The Lion and the Lamb

"I one hundred percent didn't see anything, Parrish," Stiles groans, leaning forward to rest his face on the cool metal table, "I just saw him lying there and choking and I panicked, okay? I've seen a lot of dead people, but I don't think I'd ever seen one dying. Until last night."

Parrish lets out a sigh, "It's hard, I get it. I was the same way when I first started my tour in Afghanistan. It gets easier though, when you're in law enforcement."

Stiles just nods against the table because he knows the deputy is right. But it doesn't feel right to him, knowing that he's going into a field that desensitizes you to the loss of life, as if it isn't a precious thing to have taken from you. "I was so afraid, Parrish," he whispers, "I tried to save him, stop the bleeding, y'know? But—" Stiles takes a deep breath. "There was no way I could've saved him, was there?"

"No, Stiles," he replies, and Stiles lifts his head and leans back in the chair, nodding slowly in understanding. "You did everything you could, and it was all the right things."

They sit in silence for a moment before Stiles quietly murmurs, "Can I go now?"

"Yeah." Stiles scrapes the chair across the floor and stands, moving out the door when Parrish's voice makes him turn. "Stiles, take care of yourself. Get some sleep. Give yourself a break."

"There's no rest for the wicked and no rest for the weary," the younger replies, "I just need to figure out which one I am."

Stiles spends the better part of the day holed up in the public library—of course his father told Scott about the night before and Scott insisted that he not be working—surrounded by books and books of folklore. He's eternally grateful for the community they have in Beacon Hills, because so many people donate their old books to the library, and that's what makes his research and his life that much easier. There's a large carpet in the back of the library with a world map printed on it, right between the periodicals and the mythology sections, and it's Stiles's favorite place to spend time. He's pulled about twenty books and stacked them in their respective regions so that when he finds something suspicious in the FBI database, he can crosscheck it with the dusty stacks around him. Copies of everything in the case file are pinned to a bulletin board behind the desk he's sitting at and connected with red lengths of yarn, and Stiles even has things that weren't in the case file: articles, newspaper clippings, topographical maps. He knows that almost everyone in this town knows him, knows who he is as a person, and isn't at all going to be fazed by the fact that the son of the sheriff is probably sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. He did it all through high school, and as far as they know, he's doing it again. What better way to prevent being compromised than hiding in plain sight?

This FBI sent over access to their database and Stiles has been sifting through all of the suspicious incidents reported in the region around Beacon Hills, and there's surprisingly a lot. He'd had a whole discussion with Scott's dad before he left for Beacon Hills about unsavory cases that haven't exactly been solved, and Agent McCall reluctantly gave in and promised Stiles that he'd talk to his superiors about having someone look into those. There are few people who actually believe in the supernatural outside of Beacon Hills—literally everyone in the town accepts that creatures other than humans exist and are harmless for the most part—but the fact that the federal government also knows that supernatural creatures exist blows Stiles's hyperactive little mind. He so desperately wants to help them start a supernatural unit specifically for the extramundane and unexplainable, considering that's been his specialty for over the past four years, and he's hopeful that solving this case is going to look really good for him.

"Isn't this illegal?" A voice comes from behind him, gentle and out of character.

Stiles exhales sharply and doesn't look up from his screen, but calmly minimizes the database tab. "Stalking me is also illegal. You know my dad's the sheriff, right? I can tell him to arrest you."

"Fine, I'll leave."

"Stay," tumbles from Stiles's lips before he can stop himself, and to his surprise, Derek pulls up a chair. He hasn't shaved, and Stiles doesn't think he's ever seen Derek's eyes look so weary before. He even smells different, spicy and earthy, like the smoke from a bonfire, and now Stiles doesn't know if this is real Derek or fake Derek. "Put your car keys on the table."

Derek obliges, fishing the fob out of his jacket pocket and putting it on the table. "I'm real."

"That's what fake Derek would say. You're not biting my head off either, so that's two whole red flags waving right in my face. You wanna raise another?"

"His name was Brett Talbot."

Stiles slams his MacBook shut and narrows his eyes because ding ding, red flag number three. "Okay, Derek, game over. What the hell do you want?" Derek's just staring at him with lackluster jade eyes, expressionless.

"Get off my ass," Derek snaps, "I know what you're doing here, Stiles. I'll give you information you need to close the case, but you let me handle it, and you stop shoving your nose into my business."

Stiles's brain immediately goes into a panic. What does Derek mean, he knows what he's doing here? He's been so good about keeping a low profile, sticking to the script, not drawing attention to himself…well, maybe not that one. "So, you've lowered one red flag because you're being a dick again, but I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm just doing the research my dad doesn't have time to do."

"I even didn't need to hear the blip in your heartbeat to know you're lying. You agree to my terms, or the FBI doesn't close this case."

Shit, shit shit. Nearly a month out and he fucking blows it. "Why should I trust you?"

Derek's mouth turns downward into the glower he wears so well. "Go ahead, shine a light in my eyes, see if they turn silver."

"Fine," Stiles retorts, shining his phone's flashlight right into Derek's beautiful eyes and seeing nothing but his pupils expand and contract, "but you tell no one why I'm here."

Derek nods and settles into his seat with a neutral expression, almost pleasant, as if he didn't lose his temper a moment ago and as if he didn't plan on losing it again. His hand reaches for the case file hidden underneath Stiles's laptop and he yanks it out to sift through it. "You need to tell them to run toxicology reports. Every single victim was a born beta and they bled out, only because they couldn't heal themselves." Derek points at a book on the floor that Stiles has sitting in the North American continent and Stiles picks it up, fingers brushing at the scorched spot on the leather binding with T. Hale burnished in the spine. "I donated the family books after the house combusted, I didn't think I'd need them anymore." Derek's hands take the horticulture book and he furrows his brow pointedly before his fingers flick through the folio, trying to ignore the trained pages that flip open by themselves before he swivels the book upside down and pushes it toward Stiles. "Letharia vulpina is the poison you're looking for, specifically the vulpinic acid. It's a lichen fungus that's exceedingly rare, and it's been used to poison and kill wolves for centuries. He's most likely using a weak oil or essence of it because if it were something stronger, it would kill him as well, but he just needs it to incapacitate his victims so that they bleed out without healing."

Stiles honestly can't be mad at Derek at this point because the SAT words like vulpinic and incapacitate that are tumbling out of the model's mouth are giving Stiles serious fantasies of just laying him across the library desk and fucking him right there with nearly all of their clothes on. But he digresses, skimming the open book Derek's pushed toward him. "So, a werewolf is killing them?"

"More or less," Derek replies, "his name is Theo. He's a chimera.

"That wasn't even on my list," Stiles whispers, looking up at Derek and waiting for him to continue.

"He's a type of werewolf, like a science experiment, made in a lab, not born, not bitten. He's hellbent on killing other creatures so he can absorb their power and become stronger himself. I can't tell you what kind of creatures he's usurped or even what kind of fucked up mutt he is himself, I just know he came to me looking for an alpha, and I told him I couldn't help him. I didn't want a pack then, so I didn't have one, still don't, and he tried to promise me an obscene amount of power to get me to make one."

Stiles reaches down and picks up another book, off of the North American continent, and skims through it. "Why is he killing born betas?"

"There's a higher probability that they'll have the power to evolve," Derek says, "and bitten wolves don't necessarily get that. If the trait runs in your family, you're more likely to eventually achieve a higher form, usually—"

"A big black dog." Stiles pops his head up to look at Derek with inquisitive whiskey eyes. "Just like you. You're the wolf that's been running around the woods, you're the one they've been trying to catch and that's why you want me off your ass. For all I know, you're the one killing people and you've been making all this shit up and using your insanely beautiful face to try and fucking de-rail my investigation and—"

"Do you want me to be fucking angry again?" Derek barks, earning angry shushing from the librarian shelving books behind him. "Look, I don't get irritated unless someone pisses me off, and accusing me of murder is pissing me off. I'm giving you answers you'd never have found so the least you can do is fucking listen to me when I'm being enjoyable."

