Fic: Teen Wolf: state of readiness | NC17 | Derek/Stiles (7/10)
They break into the high school's indoor pool just after nine, turning on just enough lights to see what they're doing. Stiles tosses Derek a duffle bag and heads back out of the locker room to wait. He's got trunks on under his track pants and he's already stripped down to those when Derek emerges.
"Olympic-style," Stiles nods. "Good choice." The knee-length spandex trunks are positively bursting with the effort of containing Derek's muscles. Somewhere Michael Phelps is quietly weeping, binge-eating and piling extra cheese and double-mayo onto his Subway foot-long.
"There was no choice," Derek growls, tossing the bag back at Stiles. "The first ones had giant pink flowers, and the third had less material than most of Erica's panties."
"It's the off-season," Stiles protests. "The choices were limited."
Derek huffs.
"Also…how exactly do you know about Erica's panties? Are you even sure she wears them?" he says dreamily. "I always kinda pictured her going comman-"
"Pack laundry days, Stiles." Derek snaps his fingers under Stiles' nose. "Focus."
"Uh, right. So let's start with a few questions."
It had been a shock to learn that Derek-even without kanima venom-would still have drowned in the pool if Stiles hadn't been there. Stiles found it hard to fathom, that there was a physical activity, a sort of athleticism, at which Derek was thoroughly incompetent.
Given the number of lakes and rivers scattered throughout Beacon County, and that the pack territory is littered with them, it's hard to believe Derek never learned to swim. It makes him seem more vulnerably human, somehow, and less like a supernatural being. At least until Stiles was unanimously elected to be the one to change all that.
Derek narrows his eyes skeptically, crossing his arms over his chest. It's clear to Stiles he has to lead off Derek's own War on Weakness with a strong show of competence or Derek is gonna bail.
"Can your wolf swim?"
And, seriously, he doesn't even know where that came from.
Stiles has plotted out this entire scenario, with flow charts that offered alternatives for any of Derek's possible actions. He took an online instructor's course. He's watched countless videos on YouTube. He has eight friggin' lesson plans, which he's memorized, for God's sake. None of them have anything like this as part of the script.
Derek looks too surprised to be pissed, which is kind of a surprise in and of itself. Generally speaking, Stiles has zero trouble at all when it comes to pissing Derek off.
"I…no. I don't think so," Derek says, but he doesn't sound all that sure.
"You don't sound all that sure," Stiles says, feeling the immediate urge to face-palm. Why does his private Stiles always end up becoming public Stiles whenever Derek is around? It's like he's physically incapable of not babbling every thought aloud.
"It's…not that easy to say for sure," Derek answers slowly. He sighs and squats down to sit at the corner of the shallow end, dangling his feet into the water.
"Try me." Stiles joins him, taking the adjoining side of the same corner so he can see Derek's face. Stiles paddles his feet a little, but Derek doesn't answer until they accidentally bump ankles underwater and it seems to shake him out of wherever he's been.
"You don't…that is, you can't always remember everything that happens when you're a wolf." He pauses, cutting a glance toward Stiles, gauging his reaction.
Stiles is working hard to suppress one, to be honest. Derek Hale voluntarily self-editing the word "don't"-meaning could but choose not to-to the word "can't"-meaning incapable of-is sort of a big deal.
Stiles isn't sure what to make of it.
"Well." Stiles looks up from the water to find Derek's gaze very intently fixed on him. It's sorta tingly and sorta creepy. Which basically describes their entire relationship.
"Why don't you start by telling me things that you usually do remember?"
Derek's face clears immediately. "Visceral things. Fighting. Hunting; taking down a deer, its hot blood in your throat…" He pauses for another Stiles barometer check but is apparently satisfied with Stiles' carefully schooled expression. "Pack, family…not necessarily everything we did, but some things. Always the knowledge that they were there, you know? People I loved, sharing experiences."
Stiles nods, at once exhilarated by the amount of words spilling from Derek and gutted by the past tense when he speaks of people he loved.
"I-I used to remember more, when it was all of us out together. When it's just me, it's sort of…vague, later," Derek says.
Stiles feels an urge to pat Derek's knee or something else ridiculously comforting and potentially non-consensual from Derek's point of view. A few months ago he'd have ignored it, but now he knows better. This is a pack-touch moment staring him in the face. He reaches out, brushes the backs of his fingers down Derek's forearm, and raps his knuckles softly against the back of Derek's hand where it's gripping the pool's edge. Derek turns his palm up and squeezes Stiles' hand for just a moment before letting go.
