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There are two wolves, the grandfather said, in this fight. This terrible fight, which rages on inside every single one of us. One wolf is bitter, suspicious, proud, too quick to anger and so slow to forgive. The other? Generous, kind, brave and loving, humble, full of faith...
Little one, you must understand: the wolf you choose to feed is the one that will win, always.
By the time Derek returned from his run, Stiles was home from work.
Derek followed the trail of the hated uniform, all the way from the front door (black lace-up shoes, with drugstore gel inserts) to the stairs (sweaty polyester-blend shirt, smeary plastic name tag) to the entrance to their bedroom (trousers -- another polyester blend, but in a heavier, more chafe-friendly weave). Stiles was in the shower, but judging from the sound he wasn't washing up, or singing execrable late '90s pop, or even jacking off.
No, Stiles wasn't doing anything except standing there, unnaturally still.
Derek stripped down and knocked on the bathroom door. At Stiles' quiet "Come on in," he walked inside the steamy room and joined him in the oversized shower stall.
Stiles slipped out from under the water stream to lean against the tile, eyes shut. Derek took his place, began soaping up after a moment, and thought, Clothing detonation, in here for at least twenty minutes to go by the pruning, not leering at me in the slightest...
"What happened today?" He scrubbed at his hair, kept his voice casual.
Stiles didn't open his eyes. "Nothing." Barely a flicker in his heartbeat: same old, same old, at the summer fast-food job he couldn't stand, then? It was too weird that he wasn't moving to touch Derek, though.
"That file clerk slot hasn't been filled at the station," Derek said. He rinsed the shampoo out of his hair and chanced a look at Stiles: still braced against the wall, which had to be chilly; still not revealing a single clue as to what was specifically wrong.
Stiles snorted. "Having to deal with both my father and my boyfriend --" at this, Derek couldn't help but smile a little; it pleased him to no end, that he was Stiles' boyfriend, and besides, Stiles himself had his eyes closed, "-- in the workplace is beyond my capabilities. Plus, you know I'm thin-skinned, the accusations of nepotism would wound me. They were enough to bother you."
"I got past it." He'd joined the force after they'd been together six months. Stiles was then a college sophomore, and they hadn't been able to see one another as often as Derek would have liked. During one visit he'd mused out loud about looking into a hobby, once the new house was completed, and Stiles had said, "Or maybe a hobby you've already indulged in, only with pay, oh, the novelty," and produced the pamphlet from his messenger bag.
That the sticky note on the front was in John's handwriting moved Derek more than he would ever care to admit.
He looked at Stiles, at the shampoo dripping down his neck. What I'd give, to see you every day, he didn't say. Derek knew his possessive streak wasn't a streak so much as a wide, planetary ring, at its worst where Stiles was concerned: before they'd gotten together, before Derek had gotten up the nerve, Stiles had returned from Stanford that first winter break reeking of strangers, of strange men. Which led Derek to abruptly recall some unfinished business in New York; after that he'd simply stayed away, out of Beacon Hills, out of contact, for months and months.
Stiles tracked him down the following July, crawling onto his lap at the dive bar where he'd accidentally become a regular. Like that was a thing they did. "I had my stupid, all-important college experience, like you wanted," Stiles had said, though Derek had never once shared those thoughts with him. "We have to be together now, I can't bear it otherwise." He'd never lifted his head from the curve of Derek's neck, and Derek had carried him back to the fourth-floor walkup. When they'd limped out of bed days later, it was to return to California together.
"That's different. You're undeniably good at... deputying," Stiles said now, waving a hand.
"That's not a word." Derek unhooked the handheld shower attachment. "Come here." He rinsed the last of the suds from Stiles, front and back, smoothing his hand against his skin but careful not to linger.
"Derek, you're good at lots of things," Stiles said. He bumped his nose against Derek's cheek, entirely too pensive but affectionate as always.
Derek stepped out of the stall to grab towels for them.
When they were both mostly dried off and standing in the bedroom, he knocked into Stiles' shoulder to push him onto the bed. Stiles flopped down on an exhale, as if that had been the plan all along; he looked good against the navy blue sheets. Coming to kneel beside him, Derek stroked a hand along his thigh and said,
"Out with it?"
"I liked it better when you were the strong, silent type, babe," he groused. He shifted around, getting his wet hair all over Derek's pillow.
"Right, that's why you bought all those 'communication in relationships' books last year and made that PowerPoint presentation," Derek said.
Any mention of 'love languages' was still enough to set them both giggling uncontrollably. Last Friday found them at the movies for the latest Marvel release, and Stiles had long maintained the whole Magneto-Professor X rivalry was built on a grand, thwarted passion. On screen the two characters were locked in a battle royale, hurling insults at one another; when Stiles had whispered the phrase during a lull, they couldn't pull themselves together enough to stop laughing and they'd been asked to leave.
