Archive of Our Own

It's pretty nice—the party, the atmosphere, the ambience, slow-dancing with a guy until they get into a corner and start quite a lot of exploration with hands and lips. 

That is, until the guy fucking bites him.

He shoves him away with a yelp. "Holy shit." Stiles claps a hand to his neck. "You just bit me."

The guy gives him a smirk that is suddenly much less attractive now that his teeth have quite possibly broken skin. Stiles's neck stings. "Yeah? Too much for you? I can get pretty—" He pitches his voice lower, into a growl that's less sensual and more super lame. "Wild."

Stiles says, "Yeah, man, I like to be wined and dined before someone fucking bites me." He hasn't been, yet, but Stiles is still hopeful. Not tonight, though, because the pain from the bite has him feeling extremely not in the mood for much anything else. He pulls his hand away from his neck and blanches when he sees a bit of blood on his fingers. Jesus Christ, he might actually need to get a tetanus shot or some shit. The human mouth is an extraordinary petri dish of bacteria and this guy's just left a fucking dental record on him. "So, like, thanks for the interest but you totally need to ask if someone's up for that kind of thing before just chomping down, because I am very much not. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to find out if any of the alcohol in this house is a disinfectant."

As he leaves he hears the guy scoff, but, seriously, for real, who just does that without at least some sort of preamble? Just a quick, "Hey, I'm going to nibble at you with my incisors, that cool?" Where's the decency?

The music is blaring loud enough that Stiles can't even tell what song is on. It's just noise, melding with the the conversation and laughter and feet stomping on the floor in tipsy attempts at dancing. 

He lets out a sigh of relief when he finds Scott in the kitchen, shoving caprese skewers into his mouth. It's nearly impossible to hear anything, but Scott's werewolf ears pick up the sound of Stiles's footsteps, and he turns with an actual growl, covering the platter with his arm. When he sees that it's only Stiles, his expression turns sheepish. He offers him one and says around a mouthful of tomato, mozzarella, and basil, "Hey, take one of these. They're great. I don't know why no one else is eating them."

"Probably because you've been baring your teeth at anyone who gets close," Stiles replies before popping the caprese into his mouth. It is good though. Light and refreshing. A perfect pick-me-up after having human teeth scraping across his neck. "Oh, shit, that balsamic sauce."

"Right? Chef's kiss." Scott kisses his fingers.

Stiles tosses the toothpick into the garbage can. "Inhale the rest of those and let's get going. I'm done for the night."

Scott dutifully annihilates the remaining hors d'oeuvres and chews them with a thoughtful frown. He swallows and asks, "You okay?"

"I mean, I am, but—kind of—not really? Some guy bit me."

Instantly, Scott is half wolfed-out. Fangs bared, eyes yellow, hackles raised. "Another werewolf? Here? He bit you?"

"No, not a werewolf, dude, come on! Just some jerk-off who, like, leaped over multiple boundaries."

For some reason Scott does not seem mollified by this explanation. His eyes narrow. "Where is he?"

"Scott, I don't want you to fight the guy!" Stiles exclaims. "I want to go home and rub some Neosporin on this." He gestures to his neck, which could be growing more inflamed as they speak.

"If you're sure." The now empty hors d'oeuvres platter is tossed into the sink and Scott proceeds to wash his hands like a health inspector is going to examine them. Sudsy soap, getting underneath fingernails, thirty long-ass seconds.

"Dude."

"Dude yourself, I don't want to smell like cheese and balsamic vinegar for the rest of the night."

"I can feel myself going gangrene. By the time you finish it'll be too late. I'll be septic."

Scott flicks his fingers, hitting Stiles with sink water. "I'll know it's serious when you stop whining."

"I don't whine," whines Stiles.

They return to Scott's house. Stiles immediately raids the fridge for a drink that hasn't been spiked with alcohol. There's lemonade, milk—two percent—and fruit punch, jackpot.

"Use a glass," Scott says just before the rim of the container reaches Stiles' lips.

Stiles glares at him. "I'm dying," he says.

"So you're going to pass your disease on to me?"

"That's not how gangrene works." Well, he doesn't think it works that way. It might. Huh, he'll have to look that up. But just to placate Scott, he pours the fruit punch into one of Mrs. McCall's huge wine glasses. Stiles swirls it, takes a whiff. "I detect notes of artificial flavoring and red dye." He sips it and smacks his lips. "Yes, this came from the Beacon Hills supermarket."

