you be the moth (and I'll be the flame)

by tzzzz

Summary:

Stiles comes home from college, hoping for sexy times with his favorite werewolf with benefits. Instead he gets a fully shifted alpha who seems to want to kill him for something he's not even sure he did.

Notes:

WARNING: Stiles does sleep with people other than Derek. It turns out to not technically be cheating, but if cheating is a huge squick for you, it could still easily be triggering.

NOW:

Stiles thought he was used to Derek crowding him up against the wall, Derek’s breath too close on his neck, his strong arms caging Stiles in. He’d stopped being afraid of the big bad wolf years ago. Even the fangs and the red eyes didn’t scare him anymore.

Except those fangs were razor sharp up close and those angry red eyes were a horrible, feral contrast to Derek’s normal soulful green. Then there was the low, subsonic growl shaking his bones, the claws digging into Stiles’s neck like railroad spikes.

He should have been afraid, he realized, all of a sudden. He should have remembered his best friend in all the world chasing him down in a locker room or how, when robbed of a good deal of his mental faculties, Peter’s first instinct had been to murder his own niece. The Argents didn’t hunt werewolves for shits and giggles, but because they were dangerous.

“Derek?” Stiles squeaked.

The claws dug in harder.

“Derek, it’s not April Fools,” he stuttered. “This isn’t funny, big guy.”

Derek took another sniff up Stiles’s chest, giving a barking growl.

“Derek, you’re really starting to freak me out. Remember me? Remember Stiles? The guy giving you blow jobs for the past year? Yum, yum, tasty blow job. If you want one, you have to let me go.”

Derek’s eyes were still red, his canines still extended. He shoved a knee between Stiles’s legs, pressing closer.

“Is this that rape fantasy we talked about? Because give a guy a little warning, dude. Shit. Safeword, safeword, what the fuck is my safeword? Oh, right, I don’t have one because I didn’t agree to this.”

Derek’s fangs teased at Stiles’s neck. That was a game they’d played before, but the aggression in the act prevented Stiles from reassuring himself that this was all some prank or a sex game. So Stiles did the only thing he could think of and bit down hard on the only part of Derek he could reach: one of those silly pointed ears. Pain brought back the human side, Stiles remembered from Scott’s first days of training.

Derek pushed back with an animal whine, causing Stiles to take a chunk of flesh in his mouth along with the blood. He really hoped swallowing werewolf blood wasn’t some insane magic ritual that would turn him into a wererabbit or similar.

Derek’s eyes settled back into green as he pawed at his injured ear.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Stiles demanded.

Derek panted, fists clenching so tight Stiles swore he heard bones break. His eyes were on the floor, his shoulders hunched in deference to whatever force had grabbed ahold of him. Stiles stayed stock still, paralyzed by the sight before him. Despite all his many wolfy failures, Derek had always been the epitome of control. Stiles had seen Scott holding on by a thread like this, but never Derek.

“Derek? What’s wrong?” he asked again, stepping forward with a comforting hand raised, because now Derek’s features were twisted up with pain and Stiles couldn’t help his instinct to comfort someone he cared about.

“Stop!” Derek snapped.

Alpha commands didn’t work on humans, but Stiles froze without thinking. “Come on, Derek, we have to get you to Deaton. Whatever’s affecting you is powerful. You’re in pain. Let me help you.”

Stiles’s words had the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of taking comfort in a friendly reassurance, Derek roared, eyes stuttering back and forth between red and green like a flickering christmas light.

“Stiles,” came the broken whisper. “You have to run.”

***

A YEAR AGO

“Oh thank god,” Stiles said, because even though he was never, ever going to give up hope that they might find Derek alive, he had mentally prepared himself for a dead body. Of all the times Derek had almost died, this felt like they had come the closest. It was the uncertainty: not knowing if they could help, if they were already too late.

“Stiles?” Derek asked, voice rough. He was standing alone in the center of the dark, damp room staring down at the body of his captor as though he couldn’t even recognize death or his own claw marks slashing her throat apart.

Stiles rushed forward, but Derek’s eyes were glassy, his features pale. Stiles really hoped that Scott and Isaac would finish off the rest of the witch’s ensnared henchmen soon, because if Derek passed out, there wasn’t much Stiles could do about it.

“Are you okay?” Derek was covered in blood, but it could very well have been the witch’s.

“She didn’t hurt me,” Derek answered, as though that had been the question.

Stiles didn’t mention that she had only been waiting for the full moon in two nights so that she could cut out the still-beating heart of a werewolf for some creepy spell.

He stepped forward, running his hands down Derek’s sides, checking for injuries just in case. After three weeks of frantic searching, Stiles’s knees felt weak with relief, but he didn’t let them buckle. Derek was the one who had been kidnapped. It should be Stiles supporting Derek, not the other way around.

Stiles stumbled up against that broad, chiseled chest, stared into those intense green eyes and suddenly relief had transformed itself into something else entirely.

It took Scott tumbling down the stairs into the basement for them to break the kiss.

***

NOW

Stiles slammed the door of the jeep and locked it just in time to avoid the huge black wolf that rammed itself against the side of the vehicle, rocking it. Stiles had never seen Derek’s wolf form this close up before: the gaping maw, the feral red eyes, the claws that were gouging into the metal.

It was pants-shittingly terrifying. Stiles fumbled with his keys, but managed to get the jeep started just as the wolf jumped on the hood, probably preparing to slam itself through the windshield. What had Chris Argent once said? That werewolves maintained their human intelligence, no matter how feral? Stiles was going to die.

He shoved the jeep into reverse, thanking the heavens that it didn’t stall out. The wolf had fallen off, but was quickly finding its feet. Derek could run up to forty miles an hour in just his beta form. If he gave chase, Stiles wouldn’t be able to outrun him on these curvy mountain roads. He only had a split second to realize that he needed to go on the offensive.

He pulled open the glove compartment and yanked out the Argent special (a Beretta 92FS loaded with a magazine designed for these kinds of situations exactly: alternating between two normal bullets and two wolfsbane).

Stiles had turned the wheel sharply as he reversed, to put the less vulnerable broadside of the car toward the wolf. He knocked out the driver’s window, raised the gun and fired the first two bullets without hesitation. Between his dad, Mr. Argent, and Allison, Stiles had these reflexes drilled into him. He never in a million years thought he’d be using them on Derek.

It’s not Derek, Stiles tried to tell himself as the wolf yelped, its steps faltering. Stiles had hoped the warning shots would knock some sense back into Derek, but the wolf was already on its feet and ready to charge. Stiles only paused a second before he fired the first wolfsbane bullet into the wolf’s shoulder. But even that wasn’t enough to stop it from lumbering unsteadily towards the jeep. Stiles couldn’t shoot Derek a second time and risk a shot closer to his heart, so he slammed down on the accelerator, driving partway over the wolf as he sped away from the newly rebuilt Hale house.

The pained howl that followed him down the road made Stiles’s heart clench.

***

ELEVEN MONTHS AGO

“So,” Stiles began. They hadn’t talked about their aborted make out session for an entire month. In fact, they’d been avoiding each other. But now they were left standing on their own, both covered in mud and a little blood as they waited for Scott to regain consciousness in the next room over.

Derek glared.

“So we’re just going to pretend the whole your lips and my lips meeting in a saliva-exchanging, erection-inducing, romantic kind of way just didn’t happen?”

Derek shrugged. He hadn’t met Stiles’s eyes in ages.

“Look,” Stiles implored. “It doesn’t have to be weird. We don’t even have to talk about it, if you don’t want. I just-- It’s pretty unlikely that you want anything else to happen, what with the whole month of avoiding me, but I don’t like the uncertainty. We’re men and as men, I think we can just be direct with each other. Either we decide to explore what I thought was a very hot, A+, post-near-death moment or we stop avoiding each other and pretend the thing never happened. So, what’ll it be?”

Derek gave Stiles a very unhelpful, uncertain look.

“Oh my God!” Stiles moaned. “Seriously, I know that you’ve sworn a lifelong vow to manly stoicism and emotional repression and extreme cryptic bullshit, but this is ridiculous. I know I probably should not be validating this behavior, but how about this? I’ll put all my cards on the table and you just make a choice, okay? As you and your super-sniffer have probably already figured out, I’m attracted to you. It’s pretty hard not to be. I mean, I’m bi and I have eyes. We have insane chemistry and we shared some pretty awesome kisses, if I don’t say so myself. If things were up to me, I would have more of those kisses and, well, more of you. If I didn’t care about you and your opinion on the subject, I’d be in your lap right now.”

Derek gave an aborted chuckle, but Stiles would take it over his immovable silence any day.

Encouraged, Stiles continued, “I’m fairly certain you don’t hate me and I know that you care about me, at least in a ‘protect me from grievous injury’ sense. But I’m sure there are good reasons against it. I’m underaged and a virgin. We’re not actually that close and don’t spend any non-supernatural-disaster related time together. You’ve got a bingo card full of valid psychological reasons to not want any kind of intimate relationship right now. Wow, I’m doing a good job of arguing you out of this…. Um, okay, I just wanted to tell you that you just have to give me permission and I’ll have your pants down and be sucking you off in the next five seconds. Your choice.”

