Disclaimer: I don't own MTV's Teen Wolf or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: This story is meant to fit into the canon events of season 4 until just before the end of 4x12, "Smoke and Mirrors" where it goes very AU. The premise is that Scott and co. escaped Kate in Mexico and return to Beacon Hills without the showdown we saw in the final episode where Kate is 'defeated.' In this au Derek still 'evolves', but Chris doesn't go with the Calaveras to track down Kate, but rather returns with the whole pack to Beacon Hills. – This is a Bobby Finstock/Chris Argent fic, with minor references to: Stiles/Derek & Lydia/Parrish here and there.
Warnings:Spoilers for seasons three and four and one or two vague illusions to things that have happened in season five. *Contains: sexual content, blood, guts, gore, canon appropriate violence, references to using alcohol as a coping mechanism in both past and present tenses, kidnapping. - There will be more warnings to come as the story progresses. There will be 40 chapters and this fic will update once a week.
Regress to my mean (and kiss me pretty)
Chapter 25
After that he was more or less fully in. No more ignoring the furry alter-ego. No more pretending this was magically going to go away. He decided to start giving a crap about the fact that he had a 'thing' – was a thing – and that thing really needed to start getting figured out.
The whole imminent death by kitty claws was probably also a very good motivator.
In the absence of any real progress from Deaton, the general reaction from the others was differing choruses of 'fucking finally!' Which he made Stiles, Liam, Scott and Kyra pay for collectively for the next few practices. Chasing them around the field and making them do double and triple sets of suicide lunges until the three of them were dragging Stiles around by his pads and he had the distinct pleasure of rendering the spaz-attack speechless due to an inability to catch his breath.
Though, that might have just been his wounded pride talking considering Lydia had gone so far as to corner him in his office not long after he'd grudgingly reached out to the others. Verbally berating him for not listening to what the world was telling him, yadda yadda. Because, apparently, avoidance was both useless and unattractive and now they were going to have to do some 'serious catch up' if they ever hoped to break even.
Oh joy.
The next few months passed in a similar fashion. He swallowed his trepidation – and alright, pride – and took up Derek and Parrish's offer of training. Finding himself punching and kicking various objects. Trying to find the right balance between his normal strength and the supernatural kind that had no problem punching through brick or, you know, accidentally disemboweling the practice dummy his first time out.
Because, yeah.
That'd happened.
Lydia and Stiles used his change of heart to sequester him in the school basement after class. Coming up with vague reasons to throw him through the wringer for the sake of 'supernatural science.' They went through the entire list. He stood in front of the creepy tree that looked like something out of the "Evil Dead" for a couple nights in a row - nothing. Mountain ash barriers had no effect on him and all the types of Wolfsbane they tried only made him sneeze. Silver was basically the same deal. It didn't seem to matter what it was. It seemed like everything that was an accepted supernatural weapon or deterrent had absolutely dick all to do with him.
But it only made Lydia and Stiles all the more keen.
In fact, it got to the point that he was forced to stammer out something that was more or less believable when Natalie cornered him in the gym's supply closet and demanded to know why he and Chris were apparently now starred contacts in his daughter's phone.
The words she didn't use reached a level of disgusting he didn't know he was possible of feeling considering everything that'd happened in the past year. Horrifying him into a stunned sort of silence with the insinuation right up until Lydia texted him with what was probably the best worst timing in the world with one of their coded phrases. Allowing him to mutely hold up his phone for her inspection as the words: "I thought you were going to unlock the spare classroom? I need it for a sketching session with Malia and Kyra after school," blinked innocently across the screen.
Afterwards, Natalie had just smiled and dragged him off to lunch. Leaving him shell-shocked and so thoroughly confused that he forgot how his fucking tongue worked. Letting her bully him into the back of the lunch room before she laughed and apologized for the ambush. Assuring him that she'd never actually suspected him of anything, but that she'd wanted a real answer when she sprung it on him. Apparently now firmly under the impression that these 'sketching sessions' were code for Lydia meeting boys she didn't want to tell her mother about.
