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“Do you think we’re gonna find them?” Stiles asks, idly running his fingers through Derek’s hair. “Erica and Boyd?”
He doesn’t say before the alphas tire of them and tear them to pieces.
“I don’t know,” Derek answers darkly. A beat, and then he follows up with: “School starts next week.”
It’s a good thing Stiles has gotten somewhat used to Derek’s non-sequiturs. His brain is used to following ridiculous trains of thoughts, after all. The only difference is that with Derek the seemingly unrelated sentences he utters spring from his serious lack of skills when it comes to communication and his reluctance to use his words, which results in serious gaps in the conversation. Whereas Stiles...well, his brain just makes the leaps for him. Anyway, he gets what Derek’s trying to say. It’s actually pretty easy to unlock the alpha mystery shtick, once you get the hang of it.
“I’ll still be able to help looking,” Stiles promises, laces their fingers together and squeezes reassuringly. “Not quite as much, because, you know, classes and homework and training, but I can still help. And anyway, it’s still like a week and a half until Labour Day.”
“Eight days,” Derek corrects quietly.
Like he’s been counting.
∞
Stiles doesn’t think much about the little talk they had until Derek drops completely off the grid two days later.
He tries calling, and driving to the loft, driving to the ruins of the Hale house, even traipses through the woods for two hours screaming himself hoarse – he only realises later that maybe that isn’t the smartest idea with another werewolf pack prowling through Beacon Hills, but, oh well, reason can go screw itself, you haven’t lived until you’ve lived dangerously, et cetera et cetera.
There’s no sign of Derek anywhere.
Stiles panics mildly. Contacting Derek hasn’t been at all difficult, ever, not since they met, but especially not since their thing started, whatever it is, exactly. Derek’s actually often the one to seek him out whenever they haven’t agreed on a place and time to meet the day prior. He considers the possibility of Derek having been taken, like Boyd and Erica, but Derek’s an alpha and he isn’t stupid enough to run headfirst at –
Yeah, okay, scratch that, he’d totally be stupid enough to charge at an entire pack of dangerous werewolves out for his blood without thinking about it first, and without telling Stiles what he was planning on doing.
That sounds exactly like Derek.
Fuck.
But there isn’t any blood anywhere, the police haven’t found his rotting corpse or his abandoned car so that means –
Fuck, Stiles doesn’t know what that means.
∞
“Pick up your damn phone,” he yells over the line, seething with rage. It’s only the twentieth or so message he’s left on Derek’s voicemail – he’s not clingy, fuck you very much – and he’s vaguely reminded of leaving a similar voicemail on Scott’s phone more than once. With increasing frequency ever since supernatural shit is going down in Beacon Hills, actually. He’d say he’s getting pretty good at them, except they never seem to have the desired effect on the stupid werewolves. “I swear to God, Derek, if you don’t pick up or call me back, I’m gonna kill you. You hear me? I’m gonna kill you. If I find you mangled in a ditch, I’m not gonna help you. I’m so pissed right now I can’t even – look, you wanna break up with me, fine, whatever, but the least you can do is fucking tell me and not make me think I’m gonna stumble over your decomposing dead body one of these days, okay? Okay, I’m just gonna – argh!”
He curses, and throws the phone onto the bed. He’s really tempted to throw it against the wall just to revel in the sound of metal crashing, of pieces falling apart, of destroying something, just to enjoy breaking something for once, not being at the receiving end of the shitstorm for a change, but he’s pretty broke as is. The werewolf shenanigans have already cost him two phones and his dad definitely won’t pay for a new one, should he break this phone.
“Trouble in paradise?” someone says behind him, voice full of sardonic glee, and Stiles yelps, jumps about two feet in the air and nearly topples over.
“The fuck?” he asks roughly, throwing out his arm and barely managing to grab onto the edge of the table and regain his balance.
Peter is standing in the middle of Derek’s loft, trademark insufferable smirk on his lips and playing with the keys. “Hello, Stiles.”
“What do you want?”
“Oh, nothing, just...stopping by.”
“Derek’s not here,” Stiles informs him brusquely.
“I can see that,” Peter says. “And yet, you are.”
“I know where Derek keeps his spare keys,” Stiles says as per explanation. It’s not the reason Peter asked for with his vague yet unmistakable implication, but whatever. Stiles isn’t sure if Peter knows about the way his and Derek’s relationship has developed over the past weeks but he’d bet most of his money on it. Not all, maybe, but most. Peter always seems to know way more about what’s going on than anyone else. Regardless, he doesn’t need to flaunt their relationship in front of him. The less Peter the creeper knows, the better.
