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“So.” Stiles drops back against the side of the Jeep, elbows braced and spine sinking slow against the dusty blue metal. Derek’s hovering a few feet away, at the edge of the lot, not quite ready to vanish into the night but not prepared to join with the rest of the group, either.
He needs their voices, maybe, to block out the ones in his head.
“Looks like I saved your ass again,” Stiles is saying, flashing him a crooked grin. He looks warm and bright like the rest of them, a glow of victory dancing around him that can’t quite seep into Derek’s bones. “What’s the count, now? ‘Cause I think I’m getting pretty close to earning a victory ride in that sweet new Camaro.”
Derek’s lips twitch, a snort slipping out.
“I seem to recall saving you last time.”
“Hey, we’ve been through this. At best, that was a tie.” Stiles looks so smug Derek can’t bring himself to argue, and maybe that’s the reason Stiles’ grin falls. His eyes go soft, flitting over Derek’s frame.
“I’m glad you’re ok, man. ...I mean, as nice as it would have been to have my very own, hot guy lawn ornament––”
“Why did I look at her?”
He doesn’t mean to say it; flinches at his own words. His hands are too-tight fists he stretches straight with an effort, and when he looks at Stiles again the bright expression’s gone, replaced by tension and an edge of a grimace he’s trying to fight down.
“Forget it,” Derek says, and turns. Maybe he’ll run for a while. Slip into the wild. Shed this skin, shed this town, and try to shed the memories with them. He gets two steps before Stiles catches his arm.
“Hey, no. Look, it… it makes sense that you’d want to see her. I mean, you... cared about her––”
“I don’t care about her.” He doesn’t. His skin’s crawling from the echo of her touch. The thing’s touch. The memory of its words scraping old scabs loose his mind. There’s an ache in his chest and he hates it, hates her for causing it, hates himself for still letting her hurt him.
She’s been dead for two years.
He knew her less than a month.
He never really knew her at all.
“I know.” Derek had almost forgotten Stiles standing there, one hand caught in the sleeve of his shirt, lingering. They’re too close and Derek can’t look at him. The echo of Jennifer had almost been too much but this now, this moment… it’s more than Derek thinks he can handle. Stiles seems to sense it, because his fingers twist deeper into his sleeve, tension pulling the cloth taut. Anchoring Derek in place, while all his instincts scream to run.
“I just…” Stiles continues, “you thought you did. She made you think you did. And… just because you know better, just because you hate her now, doesn’t make the memory of that feeling go away.”
There’s a sting in Derek’s eyes and he presses them shut, wishing he remembered how to run. He hadn’t come back to this town for a reason. Beacon Hills has nothing for him but echoes of old wounds and new ones waiting to gouge open. How much has he lost here? How many times has he failed here?
The smartest thing he’d ever done in his life was leaving.
But Stiles’ hand is wrapped around his bicep, his palm radiating out warmth through Derek’s body, and Derek’s instincts have shifted sharply, begging him to sink into it.
“Hey,” Stiles says, soft. His voice is too close; the air tastes of his breath. “...Look at me, ok?”
Just that, that easy, and then there’s amber in front of him. Bright eyes, steady and sure under the cool gleam of the moon. Stiles’ expression is all hard and earnest, jaw set like he’s gearing for a fight he’d rather die than lose, and Derek doesn’t see it coming when he shakes his head and says:
“She wasn’t your fault. Tonight wasn’t your fault.” Because Derek’s heard that before, in his own thoughts, mostly. Sometimes in stray, late night internet searches when the guilt and confusion left him tossing toward dawn without sleep. It’s always sounded empty somehow: the kind of thing you should say, that lie you repeat to yourself, hoping you might someday trick yourself into believing it.
It doesn’t sound like that when Stiles says it.
“You flinched for a second tonight. So what ? You beat her a long time ago, Derek.” Stiles doesn’t blink as he says it. Doesn’t look away. There’s belief radiating off of him, the kind you can’t shrug off or deny, and Derek’s not sure what to do with that level of raw honesty. “She had her supernatural hooks in you, ok? Had you feeling and thinking whatever she wanted you to, but the second you knew what she was, you did the right thing. That’s… do you have any idea how strong you are?”