He tries to think of something to say that won't sound trite, but he remembers part of another lesson…the pack doesn't always need words. Sometimes just being there is enough.
"Anything else?" he asks instead, clearing his throat.
"The shift itself, and shifting back. I always remember that. Pain, fear, smells. Aching muscles. Danger."
"Sex?"
Derek side-eyes him again.
"I…would assume it would fall under visceral, that I'd remember."
"But you haven’t…" Stiles makes a deliberately vague hand-wavy motion "…as a wolf?"
"No," Derek says tightly.
"I see."
"Stiillles… That long, slow, half/drawl, half/growl thing Derek does to Stiles' name when his patience is fading is really not the way to distract him from thinking about sex.
"What about things you don't remember?" Stiles continues quickly.
"It's kinda hard to recall," Derek says, and Stiles is already opening his mouth to ask the next question before it hits him.
"You made a funny!" he says, shocked. "Derek Hale cracked a joke."
"Don't tell anyone," Derek flashes a tiny smile, and Stiles wonders how many times his heart has to flutter for Derek to notice it. "I've got a reputation I want to keep."
"He's a color-phobic bad-ass with a secret sense of humor on the wrong side of the law…" Stiles mumbles.
"And he's a stubborn sheriff's son with a tendency to save the day…" Derek takes up his half, shocking Stiles.
"And together…THEY FIGHT CRIME!" they exclaim together, laughing.
"Dude. I had no idea that you and pop-culture were on speaking terms," Stiles grins, truly amazed. That momentary, searing vision of Derek-head thrown back and laughing-was brighter than the sun itself.
Stiles now knows how Riddick felt when they took his glasses away.
"My whole life changed when we got indoor plumbing," Derek deadpans, splashing Stiles in faux annoyance.
"Who are you?" Stiles laughs again. "These last few months, it's like you've been replaced by an updated version that includes social interaction modules for the first time," he says. "I feel like I went to bed with a Blackberry Pearl and woke up with an iPhone 5."
"I'm housebroken, too."
"You…you're a Stepford Wolf!"
They grin a little more at each other, splashing quietly for a few more minutes before Derek breaks the silence.
"Stiles," Derek says. It almost sounds gentle, so Stiles figures he's in trouble. "We've been here over an hour already and I haven't even gotten in the water."
The rubberized edge of the 3 on the 3 FT marker decal is coming up, and Stiles can't resist picking at it. It's like that episode of The X-Files where Mulder throws sunflower seeds at the vampire and it compulsively has to count every one.
"Do you trust me?" he blurts out.
"Absolutely."
"Because I kept you alive in this very pool for going on three hours and I would never-"
"Stiles." Derek stops him. "You don't have to convince me, okay? I already said I trust you. Land or water," he finishes, index finger making an "X" over his heart.
"Oh. Okay then." Stiles momentarily forgets what required Derek's trust.
"What do you want to do?" Derek prompts him.
"Oh, um, yeah. I thought maybe you could shift, in the water, and we could see once and for all if your wolf swims," he says.
Derek looks dubious.
"I'll be right here, I won't let anything happen…"
"I believe you," Derek says. "I just don't see the point. I've already said I don't remember lots of what happens when I'm shifted. Even if I can swim in wolf-form, it doesn't mean I'll remember how when I'm back to human."
"But you said…" Stiles trails off. It's even starting to sound stupid in his head now, where it's just him in there. He can't imagine what it'll sound like out loud to Derek. But Derek nudges him, toes kicking Stiles' calf underwater, one eyebrow lifted like a much, much hotter Spock. Quinto10th, at least.
"I said what?" he asks. Stiles' face heats.
"You said that sometimes you do remember things, when you're with pack, or people you...care about…" He trails off into a mumble.
Derek stares at Stiles, expression completely, carefully blank.
"Okay," he nods, a single decisive dip of the chin. "Let's do this." Derek tips forward off the edge and into the shallows, bouncing on the bottom of the pool.
Stiles' heart sinks. He knows that look. Everyone in the pack has seen it individually directed at each of them at one time or another, many of them recently during their individual little wars.
Sometimes Derek is pretty sure you're gonna fall flat on your face. He can totally visualize your idea-he's actually really good at that-but at the same time he realizes what you have yet to grasp: that your plan is basically just popsicle sticks and duct tape, destined to fall apart at the slightest deviation from the blueprint you probably drew up with a dull crayon.
A lot of the time he lets it ride anyway (never, ever if danger is imminent), supporting you quietly and by example, ensuring the rest of the pack does, too.
