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The three of them stand in the middle of Derek's loft, floor plans to the abandoned Beacon Hills First National Bank spread out across the table, marked all to hell in bright red ink. Stiles stands between Scott and Derek, red marker stuck between his teeth, hands splayed across the map to the underground vault as he takes them through his master plan. He'd stayed up all night researching every detail of the case, figuring out how the thieving crew had managed to break in, and how they could apply those same methods to their mission to rescue Derek's betas from the capture of the alpha pack.
"Okay, you see this? This is how they got in. It's a rooftop air conditioning vent. It leads down inside, into the wall of the vault, which is here," Stiles addresses the pair of them, in his element as he circles the room with a swirl of red marker.
"One of the robbers was lowered into this shaft. Now, that space is so small, it took him about twelve hours to drill into that wall, which is stone, by the way. Then, throughout the rest of the night, they siphoned the cash up to the guys back on the roof through that one little shaft in the wall. Boom!" he says, smacking the paper with a victorious whoop.
"Can we fit in there?" Scott asks, leaning forward and tracing over the tiny room with narrowed eyes.
"Yes we can, but very, very barely," Stiles confirms. "And they've also patched the wall since then, obviously, so we're going to need a drill of some kind. I'm thinking maybe a diamond bit—"
"Look, forget the drill," Derek cuts in, hunching his shoulders and glaring down at the map.
"Sorry?" Stiles huffs, barely managing to mask his irritation at having been interrupted yet again by Alpha Sourwolf, impatient asshole extraordinaire.
"If I go in first, how much space do I have?" Derek deadpans, pointedly ignoring the way Stiles's gaze rakes over him in narrowed disbelief.
"What do you think you're gonna do, Derek?" Stiles sighs, lips curving up at the corners in wry amusement. "You gonna punch through the wall?"
Derek rolls his eyes, leveling Stiles with a smirk sharp enough to match his own.
"Yes, Stiles. I'm going to punch through the wall," he replies with airy sarcasm, crossing his arms over his chest and flexing his biceps like they're an arguing point. Which, fair enough.
"Okay, big guy," Stiles humors him, smile growing wider. "Let's see it. Let's see that fist. Big old fist. Make it, come on."
"Get it out there. Don't be scared," he goads with a sarcastic lilt.
Derek fixes Stiles with a withering glare, but lifts his fist all the same.
"Big bad wolf. Yeah, look at that," Stiles teases around a triumphant smile, reaching forward and encircling Derek's wrist in the palm of his hand.
From the far corner of the room, perched at the bottom of the spiral staircase, Peter smirks and rolls his eyes at the pair of them, muttering something along the lines of Seriously? Is this really the best time to be flirting? under his breath, too quiet for Stiles to hear. Scott makes a muffled choking sound that he tries to pass off as a cough, but Stiles is too focused on Derek to take any notice.
Derek's face is twisted into a scowl that's maybe 90% directed at his insufferable uncle, 10% at the mouthy little shit standing in front of him, fingers curled around his wrist in a delicate grip. He doesn't flinch at the contact, doesn't twist out of Stiles's grip; he just stands there, waiting, letting Stiles touch him, letting Stiles maneuver him, feigning resigned impatience as Stiles plays out this little charade between them.
"Okay, you see this?" Stiles says with the air of someone explaining something very simple to someone very stupid. He lifts his other hand, palm flat, hovering a few inches from Derek's fist. "That's maybe three inches of room to gather enough force to punch through solid co— ahh!"
Without warning, Derek strikes out his fist, punching Stiles's open hand, hard enough to make it smart, but not hard enough to do any serious damage. Stiles goes stumbling backward into the table with a theatrical, high-pitched whine.
"Yup, he could do it!" Stiles calls out over his shoulder as he hobbles across the room, cradling his hand against his chest. Derek rolls his eyes, pressing his lips together to suppress a smug smile as he turns back to face Scott.
"I'll get through the wall," he assures them, lips twitching up at the corners as somewhere not too far behind him, Stiles grumbles in agreement. "Now, who's following me down?"
