Fic: Occam's Razor (11/?)
See the masterpost for disclaimer, summary, and previous parts.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight… nine… ten…”
He’d counted his fingers four times now, but Stiles kept coming up with ten.
“You’re not dreaming,” Derek grumbled sleepily on the bed beside him, head turned into his pillow in a bid to stay asleep, “but I was.”
“Sorry.” Stiles dropped his hands on to his stomach and blinked up at the ceiling. Someone left the bathroom light on last night (probably him), so he could actually see despite the hour.
It was early. Too early, really, but Stiles couldn’t sleep. He’d woken up a little while ago, naked in bed with Derek, and that had called for a roll-call of digits. At least this time he didn’t need stitches.
“What time’s it?” Derek asked, groggy.
Stiles looked over at the alarm clock beside him (because at some point they’d managed to switch sides, so he was on Derek’s half of the bed). “It’s, uh… oh… it’s five-thirty. Whoops.”
That earned Stiles a grunt as Derek shifted and settled partially on his stomach to try and go back to sleep.
Stiles lay perfectly still for a grand total of ten seconds before he glanced over at Derek’s naked backside. Broad shoulders and triskele tattoo and tapered waist and perfect ass all just begging to be touched.
Stiles always did have poor impulse control. He flipped on to his side and scooted across the mattress to mold himself to Derek’s back. Because he could. He slipped an arm around Derek’s body, eliciting a content hum from the dozing werewolf.
“You’re so cuddly,” Stiles teased, “who would have thought the big bad wolf’s kryptonite would be cuddles?”
“Bite me.”
So Stiles did. Just a playful nip at Derek’s shoulder, but it made Derek twitch and growl. It wasn’t an angry growl, though. It was feisty.
“Guess it makes total sense you’d have a thing for biting,” Stiles chuckled.
“I didn’t hear you complaining last night.”
“You’re a bad influence.”
Derek snorted. Then, just to be a shit, he said in mock-indignation, “You know, some of us have work in a couple of hours.”
“What’s your point?” Stiles traced his fingers over Derek’s stomach, thinking he could seriously do laundry on those washboard abs.
“A decent person would let other people sleep.”
“Sure, sure,” Stiles agreed, even as he was sliding his hand down Derek’s belly, reaching into the space between Derek’s pelvis and the mattress. “You sleep. While I just… do this.” Stiles gave Derek a languid grope. Derek’s flesh was warm and not-so-soft.
“Fuck,” Derek breathed.
“Nope, you sleep.” Stiles wrapped his hand around Derek’s dick, feeling the weight of it. With the gap in his memory, this was new to him. He wanted to memorize every little detail.
“You want me to sleep while you - uh,” Derek tensed as Stiles gave him an experimental stroke.
“Sure… multitask.”
Derek huffed and moved his hips, impatient with the pace Stiles was setting.
It was on purpose, though. Last night had happened so fast. It was awesome to the power of ten, but it was over too soon. Stiles wanted to take the time to see and touch and feel and hear it all.
And Derek must have understood - or he didn’t mind a lazy early morning hand-job - because he didn’t turn over to do more. He sure as shit wasn’t sleeping, though. He was panting and moaning and rocking his hips to thrust into Stiles’ fist. Stiles propped himself up on his left elbow so he could lean over and watch his hand stroke up and down Derek’s erection. It was the most arousing thing Stiles had seen in his entire god-damn life. Thick and flushed in Stiles’ hand, straining toward Derek’s belly, so responsive to Stiles’ touch. Stiles didn’t even try to hide his own erection pressed firmly to Derek’s back. Stiles had his attention fully focused elsewhere, so his own dick would just have to wait its fucking turn. He was intent.
Intent on the intoxicating release of pre-come when Stiles rolled his thumb over the head. On the heady sense of empowerment when Derek shook under his weaker hand. Super-strong werewolf brought to ruin by a mere human’s touch. Derek growled and his refrain from participation broke as he barreled headlong toward climax. Derek shoved his own hand down into the space between bed and bodies to join Stiles’ fist. He covered Stiles’ hand with his own and forced Stiles to speed up, established a hard pace of hands stroking fast while Derek shoved up into the circle of Stiles’ fingers and palm with his hips.
Stiles was shaky and breathless and in real danger of making a mess all over the small of Derek’s back when Derek arched into him and gave a strangled shout and Stiles stared hungrily at the spurts of come coating their joined fingers, getting on Derek’s stomach, and smearing on the sheets. Derek stopped dictating the rhythm, and Stiles finished stroking Derek through his orgasm, coaxing out every pulse of stickiness he could.
When Derek was spent, Stiles pulled his hand away. He flopped over on to his back to stare upward in a fog. “Fuck,” he groaned, then he reached down blindly with the hand messy with Derek’s ejaculation and took hold of his own dick. He started to jerk off, hard and fast. There was no thought to finesse. Fuck making it last. He just wanted to come.
At that, Derek finally rolled over. He didn’t touch immediately, though, and Stiles tore his eyes from his random focal spot on the ceiling to look toward Derek. He was watching Stiles masturbate, gaze hot like burning on his skin, then he reached out and rested a hand on the inside of Stiles’ left thigh.
Stiles whimpered and opened his legs to offer the invitation. For whatever Derek had in mind. Just letting him know it was there. But he didn’t stop stroking.
With his next action, Stiles was pretty sure Derek was just set on driving him mad. He slipped his hand down Stiles’ thigh, settled it between his legs, palming his balls. That’s it. He didn’t take over for Stiles’ hand or venture down to Stiles’ ass, just fondled his nuts.
It didn’t matter, Stiles had been on the razor’s edge to start, and fisted the sheets in his free hand and threw his head back as he came, spilling hot and wet on his stomach. The noises he made were obscene and utterly out of his control. He tugged on his dick until the orgasm faded, then he dropped his hand to the side and sighed, “Holy shit…”
Derek’s hand on his balls caressed up the underside of Stiles’ length then pressed flat, fingers splayed, in the mess on his abdomen. Stiles blinked down and watched, curious, as Derek rubbed Stiles’ belly, smearing the come around. Then Stiles gasped when Derek leaned forward, nose nearly pressed to Stiles’ stomach, and breathed in, long and deep. He scented Stiles’ come-covered skin like a cocaine addict doing lines.