Peter snorts quietly. “Of course you do.” He tilts his head. “I’m afraid my nephew is currently otherwise engaged.”
“Meaning?” Stiles prods.
“Meaning he doesn’t have time for the problems of hormonal teenagers right now, as he has more important things to worry about.”
Which – wow. Okay. Stiles can take a hint, but – “Did he send you to tell me that?”
“No, I’m simply relaying the message since I’m the first one to run into you.”
Stiles swallows, looks away. He’s learnt how to hide what he’s feeling behind a mask a long time ago, before his mother died. Words might not have the power to fool Peter, but maybe his face does. He won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much this hurts. “Good luck getting Erica and Boyd out,” he says, and means it, and then he turns to leave.
He feels Peter’s eyes on his back the entire time until the heavy metal door closes behind him.
∞
His plans of spending the entire weekend in bed are foiled when he gets an overexcited message from Scott on Saturday, saying: I BOUGHT THE BIKE!!1!
Stiles sighs, sits up and drags himself out of bed around noon to drive to Scott’s and gush over his best friend’s new acquisition like a good bro for half an hour – it is a pretty sweet bike, so he doesn’t even have to lie before muttering and excuse about his father coming home and needing to organise food.
“Halo tomorrow?” he asks half-heartedly and still feels a pang of disappointment when Scott scrunches up his nose and shakes his head, looking apologetic.
“Sorry, man, I promised to spend the day with mum.”
“It’s cool, man.” Stiles claps him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you at school anyway.”
He doesn’t sleep that night, thought flying wild and no one there to distract him from the constant buzzing in his brain. Every time he nearly dozes off, he find himself reaching out for someone lying next to him, a body to cuddle up to, only to find the space to his left unoccupied and cold. The sense of something missing snaps him right out of his sleepiness, makes his heart clench painfully.
He hadn’t even noticed how used he’s gotten to a warm body lying next to him. Hadn’t noticed that he’s grown to need it to get any rest. To feel safe. To feel whole.
Stiles tosses and turns the entire night. When the first rays of sunlight wash out the grey of the sky and turn it a soft yellow colour, he feels more wrung out than he has in months.
∞
Sunday is hell. He does nothing but stare at his ceiling all day long while the house is quiet, his dad working yet another double shift.
He almost gets up to go to Derek before he remembers he’s not welcome there anymore. Muscle memory is a strange thing.
He wills his body into motionlessness.
Silence, he discovers, feels way less heavy when there’s someone to share it with you.
∞
Monday comes and everything goes to shit. Well, technically, he supposes, it started going to shit when the deer crashed into Lydia’s car on Friday after he accompanied Scott to the tattoo parlour, but you know what they say about hindsight being always 20/20 and all that. Whatever, he goes to school and Scott has to leave early because Melissa pulls him out and then birds come crashing through the window and try to hack their faces off.
He’s like to pretend his day only goes marginally more to shit when he calls Scott and his friend tells him to meet him at Derek’s place, but the truth is, it gets so much worse.
“Wha – Derek’s house?” he asks just to make sure. As far as he knows, Scott has no idea about the loft. “What the hell are you doing-“
“Look, it doesn’t matter, just meet us here,” Scott interrupts him and hangs up on him.
“Awesome,” Stiles grumbles, shoulders his backpack and runs to his car.
He expects things to be more awkward, expects his anger to flare up again but the moment he lays eyes on Derek the only things he feels is an overwhelming relief that Peter wasn’t lying, that Derek is indeed okay and unharmed and safe, for now. Derek catches his look and smiles minutely, gives him a tiny nod of acknowledgement that Stiles would’ve read as a secretive assertion of their things only a few days ago and now just feels weirdly out of place. Stile studiously ignored it. He can’t afford to go around analysing every bit of strange behaviour coming from Derek, because not only is that a task for a lifetime, but also his best friend is in the same room and demanding Derek help him with his stupid tattoo.
Stiles knows he’s baiting Derek when he’s making innuendos about marking – because God, Derek had a thing about marking, and so did Stiles, apparently, as he’s learnt recently (so many freshly discovered kinks) – and winking at him. He thinks for a brief moment that maybe he’s taking it a bit too far, but Derek doesn’t react, at least not visibly, just raises an eyebrow and gives him a look that is strange but well known mixture of fondness and exasperation. Stiles feels his heart skip a beat and wishes not for the first time that he had some heightened senses just to figure out what is going on in Derek Hale’s head.
