A/N: Just for fair warning, the pack is playing Spin the Bottle and there's a Stydia kiss. It has a purpose. Just keep reading. :)Derek hated it when they held the pack meetings at his loft. He wouldn't hate them if they were actually pack meetings and then everybody left, but they always stayed after the "official business" was done. Derek's choice was either to sit there, surrounded by college kids, or go upstairs and listen to the sound of his friends, his pack, having fun downstairs without him.
He always stayed downstairs.
It wasn't as bad when the semester was in session. They all spread to their far corners of the country and he would see them on an individual basis when they came home on break. Sometimes several of them would come home for Spring Break or Thanksgiving, whatever, but it was never the full pack. Not until summer vacation.
Then they descended on Beacon Hills like a plague of locusts-he kids, he loves them, they're his, but seriously-taking over his loft every weekend. And frequently during the week. In Stiles' case, nearly every damn day.
So it wasn't unusual that as the discussion of supernatural events all across the country wound down, his pack members started talking about events at their own schools. Someone (Lydia, he thought) went digging in his liquor cabinet and pulled out the tequila, while another (Stiles, definitely) snagged the 24-count case of beer from his refrigerator.
"Is this all you have?" he snorted in disdain, and Derek rolled his eyes.
"There are two more in the cooler," he explained, an irritated growl rumbling under the otherwise-patient words. "In my room." Because honestly, he didn't have any place else to put it to keep it out of the way of what basically amounted to a pack full of overenthusiastic puppies.
He'd moved his bed upstairs when it became habit for everyone to come over and chill all the time. He needed more room for furniture and he didn't want people sitting on his bed. Derek liked having pack smells in the loft, but that was his space.
A space which, currently, Stiles had no qualms invading. Derek watched in dismay as Stiles ran easily up the stairs; if asked why his eyes followed Stiles as he went, he would defend to the death that it was the only time Stiles was actually graceful instead of flailing around everywhere, and he still couldn't believe it no matter how many times he saw it. The sounds of the cooler scraping across the tiled floor made all the wolves downstairs wince, and when Stiles appeared at the top of the winding staircase, huffing and sweating just a little, Derek swallowed a groan. It was certain that when he went upstairs tonight his space would smell of Stiles.
"Anyone wanna help me get this downstairs?" he called out. The rest of the pack smirked at him and returned to their conversation. "Really. Anyone?"
Derek sighed and made his way up the stairs, grabbing the cooler and hefting it onto his shoulder. Stiles blinked. "No matter how many times you do that, dude, it's never any less impressive."
"It shouldn't be impressive," Derek gritted out. "We're werewolves. We have enhanced strength. You may have figured that out over the last five years. Also-."
"Yeah, I know. Don't call you dude," Stiles muttered, making a face at him, and Derek had to bite his tongue to keep from smiling.
"Get your asses back down here!" Erica called up to them, her voice sing-songy. "We're about to play Spin the Bottle!"
Stiles brightened, pushing his way past Derek and practically bouncing down the stairs. When he got to the bottom, he turned around and glanced up at Derek curiously. "You coming?" he asked, and Derek's immediate thought was definitely not one he could share.
"You go ahead. I'll put this in the fridge," he said instead, and it had to have been a trick of the light because he could have sworn he saw a flash of disappointment in Stiles' eyes.
When he rejoined them in the living room they'd all piled onto the floor, pressed into each other, and the flare of scents made him both groan and, privately, admit how happy it made him to have the scent of pack in his home again. He sat on the couch, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest as he watched his people play one of the childish high-school games they never found any less childish, no matter how many years passed.
Scott spun an empty beer bottle and it landed on Erica. She laughed, delighted, as she reached out and grabbed his shirt, pulling him in for a brief, loud smack on the lips. Scott blushed a little and cast an apologetic glance at Allison before resuming his place in the circle, amid cat-calls and a slight warning growl from Boyd.
When Erica spun and it landed on Boyd, everyone groaned both in disappointment, because it was clearly boring to watch Erica kiss her boyfriend, and fear that they'd just start making out and disrupt the game. Boyd snaked an arm around her waist and pressed a soft, though heated, kiss to her lips. She sighed happily as he pulled away, not-so-subtly wiping at the cherry-red lipstick he'd smeared.
No one was surprised when Boyd refused to take a turn, so the turn passed to Ethan, who was on his left. Everyone looked expectantly at Danny, so when it ended up pointing at Lydia, there was a lot of laughter. Ethan exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Aiden before pressing a hasty, chaste kiss to Lydia's lips, who glared at him when he surreptitiously tried to wipe it away. "It's weird, you're dating my brother," he explained apologetically, and she rolled her eyes.
Since it was her turn, Lydia shifted her focus to study the bottle and the people around the circle, and Derek could almost see the calculations running through her head before she lightly touched her fingertips to it. When she spun, it landed squarely on Stiles. His eyes brightened and he rubbed his hands together gleefully. "All my high school dreams come true," he quipped, and she sighed loudly, though with a fond smirk, as she scooted a little closer to him.
The soft growl rumbling from Derek's chest wasn't lost on the wolves in the room when Lydia leaned in, brushing her lips over Stiles' and then opening them. Derek's eyes flashed red at the exact second Stiles' eyes popped open in surprise when their tongues met. The kiss went on for much longer than Derek was comfortable with (to be clear, he wasn't comfortable with it even before it started) until she finally pulled away and cast a triumphant smirk at Erica. "I don't cheap out on my Spin the Bottle kisses," she said loftily, and Erica retaliated by throwing a pillow at her. When everyone stopped laughing and doing the good-natured-squabbling thing, they settled back down and then, it was Stiles' turn.
