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It’s in moments like these, with his back slammed against the very solid wall of his bedroom and a very persistent, very aggressive alpha werewolf with chiselled muscles plastered against his front that Stiles begins to question all of his life choices.
“Um, okay,” Stiles says, gulping, and tries to ignore his racing heartbeat as Derek freaking Hale rubs his chin against Stiles’s neck like he doesn’t just want to give him stubble burn but actually scratch his skin with his sandpaper face until it’s raw, and seriously, what the hell. “So, scent marking is a thing, huh? That’s ...um...good to know. Could we, ah, could we talk about what brought this on and oh God, can you just freaking stop touching me, you’re completely freaking me out, this is not cool, dude, this is so not cool, you can’t just slip into my room and pounce on me like that.”
“Stiles,” Derek says pointedly, “shut up.”
“Aahahah, no,” Stiles says and scrambles to protect the last remaining shards of his dignity. He prods at Derek’s obnoxiously perfect biceps, knowing full well that it isn’t going to get Derek to move, but hey, at least it’ll annoy him. Stiles prides himself with being expertly trained at annoying people. Specifically Derek. “Not happening.”
“Stiles.”
It really shouldn’t be possible to convey every emotion with one little word, from annoyance to an honest to God menace, tinged with a little constipation – although, who is he kidding, Derek always looks faintly constipated around Stiles, as if he is the bane of his werewolf existence or something.
“Stop squirming,” Derek orders blankly and Stiles thinks that he is enjoying bossing everyone around way too much. He fully expects him to start adding ‘I’m the alpha’ to every second sentence, as if he feels the need to constantly remind everyone of his awesomeness.
“Dude, how can you expect me to hold still, you’re rubbing yourself all over me,” Stiles wails.
He isn’t as dishonest as to not admit that a similar scenario has arisen in his mind a couple of times during Stiles very own, private, well, Stiles time, which in itself is disturbing enough, because he’s been perfectly content with imagining small, petite, witty, perfect and very much female Lydia Martin for years and he doesn’t know when his dick decided that hey, grouchy, dark-haired, alabaster-pecced and ruggedly handsome guys did it for him, too, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, what he wants to say is, okay, so maybe he’s fantasised a little about situations involving Derek, himself and a wall, but they’d gone quite differently in his mind, with a lot more kissing and sexy times and a lot less...well. Freaky werewolf habits.
Derek still doesn’t back up, and his hot breath is fanning over Stiles’s ear and holy fuck, no no no no no, he doesn’t need this right now, not with Derek systematically and professionally and undeterredly and unfazedly going about his task over symbolically writing DEREK HALE WAS HERE all over his body and with the very real and very threatening possibility of his dad coming home every minute now, especially since his dad is the sheriff and-
And right there, apparently.
Oh God.
“Oh my God,” Stiles screeches and flails his arms in shock so much that he hits himself on the head and almost gives himself a concussion. Almost. Sadly, he doesn’t manage to knock himself out. Someone out there clearly hates him, because they won’t even grant him the small solace of being unconscious for the confrontation with his dad that’s looming on the horizon and rapidly approaching. He can see it, it’s like a hurricane, and the shit will hit the fan any second now.
Derek still doesn’t take this as his cue for leaving, which surprises Stiles, because he has the tendency to bail and let Stiles cover up his shit with increasingly incredible excuses, so he’s either losing his touch or is just really fucking stupid. Because his dad. Is the sheriff. (and yes, he’s aware that he’s said that before, but it seems worth repeating) With a gun. And, okay, maybe not exactly a legitimate reason to start shooting at Derek, but from his corner this must look like statutory rape and at least pose an incentive. A very, very strong incentive.
“Stiles,” his dad says calmly from where he’s standing in the doorway, which is how Stiles knows he is so, so screwed, he’ll be grounded for the rest of his life and his dad will break out his gun and they’ll never find Derek’s body, that’s how screwed they are.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he squeaks, voice promptly skyrocketing into the highest tenor a boy his age is physically able to produce without tearing his vocal chords out, which probably doesn’t help to reassure his father. Like, at all.
“Actually,” Derek cuts in smoothly, “it’s exactly what it looks like.”
He doesn’t even have the decency to step back now that the freaking sheriff is in the same room, the sheriff who also happens to be Stiles’s father, who also happens to have arrested Derek not too long ago, the sheriff who now definitely thinks his very much not adult son has been interrupted making out with a much older man. No, of course he’s too cool for that, but hey, he’s leaned back a little so that there’re maybe fifteen inches separating their chests now, so at least Stiles can breathe without difficulties now. He appreciates that. At least he gets the chance to relish the last few breaths he will take in his very short life.
