Archive of Our Own

Derek made everyone else go home. Sent them to their safe places to lick their wounds and heal. Most of them would be fine by morning, even with alpha wounds slowing the process because almost all of the humans had been smart enough to stay the fuck out of the way. None of them were bleeding in his kitchen now. None except for one idiotic, stubborn, fricking brain-dead human that he shoved into one of the chairs in the kitchen of the apartment the pack made him get. It wasn’t his home, not really, but it worked alright at being his territory. Pack territory.

For now it worked.

“Okay, that hurt,” Stiles protested. “Hello, injured human here.”

“And who’s fault is that? You are such an idiot.” Derek shoved his fingers through his hair. “You don’t want to be turned, fine, that’s your choice. But you need to start acting like it. You can’t rush into things like this and will you get that through your thick fricking skull already!”

He was yelling and he knew it wasn’t fair of him to. It wasn’t Stiles’ fault that he was angry, always so angry. But the smell of Stiles' blood was still thick in his nostrils, soaked into both their clothes, still too close to Derek’s skin for him to be able to stand it.

“Will you back off?” Stiles countered, eyes hot and snapping as he shoved himself to his feet. “I’m fine, okay? It’s a couple of claw marks and some stitches.”

Derek grabbed Stiles by the arm and jerked him forward, giving him a shake for good measure. “For God’s sake, Stiles, stop putting yourself in harm’s way. I could have healed that. You could have died. Do I have to put you over my knee like a five year old for you to get that?”

In the heat of the moment, Derek didn’t really realize what he’d said until Stiles blinked at him and his scent went dark, sharp… aroused?

“What was that?” Stiles asked, his voice low. “What the actual hell was that, now?”

Derek swallowed, hard. “You heard me.”

Stiles ran his tongue over his teeth, eyebrows doing some sort of insane jump before he turned and braced himself on his hands on the table. “I fucking dare you.”

“Sometimes you are the stupidest person I’ve ever met,” Derek said, his lungs suddenly tight.

Then he stepped in close and brought the palm of his hand down hard on Stiles’ ass.

Stiles’ heart jumped, shuddered, and kicked into a race. The smell of his arousal, dark and sharp and thick, filled Derek’s head.

“Kinky little shit,” Derek said thickly, and moved closer, pressing his thigh between Stiles’ legs. “Are you getting off on this?”

The kid swallowed, the sound loud as a gunshot. “Dunno. Hit me again and let’s find out.”

Derek braced one hand on the table next to Stiles’, and wrapped his other arm around the kid’s waist, pulling him back tight and close. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” he ground out through his teeth, pressing his thigh up against Stiles’ erection. “You’re such an idiot.”

Stiles shrugged. “So I’ve heard.”

Derek slid his hand down Stiles’ stomach, stroked his fingers underneath the T-shirt Scott had given Stiles to replace his ruined ones, pressed his palm against a straining zipper.

“If you wanna stop, just tell me,” Derek said into Stiles’ hair. He pressed his mouth to a cut on the back of Stiles’ skull, not really a kiss but too close to call it anything else. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I know,” Stiles snapped in reply. “I’m not actually stupid.”

“You’re – you are infuriating,” he muttered against the back of the kid’s neck as he fumbled at the button and zipper of Stiles’ jeans. “And you wear too many layers.”

“You mean jeans and underwear, you caveman?” Stiles asked on a groan as Derek’s hand slid into his pants.

“No.” Derek wrapped his hand around Stiles’ dick. “The jackets and hoodies and shirts and t-shirts. Too many of them, not enough of your skin. And this shirt smells like Scott.”

He slipped a claw out on his free hand and sliced through the neck and shoulder of the T-shirt, cutting right through the sleeve. When Stiles’ skin was bared, he buried his face against the back of one pale shoulder, breathing his scent in until his head spun. Stiles was safe. Bruised and a little bloody and probably loaded with new nightmare fuel, but alive and safe, his ass pressed against Derek’s crotch and his cock thick and hot in Derek’s hand.

The kid shuddered and leaned back into him, arching up into Derek’s strokes. “Okay, okay, I feel like I should warn you that – that there have been werewolves camped out in my house for a week and my stamina is probably not the best right now.”

“That’s okay.” Derek rubbed his jaw against Stiles’ shoulder, liking the way his skin turned red. It was a nice match with the deep red flush of his cock. “I want you to.”

“Yeah, can you just – please can you – yeah,” Stiles sighed, his head tipping back.

Which, okay, he wasn’t sure what exactly he’d done, but Derek could run with this. He let himself bite down on Stiles’ shoulder, let himself put enough pressure with blunt, human teeth on the skin to leave a mark that’d bruise, and –

Stiles moaned and jerked forward into Derek’s hand, spilling hot into Derek’s palm.

Kinky little shit indeed, Derek thought. He held onto the kid for a long few moments, stroking him through the last of his orgasm, and a moment after, until his heart didn’t sound quite so much like a jackhammer. Then he stepped back from Stiles. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Stiles panted, wincing as he tucked himself back into his pants. “Yeah, I’m good. Ah, over-sensitive. You gonna kiss me or was that just a handjob and no eye contact thing?"

For a moment, Derek wished Stiles had hair long enough to grab. He settled for wrapping his fingers around the back of Stiles’ skull, fingertips pressing too hard and unable to help it. He fucking tasted Stiles’ exhale, the stupid grape bubblegum he’d been chewing earlier, the disgusting energy drinks he’d been guzzling, the blood from where his cheek had been cut inside his mouth. After a second of surprise, Stiles kissed him back and it was clumsy and a little messy and Derek wondered how big of a mistake he’d made this time, how many firsts he was stealing.

Then Stiles made a noise and caught Derek by the jaw, tilting his face at a better angle and Derek forgot how to think because holy hell, Stiles could kiss and when had he learned that?

Stiles pulled back, a grin sneaking onto his mouth. “Yeah, that wasn’t half bad, was it? How do you feel about round two?”

Derek slid his hand around the back of Stiles’ neck. “I want to fuck you.”

He knew he was probably being too blunt, but he’d always been blunt. He knew how to play the games. Knew how to flirt, knew how to seduce, knew how to use his body as another kind of weapon. But he’d never enjoyed them, couldn’t ever bring himself to do it as a way to pick people up. Blunt was better. No lies, no pretence, nothing but what they both wanted.

Stiles rubbed a thumb over his own lower lip, his mouth reddened and way too pretty under his touch. “Yeah. Tell me you got a bed and lube and I’m in.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Well, I have a table and a bottle of olive oil.”

Stiles made an indignant noise. “You seriously are a caveman. That better have been a joke or I’m not letting you anywhere near my ass.”

He smiled slowly and stalked towards Stiles, rather enjoying his widening eyes the closer Derek got.

The way the kid squawked when Derek threw him over his shoulder was nothing less than satisfying.

Stubble rasped across the back of his shoulder, rubbing over already raw skin. “Stiles.”

“Mm. What?”

Stiles felt a kiss press into his skin, then the warmth of Derek’s body moved away. “You should get going. You can shower here if you want. I’m going for a run. You okay to drive?”

His ass was still aching. He still had lube and come inside of him. He was still coming down off the goddamn afterglow – and Derek was kicking him out.

Stiles nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine. Does it matter what I use?”

Derek pulled on a pair of pants. “No, just use whatever’s in there. Watch out for Erica’s stuff, though, it all stinks.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled. What was the protocol when your not-quite-friend, not-quite-Alpha, apparent one night stand left and made it clear you needed to leave, too?

“Grab a shirt if you want,” Derek said. “Uh, and if Scott bitches, just say it tore and I’ll buy him a new one.”

When he left, Stiles sat up and reached for his underwear. He had stubble burn everywhere. The backs of his shoulders, the inside of his thighs, low on one side of his ass where he was pretty sure he had a decent hickey going on, too. There was come and lube in him and on him and maybe still a little blood from the claws he’d taken somewhere in there and he probably stunk to high heaven.

