Archive of Our Own

Like most things these days, it all starts with Scott having an idea.

As Alpha, he has a lot of ideas, some of them even good ones that help the pack. Every now and again though, something comes from the depths of his brain that royally screws Derek over, like Scott has some kind of failed circuit in his mind that lives to make Derek's life difficult. He doesn't mean it, Derek knows he doesn't mean for these things to happen but they do, with startling frequency to him and only him.

"Dude, uh... I mean how was... good session?" Scott asks, eyebrows climbing so high on his face they look like they're making a break for freedom. It looks like it's physically painful for him not to comment on it.

"No, Scott. No, it wasn't a good session," Derek says flatly. He's not going to give Scott the satisfaction of mentioning it first. He's going to watch Scott struggle and bite his lip and turn vaguely purple.

"Maybe a therapist that freelances as a witch wasn't such a good idea?"

"You think?"

"Deaton recommended her."

"That should have told you, right there, that she was going to mess with us," Derek points out and Scott pulls a fair enough face. It's true. Derek isn't sure what his family did to Deaton in the past but while the man is invaluable, Derek's starting to suspect that there's some mischievous fox in his lineage somewhere. Whenever Deaton combines with Scott and their focus is on Derek, bad things happen.

To Derek.

Derek finally takes pity on Scott and admits, "It was this or a truth curse because she said I need to open up more."

"A truth curse? As in, you'd basically say whatever was on your mind?" Scott asks.

"Yep."

Scott drums his fingers on his chin for a second, before he claps his hands on his knees and then stands, dropping the ancient magazine he was flipping through on the waiting room coffee table.

"Good call on the tail then," he decides.

*

"She said only werewolves could see it," Derek says when Scott gives him a dubious look as they emerge back into the light of the day in quiet, downtown Beacon Hills. Scott continues to look dubious until a handful of preteen girls bustle by them, giggling and leaning into each other and completely unmindful of the long, brown, overly fluffy tail Derek is now sporting.

"So, it's like a therapeutic tool?" Scott asks, trying to valiantly take this whole situation as seriously as possible. Derek's actually pretty proud of him. He knows that if it'd happened to anyone else, Derek would certainly have seen the funny side. It's happened to him though so it's not funny in the least and Scott is obviously respecting Derek's crabbiness about it.

"She said it would give me away if I tried to repress my feelings," Derek says through his teeth. Doctor Hendry is a good therapist and despite Derek's initial hesitance, he's starting to feel like the whole thing is helping, even if he'll never admit that to Scott on pain of death. Hendry had seemed to think that Derek's progress was not as positive as he had and she'd come up with something in her, Derek now knows, evil little brain.

"How long is it going to last?"

"I have another session in two weeks and she said we could discuss removing it if I'd made the right kind of progress." Derek makes air quotes around the last four words and throws in an exasperated eye roll.

"Did she say why she felt like you need this kind of... intervention, specifically?"

"Something about not letting myself reach for what I want, denying my desires."

"That doesn't sound good," Scott says, giving Derek his concerned puppy face. It shouldn't work. It shouldn't look so at home on a powerful Alpha's face but Scott is a contradiction in most things, including this.

"It's fine. I'll tell her what she wants to hear, she'll remove the tail and everything will go back to normal."

"What does she want to hear?" Scott asks, looking like he doesn't exactly think it's a good plan.

"I... haven't figured that out yet, but I will."

"You're going to be stuck with the tail forever, aren't you?" Scott says.

"Pretty much, yeah," Derek sighs.

*

The only positive, Derek thinks, to this whole situation is that Stiles won't know. He's letting that console him as he lets himself back into the loft, Scott on his heels and finds Stiles there already. Stiles has books spread out all over the dining table Derek had gotten only the week before, five different half-finished cups of coffee making rings on the otherwise unblemished wood.

At least Stiles won't-

"What the hell is that?" Stiles demands, abandoning his books and rushing over, making grabby hands in the vicinity of Derek's ass.

"What?" Derek says as Scott looks between them, confusion on his features.

"Oh, no way. You are not playing this off as normal," Stiles says, shaking his head so hard Derek's surprised it doesn't just fling off and bounce into a corner of the loft. Stiles has his phone out but Derek snatches it before Stiles can take any photos. Stiles frowns and says, "Wait, you guys didn't go to a cosplay convention without me, did you?"

"It's real," Derek huffs as Scott pokes him.

"I thought you said only werewolves would be able to see it?" Scott says while Stiles bounces around excitedly, looking like he'll burst if he doesn't get to touch the tail in the next twelve seconds. Derek finds himself having to continually turn and back away to stop him.