Derek's gaze lingers between Scott and Peter.
"Don't look at me," Peter rebuffs. "I'm not up to fighting speed yet. And honestly, with Isaac out of commission, you're not looking at very good odds for yourself."
"So I'm just supposed to let them die?" Derek glowers at his uncle.
"One of them is already dead," Peter unhelpfully supplies.
"We don't know that," Derek dismisses defensively.
"Do I have to remind you what we're up against here?" Peter quirks an eyebrow. "A pack of alphas. All of them, killers. And if that's not enough to scare your testicles back up into your stomach, try to remember that two of them combine bodies to form one giant alpha."
At that moment, Stiles comes traipsing back over to the table to stand next to Derek, absentmindedly massaging the palm of his hand.
"I'm sure Erica and Boyd were sweet kids," Peter sighs sardonically. "They're gonna be missed."
"Could someone kill him again, please?" Stiles asks around a weary sigh, quirking his eyebrows at Derek with a conspiratorial smile that Derek struggles not to return.
Peter has the nerve to look offended.
"Derek, seriously?" he scoffs. "Not worth the risk."
Derek just rolls his eyes, turning back toward Scott and Stiles.
"What about you?" he asks tentatively, hoping like hell that despite their rocky history, Scott's altruism will outweigh his pride. For once in his life, he'd rather not have to do this alone.
Stiles glances up at him, a look of pleasant surprise lighting up his eyes, and something inside Derek's chest seizes because no, absolutely no way is he letting Stiles anywhere near the likes of an alpha pack and a pair of out-of-control, bloodthirsty betas at the height of the full moon.
"Yeah, if you want me to come—" Stiles offers.
"Not you," Derek snaps, injecting a little more venom into the two-syllable response than he'd intended.
"You mean Scott," Stiles realizes, ducking his head and jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. "Got it."
A look of well-worn resignation settles on Stiles's face, and Derek fights the urge to backtrack, to reach out and reassure him that it's not a matter of not wanting him there, it's just—
Derek doesn't know if he'd be able to keep Stiles safe and he can't—
He just can't.
So he doesn't.
He keeps his gaze trained on Scott, resolutely ignoring the way his heart clenches inside his chest as he catches sight of the crestfallen look on Stiles's face.
Scott hesitates for a few seconds, mulling it all over, and then tilts his chin in a decisive nod.
"I don't know about Erica," he says solemnly. "But if Boyd is still alive, then we have to do something. We have to try."
A sigh of relief rushes out of Derek's lungs, tension uncoiling ever so slightly in the hard line of his shoulders. He offers Scott a tentative smile, a silent thank you, and turns back to stare down at the floor plans, burning them into his memory. But just when he thinks thank god that's settled, there's an indignant Stiles in his face.
"Okay, you know what? No. I'm coming," Stiles insists, hands coming down onto the map with a resounding smack.
Derek heaves an exhaustive sigh, turning slowly to face a very tight-lipped and narrow-eyed Stiles.
"No, you're not," he says gruffly. "What part of not you didn't you understand?"
"The part where I'm somehow not involved in the plan I literally came up with?" Stiles retorts around a huff of breathless, disbelieving laughter. "Who stayed up all last night researching this case? Who came up with the break-in plan? Who broke into his dad's office and got a copy of the floor plans? Who has repeatedly saved your stupid, werewolf ass from certain death? Oh yeah, that's right. It was me. Come on, Derek, admit it. You need me."
"I don't need you getting hurt," Derek counters, the gruffness of his tone giving way to something softer and more vulnerable as he tears his eyes away from Stiles and shifts his focus back down to the map, adamantly avoiding Stiles's determined gaze as he traces over the parts of the floor plans not covered up by Stiles's hands, but it's a lost cause. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the beginnings of a wicked grin worthy of the Grinch working its way across Stiles's face.
"Aww, that's so sweet," Stiles smirks, all that fire fueling his determination to fight jumping ship to playful banter. "You actually care about me."
"I never said that," Derek refutes, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Stiles with a petulant pout.
