
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2570723.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Derek_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski, Minor_or_Background_Relationship(s), Scott
      McCall/Kira_Yukimura, one-sided_Stiles_Stilinski/Malia_Tate
  Character:
      Stiles_Stilinski, Derek_Hale, Sheriff_Stilinski, Scott_McCall_(Teen
      Wolf), Malia_Tate, Chris_Argent, Kira_Yukimura
  Additional Tags:
      post_3x23, Alternate_Universe_-_Canon_Divergence, Road_Trips, Post-
      Nogitsune, Post-Traumatic_Stress_Disorder_-_PTSD, Insomnia, Dreams_and
      Nightmares, Mental_Health_Issues, Slow_Build, Consensual_Underage_Sex,
      There's_a_lot_of_sex_in_this, Anal_Sex, Anal_Fingering, Rimming, very
      mild_D/s_tones, Angst, Angst_with_a_Happy_Ending, Christmas_Fluff, Derek
      is_a_Christmas_Baby, Accidental_Knotting, Pining, Communication_Failure,
      Sheriff_Stilinski's_Name_is_John, mention_of_mates, mating_and_bonding,
      Hurt/Comfort, one_mention_of_possible_non-con, (it's_not_non-con), What-
      If, Stiles_turns_18, Canonical_Character_Death, Mentions_of_Claudia
      Stilinski_-_Freeform, Mentions_of_Allison_Argent_-_Freeform, Grief/
      Mourning
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-11-08 Chapters: 3/3 Words: 59026
****** There Should Be A Place ******
by imtheonekeepingyoualive_(frerardestiel)
Summary
     The following day, he says goodbye to his dad and Scott (who isn't
     really that happy Stiles is leaving to go to Derek's, says he's not
     sure about it but in the end, Stiles doesn't really care about it and
     Scott can just suck it up for a little while) and puts himself behind
     the wheel and breathes for the first time after so long only when he
     sees the You're leaving Beacon Hills sign.
     Freedom never tasted so good.
     **
     Or the one where Derek moved to Montana and Stiles needs to find
     himself again.
Notes
     Title from Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.
     I listened to a lot of Bon Iver, Daughter and Bjork when writing and
     the music helped a lot for the scenery and the imagery put into this
     story. Every chapter's title is from a song, the first one is from
     Bon Iver's Re: Stacks.
     I also know next to nothing about Montana and the actual trip from
     California to Montana, all I know is what the internet told me, so I
     apologize for everything that might be wrong or sounds strange. I
     tried. For the non-con warning, if you want to know more about it,
     read the end notes, I put a spoiler there to explain it!
     Enormous thanks to Carla, who helped me since March when I started
     and pushed me to write and finish this behemoth in the costume of a
     story, cheered me everytime I felt like it was too much and for being
     basically the best friend anyone could have. I love you! A big big
     hug to Megan, my love, for being basically there for me even if she's
     not in the fandom anymore. The power of love. Also a special mention
     to Sylvia and Carolina who helped me a lot. Every remaining error is
     mine.
     You can find me on tumblr usually crying over Tyler Hoechlin's
     everything, you can come cry with me anytime, I have cookies and ice
     cream :)
See the end of the work for more notes
***** all my love was down in a frozen ground *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
 
  “There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen.”
                                       -
                                       *
It's almost 7 am and the sky is starting to lighten, little touches of cobalt
blue and violet, pink and orange, and Stiles sighs, hand on the steering wheel
and his eyes feel dry like sandpaper. Another sleepless night, another night
spent driving around town with no place to go, just him, his Jeep and the road.

He usually waits until his dad is asleep before slipping out of the house,
careful not to wake him up with the sound of the engine, but tonight he felt
especially jittery, like he needed to get out of his bedroom before he started
to cry and scream. That's what happens when his dad is home. When he's alone he
just spends time staring mindlessly at the TV (sometimes he sits on the couch
and starts thinking, and he notices he's in the dark and the TV is off only
when he's on the verge of a panic attack) or trying to read something on the
internet, or on Netflix, but he still ends up in his car, so he can shut his
brain off and try to relieve some of the tension and aching fear he always
feels deep in his bones. He's tired, and pale, and shaky from lack of sleep and
he feels lightheaded and almost high, driving slowly through the familiar
streets.

Stiles is sure his dad knows what he does during the night, he's sure somebody
must have told him his son is driving around at three o'clock and paying for
gas, chips and soda at four. But his dad never says anything, just stares at
him when he thinks Stiles isn't looking, that worried frown on his face and the
same look he used to throw at Stiles when he thought he was going through some
kind of problem - everybody knows what that problem is, he can't sleep without
seeing everything he did when the Nogitsune was inside of him, he can't shut
his eyes without feeling and smelling the blood and the stench of fear coming
off the people he killed, he can't stop thinking Allison is dead and everything
fell apart because of him.

Rationally, he knows it wasn't really him but he can remember everything, every
single thing, when he tortured Scott and Lydia and Derek and the others, when
he toyed with his dad and Mrs. McCall, he sometimes can see Allison dying even
though he never saw when she fell. It's like his mind is playing tricks on him,
and he can't take it anymore - he can't bear to look Scott in the eyes even if
Scott assures him Stiles didn't do anything wrong; he can't smile back at Mrs.
McCall without feeling hollow inside; he can't even touch his dad without
wanting to puke from guilt. It's almost too much.

He stops the car in the parking lot of a diner and puts his head against the
headrest for a moment, eyes burning and red. The only person he can talk to (in
the form of a few texts here and there) is Derek. He and Mr. Argent left after
what happened with Allison and Stiles understands, he thinks, why they needed
to go. He never really caught the moment Derek and Mr. Argent became friends,
allies, whatever it is they are, but it happened and Stiles almost got whiplash
when he saw the two of them together - they talked and touched each other, the
same way two old friends do; they looked comfortable in the presence of the
other and Stiles didn't know they were capable of that kind of thing. Derek
always looked so far away from them all, so detached, almost the same way Mr.
Argent was, but with some differences. Stiles knew he could trust Derek, in
theory, and he did (almost even before he realized he actually did trust
Derek), he trusted Derek with his life and his dad's too, but at the same time
Derek was always so distant and Mr. Argent was just plain scary and Stiles
didn't even want to go there. It was probably the striking blue eyes.

But Derek. Derek changed a lot since the first time Stiles saw him; he became a
new person, one who Stiles liked a lot, who he can talk to when things get too
much, even when it's seven in the morning and he didn't sleep a blink. That's
why he grabs his phone and opens the last text he received.

So just get out for a while. Can't hurt.

Stiles replies droveall around town for what feels like the hundredth time and
ended up at the diner on main street. still feel like shit. and decides to get
a milkshake and a couple of waffles, suddenly hungry. The smell of coffee,
sugar and grease hits him like a punch in the gut and his stomach grumbles
loudly, making him sigh. He really needs to eat like an entire cow, he's so
hungry. Maybe a whale.

He flops down in a booth at the end of the shop and stares out of the giant
window, looking up at the sky, almost all pink and violet now, the sun peeking
out a sliver, writes another text to Derek i think it's this place and sends it
before he tells the waitress his order.

He ends up eating pancakes, eggs, fries and a milkshake. Still feels awful but
at least now his stomach is so full he probably could roll to the car and still
be okay with it.
                                      **
It's two days later, when he's all alone again in his Jeep and driving around
the deserted streets that an idea strikes him.

He turned the radio on because he hates the silence more than ever lately, and
some guy is talking and Stiles isn't even really listening, just likes to hear
his voice. That's when he hears: "Today's topic of discussion is: 'What would
you do if you could just leave'. Where'd you go? A tropical island, or
someplace far, like, I don't know, India? Send a text at..." and Stiles stops
listening because that's what he needs to do. He needs to get out of this toxic
place, with all the tainted memories and hurt and sorrow. He just needs a
change of scenery, breathe new air, see new places. Maybe sleep without waking
up screaming for once.

His hands shake from the sudden euphoria, adrenaline running through his veins
and it's making him jittery for an entirely new reason. He feels... Elated,
almost. Wants to do it now and do it fast. For a moment he thinks he could just
take the highway and go somewhere, but he knows he can't actually go far
without money or a single idea where to go. He would end up lost somewhere in
the desert and die eaten by some awful creature he doesn't even know the
existence of. But he's sure they would find him. That's why he stops at the
diner again, eats sugary food (even though he shouldn't because he feels like
he could jump all over the walls already, but he's a grown up and he can decide
what to eat when he wants to eat it) and toys with his phone for a while.
Enough time to drink another milkshake, before he realizes it's almost 9 am and
his dad is sitting right in front of him, looking at him with a wry smile.

Stiles flails and almost throws the milkshake off the table, but his dad is
used to this and stops the toppling glass with a hand and a sigh. 
"Uh, hi dad."

"Stiles," his dad says, and opens a menu and starts to scan it. Even if Stiles
knows it's just for show because he always chooses the same things. "Donna told
me you come here often, lately."

Stiles clears his throat and grabs is phone again, just to have something to
do. "Yeah."

"Sometimes at 7 am," his dad continues, raising his eyes to look at his son.

"Yeah," he murmurs, trying to shrink into himself. He doesn't want to worry his
father; doesn't want to jump on him with all his problems, God knows his dad
already has enough to deal with; doesn't want to tell him he just can't sleep,
can't keep breathing in this town.

"I know it's been hard, son. I know you're going through some hard times, but I
can't help you if you don't talk to me. I thought we'd established no more
secrets."

The last word makes Stiles flinch. He sighs and lies back against the seat,
suddenly very tired. He can't take one of his dad's interrogatories on zero
hours of sleep, he just can't.

"I can't go on like this anymore," Stiles says, "I just feel like I'm
suffocating. I can't sleep, I can't concentrate, I just go around and my brain
is like fzzzt. I don't know how to explain it better than this, it's just
static. When I'm alone I feel awful, I think and think and think, until it's
like my head is on fire - when you're talking to me, I usually listen for the
first three seconds and then I just sit there in a trance. School is so hard
for me, lately. Do you remember how it was when we didn't know I had ADHD?
Before the meds? Well, it's like that now, only worse, because I can't do
anything," he's on a roll, it's like he can't stop talking, not even to
breathe, and his dad isn't even looking down at the menu anymore, he's just
staring at him with wide eyes and a worried expression, but Stiles doesn't
stop. "I was listening to the radio earlier and the guy said, said, like, why-
no, where would you go if you could go anywhere in this moment and I
understood. I need to leave for a while, go somewhere else. This town is
literally the worst thing that ever happened to us, dad. I can't go on."

"Stiles-"

"No, Dad. I. I think I know where I wanna go," he barrels on, cutting his dad
off and flinching away from his hand. He feels like shit when he sees his dad's
hurt face so he grabs his hand hard and they grip each other and don't let go,
need the reassurance of the simple touch. "You know Derek and Mr. Argent left.
I know you still check on Derek, I know you call him, he told me. And I want to
go visit him. For a few days, just to see if I can breathe again. Sleep. Not
think about every single bad thing I did. I don't really want to skip school
but I don't think it matters now."

"Stiles, wait a second. You're going so fast. Wait. Where did this all come
from?" his dad asks, with his worried-parent voice and Stiles tightens his hold
on his dad's hand, shaking his head. "Did you at least talk to Derek about
this? Did he say yes?"

"Um, no? I wanted to tell you first. Or, like, I just wanted to think about
this more and then call him. Send him a text."

His dad raises an eyebrow. "Send him a text."

Stiles gestures with his free hand and says, "It's not like we call each other
and talk about our deepest secrets and dreams like you two do."

The Sheriff rolls his eyes and Stiles smirks.

"Whatever, he's a good guy, I just want to know he's doing alright."

"Yeah, I know dad," Stiles softens his tone, because he knows his dad never
really thought Derek was the bad guy – well, no, he never really trusted Derek
100% when he went around looking like a criminal and turning teenagers into
wolves, but now that they went through all the shit with the Nogitsune
together, well, you can say the Sheriff took a liking to Derek. It's almost
like his dad needs to parent Derek as much as he can. Stiles knows how much
Derek pretends not to care a single blip about it, but in reality he likes
being cared for.
The Sheriff pats Stiles' hand and resumes his scanning of the menu.
“If you want to go, I'm not stopping you. You have to ask Derek first, you
can't show up at his house out of the blue without telling him first but if he
says yes, then okay. You can go.”
Stiles smiles and nods. “I'll text him later, I promise. 
                                      **
That's how he finds himself packing all his clothes a few days later, sweaters
and jeans and warm things because Derek assured him it was really cold in
Montana and knowing Stiles and his fragile self, he surely would end up
freezing in a couple of shirts. Derek thinks he's funny. His dad buys him more
warm clothes and Stiles knows Derek and him spent the previous evening talking
about Stiles and how his idea of wearing a coat is really just putting on long
sleeved shirts and nothing else. Maybe sweaters.
Stiles sent Derek a message as soon as his dad left him in the diner's parking
lot that morning after the talk, and Derek replied that if the Sheriff was okay
with it, then he was okay with having Stiles around for a few days, no problem.
Stiles never told anyone he grinned at his phone like a loon for too long when
he read the text. He drove home, checked the weather for the following days in
Montana (texted Derek again to know if it was really that cold over there and
Derek sent back only a YES, typical) and put Derek's address on his phone. His
dad wasn't so keen on letting him drive to Montana all by himself, he wanted to
book him a flight but Stiles said the drive surely would've helped him clear
his head and he needed it. They discussed it for a while and in the end his dad
relented.
The following day, he says goodbye to his dad and Scott (who isn't really that
happy Stiles is leaving to go to Derek's, says he's not sure about it but in
the end, Stiles doesn't really care about it and Scott can just suck it up for
a little while) and puts himself behind the wheel and breathes for the first
time after so long only when he sees the You're leaving Beacon Hillssign.
Freedom never tasted so good.
                                      **
The first few hours are okay, everything is new and exciting and Stiles is so
happy to have left that he drives for five hours straight without blinking.
He's not even tired, but his eyes are burning and he's hungry, so he stops at a
McDonald's and eats something. It's a warm day, and Nevada isn't so bad,
really. He buys an ice cream and goes out, sits on the passenger seat of his
Jeep with the door open and eats it slowly, savoring it like a treasure. He
already feels different, better, like he could almost sleep for a while and he
wouldn't wake up drenched in fear and sweat. He won't, because he wants to
reach Montana as soon as he can but it's good to think he could.
He leaves Nevada and enters Idaho, drives for a while with gritty eyes and
jittery hands, not even focusing on the scenery, just looking for a place to
sleep and eat something, shower and change out of his clothes that smell like
sweat and tiredness. He finds a motel that doesn't look like a crime scene – at
least, not as much – and books a room for the night, tells the old woman behind
the desk he's leaving tomorrow morning as soon as he wakes up. Hauls all his
luggage over the stairs to his room, because he doesn't trust anybody not to
steal anything and hopes nobody gets the stupid idea of trying to touch his
baby. She's old but still pretty.
When he's finally behind the closed door of the rented room, he sighs and flops
down on the bed, immensely tired. His brain is completely empty, like there's a
faint buzzing and nothing else inside, his ears feel like there's cotton in
them, the noise wiped out making him feel like he's underwater. He hates being
so tired but not being able to sleep. He's also very hungry but just the
thought of getting up again and find a vending machine is making him groan and
shudder. He probably could just go to sleep for a while and find out if he's
gonna wake up again in a couple of hours, maybe get up then and find something
to eat. Shower away the gritty feeling of driving for a day straight. He toes
his shoes off and the muted thump on the carpeted floor is the only sound in
the empty room. He shuffles on the bed until his head is on the pillow and just
closes his eyes.
He's out like a light.
                                      ** 
This time, he dreams about his mom. It's not a nightmare, but he still feels
like he can't wake up soon enough. Usually when he dreams of his mom, it's ugly
and terrifying 
She's sitting beside him and they're on a beach somewhere, the only sound is
the crashing of the waves against the rocks and the quiet calmness of the ones
reaching the shore just to then go back, leaving behind only white foam and wet
sand. The sky is a pale gray and there's a chilly wind that grazes his naked
arms, doesn't really bother him that much in the alternate reality of the
dream. His mom is pretty, long dark hair and big brown eyes shining at him,
that same smile Stiles always sees in the pictures hanging over the walls at
home. She's his mom and Stiles misses her every day like it's the first day;
who says time heals wounds is a liar.
“Hi baby,” she says, looking at him.
“Mom,” Stiles mutters, looks at her for a moment then back at the dark sea.
“Hey baby, it's been a while,” her voice is soft and Stiles doesn't remember it
very well, too much time and sorrow, but he thinks it sounded like this. Suits
her. “How are you?”
Stiles feels his eyes start to sting and wet and he shrugs, doesn't know what
to say to her. “Could be better.”
She frowns. “Why? What's the matter?”
Stiles remembers her and how she was before the illness, how she was very
different when he was tiny and she held him in her arms, kissed him a lot just
because she wanted to, big smacks on his cheeks that made him erupt in laughter
– how she changed, slowly but relentlessly, little things that at first didn't
really stand out to them, but made her become a new person soon enough.
“I miss you so much, mom,” he tells her, voice raspy.
She pouts and tries to reach him, but she can't. Her hand stops too far away
from him and he looks at it for a long while, her petite fingers with cute
nails. She always had such nice hands.
“I miss you, too. I miss your dad. I miss us,” she whispers, and he doesn't
want to see her cry, so he wipes away his own tears and smiles a little. Mom
looks at him and does the same. “Always my brave little baby.”
“Yeah,” Stiles replies, lowering his gaze. “Not so brave lately.”
“I don't think so.”
Stiles looks at the seagulls making pirouettes in the air, their bright
silhouettes stark against the clouded sky and sighs, doesn't really want to say
to her what happened, doesn't want to worry her, even if he knows this is only
a dream, but maybe she's really talking to him and he doesn't want to risk it.
He wants his mom happy, happy with him and his dad and their lives. 
“It's been hard lately,” he responds. 
She hums and Stiles sees her nod.
“You look a little pale. Almost like me. So much like me.” 
“I do, I'm exactly like you. Diagnosed me with the same sickness,” he tells her
and she gasps. “Always was the same as you, looked like you, dad used to tell
me that. That I was your copy and he was happy,” he can't look at her anymore,
but he goes on. “Found out I don't really am sick but I wasn't surprised. It
could happen in the future, maybe when I'm the same age as you,” he doesn't
really say that sometimes he sees her when she was sick and out of her mind in
himself, especially now after what happened with the Nogitsune – they look so
alike.
“Stiles, don't even say it. You're not me, you're not gonna end up like me.
You're you, okay? You look so much like your dad, I just want to see you two
together again, see you happy.”
“I know, mom. We are. It's difficult, but we go on. We're Stilinskis, aren't
we?” he smiles at her through the curtain of tears and she smiles back, so
pretty and so nice.
“Where are you going?” she asks him and Stiles raises an eyebrow, surprised.
“How'd you know?”
She gestures over his shoulders and he turns to look, finds the Jeep parked at
the top of the little hill behind them, waiting for him.
“Oh.”
“Going somewhere, eh?”
“Yeah, I'm.” he doesn't know what to say, really, so he just talks. “Gonna
visit a friend. I needed to, you know, just leave for a while. I was feeling
trapped, it happens.”
“That's true. I hope you're feeling better now,” she burrows one hand in the
sand and then lets it slowly fall down from her palm, smiles at him when
there's no left, only a few grains stuck to her skin.
“I don't know yet. I think I will feel better when I get there. Well, I do feel
better than when I was home, but now I just want to sleep and not dream for
like, three months.”
She laughs and he stops breathing.
“I'm glad you dreamed of me. Wanted to talk to you, see you all grown up.
You're so handsome, my little baby,” she's looking at him all happy and with
kind eyes, an image he still keeps close to his heart. Stiles longs for her,
for this side of her he will always miss, the side of her he always thinks
about when he thinks of her, the one untainted by the illness. “You're so tall
and I like your hair, suits you. Couldn't be anything else than absolutely
gorgeous, though. I am your mother, after all,” and then she starts laughing
again and he can't help but join her.
They stay in silence for a while after that, just looking at the waves and the
seagulls and almost relaxing. It's warmer than he thinks it should be, the wind
still moving his mom's hair on her shoulders, but it's peaceful here, it makes
him think of all the days they spent at the beach in the summer, how his mom
used to love the water and helped him stay afloat when he wanted to learn how
to swim. He likes it here but he feels like he has to go soon, and he's sad to
leave.
“You have to wake up now, love. I'm so happy we talked. I'm so happy I saw you
and how you changed, you're so big now and I'm proud of you. Remember this,
okay? I'm proud of you and your dad, and I miss you, but it's gonna be fine.
You're the best thing that ever happened to me. I love you.”
He's openly crying now, and he nods at her, to let her know he gets it, but
she's already vanishing, like a dream, but she's still smiling, and he just let
the tears fall down on his cheeks.
“I love you, mom,” Stiles whispers and she's gone, leaving him alone again; and
it hurts, it hurts so much, because she was there but she wasn't really and he
hates that he always has to go through this again every time. He dreams of her
and he feels awful because he remembers every single detail so precisely, and
little by little, he loses them again.
When he wakes up, he's not screaming, he's not sweating, but he's crying and
his chest aches. He's not sure this isn't worse than when he dreams about
killing people.
It's five am and he decides he's gonna take a shower, grab his things and
resume his journey. Probably eat something on the road. He wants to reach Derek
today. He can't take this loneliness anymore. He feels cold and the room looks
bigger than he remembered and not even the shower can warm him up.
                                      **
The last part of the trip goes smoothly, even if it feels like it's taking even
longer than what he thought to get there. It's getting colder and colder the
closer he gets to Montana; he understands why Derek told him to pack every
single warm item of clothing he possessed – it's probably going to snow and the
last time Stiles saw the snow he was little and his mom was still alive. He
turns the heating up in the car and tries to sink deeper into the one sweater
he's wearing, glancing at his phone to see where he is, if Derek is still far
or if he's getting closer. He finds out there's only about an hour of driving
left and he's glad, because he's starting to get really tired and he needs to
walk to get the feeling back in his legs and butt. It's the longest he drove,
ever, and it's taking its toll on him, not used to being inside the car this
long.
The scenery is spectacular and, even if the sky is a pale gray, all the trees
and mountains around him are amazing, he can see why Derek feels better here –
probably the wolf part in him likes to have all this, the possibility of being
outside in the nature and not being trapped inside a city, no one wants to kill
him for being a werewolf and, not for the first time, Stiles wonders how Derek
changed. He's gonna find out soon, and he can't wait.
From the texts he got, Stiles can see that Derek is happier, almost like he
finally found himself again, he's not snappy words and rough edges now, he's
more mellow almost, calmer. Stiles is sure he himself also changed, a lot, he
knows it, he just doesn't want to acknowledge it, scared of what he'd find if
he did.
It's dark when his phone beeps with a message from Derek asking him where he is
and if he needs help. Probably, Stiles thinks, but he doesn't want any, wants
to find the house by himself, he has the address and everything, his GPS works
perfectly, so he stops for a moment at a red light and sends back he's in town
and he can do it alone, thank you very much. He bites his lips while he waits
for the light to change, his phone in his lap, and he feels almost bad for
saying no to Derek, the other's being so nice to him with all this trip thing
that he should've said yes, but he's tired of people treating him like he's
useless. He can drive to Montana all alone, he can find Derek's house alone.
He's not stupid.
That's why, when the voice in his phone tells him that he needs to turn right
again and then he's reached destination, a while later, he breathes deep and
says “finally,” with a groan. He's beat, and it's not even seven in the evening
but he just wants to sleep in a bed.
Derek lives in a cabin-like house, it looks like a little cottage all wood and
stones, and it's really pretty from what Stiles can see in the dark. There's a
light on inside and on the porch, Derek's leaning against the half-closed door
behind him with a jacket on and his arms crossed. He's looking at him, waiting
for Stiles to park, and Stiles feels his heart pick up speed, only for a
moment, before it settles again on its own normal beating.
It's just that he hasn't seen Derek in a long time, and they didn't actually
say goodbye, it was all messed up and they were all full of problems, everyone
focused on keeping all the pieces together. That's why Derek left with Chris,
he too needed to think about himself for once. And now Stiles is here.
Before Stiles can even try and have a minor panic attack at the prospect of
having invaded Derek's tranquility, the driver's door of his Jeep is being
yanked open and Stiles squeaks, because Derek is right there, looking at him
with his usual unimpressed face. And he's handing over his jacket to Stiles.
“Put this on, before you catch pneumonia. I told you it was really cold here,
why didn't you put on a coat or something.” Derek says, without even saying hi
first, so rude, and Stiles feels his shoulders relax a little, because Derek is
so much Derek that he can't help but smile a little. He grabs the jacket and
puts it on, sighing because it's still warm from Derek's body, and this is a
thought he's not gonna follow.
“I brought warm clothes!” Stiles exclaims, bending over the seat to grab his
phone and charger and the cup of warm coffee he bought to stay alert on the
road. It's cold now, though. He pouts for a moment then thinks it's probably
better he didn't finish it because he already drank a few huge cups, today, and
too much coffee always makes him feel jittery, all over the place, when coupled
with his meds. Derek is still watching him from where he's looming from two
inches away and Stiles rolls his eyes. “I did! And there's a lot of bags you
need to help me carry inside. All filled with warm clothes!”
Derek sighs and walks to the back of the car without waiting for Stiles to open
it. He takes three bags alone, the biggest ones, and goes inside. Stiles
watches him with raised eyebrows because the bags were really heavy but
werewolf powers come in handy sometimes. Even if he's wearing Derek's jacket,
it's still so very cold so he hurries to grab his last bag and close his Jeep
and all but runs inside.
It's so warm inside that Stiles almost falls back on his ass, his muscles
protesting from all the hours spent sitting down confined in a small space. He
takes a moment to look over Derek's house, leaving the bag near the door. It's
not too big, like Derek's loft felt, not lived in and cold; this house feels
warm and familiar, all wooden walls and big windows. Even the lights are
different, almost with an orange-y hue to them; there's a kitchen and a table
on the left, a big living room with a comfortable looking sofa and a big
fireplace on the other side, and stairs that lead to an open space that's
filled with a big bed and a window.
There isn't a lot of furniture, but Derek never was one for decorating and it
suits him. It's not too much, but it's pretty. Home-y. He smiles and shrugs out
of the jacket, intending to go and look around, but he stops when he sees Derek
watching him. Stiles feels his smile drop and his eyes widen, but he didn't
see, reallysee Derek outside, it was dark and he just. Didn't. But now, inside,
with all the lights on and only a few feet separating them, Stiles can see him.
Look at him. Derek is still the same, even if he's not wearing tight henleys or
black jeans; he's wearing a comfortable looking shirt and washed out jeans,
thick boots and , Jesus, his beard is even worse than the last time Stiles saw
him. He's tragically handsome as usual, but now he looks like a lumberjack, the
ones with muscles and the beards and he's also wearing a fucking plaid shirt
that looks like one of Stiles', green and blue. This is so bad. Only Derek
could move to Montana and still dress like an Abercrombie model.
And Stiles thought the leather jacket and v-necks were awful. He clearly still
hadn't seen Derek like this.
He almost wants to roll his eyes, but he doesn't. Derek looks good, that's the
problem. He looks really really good, and well rested and. Happy. Derek doesn't
have that same guilty, haunted expression he always wore back home. He's
looser, and probably doesn't shave a lot looking at his beard. His eyes are
pale and big, no traces of bruises under, no traces of the same old frown that
was the sole expression Derek used to wear. Even his eyebrows look calmer.
“It's. Pretty here,” Stiles mumbles, Derek's jacket still hanging from his
arms.
Derek nods. “Thanks. I like it.”
Stiles looks down at his shoes and sighs, “ I. I wanted to thank you for
letting me stay here for a few days. I just.”
“No problem, you look like shit,” Derek says and Stiles pretends to be
affronted, snorts and looks back up at him. “Even if it looks like you're
staying three months, not a few days.”
When Stiles frowns in confusion, Derek nods at the bags he left near the couch.

“Have you tried to fold a thick coat and put it in a bag? You need at least a
bag for every item of clothing you possess. At least. Maybe two if it's a
really big coat. A couple of sweaters and you filled another bag.”
Derek shrugs and motions at Stiles to finally take his jacket - Derek's jacket
- off, and come in for real. “You hungry?”
“Eh,” Stiles says, hanging the jacket near the door. “I could eat. I didn't
really have the time to eat anything since I left yesterday.”
Derek is moving to the kitchen and Stiles follows him, but stays back a little,
not wanting to get in the way. He doesn't really know what to do. He watches
Derek open the fridge and peer inside, grab something and then close the door.
He looks while Derek grabs a pan and starts cooking, comfortable in his home
and it feels strangely domestic. Like Stiles is invading something private.
Derek glances at him from over his shoulder and raises an eyebrow. “Set the
table. Plates are near the sink, cutlery in the first drawer,” he says,
pointing while talking.
Stiles does as told and tries not to think that this will be the first time he
eats alone with Derek, the first time he spends time alone with Derek that
doesn't involve immediate danger and a swimming pool with a deadly Kanima a few
feet away or one of them dying. This is so strange. He didn't really think
about this before he left, he just needed to forget about Beacon Hills for a
while, but now that he's here. It's weird. Derek and him never were close
friends, they were, like, allies. But then, unexpectedly, Stiles found himself
looking for Erica and Boyd with Derek without telling Scott and at the moment,
he didn't really think about it because, well, Stiles didn't even really like
Derek before. He thought Derek was rude and offensive and creepy. He still
thinks Derek is rude and offensive sometimes, but probably not as creepy as he
was. He hopes he won't be finding Derek looming over him while he watches him
sleep, like in Twilight. He doesn't seem the type, but, you know.
“Pass me a plate,” Stiles hears Derek say and he jolts out of his reverie,
grabs a plate from the table and hands it to the other. He sees that Derek
cooked omelets with ham and cheese. “Go sit down.”
Stiles goes and it's not until Derek is sitting right in front of him, already
eating, that he asks “what is with all the orders?”
Derek looks at him and chews for a while. Stiles doesn't think that the way
Derek eats is endearing, all closed mouth and calmness. Stiles looks like he's
been starving for weeks when he eats, he usually takes big bites and ends up
with a lap full of food.
“You're not moving if I don't tell you first. You can walk around, you never
had a problem before. You just barged into my house every time you wanted. It's
not different now.”
Stiles gapes at him and then frowns. “This is the longest conversation we had
since last summer, I need a moment,” Derek doesn't say anything, just goes on
eating and Stiles would sigh if he wasn't so tired. “And. I just don't want to
get in the way? I feel like I still barged into your house even if I asked
first. I don't wanna intrude,” he mumbles the last part and lowers his eyes,
toys with his food, cuts it into tiny parts and doesn't eat it. He can feel
Derek's eyes on him, but doesn't want to look up.
“If you get in the way, I'll tell you.”
“Yeah,” Stiles nods and shrugs. “I know, just,” lets his fork clank against the
plate and takes a sip of water to buy some time. “I need to sleep, that's all.
I think I'll be better here. It's peaceful.”
“Yeah.”
“Just,” Stiles bites his lip and finally looks up at Derek, who's looking back
at him with a weird expression. “If I scream, or get up during the night. Don't
mind me, okay? Try to go back to sleep, if you can. I'll just wake up when it's
over.”
Derek frowns and then nods.
“Time to invest in some earplugs,” Stiles tries to joke, but Derek doesn't
smile so he just sighs and turns back to his untouched food.
It's going really well.
                                      **
Stiles finds out that the couch turns into a bed – after Derek raised an
eyebrow at Stiles' pillow, like he's the only person in the world who can sleep
only if he has his own pillow, like, c'mon - and he's so glad he's gonna sleep
near the fireplace he laughs and launches himself on the mattress, almost
getting Derek in the face with a foot. And making the bed creak dangerously.
“Ohh!” Stiles exclaims, still laughing, but this time at Derek, “you're out of
shape if I almost kicked you in the face.”
Derek grabs his ankle and looks at him so unimpressed that Stiles can't
breathe. “Go to sleep, Stiles.”
“Yes, dad,” Stiles responds, “I need to go to the bathroom first, though.”
Derek lets him go and points at a door to their right. “I'm going to bed, too.
Tomorrow I need to go into town and it's better if you come, too. I need to
stock up on food and you can choose what you want before the snow gets here.”
Stiles opens his mouth to say something, then he thinks better of it and just
nods. He liked the snow, from what he remembers. He wants to see it. Maybe he
can go out and play with it. If only Scott was here. He needs to call his dad
and tell him he's at Derek's. He hopes his dad didn't eat any hamburgers and
fries.
When he comes back from the bathroom, Derek is nowhere to be seen. The lights
are out and the only source of light is the fire. It's warm and pretty to look
at, he probably could tend to it even if he never learned how. It can't be that
hard. He promises himself he's going to ask Derek to show him how to make a
fire.

