Okay guys. Here's the next chapter. Thank you so much for reading :] Reviews are always loved so very much!
Stiles had seen the devastation of car crashes. How when something that heavy goes speeding into something of equal density and weight that it causes massive damage. The sounds. Metal clashing against metal. That familiar crunch that became the backdrop to screeching tires against asphalt and heads slamming into steering wheels. Glass shattering. Airbags deploying. They were brutal and nasty and everyone his father had ever questioned always said relatively the same thing.
It all happened so fast.
That was how it felt.
He sat with eyes on the table and his hand loosely settled around the luke warm cup of green tea. Scott had rambled on and on about things Stiles wasn't listening to, things that he was ignoring for the time being. He flipped through every memory in his head. Every time he saw the word mate, every time he read it on some stupid fucking web site or in some book or when it was mentioned by anyone. Nothing. Not a single thing.
It made sense, really, seeing as Stiles had never had an inkling to look up the word itself or read anything that had to do with it since it didn't have anything to do with their life. With the Packs life. With his fucking life. But now... What the fuck does it even mean?
Feelings. Relationship. This was not what he signed up for and not what he had came to Derek for in the first place. It was just... timing. He was there and so was Stiles and they both just... collided. Like a fucking car crash on a busy highway, flipping and tumbling and breaking apart and taking a few people with them in the process. His heart beat accelerated. Breathing labored. He closed his eyes and leaned his head into his hands, murmuring about how fucked up everything was and how desperately he needed a drink. Scott watched, swallowing the itch in his throat that told him to keep speaking.
Stiles trembled when he lit yet another cigarette and he closed his eyes, that anxious feeling settling itself right underneath his ribcage where his lungs met his stomach. Everything was so fucked up. It had been fucked up for a while now and ever since him and Derek had started this shit he had a feeling that something would happen. He thought it was death. He was convinced it was death from the get go. Erica. Heather. It just made sense and when it came down to it, Stiles knew that last night wouldn't be the last time that Derek got hurt. His throat constricted. His heart fluttered in his chest.
"Stiles, listen to me," Scott leaned forward and tapped loudly on the table in front of them. The boy looked up through glassy amber eyes and stared at the young wolf.
"Listen to what, Scott? Is it happily ever after? Are me and Derek going to raise a fucking litter of puppies together? You've got to be fucking kidding me!"
Scott growled and slammed the palm of his hand against the table, their drinks shaking and the ash tray clattering loudly against the wooden top.
"Listen!" His voice commanded attention and as much as Stiles wanted to scream in his face and stalk back to his car he knew that his best friend didn't deserve to be treated that way. It wasn't his fault that Derek had neglected to mention this little piece of information during the time they spent together. He looked up at Scott and chewed anxiously on his bottom lip, peeling at the chapped skin and wishing to god he could run out of Beacon Hills and not look back. The thought of it made his stomach tense and that feeling alone made him want to put a gun in his mouth now that he knew why it was there.
The anxiety. The panic. The nerves. It was all amplified.
"I'm sure Derek wants to explain this to you, it isn't like he doesn't actually have feelings for you. He does, I know he does, he's spoken to Isaac about it before. But this... There is a lot more to all of this than you or I could possibly understand. It's a chemical reaction between wolves, it happens from time to time and it's kind of one of those things you just have to embrace or tolerate."
Stiles was seething. His anger heated the air and he breathed heavily, and stomped out his cigarette before continuing to pick at his nails. He wanted Scott to stop talking. He wanted to go to his house, steal one of his Dads old bottles of whiskey and go hide down in the woods.
It was just supposed to be fucking. It was supposed to be a release. It was supposed to be a shared commitment of non-commitment. Not this.
chemical reaction between wolves
"Wait..." Stiles took in a breath, calming himself down for the moment, "I'm.. I'm human, this shouldn't be affecting me," he closed his eyes and opened them, speaking so lowly that he could hardly hear the words himself. Scott could hear them though and he shook his head in response. Stiles could see him physically trying to form words. Trying to make sense out of the situation that had been thrown at him. Honestly none of this was Scotts fault or his problem and as that had began to sink in, Stiles felt even more terrible for his reaction. This wasn't his friends doing. This was his doing. This was their doing.
His phone vibrated in his pocket and it felt like needles were being thrust into his spine. One right after the other. Derek. He knew it was Derek and everything inside him said do not fucking look at your phone. But Stiles had a strange habit of doing exactly what he told himself not to. A good example of that impulsive behavior being the web of confusion he was trapped in.
Just let me cook you dinner and we'll talk about this. Please don't run from me.
Scott watched him look at his phone and watched as his mouth fell open and he rolled his eyes which were currently filling with tears.
