It was stupid. It was impetuous and reactionary and so fucking stupid of him. The rushing water drowned out the noise of his labored breathing. Well, it would for human ears. He didn’t want Stiles to wake up and hear him, maybe get the wrong idea, like Stiles was the problem here. It wasn’t Stiles, it was Derek, always him fucking it up for everyone around him. He should have kept his distance. He should have kept everyone away from the destructive force that was Derek Hale, Stiles especially.
“Dude, really?” Stiles growled,
glaring across the table at his best friend who took a step back defensively.
“I’m just saying, it’s
apparently a thing that every gay guy wears a Henley,” Scott replied.
“You’re just saying that because
I was wearing one the day I told you I was bi and now I’m wearing them regularly—like
I am today—because they’re comfortable,” Stiles objected.
The conversation dropped off as
the others stepped into the loft; Erica scolding Isaac for spilling something
on her shirt while Boyd offered her a change of clothes and quietly reassured
her that it wouldn’t stain.
Derek trailed behind them,
shaking his head as he quietly sauntered over to the desk.
Scott froze, his eyes flying
open wide as he looked at the alpha, or—more specifically—at what Derek wore: a
soft grey Henley that hugged his firm body. The top few buttons were left
hanging open, revealing the patch of olive skin that covered his collarbone.
Scott turned to look at Stiles,
his jaw hanging open as he tried to subtly gesture at the man.
Stiles rolled his eyes and shook
his head.
Derek stepped over to their
side, setting down the stack of old books Deaton had given them to research the
latest supernatural threat. He paused for a moment, his eyes fixed on Stiles.
He tilted his head slightly, curiously as he looked the teen over.
This is for everyone in the awesome Sterek writing group 4. And especially to @seanconneraille whose initial prompt: Potato, led to this ridiculousness. Seriously. There were tons of awesome prompts, but the heart wants what it wants. Also a special shout out to @artemis69 who said they should plant the potato. I wrote this in about half an hour and it’s completely unbetaed. So all mistakes are mine. A cleaned up version is now on AO3
They’ve been together about three years now, living together for one, and Stiles thinks they’re okay. He has a job as a freelance programmer, which involves a little bit of travelling, and a lot of working from home in his underpants, only putting a shirt on for skype calls. Derek is a history teacher at Beacon Hills High School, which should not be as hot as it is. Fortunately it turns out that Stiles finds 28yr old teacher!Derek with sweater vests and blazers with elbow patches even more attractive than the leather wearing Alpha!werewolf badass that first caught his eye in the preserve all those years ago.
The thing is, Derek doesn’t need to be a badass anymore, at least, not in the way he used to. The Nemeton has been dealt with, and the pack is flourishing, Beacon Hills is no longer a hell hole and so now he’s a badass in other, more subtle ways. He’s a badass gardner, who has lovingly nurtured a little plot of fruits and vegetables in their backyard. Then there are his badass knitting skills, (he made Stiles a kickass pair of mittens last winter) and don’t get Stiles started on the cooking, okay? No. Really. Don’t get him started. The cooking isn’t actually that great, Stiles does all the cooking, but Derek can mix a mean cocktail, which means their powers combined result in some truly awesome, if slightly blurry, mealtime memories.
Anyway, it isn’t often that Stiles is forced to work the weekend, but today the shit has hit the fan, and he doesn’t have any other choice. When Derek gets home on Friday evening, wearing the blue sweater vest that brings out his eyes and the charcoal blazer with the elbow patches, Stiles can only stare up at him from his desk tragically and mourn the loss of what could have been.
The thing is, until he opens his mouth, the guy ticks all of
Stiles’ boxes.
He’s tall and broad shouldered and handsome. He’s got a jaw that could cut glass and the
prettiest eyes Stiles has ever seen. He’s
wearing a well tailored suit and there’s a subtle smattering of freckles on his
nose and he has that kind of swagger in his walk like he knows he looks good.
It’s like he’s stepped straight out of Stiles’ wet dreams.
Except.
Except then he opens his mouth.
