Fic: Stay With Me (Stiles/Derek)
Author: calrissian18
Title: Stay with Me
Rating: Hard R
Pairing/s: Stiles/Derek
Characters: Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale
Summary: “So, what’s up, what’s new, what the hell have you been doing with yourself?”
It’s only recently that that’s become a question that Stiles asks, always half-afraid he’d get the response ‘buried another body, moved into a dilapidated warehouse, had another family member show up and leave me,’ before. Considering he only knew how to handle the world with sarcasm and a tiny sprinkle of mean, he wouldn’t have been the best person to answer to any of that.
Warnings: None I can think of, Casual Sex, I guess?
Submission Type: Fic
Word Count: 5,489
Prompt: Touch Starved
Author's Notes: I have not read over this even once and will probably be messing with it quite a bit more and even the title is subject to change so very shoddily "finished," I just wanted it in for this challenge, goshdangit. Basically, if you want to read it, just wait for it to hit AO3, okay, folks, lol.
“So, I think Scott wants to expand again.” And Stiles says ‘again’ but what he really means is ‘for the first time.’ Because Liam was engineered by epically shit-tastic circumstances and he mostly keeps his head down, hasn’t really folded in as well as all that. One encounter with a berserker and the kid cracks apart. He’s not built for the life and they’ve mostly left him alone over the years, their relationship with him the same as people who exchange polite cards once a year on Christmas. Not involved in the day-to-day but not entirely forgotten either.
Derek grunts to show he’s listening but doesn’t give anything else away.
Stiles gets that. He’d brought up this conversation with Derek specifically because he thinks it’ll be of the most interest to him, even if it is potentially a bit painful to listen to. He thinks Derek misses having a large pack, misses Erica and Boyd and Isaac and Jackson because they’d been his and - weirdly - sometimes Stiles gets nostalgic for them too. He’s thought about calling Isaac or Jackson and asking them what the likelihood of their returning to Beacon Hills is, which is ridiculous because he never really got on well with either of them but, somehow, they became his pack anyway.
“It’s pretty much bullshit that teenagers are the best for it because we’re, you know, not teenagers anymore and I’m not sure if you’re aware of this: but teenagers kind of suck ass.”
Derek huffs out a little laugh, mutters something that sounds like, “I remember,” with a pointed glance at him and Stiles counts that as a win because they’re not really friends anymore, not that they ever really were - at least in the traditional sense, and sometimes it’s nothing but awkward. He hates how loose things have gotten with Derek pack-wise. Scott’s the only one still in the area and he’s never been good about keeping up his end of a friendship, then there’s Lydia, halfway across the country and never that close to Derek besides, Malia, off who knew where and not that interested in informing any of them about it anyway, Kira, shipped off to Maine with her parents after her dad got the university offer and Stiles, who’d gone to school two hours away and regretted it in moments like this.
“Anyway, since you’re the only one who’s recruited before, I’m thinking Scott will want to pow-wow with you about the newbies.”
Derek gives him a look and, yes, Stiles might have engineered this whole thing because it would give Derek a purpose but he hadn’t wanted him to know that. He did genuinely want a big, well, bigger, pack again but he also wanted a reason for Scott to have to keep in contact with Derek, a reason for the little pack they had left to work together again. He’s saved from having to own up to it by his pocket blaring, “I nearly dropped the torah when my hands turned into paws.”
Derek snorts and Stiles says, “Yeah, laugh it up, big guy, yours is ‘Muffin Top.’”
Stiles grins when Derek scowls at him and fishes his phone out of his pocket. “Scott’s coming over,” he says, relaying the message and Derek acknowledges him with another grunt. “I hardly know how to deal with how talkative you are these days.”
Derek shrugs. “What do you want me to say?”
“Literally anything. You can’t just rely on me to fill the void simply because I usually do.”
Derek grins at him, slightly sly. “I think I can.”
Stiles flips him off, gets up from the couch, stretches and wanders around the loft. He hasn’t seen it in something like eight months and it’s further along in the process to looking actually livable. Still spartan, of course, but there are two actual throw pillows on the couch and a bedspread on Derek’s bed and pans hanging on the rack over the kitchen island and a new coat of paint on the walls. The hole’s still there but Stiles hadn’t come here expecting miracles. He takes a swig of his beer, nearly drops it when he turns around and finds Derek standing right behind him.
“Smooth,” he comments, amused.
Stiles kicks him in the thigh as he passes. It looks awkward as hell and doesn’t even get his leg to buckle like it was meant to but he’s pretty sure it was the thought that counted. He follows Derek into the kitchen, leans across the island counter, beer between his palms. “So, what’s up, what’s new, what the hell have you been doing with yourself?”
It’s only recently that that’s become a question that Stiles asks, always half-afraid he’d get the response ‘buried another body, moved into a dilapidated warehouse, had another family member show up and leave me,’ before. Considering he only knew how to handle the world with sarcasm and a tiny sprinkle of mean, he wouldn’t have been the best person to answer to any of that.
Derek shrugs, pours himself a glass of water, turns around to meet his eyes. “Got a job at the lumber yard a few months ago, the one downtown.” Stiles nods. Derek shrugs again, seeming to realize Stiles is waiting for him to go on. “That’s it.”
“Seriously? That’s it? Talked to Isaac, Jackson?” Derek shakes his head. “Dating anyone?”
Derek’s entire body goes tense. “I’m not-You know that I don’t…” He looks wholly uncomfortable and Stiles didn’t really know that, though pattern would indicate it.
Stiles straightens up, glances to the door but ‘five minutes’ in Scott time usually translates to two hours and so if he can nut up and get serious about this, they’re at least not likely to get barged in on. “I was under the impression that things ended well with Braeden.” And she was the last relationship Stiles knew about, though he hopes she’s not the last one Derek had because that was four years ago.
Derek still looks so stiff that Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if something broke but he keeps up his end of the conversation, so he’s uncomfortable but pushing through regardless and Stiles figures they should keep at it. “They did,” he bites out.
“Have you seen anyone since then?”
Derek works his jaw for a half-second. “Not-There were a few-nothing that lasted more than a night.”
“Ah,” Stiles says carefully. He takes a sip of his beer, trying to pretend like he isn’t walking on eggshells and this is a normal conversation and they talk like this all the time even though they both know otherwise. “So you’re regularly-”
“No,” Derek cuts him off. “It’s not-I don’t like… having strangers here or foreign scents on…”
Stiles swallows but his brain has trouble processing that one and he can’t exactly hold back the, “So how long has it been since you-”
“A while,” Derek says, close to a growl.
Stiles considers that, taps his short nails against the counter so he can hear it make the dull thudding noise and says absolutely as casually as he can manage (which isn’t all that casual considering his voice has gone up at least an octave), “Well if it’s just about not wanting to hook up with strangers and, believe me, I get that, I do, then what about having sex with me?”
Derek’s head snaps up, eyes wide, and he looks hunted almost.