“I’m just catnip to you, aren’t I?” Stiles asked roughly, tangling the clean fingers of his left hand in the hair at the back of Derek’s head.
Derek made a half-grunt, half-growl noise, then licked a long stripe from Stiles’ navel to his right nipple.
“For the love of fuck me,” Stiles hissed, fisting Derek’s hair.
Derek lifted his face and looked up at Stiles, a cocky smirk in place on his lips. Stiles regarded him a moment before pulling him closer for a kiss.
Morning breath and Stiles jizz were no substitute for Crest. “Blech,” he gave Derek’s chest a playful shove.
Derek chuckled and ducked underneath Stiles’ jaw to bite softly at his throat. Stiles’ breath caught and he cleared his throat. “Hey, man… some of us are trying to get some sleep.”
“So sleep,” Derek hummed against his neck, teeth catching against his skin, “while I just…” he bit gently again.
“Sleep while you do that?”
“Multitask.”
Stiles laughed and curled his arms around Derek’s shoulders. “Is the sex always like this?”
“Well, around the full moon it can be kind of rough, but yeah… usually.”
Stiles shivered at the thought. “I fucking love being married to you.”
Derek smiled against his skin. “Me too.”
*******************
Stiles wondered if it was a thing to be sex-drunk. Because Derek got up, got ready for work, left, and Stiles still felt pleasantly debauched. Like the high of bedding Derek Hale lingered in the bloodstream. Throughout the day, he kept catching himself smiling or touching the bite-mark on his neck. He felt as if he were partly made of air and light.
He thought maybe it was just the first time in a long time he’d been happy and that he didn’t remember what it felt like. He probably hadn’t been anything close to this happy since before his mom got sick.
Which was sad if you thought about it, so Stiles didn’t.
He got a text from his dad at one point.
Dad: derek in a very good mood today :)
Stiles groaned and texted back:
Stiles: don’t make it weird dad
But it felt good.
Stiles spent most of the day on the internet. First looking up amnesia: all the different types, causes, treatments, prognoses. There was anterograde and retrograde and event-specific; types caused by traumatic brain injury and pharmaceuticals and other types linked to mental illness. Stiles stopped reading at that point. He was sure the others had looked into the garden-variety human explanations for his lost time. If he was missing seven years because he was sick in the brain…
Maybe he should schedule an MRI. Just to rule it out.
After that, he switched to surfing websites about newborn care and parenting. He assumed he’d been doing this for months, but of course he didn’t remember anything he’d read. He had to catch up. And he didn’t have long to get smart on it. Then he had a slight panic moment when it occurred to him that most or all of what he was reading might not even be applicable to a werewolf baby.
And shit, how long before the little guy or girl was stronger than he was? Would the terrible twos mean Stiles became really friendly with the ER staff? What if the kid wolfed out in kindergarten? God, was he going to have to chain his kid to a radiator every full moon?
Did he need to take the bite just to be equipped to handle his own child?
When Derek came home not long after five, Stiles greeted him at the door with a frenzied, “I am going to be a terrible werewolf father!”
Derek blinked at him at first, ambushed by the meltdown the second he stepped through the door, then he went, “Oh… we’re going to have to do this again?”
“What? Again? How’s that?” Stiles asked, raking his fingers through his hair and leaving it spiked in weird places. He needed to get it cut. He probably looked like a mad scientist.
“You already freaked out about all this before.” Derek sighed and nodded in understanding. “Guess we need to go over it again.” He put his keys in the bowl, turned to Stiles, and took him by the shoulders like one might when talking to an upset child. “It’s going to be fine. The baby is a born werewolf, so a lot of it is going to be easier than anything that happens to turned werewolves. It won’t be traumatic like it was for Scott or Isaac to turn. And just having another werewolf around for guidance will make a big difference. I got through school, and our son or daughter will, too. It’s going to be fine. And no, you’re not going to have to chain the baby to the radiator.”
Stiles let out a nervous laugh. “Okay… okay.” He frowned in thought, “but should I…”
Derek let his shoulders go and gave him a stern look. “No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“You were going to ask about taking the bite. Because you did last time.”
Stiles squared his shoulders. “I would, you know. I’m sure Scott would do it. If that would be best for the baby, two werewolf parents…”
“Stiles,” Derek said, his voice torn between affection and exasperation. Then he stepped forward and hugged him. “I love that you’d do it. There have been so many times over the years when it would have been an easy answer - for you to just take the bite - but you refused every time. Amazingly stubborn human. The fact that you’d be willing to be turned for this…” Derek drew back to look him in the eye, “but you don’t have to do that. It isn’t necessary. There were humans in my pack when I was growing up, and they managed. You will too. You always do.”
“Right,” Stiles smirked, “always was the dumbass human running with wolves.”
“Good thing for us, too. Saved our asses more than once.” Derek made a wry face and reached up to pat down Stiles’ hair. “So… freak-out over?”
“For now,” Stiles allowed.
Derek rolled his eyes and moved away to go to the bedroom and change out of his uniform.
Stiles followed. He wouldn’t turn down a free show.
**********************
While Derek was clearing away the dishes from dinner, Stiles pulled up his laptop on the kitchen table and signed in to Skype.
Almost immediately, Scott’s icon was ringing at him.
“Hi, Scott,” Stiles waved a greeting when his friend’s face appeared on the screen. Stiles still wasn’t used to seeing the beard. He had a knee-jerk laugh reaction every time, but because he wasn’t a teenager anymore, he bit his tongue and didn’t. Wanted to, though.
Before either one of them could start a proper conversation, the call was hijacked. Stiles smiled when a little body launched itself into Scott’s lap and twisted to face the computer. A little girl with Kira’s eyes and Scott’s nose and nearly-black hair that seemed perpetually untamed.
