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Full moons had always had a special role in his life. It’s the only time of the month he felt alive. It didn’t matter what else was going on in his life, once a month he could let his instincts take over for a bit. Life became simple for the night; hunt, play, sleep. For one night a month, everything was perfect. No secrets, no lies, just him and the feeling of pure freedom.
And then the sun would rise, and he would go home, and act as if he wasn’t counting down the days until the next full moon.
*
“Dude, what do you guys even do on full moons? Commune with the nature spirits?” Stiles asked, making grabby-hands at the bowl of chips on the table until Scott nudged them closer. “Wait- are those a thing? Oh man! That’s totally what you do! You and the little wolf pack run around the forest making nice with the wood nymphs to keep them from removing your eyes from your sockets or turning you into deer!”
Scott laughed and shook his head. “Nah, we just kinda… I dunno. Run? Sometimes we spar a little, but it’s mostly just fun.” Scott shrugged, looking a little sheepish. Like Stiles would be offended that they’re off wolfing around while he enjoyed some non-werewolf time. Things in Beacon Hills had finally calmed down, enough that most full moons now meant Werewolf Fun Time and not Werewolf Fight Time, which meant Stiles wasn’t needed to dish out his own special brand of badassery at Full Moon Showdowns, and so could do his own thing, and did, happily.
“Yeah, ‘fun’. That’s why my leg took two hours to heal,” Erica complained from the other side of the room, raising her voice so Stiles could hear, but aiming the words at Derek.
Derek barely glanced up from his book. “Learn to guard your left flank and you won’t have that problem,” he said, and then went back to his reading. Stiles barked a laugh, choked on one of his chips, and fell off the couch in a flail of limbs. Derek sighed like he was questioning what he’d done in his life to deserve this, but everyone else in the room just smirked.
“Honestly, Stilinski, sit much?” Isaac teased. Stiles flipped him off as the curly-headed boy walked by, but he just laughed. God, Stiles’s life would be so much easier without all these dumb werewolves running around.
He said as much, but even Boyd just smiled a little and ignored his righteous fury. One by one the pack trickled out of Derek’s apartment until it was just Stiles left lounging in the common area while Derek read at the table in the kitchenette. Stiles stood up and headed in there to harass the Alpha.
Stiles flopped into a chair at the kitchen table. “So, any big plans for the weekend?” he asked, pillowing his face on his hands.
Derek raised an eyebrow. “Full moon’s Monday night,” he said.
“Yeah see, that’s not a real answer, you’re just stating a fact,” Stiles responded. “But you’re ridiculous, so I’ll rephrase. Deaton was telling me about these caves out on the edge of the territory, and I figured we should lock it down just in case we ever need a bolthole. Could be fun.”
“Thrilling,” Derek replied. Instead of ranting, which was surely what Derek wanted with a cryptic-ass response like that, Stiles waited, glaring fiercely at the Alpha. Derek closed his book. “Fine. I’ll go, make sure you don’t fall down a hole or something.”
Stiles beamed and jumped up. “That makes you Lassie in this situation, just so you know,” he said. Derek didn’t even say anything, he just pointed to the door, but Stiles could see the corners of his mouth twitching to hide a smile. “You’re like my third-favorite werewolf of all time,” Stiles said happily, heading for the door. “Behind the King of Pop and Scott of course.”
Derek opened the apartment door. “Goodbye, Stiles.”
“Farewell, Sourwolf!” Stiles said with a smile, laughing as the door clicked shut.
*
Unfortunately, thanks to Derek’s work schedule and Stiles’s extremely challenging Call of Duty marathon, they didn’t manage to meet up until Sunday night. Stiles bounced out of the Jeep at the Preserve with a grin. “Dude, we’re spelunkers!” he said, flicking a switch on his headlamp so it lit up. “We’re gonna go spelunking!” He shoved the other headlamp into Derek’s hands.
Derek rolled his eyes. “You know I can see just fine,” he complained.