“Or, you know, we could not do that,” Stiles backpedals, giving a strangled sort of cough that he meant to be a laugh and walking away back to the couch.
Derek follows him. “You’re serious?” He sounds some mix of angry and incredulous and Stiles doesn’t really know what to make of that.
He shrugs. “Well, yeah.” He glances back at Derek’s face, which is still disbelieving. “What, like it’s a hardship? You’re stupidly attractive and I admit you used to butt your way into my teenage fantasies with some regularity, pun definitely intended. I trust you, I think you trust me too, and if it’s awkward as hell? Then I’m gone before the week is out, we both subscribe to the ‘ignore it until it goes away’ style of conflict resolution so by the time I come back we’ll be mostly normal or at least able to pretend as much. Plus, there is no way that with your face and your body that you’re not dynamite in the sack.”
Derek shoots him a furrowed look, admitting in a mutter, “I don’t actually know.”
Stiles grins. “Just another benefit to this - open communication.”
“So, just sex and then…”
Stiles shrugs again, drains the last of his beer. He’s remarkably sober for someone having this conversation. “And then whatever you want. We can go back to our usual not-talking while we’re apart or we could talk every night for all it matters to me.”
“I don’t-I’m not interested in a relationship,” Derek says quickly, like he fears this is the sticking point.
Stiles smiles. “That’s cool, dude. A casual sex relationship while I’m in college, sex here and sex there? That kind of sounds like I just struck gold. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t talk, that we’re not friends. It’s hard to tell because we’re both bad at that whole thing but I think we are.”
“I-yes,” Derek says, like he’s only just realizing. To be fair, Stiles kind of is too.
“So we’re not losing that, we’re just adding to it and you can add whatever you want.” Derek shoots him an assessing look and Stiles has the realization that he might have no idea how to turn this down and mentally kicks himself for coming at it with such an edge. “Listen, if you’re not interested, no hard feelings, okay, honestly. I’ll be butthurt about it for a few days because that’s the ego-check of a lifetime but by the time I’m back here, we’ll be all good again, scout’s honor.”
“No, I-” Derek swallows, “I want to.” His eyebrows form a deep ‘v’ and he says self-consciously, “This, with you, it’s the most successful relationship I have.” He pauses like he thinks he’s about to be laughed at and sighs. “I don’t want to ruin it.” Like I’ve ruined so much else, he doesn’t say it but they both hear it.
“I think as long as we’re honest with each other, we’ve got a shot at doing this right,” Stiles says simply. That’s what it comes to. That’s where things always seem to fuck up in movies, in books, in real life, is when people start keeping things to themselves or openly lying. Stiles has never had trouble being honest with Derek though.
Aside from Scott, he’s actually probably the person Stiles tells the truth to most often.
Derek nods, licks his lower lip. “I can do that. So…” his gaze flicks down to Stiles’ mouth and they’re a cushion too far apart on this couch and leaning in when Derek jerks back.
Scott bounds in less than a minute later without bothering to knock (probably because he knew Stiles was inside) and Stiles is barely even off the couch before Scott’s crushing him in a tight hug.
He knocks Derek on the shoulder, takes the spot in between them on the couch and starts talking about a puppy that came into Deaton’s a few hours ago.
Stiles notices the way Derek’s hands clench in the fabric over his knees, bunching up his jeans so they’re impressively creased, before he gets up to offer Scott something to drink. They watch Age of Ultron-well, Scott watches Age of Ultron, Stiles and Derek mostly watch each other, looking away quickly when they get caught by the other, and Scott says as he’s half-out the door, “Stiles says he mentioned adding to the pack, potentially adding to the pack.”
Derek nods guardedly and Scott runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure how I-I mean, I guess it would depend on the people who wanted it, right? I think Erica and Boyd and Isaac, I think they were good choices and if I could find someone like them then it would make more sense, you know?”
Derek blinks kind of stupidly at Scott because Scott just complimented him, just said he did something right, and Stiles can count the number of times that’s happened on one hand.
“Anyway, we can talk about it more later,” he says with a shrug, seriousness gone and puppy smile back and place.
“Sure,” Derek murmurs back agreeably.
Scott ducks his head around him, raises his eyebrows at where Stiles is standing behind the both of them. “You coming, man?”
Derek tenses, muscles in his back going tight and hand gripping the handle on the door too hard. Stiles walks up to stand closer to his side, ostensibly so he can give Scott a one-armed hug and says casually, “No, think I’m going to hang back, soak in the almost complete person that is Derek Hale.” Stiles flashes him a cheeky grin while Scott snorts.
Derek glowers at him but it fades quickly when Stiles takes the hand hidden by Derek’s back and strokes his fingers between the valley of his shoulderblades. He presses his palm flat, digs in with the slightest bit of pressure with the heel of it all the way down the length of Derek’s spine before letting his hand fall away completely. He goes back to cradling his beer with it, easy-like.
Derek’s gone rigid at the first touch but he’s slowly unwound by the time Scott’s saying the last of his goodbyes and trooping down the hall.
Derek gestures with a head tilt towards the door and Stiles takes that to mean he’s waiting until Scott’s out of range. After a minute or so, Derek dips his chin and Stiles asks, “Was that okay?”
“Yes,” Derek says and it’s hoarse and his ears go the slightest bit red, like he’s embarrassed by it, and Stiles has to wonder how long it’s been since anyone touched Derek.
Stiles frowns to himself, sets his beer down on the closest surface and steps into Derek’s space. Derek steps back, rubs a hand over the back of his neck and asks, “Do you want something else?” Stiles shakes his head and Derek redirects from the kitchen back to his spot on the couch.
Stiles goes around his side too, sits on the coffee table in front of him while Derek looks anywhere but him, and leans in with his hands on Derek’s knees. Derek answers the kiss and it’s nothing more than light pressure really, nothing demanding or forceful, more curious than anything else. Stiles drags his lower lip over Derek’s upper one, exploring, and then it’s small catches and sucks and unhurried press of teeth.
Stiles pulls back even though he kind of suspects he could kiss Derek forever and says, grinning, “Hi.”
Derek’s hands find his hips, squeeze. “Hi,” he says back. Looks away again. “I didn’t think you… didn’t think we’d kiss.”
Stiles snorts. “I’m not a prostitute, dude,” Derek ducks his head a little and Stiles scoots closer on the table so their knees are touching, “and if the mission here is not to develop feelings for you then you can consider that failed and then some because I already care about you.”
Derek looks up at that, blinking dumbly for a moment before his face shutters closed again. “I care about you too.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “And in other obvious-facts news: jellyfish are invertebrate and Kate Argent is a bitch.”
Derek snorts and the hands on Stiles’ hips get more sure, circle his waist and pull him upright as Derek stands. He cups Stiles’ cheek and pulls him in for a long, chaste kiss, until Stiles decides he can’t quite keep his tongue out of the proceedings anymore and Derek’s pulling him over to his bed.