“Hi, Uncles Stiles!”
“Hi, Rene.”
“Do you like kitties?”
“Well, who doesn’t like kitties?” he asked like it was the most preposterous question ever. He bet Derek didn’t. Derek didn’t seem like a cat-person. He’d probably just stare at a cat with that ‘why are you breathing my air?’ judgmental look of his.
“I got to pet four of them!” Rene proudly held up three fingers.
“That’s three, sweetie,” Scott said patiently. “How many kittens did you pet?”
“Oh,” she looked mutinously at her fingers and popped up her pinky. “I petted four kitties!”
“What a lucky girl,” Stiles marveled. “I didn’t get to pet any kittens today.” Got to pet a werewolf, though. Not in any place it was okay to tell children about, of course.
“One was gray, and one was orange, and another one was gray, then one was black. What color one is your favorite, Uncle Stiles?”
“Gotta go with the black one, kiddo.”
“I liked that one, too! I wanted to take it home, but Mommy said no.” She pouted.
“Pets are a lot of work,” Stiles said diplomatically, not keen to make Kira out to be the bad guy.
“I know,” Rene rolled her eyes. “Mommy said so. But they were cute!”
Before Stiles had to come up with a response that wouldn’t get him trouble with the McCalls, Derek came up behind Stiles and Rene squeaked excitedly when she saw him. “Hi, Uncle Derek!”
“Hi, baby. Are you being good for your mom and dad?”
“I’d be gooder if I had a kitty… don’t you want a kitty, Uncle Derek?”
“It’s hard enough taking care of Uncle Stiles, and he’s mostly house-trained.”
“Hey!” Stiles reached back to swat at Derek’s arm, using the tiny Skype screen of his side of the conversation for aiming purposes. Derek turned aside, defending with his arms. Stiles made a passing swipe at best. In retaliation, Derek grabbed the back of Stiles’ chair and hauled it back on to just two legs. Stiles squawked and grabbed for the table so he wouldn’t fall backward. Not that Derek would have let him. He just wanted the unmanly yelp, and once he got it he set the chair back on all fours.
Rene giggled. “You two are funny!”
“And he says I’m the one not house-trained,” Stiles grumbled theatrically. “I’m considering putting him in obedience school. He doesn’t listen, he chews on the furniture, and he bites.” Stiles threw a look over his shoulder at Derek at that last, winking.
Derek clicked his teeth together in an air-bite. “But I can fetch. I was just going to ask if you wanted something to drink.”
“Yeah, sounds good. Thanks.” Stiles turned back to the Skype window.
“Rene,” Scott was saying, “do you want to go play with Grandpa?”
“Oooooh, but I wanna talk to Uncle Stiles and Uncle Derek!” She narrowed her little eyes at her father. “Is this when you ask if I want to do something but I really gotta do it?”
“Yep. Go see what Grandpa’s up to and let me talk to Uncle Stiles.”
Life was rough for a four-and-a-half-year-old girl. “Okay, fine… bye, Uncle Stiles!”
“Bye, Re.”
“Bye, Uncle Derek!” Rene yelled into the computer.
“Later, baby!” Derek called back from the kitchen sink.
When Scott had unloaded his little passenger, he turned back to the call. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine.”
“So… you and Derek seem to be doing okay.”
Stiles couldn’t help a smile. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“Please,” Scott scoffed, “this from the guy who got a tattoo to honor the day he got laid by Derek Hale.”
“If that night was anything like last night, trust me, you would have gotten a tattoo, too.”
Scott made a face. “That’s… way more than I needed to know.”
“Don’t open a door if you can’t walk through it, Scotty.”
“You guys both realize I am hearing all of this, right?” Derek chimed in.
“Your point being?” Stiles asked.
“My point being that if I can overhear it, Kira and Mrs. Yukimura probably can, too.”
Stiles hesitated and looked over at Scott. “Scott?”
Scott was grinning. “Yep.” He turned the computer to show Kira and her mother sitting at the table with Scott. “Say hi.”
“Oh god,” Stiles covered his face with both hands. He peeked out between his fingers at the two women. “Umm… hi?”
Kira was fighting back a snicker, but her mother was the poster-child of not impressed. “Mr. Hale,” she deadpanned.
“So… uh… about my memory problem…”
“Yes, about that,” Mrs. Yukimura said, “though I think we may need to look into erasing memories after what we heard…”
“Oh, Mom,” Kira chided, “it wasn’t that bad.”
Mrs. Yukimura cracked a smile. “One of the benefits of being an elder is making young people squirm. Don’t deny me, honey.”
Stiles snorted. “That right there, that’s where Rene gets it.”
“Oh, trust me, we know,” Kira replied, kind of like it was something that kept her up at night.
“If we could maybe get off the topic of my sex life and back to the fact I’m missing seven years?” Stiles suggested.
“Of course,” Mrs. Yukimura agreed. “First, I need you to tell me what is the last thing you remember before the lapse? What were you doing, where were you, was anyone with you… every detail you can recall.”
“Okay… it was the end of my junior year of high school, and I was up crazy-late studying for a chemistry test I had the next day. Um, that was with Mrs. Sheridan - I don’t know if that matters. It was this monster exam, cumulative, and I was in panic mode. Uh… I was in my bedroom with my book and all my semester notes spread out everywhere. I had like five coffees and my eye was doing that twitchy thing when you slam back caffeine like a crazy person. I was home by myself - Dad had to work late. It was, I guess, three-thirty in the morning last time I remembered looking at the clock?”
Mrs. Yukimura nodded. “I’ll need to look up fall of that year and see if there were any significant celestial or natural events that might come into play. Do you remember what phase the moon was in that night?”
“Yeah, it was two days before the full moon. I remember because Scott was being all pre-that-time-of-the-month prissy and wouldn’t help me study.”
“Hey,” Scott objected off-screen.
“Suck it up, buttercup, she asked,” Stiles overrode.