Scott laughs. "You're feeling better."

"Yeah, it was just—weird. Who just does that? Like, we'd been dancing, and making out, a bit, and it was good, and then he just fucking bit me." Stiles sighs. He runs his hand along the bite with a frown. It stings a little when his fingers brush over it.

"I'm sorry, Stiles. That was super uncool."

Stiles drains the fruit punch from the wine glass. "Well—yeah, it was. I'm going to raid your medicine cabinet."

"Have at it."

The bite isn't a bad one. The skin around it is slightly reddened, but it no longer stings as much. He finds the Neosporin and rubs a generous amount of it over his wound, and then he layers bandages over it for good measure. He sighs, splashes warm water on his face, and then wipes the mirror down because he always manages to get the water everywhere no matter how hard he tries. His expression is one of mild resignation. The night definitely didn't go as he'd hoped, but in the end, spending the evening watching movies and playing video games with Scott is still a pretty good time. What's one bite in the grand scheme of things?

He walks out of the bathroom with renewed pep in his step. The night is still young, and he thought he saw pizza in the fridge. As he skips into the living room he shouts, "Hey, Scott, you want to—oh."

Derek Hale stands near the doorway. He glances at Stiles with one brow raised. Scott looks just as confused as Stiles is, so that's something.

"Why are you here?" Stiles asks Derek. "You can stay for pizza, but there's only two controllers, so we'll have to share."

Derek ignores him. To Scott he asks, "Where were you? We were supposed to meet an hour ago."

Scott slaps a palm to his forehead. "Shit! I'm sorry, Derek. We were at a party—"

"Hmph," Derek scoffs as he sets a book—no, a weathered tome, bound in leather, with crumbling pages that promise very interesting, very supernatural information—on the end table. Stiles gravitates toward it like a moth to a flame.

"Oh, hello, what is this—"

Derek growls, "That is for Scott. If anyone but a werewolf looks at that book's contents, their eyeballs will burn right out of their sockets."

This could be true. Their lives are now full of spells and curses and werewolves and creatures and weird rituals. But it could also a lie, because Derek is an asshole who hates when Stiles enjoys himself. It's a gamble. Is it a gamble worth his eyeballs?

His hand inches toward the book.

"Stiles!" 

"Ugh, fine!" Stiles flops against the couch cushions. "Don't be mad at Scott. I made him drive me back here because the party sucked."

"The hor d'oeuvres were good," says Scott.

Stiles agrees. "Yeah, they were good. But some guy bit me—"

Derek's reaction surprises him.

He snarls and launches himself towards Stiles. His eyes are red and promise bloodshed. His claws are out and oh-so-very sharp. He leans in close even as Stiles yelps and shrinks away, his hot breath against Stiles' bandaged neck and—inhales.

"What the hell," Stiles says, flushed. He covers his neck with his palm, feeling extremely exposed. If this isn't a breach of some form of social etiquette then he needs to write a letter to Miss Manners and let her know to add another one to the list.

Inhaling again and apparently not finding whatever he was looking for, Derek's brow furrows. "This isn't a werewolf bite."

Stiles groans. Werewolves, apparently, think they're the only ones that go around biting people. "Oh, my God! Not every guy who bites me is a werewolf! Sometimes they just want me! Sexually!"

Once again Derek's reaction surprises him. He backs away as if slapped, eyes comically wide. "I—" he starts and then he doesn't say anything, and Stiles doesn't say anything, so then they just stare at each other with mirrored flustered expressions. Eventually Derek says, "Of—course they do. Want you." He coughs, and it's obviously not a real cough but that awkward, space-filling cough that people expel when they aren't quite sure how to respond to what Stiles has just said. Which is fine with Stiles, because he can talk enough for three people.

He says, "Yeah, they do." Perturbed by Derek's apparent incredulity, Stiles adds, "If that guy hadn't bit me there was like, a dozen of them who would've done it. They were all lining up for my neck." He taps his jugular with his fingers.

Derek stares at his neck with a look that Stiles can only describe as peculiarly intense. His nostrils flare. Stiles covers his neck once more in case Derek decides to sniff him again. Abruptly, Derek whirls around, barking at Scott, "And where were you?"

"Eating caprese," replies Scott.

"A member of your pack was being mauled and you were just stuffing your face?"

"Hey!" says Scott. "It was good caprese!"

"Hey!" says Stiles. "I don't mind being mauled! I just like to discuss it first!"