"Didn't have to, Der-bear," Stiles teases with a saccharine lilt, lips curving into a positively impish shit-eating grin. "I read between the lines."
"Well then, you're illiterate," Derek huffs, covering his splutter of indignation with a low, rumbling growl, and pointedly ignoring the way his meddlesome uncle chuckles and says don't take the bait under his breath.
It goes on like this for a while, playful remarks volleyed back and forth like a sparring match as Derek struggles and fails to keep his attention on the floor plans laid out in front of him, details blurring around the edges until all he can focus on is the determined set of Stiles's brows, the twitch in his jaw as he fights against the urge to smile, the way his eyes light up whenever he thinks he's on the verge of chiseling yet another crack in Derek's stoic facade, escalating from a few casual jabs — Derek calls Stiles a skinny, defenseless human, Stiles scoffs and reminds him of the fact that he knows his way around a baseball bat, thank you very little, Derek argues that Stiles is already too busy fighting a losing battle with gravity and his own gangly limbs half the time to know how to handle himself in a werewolf turf war, Stiles accuses Derek of having the emotional range of a teaspoon — to full-on poking and prodding as Stiles tests the limits of just how much he can get away with, just how close he can get to Derek, before Derek breaks and retaliates.
Peter looks on with casual fascination hinging on boredom, while poor Scott fights an uphill battle, interjecting pleas of "if we could please just focus on the—" before giving up with an exasperated sigh, his fifth and final attempt drowned out by a bout of mischievous laughter as Stiles lunges forward and smacks Derek clean across the ass with a pair of latex gloves he'd stolen from Deaton's vet clinic the day before.
The effect is instantaneous.
All sound rushes out of the room. Derek freezes, shoulders going rigid. Slowly, almost menacingly, he turns toward Stiles, one threatening eyebrow raised.
There's a split-second moment where Stiles just stands there, frozen to the spot, Adam's apple bobbing nervously in his throat as the giddy amusement in his eyes widens to comical horror—
And then all hell breaks loose.
Derek makes a move like he's about to pounce, a predatory grin unfurling across his face as Stiles makes a mad dash to the front door, wrenches it open, and throws himself bodily into the corridor, something caught between a shriek and a burst of hysterical laughter echoing down the hallway.
Derek heaves a long-suffering sigh and turns toward Scott.
"I'll be right back," he says, and before Scott can even open his mouth to protest, Derek is already halfway across the loft, bounding out of the front door and chasing Stiles down the hallway in hot pursuit.
He catches up to him just as he's about to round the corner, grabbing him by the collar of his checkered jacket and thrusting him up against the wall, careful to place his hands just so, so that the back of Stiles's head lands in the cushion of Derek's palms instead of solid stone. In one swift, fluid motion, he cages Stiles in, capturing his flailing arms and pinning them above his head.
So, little red wants the big bad wolf?
Well then, that's exactly what he's going to get.
Derek goes in for the kill, settling into his well-worn role in this little game of theirs, shifting just enough to let the bright red glow of his alpha status bleed into his irises, canines gleaming in the moonlight spilling through the paneled windows overhead as he fixes Stiles with a roguish grin.
He expects Stiles to be the first one to waver, primal instinct choosing flight over fight; expects to find some measure of stunned disbelief when he looks into his eyes, maybe even a flicker of fear or reverence from the kind of intimidation he used to spark back when they first met — but the look Stiles gives him in return is nothing short of wolfish, lips curved upward in a beatific grin, patches of scarlet blossoming at his pulse points as his heart beats wildly beneath his chest, eyes lit up like a live wire, bright and warm and full of mirth as he levels Derek with a look of pure trust buried beneath a wave of fervent longing.
It's devastatingly beautiful, and Derek is ruined by it.
He falters, sucking in a gust of air like he's just had the wind knocked out of him.
"Oh come on, is that all you've got?" Stiles challenges with a teasing smirk, rolling his hips in a way that leaves absolutely no room for mistaking his intentions.
Derek swallows thickly, heart leaping into his throat.
