Tonight's gorgeous and NSFW inspiration at themadkatter13fanfiction tumblr, tagged/Venom-and-Honey, which I was going to reblog and add a little drabble. This was just supposed to be a drabble.
The two songs I listened to, on repeat, a lot, during writing, just because the melodies (not really the lyrics) matched the mood the inspiration picture first gave me: W. Darling's Nights Like This, and Imogen Heap's 2-1.
Cross-posted from AO3 same-day.
The October air is thick with the scent of the brewing storm, the winds against his naked backside strong, and the waters against his knees mildly choppy when Derek steps into the inlet. His fishing nets drag against the skin at the back of his thighs as he brings them to his sides and fling them out over the surface with all the power of his lycan strength. The complete lack of humans means that he's safe to tie off his lines and leave them as he strides back into the tree-line. With the storm, and winter, on its way, it's time for him to build a shelter that will last against the harsh winds and snows.
Derek has only felled a handful of trees, the task time-consuming even with his claws, when he hears it: loud, angry cursing, coming from the direction of the shores. His fangs and claws are safely withdrawn by the time he's jogged back to his nets to find an ethereally-beautiful young man splashing loudly and struggling against the mesh tangled around wildly-waving arms. Derek's eyes are instantly drawn to the smattering of moles across pale, bared flesh, catching and losing constellations in flashes.
"Hey, you! Naked sexy! You going to stand there looking pretty or come help me out?"
The werewolf raises an eyebrow, but he's in the water and striding towards the stranger, simultaneously tugging on the rope to pull his nets inland, before he can even think about it. The man he's accidentally caught only gets more beautiful the closer he gets, whiskey-coloured eyes and a guileless smile beaming up at him when he finally stops waist-deep in the water in front of the first human he's seen in months. He doesn't smile back, but it's a close thing.
"You are... gorgeous. I could take you home and gobble you up," the smooth voice compliments next, long fingers swirling back and forth in the water to keep the boy afloat. There's too much commotion in the water for Derek to tell, but he thinks the man is as naked as he is. "But first, how about you help me out of these nets, big guy?"
Derek stares at him for a second before he reaches out and grasps hold of the mesh, careful not to rip the thin rope as he parts it from that pale skin. There's a soft, echoing hum in the air as he works, one that makes him sway in place with the gentle push-and-pull of the waves around them. Every time he glances up, the young man, now calm and still in the water except for where his arms help him keep from sinking, is smiling brightly at him, and Derek can't help but let the corners of his lips lift up in return.
He also can't help but subtly scent his catch, but what comes back to his nose is largely foreign, unplaceable. There's heavy currents of ocean water, undertones of fish, and a strange undertow of something that reminds Derek of venom, sharp and bright even as a tertiary scent. Overlaying it all is something that he's never smelled before, something that makes him think of deep dark and danger. It's almost addictive, and his tongue peeks out to wet his lips. Eyes that seem to flash gold for a moment track the motion of his adam's apple when he swallows, and that venomous scent grows stronger, threatening to make him light-headed. The good kind of light-headed. Within a few minutes, Derek is fighting to not let his arousal show, and the nets have been pulled free of the other man's body and hurled back over the water.
"Thank you," the strangers says, eyes and smile both somehow brighter with his freedom. He's still laying in the water, and the oddity makes Derek frown.
"You're welcome," he replies, voice quiet and rough from misuse. He hasn't spoken since Laura's death the year prior, and it shows. Still, his catch's eyes widen and it's the other man's turn to lick his lips as the venom scent sweetens.
"Oh, it really is a shame you're so beautiful. I would have liked to keep you."
Derek frowns, but there's no time to ask before the man is lunging out of the water, teeth gone sharp and jagged. 'Startled' would be an understatement, but his instincts have his claws out and wrapped around his attacker's neck before those teeth can pierce his flesh. Derek bares his fangs and roars in the things's face. Rather than the stench of fear and a tidal wave of panicked babbling flooding his senses, he's met with a pulse of that sweet venom and an awed expression.
"A werewolf," the creature in his claws breathes. "Oh Moon, but I haven't met one of your kind in ages."
Derek's frown deepens and he debates the cons of retracting his claws. "And what are you?" he finally asks around his fangs.
The breath-taking smile returns and his eyes are finally drawn away from the other's by the slow undulation of a tail through the water behind the man in his claws, scales glittering like fresh honey in summer's sun despite the weak autumn light. "A siren, of course."
