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Stiles wakes up in a bed that isn’t his, and that he didn’t fall asleep in.
This isn’t the first time the former happened, or the latter, but it is the first time both happened together, which is…unnerving. Also, someone is watching him, which indicates either hospital or serial killer, and given his luck, either seem equally likely.
Except it doesn’t look like a hospital, and sitting in the chair is—HMMARCW, writing in a small notebook with what looks like a pen that isn’t quite cheap enough to be one of those free ones given away at dentists’ offices but isn’t nice enough to be…nice. Weird.
“Hi.” And wow, he sounds like an alcoholic chain smoker. Real sexy, Stiles, nice job.
HMMARCW looks up at him, then shuts the notebook, slides the pen into its spine, and sets it aside. “You’re awake.”
“Yeah.” Hence the talking. But Stiles has just enough of a filter to keep that from coming out of his mouth. He sits up in the bed, and HMMARCW shifts like he wants to help (or stop him, Stiles isn’t sure), but in the end he stays where he is. “So, um, not that it isn’t nice to see you, but…where am I? Where are we? We’re both in the same place—well, not exactly the same place, because I’m in a bed and you’re…not—so…where are we?”
“My apartment.”
Oh. Shit. That’s—Stiles scrambles out of the bed, because shit, he’s infecting everything with his scent, and that’s literally the last thing werewolves want, and why did HMMARCW bring him here of all places?
HMMARCW gets to his feet, looking concerned, and wow, that’s awkward. And also now they’re kind of close, and it’s not like they haven’t been close before, but not standing, not like this, and HMMARCW is large, and Stiles knew that before, but now it’s abundantly clear that, even though they’re about the same height, HMMARCW is just a large person. Not fat, just…large. “I would have taken you home, but I don’t know where you live, and the only thing set in your emergency calling is 911, which I suspected you didn’t want me to call.” His shoulders hunch a bit, and he looks at his hands. “I wanted to ensure that you were okay.”
Wow, Stiles hasn’t heard him say that much before. Ever. He barely said that much in an entire conversation, much less one speech. “I—thank you. I mean, this isn’t how I was planning on getting into your bed, but now that we’ve gotten the awkward first time out of the way, hopefully we can have more fun in it next time. If I haven’t turned you off with my apparent narcolepsy. And if I’m not being too presumptuous. And I’m going to stop talking now. Except I’ll cover for new sheets if you can’t get my scent out of yours. And now I’m actually going to stop talking.”
HMMARCW shakes his head. “No need.”
“Are you sure, dude? I mean, I get about being territorial and about scent signals and about stuff being marked by people who shouldn’t have marked it, and—”
“It’s fine.”
Okay. Yes. Not going to keep arguing with the werewolf about territory stuff. If he doesn’t care, Stiles isn’t going to care. Except Stiles cares. Because that’s a thing. But he doesn’t know what thing it is, and he has more important things to worry about, so it’s a thing he’ll think about later.
“So…now that I’ve been in your bed, can I have your name?”
HMMARCW looks startled, like that wasn’t the question he was expecting (and to be fair, Stiles does tend to ask questions that people aren’t expecting, so it’s not like HMMARCW is unique in that regard), but then he nods. “Derek.”
Derek. Huh. Stiles sticks out a hand and, when Derek takes it, shakes briskly. “Nice to meet you, Derek. And, uh, not that it hasn’t been fun, but I—well, I kind of have three finals left to grade, and I am—” He checks his phone, and shit. “—alarmingly close to my 72 hour deadline, so…we should meet up. Again. Some other time. For a date. Which means you should give me your phone number.”
Derek pulls out his phone and hands it to Stiles, who hands over his own, and they do a phone number exchange (or at least that’s what Stiles hopes they’re doing; Derek could be putting a fake number in and Stiles would never know, and wouldn’t that suck). And then Derek hands the phone back, no name put in (probably because his phone is confusing as fuck and it took Stiles a month to figure out how to put names in the contacts), and Derek is still sans surname, so Stiles sets it as HMMARCW because at least that he’ll be able to identify it. And if any of his friends get ahold of his phone (which happens with alarming frequency) they won’t know who it is.