It’s remarkably… not weird. Derek smiles and Stiles laughs when he gets his shirt stuck on his own elbow trying to get it off and Stiles says, “I kind of just want to put my hands really… all over you just because. Is that cool?”
Derek chuckles, looking a little confused by the request, but shrugs and says, “Yeah.”
So he does. There’s no real aim in mind, just Derek laying next to him and Stiles leaning over him and touching his shoulders, his back, his arms, his neck, his scruff and making him roll over so he can aimlessly run his hand over the rest of him. Aimless at least until Derek shivers when Stiles brushes his nipple and then they’re kissing again but there’s still no rush to it. Stiles gets Derek on his back for the fourth time and says, “Can I-You’re cool if I blow you, right?”
Derek just huffs and pushes his head down while Stiles grins.
He’s not sure what is is about Derek, maybe that he hasn’t gotten laid in ages or that he simply hasn’t gotten laid that much, but Stiles makes it his best, most enthusiastic blow job ever. His jaw aches, the back of his throat is sore and he might lose his voice by tomorrow but Derek’s chest is rising and falling in great, heaving breaths, his thigh muscles are quivering and the expression on his face is just fucking shattered with bliss so… beyond worth it.
After that their kissing is aggressive, almost furious, like Derek wants to prove how much he liked it and he jerks Stiles off expertly, grip firm and attentive.
Stiles’ grin is winded afterwards and he shoves his nose up into Derek’s neck after pressing a kiss to his collarbone, curls his body around his and says, “We ace sex. We should have all the sex because we’re good at it and it’d be cruel not to.”
Derek brings an arm down around him, squeezes, says agreeably, “Okay.”
Stiles hums sleepily, shifting closer to Derek, and he doesn’t think he’ll mind too much if Stiles just passes out for a bit here. His eyes are already starting to shutter when Derek says, “I’m glad you… that you said something. I never would have thought to and this was… I needed this.”
Stiles makes a happy noise, sighs, “Me too,” and falls asleep.
He wakes up again at three a.m., which means he’s only been asleep about an hour and a half and sits up. He yawns widely and looks over at Derek with an unstoppable smile. His hair’s a mess from Stiles’ fingers and he’s sleeping half on his face, turned away from him on his side, back curled and head in his pillow.
It’s pretty much adorable.
Stiles yawns again, reaches over the side of the bed and finds his pants but not his boxers. He can deal going commando for the drive home though. He swings his legs over the side of the mattress and pulls them on. He’s just getting the button hooked when Derek’s voice notes, “You’re putting on pants.” His just-woke-up voice is deep and gravelly and exactly what Stiles would have expected him to sound like based just on his appearance. It makes him grin.
He rubs a hand over his face, looks back over his shoulder. Derek’s gazing at him with owlish eyes and a guarded expression. Stiles strokes a finger down his scruff and says warmly, “Hey.” He kisses Derek lightly on his slack mouth just to bring it home how much he doesn’t regret this and pulls back with yet another yawn and a slepy smile. “Yeah, I am. By the way,” he pokes Derek in the cheek, “dynamite doesn’t come close.”
Derek grins for a half second and then it slowly retreats. His expression goes blank again. “Are you leaving?”
“Yeah, I was going to do the casual sex walk of triumph,” Stiles says, puffing out his chest.
“Oh,” is all Derek says, mouth tight, and Stiles thinks he gets it.
He nudges Derek in the shoulder with his elbow. “Do you want me to stay?”
Derek shrugs, looks away. “I’ve never-If people don’t say over when they’re doing… this then you should go.”
Stiles frowns. “Hey, we’re not people. We’re Derek and Stiles and I’m asking you if you want me to stay.”
Derek looks up at him, takes a deep breath like he’s potentially going to suck all the air out of the room and says, “Yes.”
“Okay, cool. Pants coming back off then.” Stiles shimmies back out of them, wriggles up against Derek and presses his mouth to the crook of his jaw.
Derek’s arms hesitantly come down around him, like he can’t believe it was that easy. Stiles is almost asleep when Derek says quietly, “You were-that was the best sex I’ve ever had. Just… since we’re being… since there’s communication here.”
Stiles snorts, half-asleep and hoping he’ll remember this in the morning. “I like the communication here,” he says, poking Derek in the armpit.
He can feel Derek’s cheek fill out with a smile against the top of his head when he says, “Me too.”
Stiles goes back to school, Derek doesn’t text and neither does Stiles and their relationship really is wholly unchanged except for the fact that when Stiles goes over to Derek’s, they have sex (and, holy shit, sex with Derek, like, actual, penetrative sex with him is unreal. He’s easily the most enthusiastic, creative and willing bottom that Stiles has ever fucked), he spends the night, brushes his teeth, macks on Derek’s face for fifteen minutes and leaves.
It’s absolutely the most perfect thing that has ever existed.
Scott doesn’t find out about it until about a year after it starts and it’s simply because he and Derek have gotten so used to touching each other. He’s in Derek’s kitchen, willing the nacho cheese to melt faster when Derek walks up behind him, squeezes his hand over the back of his neck and says, “This is not a good use of your time.”
Derek doesn’t causally touch anyone though and no one casually touches Derek either and Stiles and Derek both know that’s all it’s taken for the penny to drop for Scott. So Stiles goes for broke. He catches the wide eyes from Scott in his periphery, pulls Derek in by his belt loops and says, “What, like this?” before kissing him as deep as he dares in front of Scott - which is just not-deep-enough that he won’t pop a boner in front of his best friend.
Derek grins at him when he pulls away because, if nothing else, they both love fucking with Scott and quips back, “I actually wasn’t fishing but, yeah, we could do that.”
Which is when Scott takes it upon himself to say, “No, God, no, I’m already scarred for life and I do not need to see the follow-up to that. Ever. Ever, ever, ever.”
Stiles considers explaining it later but Scott seems torn between knowing as little about it as possible and actively pretending it’s not happening and Stiles decides not to ruin that for him.
Stiles has been back home and fucked Derek maybe six times when he texts him while waiting for his next class to start:
Dad says you said, ‘hey.’ So… hey back, good-lookin’ ;)
He doesn’t really think anything of it, because he’s said a lot cutesier to Derek in person (sex kind of melts his brain) and he’s mainly texting Derek to kill time. He’s not really interested in a reply of any kind. He gets one though, quick and obviously clipped.
I didn’t say anything to him besides that.
What does Derek think Stiles could possibly have imagined out of that? That Derek had walked up to his dad and said, “Hey, I’m fucking your son, well, sometimes he fucks me, and we really go all out, tried out all kinds of kinks together, really nasty stuff some of it. I swear, last time I saw him he couldn’t get out of bed for two days straight so, yeah, anyway, tell him I said ‘hey.’”