When it's over and you're eating failcakes for breakfast, he'll clap you on the back and if you're lucky, you get one of those tiny little smiles and that stupid, stupid craving for the Alpha's approval will soothe your bruised ego enough that you're not afraid to try again.
It's one of the few aspects of leadership that seems to come naturally to Derek-unexpected, untrained, mentor-less (Stiles flat-out refuses to count Peter) Alpha that he is. Stiles wonders if he remembers his parents raising the pack kids that way. Someone should remind Derek that he's good at something for a change, and Stiles decides he'll do just that as soon as-
"Holy Mother of God, why are you suddenly naked!?" The wet splat of Derek's trunks hitting the pool deck interrupts Stiles' interior monologue.
Waist-deep and au naturale, Derek looks completely unperturbed.
"It's the only pair of trunks I have. I'm not going to shred them in the shift, Stiles," he says reasonably.
"But you…I…you…I have to hold onto you, Derek. And you're naked," he hisses.
"I'll be naked once I shift, too," Derek says. He's so often bereft of logic that it completely infuriates Stiles that Derek suddenly has an endless-and flawless-supply in a situation like this. "What's the difference?"
"Fur," Stiles says immediately. "Fur is the difference. That, and the fact that when you shift you are not in a form that I would have certain thoughts about."
"You have thoughts about my form?" Derek says, amused.
"I'm a seventeen-year-old virgin. I have thoughts about the form of Mr. Clean. And the Old Spice Guy."
"Together?" Derek sounds genuinely curious. Stiles can't even make words for that. He just groans painfully, something that echoes across the water and probably sounds like a dying animal to Derek.
Like prey.
"The Old Spice Guy is pretty ripped." Derek nods understandingly.
"Ohmygod shut up now. Please shut up. How is this my life? This is the worst conversation I've ever had."
"Can we get on with this, so I can shift before you have an aneurysm?"
"Yes, yes. That. Let's do that." Stiles hops down into the water alongside Derek. "Shift into the non-naked, wolfy form that I don't have thoughts about," Stiles babbles.
"So you say," Derek smiles. It's a horrible smile. A horrible, knowing little smile. "I've seen the porn folder on your hard drive."
"What?"
Stiles is appalled. There are things you just don't do. Things that people-normal people, human people with two legs and no tails that don't have boundary issues-don't do.
"You wouldn't," he gasps. "You didn't…"
Finally Derek relents. "You're right," he confesses. "I didn't. I'm just yanking your chain, Stiles. I had no idea what kind of porn you like."
"OhthankyouGod," Stiles breathes fervently. A beat later, the past-tense registers and Stiles' head snaps up.
"But, now…?" Stiles says weakly.
"Now I do," Derek smirks.
"Excuse me," Stiles whimpers.
"To where?" Derek asks.
"I'm gonna go drown myself in the deep end of the pool," he moans. "Make sure Scott gets all my comic books."
In the end Stiles' bone-deep mortification is almost worth it, because Derek ends up laughing so hard he has to lean against the side of the pool, arms clutching his belly.
It's much hotter than the Old Spice Guy.
~~~~~~~
"Think about buoyancy," Stiles urges a short while later, trying to keep Derek afloat on his belly. Without touching any special naked fun-time places. It's not easy. Derek flails every few moments, and keeps dropping his mouth into the water and sputtering, and then again with the flailing.
To be fair, it's not as easy to float on your stomach, but they both agreed it'd be better for Derek's wolf to start out that way when he comes out of the shift instead of on his back.
"You think about buoyancy," Derek grumbles, sputtering and coughing. "It's probably-" cough "-natural for you-" cough "-with all that hot air."
Stiles doesn't say it out loud, but he's got a point. Derek has about negative three percent body fat, so there's not a lot of anything to help him out, floatation-wise.
"Okay, new tactic," Stiles declares. "This is what we're gonna do."
Derek freezes, and it's the most still he's been since he laid down across Stiles' arms. Stiles has a momentary spike of hope that they're going to get this done. Then he watches Derek slowly twist his neck to gaze at him. It's murderous. Like, Post-Office-Wanted-Poster murderous, and in that moment Stiles comes to a stark realization.
Someday, if Derek ever snaps and takes out the entire city council after a particularly bad day at the DMV, CNN will not be able to find a single Beacon Hill resident willing to give the obligatory "I could have never pictured him doing something like this" interview.
He helps get Derek upright and back on his feet.