For the second time tonight Stiles manages to throw Derek off-kilter. Derek does an honest-to-God double-take, like he can't quite believe what Stiles just said. It makes his anger less snarling wolf and more inflated puffer fish. Mostly air and pretense.

With a shake of his head, Derek asks Scott, "Well, does he still have his teeth?"

Before Scott can reply, Stiles scrambles between them, shielding Scott from an angry, hulking alpha werewolf. Stiles isn't sure why Derek's so angry about the situation. Derek once threatened to rip his throat out with his teeth. His well-being does not seem to be high on the list of Derek's priorities. Whatever weird shit he's pulling now is honestly pissing him off a bit. "Yes, he does, because I asked Scott if we could leave, because treating this—" He bares his bandaged neck to Derek. "—was more important than fighting some random asshole and showing off how big and strong he is."

"You think I'm posturing." It isn't a question. There's a tablespoon of hurt within all of that growl. Derek says, "You are pack."

"I'm—what?" Really? Stiles blinks, starry-eyed and a bit flustered. Pack? Derek thinks of him as a member of his pack? He puts Stiles on the same level with Scott, and Isaac, Boyd, and Erica—

"And you can't defend yourself, so you need someone to do it for you," Derek finishes, immediately quashing any goodwill Stiles felt towards him. Alright, so he had a regular, squishy human body. But he was toned! He lifted weights, occasionally! He was on the lacrosse team! Sometimes Coach even let him on the field! He didn't need anyone to defend him from a non-supernatural threat!

Stiles jabs a finger at Derek's extremely firm chest. "Okay, buddy. Get this through your fuzzy ears. I get to decide when a guy crosses a line with me, and I get to decide how to handle it. You don't get a say at all."

"Of course I do!"

"Because I'm pack? Or because I'm just some weak little human?" Stiles lets as much disdain as he can drip from his words.

Derek's fangs are bared. He snarls, "Because you're mine!"

"What?" asks Stiles.

"What?" asks Scott.

Derek, chest heaving, closes his eyes and runs his hand down his face with a groan. "Scott, out."

"This is my house!"

"OUT!"

His roar actually shakes the house's foundation. Photos of Scott and Mrs. McCall clatter on the walls and tables. A vase shuffles precariously close to the edge of the table its on and Stiles compartmentalizes his confusion and ignores his heart pounding in his chest to carefully move the base back to its spot. Grumbling, Scott gets up and goes to the kitchen, opens the fridge, and leaves with the box of cold pizza.

Stiles frowns. "Save me a piece!" he calls as Scott marches out his door and sits on his porch with a huff. To Derek he asks, trying to sound completely and utterly uninterested, "I'm yours?"

"A poor choice of words spoken in the heat of the moment. You are not mine. You belong to no one but yourself." Derek can't seem to look Stiles in the eye at the moment; he is staring past his head, at the wall behind him.

"Okay, that's true. But in the heat of the moment—what did you mean?"

Derek's mouth does something odd—like an answer is worming its way out of his throat and he's trying to hold it in. "I try to look out for you," he grits out.

"Because I'm pack," Stiles says.

"More than—pack."

"What's more than pack? Like, family family? Blood family?" Stiles thinks of Peter and he must make a face, because Derek quickly shakes his head.

"Not like Peter," he assures him.

That Derek read his mind makes him laugh, and his laugh puts Derek at ease. The tension in his shoulders lessens; he stands more comfortably, and he doesn't have that vaguely constipated look on his face. In fact, Derek's expression is wonderfully, beautifully soft as Stiles smiles at him.

"You're important to me," Derek says, slowly. There's such tenderness in his voice that Stiles knows exactly what he means by it. He blushes, rubs the back of his neck, looks away, scuffs Mrs. McCall's floors with his shoes.

Then he says, "You told me you'd rip my throat out with your teeth."

Derek says, "Just the once!"

"And I, uh. Got my dad to take you to the station. For your sister's murder."

"I was released later that day," Derek offers. 

"We didn't have a great start."

"No."

"So, what changed?" Stiles asks. He holds his hands behind his back, rocks on his feet. He sounded a little too wanting, a little too hopeful, but he wants to know what qualities he has that have endeared him to Derek, because more often than not they seem to repulse everyone else.

There is a long silence. Or, there would have been if it wasn't for the sound of Scott annihilating pizza on the porch. Finally, Derek says, "Nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing changed." Derek shrugs. "You grew on me."

