I&#x27;m Losing My Power

“Oh no, you’d never call me that.” Stiles’ tone is a dry as the freaking desert, and his expression says it all. Derek coddles the crap out of him. Depending on his mood, sometimes it was great and sometimes it made him feel even more fragile and human-y. “Derek Knight In Shining Armor Hale would never call me his damsel in distress.”

But they’re both thinking it. He huffs, throwing up his hands in something like defeat as he leans in to press his face into Derek’s shoulder with a groan. “Fine. Fiiiine.”

He can deal with the sarcasm, acerbic as it is. It's not Stiles' usual brand, but he gets it. Still, it's a relief when he gives up the snark and drops his head on Derek's shoulder. "Come on," he says, curling a hand around the back of Stiles' neck. "Bed."

Not that he's planning to give him much of a choice. Stiles is his own person. Independent as hell, and Derek knows he can take care of himself. But that doesn't mean Derek can't step in from time to time. "And I promise not to deflower you, my fair damsel," he adds with a mild smile, leaning in to steal a kiss.

[text] ok

He doesn’t want to deal with this. Any of this. Derek had been telling him for weeks to say something to his dad. To stop lying about where he was going. And what good had that done him? His dad had looked him dead in the face and told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t gay, leaving dad I think I love Derek rotting on the tip of his tongue.

Stiles knows he shouldn’t have called and left the message. He should have just left Derek out of it. But he’d panicked, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he just needed someone to agree and tell him how fucked up it was.

He gets there as quickly as he can, but it still feels too slow. Any time Stiles spends alone right now is too much, and he's looking to minimize the debt as much as possible. Still, when he gets there, he can't help slowing. It still hurts, seeing this place and what it's become. His family home, turned to rubble. It claws at something deep in his chest.

Just not as deep as it claws, seeing Stiles sitting there. He reeks of distress, sadness, hurt. And it's his concern for him that drives him forward, until he's standing just behind him. "I'm here," he says, kneeling down beside him. He hesitates to touch him, but the urge is too strong, and he ends up laying a hand firmly, consolingly at his nape.

lupusnoxia-deactivated20210713

A party wasn’t something that Jackson had expected to happen. The crowds, the loud music and the lights didn’t scream fun times for Jackson, yet when Derek had come home with two costumes and the biggest grin on his face, how could he say no? The more they planned it and talked about it, the more Jackson began to see the good side and as long as he didn’t have to leave Derek’s side at any point during the party then he would be fine, at least he hoped he would be.

As it had been put, the amount of agony they had both been through had surely earned them a ridiculous party and Jackson’s costume was Eeyore. It was all pretty perfect. That had been a week ago, now Jackson was sitting on the smallest corner of the couch waiting for Derek who had left him to attend to some sort of drink emergency. Jackson was content however, he could still see Derek and hear his heartbeat through the thrum of the music and he recognised everyone that was here. Things were… good.

#lupusnoxia #v: fire and water #// so this never showed up in my tag?#I was snooping on your page #and saw it in your tag for my url #I'M SO SORRY #*falls at feet*

He'd been half joking when he'd asked Jackson about the party. The costumes, they'd gotten on a whim. Thought it might make the Halloween experience a little more authentic. But when Jackson had agreed...well, he wasn't going to argue with progress.

And if it meant Jackson spending the night in that onesy, he wasn't going to argue with that, either.

He'd spent most of the night with him, an arm around his waist or his shoulders just to be safe, just to make sure he knew Derek was there. But an emergency at the coolers (some asshole from the high school trying to spike the drinks, and Derek wasn't going to let that fly) pulled him away for a minute. He tried to keep an eye on him, though, even as he was throwing the guy out by the back of his pants. And when he finished, he went right back, carrying a cup of punch in one hand and cupping the other under his chin to tilt his head up for a kiss. "You're adorable," he said. "And I brought you punch."

△ Would you let me put it in your butt?

Send me a △ and ask a really invasive question aimed at my character

Rate on a scale of 1-10 how much they don’t want to answer that question.