He shoots his dad a message saying that he's okay and found Derek's house with
no problem whatsoever and he's gonna call him as soon as he wakes up but now
he's beat, just not to make his old man worry too much.
When he closes his eyes, the covers heavy and cold but with the warmth of the
fire and the house all around him, he can hear Derek and rustling covers
somewhere above him and he hopes he can sleep for the first time in months.
                                      ** 
He's alone in the dark and it's cold, so cold. He doesn't know where he is, at
first. He just feels the chill in his bones and he wants to get away, go home 
He tries to get up, but he cries out when he feels a sharp pain in his right
ankle. He's trapped and he can't get up.
“No!” he says, warm tears running down his cheeks. He touches his ankle with
shaky fingers and feels blood everywhere, slippery and cold. He needs to
understand what is trapping him, try to get away as fast as he can, but it's so
dark and he can't see a thing. He can only figure out by touch. There's a wall
on his left, it's scratchy and Stiles can't really find out how big it is
because he can move only a few feet in each direction before he gets tugged
back, pain sharp and bile rising in his throat.
“Help!” he calls, voice rough and dry. “Help!”
“Nobody can hear you, Stiles,” a voice singsongs behind him.
Stiles startles so bad he inadvertently moves his wounded leg and the pain is
so bad he can't even think for a few seconds.
“Who's there?”
“You know us, Stiles,” the voice sounds closer, and Stiles knows it, he does.
He heard it so many times, for so long, that he doesn't know how he forgot it.
“No,” he whimpers, tries to get away from the monster that used him for months
and made him kill and torture and let him watch, spectator in his own body.
“No...”
“You're all alone, Stiles. There's no one else here but us.”
Stiles slips on his own blood, almost brains himself against the wall in his
haste to not let himself be touched , he doesn't even want to hear what it has
to say.
“Leave me alone, what do you want from me?”
“We want you to see. To understand,” the Nogitsune says, and then suddenly
there's a blinding light all around them, so bright Stiles can't keep his eyes
open. He covers his face with a hand and then tries to look around, find out
where he is, to recognize the place and then sees red everywhere. On the floor,
hand marks all over the walls, like Stiles messed everything up when he touched
his leg and then put his hand on the wall. But he can't understand how he
dirtied the whole room, he couldn't – still can't – move if not for a few feet,
he certainly couldn't move across the room.
“What?” he says, because it doesn't make sense. He can't see anything else and
he needs to understand. To see. There's just so much blood.
“You need to understand you're alone. You and us, Stiles. You killed them all,”
the Nogitsune sounds so fucking happy to say it, and Stiles shakes his head,
wants to hide his face in his hands, doesn't want to see anymore. “You killed
them all, one,” it singsongs, “by. One.”
And then sees all his friends, his father, Mrs. McCall, Derek dead in a pool of
blood, their eyes empty.
Stiles screams.
                                      **
He wakes up screaming, so much his throat is on fire, but he can't stop seeing
everybody he loves dead. He doesn't understand which one is reality and which
one is the nightmare, it feels so real every time he dreams. The covers are
smothering him so he sits up and tries to throw them down and away.
He realizes he's still screaming when Derek runs down the stairs with wide eyes
and open palms.
“Jesus, Stiles,” Derek says, in a soft voice.
Stiles looks at him, sees him dressed only in a white shirt and loose
sweatpants, and then the images of Derek dead in a pool of his own blood, like
he was in the dream, pale eyes empty and a sword right through the heart, fill
his head. Fuck, he feels sick even if he knowsDerek is alive, like his dad is,
Scott and Mrs. McCall, too, but he can't stop thinking about the things the
Nogitsune said, everything he did. He didn't kill Derek, but he wanted to.
“I'm. Sorry,” he mumbles, voice thick with tears. His hands are shaking and he
can still see the blood, red matting his fingers and palms. “Didn't want to
wake you up.”
“Can't sleep with you screaming like that,” Derek replies. “You okay?”
No, Stiles thinks. I'm not okay. I'm probably crazy. But he says, “yeah,”
because he doesn't know what to say. Doesn't want to put his own problems on
Derek's shoulders now that they're in the same room. It was easier to talk
about it when they weren't even in the same State.
He knows he won't be able to go back to sleep now, so he sighs, scratching at
his scalp with blunt nails until he feels like he's going to draw blood. His
head hurts, his eyes hurt, both from the lack of sleep and from the tears. He
maybe should buy sleeping pills or something, but he doesn't really like the
idea of drugging himself to sleep. He's afraid that's not gonna stop the
nightmares and he won't be able to wake up.
“You want some warm milk?”
He snaps his head up to look at Derek, who's rummaging in the kitchen, his back
to Stiles.
“I...”
Derek gets the milk from the fridge and pours it into a small pot, then turns
and grabs two mugs from the cupboard, still not looking at Stiles.
“My mom used to make this when me and my sisters had nightmares. She put honey
in it, because she said we needed something warm and sweet so we could go back
to sleep.”
Stiles doesn't know what to say to that, Derek never talks about his family if
it's not prompted or because he needs to share something that can help
everybody when they're in danger. This is Derek actually opening up
voluntarily. This is a first.
“Thanks...” Stiles whispers, then gets up when Derek pours the milk into the
mugs.
“Put some honey in it. It's good.” Derek says, handing a spoon to him and then
taking a jar from the shelf behind them. Stiles takes the spoon and then
watches Derek put an enormous quantity of honey in his milk, snorts when Derek
licks the remnants off his own spoon, and then does the same.
They drink in silence, leaning against the kitchen counter. Stiles knows he's
not gonna go back to sleep, but it feels good drinking something warm, staying
in silence, Derek's presence beside him.
 
                                      **
The milk worked, apparently. He went back to sleep after a long while, but he
did it.
When he wakes up, the sun is shining outside and Derek is coming in through the
door that leads to the back, the sound of the door locking what woke Stiles up
in the first place, and he feels the cold breeze wash over him. He shivers a
little and burrows completely under the covers, throws them up over his own
head and moans.
“What time is it?” he grumbles, mouth smashed against the pillow.
Derek snorts and says, “Eight am, I was going to wake you up because we need to
get into town before it's too late if we want to find something to buy.”
Stiles groans out loud, peeks from under the blanket fort to glare at Derek.
“You go grocery shopping at this ungodly hour?”
Derek looks at him like he's an idiot and then shakes his head, rolls his eyes
just to convey how much Stiles annoys him.
“I told you the snow is coming, everybody is going to stock up on food and
other goods, so if we want to still find something, we should leave now. Get
up.”
Stiles doesn't want to do as told, but he does. He gets up, mumbling about, and
glares at Derek all the while. It's too cold to actually stand in the middle of
the living room in only his pajama, so he gathers some warm clothes and goes to
the bathroom, leaving Derek and his annoying face alone.
                                      **
When they leave, though, Stiles can't stop staring at the scenery. It's too
pretty.
There are mountains he can spot from where he is, the tops white with snow,
lots and lots of trees and the air is chilly and dry, smells really good, pure.
It's completely different from what he used to see in California, where the
woods are humid and brown – here everything is multicolored, green and blue and
gray and he feels his chest expand a little more, like he can breathe a little
easier.
He bundled up in a warm jacket and he's not really freezing, he's just unused
to such weather, so he can't wait to finally get inside Derek's car where
there's heating and a closed space. What he doesn't expect is a dark blue truck
waiting for them, when he steps outside. He really didn't.
He needs to stop for a moment and assess what he's seeing, because holy shit,
Derek drives a dark blue truck. He really is a lumberjack.
“At least it's not a soccer mom car,” he says, to which Derek replies “just get
inside, Stiles,” with no heat whatsoever behind it. He smirks and follows
Derek, sighs when he closes the door behind him and the cold isn't cutting his
cheeks anymore. He puts his hands in the pockets of his coat and leans back
against the seat and just watches Derek turn the engine on, long fingers closed
around the key and smiles to himself. Turns to the window so he can look
outside.
“I parked your Jeep in the garage,” Derek says after a while, Stiles engrossed
in watching what's going on outside, the little shops littering the streets and
the multitude of people wandering about, everybody with windswept hair and pink
cheeks.
Stiles looks back at him and says, “I figured when I didn't see her outside
this morning. Thanks.”
Derek nods and Stiles goes back to people-watching. It's silent in the truck,
but Stiles doesn't feel the need to put on some music, turn the radio on just
to hear inane chatter that he won't even listen to. Derek's presence is strong
beside him, can almost feel his warmth from where he's sitting a couple of feet
from him and the sounds of the town around them are enough for now. There are
faint noises reaching them, like laughter and someone shouting a greeting at
someone else and all of that, added to the sunlight washing over the streets
and mountains, make him feel lighter than he felt in a long time. There are a
lot of pretty colorful Christmas decorations swinging from garlands, smiley
Santas, snowmen, reindeer with silly horns, golden bells, people wearing plaid
and hats, tiny shops with warm lights inside and Stiles decides he really likes
this place.
Derek takes a left turn, then, and parks in front of a cute little supermarket.
He motions Stiles to follow him inside and then leaves. He didn't even lock the
truck or anything, this is crazy. Is Derek really sure nobody is gonna steal
it? Who is this Derek? This is literally the strangest thing that happened
since Stiles arrived, but he's not gonna comment on it. Mostly because he's
alone in the middle of the sidewalk and he should probably get inside. It's
still too chilly for him.
Stiles finds Derek in the fresh produce aisle, putting a couple sacks of
potatoes on a cart and exchanging pleasantries with an elderly couple, both
with braided jet black hair streaked in white, faces lined with crinkles and
still soft looking, like the thing is perfectly normal and Stiles isn't looking
around with wide eyes to see if he's in an alternate universe. Could be.
Because Derek is smiling. And nodding at something the old man said and then
he's helping them putting heavy things in their cart and Stiles just needs a
moment. To. He doesn't know. Sit down and think.
Derek turns around and looks right back at him, raises an eyebrow and then
frowns. “Stiles? What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” he says, faintly. He slowly makes his way towards Derek's clone and
furtively glances at the two old people who are still looking at both of them,
smiles on their faces and this is weird? Yes, this is really weird. “I was
just. Resting. For a moment.”
Derek is looking at him like he knows Stiles is bullshitting him, but doesn't
say anything, just points to the lettuce in front of them and says, “you want
something?”
Stiles gapes at him for a long moment, then gapes at the two old people, then
at Derek, then at the lettuce. “I. No?”
“Okay, put anything you want in the cart,” Derek says, then nods at the two
still looking at them with condescending faces and pushes the cart around like
he doesn't have a single care in the world and he's only here to buy things.
Which. Is precisely what they're here for, so Stiles should probably follow
him.
“Dude,” he breathes, when he reaches Derek, who is now in another aisle. “This
is so weird.”
“It's just grocery shopping, Stiles.”
“Don't use that tone with me, the fact that you go grocery shopping, alone,
makes me want to reevaluate my whole life.”
Derek rolls his eyes at him so hard he's probably gonna sprain something in,
like, a second, then throws five stacks of meat in the cart. Stiles goggles at
them but then he's kinda used to it with Scott, who eats like he's starving
every time. “Just put something in the cart and shut up.”
“Also, you help old people. This is like. New for you. Relatively, I think. I'm
not sure,” Stiles goes on, finds something he really likes and puts it in the
cart, looks up at Derek with raised eyebrows like you happy now?
Derek doesn't reply, just walks away and leaves Stiles to hurry up and follow
him.
“No, like, I'm really glad you, I don't know, feel better here?” Stiles says to
him when he catches up to Derek, finds him stocking up on things like honey and
sugar. “You look better.”
Derek looks at him for a split second, then turns back to the box of cereal
Stiles put in the cart earlier. Stiles runs a hand through his hair and sighs,
grabs a jar of raspberries jam and decides to put it with the rest of their
groceries, just to do something.
“Derek, dear!”
Stiles whips his head around when he hears someone call for Derek and finds a
little old lady with white hair and wearing a really heavy green cardigan,
coming over to them. She's smiling kindly first at Derek and then at Stiles and
it still feels weird that seemingly anyone is smiling here. It's probably the
Christmas spirit.
“Hi Mrs. Jacobs,” Derek replies, bends down to let the cute lady kiss him on
the cheek. Stiles leans heavily on the cart and watches, hypnotized. “How are
you today?”
“I'm fine, dear, thank you. If you stop by my house later, I made you those
cookies you like so much.”
Stiles can't help but snort a little thinking about Derek and cookies in the
same sentence. It's a little jarring and maybe endearing. Derek tightens his
lips for a millisecond when he hears Stiles but then smiles down at Mrs. Jacobs
and nods.
“Sure, thank you. Do you need a hand with something? Should I bring the toolbox
with me?”
The lady swats her hand and shakes her head, then caresses Derek cheek and
smiles. “No, dear, thank you. Everything is fine at home, you did a very good
job, the faucet doesn't leak anymore.”
Derek nods once and steps aside, puts a hand on the middle of Stiles' back and
pushes him forward delicately. Stiles stumbles and crashes against one of the
shelves, surprised by the contact. The lady laughs and Derek sighs. It feels
like being back in school, but Stiles is used to it.
“Who's this charming boy, Derek?”
“Charming?” Derek says, looking at Stiles like he's that kid parents dread and
they never want to take anywhere. “This is Stiles, he's staying with me for a
few days. He's a friend from back home.”
Stiles coughs and then wipes his right hand on his jeans, so he can shake the
one the lady is extending to him. “Uh, hi, I'm Stiles. Nice to meet you.”
“Charming,” Derek murmurs and Stiles glares at him. He thinks he's funny.
“What a peculiar name,” the lady says and Stiles nods. The lady's hand is dry
and really warm, and she smells like cookies and she's really tiny. Stiles
likes her, she looks like someone's grandmother. So he smiles at her, for real,
and lets her pat his face the same way she did with Derek. “You look like you
could put some meat on your bones, though, honey.”
Stiles grimaces and then half shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”
“I'll make sure to give Derek some more cookies just for you, okay, dear?” Mrs.
Jacobs says in a conspiratorial tone, leaning more into Stiles' space. Stiles
smiles and nods again.
“Okay, thank you.”
“I really have to go now, Gus doesn't like to be alone for long, but it was
really good meeting you, dear,” Mrs. Jacob says, letting go of Stiles' hand.
She takes a couple of steps back and waves. Derek waves back a little and
Stiles laughs. “Bye.”
“Bye!” Stiles says.
Derek puts his hand in the exact same spot in the middle of Stiles' back and
pushes him a little, startling him. “Come on, we need to finish here,” he says
in a soft voice and Stiles feels his heart stop and then re-start again.
“You'll need some boots, if you want to go outside. I'll buy you a pair, come.”
Stiles frowns a little, trying to understand if Derek really just said “I'll
buy you a pair of boots” and, when he looks up from where he was staring at a
long line of canned peas and beans and sees that Derek is already vanished, he
grumbles to himself and hurries up.
                                      **
Mrs. Jacobs cookies are really good and Stiles just found out Derek drinks tea.
This is another piece of information he started listing in his head, things he
never knew about Derek Hale: a list. Derek drinks warm milk with honey and tea
instead of coffee. He helps old people with their grocery shopping and also
tiny cute ladies give him home baked cookies. He looks more relaxed. He uses
gel in his hair only when they have to go out – when he's home his hair is all
floppy and kinda long and it touches his eyelashes every time Derek looks up at
Stiles suddenly. Not that Stiles is been looking at his eyelashes or his beard
or the way blue and green shirts bring out the colors in his eyes. No - and
some really good body wash that smells great, like pine needles and, like,
forests.
“You don't like coffee?” Stiles asks, grabbing another cookie from the little
tin box on the coffee table. He's leaving crumbs everywhere but Derek hasn't
complained once, so Stiles is just gonna eat without a care.
Derek shrugs and keeps drinking his tea. Which is still something that doesn't
make sense, but whatever, right? Derek keeps throwing Stiles off balance with
all those little things, keeps rearranging the idea Stiles had of Derek. Like,
seeing Derek with his leather jacket, frowny face and trust issues, you'd think
he would be one of those people who drink their coffee black, no cream no
sugar, but now – Derek drinks green tea. “I do like coffee, I drink it. I like
tea more, though.”
Stiles nods, filing this information away and takes a bite of his cookie. “I
love coffee, it helps with my meds, but I should always be careful with
caffeine intake and sometimes I drink too much and messes me up a little. For
how much caffeine helps me usually, I always end up drinking a lot more than I
should.”
“So you never tried decaf,” Derek says, bending down to grab one cookie, too.
He does like them like Mrs. Jacobs said. It's a little adorable how the crumbs
get stuck in his beard. Not that Stiles is looking.
“No?” Stiles replies, making a face. “It tastes all wrong.”
Derek just looks at him, all calm and collected and says, “how can you know
that if you never tried it? It tastes exactly the same. You wouldn't know it's
decaf if no one told you.”
“Have you tried it?” Stiles replies, pointing a finger at Derek.
“Yes.”
“Then your taste buds must be dead, there's no other explanation,” Stiles says,
like the argument is done, ended, he won, everybody go home. He turns back to
his cookie and smiles at it.
The only thing Derek does, then, is to grab another cookie and bite into it
while staring at Stiles all the while.
The fire crackles behind them and it's all silent.
                                      **
Adjusting to this new life is a little difficult. Not because Derek is overly
present or anything, he's actually often outside doing manly things like
cutting wood – so cliche – or fixing broken things, like Stiles' Jeep, for
example. But. It's a new house, new everything, he just needs a little time to
find his bearings, adjust to the beautiful scenery and Derek's softer
personality. Once you saw someone wearing flannel pajamas, no amount of leather
could ever bring their old charm back.
Stiles spends a lot of time outside, too. Looking at the mountains and trees
surrounding the house, being alone for a while, thinking. It helps, a little.
Maybe it's the sharp smell of dirt and pine needles, the relaxing sound of the
water of the lake moved by the gentle breeze, the chirps of various birds,
maybe it's just being away from Beacon Hills, but. Yeah, he feels lighter.
Derek never interrupts him or his moments alone, never steps inside the bubble
he creates when he gets lost in awful memories and the weight on his shoulders
gets a little harder to bear. He never pushes Stiles to talk to him, open up
and spill his secrets, never once forced him to eat when he felt that same old
knot in his throat getting bigger and harder to swallow. He stays by himself
and, for that, Stiles is grateful.
Derek keeps saying that the air is getting crispier and the snow is
approaching, so Stiles is sitting by his rock as usual, in front of the lake,
this time with a book in hand and his phone in the other. He just shot a text
to Scott and told him everything is fine and Derek is actually a pretty good
roommate and he's also going to call his father in a moment, but he's instead
staring transfixed at a cute little bird hopping on the ground. Stiles isn't
even breathing, not to scare the black and white bird away, and he's pretty
sure he never saw a bird from up close before. He doesn't know what type it is,
the name or anything really, but it's pretty and the way it hops here and there
is funny and pretty cute. It's probably looking for food before the storm hits
and Stiles doesn't want to interrupt it, so he keeps as still as he can manage
and stares at it. He wants to take a picture to send to his dad, but he's not
sure he can actually pull it off without scaring the bird away, so he doesn't
lift the hand with the phone up.
“You're really pretty,” he says softly to the bird, who ignores him and keeps
digging through the pine needles and dirt. “I don't know your name. I'm going
to look you up later, I'm really curious.”
The bird turns its little head one way then the other, hops hops hops, then
stops at Stiles' feet. Stiles gasps and gapes a little, sits up a little
straighter and smiles. It's really small and Stiles' foot looks enormous
compared to it.
“Okay, I'm gonna try and take a picture,” he murmurs and unlocks his phone with
slow movements, flinching when the click reverberates through the air. The bird
stops for a moment and Stiles freezes, ready to see it fly away, but then,
surprisingly, it resumes its work and Stiles breathes. He pulls up his camera
app and actually snatches a couple of really nice pictures his dad will surely
love.
He sends one of the photos to his dad with the caption I made a friend!! and he
doesn't really see the bird take off. He hears the distinct sounds of wings and
he looks up just in time to see it fly up to a tree branch, white belly still
visible from the ground.
“Bye buddy!” Stiles says and he smiles down at his phone when his dad replies.
Looks nice.
Yeah, it does.
                                      **
“A bird came up real close to me, outside. It was awesome,” he says to Derek
when he gets back inside. He hangs the jacket beside the door and throws the
scarf up there, too. Derek is cooking something that smells really good, and
Stiles goes to see what it is.
“Yeah?” Derek says, stirring something in the pan.
“Yup, I got pictures. Dude, what's that? Smells fantastic.” Stiles replies,
leaning in a little to grasp the awesome smell better and Derek shoulders him
back. Stiles pretends to pat his injured chest. “Hey!”
“It's just spaghetti with tomato sauce, you sound like it's something you never
tried before,” Derek says, with a little smirk on his face. “I just put oregano
and chopped onions in it.”
“It's a lot more than I ever did, that's for sure.”
“Set the table,” Derek replies and Stiles starts to grab plates and glasses,
but he can see the tiny smile Derek is trying to hide.
 
                                      **
It starts snowing the following day and it all started with a gray sky.
It's the middle of the night and Stiles can't sleep, feels crowded into his own
skin and he spent the entirety of the day biting his nails and snapping at
Derek, then feeling shitty right after. Derek never snapped back, like Stiles
thought he would, he just went along with it and continued doing what he was
doing making Stiles feel even shittier for his behavior. It's just that he
can't seem to be able to sleep again and the nightmares keep getting worse and
worse, so he's cranky and his eyes are dry and hurt, every time he blinks it's
like sandpaper. Not even Derek's warm milk is helping him, not even reading or
staring at the fire in the fireplace.
So he turned to the window and saw the sky. Gray sky like it wasn't the middle
of the night but like, 7 on a normal evening.
“Shit, it's snowing!” he whispers and gets up from the bed, walks to the window
and looks outside. The snowflakes are already depositing on the ground and
creating a coat of white, painting the scenery. He's so excited to see the snow
he forgets his nightmares for a long moment. It's been so long since he saw it,
it feels like another lifetime entirely.
He doesn't even decide to grab his jacket, beanie and mittens, he's already
outside before he makes the conscious decision to bundle up and step out. The
snow makes sharp little noises when he walks through it, when it lands in his
hair and his eyelashes, the tip of his shoulders and the fabric of his coat.
It's really freezing outside, but kind of peaceful. The light Derek keeps on
overnight on the porch illuminates the view and Stiles can see everything
perfectly, every single flake that is falling down and the strange color in the
sky, dark but light at the same time, the way the time seems frozen and still,
not a single noise, just his own breathing and the crunching of his boots in
the snow.
He opens his mouth wide and catches the flakes on his tongue, feels them melt
as soon as they touch the warmth and he giggles, feeling free and infinitely
small. It's like he can sense everything, what's surrounding him and every
tree, every house, every body of water and he's small small small, like an ant,
and the world is so big, the world is everything and he can breathe.
He opens his arms wide and throws his head back, lets the snow fall on him,
chilling him but making him feel something that isn't fear and sorrow after a
very long time.
He looks back at the house when he hears the door click open and sees Derek
standing there, watching him with a strange expression on his face. He's
barefoot and wearing a long sleeved shirt that looks really comfy, but his face
is. Confused, maybe. Like he's trying to grasp what Stiles is thinking.
“You should come back inside, you're going to get sick if you stand there under
the snow,” he says, his soft voice the only sound for miles and miles. He looks
Stiles up and down and then motions at the inside of the house with his head.
Stiles looks back up for a last time, looks at every single snowflake
illuminated by the porch light and then walks back, goes inside and lets Derek
put his boots near the fireplace to dry and then hands him a towel.
Derek goes back to bed, then, squeezing Stiles' shoulder for a long moment, and
Stiles sits back on his bed, book in hand and covers warm around him.
He doesn't sleep a blink, spends the night looking outside and tending to the
fire in the fireplace and, for once, he isn't screaming.
                                      **
 Mr. Argent comes to talk to Derek the following day and Stiles learns he lives
in the cottage next to Derek's.
It' weird to think that Derek and Mr. Argent live close to each other, that
they changed that much and it's really really strange, waking up to the sound
of Chris Argent's voice and Derek's laugh in reply.
He'd been napping on the couch after lunch, feeling extremely cozy and relaxed
in the warmth of the house and lulled by Derek typing away on his computer,
writing an email to Cora in Argentina. He closed his eyes and just went to
sleep, only to be roughly jerked awake by the backyard door clicking shut.
He looks up from his spot on the couch and finds himself alone in the house.
Derek and Chris are talking outside, under the porch so not to be standing
directly under the falling snow. Their voices are hushed, like Derek told Chris
to lower his tone because Stiles was sleeping, or something, and Stiles can't
really grasp what they're talking about – he can make out a few sentences and
words, but not the entire topic. He thinks they're talking about Isaac and
what's happening back in Beacon Hills. Derek says something then, and then they
both chuckle and Stiles bites his bottom lip because he also want to be in on
the joke, wants to hear the reason why they're laughing – strange as it may be,
two former enemies standing peacefully under the porch of one of their houses,
looking out at the snow covered landscape and laughing.
 Mr. Argent is sporting a beard, too, now and he's wearing a denim jacket with
the lapels raised up high against the chilling wind and he looks. Older. He
looks astonishingly like his dad, more wrinkled and tired and sad. He looks
ashen and his eyes are still strikingly blue, but he's smiling at Derek and
talking to him and still going on even after what happened to Allison. Stiles
doesn't know how that works, losing a child, but he knows what it means losing
a loved one and it's awful, it tears you apart and makes you feel like you have
a hole in your life, in your chest. So, seeing Chris Argent like that makes
Stiles miss Allison a lot more, her absence flaring like a fire under his skin,
in his veins – he thinks Allison is not here anymore, Allison is not here
anymore, Allison is not here anymore.
He looks at them one last time, than he lies back on the couch and tries to go
back to sleep.
                                      **
He's in the woods and his breath is forming clouds in the night air. He's
freezing in the thin t-shirt he's wearing and he's not really sure where he is,
the trees look all the same and the ground is covered in fallen leaves,
squelching a little under his toes. He's barefoot and the earth is cold and wet
under the soles of his feet.
He turns around to see if he can understand where he is, or where he could go,
but it's dark and the only source of light is the pale moon, little silvery
rays of light filtering though the vegetation and making the forest seem even
more creepy and horror-like. It's like standing in the middle of a set of a
film.
He knows he's in the woods surrounding Beacon Hills and he knows, he just
knows, that there's something wrong about this. It's like a little feeling
running through his veins, that makes his hands all jittery-like and his heart
beat double speed. He knows something is looking out for him and he also knows
he should run, but his feet are rooted to the spot and he can't move.
He hears a crack behind his back and a rustle trough the tree branches above
him. He looks up and Allison is standing there, arrow aimed at him. Her hands
are strong and firm on her bow, her jaw set and eyes dark and catlike. He knows
she won't miss a beat, that she would hit him without a struggle if she wanted
and he feels like prey.
“Don't move,” she says, voice cold and stern and he doesn't.
He raises both his hands in surrender but he doesn't move. He still can't. And
he's not sure he wants to try and find out if he can now, not with an arrow
poised on him.
“Allison,” he murmurs, not sure what he's going to tell her, but his eyes sting
and he just wants to talk to her, see if he can change her mind. “What's going
on?”
She seems to contemplate responding to him, her grip on her bow seems to
slacken an inch, and Stiles foolishly takes a relieved breath. Then she jumps
down from the branch and lands right in front of him, still hard as a statue,
face void of any emotion. She looks stunningly beautiful in the pale light but
also terrifying, unforgiving, and Stiles knows that face, that look in her
eyes. He saw it before.
She points her bow back on him and Stiles is sure he's going to get an arrow in
his chest before this is over.
“This is all your fault,” she says, and her voice wavers a little, she smiles
bitterly at him, with her dimples and long eyelashes, but then her face goes
back to stone and anger. “You are the problem.”
Stiles knows, in a way, that this is a dream. He knows, strangely, that this is
not real, in that way you always know in a dream, sometimes. He wants to wake
up and stop seeing Allison like this, like the warrior, the cold scary woman he
knew once. He wants to remember her like the laughing, cute, Disney princess
she was, with her dimpled smile and the way her hair always smelled good.
“I'm really sorry, Ally, you know I am. If I could go back in time, it wouldn't
have happened. Any of this.”
“My dad is all alone because of you, now. Scott is suffering because of you,
Lydia,” she says, and her eyes are sparkling in the dark, like she's going to
cry and he can't stand it.
“I know!” he says, opens his arms to convey how much he really knows, and he's
aware that he ruined a lot of things and people and Allison died because of
him. “I know, Allison. If I could've prevented it, I would have! You know I
love you, we're friends and I don't know how to make this better. Make this
right.”
“I'm going to kill you, now,” she cries, softly, aims the arrow back to the
middle of his chest and Stiles can hear the stretch of the bowstring being
pulled and he feels his blood surge through his veins, insanely scared for a
long moment.
“You don't have to, but if you want,” he replies and looks at her one last
time, tries to let her know that he's sorry and he misses her, with his eyes.
She sniffles and then her whole demeanor changes, she turns back to stone and
cutting, unforgiving and hard. She takes a deep breath and then.
Stiles startles the same way she does. He doesn't know what's happening until
it's already too late to do something about it. She's looking right back at him
with huge eyes and he's finding it hard to breathe.
“No!” he shouts, when he sees the edge of a sword cutting through her stomach
from behind. He reaches out to help her but he can't even reach her, she's too
far away. “Allison!”
For a long moment, Stiles can't think, can't breathe, can't do anything but
look at Allison and the sword in her belly. She's bleeding from the mouth and
she's so pale in the dark, so pale, the blood looks black in the darkness.
She's making these soft sounds that Stiles almost can't hear and then she's
slowly crumbling down to her knees, still looking at Stiles shocked and
frightened.
That's when he sees.
He's standing right behind Allison, with the bleeding sword still in his bored
grasp. He's gray faced, with bruises under his eyes and a cold smirk on his
lips and Stiles almost can't recognize himself. But it's him.
“Goodbye Allison,” other him says and his voice sounds distorted, gritty and
over-used.
“No no no no!”
                                      **
Stiles gasps and wakes up suddenly, panting and drenched in cold sweat. His
heart is beating a mile a second and his vision is swimming, he feels like he's
gonna hurl and he bends over the edge of the bed to cough and try to get his
breathing back. He feels like shit, literally. Tonight the nightmare was too
bad, he can't get the shaky feeling out of his bones. Seeing Allison like that
was too much, all the guilt that came with the knowledge of one of best friends
being dead because of him is washing over him again like a wave. He feels
jittery and all over the place, like his blood is itching through his veins and
his hands can't even grip the covers properly, they keep slipping through his
sweaty hold.
He lays back against the pillow and tries to calm down enough to just close his
eyes, breathe normally, stop the buzzing in his brain. It's like he's on fire
inside, like his head is going to explode but at the same time, he's always so
so cold. He sweats every time he has a bad nightmare, his body going a mile a
minute, getting heated up from the inside, but then he wakes up and he's
freezing. Genuinely feels like he's in the middle of the storm outside.
He's able to actually calm his breathing enough to tell Derek isn't awake – or,
if he is, he's not going to come down and make Stiles a cup of milk. Stiles
misses it a little, misses the way Derek can be so understanding and kind in
those moments, a Derek Stiles began to associate with warm smiles and flannel
pajamas, so different from the dark hard edges back in Beacon Hills. He's still
freezing, though. Even in front of the fading fire, he can't get warm enough.
Never enough.
He grips the covers and cocoons himself in them, tries to shrink himself under
them, bends his knees against his chest and he's still shivering. The snow
outside is still coming down in big fluffy flakes, Stiles can see them from the
little hole in the wooden shutters, the sky gray and not deepest black. It's
all silent, just the creaking of the fire and the little noise you always think
you hear when it's snowing, his own ragged breathing. If he looks through the
covers to the flames, he can only see shadows of orange-y colors, moving and
unreachable and he thinks of people dying and liking it, being in control and
shouting, always so cold but so powerful.
Stiles can't stand to be alone in that bed a minute longer; he gets up and
scratches at his face with blunt bitten nails, feels little cuts forming on his
cheeks from them but can't get himself to actually care. He walks to the
bathroom and stands in front of the mirror for long minutes, just staring at
his skinny knobby fingers and ashen skin. He looks positively awful – red
rimmed eyes and pale lips. It's like being possessed all over again. Like he
looked in the dream. Stiles feels sickly and doesn't know what to do so he just
keeps shivering and staring at the sorry image in the mirror.
He sighs and lowers his eyes. He doesn't want to go back to bed, he knows he
won't be able to actually go back to sleep or even read one of Derek's
ridiculous books. Even staring at the fire brings him to think about
desperation and death – everything is a trap, because his mind is playing
tricks on him, just like the Nogitsune used to. He just wants to black out for
a while, disappear until he gets better, until he can sleep for eight hours
straight and eat like a normal person and mock Derek for the way he does his
grocery shopping or how his plaid shirts look with his beard. But, right about
now, he can only stare at him and pretend he's still functioning like a semi-
normal human being.
His clothes are still wet with sweat and are getting colder and colder as the
time passes, so he grunts an annoyed breath and starts shedding them away,
throws them angrily to the floor like they personally offended him and then
looks over at the other side of the room, at the bathtub. It's been ages since
he last took a bath, just because he wanted. Derek is obviously one of those
people who have both a huge shower and an even huger bathtub, like they need
both in their lives to actually go on. But Stiles is pretty glad Derek is one
of those people, because he really needs a bath right about now. He needs to
turn the water scalding, so hot his skin will turn pink and not ashen gray,
soaking through his bones, cleaning him, warming him up from his hair to the
tips of his toes.
He decides to put Derek's body wash in the water, the one that smells like the
forest, just because he finds the scent soothing, and waits for the tub to be
filled with bubbles.
When he gets in, he shivers in satisfaction – it's so good, the water is so
warm, almost too hot, and he feels his muscles loosen. He sighs and lays back,
closes his eyes, breathes deeply for the first time in a while. The bubbles
feel good against his skin, and he toys with them with his fingers, smiles a
little remembering his parents giving him bubble baths when he was little. He
didn't dream of his mom again, not after the first day of this trip and he
misses her like she left two days ago, and not years ago – it's always the same
pattern; he dreams of her, he gets to remember those little details he forgot
with time, and then he gets to relive it again and again; the pain and the
sadness and the grieving part. Maybe, logically, it will get better when he's
older, when he's had more time to get used to it, or maybe it will always hurt
thinking about her, maybe it's worse now because he feels so scrambled into
himself, like he doesn't have a grip on his emotions – he doesn't know. Time
won't make it better, but it'll numb him enough to go on without feeling like
he's on the verge of crying every time he thinks of the colors in his mother's
hair. 
Maybe, one day, he'll be able to think about Allison without feeling her blood
on his hands. 
He lets his hands and arms float in the water and breathes. Then promptly falls
asleep. 
                                      ** 
He jerks awake after what feels like two seconds, but he can't really breathe.
He coughs and coughs and his lungs burn, his chest feels like it's filled with
acid and he doubles over, gasps an awful breath in. He doesn't seem to be able
to open his eyes, they're filled with tears and he keeps coughing.