Stiles honestly didn’t know if Derek would answer, but after a shy look from beneath his lashes, Derek finally gave a faint smile and said, “I don’t think you can get my pants off in five seconds. They’re pretty tight.”

“Challenge accepted!” Stiles crowed, but instead of going straight for the pants, he pulled Derek into a deep, dirty kiss, elated that Derek kissed back with the same passion he had a month ago.

***

NOW

The second the windy dirt mountain road smoothed out into suburban pavement, Stiles yanked out his phone and speed-dialed Scott by touch memory. His heart felt like it was beating out of his chest. His breaths came in short, wheezing gasps. It was only the continued need for flight that kept him away from a full blown panic attack.

“Stiles? What’s wrong?” Scott asked, immediately on alert the second he undoubtedly heard Stiles’s breathing.

“It’s--” Stiles gasped out. “Derek. He-- Oh god, Scott. He’s--”

“We heard him howl. Isaac and I are already on our way.”

Stiles whimpered. He didn’t want Scott to go anywhere near Derek like this. What if his condition was catching? What if Stiles hadn’t incapacitated him enough? Scott was also an alpha, but Derek was out of his mind.

“You can’t go there,” Stiles begged. “Something happened to him. A spell or maybe a poison of some kind. He’s feral.” It was undignified, but the tears were already flowing down Stiles’s eyes, not out of grief, but out of pure overwhelmed frustration. “He tried to kill me,” he whispered on a choked sob.

“Okay,” Scott said in the voice that said that he was doing his square-jawed hero thing and all Stiles had to do was wait to be saved. “But he’s hurt. At least one of us has to go check on him.”

“I know he’s hurt!” Stiles shouted. “He’s hurt because I shot him.”

Scott couldn’t hide his soft gasp. Then he said, muffled, “Isaac, call Ethan and Aiden for backup.” To Stiles, he asked, “Did you use wolfsbane?”

“Yeah. Oh god, Scott. What if I killed him? It was a shoulder shot, but that’s close to the heart. He told me to run. He couldn’t help it. You have to be careful. What if it happens to you too?”

“We’ll be careful to avoid contamination.”

“Scott, he wanted to kill me. I shot him with wolfsbane and he was still dragging himself towards me.” Stiles tried not to think about the story Chris Argent had told them about the friend who’d turned. Stiles had always thought that Chris had killed his friend for no reason, that if he had tried to help him be a wolf, he could’ve survived. After seeing the look in Derek’s red eyes, Stiles wasn’t so sure. “He’s not going to stop! He’s going to drag his bleeding ass to my house so he can slit my--”

“Stiles, focus. I need you to tell me what kind of wolfsbane you used. We’ll take care of him, but we need to know.”

Stiles slid out the magazine on autopilot, checking the symbols scratched into the metal clip. The first two bullets were Northern Blue Monkshood, which he told Scott. He was going into shock. His head felt disconnected from his body and even his own voice seemed far away. Scott was talking to Isaac about Derek’s first aid kit and chains and things that seemed so impossible to grasp.

“Stiles!” Scott finally shouted. “Stiles, are you still with me?”

Stiles had to slap his own cheek to force himself out of his reverie. “Scott?”

“Stiles, I know you’re shaken up, but you need to make it home, okay? Can you do that for me?”

Stiles may have whimpered in response.

“The others are going to take care of Derek. You get home and put yourself in a circle of Mountain Ash and I’ll meet you as soon as I can.”

***

TEN MONTHS AGO:

Stiles had been “seeing” Derek for a month and thus far he’d received six full on blowjobs (awesomeballs!), managed to only give three, exchanged two handjobs (in moderately public places), had sex by frottage once, and had two whole fingers up Derek’s ass. Not that he was keeping score or anything.

He was totally keeping score. So far as he could tell, he should be finally punching his v-card sometime soon and with someone of the male model, pure undistilled essence of Hugh Jackman level of attractiveness.

Stiles pulled out his phone just to look at his latest text exchange with Derek:

Stiles Stilinski:
Dad @wrk til 630. 3hrs alone. Stls gtg the D?

Growly McHotpants:
Maybe when Stiles is capable of phrasing his question like someone old enough to get “the D,” he’ll be allowed to receive it.

Stiles Stilinski:
If I promise to text in full, complete, grammatically correct sentences in deference to the grumpy soul of an old man that lives inside your sinfully hot young body, will you give it to me this afternoon?

Growly McHotpants:
It’s your first time. Maybe a little special?

Stiles Stilinski:
I guess. But at least 3 orgasms today. No arguments.

Growly McHotpants:
Deal.

Stiles smiled a little. Not only was Derek going to relieve him of his pesky (but no longer fatal) virginity, but he actually cared enough to try to make it nice. Of course, Stiles wasn’t expecting rose petals and love ballads from a guy who considered an abandoned train depot habitable, but Derek was right: just because they weren’t in some great star-crossed love affair didn’t mean they couldn’t put a little effort into making Stiles’s first time a pleasant memory.

Speak of the devil, Derek climbed gracefully in through Stiles’s window. He greeted Stiles with a grin this time instead of his usual scowl.

Stiles couldn’t help but smile back. “Hey, if I’d have known your smile looked like that, I would have made sure you were boning someone of the not-totally-evil persuasion a long time ago.”

Derek chuckled, pulling Stiles up against him for a kiss that quickly got heated and ended up with Stiles on his knees, blowing Derek against the windowframe.

Stiles wiped the cum off his lips with his shirtsleeve and grinned up at Derek, who leaned back against the windowsill, panting. “A BJ a day keeps the doctor away,” Stiles huffed. “Help me up.”

Derek pulled Stiles to his feet then advanced on him, a purely predatory look in his eyes as he pushed Stiles back down onto the bed and proceeded to take him apart with his mouth and his hands and “dear god, if you keep pressing it with your finger, why the hell can’t you get your cock in me now?”

Derek just chuckled, forced Stiles’s hands back down onto the sheets and kept at it until Stiles came, screaming.

“I accept your argument,” Stiles mumbled, curling up onto his side and letting Derek toss a damp towel onto him.

“I have wet wipes in the drawer,” Stiles pointed out, though he liked the way the warm towel felt against his oversensitized flesh.

“I don’t like the way they smell.”

“Well, I guess you’re the one sticking his nose all up in my business, so that’s okay,” Stiles conceded, patting the bed next to him insistently until Derek climbed on. Stiles didn’t feel the need to cuddle, but he didn’t like straining to look at Derek either. “We have time. Wanna hang around for round two?”

Derek shrugged. “Nothing better to do.”

“Ah, I forgot. You are a man of leisure. Does that get boring, by the way?”

Derek shrugged again and Stiles couldn’t help but poke him in those ridiculously hard abs.

“I need to be ready, considering all the supernatural threats that keep popping up.”

“Yeah, but do you get bored?”

“Sometimes.”

“Yeah, I suppose there’s only so many pushups even you can do. Did you ever think about getting a job?”

“Jobs have work hours. They have deadlines. I can’t go running off chasing a witch for a few days.”

“What about a job with someone who’d understand. Oh, what about a job where that could be part of your job? My dad has been looking for new deputies. Word’s gotten out that it’s a pretty dangerous position in this county. He’d hire you. And you’d be there to protect him. And make sure he’s eating his veggies. It’s perfect! Deputy Derek. It’s decided.”

“Decided by whom?”

“By me,” Stiles replied easily, rolling over on top of Derek to kiss away his objections. He’d have to see Derek in a deputy’s uniform, though, and that would just remind him of his father. “I’ll get you an application.”

“Stiles--”

Stiles sighed. It wasn’t just his dad that he cared about in this situation. “Derek, you spend all your time alone in that run down loft with Uncle Creeperwolf. Even if it is an actual, liveable structure doesn’t mean it’s good for you, you know psychologically.”

“Stiles, I’m fine. I told you, my trip with Cora--”

“I know, you processed or whatever. I still think therapy is the way to go, but even if you disagree, just consider some regular human contact. Anyone, myself included, would do better with people around to pull us out of our own heads.”

Derek sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good,” Stiles replied, kissing him again. “Because I’m ready for round two and if we make it snappy, we can watch Terminator 2 and then go for round three, all before my dad gets home.”

“Don’t you have homework?”

“Hm, let’s see. Homework or Arnold kicking robot ass and fooling around with a sexy werewolf? Such a dilemma.”

“You’ll do it, though?” Derek asked. He seemed almost concerned. How quaint, Stiles thought.

“I’ll do it once my dad is home and there are no sexy funtimes to be had. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think I spent any less time watching movies and taking care of my dick before you and I started this--” Stiles waved his hands in a way he hoped described their newfound friends with benefits/mutually beneficial sexing arrangement/people who saved each others lives and sucked dick thing.

Derek just grunted and flipped them over, rutting against him until they both came.

***

NOW:

“Oh, God. Oh, God. I’m going to die. Oh, God, Derek,” Stiles whimpered, running his fingers through his hair and pacing the narrow confines of the mountain ash circle that he’d drawn around himself. He was well aware that he was hyperventilating, seconds away from a full-blown panic attack. But he didn’t do anything to stop it. The breathing techniques and the calming meditations were far from his mind. Only the image of Derek’s snarling face flashed before his eyes.