“And had anything out of the ordinary happened that day? To you or in the town that you know of?” Mrs. Yukimura asked.
Stiles scowled as he tried to think back. It was Beacon Hills, so ‘out of the ordinary’ was kind of subjective.
His thoughts were interrupted when Derek spit into the sink. “Ugh! What is that?”
“What?” Stiles turned.
Derek scowled into his cup. “This tea you had in the cupboard. It’s awful.”
“What tea? Oh my god, give me that!” When Derek brought over the box of tea bags, Stiles grabbed it and said, “Okay, off topic, but Kira, I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Me?” Kira blinked.
“Yes! Because this,” he held up the box so she could see it, shaking it for emphasis, “this tea you gave me?, is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted in my life. Donkey piss would be better than this. I don’t know if I gave you shit for this already, but even if I did you deserve it again, because Foulest Thing Ever. Seriously.”
Kira looked bewildered, but Mrs. Yukimura was very intent. “Kira? You gave Stiles kesshu tea?”
“A long time ago, when…” Kira’s eyes widened, “when you were studying for that chem final, wasn’t it, Stiles?”
“Yeah, you said it would help me concentrate, but all it helped me focus on was the ass-crack-ballsacky taste of this tea. No, wait, all of those would taste better.”
“We don’t doubt you’re the authority on the subject,” Mrs. Yukimura stated drolly, “but we may have found the problem with your memory.”
Stiles gaped and looked at the tea in his hand. “What… this?”
Derek squawked and rushed to pour the rest of his cup down the drain.
“You gave me memory-wiping tea?” Stiles accused Kira.
“I didn’t! It shouldn’t have done that. It really is for concentration! I drank it all the time when I was cramming for a test!”
“It’s fine for Kira. And it’s fine for humans.”
“What about werewolves?” Stiles asked, casting a wary look over at Derek.
“It’s harmless to them, too.”
“Okay, then what is it about me that made it obliterate my life?”
“It’s not meant for emissaries.”
Stiles sat back uncertainly. “But… I’m not an emissary.”
“Just because you never cultivated the skills or underwent the training doesn’t change the fact you have the emissary’s spark.”
Well, shit.
“Oh my god, I did this! Stiles, I am so sorry!” Kira said miserably.
“You couldn’t have known,” Mrs. Yukimura assured, resting a hand on her daughter’s forearm. “The odds a kitsune would happen to give an emissary kesshu tea…”
Yeah, that really just reeked of Stiles’ luck more than anything. Kitsune were rare. Emissaries were rare. The chances one would give the other the exact kind of Japanese tea that would fuck everything up royal…
“It’s not your fault, Kira,” Stiles agreed. It wasn’t fair to blame Kira for the fact Stiles’ guardian angel was a slacker. “It never occurred to me to worry that I couldn’t drink it, just like you didn’t think it might be dangerous for me. Well, other than the taste. You should have warned me about that.”
Kira cracked a weak smile, even though she still looked on the brink of tears.
Derek came up, grabbed a chair, and sat next to Stiles to share the screen. “Does this mean we can find a way to reverse it now that we know the tea was responsible?”
“It should be possible to counteract the effect,” Mrs. Yukimura nodded. “The tea is meant to direct one’s energy inward, to a focal point that the mind can then tap into. But an emissary’s spark is too powerful. The energy deflects, and rather than inner focus, there is outward scatter. The mind gets lost.”
“For seven years, though?” Because god damn, even if it was a remote chance of that happening, consequences like that should at least warrant a sticker on the box.
“The excessive caffeine would have exacerbated the effect. Instead of intensifying the focus, it intensified the scattering of mental energy.”
“So how…” Stiles started, then he rubbed at his temples with one hand like a pincher claw. “You know what, never mind. I’d ask, but I don’t think I want to know. Just tell me what I need to do to unscatter my chi or whatever the hell it is. I want my life back.”
Derek’s hand came to his shoulder and squeezed.
Mrs. Yukimura left the table briefly, returning with a pen and paper. “I’m going to have Scott email you a list of ingredients and appropriate portions. Some are fairly common, others you’ll have to go to a spice shop or holistic pharmacy to get. And absolutely no ‘close enough’ substitutions. These instructions have to be followed to the letter.”
“Oh, believe me, I am not interested in half-assing the cure to this,” Stiles assured.
“Good. When you have all these and have combined the correct ratios, you’ll need to add it to a cup of the kesshu tea and drink it.”
“You mean I have to drink that tea again?” Stiles whined.
“Only if you want to counteract the effects from the first time you drank it,” Mrs. Yukimura said in a cool, no-nonsense tone.
“Fine,” Stiles replied. “Ass crack and ballsack,” he muttered under his breath.
From the single lifted eyebrow of Mrs. Yukimura, Stiles suspected kitsune might have heightened hearing the same way werewolves did. But she didn’t comment on his assessment of her special tea. Instead, she continued, “I would recommend taking this at bedtime. The interaction with the added ingredients will make it act like a sedative. You should fall asleep within minutes of drinking it.”
“Wonderful,” Stiles said in a tone that implied it was anything but. “And when I wake up?”
“The effects of the kesshu tea should be gone.”
“That’s what I want,” Stiles nodded. And if that meant he had to drink the ass-crack-ballsack tea, well… he’d take one of the team.
Mrs. Yukimura passed her list of ingredients to Scott off-screen, then she regarded Stiles sympathetically. “I’m terribly sorry this happened to you, Stiles.” She cracked a wry smirk. “Our culture doesn’t seem to agree with you.”
“Yeah, nogitsune in my head wreaking havoc and kitsune tea that wipes out nearly a decade of my memories. No offense, Mrs. Yukimura, but I am never going to Japan.”
“There’s always the remote possibility Godzilla would turn out to be real the day you got there, I suppose,” she mused.
Stiles huffed out a quasi-laugh.
He didn’t start to feel real relief, though, until the email came through from Scott with the list of herbs he’d need to get and how to combine them into kesshu-tea antidote.
That’s when it started to feel real. Like he was going to fix this mess. He was going to get his life with Derek back.
