So he just lets it go, lets the waves of pleasure roll over him with no effort to contain them. Derek holds him steady and he keeps himself braced against the wall, one fist occasionally hitting it with a solid thump as his words of encouragement gradually just turn to mindless noise.
It takes both of them time to recover from that, and then they get to their feet somewhat shakily and rinse themselves off. Stiles doesn’t have any clothes in the bathroom, so he wraps a towel around his waist and goes to borrow some from Derek’s bedroom. As soon as he leaves the bathroom, he sees the rest of the pack sitting around in the living room, eating nachos.
“You guys are back,” he says, blinking at them stupidly. “Uh. How long have you guys been back?”
“Long enough,” Scott says, smirking at him.
Lydia nods sagely. “Ten out of ten. Would definitely eavesdrop again.”
“I’d only give it eight,” Erica says. “Wasn’t a lot of creativity in the vocalization.”
Lydia rolls her eyes at Erica. “You don’t want a lot of creativity in the vocalization. If you’re coherent enough to come up with creative things to say, whoever you’re with isn’t doing a good enough job. There are only three acceptable vocalizations during sex. 1) Your partner’s name. 2) Encouragement and or direction: yes, more, right there, faster, et cetera. 3) Prayers and thanks to deities.”
“Wow, you’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Stiles says, clutching the towel.
She just gives him an arch look. “Go get dressed, Stiles.”
Stiles makes a face at her and adjourns to the bedroom. It occurs to him that he should call his father. He remembers that his phone is broken and dresses quickly. “Scott, can I borrow your phone?” he asks, and Scott nods and tosses it to him. He goes back into Derek’s room so he can have at least some semblance of privacy, even though the wolves will still be able to hear anything he says.
His father picks up on the second ring. “Scott, have you seen – ”
“It’s me,” Stiles says, interrupting the inevitable question.
“Where the hell have you been?” his father asks him. “Scott said you weren’t in school, and you’d better get your ass home because you’re grounded.”
Stiles sighs. “Yeah, I’ll be home in a bit,” he says. “Sorry I didn’t call. I dropped my phone and it broke. I didn’t mean to worry anybody.” That, at least, is one hundred percent true. He had certainly never meant to be kidnapped and worry people. “Look, I just wanted to call and say I was sorry. About Saturday. That was the worst thing to say. You should ground me. I’ll ground myself. Two weeks, no video games, no veggie burgers. Sound okay?”
Sheriff Stilinski lets out a sigh that echoes Stiles’ own. “I’m sorry too,” he admits. “You were at least a little bit right. I wasn’t comfortable with your . . . relationship . . . so I was a jerk about it. But you’re an adult now, at least in theory, and you can make your own decisions.”
“Look, Dad, your opinion means the world to me,” Stiles says. “You are the smartest guy I know, and . . . and the best guy, I mean, like, morally. Well, you and Scott. It’s just, you don’t know Derek. Neither did I, for a long time. So at least get to know him before you decide he’s not good for me. Okay?”
“Okay,” his father says. “Let’s try dinner again. Friday night. We can watch the game.”
“Okay.” Stiles checks his watch. “I’ll be home after school, okay?”
“Are you seriously asking me to believe that you’re at school right now?” Stilinski asks.
“ . . . yes?” Stiles tries.
“Now you’re grounded for three weeks. I’ll see you at four o’clock.”
“Okey dokey,” Stiles says, but his father’s already hung up. He shakes his head a little and leaves the bedroom to find that Derek has come out of the bathroom and is flushed pink as Erica is teasing him. “Shut up, Erica, you’re just jealous,” he says, diving at the food. “Speaking of which, I’m grounded for three weeks as of four o’clock today. So there are to be no werewolf disasters, and y’all have to leave after we’re done eating so I can fit three weeks of sex into the next three hours.”
The girls giggle. Jackson rolls his eyes. Scott gives him a high-five while Boyd and Isaac shake their heads.