Stiles shuts up, and he isn't sure if it's the anger that's done it, but this is definitely the real Derek. He's arguably too exhausted to be any more than acrimonious, but Stiles has a feeling if he pushes Derek too much, then he's going to push Stiles up against his ceremonial case yarn bulletin board and kill him. He also doesn't want to draw attention to the fact that he'd straight up told Derek in that angry rant that he had a beautiful face, considering Derek doesn't seem to have registered that Stiles even said it at all.

Derek definitely noticed. His ears are hot, and his face is red, and he can tell Stiles is freaking out from the pounding of his heart and the panicked smell he's giving off. He's been doing his best to ignore the superfluity of emotions that have been radiating off of Stiles since Derek showed up, and it's starting to stress him out knowing that if Stiles weren't human, he'd probably be able to smell the same scents rolling off of Derek. But no, Derek refuses to get attached to a boy that's just going to leave him here with the crazies in this godforsaken Bermuda triangle of a town. He's not going to get on his knees for Stiles just to have him up and leave back to DC, when Derek's nearly thirty and his wolf is yearning for something long term. Though he couldn't deny that the sound of Stiles calling him beautiful eased the longing in his chest, just a little bit.

Something else Stiles said lingers in his brain, about the wolf running through the woods where the bodies were found. He knows he was the one, because the wolf inside has gone silent, but why? Why isn't the wolf letting him know where he's been, what he's done? He's woken up with someone else's blood on his hands and he still can't remember what's happened unless—

"Hey Derek, what do you know about shapeshifters?"

"That's it," he murmurs at Stiles, who's searching Derek's face expectantly, "it all makes sense." Stiles doesn't ask, just patiently waits until Derek's ready to purge the story on his lips, because he's got a glimmer of terror his eye that Stiles had hoped to never see. "He just wants me, Stiles."

"Whoa, whoa, slow down, Stiles, you're stressing me out." Deputy Parrish is trying to make sense of the stream of consciousness pouring from Stiles and he can't seem to get the boy to stop.

"We're looking for Theo Raeken, a werewolf-shapeshifter chimera. He's currently taken the form of Derek Hale, which explains the shedding skin we examined in the morgue, and the four victims we have are all born werewolves. He's been killing supernatural creatures and absorbing their power, and now he's going after Derek."

Parrish still looks confused and Stiles pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. He sometimes forgets that while his brain runs a mile a minute, his mouth doesn't, and most of the time the words that do spew out aren't in the form of coherent sentences. "Let me get this straight," Parrish inquires, "this kid is absorbing other creatures' abilities?"

Stiles nods. "That dog you've been chasing is Derek, the real Derek. He just doesn't remember it because the wolf won't let him." He reaches into the manila case file and pulls out some Xerox copies of book pages from the library. "It says here that when a shifter assumes the form of a person, it's important to keep that person alive. The shifter obtains not only appearance, but thoughts and memories as well. Right now, the only difference between Derek and Theo is that Derek can shift into a full-fledged wolf and Theo can't, so the wolf isn't letting Derek remember so Theo can't be one step ahead of him."

"So, how do we catch him?" Stiles knows at this point that it's the only question Parrish can formulate and think to ask because he doesn't even know what he doesn't know. "Is there like some sort of special thing we need?"

Stiles sighs and puffs his cheeks out a bit because he's honestly not quite sure how to tell Parrish, but— "You can't fight him."

"What?"

"He has these sort of claws—er, talons—and they're from a harpy eagle, but they're scientifically enhanced probably by whoever made him a chimera and th—"

"Stiles, what do you mean I can't fight him?" Parrish interrupts, starting to get impatient at the boy dancing around the answer to his question.

Stiles grimaces, licking and biting at his lips while his eyes dart around the station. Nervous habit. "The talons are what he's using to expropriate power from the creatures he's killing. You can't go after him. If he—one slash with the—you'll be dead if you fight him. Well, dead again." Stiles doesn't think he's ever seen Parrish look so defeated. "And he'll be part hellhound. So…" Stiles also gets him to swear not to tell his father. He knows he has to do this alone, no matter what Derek said about staying out of it.

Derek's phone starts ringing immediately after he sets foot in the loft, and once he sees Stiles's name blinking on the screen, he answers after two rings. "Stiles."

"Derek, how'd you know…?" The line goes silent for a moment while Stiles ponders. "The business card. Got it. Anyway, are you busy? I have a couple more questions."

He doesn't try to hide the deep breath he takes. The last thing he wants to do is let this intoxicating boy into his home—his own fucking space that he and he alone resides in—just so he can get his stupid cinnamony scent all over it. He wants to be alone to sleep before his death sentence because Jesus, after reading through the case file and putting Theo's puzzle together, Derek's actually terrified of what's coming. He also hasn't necessarily been getting the greatest amount of sleep since the wolf part of him has been out trying to find Theo and save these kids, or so he assumes. Before his brain can tell Stiles that he's busy, his mouth says, "No, I'm not busy. Maybe we can—"

"Awesome, I'm almost at your loft so I'll be there in a few." And the line goes dead.

Derek takes another deep breath and listens to the jeep clattering a couple miles down the road while he spends the next ten or so minutes tidying up the loft, i.e. throwing a shirt in the laundry and pulling the comforter up to the pillows on his bed. He walks up the winding staircase and pulls a book from the bookshelf near the kitchen and brings it back to the table downstairs, letting the sun illuminate the leather binding as he walks over to the heavy steel door and slides it open, only to find Stiles about to knock.

"H-Hey," the boy breathes out, "you, uh, heard me?"

Derek nods.

"Did Roscoe give me away?"

He shakes his head. "Your heartbeat. You hesitated before you decided to whether or not to knock." He steps aside to let Stiles move past him into the loft, the fresh aroma of rain wafting into a trail behind him and making Derek dizzy.

"Aren't you rich? You could've at least hired an interior decorator or something when you bought the whole fucking building," Stiles says, standing in the middle of the loft and just gazing around the nearly empty space.

Derek rolls his eyes and retaliates, "Aren't you FBI? You could've at least been subtler with discussing details of a case in a town full of people who can hear you whisper from across the room." He hears Stiles mumble something along the lines of "fucking rude" under his breath as he walks up the spiral staircase and definitely finds a purple box with a red velvet cupcake inside sitting on the kitchen counter. He also definitely finds the note he left Derek on that box fastened to the refrigerator with a magnet right next to the business card he gave him with the phone number. He didn't even notice Derek quietly ascend the stairs after him until he's behind him asking, "I know you gave me your number, but I didn't give you mine."

Stiles flails his arms and leans against the granite countertop in an attempt to recover from being embarrassingly startled. "I, uh, found your business card. It was taped to the hanger I took my clothes home on. I just kind of assumed you wouldn't mind?" Derek doesn't have the energy to be irritated, so he just nods, and tries hard to not show how mortified he is that he kept the fucking cupcake note. Stiles turns to looks at Derek and starts to ask questions. "So, how do—"

"Don't ask me. I don't want Theo to know." Derek points over the bannister at the table downstairs. "I pulled a book that should answer whatever questions you have." He tries not to think about any questions Stiles might ask in fear that Theo is listening.

Stiles smiles. "I really appreciate it." He glances back at the note on the fridge and smiles again, to himself, and follows Derek down the stairs in the pleasant drifting fragrance of his musky aftershave.

