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Out of everything wrong with the world, out of everything horrible that has happened to Stiles, out of kanimas and werewolves and sociopathic hunters and batshit insane high school students, Stiles had thought that his eventual and inevitable demise would be slightly more dramatic than this. But, as it turns out, the thing that would finally ruin Stiles is, in fact, his own body.
Honestly, Stiles thought he was beyond this. He had thought that he’d gotten over this stage at the age of two, but apparently wisdom teeth are things that exist and right now they’re existing solely for the purpose of torturing him.
Stiles has tried everything. He’s tried painkillers and heat packs and ice cubes and nothing works. Nothing is dulling the constant, throbbing ache or reducing the swelling of his gums or muting the bizarre sensation that he now has far too many teeth to fit comfortably inside his mouth.
He even, in a fit of hopeless desperation driven by pain and compounded by sleep deprivation, went to the 24-hour Walmart at four o’clock in the morning and bought rusk sticks with the vague idea that if it works for babies it should work for seventeen-year-olds, right?
Unfortunately, Stiles never gets to test this hypothesis because when he pulls one out of his bag before first period Lydia literally slaps it out of his hand with a horrified look on her face.
“What the holy hell is that?” she demands, staring at the rusk with a mixture of disgust and confusion. And huh, who would’ve guessed that Lydia Martin, all-seeing, all-knowing Lydia Martin, would be stumped by the appearance of baby food.
“My last hope,” Stiles whines and then sticks his tongue out in a futile attempt to lessen the pressure on his lower jaw.
“Oh for gods sake, Stiles, grow up,” Lydia huffs. “I let you be seen in public with me and this is how you repay me?”
“But I’m dying,” Stiles moans, his tongue still hanging out of his mouth. He quickly retracts it when Lydia shoots him a glare that could curdle paint thinner.
“You’re not dying, you’re teething,” she replies primly, and Jackson sniggers because of course he would, the asshat.
“Yeah, well, it kinda feels like the same thing,” Stiles grumbles and when Allison slips an arm around his waist he collapses against her shoulder. Scott looks at him with big, sympathetic eyes. Or at least Stiles thinks they’re his sympathetic eyes. It’s probably entirely more likely that he’s just making heart eyes at Allison.
“I can’t believe you’re seriously whining this much about wisdom teeth. I thought you were better than this, Stiles,” Lydia says to her compact mirror, because apparently she’s now moved her gaze to more important things. Like her own reflection.
“Oh, and you were the embodiment of peace and serenity when your wisdom teeth came through, right?” Stiles bites back.
“No.”
“No?” Stiles repeats incredulously, standing up straight because this is happening. Lydia Martin is finally admitting to being a mere mortal like the rest of them. Werewolves not included, obviously.
“I never got my wisdom teeth,” she says nonchalantly, smearing shiny stuff into her lips with her ring finger.
Stiles gapes. Because Stiles is outraged. He’s incensed. He’s vexed and piqued and – and chafed.
“Are you freaking serious!? You’re giving me this much shit and you don’t even know what I’m going through?” Stiles demands.
Lydia has the grace to look at least slightly guilty. But she still has something to say on the matter, of course. “Wisdom teeth have basically no function in modern human anatomy anyway.” She smacks her lips, caps her shiny stuff, and snaps her locker door closed. “I’m just more evolved.”
Then she pats Stiles on the top of his head and saunters off down the corridor, Jackson trailing along in her wake like a well-trained reformed-lizard-monster.
“She’s just… more evolved,” Stiles repeats dazedly, staring into space.
“Are you gonna be okay, dude?” Scott asks, shouldering his backpack and reaching out to take Allison’s hand.
Stiles flails a limb in their direction. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine.”
Scott shoots him a very dubious look, but before he can say anything else the warning bell rings and Allison starts tugging him along to class.
“Okay, well, if you’re sure. We’ll see you at lunch. Howl if you need me!” Scott calls back down the hallway.
Stiles huffs out a laugh before he can catch himself and his face throbs. He whines pitifully and then toddles off in the direction of his history classroom.
It turns out that Stiles is not fine. Stiles is the very epitome of not-fine. He moves through his morning classes on autopilot, lost in a soupy stupor of pain and exhaustion. He doesn’t take notes, he’s not entirely sure he ever took his books out of his bag, and when his English teacher calls on him for an answer he opens his mouth and then ends up just moaning pathetically.
