Stiles could feel the fabric of his shirt sticking to his lower back as he moved. He wasn't sure if what he and the guy attached to him were doing could be called "dancing," but no matter what he called it, their gyrations were making the places where their bodies were plastered back to front damp with sweat. The song they were grinding to was maybe a remix of something Stiles had heard on the radio the other day, but it didn't really matter, since all he cared about was the pounding, buzzing beat. His thighs were starting to get tired from the constant slight knee bend he had to do to reach optimal dirty dancing height, but he didn't mind, since it took away from the throbbing behind his eye that was probably his hangover already starting.
From his spot in the middle of the dance floor, he couldn't see Danny, which wasn't a surprise, given the lack of any sort of non-strobe, naturally coloured lighting, but Stiles thought it might be a good idea to check in with him. Considering the amount of pre-drinking they'd done to make a night at Jungle seem like a good idea, Danny could be on top of a table already.
All he had to do was get the dude out of his back pocket. It was too bad, though, really. He was a good dancer, with strong hands that felt nice travelling from his rib cage to his hip bones and back again. The solid weight of a hard body made Stiles feel small, something surprisingly difficult to achieve, with his height and deceptively broad shoulders. He even smelled good, under the general atmospheric musk of sweaty guys and early Sunday morning desperation.
Stiles hadn't seen the guy's face before he'd allowed himself to be pulled into an audition for a soft core porn, but everyone who frequented the only gay club in the county seemed to be improbably attractive, so Stiles would bet actual money on him being hot enough to take home for the night.
But he wasn't going to. This time, instead of a grubby student housing apartment to take his weekendly hookup back to, he only had the upstairs bedroom on the west side of his childhood home. Also, he was expected to be home and awake at a reasonable hour for breakfast with his dad, and that was a one night stand-free engagement. (A moot point, since Stiles only ever grudgingly parted with a solo cup half full of coffee while showing his "date" to the door, nice to meet you, see you never.)
After an unsatisfyingly long bass drop jarred his rhythm, Stiles started to peel muscled forearms off his midsection. He'd just barely managed to take a step away when a smiling waiter with stars on his nipples stepped to the left and his breath squeezed out of him in a painful rush.
Derek Hale was at the bar. He was talking to Danny, who looked hella buzzed, but otherwise okay. Derek Hale was standing at the bar, chatting with Danny, with his arm slung around a tiny blonde girl with a dimpled smile.
Stiles felt bile rise in his throat, along with cold anger at the audacity of goddamn, cocksucking fate.
You'll be fine, Stiles had convinced himself when Danny had texted him that he wanted to go out, for old time's sake. (It's been 8 months, Stiles had reminded him) He'd just go out to the place that his ex-boyfriend was pretty much guaranteed not to be. He'd be safe because the crowds, the smell, and the loud club music were all things Derek hated individually, and together, they spelled disaster. Or, at the very least, a wicked headache.
So, Stiles had figured the chances of seeing him were slim to none. Too bad destiny liked to screw him over nice and hard every once in awhile, in ever new and creative ways. Because, really, who comes to a gay club with their girlfriend? Derek, apparently.
Danny laughed at something the girl said, and herded her closer to the inefficient crush of people ordering drinks. Stiles could feel his skin tingle from the sudden absence of body heat, though it was far from cold in the club. The dancing guy touched the gross, sweaty part of his lower back at the same time that Derek's eyes snapped around to meet Stiles'.
In that second, he imagined a scene like in a movie trying too hard to be oscar-worthy, where Stiles oils his way through the smoky crowd and apologizes and they kiss and live happy ever after.
But that wouldn't happen. First of all, there was no smoke in here. There wasn't even fog, not after the dry ice incident of '09. Second, Stiles couldn't really see himself "oiling" anywhere, with his limbs frozen as they were, under the weight of Derek's cold, bitter eyes.
The biggest reason, though, was the simplest. Stiles wouldn't go over there. He'd never cross those 15 feet and ask forgiveness because he didn't deserve to be forgiven.
The way he had ended things with Derek had been brutal. He'd waited until the last possible second to do it, until the date on his non-refundable bus ticket was less than 24 hours away. This was fun, but I want to be with someone who has their life together, y'know? He'd stared in the mirror repeating the words until he was sure he could say them without his heartbeat speeding.