And he just wanted to go home, crawl into bed and possibly cry a little.

He jerked his boxers and jeans on and left without a shirt. There was a hoodie in the backseat of his Jeep and he put it on only because with his luck he’d get pulled over and it’d be a hell of thing to explain to his dad why he was driving around with no shirt and covered in sex bruises.

Stiles wasn’t entirely sure how he got home. Okay, he knew he drove there, but almost everything was a blur right up until he fell into his own shower. He scalded himself with the hottest water he could stand, scrubbed until his bruises throbbed and everything was red.

He was an idiot. Of course it was just sex. Just angry sex or we’re alive, let’s fuck, sex. Stupid, ridiculous to assume that it was anything else. Derek was a twenty-three year old, bundle of issues, amazingly gorgeous werewolf. Stiles was an eighteen year old recently still mostly a virgin spastic nerd with plenty of his own issues. He knew that, he’d always known that.

Stiles groaned and turned the water off. He dressed in clean pajamas, then sat in the middle of the bed and… stared. It was a fascinating wall, it really was.

His window slid open and his heart jerked. He fisted his hands in the comforter, held his breath. It wasn’t Derek. It wasn’t going to be Derek. Stupid idea, stupid thought, and he needed to just get it out of his head before–

“Hey,” Scott said when he saw Stiles.

Stiles tried to smile. “Dude. My dad’s working. You could have just knocked. You know, like on the front door.”

Scott shrugged. “I didn’t want to wake you up if you were sleeping.”

“Oh. Right. Thanks."

Scott frowned, his eyes sharpening. “What, no crack about me taking lessons at the Derek Hale school of creeping?”

Stiles made a face and pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. “I’m tired, okay? It’s been a long-ass day.”

Scott crossed the room, grabbing Stiles’ desk chair and dragging it over next to the bed before dropping into it. He had The Look on his face, the “Did you take your meds?”, “When was the last time you slept?”, “I miss your mom, too,” Look.

Stiles kind of loved and hated that Look in equal measures.

“Are you okay?” Scott asked.

“Fine.”

Scott shook his head. “Your hair still looks wet and I can smell the soap on you. You just showered and it’s been like three hours since you were supposed to be home. And you’re being too quiet. Tell me what’s wrong. For real this time.”

Stiles pulled his knees up towards his chest, wrapping his arms around them. “No, it’s just – I’m fine, it – I had sex with Derek.”

“Oh,” Scott said quietly. “Okay. Stiles. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Stiles pressed his cheek against his knee. “I guess.”

“You know that if he hurt you, you can tell me, right?”

“Oh my God, yes, Scott, I know.” He made a face. “It’s not like that. I wanted to and everything. I just… he left after. But I’m fine. I get it, it was just sex and I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have…”

“Shouldn’t have what?”

Stiles muttered a curse and flopped down face first into his pillows. “Thought that it was how things would start. I can’t – I thought, okay, maybe not exactly how I pictured it with the whole – never mind, you don’t need to know that. I was just wrong. I don’t want to talk about it.”

He knew how stupid he’d been. It wasn’t like there hadn’t been anyone at all before. There’d been girls and boys he’d kissed at parties that he didn’t know, but wanted to be normal. Then, Jenny, who he dated for three months and had gone down on one night when they were supposed to be watching a movie because he’d always wanted to try it and her face had been absolutely beautiful when she came. After her, casual dates, casual kissing, never the same person twice because he’d been lonely but he’d almost gotten beautiful, amazing Jenny killed and he couldn’t do that again, so he’d made it so he didn’t care about anyone longer than a night, so that nobody could be used against him because none of them were special.

Somehow, that’d only made him lonelier.

For a little while, there’d been Isaac. Isaac who had snuck into his room at night, Isaac who had slept curled half into a ball in Stiles’ arms, who had whimpered in his sleep unless Stiles was touching him, Isaac who’d gently held him down and made him come with his hot mouth, who still teared up when he took the pain from sick animals at Deaton’s.

Isaac, who’d sat down on his bed one day, and said it was time for them both to stop pretending they both didn’t want someone else.

He should have known, Stiles thought, shoving his face harder into the pillow. He knew Derek, he should have known better than to expect anything.

“Okay,” Scott said gently, too gently. “Let me text my mom and tell her where I am and then we can watch a movie or something.”

“Sure.”

Scott reached over and rubbed the back of Stiles’ head. “I’ll make you waffles in the morning if you want.”

“The real kind or the frozen kind?”

“The real kind, duh.”

Stiles sighed. “Okay.”

He thought he should be allowed to mope for one night. What with the mauling, the whole de-virginization thing, the part where he thought there was going to be a shiny new relationship in his future, but instead he got a drive of shame. And apparently a brand new kink. It was a lot of new information for one night.

Also his ass was still sore.

When Derek was a kid, Laura threw him into a tree and splintered it so bad that their mother made them cut it down for firewood. Okay, maybe he’d admit it was payback for him shoving her off a roof, even though she’d done it first, but the point was, he’d grown up a werewolf. He could take a hit, and had taken many over the course of his life. There'd even been normal things, like the time a deer jumped out in front of the car he was driving - his mom's, he remembered with an ache, and how embarrassed he'd been about that - and he'd been too startled to control his instincts and hit a tree. Ended up with a tree branch through his left shoulder and his dad had made him restain the entire porch because his mother had cried.

However, the pipe to the back of the head was actually a first.

“What the fucking hell, Scott?” Derek touched the back of his head and, yeah, that was blood. Fuck. “Are you insane?”

Scott dropped the pipe. “You’ll heal.”

“So you decided to hit me over the head with a pipe just because I’ll heal? Thanks, that’s really nice of you.”

“No, I hit you with a pipe because punching you probably wouldn’t have worked as well.” Scott frowned. “Honestly, I’m a little surprised you didn’t hear me walking up behind you.”

The wound itched as it knitted together, and Derek made a face at the blood on his hand. “I was distracted. You might remember this used to be my home and my entire family died here? What do you want?”

“Basically just to hit you in the head. The pipe happened to be handy." Scott glanced at the mess around them. "You have an apartment. Why are you always here? This is a horrible place for you to always be, dude."

"Then leave," Derek muttered.

“Do you even want to know why I hit you?”

Derek rolled his eyes, probing gingerly at the back of his head again. At least it'd healed already. It was a pain in the ass washing blood of out of hair and head wounds always bled like a bitch until they healed. “Let me guess. Something to do with Allison.”

“No, dumbass. You hurt Stiles.”

“What?” He dropped his hand to stare at Scott. “I didn’t – he was fine when – what’s wrong with him?”

Deaton had had to give the kid stitches to close the worst claw mark. Scott had held his hand while Stiles pretended it didn’t hurt. If he’d pulled a stitch during – Derek would have noticed. He would have seen it, smelled the blood, he would have noticed. He knew - he knew he’d left marks. Bites, largely, because he liked leaving them and Stiles had shuddered when he bit down and pulled him closer. But he’d thought – he’d been careful, because Stiles was hurting, wasn’t as strong was him, was human and breakable and he’d been careful.

“Not physically,” Scott said. “Although I don’t even want to think about the reason he put on like six shirts before breakfast.” He sighed and held out a hand. “Get off the ground. I feel like an idiot standing like this.”

Derek shoved himself to his feet, ignoring Scott’s hand until he dropped it. “What did I do, then?”

Scott frowned. “Are you really that stupid?”

Apparently. He settled for a glare.

Scott rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “He thought you knew. I thought you knew and were ignoring it because of the age difference or the fact that you’d be a horrible person to bring home to your parents or you were straight or whatever.

“Ignoring what, Scott?”

Scott looked at him like he was an idiot. “The fact that he’s been crazy about you for almost two years.”