Whatever. They'd seen the movie twice on opening weekend, and the score was loud enough to hurt his ears, anyway. Derek's sole regret was that he'd been wearing his deputy's uniform.
"It's stupid," Stiles said. He was chewing on his lower lip, and he smelled delicious: citrus soap, clean skin, and, thrumming beneath that, his own, unparalleled, almost ozone-and-spice scent. Almost, because Derek had been trying to categorize the damn thing for five years running now.
"Try me?" Derek asked. He wanted to stay focused, but Stiles' lean, beauty-marked body was also reliable distraction. He had faint, finger-shaped bruises on his right hip, and Derek traced them with the pad of one thumb in lieu of tracing them with his tongue.
"It's just. It's just I don't, I don't like curly fries anymore," he burst out, and honest-to-God tears started to well up in his eyes.
Derek was immediately, keenly out of his depth. "You don't?"
"No, I don't." Stiles wiped at his face. "Eric handed me an order as I was leaving," and Derek pressed his lips flat; he'd been certain for at least a month that Eric had a thing for Stiles. "Don't make that face. I picked up a fry while I was starting the car, and it was completely revolting. It -- the grease, the smell. I had to throw them away, before I'd even left the parking lot.
"So." He tried to smile at Derek, but it wobbled. "I mean. There were things I used to know for sure about myself, no matter what?"
Oh, Derek thought. He wrapped his hand around Stiles' hip, suddenly a tad lightheaded.
"That my name's Stiles Stilinski, that I'm Scott McCall's best friend." Scott McCall was Scott Delgado, now. He'd changed his name just after high school graduation, partly as a wedding gift to Melissa; she'd hesitated over switching to "Stilinski" and her son had turned up for dinner one night in early June, paperwork in hand.
Moreover, Scott tended to call Isaac his best friend nowadays, because Isaac, in a striking blow for idiocy, claimed he didn't like the term 'boyfriend.' They'd elected to stay in Seattle over the summer, with Allison. Beacon Hills was stable at last, and Derek held the territory in Scott's absence with ease.
"That I loved Lydia," Stiles continued, and okay, that... stung, a bit. Maybe more than that. Lydia was in Boston, taking summer classes to further her quadruple-degree goal. Or something along those lines. Stiles had explained her elaborate academic plans more than once, but Derek hadn't been paying the most attention; that might have been deliberate on his part.
"That's still true," Derek offered, carefully neutral. He pulled his hand away and stretched out next to Stiles on their -- on the bed.
Stiles sighed and picked up Derek's hand, holding it to his own chest. "That's not what I meant. I was positive I was in love with her, that we'd get married eventually."
Derek kept his hand loose in Stiles' grasp, but went a little cold inside. Had Stiles found that tiny, wrapped box at the back of the desk drawer? Is that what this was about, and the fries were just a handy opener? The desk drawer in his desk, in his study, in his house, because while Stiles had picked out all the flooring, and the paint colors, and most of the furniture, he still lived with his father. He stays here so often out of convenience, Derek frequently reminded himself, because our dates run late and it's really noisy at his house.
Derek had gift-wrapped the box months ago, so he'd stop taking the ring out and looking at it when he was alone.
Other popular reminders: Stiles is twenty-one. This is his first serious relationship. Let's try reining it in, shall we? Don't make a fuss. Don't be so demanding. They'd been together almost two years, but he restricted himself and his wants to being occasionally, superlatively, needy in bed. Stiles was pretty vocal in his appreciation, and Derek was confident the infrequency and unpredictability of those instances kept some of the less-attractive facets of his personality under wraps. He'd been informed he was a stage-five clinger by a few people, and he certainly loved Stiles more than all of his exes put together. Moderation was the safest path.
Stiles was still talking; he was as inexorable as the fucking tide that way. When Derek tuned back in, he was saying, "And that I loved curly fries, as a stand-alone, major food group."
Derek pushed his miserable thoughts to the side and cleared his throat. "That's not unusual. People who work in bakeries often lose their cravings for bread, for cake. When they stop working there, it comes back. It's only temporary, Stiles." All sorts of things are only temporary. "It's a summer job, once you're out of there your taste buds will recover." He squeezed his hand before saying, "And you know you can quit whenever you like, love, we talked about that."
Stiles had declared he hated Vic's Burgers before he'd finished his first week of work. A disgruntled customer had thrown a drink in his face; three kids had gotten violently sick during a birthday party; his co-workers were vapid and annoying. And the schedule was a mess: he'd been part of Wednesday's closing shift, only to return five hours later to open on Thursday morning. Derek had offered again to foot the bills (he'd first brought it up before Stiles was back from junior year, scholarships only stretched so far) but Stiles had repeated that he needed to earn money for senior year expenses.
When Derek had also offered to help with those, they'd just gotten into fight about income disparities and boundaries which only wound down when they wound up in bed.
Which was undeniably nice, but they'd never actually resolved anything.
