#sterek fic

[ihaventdecidedyett]

Derek pretending he can't hear Stiles talking to himself

[unholyfudgebiscuits]

New intern/volunteer at the wolf sanctuary Stiles jumping into the pack of wild wolves because he heard the handler Erica say domesticated and not ‘not yet domesticated’.

Full shift Derek and owner of the sanctuary loosing his ever loving mind when he looks out his office window and sees a random 20 something year old hop into the wild wolf enclosure like a frog into the frying pan. He’s shifting and barreling through the door and over the fence letting out the loudest, most protective and furious roar any of the wolves have ever heard.

The actual wolves bowing their heads and backing away from the grinning and oblivious human. All they see is god level tier alpha protecting his mate and they all submit themselves to the two.

Stiles has no idea the danger he was in and Derek is still pumping with adrenaline when the human drops down next to him and hugs him around the neck. “Who’s a good boy! Look at the big beautiful man!” Stiles coos happily as Derek realizes the predicament he just put himself in. Because now Stiles assumes there is always a black wolf the size of a car in the enclosure and he can’t shift in front of a human.

Stiles starts brushing him and petting him and kissing his “little forehead” and Derek is too stunned and confused to do anything but sit and take it. And Erica is on the other side of the fence wailing in laughter, holding her stomach.

From then on Derek is shifted and waits for Stiles every night as this college aged freak never fucking sleeps and pops over at the weirdest times. The wild wolves eventually become so desensitized from Stiles smell they actually start treating him like the alphas mate and it’s not long before he’s leading them around like little ducklings even when Derek isn’t right next to him.

And of course Derek starts falling for the buffoon. The idiot human with pretty doe eyes who smells like cinnamon and magic and wears his heart on his sleeve. The only problem any of them have is that Stiles insists on meeting the owner of the sanctuary and Derek Hale can’t be so busy he’s gone every single time he’s here… Stiles tries sneaking into the man’s office and snooping around and the big black wolf he calls Fenrir follows after him huffing and growling in discontent when the human starts going through his things.

[hedwig221b]

THIEF

sterek | E | 35,6k | ao3

Tags: Emissary Stiles Stilinski, Good Pack Alpha Derek Hale, Alpha & Emissary Relationships, Bad Pack Alpha Rafael McCall, Hurt/Comfort, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Pack Dynamics, Mild Gore, Near Death Experiences, Unhealthy Relationships in a non-romantic sense, Stiles Stilinski Leaves Rafael McCall's Pack, Stiles is Rafael's emissary, Magic, Top Derek Hale/Bottom Stiles Stilinski, Good Peter Hale, Werewolf Politics, Praise Kink, the non-sexual kind

Summary:

There was no physical equivalent to what it felt like they did, so intimate it was. It was seeing each other naked, it was deep make-outs, it was dry-humping, and it was sex, but it was none of it. Perhaps, if someone opened their chest cavities, took their hearts and squished them together, that’s what it would feel like — feeling their valves open and close, the blood pump, the muscles contract, and one heartbeat pulse right into the other.

Derek offered his hand. “Let me show you one more time.”

“Show me what?”

“What would it feel like to have an alpha.”

Warmth burst in Stiles’ tight chest. His stomach swooped. His spark trembled in anticipation, reaching out, striving to taste that power again. Going red under the constant gaze of those hazel eyes, Stiles put his hand in Derek’s. He couldn’t help but give a small inhale at their sparks meeting once more.

Heat. Weight and weightlessness. Tight embrace and high, impenetrable walls. Power. Safety.

[inkandgasoline]

The piece of art I did referenced in this post! A scene from my upcoming multi-chapter fic, which I'll be sharing more about soon!

Not gonna lie--I'm super nervous. This is the first time I've finished a drawing in so long, and I'm trying to be okay with everything about it that isn't perfect.

But I love these boys, so here we are!

(If you feel so inclined--please reblog, don't repost. If you share to other sites, please link to me. Do not feed to any AI.)

[timetosuitup]

Derek rarely crashes out. Yes, he snaps and slams people against walls sometimes. But that’s mostly Derek being Derek. He hasn’t had a full blown crash out in front of the pack in forever.