"Doctor Hendry said only pack-" Derek starts to grumble and Stiles stops his advance, face falling into a careful disappointment.

"Dude, Stiles is pack," Scott's quick to interject, cuffing Stiles on the shoulder. Despite the reassurance, Stiles has visibly drooped and he crosses back to the dining table, starts putting his books and other detritus together.

"I mean, yeah, of course," Derek says lamely.

"The tail knows he's pack," Scott says pointedly, narrowing his eyes at Derek in a look what you've done, way. Derek ducks his face, scrubbing over the back of his head with a hand.

"It's cool," Stiles says. "Look, I gotta jet. Stuff and things." Stiles has his backpack hugged against his chest, papers spilling out of it and a half-eaten banana poking up from the front pocket.

"We were going to order pizza," Scott says, trying to block Stiles as he slumps towards the door.

"Don't order double cheese. We're the ones that suffer," Stiles instructs, managing to breeze past Scott and be out the door with a final awkward wave.

"Huh," Scott says when he turns back around.

"What?" Derek grunts, crossing over to the table to pick up the coffee cups and see what damage has been done. He needs to get a table runner, maybe a trip to Ikea is in his future even though that sounds like a horrible way to spend an afternoon.

"Your tail's kind of..." Scott waves a hand at it and Derek glances over his shoulder, sees it hanging limp and dejected. It looks sad.

"Stiles is going to ruin this table," Derek says. "I'm upset about it."

"Uhuh," Scott says.

*

Derek tries to reschedule the next pack meeting but the phone tree for embarrassing situations seems to be in full effect and everyone ducks his calls and emails and just turns up at the loft on Wednesday night. He'd pretend he wasn't home, but he'd given everyone keys and the code to the security system because he wanted them all to feel comfortable and welcome and it's backfiring on him spectacularly.

Kira's the first to finally reach out and touch, her eyes big and imploring before she gets a hand on him. Derek rolls his eyes and mutters fine which is all the permission she seems to need. "Sooooo fluffy," Kira croons and then there's a line; Scott, Isaac, Allison and even Lydia to have their turn.

Derek will never admit, in a million years, that it feels nice.

Stiles is conspicuous in his absence and when Derek makes enquiring faces at Scott, he shrugs and frowns down at his phone. "He said he had an Econ paper."

"He's pouting about something," Lydia disagrees, flopping into the corner of the leather sectional and kicking her heels off with a contented noise.

Derek grumbles as he gets out his own phone, taps a quick message.

Derek: Get your butt over here
Stiles: I have homework
Derek: Bring pizza rolls. There wasn't any in the supermarket and I know you have a stockpile for the apocalypse.
Stiles: I HAVE HOMEWORK
Derek: BRING PIZZA ROLLS
Stiles: FINE :(

"He's coming," Derek says.

The others fall into conversation, tossing back and forth information about their week, what's coming up and who's under the biggest pile of homework. Scott wins the argument by stating I'm the Alpha and if Derek knew how annoying that was, he wouldn't have done it so much when it was him.

"What's... what's happening right now?" Isaac asks and Derek belatedly realizes that the rest of the room has gone silent.

"What?" Derek throws over his shoulder, then turns slowly because he'd been pointed at the door, tail out and stiff behind him like a hunting dog. "Nothing," Derek tacks on even though the others don't look convinced. He makes himself cross to the wingback chair that had been his one pricey indulgence furniture-wise and that no one else is allowed to sit in, even Scott pulling the Alpha card.

"Interesting," Lydia comments as the loft door yanks open and Stiles spills inside, clutching a plastic bag. Derek feels his tail jerk underneath his butt cheek and pushes himself more firmly back in the chair and the tail more firmly underneath him.

Stiles grumps all the way to the kitchen, setting his bag on the counter and then leaning over to glare at the oven. "You couldn't have preheated?" he complains.

"Dude, I'm so hungry I'd eat them frozen," Scott offers and Stiles' dour expression transforms as he digs into one of the bags.

"I'll pay you five bucks to see that," he says gleefully, tossing a frozen pizza roll at Scott's head that he snatches out of the air neatly.

"Ugh," Kira, Lydia and Allison groan at the same time.

Scott chips a tooth. It's an interesting wait to see if it'll heal.

*

"What is that?" Derek asks the next day when Stiles is standing in the doorway, wielding something that looks like a large, square brush.

"You don't instinctively think of me as pack still," Stiles says in lieu of a direct answer.

"Stiles-" Derek groans, retreating back into the loft, Stiles following still brandishing the brush.

"No, hear me out. I've seen you do... pack things with everyone else. I mean, I saw you actually lick Kira's face the other day."