“What?”

Scott shook his head. “I’m not here to debate how Stiles feels about you. Like I said, I pretty much just came here to hit you.”

“Congratulations on your accomplishment,” Derek muttered. “I – what does he think happened that – that hurt him?”

“Uh, you fucked him and then kicked him out? Haven’t spoken to him in a week, didn’t make sure he got home okay when he was hurt, made him sad and quiet because you didn’t make it clear that you just wanted sex?” Scott sighed. “That’s what happened, Derek.”

“No. No, it’s not – it wasn’t – that wasn’t what I wanted.”

“What the hell did you want then?”

“I wanted him to stop getting hurt,” Derek blurted, then stumbled back a step. He hadn’t meant to say that. He wasn’t – yeah, okay, it was true, but he didn’t say things like that, and especially not to Scott. “I – I have to–”

He broke down and allowed himself  to run. To escape.

Of course, everything went to Hell in a handbasket. The other pack attacked again, harder than ever, and the only reason he and Isaac survived was because of Melissa McCall beating the ever-loving crap out of one of the werewolves with a baseball bat wrapped in wolfsbane and barbed wire. Which, yeah, Derek really hoped he never got on her bad side because that shit looked painful. Why did they even have a bat? Nobody in that house played baseball. He almost wouldn’t have been surprised to see a lacrosse stick instead. Not that he had ever understood this town’s fascination with lacrosse.

And maybe he should give more credit to Stiles. Apparently the kid had been the one to realize something was wrong when Isaac was late to meet him and Scott, the one to come up with the plan in the end, the one who had tiny nicks and slices on his palms from the barbed wire.

“You should have worn gloves,” Scott said across the room from where he was taping up Stiles’ hands. “You’re gonna get some mutant rash.”

“Dude, I was working on the fly while Lydia drove my Jeep. Which, by the way, she’s not allowed to do ever again. She almost killed an old lady crossing the street. Freaking terrifying, man.” The kid grinned, too wide and a little shaky. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Scott finished wrapping the bandages and reached up to rub his palm over Stiles’ hair. “Next time can we try to keep my mother out of it?”

“Hey, it wasn’t my idea.” Stiles frowned. “You think I want your mom getting hurt? You know – you know better, idiot.”

Scott rubbed Stiles head again. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s just…”

“You’re a pacifist,” Stiles said.

It meant something to them, Derek could tell, some inner joke or secret that he wasn’t privy to, because Scott grinned back.

“And I will be a pacifist until I die,” Scott replied, then waited. Derek wasn’t prone to dog metaphors – they’d gotten old twenty years ago, thanks, Stiles – but the expression on Scott’s face reminded Derek almost painfully of a puppy waiting for a ball to be thrown.

“Or until someone threatens your mother,” Stiles finished, the smile back. “Yeah. I know.”

Derek shoved off from the wall, staggering slightly before he caught himself, and crossed the room to them. “Scott. Isaac’s waking up. Can he stay with you tonight?”

Erica, Allison and Lydia were having whatever teenaged girls called it when they all crashed in the same place. Derek really, really, really didn’t want to know how those three had bonded, but he had no doubt that they were probably the safest of any of them. Honestly, he was slightly afraid of them himself. With Isaac and Scott under the same roof, they and Mrs. McCall should be safe for the night, even with Isaac still healing. Melissa could always get Stiles to line the house with mountain ash if she wanted.

As for the Stilinskis, Boyd could crash on their couch for the night, keep an eye on Stiles and his father, and Stiles was damn well going to ring his own house if Derek had any say about it.

Scott frowned at Derek, always so suspicious of him these days. “I… yeah, of course. Stiles–”

“Boyd’s gonna stay with him and his dad.” Derek rubbed his forehead. “Uh… this way, your mom can keep an eye on Isaac, too, just in case. Did Erica take my car?”

“Yup,” Stiles said, popping the P.

He sighed. “Just tell me she didn’t hotwire it.”

“Nah, she stole the keys out of your clothes while you were off running around in the woods naked like the weirdo you are,” Stiles said, grinning a little. “C’mon, I’ll give you a ride… somewhere. Wherever.”

Derek hesitated, then very carefully asked, “You sure?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Stiles turned and grabbed his backpack off the floor, wincing a little when the strap dug into his hands. “Scott, you want me to swing by later and ring your house?”

Derek spent the rest of their conversation debating with himself on the merits of reaching over and taking the backpack from Stiles. It’d be the nice thing to do, he knew, because Stiles’ hands hurt and he’d fought hard alongside them and was tired, but Derek didn’t do nice things for Stiles.

His own mother would be disappointed in him for that, he thought. His mother had raised them to be polite, to act as human as possible, yes, but also just to be nice. She’d been fond of saying that the world was full of crappy things already, Derek, you don’t need to add to them and for the love of God, quit scowling at your sister, your face is going to stick like that. These days, it sometimes felt like all the good parts of him had been burned away… And, anyway, did Stiles even want Derek to do nice things for him? Or anything? Even if he didn’t, it was still something Derek should do, wasn’t it?

He argued with himself for another moment before grabbing the backpack and yanking it off Stiles’ shoulder. With, uh, possibly a little too much force if the way the kid stumbled was any indication.

Feeling the tips of his ears burn, Derek steadied Stiles, then headed for the door. So much for being nice.

“You’re not driving my Jeep,” Stiles shouted at his back. “My baby’s had enough trauma tonight.”

He may or may not have flipped the bird over his shoulder.

Stiles climbed into the Jeep after Derek had been waiting for a few minutes. “Hey. Dude. How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” After a second, Derek dropped his head against the window. “Tired.”

“Yeah, you look it,” Stiles said as he started the engine, but his voice was soft, warm, not the normal tone at all for something that bordered on insulting. “Do you know where you wanna go?”

“I – the apartment, I guess.”

He wanted to go home, but his home was a condemned burnt out shell full of ash and rot, and he’d gotten tired of being constantly damp in the subway station. At least the apartment was warm and dry.

Stiles just nodded.

Derek… he would never, ever admit it, but he dozed off somewhere between pulling away from Deaton’s office and the Jeep stopping, only sitting upright again when Stiles tapped the brakes and everything got bright.

“What?” he asked, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand. And… yeah, that wasn’t a complete sentence, was it?

Stiles snorted. “Man, you are out of it. I – hold on.”

Derek watched as Stiles leaned out the open window of the Jeep – drive through, his mind provided belatedly – and ordered several hamburgers and a batch of curly fries.

Then he glanced over at Derek. “You want something to drink?”

“I have no money on me whatsoever.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “I figured. Could I get three bottles of water to go with that?”

Stiles paid with a credit card clipped to the visor – “It’s prepaid, dude, nobody’s gonna get far on the two hundred emergency dollars my dad makes me keep on it,” – lied to the guy who handed them their food – “Yeah, my buddy’s making a movie for drama class. I get murdered in it. He murders me,” – and handed the bag of food over to Derek.

“The fries are for me,” he said, dropping them in the cupholder as he drove away from the restaurant. “Because I deserve them. Dude, go ahead, eat. Jeep’s gotta be washed anyways. And those are all yours.”

Derek unwrapped a burger and held it out towards Stiles. “Trade you a bite for a fry.”

Stiles glanced at him suspiciously, then shrugged. “Sure, what the hell?”

He left the car drift to a crawl on an empty road and leaned towards Derek, taking a bite out of the burger that had Derek blinking in surprise and slightly afraid for his fingers. How the hell did the kid manage to fit so much food in his mouth?

“Thanks,” Stiles said through the mouthful. “That’s not bad.”

“You want the rest?” he asked reluctantly. It was polite and there were enough that he could share. Although convincing his stomach of that might take some doing considering it was currently trying to introduce itself to his spine.

Stiles laughed. “No, I’m good. Go crazy. Just not on my fries. One.”

