Chapter Text
'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces,
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins. . . . '
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
Stiles exits the admissions office of UCBH buzzing. Truthfully, he’d only gone with Scott intending to ask about whether or not the measly amount of credits he’d earned during the winter and spring would even transfer over, not to mention his scholarships, because Stiles has had a lot of time to think about it. And he isn’t trapped in his house anymore, and it isn’t cabin fever, and he doesn’t care what school he goes to, he just wants to go.
He comes out with applications, an admissions packet, and a strangling, sideways embrace from Scott.
“This is going to be so cool,” Scott says, mirroring Stiles’ ear-to-ear grin. “I’m transferring, you’re transferring. It’ll be just like old times. Except without all the detentions and bloodshed.”
“Dude.” Stiles cautions him, “Don’t jinx it, seriously.”
Scott nods in agreement. “Good point.”
“And this still doesn’t mean I can go. I need to find someone to watch Lillian during the day.”
Scott rolls his eyes. “We have the whole summer to work out the details, but let’s face it. You have six people more than willing to help you out here. It’s what you want, it’s going to happen. This is definitely happening.”
Stiles matches his smile and dares to hope. “If this meeting with the Littleton pack goes well, I’ll take it as a sign.”
After months of waiting and researching, the pack has finally chosen a potential ally. Stiles has been sick with anxiety over the meeting for the last three days, ever since they contacted the alpha. There were some issues getting the gift that Stiles has planned—he failed five times before he got it right—and his unease mixed with Derek’s is a bad combination for Lillian.
He just wants to get it over with.
Then Scott says, “We should go out this weekend and celebrate, no matter what,” and Stiles’ excitement spills over into a fist pump.
“Yes! Please, oh my god.” Stiles grabs Scott by the strap of his bag and stresses, “We need to do that. That’s something that must be done.”
Scott raises his eyebrows. “Saturday?”
Stiles’ face falls. “Saturday is S4-2.0. But can we do Friday?”
“S42 what?”
Stiles makes a dismissive gesture. “Dinner with my dad and Lil. It’s sort of a, you know, big deal tradition-making thing.”
“Friday then,” Scott agrees, and is mid-way through meeting Stiles’ enthusiastic bro-fist when he freezes, hand caught in the air.
Stiles’ knuckles glance off Scotts’. “Er.”
“Allison,” Scott says, staring over Stiles’ shoulder.
Stiles makes a face. “Please tell me you’re just doing that thing again where you randomly say Allison’s name whenever her face pops in your head?”
Scott anxiously rubs his palms on his thighs. “She’s in the parking lot.”
Stiles whirls around and, sure enough, Allison’s jumping out of a dark SUV. “God, it really is just like old times.” He sighs and turns to find Scott’s gaze tracking her, eyes doing that thing where they glaze over a bit, a sign that Scott is mentally plotting out an imaginary interaction. “This is stupid,” Stiles decides before yelling out, “Allison! Hey, over here! Oomph—Jesus, Scott, your elbows are like little daggers.”
Scott hisses, “I thought I was supposed to be letting her come to me.”
Stiles gestures at where Allison is headed toward them, and then at Scott, who’s trying to somehow hide himself behind Stiles. “She is coming to you. Probably if you didn’t lose cell phones like they were socks, she’d still have a number to call, but this is what we’re working with so—Hey, Allison! How’s it hanging? Going to the big UCBH, huh? Wow, small world, Scott just finished his transfer.”
She gives them a careful smile, eyes darting back and forth between Stiles and Scott, and appears to be out of breath, even though she walked the entire way at a fairly casual pace. “I’m taking summer classes,” she explains, eyes finally stilling on Scott. “Are you transferring away, or…”
Stiles turns to raise an eyebrow at him, an indication that the fate of this interaction is now formally in Scott’s hands.
Scott lets out this little, breathy laugh. “Transferring here, actually. From the, uh, community college.”
“Oh.” Allison’s grin widens. “So we’ll be seeing each other in the fall, probably.”
Scott stammers out, “Uh, well, and uh, Stiles, too.”
“Neat.” Though the smile she gives Stiles is small and reserved.
There’s a brief moment of awkward silence in which Scott obviously doesn’t know where to take this. He keeps on shooting looks at Stiles, like he’s waiting for advice or permission, and honestly? Like, what the hell does Stiles know? He’s rooming it up with a guy who got him pregnant against both their wills. They have a kid together, they eat dinner at the same table, they argue over the remote, they rock-paper-scissors to determine who does dishes, and one night out of every week, Stiles allows himself to push open Derek’s door and wait for the silent invitation of his blanket being pulled back to crawl into his bed.
So they can spoon.
On some of those nights, Stiles doesn’t hurt at all, and Derek knows. Stiles knows he does because on those nights, Derek doesn’t press his palm to Stiles’ stomach. He’ll just curl around him the same way he always does and breathe into his hair, fall asleep without trying to siphon his non-existent pain.
They don’t talk about it—the random bouts of spooning. Derek is always first to rise, so Stiles will wake up in his empty bed, feeling warm and well-rested and so happy that it aches.
It’s becoming a huge problem.
So basically, Stiles wouldn’t know a healthy relationship if someone tattooed a diagram to Derek’s abs. And considering how often Stiles is staring at them given how much Derek walks around shirtless, that’s really saying a lot.
