Witches were in town and that had the entire pack holding a meeting at the loft to try and figure out what the next logical move was. Isaac, Scott, and Kira were jammed together on the couch with Malia lounging haphazardly on the chair nearby. Derek had been wandering back and forth in front of the coffee table, too hopped up on the nearness of the full moon to really sit and focus.
The odd man out happened to be Stiles, who had settled himself on the stairs by the door.
The hard rigid line of Stiles’ shoulders was painfully obvious, the hyper-vigilant expression he wore gave his anxiety away, yet the most concerning thing lay in his silence. His lips were pursed; the room lacked the usual sarcastic comments and breathless babbling. Amber eyes were dark with something between worry and fear only to be complemented by creased brows. The thing that put Derek off the most were the dark circles that remained stark on pale skin, as if it was a visible reminder of what kept Stiles up at night.
“…what do you think Derek?”
The call of his name pulled him out of the daze he’d settled in, his head whipping back to the coffee table.
“Huh?” he asked, trying to piece together the conversation he’d so obviously missed.
Malia gave him an irritated look. “About the hex bag plan Kira mentioned?”
Her words meant little to nothing to him, and definitely didn’t help him comprehend the question he was supposed to answer. When it became clear he lacked an answer, Scott sat back on the couch with an awkward arm around Kira; meanwhile, Isaac stood up with an exaggerated stretch before letting the book in his hands fall to the table.
The smack was loud and harsh in a way only a three hundred page book could produce. Stiles sprang to his feet and his heart hammered in his chest. Derek turned on his heel, gaze cast towards the sudden movement. The younger man’s hand was splayed across his chest as if to catch his breath even though he’d just been sitting seconds before.
Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Yet everybody choked on the tension.
“Uh…I-uh, I have to go cook dinner for my dad. Yeah, so I’m just gonna…,” Stiles trailed off, voice gravelly from disuse.
While everyone expected Scott or even Malia to speak up, it was Isaac who did. The beta walked over to Stiles, obviously not taking into account how jumpy the other teen was at the moment. And before anyone could comprehend the movement, Isaac’s hand clapped Stiles’ shoulder, a noise almost as loud as the book drop from earlier–
Stiles spun around, fist connecting hard with Isaac’s jaw. Derek could clearly hear the bones within Stiles’ hand as they creaked upon impact. An angry red blotch on Isaac’s porcelain skin had already begun to disappear seconds after the punch.
Scott’s face went slack, eyes wide in shock which Kira mimicked. Isaac, though not in any physical pain, tenderly cradled his jaw, while Malia cheered the violence on. Derek remained stoic, not wanting to add to the dramatics.
“I’m….sorry,” Stiles muttered, trembling from the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Nobody uttered a word as he turned to hightail it out of the loft. Even with the sound of him descending the stairs two at a time, the silence left over was deafening. Though Stiles was absent, the potent smell of his negative emotions lingered.
Those left in the loft traded quick glances, unable to process what had just happened. Minutes passed while the teens cleaned up the mess of books and papers, and collected their belongings before leaving Derek alone.
His throat was dry but he felt no motivation to fix it. Instead he found himself seated on the couch, its cushions still warm from the others. The only thing he could focus on was the lie he’d caught Stiles in, the slight uptick in his heart replaying on loop. There was no dinner for his dad; the Sheriff probably wasn’t even home. The thought of Stiles alone tugged at Derek, an empty shell of a man in an equally empty house. Then again, who was he to scrutinize when he did the exact same thing; it’s easy to shut out the world and keep everyone at arm’s length. He did the same when his family died, when Laura died; he took the easy way out and let anger be his anchor.
So, I wrote a thing for Sterek week! I love Shy!Derek and I love Alpha!Derek, but you know what I don’t see a lot of? Shy Alpha Derek. (Maybe there’s a reason for that, idk) Anyway, have lonely, shy, alpha Derek who stumbles across injured werefox Stiles in the forest, and is immediately smitten by him (but fails hard at social interaction). Also on AO3.