Or, you know, he’d totally do that, he’d totally be focusing on how awesome breathing is as long as you still are alive enough to do it, except he’s kind of busy staring at Derek in a mixture of absolute horror and disbelief, and then maybe, a little later, after his brain is done short-circuiting and has at least partially rebooted, picking his chin up from the floor. And doing a little bit more of the screeching thing, because hey, we’ve already established that he lost his dignity a while ago. It’s probably run off to have a little bonfire with his sanity and his self-confidence, most likely somewhere in the Antarctica. Somewhere very very far away. He’ll never find them again.
“Oh my God,” Stiles exclaims, again, and briefly considers the merits of clawing his face off. It might be less painful than what’s about to come. “Are you serious? Do you remember the part where he has a gun? An actual, legit, registered gun that he can use to turn you into a colander?”
Derek...smirks. That little bastard.
“Oh no,” Stiles says, grabs the comic book that’s been lying on the desk next to him and uses it to hit Derek over the head. He knows it won’t hurt him (in fact, he thinks the comic book is the one suffering serious damage here, maybe even fatal damage, the poor, unfortunate thing) but it’s strangely, childishly gratifying. Also, it’s a lot better than using his fists. Stiles tried that once, and he knows that if he did it again, he’d only end up breaking his hand. He knows how to throw a punch, his dad showed him how, but Derek doesn’t only have super freaking werewolf powers that probably make his bones extra adamantine but he also has cheekbones that you cannot possibly touch without cutting yourself.
So. Life lessons, Stiles Stilinski has learned them.
Maybe.
Well, some.
Seriously, all his life choices. If he, somehow, miraculously, comes out of this alive, he’s going to sit down and have a long, stern talk with himself, and he’s going to revisit all of them.
Hitting an easily irritable alpha on the head probably isn’t the wisest move either, but what with his sanity camping out in an ice desert and all, he’s allowed to do that. And lucky for him, Derek just looks sort of...annoyed and perplexed, not like he wants to tears his throat out with his teeth.
“No,” Stiles repeats, “don’t give me that smug ‘your father doesn’t possess any bullets that can seriously hurt me’ look. He’s going to arrest you. Again.”
Derek’s smirk grows even wider, so Stiles hits him over the head again, harder than before.
He wonders briefly, in a remote corner of his mind, if this is the equivalent of hitting a misbehaved dog over the nose with the newspaper, and whether, at some point in the near future, he’ll get a chance of cracking a joke about that without getting mauled. Probably not. But, come to think of it, Derek behaves exactly like an ill-bred dog. Stiles mentally adds googling dog obedience training to his ever growing to-do list. Maybe he can gets some tips and tricks from there.
“No,” he says again, waving the comic book in front of Derek’s stupidly attractive face. It looks abjectly battered by now. The vigorous shaking doesn’t help; in Stiles’s head, it makes one last miserable dying sound before fluttering to the ground, in pieces. Stiles’s heart aches for it. It was one of his favourites, too. He’s so going to make Derek pay for that. “Don’t give me the ‘your puny little prison cells can’t hold a big bad furry moon worshipper like me’ either. You’ll get arrested, and when the full moon comes up your little motley crew will be utterly helpless and I am not babysitting your puppies because you feel the need to be Mr Mysterious.”
Derek’s eyebrows do that thing where he looks kinda frown-y in a distinctly pouty way, and gosh, this is the most adorable thing has Stiles ever seen, he wants to lick that expression right off his face.
Wait.
What?
Stiles maybe makes a sound resembling a dying pterodactyl. He can’t be sure, because his brain has officially melted and is dribbling out of his ears. His body is a fucking traitor, that’s what it is.
“Stiles,” the sheriff says, his voice tight, but more like he’s torn between anger, confusion and amusement (and this is just not fair, no, this is wrong in so many ways). “Any time you want to start making sense and get to the actual explanation.”
Stiles looks at him, then looks at Derek, and has, for maybe the first time in his life, absolutely nothing to say.
“Also, Derek, anytime you want to step out of a compromising position involving my jailbait son...” his dad continues pleasantly, like his hand isn’t twitching towards his holster.
Stiles watches Derek’s Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallows and slowly uncurls the fist that has been gripping Stiles’s shirt all this time. Letting go of him is a bad idea, though, because apparently all that’s been keeping his legs from giving out was Derek holding him upright, and...well, he’d like to say that’s a whole new level of humiliation right there, but he’s been hitting so many lows today already that he’s not sure his self-esteem could drop any further. Derek catches him when he wobbles on his feet, firm grip and everything, looking remarkably undeterred.
“Well?” His father crosses his arms in front of his chest.