“Thanks, dude. So, uh—plans. We should make plans. All the plans. Some of the plans.” And wow, he needs his Adderall. Or some more sleep. “And I’m going to go now, before I say something I shouldn’t, so—thank you. Seriously. Again.”
And with that witty parting remark, he locates his bag and his shoes, puts them on (with the right feet in the right shoes and everything, isn’t he competent) and hurries out of Derek’s apartment.
--
Lydia takes one look at him and rolls her eyes. “I can’t tell if you just got laid or if a new Call of Duty just came out, and I’m not sure what that says about you.”
Stiles beams at her, because he is in the best mood he’s been in in months. “Neither, and it says I have good taste in video games.”
“Then why do you look like you just got the best blow job of your life?”
“I got a date.”
Lydia blinks at him, then steals a fry from his plate and pops it in her mouth. “That’s pathetic.”
Stiles would take that more personally, but it’s Lydia. She once told him he looked like he had spent the last month living in a cardboard box (and by once he means three weeks ago). And then she complimented him on his hair. It was a wild ride from start to finish.
“So who did you trick into going out with you?”
Stiles grins. “Hot coffee shop werewolf dude. His name is Derek, and we’re going to see the new Hawkfire movie on Friday.”
She looks at him for a few seconds then says, “Close your mouth when you chew. And I expect pictures.”
That might not go so well. Stiles swallows. “You know werewolves are sometimes…weird about pictures.”
“Isaac spends half his life posting selfies on Instagram. You can get a picture with your date. Or just of him; I’m not picky.”
That last part is a total lie; Lydia is picky as hell. But it’s part of the reason he likes her so much, and it’s not like he has the balls to call her out on saying something like that, anyway.
--
Stiles freaks out the day of the date (and this is the problem with living alone; he can’t throw all of his clothing options at his roommate (Scott) and have them hand back whichever one doesn’t hit the floor. What? It works. It got him a second and third date with Cynthia from his Supernatural Mythology lecture, before she decided she’d rather date the TA instead. Which was fair; Stiles would rather have dated the TA too).
So he calls Lydia.
She arrives in a cloud of pheromone-scented perfume (okay, it’s vanilla-lemon, but the result is basically the same), pushes past him, and surveys the disaster that is his room. “Are you trying to solve the Kennedy assassination?”
Oh. Yeah. Stiles had honestly forgotten about the news articles and string on his walls; he’s been focusing on the impending failure of his date. “No, it’s just a side project. Just trying to piece together stuff about the Hale fire. Most of the investigators were unaligned humans, and I thought I might be able to see something they missed if I look at it from a more pack-oriented point of view—”
“Stiles.”
“Yes. Right. I need help.”
Lydia does a pointed survey of the room. “I can see that.”
“No, I mean, I have a date in”—he checks his phone—“shit, an hour, and I don’t know what to wear.”
She surveys the (small) mountain on his bed, then asks, “Do you own anything other than t-shirts and plaid?” Stiles points to a red hoodie poking out from between two plaid shirts, and she makes a disgusted noise. “Right. I’m assuming you don’t want to go to the movies dressed like a twink—you have the body for it—”
“No. Thanks. Please, no. And seriously? I don’t think you’re supposed to say stuff like that.”
Lydia smirks at him. “Fine. Find a t-shirt in the pile—close-fitting and dark, preferably black or gray. The jeans you have on now are fine. And once you’re back and free we’re having a nice long talk on how professionals dress in a work environment.”
“It’s a college.”
“You’re a professor, not a hungover freshman hipster. But no matter.” She jerks her hands towards his chest. “Your shirt. Off. And tell me you have some hair gel.”
A year ago, he would have been ecstatic at the idea of Lydia wanting him to take his shirt off, before he realized that she was a much better friend to him than she could ever be as a girlfriend. And that he likes her too much to lose her when their relationship inevitably exploded dramatically. So he just strips off his shirt (which, okay, is plaid, but there’s nothing wrong with plaid) and rifles through his clothing pile until he finds a black t-shirt, which he puts on.