"You don't think this is going to work," he says quietly, a statement, not a question. Derek's jaw tenses; it's a tic that he probably doesn't know about, a tell that gives him away whenever he feels like he's got to tell one of the pack something they don't want to hear.
"No, I don't," he admits, nostrils flaring in frustration.
Stiles can't help it; he knew all along, but hearing Derek say it out loud is still, well, crushing. And, frankly, it's more than a little unfair that it affects him that much. Winning his first little personal war and being more connected to the pack-and Derek-means he's now subject to all these moods and influences and Alpha-induced feelings just like the rest of the pack when he doesn't even get the superpowers.
"I figured," he mutters.
"But you do," Derek says. "You think it can work."
"I'm not sure," Stiles answers honestly, shrugging. Derek's eyes are glittering, his lashes all spiky and stuck together from the water. It's a little distracting. Even moreso when Derek reaches out and rests a wet hand on the back of Stiles' neck.
"It wouldn't be the first time you were the only one with the right idea," he says quietly. And Stiles remembers what Derek said about him before, about his 'tendency to save the day', and smiles.
"Can you hold your breath while you're shifting?" Stiles asks suddenly. Derek looks puzzled.
"I don't really know," he says after considering it for a moment. "I never thought to try."
"Hold, or hold not. There is no try."
Derek rolls his eyes.
"Why don't I just stand by the pool, shift, and then jump in?" Derek asks.
"I, uh, was thinking that if you aren't sure whether or not your wolf can swim, then your wolf might not be either," Stiles says. "If wolfy-you thinks you can't swim, then you, er, he, I mean…what is the politically correct way to talk about your other self here, anyway? I always feel like I'm stepping in a steaming pile of fresh faux pas when this comes up with one of you guys."
"Either. Both." Derek shrugs, like it doesn't matter one way or another to him.
"How can both be right?"
"Some days it can feel different even to us. One minute I'm in complete sync with my wolf. The next the wolf wants something so completely foreign to what I want that it feels like a different person is inside me."
"How do you-the, er, two of you-decide who's right?" Stiles knows they are way off script here, but Derek's revealed more about the nature of lycanthropy in the last two minutes than he has the entire time Stiles has known him. The research geek inside him is quietly orgasming.
"Sometimes we compromise. But usually if it's a wolf-thing, I trust the wolf's instincts," Derek answers. "Or if it involves humans, the wolf mostly yields to the human me."
Stiles nods; it makes sense, to each his own, but the way Derek doesn't look at him when he says it makes him wonder how often it doesn't work. Derek's next words confirm his suspicion.
"It's not foolproof, though. Sometimes…" Derek trails off, looking out across the water, at the starting platforms, the lane dividers-anywhere but at Stiles. Stiles clears his throat.
"Right. Well, anyway, like I was saying, if your wolf doesn't think it can swim, it might not jump in. But if you're already in the water then the natural swimming instinct might kick in and, boom, Mark Spitz is your daddy."
"You do know that I'm not a Labrador retriever, right?" but Derek is smiling a little when he says it, obviously overcome by the ol' Stillinski optimism.
Together they decide that instead of Stiles holding Derek afloat, that Derek will try just tipping forward into the water while shifting, and Stiles will make sure he doesn't drown, somehow.
"As soon as you shift, you should probably, you know, start…" Stiles mimes a familiar swimming motion that any small child would instantly recognize, smiling and nodding encouragingly.
Derek glares.
"If the next sentence out of your mouth has any form of the words 'dog' or 'paddle' in it, I will bite your nuts off the moment my fangs drop."
"Roger that." Stiles salutes briskly.
Stiles holds his arms out, palms up and floating on the surface of the water just in front of Derek, who's standing on the pool steps at a right angle to Stiles' shoulder.
"Ready? Set? G-"
"Steady," Derek interrupts.
"I am steady!" Stiles exclaims. "I'm rock-steady! Why are you interrupting again? We're finally making progress here!"
"No, I mean, it's 'steady'," Derek explains.. "Ready, steady, go!"
"It is not!"
"Is too."
"Only weirdoes and spoiled rich kids say "ready-steady." Derek lifts one eyebrow ominously, and Stiles feels it might be wise to qualify his statement.
"Ah, um, wolves, of course, who aren't at all weird. Probably a, uh, cultural thing."
When Derek does finally tip and shift, falling into Stiles' arms, it's pretty horrible. He can hear-and worse, feel-all of Derek's bones crunching and grinding against his forearms and his chest, and it seems to go on forever, joints popping and muscles rending. The repeated assurances that the wolves have all given, saying it doesn't hurt, have never stopped the sympathy pangs Stiles always undergoes when he's close enough to see or hear it happening.
