Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and no profit, monetary or otherwise, is being made through the writing of this.
A/N: This was inspired by an email communication with UmbrataLupus who mentioned the word positions with regard to the writing of Sterek: "Please feel free to write as much Teen Wolf as you can. As many times as you can. In all postions..." - well, one thought led to another, and this is what happened as a result. Re-posted. Taken down due to a lack of reviews; giving this another go, because someone requested it.
"Uh, Stiles," Derek's voice comes at him from out of nowhere, and Stiles curses as his muscles stiffen in response to having been caught. "What are you doing?"
Stiles looks at Derek, and swallows, hard. The werewolf is upside down, or rather his vantage point of Derek is not right side up, and it makes him a little dizzy.
Derek's face pulls a frown that, strangely enough, even upside down as it is, somehow still comes out looking like a frown and not a smile.
"Huh, a smile is not a frown turned upside down," Stiles says, mostly to himself.
It's a noteworthy point to make, because, all his life he's heard that particular phrase, and today, he's single-handedly proven it to be false. He ought to write a dissertation about it, explain to scholars and kindergarteners alike, that smiles and frowns, upside down or otherwise, are not as interchangeable as people have made them out to be. It's a travesty that such a falsehood has been perpetrated so prolifically throughout society –entire generations buying into the misperception.
Derek shakes his head and raises an eyebrow. He crosses his arms over his chest – muscles rippling impressively – and sighs. Stiles thinks that the man looks more like a bat, hanging as he is, from the floor by his feet.
"Please tell me you're going to come down from there?"
Stiles doesn't think that Derek means for it to come out as a question. Derek doesn't ask questions, he makes demands, especially when he wants something, and why else would Derek be there, in the center of Stiles' room, if he didn't want something?
"Uh, I'm going to come down from here?" Stiles poses it as a question, just because he knows that it will rankle Derek, and he smiles, wondering if it looks like a frown to the werewolf who is still frowning up at him.
"What are you doing?" Derek asks again, and then he narrows his eyes and takes a step forward, positioning himself right below where Stiles is, dangling from a wooden beam in the ceiling.
Stiles shrugs. At the time, it had seemed like a good thing to do – hang upside down from one of the dusty beams in his bedroom – but now, when faced with the harsh reality of a logical question, Stiles finds that he really doesn't have a logical answer to parry it with.
"Come on, let me help you down from there," Derek says, and he reaches upward, placing his hands – so big and strong – on Stiles' shoulders.
Derek's now at eye-level with him – first time ever, because Derek is like a million times taller than he is, or at least, with all of his looming, he appears to be. And, from his upside down position, Stiles can see minute flecks of gold and silver swimming within the mesmeric green pools that masquerade as Derek's eyes.
Stiles blinks and he blushes, or at least he feels the heat of a blush rising in his cheeks, though he doubts that it's a visible blush as all of his blood has undoubtedly already rushed to his head – he can hear the mad pounding of his heart in his ears.
Derek's eyes lose focus for a brief second – pupils widening and then narrowing before refocusing on Stiles. Derek's lips part and Stiles feels like the world might just be slipping away from him when the man, cum wolf, takes in a shuddering breath before shaking his head and then closing his eyes.
"Intoxicating." The growled word is whisper quiet, yet sharp and stinging in the air between them.
Stiles doesn't know if it's the rush of blood, his heart drumming like a madman with a set of tom-toms in his ears, or the softly uttered word spoken from Derek's slightly parted lips, but there's definitely a compulsion to do something – a pull and burning twist in his gut that he simply cannot ignore.
It isn't hard to close the distance between them – swinging his upper torso forward an inch, maybe two – and Stiles is kind of happy that coach has been particularly brutal at practices lately, because it means that he has the upper body strength to do this. Whatever this is.
And then Derek opens his eyes – gold and silver specks war with their green counterpart for dominance – and Stiles reaches up, clutching at nothing. He's not thinking too clearly right now, and maybe that's because his head is spinning. He doesn't know how long he's been hanging upside down, but it's long enough to make clear thoughts disappear almost as swiftly as they come.
He laughs. It sounds like a cross between the hiccoughs of a drunk, and a teenage girl's hysterical giggles. Stiles reaches down, down to Derek, anchoring himself with the man's broad shoulders.
He blinks, takes as deep a breath as he can, which turns out not to be deep at all, considering that his lungs are being asked to work in a fashion they are ill-used to. Breathing upside down is not as easy as he thought it would be, not that he'd given much thought to that aspect of being upside down.
'How do you do it, Spidey?' Stiles wonders, hoping that he managed to keep that thought to himself, especially with Derek's gaze locked steadily on him, pupils now little more than a pinprick, not letting much light in.
'Just do it,' Stiles can hear his childhood hero's voice echoing in his head, 'kiss him,' and he thinks that, okay, maybe he has been hanging upside down for far too long, because hearing Spiderman talking to him like they're best buds, encouraging him to kiss a man that can transform into a big, bad wolf in the blink of an eye, is not normal. Not even for him.