He stole three just to make the kid flail. Then Stiles drove aimlessly while Derek ate his way through four double cheeseburgers – with bacon – and drank a full bottle of water.

It was only when he started to clean up the remains of his food that he looked out the window and frowned. “The woods? You have some sort of special attachment to this place, Stiles?"

Stiles shrugged, turning and pulling into a clearing before killing the engine. “I don’t know. I was just driving nowhere.”

Derek snorted, tossing the take-out bag towards the garbage can in the back of the Jeep. “Isn’t there where your classmates normally make out? Which is a really stupid idea in this town.”

“Yeah, seriously. ’Cause avoiding that guy with the hook isn’t hard enough.”

Derek laughed for the first time… all night? Possibly all week. He couldn’t remember. “Yeah.” Then, impulsively, “Hey, come here.”

“What?”

“Come here,” he said again, more slowly, but certain of himself now.

It was a stupid idea, but he grabbed the kid anyway, hauling him over the divide between the seats. He, uh, might have accidentally banged Stiles’ head into the roof but he wrapped his palm over the spot to keep it from happening again and, eventually, he had Stiles exactly where he wanted him.

Straddling Derek’s lap.

“What the hell are you doing?” Stiles asked, his eyes ridiculously wide.

Derek slid his palms over Stiles’ neck. He just… he needed Stiles to hold still for a minute, to look at Derek, to… to let him explain. “Your dad worries. When you’re late. And then you feel guilty.”

“What?”

He swallowed, and slowly, carefully, pulled Stiles forward to brush their mouths together. “That night, when I woke you up to go home, you smelled amazing, like you and me and I wanted you again, wanted you to stay, but it was – I could tell you were sore and you really did need to get home.”

Stiles blushed, blotches of red appearing on his cheeks.

Derek took a slow breath. “I wanted to run to – because I was going crazy. You make me crazy. I just needed to… sometimes I just need to run to… settle? I guess. I don’t – it’s not a human thing, not really. I don’t know how to explain it.”

The kid shivered, but kept quiet.

“You didn’t text me,” Derek said. “And you didn’t call me or come by. You were avoiding me. I thought you changed your mind.”

“Well,” Stiles said. “Then you’re an idiot on top of being an asshole.”

“Stiles–”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Stiles said, then shoved his fingers into Derek’s hair, yanked until Derek’s head tilted back, tugged until Derek was at just the angle that Stiles wanted, and kissed Derek like it was the last thing he’d ever get to do. Derek could taste the anger on Stiles’ mouth, feel it make him bold and fearless. His hands moved roughly in Derek’s hair, his hips ground down too hard against Derek’s and everything was just –

Derek pulled back, framing Stiles’ face in hands. “Hey. Hey, hey, hey. C’mon, not like this.”

Stiles pulled back enough to stare at him, blinking those huge brown eyes. “What?”

“Don’t be angry.” Derek swallowed, reaching up to gently rub his thumb against Stiles' wet, red bottom lip. “I don’t want you to be angry. Don’t be angry.”

He felt Stiles begin to argue with him, to claim that he had every right to be angry – which he did, Derek knew he did. He didn’t want to deny Stiles his anger… he just didn’t want to be hate-fucked, not tonight.

Not after yet another night when he could have lost everything all over again.

Something in his face must have tipped Stiles off on his thoughts. The kid took a slow breath and deliberately relaxed.

“I’m not – yeah, no, I’m still angry,” Stiles said. “You could have called me or, you know, actually explained what you wanted.”

“I want you not to get yourself killed,” Derek said all in one breath, pulling Stiles in by the waist, tight in close against him. “Just stop almost dying, I can’t handle it, I can’t – I just can’t.”

Stiles frowned. “I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t – you don’t heal,” Derek said desperately. He touched the place on Stiles’ side where he’d been hurt, bloodied, torn, because of Derek, for Derek. “You bleed and if it’s bad enough, you bleed until you bleed to death. Your bones break, Stiles, and they have to put plaster and bandages on you for weeks. Even – your head probably still hurts, doesn’t it?”

Stiles shrugged. “I’ve done worse. You’ve done worse to me.”

Shoved him into a door in his own bedroom to threaten him, slammed his head into the steering wheel of this very car, slapped his ass in the kitchen on Derek’s apartment in a way that wasn’t safe, sane and consensual like it was supposed to be when you wanted roughness. Derek knew. He knew very well that the way he treated Stiles wasn’t right, wasn’t appropriate, wasn’t okay.

His parents would have been so pissed that he treated a human that way. They’d taught him very well not to hurt humans, taught him how easily he could break them and that they couldn’t handle playing hard like Laura, like his werewolf cousins, taught him that it was never okay to use his strength against someone in a relationship, werewolf or human.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I have. And I could have – you could have – damn it, Stiles, just don’t die on me. Please don’t die.”

Then he pulled Stiles down and took his mouth, too hard and too rough with need and fear and things he couldn’t name, couldn’t stand to even think about, until Stiles framed his face with long, cool fingers and steadied him.

He pulled back a little when Stiles forgot how to breathe, moving his mouth down the pale line of Stiles’ throat, finding his pulse easily, felt it against his mouth pounding hard and fast beneath fragile skin. He left a mark before he realized what he was doing, sucking a bruise into Stiles’ skin in plain, open sight where anyone could see it and there was no hiding it.

“Oh my God, that’s going to be an awkward thing to explain to people,” Stiles said with a rough laugh. “You’re so lucky I’m not jailbait anymore. And you should – I think you should fuck me. Right now.”

“I – Stiles.” He shook his head like that would clear it. “I don’t have anything. But I could–”

“Oh oh oh oh, wait!” Stiles flailed, twisting and nearly falling off Derek’s lap. Derek muttered a low curse and hooked an arm around Stiles’ waist to keep him as still as possibly. “Hold on, hold on.”

That might not have been one of the best ideas he’d ever had, he thought vaguely when Stiles’ ass pressed against him. He groaned, pressing his forehead against the back of Stiles’ shoulder. The kid was going to kill him.

Stiles dug through the glove compartment, mumbling a steady stream of curses under his breath until he found what he was looking for. He slapped the glove compartment cover shut and wiggled around to face Derek again, waving a plastic bag.

“You want… strawberry, grape, banana, orange, mint – who the hell wants mint in their ass? Wouldn’t that tingle like crazy? Who comes up with these things?” Stiles frowned at one of the packs in his hand. “Wow, Coke-flavoured. I feel like that’s an easy way to accidentally encourage that urban legend about not getting pregnant if you–”

“Please do not say it.” Derek dug around in the bag. “Anything unflavoured? And why do you have twenty packs of lube in your car?”

“Oh, there was this safe sex ed thing a while ago. There’s condoms and dental dams and stuff, too. And then I went to Planned Parenthood one time with Allison and I broke one and felt really guilty so I bought a bunch and threw them in there. Here.” He grabbed a pack and tossed it into the cupholder. “Unflavoured. Okay, it’s your dick, you pick a condom.”

Derek glanced at Stiles, then dug out the first somewhat-normal condom he found. They hadn’t last time – he couldn’t transfer diseases – but he wasn’t going to be a jerk about it. He could honestly care yes. Just… “Yeah?”

Stiles shrugged. “We’re in the middle of the woods. Less clean-up is probably a good thing. Now shut up and get naked.”

Derek would not admit how much undressing Stiles distracted him. His own clothes weren’t a big deal to get rid of, just yanking his shirt over his head, really, because Stiles didn’t seem intent on getting off his lap.

But undressing Stiles? Stripping him down layer by layer until all that was left was pale skin, lean muscle and Stiles? That was different. It was like he couldn’t keep his mouth from searching out the moles dotted along Stiles’ neck, to keep himself from biting at his collarbone, didn’t want to stop his hands from pressing down the line of the his slim back – not if Stiles didn’t want him to stop.