That is until they find Stiles bloody and injured deep in the woods after looking for him for two days, having engaged the entire supernatural population of Beacon Hills, the whole sheriff’s station and all of agent McCall’s special contacts. Stiles was no where to be found.

And the strangest part was that no one was able to track him – no phone, no scent, no sound, no foot prints or anything.

So when they finally find Stiles sitting on the forest ground, next to the steaming dead body of a wendigo, and he explains that he used one of Deaton’s runes to hide his tracks from them, because he wanted to do this by himself, and “you guys never believe that I can do anything by myself, but look. I did it. He’s dead” – Derek crashes out.

No one stops him when he screams at Stiles that he’s a fucking idiot, that he shouldn’t let Stiles go anywhere ever again for the rest of his life.

And Stiles’ weak attempt to joke it away with “what, you gonna lock me in your tower or something?” only fuels Derek’s crash out.

Derek screams back that yeah, you know what? He’s gonna lock Stiles up. He would have his dad throw him in a cell at the station, but that’s not gonna do is it??

No, he continues, voice shaking with anger. No, because you would find a way, wouldn’t you. You always find a way, you stupid reckless idiot.

Maybe I should hold you down myself. Maybe I should have Deaton build a cell, reinforce it with the darkest fucking magic and summon some fucking dragon or something to guard it. Maybe there’s a ritual that makes you stay right where I can see you at all times so you can never leave me ever, you hear me?

And when Stiles points out that that might be illegal actually, Derek shouts that he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care what it takes, as long as Stiles can’t wander around and be stupid and idiotic, as long as Derek doesn’t have to find his dead body.

Whatever it is, Derek’s gonna find it, and he’s gonna…and he’s gonna…

And he’s gonna sob uncontrollably into Stiles’ neck, apparently.

And Stiles is gonna hold him through it, and whisper that he’s sorry he scared him, he’s sorry he was so stupid, until there are only tiny sniffles left.

And he’s gonna press a kiss to Derek’s hair, holding him so tight, before whispering softly that he’ll always find a way.

[car0lanny]

I also have this other wip that lives in my head, however, instead sickly angsty, this one is just a black hole of horniness: alpha Derek x baby-sitter Stiles.

Basically, alpha Derek married omega Paige due to a agreement between packs, but always kept it clear he was not interested in her and wouldn't mark her. It didn’t change even after four years together and with a now three year old kid, Eli. He always kept himself distant, working until dawn and the last time they shared a bed was the night Eli was made, but even then he didn’t even knot Paige.

Paige who, after so long trying to make Derek like her back, fucked everything up by sleeping with some random person after the first fight the two had in months. She tried to hide it and obviously ir didn’t work, would never work. Derek was a werewolf, he could smell the other man in Paige from the moment she stepped into their house. So divorce was on the table, but Paige refused to sign anything, swearing it wouldn't happen again. Derek didn’t force her, but it was clear that he also didn’t believe her, nor forgotten. So Paige made herself useful, working harder and without distractions. She couldn’t lost Derek.

With both working for longer and longer, they needed a competent baby-sitter for Eli, now lonely and sad with their fights. She asked a few woman from the company, who indicated a pretty sweet, innocent, young boy, Stiles Stilinski, the son of the sheriff and the downtown hospital head doctor. The boy comes from a wealthy family, goes to collage at nigh so his scheduale works perfectly, know about werewolfs and just turned nineteen. It’s just perfect.

Stiles understand Eli immediately and they just, click, more than Paige or Derek ever had. Eli asks him to play and Stiles accepts, talk, Eli shows his room and Stiles acts like it is the best place ever, Eli says that he's sad and Stiles hugs him. Eli talks about Stiles to everyone that cares to listen, including Derek, who always asks more, clearly pleased with his better humour even if he always arrives too late to actually meet Stiles. Paige takes it a win. Eli loves Stiles, and Derek loves seeing Eli happy, so he surely likes her a bit more for being the reason for it.

It takes almost to weeks for Derek to properly meet the famous Stiles. He finished work early and initially he dreads it, because it’s just the time Paige also leaves, so there is a high chance of them meeting on their way. Then, he almost kneel and thanks god, because as soon as he opens the door he's hit by the sweetest smell and Eli, running towards him with the biggest smile. Right behind him comes the owner of the smelll, a bit tall and pale, pretty. Too pretty for Derek to not just stare a bit longer.