He tries to not show his disappointment at the lack of reaction. It’s almost like Derek is pretending that none of this ever happened; he’s scowling a little less, looks a little less angry, a little less tense, but aside from that....nothing. Which, Stiles supposes, was what they agreed on. Just sex, no strings attached – he said it himself. A summer fling.
How stupid of him to think it ever turned into something more. Derek’s just a natural cuddler, a giant marshmallow on the inside for all his hard, scruffy exterior, and that’s probably just what he does with all his sex buddies. Stiles wishes he could blame him but the hard truth is that he is the one who broke the rules, who went ahead and developed stupid, stupid feelings for a dangerous alpha werewolf who is several years older and obviously not interested in anything serious despite the awesome sex they had and despite him seeming to not feel the urge to strangle Stiles on a daily basis anymore.
He thinks back to the look on Derek’s face when he first offered to help with the search, the resigned desperation and quiet acceptance, the brokenness, and then glances over at Isaac, lying wounded and unconscious on Derek’s splintered, dirty table. Guess the war has begun for real, he muses. Of course he doesn’t want this to continue. Even if he felt something for Stiles, he’d try to protect him by keeping him as far away as possible.
Rationalising it doesn’t make things any better and when the chance to flee comes, Stiles wants nothing more than to take and get out of there as quickly as possible – a fucking blowtorch, what the fuck even? – but he’s completely thrown by the feelings of a steady, warm hand on his chest, the easiness of it. Derek isn’t supposed to be allowed to touch him with such casualty anymore, he isn’t – Stiles swallows, feels his heart stutter and his stomach clench with longing.
“You’ll help hold him down,” Derek commands, and watches him with his disconcerting, piercing eyes until he takes his place behind Scott, puts his hands heavily on his best friend’s shoulders.
Then he brings the blowtorch to Scott’s arm and Scott screams and thrashes, and Stiles is too occupied with putting his entire weight into his grip trying to hold him down to think about Derek until Scott finally passes out from the pain.
“Well, that was sufficiently traumatising,” Stiles says once he’s caught his breath. “I don’t think I’ll be eating grilled meat in a while...or ever.”
“You did well,” Derek says quietly.
“Thanks,” replies Stiles stiffly. He tenses when Derek reaches out for him, and Derek’s hand drops uselessly back to his side. “How long till he wakes up, do you think?”
Derek glances over his shoulder, shrugs. “Not long.” He turns towards Stiles again. “I got your voicemail.”
“Oh really?” Stiles says. “Didn’t think you did.”
“You’re angry.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
Derek opens his mouth to say something else, maybe an apology, maybe a justification. But then Scott stirs, and Stiles has never been so glad he doesn’t have to hear what Derek wants to say.
∞
“Dude, are you flirting with Derek?” Scott asks him when they return from their little stunt of nearly drowning Isaac in ice water and head to his place to do their research on bank robberies. Stiles startles, trips, and crashes into the sideboard standing in the hallways.
“What the hell, dude?” he demands.
“Sorry, just...it really seemed like you were?”
“I don’t think you’ve been paying attention,” Stiles tells him honestly. “All Derek and I ever do is try and annoy the shit out of each other.”
“I guess,” Scott concedes. “But fisting jokes, Stiles. Really?”
Stiles shrugs. “He can take it.”
He’d planned on toning it down. Really, he had. It’s just that....it’s difficult, more so than he ever expected it would be. He and Derek had always had the kind of relationship that was mostly based on riling each other up, that much is true, and it hadn’t changed much after they’d started sleeping with each other. If anything, the baiting had intensified, and where it had only been with somewhat malicious intent before, yeah, he guesses it had morphed into something one could call flirting. They don’t seem to be able to stop; it’s like a switch has been flipped in their brain, and they’re unable to take it down a level, now that they’ve passed this one fine line.
Maybe, he thinks, he should try harder, but not being a little shithead around Derek would make Scott more suspicious. And he doesn’t want to stop.
And really, he doesn’t know if he can. It’s too easy to slip back into the easy banter they had going on, to continue testing their limits, prodding and poking each other in a way that is mostly good natured but borders on hurtful. It’s their thing, apparently. Stiles doesn’t think anyone can blame him for getting off on it.
