750 words of a deleted scene, unresolved Sterek, ambiguous misunderstanding; warning for Stiles being outed against his will (offscreen)
Derek answered the door in a scrap of a shirt and comfortable sweatpants, soft hair in disarray and pillow creases on his cheek, because he loved to make Stiles’s life as difficult as possible. The careful explanation-slash-apology he’d planned was lost forever as his brain short-circuited.
“Why are you knocking,” Derek said, frowning at Stiles’s upraised fist, frozen in mid-air.
He dropped it. “Sorry, I know you probably don’t want to—”
“Did you lose your key?”
“—Um. No? I just didn’t want to, you know, walk in on you, or—”
Derek’s eyes flicked down to his chest, and the tiniest, most devastating smirk calling out the lie was enough to make Stiles long for the power to discoporate. “Here,” he said, and shoved the translated pages at Derek’s stupid face. “Cursed valley is a bust.”
Derek just stepped aside and wandered toward the kitchen, leaving Stiles to follow him in, or flee. Stiles followed. “Damn. I thought that seemed promising.”
In the process of slowly rebooting, Stiles assembled several context clues and arrived at a startling realization. Derek’s dusty shoes in the middle of the floor and the fact that his GPS last known location at his old house was unchanged since Monday told him Derek had been out late, probably in the woods. Nowhere near anybody spreading spurious rumors about nerdy high schoolers of his acquaintance. The easy tolerance with which he wasn’t ripping Stiles’s throat out meant that Derek hadn’t heard.
As his brain kicked into gear, his feet stalled out. There was a choice, here. Derek didn’t hate him yet. All Stiles had to do was not say anything, and Derek would go on being friends with him for the rest of the morning, smiling at him like an asshole and standing easy with Stiles in his space. If he pretended nothing had happened, nothing would change. At least until some undefined point in the future, when somebody else would say something, and Derek would think—Derek would know. Or maybe—maybe he could just lay out what happened, clear everything up. Maybe Derek would laugh, and he would laugh, and it would be—fine. Just another weird thing that happened to the two of them. Being mistaken for a couple. Ha.
“You hungry?” Derek asked. “I have more cereal.”
“I ate,” Stiles said. The way he stomach was roiling, he was starting to regret it. “Yesterday,” he started slowly.
Derek lifted an eyebrow. “You ate yesterday?” He opened the fridge and started to rummage through it. “Do you like eggs?”
Stiles scraped a hand through his hair in frustration. “I’m trying to say, yesterday at school I got, um. Outed. As, you know. Bi.”
Derek looked up from frowning at the contents of his refrigerator to frown at him instead. “You need me to kill anyone?”
Stiles had to smile a little. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine. I just—thought I should warn you. Finstock has this crazy idea that you’re my boyfriend, so—there’s a rumor going around. That’s all. Just so you’re aware. Of that.” He trailed off weakly. “So, I’ll just—”
“I’m not,” Derek finally said with a strange inflection, face completely unreadable, washed out by the flat light of the fridge.
“Yeah, obviously. I know that. You know that. I don’t know who would believe—something like that. Like I said,” Stiles tried to laugh, but his throat felt like sandpaper. “Crazy.”
“Right,” Derek said, still blank. “Thanks for telling me.”
“Sure,” Stiles said, wishing he felt any hint of relief. The truth is always best, right? So why did his stomach feel like it was about to turn itself inside out? “I’ve got to get to school. So, I’ll—see ya.” He turned to the door slowly, torn between the urge to run away as fast as he could and the desire to just—stay, maybe make breakfast, or heckle Derek as he stood at the stove with a spatula. The long hours of the day they could have spread out before him like an open field: going over his translation, stepping out for coffee, getting lunch somewhere, practicing defensive magic in the afternoon, seeing Derek’s eyes light up when Stiles did something cool, or said something funny, or figured something out. He picked up his leaden feet, one after the other, until he crossed the floor, and climbed the stairs, and hauled open the heavy loft door, Derek’s eyes burning into the back of his shirt the whole way.
oh gosh I can’t believe I haven’t posted anything since January; I literally had a dream the other day that I finished something and I was SO sad when I woke up and realized, no. but SUPER THANKS to @wellhalesbells for tagging me! it was nice to look through my ao3 and remember what I have actually done. Drabbles are collapsed to one entry; maybe I’ll do a separate one for those.
Rules: Post the first lines of your last 10 fics, and tag 10 people
1. He looked good, Derek thought, and immediately wanted to run his own claws down his face.
Shining in the Sun 0.9k, Teen Wolf, Sterek, G
2. The astringent aura of magic and the damp, drizzling rain almost hid the unmistakable smell of wolfsbane.
Sterek Drabble Collection 4.5k, Teen Wolf, Sterek, T
3. It was a sun-drenched afternoon with a pile of teenagers in his loft, when Stiles started to laugh, probably at something stupid—Derek hadn’t been paying attention before Stiles had his head thrown back, chest heaving with laughter, eyes closed and mouth opened wide, so wide.