It seemed like hours, but it had probably only been minutes when Scott slammed through the door, breathing heavily and looking on edge. Stiles didn’t hesitate to break the circle so that the next thing he felt was Scott’s strong arms wrapped around him. Scott put a hand on Stiles’s chest, forcing his breaths to slow, their eyes meeting until all Stiles could see was Scott, the best friend who would save him.

“What happened?” Scott whispered after long minutes of letting Stiles calm down.

“He attacked me.”

“I know,” Scott said. “But it’s Derek; he’s not just going to attack you out of the blue. There had to be something else. Think back. What happened before he went crazy?”

Stiles thought back. Everything had been fine. “Nothing. He just went feral!”

“Okay, well, go over everything anyway. When was the last time you saw him?”

“You know, after the end of summer barbecue, when he dropped me home?” They’d talked and traded blowjobs in Stiles’s half-empty room and Stiles had left for Berkeley the next day.

Scott frowned. “Stiles, you’ve been home for three days.”

“Yeah, so? I spent Monday with you and Isaac, remember? And my dad had been missing me, so I did some Stilinski man time. I survived a whole semester without Derek’s dick down my throat, so it’s not like three days took some kind of epic restraint.”

“But, didn’t you think your b--”

“Look, Derek seemed fine on the phone last night. Apparently he missed my gorgeous nubile ass and my rapier wit. We were going to do a culinary tour of Beacon Hills takeout and watch Star Wars in between bouts of unbelievably hot sex. He actually seemed happy, which I guess is unusual, but he’s still Derek, so nothing too effusive or anything.”

Scott kept frowning, but still seemed determined to get to the bottom of it. “Okay, so last night you and Derek made plans and he seemed fine. You didn’t talk to him today?”

Stile shook his head. “I texted to say I was leaving and he asked me to pick up an order he called in to the deli, but that’s it.”

“And when you got there?”

“He was doing pull ups. I know he heard me coming, so it was probably just a blatant attempt to remind me of all the reasons I want to lick him all over. He was happy to see me! He smiled and said something snarky about surviving my first semester.”

“Nothing was wrong with the house?”

Stiles shook his head. “I mean, he’s got some real furniture now, which I assume you knew about.”

“I think Lydia ordered most of it for him on the internet,” Scott remarked offhandedly. “So, you’re saying that Derek was totally fine and then attacked you for no reason? Do you even know what triggered him?”

“I don’t know man. Maybe, he, um,” Stiles tried to remember. To be honest, he’d been so busy staring at Derek’s naked, glistening post-pull ups chest that he’d completely missed the moment when it all went wrong. “He got close to me. Proximity? Maybe a curse or something.”

Scott frowned. “You’re sure that being close to you triggered it?”

“I don’t see what else it could’ve been with that kind of timing. Nobody else was around to cast something and he would have had to walk in through that front hall, so he would’ve tripped whatever it was earlier if it were a trap.”

Scott looked pensive. That was never good. “And you know for sure it was magic?”

“No. I mean, we’d have to check Derek over for signs to be sure, but he’s bleeding out there in the forest right now. You don’t think Derek just wolfed out completely without a magical influence do you?”

Scott shrugged in that way he did when he wanted to say something but knew it would be painful.

“Scott?”

***

NINE MONTHS AGO:

“Stiles is getting the D! Getting the D! Bom chica bow wow!” Stiles exclaimed, playing air guitar and bouncing on his bed, before collapsing back and really considering the implications of it.

A year and a half ago he had been frantically searching through Heather’s brother’s bathroom for a condom on the off-chance that he could do this very thing. He’d been in such a rush that he didn’t take the time to appreciate that this was Heather, his childhood friend who used to give him bubble mohawks in the bath together, whose mom used to cut the crust of her PB&J sandwiches. Heather was a person, not just an opportunity to stick his dick somewhere and Stiles hated that it took her dying to make him step back and realize that. If that wasn’t enough to put someone off the idea of sex, certainly learning the gory details of Derek’s romantic history hadn’t helped. And then there was the nematon and the blackness inside his soul and Stiles just didn’t want it, not when it meant having to pretend to be a normal human being, fake it on that intimate a level.

Thank god for Derek, who knew the whole sad story and wouldn’t judge Stiles on the way his hands still shook sometimes or the fact that he’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming or just get lost and stare off into the distance until a soft hand on his thigh or the back of his neck brought him back. Thank god for Derek who was damaged enough himself that they could just do this whole thing at arm’s length, just get off with someone that they didn’t have to worry about.

And even if they weren’t in love, if they were just reluctant enemies turned hesitant friends, it felt good to be doing this with someone that cared. Cared enough to want to make Stiles’s deflowering a bit of an event.

Stiles forced himself up and into the outfit that Lydia had heavily hinted was a good mix of sexy and casual, “just in case you need to try to pull off that kind of look for some reason, Stiles.” He checked his teeth and put some gel in his hair and almost went for the cologne before he remembered Aiden complaining about Lydia’s perfume. It was just Derek and it wasn’t a date, Stiles reminded himself, before he hopped in his jeep and drove over to Derek’s loft. The main concession to the ‘specialness’ of the occasion was that they waited until Stiles’s dad was away for the weekend at a law enforcement conference so they could “take their time.”

Of course, the second Derek opened the door wearing a white button-down shirt and even more form-fitting jeans than usual, Stiles wondered how much time they would actually need, considering he was already pretty close to just coming in his pants.

Derek smiled and gave Stiles an exaggerated once-over before nodding approvingly. “Lydia?”

“Lydia,” Stiles sighed. “So, what’s the plan? I mean, we have the weekend to ourselves and since you are the experienced one in this relationship and there’s very little actually at stake, I thought I’d let you decide.”

“Well, I thought I’d keep it simple.” Derek grinned a little, leading Stiles inside. The loft looked the same as always. Not having nearly any stuff helped keep the place tidy, but Stiles did notice a heavenly smell coming from the kitchen area.

“What is that? It smells even better than getting out of these stupid pants will feel.”

“All part of the plan.”

“Are you going to enlighten me?” Stiles asked. He decided that if he wasn’t going to get whatever was cooking in his mouth this very second he could afford to indulge by wrapping his arms around Derek’s strong torso and feeling the way the smooth fabric of his Oxford rippled against the hard planes of his body, the warmth of his werewolf metabolism seeping through comfortingly.

“Maybe,” Derek replied. “If you behave.”

“I’ll behave,” Stiles protested as he leaned in, hovering close until Derek was forced to kiss him. “When do I ever not behave?”

Derek raised his eyebrows.

“Fine. How about I agree to not annoy you until you tell me if you just tell me?”

“You know that’s not an agreement, right? That’s a threat.”

Stiles shrugged and went back to feeling Derek up. “The way I see it, you have three options: you tell me the plan, you get some of that delicious smelling feast in my mouth right now, or you fuck me against the wall. Your choice.”

Derek pretended to consider it for a moment, before he relented. “The plan is simple: you blow me against the wall and I rim you until you come all over yourself. The lasagne should be done by then. I fuck you. We watch Indiana Jones. You fuck me. We sleep. We wake up, make some breakfast and we fuck each other some more. You teach me how to play that thing you made me buy the Playstation for. Then maybe we try a few of those toy things you had shipped over here.”

“Oh my god!” Stiles crowed. “That’s genius! Where have you been all my life?”

He found himself hugging Derek tight. It felt more like the hugs he gave Scott than something he might share with the guy who was going to be popping his ass cherry in the next hour or two, but Stiles didn’t care. He was just so happy and grateful that he was going punch his v-card in probably the most awesome way he could imagine with unquestionably the hottest person he’d ever met in real life.

“Seriously, dude,” Stiles said softly once he pulled back, “you’re the best.”

***

NOW:

“Scott, what?”

“It’s just, it’s the full moon today.” Stiles was well aware of that fact. He may have even delayed his reunion with Derek specifically to catch the full moon. Derek was wild and passionate and unrestrained those days and Stiles was eager to see that, on top of the fervor of not having touched each other for months.

“And? Derek’s control is like a rock, dude. He’s been keeping from wolfing out since he was a kid.”

“I know, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Maybe something set him off about this particular moon.”

“Except you don’t seem affected.”

Scott shrugged. “I’m bitten. Maybe it just affects born wolves or maybe because I’m a true alpha...”

“Great, so you sent Isaac and Ethan and Aiden out there when who knows if it could affecting them too. Good decisionmaking, Scott.”

“Hey, he was after you Stiles. We don’t know where he went. Odds are he’ll show up here, you know, where you are.”

Scott had a point.

“But why am I always the bait, Scott?” Stiles bemoaned.

They both knew that Scott didn’t have a satisfactory answer to that, but luckily he was saved from responding by the crooning of ‘how much is that doggie in the window?’ playing from his phone. Scott scowled at Stiles, who set Scott’s ringtone for Isaac back to that song whenever given the opportunity.

“That’s great, Isaac,” Scott said with a smile. “Good job.” Scott really was a much better alpha than Derek had ever been, considering how Isaac flourished under the constant positive reinforcement. Stiles reached over the mountain ash line to grab at Scott’s phone and put it on speaker.