Next
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight… nine… ten…”
He’d counted his fingers four times now, but Stiles kept coming up with ten.
“You’re not dreaming,” Derek grumbled sleepily on the bed beside him, head turned into his pillow in a bid to stay asleep, “but I was.”
“Sorry.” Stiles dropped his hands on to his stomach and blinked up at the ceiling. Someone left the bathroom light on last night (probably him), so he could actually see despite the hour.
It was early. Too early, really, but Stiles couldn’t sleep. He’d woken up a little while ago, naked in bed with Derek, and that had called for a roll-call of digits. At least this time he didn’t need stitches.
“What time’s it?” Derek asked, groggy.
Stiles looked over at the alarm clock beside him (because at some point they’d managed to switch sides, so he was on Derek’s half of the bed). “It’s, uh… oh… it’s five-thirty. Whoops.”
That earned Stiles a grunt as Derek shifted and settled partially on his stomach to try and go back to sleep.
Stiles lay perfectly still for a grand total of ten seconds before he glanced over at Derek’s naked backside. Broad shoulders and triskele tattoo and tapered waist and perfect ass all just begging to be touched.
Stiles always did have poor impulse control. He flipped on to his side and scooted across the mattress to mold himself to Derek’s back. Because he could. He slipped an arm around Derek’s body, eliciting a content hum from the dozing werewolf.
“You’re so cuddly,” Stiles teased, “who would have thought the big bad wolf’s kryptonite would be cuddles?”
“Bite me.”
So Stiles did. Just a playful nip at Derek’s shoulder, but it made Derek twitch and growl. It wasn’t an angry growl, though. It was feisty.
“Guess it makes total sense you’d have a thing for biting,” Stiles chuckled.
“I didn’t hear you complaining last night.”
“You’re a bad influence.”
Derek snorted. Then, just to be a shit, he said in mock-indignation, “You know, some of us have work in a couple of hours.”
“What’s your point?” Stiles traced his fingers over Derek’s stomach, thinking he could seriously do laundry on those washboard abs.
“A decent person would let other people sleep.”
“Sure, sure,” Stiles agreed, even as he was sliding his hand down Derek’s belly, reaching into the space between Derek’s pelvis and the mattress. “You sleep. While I just… do this.” Stiles gave Derek a languid grope. Derek’s flesh was warm and not-so-soft.
“Fuck,” Derek breathed.
“Nope, you sleep.” Stiles wrapped his hand around Derek’s dick, feeling the weight of it. With the gap in his memory, this was new to him. He wanted to memorize every little detail.
“You want me to sleep while you - uh,” Derek tensed as Stiles gave him an experimental stroke.
“Sure… multitask.”
Derek huffed and moved his hips, impatient with the pace Stiles was setting.
It was on purpose, though. Last night had happened so fast. It was awesome to the power of ten, but it was over too soon. Stiles wanted to take the time to see and touch and feel and hear it all.
And Derek must have understood - or he didn’t mind a lazy early morning hand-job - because he didn’t turn over to do more. He sure as shit wasn’t sleeping, though. He was panting and moaning and rocking his hips to thrust into Stiles’ fist. Stiles propped himself up on his left elbow so he could lean over and watch his hand stroke up and down Derek’s erection. It was the most arousing thing Stiles had seen in his entire god-damn life. Thick and flushed in Stiles’ hand, straining toward Derek’s belly, so responsive to Stiles’ touch. Stiles didn’t even try to hide his own erection pressed firmly to Derek’s back. Stiles had his attention fully focused elsewhere, so his own dick would just have to wait its fucking turn. He was intent.
Intent on the intoxicating release of pre-come when Stiles rolled his thumb over the head. On the heady sense of empowerment when Derek shook under his weaker hand. Super-strong werewolf brought to ruin by a mere human’s touch. Derek growled and his refrain from participation broke as he barreled headlong toward climax. Derek shoved his own hand down into the space between bed and bodies to join Stiles’ fist. He covered Stiles’ hand with his own and forced Stiles to speed up, established a hard pace of hands stroking fast while Derek shoved up into the circle of Stiles’ fingers and palm with his hips.
Stiles was shaky and breathless and in real danger of making a mess all over the small of Derek’s back when Derek arched into him and gave a strangled shout and Stiles stared hungrily at the spurts of come coating their joined fingers, getting on Derek’s stomach, and smearing on the sheets. Derek stopped dictating the rhythm, and Stiles finished stroking Derek through his orgasm, coaxing out every pulse of stickiness he could.
When Derek was spent, Stiles pulled his hand away. He flopped over on to his back to stare upward in a fog. “Fuck,” he groaned, then he reached down blindly with the hand messy with Derek’s ejaculation and took hold of his own dick. He started to jerk off, hard and fast. There was no thought to finesse. Fuck making it last. He just wanted to come.
At that, Derek finally rolled over. He didn’t touch immediately, though, and Stiles tore his eyes from his random focal spot on the ceiling to look toward Derek. He was watching Stiles masturbate, gaze hot like burning on his skin, then he reached out and rested a hand on the inside of Stiles’ left thigh.
Stiles whimpered and opened his legs to offer the invitation. For whatever Derek had in mind. Just letting him know it was there. But he didn’t stop stroking.
With his next action, Stiles was pretty sure Derek was just set on driving him mad. He slipped his hand down Stiles’ thigh, settled it between his legs, palming his balls. That’s it. He didn’t take over for Stiles’ hand or venture down to Stiles’ ass, just fondled his nuts.
It didn’t matter, Stiles had been on the razor’s edge to start, and fisted the sheets in his free hand and threw his head back as he came, spilling hot and wet on his stomach. The noises he made were obscene and utterly out of his control. He tugged on his dick until the orgasm faded, then he dropped his hand to the side and sighed, “Holy shit…”
Derek’s hand on his balls caressed up the underside of Stiles’ length then pressed flat, fingers splayed, in the mess on his abdomen. Stiles blinked down and watched, curious, as Derek rubbed Stiles’ belly, smearing the come around. Then Stiles gasped when Derek leaned forward, nose nearly pressed to Stiles’ stomach, and breathed in, long and deep. He scented Stiles’ come-covered skin like a cocaine addict doing lines.