His whiskey-colored eyes gleamed in concentration and he held his wrist at a very precise angle, then gave it a sharp flick. Derek watched the bottle spin several times in quick succession, gradually slowing, then…
Isaac and Allison both scrambled away from their places on the floor, and instead of the bottle slowing to a stop in front of Isaac, Derek realized that it was pointing at the couch behind them. Where he was sitting. Fuck, the bottle was pointing at Derek.
"Time to go!" Allison announced, and, like it was planned, eight supernatural creatures and one human vaulted to their feet, grabbing their things and disappearing out the door in a mass exodus that happened so fast it nearly made Derek's brain spin. Which was both ironic and oddly appropriate.
"That wasn't subtle at all," Stiles commented, nerves wavering under his joking tone.
Derek crossed his arms over his chest, mostly because he didn't know how he felt about all this and the motion made him feel a little bit more like he was in control. "If they were planning on manipulating us, you'd think they would actually stay to make sure it worked," and really, what the actual fuck were the words coming out of his mouth? Why was he not pushing Stiles out the door so he could have his space back? Why was he even entertaining this?
… Was Stiles entertaining this?
Judging by the way his Adam's apple bobbed from the thick way he swallowed, from the way his eyes dropped to Derek's lips and the scent of adrenaline and arousal spiked, it was a good bet that he was.
Derek moved forward unthinkingly, not having given his body permission to do so, but not minding so much that it had. "It's your turn," he murmured, and Stiles' eyes, which had been locked on Derek's mouth, shot up in what almost looked like panic, wide and disbelieving.
"What do you mean?" he croaked, and Derek allowed a small, pleased smile to cross his face.
"I believe the rules are, you have to kiss whoever the bottle lands on," and, oh. He wanted this, too. He made a mental note to thank Erica later, because he'd bet his life that she was at least one of the initial conspirators.
Stiles' heartbeat stuttered and then pounded as he inched forward, eyes searching Derek's for any sign that this was a cruel, cosmic joke. Derek closed the space between them, hooking a popped claw in his waist band and tugging him in gently. "Watch it with that claw, buddy," Stiles mumbled, hands coming up almost involuntarily to brace against Derek's biceps. "If you get too excited, I might end up eviscerated."
"If I get too excited, it's not my claw that's going to pop," Derek growled playfully, and Stiles' eyelashes swooped downward as his lids closed and he inhaled a deep, steadying breath.
Derek pulled the claw back and lifted his hands to cup Stiles' cheeks, wondering how it took this long to figure out what everyone else, apparently, already knew. He was certain that Lydia's bottle landing on Stiles was pre-planned, as was her surprisingly thorough kiss. It wouldn't surprise him if she was Erica's co-conspirator.
Stiles shuddered underneath him, and Derek was reminded that he was in the process of doing something more important. Stiles' eyes had fluttered open again and he was watching Derek in fascination and desire, and his hands were kneading Derek's arms. Inhaling sharply, Derek lowered his mouth to Stiles' and swept his tongue over the younger man's lips, encouraging him to open up.
When they fell open easily, as if Stiles wouldn't dream of keeping them shut, Derek smiled into his mouth. Stiles' bottom teeth cut into his lower lip as he pressed forward and he didn't even care, not with the way Stiles' hands were sliding around his neck and tugging, pulling him in harder, and they were laughing and smiling and it was just such a huge relief, to be able to stop lying to himself, to stop pretending.
Their smiles fell away as their impatience grew and then they were kissing, really kissing, and it was hungry and they were panting and Derek growled low in his chest, the vibrations rumbling up and through his diaphragm and into Stiles' chest, considering the way he jumped a little and smiled a little, and then kept kissing Derek.
When they had to break to take gulping breaths, Derek dropped his hands until they were spanning Stiles' waist, and he leaned in to snuggle against Derek's chest. "It's about fucking time," he mumbled, and Derek had to cut off a bark of laughter.
"You knew, too?"
Stiles glanced up at him with a wry grin. "I knew before they did. I just wasn't prepared to do anything about it, so they did."
"I was right, then," he mused. "About Lydia's kiss being on purpose."
Stiles scoffed. "There is no way on earth that Lydia Martin would kiss me like that unless it was part of a plan. Or to stop one of my panic attacks," he allowed, and Derek shot him a frown. A playful grin quirked Stiles' lips. "So, you're a jealous kind of guy, huh?"
"I wasn't jealous," Derek protested. "I just didn't like the way she was messing with you. She knows how you feel about her."
"Felt," Stiles emphasized. "As in, several years ago, felt. Not feel, not now."
"What do you feel now?" Derek asked, almost hesitantly, and Stiles rolled his eyes.
"You may be pretty, but you're not dumb. You have to know how I feel about you." When Derek continued to study him, as if he were searching for the truth, Stiles sighed and grabbed Derek's wrist, pulling until his hand was settled directly over Stiles' heart, warm and comforting. "What does that tell you?"
Stiles was watching him steadily, his heart thumping at a quick but even pace. "It tells me I've been an idiot for far too long," he admitted quietly and Stiles grinned like the Cheshire cat.
"Yeah, you have," he said agreeably. "But now you've figured it out. What are you going to do about it?"
Instead of answering, Derek slid his hands under Stiles' thighs and lifted, eliciting a surprised gasp followed by an even bigger, more delighted grin. "What do you want me to do about it?"
Stiles glanced over at the staircase. "Don't drop me?"
Derek swallowed a laugh as he carried Stiles over to the stairs. He hadn't been wrong earlier. His room was definitely going to smell like Stiles.
He didn't mind even a little.