He didn't have to say a word. She did all the talking for him. Creating what she figured was the answer as he nodded in the right places and tried to remember not to miss his mouth with his fork. Wondering vaguely why Natalie hadn't gone into law or politics instead of teaching. Something that would suit the fact that she could be as intimidating as hell when she wanted to be.
He walked away relieved, scarred for life and just a little bit guilty at the idea of lying by omission. Especially with Nat. He knew Nat. Heck, he'd spent half his high school years worshipfully putting her on a pedestal along with most of their graduating class. Nowadays they were colleagues, maybe even friends. But mostly, she was Lydia's mother, she deserved to know the danger her kid was putting herself in. Or, he supposed, the dangers the world had chosen to put her in. That whole banshee-coma-I-see-dead-people thing she had going on. The thing she hadn't signed up for. Just like him.
It was a complicated, this whole supernatural double life thing.
Terrifying and complicated.
The weeks trudged past.
Chris left town for five days right around the time he eventually ran out of excuses to stop declining the Henson's offers for dinner. Wanting to thank him as only a mostly broke young couple could. With dinner at their home on pleasantly mismatched furniture and a mid-priced bottle of wine he declined politely more than once. Feeling guilty considering it was obvious they'd picked it up just for the occasion. But making up for it by shamelessly asking for thirds of the roast beef and yorkshire pudding because it made Mrs. Henson smile and was probably the best thing he'd put in his mouth for days.
Chicken Little lit up like a light bulb the moment he walked through the door. Something which was both flattering and kind of weird considering it had been about a year since he'd seen her and she reached for him immediately. Still, he wrote it off as her just being super friendly and having absolutely zero in terms of self-preservation instincts. Talking to her mock-seriously when she held up her stuffed bear for his inspection, only half aware of Mrs. and Mr. Henson trading pleased looks over their heads from the entrance of the den.
But of course, like all good things, there was a catch.
She wailed whenever he tried to put her down.
Consequentially, he held her for the majority of the night.
It wasn't completely terrible.
He spent the next two days quietly unnerved at how natural it had seemed. Dealing with a squirming arm-load of kid as Mrs. Henson gushed about how she was ahead on all the usual milestones. Trying to ignore the fact that despite having never held a kid her age in his life before a year ago, somehow he knew exactly how to hold her. It'd been automatic. Making him wonder how he could almost tell - before she even started fussing - that the kid was edging towards over-tired. Or why it felt a bit like something was exploding in his chest when he realized that somewhere along the line she'd fallen asleep like that. Cradled in the dip between his arm and his chest as the Henson's chattered animatedly about the preschool they were planning to send her next year.
He ended up burying the feelings deep until Chris returned- energized, tanned and smelling like the moist, exotic warmth of South America. Distracting him with what he'd come to refer as 'hunter talk'. Something about the development of a new, and potentially even more deadly strain of wolfsbane. Filling his house with chatter, abandoned socks and that stupid brand of toothpaste that smelled like a natural health foods store had exploded all the way up his sinuses.
He walked around like his smile had been stuck on his face permanently for the next week. Feeling a whole lot like a complete puzzle again rather than just the pieces as Chris' suitcase eventually migrated down the stairs and into the depths of his basement. Hopefully to disappear forever.
He'd kind of missed him a lot.
Like, a lot, a lot.
When Deaton announced that he finally had a lead and took off on some plane to god knows where, Chris was right there. Distracting him. Bullying him into shooting practice, which he was profoundly awful at. Then crossbow practice which he was worse at. Then finally knife throwing which ended without ceremony after he snapped the seal off one of the pipes in his basement and almost flooded the place when he threw it just a bit too hard.
He ended up getting one hell of a blow-job after they'd stopping yelling, resealed the pipe and mopped up, so he couldn't say with good conscience that it'd been a total disaster. But yeah, there were no more training related distractions after that. Not unless they involved a mouth or similarly shaped orifice.