Derek hears the hunter’s SUV pull away in a peel of rubber. He stays hidden, barely dares to breathe, watching as the car’s tail-lights bounce down the dirt road away from him, tiny red pinpricks of light eventually swallowed by the darkness. He stands there, straining to hear the thrum of their engines, half-expecting, any moment, to hear the roar of their return. It’s a full five minutes before he can bring himself to move.
He picks his way back through the trees as quietly as he can, every nerve still drawn tight as a bowstring, finally he reaches a clearing. By the light of the moon, he can make out the shack he’s been holed up in for the last week.
The hunter’s scent lingers near it now, bruising the air around him. He won’t stay here tonight, he can’t risk it. He just needs to sneak in, collect his sleeping bag, blankets and the tiny camping stove he bought a little over a year ago, when he passed through Idaho. His hands shake as he crams his meagre belongings into his duffle bag. He’d hoped to stay here just a little longer, but that can’t happen now. He takes one last look around the dusty room he’s called home for the past few days, and then steps out the door and away.
Above him the moon hangs fat and round in the sky, it calls to him, makes the blood in his veins sing. He wants to howl, long and mournful, he wants to shift and run for miles, let himself get lost in that feeling the full moon always brings, wild and fierce and free.
He can’t though. Not tonight. Hunters are on the loose and he’s all alone, no pack to protect him, not any more. He slings his bag over his shoulder, and steps forward into the unrelenting darkness of the forest.
–
Derek hears him before he sees him, hears him even before he smells him. Hears a noise like velcro being ripped apart again and again in an unsteady rhythm, and for one moment he can’t work out what’s causing it. Then it hits him: This is someone’s breathing, ragged and wet and awful.
As he moves closer to the sound, the smell hits him. The iron tang of blood, the acrid scent of panic and pain and beneath that a richer, earthier scent that tells Derek this isn’t just a human, this is a were, but not a wolf. Underneath all that though, there’s something else, something more about this scent. It’s like nothing Derek’s ever smelled before, warm, spicy and inviting. It draws him in, hooks him just under his ribs and won’t let him go, it calls to him, soothes him, pulls at the blood in his veins, just like the moon.
Without conscious thought he’s moving forward, fingers twitching, nailbeds itching, burning with the desire to extend his claws.
As he gets closer a sliver of moonlight breaks through the trees and illuminates a guy, lying on his side, half buried beneath fallen leaves and dirt; he’s shivering violently, though whether from shock or cold, Derek can’t tell. His head jerks up at Derek’s approach, eyes flickering like a broken streetlight, brown to gold and back again. They stare at each other, one long moment that seems to stretch out forever; all Derek can really make out is dark hair, wide eyes, the general shape of him and his scent. His scent is doing things to Derek.
“H-Help,” the guy pleads, voice thick round his fangs. “Help me, p-please.”
It’s enough to break Derek’s stupor. He rushes forward and drops to his knees beside him. This close the air is thick with the sour stench of pain, and there’s blood, so much blood.
“Sshh,” Derek says, “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
There are long gashes along the guy’s bare arms, his face is bloody, leg mangled, maybe broken, and, worst of all, an arrow, sticking out of the guy’s flank, just under his rib cage. Derek sucks in a breath, he knows from bitter experience that it needs to be removed before the healing process can begin.
“G-Get it out,” rasps the guy. “P-Please.” Derek’s hands hover uselessly over the shaft. The pain is going to be excruciating, and they both know it. He hesitates.
The guy seems to understand. He reaches one hand out and clasps Derek’s shoulder, forces him to meet his gaze. “S’okay. Promise. Jus’ do it.”
And Derek does.
–
It’s a messy job, one that leaves Derek’s hands slick and sticky with blood, and the stranger with an open wound in his side that bleeds sluggishly even as it knits itself back together. The guy loses consciousness almost as soon as Derek’s claws dig into his side, which is probably a blessing.
Once the arrowhead is out, Derek sinks down next to him, wondering what to do next. He’s supposed to be half way into the next county by now.