“--but it wasn’t that hard,” Isaac was saying. “He was just sitting there staring into space.”

Stiles felt a jolt of fear spark through him. Maybe the bullet he’d shot into Derek had done some damage.

“Is he alright? Did you fix the gunshot wound?”

“We keep trying, but he won’t let us. He’s still shifted to beta form, man. The twins tackled him and we got him chained up back at his house, but he goes crazy every time I try to fix the wound. He thinks he’ll be a danger if we pull it out. He’s not making any sense.”

“Okay,” Stiles replied. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Um, Stiles, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Isaac answered. “He wants to kill you. Maybe you should stay away until we can fix this.”

“Fine.” Stiles hated this feeling of helplessness, but he could put up with it until Derek was better. He just needed to get better. “Ask him if you can fix the gunshot wound if you put a mountain ash line around him.”

“Okay, but how are we going to do that?” Isaac asked.

“I’ll do it,” Stiles answered.

“No!” Scott and Isaac yelled at the same time.

“Yes,” Stiles replied. “You guys know that if I have mountain ash on me, I can get a barrier around myself before he attacks. The only reason I didn’t have it then was because--” he trailed off, gulping. Maybe he should start carrying some at all times just in case.

“Because it’s Derek,” Scott finished for him.

“Yeah, because it’s Derek.”

***

EIGHT MONTHS AGO

“For the last time, Lydia, they all look good!” Stiles grumbled. “I would throw you on the ground and ravish you in any one of them, now for the love of god, just pick a dress.”

“You’re right, Stiles. They all say ‘ravish me.’ But which one says ‘I know you want to ravish me but instead I’m going to crush your nuts under my heels?’ But classy.”

“Guuuuuuhhhh!” Stiles moaned, hitting his head against a fake column at Macy’s, trying to find that sweet spot between pleasantly concussed and permanently brain damaged. “We’ve been here for three and a half hours.”

“I know. I love that you’re gay now, Stiles. We can spend more quality time together.”

“I’m not gay. It’s called bisexual, Lydia. Did you miss the part about wanting to ravish you? Also, you’ve seen how I dress. Sucking cock does not a fashion guru make.”

Lydia laughed. “I know you’re bi, Stiles. It makes you an excellent barometer of the attractiveness of my clothing choices. I meant that now that you’re with Derek, I can be your friend without feeling guilty that I’m leading you on.”

“I’m not with Derek,” Stiles protested.

Lydia just stared pointedly at the large hickey that Derek had left just above his collar. Stiles rubbed at it self-consciously.

“Okay, yes, Derek and I do have a mutually beneficial arrangement. Obviously. But we’re not together, like together together.”

Lydia ignored him in favor of picking up another dress off the rack.

“I’m serious, Lydia. Derek is like the most attractive man ever and even though he’s rude and broody most of the time, he’s considerate in his own way. And he’s smart and has a ton of money he doesn’t spend. Why in the hell would he date me?”

“I don’t know. Why is he?”

“He’s not! I mean, I’m not much to look at, but the sex is great and I think, after Jennifer, Derek is afraid to roll the dice on unknown quantities.”

“So there are no feelings at all?” Lydia asked archly. “You’re just using him for a hot piece of ass and taking advantage of the fact that he’s too traumatized to seek all the amazing people you think he could be fucking?”

“I didn’t say that there’s no feelings!” Stiles exclaimed, because it did sound ridiculous when Lydia put it that way. “Obviously, I care about the guy.” He blushed, because Lydia really didn’t need to know the depths of those feelings, how Stiles had imagined what it might be like if Derek did ask for more. Stiles wasn’t in love with him, by any means. He was Derek. But it would be nice to maybe go out, be seen with someone that hot on his arm, cuddle up with him in the back of a movie theater and make fun of the latest blockbuster, bring him over to play video games and BBQ. “He’s had enough bad happen to him in life. I want to see him happy and, you know, not dead. But there isn’t some deep-seated romantic connection. We’re two dudes who care about each other and like fucking each other’s brains out. That’s why they invented the term ‘friends with bennies.’”

“Okay, so you’re not going to take him to prom?” Lydia asked.

“Dude, no! First of all, can you even imagine Derek at a prom? Also, my Dad would kill me or him or both of us. And things are good now, Lydia. I’m getting laid on a regular basis by an incredibly hot guy who cares enough about me to want to make my first time special and who is strong enough for some serious Cirque du Soleil fucking. I’m sure as shit not rocking that boat for something as mundane as prom.”

“Okay, so who are you going with?”

“Scott.”

“Scott?”

“Allison’s with Isaac now and he said he didn’t feel right just asking some girl, so we’re going together.” Stiles shrugged. “We’re going to outshine all you lovebirds with our epic bromance and then I’m going to go over to Derek’s and have filthy prom-night sex afterwards. It’ll be great. Totally great. You’ll see.”

Lydia handed Stiles another dress for the pile but paused, looking him in the eye, hand clasped around his wrist. “Okay, Stiles,” she said. “Okay.”

***

NOW:

“No!” Derek was screaming. “Don’t let him in here! Please, Scott, I can’t--” Derek’s words choked off in a growl.

Stiles and Scott looked at each other, worried. Then Isaac came out. He was covered in blood, with a long gash down the side of his face and his shirt torn in a few places. It was clear that a lot of the blood was not his. “Well, he’s back to alpha form. Started going nuts the second he smelled you two. It’s safe to say that you’re the trigger,” he said to Stiles. “We’ve got him chained down in the basement and the twins are holding him down just in case.”

Stiles nodded, fingering the pouch of mountain ash in his pocket. It was surreal. Even back when they had just met and Derek had been threatening to rip his throat out, Stiles had never feared for his life around Derek (his bodily integrity, maybe). It had been a long time since he’d believed anything other than that Derek would move the world to protect him, let alone want to hurt him in any way.

“You ready?” Scott asked when they reached the solid iron door that led to the basement.

“As I’ll ever be,” Stiles mumbled. He felt uncertain and flat-footed for the first time in a long time. With Druids and witches and kanimas and kitsune all under his belt, he should be an old hand at fear by now.

The second the door swung open, they were greeted with a painful, inhuman yowl. Aiden and Ethan had the huge black wolf pinned to the floor - chained face down with the two of them practically laying on top of him. Derek bucked and writhed. “Hurry up!” Ethan shouted.

Stiles hands shook as he pulled out the bag of ash and instead of walking around, he just tossed it up in the air and willed it to fall in a circle around the three of them. Derek snarled some more, thrashing and managing to get one hand free enough to slash at Ethan, drawing a long bloody line down his left ankle.

“Take him out of here!” Aiden ordered Scott. Scott hesitated, but Isaac had no problem scooping Stiles up like a sack of potatoes and running him outside.

***

SIX MONTHS AGO:

“This is nice,” Stiles said, because he’d read on the internet that people who suffered from low self-esteem needed to get used to positive praise. Derek thought he was a bad alpha (because he was) and he was obsessively worried about bringing bad things down on the people he cared about (also a fairly justified fear, based on his history), but Derek’s main problem seemed to be that he couldn’t believe that he deserved good things to happen anymore and he’d stopped trusting almost any decision, preferring to defer to Scott or to Stiles.

Even with Stiles, he could be painfully uncertain, like right now, after having put in the effort to drive Stiles up to a beautiful mountain lake, set up a tent and rent them a little motorboat to go fishing and everything. Stiles was in no way the outdoor type, but Derek was living in the unfurnished, slightly unlivable, partially-finished skeleton of the new house he was building on the old Hale property and Dad’s recently-divorced college buddy, Randy, was in town for the week, getting the elder Stilinski drunk and blubbering on the shoulder of anybody around to indulge it.

Derek peaked down under the blanket Stiles had spread over the top of the boat to where Stiles was reading Starship Troopers and not even remotely pretending to fish. He’d taken refuge after Derek had actually caught one and Stiles had been staring at it’s accusing, gasping face imagining how they were going to gut it and roast it for dinner.

“Nature isn’t really your thing, is it?” Derek asked, looking a little crestfallen. He’d been skeptical enough when Stiles showed up for a camping trip with a rolling suitcase, so Stiles couldn’t really lie.

“Not in the run around howling at the moon and dealing with all these, um, trees sense, no. Also, I don’t really need to see the gruesome process by which my food is obtained. But I don’t think I can hear Uncle Randy begging my dad to be his wingman one more time without vomiting in my cereal.” He leaned up, groaning at the intensity of the sun without his protective blanket coating. Derek had taken off his shirt, and there was wetness and glistening, and humor because he was wearing the garish, bright yellow swim trunks Scott had bought him for his birthday when he realized that Derek didn’t own any. Frankly, it was enticement enough to stop reading, certainly more than the prospect of catching a fish.

Stiles leaned in to kiss him, smiling. “Fishing is definitely not for Stiles. I do appreciate the view, though. And I’ve always kind of wanted to fuck in a boat. Tent, too, might as well cross that off our list. I have some Marvin Gaye loaded on my phone if you want, and I brought some speakers.” He waggled his eyebrows playfully.

