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"Crap," Stiles says, and then he's climbing over the gear stick and into Derek's lap.
"What the hell are you—"
"Can I—?" Stiles is speaking over him, peering out the driver's side window.
Derek has no idea what Stiles' plan is, but it has to be better than Derek's plan, given that Derek doesn't have one. The hunters they've been staking out all night are headed right toward Derek's car, and Stiles is saying again, urgently, "Derek, can I," so Derek nods quickly, opening his mouth to say yes, do it, whatever it is.
Derek isn't expecting Stiles to cup Derek's face in his hands and press a tentative kiss to his lower lip, hunched forward between Derek and the steering wheel. He doesn't respond immediately, frozen in place under Stiles, hands splayed out in midair. Stiles kisses one corner of his mouth, the flattened bow of his upper lip, and then he gets bolder, lips parting over Derek's, tongue flicking out to just barely graze Derek's teeth.
One of the hunters laughs outside the car. Derek puts a hand on Stiles' shoulder, counting on the rain on the windows to obscure the fact that he isn't kissing Stiles back at all.
"I think they're gone," Stiles says after a moment, peering through the window again. "You could have been a little more help, in better lighting that wouldn't have fooled any—" He stops, looking down at Derek from too close in. Derek doesn't know what his own expression looks like, but whatever is there is enough to make Stiles say slowly, carefully, "you said I could."
"It's fine," Derek says, pushing at Stiles' hip, trying to get Stiles off him without actually shoving Stiles across the car.
"It isn't fine," Stiles says, but he climbs back into the passenger seat, turned toward Derek, frowning. "I—" He bites back what he was about to say, grimacing. "Sorry."
Derek shrugs, checking the rearview. If he says it's fine again, he'll officially be protesting too much. It isn't fine; there's an ache in his chest that won't ease, and he can't look at Stiles. He doesn't want to give anything else away.
He's just ... disappointed. He's wanted to kiss Stiles for a long time now, and of course — of course — it happened like this, entirely meaningless. Just once, Derek would like to—
He cuts off that line of thought, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.
Stiles is watching him still, studying him. The streetlights through the rain cast quick-moving shadows on Stiles' face, and the moment feels strange, drawn out, silent save for the steady percussive beat of raindrops on the car.
Derek glances over at him almost involuntarily, gaze flicking down to Stiles' mouth and away again.
"Is it me?" Stiles folds his arms, leaning against the car door. He isn't looking at Derek anymore, his expression closed off. "Is it the situation, or kissing, or me?"
You, Derek wants to say. It's you. Get out. If he says that, Stiles will get out of the car, even if it means going out into the rain. Then they'll never talk about this again, if they talk again at all.
"It's always the situation," Derek says, staring hard at his hands on the steering wheel. It's never about Derek; it's about Kate working an angle, Erica proving something, Stiles hiding them in plain sight. Exactly three people have ever kissed Derek, and the reason has never been someone actually wanting to kiss him.
He thought it might be different with Stiles, someday. He was wrong. He's been wrong a lot; he's used to it by now, he'll get over it.
"It doesn't matter," he says, aiming for dismissive. Instead, his voice is low, hurt, and he knows without looking at Stiles that he's shown his hand.
"Derek," Stiles says, lightly touching his arm. "Did you — do you want it to matter?" Stiles tugs at the sleeve of his jacket. "Come on, look at me." Derek can't. He won't. "It isn't like — do you have any idea how much I've thought about kissing you?"
Derek looks up. Stiles smiles wryly, grip tightening on Derek's sleeve.
"I want to kiss you like it matters," Stiles says, not seeming to care how horribly corny that sounds. "If you want me to."
"I want," Derek says, and has to stop, because he has no idea what he wants. He's in completely unexplored territory here, and they're only talking about a kiss. "I don't — I've never—"
His face goes hot. Stiles' eyes widen, making Derek's sudden desire to kick Stiles out of the car and speed off that much worse.
"What do you mean, never," Stiles says, making a quickly halted gesture with his free hand. "That wasn't your first kiss, was it? I'm not judging, I swear, but you, that's, it wasn't—"
"No," Derek says. "It wasn't — no."
Stiles only takes a moment to put it together.
"You've never kissed anyone like—" Stiles startles Derek by smacking himself on the forehead. "God, I'm an idiot." He makes his way over the gear stick again, awkwardly maneuvering himself onto Derek's lap. "I want to kiss you."
Derek's mouth is dry and he's strangely nervous, suddenly. He thinks he does a pretty good job of hiding all that with the cool, borderline indifferent way he says, "all right."
Stiles gives him a small, slanted smile, hands coming to rest on Derek's shoulders.
"All right like you want me to kiss you, or all right like—"
"Yes," Derek says. If Stiles wants Derek, then Derek wants Stiles to kiss him, yes.
Derek leans up at the same time as Stiles moves in. Their noses bump and their teeth clack, and Derek pulls back immediately, grimacing. The last time Derek kissed someone as anything more than a startled reflex, he was sixteen; it isn't that he's forgotten how to kiss, it's that he never really knew what he was doing in the first place.
"Hey, it's fine, just," Stiles slides his hands up Derek's neck, fingers pressing lightly on his jaw, tilting his head and holding him there.
Stiles kisses him softly, in slow, dry presses of lips that are just a bit off-center. Derek closes his eyes and takes it in for a moment: the light pressure of Stiles' mouth against his, the quickening beat of Stiles' heart, the idea that maybe Stiles really does want to kiss Derek simply for the sake of kissing Derek — that this means something, that it matters.
"So much," Stiles says, his mouth dragging over Derek's in the shape of each word. "I've thought about kissing you so much. I've wanted to."
Derek can't say, me too, so he only nods, hands curled around Stiles' forearms. Stiles presses his forehead to Derek's for a second, kisses his jaw, and climbs back into the passenger seat, sighing.
"We should get out of here," Stiles says, swiping a thumb over his lower lip. "And the next time I kiss you, I don't want to have a steering wheel digging into my back."
"Who said there was going to be a next time?" Derek says, eyebrows drawing together. Stiles gives him an unimpressed look. Derek feels a smile pulling at his mouth, and Stiles' expression becomes horribly smug.
The glare Derek gives him is half-hearted at best. The ache in his chest is gone. He feels strangely light.
Stiles laughs, leaning his head back against the seat.
"I was your first kiss," he says, far too pleased with himself.
"You weren't," Derek says.
"Oh, I was, I definitely was," Stiles says, grinning at Derek. "You can't take that away from me, it's mine. I have no idea how any of this happened, but it did, and I'm going to be your second, third and fourth kiss, too, and it's going to be great, because you secretly like me. You do."
"Not if you keep talking," Derek mutters, putting the car in drive.
He likes the idea of Stiles being his first kiss. He isn't going to admit that to Stiles, but he does; it's nice. It's better than the truth.
"The second kiss is going to involve tongue, and the third one may graduate to hands under shirts," Stiles says, ticking each one off on his fingers. "The fourth one—"
"Stiles," Derek says.
Stiles holds his hands up defensively, still grinning.
Derek is going to regret this, he can see it already.
Or maybe—
Maybe he won't regret it.
That would be another first.