He opens his mouth and says “hey, can I get some service?” in
the same impatient, smarmy tone that Stiles has heard a thousand times. From people like this guy, dressed in clean
cut suits with perfectly groomed hair, from groups of moms with screaming kids,
from bitter old people who tap their foot and act like waiting for more than a
minute will ruin their whole week.
The point is, it’s the kind of tone that instantly makes
Stiles’ hackles rise.
“Are you going to get in?” Stiles asked, peeling out of his last shirt, his words a little slurry around the edges. “In a- a- a-” He paused, trying rather unsuccessfully to shake his hand free of his sleeve. He started laughing uncontrollably and collapsed to the floor to work on his shoes. “The water, are you?”
“No,” Derek groused, pointedly not looking when Stiles flopped onto his back and began to shimmy out of his soaked pants. Black slime coated almost every square inch of the floor. “This is your bath, not mine.”
“Mine,” Stiles echoed, now just lying on the floor in a puddle of black, his pale skin coated head to foot in the gunk. “This is not my house.”
“Yes,” Derek agreed, as patiently as he could, checking the water’s temperature before turning off the tap. It had to be extra hot to affect the stuff. “This is the clinic.”
Deaton had explained that even minimal contact with the ichorous substance gave a contact high. Stiles had been practically drenched in the stuff when they had killed it. Luckily it was not deadly or even toxic- which was the problem. Someone had been keeping the creature as a pet, drawing out the fluid and selling it, and it had escaped three days ago to wreak havoc.
Very, very unfortunately, Derek had drawn the short straw for ensuring Stiles got cleaned up and came down from the high safely. Isaac, Boyd, and Erica were taking care of disposal of the body while Scott and Allison swung by Allison’s house to return weapons and report to her father. Deaton had been kind enough – or perhaps had enough self preservation – to give Derek the key to the clinic so he could get Stiles washed up away from his father’s questions.
“Come on,” Derek said gently, slipping from the edge of the tub to crouch at Stiles’ side. It was, he reflected, a very good thing that werewolves were not susceptible to the substance’s effects. “You gotta get cleaned up.” The effects wouldn’t wear off until every drop of the ichor was gone.
Stiles lifted his head, looking all the way down his lean form. “Oh, no, no that’s too far,” he told Derek, head falling back with an audible clunk he was probably going to feel in a few hours. “Wow, this is the best floor ever. Do you think I could take it home with me?”
“No,” Derek said with a sigh. Looked like this was going to have to be the hard way. He shifted, kneeling beside Stiles, and grabbed at his wrists to haul him up.
Despite that they slipped and slid a bit, Derek managed to get a very naked Stiles upright and across the three feet to the tub. For a second Stiles stood very still, holding tightly onto the edge of it like he was going to resist going in. Then he tipped forward and faceplanted directly into the basin so quickly Derek had to scramble to keep him from drowning.
“Hoooooo!!!!” Stiles shouted the second his mouth was above the surface, water sluicing away the ichor clinging to his skin. “It’s hot, Derek! This is really hot, why is it so hot? Oh my god, I’m melting!” He started grabbing at the black liquid coming off his skin.
Closing his eyes, Derek counted to three. Then five. Then ten, for good measure, and when he opened them again, Stiles had fallen very, very still and was staring wide eyed into the middle distance. It was not exactly an improvement, but at least he’d stopped thrashing, slopping water and ichor all over the floor and flinging it onto the walls and- and was that- on the ceiling?
“Stiles, how did you- you know what, nevermind,” Derek grumbled, reaching for the spray nozzle.
This setup was supposed to be for cleaning dogs, but it would work just as well for ornery, tripping humans. He began to run the spray over Stiles’ hair, watching the black give way to brown. When the tub had filled completely, Derek pulled the plug and let it drain. Diluted like this with water, it wouldn’t hurt the general populace; at worst, they’d all have a really good day soon.
Stiles’ eyes slid closed, and he relaxed into the gentle touches Derek used to turn him this way and that, to get at the last of the ichor still clinging to strange places like inside of his ears and between his fingers and- well, at least Stiles was unlikely to remember any of this very well tomorrow.