The hand’s scorching a slow path up to Derek’s shoulder, and Stiles doesn’t seem to notice the movement. He’s focused totally on his own words, on Derek’s expression, on making sure what he’s saying sinks in.
And Derek’s heart aches so badly he misses being stone.
“You asked me to,” he says simply, and watches Stiles’ breath catch. It’s there again in an instant, this thing that’s always between them. Floating just out of reach and intangible, living in his bones and curling sharp through his gut. This thing they’ll never have , heat-rush and too-deep understanding and––
Derek forces himself back with an effort, stepping away and watching Stiles’ brows furrow. The back of the Jeep’s one sharp twist and shove to his side, and Stiles is looking at him like he wants to be pressed into it. One tug, one lean, and Derek could know how his frame fits against Stiles’ filled out body, how the broadness of his shoulders and the angle of his hips sit against Derek’s own.
He breathes too sharp, a smirk twisting his lips, bitter burning down his throat.
“I always fall for someone I shouldn’t.”
Something complicated dances through Stiles’ expression, hints of arguments rising up and dying in amber eyes. They could still salvage this: push it back to Jennifer’s manipulations or Kate’s lies, but what falls out of Stiles’ mouth, finally, is “Not always.”
It’s a promise as much as an admission, that thing they’ve never acknowledged hitting air. Derek’s helpless against it, weak and stupid, and he can’t fight the urge to lean forward.
Stiles kisses like he speaks, clever and overeager, like Derek’s a challenge he needs to meet and a secret he needs to unravel. Like he knows Derek better than Derek knows himself and he’s damn well going to prove it.
Derek can only cling and give back in kind, lost to the sensation that goes so much deeper than skin. He hadn’t known kisses could feel like this –– the way the sensation can lick out from your core, bloom warm in your chest, be so much more than just bodies touching. But he knows Stiles, and that changes everything. Knows the shift of Stiles’ breath as he gears up for a challenge, barbed words and banter traded for teasing tongues. He’s not surprised at the way Stiles’ hands move over him, restless and eager to experience everything.
He knows Stiles.
...And he knows he can’t have this.
He breaks the kiss, flinches at Stiles’ breathless laugh. He should move away but his fingers are still locked in Stiles’ hair, gripping stubborn and refusing to let either of them go. Stiles’ breath puffs warm against his cheek and it would be too easy to just turn back, twist and lean and lose himself in this small, selfish comfort.
“That was so much better than I pictured.” Stiles is grinning, Derek can hear it in his tone. “And I think we’re in a place where I can admit I’ve pictured that a lot .” He laughs again and his lips are skimming Derek’s jaw, whole body angling toward Derek like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Derek hates it. “No offense Westley and Buttercup, but I think you just got knocked down a peg in the perfect kisses department, that was––”
“We can’t do this.”
He feels the sting of the words slap over Stiles. The way he cuts off, flinching back, curling faintly inward. There’s guilt creeping through Derek’s gut from every direction, the pack half a parking lot away and most of them probably hearing everything. Derek can’t change that, can’t take back what he’d done, but he can stop this before it gets worse. Keep Stiles from losing everything over a few years of bottled tension.
“...What?” There’s no fight in Stiles’ voice, just hurt. He’s still gripping Derek’s shirt but the hands have gone unsure –– a twitch, shove and pull, against the fabric over his chest. “I don’t…” Then, softer, understanding: “Because of what happened tonight?”
Just that –– understanding –– is nearly enough to have Derek leaning back into him. But he’s less selfish than he is weak and the pack’s right there . And Derek doesn’t know how Stiles could have gotten lust-lost enough to have forgotten what that means for him.
Derek turns in against the crook of Stiles’ neck, breathing soft enough so the others won’t hear:
“I can’t ruin what you have.”
Because Derek ruins people, but he won’t let himself ruin Stiles . He can manage that much, at least.
But Stiles is gripping his cheeks and leaning back to find his eyes, and there’s an expression on his face like he’s not sure whether to be upset or pissed off.
“Wait… what do you think I have ?”
Derek gives him a look, before looking pointedly back toward the Jeep, toward the space past it where the pack’s clustered, strangely quiet. Stiles’ eyes follow, brows furrowing.