"I didn't lick her," Derek denies, although he probably did. Sometimes the wolf behaviour just happens and Derek's unmindful of it. As he's been getting more comfortable with the pack, he's been slipping more, falling into old patterns. He catches himself most of the time but every now and again he doesn't.

Kira totally licked him back so she obviously wasn't offended. Okay, a little offended, but that was because she claimed she'd gotten beard burn on her tongue.

"So, well, I was looking stuff up and, y'know, licking's out for us," Stiles continues. Derek fights the urge to ask why, because he wouldn't be adverse to it, but that probably says more about how Derek's started feeling about Stiles as a person rather than a wolf. He's sliding down the rabbit hole of Stiles attraction and he's expecting to hit bottom any day now and break something, most likely his pride.

"There's tactility but I touch you all the time and it's not helping and it's not reciprocated so there isn't anything I can do about that," Stiles is obviously warming up to his idea and Derek opens his mouth again, because he does want to touch Stiles, all the time, but he holds himself back. Basically, because he knows if he starts he'll never stop. Stiles holds up the brush though and rushes on with, "So, social grooming."

"Social...?"

"It's the least offensive thing I could find. I don't have to touch your bod because you obviously don't want me to, but I think it's important... for Scott that we get along."

"We do get along."

"Sort of," Stiles says, scrunching up his face.

"You want to brush me?"

"Just the tail, 'cause it's not really you, but it's a start."

"I don't think it needs brushing," Derek says slowly, mostly so he doesn't betray how nice it sounds. It shouldn't. The suggestion should ping as odd but it doesn't.

"Dude, I can see a Froot Loop in your tail from here. Trust me, it needs it."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Do you want me to change my mind?"

"No! I just wasn't expecting... okay. Um, I guess you can't sit because..."

"Kitchen stool," Derek says, waving a hand behind him at the two stools set against the kitchen counter.

"Oh, perfect!" Stiles agrees and follows Derek over, waits for him to settle on one of the stools with his tail behind him. "Okay, uh, I'll just..."

"Just do it before this gets weirder," Derek grumbles and then jerks because Stiles clamps a hand around the base of his tail, no nonsense and the sensation zings straight through him.

"Sorry!" Stiles blurts, hand jerking away immediately.

"No, it's fine. Just, maybe start with the end," Derek says.

He knows he can feel the tail. It's magic so it's probably mental rather than physical that he can, but when Stiles starts stroking the brush through it, it feels incredible, like a really great scalp massage, sending shivers down Derek's spine.

"Four, no, five Fruit Loops," Stiles chortles, setting the offending cereal pieces next to where Derek's resting a hand on the kitchen counter. "I think you owe Isaac a wedgie or something because he's the one that eats them."

"Stiles," Derek gets out, although his voice is an embarrassing slur and Stiles pauses, before resuming, strokes more sure.

"You know this is a cat brush, right?" Stiles says after a few minutes of blessed silence and the feeling of Stiles carefully working tangles out of Derek's tail that feels like he's working knots out of Derek's soul.

"I hate you."

"Just seemed more appropriate considering how prickly you are."

"I thought this was supposed to be a bonding exercise. I think you ruin it if you insult me."

"S'not an insult. I like your grumpiness. It's soothing."

Derek is so entranced by what Stiles is doing to him with a simple cat brush that he doesn't hear Scott enter the loft until Scott says, "I'm not sure what I just walked into, but I get the feeling I shouldn't be seeing it."

*

Derek doesn't see Stiles for almost a week after that. The next time he does, Stiles is puddled miserably between Scott and Isaac, soaking wet and shivering after having been pitched into a lake by a water sprite.

"What part of wait for me was so hard to understand?" Derek grouses.

"We could h-h-h-h-h-andle it," Stiles stutters out. His lips are turning blue. Scott had stripped Stiles' sodden jacket off him, but it left him in only a sopping t-shirt and jeans and while Isaac and Scott would be warmer than Stiles, they were both as wet as him and probably weren't really helping.

"Yeah, I can see that. Stellar job," Derek says, throwing in a little sarcastic thumbs up and just knows Stiles would be flipping him off right now if he wasn't hugging his arms so tightly around his torso. "Get the wet clothes off him," he adds to Scott and Isaac.

"W-w-w-w-w-what am I g-g-g-going to wear?" Stiles manages, making a noise of protest when Scott and Isaac lean away from him. He starts throwing elbows when they try to strip him and Scott gives Derek an unimpressed look.

"Here," Derek grunts and yanks off his own t-shirt. He has his hands on his belt buckle when Stiles squeaks, "N-n-n-naked!"

"I'm wearing underwear," Derek says, pushing his jeans down and stepping out of them so he's left in his boxers.