Lydia pops out of the bathroom with a container of hair gel in his hand as he’s pulling the shirt on, and she clicks her tongue. “Those abs that Scott made you work so hard for—I don’t know why you work so hard to hide them.”
Stiles looks down at his stomach, then jerks the shirt all the way down. “Those abs are mostly gone, and anyway, they were never that impressive. Are you sure I look okay? I mean, it’s just a t-shirt and jeans, and I want to make him like me, because I really need to get laid, and because he’s a good person.”
She opens up the gel and squirts some onto her hand, then starts running it through his hair, and he closes his eyes and lets himself just feel because that feels really good, and he misses the tactile nature of the pack. “You sure you want to date a werewolf who isn’t pack? I mean, Scott wouldn’t care, but we both know that werewolves are territorial as hell.”
Stiles looks at her, and he knows she’s right. “It’s worth a try. I mean, the guy doesn’t seem that—he doesn’t seem super territorial. He let me sit at his table; he was okay with me sleeping in his space. And we both know there’s a range.”
With a final twitch, she lets go of his hair, then steps back. “All done. And just make sure. Werewolves aren’t known for being the best at letting go.”
He groans. “I know. Scott is still freaking out over Allison and it’s been almost two years.”
She taps her cheek against his, keeping her hands far away so she doesn’t get gel on either of them. “When’s your date?”
Stiles checks his phone again, then swears at it. “Too soon. Okay. Thank you. For everything. Seriously.” He touches his hair, then stops because she’s sending him a look that says I-will-eat-your-spleen-and-then-feed-you-your-liver-if-you-keep-playing-with-your-hair, and he totally trusts that she would do it. “I’ll send you a picture if I can get him to let me take one.”
“You’ll send me a picture.”
“Okay, okay, I have to get going so I’m not late. Oh God. Okay.” He gives her a peck on the cheek, then shepherds her out of his apartment so he can head to the movies. Because he needs to go. Now. So he can meet his date. Who is hot. And a werewolf. And adorable. “What if I get laid today?”
Lydia snorts. “Then maybe you’ll be a little less tense tomorrow.”
--
Stiles gets to the theater fifteen minutes before when they agreed to meet. Derek is already there, leaning against the wall of the theater with his arms crossed across his chest, and he looks really goddamn attractive. Like, Stiles-wants-to-lick-his-entire-body-twice attractive.
“Hi.”
Derek’s head jerks up, and he kind of almost smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling a little bit. “Hi.”
Stiles grins at him, taking a few more steps so he’s almost in front of Derek. “You’re early. I mean, I’m early, but I’m usually early, so that doesn’t really say much. You look…really good. Not that you don’t always look really good.”
“You look good, too.” Derek pulls something out of his pocket (oh, hey, look, paper) and hands one to Stiles.
And…that’s a ticket. Stiles takes it and almost drops it, which makes him look so irresistible. Great. He’s really doing a great job seducing this guy. “Thanks. I’ll, uh—how much was it? I’ll pay you back.”
He blinks. “No.”
“Are you sure? It’s no—”
“You can buy the next ones.”
Okay then. Stiles beams at him. “Want to go in? We can watch bad car commercials and ignore teenagers making out in the back of the theater.”
Derek nods, then turns so he’s facing the theater and gestures for Stiles to start walking, which is kind of weird, especially because he then takes up a spot behind-and-to-the-right of Stiles so he’s basically herding him in. Maybe he has a bit of sheepdog in him. Stiles barely manages to keep in a snort at that, which quickly turns into stifling a gasp when Derek’s hand touches his lower back and then slides up under his shirt so his fingers are resting lighting against Stiles’s skin.
Well, well, Mr. Werewolf is getting handsy. Maybe he will get laid after all.