“Fuck,” he hears behind him, and he startles a little, surprised. Then he feels
an arm around his waist and he finally understands, he's leaning against
Derek's grip and he's staying upright thanks to him. He's standing in the
middle of the tub, his feet and calves still immersed in water and the rest of
his body freezing in the cold air, skin wet and goosebumpseverywhere. “You're
okay, come on, Stiles. Let's get out of here,” Derek says, voice soft and a
little rough. He pulls Stiles more firmly against his chest and levers him up
the best he can with Stiles non-cooperating, but he finally can put his feet
back on the floor, can take the first deep breath that doesn't sound like a
rattling. Derek pushes him a little towards the toilet and sits him there,
Stiles still in a daze, uncomprehending. He blinks a couple of times to get his
vision back, and he realizes he's shivering and his teeth are chattering. Then
a warmth spreads through his body when Derek covers him with a huge towel.
There's an awful taste in his mouth, bitter and foreign, and he understands
it's the taste of Derek's body wash only when he can smell the pine needles in
it. He looks down at Derek's face so close to his own and he doesn't really
know what happened, but he knows he's naked in front of Derek and that's not
something he ever thought happening.
“I...” Stiles starts, but then doesn't know how to finish the sentence. He just
curls a little more in on himself and tries to cover his private parts the best
he can.
Derek notices and sighs, “I don't care seeing you naked, Stiles.”
Stiles makes a face and feels his cheeks heat up, hides his face into the soft
yellow towel but doesn't stop Derek from drying his hair.
“I care.”
“You fell asleep in the tub,” Derek murmurs, making Stiles look up at him. “I
thought you died in here, your heartbeat was so slow I almost couldn't hear
it.”
“Oh,” he says, because he doesn't really remember falling asleep. He just. He
remembers getting in, feeling better that he did in a long time, the water warm
around him and then. He maybe closed his eyes for a moment. “I'm sorry?”
Derek rolls his eyes, but Stiles can see he's still worried. It's not an
expression he's used seeing on Derek's face. It's weird, makes him feel even
worse than he thought possible, especially when he thinks he almost drowned.
“Just,” Derek says, getting up. “Don't fall asleep again while you're having a
bath.”
“Yeah,” Stiles whispers. He still feels like he's not completely awake,
everything is hazy and out of focus. It's weird. He keeps blinking but the soft
cover over his sight doesn't budge. His muscles feel like putty and he could
probably just go back to sleep right there sitting on the toilet. He plans on
doing just that, when he feels Derek's hand gripping him. He makes a surprised
noise, but lets Derek guide him out of the bathroom then across the hall and
the living room. He expects him to drop him on his bed, but Derek steers him
away from the fireplace and unmade bed and helps him go up the little stairs
until they reach Derek's bed. 
“Sit,” Derek tells him. Stiles does as told and almost falls sideways against
the pillows, but then Derek is back with a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt.
Stiles moans in displeasure and closes his eyes. “Really?” he hears Derek say,
but then he's huffing and forcing Stiles into the clothes. Stiles would feel
bad for it, if he only could keep his eyes open. For now he only starfishes on
the bed and lets Derek do all the work. 
“Pillow,” he grumbles when he feels Derek get back into bed, the covers
rustling all around him and the mattress moving with the added weight. 
Derek sighs but gets up again. His footsteps echo in the silence of the house
and Stiles can hear him on the stairs, then the living room, then coming back.
He smiles a little at him when Derek is throwing the pillow at Stiles' face,
climbing back through the covers, huffing annoyed. 
“Thanks,” Stiles whispers, head on his pillow and warmth all around him,
Derek's soft breathing a few inches from him. This feels good. 
“Shut up, go to sleep.” 
And he does.
                                      ** 
When he wakes up again, the sun is shining through the shutters and he feels
well rested. A little sore, like after a good long night sleep and he smiles
when he stretches languidly in the sheets.
He gets up slowly and he realizes where he is only when he's opening his eyes
for real and he sees he's on the second floor. Derek's bedroom. He slept in
Derek's bed last night, with Derek beside him. He blushes a little, but he
can't help but feel good about it – it's been the best sleep he's had in three
months. If he only could forget the almost drowning and Derek finding him in
the tub and the fact that Derek also saw him naked. Stiles can totally pretend
that never happened. Yes. 
When he gets down, Derek is nowhere to be seen. Stiles looks around, to see if
he can spot Derek somewhere, but he's all alone in the house. He could make
himself breakfast, but he's not really sure if he's hungry or not. He wonders
if Derek ate, also what time it is. His phone is lying forgotten on the coffee
table near the made up couch, so he grabs it and finds his dad called him a
couple of hours ago before he started his shift at the station, and he finds
out it's almost ten. It's not too late, but it feels like he slept in and he
can't help but smile a little. He should call his dad back, but he wants to
find Derek first, thank him for what he did last night, and probably apologize
for scaring him so much he felt like he had to sleep in the same bed as Stiles.
He probably thought Stiles was going to find another way to kill himself if he
left him alone for another minute.
Not that Stiles wouldn't be able to.
He then hears faint voices coming from outside and he looks up, sees the glass
door that leads to the back and then, outside, Derek is shoveling snow and
talking to Mr. Argent. They are both dressed in dark clothing and the sun
reflects against the white of the snow, and Stiles thinks of his nightmare, of
seeing Allison that way, looking at Chris – feels the pang of guilt and worry
and grief in his chest, every time the same cycle that will never stop. There
will be times when he will find something or someone that will make him think
of Allison, and he will feel the same pang over and over again. It still
happens with his mom.
He looks back down at his phone and decides he's going to make breakfast for
two, Derek will probably be hungry after all the hard work. 
                                      ** 
“Hey,” Derek says, when he comes back inside. He's all pink cheeked and is
smiling warmly at Stiles, and Stiles almost loses his grip on the pan he's
using to make bacon and eggs. 
“Hi,” he says back, turning back to the stove. He can't really look at Derek
right now, he doesn't know if he's feeling the effects of the previous night or
if the sun is shining too bright through the windows. “I'm making breakfast, I
thought you'd want some so I made it for two.”
“Thanks,” Derek tells him, touches his back faintly when he passes to grab
plates and silverware. Stiles bites his lip. “I am a little hungry.”
They eat in silence and it's not really awkward anymore, it's been a couple of
weeks and Stiles is getting used to Derek. He's not bad, he eats calmly and
neatly – never makes a mess, always tidies up after himself and, for someone
who used to live in the shell of his childhood house and, for a while, in an
abandoned warehouse, well. He's really really clean. Stiles is used to just
leave a mess wherever he goes – books, plates, glasses, pieces of food,
anything really; but Derek washes the plates in the sink, dries them, makes his
own bed, just this morning he made Stiles' too, he vacuums, for God's sake.
Stiles should maybe help. Or, at least, try not to make such a mess every time
he eats something or takes a shower? Yeah, probably.
So, when Derek gets up to walk to the sink, Stiles gets up, too, and follows
him. Derek raises an eyebrow and then frowns, when he sees Stiles grab the
dishtowel lying on the counter.
“I wanna help,” Stiles murmurs, doesn't look up at Derek's pale eyes, shrugs
like it's no big deal.
Derek doesn't say anything, just fills the sink with water and soap and then
starts washing everything methodically. Stiles stares at his hands, the way
they grip the plates gently and turn them around to wash every corner, then
rinses them with clean water. Derek has nice hands, Stiles thinks. They're big
and with long fingers. Nice veins, too.
Uh. He scrambles to hold the plate Derek just handed to him, embarrassed and
blushing. He doesn't want to think about Derek's hands. Or Derek's anything,
really. He busies himself with the other items they just washed and he keeps
his mouth shut. Probably better.
“Thanks,” Derek says, softly. 
Stiles looks at him, a little surprised, and then smiles. “Thank you for last
night.”
Derek nods and doesn't say anything else, so Stiles goes back to the pan in his
hands. But he feels Derek moving closer to him and he smiles a little more.
                                      **
That night, Derek makes Stiles some milk with honey in it and then touches the
back of his neck, before he goes to bed.
Stiles tries to sleep, closes his eyes and pulls the covers up to his chin and
really really tries. But the memory of last night's dream is still too fresh in
his head, too hard to swallow, and he keeps opening his eyes to look at the
fire crackling a few feet from the bed. Derek started to make it only for
Stiles, said he trusted Stiles to tend to it – and Stiles does, gets up in the
middle of the night to open the little door and put another piece of wood in
the dying flames, or just to smother it when he doesn't want to relive it again
– and it means a lot that Derek can go to sleep knowing there's a fire going on
in his living room.
He could find something to do, but he's positively done with all the books he
read, and he doesn't want to bother Derek for his computer. So he just stands
there, looking up at the ceiling and the fire in turns. Maybe, if he gets
really bored, he'll fall asleep.
He looks up when he hears Derek's soft steps on the wooden floor and he finds
him getting down the stair. He's wearing a white shirt tonight, black
sweatpants and his hair is all ruffled and cute.
Stiles opens his mouth to tell him he looks positively adorable, just to be a
little shit, when Derek walks up to him and grabs one of his wrists under the
covers.
“Wha-?” Stiles yelps, and gets up before Derek all but drags him out of bed. He
hops on one foot when he can't get out fast enough. “What even? Derek?”
“You keep moving and it's driving me insane.”
Stiles has to follow him up the stairs, Derek still pulling him by the wrist
and he almost brains himself on one of the steps. Luckily Derek has really good
fast reflexes and saves him from a nosebleed, and then pushes Stiles on his
bed, throws Stiles' pillow at him.
“Get in and sleep.”
Stiles looks down at his pillow in his hands and then, without commenting on
it, he gets under the covers and lies down, silently. He's acutely aware of
every single movement Derek's making, the way the mattress jostles and the
covers rustle, his soft breath and the way he smells minty and good.
The darkness doesn't really feel oppressing, some little glimmer of light is
filtering through the window to the left of the bed, the moonlight, and he
really doesn't startle when Derek puts one of his hands on Stiles chest and
just leaves it there.
He doesn't close his eyes immediately, he just stands there and listens to
Derek's breathing turn shallower and shallower and then, he follows. The weight
of Derek's hand comforting over his heart.
                                      **
Stiles wakes up sometime in the middle of the night, not screaming, but just
because he felt Derek move, and he finds himself enveloped in his arms. He
looks down at Derek's strong hands, one on his belly and the other on his
chest, and kinda. Smiles.
He goes back to sleep feeling safe. 
                                      ** 
The days in Derek's house pass slowly and Stiles doesn't remember the last time
he read so many books for fun. Derek still doesn't own a TV and Stiles doesn't
know how he's still a functioning member of society. But then, it's Derek, so
he can't actually say he is. Derek told him that if he wanted to use his
computer, he could, but Stiles is just in a mood for something else.
Derek has so many books, even Stiles was surprised. He has interesting books,
he has books on folklore and myths, then he has books Stiles pretends don't
exist at all. He's perusing the shelves for the millionth time since he came
here and he finds a battered copy of The Little Prince, and he stops for a
moment. He looks at it for a little while, at the drawings and the dog ears in
the corners of the pages, it feels like it's been read and read over and over,
like Derek spent hours and hours going through it.
He remembers reading it when he was little and thinking it was a really sad
story, he didn't really like it because he didn't want it to end so badly. But
now.
He reads a few pages and then closes it, puts it back on the shelf, grabs the
one right beside even if he doesn't know what is. He just doesn't want to
picture Derek re-reading the same book, maybe in bed, maybe on the sofa, maybe
falling asleep with a finger through the pages so not to lose his place.
He groans out loud and he falls face first on the couch, bored out of his mind.
Ugh, he can only read so much before he feels like he's going mad. Derek is
also always doing something outside like cutting wood, or shoveling snow or
helping the elderly. Stiles is sure every single woman in this town loves Derek
– he saw what happens when Derek goes grocery shopping. Maybe Derek volunteers
at the local shelter and washes dogs for free and pets kittens, for all that
Stiles knows.
Still, he's bored.
That's how he finds himself in a huge coat and warm sweater and wearing the
boots Derek bought him. The boots are a little uncomfortable but very warm, and
he's grateful Derek told him he would've needed them in the snow, when he gets
out and the freezing air cuts his face. Wow, talking about cold. The snow is
falling down lazily and slowly, tiny flakes that melt as soon as they touch his
skin. The woods behind the house look huge and white, from where he is
standing. The snow is swallowing the trees and it looks like a postcard, the
kind you can find at Christmas, with candles on it and glitters and Santa
riding his sleigh in the sky. The place is amazing, so pretty and peaceful,
Stiles didn't expect to like it so much, didn't know he craved for something
like this, huge spaces and the sharp smell of pure air, mountains. The only
sounds around him are the snow falling down from branches, when it gets too
heavy, and Derek shoveling snow off the roof. He's perched on a ladder and the
jacket he's wearing is too short, riding high on his back, a sliver of skin
peeking out from underneath. Stiles swallows and then breathes shakily.
“Aren't you cold?” he says to Derek, who just looks down at him and then goes
back to work. He shrugs.
“A little, but werewolves run hotter than humans.”
Stiles rolls his eyes and gets closer to the ladder, looks up at what Derek is
doing. “Yes, well, but it's still pretty chilly.”
“It's freezing, but I'm fine, I'm moving,” Derek says, taking another step on
the ladder to get higher, bends over a little so he can reach another spot on
the roof. Stiles doesn't stare at his ass. He turns back to the trees, looks
over to the mountains he can see behind them. It really looks like one of those
Christmas postcards his Mom used to collect – she loved Christmas, was her
favorite holiday, used to fill the house with decorations and lights and
garlands and their tree was always beautiful. His mom used to put so much love
in everything she did, but when it was Christmas she just. She really loved it.
And Stiles misses all that, the tree and the lights and the atmosphere.
“Derek?”
“Hm,” Derek replies, behind him.
“Do you think we could do something for Christmas?” he asks, softly, because he
doesn't know if Derek even wants him to stay longer. He told him he would stay
for a few days and it's already been more than two weeks. Derek doesn't really
seem to mind. Not even when Stiles screams in the middle of the night and Derek
comes down to guide him to bed with him, so he can curl up around him and make
him feel safer. They don't talk about it, but it's been happening.
“Something like what?”
Stiles finally looks back at him and sighs, shrugs. “Decorate? I miss
Christmas, is all. Like, my mom used to be really into the whole decorating and
stuff, lights everywhere, candles and you know, a big tree in the corner. I
just. Want to do something?”
Derek stops working to stare at him for a long moment, and Stiles knows he's
going to say no, he'll also probably tell him he should go home and celebrate
Christmas with his Dad, but. Then Derek slowly gets down and says, “Okay,” like
it's no big deal.
Stiles gapes at him, shocked. “What, wait, for real?”
Derek rolls his eyes and turns back to get back inside, leaving Stiles behind.
“I don't have anything, we need to buy things,” he says, taking his jacket off.
Stiles continues staring at him, seeming at a loss for words. He still can't
believe Derek said yes.
“I'm,” Stiles starts, then looks down at his hands, in the mittens his dad
bought him before he left, the boots Derek bought him that day in town. His
eyes sting. “Just. Thanks.”
Derek says, “no problem,” and puts a hand on the back of Stiles' neck and
Stiles flushes.
                                      **
Derek tells him they're going out to buy what they need to decorate the house
after he takes a shower, and Stiles goes back outside so he can call his dad,
tell him he's staying with Derek longer. He feels vaguely guilty leaving his
dad alone on Christmas, but they never really spend it together since his mom
died – they both are too sad to actually celebrate and his dad usually ends up
working someone else's shift and Stiles ends up watching Christmas movies on
Scott's couch. So, this year, he's going to spend it with Derek. He doesn't
know how he used to spend Christmas when he wasn't alone, probably eating and
laughing with his family, exchanging presents and being happy, Stiles thinks.
He walks through the snow until he reaches the little lake he's starting to
think as his. A thick sheet of ice is covering the surface, everything is white
instead of brown, green, dark blue. He wonders if he could skate on it. Maybe,
the ice looks sturdy enough. He doesn't think Derek would let him, though.
He sits on a rock under a huge tree, he has to forgo his usual sitting place,
and he looks at the scenery in front of him, dials his dad's number and waits
for him to pick up the phone. He feels strangely calm; a little chilly but
calm.
“Hello, son,” his dad greets and Stiles smiles.
“Hey dad, how are you?”
“Fine,” the Sheriff says, clears his throat. “And you? Are you sleeping?”
Stiles blushes faintly and scratches the tip of his cold nose, looks down like
his dad could see him and find out why he is blushing in the first place.
“Yeah, I'm feeling better,” he says, a little truth in the lie. He does feel
better, he's not okay, not really, but better. “I'm sleeping more, eating. It's
really pretty here, dad, you should see it. Looks like a postcard. It's snowing
a lot and it looks almost magical.”
“I'm glad, son. Really. Say thanks to Derek for me, yeah?”
Stiles snorts. “Like you don't call each other every other day.”
“You still tell him,” his dad replies, a sigh in his voice. Stiles smiles.
“When are you coming back?”
Stiles bites his lower lip and shuffles his feet in the snow, moving it a
little here and there. “Actually, dad, I wanted to tell you that I want to stay
here for Christmas. We never really spend it together and Derek is alone, too.
So. We're decorating the house.”
His dad sighs a little and then says, “Is Derek okay with this?”
“He said yes.”
“I don't know, son, you shouldn't impose.”
Stiles frowns, looks back at the house at his back and then makes himself a
little smaller.
“He would tell me if he didn't want me anymore, I'm not-” he runs a hand
through his hair, frustrated. “I'm doing better here with him, he's good. He's
helping. I just. I don't want to impose, I told him. And he said he would tell
me if I ever got in his way. He didn't.”
“Okay,” his dad says.
“I just don't want to spend Christmas alone, and I don't want him to spend it
alone, either.”
“Yeah, okay, if he's all right with it, then okay.”
“I don't want to think he's letting me stay here because he pities me.”
“I'm sure he doesn't, Stiles. I just thought it's been a while since you left.”
Stiles closes his eyes and sighs. “Yeah,” he whispers, and the air is almost
too cold now, he wants to go back inside, but he's not sure if he can look
Derek in the eyes after this call. Maybe his dad is right and Derek is letting
him stay here even if he doesn't want to. Maybe Stiles is in the way and
ruining Derek's life but still Derek isn't complaining. “Look, we're going out,
I have to go.”
“Yeah. Call me again, okay son?”
“Sure. Bye, dad.”
“Bye.”
Stiles hangs up and then sighs deeply, elbows on his knees, looks out at the
lake and mountains, the snow that's falling harder now, will probably get even
worse later. He likes it here, more than he likes Beacon Hills. Derek is
surprisingly good and never pushes Stiles for anything, doesn't make him eat
when he doesn't want to, doesn't make him talk about his nightmares or what he
sees when he stares at the fireplace, holds him during the nights when he's
screaming and crying.
When he gets back inside, cheeks itching from the cold, Derek is drinking from
a steaming mug and looking right at him. Stiles looks down and closes the door
behind his back, slowly and silently.
“You know you're not a burden, right? If you want to stay here, I don't mind. I
like the company,” Derek says and Stiles shrugs, bites at his cheek to keep
from saying stupid things. What Derek just said, it's not exactly saying he
wants Stiles there. He doesn't mind. “Stiles.”
Stiles still doesn't look up, walks stilted towards the couch, leaves his phone
on the coffee table when he gets there, sits down on the right corner then
shrinks himself to occupy a sliver of space and no more than that.
He hears Derek walk through the room and then sit down on the table in front of
him, reaches out to grip his chin with gentle fingers, makes him look up.
“Okay?”
Stiles nods, but doesn't say anything. He feels like crying and doesn't really
know why. He just. His eyes sting and he blinks rapidly, to avoid tears. Derek
is stupidly handsome and kind, his hand is dry and warm, he smells good, and
his eyes are a nice shade of pale green, hazel, turquoise. Stiles bites his lip
and nods again, the familiar sensation of burning through his nose, wet tears
in his eyes, he just wants to cry and then he doesn't.
“Hey,” Derek whispers. When the first tear drops from the corner of his right
eye, he shuffles forward, surprised. “Why are you crying?”
Stiles doesn't know, so he shrugs, still biting at his lip.
“I just.” His voice sounds gritty and shaky, he feels shitty for what he's
going through right now, for making Derek do something he doesn't want to, he
should grab his things and leave. Free Derek from his presence. “You don't want
me here, so I just. I should go home. 
“I want you here,” Derek says, brushes his thumb over Stiles' cheek, catches a
tear. “I'd tell you if I didn't.”
Stiles shakes his head a little, but he can't really do it with Derek's hands
holding his face.
“Like, I know you pity me because I'm a mess right now, it's not like, like,
you're just going to tell me I'm a burden. I know I am, you can't even sleep
through the night without me screaming or trying to kill myself or something.
I'm. Sorry. I'll leave.”
“Stiles, shut up,” Derek says, dries Stiles' cheeks with both his hands and
then grabs his face again. “You're getting better. And I don't care if you wake
me up, I care you're having nightmares and can't seem to eat properly and you
are just going through a lot. You're not a burden. I want to help because I
want to help you. So, now, take a deep breath and stop crying. We're going
out.”
Stiles looks at him for a long moment, sniffs a little when Derek gets up and
then wipes his eyes with his mittens. He realizes he didn't even take his
jacket off when he got back inside. He huffs a laugh at that, and Derek looks
back at him with a small smile.
“Okay,” Stiles says and then breathes deeply, gets up from the couch and
follows Derek to the front door.
“C'mon,” Derek says, puts a hand on the nape of Stile's neck to push him out
gently.
                                      **
There's a mall just outside town. It's pretty big and the parking lot is almost
full and white with snow. Derek and his ridiculous truck find a spot not too
far from one of the sliding doors and Stiles is grateful, because he doesn't
really want to walk a lot under the oncoming snow.
Inside there's cheerful Christmas music playing and the shops are all decorated
with little lights, garlands and fake snow. There's a warmth to it that Stiles
always loved – not really the idea of Christmas, the gifts and being nicer than
usual, but it's like everything is brighter and better when it's Christmas. He
loves the smell of peppermint and wood, cinnamon and sugary sweet; loves the
way people smile more and the cheesy music; loves remembering his mom
surrounded by things she loved, too.
He smiles at Derek and finds the other looking back at him, a soft smile on his
lips.
“What?” he asks, surprised. He touches his face, confused. “Do I have something
on my face? Is it snot?!”
Derek shakes his head and huffs a laugh, making Stiles gape at him in shock at
the sound. “No, you just look happy. I'm glad.”
Stiles makes a face and shrugs, turns back to stare at a shop window where a
gorgeous Christmas tree is on display. He really likes the little details they
added to it, he'd like a tree like that at home. Says so to Derek, too. “Hey,
something like this would look cool at home, maybe near the door in the living
room. Or the corner beside the bookcase. I like the gold lights.”
Derek is silent for a long while, so long that Stiles looks back at him, thinks
he maybe said too much, or Derek doesn't like it, or Christmas trees in
general. But Derek is just looking at him with big eyes, tight lipped. Then he
says, “yeah, I like this one. You want to look inside?”
And Stiles thinks nothing of it, says yes and follows him inside the shop.
                                      **
“Hey, how was Christmas for you when you were little?” Stiles asks, while he's
deciding which color he likes more for the lights they'll put on their tree.
He's torn between white, gold and multicolored. Derek is simply letting him do
everything alone, but Stiles really needs a second opinion here. This is an
important matter. “Which one do you like better? Maybe multicolor is too much.”
“It's just lights, Stiles. I like the other ones, though, I don't really care,”
Derek says, sighing like this is the worst thing that ever happened to him.
Stiles glowers at him. “Pick one and let's go find something else. You liked
the gold ones on the tree on display.”
Stiles nods. “I did,” he says simply, “but it's your tree, too. I just want to
make sure you won't hate it.”
Derek gets impossibly close to him and Stiles stops breathing, but Derek just
reaches around him to pick the gold lights up, his face so close to Stiles',
and puts them in the basket Stiles half filled with decorations. “There. Now,
let's move somewhere else, it's been twenty minutes of flickering lights and my
eyes hurt.”
“I. Yes, yes, sure. Let's go.”
After having picked up another six sets of lights - “Where are you gonna put
all those lights?” Derek asked -, a few more decorations and a ridiculous
wooden reindeer they exit the shop with three bags and Stiles is excited, can't
wait to see the tree they're gonna pick out and adorn it, make their home more
festive with lights and candles and garlands and the ugly reindeer. He smiles
and buys himself and Derek a hot chocolate with marshmallows, just because he
wants to be a little shit and thank Derek for what he's doing for him. And
Stiles knows Derek doesn't really drink hot chocolate, but he does it because
he can't actually say thank you again, not after the lame show he did at home
with the tears and the snot and the fucking feelings. It's already too much as
it is.
Derek raises an eyebrow at him and takes the cup with an unimpressed gaze.
Stiles snickers.
“I thought I said coffee.”
“Yes, you did,” Stiles replies and sits down in front of Derek, kicks his foot
under the table. Derek retaliates with another vicious kick that makes Stiles
jump and laugh, startled.
“I'm not drinking marshmallows,” Derek peers inside the cup and makes a
disgusted face. “What even are these? It looks like there are a hundred little
Grinch faces screaming at me.”
“You don't drink candy, you eat it,” Stiles says, laughing at Derek's
reference. “It's good.”
“No, it's not.”
“Whatever, suit yourself. You never had candy in your hot chocolate when you
were a kid? Can you even eat chocolate?”
Derek levers him with a look that could incinerate people, but luckily Stiles
is immune to it these days. He just snorts and kicks Derek again.