“I’m just catnip to you, aren’t I?” Stiles asked roughly, tangling the clean fingers of his left hand in the hair at the back of Derek’s head.
Derek made a half-grunt, half-growl noise, then licked a long stripe from Stiles’ navel to his right nipple.
“For the love of fuck me,” Stiles hissed, fisting Derek’s hair.
Derek lifted his face and looked up at Stiles, a cocky smirk in place on his lips. Stiles regarded him a moment before pulling him closer for a kiss.
Morning breath and Stiles jizz were no substitute for Crest. “Blech,” he gave Derek’s chest a playful shove.
Derek chuckled and ducked underneath Stiles’ jaw to bite softly at his throat. Stiles’ breath caught and he cleared his throat. “Hey, man… some of us are trying to get some sleep.”
“So sleep,” Derek hummed against his neck, teeth catching against his skin, “while I just…” he bit gently again.
“Sleep while you do that?”
“Multitask.”
Stiles laughed and curled his arms around Derek’s shoulders. “Is the sex always like this?”
“Well, around the full moon it can be kind of rough, but yeah… usually.”
Stiles shivered at the thought. “I fucking love being married to you.”
Derek smiled against his skin. “Me too.”
*******************
Stiles wondered if it was a thing to be sex-drunk. Because Derek got up, got ready for work, left, and Stiles still felt pleasantly debauched. Like the high of bedding Derek Hale lingered in the bloodstream. Throughout the day, he kept catching himself smiling or touching the bite-mark on his neck. He felt as if he were partly made of air and light.
He thought maybe it was just the first time in a long time he’d been happy and that he didn’t remember what it felt like. He probably hadn’t been anything close to this happy since before his mom got sick.
Which was sad if you thought about it, so Stiles didn’t.
He got a text from his dad at one point.
Dad: derek in a very good mood today :)
Stiles groaned and texted back:
Stiles: don’t make it weird dad
But it felt good.
Stiles spent most of the day on the internet. First looking up amnesia: all the different types, causes, treatments, prognoses. There was anterograde and retrograde and event-specific; types caused by traumatic brain injury and pharmaceuticals and other types linked to mental illness. Stiles stopped reading at that point. He was sure the others had looked into the garden-variety human explanations for his lost time. If he was missing seven years because he was sick in the brain…
Maybe he should schedule an MRI. Just to rule it out.
After that, he switched to surfing websites about newborn care and parenting. He assumed he’d been doing this for months, but of course he didn’t remember anything he’d read. He had to catch up. And he didn’t have long to get smart on it. Then he had a slight panic moment when it occurred to him that most or all of what he was reading might not even be applicable to a werewolf baby.
And shit, how long before the little guy or girl was stronger than he was? Would the terrible twos mean Stiles became really friendly with the ER staff? What if the kid wolfed out in kindergarten? God, was he going to have to chain his kid to a radiator every full moon?
Did he need to take the bite just to be equipped to handle his own child?
When Derek came home not long after five, Stiles greeted him at the door with a frenzied, “I am going to be a terrible werewolf father!”
Derek blinked at him at first, ambushed by the meltdown the second he stepped through the door, then he went, “Oh… we’re going to have to do this again?”
“What? Again? How’s that?” Stiles asked, raking his fingers through his hair and leaving it spiked in weird places. He needed to get it cut. He probably looked like a mad scientist.
“You already freaked out about all this before.” Derek sighed and nodded in understanding. “Guess we need to go over it again.” He put his keys in the bowl, turned to Stiles, and took him by the shoulders like one might when talking to an upset child. “It’s going to be fine. The baby is a born werewolf, so a lot of it is going to be easier than anything that happens to turned werewolves. It won’t be traumatic like it was for Scott or Isaac to turn. And just having another werewolf around for guidance will make a big difference. I got through school, and our son or daughter will, too. It’s going to be fine. And no, you’re not going to have to chain the baby to the radiator.”
Stiles let out a nervous laugh. “Okay… okay.” He frowned in thought, “but should I…”
Derek let his shoulders go and gave him a stern look. “No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“You were going to ask about taking the bite. Because you did last time.”
Stiles squared his shoulders. “I would, you know. I’m sure Scott would do it. If that would be best for the baby, two werewolf parents…”
“Stiles,” Derek said, his voice torn between affection and exasperation. Then he stepped forward and hugged him. “I love that you’d do it. There have been so many times over the years when it would have been an easy answer - for you to just take the bite - but you refused every time. Amazingly stubborn human. The fact that you’d be willing to be turned for this…” Derek drew back to look him in the eye, “but you don’t have to do that. It isn’t necessary. There were humans in my pack when I was growing up, and they managed. You will too. You always do.”
“Right,” Stiles smirked, “always was the dumbass human running with wolves.”
“Good thing for us, too. Saved our asses more than once.” Derek made a wry face and reached up to pat down Stiles’ hair. “So… freak-out over?”
“For now,” Stiles allowed.
Derek rolled his eyes and moved away to go to the bedroom and change out of his uniform.
Stiles followed. He wouldn’t turn down a free show.
**********************
While Derek was clearing away the dishes from dinner, Stiles pulled up his laptop on the kitchen table and signed in to Skype.
Almost immediately, Scott’s icon was ringing at him.
“Hi, Scott,” Stiles waved a greeting when his friend’s face appeared on the screen. Stiles still wasn’t used to seeing the beard. He had a knee-jerk laugh reaction every time, but because he wasn’t a teenager anymore, he bit his tongue and didn’t. Wanted to, though.
Before either one of them could start a proper conversation, the call was hijacked. Stiles smiled when a little body launched itself into Scott’s lap and twisted to face the computer. A little girl with Kira’s eyes and Scott’s nose and nearly-black hair that seemed perpetually untamed.
