Summary: Stiles ends up sharing his bench with a handsome
bird-watcher.
Notes: For Siriusstuff, who wanted #26 from this list. Thank
you for giving me the chance to talk about birds! (On AO3)
Stiles picks a bench near the pond, leans back and takes a
deep breath. It’s a beautiful day, and he doesn’t have another final exam until
Wednesday, so he’s just thrilled to be out of the library and into the
sunshine.
He plans to just enjoy the day and relax, instead of
worrying about the Chemistry test he’d finished a few minutes ago. A soft
breeze ruffles his hair, and he tilts his head, enjoying the fresh air and the
sweet scent of the nearby flowers.
He zones out a little, watching some other college kids play
an energetic game of Frisbee, so he startles a little when someone says, “Do
you mind if I sit here?”
Summary: People talk about the alpha instinct, an alpha’s head being swayed by a nice-smelling omega, or the desire to drop everything and show off. Derek’s never felt any of that. He’s just not that kind of alpha.
Does anyone ever think about the fact that after everything with Kate, maybe Derek goes to New York with the decision to never to be hurt that way by anyone again. Not the losing his family part, because how could he ever lose so much again, right? (Right? I’m not crying at all!) So he gets a part-time job as a grocery bagger or something, because he is young and most places won’t hire him halfway through the year. And he works after school to bring in a few bucks so that Laura’s eyes won’t be quite so pinched now that she has gotten her GED and began working to make ends meet for them in a very expensive city. After work, she then spends sometimes hours on the phone and emailing lawyers who are still trying to get all of the paperwork straight. So yeah, Derek works to help Laura.
But then some lady at the store gives him that look. Like Kate. Her eyes are interested, and her grin is predatory, and he just knows she wants him. So he thinks to himself if he initiates it, maybe it won’t leave him feeling so wrong. So he does. And it becomes a thing. He flirts with anyone who shows him interest as he bags their groceries and “helps them to their car” even though they never need help.
From there maybe it just becomes a way of survival. As he gets older, it seems like more women want to sleep with him. He’s filling out, thanks to all of the runs he’s going on after work and thanks to the workouts he’s pushing his body through every morning. Because he has to be strong enough. He has to be bigger. He doesn’t want anyone to think they can hold him down or force him.
He learns how to play the game. One day he mentions something about that to a coworker (now working at a bar mixing drinks because someone had once told him he would make great money in tips) but his coworker didn’t think of sex as a game. Derek knew better. Maybe it wasn’t for some people, but he would never be able to trust someone in that way again, so he had to strike first before an opponent could.
One day a man at the bar looks at him just right, and Derek just thinks Oh. He’s never focused on men before, but he’s noticed them in passing. So he goes to the guy’s apartment after his shift and they sleep together. Derek pretends he’s done this before, even though he’s mostly relying on his sense of smell and hearing to tell if the guy is into different things he tries. And after that, Derek flirts with anyone he feels he has to.
So fast forward to Stiles. Stiles who is home from college after his second year has finished to make room for summer break. Stiles who means so much and is so good even when he’s an asshole. Stiles who leans in one day after a pack dinner, when he and Derek have finished cleaning up after everyone else has gone home. Stiles kisses him gently, at first, almost hesitantly. But when Derek doesn’t push him away, he presses in more firmly and suddenly Derek realizes where this is going to go. And it kind of makes him sad.
He lets Stiles slip his shirt off and push him back onto his bed. Stiles crawls on top of him and Derek begins pulling their hips together in a slow and sinuous way. But Stiles doesn’t react like any man Derek’s been with before–which really shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it is. Yes, Stiles lets out a little moan, but it doesn’t break Stiles away from Derek’s mouth, where his tongue is doing things to Derek that he can’t explain. And his hands after trapping Derek’s face, but not like he’s trying to contain Derek, more like he’s holding something precious. His thumbs keep swiping across Derek’s eyebrows, like he’s memorizing their shape.
So I uh…wrote fic. This is the first thing I’ve finished in a while. Just a quick thing I wrote while at work. It’s unbeta’d with no reread because I didn’t want to give myself a chance to hate it.