He opens up his duffle bag and gets out his sleeping bag, opens it up and then scoops the guy up in his arms and gently places him on it. Then he rifles through his pack for bottled water and some tissues; he spends the next hour meticulously cleaning all the guy’s wounds. It’s not really necessary, and Derek knows it, now the arrow is out the guy is already healing, but Derek’s full of the need to do something, overcome with an urge to provide, to protect. He barely knows him, but the instinct to care for this stranger is overwhelming. Finally, when he’s finished cleaning him, Derek pulls out his old army blanket and drapes it carefully over him, tucking him in snug and warm. He shudders as he gets a whiff of their scents combined, refuses to focus on how good it smells.
Satisfied he’s made him as comfortable as he can, he sits down, back against the rough bark of a tree and watches over him, waiting for him to wake.
–
Dawn is nearly on them by the time the guy finally stirs. The sky turning pale and pink as the sun rises. He kicked the blanket off in the night, and as he groans, stretching cat-like, the fabric of his t-shirt rides right up to reveal the fresh pink of newly healed skin, and the taut, flat muscles of his stomach. Derek’s breath catches in his throat.
At that the guy’s eye cracks open, he stills, staring at Derek. “Woah,” he says, eventually. “I thought I dreamed you.” He levers himself up onto one elbow, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I guess not.”
Derek rubs a hand over the back of his neck, suddenly self conscious. “Are you okay?” he asks, gruffly.
The guy quirks an eyebrow, “I-uh- I think so. Don’t remember much.” He glances about himself, taking in the sleeping bag, the worn army blanket, the empty bottles of water and blood stained tissues littered about. His eye falls on the arrowhead and he winces, reaches forward with one hand and picks it up, running his fingers over it. Derek watches his hands, entranced by the pronounced veins, broad palms, the long fingers with knobbly knuckles, and nails bitten to the quick. He’s staring, he can’t help himself.
“You pulled this out of me?” the guy asks, contemplatively, jerking Derek out of his reverie.
Derek nods, the tips of his ears turning pink.
The guy sits up properly then, hugging his legs to his chest, chin resting on the knob of his knee. He seems to be waiting for Derek to continue, and Derek wants to. He wants to say something clever or witty, but he doesn’t know where to begin.
“My name’s Stiles,” the guy says, eventually. There’s an expectant pause. “And you are?” he prompts.
“Derek.”
“You’re a werewolf,” Stiles observes, ducks his head, a faint blush creeps up his cheeks. “I mean, obviously you know that. I was just- shit, nevermind. Thanks, I guess, for, y’know, rescuing me last night. Fucking hunters, man. Am I right?”
Derek shrugs. He still can’t find his words, he hasn’t been this tongue tied since he tried talking to Paige in High School. He scowls. Say something, his brain screams at him, say anything. “You’re not a wolf.” It comes out sharp like an accusation.
“No,” Stiles agrees with a nervous chuckle, “I’m a fox. Well, a werefox.” He spreads his hands, palms upwards, as if to say, ‘what can you do?’
Derek’s never met a werefox before. He knew that other weres existed in a theoretical sense, but they’re rare, rarer than wolves.
Across from Stiles stomach gurgles loudly, and he blushes again, red splotches creeping up pale, mole-speckled skin. “Sorry, healing like that always makes me hungry.” He looks sheepish.
Derek’s hand reaches automatically for his duffel bag, tugging it toward him. He rifles through it, pulls out a granola bar and throws it to Stiles who catches it easily.
“Oh my god, you are an actual life saver,” Stiles rips it open and takes a huge bite. For a minute there’s nothing but the sound of Stiles’ chewing. “So, you don’t like to talk much, huh?” he says, spraying crumbs everywhere.
Derek frowns. He isn’t talkative, that’s true, but he used to be better than this. Something about Stiles, the look of him, the way he smells, it’s robbed Derek of all coherent thought. He’s struggling to put a sentence together.
His scowl deepens and Stiles winces. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound rude or ungrateful or whatever-” he sighs, shoulders slumping. His long fingers pluck at the frayed hem of his tee-shirt. “It’s not you, it’s me. I talk too much, then there’s the complete lack of a filter, the-” he rambles on, listing flaw after stupid, imaginary flaw. And Derek’s hands ball into fists, claws pricking at his palms, he needs to stop him, needs to make him understand. It’s not him. It’s not his fault. He’s perfect.