Stiles turns to Allison, sighing. “Okay, here’s the deal. Derek and the pack? Monumentally freaked out about you and your dad being back. Normally, I wouldn’t divulge that kind of insider information, but I’m sort of hoping to appeal to your softer side by admitting that the baby you saw me with at the store before? She’s Derek’s cub. And also mine. Yeah, that reaction is never going to be priceless. It’s a long story. But the point is, even if I want to trust that you and your dad have well-meaning intentions by being back here, I sort of can’t take the risk.”
Allison stares at him for a suspended moment, eyebrows bunched together as she works to parse that. “You want to know why we’re here,” she ultimately guesses, looking away, and Stiles doesn’t imagine the flash of something pained and empty that shutters her expression. “We got some intel that a pack came to Beacon Hills over the holidays. An alpha and a dozen or more betas.”
“Monroe,” Stiles says, surprised.
Her gaze jumps to his. “We wanted to make sure this territory didn't fall to him. And…” Her eyes drop. “I heard about Scott becoming a beta, and I guess… I wanted to come home. Make sure everyone was okay. I wanted to know if you needed any help.”
Stiles explains, “Well… yeah, we did. Monroe was here for Lillian—the baby—uh, cub—but he left. They left us alone.”
“Oh.” Allison bobs her head grinning tightly. “That’s good. That they left. We weren’t sure.”
Scott clears his throat. “Are you sticking around, anyway?”
Allison looks at him, eyes softening. “Yeah, I’m—” She looks at the school over her shoulder. “I’m going to finish school here, at least. We could use something… familiar.”
Scott says, “Good!” and then, with noticeably less enthusiasm, “Good.”
Satisfied with this, Stiles looks at Allison and jerks his head toward Scott, eyebrows raising. “We were actually just planning a night out, for next Friday.”
Scott lurches forward when Stiles slaps him on the back, smile turning slightly goofy at the edges. “It’s a celebration. For Stiles.”
“And Scott.”
“And maybe the pack.”
Since Scott doesn’t say anything else, Stiles puts it out there. “That was an invitation, bee-tee-dubs.”
She lets out a loud, guttural laugh, smile brightening. “Sure! Just let me give you my number—” Scott’s cell phone appears instantly between them, as if by magic. “Oh! Yeah, here, I’ll just…”
They both watch as she puts in her number, and then Stiles watches as Scott calls her phone and Allison saves his, and then he stands there watching, for a good three minutes, as the two of them stare distractedly down at their phones.
When he realizes they’re actually texting each other, Stiles bursts, “Oh my god,” and drags Scott away by the strap of his bag.
*
They meet with the Littleton pack on the new moon, which is custom. The Littleton territory spans most of the Boggs Mountains State Forest, and it’s a quiet place, a lot like the preserve, but steeper and greener, trees more closely packed together.
The pack is gathered at the alpha’s home, also customary, and Stiles loses count at twenty nine. Stiles knows from his research that they’re comprised of three different families, that they’ve held this territory since 1916, that one of their old pack matriarchs used to be allied to a coven—one whose manor was transient and inhabited by four ageless witches.
He keeps stopping himself from casting nervous glances at Derek. He feels like he’s about to ask a girl on a date or something, only like, she’s the hottest girl in the school and he’s the nerdy guy with acne and a bad lisp.
The Littleton pack is to the Hale pack as Lydia Martin is to Stiles Stilinski.
The alpha is a young woman by the name of Haley and she greets Derek with a tight smile and wary eyes. “There’s no need to mask your scent here, Alpha Hale. We’re a peaceful pack.”
When Stiles realizes she thinks Derek’s doing it intentionally and of his own accord, he fumbles for their gift. “That’s actually my fault. It’s the, uh,” He rattles the box, “thing in here, doing that.”
She takes the box with cautious eyes, the large male beta at her back shifting in discomfort.
“A gift,” Stiles explains as she opens it. “To thank you for your hospitality.” And when she lifts the satchel—a new one that Stiles made with a little reverse spellcraft engineering, “It’ll mask your scents. I know werewolves don’t like them. Trust me, we’ve had a lot of words about it. But it could be a good defensive weapon, if you ever need one. Which, is hopefully never.”
Derek nudges him and Stiles snaps his mouth shut, laughing nervously.
“Sorry.”
Alpha Littleton relaxes then, grinning warmly at Stiles. “It’s lovely, and will be useful. Thank you.”
Stiles releases a relieved breath.
Derek speaks up, “This is my pack. You’ve met Scott.” Scott gives a wave. “These are Isaac and Boyd, and my cub here, Lillian.” Lillian, who’s in Derek’s arms remains quiet and still, uncertain. “And this is Stiles, her other father.”
Alpha Littleton then proceeds to introduce her pack, which takes a hell of a lot longer and includes a hell of a lot more kids. “We have food and music to entertain your betas if you’d like to begin talks?”
Derek agrees with a nod and rigidly hands Lillian over to Stiles, whispering, “Just you.” Stiles doesn’t ask what he means, because he knows Derek well enough to guess.
Lillian’s only to be held by Stiles.
“Got it,” Stiles promises, shifting her on his hip.