Stiles liked his boss. He knew a lot of people didn’t like theirs, and he knew he was lucky. Talia Hale was beautiful, and could be pretty tough if you didn’t do your job, but Stiles loved what he did too.
Network administration wasn’t for everyone, but Stiles saw doing it for a rapidly growing business as a challenge. The pay was nothing to sneeze at either. At this rate, his student loans would be paid off in half the time, and Talia always listened if Stiles needed something. Especially new equipment.
The only problem with Talia was that she kept trying to set him up with her son.
“We’ve got another one,” Scott says in greeting as he approaches Stiles’ desk. His mouth is turned down in a frown.
The update makes Stiles lean back in his chair with a heavy sigh. When he got to work that morning, he had been hoping that he was going to have an easy day. He should have known better. “Where are they?”
His best friend makes a vague gesture and replies, “Allison got him into one of the holding cells out back.” His shifts from foot to foot, a tell that he’s anxious. Stiles picks up on it immediately.
“What’s wrong?”
His fingers tap an unsteady rhythm on the surface of the desk. “It’s not good, Stiles. This one, he’s really gone. There’s hardly any awareness in his gaze. He nearly ripped Jackson’s arm off.”
Stiles gets to his feet, having heard enough. “Alright, let’s go have a look.” Already the tattoos on his arms are humming with energy, ready to help in whatever at they can.
But Scott reaches out and grabs his elbow. “Stiles, there’s something else. He’s an alpha.”
“Prom
was invented just to make girls starve so they can fit in a dress and
compete over a stupid title.”
“Uh
–” Derek blinks, eyes his sister dubiously, “I’m not a girl?”
Cora
huffs. “Whatever.”
In
the kitchen Laura bursts out laughing. “Don’t worry.” She yells.
“Cora is just jealous she will have to wait five
years to go to her own prom.”
“I’m
not going!” Cora yells back. “Prom is stupid, I don’t even know
why you’re going,” she tells Derek, “it’s not like you know how
to have fun.”
Derek
raises an eyebrow while Laura just laughs harder. “Oh my god.”
Their older sister says. “I stay away for six months and Cora turns
into a sassy queen.” She walks into the living room, pretends to
wipe at her eyes. “I’m so
proud.”
“You
two are ridiculous.” Derek says, turning around. “And I’m just
going because Erica promised to pay me. With ice cream.” Then he
gives Cora a wicked smile. “That I’m not going to share with either
of you.”
“You
are the worst brother!” Cora yells as he begins to climb the
stairs. “And I hope you fall on your ass while trying
to dance!”
“Can’t
hear you!” Derek’s cell begins to ring. “Too busy getting ready
to prom!”
Laura lets out a high-pitched laughter. “I love you two so much.”
Derek shakes his head fondly, closes his bedroom door behind himself
just as Cora tells Laura to shut up. “Hey.” He answers the phone,
collapsing on his bed. “What’s up?”
“Yo,”
Stiles answers, “whatcha doing?”
“Listening
to my sisters fight.” He says, snorting when he hears his dad start
complaining about all the yelling and ‘no, Cora, I’m not letting you
go to prom, you’re thirteen!’.
“I’m gonna have to check the trunk of my car tomorrow night.”
Stiles
laughs. “She’s not that
good.”
“If
you keep teaching her, she will be.” Derek blurts out, curses
himself mentally when he realizes it came out harsher than he
intended.
It’s just – sometimes he can’t help it. He’s known Stiles since
they were four, Cora wasn’t even born then, but one day she turned
eleven and Stiles became her new favorite person. Stiles couldn’t
find it funnier and took Cora as his little apprentice. He even
taught her how to cheat on Mario Kart.
He’s
never taught Derek that.
Derek rolls his eyes, thinks about his little sister still downstairs
pouting and trying to convince their dad that she’s old enough to go
out. He shouldn’t be jealous of her, but the thing is – he grew up
with two sisters, he knows how to share toys and food, but he doesn’t
know how to share Stiles.