The boy is smooth, sweet talking Eli into always doing what he would never do if any one else asked. But it’s Stiles, he said the day Derek commented about how he would never eat the tomatos when Paige offered and now it makes sense. It’s Stiles. His smile, his slight touch, his scent. Everything about him screams passion and love, and he is enchanting and alluring.

How he looked at Derek through his thick eyelashes, swollen lips half bitten and deliciously flushed. How he looked disappointed in having to leave, but pleased that Derek offered him a room for him to stay the nights he didn’t have class. God knows how Paige didn’t catch it the moment she walked in, to them talking in slow, almost purring voices, while Eli eated the cake Stiles made without a care in the world.

Paige didn’t catch anything in that moment. Or in the next, or the next, or never. But one day she woke up in the middle of the night, bed empty as it always is since their "honeymoon". She just feels that something is going to happen, if it isn't already. She walks slowly, unsure to why she's being so careful inside her own house, until she hears.

The sound of skin meeting, shaken breaths and growling. A shiver run down her spine at Derek's voice, so pleased, so satisfied, holding Stiles down by the neck, fully dressed as he fucks into the boy bent on his desk, moaning and shaking and fully naked. Stiles is completely out of it, too lost in the pleasure to hear Paige's hitched breath, but Derek does, and he looks directly at her and doesn’t stop. He don't even falter, merely blinking before dimissing her completely and returning to the boy. His boy, he says and keeps moving, and Stiles scent blooms with delight, agreeing senselessly and calling for Derek like a mantra.

When they are finished, Derek's knot inside Stiles and a small bite on his shoulder, not a mark but a promise very close to it, Paige is no longer there.

The first thing Derek notices when he enters his office the following morning is the divorce papers on the table where he fucked Stiles, while the boy snores peacefully on his bed.

[tspidey]

“I could start a fire.”

“You got some wolfy magic fire powers I don't know about?" Stiles shoots him a look full of mockery, shivering mercilessly under the blankets that should have become his warm, little cocoon an hour ago, if it weren’t for the negative degree weather with no heat.

Derek’s wolf keeps Derek nice and toasty. 

Derek, on the other hand, is pacing the room. Derek doesn’t pace. He’s only pacing because he’s worried about Stiles freezing to death and how Stiles making life difficult for everyone involved by refusing to let him under the blankets to exchange body heat.

As much as Stiles would love to participate in some good ole man-on-man survival with Derek, not even frostbite will make him make Derek engage in any kind of physical intimacy he doesn’t want.

Not after everything Derek has been through. Not after Kate.

Even with Derek's earlier insistence of staying in his wolf form.

He stops pacing to stab Stiles with a glare that ranks in the low ‘maybe I’ll warm you up by setting you on fire’ category. Which still leads to the same problem. The old, abandoned motel will go up in flames during the biggest snowstorm in history, and Derek will be retraumatized. Again.

“I’m fine,” Stiles eventually says, only fairly confident the temperatures won’t actually kill him in his sleep. Though, he already can’t feel his hands or feet.

“Let me sleep with you.”

“Pass,” Stiles says stubbornly, and he’s pretty sure he sees Derek twitch with annoyance. See, Stiles doesn’t even make a dirty joke out of it. He should definitely get some brownie points for that.

Derek tries a different tactic.

“Because you can’t handle me being hotter than you?” Derek asks, raising his eyebrows challengingly as Stiles slides him a knowing, moody look of how Derek is poorly, terribly, exceptionally obviously trying to get Stiles to fess up to whatever the problem is through baiting his ego. Such an Alpha move. It’d work on someone like Scott who’d genuinely be offended or wanna-be-Alpha Jackson, but Stiles? “It’s not my fault.”

Stiles nods along in agreement.

“I know.”

“It’s just my wolf—”

They speak at the same time but Derek hadn’t gotten to his punchline yet, and Stiles now looks like the dead fucking serious one. Derek stares. Like the werewolf who can hear a pin drop in another house over somehow misheard him. As far as rejections go, it’s not the worst one Stiles has faced. 

“You know… what?” Derek asks slowly.