It raced now, as Derek's face tightened up, and too-reflective eyes dragged down Stiles' body, and Stiles felt his skin heat up in...shame? Maybe? But mostly want.
The Derek who stood in front of him looked just like the one in Stiles' headiest dreams. Tight jeans, crisply gelled hair, and that stupid leather jacket that must be a million degrees in the club. Stiles wanted him, more than he'd ever wanted any of the girls or guys he'd hooked up with in the past year, needed his hands on him viscerally.
Stiles didn't know what possessed him, other than his own selfishness and the sudden, hate for the nameless girlfriend. He stumbled back into the stranger, who still had a hand on him, and might have been saying something persuasive into his ear. Grabbing a sweaty palm, he wove them both toward the back wall of the club, doing an awkward sideways shuffle so that he could keep his eyes on Derek's. People walked between them, breaking the contact, but whenever they moved on, Derek was still there, still staring.
When they reached the concrete wall, illuminated by a dim purple fluorescent bulb, Stiles wasted no time in putting his back against the wall and yanking the man in by his hips. He pulled at the broad shoulders and trim waist, encouraging him to pin him absolutely.
He evaded the guy's lips when he leaned in to kiss him, taking the wet smear of an open mouth on his ear as punishment, and rolled his hips upwards to get the show on the road. He felt arms tighten and thigh muscles bunch and he let his eyes find Derek's in the crowd as the new rocking motions brought memories crashing back.
Asking to be slammed back into his bedroom door, like old times, so he could forget the years between that moment and when he'd been so naive. Getting comfy on his knees and sucking greedily until Derek couldn't take anymore, not stopping until he was firmly pushed off, because he felt safe and useful in the V of Derek's legs. Kisses that were too hard, bruised too deeply because he wanted to have the marks to press down on later.
The painted concrete wall scraped against his spine with the force of their grinding, yanking him out of his thoughts. He gasped as the guy bit his neck and Stiles considered telling him not to be an idiot and break the skin, but then he remembered watching tiny cuts from sharp human teeth heal over time and he found he didn't want to speak up.
The two points of mild pain and the rough, pleasureable push of jean against his cock combined to make his spine arch. Everyone else disappeared. There was no sweaty, grabby guy rubbing off on him, no drunk patrons, no Danny and certainly no girlfriend. It was just Derek and Stiles in the club, Derek's eyes latched on like prey to the arch of Stiles' throat and his lips parted in ecstasy.
He wondered how much Derek could smell from over by the bar where he was gripping a stool with a white-knuckled hand. Probably not much, but he liked to imagine that Derek could smell his desperate want from a mile away, and hear his harsh breaths being punched out of him by the force of the stranger's thrusts.
The man's hips stuttered and he swore in Stiles' ear, so Stiles knew he must be close.
He snaked a hand in between them and twisted his wrist awkwardly to speed the process along.
"Yeah," he whispered, unnecessarily, since no one would hear them, or care what they were doing. "Yeah, give it to me. Do it. I want you to. Come on."
"Whoa," the guy panted, and his face scrunched up in orgasm. Stiles tilted his head, exposing his neck to his heavy breath and staring Derek down. Just as the guy finished coming with a groan, Danny and the girlfriend came back, greeting Derek with blissfully ignorant smiles, which he didn't return. Instead, he refused the luridly pink drink in Danny's hand and stalked away into the teeming crowd.
No longer under that burning gaze, Stiles felt cold, and the small hurts prickled into awareness. His hip bones ached from a too-tight grip, and neck felt like it had been sunburned, then chewed on. Well, he supposed, the second part is true. He imagined if he looked in the mirror that night(doubtful) he would find a couple imperfect bite patterns on the tendons in his neck.
A clumsy hand plucked at Stiles' waistband. "Do you want me to…"
Stiles twitched at the sound of his voice, and barely managed to tear his eyes away from where Derek had faded into the crowd. He pulled away from the guy's loosened grasp. "No. See you."
