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As soon as he walks through the corridor, Derek’s nose wrinkles involuntarily. A slight scent catches his attention but it’s full of the tang of harsh metal, chemicals and antiseptics. It’s atrocious. “What is that smell?” he mutters to himself, and from beside him Laura looks up and takes a deliberate sniff of the air.
“I can’t smell anything,” she says after a while, tilting her head to the side.
Derek scowls next to her, his skin wriggling uncomfortably, his nose twitching like it is being held close to chilli powder.
“It just smells, wrong,” he decides on, rounding the corner. Derek tries to ignore Laura rolling her eyes, letting him know he’s being dramatic because as far as she can tell the only thing there is the two boys they’re about to bump into.
One of them has his head in his hands, a long body wrapped underneath a red hoodie. The other one has curly hair and seems to be consoling him. Both parties are in each other’s way, and at the sight of them the overwhelming stench of hideousness drops onto his senses and Derek freezes in the middle of the corridor.
He’s identified the owner of the smell, and Derek’s lips curl in disgust. It’s wrong, so wrong. God, he can’t stand it.
“Oh hi!” says the one with the bright smile. He tugs on his friend’s arm, who is groaning aloud about some guy called Harris and he drops his hand to reveal dark circles under his eyes. “Sorry, I’m Scott. This is Stiles.”
Laura glances at her brother, aware of his death glare projected directly at Stiles. Derek ignores the other boy’s introductions, and after frowning for a few seconds at their arrival Stiles must feel the tick of Derek’s gaze and stares right back, hollowed eyes accentuating his look.
Scott elbows Stiles’ shoulder briefly. “Uh, sorry about him, he’s kind of doped up. Pain meds. Other meds. Too many meds.”
Stiles rolls his eyes, and Derek and Laura begin to place the scent reeking off Stiles. There’s a strong shift of that hospital smell moving from Stiles to Derek, it’s revolting, it’s spoiled, and his eyes flash blue for a second.
Both pairs of eyes widen in shock and then wonder. Scott’s jaw gapes open and Stiles begins to look unimpressed. Laura shoves Derek’s arm.
“Hi there,” she says. “We should be going.”
“Dude, he’s a werewolf!” grins Scott, punching his friend on the arm like he’s won the lottery. Stiles groans next to him as he moves and a whiff of pain contaminates the already sickening scent. It’s getting too much for Derek so he turns his head to dip his nose briefly in his sister’s hair. He inhales, and it’s a lot better than that shit he was dealing with before.
Laura gives him a funny look, probably wondering why he couldn’t exercise self control for five minutes.
“No shit,” mutters Stiles to his friend. His eyes shift between the two of them, biting his lip in anger. There’s a definite scowl hovering at his features, and being on medication doesn’t seem to help his mood. “You said you smelled something.”
Derek meets his gaze, and it’s pissed and unforgiving. “Yes,” he replies curtly.
“I still don’t know what the fuss is about,” Laura says quickly.
Derek swallows, trying not to gag. He just wants to get into the clean, free air. He wants his lungs to be filled with a scent maybe riddled with pine, not something particularly dissatisfying as what he’s getting from Stiles here.
Everything is awkward as Stiles silently demands an answer. They glare at each other, gazes locked so hard Derek almost forgets two other people are in the room. He feels like lightning is travelling along his spine, zipping all the way along his nerves. Derek puts it down to the anger; his nose in extreme discomfort.
The tension gets worse, and Scott stands unsure while his sister raises her eyebrows and does nothing to save her brother from being a total dick. The spell sort of breaks when Stiles suddenly steps forward, right into Derek’s space. His neck is inches from Derek’s nose, eyes almost level with each other and Derek lurches back because his head is swimming it’s so bad.
“Oh God,” he coughs, “get away.” He’d push the damn guy, but Derek doesn’t want to get his hands all over that and have the lingering scent of a sewer stuck on him for days.
Stiles simultaneously looks smug, pissed, and hurt. “I smell bad to your precious werewolf nose?” he laughs darkly, and Scott pulls on his arm.
“I have a precious werewolf nose and all I can smell is medication,” Laura snaps, glaring back at her brother, who’s trying to wave the air away with his hands. “It’s not a big deal.”
“You smell wrong,” Derek barks, before he grabs Laura around the elbow and tries to manoeuvre his way around the two boys so to stay as far from Stiles as possible. His sister is already telling him off before they’re out of human ear shot and he hears Stiles mutter fucker under his breath.
*
“You can’t just tell someone they smell bad!” yells Laura, whipping him over the head. Derek glowers in the wooden seats, wishing he hadn’t agreed to see Cora’s production at the high school. He wants to drench himself in water and he’s glad they managed to make it outside.
“I don’t care,” says Derek testily. “I never want to smell that guy again.”
