A/N: cased on a headcanon I got due to my dog LOVING to curl up on my sweaty workout clothes. I'm very pleased with how this came out and I hope you like it, too! For faster fic updates you can follow me at clandestinegardenias on tumblr (I post everything there first)
Sweat
Derek loves watching Stiles at lacrosse practice. He lurks behind the bleachers, confident in the knowledge that while he may look like a creeper he is not in fact a creeper.
Unless you count the fact that he wants to rip the clothes off one of the under-aged boys out on the field and press his mouth everywhere on that glorious, salt-sweaty skin.
Which, yeah, would probably qualify him for mega-creeper status if he wasn't absolutely certain that said teenager wants the exact same thing, and in fact quite a bit more. Derek is in actuality being the responsible one here, telling Stiles to take it slow, no hurry, and if it's his scars from Kate talking then at least Stiles seems to hear them and respect that maybe Derek is the one that needs to not rush this.
It's one of the things Derek loves most about Stiles; he's empathetic, and he can pick up on what Derek's feeling even when he's not even sure himself. It eliminates a lot of awkward conversations that would undoubtedly rip the half-healed scab off old wounds, and Derek is somewhat obscenely grateful.
Just like he's obscenely grateful for Stiles playing a sport. There are several reasons for this, some of them really rather gallant, and the rest just extraordinarily, indulgently selfish.
For one, lacrosse gives Stiles an outlet. The kid has an insane amount of nervous energy, and he's so smart that he literally can't expend it all on schoolwork. Lacrosse gives him an outlet for all of that, a way to finally get rid of that nervous buzz.
And besides that, it's a mental outlet. Derek isn't so conceited that he doesn't realize what all this werewolf/kanima/multiple murders/keeping secrets from his dad has done to Stiles. He can literally smell the stress rolling off of him, nearly constantly. But not when he's out on the field. Because in those moments, nothing else matters. There is only the ball, the other players on the field, the net, and his own breathing. Thinking becomes moment to moment, every second dedicated to knowing how to move, where to run within the schematic, and in that there is relief. He can't worry about Scott, about his dad, about Derek. He can only worry about the here and now, and it's huge having that kind of freedom. It makes Derek wish he actually got to play in games, just so he could have more of that reprieve.
All of those reasons, Derek congratulates himself, are very noble. They revolve around Stiles' health and wellbeing, and Derek truly values that.
But he also values the way Stiles moves. The bunch of muscles and the long lean line of his legs, the sound of his breathing coming rough and fast, reminding him of those times alone in Stiles' room with his hand up under that ridiculous hoodie. It's intoxicating.
More than any of that, though, is the smell. Stiles sweats when he plays lacrosse. A lot. It runs down his back to pool at the base of his spine, collects in the divots of his collarbone, drips down his face and laces his eyelashes with sparkling drops. It gets in his hair, in the little dip of his upper lip, slides down his neck beneath his jersey and over his chest. It soaks into his pads, time after time, so that they smell more like Stiles than Stiles sometimes.
It's amazing. Derek can smell him from near across town when he's at practice, it's that strong, like a homing beacon calling him in. He's a moth to the flame, and he doesn't even care. Because Stiles smells so strongly of Stiles at those times, like him and nothing else. Usually, Stiles will smell only mildly like himself; it's more a mixture of his shampoo, Tide laundry detergent, a whiff of the starch from his dad's uniform, the chem lab, Scott's aftershave, Allison's perfume, and a million different little things that grab on and cling to him throughout the day.
But during and after lacrosse practice, Stiles smells like nothing, nothing but himself. There's no dilution, no other smells to cover it up, it's purely him, and Derek can't get enough. He can't get enough even when Stiles doesn't smell so very, very sweaty and primal. When he does, it's nearly maddening. Sometimes Derek has to dig his claws into the metal of the bleachers just to keep himself from running out on the field and grabbing him, inhaling his scent from his pulse points and licking the sweat from his neck. He saves that for later.
Because if there's one thing Derek loves more than how Stiles smells so Stiles after practice, it's covering that up and making him smell like Derek.