The food may or may not be good. None of them eat any, per Derek’s super paranoid orders. They sit at a little picnic table in the yard and stare at each other, pinging anxiety back and forth, eyes flitting around uneasily. The other pack mostly edges around them, sensing their nerves maybe. Some of them are eating, some are laughing, some are fussing over their kids and some are doing nothing.
Stiles rolls his eyes at Isaac and Boyd, who look ready to bolt at any given point. “Screw this,” he decides, standing up and wandering to the nearest table, to mingle.
It’s a mother and her two year old. She asks Stiles, “How old is your cub?” which he takes as his cue to drop into a seat and ramble for a good twenty minutes. He knows that everyone else can hear, that most of them are listening, probably trying to feel him out, but he closes that off, feels comfortable enough with the lady—Kelly—that he doesn’t hesitate to ask her about schooling.
“I have a six year old in public school,” she says, pointing at a little dark-skinned girl on the swingset. “But most of the pack home-schools. It just depends what you have time for.”
“So it’s not dangerous?”
Kelly gives him a look and laughs. “Why would it be dangerous?”
Stiles explains, “Well, like, a danger of exposure, for example.”
Kelly waves this off. “Natural wolves have exceptional self-control.” And then, looking over Stiles’ shoulder, “No offense.”
Stiles whips around to find Scott, Isaac and Boyd all crowded up at his back.
“None taken,” Scott says, grinning. “I’ve always had exceptional self-control. These two, though.”
Boyd glowers at him.
Stiles rolls his eyes. “You also have a really good friend who’s awesome at problem-solving. Anyway, so what about vaccines?”
He talks to Kelly long enough that, gradually, some of the other parents wander over and jump in the discussion. The thing about people, even were-people, Stiles knows, is that everyone’s always willing to give advice. People love talking about themselves, and they love talking about their kids even more. Stiles just taps into that to break the ice, and it’s completely effective.
It also helps that all his questions are one-hundred-percent genuine. Stiles has no fucking idea what he’s doing with a werewolf kid. His cluelessness just so happens to prove an invaluable social commodity.
By the time the food’s all been eaten and the music has tapered off to news radio, Isaac’s cozying up to one of the beta girls, Scott’s got some old guy engaged in a frank discussion about bad breakups, and Boyd—well, Boyd mostly sticks by Stiles and Lillian, but that’s just the kind of guy he is.
Their packs are totally macking on each other.
So when Derek and Alpha Littleton emerge from the house, just before dusk, Stiles watches him like a hawk, tries to feel out how it went. He knows Derek usually needs a little warming up to—an acquired taste, if you will—but no one wants this alliance to happen more than Derek.
No one.
Unfortunately, Derek’s a master at schooling his expression into blankness, so Stiles can’t tell anything. He checks out Scott and Isaac, Boyd and Lillian, to see if perhaps his emotions are being sponged up, but he gets nothing.
The packs part with careful smiles and waves, Pack Hale pouring into Scott’s SUV, Pack Littleton filtering into the main house. They all wait for his cue before speaking, but Derek doesn’t give anything away, not even a frown or a shift of his eyebrows, until they’re at least ten miles out.
He pulls over before turning in his seat, arm slung around the back. “I hope you liked the pack, because they’re officially our ally.”
The car erupts in triumphant noise. Even Lillian, who’s sleepy from the outing, manages a spirited, “Sha sha!”
Stiles, on the other hand, just breathes, filled with relief so deep, he feels floppy down to his very marrow. “We did,” he tells Derek. “Like the pack. They were really nice, even if their music sucked entire bags of dicks.”
Boyd leans over the seat rest between them and stresses, “Entire bags.”
Derek’s mouth quirks, but he asks, “And Lillian?”
Stiles gives him a confused look. “And Lillian… was there? And only held by me?”
“As a natural alpha,” Derek explains, “she’s innately good at judging character.”
“Oh.” Stiles blinks back at her, surprised. “She didn’t cry,” he offers. “She was mostly just quiet.”
“Good.” Derek nods, seeming satisfied as he pulls back onto the road, hands relaxed on the steering wheel.
The ride home is quiet and calm, uneventful. They exchange cars when they reach the duplex, pack Lillian into Stiles’ jeep and bid the others good night. Stiles is so tired that he tosses the keys to Derek, getting a raised eyebrow in response.
They’re on the road to the house when Stiles asks, “How was it really? With the alpha?”
Derek tosses him a sideways glance. “She thinks we’re the only ones benefitting from the alliance.”
“She’s probably not wrong,” Stiles says. “But she was okay with that?”
“Apparently.” He says the next part clipped, “You could say we had good references.”
Stiles guesses, “Deaton?” and when Derek shakes his head, straightens in his seat, face splitting into a grin. “It was them, wasn’t it?”
Derek’s hands tighten on the steering wheel before going slack. A resigned sigh. “Yes, it was them.”
Stiles crows, “I knew it!”
He knew all his prayers to Millicent were being heard.
Derek gives him an incredulous look. “You’re like a pre-teen girl seeing a boyband for the first time.”
Stiles gushes, “I’m never going to wash this chant again.”
When they get Lillian in the house, Stiles huffs and groans at the patches of dirt on her little feet and legs and face. Stiles has no idea how she even managed to get dirty—he held her most of the damn day—but there it is. She’s like a dirt magnet. He commits himself to having to bathe her later—a laborious activity that she harbors way less affection for than she had only months ago.