"Please take care of this," Derek says in earnest, leaning on stiff arms over the decrepit table. Stiles picks up journal, bound in soft, black leather with yellowed pages and a tie wrapped around the width holding it shut, his long, svelte fingers brushing over the pages' edges. "It's a bestiary. My mom compiled it."

"You've encountered a shifter before?"

"Our family's been around for hundreds of years, Stiles. They've encountered more than just one." He looks up from the table and find Stiles leaning on the table as well, the book off to the side, searching Derek's face with striking honey eyes.

"How old are you?" Stiles asks curiously. "It didn't say on your business card."

Derek actually cracks a tired smile. "Twenty-nine."

Stiles pretends to not look disappointed as he studies Derek's smooth skin, and when he meets those gorgeous jade orbs, they're not angry or annoyed, but clement and fatigued. He looks back and forth between Derek's eyes and doesn't realize how lost in them he's gotten, until Derek blinks, and Stiles's gaze moves to Derek's buxom lips encompassed by the dark stubble he's letting grow out. Something unspoken changes in the air between them and Derek's just watching Stiles examine his face, his eyes slowly dragging over Derek's skin like his tongue dragging over his bottom lip. Derek can feel a familiar pull in his chest of the wolf encouraging him to lean forward and capture Stiles's ample lips with his own, and he doesn't want to get hooked, but Stiles is so intoxicating.

"Stiles—"

"Derek, you have to let me kill him." Stiles's abrupt tone makes Derek freeze, sending anxious chills down his spine. He doesn't move, he just listens to Stiles's strong, steady heartbeat. "He's powerful and he wants to absorb you into his body for everything you have, Derek. I can't let you do this."

"Stiles, I—"

"Listen to me, okay? He's stronger than you. He's always two steps ahead. He'll kill you without hesitation and you won't even see it. You have to let me do this."

Stiles's heart is pounding, but not out of fear. It echoes like a drum in Derek's ears, and he knows that the boy isn't going to change his mind. There's no point in arguing, he's too exhausted anyway, especially because he knows Stiles is right. Theo's slaying any creature he can get his hands on, and Derek isn't in any condition to fight. "Okay, Stiles. Just—wait a couple days and I'll figure out a way to help. You can't do it alone."

"Okay, Stiles, you can do this," he says to himself in the mirror. "This is going to close the case and you can go back to Washington and talk to the board about that sick supernatural investigation unit you want to set up." He's not going to wait to kill this thing, even though the one thing he has on his side is time. He knows he won't be able to do it alone, albeit he's one of the only people that can't have anything usurped from him, besides his life, anyway. He's surprised Derek let him off so easy, and it could've been that weird demeanor shift between them at the loft, but he still isn't even quite sure what caused that. One minute he was talking to Derek and the next was some thick, comfortable silence studying Derek's face like he always does, but Derek wasn't glaring or angry, and Stiles just had to resist the urge to kiss him. Well, Stiles always had to resist the urge to kiss him, except, in that moment, it felt like Derek would've let him.

And that's how he knows he has to do this, alone, carefully, and quietly. He told Derek he was going to wait a few days, but he's a fucking liar, because he's going tonight. He can't have Derek showing up unexpectedly and then getting slaughtered, because if Theo gets the power of an alpha and the ability to fully shift, Stiles has no legitimate chance against him. Right now, he's sitting at about a thirty percent chance of winning, he doesn't want that to turn into negative nine thousand percent.

Stiles waits until the evening, sifting through the scribbles in the bestiary that Derek loaned him. He smiles the whole time because, Jesus, the thing has to be at least two centuries old. He can tell by the handwriting when it changes from one person to the next, and some of the last few pages in the book—detailing the story of Parrish and his possession by Cerberus and the peculiarity of Kate Argent's transformation into a werejaguar—are in a beautiful cursive script that Stiles can only assume belongs to Derek. There's a list of names on a loose sheet that falls out, also in Derek's handwriting, with notes on the case, leading Stiles to believe that Derek had done some sleuthing and thought organization of his own.

Carrie Hudson
Demarco Montana
Lorilee Rohr
Brett Talbot

all born betas, unevolved

poisoned with wolf lichen on eagle talons for effective killing and seizing of power

weaknesses
silver
electricity
decapitation
heart extraction

If there was anything Stiles could pinpoint, it was that the weaknesses of this creature were only the overlap of both a werewolf and a shifter, and that their means to an end was absolutely going to be a fucking shitshow. He debates going to the station and stealing a cattle prod from the evidence locker when there was that whole big Argent weapons confiscation, but he settles for his silver chain-wrapped baseball bat, silver-plated brass knuckles, and a stun gun that doubles as a flashlight that Allison gave him for his birthday a few years back. He really isn't sure how well it's going to work, but it's worth a shot at incapacitation, and then maybe imprisonment? He can always just unwrap the chain from the bat and wrap it around Theo's neck. Maybe drag him behind the jeep until his head just pops off on its own.

Stiles peeks out the window in search of the patrol car and sees none, the absence beckoning him outside. It's nearly midnight, way past curfew, and Stiles is praying that it's his lucky night, that his father stays busy and holed up at the station. He grabs the stun gun and the brass knuckles from their place inside a box in his sock drawer and throws on a black FBI hoodie over his t-shirt. It's from the headquarters and it still looks campy, but it could be worse. It could say 'Female Body Inspector'.

He runs to the bathroom to splash some water of his face before he heads out the door to the jeep. You can do this. You need to protect your friends. He definitely knows he's doing this for Derek, but he won't tell himself that, not yet. When the jeep rumbles alive, he quickly backs out of the driveway and speeds down the street to the preserve.

His jeep rattles to a halt in front of a thin metal gate with a burnished birch wood sign swinging in the breeze that reads Beacon Hills Preserve: No Entry After Dark. Stiles ignores it, yet again. He knows he shouldn't be here, not because he found a dying beta here less than twenty-four hours ago, or because it's been a crime scene nearly all day, but because he always has a plan and for once in his life, he doesn't. He just picks his weapons of defense up out of the back of his car and flips on the flashlight end of the stun gun and hopes the batteries don't die.

Stiles treks through the forest quietly, trying not to think about the previous night, trying not to listen to the crickets and the frogs and the rustling of the trees in the wind. He's debating going around the manor rather than to it, but before he realizes he's been lost in his head, he's in the center of the clearing, minus the dead body. He grips the wooden bat tightly and is about to go into the shell of a home when the door creaks open and a familiar voice calls into the air.

"Stiles?" It's Derek. "What are you doing here?"

Act natural. Stiles lowers the bat slightly and knows better than to try and confront this thing. "I, uh, couldn't sleep. I thought I'd go for a walk and I guess I lost track of time." Fake Derek's just in black jeans as he approaches Stiles with a small smile and the boy lowers his bat completely, albeit he's the farthest he can be from comfortable in fake Derek's presence.

"I couldn't sleep either," he replies, looking up at the misty sky, "I think it's because it's almost a full moon. The wolf in me is getting restless."

"Why aren't you at the loft?" Stiles blurts before he can stop himself. Derek's eyes snap to him and slightly narrow, and the abruptness of the interaction sends a sinister chill down his spine.

The older just smiles a little and doesn't miss a beat. "This house anchors me, believe it or not. It's anchored me since I was a child," Derek's calm and Stiles is struggling to be equally as calm when he asks, "Why don't you come inside? It's cold out, I can see the goosebumps on your neck."

Every single cell in his body is screaming nonononono, so he tries to formulate an excuse to getthefuckout, he's angry, he's cold, he's fucking terrified and nothing comes out of his mouth when he opens it, so he does the next best thing he can think of. He turns, and he runs.