Stiles rolled onto his side and threw a leg across Derek. The crease of his thigh was damp; that was interesting. "We're already in bed, no need to rehash that argument." He resumed chewing on his lip. "I don't think I'm explaining this well, at all. I think you may be getting the wrong idea." He leaned in to give Derek a chaste kiss on the temple.
Stop panicking, Derek told himself.
"Change is difficult," he told Stiles.
Clichés, fantastic. Derek made sure his voice was mild when he spoke again. "Maybe think about some things that always stay the same? You're Stiles, and you love your father, eternally," and he felt the side of Stiles' mouth curl up, right where it was pressed to his shoulder. "You love Melissa," because if she'd held a special place in his heart as Scott's mom... as his stepmother, with John happier than he'd been in years, that special place now had a throne. "And you love that baby," Derek said, and felt the tentative smile grow wider.
When Melissa had Joseph right before Scott and Stiles ended their respective sophomore years, Derek had anticipated jealousy, awkwardness, and uncomfortable situations on the regular. Instead the two 'brothers from another mother' were enthusiastic babysitters and brutally competitive gift-givers. Stiles even liked it when he had Joe strapped to his chest and strangers mistook the baby for his son. Joe had a thick, full head of Melissa's dark hair, so once in a great while he was mistaken for Derek's; Stiles liked that, too.
"You're the most beautiful thing in the world to me," Stiles said, and sniffled.
"Uh, thanks?" Derek didn't feel especially thankful. Stiles had drunkenly confessed that he was a 'perennial sucker for looks' in his senior year of high school. He'd been nursing a debilitating crush on a stunning exchange student at the time, and Derek had the privilege of driving him home after a party and hearing all about it.
Of course she'd turned out to be half-siren, half-kobold, and wholly up to no damn good. Derek was definitely a bad person, because to this day he felt a vicious stab of pleasure remembering how they'd escorted her out of Beacon Hills.
"No. Yes. I mean, you're welcome, but we were listing things?" Stiles peered at him.
"Oh?"
Stiles propped himself up on one elbow. "Yeah, I knew you were getting the wrong idea. I love you, Derek Hale."
"Stiles, I love -- "
"Hush up, still listing. Enumerating." In one swift motion he straddled Derek's hips; the drag of their cocks together made Derek hiss. "I love you, and I'm in love with you." Stiles leaned forward and kissed him. Long minutes later, he continued, "Our bed is my all-time favorite place."
Derek was looking up at him, and in the late afternoon light Stiles' eyes were golden. "You're upset, Stiles. You don't have to put that aside to take care of me." Derek's insecurity-masked-as-indifference had taken up three separate slides in the presentation.
"You're always here for me," Stiles said.
"Yes, I -- "
"Still itemizing, babe." Stiles nuzzled Derek's neck, ran his long, clever fingers across Derek's chest.
Derek had incredibly responsive nipples, and the touch made him arch his back. Learning that about himself had come as a great surprise; no one before Stiles had taken the time to find out. Also, his left earlobe was far more sensitive than his right, his sides weren't nearly as ticklish as the backs of his knees, he liked having the roof of his mouth licked... I know exactly what it is to feel like a stranger to yourself, and not have it mean something bad, Derek realized.
In fact, Stiles had just latched onto his right earlobe and was worrying his teeth against the soft skin. He hummed, and Derek felt a shiver of anticipation. Stiles always started on the right lobe; he said he didn't want it to feel neglected when he ended up lavishing all his attention on Derek's left. After one giddy, late-night phone-sex episode he even told Derek what he'd nicknamed them: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
"You're mine," Derek said, wonderingly.
Stiles paused. "Yes. Yes, that's a solid addition, absolutely," and his heartbeat was a metronome.
"Stiles, please."
Stiles looked up, finally. He cupped Derek's face in his hands, achingly tender. "I'm sorry. I think you just walked in on an early quarter-life crisis. Or, possibly, a dose of long-delayed comprehension, from years ago? My main point is, if you'd taken the long way back I would have had this sorted out by the time you were home." He kissed him, and Derek would never get over how lush his wide, pink mouth was, never stop wanting it. "My life is nothing like I thought it would be, Derek," and his smile was brilliant. "It's infinitely better."
"Do you want," Derek began, startling himself, only to have his voice give out. His hands were gripping Stiles' hips, and when Stiles made a quick, undulating wave against him, his mind went a little hazy around the edges.
"Yes." Now he was nuzzling Derek's neck and mouthing along a tendon.
This impossible, gorgeous man. "You don't even know, you don't..." Derek broke off. I've been so careful, what am I doing, what am I saying?
Stiles just nosed at Derek's cheek, grinning. "It's always going to be yes, babe. Yes, I want to live with you. Yes, this is forever. Yes, I'm very interested in whatever you've been keeping in your desk -- if you might be persuaded to show me. No pressure, or anything."
When he ducked his head and licked at Guildenstern, Derek could only moan.
Stiles just hummed again, and settled in for the duration.