“You’re doing the bath tomorrow!” Stiles calls after putting her down in the crib, having no idea where Derek is, but knowing he’ll hear. He kicks off his shoes and goes through his pre-sleep routine as he laments, “I got her clean yesterday. There were tears and screaming. It was like going to war. It literally made me miss the days where a bath just meant maybe having to catch her piss in a cup. We had that down to a science. This new stuff? I don’t even know, man. Maybe we should just start hosing her down in the back yard.”
“She’s not a puppy.” Derek’s suddenly… there, in the bathroom doorway, thankfully now adorned in a pair of boxers.
Stiles insists around his toothbrush, “That wasn’t a dog reference, I swear to god. I’d feel the same if she was human. You know how I went through that phase where I was all… oh, we have to use the organic shampoo and make sure her sheets are hypoallergenic and never brush her hair against the grain or whatever. Now I’m just, like,” Stiles spits, “screw it. I’m too tired.”
Derek says, “Come to bed,” and Stiles pauses, glancing at his reflection, the severity of his gaze and his posture, the way his body leans against the doorframe in a long, lithe slant.
“Uh.” Stiles wipes his mouth. “Okay?”
He follows Derek out of the bathroom but stops at his own door, confused and uncertain, until Derek looks back, sees him standing there and says, “Coming?”
Stiles says, “Sure,” and tries not to think much of it, because for one, he promised he wouldn’t read into things. For two, it’s just cuddling, which is something Derek clearly enjoys, and hey, if he needs a willing warm body, then Stiles is so there.
He feels awkward undressing while Derek slips beneath the blankets, but he does it anyway, steps out of his jeans and even goes so far as to neatly fold them, placing the bundle by the door. When he gets into bed, bare legs sliding against the cool sheets, Derek takes position at his back, wrapping around him with his hot skin, knees fitting perfectly into the backs of Stiles’.
Stiles closes his eyes, sighing.
He’s almost asleep when, ten minutes later, Derek’s hand moves, slides down Stiles’ hip to rest heavy on the skin of his thigh. And as if that wasn’t enough to have Stiles’ eyes flying open, heart hammering away, Derek nuzzles his face into the curve of his neck, gentle like a whisper, a tickle of his stubble, a drag of his mouth, the catch of his damp lower lip when he presses a kiss to his throat.
Stiles has no idea how long he lays there, waiting for something else to happen, anything else. He keeps telling himself if Derek even so much as… anything—breathes hard, fucking sniffles—then he’s going to press back. He dissects the gesture from every which way. It was clearly sexual, but then no, not sexual, just a kiss, Derek’s relieved about getting an ally, but then it felt sexual, but then every touch from Derek feels sexual, but then… but then… But then Derek’s asleep and Stiles is staring blankly at nothing, hard and deflated.
When he wakes up the next morning, it’s to a quiet house, an empty bed and a deep, stinging regret for having hoped.
*
To Scott’s credit, he stays with Stiles at the club that night. Even though Allison’s there with them at the table, and even though Stiles is being a downer with his gloomy mood, Scott still hangs out with him, buys him drinks and tries to make him laugh.
Stiles plays along, but he’s only going through the motions. His eyes scan just about everyone that passes, because despite the weirdness with Derek the night before, that was his whole plan for going out tonight. He was going to let loose, experience things, finally move the fuck on.
Mostly, he feels like the third wheel who’s just dying to go home and cuddle his depression away with his kid.
At some point, Stiles decides he’s just… way too young to be so jaded. He’s nineteen. He’s a college student. He’s supposed to be out meeting people, having fun, being reckless. So he tries. He goes to the bar, half so that Scott can get some one-on-one time with Allison, and half hoping that someone will offer to buy him something alcoholic if maybe he stands the right way, or gives the right face, or acts super interested in someone super boring.
No one offers.
At first, he’s really confused. Because Stiles is wearing the tightest pair of jeans he owns, his hair looks great, and he’s not a bad looking guy. Even Derek Underwear-Model Hale had been attracted to him at some point.
Though, look how far that got him.
He’s pretty close to throwing in the towel and vowing a life of celibacy when a guy named Paul asks if he wants to dance. He’s freakishly tall and skinnier than can possibly be healthy, but he’s got dark, deep-set eyes and a smile that goes on forever. Needless to say, Stiles is all over that shit, nearly trips over his own feet in his hurry to follow the guy through the crowd.
Once they’ve been out on the floor for a few minutes and have found themselves on just the right side of the first-time-dancing-with-someone-awkwardness, Paul leans in close, hands on Stiles’ hips and asks, “Are you legal?”
Stiles grins. “Legal for what?”
And then Paul, licking his own smirk, says into Stiles’ ear, “The things I’m imagining doing to you.”
Stiles raises his eyebrows, even though his grin widens. “Wow, that is an impressive amount of subtlety. Not sure I can possibly intuit your intentions.”
Paul throws his head back and laughs. “No one wearing pants like those is expecting subtlety.”
Stiles concedes, “Touché,” and then after a mental pep talk, “I am. Legal. Unless there’s booze involved.”
