Author's Note: Last chapter folks :) Yes, it's got an ambiguous ending, but there will eventually be a sequel! Thanks for reading lovely people! :) xx

"Where did you learn how to do it?" Derek asked some time later; he wanted to close the gap between him and Stiles, to feel Stiles' skin against his own again but the tension from earlier was threatening to return. "The magic." He could hear Stiles wincing as he prodded at the bruises and marks on his chest and stomach from earlier. He wondered if he should offer to take away some of Stiles' pain, but thought he'd probably just get told to back off.

"There's this guy I met up with near school, Chogan. He knows Deaton. He showed me." Stiles shrugged, sticking one leg out from beneath the comforter. "The basics, anyway. He didn't tell me it'd...do what it did." He turned away, looking towards the window, as though that would stop Derek from hearing his shaky exhalation of breath.

"Are you OK?" He asked softly, rolling onto his side and propping himself up on his elbow. "After..."

"After I killed someone, you mean?" Stiles asked, turning his head back quickly and raising an eyebrow when he saw how much closer Derek was to him. "Yeah, I guess. As OK as you can be after something like that, I suppose."

"I wasn't." Derek replied. "After Peter."

"That was different. Peter's your uncle." Stiles mumbled, rubbing his eyes. "It's like you said before in the woods, I didn't really have much of a choice, did I? He'd have killed us both if I hadn't...done that. I'll be OK I think. Maybe I should speak to Chogan about it when I go back up to school. I don't know."

"You could talk to me," Derek suggested tentatively, "you know, if you wanted to."

Stiles gave him a small smile, leaning across and kissing him lazily. "I could, but then we're not really friends, are we? I'm not your pack. It'd be kind of weird to call you up to talk about stuff."

Derek pulled back from the kiss, frowning at Stiles. "What's this then? If we're not friends?"

"It's just sex." Stiles shrugged, looking unconcerned that Derek had pulled away. "I don't really know how much it changes. Other than I know what your dick looks like now. Very nice, by the way."

"Would you ever want it to be more?" Derek asked quietly, hating himself for even asking the question. He was pretty sure he already knew what Stiles' answer was going to be; the annoyed huffing sound that Stiles made as he looked away left him even more convinced.

"It's not that simple." Stiles sighed, sitting up and scanning the room for his clothes. "There's just all this...stuff, and I'm in Arcata and, well, there's this guy at school..."

"You've got a boyfriend?"

"No. Toby is...he's kind of a friend with benefits I guess. I think if I asked him it'd be more though."

"What's a friend with benefits?" Derek asked tentatively.

"Seriously Derek? What world do you live in where you've never heard that before. He's a friend. Sometimes we get drunk together and fuck. Pretty simple really."

"Oh." Derek frowned. "How come you haven't asked him?"

"Because he's not who...what I want." Stiles shrugged, glancing over his shoulder at Derek. "Because he's not you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Derek frowned. "You just said you don't want...that with me. That you don't like me."

"I don't. I don't know. Just you're still kind of the standard by which I judge people I'm crushing on by."

"You really shouldn't."

"I know. But it's like, I meet someone and I think, oh yeah, he's pretty hot, but at the same time, I'm thinking 'but not as hot as Derek', or how they don't get my sense of humour like you did before you turned into epic dicklord and told me to fuck off. I guess now I can add 'and they don't fuck me as good as Derek' to my judgey standards." He laughed softly to himself, shaking his head. "Pretty fucking stupid, right?"

"Not really." Derek replied, reaching out and running his hand down Stiles' back, smiling to himself when he didn't flinch. "I pushed Jenna away because she wasn't you."

"I thought she dumped you?" Stiles asked, turning around and frowning at Derek's hand.

"She did. She wasn't stupid though, I told her I had feelings for someone else, had done for a while and she, well she worked it out pretty much straight away." Derek shrugged. "We, uh, kind of tried to make it work for a bit after that but it wasn't the same. She accused me of thinking about you when we had sex." He added, blushing.

"Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Think about me when you were banging your trashy girlfriend?"

"Couldn't get off without thinking about you." Derek admitted with a humourless laugh.

"Umm, OK." Stiles fidgeted uncomfortably on the bed, tucking the comforter tightly around his waist, as though Derek hadn't seen everything less than an hour before. "This is starting to feel weird, you know? I'm thinking it's probably time for me to go."

"I can give you ride back." Derek said quietly, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

"It's just, I – I really don't want to be on my own." Stiles said quietly. "It was bad enough when I got back yesterday. After everything that's happened tonight..." He trailed off, hunching over further and hugging his knees against his chest. "I guess I'm maybe asking if I can stay. Just 'til morning. I know I've been kind of a dick to you tonight, so I get it if..."

"I'd like it if you stayed."

"Maybe I should sleep on the couch." Stiles suggested, shifting away from Derek a little. "You're...I think you've got other ideas about what this, tonight, meant."

"I haven't." Derek replied, slightly too quickly. "I know you don't want anything from me. I should sleep on you couch; you're still looking pretty beaten up."

"Come on, I know I'm not your biggest fan in the world, long awaited sex notwithstanding, but I'm not going to relegate you to your own couch. I've slept on that thing before. I know how uncomfortable it is."

Derek sighed and rubbed his eyes before pushing himself up into a sitting position. "How about neither of us sleep on the couch and I promise I won't do anything to make you feel weird?"