Derek's body jolts awake this time when he gets the drive toward the woods. He can't remember what he was dreaming about, but he's sweating, and his tossing has managed to pull the fitted sheet off of one corner of his mattress. He sits up and there's an unfamiliar stinging in his abdomen and his animalistic counterpart is quiet in his chest, listening with him, trying meticulously to identify the reason for his awakening.

And he hears it.

A scream so raw that hearing it burns his throat.

The wolf is no longer quiet, and it's no longer keeping him asleep. It's savagely clawing and gouging inside of him and he can feel his bones starting to crack and shift and move and it hurts so badly that Derek is howling, red eyed, through the transformation. He can feel the saliva rabidly dripping from his canines and the breeze blowing from the open window through his sable fur. Another scream beckons him out of the loft and down the street, past the sheriff station, past a blue jeep, and right into the preserve.

Stiles's eyes flicker to the chipped baseball bat thrown to the bottom of the dilapidated stairs, abandoned near his obliterated stun gun. His head is throbbing, and he doesn't know where fake Derek is, but all he can do is assume that the swift kick he'd landed to the right side of his head at least stunned him. He's aimlessly wracking his brain for the information he knows that he knows on how to kill this shifter. He's fumbling around in his jacket pocket for his silver-plated brass knuckles before Theo comes back to slit his throat. "Jesus Christ," he whispers, unable to work his quaking fingers.

There's snarling coming from outside and Stiles manages to loop his fingers through the brass knuckles and run down the stairs to pick up his bat. He darts out the front door and an enormous black wolf is lunging at the creature in the clearing in front of the house. Stiles is first spotted by Theo, i.e. fake Derek, whose sights are set on the boy with a bloodthirsty look in his silvery eyes. He makes a swift move toward the house and dodges Stiles's first punch, raking his claws across the boy's abdomen to effectively shred Stiles's jacket and t-shirt. He's blindly swinging the bat and this wolf rushes forward to drag the shifter back to the ground by the ankle, ripping a chunk of flesh from his leg in the process. Stiles is momentarily paralyzed from the warm blood soaking the ribbons of material hanging off of his chest, but he feels nothing as his brain tells him to fight this monster. Theo's shifted into Derek, complete with blue glowing claws, fangs, and a bizarre absence of eyebrows, but instead of bright crimson eyes, they're a cold silver. He slashes across the eyes of the wolf attempting to rip its throat out and kicks it backward, and the animal hits the ground with a sickening thump.

Stiles is numb with adrenaline and dodges the creature as it lashes out at him, and swings, bashing him in the ribs on his right side and burning the flesh over the broken bone. His cry of pain morphs into a barbaric growl, "Come here, Stiles. I thought you weren't afraid of me." He lurches forward, and Stiles leaps out of the way, but he scrambles to get his balance back once he realizes the wolf behind the shifter is out of its daze. The wolf howls and the shifter glances away, letting Stiles land an uppercut right to the jaw with his brass knuckles. Fake Derek stumbles backward into the arc of the wolf that's sprung up, and it sinks its canines right into the side of the creature's neck, silvery eyes flaring as he's slung into one of the support beams on the porch of the house. Stiles shoots over to the house and swings the bat, landing a blow to the back of the shifter's skull as he tries to get up, and it crunches loudly and sends the shifter back onto the ground. Stiles watches in disbelief as the bones start to crack and the monster begins to heal itself with a throaty chuckle.

"Try again," it taunts, knocking Stiles off of his feet with a rapid kick to the stomach. His breath leaves him as he falls backward into the porch stairs and he can't breathe. The shifter looms over him and wraps a hand around Stiles's neck and he can feel himself getting lightheaded, both from the adrenaline wearing off and the lack of oxygen to his brain.

This is it, he thinks, hands uselessly pawing at the talons crushing his trachea and pressing him into the house that's splintering with the force of his body being pushed into it. And then the shifter's gone. His vision goes white around the edges as he sucks in gulps of air, his heartbeat deafening in his ears. He blinks away the haze in his eyes and catches the wolf's silhouette in the moonlight morph until it's human again, and it's Derek, picking the shifter out of the leaves where he'd ripped him away from Stiles.

"You don't get to fucking touch him," Derek snarls, slamming the limp creature onto the ground. It reaches up to claw at Derek's eyes again and the alpha plunges his fist into the left side of the shifter's chest and tears his heart out. His head promptly turns to Stiles, who's splayed in front of the house gasping and bleeding profusely, still clutching that baseball bat.

Derek's face wrinkles with concern and his soft green eyes dart all over Stiles's injuries, shocked that he could even fight with the condition he's in. "Stiles, can you hear me?"

"Yes," he whispers, eyelids fluttering at all of the pain washing over his body, "we—leave." But he can't get up because his legs don't want to work, and he's shaking and he's sweating and he's gasping because he can't breathe again, "I'm hav—panic—Der—"

And Derek finally lets the wolf inside guide him and he roughly kisses Stiles right there on the splintering porch, at 1:04 am, in the middle of the woods. Stiles stops breathing because he's absolutely and irrevocably breathless, and he kisses Derek back as forcefully as his feeble body will let him with what little strength he has left. His pain is ebbing away to something more bearable before Derek pulls back and lets his eyes bolt around Stiles's face, scanning his expression, assessing his condition. "You can't go home."

"You can't take me to the hospital." He won't let his cover be blown. "Don't let me die out here."

"I won't," Derek promises, lifting Stiles up and running him all the way to the jeep to safely drive him to the animal clinic.

"What else do you need? I can—"

"Derek, I need you to sit down," Deaton says calmly, carefully cutting the rest of Stiles's shirt open from where he's lying unconscious and restrained on the table. "I can heal him, and if you don't sit down, I'm only going to be able to heal him."

Derek doesn't sit, he paces, hands running through his hair and smearing blood all over his face, circling the steel examination table. He doesn't care that he's completely nude and caked with blood and dirt, he doesn't care that there's a slow, searing pain that's leading a numbness throughout his body, and he doesn't care that he doesn't have the alpha strength to regenerate his eyes. "Please, I can help, let me help."

Deaton's rummaging through the office pulling out herbs: fennel, plantain, thyme, nettle, mayweed. "Derek. Sit down. The poison is spreading quickly and the more you pace, the harder it'll be for me to heal you, so if—"

"I don't give a fuck about me, I give a fuck about him!" Derek's getting himself worked up and his heart is throbbing faster in his chest, the numbness spreading faster, the rage and terror filling his gut, causing what's left of his eyes to flicker and the wolf in his chest to snarl. "So, tell me what you need."

"There should be a jar of honey in the cabinet behind you," Deaton resigns, adding mugwort, crab-apple, Lamb's cress, and betony to the table. Derek thrusts forward a jar of honey and a large mortar and pessle, his hand feeling around for Stiles's cheek to comfort the boy and himself. His knees give out and he splays out on the floor, eyes lazily rolling around. He can't see much, just shadows, but he can smell the herbs being crushed and hear the grinding of the stone. "Hang in there, Derek. You have to keep listening to my voice."

Derek tries, so hard, but his lids are getting heavy and Stiles is getting help and that's all that matters, until Deaton slathers the herb paste over Stiles's body and the boy jolts up screaming. The only thing preventing him from digging the paste out of his chest are the restraints holding his limbs down onto the table. Derek's wolf lurches his body upward and he's clutching Stiles's hand and taking all the pain he can, despite the numbness in his legs and the broken ribs attempting to mend themselves. Derek isn't sure he should be even pulling Stiles's pain with his condition, but Stiles is just wailing, and Derek needs to make it stop before he screams his throat raw.

