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“Um, so, turns out everyone's busy.” Scott stands in the entryway between the living room and the kitchen of his apartment and purses his lips.
Derek looks over his shoulder, arm across the back of the couch, then nods and gets up. “Okay. Next Friday then?”
Scott furrows a brow. “You're leaving?”
Derek pauses in the act of sliding on his jacket. “...yes?”
“Oh, well. Um, you don't have to. I mean, we can still hang, dude.”
“You don't even like me, Scott.” Derek shrugs his jacket all the way on and heads for the door.
“Derek.” Scott's voice stops him in his tracks. “That's not true. I do. Like you, I mean. Dude.”
Out of habit, Derek listens to the Alpha's heartbeat, and closes his eyes briefly as it remains steady. “Okay.”
“Derek. You totally could. Stay. Hang out. We can order some pizza. And get what we like instead of what Stiles likes.”
Derek turns around, tilting his head. “Why do we always end up with his pick?”
“Cause he's a whiny bitch?”
Derek can't help it, he huffs out a laugh and lets Scott take his jacket again. The Alpha flashes that sunny smile of his and Derek can't help but smile a little back.
He's so fucked.
“What do you want, Derek?”
The beta blinks up, startled from his thoughts. “What?”
“Pizza toppings.”
“Oh. Whatever you want is fine.” Scott reaches up to the top of the fridge for the menus, stretches his body, and Derek forces himself to look away. He should be able to not stare by now.
Scott sets the pizza flyers down and sorts through them, nudging Derek when he finds the one he's looking for. Derek glances down at the nicely toned arm, and the tattoo that he, himself, had given Scott, and then quickly looks away, scanning the advertisement absently.
“I really don't care Scott. Whatever is fine.”
Scott rests his hand on Derek's shoulder. “Dude, are you really going to pass us the chance to get what you want for once?”
Every single time.
“Green pepper and mushrooms,” he says after a minute.
Scott flashes him that smile again. “I knew you could do it!” He absently curls his hand around the back of Derek's neck, squeezing gently before letting go, and the beta goes absolutely stock-still. He controls his breathing, calming his heart before it begins to race, using his lifetime of training to keep from revealing anything to Scott.
Derek then occupies himself by fiddling with the sleeve of his shirt, absently watching Scott pace out of the corner of his eye.
Alpha looks good on him.
He has to admit it, if only to himself. Then again, he's always known that Scott had great potential, something his inner wolf felt right away, as soon as Derek ran into him in the woods.
“You know I never hated you, right?” Scott sits down right next to him, leaning in and looking at him. “You just did a shit job at explaining things. And you didn't give me any time to adjust.”
“I was going through a thing or two,” Derek says dryly. “And I'd never dealt with a bitten wolf before. That was always someone else's job.”
Scott tilts his head and Derek manages to avoid thinking about how adorable he is.
“Whose?”
“My dad's at first. Then Peter's after he killed my dad.” Derek's long since over it, but Scott looks shocked.
“What. No way, Peter killed your dad?”
Derek shrugs. “He deserved it.”
Scott is quiet a moment, then goes and grabs a couple beers from the fridge, hands one to Derek. “I know a little something about shit fathers.”
Derek smiles a little and drinks his beer, then grimacing at the taste and pulling it away to look at the label.
Scott laughs and nods. “Yeah, well, it's Stiles' beer.”
“You want real beer, there's this micro-brewery down by the bowling alley that does amazing things.”
Scott bounces, actually bounces like a hyperactive puppy. “Dude! I've never been to one of those. We should totally go now that I'm old enough!”
Derek shrugs a bit. “I can get you the address.”
“No, I mean you and me. Everyone else is off to college, and busy all the time.” He pauses. “Well, except Peter. And we don't like him.”
Derek, fortunately, is saved from responding to that with the arrival of the pizza, because he absolutely knows that Scott couldn't have meant it as a date but it sounds like a date-thing, and now he's thinking about how it would be to actually have a date with Scott.
He downs the rest of his beer in one gulp.
Scott comes back with two pizzas, one with veggies for Derek, and the other with every meat item known to man.
Derek wrinkles up his nose. “You know that isn't healthy for you, right?”
Scott snorts. “Alpha werewolf.”
“You keep eating like a pig, and even the supernatural metabolism isn't going to help you.”
Scott jumps up and pulls his shirt off before Derek can even react, and he starts flexing. “Does this look like I'm fat, Derek? Does it?”
Derek can't help it, he looks, of course he does, allows himself one, lingering eyeful, and then shrugs and turns back to his pizza before his eyes give him away.
“You could use some work.”
He's teasing, of course, Scott's body is fucking perfect, but it's not like he can just up and say that to him.
Before he knows it, Derek is flying backward, yanked by the fabric of his shirt, and he finds himself pinned to the floor beneath his Alpha.
“Um, Scott?”
Derek is very still. This could get bad really quick.
Scott straddles Derek's stomach and grins wide down at him. “Who's fat now?”
Derek has exactly two options here.
He chooses to surge up, flip his Alpha, and pin him to the floor.
Derek arches a challenging brow at Scott, who just laughs and nods. “Okay, you win, Hale, now let me up.”
The last thing Derek wants to do is to climb off Scott, but that's what he does, settling into his chair and taking a deep breath before digging into his pizza.
-
The rest of the night passes without incident. Until Derek's shrugged on his jacket and turns to go out the door, and suddenly Scott's hugging him.
Derek doesn't know how to respond, and ends up just standing still a moment, then slides one arm up and pats Scott's shoulder awkwardly.
“Not good at hugs, are you?”
“Don't have much occasion for them.” He doesn't mean it to sounds as pathetic as it does, just matter-of-fact.
But Scott gets that sad look in his eyes and he's hugging Derek again, and he just can't do this. But he wraps his arms around Scott, cheek resting against the top of Scott's head ever so briefly as he inhales the younger man's scent, comforting and safe.
He allows himself exactly five heartbeats and then disengages.
“Derek.”
The older man looks down at his Alpha, an eyebrow raised, and Scott reaches up and places his palm on Derek's cheek, thumb stroking along his cheekbone.
Derek freezes again, eyes going very wide. This can't be happening.
Scott grins up at him. “I thought so. Why didn't you tell me?”
Derek just blinks at him.
Scott pushes up on his tip toes and brushes his lips across Derek's softly and then takes a step back.
Derek blinks again.
“Derek?”
“Scott.” Derek breathes finally. “Did you just..?”
The Alpha grins. “You want me to do it again?”
Derek nods and steps towards Scott, meeting him halfway, and this time, he throws himself into the kiss, until both of them are panting and breathless.
And when Scott smiles up at him, Derek smiles back, threads his fingers through his Alpha's, and follows him to the bedroom