Paul gives him a look. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“Uh, fun?” Stiles says, way too immobile to still be considered dancing. Someone bumps into him and he bumps into Paul, cursing. “I mean, casual. Quick and anonymous. Safe. Etcetera.”
Paul nods. “You want to use me for my body,” but there’s definite amusement in his eyes.
“Or your hands.” Stiles gives him a blunt look. “Or your mouth. Whatever’s on offer, really, I’m not picky.”
Paul’s eyebrows shoot up and he laughs. “Who’s being subtle now?”
Stiles smirks. “No one wearing a leather jacket like that is expecting subtlety.”
Paul leads him out back not long after, says he can show Stiles a good time if that’s what he’s looking for, says it really low and seductive-like against Stiles’ earlobe, too. But Stiles tells him to wait, says he’s got to use the bathroom real quick and weaves his way back into the club.
He feels like he’s sweating hard enough that it’s penetrated his every layer, that everyone can see the stains and the flush all over his face and neck, the way he fidgets and keeps wiping his palms on his jeans.
He finds the bathroom, locks himself in a stall, and sits there.
He only just barely manages to will away his impending anxiety attack. It leaves him shaky and sort of lightheaded, but he doesn’t feel like he’s in danger of dying, so he knows it’s not full-blown, that he’s going to be alright, that he can splash some water on his face and get himself together, go out there and get off.
He fishes his cell phone from his pocket, rests his flushed forehead against the stall door, and calls Derek instead.
Derek answers, “Stiles,” and he takes longer than he should inspecting the inflection of it, struggling to find even a fraction of the intensity from last night. “Stiles?” Harsher, worried. “I can hear you, I know you’re there. Where are you?”
Stiles sighs into the phone, lost. “I’m still at the club, with Scott and Allison.”
“Okay.” After a pause, “Everything alright?”
Stiles shakes his head, rolling it against the cool stall door. “I’m about to hook up with this guy.” If Stiles was expecting a reaction, he doesn’t get one.
Just the silence of static.
“He seems nice. He’s pretty good-looking.” Stiles snorts emptily at the silence that follows, fingers pressing hard into his eyes. “I just… I just wanted something good, you know? Something normal, someone who would want to touch me back. And I thought, I can go out and get this, like it’s just… like it’s milk or something, I don’t know. People do that. Isaac does that. I think I can do that.”
Stiles wraps his arm around his middle, feeling sick. “And I know I said I wouldn’t be persistent, but last night, in bed… there was maybe something? And I know I’m reading into things and I’m sorry, but before I do this, I just had to… I wanted you to know that if you ask me to come home, I will. I just have to know, because… I’m so stupid, Derek.” Stiles thumps his forehead against the stall door and breathes, “I am so fucking stupidly in love with you.”
There’s more static, more silence.
Stiles is about as close as possible to melding his forehead with the metal door when Derek finally answers, voice rough and sure.
“Come home.”
Stiles instantly hangs up, has already typed out a shaky text to Scott by the time he reaches the parking lot. He spends most of the drive nervous, overanalyzing what exactly it even meant, and then he stops caring, because even a night at home with a Derek who’s going to reject him beats whatever he was about to do with Paul, and did Stiles mention the stupid part of the being in love thing?
When he pulls up to the house twenty minutes later, Stiles is still nervous, but it’s not the sweat-inducing anxiety from before. It’s more of a buzz in the pit of his chest, like he took some of the club’s bass back with him, carried it in his veins, and the closer he gets to the house the louder it gets.
The door opens before Stiles even reaches it and Derek’s standing there, watching him, and then he’s grabbing Stiles’ face and pushing their mouths together.
Stiles staggers back, but Derek’s grip around his jaw holds him steady, all lip-lock and stubble-rough chin. Stiles doesn’t realize he’s being tugged inside until a door closes and he’s pressed up against it, shoulders knocking into wood.
Stiles groans, “Oh thank god,” and grabs two big fistfuls of Derek’s shirt, yanking him close enough that their legs lock together in odd, slotted parallels.
Derek kisses like he fights—full-bodied, unrelenting and imposing—and Stiles tries his best to keep up with it, the way his tongue dives into Stiles’ mouth, how his hips push him into the door with an absentminded bodily writhe. He grabs Derek’s hair and pants into his mouth and wraps an ankle around Derek’s knee to pull him closer, and it hurts.
That’s how Stiles knows this is nothing like the spell, because it aches—in the core of his body, in the tender skin of his lower lip when Derek’s teeth tug at it, the grind of their hipbones, the sting of Derek’s stubble, the burn of his lungs as he struggles to breathe.
Derek’s face dips to his neck and, in between loud, hot, open-mouthed kisses, says, “Upstairs.” He starts dragging Stiles that-a-way, one of his palms sliding down to grab roughly at an ass cheek. Stiles follows more as an exercise in not letting their mouths separate than anything, but halfway up the stairs, realizes that Derek’s maybe taking him to bed, and then Stiles is the one pushing, hurrying.
When they pass the nursery, Stiles pulls away. “Lillian.”
Derek keeps tugging, rumbles into the skin of his neck, “Boyd and Isaac. Come here.” And Stiles laughs, because he’s already there, but he shoves himself closer anyway, accompanying Derek’s pull with push, saying, “You should have made a move,” and Derek’s saying, “I didn't want you to not be persistent,” and Stiles says, “We’re here, aren’t we?” and Derek pulls Stiles’ shirt off.