Feeling it happen? Up against his own body? It's a billion times more awful.
Stiles is suddenly, deeply nauseated and gets an immediate flash-forward to the remains of the pizza he had for dinner floating on the water's surface.
Imagining that makes him gag and gagging leads to near-heaving and then it's pretty much becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as he hops unwillingly on the lead-up-to-upchuck train.
Just as his stomach begins to surrender, the shift stops, and he hears a whimper. A cool wet nose snuffles softly under his jaw and when he opens his eyes there's a giant black wolf paddling (doggy-paddling, there's no denying it now, Derek) in his arms, trying to comfort him.
"Oh," Stiles says weakly, gripping tightly to thick, black fur as Derek's tongue licks gently at the corners of his eyes. He didn't realize he'd been crying until that moment. "There you are."
Derek's legs are churning happily and he doesn't seem to be having any problems staying afloat, so Stiles indulges himself for a minute and buries his face in the ruff at Derek's neck, inhaling deeply and trying to get a grip. He knows it's stupid, that Derek's totally fine, but he never, ever wants to hold him through the change again.
Derek huffs against his throat-that's clearly his attention-getting huff, Stiles has heard it enough times-and then whines softly, nosing once more at Stiles' neck when Stiles lifts his head.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm okay," he says, scratching behind Derek's ears and laughing weakly. "My plans suck." Derek laughs too, at that, a weird little half-bark and wide-open jaws with a lolling tongue.
"Laugh it up, fuzzball." Derek snorts again. Apparently being a wolf doesn't mean he can't remember Star Wars dialogue. Too bad. Stiles might seriously consider asking for the bite if it could permanently sear any memory of Jar-Jar Binks from his brain.
Seemingly satisfied that a psychotic break is no longer imminent for Stiles, Derek nips playfully at his shoulder and pushes off with his rear legs, paddling behind and then circling Stiles twice before swimming to the nearest wall. Stiles shouts and claps, whooping in amazement. When Derek gets to the wall he promptly gives Stiles a heart attack by ducking underwater in a bastardized, four-legged flip turn before popping up like a cork and swimming to the other side.
"Aw, see, now you're just showing off." Stiles laughs, but throws up his victory arms anyway and Derek yowls proudly before hiking himself up and out onto the deck at the shallow end. Like every other wet dog Stiles has ever seen, he shakes as much water from his fur as possible. Stiles starts to swim the few strokes it will take him to get there, but Derek warns him off with a sharp, rough growl…
…and shifts.
When he's done, he's belly-down and naked on the concrete, panting and staring at Stiles. Stiles gets a fleeting impression that it's still the wolf in there, gazing out at him, then Derek coughs and blinks and the spell is broken.
Stiles clears his throat and reaches for the towel conveniently left near the edge (thank God for planning) and sort of-tosses it-across the part of Derek needing covering at the moment. Derek's lip corners twitch, but he doesn't otherwise react as Stiles pulls up to drape his arms over the edge next to him.
"Sorry to snap at you there a second ago," he says. And that's…surprising. "I just didn't want you to be that close again when I shifted back."
"Oh."
"Are you okay?" He leans forward on one arm, still stretched out on his belly, and gently palms the back of Stiles' head with his other hand. If being wolfy makes Derek Hale this handsy on the regular, Stiles is 100% in favor of it. "I didn't realize it affected you like that," Derek says softly, thumbing at the little knob behind Stiles' ear.
"I didn't either," Stiles says, and no, he is not rubbing into his Alpha's hand like a kitten, thank you very much, that's just him trying to get a crick out of his neck, is all.
"I mean, I've always hated how it looks and sounds. Every time one of you do it-especially you or Scott, with the full-blown version-it makes me think of Denethor eating that chicken in The Return of the King, with the cartilage tearing and the bones breaking and joints pop-"
"Stiles." Derek shakes him a little, but it's not unkind. "Breathe."
"Right." Stiles breathes. "It was just…so very, very much worse, having to actually feel that happening to you."
"I'm sorry," Derek says. It's kind of nifty that Derek doesn't bother telling Stiles that it doesn't hurt. He understands that Stiles knowing it isn't the issue. "For a minute there I thought I was going to be swimming through regurgitated pizza."
When he squeezes Stiles at the neck and gently pushes him back with a little grin, Stiles knows it's just part of the punch line, but it still feels like loss when Derek lets go.
"How did you know I had pizza for dinner?"
"I can smell the pepperoni on your breath."