“Stop it!” Derek growls, “I don't like chocolate. I used to drink sweet milk as
a kid, sometimes my mom put cinnamon in it. It was good.”
Stiles smiles at him and nods. “Yeah.”
“I loved Christmas, when I was younger. My sisters hated it, though,” Derek
laughs softly and looks back at his cup, a faraway look in his eyes. Stiles
stops drinking and listens intently.
“Why?”
“Because my birthday is on Christmas and I used to get double the presents.
They used to get so pissed at me for that. I loved it. I had two presents from
everyone, every year.”
Stiles exclaims, “No way, for real?” gaping at Derek, shocked. “Dude, that's so
cool! I thought your birthday was in November.”
Derek looks at him sideways but replies, “no, the date on my driving license is
fake,” doesn't even ask how Stiles knows about his personal info. He grips the
cup in his right hand and plays with it, takes a sip and grimaces at the taste.
Stiles laughs. “I really hate this.”
“I could buy you milk with cinnamon in it, if you want. I was just being a
little shit.”
Derek rolls his eyes like Stiles is the bane of his existence. “And here I
thought you were just being cute.”
Stiles doesn't choke on his drink, but it's a close thing. He feels himself
flush a little, and clears his throat, embarrassed.
Then realizes something.
“You're a Christmas baby!” almost shouts, pointing a finger at Derek. “Werewolf
Jesus?”
Derek grunts out loud and throws his head back.
                                      **
Derek tells Stiles there's a place that sells real trees and they're gonna stop
there to find the right one. Stiles is shaking with anticipation in the
passenger seat and Derek is indulging his good mood with unimpressed gazes and
a calm demeanor.
When they get there, Stiles jumps out the vehicle and waits for Derek to join
him before he turns to the trees on display. He doesn't really know what he
wants, he never really bought a Christmas tree before, but he's pretty sure
Derek knows something. Like, how big should it be?
“That one!” Stiles says, pointing at one big tree in the corner. It's all dark
green and pretty and it would look good decorated in pretty lights and glittery
angels.
“No, Stiles,” Derek remarks and leaves Stiles to go in search for another tree.
“Why not? It's not too tall.”
Derek is studying another one a few feet from the one Stiles liked, so Stiles
just goes up to him and studies it, too. It's pretty, yes, but a lot smaller
than the one he liked.
“It's too big, it won't fit through the door. This one,” he says, hands in his
pockets and the aura of someone who really knows what he's doing. Okay, Stiles
can totally see the flaws in his plan.
“It's cute,” he concedes, really looks at the tree and then nods. “Okay.”
Derek waves the salesperson over and Stiles is really glad they got it over so
soon because he can't wait to put some decorations up, feel the Christmas
atmosphere all around him, be a little closer to his mom.
                                      **
Stiles wants to say thank you, back in the truck, wants to tell Derek what it
means for him to just being able to do this again, wants to tell him that since
he's got here in Montana with him, things got marginally better. That even
though he still has trouble sleeping through the night, it's been a little
easier to actually fall asleep with Derek by his side.
He wants to tell him that he feels warmer, now, that his body doesn't hurt as
much. That, maybe, sometimes his chest flutters when he looks up at him and he
doesn't know why. Or, maybe, Stiles knows and it's been happening since the
first time they met but a lot more frequently lately. Like a little bird
fluttering its wings against his ribcage.
But he doesn't. He just looks at Derek from the corner of his eye, the sure way
he drives through the snow covered streets and smiles a little to himself.
He softly touches the back of Derek's hand, a feather sudden touch, and then
turns back to the window.
Derek doesn't say anything, but Stiles feels a little warmer anyway.
                                      **
“My mom loved these things, you don't even know,” Stiles says, while he's
putting crystal balls up on the lower branches. He already put the lights on
and they're happily flickering, lighting up the entire tree and it already
looks festive. Derek's been unpacking decorations since Stiles's the one
putting them up and he looks up at him from the floor.
“Yeah?” he asks softly, handing Stiles a little glittery reindeer.
Stiles takes it and puts it somewhere in the middle. “Yeah, like, if they had
glitter on them, she sure would've got them,” he laughs a little, fondly.
Derek smiles and nods, like he understands it.
“We used to have a couple of trees in my home when I was little,” he says,
getting up to help Stiles, too, now. Stiles grins at him. “One inside and one
outside. My dad was the one who usually had to put the lights on the huge tree
outside. Laura used to help him a lot with those things, because she was the
eldest.”
“Yeah, I imagine climbing up a ladder when you are a toddler is frowned upon
even if you're a werewolf, right?” Stiles laughs and then Derek sighs, like
he's remembering something, still smiling.
“My mom wasn't even one who freaked out when me or my sisters got hurt, we all
knew the pain would fade away and we wouldn't even have a scar to show after,
but still. She said that watching us getting hurt was what really upset her. My
dad was pretty calm about everything, he usually let us get away with a lot of
things,” Derek says and Stiles can't help but listen to all of it, enraptured.
He wants to know everything about Derek and his life before the fire, know that
his family was really just like any other. He sometimes gets really worked up
thinking about what Kate Argent wiped away, thinking about all those innocent
people murdered for something they didn't have control over. “Like, I broke my
arm this one time,” Derek goes on and looks at Stiles like he's expecting him
to nod or say something, so he does, he nods. “And it was really bad, it hurt a
lot. I was maybe five or four, I don't really know, but I remember thinking it
was the worst thing I've ever felt. Probably was. And my dad came out of the
house and talked to me while my arm was mending itself. He was really calm and
collected, I remember. He was like that.”
“Your dad sounds really cool,” Stiles murmurs, putting an angel on the tree and
watching the lights reflect on the shiny porcelain.
“Yeah, he was,” Derek replies, and touches Stiles' back softly and even through
the layers of clothing his fingers are warm and sure. “I remember your mom, a
little.”
Stiles turns to look at Derek, surprised. “Really?”
Derek bends down to grab another decoration and spends some little time
thinking. Stiles doesn't know about what, but he can't wait to hear what Derek
remembers of his mom. He loves getting those little snippets of her life he
can't really remember. Before everything changed.
“I remember seeing her around town, she smiled a lot,” Derek says, like he's
not really sure and Stiles can't help but nod, because she did, she smiled and
laughed a lot, that Stiles remembers. “You do resemble her.”
Stiles lowers his eyes on the little decoration in his hand, little sparkles of
glitter falling on his fingers and palms and then smiles a really sad smile,
nods a little.
“Yeah, I know.” My dad used to tell me every time he got drunk enough, he
doesn't say, but it still hangs in the air between them for a long time
nonetheless.
                                      **
“Is it cool or is it cool?” Stiles asks, clapping Derek on the back and
motioning to the house, all decorated now. Lights hang from the fireplace
mantle and there are some on the door frame that leads to the backyard. Stiles
even put some over Derek's bed frame, even if Derek side eyed him the whole
time. He didn't say Stiles needed to stop, so Stiles didn't. And now Derek's
bedroom looks a lot prettier.
“Yes,” Derek replies, like it's a great feat. “It's pretty.”
“Ha-ah!” Stiles crows and he is already feeling the Christmas spirit. “I like
it, the reindeer under the tree is what really makes it.”
“Yes, after we spent four hours putting up decorations all over the place, the
one reindeer under the tree is what really makes the space more festive.”
“Shut up, you like it. Man, I'm beat,” Stiles yawns and creaks his neck. His
back hurts and he really hopes he's going to sleep tonight, but he's pretty
sure he is. He's kinda tired.
“You go first,” Derek says to him, pointing to the bathroom. “I'm making tea.”
Stiles shrugs and nods, he's not opposed to drinking a warm cup of tea before
bed. Maybe he'll relax more and he'll be able to sleep through the night. He
grabs his pajama and then goes to brush his teeth and take a short shower, the
hot water scalding him to his bones.
He gets back all loose-limbed and with still wet hair, and finds Derek in the
kitchen with a mug in his hands and looking right back at Stiles. He's leaning
against the counter, ankles crossed and barefoot, dark henley and jeans fitting
tight. He looks incredibly good, all casual like and handsome, and Stiles licks
his lips subconsciously, falters a little in his steps. Derek's eyes are lazily
tracking his every move and Stiles feels himself flush under the scrutiny. He
hopes he can mask it under the flush from the shower.
When he joins Derek at the kitchen counter, one mug is waiting for him, steam
raising up from the golden surface of the tea. He grabs it and takes a little
sip that burns his tongue and warms him right to his toes. He pushes his hips
against the counter and tries not to look up at Derek, who's just watching him
silently. He doesn't know what he's feeling right now, but his heart is
running, running and Derek can totally hear it and Stiles doesn't know how to
make it stop, can't do anything but drink his tea and pretend he's not
completely aware of every spot of his body that's brushing against Derek's, the
way they're so close and, if Stiles really listened intently, he's sure he
could pick up Derek's heartbeat, too.
“You should sleep in my bed,” Derek murmurs and Stiles stops breathing for a
long moment, looks up at him with wide incredulous eyes. “I mean, I always have
to come down and lead you upstairs. You should just sleep in my bed.”
“I.” Stiles starts, then stops, unsure of what he wants to say. It's not
something they never did before, they do it every night, but usually Derek
sleeps alone for a while and, when Stiles wakes up screaming or crying or
simply can't fall asleep, then, only then, he comes down and collects Stiles.
“Okay,” he says, because Derek offered.
“Okay,” Derek repeats, and resumes drinking his tea.
Stiles whole body is silently thrumming.
                                      **
The little lights in the bed frame create a soft atmosphere, bathe in gold the
whole room, the covers and the throw pillows, and Stiles feels good with
Derek's arms around him.
He tries to make himself smaller inside the embrace and holds faintly one of
Derek's hands with loose fingers.
Derek squeezes him for a second and Stiles is already closing his eyes 
                                      ** 
He's in a dark place and it's so cold, so cold, he's shivering hard and his
teeth are chattering. He doesn't know where he is, he can't see a damn thing.
He tries to feel his way using his hands but he can only touch something wet
and cold, liquid. He's on a floor, he's sure of this, it's hard under his legs
and feet and he's sitting against a wall. If he only could find a way to make
light, understand where he is so he could get up and leave.
He doesn't think he's hurt, he could get up and slowly make his way around, but
he's not sure he'll go anywhere far, not with the pitch black surrounding him.
He could be in a closed room, for all he knows. He could be in a huge place and
never find an exit. He's also freezing.
He pats himself down to find out what he's wearing, and he's only in a shirt
and pants, short sleeved and bare footed. He whimpers and tries to paw at the
wall behind him, but it's solid and doesn't budge. He slips a little on the
liquid on the floor and ends up banging his head on the hard surface, moans in
pain and frustration.
“Help,” he murmurs, sure nobody will hear him. Nobody ever hears him. He's
always alone. “Please, why?”
No one answers him, there's just his ragged breathing and pitiful moans in the
air.
“What did I do?” he shouts, slams his hands on the wall and slips again, this
time backwards. He ends up drenched in cold liquid, that sticks his shirt to
his back and makes him flinch and cry out. When he tries to turn to his front,
he hears a noise that makes him suck in a breath.
“Help!” he cries, hope reigniting in his chest. “Help!”
“...iles.”
 He gets upright after a few failed attempts and he's now completely drenched
from head to toe, but someone is here with him, maybe they can help each other
and find a way to escape, he's not alone.
“Stiles,” the voice whispers again and this time Stiles stop, listens closely.
“Derek?” he says, confused. He tries to wipe his tears away with his hands but
ends up sticky from the liquid on his skin, scratches his cheeks in annoyance.
“Derek, is that you?”
“It's always been you.”
“What, what do you mean? Where are you?” he asks frantically, heart beating out
of control and tears sliding down his cheeks. “I can't see.”
“There's nothing else here but me.”
“Where are you? Give me your hand!” Stiles says, patting everywhere around him
to find if he can feel Derek somewhere, but he can only feel wetness and
nothing else.
“It's your fault.”
Stiles sobs and says, “I know, I'm sorry,” and shuffles towards the voice, or
where he thinks it is. He keeps patting the floor, crying and shivering, until
he feels a knee, a leg and makes a surprised noise. “Derek!” he shouts, happy
to have found him. He keeps touching him, to ground himself and Derek that
they're together. Derek is lying on the floor and isn't moving and Stiles can
feel that Derek's clothes are wet, too.
“I'm dead and it's all your fault,” Derek says, grabbing Stiles wrist in a
tight grip, making him scream in horror. Suddenly, a blinding light appears
from nowhere and he flinches, scared, blinks rapidly to adjust to the
whiteness. Derek is looking at him with rage written across his features, hard
edges splattered with blood and eyes a flaring blue. His clothes are completely
red, droplets cascading on the floor from a deep gash in his chest and neck,
from cuts on his wrists, and he keeps squeezing Stiles hard. He realizes that
the liquid he felt on the floor was Derek's blood. Everywhere he looks, can
only see red red red.
“No!”
“Stiles!”
“No! I'm sorry, no!” Stiles screams, tries to get away from Derek's anger and
pain, claws at his hands frantically.
The fingers are gripping his face and neck now, and Stiles trashes against the
hold. Derek is looming over him, pushing him down against the floor and Stiles
cries and cries and can't breathe.
“Stiles, stop, wake up!”
He jerks awake with a gasp and a startle. Derek is leering over him, looking
down at Stiles with a worried expression and big eyes. Stiles stares at him for
a long moment, breath frozen in his chest and a death grip on Derek bicep and
shoulder. He can feel his nails biting the skin, the fine tremors in his body
and fingers an electric buzz in his system, and for a moment he's still inside
the nightmare where Derek was choking him and telling him he was dead because
of Stiles.
“You're okay now,” Derek murmurs, brushing the spot under Stiles left ear with
his thumb, trying to calm him. “You're here.”
“Derek,” Stiles whispers, tightens his grip on him so much he's sure he's
hurting him, but Derek doesn't even flinch. “Fuck, Derek.”
“It's okay, you're okay.
Stiles puts a hand on the back of Derek's neck and tugs him down, against him.
Derek curls up around Stiles and Stiles hugs him, his legs around Derek's and
his right hand clawing at Derek's back. He's still so scared and he feels
guilty, he feels like he really cut Derek open and let his blood flow and let
it happen. Derek is so warm against him, he's breathing and whole and existing,
he's not cold and lifeless and raging, he's holding Stiles tight like he wants
to.
“Can I touch you?” Stiles asks, voice shot and no breath at all. “Tell me I can
touch you, Derek, tell me.”
“Yeah, yeah, fuck, you can,” Derek says, and he's looking at Stiles through
half lidded eyes and Stiles doesn't waste time surging up and kissing him, hard
and uncoordinated. His body is thrumming with adrenaline and Derek is kissing
him back, gripping Stiles' hair and turning his head so he can deepen the kiss,
slots their mouths together right and goes for it. Stiles opens his mouth and
whimpers when Derek licks inside, kisses him thoroughly and filthy, his fingers
clenching in the fabric of Derek's shirt. Stiles is shaking, but not from the
cold; he's shaking because he's pushing his hips up against Derek's and they're
both hard, both biting and licking and Derek is growling and shoving down
against Stiles and Stiles is going to come in the next two seconds.
“Derek, please, I...” Stiles murmurs, trying to get rid of Derek's offensive
clothes, he needs to touch and see and he needs it now. He wants it hard and so
badly he's shaking with it. He grips Derek's waistband and pushes it down, all
stumbling fingers and bitten off moans. Derek pushes off him and leans on his
side, takes his own clothes off with his eyes never leaving Stiles'. He looks
so good, so hot, all hard muscles and chest hair and disheveled hair and Stiles
can't help but push him on his back and crawl over him, legs spread open over
his hips and ass grinding down on Derek's crotch shamelessly.
Derek moans and grips his waist tight to stop him, he thinks, Stiles doesn't
know, but he doesn't want to, he just needs Derek to take him, be rough with
him, anything, he wants all of Derek.
“You want it? Tell me,” Stiles whispers on Derek's parted lips, “Stop being
gentle,” says, moving up and down, ass brushing over Derek's erection. He gets
on his knees to take his own pants away when Derek nods, feverish eyes and
heavy breaths and all. Stiles needs to know Derek wants him, too, that he's not
only saying yes because Stiles wants and needs to fuck. He wants Derek to want
him. “You want me?”
“Yeah, I want you,” Derek kisses him again and helps Stiles undress, slides the
pants off his legs with nimble fingers and throws them on the floor, touches
Stiles' thighs and ass and chest, makes him gasp and moan and yes, this is what
Stiles needs. He's finally burning up, after all those months he spent with
chattering teeth and cold skin – every single of Derek's touches makes him feel
like there's a fire in his veins, like he could burst into flames and explode
in a thousand million speckles of light, but also like Derek is knitting him
back together.
He finds lube in Derek's drawer and pushes him back on the bed with a firm
hand, makes him watch while he fingers himself with one, two, three fingers,
moaning loud and always looking down at him – to make Derek understand, to make
him feel like he feels, how his eyes sparkle and his lips look all wet and
bitten red. Derek is running his fingertips all over Stiles' skin, making him
tremble and stutter in his preparation, fingers stopping for a second and then
pushing deep. He doesn't want to wait a minute longer, he needs Derek's cock in
him now so he licks into Derek's mouth and guides him to his entrance, without
hesitation.
It's not an easy slide, even with all the lube they're using, Derek's cock
glistening with it and Stiles' fingers slipping on skin, and Derek tries to
slow him down a little, puts his hands on Stiles hips to stop him, but Stiles
swats them away and bears down hard, gritting his teeth against the sudden pain
and the sting of it. He wants it rough. He wants to feel. He wants to feel it
even tomorrow when he wakes up, remember what happened, that it wasn't a
nightmare, that Derek was here, here with him, in him.
Derek gasps and looks up at him in wonder and worry, murmurs Stiles' name.
“Stop being gentle, I don't need it,” Stiles repeats and puts his hands on
Derek's wrists, pushes them down on the mattress with every movement. He waits
a beat before he starts fucking himself on Derek's cock, up and down, slowly
and then gaining rhythm. Derek's eyes are roaming over Stiles' body, all over
his face and lips and neck, then going down to his chest and nipples and Stiles
feels a shiver trail down his back, he wriggles his ass on a down stroke and
Derek's hips buck up suddenly, making Stiles cry out.
“Fuck,” he says, shaking his head like he can't believe how it feels. Derek is
big and it burns, the four fingers didn't really prepare him for it and it's
still his first time with a real cock, but it also feels so good – knowing
Derek is fucking him and he's looking at Stiles like he can't even believe he's
there with him, the way he's letting Stiles decide what he wants. He feels good
and tingly and when he pushes down again and Derek's cock hits his prostate, he
closes his eyes and falls forward, hides his face in Derek's neck, his orgasm
building up.
Derek frees his wrists and grabs Stiles' asscheeks tight, fucks up into him
hard and fast, making Stiles' cock brush over his abs with every movement and
spill between them even before he can really feel himself tumble over the edge.
He tightens around the cock in his ass and Derek hisses, stutters a little in
his thrusts, makes a soft moan and hugs Stiles to his chest when he comes
suddenly.
They're both breathing hard, Stiles still hiding in Derek's neck and the other
still clutching him, still hard inside him. Stiles' head is buzzing and there
are so many things he wants to say and do; he wants to nuzzle Derek and kiss
him, he wants to get up and shower, wants to sleep, wants to do it all over
again. Instead, he just stays silent and lets Derek pull out, turn him on his
back and get up from the bed. No one says anything or looks at the other, Derek
just brushes a hand over Stiles' chest and then disappears down the stairs.
The air around him seems to shift silently; from hot hot hot, scorching, to
chilly and cold. In the still house around him, he can pick out every single
noise Derek's making – going down the stairs barefooted, shuffling through
something, he then opens the door of the fireplace and smothers the remnants of
the fire, closes it and paddles through the living room to the bathroom. Water
running.
Stiles isn't disappointed. Well, maybe a little, maybe he thought they would
end up kissing and falling asleep curled around one another, but now that he's
not touching Derek. Now he feels cold, the sweat on his skin chilling him to
the bone, the come on the back of his legs is uncomfortable, but he doesn't
want to get up – feels too ashamed for that.
He used Derek, that's what happened. He asked him if he wanted Stiles to touch
him, but he still pushed him down on the bed and fucked himself on his cock. He
used Derek's body to feel something. It is his fault.
He's a monster.
He hides his face in his pillow and forces himself to black out before Derek
gets back.
                                      **
When he wakes up, the bed is empty. It's still early enough that it's still
dark outside and Stiles peers over the edge of the bed to the clock Derek keeps
on his nightstand to see what time it is and finds out it's only 7:15 in the
morning. And the bed is empty.
Derek gets up early on a normal day, but Stiles knows that today Derek left
because he didn't want to be near Stiles. Not after what happened.
When he moves to get up, too, he flinches at the pull in his ass – it's really
uncomfortable and he feels sore all over, not only where he's still tender, but
his tights and calves, too, his back. He finds out he's not covered in dried
come, like he thought he would, Derek must've cleaned him while he was asleep
and that makes him feel even shittier, thinking about Derek being nice, like he
needed even more reasons to hate himself. His muscles protest when he stands up
but he stretches a little and grabs his pajama still lying on the floor. The
house is really warm this morning and he can distinctly hear the crackling of
the fire from the living room when he slowly makes his way down. He limps a
little over the stairs and mumbles something about having a hot shower, when he
spots Derek sitting at the table in the kitchen, looking intently at him.
Stiles freezes on the spot and stares at him, a feeling of dread washing over
him. He doesn't know if Derek is going to yell at him or just. Stay silent
forever. Judging him with his eyebrows and beautiful face.
“Hey,” he whispers, lowering his eyes to the floor, because no one ever said
Stiles knows how to pick his battles 
“Hey,” Derek says with a clipped tone, and Stiles inwardly flinches. He knew
Derek was pissed, obviously. Stiles made a mistake and he should. Apologize.
Possibly run away and hide somewhere far, like, Tibet. Where he could not talk
forever. “How are you feeling?”
Stiles sighs, because Derek is still Derek even after what happened, and half
shrugs, clenches his hands into loose fists. “Okay. A little sore.”
“Are you hurt?”
He shakes his head immediately. “No, I'm fine. I wanted to-”
Derek interrupts him, says “come here,” and Stiles looks up at him, surprised.
Derek is reaching out for him with a hand, still sitting at the table and
Stiles just stares at him. “Come here, please.”
“Derek, I-” he starts, but then cuts himself off, sighs and goes to where Derek
is sitting, stops at a few feet from the table, but Derek grips his wrist and
tugs him until he's right in front of him. Stiles makes a startled noise and
lets himself be tugged, goes pliant under Derek's hands, lets him move him how
he wants.
“Are you hurt, Stiles? The truth.” Derek asks again, this time his voice is
stern and he's looking up at him all intense and serious. Stiles feels his
breath stop for a long moment, but then shakes his head.
“No, I don't think I'm hurt. It just feels tender. I'm just sore,” he whispers,
embarrassed. He can't help but look down at Derek's fingers still closed around
his wrist, all tender and soft. He doesn't know how Derek can be this way with
him, doesn't want to know why.
Derek nods and says, “don't do that again.”
Stiles shrinks into himself as much as he can and tries to pull away, but Derek
doesn't let him, tugs him still closer. “I'm so sorry, I won't.”
“You wanted to punish yourself and you almost got hurt. Do you understand what
happened tonight? What you did?” Derek goes on, his voice too soft for Stiles
to stand.
“I'm not hurt, I was careless, but I'm not hurt. I'm fine. It's you.”
Derek frowns. “Me?”
“I used you to get what I wanted. How shitty of me,” Stiles responds, self-
deprecating. He feels sick to his stomach, thinking what Derek must have felt
when Stiles was just thinking about himself. Derek doesn't want the same things
he wants. Doesn't feel the same things he feels. That, alone, is a betrayal.
Then there's the matter of actually using Derek's body, something he knows is
still a fresh wound for Derek.
“You didn't use me, I was right there with you all the way.”
Stiles sighs, annoyed and frustrated, shakes his head and takes a step back. “I
pushed you down, I held your wrists against the mattress, I didn't listen to
you. I just wanted to feel. You, something, warm. You didn't want that.”
Derek grabs his waist and pulls him against his chest and Stiles gasps, taken
aback. His hands automatically wind around Derek's shoulders and he looks down
at those pale eyes, so earnest and intense.
“If I really wanted to push you away, I could've done it. I'm a werewolf, we
both know I'm stronger than you. I was worried about you, you know. I didn't
smell blood, but I could tell you were hurting. I didn't want to stop you, but
I should have.”
Stiles doesn't know what to do with that. What does this mean, that they both
wanted to get off and happened to be together? He always knew he was attracted
to Derek, but the way things unfolded last night left him wanting more, even
when ashamed, he still wanted more. He just never really thought Derek would
have wanted something, too.
“I wanted to have sex with you,” Stiles murmurs, voice wavering and rough. He
runs his fingers through the soft hair at the nape of Derek's neck, lowers his
head to rest his forehead against Derek's. “I still want to.”
Derek smiles a little and Stiles closes his eyes.
“You should take a shower,” he says, voice faintly amused, makes Stiles shiver.
“And I want to check you really aren't hurt.”
Stiles huffs a laugh and feels himself blush under the heated gaze he can feel
and the warm hands on his back, massaging him through his clothes.
“Are you trying to get me naked again?” he jokes.
“Sure, always,” Derek replies and Stiles gapes at him, shocked. His face makes
Derek laugh out loud and Stiles feels that warm tingly feeling spread through
his body from his chest outwards.
                                      **
In the bathroom Derek takes Stiles' clothes off first and then, after making
sure the water is warm enough and having undressed too, pulls him under the
spray with him. They gaze at each other like it's the first time they see the
other, like they both are wondering where this is going, what is going to
happen now, and then they're kissing.
At first it's just chaste lips on lips, tender touches and shaky breaths.
Stiles trembles with feeling and curls his arms around Derek's neck, hangs onto
him and lets him take most of his weight; Derek makes a soft little noise and
caresses him tenderly from shoulders to waist, dips lower to touch his ass and
then goes up again. After that, it's little nibs, bites, warm tongues and open
mouths. They kiss like they want to devour, like they want it to mean
something, like the want to mark. Stiles fists a hand in Derek's hair and
pulls, makes him growl faintly and his eyes flash. Derek's skilled quick
fingers are slipping through his ass crack, now, and Stiles gasps and hisses
when they brush against his hole, still tender but wanting more. He stares wide
eyed at Derek, panting hard and pink cheeked.
“Lemme see,” Derek says against Stiles' lips, turns Stiles around until the
water is cascading on his face and his hands are spread against the wall. He
gets on his knees behind Stiles and spreads him with tender hands, and Stiles
throws his head back, closes his eyes against the hot feeling of being exposed
like that for Derek to see, against the warm water in his mouth and the wild
beating of his heart.
He jumps and cries out when he feels Derek lick him suddenly, his tongue a
rapid flick against his entrance. “Fuck!” Stiles says, opens his legs more to
jut his ass out, shameless. “Fuck,” he says again, leaning against the wall
when Derek starts rimming him in earnest. His tongue is hard and soft at the
same time, licking him thoroughly, pushing inside, then pulling out, then again
inside. It's maddening and almost too much, when Derek licks a strip from the
skin behind his balls up to his crack, he swears and pushes more against his
face. His stubble tickles but his lips are soft and it's so different from
anything he ever felt before, even with the soreness from being fucked for the
first time just a few hours earlier, this feels good. Derek keeps fucking into
him with his tongue and he's closing a hand around Stiles' dick now, slowly
jacking him off and it's like going into overdrive, too many sensations at once
and he short-circuits, shouts, his body seizing up, and comes messily all over
the floor and Derek's fingers.
He feels like he's swimming, his head all over the place, when Derek puts an
arm around his waist and turns Stiles around to face him, his back against the
wall and head tipped against it to blink owlishly at Derek - and he's smiling,
beard all glistening and wet with the fat droplets of water falling from his
eyelashes and he's so beautiful. Stiles is so endeared he actually kisses him,
opens his mouth to taste himself on Derek's tongue, puts both his hands on
Derek's cock.
Derek makes a surprised sound in his mouth and then gathers him into his arms,
kisses back with all he's got, making Stiles feel hotter than ever.
                                      **
It's almost like falling, this thing with Derek.
It's easy, and makes him feel alight. It's like finding something right,
something you never knew you needed, but now that you have it, it's just right.
It makes Stiles' chest squeeze and then swell, makes him smile, search Derek
with his eyes and fingertips. They're always close, every single spare moment
they have, they're together. Kissing, touching, biting, fucking. It's Derek
waking up and pulling Stiles against him, soft fingers on Stiles' belly under
his shirt; it's Stiles laughing in the snow, throwing balls at Derek, falling
together in a tumble of limbs and stolen kisses; it's the quiet of staying
together in front the fireplace, the storm raging outside and the soft gasps
Stiles makes with Derek's lips on him; it's everything.
Derek looks at him, sometimes, and Stiles can't breathe.
He doesn't feel cold.
                                      **
Sometimes they lie on their backs in the snow, looking up at the pale sky and
the sun peeking out from behind the tree branches.
“This is really stupid,” Stiles says, laughing out loud. “I can feel the snow
seep through my clothes. Even my pants are wet. My ass is numb.”
“We should get up,” Derek replies, snorting, but doesn't make a move to
actually do as he says.
“Yeah, we should,” Stiles says, turning around to lay on Derek's chest, smiling
against his lips. The cold tip of his nose is resting against Derek's warm
cheek and he laughs and laughs again, just because he can, and then kisses
Derek, just because they're both there, lying on the ground, getting soaked
through and freezing, but together.
“I think my balls are gonna fall off,” he whispers into Derek's mouth and Derek
chuckles, right into Stiles' mouth. It tastes like peppermint.
“Definitely should get up.”
And Derek's mouth is so hot, the snow is so cold, he's freezing, but his blood
is surging through his veins and he feels tingly and he keeps kissing Derek,
lets him lick into his mouth and he forgets everything else, only Derek exists
and the birds chirp all around them and this is almost perfect.
                                      **
Sometimes they'll open the couch and lay on the second bed and Stiles will read
some book he found in Derek's collection and Derek will just listen, small
smile playing on his lips and fingers hooked under the hem of Stiles' shirt.
Sometimes they'll just spend hours and hours mapping each other's bodies out
with fingers and lips and then they'll fuck, panting, all accompanied with hard
touches and tender bites and the snow will come down, will deposit on the
ground and will decorate the world in white, but Stiles won't feel the cold, on
his back with Derek between his legs, Derek's lips on his neck and his bitten
off moans in his ears.
Sometimes Stiles won't sleep, but he won't leave the bed because Derek is
sleeping curled around him and he won't feel that old fear washing over him,
scared his nightmares will pop out from nowhere to scar him for life, because
Derek's breathing is slow and warm against the nape of Stiles' neck and he will
feel one day closer to sanity.
                                      **
“Sometimes I dream of killing you,” he whispers one night to Derek, staring at
the little lights overhead, then at the faint shadows they make all over the
walls and the bed. “I kill you, or Allison, or Scott. My dad. I basically
killed every single one of you, and it freaks me out because I remember killing
people and how much I liked it – being in control, being able of just doing
things and planning them. It was really hard to stop, even when I was trying to
be the one using my own body, it was hard to stop. I'm afraid I'm a really bad
person at heart.”
Derek shakes his head from where it's resting on a pillow and the long hair
over his forehead tickles Stiles' cheek.
“You're afraid,” he just says.
Stiles frowns and turns a little to look at him, confused. “Yeah?” like it's
not the reason he can't go to sleep without feeling ice in his chest, all the
shakiness and paranoia.
“If you weren't scared, then that would make you a bad person. You feel guilty
for what you did. You can't be held accountable for what happened when you were
being possessed by a Japanese fox demon.”
Stiles rests his cheek on Derek's head and keeps staring out of the window,
feels his chest sweep with the thought of how the knowledge of having hurt
someone made him feel elated, the happiness he sickly felt every time, how
having his hands matted with blood was amazing and how he loved creating chaos.
It felt like coming home.
“Still doesn't excuse me,” he murmurs.
“No, you made mistakes, but you're owning up to them. This matters,” Derek
replies and then turns him on his side and curls up around him, pushes Stiles'
knees up to his chest with his own and basically folds Stiles to his liking.
Stiles lets him do it because it makes him feel marginally better.
The fluttering in his chest doesn't stop until he falls asleep.
                                      **
When he's alone in Derek's bed, he thinks of the world outside – back in Beacon
Hills, or really anywhere that isn't inside these walls. He started to think
about this house as home, Derek as something, someone close to his heart and
he's not really sure what to make of it.
Derek is all warmth and strong arms that hold him through the nights, he's the
same man he helped back home, who he thought was going to die over and over
again, but he's also the man who can kiss Stiles until he feels like he's
suffocating, like his heart is being squeezed by five fingers and by his smile.
Derek is an enigma wrapped in another enigma – he's too dark and too bright at
the same time, cutting edges that turn into soft spoken words once you get to
know him; he's pale eyes that look right into you and you can read only when
you learned how to.
Sometimes, Stiles is afraid of thinking what will happen to them once they
leave their little cocoon, sometimes he just wants to make the most of it –
wants to kiss and be kissed by Derek, uncaring of the world back in Beacon
Hills, this is what really matters now, this little bubble of snow and
whispered secrets into each other's mouths. This is something Stiles never
though he would have, but now can't function without. He wants Derek to hold
him hard and make him forget, he wants Derek to mend him piece by piece and he
wants to decipher Derek like an old book, wants to read every page and crook of
him. He wants to be fucked and feel Derek right up to every crevice he never
knew he had.
It's something that's going to swallow him whole, but he can't help but want.
He calls Derek like a siren and Derek always comes.
                                      **
In the bathtub, Stiles sitting in Derek's lap, on Derek's dick, back to Derek's
chest and he's moving his hips in shallow figure eights, head thrown back and
lips open. Derek is holding Stiles' hips with hard fingers, will leave bruises
that he will trace with is tongue later and Stiles will look in the mirror
every morning before getting in the shower. The water is sloshing with their
every movement and little droplets keep cascading on their skin.
“Oh my god,” Stiles whispers, moves his hips back and then up. “Fuck, Derek.”
“Yeah,” Derek says back, his voice low and ruined. He tightens his grip on
Stiles and helps him move, bucks up suddenly and Stiles squirms.
The bubbles are almost completely gone, and the air in the room is so hot and
heavy that Stiles feels like he's going to suffocate and burn up from the
inside. His skin is both clammy and wet, water and sweat mixing together, and
every time Derek's cock fills him up, he can't breathe. He's gripping the edges
of the tub so hard his knuckles are turning white and his knees bang against
the white porcelain with every thrust.
Derek puts one of his hands where Stiles' thigh meets his crotch and just.
Squeezes. And Stiles jerks his legs closed so fast water falls out the tub with
a wet sound all over the floor. He keeps squeezing, more delicately, then opens
his hand and runs his fingers right up to Stiles' balls, fondles them with a
tender touch and Stiles' legs fall open again on their own volition, his voice
getting all breathy and broken.
“Is this too much?” Derek asks, because he knows Stiles likes when he's rough
and hard, since their third time when Stiles told him he didn't want control,
he wanted Derek to control everything, but he always makes sure Stiles is fine,
that he isn't hurting him or he isn't uncomfortable.
Stiles nods as much as he can in the state he's in, and opens his legs more,
puts his own hand on Derek's, moves them over to his cock. “Yeah,” he says,
gritty voice and body lax. “No, go on.”
Derek hums, chest vibrating against Stiles' back and then sits up straighter,
moving Stiles with him. Stiles gasps at the feeling of Derek's cock shifting
into him and moans, gripping onto Derek for dear life. “Careful,” Derek murmurs
into Stiles' ear and then pushes him up to his feet with strong hands and legs.
Stiles can't do anything else but follow Derek's guide, get up on wobbly legs
and uncertain feet. “Good.”
“Derek?” Stiles babbles, unsure of what Derek wants to do but following
nonetheless. When they both get upright, Derek slips out of him and the feeling
makes Stiles whimper. He hates the feeling of being empty, doubled with the way
he's starting to shake from the cold and the fact that his dick is still hard
as a rock. Well. “Where are you going?”
Derek makes sure Stiles can actually stand up by himself before he reaches out
to grab the big towel hanging from the rack on their right, and then steps out
of the tub carefully, always holding Stiles' hand all the while. He's standing
in the middle of the bathroom, dripping and naked and beautiful, and he's
smiling up at Stiles, helping him getting out of the tub, too, without braining
himself. Stiles is confused and freezing, but he follows Derek, gets first one
foot out and then the other, and, when he's standing in front of Derek, the
other wraps him up in the huge towel.
“Why?” Stiles asks, because they were having sex not two seconds ago and it was
going really well, Stiles was on his way to a good orgasm, and now he's
basically freezing his ass off. “I liked the sex part.”
Derek huffs out a laugh and keeps running the towel on Stiles skin, makes sure
he's drying him off good and thoroughly. He wipes Stiles' face from sweat and
water, then dries his hair and then kisses him, fast and short. Stiles pouts
when it's over too soon.
“Put your hands over there,” Derek says, pointing to the bathroom counter
behind them. His voice is soft but sure, and Stiles feels himself getting riled
up again, from zero to fucking seventy in no time.
He licks his lips and looks up at Derek for a long moment, unsure, but then he
does; he puts both his palms on the counter and takes a deep shaky breath. He
can see his reflection in the mirror and he doesn't want to look at his
splotchy red face or the way his hair is all over the place or how he's already
sweating over his upper lip. So he glances back at Derek, who's just throwing
the wet towel back over the rack and then looking up and down Stiles' backside.
He feels himself blush and, even after all the times they had sex and touched
each other, this is still different. He can spot every single change in his
face, the way his pupils dilate and his eyelashes flutter when Derek runs
feathery fingertips up one of Stiles' legs. He bends down a little so his ass
is jutting out just so and Derek hums, pleased.
“Spread your legs for me,” Derek tells him and Stiles complies, shuffles his
feet apart until one bangs against the little stool Derek keeps there for no
reason at all, with a loud bang in the quiet of the room. Stiles sees Derek
getting down on his knees behind him in the reflection of the mirror, and his
breath stops short – Derek's presence is so huge and overwhelming, Stiles can
feel his warmth even when Derek's not touching him. He can tell where Derek is
going to put his hands only by the way his breathing feels against his
asscheeks or the back of his thighs. He still gasps, though, when Derek spreads
him open and blows over his entrance, his hole clenching on nothing. “Look at
you,” Derek says, voice almost a growl. “You're so pink, bet I could slip two
fingers in without any resistance.”
Stiles moans and hangs his head down, nods with his eyes closed. He could.
“Yeah,” he whispers for the millionth time, yes yes yes, always yes for Derek;
he trusts him to always make it good for Stiles, always on the verge of
toomuchtoomuch and not enough at the same time, hard and fast is just as good
as maddeningly slow and deep – it's like Derek knows exactly how to turn Stiles
a pile of goo with just his fingers and his surprisingly dirty talk. For how
much Derek doesn't talk outside the bedroom, during sex he's always saying
something to Stiles, praising him for how good he is, or how wet or open for
him he is, always saying things that make Stiles' toes curl.
“Yeah,” Derek repeats and licks around Stiles' rim with the tip of his tongue.
Stiles jerks a little in surprise and he hits the surface of the mirror with
his forehead. He moans long and loud when Derek pushes his tongue in, hard, and
then strokes his rim with one of his thumbs, pushes the tip in and then pulls
it out. “Yeah?”
“Fuck yes,” Stiles replies, straightens up just enough to push back against
Derek's tongue and finger. “More.”
And then Derek hums, licks him thoroughly and grabs Stiles' hips with both his
hands to pull him back more, to get deeper and deeper. Stiles' hands slip on
the counter and he falls down on his elbows, bangs against the sink with one
and the pain doesn't even register – he's too focused on Derek's tongue and the
sharp grip he has on Stiles' hips and the way he's humming, sending vibrations
up Stiles' spine that make his legs tremble.
“Jesus,” Stiles moans, slams one open palm against the mirror and looks up,
feeling his breath coming short. The Stiles he sees in the reflection is simply
debauched – hair all fucked up, lips bitten red and wet, color high in his
cheeks, eyes unfocused and sparkling. His muscles are all tense and ready to
snap with just one more shift of Derek's tongue in his ass, his stomach pulled
tight and dick hard.
He can hear Derek lick him, the sounds wet and filthy in the silent room and he
shakes his head to clear it from the lust fog, tries to take a breath before he
passes out.
“Give me one of your hands,” Derek orders him suddenly and Stiles complains
with a high pitched whine, because Derek needs to stop and make him come,
preferably today. But he complies, gives Derek his right hand and gasps when
Derek licks his fingers. He gets upright to see it in the mirror, looks down at
Derek kneeling behind him with three fingers in his mouth. Derek is looking
right back at him and Stiles almost comes just from that – Derek's pale eyes
and plump lips closed around his digits. He lets Stiles' fingers go with a soft
pop and guides them to his hole. “Finger yourself, c'mon.”
Stiles takes a shuddering breath and slides one finger in first then, when he
feels that he's dripping wet and so loose, he slides another and another. He
moans and throws his head back, closes his eyes against the flood of
sensations. It's good, but not as good as it were Derek's fingers instead, he
can't get all in with the way his wrist is crooked and he huffs out an annoyed
breath.
“Derek,” he complains, still pushing his own fingers as deep as he can get them
and Derek licks him one more time, fingers and rim and all, and then gets up.
He looks Stiles straight in the eyes and crowds against him. Stiles' knuckles
brush against Derek's cock with every movement and he's still so hard. Stiles
wants it in him right now.
“Tell me what you want,” Derek says, one hand slowly traveling up Stiles' back,
over one shoulder, around his neck, touch light like a feather. He's not even
holding him, he's just resting his hand there but it sends Stiles into
overdrive. His blood surges up, and he gasps, wide eyed. “This?” Derek
continues, when he notices.
Stiles nods and pushes his fingers in in in.
“What else, Stiles?” Derek keeps saying his name and Stiles pushes his ass back
against his crotch, to let him know without saying it out loud. “Tell me.”
Stiles would glare at him, but he's too far gone – so he just whimpers and
looks at Derek though half-lidded eyes, hips jerking in time with his own
fingers in his ass. “Fuck me,” he murmurs and Derek's grip on his neck
tightens, pushes Stiles' head back a little. “Put your fingers in me, your
cock, I don't care, just fuck me.”
Derek's eyes flash bright blue and he growls, his other hand going to grip
Stiles' wrist to pull his fingers out, making him gasp. He then replaces
Stiles' fingers with his own and there - “There! Fuck!” Stiles shouts, because
Derek's fingers are so deep inside him, curled a little at the tip. “Ah!” he
can't even keep his eyes open anymore, it's so good. It seems like Derek
stopped jerking him around, because he's hitting Stiles' prostate with every
push and Stiles is trembling and his knees are weak, but Derek's keeping him
upright with his own body and grip on Stiles' throat.
It takes him exactly two minutes to clench around Derek's finger, muscles all
pulled tight, and come with a shout, so hard his vision blurs. The fingers keep
stroking him through the aftershocks and then, when it gets too much, he whines
and tries to get away. Derek lets him go slowly, gently pulling out his fingers
and release his hold on Stiles' neck. He turns him around so that Stiles is
leaning against the counter and pushes him up so he can sit on it, a little
wobbly.
“You did so good,” Derek tells him and kisses him faintly on the mouth. “Can
you stay upright while I get you some water?”
He thinks so, so he nods, leaning completely against the mirror at his back. He
keeps his eyes closed and waits for Derek to come back to him, listens to him
filling up the glass he keeps on the sink and then tip his head forward to push
the rim against his mouth. Stiles drinks greedily and all at once, feeling
immediately better after. He opens his eyes and blinks up at Derek, smiles a
little. Derek smiles back.
“How are you feeling?”
“Hm, pretty good,” Stiles answers. “I think I just lost some brain cells
through my dick.”
Derek laughs at him and gathers him into his arms, kisses his cheek and his
jawline. Stiles closes both his arms and legs around his strong body and lets
him carry him to bed. The air is cold and unsettling out of the bathroom, and
Stiles curls a little more around Derek to steal some warmth.
When they get past the stairs and up to the second floor, Derek deposits him
gently on the bed, under the still messed up covers.
“If you give me five minutes, I'll blow you,” Stiles murmurs, eyes already
slipping closed.
Derek snorts. “I don't need it, sleep.”
“No,” Stiles panics suddenly, when he feels Derek getting up. He grips his hand
hard and looks at him with worried eyes. “Where are you going?”
Derek calms him with a kiss and a smile. “I have to tidy up the bathroom.”
“No, stay here, the bathroom will be there later. I want you here,” he says,
trying to pull Derek back under the covers. “Please.”
Derek open his mouth to say something and then looks back at the stairs. Stiles
pulls him in again.
“Okay,” he finally says and Stiles feels immediately better, smiles at him
brightly and, when Derek is settled under the covers, turns around to face him
and throws one leg over both of his, kisses him deeply and slow, one hand
splayed on his bearded jaw and sucks on his tongue.
“Five minutes,” Stiles repeats against Derek open lips. “Wake me up.”
Derek nods and Stiles rests his head on Derek's chest, lets him hold him tight.
He closes his eyes and he's out with a smile. 
                                      ** 
They're both lying together on the couch and Stiles is reading The Little
Prince with Derek sleeping on top of him, his head pillowed on Stiles' chest.
Stiles spends more time staring at Derek's eyelashes and the way they cast soft
shadows on his cheeks when the little Christmas lights light up, than actually
reading. It's just that he never really had the opportunity to gaze shamelessly
at Derek before, not really – he never really saw him sleep, peaceful, or laugh
genuinely. He's like a total different person, lighter and happier – he lets
Stiles touch him and hold him and Stiles loves it. He can't seem to be able to
wipe the smile off his face, lately. It's just. He's using Derek's head to keep
the book propped up and Derek didn't even complain, just closed his eyes as
soon as his ear was pressed against Stiles' sternum, happy to listen to Stiles'
heartbeat.
Stiles is falling in love with the book. He didn't remember it like this, deep
and full of questions. It doesn't really seem like a children book and now he
understands why he didn't like it when he was a kid, he didn't fully grasp it,
couldn't really. But now he's older, everything makes more sense.
He's been lazily running his fingers through Derek's hair, brushing one socked
feet up and down the back of one of his legs distractedly and Derek is almost
purring, he's so relaxed and Stiles sometimes stops reading just to huff a soft
laugh at the scene.
“Hey,” he says, “I would've never pegged you for the type,” waves the closed
book in front of Derek's face.
Derek smirks without even blink an eye open. “It was Laura's favorite book. I
read it because she loved it so much. I find it dramatic and over romanticized,
but I guess it's good.”
“Oh,” Stiles says. “That makes sense.”
Derek turns his head and leaves a little kiss on Stiles' chest, then pecks him
on the lips, dislodging the book from Stiles' grasp.
“It reminds me of her, I don't want to forget this, too.”
Stiles nods and closes his arms around Derek's neck, holds on. “No, I totally
get it. It's like me with this Christmas thing. I don't really care about it,
but it reminds me of my mom so I love it.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
They kiss lazily for a while, deep and slow, Derek's hands roaming under
Stiles' shirt and Stiles pushing his heels in the back of Derek's legs to rub
their crotches together. Derek makes a soft noise in the kiss and Stiles
smiles, opens his eyes a little to look at him.
“I wish I didn't have to go back to Beacon Hills,” he murmurs, suddenly,
unaware of how he got there in the first place, only knows that he has a
nagging feeling in his chest that sometimes makes him feel out of breath with
seemingly no reason. “You could come back for a while?” Derek stops kissing him
and sighs.
“You have school, friends, family there, I don't have anything left now. Cora
left, Peter is no one even knows where,” he says, staring down at the patterns
he's making on Stiles' belly with his fingers. Stiles looks at the ceiling and
drops his hands from where they were tangled in Derek's hair. “Chris and I left
because we really had to. I don't have a reason to come back.”
Stiles pushes him away with a hand on the chest until Derek gets the message
and sits up, leans against the back of the couch. Stiles curls over his own
knees and hugs himself, looks away from Derek's green eyes and pink lips,
anywhere but him.
“Oh, okay,” he murmurs, chest hurting. He pats it with a fist and flinches away
from Derek's fingers, when he tries to touch him, comfort him. He doesn't want
it now.
“Stiles,” Derek pleads, “it's not that. You're young, you don't- Do you really
think we could be together back in Beacon Hills?”
“Don't patronize me, Derek. I know this isn't some forever-kind of love, I know
we just. Like, it's because we're here alone in the middle of nowhere that we
fell into this sex thing, I'm aware that this would have never happened back
home but I need someone there for me, who gets me. Having sex with you is a
bonus, not what I want you for.”
Derek is looking at him with big shocked eyes, the flickering lights of the
tree and on the fireplace make him look almost ethereal, all pale eyes and dark
stubble. Stiles can't even stomach it.
“I'm so mad right now, I literally feel like I'm going to be sick. I need to go
outside for a moment, just. Don't follow me,” he says getting up, leaves Derek
on the couch and grabs his coat and mittens and beanie, puts everything on in a
fumble and runs outside before he starts crying for what feels like heartbreak.
He thought what he felt for Lydia was bad, huge, the love of his entire life,
but this is worse. So much worse. He's gasping for air even outside. His chest
feels like is going to split open and his heart is going to fall out. Jesus,
now he gets why there are millions of songs about this.
This is awful.
He sits on the rock near the lake and stares at nothing, his eyes wet with
tears he refuses to let go. He's not going to cry about this, not now. He cried
a lot lately, but he's not going to cry over Derek Hale. Yes, his heart feels
bruised all over and he thinks he might be a little in love with the dude, but
he's not going to turn this into a romantic comedy.
He sniffs and wipes at his eyes angrily, leans with his elbows on his knees and
toys with his fingers. Stiles knows, okay, that this is something that just
happened, like it clicked into place. Last year was so hectic and he's not even
sure how he got out alive from the Nogitsune shtick and – Derek was there,
handsome and caring and Stiles just wanted something for himself, for once.
When the opportunity arose he took it. He was surprised when Derek didn't
reject him, used to it as he is, and he still doesn't know why Derek didn't. He
toyed with the thought of being with a guy more than once, he knew he isn't
exactly straight since he met Danny and his dimples, when he started getting
all hot thinking about Derek even when he couldn't stand him. He's not sure if
he would've tried back home – if Derek would've said yes.
He doesn't really know, but now he feels like an idiot. He should just stop
trying altogether.
Maybe his dad was right.
“Stupid,” he says to himself, scratches at his scalp with hard fingers and
hides his stinging eyes between his knees.
“You're not,” Derek says behind him and Stiles startles so hard he almost falls
face first into the snow. He didn't even hear him approach, with the snow and
everything, and he pointedly doesn't turn around, but Derek just sits beside
him and bends down to look him in the face. “You're not stupid.”
“I told you not to follow me,” he grits out, ashamed of being found crying all
alone like an idiot with a crush.
“I wanted to tell you something,” Derek puts a hand on the nape of Stiles' neck
and he stiffens, but doesn't push him away. “I don't want you to think this
isn't important for me. Because it is.”
Stiles leans a little closer to Derek because he can't help himself, and the
other hugs him tightly to his chest. This sucks.
“You don't have to say that just because I freaked out on you,” Stiles murmurs.
“I'm not. I'm trying to make you understand that this is the first relationship
I ever had that didn't end up with me getting thrown under a bus.”
Stiles bites his lip and peeks at Derek from the corner of his eye. “Yeah,” he
concedes because. Well, yeah. Derek has history.
Derek nods and nuzzles Stiles' cheek. “This is important for me because I know
you're not going to do something to hurt me. I just know.”