Stiles snorts. "Like what? Moss? A fungus?"

Derek meets his gaze then. He says, "I don't know what you are. There's no one like you in all the world. You've—taken root."

That shouldn't be romantic, but it is. It's probably the most romantic thing Stiles has ever heard, and he and Scott once marathoned a bunch of Hallmark movies.

"Oh." Stiles lets out a shaky breath. "Oh, okay."

He reaches out—he doesn't know why. Instinct, maybe. But Derek grabs his hand, laces their fingers together, and Stiles feels his heart go into overdrive. It's a little bit scary and a lot awesome, like riding a rollercoaster. Why haven't they done this before? They should do this more often. His hand and Derek's, linked together, slightly sweaty. Derek leans in, his breath warm against Stiles's lips.

"And me? What do you think about me?" he asks. His thumb rubs a gentle circle against Stiles's hand.

Asshole. As if Derek can't just hear his heart threatening to break out of his ribcage. "Can't your werewolf senses tell you?"

With a smirk, Derek growls in a much more appealing way. "I'd like to hear you say it."

"Yeah, I bet you would. Nothing feeds your ego like an extremely handsome guy telling you how firm your pecs are or that you have pretty eyes."

"Is that all?" Derek grins. "You only like me for my looks?"

"What, do you have other good qualities?"

"I'm very protective of those I care about." Derek lightly presses his nose to Stiles's neck and inhales again, and this time Stiles shivers.

He manages to mumble, "Don't do anything to that guy or I'm going to get really mad."

"Hmph. Well, I also like keeping those I care about happy."

Standing this close together Stiles notices a bunch of new things about Derek that he's never noticed before. The curl of his eyelashes. The pattern of stubble around his jaw. The scent of him, something musky and nearly overwhelming but in a good way—a knock-you-off-your-feet kind of way. How Derek's breath hitches when he sees Stiles staring at his mouth and unconsciously licks his own lips. "You know what would make me really happy right now?" Stiles asks.

Derek says, "I think I have an idea," and his free hand moves to squeeze Stiles's hip and he inches closer, closer—

The door slams open. Scott pokes his head inside and yells, "Hey! Don't make out in my house!"

Stiles lets out a groan that is not at all sensual and is, in fact, really annoyed. "Scott!"

"It's my house!"

Though Derek looks as though he wants nothing more than to strangle Scott where he stands, he says, "Maybe we should pick this up at another time."

"What? No, wait—"

"At my place." Derek raises his eyebrows.

Stiles blinks. "Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah, I'd like that. Uh—" What's the right thing to say after finding out a guy likes you? A guy who hasn't really been your friend, but who has saved your life and whose life you've saved in turn? Who has been a constant since the day you met him? "Thank you."

Fuck.

That's embarrassing. 

His face heats up—he can feel himself turning red. They could crack open an egg and fry it on his forehead.

Derek grins. "You can be pretty cute when you're not being a smart-ass."

"You fell for my smart-ass-ness," says Stiles.

"Guess I did."

Scott says, "Derek, please leave, you're starting to make my house smell all musky."

Derek ignores Scott's comment and says to Stiles, "I'll text you."

"You have my number? Right, of course you have it. I'll just, uh. I'll be waiting." He tries to waggle his eyebrows flirtatiously and he thinks he fucks it up, but Derek chuckles as he leaves, so maybe not.

Stiles flops down on the couch and lets out a breath. That was a lot. The couch cushion sinks in, and he glances at Scott, sitting down beside him while holding the pizza box. Stiles asks, "Did you know he liked me?"

"I mean—" Scott looks abashed. "Kind of. You know, werewolf senses and all. And he, uh. Don't tell him I told you this, but—you make his heart beat faster. I thought at first it was just because we were always making him angry and his blood pressure was skyrocketing and all, but then, well. Sometimes he looks at you and it's just—" Scott taps his palm on his chest, imitating a fluttering heartbeat. 

"Oh, shit. He's down bad. What a loser." Stiles has never been so pleased in his life.

Scott snorts. "Yeah. And really fucking territorial. Here, I saved you two slices."

Two slices? "Aw, thanks, dude." They swap; Stiles gets the pizza box and he hands Scott a controller.

Pizza and video games with his best friend, and the hunky, grumpy werewolf professed his feelings for him.

Not a bad night.

"Hey, can I look at that book? I bet he was just bluffing about the eyeball burning thing."

"No."

"Ugh, fine."