And then the searing pain starts on him, Deaton plastering the herbs over Derek's body and his face. "I'm sorry, Derek. I know this hurts." But it doesn't just hurt, it throbs, and it stings, and it burns, and Derek's howling on the floor, the only thing keeping him anchored is the grip that Stiles is clutching his hand in. His eyes are healing, and his ribs are healing, and the paste is bubbling where it's drawing out the poison, but he's still seething through his teeth because it's making the wolf feel better.

Stiles is free of his restraints, courtesy of Deaton, and he hasn't once let go of Derek. It's miraculous, watching him writhe and all signs of injury just vanish into the smooth tanned expanse that Stiles has come to fantasize over. Derek swallows thickly and becomes exceedingly aware of his nudity, feebly trying to cover himself before hanging his head over his heaving chest in exhaustion.

Deaton offers a small smile to the two and tosses a pair of sweatpants at Derek, who stands and puts them on. "You're very lucky, Derek," the vet says, "if he'd gotten your throat instead of your eyes, I'm not sure you'd still be an alpha, or even alive for that matter. And you," he turns to Stiles, whose fingers are playing with the blood-soaked fabric ribbons that used to be his FBI sweatshirt, "I hope you've solved your case. You've done some great work in improving your fighting skills since the last time I've seen you, Stiles. It appears you can now outsmart your enemies while holding your own, and I think your father would be extremely proud of you."

Stiles smiles and moves from his place on the table. "Thank you. Now, uh, could you do me a favor and not mention any of this to him? I really don't need it getting back to my superiors that I helped execute the 'serial killer' they've been trying to capture."

"Sure thing," Deaton assures, "now take Derek home and make sure he rests."

Stiles is weak, but not as weak as Derek is. He assumes it's because the wolf lichen is more poisonous to wolves than people and Derek hasn't been sleeping well on top of that, plus he just took away every ounce of Stiles's pain while refuckinggenerating his goddamn eyeballs. So, evidently, Stiles has no problems walking out of the clinic, he's just exhausted and a little achy. He also has to nearly carry Derek out, supporting almost all two hundred pounds of muscle, and help him in and out of the jeep. He's just lucky Derek's loft has an elevator.

Once they reach the penthouse, Stiles sides the door open and walks Derek to his bed, kicking aside the fragments of cloth that used to be Derek's pajamas. Stiles sits him down and Derek just presses his palms into the mattress on either side of his body and doesn't bother to look up at the boy standing in front of him.

"Thank you," Stiles starts, uncomfortably, "for saving me." He's not sure if he should mention the defensive heart tearing or the fact that they'd kissed to stop a panic attack. "For everything."

Derek doesn't look up. He's just slowly breathing, blood and dirt still caked on his skin. His brain is whirring, he doesn't know what to do. Everything that just happened was his wolf, acting on instinct, but his human? Petrified. Paralyzed. Visceral. Fucking fuming. "You're a fucking asshole," is what comes out before he can stop it. He's always had anger issues, but they've never been so emotionally driven by pure inoculation before. "You were going to wait."

Stiles is taken aback. Derek has every right to be angry, he just didn't think that after everything that's happened, he'd be ready to pick a fight. "Derek, I—"

"You don't get to fucking explain!" Derek lifts his head and his jade eyes are swirling with rage. The wolf has retreated in his chest, unneeded, and Derek doesn't feel the feral yearning to shift. It's pure human fury that's fueling this outburst. "You didn't have any damn clue what the hell you were getting into!"

"I did all of my research, I was prepared! It's literally my fucking job, Derek!"

"It's not your job to get yourself killed," the older snaps, finding some strength to pull himself to his feet. "I knew I shouldn't have come to you to help, I fucking knew it. I should've just taken care of it myself and recruited the Argents, then we wouldn't even be in this mess."

Stiles is hyperaware of how Derek is in his face, huffing, angry. "I had it under control!"

"But you didn't! He could've shifted into you at any time and then knows what your every move is, were you prepared for that? What if he'd shifted into your father? You think you'd still be able to chop his fucking head off?" Derek's gritting his teeth and his heart is pounding at how Stiles's jaw keeps clenching and his brow is furrowed. "You had no fucking clue what you were getting into."

"Don't you dare act so self-righteous, we wouldn't have even been in this shitstorm if it weren't for you!" Stiles bites back. "You don't have a pack because no one wants to have some uptight, egomaniacal, antagonistic sociopath to rely on. Maybe you'd have some friends if you didn't rip everyone's throat out when they ask you how you fucking day was." He's seething, and his mind isn't registering that Derek is only angry because he wanted to protect him, he just doesn't understand why Derek's attacking him for saving the town.

Derek puts a hand on Stiles's chest and knocks him back a little into a wooden support beam. "You don't know anything about me. You have no right to tell me who you think I am." His eyes flicker between Stiles's and his heart is steady and normal underneath Derek's palm. He's not afraid because he can tell the wolf is gone. "You would've died if I didn't come to protect you."

"I didn't ask for your help," the boy retorts, shoving Derek's hand off of him. "The only reason you did is because you were dragged into the case and you wanted to clear your name, so you could go back to festering alone in your fucking loft after a hard day of sucking the energy out of all the people that actually care about you."

That one kind of hurt a little, and it tugs at Derek's heartstrings, because he knows Stiles is right. "I never should've walked into your bakery."

"What?"

"I never should have walked into your bakery."

Stiles watches Derek fall to a seat on the bed. "Why?"

The jade eyes he's come to love so much just stare up at him, angry and vicious, and Derek spits, "Because then I never would've fucking met you."

Stiles's anger melts away into a sting in his nose, letting him know that tears could begin to fall at any moment. The rage in his heart turns to a painful ache that ebbs in his chest, and he clenches his jaw and nods. "I'll go."

Derek watches the boy turn and doesn't stop him as he pads out of the loft, missing the droplets that fall down Derek's cheeks. He listens for the jeep as it starts and skids quickly out of the lot and away, before he lays back onto his bed and lets the tears silently flow down the sides of his face. Stiles hadn't been wrong, Derek does push people away, but he has his reasons that Stiles doesn't know. Everyone he's been close to ends up hurt or slaughtered, everyone. He didn't want a pack because he's afraid of leading more people he cares about to their deaths, just like he did with his family, leading a hunter right to them just to have them burned alive. He cares too much, and he'd meant what he said about not going into the bakery. If he'd never met Stiles, Theo wouldn't have had leverage on Derek, Stiles wouldn't have gotten nearly killed.

Pushing people away is all he knows how to do because it's how he keeps people alive. And that's why he lets Stiles go.

The next week or two Derek recovers, and once his body stops hurting, his heart starts. The wolf inside his chest is docile but yearning ever since the smell of Stiles finally disappeared from his loft. When he goes to work, there's only one day of shooting left for him, and everyone takes notice of how compliant he is, but no one says anything, except Lydia.

"I've never seen Stiles so upset before," she reveals, putting moisturizer on Derek's face. "Frankly, I've never seen you so upset before either."

"I'm not upset," Derek fires back, but even to him it's a feeble attempt at intimidating.

She works the serum into his skin and Derek doesn't dare open his eyes. "He's not the best at expressing himself, so I'm betting you both said some things you regret and don't know how to apologize." Derek doesn't say anything because she's right. Lydia grabs color corrector and starts on the dark circles under Derek's eyes. "Theo is dead, yet you still aren't sleeping."

"I am," he whispers. She seems to know everything, and Derek isn't sure if Stiles told her or if it's just perks of being a banshee.

"You're not. You're angry you let him go."

He pushes her hand away from where it's blending concealer and breathes to prevent the tears again. The wolf lets out a forlorn howl that vibrates his throat a little before he sighs and looks at Lydia. "Everyone I love gets hurt. I had no choice."