“I don’t know if I can take it,” Scott teases.
Stiles grunts. “I had to listen to you telling me about what you and Allison got up to in bed in excruciating detail. You can deal with me making inappropriate comments in front of Derek.”
Scott halts. “You’re not, like, uh....it’s not the same, though, right?”
“Oh my God, Scott, no, of course not,” Stiles says. “Derek and I are nothing like you and Allison.”
That, at least, is true. Stiles shouldn’t feel so bitter about Scott accepting it easily, shouldn’t feel bitter about it not being a lie.
He kissed Heather the night before, at her birthday party. It left a foul taste in his mouth. Stiles can still feel it, heavy and sour on his tongue. It’s not because she went missing – although that’s part of it; he’s known her for too long, and he knows too well what could happen to a girl who suddenly disappears without a trace – but it didn’t feel right when he was kissing her.
In fact, it hadn’t felt like much at all. The entire time, he couldn’t stop thinking about how this was nice, but how he was missing solid muscles against him instead of soft curves, how he was missing Derek’s stubble scratching against his chin and the heat his body gave off. The entire make-out session had left him strangely unaffected, for the most part. He’d tried to convince himself that sex was on the table and sex was always great, but he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he was cheating on Derek and –
And that’s just ridiculous, because Derek doesn’t want to see him anymore but.
But.
He decidedly doesn’t think about how he was momentarily glad to find her gone when he returned to the cellar, just because he thinks his body might’ve actually betrayed him if they’d tried to take things farther.
Stiles wishes he could hate Derek for ruining him, but the truth is, he did it all to himself.
∞
“How do you know the way to his place?” Scott asks, frowning. Stiles missed him in passenger seat all summer. This feels familiar, safe, comfortable. Something he won’t get to enjoy very often anymore now that Scott has his bike. Stiles isn’t jealous of the thing – that would be stupid, it’s just a machine – but he drove by the McCalls’ place yesterday morning out of habit and only realised his mistake when Melissa opened the door and told him Scott had already left. As far as he knows she didn’t tell Scott, which is a blessing. It lowers his level of pathetic, if only in the eyes of everyone but himself.
He’s the only one who knows how much it stings to have your best friend slip through your fingers and have nowhere to go, no one to spend time with, but someone you don’t even like all that much. And to have that person you didn’t like turn into someone important only to be unceremoniously dumped. Sometimes, Stiles would like to wallow in self-pity, but that’s not exactly who he is. Plus, he gets the feelings he won’t have much time to spend wallowing anyway, now that everything is going to shit again.
It’s good, though. Keeps his mind occupied, straying away from dangerous thoughts.
“Stiles?”
“Oh.” He clears his throat. “I went over there a few times during the summer holidays,” he says, shrugs like it’s no big deal. “I told you I tried helping with the search for Erica and Boyd.”
“That makes sense.” Scott nods. “Is it better than the train station?”
Stiles snorts. “Moderately. It has a functioning bathroom and a kitchen, and, you know, an actual bed. On the downside, it’s got a giant hole where the door to the second room used to be. I’m starting to think Derek is allergic to living in nice places. Is it a wolf thing?”
Scott punches him in the arm. “I don’t live in a run-down house.”
“You always were a special snowflake.”
Stiles grins when Scott punches him again.
The smile fades when he steps into the loft, breathes in the familiar smell of dust, musk and warm stone, copper and burnt sugar. He avoids looking at the bed but not before registering that the sheets have been changed since he last came here. His DVDs aren’t lying around anymore, and he’s found his old sweater draped over his chair a few days ago. The place looks more sterile now, no evidence that he practically lived here for weeks.
Stiles rattles down the explanation, forces himself to focus on anything but Derek sliding up close next to him, arms almost touching. He can feel the heat Derek’s body gives off, the tension coiled in his muscles as he listens to him like he’s always listened, all summer, like Stiles....like what he says matters, and not only when they’re plotting. Stiles swallows heavily and ignores that their proximity is too close to be read as strictly professional.
It’s a good thing Scott doesn’t seem to notice. He wishes he could say the same about Peter, but then, he wishes he could say a lot of things about Peter, the most important being he’s dead and he’s never coming back. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen anytime soon.
Doesn’t mean he can’t stop hoping, though, just like he can’t stop a lot of other things.
Breaking old habits is a bitch.
“If I go in first, how much space do I have?” Derek asks, and Stiles wants to punch him.