Summary: Stiles likes being Cora’s roommate, but he’s pretty
sure her brother is hitting on him.
Notes: Inspired by this post. I’m not really into the sugar
daddy thing, so I went a different direction with this. (On AO3)
Stiles is sitting at a picnic table in the shade, trying to
get some studying done, when he hears someone calling his name. He looks up
just in time to see Scott grin and say, “Hey, man!” as he sits down across from
him.
Stiles smiles and shuts his book, eager for the chance to
take a break.
“So, how’s it going?” Scott asks, leaning his arms on the
table like he’s ready to settle in. “I know you were sad about having to move
in with someone new, after I started living with Allison. So what’s it like,
being roommates with Cora?”
Thank you for the prompt! This probably isn’t exactly what you had in mind, but I hope
you like it! (On AO3)
Stiles has a long history of hanging out in this hospital.
He’d practically lived in the waiting room when Lydia had gotten very sick
sophomore year, with Jackson right beside him, pretending he wasn’t scared. And
he’d been there pretty often junior year, when Danny had his appendix removed,
followed by the time his dad had been stabbed on the job.
So being here now is practically routine to Stiles.
Everything is almost comfortingly familiar, from the terrible cafeteria food to
the pervasive antiseptic smell.
It’s not something that Derek has ever put much thought into before, because he’s never had a reason to focus on something that’s never been there before. But Stiles doesn’t laugh – he snarks with sly lips and snorts in indignation when he thinks that he’s heard something completely foolish and he huffs out a noise of victory when he succeeds at something but Stiles doesn’t laugh. And Derek has never thought that odd until one day Derek realizes that it’s very odd indeed. Because Stiles smiles and Stiles trips over himself in ways that Derek finds strangely amusing and Stiles pokes and prods and breaks out quips at the most inappropriate times. And sometimes his lips pull at the edges in a smart smile and sometimes his eyes grow soft when Derek glances over at him and holds his gaze for too long.
But Stiles doesn’t laugh like Allison does or Scott or even Lydia. And Derek’s never thought to compare any of them and never thought to over-analyze Stiles but then one day Stiles makes him aware of the very thing that has been missing.
They’re over at Derek’s loft one day – Isaac and Scott and Stiles (of course), with Lydia too and Allison is sitting in the far corner, still slightly wary and cautious, as if she doesn’t belong in any home of Derek’s (and Derek thinks that that’s probably true but he’s found that he can’t seem to care these days). He’s half listening and half frowning at the patterns of claw marks left in the floorboards beneath his boots when Scott and Stiles remark about Derek’s reading habits (he’s not even sure how they ended up on that topic). Derek mutters some dry rebuttal, not bothering to acquiesce them with a glare and then something breaks around him.
It’s a sound that Derek’s never heard before, clear and sweet and carelessly happy and it’s Stiles, a laughter spilling from his lips and Derek jerks his head up at the sound, manages to catch the way Stiles’ shoulders shake beneath the weight of Scott’s arm, the light grinning in his eyes as they flicker over to Derek.
And it is then that Derek realizes: he’s never heard Stiles quite like this and he’s never seen the smile glimmering from Stiles’ white teeth with his lips pulled back and how his pale skin pulls across his sharp cheekbones as the laughter slowly subsides, rippling through his body, in the soft shudder of his muscles as the full body effect drains softly and with an ease that makes Derek suddenly feel a flush of heat and restless and nothing makes sense for Derek anymore, just when everything was suddenly fitting back together like jigaw pieces finally right, they’re suddenly all scattered apart once again.
It needles at the back of Derek’s brain for the rest of the day, twists uncomfortable fingers beneath his skin, itching and tugging and humming a dull buzz in his ears that he can’t quite brush away and force silent. He can’t seem to stop watching Stiles now, eyes flickering over to him when Derek thinks that Stiles is too preoccupied to notice. And he waits, all oddly tense and rigid for something that he doesn’t understand. But Stiles doesn’t make that sound again, even when Scott cracks a joke and Allison laughs softly by his side and Isaac is so utterly amused. Derek feels Stiles’ eyes on him, somehow warmer than anyone else’s gaze but Derek doesn’t turn to look at him, just waits.