"He can take it, Derek," she caresses his cheek, "He's been through hell and back, and I know if you talk to him—"

"He doesn't want me. No one wants to be near an antagonistic sociopath, he made that very clear."

She puffs powder onto his face and runs her hands through his hair to pull Derek into a hug. "Like I said, he's not the best at emotions. He's an idiot. But so are you." She lets him go. "You need to find him after the shoot, and you need to tell him. Everything."

The shoot went by quickly, some on-location, Derek didn't protest, did exactly as Chris asked. He wasn't angry, he wasn't brooding, he was ambivalent. He was sure the photos are going to be talked about once the magazine comes out, because he's never been melancholy for as long as he's been in the industry. Chris had recruited him years after the fire, as collateral for Kate using him to murder his family, and to try and make things right for him to live on his own, orphaned. He did like it, and he was always known for his glowering photos, for being hateful and dominant. But this issue, with Stiles? The editorial goes from the brooding grimace, to a submissive centerfold, to the woeful disconsolate end.

He packs his dressing room up and takes everything that's his, checking the closet and the vanity drawers. He comes upon a business card, from over two months ago, with purple stripes and a saying Derek is a little too familiar with. He runs his thumb over Never Trust A Skinny Baker and takes a deep breath. Still open, he thinks, the clock reading 7:34 pm. He grips the card in his hand and walks to the parking lot to jump into the Camaro.

Derek's so nervous on the drive over, between being unable to formulate an apology and the beast inside of him crying out, he isn't sure he's ever been this lost before. He usually knows exactly what to do, but no one has ever wormed their way into his life like Stiles has or tried so gently and carefully to break down the wall he's so meticulously built to keep everyone out. He doesn't regret for a moment meeting Stiles.

He shoves the bakery doors open and Scott is behind the register, rewriting the menu for the next day, and Derek can hear Liam in the kitchen, humming to himself while he's pulling cupcakes out of the oven.

"Welcome to—oh," Scott glares, "it's you."

"Where's Stiles?" Derek whispers, heart racing in his chest. He's sweating through his Henley because he can't catch a fresh scent.

Scott turns back to the specials board. "Gone."

"What do you mean, gone?"

"He's been back in Washington since last week," the beta says, nonchalant. "Why—"

"Goddamnit!" Derek lets a howl rip from his chest and it's not angry, it's miserable. Scott's demeanor changes and he leaps over the counter to steady Derek.

"Hey," he says softly, attempting to ease the alpha's claws out of his own hair as to not tear it out, "it's okay." Scott pulls Derek to one of the barstools at the counter and listens to the nervousness of the older's heartbeat.

Derek rests his head in his hands. "I fucked up. I had him and I just—I really fucked it up big time."

Liam pokes his head out from the kitchen with a small cardboard box in his flour-dusted hands. He's smelling waves of anguish and melancholia emanate from the alpha, so he just puts the cube on the counter and nudges it forward with two fingers. "This has been in the fridge for the past week. I assume it's for you."

"He's a hopeless romantic," Scott intervenes, "and he'd been waiting for you to walk through that door up until he left. I didn't think you actually would."

"I talked to Lydia," Derek sighs, opening the cube to reveal one red velvet cupcake. "I guess I'm too late." Derek isn't sure where his job is going to take him, if he and Stiles will ever again be in the same place at the same time.

Liam chimes in. "He talks about you a lot, y'know. It's never too late."

Derek doesn't know why he listens to the advice of a high schooler.

Stiles straightens his tie and sits at his desk, lolling his head around while he waits for another case file to come through. He's been put on vet duty for the past two weeks since he's been back because he's always been great at digging for information until his fingers fall off, and apparently, a big case is coming through regarding Gerard Argent and whether or not his arms dealing company is doing everything legally. Stiles is just glad Chris and Allison got out of that.

He's been bored since he's been back in the office, case closed. Toxicology reports showed exactly as Derek suspected, wolf lichen, lethal dose for any animal and for any human with a slashed throat. The sheriff's department found the fake Derek body of Theo with the heart ripped out and they wrote it off as an animal attack that attacked the animal, but nearly everyone knows that something else got to him, but no one knows who. Except Stiles. And now that the case is solved, and the murders have stopped, he really expects a call from his dad with an update or an interrogation or something regarding the case. He also expects a phone call from Scott and Liam on how they're doing running the bakery.

He doesn't expect the mail guy to toss a brand new, hot-off-the-press magazine with the title Varúlfur at the top onto his desk with a wink. He also doesn't expect to be right on the fucking cover of a werewolf magazine, forcefully bearing the throat of one of the most famous alphas out there. He begins to flip through the pages, fingers trembling with anticipation at every page turn, and his phone buzzes in his pocket, effectively scaring the shit out of him so he jumps, and the magazine gets tossed onto the floor in the middle of the fucking walkway.

He can't fish his phone out of his pocket because his fingers keep nervously spazzing, and when he finally answers it, he just hears Scott chuckling on the other end of the phone. "You know I never thought you were photogenic until I saw these, Stiles."

"Jesus Scott, you couldn't text? I'm busy," he whispers harshly.

"No, you're not," Scott answers, "my dad said he's in the middle of putting a file together for you because you work too fast and aren't occupied at the moment." He laughs again on the other end of the line. "So, about these photos. How you looked at the centerfold yet?"

Stiles glances around his desk for the magazine that was just in his hands. "Shit, where—I just had it. I—" Standing in front of him, holding out the magazine, is the most beautiful pair of jade eyes he's ever seen.

"I think you dropped this."

"Derek," Stiles breathes, eyes darting around the office because he can feel the fucking busybodies that are rubbernecking right in the middle of the walkway. "What are y—why—I—"

Derek walks around to the side of Stiles's cubicle and leans against the desk, still offering the magazine. "I wrote the article inside. Sort of the weird running monologue in my head from the past few months. It's right after the centerfold."

So, Stiles curiously opens the magazine, and lets the centerfold fall out of the pages, and it's an image of Derek, on hands and knees on the white muslin, shifted, with an angry red bite mark on the side of his neck. Stiles is behind him, looming, eyeing the camera, arms still up and positioned from where Derek just fell out of them.

"Are you looking at it? Did Derek show you?" Stiles doesn't have to see Scott to hear how giddy he is. "Can I hang up now?"

"Scott, you mean you knew about this?" Stiles sputters into the phone.

Scott rustles around on the other end. "Yeah, the whole pack helped. Have fun." Dial tone.

"Whole pack?" Stiles swivels his chair back to Derek, who's signing an autograph for one of the girls in tech support and waits until he has the alpha's full and undivided attention. "What pack?"

Derek nudges Stiles's backpack and puts the magazine inside, pointing at the water bottle and laptop on Stiles's desk. "You gonna pack up?"

"Derek, I'm literally at fucking—"

"Scott's dad has been stalling you all day on purpose. He's in on it, too. He knew I was coming in today and taking you. You technically have the day off."

Stiles draws a hand down the side of his face in confusion. "Wait, how did you get—"

"Visitor badge."

"Don't you have to—"

"I'm at my old apartment in New York. My next job is there."

"Why are—"

Derek reaches across the desk and starts packing up Stiles's things. "Do you really want to make a scene here? People are staring."

Sure enough, the office was staring, right at Stiles's cube, probably because the whole time he's been trying to piece together the situation, his arms have been flailing around his body and his voice has gone from a low whisper to a loud, aggressive one. "Yeah, fine, let's go."

The Camaro is waiting outside of the J. Edgar Hoover building once Stiles scans his badge for the turnstile to let them out. He tosses his stuff in the back seat and climbs into the car, waiting patiently for Derek to start driving. "They're housing us at George Washington University, in the Aston on New Hampshire. I'm assuming you want to talk?"