Stiles is a clean slate when Derek picks him up, as he's taken to doing. No other scent has marred him, and Derek wants desperately for the first thing Stiles that smells like that's not himself to be, well, Derek.
And since Stiles is a very quick study, he didn't take long to figure out that maybe he shouldn't shower right after practice, maybe he should just go right out towards the parking lot and meet Derek. He is, after all, a pretty smart guy and being rewarded by ridiculously hot make out sessions would give anyone a Pavlovian avoidance of locker room showers.
Sometimes they make it all the way back to Stiles' house, if his dad isn't home. Sometimes they make it to the parking lot of the local nature preserve. Tonight though they barely make it past the edge of the woods surrounding the school.
"Hey", Stiles manages with a smile, and Derek is proud that he gets out a rough "Hello" of his own in return before they're kissing, hot and desperate because Stiles always runs hot after practice and Derek…Derek is drowning in his scent, it's everything, he's surrounded by it and engulfed in it and he can't help himself, can't stop the growl that escapes as he pushes Stiles back against a tree, breaks the kiss to press his nose at the juncture of throat and neck biting down a little just to hear Stiles' gasp, a stuttered little hu-huh.
He licks a trail through the cooling sweat along Stiles' collarbone, feels the other boy shiver and twitch, hands coming up to grasp at Derek's waist, trying to get a better hold and then giving up and sliding up under his shirt, pressing Derek in and against Stiles's arching body, hips canted towards each other and Derek gives up on not kissing him, because Stiles is an astonishing kisser, he gives everything he has with every swipe of tongue and press of lips, pulling Derek further and further in.
Derek full-body rubs against him, and he tries to work out before Stiles has practice so that he's still a little sweaty too, smells fully like himself and can make Stiles smell like him, too. It gets a full-fledged groan out of both of them, and the next thing he knows Stiles is giving him one hell of a hickey and his fingertips are slipping under the waist band of Derek's pants.
Derek has to stop, breathe deep, but he doesn't let go of Stiles, if anything he pulls him closer, bodies flush and thrumming in tandem. "Maybe," he starts, but his voice sounds off and get has to clear his throat. Stile stops licking him and pays attention, but his hands stay right where they are. "Maybe we should take this somewhere else." And Derek hasn't really said it, can't really say it because Kate still hurts, but he wants this, God he wants this and Stiles is perfect and delighted and understands anyway, face lighting up and he says 'Really?' with such glee and innocent, uncontained enthusiasm that Derek can't help but smile back, taking his hand and pulling him out towards the empty lot and his car. He hears Stiles mutter a faint 'yes!' of victory, and then he can't help but stop on the middle of the parking lot, pulling Stiles in and resting his hands on either side of his face, kissing him deep and slow and passionate, because Stiles smells like Derek and Derek smells like Stiles and finally, finally after all this time and all the pain they've had to work through, they're here. He's ready, and he's never, ever going to let Stiles go.
He breaks away with one last small kiss and starts back towards the Camaro, but Stiles isn't following him, and when he turns around he's standing there absolutely dazed, lips glistening tell-tale in the floodlights. "Whoa" he whispers, and Derek just can't stop smiling tonight, it's a strange phenomenon, and he thinks those muscles must be the only ones he has that are out of shape, but Stiles is slowly fixing that.
"Well?" he asks, holding the passenger's door open, and Stiles snaps out of it and gets in so fast he's almost a blur, although he manages to skim his fingers over Derek's in the process. Derek smiles fondly down at him, the muscles in his face protesting faintly, and Stiles grins right back. "Let's go", he says in a way that does nothing to hide his impatience, and that actually gets a laugh out of Derek, and he thinks that he must really have lost it. (although he refuses to admit that by 'it' he almost certainly means his heart)
So he gets into the driver's side, starts up the engine, adjusts Stiles' hand on his thigh to be just a little lower because he would like to get them home in one piece for what he has planned, and drives off grinning unabashedly into what he suddenly realizes is probably the rest of his bound-to-be-wonderful life.
The End