Stiles shuffles further under his blanket, rubbing his ice-bricks-for-hands together, looking away and shrugging. What’s more to say? He knows Derek is hotter than him, in every sense of the word, and now Derek can get it through his thick head why Stiles is so adamant about no survival-cuddling. 

“You knew what I was going to say, right? You just beat me to the punch.”

Okay, first of all, ‘I’m hotter than you because of my wolf,’ is not a joke and normally, Stiles would be way more inclined to focus on vocalizing Derek’s budding-but-stunted sense of humor. Except—

“… no punchline.”

“What?” Derek says, too demanding for their cold, silent room.

“There’s no punchline,” Stiles repeats, defensive at the fact that it’s just so hard to believe someone like Stiles would be into him.

Stiles stays in the ratty, old motel bed, and Derek stands across the room as they both glare at each other for no discernable reason that Stiles can figure out, except that Derek is offended by this revelation, their breaths coming out in white, irritated puffs at each other.

Great, and now Derek’s heading for the door. 

“I’m fixing the fucking heat.”

“How?” Stiles calls after him.

Derek doesn’t respond, like an asshole.

Fuck it.

Stiles jumps up after him, since he actually has a small chance of fixing it with his kickass tinkering abilities, and also he’s a little worried Derek might try to wolf out on the generator and he’d rather not die in a gas explosion tonight, thank you.

“Do you even know anything about generators?” Stiles asks, following Derek down into the creepy basement, blanket wrapped around his jacket like a cape.

“Manual,” Derek answers, and apparently, he’s going to ignore Stiles while he searches around for said manual.

Stiles holds his phone’s flashlight up to the big hunkin’ beast. The thing must be ancient for its size—a motel this small wouldn’t need something this big. It’s probably just outdated, which is good in this case. The alternator in Stiles’ jeep is an old hunk of metal too and the gears look pretty similar.

… somewhat similar. If he squints. A lot.

Setting his phone’s flashlight down and angling it just so, he gets to work.

First thing first, troubleshooting.

He’s in the middle of checking the pressure valves when Derek returns and stops next to him.

“Hold that light a little higher, would you?” Stiles can barely see the numbers on this thing and not because everything is lit by shadows, but because there’s a layer of dust inside the meter, like it’s fallen right through glass and made it to the other side.

Derek raises his phone and automatically angles the light over the meter. Stiles offers him a tiny, appreciative smile.

“Gages are within five, so those are fine,” Stiles mutters, talking out loud as he thinks, and mouth pulled into a concentrated frown. “Could be something with the voltage…”

“How do you know any of this?” Derek asks, and Stiles briefly breaks his concentration to look up at his… packmate. His Alpha, really. He’s a little surprised to find interest in Derek’s eyes, not because Derek never asks him personal questions, but Stiles never found heat management systems to be particularly interesting, hence all the duct tape under his hood. He doubts Derek does either.

He does like using his hands though.

“The alternator in my jeep is pretty shitty,” Stiles says, just on the side of bittersweet. “I, uh, like to keep all its original parts intact, at least what I can. From when my mom owned it. I started working on it as soon as I got it.”

Which implies heavier subjects than Stiles would necessarily like to go down tonight, so he tilts his head back to look at Derek with a brighter memory. He’s going to ignore how the light of the phone causes a soft streaking effect of Derek’s werewolf eyes, or how it makes it look like Derek’s watching him a little too intensely.

Just a trick of the light.

“It’s the first thing I fixed properly, y’know–refurbished the alternator, with my cut of our first pack allowance. Bought a set of worn-out bearings. Those are the things that were making my jeep scream and then die,” Stiles talks absently as he—painfully and sacraficially—drops his blanket from his shoulders and dips down to the coldest concrete floor known to mankind and wiggles underneath the generator.

There’s a long pause. “I wondered what you did with that.”

Stiles bangs his head. “Ow, fuck,” he grumbles. He doesn’t care if this hunk of metal was invented sixty years ago, who puts the volt gauge under the thousand pound death box that could crush your head like a watermelon? More importantly, Derek. “Really? You did?”

“I noticed you weren’t at the bookstore the next few days.”

Stiles smiles a little at the rusty underside. Warmer than he’s felt all night.