“Okay, when did the scent of a hospital make you want to barf?” she snaps at him, the chatter of the hall increasing drastically the more the show is delayed.
“I don’t know,” shrugs Derek. He’s at a loss. Perhaps it was the combination of different scents. He doesn’t really want to remember and analyse it, he just knows he really didn’t like it.
*
Somehow, Stiles and Cora get partnered up to do a project together. She mentions it casually at dinner one night and Derek’s neck snaps up at the mention of Stiles’ name as his younger sister asks if it’s okay the guy stays for dinner.
His whole body shudders, the tainted memory suddenly quite clear. Laura smirks at him across the table.
“Does he have to come?” growls Derek, shoulders sinking grumpily.
“Derek!” Talia scolds after swallowing a mouthful.
“Fine,” he says, “do I have to be there?”
Cora throws a handful of beans at him, and he only manages to flick some of it away before there’s hot water and vegetables sliding down his face. “Why are you being such a dick? What’s wrong with Stiles?”
“Yes,” Laura says with a wicked grin on her face. “What’s wrong with Stiles?”
The rest of the table eye him, Peter smirking silently in the background, playing with his food as he watches the scene unfold. Talia goes to stand, takes away his plate before he’s finished eating and clears the remainder of his food to the bin. With a sigh, Derek mumbles an answer, feeling the air mock him.
“He smells bad,” is what they all hear, and suddenly there’s uproar of laughter from the table. He glares at them all, and Cora scowls in return.
“To Derek,” Laura puts in. “He smells bad to Derek. It was fine for me, some medication, but still, fine.”
“Are you kidding?” yells Derek, God, having the kid near was like having a hammer pound him in the head repeatedly.
“And,” she continues. “He let Stiles know as much.”
Talia narrows her eyes at her son. “You’re going to be here for dinner tomorrow, Derek. And if you’re not I will think of a very colourful punishment for you, understood?”
Derek gives a curt nod and tries to prepare himself by taking a run through the open, wild air. Perhaps that will clear his head. Perhaps now that presumably Stiles hasn’t been at the hospital it won’t be so bad.
*
His mother makes him answer the door since Stiles had to come from his lacrosse practice and Cora wanted to come home straight away. With a sigh, he drags his feet along the floor and swings open the door with what he hopes is a neutral expression. Lately, it’s been hard to tell.
Stiles head looks up in surprise, his expression quickly morphing into a smug smile with narrowed eyes. “Cora warned me you’d be here.”
Derek lets out an impressive grunt, eyes settling on the surprisingly broad set of the teenager’s shoulders. He’s holding his breath, chest risen, and Stiles seems to tell because he folds his arms and waits him out on it. His long fingers tap against the fabric of his shirt, and Derek tries to focus on that.
Finally, he gives in, and with the lack of breathing he automatically gulps in a whole bunch of air and the scent hits him so hard his skin goes pale. Stiles grins to himself.
“What did you do?” Derek rasps, eyes horrified.
Stiles rocks back and forward on his heels. “Thought I might try some special cologne or something. I got it with you in mind,” he says gleefully. Soon Cora has bounded to the door and she takes a cautious sniff of the air and bursts out laughing.
“Come on Derek,” she says, pushing him aside to let Stiles in. “It’s not unpleasant.”
Derek all but snarls, because whatever the guy has mixed his scent up with; it’s not good. It shifts everything around, it smells wrong, it tastes wrong, and he has half a mind to rub himself against Stiles so that his own scent is over him instead of bottled misery.
“Nice to see you again!” Stiles says chirpily to Derek frozen at the door. When he comes in, Derek can see the extra effort Stiles takes to slide himself unnecessarily into Derek’s space so that he is forced to get a big whiff of it all.
“Is it just him?” he hears Stiles ask Cora.
“You just smell different to me. Not bad,” she says easily.
“Did you see his face though?” Stiles laughs, and Derek’s had enough. He rips back into the woods and tries to travel as far away as possible from the house while still being on time for dinner. He’s not sure how this is going to work out. God forbid Derek could just smell Stiles the way he’s supposed to be.
He can’t quite tell if that would be worse or not, because hey, the problem has got to start somewhere.
*
Stiles is placed opposite him at the table and he’s explaining easily why he had been doped up at the school. It had something to do with carelessness, and a car, maybe one from the sheriff’s department? Some broken ribs and a hospital visit. Derek isn’t sure.
He swears Stiles has topped up whatever shit he poured over his skin since being upstairs because it smells worse than ever. He can feel his wolf coiling up inside him, wanting to strip Stiles and wash him dry, pale skin and all. That’ll show him.
“And then,” goes on Stiles. “Harris didn’t seem to think that was a good enough excuse not to hand in my assignment, so I had to go in, in person, and hand him a doctor’s certificate while I was still trying to recover. I hate him.”