By the time he had gotten the last of it, Stiles had turned to putty in his hands, making a soft, pleasant humming noise that might have been purring on a cat. Derek swallowed hard, trying to keep it together. He still needed to get Stiles someplace to wait out the high, and get this place cleaned up so no one else would be affected.
Difficult to think of anything beyond the way Stiles pressed himself into Derek’s touches. “Feels good,” Stiles murmured, unwilling or unable to keep his eyes open. “You should touch me more.”
“Tomorrow,” Derek mumbled back, prodding Stiles to his feet. The floor was still covered in ichor, so Derek just leaned over and scooped a completely unresisting Stiles into his arms. Immediately, Stiles looped his own arms around Derek’s neck and burrowed his nose against Derek’s shoulder. “If you still want me to touch you tomorrow, I will.”
“Okay,” Stiles agreed muzzily.
He wouldn’t remember. No one else had. Still…
He allowed himself a small smile, and a measure of hope. Stiles had never been one for following the rules, after all.
@welshwoman1988 prompted for what happens after the slime wears off… so here is the answer!
———
Stiles stirred to the smell of breakfast heavy in the air, and knew almost immediately that he was not in his own room. He wasn’t even in an actual room, he was under too many blankets on Derek’s ridiculous bed, his face mashed into a pillow that was- not his own. He startled upright very suddenly, heart racing for a second against the huge blank in his memory.
“Hey, it’s okay,” came a gentle voice from behind him, and he scrabbled to turn around to see. Derek stood a couple of yards away, his hands both held up in a calming gesture. “It’s okay,” he repeated. “You’re safe. You got slimed by that thing.”
Stiles took a few choppy breaths, scraping at his memory. They had gone to fight the monster, found it at a park, up a tree. He remembered walking over to look up. He remembered Allison’s arrow, and seeing the thing pop like a balloon, and then-
And then nothing.
“I don’t remember,” he croaked, throat scratchy.
“I know,” Derek soothed, stepping closer and watching for a reaction. “Does anything feel weird? Hurt? Headache or anything?”
“No,” Stiles said, watching Derek right back as he took another step forward, almost to the edge of the bed. Stiles was suddenly very aware that although he was dressed, the clothing did not belong to him. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Derek said, and Stiles didn’t have to be a werewolf to know that was a lie. “Nothing important,” Derek amended. “The others ditched you with me to get cleaned up at the clinic. You were… really high. And loud.”
“Oh,” Stiles said, not really sure what to make of that. “And I’m in scrubs because…”
Stiles watched in fascination as Derek’s cheeks and ears pinked, the color speckling at the lines of his neck. “You were completely covered in that stuff. Your clothes were ruined, and you needed a- a bath.”
“And you-”
For just a split second, Stiles thought he remembered the sensation of warm, broad hands smoothing over his skin, slicking water from his hair, tipping his jaw, brushing along his-
“Yeah,” Derek interrupted, tense and hesitant. “You went catatonic after getting in the water. I thought if I just got it rinsed off…”
The low, contented noise Stiles had made with Derek practically petting him.
“Yeah,” Stiles agreed, voice a little shaky. Maybe more than just his voice.
The beat of Derek’s heart in his ear as he carried him out of the back room, carried him to the passenger seat of his camaro, carried him upstairs to the loft.
“Thank you,” was what came out of his mouth instead of all the questions he had. “It, uh… it worked. I’m… me, again. I think.”
The warmth of Derek’s body, inches away from his as he drifted in and out of restless sleep, the rasp of his soft breathing, the knowledge that he was safe.
Tomorrow.
Stiles shivered a little, looking up to meet Derek’s eyes as if he could find an answer there.
“You sound like you,” Derek told him, leaning on his leg against the side of the bed.
If you still want me to touch you tomorrow, I will.
The ichor had all been washed away by then. He remembered those words. He remembered the patience in Derek’s voice as he said them, and the resignation. He remembered his last, desperate thoughts, the ones unable to claw past his lips, being how much he wanted to reassure Derek.
“I am,” he said, as firmly as he could, and it seemed to work, because Derek smiled softly. “I’m back to normal.”
“That’s relative,” Derek said with a small smirk, and it felt so familiar and alien, the way Derek teased him. “I made breakfast, if you’re hungry.”