Yeah 2k, Teen Wolf, Sterek, E
4. After Arthur had tracked him over half the states in the West, turning up like a bad penny whenever Albert had need, it was only fitting that here, as far out of his own habitat as a fish in a tree, in the sharp-edged, stifling noise of the biggest city he’d ever seen, Albert would be the one to find him first.
Wild Hearts 1.6k, Red Dead Redemption, Arthur Morgan/Albert Mason, G
5. The familiar growl of an old engine carried up the sharp slopes of the preserve to where Derek was shoveling loose soil and uprooted weeds to the downhill side of a tree.
From Deep Roots 76k (WIP), Teen Wolf, Sterek, T
6. Stiles would freely admit he’d been avoiding the cafeteria.
Brambles Bloom in Summer 1.7k, Teen Wolf, Sterek, G
7. Stiles’s feet landed heavily on the decaying stairs of the depot as the door clanged shut behind him.
Feel it Start 1.8k, Teen Wolf, Sterek, G
8. It was a first for Stiles, after a lifetime in the provincial wilderness, and the first time for Derek since New York.
The Starlight Regional (Even Trains Change Tracks) 0.8k, Teen Wolf, Sterek, G
9. It was quiet when he snuck back to the Hale house, the clearing hushed like even nocturnal birds and animals were respecting the crime scene.
Bittersweet Between His Teeth 1.7k, Teen Wolf, Sterek, T
10. “Okay, yeah, it’s a—it’s a beautiful rock, anyone can see that.”
The Farthest Star 9.5k, Teen Wolf, Sterek, T
Tagging! Please consider yourself tagged if this looks fun to you, ignore it otherwise, and link me if I missed your post. @allourheroes, @jennoasis, @ajeepandleather, @siriusstufff
It was quiet when Stiles snuck back to the Hale house, the clearing hushed like even nocturnal birds and animals were respecting the crime scene. He wasn’t sure why Derek would still be here, but he had a hunch. The hunch was: Derek had nowhere else to go. Even after all the terrible things that had happened in this half-acre patch of burnt woods, Derek still thought of it as home. Maybe the fresh coat of tragedy and gunpowder would be enough to make the idea of sleeping here less appealing than hunting for an apartment—if Derek stayed in Beacon Hills at all. That thought had hit him like a ball of ice, had burned through his exhaustion and driven him back here, to the most recent setting of his future nightmares.
The creak of the porch steps made him freeze, skin taut over racing blood, even as he reminded himself that Derek would have heard him coming a mile away. He took another step, then two, past the gaping front door ragged with bullet holes.
Stiles cleared his throat, as if that could keep his voice from cracking. “Derek?”
Silence was his only answer, but it was a particular quality of silence, one that Stiles had become pretty well acquainted with. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.
“Hey,” Stiles said to the stiff shadow above the stairs. The dull gleam of unearthly red slowly expanded from slits as the new alpha’s eyes opened just enough to glare at him.
“Go home,” Derek said.
“I went,” Stiles said. He’d changed, showered, picked up the spare key for the jeep, and made Jackson ferry him back to the parking garage where Peter had threatened and abandoned him, a lifetime ago. Jackson had been white-knuckled and silent the entire way; small mercies. That wouldn’t last. “Now, I’m back.”
The red eyes vanished, and Stiles heard a soft thump as Derek dropped his head back against the wall. “Why.”
“Um.” Stiles kind of wanted to step further in and close the door behind him, but he wasn’t sure normal house etiquette applied to half-torched, bloodstained, bullet-riddled husks. He shuffled in place. “So. You’re the alpha.”
Silence.
“How’s that… going,” he tried.
The silence somehow gave him the impression that if he had werewolf powers, he’d hear Derek grinding his teeth.
“I just ask because… well. The last guy who was the alpha, he was… how do I say this? Nuts. Totally nuts.”
“Stiles.”
“He was so nuts that the drive to make a pack had him immediately deciding that his number one priority was to bite literally the first asshole he ran into, which was Scott. And you saw how that turned out for him. Not to mention, the whole string of murders afterwards was murder on—on my dad.”
Silence.
“So you see where I’m going with this.”
The red eyes flared again, brighter. The upper floor creaked dangerously as Derek leaned forward. “Are you asking?”
“I—.” Despite the open door at his back and that half the house was ripped open to the woods, Stiles felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. He took a few deep breaths. Licked his lips. “What?”