However. Actually getting Stiles out of his jeans in the confined space of the Jeep’s front seat was no easy task. The kid was too leggy for it, half-falling into the driver’s seat to wiggle out of them and complaining loudly about the gearshift stabbing him in the back.

“You are a pain in the ass, Stiles. You really are.” Derek ran a light hand over Stiles’ hip, brushing his thumb across the soft skin just under the hem of the underwear that hugged Stiles’ skin way too close for Derek’s comfort. “Do you have any particular attachment to these?”

The kid’s eyes went wide. “No, don’t you–”

Derek grinned, letting one nail lengthen into a claw, and sliced clean through the leg of Stiles’ boxer-briefs. Stiles sighed as he settled back onto his knees astride Derek, shoving the remains of his underwear down and off his other leg.

“You can’t destroy whatever clothing I’m wearing whenever we have sex,” Stiles said, reaching for the buckle of Derek’s belt. “People are going to start judging me for driving around town half-naked.”

Derek laughed, and wasn’t that strange? That he could laugh during sex, that it could be silly and fun, not a dirty little secret, not just an itch to scratch.

But he lost the smile when Stiles pulled him out of his pants, firmly fisting Derek’s cock. He was fully hard now, blood turning the head dark red where precome leaked from him, and breathing was not as easy as it’d been a minute ago.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, his heart beginning to race loud enough that Derek couldn’t begin to ignore it. “Yeah, that’s nice, isn’t it? Okay, yeah, come on. I want to. Now. Do you want to? I want to.”

It was cute, Derek thought absently as he slicked up his fingers, how Stiles seemed to forget how to talk after a while. For somebody who was so sarcastic, so smart, it was funny how he’d lose the ability to form complete sentences when Derek made him fall apart.

Stiles gasped and dropped his forehead onto Derek’s shoulder when Derek slid one finger carefully into him. “Oh…”

Derek went still. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathed against his throat. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just… it’s been a while. Weird angle with… scabs pulled when I tried. Stitches. I – I’m good.”

Derek stroked Stiles’ back as he worked another slow finger inside. “One day, I am going to get you in my bed with nobody around to interrupt and I’m going to do this for as long as I can.”

Stiles shuddered, mouthing at Derek’s collarbone.

Derek rubbed his jaw against the kid’s temple. “I’m gonna hold you still so you can’t squirm away and fuck you with my fingers for hours til you’re dripping with lube and shivering and shaking. Gonna make you come from nothing but my fingers inside you, gonna take you apart and make you crazy.”

“Please do,” Stiles muttered.

“I will.” Derek slid his fingers free and lined his cock into place. “It might be – you do it this time, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” Stiles said. “But okay.”

He slid slowly down onto Derek’s cock, teeth digging into his bottom lip, one tight, hot inch at a time, until they were pressed hip to hip and Derek had to bite down on Stiles’ shoulder to keep from coming, right then and there, like he was sixteen again.

“Yeah,” Stiles said breathlessly as his heart pounded a staccato beat. “Oh God.”

Derek pulled Stiles back by one shoulder enough to see his face. “Hey, wait, you good?”

Stiles leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Derek’s. “Good,” he managed, digging long fingers into Derek’s shoulders. “So good. Yeah. Wow. Sex. Yeah. Oh, fuck me.”

Derek huffed a noise that might have been a laugh if he hadn’t been having trouble breathing himself. “I kinda am.”

“Yeah,” Stiles repeated, breathless. His eyes drifted shut, dark eyelashes fluttering against pale skin. “Okay. I’m gonna…”

The kid began to roll his hips and Derek couldn’t resist the urge to kiss him, not with his mouth bitten red and swollen just a little. And he was a little too rough at first, a little clumsy, a little… a little lost until Stiles curled the fingers of one hand around his jaw. He lost track of where one kiss ended and the next began, lost track of everything except the hot, tight heat of Stiles’ body, the slick slide of mouths, the soft sounds Stiles made each time he came down on Derek just right.

Stiles pulled away, pressing his face into Derek’s neck. “Holy God.”

Derek pressed his fingertips into Stiles’ spine, liking the way the muscles twitched and flexed under his skin. “Still good?”

“Ngh.” Stiles swallowed, nodding. “Good angle. Really good. Really, really good.”

Derek hid a grin against Stiles’ shoulder, let himself tilt his head enough to bare his neck enough to make it easy for the kid to press his face there. It wasn’t an easy instinct to fight, but he wasn’t actually an animal. And Stiles had done this last time, buried his face in Derek’s neck and held on for dear life. He liked it, liked that Stiles lost himself, like it almost as much as the shocked noise Stiles made when Derek wrapped his fingers around Stiles’ cock.

“Yeah,” Stiles said into Derek’s skin. “Oh my God, you have hands.”

The Jeep was too small for this, really. Derek took up enough space on his own and Stiles was barely an inch shorter than him, shoulders broader than they seemed when Stiles was dressed in all his layers, long strong legs and Derek kind of just wanted to find a flat surface to pin Stiles to and take him – but it was good like this, even if it was making him crazy.

Derek exhaled against Stiles’ shoulder and began to thrust up as Stiles ground down on him. One day when they were in a bed with time and room to move around, Stiles could do this again for as long as he wanted, but there wasn’t enough room for Stiles to really ride Derek without smashing his head on the roof.

And these short, stuttering grinds down onto him, more fiction and pressure than anything – they were going to make him insane between the pressure and the tight heat of Stiles’ body and Stiles smelling like he’s almost there already. His cock, big like his overgrown hands and feet, was hot and hard in Derek’s hand as he stroked, leaking already and Derek really needed to get Stiles into a bed soon and suck him off for hours. Maybe let Stiles fuck him if Stiles wanted to ’cause he hadn’t done that in ages and Stiles’ cock inside him would be –

Stiles bit down hard on Derek’s neck and Derek came, hard and unexpected, gasping from it before he could stop the sound.

“Oh,” Stiles said, his voice wrecked. “You – that was okay? I did that, didn’t I? I did that. I… oh god.”

Stiles licked over the place he’d bitten and came shuddering and arching on Derek’s lap, spilling hot streaks over Derek’s hand and stomach.

Derek would never admit to how much he liked this part. When Stiles was still limp and happy with orgasm and Derek could just… touch him. Touch earlobes and the dip of his spine, trace the moles on Stiles’ face and neck with his fingertips, hold him without the kid wiggling or flailing with too much energy.

Eventually Stiles pulled away, rambling something about how come “turns into fricking glue, and I like the skin on my stomach,” and Derek wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know how exactly Stiles discovered that. Stiles dug a pack of wet wipes out of the glove compartment and they spent the next few minutes cleaning up and getting dressed.

Stiles cursed at his jeans. “Hey, you hear anything around?”

“Rabbits, mice, a couple birds and a deer. Why, you hungry again?”

The look the kid gives him is totally, totally worth it.

“No,” Stiles said. “You wanna eat Thumper and Bambi? You barbarian.”

Shaking his head, Stiles opened the passenger door and half-fell out of the car. Derek watched him get dressed outside, the kid shivering and cursing, and he was more amused than he cared to admit.

“Watch your fingers,” Stiles said finally before closing the car door.

Derek was warm and sated, content to watch Stiles drive again without speaking. He liked the way Stiles smelled right now, like him, like his skin and sex and them. Stiles really needed to smell like that all the time, smell like him.

He was almost surprised when Stiles pulled up to his apartment building.

“Thanks for the ride,” he said, taking his seatbelt off.

“Thanks for the orgasm,” Stiles replied with a grin.

Derek snorted. “You’re an idiot.”

He tempered the insult by leaning over and kissing Stiles’ idiotic mouth. Stiles smiled into the kiss, and that didn’t really work but was sweet.

“Go straight home,” Derek said. “You look exhausted. Get some sleep.”