The movie is good. Stiles is fairly certain the movie is good, because the whole Bat-family series has been fantastic, but he’ll have to come back and see this one again because he has absolutely no idea what happened in it. What he does know is that Derek spent the entire movie with his hand on the back of Stiles’s neck, fingers stroking in and out of Stiles’s hair. Just that one small movement, and Stiles lost his entire ability to pay attention to anything that was going on around him. Someone could have set a bomb off, and all he would have noticed was Derek’s hand in his hair.
Stiles follows him out to his car (which is a Camaro, holy shit) and then they just sort of stand there for a minute (really like four seconds) with Stiles feeling like an idiot because he has no idea how he’s supposed to end this date. With a hug? With a kiss? By begging Derek to get in bed with him because they will probably have the best sex ever judging by how he reacted to just Derek’s hand?
And Derek is just…looking at him, which is super not helpful, because he wants Derek to just kiss him or something. Maul him against the Camaro. Let him give him a blow job. Something.
The silence is getting a bit too long, so Stiles clears his throat, the sound too loud in the silence of the parking lot. “That was fun.”
“Good.”
Not a helpful response. Super not a helpful response. “We should do it again.”
“Yeah.”
Okay, this is getting ridiculous, and at this rate, Stiles isn’t going to get laid until next year. So he takes a step towards him, so he’s almost right up in Derek’s personal space, and asks, “Can I kiss you?” A blink. “I’m not going to assume we’re playing the one means yes, two means no game unless you say we are, so I’m going to need more than—”
A mouth closes over his, a hand closing over the back of his neck, and his voice and his breath are lost to wet hot just a little bit of teeth, and he might be moaning or that might be Derek, and then his feet are off the ground and he’s being spun, pressed up against something hard, and that time the moan is definitely his as he wraps arms around Derek’s neck and pulls him closer, closer, opening his mouth to scrape Derek’s lower lip with his teeth.
“Fuck.” Derek’s lips move off of his mouth (no, come back, don’t do that) to close around his neck, then his collarbone, pushing his shirt out of the way as he bites, then soothes the nip with his lips, then sucks with just the right amount of pressure to drive Stiles fucking crazy, half hard already even though they’re just making out in a parking lot.
“We should move this—” A bite to the clavicle, and that feels so fucking good he loses what he’s saying for a second. “Mmm. We should move this to your bed. Or my bed. Or someone’s apartment. On the couch. Against a—oh God—against a wall. I want to see you come, I want to suck you off—”
Derek’s hands slide under the waistband of his jeans, so fucking close, and it stings (good pain claws fuck) and Stiles’s head falls back as he gasps, panting, so fucking hot—
And then Derek is gone, leaving Stiles confused and aroused and cold as he blinks at the streetlight-lit parking lot in front of him. What the fuck?
But Derek is standing a few feet in front of him, breathing hard, hands curled into fists, blood dripping down onto the asphalt. “Sorry.” Derek scrubs the back of his hand across his face, blood still dripping down from his palm, and Stiles probably isn’t getting laid tonight. But that’s okay, because this was still fucking awesome. He hasn’t had that much fun making out in years. “I’m—we should—later.”
Stiles smirks at him, because he can’t help himself. “We should, later.” He eyes Derek, who is definitely hard. “You sure you’re going to be okay to drive like that?”
It looks like he flushes a little bit, in the darkness. “Yeah. You should—sleep well.”
And he’s adorable, too. “I’ll text you.”
“You don’t need to.”
Oh, the sweet summer child. “Now that we’ve gone out, I’m going to start texting you nonstop. Always. You’re going to regret giving me my phone number.” To prove it, he pulls out his phone and sends Derek a text, and a second later, Derek’s phone beeps (and Mr. Grumpy Werewolf didn’t turn off his ringtone in the movies. Bad boy). “Read it later.”
Derek nods. “Drive safely.”
“Thanks. You too.” Stiles nods at him, then heads back to his car, and he knows he should feel disappointed with the way the date ended, but he just…can’t. Because he doesn’t know him very well, yet, but it seems like HMMARCW might just be a keeper.