“Yeah, but my weak non-wolfy eyes can’t, so deal with it,” Stiles said firmly. Derek grumbled about it the entire way to the cave entrance, but as they started to go deeper into the cave, he stopped. Apparently cave darkness was a little too much for even Tall, Dark, and Broody. After the third time Derek walked into a rock, he grumpily put on the headlamp and turned it on.
“Stop smelling so smug,” Derek grouched.
“Stop acting like ‘smug’ has a smell, Scott said you guys can barely sniff out anger,” Stiles replied, marking a secondary cave on the map he was making.
“It does. Just because Scott can only smell basic emotions doesn’t mean you don’t smell smug,” Derek said.
Stiles frowned thoughtfully. “Really? So what’s smug smell like?” he asked.
Derek shrugged. “Scents are different for everyone. It depends on what the person normally smells like, emotions just change the smell. On you, it smells like the ocean when the tide rushes in.”
“I smell like the sea?” Stiles asked.
“Mmm,” Derek confirmed. Stiles had his mouth open to ask another question, but a sudden clap of thunder, audible even inside the cave, made him jump.
Immediately following the thunder, the sound of rain filled the caves. Stiles groaned, but followed Derek to the mouth of the cave to see how bad the storm was. At the cave’s entrance, it looked like the entire world was underwater. Rain came down in sheets over the cave’s mouth. There was no way in hell they’d be able to get from the caves to their cars without getting completely soaked. And that was assuming they could see well enough through all the water to actually find their cars.
“Must’ve blown in from the coast,” Derek mused. “We’ll have to wait it out.”
Stiles groaned again. “The universe is officially conspiring against me,” he stated, sitting down on the floor of the cave and leaning against the wall. “First werewolves, now rain. I don’t know what I did in a past life, but it must’ve been a doozy.”
Derek sat down next to him. “Relax, it’s just a little rain,” he soothed, putting his hand on Stiles’s shoulder and rubbing gently. Stiles relaxed into the touch, grateful that Derek had finally accepted that being tactile was something good for the whole pack, even the non-wolfy bits.
“No, a little bit of rain is what happened last weekend. This, Derek, this is a deluge. I wouldn’t be surprised if we wound up having to build an arc. And then we’d run into issues, because having a bunch of predators on a boat with all the squishies just doesn’t make sense, I mean clearly if you werewolves got hungry you’d go for the deer or sheep or whatever, and then our new world wouldn’t have any sheep or deer. Just a bunch of grouchy werewolves,” Stiles rambled. Derek just kept rubbing his shoulder, waiting for him to settle down. He did, but only after going on a tangent regarding biblical translation errors for about ten minutes.
Eventually, Stiles leaned his head over onto Derek’s shoulder, the sound of rain relaxing him until he started to feel sleepy. Derek’s arm shifted so it rested around Stiles’s shoulders, encouraging Stiles to rest a bit.
“What do you do on full moons, Stiles?” Derek asked.
Stiles smiled sleepily. “Usually? I go driving, spend a night away from Beacon Hills,” he answered. “Sometimes I go out for a late dinner. There’s this little seafood place out in Faroe, just off the beach. Freshest fish you can get in a restaurant, it’s amazing.”
“I didn’t know you liked seafood,” Derek said.
“I have many secrets, Wolfman. I’m layered like that,” Stiles chuckled. Derek swatted his shoulder lightly. “Besides, with all the heavy carnivores I run with, there’s not a lot of options outside of steak and burgers. But I prefer fish.”
Derek laughed. “Wolves eat fish too, Stiles. I’ll make some next week,” he promised.
“Scott hates fish,” Stiles warned.
“Good,” Derek grinned, making Stiles laugh. Just because the alphas got along, didn’t mean they laid off each other at all.
