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The first time it happens, Derek puts it down to teenage forgetfulness and Stiles being Stiles.
“Are you serious? No, you can’t wear that,” he said, his nose wrinkling as he took in Derek’s jacket. “Even I can tell it reeks of smoke, dude, come on, that’s not healthy for you. You can’t just go around wearing a reminder that your whole family was tragically murdered in a fire and then someone tried it again. Take it off.”
The only person better than Stiles at ruining acts of kindness by opening their mouth is Derek.
Doing what he said was easier than talking about it, which is the only reason Derek did it. That and he was still exhausted from the night before, when Stiles kicked through a line of mountain ash surrounding the burning building where a witch had trapped his pack.
Derek only feels a little bit guilty for tearing her throat out.
“I’ll bring it to the cleaner’s and give it back to you,” Stiles said, and then Derek didn’t see his jacket for three weeks and just assumed Stiles forgot all about it.
Only then he does bring it back and, well. It doesn’t smell like smoke anymore, that’s for sure. It holds a weeks-old sort of chemical scent, he assumes from wherever Stiles brought it to be cleaned, so faint Derek would hardly notice if he weren’t looking for it. Under that, a hint of Derek’s own scent. All overlaid with a whole lot of teenage boy. Like Stiles threw it on the ground and rolled around on top of it for a year or so.
Except that wouldn’t explain the other things Derek can smell on it. Things he is not going to mention out loud even though watching Stiles sputter would be extremely entertaining, because of… reasons. But he smells faint hints of laundry detergent and fabric softener and other aromas that indicate pretty clearly that—“Have you been keeping this on your bed?”
Stiles flushes. “What? No. I was just—I had to make my bed one night when we came home from a hunt and I was tired, okay? I didn’t notice your jacket got stuck under the bottom sheet.”
He’s lying, Derek knows he’s lying, would know even if Stiles weren’t such a disaster at it (he wonders privately how the sheriff even lets him out of the house), but Derek decides to let it pass. He isn’t sure he wants to know the truth. Maybe that’s the sheriff’s secret.
Derek debates for a minute before putting his jacket on. None of his Betas are sensitive enough to pick up on it, and Derek doesn’t care what any trespassing werewolves think, except in the sense that this might keep them away from Stiles.
Of course, it could backfire completely and make him a target instead, but this is Stiles; he’s going to get himself into trouble anyway.
“Thanks,” Derek tells him, shoving his hands into his pockets, and tries not to breathe in too deeply. He cannot walk around Beacon Hills getting a hard-on from the smell of his own jacket. That is over creepy stalker line, even for Derek.
He is so fucked.
*
One time Derek could write off. But it doesn’t happen just the one time.
Not even a week later, they’re crammed into a booth at a greasy spoon diner, Boyd and Isaac on one side, Erica and Stiles and Derek on the other. Derek’s in the end seat, because as much as traditional Betas are supposed to protect their leader, his are still wet behind the ears. It has nothing whatever to do with having Stiles pressed up against the side of his body from shoulder to knee.
Okay, so Derek is in the mood for an exercise in masochism and self-control. At least if he’s beside Stiles instead of across from him, he doesn’t have to watch Stiles molest his straw with his mouth.
This time when it happens, the waitress has stopped by the table to check on them.
And by them, Derek means, well. Him.
It’s not that Derek’s vain exactly. He can’t afford to be too concerned with appearances. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t aware of how people react to him. His nose and ears are too good for that.
Also, the waitress isn’t trying very hard to be subtle.
“Can I get you anything else, hon?” she asks in a voice pitched half an octave lower and four degrees huskier than she used when taking Erica’s burger order. Since the last time she came by, she’s undone two more buttons on her blouse, and now she leans on her arms on the edge of the table, which makes her ass stick out like—
Anyway. It’s not subtle.
Derek’s about to tell her he’s fine, that they just need the check, but sudden slurping from his left interrupts him.
“Actually, I could use a refill,” Stiles says, waggling his cup. But when he leans over to hand it to her, he puts his arm behind Derek’s back, in a completely bizarre parody of the move insecure male humans use to put their arm around someone for the first time. His armpit rubs against Derek’s shoulder.
Boyd and Isaac don’t seem to notice. Derek doesn’t dare look at Erica’s face, but he can feel her raised eyebrow anyway. She’s probably even more annoyed that Stiles has been ignoring her display of cleavage all night now.
Derek’s not smug about that at all.