"I brushed my teeth!"
"Doesn't matter."
"That's disturbing," Stiles mutters.
"Can we get back to me?" Derek asks patiently, and Stiles brightens immediately, bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement. Water sloshes gently out of the pool.
"Oh!" Stiles exclaims. "Right. Yes. YES. You swim like a fish, dude." Stiles holds out the rock and Derek reluctantly bumps fists. "A four-legged fish, with fur, so, you know, one of those weird creatures that lives at the bottom of the ocean where it's pitch black and they have no eyes."
Derek gives him the "really, Stiles?" eyebrow with which Stiles is intimately familiar, but Stiles just beams at him.
"But hey, swimmy swimmy! Go you!"
Stiles grins and Derek ducks his head and grins back the way that he does when he's a little more pleased than he wants to let on. It's usually only when something goes really (unexpectedly) well with the pack. Stiles has never seen that expression on Derek's face for himself.
"You, uh…you do remember, right?" Momentary angst overtakes him as he wonders if Derek doesn't and is only going off of how Stiles is bleeding excitement all over the place.
"I remember everything," Derek answers softly, staring at Stiles.
"Is…is swimming…visceral?" Stiles asks, frozen into staring back. Why is there not enough air in this pool area? Athletes need their oxygen. Someone should do something.
Think of the children.
"I…I think it's because…the other reason." Derek leans forward again. He's looking at Stiles' mouth, and that-there's something wrong here. Derek Hale does not look at Stillinski lips. Not in this universe.
"Because I'm p-pack?" Stiles stutters. The alleged lack of oxygen is probably immaterial at this point. Stiles is pretty sure he hasn't actually in- or exhaled recently anyway.
"Because I was with someone I care about." Derek's eyes break from Stiles' to flick down to Stiles mouth again, and then back. There's a small, steady rivulet of water that's trickling from Derek's hairline down the side of his neck. Stiles would really like to clean that up. With his tongue. Oh, oh God, bad. Bad Stiles.
"Is this the part where you kiss me?" Stiles' alter-ego asks, moving in until his chest is pressed against the edge of the pool and leaning forward (forwardly) into Derek's space. Stiles doesn't know where this guy came from, but from the way Derek's eyes widen with interest, Stiles is willing to give Bad Stiles a trial run.
"Potentially," Derek says.
"Potentially?"
"Yes."
"You know, market conditions change. The best properties are here today, gone tomorrow. You should think about that."
"Are you offering to be my property, Stiles?" Derek drawls and Stiles chokes at a sudden vision of himself kneeling naked in front of Derek's motorcycle boots. He wonders if getting hard underwater will prevent Derek from being able to smell the spike of arousal.
"If you're not up for it, that's cool," Stiles says, in his best nonchalant voice. (It's so not cool.)
"It's not you, it's me."
"You're not even funny right now."
"Stiles." Derek laughs, because apparently he thinks he's funny, "I'm currently lying wet, dick-down and naked against a concrete deck, so I'm not sure kissing you at this exact moment in time is really in my long-term best anatomical interests."
"Holy shit." Stiles' eyes bug and he howls with laughter.
"What?" Derek looks affronted at suddenly losing the upper hand in their banter.
"That might be the single longest sentence I've ever heard come out of your mouth," Stiles answers.
"Shut up, Stiles." Derek rolls his eyes, but his lips are twitching again.
"I'm serious. There were, like, adverbs and dependent clauses and prepositional phrases and everything."
"Fuck you." This time, Derek does laugh, and then he hauls Stiles in and kisses him anyway.
It's…wow. Derek wraps his arm around Stiles' neck, keeping Stiles close as their lips brush. The air between them is thick and humid with the water from the pool, warmed by Derek's excessive wolfy body heat. Whether it's his newly-honed, pack-sourced steadiness or not, for once Stiles doesn't feel the need to do something. He just lets something happen, and follows Derek's lead.
He's gentle and easy with Stiles, small soft kisses tasting of chlorine at the corners of his mouth at first, then tiny presses again and again across his lips. When just the very tip of Derek's tongue taps at the bow of Stiles' bottom lip, Stiles moans and opens for him. Stiles can feel Derek's quicksilver smile, and then Derek's tongue slicks along his, sinuous and hot, and ohgodfuck he had no idea there was a nerve highway that connected his tongue to his dick.
And he's in the fucking HOV lane, man.
Stiles flails a little, hears a splash in the water that is undoubtedly him, and finally breaks the kiss in search of oxygen. He's gratified when he opens his eyes and sees Derek is flushed and blinking owlishly, as if wondering exactly where he is.