Stiles, as he's learned the siren is called, babbles away the hours, telling him of the wolf he met in the past: a veterinarian during the Gold Rush named Scott; and of the wolf's pack: his kitsune mate Kira, a banshee named Lydia, and a beta named Liam. Derek learns of the terrors hidden beneath the seas, monstrous creatures so old they've turned white who lurk in the icy canyons and burning volcanoes. He nearly learns of how sirens find their prey and call to them, how they're lured with the promise of satiated lust to their deaths, but the thoughts remind him of Kate and he grimaces, turning his head away from Stiles for the first time. The siren falls immediately silent, and then without being asked, begins to lecture him on the differences between ship-building techniques the world-over.
A siren's song may not work on a werewolf the same way it would on a human, but Derek still finds himself enchanted (entranced) by the time the sun has sunk beyond the horizon and the half-moon has risen high in the sky.
"And that is why one should never try keeping a leviathan for a pet," Stiles finishes with a flourish of his arms and a whip of his tail.
Derek's smile is small, but he feels it genuinely enough that he can feel the corners of his eyes crinkling in his amusement. He opens his mouth to comment when a mix of high-pitched chirping, clicks, and whistles, like a dolphin's speech, echoes across the water and he sits up from where he's reclining on his elbows in the low tide. Stiles' heart suddenly stutters along its hummingbird-rhythm and the werewolf's eyes flash red in response.
"Stiles?" he asks quietly, on edge in the face of a potential threat to his new… his new something. Companion. Friend, perhaps.
"Ugh, I have to go. My ch-"
Another spat of tittering interrupts the man and Stiles practically spits out his own chirping, clicking response towards the open ocean. Derek stares in amazement at what feels like has become a familiar throat working to produce such strange sounds. Stiles cuts off suddenly and finishes with a raspberry and a middle finger out into the dark.
"Okay, my charm is calling, and I have to go," the siren sighs, expression one of regret. It makes Derek's chest suddenly feel a bit hollow, and he wonders if his sudden attachment has come from the first person he's seen in months, or if it's Stiles himself. "Storms always bring stores of food sooo… Gotta head out into the open sea before it starts."
The werewolf nods in understanding and stands, water sliding from his naked skin. The siren, who's been lying in the water on his stomach, chin in his hands, props himself up on his arms to look up at Derek.
"C'mere," he says, jerking his head a bit. When Derek just raises an eyebrow, Stiles rolls his eyes. "I'm not gonna eat you, just come down here real quick."
He remains standing for a moment longer before crouching in place. The other male walks towards him on his hands, tail curving far out behind him, further than Derek had realised the limb went. Mankind's depictions of the race was significantly less terrifying than the reality, and the thought amuses him.
Stiles stares at him for a long minute, eyes trailing over his body and lingering at the space between his spread thighs, tongue peeking out to slide across his lips. Derek smiles and lets him look. As a born wolf, he's never been ashamed of his nudity, and as someone attracted to the person in front of him, he's not ashamed to show off his body. FInally, those flashing-gold eyes meet his again, the lips below curved in a smirk as first one hand lands on his knee, and then the other.
The siren suddenly lifts himself out of the water and presses his lips to Derek's. The wolf only marginally manages not to fall back in his surprise, but his eyes widen; the last time someone had kissed him, they'd turned out to be a murdering psychopath who burned his family alive. At least this time, he knows he's kissing a monster.
Stiles just meets his gaze steadily, not pressing forward further into the unexpected kiss, and after a minute, he pulls back, sliding backwards to his hands in the water.
"Stay safe, my fisher-wolf. I'm not done with you yet." With that, the siren turns in a graceful arc and disappears beneath the water. Before Derek can stand, a massive honey-and-syrup fan of a tail wooshes out of the water, drenching him from head-to-toe. He can hear chirping like laughter in the distance, and he feels the urge to blow a raspberry and flip off the distant siren like Stiles had done.
It's not until he's back among the trees, clawing down the rest of the lumber he'll need to make his shelter, that he remembers that a siren's food is humans.
Derek passes the storm as a wolf, curled beneath the bare-bones structure he's erected. It's not the first he's created; he hasn't stayed in the same place since he left California, and the wildernesses of his home state, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia were dotted with similar 'huts'. As he walks the messy shoreline, cleaning up fallen branches and trees, he considers moving on, moving further north towards into Alaska. The only thing keeping him where he is is the faint promise that Stiles, a male (siren) who he has only known for a few hours.
So he stays. He clears debris and he fishes, and when Stiles doesn't appear that first day, he passes his time with more fishing and whittling, a busy-work task he'd picked up after the fire.