“I wouldn't. I care about you.” I maybe am a little in love with you, he wants
to say but he doesn't, he just quietly tries to have a silent meltdown inside.
Because ow. He lets Derek brush the tip of his nose against his temple and then
kiss it tenderly.
“Yeah, I know. I do, too.”
Stiles sighs and pecks him on the lips, tries to compartmentalize his own
feelings, the way he feels warm and tingly when they're together, the way he
feels safer with Derek with him, the way Derek is the only one who actually got
him to open up a little – even if talking about what he went through is still
hard - and the fact that he doesn't want to miss that if he can. Derek kisses
him back and smiles softly.
“It's weird thinking how we ended up here, I mean, we used to hate each other
and now you're the only person who can really understand me.”
“I didn't hate you, I just really couldn't stand you,” Derek says, smirking.
Stiles hits him with a hand and rolls his eyes. “And it was different then, you
were a little shit and I was in a bad place. Just like you are now, but I think
you're slowly getting better.”
Stiles thinks about it for a moment and then decides that yes, he is getting
better. The nightmares are still crazy and he sometimes can't shake the feeling
he's actually killed all those people, the feeling of that void inside of him,
the voice echoing in his mind, but he doesn't feel like he's gonna crumble if
someone just as much as touches him.
“I feel better here, with you, you helped me a lot,” he confesses.
Derek kisses him again for a long moment, lips on lips, and then leans his
forehead against Stiles'.
“You helped me, too.”
Stiles touches his face with kind hands and says, “I'm really glad.”
                                      ** 
That night, they don't go to sleep.
They spend it curled together on the second bed in the living room, the
fireplace lit up with orange flames and the Christmas tree flickering prettily,
all gold and warm.
Derek pushes Stiles back against the mattress and kisses him hungrily, runs his
hands through Stiles' hair and over his skin, makes him moan filthily when he
opens his legs, bends his knees so they're touching his shoulders and rims him
for so long Stiles comes all over himself and Derek's tongue, when the other
leans over his cock to catch the white stripes. He licks him through the
aftershocks and then fingers him, pushes in deep and makes Stiles' legs
tremble, hands clenching in the sheets and cheeks flushed a pretty pink.
Stiles is hard again after a few minutes, Derek's skilled fingers and his
heated gaze the culprits, and he starts moving his ass in time with the digits
inside him.

“Fuck, oh my God, Derek, why do you always have to be such an asshole,” he
babbles, scratching at Derek's scalp with his blunt nails, feels Derek's growls
run through him, feels sweat run down his skin and he moans shamelessly, out
loud, head thrown back and eyes closed.
Derek pushes in with a long thrust that makes Stiles cry out, clench around him
and shiver. Derek's hands are pushing Stiles' knees into the mattress and he
feels incredibly splayed open, at Derek's mercy and he loves it, the position
makes Derek's dick slide deep, so incredibly deep inside him that he jolts with
every thrust, every hit on his prostate makes him dribble a little more precome
all over himself. He puts his palms on Derek's ass and back of his thigh to
feel the muscles working and moans into Derek's mouth with every push and pull.
“Yeah,” Derek growls, another hard thrust and then a kiss. “I'm so,” he says,
doesn't even finish his sentence because Stiles is seizing up and coming
without even a hand on his cock, he's shouting and his body is closing in on
itself with the force of his orgasm.
Derek slows down his thrusts to let him catch his breath, it feels like his
lungs are on fire and can't even breathe properly, his chest can't expand with
the jumbled mess of feelings residing inside him. He opens his eyes a little
and looks up at Derek through his lashes, moans a little when he touches
Derek's chest with his palms, feels and hears him growl a little.
“C'mon,” Stiles slurs, pushes his ass back a little to incite Derek to move,
move, c'mon and Derek does, he pulls back a little and doesn't look away when
he thrusts back in, makes Stiles gasp and clench around him. “Yeah,” he moans,
blushes more when he hears how sloppy and wet he is, how lube and precome are
dribbling out of his ass and making a mess of the sheets. He runs his fingers
up Derek's pecs and curls them around the other's neck, pulls him in until he's
leaning right over Stiles' lips, panting into each other's mouth.
“You feel so good,” Derek whispers, like it's a secret, a confession, and
Stiles whimpers, bucks up against the next thrust, his body on fire and folded
into itself. “Stiles.”
“Yeah, c'mon, come inside me,” he says, tries to push him in even more with a
hand on Derek's ass.
Derek stares at him with big awed eyes and his mouth opens tenderly in an O
shape, and Stiles licks his soft bitten lips, can't help himself, and feels him
stutter, groan and come deep inside him, hot and wet. Seeing Derek when he's
having an orgasm is always the best part of having sex with him. He looks so
vulnerable in that short moment, all closed eyes and parted lips, body strung
tight and strong, but also weak at the same time. Stiles can't get enough of
it, feels powerful knowing he's the one that made Derek look like that.
He hums softly and caresses Derek's back when Derek lets his legs fall down
against the mattress, joints straining and hurting, and he wiggles a little at
the feeling of Derek's cock still half hard inside him. Derek likes to stay
inside for as long as he can, tries to keep his come from dribbling out of
Stiles' ass and Stiles doesn't complain, lets Derek do as he wants because he's
happy anyway.
“I feel warm only when I'm with you,” he confesses in a soft spoken voice.
Derek is still readjusting them in a more comfortable position and he stops
immediately when he hears what Stiles said, stares at him like Stiles just said
something shocking. Stiles giggles, drunk on sex.
“Oh,” is the only thing that Derek says, blinks surprised a couple times and
then kisses Stiles hard, like he's trying to say something else entirely and
Stiles gets it. He gets it. His body responds with a buzzing feeling running
through his veins, fingers that curl protectively around Derek's back, nails
digging in. Yeah, Stiles gets it.
“I'm going to close my eyes for a second now,” he sighs whey they pull apart,
smiles a little up at Derek with eyes half closed. He's really tired and his
body is melting right against the mattress, feels finally okay for the first
time in a long while.
Derek nods and so Stiles nods back, closes his eyes and falls asleep with Derek
still looking down at him, his comforting weight covering him like a blanket.
                                      **
“Oh,” Stiles says, pulling back from the kiss and looking down at Derek between
his legs. “It's your birthday tomorrow!”
Derek blinks and then lowers his gaze to Stiles' lips, licks his own and then
nods faintly. “Yeah, and?”
“And!” Stiles exclaims, jerking his head back when Derek lunges forward to
resume the kissing. “What do you wanna do? I don't even have anything to give
to you, but I don't know, I could try and cook you something.”
“And inevitably ending up with you blowing up the entire house? No, thanks,”
Derek replies. Stiles makes an affronted gasp and pinches one of Derek's
nipples in retaliation, making him jump and laugh. “Stop it, asshole.”
“Don't mock my almost non-existent culinary skills!” Stiles says, petting
Derek's chest in apology. “Watch me as I'll never try to be nice to you ever
again.”
“Shut up, Stiles.”
“No, I'm serious, though. It's your birthday tomorrow andit's Christmas. We
should do something,” he says, caressing Derek's hair where they're falling
over his forehead. Derek closes his eyes and pushes into the touch, hips
fitting snugly against Stiles' crotch where he's perched over the kitchen
counter. “Like, I don't know, have something that counts as real food at
dinner.”
“Are you saying you don't appreciate my culinary skills?” Derek asks, raising
an eyebrow.
Stiles snorts. “Right, you're a real chef.”
“Says the one who can't even cook eggs properly,” Derek replies.
“It was one time!”
“The smell of burnt eggs haunted me for days, I thought it'd never go away – it
was like having burnt eggs right up my nose,” Derek shakes his head and makes a
pained expression. Stiles rolls his eyes and smiles fondly.
“Shut up,” he says, pulling Derek in and kissing him to shut him up himself.
                                      **
“Actually, I have a very important question to ask.”
Derek sighs and doesn't stop his shoveling, the snow still falling rapidly.
It's been three days nonstop, now, and Derek avoided getting out as much
because it was useless moving the snow when it was still coming down so hard.
Also, they fucked a lot and Stiles has priorities – Derek first and then the
danger of getting locked inside the house forever by a wall of snow. Derek won.
“Somehow this doesn't surprise me in the slightest,” Derek says, unimpressed.
“Well, you know me. I don't even know how old are you really. You're turning
twenty or forty?”
Derek's head whips around and glares at him with very offended and judging
eyebrows. “I'm twenty four.”
“Oh, that's good. I thought you were, like, thirtyfour,” Stiles sighs relieved
and nods to himself. Derek is still staring at him, seemingly pissed. “What?
It's the beard and the frown. And the aura,” he motions at the air around
himself in a sweeping gesture.
“The aura?”
“Yeah, you know, you exude a very distinct aura of, I don't know, creepiness.
Or, you used to.”
Derek glares at him harder and Stiles snorts, because it feels like it's been
ages since he last saw this side of Derek. Sometimes he misses the frown, but
he always changes his mind when Derek smiles.
“I'm going to pretend I didn't hear a word you just said,” he says, like he's
making a huge favor to the whole world and he turns back to resume his
shoveling. Stiles looks at him for a while, the way his body moves and his
jeans hug tightly his legs and ass and he can't help but smile.
“Yeah, you do that, I'm going inside and jerk off to kill some time. Bye!”
Stiles exclaims with mirth, hurrying inside when he sees Derek turning around
so fast he almost falls on his own ass.
“What the hell?” Derek shouts and Stiles bursts out laughing and yelps when
Derek runs up to him and picks him up to throw him over his shoulder.
                                      ** 
“I don't have anything to give you,” Stiles says, when Derek is just kissing
his chest and belly. 
They're still completely clothed, even after Stiles tried to get Derek naked
for the millionth time that day, and they spent what feels like hours just
making out. He loves making out with Derek, kissing him until his lips feel
numb and tender, but he also loves getting fucked. A lot. He discovered. A real
cock is nothing like his own fingers, he also discovered. It's so much better.
Derek sucks a bruise on Stiles' hip, right where the bone juts out and pulls
away with a loud smack, looks up at Stiles with a kind smile, leans in to peck
him on the lips. “You don't need to give me anything, I'm fine.”
Stiles makes a face and shrugs the best he can whilst lying down, fingers
running through Derek's long hair. “I know that I don't have to, I want to.
It's your birthday, it's a special day, you deserve nice things once in a
while.”
Derek smiles at him, but his eyes are. A little sad, maybe. Stiles can't ask
him what is wrong, because Derek is leaning in to kiss him, really kiss him,
deep and wet, his tongue in Stiles' mouth and he's too occupied kissing back,
moaning when Derek covers him entirely with his own body, touches him
everywhere.
In the end, Stiles gives Derek the sloppiest blowjob in the history of blowjobs
and then rides him until Derek is a panting mess and his claws are threatening
to cut through the sheets.
He whispers, “happy birthday,” against his lips when they're still joined
together, Derek's cock hard and big inside of him, and Derek looks up at him
with bright eyes and says back “yeah, merry Christmas,” complete with wiggling
eyebrows that make them both erupt in drunken giggles and snorts.
Still lying in a post-sex daze, after having come so hard Stiles felt dizzy
with it, they giggle and touch each other with tender fingers for a while, just
lazing together. They whisper things and memories, they both talk about old
times when life seemed easier – Stiles talks about his mom and his dad and how
they worked together, how they were made for each other, how Stiles thought he
and Lydia were made to be together when he was little, too, just like his
parents were and how he just realized they aren't, in the end; and Derek talks
about his family, how big it was and how his mom was a very powerful Alpha, how
she was a natural leader and led the pack with efficiency and how he felt out
of place when he became an Alpha himself. He wanted to do good for his mom, his
family, but he couldn't.
“You weren't that bad,” Stiles says, his chin perched on Derek's chest, looking
down at him. Derek raises a skeptical eyebrow and Stiles laughs. “Well, you
weren't the best Alpha in the world, but you did as good as you could. Your
problem is that you never listen.”
Derek looks up at the ceiling and kind of makes a nod of assent. “That's almost
true.”
“Almost,” Stiles repeats, sarcastically, a laugh in his voice. “But, all in
all, you tried. I can see that now.”
Derek looks at him and then smiles a little, pushing a hand through Stiles'
unruly hair. Stiles closes his eyes at the contact and tips his head into the
touch.
When their stomachs grumble, they put together something to eat for dinner –
Stiles puts some frozen pizza rolls in the oven and declares it a dinner fit
for a king. Derek shoves a hand in his face and pushes him away. Then Derek
gets up and starts putting together some spaghetti with tomato sauce and Stiles
snorts so hard he almost brains himself against the kitchen counter.
They eat in bed and it's so good and simple and perfect that Stiles just has to
suck Derek's dick again.
It's still Derek's birthday, after all.
                                      **
Stiles told his dad he would be home for the end of the year, because they both
knew Stiles had already spent a lot more days with Derek than he anticipated
and he really had to go back. Even if he really didn't want to. Every time he
thought about going back to Beacon Hills he felt a heavy feeling in his chest
and he ended up gasping for air.
He didn't say anything to Derek about his anxiousness, not after what happened
the last time he did, he knows what this means, he just needs to get used to
it. It was good until it lasted.
So, he starts putting his clothes and things back in his bags, one at a time.
He starts with his shampoo and body wash – because he started using Derek's
after the first time they fucked – and then, a day before he has to leave, he
puts his last two shirts and pair of boxers in there. He doesn't close the bag
just yet, that would be too final for him, but his things aren't strewn around
the house, filling up Derek's bedroom and bed – it's. Kinda empty.
He's alone in the house that afternoon, Derek went to Chris' to discuss
something and he can snoop around a little without being watched, like Derek
often does. He finds a shirt Derek wore to bed the first few times they slept
together and. It feels so weird thinking about it, knowing that he's a little
in love with Derek and even one of his shirts makes his heart thump. It's
really stupid.
He still shoves the shirt under his own in the bag, and zips it closed to avoid
thinking about it.
Derek comes back after a couple hours and Stiles is pretending to read a book
laying on the couch, feet propped up against the back of it. Stiles looks up
and Derek is just staring down at him with a half-smile on his face. He raises
an eyebrow and Derek snorts softly, bends down to leave a kiss on Stiles' head.
“I talked to Chris, and we decided we're going back to Beacon Hills for a few
days to see how it's going,” he whispers against Stiles' hair. Stiles gapes at
him a little and then throws the book on the floor, grabs the back of Derek's
shirt and hangs on.
“What? Really? You're coming back with me for a while?”
“A few days,” Derek repeats and nods.
“You're driving with me, right? You're spending New Year's Eve with me,” he
decides, not giving Derek the time to reply. “Yes!” he exclaims, kissing Derek
on the lips.
Derek laughs and then pulls back, gets upright and Stiles complains.
“I'm packing for a couple of days, not any more,” he says, walking towards the
stairs to his bedroom.
Stiles doesn't really listen to him and gets up too, to follow him, says,
“Where you'll be staying?”
And Derek is already putting some shirts and a pair of jeans in a bag, replies
without looking up. “At the loft.”
Stiles mouth forms a surprised O shape, scratches at his chin. “Oh, I thought
you weren't staying there anymore, I don't know. Were not paying rent, maybe.”
Derek zips his bag up and nods. “I'm not, I own the building.”
“Dude, you're loaded,” Stiles gapes at him. “It explains the expensive car and
the fashion sense.”
Derek frowns at him and then rolls his eyes.
“You say the weirdest things sometimes,” Derek says and Stiles shrugs, used to
hearing that.
“Say something I don't know,” he laughs a little bitterly and Derek shakes his
head, walks up to him and pushes him against the wall, runs the tip of his nose
against Stiles' and then smiles.
“I don't really mind,” he murmurs.
                                      **
That's why Derek is in Stiles' Jeep, driving, and Chris is following them with
his own car, the next day. The weather seems to have settled for a while, gray
sky but no snow.
And Stiles is in a foul mood.
He woke up with a weird feeling in his stomach and didn't even talk to Derek
all morning, just grabbed his bags and put them in the car. He's sad and tired
and he didn't sleep well that night, so he's also cranky. Derek sat in the
driver's seat and Stiles didn't even say anything, just grumbled a little and
sat in the passenger seat and let Derek do as he wanted.
He's been looking out the window for a couple of hours, when he feels Derek
settling a warm hand on the nape of his neck and he sighs deeply.
“Are you okay?” Derek asks and Stiles shrugs.
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Derek says and just leaves his hand there, rubs his thumb back and
forth on Stiles' skin.
Stiles looks back at him from the corner of his eye, looks at him for a few
moments to imprint this moment in his memory forever; Derek driving his car
with the snow reflecting the gray sunlight and making his eyes seem an
impossible array of colors, pale and bright and so green, with long dark lashes
and a handsome face. He wants to just remember the sure movements of his
fingers on the steering wheel and the way his body is sitting relaxed against
the back of the seat. Mundane things that seem to speak loudly in the silence
of the car, the frenzied drumming of his heart as the only noise accompanying
them.
He ends up falling asleep with his face tucked against the touch of Derek's
hand and a heavy chest.
                                      ** 
They get a room in a motel along the way. It's really late and they're all
tired and Chris nods at them without even looking before he's closing the door
of his own room behind himself and Derek and Stiles are doing the same.
It's a pretty cheap motel, but they're just looking for a place to sleep,
nothing fancy, so this is okay for the night. They just get undressed and fall
together under the covers, Derek curling around Stiles as usual and falling
right asleep. Stiles tries to. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, calms
himself down as much as he can and melts against Derek's body but he just
can't.
The knot in his throat doesn't bulge.
                                      **
At least he doesn't dream this time.
                                      **
Beacon Hills is warm and there's no snow, no rain, but it's still gray and full
of memories, he feels overcome with an almost irrational feeling of dread
washing over him, chilling him to his bones, makes it hard to breathe. Stiles
understands why Derek doesn't want to come back at all.
His dad is waiting for them when they stop at Stiles' house, already out of the
door even before the car's stopped. He smiles big at Stiles and pulls him in a
hug, pats him on the back and says he missed him. Stiles closes his eyes and
hugs him back, says he missed him too and everything feels exactly the same.
Derek talks to the Sheriff for a few minutes while they're unloading Stiles'
Jeep and, suddenly, he doesn't want to look at them anymore. He can't. Derek is
going back to his cabin in the woods in a few days and they will never see each
other again. This is how is gonna be. He just knows. Why would Derek want to
keep in touch with Stiles, after they say goodbye? It doesn't make sense. Every
beat of his heart hurts like the burn of spreading poison through his veins.
“I'm going to bed,” he murmurs and when his dad looks at him with a surprised
expression, he just hurries to grab his pillow from the bags they left around
in the living room and turns his back to him, leaves them without saying
anything. Derek is leaving and he's going to sleep.
His bed feels too tiny and too big without another person to share it with –
it's cold and unsettling, but he sheds his clothes, gets in without sparing a
glance to his room and pulls the covers up to his nose, hides his face in his
pillow. It smells like Derek's shampoo.
                                      **
When he wakes up he feels even more tired than when he fell asleep and that is
saying something. His phone is blinking at him from where he tossed it on the
nightstand earlier and he unlocks the display to find three messages, two from
Scott and one from Derek.
He avoids the one from Derek for a few minutes, doesn't want to read it if he
can and so he pulls up the conversation with Scott: dude youre back??? is the
first message, then soon after followed by derek told me youre sleeping call me
when you wake up!!! and he smiles faintly at them. He dials Scott's number and
snuggles back under the covers. Scott answers after a couple of rings and he's
happily shouting “Bro!” at Stiles.

“Hey Scotty,” Stiles laughs. “I just woke up from the longest of power naps.”
“Dude, I'm so glad you're back!” Scott says, cheerful as ever. “I missed the
fuck out of you.”
Stiles laughs out loud and says, “Me too, bro. You wanna come over and play
videogames until our eyes bleed?”
“Yeah, of course! I'll bring food,” Scott replies and Stiles feels his love for
Scott tug at his heartstrings, his best friend is the best.
“Fuck yeah, something greasy! I really need to eat something that will make my
arteries clog up asap,” he moans. “Derek is an awful cook.”
Scott giggles. “Curly fries?”
“Yes!” Stiles cheers.
                                      **
Stiles and Scott have been playing for hours, not even stopping to eat properly
– they're leaving greasy stains with their fingertips all over Stiles' XBOX,
coffee table and couch, but Stiles doesn't really care, he missed this too
much. It helps pretending they're not trying to forget what is going on outside
these walls, like the town they're in isn't a beacon for everything evil and
their lives aren't ruined and constantly in danger. It feels like they're still
fourteen and Stiles is still lusting after Lydia Martin and his greatest
concern is a bad case of acne, not the fact that he's been possessed by an evil
fox spirit and his heart is always hurting and he can't sleep without waking up
screaming.
Scott is pretending everything is almost fine, too. He doesn't talk about
Allison, doesn't talk about what he feels and how he's coping and Stiles
doesn't want to ask him how he's doing, can't really. He himself doesn't want
to share his thoughts and feelings – he's not good at it. Never has been. So
that's why they're laughing and playing Skyrim and eating so much junk food
they're gonna feel awful by tomorrow. It feels almost good.
“Yo, how was staying with Derek?” Scott asks then, suddenly. He's not looking
at Stiles, preoccupied with the game, but Stiles' breath runs short for a
second.
He clears his throat before he replies, but then his voice doesn't waver, so he
counts it as a win.
“It was fine, he's a neat freak, though.”
“Really?” Scott asks, incredulity in his tone.
“Yep,” Stiles nods and jabs angrily at the controller, annoyed at the little
snippets of Derek picking up Stiles' clothes from the floor that are playing
through his mind. “But the house was cool, real cool landscape outside, also.
It snowed a lot.”
Scott nods all serious-like and then makes an affronted noise at the TV.
“Dude!”
Stiles snorts. “You're so bad at this,” and then crows in victory with hands
thrown in the air when he bests Scott.
Scott groans and lies on the floor in despair, controller abandoned a few
inches from his feet, face hidden in the carpet. Disgusting. He's such a moron.
“I'm hungry,” Scott says, after a while, in the silence of Stiles picking
another game to win and Scott still hiding his nose in the smelly carpet.
“You just finished a whole cheeseburger not even three minutes ago,” he says,
throwing his controller at Scott's head. He catches it with no struggle and
Stiles sighs, rolls his eyes. “There's popcorn in the kitchen. Go make some.”
Scott smiles all bright and big and gets up immediately, leaves the living room
in a heartbeat to make food and Stiles falls on the couch, tired of keeping up
a facade in front of Scott. It's not like he isn't genuinely happy to be with
Scott, but he's missing the easier times with Derek and he doesn't know what to
do with this knowledge. He's not used to thinking about Scott as one of the
hard times in his life, he's always been his rock since they were kids. When
Stiles' mom died, Scott was there to help him and ground him and make him feel
better, but now. It's all so different.
Stiles grabs his phone from his pocket and finally reads Derek's text, now that
he's alone and he's thinking about him – he's always thinking about Derek, but
he's promising himself of just. Just let it go quietly, it's been good until it
lasted. Doesn't mean he needs to make it into a bigger thing than it actually
was. They're friends, right? They will be friends even with Stiles feeling a
hole in his chest when he pictures Derek smiling and bathed in pale sunlight.
He will learn to live with this.
Come over to the loft if you want, the message reads and Stiles smiles softly
to himself, a little sadly. He taps a fast reply to it before he starts
thinking about it, can't! scott's here! ttyl! and puts his phone away when
Scott comes back with a huge bowl filled with popcorn to the brim.
He gapes at it and says, “Dude, how much popcorn was in my kitchen?”
Scott sits beside him and snorts loudly, pushes the bowl in Stiles' lap and
starts the game Stiles put on when he left. “There were like three whole bags.”
“And you actually made them all?” It is a lot of food, they could probably ask
Stiles' neighbors to join them and still have some left by the end.
Scott shrugs, not concerned by the quantity of food that's currently spilling
all over Stiles' clothes and floor, and motions at Stiles to grab his
controller and start playing. “I'm hungry.”
Stiles shakes his head but turns to the TV, ready to play.
“I'm gonna kick your ass, McCall,” he announces.
“We'll see, Stilinski.”
                                      **
He doesn't go visit Derek at his loft.
He thinks about it a lot: when he wakes up after a horrible night filled with
nightmares and tears, after his dad leaves for work, when he's in the shower
and jerking off at the memory of Derek's mouth and the feeling of his cock
inside him, he thinks about it when he's alone in the house. But then he just
stays there, texts Derek back when he messages him and smiles fondly at
something Derek said, but he's actually trying to detach himself from the
other. He feels like it'll hurt less when Derek leaves in two days.
He just. He misses Derek, that's for sure. But he's also trying to do the best
thing here, something he's not used to do, and he thinks it's going pretty
well. He's responding to Derek's messages and all, talking to him when Derek
calls him, but he's feeling petty and childish and he's sure he deserves a
little time to himself. He's learning to deal with his feelings before he has
to face Derek at Scott's party. He will be the bigger man and smile at Derek
like he's not basically in love with him. He's not going to act like he did
with Lydia – he matured a lot since then, he doesn't have a five year plan for
Derek, doesn't think they'll be together in ten years, doesn't think of
marrying the dude and have kids with him, like he used to with Lydia. It's so
different, this thing with the other man. It's. Sometimes it's better, because
he actually had Derek in a way – Derek opened up to him and told him things
about himself, they were closer than ever, physically and mentally, and Stiles
is glad he actually had the chance. But it's also worse, because he knows how
Derek is under all the layers and the gruff exterior – he knows he's soft and
bright, that he smiles with bunny teeth and his eyes crinkle at the sides when
he laughs. He knows the way he kisses with all his might and the way he fucks.
The feeling of his lips on the inside of Stiles' wrist and his eyes staring
down at him while they were having sex. It's the stupid things, the way Derek
reads his sister's favorite book because he misses her and how he just let
Stiles fill his house with Christmas lights and then bought a tree for him so
they could set it up.
It feels terribly like love. And Stiles hates it.
He's angry and annoyed most of the time, snaps at everything and everyone and
he finds himself thinking awful things through the buzzing of his mind, but
he's trying. That has to count for something.
He spends the last day of the year with his dad, eating crappy food (his dad
needs a cheat day once in a while and Stiles lets him have a whole huge taco
and tells him to have only a tiny serving of vegetables with that instead of
the whole veggie taco, this is called character development, yes) and they talk
about baseball and all the games Stiles missed while he was at Derek's and
Stiles pointedly avoids talking about anything else. His dad is also avoiding
some subjects – such as what is going on at the police station and which new
cases seem fishy and Stiles sighs, deflected, but doesn't even want to argue
with his dad like he usually would do. He just. Doesn't have it in him today.
His dad notices it, the way Stiles just stares at the table and doesn't try to
get his dad to talk, shed some info on his work, so he asks, “you all right,
kiddo?”
Stiles nods immediately, looks up at him and takes a bite of his taco, to buy
some time.
“Just tired,” he lies, smiles a little.
His dad doesn't seem convinced, though; he stares at his son for a long moment
and he looks older, more tired, too, new wrinkles on his face and a sad
expression in his eyes.
“You told me you got better, but I don't really see it, son. You look awful.”
Stiles feels awful, all right. He's sleeping only a few hours per night and
then he's dealing with his feelings, even if he didn't want to end up there,
and he just wants to find a moment of peace.
“You don't look that good, too, pops,” he says, smirking. He wipes his hands
with the napkin and his dad sighs, doesn't raise to the bait. He knows Stiles,
knows when his son is just saying things to avoid a certain matter.
“Listen Stiles, I don't want to force you to talk to me, son, but I want to
help. You really sounded a little better when you were with Derek. You also
told me you were sleeping.”
“I was,” he says, stops eating altogether, pushes his food away with an annoyed
hand. “But you also know that it's this place that makes me feel trapped. I
need to deal with this and I will. I just need time.”
“Okay, I get it,” his dad says, and Stiles leans against the back of the booth,
closes his eyes and wishes he didn't have to do this. Always explain himself to
everybody. Talk about everything.
“I should go home and change before I have to go to Scott's for the party,” he
murmurs, looking at his dad.
“Okay,” he replies, abandoning his meal too. “Let's go.”
Stiles feels like a dick for shutting out his dad like that, but he needs more
time. He's dealing with things his own way and sometimes he just doesn't have
enough patience left in him. He wants to say I'm sorry to his dad, but he just
gets up and leaves the diner, waits for him to pay for their lunch and follow
him outside so they can drive home together.
They both remain silent in the car and the whole drive home is awfully heavy,
so many things left unsaid between them 
                                      **
Scott texted him that the party is actually at Derek's loft just an hour before
he has to leave to get there, and Stiles spends the entirety of sixty minutes
actually getting worked up over nothing and everything at the same time. He
doesn't even know why the fact that he has to go over at Derek's makes him so
flustered, but that's what's happening.
The whole drive to the loft he keeps telling himself he's being an idiot and to
stop panicking over it. Like, what's gonna happen? It's just a party with his
friends. Nothing else. So what if he hasn't seen Derek since they drove back
home together, it's nothing.
His hands are sweating a lot and slightly shaking when he parks right outside
the building. There are a few cars there, too, meaning the others are already
upstairs and he's late, but he's still freaking out silently and he can only
wipe the palms of his hands on his jeans and talk to himself out of a frenzy.
He's cool, he's totally cool. He can totally do this and celebrate the new year
with his friends and everything will be fine. Yes. He locks his car when he
steps outside and then takes a last deep breath before he gets inside, sighing
at the flight of stairs he has to climb up to reach Derek's apartment. He
resents his whole group of friends because it's made only of supernatural
creatures who don't need the elevator to be fixed so they don't get up winded
and feeling like they're dying after two floors only. He needs to get in better
shape, these stairs are killing him, oh my god.
Derek's apartment is on the last floor and he can hear music and a heavy bass
sound pounding through the walls, when he gets there. The door is closed, but
he doesn't even have to knock before the door is being yanked open and Derek is
stepping outside to greet him. He's smiling and gathering Stiles into his arms
as soon as they're one in front of the other. Stiles stops breathing and curls
his own hands around Derek's shoulder and neck before he can even think about
it, his first reaction at being held by him, now.
“Hi,” Derek whispers against his mouth, before he leaves a tender kiss on his
lips.
“Hey,” Stiles says, kissing back, sighing at the contact. He licks over Derek's
lips and then inside, closes his eyes against the sudden feeling, hot hot hot
under his skin, sweating. He missed this. Fuck, it's been two days and he was
already missing him, missing being together.
“We should go inside, Scott was waiting for you,” Derek says, pecks him once,
twice, smiles at Stiles with his stupid bunny teeth. He doesn't step away.
“Yeah,” he breathes, pulls a little on Derek's hair, incapable of resisting the
urge. He just wants to take him to bed, undress him and touch him, sleep with
Derek curled around him, he just wants the same comfort he always found in
Derek, the same feeling of yes, this is right, it's okay that washes over him
every time Derek is with him.
But he doesn't, he can't. He lets Derek kiss him deeply for another second and
then pulls away, looks down to the ground when he steps back and straightens
his clothes and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He doesn't look up
at Derek when he gets inside, leaves him out alone and pointedly stomps over
his own desire of just staying wrapped around Derek, forget there's people he
wanted to say hi to, that he missed while he was away, that don't know a damn
thing about Derek and him.
Scott jumps on him as soon as he steps inside, a cup of something alcoholic in
his hand and a huge smile on his face.
“Finally dude, I was afraid you changed your mind!” he shouts over the awfully
loud music, the thump thump of the bass shaking in his chest, makes him dizzy.
“Just got caught up with my dad,” Stiles says, smiles uneasily and grabs the
drink Scott is handing him. “You know how it is.”
“Yeah, of course. Come, there's food over there, you hungry?” Scott puts a hand
on his back and steers him towards the kitchen, and Stiles follows him, smiles
when Scott tells him something and nods and shakes his head in turn when he
thinks he should, but he's not really listening to him. He feels Derek's eyes
on him throughout the night and he can't shake the uneasiness off, tries to
avoid looking back at him every second he's not busy miming a conversation with
Kira and getting to know Malia better. He fails most of the time, ends up
following Derek with his eyes and he keeps wanting to go up to him and just.
Touch him.
Malia is just like he remembered. A little rude, but cute. She touches him a
lot, puts her hands on his arms and leans in to tell Stiles things about
coyotes, and Stiles tries to appear genuinely into the conversation, but Derek
is nowhere to be found and he can't help but asking himself where he could've
gone.
“Hey, sorry, I need to-” he says, jerks a thumb over his shoulder in the
direction of the bathroom. She nods and smiles, turns around to go find
something to eat and Stiles leaves in search for Derek. He's not in the
bathroom, finds it empty, so he tries the kitchen, but he only finds Malia and
Scott trowing cheese puffs into each other's mouths while Kira keeps score. He
retreats before one of them can spot him and looks outside, to see if Derek's
leaning against the balcony with Lydia and Danny, but he's not. There's only
one place he hasn't looked and that's upstairs, Cora's – now Derek's room. The
stairs are lit up by the flashy colored lights of the living room but as soon
as Stiles steps into the bedroom, the only source of light is the streetlight
outside. 
Derek's back is what greets him. He's peering out the window and not even
turning around to look at Stiles. He's sure Derek heard him come up, sure his
hearing is the best one of the whole group, so he's plainly ignoring Stiles –
or maybe he's engrossed in whatever is happening outside.
“What are you doing here all alone?” he asks, walking up to Derek.
Derek half shrugs and says, “I just wanted to stay alone for a while.”
Stiles nods and, even though he wants to touch him, he puts his hands in the
pockets of his jeans and mirrors Derek's stance.
“Do you want me to go? Leave you alone?”
“If you want to,” Derek replies, like he doesn't care either way and Stiles
tries to ignore the way it stings.
“Okay, I'll just. Leave you alone,” he murmurs, and turns around, tight knot
forming in his throat. He's not going to let it get to him. He's not.
He's almost taking a step towards the stairs, when Derek closes a hand around
his wrist and pulls him in. Stiles crashes against Derek's solid chest and
huffs a startled breath. Derek holds his head in both his hands, and then hides
his face into Stiles' neck, makes him shiver when he brushes the tip of his
nose against Stiles' skin. Stiles stares wide eyed at the shadows on the
ceiling and gasps when Derek bites him softly, feels his own hands clench into
fists.
“Wait, it's almost midnight,” Derek whispers, after a few long seconds, pulls
back from where he just put a really obvious mark on Stiles' neck. He should
care that he's going to have to explain it to everybody, to his dad and Scott,
but he just can't get himself to actually mind right now, not with Derek
staring at him with wet lips and heavy eyes. “Stay here.
He blinks at Derek a couple of times and then lets his breath go, nods
imperceptibly and his eyelashes flutter when Derek gets impossibly close and
opens his mouth against Stiles', not really kissing him, just resting there,
making Stiles feel like he's on fire, like he's going to crawl out of his own
skin and melt right into Derek's embrace.
“I...” Stiles breathes, grabs Derek's shirt tight with his fingers and pulls,
frustrated and inexplicably angry. His eyes are stinging and his nose is
itching, the same way it always does when he feels like crying, and he's pissed
off at Derek, at himself, for the way he feels, for what is happening. He wants
to push Derek away and pull him in at the same time, he wants to stop this and
avoid getting even more hurt in the end, but he lets out a tiny breathy sob and
lets Derek kiss him when the countdown downstairs starts.
“Where's Stiles?” Scott shouts from the other room, concern lacing his voice.
Stiles hears him through the others' voices, everybody is counting ten, nine,
eight, and there are quiet laughs and then someone says, “Should be with
Derek,” and then the whole world is exploding in fireworks and shouts, confetti
in the air and glitter and Derek is kissing him deep and hard and closing his
arms around Stiles' waist to hold him tight tight tight and Stiles can't
breathe, can't think, just puts his hand into Derek's hair and pulls, hangs on,
sucks on Derek's tongue and it feels like saying goodbye in the worst of ways.
                                      **
He shouldn't let Derek fuck him, that night. Shouldn't let him take his clothes
off and kiss him everywhere, suck on his pulse points and leave mark after mark
all over his skin. Stiles shouldn't, but he wants it so bad, he can't stop
himself from opening up to Derek as he always did 
He kisses him when they're on the bed, Derek behind him, Stiles' head thrown
back in an uncomfortable angle just to get to his mouth, and then Derek is
pushing him face first into his pillow, spreading him open and licking inside.
It's a buzzing through his veins and shaking limbs, feels overwhelming and too
good. He pushes back into the touch and lets it burn him.
Fireworks are still going off outside and they paint the room in bright, fading
colors, match the thump of Stiles' heart with bangs of their own. He's feeling
fireworks going off through his own body when Derek touches him with his tongue
and fingers. He's a mess by the time Derek pushes his hips against the mattress
with a hard hand and then he's inside, feet holding Stiles' knees apart while
he thrusts in deep, deep, until Stiles' is gasping a breath and staring with
wide eyes at the show of pretty lights outside.