Derek turned away again, toward the kitchen, and Stiles moved like he’d been pulled on puppet strings, sitting on the edge of the bed before he registered the decision to follow at all.
“Derek,” Stiles called.
Derek froze, tension written in every line of his body, and Stiles could barely hear anything over the thundering of his heart. This was happening. Derek didn’t answer, but he didn’t move away, either.
“I- I do remember something,” Stiles admitted hesitantly. “I remember that I… I asked you… to touch me. More.”
“You weren’t in your right mind,” Derek told him, an easy out. Stiles might have taken it as a rejection if it hadn’t sounded like it broke Derek to say.
“I am, now.” This had to have been the gentlest argument they’d ever had. Derek turned to look, and Stiles looked right back, unwavering. “And it’s tomorrow.”
“Stiles…” Soft, barely there. Another argument.
“Please,” Stiles asked. “You said you would, if I still wanted you to. I do.”
Derek stared at him for a long few moments, looking torn, before finally taking a step forward, and another, and another, and then he was standing in right in front of Stiles again, their knees just inches apart. Stiles could feel his own heart thrumming in his fingertips, in his throat, in his lips, and he was sure Derek could hear it even louder.
“Please,” Stiles repeated. “Touch me.”
With a small sound of surrender, Derek did, palms warm on Stiles’ jaw, leaning down to rest his forehead against Stiles’. They stayed like that for one breath, two, and then Stiles shifted just slightly, just enough to tip his chin up, just enough to touch his lips to Derek’s. Eyes closed, breath stalled, he stayed like that a moment longer, Derek’s thumb brushing over his cheek.
Then he pulled back a little, opening his eyes. “Okay,” he breathed.
“Okay?” Derek echoed uncertainly.
“Yeah,” Stiles said, putting himself very much into Derek’s space as he got to his feet. “We’re going to have breakfast now.”
“We are?” Derek asked, sounding confused and a little hurt now.
“Yeah,” Stiles said again, grabbing Derek’s shirt before he could back away. “Then you’re going to touch me again. And again. And again. And-”
And Derek closed the distance between them, kissing him again just to shut him up. Stiles just grinned, and kissed him back this time.
For virtualcarrot for Valentines Day, who asked for future fic with Stiles studying Journalism. This ah… sorta went off on a freaking ridiculous tangent so… hope you like it anyway darling? (Oh my god I suck so bad)
– – –
The thing is, Derek’s really, really hot. Like, insane levels of attraction. What with the leather and the cheekbones and the stubble and the ass — oh god, that ass — Stiles can’t really be blamed, at all for freaking bragging.
The pope would brag if he was dating Derek.
So, by the end of his first semester at college, it’s fair to say about ninety percent of the people he’s come into contact with have had to sit through at least one session of Stiles waxing poetic about Derek’s abs. And Stiles would feel bad except, well, Derek’s abs. Stiles dares anyone not to wax poetic about them.
The thing is though, apparently Stiles has been…too enthusiastic?
Stiles gapes. “Come again?”
Rob rolls his eyes. “Come on Stiles,” he says. “You’re a journalism major – it stands to reason you’d be good at making shit up.”
Stiles scowls. “Okay, first of all – that would be creative writing you’re thinking because journalism is a font of truth and integrity.” Stiles manfully ignores Rob’s snort, because he grew up with Lydia and nobody outdoes Lydia for dismissive huffing. “And second – you don’t believe Derek exists because I talk about him too much?”
Rob sips his beer and nods. “Yep,” he says, leaning closer and seriously, the bar is not nearly loud enough to warrant that sort of proximity and- oooohhh, shit. Rob smirks like one of those models in Rolex ads. “You’re over-compensating.”
“And you’re hitting on me?” Stiles squeaks. Sue him, this doesn’t happen. Hot people do not get all up in this grill. Unless hot people are Derek which, considering he’s the hottest of the people, Stiles figures it’s the universe’s way of compensating.
Rob does that one-eyebrow tip thing that makes him look like he’s just stepped off the cover of a men’s health magazine. Stiles has watched many-a freshmen fall to that eyebrow. It’s never been aimed at him though and now that it is, it’s fucking terrifying. “He finally gets it,” Rob says, tipping his head back to down the rest of his beer. The beer that he’s drinking in a bar. With Stiles. On a Friday night. Alone. Oh mother of fuck-
Stiles falls off his chair.