It was like every instance was breaking through the confines of his mind. Everything they had spoken of this morning. The times Derek and Stiles had been together had always been pushed off as being less important than they were and now that he thought back, it was heart-breaking. They couldn't keep their hands off each other. They couldn't be away from each other. They were drawn to each other.
Scott licked over his lips and looked across to Stiles who looked devastated and confused and angry and hurt all at once. The wolf could see every emotion coating his face.
"Stiles," he paused and waited for his friend to look up, a stray tear leaking from the corner of his eye, "when's the last time you texted Lydia."
It was a statement.
Proof.
He was making a point.
And that was when Stiles had enough.
He was up and walking before Scott had a chance to say another word. It was a good enough point to make Stiles panic and flee. Lydia had been his world. She had been everything before Derek. Everything and more. But as soon as Stiles had felt the alphas body against his own and the heat of his tongue stroking behind his teeth it was as if the earth spun backwards and the moon fell from the sky. Nothing had occupied him like Derek did and as much as he wanted to lie and say that there were no feelings invested between the two of them, he couldn't.
Scott didn't follow. He stayed where he was and dialed a number on his phone, lifting it and pressing it to his ear.
He hadn't realized where he was going until he ended up in front of the large steel door of the loft. His breathing was labored and he slapped the tears away from his face. His hands shook and his legs twitched and he couldn't keep his heart beat under control. Those butterfly wings were beating so fast he could hardly stand it. It felt like someone was pulling on the tendons behind his kneecaps and pinching the tissue between each of his vertebrae.
Derek could hear him. He knew Derek could hear him.
Stiles pulled at the handle and the door slid open.
Derek was standing on the other side, his thumbs shoved in the front pockets of his jeans and his eyes cast down at the cement floor. Stiles' breath hitched. It was like staring at something so immensely breath-taking and wanting so badly for it to be revolting. His stomach flipped and he swallowed the fire burning his esophagus. Just last night he had held Derek through the night as his bones snapped back together and his skin stitched itself closed and now... this.
The alpha caught the fist that was aimed at his jaw and squeezed it, dark eyes falling closed. A heavy sigh fell across his lips and Stiles squirmed and thrashed until the older man let go of his hand. Stiles was shaking and he shoved passed Derek and into the dim loft. The sky was a multitude of colors as the sun dipped behind the trees to the west. Time had gone by so fucking fast. Everything was happening so fucking fast.
"Stiles..."
Dereks voice was just barely above a whisper.
"Just... listen to me, please, I know this is-"
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?!" Stiles was yelling. His cheeks were flushed and he couldn't control the tremble in his legs. The air was still and the room was warm and it felt like time had finally stopped for a minute. Derek looked at him and Stiles looked back and it hurt. It hurt like it did the night Derek fractured his wrist. And it hurt like the day that Derek pinned him down in the school bus. And it hurt like the night Stiles sank his teeth into the alpha and drew blood. And it hurt like the night that Stiles wanted to die because he could not grasp what life was when death was all he had known.
"You want me to listen to you? You want me to sit here and listen to you try to explain why I feel the way I do? Explain why this has to happen and why I have absolutely no choice in any of this and how- I'm fucking seventeen years old, Derek! I'm seventeen! What do you want from me?!"
Stiles' sucked in breath after breath, pacing back and forth in front of the large wooden table next to the paneled window.
"I want you to shut the fuck up and listen!"
Dereks eyes glowed red as he shouted, his teeth clamping together as his chest heaved up and down. Desperation seeped through his pores along with anger a lack of patience. It was strange to see him un-furl. To watch someone who always kept his composure finally slip.
Stiles tried to calm his breathing and snarled mockingly back at the wolf, "I'm not scared of you, Derek, I stopped being scared of you when you started sucking my dick so how about this, you have five fucking minutes. Five. Now go."
Derek growled, his lips curling back to bare long fangs. It only took a few moments for him to even his breathing and relax, coaxing the red pigment to fade from eyes and for his face to soften. He looked at the ground and clenched his fists, eyes darting from left to right before he closed his eyes and his mouth fell slack.
"When someone becomes a wolf their body releases a natural chemical, a scent. It's a way that we can find each other in times of need, a way that we can mark each other as Pack and so on. This chemical is released a handful of times during the lifetime of a wolf," he paused and looked over to Stiles who was staring back at him, raising his eyebrows and nodding. Derek continued, "I was born a wolf, so that chemical was dormant until I was old enough to-"
"Fucking wolf puberty, okay, great, onward," Stiles muttered, playing awkwardly with his hands to try and busy himself and listening intently to what Derek had to say.
Derek rolled his eyes, "Yes. But the scent isn't just like a pheromone to mark someone it... It was released again when I became alpha. It... It's like a contract. I can't help who it chooses or why, it's to make the Pack stronger and to give companionship, that's all."