In the wake of Derek's sudden disappearance, Danny looked around for what might have upset him, smiling reassuringly at the girl before picking Stiles out, his eyebrows popping up at the sight of Stiles extricating himself from a post-coital octopus, obviously sex-flushed and hickeyed.
The thumping music no longer seemed so overwhelming, or the dim neon so private. Stiles felt phantom eyes on him, as well as Danny's very real ones, and needed out. Limbs stiff from panic, he lurched through the crowd toward the fire exit. His jeans were uncomfortably tight, and the press of his fading semi into his fly made his skin crawl. With the exit sign in sight, a hysterical laugh bubbled up in him at the thought of his hook-up slinking out of Jungle with a wet crotch.
He had to wait for a gaggle of drag queens to cross in front of him, but finally, he burst through the thick double doors and into the alley outside. Stiles stumbled into the filthy wall and idly wondered if a grungy alley was a requirement for zoning of sleazy clubs. It stunk of cigarettes, piss and a phantom whiff of acidic kanima venom that was all in Stiles' head.
He pressed his hands into the rough brick and let his head fall between his shoulders. The buzzing of the yellow street light overhead made it easy for him to zone out into memories he always ran from if he could help it.
God, he had been so fucked up that year. After the three of them had died, with the nogitsune and the aftermath of the nemeton following so close behind, it had been a triple whammy of PTSD.
His dad had tried to convince him to go to therapy, and it probably would have helped, but after Eichen House, he couldn't handle being psychoanalyzed. So instead, he'd spent that one, long year pretending nothing was wrong and trying to keep his mind from tearing itself apart. Finishing his senior year in the day time. At night, Derek waking him up from his nightmares with kisses, allowing Stiles to cling to him when he couldn't tell dream from reality. Derek conflicted, hating himself for touching Stiles when he was like that, Stiles hating himself for basically forcing him to. It was a vicious circle of self loathing.
Stiles growled in frustration and pulled his hair like the pain in his follicles could make the flashing memories stop coming.
The first time, in the dark, Stiles' breath still hitching from a nightmare, grasping hands ignoring soothing ones.
The whole afternoon he'd spent struggling for breath when Derek brought up maybe going to visit Cora in South America for a couple of months.
Derek's face, the day Stiles had ended it, stoic in the shadows of his ruined family home, his eyes wrecked, not that anyone would notice the subtle differences. Not like Stiles could.
The worst part was that it had worked. Pretending everything was fine and using Derek as a crutch had stabilized him enough to heal the wounds of his mind and body. He'd surfaced from his needy, unstable fog with growing horror of what he'd done to Derek.
Stiles flipped around, put his back to the sticky wall of the club and sucked in greedy breaths to keep the breakdown at bay. He closed his eyes and clenched his hands into fists against the urge to count his fingers. He didn't do that anymore. He didn't need it. He counted his breaths instead and lost track of time trying to make his mind go blank.
His back hit wall a split second after strong hands gripped his shoulders and his scalp scraped against the brick when he looked up at Derek's furious face.
"What the hell was that?" Derek demanded, beta blue eyes flashing in the relative privacy of the alley.
"I don't know," he answered, truthfully.
"Do you want me to see you happy with someone else? Is that it?" Derek shook him a bit, and pressed him harder into the wall. "Is he your boyfriend? Did you bring him here to shove in my face?"
"No!" His shout reverberated in the empty dumpster a few feet away. "I don't know that guy. I don't even know his name."
Months of judgemental lip pursing from Scott never made him feel as gross as he did in that moment. He felt bile rising in his throat, and concentrated on the throb of his sharp shoulder blades digging into the wall instead. He didn't look into Derek's face, even though avoiding it bent his neck at a weird angle. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the tendons in Derek's neck flexing. The silence stretched out, filled only by the muffled thud of the bass behind the fire doors of the club. Except, he supposed, Derek could probably hear his heartbeat, hummingbird fast and uneven with his anxiety.
What was Stiles meant to say? Was he supposed to knock Derek's hands away and storm off? Did he want to?
"Did you come?" Derek growled. It sounded like an accusation, not an invitation, but Derek released his grip in Stiles' T-shirt and slides his hands down the sides of Stiles' torso, his thumbs grazing Stiles' nipples. Stiles's shoulders twitched and he finally looked up into Derek's face in surprise.