Cora agrees whole heartedly and Derek sinks further into his chair, trying to fill himself with the scent of the meal. He sees the rest of his family smirking behind their cutlery, and Derek wonders why it’s only him that seems to be subjected to this torment.
“So I guess it worked,” says Stiles eventually, peering at Derek’s miserable expression while he stabs at his food noncommittally.
“What’s that?” says Peter in a dry voice. They’re all aware of Derek’s discomfort; it’s probably wafting off him in rather large batches.
“I messed up my scent,” says Stiles easily. Then he flushes. For some reason this interests Derek greatly and he doesn’t want to know why. “I’m sorry if I offended anyone??” he eyes dart over to Derek and he snorts before turning back to the rest of the group, “but it was Cora’s idea.”
“Peter’s,” she claims.
Derek glares between the two of them.
Peter rolls his eyes, the corners of them still amused with Derek’s silence. Talia and her husband let Derek sit this one alone, not bothering to help especially after reports of his shockingly rude behaviour. And Stiles is definitely enjoying himself.
“Can no one else smell it?” Derek barks.
“What?” says Stiles, innocently. Derek narrows his eyes at him, arms folded tight across his chest. Stiles’ gaze drops briefly but when it lifts he’s grinning.
“No,” confirms Talia. “It just smells like cheap cologne.”
“It’s not good,” Derek insists.
“Do you want to buy me the more expensive stuff?” Stiles asks with a smirk.
Derek remains silent. It’s a different smell this time, but equally as uncomfortable. He breathes a sigh of relief when it’s finally time for Stiles to leave. Peter claps a hand on his back, a knowing look on his face that no one else seems to share. Derek scowls at him too.
*
The next time Stiles is over it’s because Cora invited him around for tea. Apparently they’re friends now. Derek’s forced to answer the door again, and the cheeky grin that greets him locks his rehearsed smile into a flat, stale anger.
He’s gone for a different kind brand this time, and the mix of his scent with a new bunch of chemicals makes his body revolt. It’s disgusting. It’s like inhaling cat litter and having it caught in your nose all day. God.
Stiles raises an eyebrow.
“You don’t look so hot when you look constipated like that,” he says.
Derek growls at him and pushes past. He’s so angry, the smell too alien for him, too muddled, so wrong, and he wants to rip something up with his teeth. Perhaps starting with Stiles’ shirt, since the only good it’s doing is letting more of the cologne stick to him.
He wanders around the property, promptly kicking things when he gets the chance. He’s not sure why this all bothers him so much, to the point where he feels like he’s being forced out of his own house because of how terrible his nose seems to react towards Stiles.
He’s called back in for dinner and when he arrives Derek thinks again how rubbing his body up against Stiles might make him smell more like Derek himself, and that would definitely be a better option. His wolf uncurls greedily at that idea, and he’s surprised at how much he wants to follow through with it.
Derek gives Stiles a curt nod when he sits down opposite.
They don’t try and make him talk, thank God, and he’s able to distract himself enough for most of the meal, listening to the buckets of water start to pour down over the house. If he wasn’t trying not to use his nose so much right now he might actually take a moment to appreciate the way rain makes everything smell better.
Unfortunately, not Stiles, because the chemical smell of the bottled good is still excessively over him. He’s pretty sure it’s been spread all over his skin in an effort to bug Derek, and now he’s certain that Stiles would smell so much better if all that manufactured shit would just wash off him.
Stiles kicks his leg, and Derek’s eyes clear over and he realises he’s been staring at Stiles. More specifically at his neck, where he’s sure most of the shit has been smeared on. Perhaps if it came to it, licking it off would be a viable option?
“Sorry,” mutters Derek, casting his gaze away.
Peter watches him get more and more uncomfortable as the dinner goes on. He’s sure the man’s smirk has widened by a tenfold, and Derek in his own skin is feeling more and more rattled.
When dessert comes around, Cora goes and she returns with a purple glass bottle. “I’m thinking of giving this away,” she drawls. Derek’s eyes snap at the perfume bottle.
Her hands clamp down on Stiles’ shoulders behind him and he jumps beneath her fingers. Derek realises they had been staring at each other again.
“Wait what?”
Cora shrugs. In seconds she’s spraying the thing all around Stiles so that he’s coughing and he’s pretty sure the rest of his family’s nose begins to tickle.
“Cora!” yells Stiles.
A random burst of fire spreads out over Derek’s skin because if Stiles smelt bad before, the mix of perfumes is killing him. He can’t have Stiles like this, he can’t have Stiles smelling so different, so appalling, so unlike anything he’s ever had to smell in his life.