“Are. You. Asking.”
“For—am I asking for the bite?”
“Yes, Stiles. Are you asking for the bite.”
“No!”
“Then why are you here?” The eyes rose gracefully as Derek stood up to loom harder, brightening as they caught more light, or Stiles’s eyes adjusted. Or maybe the glow burned hotter as Derek got pissed.
“I just came to check on you! God! I don’t want you to bite me, but I—”
“That’s a lie.”
Stiles felt his heart leap into his throat, shook his head against the memory of Peters teeth against his wrist. “You can listen to my heartbeat from all the way up there? That’s—ha. Freaky alpha hearing.” The sudden sweat on the back of his neck was clammy as he wiped it away.
“Stiles,” Derek snapped, and whatever it was that always drew Stiles’s attention no matter how scattered, like a magnet, like a lightning bolt, it was stronger now. It rang inside him, echoing, reverberating, so that one word had him reeling like a struck tuning fork, answering before he could catch his breath.
“I’m not—it’s not a lie. I mean, who doesn’t want superpowers, right? But I—You said it could kill me.” And so had Peter. “I can’t do that to my dad, Derek. I can’t leave him alone.”
The palpable cloud of menace slowly receded. The red vanished. “Okay,” Derek said, strangely subdued.
Stiles gaped into the darkness, thrown by the simple acceptance. But. Derek knew something about being left.
So Stiles barreled on, rather than let either of them dwell on it. “That’s a yes on the instincts, I guess. If you’re just handing out wolf bites to whoever drops by.”
“Laura fought it for years,” Derek said, and even from the upper story, it felt close. Confessional. “I’ll—I can control it.” From how he was struggling to even say it, Stiles was skeptical.
“She had a pack,” Stiles pointed out. “She had you.”
Silence.
Stiles licked his lips again, heart pounding. Closed his eyes. “I know you can have humans in a pack. I know—your family had humans. And I’ve been in Scott’s pack. Since. So far.” Derek made a dark, derisive noise, and Stiles hurried to finish before he got angry again, or laughed. “If it’s okay that I’m human—that I stay human, I could—I would—"
He barely registered the shriek of the bannister as Derek leapt over, or the displaced rush of air. The solid landing, on the weakened floorboards right in front of him, almost brought Stiles to his knees. “Whoa, hey—"
“Don’t joke about this,” Derek said, eyes like a banked fire, too close to look away from, close enough that Stiles could feel the raw heat of him, breathed in the animal musk and ash and—pond scum, weirdly, like he’d jumped in a lake. His palm was hot through Stiles’s thin t-shirt, shoving him back against the wall, splayed fingers digging in like he could pick Stiles up like a basketball, like he could tear out his heart, and maybe he could. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it,” he said, but it sounded like he was the one torn open, bleeding out. This close, the darkness weak between them, Stiles could see the wildness, the fear, that his whole façade was made up of cracks, barely strung together. Stiles realized with a jolt that if he pushed him just right, dug his fingers into the sensitive places, he could make Derek shatter.
Somehow, that made it easier to rest his hand over Derek’s, to lightly press that trembling power even closer to his heart. “I mean it,” Stiles said, meeting his eyes, steady, strong. “I want to be in your pack.”
Derek’s fingers spasmed hard enough that Stiles was pretty sure he’d have bruises in the morning, and the air between them was full again of that pressure Derek had reeled in earlier, the weight of his power. The scarce inches separating them were charged with a turbulent potential that Stiles could almost feel like static on his skin. Slowly, carefully, eyes burning, Derek leaned closer. Stiles had to bite his lip and try not to hyperventilate, couldn’t help but glance down at his mouth as it opened, and he couldn’t keep in a gasp when the edge of Derek’s teeth shone in reflected starlight. The fangs. The fangs. His heart kicked into higher gear and he struggled, on instinct, lashing out, but of course he was stuck, trapped, pinned like a bug, like an idiot—
“Ssh,” Derek murmured, gentle, around his huge fucking fangs. “You have to submit.”
Stiles threw his head back with a high, sharp laugh, because what did that even mean? and then his whole body was shuddering, beyond his control, because Derek’s fangs were on him, on his neck, the barest pressure around his pounding jugular. “Ssh,” Derek said again, and the soft brush of his lips sparked a different kind of shudder entirely, the adrenaline and the heat and the way his skin always leapt to Derek’s touch crashing against each other in a way that was consuming, and mortifying, and entirely not his fault.