"No," he said, dumbly.
"Do you want to?"
Stiles swallowed, and let his eyes slide away from Derek's again. Instead, he watched Derek's hands move incrementally on Stiles' ribs as they expanded and contracted in quick breaths. He dipped his chin in a jerky nod. "Please."
Derek dropped his hands to the button of Stiles' jeans, and he immediately missed their warmth. Stiles instinctively grabbed onto the inside of Derek's forearms to try and get it back, and Derek stilled in the act of pulling Stiles' fly open. He looked up at Stiles, confused, and Stiles shook his head, moved his hands to Derek's biceps and gritted out, "keep going."
Derek finished opening the tight jeans Stiles found in his bedroom at his father's house. There wasn't much give, but he managed to fit a hand between them and Stiles' boxers and rubbed the back of his fingers down the front of the thin material. Stiles tightened his grip on Derek's arms at just that tiny stimulation and gasped when Derek changed course and pulled the waistband down as far as he could to take Stiles' hardening cock in his fist. He seemed to be ignoring the damp patch that had already started to stick to him as it dried, but Stiles felt the skin of his cheeks burn at the feel of the stiff cotton.
There was no lube, so when Derek started to pump his hand fast it hurts a just a tiny bit. Stiles' belly clenched at the familiar bite of painful pleasure which had been SOP for them, but Derek took his hand away, licked his palm and it went a little easier after that.
Derek remembered everything that turned Stiles into a puddle of sexually satisfied goo. His strokes were even and perfect and Stiles' spine bowed out from the wall, his shoulders digging in again, unnoticed. It was embarrassing how quickly he got close to the edge again. He couldn't hold back his small grating sobs, and couldn't stop his fingers digging into the muscle of Derek's arms, so hard it had to be painful, even without claws.
"I wanted to kill him," Derek whispered, and Stiles had to strain to hear past the roar of blood in his ears, and the haze of imminent orgasm. "For a second, I wanted to let the wolf take over, make sure he never touched you again. I want to be the only one who gets to touch you. To see you like this."
Stiles whimpered as he came. He was vaguely aware of Derek's eyes flashing again, but everything else was bulldozed by sparking pleasure clawing to the surface and burning itself out.
When it was over, Stiles slumped back into the wall and Derek followed him, molding his solid body against him. Stiles' shirt was rucked up around his belly button, and Derek coasted his thumbs back and forth over the skin of his hips in a hypnotising tattoo. Stiles breathed, open-mouthed, until his chest no longer felt like it was going to burst. He realized, after a few minutes of sweetly blank afterglow, that he was breathing in time with the warm puffs of air that came from Derek's mouth next to his ear.
Derek's stubbled face dragged along the side of his cheek and his mouth almost made it to Stiles' before Stiles jerked his face away, and pushed himself out of Derek's arms, fumbling with the zipper on his fly.
"Why would you do that? Shouldn't you save that for your girlfriend?" He wasn't sure if he meant the aborted kiss or...whatever else they had been doing.
"My-" Derek flinched pack as if slapped, his eyebrows pulled in a grimace of confusion, which cleared quickly as he threw a glance toward the club. "Emily? She's not my girlfriend. She's new in the pack. Isaac brought her in, asked Scott to give her the bite because she's got cancer, and they're in love. Which you would know, if you talked to anyone in the pack, besides Scott."
Stiles' gut did a weird up and down swoop. First, relief filled him that he wasn't too late. Then, a second later, he cringed at what he'd done when he thought he was. They weren't together. Derek and the girl...they…
"It doesn't matter," Stiles said, at length, and shouldered past Derek, heading for the street. "I still have to go. I never-" I never meant to see you. Or touch you again. Or remember.
"You coward."
He stopped, but didn't turn around. "What do you want me to say, Derek? That I am a coward? Fine. Yes. I am. You should know that better than anyone, considering all the time you spent hiding with me under a blanket from the bogeyman."
"I never thought you were a coward then. I loved-" Derek broke off, and this time, Stiles did turn around.
"I know. That's why I had to leave."