His face goes right back to his neck. “He’s all over you.”
“Clothes,” Stiles notes. “Clothes are all over you. That should definitely be a thing that isn’t anymore.”
They’re both shirtless by the time they reach Derek’s room and Stiles gets distracted with groping his chest, wrapping his hands around his waist and staring at the way his abs flex when his hands go back to Stiles’ ass, palming and kneading, big, careless clutches.
It feels like it takes forever to get their pants off, and even when they do, Stiles’ dangle from his left foot, forgotten when he trips back into the bed and Derek climbs between his legs, writhing into the space there, dragging their bare erections together as he pants into Stiles’ mouth, tongue slick and insistent between his lips.
“How much,” Derek asks when he pulls away from Stiles’ mouth with a filthy, wet smack. “What do you want?”
Stiles spreads his legs wider, grinding up into Derek’s hips. “Everything. But we can just… this is okay, this is so good,” and Derek’s head falls, forehead landing on the ball of Stiles’ shoulder.
He shudders and croaks out, “Everything?” and Stiles definitely isn’t imagining the thread of want in his voice, something desperate and caught in the back of his throat.
Stiles hazards a breathless, “Yeah, you can fuck me, you can put it inside of me,” and Derek freezes, shoves a frantic hand in between them to clutch at the base of his own dick, rearing back.
He puts a gentle hand over Stiles’ mouth and looks away, eyes tight and wild. After a moment of that weird stillness, nothing but the sounds of their hard breaths filling the room, Derek takes his hand from Stiles’ mouth and explains, “Not if you keep saying it.”
Stiles’ face lights up. “Oh my god, you have a hair-trigger, that’s so awesome.”
Derek’s still squeezing himself, taking slow, measured breaths. “I don’t have a hair-trigger,” he grinds out. “It’s been a long time, and...” He pauses here, looks at Stiles with something pained and sharp in his expression. “And I think about it more than I should.”
Stiles all but shoots himself out from under Derek and off the bed, hurries down the hall and crashes into his room, tearing apart his nightstand to find the supplies he’s never even actually had a chance to use.
The pants finally come loose from his ankle somewhere between there and back.
When he returns, Derek’s sitting on the edge of the bed with a tense, shuttered expression that vanishes the instant Stiles comes into view. He gathers him up when Stiles climbs into his lap, hands going to his ass, mouth latching onto his neck, seemingly on impulse.
Stiles instructs, “Here, here, use this,” and pushes the bottle of lube at Derek’s chest, feeling drunk and excited and like he wants to laugh at the complex face Derek makes. “Finger me open first.”
Derek groans, “Shut up, Stiles,” but he does it, makes his fingers all slippery and wet and pushes into him, keeps smashing Stiles closer and closer so he can get a deeper angle with his wrist, swallowing Stiles’ little gasps with slow, distracted kisses that start and stop, start and stop, start and stop.
Stiles slides the condom on Derek himself, feeling shaky but sure when he explains into Derek’s neck, “Just in case,” and Derek grunts when Stiles guides him inside, an airless, guttural sound that Stiles feel punched against his own chest.
“Slow,” he urges, strained, hands stilling Stiles’ sinking hips. “Slower, go slow.”
Stiles is beyond words, so he nods, makes a breathless sound at the burn of being stretched and filled, drops his forehead to Derek’s shoulder and stares at the way they meet, Stiles hard and leaking against Derek’s stomach, Derek’s thumbs pressing into the skin where Stiles’ thigh turns into his groin, Stiles’ patchwork stomach and Derek’s flawless one.
Derek asks tightly, “Hurts?” but is already moving to take the pain away.
“No!” Stiles grabs his wrist and gasps, “No, the spell took the pain and it didn’t hurt and, please, just… I like it. I want it, don’t take it,” and Derek pries his hand away from Stiles’ grip, uses it to cradle the back of his neck when he shushes him.
“I won’t, it’s okay, I won’t,” and he doesn’t, lets Stiles feel and breathe and whimper through the ache as he sinks the rest of the way down into his lap.
Stiles rests there and Derek lets him, runs his hands over his back and his thighs and his ass, through his hair when they kiss and over his stomach when Stiles pulls back to look again, to see them pressed completely together.
“Fuck,” Stiles says when Derek takes him in his hand, stroking, and he sounds about as amazed and mindblown as he feels. “This is going to be so fast.”
Derek says, “We can do it again,” and Stiles asks, “Yeah?” and Derek says, “Yeah,” and Stiles rocks into him, testing, unable to fully lift himself away. Derek’s face screws up and he grips Stiles more firmly, rocking forward into him. “Like this,” he says and Stiles nods, agreeing, and it’s not pretty like in porn—it’s really inelegant and they don’t separate enough to get to the thrusty stuff—but it’s so good that it has Derek’s thighs trembling under Stiles, and they’re both watching Stiles drip all over Derek’s stomach, so he figures it’s got to be better.
It can’t possibly get any better than this.
“We can do it again,” Stiles reiterates, just to make sure, and when Derek kisses him in reassurance, starts grinding himself faster and harder, rhythmless and hyperfocused, hand tangling into the back of Derek’s hair.