They talked for hours while the rain poured down, and just as the sun would be setting, the storm let up, and eventually stopped. “Whoo!” Stiles cheered as the rain stopped. He jumped to his feet and turned off the headlamp. “C’mon, Der, let’s go before it starts up again!” He grabbed Derek’s hand and pulled him from the cave to their cars. When they got there he abruptly realized he was essentially holding Derek’s hand, and let it go quickly. He blushed and refused to look directly at Derek, instead he climbed into the Jeep and called a goodbye while he started the car. When he glanced in the rearview, Derek was still standing where Stiles left him, a small smile on his face.
*
He was feeling restless, so instead of going straight home, Stiles drove to Faroe, sending a text to his dad to let him know that Stiles was starting his full moon early and to not worry. It took nearly an hour to get to the seaside town, but it was worth the time it took. Stiles pulled up to his usual parking lot, near a less-popular beach, and headed out onto the sand. He headed a bit north, to where the sandy beach turned rocky, more smooth dark pebbles and larger stones than fine-grained sand. He made for the outcropping of rocks above the reach of the tide, and tried to ignore the anxiety settling into his bones.
The entire beach was soaked from the storm, and huge pieces of debris from the sea covered the ground. Some of the larger stones were shifted out of place, different from where they usually sat. When he reached his usual spot, the anxiety filled his entire body. The stack of large flat stones he used to mark his spot were knocked over, and the usual stone that kept his most prized possession safe was gone.
So was his pelt.
His heart started to pound until it drowned out the sound of the waves. Stiles knelt down, hands scrabbling at the rocks, hoping he was wrong, that he’d just messed up somehow and checked the wrong spot. He scoured the shore for nearly a mile, looking for other markers and trying to find his pelt. While he was digging, he vaguely heard a sound that didn’t fit in with the twilit beach. He paused, glancing up and startling when he saw the familiar figure running towards him.
“Stiles! Are you okay?” Derek called the moment he was in earshot. Stiles opened his mouth, but couldn’t get any sound to escape. He was panicking, plain and simple, and he couldn’t explain anything. Derek skidded to a stop in front of him and crouched to get on eye-level. “Stiles, talk to me, what’s wrong? Your heart’s going crazy,” Derek said, cupping Stiles’s face in one hand and putting the other hand over Stiles’s chest.
“M-my pelt, it’s gone,” Stiles said, but then he couldn’t say anymore. It felt like his throat was closing in, and before he knew it Derek had wrapped him up tight to his chest.
“Breathe, Stiles, just breathe, match your breath to mine,” Derek said. Stiles honed in on the sound of Derek’s breathing and heartbeat and focused, trying to match his shuddering hyperventilating to Derek’s even, deep breaths. After a bit he calmed down, but Derek didn’t push him to talk just yet. Instead, they stayed kneeling, Stiles leaning completely on Derek for support.
Something in Stiles’s scent must have changed when he settled enough, because once he felt okay enough to talk, Derek spoke. “Stiles, what happened?” he asked.
Stiles breathed slowly. “My mom, she was half-Polish, but the other half was Irish. Her mom, my grandma, was different. She wasn’t human, like my grandad was. She, and my mom, they had these pelts. Once a month, grandad would bring them out, and they would go to the seashore and put them on, and spend the day and night in their seal forms, in the waves. When my mom married my dad, he kept her pelt, and when I was born, he kept mine too.”
“You’re a selkie,” Derek said, sounding like everything finally made sense.
“Yeah. But see, when mom got sick, she told me to take my pelt and hide it, because once she was gone, my pelt couldn’t be protected by family anymore. If I left it where someone could find it, they could use it to control me. So I hid it here, so I could use it to swim whenever I wanted to, but Derek now it’s gone, and I can’t find it, and if it’s gone and I can’t get to it, I don’t know what’ll happen to me,” Stiles said, getting more panicked.
Derek made some quiet, soothing noises. “We’ll find it, Stiles, don’t worry, okay? I’ll help you find it,” Derek said. “C’mon, tell me about it, what does it look like?”