He was halfway to the front door when Stiles called his name. He turned back to the car in time to catch the water bottle Stiles threw at his head.

“See ya around, asshole,” Stiles said.

Derek rolled his eyes. “Go home, idiot!”

Stiles was a little bit tipsy.

Okay, maybe he was more than a little tipsy. But it was Scott’s eighteenth birthday and they’d been celebrating. It was practically in the bro handbook. And he wasn’t the only one, either. None of the werewolves had been able to get drunk, really, but Erica had given it a grand ole try, downing three bottles of tequila in less than twenty minutes. Then she’d sat giggling to herself for half an hour until it metabolized.

Which, Stiles would admit had been kind of adorable, not that he'd ever say it to her face, but none of the others had deemed it worth it.

“When you aren’t all underage and risking getting me arrested again,” Derek had said, “I’ll get some of the stuff that’ll actually effect you guys for more than an hour and you can all try it once. Once.”

Stiles had smiled kind of dopily at him, because he’d already been well on his way to a happy buzz at that point. Derek shook his head, but his mouth curved softly, for a second, like he didn’t even notice that he was doing it. After a moment, the others had asked questions, carefully, because Derek didn’t talk much about before he’d come back to Beacon Hills.

Stiles had just… grinned. At Derek, at an equally-tipsy Lydia leaning against Boyd’s shoulder, at Scott’s stupid adorable puppy face, at the room in general. The room in the house that he was responsible for, that he’d found out about online on some tiny website with horrible graphics late one night. That he’d dragged Derek out to see – possibly after bribing the owner with twenty bucks to let them walk around alone in it because he didn’t think Derek and realtors would be the best mix – and talked about potential until Derek had shoved him into a wall and kissed his words away.

But the point was… the point was… what was his point again?

Allison threw herself into his lap and startled him out of his thoughts. “Stiles, you look sad.”

He reached up and cupped her face in both hands. If he smushed her face slightly into a guppy face, well… that shit was hilarious, okay? “Allison. You know you’re one of my best friends, right?”

She beamed as much as she could with guppy-face. “I know.”

“And you know I love you.” He made her face nod with his hands. “Good. Now get the hell off my legs before Scott kills me.”

“But you looked sad,” she said, frowning when he let go of her face.

He sighed, leaned up to drop a sloppy kiss on her forehead, and then poked her cheeks into a smile. “I forgot what I was thinking. That’s all. Now get off me, please.”

Gentle hands caught Allison’s arms and pulled her to her feet. Scott looped an arm around her waist and let her lean into him, then reached a hand down to Stiles. “Come on, it’s late and if you pass out on the couch, you’ll wake up with your neck jacked up and blame me.”

Stiles grinned. “You know it.”

Scott pulled him to his feet, rubbed a hand over his hair and put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Hey. You can crash with me and Allison, okay?”

Stiles waggled his eyebrows. “You angling for a birthday threesome, Scotty boy? Allison, you kinky thang, I never would have thought.”

Scott snorted and gave him a shove. “Everybody else claimed bedrooms while you were zoning. Unless you’d rather crawl in with Lydia and Boyd or Erica and Isaac. Move.”

Allison leaned over, nearly tipping Scott over, to grab Stiles’ arm. “C’mon, Stiles, please, it’ll be fun! Like that time we went camping.”

“That’s wasn’t fun!” Stiles said as Scott pushed him towards the stairs. “I got sexiled for two hours, lost my sneakers in the woods, and you ate all my marshmallows. Also Erica set me on fire. Twice. I ran out of pants.”

“That was a total accident,” Allison said. “And it’s not like you went home naked.”

“No, I just had to explain to my dad why I was wearing your jeans when I got home.” Stiles tripped on a stair and cursed, windmilling his arms until Scott grabbed the back of his shirt. “Which was an awkward conversation. Pretty sure he thought we had an orgy.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Scott groaned and shoved him again.

Stiles made some more noise about it because that, too, was funny, and if he couldn’t squish Allison’s face anymore, he had to amuse himself somehow. But in the end, he couldn’t really bring himself to argue anymore. In the end, he really just wanted to sleep in a bed and there was no way he was trying to crawl into any of the other beds in this house. If he was lucky Boyd would murder him. Lydia would, too, but at least with Boyd it'd be a straightforward honest beaten to death. Lydia would slowly, cleverly and cruelly plot his death. And it’d just be awkward to sleep next to his ex and his ex’s new girlfriend/sex buddy/whatever was going on there.

There was Derek’s room and Derek’s bed, but that was… nobody had really gone into his room here yet. Stiles had helped – made – him pick out a new bed because the old mattress and boxspring Derek had been sleeping on in the apartment were just pathetic. And Stiles was pretty sure he’d be allowed in if he asked, but he wasn’t going to ask. Not yet.

“If you guys waking up spooning, can I take pictures?” Allison asked as she flopped down next to Scott.

Stiles squirmed further away from Scott. “No. Melissa has enough of those.”

“Stiles!” Scott shoved a pillow over his head. “Oh my God. No. You’re not allowed to drink anymore.”

Stiles laughed and settled down, throwing his arm behind his head. He was halfway asleep already when the bed moved and he opened his eyes to see Allison leaning over Scott to look at him.

“Derek’s not making you sad, right?”

Stiles shoved himself on one elbow and poked at the corner of Allison’s mouth until it tipped up. “No.”

“’Cause I’d totally shoot him for you if you wanted me to.”

“I know.” Stiles smiled at her, poked her in the forehead just to watch her go cross-eyed. “I’m not sad. I swear I’m fine. We’re… we’re going slow with things. It’s a process. But I’m fine.”

Scott looked at him. “Are you?”

“Yeah.” Stiles shoved at his pillow and flopped down into it, closing his eyes. Then he opened one again. “Hey, Allison?”

“Hmm?”

“If we all weren’t emotionally invested in our respective relationship-type things…”

“Oh, it’d totally be smoking hot,” Allison said. “In a heartbeat, babe.”

Scott groaned again. “Both of you shut up and go to sleep. We are not having a threesome.”

Stiles grinned, reached over to bump his fist against Allison’s, and rolled over to sleep.

Something was wrong with Derek’s leg. They’d shot him with something, and it didn’t feel like wolfsbane, but he wasn’t healing and it hurt like hell. There’d been an arrow to his shoulder earlier and it still hurt, too. The arrow was gone but he couldn’t tell if it was healing, if the arrowhead was still under his skin. It wasn’t enough to slow him down like the leg, but it hurt.

And, honestly, he didn't have the choice to stop moving or not.

Not now, not with his home to protect. This half-decrepit, perfect house that Stiles had found, that Stiles had talked him into buying, because, “Dude, you don’t even like your apartment. And I think your neighbours are afraid of you.” And it was old and falling apart, but there were a ton of rooms and it had good bones. Stiles had been right that it’d be a good place, full of potential.

At least until hunters had attacked it.

When footsteps crashed through the woods towards him, he started to crouch to defend himself, wobbling more than he'd ever admit as pain lanced through him, until the sound of the heartbeat reached him, too fast always and even so now, but more familiar than he cared to admit.

Stiles.

The kid stumbled out of the trees, gasping for air. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” He skidded to a stop in front of Derek. “Okay. You’re alive. For the record, I’m really glad you’re alive.”

“Yeah, you too,” Derek said without thinking, but it was true. “Now get the hell out of here.”

“No. That’s not happening.” Stiles slid under Derek’s arm, looping it over his shoulders like he had the first time Derek was shot and went to him years ago, like the time with the kanima before he’d taken a header into the pool, like that one time with the gnomes that they do not talk about, Derek, like countless other times. “Okay, we really need to find the others because we are sitting ducks here. Can you find anyone? You know with the wolfy powers?”

He couldn’t smell or hear anyone, but he took a breath and pressed gingerly at the Alpha connection. He didn’t like using it much – his mother had been of the opinion that she did not need to use it to find them normally because if they had gone off without telling her where they were, they’d better hope she didn’t find them.

