It's the beginning to a bad joke: a werewolf and a hunter walk into a gym...except that they've been walking into the gym together three times a week for six months. It's enough of a thing that on the rare occasions Chris can't make it, the guy at the juice bar always asks him about 'that gorgeous silver fox of yours.'
Derek's has considered setting him straight, but it's not like he has a reasonable explanation for why two natural enemies are playing buddy cops together, complete with training montage. Sure, they can blame whatever threat happens to be looming over Beacon Hills that week, but the line between 'good reason' and 'convenient excuse' grows thinner by the second.
Still, Derek can't deny that he and Chris make one hell of a team. The two of them have accomplished things he wouldn't have dreamed possible even a few months ago.
But even considering how many boundaries he's crossed with Chris - and how many more he'd like to - there are some things that Derek Hale simply. will. not. do.
"I said, 'no,' Chris." Derek nearly slams the locker door shut on the towel he's pulling out of it.
"You know what your trouble is?" Chris asks, leaning against the aforementioned lockers. "You think that hyper healing is going to give you a free pass for the aging process."
"With the rate things are going, I think what will be left of my body should I happen to make it through much more of the 'aging process' should probably not top my to-do list," Derek retorts.
Chris ignores him entirely. "When you get to be my age..."
"Oh, what, grandpa, I should start 'taking it slow'? Your age." Derek scoffs. "You can out press half the guys at this gym and outmaneuver all of them. I don't know who you think you're fooling."
"Would you let me finish? These rock hard abs of yours..." Chris slowly runs a hand down the front of them. Derek swallows hard and thinks of baseball, "are not going to stay that way if you don't work on strengthening your core."
"And I suppose doing some creative stretching with a bunch of bored housewives and a 'guru' who eats nothing but quinoa and does nothing but meditate is just the ticket, huh?" Derek probably could have managed more convincing sarcasm if the way Chris' fingers keep moving steadily lower wasn't putting him into a daze.
"Well, you get to find out," Chris announces, abruptly pulling his hand away and heading toward an open session room. Derek makes a mental note to slap himself later for the little disappointed noise that comes out of his mouth.
"What do you mean, 'find out'?" Derek demands, once his mouth is working again.
"You're coming to yoga with me!" The predatory flash of teeth Chris sends him is decidedly lupine . "That is, if you want to get your shirt back." He waves it triumphantly before Derek can even reopen his locker.
Derek lunges for it, but Chris dodges gracefully into the doorway of a darkened personal training room. "Have to quicker than that, Wolf Boy." He actually has the nerve to brandish the shirt like a matador's cape.
In five seconds, he has Chris pinned to the door hard enough to make its hinges groan. "What makes you think I can't just take it whenever I want?" he whispers, his lips nearly grazing Chris' ear.
"What makes you think that wasn't the plan all along?" Chris murmurs back. He laughs softly, a throaty sound that goes straight to Derek's crotch. "Although if you're not going to yoga, there's still the issue of working on your...flexibility."
Maybe Derek should have some trepidation about sprinting over this final line, but something tells him they both crossed it awhile ago anyway. He kicks the door closed with his foot. "Well," he muses, "I'm sure we can think of something."
This time it's Chris who lunges forward with a grin to shove Derek down onto a pile of blue workout mats. A click of the lock, a swish of the blinds, and then Chris is straddling him, callused archer's hands running under his shirt and up his chest.
"Now," Chris announces, "If it's all right with you, I'd like to start with a position I call 'Downward Facing Werewolf'." It is decidedly all right with Derek.