Derek pulled Stiles tight against him, for a deep, possessive kiss. “You really don’t get camping at all, do you?” he sighed.

“I get that I want to have sex in a boat, like right now.”

“After I’ve caught us the rest of our dinner.”

“Wait, you mean we actually have to fish in order to eat?” Stiles protested. “That’s a lot of pressure.”

“I think I can handle it.” Derek flashed his eyes red, looking down into the water and then reaching in and spearing an unsuspecting trout on his claws.

“Holy motherfucking shit!” Stiles screeched, leaning away from the flailing fish and its splashing. “Warn a guy, Derek!”

“Sorry.” Derek didn’t look at all sorry. “We used to do this all the time, as an exercise to learn about our senses. Dad took us kids out here and made us practice. It was one of the only things I could ever beat Laura at.” Derek grinned. “Peter used to hide under a blanket and read like you do. Only he kept a flask under there, too.”

“If I had known this would be so boring I’d have brought one of those too,” Stiles grumbled, but he made sure to smile at Derek. Derek didn’t talk about his family much. Stiles knew more about them from Cora and she’d only lived in Beacon Hills for a few months.

Of course, Derek was back to being insecure about Stiles enjoying himself. It wouldn’t matter how much he smiled if he kept putting his foot in it.

“I bought some beers,” Derek offered softly. “They’re back in the cooler, though. Do you want to go back and grab one?”

“Naw, I’m good.” Stiles kissed Derek again, hoping it would cheer him. “So how many fish do we need to catch before I get boat sex? Hand me a pole. You’re going to have to do the worm though, because gross.”

Derek’s smile was radiant. It was frankly unfair that Derek could look even more gorgeous than the normal scowling sexpot. “You should smile more,” Stiles blurted out.

The smile muted a little, turning bittersweet. “I want to,” Derek whispered.

“We’ll just have to work on that, then,” Stiles replied. “We have the whole rest of the summer to work on it. Maybe I should set a target. 150% more smiles maybe? 500%?”

Derek shrugged, but the grin remained. “Whatever makes you happy, Stiles.”

***

NOW:

“It’s done,” Aiden said, helping his brother limp over to the quaint porch swing Derek had installed at Stiles’s insistence. Allison had broken the mountain ash line to let the twins out and then closed it back up again. “He got out of one of the chains though. Maybe we should give him a small dose of wolfsbane, just in case.”

“Not until we know it’s not going to worsen whatever is wrong with him,” Stiles protested. “It could already be some kind of wolfsbane poisoning, like red kryptonite.”

“I don’t think it is,” Allison said as she emerged from the house. “I read about this in one of my Dad’s books. If a wolf has an extreme reaction like this to only one person, it’s because a kind of emotional trigger has been activated. That’s why the spiral marker is so important a sign. Once it’s started, the wolf will stop at nothing until the revenge is completed and will especially struggle for control under the moon.”

“No way!” Stiles shouted. Allison winced, looking a little guilty. “There’s no spiral. And there’s no reason Derek would want revenge on me. Derek and I are great. It’s magic. It has to be.”

“Are you sure you didn’t have a fight?” Stupid Aiden and his stupid patronizing face asked. Stiles still couldn’t stand the guy, even if he was useful at times.

“No! I told you guys. Derek and I had plans. We texted. He smiled when I opened the door. We’re good.”

“Once we got the bullet out, he did beg us to keep you away,” Ethan piped up, wincing as Aiden helped wash the blood off his wound. “He said that he couldn’t control himself around you. That we had to protect you from him, because he didn’t know what he’d do to you.”

“You said everything was fine,” Scott stated, frowning. “Until he got close enough to smell you. It must be something in your smell, dude.”

And then Stiles suddenly had four werewolves crowding close, sniffing at him.

“Other than the usual, Adderall, spunk and curly fries, I smell pizza, Febreeze, and … cigarettes?” Isaac offered. “Do you smoke now?”

“Only if it’s the wacky-tabaccy,” Aiden countered. “I guess you were living in the dorms at Berkeley, so not surprising. Ew, what is that? Is that patchouli? No wonder he wants to kill you.”

“There’s also cheap beer. And nachos. Oh, and,” Ethan took a deep breath, “lube. Did you lube yourself up for Derek? That’s sweet.”

Stiles made a face. “That is not sweet and, also, none of your business. God, keep your doggie noses to yourselves. Isn’t that a pack rule?”

“It’s not the pack rule when staying out of it leads to having to tie Derek up in a basement,” Ethan countered. “Wait, it doesn’t smell strong enough for you to have lube in there right now. So that means--” Ethan’s eyes widened comically. “Did you cheat on Derek?”

“Well that explains it.” Aiden rolled his eyes. “Nice going, Stilinski.”

“I didn’t!” Stiles protested. It couldn’t be cheating if he and Derek were never a couple.

Scott had stayed silent the whole time, but his hands were crossed over his chest defensively and his frown kept deepening until his eyes flashed red for a second. “I thought it was your roommate at first,” Scott mused, before sticking his nose right up against Stiles’s neck and holding fast when Stiles tried to shove him off. After a far too intimate sniffing, Scott spoke slowly, “Stiles, I know you have to have a good reason, but you do smell like you’ve been with someone else. You don’t smell like Derek anymore.”

“Because I haven’t seen Derek for like four months!”

“He didn’t come to visit you?” Isaac asked, frowning.

“No. Of course not. Why would he do that?”

“Because you’re his boyfriend,” Ethan answered.

“Okay, first of all, not everyone is as sickeningly clingy as you and Danny. Secondly, Derek is not my boyfriend.”

They were all startled by a howl coming from deep beneath the house.

“Dude,” Scott said, looking pouty and disappointed. “You totally cheated on Derek, didn’t you?”

***

FIVE MONTHS AGO:

“So, my dad is banging Scott’s mom and I don’t know whether to be disgusted or overjoyed, so I’m just going to focus on the fact that they’re off on a romantic holiday far from Scott’s super senses and I am completely at your disposal for the night.”

Stiles plopped down onto the couch in a way that he hoped was sexy, but probably looked more like the opening of a stoner movie. Derek entered the room, fiddling with the cuff of his jacket and still a little timid in the common areas of the house. He’d been over a few times with the entire pack and a few times at the Sheriff’s behest now that he was training to be a deputy, but he still preferred to climb in Stiles’s window, even when his dad was on the night shift.

“Sit down, you giant awkward wolf. You know you’re welcome here. I mean, yeah, my dad probably wouldn’t be thrilled that I’m boning a twenty-five year old--”

“In what you call years,” Derek interrupted.

“Jesus, you can your stupid family and your stupid mysterious crap. I stole your police record. You’re twenty-five and a werewolf, but I’m legally an adult and free to fuck whomever I please, so even though it’s a shitstorm I’d prefer to avoid if possible, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if my dad found out, so sit your criminally perfect ass on my couch so we can pick out a movie on Netflix and then have awesome couch sex.”

“You know your father and Scott’s mom have already marked the--”

“La la la la la,” Stiles shouted, plugging his ears. “If you want to get laid tonight, this is not the way to go about it.”

Derek sat down, but stiffly. He looked down at his hands instead of meeting Stiles’s gaze. “I was wondering if maybe, since you’re going away to college in less than a month and I don’t know how much time we’ll get to ourselves, if maybe we could do something, um, different.”

Derek’s nervousness put Stiles on edge, but this also sounded intriguing. He scooted closer to Derek and reached for his hands, but that seemed a bit too intimate, so instead he patted him on the back. It probably came out awkward, as usual. “I think I like where this is going. I mean, this is like the good different, right? Like throwing in some spanking and maybe a lingerie kink different, not lock me up in a cock cage and make me call you Sven while I do housework kind of different?”

Derek stayed silent. His nails had transformed to claws and were digging into his ridiculously tight jeans. Stiles gulped, because Derek had killed one ex, been literally tortured by another, and had made ridiculous wound-healing love with the last (who happened to be evil), so maybe his ‘different’ was one of those roads down which Stiles definitely did not want to follow.

Stiles knocked his shoulder against Derek’s. “Hey, you know we’re friends, right?”

Derek nodded.

“I can’t promise I’m going to want to do this thing, whatever it is. And, let’s be realistic, if it’s really fucked up, I might judge you for it a little, but I’m not going to freak out and get you kicked out of the pack or stop talking to you or whatever bad thing you’re afraid of, okay? I mean, I spend a lot of time on the internet. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a kink that can shock me.”

Derek sighed and squirmed a little so that he and Stiles were pressed side-to-side, still not looking at each other, but he grabbed Stiles’s hand and gave it a small squeeze. “Have you heard of knotting?”

“That’s a real thing?” Stiles blurted out, because, yeah, he’d heard about it, maybe even got a little into it once he knew he was banging a werewolf.

“Not for everyone,” Derek amended. “But wolves have knots and alphas who can do a full transformation can, you know.”

“Wait, you want to fuck me in full alpha form? You’ve mastered full alpha form?” Stiles gaped. “That’s awesome. Congratulations, man. Peter said that was kind of a big deal. Can I see it? I mean, I’m on the fence about full on bestiality, but I want to see it. Maybe after that we can negotiate.”