"Yeah, that's right. What are you gonna do now, big guy? Big bad wolf, got me right where you want me, pinned against the wall with nowhere to run and no one around to hear us. It's just you and me, Sourwolf, so what are you gonna—"
With a frustrated growl, Derek surges forward, startling a delighted laugh out of Stiles, big goofy grin a hard line beneath Derek's lips as he melts into him, kissing him back just as fiercely, giving just as good he gets, like in everything else they do.
Derek's hands come down to gently cup Stiles's face, fingertips tracing the smattering of moles and freckles dotted along the hollows of his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw, the canvas of his throat, mapping them from memory. He tangles his fingers in Stiles's hair and gives an experimental tug, marveling at the moan it elicits, reveling in the stuttered gasp drawn from the back of Stiles's throat as Derek's teeth graze the delicate patch of skin beneath his ear, shuddering against him.
The moment Stiles's hands are free, they're all over him, seemingly unable to make up his mind, needing to touch him everywhere all at once; smoothing over the swell of his shoulders, skating across the well-muscled planes of his chest and torso with feather-light touches that send shivers down Derek's spine, curving around his hips and tugging him closer in a slow, deliberate grind.
They forget they're not alone, the world around them fading to a blur of shadow and soft light swathed in autumn hues, the gentle hum of street lamps and cars rushing past on the winding, windswept roads below them nothing more than background noise, until an exaggerated cough rings out from behind them, and they both turn abruptly, eyes wide like deer caught in headlights as Peter pokes his head out into the hallway with a bored, impatient expression on his face.
"If you two are quite finished frantically groping each other in a darkened corner like a couple of horny teenagers, I suggest we get back to planning your little ill-fated rescue mission," Peter scolds with a put-upon sigh, turning swiftly on his heel and slipping back into the loft before either of them can so much as blink.
Derek turns back toward Stiles, whose face has gone about fifty different shades of red, no doubt a perfect match for the burning heat prickling the tips of his ears. For a moment, all they can do is stand there, staring at one another, waiting to see which one of them breaks first, stunned expressions giving way to sheepish smiles until they're both bursting out laughing, shoulders shaking from the effort of it, breathless laughter settling into contented sighs as Derek dips his head forward to nuzzle into the space between Stiles's neck and shoulder, threading his fingers through the hand still curled around the collar of his shirt, and bringing it up to his lips.
A soft whimper makes Derek pull back, eyebrows knit in concern as he studies Stiles's expression with mounting worry.
"Is your hand okay?" he asks softly, his tone apologetic.
Stiles's heart skips a beat as Derek's fingers smooth over the palm of his hand in an attempt to soothe the ache, but there's hardly anything left for him to take. Not wanting to admit that the embarrassing sound he'd just made had nothing to do with their earlier roughhousing and everything to do with the dizzying rush of hope and affection that had surged through him when, after everything that had just happened between them, Derek had reached out for him and taken his hand — such a simple gesture, but the weight it holds could pull planets from their orbit — Stiles decides to change tactics, brushing it off with a sarcastic quip.
"You know," he says with a wry smile, eyes darting down to linger over their entwined hands. "For a skinny, defenseless human, I'm not as fragile as you might think."
It has the opposite effect.
"Stiles," Derek groans. "You know that's not what I meant. I know you can handle your own, it's just…I can't—"
Derek heaves a frustrated sigh, the words tumbling out of him, soft and low.
"I can't risk losing you, alright?"
Stiles can't help the smug smile that spreads across his face, eyes bright and hopeful. He feels like he's just downed a dozen shots of espresso.
"See?" he teases. "I knew you cared about me, you big softie."
"Shut up, Stiles," Derek scoffs and rolls his eyes, but there's an unmistakable layer of affection there.
Running on pure adrenaline, Stiles tips forward, gently nipping the shell of Derek's ear as he leans in close and whispers, make me, before stealing another kiss, winking heartily, and bolting back into the loft with a manic burst of mischievous laughter.
Derek sighs and shakes his head, giving Stiles a two second head start before he chases after him.
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