– – –
Derek glances down at the caller ID and can feel the smile. It’s a Friday night which means there’s a good chance that Stiles is drunk-dialing him. Something Derek will never, ever admit to actually loving a little bit. Stiles’ brain to mouth filter goes offline really fast when alcohol is introduced and Derek likes to count the number of times Stiles mentions the colour of his eyes.
Derek marks his place in the grimoire he’s working through (because Harpies, agh) and flips open his phone. “Stiles.”
“Oh my god, I think I went on a date with someone,” Stiles says, and Derek feels the entire fucking bottom drop out of his universe.
“I-” Derek stops, presses one hand over his eyes and tries to breathe. “Okay…”
“Okay?!” Stiles yells, and the panic in his voice is enough to pull Derek up long enough to listen. “This is not okay! People think you don’t exist! They think I’m making you up because you’re too hot to be real! Which is fucking tragic because you kinda are! And then I went for a drink with Rob and no one else was there and he did that stupid fucking eyebrow thing at me and-”
“Stiles,” Derek says sharply, because if there’s one thing he’s learned over the years, it’s that Stiles doesn’t so much wind down from rants as just continue on until he dies. Derek listens to the tell-tale shift and breathe Stiles does when he’s re-setting and feels the familiar punch of longing that comes of needing to touch; sooth Stiles’ pulse with hands and low hums.
Long distance relationships are a fuck.
“Okay,” Stiles says. “Okay I’m good.” Derek opens his mouth to say…fuck knows actually, but Stiles is suddenly continuing. “Actually, y’know what? I’m not. Can we just- I know you have the thing with the Harpies and we were going to wait until the break but can you just-”
Derek tosses the book onto the coffee table. “I can be there by three.”
Stiles breathes out, slow and easy. “Good, ‘cause I just really need you to fuck me up against a wall or something okay?”
Derek groans. “Stiles-”
“Bruises,” Stiles says determinedly. “I want to be covered in them.”
“Fuck.”
– – –
If there’s one thing college has taught Rob it’s that trying to survive an essay without coffee is fucking impossible. Which is why he’s lined up at The Brew on Sunday afternoon, squinting up at the menu board and trying to decide if he can justify a toastie with his long black.
He hears Stiles before he sees him – the same exuberant laugh that had drawn Rob to him in Ethics 102 in the first place, now turning him towards the back corner. The back corner with all the booths and the cushions and the ridiculous hippy candles that are lit even during the day. If coffee shops were 1940s townships, the back corner of The Brew would be makeout point. Which is why when Rob sees who Stiles is back there with, he kinda wants to fall over.
Dark hair, leather jacket and – Jesus, how are cheekbones like that even real? Even the the look on mystery-man’s face — slightly stupid and soft as he watches Stiles laughing — isn’t enough to kill the impression of features you could shave with. The dude looks like porn.
The dude is also looking at Stiles like Stiles hung the fucking moon or something, which- oh holy fuck.
Derek. This is Derek. Derek who’s very real and possibly even hotter than Stiles ever described and Rob is going to fucking die because the dude has serial killer written all over him and Rob hit on his boyfriend.
Rob watches as Derek leans across to swipe at something on Stiles’ bottom lip — cream, fucking drool because Stiles has the hottest boyfriend in the universe, who knows — and Stiles grins at him before- Jesus fuck. Rob barely keeps his wounded noise in check as he watches the pad of Derek’s thumb disappear between Stiles’ lips and how, how is anything in the world fair?
Derek eyes go half lidded and those fucking tea-light candles must reflect off one of the millions of decorative chimes and shit they have back there because his eyes almost seem to flash red.
Rob watches as Derek’s fingers curl under Stiles’ jaw, pressing slightly until Stiles tips his head and wow – holy shit, that is like, the biggest hicky Rob has ever seen in his goddamn life. That must hurt. Obviously not in a bad way though because when Derek presses three fingers into it, just over Stiles’ pulse point, Stiles’ eyes flutter closed like he’s in fucking heaven or something.