“I like the way you smell,” he blurts out. As soon as the words are out he regrets them. He wants to reach out and take them back, swallow them down where they can’t do any more damage.
Stiles stares at him jaw slack. “You- You what now?”
Derek swallows hard and looks away. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But-”
“Leave it.”
Stiles kneels up, shifts closer, “Derek.”
“I said leave it,” he growls, eyes flashing red, fangs dropping.
Stiles huffs out a frustrated sigh, but backs away. When Derek finally dares to look at him, he’s trying to sniff himself, covertly. He stops as soon as he catches Derek watching, blushing furiously.
Derek ducks his head and scrambles to his feet. He busies himself packing up their makeshift campsite.
“So, uh-” Stiles says, watching him. “I was thinking, maybe we could y’know-” he takes a step forward, closer to Derek, “-stick together for a bit.”
“Uh,” Derek croaks, pausing his attempt to fold his blanket. “Stick t-together?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, shifting closer still. “I mean, it’s a dangerous world out there. Especially for two guys like us. We could help each other out,”
Yes, Derek’s brain screams at him, Yes, say yes! “How?” comes out of his mouth.
“Well you know,” Stiles offers him a shy smile. “Look out for each other. You helped me last night. I could help you, socialize you a bit, not-” he raises his hands. “Not that I’m saying you need it.” Derek doesn’t have to be a werewolf to know that’s a lie. He snorts, rolling his eyes and Stiles grins, small and genuine. It makes Derek’s heart flutter in his chest.
“I could help you,” Stiles persists, shuffling nearer. “You could help me. It could be good. You’re an alpha, but I don’t see any pack. Wolves don’t like to be alone, they’re pack animals, right? Well we could be, y’know, pack.”
“Pack?” Derek drops the blanket he’s holding and stares at Stiles, eyes wide and unblinking. His heart thumps madly in his chest.
Stiles knocks their elbows together, his scent is everywhere, eyes limned gold in the early morning light. “Trial pack,” he says. “If you don’t like it you can kick me out.”
Derek swallows, too stunned to speak. Pack. Stiles is offering him the chance to have a pack. He hasn’t had that since- well, not for a long time.
Not since the house fire that wiped out his entire family leaving him all alone.
Stiles seems to take his silence as rejection. His face falls.
“It was a stupid idea,” he says, “Ignore me, I’ll just get out of your hair-”
“Trial pack,” Derek says, cutting him off. “That sounds good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Derek says, “Just, try not to get shot again.”
Stiles grins, wide and genuine, and Derek can’t look away, can’t help smiling back.
And Stiles is happy to top, just so he can get his hands all over that big ol’ sensitive knot. So he can wrap his fingers around the girth and squeeze and just watch Derek fall to pieces under him while Stiles slow bones the hell out of him, fucking him straight through the whole, mind shattering experience!
“He’s an emissary, Scott.” Derek tried to make his tone empathetic, but Scott’s tendency to fight back on everything always grated on his nerves. “His pack is gone, he won’t survive more than a day or two either way.”
“Then we should stay with him.”
Derek sighed as he studied the man for a moment; he was too pale against the fur rim of his hood, almost grey from lying out in the snow, and his cloak was stained with dark dried blood around a protruding arrow shaft. It was unlikely he would even last the night. They would probably be able to carry on in the morning with little time lost, if any.
It wasn’t a horrible idea, Derek decided reluctantly. They hadn’t been able to set up a real camp for a few weeks in the open foothills, and they were all on edge from sleeping in exposed areas. A defensible place to sleep would be good for them, even if they were surrounded by death. They would be able to give the pack proper burials, at the very least.
“Fine. One night,” Derek relented, already moving away to check on Isaac. “He’s your responsibility.”
au | 10 months after leaving Beacon Hills for good, Derek returns to help Stiles – and the pack – with their latest supernatural crisis. What no one is expecting though, is Derek’s newfound werewolf status.
S: Oh my god. Derek you’re an -? Holy shit dude, we have a lot to talk about. And I mean a lot. D: Seriously, Stiles?