“It’s, ah, it’s as big as I am, but wider. It’s grey, and spotted with a darker grey. It should smell just like me, but maybe with a little blood? I cut myself last month when I was reburying it and I didn’t have time to clean it off,” Stiles said.
“That’s good, that’ll help me track it. The rain dislodged the stone, but an animal probably picked it up and carried it off. I can find it, just let me do what I need to,” Derek said. His voice was low and soothing, helping Stiles keep calm. A second later, Stiles felt Derek snuffling gently at his hair. “Okay, show me where you normally bury it.” Stiles nodded, and stood up. Derek kept his arm around him as they walked back down the beach to where Stiles had started, which helped because Stiles’s legs were refusing to cooperate fully.
“Why would you leave something this important out in the open like this?” Derek asked, crouching down by the original hole to sniff.
Stiles shrugged, but Derek didn’t let it go. They followed the scent trail, with Derek in the lead, off the shore and to a copse of trees nearby. Soon Derek found a small fox den, and outside it, the pelt. Stiles nearly collapsed he was so relieved. Derek picked it up, and then Stiles did drop to his knees, but not out of relief. It felt so right, having Derek touch the pelt, it drove out all the anxiety Stiles hadn’t realized was still in his system. Something about having the pelt be gone was uncomfortable, and normally having someone else hold it was the same -even when that someone was his mom or his dad- but Derek… him touching it felt safe. And Stiles hadn’t felt completely safe in a long time.
“C’mon, you’re going for a swim, and then we’re finding somewhere safe to keep this. Jesus Christ, Stiles do you know how dangerous this could’ve been? What if someone found it? If half the lore I’ve read is true they’d control you completely and there’s nothing you could do to stop it. And hell, none of us knew, so there’d be no way for us to help you,” Derek said, voice getting angrier by the second. “Also, at some point we’re going to discuss you keeping secrets from the entire pack that directly pertain to your safety.”
Stiles didn’t even care that Derek was going all Alpha on him, all he knew was he needed to be in the water like, yesterday, and that he also wanted Derek to keep touching his pelt, possibly forever. They reached the water quickly, and just before the waveline Stiles paused to step out of his shoes and pants as well as tug his shirt and boxers off. “Gimme,” Stiles said once he was naked, reaching for the pelt. Derek passed it over, the tips of his ears going red for some reason. Stiles slid into the pelt, letting the change take over him.
He dove into the waves ecstatically, bobbing in the waves and barking every now and then at where Derek stood on the shore, barefoot where the sea splashed against him. Derek waved, and Stiles barked again, trying to get rid of the frown on the werewolf’s face. The frown didn’t leave though, so Stiles swam up to where Derek was and splashed water towards his waist.
“What?” Derek demanded. Stiles barked again, bopping a flipper against Derek’s thigh. Derek stumbled a bit, and that was gratifying. “What do you want, Stiles?”
Stiles waved a flipper insistently. Maybe if Derek came in for a swim he’d feel better and stop pouting so hard. Plus, then Stiles could show off a little bit. It’d been so long since he’d swam with someone, and Stiles really wanted to see Derek in the water. Finally, several splashes and barks later, Derek seemed to get it. He stripped down to his boxers and walked into the water while Stiles huffed happily and splashed around, racing out into deeper water and then swimming back to pop up next to Derek and make him jump.
They swam for about an hour before Derek seemed to get tired, then Stiles swam back to shore just so Derek wouldn’t wear himself out trying to prove how tough he was.
The second Stiles hit land he pushed the seal skin to the surface, letting the pelt pool around him as he reclined on the shore. Derek caught up and stood over Stiles.
“Keeping up with a selkie isn’t easy, Derek. Give yourself a rest,” Stiles said, patting the ground next to him invitingly. Derek hesitated, but when Stiles rolled his eyes he laid down next to him.
“No wonder you walk like you do. You don’t know how to move on land, do you?” Derek asked.