He tries not to think of the siren, but the wood in his hands begins to take on the shape of a merman anyway. When it's done, he leaves it on a rock that sticks out of the water just a little bit off shore. A few days later, the carving is gone and a massive tooth is lying in its place.
It smells of that strange deep dark-and-danger scent Stiles has, only older. Much older. He remembers the leviathans the siren spoke of, and he knows that the gift had come from one of them.
Derek spends the day weaving a thong for the bone, and he hangs it in the shelter. He decides to stay for a bit longer.
When Stiles comes back, he stays for a week. Derek can't remember the last time he laughed before that.
His next absence ("Looks like my charm is travelling south for a storm.") is filled with reliving the memory of their first and only kiss and more whittling, this time of a leviathan based in the few movies he saw as a child and mixed with the siren's descriptions of the massive creatures. Derek leaves it on the same rock as before, and a few days later, what he finds in its place takes him a few minutes to figure out, but he eventually identifies the massive dried plant-life as coral. It finds a home in his hut too.
The siren stays for three weeks this time. Three weeks where Derek doesn't feel alone. Three weeks where he doesn't feel the weight of his guilt pressing down on him. He falls asleep more often than not on the shore with Stiles sprawled out on the sand at his side, tail safely submerged.
"Snowstorms are about to hit Alaska and the cold keeps the food longer," is the reason he's given for Stiles' departure this time, another departure without a kiss.
The werewolf misses him with a near-physical ache.
He doesn't whittle this time, not with winter setting in. Before the snows have a chance to reach this far south, he finds a bear and skins it for its fur, eating his fill of the meat and leaving the rest for the wild wolves he knows roam the area. There's still no signs of his companion by the time the skin is clean, so he sharpens a small bone into a needle, and weaves weeds into threads as thin as he can make them. He does his best to sew a rudimentary cover-all, but he doesn't care to make it fancy. After all, it only has to keep him warm when he's in his human form.
Derek waits, but there's still no sign of Stiles, and he finds himself returning to the now-picked clean bear skeleton. He keeps his mind and his claws busy on creating symmetric patterns on the skull, determined not to ponder the very possible 'what if' of the siren not returning.
He very carefully does not breathe a sigh of relief when he leaves the skull on the rock and returns the next morning to find a very old, but barely chipped, tea set covered in faded paintings of wolves and gold filigree in its place. He also very carefully does not consider building a cabin.
Stiles only remains with him a week this time ("We have to eat more frequently the colder it gets, and when the humans stop sailing, we have to hunt below sea.") Derek only barely refrains from asking him not to leave, and the request for a goodbye kiss is even harder to restrain.
He has come to hate their time apart.
The antlers of the deer he takes down falls victim to the bored and artistic turns of his claws, each bony point carved with laser-intense focus into a wolf howling at a full moon. It takes all of his concentration to not carve too deep, to keep the thin line connecting the moon to the wolf from breaking off, and each wolf is progressively better than the last.
It takes nearly a month to complete, during which there is no sign of honeyed scales, and during which he is forced to pause long enough to skin his next kill in order to fashion boots for himself. The finished thing stays upon their rock for nearly a week before it disappears and a necklace appears.
The sight of familiar scales interspersed with sharp teeth and shells, strung along what looks like fishing line, makes him pause. Not because it's large enough to wear as both a human as a wolf, though the size of it would shrink to that of a collar if he shifted while wearing it, but because he is struck by the intimacy of such an offering. Everything prior has been things that Stiles has found, and though Derek's own gifts have been things made with his own claws, he has never given a part of himself.
The siren finds him nearing dusk, sitting in the water and leaning against the rock, the necklace lying untouched on its surface. There is a flash of hurt, and of concern, on the young face, and it makes Derek's stomach flip.
"Derek?" Stiles asks, voice cautious. The werewolf notices that he remains just out of reach, and the distance hurts. "Did my gift not please you?"
"Are you courting me?" he asks instead, the question bursting from him before he can think of a more delicate way to phrase it. He almost expects Stiles to laugh it off, but instead, he receives a very startled look.
"Of course I am. Were you… Didn't you start courting me first?" He's starting to cringe away from Derek now, that quick heart beat gaining speed.
Feeling just as surprised by Stiles' response, he takes a mental step back and looks at the very first exchange, the carving of the siren he'd laid out, and the tooth he'd gotten back. He hadn't even considered it at the time, or any time since, but that's exactly what he'd been doing: providing a gift for Stiles that showcased his skill. The same thing that the siren had been doing in turn. He'd wondered why Stiles never tried to kiss him again.