“He’s a werewolf,” Stiles blurts out, because his brain-to-mouth filter is only barely existing at the best of times, and this, this is definitely not a good time. Also, anything to steer his dad’s – and his own – mind away from...from...from that. That bad, bad train of thoughts that Stiles never ever wants to think about again. Except, you know, in the confined, dark solitude of his room with a hand down his pants.
Sheriff Stilinski frowns. “Is this a joke?”
“It’s a species,” Derek deadpans. Stiles looks at him, and Derek gives him a minute shrug.
“That’s-“
It just figures that the one time he’s actually saying the truth, his father doesn’t believe him. Understandable, of course, but man, his life sucks so much.
“It’s true,” he insists. “He’s a werewolf and Scott’s a werewolf too and in the last months there have been werewolf shenanigans a-plenty. Just, um, you know, not of that kind. Of the supernatural kind, not the sexual kind. This was totally a non-sexual thing. Derek here was just scent marking me because...um...why exactly were you scent marking me?”
It’s a legitimate question. Because Derek never tells Stiles anything before he’s already in the middle of doing it, and it says something about Stiles’s mental state that he doesn’t even think to ask anymore. He likes to think that he’s just gotten used to how weird werewolves are, but really, it’s mostly just him.
“There’s another pack in the area,” Derek explain levelly. “They’re dangerous. I needed to make sure you would stay under their radar.”
“Stay under their radar?” Stiles parrots disbelievingly. “Dude, won’t me smelling like you were seconds away from peeing on me put me smack at the bull’s eye of their target?”
Derek wrinkles his nose in disdain. “You already smell like Scott all over,” he says. “Now that you smell like someone who can protect you they will know you’re off-limits.”
“A-oooookay,” Stiles says, his brain still desperately trying to catch up and not making a very good job of it. He turns to his dad, who is still looking at them like he wants to have them both institutionalised. “So, you see. Totally reasonable and legitimate actions, here. Nothing sexual at all. Derek doesn’t want to bone me, I mean, come on, who’d even think that-“
Derek shifts a little uncomfortably next to him, and lowers his eyes.
“Oh my God,” Stiles says. He can feel his eyes rounding and he’s seconds away from doing a verbal keyboard smash. His mind is reeling and running a mile an hour with all the possibilities that have suddenly arisen, and his mouth, well, it actually manages to produce sounds, stringing together vowels and consonant at an alarming speed. “You totally do, don’t you?”
Derek gets that pinched look on his face that always appears when someone tells him things that are true but he wants to ignore. “Stiles.”
“No, no, you can’t deny it, you totally want a piece of this fine ass,” Stiles marvels. “Oh God, Derek, why didn’t you say anything? Seriously, dude, use your words, I know your parents taught you how to speak, you aren’t actually caveman level with that. Have you no idea, the things we could’ve been doing all this time-“
His dad clears his throat very pointedly. Stiles had almost forgotten he was still there. Oops.
“-or, you know, maybe not until I turn eighteen,” he steers clear at the last moment, “but no, seriously Derek, can’t you just open your mouth?”
Derek opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “...I was under the impression you were busy pining after Lydia.”
“Well, yeah, kinda, but Lydia’s still in love with Jackson, and if him being a giant douchebag who also turns into a scaly lizard monster and tries to kill people doesn’t put her off then I doubt there’s any chance left for me. I could’ve been getting some. This is so unfair, I’ll never forgive you for this,” he whines. “You better put out, you furry little bastard, or I swear I’ll shoot a wolfsbane bullet into your uncooperative ass.”
Derek eyes flash red for a second, but Stiles doesn’t back off, nu-uh, he never will again, because he’s onto Derek’s bullshit and the death threats stop being scary when he never pulls them off anyway.
To his credit, Stiles’s dad only shortly flinches, and then regains his composure. And oh, yeah. His dad. Right there. Damn. “I have no idea what’s going on,” he says, voice rough, “but you two,” he jabs his fingers at them, “you’re coming downstairs now, and we will sit at the table and have a very long and very detailed talk about...this, and everything else you’ve been keeping from me that you’ve been babbling about.”
Stiles gulps, but the threat doesn’t really make him come down from his hormonal, giddy high. Also, the way Derek blanches ever so slightly is the most hilarious thing he has ever seen. “Done.”
He leans towards Derek just a little bit, although he knows it’s not necessary, but hey, he’s allowed to enjoy their proximity now, isn’t he? Derek has just admitted that he totally has the hots for him, so that gives him a hall pass to do as much touching as he wants, right? “So,” he whispers, “the next time you pounce on me, can we maybe do a little more-“
“Stiles!” his father snaps impatiently.
Stiles cringes, and bolts. “Coming!”
And when there’s a skip in his step when he runs down the stairs, well, that’s his business.