“Okay,” Stiles said, sucking in a deep breath, willing it to be true. “Okay, we’re doing this now. This is happening.” He squeezed his eyes shut, unclenched his abused muscles one by one until he could slump against the wall, let Derek take his weight as his warm breath dampened Stiles’s neck. Derek, the bastard, only hummed, giving him yet another sensation to try not to react to. “Ugh.” Not sure what to do with his arms, he tried awkwardly setting one on Derek’s gently heaving shoulder, wrapping the other around in an uncomfortable kind of hug.
Eventually, teeth that had gone human-blunt pulled back entirely, and Derek kind of stiffened. Stiles magnanimously decided to ignore Derek’s embarrassment as he came back to himself.
“You are rank, dude. Did you go run through a swamp?” he said instead, and the tension in his shoulders slowly deflated.
“Lake,” Derek admitted. “Shut up.” He nuzzled into the curve of Stiles’s shoulder a little, like he could do it stealthily. “Pack members should respect the alpha.”
Stiles rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah? Well, you’ve met me, so if that was a requirement, you shouldn’t have said yes.” He risked a condescending pat on the head, Derek’s hair thick under his fingers. “I don’t think I could respect anyone who smells this fucking terrible.” He ignored Derek’s grumble. “If we’re going to get anyone else to join this pack, you’ll have to shower. Like, regularly.”
The scrape of Derek’s stubble on the delicate skin of his neck sent shivers all the way to his toes, and he felt Derek’s toothy grin in response.
This was either the best or the worst idea he’d ever had.
angst, roommate, slash for @sterekdrabbles 2/15/19
~
“Derek, I know you’re angsty about me going back to school with the witch hunters still out there, so why don’t you just come stay with me? I need to find a new apartment anyway. We can set up a game console, some couches, a dark corner for you—”
Derek’s eyes narrowed, but he wasn’t saying no.
Stiles grinned. Holy shit, what am I doing? “C’mon, it’ll be fun! You can be my roommate-slash-guard d—”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
Roommate-slash-object of Stiles’s debilitating crush would be more accurate, anyway, which Stiles could not let him find out.
I asked @misfitmonarchythings for a picture prompt in the @sterekdrabbles server, and they were very kind in sending me this person with a bunch of tattoos! So, I wrote a little bit of AU magic stiles :)
~
“Do you trust me?”
The guy—Stiles—stood scarred and tattooed with one foot on the railing and a hand extended. The night wind on the rooftop cut through Derek’s jacket, whipped around them and out over the sparkling cliffs of the city.
“We just met,” Derek objected.
He had a sly, sideways smile that sent heat up Derek’s spine. “That wasn’t a no.”
When he took the proffered hand, Stiles yanked them both over the railing with surprising strength. In a breath, the ragged black feather tattooed on Stiles’s arm shimmered, lifted off, and floated them weightlessly to earth.
@simplyn2deep happy end of January!!! I had so much fun with your prompts for the @sterekdrabbles January Jaunt exchange; I hope you like at least one of them. This one is for the prompt: dealing with the morning after their first time.
A/B/O AU!
~
Stiles woke up slowly, warm and comfortable. He snuggled into the cloud-soft duvet, pressed his nose into the pillows, yawned and stretched the pleasant soreness in his muscles.
At a strangled sound from beside the bed, he shot up straight.
“Um,” he said.
The amazing guy he’d met last night looked significantly the worse for wear, with wild hair and wilder eyes.
“You’re an omega,” Derek stated.
“Yeah,” Stiles said cautiously, “You knew that last night.”
“I knotted you. We,” he gestured helplessly.
“I remember. I remember enjoying that.” He bit his lip, considering Derek through half-lidded eyes. “A lot.”
@simplyn2deep sent me some amazing prompts for the January Jaunt exchange run by @sterekdrabbles! I wrote this one first: a drabble dealing with the inopportune ability to freeze time :D
~
For as long as Stiles had been masturbating, he’d had the ability to freeze time on orgasm. The world stayed still and grey around him until he got turned on. He generally used O-lando to do homework, or snoop, or get to school in the mornings—always careful about rejoining regular time around other people.
At his first glimpse of Derek Hale, shirtless, caught halfway through a pull-up, Stiles realized that using the Bone Zone to spy on him had been a huge mistake.
He was definitely bi.
Derek dropped from the beam and turned, nostrils flaring. “Stiles?”
The glade he stumbled into was nowhere he’d been before, and Stiles had seen and blessed and bled over every inch of the preserve. It was almost suspiciously beautiful, lush with greenery and flowers.
A ray of light beamed down from a perfectly timed break in the clouds. It illuminated the very center of the clearing, where a dewy leaf unfurled.
“Very subtle,” he said. “Is that for me?” Stepping closer, he found a heart-shaped flower that pulsed at his touch. “Huh.”
A thought occurred: he should bring it to Derek. That felt right.