“Fuck,” he whispers, feeling impossibly full every time Derek pushes in,
letting a tiny ah noise out, whimpering when then Derek pulls back.
He shouldn't feel like everything is amplified by the semi-dark and the soft
moans Derek is making, the tender touches of his lips against the shell of his
ear, the way he's breathing hard and fast and kissing Stiles' face. He
shouldn't feel like this is some kind of first time, like this is not only just
sex, but something else too. He closes his eyes and kisses Derek back, lets him
lick into his mouth and moans with every thrust, feels a tingle spread from the
tip of his toes, through his legs and belly, clenches around Derek and pushes
back against his hips with his ass, makes him growl and buck into him hard and
fast.
He shouldn't gasp when he feels Derek's dick get bigger and bigger inside him,
shouldn't stare at him with wonder – Derek is staring right back, awe written
all over his face and wide wide green eyes full of surprise. He shouldn't moan
suddenly and hide his pink cheeks into the sheets, shouldn't even let Derek tie
them together, push his knotinside and come and come for what feels like an
eternity.
But he does.
He lets Derek knot him and he loves it. Muffles his moans with a hand and cries
out when the knot pushes against his prostate, shakes and trembles when he
comes hard all over the bed and he feels like his whole world just tipped off
its own axis – he feels dizzy and the edge of his vision is slightly blurry and
Derek is still coming and growling and pushing inside as deep as he can in tiny
little jabs that make Stiles jolt, oversensitive and blissed out.
“Shit, fuck, I'm sorry,” Derek whispers against the nape of Stiles' neck,
kisses it in apology, runs his fingers against Stiles' back. “I didn't know it
would happen.”
Stiles tries to say something, but his tongue seems dislodged from his body, he
can only drool all over the place and make pitiful noises. He's so out of it he
doesn't even know where he is anymore, knows only that Derek is still inside of
him and he's warm, and heavy and he smells like pine needles and sweat.
“Wait, let's get more comfortable,” Derek murmurs, grabs Stiles under the hips
and chest, and moves them around until they're lying against the pillow, on
their sides so that Stiles can breathe better and don't die from combustion.
His front is getting colder by the second, sweat still running over his torso
and legs and he shivers, moans again when Derek moves inside him when he grabs
the covers with one of his feet, throws them over them both and then leans over
Stiles to pick up the bottle of water on the nightstand, opens it and pushes it
against Stiles' lips. “Drink,” he says, tips it so the water falls right into
Stiles' mouth.
“Der...” Stiles mumbles, almost completely asleep. He feels Derek snuggle up
against him again and run his lips against Stiles' skin. “I'm...”
He doesn't even know what he's saying but Derek is making comforting noises
behind him, so he just melts completely inside Derek's arms and sighs, smacks
his lips and lets go.
He's asleep in a second.
                                      **
The next day, the air around them feels heavy and full of unspoken words.
They're gravitating towards each other even though Stiles avoids eye contact
for as long as he can, tries to steer away from Derek's touch and mouth. He
told himself that he would be a better person, that he would be mature about
this and he's trying. He thinks Derek knows. He wants to ask him what happened
last night, why Derek knotted him when it never happened before, what changed,
but then the answers frighten him too much, he's not sure he's ready to hear
what Derek might tell him and, for once, he's going to wait and read about it
when he's alone, somewhere.
It still hurts, though, when Derek grabs his bag and leaves it beside the front
door, ready to go. Stiles shouldn't still be here, it would've been better if
he didn't spend the night, but now here he is, watching Derek walk through his
loft with ease all while putting his signature leather jacket on, ready to
leave Beacon Hills behind another time, ready to leave Stiles here.
He feels his chest sting with the knowledge that he won't have anything like
this with Derek ever again, but he shoulders through it, pretends he's not
saying goodbye to the person he's probably in love with. He pretends he's not
even thinking about being in love, having feelings, anything like that.
Pretends everything is the same.
“I'm just gonna go,” he murmurs, eyes downcast. He gets up from where he was
sitting on the backrest of the couch and clears his throat, he's sure he's not
ready to see Derek close the door of the loft with not even a spare glance, put
the keys in the pocket of his jacket and forget about it. “I'll get out of your
hair, so you can just do your thing.”
Derek stops him with a hand around his wrist, and Stiles lets himself be pulled
in, incapable of saying no. His body wants to run away and melt against Derek's
touch and so he stays perfectly still, stares at Derek's blue shirt and his
chest hair peeking out from under it and doesn't say anything.
“You're not even going to say goodbye to me?” Derek asks, lifting Stiles' chin
with a tender hand.
“Bye,” Stiles says, defiant, and Derek smothers a sigh that Stiles still feels
in his chest, right against his own chest where they're pressed together.
“Drive safe. 
“Stiles,” Derek says with a severe voice, leans down to peck him softly on the
lips and then keeps staring at Stiles like he's trying to convey something, say
something without using his words.
“What do you want me to say? I don't want to make this into a bigger thing than
it is, really. We fucked, it was good and now you're going back to your other
house, your other life. It's okay.”
Derek's eyes get a little sadder then, his eyelashes fluttering minutely, and
Stiles shrugs, whatever, he's trying. He doesn't speak, he never does and
Stiles is good at reading him, but he's tired of always reaching out for him,
being the only one who tries, really.
“I just want to get away before you leave, so I don't have to see you drive
away with Mr. Argent. He's probably already outside waiting for you, so it's
better if you go,” Stiles tells him, puts both his hands against Derek's chest
to push away but can't get himself to do it in the end. He leaves them resting
there, not doing anything, just feeling the warmth of Derek's body and his
heartbeat.
“Stiles,” Derek says again and he leans in so he can kiss Stiles again, can
wrap both his arms around Stiles and hold him tight. Stiles kisses him back,
angry and sad and bites Derek's lips hard, licks inside his mouth like he wants
Derek to remember this moment, remember Stiles into his arms and his mouth, how
hard it was and how angry he felt. He still hangs on and hugs Derek, still
kisses him because he can't do anything else, because he's trying but Derek is
here now and he won't be in a minute.
“Tell me just one thing,” he says, panting, pulling away. “Just one thing.”
“What?”
“Did it mean something for you last night? Anything. It was different,” Stiles
murmurs, his voice getting softer on the last part. He looks at Derek's red,
wet lips and continues. “When we fucked. You-” he doesn't want to say you
knotted me, it must mean something, right? but he thinks it's implied.
Derek sighs and stares at Stiles hard, just stares and then lets him go, steps
away and puts one of his big hands on Stiles' cheek and doesn't say anything.
Okay. Stiles' eyes sting, sting, sting, but he's not gonna cry, he's not gonna
make a scene, he'll try. So he nods, lips thin and eyes red, and swallows the
feelings in his throat. Okay.
“Bye, Derek,” he whispers, voice gritty but not unsteady, and tries to smile.

Derek's hand drops from Stiles' face and Stiles puts one foot behind the other
and walks backwards to the little steps in front of the door, nods another time
and turns around.
“Wait,” Derek calls, running up to Stiles.
Stiles stops immediately and, for a short moment, his heart stops, too, thinks
stupidly that Derek will tell him something, that he meant everything he did
when they were together, but then Derek grabs the keys from his pocket and
hands them to Stiles. Stiles takes them automatically and frowns.
“In case you want some time alone, or. Come check on the building from time to
time, see if anyone is squatting in one of the apartments, if you want.”
“Okay,” Stiles says and puts hastily the keys in one of the pockets of his
jeans and then looks back up to Derek. “Anything else?”
Derek shakes his head and pecks him one last time on the lips. Stiles takes a
deep breath and runs out of the loft, down the flights of stairs until he's
outside and the chilly air is greeting him. His head is full of words and
feelings, he feels like he's swimming and can't focus enough, his breath is
coming up short and he just wants to go away, run and hide and disappear for a
while.
He gets in the car and leaves.
                                      **
He starts crying when he's already a few minutes away from Derek's apartment.
He's not even sobbing or anything, there are silent tears streaming down his
cheeks and neck and his vision is blurry, his nose closed up, but he's quiet
about it.
He doesn't know what he's feeling, right now. It's like he's numb, too many
things together at once, even the streets are deserted, everybody still home
for the holidays and still trying to get back on their feet after various
cocktails and New Year's parties, kisses and one night stands and alcohol, so
he feels like he's the only person in the world.
It's only 10.35 am, 1st of January and he's already regretting this whole year.
The radio is playing some pop song Stiles heard a thousand times already and he
hates, but he's not going to turn it off, only because he needs the inane
chatter and the stupid shit the people always say, he feels already cold and
alone as it is.
He's driving slowly and he doesn't know where he's going, he just wants to
drive for a while, spend some time with himself and get his mind in order, even
if his dad is probably worried about where he is and what he did last night.
I had sex with Derek and then he kinda broke my heart, dad, must be Monday.
This is stupid. He doesn't know why he always gets himself into this kind of
things, why he always needs to be such an idiot when it comes to his own
feelings. Isn't he able to do things halfway? He must fall in love with every
single person that ever catches his eye, maybe it's a curse.
With Derek was different, though, he thinks. It was. It wasn't wishful thinking
like his whole crush on Lydia – with Lydia he was infatuated with the idea he
had of her, he thought he knew her better than anybody else, that he was the
only one who could possibly be right for her, who recognized Lydia's
intelligence and thought she was a goddess. With Derek, though. Yeah, it was
real.
He actually knows Derek, now. Inside and out. He talked to him about his family
and his past, Derek opened up a lot to him, told him things he never told
anybody, not even to Laura or Cora. Stiles touched him, had sex with him, saw
Derek's orgasm face and can still feel the phantom touch of Derek's fingers
running against the back of his thighs. When he had to let Lydia go, it hurt
but it was easy, because he didn't have to live with the memory of how her eyes
crinkle at the sides when she smiles really hard or of all the times they spent
just being next to each other. He had all that with Derek.
He's angry, he thinks. He shouldn't be, because Derek never once told him they
were on the same page with this, but he is. He's so angry. And upset. And he
hates that he feels this way.
He sniffles a little and then wipes at his nose with the back of his hand,
tries to calm a little before he totally changes into a character in a romantic
comedy or something. Then, without even thinking about it, he picks the keys
from his pocket and looks at them for a second. They're heavy and glinting in
the pale morning light, just a simple ring and a few keys, no silly key-chain,
no tag, nothing.
Just like Derek.
Why would Derek leave him his keys again? Stiles was the one who asked him to
leave him the key to his loft back when Derek left with Cora, but he did it
because he knew he was the only one who cared about it, who thought Derek's
loft was going to be of some use, but now. He didn't want them, he wants to go
on in peace with his life, finish his homework and then start school again in
two days, now he's going to have a remainder of Derek and every time he'll look
at those keys, he'll remember last night, when Derek knotted him, when he felt
like they shared something, of all the pretty fireworks going off outside the
window and right inside his chest, at the same time.
He snorts, self-deprecatingly. That really happened. They were tied together
for half an hour – Derek told him when Stiles woke up that exact morning,
smiling sleepily with his face tucked into Stiles' neck - and still Derek
didn't say it mattered to him, at all.
He grips the keys hard in his fist for a moment, feels the edges cutting into
his palm and fingers, and then throws them out of the open window. They clank
against the concrete with a series of tinkles like broken pieces.
                                      **
He slows down suddenly when his heart starts to beat erratically against his
chest and his hands are shaking where they're holding the steering wheel. He
stops and looks back at the road in the rear-view mirror and he's panting,
sweating a little and he panics when he can't spot the keys immediately,
doesn't know where they are anymore, he feels like an idiot for even doing that
in the first place. Why did he throw them away? Why?
His mind is flashing, white moments of blind panic that he can't control, and
he stumbles out of the Jeep on uncertain feet and leaves the door open and goes
back, hurries to where he thinks he tossed the keys and his heart runs with the
tempo of his sneakers.
“No no no no,” he murmurs to himself, crazy with it, looking around to see if
he can find the glinting metal in the gray light, doesn't know what he'll do if
he lost them for real. “So. Stupid.”
He finally finds them on the side of the road and he thinks that he's lucky he
didn't throw them too hard, or they would have ended in the woods and he
wouldn't have been able to find them again. But no, they're lying on the ground
in a heap and Stiles takes a deep breath, suddenly feeling better because he
didn't lose them, the only thing that ties him to Derek is still here and he
launches over to grab them, holds them tight in both his hands and wills his
heart to calm down, his mind to focus back on his surroundings, calm down, try.
“Fuck,” he says, kneeling down on the dirty road, his Jeep forgotten with the
engine still on.
He needs to try harder. And he will.
Without Derek here, it'll be easier. They are separated by miles and miles and
for now, the knowledge that Derek wanted to leave him something of his – his
keys, his building, his loft – that he wanted Stiles to step into a single
piece of his life, is enough.
He'll put the keys in that drawer of his desk he never uses because it gets
stuck; he'll know they're there but they won't be under his nose taunting him
everyday with memories and what ifs. He'll get back on his feet, he'll be a
better son, a better friend, he'll stop having nightmares and his life will go
on. Maybe he'll find someone else, start a relationship that both parties
involved want, graduate, go to college. Hopefully won't get killed.
Derek will get better, find someone else, too, maybe another werewolf, maybe
they'll get married, maybe they'll have children. They'll be friends, still
forever be friends, Stiles and him, always, but they won't fall into bed
together. Won't kiss and hold each other at night.
He'll try.
Chapter End Notes
     I read about ADHD and I found out that some researches say that
     coffee (caffeine) actually helps with focus and the medication,
     always in small doses and always after consulting your doctor - I
     don't want to offend anyone, so I'm putting a little note about it.
     The first sex scene happens when Stiles just woke up from a nigthmare
     and Derek is there, and he decides to act on his instincts and
     feelings - he actually asks Derek before he does anything, waits for
     him to say yes, but then pushes Derek down on the bed and they have
     kinda rough sex. Derek doesn't push him away, is pretty on board with
     this, but still Stiles thinks of himself like a monster, like he used
     Derek's body. They talk about it after, and everything was
     consensual, but still. Mentioning!
***** burned out flames should never reignite *****
Chapter Summary
     He types i miss you and he stares hard at the words for a long long
     time, until his eyes are watering and burning and he has to blink to
     let the feeling vanish.
Chapter Notes
     I didn't watch season 4, so it doesn't reflect what happened in
     canon. I took liberties.
     Title from Daughter's song Home.

                                      **
“Stilinski, are you sleeping?!” Coach yells at him from the bench, throws an
arm out to swear at him. “I could have caught that ball with my eyes closed!”
Stiles huffs and bends down to put both his hands on his knees. His lungs are
killing him and he's so tired, he doesn't know how he's not falling asleep
right now. It's been two weeks of sleepless nights and awful days, so he's
running low on energy and force of will. His batteries are empty.
He doesn't bother replying to Coach Finstock, the man already engaged into
another conversation with Greenberg and he's currently telling Greenberg he
should stop showing up at school altogether if his ambition in life is to give
him white hair.
“You should probably sit down,” Scott's shadow says, next to Stiles' feet.
Strong arms close around his waist and help him up. The world spins for a scary
second and then comes to a brusque stop when Stiles' ass finds the bench, two
old friends reuniting. “Coach, Stilinski is taking a break!” Scott shouts and
Coach just waves a hand at them and turns immediately back to survey the other
players on the field.
“I'm fine, Scott. You can go back,” Stiles murmurs, while he searches for his
water in his bag. He wants to lie down and die here, he's shaking with
exhaustion and he thinks he might pass out for real if he really wants it a
lot. Literally every fiber of his body, every single muscle, is jumping in pain
and he can't even hold his head up, his neck is sore and his eyes hurt.
Everything hurts.
“You don't look okay,” Scott murmurs back, leaning a little into Stiles' space
so that he can whisper. “Are you still having nightmares?”
Stiles finally finds the bottle and glares at it instead of Scott and takes his
time drinking. He half shrugs and then says, “Sometimes.”
Only when he closes his eyes. The other nights when he binge watches shows or
movies, he doesn't dream. He just. Doesn't do anything else than will time to
go faster, to maybe, maybe, fall into a dreamless sleep, to blackout
completely. He wishes for a lot of things. He absolutely refuses to think about
a cottage in the mountains or someone with dark hair and stubble.
“Maybe I'm coming down with something,” he lies, even if it really feels like
he's on the verge of dying of the flu. Or the plague.
“You don't smell good,” says a voice beside them.
Stiles looks to his left from where he's hanging his head and finds Malia
sitting close to him, and he never even noticed her. She's wearing a cute blue
beanie.
“I'm sweating,” he replies, but then she makes a thoughtful face and shakes her
head.
“No, you smell like sweat and human skin, but the bad smell comes from inside,”
she says, but he sounds like she's not sure of what she's really saying. At
least it's two of them.
“Yeah,” Scott intervenes, “you smell awful, tired and sad.”
Stiles makes a face and thinks that he smells tired and sad because he is. He's
fucking burnt. He feels like his phone battery when it's only at 10% and it's
just a minuscule red line. And he's sad.
“Okay,” he just says, bitterly, and then throws the bottle he was playing with
in the bag and gets up again. He almost stumbles into Malia and she has to
actually, really, keep him up with a hand on his forearm, but it's okay.
Practice is almost done and then he'll go home, take a long shower and then
he'll find something else to watch tonight.
                                      **
Text to: Sourwolf Dec 23 11
2:09 PM i think i might reach the successful goal of four fingers today!! sucks
to be you sitting there with mr argent!!
Text to: Sourwolf Dec 23 11
2:10 PM [show picture] three!!
Text from: Sourwolf Dec 23 11
2:10 PM STILES.
Text from: Sourwolf Dec 23 11
2:10 PM STOP IMMEDIATELY.
Text to: Sourwolf Dec 23 11
2:21 PM [show picture] its almost impossible to take a picture with four
fingers up your ass but i did it!! if only you were here right???
Text from: Sourwolf Jan 06 12
9:23 PM Everything okay?
Text to: Sourwolf Jan 10 12
12:35 AM yes
                                      **
Even driving around town at night didn't appeal to him, now. He's not sure what
happened in the relatively short span time he spent away, how it changed, but
now, driving listlessly through Beacon Hills, stopping only for gas or a greasy
breakfast, almost makes him feel claustrophobic.
He tried to slip away unnoticed from his bedroom one night, cellphone carefully
pocketed and listening closely to every sound his dad made, but he couldn't
even get himself to go down the stairs. He spent five minutes on the top of the
staircase, looking down through the dark and he felt his heart picking up speed
and his breath coming in short labored pants and he couldn't. Just couldn't.
So he started doing homework, watching shows and movies instead of sleeping.
Avoided the internet a lot, these days. Even gaming felt too much, he couldn't
really keep track of things. Avoided looking at his phone, even when it beeped
and flashed from its spot on the nightstand.
He turned it off, too, after a while.
                                      **
“I hate math,” Malia says from where she's sitting at the table. Kira looks up
at her and smiles.
“I think almost everyone in the world hates math.”
“I don't,” Stiles replies, worlds slurred from the cap of his highlighter
between his teeth. He underlines another sentence in his history book and then
looks up at the girls sitting beside him. “What, it's true. Math is
fundamental.”
“Math is hard,” Malia says, raises her eyebrows like she thinks Stiles doesn't
get it.
“True, but also important.”
Lydia sighs loudly but doesn't stop drawing in her sketchbook. Stiles turns his
eyes on her and knows she's annoyed, maybe they're ruining her zen space or
something, he doesn't know, her inspiration, or maybe she doesn't want anybody
dissing math in front of her. She has a pure love for the subject and Stiles
knows it too well.
“I could help you with math, if you want,” Stiles offers to Malia, avoids
looking at Lydia's drawings because they usually are something they need to
freak out about later, or he feels like he's intruding on her private time.
It's like a rule, or something. Never look at anybody's art without their
permission.
Malia lights up like a sun and smiles at him with an highlighter poised through
her teeth, making her look just like a human coyote. She's such a puppy,
sometimes.
“Wealy?” she asks, then spits the marker on her book, open on her lap. Stiles
smiles, amused. “Really? Yeah, okay.”
“Okay,” Stiles repeats, nods a little. “Come to my house with your books and
I'll help you. Tomorrow?”
                                      **
Stiles is making himself a sandwich when his dad comes home from his shift at
the police station. He puts the cheese back in the fridge and turns to him with
his mouth full, chewing obnoxiously.
“Hey daddy-o,” he mumbles through the food and his dad makes a face while he
hangs his jacket near the front door.
“Stiles, we talked about swallowing your food before you speak, do you
remember? I think you were three.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yeah, and every year after that.”
His dad nods seriously and steals the other sandwich from the plate on the
kitchen counter and Stiles shouts.
“Hey! Make your own sandwich!”
His dad looks at him and takes a huge bite, stares at him like he's daring
Stiles to tell him something.
“I had a long day at work.”
“I had a long day at school!” he reiterates, glowering at the second huge bite
his dad takes. He feels deeply betrayed. “I'm a growing boy, I need to eat more
than you do.”
His dad finishes chewing and then cleans his hands from the breadcrumbs, wipes
his mouth with his fingers and then nods.
“You do need to eat more, but I'm mostly worried about your sleep schedule,” he
says, turning around to grab a beer from the fridge. “I hear everything coming
from your room, you know? I know you're not sleeping.”
Stiles sighs heavily and looks away, annoyed. He really is starting to hate
everybody asking him things, telling him they know he's not sleeping and how
it's not good for him. How worried they are. It doesn't change a thing, even if
they tell him he should sleep. He can't.
“I don't know what you expect me to do, right now. I know I need to sleep and
trust me, I do want to. I feel awful, but I can't. I'm really tired, but almost
too tired to sleep. I don't know how to explain it, it's like when you're
really excited for something and you can't wait for that thing to come, and so
you keep getting winded up and winded up, and then the thing doesn't happen,”
he says, leans against the counter with his backside and runs one of his hand
on his face. “I don't want to take any pills to go to sleep, but maybe I
should.”
His dad is looking at him, worried and silent. He takes a sip of his beer and
then sighs, turns to mirror Stiles' pose.
“I'm not sure how much help pills would be, but we could ask Melissa,” he says
with a soft voice, brushes his shoulder against Stiles' and crosses his ankles.
Stiles shrugs and then nods. “Can't hurt to try.”
They stay in silence for a while, just breathing in the same space, both lost
in thought and Stiles is really trying to not think about Derek's arms and how
he felt safe there, when his dad gets upright and leaves the empty bottle in
the sink.
“I'm going to bed, son. You sure you don't need anything?”
Stiles shakes his head and then tries to smile convincingly. “I'm okay dad, go
to sleep. I'll try again tonight, see if something changes.”
“Read a boring book. Works wonders for me,” his dad tells him with a comforting
hand on his shoulder.
“Right, War and Peace?”
His dad fakes a shudder and Stiles laughs out loud.
                                      **
Text to: Sourwolf Jan 18 12
01:27 AM
Stiles licks his lips and stares at the blank box with the almost unreadable
type here your new text underneath the blinking cursor and he really wants to
talk to Derek again, like he used to when he couldn't find solace anywhere
here, but now.
Derek's last two unanswered texts are looking at him with judgmental letters.
He can almost feel Derek's worry and Stiles knows that Derek wouldn't have sent
him any texts before, he knows he always was the one texting first and asking
Derek for advice or just to be the only one to listen to him for real, but now
Derek is sending him messages when Stiles doesn't reply for days, asking him
how he's doing and how are things for him and Stiles feels really shitty for
avoiding him like this, but he's trying to get better before he starts talking
to Derek like he's not nursing a broken heart.
Because that's what he's doing.
He types i miss you and he stares hard at the words for a long long time, until
his eyes are watering and burning and he has to blink to let the feeling
vanish. He erases the message and then put his thumb back on the screen, types
my chest hurts more than my head right nowand then he immediately erases that,
too.
i'm in love with you but i kinda hate you too
i dream of sleeping right next to you and that scares me just as much as the
nightmares
He keeps writing new messages of things he'd like to tell Derek, things he
would scream to his face if they were together, if he wasn't afraid of the
reaction, and then he erases them as soon as they're out.
He sighs and then locks his screen, puts the phone back on the nightstand and
turns his back to it, pointedly closes his eyes and wills himself to sleep.
                                      **
Text from: Sourwolf Jan 12 12
4:45 PM Your dad is worried about you. Are you still not sleeping?
Text from: Sourwolf Jan 14 12
8:02 PM Call me if you need me. Anytime.
                                      **
Malia is lying on his bed, books spread all around her, and Stiles is standing
in front of the foot of the bed, trying to explain to her the basics of math.
It's not really going well. She lacks like ten years of public education and
it's not easy making her grasp even the easiest concept.
“If you add this to this, then, you found x,” Stiles says, pointing at one part
and then the other on the page but she is still looking up at him like he's
talking another language altogether. Which, it's only fair.
He sits down on the bed close to her and sighs.
“I think maybe we should start from the beginning?” he asks her and she makes a
face, shrugs. “Okay, this is going to be long,” he murmurs to himself, runs
both his hands over his face because he's tired and he really wants to sleep.
“Okay, do you remember anything at all?”
“Um,” says Malia.
Great.
                                      **
They're immersed in Europe history when his dad pops his head in and stares at
them like he's seeing something shocking. Stiles didn't even hear him coming.
“Hey, dad!” he greets him, gets up from the desk where he was slowly but
methodically helping Malia understand the major events happened in Europe
during the 1900s. A lot of maps were involved. A lot of growls, too.
(“Maybe you should be careful with that,” Stiles said after the fourth growl.
He also started keeping his fingers to himself, worried she would somewhat bite
him.
“With what?” Malia asked, confused.
“The growls, I mean, you can growl at me now that we're alone, but maybe not at
school. People don't know about were-coyotes.”
Malia sighed and went back to the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette.)
“Hi,” the Sheriff says, frowns at Malia then at Stiles in turn, then steps in.
“You guys studying?”
Stiles smiles at Malia and then claps his dad on the back, nods. “We started
with math and then slowly drifted to history when it was getting too much for
one day.”
“It's still too much,” Malia says, throwing a forlorn look at Stiles.
“Okay, maybe we can stop for today,” he concedes, because they're not gonna
cover everything tonight. Maybe in seven years. “Do you need a ride home?”
Malia sighs and starts putting everything away, with bored movements. “No.”
“Uh, okay,” he says, faltering a little. His dad still hasn't said anything
else since he walked in, so Stiles looks at him from the corner of his eye and
he finds him looking at Malia first and then at Stiles, then back to Malia.
Malia finished putting everything in her bag and she's getting off the bed,
stands in front of Stiles and says, “Thank you.”
Stiles raises an eyebrow and nods, “Welcome,” he replies, awkwardly putting his
hand in the back pockets of his pants. “I'll-” he starts but then Malia is
kinda avoiding touching him or his dad and swiftly walking away between them
and out of the room before he can actually finish his sentence.
The sound of the front door being yanked open and then sliding shut echoes in
the air.
Stiles and his dad are still staring at each other in confusion.
“You know,” Stiles says, scratching at the nape of his neck, uncomfortably.
“She's still getting used to being a human.”
His dad hums and shakes his head, walking away.
                                      **
He pants and closes his eyes, moans when the next thrust fills him up just
perfect.
“Fuck,” he sighs, slides his knees more open on the bedspread and leans his
forehead against the mattress. The angle is just right and the cock inside him
hits his prostate dead on. Strong hands are gripping both his hips and he loves
it, knows there will be bruises there when everything is finished, bruises he
will get to keep and look at. “Derek,” he murmurs, pushing his ass back on the
next thrust and getting a growl in response.
“You look so good, Stiles,” Derek says and Stiles feels his heart skip a beat
and he has to push up on his hands and turn his head back so he can kiss him.
Derek grips his face in one huge hand and licks into Stiles' mouth, sucks on
his tongue and keeps fucking him hard and deep.
“Derek,” he murmurs again and opens his eyes to look into Derek's and they are
flashing blue, beautiful and enticing. Stiles shivers and clenches around the
dick in his ass, wiggles his hips and gasps loudly when Derek thrusts in
particularly hard and one of his hands slips on the covers, almost loses his
balance – Derek stops his fall with a hand on his chest and slows down his
rhythm, pushes Stiles back until he's basically sitting in Derek's lap, knees
splayed open and ass fitting snugly against Derek's crotch.
He can't stop staring at Derek, his face and eyes, he can't help but push into
the touch and lean against Derek's chest, throw his head back and gasp out
loud, caress Derek's face with shaky fingers. His beard is soft and scratchy at
the same time, and Stiles feels his jaw move under his digits when Derek leans
in to kiss him, opens up for him and moves his hips in time with Derek's. His
breath stops in his chest and his skin feels prickly and sweaty, sticks to
Derek's where they touch and he feels the air cooling the points where they
don't.
When he feels Derek's knot start to inflate, he moans and closes a hand around
his own cock, jerks off in time with Derek's thrusts and growls. He can't look
away from Derek's eyes, piercing into him and he feels his own orgasm crawl up
his belly and spine and he tightens his grip on himself and scrunches his face
up when he comes with a jolt and a shout.
                                      **
He wakes up panting and with uncomfortable wet boxers, sheets all twisted in
his grasp.
“Fuck,” he whispers, still short of breath, bitterly. It's the millionth time
he dreams of having sex with Derek, but it's the first he dreamed of Derek
knotting him. Usually his subconscious sticks to normal sex, sometimes
blowjobs, sometimes he simply dreams of kissing Derek, of all the times he
stared at him while he slept, the soft and hard lines of his body, his muscles
and hair, long fingers. Simple things that make Stiles feel sick when he
finally wakes up, longing for something that he knows he won't have again. But
he always, always avoided thinking of the last time they had sex, the way
Derek's knot felt inside him, big and hot, he didn't want to.
He grabs the tissues he keeps on his nightstand and wipes angrily at the mess
on his crotch, tosses away the boxers and then crawls back under the covers,
tries to get comfortable enough to try and catch some more sleep before he has
to leave for school. He feels the sweat on his skin cool down rapidly and he
shivers, tries to burrow under the sheets until only his eyes are out but it's
no use. He's restless and he keeps turning and turning and he's getting more
and more agitated by the second, he wants to crawl out of his own skin and he's
getting pissed off at himself for everything.
He hides half of his face in the pillow, after a while, and stares at nothing,
at the semi darkness and the tricks of light spilling in from the lamppost
outside, the shadows it creates on his desk, the faint noise of his computer
still running from when he left it on after he finished his homework. It's
plugged in and probably already fully charged, and he stares at it for a long
while, torn between trying to sleep and getting up to grab it.
In the end, he gets up and grabs it, carries it back to the bed and gets under
the covers again. The computer lights up when he opens it and he bites his
bottom lip while he tries to convince himself he's only going to watch an
episode of Buffy and then he'll go take a shower, he actually pulls up his
video folder and opens the one containing all seven seasons of the show. But
then.
He taps on the Bestiary icon hidden in another folder entirely and he scans it
until he finds the part about werewolves he's interested in. Knotting and
Mating, it's the title of one chapter, and Stiles stops breathing.
Werewolves don't mate for life, he finds out, not like everybody always thinks.
He also finds out that mates aren't a one in a million chance, like the
folklore say. There are a lot of legends that say that every werewolf has only
one perfect mate for them, but that's not entirely true. To form a fully
functioning mate bond, both parties must be completely involved in a
relationship, must be compatible – body and mind and soul. It's not an urge, it
says, no one is born with a predestined person in their life, the desire to
mate starts only when one attunes perfectly to the other, only then a feeling,
an urge to form said bond, starts.
It all starts with the pair sleeping together, touching more, spending more and
more time alone together. There could be some form of courtship, too, where one
or both parties exchange gifts or tokens of affection, but it's not always tied
to a mating bond – the courting could go on for as long as the pair want, it
could lead to the next step into a successful bonding, where the couple is
perfectly in tune and is ready to commit to the last step.
The last stage of the mating bond, is the knotting.
Stiles almost throws his computer on the floor, he closes it so quickly.
                                      **
His hands itch all through his morning routine to just grab the phone and call
Derek, ask him every single question that's swimming through his head. He keeps
thinking of what he read, about the mate bonding and the rest of it. He doesn't
know what to make of it, what it means in the light of his separation from
Derek.
Does it mean something, really, in the end? If they're not together, maybe it's
not what he think it is. Maybe. Maybe every werewolf is different, maybe they
can still form some kind of bond with a person and not be together.
He wonders if Scott and Allison were mates, if that was why Scott felt so
strongly about her from the beginning. Or if it was a simple crush that evolved
with time and thanks to their situation.
Maybe Derek and him are just two people who work really good together,
physically – maybe, mentally, too, sometimes. But not on an emotional level.
From the beginning they started their relationship coming from two very
different places – Stiles, who never had any relationship whatsoever prior to
the one with Derek, and Derek, who was traumatized enough from every single
relationship he had to last a lifetime.
Stiles just went into it with both feet and a somewhat light heart, but Derek
just stumbled into it, went with it because Stiles wanted him to. He just
developed stronger feelings for Derek than the other ever felt for him. It
happened before, it's not something he never experienced.
Maybe, maybe, Derek felt good enough that his body wanted to show it, in its
own way.
He spends his time in the shower mulling over this, still doesn't really have
any explanation when he steps out and dries himself off with a towel.
He could shoot Derek a text, some stupid thing and ask him after a while, but
he's sure it won't take him anywhere and he's too tired to try and argue with
Derek.
He gets dressed and leaves for school in silence.
                                      **
Stiles sits down next to Scott and throws his tray down on the table
unceremoniously, sighing. Scott blinks at him for a second then pats him on the
back, gives him his jell-o with a smile. Stiles takes it and smiles back,
feeling a little better for the first time all day. He grabs his spoon and
starts eating it avoiding the rest of the food altogether. It tastes like
cardboard anyway.
“I love the red jell-o,” he mumbles around the spoon and Scott smiles brightly
at him.
“I know.”
“You're the best friend, Scotty,” Stiles says and Scott chuckles.
Malia flops down next to him and growls, hides her face in her arms and then
pushes right up into Stiles' space. He looks down at her and then awkwardly
pats her back.
“I miss deer,” she says from her hiding place, sound muffled from fabric and
hair. “I need to hunt some again.”
Both Stiles and Scott frown and then look down at her in somewhat concealed
surprise.

