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“So you skipped last period,” Derek grouses, disapproving alpha brows in place, arms crossed, “All because you were too horny to wait until you got home from school?”
It's a Sunday afternoon, the preceding to Pack Night, and it's the first nice weather they've had so far this year. Instead of running through drills or going over information dredged up during their supernatural research, they're all loosely grouped together on the sunloungers, basking in the sun like content cats.
“It's a mate thing,” Allison shrugs, leaning back on her hands.
From where he's laying on his back in the middle of them all, thawing in the sunshine, Stiles huffs a quiet laugh.
“You're not, though.”
He must feel every eye on his reposed form, but he doesn't open his eyes, doesn't twitch his lax hands from their perch on his belly. The only sign that he even spoke is the tick of confidence in the corner of his lips.
“Excuse me?” Allison's voice is edged with danger, but Stiles still doesn't move, except to answer her. Calmly.
“You're not mates. None of you are.” He finally opens his eyes, promptly slamming them shut with a grimace in the direct glare of sunlight he's blasted with. He flails into a semi-reclined position on his elbows and looks around the group, the pack. His gaze, still a little watery, flicks between them all, lingering on those who might be under the false assumption that they're mated to a werewolf.
Lydia tilts her chin up, a show of bravado belied by the pink tinge to her cheeks. “I have been knotted,” she announces gravely. “Many times.” Jackson smirks and Stiles has to fight down nausea at the absolute caveman behaviour.
“Same,” tacks on Allison. Scott ducks his head, but grins at her from under his lashes like a proud, lovestruck puppy.
“Well this conversation took a wild swing into too-much-information territory,” Stiles mutters, though he should really have seen it coming. He folds upright, tucking his legs and hugging his knees. “Being mates isn't about knots. If you were so inclined, you could all be swingers, swap partners for the night, even get knotted by someone else, someone not your ‘mate’. Being mates is about trust, about submission…”
“Oh, she's submitted to me plenty,” Jackson murmurs, and this time Stiles can't stop the gag. Even Lydia looks mildly disgusted.
“Way to degrade your girlfriend, man,” Scott says with a frown.
Stiles leaves a few beats of silence to concur with this statement before he continues. “Anyway, mating with a werewolf is about submitting to them – not in that gross, He-Man way – and trusting them. Fully. Body and soul.”
“You know an awful lot about something you haven't experienced,” Isaac drawls. He's got his cheek resting on his cupped palm, laying on his side in the shade, worried about sunburn he now heals too fast to develop. “And a lot about the sex lives of several couples that don't involve you.”
Far too familiar with Isaac's brand of scathing, Stiles doesn't even bristle. “Mating isn't necessarily about sex, it's about…”
“Submission and trust, yeah you mentioned that.” Erica sighs, like she's bored of the conversation, but they all know her well enough by now to know she's listening raptly. “But how could you possibly tell if someone else submitted to a werewolf. Fully.” She sneers the last word in mockery. “Unless you've been watching us…?”
He doesn't react to the last statement.
“None of you have a claiming bite.” He flickers a finger towards his own neck in illustration, only to suddenly freeze, eyes wide. He coughs lightly, embarrassed, and nods towards Allison, eyes on her throat, directing everyone's attention to her. “Nothing to mar that pretty skin.”
Derek grumbles at his words, but no one pays him any mind; he's always growling when Stiles talks. Lydia gasps and her gaze narrows on Stiles though, searching him for evidence of whatever theory just occurred to her.
Jackson leers, opening his mouth, but Stiles snaps his attention to him with a glare. “No, I don't want to hear about your mid-coital bites, thank you. If it counted as a mating bite, you would see it. As we can all see, Lydia's neck is as flawless as ever…” Stiles waves exaggeratedly in the direction of said neck.
“If it's not about sex, then why is it called ‘mate’?” Scott implores, frowning.
“Mate, as in by-your-side, not mate as in procreation,” Stiles explains. “Platonic mates are a thing, and asexual ones. I mean, I was a virgin when I… um. Nevermind. Not important.”
There's silence, the slip being digested slowly. Lydia grins, smug, Erica’s mouth has dropped open like she's just heard the juiciest gossip, and Jackson looks personally offended by this new information. Stiles himself has shrunk in on himself, avoiding eye contact with everyone, but especially… their alpha. Their alpha who is rumbling with steady reassurance, until all eyes are on him. All except one pair, still adamantly examining the grass near his toes. Like he can't quite make himself face up to his mistake just yet.
He's smiling softly, fondly, exasperatedly. So many unusual emotions on their stoic leader's face.
“It was bound to come out sooner or later, love.”
Love.
No one appears brave enough to breathe and break the moment, not even Stiles, who is now looking up at Derek with wonder on his face.
Stiles, who is looking up at his mate with an awestruck expression, one he wears a lot, but now makes much more sense.
“Today's lesson: mating bites,” Derek begins, tearing his attention away and pushing himself to a stand. “Stiles is correct,”
“As always,” he murmurs, slipping back into his usual self and returning to his recline, the picture of self-assuredness. Derek smirks at him, rolling his eyes.