“I’ve done the full shift a few times, but I can’t do it at will yet. The, um, the knot works now, though.”

Stiles couldn’t believe his luck. He was already hard in his jeans. In fact, he may have been a little more into the whole thing than he let on initially. He had ordered that dildo (that he’d been too ashamed to show Derek). And definitely jerked off to the idea of Derek tying him.

“You’re aroused,” Derek stated with an exaggerated sniff.

“Duh, you’re talking about knotting me with an actual freaky werewolf penis. Like, you’re going to stuff my ass so full I’ll barely be able to walk the next day. And I bet we’ll be tied together and you’ll just keep coming and coming and--” Stiles realized a little belatedly that he was already touching himself through his pants. And stroking Derek’s shoulder like an idiot.

Except, maybe Stiles’s idiot seduction tactics hit the spot, because Derek’s pupils were blown wide open and suddenly he was lifting Stiles into his lap and peppering him with kisses, on his face, sucking hickies on his neck, devouring his mouth possessively.

“You make me crazy,” Derek moaned, squeezing Stiles’s ass and kneading hard enough that there’d be bruises. “You have no idea what I want to do to you.”

“I do,” Stiles smirked. He’d seen the porn. “You want to breed me. You want to knot me and mark me and make sure that everyone knows I’m yours.”

“Fuck, yes,” Derek groaned. He lifted Stiles up and, still kissing, maneuvered them up the stairs and into Stiles’s bedroom, finding the lube one-handed with his stupid werewolf superpowers. They only paused momentarily when the bed gave a creak of protest after Derek threw Stiles down onto it.

“You’re going to stretch me so wide,” Stiles went on, focusing on the parts of the knotting porn he’d found the most intriguing. “You’re just going to nail my prostate and then you’re going to pour gallons into me until I’m so swollen I can feel it sloshing around inside there.”

Derek growled a little, yanking Stiles’s pants off and disrobing himself quicker than Stiles would’ve thought was humanly possible.

“This is so fucking hot,” Stiles said, mostly to himself, but it needed to be said. “You’re awesome, dude. I have no idea how I got so lucky.”

Derek smiled back. It was soft, not his full-blown grin, but Stiles would take it. He dragged Derek down on top of him and kissed him until he felt slick fingers probing at his entrance. Derek found his prostate unerringly and Stiles was not ashamed to have come before Derek was even close to getting inside him.

“How big is it?” Stiles asked, trying to glimpse Derek’s cock in between thrashing around with the sheer pleasure of Derek massaging his prostate with now-four fingers. “Is it big? I bet it is. I bought a toy. Is it bigger than the toy?”

Derek snarled, red eyes flashing briefly. “Yes, it’s bigger than the toy.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. Was Derek actually jealous of a dildo? “You haven’t even seen the toy, you competitive asshole. I can grab it if you--”

Derek snarled again and shoved his thumb in, transitioning to five fingers a little too quickly for Stiles’s limited stamina. He whimpered as he came all over himself for a second time. “Damnit, Derek, you don’t fucking play around,” he gasped. But Derek was unrelenting. Instead of thrusting in and out with his fist, he just clenched it tight and forced it wider in a rhythm that pounded Stiles’s poor prostate. “Is it bigger than your fist?” he managed to ask.

“Probably similar,” Derek replied. He leaned down to kiss Stiles, more gently this time. “Are you sure about this.”

“Am I sure I want one of my number one fantasies to come true? Hm, Derek, let me think about that,” he quipped. “So long as you aren’t going to rip out my sphincter or something, I am 100% on board. Ready to go.”

Derek nodded, kissing Stiles sweetly, before pulling back, slicking himself and then pushing in, slowly and with a look of concentration much different from their usual frantic fucking. Stiles had expected some traditional pounding first, but Derek’s cock began to swell almost immediately.

“Holy shit!” Stiles exclaimed, because this was even better than the toy, better than Derek’s fist, and, though still not as amazing as the harps playing, cherubs singing, all-out nirvana of Stiles’s fantasies, managed to get pretty damned close to perfect.

It didn’t take long before Derek was biting down on Stiles’s shoulder, clawing at his hips and coming with a drawn-out moan that almost sounded like a howl. The knot swelled even slightly larger and Stiles found himself shouting through his third orgasm of the night.

After they lay together afterwards, Derek curled protectively around Stiles with a hand cupping his still-sensitive cock possessively, Stiles murmured, “Good plan, dude. That knotting thing is awesomesauce. Is it always this amazing?”

“I don’t know,” Derek shrugged. “This is the first time I’ve done it.”

***

NOW:

“I didn’t cheat!” Stiles finally shouted, after they had moved the conversation farther away from the house, where Derek wouldn’t be able to hear. Stiles just couldn’t stand the accusatory looks from Isaac and the twins and the utter disappointment on Scott’s face. “Derek and I were never together. We had sex a bunch of times, sure, but that was it. You can’t cheat if you were never in a relationship to begin with!”

Now the looks turned from accusatory to disbelieving.

“You two spent like all your free time this summer together!” Scott protested.

“You have seen Derek, right? Why wouldn’t I want to spend a summer tapping that?”

“And he’s always scenting you and you let him!” Aiden pointed out.

“Who am I to stand in the way of his wolfy sex kinks?”

“You did go on a romantic vacation together,” Allison piped up.

“We got out of town to escape Derek’s house construction and my not-Uncle Randy. No, that is not a euphemism.”

“He takes care of you,” Ethan said. “I remember when you got the stomach flu. He was so worried.”

“Because he’s my friend and vomiting things that are not blood is apparently a gross, confusing part of the human condition that puts him on edge.”

“No. You guys have been together for the past year,” Isaac argued with a surprising finality.

“Yeah, as fuck buddies. We were never exclusive.”

“Well, I didn’t smell anyone else on you,” Aiden huffed. “Seems pretty exclusive to me.”

“You all know that I’m not exactly the most popular guy at school, so it’s not like I had the opportunity and even if I did, why would I subject myself to the misery of high school dating when I could spend that time banging a guy who looks like an underwear model, can bench press a pickup truck, and has an awesome magical werewolf penis that does shit that I thought only existed in porn?”

“You let him knot you?” Ethan squeaked. “That’s really not good.”

“Yeah, you are so fucked,” Aiden added.

“What’s knotting?” Scott asked.

“It’s fucking hot, is what it is,” Stiles replied. “Also, not the business of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers here.”

“I think he means like when dogs--” Isaac made a gesture that made Scott’s eyes bulge.

“We can do that? I mean, nobody told me we could do that!” Scott looked a couple of seconds away from pulling his pants down and examining his own penis.

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Not all of us can do it. Only alphas and even then it takes practice. The thing is, in werewolf culture it’s a serious thing. It’s not a marriage proposal, but even alphas are only capable of doing it with people the deeply trust, since it makes the alpha vulnerable when it happens. Deucalion explained it as being a kind of signal of openness to a much more serious relationship.”

“I think he said it was the level of seriousness of moving in together,” Aiden added.

“So you’re telling me you two got werewolf sex advice from Deucalion?” Stiles whined. “Gah, I need to like scrub my brain.”

“Hey, we were the only bitten wolves in the alpha pack. Duke got really mad at me when I accidentally knotted one of the wolves in a rival pack we were working on,” Aiden explained. “He made us kill her.” Stiles magnanimously didn’t point out that killing her had probably always been the plan.

“I never even got to try it,” Ethan grumbled. Stiles hated the fucking twins.

“I think we’re getting off track,” Allison interjected. With all the sniffing and the arguing, Stiles had almost forgotten she was there. “Stiles, Derek obviously thought there was something more going on between you two. So did the rest of us. It’s the most logical explanation for what happened. He smelled that you’d been with someone else and the wolf part of him went crazy.”

“That’s not fair!” Stiles exclaimed. “How was I supposed to know what’s going on in that stupid, thick werewolf skull of his? We never went on any dates. We never did anything as a couple. We certainly never made any promises. If the knotting thing really was that significant, he would’ve talked to me about it. You’d think if he wanted me to abstain from the giant unshaved orgy that is my stupid college, he would have told me.”

“Well, he is Derek,” Scott said. “Talking isn’t exactly his thing.” That was no fucking excuse, Stiles thought. Derek was a big boy, he needed to learn how to deal with things like a normal person.

“Or maybe he thought it wouldn’t be a big deal, but his instincts took over,” Allison offered. It was still strange, hearing her defend Derek in any way.

“Well, it’s clear what we have to do,” Scott said.

“Wait out the full moon,” Ethan said.

“Douse him with wolfsbane until he calms down,” Allison answered.

“Kill him,” Aiden growled.

Isaac tried, “Leave him tied up until Stiles goes back to college?”

“What?” Scott said to all of them. “No! Obviously Derek and Stiles need to talk. They have to define the relationship or whatever. Derek didn’t draw the spiral, so he isn’t committed to killing Stiles yet. I’m sure once Stiles explains that it’s all just a misunderstanding, he’ll be okay.” Then Scott turned to Aiden and cuffed him on the back of the head. “We’re not killing Derek, you asshole - especially not just because Stiles can’t keep it in his pants.”