By the time he makes it to the cafeteria Stiles feels like a zombie and he’s mildly concerned that Chris Argent is going to go all creepy-hunter on his ass. The scariest part is that Stiles isn’t sure if he’d even mind too much. At least a bullet would be quick and painless.
He stops for a minute, listens out for the sound of self-important douchbaggery that could only mean Jackson Whittemore, and then staggers in that general direction. He reaches the table that the pack has claimed for the day and nosedives half on top of it. When that proves horrendously uncomfortable, Stiles flops sideways and lands in Erica’s lap.
“What,” she says, and oh, yippee, it seems Derek’s been teaching his puppies the most important rule of werewolfdom: How To Completely Ignore Everything You’ve Ever Leaned About Punctuation.
Stiles groans at her.
“Stiles?” Allison asks gently.
“Just kill me now.”
“Oh, it’d be my pleasure,” Erica purrs, but for all that she’s definitely the most psychotic of the bunch, she also gives the best head rubs, and when Stiles feels her long nails scratch against his scalp he couldn’t love her any more.
He dozes fitfully for most of the lunch period, soothed by the warmth of Erica’s body and the constant brush of fingers through his hair, and only stirs when Isaac insists that he at least drink something.
Stiles sits up and sips dutifully on a juice box.
“This is so weird,” Jackson breathes, staring at Stiles in horrified fascination.
“What?” he says defensively when the whole table glares at him. “Stilinski’s normal M.O. is like a squirrel on acid. Seeing him this quiet and still is freaky.”
Scott punches him on the arm and, judging by Jackson’s grimace, he doesn’t hold out on the werewolf super strength.
“Just remember, dickface, I’ve run you over once before and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again,” Stiles mumbles.
Jackson sneers at him but doesn’t say anything else.
“As creatively worded as Jackson’s concern was,” Lydia cuts in, with an arched eyebrow directed towards her boyfriend, “he does have a point. Stiles, maybe you should go home.”
“Can’t,” Stiles mutters. “We’re having a pop quiz in Calculus and I’ve already missed too many dealing with furry shenanigans.”
“What do you mean?” Lydia demands, sitting up straighter in her seat. “If it’s a pop quiz how do you already know it’s going to happen?”
“I have my sources,” Stiles murmurs as Lydia starts flicking rapidly through her Calculus textbook. He can’t even fully appreciate one-upping Lydia Martin because he keeps accidentally biting the swollen insides of his cheeks.
“Well can you go to the dentist and get some prescription painkillers?” Allison asks, leaning across Scott to hand Stiles another carton of juice.
Stiles shakes his head and speaks around his straw, “Already been. She said she can’t take ‘em out until all four of ‘em have pushed completely through the gum. And I can’t have any meds ‘cause they’d fuck with my Adderall.”
“Shit, man,” Isaac says, which just about sums up the situation perfectly.
The bell rings, and as the pack shuffles off to class Allison goes hurrying in the other direction. Three minutes later, she slides through the chemistry lab door seconds before Mr Harris shuts it and as she brushes past Stiles’ desk she presses a bottle of aspirin into his palm.
Stiles is going to marry her, Scott be damned.
But of course, of course, with Stiles’ luck being what it is, things can always get worse. He’s just about to pop two pills and pray for sweet relief when Mr Harris looms out of fucking nowhere. And being the massive fucking douche nozzle that he is, he accuses Stiles of drug dealing and confiscates his fucking aspirin. Then he gives Stiles an hour’s detention at the end of the day and tells him to be grateful he’s getting off lightly.
All the werewolves in the room look like they’re ready to gut a bitch and Stiles is truly touched. That lasts all of five seconds and then he’s back to being sore and miserable. He slumps down in his seat and ignores the lesson going on around him, and when Mr Harris tries to reprimand him for not paying attention, he doesn’t pay attention to that either.
That afternoon, Stiles spends detention staring blankly at his textbook, Mr Harris grumbling at him from the front of the room. Because even when he’s not actively annoying Mr Harris he’s still annoying Mr Harris.
He turns up an hour late to lacrosse practice and gets thoroughly chewed out by Coach Finstock, who then gleefully informs him that he’ll be staying an hour later than his teammates to run all the drills that he missed.
Scott looks like he’s about to blow a gasket and Stiles can’t even muster up the energy to talk him down from a full fang explosion. Jackson, of all people, is the one to grab Scott by his helmet grill and drag him to the opposite end of the field.