But Stiles doesn’t laugh again.
And Derek leaves it be.
Until the loft grows quiet once more as Scott and Isaac gather their things and Lydia is making hushed noises at Allison as they both leave and Derek allows his eyes to drift shut at the welcomed silence, bracing his hands against the counter top.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Derek jolts, curses softly at missing the soft fall of footsteps moving towards him.
“Nothing.” and it’s not true but Stiles is human and cannot hear lies and Derek has never been more grateful for that.
“I know you’re lying,” Stiles says and he sounds sure and steady but there is a hesitance that flickers in his throat for just a moment. “You’ve been watching me all day, and not your normal staring, like you’re — like there’s something off?”
Derek sighs. And Stiles shifts his weight behind him, causing the floorboards to creak just slightly. And maybe Derek is tired of dancing around whatever this is that he and Stiles have been silently not speaking about, the way neither of them seems to protest each other’s company anymore and how Stiles sits beside Derek on the sofa when there’s plenty of room elsewhere and the way Derek doesn’t frown at him as often or push him away.
And how none of that feels strange at all, just comfortable, just right.
So maybe that’s why Derek says now, “I’ve never heard you laugh before,” and why Stiles tilts his head at Derek as he turns to face him and lies, “I laugh all the time.”
Derek shakes his head, takes a step forward; it’s so easy to fit into Stiles’ space now, because Stiles doesn’t flinch, just lets Derek in.
“You don’t,” Derek says softly, eyes flickering to Stiles’ mouth, as Stiles breathes in and out, in an out, an echo to the rabbit flutter of his heartbeat.
Stiles swallows, hands flexing by his sides, and how easily they could reach and curl around Derek’s hips, if only he made the effort to do so.
“And you’re a regular ray of sunshine,” he says, but the snark isn’t there, tries and fails and instead leaves his voice a hoarse rasp that Derek wants to curl his fingers around, taste with his mouth and tuck in the safety of his broad palms.
“Why don’t you?” Derek lifts his hand to the curve of Stiles’ jaw, not quite touching, his thumb resting beneath the weight of Stiles’ bottom lip, feeling the shape of it curve over the roughened pad of his thumb.
Stiles’ eyes seem brighter somehow, flecks of amber that catch the light of the dying sun over Derek’s shoulder, a kaleidoscope that dances beneath the thick fan of eyelashes and pale skin.
“Never felt right,” he whispers.
Derek tilts his head at this, presses his palm against Stiles’ jaw and lets his hand take in the shape of Stiles’ face, the smooth expanse of warm skin and the way the dark moles feel slightly different and how they scatter beneath his fingers.
“But it does now?” Derek murmurs.
Stiles draws the flesh of his lip beneath his teeth, the plush red skin whitening where Stiles sinks his teeth in a little deeper, nerves skittering off of him like raw electric high wires bundled tight.
“You don’t laugh either,” Stiles says again, and this time his fingers curl into the belt loops of Derek’s jeans, tug in the barest of demand and Derek allows Stiles to pull him in, slots his booted feet between Stiles’ worn out chucks.
“I like it when you do,” Derek says, thumb pressing against the corner of Stiles’ mouth, tracing inward, soft pressure beneath Stiles’ teeth as he coaxes their release.
And Stiles’ mouth is pulling at a small smile, as he tips his face upwards, closer, closer to Derek and his lips feel soft and warm, slightly wet and Derek breathes in, catches Stiles’ scent on his tongue.
“I’ll laugh more for you,” Stiles murmurs against Derek’s lips, as Derek’s hand slides along Stiles’ jaw, cups the back of his head in his large hand, thick fingers digging into the mess of Stiles’ hair. “I’ve got a reason to now.”
Derek wakes up in his new apartment. The birds are singing, the sun is shining, the lady next door gives him a cupcake. Then he sees Stiles shirtless. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.
shealwaysreads 