Stiles does know that Derek’s aware of how to have a conversation. He rolls his eyes at the paranoid reply and texts back:
Take a deep breath, calm down, ask me how I’m doing or something, shit. Nothing in what I said was accusatory, okay. Remember, I like you? Not looking for a reason not to either.
Stiles waits about a full minute to get the response:
How are you, Stiles?
He grins and gets so wrapped up in texting Derek that he’s five minutes late to class despite the fact that he’s sitting right outside the door.
The next time he comes home, instead of platonically hanging out with Derek before winding up in bed together, Derek greets him at the door with his mouth and a hand shoved halfway down his pants. Only after Stiles’ toes are curling and he’s coming buried in Derek’s ass does Derek pant out a, “Hi.”
Stiles falls into him laughing, forehead pressed between his shoulderblades as he chuckles out, “Hey.” He presses his mouth to Derek’s sweat-slick back in clumsy kisses, hips slowly rolling until he gets hard again and Derek is moaning and lifting back up onto his knees, doing all the work of fucking back into him.
Stiles makes the executive decision to come home for the first part of summer, which means three uninterrupted weeks with Derek and maybe he’s looking forward to it a little too much but he’s not going to stress about that. He gets to Beacon Hills at three in the afternoon, pretends he isn’t for about three seconds before hopping back into the Jeep and driving down to the lumber yard.
Derek’s coworkers find them making out in the parking lot and Stiles offers to buy them all a round, on Derek, to apologize.
Four of them come out that night, three girls and a guy and Stiles likes them. Maureen is kind of a bitch, especially to Paul and talks to them like they’re her children despite the fact that she’s younger than everyone but Stiles but eventually Stiles goes with it and asks her to tie her shoes and cut up his mozarella sticks for him. She sneers but Stiles can tell she’s not really pissed about it by the way her lips keep twitching.
Henrietta, Henry as she introduced herself, is a plump old woman who says some of the dirtiest things Stiles has ever heard and a sixty-year-old woman has definitely never made him blush so much. Paul is loud and not overly bright but good-natured and funny in a really simple way. Josie is quiet, like Derek, but when she does pipe up it’s always something that has Stiles laughing for a good five minutes and most of her jokes seem to be at Maureen’s expense. Stiles thinks maybe she has a bit of a crush on Paul and is avenging his honor or something.
They call Stiles Derek’s boyfriend and neither of them open their mouths to correct them.
Stiles says when they’re leaving the bar, “You should hang out with them more. They seem okay.” Stiles shrugs. “And then when I call and ask, ‘What’s up,’ you might actually be able to contribute something more than, ‘Uh, I got gas yesterday.’”
Derek grins at him, wide and genuine, and says, “Shut up,” before kissing him and making sure he does.
Funnily enough, Stiles gets a date two days before Derek calls him to say, “I don’t think we should do this anymore.”
Stiles’ chest gets tight but he forcibly shrugs it off and asks, “Are we still good? I mean, did I do something?”
“No,” Derek says, voice close to a growl. “We’re fine, I just-I need to stop.”
“Okay, then we stop.”
Derek makes a noise Stiles can’t interpret and hangs up. Stiles stares at the receiver for a long moment and texts Adam back, ‘Changed my mind. What time on Friday?’
It doesn’t work out. Stiles isn’t particularly surprised by that.
There’s a marked drop-off on his visits home and he doesn’t come back until Spring Break and there’s really no excuse for him to stay on campus. He figures it’s better to warn Derek than just pop up and, besides, he doesn’t want to stop the honesty thing they’ve got going on.
Back in town. I’m not sure where we stand on things. Are we friends still? Am I still expected over?
Stiles waits but he doesn’t get anything until after he’s seen Scott, had dinner with his dad and is about to pass out.
You don’t have to come over if you don’t want to.
Which is the most passive-aggressive way to ask him to come over and Stiles figures Derek is still awake now so he picks up his keys instead of reaching for the covers and Derek opens the door before he even gets the chance to knock. Stiles wiggles his toes inside his slippers and rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed, when he notices Derek checking out his pjs.
“Sorry, I was getting ready for bed when you texted but-”
“You didn’t have to come over now.” And Derek sounds angry and he’s not meeting Stiles’ eyes.
Stiles shrugs. “I know, but you were obviously awake,” he waggles his phone back and forth, “and I missed you, man. Is that okay to say?”
Derek’s shoulders loosen some as soon as he does so Stiles knows the answer even before Derek says, “Yeah, it’s okay. I missed you too.”
Derek grabs him a beer and Stiles tries not to show his surprise over him having it since no one but him drinks it and sits down on the couch with the cushion of space in between them and finds Zoolander on a station. Derek stares at it unblinkingly but not like he’s actually watching it so much as he’s avoiding making eye contact with Stiles and Stiles drops his head back against the couch and watches through the slits of his eyes before he inevitably falls asleep.
When he wakes up again, his head’s on one of the throw pillows on the arm of the couch, a blanket’s over him and his feet are in Derek’s lap, one of Derek’s hands rubbing the topmost one. Stiles scrubs at his eyes, props himself up on his elbow. “Hey.”
Derek glances over at him, not looking particularly surprised that he’s awake while some British narrator talks about the ocean in the background.
Stiles sits up properly, draping his arms over his drawn knees, and yawns. He looks between Derek and the TV and then stares at the former with beady eyes in the darkness. He rests his cheek on his knee and says in a voice gone strange with sleep, “It’s a good thing you stopped it when you did, you know.”
He feels Derek’s thighs tense under his feet but he doesn’t let that stop him.
“I was starting to-” he snorts, “I would’ve demanded a relationship out of you sooner or later, Hale. Probably much more on the sooner side of things than later. I blame the fact that you are deceptively amazing relationship material. I never would’ve guessed it. Anyway, you were right, to stop it, because I would’ve kept on going in a relationship that wasn’t what I wanted - that wasn’t enough of what I wanted - forever basically.”
Derek’s expression has gone from completely neutral to completely broken and fuck their honesty policy, Stiles should have just kept his fucking mouth shut when Derek says, “They kept calling you my boyfriend,” his eyes are hooded, dark, and he’s got a death grip on Stiles’ foot, “but you weren’t. And you wouldn’t stay. I couldn’t figure out how to make you stay and I kept… I didn’t even realize that’s what I was trying to do at first, asking you to spend the night and getting you a toothbrush and talking to your dad and stockpiling my fridge with beer I don’t drink and my cabinets with food I don’t eat and I love you.”
Stiles swallows. “So, what you’re saying here is, you stopped having sex with me because you wanted to have sex with me. That’s sound logic.”
Derek bares his teeth at him and says defensively, “Scott said you had a date.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yes, I did, and I was thinking about sucking your dick for most of it.” He climbs into Derek’s lap, shrugs. “I decided not to opt for a second one.”
Derek grins. “I don’t know, sounds like the perfect first date to me.”
And he looks so stupidly smug that Stiles has no choice but to drag Derek’s lip into his mouth and bite.