Rob turns back to the counter just in time to order a tripple shot and two toasties. He figures he had a near death experience on Friday. He’s allowed this.
(This is a birthday present for the always-wonderful geeky-sova. Hope you had a wonderful one, bb! ❤ <3)
“Why is it raining?” Stiles whined, draping
himself over the back of the couch in their rented cabin. “This was
supposed to be a secluded romantic getaway with lots of outdoor sex, and
instead we’ve been trapped inside for three whole days.”
On the couch, Derek just flipped to the next page of his
book and gave no indication that he’d even heard Stiles.
Well, he couldn’t have that. Stiles flopped himself a little
closer to Derek and repeated, “Three days,
Derek. Daaaaays.”
Derek snorted. “I heard you the first time.”
“Are you ignoring me?” Stiles pouted, hoping it
would make Derek look at him. “Has the magic already gone out of our
relationship? You’re more interested in books than in me, now?”
Without raising his eyes from his book, Derek reached back
with one hand and ruffled Stiles’s hair. “I blew you in the shower this
morning. I think the magic is safe.”
“Mmmm.” Stiles turned his face to nose at Derek’s
ear. “But what have you done for me lately?”
In a flash, Stiles found himself yanked over the back of the
couch and pressed back-first into the cushions. Derek loomed over him, eyes
flashing blue and fangs poking out of his smirk, his hands pinning Stiles’s
wrists to the couch.
Of course, Stiles’s dick took note of the flashing eyes and
the fangs and immediately went Playtime!
“You,” Derek lowered his head to run his nose
along Stiles’s cheek, “are infuriating.”
Stiles rocked his hips up into Derek’s and grinned.
“Yeah, but you love me anyway.”
Derek growled and nipped at his neck. “Fine, if you’re
going to be so annoying, I won’t show you your present.”
Stiles perked up instantly. “Present? You got me a
present? What did you get me?”
“Ah, ah, ah. You didn’t say the magic word.”
Stiles wiggled in an effort to get out of Derek’s grip; of
course, it was useless. “Derek. Come on.” He batted his eyelashes and
then tried to make the biggest puppy dog eyes he could. “Please?”
“One day those aren’t going to work on me,” Derek
muttered.
Stiles widened his eyes some more. “But they do now.”
Derek sat up and patted Stiles’s side. “Come on, get
up.”
“Up?” Stiles scrambled to his feet. “Where are
we going? The bedroom?”
Derek grinned and started walking out of the living room.
“Nope.”
Derek was in trouble. Not literally speaking—he’d never done a morally questionable thing in his life, he wasn’t Laura. No, Derek was in the kind of trouble people get into when they couldn’t control their damn feelings, and they leaked all over the place. He knew Isaac and Boyd had a bet going about his predicament, and he was pretty sure they convinced Alison to buy in the day before. It was unprofessional… Derek didn’t like it, and he did not find it the least bit funny.
It was ironic, considering liking things was what got him into that situation in the first place. Specifically his unmitigated, all-consuming like of the artist whose tattoo shop sat across the street from Derek’s fire station. Every morning at 9am Derek watched agile fingers wiggle the key in the lock and uncoordinated attempts to both balance his coffee and open the door. He was forced to witness the flailing as Stiles struggled to open the blinds. The inch of skin that crept into view when Stiles stretched his lean, ink covered arms above his head was obscene. There should be laws about being subjected that that sort of thing. It was unjust.
“You could always not watch him,” Boyd pointed out.
Derek feigned ignorance and folded the hose he was inspecting back into place. “I’m not watching anybody, I’m checking the rig. It’s called work, you should try it.”
“Right,” Boyd raised a brow. “Checking the rig at the same time the kid across the street shows up for work. Every day. With the bay door open.”
“I like the breeze.”
“You like the view,” Boyd snorted, and because he was actually good at his job he went to inspect the tires. “You should ask him out.”
Derek ignored him, like he’d done to everyone who stuck their noses in Derek’s love life and tried to offer the same advice. “The front left needs more air,” he said instead, ending the conversation.
shealwaysreads 