Later, as all the other guys are packing up and heading towards the locker room, Scott jogs over to where Stiles is half-heartedly lobbing balls into the back of the net.
“Dude, are you okay?”
Stiles turns around to tell him that he’s fine, honestly Scott, but somehow trips over thin air instead and Scott needs to employ preternatural reflexes to keep him from eating dirt.
“Don’t even think about telling me you’re fine,” Scott says, and pulls out his sternest puppy-face. And holy god of curly fries, it’s actually remotely intimidating. Maybe Derek is teaching the wolves something useful after all.
“I will eventually be fine,” Stiles sighs tiredly. “As soon as this fucking day is over. And providing I can actually get any sleep tonight.”
“Right. Yeah. Uh huh. Of course,” Scott replies, bobbing his head around wildly, and for all that his serious-business face has improved, he will never be able to keep things from Stiles.
“Fuck. What now?”
“Nothing!” Scott says quickly. “Nothing bad. Or at least I think nothing bad. It’s just, um, Derek’s called a pack meeting.”
It takes everything Stiles has not to whimper out loud.
Dealing with Derek Hale is an exercise in self-restraint on a good day, what with his growly disposition, and his surly pig-headedness, and his weird thing about constantly making the sacrifice play. And how he’ll always try to make Stiles stay at home when the pack goes out hunting the new monster of the week. And how he never lets the pack go home hungry, and there’s always Red Bull in the fridge, and in the winter he’ll wear sweaters with thumbholes and shove a never-ending parade of gloves at Stiles when he inevitably forgets his own.
And his really fucking fantastic ass.
Just all of it. All of Derek is a lot to deal with and Stiles doesn’t think he can handle it when he’s running on empty.
So he may whimper. Just a little bit. Just a tad.
“No,” Scott says. “No, you go home and we can manage Derek.”
“Scott, I’m fi–”
Scott glares at him and Jesus, he is really spending far too much time with Alpha McScowlerton. Then his face softens and he cuffs Stiles gently on the shoulder.
“Try and get some rest, okay?”
Stiles nods and Scott goes marching of the field.
Stiles is staggering around the perimeter of the lacrosse pitch when Coach comes out of the building and barks at him to go home. Which means that, naturally, he climbs wearily into the Jeep and points it straight towards Derek’s loft. After nearly a lifetime of friendship Scott should know better than to expect Stiles to do what he’s told.
Climbing the stairs feels like climbing Mt fucking Kilimanjaro and Stiles’ spends the whole time cursing Derek and his paranoid need to reside as far off the ground as possible.
When he gets to the landing he finds Boyd already waiting for him, leant up against the open door, an uncharacteristic frown on his face.
He walks into the loft and the pack is there and Derek’s standing in the middle of it all, glowering at Stiles like his continued existence is offensive and please could he cease and desist.
“Why, Stiles, how nice of you to join us,” he says, dripping with sarcasm, and fuck, Stiles can’t do this.
He can’t do this now, he can’t do this here, and he can’t cry in front of Derek. But there’s a burning in his eyes and his nose and the back of his throat, and his teeth keep throbbing, sending little pulses of pain along his jaw and up to his temples, and his bones feel like they weigh too much for his muscles to hold and everything is just too much. And he’s about to fucking cry in front of the pack, all because of some stupid, evolutionarily-irrelevant teeth.
Suddenly Derek is there, two feet in front of him, demanding to know what’s wrong.
“Hurts,” Stiles gasps, half-sobs really.
“Where,” Derek says. It’s not a question because he doesn’t know how to use fucking question marks.
“Teeth.”
Then Derek is reaching out, cupping Stiles’ jaw in both his big hands, and Stiles would question it, he’d flail and stammer and blush like crazy, except that something’s happening.
At Derek’s touch, that constant ache that’s been plaguing Stiles for days starts to recede, and in its place a warm numbness is expanding.
And Stiles just faceplants.
There’s really no other word for it. He just dives head first into Derek’s chest. Swoons into The Pecks (capitalization entirely necessary). Gets right up in that man-cleavage.
Derek grunts in surprise and shifts his weight a bit, but he doesn’t let go of Stiles’ jaw. In fact he curls his fingers around the back of Stiles’ neck and gently repositions him so that he’s not smothering himself with rock-hard, glorious muscle. (But what a way to go.)