Derek can’t take it, and suddenly he’s scraping his chair along the floor, claws threatening to come out and rip up the table cloth. He growls. In a smooth motion he’s made his way around the end of the table and he’s pulled Stiles’ wooden chair away, gripping Stiles by the waist and slinging him over his shoulder.
“Hey you weirdo creep! Put me down, you jack ass!” he yells, wriggling all over the place except that Derek’s large hands wrap around his thighs to stop him moving. He’s still not sure why he’s doing this.
He hears the rest of his family move over the window to watch as Derek places Stiles under the thundering flow of the rain. The two of them are drenched as soon as they’re out in the open, the wind rocketing against them.
“Are you crazy!” yells Stiles. Derek ignores him.
Drops of water run down Stiles face, over his lips and he licks them over and over again. Stiles tries to bound forward and swing a punch around to Derek, but he catches Stiles’ fist and uses the opportunity of their proximity to swiftly unzip the jacket and force it off him.
“Seriously?” shouts Stiles through the rain, “seriously?” His shirt is clinging deliciously to him now, and the scent of horror is beginning to wash away, all the perfume, all the cologne, it’s going. Derek finds that he’s able to breathe.
He closes his eyes and inhales, but some of it’s still there. Stiles is still yelling at him, too busy calling him names to think about getting back inside where it’s warm, where the water doesn’t roll off him.
“Are you even listening to me!” Stiles saunters forward and gives him a push. “You can’t just do that! You can’t just treat someone like they’re shit, and then throw them out in the rain! Talk about violations.”
Derek stares at Stiles but shrugs. “Sorry.”
Stiles narrows his eyes and they do that staring thing again, eyelashes blinking through drops of water, and Derek feels like electricity has bolted across his skin. His lungs heave, his mind growing smugger the cleaner Stiles smells. There’s a heat in his body as he watches a warm, angry flush move over Stiles’ cheeks.
“Asshole,” he finally mutters, and looks down. Derek is beginning to see how offended he had been.
“Come on,” says Derek eventually, because even though he wanted the smell to be all gone before he allows Stiles back inside, he doesn’t want to be responsible for him developing pneumonia. “You’re going to get a cold.”
“No thanks to you,” he says back sourly, shoulders shivering almost violently and Derek wants to curve his body around Stiles to keep him warm. They make their way inside and Cora guides Stiles to the bathroom where he can shower.
“Get him some of Derek’s clothes to wear!” Peter calls up the stairs. Derek frowns at the floor, a strange calmness replacing all feelings of discontent while he’s not so sure Stiles wearing his clothes is a good idea. Peter claps him on the shoulder, smirk wide, before sauntering into the kitchen.
Talia gives him a strange look which Derek dutifully ignores. The perfume Cora had decided to spray still settles in the dining area, and Derek has noticed the way his parents are avoiding that room just as much as he is. He still doesn’t know why Cora owns any perfume for God’s sake; it’s not like she uses it.
His mother clears his throat over the sound of water running through the pipes. “My nose was uncomfortable too but you shouldn’t have done that.”
Derek turns his shoulder away and begins to peel off his soaked top, dragging his sodden feet up the stairs. He takes off his socks, tries not to think too much about Stiles in his shower especially as he’s soon going to be taking one. Which makes sense as he’s already drenched, beads of water still running down his neck. He flings a towel over his shoulder and moves into the hall.
He opens his bedroom door just as Stiles shuffles out of the bathroom, wearing clothes a little too big for him. Derek freezes, taking in the flushed skin, taking in the fact Stiles is wearing his clothes, his jumper, taking in the fact Stiles eyes have dropped along his torso and have flashed up again with a blush.
That’s not the worst of it. Derek bites back a whimper as Stiles floods through his nose, as his scent springs around him like summer fruit and blades of grass. His lips part and his mouth waters because the most intoxicating smell plays at him, taunts him, makes his mind melt.
That’s not all. Derek tries to ignore Stiles’ stunned expression as he takes a deep whiff of the air around them because it’s so fucking perfect. It’s delectable, and with him wearing Derek’s clothes Stiles’ scent is wrapped around his own. Like it belongs. A small growl escapes his throat.
He’s never smelt anything so good.
Stiles nostrils flare. “God. Are all werewolves so weird or is it just you?”
He shoves at Derek as he passes, causing Derek to get another flash of his scent. It’s all he can do to stare at Stiles’ retreating back and not throw himself at him. Derek has not played this right, has not played this right at all.
Derek showers and wanders downstairs to find Stiles gone. The whole family don’t try to hide their sniggers as he enters the room ready to collapse on the couch. “You knew,” he says tightly to Peter. Knew that having Stiles’ scent corrupted would drive him crazy. He doesn’t want to know exactly what this means.
Peter’s lip curls in amusement. “Good luck winning your lover boy over.”