'Spiderman, closet Sterek shipper,' Stiles thinks a little hysterically, and giggles threaten to steal his breath away, but he doesn't want that to happen, not when he's so close to his target. And, if Spiderman's onboard with this, then who is he – a mere mortal without any latent superpowers coming to the fore (unless sarcasm and quick wit can be counted) – to question it?
Stiles doesn't even know what his hands are doing (they really do have a mind of their own sometimes) when they move and his fingers find purchase in Derek's hair, and he's dragging the man's mouth upward, even as he stretches downward– feeling the pull of gravity in his abdomen and back, his neck – toward Derek's mouth.
His lips land awkwardly on the man's stubble-studded jaw, and he smiles, his mouth opening around it, his tongue scraping along the edge of Derek's jawline. Completely giddy – and this is something that gravity's pull on his blood, making it pool in his head, is totally to blame for – Stiles nips at Derek's jaw with his dull, ordinary human canines.
Belatedly, Stiles remembers what he meant to do, and he sobers as he watches the light from the setting sun glint and spark off of the gold in Derek's eyes. Deliberately, he stills himself, and he becomes aware. Aware of the heat coming from Derek, the musky scent of lust that hangs heavy in the air between them, and the sandpapery feel of Derek's skin beneath his teeth.
Derek's lips are just a short half inch downward, upward, Stiles doesn't know which way is which, and he doesn't care. He's dizzy – the room spinning way too fast beneath and around him – and he doesn't think that his hanging upside down has anything to do with it. He just knows that he wants, no needs, to aim a little higher, or is it lower?
Growling reaches his ears above the resounding, rhythmic ba bump of his heart, and then Stiles' world is awash in a colorful phantasmagoria – his life, short as it is, passing before his eyes in a lightning fast burst of constantly changing images that he can't halt long enough to fully see. There're stars and bright flashes of light, much like fireworks, and the steady, hungry pull of lips against his own, sucking the very life out of him, even as they breathe new life into him.
The world is spinning out of control, or maybe it's him who's spinning. Upside down becomes right side up, and his legs are made out of jelly. His head is pounding, but the lips are still there, warm and moist against his. Derek's mouth is a veritable cornucopia of flavor – copper, cinnamon and faint traces of vanilla mixed with orange.
Stiles doesn't even know how he's not falling, because his feet aren't touching the ground and Derek's frown no longer looks like a frown, and it's not an upside down smile at all, but something else, something that he wants to touch with his fingers, but his fingers never make it there, and he's tasting Derek again. His lips feel tingly and swollen and achy as they move over stubble and lips and his tongue really, really likes the taste of Derek.
He's gasping for air, fingers digging into flesh, pulling at hair, thoughts scattering faster than he can even think them. It's like he's drowning over and over again, except he doesn't ever want to come up for air, and he doesn't mind the downward pull of the water as it works in conjunction with gravity to claim its inextricable hold on him. It's like his head and his heart are exploding, and he wants them to. He wants his heart to pound and pound and pound until it bursts right out of his chest.
Stiles is lost in the depths of Derek's eyes - gold and silver and green flicker and flash like the dying embers of a fire. He blinks and breathes Derek; the man-wolf's heat threatens to consume him, and he almost wills it to happen, because he's already burning from the inside out.
"Stiles." It's said so breathily that Stiles doesn't think it can even be classified as a word, let alone an impetus to stop what it is that they're doing.
He whimpers when the lips he was steadfastly attempting to forge into some kind of unholy amalgamation – a sculpture of pure, raw flesh – part from his, and he strives to recapture them, falling forward, landing face-first against Derek's chest. And when, and how, and why did they end up sprawled and tangled together in the middle of his bed?
Stiles frowns and he twists his head, blinking up at Derek whose lips are quirked upward in something very much akin to a smile. The man's hands are resting on Stiles' back, rubbing a small circular pattern that is far too soothing for his own good, especially if he wants to stay awake, and Stiles is more than halfway certain that, in spite of the ringing in his head and the lingering dizziness from hanging upside down for so long, he wants to stay awake and indulge in a little more in his new favorite hobby – Derek kissing.
Derek's brows crease in concern when Stiles glares at him, even as he snuggles closer, sagging into the man's welcome touch.
"What's wrong?" Derek's voice is filled with worry, and that draws a lopsided smile from Stiles.
"Nothing," Stiles says in something like a purr, and he sneaks a kiss, pressing his lips to Derek's collarbone, delighting in the shiver that the touch elicits. "Just," kiss, "you," kiss, kiss, "like," kiss, kiss, kiss, "me."
Derek pulls away, places a finger against Stiles' lips before they can find their next mark – the juncture between jaw and neck – and he frowns. Stiles' heart skips a beat as Derek's eyes – strikingly green – hold his gaze unwaveringly. He wonders where the silver and gold have gone, why they've fled Derek's gorgeous eyes, and his breath catches in his throat when he sees what has taken their place – a reflection of him, inverted, as in a mirror.
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