But he reached out anyways, trying to feel his pack. Erica and Boyd were closed off, hard to feel, still reluctant to let themselves really be pack again. Scott was slightly easier to sense, but he wasn’t really Scott’s alpha, wouldn’t ever be, and he hadn’t turned Scott. The connection there was different, confusing. Isaac was plain and clear on his radar, though, and he’d be easy to find if the others weren’t as close as Derek thought they were.

The other pingback surprised him.

“Huh.” He glanced at Stiles. “I can find you.”

Stiles snorted. “So can I. Thank you for being helpful.”

“No, I meant – never mind. I can find the others, I think.”

“You think?”

“Can you just trust me on this one?” Derek snapped.

Stiles went quiet for a long moment, then nodded. “I trust you.”

He didn’t know what to say now. He wasn’t good at this. His family hadn’t had to fight like this. They’d been left in peace for decades. They kept to themselves, stayed quiet, didn’t make trouble, and stayed very firmly off hunter grids. They’d trained, yeah, but it was a way to keep themselves strong, a way to prepare them slowly. It’d been assumed that either Derek or Laura would inherit alpha status, but their parents were young and strong and they’d all thought it would be a long time until either of them needed to be more than betas.

He just… he wasn’t good at this.

Derek took a slow breath and leaned in closer, deliberately rubbing his jaw against Stiles’ temple.

Stiles snorted, reaching over to pat Derek on the stomach. “Yeah, I know, words are hard.”

“Idiot,” Derek said, and his voice came out fonder than he would have expected.

“Asshole,” Stiles replied and hitched Derek’s arm higher over his shoulder.

They found Scott and Allison a few hundred yards from the house. Stiles stopped next to a tree, close enough to it that Derek could lean against it which he appreciated more than he’d admit.

“What’s the status?” Stiles asked.

“Allison shot one,” Scott said. “Thigh, took him down. Erica and Lydia and Boyd and Isaac are circling this way now.”

Derek nodded. He could feel them getting closer, knew they’d be coming into earshot soon.

“Great,” Stiles said, bumping his back against Derek’s chest like he was searching out the contact without thinking. “Okay, we need a better plan. Allison, did you call your dad? He should–”

There was a faraway pop and Stiles stopped talking. Slowly, he looked down at the red patch blossoming on his shoulder.

“Oh,” Stiles said faintly before his knees crumpled under him.

Derek grabbed him before he hit the ground, and then Scott shoved them both deeper into the cover of the trees. As soon as she could reach them, Allison yanked Derek down by one arm and Scott down by another. A hand touched his shoulder a second later and he almost snarled before his senses kicked in.

Isaac was crouched down next to him, hand still on his shoulder. “Tell us what to do. Derek, tell us what to do.”

His hands were covered in Stiles’ blood, pressed hard – probably too hard – against the hot-flowing wound in his shoulder. If he didn’t get them the hell out of here, the kid was going to bleed to death on the forest floor.

Derek swallowed, glancing over his shoulder to see what he was working with. “Yeah. Okay. Scott, call an ambulance. And his dad.”

“No,” Stiles moaned. “Not… not Dad.”

Derek turned back to him for a moment. “You, you don’t argue right now. It’ll be over by the time he gets here, I promise.” He inhaled. “Boyd, Allison, you two are together. Take out the group to the east of the house. And Allison, call your father. Scott and Isaac are going to be north of the house. Head that way when you’re done.”

Boyd hesitated. “Are… are we leaving survivors?”

Derek looked down at Stiles, at the blood on his hands. “No.”

Allison lifted her bow. “We hunt those that hunt us,” she said, and slipped away into the trees after Boyd.

“Right,” Derek muttered. “Scott, Isaac, go north. The – the shot came from there.”

Scott hung his phone up. “We’ll take care of it. Stiles?” He leaned over, pressing a hand against Stiles’ forehead. “Hey. I am pacifist.”

Stiles frowned. “And you will be a pacifist until you die?”

Scott let his eyes turn yellow. “Or until somebody hurts my best friend.”

Stiles’ face softened. “That’s not how it goes.”

“Today it is,” Scott said, passing a thumb over Stiles’ eyebrow. “I’ll be back.”

They disappeared as Derek glanced at the girls. “Erica, you and Lydia, you go west. Make sure the ambulance can get through to get to him and then bring them here. Got it?”

Then it was just him and Stiles and way too much blood.

“Derek?”

“Shh,” he said, bending closer to Stiles. “C’mon, don’t talk. Don’t hurt yourself.”

Stiles inhaled shakily. “Already hurts. Can you… look. It’s a – you can bite me. If you have to. Won’t be mad.”

“Okay,” Derek said. “Okay, just shut up, okay, Stiles? God, don’t – just don’t.”

He pressed down a little harder and tried to concentrate enough to take some of Stiles’ pain, but he’d never had a talent for that and he didn’t think it made much of a difference.

“Thanks,” Stiles mumbled anyways. “You–” He broke off to cough, tears making the corners of his eyes bright, and when he spoke, his voice was rough. “You’re doing good, you know.” He sighed roughly, his eyes shutting. “Real good.”

Derek ducked his head, inhaling and trying to breathe in the smell of Stiles underneath the blood and dirt and – and Stiles hadn’t said anything in too long.

“Stiles?”

He could still hear the kid’s heartbeat, he reminded himself when he didn’t get an answer. Stiles was unconscious, maybe the pain had finally gotten to him, or the blood loss, but he was just passed out. He’d be okay.

Derek had never in his life been so glad to hear sirens.

“You know, generally when a guy gets shot, it’s considered polite to visit him in the hospital,” Stiles said without looking up from his laptop. “Also how did you get in?” 

Derek walked around the couch and tossed the key he’d stolen onto the coffee table. “Scott’s not very self-aware.”

Stiles snorted, leaned forward to put his laptop on the table and gave Derek his full attention. “No, he’s really not sometimes. Hi. Here to yell at me about getting hurt again? Or are we getting kinky again today?” Stiles waggled his eyebrows. “Can I spank you this time? Ooh, I got handcuffs upstairs."

The kid was snarking. Sore, Derek could tell from the lines of his face and the circles under his eyes, the tightness around them, but alive and well enough to be released from the hospital. And apparently he felt good enough to be a sarcastic asshole.

Derek dropped to his knees between Stiles’ legs and pressed his face into Stiles’ stomach, weak with relief. “Please don’t die.”

Stiles carded his fingers through Derek’s hair, touch surprisingly soft. “I’m not going to.”

“I can’t lose you, too,” he said into Stiles’ shirt, because it was safe there where he couldn’t see the kid’s face. “I’ve lost everyone I loved and I can’t handle losing you too. I don’t ever want to watch you be buried or burned. Don’t ever want you to just be a name on a rock or ashes.”

“Derek,” Stiles breathed. “Hey. No, you’re not getting rid of me that easily. You’re stuck with me.”

Stiles smelled like hospital still, bandages and antiseptic. Too much like strangers, not enough like himself or Derek. Nothing was right about that and all Derek wanted to do was stay here with his face in Stiles’ shirt, stay pressed up close against him, until they both smelled right again.

“C’mon, hey. Look at me.” Stiles tugged gently at Derek’s hair, tilting his face up. “Hey. Come here, you utter moron.”

Stiles leaned forward and kissed him, that familiar hand on his jaw grounding him, confident and steady. One day maybe he’d ask where Stiles learned to kiss. If someone had taught him, who. He wasn’t jealous – he hadn’t had a first anything left for years – but he wanted to know sometimes.

But no matter how he learned, Stiles was good at it. Confident and steady and sure, using his tongue and teeth in exactly the way that Derek liked, long and slow until Derek couldn’t breath and broke away to press his face against Stiles’ stomach again. 