“Hi, Uncles Stiles!”
“Hi, Rene.”
“Do you like kitties?”
“Well, who doesn’t like kitties?” he asked like it was the most preposterous question ever. He bet Derek didn’t. Derek didn’t seem like a cat-person. He’d probably just stare at a cat with that ‘why are you breathing my air?’ judgmental look of his.
“I got to pet four of them!” Rene proudly held up three fingers.
“That’s three, sweetie,” Scott said patiently. “How many kittens did you pet?”
“Oh,” she looked mutinously at her fingers and popped up her pinky. “I petted four kitties!”
“What a lucky girl,” Stiles marveled. “I didn’t get to pet any kittens today.” Got to pet a werewolf, though. Not in any place it was okay to tell children about, of course.
“One was gray, and one was orange, and another one was gray, then one was black. What color one is your favorite, Uncle Stiles?”
“Gotta go with the black one, kiddo.”
“I liked that one, too! I wanted to take it home, but Mommy said no.” She pouted.
“Pets are a lot of work,” Stiles said diplomatically, not keen to make Kira out to be the bad guy.
“I know,” Rene rolled her eyes. “Mommy said so. But they were cute!”
Before Stiles had to come up with a response that wouldn’t get him trouble with the McCalls, Derek came up behind Stiles and Rene squeaked excitedly when she saw him. “Hi, Uncle Derek!”
“Hi, baby. Are you being good for your mom and dad?”
“I’d be gooder if I had a kitty… don’t you want a kitty, Uncle Derek?”
“It’s hard enough taking care of Uncle Stiles, and he’s mostly house-trained.”
“Hey!” Stiles reached back to swat at Derek’s arm, using the tiny Skype screen of his side of the conversation for aiming purposes. Derek turned aside, defending with his arms. Stiles made a passing swipe at best. In retaliation, Derek grabbed the back of Stiles’ chair and hauled it back on to just two legs. Stiles squawked and grabbed for the table so he wouldn’t fall backward. Not that Derek would have let him. He just wanted the unmanly yelp, and once he got it he set the chair back on all fours.
Rene giggled. “You two are funny!”
“And he says I’m the one not house-trained,” Stiles grumbled theatrically. “I’m considering putting him in obedience school. He doesn’t listen, he chews on the furniture, and he bites.” Stiles threw a look over his shoulder at Derek at that last, winking.
Derek clicked his teeth together in an air-bite. “But I can fetch. I was just going to ask if you wanted something to drink.”
“Yeah, sounds good. Thanks.” Stiles turned back to the Skype window.
“Rene,” Scott was saying, “do you want to go play with Grandpa?”
“Oooooh, but I wanna talk to Uncle Stiles and Uncle Derek!” She narrowed her little eyes at her father. “Is this when you ask if I want to do something but I really gotta do it?”
“Yep. Go see what Grandpa’s up to and let me talk to Uncle Stiles.”
Life was rough for a four-and-a-half-year-old girl. “Okay, fine… bye, Uncle Stiles!”
“Bye, Re.”
“Bye, Uncle Derek!” Rene yelled into the computer.
“Later, baby!” Derek called back from the kitchen sink.
When Scott had unloaded his little passenger, he turned back to the call. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine.”
“So… you and Derek seem to be doing okay.”
Stiles couldn’t help a smile. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“Please,” Scott scoffed, “this from the guy who got a tattoo to honor the day he got laid by Derek Hale.”
“If that night was anything like last night, trust me, you would have gotten a tattoo, too.”
Scott made a face. “That’s… way more than I needed to know.”
“Don’t open a door if you can’t walk through it, Scotty.”
“You guys both realize I am hearing all of this, right?” Derek chimed in.
“Your point being?” Stiles asked.
“My point being that if I can overhear it, Kira and Mrs. Yukimura probably can, too.”
Stiles hesitated and looked over at Scott. “Scott?”
Scott was grinning. “Yep.” He turned the computer to show Kira and her mother sitting at the table with Scott. “Say hi.”
“Oh god,” Stiles covered his face with both hands. He peeked out between his fingers at the two women. “Umm… hi?”
Kira was fighting back a snicker, but her mother was the poster-child of not impressed. “Mr. Hale,” she deadpanned.
“So… uh… about my memory problem…”
“Yes, about that,” Mrs. Yukimura said, “though I think we may need to look into erasing memories after what we heard…”
“Oh, Mom,” Kira chided, “it wasn’t that bad.”
Mrs. Yukimura cracked a smile. “One of the benefits of being an elder is making young people squirm. Don’t deny me, honey.”
Stiles snorted. “That right there, that’s where Rene gets it.”
“Oh, trust me, we know,” Kira replied, kind of like it was something that kept her up at night.
“If we could maybe get off the topic of my sex life and back to the fact I’m missing seven years?” Stiles suggested.
“Of course,” Mrs. Yukimura agreed. “First, I need you to tell me what is the last thing you remember before the lapse? What were you doing, where were you, was anyone with you… every detail you can recall.”
“Okay… it was the end of my junior year of high school, and I was up crazy-late studying for a chemistry test I had the next day. Um, that was with Mrs. Sheridan - I don’t know if that matters. It was this monster exam, cumulative, and I was in panic mode. Uh… I was in my bedroom with my book and all my semester notes spread out everywhere. I had like five coffees and my eye was doing that twitchy thing when you slam back caffeine like a crazy person. I was home by myself - Dad had to work late. It was, I guess, three-thirty in the morning last time I remembered looking at the clock?”
Mrs. Yukimura nodded. “I’ll need to look up fall of that year and see if there were any significant celestial or natural events that might come into play. Do you remember what phase the moon was in that night?”
“Yeah, it was two days before the full moon. I remember because Scott was being all pre-that-time-of-the-month prissy and wouldn’t help me study.”
“Hey,” Scott objected off-screen.
“Suck it up, buttercup, she asked,” Stiles overrode.
“And had anything out of the ordinary happened that day? To you or in the town that you know of?” Mrs. Yukimura asked.
