The softness of the sheets puddled around his naked limbs, the long line of his back in sleep absolutely mouthwatering, his dark skin glowing against the pale gold sheets, a long stretch of muscle over his pillows. Derek Hale was fast asleep, his mouth parted gently and his black lashes fluttering in dream. From somewhere in the depths of the house, piano played low and sweet, the music the most beautiful ever to be heard; a soundtrack for his dream. The floor of the bedroom was loosely scattered with two sets of clothes, thrown off in the heat of the moment. The pianist would pick them up before sliding into bed; Derek would kiss his lover slow and deep in repayment, lazy with sleep, even while teasing about it in a gravelly voice as he ran gentle, work-rough hands over soft, creamy thighs in a way that would make the pianist arch and melt.
Derek wouldn't let it be the wild rush it was of the evening, licking and nipping over freckles dappling ivory-pale skin, never enough to hurt. The pianist's fingers would card through his hair, tugging lightly and holding him close. Fingers that could create absolutely awe-inspiring music would run over him as if tracing the ivories the moment before a torrent of music would burst through the dam of the keys.
The pianist had put his hands on the keys one morning, the both of them mostly nude as those horribly clever hands had run down Derek's shoulders, over his arms, draping against him from behind as their hands ran together over the keys. Slow kisses over his neck and shoulder would eventually lead back to bed, always, but especially on rainy days. Derek would get enfolded in soft, warm skin while the sky outside wept, the salt of the pianist's skin on his tongue while those clever fingers scratched over his back.
The pianist's music flowed through the house for Derek's ears alone, a song-like the moans that would pour from the ivory throat or the whispered benedictions of Derek's name in the darkness-that would never be heard by any other ears. It was Derek's alone. Derek's to keep. Along with two wedding rings, a slightly-used heart, and the feeling of musical fingers tracing over hot skin.
The pianist would make him sing sometimes; would catch him when he was unconsciously belting the words out to whatever song the pianist's obsession with music would have him playing. Derek would barely catch his flying beloved, laughing as he took being tackled with barely a stumble. He'd smile into the kiss and get teased for ruining it, even as laughter tumbled out of his lover's throat. He'd bite kisses into the pianist's shoulder, tickle his blunt fingers over sensitive skin and laugh as the pianist would struggle to get away, screaming with giggled protest. Rarely-preciously-the pianist would sing with him, would sing to him instead of playing him the song. Usually, it was a lullaby in the night to take Derek out of the arms of his nightmares and bring him back into his lover's. The pianist claimed that singing was a skill Derek possessed that they didn't share. Derek didn't care, thought he was insane for thinking that. The man he'd married had music and sunshine in his veins, it seemed, and it helped keep Derek from his past.
Derek would press kisses against the pianist's shoulderblade if he woke to the music. Would coax his husband from the siren call of the keys and would put him back in bed beside him, where he belonged. The only reason Derek hadn't kissed every inch of skin a thousand times over was the pianist's lack of patience. Derek would lie in the cradle of the pianist's legs while the pianist combed his fingers through Derek's hair, massaged along his neck and shoulders as much as he could reach, listening as Derek talked through the madness of their life together, sorting it out and making it neat. He'd pulled the pianist into this world of his, and it hadn't been easy, not for either of them, but they'd made it work.
Derek would pull cool fingers against his forehead some days, would coerce his way into the pianist's space because he couldn't stand to be anywhere else. Some days, Derek would find his lover climbing into him, slipping under his clothes and pushing and pulling until he was completely entangled with his husband, holding the love of his life as he tucked down against him and just breathed.
He'd wear suits he felt so out of place in the pianist had teased him about it being physically painful to watch-but he'd done it for every performance and always would. Seeing the look on his husband's face when he found just the right suit was worth it. He'd been kissed senseless more in that suit than in any other article of clothing; nerves running high and his husband's untameable energy bursting around the edges until he was sitting at those keys. There had been more furtive blow jobs in the concert hall than in most high school hideaways.
The pianist would have them both nude most of the time if it were up to him-well, really, he'd have Derek naked most of the time, but if sex was promised, nudity could be negotiable on his end. They'd taken turns being kept men in the past, and they both still cracked into hysterical laughter when Derek was looked at as a trophy husband by the old bitties who'd try to grope one or both of them if given half the chance by either. Derek had supported his husband through school; and Derek had been bullied into finishing his master's and doctorate just as soon as his husband had been introduced to the music industry as a prodigal composer. They both had their fortunes, they'd both made their names in what they'd wanted to be known for. Derek was a mechanic with a doctorate degree in both engineering and business; Stiles was a world-renown concert pianist and composer who couldn't be found out of the city limits of Beacon Hills until he had a performance. They had their own lives, and it just happened that they'd inextricably intertwined them together.