The waitress gives Stiles a look even Derek has to categorize as sour, and stalks off with his glass.
“I wouldn’t drink what she brings back if I were you,” Erica advises once the waitress is out of earshot.
Derek snorts. Sooner or later he’s going to have to figure out what’s going on here. But for now he’s content with the fact that he won’t have to accidentally leave his jacket in Stiles’s room this week.
*
The third time it happens is probably nothing. It’s exhaustion, or injury, or possibly the whiskey Deaton fed Stiles before he stitched up said injury. Or, let’s be honest, a combination of those three things.
Derek pulls up in front of Stiles’s house and throws the car in park, but Stiles doesn’t move.
Or, okay, he does, but he doesn’t make a move to get out. Instead, he sort of falls over the center console, which is impressive because the Camaro is not a small car, and leans against Derek’s shoulder.
The slightest sniff proves Stiles is drunk, so Derek grits his teeth and tries not to enjoy it. But it’s difficult. Because that fight, and watching his pack get hurt, and having to be part of the clean-up afterward because three of them needed bones set, made Derek twitchy. All he can smell on himself is the nose-burning acidity of his own anxiety and the sulfur of chimera venom.
Until Stiles rubs his face into the leather of Derek’s jacket.
Derek does not understand. Stiles is human, and there is no possible way he can know how much Derek needs this right now. He definitely can’t smell the difference between Derek’s jacket now and Derek’s jacket before he started scent-marking it like he’s—
Anyway. He can’t.
So either Stiles has been doing research—in which case Derek can’t quite bring himself to consider what his actions mean—or he has better werewolf instincts than any human has any business having, and he should just suck it up and ask Derek to bite him already.
Not that Derek wants to bite him or anything. Definitely not in any X-rated ways.
God, even his interior monologue is starting to sound like Stiles.
“Come on,” he growls. Or, he means to growl it, but what comes out is a lot fonder and gentler than he intended. Luckily Stiles is too drunk/tired/possibly concussed to notice.
Derek gets them upstairs, dumps Stiles on his bed, and covers him with the comforter. He knows humans aren’t supposed to sleep after concussions, but Stiles is so tired Derek can smell it on him, so he sits in Stiles’s chair and listens to his heartbeat until the sun comes up.
He only barely makes it down the street before the sheriff’s car turns down it.
*
Now that Derek’s noticed, he can’t stop noticing. It keeps happening—Stiles’s hand on his shoulder as they lean down to investigate footprints on the ground, Stiles’s feet in his lap on pack movie night, the way Stiles always seems to sit in Derek’s favorite chair when given the chance, like he’s staking his claim on that too.
It’s driving Derek crazy.
He can’t go anywhere in his apartment without smelling Stiles. His jacket smells like Stiles. His car smells like Stiles. If Stiles were a werewolf he’d probably have peed on the corners of Derek’s building by now, and the worst part is Derek would be totally fine with that. Is totally fine with that, apparently, because he hasn’t brought it up and told Stiles to knock it off.
Which is the problem. Derek doesn’t want Stiles to knock it off. But his existence is difficult enough already without the added complication of developing a terrifying fondness for the seventeen-year-old jailbait son of the town sheriff.
Derek is starting to realize Stiles is right: he sucks at planning his life. A lot.
That’s the only explanation for why he has the pack gathered around a square of training mats in what used to be his backyard, trying to teach Stiles how not to get himself killed in a fight.
Derek is a realist. He could tell Stiles to stay out of it, but Stiles will just do what he wants anyway, and if he thinks he’s going to piss Derek off by being involved, he’s less likely to call him for help.
Derek is also, as previously mentioned, a total masochist, and he won’t let anyone else teach Stiles how to defend himself because he’s overprotective like that. Which means he’s spent the past hour dialing back his strength and putting his hands all over Stiles’s body.
See: sucky life planning.
It’s bad enough fighting off his body’s reaction when Stiles isn’t in the room. Keeping his cool when his nose and ears keep telling him exactly how much Stiles enjoys having Derek throw him around is basically impossible.
Finally Derek reaches the end of his self-control. Of course, it happens when Stiles is flat on his back with Derek pinning his shoulders with his knees.
“Ow, my dignity.”
Derek snorts and pushes himself to his feet. “I think that’s enough for today. You stink.”
Stiles peels off his sweaty T-shirt and throws it at him. Then, while Derek is too busy thinking Again, really? to react, he stands up and rubs it on Derek’s face. “Aw, you like it.”