Stiles scowled as he tried to think back. It was Beacon Hills, so ‘out of the ordinary’ was kind of subjective.
His thoughts were interrupted when Derek spit into the sink. “Ugh! What is that?”
“What?” Stiles turned.
Derek scowled into his cup. “This tea you had in the cupboard. It’s awful.”
“What tea? Oh my god, give me that!” When Derek brought over the box of tea bags, Stiles grabbed it and said, “Okay, off topic, but Kira, I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Me?” Kira blinked.
“Yes! Because this,” he held up the box so she could see it, shaking it for emphasis, “this tea you gave me?, is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted in my life. Donkey piss would be better than this. I don’t know if I gave you shit for this already, but even if I did you deserve it again, because Foulest Thing Ever. Seriously.”
Kira looked bewildered, but Mrs. Yukimura was very intent. “Kira? You gave Stiles kesshu tea?”
“A long time ago, when…” Kira’s eyes widened, “when you were studying for that chem final, wasn’t it, Stiles?”
“Yeah, you said it would help me concentrate, but all it helped me focus on was the ass-crack-ballsacky taste of this tea. No, wait, all of those would taste better.”
“We don’t doubt you’re the authority on the subject,” Mrs. Yukimura stated drolly, “but we may have found the problem with your memory.”
Stiles gaped and looked at the tea in his hand. “What… this?”
Derek squawked and rushed to pour the rest of his cup down the drain.
“You gave me memory-wiping tea?” Stiles accused Kira.
“I didn’t! It shouldn’t have done that. It really is for concentration! I drank it all the time when I was cramming for a test!”
“It’s fine for Kira. And it’s fine for humans.”
“What about werewolves?” Stiles asked, casting a wary look over at Derek.
“It’s harmless to them, too.”
“Okay, then what is it about me that made it obliterate my life?”
“It’s not meant for emissaries.”
Stiles sat back uncertainly. “But… I’m not an emissary.”
“Just because you never cultivated the skills or underwent the training doesn’t change the fact you have the emissary’s spark.”
Well, shit.
“Oh my god, I did this! Stiles, I am so sorry!” Kira said miserably.
“You couldn’t have known,” Mrs. Yukimura assured, resting a hand on her daughter’s forearm. “The odds a kitsune would happen to give an emissary kesshu tea…”
Yeah, that really just reeked of Stiles’ luck more than anything. Kitsune were rare. Emissaries were rare. The chances one would give the other the exact kind of Japanese tea that would fuck everything up royal…
“It’s not your fault, Kira,” Stiles agreed. It wasn’t fair to blame Kira for the fact Stiles’ guardian angel was a slacker. “It never occurred to me to worry that I couldn’t drink it, just like you didn’t think it might be dangerous for me. Well, other than the taste. You should have warned me about that.”
Kira cracked a weak smile, even though she still looked on the brink of tears.
Derek came up, grabbed a chair, and sat next to Stiles to share the screen. “Does this mean we can find a way to reverse it now that we know the tea was responsible?”
“It should be possible to counteract the effect,” Mrs. Yukimura nodded. “The tea is meant to direct one’s energy inward, to a focal point that the mind can then tap into. But an emissary’s spark is too powerful. The energy deflects, and rather than inner focus, there is outward scatter. The mind gets lost.”
“For seven years, though?” Because god damn, even if it was a remote chance of that happening, consequences like that should at least warrant a sticker on the box.
“The excessive caffeine would have exacerbated the effect. Instead of intensifying the focus, it intensified the scattering of mental energy.”
“So how…” Stiles started, then he rubbed at his temples with one hand like a pincher claw. “You know what, never mind. I’d ask, but I don’t think I want to know. Just tell me what I need to do to unscatter my chi or whatever the hell it is. I want my life back.”
Derek’s hand came to his shoulder and squeezed.
Mrs. Yukimura left the table briefly, returning with a pen and paper. “I’m going to have Scott email you a list of ingredients and appropriate portions. Some are fairly common, others you’ll have to go to a spice shop or holistic pharmacy to get. And absolutely no ‘close enough’ substitutions. These instructions have to be followed to the letter.”
“Oh, believe me, I am not interested in half-assing the cure to this,” Stiles assured.
“Good. When you have all these and have combined the correct ratios, you’ll need to add it to a cup of the kesshu tea and drink it.”
“You mean I have to drink that tea again?” Stiles whined.
“Only if you want to counteract the effects from the first time you drank it,” Mrs. Yukimura said in a cool, no-nonsense tone.
“Fine,” Stiles replied. “Ass crack and ballsack,” he muttered under his breath.
From the single lifted eyebrow of Mrs. Yukimura, Stiles suspected kitsune might have heightened hearing the same way werewolves did. But she didn’t comment on his assessment of her special tea. Instead, she continued, “I would recommend taking this at bedtime. The interaction with the added ingredients will make it act like a sedative. You should fall asleep within minutes of drinking it.”
“Wonderful,” Stiles said in a tone that implied it was anything but. “And when I wake up?”
“The effects of the kesshu tea should be gone.”
“That’s what I want,” Stiles nodded. And if that meant he had to drink the ass-crack-ballsack tea, well… he’d take one of the team.
Mrs. Yukimura passed her list of ingredients to Scott off-screen, then she regarded Stiles sympathetically. “I’m terribly sorry this happened to you, Stiles.” She cracked a wry smirk. “Our culture doesn’t seem to agree with you.”
“Yeah, nogitsune in my head wreaking havoc and kitsune tea that wipes out nearly a decade of my memories. No offense, Mrs. Yukimura, but I am never going to Japan.”
“There’s always the remote possibility Godzilla would turn out to be real the day you got there, I suppose,” she mused.
Stiles huffed out a quasi-laugh.
He didn’t start to feel real relief, though, until the email came through from Scott with the list of herbs he’d need to get and how to combine them into kesshu-tea antidote.
That’s when it started to feel real. Like he was going to fix this mess. He was going to get his life with Derek back.
Next