Derek refused outright to have any of Stiles's compositions named after him. That three of them had wolf-related titles had ended in pinning Stiles to the bed, the pianist laughing his ass off as Derek attacked him. They sniped at each other about the past; they ignored the looming presence of the future and what it could possibly hold. They'd been through enough together that they could ignore all the ifs and maybes that could happen to tear them apart in the great expanse of unknowable tomorrow. Once they'd fallen in love with each other, Derek honestly didn't remember ever trying to run from each other again. Even before, when all they could do was get away from each other, it didn't feel so much that there had ever been a chance of escaping each other. Stiles was Derek's Always: He was always going to get under Derek's skin; he was always going to drive Derek nuts; he was always going to push Derek's boundaries; and he was always, inevitably, going to be the one Derek loved most. Between the piano and the bed, there was an entire hallway of photos: Stiles with his arms around Derek on the front porch, Derek in his monkey suit dancing with Lydia while Stiles danced with Erica beside him-Derek watching Stiles throw his head back to laugh in the shot, Stiles jittery and Derek scowling before his first concert, an ill-advised trip to a carnival had captured Stiles with stitches and bruises and a cast but still smiling around a split lip as Derek had won him a giant Minion from Despicable Me on the ring toss. Stiles hadn't had any wounds big enough to scar after the car crash, but Derek could barely remember anything around the time of it; too sleep-deprived, waiting helplessly to make sure Stiles didn't slip into a coma from the concussion or break his cracked ribs doing something he shouldn't have. The Minion stood in Stiles's office, along with two of Derek's favourite photos: one of a baby Stiles sitting on his mother's lap in front of the keys, and the other of Stiles's first time behind the keys since his mother had died. Derek had leaned low over Stiles where he'd tilted back, hands still on the keys, and he'd kissed him, for the very first time.
Lydia had given them that photo as a wedding gift, neither of them aware of its existence until then.
Stiles's wedding present to Derek had been a song written, played, and recorded only by Stiles, and only for Derek. Derek's wedding present to Stiles had been a leather and silver wrist band, etched with the same triskele that sat between Derek's shoulderblades, and threaded through with a scrap of the red hoodie Stiles had sacrificed to stop the bleeding as Derek had laid in his lap, this close to dying.
Stiles had once tried to capture their life in music. The result had never been heard, not even by Derek, but Stiles had come out of the music room days later and had just curled around Derek and stayed, not morose or angry or grieved, just...there.
Their first date hadn't been so much a date as it had been a disaster. Stiles still had the tickets that they hadn't gotten to use; had the scar on his wrist, like the curl of a surf even paler on pale skin, from the talons of the harpy. Derek had almost backed out then and there: Stiles had just pulled him inside and sat him down once they'd made it home from the hospital, curled into his side and flicked on the television. He'd sighed as he'd closed his eyes: this was enough; it was all he needed, all he wanted, and Derek didn't need to go above or beyond to make him happy; he just needed to be there beside him.
When Lydia had been diagnosed with cancer, Stiles had sat at her bedsides folding origami stars and paper cranes. Derek had learned how to make a star, but his failing attempt at a crane-the mangled thing sitting on Stiles's desk like a trophy-Stiles had affectionately called a duck. Derek and Lydia were the only two people in the world who really knew Stiles because of those stars and cranes and the secrets and wishes Stiles had written into the heart of each one. Lydia had come to him after her second week in free from the hospital with a bill of almost-health, looking paler than she had any right to if the doctors had been right, but it was the secrets she'd read in the paper. She'd been nervous about telling him even as she was desperate to, and she'd been scared of Stiles ever asking where all those hours of work had gotten to, but he never did. Derek had read each one just as Lydia had, and hadn't known if facing Stiles would give them away or not. It was a question he still didn't have the answer to for sure, because Stiles could've known, or he could've taken the harsh, deep, treasuring kiss as Derek needing to kiss him until they could die from it-it was a thing that happened, occasionally.
Stiles's fingers skated up the line of Derek's spine when he returned to their bed. He kissed the corner of Derek's mouth, the soft curve of his eyelashes, and let Derek engulf him and press him into the bed. Derek wouldn't get lost in the heat; would take his time kissing Stiles breathless, making him breathless and swollen. Derek would luxuriate in the smooth, soft skin, and would trace lines with his tongue as if Stiles were a breathing (moaning, begging) game of Connect the Dots. Stiles would shudder into him, would kiss him like he was the one that had just woken up, would hold him like there was no such thing as close enough, let alone too close. Derek knew the feeling.