"N-n-n-not c-c-c-c-commando?" Stiles says and although the words are mangled by his chattering teeth, he still manages to sound greatly disappointed.

Scott makes quick work of skinning Stiles out of the rest of his clothes. Stiles needs the help because his hands have gone clumsy with cold, his limbs slow to respond. Derek tosses over his own stuff, crosses his arms over his bared chest but then barks, "No!" when Scott and Isaac go to sandwich Stiles again between them when he's in the dryer outfit.

"You're both wet," Derek explains after they stare at him, stepping forward and shunting them aside. He hunkers down next to Stiles and wraps arms around him. There's a low tug at the base of his spine and he realizes belatedly that his tail is curled around too. Stiles makes a pleased noise and buries his hands in the fur. It's only a few seconds later that he makes a contented groan and curls forward so his whole face is in Derek's tail.

"Snu-snu-snuggly," Stiles almost croons.

"Go get the jeep," Derek instructs, keeping a watchful eye on the seemingly peaceful water in front of them, mindful there might be more sprites lurking in the depths that would be pissed at him for snapping the one that had attacked Stiles in half.

Scott and Isaac both trot away and as they disappear, Stiles says, "I'm going to miss this."

"What? Getting your ass handed to you by a creature that's about the size of a squirrel?"

"No, this," Stiles clarifies, patting the tail affectionately. "It likes me."

So do I, Derek doesn't say, because that's a conversation for a whole other day.

*

"Okay, that's it," Scott announces, standing up and tugging Isaac and Kira to their feet.

"What's happening?" Stiles asks absently and Scott looks at him and then Derek pointedly. It's only because of this that Derek realizes with a jolt that Stiles has had his hand buried in Derek's hair, idly stroking and Derek's tail has been thumping against Stiles' thigh in lazy enjoyment.

Stiles seems to notice what he's doing at the same time. He tugs his hand away, flushing a dull red. "It's just social grooming," he blurts, looking hunted.

"We're leaving and you guys can work out your unresolved... social grooming before you drive us all insane while we're gone," Scott says, flailing a hand at them both.

"But-" Stiles gets out, but the two werewolves and kitsune are gone already, the loft door closing soundly behind them. "Um."

"I hadn't noticed you were doing that," Derek says, which is kind of untrue, because he had but it just hadn't occurred to him that it was anything odd.

"Neither did I," Stiles is quick to agree, which is also a lie and Derek furrows his brows at Stiles. "Or, okay, yes I did but it's all to get close to... the pack." Stiles is now looking down at his hands like they've somehow betrayed him.

"It's okay, I would have stopped you if I'd minded," Derek says, grabbing a hold of his traitorous tail because it's been jerking towards Stiles' hands again.

"That's... good?"

"Do we need to talk about this?"

"No... yes? Maybe? I'm not sure what's going on."

"My tail isn't all that likes you. It's an extension of me. That's the point."

"Oh. Wait, oh! That means you like me, right?" Stiles says, turning on the couch that they're sharing until his knee is pressed into Derek's. He's still twisting his fingers together, unsure and Derek lets go of his tail so he can take them, untangle them so he can grip one of Stiles' hands with his own.

"Yes. You said that I didn't touch you and I don't, but not because of why you think. I want to touch you all the time and the only way I could stop myself was not doing it at all."

"I want to touch you all the time, too."

"That's good," Derek says and then grimaces. "Wow, we're both terrible at this."

"Right? It's not just me that thinks that, thank god," Stiles says, picking up Derek's tail with his free hand and brushing the end against his chin thoughtfully.

"Don't put that in your mouth."

"Wasn't gonna."

"You so were."

"Ugh, fine. Give me something else to put in my mouth."

"No."

"No?"

"Not to... just no to the terrible innuendos. We're not doing that."

"But that's my entire game. You're hamstringing me here."

"You don't need game," Derek points out. "Clearly you already have me, although I have no idea why."

"I suppose it'll take years of extensive study and physical experimentation to find out?" Stiles proposes, waggling his eyebrows.

"That sounds fair," Derek agrees. He kisses Stiles then, like he'll admit now, he's wanted to for probably as long as he's known him.

*

"Boooooo!" Stiles jeers when Derek comes out of his next appointment with Hendry, sans tail.

Derek picks him up and slings him over one shoulder, ignoring Stiles' protests. "I can get her to give you something if you're so keen? Cat ears maybe, or scales?"

"No scales!" Stiles shrills. "That's way too Jackson for my tastes. I'll be good, I swear."

"I hope not," Derek says and he feels Stiles pat him affectionately on his now tail-less ass.

"I suppose this is okay," Stiles muses.