He does like to buy books.

“Can you move that a little to the right… a little lower, no higher was better…”

It takes a couple tries to direct Derek to get the light to shine directly enough on the damn thing before Stiles has any chance of reading the numbers.

“You were eight then,” Derek says.

Stiles doesn’t know what he’s talking about for a moment, before he catches up, circles back. Eight years old, when he started working on his mom’s jeep.

“Yeah,” he says, matter of factly. “Not sayin’ I was very good at it.” He slows down as he rubs the glass with his sleeve. Derek is talkative tonight and he’s not always so chatty—or usually at all. Stiles considers this, before he adds, “There was my grandfather though, before he went into assisted-living. He visited once a year, with my dad’s full supervision. And he knew a little about cars.”

None of it is pleasant memories, but Derek is there, just an arm’s length away. Listening.

“I, um—I didn’t realize there was a good reason he was only allowed to see me with my dad there the whole time. My dad didn’t have his cruiser yet, and he took mom’s jeep to work one day. Got a nail stuck in the tire. I was… upset, and I don’t think my dad really… got it.” Stiles clears his throat. Upset is an understatement, but he’s too uncomfortable to even imply the extent. The panic attack he’d had after his dad had stumbled out the door to work, hungover. “Anyway, I called my grandfather to help me while my dad was at work, since I knew I wasn’t supposed to call him. And I asked him how to fix it so I didn’t have to wait around again…”

Hoping someone showed up to help him.

In hindsight, Stiles knows he was a kid and he just didn’t have a support system outside of his dad and the once-a-year visits from his grandfather. He hadn’t met Scott, and by extension Melissa, yet. Becoming self-reliant had been his only option, for most of his life.

“He actually showed me a thing or two.” Surprisingly enough.

Stiles blindly gestures upward toward the valves he’d just been reading, case in point. So really, his point here is that he has the understanding of an eight year old for heating systems which is exactly what he expects Derek to point out, never prone to pitying.

“But he was drunk. And mean. And he got meaner and meaner, until I ran inside and he chased me,” Stiles sighs. “I totally pulled a Home Alone maneuver on him and trapped him in the basement though. Till my dad got home.”

God, and hadn’t that been a night with his father.

Stiles never saw his grandfather again after that, and he hadn’t said a damn word to his father about it, never again wanting to see the man who called him a little idiot polack as soon as his father hadn’t been present. Even without knowing it was a slur for Polish people at the time, even eight-year-olds can intuit the intent behind words.

Stiles wriggles his way back out from underneath, giving Derek a small, sheepish smile in worry of oversharing.

Derek is—

“What’s wrong?” Stiles blurts out before he can properly access the sadness on Derek’s face. Of course, it probably wouldn’t look sad to other people, just distant eyes or the knot between Derek’s pinched brows that he can’t quite figure out how to unwind. Gentler— “Something I said?”

“Everything you said.” Derek lowers the phone light, his full focus on Stiles. “Thank you.”

Stiles blinks, confused. “For upsetting you?”

“For telling me the truth,” Derek says. “You don’t usually answer questions about yourself.”

Stiles flushes at being seen, and the sincerity in which Derek says it. Anyone would be less inclined to talk about themselves—where parts of themselves stem from, especially when it’s most of their parts—when the real answers are all upsetting or depressing. Maybe if his answers all started with the adage, ‘My dad worked with me every weekend to keep my mom’s memory alive, and he wasn’t drunk off his ass leaving his eight year old at home again because he forgot to wait to get him on the bus,’ he’d be more open. 

Derek must be able to scent his growing unease, because he says, “My uncle killed my sister,” to remind Stiles not to forget who he’s talking to.

Stiles manages to get his fraying nerves back under wraps. Not at the mention of Laura, obviously, who Stiles wishes he could’ve met, but at the tossed out lifebuoy to pull him back into safe waters. 

“At least now when I need something, I’ve got my pack,” Stiles points out, lighter, trying to bridge safely into teasing. “S’like having my own personal entourage around. Forget needing needle-nose pliers to pull a nail from a tire. You could do it with your teeth.”

Derek eyes him.

Stiles’ pupils flicker away, past Derek, considering, and slowly he can feel warmth tint his cheeks as the words inch up his throat and over his tongue.