Scott is squawking incredulously somewhere in the distance, and Stiles kind of agrees with him because what?, but he also kind of doesn’t care about the pod person who has evidently replaced Derek because he feels so good.
Relief is sweeping through his veins, draining all of this tension he was previously unaware of. He didn’t even realize how much the pain in his mouth was affecting the rest his body until he feels his butt muscles unclench.
Stiles slumps into Derek, leaning his entire body weight on him, utterly boneless, and exhales a rough breath that he feels like he’s been holding all week. A scant inch from Stiles’ mouth, one of Derek’s nipples perks up and pokes through the fabric of his Henley. Interesting.
But then Derek takes a step back and Stiles grabs two frantic fistfuls of his shirt because no, no no no, Derek’s werewolf voodoo is the only thing that’s helped with the pain so far and Stiles is not giving it up now that he’s had a taste.
It seems that Derek isn’t trying to escape though, as he wraps one arm around Stiles’ waist, the other keeping Stiles’ head cradled against his chest, and manoeuvres them both over to the couch. He spends an awkward minute trying to position them comfortably while still holding Stiles’ jaw before Stiles grumbles impatiently and just crawls right into his lap.
Stiles makes himself at home on top of Derek’s thighs, snuggles shamelessly into Derek’s body heat, and drifts off to the dulcet tones of Scott’s confused spluttering.
When Stiles wakes up the loft is dark and the pack is gone. But he’s not alone.
He’s horizontal on the couch and Derek is under him, one hand cupping the base of Stiles’ skull and the other pushed under the hem of Stiles’ shirts, tracing soft, random patterns into skin.
In this position Stiles can hear Derek’s heartbeat, steady and strong and right under his ear. He keeps his eyes closed and listens to it thump, keeping rhythm like a metronome, and it’s not long before he realizes that his breaths have synced to Derek’s. He wonders if this is what it’s like for Derek all the time.
Also, Derek smells good. Like, exceptionally good, especially for someone whose wardrobe consists of about five blood stained tee shirts.
He must have hummed or twitched or spasmed while he was thinking because Derek suddenly goes still underneath him.
“Awake.” Was that a question? A statement? Stiles may never know.
He chooses to answer it anyway because he refuses to indulge Derek’s ridiculous aversion to correct grammar.
“Mhmm.” Yep, Stiles Stilinski is the pinnacle of proper English.
“Are you feeling any better?” Progress!
“Yeah,” Stiles replies, and now that he thinks about it he feels fantastic. All loose and a little bit tingly. “A lot, actually. Thank you, Derek. You didn’t have to do that.”
Derek grunts noncommittally. Stiles has a theory that gratitude gives him hives.
“You should’ve asked one of the others to take your pain sooner,” he says.
“I didn’t really think that’s something I could ask for,” Stiles admits. It seems a bit presumptuous, not to mention intimate, asking another person to take your pain into themselves. “And anyway, I’d completely forgotten that little tidbit of werewolfery was even possible. I was kind of sleep deprived.”
“Really. I hadn’t noticed,” Derek drawls, with a pointed look down their bodies.
Abruptly, Stiles realizes that he’s still sprawled on top of Derek and that they’ve had this entire conversation chest to chest and… other parts to other parts.
He scrambles up before all the touching and play banter can incite physical reactions that would be highly embarrassing and most likely unwelcome.
But that just means he ends up straddling Derek’s lap with Derek laid out underneath him, relaxed and kind of blurry around the edges, all of his sharp angles smoothed out, hooded eyes looking up at Stiles, and this is so much worse. Completely involuntarily, Stiles starts to want.
He wants to push his fingers through Derek’s messy hair and bite him on the mouth. He wants to pin Derek’s wrists to the arm of the couch and make Derek let him keep them there. He wants to shove Derek’s shirt up around his collarbones and press his lips against those ludicrous abs.
And the most frightening thing is, after all of that (and more, because Stiles is a seventeen-year-old virgin) he wants to tug Derek into the bedroom and curl up with him under the covers and while away the rest of the week napping and reading and just being.
“Stiles,” Derek says, and it’s like the ALS Challenge dowsing all of Stiles’ burgeoning fantasies.
Which is probably a good thing. Because Derek can hear his heartbeat, and smell him, and holy god he can probably even see things happening at this point.
“Fuck,” Stiles squeaks and tries to climb off of Derek, but considering the fact that he’s Stiles and coordination has never been his strong suit it’s proving a very difficult endeavor.