“What are you gonna do, Derek, you’re gonna punch through the wall?”
Derek sighs, folds his arms over his chest – Stiles does not look at the way his shirt stretches over his insane biceps – and smirks. Self-satisfied bastard. “Yes, Stiles, I’m gonna punch through the wall.”
Which is ridiculous on so many levels, and Stiles just wants to prove him wrong. And he doesn’t want to be laughed at, not by Derek, not after what happened between them. He just doesn’t have the right. He purses his lips, narrows his eyes, and kind of wants to strangle Derek for looking at him with this amused spark in his eyes, like this is a game, like this is just one of their playful conversations in the bedroom, like, oh wait, you don’t think I could last if we did it in this position, well, let me show you how wrong you are.
“Okay, Big Guy, let’s see it, let’s see that fist.” This is inappropriate on so many levels, and he promised Scott no more fisting jokes, but he’s on a roll. “Big old fist. Get it out there, don’t be scared,” he mocks, grabs Derek’s wrist. I’m still not afraid of you, he wants to say, if you think I’m gonna keep my mouth shut because you dumped me you’re mistaken. He almost expects a punch in the face, but Derek just lets him, just rolls with it, indulges him, and that is a surprise. Before this summer, Stiles definitely would’ve found himself pushed up against a wall for that, if not worse. It confuses him, momentarily, but he just barrels on. “Big Bad Wolf, yeah. Look at this. See this? This is maybe three inches of room to gather enough force to punch through solid – ah!”
Bastard. Fucking bastard.
Of course he punched him; everything else would’ve definitely given them away. Looks like they are back to their pre summer fling routine. “He can do it,” he yelps, cradles his hand to his chest. Damn, it hurts, but the pain quickly subsides. Of course; for all that Derek likes to rough him up a little, he’s always been extremely careful not to go too far, has always made sure Stiles never even so much as bruised.
It hurts more when Derek tells him he doesn’t want him to come, although it really shouldn’t take Stiles by surprise. Derek had insisted all summer Stiles didn’t get more involved than he needed to, of course he’d try to keep him away from the fighting; he’s done that before, too.
Stiles takes his revenge anyway. There’s no point denying he’s acting like a child but it doesn’t matter, because he is a teenager, and the best way of letting out his frustration and acting on his inherent, slightly vindictive streak, seems to be poking Derek in the ribs. Repeatedly. Even with Scott still there. He doesn’t care. If Derek wants to get inappropriately close to him, within reach of his hands, then he’ll just have to deal with it.
Derek swats his hand away the first time. And the second.
When Stiles increases the pace, hits him lightly and repeatedly, adds little jabs and prods that break through Derek’s defences, Derek murders him with a look so thunderous that Stiles actually meeps and takes off. He’s not out fast enough to miss Derek’s low growl and him telling Scott “I’ll be right back.”
Stiles throws the door close behind him and rushes down the stairs. Predictably, he doesn’t get far. He’s only halfway down the second set of stairs when he feels the hard grip on his arm and Derek yanks him around, presses him up against the wall and –
Kisses the hell out of him.
Stiles’ brain splutters, shuts down, and then reboots just in time to curl his fingers around Derek’s neck and draw him back in the second he begins to pull away.
Derek makes a sound like he’s drowning, crowds in closer and kisses him like desperately, like he’s missed this more than anything else. And maybe he has, Stiles thinks. Maybe he never told Stiles he wanted to break up with him because he didn’t want to. Maybe he pulled away because of the life in Beacon Hills getting more dangerous for everyone again, or maybe because he thought that Stiles didn’t feel the same.
Probably the latter, the idiot.
“You drive me insane,” Derek tells him. “Just – your mouth, Stiles, and your hands, and you just – you came to my house but you wouldn’t touch me, wouldn’t look at me and I-“
“I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to anymore,” Stiles pants against his mouth. “I wasn’t – I didn’t know – fuck, Derek.” He curses when Derek slides his hand under his shirt. “We seriously need to work on your communication skills. If you didn’t want this to end after Labour Day all you had to do was say something. You’re the one with the freakish werewolf senses, you got the advantage here, you know how badly I want you and I’m just flying blind and when you vanish, drop off the face of the earth, how am I supposed to know – “
“Maybe you can teach me,” Derek says.
Stiles smiles. “Sounds like a plan. I hope you know that’ll take a lot of time, though.”
“That’s alright.” Derek smiles back at him. “I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all.”