“You should be able to see the mark on someone's neck if you know what to look for. How obvious a mark is depends on a range of factors: skin tone, depth of the bite, how often and how recently it is reaffirmed, or rebitten. And as is the case here, if the mark is camouflaged by other marks.” He crouches before Stiles, reaching out towards his throat. Stiles doesn't hesitate to tip his head back, allowing a thumb to gently trace the shape of the bite.
Submission.
Once again, attention turns to Stiles, this time taking in the mole dotted landscape over his throat. But when you look closer, some of the marks divot, creating shadows. Under closer scrutiny, there's possibly a dozen of them. They start under one ear, straddle either side of his Adam's apple, and loop back under the other ear, a sideways grip across his windpipe. A bite mark that, under vastly different circumstances, could result from being choked to death by a wild animal.
Derek's jaw, with its human teeth, would not make that imprint. Which meant it was made while he was in beta-shift, and fully capable of killing him. Easily.
Trust.
“In moonlight they glow a little.” Stiles adds almost sheepishly. “I’ve been waiting for someone to notice for over a year.”
Over a year. Stiles has had this bite for over a year.
“The werewolves here should also be able to smell that he is mated. And to who.”
“Whom,” correct Stiles and Lydia together. Derek ignores them, as does the rest of the pack.
There's a collective intake of breath from the werewolves (and no one mentions when the humans do it too, though they of course won't be able to scent anything). Stiles has always smelled of Derek, even more so since his last birthday. But then, they had been spending a lot of time together, it wasn't… unexpected?
But now that they are looking for it, they can all detect another element to his scent. Something with more depth than just Derek-and-Stiles, and more… Derek-with-Stiles. A separate dimension to it, almost.
“You will also feel it,” Derek goes on, resting his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, and looking between each of them. “While Stiles remains human, you will all have a pack bond with him, equal to your bond with each other.”
“Not that it made any of you listen to me,” Stiles mutters, falsely aggrieved.
Still crouched beside his mate, Derek smiles indulgently and trails a fingertip over Stiles' pouting lips until they soften. When the alpha looks up, the whole pack is watching them expectantly.
“What?” Derek asks, gaze flicking between his betas – human and werewolf alike – waiting for an answer. Stiles glances around them, taking in the ravenous curiosity in their stares, and answers for them. With barely more than a tug of his finger, Stiles drags Derek – drags his mate – down by the collar of his shirt, tilting his head back and exposing his throat in invitation, in supplication.
Submission.
Derek's eyes flare red at the visual, at the offer, and he doesn't hold back his shift. The scent of Stiles' want is quickly diffusing through their loose circle. All around them, hearts are beating heavier with anticipation, but none more so than Stiles’.
Unhurried, Derek moves his face, full of sharpened teeth and elongated canines, towards the extended neck. With a barely-there touch, the tip of his nose drifts lazily over the skin, inhaling deeply to pull in the feast of pheromones. The moment of contact triggers a shuddery exhale, and Stiles closes his eyes in bliss.
Derek traces a path over each of the scars that make up the mating bite, pausing to lick at some and snuffle at others. There's a vibration in the air, a subvocal growl, announcing his contentment at this display. By now, the anticipation has Stiles squirming, but a small rumble of reprimand from their alpha and Stiles stills.
With careful precision, Derek aligns his teeth with their imprints, jaw hinged wide.
A practiced clench, and Derek's teeth break skin, deep enough to slightly restrict Stiles' gasp of satisfaction through his gently parted lips. A reflexive tear from the sting, trickling down his cheek towards his hairline, is the only sign that Stiles feels any pain at all.
The previously unnoticed dimension of Derek-with-Stiles flares brightly throughout the pack, both externally and internally, through the pack bonds.
Blood wells from the puncture wounds, dribbling down his neck and dripping from his nape. It's so much blood, but it could be so much more if Derek's fangs had nicked a blood vessel, a distinct possibility given that they could hardly have been far away from his teeth. The fact that Stiles would fully understand the risks and yet had still allowed Derek to bite him like this – repeatedly – was compelling.
Trust.
It suddenly becomes clear why Stiles had scoffed at those couples who claimed to be mates simply because they had had knotted sex.
Derek withdraws slowly, licking over the deepest of the wounds, which immediately clot and start to heal. He leans away, eyes roving his quietly panting mate with affection and concern. His worries prove to be unnecessary when a broad grin splits across Stiles' face, his eyes still closed.
He tilts his head back towards Derek, grin still in place, and this time when he tugs him closer by his collar, it's to pull him into a filthy kiss.
Awkward shuffling and a cleared throat or two brings them back to their audience, but they don't fully pull away from each other immediately, resting their heads against each other for a moment to breathe each other in.
Derek looks up, pinning each beta with a stern gaze.
“So mates, are we clear?” Everyone nods, even Stiles who is looking far too adamant and pleased with himself, still gazing at their alpha with adoration. “And no skipping class for that bullshit excuse again... are we clear?”
Heads bend in contrition.
“Yes, Alpha.”