Archive of Our Own ^beta

There were drawbacks to having an entire pack full of teenagers—many, many drawbacks—but this latest indignity—well, at least Derek could blame his crazy uncle for it. If Peter hadn't pulled his Lazarus routine, then Lydia would never have known that werewolves existed much less have become a pack member, and Derek's house would not be waging a guerilla war of mistletoe against him.

"Oh, look." Lydia tilted her head coyly at the renegade sprig tacked up above the window and crooked her finger at Jackson. "We can't ignore tradition."

It had to be at least the fifth time she'd said that.

Allison never bothered with anything as subtle as words. She just grabbed Scott by the shirt whenever she felt like it and dragged him over to the nearest outcropping of the green menace and had her very noisy way with his mouth. Erica preferred all-out manhandling, bodily lifting Boyd or Isaac or whoever—she wasn't picky—and depositing them beneath the leafy nuisance.

If this had been a strategy session on how to steal kisses, it would have been a rousing success. As a meeting to decide what to do about the mischievous band of pixies that had recently descended on Beacon Hills, it left a lot to be desired.

"Maybe if anyone was actually paying attention, we would have come up with an idea by now and this meeting would be over already," Derek said with all the sarcasm he could muster—which was a lot. The stupid mistletoe really needed to go, every last bit of it.

Lydia must have sensed what he was thinking because she flashed one of her knife-edged smiles. "Mistletoe isn't just romantic. It's a known deterrent to witches, ogres, and certain types of faeries including pixies. Also? If you had someone to kiss, maybe you wouldn't mind it so much."

He gave her a hard stare, letting his eyes go red and his fangs extend a little. Her only response was to lift her chin and flip her hair back over her shoulder. This was pretty much par for their course.

"Yeah, intimidation doesn't work on her. Welcome to the wonderful world of being powerless before Lydia Martin," Stiles said, sympathetically patting Derek's arm until Derek shot him a pointed I will eat you look and he yanked his hand away. "I'm just saying. You're not alone in this."

Derek let out his breath. "Can we try to focus?"

They paid attention, more or less, for about fifteen minutes. In that time Jackson acted like his usual asshole self, Erica got into a poking match with Boyd, and Stiles had an idea that might work or might get them all killed. Typical.

Derek did his best not to sigh. "Okay, meet back here tomorrow after school, and we'll go after the pixies. Try not to get killed in the meantime."

"Thanks for that," Stiles said in a deadpan. "Very heartening. Have you ever considered a career as a motivational speaker? Also, I'm pretty sure pixies don't actually kill people. They're just really, really annoying."

As if Stiles had room to talk. Derek communicated this with a look.

Stiles waved him off. "Yeah, yeah. I know. Pot meet kettle. Well, I'm off to go be research dude. Make sure pixies don't actually have some little-known mojo that will screw us over."

He started for the door, and Derek turned to tell Boyd something, and somehow they ended up under—

"Oh, look," Lydia said with glee that she didn't even try to hide.

Jackson smirked. "Hey, Stilinski, maybe you're finally going to get kissed. Are you going to go home and write about it in your diary?"

"No, I'm going to write about you," Stiles shot back. "It's going to say: Jackson was a douche. Must have been a day ending in 'y'."

"You're still standing under the mistletoe," Isaac pointed out. This earned him a glare from Derek and a horrified look from Scott, who seemed to be trying to decide whether to defend Stiles's honor or just close his eyes and pretend he was somewhere else, very far away.

Stiles snorted. "Oh, please. Like Derek would ever."

Derek shifted his glare to Stiles. It wasn't Stiles's place to declare what Derek would or wouldn't do, even if he was usually right about it. Did no one remember that Derek was the alpha? He did the only logical thing, which was to grab Stiles by the arm and yank him close. The completely shocked look he got from everyone in the room—okay, except for maybe Lydia—was deeply satisfying.

I'm just doing this to fuck with him, with all of them—that was what Derek told himself as he tilted Stiles's chin with his fingers. Because being an asshole was Derek's comfort place and it wouldn't do to have his pack thinking he was predictable.

He could feel Stiles draw in a startled breath as he pushed their mouths together. Stiles's lips were warm and slightly chapped, and his body went slack at the first touch. Either he was too stunned to do anything about the mouth-to-mouth situation, or maybe he just didn't know what to do. It was possible that Jackson, douchebag that he was, had been right. Maybe Stiles had never been kissed.

Not that it mattered—this was what Derek told himself—it was only about proving a point. He cupped Stiles's jaw in his hand, angled his head just so, and deepened the kiss, stroking their tongues together.