“Dude, gross!” Scott yells from twenty feet away, sounding scandalized. Of course it’s Scott who notices first. God damn it. “Have you been scent-marking him?”
Derek has always maintained that Stiles has no shame to speak of. Derek is fine with that since he doesn’t have any either. In Stiles’s case, though, it’s more of a developed immunity, whereas after being manipulated into letting his family burn alive, Derek just doesn’t think anything else is worth being ashamed of. But Stiles must have some sense of propriety somewhere, because he flushes bright red all the way down to his navel and refuses to meet anyone’s eyes.
Holy crap. It was on purpose.
Erica’s smirking, and Boyd and Isaac have pulled identical pained parent poses, one hand over their eyes. Scott looks like he’s smelled something unpleasant, which, maybe he has, but Derek doesn’t care. He sighs. This is all his fault. If he wanted privacy, he should have bitten other people.
“Well, someone had to,” Stiles says defensively as he takes a step back, and immediately the four of them look chagrined.
Because, well, he’s sort of right. They all belong to him, sort of, even Scott, who keeps insisting he’s not part of the pack but shows up anyway. The three he bit will always carry his scent, will always be his. But Derek hasn’t belonged to anyone else in a long time.
He tells himself furiously that Stiles’s behavior here is practical and not adorable, and fails miserably. He’s not going to be able to scowl properly for a week. He can feel the tension in his shoulders loosen.
Suddenly he’s extremely uncomfortable that his pack is seeing him like this.
“You should all go away now,” Stiles says, and the thing is, they do, with considerably less grumbling and fewer dark looks than Derek gets when he gives the same order.
Derek is not any more comfortable when he’s alone with Stiles. “So you were doing that on purpose.”
“I—yeah.” Stiles makes a face. “I didn’t mean to overstep or anything, and I thought—you know, it’s not like you’ve ever had a problem telling me what not do to, so. I thought if you didn’t like it, you’d put on the sourwolf face, throw me up against a wall, and growl at me to cut it out.”
Sadly Derek only wants to do one of those things. He fights the urge to sigh. It’s hard to concentrate on words over the erratic pounding of Stiles’s heartbeat. “Come here.”
There’s a definite stutter, which Derek decides, after the past few weeks, he can read as much into as he likes.
Stiles meets his eyes defiantly as he stops in front of him. Up close he smells incredible, like sweat and human and teenage hormones and even a little like Derek, from their mostly one-sided sparring match. But he doesn’t smell like belonging. He doesn’t smell like pack.
Not yet.
Stiles’s breath hitches when Derek drags a palm down the smooth skin on the side of Stiles’s face, behind his neck, over his shoulder, to the center of his damp bare chest. Then he repeats the action on the other side.
There. Better.
Stiles swallows loudly and licks his lips. “Did you just—”
If he tried really hard, Derek could fight back the grin. He doesn’t. “Write ‘Property of Derek Hale’ all over you with my scent? Yeah.”
Stiles’s eyes go wide. “Oh my God, is that what I’ve been doing?” He pauses. “Oh my God, you let me?” He shakes his head. “Next time I’ll just ask you on a date like a normal person. I mean—”
“I’m not a normal person,” Derek reminds him, before he can go off on a self-conscious tangent for revealing a secret that is nothing even remotely approximating a secret.
“Well, no, but—”
“You’re not a normal person,” he continues.
Stiles deflates. “No, you’re right, you’re totally right, you’re a creepy hot alpha werewolf stalker and I’m a spastic human teenager with a boatload of self-esteem issues—”
“I am going to kiss you now,” Derek informs him calmly, because otherwise he has to hear Stiles go on about his many perceived flaws and that’s kind of a downer.
For once, Stiles closes his mouth so quickly his teeth clack.
Derek takes his time coaxing it open again, one hand cradling Stiles’s neck. They’re both a little clumsy at first, but Derek’s not complaining and his senses tell him Stiles isn’t either. When he pulls away, he can’t resist the impulse to slide his nose along Stiles’s, one last declaration of intent.
Or as much of one as he can get away with without breaking the law.
“So.” Stiles blinks at him from several inches away. “Property of Derek Hale? You sure you’re happy with your purchase? No refunds or exchanges.”
Derek sighs. “I should be asking you that.”
“Are you kidding, I worked my ass off for this. Screw that. You are stuck with me, Sourwolf. You better learn to deal with it.”
Well, okay, then. Looks like Derek has a house to pee on.