Stiles arched his brows again and shook his head, "I'm human, Derek!" he held his arms out, gesturing down his chest, "I'm a fucking human, one hundred percent, puny, non-supernatural human!"
Derek looked at the ground again and then back to Stiles who was obviously waiting for answers. Answers that he really didn't have.
"It's a bond, Stiles. I've only heard of it happening between a wolf and non-wolf a few times. But it happened, okay? The thing that I'm confused about is how exactly or why exactly you released the same chemical. Because it's not just my fucking hormones going nuts over here, apparently you possess something that wants us to be mates just as bad as I do."
Stiles blinked. He blinked and stared at Derek and was too focused on what he just said to remember that he had been angry at anything. His body was still shaking and his heart was still pounding but he balled his hands into fists and turned to look out the window and down onto the moderately busy streets of Beacon Hills.
"We can only choose our mates if our mates choose us. It isn't like blind fishing and it isn't like I beckoned you here. This is something I can't control and you can't control... and I really hate to say it like that because, Stiles, I-"
"Don't you dare," Stiles' voice was deadly quiet and it made the hair on the back of the alphas neck stand up on end. He was shaking again and he couldn't control the absent tears rolling down his cheeks, hot and angry and completely unwanted.
"Don't you even think about telling me you love me right now. Because we have been ruthless with each other for over a year and until a week ago I had myself convinced we would fuck until one of us died and that would be it. You are not going to take that from me, because I don't know what's true right now and what's not. All I know is I want to hate you so fucking badly but something inside me won't let it happen," he bit down on his bottom lip and looked over his shoulder at the wolf whose eyes were locked on his.
It was like the silence that had fallen over them the night at the old burnt Hale house was revisiting them now. Haunting them. Derek could hear Stiles' heart beat hitting his ribs and floundering inside his body. He could hear his soft controlled breathing and could see the moisture on his cheeks in the afternoon sunlight pouring through the window.
Stiles felt his gaze and it was gnawing at his insides. He watched Derek and dug his fingernails into his palm. He saw how eager his eyes were and how tense his body was and it felt like someone was shooting a nail gun into the side of his fucking head. How exactly was he supposed to deal with this? How does he take information like that and just immediately apply it to a year of pent up emotions and frustrations and break downs? If he was human where the fuck did some ridiculous chemical come from? How did he bond with Derek without even knowing what the fuck he was doing?
Derek walked hesitantly forward, his hand reaching out to brush against Stiles' long slender fingers. The boy pulled away and looked over at Derek. It was quiet. Tense. And the alphas eyes narrowed when Stiles unzipped his sweat shirt and it fell to the floor. His jeans hung loose on his hips, body lean and sculpted. The alphas eyes flicked from his toes back to the light brown eyes watching him from under an umbrella of dark lashes.
"I don't want you to tell me you love me," Stiles repeated, reaching for the ends of Dereks shirt and tugging them up. The wolf pulled the shirt up over his head and tossed it away, looking across to Stiles and listening to the boys heart as it continued to race.
It was hard to understand. The anger and confusion and desperation all hurdled into one.
"Then what do you want, Stiles?" the irritation in Dereks voice stung and Stiles grinded his teeth together.
"I want you. That's it, and I want you to want me and I don't want anything more right now. It's been a long fucking day and I've had three fucking panic attacks in an eight hour period and honestly I can't do this shit. I don't know what any of this means and I'd really like to not think about it right now or talk about it or really talk at all I-"
The kiss was angry. Hard and rough and it hurt. But Stiles didn't mind. He didn't mind the crushing blows of Dereks mouth on his own and he didn't mind the way he gripped his hips and picked him up and slammed him against the pillar a few feet away. It didn't phase him when Derek bit down on his throat so hard that his eyes burned with tears and he choked out a moan when the alpha grinded his hips hard between the boys legs.
The thoughts floated away. The hurt faded. The anxiety melted into the floor beneath them and everything was gone for a minute. Just like it always had been. When everything had gone terribly wrong it was this that grounded them. Stiles didn't want to think of mating or bonding or being a wolf, he wanted to think of Derek and how his skin was slick with sweat and how he whimpered when Stiles pulled his nails down the center of his back.
There was always time to deal with that shit later. Even though he didn't want to admit that he had ran here out of fear right into Dereks arms, and he didn't want to think about the fact that no matter how angry he had been, Stiles had been completely torn since this morning. Torn between letting himself fall into this with open arms and a completely open mind, and running as fast as he could the other direction, with his panic and his anxiety and everything else he hated to keep him company in the dark.
But right now all that mattered was Dereks labored breathing and how Stiles ignored the pain when his back hit the cement floor of the loft.