They talk and joke around and devour a week’s worth of Mexican food and then Derek glares everyone else out of the loft. Stiles flops onto the sofa. “Fuck me, I’m tired,” he says. “You want to watch a movie?”
“Sure.” Derek stands up and goes over to his shelf of DVDs.
“Use the secret shelf,” Stiles tells him.
Derek scowls but ducks around behind the cabinet to the DVDs on the back, where he keeps the ones he doesn’t want the pack to realize that he owns. “Great Mouse Detective or Secret of NIMH?”
“Oh, shit, let’s watch both,” Stiles says. He reaches out to Derek in a ‘gimme’ motion as Derek puts in the DVD and then heads towards the sofa.
“Whatever happened to all the sex in the next three hours?” Derek asks, amused, as he sits down on one end of the couch and Stiles crawls into his lap.
Stiles sighs. “I’m tired. Besides, my dad’s not actually mean enough to ground me from seeing you for three weeks after the entire argument being over whether or not I could see you. Video games, yes, illicit use of police resources, definitely, but boyfriend, no. I just said that to get the others out of here so we could shamelessly cuddle.”
“Ah, I see.” Derek leans down and kisses him on the ear, looping an arm around his waist. The movie starts and he falls silent.
After the movie is over, when they’re lying there on the sofa with Stiles cradled against Derek’s chest so they don’t have to look at each other, Derek tells him about Kate. He tells him about how she flattered him and made his ego swell until he truly believed that this attractive older woman was interested in him. He tells him about how Kate was this amazing combination of encouraging and condescending in the bedroom, how she could say ‘oh honey’ in that tone of voice that was both disappointed and amused that would make him flush with shame, even remembering it days later. How every proof of his inadequacy only made him run back to her, more desperate than ever to impress her, to prove to her that he was worth the time she spent in his bed.
“After the fire, I made ten thousand promises to myself that I would never let anyone do that to me again,” Derek says, one hand idly rubbing along Stiles’ arm. “That I would never let anyone touch me again, never feel anything like that for anyone again. You stop feeling for long enough . . . and that starts to be normal. I didn’t have any trouble locking all that away . . . until I met you. But even then, I just told myself it wouldn’t happen, and that was the end of it.
“But after what happened with that lust spell, when you were here and we were talking about it, I realized you were the exact opposite of Kate in every way. That you were as unlike her as a person could be. And I thought . . . if there was ever going to be anyone I could be with, it would be you. I thought at first it wouldn’t go too far, but . . . over the last few months I’ve broken every single damned promise I made to myself that day. For you. Because of you. And . . . it was worth it. You are worth it.”
Stiles isn’t sure what he can say to that, and after the silence has gone on a minute too long to be comfortable, he blurts out, “Oh, shit, I think I’ve figured out what this is. Pretty sure I’m in love with you.”
Derek laughs, and it’s an amazing sound, just a quiet little chuckle as he drops his forehead against Stiles’ shoulder. “Yeah, that would make sense,” he murmurs. “I guess I’m probably in love with you, too.”
It isn’t the most romantic of confessions, but they’ve gotten it out there, so they just sit there and bask in it for a while, because they’re in love and they’ve admitted it and it’s amazing.
Finally, Stiles hesitantly breaks the silence. “I was scared, you know,” he says, “but not the way they wanted me to be. I was afraid they would hurt me or kill me, but . . . I was never afraid that you wouldn’t come for me. I never worried about that. Sure, I wondered if you would find me in time, but I always knew that you were coming for me.”
“And always will,” Derek says, pressing his lips against the back of Stiles’ neck.
Stiles turns a little so he can give Derek a real kiss. “And the best news,” he says, “is that I think you’ve finally managed to live up to your word.”
Derek gives him a questioning look.
“Well, you said you would give me all the rewards, remember?” Stiles asks, and settles more comfortably into Derek’s arms. “And I’m pretty sure that now you have.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Derek says. “I think we can keep coming up with more if we try.”
Stiles grins and presses his face into Derek’s chest. “I’m looking forward to it.”
~fin~