“You smell like a hospital,” he said into Stiles’ shirt, nudging lightly at the hem. He wanted Stiles’ skin against his, wanted to get rid of the smell of sickness and pain. “Not how you’re supposed to smell and I don’t like it.”

Finally, he broke down let himself shove Stiles’ shirt up high enough at that he could press his mouth to the soft skin of the kid’s stomach. Stiles shivered.

“Sorry,” Stiles managed. “I did kind of spend several days there after, you know, being shot.”

He opened his mouth against Stiles’ skin, leaving it a little damp when he pulled back. “I know,” he said, leaning up to kiss Stiles on the mouth again, hard, both hands on the back of the kid’s neck. “I know.”

He’d stayed, Derek thought, he’d stayed until Stiles had been taken care of by the doctors, until they’d fixed him, until his dad and Scott had gone in to visit him after the surgery because Scott was practically family anyways, until the others had peeked through the window of his hospital room to reassure themselves he was okay. Then he’d made everyone go home – again, they’d done this before, why was he always the one who had to make them leave? – and waited.

Then, after Sheriff Stilinksi left for the night and Stiles was asleep, he’d snuck back into Stiles’ hospital room and waited some more. Waited until he was finally, finally certain that the heartbeat he could almost tap out by memory wasn’t going to stop. He’d only left when Melissa McCall had found him and actually offered to drive him home. Apparently dead-fucking-exhausted wasn’t a good look on him. And – well – she was persuasive, okay? And he was tired and sore and… and so maybe she’d used the mom voice on him and he’d caved. Whatever. Mothers were Alphas of their own sort. It was only instinct.

Besides, Stiles had woken up already and he’d been hiding in a waiting room that he wasn’t actually sure he was supposed to be in, listening to the Sheriff talk over Stiles’ steady heartbeat.

“You didn’t need me there,” Derek mumbled, carefully, gently, turning Stiles’ head to trace the pattern of the moles in front of his ear. “You were safe and you had Scott and your dad and Melissa and everyone and I needed to – the house wasn’t safe, I needed it to be safe.”

Stiles pushed at his shoulder. “Wait, what?”

Derek moved back, ducking his head. He was pretty sure it wasn’t considered normal to booby-trap the woods for a mile around your house in any direction.

He was also pretty sure it wasn’t considered normal to buy the land for three miles around your house in any direction. At least he hadn’t had neighbours. That might have been crossing a line. And it was a good thing, anyways. It ran into Hale territory on one side, even. Gave the pack more room to run.

It wasn’t that weird.

“Uh. Don’t go into the woods without me for a while.”

Stiles snorted. “I’m not even going to ask. C’mon, come up here.”

Derek let Stiles pull him up onto the couch, because Stiles’ eyes were going tight around the edges like leaning forward hurt. Then, before he even knew what he was doing, he was kissing the kid again, hard, just pressing his mouth against Stiles’ again and again, too frantic to deepen it.

“Stop,” he said against Stiles’ mouth, kissing him again. “Stop doing this. That was – it had wolfsbane in it.” He stopped for another kiss, longer this time, but not any less desperate. “And you were in front of me. I can’t – don’t get hurt for me. I can take this, I can take being hurt. I heal. Laura shoved me off the roof once when I was ten, I’ve been shot, Peter – you saw what Peter did. I healed that.”

Stiles reached up with his good arm and cupped Derek’s jaw. “Wow, I think that’s the most words you’ve ever said to me. God, you’re an idiot. Do you seriously not get that I’m invested in keeping your ass alive?”

He ducked his head again, breathing in the scent of Stiles from the warm space between his neck and shoulder. “I – I know, but stop getting hurt. Stop getting hurt, please stop getting hurt.”

“Shh,” Stiles said, his hand sliding from Derek’s jaw to the back of his neck, then rubbing down the length of his spine. “Fine. I’ll stay at home when the bad stuff happens. I won’t try to protect you or my friends or my dad. I’ll stay out of the fight whenever I can and when I absolutely can’t, I’ll let you shove me behind you so you can get hurt instead of me.”

“You’re lying,” Derek said against Stiles’ skin.

“No shit.” Stiles pressed his hand into the small of Derek’s back. “When I was seven, my grandmother died. It was the first time I really realized what death actually was and the first time I realized that my dad could die. I told him that he needed to get a job at the bank instead because he needed to be safe.”

“What?”

“I mean, I was seven, I wasn’t really thinking about bank robberies or whatever.” Stiles shrugged, then hissed in a sharp breath. “I – uh… ow. I didn’t talk to him for a week when he said he wasn’t going to quit his job. I had this idea that it’d make him change his mind.”

Derek nodded. “You go quiet when you’re upset.”

“Yeah, well, my dad sat me down and we had a talk. He said he could die, yeah, but his job was to protect people.” Stiles nudged Derek until he could drop his chin on Derek’s shoulder. “And he said he was always going to try as hard as possible to come home to me and my mom because he loved us more than anything in the world.”

“Stiles…”

“That is the best I can do,” Stiles said. “This is my life, too. These are my friends, my people to protect. This is my fight, too, and it's always gonna be. So that is the promise that I can give you.”

Derek frowned. “What, to try as hard as possible to come home to me?”

“Exactly. Because–” Stiles swallowed, turned enough to drop a kiss against Derek’s temple. “Yeah. Okay, so, you wanna give me another hickey or something or do you need to cuddle for a bit longer?”

Derek snorted, licked a stripe across the crease of Stiles’ neck right where the sweat gathered, and pulled back, settling into the other end of the couch. “Idiot.”

“Asshole,” Stiles replied, carefully easing to face him. “Stretch out, I want to put my legs on you.”

He rolled his eyes but kicked his shoes off and went where Stiles wanted him, let Stiles put his feet into Derek’s lap and settle down against the pile of pillows behind him. Stiles smiled as he got comfortable, rubbed his ankle against Derek’s hip, wiggled a moment later and pulled a pillow over his chest, hugging it until it hid half his face.

“For the record, I don’t want to die either,” he muttered, eyes closing. Derek could smell something under his skin now, a painkiller of some kind. “I have lots and lots of plans for life. Like Scott making me eggnog waffles and watching him get drunk because he never has and I think it’ll be hilarious. And I’d like to make my dad proud of me. Wanna try giving you a blowjob if you want to ’cause blowjobs are awesome and I’ve never given someone one.”

The pillow hid his mouth, but Derek knew it better than his own hands. Knew what it looked like red and swollen, scraped from his stubble, knew what it looked like when Stiles stared at something – at him – with his mouth open, soft and pretty.

Derek exhaled, shifting as his jeans tightened.

“I’d really like to fuck you,” Stiles said into the pillow. “If you’d like that. I like it. No reason we can’t be versatile, huh? So I’d like to fuck you. Hard. ’Cause I think a really good pounding would be a hell of a good time for you and for me. But also really slow and gentle until you completely lost your mind because that would be amazing.”

“Tease,” Derek muttered under his breath.

He knew that face well enough to be able to tell Stiles was grinning, even with his mouth hidden.

“Tell me about it.” Stiles sighed. “No sex for like a month. Hey, do you think they’re selling eggnog yet? How many supermarkets do you think I could send Scott to look in until he stopped feeling sorry for me?”

“You’re kind of stoned, huh?” Considering it was April.

“Little bit,” Stiles admitted. “I’m also – I’m probably going to fall for you. Hard. And I really want to do that so. Gonna try to stay alive as hard as I fucking can. Promise.”

Stiles went quiet after that, his body going loose-limbed and soft with sleep before too long. He was kind of beautiful like this, Derek thought. Open. Sweet. Even younger than his actual age with his face soft with sleep, less like he lived the sort of life where he got shot by werewolf hunters in the woods. Less like the stubborn, idiotic, determined human he was.

“I think I’m in love with you,” Derek said softly.