Sterek AU: When Derek broke up with Stiles over a year ago, he knew he was making a mistake. He knew it and he did it anyway because at the time, his career had to come first. Being associated with the outspoken, rule breaking Omega as he rose in popularity would only hurt him as both a Hale Alpha heir and Actor. But now the Indie superstar is practically haunting him, and when he ends up on a talk show where they surprise him with both a Rolling Stones cover and a clip from Stiles’ new music video, Derek is ripping his mic off and storming out of the building, appearances be damned. He goes to Stiles house to confront him, finish their unfinished business for once and all, but things have never been so simple between them. They won’t be this time either.
Stiles is doing his best imitation of a snarl as he starts stalking forward, getting into Derek’s personal space. “Were you embarrassed, Alpha Hale? Did your peers judge you for the wayward Omega you dated once upon a time and obviously couldn’t put in his place? I fucking hope so. I hope you’re a laughing stock. I hope you suffer thrice the devastation I did when you broke up with me for no good reason other than I don’t fit your image anymore. Well now you don’t fit mine, asshole. You aren’t wolf enough.”
Derek can’t help but take a step back from the pure venom in the singer’s voice. He may be the Alpha and technically more physically intimidating but Stiles has always been the better with words, tongue so sharp he could slit throats. Stiles stares at him another moment, daring a comeback before he turns and makes his way back over to his seat in front of the piano.
Stiles sighed, far louder than he would if his faculties were not soaked through with alcohol, and licked his lips.
Derek looked fine. Damn fine.
It was a good thing, Stiles thought, that everyone in the room, even the wolves, were just as sloshed as he was. ‘Cause otherwise they’d be able to smell just how turned on he was by Derek. They also probably wouldn’t all still be naked after their evening run, either, though.
Derek, in Stiles’ completely unbiased opinion, was rocking the whole skin-is-in vibe better than any of them.
It wasn’t wasn’t just because the obvious, either. Oh, Stiles could happily rant and rave — until the moon danced around the earth and back again — about Derek’s perfectly round nipples and the astonishingly exquisite V of his Adonis belt and his superbly furry chest and the impeccable cut of his abs and well, now that Stiles’ had got a look at it for more than a few seconds? Even the man’s cock looked exquisite: long and thick, with a magnificently generous foreskin and heavy, low hanging balls that Stiles just wanted to suck inside his mouth and…
Stiles sat back and hoped no one noticed he was hard, or drooling. Thankfully they were all, apparently, too focused on the fact that Derek had just downed his third wolf’s brew in a row. He was beating the Markowitz pack’s alpha by at least half a glass.
What really turned Stiles on, more even than all of the above, was that Derek was letting himself relax and enjoy and be something akin to what he might have if not for all the shit that Beacon Hills had thrown at him over the years.
He looked happy.
“Hale’s going to beat Dad,” Alexandr, the future Markowitz alpha, moaned as he slid a little closer. He’d been friendly with them all, but a little more so with Stiles. The attention was nice. Even if it could go nowhere because of distance and pack politics and the fact that Stiles was very much head-over-unrequited-heels for his own grumpy alpha. “You’ll help me deal with the shame, won’t you, Stiles?” Stiles could practically hear the guy’s lashes fluttering.
Then he heard a crunch and crash and turned around and Derek’s eyes were rage-red and he was bleeding around the shards of shattered beer glass in his hand. He was making a sound Stiles didn’t think he’d ever heard before — a low, warm rumble that seemed to come from under his lungs rather than in them. His fangs had dropped.
Stiles caught, out of the corner of his eye, the sharp movements as Alexandr bent his neck and then most everyone else followed.
The Markowitz alpha didn’t quite go that far, but the man sounded contrite, even to Stiles’ drunk ears. “Our apologies, Alpha Hale. We didn’t realize Mister Stilinski was spoken for. I’m sure my son meant no offense.”
Stiles blinked and tried not to notice that Derek’s body, all of his body, was at attention, ready to fight: the knot was difficult to miss. He summoned his own voice, hoping that it didn’t waiver. “Derek?”
Derek shifted his gaze from Alexandr to Stiles, his eyes fading back to green. He blinked a few times and seemed to focus his gaze on Stiles and flared his nostrils and.
Stiles could not not notice that Derek’s still-hard cock twitched.
shealwaysreads 