Answer that question.

"Seriously, how old are you?" He tries not to say it too sharply, but really, does Stiles have to say it like that? It’s not that the prospect bothers him. Sure, he generally plays one part in a relationship. But that doesn’t mean he’s not open to alternatives.

He crosses his arms. “Tell you what: ask me again, like someone old enough to even be having sex, and we’ll talk.”

[text] geez maybe I’m just trying to better your life

[text] and avoid history papers

[text] there are better ways to avoid history papers.

[text] which you should be working on right now.

the-write-ideas

Send me a △ and ask a really invasive question aimed at my character

They’ll have to:

Rate on a scale of 1-10 how much they don’t want to answer that question.

Answer that question.

#ask box

He’s being shuffled backwards and for a brief second, Stiles considers digging his feet in and trying to stop the inevitable walk backwards to the bed. But Derek is the immovable object to his unstoppable force and he always wins. (Though Stiles would never admit to that.) “I’m not upset. I’m not some freaking damsel with the vapors. I’m trying to help you.”

#adderallandimagination #v: slow burning fire #// Derek just wants to bundle him into bed #he's struggling not to #xD

"I'm not calling you a damsel," Derek says patiently, though not without a hint of exasperation. They've had this conversation before. Many times. And he knows it's partly his fault, that he needs to learn to stop being so damn over protective. It just goes against his nature. "But I don't want you helping me at your own expense. You don't want to sleep yet, fine." Not fine, but it's his body, and Derek is trying to meet him halfway. "Just stop looking at that for a while. Give yourself a break."

"Hey, Hey. Make room, you two."

Because obviously Scott’s not so large bed totally needed a few more limbs. Stiles kicks off his shoes and does his best to fill the miniscule gap against Derek’s back, kicking a leg over his and Scott’s legs.

myxresponsibility

"There is like zero room left on this bed, Stiles. Less than zero." That fact didn’t make the warmth trapped between his and Derek’s chests any less enjoyable, though it did mean an extra body. More comfort and care.

The alpha lazily snaked an arm between Derek’s armpit and torso, pressing his fingertips lightly against the human’s neck. The connection was there, a tether— looped between his body, through Derek’s, into Stiles and back again.

"Comfortable?" A question for both, really.

#myxresponsibility #v: by threes #adderallandimagination

Derek mutters something unintelligible at the disturbance, but shifts as much closer to Scott as he can. To be safe, he throws an arm back to catch Stiles by the hip. Knowing him, he'll fall off the bed and crack his skull open, and Derek would like to avoid that, thanks.

"You need a bigger bed," is his answer, grumbled into the crook of Scott's neck. There's no heat to it, though. He's comfortable. Warm, surrounded by pack, and just tired enough to feel heavy. "I have a king. In a corner." Optimal for corralling a certain someone with a certain tendency for restless sleeping and falling.

"There’s a list, Derek. There’s a list with you and Lydia and Scott and you and-” There’s a spastic gesture that’s more to set his thoughts back on track than to express anything out loud. “You’re on a list and something’s up with you and I can’t sleep right now, okay?”

#adderallandimagination #v: slow burning fire #// right back atcha

"I know." Of course he does. "But this isn't going to help. You're tired. You're upset. You need sleep, or the last thing you're going to be doing is thinking straight. Besides." He tightens his grip a little, more to make a point than to actually hold him, and starts walking Stiles back toward the bed. "I'm not planning on giving you a choice."

“I’m missing something.” Besides sleep, that was. Stiles can feel it burning against the back of his eyelids, tugging at some loose string in the back of his mind. He was missing something, and nothing else mattered until he figured it out. “I just…I don’t get it. I mean, I get it, like on a wholly ‘forest for the trees’ kind of thing. But there has to be more to it than that. There has to be a motive. There has to be.”

Because what the hell has he been devoting every waking second to, if not finding a motive?

Derek frowns deeper with each passing second. It's been nearly an hour, though, since Derek first arrived to find Stiles waist deep in printouts and red string, and it's time to step in. Literally. He steps up behind him, grabbing Stiles by the waist and physically turning him around, away from his board and toward Derek himself.