Derek doesn't answer, just hangs a right on Pennsylvania and heads up through the city, Stiles gazes out the window at the passing parks and marble columns as he and Derek sit in a comfortable silence for the fifteen-minute car ride to the Aston. Once they arrive, Stiles leads them to an elevator that rides all the way to the top floor, unlocks the door, and lets Derek into his apartment.

"Derek, why are you here?" Stiles asks, loosening his tie and turning to where Derek's taken up residence on the loveseat. He's absolutely pissed that everyone in his life seemingly turned against him, for Derek, so he could just show up out of the blue, and no matter how much he's been telling himself that he should just run back to Derek and eat his humble pie, he doesn't even want to look at the alpha. "Like why are you really here?"

"I've been driving all week to come to DC," Derek admits, taking a deep breath. He doesn't even know how he's able to form a string of coherent words. "I really fucked it, didn't I?" So much for an apology, he thinks, internally punching the wolf in his chest that's whining at the aroma of Stiles surrounding his body.

Stiles disappears into the kitchen and comes back with a glass of water. "I'm still mad at you," is all that comes out before he clenches his draw and takes a swig of water. "How could you just—" Stiles slams the glass down on the counter and runs a hand through his hair because the anger he's had built up is just going to pour out right now.

"I'm sorry, Stiles, for everything." Derek stands, calm, listening to Stiles's heart race and the mixture of rage and despair and infatuation just rolling off of him. He walks up to Stiles and put a firm hand on his shoulder, trying not to be nervous, because his body is already too warm underneath the white tee and leather jacket in the heated apartment. "I pushed you away because I thought it would keep you safe. I fucked myself once already and got my family killed, and I've always thought that if I push people away, I won't screw it up again. And I made it worse. You were right, I spent so much time sucking the energy out of the people that care about me that I never once imagined how much it could hurt them."

Stiles looks up at Derek with those searing honey eyes and Derek nearly loses his breath just staring into them, and the younger jabs a long finger right in the center of Derek's chest. "You had me, Derek. Right around your fucking finger, and I trusted you. I risked my goddamn life for you, and you didn't push me away, you ripped my fucking heart out, and I still had the decency to wait, to apologize because I thought it was my fault! And you never came back, you—" he thrust his finger into Derek's chest again, "you wanted me gone, remember? Like you'd never even met me."

"I didn't mean it when I said it, God, my whole body wanted you to stay. The wolf inside of me has been yearning since you walked out of my loft and I thought I needed to let you go, but I shouldn't have let you go. It's clawing at me right now, trying to tell me what to do. I just never let it."

"Derek, you—"

And Derek lets it. He lets the animal inside of him grab Stiles's wrist and pull the finger out of his chest before his other hand grabs the back of Stiles's head and hauls him in for a rough kiss. It's fueled by regret and contrition and he just backs Stiles up into the refrigerator when he feels the boy's lips moving against his own. There are teeth and tongues and long, spidery fingers weaving up Derek's back, and they grab a fistful of the alpha's hair and yank his spit-slicked lips away from their place on Stiles's own.

"You son of a bitch," Stiles pants, eyes grazing over Derek's heaving chest. He's beautiful, obedient like this, not resisting, submissive. "I'm still so fucking infuriated at you, for lying, for leaving."

"Show me." Derek's done hiding himself under a shroud of guilt and pain. He's done faking that he doesn't care, he's done trying to convince himself that he needs to have everything under control all the time, and now, he's finally ready to let himself give in. "Show me how angry you are."

Stiles is breathing raggedly, mouth hanging open slightly as he lets his tongue dart out to wet his swollen lips. He's enjoying this too much, the look of Derek's neck bared in front of him covered in rough stubble, bobbing every time Derek swallows thickly. He clenches his jaw and lets Derek's head go, eyes raking over the older's brawny frame, the tight white tee clinging to his abdomen, the dark gray jeans hugging his thighs and doing nothing to hide the bulge that's firmly straining against the zipper. Stiles takes a step forward and reaches to push the leather jacket over Derek's shoulders until gravity pulls it to the ground.

"You're one of the most insufferable people I've ever met," he mumbles, gazing between the jade orbs hungrily eyeing his lithe body. Derek's hands reach up and grab Stiles's tie to tug him forward into another kiss, fingers feeling and fumbling over the buttons on his white dress shirt. Stiles grabs both of Derek's hands with his own and brings them up over his body, still obscenely sliding their lips together. "No," he mutters against Derek's lips, "you don't get to fucking touch me."

"Okay," Derek whispers back, "I'll obey."

"You fucking better." Stiles's brain is going a mile a minute because Derek is so pliable underneath his hands and the last time he felt this sort of spark between the two of them was in Derek's loft after he vowed to save Derek's life. Oh, and when he thanked Derek for saving his, and then Derek fucked him over and hung him out to dry.

Stiles bites Derek's bottom lip and the alpha gasps, hands jerking forward where they're restrained above his head. The animal instinct is driving him, the primal lust he has for Stiles's willowy fingers and lean, muscular body, and the way his brown eyes drag over Derek never fail to send a wracking shiver up his spine. He's been craving this boy for so long, and his mind is reeling with the way he's licking and nipping at Derek's jaw, he doesn't even notice the groan that slips past his lips. "Fuck," he hisses, eyes fluttering shut at the hot breath ghosting over his jugular, and he bites back another moan.

"I wanna hear you," Stiles commands, knocking Derek backward into the counter as he loosens his tie completely and tosses it to the floor. "You don't know how fucking much I need to hear you. You don't know how hard it gets me listening to you growl and gasp and, Jesus, I could just bend you over this counter and fuck the shit out of you right now." His fingers whisk over the buttons on his dress shirt and he's shrugging out of it, reaching for and roughly tugging the tee off of blissed-out Derek.

"Do it then," Derek fucking purrs as he raises his arms for the shirt to escape them, "please, Stiles, just fuck me." The wolf in his chest is sated at the request because it's all Derek's wanted since day one, and now that he's realized it, the wolf no longer needs to guide him. "I want you to—"

"Shut up, Derek." Stiles grinds his teeth at the feeling of Derek's hand palming at the front of his slacks and he clicks his tongue, gripping the older's wrist and wrenching it away. "What did I say?"

"No touc—fuck, Stiles." Derek would be lying if he said he hasn't though about those perfectly svelte fingers wrapped around his cock, but he never imagined that Stiles snaking a hand into his waistband would make him physically weak. His body is melting at the touch and he's hanging onto the counter to support himself. As quickly as it arrived, it left, the same hand sliding upward to feel through the trail leading up Derek's broad chest. Stiles's other hand pops the button on Derek's jeans and shoves them and his boxer briefs to his knees before it finds a meaty place to dig into on his hip.

Stiles has a ravenous look in his eye when his right hand brushes over a nipple and Derek moans, loud and deep, whispering for more. "No, we do this my way. Turn." And Stiles helps Derek flip so his stomach is heaving against the edge of the counter. "So beautiful, laid out like this for me. I can't wait for you to crumble."

"Please," Derek gasps.

The younger stops and there's Derek, bent over the counter like a fucking pornstar, scapular twitching underneath that tanned skin and the tattoo molding as his head falls to rest on the countertop. "Christ." His perfect ass is trembling with his knees in anticipation and the sight has Stiles furiously scrambling at his own belt to free the hard-on he's been hiding since the car ride. He doesn't bother taking his slacks off, just slides them to his knees before he's shoving three of his fingers past Derek's abused lips. "Get them nice and wet."

Derek moans, swirling his tongue between the digits and around the fingertips until Stiles reluctantly withdraws them, teasing one down the center of Derek's rippling back until it's separating Derek's cheeks and tracing the small pucker that's clenching in wait. He moves his left hand from its place on Derek's shoulder to the front of the alpha's thigh, simultaneously pushing a single digit into his tight heat and wrapping five others around Derek's leaking cock.