Somehow he manages to lodge his leg far enough into the couch cushions that he can’t actually get it back, which doesn’t really do wonders for his balance, and then all of a sudden he’s careening towards the glass topped coffee table.
Derek catches him before he can shatter anything, glass or otherwise. Of course he does because he’s a werewolf and he’s right there and no matter how much he probably dislikes Stiles, he didn’t save Stiles’ ass a truly embarrassing number of times just to let him be killed by miscellaneous living room furniture.
But that feat of Disney prince proportions puts Derek’s face in very close proximity to Stiles’ face and Stiles suddenly notices that for a rugged creature of the night Derek has surprisingly pretty eyelashes and then–
And then Derek’s face is on Stiles’ face. More specifically, Derek’s lips are on Stiles’ lips.
Derek and Stiles are kissing and Stiles has no idea who moved first.
If it was him he’s got a pretty good chance of being gutted, so Stiles’ freezes in an effort to minimize the damage.
Derek wrenches away from him.
“Shit.” Derek stares at him with wild eyes, looking panicked and regretful and everything bad. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”
Stiles’ stomach sinks, and he doesn’t even know why because it’s not like he was actually expecting any different. Derek is hot like burning and Stiles is awkward like turtle, why the holy hell wouldn’t Derek regret kissing Stiles. Or being kissed by Stiles. Or whatever the fuck just happened.
“You didn’t mean it. I get it. It’s fine,” Stiles says flatly, not looking at Derek and trying desperately to extract himself from this tangle of limbs he’s found himself in. It’s slow going considering Derek’s just sitting there like a great, unhelpful lump.
“No, I –” Derek huffs through his nose, looking frustrated. “That’s not it.”
“That’s not what, Derek?!” Stiles exclaims, giving up on his struggling and flopping back onto the couch. He is so done. Done with this situation, done with this day, done with his life. His teeth are starting to hurt again.
Derek is clenching his jaw and glaring at the coffee table like it betrayed his mother.
“I’m sorry that I made you uncomfortable,” he says through gritted teeth. “You obviously didn’t want it.”
Stiles gapes for a little while, or maybe a long while, possibly a few whole minutes. A lot longer than he should, at any rate, because Derek starts to get off the couch, his movements quick and jerky. Stiles clacks his jaw shut and grabs Derek’s arm before he can run away to brood.
“Whoa, okay, stop right there,” Stiles says, hauling Derek bodily back onto the couch, which is an unexpectedly pleasing role reversal and he is going to need to explore that further at a later date.
“I didn’t not want it,” he rushes out. “Which is to say that I did want it. I do, do want it. If ‘it’ is indeed what I want ‘it’ to be then yes I do want ‘it’.”
“Uh. What.” Derek is finally making eye contact again and he looks confused. And a little bit hopeful. He looks hopefully confused, but confused nonetheless, so Stiles leans forward to try and alleviate some of that confusion.
Their second kiss is soft and tentative, kind of uncertain, just a tiny bit too dry, and Stiles feels it all the way down to his toes. He moves closer to Derek, reaches up to rest his fingertips along Derek’s jaw, and Derek hums quietly in the back of his throat, his big hands settling around Stiles’ waist.
Ten minutes later Derek and Stiles are back to their original position, with Stiles perched in Derek’s lap, although Derek’s tongue inside Stiles’ mouth is a new and completely welcome addition.
Eventually, reluctantly, Stiles detaches himself, pressing two, three, four soft pecks to Derek’s swollen lips as he goes.
“So listen,” he begins and then pauses to lick his lips, Derek’s dark eyes tracking the movement. “I fully intent to proceed with this course of action when I am no longer growing new bones out of my jaw and can put my mouth to much better use.” The deep, erotic groan that rumbles through Derek’s chest is in stark contrast to the adorable way that he blushes right to the tips of his ears. “But until then, can we continue with the cuddling?”
Derek smiles this quiet, shy smile that knocks the breath right out of Stiles and then manhandles him until Stiles is on his back on the couch with Derek draped over his chest, Derek’s face tucked into his neck.
After they’ve settled, Derek curls the fingers of one hand around the side of Stiles’ face, taking away the dull pain of his superfluous teeth once again.
Stiles falls asleep warm, comfortable, slightly high on werewolf magic, and evolutionarily inferior to Lydia Martin. It’s awesome.