"I-" Derek says, then stops, panting a little.
"Yeah," Stiles gasps. Derek's let a little bit of space open up between them, and now Stiles is goosebumping at the loss of heat. "Me too."
"We should probably…" Derek trails off and Stiles deflates a little.
"Oh. Yeah. Of course." Because why would Derek want more of this? But before Stiles can get away, Derek is reeling him back in.
"Stop that," he growls right against Stiles' ear. And nuzzles.
"What?" Stiles says faintly, unable to prevent himself tipping his head away to give Derek more room.
"Stop thinking that I'm stopping because I'm not interested," Derek says, his nose tracing Stiles' jugular. "You are not that stupid."
"You underestimate me," Stiles gasps. "I've been way more stupid than that on several occasions."
"There are other things to consider here," Derek grumbles, clearly struggling to be alpha-reasonable-ish without being alpha-prick-ish.
"Such as…?" Stiles says innocently. Confidence bolstered by Derek's reluctance to let him go, he's feeling a little steadier now, so he thinks he'll make Derek work for it a little. Stiles doesn't often have the upper hand.
"You mean, aside from my dick and concrete…"
"Comma, drilling through?" Stiles grins, and Derek rolls his eyes but still breathes a laugh.
"Getting there," he says gruffly, repositioning carefully on his belly. "But there's more than that."
Stiles folds his arms and lays his head down on them, letting his feet float out behind him in the water. He's pretty sure his entire body is pruning at this point, but the water is warm and Derek is close and he doesn't want to do anything to burst the bubble just yet. Derek makes an approving-sounding noise, resting the underside of his chin against the top of Stiles' head and rubbing.
"I don't want your first time to be in your high school locker room, for starters," Derek whispers into Stiles' hair. "You deserve better than that. Can we slow down a little?"
"You think we'd make it all the way to the locker room?" Stiles jokes breathlessly. "I'm not sure I'd make it past the bleachers."
"Seventeen-year-olds have good recovery time," Derek says, unconcerned. "I'm not worried."
"How would you know?"
"I was seventeen once, you know," Derek says dryly.
Stiles is struck with a sudden, exquisitely clear vision of a younger Derek jacking off daily in the shower and is instantly hard again. Derek sniffs once against Stiles' neck and makes an interested growly noise that has Stiles vibrating with want.
"Okay then," Stiles says quickly. "We should-"
"Yeah," Derek says, sniffing and nuzzling one last, carefully chaste kiss under Stiles' ear before they leave.
Everything after that is a little fuzzy. Fuzzy and glowing in his memory. Stiles doesn't remember climbing out of the pool or walking to the locker room to change. He doesn't remember his feet being on the ground at any point. It's possible he just floated home.
He's feeling very buoyant.
~~~~~~~
That first week they meet every other day. A lot of what Derek remembers from swimming as a wolf isn't applicable, of course. The mechanics alone, of four legs versus two arms and two legs make it tricky, and Derek Hale lacks the natural buoyancy that Alpha Wolf Hale gets from his thick fur coat. But the confidence carries over; the knowledge that he can swim makes the difference.
Each day's session includes ever-increasing time spent making out; sometimes in the locker room while they're changing, sometimes in the pool itself. Hands have almost been in places where no man has gone before. Stiles is starting to be so aroused for so long, so regularly that he wonders if there are any long-term health risks.
Stiles comes home from lacrosse practice one evening to find Derek in the Stillinski kitchen, having cake and coffee with his Dad. There's a fancy yellow box on the counter from the most expensive bakery in town and a bottle of something brown that seems to have found its way into the coffee, judging from the level of liquid remaining. They seem to be comfortable together in their mutual near-silence; whatever conversation they had was clearly done and settled before Stiles walked in.
"Stiles," they both say at the same time, nodding greetings, and Stiles is too freaked out to call jinx as tradition demands. He just pours a glass of milk and helps himself to a giant piece of cake so his mouth has something to do besides talk to either of them.
Later that night, he and Derek are taking a break in the deep end of the pool, draped over a pair of long, skinny pool noodles.
Derek's pretty much where Stiles had hoped he'd end up. He can dive without belly-flopping. He's got respectable back- and breast-strokes down, and his butterfly is simply stunning to see. When Derek 'flys, his entire torso rises from the water, flexing and cascading water down his shoulders and six-pack. It's powerful and sensual to watch, like someone deliberately combined the Olympics and porn.