"Oh," Derek breathes, blinking. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"
Stiles' expression closes off and he backs further away. The movement startles the werewolf into action and he lunges forward, curling human fingers around the siren's biceps and hauling him forward into Derek's lap. Well, as much as he can when the male has no legs and an excessive amount of tail.
"I'm sorry that I didn't realise I was courting you, Stiles," he apologises softly. "But I'm not sorry that I did it. I would have offered better gifts if I'd realised."
The siren stares at him for a moment longer, eyes darting back and forth between each of Derek's own for several heartbeats before he breaks out in a grin.
"Oh good. I was worried you were rejecting me," he laugh, stretching above Derek and reaching for the necklace.
The chain of scales, teeth, and shells is cold against his skin, and he can almost feel a ring of Stiles' scent settle around his neck with it. The scent-claim seems to settle the wolf inside him, that primalness that always grows anxious during the siren's absence, and Derek can feel his body relax as the other male settles his weight into his lap.
Stiles stares at him for a long time, then lunges forward for a kiss.
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
The sudden knock on his door makes Derek's eyes flash as his fangs and claws pop out. He lives alone in the wilderness for a reason; there's no humans around for miles. At least, there shouldn't be.
The heartbeat on the other side of the door is hummingbird-fast, a rhythm he's become intimately familiar with. As is the venomous scent, thick in his nose.
The werewolf wrenches open the door on the cabin he spent the spring and summer building and finds Stiles on the other side. Naked Stiles. Naked Stiles with legs.
"What," is the first and only thing that comes out of his mouth.
"Oh Leviathan, thank Moon you're actually here," Stiles pants, collapsing against the doorframe. "These things are not as easy to use as you make them look." When Derek just stares at him, the other male frowns deeply. "Help me inside, you kelp. Just because I have legs right now doesn't mean I want to use them at all times."
It's the 'right now' that finally gets Derek to move, and he swoops in to swing the siren into his arms. Stiles wraps his arms around the werewolf's neck, smiling that smile of his as he occupies his fingers with the necklace he'd made Derek all those months ago, the necklace he never takes off, not even when he shifts.
"As it turns out, my tail turns into a set of landlubber walking sticks if it's left out to dry," he says drily as Derek carries him to the nest of animal skins he's made for himself in lieu of an actual bed.
"Will you be able to turn back?" he asks, worry worming its way through his shock.
"Looks like, big guy. It was the first thing I tested anyway. Well, more like I panicked at seeing skin below my waist and threw myself back into the water in sheer, unparalleled terror. Then I crawled back on land and played with myself for a bit. I wanted to know how you felt all this time." The words fall from Stiles' lips in their typical, unfettered rush, and it takes Derek a moment, but one particular bit of information sticks out the most.
"You played with yourself?" he asks, arousal suddenly prickling under his skin.
Stiles grins. "Of course I did. I already do that with myself when I have a tail, I wanted to see how different it was this way. And it's uh… it's pretty nice. Especially when I touch myself inside like the way you showed me to touch you."
Derek's eyes flash red and his claws lengthen with his arousal at the mental image, and he trails the sharp points down the new flesh of the siren's legs. Suddenly, the claws on one hand bump against an obstacle that wasn't skin and he looks down in confusion, finding damp seaweed wrapped around Stiles' thigh. Automatically, he breathes in deep, and it takes a moment to realise the strange taint to Stiles' scent is that of his blood. There's a sound deep in his throat, a whine of concern, and then he's being pulled on top of the siren.
"I uh… I actually have something for you," Stiles says, heart thumping beneath his ribs, his venom scent going seasalty with nervousness.
"Does it have anything to do with why you're hurt?" Derek asks, settling his body along Stiles' unhurt side. He palms his mate's hip and slides his hand down the new skin of the siren's ass to his thigh, careful to not disturb the swath of what he's sure Stiles' people use as for bandages.
"Pretty much." Stiles drops silent after that, opening and closing his mouth in starts and stops, slowly ramping up Derek's anxiety. "Okay, so, you know how sirens live forever?"
Derek is silent for long minutes, stuck staring at his mate, somewhat dreading where he thinks the conversation might be going; he's well aware that Stiles is far older than he is, and will continue living long after he's gone, and the thought that death will eventually separate them never fails to make his heart stutter in his chest.
Stiles shifts nervously under him, the sea-salt taint to his scent thickening the longer Derek goes without responding. For the first time, the werewolf realizes that the other male is clenching a clump of seaweed tightly in one fist. It will have to wait for his attention until after he's convinced Stiles not to leave him, not when he hasn't even had a year with him.