Title: Stay with Me
Rating: Hard R
Pairing/s: Stiles/Derek
Characters: Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale
Summary: “So, what’s up, what’s new, what the hell have you been doing with yourself?”
It’s only recently that that’s become a question that Stiles asks, always half-afraid he’d get the response ‘buried another body, moved into a dilapidated warehouse, had another family member show up and leave me,’ before. Considering he only knew how to handle the world with sarcasm and a tiny sprinkle of mean, he wouldn’t have been the best person to answer to any of that.
Warnings: None I can think of, Casual Sex, I guess?
Submission Type: Fic
Word Count: 5,489
Prompt: Touch Starved
Author's Notes: I have not read over this even once and will probably be messing with it quite a bit more and even the title is subject to change so very shoddily "finished," I just wanted it in for this challenge, goshdangit. Basically, if you want to read it, just wait for it to hit AO3, okay, folks, lol.
“So, I think Scott wants to expand again.” And Stiles says ‘again’ but what he really means is ‘for the first time.’ Because Liam was engineered by epically shit-tastic circumstances and he mostly keeps his head down, hasn’t really folded in as well as all that. One encounter with a berserker and the kid cracks apart. He’s not built for the life and they’ve mostly left him alone over the years, their relationship with him the same as people who exchange polite cards once a year on Christmas. Not involved in the day-to-day but not entirely forgotten either.
Derek grunts to show he’s listening but doesn’t give anything else away.
Stiles gets that. He’d brought up this conversation with Derek specifically because he thinks it’ll be of the most interest to him, even if it is potentially a bit painful to listen to. He thinks Derek misses having a large pack, misses Erica and Boyd and Isaac and Jackson because they’d been his and - weirdly - sometimes Stiles gets nostalgic for them too. He’s thought about calling Isaac or Jackson and asking them what the likelihood of their returning to Beacon Hills is, which is ridiculous because he never really got on well with either of them but, somehow, they became his pack anyway.
“It’s pretty much bullshit that teenagers are the best for it because we’re, you know, not teenagers anymore and I’m not sure if you’re aware of this: but teenagers kind of suck ass.”
Derek huffs out a little laugh, mutters something that sounds like, “I remember,” with a pointed glance at him and Stiles counts that as a win because they’re not really friends anymore, not that they ever really were - at least in the traditional sense, and sometimes it’s nothing but awkward. He hates how loose things have gotten with Derek pack-wise. Scott’s the only one still in the area and he’s never been good about keeping up his end of a friendship, then there’s Lydia, halfway across the country and never that close to Derek besides, Malia, off who knew where and not that interested in informing any of them about it anyway, Kira, shipped off to Maine with her parents after her dad got the university offer and Stiles, who’d gone to school two hours away and regretted it in moments like this.
“Anyway, since you’re the only one who’s recruited before, I’m thinking Scott will want to pow-wow with you about the newbies.”
Derek gives him a look and, yes, Stiles might have engineered this whole thing because it would give Derek a purpose but he hadn’t wanted him to know that. He did genuinely want a big, well, bigger, pack again but he also wanted a reason for Scott to have to keep in contact with Derek, a reason for the little pack they had left to work together again. He’s saved from having to own up to it by his pocket blaring, “I nearly dropped the torah when my hands turned into paws.”
Derek snorts and Stiles says, “Yeah, laugh it up, big guy, yours is ‘Muffin Top.’”
Stiles grins when Derek scowls at him and fishes his phone out of his pocket. “Scott’s coming over,” he says, relaying the message and Derek acknowledges him with another grunt. “I hardly know how to deal with how talkative you are these days.”
Derek shrugs. “What do you want me to say?”
“Literally anything. You can’t just rely on me to fill the void simply because I usually do.”
Derek grins at him, slightly sly. “I think I can.”
Stiles flips him off, gets up from the couch, stretches and wanders around the loft. He hasn’t seen it in something like eight months and it’s further along in the process to looking actually livable. Still spartan, of course, but there are two actual throw pillows on the couch and a bedspread on Derek’s bed and pans hanging on the rack over the kitchen island and a new coat of paint on the walls. The hole’s still there but Stiles hadn’t come here expecting miracles. He takes a swig of his beer, nearly drops it when he turns around and finds Derek standing right behind him.
“Smooth,” he comments, amused.
Stiles kicks him in the thigh as he passes. It looks awkward as hell and doesn’t even get his leg to buckle like it was meant to but he’s pretty sure it was the thought that counted. He follows Derek into the kitchen, leans across the island counter, beer between his palms. “So, what’s up, what’s new, what the hell have you been doing with yourself?”
It’s only recently that that’s become a question that Stiles asks, always half-afraid he’d get the response ‘buried another body, moved into a dilapidated warehouse, had another family member show up and leave me,’ before. Considering he only knew how to handle the world with sarcasm and a tiny sprinkle of mean, he wouldn’t have been the best person to answer to any of that.
Derek shrugs, pours himself a glass of water, turns around to meet his eyes. “Got a job at the lumber yard a few months ago, the one downtown.” Stiles nods. Derek shrugs again, seeming to realize Stiles is waiting for him to go on. “That’s it.”
“Seriously? That’s it? Talked to Isaac, Jackson?” Derek shakes his head. “Dating anyone?”
Derek’s entire body goes tense. “I’m not-You know that I don’t…” He looks wholly uncomfortable and Stiles didn’t really know that, though pattern would indicate it.
Stiles straightens up, glances to the door but ‘five minutes’ in Scott time usually translates to two hours and so if he can nut up and get serious about this, they’re at least not likely to get barged in on. “I was under the impression that things ended well with Braeden.” And she was the last relationship Stiles knew about, though he hopes she’s not the last one Derek had because that was four years ago.
Derek still looks so stiff that Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if something broke but he keeps up his end of the conversation, so he’s uncomfortable but pushing through regardless and Stiles figures they should keep at it. “They did,” he bites out.
“Have you seen anyone since then?”
Derek works his jaw for a half-second. “Not-There were a few-nothing that lasted more than a night.”
“Ah,” Stiles says carefully. He takes a sip of his beer, trying to pretend like he isn’t walking on eggshells and this is a normal conversation and they talk like this all the time even though they both know otherwise. “So you’re regularly-”
“No,” Derek cuts him off. “It’s not-I don’t like… having strangers here or foreign scents on…”
Stiles swallows but his brain has trouble processing that one and he can’t exactly hold back the, “So how long has it been since you-”
“A while,” Derek says, close to a growl.
Stiles considers that, taps his short nails against the counter so he can hear it make the dull thudding noise and says absolutely as casually as he can manage (which isn’t all that casual considering his voice has gone up at least an octave), “Well if it’s just about not wanting to hook up with strangers and, believe me, I get that, I do, then what about having sex with me?”
Derek’s head snaps up, eyes wide, and he looks hunted almost.