***

FOUR MONTHS AGO:

“Are you sure you don’t need me to drive you?” Derek asked as they lay in Stiles’s bed. They hadn’t had sex, because Stiles’s dad was home, but Derek climbing in Stiles’s window to say goodbye had lead to some ‘heavy petting,’ as they say.

“No, dude, my Dad’s got it covered. It’s a kind of father-son bonding moment, taking the kid to college.” Derek nodded, but he looked a little disappointed. Understandable, considering that they wouldn’t be able to get a quickie in before Stiles left for a few months. He wouldn’t even be back for Thanksgiving, since he and his dad normally spent it with his Aunt down in LA. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

Derek smiled stiffly. “You’ll be careful, right?”

“Hey, don’t worry, Mr. Overprotective, nothing bad is going to happen to me other than falling off a keg or having a hipster for a roomate. I’m touched by your concern, by the way. Remember a few years ago when you threatened to kill me? So far have we come.”

Derek snorted and pulled Stiles a little closer to him, breathing in deeply and nuzzling him a little. Stiles smiled to himself, thinking that maybe Derek was memorizing his scent, because maybe Derek would actually miss him. Maybe he’d even miss him for more than just the source of regular, mind-blowing sex. They were just friends with benefits, but they were still friends and Stiles knew that he’d miss Derek and his brooding eyebrows and his terrible taste in movies and the way he could distract Stiles from the darkness around his heart.

“I could drive down,” Derek offered. “Sometime.”

“Oooh,” Stiles exclaimed. “Like a booty call?”

Derek shrugged, like the five hour drive was no big deal.

“Maybe, once I get settled.” And assuming Stiles didn’t find a regular source of sex down there already.

“You’re right,” Derek replied. “You’re young and you deserve a normal college experience. I don’t want to interfere.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “I’m not a normal guy and I’m okay with that. It’s going to be strange, being surrounded by people who don’t know about the supernatural, but I’ll deal. I still want to hear from you guys. I mean leaving you, Isaac, the evil twins and Uncle Creepy to hold down the fort is a little terrifying. Promise you’ll keep me updated?”

“You need to focus on your studies.”

“No, I need to know that the people I care about in the place that I care about are going to be okay. If you need my help, you call, okay?”

“Stiles, I know I screwed up as alpha before, but I’ve been a good second under Scott. I can handle--”

Stiles shook his head. “I know you can handle it, Derek. I just don’t want something bad to happen to you or my dad because you wanted to give me ‘space’ to read up on Epistemology and get loaded. I might rather study than lift a finger to help Peter and the twins, but you’re a good guy and you’re my friend. Promise me you’ll call if you need me.”

Derek’s gaze softened. “Okay. I promise.”

“Good, then I think that if my dad sounds asleep to you, we can squeeze in some quiet blowjobs.”

***

NOW:

“Derek?” Stiles asked, observing the big black lump that lay pressed to the floor in the middle of the circle of mountain ash.

The wolf raised its ears, red eyes flashing and a low growl starting up.

“Come on, you heard me like a mile away. Things are a little better, now, right?” Except Derek didn’t look better. His fur was matted-looking, torn out in places and stained with sweat and blood. His eyes looked tired and when he stood to pace inside the mountain ash line, his whole body exuded defeat. Stiles felt guilty for leaving Derek to the full moon in this agony but Stiles and Scott had agreed to Ethan’s suggestion of waiting until afterwards as a safety measure.

Stiles was exhausted himself. He’d spent the whole night tossing and turning, running things over in his mind and wondering how in the hell things had gone so wrong, how he’d misread the situation. In retrospect, Stiles realized that it was obvious that they weren’t just using each other for sex. And watching movies and making out on the couch or fishing by a pristine mountain lake could in fact be considered dates, but they had never been a couple. That much, Stiles was sure of.

“So, you ready to transform back into semi-human form now?”

The wolf just prowled up to the line as close to Stiles as possible and then laid down dejectedly. Derek’s alpha form was actually quite beautiful - a pitch black wolf, huge and muscular, but all slick graceful lines and an elegant, long snout and Derek’s fathomless hazel eyes.

“Okay, I guess I can do the talking. I mean, I’d rather you talked some too, because you not talking is how we got into this mess, but I can handle it for now. Just transform when you’re ready.”

Derek’s ears twitched in acknowledgement, but he had his back to Stiles, his nose pressed to the ground and buried under his forepaws. Still in denial of the problem, like always, Stiles noted.

“Okay, first of all, I want to apologize. I had no idea that smelling Justin on me would hurt you and I definitely regret having to shoot you and then keep you tied up here like an animal. If I had been a little more considerate, I would have gotten some of that scent-neutral soap from Deaton. Of course, you could have warned me this might be a problem.”

The wolf whined then rolled over, glaring at Stiles with his red eyes.

“No, I’m not sorry for having sex with him or with anybody else on campus.”

Derek barked and growled a little, which wasn’t surprising, really. Stiles probably shouldn’t have brought up that there was more than one (six to be precise - Stiles was fucking awesome).

“Look, I swear I didn’t know you had feelings for me. And yes, in retrospect, that’s kind of ridiculous, considering how much you’ve tried to take care of me this past year and how much you’ve opened up. I’m grateful, Derek, I am, but you can’t just unilaterally decide we’re dating without telling me. And this knotting thing? Really fucking hot, but you knew that I had no idea I was essentially leveling up our relationship, not just my ass. And even if we were actually dating and I just missed it, you can’t have expected me to somehow divine that we were serious enough to stay faithful for four months in college when we never even talked about being exclusive.”

Derek whimpered, nudging at the mountain ash barrier with his nose. And Stiles knew it was stupid and reckless, but before he knew it, he was wiping it away, pulling Derek into a tight, furry hug. Stiles still trusted the guy, god help him. He still cared.

Derek settled down eventually, curling up with his head in Stiles’s lap. Stiles ran his fingers through the soft black fur, unmatting it as much as possible and wondering if the messiness would be reflected by Derek’s human hair when he shifted back.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Stiles reiterated. “But you’re in the wrong here. You don’t get the right to almost rip my throat out because I ‘cheated’ in a relationship you never cared to inform me I was in.”

Stiles didn’t look down when he heard the bones cracking, just felt Derek’s warm skin and his steady breath the next time he stroked down Derek’s flank.

“I know,” Derek said, voice gravelly. “I’m sorry.”

***

ONE MONTH AGO:

Stiles’s new strategy at parties, whenever he got nervous or flustered around an attractive guy or girl, was to remind himself that he had fucked Derek Hale and Derek Hale was hotter, older, and much more prickly than any of the immature idiots at drunken frat parties. Stiles only needed to remind himself of Derek’s offers to drive down for a weekend of good fucking for an instant confidence boost.

Of course, the guy who had caught Stiles’s eye this particular night was giving Derek a run for his money looks-wise. He looked a little like a young Brad Pitt, if Brad Pitt were Asian and had long hair. Stiles hadn’t slept with an Asian guy before. He tried for about five seconds to resist the “exotification” of it like he’d been cautioned against in his Ethnic Studies class, but then he gave in to fantasizing about his goal of sleeping with someone of every race in both genders, because that would be totally awesome.

Stiles winked at the guy on the other side of the beer pong table, because he figured, why not? Even if the guy probably wasn’t gay, it was college and Stiles had fought werewolves and banged Derek Hale. What did he have to lose?

To Stiles’s shock, Asian Brad Pitt sauntered over and l leaned against the wall next to Stiles. He smiled sedately and Stiles smiled back, not entirely sure what the protocol was for actually talking to a gay hookup rather than just grinding it on the dance floor.

Asian Brad Pitt frowned. “That was a come on, right? You weren’t just having an eye-twitch, were you?”

Stiles snorted. He himself took to awkward like a duck to water so he appreciated this guy speaking his nerves. “Do I look like I have an eye twitch?” He tried to lean towards the guy but ended up flailing a little and knocking over someone’s lava lamp. “Okay, scratch that, I probably do, so I’ll clarify: it wasn’t an eye twitch. I was totally hitting on you.”

The guy nodded. “I’m sorry, I didn’t really know what to do. It doesn’t happen to me very often.”

“What? That, I don’t believe.” Because this guy was gorgeous. Seriously, Stiles might even pick this guy over Derek, assuming he didn’t know either of them, if only because ABP seemed way more friendly.

“People usually assume I’m straight. I haven’t really tried out any gay-only venues. I’m not, um, ‘out’ at home. I’m, um, Justin, by the way.”

“Stiles. I can relate. I’m bi, so I’m not so much in the closet as in a confusing mystical space the people don’t believe exists. Being bi is like fucking Narnia, man, but I’m out to the people who care.” The pack all knew that Stiles and Derek had been fucking and Stiles had come out to his dad, sort of. Mostly he’d announced that he would climb Colin Farrell like a tree if ever given the slightest opportunity and hoped that his dad caught the clue bus.

“I know,” Justin said. His smile was soft and sweet and Stiles thought that he could really get used to it.

“What do you mean?”

Justin blushed a little. “You’re in Intro Botany with me. You always wear that t-shirt that says ‘I love clams and I love sausages’ and has a giant rainbow on it.”