“And y’know. Tell you how I wish our paths crossed sooner, but now I get to stand in front of a big hunk of broken metal, freezing my ass off with you, and how much… how much that last part makes a difference.”

Brown eyes slide back onto green-hazel, looking at each other through the single source of beaming light that seems long forgotten to turn off and save battery.

“If you have the understanding of an eight year old, you’re not going to fix this.”

And there it is. Stiles nods a little to himself.

“Yep, probably.”

Derek kicks him—human-gently, not werewolf-gently, and there is a difference, Stiles made a visual aid scale for the pack to reference—in the ankle. It’s a love nudge, really. Derek’s kind of love nudge and Stiles nudges back by kicking Derek harder in the shin. Werewolf-gentle.

“Go back upstairs,” Derek mutters. “We’ll share the damn bed.”

Stiles sighs, slipping back under the generator to give it another go. Sharing a bed still isn’t an option. Derek doesn’t speak again, so Stiles cranes his head back out to check on him—

Derek is…

Okay, no. Stiles won’t even think it out of self-preservation on the off chance Derek has become a mind reader and can hear his thoughts. Derek’s cheeks are just slightly colored. From the cold. It’s freezing down here, and sure, usually the cold doesn’t impact Derek all that much, it definitely usually doesn’t bring out a healthy pink to his cheeks, but that’s the only explanation Stiles has got.

Until Derek looks down.

At Stiles’ exposed midriff.

It’s a second, it’s not even a second, it’s not even long enough to be anything except a casual observation, like ‘oh yeah you have some skin showing that I don’t always see’, except it’s nothing even close to casual, and right as Derek realizes he’s been caught, Stiles lands on the insane understanding that there is something to catch.

“You think I’m hot?!”

It echoes around the boiler room as his two brain wires finally connect and spark.

“I was bearing my soul to you!” He accuses, completely out of having no idea how to respond to Derek checking him out, and and— No. No way in hell. Derek’s filler questions, those little nudges for Stiles to keep sharing, he wasn’t… He wasn’t. “You—” Stiles’ eyes are wild. “You were trying to make me talk longer so you could…”

Stiles is leaving. Yep.

Scrambling to his feet. Nevermind the massive blizzard outside and hypothermia right around the corner.

“Stiles—” Derek catches his elbow and pulls him to a halt.

Stiles’ cheeks are fiercely warming up.

“Your skin was barely showing,” Derek informs him, like that’s supposed to help?!

“Why are you looking at my skin? Why are you…” Stiles trails off as he feels the coldness of Derek’s fingers, like literal ice cubes holding onto his arm. Okay, fine. Derek probably wasn’t keeping him talking just to ogle him; Stiles knows him better than that. Another possibility is slow to filter through. It makes more sense. It makes a hell of a lot more sense. “Are you cold too? I thought your body would compensate for the temperature?”

Derek narrows his eyes a little in evident confusion.

“You’re… cold,” Stiles tests. “You want my body heat. It’s mutual. Survival.”

Derek is looking at him like he’d love to shove his hands under Stiles’ shirt but that makes sense. He’s freezing. He’s freezing and Stiles wrongly assumed Derek’s ability of regulating his body’s temperature, and Derek was just—overcompensating with that ‘hotter than you’ “joke”, and because Stiles is occasionally very stupid when it comes to Derek. This has to be one of those moments before his hope got the best of him, and he’s being stupid.

Anything else is just trying to make it fit into his own narrative. His own wants. That’s all it would be.

Of course it is.

“I’m not cold, Stiles. Your hands have just gone into rigor mortis and can’t tell.”

Stiles lifts his hands to look down at them like two alien things attached to his body, because there’s no way. Derek is just cold.

Derek does this weird ambiguous gesture with his hand, a dismissive sort of sweeping motion. “I don’t think I’m…”

Stiles shakes his head. “You don’t think you’re what?”

Hot? Stiles thinks. Over and over. Hot. Derek means he doesn’t think he’s hot, because he’s cold, and for some reason he can’t admit it, probably because of his damn Alpha pride and not wanting to cuddle, because ‘Derek Hale doesn’t cuddle’, or maybe Stiles has actually made Derek uncomfortable with the whole mutual survival comment, which is actually kind of mortifying. But he would consider sharing a bed if Derek is at risk too.