“Or, you know, we could not do that,” Stiles backpedals, giving a strangled sort of cough that he meant to be a laugh and walking away back to the couch.
Derek follows him. “You’re serious?” He sounds some mix of angry and incredulous and Stiles doesn’t really know what to make of that.
He shrugs. “Well, yeah.” He glances back at Derek’s face, which is still disbelieving. “What, like it’s a hardship? You’re stupidly attractive and I admit you used to butt your way into my teenage fantasies with some regularity, pun definitely intended. I trust you, I think you trust me too, and if it’s awkward as hell? Then I’m gone before the week is out, we both subscribe to the ‘ignore it until it goes away’ style of conflict resolution so by the time I come back we’ll be mostly normal or at least able to pretend as much. Plus, there is no way that with your face and your body that you’re not dynamite in the sack.”
Derek shoots him a furrowed look, admitting in a mutter, “I don’t actually know.”
Stiles grins. “Just another benefit to this - open communication.”
“So, just sex and then…”
Stiles shrugs again, drains the last of his beer. He’s remarkably sober for someone having this conversation. “And then whatever you want. We can go back to our usual not-talking while we’re apart or we could talk every night for all it matters to me.”
“I don’t-I’m not interested in a relationship,” Derek says quickly, like he fears this is the sticking point.
Stiles smiles. “That’s cool, dude. A casual sex relationship while I’m in college, sex here and sex there? That kind of sounds like I just struck gold. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t talk, that we’re not friends. It’s hard to tell because we’re both bad at that whole thing but I think we are.”
“I-yes,” Derek says, like he’s only just realizing. To be fair, Stiles kind of is too.
“So we’re not losing that, we’re just adding to it and you can add whatever you want.” Derek shoots him an assessing look and Stiles has the realization that he might have no idea how to turn this down and mentally kicks himself for coming at it with such an edge. “Listen, if you’re not interested, no hard feelings, okay, honestly. I’ll be butthurt about it for a few days because that’s the ego-check of a lifetime but by the time I’m back here, we’ll be all good again, scout’s honor.”
“No, I-” Derek swallows, “I want to.” His eyebrows form a deep ‘v’ and he says self-consciously, “This, with you, it’s the most successful relationship I have.” He pauses like he thinks he’s about to be laughed at and sighs. “I don’t want to ruin it.” Like I’ve ruined so much else, he doesn’t say it but they both hear it.
“I think as long as we’re honest with each other, we’ve got a shot at doing this right,” Stiles says simply. That’s what it comes to. That’s where things always seem to fuck up in movies, in books, in real life, is when people start keeping things to themselves or openly lying. Stiles has never had trouble being honest with Derek though.
Aside from Scott, he’s actually probably the person Stiles tells the truth to most often.
Derek nods, licks his lower lip. “I can do that. So…” his gaze flicks down to Stiles’ mouth and they’re a cushion too far apart on this couch and leaning in when Derek jerks back.
Scott bounds in less than a minute later without bothering to knock (probably because he knew Stiles was inside) and Stiles is barely even off the couch before Scott’s crushing him in a tight hug.
He knocks Derek on the shoulder, takes the spot in between them on the couch and starts talking about a puppy that came into Deaton’s a few hours ago.
Stiles notices the way Derek’s hands clench in the fabric over his knees, bunching up his jeans so they’re impressively creased, before he gets up to offer Scott something to drink. They watch Age of Ultron-well, Scott watches Age of Ultron, Stiles and Derek mostly watch each other, looking away quickly when they get caught by the other, and Scott says as he’s half-out the door, “Stiles says he mentioned adding to the pack, potentially adding to the pack.”
Derek nods guardedly and Scott runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure how I-I mean, I guess it would depend on the people who wanted it, right? I think Erica and Boyd and Isaac, I think they were good choices and if I could find someone like them then it would make more sense, you know?”
Derek blinks kind of stupidly at Scott because Scott just complimented him, just said he did something right, and Stiles can count the number of times that’s happened on one hand.
“Anyway, we can talk about it more later,” he says with a shrug, seriousness gone and puppy smile back and place.
“Sure,” Derek murmurs back agreeably.
Scott ducks his head around him, raises his eyebrows at where Stiles is standing behind the both of them. “You coming, man?”
Derek tenses, muscles in his back going tight and hand gripping the handle on the door too hard. Stiles walks up to stand closer to his side, ostensibly so he can give Scott a one-armed hug and says casually, “No, think I’m going to hang back, soak in the almost complete person that is Derek Hale.” Stiles flashes him a cheeky grin while Scott snorts.
Derek glowers at him but it fades quickly when Stiles takes the hand hidden by Derek’s back and strokes his fingers between the valley of his shoulderblades. He presses his palm flat, digs in with the slightest bit of pressure with the heel of it all the way down the length of Derek’s spine before letting his hand fall away completely. He goes back to cradling his beer with it, easy-like.
Derek’s gone rigid at the first touch but he’s slowly unwound by the time Scott’s saying the last of his goodbyes and trooping down the hall.
Derek gestures with a head tilt towards the door and Stiles takes that to mean he’s waiting until Scott’s out of range. After a minute or so, Derek dips his chin and Stiles asks, “Was that okay?”
“Yes,” Derek says and it’s hoarse and his ears go the slightest bit red, like he’s embarrassed by it, and Stiles has to wonder how long it’s been since anyone touched Derek.
Stiles frowns to himself, sets his beer down on the closest surface and steps into Derek’s space. Derek steps back, rubs a hand over the back of his neck and asks, “Do you want something else?” Stiles shakes his head and Derek redirects from the kitchen back to his spot on the couch.
Stiles goes around his side too, sits on the coffee table in front of him while Derek looks anywhere but him, and leans in with his hands on Derek’s knees. Derek answers the kiss and it’s nothing more than light pressure really, nothing demanding or forceful, more curious than anything else. Stiles drags his lower lip over Derek’s upper one, exploring, and then it’s small catches and sucks and unhurried press of teeth.
Stiles pulls back even though he kind of suspects he could kiss Derek forever and says, grinning, “Hi.”
Derek’s hands find his hips, squeeze. “Hi,” he says back. Looks away again. “I didn’t think you… didn’t think we’d kiss.”
Stiles snorts. “I’m not a prostitute, dude,” Derek ducks his head a little and Stiles scoots closer on the table so their knees are touching, “and if the mission here is not to develop feelings for you then you can consider that failed and then some because I already care about you.”
Derek looks up at that, blinking dumbly for a moment before his face shutters closed again. “I care about you too.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “And in other obvious-facts news: jellyfish are invertebrate and Kate Argent is a bitch.”
Derek snorts and the hands on Stiles’ hips get more sure, circle his waist and pull him upright as Derek stands. He cups Stiles’ cheek and pulls him in for a long, chaste kiss, until Stiles decides he can’t quite keep his tongue out of the proceedings anymore and Derek’s pulling him over to his bed.