Oddly, his freestyle is still clumsy, so much so that initially Stiles suspected that Derek was deliberately underperforming, in order to draw out their sessions. The freestyle is the easiest and the most useful stroke to have, after all. If you have to jump in a pool to save a paralyzed drowning pack member you're not gonna want to be back-stroking over.
But eventually Stiles realized that Derek just really does suck at freestyle. Knowing that his Alpha has a quirky, inexplicable shortcoming is somehow endearing and triggers all sorts of weird, nurturing feelings inside him.
He is so screwed.
"So, I've been wondering…" Stiles says, paddling closer to where Derek is reclining backwards on a noodle, "did you by any chance buy my virginity from my father with a German chocolate cake and a bottle of cheap bourbon?"
"Stiles, you wound me." Derek rolls over to drape his arms over his noodle. He directs what can only be categorized as a wolfish grin at Stiles. "That bourbon cost me sixty bucks."
"Who told you you're funny?"
"It's instinct."
"But you're not."
"I'm a little funny," Derek says reasonably.
"Not even close."
"That's not what you sai-"
"Ohmygod. Tell me what you said to him right now or I'm gonna take away your noodle and drown you in this pool!"
Derek stares at him and Stiles knows from the way Derek's lips are twitching that he's debating a double-down on noodle-entendre. "I told him…that things were changing." Derek stalls out, clearly trying to decide how much to say. "With us."
"And?" Stiles is a little breathless here, staring at Derek. Everything feels…suspended…quiet and expectant. Stiles can hear the pool filter chugging and the buzz of the light fixtures.
"And…that some things I said in the past that were true then might not be true anymore." Derek pauses. "Soon."
Stiles has no wolf's nose, but he doesn't need it to know that talking to Stiles about having sex with Stiles-is kinda doing it for Derek. His pupils are huge, and Derek's holding himself still in that very careful way that he has when he's trying to keep something secret.
"How soon is soon?" Stiles can't resist asking, derailed momentarily by the possibility of total, mutual nakedness in his near future. Maybe even very near. Like, before they get out of the pool, please be to God.
"Stiiiiles." Derek is almost whining.
"Okay, okay. What did he say?"
"Well, I, uh…" Derek stops, and licks his lips. "I might have said some more things." Derek is struggling. "Before he, you know, said anything."
"Things like what?" This is going sideways on him, he can feel it, like his Jeep hitting a patch of black ice.
"Like, maybe, that if he…if he asked, I'd…that I'd wait," Derek shoots a look at Stiles, glancing away quickly when he sees Stiles' expression.
"You'd wait?" Stiles exclaims. Derek stares at nothing over Stiles' left shoulder, wisely remaining quiet.
"How long?"
"You're eighteen in October."
"So, it's only up to you now, whether I have sex today or seven months from now? You and my dad? What the actual fuck, Derek?"
Derek does not get to claim Alpha rights on every goddamn decision, fuck you very much.
"I'm not your beta!" Stiles shouts. Pool acoustics make his anger echo oddly. "And you're not always Mr. Good Choices Guy to start with. I'm not even sure if there's a point to going on with this-this thing between us, if you think you're going to just make all my decisions for me."
Stiles regrets saying it the moment it's out of his mouth, but it's too late to take it back. He watches Derek's face crumple for a split second, before Derek's ever-present defenses kick in.
"Then obviously I made the right decision," he grinds out, lips flat and eyes dark. "At least you didn't pop your cherry for somebody you were gonna end up dumping in a few weeks," he sneers. "Aren't you glad?"
He whips the noodle he'd been resting on away from him; Stiles ducks instinctively as it flies over his head, all the way across the pool, and slaps wetly against the deck. Derek bursts into a brutally powerful butterfly, hard and angry and going the length of the pool just to get as far away as fast as he can. Stiles is struck dumb by the sudden recognition of why it's Derek's favorite stroke.
The motion of it, the powerfully sinuous bowing and extension of his body, mimics the fluid lope of the wolf when Derek's fully shifted. It's stunning and gorgeous and Stiles can't believe he's never grasped the stark similarities before now. He thinks maybe Derek doesn't know either, and it's just instinct for him to move this way, that he falls into it because it feels right. Stiles gets this crazy idea to take video of Derek swimming like this, to show him. He feels like the wolf, especially, would enjoy seeing it.
He doesn't get a chance. Derek reaches the shallow end and literally launches himself out of the water on his final stroke, shifting in mid-air to hit the ground running on four legs.
Stiles was right.
Swimming away from Stiles or running away, Derek moves just the same.
___________________________________________________________
part eight