“It’s—” Derek stops. He starts again, frustrated. “You’re hot too.”

“No. I’m cold.”

“Stiles,” Derek grits out. His name must come from the heat of Derek’s chest for how quickly it crystallizes in the air.

I don’t think I’m hotter than you, rings crystal clear in Stiles’ head. So. This and that moment are related? Stiles isn’t wrong there, but now he’s completely lost, none of this makes sense.

“You think I’m hot?” Stiles repeats, unfeeling as the sentiment hasn’t processed yet.

A long, horrible awkward second passes.

Stiles’ brain short circuits.

“You think I’m hot?”

This time with something like realization breaking through the surface, accompanied with disbelief that there’s any chance Derek could find him attractive. Can someone go into shock from just hearing words? Or has the hypothermia just finally caught up?

“You’re attract—”

Derek clamps a hand over his mouth, effectively shutting him up.

“Yes,” he states plainly.

Stiles blinks big brown eyes. Processing. Processing…

Slowly, he peels Derek’s hand away. He doesn’t let it go, holding it in the space between their bodies that suddenly has more heat than any working generator could power.

“Okay, so here’s a question. Why did you try to ditch me to go fix the heat after I said I knew you were hotter than me, rather than, I don't know, correcting me?” Stiles asks, genuinely, despite his disbelief.

Derek doesn’t look away. Unlike Stiles, his gaze tends to lock onto his targets, even when he wants to break eye contact, and Stiles can tell right now is one of those moments. Still, his hand curls tighter back around Stiles’.

“Pissed me off you thought I couldn’t be interested in you,” Derek says bluntly. He brings his other hand over Stiles’, encasing his hand in a warm werewolf cocoon. The look he gives Stiles indicates the weight behind the meaning, that Derek is trying to be fragile with it, holding it softly so as to not hurt Stiles. Stiles’ heartstrings tug. “I forget how you think, sometimes.”

Stiles looks down, poking his tongue against his cheek, hearing the uncomfortable unspoken about his occasionally low self-esteem. Intermittent, at worst. Still, he offers Derek his other hand, letting him dethaw them.

“But then the story of my grandpappy got you going,” Stiles jokes—deflects.

Derek squeezes his hands. “No,” he says softly in a way that cuts right through Stiles’ coping. “It was more skin than you thought.”

Stiles’ head jerks up, startled at such a successful joke from Derek. Maybe even startled that Derek was willing to let the serious subject go for now. Either way, Stiles doesn’t pick it apart too much, and the details aren’t really what matters right now anyway.

Derek is attracted to him.

This isn’t the time to choke!

“Even if you got a boner, I wouldn’t care,” Stiles says, direct, but why not be direct? It’s not a big deal, not to him. Or it is a big deal. A massive deal. “Or I would care? I mean I’d… like it?”

Derek narrows his eyes a little, and okay, maybe starting out with boners isn’t the best approach, but—

Stiles shrugs and now it’s his turn to look Derek in the eye. “I just never thought you were…. Uh.” What are high self esteem words here? He can’t fall back on doing the thing Derek just pointed out he does. With as much confidence as his pitter-pattering heart allows him to, he tries again. “If you’re interested, I am too.”

That definitely gets the point across right? There can’t be any confusion with that and now Derek is looking down at Stiles’ hands holding his hands. It takes every ounce of willpower Stiles has not to pull Derek in before he tries to step back. Even while Stiles hasn’t nearly begun to wrap his head around any of this, a want has been ignited, spoken, and with Derek, Stiles has always run toward.

Better yet—

Stiles steps in when Derek doesn’t move. He closes the space between them, lifting Derek’s hands to press against his chest, over his heart to doubly confess the excited thrum to his wolf.

Derek doesn’t pull away.

“If I’m interested in…” Derek repeats, verging on teasing now, but he knows what Stiles means. Stiles can see it in how his eyes change, knowing, and interested, definitely interested.

“The blankets or… there are other ways you can warm me up,” Stiles says, unexpectedly softly for such a cheesy line, but Derek’s mouth is right there, and his own lips are feeling a little blue.