Work Text:
Kate had said it first.
He had taken her to a movie, with money his mother had given him that morning. He bought a large bucket of popcorn, so that their fingers would touch in the bucket. She had smirked the first time it had happened; the second time, she brushed the tip of one finger over the top of his hand. He was alive with it. His nails sharpened and his gut twisted and his balls drew up.
He barely saw any of the movie. Something about a guy with a heart problem, a blonde woman screaming, a bus crash. The film was bright, though, fast-moving. He remembers that because of how the light moved on Kate's face.
Afterward, he walked her to her car. She leaned against it, her chin up. "Did you walk here?"
"Yeah," Derek said. He'd actually run there. It was he could keep himself calm around her.
"Do you want a ride?"
"No," Derek said. He didn't know what he would do, in a closed space with her, if she touched him again. He was scared. "That’s all right. I’ll walk back. I like to walk." He winced, inwardly. I like to walk, really?
"Figures. That’s how you stay in such good shape." She touched his stomach. He tightened his stomach muscles, belatedly. She smiled.
He wasn't in good shape, then, not as good as he would be. He was a boy, still. His legs hurt at night from growing pains. He was good at sports, but it seemed like every time he came to practice he had to relearn his own body, how long his arms were, how far he could bend. "Or something," he said, a beat too late.
She took her hand back to dig her keys out of her pocket. He leaned in while she was looking down, and kissed her. It landed wrong, too much on her top lip. She laughed, and corrected him with a hand on his chin.
He was a bad kisser, he was pretty sure of it, but she kissed him anyway. They kissed for a long time. He put his hands on her car, almost like holding her. He hoped it wasn't too much, that she didn't feel trapped. She didn't seem to feel that way, anyway. She pressed her knee between his, almost like she was going to put it up against his dick. He held himself back. He was scared.
"I should go," she said finally. He drew back, a little. She put her hand on his chin again, kissed him one last time. "You know, I think-- it’s weird, but I think I might love you."
Her heartbeat was its usual metronome.
He didn't say anything back, just looked at her. His nails sharpened. His gut twisted. He wanted to push his hips against her, wanted to press her against her car, wanted to tell her everything he'd ever thought, wanted to give her the bite. He stepped back. He dropped his hands.
She put her chin up like she was stubborn. "I just wanted you to know."
"I think— I might," he said. "I might too. I love you." His own heart was racing. It wasn't a lie, though. He curled his fingers into his palms. His nails pricked the skin there.
Her smile came back, and then she laughed, a little too loud. Her eyes were bright. "Cool, okay," she said. "On that note, I guess, I'm gonna go. I'll call you soon."
"Okay."
He watched her drive away. He ran home, past home, through the forest, running for hours.
His mother was doing paperwork at the dinner table when he finally came back to the house. She looked up when he came in. "How was the movie?"
"It was okay," he said.
"Should we see it?"
He shrugged. She smiled at him, fondly. Her elbows were on the table, her hair was falling out of its ponytail. He remembers that. The memory is sharp and awful.
---
"I don’t know whether to kill it or lick it."
---
"That was the worst movie I’ve ever seen," Stiles says. He folds his straw between his teeth, pinching it nearly shut, and talks around it. "I saw the interviews for it, with the actress, whatshername, on Extra-- shut up, my dad watches it-- and she said 'oh my god, it was so great, I loved my coworkers, I love the movie, it’s about trust and shame and love, it’s this epic tale, I’ve never done CG before,' and I think if the interviewer was, y'know, like you?" Stiles looks around. "A werewolf. If he was, he would have been just cracking up. She was lying so hard. She had to know that it sucked. You don't miss that."
"It was pretty bad."
"'Pretty bad?' That was awful." Stiles sucked on his soda pointedly. He was the only person Derek had met that could do things like that pointedly.
"Okay, fine. A little piece of me died."
Stiles laughed, a loud bark. It echoed across the parking lot. A couple of people turned and looked at him, but Stiles didn't notice. He was looking at Derek. His eyes were bright.
Stiles was an unmitigated asshole. He'd shove someone under a bus without a pause if he had to. Derek loved him. "I love you," Derek said. He hadn't known he was going to say it, but he didn't wish it unsaid.
Stiles' heartbeat was going triple time. "What? Oh. Okay. Wow. I-- I love you too, obviously. I was worried it was obvious. I love you too. Wow." He wiped his hand across his forehead, looked down at his palm, wiped it on his jeans. "We have to hold hands now."
"Do we?" Derek took his hand, though, right away.
When they reached the car, Stiles spun around and leaned against it. "And now we have to make out," he said.
"Do we?" Derek repeated, but he leaned in and kissed him. He put everything into it. Stiles dropped his soda, but he didn't move away, just laughed against Derek's mouth.
Stiles was still a little bad at kissing, kept his mouth too far open and didn't quite know how to move his tongue. It felt good anyway, because it was Stiles. Stiles hummed in the back of his throat when he kissed. His hands never stopped moving; he dug his fingers into the muscles above Derek's ass, slid his palms over Derek's sides, even tucked his hands into Derek's armpits. Derek just concentrated on kissing him.
Eventually Stiles pulled away. "God, this is-- you make me crazy. You make my balls hurt."
"That’s romantic," Derek said.
"You know what I mean."
Most of the things people said about first times were bullshit. It wasn't something magical, really, it wasn't something to get worked up about. You did something the first time -- killed a girl, lost your family, fell in love -- and you had done it, and then you could do it again. You never doing it for the first time, though. There was never that fear, that perfect, awful fear.
Stiles' jawline looked a little like Jennifer's. His eyes were bright, like Kate's.
Kate hadn't looked like anyone else.
"On that note," Derek said, "I'd better go. I'll text you, soon."
"I love you," Stiles said. He looked giddy with it, still.
"I love you, too," Derek said.
He watched Stiles drive away. He ran home. He was thinking about Kate.