Stiles made a sound at that, a cut-off little whimper as if he were trying to keep anyone from hearing it. Not the most realistic ambition in a room full of werewolves. Derek slid his hand around to the back of Stiles's neck and stroked the soft skin there and kissed a long, leisurely while, because if you were going to fuck with your pack's perceptions of you and possibly give someone their first kiss then you really should be thorough about it.

He pulled back at last, and Stiles just stood there, eyes blinking, dazed and doe-like.

"Oh my God," Scott groaned. "I did not need to see that. Like, ever. My retinas are going to have nightmares."

"About time," Boyd muttered, and now it was his turn to be on the receiving end of Derek's glare.

"In some cultures this would mean we're engaged," Stiles managed to quip even though he was still flushed and panting.

"In our culture, it just means that I'm not going to kill you." Derek paused and added, "Probably."

Stiles reacted to that in the usual way, with a blast of scent, fear mingled with amusement heavily laced with arousal. Another reckless teenager who had no idea what he was doing. Maybe that was why Derek felt the need to throw him up against hard, immovable objects so often. He kept hoping to knock some sense into him.

"Well, time to go!" Lydia declared brightly, grabbing Jackson's arm and towing him toward the door.

The rest of the group followed, all except for Stiles, who not surprisingly dragged his feet, engaging in some silent communication with Scott that he should go on ahead.

"So," Stiles said, once everyone else had left.

His scent filled the space, warm and sugary and hopeful.

"That was, uh, unexpected. And I have questions." Derek rolled his eyes extravagantly, not that this deterred Stiles in the slightest. "Did you just do that to fuck with me? Or was it more about showing the pack that they can never predict what the great and mighty alpha will do and they shouldn't even try? Or was it just because—I mean, I know there are probably a lot of people you could be kissing, and I do have mostly realistic expectations about things like this—but there did seem to be more tongue involved than was strictly necessary if you just wanted to teach us all a lesson about not fucking around with the mistletoe."

"Stiles."

"Yeah?"

"Go home."

Stiles's scent took a sour, disappointed turn. "Oh. Yeah. Right. I should—you know, do that. I've got a chemistry test tomorrow, and Mr. Harris still hates me."

He shouldered his backpack and made for the door, but because he was Stiles (and because Lydia truly had turned Derek's house into a minefield of good cheer), he stopped in the front doorway beneath yet another sprig of mistletoe and waited expectantly.

"Do you even know what you're doing?"

"Yes," Stiles insisted. "And also no. But I can spot an opportunity when I see one, and I'm a fast learner. So."

Derek had started this—well actually Lydia had started it, but whatever—it was Derek's to finish. That was what he told himself. Probably this should mean sending Stiles home with a look that said I could still change my mind about that whole not killing you thing. Instead, he convinced himself that the better strategy was to give Stiles what he thought he wanted so he would stop wanting it. He took Stiles's face in his hands and kissed him, deep and long, breathing in his candy scent.

This time Stiles wasn't caught off guard, and he didn't hold back. His arms went around Derek's neck, eager and a little clumsy. He made that noise again, a greedy sort of whimper, and he kissed back with far more enthusiasm than actual skill. It was entirely possible that Derek really had been the first, and Stiles seemed intent on milking the experience for all it was worth, his body swaying in toward Derek's, warm and pliant and thrumming with excitement.

Pictures took up residence in Derek's head, completely without his permission, less of a movie than old-fashioned animation, snapshots of one moment bleeding into the next, the way he could wrap his hand around Stiles's wrist and pull him up the stairs, down the hall to the room with the mattress, strip off his clothes and—Derek took a decisive step back. "You need to go."

"But—"

Derek shot him a quelling look.

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one enjoying that."

This deserved both a glare and the arms-crossed-over-the-chest treatment. "Really? Because I'm pretty sure I was just fucking with you."

Stiles rolled his eyes extra hard. "Sure, Derek, keep telling yourself that." He hefted his backpack and took all of two steps before turning back around. "This isn't the end of this. Your house is a total mistletoe trap, and yeah, yeah, you could take it down, but then you'd have to explain yourself to Lydia. And, sure, you can go all fangy and clawed and red-eyed, but, dude, even an alpha's no match for Lydia when she's seriously pissed off."

Derek fixed him with a scowl. Clearly, he needed to slam Stiles into a lot more walls. He had no sense at all.

Stiles just smiled, as if Derek scowling at him was the most adorable thing ever. "See you next time!"

He bounded down the stairs and hopped into the Jeep, giving a little wave before taking off. Derek could still smell the lingering scent of warm sugar even after he'd lost the sound of the Jeep's engine. He really didn't like candy, not even a little bit. He spent the rest of the evening telling himself that.