It’s remarkably… not weird. Derek smiles and Stiles laughs when he gets his shirt stuck on his own elbow trying to get it off and Stiles says, “I kind of just want to put my hands really… all over you just because. Is that cool?”
Derek chuckles, looking a little confused by the request, but shrugs and says, “Yeah.”
So he does. There’s no real aim in mind, just Derek laying next to him and Stiles leaning over him and touching his shoulders, his back, his arms, his neck, his scruff and making him roll over so he can aimlessly run his hand over the rest of him. Aimless at least until Derek shivers when Stiles brushes his nipple and then they’re kissing again but there’s still no rush to it. Stiles gets Derek on his back for the fourth time and says, “Can I-You’re cool if I blow you, right?”
Derek just huffs and pushes his head down while Stiles grins.
He’s not sure what is is about Derek, maybe that he hasn’t gotten laid in ages or that he simply hasn’t gotten laid that much, but Stiles makes it his best, most enthusiastic blow job ever. His jaw aches, the back of his throat is sore and he might lose his voice by tomorrow but Derek’s chest is rising and falling in great, heaving breaths, his thigh muscles are quivering and the expression on his face is just fucking shattered with bliss so… beyond worth it.
After that their kissing is aggressive, almost furious, like Derek wants to prove how much he liked it and he jerks Stiles off expertly, grip firm and attentive.
Stiles’ grin is winded afterwards and he shoves his nose up into Derek’s neck after pressing a kiss to his collarbone, curls his body around his and says, “We ace sex. We should have all the sex because we’re good at it and it’d be cruel not to.”
Derek brings an arm down around him, squeezes, says agreeably, “Okay.”
Stiles hums sleepily, shifting closer to Derek, and he doesn’t think he’ll mind too much if Stiles just passes out for a bit here. His eyes are already starting to shutter when Derek says, “I’m glad you… that you said something. I never would have thought to and this was… I needed this.”
Stiles makes a happy noise, sighs, “Me too,” and falls asleep.
He wakes up again at three a.m., which means he’s only been asleep about an hour and a half and sits up. He yawns widely and looks over at Derek with an unstoppable smile. His hair’s a mess from Stiles’ fingers and he’s sleeping half on his face, turned away from him on his side, back curled and head in his pillow.
It’s pretty much adorable.
Stiles yawns again, reaches over the side of the bed and finds his pants but not his boxers. He can deal going commando for the drive home though. He swings his legs over the side of the mattress and pulls them on. He’s just getting the button hooked when Derek’s voice notes, “You’re putting on pants.” His just-woke-up voice is deep and gravelly and exactly what Stiles would have expected him to sound like based just on his appearance. It makes him grin.
He rubs a hand over his face, looks back over his shoulder. Derek’s gazing at him with owlish eyes and a guarded expression. Stiles strokes a finger down his scruff and says warmly, “Hey.” He kisses Derek lightly on his slack mouth just to bring it home how much he doesn’t regret this and pulls back with yet another yawn and a slepy smile. “Yeah, I am. By the way,” he pokes Derek in the cheek, “dynamite doesn’t come close.”
Derek grins for a half second and then it slowly retreats. His expression goes blank again. “Are you leaving?”
“Yeah, I was going to do the casual sex walk of triumph,” Stiles says, puffing out his chest.
“Oh,” is all Derek says, mouth tight, and Stiles thinks he gets it.
He nudges Derek in the shoulder with his elbow. “Do you want me to stay?”
Derek shrugs, looks away. “I’ve never-If people don’t say over when they’re doing… this then you should go.”
Stiles frowns. “Hey, we’re not people. We’re Derek and Stiles and I’m asking you if you want me to stay.”
Derek looks up at him, takes a deep breath like he’s potentially going to suck all the air out of the room and says, “Yes.”
“Okay, cool. Pants coming back off then.” Stiles shimmies back out of them, wriggles up against Derek and presses his mouth to the crook of his jaw.
Derek’s arms hesitantly come down around him, like he can’t believe it was that easy. Stiles is almost asleep when Derek says quietly, “You were-that was the best sex I’ve ever had. Just… since we’re being… since there’s communication here.”
Stiles snorts, half-asleep and hoping he’ll remember this in the morning. “I like the communication here,” he says, poking Derek in the armpit.
He can feel Derek’s cheek fill out with a smile against the top of his head when he says, “Me too.”
Stiles goes back to school, Derek doesn’t text and neither does Stiles and their relationship really is wholly unchanged except for the fact that when Stiles goes over to Derek’s, they have sex (and, holy shit, sex with Derek, like, actual, penetrative sex with him is unreal. He’s easily the most enthusiastic, creative and willing bottom that Stiles has ever fucked), he spends the night, brushes his teeth, macks on Derek’s face for fifteen minutes and leaves.
It’s absolutely the most perfect thing that has ever existed.
Scott doesn’t find out about it until about a year after it starts and it’s simply because he and Derek have gotten so used to touching each other. He’s in Derek’s kitchen, willing the nacho cheese to melt faster when Derek walks up behind him, squeezes his hand over the back of his neck and says, “This is not a good use of your time.”
Derek doesn’t causally touch anyone though and no one casually touches Derek either and Stiles and Derek both know that’s all it’s taken for the penny to drop for Scott. So Stiles goes for broke. He catches the wide eyes from Scott in his periphery, pulls Derek in by his belt loops and says, “What, like this?” before kissing him as deep as he dares in front of Scott - which is just not-deep-enough that he won’t pop a boner in front of his best friend.
Derek grins at him when he pulls away because, if nothing else, they both love fucking with Scott and quips back, “I actually wasn’t fishing but, yeah, we could do that.”
Which is when Scott takes it upon himself to say, “No, God, no, I’m already scarred for life and I do not need to see the follow-up to that. Ever. Ever, ever, ever.”
Stiles considers explaining it later but Scott seems torn between knowing as little about it as possible and actively pretending it’s not happening and Stiles decides not to ruin that for him.
Stiles has been back home and fucked Derek maybe six times when he texts him while waiting for his next class to start:
Dad says you said, ‘hey.’ So… hey back, good-lookin’ ;)
He doesn’t really think anything of it, because he’s said a lot cutesier to Derek in person (sex kind of melts his brain) and he’s mainly texting Derek to kill time. He’s not really interested in a reply of any kind. He gets one though, quick and obviously clipped.
I didn’t say anything to him besides that.
What does Derek think Stiles could possibly have imagined out of that? That Derek had walked up to his dad and said, “Hey, I’m fucking your son, well, sometimes he fucks me, and we really go all out, tried out all kinds of kinks together, really nasty stuff some of it. I swear, last time I saw him he couldn’t get out of bed for two days straight so, yeah, anyway, tell him I said ‘hey.’”