"I don't care," Derek blurts, heart more painful in his chest than it's been for a long time. "Please don't leave me yet. I know you're still going to look like that when I'm old, and then I'll die, but please don't-"
"Derek! Derek!" Stiles interrupts, eyes wide, heartbeat wild, voice sharp. "Calm down! What?! No. Moon no, I'm not going to leave you. Why would you even think that?"
Derek doesn't reply, he just drops his face to his mate's neck, scents him deep and holds him tight. Sharp fingernails halfway to claws scrape over his scalp, the webbing between his siren's fingers brushing over the wild mess that is his uncombed hair.
"You can be such a guppy sometimes," Stiles murmurs against his head. Derek growls but doesn't bother to pull away from the male's neck. "You're stuck with me for life, my grumpy wolf. I mean, if you wanted- Did you know there's a myth in some parts of the world that you'll live forever if you eat a mermaid?" Derek blinks at the sudden segway and pulls away from the siren's jugular far enough to look into averted whiskey-coloured eyes. "Well, their tale anyway. Though you could probably eat the top half too. Not sure if eating the top half would have the same effect. I mean it should because it's all siren anyway, but the top half looks human except for the gills and the scales here and there though magic is funny that way sometim-"
"Stiles, shut up," Derek interrupts suddenly. Stiles is like a tidal wave: once he starts talking about a subject, his words continue to build in speed and strength until it becomes near-impossible to stop him. "What are you getting at?"
"Well, Chewie and I-" Derek still has no idea how his siren of a mate ended up naming his pet leviathan after a character from a cult-classic trilogy or if it was a complete accident "-don't give me that look, this is totally related I swear - Chewie and I were playing and she got me in the leg and tore a chunk out of me - put your claws away I'm fine - and anyway long story short… would you like to live forever? With me?"
Before Derek can even wrap his mind around the question, Stiles holds up the seaweed bunched in his hand and unfolds it, revealing a chunk of his flesh, one side still lined with honey-gold scales.
His breath is caught in his chest and his eyes are stuck on the offering before him and he can't move.
"I mean, wolves mate for life, right? I know I'm not like, a perfect catch or anything, but I kinda feel like we-" Stiles' words are abruptly cut off when Derek lunges forward to press their mouths together.
It's not a kiss, not really. Derek doesn't think it can be called that when his fangs clack against Stiles' pointed ones, not when it's this wet, this… inhuman.
"So is that a 'yes'?" the siren asks, panting and eyes hooded and venom-scent thick in the air, when the wolf's instincts have calmed enough for him to pull back. Derek doesn't move far though; he keeps close enough to breath his mate's air, close enough so that their lips brush together with every word.
Rather than answer, Derek sits back on his haunches and opens his mouth. He knows his eyes are red, that his fangs are long and vicious, but Stiles just stares at him for a moment like he's the moon in the sky: beautiful and larger than life and nothing short than his whole world. Derek can empathize.
"You know, it's funny," Stiles says breathlessly, eyes darting all over the werewolf's face. "We met because I thought you were some helpless human that I could enthrall for a bit of fun and dinner. Now, you sing to me every full moon and I follow you wherever you go and you're taking a piece of me into yourself." The siren licks his lips and Derek opens his mouth a bit wider.
With a smile so mischievous that it's almost malicious, Stiles plucks the bit of his flesh off the seaweed with the tips of his wicked nails and lifts it slowly in the air. The moment drags on, but they're both not moving, not breathing, and Derek's ears almost suffocate under the pounding of their hearts in the quiet autumn afternoon. After an aching eternity, Stiles' sacrifice touches his tongue and he curls his tongue around it, drawing the essence his mate into his mouth.
"Good boy," Stiles whispers as he swallows, whiskey eyes flashing gold.
With the flesh of a siren resting in his belly, Derek wonders, like he does sometimes, if the siren's song perhaps worked a little too well, because all he had to do - has to do - is look at Stiles, and he's lost.
FIN
Thus completes my first TW fic.
Since there's no current accepted name for a collective of sirens/merfolk, here's a few fun options (source link at AO3):
Charm: the name for a collective of finches, goldfinches, hummingbirds, and magpies;
Murder: the name for a collective of crows and magpies; and
Wreck: the name for a collective of seabirds.
The immortality bit is inspired by a manga I read a long ilong/i time ago, Takahashi Rumiko's 'Mermaid Saga'.
Reblog the thing (themadkatter13fanfiction tumblr, post/129252980548). Tschüß! :3