“I don’t… do you mean…” Something sharpens his stance –– sudden, shocked understanding. “ Dude , hey, we haven’t been together for ages. Basically since you left, I mean… you saw her kiss Scott, right? That ship’s crashed and sunk and sailed off the end of the earth. Non-issue.”
An old, stupid ache stings and soothes in Derek’s chest, but that’s not what he’s talking about. His eyes narrow, eyes scanning over Stiles’ face.
“Peter said you kissed Lydia.”
He’d delighted in describing it, actually, never quite having gotten past the point in reveling in his nephew’s misery. Months with no contact and then that, skimming past the point of being literally erased from reality, to describe the epic moment where Stiles and his true love locked lips.
Derek sees the words hit, realization blooming out slow in Stiles’ eyes. He stares, gapes , for six stretched-endless heartbeats, before blinking fast, head shaking.
“Peter said… shit , Derek. You thought–– all this time I’m just here openly flirting with you, and you thought––” He finally falls back, and Derek lets him go, watches him rake a hand through his hair, a shaky laugh rolling out. “Yeah, I mean… we did but it was just... It was like this… ancient fantasy come to life, everything I’d thought I wanted since I was eight. And you know what that kiss made me realize, Derek? How completely and utterly over Lydia Martin I am.”
The words don’t add up, flip and reorder in Derek’s mind, seeking purchase.
They aren’t together. Stiles doesn’t want her. They could actually have this.
...It’s too good to grasp onto.
“You kissed her, after a battle. ...Like this?”
The way Stiles’ shoulders drop make him immediately regret saying it.
“Not like this.” And then Stiles winces. “...I mean, not for me, anyway. I… know you’re upset, after, maybe I shouldn’t have––”
The implication hits ugly, grating and wrong. Derek feels his stance echo Stiles’ flinch.
“She has nothing to do with us.” Stiles is everything she wasn’t. Comfort, safety. Frustratingly, beautifully, undeniably real . Stiles is something he can’t even bring himself to fear falling into.
He thinks Stiles must read that, or some semblance of it, on his face. His own softens, and he shakes his head, faintly. His expression says they’re both idiots, and he wouldn’t be wrong.
Derek doesn’t retreat when Stiles moves forward again –– one slow step, and another, until he can reach out and trail his palm up Derek’s chest.
“The second I saw you in that footage, I realized how completely not over you I am.” He must feel Derek’s heart thump and quicken because he smirks, thumb padding over the fabric. “Want me taking my hand off?”
“Want your mouth on,” Derek counters. Stiles’ brows dance up.
“Hey, that’s kind of fast, big guy. I mean, I’m not saying no but we’re in kind of a public space and I’m not sure––”
Derek rolls his eyes and hauls Stiles in. The kiss is soft this time, easy and unhurried. Stiles sinks into the contact with a snort and a pleased sound, fingers lacing through Derek’s hair, and Derek lets Stiles guide him, slow twist and shove, against the back edge of the Jeep.
There’s a short whoop in the distance, and a “ Christ, really?” from Jackson. The kiss turns to teeth as Stiles grins against him, tossing a choice finger past the edge of the Jeep for the others to see.
“Loft?” He doesn’t pull back as he asks it, word mumbled against Derek’s mouth. Derek nods, lets the contact drive them into a lazy nuzzle. He still owns the property, technically, since he’d never bothered with the effort of selling it. “Good,” and Stiles kisses him again, moaning a little, Derek thinks, for Jackson’s benefit. He’s moving like he’s found something he can’t bear to let go of, body shifting between the Jeep and Derek’s front. Derek links their fingers together, and the contented sigh that rolls out is all for Derek.
“Good,” Stiles repeats. “Because we are gonna snuggle the fuck out of each other tonight, and celebrate making it out alive by the skin of our––”
“Toe?” Derek cuts in mildly, and it’s worth the kiss breaking for the unimpressed look Stiles shoots him.
“And then,” he continues after a beat, deciding to go on as though Derek hadn’t spoken, “tomorrow we’re going to figure out how to spend our lives making up for all the shit this town’s put us through.” His eyebrows dance up, challenging. “Sound like a plan?”
Derek matches the look, squeezing their fingers together.
“Sounds like a future.”