Stiles propped himself up to look over at Derek, then laid back down. “Smart. Yeah, it can be hard sometimes. Especially after the full moon,” Stiles explained.
“Still doesn’t explain why you’re so stupid. Keeping your pelt out in the open, Stiles, it’s just reckless,” Derek said. Stiles rolled his eyes.
“Where else am I supposed to keep it, Derek?” Stiles complained.
“Look, just keep it safe, Stiles. If it’s safe, you’re safe,” Derek insisted. Stiles glanced over at Derek. Instead of wearing his Angry Alpha face, like Stiles assumed, Derek actually looked worried. No, concerned. And a little afraid. Stiles nudged at his knee, just to make him keep talking. “I just- I don’t want anything happening to you,” Derek admitted.
Stiles surged forward, picking up his pelt and folding it neatly. He’d finally gotten the blood off of it while he was swimming, so he presented it, clean and soft if slightly damp, to Derek. The werewolf took it, looking confused. “Take it,” Stiles said. “You’ll keep it safe, Derek.”
“Stiles,” Derek said, “This is a huge- you can’t just- I mean- it controls you!”
“I trust you,” Stiles said. “I know you won’t use it to control me, and this way I won’t have to hide it an hour from home just so I don’t spend all my time in the water. You can take me swimming once a month, it doesn’t have to be on the full moon.” Derek still looked so surprised, and then terrified, enough that Stiles almost wanted to take the pelt back, but again, Derek’s hands on it felt right in a way his family’s didn’t.
Derek sat quiet for a moment. “This is a big deal, Stiles,” he said.
“I get it,” Stiles said. “If you don’t want the responsibility, or the trouble, ro to have to hang out with me once a month while I get all fishy -though technically seals are mammals too- but what I mean is, I get it.” Derek was silent while Stiles stood up and got redressed. Stiles was sitting down and lacing up his sneakers when Derek finally spoke.
“What if I do something wrong?” he asked. “And then something happens to you?”
Stiles sighed. “Derek, nothing’s going to happen to me, or to the pelt, so long as you have it. I know you’ll keep it safe.” I know you’ll keep me safe went unsaid, but Stiles knew Derek heard it anyway. Derek leaned into his space suddenly, their faces only inches apart. His eyes were intense, and his face was full of serious intent.
“And what if- Stiles, what if I wanted something. If I take this, I can never trust if you wanted it or if I was making you,” Derek said. Stiles’s heart started pounding when he finally caught on to what Derek’s words implied.
“Then you should hand the pelt here,” he said. Derek looked crushed, but handed the pelt back, and Stiles immediately launched himself into Derek’s lap and pressed their lips together. Derek kissed him back enthusiastically, pressing their bodies together. Stiles pulled away. “Just to be clear, I want you, and I’ve wanted you since long before you even knew I had a pelt. Now, will you please take it? There’s no one else I’d rather have it.”
Derek nodded, looking a little shell-shocked, but happy. “Yeah, yeah I’ll take it,” he agreed.
Stiles grinned, and leaned in to kiss him again, but paused. “Der,” he said. “How’d you know I needed help?”
“Your heart rate, it spiked. I figured you were having a panic attack, so I rushed to get to you.” Derek shrugged.
“Exactly how far away can you hear my heart?” Stiles demanded. Derek’s ears turned red again, and that was just adorable, but Stiles was focused. He poked at Derek’s ribs until the werewolf finally answered him.
“Anywhere, I can always hear it,” Derek finally confessed. Stiles flushed. He wasn’t stupid, he spent all of his time either with werewolves or reading about werewolves. He knew what it meant when a wolf could always hear someone’s heartbeat. Stiles reached out and traced one of Derek’s ears.
“And you were lecturing me on how significant giving you my pelt was,” Stiles joked.
Derek sighed in exasperation. “Just because we’re mates doesn’t mean you want me having the power to control you.”
Stiles just grinned and leaned down for another kiss.