The way Derek chokes on a moan is enough encouragement for Stiles, and he slides a second finger past the ring of muscle, scissoring Derek open. His other arm is resting on the alpha's hip, unmoving, firmly grasped around his slicked shaft, the older getting off by rocking forward into Stiles's grip and backward onto a third finger. Stiles is mesmerized by Derek's tense form just unraveling at his touch and it's driving him insane and he's curling his fingers and Derek slurs a string of obscenities and relieves his quivering elbows by resting his forearms on the granite. Stiles withdraws his fingers and Derek protests with a whine, until the hand around his cock flattens and slides up over Derek's surging abdomen, pulling him close against Stiles's smooth body.

"Y'know, Derek, I think I know why you actually pushed me away. See, I thought you could overpower me," Stiles utters, hot breath dancing over Derek's ear. "Then I realized there's something about me, and you can't overpower me. And when I saw that magazine cover…you, vulnerable like that, no effort to make it stop because it drives you fucking wild, doesn't it?" Stiles moves his hand farther up Derek's furry chest and the hitching of the alpha's breathing is giving Stiles all the information he needs. "Doesn't it?"

"Yes," the older croaks, "yes, God, Stiles, fucking yes." Derek's body is on fire despite the fact that the granite is freezing on his skin, Stiles's fingers leaving trails like knives on his flesh. He won't ever admit that the boy is absolutely right, Stiles makes him weak, impotent, susceptible with just a scent, a touch, a breath. It sent the animal inside of him into a frenzy when he shut it out—he's actually gotten pretty good at keeping the wolf at bay in these situations—and only once he'd finally had enough sense to listen to that animal instinct, did the wolf disappear and let him be satisfied by everything Stiles.

Stiles brushes his bangs up out of his face and spreads his knees as far as his dress pants allow, liberally spitting into his palm and coating it on his stiff cock, where it's pressed up against the dark trail underneath his navel. He groans at the touch and resists the urge to keep jerking himself off when Derek is so draped and willing in front of him, stretched and whining at the need to release.

Derek wants to plead so badly because he feels so empty and there's a toe-curling tightness beginning to form in his abdomen, and then Stiles's hand moves even farther up his chest again and oh God, Derek can't breathe. He gasps, and his heart is pounding in his head, and Stiles's fingers are squeezing lightly under his jaw, wrapped around the rough stubble on his neck. "Stiles," he stutters, edging his hips backward, "please." It's all he can manage before that hand is squeezing a little firmer, and Stiles guides the head of his dick past Derek's tight hole, pressing forward and eliciting a choked moan from Derek's lips. He's trying to roll his hips back to take more because, fuck, Stiles seems to fill him just right and his vision is edging white from the waves of pleasure running straight to his cock.

"Shit, you're so fucking tight, made for me." Stiles presses his hips flush against Derek's ass, and he's leaning forward, trapping the alpha's body against the granite before he braces himself with a hand beside Derek's forearm and starts slowly thrusting into him. His left hand lets up a little around the alpha's throat but at the same time, he uses it as leverage and tugs Derek's head backward, so he can get his lips all over the scruffy neck he loves so much. It smells like musk and the woods and cedar and Stiles has been staring at it ever since Chris told him to bite it and all he's wanted to do is bite it again. And now that he's pissed off at Derek, he has a reason to bite it again. And again, and again, and again.

Derek's groaning and wiggling under Stiles, panting obscenities between "faster" and "harder" and Stiles wastes no time complying with Derek's requests, sinking his teeth into the side of Derek's neck and tightening his fingers around it. "Yes, more," whispers Derek, arching his back and spreading his legs as far as the jeans around his knees will let him. Stiles is licking at his neck and biting and Derek's breathing is labored because Stiles is choking him, and he should've fucking done this sooner, both the choking thing and having Stiles's dick up his ass because that's pretty great, too.

Stiles knows he doesn't have to be gentle, so he's being the furthest from it, relentlessly pounding into Derek and shoving his body into the counter with each thrust. Derek's mouth is hanging open, eyes squeezed shut, knees shaking from pleasure and the sheer force of Stiles driving into him. He can hear his heart racing and matching the rhythm the boy has set, and every bite Stiles sinks into his neck, he's whining and moaning and begging for more. Derek can feel the heat in his stomach burning, and he's so fucking close, but there's no air left in his lungs to say anything. His arms are barely holding him up, he can't reach down for his own cock that's dripping and begging to be touched, so he just starts pushing his ass back onto Stiles and drinks up the groans he gets in return.

"So good for me, Derek," Stiles mouths against Derek's neck, licking at the bruise he's in the middle of making, "I'm so close and you're going to fucking take it, aren't you?" He bites down again and moves the hand he's using to brace himself from its spot next to Derek's arm and grabs the alpha's hand, interlaces their fingers. "Come on, Derek, succumb to it, let go."

And he does, shooting all over his abs and the granite countertop, stars floating around his vision and the only sound he can make is a whimper. His heart pumps harder and it's deafening in his ears, heavy under Stiles's fingers. His whole body is putty in the younger boy's grasp and he's crumbling, and then there's Stiles flooding into him with one last thrust, holding him up against the counter as his hips stutter and his hand falls slack at Derek's throat.

Stiles doesn't move, just pants against the back of Derek's neck, peppering kisses there until the alpha just lets his head rest on the counter. "Are you still angry?"

"Mmm, I don't know, I might be," Stiles answers, pulling out of Derek and haphazardly tugging his pants back up in some sort of semblance. He dashes down the hall and grabs a towel from the bathroom to come back to Derek, unmoved, chest still heaving, cum leaking from the alpha's abused hole. "I'm less angry seeing you like this, though."

Derek turns his head and weakly growls at Stiles, letting his eyes go red for a moment before he gasps at the boy gently cleaning the backs of Derek's thighs. Derek lets Stiles turn his body and he dabs at the mess left across his abdomen, those beautiful brown eyes staring right into Derek's jade ones, and then he's tucking him back into his boxer briefs and tugging Derek's jeans back up his legs. "You were right, you know. About me…pushing you away. I—"

"I get it, you were afraid. You've never known what it feels like to find someone so…"

"Right," Derek finishes, "I've never found someone that satisfies the wolf. Until you. And I don't want to make the same mistake again by letting you get away."

Stiles drops the towel and pulls Derek into a kiss, this time gentle and passionate, and the sensation sends a wave of goosebumps across the alpha's bare skin. Oh yeah, that's something he never wants to end.

Stiles smiles softly. "You can stay, if you'd like." He grabs the towel and runs it to his bedroom laundry bin and kicks off his shoes and slacks to tug on a pair of sweats. He returns to Derek only to find him in front of the open refrigerator, holding a red velvet cupcake.

"Can I?"

"Be my guest. I only made a batch because I missed you. And then I got angry in the process, so I was going to take them to a baseball field and hit a few homeruns with them to get it out of my system." Stiles plops onto the couch and offers a small smirk at Derek, who's taken up the empty space beside the younger and nuzzled his way under one of the boy's arms. "But then you showed up, and I got most of my anger out fucking you into the counter."

Derek inhales a red velvet crumb and nearly chokes. He raises an eyebrow and waits for Stiles to reach for the glass of water on the coffee table before he replies, "Maybe you can get the rest of it out later and fuck me in bed."

Stiles actually does choke via water inhalation and he's sputtering for a few minutes while Derek's so proud of himself, eating that cupcake. "You're an asshole."

Derek leans up for a kiss. "You love me."

Stiles leans down to seal their lips. "I do."