He comes with a cry that’s stupid and squawk-like, more surprised-sounding than it has any right to be. Derek grips two handfuls of his ass and shoves him closer, and closer, and closer, until he’s jerking forward with a grunt, arm coming up to pin Stiles to his chest as he wrenches through it, chest rumbling.
He follows when Derek finally falls back, chest heaving him up and down, and they lay there long enough that Derek goes soft, has to reach over Stiles to carefully guide himself and the condom out. Once he does, he just starfishes out on the bed.
Stiles eventually smothers a grin into Derek’s throat, chancing a glance up at his face. “Am I heavy?”
Derek’s chest jumps with a scoff. “No,” he answers, hand coming up to smooth his hair away from his forehead. “You’re sticky.”
“I can get up.” Stiles sighs, pushing into his hand. “Clean it off.”
“You? Clean?” Derek cracks an eye to peer down at him, says in a perfect deadpan, “Stop, you’ll get me hard again.”
Stiles flicks his nose, laughing. “Funny. You’re hilarious.” And then, after a breath, “We’d be a real comedy power couple.”
Derek opens both eyes then, looks down at Stiles while he’s petting his hair. His voice is quiet and careful when he says, “I’d make an awful mate,” and Stiles’ protest is on the tip of his frown when Derek adds, “Just for full disclosure.”
“I don’t think so.” Stiles smiles sadly. “All it really requires is that you want to be. And an effort. We’ve got everything else down, already.”
Derek says, “I want to,” and when he doesn’t follow it with one of the million ways it could possibly go wrong, Stiles pushes forward and presses their mouths together, grinning.
*
“We’re staying close,” Derek says the next full moon. “So don’t be frightened if you hear us.”
Stiles nods in acknowledgement and watches him take an already fussy Lillian from her swingy chair, doing his best to calm her restless, dissatisfied whimpers.
Derek frowns and says directly to her, “I’m sorry. It’s not safe out there for you right now.”
Stiles watches him press a kiss to her cheek and doesn’t say that he wouldn’t be comfortable with Derek taking her out in the forest for a full night, anyway.
Derek fidgets with smoothing down a cowlick in Lillian’s hair, eyes nervous and wary. “You remember the access code to the—”
“Derek.” Stiles claps his shoulder, assuring, “Lillian and I have had full moons with you farther away than you will be tonight. Chill, okay? We’ve got this.”
Derek’s jaw flexes. “There weren’t hunters in Beacon Hills then.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “We’ve had this talk. I told you, they’re not going to bother us.”
Derek grinds out, “I’ve heard that before,” and Stiles doesn’t bother arguing with him.
Instead, he crowds him out the door. “Have fun, don’t let Scott and Boyd get into another fight, and if we need you, we’ll just… you know, scream, super loud.”
Derek gives him a look that says exactly how much this is comforting him, which would be not at all. “Stay downstairs,” he orders. “Lock the doors, don’t turn the TV up so loud you can’t hear.” Stiles nods dutifully and gives a wave, shutting the door on Derek’s anxious face.
Naturally, the sun’s only been down for three whole hours when everything goes to shit.
Stiles is laid out, Lillian tucked into the little crevice between the couch and his side. He’s stuffing a handful of chips into his mouth with his free hand when he hears an undeniable thump.
It’s so strong, it makes the Nyan Cat cross-stitch Stiles had gotten from Etsy last week fall right off the wall.
Stiles’ jerk rouses Lillian and she makes a sound, something grumpy and miserable. He gathers her up against his chest and waits, ears straining at the few noises he can actually hear, but they’re fairly limited to Lillian’s mewls and the TV’s hum.
He’s just starting to relax when it happens again.
Thump.
Stiles doesn’t even consider investigating. He takes Lillian and runs for the kitchen, sliding against the linoleum when he makes the hard turn toward where the safe room is located. This puts the window facing the backyard directly in his vision, and Stiles freezes at what he sees through it, grabbing frantically for the knob of the pantry door.
If he didn’t take that split second to glance back up into the eyes of the enormous wolf staring through the window, Stiles might have missed the exact, familiar way it’s looking at him—confident and soft.
Stiles goes still, heart still hammering, hand poised on the pantry knob. He hedges out a shaky, “Derek?”
The wolf throws his head back, chuffing, and presses closer to the window with glowing red eyes.
Lillian clutches at the air between them, whining out a longing, “Sha sha sha,” which pretty much seals it for him.
“Holy shit.” Stiles dives for the back door and wrenches it open, gawks at the massive black and silver wolf dropping back to all fours and repeats, “Holy shit, it’s you.”
Wolf-Derek instantly presses his nose to Lillian’s dangling foot, and then Stiles’ stomach, chuffing once more, snout rising and falling in what Stiles suspects is an approximation of a nod.
Stiles’ face splits into disbelieving grin. “Oh my god, you did it!” He looks at Lillian and tells her, “That’s daddy! That’s Sha Sha!”
She’s still stuck on the clutching for him and the ‘Sha sha’ing’, so Stiles crouches down low enough that she can grab a handful of the sleek, black and silver fur. She lets out a sharp and puzzled sound when Derek opens his mouth, swiping her cheek with his long, pink tongue.