“I'm pretty sure the meat here doesn't taste that different from what you're
used to,” he tells her, pats her back some more in comfort. He never tasted
live deer and he's sure he doesn't want to try, but it can't be that good.
Malia whips around so fast Stiles flails a little and almost falls down in
Scott's lap. “Whoa!”
She stares at him, pissed off, her hair all over the place and he's pretty sure
she's going to eat him for lunch.

“Remember what I told you about controlling your powers at school!” he stage
whispers at her, leaning back against Scott completely to get away from her
teeth. “Try to calm down.”
“You must be your own anchor,” whispers strategically Scott from behind Stiles,
who just makes an unconvinced face but then goes with it, nods and makes a
flourish with his hand to demonstrate it.
“Something like that.”
She looks at both at them with that pissed off expression, but at least her
eyes aren't flashing blue so it's not so bad – she can control herself,
usually, but sometimes something triggers her and she just. Becomes a little
more coyote and little less human. Stiles tries to remind her that she can't do
that as much as he can, and it works most of the time, it's just that it's not
so simple. He kinda understands.
“Maybe we should work more on your control,” he tells her and she groans, flops
back down on the table. “Yeah. After school.”
                                      **
Tex to: Sourwolf Feb 13 12
8:04 PM saw a black dog today looked exactly like you haha
Text from : Sourwolf Feb 13 12
08:31 PM Funny.
                                      **
He startles awake from a dream where he was trying to tell his dad about Derek
– it wasn't going all that well. There was a mention of shooting, so – and he
smacks his lips a couple of times to get the awful taste of stale coffee off
his tongue, wipes his cheek from where he drooled all over his pillow and looks
around, confused.
He almost flails around when he spots a dark figure coming at him from his now
open window, but he's too groggy still and he limits himself to a mumbled
“what?” and the worried beating of his heart.
“Malia?” he says, when the figure crouches over his bed and then molds against
his back. “What are you doing here?”
“Couldn't sleep,” she says, and hides her chilly face against the nape of his
neck, puts her cold fingertips over his side. He shivers and frowns.
“And you're here why?” he asks again, because he really doesn't understand why
she's here when she can't sleep. On the one single night he was sleeping, also.
“Feels good,” she replies and her lips move against his skin, make him bite his
bottom lip because there are a lot of memories dancing through his mind –
memories about lips belonging to another person, firm arms around him, a hard
chest against his back. So different from the soft push of Malia's chest and
her hair smells like flowers and her fingers are cold at the tips.
Stiles stays silent for a few long seconds and then says, “okay,” lets her stay
where she is because she's not doing anything wrong. She's settled and is not
moving, she's probably already asleep, and he doesn't really have the heart to
tell her to go away.
So, he just closes his eyes and pretends to go back to sleep.
                                      **
It happens again the following night.
And the night after that.
After the fourth time, Stiles just lets her curl up beside him and goes back to
what he was doing before she climbed through his window – he keeps writing his
essays, or goes back to what he was watching, puts subtitles on so he doesn't
disturb her, pats her hair when she seems restless. They don't talk, she just
goes to sleep and he mostly doesn't.
Stares at his phone on his nightstand and feels his palms itch with how much he
wants to write to Derek.
                                       **
He's feeling restless since he came home after practice. It's like he can't
breathe properly, feels like his skin is too thick and thin at the same time,
smothering him, making him feel cold. He's sweating even though he's trembling
and he can't sit still for longer than a minute.
He then spends half an hour in the shower trying to get the feeling of warmth
back into his bones, but he's just feeling stretched thin when he steps out,
skin an alarming shade of pink and breath coming in short pants.
His dad is moving around downstairs and fixing something for dinner, judging
from the sound of plates hitting the table, but Stiles isn't really feeling it
tonight. He hopes his dad bought Chinese, he could go for some shrimps and some
dumplings. He gets dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt and pads downstairs
barefoot, hair still mostly wet. He's going to try and catch up on sleep if he
can. Maybe without Malia waking him up in the middle of the night to spoon him.
He never can get back to sleep when she does that, he keeps replaying all the
times he and Derek slept together and he never had a problem sleeping with him
– felt safe with Derek's arms around his waist. And Malia smells good and she
always goes straight to sleep, doesn't even try to strike up a conversation
with him, but she's not Derek. It's not her fault.
The Sheriff looks up at him and frowns. “You're not feeling well?”
Stiles makes a face and shrugs. He sits down at the table and sees that his dad
bought Indian. Still good, maybe the spicy food will warm him up a lot faster
than the shower could. He grabs his fork and starts eating straight from the
carton, until his dad slaps his hand away and takes the food for himself, puts
some on his plate and glowers at him.
“Manners, all right?” his dad reminds him, handing the carton back to Stiles
with a look. “You always end up eating everything before I even get the chance
to taste some. Put the food on your plate.”
“Okay,” Stiles says and does as he's told. The food smells heavenly and his
mouth waters.
They stay in silence for a while, Stiles enjoying the food with gusto and his
dad looking at him from time to time. Stiles tries to pretend he doesn't notice
his dad's lingering gaze, but he can feel it every time his eyes rest on him,
make his skin crawl in annoyance.
“What?” he asks, mouth full of chicken curry.
His dad shakes his head and makes a face, sighs a little. “Nothing,” he says,
forks some more food on his plate. “You look a little pale.”
Stiles thinks it's weird that he looks pale when he still feels uncomfortable
in his own skin after the too hot shower, he must still be too pink like he
scrubbed too hard, but maybe his dad is right. He still doesn't feel one
hundred percent. Maybe forty percent.
“I think I just need to sleep more, I'm going to try tonight.”
His dad nods, still munching on some rice, and then looks up at him. “Is it
going better lately?”
“Eh,” he replies, shrugging a little. “Kinda.”
“Malia helps, then,” his dad says, like he just knows and Stiles almost chokes
on the water he's drinking.
He gapes at his dad for a long moment and then he yelps, “what?”
His dad rises an eyebrow at him and sends him a look like he's not impressed.
“I know Malia sleeps in your bed, you're not exactly subtle. I'm not mad you're
in a relationship with someone, you're almost eighteen, but I just wish you
wouldn't go so fast.”
Stiles is staring at his dad in horror, mouth hanging open and eyes wide, his
heart is doing somersaults in his chest and he feels funny. “What?!”
“I hope you're using precautions. I don't need to be a granddad right now,” his
dad continues and Stiles flails a lot in his chair.
“What?!” he says for the third time because he thinks his dad broke him, then
he starts shaking his head fast, maybe he looks a little manic but he really
can't help it, his dad thinks he's having sex with Malia. “Dad, we're totally
not having sex. No sex is happening in this house, or outside this house. Or
anywhere, really,” Stiles explains, voice unnaturally high. He maybe is
freaking out a little. “We're not even together, we're just friends. I help her
with school and like with being in control but. No sex. I mean, she's cute but
I'm in-” he cuts himself off and he looks at his dad with huge eyes, he's not
even breathing because what.
He was going to drop the L-bomb on his dad, what the hell. No way. He should
just get up and go to bed now. Probably smother himself with his pillow. Stop
this nonsense before it's too late.
His dad is looking at him like he's not really convinced, but then nods and
starts eating again. Stiles is not so interested in the food now. “Okay, okay,”
he says. “But I hope you're going to tell me when you've found the right person
for you.”
Stiles nods and looks down at his almost empty plate, toys a little with the
fork and the rice.
“Sure,” he lies.
                                      **
It's almost ten at night and he's still wide awake. The window is open a sliver
and a light breeze is sweeping in, calming him a little. He doesn't feel as
suffocated as he did before, but he still can't sit still, can't focus on the
essay he's trying to put together – the words swirl in his head and he spends
the majority of the time staring at the blinking cursor on the blank empty page
on his computer and then at the half-opened window, in turn. He's biting his
nails, nervous, and he really can't write anything down, can't seem to grasp
even one sole concept enough to put it down on paper.
The lights are out in his bedroom, the room half-lit by the computer's bright
light and the bed is unmade, still from that morning when he left in a hurry
with Malia telling him she needed a ride to school. He keeps looking at it, the
bed, then at the walls filled with posters and Lydia's drawings he saved
because he liked them and Lydia didn't want them anymore, and he feels like
time's frozen, like nothing changed in a year when in reality he feels like
he's another person. He doesn't know if the reminder of that Stiles that put
all those things on the walls is a good thing or not, if he should start taking
something off, if he should leave them there. It doesn't really feel like his
own bedroom anymore, more like a room where he sometimes sleeps, where he
spends the majority of the time watching TV shows quietly, where fitful nights
pass much like this one. It's exhausting and jarring and sometimes he feels
like he can be truly himself only when he closed the door behind his back and
he's alone in here, like he needs to wear a mask around his dad and his
friends, because they expect him to be back to his usual self, all sarcasm and
funny faces – even if he doesn't really feel like that side is his true self
anymore. The only time when he felt better was.
He looks at the second drawer of his desk, the one that gets jammed every time
and he struggles when he wants to open it and he spends a few long seconds just
staring at it, teeth still biting at the skin around his nails. The knob shines
faintly with the pale light coming from outside and he moves a tentative hand
towards it, fingers slightly shaking wit nerves. He grips it and pulls, faintly
at first, unsure, then harder until the drawer opens with a quiet squeak and
Stiles is breathing harshly from exertion. It's practically empty, a black pit
of nothing, but there they are, the keys Derek left him the last time they saw
each other, metal glinting in the dark. He takes them out and looks at them,
swallows the knot in his throat that threatens to choke him. Feelings are
dancing through his ribcage and he just keeps looking at them, feels the weight
of them in his palm, closes his fingers around the cold metal and feels the
edges digging in his skin.
Then, he gets up and closes the lid of his computer with a snap, bathing the
room in darkness.
                                      **
He pushes the door to Derek's loft open and looks at it.
Obviously nothing changed since the last time he was here, everything is still
in place and the loft feels empty and cold. He pants for a little while, unsure
if he should step in or just leave and go back home. He's not sure why came
here, he just wanted to. The air is stale and stuffy inside and Stiles sighs
and closes the door behind himself, eyes downcast and skin sweaty. He leaves
the keys on the little coffee table beside the couch and goes to the other side
of the room, where the kitchen is and opens the windows there, let the air
circulate and change. The glass is greasy and dirty but the breeze is chilly
and feels good on his overheated skin, calms him down a little.
He leaves the kitchen to open the one the bathroom and then stands in the
middle of the living room for a couple of minutes, deciding what he wants to
do. He could try to sleep on the couch, it doesn't look particularly
uncomfortable or anything and he could do it, could probably fall asleep there,
but then his eyes fall on the stairs that lead to Derek's room. He stares at
them for too long, still in the middle of the half-dim room and then, slowly,
walks up to them. He takes a deep breath before he climbs them, looks up at the
pale light filtering through the huge window panels and then goes up.
He stops on the last step and looks at the bed. It looks pristine and
untouched, like Derek made it himself before he left and Stiles just has to
bite his lip and feels his shoulders drop. It's like no one ever lived here at
all, there aren't photo frames hanging on the walls, or any poster of stupid
bands Stiles doesn't even listen to anymore, or any drawings. The room is
sterile and empty, just a bed with a dark blue quilt thrown on and white
sheets, bedside drawers with two anonymous lamps on both sides and a closet on
the far side of the room. Stiles opens the first drawer and finds it empty, so
is the second and the last one. There's no trace of Derek here, no forgotten
clothes or even stupid things like toothpaste still lying on the sink, there
are only a few books Derek left behind and the cabinets in the kitchen still
full of food that's probably gone bad and some old cutlery, chipped plates and
nothing else.
Derek was what made the loft feel fuller, Stiles realizes. It's basically the
same apartment Derek always left behind, with the same things in it, but now it
lacks the most important thing, his presence. If Derek was here, Stiles
wouldn't need anything else.
He lies down on the bed, however, and looks up at the ceiling, shoes on and
phone still in the pocket of his sweatpants.
The pillows smell of dust.
                                      **
Text to: Sourwolf Feb 27 12
12:12 AM milk with honey doesn't work on me anymore. maybe yours was better
Text from: Sourwolf Feb 27 12
12:15 AM Still trouble sleeping?
Text to: Sourwolf Feb 27 12
12:16 AM yeah, sometimes. i'm doing better but you know. sometimes.
Text from: Sourwolf Feb 27 12
12:18 AM Want me to call you?
Text to: Sourwolf Feb 27 12
12:29 AM nah thanks tho
Text from: Sourwolf Feb 27 12
12:33 AM Anytime
                                      **
“Where were you last night?” Malia asks him as soon as they cross paths in the
school's parking lot. “You weren't home.”
Stiles sighs and nods, tries to smile a little but feels empty. He didn't sleep
at all because he forgot his own pillow at home and the feeling of longing
remained lodged in his chest all night, and now he feels too tired to pretend
he's perfectly fine. He'll do it, because that's what he does everyday, but he
just needs a little more time today. Malia is still following him through the
school hallways and so he says, “I went out for a ride, I needed to clear my
mind.”
Malia shrugs and replies, “Okay,” and leans against the lockers beside Stiles,
looks at him with huge eyes, following every movement of his hands.
He doesn't want to say that he takes a relieved breath when Lydia steps up to
them and tells him that she needs to talk to him, but he does.
                                      **
One day he steps out of the shower and dries himself off hurriedly because he
needs to go to Scott's for a meeting, needs to pick Malia up from her place and
he's late.
He brushes his teeth and looks at his reflection in the mirror and he glances
to where the bruises Derek put on him were. It's been a while since they faded
away, but he still can feel them if he focuses hard enough. He can still
picture them red and green/yellow on his hips and waist, the ones on his neck
from the last time they were together.
His skin tingles with the phantom touches and he looks back down to his
toothbrush, forgets about it.
                                      **
The loft smells less of dust and more of him, the fifth time he opens the door.
It's still as sad as it was the first time, going back to it and finding it
empty, but now Stiles is getting used to it. It's not a punch in the gut, now,
but more a skipping beat of his heart when he slides the door open and there's
nothing but a lone couch waiting for him on the other side.
He has a routine now, he closes the door, walks silently to the windows and
opens them one by one – sits down on the couch with his pillow and computer and
sometimes eats something he bought at the fast food down the street, sometimes
he re-heats some noodles in the microwave and watches his favorite episodes of
Friends until he feels tired enough to go to bed.
So he gets up, closes the windows one by one, and climbs the stairs. He doesn't
stop at the foot of the bed to stare at the sheets, doesn't stop breathing
thinking of New Year's Eve. He sheds his clothes and puts his pillow between
the ones already on the mattress, hides his face in it.
Sometimes he jerks off at the memory of Derek's fingers on him, sometimes he
doesn't stop his moans from getting loud because he knows he's the only one in
the whole building.
                                      **
He grabs his phone that night, lying under the covers in only his boxers and
shirt and he feels particularly worked up, his skin too hot and too cold at the
same time, can't seem to stay still, keeps moving.
Text to: Sourwolf 18 Mar 12
02:01 AM my skin itches. can't sleep can't sleep can't sleep
And then he throws the phone on the bed, kicks the covers away when he feels
literally a rush of warmth pass through him and he starts sweating. He closes
his eyes and sighs, legs splayed open on the mattress.
He jolts when he feels his phone vibrate, hurries to check who is calling him –
even though he already knows – and his breath gets punched out of him when he
sees Sourwolf.
“Hey,” he says, heart beating fast and already sweating.
“Stiles,” Derek replies, voice sleepy. He clears his throat and says again,
“you still can't sleep?”
“Yeah, but I'm sorry I woke you up.”
“Don't worry,” Derek answers and Stiles hears rustling from the other side,
like Derek is in bed, like Stiles is, and for a split second he wants to tell
him he's in his loft, that he usually works himself up to an orgasm on these
same sheets, but then. He stays silent and wills his body to cool down, trails
the tips of his fingers slowly on the waistband of his underwear but doesn't
slip them inside. Derek is still waiting for him to say something back so
Stiles does.
“I ate too much before going to bed and now I can't fall asleep,” he explains.
“My stomach is too full.”
Derek laughs softly and Stiles can't help but smile at it, bends his knees so
that the soles of his feet brush against the sheets, tickle him.
“At least you're eating.”
“Yup, I look pregnant now,” he chuckles, pats his belly. “I have to find it a
name.”
Derek makes a mmm noise, still kinda sleepy and Stiles imagines him in his warm
pajama, hair all ruffled and pillow creases on his cheek. “Can't let your food
baby without a name.”
Stiles laughs a little and turns around, hides his face into the pillow – notes
how it smells like his own shampoo now, misses Derek like a pang in his chest
even now that they're talking. “I'm glad you called me,” he mumbles, words a
little slurred from the fabric.
“I'm glad, too.”
Stiles sighs and rests his cheek on the pillow, looks at the semi-darkness in
the room and feels his body slowly relax, muscles loosening, and he knows he
could probably fall asleep listening to Derek's breathing.
So he whispers, “can we stay like this just for a little while?”
“Yeah, close your eyes,” Derek replies, voice soft.
And Stiles does.
                                      **
He wakes up early the following morning, so early the sky is still purple and
pink outside and he feels well rested, still pleasantly buzzing from the dream
in which he was having sex with Derek – all slow thrusts and deep kisses.
He throws the covers away and burrows his fingers under the hem of his
underwear, pulls them down and closes his hand around his dick. Jerks himself
off slowly and unhurriedly, licks the fingers of his other hand to slick them,
trails them to his hole and toys with it, feels himself clench and unclench
with the promise to be filled soon.
Comes all over himself with two fingers deep in his ass and Derek's name on his
lips.
                                      **
“We should have a party for Stiles' birthday,” Scott announces one day when
they're all gathered at Stiles' for a quiet meeting. Scott is lying back on the
couch with his head pillowed in Kira's lap and he's smiling down at Stiles,
who's sitting on the floor close to Malia, her head on his shoulder.
“No, we really shouldn't,” he says, without even looking up for longer than a
second.
Scott's smile dims immediately. “Why not? It's your eighteenth birthday! It's
important!”
Stiles sighs and then closes the book he was trying to explain to Malia, with
little to no results. She really doesn't grasp the concepts of epiphanies. “I'm
not feeling up to it,” he says and it's not even a lie, he doesn't really want
to party. Eighteen is just like seventeen, no difference. He'll probably spend
it watching TV with his dad and eating store cake on the couch.
“But-” Scott starts but then Stiles silences him with a look, dislodging
Malia's head from his shoulder and getting up.
“Really guys, don't.”
He leaves the living room and walks to the kitchen, where he gets himself a
glass of soda and avoids his friends' worried stares.
                                      **
That morning, the morning of his birthday, he wakes up with Malia snuggled up
to his chest and she's already smiling at him, puppy eyes and wavy hair all
over the place. Stiles can almost picture her tail wagging behind her. He can't
help but smile sleepily at her and she pushes harder against him, almost
touches his face with the tip of her nose.
“Hey, happy birthday,” she says, chin poised on the top of her hands. “Your dad
told me to wake you up, there are pancakes.”
“Okay, I'll be down in a moment. Thank you, Malia,” he nods, runs a hand
through his messed up hair and yawns grandly, stretches as much as he can with
her weight on his chest. His joints protest and then relax, and he feels
immediately better after. “You staying with us?”
She shrugs but smiles again.
                                      **
When they get downstairs, his father hugs him tight and pats him on the back.
“Happy birthday, son,” he murmurs, still embracing Stiles, and Stiles hides his
little smile in his father's shoulder, tightens his grip on him.
“Thanks dad,” he replies. “I was told there were pancakes.”
His dad laughs and lets him go, looks at him for a long second then gestures to
the kitchen. “Yeah, I made your favorite. Malia, you joining us?”
Malia looks down at her feet for a split second, then up at Stiles, who nods.
She smiles and says yes, walks up to the Sheriff when he opens his other arm
for her.
“You like maple syrup?”
“I don't know,” she answers, looking kind of confused. Stiles snorts.
“Well,” John says, serious, “time to find out.”
                                      **
“Can we at least play that new videogame I totally didn't buy you for your
birthday, after school?” Scott asks him as soon as they meet after the first
three periods. He's leaning against Stiles' locker and is preventing him to
open it so he can grab his history book. If he's late for another lesson, Mr.
Wilson is going to actually murder him this time.
Stiles sighs and then rolls his eyes, pushes Scott to the side so he can open
the door. “Okay, but no parties.”
“No, bro, just you and me,” Scott says, smiling brightly, moving to hug Stiles
tightly to his chest with an arm around Stiles' neck. “You're so gonna get it.”
Stiles splutters and tries to shove his best friend away. “Yeah, sure.”
“I have to go, later!” Scott then shouts, right into Stiles' ear, and lets him
go. Stiles wobbles for a dangerous second and then regains his balance, holds
on to his now half-open locker and glares at Scott's retreating back.
“Bah,” he murmurs. He opens the locker all the way and finds a little balloon
inside, with a glittery “happy birthday!!” written on it, floating. He stares
at it for a long second, then rolls his eyes, sighs loudly and grabs the little
card attached to the end of the pink string. He doesn't even have to open it to
know who put it there.
“Damn, Lydia!”
                                      **
You're one year older. Congrats. - Lydia (let's go shopping some time.)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY STILES!! - Kira!!!
Happy Birthday Bro! (i'm not gonna sign this Lydia) (Yes, you are.) – Scott!
HappY BirTHDAY! - Malia
                                      **
They've been playing for hours and Stiles is lying back on the couch and
moaning, his eyes hurt and his brain is probably liquefied right now, when
Scott stands up and says “I'm hungry and I want some Mexican,” rubbing his
hands.
Stiles looks up at him from his weird position and raises an eyebrow.
“I don't have any tacos stored away in my kitchen, if that's what you're
waiting for.”
Scott snorts and then fondly rolls his eyes, grabs Stiles by the sleeve of his
shirt and pulls him up. “No, dumbass, we're going out.”
Stiles makes a face, then nods at where there's an obvious groove in the couch
in the shape of his ass. “I'll wait here, you go and get me some nachos, too.
Spicy.”
“No,” Scott says, “you're coming with me, I can't drive my bike with the food
and I'm not driving your Jeep after that one time.”
Scott is still pulling him towards the front door and Stiles is not even trying
to get free anymore, he's just begrudgingly following him with heavy feet and
sighing. He hates Scott. “I hate you,” he reminds Scott when he grabs his car
keys and phone and opens the door. Scott smiles innocently. “I hate you, I was
so comfortable on the couch.”
“Dude, but food.”
“You're paying,” he announces, pointing a finger at Scott who just shrugs and
nods.
                                      **
“Dude, what the hell, where are we going?” Stiles asks, following Scott's
directions. So far they just took a longer route to get back to his house. He
really doesn't understand why Scott is making him waste gas over this. “Aren't
we going back to mine?”
“Turn right here,” Scott says instead of answering him and Stiles glowers at
him.

“Scott, what the fuck?”
Scott just smirks and Stiles wants to smack him and then push him out of the
car, but he just growls a little and drives. They get almost at the edge of the
woods, pass the cemetery and then take the secondary street to get back to
Stiles'. When he understands what just happened, Stiles looks at Scott,
unimpressed and also annoyed, and the other one is just feigning innocence and
Stiles isn't buying that at all. He knows what's happening.
He parks back in his driveway and looks at Scott with all the fake hate he can
muster, making the other cackle maniacally and get out with a jump. Stiles
follows suit and takes his sweet time locking his car, then getting up to the
front door where Scott is waiting for him.
“Close your eyes,” Scott says with joy and Stiles groans.
“I hate you,” he murmurs, but does as he's told. Scott steers him through the
door with a sure hand on the middle of his back and then stops him a couple of
feet inside the house.
“Okay,” Scott whispers to him, his warm breath tickling the side of his face.
“Open your eyes.”
Stiles does and finds all his friends in the middle of the living room, smiling
at him with silly party hats on their heads and colorful balloons in their
hands.
“Happy birthday!” everybody shouts, and Stiles can't help but smile at them,
feeling warmed up from inside and loved. He looks at them one by one and he
feels his chest flutter.
“You guys,” he murmurs, hiding his wet eyes in Scott's shoulder when the other
hugs him with a roaring laugh.
He lets everybody hug him and kiss him and pat him on the back and he's not mad
at them anymore for throwing him a party. He's smiling and eating cake and
drinking and he feels okay.
Okay.
                                      **
He's standing against the wall with yet another piece of cake in hand, eating
like there's no tomorrow, and snickering with Lydia about something when Scott
joins them and hugs Stiles again, tight tight tight and Stiles hugs him back,
plastic fork in one hand and almost empty plate in the other, and he loves them
all so much he feels stupid now for not wanting them to celebrate with him.
He's also feeling pleasantly buzzed from all the alcohol he drank since his
father left for a well-timed shift, and he's all loose-limbed and smiley,
feeling lighter than he has in months, now.
Scott ruffles his hair and looks Stiles in the eyes, throws one arm around
Stiles' shoulders and leans against him. He's warm and he smells faintly of
booze and sugar.