Because weirdly enough, using his mouth was something he'd always been pretty good at.
It happened more than once as the days stretched to weeks and Deaton continued to be frustratingly quiet. When things got to be too much and he just needed to be, he'd find himself caging Chris in and pulling him close. Bullying him with his lips as he pinned him against the chair in his office until his ass was clenching under his hands. Bare thighs flexing and sweat-slick against the leather as he spread his mate's cheeks and pulled sounds he'd never even heard before from Chris' throat.
He always kept it up until they were both panting. Until Chris's mouth was lax, while the rest of him was straining. Craning his neck to look behind him as he slicked a finger to add beside his tongue - just to make those perfect hips snap into his hold. Attention rapt as he kept his hands on the curve of either cheek, keeping him spread and exposed as Chris swore and writhed every time he flicked his tongue over his hole.
It was- well, god.
He didn't even know how to describe it.
Chris had always blown him away, but having him like this?
It was like breathing.
And it always left him with the same feeling. The same awareness that even when they did something new, tried something different, it still felt familiar. Knowing how to manipulate almost every inch of each other. Knowing what they liked and what they didn't. Sensing when to hold off. When to apply the barest hint of pressure. When to ignore the words spilling out and get over that final hurdle before the finish.
He'd be lying if he said he never used it to his advantage. The same went for his senses using everything that was rushing thick and vibrant under his skin to keep his mate balanced on the cusp. Until Chris' mouth was moving soundlessly, wordless and over stimulated. Too far gone to do anything but twitch and jerk. Eyes wet with tears and begging for more before the moment broke and they went soaring together. Blacking out like they were caught in some sort of feedback loop that had no concept of time and space and all those rules the real world normally stuck to like glue.
He knew they were going to have to talk about it one of these days, but for now he was content to just enjoy it. If procrastination was his superpower he might as well get some use out of it before Deaton blew back into town and proceeded to drop the next bombshell that would probably ruin his life.
Again.
The only other marginally exciting thing that happened while they were waiting on tender hooks was when Ellen - the French sub filling in for Madam Tulliani while she was on maternity leave - asked him out for a drink while Chris was standing next to him in the parking lot one afternoon after school.
She was leggy, blonde, beautiful and blindingly self-confident. The type of woman all the male staff secretly harbored crushes for but were never paid any attention unless she needed something. Only now he was wheeling around to find her looking appraisingly up and down the length of him. Like she was seconds away from demanding a sample to enrich her 'browsing experience.'
The entire thing was one part thrilling, another slightly arousing and the rest downright terrifying considering he could only catch the very edge of Chris' chilly expression as she ignored him, the truck idling behind them and, of course, the obvious reality that Chris dropped him off and picked him up on a semi-regular basis these days.
Okay, forget chilly. The look Chris was fixing her with was positively sub-arctic.
The rest of the evening proceeded like a bad romantic-comedy he hoped to repeat someday when his ass wasn't smarting. Finding himself a very willing participant in getting fucked within an inch of his life while Chris worked out his emotions on the subject. Snarling into his skin and wrenching him around, exactly how he liked. Milking his cock with a brutal fist as the man bent him over his own god damned desk and fucked into him like he owned every inch.
The grooves his claws carved into the desk were close to five inches deep and worse where he'd accidentally bent the metal trim around his office door when Chris had hustled him down the hall and slammed him up against the door. Yanking on the zipper of his jeans and curling his fingers inside before his trembling hands could even find the right key.
It was a journey of sexual self-discovery for both of them. But that being said, he was pretty sure he would forever cherish the memory of Ellen turning an unflattering shade of tomato-red when Chris had politely plucked her fur-trimmed sleeve off the curve of his bicep and kissed him square on the lips in front of god knows how many people.
He was sore for days and had to replace half the furniture in his office.
But he grinned like a loon all the way until the following Monday.
Ellen was understandably miffed.
Two weeks later while they were cleaning up after dinner, Deaton called.
He was coming back to Beacon Hills.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be more to come, stay tuned.