“You’re in Botany? Amazeballs. You’re gay and really hot and maybe if I earn it with some awesome sexual favors, you can help me study. I am bombing that shit.”

Justin grinned a little. “Me too. Turns out, not all Asians are good at science.”

Stiles frowned. “Well, how about just the sexual favors part then? We can figure out how to trick a smart kid into studying with us later.”

Justin smiled, leaning in much more assertively that Stiles would have given him credit for, based on the shy, awkward routine. He cupped Stiles’s face with both hands and then drew him down to kiss him, biting at Stiles’s lip the second he opened up to allow for more.

Stiles’s phone buzzed in his pocket a few minutes later. It was a message from Derek: “Everything’s fine. Nobody’s dying. Just wanted to check in. Call me?”

Stiles put his phone away, at least Derek had learned his lesson about how much a simple, “Call me,” lead to terrifying images of the pack bleeding out without Stiles there to figure out a solution. If it wasn’t urgent, it could wait until tomorrow. Stiles had a hot guy to score with tonight and maybe some botany study sess in the future and a boner.

He was also, probably, a little drunk.

***

NOW:

“I don’t have any right to be jealous,” Derek said. “I definitely don’t have any right to chase you down like an animal.”

“Damn straight,” Stiles replied. “That was terrifying, by the way. You are lucky I didn’t shit my pants.”

“You never promised me anything,” Derek replied. “I just hoped that maybe you felt the same way I did. I really thought you were starting to love me back.”

“What?” Stiles squawked, dumping Derek out of his lap as he stood to pace. Derek stood too, and god, he was still gorgeous, all beautiful shifting muscle and inhuman grace, just how Stiles remembered. “I’m sorry, but you don’t get to spring the L-word on me just like that! How in the hell was I supposed to know that’s what you wanted if you won’t even tell me you want to date me let alone--” he couldn’t even say it, “that.”

“I’m not good at talking about my feelings,” Derek said.

“Obviously,” Stiles grumbled.

“But I tried to make your first time special. I knotted you.”

“Yeah, because obviously everyone knows what that means.”

“I took you on vacation. I would have taken you to prom and dropped you off at college. I would have come visit you.”

“I’m so very glad you didn’t.”

Derek frowned.

“No, don’t give me that sour look. I would have appreciated the booty call, but can you imagine doing that mad chase in my dorm? We’re talking major carnage.”

Derek nodded his understanding, but he still looked so forlorn that Stiles couldn’t help but step closer, hugging him and pressing a soft, chaste kiss on his lips. “I get it now. You wanted us to be a couple, but you still didn’t ask.”

Derek sighed, taking a deep breath before whispering. “And if I asked now?”

Good question. Stiles sighed. “I care about you a lot, Derek. And I think we’re good together. Not just the sex, which has always been awesome, by the way, but also I enjoy everything else about spending time with you, the dating stuff.”

“But you don’t love me.”

Stiles wanted to brighten that awful, defeated tone, but he couldn’t lie to Derek, not after so many lies and so many breaches of trust. Stiles refused to be another person who lied to Derek and broke his heart because of it. “I think we both know that if I were ass over teakettle, crazy, stupid in love with you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“So you would have said ‘no?’”

“I have no idea,” Stiles replied. “I liked you a lot and you were giving me regular orgasms, so obviously, thoughts of making it more did cross my mind. I imagined it, sometimes, spending the rest of my life with you. It was kind of idle musings, really, no pining or anything. The knotting thing had me a little paranoid about getting accidentally knocked up with puppies for a bit. I’m so glad that’s not a thing, by the way. But I could see it - you and I work well together, we keep each other on our toes, we have sex that’s about a thousand times hotter than anything I could find at Berkeley.”

Even Justin, who was nerdy and sweet but still totally willing to dominate Stiles, couldn’t compare to Derek. The difference was that Justin was easy. There was no responsibility. They could text each other or not, go out or not, fuck whomever, have some sex and get tacos afterwards and there wasn’t a pack at stake or self-esteem problems to worry about. It was how eighteen was supposed to feel.

Derek’s eyes flashed red for a moment, but he calmed it down. “You imagined us together, but you don’t feel--”

“I don’t fucking know what I feel!” Stiles shouted. “I would take a goddamned bullet for you. I’ve put my life on the line a ton of times in the past few days because I care about you. I like having sex with you. I like being with you. I want you to be happy. Isn’t that enough?” It was already way too much.

“It means a lot,” Derek acknowledged, but Stiles still felt awful. He did love Derek. He loved Derek the way he loved Scott and Lydia and his Dad. He hated hurting him and knew he was stupid for hurting him when he could just lie and say he loved him and he wanted to never fuck anyone else ever, but that just wasn't the truth.

“You can’t ask me to have it better figured out than that, Derek. I’m not Scott and his epic forever-love for Allison. I don’t know if it’s this stupid hole in my heart or I’m just not built that way, but I know that kind of love isn’t for me. Maybe if you had asked, I might have tried, but I’m eighteen, bisexual, and I’m having fun, sexy times at college. I have a regular thing going there with a guy who I like a lot but probably have no future with. I see random co-eds in the hall and I think ‘hey, I wanna tap that’ and I know I at least have a fighting chance and that’s awesome. To be honest, I don’t think I’m physically capable of the kind of commitment you want. You know what? I don’t want it. If you’d ask me, I’d say: I don’t want that and it has everything to do with what I want from life right now and nothing to do with you. If I could be that for anyone, I’d be that for you, but I can’t. Not right now.”

Derek nodded, but the pain in his eyes was heartbreaking.

“I was looking forward to spending vacation having crazy knotting sex and watching those stupid indie dramas you like with you, maybe going on a few dates out in public now that I’m officially a college boy and not a high schooler you robbed from the cradle. But it’s obvious that casual is just going to hurt us both.”

“We can still--”

“No, this crazy, jealous rage monster thing can’t keep happening and I can’t just use you for sex and companionship when you want more from me. You deserve better than that. You deserve someone who is madly, crazy Scallison in love with you.”

“I want you.” Derek protested. “I don’t want ‘someone.’”

“I know that’s what you want right now, Derek, but it’s not all vengeful Druids and psycho hunters out there. I’m not your last chance to be with someone you trust.”

Stiles thought his words would be soothing, but Derek pushed him away, half wolfing-out again. “You think that’s what this is about? That I looked at the few people who I know aren’t out to get me and decided you were the most tolerable one?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I’m seven years younger than you, not in your league attractiveness-wise, spastic and kind of weird and you never even liked me before Jennifer fucked with your head. Why the hell else would you settle for this when you could have almost anyone?”

“I liked you before,” Derek said.

“You slammed my face into a steering wheel!”

“I thought you were funny.”

“Okay, so I’m the comic relief, yay!”

“I admired your loyalty and your drive. I liked listening to you get too excited and spoil the plots of movies I haven’t seen. I liked the way you smell. I was drawn to you, even before Jennifer, but you were so young and you didn’t seem to like me much. But then you started including me on the list of people you actually care about and try to save and I started to think that maybe I was worth saving. Maybe, if you believed in me, I could be a better man and a better alpha.”

“Just because loving me is important to you, doesn’t obligate me to love you back!” Stiles protested. “I tried that with Lydia. She told me to stuff it in a way that was very articulate and I’m sure I’m going butcher, so just go ask her about it sometime. You can’t argue your way into me falling in love with you.” At least, Stiles didn’t think Derek could win this particular argument at this particular time. It would probably be skill at arguing that would eventually get Stiles to fall in love with someone. It was a trait he admired.

“I’m not trying to,” Derek replied. “Look, you said that you wanted to date me, keep having sex and go back to things the way they were at Berkeley, right?”

“Yeah, but Derek, you’re in love with me and I don’t know if I’ll ever-- It isn’t fair.”

“You said I deserve better, but maybe I deserve to make a choice about my relationships for once. So you can go off, fool around at college all you want. When you come back, I want to have hot knotting sex with you and take you out on dates. I want to call you and come visit you. I want the chance to persuade you that you’re mine and that you should stop seeing those other people because they’ll never be as good as me.”

God, it was tempting. But so, so irresponsible. “And you’re not going to go psycho, murderous crazy alpha on Justin or anybody else?”

“Not if you wash yourself with that soap. Look, Stiles, you’re right, I have no right to demand you love me, but what kind of idiots would we be if we decided against something we both want just because I have more invested in it than you do?”

Stiles thought about it for a moment. It seemed like a really, really bad idea. Stiles didn’t trust himself to not break Derek’s heart and he didn’t trust Derek to be as okay with this as he was trying to sound and he sure as shit was never going to let Derek drive down to Berkeley while Stiles was still fucking other people, special soap or no. But he saw the open, hopeful look on Derek’s face and he knew that he wanted this. Hell, Derek was offering him both sexual freedom and the chance at something amazing with someone who loved him, which was pretty much winning the jackpot as far as relationships were concerned.

There was probably a 95% chance that this was going to end in tears, but Stiles was just enough of an asshole to go all in on it anyway. He pulled Derek against him, kissing those stupid, perfect lips that he’d been missing for the past four months. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go for it.”

The End

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of you be the moth