"What are you talking about? You never had to go anywhere, not unless you wanted to." Derek closed the distance between them, stalking forward like a predator, but Stiles stood his ground, because he'd had this argument with himself too many times to be cowed.
"You would have hated me eventually, Derek, if I'd stayed, or strung you along while I went away to school. You already did, on some level."
"That's not true. I could never hate you." Derek reached for Stiles' shoulder, but Stiles knocked his hand away.
"You should!" He yelled, and ignored the answering shouts of drunk guys on the sidewalk at the front of the building. He breathed in and out to a count of 5, then said, quieter, "you have to."
Stiles shoved his hand into his hair again, yanking at the roots and likely messing up the artful tousle Danny had tamed it into even more than it already was with two pairs of hands that weren't his having run through it. His hands were greasy with product as his rubbed them down his face, but he felt like needed to scrub away all traces of doubt from his features before he could say what needed to be said next.
"I was no better than Kate. Or Jennifer. I just tacked myself onto the list of people who used you to get what they wanted."
"You're not the same as them," Derek answered, immediately.
"Why, because I never committed mass murder?" Stiles spat, ignoring Derek's flinch. "Sure. But I still made you fuck me, even though I knew you wouldn't have done it if you'd really had the choice."
Derek didn't have an answer to that. Stiles waited a few tense beats for a rebuttal, then turned to leave again.
"I would have waited for you," Derek said, and Stiles stumbled over nothing. "Until you were 18, and you knew what you wanted, or even until you finished college, if you'd needed me to. But then, everything with the nemeton..."
Stiles nodded as Derek trailed off. "I didn't want to wait. So, I pushed, and pushed and I knew you would cave if I pushed just a bit more."
"Is that why you left?" Derek stepped up close to Stiles' back, not touching, but pinning him in place, all the same. "Why you never came back Beacon Hills? That doesn't make any sense, Stiles. You thought I would have hated you, so you did your best to try and make sure I did? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one."
"Yeah, well, I guess I wasn't dealing with a full deck just then, was I?" Stiles snapped, over his shoulder, then regretted it when guilt flashed across Derek's face.
The following silence was awkward like it had never been between them. Although, Stiles considered, there been very little silence to bear when they'd been together. Between Stiles' bouts of crazed mutterings and his need to be fully aware and awake until the moment he dropped asleep, Derek had done a lot of listening.
"And now?" Derek asked, soft as the slip-slide of a wolf's ruff between Stiles' fingers. "Is your deck full?"
Stiles slapped down his inner 12 year old, assuming Derek wouldn't take well to him cackling at the lame innuendo. "I'm better. I'm not...I'll always be a head case. But I'm better. I'm surviving. College is...well, it's a walk in the park, compared to my high school experience."
"I'm glad."
"Are you?"
"I'm always glad when I know you're happy."
"I never said I was happy."
Stiles turned to see Derek again, meeting his eyes in the dimness, feeling like the 6 inches of space between their face was way too much, but also not nearly far enough. He hoped that his total lack of poker face would say all he needed to about the past however many months of stupid teenaged pining and bad decisions, because his voice was gone, dried up. He couldn't have explained it if he wanted to.
Derek leaned in. On an instinct, one last time, Stiles cringed away from the kiss. Derek waited for long seconds, inches away, but stock still, while Stiles trembled and swallowed with his face to the ground. Slowly, Stiles lifted his eyes up to Derek's, and tilted his chin up so that they shared humid breath, but he couldn't close the distance. Almost in slow motion, and telegraphing each movement, Derek took the back of his aneck in one broad palm and slotted their lips together.
The kiss was gentler than any they'd ever had. It was slow and clumsy and perfect. Stiles moaned at the wet slide of Derek's mouth and his hands gripped Derek's hips almost of their own accord. They parted when they ran out of air and Derek moved his hand to Stiles' wet cheek, leaving their foreheads touching and their lips close enough to feel the other's bruised warmth.
"This is my choice. Stiles," Derek murmured. "Please, let me choose this."
Stiles nodded, his nose brushing against Derek's. Beyond the mouth of the alley, the world waited, with it's problems and fuck-ups and the work they had to do for them to be okay again. But, for right then, all that existed was them...their heartbeats melding with each other, then with the muffled, pounding bass.