“I called Derek last week to check up on him and we talked about you and so I
told him about the party and that if he wanted to come he was welcome to, but
he said he couldn't. So,” he says looking at the living room at large, at
first, and then up into Stiles' eyes. He's half-smiling, a little sad. Maybe
because he wanted Derek to come, Stiles doesn't really know. Then.
Stiles stops smiling in a matter of seconds when the words register, he blinks
a couple of times and looks down at his half eaten cake, then he licks his
bottom lip.
“Okay,” he replies, voice soft and eyes downcast. He shrugs like it's no big
deal and smiles again, and Scott smiles too, even if he's looking at Stiles
with a weird expression. Lydia is looking at him too, frowning a little, and
Stiles clears his throat, pushes away from the wall and leaves the cake on the
table, spins around to laugh at the two of them. “I have to go to the
bathroom,” he announces. “You know, alcohol and all.”
He leaves the room and climbs the stairs in a hurry, avoids looking at the
others worried he'll find them wearing those worried expressions they seem to
always associate with him, lately. Rationally, he shouldn't leave his own party
and lock himself in the bathroom, but he feels like his nerves are on fire and
he needs just a little more quietness – the music downstairs was okay until two
seconds ago, now his head is threatening to explode if he doesn't get away for
just a minute, breathe and calm down. He splashes his face with some water and
looks at his reflection in the mirror, the same exact face that's been staring
back at him for quite a while now, all pale cheeks and hollowed eyes and he
doesn't like himself anymore – never did, really, but now it feels like
everyday he's looking at a stranger he never stops meeting. He feels detached
from everything, but also, everything affects him grandly, like even the
stupidest thing could shake him right now. There's an image in his head, of the
quiet surface of the lake behind Derek's house, flat and undisturbed,
reflecting the sky and the scenery around them – but then, when he threw a rock
at it, the surface was broken by firstly a little ring, then another one a
little bigger, then another and another and another. He does feel like all
those little rings, all those little things that normally wouldn't faze him,
keep turning into huge problems that make him lose sleep and feel empty.
Until a few months ago, it wouldn't have mattered that Derek wasn't at his
birthday party – he wouldn't have cared at all. He would've shrugged at it and
kept going, but now it feels like getting punched in the gut every time he
thinks about it.
He licks his lips and closes the tap on the sink, cutting off the stream.
Little droplets of water are falling from his eyelashes and the tip of his nose
and chin, wetting his shirt in dark red smudges, but he doesn't care. He
doesn't dry himself off, he just takes a deep breath and sits on the edge of
the tub, looking down at his hands, fingers unsteady.
He grabs his phone from one of the pockets of his jeans and unlocks it, taps on
the little envelope icon on the display to re-read the last message Derek sent
him just that morning. Happy birthday Stiles, hope it's a great one. I'll call
you when you're free. and feels so so stupid. He thinks back on how he smiled
when he read it that morning, thinks of Derek's voice the other night when
Derek called him while he was sleeping at Derek's loft for the third time that
week and how he still feels that stupid fluttering in his chest when he can't
stop replaying the last time they fucked, every time he fingers himself open on
those same sheets in that same bedroom.
He taps on the contact name and then the phone icon. He's not sure what he's
gonna say if Derek picks up, but his hands are shaking and he feels a huge knot
lodged in his throat and he can't think straight – he knows he just wants to
hear why Derek couldn't even tell him he didn't want to see him again. It's not
like he didn't know, but up until now, he kind of hoped, a little, that-
“Stiles,” Derek answers, voice soft. Stiles feels a shiver run down his spine,
hates him already a little more. “Happy birthday.”
Stiles snorts wetly and taps on his left knee with nervous fingers, his foot
going up and down in a frustrated motion. He looks down at the fast tempo he's
playing on his knee-cap and then says, “yeah, right.”
There's a long moment of silence from the other side, but then Derek replies,
“what happened?” in a confused voice.
“I know you don't want to come back here,” he starts, chest tight and barely
contained energy. His voice sounds ruined already and he's not even crying, not
really, but he just feels. Done. “And I'm not asking you to, it's. Scott told
me he asked you if you wanted to come to my birthday party and you said no. Was
it really that bad coming here and celebrate with me? Celebrate the fact that
we're still here and alive and I'm turning eighteen?” he continues, folding in
on himself, elbows on his knees and face hidden in one hand. “You couldn't even
tell me? You just sent me a message and said nothing,” he snorts, self
deprecatingly. “I don't even know why I'm surprised anymore. Are you worried
I'd try something with you again? I can control myself, you know, even if you
don't think so. I don't know why I'm so mad right know.”
Derek listens to him until Stiles runs out of breath and his eyes sting. He
doesn't say anything until Stiles is done and then there's still a minute of
deafening silence between them, one that almost suffocates Stiles while he
waits for Derek to say anything at all.
“Stiles,” he starts, voice soft and so different from Stiles'. “I'm not worried
about you.”
Stiles frowns and stops breathing for a millisecond.
“What do you mean?” he has to ask.
“It's not you I'm worried about,” Derek repeats, with a strange voice and
Stiles bites his lips, tries not to read too much into it.
“You mean yourself?”
Derek is quiet on the other side and Stiles chews on his nails for as long as
it takes for him to reply, because he's not going to let this go. Not if he
can.
“You keep telling me you're going on, and I know you are. I know you're with
Malia and I'm glad that you found someone your own age, who can understand you
and-”
“No,” he interrupts him, has to stop that nonsense because he can't listen to
it anymore. “I'm not with Malia, we're just friends. Yeah, I thought for a
while 'maybe'when I was with her, but I just can't. Not now, at least. Maybe in
a few months, yes, maybe I could start something with her, but not now,” Stiles
says with vehemence, and Derek is silent. “I'm still,” he has to take a deep
breath before he can continue, because his heart is beating so fast he feels
dizzy. He lowers his voice until it's almost a whisper. “I'm still pretty much
in love with you.” There's a faint gush of air from Derek and Stiles can hear
almost a shakiness to it. “And sometimes I wonder if you don't feel something
for me, too,” Stiles adds, sliding down the tub's edge until he's sitting on
the floor with his back against it. He closes his eyes and sighs, feeling too
drunk and too sober at the same time. “I read about the knotting thing one
night and then I kept thinking about that night, I dream about it, how it felt
and what I think it means but then – then you left me here and I don't know
anymore.”
“Things are complicated,” Derek says after a while, voice rougher than it was
before Stiles' outburst.
“Yeah, no shit,” Stiles replies, sarcastic, and kicks one of the cabinets a
little in annoyance. “Listen, I'm not asking you to express your undying love
for me. I know, all right. Things are complicated, I'm too young, you're too
damaged, you're not interested. I get it. Believe me. But I'm drunk, a little,
and I think about you nearly every minute every day and. I got angry when Scott
told me you didn't want to see me.”
“Stiles, I want to see you, but.”
“Yeah, I know,” Stiles says, final, tone clipped. “I should get back to the
party. The cake is waiting for me. And the alcohol,” he adds, getting up from
his crouched position. “This is the last time I call you, I won't bother you
anymore.”
“Stiles.”
“Bye Derek,” he murmurs, cutting the other off, and then waits just a beat
before he hangs up, listens to Derek's breathing and tries to store every
single detail he can remember in his mind.
He looks down at his light up phone for a while and then sighs, shakily, before
he opens the door, the lock clicking loudly in the semi-quiet of the upper
floor. On the other side, Scott is waiting for him sitting against the wall,
legs stretched out in front of him and hands in his lap. Stiles starts and
flails a little when he spots him, but then frowns when he sees Scott's
expression.
They look at each other for a long time, until Stiles understands that Scott
must've listened in on his conversation, probably when he came up looking for
him, and knows he should be angry for this invasion of privacy, but he can't.
He doesn't have it in him anymore. Not when Scott is looking at him with a sort
of sad smile on his lips.
Scott gets up slowly and then nods, puts a hand at the nape of Stiles' neck
like he understands.
Stiles' shoulders sag in relief and lets Scott hug him, hides his face in his
best friend's neck and just stays there for a little while.
“The party just kind of faded without you,” Scott says to him softly, fingers
slowly petting Stiles' hair. “Malia wanted to stay here with you but I told her
to go home.”
“Thanks,” Stiles murmurs into Scott's shoulder, words smudged against the
flannel of his shirt.
“Lydia was so pissed that she had to drive Malia home,” Scott adds and Stiles
snorts, because everyone knows that Lydia just kind of tolerates Malia on a
good day and practically ignores her on a normal one, so it's a wonder how
Scott managed to convince Lydia to spend even ten minutes alone with Malia in a
car. “But now we're alone. You up for some pancakes, or you want me to leave
you alone to sleep everything off?”
Stiles ponders at it for a little while, he feels especially tired after the
long talk with Derek, feels drained of all energy, but also knows that he
wouldn't fall asleep for at least a few more hours and he doesn't want to spend
them alone, so he nods and steps back from the warmth of Scott's embrace.
“I could use some time together,” Stiles says and Scott smiles softly at him,
steers him towards the stairs.
“You can tell me anything you want when you've had some coffee.”
                                      **
The diner on Main Street is almost empty, save for some few people who have to
get into work very early and are getting breakfast at 3 in the morning. Or
maybe they're just only now going home. Stiles likes when it's not crowded, but
he's also not the only customer waiting for his food. He feels like he's not
alone even when he doesn't know anybody there, likes the quiet clattering of
the forks on the plates and Donna making small talk with tired-looking people.
Scott chooses a booth on the far side of the huge windowpane and he slides into
it with a small smile, Stiles following right after. He sits down quietly and
starts immediately scanning the menu for something to eat, even if he's not at
all hungry and he's not in the mood for something sugary after all the cake he
ate at the party, but he's not ready to look Scott in the eyes and find him
still smiling sympathetically at him.
They remain in silence for a while, both of them tiptoeing around the huge
elephant in the room and still pretending to decide what they want to eat. In
the end Stiles orders a coffee and some fries, just to have something and then
stares out of the window to the dark parking lot and the buzzing neon sign over
their heads that spells OPN instead of open.
“Stiles,” Scott starts softly, and Stiles sighs because he knows it was going
to happen – Scott wanting to talk about it – but it still feels like too much.
Stiles turns to look back at his best friend and, yeah, there it is, that small
smile that he's been wearing since they left Stiles' house. Stiles would like
it better if he stopped, feels suffocating under that smile.
“Yeah,” Stiles replies, wiping both his hands on his jean-clad thighs, looking
around the room, then back at Scott.
“Listen, Stiles, I didn't want to listen in on your phone call,” Scott says,
and he looks mildly uncomfortable for a second, looks down at the table and
then back up at Stiles when he says that. “But you weren't coming back and I
got worried.”
“I know, it doesn't matter anymore,” Stiles murmurs, runs the tip of his thumb
under his right eye to chase the itch that's driving him insane. “Like, it's
not important. Not anymore,” he adds.
“Isn't it?” Scott says, leans in to get closer to Stiles even with the table
between them. “That's why you're looking like that. Because it's not
important.”
Stiles clicks his tongue and looks at the too white lights on the ceiling, at
the colored banner over the counter, everywhere.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I told you, it wasn't important, Scott. It happened and then stopped
happening, so that means that when it stopped happening, it also stopped being
important,” Stiles rebuts, sitting up straighter on the squeaky fake leather of
the booth.
Scott rolls his eyes, rolls his whole head, too, something he picked up from
Derek and Stiles feels a pinch of something that feels like loss in his chest.

“You told him you're in love with him,” Scott whispers, shutting Stiles up in
no time. “In love.”
Stiles stares at Scott, breath coming in short pants that make him almost feels
dizzy. He's replaying short bits of the conversation he had with Derek - he
wasn't completely sober, but he wasn't even drunk. He knew what he was saying,
he just had zero to no qualms to actually say them. He stopped being pleasantly
buzzed as soon as he hung up the phone.
Their food arrives then, Donna placing the plates in front of them and sending
them both a red-lipped smile before getting back behind the counter and Stiles
drowns himself in the bitter black coffee.
He starts on his fries with a single-minded focus, eyes trained on the food and
half-listens to Scott sigh and then the faint clatter of the silverware
clanking together when he unrolls them out of the napkin.
“I just never thought,” Scott says, mouth full of bacon. “You never behaved
differently towards Derek, not even when we were together.”
Stiles did. He knows he did, he wonders how his friends never picked up on it
when he feels like he wore his heart on his sleeve – on New Year's Eve he
barely could stop looking at Derek all night, he felt like his lips were so red
and obvious when Derek bit him just outside the front door and when he left the
party to be with Derek. It was just so obvious. But maybe it makes sense that
Scott didn't know, Scott isn't the most observant of them.
Stiles snorts and licks his fingers to get the salt off them, looks up at Scott
with a sardonic smile. “I didn't want you guys to know, I kept it secret for a
reason. You could have found out, if you just looked at us a little closely.”
“I didn't know there was something to look at,” Scott replies, crumbs of bacon
falling down from his grasp. “I just thought you were with Malia, not with
Derek.”
“I never was with Derek, it was complicated but I knew from the start we
weren't together. We fucked, a lot,” Stiles says, watches with glee Scott try
to hide his minute flinch at the mention of sex. “We spent all the time in
Montana fucking and it was so. Good.”
Scott doesn't say anything, just looks at Stiles with a tight-lipped frown on
his face and Stiles goes on, can't stop, really. Gets more and more
satisfaction seeing Scott's face get more and more pinched by the second.
“I initiated it, I wanted him to fuck me and he did. He helped me with the
nightmares, I slept with him curled up around me and I felt safe. He did
everything I told him I wanted to do, he celebrated Christmas with me, helped
me decorate his home and bought me a tree. He stayed close when I felt like I
was going insane. And we had sex, a lot, a lot of sex. But he never once told
me we were together, I just fell in too deep, but this is just on me,” he says,
swirling a couple of fries in the puddle of ketchup, staining the tips of his
fingers with it. He takes a moment to take a bite of the food and lick the
sauce off, to gather his thoughts in his head so he can express them better.
Scott clears his throat and fidgets on the seat, lets the almost finished piece
of bacon fall onto the plate and the still intact eggs.
“So Derek was good?” Scott asks, voice unsure and soft.
“In bed? Oh, he was,” Stiles snaps before he can help himself and Scott drops
his gaze on the table before he looks back up at Stiles, frown back in place;
and Stiles sighs, amends with, “yeah, he was good with me. He had a lot more
patience than I ever thought possible, never once did something I didn't want,
never pushed me for something, if I didn't want to talk or eat, then he left me
be. It was always me, me who always actually pushed for more – I asked him to
come back, to be with me and I didn't think about what made him leave in the
first place, what made me leave in the first place. Coming back here would be
the worst thing he could do, probably, and I get it. This place,” he sneers,
throws the fries back on the plate, no longer hungry. “It was pretty selfish of
me, but I am. I am selfish and I wanted him to be with me.”
The silence after Stiles' outburst is heavy between them, even in the
brightness of the diner and the chattering around them. Stiles doesn't want to
talk about this anymore, wants to go home and sleep, skip school and just do
anything but to think about Derek ever again.
Scott starts slowly eating again, cuts his eggs meticulously so that the yolk
washes over the white of the porcelain and covers the piece of bacon that fell
from his fingers not too long ago, and Stiles drinks his coffee, even if it's
cold by now. Drains it and then motions at Donna to refill his mug, sends her a
watered down version of a smile when she ruffles his hair.
                                      **
When he gets back home, late, the old clock on his nightstand tells him it's 4:
37 and he's so tired he could cry.
He strips down to only his boxer and t-shirt and gets under the covers, curls
up in on himself and chases the warmth he can't seem to find anymore – the
sheets are too cold and, even if the weather is getting less and less crispy by
the day, he still feels like something is missing.
For quite some time before he falls asleep, he ponders if he should erase his
entire text history with Derek, gets as far as grabbing his phone and unlocking
it - then stares at the photo he took of the Christmas tree he and Derek
decorated, all pretty lights and glinting crystal balls, the one he uses as a
screensaver since before Christmas, and can't actually get himself to do it.
                                      **
Some time after 7 am he wakes up to his mattress moving slightly and Malia
shaking him.
“Stiles,” she says and he grunts, smacks his lips before he turns back to sleep
on his side. “Stiles!”
“Mmmm,” he moans, because the covers slid down the bed and now he's cold. He
waves a hand in the proximity of where he thinks Malia's face is and then pats
the bed to find the edge of the covers, so he can throw them back over himself.
“We have to go to school, wake up,” Malia says, tries to turn him on his back
again and he swats her hands away.
“I'm not going today, ask Scott if he'll take you,” he mumbles, eyes still
closed.
Malia stops moving on the bed and Stiles smiles, more than ready to go back to
sleep.
“Are you still hungover?”
“No, but I want to sleep and I'm not going,” he simply replies, hiding his face
in the pillow so the sun isn't shining right in his eyes.
There's a long minute of blissful silence, then Malia says, “Okay, do you want
me to stay with you?”
“No, go to school,” he murmurs, already on the verge of sleep now that he found
the perfect position.
“Okay,” Malia repeats, slowly getting off the bed, jostling the mattress a
little. “I'll see you later?” she asks and Stiles makes a noise of assent,
doesn't move his face from its hiding place.
He's out, after that.
                                      **
He wakes up only to go to the bathroom and to eat. There's still a piece of
cake in the fridge and it's still good as he remembered, the whipped cream and
the fresh fruit sweet enough to make him forfeit a whole lunch. He's quiet
about it, doesn't slam the plate in the sink like he normally would because his
dad is sleeping – and his sleep is light enough that a noise like that would
wake him up in no time – and he slowly climbs up the stairs to get back to bed.
It's been a while since he last slept so much, but he figures he deserves it
and his dad didn't wake him up to send him to school like he usually does, so
he's going to make the most of it. Also, it was his birthday yesterday, so
that's probably it.
He stops for a second in front of his dad's room, opens quietly the door and
looks at his dad snore with his mouth open, one hand thrown over his head and
the other resting on his stomach, and Stiles smiles, closes the door again and
goes back into his own room.
He queues a few movies on his computer and leans back on his bed to watch them,
lowers the speakers until it's just a faint buzzing and puts the subtitles on
so he can watch them without disturbing his dad.
He falls asleep after half an hour into the first film.
                                      **
Life gets back to normalcy after that – he wakes up with Malia in his bed, or
on his bed, gets them both to school where Scott will look at him with a weird
sour expression on his face and Lydia will roll her eyes at them and Kira will
be all stuttering words and bright smiles and Stiles would just try to be
there. It's normal, what he's used to and, even if he still feels like he's
half a step behind all of them, he gets back into it.
It's weird that there are no signs of danger whatsoever lately, that there
aren't Alpha packs that intend to kill them all, or Japanese demons that
threaten to possess one of them, weird English teachers that reveal themselves
to be a dark druid – but Stiles is grateful for the pause, he needs to get back
to himself and relaxing is always good.
That's why, when one afternoon he's out at the movies with Scott, Kira and
Malia – in a weird attempt of a double date – and he feels his phone vibrate
against his leg, he doesn't think immediately of Derek. They're eating at the
little fast-food restaurant in the cinema, Malia sitting close to Stiles, one
of his arms resting loosely on her shoulders, and it's going well. Then Stiles'
phone vibrates and he wipes his right hand on the fabric of his jeans, making
Kira wrinkle her nose, and he grabs it, unlocks the screen. Stiles laughs at
her and then looks back at the phone, and stops breathing.
Text from: Sourwolf 21 Apr 12
5:09 PM Come to the loft when you can. Please.
He keeps staring at the little blue bubble, those few words jotted in black and
he feels his whole world shift precariously. He lifts his arm from Malia's
shoulders and puts both hands on the phone, grips it hard to prevent them from
shaking too much and tries to keep breathing.
His fingers slip a little on the display when he tries to tap back a response,
doesn't lift his eyes from the blinking cursor.
Text to: Sourwolf 21 Apr 12
5:14 PM now? are you in BH?
And he bites his nails while he waits for Derek to reply.
“Everything okay, Stiles?” Kira asks him, and he looks up at her, at her
worried face and he nods, thumb still between his teeth. Malia is looking at
him with a blank face, but he knows she's not pleased that he pulled away from
her, that he should apologize and explain, but he's not thinking straight right
now, can't seem to breathe and sit still at the same time. When his phone
lights up again, he unlocks it immediately and read the new text.
Text from: Sourwolf 21 Apr 12
5:16 PM Yes.
“What?” he murmurs to himself, pushes a hand through his hair. He feels too
warm under the plaid shirt he's wearing, the crown of his head wet with sweat,
and he sits up straighter when he reads the message, almost gets up from the
chair, then sits back down, still looking down at the phone.
He doesn't understand what it means, Derek is back in Beacon Hills, but why?
There's some threat he doesn't know of, maybe?
“Stiles.”
He looks up at Scott and finds him frowning down at him, blinks a couple of
times so he can focus back on his friend. There's a faint noise in his ears,
like a drum.
“Everything okay?” Scott asks again, motioning to Stiles' phone with his chin
and Stiles shakes his head, then nods, then gets up from the table and looks at
them all.
“I have to go,” he says, pocketing the phone and patting his pockets to feel
where his keys are. Kira gapes at him and Malia almost growls, but Stiles can't
stay there, not when Derek is in Beacon Hills and wants to see him. He needs
closure.
Only Scott is looking at him like he knows, like he understands what this is
about and then he nods, sighs and nods and puts a hand on Malia's arm to stop
her growling.
“Okay, go,” Scott says and sends Stiles a look. “I want you to be happy.”
Stiles's eyes sting for a second, eyelashes fluttering and he sends back a
grateful smile at him, bends down to kiss first Kira's cheek, making her
splutter and chuckle, and then grabs Malia's face in both his hands, looks her
in the eyes and says, “I'm sorry this couldn't work,” and then leaves a
smacking kiss on her cheek, too, before he flies out of the restaurant and into
the parking lot.
This is the last time he does something like this, the last time he drops
everything just because Derek asked him to, but he figures he needs it – needs
to talk to Derek one last time and tell him everything, hear what he has to say
and then – everybody can go on his merry way, maybe with a battered heart but
at least he'd feel lighter, after.
He parks in front of Derek's building and looks up to where he knows Derek's
apartment is, and the lights are on inside, he can see the ceiling bathed in
warm light from the street, through the huge windows. He sighs just once before
he steps in and jogs up the stairs.
When he reaches the last floor, the door is already slid open, and Derek is
standing in the middle of the living room, facing Stiles and the door. Stiles
stops short just a few feet outside and looks at him, tries to find the
different details in Derek's appearance and posture – his beard is shorter, so
is his hair, and he's not wearing any plaid or boots; he's barefoot and wearing
dark jeans and a baby blue shirt. He looks good, as always, standing tall in
the middle of the loft, maybe a little paler than he remembered, but still
handsome.
They're both staring at each other with huge eyes, hands hanging limp by their
sides and. Stiles' heart is beating a mile a minute, and he's not sure about
Derek's but he also looks surprised to see him there, just like Stiles is to
see him back in Beacon Hills. He takes an uncertain step towards the front door
and then another, until he's a few feet away from the other – can almost feel
his warmth, or so he thinks. Maybe he's projecting.
“What are you doing here?” is the first thing he asks, wringing his hands
together and then putting them both in the pockets of his jeans when he feels
weird about it. He would hug him, but he's not sure how Derek would interpret
the gesture, so he keeps his distance, doesn't crowd him like he normally
would.
Derek is still looking him up and down and Stiles doesn't fidget.
“You look better,” Derek says, in a soft voice, and then looks Stiles right in
the eyes. “Like you're eating and sleeping. I'm glad.”
Stiles nods and looks down a the floor for just a split second, before he looks
right back up. “I am,” he replies. “I mean, it's not always easy, but I am.
Getting better. You look. Tired.”
“I drove all the way here,” Derek nods, runs a hand through his hair and then
takes just one step towards Stiles. He stops right after and drops the hand
back by his side, and Stiles is hyper-aware of every single movement Derek is
making, every breath he's drawing, every fiber of his being is buzzing with
energy like he wants to reach out and just touch him. “I had to. After your
call.”
Stiles frowns and takes a deep breath, tries to think about what he will say
next, tries not to jump to conclusions or snap. He just. Breathes and then
asks, “After two whole weeks?”
Derek stares at him, tight-lipped and intense, and then takes another step
closer. “Stiles, I said things are complicated. Between us, but also there's
something else that stopped me from just coming back here.”
“And what would that be?”
Derek takes a final step that brings them close together, and Stiles can smell
that pine needles shower gel he always uses – the one Stiles himself used when
he lived with Derek – and it brings back all kinds of memories, good ones, less
good ones, and he can't help himself, he takes his hands out from where he hid
them and closes them into loose fists, looks down at Derek's bare feet and then
up to his face, feels his palms itch with want, his breath stutter for just a
second.
“Your dad and Scott always call me, and they told me how you changed slowly,
how you were trying to go back to your normal life and how you started seeing
Malia. Let me finish,” he says, when he sees Stiles open his mouth to protest,
say that he already told him about him and Malia. “I know, you and Malia aren't
together, but it's not just that the whole problem. I don't want you to get
stuck with me. I'm not the right person for you, you deserve so much more,
things that I can't give you, and I didn't want to start a relationship with
you, didn't want to have sex with you in the first place because I knew what I
was feeling for you, but I also didn't want to take away the possibility of a
better future, a better relationship from you,” Derek whispers, brings his
hands up to touch Stiles' cheeks, cradle his face.
Stiles feels a surge of anger rush through him and clenches his fists into
Derek's shirt, pulls him in with a hard snap and Derek doesn't even stumble,
just follows the movement until they're flushed against each other and Stiles
is looking up at him with heavy eyes.
“I, and only I get to decide who I want to be with. You don't get to decide for
me, you can say you don't want to be with me for a number of reasons I actually
understand, but not because you think I deserve differently. This is such
bullshit,” he growls, fists his fingers tighter into the fabric and he hears
the seams rip at the neck, but still pulls. Derek just looks at him, doesn't
berate him for ruining his clothes, pushes more against him, hot and hard.
“Tell me it didn't mean anything for you, and I'll leave you alone.”
Derek leans in until their foreheads are touching, brushes his lips against
Stiles' open ones, doesn't kiss him properly but speaks right into Stiles'
mouth, like he's spilling a secret.
“I can't,” he murmurs.
“I'm your mate, right?” Stiles asks him with a trembling voice, closes his eyes
almost completely and turns his head so that if he pushed up a little more, he
could lick inside Derek's hot mouth. “I'm yours, and you're mine, right?”
Derek's breath stops immediately and his grip on Stiles' face tightens, his
eyes flash bright blue blue blue for a second and then he's kissing Stiles,
hard and wet and his tongue is licking into Stiles' mouth and he's growling
faintly, pushing right up against Stiles with his whole body and Stiles feels
that same old fire reignite into his veins, feels it run through his chest and
limbs, and he whimpers.
“It's not the same for you, you're not. You don't have to. But yes,” Derek
mumbles through the kisses, licks Stiles' lips while he speaks. “You're mine.
If you want.”
“Yes, yes,” Stiles nods and murmurs, slipping his fingers under the hem of
Derek's shirt, splays them on his burning skin. “Fuck, yes.”
Derek stops kissing him to stare at him, look him in the eyes, all intense and
short breaths. Stiles looks right back, panting and with red wet lips.
It's like Derek is searching for something, like he's making sure Stiles is not
saying that just because he wants Derek right now, he won't be disappointed
after. Stiles won't. At all.
“I'm staying,” Derek says and Stiles blinks at him, confused for a second. “I
found something, someone, to come back to. For a while. For as long as you want
me to. So I'm staying.”
“Yeah?” Stiles replies, voice shot and heart beating fast fast fast.
“Yeah,” Derek says and then smiles that private smile he uses only with Stiles,
leans back in to kiss him again and Stiles mirrors that smile into the kiss.
“Come on, take me to bed,” he says, laughs into Derek's mouth and pushes him
towards the staircase.
“The loft smells like you,” Derek says, like he's amused and a lot turned on.
“Did you jerk off in here?”
“Yeah,” Stiles answers. “I fingered myself after you called me, that night.
Dreamed of you.”
Derek stops short when he hears that, growls and looks at Stiles like he just
told him something amazing, and Stiles laughs out loud, sound foreign to his
own ears after all that time and yelps when Derek grabs him and throws him over
his shoulder.
                                      **
They're lying on their sides, still sweaty and too hot after their last round
of amazing sex, facing each other, and Stiles is running his fingers through
Derek's soft beard and hair. Derek has his eyes closed and he looks peaceful,
happy to be petted. Like a puppy. Stiles snorts.
“What?” Derek asks, doesn't open his eyes but smiles nonetheless.
“Nothing, you just look like a puppy,” Stiles says and shouts when Derek
pretends to snap at his fingers, then closes both his arms around Stiles and
pulls him against his chest, so he can growl into the crook of Stiles' neck.
“You look positively tired.”
Derek sighs and then leaves a soft kiss on Stiles' skin, rubs his scruffy face
against it, making Stiles squirm. “I am,” he murmurs. “I wanted to get here as
soon as I could and I just drove all the way here, didn't stop once.”
“What? You drove for like twenty hours straight?” Stiles inquires, surprised.
“Pretty much.”
“You're crazy, go to sleep,” Stiles orders him, hugs him tighter, puts one of
his legs around Derek's hips so he can hold him with his whole body and feel
his warmth, their closeness.
“Yeah,” Derek mumbles against Stiles' throat, words almost slurred. “You're
staying?”
“You can bet your hot ass I am,” Stiles replies, kisses the side of Derek's
head hard.
Derek huffs and then quietly laughs, little burst of air against Stiles' skin.
                                      **
Text to: Scott 21 Apr 12
10:56 PM i'm happy
10:56 PM thanks bro i owe you
Text from: Scott 21 Apr 12
11:03 PM im happy if youre happy bro!!!
 
***** Epilogue. there's a light and it never goes out *****
Chapter Summary
     And John thinks Oh, and everything makes a lot more sense, now.
Chapter Notes
     Title from There Is A Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths.
     It's from the Sheriff's POV this time, I hope you guys liked this
     story half as much as I loved writing it. I can't believe it's done,
     I started this in March and after months of struggle, finally I did
     it!
                                      **
John Stilinski thinks that he's a good man, he's mostly rational and level
headed – after he found out about the supernatural world? Yeah, he had his
moments, but he's been mostly ready for it. He thinks he's doing a pretty good
job at handling everything. Stiles is the only one who still worries him, a
lot, maybe too much.
He worries because he looks like a ghost – well, looked. He's slowly getting
better and he has to say, most of it is because of Derek. Stiles is been eating
a lot more, sleeping a lot more, and he looks less pale and tired. John would
like to say he actually helped his own son in any way, but he stopped
understanding Stiles when he turned six and started babbling about the most
strange things and running around the house like a little demon. It still
happens more often than he would like to admit, even now that Stiles just
turned eighteen and he's running around with a group of teenagers who are
mostly werewolves. He still needs a moment to himself when he thinks
werewolves,like they're something to discuss at dinner – or quietly in his
office, with the door closed.
So, when he gets back inside the house after lunch – clothes and hair still
smelling like grilled meat and smoke – he just wants to drink a beer in peace
and pass out for half an hour on his comfortable chair in front of the TV. He
walks blindly through the backdoor and right across the hallway, still trying
to recover from the light outside, and he stops right before the kitchen door.
He peers inside and finds Derek and Stiles quietly putting away some leftovers
from the huge barbecue they just had in their backyard. Most of his deputies
left already, some are still wandering about, still enjoying the last dregs of
beer and chattering, but John is too hot and tired right now to stand another
minute under the scorching sun. He's not twenty anymore.
That's when he sees his son with Derek. They're comfortable in each other's
presence, like they're used to being close – maybe it makes sense seeing they
lived in the same house for a month – but there's an atmosphere in the room,
peaceful, and John can't help but observe them.
Stiles is putting plates away in the fridge, covered in cellophane and piled
precariously on the highest shelf, and Derek is filling the sink with water,
slipping some dishes and cutlery in.
“You know you don't have to, right?” Stiles asks Derek, nodding at where Derek
is putting soap in the water.
“Yeah, I know,” Derek replies, doesn't look up from where he started washing a
huge casserole.
Stiles shakes his head, smiling quietly to himself, and finishes covering two
other plates, puts them in the fridge to join the others. His face is soft,
cheeks rosy, and John thinks to himself that he doesn't remember the last time
he saw his son look like that.
Then Stiles walks silently to stand beside Derek at the sink, grabs a towel and
starts drying everything off. Derek looks at him for a second, never once
stopping, and then says, amused, “you know you don't have to, right?”
Stiles snorts and then responds, “yeah, I know. But it's our routine, no?”
Derek smiles and then leans closer to Stiles, pushes his lips against Stiles'
hair and murmurs, “Yeah, it is,” with a really soft voice, mouth moving against
Stiles' head.
And John thinks Oh, and everything makes a lot more sense, now.
Stiles laughs softly and throws his head back, looks up at Derek from under his
lashes, still smiling and then leaves a short kiss on Derek's lips.
John decides to leave them alone for now, decides to ask Stiles about it and
see what he has to say, scare him a little for not having told him sooner, but
at the same time, he feels like he can't actually forbid them to be together,
not when Stiles looks so happy and he's smiling a lot more now, he's laughing,
and all the nights he spends at Scott, he's probably spending them at Derek's
and.
John is not even mad.
Well, not much, at least.
                                      **
There's a post it note glued to the door of the fridge.
Written on it with a black pen there are only a few words: I'm officially
inviting your boyfriend over for dinner Sunday, just a heads-up.
And then, right under, scribbled in smudged pencil: OH MY GOD.
                                      **
Derek brings a nice bottle of single malt scotch at dinner and the Sheriff
smiles at him, pats him on the back. So everything is good.
The two of them behave perfectly during dinner, something John finds both
strange and amusing – not because Derek can't actually behave like a normal
civil person, but because Stiles is wearing a button down and is not fidgeting
on the spot (he is) and toppling glasses (he does, drenches the whole
tablecloth in red wine), and he also tried to cook dinner, before his dad
stopped him and called the Italian restaurant downtown and ordered food for
fifteen – and everything does go pretty well, if he can say so himself.
He has his fun looking at Stiles squirm when he asks about their relationship,
makes Stiles (and Derek) blush when he tells them that he hopes they're being
careful when they're having sex, and using protection and Stiles bangs his head
on the table and bemoans loudly his father and everything John stands for.
John is pretty glad he doesn't have to pretend to clean his gun.
“We're going upstairs to my room, dad,” Stiles tells him after John left them
alone in the kitchen to tidy up. He listened to them laugh softly and probably
trade kisses all the time, smiled a little to himself when Derek splashed
Stiles with soap and water and Stiles yelped “this shirt is expensive, you
butt!”
John looks at them and points a finger in their direction, serious face on.
“Door open.”
Stiles opens his mouth, mock-offended, and puts a hand on his chest. “What do
you think is gonna happen?”
Derek puts a hand on Stiles shoulder and pushes him towards the stairs, looks
back to John still sitting in front of the TV and nods. “I'll go back to my
loft soon, we'll keep the door open.”
Stiles complains all the way up. Derek doesn't stop smiling.
John falls asleep for a while after he finishes his glass of scotch and he
looks around a little disoriented when he finds the TV still on and the lights
out. He sees it's already 1 am and he should be in bed, if he doesn't want to
get a crick in his neck he would feel for a week after, so he gets up, shuts
the TV off, and takes a quick sweep through the whole house – a habit he still
has from when Stiles was little and he wanted to make sure he and Claudia were
always safe. Everything looks fine, as always, so he checks the locks and then
climbs up the stairs.
He's sighing loudly and touching the spot where he feels sore in the middle of
his back, when he sees the door to Stiles' bedroom still open. The lights are
out inside, the room half-lit from the lamppost outside and John stops to look
at the scene, curious.
Stiles and Derek are both fast asleep on the bed, over the covers, all wrapped
up in each other, Stiles's hand gripping tight the back of Derek's shirt and
their faces tipped close. He looks at them for a long minute, takes a quiet
step inside to see them better and he sighs, shakes his head fondly at them and
then goes to find a spare blanket.
Kids.
 
End Notes
     I read about ADHD and I found out that some researches say that
     coffee (caffeine) actually helps with focus and the medication,
     always in small doses and always after consulting your doctor - I
     don't want to offend anyone, so I'm putting a little note about it.
     The first sex scene happens when Stiles just woke up from a nigthmare
     and Derek is there, and he decides to act on his instincts and
     feelings - he actually asks Derek before he does anything, waits for
     him to say yes, but then pushes Derek down on the bed and they have
     kinda rough sex. Derek doesn't push him away, is pretty on board with
     this, but still Stiles thinks of himself like a monster, like he used
     Derek's body. They talks about it after, and everything was
     consensual, but still. Mentioning!
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