"Just as long as you don't proposition me again." Stiles laughed, flopping back down against the pillow. "You OK with that? Not going to get all touchy feely at me?"

"Shut up."

"Sorry, it's just I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that you have feelings. For me. It's kind of a head fuck." Stiles yawned and scratched at himself below the covers. "I always kind of thought that if you did tell me one day that you had feelings for me, I'd be all over that shit and would never want to leave, but I don't. Don't feel that way."

"That's fine. I get it." Derek sighed. "I wasn't exactly expecting you to fall into my arms and confess your love for me. I know you still hate me."

"I don't hate hate you." Stiles told him, rolling onto his side and tugging the comforter up over his shoulder. "Not going to hate you after what we've just done, but I'm hardly at one hundred percent on the liking you scale right now."

"Stiles, I get it. I hurt you. Pretty sure you're allowed to dislike me right now."

"You wish I didn't though, right?"

"Were you always this perceptive?"

"Obviously not." Stiles grinned, poking at Derek's hip. "If I was, maybe I'd have worked out why you donned your captain dickhead hat and treated me like shit a little sooner instead of spending my time sitting at home crying about how you hated me. Doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to fawn all over you just because you pulled your head out of your ass and finally managed to talk about something like a normal person."

"Got it."

"We can have sex again though, if you want to."

"Because that won't make this whole thing more confusing." Derek huffed, slipping out of bed and retrieving his sweats.

"That why you're getting dressed?" Stiles smirked. "In case I confuse you?"

"Yes." Derek replied, grabbing Stiles' underwear from where he'd thrown it earlier and tossing it back to him. Stiles laughed at him, but pulled them back on under the comforter nevertheless. Derek crossed to the wall and flicked off the lights; a fairly pointless exercise really, as the lights on the street outside were still illuminating the room.

"Think we should talk about something other than your messed up feelings for me or the fact that we just had some pretty great sex?" Stiles asked as Derek settled back down on the bed, on top of the comforter this time.

"Might be a good idea," Derek agreed, "did you, uh, hear about Erica?"

"I don't hear anything about anyone." Stiles shrugged. "Like I said before, I haven't really spoken to any of your puppies since...you know. Scott hardly keeps me filled in on what he's up to, never mind what anyone else is doing. What about Erica?"

"She's having a baby."

"Boyd's?"

"Yeah, of course. Who else's baby would she be having?"

"How should I know? They're both at different schools. Thought she might have met someone new." Stiles chewed on his bottom lip for a minute before looking up at Derek. "Is she keeping it?"

"Yeah."

"So she's going to drop out of school? Hey, will it be a born werewolf? How soon will it be able to shift after it's born if it is?"

Derek gave a short huff of laughter, thinking how much Stiles sounded like his old self, with the incessant questions and the need to know as much as possible about any given situation.

"What?" Stiles frowned, apparently affronted by Derek's laughter.

"Nothing. Just you seemed a lot like how you used to be just then. Before..."

"Before you told me to fuck off, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"You were the one that changed, not me." Stiles shrugged. "Just because I stopped asking you questions all the time doesn't mean I stopped being me. I'm still the same as I always was."

"Sorry."

"Jesus Derek, stop apologising."

Derek bit his lip to stop himself from saying sorry again, earning himself a knowing smirk from Stiles.

"Yeah, well, on that note, I'm going to sleep," Stiles laughed as he rolled over and tugging the comforter up further, hiding him from Derek's view, "the whole, um, thing in the woods really took it out of me."

"Yeah." Derek agreed, at a loss for anything else to say. He turned onto his side and gingerly rested his hand on Stiles' upper arm. He felt Stiles tense up at the contact and waited to see if he was going to get bitched at again; Stiles didn't immediately shrug him off and he relaxed slightly, pushing his pillow into a more comfortable position and closing his eyes. After a few minutes, he felt Stiles move slightly, as though he were about to push Derek's hand away from him. To Derek's surprise, Stiles reached up and covered his hand with his own for a moment before entwining their fingers and squeezing Derek's hand lightly. Derek very slowly moved forward; not quite enough to be pressed up against Stiles, but close enough. He sighed happily and felt the first waves of sleep starting to wash over him as he breathed in Stiles' comforting scent.

. o o o .

Derek woke suddenly, instantly aware that he was the only person in the apartment. He buried his face in his pillow, groaning softly and wondering how Stiles had managed to sneak out without waking him. He rolled over, running his hand across the sheets; he was convinced he could still feel a tiny bit of warmth on them, suggesting that Stiles hadn't left that long ago. He grabbed for the pillow, wanting to press his face into it and breathe in Stiles' residual scent on it when he heard the crackling sound of paper. Lifting the pillow, he found a piece of paper beneath it, torn off the pad he kept in the kitchen; he was surprised to see a cell number and an address in Arcata scribbled on it. Unfolding it, he realised Stiles had written more than just his contact details.

"had to get to the hospital to see my dad. this isn't just me fucking & leaving (i don't think). still not really sure what last night was or what i want right now, kind of need to go away and think about it. I'm heading back up to school once my dad gets out of the hospital, don't know if i'll come by and say good bye before i leave – might make things weirder/harder/awkwarder. if i don't, here's my new cell # and my address in arcata, just in case. p.s. i guess i can also cross 'get fucked by a werewolf' off my bucket list now! so thanks for that! x"

It was something, at least