Stiles does know that Derek’s aware of how to have a conversation. He rolls his eyes at the paranoid reply and texts back:
Take a deep breath, calm down, ask me how I’m doing or something, shit. Nothing in what I said was accusatory, okay. Remember, I like you? Not looking for a reason not to either.
Stiles waits about a full minute to get the response:
How are you, Stiles?
He grins and gets so wrapped up in texting Derek that he’s five minutes late to class despite the fact that he’s sitting right outside the door.
The next time he comes home, instead of platonically hanging out with Derek before winding up in bed together, Derek greets him at the door with his mouth and a hand shoved halfway down his pants. Only after Stiles’ toes are curling and he’s coming buried in Derek’s ass does Derek pant out a, “Hi.”
Stiles falls into him laughing, forehead pressed between his shoulderblades as he chuckles out, “Hey.” He presses his mouth to Derek’s sweat-slick back in clumsy kisses, hips slowly rolling until he gets hard again and Derek is moaning and lifting back up onto his knees, doing all the work of fucking back into him.
Stiles makes the executive decision to come home for the first part of summer, which means three uninterrupted weeks with Derek and maybe he’s looking forward to it a little too much but he’s not going to stress about that. He gets to Beacon Hills at three in the afternoon, pretends he isn’t for about three seconds before hopping back into the Jeep and driving down to the lumber yard.
Derek’s coworkers find them making out in the parking lot and Stiles offers to buy them all a round, on Derek, to apologize.
Four of them come out that night, three girls and a guy and Stiles likes them. Maureen is kind of a bitch, especially to Paul and talks to them like they’re her children despite the fact that she’s younger than everyone but Stiles but eventually Stiles goes with it and asks her to tie her shoes and cut up his mozarella sticks for him. She sneers but Stiles can tell she’s not really pissed about it by the way her lips keep twitching.
Henrietta, Henry as she introduced herself, is a plump old woman who says some of the dirtiest things Stiles has ever heard and a sixty-year-old woman has definitely never made him blush so much. Paul is loud and not overly bright but good-natured and funny in a really simple way. Josie is quiet, like Derek, but when she does pipe up it’s always something that has Stiles laughing for a good five minutes and most of her jokes seem to be at Maureen’s expense. Stiles thinks maybe she has a bit of a crush on Paul and is avenging his honor or something.
They call Stiles Derek’s boyfriend and neither of them open their mouths to correct them.
Stiles says when they’re leaving the bar, “You should hang out with them more. They seem okay.” Stiles shrugs. “And then when I call and ask, ‘What’s up,’ you might actually be able to contribute something more than, ‘Uh, I got gas yesterday.’”
Derek grins at him, wide and genuine, and says, “Shut up,” before kissing him and making sure he does.
Funnily enough, Stiles gets a date two days before Derek calls him to say, “I don’t think we should do this anymore.”
Stiles’ chest gets tight but he forcibly shrugs it off and asks, “Are we still good? I mean, did I do something?”
“No,” Derek says, voice close to a growl. “We’re fine, I just-I need to stop.”
“Okay, then we stop.”
Derek makes a noise Stiles can’t interpret and hangs up. Stiles stares at the receiver for a long moment and texts Adam back, ‘Changed my mind. What time on Friday?’
It doesn’t work out. Stiles isn’t particularly surprised by that.
There’s a marked drop-off on his visits home and he doesn’t come back until Spring Break and there’s really no excuse for him to stay on campus. He figures it’s better to warn Derek than just pop up and, besides, he doesn’t want to stop the honesty thing they’ve got going on.
Back in town. I’m not sure where we stand on things. Are we friends still? Am I still expected over?
Stiles waits but he doesn’t get anything until after he’s seen Scott, had dinner with his dad and is about to pass out.
You don’t have to come over if you don’t want to.
Which is the most passive-aggressive way to ask him to come over and Stiles figures Derek is still awake now so he picks up his keys instead of reaching for the covers and Derek opens the door before he even gets the chance to knock. Stiles wiggles his toes inside his slippers and rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed, when he notices Derek checking out his pjs.
“Sorry, I was getting ready for bed when you texted but-”
“You didn’t have to come over now.” And Derek sounds angry and he’s not meeting Stiles’ eyes.
Stiles shrugs. “I know, but you were obviously awake,” he waggles his phone back and forth, “and I missed you, man. Is that okay to say?”
Derek’s shoulders loosen some as soon as he does so Stiles knows the answer even before Derek says, “Yeah, it’s okay. I missed you too.”
Derek grabs him a beer and Stiles tries not to show his surprise over him having it since no one but him drinks it and sits down on the couch with the cushion of space in between them and finds Zoolander on a station. Derek stares at it unblinkingly but not like he’s actually watching it so much as he’s avoiding making eye contact with Stiles and Stiles drops his head back against the couch and watches through the slits of his eyes before he inevitably falls asleep.
When he wakes up again, his head’s on one of the throw pillows on the arm of the couch, a blanket’s over him and his feet are in Derek’s lap, one of Derek’s hands rubbing the topmost one. Stiles scrubs at his eyes, props himself up on his elbow. “Hey.”
Derek glances over at him, not looking particularly surprised that he’s awake while some British narrator talks about the ocean in the background.
Stiles sits up properly, draping his arms over his drawn knees, and yawns. He looks between Derek and the TV and then stares at the former with beady eyes in the darkness. He rests his cheek on his knee and says in a voice gone strange with sleep, “It’s a good thing you stopped it when you did, you know.”
He feels Derek’s thighs tense under his feet but he doesn’t let that stop him.
“I was starting to-” he snorts, “I would’ve demanded a relationship out of you sooner or later, Hale. Probably much more on the sooner side of things than later. I blame the fact that you are deceptively amazing relationship material. I never would’ve guessed it. Anyway, you were right, to stop it, because I would’ve kept on going in a relationship that wasn’t what I wanted - that wasn’t enough of what I wanted - forever basically.”
Derek’s expression has gone from completely neutral to completely broken and fuck their honesty policy, Stiles should have just kept his fucking mouth shut when Derek says, “They kept calling you my boyfriend,” his eyes are hooded, dark, and he’s got a death grip on Stiles’ foot, “but you weren’t. And you wouldn’t stay. I couldn’t figure out how to make you stay and I kept… I didn’t even realize that’s what I was trying to do at first, asking you to spend the night and getting you a toothbrush and talking to your dad and stockpiling my fridge with beer I don’t drink and my cabinets with food I don’t eat and I love you.”
Stiles swallows. “So, what you’re saying here is, you stopped having sex with me because you wanted to have sex with me. That’s sound logic.”
Derek bares his teeth at him and says defensively, “Scott said you had a date.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yes, I did, and I was thinking about sucking your dick for most of it.” He climbs into Derek’s lap, shrugs. “I decided not to opt for a second one.”
Derek grins. “I don’t know, sounds like the perfect first date to me.”
And he looks so stupidly smug that Stiles has no choice but to drag Derek’s lip into his mouth and bite.