"Stiles," he says, "you need to sleep. All of that?" He gestures vaguely to the board, "it can wait. You're going to bed."

It starts with an intense need for wifi and to know what exactly led Mark David Chapman to go apeshit on John Lennon. Because it’s ass o’clock in the morning and Stiles hasn’t slept, but that’s totally fine. It’s totally okay. Seriously. He sees the guy with the glasses and the hair and the eyes (dude he’s so tired all of these things may as well be the exploration of a new world) and he’s pretty sure he’s hallucinating because the librarian was like 112 years old and hated him with the fury of a thousand suns.

He’s going to go ask, but gets sidetracked by Mark David Chapman and John Wilkes Booth and the fact that the Edwin Booth saved Robert Todd Lincoln’s life, and the next thing Stiles knows, it’s noon and he’s going to die if he doesn’t eat.

So maybe he blasts ‘Stacy’s Mom’ while he checks out the book, and the librarian who has a pretty good estimation of the old librarian’s hate face going on.

He’s a one and done kind of guy. Except for the fact that he’s in the library a couple of days later (why the hell didn’t he know that the internet was fucking full of the chemical make up of the drugs used to create Zombis in Haiti?) that his whole world gets turned upside down. Because the new hot librarian smiles and the universe implodes.

Okay, so maybe just Stiles’ libido/emotions/lizard brain implodes, but jesus christ that smile is incredible. Which is why he checks out a book and skims it through the night, returning it first thing in the morning with a note tucked in the cover.

There once was a grad student named Stiles

Who had traveled a whole lot of miles

To learn about history, old and new

And totally didn’t expect a hot ass librarian like you

#v: cover to cover #adderallandimagination

He doesn't love the job, to be honest. He likes the library. During his undergrad years, he spent a lot of time in those stacks. He knows where everything is, from the best reference shelves, to the fastest computers, to the best places to make out without getting stumbled upon by other students or professors. He slept on the couches, sprawled out in the chairs, passed out on the keyboards so many times in those first four years, it became as much his home as his dorm. He loves the library.

It's the people that give him trouble sometimes. Talking on their phones, hogging the computers for Facebook or Twitter or fucking Candy Crush. Just this month, he's caught three dumbasses smoking in the stacks, and if one more person walks right past the directory to ask him where the bathrooms are, he's gonna start stapling maps to their heads. He's not a mean guy, really he's not. But he can't take stupid.

It's money, though, and it means not touching the family funds to get himself through the last year of grad school, so he takes it. And when some guy (okay, he's kinda cute, in that spastic puppy sort of way) comes up to the desk blasting Bowling for Soup, he tries not to glare at him too hard until he leaves.

A few days later, though, punk puppy's back. And he's a lot cuter when he's not disturbing the peace, but no. He's not going down that road. That way madness lies.

Still, he smiles, and watches him stumble to get his book and go. He's not ashamed to admit that he watches him leave, nor is he afraid to admit he's happy to see him again the next morning, early as it is.

He doesn't read the note until after he's gone, and he regrets it. But he's got a plan, and Stiles has another book out. He doesn't know much about the guy. Stiles, a grad student like him (at least he wasn't some freshman infant, even with that baby face), likes history and punk rock and really shitty poetry..

But he thinks he might like to.

[text] What does a nosey pepper do? Get jalapeño business.

#adderallandimagination #text #v: slow burning fire

[text] you're dodging homework again, aren't you?

nottobecrossed

Charlee smiled just a little at Derek’s grunt of thanks. Typical Derek, but she was honestly just happy she could help and help him get better. She hadn’t done it for praise.

"Here, we should get you out of here. It’s not safe to be here." What if another one came back? What if something else found him? What if he got an infection from all this very rusty looking, unsanitary stuff around?

Charlee snuck herself under Derek’s arm, placing it across her shoulders, as she stood slowly to help lift the wolf to his feet.