(queerlyalex made this beautiful and perfect ficlet for this drawing :3 and I’m in love. Hope you all like this collab! :D)
“Are you awake?” Stiles asks, whisper barely audible over the soft music playing in the background. Derek drags his thumb over Stiles’ shoulder in affirmation. It’s a relative sort of awake, mind heavy with fatigue from the mind blowing orgasm Stiles just gave him less than an hour ago. All of his limbs are dense, tempting him to fall asleep before Stiles says anything else.
He doesn’t though, mind too trained to listen for Stiles. Stiles’ heart rate and scent, how his breath regulates; the small movements he makes, whether they come easily or are stiff with uncertainty. Derek’s body reacts and responds naturally to Stiles’, as if Stiles is an extension of him and not a separate, autonomous being.
At the moment, Stiles’ pulse is slow and steady. He smells like Derek and clean sweat, spunk and the underlying scent that Derek will forever associate with home. He’s warm and lax, sprawled across Derek, exhaling over Derek’s collar, hand twitching on his chest. Their legs are tangled, anchoring Derek to the bed. Derek appreciates it, without it he’d be drifting.
“No,” Derek answers, after a long moment. Stiles’ answer laugh rumbles against Derek, through him, vibrating their atoms together with Stiles’ amusement. Derek smirks at the ceiling. Even after years together, he still feels proud of himself every time he makes Stiles laugh. It’s a personal accomplishment.
“Remember when we first started sleeping together?” Stiles asks, tracing his fingertips over Derek’s chest, swirling patterns through his chest hair; tugging and smoothing it down with a lazy repetition. Derek is used to being used as a baseboard for Stiles’ nervous habits: rhythms tapped out on Derek’s leg instead of Stiles’, Stiles picking at Derek’s nails instead of his own, dragging his fingers through Derek’s hair over and over and over like he can’t help himself.
“Well, I got tired of your mouth being good for nothing more than arguing,” Derek says, in a reminiscent tone. “So, I shut you up the good old fashioned way.”
“Not the sex,” Stiles says, with an irritated huff, but he’s smiling, Derek can tell by his tone of voice. “Innocent sleeping, sleeping in the same bed together.”
“Of course,” Derek says, because he does remember. It was after they started sleeping together. They just kept falling asleep together. After sex, they would pass out on Stiles’ bed or fall asleep slowly on the couch watching movies. Stiles kept insisting that he never fell asleep like that. Neither of them napped for no reason, but they did it together repeatedly.
They realized quickly that they slept better together. Without Derek, Stiles tended to have violent nightmares that resulted in Derek climbing through his window at 3AM in the morning anyway. It was better if they started and ended the night together.
“I always sleep better with you,” Stiles mumbles, voice wavering in a way that means he’s about to fall asleep. Derek chuckles and strokes his hand through Stiles’ hair, tugging and twisting, thinking of the way it swoops and swirls in the morning when he has bedhead. “No nightmares, no problem. I always want to sleep with you.”
Derek grins and presses a kiss to the top of Stiles’ head. Stiles makes a pleased noise in response and nuzzles closer, tightening his arms and legs around Derek, clinging to him.
“I always want to sleep with you, too,” Derek whispers, but Stiles is already asleep, lax and comfortable around Derek. It doesn’t matter, because Derek will tell him tomorrow when they wake up and start their day with soft kisses, gentle reminders that they’re never letting each other go.