Stiles hazards a pet and Derek pushes his snout into his palm, tongue coming out to lick him, too. He’s big, taller than Stiles’ hip, and bulky, but not as lumpy and imposing most of the other alpha forms Stiles has seen in the past. He’s definitely menacing, and there’s no way a real wolf has teeth like that, but he’s also, Stiles muses, sort of… sleek. Handsome. His fur is soft and thick, dark and neat.
“Don’t get mad, okay?” Stiles fishes his cell phone out of his pocket and opens his camera app. “You’re just going to have to deal with this.” Stiles goes to lift the phone and Derek backs away. But he only goes far enough so that he can turn and sit back on his haunches, chest puffed out and chin thrust up.
Stiles could die.
He takes about twenty pictures instead.
Eventually, Derek tires of preening—or so he’d have Stiles believe—and starts nudging the back of Stiles’ legs, insistent and firm.
It takes Stiles a minute of being lead before he realizes what Derek wants. “Dude!” he hisses. “It’s freaking eleven-o-clock at night!”
Another nudge.
“I don’t have any of her blankets. I don’t have any food, I don’t have anything.”
A stronger nudge. A rumble.
Stiles groans as he follows Derek into the clearing out front. It’s cloudy out, dark, so he can’t see where he’s going, has to stop to pull his phone back out and use the screen as a flashlight. Derek keeps stalking forward a few feet and stopping, noise pointed into the air, ears perking forward and back, rigidly alert. Then he’ll stalk forward a few more feet and repeat the process, scenting the air, listening for danger as he leads them.
Derek finally stops in a patch of grass facing the forest, nestled by the driveway, still in view of the house’s illuminated windows. Stiles knows he’d rather take Lillian out into the woods, so he accepts the compromise for what it clearly is, dropping down to sit with her cradled in his lap.
Lillian is having none of it. She remained perfectly silent and still when Derek was on alert, but as soon as Stiles’ ass touches the ground, she erupts into excited babbles and tries to squirm away. Stiles restrains her at first, one hand wrapped firmly around her belly, but Derek walks up to them—a towering height now that Stiles is sitting—and makes a gruff whimper, nose pressing persistently into her neck.
“Sha sha!” Lillian cries.
And well, Stiles can take a hint. He doesn’t need the look Derek gives him, all red and angry, or the growl he makes, or particularly the way his mouth spreads back to expose his chainsaw teeth.
Stiles lets her go, relenting, “Fine, geez.”
The first thing she does is start shoving shit into her mouth. Stiles presses a palm over his own and looks away, fighting the instinct to stop her, sensing that Derek will just… let him know if there’s anything he should be worried about here. Maybe, he thinks, it’s time to allow that this—being a werewolf on a full moon—being a werewolf period—is Derek’s area. Stiles can have the quiet moments of rocking her to sleep, the S4’s with her and his dad, the long, rambling conversations they have with one another, even if her side is still little more than ambitious gibberish.
Stiles watches her beam up at the sky with a wild, dirt smeared smile, because his daughter is a werewolf.
And that’s okay.
Derek tries to play with her. He ducks down, chin touching his front feet, pawing at the dirt, and then springs back, huffing in excitement. Lillian crawls after him, swiping at his fur, erupting into squeals and throaty giggles when he ducks out of range just to dart back in, nudging her with his wet nose.
At one point, Lillian stops ‘sha sha’ing’ and belts out something that sounds like, “Eeja boyj.”
Derek goes still and Stiles follows, watches as he points his nose at the tree line, ears perked forward. Derek’s muscles flex and the hair on his back fluffs out, standing on end. He rumbles a deep, gritty sound that can’t be classified as a growl, but does make Lillian clumsily scurry her way back into Stiles’ lap, whining out a, “Ba ba.”
She and Stiles both turn to the woods, eyes and postures similarly cautious.
It’s Boyd who breaks through, and Stiles wasn’t expecting to come out tonight—or really any night in the near future—so he never thought to ask just how tight their control was. And since Boyd and Derek instantly begin running at one another, Stiles goes rigid, readying himself to make a run for it.
All that happens is Derek tackles Boyd and sneers down into his face.
Boyd belts out a laugh. “Damn, man, you’re bigger than I thought you’d be!” Derek licks a long, aggressive stripe over his cheek and Boyd shoves him away. “You look like a pampered show dog, though. Look at you, you’re all… pretty.”
Derek does not preen at this.
Boyd shrugs. “Just saying.”
Isaac breaks out of the tree line next, and then Scott, who’s close enough behind that he’s throwing his arms up in the air and shouting a victorious, “Whooooa!” just as Derek tackles Isaac to the ground and repeats the same sneer-then-lick he’d given to Boyd.
They spend most of the night right there. Isaac parks himself next to Stiles, gives him a wolfed-out fang-grin and takes it upon himself to be Lillian’s official corral’er as Boyd and Scott test Derek’s improved abilities. They have races at first, Stiles cheering Derek on while Isaac roots for the betas. After that, they have a few spirited sparring matches, but when that makes Lillian anxious and fussy, a competition to see who can scale the highest tree.
Derek wins every single one.
When the forest calls, the betas run. Stiles stretches out on the grass and watches the clouds pass, Derek’s fur beneath his palm, the sleeping weight of Lillian cradled between them. He thinks of astrology and the strangeness of birds, of flying away, but always coming back when the wind demands it.
end